Wednesday, 28 June 2017

WEDNESDAY, 28 JUNE 2017

WEDNESDAY, 28 JUNE 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Primary Sector—Reports, Exports, Commodity Prices, and Prospects

1. IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the state of the rural economy?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Rabobank’s latest rural confidence survey shows rural sector confidence rose to 54 percent in the June quarter, double that of the previous quarter, on the back of rising commodity prices. The survey shows that farmers are now more upbeat about their economic prospects than at any point since 2003, when the survey began. Of course, rural sector confidence is important for the confidence of New Zealand’s regions, and the Westpac McDermott Miller Regional Economic Confidence Survey was released this morning and shows regional economic confidence continues to rise, with the non-dairy areas of Nelson, Marlborough, and the West Coast leading the charge.

Ian McKelvie: How have New Zealand’s agricultural exports fared recently?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: According to the latest data from Statistics New Zealand, strong demand for New Zealand produce saw merchandise exports in May rise to their highest monthly level in more than 3 years, up 8.7 percent to just under $5 billion, compared with the same month last year. That was on the back of strong demand for dairy, particularly out of China, with export values increasing by $342 million across the month. Other agricultural export categories, such as beef and lamb, forestry, fruit, and wine, also saw increased demand in May.

Ian McKelvie: How well placed is New Zealand to cope with commodity price swings?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Over the past 8 years, the Government has worked to diversify the economy so that a sudden price change in one commodity does not adversely affect the rest of the economy, and that has indeed happened, as we have seen exports hold up while the dairy sector struggled. Diversification has occurred in the agricultural sector, as dairy is now complemented by other fast-growing sectors such as horticulture and viticulture, which are also helping us climb up the export value chain. The Government’s economic plan is working, as we saw recently when the overall economy continued to grow despite the dairy industry struggling.

Ian McKelvie: What are the long-term prospects for the agricultural sector?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The long-term prospects are very good. New Zealand is well positioned near high-growth markets in South-east Asia, where rising incomes are driving demand for the premium agricultural products this country produces, including meat, milk, and fruit. We have, of course, an approach of adding value to volume. In 2016 primary products generated $37 billion in export revenues, and that is forecast to grow to $45 billion by 2021 when it is expected to be equivalent to 14 percent of our economy. The Government continues to encourage primary sector growth through Trade Agenda 2030, ensuring greater market access for our farmers and export business.

Speaker’s Statement—Interjections, Speaker’s Role in Judging

Mr SPEAKER: Just before I call question No. 2, there were quite a few emails through yesterday complaining about the level of interjection that I was allowing, suggesting I was being a bit soft on some members. I may have to address that relatively quickly in this session unless—

Kris Faafoi: They came from over there.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, they came from all sides of the House, including from the member who just interjected. So I require more cooperation.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We too have had further correspondence as a result of question time yesterday, and one of the points that I would ask you to consider is that you have taken a relatively strict approach to the questions that can be asked in relation to this matter, and I also ask that in doing so you take a strict approach to the answers that can be given, and, where they deviate significantly from the questions, that you are quick to shut those down as well.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the House): Speaking to the point of order—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, this is a point of order. It will be heard in silence, unless members are quite keen to go back to their offices instead of having to enjoy—endure—question time.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think, in fact, reflecting on yesterday, whilst your ruling at the start was, I think, very helpful, what was in fact happening was that the questions were, ultimately, asking about something that there was not prime ministerial responsibility for. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister was giving answers because the question was there. I think that in itself was part of the issue. So I do not think, unlike Mr Hipkins, over on the other side, that it actually was necessarily a question of a strict interpretation of the questions at all; it was the fact that they were let through, and that led to, or was part of, I think, the situation we had. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: No, I do not need any assistance unless it is another point of order. On this matter, I will adjudge the quality of the answers on each occasion. If I feel the answer is deviating significantly from addressing the question, then I will certainly cease the answers, and I will also, if the question is relatively political, give some latitude to the Minister or Prime Minister who is answering it.

Todd Barclay—Southland Electorate Office Allegations, Prime Ministerial Conduct

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Have he or any of his Ministers ever deviated from the ministerial standards he expects, in order to maintain the House’s confidence in the Government?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): No, and I would expect Ministers to maintain standards. For instance, I would not expect my Ministers to be involved in foreign-worker exploitation.

Andrew Little: Did he cover up his knowledge of the Todd Barclay affair for 18 months to protect the Government’s majority in the House; if not, why did he participate in that cover-up?

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the issue here is that, again, this is something that he does not have responsibility for as Prime Minister. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. I think, on this occasion, judging from the questions yesterday, other matters that have been raised in the House, and a considerable amount of media coverage over recent weeks, I am not in a position to judge whether the Prime Minister spoke in his capacity as leader of a political party, leader of a caucus, or as Prime Minister. But I have no doubt that the Prime Minister will have no difficulty in informing the House. I am going to ask the member Andrew Little to repeat the question now, that it has been interrupted.

Andrew Little: Did he cover up his knowledge of the Todd Barclay affair for 18 months to protect the Government’s majority in the House; if not, why did he participate in that cover-up?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I completely the reject the member’s assertions. He needs to understand that just because he admitted to foreign-worker exploitation does not mean the 85 students are not still here.

Andrew Little: Without wanting to veer into the fantasy world that the Prime Minister—

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

Hon Steven Joyce: A little bit sensitive, Andy?

Andrew Little: No. No, Steven. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! My warning to all members about the level of noise and interjection yesterday now applies to all members, regardless of their seniority. I am asking Andrew Little to rise and ask his supplementary question.

Andrew Little: Does he or any member of his staff have any knowledge of any person advising Todd Barclay to delete the tapes; if so, who was it?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, and I have no further comment to add to the 10-month police investigation there has been into that matter.

Jami-Lee Ross: What steps has the Government taken that have helped to maintain the House’s confidence in it?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The best thing the Government can do to maintain the House’s confidence is to deliver for New Zealanders and maintain their confidence, which is exactly what we are doing—for instance, the Government is delivering more jobs, more apprenticeships, more police, better roads, better classrooms, and better broadband. It has enough confidence of New Zealanders that we can find our own people to canvass and telephone, while the Labour Party has to import free—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

Andrew Little: Does he or any member of his staff have any knowledge of any person advising Glenys Dickson to withdraw her complaint because it threatened the Government’s majority to pass legislation; if so, who was it?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have nothing to add to the 10-month police investigation into those matters.

Andrew Little: Does he or any member of his staff have any knowledge of the sex and drugs matters that Todd Barclay was involved in?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have absolutely no ministerial responsibility for whatever matters he is referring to, but I know he is responsible for 85 foreign workers imported to canvass for the Labour Party.

Andrew Little: Why has he failed to report his knowledge of potential obstruction of justice in relation to the police investigation of Todd Barclay?

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

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I completely reject the member’s assertions.

Andrew Little: Can he confirm that the Government’s Oranga Tamariki bill, the local government bill, and the employment relations bill are reliant on a single vote to pass and will fail if Todd Barclay resigns immediately?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I can confirm that the Government has always operated on a slim majority for the whole time it has been in Government. I can also confirm that while we are reliant on a small majority, the Labour Party is reliant on foreign workers to do its campaigning for it.

Andrew Little: Why is he prepared for his Government’s support in this House to rest on a person whose behaviour the Prime Minister has described as unacceptable, who recorded his staff, who has refused to cooperate with the police, and whose conduct has fallen so far below acceptable standards that he has felt the need to leave Parliament, or is that the Bill English way?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: Again, I reject the member’s assertions. I mean, this Parliament includes a party that has imported 85 foreign workers it will not pay, just to keep it as a viable Opposition.

Andrew Little: Does he agree with his old local paper, the Southland Times, that “politics is not a game in which bluffing and misdirection are to be placidly accepted as tactical necessities.”, and is it not time to cut the crap and come clean on the Barclay cover-up?

Mr SPEAKER: Again—[Interruption] Order! Again, in so far as there may be prime ministerial responsibility, the Prime Minister can address one or either of those questions.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, but nor do I think politics is a game where you import cheap foreign labour to try to beat up your public support.

Care and Support Workers—Pay Equity Settlement

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): My question is to—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I gave warnings earlier. Chris Hipkins has not managed to hear it, so I now direct it to him specifically. If he continues to interrupt at that sort of level, then I will be asking him to leave early.

3. SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Health: What work is being undertaken to ensure that from 1 July 2017, 55,000 care and support workers will begin to be paid their share of the $2 billion pay equity settlement announced earlier this year?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Since the settlement was announced in April, I have been receiving regular updates on the implementation. I am assured by the officials that that implementation is on track. I have been advised that all providers have indicated that they are ready to pay eligible employees the increased hourly wages from 1 July. Funds will be transferred to 653 providers by the end of this week. That will enable providers to have funds in their accounts to pay the 55,000 workers from next week. This is part of this year’s $880 million increase in Vote Health, the largest increase in 11 years.

Sarah Dowie: Can the Minister confirm how much extra employees will receive from the settlement?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: This dedicated and predominantly female workforce, who are mostly on or around the minimum wage, will receive a pay rise of between around 15 percent and 50 percent, depending on their experience and/or their qualifications. For the 20,000 workers currently on the minimum wage, it means they will move to at least $19 per hour, a 21 percent pay rise. For a full-time worker, this means they will be taking home around an extra $100 a week, which is over $5,000 per year in the hand. This will make a massive difference to some of the hardest-working, most deserving, but lowest-paid people in this country, and their families.

Government Financial Position—Tax Cuts

4. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Does he recall his statement, “I’m sure we’ll talk about tax policy again between now and the election but we’ll deal with that at the time”; if so, were the Prime Minister’s “hints” of further tax cuts in the weekend what he was referring to?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Yes, I recall making that statement the day after the Budget. In terms of further discussions about tax policy, my comments related to the fact that between the Budget and election day the issue of tax policy would likely be raised many times. The member is right to be observant to work out that the Prime Minister’s statement of priorities on the weekend was indeed one of those times.

Grant Robertson: What is the fiscal impact of the new proposed further round of tax cuts on the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update released in May?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member should note that the Government and the Prime Minister made the comments in the weekend that if we get the economy to grow faster, then we would have the room to do more. That implies faster than the current Budget position, and that is indeed what the Prime Minister was referring to. On the basis that the economy grows more strongly and the Government’s fiscal position is contained, then we would have the opportunity to potentially do more over the next term of Government.

Grant Robertson: Further to that answer, is the Minister of Finance confirming he has made no attempt to gauge the fiscal impact of the proposed second round of tax cuts that the Prime Minister noted in the weekend?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Sherlock over there has not quite worked out that the Prime Minister said that he would like the opportunity to do it again, and that if we got the room we would be able to do so. But of course we have to first get the Family Incomes Package into place on 1 April next year. I note the Labour Party is still opposed to the Family Incomes Package, so we have to deal with that one first.

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have two points of order. The first of—[Interruption] When the Prime Minister is ready. The first of those is that Mr Joyce has been here a long time and he knows not to refer to members by anything other than their name or the electorate that they represent. The second point of order is that I asked him a very straight question, and then a very specific follow-up question, to assess whether or not any work had been done on the fiscal impact of the proposed second round of tax cuts. He did not answer that question.

Mr SPEAKER: I missed the point in the answer where Mr Joyce may not have referred to the member correctly—I did so and I apologise. I missed that because I was busy looking through my Speakers’ Rulings—I knew the member would raise a question about the quality of the answer he was giving. I refer the member, please, to Speaker’s ruling 195/6, which talks about the answer the member can expect if he asks hypothetical questions.

Grant Robertson: We are not going to deal with the first point of order?

Mr SPEAKER: No, I did deal with the first point of order. I said I did not hear it because I was busy looking for Speakers’ rulings—I knew the member would raise a point of order about the answers he was getting. But I do advise the member that if he continues with hypothetical questions, like a proposed round of tax cuts, he is likely not to get an answer that satisfies him.

Grant Robertson: So is he telling the House that the National Government has done no costings for what the Prime Minister said would be a priority for a future National Government, and does he not recognise that the Budget he produced in May is now completely irrelevant?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Steven Joyce, in so far as there is ministerial responsibility.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: In answer to the second part of the question, no.

Grant Robertson: Why is giving every member of this House a $1,000 a year tax cut a higher priority for him than more funding for housing, health, education, or police?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: We actually think that people working in New Zealand should get rewarded for their labour. Actually, I think we are getting, though, to the crux of the problem from Grant Robertson’s perspective, which is that he hates the idea of returning tax income to New Zealand families. This $2 billion Family Incomes Package is delivering to New Zealanders. He hates that. He is against it because he thinks he should be able to spend all the tax that the Government collects.

Freshwater Management—Water Bottling and Exporting

5. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Why did he say that “we accept there is growing public concern” over bottling and exporting water for profit, and when will he address that concern by putting a charge on water bottling?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): I said it because there was, and there is. That is why we have asked a technical advisory group on water allocation to look at the issue. We look forward to considering its report later on this year. It is an issue that needs to be seen in the context of all the other intensive work that is going on, to focus on better use and higher quality of fresh water in New Zealand.

James Shaw: Will he commit to implementing a resource rental on water if the technical advisory group recommends it?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member has leapt to a much broader assertion about resource rentals on water. We have yet to see what the technical advisory group comes up with.

James Shaw: Will he commit to implementing a price on water bottling if the technical advisory group recommends it?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: It just does not make sense to make open-ended commitments well before we have got an indication of the advice. But what I would say to the member is that over the last 5 or 6 years the Government has done intensive work on all these water-related issues, and from that we have learnt the importance of getting the science right, getting a very good understanding of all the different dimensions of the problems related to the use of water and the quality of water, and we have learnt not to jump to conclusions about what the right answer is.

James Shaw: Given that the Government has failed to implement many of the key recommendations of the Land and Water Forum, why should the public have any confidence that he will follow the advice of the technical advisory group?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is just wrong. The Land and Water Forum was a radical departure from the usual systems. It took a big leap to a collaborative process with, I think, 70 organisations involved in formulating our policy. We have implemented most of the recommendations. Probably the major one we have not implemented is the Government appointing all the regional councils, and I think even the member might be opposed to that one.

James Shaw: How comfortable is he with the idea that local authorities and tangata whenua in New Zealand are missing out on millions of dollars in royalties from water bottling that could be used to improve monitoring and to help farmers to fence rivers and plant trees?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is welcome to put forward to the public the view he has just expressed, that councils and iwi should have hundreds of millions of dollars of royalties from fresh water. As it happens, the farming community, without the benefit of royalty incomes, is actually fencing almost all the waterways, certainly in grazeable areas, of New Zealand. It has been a massive investment by the farming community alongside all the other investments and changes in farming practices they are putting in. I am hoping that councils will be able to respond as effectively as the farming community when the focus shifts to the quality of urban water, where his voters might actually have to pay rates in order to achieve the high quality of water rather than just leaving the burden to the farmers.

James Shaw: What other natural resources is the Government intending to give away to commercial companies to onsell for free?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has given water to our electricity companies for years, which is then onsold for free. You can argue about whether that is the right thing or the most effective, economic way of allocating water. The advisory group is getting to grips with all of these issues, and if the member actually got out and about he would see that in a number of communities and water catchments there is a very sophisticated discussion going on about both the allocation of fresh water and the allocation of polluted water.

James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was about natural resources other than water, and the Prime Minister did not address that question.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I think the Prime Minister did, because, again, it was a hypothetical question about what other natural resources the Government might consider giving away for free. It is very hypothetical in the question, and therefore I refer the member to Speakers’ rulings 195/5 and 6.

James Shaw: Does he stand by his statement that it does not matter whether it is fair or not if water bottling companies are charged, and how would he explain that to the people of Havelock North or Ōmārama, who were dependent on bottled water when their own drinking water was contaminated?

Mr SPEAKER: Again, there are two questions there. The right honourable Prime Minister can address one or either.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am not exactly sure what the member means. I mean, the situation in Havelock North appears to be—well, it is not anything to do with bottled water, although they have had to use it when their water was contaminated. It is about local government performance and overseeing ratepayer-funded assets whose purpose is to deliver clean and healthy water to its local people. The extensive inquiry into that incident was warranted by widespread illness in the area, but it is not about charging for water; it is about local body performance and overseeing their clean water system.

Todd Barclay—Southland Electorate Office Allegations, Prime Ministerial Conduct

6. RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: In his prime ministerial capacity, does he stand by all his statements on the Clutha-Southland electorate office issue; if so, how does he do that?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Those statements were not made in my prime ministerial capacity.

Ron Mark: In that case, if his line—

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member asking the question. The Prime Minister’s answer cannot be allowed to stand, because he has made statements on that matter in the House in his capacity as Prime Minister. He has answered questions as Prime Minister. He therefore needs to be able to answer for at least those statements that he has made.

Mr SPEAKER: The Prime Minister’s answer will stand, and it will be for people here in this House to judge it, and for the public to judge it.

Ron Mark: If his line of defence in this matter continues to be “statements were not made in my ministerial capacity” but as National Party leader, then why did he not correct Susie Ferguson on Morning Report, Duncan Garner on The AM Show, and Hilary Barry on the Breakfast show, when he was asked questions on this matter on Monday as the Prime Minister?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would simply reiterate the answer to my first question, and I do not agree with the members assertions. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] That is the sort of remark that will lead to gross disorder.

Ron Mark: If that is true, did he lie to The Nation, Q+A, Morning Report, The AM Show, Mike Hosking, The Country, and others, given that he now says—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will give the member a chance to rephrase that question. You cannot accuse another member of lying in this House. I will give him a chance to rephrase that.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member did not make an accusation; he asked a question. In fact, if we go back through Hansard, you will find copious examples of where Ministers have been asked whether they have told the truth about something, or whether they have lied about something. This is certainly not the first time it has been used in a question. It is absolutely out of order to accuse someone of it; it is not out of order to ask somebody whether they did it.

Mr SPEAKER: I will listen to the member as he rephrases or runs that same question. If I do not like the tone of the question, and I feel that it then breaches Speakers’ rulings on page 48, it could well be ruled out. I will give the member another chance.

Ron Mark: If that is his answer, is it true that he did not tell the truth to The Nation, Q+A, Morning Report, The AM Show, Mike Hosking, The Country, and others, given that he now says he spoke only as the leader of the National Party?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, and if I was that member I would be more worried about Shane Jones showing up in his caucus room. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

Ron Mark: In so far as it is to do with the Prime Minister’s ministerial responsibilities, what is the difference between Taito Phillip Field’s bribery and corruption conviction and a Minister misappropriating $100,000 in an attempt to silence a staff member and to prevent the police from laying criminal charges against his backbench MP?

Mr SPEAKER: In so far as the Prime Minister can, perhaps, detect some prime ministerial responsibility, I invite him to answer it.

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I reject the member’s assertions, but he needs to work out soon the difference between Shane Jones and a deputy leader of the New Zealand First Party. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will invite the member to ask his supplementary question, but he just asks it—it does not need the introduction.

Ron Mark: Why, after she served him loyally, faithfully, and honestly for 18 years, did he throw Glenys Dickson under the bus, and should he not just do the honourable thing and resign now?

Mr SPEAKER: I do not believe there is any prime ministerial responsibility for that. The question is out of order.

Vote Māori Development—Initiatives, Funding, and Planning

7. KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau) to the Minister for Māori Development: Is he satisfied that all Vote Māori Development initiatives were adequately funded and planned in Budget 2017?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister for Māori Development: Yes, in the context of the stage of development of each initiative. Budget 2017 contained over a dozen Vote Māori Development initiatives spanning housing to sustaining Māori culture, and it has received more than ever before to deliver improved outcomes for Māori. In addition, Budget 2017’s $2 billion Family Incomes Package puts more money into the pockets of Māori by increasing the personal income tax thresholds, increasing Working for Families payments, and boosting the accommodation supplement.

Kelvin Davis: How can the public have any confidence in the National - Māori Party Waka Oranga mobile health clinic pilot when Te Puni Kōkiri stated this month that there was no needs analysis, it does not have a design, it does not know how it is going to operate, and it does not have targeted outcomes?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: International research shows that mobile health clinics can improve individual health outcomes, advance population health, and reduce healthcare costs, compared with traditional primary healthcare services. Māori make up approximately 15.6 percent of the rural population nationally and experience poorer health outcomes than non-Māori. This is an innovative proposal, and I suspect the member is indicating he is against it.

Kelvin Davis: In that case, what are the targeted outcomes for specific conditions, including rheumatic fever, diabetes, and renal failure, which disproportionately affect Māori?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Those desired outcomes are currently being set. As the project is rolled out, as yet another of the innovative initiatives that this Government has come up with, all those details will be finalised.

Kelvin Davis: Is it this National - Māori Party Government’s style to allocate funding for initiatives like Marae Ora, which also has no operational plan and has no criteria for marae to meet to get funding, and when asked how many marae will benefit, the answer from the Minister was “a number”—does the Minister realise that zero is a number?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Steven Joyce, and, again, there are two questions. The Minister can address one.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, I am thrilled that the member is raising these Budget initiatives in the House today and giving them a little bit of extra publicity. The Sustaining the Marae initiative is $10 million over 4 years for a contestable fund to improve, restore, and revitalise the cultural and physical integrity of marae, including investments to meet earthquake and health and safety requirements, particularly where physical restoration projects are a catalyst for strengthening knowledge. This is a wonderful initiative. I thank the member for highlighting it, and I am sure that iwi in his area will be interested in applying to it to strengthen and sustain their marae.

Kelvin Davis: What kind of Minister bids for initiatives that have no operational plan, no design, and no targets?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is important to bid for initiatives that actually create new opportunities in the future. Just for example, we could find that there was a marae that actually had broken showers or, perhaps, limited accommodation, and we might want to invest in sustaining that marae, particularly if a political party had brought people there on false pretences and tried to tell them that it was a good place for accommodation. That is why you have these sorts of initiatives: to cater for the opportunities as they come up.

Primary Sector—Growth and Government Support for Environmental Challenges

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki—King Country): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear with the level of interjection. I am going to have to give a couple of final warnings, and one is going to be to Grant Robertson to just cut down.

Grant Robertson: It wasn’t me.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I did not hear where it came from that time, but members—

Kris Faafoi: It was me.

Mr SPEAKER: Oh, Kris Faafoi has owned up, so let us make it quite clear to Kris Faafoi that if he interjects again through question time I will ask him to leave.

Kris Faafoi: Thank you.

Mr SPEAKER: My pleasure.

8. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki—King Country) to the Minister for Primary Industries: How is the Government supporting the primary sector to grow sustainably through science?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Minister Paul Goldsmith and I recently launched the Primary Sector Science Roadmap. Science will be a key driver in doubling the value of our overall primary sector exports by 2025. This roadmap will inform research conducted by New Zealand science and technology teams and organisations, along with their international partners. It provides a shared view across the primary sector on the science and technology needs for the sector and where investment needs to be focused.

Barbara Kuriger: How is the Government partnering with farmers and growers at a grassroots level to adapt to environmental challenges?

Hon NATHAN GUY: That is a very good question. The Sustainable Farming Fund supports the primary sector’s own forward thinking and its Kiwi ingenuity, which in turn helps keep New Zealand ahead of the game. One thousand projects have now been funded since the fund was initiated in 2000. This represents around $150 million in Government funding, alongside a significant overall level of local support. Each project brings together farmers, growers, and foresters to work alongside scientists and researchers to solve a problem and, overall, seize opportunities.

Todd Barclay—Southland Electorate Office Allegations, Prime Ministerial Conduct

9. TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) to the Prime Minister: In his prime ministerial capacity, does he stand by all his statements on the Clutha-Southland electorate office issue even if facts known to him make doing so extraordinarily difficult; if so, how?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Prime Minister): Those statements were not made in my prime ministerial capacity.

Tracey Martin: In light of recent comments he has made as Prime Minister, was he deliberately being dismissive about recordings because one intercepted conversation involved talk of sex and drugs, as reported by Newsroom?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have nothing to add to what has been covered by a 10-month police investigation. I understand the police are reopening that investigation.

Tracey Martin: In light of recent comments he has made as Prime Minister, is he deliberately attempting to mislead because the facts known to him include matters relating to sex and drugs?

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I said, I have nothing to add to what has been a 10-month police investigation—an investigation that is now being reopened.

Tracey Martin: In light of recent comments he has made as Prime Minister, when his text read “Everyone unhappy.”, was he referring to the huge settlement, or was it because he knew the contents of the recording included sex and drugs matters?

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

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I reject the member’s assertions, but, as I have said before, this was a matter of two people who fell out very intensively, and that has had a lot of implications. I would hope they can find some resolution to their differences.

Tracey Martin: As Prime Minister, has he attempted to contact Glenys Dickson to apologise for her treatment by a member of his Government; if not, why not?

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

Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have no prime ministerial responsibility for that.

Richard Prosser: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With regard to this line of questioning, which has been going on for the last couple of days, I seek your guidance with regard to Speakers’ rulings 175/1 and, to a lesser degree, 173/3 and 173/4, all of which touch on the same subject. The fact that a Minister has no legal control over a certain action does not mean there is no ministerial responsibility to answer a question. Speaker’s ruling 175(1) says: “nevertheless the Minister assumes the political responsibility to the House to answer questions on those matters.” I know that you have made reference to Speakers’ rulings 173/1 and 173/2; it appears to me that 173/3, 173/4, and 175/1 are almost the polar opposite of those and do seem to play out that in some circumstances, even though the Minister does not have ministerial or legal responsibility, he does have a political responsibility to the House to answer those questions.

Mr SPEAKER: The Speakers’ rulings on page 175 particularly refer to operational matters. I am comfortable that you can go through Speakers’ rulings and find many that appear to contradict each other. The ones that are pertinent in these cases are certainly the ones that I have used consistently over the last week and have done so in two rulings to the House now, and they apply particularly to pages 172 and 173. But I do thank the member for his assistance.

Emergency Housing—Demand and Places

10. CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Associate Minister for Social Housing: Is the demand for New Zealanders seeking emergency accommodation increasing or decreasing?

Hon ALFRED NGARO (Associate Minister for Social Housing): Demand for emergency housing is increasing because such assistance is now available. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am just trying to get bit of silence and a fair go for the member.

Carmel Sepuloni: Is he concerned that the number of approved emergency housing special needs grants applications has again increased, from 8,860 in the December 2016 quarter to 9,218 in the March 2017 quarter?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: We know that we are making a difference, because it is about more than providing a roof when someone is living in transitional accommodation. We are really clear that the fact is that the demand for emergency accommodation will increase over the winter months. We know that less desirable living situations become untenable—events such as World Masters Games. The member cannot have it both ways—both to criticise the Government for not having the support and then to criticise the Government for spending too much.

Carmel Sepuloni: Can he guarantee that the Government has planned for enough emergency housing places across the regions for New Zealanders in 2017 in light of the growing demand for emergency housing support?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: The Government has set its intentions out quite clearly. It expects to secure 2,150 places by the end of the year. I understand that the ministry expects to have around 1,300 places available by June, with a further 230 places expected to come online in early July. With those places in play, we will be able to support 5,600 families.

Carmel Sepuloni: What does he say to the 196 families in the central North Island who needed emergency accommodation between January and March of this year but had access to only 14 Government emergency housing places?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: I would, what you call, continue to support—and we have put out some press releases just of late to talk about the demands, which we have been meeting; in fact, two motels over in Hawke’s Bay just last week, in order to meet those demands. I have actually been out through to the areas, working with providers in those areas that are providing that accommodation to meet those needs in Tauranga and in Rotorua.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Are foreign workers who are being exploited by political parties in substandard accommodation eligible for emergency housing?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not believe that that is a question that is in order. It is a question that is clearly designed to attack the Opposition, and that is not the purpose of using the Government’s supplementary questions. [Interruption] Order!

Carmel Sepuloni: Given that the number of emergency housing grants has doubled in the Taranaki region since December 2016, will the Minister be pushing for the Marfell State housing development, which was dropped by this Government, to be immediately resumed?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: I am not aware of that particular project that the member has been mentioning, but what I can say to the member is that this Government has the intention—the first Government—to, in the 2016 Budget, have $350 million more for housing support, to support 8,600 families over this period of time.

Carmel Sepuloni: What written communications has he received from regional Work and Income offices that emergency housing demand is far exceeding the number of emergency housing places that are available?

Hon ALFRED NGARO: I have not personally received any written communication or correspondence to my office.

Disability Issues, Minister—Marrakesh Treaty

11. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister for Disability Issues: What announcements has she made regarding improved access to written materials for blind, visually impaired, and otherwise print-disabled New Zealanders?

