Thursday, 17 August 2017
Volume 724
Sitting date: 17 August 2017
THURSDAY, 17 AUGUST 2017
THURSDAY, 17 AUGUST 2017
Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
Visitors
Korea—National Assembly, Special Committee on Ethics
Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I am sure that members would wish to welcome members of the Special Committee on Ethics from the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, led by Jeon Hye-sook, present in the gallery.
Points of Order
51st Parliament—Statistics
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Normally at this time, of course, there is a business statement to the House from the Government, but, given that Parliament is about to conclude its business for the session, I thought it might be useful to give the House—[Interruption]; it is all right—one or two statistics so the House can take stock and congratulate itself, on this final day, on the hard work that it has done over the past 3 years.
This Parliament sat for a total of 251 days, seeing a total of 288 bills passed, including six members’ bills, four private bills, and three local bills. As a commendation to the Opposition there have been some 42,396 questions for written answer produced over the term—
Chris Hipkins: Some of them more problematic than others.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —that is right. Ha! I am glad you admit it—and 2,988 questions for oral answer. Both of those figures were more than for the previous term. Those questions were answered extremely well and competently by all Government Ministers to the complete satisfaction of the Opposition on all occasions.
Can I say thanks to the Business Committee for the constructive way it has worked to allow extended hours to be used more often. This term has seen the continued reduction of the use of urgency. Over the whole term, there have been about 116 hours of urgency, in comparison with 127 in the Parliament before, and, as importantly, extended hours have been used 23 times for Treaty legislation and other bills, which saw agreement, in a large number of cases, from most sides of the House. It is been a busy and productive 3 years, and I want to thank all members for their contribution to the House.
Mr SPEAKER: And that is not strictly a point of order, but it did not create too much disorder.
Sittings of the House
Sittings of the House
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the House): This is a genuine point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the House to sit past 6 p.m. if necessary in order to conclude the adjournment debate.
Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is not.
Points of Order
Leave to Table Petition—New Zealand Family Court System
POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table a petition received at Parliament today calling for a royal commission into the New Zealand Family Court system.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular petition. Is there any objection? [Interruption] Order! I will put the leave. Is there objection? [Interruption] Is there objection? There is objection.
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Gidday, cobber!
CHRIS HIPKINS: Yeah, gidday. Today is the last day of the House sitting. Normally, a petition like this would be presented to the Clerk and tabled on the next sitting day. Just to be clear, the reason that the member is seeking leave to table it is that it is too late to present it to the Clerk to be tabled, and I wonder whether you could put that leave again.
Mr SPEAKER: No. I have put the leave, and it has been denied. That is the end of the matter.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Budget 2017—Social and Public Services
1. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister of Finance: How is Budget 2017 helping support social services over the next 4 years?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance): Budget 2017 is making a big contribution to the investment in social and public services over the next 4 years. The Government in Budget 2017 announced an investment of $3.9 billion over 4 years in the health sector, $1.1 billion in schools and early childhood centres—that is in operational funding—and $1.2 billion in law and order, taking the total additional investment in public services to $7 billion over the next 4 years. As well as making those additional investments, we of course want to ensure they go further, which is why the Productivity Commission’s current inquiry is to look at how to get better value for money again out of all the Government’s expenditure.
Brett Hudson: How does this investment help the most vulnerable in New Zealand?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The theme of Budget 2017 was delivering for New Zealanders, and that includes helping the most vulnerable in our society to improve their circumstances—for example, through the Family Incomes Package. That is also why, as part of the Budget, the Government is investing $321 million over the next 4 years in specific social investment initiatives, which include 14 initiatives to tackle some of our most challenging social issues. Key to this is helping vulnerable children and their families, with $68 million being invested to deliver more tailored support for children in need.
Brett Hudson: What are the Government’s future intentions for investing in public services?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Budget 2017 laid out the operating allowances over the forecast period. For example, the annual operating allowance over the next 4 years is $1.8 billion, meaning Ministers have allocated $7.2 billion over the 4 years. The operating allowance is at $1.7 billion in 2018, $1.7 billion in 2019, and $1.77 billion in 2020. Taken together, this means the Government is committed to $17.5 billion in additional expenditure over the next 4 years.
Grant Robertson: Why did Budget 2017 prioritise $400 million of tax cuts a year for the top 10 percent of earners rather than funding health to meet the actual cost pressures identified by the Ministry of Health or funding early childhood education to make up for the $110 per child cut on his Government’s watch?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member is finishing the session with as much fabrication as he started it, I see. The simple facts are that the health budget additions in this Budget are the highest in 11 years—highest in 11 years—and the education budget is funding all roll growth in both schools and early childhood centres. In regard to the member’s reference to tax reductions, I know he hates the idea of increasing the amount of income available to middle-income families, people on $48,000 or $52,000 a year, but I notice he is in favour of $3,000 baby bonuses for people on $250,000 a year.
Brett Hudson: How is the Government able to fund these commitments?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, we are not paying baby bonuses to people on $250,000 a year, for a start. The Government is able to improve public services, pay down debt, invest in infrastructure, and lift family incomes, because of the strong economy. It is important to highlight the link between the economy and the Government’s decisions. The New Zealand economy has grown in 24 out of the last 25 quarters, and this along with spending control means the Government’s books are in surplus—almost unique in the Western World. Sticking with the Government’s economic plan will ensure we are in a strong position to make further investments in public services in the future.
Mental Health Services, Canterbury—Schools
2. JACINDA ARDERN (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “a great country is one where children with a tough start will be supported so they can live good lives”; if so, will he back Labour’s plan to invest in mental health workers in Canterbury schools to help children affected by the earthquakes and their aftermath?
Mr SPEAKER: In calling the Hon Steven Joyce on behalf of the Prime Minister, my office has been advised that this answer may be longer than normal.
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Prime Minister: In response to the first part of the question, yes, and in response to the second part of her question, I would say no. We prefer to back National’s plan to support vulnerable children, and that is a real investment that this Government has been making. Firstly, to help the well-being of Cantabrians since the earthquakes, the Government has provided the Canterbury District Health Board (DHB) with an extra $106 million to meet additional costs of recovery since the earthquakes, including $20 million following the Valentine’s Day earthquake in 2016, an extra 27 fulltime-equivalent primary care community-based mental health workers, and further funding for successful programmes such as telehealth and workforce well-being support. On top of that, just this week the Government announced details of a $100 million social investment fund in mental health, including $23 million for school-based initiatives.
Jacinda Ardern: How many DHB staff currently work in schools specifically to help primary- and intermediate-age children with their mental health needs—how many?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have not got the exact number of mental health workers, but there are also public health nurses, there are also social workers in schools, there are also guidance counsellors in schools, and this week the Government has announced a $100 million social investment fund, including significant investment into schools around the country, including Christchurch schools.
Jacinda Ardern: Is he aware that two-thirds of children in Canterbury who need help wait more than 3 weeks for their first appointment with mental health services and that 92 percent of children referred are waiting more than 2 months for their second appointment; is that acceptable?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I would have to check those numbers for the member, but can I say to the member that, actually, the social investment programme that we have just announced includes the ability to invest in better screening across all schoolchildren, because one of the challenges we have as a society is making sure of early detection of mental health issues. If the member would like to go and have a look at the fund and at the details of all the initiatives of the fund, she might find some of the answers to the questions she is raising.
Jacinda Ardern: On his announcement, then, how many new front-line staff is he committing to addressing the mental health needs of children within schools in Canterbury?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That depends on the level of need. I would imagine that Canterbury would probably get a greater proportion, given the identified level of need around the country. Again, the member can seek to deny it, but the Government has just invested another $124 million in core mental health services in district health boards around the country, including in the Canterbury District Health Board as well, and that just started on 1 July of this year. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! A little less chat between two friendly Christchurch MPs, please.
Jacinda Ardern: Does he believe the $3.75 per student for front-line mental health services he announced will be enough, given the increasing need amongst our children and young people?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member, in taking that approach, is of course ignoring all the investment that is already taking place, which I know is traditional with the Labour Party. But, actually, the Government invests very, very significantly in mental health services. It has added significantly to that investment over the last 8 years, and announced an additional investment in, most importantly, new services and different ways of conducting the services, in the announcement made earlier this week. That is important because if you look at all the scientific advice, of which there is a lot, it suggests that new approaches must be taken, and it is not a good idea to just heap the old way of doing things on top of the old way of doing things.
Jacinda Ardern: If he has made the significant investment in mental health that he claims, why is one Christchurch school funding its own counsellor because the Ministry of Health and his Government have not; is that what he would expect?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The schools have the independence, under a thing called Tomorrow’s Schools, to use their operational grant in the manner they think best fits the times they are in and the issues they are experiencing. It is actually OK for schools to be able to do that, but for the member to suggest that that means the Government is not investing in mental health services in Canterbury is patently—patently—incorrect.
Jacinda Ardern: Will he consider joining with Labour to hire 80 new front-line workers specifically for primary and intermediate schools in Canterbury, given the need is so great?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I actually answered that question in response to the member’s primary question when I said no, that the preference is for the Government’s package. Actually, perhaps the member might like to go and have a look at the mental health package announced on Monday. She might find some things in there that are going to work, and work well, with the best scientific advice backing them. We are committed to assisting not just the schoolchildren of Christchurch and Canterbury, who are important, but also schoolchildren around the country.
Jacinda Ardern: If he wants this to be a truly great country for children, as we can be, will he commit the resources needed to help kids and give them a chance for a better future? Because if he will not, I will.
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The answer to the member is that we are doing exactly that. The way we are doing exactly that is by having a strong economy so that we can afford to provide the services. If the member wants to get into Government and tax the heck out of the productive economy, then she will find she has a lot fewer services she can fund, compared with today.
Question time interrupted.
Points of Order
Presentation of Petitions
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that you dealt with Poto Williams’ leave to put the petition and also with Chris Hipkins’ point of order, but I have just been reflecting on it and I want to make clear that this side of the House objected on the basis that we had not understood why it was being done in this way. Now, of course, we understand it. I just want to make clear that if leave was put for that petition to be tabled outside of the process of the Standing Orders, we would have no objection.
POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I seek leave to table a petition received at Parliament today asking for a royal commission into the New Zealand Family Court system.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for the presentation of that petition. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be presented.
Petition presented.
