Tuesday, 23 May 2017

TUESDAY, 23 MAY 2017

TUESDAY, 23 MAY 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Motions

Manchester—Attack

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I seek leave to move without notice a motion regarding the tragic attack in Manchester today.

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I move, That this House send its condolences to the people of Manchester and the United Kingdom for the horrible attack today leading to, thus far known, 19 deaths and 59 injured.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Economy—Consumer Confidence and Growth

1. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the economy, ahead of Thursday’s Budget announcement?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Last week the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence index came out. It rose 2.2 points to 123.9 in May. It shows that consumers are now more confident in their personal financial positions than at any time since the global financial crisis. This matches the upbeat mood of New Zealand businesses, with a net 38 percent of firms in the ANZ Business Outlook reporting that they expect better times ahead. Both these positive readings are a testament to a strong economic plan, which is delivering confidence and growth.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What factors underpin this rise in consumer sentiment?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There are a number of factors underpinning the positive outlook, including strong job growth and falling unemployment. According to the most recent household labour force survey, the employment rate in New Zealand is at a record high of 67.1 percent while the unemployment rate is at 4.9 percent. At the same time, New Zealand households expect inflation and house prices to remain subdued.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How does the Government plan to ensure economic growth continues?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: One of the Government’s main priorities is to maintain its strong economic plan to keep the economy growing. We continue to deliver on this with responsible fiscal and economic management, including a series of microeconomic reforms. Budget 2017 will be a further step in that direction. The Government has already announced significant investments—for example, in tourism infrastructure, R & D grants to encourage business innovation, and, in the creative industries, through the screen grants programme. It is only by having a strong economy that we have the opportunity to invest in other areas.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Since the Minister of Finance places such great store on the Roy Morgan poll, can he confirm that the only seriously trusted politician in that poll in this House is yours truly?

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I think there is very marginal ministerial responsibility, but I will let the Minister have a go.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: With the greatest respect to the member, I suggest that the words “Winston Peters” and “trusted politician” are a contradiction in terms.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How important are international trade links to New Zealand’s economy?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: As a small, open country, we must trade our way in the world. Securing trade agreements with other nations is vital to keeping the door open so New Zealand businesses can trade with larger markets. That is why it is very encouraging to see 11 countries, including Japan, remain very committed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. This is a high quality set of rules that will increase market access for our exporters across the Asia-Pacific region, with positive flow-ons for our wider economy. Trade is an important part of the Government’s economic plan.

Housing, Auckland—Crown Building Project

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Did the Minister for Social Housing consult with him before announcing a housing plan without being able to say how many of the houses will be affordable?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): In answer to the first part of the question, yes, I was consulted over announcing the Crown building project to replace 8,300 houses in Auckland with 34,000 new purpose-built houses over 10 years—a detailed plan that will be executed, unlike the Labour Party’s policy of 100,000 houses, for which it has now discovered it has no land.

Andrew Little: Can he confirm that the population of Auckland is growing at over 40,000 a year now and he is promising just 400 affordable houses a year under his plan—one new affordable house for every 100 new Aucklanders?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The key to affordability of housing in Auckland is simply more houses getting built and more houses on the ground. And the other key is the new Auckland Unitary Plan, which now actually does mean the council will be able to consent lower value houses, because under the old plans it simply could not happen.

Andrew Little: Does he now agree that there is a housing crisis or does he agree with his Minister Alfred Ngaro that it is just manufactured by the media?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I know that one of the blockages to getting more houses built in Auckland right now—

Phil Twyford: It’s the Salvation Army, isn’t it?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, no, it is the Labour Party, because today it is going to vote against the Point England Development Enabling Bill, which would enable thousands more houses to be built, and it continues to oppose the Three Kings development, which would allow—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The level of interjection, from one member particularly on the front bench on my left, is simply too loud.

Andrew Little: Does he think young people could afford houses if they just cut down on smashed avocado and coffee?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think it would be more likely they could afford houses if the Labour Party stopped opposing the actual building of houses in Auckland. [Interruption] Well, the Labour Party has held up the Three Kings development for 3 years, and today will vote against the Point England Development Enabling Bill, which is a key to the Tāmaki development, where up to 8,000 houses will be built.

Andrew Little: Putting aside his realisation, after 9 years of Government, that there is actually a housing crisis and given his answers today, and Minister Adams’ bungling last week, is it any wonder John Armstrong says that his Government is lurching from “chaotic to shambolic” on housing while Labour has a “clear and coherent package of interlocking policies, …”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Much as I respect John Armstrong, I disagree with him and the member may not be surprised to know that. But I will tell you what is chaotic and shambolic. It is promising to build 100,000 houses and then realising you do not have the land to build them on, it is promising to build 100,000 houses with no money, and it is promising to build 100,000 houses but opposing the actual building of actual houses in Point England and in the Three Kings development, where the Labour Party is the main obstacle to thousands of houses being built. So everything else it says is inconsistent with its actual behaviour.

Andrew Little: If he wants a housing policy that will actually work, why does he not just take Labour’s housing plan? He could lose himself in it, and they will not even sue him for copyright.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: For the reason that the policy has no credibility.

Phil Twyford: Unlike building houses on farms.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Promising to build houses and then realising you have no land, a fairly vital component, and no money, another vital component, would not be so bad except that when people are genuinely trying to build thousands of houses in Auckland, in Point England, and the Three Kings, the Labour Party is leading the opposition to those two large-scale developments.

Auditor-General’s Appointment—Joanne Harrison Case

3. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements; if so, why?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Yes; because, unlike the member, I believe what I say because what I say is believable.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that is the case, if on 17 May he said that he was not familiar with all the details of the Joanne Harrison case, and that it had been dealt with satisfactorily, which showed the system was able to pick up problems, why, for so long, did the system miss every malpractice, fraud, and warning sign after warning sign in the Joanne Harrison case?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: If any new information comes to light, of course that should be looked at by the State Services Commission, but I understand these matters were canvassed in a process—it is nothing to do with the Government—and that is the process of appointing the Auditor-General, where the MPs’ committee, on which that member was represented if he was not present, was briefed by the Serious Fraud Office, in full, about all these matters. The member may know more about it than I do, for that reason.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Amongst other things as well.

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

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, that is OK, but he was being a smart alec when he replied.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I will give him a chance to just stand and ask the supplementary question without that sort of introduction.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What sort of circus was his Government running when the man in question was the head of the Ministry of Transport (MOT) when a now convicted fraudster, guilty of workplace harassment and three honest civil servants losing their jobs, was nevertheless appointed to investigate another department for—of all things—a workplace harassment case? What sort of circus is that?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not know anything about those allegations. What I do know is that part of this process was that a civil servant with a positive reputation was found to be engaging in fraudulent activity. My understanding is that—and the member could correct me on it—in the process of the appointment of the Auditor-General all parties of Parliament were briefed by the Serious Fraud Office about those circumstances.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table the front page of an 89-page report entitled “Investigation report for the Department of Conservation concerning workplace harassment complaint” dated March 2016, co-authored by Joanne Harrison, general manager of organisational development and shared services for the Ministry of Transport, and a legal firm partner we have redacted to protect their identity.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular report? Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not. It can be tabled.

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

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Prime Minister defending Auditor-General Matthews given that in 2014 Mr Matthews was aware that the Victoria Police fraud unit was investigating Joanne Harrison, yet Mr Matthews, despite that serious warning sign, gave her a clearance?

Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is prime ministerial responsibility, the right honourable Prime Minister.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: That is a fair point, because the Auditor-General is the servant of Parliament, not the Government. That has always been the case because the role of the Auditor-General is to independently scrutinise the activities of the executive. Whatever issues the member has raised have been either raised or dealt with, or should have been, in the process that Parliament followed in appointing the Auditor-General. It would be quite inappropriate for the Government to take a position over that process, because it is a parliamentary process.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How could a parliamentary committee make a decision when it was not given information—for example, as to why when Joanne Harrison was defrauding the taxpayer and dismissing honest Ministry of Transport staff right under Mr Matthews’ nose, he showed absolutely no competence whatsoever to know what was going on and, instead, gave her a total acquittal at the time—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no prime ministerial responsibility for that committee.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Serious Fraud Office was working with Mr Matthews on a plan to discover Joanne Harrison’s criminal behaviour—which is what the Government is saying—how, then, does he explain Mr Matthews approving Harrison to conduct an investigation at the Department of Conservation well after it was brought to his attention that she was suspected of serious fraud?

Mr SPEAKER: Again, in so far as there is prime ministerial responsibility, the right honourable Prime Minister.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I think I have already pointed out, the Government has no role in oversight of the parliamentary process of dealing with those matters as part of the appointment of the Auditor-General. That is purely the property of Parliament. It is not accountable to the Government for that, and nor is the Government accountable to the Parliament for what the Parliament does.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Rt Hon Winston Peters’ question there was asking the Prime Minister to defend the actions of the gentleman concerned when he was a departmental official and employed another departmental official. It was not a question about his competence as Auditor-General or that appointment.

Mr SPEAKER: I listened very carefully to the question and I listened very carefully to the answer, and the question, on this occasion, has been addressed by the Prime Minister.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it being said here by him that the Minister of Transport and no other Minister owed any obligation to Parliament in the sense that they were never informed that the MOT had document after document showing appalling lackadaisical financial controls and processes at the MOT when you were the Minister, when Mr Matthews was in charge alongside you? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will have the answer.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would expect that as part of the process of initiating a Serious Fraud Office investigation, which is a pretty serious matter for any Government department—I cannot recall actually, off the top of my head, other occasions when it has happened—that the Minister of the time would have been fully informed. As for any new or different issues that have not been raised before, then the State Services Commissioner, particularly in defending fairness for public servants, ought to look into those matters if they are new.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Prime Minister saying that his Government takes no responsibility whatsoever for an appalling chapter of maladministration under the head of the Ministry of Transport, which even saw him not acting when there was a complaint of inferior materials being put into seven railway bridges? Does he take no responsibility at all for anything?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not sure about the last allegation the member has made there, but of course the Government is responsible for the proper operation of government, the Government machine, and the Public Service, and this Government has set a lot of store by paying a great deal of attention to it. When people behave in a criminal manner it is entirely appropriate that those matters are dealt with by the appropriate authorities and that is, in this case, the Serious Fraud Office, and there was a successful prosecution for what was criminal activity.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In addition, I seek to table three photographs of inferior products going into railway bridges built under this Government’s administration, which may well be a great danger to the New Zealand public travelling by rail.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those three photographs, which may be of interest to members. Is there any objection to them being tabled? Yes, there is objection.

Carbon Emissions—Financial Implications

4. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “each generation bears its own burdens”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Yes, I do, and I quite like the ring of that statement. But I stand by my full statement, which was in reference to raising the superannuation age: “Each generation bears its own burdens. Any number of 60-year-olds can tell you how devastating it was to have 18 percent inflation when they were trying to save a dollar back in the early 80s.” People can argue for a shorter or longer transition. I am sure that discussion will go on.

James Shaw: Can he confirm that between 2021 and 2030 New Zealanders will be faced with a $14.2 billion liability to pay other countries to reduce their climate pollution so that we do not have to?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Firstly, no, I cannot confirm that, and I do not think anyone can. There is a range of estimates for the cost of changing the climate. Bear in mind that whatever that estimate says, that is what it represents—a cost of changing the climate. As the member will well know, because his party helped initiate it, the emissions trading system is a mechanism by which we find the least costly way of changing the climate, so we are likely to see some purchase of carbon credits—perhaps offshore—as well as mitigation occurring in New Zealand, as is happening now because people pay the carbon price right now.

James Shaw: Well, why then did the National Government allow climate pollution to rise 19 percent under its watch, during which period of time the emissions trading scheme has been in place, when it knew that it would cost future generations billions of dollars to offset that pollution?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: First, I do not accept the member’s assertions, but, secondly, he seems to forget the history of his own party when it was kind of partially in Government in the early 2000s. When faced with the choices—the policy choices—the Green Party was a strong advocate of the emissions trading system, and rightly so. It is the best mechanism for ensuring that we face the cost of climate change and that those costs occur in the most efficient manner across our community.

James Shaw: Does he accept that plans to open new coalmines on the West Coast and drill for more deep-sea oil and gas will increase climate pollution and, therefore, the financial liability faced by future generations to offset that pollution?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. The point of the emissions trading system is that if the oil or gas pays the price and the consumer has to pay more for it, then that will encourage and incentivise the development of non-fossil fuels. But if those technologies do not exist yet or they are still too expensive, then the use of the fossil fuels is still the right outcome for now, and I thought the member would understand that, because his party was a strong advocate of the emissions trading system, which is based on price, not rules.

James Shaw: Well, does he agree with his Government’s officials that paying other countries billions of dollars to offset New Zealand’s pollution represents “a significant transfer of wealth overseas”?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I do not necessarily agree with officials about that, because they need to keep sight of the purpose of the emissions trading system—which has enjoyed multiparty parliamentary support now for well over 10 years—which tells us that if you pay the price for carbon, that helps us find the most efficient means of changing the climate. If buying credits from others is the most efficient way of doing it, then that is what people will do.

James Shaw: Does he think that it is better to pay other countries $14 billion to stop polluting so that we do not have to, or to invest $14 billion to create a low-emission, high-value economy right here in New Zealand?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think the member is now simply misusing the number. I mean, it is an estimate, for a start. Secondly, it is not about whatever billion dollars being paid overseas; it is actually the economic cost of changing the climate, and the Greens need to accept there is an economic cost—it does not come free. If it turns out to be $14 billion, that is quite a bit, and let us hope that it is shared fairly and efficiently across the economy. But it is simply wrong to use that number as a description of the amount of money that would be paid overseas for credits.

Tourism—Infrastructure Investment

5. SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Tourism: What announcements has she made about increased support for tourism infrastructure?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Tourism): As part of Budget 2017, the Minister of Conservation and I have announced a $178 million tourism infrastructure package. It is a lot. The package includes a new $100 million tourism infrastructure fund that will help councils with low ratepayer bases and high numbers of tourists to cope with and benefit from increasing numbers of tourists.

Sarah Dowie: What kinds of projects will be funded?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Last year, through our $3 million mid-size facilities fund, we were able to fund 14 projects around the country. This new $100 million fund will mean, of course, that we can do a lot more—funding upwards of over 40 projects per year. We will be looking to co-fund infrastructure with local councils such as toilets, car parks, and camping facilities, but we are also prepared to consider projects like visitor information centres and feasibility studies for infrastructure projects on a case by case basis.

Sarah Dowie: Why is it so important to support the tourism industry?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: When there are nearly 300,000 jobs that benefit from tourism, and when international visitors spent more than $10 billion in New Zealand just last year alone—and recent forecasts show that we are on track for more visitors coming, creating more jobs not just in our main centres but also in our regions—we think it is vital that we have the infrastructure to support this growth.

Kris Faafoi: Does she agree with Tourism Export Council New Zealand chief executive Lesley Immink, who called the Government’s announcement “underwhelming” and said that the Government talks “about having a commitment but I’m not sure I’m seeing any evidence of it”; if so, will she take a tip from the Labour Party and introduce a levy on international visitors to better support the tourism industry?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I was surprised that Lesley Immink was still there, because she had resigned to be a candidate for a parliamentary—blah-blah; what was it? For a political party. She had actually left to go and meet with a political party, so I am not surprised that she was not keen on my announcement. But we are really, really focused on supporting tourism infrastructure. It is going to make a huge difference in the vicinities that we need, and that is it.

Budget 2017—Government Performance

6. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Prime Minister that the Government doesn’t do that good a job with people who have really serious needs, and needs to address New Zealand’s “long-running social problems”; if so, can he confirm that his Government has been in power for nearly 9 years and will shortly put forward its ninth Budget?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Yes, I stand by the Prime Minister’s statement that Government agencies struggle with people with really complex needs. They have done so for decades, and that is because these are very difficult and complex needs. However, the good news for the member is that we are making good progress on a huge number of social issues. For example, the proportion of the population relying on a main benefit is now down to 9.6 percent, which is the lowest it has been in a March quarter since 1997. It is great. I think it is a tribute to Minister Tolley. However, there are some people with really serious needs. That is why we are developing the social investment approach, which is tackling those needs in a new way, and $321 million has been allocated in this Budget to help those people with those issues. To the second part of the member’s question, I do congratulate Mr Robertson. It is indeed the ninth Budget—well done—and, indeed, National’s ninth year in Government. His arithmetic is improving.

Grant Robertson: After 9 years, and with the lowest homeownership level in 60 years, what credibility does he think his Government has on housing, when the best this Budget will do is create 2,000 more affordable homes in Auckland when tens of thousands are needed?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am glad the member raises that, because the former Government, which was under the Labour Party, was responsible—[Interruption]; no, listen, because you will learn something—for a long-term decline in the building of new houses in Auckland that started in 2003 and went all the way through to 2010. Since that time it has been growing strongly under this Government. So if the member wants to worry about housing—and I think he should—he should look squarely in the mirror.

Grant Robertson: Supplementary question, Mr Speaker—coming back to this decade.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Supplementary question—Grant Robertson.

Grant Robertson: After 9 years, will he and his Government take some responsibility for the more than 40,000 children admitted to hospital every year with preventable diseases caused by the cold damp housing that they live in, which his Government has done nothing to fix?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: One of the difficulties Mr Robertson has with getting any cut-through is that his lines bear no relationship to facts. This Government has invested so strongly—so strongly—in insulation for houses. This Government has passed a new law requiring rental houses to be insulated, and this Government has had a public service target that has reduced the number of children being hospitalised for these exact diseases. That is the trouble with Mr Robertson’s lines, and why he gets no cut-through—he makes them up with no relevance to reality. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I need less interjection across the House.

Grant Robertson: After 9 years in Government, will this Budget finally give schools the operational funding they need, or will it be a continuation of the per-pupil cuts that have seen parents asked for more and more money from their pockets to fund the basics in schools?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This Government has invested more and more in education. It has developed a whole new programme to support our best teachers to be teaching instead of administrating, as they used to under the previous Government. This Government is investing more every year in education. When the Budget happens on Thursday the member will find out exactly what we plan to do in education for the next year and, with the will of the people, for the following 3 years after that.

Grant Robertson: After 9 years does he not realise that it is his Government that is not doing a good job and not dealing with social problems, and why does he not just get out of the way and let a Labour team take over and start sorting out the job of the shortfalls, deficits, and half-baked schemes that he has come up with?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I tried to make an obtuse reference to empty rhetoric before, but there we have empty rhetoric demonstrated for the House. This is a member who not only refuses to offer any questions that are in relation to the facts but also has absolutely no policy to stand on in this House. Here we are, less than 4 months from an election, and on all these social issues the Labour Party has nothing new to say—so 9 years in; absolutely nothing to say.

Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table Labour’s detailed policy in the areas of housing, health, education, police, jobs—[Interruption] Well, he wanted them.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That information is available to members if they want to see it.

State and Social Housing, Auckland—Crown Building Project

7. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister for Social Housing: How is the Government utilising its residential land holdings in Auckland to support its social housing needs?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Social Housing): Last week I announced the Government’s extensive Crown building project, which will see the less than 5 percent of Auckland’s available residential land that is owned by the Government redeveloped to remove 8,300 run-down, old social houses and replace them with 34,000 new homes over the next 10 years. The project will see 13,500 new warm, dry, fit-for-purpose social houses and 20,600 market houses delivered across the city, at least 20 percent and up to 50 percent of which will be affordable in terms of the KiwiSaver HomeStart cap. This project is the equivalent of building 3½ new houses on every single street in Auckland. The vast majority of these new homes will be delivered through Housing New Zealand’s Auckland housing project.

Andrew Bayly: What are the costs of the Auckland housing programme, and how will this be funded?

Hon AMY ADAMS: Our housing programme is fully costed, and we know that the first phase of the Auckland housing programme will cost $2.23 billion over 4 years before becoming self-funding through the sale of affordable and market houses. Of course, we already have the land for our programmes. Housing New Zealand will retain dividends and proceeds from State house transfers to help fund the programme, as well as taking on a $1.1 billion private debt facility. The project has been 2 years in development to ensure that our plans are realistic, in terms of both the efficient maximisation—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The level of interjection from some relatively senior members in the Labour Party is unacceptable. The Minister has been asked a question; the House deserves to be able to hear the answer.

Hon AMY ADAMS: The project has been 2 years in development to ensure our plans are realistic in terms of the efficient maximisation of the capacity of the land that the Government owns, construction sector capacity, good urban design, and the real cost of building.

Andrew Bayly: What will the impact be of the Crown building project for social housing tenants?

Hon AMY ADAMS: Our first priority will be ensuring that we have suitable housing for our existing tenants whose properties are being redeveloped to move into. Our whole housing stock across Auckland is old and tired. The average age of the Housing New Zealand Auckland portfolio is 40 years old, and these redevelopments will provide warm, dry, modern housing for 13,500 families who are in need of social housing.

Phil Twyford: Does the list of landholdings that the Government is boasting will solve the housing crisis, which it created, include any substations, roundabouts, or cemeteries, as it did two Budgets ago when that Minister promised 500 hectares of Crown land and 10,000 houses, none of which have been built in the last 2 years? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I now want the answer.

Phil Twyford: Let Nick answer. Go on.

Hon AMY ADAMS: Ask Nick, then. The benefit of the Government’s programme is that we have done the work to identify the land, to ensure we have costed the land, to ensure we know the cost of building the houses, and to make sure that the programme is effective across the construction sector. And, unlike the Labour Party, we know where the houses are going. We know the cost of building the houses. We have not dreamt up a number. We know the sites they are on, we own the sites they are on, and this is a Government that has the ability to deliver them. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That is to all members, including the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Teachers—Supply

8. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: How many additional teachers will be trained each year, as part of her announcement last week that $5.2 million would be spent on addressing shortages of staff in hard-to-staff core subjects?

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister of Education): The $5.2 million I announced last week was focused on 90 teachers, 45 per year, in either subjects or locations where it is hard to staff. That will vary each year. I also announced a mentoring programme that covers 700 provisionally registered teachers, of which a number will be focused on hard-to-staff areas. Additionally, we announced the lifting of the moratorium in terms of initial teacher provider training. I am confident that these measures combined, plus some measures introduced last year, will result in hundreds more quality certified teachers.

Chris Hipkins: Does she seriously think that 45 additional teachers a year will address the fact that over 45 percent of secondary teachers are over the age of 50, and that the Secondary Teacher Supply Working Group estimates that an additional 2,200 secondary teachers are required each year?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: He should have listened to my last answer. It is not about just Teach First NZ. It is also about the mentoring scheme that we announced, which is $2 million and 700 teachers, of which there will be teachers in hard-to-staff core subjects—plus, we have announced the lifting of the moratorium. It is not just about Teach First NZ. With regard to the 2,200 figure, the member has been in the portfolio a long time. He does not understand the numbers. He keeps repeating incorrect figures.

Chris Hipkins: If she does not think that the Secondary Teacher Supply Working Group is recommending an extra 2,200 teachers per year, how many does she think are going to be required?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: The latest advice that I have had, for instance—and if we look at what we are actually talking about, which is STEM, Te Reo, and geographical areas where there are shortages—when you look at the total 8,000 vacancies, take 2,700, approximately, which are in STEM. I am advised that potentially less than 10 percent are actually new teachers required.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister disputed a particular number that I have used. I asked her what her number was, and she has not given a number in her answer.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will invite the member to repeat his question.

Chris Hipkins: If the Minister does not think that the Secondary Teacher Supply Working Group estimated that an additional 2,200 extra secondary teachers are required each year, how many does she think are required?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I just did give a number—I did give a number—in terms of the overall vacancies. I talked about the fact that when we look at the overall vacancies and we actually look at the additional teachers that are required, it is less than 10 percent.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That could be 10 percent of anything. The Minister has disputed the number—

Mr SPEAKER: We have had the question twice; I am not responsible for the answer. I will allow the member an additional supplementary question to move forward.

Chris Hipkins: Is she concerned that the proportion of secondary teachers over 60 years of age has increased from 10 percent in 2005 to 21 percent in 2015, which is more than double the proportion of teachers under the age of 30; if so, why does her Government not have an answer to that burgeoning crisis in teacher supply?

Mr SPEAKER: There are two supplementary questions; the Minister can address either one or both.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Yes, we are concerned, in terms of the ageing workforce, but we do have an answer. We have several answers, and that is what we are doing. We have announced several measures in terms of teacher supply: lifting the moratorium to enable greater innovation in terms of initial teacher providers, and announcing a new mentoring scheme to enable more teachers to go from provisional to full registration. The other point I would make to the member is that under this Government—and he might want to look at the figures—the number of registered practising teachers has increased from 90,000 to 100,000.

David Seymour: Does the Minister agree with Northland College principal Jim Luders, who says that “Every single Teach First candidate we’ve had has just been outstanding, they are so thorough, so hard-working and so resilient, it’s unbelievable. Our kids get major benefit from them … This is the best thing for kids in low decile [schools] and this system works.”?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Yes, I do, and as someone who has visited Northland College and had to fix the $14 million build for that school, I can tell you that I am very proud of this Government having invested $5 billion in fixing leaky, cold schools left by that Government.

Chris Hipkins: Why has the Government announced an additional $5.2 million for the Teach First NZ programme, given that the programme’s founding partner, Auckland University, has withdrawn from the programme; that the Dean of the Auckland University School of Education has concerns about expanding it, and has said that that was one of the reasons why they pulled out; and that there is no guarantee that the new provider is going to be approved before this programme is supposed to be delivered?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Well, there are several reasons why we have announced funding for this. The first is that there has been a range of evaluations that have shown how successful this programme is. The second thing is—

Chris Hipkins: And they pulled out.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: No, the second thing is that those evaluations show we are getting teachers in those hard-to-staff areas. This is not a question of the overall number of teachers; this is about science and technology and Te Reo teachers in hard-to-staff areas like Northland—getting teachers where they need it—and this programme is delivering. With regard to the provider, it is a serious issue and we are working through a process. I understand there is someone who has come forward, and we will work through that process. I am very confident that we will enable 90 new teachers in areas that are hard to staff to go through the Teach First NZ programme, and that will be great.

Chris Hipkins: Does she think that it is appropriate for a Minister of Education to, effectively, instruct that these students are going to go through this programme, which has not yet been approved?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: That is not what I have said.

Chris Hipkins: That’s what she just said.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: No, it is not what I have said. I have said that there are issues in terms of the current provider. There is a process that is under way. There are a range of parts to that process that have to be considered. What I am saying is that I am very confident. I think that we will—whether it is that provider or another provider—enable Teach First NZ to continue, but there is a process, and it is not a question that I am instructing that process; I am just saying that the money has been put aside and I am confident we will get through that.

Chris Hipkins: Did the Secondary Teacher Supply Working Group find that of the 2,200 additional secondary teachers that would be required, 1,400 of those were likely to be, or would necessarily be, new teachers to the profession; if so, why should parents have confidence that the Government will be able to deliver that number required when the number of domestic graduates from secondary education programmes has declined from over a thousand in 2012 to just 760 in 2015—roughly half the number required?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: I would have to check his figures from that report, but what I can tell the member is why we have confidence in terms of the overall numbers. As I said before, in the last 8½ years we have gone from 90,000 to 100,000 teachers who are registered with practising certificates. The overall numbers are reasonably good; the issue that we have—and there is an issue, in terms of a slight decrease each year, but the overall numbers are reasonably good for a large workforce of this size—is in certain areas we have shortages. That is why we made the announcements this week, and that is why they are going to be very good for New Zealand.

Question No. 6 to Minister

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You ruled earlier, in response to a previous point of order, that Mr Robertson could not table Labour Party policy because it was widely and freely available. Since that time, I have been searching for it on the internet and on the Labour Party website, and unfortunately it does not appear to be available. I am wondering whether you could give him the opportunity to table it again.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, but Mr Robertson—[Interruption]—no, no. I will allow Mr Robertson to speak to it.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I will speak very slowly: www.labour.org.nz/announced_policies. You will find it there.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I need no further help. It just goes to prove that my original ruling was indeed the correct one.

Roading, Taranaki—State Highway 3

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): My question is to the Minister of Transport and asks: what roading projects is the—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. I am going to ask her to start the question again.

9. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country) to the Minister of Transport: What roading projects is the Government delivering in Taranaki to support the region’s growth?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): It was my pleasure last week to start the construction of the $135 million Awakino Gorge to Mount Messenger programme of State highway projects. State Highway 3 between Mount Messenger and the Awakino Gorge in Taranaki is a key freight link with the Waikato and, indeed, the wider upper North Island, but it has become increasingly unsafe and prone to unpredictable travel times and periodic closures. That is why the Government is investing so much to build a bypass of Mount Messenger and another bypass of the Awakino Gorge tunnel, as well as a series of safety improvements along this very important stretch of highway.