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister for Disability Issues): The Government has announced that it will join the Marrakesh treaty. That is an international framework that will enable the reproduction of books and other literary works in accessible formats.

Simon O’Connor: How will the Marrakesh treaty benefit disabled New Zealanders?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: An estimated 90 percent of all written materials worldwide are not published in accessible formats, such as Braille, audio, or large print. For about 168,000 New Zealanders with a print disability this is a barrier to participation in public life and restricts employment, education, and recreation. This treaty will make a meaningful change to the lives of thousands of New Zealanders, by ensuring that they have access to a greater variety of books and other publications in accessible formats. It also supports the Government’s vision for creating a non-disabling society, as outlined in the New Zealand Disability Strategy. I wish to thank my colleagues the Hon Paul Goldsmith and the Hon Jacqui Dean, as well as the Blind Foundation, the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand, and other advocates for their hard work in making this happen.

Foreign Affairs, Minister—Nuclear Weapons Convention

12. Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does he support the negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention currently under way in New York, which would result in States’ parties agreeing to prohibit the manufacture, possession, and use of nuclear weapons; if not, why not?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Yes.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Will the Minister encourage his counterparts in all the nuclear weapons States to participate in the negotiations?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes. We think it is a good idea to take part in negotiations for this convention. Of course, it is at a very early stage. It is really in draft treaty phase and is still subject to, I think, quite a long period of negotiations.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Given that, in fact, the negotiations are not that far away from completion and that a text could be open for signature, possibly, by July 7, does the Minister share the pride felt by New Zealand citizens that our disarmament ambassador is one of the vice-chairs of the negotiations?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We share the pride.

Dr Kennedy Graham: In the fullness of sharing the pride, why did the Minister oppose the Green Party’s amendment to the notice of motion of 8 June calling upon all States to support the ongoing negotiations for the convention in which New Zealand is actively engaged?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Because the motion was to mark 30 years of our nuclear-free legislation, which has become a defining aspect of this country’s international reputation in which we can all share the pride, not to discuss ongoing United Nations negotiations. New Zealand continues to work strongly for a nuclear weapon - free world.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I want to record for the House today a great opportunity for young people who are keen to learn about politics in this country. It has had a little bit of publicity outside the House but not so much inside the House. It is an important opportunity. It is indeed a special opportunity. I have a copy of it here. It is the 2017 Labour Campaign Fellowship, “a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in New Zealand politics.” Who could regret the idea to do that? It gives fellows “a glance into what a career in politics” is really all about. It offers the fellows “special access to senior MPs and important decision makers”. It has a lecture series, with the leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party—

Hon Members: Oh!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —with a former Prime Minister—

Hon Members: Oh!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —with current ambassadors to New Zealand, and with senior party stakeholders. What a wonderful opportunity; you would be very proud of this if you had put this together, would you not? You would be saying: “This is fantastic. This is a great opportunity.” Except that it is not. Except that if you come to New Zealand, you do not get the lectures, you do not get to join in with the Democratic Party in the US. You do not even get to stay in reasonable accommodation; you actually have to have broken showers, you have to build your own accommodation, and if you are lucky, you might get a chance to—maybe—ring up some people and be an unpaid canvassing worker in a sweatshop for the Labour Party. That is what this is. It is very sad.

It is just appalling, because suddenly nobody in the Labour Party knew anything about it. It was weird. It was Matt McCarten, and he, of course, has never worked in the Labour Party—he has never worked with Labour. And if he has worked in the Labour Party, he has not worked in the Labour Party for a long time—at least 2 minutes. So—[Interruption] Oh, it was the Auckland Labour Party; it was not the New Zealand Labour Party. It was the Auckland Labour Party that was responsible for this thing, and they are not admitting that. And then it was not the leader of the Labour Party; he was not responsible for this particular exercise.

The Labour Party spent a week denying knowledge of it and now they want credit for cleaning it up. They want credit for cleaning up this absolute mess. But that is all right; the Labour Party leader is out there saying that New Zealand needs to sort out these sorts of schemes. This is the Labour Party leader on the subject of international education scams: “The reality is that many of these students are turning up to pretty shoddy jobs, often being paid less than the minimum hourly rate, often in a climate of fear. They are not allowed to talk about what they are doing and, therefore, are being exploited. We cannot allow this to continue; we have to look at the system and see whether or not we need to cut it back. It is not right that we have people coming here who are facing exploitative conditions in New Zealand.”

Hon Simon Bridges: Who said that?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That was Andrew Little, and he is, of course, right—except we did not know he was talking about himself. We did not know it was a confession—this confession of a speech. He says: “… we must stop the abuse of the system by dodgy employers who want to import workers on the cheap … We need to stop the rort that sees people overseas being sold meaningless qualifications here …”—and all the time the biggest culprit was the Labour Party. But it has some questions to answer still.

Here is a very interesting question: who paid? Who paid for this internship scheme? It cost $200,000, and it has not turned up in the Labour Party’s donations register. Now, apparently, it was the unions that were going to pay for it, but the unions are running a hundred miles. They are like that guy Andrew Kirton, who runs the place. He is running a hundred miles in the other direction. So it is not the unions—apparently it is not the unions—and there are no donors who have donated $200,000. So who is the mystery donor, and why do we not know? When will the Labour Party front up? When will Andrew Little front up and actually reveal the information that he is refusing to give, which is who has bankrolled this shoddy scheme for the Labour Party? When is the Labour Party going to declare the donation that it should have declared before it started?

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): Talking of fronting up and accounting for oneself, which would certainly be new to members on that side of the House, I want to say this: in life bad things happen and a test of character is how you respond. Maybe 4 years ago you lost an America’s Cup and you were in charge of that campaign and you were in charge of the group who did it. So you come away and you face up to your shortcomings. You have honest conversations, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you face the future. You might have spent generations being excluded from sports coverage, like the Women’s Rugby Sevens Team, but you keep on going and you do the right thing, and then you get victory and then glory is yours.

But in leadership things happen that you do not expect to happen, and sometimes they are wrong. If it is your organisation where that happens, if it happens in your party, then you take responsibility and you take action. New Zealanders are starting to see a huge contrast between at least two political parties where both have faced a difficult situation. One has a leader who runs and hides and cannot front up to New Zealanders, and the other steps up and takes responsibility. If there is one thing that defines the New Zealand character it is that you accept when things go wrong and you put it right. That is what I grew up knowing. That is what I was taught when I was growing up. You step up and you take responsibility, and you do the right thing.

Faced with the circumstances that the Prime Minister was faced with, with Todd Barclay, Bill English’s response has been a model of the failure of leadership. It is one thing to be heavily involved in trying to sort out what was then an employment dispute involving somebody who worked closely with Bill English—of course he would want to get involved and try to get that sorted out. But it is another thing completely to fail to step up and do the right thing when a backbench MP he was responsible for was caught up in allegations of a possible unlawful recording of a staff member and caught up in a police inquiry.

This whole thing about Todd Barclay is not about an employment dispute—it has not been for 18 months. But it has been about allegations of potential criminal conduct. It has been about whether a member of this House fulfils his moral responsibility to be an exemplar to his community and cooperates with a police investigation. Bill English knows all about this case. He knows all about this matter. He was told about it by Todd Barclay. He told Glenys Dickson what Todd Barclay had told him—that there were recordings of her conversations. He told Stuart Davie that there were conversations, and he told Stuart Davie that there was a settlement that “was larger than normal because of the privacy breach” and he said it was part-paid from the Prime Minister’s budget to avoid potential legal action. The Prime Minister knows everything there is to know about this case.

In addition to all that, he gave a statement to the police. So when asked this year whether he had had any contact with anybody involved in this matter, he said—because he thought nobody else knew any better—that he had no direct contact. Then the story broke—no; before that he was asked by the police whether he minded if his statement to the police was released to somebody who had asked for it under the Official Information Act. He refused to give his blessing. He refused to release his statement. Then the information was disclosed last week, almost in full.

He was asked early on, and he claimed that he did not know who had told him about those recordings. He knew everything. He knew everything. Later he claimed that there may not even be any recordings, and then it was put to him that he was offered an opportunity to listen to those recordings. Seven days on and he still cannot be straight with New Zealand. Seven days on and we are still no nearer the truth about what he knows and about what he did, and that is not right.

In this day and age New Zealanders expect their leaders to be upfront and honest, to take responsibility, to front up, to put to bed any doubts about who knew what and when. All along this has been dressed up as an employment dispute, and it is not that. Somehow the whole thing has got out of control. It does not help when you have a party leader who shows no interest in taking it back under control.

It is time for leadership from that party, actually, for New Zealand. It is time to front up and do what New Zealanders expect—step up, open up, and take responsibility for what he knows he is.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): Yesterday morning New Zealand rose to see yet another example of our small, wonderful country taking on the rest of the world and succeeding against the odds. This Government believes in New Zealand’s ability to rise to the challenge of growth, unlike, unfortunately, our political opponents, who think that we should shut down growth, that we should shut our borders, that we should shut down investment, that we should reduce our opportunities to trade with the rest of the world, and that we should take a breather.

This side of the House—if you think about coming back from Fieldays just a couple of weeks ago, we are ready as a country to absolutely seize the opportunities of growth, and anybody across rural New Zealand can see the strong position we are in. Rural New Zealanders are more upbeat now about their prospects than at any point since 2003. This is the Rabobank’s latest rural confidence survey. It shows that rural sector confidence rose to 54 percent in the June quarter, on the back, of course, of rising commodity prices.

The Ministry for Primary Industries is forecasting that primary sector exports will grow to $41.6 billion in the year to June next year. That is an increase of 9.1 percent—9.1 percent. So I am proud to represent rural New Zealand, and the confidence and the optimism and the aspiration of rural New Zealand.

Actually, I find it really disturbing to be surrounded by Opposition members, who really just want to keep this country down. The members on that side of the House are all doom and gloom, but on this side of the House—the Government members, the Government Ministers—we know how optimistic the rural sector is.

Let me talk just for a moment about one of the areas I am responsible for. In forestry, the outlook is just superb. In terms of the growth, we have seen significant growth in the last year, and, actually, the industry has an aspiration to reach $12 billion by the year 2022. This is a Government that supports its aspiration. I would hate to see what the Labour Party’s reaction to forestry is, for example. But what we want to do is to support that industry’s aspirations, work with it, and make sure that as it is the third-largest primary sector by export revenue, we are supporting the work that it does. Annual harvest reached a new record in 2016, so the industry is delivering results, supported by a Government that believes in growth, believes in opportunity, believes in rural New Zealand, and believes in rural New Zealanders and that backs their hard work and backs them to succeed.

Just one initiative that I think is going to contribute to its target of aspiration is the Steepland Harvesting PGP Programme. The Opposition wants to ask about health and safety. Here is one example of many, which is a research project to ensure that we can plant in areas where, currently, it is too dangerous to harvest. So one investment alone into the Steepland Harvesting PGP Programme means that we can get more trees into the ground in the areas where we need that.

In our regional economic development plans, whether it is in Northland, or whether it is in Tai Rāwhiti, we are backing rural New Zealand. We are backing regional New Zealand to succeed. There is another one coming shortly, so when we are across the country we are able to support the work that is happening, whether it is in the increase in skills—Northland is a great example. We are supporting those young New Zealanders into work and into sustainable employment, and they are increasing their skills and opportunities because we believe in their future and we are optimistic for what they are able to achieve.

In terms of connections, through our Rural Broadband Initiative and through our ultra-fast fibre, we are also connecting more Kiwis across the country. Smaller towns like Pūtāruru and like Tūrangi are the next in line, which will be absolutely fantastic.

It is really interesting, because that side of the House wants to run those small towns down. But this side of the House is proud of rural New Zealand and proud of their success, and we are backing them to grow even more.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is my privilege to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in this debate. I have got to say, sometimes we sit here in New Zealand First, in the middle of this Chamber, and we look at National and Labour going at each other, and—please forgive me—sometimes it just looks like two old drunks fighting. The question is: which one is going to fall over first, and are you going to be able to contain yourself from splitting your sides? As Labour gets attacked for its new-found position opposing immigration and wanting to shut down immigration, and opposing the mistreatment of immigrants or visitors, then we have the revelations that Steven Joyce has been trumpeting out, but, you know, here we go. That is all about camouflaging up National’s own serious gaffe and failings in leadership.

It is really interesting. We were talking this morning, if you stay around this place—we used to have a saying in Waiōuru: if you stay in one spot long enough in Waiōuru, you are going to meet everyone in the New Zealand Army, because everyone comes through here. Well, the same thing happens in this Chamber. If you sit here long enough, you are going to hear the same old debates coming up over and over and over again. The only difference is the media is going to report them as though they are something new, and they are not.

In that respect, let us go back to 2009 when former Māngere MP Taito Phillip Field was found guilty of 11 charges of bribery and corruption, among other things. He used a Thai tradesperson to do work on his properties in Samoa and New Zealand in return for giving them immigration assistance. It sounds a little bit familiar to something that is happening right now, we would say. While we might need to be corrected, Mr Field’s conviction was the first time a member of Parliament had been convicted under section 103 of the Crimes Act. The former Prime Minister, the now Sir John Key, commented at the time and said: “What I can say is the whole event has been a very sorry saga and I think, although it was an isolated incident, it reflects badly on the New Zealand Parliament.” Hold those words.

Former Speaker, the now Rt Hon Sir Lockwood Smith added at the time: “It demonstrates that all members of Parliament are accountable for their actions and that none of us are above the law.”—none of us are above the law. Reflect on that, because another section in the Crimes Act, section 102, is entitled “Corruption and bribery of Minister of the Crown”, and, in light of events, National, this is worth reading: “Every Minister of the Crown or member of the Executive Council is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years who corruptly accepts or obtains, or agrees or offers to accept or attempts to obtain, any bribe for himself or herself or any other person …”, and it goes on, talking about their capacity as a “Minister or member of the Executive Council.”

So what does Sir John Key and Todd Barclay both knowing that a crime was committed mean? Proving that it is never the action but the ham-fisted cover-up, they then allowed taxpayers’ money to be misappropriated for the purpose of a settlement. This enabled Mr Barclay to slip away and saw the case closed, at least for the time being. How do we know this? Well, as the text messages from the now Prime Minister Bill English himself backed up—with stories that shift like sand, yet those messages admit a crime happened and that money was paid in the hope that it would all go away. Some might argue that that is perverting the course of justice. Some might say that, actually, their inability to use leadership and command authority and tell Mr Todd Barclay to get down to the police and make a statement and to cooperate with the police might have actually been interfering with the police in the performance of their duty—some might have argued.

Now we have got a mixture of sex, drugs, and surely rock and roll will follow not far behind. But look at the size of the money, the amount of money. On Radio Live former Labour Party president Mike Williams put the payout at $100,000. Well, New Zealand First wants to know that now. New Zealand First is interested in what Parliamentary Service has paid out. New Zealand First will be asking, under the policy—collective employment agreement 2, individual employment agreement. When the breakdown in employment relationships results in 4 weeks’ notice and 12 weeks’ salary, how come we end up at a figure of $100,000? What is going on?

New Zealand First is not going to let it lie there. We do not think the leader’s budget should be used like a piggy bank, or certain leaders should be allowed to negotiate their way out of embarrassing situations with special payouts. We want to know whether these payouts were legal, whether they are accounted for, and whether they are in compliance with the Parliamentary Service rules and regulations.

It is really interesting. But the final comment surely has to go to the Prime Minister. If you are any sort of a leader, Prime Minister, why did you not act when you knew that Glenys Dickson had been threatened over the phone and a man had made a statement, that “Your son has got a very pretty girlfriend.”? Do not go to the selection—

Mr SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Revenue): What a delight to be able to take part in this debate today. It has been an interesting few days, and, in my opinion, who knew that we had a slave labour camp operating on the North Shore of Auckland, which, of course, the Labour Party leader, Mr Andrew Little, is running from at the speed of light. I thought it would be a good idea to look at some of these things. Who is involved here? Well, Matt McCarten, who is apparently no longer involved with the Labour Party—actually, just a few months ago he was in fact the Chief of Staff for Mr Andrew Little. He was running the Labour Party leader’s office, and he was brought in by David Cunliffe when he was the leader. So he has been around for quite some time before that. But then, all of a sudden, he was sent to Auckland to be the director of the Auckland office, which, according to Andrew Little, was his Auckland office—so, no doubt, paid for by Parliamentary Service. As I drove past it just the other day, that office in Grafton Road, there were signs everywhere for Andrew Little MP, in Auckland. I thought it was interesting that it had the crest of Parliament all over it. So that might need looking at.

But as well as that there is a Mr Paul Chalmers who was part of the ruling council of the Labour Party. He has now, apparently, stood down from that. So I thought I should have a look at who he actually is. Well, he was in fact campaign chair for Jacinda Ardern. So I guess he must know a lot of people in the Labour Party, as well as having been on its ruling council. He has actually set up and owns a school for—guess what? Foreign students. But he will be all right in this case because he is actually the spokesperson for the Indian education group—the same people whom the Labour Party has spent the last so many months attacking and saying that they do not come to New Zealand for education. So I guess that would be experience speaking.

Then the other question that needs to be asked is: where has all this money come from to undertake this undertaking of 85 foreign students coming to New Zealand to live in substandard conditions and to advocate for the Labour Party? Well, there are all sorts of rumours floating around about this, and I really think people need to know the answers to it. I am really looking forward to Andrew Little asking some very hard questions of Mr Matt McCarten, Mr Paul Chalmers—Jacinda Ardern’s campaign manager—and various other people who must know about this.

The figure of $240,000 is being thrown around at the moment, because, apparently, that is what Mr McCarten thought the unions—in other words, the very people who clean in this place, the very people who undertake the work, as union members—should be paying for this scheme. I think there are actually some really good questions about this that need to be asked and answered. But, in the meantime, this Government is getting on with the business of governing.

When I look back at the Labour Party’s problems, you have to think—is it a conspiracy or a cock-up? I would have to say, in this case it is both. That is why we just have to get on with the job of governing. In the inland revenue area, of which I am very proud, we are actually getting on with making people’s lives a lot easier. All of those people in small businesses who do actually pay wages for the 30 to 40 hours a week that people work—unlike the Labour Party people—very soon, from 1 April next year, will be able to choose to not have to use provisional and terminal tax. They will not have to pay that any more. Instead, they will be able to come on to a system very much like PAYE, which is what all we salary and wage earners pay our tax through. So they will be able to decide every month. They will do their profit and loss, and they will pay their tax based on that month’s profit or loss. That means that at the end of the year there will be a bit of a wash-up, but it will be nothing like the extreme financial difficulty that so many small-business people find themselves getting into, particularly in their second year of business.

All the wonderful things we have done in our Budget, all the wonderful things we have been able to do as a Government, all the wonderful things that businesses have been able to do themselves—this is, in my opinion, the No. 1 thing that will make the biggest difference to keeping businesses going, particularly small businesses, and encouraging innovation. But also, let us not forget keeping people employed—keeping the people who are the salary and wage earners in a job, because the business that is paying their wages is still going to be around, past the second year.

So these are the sorts of innovations we are doing in revenue. It is what we are doing in Government. It is making technology work for people and for New Zealanders, rather than the other way round.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The “sex, drugs, and Gore” saga just rolls on and on and on and on. This is something that should have been nipped in the bud in a matter of hours, if it was dealt with by a real leader. Instead, it has been 9 long days—dragged out only because of the ineptitude of a person who calls himself the Prime Minister but is no leader. A leader would have dealt with this on the spot. Instead, all we have seen in this House is the person who calls himself the Prime Minister dipping, ducking, diving, and weaving. He reminds me of the old slimy tuna on the banks of the Taumārere River. He has just dragged this out.

Todd Barclay—where is he? He is on gardening duty. He has got 3 months on full leave and then after that, after the election, he is on 3 months of full pay as well. Todd Barclay will barely go down as a footnote in the history of this Parliament. He will barely be remembered; in fact, we are almost forgetting his name now. What Todd Barclay did was dumb and it was petty. It was immature and it was insecure. It also looks like it was pretty illegal as well. And all we have seen from the Prime Minister is dipping and diving and ducking and sidestepping and weaving and trying not to answer any questions on this. The most important footnote that Todd Barclay will leave in this Parliament is that he will go down as the person who managed to shoot himself in the foot and his leader and his party in the head, all with one bullet.

Leadership—Leadership 101 says: “In a crisis, be decisive and actively communicate.” So how decisive has Bill English been in this? This is what he said about the recording: “I didn’t know about the recording.” And then it was: “I did know about the recording.” He said: “I made a statement to police”. He said: “I was asked if I wanted to listen to the recording.” Then we hear that Parliamentary Service knew about the recording all the time, and now—yesterday it was—we heard that the recording was about sex and drugs. Then we heard from the Prime Minister that, actually, the recording may not even exist.

Now, the Prime Minister is a good Catholic. He goes to church on Sundays. I am a pretty failed Anglican, but John 8:32 says: “The truth shall set you free.” The Prime Minister needs to know that if he just told the truth it would set him free. So this is a classic example of a confused, mixed-up, defensive, “I’ve got something to hide” leader.

Active communication, as I said, is the second part of being a decisive leader. The emphasis is on the “active”. A decisive leader would have jumped up and front-footed the issue. He would have said: “This is what I know. This is when I knew it. This is what I did. And this is how it’s been resolved.” Instead, we have got this ducking and diving and sidestepping. We have seen Simon Bridges trying to shield the Prime Minister. We have seen Steven Joyce trying to divert our—the country’s—attention to something else, and we have seen the backbench there with a rush defence, a lot slower than the Lions, but still offside.

Let me just talk about Awataha Marae. I am really sorry that two out of 80-something American teenagers did not enjoy their marae experience. I am really sorry that two out of 80-something American teenagers did not enjoy their mince and fried bread for dinner. I am really sorry that two out of 80-something American teenagers had to wait an extra few minutes because one shower out of eight was broken—but welcome to our world, New Zealand. Those people over that side of the House do not even know what a marae is, have probably never ever driven past one, never stayed at one, never picked up a tea towel, never peeled a spud, never done anything on a marae, and I do not know why they are bagging Māoris in maraes. It is totally unacceptable from that crew over there who are totally out of touch.

JOANNE HAYES (National): What a load of rubbish from that previous speaker, Kelvin Davis, saying we do not know what a marae is like. I know Awataha Marae; I have been on it. It is a lovely marae, but, yes, there are places there that need some refurbishing.

Now, if you want to bring in 85 overseas students, why do you not house them? Why do you not house them yourselves? Why do you not look after them? Why give them out to the marae? Why did you not go in and pick them up and look after them? But you did not. You did not go and pick them up. Bringing them in to be volunteers for the Labour Party, under the auspices of whatever it is that you brought them in under, was a load—it is absolutely deceitful to the people of this country and to your own people, to your own supporters, Labour. How disgusting is that, Mr Speaker? When we start talking about ducking and diving—about our leader ducking and diving—well, hey, you need to take all of that back and place it back on your side. They need to take all of that kōrero and place it back on their leader, because I have never seen someone ducking and diving as much as I have with Mr Little.

As I carry on with my contribution to this debate, I want to read a quote that was made by one of the members, Iain Lees-Galloway, in 2016, around immigration. What he said was: “Labour supports active management of immigration to make sure New Zealand gets the skills it needs and migrants are safe from exploitative employers.”—from exploitative employers. What have you guys done over there? You have brought 85 students in and you have totally exploited them. That is disgusting. As I was listening to the kōrero that was going on in the House today, I heard another member from New Zealand First saying that it was like watching—National and Labour—a couple of old drunks fighting. Well, he would know, because I know what it looks like when you see some MPs in here—old drunks. Note that, Mr Speaker; old drunks—New Zealand First.

I want to talk about the amazing things that this National Government has done for the country in its 9 years. We are delivering a strong economy. And how do you do that? Because, Labour, you need to hear this, because you do not know how to do it. You only know how to spend. You only know how to take all the baubles and spend, spend, spend. There are four significant things to bring the benefits of a stronger economy for all New Zealanders. The first one is making big investments in public services, which is what this Government continues to do. It continues to invest in health and education. Within social development, we have set up the Ministry for Vulnerable Children. We have done many investments into our Public Service sector. Why? Because that is delivering for New Zealanders.

When I look at the record investment in new infrastructure, there have been roads of national significance. In Christchurch alone—in Christchurch alone—there are new highways going from north to south across our city, because our city needs it. We need to keep the people moving through—visiting our city and moving through. In Northland, all the new infrastructure that has been going on in this country, and it has been a National-led Government that has done it. We are improving the resilience of our country to future shocks. We have brought this country through the global financial crisis, and we are on target for over $7 billion of surplus by 2020. We hit surplus way before the economists thought we would do that, as a Government, and we will continue to make surplus, because you cannot give people stuff, you cannot invest in anything unless you have got a strong economy.

Finally, we are strengthening families by lifting their incomes. This is the family tax package—the very package that Labour did not support. Everybody else in the House supported it, but no, Labour would not support it. I do not know why that is the case. I do not know what kind of raruraru happened within its caucus when it came to discussing it. I have no idea. But to actually walk away from something like that is bad testament to the fact that you consider that people on low incomes are your people. Well, I can tell you that they are their own people. When they go to the polls this year, they will look at all the things that they have received and continue to get through this Government delivering to the people, and they will come to support us. I am adamant of that. Please, at the end of the day, do not invite young people here and exploit them; do not do that. Use your own volunteers if you have got any.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. There were cows on Parliament’s lawn today—cut-out cows, so they did not defecate there. They were there to mark the release of a Greenpeace report that highlights the increasing impact on New Zealanders’ health of intensive livestock farming, particularly dairying. It is the National Government’s preoccupation with increasing intensive farming—increasing the volume, rather than the value, and not constraining the industry’s desire to increase milk supply—that is helping make New Zealanders sick. We have seen a 90 percent increase in dairy cow numbers between 1990 and 2014.

Hon Nathan Guy: What rubbish. The report is full of maybes.

EUGENIE SAGE: The Minister, Nathan Guy, is saying “rubbish”. The Minister should actually read some of the health reports—

Hon Nathan Guy: I’ve read it.

EUGENIE SAGE: From the medical officer of health? I do not think so. We know what impact the increasing number of cows and agricultural intensification is having on our rivers, our lakes, and our aquifers—that so many of those are now unfit for swimming because of high E. coli levels, and that high levels of nutrient pollution mean they are clogged with algae and are unsuitable for swimming.

But it is the impacts on human health that deserve much more attention. For the Minister’s education, zoonoses are diseases that are passed from animals to human. Pathogenic bacteria, viruses, and protozoa in the gut of ruminants like cows and deer can pass from animals to humans through human contact with faecal material, either directly or through contact with faecal material that ends up in our waterways. Minister, New Zealand has one of the highest reported rates of zoonotic diseases in the developed world. Our rates of cryptosporidiosis are higher than in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States of America. Things like cryptosporidiosis mean that you get violent attacks of vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhoea. Those are serious health impacts.

Public health experts—obviously, not the Minister—are also really concerned about the rise in Shiga toxin - producing E. coli 3. That is a really serious pathogen that can cause severe gastrointestinal illness and can, potentially, lead to kidney problems. Public health experts are concerned about that because it is ruminants like cows that shed that pathogen in their faeces.

One of the most memorable and searing public meetings that I have attended was in Springston in 2008. Springston is a small town near Lincoln. There were issues with the town water supply, but the extent of the illness that had been caused by people drinking contaminated water was not obvious until that meeting in March 2008. Having to listen to stories of mothers who were not prepared to bathe their children because of the risk of them getting sick is one of the reasons why I, and many others in the Green Party, are campaigning for clean water.

That was back in 2008, but it has got worse, not better. In 2012 we had a major incident in Darfield—again, a contaminated water supply. Twelve-hundred people got sick before the council put in a boil-water notice. In 2016, of course, there was the massive outbreak in Havelock North. Over 5,000 people got sick, and several premature deaths were associated with that. That was traced back to sheep faecal effluent contaminating a pond, which contaminated the water supply.

Hon Nathan Guy: Yeah, Greenpeace said it was cows.

EUGENIE SAGE: It was sheep, Minister. Sheep are livestock, Minister. It is the increased intensive livestock farming that is contributing to these health effects. And it is not only gastrointestinal illnesses. In Canterbury we have the medical officer of health having to arrange for testing of water supplies of pregnant mothers who are getting their water from private bores, because of elevated levels of nitrate in groundwater.