Question time resumed.
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
Trans-Pacific Partnership—Trans-Pacific Partnership 11
3. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Trade: What recent announcements has the Government made on trade?
Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Trade): The Government has approved a negotiating mandate for the Trans-Pacific Partnership 11 (TPP11). New Zealand is pushing for as minimal change as possible to the original agreement, something that the remaining TPP countries have agreed on. We also are seeking significant benefits for all New Zealanders. TPP11 Ministers have committed to moving forward with the agreement as quickly as possible.
Jami-Lee Ross: Why is TPP11 important to New Zealand?
Hon TODD McCLAY: It will ensure New Zealand remains competitive in overseas markets; it will create tens of thousands of jobs and billions for our economy. The most likely scenario now is that TPP11 will go ahead and there will be a decision for leaders to make in November. If other parties want to turn their back on the TPP, they need to front up and tell Kiwis why we should miss out on significant opportunities in trade.
Jami-Lee Ross: What benefits will New Zealanders miss out on if we are not part of TPP?
Hon TODD McCLAY: TPP11 will be our first free-trade agreement with four new countries, including Japan, the world’s third-largest consumer market. If other countries gain access to these markets ahead of us, our key industries will suffer—620,000 jobs in New Zealand depend on trade. If we do not continue to show leadership on international trade, our ability to negotiate new free-trade agreements with other important markets will be put at risk—something that Clayton Cosgrove, Phil Goff, David Shearer, and Helen Clark all clearly understand.
Hon David Parker: Will he instruct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to at least seek to renegotiate the TPP so as to allow a future New Zealand Government to ban the sale of New Zealand homes to foreign buyers from TPP countries, given that Australia has retained the right to ban overseas buyers of its homes under the very same TPP?
Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, there you have it—the same old Labour Party. Nothing in the TPP stops a future Government from introducing discriminatory tax settings on non-resident property purchasers. Labour has tried scaremongering on foreigners buying houses before. The evidence is that it is not having a major impact and Labour has not come up with any evidence that will change this under the TPP. In fact, the housing market in Auckland is levelling off, and it is a weak, red herring that Labour wants to use instead of fronting up and telling New Zealand workers that their jobs are not important, that their businesses and industries are not important, and that it does not support free-trade agreements.
Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a very long answer, but it did not answer or address my question as to whether he will instruct MFAT to—
Hon Member: The member does this every time.
Mr SPEAKER: No, no.
Hon David Parker: Well, I still have not got an answer.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No; as I interpreted the answer it has certainly been addressed.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: If this is all so good for New Zealanders, why are New Zealand’s chief negotiators for the TPP agreement meeting between 20 and 30 August—that is next week—in Sydney, scheming to present the next New Zealand Government with a fait accompli for the APEC meeting in Vietnam in November without consultation with this Parliament whatsoever?
Hon TODD McCLAY: That is because whilst New Zealand has an election, trade will continue and the world moves on—and that is the exact difficulty challenge that we have. The challenge is that if we want our exporters to do well in overseas markets we need to be out fighting on their behalf. But there is an opportunity for every leader in this House to front up and tell New Zealanders whether they support trade and whether they support Kiwi jobs.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: If we are not to have a bunch of globalist bureaucrats running our country rather than parliamentarians, where is the national interest analysis (NIA) on either of the two options—which he can confirm today—that are the subject of these negotiations in Sydney from 20 to 30 August; and when was he going to share those with the Parliament of this country and its people?
Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, as the member knows from following the TPP12 process, NIAs are presented once an agreement is reached, and there will be an opportunity with the TPP11 for that also to happen. But, clearly, trade is important for New Zealanders, and I think all members of this House believe that. What we need them to do is front up to Kiwis and tell them whether they are going to back Kiwi jobs and give better access to markets overseas so New Zealand can remain competitive.
Prime Minister—Statements
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Getting totally carried away—supplementary question. Oh, sorry—primary question, Mr Speaker.
Hon Members: Wake up.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: This question is to the Prime Minister—oh, look, I have seen the polls, and you can wake up.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do not want to have to discipline the member in any way, because we are looking forward to an adjournment debate and it would be very sad if he did not entertain the House with a contribution later. So can I ask him now to cooperate, rise to his feet, and ask question No. 4?
4. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements; if so, how can he do that credibly?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes; by standing here and saying so.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: When he promised a brighter future for all New Zealanders 9 years ago, did he anticipate hard-working Kiwis being pushed out of the housing market due to his Government’s inaction on curbing foreign investors from buying up our houses and land and refusing to call it what it is—a crisis?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Mr Peters’ argument there falls at the first hurdle because all the evidence from Land Information New Zealand shows that he is completely wrong and foreign-based buyers are not buying up New Zealand houses and pushing up the prices.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: How is he working—[Interruption]. Is this your valedictory speech, is it?
Mr SPEAKER: No.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, I cannot hear myself over here—they are shouting out down there.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I would be grateful if members to the right at the rear of the Chamber did not interject on the member while he is asking his next supplementary question.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: How is he working for all New Zealanders when the latest migration statistics in the year—June 2017—show a net gain of over 73,000 immigrants, a net loss of 1,300 Kiwis, and 226,000 foreign work visas whilst we have over 72,000 youth not in employment, education, or training, and they are New Zealanders?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Once again, the member is misunderstanding the situation. The fact of the matter is that when he was last in Government people were leaving at the rate of 30,000 or 40,000 people a year. And he is trying to get us excited about a net loss of around 1,200, which is roughly 1/30th of what he had when he was in Government. The reality is that it is the economy’s strength that is driving migration, and under this Government there are more jobs in New Zealand and there are more opportunities for young New Zealanders. So instead of exporting young New Zealanders to New South Wales and Queensland, the way we used to when Mr Peters ran the show, they are coming here to work. [Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will just have the supplementary question.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: If GDP growth is 3 percent, alongside population growth of 2.1 percent, then is GDP not really, in real terms, actually 0.9 percent; if so, how is the economy performing well when the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research states that the Government spending in critical areas is “projected to fall behind inflation and population growth.”
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The good news for the member is that real GDP growth is 3 percent, and that means that the GDP growth is real at 3 percent. No matter which way he tries to spin that and tries to count that, it is 3 percent a year. It is also true that New Zealand was the fifth - fastest growing economy in the whole of the developed world last year. I know that the member hates to know that because he likes to run his country down for his own political gain, but that is the reality.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister have any advice from his finance Minister as to the real per capita GDP growth in this country, and how is he working for all New Zealanders when his Government has given, in 5 years, control of this country’s infant formula business and its biggest meat company to China—all in the space of 5 years flat?
Mr SPEAKER: There are at least a couple of questions there.
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The reality is that GDP growth has been strong. GDP per capita is, I think, about 1 percent at the moment, and, actually, again, if you look at New Zealand’s performance compared with most other countries in the developed world—New Zealanders know this; Mr Peters does not, although he might have learnt a bit because he has gone round regional New Zealand and learnt how well they are growing in regional New Zealand—the reality of it is that New Zealanders know that New Zealand is growing better than most parts of the world. It has added 180,000 jobs over the last 2 years and is expected to add another couple of hundred thousand over the next few years.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Prime Minister talked to his finance Minister; if so, does he recall the promises made in March 2015, during the Northland by-election, of 10 two-lane bridges, the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway, and the ultra - ultra-fast broadband and complete cell tower coverage, and why have all these promises seen so little progress, if not no progress at all?
Mr SPEAKER: There are three supplementary questions there. The Hon Steven Joyce, on behalf of the Prime Minister, can address one.
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member really does need to go and visit his electorate, because there is a lot happening up there, and he is obviously not aware of it—
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No, I need to be able to—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will hear whether it—it could be—
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is the last time he will be doing that job, but he had better do it properly.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member asked the question. He must now take the answer that is about to be given.
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, the member could do his job properly and visit his electorate, where he would learn that the Matakohe bridges are under way and where he would learn that the Pūhoi to Warkworth section of the motorway is being built as we speak. He would not even have to go to Northland to learn that; he could just go halfway. He could also go there and learn that the broadband is under way right across his electorate, as well. So if the member was doing his job, then maybe he would learn something.
Flooding, Bay of Plenty—Government Support
5. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister for Social Development: What update can she provide on the Government’s support for those affected by the flooding in Edgecumbe and the Bay of Plenty?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): After the cyclones and flooding in Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty, the Government classified a medium-scale adverse event, and we have been working with councils, businesses, NGOs, and iwi to restore and enhance the affected communities. Together, central government and local government have invested nearly $15 million to support the recovery effort, including $1 million for enhanced Taskforce Green teams to clear debris from properties, parks, and reserves in Edgecumbe, Whakatāne, Tāneatua, Ruātoki, and other affected areas. The Ministry of Social Development has made around 3,000 civil defence payments, totalling over $850,000, to help people with food, clothing, and bedding. We are committed to making sure that the Bay of Plenty - Whakatane district and Edgecumbe community have the support they need to recover.
Todd Muller: What other support is the Government offering to the people of Edgecumbe who have been displaced as a result of the flooding?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: We are offering psychological support to people affected by the flood, and wraparound services to help them cope with the challenges they face. Along with the Minister for Building and Construction, Dr Nick Smith, I announced that the Government was activating a temporary accommodation service to assist Edgecumbe residents. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is managing requests for temporary accommodation and is providing porta-cabins and temporary homes, and Te Puni Kōkiri and MBIE are working with iwi on a new Māori housing development that will provide five two-bedroom houses and infrastructure for 41 housing sites at Kokohinau Marae.
Todd Muller: Has the Government announced any other relief measures for the people and businesses affected?
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Along with the revenue Minister, Judith Collins, the decision was made that Inland Revenue will waive late payment fees and penalties when the flooding has prevented people from paying on time. We have contributed close to $1.2 million in support for farmers, growers, and businesses affected by the flooding through funds such as the rural assistance payment, the rural support trust, and a disaster relief fund. Earlier this month Minister Guy and I announced a further $100,000 for the primary industries flood recovery fund for farmers, to help with clean-up and recovery. This is a Government that is there to help farmers, not hurt them, and recognises their valuable contribution to the New Zealand economy.
Māori Development—Funding and Wage Gap
6. KELVIN DAVIS (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister for Māori Development: Has he received all the funding he has requested for Māori Development initiatives from the Minister of Finance to improve the lives of Māori, during his time as Minister?