Jonathan Young: How will the improvements being made to State Highway 3 in Taranaki benefit the region and support its economic growth?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Supporting Taranaki’s growth is a top priority for the Government. That is why we are investing in the two bypasses and a series of safety improvements on Taranaki’s State Highway 3 to better connect the region with the Waikato and the whole upper North Island. When completed, there will be travel-time savings for motorists and freight companies, and the new road will see fewer deaths and serious injuries from crashes. Following the recent replacement of the Normanby Overbridge, these most recent projects are further evidence of how this Government is delivering quality roading infrastructure in Taranaki to support the region’s growth.

Community and Voluntary Sector, Minister—Statements about Ministerial Funding Decisions

10. POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East) to the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector Did he have any particular organisations in mind when he stated, “Do not play politics with us. If you get up on the hustings and start bagging us, then all the things you are doing are off the table. They will not happen.”; if so, which organisations was he thinking of?

Hon ALFRED NGARO (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): My comments were wrong. It is not the way this Government works, and I have apologised for them.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a primary question on notice. While the Minister may regret his comments, he is still accountable for them and still needs to answer the question.

Mr SPEAKER: I agree with that. The—[Interruption] Order! No, I do not think the question has been addressed. It is very easily addressed. I think the question needs addressing. It is one the Minister has had for the last 2½ or 3 hours.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: I have apologised to the organisations that I named in my comments. They were wrong. It is not the way this Government works and I have apologised for them.

Poto Williams: Does he agree with the finding of the recent ComVoices state of the sector report: “This is a difficult time for the entire social sector … Partly this is due to social service providers not wanting to ‘rock the boat’ and jeopardise their chances of securing future finding.”; if not, in what ways does he disagree with that finding?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: I have not read those comments, but what I can say is that as the Minister I have been working and engaging with a number of the community groups, having free and frank conversations, wanting to know that we can make a difference to New Zealanders in our communities every day.

Poto Williams: When he stated: “On the one hand, we are working together and on the other hand too. If people are criticising, we just need to be mindful of that type of relationship.”, what in particular did he believe that people needed to be mindful of?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: Part of working in the community means that others will have different points of view and we may disagree, and that is appropriate. However, we are all working towards the same goal of helping people in our communities.

Poto Williams: Why did he say what he said?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: My comments were wrong. They are not the way this Government is working, and I apologise for them.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister may, as I have indicated earlier, regret what he said but he did say them and he, therefore, should be able to answer questions on them. The question was why he said it.

Mr SPEAKER: I agreed with that in the first case, when it was a primary question put down on notice. As for the supplementary question, on this occasion, when I consider what was asked in the question and the Minister’s attempt to address it, I think he has addressed that question.

Poto Williams: Why did the Minister say sorry to the Prime Minister but not apologise to the community and voluntary sector?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: I have made apologies to those whom I spoke about. I have also spoken to a number inside the community as well. What I have to say to the member is that I have been humbled by the spirit of generosity that has been given to me, because most people have said that this has been out of character. I have worked very hard over a number of years with those communities as well.

KiwiRail—Diesel Train Purchase

Mr SPEAKER: Question No. 11—Julie Anne Genter. [Interruption] Order! I have asked the member to cooperate, I think, two or three times now. If the member is going to refuse to cooperate, unfortunately I will have to ask her to leave the Chamber.

11. JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Is he confident that all transport investment decisions by his Government are best value for money, reliability, and reducing climate pollution?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Yes, in the context that they were made. Investment decisions need to balance many factors such as value for money, reliability, the environment, and resilience. I am confident that the transport investment decisions made by this Government represent an appropriate balance of those factors.

Julie Anne Genter: Will he order an immediate independent review of KiwiRail’s decision to purchase new diesel trains in light of a leaked report stating that refurbishing the existing electric trains would be $230 million cheaper and that diesels purchased, to date, have extremely poor performance and have a high failure rate?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: As much as the member says there, that is simply incorrect. No, I will not be ordering a review.

Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to table an independent review by WorleyParsons provided to KiwiRail, which has not been made publicly available and which raises serious concerns about the cost and reliability of diesel train replacements.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular review paper. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

Julie Anne Genter: Is the Minister seriously not concerned that an independent review concluded that KiwiRail’s advice to its board was “biased” towards the diesel train option?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No, because the report she is talking about is now out of date. It has been superseded by much better information inputs. I think what that shows, actually, is that KiwiRail took a very long time to come to this difficult decision. It has balanced the factors, as I have said, and I am not revisiting its decision.

Julie Anne Genter: If that report has indeed been superseded by better information, why did he and his Cabinet colleagues receive a Treasury briefing the day before this decision was made public that said: “Treasury officials were not confident that the actual cost of the decision is clear in the material provided.”?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Because we often receive briefings.

Julie Anne Genter: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was pretty specific, and it was—

Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion, I will invite the member to go back and look at the question. When she looks at the question, she will see that it has been addressed by the Minister. Sharpen up the supplementary questions. [Interruption] Order! I have dealt with that matter. If the member has a further supplementary question, we will hear it; otherwise, we are moving on.

Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to table a Treasury briefing to Ministers, obtained under the Official Information Act, showing that Treasury raised concerns a day before the decision was made public, that the cost of the decision—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need anything further. Leave is sought to table that particular Treasury briefing. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

Julie Anne Genter: If the Minister is so confident, can he provide any evidence to counter the conclusions of these independent and internal reports showing that new diesel trains will cost more and are less reliable than electric ones?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes, I can. Ultimately, there have been many reports, but they all culminated, across about 2 years, in a business case. In short, the business case made it quite clear that the status quo was more cost effective—actually, much more cost effective—that the change would have been hugely disruptive to the KiwiRail business and its customers, resulting in loss of customers quite probably, and that, actually, the status quo, in terms of not seeing that freight go on to the roads, has resulted in fewer emissions than would have been the case.

Teachers—Supply and Quality

12. Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has the Government made to address teacher supply?

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister of Education): As I referred to in my previous answer, last week I announced that Budget 2017 will commit $5.2 million of funding over the next 4 years to expand the innovative teacher training programme Teach First NZ. There will, of course, be a process to work through. However, Teach First NZ graduates have proved hugely influential on the students they teach during their training, making a real difference to young people. It was great to personally receive feedback from Onehunga High School. The funding will provide two further cohorts of 45 participants each, starting in 2018. The emphasis continues to be on science, technology, and maths, and graduates will be trained to teach in schools with a high proportion of Māori and Pasifika students and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Dr Jian Yang: What other measures is the Government taking to address teacher supply and quality?

Hon NIKKI KAYE: As I said in my previous answer, the number of registered teachers with practising certificates has gone from 90,000 to 100,000, but this Government is doing more. This Government is also committing $2 million to the Education Council to create an induction and mentoring programme for eligible provisionally certified teachers, to convert up to 700 teachers to gain full registration. There will, of course, be a focus on hard-to-staff areas, including core subjects and geographical locations. The new mentoring programme follows recommendations made by the joint working group on secondary teacher supply in its 2016 report. Having listened to principals, the Education Council, and those on the front line of recruitment, we are working hard to support more teachers to stay in the profession, as well as encourage more high calibre graduates. This is a Government that is investing heavily in education. We have gone from $8 billion to $11 billion. We are investing more.

Urgent Debates Declined

Community and Voluntary Sector, Minister—Investigation into Ministerial Funding Decisions

Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Andrew Little seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the decision by the Prime Minister to order an investigation of the Hon Alfred Ngaro’s funding decisions as Minister. The decision is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The big hurdle to get over in applications for urgent debates is whether the matter has reached the stage where the business of the House ought to be set aside. The test is a high one. There must be an element of urgency or substantive policy change for the matter to take precedence over other business. While the announcement of an inquiry may warrant an urgent debate, the circumstances must be exceptional. In this instance, the investigation found that the Minister had not been involved in any funding decisions. On that basis, I am not persuaded that the setting aside of the business of the House for an urgent debate on the decision to order the investigation can be justified. The application is, therefore, declined.

Bills

Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill

In Committee

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Senior Whip—National): I seek leave for the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill to be debated as one debate.

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

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

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to speak to this bill. We will be opposing this bill on this side of the Chamber, because it undermines a level playing field in international trade, something that we believe is incredibly important. We do not believe that New Zealand businesses should be put at risk through this kind of interference by the Minister—that is what this bill introduces the potential for in our market.

This bill creates the opportunity for the responsible Minister to decide that goods can be dumped in New Zealand at below-market value, either because they have been subsidised in their production and they have been produced more cheaply than they really cost to produce or because a surplus has been created and a country is trying to dump goods on another market to clear a backlog. For those reasons, occasionally countries do look and say: “It’s in our interests.” We saw it with the Canterbury earthquakes. We saw this House put business aside to say that in this circumstance—and it is exceptional—we will allow dumped goods to come into New Zealand, because there is a shortfall and an immediate need. We saw then and there that the Parliament has the ability, when it matters, to put aside those normal operations in order to take account of exceptional circumstances.

There is no need for this bill. Unfortunately, we saw, when we came to the Commerce Committee, that there was no justification offered beyond that. This is a bill designed to give the Minister extraordinary powers to decide when products can flood in and undermine a competitive market place in New Zealand. We stand against that on this side of the Chamber, because we believe in the value of New Zealand businesses and New Zealand exports. Unfortunately, under this Government, its track record shows that it does not. It talks about getting to 40 percent of GDP as exports, but it is now down below 30 percent and it is going backwards, and Mr Joyce knows it. He has seen, under his watch, the exports as a percentage of the economy decline further and further, and the projections say that it is going to decline further and further over time. This Government has failed to grow our export industries. Here we have another measure designed to undermine our exporters, and it is pushing it through the Parliament. I think it has come under pressure. It has come under pressure from industry groups, and I think it has made the wrong decision.

We asked officials how they were going to introduce this public interest test, what priorities they were going to put into the different factors they were going to consider, and how they would weight those factors. Unfortunately, they were not able to give us a convincing answer. They said: “We will consider eight factors prices, and they are a focus on prices, product choice and availability, product and service quality, the financial viability of the domestic industry, employment levels, and competition in the market.” We said: “Those are things that you might want to look at, but how will you weight them? Which ones are the most important? How will you judge which industries are going to be put under pressure? How will you judge what is enough product availability and choice in the market? How will you judge what constitutes quality when a good coming in may not measure up to the New Zealand things?”. They had no answers for us, sadly.

I think they had been sold a pup by the Minister. They were told “We want this to happen. Please make something up, officials. Please make us look good.”, and, unfortunately, it just was not possible in the circumstance. This introduces uncertainty for exporters, because they do not know how that test is going to be applied. Officials were not able to tell us, and business after business after business came before the select committee and said: “This uncertainty creates a risk for us. This creates cost in our business, because we have to account for that uncertainty when we’re making our investment decisions.” More than one business told us that when it is trying to make investment in a new capital plant it may have to look to Australia instead. Australia has twice looked at similar legislation to this, and has twice resoundingly rejected it, because it put their domestic producers at risk—at risk of uncertainty created by ministerial whim. It put this to one side and said: “We will have nothing to do with it.”

Catherine Beard represented that view on behalf of Business New Zealand. She said: “We don’t abide by this.” Business New Zealand stood against this. This undermines our domestic producers, and that is often what we heard. We heard from many of the big players in New Zealand—they are able to represent their interests—and they say this is bad. But what about the small players? What about the disruptors that are coming into the market—the innovators in New Zealand? How are you going to measure what effect it is going to have on them when dumping comes in, if their business model is not even understood or known about? I can be confident that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will not be across every single innovator in the New Zealand market and will not have the ability to scan the whole market for who might be affected by products being dumped here against our will because a Minister says it is a good thing to do on that day.

This also leaves us exposed in international fora. As a country, New Zealand argues that a level playing field is incredibly important in international trade. I have heard, in international fora, wise men argue for the benefits of a level playing field, where, if we reduce tariffs over time and if each country does what they are good at, we get higher-value produce, we have specialisation, and the world is better off through trade. I have heard wise people talk about this. Yet in this bill we have a suggestion that we should be doing something different: that when it suits us we should allow dumping, we should allow subsidised goods to flood the markets, and we should allow bigger countries that want to throw their muscle around to affect New Zealand domestic industries—that we will have a level playing field when it suits us.

This undermines our moral standpoint and this undermines the high moral ground that New Zealand takes in international trade negotiations and in international trade fora, where we espouse the benefits of a level playing field on trade. This actually undermines New Zealand and I think that point needs to be heard loud and clear, and the Government needs to answer.

The Minister in the chair, the Hon Jacqui Dean, needs to answer why it is that she thinks it will be in New Zealand’s long-term interest to have a trade position that says we will pick and choose when we think tariffs and duties and so on are a good thing, when historically we have relied on the WH rules and the WHA procedures and have said that we think that having a level playing field is a good thing.

I look forward to hearing the Hon Jacqui Dean explain why she thinks we should now meddle in international markets and allow different practices at different times, because that is a big change in New Zealand’s foreign policy that Jacqui Dean is putting forward to this House.

So let us have a think about this. I think what we need is a fresh look at this. We need a fresh approach that just says “Let’s do the right thing. Let’s not meddle. Let’s not give a Minister that discretion. Let’s not put the Minister in a place of risk and uncertainty when they are in international negotiations and our trading partners know that the Minister has that discretion to allow dumped goods into the country if there are non-tariff barrier disputes and so on.” I am very much looking forward to how Ms Dean thinks that that will play out as Ministers get pressure put on them in those international trading negotiations, and how her new principle will take effect and how that will impact on our trade internationally, because that is a serious risk that is being introduced.

So we need a fresh pair of eyes over this. A Labour Government would do this differently. A Labour Government would respect having a level playing field in trade rules and not allow Ministers to get in there and meddle and pick and choose, because we have seen under this Government how it has picked and chosen and picked winners and, with Mr Joyce’s approach to economic development, how that is not succeeding, how exports as a proportion of the economy are dropping under Mr Joyce’s watch, despite rhetoric to the contrary. We know the importance of business succeeding on the international stage and having those fair rules not introducing extra cost and risks of uncertainty. On this side of the Chamber we have respect for domestic manufacturers. We are not about supporting the speculators, as they are over there. We are about supporting the productive economy—making sure that businesses that are taking risks are supported in taking those risks and not going to experience a Government that dumps on individual sectors when it picks and chooses because one is a favourite and one is not. We do not want to open up those kinds of risks and we do not think that this Parliament should be doing that.

We heard from New Zealand Steel, we heard from Wattie’s, we heard from Oji Fibre Solutions—we heard from a range of big companies that expressed how badly this could play out for New Zealand and how investment could instead go to Australia into productive industries there because it has a more stable regime. It understands the importance of successful business across the Tasman and the importance of not undermining the set of rules that are in place and of not imposing extra costs on business in terms of legislative uncertainty, process uncertainty, unclear rules, and all that goes with that. I would urge the Government to listen to what we are saying on this side of the Chamber, to revisit things, or at least, in the case of the Hon Jacqui Dean, to explain how she thinks this new international position of picking and choosing is going to advantage New Zealand as it tries to take the moral high ground and encourage others to trade more with us and to play fairly on the international stage.

BARRY COATES (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. Tēnā koe. Thank you for calling me on this bill, the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. We would like to talk to the “General provisions” in Part 1 of the bill: “The purpose of this Act is to enable New Zealand to apply anti-dumping and countervailing duties …”. Actually, the purpose of this amendment is why the Government should not apply anti-dumping. We are deeply concerned over this bill and have expressed that concern in the select committee process. We are joint authors with Labour and New Zealand First in a minority opinion on this bill, which is reflected in the Commerce Committee’s report.

We have some very fundamental questions about the purpose of this bill. Firstly, it is not quite clear what problem it is we are trying to solve here. If the problem is responding to the Christchurch earthquake, which appears to be the dominant rhetoric around the need for this bill, then, certainly, there are provisions already in existing legislation for emergency response for exactly that situation. We are not sure why these amendments are required more broadly to give the Government powers to deny New Zealand companies their rights of redress when foreign producers predate their markets.

The second issue we have is: who wants this bill? We have heard, as Dr Clark said, from a number of submitters, including Business New Zealand, including the Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and including most of the business associations, which were—how shall I put it—puzzled as to why the Government would be putting this bill forward. We have, as Dr Clark said, seen that this bill would introduce a complexity with regard to our trans-Tasman trade. Australia has twice looked at this kind of test to introduce for anti-dumping and has twice—after far more comprehensive analysis than we had available to us as a committee—rejected it. This lack of coherence with Australia on the issue of anti-dumping will create problems for our manufacturers and exporters, and, what is more, will create some incentives for foreign companies to come and predate our markets, undercut local businesses, and, once they have driven them out of business, according to a national interest test of lower prices for consumers, then, of course, they are free to raise their prices again and use up that consumer surplus in order to generate monopoly profits in the New Zealand market.

We think that, instead of a bill that would even the level playing field, what we have is a bill that further tilts the playing field in support of foreign companies, and that, actually, foreign companies are being given advantages through this bill, and these are foreign companies that often already have advantages—for example, through not being forced to pay tax. If you are a multinational that can benefit from transfer pricing or if you are a company that sells goods online for under $400, then you do not have to pay GST—a disadvantage to New Zealand companies of 15 percent. So we are adding insult to injury through the inability now of manufacturers to be able to understand whether or not they have protection from anti-dumping laws, and it is this aspect of uncertainty for a manufacturer that is one of the harshest aspects of this bill.

The companies that are facing unfair competition have an opportunity, first, to put in their application to the bill, and, as we see in the legislation, in 180 days they will get a preliminary opinion. But even if they won the case as to why they are being predated by anti-dumping rules, then there is a test applied, and that test applied means that they may not get redress even though they are clearly able to show that they are being predated. That is bad for their business, and, therefore, that is introducing an element of uncertainty into New Zealand business that I think is disadvantageous for what is left of our manufacturers.

This bill is particularly harsh on small and medium sized enterprises (SME), and as we go through the clauses in this bill we see the difficulties that SMEs have in being able to negotiate procedures and timetables that are burdensome and disadvantageous to them. Not only is there a 180-day period, which for a small company is often a long enough period for them to be driven out of business, but then, with the introduction of this test, there is a further 90-day period to understand whether or not they will receive any redress. That compounds the problem for them. They are obliged to provide more information and, as small businesses, they are put at a great deal of disadvantage compared with their often far better funded overseas competitors. Again, this bill is tilting the playing field towards our foreign competitors and against the interests of New Zealand companies. Surely we want New Zealand companies to do well. That is why it is very hard to understand the rationale for this bill and the purposes of this bill.

The further problem here is a problem with the criteria in the test itself—and we will come with specific recommendations and specific comments on the criteria that are to be applied under the national interest test—but in the select committee we had officials who were quite open with us to say that it was extremely difficult to provide an objective and conclusive assessment of this national interest in ways that could be sure that the national interest outweighed the long-term damage that companies would face by being driven out of business by predatory pricing from their overseas competitors. There are deep failings in the proposed methodology, which is likely to result in the application of a standardised methodology. We heard of a methodology that would be applied by Treasury to estimate a consumer surplus that might apply in this case, and that methodology was tilted entirely in favour of the cheap importers that are dumping goods and ruining the prospects for New Zealand manufacturing companies.

The factors in these tests are vague and subject to ministerial discretion, and that, for us, is a crucial point. Throughout this bill there is extensive discretion given to the Minister, which politicises this process in a way that is deeply worrying for the future of independent and objective decision-making on important issues like anti-dumping. The Minister, throughout this process of a national interest test, is given discretion at every stage of the process. We think that discretion is not sufficiently fettered by controls and objective criteria that will rein in the accountability of a Minister, and, once again, we will come with specific proposals during this debate to introduce some greater accountability for Ministers into this process.

Finally, I would say that we are concerned that this bill shows a neglect of the respect for, and understanding of, the difficulties faced by small business and producers in New Zealand. We have seen over the years manufacturers driven out time and time and time again by predatory foreign competition, and this bill will not only not stop that happening; this bill is a mechanism to facilitate it happening. It takes what was an anti-dumping bill and says “Maybe it’s an anti-dumping bill, but, actually, it might be a bill that would allow predatory pricing by foreign competitors.” It completely changes the nature of the anti-dumping legislation in this country. We cannot, as the Green Party, support it. Thank you.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I do want to say at the outset of my contribution that the Labour Party, when this bill was introduced, was of a mind to support it. We support a robust and fair regime when it comes to the rules around anti-dumping and countervailing duties, and historically there has been widespread support pretty much across Parliament for measures that create that fair regime. That regime is about making sure that New Zealand producers and New Zealand businesses are not the victims of large-scale products coming into New Zealand and being sold for a price that is much lower than the price the product would be sold for in that country’s domestic market—that is, the classic form of dumping that people will be familiar with—or, indeed, whether the product benefits from a big subsidy in the country where it is produced. There are World Trade Organization rules and then rules that have found their way into New Zealand law that create a robust and a fair environment, so a piece of legislation that made the claim that it was going to make that environment work better was one that we were interested in supporting.

I was not on the Commerce Committee, but the consistent feedback our members were giving us when they came back was that, little by little, their concerns increased, in terms of the substance of the new public interest test—which I am going to talk about in a moment—but also because of the feedback from the business community. It is probably not a great surprise to members that Catherine Beard is somebody whom I do not always agree with when she puts out her statements and makes her comments on behalf of Business New Zealand and Export New Zealand, but we certainly agree with her here. Then we began to hear from companies like New Zealand Steel and Wattie’s, which were saying that this has the potential to be very damaging for New Zealand companies. Of all the people, New Zealand Steel is the company that I think of here. I have to be a little careful with how I choose my words here, but there is the current situation we have got with accusations about Chinese steel being dumped in New Zealand.

One of the issues raised by submitters was about what this legislation would mean for how other countries would view New Zealand’s anti-dumping regime. It reduces the certainty and the clarity of our regime, and puts in its place a subjective—a highly subjective—test that could be exploited. In the way in which these things work, a lot of it is around the signals that you send and the way that companies operate internationally with confidence, and that is what is being undermined here. This is not Opposition parties playing politics; this was a consistent theme of the submissions that came to the committee, and that is why Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens are jointly opposing this bill. The more information that came to light, the more concerned we got about it.

Other colleagues have covered some of these overall concerns, but I have got some questions for the Minister in the chair, Jacqui Dean. There are the high-level concerns that we have around whether this framework can actually work, but when you get to the public interest test itself, the criteria are vague. The factors to be considered are not ranked in any order, so a Minister who is presented with this exercise does not have guidance as to what factors matter more than others. I would ask the Minister in the chair to take a call and explain to this Committee how she, as a Minister who might be responsible for this one day, will deal with a set of criteria that are not ranked. There is no weighting, there is no prioritisation, there is not even any formula to be followed by a Minister when making an evaluation of these factors. That is introducing an unacceptable level of uncertainty to a process that businesses need to be certain about.

Time and again, submitters were saying that in the absence of any certainty about how this public interest is going to be applied, businesses will lose the confidence to invest. We all know that when businesses are making those decisions, it is about their confidence about rate of return, their confidence about whether or not they will be able to compete well and fairly, and the Government has gone and introduced a piece of legislation that undermines that. The Minister needs to be able to get up in this Committee and give us her view of how that prioritisation process will work. I am sorry to say that in the absence of that in the law—even the Minister’s answers are going to make that interesting, but at least they might enlighten the Committee a little as to how the Government actually plans on this taking place.

Our members of the committee asked consistently for examples of how this would work, and there was an absence of those. In the end, affected businesses made the call that you would make in these circumstances, which is that they do not have confidence in a regime that is so vague. From the point of view of members of this House, it is then our responsibility, I believe, to say this is not good enough. A piece of legislation that normally would get widespread support across the House has found its way back here not supported by at least three parties in the House. I think the Minister owes it to those exporters, owes it those businesses, and owes it to those companies to stand up and tell us how those criteria will work, in some specific detail.

I just want to cover a couple of other quick matters. One of those is the time that will be added to the process by the public interest test. As proposed, the bill would add 90 days to the time frame. From the point of view, again, of a number of submitters, New Zealand manufacturers looked at that and said: “This really is going to make our lives extremely difficult.” There is a lack of clarity about what those businesses will do, in terms of remedies, if they are concerned about how the system is working. Ultimately, the end result of this may well be some manufacturing businesses deciding to move offshore. That cannot—and I will give this to the Government—have been the Government’s intention in promoting the bill, but now is the time for the Government to acknowledge that it has got it wrong. Opposition members of the committee, as Barry Coates said, had very specific ideas, which could be amendments, that would at least make the system more robust. Unfortunately, Government members of the select committee were not prepared to consider those matters.

I am not going to unduly delay the Committee on this; I know other colleagues have got comments they want to make. I will just finish on the point of what the Government did claim was the motivation around putting this bill in place, and that was around concerns about the cost of building materials entering into New Zealand. What we saw in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes was that when it is necessary for there to be something outside of the norms—when we need to do something that moves quickly in response to a crisis—we can do it. We can do it under the existing regime we have, rather than creating a regime of uncertainty, for that kind of purpose. I think that if that was the Government’s motivation, actually, the response in Canterbury ensured that New Zealanders could have confidence that the system was already flexible enough.

I think we have here a classic situation of a proposal that, on paper, might have looked all right. It looked like more choice. It looked like more flexibility. But then, in reality—and under the scrutiny of a parliamentary select committee, which is an important part of our democratic process—it has been exposed for what it is: a vague set of criteria for a public interest test that is entirely subjective, that will lead to huge uncertainty, and that is opposed by the very companies these rules are designed to protect. If that is not enough for the Minister and the Government to understand that they should think again, I am not sure what is.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Members have raised a number of issues, so I will cover off a few of the issues that have been raised. The first—and it has been mentioned several times—is around the subjective nature of the public interest test. I would note that the public interest test is subjective by necessity, simply because it involves judgment. The inclusion in the bill of multiple criteria to be evaluated, such as quality, means that a purely objective public interest test is simply not realistic. The reports outlining the recommendations to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs will be made public at the end of the investigation. This will provide a great degree of transparency, will provide a degree of clarity, and will also signal and give future applicants an idea of how the public interest test will be conducted.

There were also comments around the nature of the public interest test criteria not being weighted. I would say this: being too prescriptive and rather inflexible during the test could result in inconsistent and unintended outcomes. What seems sensible to one sector of the economy might not be appropriate at all in another sector of the economy. There were comments around New Zealand’s international reputation, and I would say to that that the public interest test simply allows the Minister to take into account the wider competition and consumer effects of imposing a duty. The public interest test, as it is introduced in this bill, contains a presumption in favour of imposing duties and it also does not conflict with New Zealand’s stance against subsidies.

Finally, a question was asked about what constitutes “quality”. The Government has an entirely separate regime for dealing with quality control of imported goods. The anti-dumping and countervailing duties regime was never intended or envisaged to deal with issues relating to compliance with standards. That is an entirely different matter.

RIA BOND (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First and my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau to speak to the Committee stage of the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. Today I want to discuss three areas throughout the bill. The first one is the proposed amendments in clause 16, which is the expansion of the suspension period. What we found through the submission stage of the select committee was that members who actually came and spoke to their submissions were quite concerned that parts of these provisions were going to expire on 30 May this year. They wondered what this Government had been doing with its time, and the fact that we were, and are today, weeks away from provisions in this bill expiring.

The actual suspension period is now going to be drawn out for a further 2 to 3 years. What we are wondering in that sense, and on behalf of those submitters who came through, is why they should have confidence in this Government. The Government has already had 2 years to get this right, and to make sure there is a level playing field on behalf of New Zealand businesses. It has had that time to investigate and to take officials’ advice. Why should they have confidence that in another 2 or 3 years - plus there are going to be a system and provisions that are actually going to protect their trade? What they are asking is why they should have confidence in this Government when this bill already has, in its provisions, gone outside of its origins.

We also heard from the industry and stakeholders who had concerns about some of the standards. The question was: what standards? We know that we have had plasterboard come in from Thailand that was deemed to be standard plasterboard—well, who sets those standards? Who sets them and are they standards that the industry itself is actually happy to maintain? So that begs quite a few questions around what the standards are and who is setting them. What came about from that too is that we know that the cost of building materials is high, but that is another conversation entirely, for another time. We should be talking more about the anti-competitive behaviour and the domination of certain players within our New Zealand market.

One of the issues that also arose, which we talked about, was the domestic market threat here in New Zealand. One of those examples—and we know this all too clearly—is cement. So when there has been too much cement made in one country then it comes into New Zealand and it totally puts at risk our New Zealand domestic market. That was quite a huge concern. We listened to a submitter talking about other areas and about two products that would be at absolute risk for New Zealand businesses when we are making legislation in this House, and when new Ministers, such as Jacqui Dean, come in with a Supplementary Order Paper that says that this is OK. Well, it is actually not fine.