The Green Party believes it is unacceptable for people to be getting drinking water out of their taps that they cannot trust, and for having rivers and lakes where they cannot trust water quality. We would ensure that there are controls on intensive land use, to protect the catchments of drinking-water supplies, to ensure that councils are getting water from areas where they know the water is safe and protected from intensive livestock farming. It is critical that we have safe drinking water and rivers that are clean enough to swim in. The Green Party will do that.

BRETT HUDSON (National): You know, we are only a few weeks away now from that time when New Zealanders get a chance to, yet again, show what they want to see in a Government. What they look for, most of all, is a party, a Government, that is relevant to them and is thinking about the things that are important to their lives and their inspirations. This is where, after 9 years, the National Party and this Government still stand out, in the most positive ways, as being the party, the organisation, that is the most aspirational for New Zealanders and is most relevant to the things that are important to their lives.

Just look at, for instance, the economy that has been stewarded under this National Government. We have seen growth at around 3 percent. It is forecast to continue at an average of over 3 percent over the next 5 years. That is a really strongly performing economy that is leading to more business success and, importantly—because it is the real essence of what is important about economic growth—more jobs and higher incomes.

So 200,000 jobs have been created over the last 3 years. There are forecast to be a further 215,000 jobs by 2021. Right at the moment, New Zealand is a jobs machine. Right at the moment, 10,000 net new jobs are being created each month—each month. That is incredible. And what is more, before some members start complaining or making noises about work being part-time or full-time, 80 percent of the jobs in New Zealand are full-time jobs. Contrast that with Australia, where it is only 70 percent.

So not only have we got economic settings that are creating more business success leading to more jobs, we are raising wages, raising incomes. Since we came into office in late 2008 the average wage has risen to just under $59,000. By 2021 it is forecast to be $64,300. That is $17,000 more than when this Government first took office. What is more, at the moment—and we would make sure that we have economic settings to encourage this—those wages are rising far faster than inflation, which means New Zealand families have got more money in their pockets to meet the expenses of raising their families and other expenses in their lives.

This Government is creating an opportunity for New Zealanders to flourish, for New Zealanders to achieve their aspirations, and for New Zealanders to be better able to look after their families and meet those needs, and there is a very bright outlook for the future. That is why this Government, this party, is aspirational for New Zealand and why New Zealanders see the National Party as the party that is most relevant to what they think is most important.

Contrast that with the other side—with the Opposition. One of the great failings in 2014, when David Cunliffe was the leader, was that he would say one thing to one group and then another to another. New Zealand might have hoped that that had ended. But just last week, Andrew Little told Federated Farmers that the old water policy was gone and he left them with the very clear understanding that there would be no resource rental under a Labour-led Government if it was successful this year. Unfortunately, roll along Sunday and, instead, he has an about-turn on that and says: “Well, nah. Nah, we’re going to have royalty charges on water use for private gain and we remain committed to setting a resource rental for water.” So what are we seeing? New Zealanders see the same old, same old—a Labour leader will say one thing in one context and the exact opposite in another. New Zealanders did not trust it last time, and they are unlikely to trust it this time.

One might wonder whether it could possibly get worse. Well, it already has. You have got a party that has trumpeted in recent times how it is going to cut student visas for low-quality courses. It has railed about housing standards, and it has complained about worker exploitation and incomes, the minimum wage, and living wage—and when what happens? What happens? Under a Labour-branded programme, it brings in 85 international interns under false pretences. They were thinking they were getting some great education, with all these luminaries coming to lecture to them, and what did they get instead? Well, they got no pay, substandard housing, and no education at all. If there is anything more obvious than the double standard that is right throughout the Labour Party and the Labour members, it is that particular Labour camp, and Andrew Little sits at the very heart of it.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. The lack of leadership from this Government—and let us call it for what it is: the dodgy, gutless leadership from this Government—is plain to see for all New Zealanders right now. Bill English has badly failed the leadership test over the Todd Barclay affair. We all thought John Key was the master of the brain fade, but Bill English is giving him a run for his money now. The Barclay affair has been mishandled and fudged, and, simply put, it stinks. It is a sign of the arrogance, the laziness, and the lack of any real compass for this Government.

It is in times like this, with a Government in disarray, that Māori really look to guidance and leadership from our people, not just with a political scandal that goes all the way to the ninth floor of the Beehive but with the scandal—the absolute scandal—of a Government that spends $29 million on consultants advising it to sell State houses in a housing crisis. It is the scandal of a Government that has spent, on average, $100,000 per night housing the homeless in hotels this year, totally blowing the emergency-housing budget, as hundreds of whānau a night are put up in motels—and that is not even taking into account those sleeping in garages, in cars, and on the streets, or the 50 homeless whānau my staff alone have dealt with so far this year. This is the real scandal: the Māori and our aspirations for owning our own home, or even for having a safe, warm, and dry home to sleep in, have been cast aside.

Unfortunately, if Māori are going to look to the current co-leader of the Māori Party, the Minister for Māori Development, for leadership, they will be looking for a long, long time. When the emergency-housing scandal broke, there was silence from the co-leader of the Māori Party Te Ururoa Flavell. When the Todd Barclay scandal broke, there was silence from the co-leader of the Māori Party Te Ururoa Flavell. When the funding to fight rheumatic fever was halved, there was silence, and on it goes.

This is the man who, on Māori TV last week, called me a liar. He alleged that Māori land owners are confused because of the lies I have allegedly told about the shambles of his Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. So I called him out. I do not like being called a liar. I challenged the Minister to a debate on his own bill, in his own electorate, and what did this leader do? He ran. That is right—he ran. He ran from my challenge. He is good at running. That is why the only challenge he puts up there is to other politicians for a running race. But a debate on his own legislation? No, never. “Nothing will come of it.”, he says.

So this is our Māori development Minister, a man who calls MPs liars in the media and then runs from an opportunity to debate those alleged lies; a man who stays silent on the critical issues facing Māori; a man who tells Māori that the Māori Land Service will solve all their problems with their whenua when he has known, since April this year, that Treasury has slammed it as a shambles. Let me quote what Treasury said in its report around the Māori Land Service. It said: “a suitable business case to assist with decision-making was not ready to support Budget 2017 decisions. Key areas still to be developed include…investment options…the design of enabling technology, and transition planning for affected agencies.”

Clearly, the Minister is out of touch. He has misrepresented the wishes of Māori land owners. It is time for change. It is time for a fresh approach. Come 23 September, we will see this in the House, with the largest Māori representation of Labour MPs who will come into this House. I leave that with you. Tēnā tātou katoa.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): This Government is delivering for New Zealanders, and this Government is delivering for Whangarei people and for people in Northland. This is a Government that listens and delivers in Northland. The Government listened and is delivering on roading—$500 million from Whangarei to the Ruakākā roundabout, the single-biggest infrastructure outside Marsden Point. The Government listened and is delivering on health. Northland District Health Board received $21 million of top-up funding in Budget 2017. The Government listened and is delivering on police, with the biggest base increase of the 880 new front-line police of any region—19 percent. The Government listened and is delivering on jobs and the environment. Just last week, there was a $30 million announcement on end-of-life tyres no longer being in landfills, and decreasing their carbon footprint, as well.

The Government listened and is delivering on tourism. Two weeks ago, on Friday, 16 June, this was evidence again, when Minister Maggie Barry announced the last of the funding for the Hundertwasser Wairau Māori Arts Centre, the last Hundertwasser building ever to be built in the world. This has been a journey over several decades from when Frederick Hundertwasser first came to New Zealand and settled in the North. Travelling in 1973 as a guest of the founder of Dominion Breweries, Henry Kelliher, he then purchased the Shortridge farm in the Bay of Islands in 1976, got New Zealand citizenship in 1986, and died aboard a ship in the Pacific in 2000.

It has been my privilege to be the captain of just a small part of that ship for the Hundertwasser arts centre for a small part of the time, and I want to acknowledge on record the many people who have carried the baton beforehand, before it was passed to us, to prosper Northland—to the many, many volunteers. Everyone had a special role. My role was to take the voice of the city and community leaders, carry that voice to Wellington, and craft an audience that would listen and believe. Cruise New Zealand listened and believed. It wrote on 8 May, saying: “The visual appeal of a Hundertwasser-designed building, along with the inclusion of a high-end art experience, will create a new experience not only for Whangarei and Northland but also for New Zealand as a cruise destination. Completion of this development will add to the overall appeal of New Zealand as a cruise destination and will especially bring a true point of difference to Whangarei. They will stop.”

Many people are listening and believe in Whangarei and in Northland. The Rt Hon John Key listened and believed when he came up with the first $4 million in 2015 towards Hundertwasser. Steven Joyce listened and believed when he made the announcement of the $4 million at the launch of the Tai Tokerau Northland Economic Action Plan at the Marsden Estate winery in Kerikeri in February 2016. Simon Bridges listened and believed when he told the Northland Economic Action Plan progress meeting at Waitangi in February 2017 that Hundertwasser was a high priority. Maggie Barry listened and believed when she announced 2 weeks ago that the arts, culture, and heritage regional programme would fund the remaining $3 million, with most of that arising from new seismic compliance, and, in so doing, joined the Lottery Grants Board, Foundation North, Northland Regional Council, and many other contributors, including the children at Matarau School.

This Government listens and believes in Northland. Contrast this to other parties in Northland, which do not seem to listen and do not want to back Northland. For example, on this side of the House we support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and have listened and will back Northland. New Zealand First does not support TPP and does not back Northland. We believe in TPP trade growth for dairy farmers in Northland. We believe in TPP trade growth for avocado in Northland. We believe in TPP trade growth for red meat in Northland. Most economic spokesmen back TPP for Whangarei and for Northland, but not New Zealand First. I think there are some people in New Zealand First whose instinct tells them TPP is right, whose rational thinking tells them TPP is right, but once inside the New Zealand First tent they are forced to leave their principles at the door. They flip to an ideology of protectionism, and then will flop at the feet of voters—at the feet of the people of Northland.

This party has a track record of stable government and a prosperous economy, and the people of Northland are working with a Government that is delivering. Thank you.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. First of all, I just want to pay tribute to Iwi Nicholson, Ngāneko Minhinnick, and, of course, my grand-uncle Mr Joe Shortland, whom I share with our colleague Ria Bond. I farewell him; he will be buried at our marae tomorrow. My pāpā Joe Shortland, he quite enjoyed tuna—not the kind of slippery tuna that my colleague Mr Kelvin Davis referred to earlier.

Boy, it has been one heck of a show over the past week. We have heard scandal, sex, drugs, and—

Hon Maggie Barry: Slave labour.

PEENI HENARE: —who else knows what is going to come—I am going to come to that, Maggie Barry. Anyway, what I want to talk about is that I have looked over the Māori Party speeches in support of this Government over 7 years. Words like this come about when describing their relationship with this Government and, of course, the current Prime Minister: “proud to be with this Government”, “proud to have the leadership of Bill English”, “great leadership and strong leadership shown by this Government”, and “we support them”. I wonder why the Māori Party has not said anything over the last couple of weeks, because the words indicated in these speeches say they are joined at the hip. They are so joined at the hip that the Māori Party is also supporting the failed housing policies from this Government, housing policies that have seen an increase in homelessness, more emergency housing needed and not being supplied by this Government—in fact, the taking of reserves in Tāmaki-makau-rau to solve the crisis that it has been ignoring for 9 long years.

I think about that housing crisis and I wonder when the Māori Party decided to come up with this concept called Kāinga Ora, launched in October 2015. Up until the end of May 2017, how many homes have been built? Eleven homes. In my electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau, the electorate with the greatest need for housing in this country, how many homes have been built? None. Zero. So I also ask how many dollars have been given to trying to work through some processes to solve the housing crisis in Tāmaki-makau-rau. The answer is none, zero dollars, nothing. The place that needs it the most—Tāmaki-makau-rau, Auckland—was given nothing.

I want to stay in Tāmaki-makau-rau, the great electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau, and I want to say to my people of Te Awataha Marae: those people on that side of the House do not know that my grandfather built that marae and opened that marae. This Government calls marae slums now. This Government, though, was slow to assist Te Puea Marae 1 year ago when it solved the homelessness crisis facing Tāmaki-makau-rau. It was slow to help Manurewa Marae, which did exactly the same. Yet when things are going well, when the Kai Tahu marae at Kaikōura came to the assistance of the people of Kaikōura after the earthquake, the Government was there to pat them on the back and say well done. The Government came too late to the party with Te Puea Marae. Oh, but it was certainly there when accolades were being handed out. Those members were patting themselves on the back. This is just not good enough—this is just not good enough.

In September this year, this country has got to make a decision. It has got to make a decision as to whether or not it chooses a leader that is the slippery tuna that my colleague Kelvin Davis referred to, the kind of leader that is not fronting up to the issues that are facing our people, the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau: the lack of investment in infrastructure, the lack of investment in housing, and the lack of true investment in Māori development. In September the people will get a chance to choose.

I just want to say one more thing: just recently, there has been an announcement of the One Pacific party. It is joined now at the hip with the Māori Party, and I wonder just how much of an equitable say it will have in that party when it is already crowded at the top. Let us have a look at who is at the top: Hone Harawira, Te Ururoa Flavell, Marama Fox, Rāhui Papa, Howie Tāmati. I say to the Pacific people and to One Pacific: actually, are you taking your people in the right direction? I am going to argue no—no. In Tāmaki-makau-rau in particular, where there is a large Pacific Island community; in Ōtautahi, in Christchurch, the same; and here in Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara, Wellington—I say to the Pacific people, please, go into the voting booth on 23 September with your eyes wide open.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

CHRIS BISHOP (National): I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank my erstwhile colleagues on the Justice and Electoral Committee for their detailed examination of this bill. We did not receive a huge number of submissions, which I was personally disappointed by. We did not receive a huge number of submissions, but we did consider them in detail, and we have made some useful amendments to this bill.

I would like to start by just reminding the House about the origins of this member’s bill and why I drafted it. In 2015 members may recall that an award-winning novel called Into the River, by a New Zealand author called Ted Dawe, was banned in New Zealand.

Tracey Martin: Have you read it?

CHRIS BISHOP: Members opposite ask me whether I have read it, and the answer is no, I have not read it. I have skim-read parts of it, but it is actually not intended for someone like myself, Ms Martin; it is intended for young adults, so I have not read it. It was banned in New Zealand—temporarily, but still banned. The reason it was banned was a strange anomaly in our censorship laws, and this bill attempts to address that anomaly. What this bill does is make a small but important change to improve freedom of expression in New Zealand, and, of course, that is a right guaranteed in New Zealand by section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Let me just recount the story, as it were, of Into the River and how we got to this point. In New Zealand publications are classified by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, and in September 2013 Into the River was classified as unrestricted M—suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over—by the classification office. In New Zealand one can appeal classification decisions to the Film and Literature Board of Review, and, indeed, the decision on Into the River was appealed by Family First, the families lobby group, which sought a restricted classification for the book. In December 2013 the board of review classified the book R14. This is a unique classification that had never previously been assigned, and the board president, Don Mathieson QC, who would have rated the book R18, issued a dissenting opinion.

In 2014 there was growing dissatisfaction with the board’s decision, particularly amongst teachers and librarians. Auckland Libraries requested the board’s decision be reconsidered by the classification office—the first time this had actually happened—and the classification was changed again to unrestricted.

Then, of course, Family First appealed that decision again. So this was the fourth time one book had been considered—the fourth time. So it was appealed to the board of review, and this time Family First asked the board to impose an interim restriction order, which is where we get to the nub of the issue.

Sue Moroney: Surely you’ve got better things to do with your time.

CHRIS BISHOP: That application was granted on 3 September 2015. The interim restriction order made it illegal to supply the book to anyone, or to display the book in or within view of a public place. This was the first time an interim restriction order had ever been imposed on a book.

For the second time in 2 days, Sue Moroney has made a stupid interjection in the House, because what she just said to me then was: “Surely you’ve got better things to do with your time.” Actually, this bill concerns one of the most fundamental rights in the New Zealand constitution, which is freedom of expression. What the Into the River saga demonstrates is that that is a fragile right in New Zealand, because for a period of 6 weeks a book that had been classified as being available for New Zealanders was unavailable because of the interim restriction regime we currently have. It was a nonsense—I submit it was a nonsense. What this bill seeks to do is to remedy that situation so that situations like that do not happen again. So Sue Moroney can regard that as not worthy of Parliament’s time; I for one think the opposite, and that is why Parliament is dealing with it.

What I have done is outlined the situation of the board of review and what happened with the Into the River decision. What are interim restrictions? Well, they are short-term restrictions on publications used during classification reviews or appeals. They are meant to be rare—and, in fact, they are rare—and they are intended to allow quick action if the New Zealand public is considered vulnerable to the publication under review. The problem with them, and this was revealed during the Into the River saga, is that the president has only two options currently: they can either allow the decision of the censor that Into the River should be unrestricted to stand while the board makes its review decision, or the president can ban a publication entirely pending the decision made by the board.

What is not available under the current law is the power to, essentially, reinstate either of the two original classifications. In the case of Into the River, this was unrestricted M, or R14. As I said previously, I think the end result was ridiculous. We had a situation where a book was banned for 6 weeks even though three previous censorship decisions across both the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the board of review had ruled that it should be legally available, even if restricted.

What this bill does is propose simple amendments to give the president of the board of review more flexibility when imposing interim restrictions. The key provisions in the bill are intended to allow interim restriction orders to completely restrict access to a publication, as they do currently, or to restrict access only to people who are of a certain age, who belong to a certain class, such as tertiary students, or those who are accessing the publication for a certain purpose, such as a film festival. Essentially, what the bill does is create three new types of interim restriction orders that mirror and reflect the classifications that can be imposed on a publication by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. In the case of Into the River, it would have meant that the president could more accurately calibrate the interim restriction—they could have rated it R14, for example, or unrestricted M, both of which the book had previously been classified as.

The Justice and Electoral Committee has made amendments to the bill that I agree with. It has made some amendments to the structure and drafting of the bill. The amendments set out the four types of interim restriction orders more clearly. There is also a change in the bill’s name to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill.

Hon Maggie Barry: That’s catchy.

CHRIS BISHOP: Exactly—Maggie Barry says that is catchy. Indeed—very catchy.

There are also changes to the offence provisions. The principal Act contains offence provisions that do not envisage the more flexible interim restriction orders proposed in the bill, so, under the amended Act, the existing penalty for breaching an interim restriction order would also apply to breaching any of the new types of orders. So there are, essentially, changes that are necessary—they are consequential on changing the way in which interim restriction orders are dealt with.

Some members opposite may like to scoff at a bill like this, but, as I said at the start of my speech, I think it is a good bill that makes a small but important change to better protect freedom of speech in New Zealand. It cleans up that anomaly—an anomaly that, frankly, no one really thought existed until we had the case of Into the River. But that is actually what Parliament’s responsibility is—to see how laws interact with what actually goes on in society and see how they are applied. When Parliament thinks that the law is being applied poorly and when Parliament thinks that the law is not having the consequences and the effects that society envisages, it is Parliament’s responsibility to act. I have acted and introduced the bill. Members might like to scoff at it, but I think it is a good bill and I commend it to the House.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): First up, a disclosure: I have not read Into the River either, but I can tell the House that I have actually read the tracts of the book that Family First, in its submission, helpfully provided. There were quite large excerpts from the book in Family First’s submission to the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I found quite fascinating, and anyone who wants to read that submission is welcome to come and ask me. I also did not sit on the select committee, but I have had a look at the submissions and I am looking forward to the Committee stage of this bill.

Labour supports this bill. I am going to actually stick up for Chris Bishop on this particular piece of legislation, and say that I agree that there is an important place in this Parliament for bills to be brought through to correct anomalies in law if they are anomalies that have clearly been shown to have had an impact out there in society. I think that what we did see with the Into the River example is that there was an impact, and it did have the effect of taking a book out of circulation. It was for a shortish period of time, but it is still quite a shocking thing in 2017 in New Zealand for an anomaly in the law to have that impact.

Chris Bishop will also be pleased to know that I have read his first reading speech in quite significant detail. He gave a couple of examples in that speech of other films, I think, that had been subject to interim restriction orders, which meant that they could not be shown at a film festival that they were billed to be shown at. By the time the restriction order was lifted, the film festival had happened, so there was no point.

This bill has got the support of the Labour Party. It did not get a lot of submissions, but I think the four submissions that it got were actually quite meaty submissions. I have not got a lot of time in this second reading speech to go into those details, but I would like to raise some of those issues in the Committee stage.

Essentially, this bill is really quite simple in what it does. In clause 5, it inserts a section into the principal Act that enables the High Court or a judge to impose what is described as a calibrated interim restriction order, where access can be granted to certain persons or groups of people according to their age, class, or purpose for access. What that means is that, with the Into the River book, while Family First’s appeal was being heard, that board could have reverted back to a previous classification while it was being heard. I hope I am correct on that; I did not sit on the select committee so I do not know all the absolute details. That is not a very big change to the law, but it is a change that corrects this anomaly.

Going back to Chris Bishop’s second reading speech, though, he has again referred to the principles of freedom of expression and his great libertarian ideals, which are great. But in his first reading speech he actually went a lot further and said that what he would like to see happen is for there to be a much bigger review of the interim restriction orders. He gave three reasons—and I thought they were all quite valid reasons—that he felt there was a strong case for abolishing them completely: that they gave too much power to the president of the board, who was the one that, essentially, meant that this book was taken out of circulation; that the extraordinary power enjoyed by the president was unnecessary; that the board unjustifiably interfered with freedom of expression; and that the interim restriction orders can be abused.

I would like to challenge the member, actually, to bring another member’s bill to the House that actually addresses those issues. I think it is probably quite timely, because this legislation was written in 1993. It is now 2017. Community standards have changed, evolved, or whatever you want to say, and maybe it is time to look at how that film classification board operates—which is the check and balance on the Office of Film and Literature Classification, essentially, which is the censor. Maybe it is time to have a review of that. Maybe it is time to put up a case for removing the powers for interim restriction orders, and maybe, you know, the great freedom of expression ideals that are being espoused by Chris Bishop could be put to the test. The question is, though, whether or not his party would actually accept that as a member’s bill to put forward, or whether it is him just on his soapbox in a first reading, and he knows that, actually, his party would not get behind that.

If you want to talk about what is important in legislative change, going back to first principles is important. A piece of legislation that was drafted in 1993—it is time. Twenty-four years later is actually a good time to have a good look at it, as to whether it is fit for purpose.

The other point I want to make around the legislation that we are dealing with is about how classification of content is undertaken. You know, I have given a tick to Chris Bishop’s efforts—the correction of the small anomaly. What this Government has not addressed is the anomalies—the much, much bigger anomalies—that are occurring out there in our community right now, in terms of how content is being classified. We have broadcast TV content, which is classified under the Broadcasting Act according to a code that is overseen by the Broadcasting Standards Authority. We have got film content, which is classified by the censor’s office—the classification office—and it provides ratings. Then you have got online content, which has no oversight, no mediation, and no ability—and so there is this grey area in our law and our community standards that has not been addressed.

In 2015 the Government released a discussion paper on convergence, and this was one of the issues that was raised. In 2016—nearly a year ago—the Government announced that it was actually going to put forward a piece of legislation to address this anomaly, but it also said it was going to do something, and it was going to bring it under the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which I do not think there was a lot of community outrage about. That piece of draft legislation, which we still have not seen, was also going to do something else: it was going to remove restrictions, or partly remove restrictions, on Sunday advertising on television. That was controversial and it was a bit mad.

Anyway, as I understand it, there is a piece of legislation sitting in the drafting office of the Clerk. Who knows when it is actually going to appear? But what has not happened is that this Government has not dealt with these convergence issues after 9 years—after 9 years—and certainly in the last 3 years. You would think, in 2017, that this Government would actually have worked out that it had to do something in this area to appear modern and to appear as if it actually understood the difference between broadcast, television, film, and online content—were there differences; and if there were not, then it all came under the same consistent regime. Well, it has not. Who knows when it will? Look, it is backward. We support this bill, but there are much bigger issues that the Government, and not a member, should be dealing with.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill, in the name of Mr Chris Bishop. It must be “Feel the Love Day” for Mr Bishop—it must be “Feel the Love Day”—because I too think that this is a really good member’s bill that balances the public good with freedom of speech. I think it is well overdue, and I commend Mr Bishop for spotting the anomaly, seeing a problem, and working towards providing solutions so that freedom of speech is upheld, but also providing practical measures so as to better monitor publications when it comes to interim classification. So well done, Mr Chris Bishop. Well done, also, on having the luck of the Irish to have a couple of members’ bills pulled from the biscuit tin. Of course, prior to this, he had the live organ donors bill, which was well received by many communities across New Zealand. Long may it continue that Mr Bishop keeps up with these great ideas, presents them to the House, and provides solutions to make things—

Kris Faafoi: He’s an ideas man.

SARAH DOWIE: He is an ideas man, Mr Faafoi. “Feel the Love Day”, Mr Bishop—congratulations.

Look, the current regime has a very specific purpose that is grounded in common-sense logic. The bill gives the president of the Film and Literature Board of Review, the High Court, and the High Court judges more flexibility when making interim order restrictions. Of course, this bill will seek to amend the parent Act, which is the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.

I want to pick up on one of the points Ms Curran made, with regard to censorship. Of course, the Office of Film and Literature Classification is responsible for classifying publications, and, of course, that ranges from books to videos to games to audio recordings. For this purpose, the classification system is there to protect the public and inform them about the publications that they will use or see. I just want to, basically, praise the office. Last year, I think it was, or a couple of years ago, we had the opportunity in the Government Administration Committee to review the functions of the office. Those censors do a fantastic job of classifying publications. We, as part of that review, had an opportunity to look at snippets of publications that these censors had to go in and watch and come up with a classification for. Quite frankly, it can be quite distressing work. So they should be praised for what they do. It is in the public good for New Zealand, and we need to make sure that, again, they are commended for that.

But there is an issue, as Mr Bishop raised, when it comes to interim classification. This bill was brought about because of issues surrounding Ted Dawe’s award-winning novel Into the River. Where that case went was that there was this book—and, again, I have to admit I have not read it—

Fletcher Tabuteau: Oh! Have you read the extract?

SARAH DOWIE: Well, I mean, this was not my member’s bill, but, you know, as the chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee I took the process very seriously and also listened to the submitters. Of course, one of those was Family First, and, as Ms Curran said, the Family First submitters used snippets of the book to highlight their points. I think where we need to go with that, though, is that when you are taking snippets of publications out of context you do not necessarily get the entire gist of a publication.

However, where this went was that Into the River was banned for 6 weeks in 2015, and this highlighted the problem with interim restriction orders. Basically, interim restriction orders are straight censorship. There is no nuance around those interim restriction orders. So, currently, they function like censorship and they make it illegal to possess, distribute, import, or display the actual publication. Obviously, interim restriction orders can be imposed by the High Court—a High Court judge—or the president of the board of review, if it is in the public interest to do so. This bill will make some changes to that. It will nuance the system for interim restriction and allow the interim restrictions to be nuanced so that a particular age or class of persons can, for a particular purpose, be banned. So we are going to allow those nuances. We are going to allow an ability for flexibility, and a ban through an interim restriction order is just simply confusing and does not make any sense in today’s society, when it comes to material that we watch. The committee has worked extremely hard on this. There were only two submitters, but we listened very carefully and we had a lot of debate on this bill.

Chris Bishop: There were four.

SARAH DOWIE: Sorry, Mr Bishop. There were four—two on the torts bill. We are coming to that bill next. The committee worked hard to ensure that this bill effectively fulfilled its purpose, so there are a number of recommendations. We made some structural changes to ensure the intended policy was properly reflected in the bill and that amendments would set out the four types of interim restriction orders more clearly, in that nuanced state, to bring that flexibility into the system and so that the orders were more clearly defined and more easy to understand.

The other thing is an amendment to clause 1 to change the bill’s name to better reflect what we are doing—Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment bill. That makes it very clear as to what we are doing and how we are changing the parent Act, and it more accurately reflects the content of the bill.

We were also advised that the principal Act actually contained offence provisions that did not envisage the more flexible interim order regime as proposed in this bill. The existing penalty for breaching an interim restriction order applied to breaching any new types of orders, hence we added clause 6 to insert new section 133A in the principal Act. That new section would introduce new offence provisions for interim restriction orders.