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Hai whakautu i tērā pātai, kai te mōhio tonu te mema ko te āhuatanga o tēnei mea o te pūtea, ka tukuna ki tēnā, ki tēnā o ngā Minita he mea wānanga ki waenganui i Te Minita, me Te Minita mō ngā Take Pūtea. I ngā tau e toru, i te wā i a au, kua tata eke ki $400 miriona kua purua ki taku pūkoro, otirā, hei tohatoha ki Te Iwi Māori, ka mutu, i roto i ngā tau take ahurea Māori, ngā take mātauranga, ngā take whare, ngā take whenua, ka mutu, ngā take whakawhanake. Kia whakamōhio atu au ki te mema, i ngā tau kua hipa ake e 5, kua piki haere te tatauranga mō Te Puni Kōkiri mā te 60 paihēneti—60 paihēneti.
[In response to that question, that member is well aware of the situation about funding, in that it is released to that Minister and that Minister as something to be deliberated over between the Minister and the Minister of Finance. During my time as Minister, up to nearly $400 million was put into my pocket, but at the same time to be distributed to Māoridom furthermore throughout the years for matters relating to Māori culture, education, housing, land, and, indeed, development. I advise the member that in the 5 years just past, the statistics for the Ministry of Māori Development has increased by 60 percent—60 percent.]
Kelvin Davis: Since the Minister mentioned housing, does a falling homeownership rate for Māori and Māori being five times more likely to be homeless represent Māori housing initiatives getting enough money under this Government?
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: He take whānui tonu tērā. Kua oti kē i au te kī atu ki tērā mema, ko ngā take whare e pā ana ki te katoa o te motu, he wāhanga ki tēnā Minita, ki tēnā Minita, ki tērā Minita, he wāhi kē anō hoki. Kua kite ia i te painga o ngā take whare i roto i te pūtea o Te Puni Kōkiri, hei tohatoha ki roto i Te Tai Tokerau tonu, nō reirā, kei te kaha tonu mātou ki te tuku i tētahi wāhanga āwhina mō Te Ao Māori i roto i ngā take whare.
[That is quite an extensive matter, I have already said to that member, the entire country is affected by matters relating to housing, and a part is apportioned to that Minister, that Minister, and to another Minister too. He has seen the benefits of housing matters through the Ministry of Māori Development’s funding to be distributed within the Far North in particular, and so we continue to work hard to release a helpful portion for Māoridom through housing.]
Kelvin Davis: Does the Minister believe removing the Māori health plans from district health boards’ annual plans represents respect for Māori health concerns in the mainstream system from this Government?
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Me tuku tērā pātai ki Te Minita mō ngā Take Hauora, māna tēnā e whakautu.
[That question should be referred to the Minister of Housing, he will answer it.]
Kelvin Davis: Is the wage gap between Māori and Pākehā now sitting at $213 a week a symptom of Māori being sidelined by his Government?
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Kāre au i te whakaae ki tāna e kōrero nei. Kei te kite tēnei taha o Te Whare, otirā, ahau i ngā painga o ngā huarahi ki te mātauranga, pēnei i te partnership schools, he painga anō rā o te partnership schools i roto i ngā tau mō te mātauranga—
[I do not agree with what he is saying here. This side of the House can see, indeed I can see, the benefits of procedures to education, like partnership schools, which offer benefits in years to come in education—]
Kelvin Davis: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked about the wage gap, and he is now talking about charter schools.
Mr SPEAKER: No. The question also included whether Māori are being sidelined by the Government. The question was answered right at the start, though, with the very first comments. So I do not think we do need any more additional answer to that question.
Kelvin Davis: Does the Minister agree with his colleague that the National members of this Government have not given him a “fair enough go” in terms of policy and funding; if so, why does he continue to support them?
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: He hoa haere mātau o Te Kāwanatanga i tēnei wā, i mua o taku haerenga ki roto i te kuaha o Te Minita mō ngā Take Pūtea, inā kē te nui o ngā moemoeā engari, a, nā runga i te āhua o te wānanga, ka eke ki te taumata i kōrerohia, e $400 miriona i whakaaetia mai ai kia tukuna ki Te Ao Māori. Ka ako ia i tērā āhuatanga inā, ka noho ia hai Minita, ā te wā.
[At this point in time we are associates of the Government, and before I go through the Minister of Finance’s door I have huge expectations, heaps, but because of the way deliberations go, it reached the level of $400 million mentioned, it was agreed upon that amount to be released for Māoridom. He will learn about that phenomenon when he becomes a Minister, in time.]
Freshwater Management—Water Quality of Rivers, Lakes, and Drinking-water Supplies
7. JAMES SHAW (Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his policies?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes—as I said yesterday, particularly our policy of not having a collection of expensive new taxes in the coming 3 years, such as a water tax, a capital gains tax, a land tax, a wealth and asset tax, or a higher income tax. We know that would slow down the New Zealand economy, reduce job growth, and reduce the incomes of hard-working New Zealanders.
James Shaw: Can he confirm that it will cost anywhere between $4 billion and $8 billion to clean up Waikato’s waterways to make them safe for swimming and fishing again?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No, I cannot do that for the member today. What the member may be aware of is that all these waterways are quite complex ecosystems. It is hard to put an exact number on the various clean-up programmes, but I can tell the member that the Government is very active right throughout the catchments in the Waikato - Bay of Plenty. I think in particular of examples like the Rotorua lakes clean-up but also the work that is being done on the Waikato River in reversing decades of environmental degradation. It is going to take a period of time, but there is progress being made.
James Shaw: Why has his Government encouraged the conversion of Waikato forests to intensive dairying when, in order to make the Waikato River swimmable again, much of it will have to be converted back?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not sure that the member’s characterisation of history is correct in that matter, as is often the case. I think, perhaps, he would be better to put those sorts of questions to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises. But, from memory, the particular intensification he has been talking about has been going on for a very long time, including before this Government came into office.
James Shaw: Is he committed to cleaning up Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora to a swimmable standard again?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government is committed to cleaning up all of New Zealand’s lakes and waterways and rivers, particularly those that are swimmable. We will not be doing it by actually taxing the commercial users of water to make them poorer so that they cannot afford to change their land management systems in order to improve the waterways. That would be done only by a party that did not understand the way the horticultural sector, the agricultural sector, and the wine-making sector work.
James Shaw: Why is he spending $6 million of public money to help clean up Lake Ellesmere while at the same time spending even more public money on a new irrigation project that Environment Canterbury estimates will increase nitrogen loading by 50 percent?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I appreciate that the Greens think all irrigation schemes are bad—in fact, they actually think all economic activity in the regions is bad, but that is another story. In terms of irrigation schemes, many of them—in fact, all of them—generally improve the quality of fresh water. In fact, that is the way they are designed, so that they can pass the rigorous Resource Management Act processes. I appreciate that the member does not want to understand that or, particularly, does not want to agree with that, but that is the reality.
James Shaw: Is he comfortable with the evidence presented to the Havelock North water inquiry that shows there are still 759,000 New Zealanders getting water out of taps that may not be safe to drink?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think there is some concern about some municipal water supplies. But I do not think it was actually that helpful for people to pop up, in fact, before that inquiry was conducted, and condemn dirty dairying as the cause of that particular Havelock North issue because they do not like cows—even though, apparently, there were not that many cows in the vicinity at the time. That was the member and his friends. But, actually, there are some issues around the need to improve municipal water supplies, which is why the Government is focusing on co-investing in infrastructure with councils through the new Crown Infrastructure Partners programme—because it is actually going to be a big challenge for New Zealand in the years ahead to make sure that that infrastructure has the investment that helps that quality to be improved.
James Shaw: Why is it the taxpayers, rather than the polluters themselves, who are paying to clean up the damage that has been done to our rivers, our lakes, and our drinking water?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The last time I looked, those people in those regions are taxpayers. In fact, they are not only taxpayers but they tend to create the jobs that mean that other people can pay taxes, GST, and so on. The member, I know, thinks that all of our regions should be frozen in time and that, actually, all activity should stop because the regions look pretty when the odd Green member of Parliament wanders past and does not do anything. But, actually, we know that you have to improve environmental outcomes by investing, and that investment comes from the economic outcomes in the regions as well. [Interruption]
Health Services—Performance
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): My question is to the Minister of Health—[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will just wait for a bit of silence. Now the member can start his question again.
8. Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) to the Minister of Health: After 9 years of a National Government, is he satisfied with a health system where 533,000 people can’t afford to see their GP, nearly 60,000 don’t get recommended specialist appointments, mental health system failings are regularly in the news, and health sector leaders complain about the performance of his health ministry?
Mr SPEAKER: Is the member here?
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes, I am here.
Mr SPEAKER: Well, stand and call.
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You have not called me yet.
Mr SPEAKER: No, I do not; you stand first.
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: OK.
Grant Robertson: New member! He’s been here 9 years!
Mr SPEAKER: I am very patient, even with members who have been here a while. In calling the Minister, my office has been advised that the answer may be slightly longer than normal.
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: See, you had not finished what you were going to say. Anyway, in the Government’s constant quest for excellence, we are never satisfied, but I can say with confidence that almost all of the 100 key health services have significantly improved under this Government. I have a few examples, which I believe the member would benefit from hearing. First specialist assessments (FSAs) were down 2,000 under Labour; under this Government, they are up 148,000. Elective surgery rates went backwards under Labour; under this Government, the annual increase has trebled, with 172,000 carried out. Emergency departments were slow and clogged under Labour; under this Government, 93 percent of people are now seen within 6 hours. Immunisation rates under Labour were that of a Third World nation; under this Government, 93 percent of 8-month-olds are now immunised. Under this Government, all under-13s now receive free GP visits and prescriptions. Cancer care under Labour saw patients sent to Australia for basic services, but under this Government, 82 percent of patients are seen within 62 days right here in New Zealand. Not only that, but under Labour nothing was invested into bowel cancer screening, and under this Government we are rolling out a national bowel-screening programme. Almost all 100 key health services improved under this Government. You would be hard pressed to find many that have not.
Dr David Clark: After 9 years, will he finally admit that New Zealand Orthopaedic Association (NZOA) president, Richard Keddell, is right: that the current approach to planning for future demand for surgery is arbitrary and disconnected and will mean “New Zealanders needing joint replacements and other orthopaedic surgery will have to live in pain because they can’t get the surgery they need.”?