New Zealanders are telling us, and the big players did come and tell us, that they have a huge concern about this bill—how in terms of the regulatory impact statement that they read through, itemised throughout was the absolute risk to New Zealand businesses. We feel—and when we say “we feel”—on this side of the House we put through a minority view to indicate and articulate the absolute concerns that we have. Having a look through and listening to further members in the Committee of the whole House today talking about the current issues, in terms of allowing the Minister to have that decision-making process kept on her shoulders, I do also want to remind the Committee that in the area of having to waive provisions within legislation we did that already through this House. This was when it came to the Canterbury rebuild and there was an absolute need for building materials to get there quickly and try to help rebuild our Canterbury area. We had the rights and we waived those. So we wonder what it is that says that we now do not actually as a Parliament continue to waive those rights in the best interests of our rebuild and emergency situations like that.

I also want to pick up on what David Clark said. He said that this provision inside the bill does actually create and give the Minister a lot of power. She gets to decide on behalf of New Zealand businesses what is best for them. I can say that submitters—excuse me, Minister Dean, but a lot of this uncertainty and mistrust has arisen from the fact that this Government has done one thing with the start of this bill and now the bill has turned into quite a bad piece of legislation. What we are seeing now is a bill that could have done something for our New Zealand businesses, but has not.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call. I would like to thank the Minister in the chair, Jacqui Dean, for taking the opportunity to take a call, but I have some further questions for that Minister in the chair.

As colleagues who have taken calls on this side of the Chamber have said, we did previously support this legislation. We supported it to the select committee, but there were just too many questions at that select committee stage. I did not sit on the Commerce Committee, but from talking to colleagues who did and reading through the reports that came out of that, there are some glaring questions that need to be answered.

One of those questions, for me, and one I would like the Minister to respond to, is why New Zealand is choosing to go down a very different path to Australia, where Australia has a regime that allows this to remain in ministerial discretion. That is the regime that Australia has had, and, as the speaker who has previously spoken, Ria Bond, who has just taken her seat, has identified, it actually is a situation that has worked in New Zealand. Members are using the Canterbury earthquakes as an example of why it is that we need this legislation to come into play. What we have an example of there is the ability for things to be done a little bit differently in exceptional circumstances under the current rules. So why is there a need for this shift? Why is there a need for us to put in place a regime that is fundamentally different to Australia’s—one of our largest trading partners—why is it that we would do that?

I would also like to address the Minister’s comments that she made around the need for the subjective nature of the test. I think the Minister, when she took her call, said that was because of necessity. I dispute that. Actually, the advice that was put forward to the select committee actually did talk about different subjective and objective tests that could be applied. I would like to know why it is that objective tests around—for example, a numerical objective test around a proportion of a market that was affected or other proportionalities and numerical measures were not put into play and that we have a solely subjective test at play here. That is something that I would be interested to know why it is that we have not chosen, when there were various models that were put forward—why any element of objectivity in that test was put into play.

If we do actually look at the clauses in the bill—new Part 4, clause 10, which has a number of letters following it—that lay out the investigation and where the public interest test lies in clause 10F of the bill. What I would like to know—the Minister has said, on the issue of waiting, which I think is an important issue, that what we have is we have heard from industry that it needs some kind of clarity. It needs to know the rules it is playing in. It needs to know what is going to be the really important element when applying these tests. One of the things that led to us pulling our support from this was listening to New Zealand exporters and New Zealand manufacturers telling us how detrimental this would be to their businesses and how this would not be a help at all.

If we turn to clause 10F of the bill, where the public interest test is laid out in clause 10F(3), paragraphs (a) through (h), I would just like to ask the Minister some questions around that. In subclause (3) we have: “In investigating whether imposing the duty is in the public interest, the matters the chief executive must investigate include the following: (a) the effect of the duty on the prices of the dumped or subsidised goods:”. What is the trigger? When we are talking about the effect, what kind of trigger are we talking about here? What threshold has to be passed in order for the chief executive to think that that is significant?

We then go to paragraph (b) “the effect of the duty on the prices of like goods produced in New Zealand:”—again, what kind of ballpark are we talking about? What does the impact have to be in order for the chief executive to take this seriously as a consideration? This is something that I would like to hear from the Minister on. If we look at paragraph (c) “the effect of the duty on the choice or availability of like goods:”, now, this is a very broad test, and I think we do need some clarity from the Minister. What scope are we talking about here? How broad does the choice have to be or how narrow does it have to be in order for this test to be applied? That is something that does need to be clarified.

Even more oblique is paragraph (d) “the effect of the duty on product and service quality:”. I would like to know more from the Minister on exactly what is intended by this clause. What do we mean by “the effect of the duty on product and service quality”? What threshold has to be crossed in order for this to be deemed significant? In paragraph (e) it states: “the effect of the duty on the financial viability of the domestic industry:”. So what I would like the Minister to tell me is whether this means it is going to put a single player out of business, whether it undermines several players in a particular industry, whether or not it reduces the profits of a single player in an industry, or whether it reduces products across the board to several players in that industry. What does that mean, and how will that be applied?

And then, if we go further down that list to “whether there is an alternative supply (domestically or internationally) of [the] goods available:”—how broad? How broad are we going here? Are we saying that somewhere in the world there is an alternative, or are we saying that that is available in New Zealand, or that it is available in markets that we trade with regularly? What does that mean in application, in terms of how this legislation is intended to be applied? Then there is the very broad criterion in paragraph (h), which is “any factor that the chief executive considers essential to ensure the existence of competition in the market.”

These are the factors that the chief executive can investigate when applying the public interest test. These are not “ands” or “ors”. They exist in beautiful harmony together, but what we do need to know from the Minister is what the strongest driver here is. What is it that the chief executive will be looking at most strongly when making these assessments, when applying this test? To say, as the Minister has when she took her call and said that we need to leave that, that we do not want to be too prescriptive, that that is not desirable—well, it is desirable to those in the industry to know what the rules are that they are going to be operating under. We are introducing a new test here, and I think that businesses and industry players deserve to know exactly what those rules are. To simply say that it is too prescriptive to talk about weighting does not cut it, and I would like the Minister to take a further call and give some clarity to the Committee and, indeed, to impacted industries about what that may be. These are the criteria that will be applied when the Minister makes a choice about whether or not the countervailing duty will be applied.

The Government has decided it wants to go down this route—that it wants to go down the route of having a change of legislation, where we have a regime and tests. Well, people need to know what that means, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister and hearing what each of those factors that the chief executive will investigate when applying the public interest test mean, and what the relative weightings will be. I understand that the Minister cannot be absolutely precise and say it will be the same in every single circumstance, but what we do need to know is what the direction of travel is. The industry is telling us it does not have that at the moment. There is confusion, there is lack of clarity, and it is not good for anybody when our manufacturers and our exporters are left wondering where it is that they stand around the kinds of protections that will be in place for them. Of course, Labour wanted to be able to support this legislation, but when it came down to the detail like this—and we went through it in detail at the select committee—we could not be satisfied. We could not be satisfied that the right rules and a robust enough regime had been put in place. So I look forward to hearing from the Minister in the chair.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): The member Megan Woods has just very well and precisely illustrated the difficulty of constructing what will be an objective public interest test. Of course the test will vary by circumstances—those circumstances that the member has just rehearsed from within the bill. It will also depend on what sector of the economy is being complained about. Therefore, the need for judgment is inevitable. I would direct the member to clause 13 of the bill, which inserts new section 10, “Application for investigation” into Part 4, because the member asked how an investigation will be initiated. It will be simply by way of a complaint.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I think one of my greatest concerns about this bill arises from the pressure that can be put upon a Minister to take a decision, for non-competition regions, to decline to either proceed with an investigation or impose duties on dumped products. The Labour Party has said in its minority view that it shares the concerns expressed by Catherine Beard from Business New Zealand and by the New Zealand steel industry, being but two examples, that the introduction of ministerial discretions, which allow the Minister to not impose tariffs despite the fact that there is a case that there is product being dumped into New Zealand, creates a poor process. I want to explore one aspect of that, which is the pressure that can be brought upon New Zealand by more powerful trading interests than us.

I will probably get it in the ear for this, but I am going to recount what has already been in the media in the last year. We know from the story that was broken by Vernon Small in the Dominion Post that at a time when Chinese steel exports to other countries were facing duties for dumping, the suggestion that there might be a complaint in New Zealand led to pressure upon the New Zealand Government and on other exporters of other goods to China.

Before I go into that, I want to explain what is happening in other countries. It is very simple—and the Minister Jacqui Dean, I expect, will already know this—to know that there is a very significant oversupply of steel being produced in the world now. There has been a massive expansion of steel production in China, and some of that is alleged, by other countries that have had anti-dumping inquiries, to be either subsidised through cheap forms of capital available to some of those companies from the Chinese Government or Chinese State-owned enterprises, or—just because it has become such a surplus commodity and they have got so much of it to sell overseas—to be sold below cost to get rid of it. Those allegations have been accepted in both Europe and the United States.

In respect of some subsets of steel, anti-dumping tariffs in the United States have recently been increased from about 60 percent to 190 percent. Such is the level, they assert, of subsidisation or dumping that is occurring in respect of stainless steel being exported from China to the United States. In respect of Europe, Europe has decided that the dumping of steel over there is occurring, and it has imposed tariffs of between 18 and 35 percent. New Zealand Steel, the major producer of steel in New Zealand, is concerned that it has been suffering the consequences of the export of subsidised or discounted steel into the New Zealand market.

I am not talking about issues relating to quality. I am not talking about competition issues in the New Zealand supply chain. I am just talking about imported product. At the time—because there is still no clarity as to what has actually been happening within Government—this occurred, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, according to the Dominion Post newspaper, was told by exporters to China that they were being given a message in China that if New Zealand was to investigate the allegations of steel dumping into New Zealand, there would be retaliatory action or there would be risks to New Zealand exporters of kiwifruit and, perhaps, dairy products into China.

We all know that on the world stage New Zealand is a minnow. We rely upon multilateral rules and fair-trade rules around the world in order for us to be treated fairly abroad and in order to protect our domestic producers and domestic consumers from unfair, predatory trade practices from abroad. As a small country that is reliant on relationships with superpowers, be they big economies like the United States or China—I do not want to single anyone out—or Japan or anyone else, why would we be putting ourselves in a position where the Ministers, through back channels, could be opening themselves up to pressure from those countries to actually say: “Look, you have got a discretion here, Minister, to actually not proceed with this anti-dumping inquiry. We want you not to proceed; otherwise, there are going to be consequences for New Zealand.”?

That is what this legislation introduces. It introduces more trade-related risks to New Zealand producers, like New Zealand Steel, of the Minister coming under pressure for reasons relating to other trading interests that New Zealand has overseas. We should not be doing that. That is what Business New Zealand told us, that is what New Zealand Steel told us, and that is what other submitters said as well. I think they are right, and I think New Zealand’s recent experience—we still have not had disclosure of all of the cables and other information that came back from overseas posts to New Zealand. There have been redactions that the Government has made to those documents, so we have not got transparency as to what actually went down. I suspect that the accusations that were being made through the media were right—that New Zealand was being pressured.

I ask the Minister previously in the chair, Jacqui Dean, through the Minister sitting with the Chair of the Committee, Tim Macindoe, why we would be passing legislation that makes more of those pressure points and that makes the exercise of discretion in respect of those pressure points opaque. As other speakers have already said, there are so many competing criteria that are to be applied by the Minister in making the decision—and those criteria can go in different directions—that just about any decision would be legitimate on the part of the Minister. Legally legitimate, I mean—not the right decision, but legally legitimate. I cannot understand why the Government is going down that route. I think of what Dr David Clark said—that we should be looking at what has happened in Australia. It has looked at doing this a couple of times. It has got far more muscle than we have, and yet it decided that it was not right to go down this route.

It seems to me that this is incredibly naive. Why am I not surprised? This is the Government that will not even enforce New Zealand standards at the border. When Opposition parties participated in the manufacturing inquiry during the term of the last Parliament—Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First—they all heard submissions that New Zealand standards, or equivalents overseas, are not enforced at the border properly, and, therefore, inferior products are imported, competing against more expensive products made in New Zealand to New Zealand standards.

The Government is not even enforcing New Zealand standards. It says that it thinks we have got competition problems in the supply chain for building products. Well, if that is the case, why does it not do something about that through competition policy rather than silly little exemptions to anti-dumping regimes? I am not even convinced that you should have an exemption from dumping regimes for post-earthquake events. Why should you be able to dump product in that circumstance? I do not understand that. I would have thought you should actually have to pay a fair price so as to give New Zealand producers a fair chance of producing or increasing their output to meet those periods of high demand.

The more important point—I want to hear from the Minister—is why the Minister thinks it is in the interests of New Zealand to create more ministerial discretions when we know that, as a small country, we are more likely to be able to be pressured by the big players in the world. That is whether it is Europe—they could say “Oh well, in Europe, unless you do this or that, we’re going to push harder against your butter quota.”—or whether it is the United States, in a similar way, or whether it is China or whether it is Japan. If you do something about steel exports from Japan, although they have shrunk—you know, “We’ll never let your dairy in.” You know, those sorts of threats can be made. They should not be made, and this legislation is encouraging them.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I did sit on the Commerce Committee, which heard this legislation. The Commerce Committee was a split committee. The Labour Party supported this legislation at its first reading—not being, at that point, cognisant of the significant issues that it raises. Once we were at the committee, and heard submitter after submitter come before us and talk about the threats of these measures to our domestic industry, we became seriously concerned.

We tried to get substantial amendments and questions answered through this legislation, unsuccessfully. This, basically, led us to believe that it is being pushed through for a set of reasons other than common sense, because it is a counterintuitive piece of legislation. If you were to believe that this Government was committed to a growth in exports, to a growth in the productive economy, and to a growth in small business becoming bigger business and being able to compete on the world market with good quality products—what this does is open the door to serious impacts on numerous industries in this country. It gives ministerial powers that are questionable in terms of—and I think you have heard David Parker outline the pressure that could be brought to bear, and the impact that it could have, on ministerial discretion.

I would like to say that I applaud new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Jacqui Dean for taking a couple of calls on this, because it is important to be able to engage in actual debate in the Committee stage—true debate—to be able to get some sense of what on earth was in the Government’s mind when it decided to press through with this legislation.

The reason we have such a substantial set of amendments before us in the Committee stage today is that the split committee, the Commerce Committee, voted against this bill. The Government members did not have a majority, so the bill had to be returned to the House unamended. Therefore, these amendments that are before us in the Committee stage are as a result of that and have enabled the wider debate that is occurring today.

I note that when the Minister did first speak, she talked about—and this is going to the public interest test. I want to touch on the issues in the public interest test: the time that it takes to get an inquiry happening and the impact of that on domestic industry, and then the intent—what is in the Government’s mind around this.

With regard to the public interest test, which is in new section 10F in new Part 4, inserted by clause 13, around the investigation—other speakers have noted the eight issues that have to be taken into account when undertaking that public interest test. I just want to mention four of them, and pose to the Committee the dilemmas that occur with this sort of “Solomon’s choice” approach that can be taken by a Minister. The Minister has to take into account whether prices will go down through a dumping into the New Zealand market, whether it provides more choice, whether it affects product quality, and whether it affects the financial performance of the domestic industry.

If it means that prices will go down and consumers get more choice—and bear in mind that the rationale for this legislation is to provide what the Government called “more consumer choice”. It would seem that that is what is the intent of this legislation. So let us say it means that prices go down and there is more choice. But what actually ends up in the market is a lesser-quality product, and if it affects the quality of the financial performance of our domestic industry, then how does that decision get made? It has got to be either one or the other.

The concern that submitter after submitter had—and I know that New Zealand Steel has been mentioned on a number of occasions; it talked about an unnecessary and radical shift in New Zealand’s trade policy, resulting in a materially weakened anti-dumping regime and a significant threat to New Zealand industry. I cannot stress highly enough just how alarming it was to hear the steel industry say that its very viability is on the line if this legislation is passed.

I also want to refer to another submission. I want to quote from it, and I will tell you who it was after I have quoted from it. It says: “We are not against global trade or protectionist, and support the case where a country does something extremely well and removes the need for local production of such products, but cannot agree that in some situations there is a need to tilt the playing field in favour of dumped or subsidised goods from overseas against local manufacturers, producers, and the jobs they create. How could such action, detrimental to the country’s productive base, be in the public interest? We consider that small manufacturers and producers are less able to present a strong voice to the relevant Government departments. The public interest test aggravates this situation.”

This was from the New Zealand Flower Growers Association, which sent an impassioned submission to the select committee. It wanted to bring to our attention that 97 percent of businesses in New Zealand have fewer than 20 employees, and that all of the flower growers in New Zealand fit that category. That 97 percent of businesses employs 33 percent of all employees. It was trying to get its voice heard, and I am trying to give it a voice today.

To the Minister in charge of this legislation, who I think is still the Minister for Small Business—am I correct—why are those voices not being listened to with this legislation? What is the point of this legislation when, supposedly, on the one hand, the Government says it is trying to get exports to 40 percent of GDP? We are currently under 30 percent. Here we have a piece of legislation that is encouraging, allowing, and enabling the dumping of product that may be sub-quality into our market—but, oh, it might give more choice and lower prices to consumers! How is that in the public interest? I think that is the crux of this legislation.

Other complaints with this legislation were around the time it takes to get an investigation into whether a tariff will be imposed, and then the subsequent impact of that—because it is adding 90 days to that process—on local industry. Those are really valid questions.

The reason this legislation is being hurried through in the next few days is that, ultimately, the original suspension period—and we are going back to the building industry—and the reason for allowing a temporary ability for those dumping provisions to be relaxed, was after the Christchurch earthquake. Those provisions are due to end at the close of 31 May, and one of the amendments in this bill today is to extend that suspension period until the close of 30 June 2019, which is why it has to be passed before 31 May.

There are significant issues here, and there are contradictions, absolute contradictions, in the rationale and the logic as to why you would put New Zealand industry—our productive economy—at such risk with such a piece of legislation. It is not supported by Australia, which has gone through this process twice before, and yet we push through harmonisation laws with Australia. What is the intention of the Government? I think David Parker got to the crux of that.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): In line with my other colleagues, I am rising to speak against the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Amendment Bill. From the point of view of the Labour Party, this is not out of a sense of pique or rigidity, or anything like that, because, in fact, we supported this bill through to the Commerce Committee so that it could receive thorough consideration. It is as a result of the consultation of the submissions and the discussions that have occurred at the select committee level that we have determined that we simply cannot support its passage any further.

In my comments I want to focus in particular on the changes made at the select committee in respect of building materials. I want to talk about the impact on business viability, which was raised by a number of submitters to the select committee, and, also, what this bill says about the overall approach of the Government towards trade.

I am starting off with the changes to clause 16, which is about extending the suspension on building materials by 2 years, from the current date of 2017 to 2019. This, to me, seems to be a case of the Government wanting to look like it is doing something about the cost of housing. Really, if we want to determine whether this is going to have any impact whatsoever, we simply need to look at what has happened in Australia, because in Australia you can go over and, effectively, buy the same kinds of building supplies for 30 or 40 percent less than you can buy them for in New Zealand. But what has Australia done in respect of this issue? Has it gone down the same track that the Government is proposing to here? Has it softened its approach to anti-dumping and countervailing duties? No, it has not. The reason that it has got cheaper building supplies is because it has had a Government that has been more active in terms of ensuring a competitive market.

So what I would say is that if this Government is really wanting to make a difference in terms of the cost of building supplies, we need to look at the structure of the industry and its competitiveness, not to look at measures like this, which, if anything, will serve only to undermine the development of a competitive industry domestically.

In respect of the select committee changes, there was one small wording change—and I am referring here to new section 10F(3)(e), inserted by clause 13, which changes the word “viability” to “performance”. I think that is, on balance, a positive change, because of course the wording “viability” would be quite a stiff test to consider. Effectively, if we had left “viability” in there we would have been saying that you could consider the matter only if the entire viability—the entire ability—of an industry or a business to continue happening was at risk as a part of the consideration. “Performance” gives a bit more flexibility.

But, again, this goes to the point that has been made by a number of speakers in this debate about the subjectivity of this test. What do we mean when we refer to the word “performance”? There is a huge scope within that word. Do we just mean short-term financial performance for the current year of operation by that particular business? Do we mean performance across the wider sector? Do we mean the long-term business performance in that sector? These matters are commented on by the submitters to the select committee.

I want to refer to the submission from Mr Bruce Mackay, who submitted on behalf of peach growers and also other fruit growers supplying Heinz Wattie’s Ltd. The point that he makes is a really valid one, and I think every member needs to think about this seriously before voting further on this bill. What Mr Mackay is saying is that, particularly in respect of the agricultural sector, the effect of dumping on the industry is not a short-term effect. If produce is dumped in New Zealand, and if it undermines growers and producers here in New Zealand, they have to walk away. Trees get ripped up. It is not like they can come back and suddenly grow peaches again the next year; that is a 5- or 10-year proposition. What Mr Mackay says is, and I quote directly from him here: “The significant risk to growers is that any adverse impact is terminal.” He goes on to talk about the fact that if businesses go under, trees get ripped up: “If we have to remove them they will not be replanted, and it will be another 6 or seven years before any other new tree crop planted will start to make money again.”

He goes on, then, to talk about the fact that there is a huge downstream effect in terms of other businesses that support the agricultural sector. It is not clear to me whether we actually get consideration of those downstream effects—all of the supportive industries that support the original grower—in the consideration that is written into this bill. It would be good to hear from the Minister in the chair about that.

A number of submissions have been referred to. The one from Business New Zealand I thought also gave good food for thought to the Committee. This is where this bill really cuts across the grain of a lot of what the Government is saying about business simplification—about wanting to make things easier for New Zealand businesses to do their thing. The point that Business New Zealand makes, amongst other matters, is that this is going to lengthen the time that it takes for considerations to be made about whether we are going to apply duties and countervailing measures by another 90 days, another 3 months, and potentially, for businesses that face investment decisions, whose viability is on the line, that is a really significant blowout in terms of the time that they might need to factor into their business decisions.

A submission from Horticulture New Zealand—this is a really important one because it actually goes to the core of the issue, to me. New Zealand is already one of the most free and open trading nations in the world, and that is as a result of decisions made by successive Labour and National Governments over about the last 25 years. It produced evidence to show that. New Zealand industries are not protected. New Zealand industries are not particularly asking to be protected, but what they are asking for is for a Government to have their back when there is unfair and sharp trade practice being leveraged against them. Because the evidence that Horticulture New Zealand has presented to you, and that most of us in this Committee are aware of, is that, in fact, most other countries do have significant subsidies going into their farming and agricultural sectors. We have all of that, sort of, soft support.

Up to 50 percent of farm receipts in places like Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Iceland, Korea, and Turkey come from subsidies—they come from subsidies. We have got producers here who basically have none of that sort of extra support, and we are relatively proud of that and there is not too much of a contest about that in this House. But what this bill does is remove the ability of a Government of New Zealand to provide some level of protection to our producers who face that sort of unfair competition, particularly when those foreign producers try to dump their products at below source cost in our country.

In line with the other speakers from this side of the Chamber in this debate, we think that this bill is naive. It presumes that New Zealand should open itself up further when, in fact, we are one of the most open trading countries in the world as it stands. In line with the other speakers on this side of the Chamber, we oppose this bill and would recommend that other members in the Committee consider voting against it as well. Thank you.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Thank you for calling on me. I would like to introduce a tabled amendment. The tabled amendment is proposed for clause 13, new section 10F to replace subsection (2). The new subsection reads: “Imposing the duty is in the public interest unless any of the short and long term costs of imposing the duty to downstream industries, wider supply chains, employment, consumers, and local communities around adversely impacted production sites, are likely to materially outweigh the benefit to domestic industry of imposing the duty.” This amendment widens the scope of what can be looked at in the public interest test. Our problem with the public interest test is that it is far too narrowly drawn. Actually, what we are missing is many of the concerns that we have been hearing about so far in this debate and the issues that have been talked about by different submitters.

Let me look at the additions to the wording, one by one. Firstly, we believe that we need to look at the short term and the long term. The rules do not specifically call for a long-term perspective. The reason that this is important is that, as various submitters have said, once you lose a business—once it goes out of business because of predatory pricing forcing a company out of business—that is a long-term effect. You cannot just replace those fruit trees overnight. You cannot just build up a business overnight. Once it is gone, you are left with a hollowing out of a community. You are left with shareholders who have lost their money. You are left with founders who have lost their houses. You are left with skilled workers who no longer have jobs and often move away to different areas. You cannot suddenly replace these enterprises by a short-term measure.

You have to look, in this public interest test, at the long term, because it is only in the long term that you can understand the dynamics of what generally happens. A colleague previously described the legislation as being naive. What we would be doing in this case is we would be setting up an incentive for a predatory foreign producer to lower its prices until the domestic company was driven out of business, and then raise its prices again. You can understand that effect if you look in the long term, and, therefore, the requirement to look in the long term in a way of calculating the public interest is, we believe, essential.

If I can just draw on one of the submissions—this submission is from Business New Zealand and ManufacturingNZ—it says: “Once value is destroyed … it takes a long time for an economy to replace [a] large employer (we have so few of them [left] in New Zealand …”. So what we are talking about here is a necessity of understanding a dynamic situation rather than a snapshot in time, and the public interest test does not deal with that.

A second issue introduced by this amendment is to look not only at the downstream producers, which is a very narrow definition, and instead to look at the wider supply chain, because it is only in understanding the linkages between firms that can often be very complex and across different industries that you can understand what happens when you lose a manufacturer. If you lose a manufacturer, often the supplier who supplies that manufacturer is also supplying other businesses in other sectors. So if you just look at downstream industries, then you miss the dynamics of the supply base. And, therefore, this amendment proposes adding in consideration of the effect on the wider supply chains into the public interest test.

Again, if I may draw from a quote from the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association: “… manufacturing in New Zealand is a diverse sector, companies often are closely connected in supply chains, providing demand, inputs and services for each other, as well as building shared skills and capability in our workforce.” Now, if you do not look at the broader supply chain issues, then you miss those connections. So, therefore, our amendment introduces a concept of wider supply chains.

Thirdly, our submission also requires that the public interest test looks at employment, which, at the moment, it does not in section 10F. It requires that we look at local communities that exist around adversely affected production sites. Why is this important? Because local communities often depend on their local employers not only for jobs but also for so many other community benefits. They are the beating heart of communities. If we lose our local businesses, if we lose the manufacturing businesses that tend to have higher skills, higher wages, higher value added, then the future generation will become only a generation of flipping hamburgers in McDonald’s. We need to retain those businesses with the skills. They are vital to the lifeblood of a community. That is why the amendment that we have put down includes the impacts on the local community that have to be considered within the public interest test.

We have outlined in this, essentially, chapeau clause of section 10F(2), additional considerations that must be included in the public interest test. We have a consequential amendment that I shall come back to, which adds to the list of the specific issues that need to be addressed in that test and they are largely heralded by the amendment that is tabled in new section 10F. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1, in Supplementary Order Paper 289, be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.

Carmel Sepuloni: Mr Chairman, I did not hear the vote. Can you please read it again?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I beg your pardon. You did not hear the vote? Were you not listening to the Chairman at the time?

Carmel Sepuloni: Mr Chairman, sorry. I did not hear what you said.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): So you are wondering what clauses we are voting on?

Carmel Sepuloni: We are voting on the bill that we were just debating—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Yes, that is right. Correct. So we were voting that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 289, be agreed to.

Carmel Sepuloni: Whose amendments are these? The Minister’s?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): These are the Minister’s amendments.

Carmel Sepuloni: No, we are opposed. A party vote is called for.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 289 in the name of the Hon Paul Goldsmith to Part 1 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 74

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

Noes 45

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

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Barry Coates to clause 13 be agreed to:

in clause 13, new section 10F, replace subsection (2) with:

(2) Imposing the duty is in the public interest unless any of the short and long term costs of imposing the duty to downstream industries, wider supply chains, employment, consumers, and local communities around adversely impacted production sites, are likely to materially outweigh the benefit to domestic industry of imposing the duty.

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

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.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Barry Coates to clause 13 be agreed to:

in clause 13, new section 10F(3), after paragraph (g), insert:

(ga) the effect of displacement of local production on the local economy around production sites and community welfare:

(gb) the effect on the duty on the viability of domestic producers and their suppliers:

(gc) the effect on the supply base, including but not limited to immediate downstream industries:

(gd) the pricing pattern of dominant foreign suppliers in the New Zealand market in the past and in overseas markets:

(ge) the effect of the duty in relation to the ability of domestic producers of like goods to remain competitive while upholding labour standards:

(gf) the effect of the duty in relation to the ability of domestic producers of like goods to remain competitive while upholding environmental standards:

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

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.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Barry Coates to clause 13 be agreed to:

in clause 13, new section 10H, after subsection (2) with:

(3) The Minister must inform the public of any decision under subsection (1) to deny the imposition of anti-dumping duties on the grounds of public interest, including—

(a) an estimate of the resulting impact on the viability of New Zealand producers; and

(b) the impact on employment, suppliers, local communities; and

(c) any other matters in section 10F(3).