So I think this is a well-rounded bill. I think, as I said earlier, that it looks to protect the right to free speech but also allow a more nuanced regime in the public good. I commend the work that the Office of Film and Literature Classification does. I commend the work done by Chris Bishop and, of course, the fantastic Justice and Electoral Committee, which has a very high workload at the moment but managed to move through this bill very effectively and efficiently. We now enjoy its second reading, which I support. Thank you.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā, tēnā tātau katoa i tēnei wiki, ngā mi’i nui ki a rātau mā e noho pōuri ana i tēnei wā, te tokomaha ō koutou, nō reira tēnā tātau.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but at the same time acknowledgments to us all this week, and huge condolences to those others experiencing remorse at this moment; the many of you. Therefore, acknowledgments to us.]

I spoke on the first reading of this bill, and that was a very interesting debate, to say the very least. Probably my most pressing question to Mr Bishop is: did he get his Lotto ticket from Jono Naylor, which he promised to get?

The anomaly that the member speaks about addressing—a 6-week period where this book was not available; that is what the member was speaking about. Just to give some context, there are some way more important issues that our whānau are dealing with, and I will give you one. The name the main character in this book has been given is Te Arepa, and for those of you in the House who do not know, Te Arepa is more of a title than a name. It is actually part of the name of Jesus Christ. It is a biblical name. When people refer to Te Ārepa me Te Ōmeka, it can be taken as referring to Jesus Christ. One of the issues that I have with the book itself is: why did the writer choose that particular name to give to this child? But, over and above that, getting back to some of the anomalies, if that book was written in 2017 that whānau may very well have been living in a car-park, in a car. That is probably a way more important anomaly in our society to be dealing with. This is really a “First World problem” issue.

Over to the bill—what does the bill actually do? I want to acknowledge the four submitters—

Louisa Wall: Four?

ADRIAN RURAWHE: Four submitters: Family First, Shane Campbell, the Society for Promotion of Community Standards, and the Office of Film and Literature Classification. So there were just four, and, as my colleague Clare Curran pointed out, they were fairly substantial submissions. I want to, in particular, acknowledge Shane Campbell. I quite enjoyed reading his submission. I thought it was a very well-written one. I was not on the select committee, so I do want to acknowledge the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee on this bill.

In the end, it is not really about the book called Into the River by Ted Dawe—and, for the record, no, I have not read it, and I am not going to read it. In effect, it is about the process as it applies to every classification of every book. That is the real issue around this particular bill.

I do want to acknowledge that it does address something that people might be concerned about and creates more options for classification under the review process to be used, because there was a serious lack of options to apply to the classification of this book, which led to the book not being available for 6 weeks. It is not like having to wait for a doctor’s appointment for 4 months, or a dentist’s appointment, or whatever—you know, just to give some context.

That is what needed to be addressed through this bill in the select committee, and it has been. It has come back to the House with a number of changes, which is right and correct, and there seems to have been support from all of the committee, as far as I understand it, but I look forward to hearing from other speakers from the other parties yet to speak.

So when we think about the process that they have to go through, it also, as I understand it, introduces other options where one of these additional classifications during that review period has been applied, and, of course, you would naturally need provisions to deal with a case where those conditions have been breached. So the committee has come back with some recommendations, and from the departmental report they look absolutely appropriate to include in this bill. The bill has been restructured on the advice, also, I believe, of the department.

Getting back to how this really impacts on the whole process—yes, it will make that process better. It will mean that in the instance where a book has been classified and then, basically, challenged, then the process and the tools in the tool kit available for that process to happen are more enhanced. I commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is my pleasure too to stand here in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill. This bill, as we know, is a member’s bill in the name of Chris Bishop, a National list MP based in the mighty Hutt Valley. This bill has been considered by the Justice and Electoral Committee, and our decisions were informed by the four submissions that we received, and two of those were supported by oral submissions.

I am personally a lover of books, and in my former role I would spend a lot of time visiting schools around my district and promoting reading and books to the students. One of my favourite sayings that I would share is: “You may have tangible wealth untold; caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be—I had a mother who read to me.” This was something that I promoted around the schools and in the audiences that I talked to about reading, because reading is a fundamental part of our freedom of expression.

I have also actively supported and advocated for our own Hokitika library back in Westland, and, actually, with my council’s support, we built a brand new library—so much had we supported the access to books. This enlivened our community libraries as well. As a member of the Local Government New Zealand board, I was the contact person for the Association of Public Library Managers and was even invited to speak at one of its annual conferences.

I was recently visiting Grey Main School, which is quite a big school in Greymouth on the West Coast, and I was delighted when I came into the playground and was confronted by the big double doors that go into the school’s library. The very wise words of one of the most famous doctors were emblazoned on the doors. Dr Seuss had said: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Access to books and to knowledge is a fundamental part of our freedom of expression.

I am not sure how anyone in this House even finds time to read books now, with the other reading that we have to do, especially in preparation for our select committees. But I have discovered audiobooks. I have got to say that with the amount of driving I do around my electorate, they are an absolute godsend.

I thank the committee, at this stage, for the work that was done on this bill. I thank, of course, Chris Bishop for bringing it to our attention. One of the things that I have noticed about being quite a new member of the Government is the absolutely amazing support that we get in our select committees from the clerks, and, in this particular committee, from the advisers from the Ministry of Justice and our collegial friends across the House.

To go back to the bill, the need for this bill came about when on 11 September 2013 the book Into the River by Ted Dawe received a classification by the classification office as M, meaning that it was unrestricted, but it came with a note saying that it contains sex scenes, offensive language, and drug use. The classification for this book was challenged in December 2013, and an application was made to the Film and Literature Board of Review, and it asked for a reclassification for this book. It was reclassified as R14, at that stage, which was a unique classification at the time, because it had not been assigned in this country prior to that. But there was growing dissatisfaction among the public, especially from librarians and teachers, about the restricted access that that placed on this book. Actually, it was Auckland Libraries that requested that the decision be reconsidered, and as a consequence, the book was again reclassified in August 2015, and the book was again made unrestricted.

Another challenge was made, and this time it asked the Film and Literature Board of Review to exercise its power under section 49 of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act of 1993 to impose an interim restriction order on the book. This was the first time that we had had an interim restriction order in New Zealand, so it was breaking new ground. The president duly granted that order, which, effectively, banned the book from supply and display. That meant that every book in every bookshop shelf had to be removed, and it also had to be removed from school libraries. When the board met, the majority view was to reclassify the book as unrestricted, because the board had been asked again to have another look at this book and its classification. That happened in October 2015.

So this demonstrates the inflexibility of the current law, in that the book could only be banned or made unrestricted. This bill provides for allowing classifications that could restrict the publication based on certain things, like age or classes of people—such as high school students, or mature audiences, or an age restriction like an R14 classification. This simple amendment gives the president of the Film and Literature Board of Review a couple of practical tools to add to the toolkit so that common sense can prevail, and thereby avoid that messy situation that found the book Into the River completely banned for 6 weeks.

In his submission to the select committee the chief censor stated that, had this proposed amendment been in place in August 2015, the president could have issued a more nuanced interim restriction order and allowed the book to remain in circulation. This would have meant that some people, at least, could have still had access to the book while the interim restriction was in place, and that would have reflected consistency with our right to freedom of expression.

We heard at the select committee hearings that 92 percent of New Zealanders value the classifications that are applied to entertainment media when choosing for our children and teens. It can be assumed that Kiwis would value the same classifications being applied to books so that appropriate material can be bought or borrowed for our young people’s reading pleasure. It is an important aspect in shielding our vulnerable readers from harm. We also heard that there is a high level of trust and reliance on the classification labels from our submitters.

This bill helps protect New Zealanders from harm by providing consistent information from a trusted and independent source, and it enables consumers to make informed choices about what they read. I congratulate Chris Bishop on his initiative in recognising the need to tidy up the principal Act, and I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

BARRY COATES (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. I rise to thank Chris Bishop for bringing this bill to the House. To us, it is a relatively minor change, but a welcome change, to the current regulations. It also gives the chance for us as MPs to look into areas that we do not always look into.

It has caused me to go back and look at censorship in New Zealand and abroad and discover some things, like All Quiet on the Western Front being banned in the 1930s for its anti-war message. During the waterfront dispute in 1951, it was illegal to publish material that was supporting the strikers. The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, was actually banned in 1953. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, is a book that was banned in 1960. Mad Max, surprisingly enough, was banned in 1979. Then we fast-forward to Into the River by award-winning author Ted Dawe, which prompted this member’s bill and which was banned in 2015. It was banned for 6 weeks, after three previous censorship decisions, as we have heard, had ruled that the book should just have restrictions.

So in so far as this member’s bill will help provide a temporary categorisation of restrictions, rather than an outright ban, we think it is a marginal improvement. But, really, this is kind of fiddling while Rome burns. We do need restrictions on materials that can potentially fall into the hands of children or vulnerable adults. If you look at the stuff around sexual violence, torture, and many other forms of content that we would regard as exploitative and objectionable, they are out there and all over internet and online services, and they are unregulated.

We are talking here about a very, very narrow slice of books and film, which do not occupy much of the current attention span of young people today. Recently, for example, the two largest providers of on-demand entertainment, Lightbox and Netflix, have withdrawn from being covered by classification. Games are not covered; online games are not covered. Videos are not covered. Posts on Facebook—there is an enormous amount of stuff online that is not covered and much of it, I think, we would find thoroughly objectionable. Furthermore, a lot of it is not able to be intercepted via the provision of any warnings, or it is without options for parental control.

So my question is: rather than fiddling around with this member’s bill that addresses a very narrow and small issue, why, in fact, has the Government not undertaken some much-needed work on updating these regulations in order to cover the far more dangerous and concerning aspects that are currently not regulated? I draw on the evidence provided by the chief censor to show that legislation on these issues is not, by any means, impossible or unfeasible but has not yet been actioned. So why has the Government not taken this action after 9 years of this Government? I am a little confused, because what we have here, I think, is a danger to young people from materials that they should not be exposed to, particularly those that are really most exploitative and objectionable.

So while the Green Party supports this rather trivial member’s bill, we do not support the Government’s inaction on a lack of censorship and guidance to parents and users of the vast majority of materials that are available to them online. With that, I will end a short call. My thanks to the framers of this member’s bill, to Chris Bishop, to the Justice and Electoral Committee—I was not part of that committee but I have read a fair bit of the evidence. We support this bill, but, certainly, we would hope that a future Government would actually step up and deal with these far more pressing issues that are far more fundamental. With that, I give our agreement to this bill. Thank you.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the bill, and we do so for the following reasons. Firstly, it has been said here today that this bill is not about Into the River. Well, if I was the author of Into the River, I would be making sure that I sent letters of congratulation and thanks to Mr Bishop, because this gentleman, Mr Bishop, mentioned this book five times in his first reading speech alone. What Mr Bishop may not realise is that because this particular book has probably gained so much notoriety and so much popularity because of a 6-week ban, the author might not want the law to be changed any more.

We need to go back to where this started. This is a knee-jerk reaction to a book that made history. It is the only time that this has happened, and Mr Bishop then went and put a member’s bill in under the guise of this somehow limiting freedom of speech. It was a 6-week period of time, after which the author probably got more book sales than he would have got at the beginning of the 6-week period of time, but that did not stop this book then going out into the public domain.

We have had several members of the Justice and Electoral Committee say that they have never read the book. We have had several members of the House stand up and contribute here and say that they believe in protecting children and in protecting the vulnerable from certain inappropriate pieces of writing, film footage, or whatever. I want to just talk about paragraph 1.19 from Family First’s submission, which reads: “Other concerns with the book, but ignored by the Censor, were the issues of having sex under the legal age, illegal drug use, child sex exploitation and the sexual relationship between the student and the teacher, and violent assault.”

This book started its life as the winner of a children’s book award. That is where this started. It was a children’s book award—not a teen book award, but a children’s book award—and I have heard a couple of members of the National Government say this evening that librarians requested that the restriction be lifted. I understand from my friend Louisa Wall here that the Auckland Central City Library librarians made this request because they had had such demand for the book. It had grown in notoriety by then, of course. But what I know to be true is that in secondary schools, because this was a children’s book award winner, it was instantly purchased by a whole lot of secondary schools and placed on to the shelves of their libraries. Then the librarians started to read it, and, honestly people, you need to go and read it before you decide that this book did not need to be brought back in front of the courts in this way.

Chris Bishop: Oh, Tracey.

TRACEY MARTIN: See, and now Mr Bishop says “Oh, Tracey.”, but he has not bothered to read the book. He had 6 weeks when he could have gone and read the book. He has had more than the period of time that the book was banned to actually read the book so that he could be talking from a place of knowledge, but he did not do that. He speaks from a place of ideology, and yet all this is doing is removing—is removing—a completely valid way of saying that we do not think that the censors got it right and that we think that there should be a pause for a short period of time—

Jono Naylor: It’s a better way.

TRACEY MARTIN: —while it is reviewed. I will admit—yes, Mr Naylor is waving around the fact that the select committee spent its valuable time on this piece of legislation as a knee-jerk reaction to one book in the history of the country, or whatever, for a 6-week period while everybody sorted out what the best category was.

So the poor old select committee—I mean, I give its members credit. They have tried to do a mate a favour, probably. They have had this bill come before them. They have realised what it is. They realised it was unworkable in the way that Mr Bishop had originally put it into the House. So they have now added to red tape. They have added to red tape. They have added to the process by which these things can be considered, in another three areas. To “restrict access only to people”—there are three more choices. There are three more choices that have now been provided, so that there are another three sections that have to be thought about, as opposed to what we had before, and all because one book was not available for Mr Bishop to buy for a 6-week period.

I mean, as somebody mentioned before, it is a First World problem, is it not? If you cannot get a book for a 6-week period just while people decide which age group is appropriate that it can be provided for, we have to suddenly run off to the House and slip it into the members’ ballot. And if the Government felt so strongly about this, why on earth did it not bring it here? Why did Mr Bishop have to stand alone, so outraged about this situation—he could not buy a book for 6 weeks—that he had to put a member’s bill into the ballot? If this was so important, then the Government should have taken it up, Mr Bishop, but it left you on your own to then go and have to put it into the members’ ballot. It would not have anything to do with trying to fill up the members’ ballot with bits and pieces of little paper so that that minimises the Opposition’s chances of getting really substantial issues out, I do not suppose.

What we have got here is Mr Bishop getting all upset about the fact that for a little period of time, he could not go and get a book. He is also very, very upset that it was Family First that created that situation by using a quite legitimate process to say: “We disagree with the censor.” If you go back and have a look—

Jono Naylor: Even they think we should change it.

TRACEY MARTIN: Mr Naylor, you did not read it either. Have a listen. If you go back and have a look at the situation, the censor took into account only the swear words—the foul language that was inside the book. That was the point that Family First was trying to make, which is that there are other themes in here that, as a Parliament, we deal with every day, seriously—seriously. Child sexual exploitation, sexual relationships between students and teachers, violent assaults, sex under the legal age—these are all themes that we deal with in this House in a serious way, and yet this Government is standing up, trying to legitimise why this book should not have had a pause in its publication and in its release to the public while another discussion was taking place. It was not that onerous. It is not that onerous.

This bill wastes the House’s time. It removes an opportunity for New Zealanders to raise quite legitimate issues against the censors, and New Zealand First will not endorse Mr Bishop’s indulgences by supporting the bill at this stage. We will continue to oppose the bill. We will continue to try to get sense to reign across the House, but at this stage we will not support the bill.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): What an absurd and outrageous contribution from the member who has just resumed her seat, Tracey Martin. She is a member whom I have some time for, and she usually makes, I think, a reasonably well-constructed argument and actually advocates for the right position on many issues. But this is clearly not one of them. To stand up in this House and defend the banning of books or a system that allows for books to be banned, rather than other more moderate and sensible measures, is absolutely outrageous in a free and liberal country like New Zealand. I think Chris Bishop should be commended for bringing this bill. It may be a relatively small and boutique issue, but it is a very important one in a country such as New Zealand, which values freedom of speech.

This bill may have been spurred into action by the unfortunate banning of an individual book, and I am referring to the book Into the River, the sales of which were suspended for 6 weeks in 2015. But, equally for any piece of literature, I think there actually has to be a very high bar proven, that this piece of literature may be injurious to public safety and public order and cause widespread offence and harm, and not to have available to the president of the Film and Literature Board of Review or the High Court an ability to impose a classification that is one of the normal classifications that might be available, but being given only two options, which is an outright ban—something that should be treated very, very seriously—or completely unrestricting the literature. Again, this is something that could be problematic if the book did contain mature content or controversial content. So introducing a mechanism and a means by which the president of the board of appeal for literature review has that ability to make a sensible decision and reinstate a classification, pending proper reconsideration, as part of an interim restriction order, is incredibly sensible.

The member Tracey Martin was talking about just one book, Into the River, but let us think about some of the implications that such a ban could have for any sort of publication, be it films or books. Some of these are not necessarily pleasant reading or viewing. Some of these are films or books that members of this House may have no interest in reading. But in a free society, where freedom of expression is valued, I think we do have to be very, very careful before we impose a ban.

I will give a couple of practical examples of how the status quo is unacceptable and how it cannot be allowed to prevail. We have situations—for instance, in the case of film festivals. We have films that are highly controversial in subject matter, for which special permission has been obtained to screen them, for educative purposes—for instance, those that university students might go along and watch as part of their film course. We are not necessarily talking about pleasant viewing, but these are films that the public does have the right to see, in certain restricted settings.

If a group that was opposed to that film was able to seek an interim order and interfere with the running of that film festival for a period of weeks, this is providing a commercial problem for the organisers of that film festival. Even if they get, at the end of that interim period, an order that allows them to screen that film, either to the original designated audience group—so it could be restricted, for instance, to students or academics who are studying that field of subject matter. Even if they get that order, by the time that 6 weeks has passed, or the 12 weeks, or however long it takes to consider, the commercial imperatives are very clear that the film festival probably will not be able to go ahead. It is simply, I think, a commercial tool used by those who would wish to silence certain kinds of literature and certain kinds of films, fully in the knowledge that if they can get that interim order it becomes somewhat commercially unsustainable to proceed with either publication or sales and distribution of the book, or the eventual screening of the film or the visual content.

Whilst this may have been brought about because of the case of one individual book, Into the River—and this needs to be not confused with “Up Shit Creek”, which is the story of the Labour Party’s camp in South Auckland for foreign students, who have been imported to campaign. I think that story is going to be exposed very soon in the media, and let us hope that that will not face any interim banning—

Matt Doocey: Without a paddle.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Without the paddle, as my colleague Matt Doocey points out.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We do not want to go down that track. Just concentrate on the bill. [Interruption]

Kris Faafoi: Shall we talk about the Clutha River?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, we will not.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: As I said, whilst this bill may have been spurred into existence by the unfortunate banning of Into the River, there are a wide range of books and films that it may apply to.

I think of some of the films that I went to see as part of festivals, as a student at the University of Otago.

Jono Naylor: Please don’t tell those stories.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Well, actually, I am pleased to admit that I went along with a group of my colleagues—anthropology students and French students—to see the film Baise-Moi in the late 1990s, which was a very controversial, graphic, and violent depiction of the underbelly of French life, that milieu of degradation in Marseille that existed in the late 1990s. This was not pleasant viewing, but it was, I think, necessary for us who were studying that field, to appreciate and to achieve a wide understanding and a proper understanding of the subject matter that we were studying.

I, for one, may be a liberal—even verging on a libertarian—and I would not want to see a film like that, which was highly graphic, very violent, and contains sexual violence, available to children, available on free-to-air TV channels before a certain time of day, for instance. So it is right and proper that we have a censorship and classification system in this country that allows such literature that has the potential to be harmful to those if it falls into the wrong hands—it is right and proper that we have a censorship regime and that those receive a classification that is indicative to parents, such as the mature classification, so that if parents or caregivers are going out to the bookshop with their young person, they can make sure that there is an easy system in place so that the parent can assist in making an informed decision as to whether that book is suitable for their young person or not. But, moreover, when there is an R rating, access is actually restricted—such as for those films such as Baise-Moi, which had a restrictive rating that not only reflected an age classification but made them available only to groups such as tertiary students and academics, to be screened in supervised settings for the purpose of an educative film festival.

So we do not want to have—I personally do not want to empower groups such as Family First to make objections in the hope that they can secure an interim order, an interim order that is unreasonable. I am perfectly happy with an interim order that is reasonable. So if an interim order was granted that imposed an R14 age limit, for instance, on the book Into the River, that in my view would have been reasonable. If the interim order had said “This is a book that should be read only by mature people, and it is injurious and harmful if it falls into the hands of younger children.”, then I would be all in favour of putting an M order on that book pending further consideration of that book to ensure that the original decision was correct, or to overturn the original decision. But I am certainly against the idea that any group should be using the seeking of interim orders as a mechanism to—through commercial pressure—jeopardise the sales of a book or the screening of a film or the running of a film festival, particularly where these might serve an educative purpose, however controversial or however unpleasant the subject matter is.

So I want to commend my colleague Chris Bishop for bringing a small but, I think, significant and important issue to the House. It is worthy of consideration, and the idea, as Ms Martin brought up, that it was not worth the time of the Justice and Electoral Committee is outrageous. We have some very important issues come to the Justice and Electoral Committee. For instance, at the moment we are dealing with the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. That is a very restricted but, I think, worthy issue for this House’s attention. I think this is a free and open country where people should be able to read or view whatever they want, particularly if they are informed, consenting adults, and I think that the restrictions based on public order and the ability to cause harm should be used only in situations where harm or threat to public order occur.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call on behalf of the Labour Party—Poto Williams.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Don’t you love members’ day—you know, when we get the opportunity to hear the ramblings of Government members when they are defending the indefensible, really. I mean, this bill, let us face it, does do a very small thing, and it does correct a procedure, and it is probably right and proper that it does. However, there are probably many other opportunities that we could have taken to correct this anomaly and process.

When the Minister Amy Adams in 2016 suggested some changes to broadcasting standards and work on content regulation, there was an opportunity to actually put this work into that piece of work that the Minister was suggesting. She announced at the time: “The Government is…considering whether other improvements could be made to the system, for example whether classification labels can be standardised across mediums such as television, films and games.” So the Minister was already thinking about the way we classify publications for broadcasting. That was in 2016, and I believe my colleague Clare Curran referred to that in her contribution on this bill. But I am using one of the four submissions made on this bill, the submission made by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, to refer to this—actually, there is an opportunity to do this other than using the time for members’ bills to do that.

However, we are here and we are correcting it, and this small process will be corrected after the third reading of this particular bill. But what it does raise is, actually, the discussion around how things should be classified and who has the role to do that, and the anomalies that sit across all the different publications, whether they are films, videos, online content, or, in this case, books. I want to tell you about some research that this particular office—I want to get the name right—the Office of Film and Literature Classification, did. It did some research through Colmar Brunton to look at the understanding and explore the views of young New Zealanders aged between 14 and 17. It looked at their understanding of sexual violence in entertainment media and its effect on them and their response. What it got was probably no surprise, really, given the volume of quite explicit material that is available to our young people. I quote from its submission: “Participants understood rape to be sexual violence, but there were differences in understanding of other forms of sexual violence, particular non-physical behaviour and coercion. Some of the boys expressed potentially harmful attitudes and misconceptions about the nature of sexual violence.”

I raise this as an issue because this is the broader issue that this particular member’s bill brings to us. It is about classification and it is about potentially harmful materials and the exposure of our young people and the ability that we have to provide tools for parents to be able to know what they should be looking for in terms of the materials that they supply to their young people to view. We are really in a time when there is so much content out there that we have an inability to understand the harm that it may potentially cause to our young people. But anything that we can do to help parents decide what is suitable for viewing and what is not needs to be looked at. This is a little piece of that puzzle. The Minister was signalling in 2016 that she was looking to explore that more fully, and I think that is what we should be doing. I think that is what we should do.

I am not going to take too much time about this, but I think it is an opportunity that we have missed in ensuring we take a good look at what is potentially harmful to our young folk. But we are commending the bill to the House.

JONO NAYLOR (National): If I can just start with a little clarification, I noted that when Adrian Rurawhe was speaking earlier on he said that he just wanted to make sure I had bought Mr Bishop a Lotto ticket. Just for the record, what I did say at the first reading was that, given Mr Bishop’s record of having bills drawn out of the hat, I was hoping—or aiming—to get him to buy me one, given his ability to have the luck of the draw.

Kris Faafoi: Read the Hansard.

JONO NAYLOR: Mr Faafoi thinks I have got it wrong, so maybe I am misremembering myself from that stage. But certainly that was my intention, given Mr Bishop’s awesome ability to get bills drawn out of the hat. That would be useful.

I do want to commend Mr Bishop for this legislation. We had a contribution before from a New Zealand First member Tracey Martin, who was quite disparaging about this, being almost inconsequential and a waste of the Parliament’s time. But sometimes when there are issues that need fixing, the only way to fix them actually is through legislation. It would be kind of nice, I guess, sometimes if we see something out there that looks simple to fix, if we just changed it. But, unfortunately, because of the way the legislation has been constructed in the first place, the only way to change it is through a new piece of legislation. So the incidents that went on with the Into the River book highlighted some shortcomings in our current legislation. Mr Bishop recognised those shortcomings, drafted a very good piece of legislation, and brought it to this House, to enable us to actually put it right.

It is not just to put one little scenario to rights but, in fact, actually there is a principle involved here. So without necessarily going on about that particular publication, I do just want to highlight a couple of things that are important. It is quite consequential for those people who are producers of material. As Paul Foster-Bell said, for example, if a film was going to be at a film festival, then that person’s ability to earn income over that short period of time might be completely taken away from them.

There are lots of people producing lots of material every day. A few years ago I was in a band and we put out an extended play (EP)—called “For the Summer”, by the way. It is still available on Bandcamp if you want to get it—I just double-checked before; it is still there.

Kris Faafoi: Cassette. Cassette.

JONO NAYLOR: “For the Summer”, by a band called Truly Made. It was not on cassette; it was not that long ago, Mr Faafoi. We did put it out on CD. It was only 4 years ago, in fact, that the album was put out. But I had to chuck it in because of coming to Parliament; I did not quite have time to play in a band any more. In fact, we did not even win the battle of the bands at the local hotel, but that is by the by.

But we put out this EP. If somebody had taken objection to some of the material that was in it—it would be unlikely, because I am pretty sure it would have received a G rating, and also an A+ for excellence. It may have received a G rating, but if there had been something in it, and somebody had said, “Look, I think that should have received a different rating,” and it had been reported to the censors, they would have only had the options of either leaving it as it was, or taking it off the market. At that stage, our ability to sell those CDs, in the high shifting market that there was at the time for those albums, would have been really, really disadvantaged. There would have been a financial disadvantage for the producers of that product. So it is really important that we do not have this all-or-nothing approach.

Tracey Martin said that the approach that we have got at the moment is perfectly fine, because something was off the shelf for just 6 weeks and gained notoriety. That may well be the case for the publication that she was referring to, but there are, of course, many other different kinds of publications. Once we become aware of a piece of legislation that is not quite achieving what we want it to do, it is important we get it right. In the old words of L V Martin “It’s the putting right that counts.”, and that is what we are wanting to do in this piece of legislation from Chris Bishop.

I want to acknowledge the input from the submitters, and yes, there were a small number of them, but they gave us a lot to think about. Particularly, I want to acknowledge the very constructive approach that Family First New Zealand took in approaching this legislation. It had been the one to appeal the decision around the Into the River book in the first place. In case the record proves me wrong, my recollection, anyway, was that Family First was not necessarily trying to get the book completely removed from the shelves. It just thought that the classification, at R14, was not appropriate, and that actually it should be higher. Family First thought it should have a higher restriction on it. Actually, the only option that the censor had was to either just let it go under its current rating, or demand that it be removed from the shelves altogether.

I think the submitters all pointed out, and Family First said this as well, that a more sensible regime would be far more appealing to everyone involved. It means that those who have produced the material are not necessarily going to be as financially out of pocket in the meantime and that the publication, whatever it is, can still be out there in the market, but that the censor has some variation in the choices that are available to them to put in place.

As we went through this and looked at the bill, simply just removing the material from the shelves or allowing it go unchecked really just does not make any sense any more. And so to be able to enable a different age to be put on it—if, for example, someone might say “We’re not happy with this; we would rather it was R18.”, if it has been out there at R16, then, actually, it could have that put on, as an interim restriction at 18. No one is asking for any more than that. They are not asking for it to be removed. So an interim restriction of 18 would make far more sense in that situation, or perhaps allowing certain classes of, say, tertiary students or others to look at this for the purposes of education. I think by giving the censors more tools, we are going to deliver better results.