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I welcome the NZOA contribution to the debate, but it acknowledged that orthopaedic surgeries have increased, on average, by about 30 percent. FSAs have increased dramatically. And, of course, that is on top of 50,000 extra electives per year and 148,000 extra first specialist assessments.
Dr David Clark: After 9 years, will he today apologise to the staff he has insulted, the sector leaders he has not met with, and the hard-working health professionals, doctors, nurses, and those in the allied workforce whom he has stretched to breaking point as Minister of an underfunded health system with dysfunctional leadership?
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I believe that the only person I have insulted is the member, and it has been thoroughly deserved. But apart from that, the money that has gone into health has increased by $5 billion. There are an extra 6,900 doctors and nurses. As I said before, there are 50,000 more operations, 148,000 more first specialist assessments—I could go on and on. But I can tell you that the biggest danger for New Zealand is that Labour gets to run the health system again.
Dr David Clark: After 9 years, will he finally stand up to the current leader of his party and join with Labour in rejecting election year tax cuts skewed towards the wealthy and commit today to $8 billion more than is currently planned for health funding over the next 4 years?
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: When it comes to funding, Labour cannot do its sums properly. Its pledge of $856 million next year is actually less than our $888 million this year. So not only can it not provide the services, it cannot count, either.
Small Businesses—Online Resources
9. PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister for Small Business: What recent reports has she received showing Government support for small business?
Hon JACQUI DEAN (Minister for Small Business): I have received a report that shows that there were 190,000 visits to Business.govt.nz in July 2017. This is an 8 percent increase from July 2016 and continues the strong growth and use of the online portal. Business.govt.nz is small businesses’ first stop for new and small businesses wanting to find Government information and support.
Paul Foster-Bell: What is the trend of small businesses exporting, and how does the Government support small businesses to export?
Hon JACQUI DEAN: In 2010, 12 percent of small businesses were exporters. In 2016 this number had risen to 23 percent. However, we cannot get rich selling to ourselves, which is why the Government offers a range of support and advice through New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and business.govt.nz to help small businesses navigate the world of exporting. Examples of support include workshops, mentoring and advice, and, in some cases, funding to help businesses internationalise their ideas and their products.
Paul Foster-Bell: How is the Government supporting small businesses to be innovators?
Hon JACQUI DEAN: Such an excellent question from an excellent member, who will be missed. Business.govt.nz has a new “How to grow” section, which is of interest to the Government, if not the Opposition. It supports businesses to navigate the help and funding out there for businesses wanting to commercialise their good ideas and innovations. Through programmes such as Callaghan Innovation vouchers and regional business partners, we are teaming with small businesses that want to invest in innovation, with the skills, knowledge, and potential funding to help them.
Dairy Farming—Effluent Compliance Rates
10. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he agree with the Waikato Regional Council that dairy farm effluent compliance rates are “heading in the right direction” when less than a quarter of dairy farms it monitors comply with their resource consent conditions?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): National levels of compliance by dairy farms have consistently improved every year since 2010. Non-compliance has dropped from 16 percent to 5 percent, so yes, things are headed in the right direction. The Ministry for the Environment and regional councils agree that the key measure is significant non-compliance, covering issues like inadequate effluent storage, mechanical failure, or inadequately trained staff. In the Waikato, significant non-compliance was 9 percent, and was improved over the past year. The member misrepresents the situation in the Waikato by including minor non-compliance issues like some records not being adequate or failure to send sufficient samples.
Eugenie Sage: Does he agree with the Environmental Defence Society that “MfE has been lax in providing appropriate oversight and leadership for [compliance, monitoring, and enforcement] under the RMA.”; and if not, why not?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I do not. The first thing is our Government increased the fines for those who have been non-compliant. Secondly, the fact that we have seen substantial improvement around the significant issues that relate to water quality is a real credit to the programme that the Ministry for the Environment has led.
Stuart Smith: What new limits has this Government introduced to improve New Zealand’s water quality?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There were no national standards on water quality when National came into Government. The new national policy statement, which has been gazetted with extra additions last week, now includes standards for phosphorus, nitrogen, ammonia, E. coli, ecological health, dissolved oxygen, and algae. Furthermore, councils are progressively setting limits, catchment by catchment. We now have 20 percent of catchments where there are limits on nitrates, up from zero when we became Government. We have over 80 percent of catchments now with minimum flow set, up from 20 percent when we became Government. The next step we are finalising is national regulations on stock exclusion.
Eugenie Sage: How much confidence should New Zealanders have in those charged with protecting the environment from pollution, when large regional councils like Waikato failed to ensure that the majority of dairy farmers comply with basic consent conditions?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Basic consent requirements are being met. In fact, 91 percent of compliance issues in the Waikato in the last year—and overall, nationally, the level of compliance has improved every year in the last 5 years. But no, we are not going to be a Government that is going to be overwhelmed by a minor issue in respect of paperwork or other issues that do not relate directly to water quality, which this Government is so keen to improve.
Eugenie Sage: How can the public have confidence in the safety of the water they want to swim in and the safety of the water they drink, when he considers that compliance by less than a quarter of farms is progress?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I again draw attention to the difference between a significant non-compliance that relates to the quality of water, where that level is now down to just 5 percent—it was 15 percent when we came into Government, a substantial improvement—and issues of minor non-compliance. Furthermore, I would draw the member’s attention to the new Environmental Reporting Act and the new national policy statement that for the very first time in New Zealand sets clear expectations, and the measurements to back them up, to improve water quality.
Waste Management—Microbead Ban and Plastics Recycling
11. MAUREEN PUGH (National) to the Associate Minister for the Environment: What recent announcements has he made to better protect New Zealand’s natural environment?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (Associate Minister for the Environment): Microbeads are nasty little plastic beads that get washed down drains and sinks and find their way into our marine environment. That is, of course, a bad thing. We called for public submissions back in January on the banning of microbeads, and a staggering 16,000 submissions were received, every single one of them in favour of a ban. So today I announced that microbeads will be banned in May of next year, and that is earlier than previously signalled. Further, we have also widened the scope of the ban to include all wash-off products.
Maureen Pugh: How is the Government’s Waste Minimisation Fund supporting plastic recycling?
Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: A $4 million grant means that more than 200 million plastic bottles can be recycled into high-grade, food-safe packaging each year. Over a thousand tonnes of bulk fertiliser bags will be recycled into new products such as irrigation tubing and rope, thanks to a $1.25 million grant from the fund, and the Plasback scheme has recycled more than 6,500 tonnes of plastic from farms. We are also supporting the recycling of soft plastics across New Zealand.
Emergency Housing—Motel Use
12. CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister for Social Housing: Does she think her Government is getting value for money for the emergency and transitional motel accommodation they are paying for to house homeless New Zealanders?
Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Social Housing): The Government assesses value in terms of the benefit that our programmes provide for those in need of housing support, and in that regard we consider that both the emergency housing special-needs grants and the transitional housing programmes are money well spent.
Carmel Sepuloni: Given that the four motels bought by the Government were purchased for more than double their recent valuations, how can she say they are getting value for money?
Hon AMY ADAMS: I am afraid that the member is simply wrong. We had registered valuations on all the sites before we bought them, which had a total registered valuation of $7.4 million, and the properties were purchased for a little over that, at $8.5 million in a competitive environment. Her numbers are simply wrong.
Carmel Sepuloni: I seek leave to table a document that has compiled all the recent valuations of the four motels that the Government has bought—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I need the source of the document.
Carmel Sepuloni: All the information is from the different council websites, compiled by the Labour research team.
Mr SPEAKER: No, no, I am unable to put the leave for that. It must be something that is sourced from the Parliamentary Library or a source like that, rather than something that is prepared by a research unit.
Carmel Sepuloni: Does she think that it is good value for money to spend $290 per night putting up a woman and her three children in emergency accommodation at a Papatoetoe motel, particularly when motel stays were anticipated to be between $175 and $240 per night and it would actually be cheaper to stay at the Langham, the Heritage, or the Copthorne Hotel?
Hon AMY ADAMS: We pay emergency housing special-needs grants because this side of the House believes that putting people somewhere warm and dry is better than leaving them in cars or on park benches, as Labour was quite happy to do for all its time in Government, when it completely turned its back on this issue.
Carmel Sepuloni: I seek leave to table a letter to our housing spokesperson, Phil Twyford, from a social worker who took a woman and her three children to Work and Income New Zealand and had to take them to inadequate motel accommodation that cost $290 per night.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! It has been well described. Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? No; it can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Carmel Sepuloni: What does she think has represented better value for money: selling State houses and forcing people on to the street, purchasing motels to house the homeless after realising its mistake, or the refusal to do anything about the wider housing crisis that has led to the sorry situation in the first place?
Hon AMY ADAMS: I completely refute the allegations and insinuations in that member’s question. This is a Government that has addressed the underlying shortage of land supply for houses, which Labour failed to deal with. This is a Government that has provided for emergency and transitional housing, which Labour failed to deal with. This is a Government that has—[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume her seat. If that is going to continue, there is no point in taking any further supplementary questions from the member. So I want an assurance that there will be some better behaviour and control from Labour members. Now I invite the Minister to complete her answer.
Hon AMY ADAMS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I was saying, this is a Government that has prioritised looking after people in need of housing. This is a Government that has ensured that there is somewhere warm and dry to stay. This is a Government that has invested in improving the quality of the social housing stock, which Labour left in an appalling state of affairs. And this is a Government that has a social housing reform programme that is delivering real results for those in need in New Zealand.
Carmel Sepuloni: Will she join with Labour at this election and adopt our comprehensive housing plan to end homelessness and build thousands of affordable houses, given her Government’s 9 years of failed attempts?
Hon AMY ADAMS: I will back this Government’s record on housing and social housing over the appalling record of that party.
Bills
Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill
First Reading
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move, That the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. At an appropriate time, I will move that the bill be reported to the House by mid - next year. Mr Speaker, this is the last time I will speak in the 51st Parliament, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership. I want to thank all the staff and wish all my colleagues the best of luck—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There are two matters. First of all, it is very hard to hear what the Minister is saying, and I am going to invite her to start again, but in moving the motion and referring it to a select committee, it would be a breach of the Standing Orders to put a time frame by which it must be back before the next Parliament. So I invite the Minister to commence her speech again, and I do ask for members who are leaving the Chamber to do so a little more quietly.
Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I move That the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. Mr Speaker, as I said, this is the last time I will be speaking in this Parliament, and I want to thank you for your leadership and thank all the staff in the precinct for their help and support over the past 3 years. I want to wish all of my parliamentary colleagues the very best of luck in the election ahead.
It is a great pleasure to introduce this bill. It has been a long time coming, with the campaign for mandatory certification beginning before 2003, when the voluntary system was introduced. The profession and the community have made the case for years that all social workers need to be recognised for their professionalism and be accountable for their practice. I would like to thank everybody who has been involved in this next step for the social worker profession. Thank you to the cross-party members of the Social Services Committee for their very helpful recommendations following their inquiry into social worker registration last year. These recommendations were the beginning of this Government’s response and policy process, and I am pleased to say that we have ultimately accepted almost all of the committee’s 36 suggested amendments. So I do look forward to cross-party support to progress this important piece of legislation.
This is an omnibus bill as it amends the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004. I would, therefore, like to extend my appreciation to the Ministers of Justice and Police for their officials’ assistance on the technical matters that make that amendment necessary.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Social Workers Registration Board, which has helped to bring this strong proposal to the House. Over the years, the board has presented a consistent case for improving the regulatory regime, and this bill really has been a team effort.
The bill requires all persons practising under the title of “social worker” to register with the board. It will assure the public that anyone who is employed in a position described as a “social worker”, performing any function given to a social worker, or claiming to be a social worker will be subject to all the requirements of registration. It also means that newly registered social workers will have to have recognised tertiary degrees, which has been an industry expectation in many other professions for a long time now.
This bill makes a number of other changes that improve the system of social worker registration. It streamlines assurance procedures to ensure that social workers are continually reflecting on their professional practices. This will make the process cheaper for social workers and employers by eliminating the current expensive 5-yearly recertification process. It also clarifies police-vetting practice to ensure that the board has the necessary information to make appropriate registration decisions. It also requires employers to notify the board if a social worker is alleged to have committed serious misconduct; if they continue to be incompetent; or if, for health reasons, they are unable to do their job.
These changes and others are designed to make the social worker registration regime more efficient, fair, and effective. Because of this bill, any person or family working with a social worker will know that the social worker has been vetted by the police, is subject to professional ethics, and that they are a professional who undertakes annual development as a condition of their registration. This is a powerful thing to be able to say to people who use these services. It gives the public an assurance that not just any person can work with children and their families. It says to them that New Zealand cares about protecting our most vulnerable.
Social workers will be protected by a stronger professional identity. This means that the public will know that they are fit for the job and that they will command greater respect in the community for the very important work they do. It also means that social workers can push back if they have a concern and say to their employers: “No, I will not practise under these conditions, because I have professional obligations, and these conditions are not safe.” It means that social workers have another tool to do their job and to be the professionals we know they are and expect them to be.
I know that parts of this sector may be concerned that this bill does not go far enough because it does not require people to be licensed before they can practise social work. However, I am certain that a system of certification and better title protection is the best option for the social worker profession. Licensing is a system where the limits of a profession are defined by statute and where only registered people can practise within that defined area. It is a very restrictive system and is not commonly used unless the type of work can be precisely defined. And, for all its certainty, licensing does not necessarily protect the public more than other means of regulation. So it is clear to me that, after much consideration, licensing cannot be the way forward for an evolving and collaborative profession such as social work.
On the other hand, certification works by limiting the use of a common title to those people certified as meeting appropriate standards, such as holding a qualification and being a fit and proper person to practise. The truth is that most professions allow some parts of their work to be carried out by people who are not part of the profession. For example, you can do many kinds of legal work as long as you do not claim to be a lawyer. And you can provide many kinds of health services as long as you do not claim to be a health professional. But what other professions do not do is allow unregistered people to claim the common title of their registered peers. So a stronger system of certification is what I am proposing for the social worker profession.
This bill is an important step in improving the professionalism of the social worker workforce. I have already been fielding letters from social services providers wondering what the Government is going to do to support this move to mandatory registration. Let me tell the House what I have been saying to them: the Government, as the main employer of social workers, is listening to them, and it wants to assure them that we considered what this might mean for the profession and for service providers before making the decision.
I have also said it is important to ensure that providers and the public have the opportunity to comment on how the bill will be implemented. So I was proposing that the bill would be reported back by mid - next year. I would anticipate that the normal time for consideration of this bill would be given to it by the incoming Parliament. I know that the non-Government sector will be interested in contributing, and I would like to see it have that real opportunity to do so. I think those views are important to make sure that we have a real and lasting step forward for the profession and to make sure that we have got it right.
That is why the changes in this bill will occur in three phases. Some technical changes will occur immediately to make the system better for people who are already registered. Phase two will occurs 2 years after the legislation commences. Every person then claiming to be a social worker will be required to be registered. And phase three occurs 5 years after commencement. At that point, the experience-based pathway to registration will be repealed and all new registered social workers will need to have a recognised qualification.
Mandatory registration has been widely expected in the profession for years now. It is important to make sure people currently in the profession and their employers have time to adjust, because there will be an adjustment required. Employers will need to consider what services they are providing, and the estimated quarter of the profession who are unregistered will need a little time to get their papers in order. There is no need to sacrifice carefulness in the name of speed. That would be counter-productive to a seamless provision of services in this time of transition.
This bill is an important piece of legislation. It is a significant step forward for social workers and the thousands of New Zealanders they work with on a daily basis. I would once again like to thank all the people and organisations who have worked so hard to bring this bill to the floor. The time has come to move to mandatory registration, and I am very proud to commend this bill to the House.
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I will just start by saying that of course we will be supporting this bill in its first reading, and I have to say it has been a long time coming. Back in October 2015 the bill that I had drawn out of the members’ ballot to make social worker registration mandatory was debated in the House, and it was unfortunate that at that time we had the support of some of the parties but not all. We did not have the support of ACT, we did not have the support of Peter Dunne and United Future, and we did not have the support of National. It was equally as disappointing at the time that I had met with every political party to discuss that member’s bill and the importance of mandatory social worker registration, and even the Minister for Social Development herself at the time could not say there was anything in the bill that I drafted that she disagreed with. She just said it was about timing.
Well, timing—let us talk about timing, because, actually, when I looked back even further, when Labour was in Government near the end of its term in 2008, we were on our way to actually making social worker registration mandatory. The Minister herself was on record in the Hansard pushing for this to happen—pushing very hard, in fact, for this to happen. She was a great advocate for social worker registration, and yet here we are 9 years into that National Government’s term and it has taken it this long to get this to its first reading. I have to say there was no need for an inquiry. There was no need for the Social Services Committee to undertake an inquiry. We could have done the same work if the Government had just supported my member’s bill to the select committee, which we ended up doing, what, a year later, and we would have been ahead of the game.
It is not just about who wins or whether someone wins with regard to getting a bill up and whose name was on it, and who led it. It is about the fact that this is actually a really important and urgent issue. We have had recommendations come from the different advisory groups to say that it is actually imperative that we have a qualified and registered workforce working with our most vulnerable children and families. So it should not have been delayed, and it did not need to be delayed at all.
The bill does much of what we had proposed in the member’s bill that I had in the ballot, which was drawn and was voted against by National. Essentially, it makes it so that a person may call themselves a social worker, whether through names, titles, descriptions, abbreviations, etc., only if they are a registered social worker and hold a current practising certificate. That is so important because, actually, a few years ago a survey was undertaken and the general public assumed that anyone who called themselves a social worker actually had the qualifications and was registered and regulated by a body of some sort. So they were under the assumption that that was already the case.
But, in fact, it was not the case, and we have had multiple incidents in the media where people who had been employed as “social workers” or called themselves “social workers” had been done in the courts for criminal activity. They had been trusted in positions as a social worker when they should not have had that title, because it was misleading. The public assume that people who have that title have the qualifications and are regulated in some way or another, and that has not been the case. So we support the fact that that title will be protected once we get through this process.
There have been concerns raised. I have had the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers get in contact with me about this bill. It is happy that it is finally at this point and that we are moving towards making social worker registration mandatory. The concern it raised is that social workers or people with a social worker qualification could actually be employed in a role that is not titled social worker—like probation officer, family advocate, youth worker—and that there will be no expectation that those people be registered as social workers because they are not practising formally under the title of social worker. We have had that discussion. I have had that discussion with the association. That is a point that I am sure will be nutted out and discussed even further and that will be evident in the submissions that are received by Parliament when it gets to the select committee. At this point in time, I have said to the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers that I am, at this point in time, on the side of just protecting the title of social worker, and if we were going to go down the track of actually regulating those other positions, then that is a completely different piece of work, I think, to what we are discussing here in the House today.
Also, I have been a teacher, a qualified teacher. You can be a qualified teacher who might go on to other positions outside of the State schooling sector where you may tutor or whatever else, but there is no expectation in those situations that you will maintain your registration. I think that is the kind of immediate comparison that I think of. But it is still up for discussion, and, as I said to the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers person whom I have been speaking to, this is something that we can discuss further at the select committee. They can present us with the evidence there, and we can go through the process with regard to that.
I do not really have much to say on this bill, because we are going to be supporting it. I think I have made the key points. It is a long time coming, and we could have done it ages ago. The Government did not need to hold this up. I am looking forward to, hopefully, being part of the next Parliament where we will get to debate this further and where we can actually realise a mandatory social worker registration. Thank you.
JOANNE HAYES (National): Before I start my contribution, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to add my farewells and thanks to you as the Deputy Speaker of the House, being that this will be the last time that I speak in the 51st Parliament, so I do want to say thank you very much for your guidance—to you, and to Lindsay Tisch as well.
As I say, I stand to take a call on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill, and, even though I was not on the select committee at the time that the inquiry was done, I come with a background in this area. Many moons ago, I did the first year of the social work degree at Massey University. I never continued—I did pass my papers, but never continued because I saw that perhaps I would not make a very good social worker with the bluntness that I bring, the type of person that I am. But I do applaud those who do the 4-year degree. It does challenge you, and it does bring about that professionalism that tertiary qualifications embed into people.