(4) In performing the obligation under subsection (3), the Minister must ensure that the information being released in not confidential information as defined in section 3F.

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

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.

Amendment not agreed to.

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

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

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

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Part 2 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 289 in the name of the Hon Paul Goldsmith to schedule 1 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 62

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

Noes 57

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

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

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

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Schedule 2 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That schedule 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Schedule 3 agreed to.

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

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 289 in the name of the Hon Paul Goldsmith to clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 74

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

Noes 45

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

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 60

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

Noes 59

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

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Statutes Repeal Bill

In Committee

Clause 1 Title

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): If you look at the name of the bill and the size of it, you might think “Not much to see here, not much of any consequence.”, but, actually, this Statutes Repeal Bill, which is quite an unusual provision for our Parliament to make, takes, I think, about 132 Acts off the statute book, so it repeals about 132 pieces of legislation.

Paul Foster-Bell: 137.

Hon RUTH DYSON: There are 137. I stand corrected by the deputy chair of our Government Administration Committee. I am relying on his memory, which may be a little better than mine. So somewhere between 132 and 137 Acts are repealed by this legislation. All but two were agreed to unanimously by the select committee, but two of these provisions were quite contentious—caused us some difficulty.

But before I move on to discussing the specifics of those and the concerns that Labour and Greens members had about those two provisions—there may be others that Barry Coates may want to mention, but I know those two we were certainly concerned about—I want to just take a step back and ask what the point is of this legislation, because, actually, there was some debate about that as well. There does not seem to be a difficulty if Ministers want to say these Acts are clogging up the statute book—you know, “They’re causing us a lot of difficulty when we try to find something. Let’s have a bit of a spring-clean and a tidy up, and let’s repeal a whole lot of bills.” That is entirely within the mandate of a Minister to do, and might be seen as quite a good thing to do by other parties in the Committee. But, actually, what the bill reports as doing—I think it is in the name of the Hon Steven Joyce, so you would never quite know where that might be heading. What the bill says its point is in response to a recommendation by the Productivity Commission to reduce unnecessary legislation. I think that the driver behind this Statutes Repeal Bill and the recommendation of the Productivity Commission are entirely different.

I am strongly of the view that if the Productivity Commission was presented with the Statutes Repeal Bill and was asked “Is this what you had in mind when you said that Governments should reduce unnecessary legislation as a key priority?”, the Productivity Commission would laugh. I think it would say: “This is not what we had in mind at all. This does not reduce unnecessary legislation. All it does is take off the statute book legislation that is no longer being used.” How on earth could this bill increase productivity? What was the driver of the recommendations of the Productivity Commission?

I think that Minister Steven Joyce has, yet again, got it wrong. He has not paid enough attention to the detail of the Productivity Commission’s recommendation, let alone transferred that into a legislative or policy framework, at all. Once again Steven Joyce has missed the mark. He is not attentive to detail; he is attentive only to slogans—he has been getting those right for quite a while, until the last few months. But, certainly, in terms of a grip on legislation, he is way off the mark.

Can I move now to the two Acts that are repealed by this Statutes Repeal Bill that caused us concern at the select committee and created a lot of debate? One of them is the Medicines Act and the other is the Sentencing Council Act. We got only a few submissions on this bill—not many people considered it of interest—but one of our submissions was of extraordinarily high quality and raised significant constitutional concerns with the Sentencing Council Act repeal. That submission was from Sir Kenneth Keith ONZ, KBE, QC. I am sure that every member in the House will be familiar with the very fine legal record of Sir Kenneth Keith as a New Zealand judge. He was New Zealand’s first appointment to the International Court of Justice in 2005, he served as a judge on both the High Court and Court of Appeal, he was a member of the judicial committee of the Privy Council, and he was one of the inaugural appointments to the Supreme Court of New Zealand. So he has a very fine legal track record and is very well regarded.

Sir Kenneth made his submission—not by any means the first that he has made to a select committee—and he agreed with the point that I have just made about this legislation not being consistent with what the Productivity Commission said, and raised that more as a matter of interest than a matter of substance. When it got to the matter of substance, in relation to the Sentencing Council Act, may I just quote from his submission, he said: “the Sentencing Council Act 2007 came into force”—and that is a critical word for people with good legal minds, such as the presiding officer—“on 1 November 2007 but was not implemented. Repealing that Act will clarify that the Government will not set up the sentencing council in the future and will allow the courts to retain their ability to develop their own sentencing guideline judgments.” That is what the purpose of the bill is. It is quite different from removing from the statute book legislation that no longer has any use and is no longer being implemented.

Sir Kenneth was quoting the point of the bill, and he said that was misleading. He said “The Sentencing Council Act presents a completely different case from that of the Acts not in force. That Act has been in force as part of the law of New Zealand since 2007. For the past eight years the Executive has suspended its operation,” which he described as “an apparent breach of s1 of the Bill of Rights [Act]”. He quoted Fitzgerald v Muldoon, another case that many members in this House will be familiar with. He said: “That refusal to give effect to a statute in force appears to me to be a serious constitutional matter.”

Having started with a bill of which all of us thought “Well, this has probably not got a lot of contention. These bills are not being used. They are surplus to the requirement of the New Zealand public and, certainly, the New Zealand Parliament. They could be repealed.”, we had a man—I would listen to the Hon Chris Finlayson’s opinion, of course—somebody, I would have thought, who is regarded as having one of the highest legal minds and the sharpest legal minds in the country, saying that this part of this bill was a serious constitutional matter and may be a breach of the Bill of Rights 1688.

He went on to say: “I do see the value of repealing those Acts which have not been brought into force. But, again to repeat, the Sentencing Council Act presents a sharply different case and not just for the constitutional issue I raised above. The Act is in force. Its proposed repeal presents the following question of policy: How is the balance to be struck between promoting greater consistency and predictability in the justice system … through the application of that legislation, on the one side, and, on the other, the decisions made by the judges within the sentencing powers conferred on them, sometimes helped by guideline judgments given by appeal courts?”.

So it was actually quite a frustrating situation for us. I think the Government members of the select committee were persuaded, actually, by Sir Kenneth Keith but, for whatever reason, they decided to just toe the party line. I think this is the sort of legislation where they could have actually stood up and said no. We—Labour—could have supported the entire remainder of this legislation, because although it did not actually achieve anything, it certainly did not do any harm. But the medicines legislation, with the Government’s change in policy with the therapeutic products regime, and the sentencing council, caused us a lot of concern. Those issues need to be addressed by the Minister. I know that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, is not the Minister whose name is on the bill but he has got a good mind. Actually, I have noticed—and I do not want to do him any harm by praising him—that he takes serious issues seriously when they are raised in the Committee stage of the bill. So I would like him to consider the submission of Sir Kenneth Keith and, also, the inappropriateness of having the medicines legislation altered in such a way. This is not the appropriate vehicle to use for a deliberate change in Government policy or for the Government deciding not to implement a provision that is in the law and is in force.

I guess none of us thought when we started this process that it would be contentious, that it might be a matter of debate, let alone a matter of such grave concern raised by somebody like Sir Kenneth Keith. I hope the Minister has got the confidence to consider these issues and respond to them.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I thank my colleague Ruth Dyson for putting that issue so clearly. I was sitting on the Government Administration Committee when Sir Kenneth Keith came before it, and I think it is worthy to note that you would have few jurists more competent than Sir Kenneth Keith to tell a select committee what is wrong.

As Ruth Dyson has said, he is a former Court of Appeal judge, then a Supreme Court judge, and then was at the International Court of Justice. He is an esteemed legal academic in addition to all of those matters, and someone who now, as a retired jurist, felt that this was important enough that he would make his first submission to a select committee since his retirement as a judge. He now has the freedom to make submissions, in a private capacity, that he would not have been able to make particularly when he was on the bench of a New Zealand court, and probably even when he was at the International Court of Justice.

He came to the select committee and made this point of principle: that a statutes repeal bill—which is an omnibus bill, the purpose of which is to repeal redundant or superfluous Acts because they are spent, in that they are no longer relevant and no longer have any practical effect—is different from repealing an Act, which, whilst not being adhered to by the Government, remains in force.

At the select committee and in the report that came back from the select committee, the issue was not even addressed by the majority. Well, that is not quite fair—the New Zealand Labour Party and the Green Party are recorded in the commentary back from the select committee as questioning whether this was appropriate. But the rest of the select committee just noted that it had had a submission, and then did not express an opinion upon it. I am somewhat surprised that the committee did not say: “Oh no, we disagree with Sir Kenneth Keith. We don’t think it is a matter of different principle.” Rather, the only thing that we get from the select committee is: “We were told that repealing the Act is within the scope of the bill as introduced.”

Well, that is obviously the view of the clerk of the committee—that repealing the Sentencing Council Act is within the scope of the bill—but that does not make it right. I think Sir Kenneth Keith is correct—that if the Government wants to repeal the Sentencing Council Act because it does not want to implement it, then it should repeal it through a piece of legislation to repeal the Sentencing Council Act, rather than tacking it on to the Statutes Repeal Bill.

If the logic of the Government is correct, that there is no difference between this and any other repeal, I do not see a difference in principle between repealing an Act that remains valid on its face but for reasons of administrative neglect is not being implemented—I do not see any difference in principle between repealing that through a bill like this Statues Repeal Bill and a bill that is currently being implemented, because whether an Act is or is not being complied with is not the point. Acts that exist on the statute book that should be complied with but are not—it should not be any easier to repeal them than an Act that is being complied with. They are both laws of this Parliament. The Sentencing Council Act is not redundant just because the Government is refusing to implement it.

The Government, back in 2008, campaigned on the basis that it was not going to proceed with the Sentencing Council Act, and since then the Government would have been quite entitled to come to this House with legislation to seek to repeal the Sentencing Council Act. But it has not done that. Rather, it ignored the provisions of the Sentencing Council Act and did not apply them in the way that Parliament said should happen. For it to, through this instrument—the Statutes Repeal Bill—remedy its problem by adding it to a long list of these Acts that truly are redundant seems, in the opinion of Opposition members, to be wrong.

For that reason, there is an amendment in my name that excises from the list of those statutes that are being repealed, found in schedule 1—from page 7, just after line 10—the words “Sentencing Council Act 2007 (2007 No 25)”. I will hope that National Party members will join with members of the Labour Party and, I hope, other Opposition parties in backing an amendment to the Statutes Repeal Bill, as reported back by the Government Administration Committee, that is excising from the list of statutes to be repealed the Sentencing Council Act 2007.

I do not think I can put it more clearly than that. There is no point me repeating that again. I think the logic of Sir Kenneth Keith—unsurprisingly, given his stature and the fact that he does not make these submissions lightly and had to go to the trouble of preparing a submission and presenting it at select committee, I do not think there is much doubt that he is right. I am convinced. I was convinced on the day. I think that that Act should be taken out of the Statutes Repeal Bill, and if the Government wants to repeal it some other way, well, it has got the ability to do so.

I do think it is quite a good idea to get rid of some of these old statutes off the book. I do not think it saves much in terms of compliance costs, because they are truly redundant. All you are doing is saving the cost of reprinting them in the future, next time you reprint the New Zealand Statutes. That is a very small amount of money, given that most of these things are published electronically anyway these days, but none the less it is not a silly thing to do to clean up those old finance Acts that are listed there over more than two pages—two and a half pages of amendments to the Finance Act through other finance Acts that have long since been overtaken by events.

So I am happy to support this bill. I do not think it has an effect on the compliance costs of businesses operating in New Zealand in any material way. It does slightly decrease the costs of people who buy statutes, I suppose. Indeed, people who try to find the current position at law might find that they do not have to check whether there are some unexpired provisions of these other Acts—not that I think they would check that in practice, because they know them to be so old as to be redundant. But the point in respect of the sentencing council is correct, and I would commend that amendment to the Committee.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I rise to speak about the Statutes Repeal Bill, having been a member of the committee considering it, the Government Administration Committee. I would like to pay tribute to the chair of the committee for handling a difficult discussion very well. It was an issue that previous speakers have noted was a difficult discussion, particularly centred on the potential repeal of the Sentencing Council Act 2007.

Just to remind the Committee, this Sentencing Council Act 2007 actually came into force on 1 November 2007. It was not an Act that was never brought into force. It actually was brought into force, and then, as previous speakers have said, the Government decided that it did not want to act on an Act that was in force. Like other speakers, I was pretty much persuaded by strong evidence from Sir Kenneth Keith to say that not only is this Statutes Repeal Bill the wrong place to repeal this Act but, actually, the Government was wrong in not taking action earlier to do something about an Act that it just chose not to act on when the legislation was already in force. So we are very concerned about that Act.

With regard to the rest of the Statutes Repeal Bill, we think probably—marginally—getting rid of old statutes is not a bad thing to do, although we would pass a comment to say that the Government obviously has too much time on its hands and not enough important things to do, to be spending important legislative time on a job that has very dubious benefits. As a committee, we are struggling to actually understand the justification for the time and effort that has gone into this bill, including a significant amount of the time of officials.

But we would like to register our concern over that particular item of the Sentencing Council Act. We would say that we would like to ensure that this statutes repeal process is not used in future in order to conveniently get rid of legislation that the Government does not really want to take action on. This is not the right process, and the Sentencing Council Act should not have been dealt with in this way, and we certainly would appreciate a response from the Minister in the chair to these concerns.

We raised these concerns repeatedly in the committee. As a new member on that committee, I must say I found it rather strange that the committee members did not offer an adequate explanation from the Government side as to why the Sentencing Council Act was included in this statutes repeal bill process rather than being the subject of a stand-alone and separate process, if it was legislation that it did not intend to implement. Therefore, it would be good to hear a response to that issue from the Minister, because, frankly, it left members of the committee from the Green Party’s side—and, I suspect, others—a little bit confused as to why this route was chosen for the Sentencing Council Act.

Further, I would note that there is Supplementary Order Paper 319, which is included here on behalf of my colleague David Clendon. It deals very much with the issues that have previously been raised in this debate and those specifically raised by David Parker, the last speaker. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very happy to take a call on the Statutes Repeal Bill, as, I think, one of the few members of the Committee who actually finds this stuff interesting. I think that there are only a few of us who really do find this interesting.

I was fascinated by the submission by Sir Kenneth Keith. Up until just recently I had not had the chance to have a look at it, but there are a few points that he raises that I think are definitely worth us considering. One is at what point a law becomes worthy of repeal. In paragraph 5 of his submission, he points out that there are still 200-plus private Acts, many of which had an immediate effect—for example, in providing for an acquittal, completing an adoption, removing barriers to marriage, and validating appointments—and then he also points out that there are many other dissolution Acts, repeal statutes, abolition Acts, and many 19th century special powers and contracts Acts. The question that he is raising is what is the mischief—what is the necessity in repealing all of this legislation when, effectively, it no longer has any effect anyway?

He also raises a further, interesting question, I think, which is: what of the repeal provisions of more substantive Acts? When, for example, a new education Act is passed and it includes provisions that repeal a whole lot of the existing legislation, should those repeal provisions then subsequently be repealed as well? It is an interesting point. At what point do we determine that a law is sufficiently repealed that we no longer need to worry about it?

I note that in this bill we are repealing a previous statutes repeal bill. At what point do we simply say: “OK, we’ve repealed that. Now we can forget about it.”? Or are we going to be coming back in another hundred years? One of the statutes repeal bills that we are repealing today is over a hundred years old. In a hundred years’ time will members be back in the House repealing the repeal bill that we are now passing today, or will they simply say: “Actually, that’s been adequately dealt with now and discharged.”?

I was also interested in some other issues. I was involved, as my colleague David Parker was, in the Government Administration Committee back in 2009 and 2010, when the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act was passed. In that Act, rather unusually, it provided the Government of the day with the ability, by Order in Council, to repeal the Act, because it was only ever intended to be a temporary Act for the purposes of the Rugby World Cup, and that has now happened. The Government issued that Order in Council in 2014, so the Act was expired. So why are we needing to repeal it when the Act, when it was passed, had a repeal provision in it that allowed the Government to repeal it by an Order in Council? It has been repealed through an Order in Council, so why are we even needing to do this? At what point does a repeal actually become final? Otherwise, the statute book will continue to grow with more and more repeal Acts.

I note in particular a very interesting comment, again, from Sir Kenneth, that the statutes amendment Acts of 1943 and 1944 all amended other statutes, some of which themselves had already been repealed. They have no separate existence in their own right, because they were statutes amendment Acts. They were not new Acts in their own right; they were only ever repealing other existing legislation. So why the need to even repeal them? I am not sure about that.

He makes a point about the Michael Connelly Appointment Validation Act of 1936. I am not entirely sure what the body was that Michael Connelly was being appointed to, but it was abolished 14 years later. So we have an appointment validation Act for a person who, presumably, no longer exists, and a body that, presumably, no longer exists. It seems to me that one of the fundamental issues that we should be grappling with is how to create a system where we do not have to have these repeal bills to repeal legislation that, effectively, no longer has any purpose and that in itself has, in effect, been repealed. Otherwise, we are going to keep going in a cycle where nothing will ever be finally repealed because each subsequent repeal will need another repeal. It seems to me that that is somewhat absurd.

It is quite an interesting exercise to read through the various explanatory notes of this legislation. It all does seem relatively sensible to repeal these pieces of legislation. But I cannot help but wonder whether the second point in Sir Kenneth’s submission is not the most pertinent one: is there a better way of doing this than through a statutes repeal bill?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): The previous speaker, Chris Hipkins, makes an interesting point, because if Sir Kenneth Keith is right that these things are already dead anyway, you really can never get to deader than dead. The principle that is being embarked upon through this legislation—as a repeal bill that then needs to be repealed itself because it sits on the statute book, and then needs another repeal bill to repeal the repeal bill that repealed the already redundant legislation—is a bit of a nonsense at that level. Having said that, I do not mind cleaning up some of this old stuff and getting rid of it.

I do want to return to this point of the Sentencing Council Act, because we still have not had a response from the Minister in the chair, and I am hoping that we are going to get one. I want to explain why it is wrong that through this excising of redundant legislation we get rid of the Sentencing Council Act, and I want to explain the policy reasons that lie behind the Sentencing Council Act, which just should not be repealed through this statute repeal legislation. There is no analysis in the original bill’s explanatory note, there has been no evidence given by the ministries as to why the underlying purpose of the Sentencing Council Act is no longer relevant; they are just trying to get rid of it through this administratively convenient mechanism.

In New Zealand, we know that we have high rates of incarceration of Māori. It is a shame upon our country that more than 50 percent of all prison inmates are of Māori ethnicity. We also know that there are assertions, which many believe to be correct, that Māori offenders suffer higher sentences than non-Māori offenders for the same crimes. The sentencing council was meant to be preparing sentencing guidelines that, I think, would have made it more likely that sentences would be equivalent for equivalent crimes. There would have been more guidelines, because section 9 of that Act—not clause 9 of a bill that is in consideration, not some legislation that may or may not sometime come into effect, but section 9 of this legislation that is currently on our statute book—says that one of the functions of the council is: “(a) to produce guidelines that are consistent with the Sentencing Act 2002 relating to—(i) sentencing principles: (ii) sentencing levels: (iii) particular types of sentences: (iv) other matters relating to sentencing practice:”.

What might the sentencing council have done? It might have actually produced some guidelines that said that, because of this evidence that Māori are, overall, likely to receive longer sentences for the same crime compared with someone like me, judges in the future need to take particular care when sentencing Māori to make sure that they are not sentencing Māori offenders more harshly than other offenders.

That, I think, would have been a good thing to do, because I think it is accepted by most that people who are in a less powerful position in society—who are, in New Zealand, disproportionately Māori, because Māori are disproportionately represented in lower socio-economic groups—are less likely to have the quality of legal representation, particularly as legal aid is eroded, and also, just because of their financial situation and their lack of power in society, they are likely to be, on average, penalised more harshly.

For us, for this repeal legislation to repeal the Sentencing Council Act 2007 without having that discussion about whether this underlying problem that we have got with high rates of incarceration of offenders of Māori ethnicity—[Bell rung]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Referring to the Clerk, this is actually clause 3, under Schedule 1. I have given you the latitude to talk about it, but it actually comes up later on, under clause 3. I am happy for you to continue, but when you come to clause 3, then we will be stopping it at that stage—so I call the Hon David Parker.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I thank you, Mr Chair. I will address it again under clause 3. Thank you for that.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to take a call on clause 1 of the Statutes Repeal Bill, and can I commend the Government Administration Committee for its work in examining this bill. There are 132 to 137, give or take, pieces of legislation, or parts thereof, that are to be repealed. I know we are dealing with the title, but I will just canvass some general comments on the bill. Whilst I am not a member of this committee, I do support, in principle, the fact that we do have a lot of redundant pieces of legislation on our many voluminous copies of statute books that are on the bookshelves within Parliament. This bill goes a long way to, I guess, cleaning up a lot of those redundant pieces of legislation.

The subject matter of the legislation in this bill is quite broad. It deals with things like fishing vessels and loans, the Y2K computer bug, and various finance Acts, so it is quite ad hoc in terms of the Acts that have been identified for repeal under this bill. I would just like to know how comprehensive is the list of Acts contained within this bill, because there may be hundreds more that need to be repealed. I note that there is nothing in the bill that includes any Māori legislation, and I know that there has been quite a lot of Māori legislation over the past 175 years. Surely some of that archaic or redundant legislation could have been included within this bill.

I am just curious as to how comprehensive it is, or has it just been cherry-picked? I think it is quite lazy on the part of the Government, if it is going to be doing a statutes repeal bill, to not just take selected pieces of legislation. If it is going to do the job properly, it should do a complete sweep of all the legislation that is currently in force and really do a comprehensive vetting or culling of certain pieces of legislation. I am just not convinced that even though there are 130-odd pieces of legislation in this bill, that is comprehensive or that there is any clear policy around it. That has been touched on by my colleague Chris Hipkins, because I am sure that many legal academics will be studying Sir Kenneth Keith’s submission. We could get into a whole lot of mental gymnastics around when a bill is repealed and when the repealing of that repeal bill is repealed and when a bill is actually ultimately repealed.

As a case in point, I was just scanning my eyes through this bill, and if we look at the Fisheries Act, there is a repeal of—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I just interrupt the member. I made a ruling earlier on, for the Hon David Parker, that those are things that come up later because they are in schedule 1—that is clause 3, schedule 1. We are actually only on the title. That is what we should be referring to.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Thank you. I will pick up on those points when we get to those clauses. Just concentrating on the title, this is about the repeal of statutes, and, as I mentioned earlier, the scope of the bill is bit unclear, because there are a whole lot of ad hoc pieces of legislation, but we do not know how comprehensive that is or how comprehensive the exercise has been. I do want to—and I am sure we will pick it up later—go into those finely tuned legal issues around when a bill is actually repealed, and also go into discussions later on around the sentencing council.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister for Regulatory Reform): I just want to take a quick call on this, just to make the point that statutes repeal exercises have been very widely used in many countries overseas, although the practice has not been used frequently in New Zealand. The UK Parliament has passed 19 statutes repeal bills since 1965, and, in total, it has repealed more than 3,000 public Acts. And in Australia, the Federal Parliament of Australia has a regular repeal day that redundant legislation is caught through, and that practice has evolved, because there is good sense in keeping the statute book up to date and tidy and to declutter and to move things out of the way. There has not been one in New Zealand—we did one in 2012, but prior to that there has not been one since 1907, so this is very timely in the New Zealand context. The Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Act 2012 repealed 31 Acts, some going back to the 19th century, and this one will carry on that tradition. I might mention that a quite a lot of reference has been made to the Sentencing Council Act—or is that in the next part?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is in clause 3.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes. So that is all I needed to say. Thank you.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 Commencement

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to take only a very brief call on the commencement clause, because, of course, there is a relatively limited amount that one can say on the commencement clause, which, basically, means that this law—this new Act—will come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. The question, really, is what the legal effect of that is, considering the comments that I made earlier. Many of these repeals have already been repealed, so what is the legal effect of repealing them again? Once this new repeal comes into effect, how is the world going to change if the things that it is repealing have already been repealed? So the Royal assent in this case does not actually make a heck of a lot of difference, given that this particular bill gives effect to decisions that have already been made. So I think that it is an interesting legal question.

The other question would be: if something has already been repealed, and then this Act repeals the repeal, does the original repeal come undone, therefore making the mischief that was repealed in the first place once again operable? I guess that is a question for a legal scholar, like—maybe the Minister in the chair, Paul Goldsmith, would like to argue that; but I am pretty sure it will not. I would love to hear from one of the greater legal minds in the House than me as to whether that is the case, because it seems to me that would create all sorts of issues.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 Repeals

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now move to clause 3. This is debate on clause 3 and schedule 1.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very happy to take a call on an amendment that I have put forward—Supplementary Order Paper 315; I am told that now is the appropriate time to debate that, so I certainly intend to take that opportunity—that removes blasphemy from our statute book. It is an amendment that is well overdue, and it is one that I was very interested in researching to make this contribution today. It was drawn to the attention of the then Minister the Hon Amy Adams, the Minister of Justice, back in 2015. Her response at the time was that whilst she agreed that blasphemy should be repealed from New Zealand’s statute book, she had “higher priorities”.

One can only assume from the fact that we are debating this bill that amongst her higher priorities were a repeal of the Christchurch-Lyttelton Road Tunnel Authority Dissolution Act, the Church Property Trustees (Canterbury) Indemnity Act, many, many finance Acts from 1930 onwards, the Customs Law Act of 1908, and so forth—all of these, it would appear, are higher priorities, because despite this matter being drawn to the Minister of Justice’s attention back in 2015 there was still no proposal by the Government to remove blasphemy from New Zealand’s statute book. So I welcome this opportunity for us to vote on this today, and to do this in a way that is clean and efficient and does not unnecessarily waste the time of the House.

First of all, for those who might want to raise an objection to the process—I will get into the substance in a moment—and say “Well, that should’ve been included in the bill in the first place.” and “It wouldn’t be good process to add this repeal to a bill after it has gone to select committee.”, I would point out two things: one is that there were only four submissions to the select committee process on this legislation, but the second thing, and perhaps more important, was that as a result of those four submissions, five additional Acts were added to the bill.

So this bill is already amended. It already has five additional Acts added to it that were not in it when it received its first reading and when it was first referred to the Government Administration Committee and submissions were called for. So if we are going to object to an additional provision being added around blasphemy, then are we also going to object to the five additional Acts that were added by the select committee? If that is the Government’s objection to repealing blasphemy as part of this bill, then it must also object to repealing the five additional Acts that were not part of the original legislation. So I just make that point, and I certainly hope that the Government members will be supporting this legislation.

To come to the substance of the issue, of course we should be repealing blasphemy laws in New Zealand. I was absolutely astounded that somebody in New Zealand could be thrown in jail for up to a year for blasphemy. We condemn other countries that use Draconian laws like this to do very Draconian things to people—we condemn them when they do so, and yet we have got a law on our own statute book that allows the Government of New Zealand to do just that. How is it consistent with the moral standing that we purport to hold internationally for us to condemn an action by another country when the New Zealand law allows us to do exactly that same thing? I think it is past high time that this law was taken off our statute book. It violates our commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. New Zealand is a part of that covenant and we should live up to it. It violates our fundamental human right to freedom of expression.

There are things that people might say that might be regarded as blasphemous that some people might find offensive. They are absolutely entitled to tell the other people that—that they are offensive—but the idea that the person who said those things could potentially be thrown in jail for saying them is not consistent with our modern expectations around freedom of speech. In fact, the Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson, said that if the Church cannot defend itself against blasphemy, then, goodness me, it is in some trouble. I think that the churches are perfectly capable of defending themselves against blasphemy, and I do not think they need this law. In fact, they have told us publicly through the media that they do not need this law. Tolerance—and I believe in a tolerant society—cannot be fostered through prohibition. It is well past time for blasphemy to be removed from the New Zealand statute book.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): I will just take a brief call, obviously in support of the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name, SOP 319, which seeks to remove the sentencing council legislation from this repeal bill. Some good points have been made by Labour colleagues. I will not reiterate those. I will pick up a little where Mr Parker left off. I will just remind people of something of the history of the Sentencing Council Act. It derived from a Law Commission report that highlighted the importance—the necessity, in fact; it used that word, that a council of that sort was actually a necessity in New Zealand. That is quite strong language coming from a Law Commission report.

The bill was then enacted, became an Act, obviously, and has sat on our statute book ever since, without actually having been put into action to be implemented. I think that is most unfortunate. The council’s purpose, primarily, is to ensure consistency in sentencing. What it does not do in any way is impose the parliamentary will, if you like, on the judiciary. It does not seek to have Parliament take over the role of the judiciary or unreasonably influence it; far from it, in fact. It simply creates a forum where the judiciary can look at its own sentencing practice and establish some rules of engagement, if you like—some level of equity, some level of consistency.