There has been a little bit of conversation that has gone on about the importance of censorship, and I do want to touch on that, because these classifications are very, very important. I know as a parent myself—you know, when my kids were younger and they would wander into the DVD shop, to know that if they are wandering up to you with a G, you can sort of look at it, or you can look at what the content is, and go “Yes, I’m OK with my kids watching that.” And as they get older you might sort of let them into the PG territory, or M, or whatever it is, as they get older.

Of course, not all parents necessarily take a responsible attitude towards that, and sometimes parents can be a little bit overkill on that. In fact, I remember at one stage when The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out, my father was so outraged he was threatening to go and join a protest outside the movie theatre. As a teenager I was very unimpressed at the thought of my father standing outside the theatre, protesting, but thankfully he did not do it.

But, actually, as parents, we do rely on censorship, and it is important that it is accurate, and that there are appropriate steps that are being taken to ensure we get the appropriate restrictions in place while there is a dispute going on about what it should be.

Kris Faafoi: I want to know more about the band.

JONO NAYLOR: Mr Faafoi wants to know more about the band—Bandcamp/TrulyMade/FortheSummer. I will send you the link, Mr Faafoi. You can have a listen. I only played a small part on it, playing some keyboards and stuff, but I will send that to Mr Faafoi for his enjoyment. I am sure it will be right up his alley—very cool, laidback music.

Actually, what I just want to cut to, though, is the importance of this. As I said at the start, sometimes we do need legislation to ensure that we make the changes as we become aware of them. And so this is, as I say, an appropriate response to becoming aware of that. It is something that we can move forward with, knowing that our censors will have the appropriate tools to be able to apply appropriate restrictions while there is a dispute going on. I think it was completely unfair in the past that, actually, they were forced to have to either allow something to go through that might not be acceptable if it was under review, or they simply had to take it off the shelves.

So with those final remarks, I just want to say, again, congratulations to Chris Bishop. This is a good piece of legislation. I look forward to the Committee stage, when we will be able to discuss all sorts of intimate—or, you know, intricate details.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

JONO NAYLOR: Not intimate details—that may well require a restriction of its own kind anyway, but discuss the more intricate details of this legislation. I commend it to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the second reading of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, I have had the pleasure of hearing from the four submitters, and I just want to make the following points.

But, firstly, I just want to begin by saying that members’ bills are really important in our democracy and that the prioritisation of the issues that we bring to this Parliament is based on our constituency work, our passions, and our commitment to resolving certain issues. These are not Government bills, and they are also not executive bills. They are backbench bills, and so, you know, the opportunity that we have to make legislative reform, I think, is incredibly important, and I do want to congratulate Chris Bishop, because sometimes bills are about one person, one incident, or, in this case, one book, but they are incredibly valid and I think do merit this House’s time.

So in looking at this piece of legislation, we really have to understand the Office of Film and Literature Classification and its role within our society. It is an independent Crown entity, and it is responsible for the classification of publication in films, videos, DVDs, Blu-rays, computer games, photos, pictures, books, magazines, newspapers, letters, apparel, and computer files. What it is interested in, in terms of those publications, is matters that deal with such things as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, and violence. So the office, in determining a classification, has to balance a publication’s capacity to injure the public—so, in the public good—versus balancing a right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed to every citizen of our country in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

So it is really interesting to look at what the definition of “public good” is. A “public good” is “A commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or by a private individual or organization.” So the benefit or well-being of the public is paramount, versus freedom of expression, which is the “Right to express one’s ideas and opinions freely …”—but there is a caveat—“without causing harm to others’ character and/or reputation by false or misleading statements.”

I read that to you, because I do have the commentary from the Deputy Chief Censor of Film and Literature, from the group that initially classified Ted Dawe’s Into the River. He said: “The book deals with some stronger content. There are sexual relationships between teenagers, encounters with possible child sexual exploitation, the use of illegal drugs and other criminal activities, violent assault, and a moderate level of highly offensive language. These are well contextualised within an exciting fast moving narrative that has as its protagonist, a young teenage Maori boy from a rural community who is finding his way through the strange uncomfortable environment of a boys’ boarding school and unfamiliar social mores. The story captures the raw and real extremes of adolescence in teenage boys along with their yearnings and obsessions. The book is notable for being one of the first in New Zealand which specifically targets teenage boys and younger men—a genre that does not have great representation. The genre character is therefore significant. The content immerses the reader in action, wit, and intrigue, as well as a level of social realism, all likely to engage teen and young adult readers and with particular appeal for older boys and young men.”

So it was that that led to the initial classification of Into the River as M, which placed unrestricted access on this book. What then happened was Family First applied for the book to be restricted because it contained sex scenes, offensive language, drug use—everything I have just read out. So what the Office of Film and Literature Classification then did was to classify the book as an R14. As my colleague Tracey Martin talked about earlier, it was because of demand from Auckland libraries, which went back to the Office of Film and Literature Classification and said they wanted the book reclassified as unrestricted, which happened. So it was a bit of a ping-pong thing.

Then what happened was that Family First went back and challenged the unrestricted classification, but what it also did in that process was highlight section 49, which gives the book an interim restriction order, and at the moment—which is what this bill is trying to change—the interim restriction order that was then granted by the president of the board of review, to all intents and purposes, banned the book because this book was treated as being objectionable.

So then we should look at what the definition of “objectionable” is. “Objectionable” as defined in the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act of 1993, means it is a publication that “describes, depicts, or expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good.” All objectionable material is banned. So what this bill is seeking to do for books, or other publications that are in this particular scenario, is to not have them ruled objectionable and, therefore, banned, but to actually have a restriction placed on them that limits who has access to the publication.

So do I think this is a valid piece of legislation? Absolutely, I do, because at the moment I think that form of censorship actually does, and could, encourage people in our society who have got a particular moral perspective, shall we say, to do this not only to this book but maybe other books to come that just have not been written yet. As was highlighted, not many people do engage in writing books for young teenage boys, or for young people at all.

I am really happy to have been on the Justice and Electoral Committee, which has been through a process of calling for public submissions, having those public submissions, working with our officials, and producing a piece of legislation that I think is going to benefit this area. It is also going to benefit the public so that we can actually have discussions and debates about real things, which is what this book is all about.

I do want to highlight that this book did win the 2013 New Zealand Post Book Award for the fiction category for children and young adults but it was also the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year. The reason it was picked for the book of the year was that it was about a young Māori boy from the East Coast who then went to an elite Auckland boarding school, so it dealt with issues of racism, of identity, and of someone having to walk in two worlds. It was given the award because it was real and true, and I actually think we need to honour that.

We should not be afraid of real and true stories, which is what this book is. I think that if people can use legislation to ban these real and true stories, then we have a problem, because, actually, we are a free and open society. We do not want to give people the power and tools to restrict and limit the real and true stories in our society, especially if they are targeted at certain groups—particularly young men or young people—which I believe will assist them in dealing with and addressing some of the issues that they have.

We have got big issues, as we all know, with youth suicide in our community, and that is because young people, for whatever reason, can end up being isolated and hopeless and having no one whom they can talk to. I think it is through books like this, actually, that they can share their experiences, and they do know that they are not alone because other people have experienced what they have. So I hope then, in passing this bill, it also encourages Ted to write some other books, and also encourages other New Zealand authors to delve into issues such as are depicted in this book, which will, hopefully, provide a resource and a sense of resilience for our young people. Kia ora.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I look forward to standing and speaking in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill in its second reading. Actually, it is quite a privilege to follow Louisa Wall’s contribution. As I have listened—I am the last speaker on this bill this evening—I think, to be honest, hers would have to be right up there as one of the more considered contributions to the debate that we have had thus far this evening.

If I could have a moment’s indulgence and just pivot away for 30 seconds, I will just acknowledge the America’s Cup win of yesterday, and, in particular, the performance of not only the team but Peter Burling. He is a fellow Tauranga Boys’ College fellow, and it was absolutely fantastic to see him guide Emirates Team New Zealand to that victory. Actually, just as an aside, there is a big picture at Tauranga Boys’ College of three of its most famous old boys, and they are Sam Cane, Kane Williamson, and Peter Burling. Every time I drive past there, I hope that perhaps one day my picture will be there too, but they all seem to have a sporting focus.

Can I firstly acknowledge Chris Bishop for not only his luck in terms of having these bills drawn out but actually his ability as a legislator. As Louisa has just said, part of the import of Parliament is to have a day for members’ bills, when all of us, as non-executive backbenchers or Opposition members, have the opportunity to put forward issues we think should be resolved. Some of them are more philosophical and profound and talk to the direction, perhaps, of the country; some of them reflect our own individual priorities. Some are just small but needed interventions to make the law apply more effectively.

Not only is Chris an effective local community representative MP but he is also, in my view, a very effective legislator. He saw this as an anomaly and researched, himself, the mechanisms to be able to address that anomaly, and that is, essentially, what we are reflecting on here this evening in the second reading. Can I also acknowledge the extraordinary Sarah Dowie for her chairmanship of the Justice and Electoral Committee. I do not have the privilege of sitting in on that committee, but I hear from everybody else you do a fantastic job.

These will just be some comments from my perspective, on what I understand this bill is about but particularly on the contributions that have been made by various speakers thus far this evening. As people will know, this is a bill that is designed to fix up a particular anomaly around interim restrictions. It is not a significant change. It is a small but, as I said, needed change to improve that balance between our freedom of expression and the appropriate application of a framework that assesses the risk to children and young people and adults of certain objectionable material being made available.

As we have heard, the current framework was applied in respect of Ted Dawe’s award-winning novel Into the River, which, essentially, meant that when the review board was to assess the classification decision that was on the table, it really had no choice but to make it either completely available or completely restricted. There were no other tools in the tool box, if you like, to be able to reflect alternative, more nuanced interim restriction orders that could be made. So that did result in the somewhat surprising, arguably, decision that it was completely banned. We know from experience that the moment something is banned—obviously, there is the restriction of freedom of access, but that also, somewhat bizarrely, heightens public interest in the book itself. Others have said that it became, in many ways, a slightly self-defeating process, particularly for those who wanted the book less freely available.

Actually, that reminds me of when I was back at Tauranga Boys’ College. You would go to the library. We all knew that there were certain books there that were perhaps more risqué than others—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

TODD MULLER: —and, invariably, they were the ones that were taken out more often. They were taken out more often. There is a humorous side, and I appreciate I put myself up for that, but, seriously, there is a key point there: that on one level, you have a framework that is trying to restrict access, but, actually, the community of people whom you are seeking to talk to know the kind of material that they would like to understand and reflect on, and often those attempts to constrain actually do not work. In that scenario, the adults were thinking they were running a process that was supposedly protecting people, when, actually, all the students at the school found out which books were better to read than others. That is the reality here of trying to get the balance right between a framework of protecting people and the reality of making information available for people that suits their understanding of life.

In terms of the departmental report, as has been well canvassed, there were four submissions—two oral—and general support. It is interesting that submissions were either on the path that more constraint is probably useful—versus a more, perhaps, libertarian perspective—or focused on broader policy around the value of interim restriction orders generally, amendments to the appeal process, vesting discretion to grant an order in the board of review as a whole, and the expediting of reviews to speed them up. I found that particularly interesting.

There have been quite a few solid contributions to this debate this evening. I think Chris Bishop summarised his intent when he talked about the importance of accurately calibrating the interim classification to give, obviously, more tools to the review board itself, and making a small change that assists freedom of speech. I thought Sarah Dowie’s contribution reflecting on the balance that is sought between public good and freedom of speech was particularly interesting, and also her acknowledgment of the extraordinary efforts that the board of review has to go through on behalf of the community. This is not black and white. These things are grey, and this society is a different society in 2017 than it was in 2010 or, indeed, 1990. The review board has to move with the appetite and the expectation of the broader community, and I think it does it well.

Can I acknowledge your support, Maureen, for the West Coast, and particularly your strong advocacy for the availability of libraries and some of the challenges libraries have around getting the balance right in terms of availability and access to material such as this. Barry Coates’ contribution, talking specifically around the wider availability of objectionable material, particularly what is available online, I thought was quite measured and fair. I think, certainly as a parent of a 9-, 11-, and 13-year-old, these issues are very front of mind.

In respect of some of Tracey Martin’s comments, and even, I think, in respect of some of Poto Williams’ comments, there has been a view from some here today that because this is a narrow bill, because it is a narrow change, it therefore lacks merit. I think, as Louisa Wall quite well articulated, that this is the day for both broad philosophical debates and, at times, relatively narrow interventions that do not meet the threshold of something that would be a large Government bill. I do think it is appropriate, and I think some of the reactions to that being discussed here are a bit overstated.

It has been a fascinating debate. It is a very, very good contribution by Chris Bishop to have this debate, and it is great to see that, with the exception of New Zealand First, this bill has support. It is a shame those members cannot support it. I think in their hearts they want to; it is just that they want to deny Chris the second opportunity for a unanimously supported member’s bill. I certainly support it, and I know 90 percent of the House does too. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 107

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

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a second time.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 107, Noes 19.

Name changed to Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill.

Bills

Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill

Second Reading

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I move, That the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill be now read a second time. It is an honour to rise on this bill, the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill, which is now in my own name. As you very well know, Mr Deputy Speaker, this bill was not originally in my name. Instead, the original owner of this small but helpful bill was David Bennett, now the Hon David Bennett. I congratulate him on his elevation to Minister, the first Minister for Hamilton in 33 years. This bill was introduced the House last September, and had its first reading—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Welcome back.

SARAH DOWIE: —in early December. During that time the Hon David Bennett led on this bill admirably, and while I certainly do not have the same emotional connection to it, I have come to understand the incredible value of this small but technical bill. I am now honoured to lead off in this second reading.

This bill may seem complex, but the truth is, for those members who do take the time to understand it, it simplifies matters regarding tort law, and this bill adds significant improvements to the New Zealand legal system regarding international tort. The law of torts covers civil wrongs and many subject matters, from defamation to negligence and other forms of loss that may be incurred. It is a very important part of our legal system and something that has a very strong grounding in common law.

As in all fields of law, issues arise from time to time and solutions are required to improve that system. One of those issues is which jurisdiction applies in special cases and in certain situations—for example, if there is a case where there are multiple jurisdictions involved, the question arises as to which laws apply. These matters are technical and procedural, but are, nevertheless, fundamental to ensuring an effective judicial system. This bill seeks to clarify these elements of confusion in tort law by providing a mechanism so that the New Zealand legal system will be up to date with other common law legal systems around the world that have made similar changes. This will clarify the field of practice for all those involved in this system.

There are fundamental changes introduced by this bill. The first is to abolish a rule called the double actionability rule. Double actionability is a somewhat archaic rule passed down from our common law heritage with England. Basically, under that rule, when a tort claim is brought in New Zealand for an action committed in another jurisdiction, the New Zealand court can hear the claim only if the tort is actionable in both jurisdictions, and then it must apply the New Zealand law unless the other country has the more significant relationship with the occurrence and the parties.

Firstly, the bill abolishes this double actionability rule in clause 6, which describes the abolition of certain common law rules. It is far beyond time this archaic rule is removed. Legal professionals have long called for reform, as the law is widely known as being difficult to understand and near impossible to apply. For these reasons, Australia, Canada, and England have recently reformed this rule as well, and so should we.

This bill takes away, but also creates. With the double actionability rule abolished, clause 7 of the bill creates the general rule that will be used in situations where the intent of the double actionability rule would have applied. In short, clause 7, subclause (1) establishes the place-of-wrong rule, in which the applicable law is the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting the tort in question occur. Clause 7(1) states: “The general rule is that the applicable law is the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting the tort in question occur.” Simply, if the event happened in the jurisdiction, that jurisdiction’s law would rule supreme. This is a sensible and logical rule, and it is what you would expect of our judicial system.

Clause 7(2) goes into more detail by providing certain rules to determine where a tort can be said to have occurred when the events happened in more than one jurisdiction. As stated in the bill, the rule in clause 7(2) says: “Where elements for those events occur in different jurisdictions, the applicable law under the general rule is taken as being—(a) for a cause of action in respect of damage to property, the law of jurisdiction where the property was damaged.” The second part, clause 7(2)(b), is: “in any other case, the law of the jurisdiction in which the most significant element or elements of those events occurred.” Therefore, the new regime created by this bill caters to two areas comprised of torts, one being around damages to property, and the other being for other cases. In reflection, this bill starts by abolishing the ineffective and outdated double actionability rule, which has no place in the modern legal system. In its place, the bill creates a new multi-purpose regime that has two key elements: one relating to damages to property and the other for more general cases.

This bill does not stop with just building this new regime; the bill goes further and adds a dynamic mechanism to ensure flexibility and adaptability in the regime’s approach to rulings. The bill provides an exemption to the place-of-wrong rule, allowing a court to apply the law of another jurisdiction where it is substantially more appropriate to do so. In essence, the bill, effectively, gives the court the ability to look at certain complex and unique circumstances and judge whether the regime and general rule that this bill creates determines the proper jurisdiction, and whether a different course may be more appropriate. The exemption is clarified in clause 8(1), which has two main elements. The first is “(a) the significance of the factors that connect a tort with the jurisdiction whose law would be the applicable law under the general rule”, and the second part is “(b) the significance of any factors connecting the tort with another jurisdiction”. Once both are satisfied, if it is “substantially more appropriate for the applicable law for determining the issues arising in the case, or any of those issues, to be the law of the other jurisdiction, the general rule is displaced …”.

In the general rule, it states the jurisdiction is that in which the events occur, and so it can be displaced under that exemption and the applicable law for determining those issues or that issue is the law of that other jurisdiction. Basically, we have got the ability to now displace the first general rule in circumstances where clause 8 is met. This gives flexibility for the judicial system to properly address cases to that best effect.

When I was a student at Otago University completing my law degree, I remember quite vividly the nuances and colour of tort law, and tort law in respect of international jurisdictions was definitely one of the more complex topics to get your head around. I can see that this bill will certainly help clarify this and make the lives of future law students much easier by simplifying an unnecessarily complex part of tort law. It can be seen to be more supportive of their education moving forward.

I would like to end by simply, again, thanking the Hon David Bennett for passing the bill over to me. As I said earlier, while I do not have an emotional connection to it, it is certainly—well, a small bill, a technical bill, one that is procedural and will help the jurisdiction and the placement of actions to be more easily processed. I want to thank all of the people and the members that have helped the Justice and Electoral Committee consider it. The two submitters—not four, as the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill had, but two—were very helpful in their consideration of this highly technical piece of law. I also want to thank the officials and the clerks of the committee for helping us with procedure.

In summary, we will be abolishing, should this pass, the double actionability rule and providing a new regime that will make the decision as to jurisdiction to international torts easier, simpler, and more efficient. Thank you.

Debate interrupted.

Voting

Correction—Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I take the honourable member’s call—members, I need to indicate that during the second reading of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill, the vote was recorded as Ayes 107, Noes 19. The vote should have been Ayes 107, Noes 12. The record will be amended accordingly.

Bills

Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I am very pleased to rise this evening to speak about the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill and to affirm the Labour Party’s support for the further passage of this bill. Really, we all feel privileged to be here tonight debating this bill, because it was originally under the stewardship of, I think we can say, one of the great reforming legislators of our age, the now Minister David Bennett. The thing you can say about Mr Bennett is that he is probably the guy you have at the vanguard of the revolution, inspiring the masses with fiery oratory, getting the pulse racing and everything, but he probably is not the guy that you have doing the detailed drafting of the constitution.

So while this is, you know, just an absolutely astonishing achievement—pulling this bill through and passing it on to Sarah Dowie—there were a few matters that did need addressing in terms of the text of the bill, which the very, very good Justice and Electoral Committee did pick up. I look forward to speaking about some of those a little bit later on. It is a bill that does enjoy support across the House—on this side of the House, certainly—and my understanding is that the select committee worked very collaboratively to make sure that the bill did address some of the issues that were raised in select committee hearings. My colleague in the House here tonight, Louisa Wall, who was on that select committee, certainly reports satisfaction with involvement in that process.

As Sarah Dowie said, this is a bill that addresses a particular issue in our law. I think in his first reading speech Mr Finlayson said that this is not a bill that is going to fundamentally change our way of life in New Zealand, but it addresses a particular and important issue in our law. That is this issue that we have around double actionability in respect of tort law. Sarah Dowie gave a pretty good explanation of that. It is the issue that we come across when we have multiple jurisdictions, and the questions—again, Mr Finlayson explained this very well in his first reading speech—are: what law applies, and where does it apply? It is those sorts of situations you get where you may be in an overseas jurisdiction, something has happened, there is a question of tort—a question of a wrong that is being done to someone. Do you apply the law from that jurisdiction or from New Zealand’s jurisdiction, and what particular law is it? There is a lot of case law that sits in behind this.

One of the most famous cases, which I read up on a little bit, is the Red Sea Insurance Co Ltd v Bouygues SA—I am not sure how we would pronounce it—which was a famous case that went to the Privy Council in 1995. In that particular case we have a situation where it is unclear whether the particular jurisdiction under which the tort should be heard was Hong Kong or Saudi Arabia, owing to the fact that different aspects of the case took place across those two different jurisdictions. Immediately we can see the particular problem that we have here. The issue is that it becomes complex for the parties. It becomes unsure as to which piece of law we should be applying. A lot of time and legal proceedings can be spent on that aspect that we call—sorry, I have just lost the particular bit of terminology, here—essentially, the clash of legal systems; asking what particular law we apply to this situation, instead of actually dealing with the substance of the case.

What this bill does is move towards repealing double actionability. That is the first of four substantial parts of this bill. The first is abolishing double actionability. That is done in the new clause 10 of the bar 2 bill. That removes the hurdle of having to look at the rules in both jurisdictions. That is actually no small thing, because this has been a piece of common law that has applied for many, many years across countries that apply the common law, stemming out of the United Kingdom. It has in fact been removed by the courts in Australia and Canada, and as an Act of Parliament in the UK back, I think, in the late 90s or early 2000s. We are one of the remaining jurisdictions within the common law jurisdictions that still has this on the book.

Having removed that, you cannot just leave an empty space. So what this piece of legislation does is replace double actionability with a new general rule that says we actually look at the place of wrong. We ask where the tort arose, and that is the place in which we apply the rules. So it is kind of a bit of a “when in Rome”. That will put a new onus on New Zealanders and New Zealand companies and organisations to fully understand the laws and the regulations and the practices in different jurisdictions in which they are operating. So it is a major change to them, and this is noted in some of the legal commentaries. They are going to have to do a little bit more work and will not be able to rely on the fact that they know New Zealand law in the future. So that is important, but we think that it is a sensible approach.

What the bill also does is set in place some rules to determine exactly how we deal with that, and also, in a very sensible way, it does provide an avenue for there to be exceptions to the common rule. That gives the judiciary some flexibility to just make sensible decisions if we need to vary a little bit from that common rule.

I know that all members in this House really want to see members’ bills proceeding with good haste, so I think I will leave my comments, which cover the substantial matters in the bill, there, and I look forward to coming back and making some further contributions in the happy event that we proceed to the Committee stage next. Thank you, and I commend this bill to the House.

JONO NAYLOR (National): I have a confession to make at the beginning of this contribution. When I was first confronted by the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill, I really did not understand what a tort was. That is kind of surprising, because I think I have actually read every novel that John Grisham has ever written, and one of them is actually called The King of Torts, but I cannot quite recall what the book was about. As the old adage goes, if you actually do not know something, hire people around you who do know the things that you do not know—right? So thankfully for me, my executive assistant (EA) is also a fourth-year law student, and so she was able to explain to me—on a number of occasions, I might add—what a tort was. I think on about the fifth or the sixth time through I was starting to understand it. It was certainly not something we did in social work degrees, actually, to be fair, so it was not something I was going to pick up at university.

For a start, actually, for us as at the Justice and Electoral Committee, when we were confronted with this, I think it was really important for us, first of all, to be able to gain an understanding of what it was we were talking about, so then we were able to gauge the importance of it. That may also reflect why, in fact, there were only two submitters on this piece of legislation, because the general population probably thought: “We don’t want to appear just as ignorant as Jono Naylor, so we won’t turn up to actually submit on this bill either.”

That said, with a very good education under my belt from my EA, from other members of the committee, and from our very fine submitters, I now want to speak about this bill, because, actually, as the previous speaker intimated, while it is addressing one very small part of our law, it is actually a very important one.

The purpose of this bill is to establish rules to clarify what New Zealand’s law will be, relating to where cases about tortious wrongs are to be heard, and what law applies. There is one thing that really does not work in the world, and that is when we have legislation that gives rise to ambiguity. At the moment, with the double actionability rule in place, there is some ambiguity about trying to define which law should be applied when there is a tort in play and when it is actually then required—it sets a very high bar, actually, in the current state—for it to be a wrong both here and overseas.

I think it is also clear to point out, and I think I am in a place now to do this after my education, to anybody who is listening, that a tortious wrong is actually a wrongdoing to a person or an organisation, and—in fact, it is only private, civil wrongs. I am already correcting myself. A breach of contract is covered by different Acts, and so is criminality, so I think it is important that we do understand the narrow scope to which this applies.

Obviously, what we are trying to do now is actually address the practical issues that relate to the country in which a private legal matter must be resolved—for example, where the case should be heard and whose law actually applies in a particular circumstance. It is very difficult, if you are a New Zealander and you believe that somebody has wronged you, to simply think that it is somehow against the laws of New Zealand and, therefore, that should apply. Of course, if the wrongdoing occurred while you were both overseas, that then adds a little bit of muddiness to the waters and makes things a little bit more difficult for people to determine how to resolve this. So, as is always the way when we are passing legislation, whenever we can provide clarity rather than having muddy waters, that is something that is well worth doing.

This bill is specifically required for the law of tort, because the types of disputes that arise from torts are generally not governed by written agreements that would specify the jurisdiction that any future action would be decided within. So if it was a breach of contract, for example, you may well have it written into the contract that if there is a falling out or a breach of the contract in any way, shape, or form, the law of Kazakhstan or the law of the US or the law of New Zealand will be what applies. But because torts, and the civil nature of them, do not necessarily apply to things that will have been written down—and already there is going to be some ambiguity—it is important that our law actually clarifies exactly where that tort should be heard and what laws and what jurisdictions will apply.

We are aiming now to have more consistency with New Zealand—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member—and it is tragic to do so—however, it is time for us to adjourn for the dinner break.

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

JONO NAYLOR: Now, obviously when we left off with that interruption from the dinner break, I could see so many disappointed faces on the opposite side of the House. Obviously, they were enjoying things so I thought I should come back and finish things off.

Alastair Scott: Start again.

JONO NAYLOR: I could start again from the beginning, but I will not do that because I have not got quite enough time to do it all again.

As we said earlier, there were only actually two submitters to this piece of legislation. We were wondering whether it was because people did not necessarily understand what it was about or whether or not it was so cut and dry and obvious that we should do it that nobody felt the need to comment on it. We did have a couple of submissions. One was from the New Zealand Law Society, and again it gave very helpful information for those of us who were novices in this whole area, also particularly from three people—Campbell McLachlan, Jack Wass, and Maria Hook—who highlighted some of the case law that had contributed to this. I do want to pick up on that because I did wonder how we had got ourselves into this situation in the first place of having legislation that we now need to change.

With the indulgence of yourself, Mr Assistant Speaker, and the House, I just want to go back to where it all started, which was, unbelievably, actually in Jamaica in 1870. At the time, in Jamaica, there was a guy called Governor Eyre, who was the governor for Jamaica during a rebellion. Of course, Jamaica was an English colony at the time. Jamaica was operating under martial law at the time. Governor Eyre, in his wisdom, made orders for thousands of people to be flogged. He had activists tried for treason and then had them executed.

The plaintiff who actually then took Governor Eyre to court in this case was, obviously, Mr Phillips, who was one of the victims of these activities—i.e. being flogged and beaten. While Mr Eyre was still in Jamaica, funnily enough for him, legislation was passed forgiving any acts done with good faith to suppress the rebellion. So when he returned, he could not be charged with the tortious wrongs of trespass to the person and false imprisonment. So despite the fact that many leading politicians and thinkers considered his actions to be inappropriate, there was not a lot of choice, ultimately, because it did not line up in the two jurisdictions. This was the starting point for some of these bits of legislation to come into place.

What has happened now is that actually there has been a lot of confusion, as I said earlier, about which jurisdiction would apply for cases in tort beyond that. In recent times Australia, Canada, and the UK have moved to the “place-of-wrong” rule, which is that, actually, these torts are deemed to occur in the place where the event happened. They have dealt with them and now we are catching up. I want to acknowledge that those places—Australia, Canada, and England—used common law rather than legislation to change that, but to tidy things up here in New Zealand, obviously, we are going down the legislative route through the great work of the Hon David Bennett initially, followed up by Sarah Dowie, who, incidentally, has obviously been the chair of this committee.