My other experience around social workers was as a supervisor. I was a supervisor for a number of social workers who had graduated or were in their second- and third- and fourth-year placements through the Youth One Stop Shop in Palmerston North. Those young people came out—they were very keen and very open and willing to work with whānau who needed help and with young children. I do take my hat off to the hard work that they do.
I do support this bill. I think it is about time that social workers became registered. I think that it may have been a long time coming, but it is here now. I think that the Social Workers Registration Board will actually put that professionalism back into the role of social worker, protecting the actual name of “social worker”. I also want to add my support to the changes around the criteria for appointment to the board—the Social Workers Registration Board—to include someone who will actually represent employers of social workers, as well as social workers themselves. The fact that the board numbers will actually reduce from 10 to seven will make it a very tight, very focused registration board.
I too add my voice to the Minister’s voice about police-vetting of social workers. I think it is very important. Social workers are no different from any other health professional or legal professional—anyone who actually does that term of study does gain that credibility around the professionalism.
So, without any further ado, I agree with the previous speaker, Carmel Sepuloni, and our Minister in that I do look forward to this bill going to the select committee in the new term. I too hope that I will be back in Parliament and participating in further debates around this bill. So, without any further ado, I too want to add my voice to recommending and commending the bill to the House. Thank you.
LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak at this first reading of the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill. Where to begin, really? Firstly, it is with the 2013 census, where there were 18,000 identified social workers—of those, 5,500 had chosen to be registered. It then had me thinking about how you register. Who qualifies to register? So I had a look on the Social Workers Registration Board website, and, in fact, to register as a social worker in New Zealand, you have to have attended the following institutions: Ara Institute of Canterbury, Bethlehem Tertiary Institute, Eastern Institute of Technology, Massey University, Manukau Institute of Technology, NorthTec, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Te Wānanaga o Raukawa, The University of Auckland, Unitec New Zealand, The University of Canterbury, The University of Otago, The University of Waikato, Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology, Whitireia New Zealand, or Wintec.
In fact, in New Zealand, to be registered as a social worker, you have to have a Bachelor’s degree. There is a big difference between someone with a Bachelor’s degree and, obviously, someone who has done a 1-year or a 2-year social work certificate, which is also offered in New Zealand. So at the heart of this new registration process was actually an ability for people to have gone to university and to have sat what is a 4-year degree—that is my undergraduate qualification, actually; I did a Bachelor of social policy and social work from Massey. Interestingly, in that 4-year Bachelor’s degree, you have to do practicums—in the second year, it was a 3-month practical, and in the fourth year, it was a 6-month practical. I am finding this whole registration process really interesting because, based on what the census has told us, 12,500 people in New Zealand who are practising social workers have not gone through a university system to qualify to register in the first place, which is what I thought one of the issues was that should have been focused on.
In fact, I want to commend the Minister and some of what has been included in the legislation. I especially want to highlight section 13, which is going to recognise prior learning. So these are people who, for all intents and purposes, have got the practical skills to be social workers. A lot of them are currently working within our Ministry of Social Development. This legislation really is the merging of formal qualification through a university process, but also recognising that people who have good social work practice will, in fact, be able to, through this piece of legislation, be registered social workers. But I am going to be incredibly interested in how that process happens.
When we look at the recognised prior-learning process within Massey University, for example, actually, it is really good. If you want to get an undergrad degree at Massey University, you have to do 360 credits, and that university allows you to be recognised for 70 percent of the course time through your recognised prior learning, depending on your expertise and your practice in the process, but, at minimum, you have to do 30 percent of the coursework. So what I am thinking will happen through the passage of this legislation—I mean, I would love it for those 18,000 people who have self-identified as social workers to be registered social workers.
I think the implementation of this legislation is going to be a merging of those universities that offer these degrees and then providing, at minimum, for some of our people who are working in the system and who have not got the full qualifications the papers and opportunities to then qualify. Once they are licensed, which is another aspect of this bill, they will be able to retain that licence for the rest of their professional careers. The other aspect of the recognition of prior learning at most universities is that for 3 of the last 7 years, you have to have worked in the relevant area of service, and, also, for one of those years, it has to have been full-time. So I see that as a really good solution to what has been, I think, a conundrum. I can think back to when this whole issue started, in 2003, when, in fact, we created the Social Worker Registration Board but we made it a voluntary process, and that was actually done to address what I have just talked about.
Within this legislation, we are going to provide a 5-year window for that evaluation to take place and pathways for people who are working in the sector to get qualified and to be registered. So I really do commend the select committee’s recommendations to the Minister and commend the Minister for actually taking on board the work. We do know, as my colleague Carmel Sepuloni has pointed out, that in July 2015 she did have a bill pulled out of the ballot. It was the Social Workers Registration (Mandatory Registration) Amendment Bill, and she did that in consultation with the sector. I also know that Darroch Ball had, in fact, a piece of legislation that wanted to focus specifically on children. I think, for everybody in this House, we want to make sure that the people who are looking after our most vulnerable and who are working within our Ministry of Social Development and for Child, Youth and Family—Oranga Tamariki now—are the people whom we are empowering, through their qualifications, to provide the best care and support for our most vulnerable.
I do want to highlight, however, a letter that I have. It is to Brenda Pilott from Minister Anne Tolley, and I am actually going to quote from it: “The possibilities of cost increases were also part of our decision making about the issue, but exact costs cannot yet be estimated. This is particularly because of uncertainties about the number of social workers in the NGO sector who are not currently registered, the number who will need to undertake additional training, and how the sector might respond to the new requirements. I expect that as any additional costs arising from the changes become apparent, they will”—and I want to really emphasis this point—“become part of normal contract negotiations between NGOs and Government agencies with whom they contract.”
The reason I am highlighting this is that there will be some social workers who will have to attend university courses, and in doing my investigation, I found out that an undergrad degree now costs between $5,800 and $9,200 per annum. If some of our social workers are going to have to do 30 percent of what is the normal 4-year degree, obviously, someone is going to have to pay for that. So I highlight that because I think that, in the letter that I have just read from, the intent of the Minister and the intent of the Government is not to burden our NGO sector—it is actually to support our NGO sector—and that it will support that transition for our social workers to comply with what I think is a very good piece of legislation. So we are very excited about the developments.
Just for me, finally, I am going to do what everyone else has taken the opportunity to do. I am going to miss you, Chester. You are awesome. You are one of the best Deputy Speakers we have ever had. I think you play with a fair hand. You have taught me a lesson about, I guess, how you respond to—and I am talking about the dog, now—the things you love, people you love, and the teams that you are proud to be part of. I think it is conceivable that you can pat someone on the head and give them a boot up the arse at the same time sometimes, so thank you very much.
I also just want to say that I think we have had a really successful 51st parliamentary term in many respects. I just want to highlight that I have been involved in some cross-party groups such as our LGBTI network, and I want to acknowledge in the House my colleague Jan Logie, Paul Foster-Bell—wherever he may be—and also our cross-party women’s group. I think our focus on family violence and issues to do with migrant and refugee women has been really satisfying, and we have had a little bit of a win.
To everybody who is leaving, I just want to wish them all the best in the next phase of their life journey. To those of us who are now going back to our electorates and who will be campaigning hard to be the representative for our communities, I wish you all the best.
Finally—and I cannot not say this—go the Black Ferns! We are playing Canada at 11 p.m. If we win that match, we will qualify and go through to the semi-finals, to be played next Wednesday. And on Sunday, 27 August, I am hoping that the Black Ferns will bring home the bacon and bring that cup home to Aotearoa. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.
STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I too would like to wish the Black Ferns all the best in the Women’s Rugby World Cup, and I hope they do bring the cup home. Also, Mr Deputy Speaker, I acknowledge your great contribution and guidance on the select committees I have sat on with you. I have very much enjoyed that. So all the best in the next part of your life and your journey.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.
STUART SMITH: I thought a really good point was made before by Louisa Wall, the previous speaker, that in the 2013 census of the people who identified themselves as social workers, less than a third were actually registered. I think that is a pretty sad statistic in a lot of ways, and this bill will actually tidy up all of those things.
I think that is fantastic for the profession, because these people work in a really difficult field. They make a big difference to people’s lives, and without their contribution New Zealand would be a much poorer place. And I think to have those people actually have a formal qualification, have all of the rules that surround that, and undertake professional development through their careers is something that is long overdue. I really commend that.
I think it is quite interesting to see the way that this bill has come together—the time that it has taken. I would really like to just take a moment to go back to what Carmel Sepuloni mentioned—the bill of 2008. I would just like to point out to the House that it was actually introduced only a few days before Parliament rose, because the Labour Government was obsessed with getting the Electoral Finance Act through because it was, quite rightly, very concerned about its prospects in the upcoming election. So it is a bit rich to start blaming everybody else for their lack of urgency on such a bill.
With that, I think enough has been said on this bill, and I would like to commend it to the House. Thank you.
JAN LOGIE (Green): I too would like to take a moment to acknowledge your work in the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, and say that I will miss you. For me the most enduring memory was your leadership around the section 59 legislation. I think your shift in position on that was to the benefit of all children in this country, and it is often a very rare thing in this House to see people hearing the evidence and being able to shift in a public way. It is something I maintain a huge amount of appreciation for.
So on to this bill—the last bill that we are debating in the 51st Parliament right before the adjournment speeches. It feels as if it is kind of, you know, getting the slot after lunch at a conference on the last day of the conference when nobody is likely to be listening or caring very much. But this is a very important issue, and I would like just to put some of the history on the record as we discuss this.
So what this is about is mandatory registration for social workers. The framework to enable this was introduced into Parliament by a Labour Government in 2001 when it introduced legislation to establish a framework for registration that was then voluntary. That passed in 2003. The Green Party, at the time, called for a commitment from the Government to include a time frame in that legislation for mandatory registration. We thought 10 years was enough time, roughly, for the sector to be able to prepare and get upskilled to be able to deliver the mandatory registration. But the Labour Government’s view, at the time, was that the compliance costs were high and that it was not confident that it could be done in 10 years.
You know, we had different views on that, and we did not want to leave it so that it would rely on someone else initiating another review, and I think now—it is 2017—it does feel a little bit like we were right and that it would have been good to have it in the legislation in order to get that process kick-started from that point.