Clearly at the time it was a Labour Party bill—the Labour Government, then, as it was. It was supported by the Greens. It was also supported by the Māori Party, and I would hope that the Māori Party will support this SOP. Mr Sharples—Sir Pita Sharples, as he now is, and at the time this bill went through, the co-leader of the Māori Party—spoke very strongly in support of the sentencing council. The legislation that established the sentencing council went through with a raft of other justice bills, some of them quite substantive. Sir Pita Sharples made the point at the time—I think I quote him accurately—that this was the key measure of change in the justice system. Of all the points of all the changes that were being made back in 2006 and 2007, Sir Pita identified the establishment of a sentencing council as the single most important measure contained in all of those bills, for the very reason that Mr Parker began to discuss: the fact that we have got institutional bias in our justice system.

That is something I am sure we all regret. It has been acknowledged, at least by the Police and other parts of the justice system, and the sentencing council was a practical, pragmatic, positive measure towards ironing that out, to ensuring that judgments made are consistent, irrespective of other factors, not least of all ethnicity—so that if a Māori person in the Bay of Plenty offends in some way, he or she will be sentenced in the same way that a Pākehā person in Northland or the South Island would be. Not identically—no two cases are identical—but to get the level of consistency and consistent practice that is sadly missing, and it is obviously missing, currently. There is no guideline. There is no forum for judges, for the judiciary to debate this stuff.

I was in the UK last year and took the opportunity to speak with the head of the office of the UK sentencing council. Frankly, initially they were surprised that we do not have such an agency in New Zealand. There were some differences between the UK model and the model adopted here in this legislation, the Sentencing Council Act. In fact, the UK model is probably more authoritative—I was going to say authoritarian; that is wrong. The sentencing council in the UK probably, by my judgment, has more power to direct the judiciary than the model selected in our own domestic legislation.

At the time, again, that the legislation was passed, the National Party did oppose the legislation, but the Hon Chris Finlayson, in his third reading speech at that time, made the point that the National Party had come from a point of complete opposition to the whole notion to a point where it thought that actually, in principle, a sentencing council was probably a good idea. Mr Finlayson’s objection was that it was the wrong model. He claimed that the model as reflected in the legislation was unconstitutional. He used the word “odious”. But he also conceded at the time that there could be a model that would be acceptable to the National Party.

So the challenge I put to the Government is to support this SOP: to not repeal the Sentencing Council Act, but simply to bring an amendment to the Committee. Consult with the very wise and able Mr Finlayson—I am sure he would come up with something that would be acceptable, and, arguably, acceptable to all parties. Amend the legislation, by all means, but it would be a serious error, I believe, to repeal it at this stage. It has also been argued that in fact the repeal itself would be unconstitutional—or, rather, the failure to implement this legislation is itself unconstitutional. So I will leave that there. I certainly would seek Government support—all parties’ support—for this SOP.

I will just speak briefly to Mr Hipkins’ SOP 315 on the matter of section 123 of the Crimes Act, simply to say the Greens wholeheartedly support that. When it was first pointed out to me a few weeks ago that we had such a provision in our statutes, I found it quite extraordinary. It bordered on the medieval, the notion that we should have anti-blasphemy legislation. New Zealand is a more secular country than it has been in previous times, not overlooking the fact that many people do have a faith and practise religion. More power to them. I think anybody who consistently or publicly or loudly condemned or attacked any particular religion, any person practising a religion, any church, or any faith would very quickly find themselves at odds with the court of public opinion. I think they would be taken to task, even by people who may not practise a particular belief system.

But I think Mr Hipkins acknowledged that we are a fairly tolerant society, I think, and long may that continue. So I do not think it is at all necessary to maintain this very strange and sadly out-of-date notion of illegality of blasphemy. I think we can safely agree that this SOP would do no harm. It would take off a very peculiar provision in our law, and I think our statutes would be better for it. Thank you.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution in the Statutes Repeal Bill debate. Firstly, I just want to begin by responding to a couple of things that members have said during this debate. Firstly, to the member Rino Tirikatene, I think this bill is actually a very well-researched—it is a very recherché—piece of legislation. Our advisers have carefully, methodically, and fastidiously fumbled through the musty, dusty statute book to find those pieces of legislation that either in their entirety have no continuing relevance or partially need to be repealed to tidy up the statute book. So I want to thank and congratulate our advisers, who have so ably assisted us.

The Government Administration Committee, as has been pointed out, did actually come across four additional pieces of legislation that we wanted to repeal in their entirety and another that we decided should be partially repealed, and they were the Education Law Amendment Act 1933, the Infants Act Repeal Act 1989, the Taxation Acts Repeal Act 1986, the Wellington City Reserves Act 1872, and section 4 of the Wellington City Reserves Act 1871. I do want to assure the member Mr Tirikatene that we were an assiduous select committee and we did go through looking for any other examples of obsolete and unnecessary legislation that can be safely repealed without unintended consequences.

But I think the difference between those very obscure, very prosaic, and very obsolete pieces of legislation—we are talking about bills that go back to 1781—and the legislation that is incorporated in Mr Hipkins’ Supplementary Order Paper to the Statutes Repeal Bill is that they had long since failed to have any continuing legal effect. I think the difference between that and section 123 of the Crimes Act is that it still remains part of our criminal code. For one, I am completely opposed to the idea that any form of crime of thought, or of speech, or of conscience should remain part of our criminal code on an ongoing basis, and I believe I spoke in my maiden speech in that regard. It is archaic that a country like New Zealand should prohibit speech of any sort in the way we do in section 123 of the Crimes Act, with a threat of imprisonment for those who commit blasphemy.

I have lived in countries where blasphemy, apostasy, heresy—whatever you want to call it—is treated with severe force in the criminal justice system. New Zealand, thankfully, is not one of those countries. Whilst it has been on the record book—well, it is in the Crimes Act 1961, but it has been on our statute book, incorporated from English law; and, actually, England has long since dropped it—there have been no successful prosecutions for blasphemy in New Zealand. The last attempted prosecution was nearly 100 years ago—the Maoriland Worker newspaper case, in which the Government of the day, William Massey’s Government, having failed to get a sedition prosecution for a pacifist article in the newspaper, attempted to use blasphemy. Even back in the early 20th century, the jury failed to convict in that particular instance.

There were subsequent attempts to seek blasphemy prosecutions in New Zealand, most recently for a 2005 episode of the TV show South Park, which was in bad taste, I will concede, and also a late 1990s art exhibition at Te Papa Museum, which depicted the Virgin Mary in a condom—again, it was in bad taste and it was not art of the sort that I enjoy. But in both cases the Government of the day—because the Attorney-General’s permission is required before blasphemy charges are able to be brought—decided there was no case to answer. I think this is something that should be dealt with in a way that is in line with the process that this House operates under, and I am very glad to understand that the Government will, in due course, be having a comprehensive look at tidying up the Crimes Act 1961. It is over 50 years old; it is in need of a bit of housekeeping in the same way that our wider statute book is getting housekeeping in this Statutes Repeal Bill.

In the same way that we are getting a wider set of housekeeping done, the Crimes Act will get a proper look, and I would point out that whilst we did not get a huge number or a deluge of specific submissions, because the vast majority of what we dealt with in the schedules of this bill are uncontroversial matters, I suspect that should the blasphemy provisions of the Crimes Act have been one of those that we went out to seek consultation on, there would have been a far greater degree of public interest and, therefore, a far wider variety and a greater number of submissions provided.

So I think, at this point in time, it does make sense for us to park this issue—as we have seen, there is no immediacy or urgency required, given there have been no prosecutions for blasphemy in the history of our country, thankfully. Actually, it does raise a very interesting question. When I was looking at this issue, I found that a number of countries have simply legislated to drop blasphemy from their statute books, and that is what happened in the United Kingdom. In Scotland, however, it is argued that due to a combination of human rights legislation coming into place and lack of use—the fact that the last prosecution for blasphemy in Scotland was in 1824—sufficient time has elapsed that the law has, effectively, become obsolete from lack of use.

I think you could argue that our blasphemy law could almost be in that category, having never been successfully used to secure a prosecution and not actually used at all for 100 years now. So on the blasphemy issue, I think that there should be a comprehensive and a structured approach, and due process should be followed, and we should get robust cross-party agreement on all of these issues, I am sure, when it comes to pass. But this is a statutes repeal bill, and it is important, I think, that we do have a good degree of consensus within this House when we are looking to remove bills, particularly if there have not been public submissions on those matters.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): It is a pleasure to stand up and speak to the Statutes Repeal Bill. As I read through my papers in preparation for this debate, I was reminded of the great year of 1999. As Frank Sinatra sang, it was a very good year, for some very good reasons. The reason I was reminded of it was that it was my second year at law school and the year that I took public law. Probably, as a number of other members of this House might know, about the first case that you learn when you study public law is Fitzgerald v Muldoon, because it goes right to the heart of what our public law is about; it is such an important and seminal case.

Of course, that case is raised in the submission of Kenneth Keith, one of our most eminent jurors, which has been referred to by a number of other speakers, albeit perhaps not at the correct point of the debate. What I just wanted to develop off the points made in Mr Keith’s submission is that this is actually very, very fundamental. This actually goes right back to the 1688 Bill of Rights. We are not just talking about a bit of statute passed by this House; we are talking about something that comes down to us from the Mother of Parliaments, from that period in the 17th century when the modern parliamentary system, that all current Westminster Parliaments have evolved from, was being developed.

That Bill of Rights Act says this, in section 1: “That the pretended power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of Parliament, is illegal:”. The reason I think it is useful to quote that is that often we think of executive abuse of power or executive overreach as doing something positive, something affirmative: going to war without parliamentary authorisation, extracting tax from the public without parliamentary authorisation, those kinds of things. But what the Bill of Rights makes very clear is that, actually, Parliament, the executive, not doing things that it should is also not correct. That is the point that Kenneth Keith makes. It is a point that Fitzgerald v Muldoon makes, because in the case of Fitzgerald v Muldoon it was the Prime Minister of the day, Robert Muldoon, not doing something that had been put in place by this House.

That is exactly the case here. That is what Mr Keith says, because the Sentencing Council Act was passed by this House in 2007. It went through full parliamentary scrutiny, members of the public made submissions, speeches were made in this House. It went through three readings. It was put on to the statute book, and there it has sat for 9 years, but it has not been enacted. We can say, well, OK, it is not something that has done terrible damage to someone, but the point is that that bill was enacted with a purpose. As my colleague David Parker started commenting on before, and as David Clendon spoke about before, that purpose was quite significant; it was about establishing the principle that we should have equality of sentencing across all people in our community and our criminal justice system.

Now, people may agree or disagree with that and, obviously, the incoming Government in 2008 disagreed with that; fair cop—that is why we have debates. That is why we put legislation to this Parliament and we hear both sides of it. But that legislation has sat on the books for 9 years and it has not been implemented. Mr Keith is very clear about this. He says: “That refusal to give effect to a statute in force”—this is in paragraph 10 of his submission to the committee—“appears to me to be a serious constitutional matter.” It just seems to me that the Government is sweeping that under the rug.

I would actually like the Minister in the chair, Maggie Barry, to answer some questions about this. Is the Government actually going to take up this point—which has been raised by Sir Kenneth Keith, OK? We are not talking just about a garden-variety submission; we are talking about something from Sir Kenneth Keith. A question that springs to mind for me is: is there some legal risk in this? Sir Kenneth Keith has said that this is a piece of legislation that should have been enacted. Well, if I am someone who has been convicted and sentenced during that period and the Government has not enacted something on the books that it should have, have I got some case to come back to that? I do not know the answer to that, but I think, given the points raised by Sir Kenneth Keith in his submission, we should hear from the Government about that.

So I support that Supplementary Order Paper 319, which we will no doubt hear more about from David Parker, to remove the repeal of the Sentencing Council Act from this legislation. I would urge all members of this Committee who care about due parliamentary process to give serious consideration to that when we move on to the debate later on. Thank you.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I would like to thank the member Paul Foster-Bell for taking a call and contributing to the debate, although I would suggest that his 5-minute contribution illustrated the point. The point of a statutes repeal bill is to remove laws that are not being used. His argument that this law around blasphemy has not been used and therefore should not be included as part of the bill because it is unnecessary negates the purpose of the whole bill that we are debating in the House. In fact, the same argument could be made for all of the repeals that are being done as part of this legislation—that they are not being used so why not just leave them where they are? That is the whole point of a repeal bill. It is to remove laws that are no longer required. If a law against blasphemy is no longer required, and I would put forward very strongly that it is no longer required, then it should be removed as part of this process, because that is the whole point of the process. But I do at least want to acknowledge the contribution that Mr Foster-Bell made.

I am disappointed that the leader of the ACT Party, David Seymour, has not made a similar contribution to this debate. Having puffed out his chest and said that he was going to be the great hero to remove blasphemy, it is interesting that when it comes down to the hard work of actually debating it and the cameras are not on him because it is not 2 o’clock and it is not question time, suddenly he does not seem to have any contribution to make to the debate. So good on Mr Foster-Bell for at least making it to the debate.

I want to reiterate why this is important, and the fact that the churches themselves are arguing that this law is no longer required. Catholic Bishop Steve Lowe of the Hamilton diocese said, and I think this is very important: “It is when we grapple with the great questions of spirituality and life, with mutual respect for the opinions and beliefs of others, that we grow as a healthy community.” It is a fantastic sentiment. I absolute embrace that and I absolutely agree with it. The idea that we have a law that says that one person’s views are superior to another’s, and that one person’s views could land them up in jail in order to protect the feelings of someone else—that is not right. It is something that we should act on, and simply saying that this law is not being used, and therefore there is no rush, is ridiculous. We are dealing with dozens of Acts that are no longer relevant or that have not been used, and we are giving them the priority of Parliament’s time today, and yet the Government is not willing to give the repeal of blasphemy sufficient priority in order to pass the repeal legislation.

In fact, it is not even a question of that, because it is getting priority—because I have tabled it. It is being debated anyway. The Government has created some bizarre justification for not supporting the repeal of the law of blasphemy, which just does not make any sense at all. It actually negates the purpose of a statutes repeal bill. Saying that the law is still in operation but not being used and therefore should not be repealed is simply bizarre, and it is simply weak.

In fact, I go back to Bill English’s own comments, where he said “We could get rid of them. Laws that overreach on addressing robust speech are not a good idea.”, and yet his Government, including Mr English himself, is now, according to his colleagues, going to vote against the repeal of blasphemy. It is another example from him of a complete failure of leadership, because he is saying one thing, and when it comes to voting in the House he is doing another thing. He is not showing leadership on the issue. It would not actually take much. This is something that I could imagine a John Key—like Prime Minister would simply shrug off and go “Oh well, it seems probably about time that they got rid of it. We’ll vote for that.”, because it actually makes sense to do so. There is no great constitutional crisis in the process that is being adopted here; it is actually what this process is designed to achieve—the removal of laws that are no longer relevant and that are no longer needed, and blasphemy is well and truly in that category.

I want to finally end—because this is rather humorous, and it is always good to end on a humorous note—with the comments of the Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson. I have managed to find them now. He said: “People have often asked me what I thought of the Life of Brian. Was it blasphemous? Well it probably was but it was funny.” And I think we should embrace that particular spirit. He goes on to say, in typical Chris Finlayson style: “Well, frankly, if a 2,000-year-old religion can’t stand up to someone like Stephen Fry, they may as well shut their doors.” I think the churches around the country embrace that sentiment too. They are saying they do not want this law. They are saying it is archaic. They are saying it is time for it to go. I challenge members on the National Government benches to vote with their conscience and remove this law.

BARBARA KURIGER (Junior Whip—National): I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, I am going to hear from Rino Tirikatene.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on clause 3. We are dealing with the substantive repeals in schedule 1. I want to focus on the Sentencing Council Act. I agree that, you know, there are many historical or redundant pieces of legislation here that, quite literally, we can do away with. But the Sentencing Council Act is sort of tucked in, and I believe the Government surreptitiously snuck it in there, just to see whether it could get it quickly repealed. I think that is wrong, because that is a really important piece of legislation.

As addressed by my colleague the Hon David Parker earlier, we need to really look at the high incarceration rates of Māori. A lot of that stems from, obviously, the sentencing from our judges in the judicial system. If we just look at the numbers, they are appalling. New Zealand is renowned as having a high incarceration rate among OECD countries. When we look at it, we have got a population of 4.6 million, we have got a prison muster of 9,400, and 50 percent of that prison muster is Māori. So we have to really look at this, because Māori make up 15 percent of the population. This has been happening for generation upon generation. I would have thought that the sentencing council would have been an ideal mechanism to provide the judiciary not just with out-and-out directions—no—but to provide guidelines and principles for those judges to apply, because we are talking about a lot of regional variation. We are talking about from Te Tai Tokerau, up in the Far North, right down to the Bluff. There are a lot of different judges, a lot of different jurisdictions, and a lot of variation in sentencing. Who bears the brunt of that sentencing? The numbers speak for themselves—50 percent of our prison population is Māori, and yet Māori make up 15 percent of our total population.

If the Māori prison population were to reduce to the average rate, our prison population would halve. That is all we would want as a society: to see that prison rate come down so we could see a reduction. We would not be needing to build $1 billion prisons. We would not be needing that. We would be closing prisons. The sentencing council was a critical part in that. For this Government to sneak that piece of legislation—sure, it has not been activated, but it has been passed and it is law. What the Government is really showing is that there is a total lack of policy. You know, there is a screaming-out area where policy and leadership is required to address the high incarceration rates of Māori, and the disproportionality. And what does this Government do? It is more concerned with building more prisons than supporting a sentencing council. And if it does not support the sentencing council, then what is its alternative? What is its policy? It should be, instead of repealing this Act outright, debating this. It should at least be amending the Sentencing Council Act, or at least having the debate. I mean, there were four submitters on this bill, when, really, this is a critical piece of legislation, which they are just quietly wanting to wipe off our books.

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

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

RINO TIRIKATENE: To conclude, I would like to just implore the Government to support Mr Clendon’s Supplementary Order Paper 319, which retains the Sentencing Council Act. It would be a very important institution if it were given life to. I would encourage the Government to do something. This is a serious problem, around the high incarceration rates of Māori. We could do with a sentencing council, or, if not, failing that, we could come up with something, because too many Māori families are affected. The numbers speak for themselves; they are appalling. Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I wanted to take part in the debate on two of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that are in front of us. The first one is the blasphemy SOP, SOP 315, if I could put it that way. New Zealand First would support that change. We feel that it is contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. One of the sections in that Act refers to “freedom of thought, conscience, and religion”, and clearly this so-called crime of blasphemy is contrary to that. Similarly, it is contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which contains similar declarations of freedom. It is out of place in 21st century New Zealand, because I think that few people these days would accept a prosecution for blasphemy. In fact, I do not even think it is possible to properly define in this day and age what blasphemy would be, because of the huge cultural diversity we have in the country. So, quite plainly, this is a section in the Crimes Act that is thoroughly out of date, incapable of prosecution, and should be dispensed with forthwith, so we will support the elimination of that.

However, turning to the sentencing council SOP, New Zealand First will oppose that SOP because we think that the Sentencing Council should be removed, not just because it has never been used but because it is probably incapable of ever being used. Having said that, I will say the reasons why. First of all, when I look at that particular Act, I see in section 8 what the purposes are, and the purposes are to produce guidelines about sentencing and parole to promote consistency, and so on, and to enable development of sentencing and parole policy to be based on a broad range of experience and expertise. It is difficult to understand exactly how that would work and what sort of policy would come under that section. So I can understand why it has never been implemented, because it seems to me a particularly difficult piece of legislation to put into place.

When I look at the functions under section 9, it talks about guidelines on sentencing principles, whatever they may be; sentencing levels, which I think actually are for Parliament to decide and not that council; particular types of sentences, which, again, I think is for Parliament to decide and not that council; and so on. It also, in section 9(1)(c), talks about assessing and taking account of the overall costs and benefits of the guidelines. I have no idea why that exercise should be undertaken or why it should be undertaken by that council. Then, in section 19, it says: “Any guideline (not being an inaugural guideline) may be disapplied by resolution of the House of Representatives passed within 15 sitting days …”. So the House can then undo whatever it is that the council decides to do. I think it is a nonsense piece of legislation, I think it is impractical, I think it is inappropriate, and it is certainly not New Zealand First policy, so we will vote against it.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 Amendments to, and revocations of, other enactments

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am somewhat perplexed with regard to this next clause, clause 4, which deals with schedule 2 “Amendments to other Acts”. My question to the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is a relatively simple one. None of these amendments in schedule 2, by my reading of them, repeal any Acts, so why have they been included in a statutes repeal bill? It seems rather odd. If this is a case of updating in the form that we might expect in a statutes amendment bill, then it could have been included in that. But the very narrow purpose of this bill is to repeal unused Acts and unused provisions in Acts.

It seems to me that if we look at—it is page 9 that we are talking about here; the first one is an amendment to insert additional provisions in the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981. The next amendment inserts additional provisions in the Government Roading Powers Act 1989, in particular around the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which was rather fascinating, the definition of what constitutes the Auckland Harbour Bridge. There are further amendments to the Public Works Act 1981—

Kris Faafoi: Nick wants to build under it.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Nick wants to build under it. Well, funnily enough, I will come to that. Hold that thought for just a moment, I am going to come to that.

The Public Works Act 1981 is amended by inserting additional provisions. The State Sector Act 1988 is amended by inserting additional provisions. It seems to me that we have somewhat missed the purpose of the Act, which was to repeal Acts not insert additional provisions. Mr Faafoi did raise a legitimate point, which is around the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The definition of the Auckland Harbour Bridge that is being inserted in this Act says that the Auckland Harbour Bridge does not include—(a) any land or water over which the bridge passes on a structure where there is air space between the land or water and the structure:”.

Kris Faafoi: That’s prime for housing.

CHRIS HIPKINS: That is a prime site for housing. I think that this is Nick Smith’s new solution to the housing crisis. I am very much looking forward to the Government’s explanation of exactly how that is to be. But, really, the main purpose of this contribution was really to get an explanation around why these provisions are in here, because they are not repealing anything, they are actually adding to the Act, and that seems to be completely inconsistent with what the purpose of this bill is.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I do not want to make any contribution in regard to the Auckland Harbour Bridge and its suitability, or not, for putting houses under.

Chris Hipkins: Why not?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Well, that is probably the point of another debate, but I am very interested in the question that my colleague Chris Hipkins has raised in relation to the appropriateness of putting a whole schedule in a statutes repeal bill that does not deal with any repeal of statutes but deals with amendments to other Acts. They are non-controversial, I assume, and I know this from the lack of submissions to the Government Administration Committee, but I still do not know whether this is the appropriate vehicle. This is something that our Committee of the whole House has been challenged on in a number of instances previously when we have had, in a statutes amendment bill, proposals that do not meet the criteria for that. I know that the statutes repeal criteria are different from statutes amendments, but I would be interested whether the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, who usually does respond to questions, would find out what the criteria is for a statutes repeal bill, and whether it is broad enough to allow amendments to other Acts.

In schedule 2, which is part of clause 4, we are amending the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act of 1981 with quite a substantial insertion. We are inserting a section in relation to the “Unauthorised use of King George the Fifth Memorial Children’s Health Camps Federation emblem”—not something that I think is done too frequently. As my colleague Chris Hipkins, mentioned earlier, we have the Government Roading Powers Act amendment, which is substantially to do with the Auckland Harbour Bridge, but we also have an amendment to the Public Works Act, and we have an amendment to the State Sector Act.

So how are these amendments, whether they are non-controversial or whether they are needed to make sure that the bill is fit for purpose in this day and age—how is this properly done in a statutes repeal bill? I would also be interested to know whether the Business Committee has considered looking at any of these issues to see whether there is a less onerous way of us progressing the dismissal of books from the statute register—the dismissal of Acts—if those Acts are no longer used. They have done their time. They had no sunset provision in them. They are no longer used for anything at all. Is there a better way than having a bill introduced into Parliament, referred to the select committee, back to the Committee of the whole House, and then on to the third reading? Is there a smarter way of us doing it?

It seems to me that this is a real opportunity for us to look at the criteria and say: “Is this better as a statutes amendment type of provision, or could there be some separate new type of debate in Parliament where we could say that we will allow time for parties to consider all the legislation—with time for public submissions if it is considered appropriate—but certainly a smarter way of doing this?”.

In the Australian Parliament they have different types of debates that are held simultaneously. Some of them are a complete opportunity for promoting oneself, I think, and that is all. I am not proposing that. I just do not think that we need to spend the usual process of the Parliament to dismiss Acts that are no longer fit for purpose. So that is my first point.

The second one—just referring to the original reason for this bill being introduced—I want to repeat that I can see no benefit at all or potential gain to the productivity level of New Zealand by us amending the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act of 1981, and that was alleged to have been the purpose of this legislation; nor of the complete repeal of between 132 and 137 Acts. I counted, and I got 132. So I think the member who interjected on this earlier on might have to count again. I think he was including the ones that are amended, rather than repealed.

The final point I want to make is just to say that in this clause there does not appear to be anything controversial, unlike the other ones. I think that is appropriate. I urge the Minister to just answer that one question: what is the criterion that is required before parts can be included in a statutes repeal bill? If we could have that information, we could conclude the debate I am sure.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I understand we are on clause 4 of the bill. My colleagues Chris Hipkins and Ruth Dyson have commented on the fact that within this repeal bill we have clauses and pieces of legislation that are being enacted and updated, and there are questions around that.

My contribution goes to Part 1 of schedule 3, which I understand is in clause 4. It goes to something that is being repealed, and that is the Home Ownership Savings Act 1974. It was probably a really creative piece of legislation of the Labour Government at the time, to encourage homeownership. I feel that maybe this is one of those pieces of legislation that we should look at, that possibly could have been looked at a little bit closer as to whether we could have kept it and looked at some other creative ways of homeownership, because of New Zealand’s declining rate of homeownership at the moment.

Schedule 3, under the Home Ownership Savings Act 1974, does repeal the definitions of things like ordinary farm ownership accounts, ordinary fishing vessel ownership accounts, special farm ownership accounts, and special fishing vessel ownership accounts. As you can see, from the kinds of things that we are repealing, that Labour Government of the time was probably taking some really fresh approaches to encourage ownership of homes—a lot different from what the current Government is doing. I think it is very interesting that we have got a Government that is repealing something called the Home Ownership Savings Act 1974.

It does not surprise me at all, because the current Government does not seem to care about the declining rate of homeownership in New Zealand. It does not seem to care that the likes of Auckland has got massive issues with growing populations and not enough affordable housing to cater for them. It is no surprise to me whatsoever that this National Government is opposed to something called the Home Ownership Savings Act. The Government has little or no commitment to homeownership itself, so it does not surprise me whatsoever that Part 1 of schedule 3 includes the repeal of the Home Ownership Savings Act.

I do not have any questions for the Minister, because I know what she will say. She will have no answer to the fact that this Government is quite happy to see something like the Home Ownership Savings Act repealed, because it has had no plan for increasing homeownership in New Zealand whatsoever.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! I want to just draw the member’s attention to the rules around the Committee stage, which is about talking about submissions before the select committee, Supplementary Order Papers, and asking the Minister questions. It is not a chance for a rant. That is for one of the speeches the member may well give in one of the reading stages of the bill.

KRIS FAAFOI: I was just about to get into the rant, so I will take a different tack. I do not think there probably were any submissions on this fact whatsoever, but—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): You cannot talk about what there was not, either. You can only talk about what there was.

KRIS FAAFOI: But if there were some submissions on this, I would suggest there would be a lot of people concerned about this Government and its lack of commitment to homeownership, as shown by its repealing of the Home Ownership Savings Act 1974. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to make a brief further contribution to this debate. I was again somewhat surprised when I looked at Part 2 of schedule 3, which includes the consequential revocation of regulations. It revokes a number of regulations made by Order in Council. The thing that surprised me about that is why we needed primary legislation in order to revoke pieces of legislation that have been made without legislation. These are regulations that have been made by Order in Council, by Ministers, and therefore why are we revoking them by way of legislation? Surely they could be revoked without the need to resort to legislation.

It seems to me that the genesis of this bill is repealing unused statutes, and the justification was the Productivity Commission’s report that the law needs to be tidied up and that we need to reduce the amount of unnecessary legislation that we have, so what is the point of passing legislation as part of this bill that we do not actually need? Revoking regulations by way of an Act of Parliament, when those regulations could simply be revoked by Ministers signing a piece of paper to revoke them, seems to me to be the very mischief that this bill is designed to remediate, which is that we do not want a whole lot of unnecessary laws either on the books of the House or passing through the House.