I guess, to sum up, I want to say it has been a fascinating learning curve for all of those of us who have been involved. To be fair, probably two submissions on it was an appropriate amount because, probably, if we had had to sit through more than that, we may have struggled to get our heads around it all. But we had two very informative submissions that improved our knowledge to enable us, as legislators, now to improve legislation for New Zealand so that we are consistent with our counterparts around the world and can ensure that going forward that private international law—that choices of law in tort—will actually take place under the appropriate laws, and ensure that we get good results.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): As this issue has proceeded through Parliament, I have improved my knowledge of the law. I must admit I did not properly understand this when this bill was at first reading, and I still do not pretend to be an expert in the finer detail of the incidence of tort law when there is a crossover of jurisdiction.

As the commentary says, when we talk about torts we are talking about a wrongful act that is not a breach of contract that results in civil liability. So we are not concerned with contract law. We are not concerned with the criminal code. We are concerned with civil liability arising from non-breaches of contracts that are wrongful acts, which are torts.

When this matter comes to the Committee stage I will be asking the Minister to give us an assurance that one of the recommendations for changes in the bill that has been made by the select committee is done properly. That relates to the issue of personal injury. In New Zealand we have a very different system for personal injury from what applies around the world, or in most other parts of the world. In most other parts of the world, if you suffer a personal injury, you have a right to sue for your losses against the person who caused your injury if they were acting negligently. So you have a right in tort to recover your losses for personal injury overseas.

In New Zealand the right to compensation for personal injury is abrogated by the Accident Compensation Act. In return for universal access to accident compensation, including earnings-related compensation, treatment, and sometimes lump-sum payments, New Zealanders give up their right to sue. The ACC system, of course, is not a fault-based system, so you do not have to prove fault. Your entitlement arises from your need according to your injury, not as a consequence of someone else having a liability to compensate you for a wrong. It is true that in respect of workplace injuries overseas there are quite a few non-fault personal injury compensation schemes in operation, but it is also true that outside of the workplace, in most jurisdictions, we still have tort-based liability for personal injury that relies upon proving negligence on the part of the party that caused the injury.

Where this becomes important is if someone is bringing a claim in New Zealand in respect of a tort. This legislation, as is clear from the commentary, can apply to torts. It says: “The bill as introduced does not specify that the bill would also apply to torts committed in New Zealand. To clarify this, we recommend inserting clause 5(4) to state that the bill would apply to events occurring in New Zealand as it applies to events occurring in any other country.” Then they go on to say that if we are going to do that, we have got to make it clear that we are not doing anything in this bill to override New Zealand’s provisions in respect of accident compensation or in respect of personal injury that is covered by the Accident Compensation Act 2001.

The select committee has proposed inserting a clause into this agreement that makes it clear that the applicable law that will be considered in a tortious claim where this is being tried through private international law and it applies to a personal injury, “… the applicable law would be the law of the country where the individual was when they were injured.” So that is intended to cover the situation and make sure that this bill does not affect the operation of New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Act, which, of course, not only provides compensation on a no-fault basis but it also goes further and provides that no one can bring a tortious action for personal injury in New Zealand because it is covered by the no-fault accident compensation scheme.

There is a definition included in this, as reported back, of personal injury, and I think we need to be very, very careful that we are capturing the same definition of personal injury as is covered by the Accident Compensation Act in New Zealand. If it is not identical, then we are going to create legal uncertainty, which is undesirable, and that is something that we should be at pains to get absolutely right. It is actually quite a complex area. In New Zealand, what amounts to a personal injury is not just a physical injury. A personal injury can be mental, physical, or both mental and physical, and it can also extend to death. It can, at times, include infection. You can be accidentally infected in a way that meets the definition of personal injury in New Zealand, and your only right of compensation would be under the accident compensation legislation, if that fell within the definition of personal injury in New Zealand.

So we need to make sure that we have got that correct. I know that this is a member’s bill, and so we do not have the same level of departmental support as we do for some other legislation. I think this is actually a very important detail of this legislation, and I would expect that the member who is in charge of this bill, Sarah Dowie, when this issue comes to the Committee stage, should be in a position to answer detailed questions in respect of this recommendation from the Justice and Electoral Committee so that we can be sure that this change, which is I think a wise change, brings New Zealand into alignment with overseas countries, like the United Kingdom and Australia, and I think someone also said Canada, did they?

Hon Member: Yep.

Hon DAVID PARKER: And Canada. That is a good thing. I do not mind the fact that we are taking a codified statutory route, rather than a common law route. But given that we are, the details of the statutory route that we are taking have to be perfect because we are not leaving as much jurisdiction to the common law courts in order to sort out these details. If we are codifying, the codification has to be perfect, otherwise we will be creating problems.

Conversely, if you leave it to the courts, and you have got the slow development of a common law approach to these issues, then these issues are only dealt with as they arise. So the court cases have the ability to evolve on an iterative basis, and only issues that are central to the case before the courts are determinative for the future. Unless they had a case that dealt with personal injury, they would not be determining where the boundary lies in a personal injury, as defined in the likes of this legislation. The fact that we are codifying it and we are putting a statutory definition in there will bind the courts, and it will mean that the courts do not have room to move if there is an argument that has not been thought of.

I had not thought through that issue of personal injury that, obviously, was thought of by either the officials or the submitters or the select committee itself. They are wise to have thought of it. But we must take great care, given that we are codifying this issue in New Zealand law, therefore taking away the jurisdiction of the court in an iterative way to allow the law to evolve, including that if the facts ever arose relating to personal injury—we must take special care that we do not get that definition wrong.

The bill as introduced does not mention whether parties can enter into agreements choosing the law to apply to tort claims. It is common for parties to international commercial contracts to choose applicable law. You can often read contracts that say that the laws of Hong Kong, or the United Kingdom, or New Zealand will apply, and that can be said in a contract even if the parties to the contract are not from, for example, the United Kingdom. Indeed, it is very common for shipping contracts to include a provision that says that the United Kingdom laws, in respect of maritime law, will apply to a dispute, rather than there being a later battle as to what is the proper—

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

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa. In taking a call in this debate on the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill, I have great pleasure rising to support this bill that was put forward by my respected colleague Sarah Dowie, the member for Invercargill.

I am not a legal expert or even a lawyer, but luckily we have talent in this House in this area, and I would, obviously, acknowledge that of the member who just resumed his seat, David Parker. But I did want to just comment on one statement that the Hon David Parker made in his speech around parties that may choose to contract, particularly in international business dealings, and which jurisdiction and which law would apply in their business dealings. As I say, I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of what a tort is is that it is a wrongful act, other than a breach of contract. I do wonder, as we go through the process and as we discuss it in the Committee stage, if the member may be able to, perhaps, if I am wrong, correct my misunderstanding of what we are dealing with here.

I am genuinely interested in this point, because, obviously, I have had my Arbitration Amendment Bill drawn, which, I think, has some relation to this piece of legislation. Actually, I also have to say that the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill was briefly in the ballot under my name. I think it has been in the process for some time. It was originally introduced, I think, under our friend and former colleague Chris Auchinvole’s name, and then, obviously, under the Hon David Bennett before he joined the executive. But Sarah Dowie has done incredibly good work, both as chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee and sponsor of the bill, in ensuring that the different views are heard on it, and that members gain a greater understanding of what is a somewhat technical area of the law.

I certainly bow down to the legal brilliance of colleagues such as the Honourable Judith Collins, who was a noted member of the legal profession and, I believe, president of the Auckland District Law Society for a term. But with my rudimentary knowledge of the law, I was very interested to observe, as we went through the hearings process, that what we were considering here, in codifying in statute, was a significant change in how private international law jurisdictional issues would be addressed. It represented a departure from something like 800 years of development of the common law. Being a traditionalist, I am very hesitant to see any departure from something that has so carefully and in such a considered way developed over 800 years. But the concept that we are moving to—from double actionability, which is the ancient concept, to this bill, which provides for lex loci delicti commissi, which is that the law of the place in which the harm or wrong was committed should apply—is itself not a new concept.

I believe that lex loci delicti came about in the United Kingdom as a legal concept in the 19th century, and, as has been discussed by other members so far in this debate, jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, already apply the principle of lex loci delicti, instead of the previous double actionability, in order to provide greater clarity to, particularly, those operating in the international business sphere; although not restricted solely to that. I believe my colleague Jono Naylor, the list member of Parliament from Palmerston North, had a very interesting case that was not strictly a modern commercial dispute.

But, actually, the abolition of the role of double actionability and the establishment of a general rule—that the applicable law is the law of the country where the events constituting the tort occurred—is, in my view, a useful development; although, as has been mentioned, there are areas where we do need to explore the detail, to ensure that we as a House are doing the right thing in, effectively, rewriting 800 years of common law development. So it is more obvious in a case of property issues, for instance. If your property is damaged, it is pretty straightforward to understand what the property is, what the damage was that occurred, where it occurred, and then apply the relevant local rules and legislation to that case.

As has been canvassed in the debate, areas such as personal injury are somewhat more difficult to understand, and to provide, I think, comprehensive legal provisions for that will provide great certainty in all such cases of personal injury. So if we look at the Accident Compensation Act 2001, there are a couple of components to what might constitute an accident. It was very interesting that the Hon David Parker referred to certain forms of infection as constituting an accident or an accidental injury. Of course, most diseases, most medical conditions that are not the result of the application of external force causing harm or injury—such as a broken leg, or even, actually, a millipede bite, believe it or not, constitutes an accident in terms of the Accident Compensation Act 2001. When someone may have, for instance, been infected due to medical malpractice, due to unclean—

Hon David Parker: Ginger beer—Donoghue and Stevenson.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Ah, yes! Donoghue and Stevenson—of course, being an experienced lawyer, the Hon David Parker would know that case. I think I studied that in first-year law at Otago University with Professor Mark Henaghan—I think in the introduction. Yes, the snail in the ginger beer. So personal injury can be caused by something other than merely a physical accident, like, for instance, some negligence on the part of a tour company that may lead to a severe sunburn and then a skin infection that could result from that severe sunburn. It could, of course, be something far more sinister, such as someone knowing that they have a contagious and serious disease and not taking proper precautions—prophylactic precautions—to prevent that being passed on to another person, and in some jurisdictions that would—

Chris Bishop: What sort of measures?

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Prophylactic measures, Mr Bishop: protections—being safe. So, in some jurisdictions, that would constitute more than just an accident resulting in injury but an actual assault on another person. So I actually think it is right and proper that the remedies that would be available to the person if they did not take the proper—if the person who committed the tort against them did not take the proper prophylactic protections, the remedies that are available in that jurisdiction should be available to the person who has suffered the tortious damage. As the member across the aisle has commented, mental injury does need to be considered.

So I think it is absolutely appropriate that when we consider this bill, we have made a recommendation of amending the current statutory bar on personal injury claims in section 317 of the Accident Compensation Act 2001. We think it is desirable to amend clause 7 to state specifically how the bill would treat personal injury. Our proposed insertion of clause 7(2)(aa) would make it clear that the applicable law in these cases would be the law of the country where the individual was when they were injured. We also make a couple of consequential suggestions of amendments to clause 7(3), which provides a definition of personal injury and expands that to include the mental injuries of the sorts that have been discussed—diseases and infections.

So there is another interesting question, which we did discuss in the select committee, and it was actually quite an electrifying discussion, I have to say. Some people might find this a rather dry area of the law, but the distinction between substance and procedure was raised. So in clause 11(2)(b), which specified that the questions of procedure are to be determined according to New Zealand law, we thought it was desirable that, in these cases, the distinction between substance and procedure should be allowed to evolve over time. We live in an electronic age when one may be able to, in due course, conduct one’s litigation electronically, for instance, and so we recommended inserting clause 11(3) to clarify that the courts will be able to further develop the distinction between substance and procedure through case law over time. This is a very good bill, and I commend it to the House.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take what will be quite a short moment to speak to this bill to express, firstly, that the Greens will be supporting this bill in its passing through. I have to say, this, to me, is a bill that only a lawyer could love. We have heard words like “fascinating” and “electrifying”. Sadly, I do not quite share the passion for bills like the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. Nevertheless, that is not to say it is not a worthy bill; we know it is a necessary piece of legislation. We know this because the two submitters told us so at some length.

The Law Society and the three learned academics who did submit to the bill were not modest in their contribution, but I am sure it was very helpful to those with a much better grip of these matters than I enjoy. I was interested to hear that even the Hon David Parker learnt something in the process of this bill. I also learnt a few things watching this bill go through the select committee, but my starting point was somewhat closer to Mr Naylor’s: being unsure exactly what a tort was. Had I seen the word in a trivia quiz, I might have thought that perhaps it was something you would see in the window of a German bakery or some such, but it proved not to be the case. I now know better than that. I did have the advantage—not unlike Mr Naylor—of having a senior executive assistant with a law degree, and he was able to enlighten me about the basics of this matter, at least.

I thank Mr Foster-Bell for telling us that Chris Auchinvole first introduced this bill. With all due regard to Mr David Bennett, I was struggling to associate a fairly dry, technical legal bill with our learned friend Mr Bennett. It just did not seem to be his territory. Associated with our former colleague Chris Auchinvole, it does seem to make a great deal more sense.

It has been a learning opportunity. I can now speak with a level of confidence about double actionability and other exciting matters. It has been an interesting process. I think, in all seriousness, any piece of legislation that seeks to clarify and simplify law, to remove ambiguity, has got to be a good thing. Particularly, the Law Society and the academics who contributed were quite keen on the fact that we are aligning our legislation with similar jurisdictions—the UK, in particular. So, on their good advice, as I say, the Greens are happy to support this legislation.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I too am going to take only a very short call on this particular bill, important though it may be in its own right. I really have only three comments to make. The first is that I do want to commend my colleagues on the Justice and Electoral Committee for the attention they paid to this bill and in preparing it for the second reading. I think it is a job well done on their part.

Secondly, I want to make it perfectly clear that New Zealand First has no issue with the content of this bill itself. It is quite clear that the codification and clarification of the law in the way this bill does is well worthwhile and is something that has been needed for some time. As David Clendon said, it will mean that New Zealand will catch up with similar jurisdictions. So I do not have any particular issues to raise with regard to the technicality of the bill.

Nevertheless, I do want to explain, thirdly, why New Zealand First will still be voting against it. The reason is simply this: we do not want to reward the Government for not making this a Government bill. That is what it should have been: a Government bill and not a member’s bill. Those opposite may think this is not an important point, but we do think it is an important point, and it is important because the spaces available for genuine members’ bills should not be taken up in the way that has been done with this bill. This bill is quite clearly, by its highly technical nature, a bill that should have been brought forward by the Government itself as a stand-alone bill with the full force of the advice available from Government departments to assist the select committee and the Parliament in assessing and dealing with a matter of this complexity. It is just not a suitable subject for a member’s bill.

When it comes from a Government member, they ought to know that a bill of this kind should be brought forward as a Government bill and not as a member’s bill. For that reason only, New Zealand First will not reward the Government by giving our votes in favour of this bill even though we have no issue with the content of the bill itself. We shall be voting against it for that reason, and that reason only.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): For the second time this afternoon, the New Zealand First Party has decided to be churlish, I have got to say, and vote against a bill that its members actually acknowledge is a good bill—including, in particular, that last case. For reasons best known only to their caucus, or perhaps to Winston Peters, they have decided to vote against it.

That was a wholly hopeless contribution from Mr O’Rourke, and it is actually a bit distressing. Mr O’Rourke is a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee and most of the time makes very worthwhile contributions on the committee, including on some quite tricky matters—including, might I say, on some technical matters. His objection to the bill we are debating was that it is a technical bill. His conclusion from that was that it should therefore be a Government bill—except the House is perfectly capable of dealing with technical bills before it that are members’ bills, just as select committees are.

The process that this bill has gone through, in the name of my good colleague Sarah Dowie and some of our other colleagues before that, is no different from any other process that a Government bill would go through. It is drafted. It goes to a select committee. There is expert advice provided by groups like the Law Society and legal experts, and we also have the benefit of the Ministry of Justice officials to provide advice. The argument that because it is a technical bill it should therefore be a Government bill makes no sense whatsoever.

Members opposite often complain, on members’ days, about bills in the names of Government backbenchers. It seems to me that their basic argument is that the Government backbench should have no members’ bills, because it takes time away from, in their words, legitimate bills that they propose. It takes time away from legitimate bills like the Child Poverty Reduction and Eradication Bill, in the name of Jacinda Ardern, which is literally a 6-clause bill that just sets up an agency to set targets—that is literally all it does; or the gay adoption bill, in Jacinda Ardern’s name, that proposed the Law Commission write a bill for her, which the Parliament then had to unconstitutionally adopt at first reading; or Iain Lees-Galloway’s trite and simplistic and symbolic bill around the thresholds. I think members really cry crocodile tears here, when they turn up and say that Government backbenchers are not entitled to members’ bills.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Can we just come back to this bill. It is interesting, but come back to this bill.

CHRIS BISHOP: I take your point, Mr Assistant Speaker. I was just responding to some of the silly remarks made by Mr O’Rourke.

This is a good bill, and, actually, members of the Government are entitled to propose bills that are useful. They are entitled to propose simple bills that make important reforms. The bill we were debating just before this one, a bill in my name, makes a substantive contribution to free speech. A bill that I previously advanced will help to raise organ donation rates in New Zealand. There are lots of other examples of good Government backbench bills that have come before the House.

Carmel Sepuloni: What does this bill do?

CHRIS BISHOP: I am getting to that, Miss Sepuloni. What I want to talk about is, firstly, what this bill does and, secondly, why it is important and why it is a good bill. When we are dealing with tort—and I acknowledge what the previous speaker said, about thinking it was some sort of French pastry. But tort is actually derived from the French word for wrong, and it relates, basically, to private disputes between persons. It is a bit complicated in New Zealand because of the existence of the Accident Compensation Act and our long history of no-fault insurance for accidents, but we do still have the law of tort in New Zealand for negligence, nuisance, defamation, things like that. Defamation has been in the news a bit recently, for reasons that members from both parties will know about. That is also a tort. A lot of people think it is some sort of criminal wrongdoing, but it is a civil remedy and is, in fact, a tort.

The rules regarding how you deal with cross-border torts—when a company does something to another individual in another country, or vice-versa—can be very tricky. Basically, when you are dealing with that, the courts in countries deal with three different issues. They decide whether or not the New Zealand courts can hear the case, they choose what law to apply, and then they apply the chosen substantive law. This very useful bill is concerned with the second of those issues—choosing what law to apply. What the bill does, basically, as Mr David Parker mentioned previously, is codify as a general rule of New Zealand law that the law applicable to a tort will be the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting the alleged tort took place. So if a New Zealander or a New Zealand company is subject to a tort in, say, Australia, the law that will apply in that particular case is the law of Australia—the tort law relating to Australia.

There are differences in the common law between different countries, and so it is very important that we figure out what law will apply. It will be where the tort actually took place. What the bill does is abolish what is called the double actionability rule, which allows a New Zealand court jurisdiction over torts that occur outside New Zealand but only where a claim would lie under both New Zealand tort law if the act had been done in New Zealand and the civil law of the country where the act was done. It is quite a complicated issue, and because it is so complicated it has been subject to a lot of criticism in the academic commentary over the years. This bill does away with it. So that is what the bill does, to answer Miss Sepuloni’s question from just before.

Why is this important? Well, it is important for the reasons I have already adverted to a little bit. It is important because, increasingly, New Zealand companies and New Zealand individuals are travelling, we are doing business overseas, and there is a lot of multinational commerce that goes on. So New Zealand companies doing business in foreign countries should be interested in this bill. I suspect 99.9 percent of them have no idea that it is going through the Parliament, but actually, in the unlikely event that they are subject to a tort in an overseas country, then they will be impacted by this bill and it will be useful and of importance to them.

The other group that will be interested is foreign companies doing business in New Zealand. Again, perhaps that is why New Zealand First is voting against the bill—it does not like the whole concept of foreign companies being based in New Zealand and doing work, and employing New Zealanders.

Hon David Bennett: Are they voting against my bill?

CHRIS BISHOP: David Bennett asks whether New Zealand First is are voting against the bill—yes, it is. For the second time this afternoon, everyone in the Parliament is going to vote for a bill, but for reasons, basically, of spite and churlishness, New Zealand First members are going to vote against it. Denis O’Rourke even admitted that they have no objection to the bill, and some of his remarks in his speech even complimented aspects of the bill. But for reasons best known only to themselves, New Zealand First members have decided to vote against it—very depressing.

So that is why the bill is important. Thirdly, why is it a good bill? Why is it relevant? Why is it significant? Well, the first reason is that it simplifies the law relating to cross-border torts. I do not want to say it makes it massively simpler, because this is a very tricky area of the law and it is one that is, almost by definition and by necessity, a complicated area. But it does make things simpler, as I said, by getting rid of that double actionability rule. As I said before, the academic commentary on this is pretty clear. This proposal to get rid of double actionability is supported by the legal profession and supported by experts in the field.

The second reason, and this probably the more important reason, is that it does bring New Zealand law into line with other countries. There are a number of countries that have already done this. New Zealand is, in some ways, a bit behind the eight ball when it comes to this issue. Australia has moved to this. Canada and England have moved to this. They have moved to what is known as the “place-of-the-wrong” rule—in other words, you apply the law of the country where the tort was committed. This bill has been widely welcomed by the legal profession, and therefore I think it is something that the House, with the exception of New Zealand First, will support.

There are a number of changes that we made at the select committee. I am a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee and, my word, we have been a busy committee in the last few months. We have been dealing with the family and whānau violence legislation, we have been dealing with Jan Logie’s bill to do with domestic violence leave, we have been dealing with my bill relating to censorship, and I think we have got Mr Foster-Bell’s arbitration bill before us as well. We have got a lot of business to get through, but we did make time to do this bill—to hear submissions on it and to go through it.

We have made some changes to the Crown Proceedings Act sections, so clause 4 of the bill states that the Act will bind the Crown. The Crown Proceedings Act is the Act that contains rules relating to the Crown’s civil liability, and, of course, it would usually apply to tort proceedings involving the Crown. To remove doubt, we have recommended amending clause 4 to make it clear that nothing in the bill would limit or affect the application of the Crown Proceedings Act to any claim in tort by or against the Crown. That is a removal-of-doubt clause. Arguably, you could say it is not necessary. We have decided to put it in. I think there was a submission from a submitter—whose name escapes me—suggesting we do that, and we have decided to do that.

We have made a number of other minor changes to the bill, which I am sure my colleagues will be canvassing in their contributions to the House tonight.

Hon David Bennett: Tell us about them.

CHRIS BISHOP: David Bennett says “Tell us about them.”, but I am running out of time so I will leave it to my colleagues Todd Muller and Maureen Pugh to make points about the changes the committee has made.

This is a good bill. It is going to be supported by all but—basically, a majority of the House, and I commend it to the House for that reason.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt, and I do apologise that I was so engrossed with what the member was saying, I forgot the 2- minute bell. But I did learn a lot.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to take a call on the second reading of this bill, the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. This deals with a very—I suppose it is a complex area of law. If I think back to my days in law school, tort—yes, it can be difficult to grasp. Essentially, if you are wronged personally, the act of being wronged other than when you are in a contract has been established through common law—through judge-made law. The torts have been established through the courts, and that is, basically, the origins of tort law—it is all judge-made—and here we are just clearing up some legal uncertainties that are unnecessary and that could be very costly, particularly to parties going before the courts. So we are trying to expedite those processes by making sure that it is very clear which jurisdiction applies when a tortious act occurs across multiple jurisdictions with various international parties.

This is a sensible piece of legislation. Based on the number of submissions—from the Law Society and a law professor—I guess it will be talked about among the law community, and I am sure it will come in handy for certain parties when a dispute does arise.

I was thinking about what is a typical scenario of a potential tortious act that may fall under this piece of legislation. I guess I was thinking about Jono Naylor earlier, who was giving some self-promotion about his performance in a band. He was in a band. He was a keyboard player and a vocalist for the band Truly Made with their one-off hit, “For the Summer”. Mr Naylor kindly distributed that song to Kris Faafoi and me over the dinner break, and I had a listen. I had a listen to Mr Naylor and, you know, it is not a bad tune. It is not a bad tune. It has got a bit of a sun-drenched, reggae-type beat and some pretty good vocals, kind of like Steely Dan meets the Wailers in some sense. But I could hear Jono doing those nice syncopating keyboard stabs, as you do on a reggae tune, and so he really held it down. Yes, it was a very nice tune.

Upon listening to that I could not find any—I was not aggrieved, there was no tortious act that I was injured from, from listening to that tune. But then again, Mr Naylor mentioned Jamaica. He mentioned Jamaica in his contribution, and I was wondering, well, what the folks in Jamaica—the origin, I guess, of reggae music—would think if they heard Mr Naylor’s tune, which is this sort of reggae-type tune. Who is to say? The people in Jamaica may well feel aggrieved. They may well feel that there was a tortious act and that they were injured. There could be some sort of injury upon listening to Mr Naylor and this sort of pop version of a reggae-type tune that Mr Naylor was involved in, and so which jurisdiction would apply? Where was the injury—where did the harm occur? Would it be in Jamaica? Would it be in New Zealand? Who knows?

But this is the reason for this legislation. It is to establish very clearly which jurisdiction applies, which is where the tortious act actually took place, and so that will, hopefully, clear up those sorts of potential disputes. Remember, the example I am giving is not—you know, who are we to say what the extent of the law is, because tort law is judge-made law and it is still evolving, and who is to say that there might not be some sort of harm that is created in the future by the example that I have just given. That was just one example.

The other point I wanted to make, just to give another example—one that is, I guess, quite close to home—is about the tort of invasion of privacy, or protection of privacy. Consider the example of an electoral agent in, say, an office like Gore in Clutha-Southland who is potentially aggrieved through the covert installation of—who knows—a listening device or of a recording device. That could potentially give rise to the tort of invasion of privacy.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Unless they got paid out. Unless they got hush money.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Unless they got hush money, indeed. But that is another layer of—potentially, another legal wrong that has been committed. So in that scenario, yes, sure. Perhaps that electoral support agent, or whichever employee it was, was offshore in another jurisdiction—say, Jamaica—working. Someone was working in Jamaica and a covert listening device was installed in the jurisdiction where that person was working, but the instructions were given by, perhaps, the supervising member of Parliament to a firm. Who knows? But there was the installation of a listening device covertly recording private conversations, and so, again, this legislation would be applicable in that situation.

I just wanted to give these examples of where this bill may be applicable in terms of the jurisdiction that would apply where a tortious act is committed. We are looking at a range of tortious acts. Of course, in the international sphere we are looking at economic harm—economic harm to businesses, I guess, primarily, with these cases. But, you know, accessing the courts, engaging lawyers, court fees, the adversarial process—all of that is largely beyond the scope of little private disputes. In the international cases, it will involve major businesses and corporations, and so they will benefit from having a bit more certainty in terms of the process that they are following when they are deciding to engage in a cause of action to sue another party.

So, yes, I do stand in support of this bill. I commend Sarah Dowie from Invercargill, which is very close to Clutha-Southland and is also part of Te Tai Tonga, for bringing this bill to the House. I am sure that it will provide clarity for those very technical and complex legal issues that will arise in future around tortious acts, around which jurisdiction will apply and how the legal proceedings will carry on there. So I commend this bill.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): It has been quite an entertaining reading of the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. I think it is always a good indication of how desperate we are for material when we start talking about reggae as part of international choice of law in tort. This bill here is in the name of Sarah Dowie, the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, and was first read in this House by the now very honourable David Bennett. As we learnt earlier today too, Mr Bennett is the first Cabinet Minister from Hamilton in 33 years—so a proud moment for that electorate, I imagine. A fine achievement indeed, it is. Also, I learnt tonight that this bill was first introduced into this House by the former member for West Coast - Tasman Chris Auchinvole. A fine, upstanding gentleman he is, as well. I imagine that he would have relished the opportunity of speaking to this very interesting bill himself.

But I have to say I agree with my colleague David Clendon tonight. When I first started dealing with this bill at the Justice and Electoral Committee I was challenged. I, first of all, could not work out what on earth a tort was and for me, Mr Clendon, it sounded like something you would put in a pie dish and bake and serve with cream. But, actually, a tort is a wrongful act that results in civil liability, but, of course, as we have heard tonight, it does not apply to contracts.