We also had another reservation at that time that the legislation lacked specific reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and explicit acknowledgment of the obligations of the Crown. There was quite a lot of discussion about that, and the social workers at the time were supporting that call, but they backed off it because they did not think the legislation would get through if they stuck to that point. So without the backing of the social workers, we were willing to support the legislation. But my understanding is that there was an intent for that to be revisited in the review 3 years later, and I have not seen evidence of that. In fact, we still do not have that in legislation.
Considering the conversations we have been having in relation to the Oranga Tamariki legislation, I do believe that this is still an incredibly important discussion for us as a country, specifically as it relates to social work, and I do hope people will submit on that point—about how we as a country ensure that our practice is consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi and that the Crown is protecting those rights that are enshrined in our founding document to ensure whakapapa and the protection of tamariki Māori and their cultural identity and their whole selves. So we look forward to that discussion as the bill goes to select committee in the next term.
Another thing I do want to point to is that after the legislation was passed, the Government, in 2005, established an NGO study award to support social workers, or people practising within their community-based organisations, to get qualified. The reviews of that study award were glowing, in fact. There was a review done by Massey University that showed that the students who had that study award were more committed to finishing their training, more confident in becoming practitioners, and reported high competence and self-reflection, which is a very key part of good social work practice, and that they continued working in NGOs even after job changes. It was particularly beneficial for Māori.
So that was a really positive thing in helping with that transition, and yet—you know, we have heard at the Social Services Committee, year on year, from the Social Workers Registration Board when we review it, that there needs to be mandatory registration, and it has taken a long time. We also heard from the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers that it wanted it, and the white paper on vulnerable children that went to Cabinet also recommended mandatory registration, as did the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
So I do have to admit to a certain degree of frustration that it has taken until the very last day of the 51st Parliament for this to be introduced when the Labour Party member Carmel Sepuloni introduced a bill in 2015 that could have had the support of the Government. The evidence was there. The calls from the profession and those with an interest in protecting our communities and our children in particular were all calling for this. So it is hard to see that the delay was not an act of politics triumphing over the best interests of our communities.
We have heard, as has already been mentioned in the debate this afternoon, that of the 2013 census there were 18,000 people who identified as social workers in that census, but only 5,500 people at the time were registered as social workers. It was clear evidence, really, that people were practising and there was a public expectation that they were registered and that their practice had a degree of oversight, which was just not the case. We have seen some disturbing and high-profile cases go to our courts that demonstrated that.
We also know that, at least in 2015, 500 social workers working within what was then Child, Youth and Family were as yet unregistered. They were staff members who had the support of the State working within the State institution, but, again, there does seem to have been a lack of commitment in ensuring that they had the support to get qualified and registered. I also note that for the social workers in schools, the Ministry of Education was unable to report on how many of those social workers were registered. So, again, it is some more evidence that while we are getting this on the last day, it feels like the Government has been very late coming to the party on how important this is.
I do want to register another concern—I mentioned before the NGO Social Work Study Award and how important and successful it had been in upskilling people—which is to recognise that the Government canned that programme last year, despite the really, really glowing reports of the benefits of it. That does need to be seen, particularly, in the context that the social work degree has now moved from a 3-year course to a 4-year course, that most of our community-based organisations’ funding has not increased—their baseline funding—since 2008, and that there have been restrictions introduced on access to student allowances and their ability to have funded access to education.
We need social workers who have life experience and who come from diverse parts of our community, particularly people who have had poverty in their background. It makes their work more real, and we need to be ensuring that they are able to get in and practise as social workers. I think that that decision of the Government—if it wants to ensure mandatory registration and diverse social workers, it needs to revisit that decision. But the Green Party is happy to support this to select committee in these last few hours of this Parliament.
DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill. It seems like it is almost a full circle for me, because one of the very first things that I did in the portfolio of social services 3 years ago was to realise that, for some strange reason, social workers did not need to be mandatorily registered. I was one of the 85 percent of the population that automatically assumed that they actually were, because of the job and the role that they were doing. Because of that, I put a member’s bill into the ballot, which was for the mandatory registration but specifically for those social workers who actually worked with vulnerable children, or with children in general. After that, Carmel Sepuloni put Labour’s member’s bill in, but it was along the same lines, and, obviously, we supported it. Unfortunately, the Government did not.
I think it was highlighted by Jan Logie—which came as a surprise to me as well—that when the Minister for Social Development was speaking on Carmel Sepuloni’s member’s bill, like the member said, it was about the timing, apparently. But what I found was that there was a white paper on vulnerable children. It quite literally states that it sets out a goal and expectations that Child, Youth and Family have a 100 percent registered professional work force by 2015, which was the same year that Carmel Sepuloni’s bill was pulled and read. Really, what were the excuses for it? I am not sure. I think that after the member’s bill was pulled from the ballot, there was enough political—I do not know—expediency that was appreciated because of that, and then the Government started the process from there. But we are here now, on the very final bill reading of this term none the less.
I think that it is important to understand, firstly, what the problem is that this bill is trying to fix or address and find out whether this bill is actually doing that. I know that it might seem like a simple concept that everybody agrees to—that every social worker should be mandatorily registered—but what is the deeper meaning about why we want them to be registered? Unfortunately, it looks as though the Government has taken, for want of a better term, the easy option in just wanting to protect the term “social worker” but not the actual effects of who that social worker works with or the role that they take on.
I hate to be the guy who goes down into the nuts and bolts and details of the bill, but that is where the issue really lies. On the surface of things it is easy to say yes, we support this, and then go through, but we really need to make sure that if we do do it, we do it once and we do it right, and we need to get those details correct. So in the actual bill itself, one of the objectives—and the main one—is to ensure that social workers are competent and fit to practise and that there are appropriate and efficient complaints and disciplinary processes in place. That sounds all good. There is only one sentence, which is: “This Bill will amend the Act so that the title social worker is protected.” That is where it stops. It does not go into any other intent on what this bill, in legislation, is supposed to be doing. It is all about the protection of that term “social worker”, and it does not go into any more real depth than that. There are some other changes around the complaints processes as well.
What I want to do to highlight what the problem is, really, that this bill is trying to address is actually go to the Social Workers Registration Board’s submission that it made to the Social Services Committee in November 2016. It had five draft recommendations about why, what for, and when. The three main ones that it has identified in its role are to make registration mandatory for social workers—yes, that is fine. The second one was “We recommend that the Government permit only registered social workers to use the title ‘social worker’.”—and that does occur in this legislation. But the most important one is the third one. It said: “We recommend that the Government permit only registered social workers to practise ‘social work’, as defined in [the] … regulations).” Unfortunately, when you go digging down a little bit deeper into the actual bill, it does not quite address that recommendation. Those are two very separate things: protecting the “social worker” name—only registered social workers to use the term “social worker”—and the other one, which is that only the registered social workers can practise social work. They are two separate and distinct things.
Within the legislation, and in a specific part of the legislation, was new section 6AAB, “Definition of practising as a social worker”: “A person is practising as a social worker for the purposes of this Act … if that person—(a) is employed or engaged by another person in a position that is described using the words social worker:”—so, again, using the word “social worker”—“(b) in undertaking any work for gain or reward, holds himself or herself out to be a social worker: (c) holds a position, in a voluntary capacity or as a member of any body or organisation, that is described using the words social worker: (d) holds a position or performs a role described in an enactment using the words social worker:” But then there is another one, which says: “(e) undertakes restricted work:”—that is all that it says. So the four provisions before that were all about the term “social worker” and the fifth one is “undertakes restricted work.” Of course, what does “restricted work” mean? The bill has got a “restricted work” definition, and it means “any task or activity that is described in an enactment with words to the effect that it can only be undertaken by a social worker.” Not only is that a vague definition of what restricted work is, but, unfortunately, in the other document that I have here, which is the regulatory impact statement (RIS), it specifically states the contrary to that, and it actually enhances the ambiguity of that statement.
In the regulatory impact statement it actually goes into the different recommendations or options that were given and discussed through the select committee. The one that the select committee agreed to and recommended was that: “Government permit only registered social workers to practise social work, as defined in a legislative instrument.” That social work definition is a thing that is missing. The legislation that I just read out was a totally different option and road and pathway to that which the Minister has gone down, and there are some big problems with it. It states in the option in the recommendation of the RIS, which the Minister did take on, that “This change would move to title protection of the wider title “social worker”—which it does. “However, any non-registered person may carry out those activities as long as they do not use the protected titles.” So what it is saying is that any person can carry out the same activities that the so-called registered social worker is doing, as long as they do not use the term “social worker”. So that is what happens when the Government is taking the easy option and is concentrating solely on protecting the title, because it leaves a pathway open for individuals to do that same work or for organisations to create the same role but not call it a social work role.
Now, what is the problem that we are trying to solve here? Is it just the protection of that term “social worker” or is it protecting the people who they are working with—is it the role that they are working with? It also goes on to say—in that same option that the Minister has agreed to go down, that current social workers may choose to respond—“Current social workers who were still unwilling to register could lose their livelihoods. They may choose to respond by changing their title e.g. to community worker, and likewise employers may choose to change job titles to retain non-registered staff.” So we are targeting the name; we are not targeting the actual role and occupation that they are filling, and it is entirely contrary to the intent with which every member in this House—and I know that Carmel Sepuloni’s member’s bill, and mine as well, was to protect vulnerable people and to protect those clients. On this legislation we have got very large concerns, and a number of them, about whether this legislation will actually achieve that, and how we can go through the select committee process. Hopefully the Minister can answer those questions and waylay those concerns, but we will be very interested to hear all of the submissions on this throughout the next stage. Thank you.
Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): It is great to have this opportunity to speak today, and also to speak while you are in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am taking a short call to support the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill in its first reading. I want to start by thanking the Minister for Social Development for bringing this bill before the House, as this bill is based on the recommendations made by the Social Services Committee’s work on the issues paper that was presented by the Minister to the Social Services Committee. That issues paper was part of the Minister’s ministerial review of the operation of the Social Workers Registration Act.
As we have heard from previous speakers, registering as a social worker is currently voluntary, and there are other professions like youth workers, community workers, and health promotion workers who all can call themselves social workers. So there is a kind of confusion around the use of the title “social worker”. If an individual wishes to register as a social worker they have to apply to the Social Workers Registration Board, and then the board looks at the applicant to see whether they fill the criteria to get the title of registered social worker.