So Part 2—I would be very interested in an explanation from the Minister as to why these regulations are being revoked by an Act of Parliament, rather than simply by Ministers using the prerogative that they have to be able to revoke. Well, it is not actually a prerogative that they have; it is the prerogative that the Governor-General has, on Ministers’ advice, to simply revoke these by way of Order in Council. It seems to me that that would be a much more sensible way of progressing that matter, unless there is a good reason why they are being dealt with through primary legislation. But I certainly cannot see, from my reading of the bill, why that might be.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I am pleased to take a brief call on the Statutes Repeal Bill. I have listened quite carefully to the debate, particularly around clause 4—schedule 2. I think Chris Hipkins has made a very good point around the issue—that this is supposed to be a repeal bill so why are we having insertions.

I have gone back and had a look at the first reading Hansard notes on this bill to see what the Minister, the Hon Steven Joyce—is he still the Minister for Regulatory Reform? I am not sure. Anyway, he talked for most his speech about the fact that this bill repeals 132 Acts, and what percentage that is of legislation, etc., etc. There is a one-liner he gave around clause 4—what we are debating at the moment—where he said that schedule 2 saves important provisions from a small number of the Acts being repealed, to avoid adverse effects on some parties.

I have just been having a look at what is in schedule 2, and I have got a few questions for the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, as to what the adverse effects are in this part of the bill, from the “Unauthorised use of King George the Fifth Memorial Children’s Health Camps Federation emblem” in new section 20AAA(4). I note that new section 20AAA(4)—this is an amendment to the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981—actually inserts a fine of not exceeding $2,000 for the unlawful use of the emblem of the foundation. I just wonder whether we are able to hear a little bit about what the unauthorised use is and what the impacts of that would be, because I presume that there must have been some unauthorised use of the emblem of the King George the Fifth Memorial Children’s Health Camps Federation for this quite considerable insertion to be in this Statutes Repeal Bill.

Then we have got the Auckland Harbour Bridge and the definitions around that, which my colleagues have talked about. In particular, in schedule 2, new section 87B of the Government Roading Powers Act talks about the Auckland Harbour Bridge being “properly lighted”. I would have actually thought that it should be “lit”, just as a grammar suggestion. I wonder whether there has been an issue and an adverse effect from the Auckland Harbour Bridge not being properly lit, which has required there be an insertion into this part of a repeals bill, as to the fact that it should be properly lit.

There seem to be some sensible provisions following that around installing, maintaining, or repairing water mains or power or telecommunication lines, wires, or cables without the consent of the agency. Again, it seems to be an odd place to put a provision like this—would that not already be in legislation? Clearly, it is not. Then we go to the Public Works Act, and, despite the repeal of the Southland Electricity Act, we have to have an insertion of a provision in here about the Southland Electricity Act. It sort of seems to go around in circles, that clause. So I am just wondering what the adverse effect is that has resulted in that clause being inserted into this Statutes Repeal Bill.

It would be useful if Minister Wagner was able to explain to us why we are having insertions into a repeal bill. It is almost half the bill, actually—these insertions. I note that Minister Steven Joyce did refer to it and he referred to adverse effects. It would be useful if there could be some explanation from Minister Wagner, given that we are discussing this in the Chamber in the Committee Stage, as to what those adverse effects are.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I want to pick up where my colleague Kris Faafoi left off, in relation to the Home Ownership Savings Act. We have got consequential amendments to that Act in schedule 3, but that Act cross-references some key definitions that are contained in the Fishing Vessel Ownership Savings Act and the Farm Ownership Savings Act, which are actually repealed under schedule 1.

I am just cross-referencing them over, but what I would like to know is—there are core definitions within the Home Ownership Savings Act that have been repealed, and also the Act that they were established under has been repealed under this bill as well. I would like to know how certain the Minister is that there are not still valid accounts that exist. I believe that it was up until 1986 that no further accounts could be opened, however we are talking about, potentially, quite a large number of accounts. The institutions that those accounts were opened with are still around, albeit, sure, the banks might have changed ownership over the years.

Clearly, not all of that Act has been repealed; it is only certain definitions relating to farm ownership and fishing vessels. So what I would like to know is, based on that, how certain is the Minister that the fishing vessel accounts and the farm accounts aren’t still valid, and what happens in that situation? You are repealing the legislation that creates these accounts, and you could create a sort of void. You are voiding these accounts, and the potential accountholders or their successors. I would like some, I guess, confirmation from the Minister that this will not affect existing accountholders. This goes to the point that we have been making around the complexity when there are repeals happening upon repeals.

I just want to bring another point—I beg your indulgence, Mr Chairperson. If we look to Part 2 of schedule 1, it covers the repeal of parts of the Fisheries Act. I have looked at that section, section 314(1), and the repeal of those paragraphs relates to the repeal of other provisions in the Fisheries Act. So what we are dealing with is a repeal upon a repeal. I am cross-referencing it because it links to the subject matter in schedule 3. All I am saying is that there are inconsistencies. The potential inconsistencies here—I would like to get clarification from the Minister that these are consistent with these repeals, because it does not make sense. Why would—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): I will just draw to the member’s attention that the schedule he is talking about was debated under clause 3. We are now debating clause 4.

RINO TIRIKATENE: I was begging your indulgence because I was switching among the various schedules.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): My indulgence has expired.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 Repeal of this Act

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): This is the longest debate that I have ever had on such a minor bill.

Hon Jo Goodhew: The member certainly tells it as it is.

CHRIS HIPKINS: That is true. It is absolutely right. I was going to say that one day the member will find herself over here, but apparently she will not.

Hon Amy Adams: Neither will the rest of us.

Hon Jo Goodhew: Been there, done my time.

CHRIS HIPKINS: That is right. But clause 5 of the bill repeals the Act once it has been passed. It is a rather interesting provision, because this bill will be made law the day after it receives the Royal assent—so the Governor-General signs the law to say it is now the law. Then 28 days later it will disappear. It seems to me rather interesting that that would be the case because we are repealing a number of other Acts that have already been repealed. So in view of the fact that this bill has a self-destruct clause, if we could call it that, what I would like to know from the Minister in the chair, Nicky Wagner, is whether that then means that it will not then, at any point, itself need to be included in a future statutes repeal bill.

Paul Foster-Bell: That’s right.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Paul Foster-Bell says “That’s right.”, but go back to the Rugby World Cup legislation that this repeal bill repeals.

The Rugby World Cup legislation had a self-destruct clause as well, but the self-destruct clause was by Order in Council, so the Act could be repealed when a Minister signed a piece of paper by Order in Council that said that it was repealed, and that was done. So why is it that that Act, having been repealed by an Order in Council, is now having to be repealed again as part of this bill yet this bill will then not have to be repealed—I know this is sounding very, very circular—by another future repeal bill?

So does clause 5 mean that this is it for this bill—completely finished?

Paul Foster-Bell: Yes.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, Paul Foster-Bell should perhaps be the Minister in the chair. Maybe he has resigned too early from the House, because he seems to be willing to engage in the debate, which the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nicky Wagner, who is actually responsible for the legislation, does not seem willing to do.

Actually, it is an important issue because the reason that we are having this debate—we would not even need to have this debate if clause 5, which we have got here, had been included in all of the other repeal bills that are now being repealed by this repeal bill, and then we would not need to have further repeal bills. So a simple question: does this mean that it is the end of the matter for this bill? If it does, that is a good thing. If that is the case, then we should certainly put this into all of our future statutes amendment bills and other bills like that so that we do not then have to come back and have these debates in the future.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Schedule 1 Repeals

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 315 in the name of Chris Hipkins to schedule 1 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 59

New Zealand Labour 31; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 60

New Zealand National 58; Māori Party 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 319 in the name of David Clendon to schedule 1, Part 1 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 47

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

Noes 72

New Zealand National 58; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): David Clendon’s amendments to schedule 1, Part 2 are out of order as they are consequential to a previous amendment negatived by the Committee. The Hon David Parker’s tabled amendment to schedule 1 is out of order as it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 Consequential amendments and revocations

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): The amendments to schedule 3 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 319 in the name of David Clendon are out of order as they are consequential to a previous amendment negatived by the Committee.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing duties) Amendment Bill with amendment and the Statutes Repeal Bill without amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Point England Development Enabling Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Construction): I move, That the Point England Development Enabling Bill be now read a second time. Cows or homes—that is the simple choice that Parliament faces with this bill. Point England is a 45-hectare reserve 10 kilometres east of Auckland’s CBD that for over 30 years has had cows grazing on 18 hectares of it. The bill lifts the reserve status on 12 hectares to enable Ngāti Paoa to undertake a housing development alongside 2 hectares that are being provided for a marae as part of their Treaty settlement. The area available for recreation and public space is being increased by 4 hectares.

The bill is a win for housing in providing 300 new homes in close proximity to the city. It is a win for Ngāti Paoa in that it helps settle their historic Treaty claim. It is a win for the community in that it will increase the space for recreation and involve millions of dollars of investment in improving playing fields and community facilities. It is a win for the environment in that Ōmaru Creek, which is one of Auckland’s most polluted and toxic, will be able to be funded for a clean-up. The only losers are the hundreds of cows that will be evicted. I am astonished that Opposition parties, who spend half their time demanding that more houses be built and the other half arguing that New Zealand has too many cows and wants their numbers capped, somehow oppose this bill. I want to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee for its work on the bill and for recommending that it be progressed.

I want to put the bill in the context of the Government’s broader plan for addressing Auckland’s housing needs. There is a broad consensus that increasing supply is the most important component of a solution and that the lack of available land is one of the greatest impediments. That is why our Government created special housing areas where there are already 2,500 homes completed, 4,500 consented, thousands more sections completed, and much more in the pipeline. That is why we introduced the special process for the Auckland Unitary Plan, the urban development national policy statement, the Crown land programme, and the massive developments that are under way in sites like Hobsonville, Tāmaki, Weymouth, and Northcote.

Houses cannot be built instantly, but the Government’s programme is delivering the longest and strongest building boom in Auckland’s history. Back in 2011 only 3,500 homes were being built. It went to 4,000 in 2012, 6,500 in 2014, 7,900 in 2015, and now over 10,000 homes per year are being built in that city and residential investment in Auckland is at an all-time high of over $5 billion a year. But members on this side of the House know we need to do more and that is why we are freeing up underutilised land at Point England.

I do get a bit cross when members opposite demand that new houses be built and then every time there is a development they come up with some reason to oppose it. I note Labour MP Michael Wood has led the charge in opposing the 1,500 homes at Three Kings. I notice Labour and Green members are vigorously opposing the major 400-home development next to Mount Māngere. I noticed they have opposed developments because they are next to cemeteries or they are next to power lines. They are coming up with constant excuses as to why we cannot build more houses, and their opposition to this Point England development is equally duplicitous.

The argument that reserve land is sacrosanct does not wash. Just last year this Parliament put through the revoking of the reserve status of land in Riccarton for a major 400-home development, and members from New Zealand First, Labour, and the Green Party were quite comfortable. If reserve land is sacrosanct, they broke that rule last year.

Equally so, I have to say there is a precedent being created here. The Crown provided the Auckland City Council with this land for recreational purposes over 40 years ago, and it has been used for grazing cows—18 hectares—for over 30 years. If the precedent that this Parliament creates is that if councils do not use reserves for the purpose for which they are intended, the Government might use them for another purpose, then I think that is a valuable precedent for this Parliament to set.

The argument that we could just take some land next door from the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. is equally flawed. You see, if you take that land next door, that means there cannot be the houses that are planned there. That means fewer homes, not more. Equally so, Ngāti Paoa have made it plain that Point England is their ancestral land, and they will not accept that land next door from the Tāmaki Redevelopment Co. to resolve their Treaty settlement. So that alternative does not resolve that long-term Treaty settlement, nor does it add to the much-needed pipeline of additional housing.

I have also heard the arguments about the dotterels and I have sought technical advice. Actually, the birds move their nesting sites every year. There is no evidence that a marae or housing would any more compromise the future of the dotterels than would the housing that is proposed by Ngāti Paoa, and, with the additional funding, both Ngāti Paoa and the Auckland Council are totally committed to their future.

I am appalled by Labour’s minority view opposing the bill. Those members have sold Peeni Henare and the Māori Labour caucus down the road. Let me quote what Mr Henare, as the MP for Tāmaki Makaurau, said when this bill was introduced. He said: “This particular bill offers an opportunity not just for Tāmaki-makau-rau but, in particular, for Ngāti Paoa,” for whom, he said—and I quote—he was “extremely excited”. He went on to say that this was a “fantastic” bill, that this was a win-win, that it was not just about building houses but that it was about building communities. He went on to say that Ngāti Paoa must be able to “grasp … this … opportunity” and he said—and I quote—“We support this bill.” So Mr Henare has been kneecapped by Phil Twyford once again over-extending himself.

I say to Mr Twyford, thank you for gifting the Asian vote with your misplayed Chinese-sounding names debacle, for which you currently apologise. I am sure that the Māori Party will equally thank you for your opposition to this bill, which has sent a very clear signal to Māori in Auckland that when it comes to the hard yards, it is the Māori Party that will back iwi in Auckland, not the Labour Party.

All this talk about the preciousness of reserve land brings me to this: why is it—and where have the Labour Party and the Green Party and their mates on the Auckland Council been over the last 30 years—that that recreation reserve land has been grazed by a Pākehā farmer and they have said nothing, and now Ngāti Paoa want to put a marae and housing on that land and somehow it is an outrage? That opposition is shallow, it is opportunistic, it shows that Labour is part of the problem and not part of the solution for housing, and it is a political gift-horse for the Māori Party. If I was a member of the Labour Party, I would be questioning the strategic leadership that is being offered over this issue.

This is a good bill. This is a bill that gets 300 more families into houses. This is a bill that enables Ngāti Paoa to settle their Treaty grievance. This enables Ngāti Paoa to be able to have a marae in their ancestral area. I am proud to stand with members on this side of the House, who say that houses in Auckland are more important than cows. I commend the bill to the House.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to set out Labour’s position on this bill, but before I begin my comments, I want to acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Mr Hauāuru Rāwiri, who is the head man of Ngāti Paoa and someone who has been right in the middle of this whole debate. Labour opposes this bill because the Government has deliberately ignored a better alternative that would have offered Ngāti Paoa a marae and co-governance of the Point England recreational reserve, as well as an adjacent housing development without taking precious city parkland from a community that needs that parkland for future generations.

Labour supported this bill at first reading, and we did so with goodwill because we believed that it deserved serious scrutiny and, on the face of it, it deserved to be taken seriously. But after meeting with all of the groups involved, including repeatedly with Ngāti Paoa, with Auckland Council, with the local board—the Tāmaki-Maungakiekie local board—and a plethora of different community groups who live in the Point England and Tāmaki area, and listening to 104 submissions at the Local Government and Environment Committee, of which about 90 percent were against this bill, we changed our view. We weighed up the evidence, we listened to people, and we decided that this bill is not in the best interests of not just the community at Point England but the whole community, and I will spell out why we think that.

The Minister for Building and Construction has tried to say that this bill is an attempt to fix Auckland’s housing crisis. Well, there are so many things that this National Government should be doing about the Auckland housing crisis that if I listed them all, I would not have any time left to talk about the Point England bill, so I will not. But there are many, many things the Government should be doing. Building houses on city parkland is simply not one of those things. It is not a credible response to the Auckland housing crisis.

The communities at Point England, Glen Innes, and Tāmaki are going to get another 20,000 residents living in those communities in the next 10 years as a result of the intensification that is under way, led by the Tāmaki Regeneration Company. The community and future generations need this parkland—another 20,000 people living in a medium-density community. They need the Point England Reserve, which is one of the most precious open expanses of urban parkland in the Auckland region.

The bill, as Auckland Council has said and as the Tāmaki-Maungakiekie local board has said, sets a dangerous precedent. It is central government overriding the provisions of the Reserves Act and the Resource Management Act to confiscate a piece of public parkland and turn it over to private housing.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: To Ngāti Paoa.

PHIL TWYFORD: To private housing. Auckland is set to get another million people in the next generation—another million people—and many of those people are going to be living in medium-density and high-density communities. They need parkland. If we take away the parkland for future generations, where will the children play?

Labour has set out over the last few weeks an alternative plan that we believe is better than this bill, and I want to set that plan out for you. The Government is the major shareholder in the Tāmaki Regeneration Company—the TRC. The TRC owns 2,800 homes just over the fence from the Point England Reserve. We propose that the Government stops this bill in its tracks and instead offers Ngāti Paoa 11 hectares of land that is currently owned by the TRC for the commercial redress component of Ngāti Paoa’s Treaty settlement. Co-governance of Point England Reserve could be offered as part of the package, with the opportunity for Ngāti Paoa to build the marae that they want to have established on the Point England Reserve. The Government has already accepted, in principle, the idea that the proceeds of the sale of the 11 hectares should go to enhancing parks in the local community. Well, let the Government put its money where its mouth is and get Auckland Council to match that funding, and use that to enhance the whole reserve—not only for Ngāti Paoa but for the Glen Innes and Tāmaki communities and for future generations.

Nick Smith has tried to make this debate an issue of cows versus houses—cows versus houses. Apparently, the basis of the National Party’s housing policy is now that any land where there are cows grazing is going to be turned over to housing. I say watch out Cornwall Park—watch out Cornwall Park—and half a dozen other regional parks in the Auckland area that have livestock grazing on them, because that is the new National Party housing policy. Any park that has livestock grazing is fair game for housing development.

Nick Smith has said that the Point England Reserve is underutilised, but as the local community group Save Our Reserves said in today’s New Zealand Herald: “Anyone who knows anything about the area will know that the reserve is a much-loved and much-needed public space that is enjoyed by the community year round. Only a minority of the open rural landscape is grazed, and this is to support the funding of the general maintenance of the reserve. These playing fields, three of which will be lost when the land is turned over to housing under this bill, are used by local schools and communities for cricket, kilikiti, football, and rugby league. This is in addition to family and social gatherings. Many people will have seen large public events that have taken place in recent weeks that attracted thousands of members of the Auckland public to the Point England Reserve, including Music in Parks, Movies in Parks, and the hugely popular Weet-Bix Tryathlon.”

It is no coincidence that this bill has been brought to the House by Nick Smith. He is the Minister who, two Budgets ago, brought a list to the Parliament of 500 hectares of land that he was going to build 10,000 houses on as part of his Crown Land Programme. He is the Minister who promised 500 hectares of Crown land 2 years ago; the best his officials can scrape together now is 30 hectares, and not a single house has been built on that land. Secondly, this Minister is the architect of the special housing areas policy that drew lines on the map all over Auckland and promised 39,000 houses. How many have been built 3 years later? Fewer than 3,000. This is the Minister who has made the National Government’s housing policy a joke. He became a figure of fun. That is why he was replaced by Amy Adams—because 5 months out from an election, he was an electoral liability.

This bill is typical of this Minister’s style. This is the way he rolls. He is trying to make the confiscation of a precious piece of public parkland into a Treaty issue. That is what he is doing. He is trying to make the confiscation of public parkland to build 300 private houses—he is trying to make that some kind of solution to the housing crisis. It is the ultimate in playing politics, because it is neither of those things. It is not a serious response to the housing crisis—a housing crisis that has seen a shortfall of 40,000 homes build up on that Minister’s watch. It is getting worse by 7,000 houses a year. Auckland Council said the other day that only 7,000 homes had been built in the last year in Auckland; we need at least 14,000 just to stand still and keep up with population growth. That is the legacy of this Minister: a massive shortfall of housing. Our city has some of the most expensive housing in the world. It has become a speculator’s paradise, and he thinks that confiscating 11 hectares of public parkland that is needed for future generations—he thinks that is some kind of solution to the housing crisis.

Nick Smith is obsessed by the fact that there are some cows grazing 10 kilometres from the Sky Tower—that is the basis of the National Party’s housing policy. But, Minister, we need parkland for future generations. What about in 30 years’ time? What about in 50 years’ time? The fact that there are cows grazing on a small part of the Point England Reserve is being used in the justification, by this Minister, for confiscating about 25 percent of the reserve. It is a nonsense—it is a total nonsense. It has no credibility as any kind of solution to the housing crisis in Auckland.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie): I rise to support this second reading of the Point England Development Enabling Bill. I want to support the Minister, because he is hard-working. He is delivering results, not just in Auckland but around the country, around housing, and this is a bill that will enable the development of housing in just over 11.5 hectares of land around the Point England Reserve. This piece of land is situated in my electorate of Maungakiekie, and for me this legislation represents an opportunity to use the land for one of the key priorities of our Government, and, indeed, one of the important priorities facing the people that I represent in Maungakiekie, and that is housing. That is the overwhelming feedback that I get from constituents in my electorate: that the Government should prioritise housing needs alongside jobs, infrastructure, health, and education.

Our Government has taken that feedback when setting policy and passing laws—

Phil Twyford: You should be ashamed of yourself.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: —as you will see this Thursday, Mr Twyford, when budgets are delivered for the people of New Zealand. Of course, we have had to balance these needs with other competing needs of our community, and these include the need for green space—yes, we acknowledge that—recreational facilities, the environment, and the preservation of reserves.

I have met with many local groups and iwi, including Ngāti Paoa. I do want to acknowledge one of our leaders up in the gallery, Hau; it is good to see you, sir. I have met with groups like the local iwi and the Tamaki Estuary Protection Society, who I think raise some valid points—because I am there to listen, as their local MP. They talk about the enhancement of the environment, they talk about the degradation in the local area, and they also talk about the importance of the ecological site. I respect those points made about preserving reserve status for land and people’s enjoyment of the wildlife.

However, for me, on balance, there is a more pressing need to build 300 more homes for families, and especially for our kids—people who are in need of shelter, warm homes, and clean and modern facilities. That is right—clean and modern facilities. This bill will enable Ngāti Paoa to develop the land as part of its Treaty settlement, and improve the recreational and cultural facilities in our local area. We have already heard tonight about how a marae is planned for the land. Ngāti Paoa, for its part, has undertaken to protect local birdlife, and any development will of course be subject to the scrutiny of the Resource Management Act through routine resource consenting processes. Auckland Council will also play a role alongside the local board to ensure that the appropriate conditions are applied. Most importantly, local people will also get their chance to feed back into that process.

Although the final details of the housing plan for the area have not been finalised, we understand that there is an expectation that a good portion of those homes—contrary to Mr Twyford’s misrepresentations here tonight—will be for social housing and affordable homes. That should help some first-home buyers in our local area get into their first home.

In summary, as the Minister has already stated, 11.5 hectares will be developed for housing, leaving almost 33 hectares remaining on the reserve for recreational purposes. Crucially, as the Minister has pointed out, 100 percent of the proceeds from the land will be reinvested into the local community. That is no reduction in fields, as Mr Twyford again misrepresents the facts here tonight. It is about getting local input from local people that those funds will be used to improve the environmental integrity in places like Ōmaru Creek. The funds could also be used to improve the recreational facilities and the green space in the local area, and we want to make those spaces more amenable and more usable going forward.

On balance, this bill improves the overall well-being of my local people, providing more livable homes, better recreational facilities, and, as the Minister for the Environment has already said, it will improve environmental outcomes locally. We welcome the feedback from local people. Those voices in our community have been heard, they have been respected, and they have been acknowledged and, as a consequence, I commend this bill to the House.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): E Te Minita, me puritia e koe i tō mea hei whakapākehā i taku kōrero! E te tuakana, e Hauāuru Rāwiri, e tukuna atu ngā mihi ki a koe nā runga i te ngākau whakaiti, me te ngākau rangimārie kua tōtōia mai te mana o tō tupuna ki roto i Te Whare Pāremata i te rā nei hei whutupōro porotiki e kōrerohia ake nei. Hoi anō tāku atu ki a koe i tēnei wā, kia aroha mai ki tēnei, otirā, ki a mātau e totohe nei i te kaupapa kua whakaritea nei e Te Minita i tēnei wā, kāti Ngāti Paoa, e te tuakana, tēnā koe.

E Te Minita, anei he whakaakoranga Reo Māori mōu. Ko Tāmaki-makau-rau te ingoa o te whenua. Ka huri atu ahau ki te wāhi pōti o tōku tuakana nei a Michael Wood, ko Puketāpapa; huri tū atu ki Te Ihu o Mataoho ki roto o Māngere te whenua e hiahia ana koe ki te whakatū whare. Ka kī mai koe, ka whakatū whare pātata ki ngā urupā, pātata ki ngā rua kōiwi o ngā mātua tūpuna. Ka kī atu ahau ki a koe, he tapu, he taonga, he tapu, he taonga. Ka kī ake rā, ka whakatūria e koe i ētahi whare ki runga i ngā kōiwi o ōku mātua, o ōku tūpuna ki roto o Māngere, Te Ihu o Mataoho, ki runga o Puketāpapa. Tēnā, ka kī atu ahau ki a koe, pokokōhua!

Kāti. Ka huri ahau ki tāu nā kī i taku kōrero i te tuatahi, i te pānuitanga tuatahi o tēnei pire. Āe, e tika ana ka hīkaka te manawa nā runga i ngā kōrero i whakaritea mai e koe mō tēnei Whare. Āe, ka pānui ahau i te pire, ahakoa kīhai au i kite i te ingoa o te iwi o Ngāti Paoa ki roto i te pire. Ka kī atu āe, tēnā pea he huarahi tēnei kia whai oranga a Ngāti Paoa. Tēnā pea he huarahi tēnei kia whai kāinga ngā hunga katoa o Tāmaki-makau-rau. Kāti, ka tū mana ahau ki runga i waku kupu, ka pērā tonu.

Kia mōhio mai koe e Te Minita, ko te whenua e noho nei tātau he manapori. Kia mōhio mai koe, he manapori, he democracy. Koinā te pai o tenei whenua, tā te mea, ka whakaae mātau kia haere atu tēnei pire ki te rōpū whiriwhiri i ngā take nei, arā, ko te select committee tērā. Ko reira, ka rangona ai tātau katoa i ngā kōrero a te hapori, i ngā kōrero a tēnā, i ngā kōrero a tēnā, i ngā kōrero a tēnā. Ko reira, ka whai mana te manapori o Aotearoa. Kaua e pōhēhē nā runga i te pānuitanga tuatahi ka whakaritea nei te mana motuhake mō te pire nei. Kāhore! Koinā te manapori e noho nei tātau.

Nō reira, ka kī atu ahau ki tēnei Minita, ko tana tiro atu ki te take nui o te wā nei, ko ngā take whare, he tirohanga pōnakonako, pōnakonako, short-sighted, nē? Pōnakonako. Koinā te tirohanga o tēnei Minita tā te mea, ka kī mai ki a mātau o tēnei taha o Te Whare, āe, ko taua whenua rā nā Ngāti Paoa. Ko Ngāti Paoa te mana whenua. Mehemea ka whakaae mai Te Minita ki tērā whakaaro, he aha te take ki roto i ngā tatūnga Tiriti ki ngā tau kua pahure ake nei? Kīhai tēnei kāwanatanga i whakahokia te whenua tūturu ki ngā iwi! Kaua e kī mai, nā, ko Ngāti Paoa te mana whenua ki taua wāhi rā, koinā te take e whakahokia atu ana te whenua ki a rātau tā te mea, i tono atu ngā iwi o Waikato, i tono atu ngā iwi o Ngāi Tahu, o ngā iwi katoa puta noa ki a koutou kia whakahokia mai ngā whenua ki a rātau, nō rātau anō te whenua! Kīhai tēnei kāwanatanga i whakahoki ai i te whenua.

Nō reira, kaua e kī mai ki a mātau o tēnei taha o Te Whare, nā, mō te mana me te aroha nui o tēnei kāwanatanga ki ngā mahi tatūnga kerēme. Kaua e kī mai pērā ki a au tā te mea, he nui ngā take kei roto i ngā tatūnga kerēme i ngā tau kua pahure ake nei ka kite atu, horekau he manawanui tō tēnei kāwanatanga mō Te Iwi Māori! Ka pōhēhē mā te pūtea anahe ka tau ai ngā take katoa e pā ana ki a mātau Te Iwi Māori, kāhore, kāhore, kāhore!

Kua rangona ahau i ngā kōrero a tēnei Minita ki roto i ngā tau maha kua pahure ake nei me te kī atu, ka whakaritea e tēnei kāwanatanga te tini whare mō ngā iwi puta noa, mō ngā tāngata puta noa ki roto i a Tāmaki-makau-rau. Ka kī atu ahau ki tērā Minita, e hia nei ngā mano tāngata ka tau mai ki roto i taku tari, e tatari ana kia mana ai te kupu a tēnei Minita mō te whakatū whare ki roto o Tāmaki-makau-rau. Kāre anō mātau kia kite i tētahi paku aha ki roto o Tāmaki-makau-rau. Āe, ko reira tētahi ki roto o Waimāhia, ka mihi atu ahau ki tērā whakaaro ēngari, e hia tau ki muri tērā i whakaritea ai? Ka kite i tōna whakatinanatanga, i tōna tutukitanga ki roto i ngā marama kua pahure ake nei. Ka kī mai tēnei Minita, e hoa, ko te pai o tēnā whenua, anā, ko te wāhi kai mō ngā kau, wāhi kai mō ngā kau? Mehemea ka whakaaro pērā Te Minita, ka kī atu ahau ki Te Minita tēnā, me whakahokia tēnei wāhi whenua ki a Ngāti Paoa, herekore! Mehemea e whakapono ana Te Minita ki tana kōrero, e āwhina atu ana rātau i a Ngāti Paoa, tēnā, whakahokia te whenua ki a rātau herekore, herekore! Ko reira ka kite mehemea e manawanui ana tēnei kāwanatanga ki ngā take Tiriti ka kōrero mai nā e Te Minita.