In common law jurisdictions it is a civil wrong that unfairly causes someone else to suffer loss or harm that results in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. The victim of the harm can recover their losses as damages in a lawsuit, but in order to successfully take a case the plaintiff in the lawsuit, commonly referred to as the injured party, must show that the action or lack of action was the actual cause of the harm, and that has to be able to be legally identified as the cause. If anyone was wondering what the person who commits the act is called, they are called a tortfeasor—for reference.

When an action is brought in New Zealand, in a New Zealand court, for a tort that happened outside of this country, the common law rule of double actionability applies. We have heard a lot about that tonight. So what does it mean, some may ask. It means that when a tort is committed outside of New Zealand the tort claim is successful only if it is actionable in both the New Zealand jurisdiction and the country where the tort took place. So the plaintiff must establish that the tort would have been actionable in New Zealand if it had been committed here, and that the tort is actionable under the law of the country in which it was committed.

If both of those are satisfied, then the court applies New Zealand’s law to the substance of that claim. But it does get complicated when one country has a more significant relationship with the event that led to the tort and with both parties involved, in which case the substantive law of that country can be applied to the complete exclusion of the other law. An example of that situation could be where a New Zealand employee is, say, working overseas and suffers an injury due to the negligence of the employer in creating an unsafe workplace. So if it is the law in the country where the event took place, is it New Zealand law, or perhaps the country where the injury took place—so the law applies from that country—or if the employee was to sue, say, the parent company of that employer, which may actually be residing in Australia, which law would apply? So it does get very confusing, and this bill does clarify this.

We were told by submitters, of whom, we have heard, there were only two, that there is a huge consensus for the double actionability rule to torts claims to be removed. It is agreed that it was outdated and no longer fit for purpose. It has been abolished in the United Kingdom, in Australia, and in Canada. So this bill removes that double actionability, and this aspect of the bill was supported by the New Zealand Law Society and other submitters.

The Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill is very similar to the UK Act, which was seen by the New Zealand Law Society as providing a very valuable resource in creating a body of case law that is accrued in the United Kingdom. So that will help with the interpretation and the application of the law here in New Zealand.

We did rely very heavily on the legal advisers to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It was a very technical bill, and it did require the expertise of those legal minds to guide us through the process.

I thought I would share with the House tonight one of the most famous tort law suits that has happened in recent history, and it was the case of a 79-year-old woman who sued McDonald’s when she spilt her coffee and was burnt. So the 79-year-old woman, Stella Liebeck, spilt a cup of McDonald’s coffee on her lap and sustained third-degree burns and, as a result of that, Mrs Liebeck had to have skin grafts. So she had quite a lot of recovery and healing to do. And when she went to McDonald’s and asked it to cover her medical bills, it declined. So Mrs Liebeck filed a civil lawsuit. It was found during the case that McDonald’s had been negligent because it had received thousands of complaints from other customers about the temperature of its coffee, yet it had continued to instruct its staff to serve the coffee at this high temperature. So when Mrs Liebeck was burnt, she could prove that McDonald’s had been negligent because it was aware of the potential harm of the temperature of this coffee. In the end, Mrs Liebeck was awarded damages—$200,000 for her medical bills and then $2.7 million for punitive damages. That was later revised down to $640,000, and then appealed and it was settled out of court.

But the point of this is that had Mrs Liebeck been a Kiwi on holiday in the United States, then she would have had to prove that there was a duty of care owed to her by McDonald’s, and that she had suffered actual loss, injury, or damage that was directly caused by McDonald’s negligence, which she obviously did. Under this bill, wherever the events occurred, that is the applicable law or, in the event of damage to property, it is deemed to be the country where the property was located. So if Mrs Liebeck was an American on holiday in New Zealand at the time of the incident, the ability to apply a tort law is severely curtailed because of our Accident Compensation Act.

So, in summary, actionability is in the place where the damage was done. If something happens in New Zealand, it is dealt with under New Zealand law. If it occurs in another country, it is that jurisdiction’s law that will apply. This bill aligns us with similar jurisdictions internationally, and, therefore, simplifies the law. I commend it to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am going to be very brief. I am a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee. We are, as a Labour Party, supporting this piece of legislation. So I do want to congratulate Sarah Dowie, in whose name this Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill has been submitted—well, who now has responsibility for it; it was initially submitted under the name of the Hon David Bennett.

I just wanted to note that when I spoke at the first reading, I purported that there would possibly be hundreds of submissions and, in fact, we had two. But, in saying that, I do have to commend the quality of those submitters. They were the New Zealand Law Society, and also Professor Campbell McLachlan QC, Jack Wass, and Dr Maria Hook, from Victoria University. Almost all of their recommendations have been accepted by the select committee.

I want to highlight, as they did in their submissions, that the bill largely adopts the scheme and language of Part III of the UK Private International Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1995. The only thing, really, to add is that the Law Society, in particular, highlighted that that law, given it has been operating since 1995, will be helpful in providing recourse to a body of case law to assist with the interpretation and application of legislation in New Zealand.

There is not really much I can add in terms of the commentary that we have heard tonight. I think we are going to have an interesting Committee stage debate, and I think I will leave my definitions and further contributions to this bill until that stage. Thank you.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Mr Assistant Speaker—

Michael Wood: Quality, not quantity.

TODD MULLER: Oh, one can do both. Look, thank you for the opportunity to say a few words on the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill in its second reading. Well, this is dry stuff, I would have to say. As someone who was not on the Justice and Electoral Committee and as someone, as you can probably tell, who is not a lawyer, it has been quite a mission of resilience for the last hour and a half to 2 hours as we have debated that, and—even though the Assistant Speaker is going to tell me to sit down—can I just acknowledge the Lions supporters in the gallery for having the resilience to stay with us. What an extraordinary effort. I can assure you that the New Zealand Parliament has more vibrant days and vibrant debates than this, but occasionally we are drawn to very engaging, technical debates that certainly can be a bit dry. So I am delighted to be able to speak for a few minutes on this bill.

I acknowledge the Hon David Bennett from Hamilton, who took this particular bill forward initially, and now, of course, it has been passed to my good friend and colleague Sarah Dowie. But, thinking of David Bennett and the good city of Hamilton, a very good friend of mine, the late, great Sir Ross Jansen, was the mayor—I knew him in my university days, and he strongly advised me that I should be a lawyer. I have a sense that he would be very impressed to know that, all these years later, I am standing here, holding a view in respect of something as intriguing as torts.

But, anyway, as we have heard already from all of the speakers, a tort is, essentially, a private dispute between persons, and what we are doing here is providing a solution or a simplification, along with the similar jurisdictions of Australia, Canada, and England, to codify as a general rule that the law applicable to the alleged tort will be the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting the alleged tort took place. Actually, very much as a layman to this particular issue, that seems to make a heck of a lot of sense, and one wonders why it has taken so long, across the various jurisdictions, to get to what appears to be quite a simplistic and a simple and a sensible solution. The current model that exists, until this bill passes, of double actionability has been described in the words of one Australian author as notoriously difficult to understand and apply, and, based on having listened to the various contributions over the last 2 hours, I think that is a very fair assessment, not only of the historic case but, potentially, even of what is proposed as a solution. But then, you know, I am not a lawyer, so others may well see the compelling logic of it more clearly than I do.

What I would like to do is just specifically talk to, I guess, the three key clauses that underpin this sensible change. The first is clause 7(1), which establishes the “place-of-wrong” rule, in which the applicable law is the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting—that is a hard word to say; “constituting”—a tort has occurred. Secondly, clause 7(2) provides rules to determine where a tort can be said to have occurred where the events have occurred in more than one jurisdiction, which is a critical component because sometimes, depending on the nature of the dispute, it is over multiple jurisdictions. Then, of course, clause 8 provides for an exception to the “place-of-wrong” rule, allowing the court to apply the law of another jurisdiction where it is substantially more appropriate to do so.

It was interesting to hear that there were two specific and quite comprehensive contributions from submitters, and I am not going to step through that in any particular detail.

Look, I could go through here every one of the changes that the select committee made—

Chris Bishop: Oh, I said you would.

TODD MULLER: Yes, I know you did. But I think, in due deference to those watching and to those observing, and I wish them good luck for the second test—

Hon Member: You don’t really mean that.

TODD MULLER: —generally, good luck—can I commend the bill to the House and I look forward to the vote, which should be unanimous. But, as my learned colleague Chris Bishop said, it is very disappointing when a party whose members stand and say that it is a good bill and stand and say that it is technically the right solution to address a problem that exists, will then stand and say that they will vote against it because they do not think it is appropriate for the Government backbenchers to be able to put a bill up on a day like this. I think they can do better than that, and they know they can. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Local Electoral (Equitable Process for Establishing Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill

First Reading

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): I move, That the Local Electoral (Equitable Process for Establishing Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. Tino harikoa mātou ka puta taku pire mema i te māpere pire mema, kia matatika ai i te tūkanga mō te mahi whakatū i ngā rohe pōti Māori i runga i ngā kaunihera ā-rohe; kia whakamana hoki i ā tātou takohanga i raro i Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

[We are really euphoric that my member’s bill was drawn out of the member’s bill ballot to ensure that the course of action to set up Māori electorates within regional councils is impartial; it will also ensure that our obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi are mandated.]

This is a bill to improve Māori representation in local government. My bill is inspired by the work of former New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd, who unsuccessfully tried to establish a Māori ward in his district and who has a petition before Parliament calling for this change. We are really proud to be working with Andrew on this and pleased that he endorsed the bill when I entered it into the ballot. I want to acknowledge Andrew Judd’s incredible strength in the face of some pretty hostile and brutal opposition, and acknowledge that as a Pākehā he has been willing to lead a conversation particularly for tauiwi and non-Māori to engage in.

The current situation is that the establishment of Māori wards in local government can be put to a referendum, whereas general wards cannot be. They can simply be decided on by councils. This creates an unfair double standard and works to limit Māori representation at local government level throughout the country.

As to the bill itself, currently, if a territorial authority or regional council resolves to establish a Māori ward or constituency, a poll on the issue must be held if 5 percent of the electors of the city, district, or region request it. That is all it takes. The result of such a poll is binding on the authority or council for at least two elections. There is no equivalent requirement applicable to the establishment of general wards or constituencies. Ensuring that the establishment of Māori wards follows the same legal process as the establishment of general wards is the very least we can do to ensure better Māori representation in local government, so that our people have a voice in the decisions that affect us.

The United Nations has noted that Aotearoa has “persistently low representation” of Māori in local government positions, which is made worse by this double standard for Māori wards, which limits Māori representation in local government by allowing it only if the majority agrees. There are many councils across the country with no Māori representation at all. Those councils that have tried to address the issue by establishing Māori wards have not been able to, because of the ability for people to demand a referendum. Only one council, Wairoa District Council, which is one of the most densely Māori-populated districts in the country, has been able to establish a Māori ward, and even for them it took two goes, because the first time it was blocked by a referendum.

The Green Party is proud to continue our strong support for Te Tiriti rights in advocating for a Government that plays its part in supporting Māori aspirations for tino rangatiratanga. While we acknowledge that the vision for tino rangatiratanga can be driven only by Māori, the Green Party understands that government and, certainly, local government can stop getting in the way of that and can proactively support this tupuna-endowed kaupapa. Affirming better Māori representation at the local government decision-making table will benefit our communities.

One example of where Māori representation could benefit everyone is in the area of waste-water sewerage. Currently around the country Māori groups, often alongside local tauiwi groups, are fighting to uphold their responsibilities as kaitiaki over our living systems. Hapū are concerned with the long-term well-being of rivers, lakes, and harbours. Accountability to whānau requires hapū to protect that resource as a taonga—a source of food and spiritual nourishment. Yet hapū are battling short-term planning that often favours cost cutting and big business. There is too often a refusal to acknowledge the expertise held by local Māori over hundreds of years of care for our living system. There have been waste-water decisions made over 30 years ago now that have done nothing but explode wider costs by ruining waters and ecosystems, eventually ending up in expensive mitigation that we are seeing today. Having proper hapū representation at the decision table 30 years ago would have likely saved the living system and public finances. This would have been of benefit to everyone.

Kaupapa Māori cultural values and world views offer this country a rich source for planning and kaitiaki responsibilities and knowledge. My bill seeks to improve the particular avenue of representation on local government as a way to better ensure our people have a say in the decisions that affect them. Andrew made an inspiring and courageous stand that has changed attitudes around the country and brought attention to our chronically low Māori representation in local government. Andrew has exemplified true leadership, which is about always doing the right thing, especially when it is not easy. We have Māori electorates in Parliament, and this does not change the principle of one person, one vote. A fair and equitable democracy is one where the human rights of the minority should not just be decided on by the majority. A fair and equitable democracy would recognise the human rights breaches that the majority has had on tangata whenua and, at the least, would support a fair and equitable process as part of rectifying that breach.

He pire tēnei ki te whakakahore i tērā ārai ki te whakatū rohe pōti Māori. E tika ana kia whakarahi ake ngā kanohi Māori hei māngai mā tātou i runga i ngā kaunihera.

[This is a bill that negates that pathway to establish Māori electorates. It is appropriate that the number of Māori faces as representatives for us on councils is increased.]

This should not be a controversial issue. I am proud to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

NUK KORAKO (National): Mauri ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. I rise to speak on the Local Electoral (Equitable Process for Establishing Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill’s first reading. What we have here to consider is something we seem to be seeing a lot of from the Opposition: a well-meaning but really quite unnecessary piece of legislation. The intention here is clear—to provide for more representation of Māori in local government—and I applaud that. We do actually have wide representation across many of our local authorities already, but I sympathise with Marama Davidson, who put forward this bill, in wanting to see more of our people represented. After all, that is one of the reasons I chose to put myself forward, first for a seat on the Christchurch City Council and then for the Port Hills electorate. I want to represent the Port Hills electorate, and what I am hearing on the doorstep at home suggests I have a very good chance of doing that. But I am also here to advance the cause of Māori, and I personally believe that is something that complements the position I am seeking as an MP in a general electorate.

I acknowledge those who are here representing Māori electorates—I really do. Despite our differing views on some issues, I know that each of my Māori colleagues is here in this House for the right reasons: to advance the cause of our people. But there is more than one way to increase Māori representation. It does not have to be through Māori electorates or Māori wards, but in many cases it will be exactly that. In this House we do have Māori seats, although here in the National Party we are very much leading the way by bringing more Māori MPs to this House than any other party, despite not currently standing any candidates in the Māori seats.

For some local areas, that may also be the right thing to do, but that is not a decision I think should be made for them from this House. I certainly do not think it is a decision that should be made by a council without reference to its citizens—without reference to its citizens—or, in fact, against the wishes of its citizens. The evidence we see is that some councils will decide to initiate Māori wards. Under the current law, citizens have the democratic right to challenge that decision, and I think that there is a very important right.

We have a representative democracy here in New Zealand, and as MPs we make decisions every day on behalf of our citizens, but there are certain constitutional changes where a referendum is appropriate. Take the flag referendum. This was an issue that most of us had an opinion on. I was personally in favour of the change, and would have voted that way had it been a decision voted by the Parliament. But it was much more appropriate that a change like that be decided by a referendum. That referendum produced the right result—not the result I would have voted for, not the one I wanted, but the right result, because it was the decision of the majority made in the most democratic way possible. How much more appropriate is it, then, that a referendum be used when a change is proposed that alters how we elect our representatives? In fact, the current law does not even require such a referendum. The presumption is not that the referendum will be held; rather, if the community feels strongly enough about the issue, it can gather the required number of signatures for a referendum to be held.

As we have seen, some communities will accept the addition of Māori wards and some will reject it. I make no judgment on the reasons for those decisions. They are local matters, and the situation in regard to Māori representation and involvement in the local authorities’ processes will indeed differ from place to place. We could make all sorts of assumptions about the reasons communities reject Māori representation. I am sure that communities where there is less of an understanding of the Treaty relationship and the actual added value that involving iwi in decision making can have for local authorities will be more likely to vote against the measures—against the measures. But I would also point out that representation around the council table is not the only way for Māori voices to be heard and for the partnership envisioned in the Treaty—in Te Tiriti o Waitangi—to actually be realised.

Again, these are decisions for communities to make for themselves, and they are decisions that should be made in the most democratic way that they can be. The current law achieves that outcome, actually—it achieves that outcome. It may not achieve the outcome that the member in charge of the bill wants, or, indeed, the outcome that I would want in every situation, but it achieves the outcome that local communities want, and I find that really hard to argue against—I find that very, very hard to argue against.

I expect that in the future, Māori representation on councils will increase—it will increase. I am sure that there will be other councils where that is through the establishment of Māori wards, but I also expect that we will continue to see more and more highly - effective Māori candidates putting their names forward for general councils and also for representation in this House. You only have to look at National’s candidates for the 2017 election to see that we have some of the most outstanding Māori choices, like Hārete Hīpango and Adrienne Pierce, who I hope will be elected and who I know will do an amazing job in their general electorates, but also within their Māori communities as well. I do.

I applaud councils and communities who are looking at how best to include Māori in decision making, and also on how to increase Māori representation. Neither the current law nor the proposed bill provide a one-size-fits-all solution. They do not provide that. But I do think that the current law strikes the right balance in making this sort of constitutional change something that the community can choose to have its say on—that the community can choose to have its say on.

Regardless of the outcome when communities do make their decisions, we can be confident that Māori representation is increasing—Māori representation is actually increasing—and we will continue to see Māori leaders standing up and taking positions on their local authorities. Why would we amend or introduce a bill that goes against public wishes? Why would we do that? Voting has shown that there is no appetite for this—there is no appetite for this. There is the ability to set these wards up now, absolutely—you can set them up now. There is the ability to do that, but the wider public has not chosen to support it. It is not shown support for this—or the processes—and it also does not show any appetite for it whatsoever. Therefore, I cannot support this bill, nor can my colleagues from this side of the House. Nō reira, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, kia ora.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The member who just resumed his seat, Nuk Korako, asked why you would go against the will of the public when it comes to improving the process for Māori wards to be formed. I have got a couple of words in answer to that: Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is the reason—that is the reason why that Government over there should be at least considering this bill. He stands there, proud to be a Māori, and yet he forgets about our founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The explanatory note of the bill says that the law currently says: “if a territorial authority or regional council resolves to establish a Māori ward or constituency, a poll on the issue must be held if 5 percent of the electors of the city, district or region request it. The result of such a poll is binding on the authority or the council for at least two elections.” Here is the crunch: “There is no equivalent requirement applicable to the establishment of general wards or constituencies.” This is about evening up that process. It is about Te Tiriti o Waitangi—making sure that Māori interests are not lost because of the interests of the electorate that Nuk Korako talks about.

This goes to the heart of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It goes to the heart of the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision. In stage one of Te Paparahi o Te Raki Tribunal report it says that Ngāpuhi did not cede sovereignty. For all intents and purposes, sovereignty has disappeared from Ngāpuhi, even if, in our hearts, we believe that we still have a measure of sovereignty. But this one bill could go some way to addressing the imbalance by allowing the process by which Māori wards are established to be equal to that of the process to establish non-Māori wards. That is just a little way that in 21st century New Zealand we could try to live that decree of the Waitangi Tribunal about Ngāpuhi not ceding sovereignty. It is just one small measure. It is one way in 21st century New Zealand that we could have a decent conversation around what it means if Māori did not cede sovereignty.

It is so disappointing to hear a Māori MP stand up, say he is happy to be a Māori standing for Parliament and that he hopes to win a seat down in the South Island, yet he is forgetting the very founding document that was signed between our ancestors in 1840. It is so disappointing, but not surprising. The members of that party over there—of course they are not going to support this. They have put it in their policy that they are going to abolish the Māori seats. The member just spoke about how he has got so much respect for his Māori colleagues, and six of the seven Māori seats are over here, yet he is part of a party that is going to abolish the Māori seats. That, to me, is unacceptable. Kia ora.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to speak to this bill. The underlying theme of this bill is to increase Māori representation in local government, consistent with issues of partnership and Te Tiriti, and the fact that maybe 3.6 percent of council seats across the country are held by Māori, against a population proportion of maybe 15 percent. The current mechanisms as they stand, the status quo for establishing or maintaining general wards is consideration by councils every 6 years. The status quo to establish Māori wards is 5 percent of the electors requesting a poll, and that poll will be binding for at least two elections. Polling comes at a cost. We know that from the Waikato Regional Council, who reported the cost of a poll for them at about $73,000. So, certainly, the second action does come at a cost.

This bill seeks to have the same criteria for establishing and maintaining Māori wards as it does for general wards. If we look at the history of Māori wards legislation, we have the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Māori Constituency Empowering) Act 2001. Then, in 2004 we have the three Māori seats created by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, three of them in a 13-member council. So there was a 2001 Act and in 2004 it enabled and brought some of the first Māori seats through—three of them in a council of 13.

Between these dates national legislation was passed—the Local Electoral Act 2001. Partly because it was so cumbersome to do the Bay of Plenty Regional Council legislation, and so acrimonious, it was decided as a Parliament that we should do this under national legislation. And so the Local Electoral Act 2001 was enabled, allowing Māori wards to be established. Contemporaneously, in recent years, the Waikato Regional Council has established two Māori wards—the first, Ngā Hau e Whā, led by Tipa Māhuta, and the second, Ngā Tai ki Uta, led by Kataraina Hodge.

The question has to be: what is the public appetite for this? Not that we should always be led by that, but we should certainly be informed by it. Well, we get some sense of what it is right now from the recent New Plymouth poll, where 83 percent voted against it. As my colleague has said, the Electoral Act 2001 already provides mechanisms for the establishment of Māori wards, but they have not been taken up. This is my main point—the mechanism is already in place. It is a little cumbersome and it comes at a cost—I accept that—but it is in place and not taken up.

The goal of increasing Māori representation is valiant and I support this, but by the same mechanisms that are slowly giving us more Māori doctors, more Māori nurses—3,481 nurses in 2011 and another 500 by 2017; an increase of 14 percent—and more Māori MPs. I stand here today as one of three MPs in Te Tai Tokerau who, for the first time ever, are all Māori MPs.

Let us do this on merit. Let us educate and train in governance. Let us continue the momentum that Māori so clearly have and increase Māori representation on merit, because we are here doing it and I believe it can be done. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Well, it has been quite interesting, sitting and listening to the debate thus far. I probably will start by saying that this is one of those issues where either you fundamentally believe in the philosophy that has been espoused by some of the speakers in favour of this bill, or you fundamentally do not.

It has been quite interesting to hear people make statements such as “I am disappointed that a Māori should give such a speech.”, noting that the speech is against the bill and against that speaker’s personal view. It sort of presupposes that all Māori think alike. It presupposes that every Māori person, or every New Zealander of mixed ethnicity who has a trace line of DNA to Māori, must and should think like every other Māori. It sort of presupposes that we would all vote for the Māori Party because, naturally, we are Māori. Once again, this bill actually raises this debate, which I know causes some emotions to fly, and it causes some people who support this notion to get very angry with people who do not, like me and New Zealand First.

There are those of us in Māoridom who subscribe to a view that we attain and achieve on merit. We either succeed or we do not on our own abilities. Jerry Mateparae did not become the Governor-General of New Zealand or the Chief of Defence Force or the Chief of Army or an SAS officer simply because he was Māori. There were no specially reserved places at Officer cadet school for Māori or within the ranks of his battalion. People join the army, put on one uniform, become one people—one unit—and get on with the job, and they get promoted, or they do not, based on their performance, based on their merit, based on their qualifications, and based, by the way, on their leadership skills.

The same exists, from our perspective, in the realm of politics. It is interesting. We have had this debate going backwards and forwards over a number of years, and the one thing we can say for sure is that, regardless of which side of the fence that we are arguing here, the number of people with Māori ethnicity in Parliament has grown to the level where I think probably a third of this House can now claim Māori descendancy. I understand the Hon Simon Bridges does, and Paula Bennett does, as well.

It is somewhat offensive to me and to other people like Georgina Beyer to be told that the only way that we could be elected as the Mayor of Carterton—and let us be clear about this. Carterton is a conservative rural district. If there are going to be allegations and accusations of racism, it might well be in those areas of rural New Zealand like Carterton, where views are quite conservative, and yet—and yet—Carterton elected Georgina Beyer, who was not only Māori but actually a transsexual as well.

Carterton elected another couple of mayors after Georgina, and then, when I stood for it, I did not run on a banner that “I am from Hurunui o Rangi and I am Ngāti Kahungunu. Therefore, I have the mana of the whenua and, therefore, I have a right to have a reserved seat and to be the Mayor.” I stood on the name of Ron Mark, and people judged me on my merits and elected me.

It is interesting to note that I sat in this House when Mita Ririnui put through his member’s bill to reserve seats in Rotorua. Do you know what the outcome of that was? The level of Māori representation in the Bay of Plenty dropped because people said: “Well, the Māoris have got all their seats over there. We’ll vote for all the Pākehās over here.”

People need to explain and to have this serious discussion. Are we saying that a person who is elected into a council seat because they are Māori has a mandate to represent all those Māori? Well, what if they are not tangata whenua? What if they are not from that district? What if they have come in from outside and they do not have any whakapapa in that hapū or that iwi? You can tell for sure that the post-settlement governance entity is going to go knock, knock, knock on their door and say: “Oi! We want a word with you. We don’t like what you’ve been saying.”

If we are going to have this discussion about Māori representation, then I guess we are going to have the discussion about “Which Māori? Who Māori?”, and I do not see anyone wanting to have that discussion right now. So I think if we are going to have this discussion, let us have the whole discussion. Let us put it out there. But, frankly, we in New Zealand First do not think we need it. We in New Zealand First will vote against this bill.

JOANNE HAYES (National): You know, I stand here and I agree with everything that that member, Ron Mark, actually just said.

Ian McKelvie: That’s extraordinary, Jo.

JOANNE HAYES: I know, it is one of those extraordinary things that has happened to me today, but I do. I sat here, I went through this bill. I went through the explanatory notes on this bill, and I came out with a number of notes about exactly what that member Ron Mark said: “Māori. Who Māori?”. Who are the Māori whom the member is alluding to in her bill? How will they be made up? Is it going to be iwi Māori? What about taura here; what about those who do not belong there—exactly what that member over there said?

Another topic that was also discussed was around referendums and the cost of referendums. It costs a lot of money to have a referendum and, to be honest, you just cannot keep doing these things. We have fair representation. We have to look at the number of people who actually vote—Māori who vote in local government elections—and we all know that, overall, voting representation is very low in local government elections. So what makes us think that it will increase if there are going to ever be Māori wards or Māori constituencies? Has anybody actually sat down with Māori in the local government areas and asked them whether they would be happy if some of their rates went towards a Māori ward? Has anybody actually sat down and asked them? I can tell you, nobody has asked me. Nobody has talked to me about it. We pay rates in Manawatū district, and I can tell you that there is no way that I would want my rates to be cut up the way that the member Marama Davidson is proposing in this bill.

As I sat and I listened to another member from the Opposition talk about the Treaty of Waitangi—well, if the member had actually read the explanatory notes on this bill, in paragraph three that is where it talks about how this bill will contravene the Treaty of Waitangi clauses to do with representation and participation of Māori, if this bill should ever go ahead in any form or other.

When I look over this bill—and I think, good on her, she put this up—I think there needs to be a lot more thinking to go into a bill like this. There needs to be a lot more consultation with those people, all Māori, who live in those areas because there is an assumption that—hello—all of a sudden all the Māori are going to want to have a Māori ward in their local body areas and regions. There are a whole lot of assumptions that this bill is actually bringing up, and it is one that does not really sit right with me. I doubt it will sit right with many Māori around the motu.

I can almost say that some of my friends who are representatives on local councils would not be in favour of this bill because it is another way of separating out Māori again. We cannot do that. We need to be one together, because, really, at the end of the day, the funds that come through the rates for the work that goes on within local government have to be pulled together as one. We have to be working together and talking together and growing regions, our local body regions, together as one people. But some people would say: “Oh, you know, but we are not one people.” Well, when it comes to local body we are. We are one people because it is about everybody’s lands and waters, etc. in those regions.