He raruraru tēnā tā te mea, ki roto i tēnei pire, kāre anō au kia kite atu i tētahi paku kōrero ki te kī atu, ka whakahokia te whenua ki a Ngāti Paoa. Horekau ki roto i tēnei pire. Nō reira, koinā tāku ka noho ki roto i Te Reo Māori, he aha te take i pērā ai? Kia kaua e whātoro, kia kaua e mirimiri tērā taha o Te Whare i waku kupu, kia rongo koutou i te wairua kei roto i ngā kupu, i te hōhonutanga o ngā kōrero ka whakaritea nei ki runga i te marae ātea i te rā nei. Nō reira, ko tāku atu ki tēnei kāwanatanga āianei, ka tango ake i ngā whenua katoa o Tāmaki-makau-rau mō ngā take whare. Rawa au e whakaae ana ki tērā, nā runga i te kī o tēnei kāwanatanga, horekau he take kia whakaritea nei i tētahi huarahi mā Ngāti Paoa hei whakahaere i ngā whare o Te Tāmaki Redevelopment Company. Rawa au e whakaae ana ki tērā whakatau nā runga i te mōhio, ko tēnei kāwanatanga, kei a rātau te mana ki te whakarite i wā rātau ake hiahia. Nō reira, mehemea ka kī mai ki tēnei Whare, anā, kua mutu ai te taha ki a Tāmaki Redevelopment Company. Ē, ka kī atu kāhore, tā te mea, ko ētahi o ngā mana nui o taua kamupene, ko tēnei kāwanatanga, ko tēnei kāwanatanga!

Nō reira, hei whakarāpopoto ake, kei a mātau te mahere tika hei tatū ai i tēnei take whare ki roto o Tāmaki-makau-rau. I whakarite ai mātau i ngā hui puta noa ki roto o Tāmaki-makau-rau e pā ana ki ngā take whare. Kotahi tonu te kōrero ka whakahoki mai ki a mātau, nā, ko te kōnakonako o tēnei kāwanatanga ki te whakatikatika i tēnei take.

Nō reira, ki roto i te meneti e toe nei, ka whakahokia atu ki a koe e te tuakana e Hau. Mō tēnei tūāhuatanga kua kitea mai nā e koe i te rā nei, ka aroha atu. Mō ngā kōrero kua rāwekengia e Te Minita i waku kōrero; ko tāku e kī atu: e toru ngā pānuitanga o te pire! Kaua e pōhēhē nā roto i te pānuitanga tuatahi, tutuki ai! Koinā te mana o tēnei whenua, he manapori. Tēnā e te tuakana, ko te manako kia tau iho mai ngā manaakitanga ki runga i a koe, otirā, ki runga i tō iwi, i tō tāua whānau ki roto o Tāmaki-makau-rau, tēnā tātau katoa.

[Minister Smith, you should hold on to what you expressed as a translation for my address! Acknowledgments to you, elder sibling, Hauāuru Rāwiri, for your heartfelt humility and calm for having the integrity of your ancestor hauled into Parliament House today as a political football that we are debating here. As a result, I seek your empathy for this as we discuss this matter arranged by the Minister at this point in time, and so salutations to you, Ngāti Paoa, the elder sibling, greetings.

Minister, here are some Māori language learnings for you. Tāmaki-makau-rau is the name of the land. I turn to the electorate of my elder colleague Michael Wood, which is Puketāpapa; I turn to face Te Ihu o Mataoho in Māngere, the land where you wish to erect houses on. You said to us that you want to put up houses adjacent to graveyards and places where the bones of the ancestral forefathers are interred. And I say to you, it is sacred, a possession, holy and prized. You then reiterated that some houses would be erected on top of bones that belong to my parents and ancestors within Māngere, Te Ihu o Mataoho, and Puketāpapa. And so I say bugger you!

Enough. I turn now to what you said about my first speech at the first reading of this bill. Yes, it is right that the heart would be keen because of the statements you arranged for this House. Yes, I read the bill, even though I did not see the name of the Ngāti Paoa tribe in the bill. I said yes, this might be a way for Ngāti Paoa to gain a livelihood and for all those Aucklanders to get a house. And so I stand on the integrity of my words and will continue to do that.

You must understand, Minister, the country that we live in is a democracy. That is why this country is good because we agreed that this bill go to the group that considers these matters, in other words, that select committee. That is the place where all of us will hear comments from the community and from that individual, that individual, and that one. It is there that the democracy of New Zealand will be mandated. Do not be deluded that the autonomy for this bill will be assigned through the first reading. No, it is not! That indeed is the democracy that we live in.

Therefore, mine to this Minister is that his view about matters relating to housing being the big issue of the moment is a short-sighted one, short-sighted, all right? Short-sighted. That is the view of this Minister, because he says to us of this side of the House, yes, that land belongs to Ngāti Paoa. Ngāti Paoa has jurisdiction over the land. If the Minister agrees to that thought, what is the reason for the Treaty settlements in recent years? This Government did not return the original land to the tribes! Do not tell us that Ngāti Paoa having jurisdiction over that place is the reason why the land is being returned to them, because the tribes of Waikato, Ngāi Tahu, and all the other ones throughout have demanded that the lands be returned to them, because it actually belongs to them! This Government did not return the land.

So do not tell us on this side of the House about the great integrity and empathy displayed by this Government in the operations about Treaty settlements. Do not talk like that to me, because there are many issues relating to Treaty settlements in years past where it has been seen that this Government was not tolerant with Māoridom. It mistakenly thought that funding alone would settle all matters relating to us of Māoridom, no, no, no!

I have heard the comments by this Minister in the many years past when he said that this Government would arrange many houses for tribes and people throughout Auckland. I say to that Minister, many thousands of people have arrived in my office, waiting for this Minister’s word to be enacted to build houses in Auckland. We have not seen a single thing put up in Auckland. Yes, there is one in Waimahia, and I acknowledge that thought, but how many years back did it take to arrange that? We note its development and completion in months just past. This Minister states, mate, that land is really good, yes indeed, great for cows to graze on—for cows to graze on? If the Minister thinks like that, then I say to him, return this parcel of land to Ngāti Paoa without any encumbrances. If the Minister believes what he has stated, they are helping Ngāti Paoa, so return the land to them, freehold and without conditions. We will then see just how tolerant this Government is to Treaty matters that the Minister alludes to.

That is a problem, because I have not seen a single statement in this bill saying return the land to Ngāti Paoa. There is not anything in this bill. And that is the reason why I remained speaking in Māori, and why did I do that? So that side of the House would not stretch or massage my words, so that you collectively hear the spirit within the words and the depth of the comments that would be considered on our forum today. So mine, in particular, to this Government is that there is no pathway considered for Ngāti Paoa to administer the houses that belong to the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company. I would never agree to that ruling, knowing full well that this Government has the power to determine what it really wants. Therefore, if this House was to direct otherwise, well, then the part for Tāmaki Redevelopment Company is finished. But hey, it will not, because this Government is one of the big powers of that company, this Government!

So to sum up, we have the right plan to settle this housing issue of Auckland. We considered having forums throughout Auckland about housing issues. There has only been one response that came back to us, and that was about the short-sightedness of this Government to address this issue.

Therefore, in the remaining minutes, I come back to you, elder sibling, Hau. In regard to this kind of situation you have witnessed today, I empathise with you about the comments. The Minister tampered with my comments; I say this: there are three readings. Do not be deluded that through the first reading it is settled. Democracy, indeed, is the charisma of this country. And so the hope for you, elder sibling, is that acts of kindness descend upon you but at the same time upon your tribe and our family in Auckland. My appreciation to us all.]

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking to the Point England Development Enabling Bill, this being the second reading. As we have heard, this bill is about taking 11.7 hectares out of a total of 48 hectares, of which the Crown owns 45 hectares, and using that for housing. Specifically, there are 300 new houses to be built, a mixture of social, affordable homes as well as other homes. I have listened to my colleagues who have talked about the merits or otherwise of using this land, and also the need for housing in Auckland. As we all know, there is an overwhelming need for housing in Auckland, but what I want to turn my mind to at this stage is just to talk about the issue of Ngāti Paoa. I certainly listened to the speech—

Tracey Martin: They’re not mentioned in the bill.

ANDREW BAYLY: —from my colleague opposite, Peeni Henare. Whilst the Ngāti Paoa situation is not specifically mentioned in the bill, clearly, one of the intentions of the Government is to conclude a historical Treaty of Waitangi settlement with Ngāti Paoa.

Opposition parties have made a number of claims. They claim that the iwi should be given, or should negotiate, some land around the Tāmaki land settlement coming out of the Tāmaki Redevelopment Company, and that that is the land that they should be entitled to and that should be used for meeting settlement requirements. Secondly, I have heard on other occasions that Ngāti Paoa—this is the aspersion—do not have the expertise to develop the 300 houses that they would like to. Thirdly, by implication, because Ngāti Paoa do not have the expertise, then this land may be offered to other iwi and, failing that, might even be offered to developers. Well, they are wrong, and we are very lucky to have a senior representative from Ngāti Paoa up in the gallery here. I do acknowledge him.

It is clear, first of all, that Ngāti Paoa have a very strong cultural, traditional, spiritual, and ancestral commitment and connection with this land that we are talking about. Secondly, this piece of land is absolutely crucial to their settlement. They do not want the Tāmaki development land; they want this piece of land. And related to that, the coinciding position and the enhancement of the marae—the two hectares that will be set aside for the marae on the land right beside the housing development that they wish to undertake—is also a crucial element of that settlement and very important. I think that the Opposition parties have truly misrepresented that situation.

Next, the aspersion that iwi do not have the expertise to undertake this development I find personally insulting. Ngāti Paoa have talked about an investment company being set up to work through that, and I think they do have the expertise and they do have the right intent. Finally, I think the persuasion that they want to create social and affordable houses on this site is a very valuable part of their offering. So I do have a great deal of faith that Ngāti Paoa will do what is correct. I do believe that this bill is the right thing to do, and I fully endorse it. Thank you.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, huri noa ki a tātau katoa tēnā koutou.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to us all throughout, acknowledgments to you collectively.]

The Green Party is abstaining on this legislation, and I am going to outline very clearly why, alongside my colleague Eugenie Sage. I want to be firstly clear that I am not speaking for Ngāti Paoa, but we cannot oppose this bill because we support Ngāti Paoa fully. I too want to acknowledge Hauāuru Rāwiri and his team for allowing us to engage with them on this issue, once we heard the submissions. We have come to the second reading in the House having engaged with community, with mana whenua, and having listened to all sides of the debate on this legislation. We trust Ngāti Paoa more than we trust the Crown—that is for sure. Iwi have a long history of conservation and a better record than the Crown and local government when it comes to taking care of our environment and our people.

The historical context is important for the Greens’ positioning on this piece of legislation. The Ngāti Paoa land was lost through Treaty breaches, and the land was lost for a pittance—an absolute pittance. The Crown in 1841 paid £100 in cash, plus £258 in goods, to obtain 6,000 acres, including waterfront—precious waterfront—land. So that is £358-odd for 6,000 acres, which even at that time was ridiculously low—ridiculously low. I did a rough inflation estimation of what that buying price would look a little like today, and at my lowest, lowest estimation, that is £35,000. So even if I am 10 times out, that is an absolute pittance, and that is the core of the injustice that this legislation gives Ngāti Paoa a chance to rectify—albeit that the Crown is hitching its housing failure to it. The Hauraki Māori Trust Board report, which is something I also delved into to learn how that land got lost for such a pittance, also suggests that the customary interests that were extinguished—of course, Ngāti Paoa did not understand and think that those were going to be extinguished. That was not known to iwi around the country. So the Crown failed to protect Māori interests and paid a pittance for the land, with hardly any benefits for that incredibly low cost.

We cannot oppose this bill because Ngāti Paoa has a whakapapa connection to the whenua; to the tūturiwhatu, the dotterels; to the awa; to its own descendants and uri; and to the local community. The Ngāti Paoa people have an accountability that this Government does not. They have an accountability that means that they will be at the front line of working hard to make sure that the visions and plans that they have will be upheld, where people are left living with dignity. They care, and I have a huge issue with the Government pretending that that is why it is pushing this legislation through. All of a sudden the Minister stood and praised the vision in the work of the Ōmaru River that might be done through this legislation. Where were you long ago when the Ōmaru River needed a hand? Where was this Government then? What has happened is that the Minister, Nick Smith, has failed to provide housing for its own citizens for the entire term of its Government, and now it is having to do a patch-up job, and this legislation is part of that. We support Ngāti Paoa in their visions for what they want to do for their land. This is a last shot for them to have a tiny part of the injustice rectified for what happened in 1841, before that, and to this day. That is why we cannot oppose this bill.

We too understand that the Tāmaki redevelopment land as an option was not an option—certainly not a viable option; more like a commercial liability. We have seen that happen somewhere before: Invercargill. The Minister made a botch-up of those sales of those houses. We, surely, can understand why Ngāti Paoa had a look at was being offered, had a look at how that was going to play out, and it did not look well. It did not look well for Ngāti Paoa. So we understand that that was not a viable option, and, yes, we need more houses. Māori in particular are featuring disproportionately in low homeownership and in homelessness, so we want homes to be built, and when that programme is led by iwi—that is why we cannot oppose this bill.

The Government, as I said, has hitched its housing failure to this legislation, but that means that Ngāti Paoa—this is their chance. This is Ngāti Paoa’s chance. We cannot oppose the bill, because this is Ngāti Paoa’s chance, and we are proud of our stand in Te Tiriti as the Green Party.

My colleague Eugenie Sage is also going to expand on our valid reasons for not being able to support this legislation. I too heard the submissions from local communities, and they were clear. Yes, we absolutely support appropriate decision making. Again, the Crown botched this decision-making process right up, and the community is not happy. The legal process for the normal, democratic rezoning of open space has completely been swiped. That outlines the reasons why, as the Green Party, we also simply cannot support this legislation.

I just want to, as I start summing up, pick up again on how much it displeases me when the Minister and his Government can pretend that pushing this legislation through is a genuine plea to uphold the mana motuhake of mana whenua. Now, I believe that of Ngāti Paoa, but I simply cannot accept that from the Crown. I cannot accept that after the damage it has done to both environmental and conservation protections and the damage that has happened to communities—lower-income communities and Māori communities—and then it is going to stand there and pretend that that is what it is pushing in this legislation. It absolutely is not. This legislation, for the Crown, is part of its patch-up job trying to fix the housing failure that it has been a massive part of. So we uncover that—the Greens uncover that. We know what we are voting for and against, and that is why we have very clear and valid reasons for not being able to support this bill—we believe in Ngāti Paoa and we support them—and for not being able to oppose this bill.

We understand that the community has valid disagreements and fears for how this is going to shape up. I will just finish that—I want to thank Ngāti Paoa for engaging with the Green Party and outlining their clear visions for this land, that they, in effect, want to double the green space that is available by utilising the currently lesser-used parts of the reserve and opening it up to be better for public use. I look forward to the building of the marae on their papakāinga—marae that are always available to everybody in our communities. I am excited by the visions that Ngāti Paoa have, and I am disappointed that the Crown has seen this as an opportunity to fix its failures. Thank you.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): At the first reading of this bill, I expressed on behalf of New Zealand First some very grave concerns about the loss of this important reserve land. But we voted as a party to send the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee, because we wanted to hear what the submissions would be from all of the affected people, especially the local people. Now we know the depth of opposition and why, so that reiterates New Zealand First’s original position, which is that our priority is, in fact, the preservation of this reserve land, and it still is—and the local people and the vast majority of submissions support that.

Having said that, New Zealand First members have always wanted to see more land available for the development of housing in Auckland. In fact, we have been saying so for at least 6 years. National actually created this housing crisis. It created it, fundamentally, through excessive immigration and through other inaction, and now it is in panic mode, trying to find enough residential land because of the difficulties that it created in the first place. That includes rushing to try to use up valuable reserve land like this. National itself seems to admit that now by saying that it is prepared to go out and get land, whether it is reserve land or otherwise. I do not quite understand what it was that Bill English said recently, because it was not very clear, but he did make it clear that they are not doing enough, and I cannot agree with that more.

The chronic need for more residential land does not justify the taking of this reserve land for residential development, because there are, in fact, other opportunities if the Government wants to go out and get them. Buy the land that is necessary, in appropriate places. This land was a gift to the people of New Zealand in 1945 for use as reserved open space for recreation and conservation purposes. Now, all of that is actually, in fact, being used for that purpose, irrespective of the fact that currently there are some cows being grazed on it—something that, strangely, the Minister for the Environment belabours and belabours and belabours.

There are already many recreational pursuits being carried out there. The playing fields are being used. The open spaces are used for social gatherings and kids just playing. There are many events: music, triathlons, and so on. Those opportunities must not be lost, and they must not be lost just for current needs but for future generations as well, because as more and more residential development happens, there will be more and more demand for this sort of land. This bill is actually going to remove, effectively, about a third of the land usable for those purposes, and all we get in return is a paltry 300 houses, only 20 percent of which are supposed to be affordable. We do not even know on what basis they will be declared to be affordable—not very affordable, I suspect, to a lot of people.

So the position we now are in is that we have a dismal failure of the Government’s housing strategy, and that is leading to bad planning, and it is leading to the use of inappropriate land for housing development, most especially this particular reserve. The Auckland Unitary Plan actually shows that this particular area is going to have at least 20,000, if not 30,000, more houses in the immediate area. Those people are going to need this reserve land in the future. They will need more parks, not less. I do want to compare this—because the Minister did—with the Riccarton Racecourse land. That division of land was supported by New Zealand First because the land, which was surplus there, was not reserve land used for recreation.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, it was.

DENIS O’ROURKE: It was not, and the recreation land was preserved and so were the amenity values of the racecourse. That land was surplus, and, furthermore, in that particular legislation there were provisions to ensure that of the sections to be sold, a significant portion of them—at least 30 percent—were going to be affordable and there was a definition provided for that purpose and, also, a mechanism to ensure that this commitment would be met, and that is not the case with this land.

I also want to support the conservation values for this land. Despite what the Minister says, it is important as a breeding area for the northern New Zealand dotterel and pied stilts, and that is one other very good reason why this land should be reserved. The foreshore is an important roosting area, which will, in fact, be compromised by the residential development so close to it. But the preservation of the open space itself is the most important reason why this land should be preserved and the public amenity that depends on that.

Housing will affect the whole reserve, not just a part of it. The Minister went on and on about so much of this land being used for grazing, but that is actually only incidental. It is part of a management regime for the land and, also, is a way of funding the maintenance of the reserve. It is not a fundamental use of the land, and he knows that. He is actually misrepresenting that situation completely. If he does not know that, then he is dumber than I think he is, and, believe me, I think he is pretty dumb right now.

The Auckland Council submission also supports the New Zealand First position. It talks about the “highly valued public reserve”. It does talk about the precedent of using special legislation to get rid of reserve land. That is a serious issue, because it means that it will happen again in the future, especially if this Government stays in power.

Also, of course, it is being used for the Treaty settlement of Ngāti Paoa. Reserves are set aside to stop all of that happening—to stop all of that happening.

Marama Fox: Treaty settlements?

DENIS O’ROURKE: It is no small—yes, that included. And it is no small matter that special legislation is being brought down to reverse both those issues: the preservation of reserve land, and to stop it being used for any other purpose, including residential development by Ngāti Paoa. And that is the truth of that matter. That is what reserves are for.

I also think it is a great shame that the Government is pitching the community against Māori in this way. The Government should be going out and finding the land that is necessary for housing and should not be resorting to reserve land in this way. The need for a settlement with Ngāti Paoa has got nothing to do with that. The local community and New Zealand First—we both support that settlement, but that does not mean that this land needs to be taken for residential development, rather than reserve land for all the proper purposes that reserve land should be for.

This situation, supported by the Māori Party, as it always seems to do on these things, blindly and stupidly—

Marama Fox: Because we support iwi. Stupidly supporting iwi!

DENIS O’ROURKE: —without thinking the thing through, is just another National Government mess. All the caterwauling by Ms Fox will not change that. This will not make any difference to solving the housing crisis. It is a drop in a bucket. There are alternatives available. The Government should be going out there and buying private land, not using reserve land. Instead, it is content to destroy for ever valuable public open space and to compromise its conservation values. This is a very, very bad deal. It is very, very bad legislation. It will set a precedent, and New Zealand First will certainly continue to vote against it.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I am very happy to rise for two reasons: one, to support this bill, and, secondly, after that last speaker, I really just wanted to stand up and stretch my legs and stay awake. Really, with this bill, when you look at it, you have a Labour Party crying crocodile tears for housing in Auckland, and it opposes this bill; you have a Green Party that is sitting on the fence; and then you have New Zealand First, which voted in favour of the Riccarton Racecourse reserve bill, where we were looking to put affordable housing on reserve land in Christchurch, and is now voting against this bill. The Opposition does not make sense, whereas, on this side of the House, we are showing strong leadership—strong leadership for housing in Auckland.

I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee. I sat through the many submissions in Auckland, and I listened to the submitters. Overall, it is fair to say that most agreed on the intent of this bill: to supply more housing. Where it really cut up rough was around the concerns for the environment and around the loss of recreational land. From what I saw that day and from what I have read, I have got full faith in Ngāti Paoa to put in mitigation strategies to address the very real concerns for the birdlife, for the dotterel, and for potential loss of recreational grounds—to address that and put in mitigation strategies so both can go ahead. We can support the birdlife at Point England, we can support better recreational grounds for the local community, and we can provide more housing.

When we pause and reflect on what happened post the devastating earthquakes in Canterbury, we know that when you need to ramp up housing, the first step is to free up land. We saw that in parts of my electorate, in Waimakariri. If we free up land, it increases supply and it equals demand. That is what we need for Auckland. So I am very surprised that we have a Labour Party crying crocodile tears for housing in Auckland, that we have a Green Party that is sitting on the fence, and that we have a New Zealand First Party that forgot its stance last time.

Overall, this is a good bill that will support future housing in Auckland, and I commend it to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Eugenie Sage—5 minutes.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to stand and explain the Green Party’s position on the Point England Development Enabling Bill. It is another Nick Smith shambles. This is because it is taking public reserve land for subdivision and housing development and then using Auckland’s housing crisis and a future Treaty settlement to justify it. Rather than taking all of the reserve and returning it to Ngāti Paoa, as we understand they originally requested, as cultural redress, the Minister is using this bill to actually override the normal legislative processes and require Ngāti Paoa to buy a portion of the reserve and require them to use it for housing. It is not a good Treaty settlement, but we are not opposing it, because we recognise and support Ngāti Paoa’s right to regain ownership of their ancestral land and their rights to development.

The reason we are not voting against the bill and are abstaining is that we understand that the Government has made it very clear that this is the only way Ngāti Paoa is going to get its ancestral land back. But we are not supporting the bill, because it has got many, many flaws. There is the whole issue of the way in which it overrides the usual process for removing reserve status and it overrides the Resource Management Act (RMA), and the fact that there is no guarantee that Ngāti Paoa will actually even get the land, because they have to buy it. If they do not choose to buy it and exercise that option, and if the Tāmaki Collective does not choose to buy it, then the bill allows a panel of private developers to use the land for development.

So there is no certainty—there is nothing in the bill—that actually ensures that Ngāti Paoa will get the land. That is why there is a Supplementary Order Paper that ensures that if the land is not taken by Ngāti Paoa or the Tāmaki Collective, it remains in Crown ownership to be used for Treaty settlement purposes and to be managed as a reserve. At the moment, this bill, if it goes through and Ngāti Paoa does not exercise its rights, is just a way that the Government is moving to allow private developers to take reserve land. That is the Government’s real agenda here.

This area at Point England is the largest area of open space on the Tāmaki foreshore. It has got sweeping views over the river and back to Maungarei—Mount Wellington. We are expecting an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 more people in the Tāmaki area over the next 15 to 20 years. People need open space—green space—for amenity values and as places to recreate, particularly where we are getting increased density of subdivision.

This bill overrides the normal legal processes in the Reserves Act. There are tests in the Reserves Act for changing reserve status. The regulatory impact statement made it very clear that this change in status would fail because there has been no evidence provided that the reserve is no longer required for its present purpose or any other reserve purpose. The Department of Conservation’s advice was that it was very unlikely that the test for revocation of reserve status would be satisfied.

We certainly did not hear any information at the select committee that the land was no longer required for a reserve. In fact, we heard an awful lot of evidence from submitters to the contrary, about how it is used for kilikiti, for sports, for passive recreation, like walking, and for kids’ triathlons. Under the normal processes, the public would have had an opportunity to comment on that revocation. Under this bill, they do not get that opportunity.

As well, the bill overrides the normal processes under the RMA. There should be a plan change process, which would enable the public and the council to assess the costs and benefits of rezoning what is now open space as high-density, mixed-use residential. It would look at those whole processes of democratic decisions around planning. Yet, we have seen Auckland lawyers pointing out recently in an article that this bill highlights a disturbing trend towards ad hoc decision-making at the expense of access to environmental justice and quality outcomes. So that is another reason that we cannot support the bill.

We hope that Ngāti Paoa will get some advice from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment on the geotechnical issues, because this area of land is very boggy, very wet, it is potentially at risk of natural hazards, and is not suited to housing. We will not be supporting the bill or opposing it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Marama Fox—5 minutes.

MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Well, I would like to acknowledge those of Ngāti Paoa who are seated in the gallery in this evening, specifically Hauāuru Rāwiri, kaihautū of Ngāti Paoa Iwi Trust. While we have heard a lot about what the Government is supposedly doing, and we have heard a lot about what the Opposition members think about this bill—their stance and their summations—let us see what Ngāti Paoa have said about this bill. I am going to quote from Ngāti Paoa Iwi Trust chief executive officer Hauāuru Rāwiri, and he said that “… without this land there would be no Treaty settlement between the Crown and Ngāti Paoa.”

So there is a lot of talk from people who think they know, but this comes from the words of the people themselves: “ ‘By opposing the legislation, Labour is opposing a Treaty Settlement Bill—for the first time in the history of the Treaty settlement process. The Labour Party position seems to be that Ngāti Paoa is being duped by the Government to advance its housing programme. This [surely] is a supremely patronising and condescending attitude that reflects poorly on its proponents.’ The Government is proposing to sell 13 hectares of the 48-hectare reserve to Ngāti Paoa, and there is a bill before Parliament that would lift its reserve status and allow housing to be built on the land.” These are their words, not my words, not the Opposition’s words, and not the words of the Green Party members, who seem to be sitting on the fence, while I heard a lot of reasons why the Green Party would support it, get up and support it. This is not about housing specifically; this is Treaty redress. How patronising of this Government and this Opposition to think that they can tell the Treaty partner what to do with their land, 70,000 acres taken—

Peeni Henare: Give the land back. No strings attached!

MARAMA FOX: —70,000—taken for £100. “Give the land back.” is the cry that comes from over here. This is the only land available to be used as redress for Ngāti Paoa. They know it. They have said it. They have accepted it, and they have signed the letter that this land will come back to them in redress. It is the same as every other Treaty settlement, and we do not hear the decrying calls of the Opposition members when they have to buy back their land. But we have said it; we have said it over and over again: this is the greatest koha to this nation that our people make again and again and again in Treaty settlements. How dare they use the land to do what they think is right to do with it when it was theirs in the first place! How dare they! How patronising—how patronising.

Here is one thing I do know: Ngāti Paoa have not been the ones to play political football with their Treaty settlement. They have stayed out of the politics of this debate. This debate has been politicised by this House—by this House. This House has politicised their Treaty settlement.

For the people who are going to have their million-dollar views disturbed, one of whom rang my office, a lovely male migrant who had come here from Ireland—and I said to him: “Surely you understand what this means to have your treaty grievance and your redress of a land coming back to you.”

Yes, unfortunately, we have had to purchase our land back—and that makes no sense—but yet we do it in Treaty settlements, yet we do it again and again, because we are past being people of protest, and we want to be people of progress. Ngāti Paoa has shown us the way that they would like to progress their settlement, their redress, to build affordable homes for their people and the people of Glen Innes. I tell you, I have been to just about every single housing development in that city and barely any of them are building affordable homes, except for who? Iwi. How dare they build affordable homes for their people! How patronising of this House to dare to stand up and tell them what they should do with their Treaty settlement.