I take my hat off to Marama Davidson for putting this bill up. I cannot for the life of me stand here and say that I will support it, because I just cannot. It needs a heck of a lot more work. Really, at the end of the day, like I did in a previous bill that came in from the Greens, I recommended that the sponsor go back and rewrite and have another look at the bill, and that is what I am recommending to Marama Davidson. Good on you for having a go. You need to go back, do a lot more work than this, and a lot more consultation, because I think the results that you are going to get from the consultation will actually tell you not to do it again. I cannot support this bill. Kia ora.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tuatahi māku e mihi atu ana au ki a koe e te tuahine Marama Davidson, kua kapohia nei tō pire mai i te pōtae, hei kaupapa totohe mā tātau, hei, kai mā tātou i tēnei ahi pō, e mihi atu ana au ki a koe me te tū ki te tautoko i tō pire.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The first thing for me is to congratulate you, sister colleague Marama Davidson, now that your bill has been drawn from the hat as a proposal for us to debate and to chew over this evening, I acknowledge you and rise to support your bill.]

I stand in support of this bill. I want to just address some of the comments that have been made surprisingly from that side of the House and also from this side of the House. I want to start with Mr Ron Mark’s contribution on this particular bill and his pulling on the uniform and everyone is equal. I say to that member, was Mr Haane Mānahi equal when he was denied the Victoria Cross? Were so many other soldiers of the 28th Māori Battalion equal when they were denied honours in their brave service for this country? I was offended by those comments from that member. I hope that sometime soon he and I will get to sit down and I will give him a bit of 28th Māori Battalion history.

To the laughing members on that side of the House, if they want to hear public voices on this matter, let it go to the select committee. Be brave and let it go to the select committee where experts, where the voting public, and where the general public will be allowed to make submissions on this matter. I am pretty sure, I am confident, that the public will have something to say, as Joanne Hayes has mentioned. Well, let us give them that opportunity. Let us allow them the opportunity to front up to a select committee and make a submission on this particular bill.

I also want to make comment about the moaning from that side of the House about the cost of a referendum. I think that is a little bit rich coming from that side of the House, after a failed attempt by that Government to change the flag. While I agree, I wanted to hear what the country had to say, that was a lot of money that could have been used for so many other things—so many other things. So I think it rather rich for that side of the House to moan about the cost of such an exercise.

I will not take up too much more time of the House but I do want to say to my tuahine Marama Davidson, congratulations. I think what you are doing is noble. I think that the country should be allowed to have its say on this particular matter. I also hope that it continues to spark a debate amongst all of our people across this country about Māori voter turnout. That is a real issue. That is a real issue in both central government elections and local body elections. We know that local body elections in particular have a very, very low turnout of Māori voters. Perhaps that might have something to do with the lack of Māori faces on the ballot paper—I am not too sure. Maybe this bill will address that. But sadly from that side of the House we are not hearing the support for this particular bill. But I stand in support of it. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I rise to speak to the Local Electoral (Equitable Process for Establishing Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill. Unlike most in this House, I have gone through this process with a council some three times in my career. It is a complicated topic. It is a topic that is always dealt with, in my experience, with a significant amount of thought, and in the case of the Manawatū District Council, which I was obviously associated with, we ran a marae consultative committee—well, that was what it was called, a marae consultative committee. It represented the 11 marae in the Manawatū District Council area. The issue that Ron Mark raised about who is going to represent us was absolutely the topic that always came up in the course of these discussions.

Under the Electoral Act, councils need to consult on this with their communities once every 3 years, I think, and it is in the middle section of the 3 years. So as they consult on it they go through a process that calls for public submissions, which in our case involved the marae consultative committee heavily. If they had made the recommendation to the council to push on with this, the council would have inevitably pushed on with it because, very like the Resource Management Act changes that have recently been made, the Manawatū District Council used that marae consultative committee as, I guess, the key driver for the decisions that the council made.

In the course of those discussions, over the three times I led them, it was inevitably decided that we would not go down the process of trying to establish a Māori constituency or a Māori ward. One of the reasons for that—there were a number of reasons for it, actually—was that that district council had 10 members on it, three of whom were of Māori ethnicity or Māori background, none of whom would have stood in a Māori seat or if there were a Māori ward, interestingly. Very recently a friend of mine, Wīremu Te Awe Awe, was elected to the Horizons Regional Council in the general ward. Significantly, he is a Māori. So I think that this can be achieved, and I think it will be achieved. But one of the challenges we have got as a society is to encourage people to participate in the electoral process. Māori are just like the rest of us. They are reluctant to put their hands up to be included. I think this is a much better process for our communities to go down that path.

The challenges of the current process are that if you do go out, as Andrew Judd did in New Plymouth, with a proposal to establish a Māori ward, you then have to put it out to the public. If the public then get 5 percent of their community signing a petition, I guess, to ask for a referendum, the council is obliged to run a referendum. If you could imagine the effort you go to to get 5 percent of your community to sign a petition, that is pretty significant. So I think the process at the moment is probably quite satisfactory. I think it would be a shame to change that. I think that the voices we currently have on our councils, particularly in my part of the country, are satisfactory. I think they are very representative, and they give everyone an opportunity to be heard.

I just want to go back to the Manawatū District Council’s marae consultative committee, and I am sure that most councils throughout New Zealand have a similar or different type of representative committee that allows Māori to have a voice in what goes on in those councils. The Manwatū one worked particularly well.

The one issue we did have, though, was that because it was based on marae representation, it did not have the ability for what you might call—there will be a word for it, which Adrian will know better than me. But outside Māori who came into the district had no place in that—what is the word, Nuk?

NUK KORAKO: Tauiwi.

IAN McKELVIE: They had no place in the process. So I think that that was the concern we had.

Peeni Henare: Money.

IAN McKELVIE: Ha, ha! You will confuse me. That was the concern we always had and, frankly, the marae consultative committee expressed that. This is a difficult topic. So for those reasons I am not in favour of this process. I think that the process we currently have established is satisfactory. I do see some pitfalls in that, but—yes, so I do not support this treaty. Thank you.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare otirā, tēnā tātau. E mihi hoki au ki a koe e te tuahine Marama Davidson mō tēnei pire i tēnei pō; tēnā koe, otirā, tēnā tātau katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but at the same time to us. I also congratulate you, sister colleague Marama Davidson, for this bill this evening; accolades to you and to us all indeed.]

It is really tough out there. It is tough for all whānau out there. In my electorate of 36,000 square kilometres there are 18 territorial authorities, three regional councils, and most of them do not have Māori representation. The voices of those who are struggling the most do not get heard. Their voice is not represented. It has been really difficult since 1868 to have Māori representation on anything, and we come here today to ask through this bill that Māori can have representation, taking away a major barrier to that representation at local bodies. That is a hurdle that general constituencies do not have to go through. That is the hurdle.

So in the Local Electoral Act 2001—and here is the challenge, I guess, for the members opposite who have spoken against this bill. There is a facility within the Local Electoral Act 2001 that allows Māori wards to be established. We are not actually arguing about whether or not we should establish Māori wards, no. We are already able to do that. What we are discussing here tonight is whether or not we should take away a hurdle that no one else has to go through. That is the real issue, and I have not heard one compelling argument from members opposite, or from New Zealand First, that convinces me that this bill should not go to a select committee. As my colleague Peeni Henare has pointed out, the general public will be able to have their say on it.

There have been arguments like economic reasons. Well, do it for economic reasons. Save money on having that final hurdle. That is a good reason for doing it. It is not a reason not to do it. It is actually an argument in support of removing that barrier. The voices of our people, those who are struggling the most, are not being heard in my electorate or any other electorate. Their voice counts. We should be standing up for those who are least likely to be heard, and I have not heard arguments about that.

I am really disappointed at some of the members’ comments. And I am afraid, Joanne Hayes, that our aunties and uncles from the awa will be very disappointed to hear those comments. They are not the comments that I know that I have heard from the people of Whanganui—no way.

Hon Jacqui Dean: You shut down free thought.

ADRIAN RURAWHE: Shut down free thought? Well, let us have a look at that, eh? Ha, ha! Shut down free thought! What about the free thoughts of those ones whom I talked about? Who represents us? So we have heard from members’ opposite about mechanisms that are in place, and I say to that member, I think you are quite deluded about whose voices they are and where those voices get to be heard, because I can tell you that if one goes knocking on the doors of those who are not represented, they will tell you very clearly about what they believe. So I am probably wasting my voice on answering those kinds of interruptions.

Here is the thing: I totally agree that the status of Māori should be recognised in a bill like this because of the Treaty of Waitangi. And I will always stand up for those rights.

E tū ana ahau ki te tautoko i tēnei pire. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou e kaha ana ki te tautoko i tēnei wā, tēnā tātau katoa.

[I stand to endorse this bill. Huge acknowledgments to you collectively who support it rigorously at this moment, well done to us all.]

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa. In making a contribution in this first reading debate on the Local Electoral (Equitable Process for Establishing Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill, I want to congratulate the Green MP Marama Davidson in having her bill drawn. It is a stroke of luck for any member to have a bill taken out of the ballot. I have been fortunate enough to have two in my relatively brief time in this House. But as a relatively new member, Marama Davidson certainly had good luck in having it drawn. Unfortunately, her luck is about to run out, as I do not intend to support this bill any further. I do that for several reasons.

Hon Simon Bridges: It’s all about you!

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Ha, ha! I do that for several reasons. Firstly, I think that any electoral change should come about as a result of significant consultation with the communities impacted. It is actually a fairly fundamental tenet of our constitution that the rules for picking, be it members of Parliament or councillors, should not be quite so easily decided by us ourselves. That is a little bit like putting the poachers in charge of the reservation.

It is far better to have a process whereby members of the public can set the system, the electoral rules, and the details of the constituencies and wards, which they use to select their elected representatives, the people who then go on to spend their valuable taxpayer or ratepayer moneys. It is far better that we let the wisdom of the New Zealand public prevail, because, let us face it, we are proud to be a democracy in this country, and one of the longest-standing uninterrupted democracies in the Western World. We have to remember that we had an independent settler Parliament, founded in this country before the US Civil War, before several republics of the French Republic were established and fell. This is a longstanding democracy, and I think democratic principles should be adhered to, and where we go against those democratical principles we do so at our risk and at our—

Hon Simon Bridges: Democratical?

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Democratical—I am not sure that it is a word. It is one of those neologisms that occasionally get created in this Parliament.

So I think that a process whereby there is a public referendum, which can be triggered with only 5 percent of the electors of any city, district, or region—only 5 percent of the electors can trigger a referendum process whereby the other electors get the opportunity to decide, and, actually, the poll is binding. Once that referendum has been triggered and the electors decide, it is binding on the council to then establish a Māori ward or a Māori constituency for a regional council if that is the will of the public.

This has happened. This has happened once so far in the Waikato region. There have also been recent cases of interest where the public wisdom has been to not establish a Māori ward or a Māori constituency but to allow the Māori voters to express their will on the roll of a general constituency or ward. So whilst I think the intention of Marama Davidson is laudable—it is a wonderful thing to engage more Māori in voting, and we know that there is a lower turnout, for instance, in the Māori electorates as a percentage than there are in the general constituencies in this country. So I think things that we can do that may better engage Māori, particularly young Māori, in the electoral process, are positive.

One of the things we could do, perhaps, is make politics more interesting and more relevant to that generation. I am not entirely convinced that this bill would in fact do that. Creating a separate ward option, not where it is the will of the public but where it is a decision taken by a council, strikes me as perhaps opening up the opportunity for gerrymandering electoral boundaries. For that reason, I think this bill should not proceed beyond the first reading stage. For these reasons that I have outlined, I personally will not be voting to see this bill continue. Kia ora.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Whoo! My goodness, I do not even know where to start. This is a bill to improve Māori representation in local government—the Māori local electoral amendment bill. It is simply to make the process the same as the process for establishing general wards—the same. That is what this bill wants to do—make it the same. I could almost finish there, but it is too tempting—it is too tempting. We heard from some of the Opposition members that we do not need this bill—except we do, because, as I said at the beginning, the only local council that has managed to actually get a Māori ward over the line is Wairoa District Council, and Wairoa happens to have one of the most densely populated Māori populations in the whole country. So we do need legislation to help us along.

Local governments hold power and resources, and the decisions that they make impact on everybody, including Māori, on a day-to-day basis. They impact on Māori aspirations. At the heart of Te Tiriti is an understanding and an agreement that we will have a sovereign say on the decisions that affect us, and that it is a breach if we are not realising that vision. It is a breach of Te Tiriti if we are not having our sovereign say, and, at the moment, a lot of that sovereign say is held at the tables of local councils. So all this bill wants to do, again, is make the process the same as the process that it currently takes to establish general wards.

It is too tempting—I said I was not going to respond to some of the most ludicrous responses, but it is a little bit tempting. This bill will wipe costs, because a referendum will not be needed. The Opposition tried to tell us that it is going to be too costly to have another referendum—this from a party that loves million-dollar referendums. Opposition members did not even read the bill. This legislation removes the need for referendums and leaves the decision at the local council table, without the extra costs and the extra hurdle. So I could not pass up that chance.

But there is another one. I have heard that this bill contravenes the Treaty. Um, what? This bill is upholding the Treaty, and, not only that, we heard from the chief legal counsel themselves that this bill is consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Then I think back to the big celebration and bells and whistles when this Government signed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with much celebration. That very declaration is about affirming the sovereignty of indigenous peoples and our right to have a say where the tables hold the power and the resources. Much of that is at local council, so why not let us look at that opportunity to really bring to life the celebration for that Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that this Government heralded as an achievement.

This should not be a controversy. There should be grown - ups in this House, ready to make a legislative difference that will benefit everybody, that will benefit our communities in Aotearoa New Zealand in this modern day and age, and that actually will allow more Māori at the table so we can work together. It will remove much of the struggle that hapū are currently facing, to try to fight for good sewerage and water systems, because they can be at the table. We heard some concern that mana whenua might be removed. Oh, come on! We can sort out those issues. We have got the power. We can sort those out. That is OK.

This bill will improve Māori representation at local government by making the process the same as for general wards. I wish we could grow up and support it. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Local Electoral (Equitable Process for Establishing Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 48

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

Noes 71

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

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill

First Reading

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I move, That the Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. I would like to start by acknowledging and thanking everyone who has been a part of discussions with me while I was drafting this bill and also since this bill has been drawn from the ballot.

The purpose of my bill is to improve health and social results for infants, by requiring that newborns are enrolled with a general practice and/or a primary health organisation before the newborn reaches 6 weeks of age. High rates of newborn enrolment with a general practice will reduce the risk of their falling through the gaps for immunisation and also allow for earlier detection of health and social issues. I want to acknowledge that a lot of work has been done to improve the enrolment of newborns with general practices, but there is more that can be done to improve the enrolment of newborns with general practices as early as before 6 weeks of age, which is the intention of my bill.

I want to acknowledge the work that the Ministry of Health has been doing since October 2012. It has been pushing for newborns to be enrolled with a general practice soon after birth so that they can receive essential healthcare, including immunisations on time. Yes, we have seen some good progress, as prior to this push from October 2012 fewer than half of newborns were enrolled with a general practice at 12 weeks—that is, around 3 months of age. At the fourth quarter of 2015-16, 77 percent of newborns were enrolled with a general practice within 3 months. This is based on children born between 20 February 2016 and 19 May 2016.

The question is then about the possibility of getting more newborns enrolled with a general practice as early as before 6 weeks of age. To answer this question, I looked at a lot of information, and I would like to share the information about the number of women giving birth, by birth settings. I looked at these numbers from 2004 onwards, and what I saw was that around 97 percent of births happen in a maternity facility—a maternity facility could be primary, secondary, or tertiary care—and around 3 percent of births are home births. When I say home births, they are not necessarily unplanned emergencies; there are some planned home births too. We also know that many home births are attended by at least one midwife.

The point I am making is that we know where births are happening, so we should be able to bring these newborns into the system. We should be able to get them enrolled with general practices before 6 weeks of age, so that we can help them with immunisation calls and various other services they can be eligible for. As we know, over the first 3 months of life, infants and their families are eligible for a range of services, including maternity care, primary care, immunisation, and Well Child / Tāmariki Ora. Well Child / Tāmariki Ora services are expected to link families with primary care and immunisation services, and also other services—for example, for social services or housing support with the Ministry of Social Development. Or it could be a completely different kind of support needed—for example, breastfeeding support, or a general assessment of development and growth.

Currently newborn pre-enrolment requests are sent to the nominated general practice through the National Immunisation Register. It is not currently possible for the responsible practitioner to ensure that the pre-enrolment request has been made to the nominated general practice before the newborn is discharged from care, because the transfer of the information through the relevant electronic systems can take several days, and can be longer for home births. But it is possible for the responsible practitioner to ensure that the information is entered into the relevant system before hospital discharge.

The most common delays in the current preliminary newborn enrolment process occur when a general practice declines the initial request that comes through the National Immunisation Register or when the practice fails to act on that request in a timely manner. To fix this, my bill proposes that before a newborn is discharged from maternity care, the newborn’s mother and any other family members be consulted and a pre-enrolment request be sent by the maternity carer on behalf of the newborn to the nominated general practice, and so it is ensured that the request is entered into the maternity system. Then the general practice nominated as the primary healthcare provider is to ensure the pre-enrolment process of the newborn is actioned within 2 weeks, and prior to the 6-week immunisation pre-calls and the immunisation event.

The Ministry of Health’s expectation is that all pre-enrolment requests are accepted by general practices, but general practices are not required to do so, and, as far as I have heard, general practices may decline a pre-enrolment request if they are not familiar with the family or if the family has a debt with the practice, which is contradictory to the ministry’s advice. To fix this, and to allow general practices to be able to decline pre-enrolment requests, my bill proposes that a nominated general practice can decline pre-enrolment only if it is working at full patient capacity or there is another good reason why enrolment cannot be completed when it receives a pre-enrolment request made on behalf of a newborn. In that case, when the general practice is unable to proceed with the pre-enrolment request, the nominated general practice should consult with the family and find another general practice that works for the family.

But if the nominated general practice is unable to assist the family in finding another primary healthcare provider for the newborn, it must refer the pre-enrolment request to the relevant district health board within the time line of 2 weeks. A district health board or primary health organisation that receives a referral in this way will then be responsible for assisting the family to pre-enrol the newborn with another provider prior to the newborn reaching 6 weeks of age.

I want to acknowledge that while enrolment is a parental choice, it is not a legal requirement. I know that newborns can make families really busy, and they can lose track of time. As I have been through that twice, as a mother of two, I want to see that a system is able to follow up these families, follow up newborns, to ensure that they are enrolled with a general practice. As I said before, we do not want to see them falling through the gaps for immunisation calls or the earlier detection of health and social issues. I believe that the 2-weeks time line for the nominated general practice to act on the pre-enrolment request is sufficient. I believe that all newborns should have the best possible start in their life. I believe that my bill will help us achieve better long-term outcomes for newborns throughout New Zealand, and I highly commend my bill to the House. Thank you.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Can I say from the outset, just to be clear, that Labour will be supporting this bill to select committee. The idea within the bill is one that is hard to dispute, really, and I congratulate the member on bringing a sensible bill to the House that deals with a problem that is real. I do have some criticisms of it in its current form and I will lay those out—well, concerns, really—because, hopefully, we will be able to address these things at the select committee, and I do look forward to that experience. The Health Committee is generally a productive select committee and a well-led select committee, I have to say, looking across the House at Simon O’Connor, the chair of the Health Committee. It is a select committee that works well together and is ably led.

So it will be good to sit down and have a look through this piece of legislation. It is actually pretty short—the member who drafted it will notice that I am holding it up for anybody who is following this at home. I mean, the active clauses really are less than one page, and it is kind of a list of instructions as to how a GP will—

Hon Simon Bridges: No, they just turned the TV off—your mum and dad just turned the TV off.

Dr DAVID CLARK: —follow through to carry out the required process. The member Simon Bridges has got his earpiece in there. I think his folks have just tuned in, he is telling me—good on him. That will double the audience tonight, I am sure. The thing that this bill does, though, is something that we would hope will be happening anyway.

The concern I have—and I suspect many on this side of the House will share my concern—is that part of the problem here is that GPs are incredibly stretched and they are underfunded. This year alone they have been significantly short-funded by tens of millions of dollars. The GPs themselves estimated it was about $45 million they needed to meet existing cost pressures, but in the Budget they got only $9 million, and that means, of course, that they are having to cut their levels of services, and we know that there are underserved communities in South Auckland, in our rural communities, and so on that are unable to get GPs. So talking about what those GPs do—the niceties of when they have got to refer a child on for a specific treatment, when they have got to have an enrolment completed, and so on—is kind of important, but in the bigger picture, where nearly half of the GP workforce is expected to retire in the next 10 years, it is really playing at the margins.

If this was obviously the Government’s main priority, it could pop it through in a moment as a piece of Government legislation. But, instead, we have it here as a member’s bill, and in its current form, I have to say, it is a toothless bill. That is one of the things that I hope we will look at at the select committee, though I would be keen to see the initiative that is described in this particular bill properly funded, and I am not sure that is something that is on the Government’s agenda. But we may hear more of that as the debate progresses.

The bill is toothless, because it describes what has to happen if the GP cannot enrol somebody. The GP is required to consult with family members to consider the appropriate general practice provider, supply a list of general practices in a newborn’s area of residence, if so requested or if the general practice provider is full, and help them find another place where they might take their child if a particular practice is full. These are requirements placed on the GP, who is already stretched, and there are no penalties whatsoever for a GP who does not carry these things out. In the bill, there is no response if somebody says “Look, I can’t do it. I’m too busy.”, and there are no penalties for patients who do not do their part in this process on time.

The bill is completely toothless. It reads like a wish list of how GPs ought to best enrol newborns in their practices, and of course the GPs already know that. The GPs are not stupid. They are smart, they are medically trained, they know what best practice looks like, and, really, this bill amounts to little more than a best-practice guideline in its current form.

So I would say that while the idea is good, what it needs is financial support and it needs incentives, and, if it was properly funded, then you could put sanctions in place for those who are not compliant. But in its current form, it has little more merit than Nuk Korako’s lost luggage bill.

Here we are debating a bill in the House that has no teeth and that is simply a wish list of things that the member would like GPs to do, and there is no funding following it, there is no incentive to do this, and there is no sanction for those who do not do it, so there is no penalty for not doing it. To take legislative time in the House for this bill—

Hon Simon Bridges: Is a really good idea.

Dr DAVID CLARK: —seems a very strange thing to do. The Leader of the House says it is a really good idea. He is trying to fill up the legislative schedule to make it look like his Government is busy and has got good ideas. But it has been here 9 years, and if this really is the best idea that it has, then I think that is pretty concerning.

In good faith—as I said at the outset—we will be supporting it because we think it could have teeth added. It could have funding that comes in behind it. We could actually make this into a good thing. But in its current form, if this is the best thinking the Government has had after 9 years and the Leader of the House says this is a good thing for the House to be debating, then I think that sends a signal to New Zealanders that this is a Government out of ideas and out of time.

What we really need is a fresh approach. We need a fresh approach to these issues, one that actually says: “Let’s fund this adequately. Let’s make sure that general practice has enough GPs to carry these things out in South Auckland. Let’s make sure that we have a plan for retaining our rural GP workforce or for building it over time.” There is no plan laid out for that—there is no plan—because these GPs are the people who are supposed to deliver this bill, and if half of them are retiring in the next 10 years, they will not be able to do that. That is the ridiculousness of what we are being asked to look at here in the House today.

Of course it sounds fine. It sounds sensible. You know, if there is no room in the practice, find another practice, and give a list of other practices in the area to the person coming in and seeking to enrol their child. That is not very practical, though, if you are in a small town in the middle of nowhere and there is no GP for hundreds of kilometres. That is the situation that could be brought up in the situation described in this bill, if there is no GP there to carry that out. And there is no penalty. As I said earlier on, there is no penalty for the GP who does not carry out these things.

Hon Simon Bridges: You should suggest that at select committee.

Dr DAVID CLARK: The Leader of the House is suggesting that we bring this in at select committee. I think the Leader of the House knows that this bill has got a few wee holes in it as it stands. I think he senses that it is not a great tome. It is a light bill and it expresses an idea, and in those few short paragraphs we can see that there is the seed, perhaps, of an idea. But it does need to be fully funded, and I think that is the point I would like to emphasise in this first reading speech.

If the health system is not fully funded, we cannot expect these GPs—who are actually not even there in great numbers—to continue doing more with less when there is no workforce to deliver it. We are using the House’s time to argue something that really, really is a little bit trivial.

I am sure others will have something to add to this as well, so I shall not talk too much longer, other than to say I do look forward to having the debate in the Health Committee. It is a very productive committee, and the member Simon O’Connor at the back chairs it well. We will, I am sure, have a lively debate about this, and I hope the Government can be persuaded to put a little bit of money behind this. The health system is being underfunded by $2.3 billion, by our count, and—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think this is about the fourth time you have repeated that point.

Dr DAVID CLARK: Not the $2.3 billion, Mr Deputy Speaker. That—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you are done, you can take your seat.

Dr DAVID CLARK: That is a serious amount of money, and if money does not go into the system, we cannot expect it to continue to deliver on these things.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am pleased to take a call on the first reading of the Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill in the name of my colleague Dr Parmjeet Parmar. I am hoping, if I am not being presumptuous about the vote, that this bill will come to the Health Committee and we can give it our consideration. I think the intention of this bill is excellent. I think the way it has been initially drafted is very good, but I would say too that there is some work that we will, as a committee, need to do to tighten this up. I think that is actually quite appropriate in a select committee process, and we have often found that with members’ bills. I can think of an organ donation bill recently where we had to do some work on it, and of some other members’ bills that have come before us.

No one here will disagree about the importance of our young ones—in fact, I find it a little refreshing. Today, I have just come from a talk on the other side of life, if you will, around issues of death, so, actually, it is a real refresh to come into the House at the moment and talk about new life—it is quite fantastic, and a nice contrast. No one would disagree that we need to look after our young ones, and one of the best things we can do in healthcare, and particularly in the primary care space, is to get our young ones—our newborns—enrolled as quickly as possible. It informs a relationship, which often becomes enduring, but primarily it is important for the health of the child.

We know already—in fact, there has been some argument that we should be trying to pre-enrol children, particularly so that they can get their pertussis injections early. This bill, obviously, does not go that far, but what it is doing is saying that once a baby is born, the lead maternity carer must, basically, send in a request to a general practice and say that this baby has been born and needs to be enrolled, and the general practice then has a time limit imposed on it to reply, in order to say yes or no. Anyone who is involved in the health sector—and I do acknowledge my colleague David Clark—will know that some general practices have full books and, in fact, a number of GP practices have very full books; some do not. It is really important that the parent or the parents know whether the child has been enrolled or not. I suppose that begins to set up part of the problem that we face in this dynamic.

Currently, when a child is born, the lead carer—more often than not, if not almost exclusively these days, a midwife—will put that baby’s name into the National Immunisation Register. That is an excellent thing in and of itself, but in many ways the parent or parents begin to lose a little bit of control at that point. So once the baby’s name is in the register, if it is declined—so if a general practice says “Look, we’d love to take little baby George on, but we’re too full.”—that is never really informed back to the parents, nor is it informed back to the midwife. So there is always a chance that the child, effectively, gets lost in the system, and the problem that happens there is that, really, when the child becomes sick—which is not, of course, something that we want—it is only then, usually, that a parent or parents will seek out a GP and seek out a practice and seek to get assistance.

That is particularly important when we come back to the whole question of vaccination. So, of course, we are talking about not only looking after the child for a health need but actually getting it its vaccinations at the right time. It is not that you absolutely need to get your vaccinations on the exact day, but, generally, when we say there is a 3- or a 6- or a 9-month vaccination, that is when it should happen for the child.

So Dr Parmar’s bill is addressing this. It is fixing up a process issue, I would suggest. Again, as I said at the start, it is asking that the lead maternity carer identifies where the parent wants to send their—[Bell rung] Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker—point of order.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have got 1 minute.

SIMON O’CONNOR: One minute? Sorry, I was never sure whether it was a 5-minute or a 10-minute—oh yes, the clock. Right, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The key, critical element here is that the lead carer informs the general practice. They identify with the parent what they want and they inform that general practice. The general practice then has 2 weeks, I believe—2 weeks—to either affirm or decline the decision. Really importantly, I think, and really critically within this bill, it is—[Interruption] Oh, really critically in this bill—sorry, I am getting mixed messages from across the House here, which is a little bit concerning to me. But anyway—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: They do not look very mixed to me.

SIMON O’CONNOR: Look, the critical element is that, actually, the general practice needs to inform the parents of whether their child is or is not actually enrolled in the programme, and that ultimately enables the child to get the care that it sufficiently—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry, but I do not know what it will take to make the member sit down, other than me standing on my feet.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Kia ora. The Green Party congratulates the member on having her bill drawn. We support the bill as it will, hopefully, improve immunisation rates.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.