Ngāti Paoa has been offered 2 hectares of that reserve land for their marae, a place to stand, a tūrangawaewae, finally after a hundred and whatever years of coming to this point. Why are we rushing this through? With their agreement, with their respect, and with their wishes. I support this bill.

JOANNE HAYES (National): Following on from that very strong speech by Marama Fox, I just want to say to this House that I have sat here tonight and it has absolutely disgusted me, the behaviour of the Opposition—Labour—in not supporting this bill. It is about the Treaty rights of Ngāti Paoa. I am absolutely ashamed to be part of this House when you have got a party that abstains—that abstains from actually making a decision—because they came here representing a voice to the people whom they represent and yet they abstain on this very important bill. I just want this House to take note of everything that has gone on with this Opposition. It is disgusting that Labour, which purports to have all of the Māori issues in hand, really does not have them in hand, and we know that the Māori Party does.

When I sat here today and I listened to what New Zealand First said about this Government taking away reserves, it is a load of rubbish. I sat there and I thought: “Where is this guy coming from? I mean, he supported the Riccarton housing bill and yet cannot bring himself to support this.” Honestly, some people need to go back into their offices, look at themselves in the mirror, and think: “Are we really worthy of being here?”. Because, from what I have heard tonight, they are not worthy of being here.

So, without any further ado, I support the work that Hon Nick Smith is doing around housing in Auckland. Auckland needs these houses. Ngāti Paoa have a right to their own economic development with the 300 social houses that they have put together and planned for. They have a right. Do not take that right away. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to take a call on this Point England Development Enabling Bill. I do so as a proud member of our Labour caucus but also as a Māori based in South Auckland and as somebody who is 100 percent committed to and passionate about resolving our historical Treaty settlements.

This is an incredibly emotional piece of legislation. I think we all just have to take stock of what we are trying to do, which is many things, actually. So, firstly, I would like to acknowledge Hauāuru Rāwiri, who is in the House on behalf of the Ngāti Paoa Iwi Trust. I acknowledge that from their perspective they have completed their negotiations with the Crown and they are in the process of their deed of settlement being prepared. So, for them, this journey has taken a long, long time. Actually, we can go back to 2007 when we released the Tāmaki Makaurau Settlement Process Report, which in fact was the tribunal report that has brought us to where we are today. So this is a time to actually contemplate why we have managed to arrive at a point in our history where we are bickering like children in this House of Representatives, which is actually supposed to take the people with us.

If this is a Treaty settlement bill, then why have we not ensured that the people of Point England and the people of Maungakiekie and Tāmaki have been taken with us on this journey? We have failed in that process. We all need to look at what has happened here tonight and think about how it has happened. I think that from Ngāti Paoa’s position they have, in good faith, been negotiating with the Crown since 2007. In fact, in 2013 when their marae was agreed to, it was agreed by the Crown, which notified the council. It was supported by the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board, and we had some cultural redress that ensured Ngāti Paoa had some whenua, on the land of their tupuna, Paoa, that they were going to create—not only for themselves but for the community of Maungakiekie and Tāmaki.

Somehow we went from there to where we are today: discussing 11.69 hectares of a reserve piece of land that, as my colleague Denis O’Rourke said, was gifted to the people of Auckland in 1945, from whom? From the Crown. Who did the Crown take it from? Actually, it took it from the iwi of Tāmaki Makaurau, including Ngāti Paoa.

I have tried, in my deliberations as a member of this Parliament, to talk to the people who have been vested with the responsibility of engaging with our communities. I have talked to people like Josephine Bartley, who is the current chair of the Maungakiekie-Tāmaki Local Board. I have talked to Phil Goff, who is the current Mayor of Auckland. Auckland Council actually supports this legislation, but it said two things: the people of Point England need to be compensated, because 25 percent of the current recreation land that that community enjoys is being lost. Actually, I think the Government is negotiating with the council to reimburse or compensate the community.

The other thing that the council said was that if this is truly a Treaty settlement, then the only people who should get this land are Ngāti Paoa. Whether we like it or not, there is an opportunity, through legislation, for the Government to actually give this land to a developer. I am trying to close that gap through my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 320. Within the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Act of 2014 there is an opportunity for a developer—if Ngāti Paoa does not take up the option, if the other 12 mana whenua who are signatories to that particular settlement agreement for whatever reason do not take up that option, the Crown, because it is using this land for housing, can actually sell it on the open market. That is a realism of this.

So this is not a traditional, normal Treaty settlement like we say it is. This is actually extraordinary, and it is out of the box, which is why, I think you have seen, from our side of the House, we do not support it. We have got a proud history of supporting Treaty settlements. Straight-up Treaty settlements—100 percent we support them. This is not a straight-up Treaty settlement. But from our perspective we have to maintain the mana and the integrity of our Treaty partners, our mana whenua, who have acted in good faith, who have negotiated with the Crown, and they have come to an agreement about this particular piece of land.

The SOP is seeking to close the loop and say that if this land is going to be vested back into the Crown—because currently it is vested in Auckland Council—and if this land is going to be used as right of first refusal land, and if this land is going to go back to Ngāti Paoa, then we want to limit section 136 of the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Act, which, essentially, means that because it is being used for housing purposes, the Government and the Minister for Building and Construction can sell it to somebody else. So if we can close that loop and be really clear about what this bill is—that it is part of the deed of settlement, that it is Treaty legislation, and that the only beneficiary of this piece of legislation going through the House tonight is Ngāti Paoa—then I think maybe, maybe, we can start to actually realise the full intent of this Treaty settlement process, which is about our truth and reconciliation process.

For our mana whenua and our community groups to get caught in the middle of the bickering that we are having in this House—actually, we have to take responsibility for the fact that the community was not consulted. So who should take responsibility for that? Is that Ngāti Paoa’s responsibility—to have gone to the community to talk to them about this piece of land and where it fits in their Treaty settlement? Was it Auckland Council’s responsibility? Was it the Government’s? Whose was it? This is the process where we have now told some of our community groups and, particularly, our local board leaders that this is part of Ngāti Paoa’s settlement.

So I think that there is an opportunity for us to move forward, but we can only do it in good faith and we can only do it through trust. The reality of my Supplementary Order Paper is that this shows that the community does not trust the Government. This SOP is an insurance policy for the community, because it is afraid that this National Government is not going to honour its Treaty settlement. It is going to give it—[Interruption] No, I am serious. You are going to allow somebody else to develop that land—Fletcher’s, whoever it may be—but you are not going to actually give this land back to Ngāti Paoa.

Hon Member: That’s outrageous.

LOUISA WALL: It is not outrageous. It is absolutely not outrageous. If you think it is outrageous, then you are deluding yourself. You are also deluding yourself about the responsibility that the Government had in making sure that you took the people with us. You have actually undermined the Treaty settlement process through what you have done. Every other Treaty settlement that goes through this House usually has universal support. We would never get up and actually contradict a deed of settlement, because that deed of settlement has taken so long to get to. The deed of settlement that is being prepared—and that is the other thing we must all remember. Once it is signed by the Crown, it is signed off by Cabinet and by Ngāti Paoa, and then it is legally binding.

I think that there is a way forward. At the moment we cannot support this legislation. We would love to support this legislation, but we cannot support it, because this is not a traditional, classic Treaty settlement bill. You can say it is, but it has not gone through the Māori Affairs Committee, which is the traditional process. Actually, you know, I think the Māori members of the National caucus would say this is not a traditional Treaty settlement piece of legislation.

I think that there is an opportunity for us to work together to resolve this issue, to clarify it. I am hoping that there will be support for my SOP. It is on the Table. I am not sure when we will have the Committee stage and the third reading debate, but I look forward to us having a robust discussion and everybody being really clear that unless this is categorically and can only ever go to either Ngāti Paoa or other iwi of Tāmaki Makaurau, then we will not support it, because it is not a Treaty bill. Kia ora.

NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. E mihi atu ki a koe e te rakatira o Ngāti Paoa, ā, huri noa i Te Whare nei e mihi atu.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I acknowledge you, the esteemed one of Ngāti Paoa, and you collectively throughout this House, I greet you.]

I just want to say, first of all, that I still have a lot of respect for the last speaker, Louisa Wall. But some of the thoughts that she put to the House tonight, I think really do put into jeopardy the situation on this side of the House when it comes to Treaty settlements. This is the party—the National Party is the party of Treaty settlements. When we look at the past record of that side of the House compared with this side, there is no comparison at all. So to actually bring this in as a political football—when we hear the other side of the House, and not just the Labour Party members but also the Green Party and New Zealand First members, actually using this as a political football, it is a very, very dire day in this House.

What I want to do is just to say to this House that this bill is a little different—absolutely—but this is an opportunity, through this bill, to release land so that there are opportunities for an iwi, actually, to be able to build on this land. It is a piece of land that was used only for the grazing of cows and some other sorts of activities. The best use of this land has been recognised by this party, and the other side of the House has now used it as a political football, where they are saying: “Oh no, because of this the whole Treaty settlement process is in disarray.”

What I want to do is say to that side of the House that you need land. You have just promised 100,000 houses, and yet everything we have put up to you is all about the release of land—you do not want to go there. Look at what we are doing. Look at what has just come. We will build 34,000 new houses in Auckland, and the reason for that—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I do not like that word being used. I will not have that at all.

NUK KORAKO: Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I can see that I have really hit a nerve, because the truth hurts. At the end of the day, I want to congratulate Minister Nick Smith and Ngāti Paoa on working together to achieve this excellent outcome for iwi and Aucklanders.

Phil Twyford: I think someone left a window open. Let’s build some houses on parks in your area.

NUK KORAKO: It is a shame that we get the disrespect from that side of the House, particularly because this is a great bill. Kia ora tātou katoa.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Point England Development Enabling Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 62

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

Noes 43

New Zealand Labour 31; New Zealand First 12.

Abstentions 14

Green Party 14.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017-18, Employment and Investment Income, and Remedial Matters) Bill

First Reading

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017-18, Employment and Investment Income, and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Exp enditure Committee to consider the bill. This bill serves two purposes that are important for the health of our tax system. A good tax system comprises good tax policy supported by good tax administration. This bill contains proposals to improve both sides of the equation. Along with setting the income tax rates for the 2017-18 year, as the name of the bill implies, the rates remain unchanged from the previous year. This bill contains proposals for modernising tax administration, and also contains proposals aimed at improving the current tax settings within a broad based - low rate framework.

The Government’s vision for the future is for most people to pay the correct amount of tax through the year, and if there is any refund or tax to pay, that will be calculated by IRD. To achieve that vision of a simple tax administration, the Inland Revenue Department needs good, timely information direct from income payers—for example, income information provided by employers and investment income payers. People will be able to check and confirm that information if they wish. Good, accurate information will mean greater accuracy of tax collected through the year, and help prevent individuals from getting into debt.

This bill therefore includes proposals for payers of dividends, interest, and tax for Māori authorities; distributions to provide detailed information to the Inland Revenue Department on a monthly basis, or for the months in which payments are made if the payment frequency is less than monthly. Currently, payers of these sorts of income provide only aggregate information at year-end to the Inland Revenue Department. The Government is conscious of compliance and administration costs for payers of investment income, so to reduce these costs the bill proposes that investment income payers be allowed to correct errors in previous withholding tax returns in their next return without incurring penalties or interest, subject to restrictions for errors being corrected in the following tax year. In addition, the bill proposes removing the requirement for interest payers to provide end-of-year withholding tax certificates to income recipients who have provided their IRD numbers. The investment income information changes will generally apply from 1 April 2020.

The second group of tax simplification proposals is aimed at employers. One of the objectives of the Government’s transformation of tax administration is for businesses to spend more of their time focusing on growing their businesses, rather than fulfilling tax requirements. Businesses using accounting software to prepare and send their GST returns to the Inland Revenue Department are experiencing a significant compliance cost reduction. The Government wants employers to benefit from this approach too, so the bill proposes changes that will enable employers to benefit from modern software, but does not require them to use it. The proposed changes are intended to reduce compliance for employers by integrating tax tasks, like providing PAYE information, into their normal business procedures. The bill proposes requiring employers to provide the Inland Revenue Department with information about their employees’ income and deductions on a pay-day basis, rather than on the current monthly basis.

In line with the theme of modernisation, this bill proposes abolishing a subsidy that has outlived its purpose. In the early days of electronic filing of PAYE information, the use of a payroll intermediary made compliance easier for small employers and helped to guarantee a better standard of information provided to the Inland Revenue Department. An incentive to use an approved intermediary was therefore provided. The range of payroll products and services has developed significantly in the intervening years, and an incentive is simply not appropriate any more. The bill therefore proposes to repeal it from 1 April 2018. These are some of the main proposals relating to modernising our tax administration.

I turn now to the second category of proposals: those aimed at maintaining our broad based - low rate tax system. To remain effective, the tax settings must constantly evolve to keep abreast of changes in the economic environment, interpretation of the law, and business practices. One such change is the growing popularity of employee share schemes. The tax laws relating to employee share schemes have been in place for many years, but since their establishment they have not been revisited. In the meantime, employee share schemes have become a more popular form of remuneration amongst employers. The bill therefore proposes a number of changes to modernise and improve the taxation of employee share schemes.

The main objective of the proposed reforms is to ensure that as far as possible the tax position of both the employer and the employee is the same whether remuneration for labour is paid for in cash or in shares. This means ensuring that the share scheme cannot be structured to give employees tax-free remuneration. For example, under current law an employee can be given what is economically a valuable share option without being taxed on that benefit, whereas the provision of an actual option is taxable when the option is exercised. The proposals in this bill remove this distortion.

The bill also proposes allowing employers a tax deduction for the amount of the employee’s share scheme income at the time the employee is taxable in order to align the tax treatment with other types of employment income. So it is a balanced package that benefits business.

In response to submissions, to minimise compliance costs it is proposed that the tax-exempt, widely offered employee share schemes are retained. The bill, however, proposes some amendments to modernise the rules and to close certain loopholes that are currently being used to obtain unintended deductions. Transitional rules are included in the bill, which will allow most companies 6 months after the enactment of the bill to amend the employee share schemes, if necessary, to take into account the new law.

The Government is keenly aware of the value of employee share schemes as a form of remuneration, particularly in innovative start-up companies, and, to remove some potential tax impediments faced by start-up companies in offering employee share schemes, officials are currently developing a public consultation document that defines a proposal contained in the 2016 issues paper. Public feedback is important to the development of sound tax rules, and therefore I would encourage interested parties to make submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the proposals contained in this bill.

The bill proposes making available a refundable tax credit to address the losses arising from decommission expenditure incurred by a petroleum miner. This is similar to other refundable tax credits already included in the Income Tax Act 2007, most relevantly the refundable tax credit for mineral mining rehabilitation expenditure. The existing rules addressing this situation involve significant compliance administration costs. An amendment is proposed to create an exclusion from the dividend rules for certain company demergers. The full value of the shares in a demerged company is currently treated as a taxable dividend for the shareholder. However, a genuine demerger is in substance the division of a corporate group rather than a distribution of income and should not, therefore, give rise to taxable income. In practice, the problem has arisen in relation to demergers by listed Australian companies, so the proposed solution focuses on these. This is a good example of tax policy being responsive to the valid concerns of the private sector.

A proposed amendment would provide the Inland Revenue Department with the discretion to issue IRD numbers to offshore persons without a New Zealand bank account if satisfied with their identity and background. This is intended to give the Inland Revenue Department sufficient flexibility to deal with a range of different cases in a timely basis and reduce undue compliance costs.

Five new charities are proposed to be added to the list of donee organisations in schedule 32. New Zealand charities that support overseas activities must be listed in schedule 32 in order for their donors to be eligible for tax benefits, in particular the donations tax credit. The proposed new additions to schedule 32 are Beyond Disaster Relief New Zealand, Flying for Life Charitable Trust, Médecins Sans Frontières New Zealand Charitable Trust, Tony McClean Nepal Trust, and Zimbabwe Rural Schools Library Trust.

Finally, the bill contains a range of remedial matters. These and other measures proposed in the bill have been developed to strengthen our tax system by modernising the administration to make it easier for people to get their tax right in the first place. I commend the bill to the House.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017-18, Employment and Investment Income, and Remedial Matters) Bill. I rise to speak to the bill on behalf of the Labour Party, and it is the intention of Labour to support this bill to the select committee stage, at which point we think it is very appropriate for a number of the matters that have been flagged by the Minister of Revenue within the bill to be very, very closely examined—and I thank the Minister for her attention to the debate that is going on at the moment.

One of the things that is important to be aware of with this bill, and many of the other large tax bills that are coming the House’s way this year, is that they are sprawling beasts, and this bill—by my adding up here—amends at least six Acts in reasonably important ways: the Income Tax Act 2007, the Tax Administration Act 1994, the KiwiSaver Act 2006, the Student Loan Scheme Act 2011, the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985, the Child Support Act 1991, the Accident Compensation Act 2001, and the Income Tax Act 2004. So there are potentially a lot of impacts flowing from this bill, and a lot of the detail is very, very complex, so we think it is going to be extremely important that when this bill goes to select committee it receives a thorough examination—and, as I stand here, I notice the upstanding and hard-working chair of our committee, Mr Chris Bishop, coming into the House, with rapt attention to this debate, and I look forward to working on the bill with him in the committee.

There are four broad aspects to this bill. The first is that it sets the 2017-18 income tax rates. Secondly, there are a range of changes that focus on the business reporting of tax information—a lot of these are related to the business transformation process that the Minister spoke about in her speech. There are some very substantial changes to the treatment of employee share schemes, and I want to return to those a little bit later. Then there are various remedial matters, as we always get with these bills.

I want to start off with the rates, and they were really the unspoken story when we just heard from the Minister of Revenue, but they will be of some interest to the 3 million or so New Zealand taxpayers out there who want some clarity on what their income tax rates will be for the year ahead. Of course, it is a little bit interesting because it was not that long ago that we stood in this House—I think probably only about 5 or 6 weeks ago—to actually confirm the rates for the 2016-17 year. It was a bit of a last-minute dash. I think we ended up with about 2 or 3 days—

Chris Bishop: Ha, ha!

MICHAEL WOOD: —before the end of the financial year. Mr Bishop knows how concerned the Labour Party is about this. I know that he will be committed to having a more orderly process this year, and perhaps he can speak to the Leader of the House about ensuring that that unfolds over the coming months.

It is notable, of course, that the rates in this bill are simply a repeat, a rehash, of the current year’s rates, and they are being put to this House days before a Budget in which the Minister has been foreshadowing and really pumping up the expectation of some pretty significant changes in the income tax space. All I can say in that area is that I hope those members do a better job than they did the last time that they looked at New Zealand’s income tax rates, because the last time they did that, right at the beginning of this National Government, the changes that they made shifted income distribution in this country vastly to the advantage of the top 10 percent of wage and salary earners. I think that when you listen to people out in our communities at the moment, people are looking for a Budget that has fairness at its core, and if we see changes to income tax rates that again significantly weight those advantages and that additional income to the top 10 percent of income earners, as happened the last time the National Government changed income tax rates, there is going to be a huge backlash.

More broadly, though, in respect of tax rates, I guess the view of the Labour Party is that that ongoing tinkering with the tax system that we are getting from the National Government—that is what we expect to see in the coming week—simply is not good enough. Over a long period of time we have had a build-up of substantial imbalances in our tax system, and simply reconfirming the income tax rates for the year or looking at the thresholds, as we might hear about on Thursday, does not really resolve the big issues in our economy and our society that stem from those imbalances in our tax system.

I know many members in this House might have heard about the book Tax and Fairness, which has come out over the last week or two. Look, a very well-qualified, extremely intelligent author, Dr Deborah Russell, Labour’s candidate for the seat of New Lynn, is one of the authors, along with Terry Baucher, and it really is worth a read. I am only about halfway through it, but what it does is it really delves into the substantial issues in our tax system and points to this fact that just fiddling with thresholds is not going to be enough. It points to the fact, for example, that the tax treatment of people who put their wealth into productive investment and savings versus those who put their income into property speculation is vastly different—is vastly different. If the Government, when it is putting forward a tax bill like this, which deals with the tax treatment of certain kinds of investments, really wanted to invest in a productive economy, that is one of the things that it could look at, because what Deborah Russell says is that the tax burden on those people who put their wealth into productive investments is four times that of the tax burden of those people—and, who knows, there may even be some of them on the benches opposite—who put their wealth into property speculation.

That goes to the housing crisis that affects so many New Zealanders today, and it goes to the fundamental economic settings and incentives in our economy as well, and if we ever really want to climb up that mountain that we talk about year in, year out in this House about building a high-wage, high-skill economy with high rates of R & D, in which we have world-class living standards, we are going to have to effect that shift at some stage. If we keep ploughing our wealth into property and if we keep having a tax system that incentivises us to do that, we simply will never get there. Once again, we have a tax bill that a lot of work has gone into—a lot of institutional knowledge from IRD and a lot of research and a lot of time will be spent, a lot of submissions—and we are just tinkering around the edges. We are not dealing with those very, very fundamental issues.

So that is something that Labour wants to see, and what Labour will deliver is a shift—looking at the fundamental drivers of the tax system and rebalancing it to ensure that we are incentivising the right kinds of investments.

While we are on it, we wait with great interest, and, again, there is nothing in this tax bill to ensure that while Kiwi taxpayers, who are, of course, paying their tax diligently at the rates set down in this bill—we are seeing multinationals in New Zealand getting away with ripping off the Kiwi taxpayer to the tune of between $300 million, by the Government’s own estimates, and up to $1 billion per year by some other estimates. Once again, though, we have a tax bill that does not begin to touch on that, and we have absolutely no certainty that the Government has any intention whatsoever of progressing action in that area before this election. There is a lot of hui, not much doey.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.

MICHAEL WOOD: Certainly, Mr Assistant Speaker. I know that the members opposite are eager to hear more information, and I am happy to provide it.

One of the concerns we have with the bill, and one of the aspects we seek to explore further in select committee, is the extent of the shift to pre-population that is set out in this bill, and it is mentioned many, many times in the commentary. Many people in the tax community really want to know where this is going, because, at first blush, IRD having better information earlier on in the piece sounds like a good idea. We can all agree that is a good idea, and we can all agree that it probably is a good idea for that information to be used to pre-populate people’s tax returns. But there are many people in the tax community who are asking whether this is taking us back in the direction of compulsory filing of tax returns. There are certain signals—bits of smoke that seem to come out of IRD—that seem to suggest that this might be the case, and that is something that we will want to explore further in the select committee process.

I want to turn now to the changes proposed to employee share schemes. Most of us in this House will agree that employee share schemes are a really valuable tool for recognising employees, for putting incentives in place, for giving people a stake in growing companies. We want to support not just their retention but their growth under the right circumstances. Probably the most significant changes proposed in this bill are the treatment of those employee share schemes. Effectively, the changes proposed are to further date when employees acquire the shares for tax purposes. It is a major, major change, and there is already a lot of chatter amongst businesses and amongst the tax community about how this may affect the attractiveness of employee share schemes. This is not the time and place to go into all of the detail there, but, once again, on behalf of the Labour Party, I would flag up that that is an area we want to spend some real time on at select committee. We cannot afford to get that wrong, or we are really going to rock the boat on an area that is quite important in terms of incentives in many of our businesses.

Once again, the Labour Party will be supporting this bill in its first reading, and we look forward to further discussion and good quality debate at select committee. Thank you.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I know that the member who has just resumed his seat, Michael Wood, is a new member—

Grant Robertson: Ha! Listen to him!

CHRIS BISHOP: —a relatively new member—but I think Mr Wood really needs to talk to the Opposition finance spokesperson. That was quite a good speech, but it was actually a speech largely not about the bill, as my colleagues have pointed out. It was largely a speech in favour of a capital gains tax. I know that the Labour Party and their activists—Mr Wood comes from that venerable tradition—are hankering for a capital gains tax. But, actually, the official Labour Party policy—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is that the policy this week?

CHRIS BISHOP: —well, this week, as my colleague Michael Woodhouse points out—is that we are not going to have a capital gains tax, but it will be subject to a comprehensive taxation review in the unlikely event they get into Government. So it was a good speech, but not really about the bill.

The other thing that Mr Wood mentioned in the speech was multinational tax avoidance, and, again, this is something that the Labour Party activists are very worked up about. But, actually, all New Zealanders—and I think there is a bit of cross-party unity in the House on this—want everyone to pay their fair share of tax. The Government is in no disagreement with that objective, and the member will have seen the Minister of Revenue Judith Collins’ discussion documents that came out recently. But the thing about multinational tax avoidance and base erosion and profit shifting—BEPS, which is the technical term for it—is that it is a multinational problem. It is in the name. It is not something that New Zealand could do unilaterally, even if we wanted to; it is something that requires concerted action on the international level. That is exactly what the Government is doing, and that is exactly what other countries, such as Australia, are doing and I think members will see that roll out in good time.

I want to mention a couple of points in relation to the bill. The first is about employee share schemes, and Mr Wood gave a good introduction into some of the changes that the bill makes around employee share schemes. I think this is an area that we are really going to have to have a good look at in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I see the ranking Opposition member nodding—I was going to say furiously, but it is not quite furiously.

Grant Robertson: I wouldn’t call that furious.

CHRIS BISHOP: He is nodding away. And we are going to have to take a look at this—

Grant Robertson: Sagely.

CHRIS BISHOP: Sagely. OK—sure. This is an extremely complex area of the law and also we are dealing with individual taxpayers, and we have got to make sure we have got this right. I have had some commentary from people in the professions already that this is something that we are really going to have to take a good look at. So I am looking forward to doing that on the hard-working Finance and Expenditure Committee.

The other thing I want to make mention of is the changes it makes around, basically, employee income information. You could really summarise it by saying the Government is essentially going to collect more information from taxpayers and it is going to do it more quickly. That is all through the business transformation process that the Government is spending considerable sums of money on investing in.

For people listening out there, at 5 minutes to 10 on Tuesday night—they may be sitting there listening to the radio or watching a bit of Parliament TV, thinking why would the Government want more information about employee income information, such as monthly updates from employers to the IRD. There are a few reasons for this: one is actually an honourable aim, which is to help stop individuals incurring debt and also to reduce compliance costs for big companies. I think that is a laudable aim. And, also—and I know the Opposition will be very interested in this—it is to give the Government, essentially, greater flexibility around redesigning social policies. One of the problems we have with the current IRD system is that it is creaking. It is ancient. It is old. It is on its last legs, and that is why—

Richard Prosser: Don’t be ageist.

CHRIS BISHOP: —the Government is spending a lot of money on investing. Ha, ha! The Government is investing into this system to allow Governments of whatever political stripe, whether they be a blue, yellow, and mauve one, or a red, green stripe, to allow Governments of whatever persuasion to more quickly adapt the system to carry out social policies, tax policy, and also welfare policies. And that is going to be good in the future. Actually, that is probably, I think, the biggest benefit of the transformation programme, as it will allow Governments to be far more agile and innovative in their policy responses to particular situations than they are at the moment. It is a good bill. It needs some consideration, and I know we will be looking at it closely at the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): What a great pleasure to stand in the House at drive time, frankly—4 minutes to 10 p.m. I want to thank my colleague Chris Bishop for making sure that I managed to get my opportunity to start my contribution today. The first thing I would say is that I think the Minister of Revenue is probably setting a record for lack of enthusiasm for her role. I thought she should have been more positive tonight, because, as my colleague Michael Wood has alluded to, she did something that her predecessor—I need to be careful; there are a variety of former revenue Ministers around—her immediate predecessor, Michael Woodhouse, failed to do, which is actually get a bill in for the rates of income tax somewhere approximating when that year might begin, as opposed to the exercise we went through in the House most recently when we just scraped through with the 2016-17 rates.

The Minister should be a lot happier in her work, I think, given that she has actually managed to put a bill in front of us that contains the annual rates of income tax for the 2017-18 year. Of course, it all could go up in smoke on Thursday when the Minister of Finance comes to the House with a Budget that apparently—I read this evening—is going to deliver $50 a week to some working families.

It will be interesting, if the tax rates are used to do that, just who will get that benefit, because the truth is that if you are using the tax system to do that, be it thresholds or be it rates, the people who benefit the most are people like us who earn very substantial salaries. It does not matter whether you move the bottom thresholds, the people who benefit the most are the people who earn the most at the top. New Zealanders have to ask themselves: is that the priority they want from their tax system, or, actually, are we looking to create a fairer tax system right across—

Alastair Scott: Which clause of the bill are you talking about?

GRANT ROBERTSON: What was that?

Alastair Scott: Which clause of the bill are you talking about?

GRANT ROBERTSON: I am talking about the annual rates of income tax for 2017-18, provided for in the very first words of the title—the very first words. So Alastair Scott has woken from his—

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

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.