During the select committee work on the issues paper we saw that there was a huge amount of support for proceeding to make social workers’ registration mandatory. It was felt that by making social workers’ registration mandatory, confusion around the use of the title will be addressed and the accountability issue can also be addressed. We also know that social workers face very, very complex kinds of needs of people in their day-to-day life. It is important that they are upskilling themselves on an ongoing basis, because for registered social workers, they have to renew their practising certificate every year.
Along with being a scientist and being involved in my family’s manufacturing business, I also volunteered in the community sector. I worked with one non-governmental organisation, not as a social worker, but I saw how hard social workers worked, and I know the kinds of complex needs they have to address when they go out and meet with people. So it is really important that they are well equipped to address those kinds of complex needs.
The good news is that for registration, individuals can use their qualification, or they can also use their work experience. Another piece of good news is that the majority of social workers—around 6,300 social workers—are already registered. We have around 2,000 people working as social workers who are not registered. Out of these 2,000 social workers, around 1,200 social workers can use their qualifications to get themselves registered, and around 300 social workers can use their experience to get themselves registered. So we are in a good position for the need that we have to fulfil in the community for social workers.
Another thing is that I understand that there are some small NGOs, and, for them, moving from the unregistered status of their social workers to registered status can be difficult, so there is enough time allowed in this legislation for a smooth transition.
Overall, this bill covers all the aspects that we need to help the social workers to get registered. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.
MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and acknowledgments to you and the Deputy Speaker, Chester Borrows, for having to deal with my emotional outbursts in this House on many an occasion. I wish you both well. I have enjoyed being mediated by you both.
I stand on behalf of the Green Party to support the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill, of course. We support the professionalisation of social work but in a positive and empowering way, which is the key, I think. The key of it being empowering is going to be the main point to my short contribution today. We have also heard from the profession itself, in the main, that this is what it has always wanted and called for. The professionalisation on its own is not enough and not the core thing, and I will hopefully get time to go into that further on down the track.
So the status quo at the moment is that registration is currently voluntary, and therefore protects only the title of registered social worker. What it means is that at the moment anyone can still call themselves a social worker, because registering is voluntary. So supporting this move from voluntary to mandatory is absolutely important. Professionalism, safe practice, and accountability are the very, very least that we can ask for and are the least that the children, families, and individuals deserve when social workers are dealing and engaging with our people in our communities. We do already know what happens when children, families, and individuals are exposed to any social work practice that is unsafe or even just unsupported, so we welcome this move towards mandatory registration.
What I want to talk about today is what we need to be mindful of, and my other colleagues in the House have raised the issues of possible barriers. Again, the Green Party wants this legislation to be empowering those possible barriers. I really do want to know who is going to bear the burden of these costs. From everything that I have seen, the Minister for Social Development has absolutely signalled that this cost must be borne by social workers themselves. I understand that social workers are some of our most underpaid professionals, and so I really want to have a look through, in the select committee process, at what we can do, what the discussions need to be about who will bear the burden of this cost, and whether or not we going to create these consequences through this legislation that draw us away from having a good, quality, collective team of social workers, purely because of the cost barrier.
Also, I want to hear more about the length of the qualification and what that will mean, again in terms of creating a barrier for social workers who are quality and who want to be registered. My colleague Louisa Wall mentioned that perhaps there is a way that the organisations, as part of their contract, can consider bearing the cost of the training. So all of these things need to be discussed, and I am looking forward to the discussion of those particular possible barriers to registration, and others, at the select committee.
The definition of safe practice, I think, is something that I want to pick up from my colleague Jan Logie, who started to raise it previously—oh, and also, I do want to be mindful of wanting to make sure this legislation is empowering and not punitive. I certainly heard a more balanced introduction to this legislation from the Minister today, but I do want to be mindful that in other public instances social workers themselves have cautioned the Minister on her punitive language in reference to this legislation—for example, I think it is something like saying “this mandatory registration will weed out the unqualified”. So I want us to be mindful that this is to be seen as a supportive process for quality social workers who absolutely want to do the best job they can and need our support for them to be able to do a quality job, and for our communities to be able to benefit from social workers having a quality safe practice. So I did want to just allow us the opportunity to reflect on our own practice of the language that we use and the approach that we use in our profession. Thank you.
Now, I really want to pick up what my colleague Jan Logie said and her reminder of the recommendations that we be absolutely responsive to Te Tiriti. These are not just mere words that need to be uttered; whether it is one or 100,000 people who are tangata whenua, there needs to be a clear, robust framework that ensures that we have safe practice no matter who the child or the individual is that social workers are working with, including tangata whenua. Indeed, a lack of culturally appropriate responses for any children, but especially for tangata whenua, has seen social work practices and systems become unsafe.
So this, for me, is incredibly important. Not enough credence is given to kaupapa Māori research about what works—research from our people, by our people, for our people. Given that, sadly, at the moment much social profession work faces tangata whenua children and individuals, I think it is even more important that we insist that our systems and our qualification frameworks and our processes for registration take into account whom those very social workers are going to be dealing with. But it needs to be upheld at the systemic core of social work, as opposed to relying on individual social workers to hopefully be good at what they do when dealing with Māori communities. That is a conversation I hope we will see some submissions on as we go past the first reading in the next term of Parliament.
Lastly, I really want to enforce that given that it is difficult to separate at this late hour, this eleventh hour, introducing this legislation to professionalise an industry that has long called for professionalisation—given that is hard to see that introducing this legislation at such a late hour is not a political step, I would really like us to make sure that social workers can do their job independently, and that professionalising their work is not about tying them with a burden to Government, or tying them to political Government.
They need to remain independent. They are social workers. They have a responsibility to uphold and be advocates for social justice, and so my hope and belief is that we can empower social workers to become professional and registered and accountable without undermining their politically independent voice—their ability to call the Government out when they are seeing in their day-to-day role a lack of housing, a lack of healthcare, a lack of mental health support, and so on, and so on, and so on. So I wanted to end my contribution with that caution that we all have a responsibility to work together to ensure that our social workers can remain politically independent, quality, and robust, and that they are supported to do the best job that they can do. Thank you.
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I am somewhat surprised to be taking a call on a bill that is being referred to the Social Services Committee. None the less, in 2002, I remember being involved with the social workers in my district in this very discussion, which led to the setting up of the 2003 Act. Some of the issues that Louisa Wall has raised were very pertinent at that time, and she raised them in what I thought was a very good summary of the challenges that the select committee will face as it implements this bill.
It was a contentious issue at the time amongst the social working fraternity. One of the reasons it was a contentious issue was that many of our social workers had little in the way of qualifications but were outstanding performers in the field, and they felt intimidated by the need to have a qualification. I think that the point that Louisa made about the cost of getting them qualified is one that is certainly going to be of concern to them.
So, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, I will not take any more time, other than to congratulate you on your time in Parliament and thank you for the great service you have done in the Chair. I commend the bill to the House.
PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. It would be remiss of me not to heap praise upon you, Mr Tisch, as every other member of the House has done, so I want to congratulate you and wish you well on all your—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I will stand.
PEENI HENARE: —future endeavours. Ha, ha! Excellent.
Look, I think it is fair to say, and most members in the House will agree, that a lot of praise must be heaped on the social workers on the front line, in the face of ever-growing inequality and in the face of growing poverty in communities and working communities. These are challenges we have noticed in particular in Tāmaki-makau-rau—the good member Louisa Wall’s electorate here in Manurewa, and mine across Tāmaki Makaurau. And now, sadly, it has been reported in the regions that that growth of inequality and poverty is really hitting hard. A lot of praise must be heaped upon those actually at the front line, doing the job that is too often not considered in many of the debates that take place here in this House. So I want to acknowledge all of the social workers across the country.
When I went shopping recently I bumped into a relation of mine. She is a social worker, and she talked about how because of the costs of living in Auckland social workers have all gone back to the regions. Kaitāia was the region she went home to—her birthplace. She says the region is now inundated with social workers—inundated. One of the sad things is that there is not an economy there that allows social workers to actually do a lot of the positive stuff. In fact, in the end, she described how they just seem to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
One of the other things she spoke to was the quality of service—the quality of service. I think that is an important point, because when we make legislation in this House and we want to make sure that it is relevant and it makes a positive change out in the community, we want to make sure that the accountability is there for those who are servicing our people on the front line, but we also want to make sure—when we debate this particular bill, and when this bill will progress in the next term of Parliament—that we actually give them the tools to do it. We want to make sure that we give them the tools to make sure that they are effective community social service providers. I think this bill actually does go some way to doing that. I do think, however, that there could be a lot more that we could do to make sure that social workers actually have the tools they need to get the job done.
This bill is long overdue. They do say that plagiarism is, what, the greatest form of admiration, and while Mr Ball was talking about his member’s bill, my colleague Carmel Sepuloni over here on this side in the Labour Party talked about how this is something that she had been pushing for for some time. So this bill is long overdue. There are numerous reports that have supported this. In 2012 and in 2013 over 80 percent of those who actually work in this field—in this sector—have encouraged this particular process to take place. So we are finally getting there. It is sad to say that we are getting there on the last sitting day of the 51st Parliament.
One of the issues that we hope to tease out throughout the passage of this bill is, of course, the cost of registration—the actual cost. There are numbers floating around, and I thought I would send off a quick message to my wife, who is a teacher, and ask her how much it costs for her registration—for her to register as a teacher. It costs her $170 for 3 years. I thought, well, we had better get a bigger sample size, so I fired off a message to a cousin of mine who is a teacher somewhere else, and he said his is $240 for 2 years. I think the second sample actually needs to have a look at his workplace, because somebody is getting ripped off there.
But what we are saying is that there is, I guess, a level or a flat fee for a teacher’s registration—for teachers to be able to register and teach. We look at some of the figures, and one of the figures here around the “Social Workers Registration Board (Fees and Disciplinary Levy) Notice 2017”—we have a figure here of $345, which actually seems like quite a lot of money when you compare it with the teachers, who do very important work, just as a social worker does. We hope that throughout the course of this bill all of those who are affected by this bill and who have some positive input for this bill actually come in and share that detail with us—submit on this bill—to make sure that their voices are heard.
One of the other provisions of this particular bill is that those who do register must be vetted by the police. I think that is an important step forward. I heard members who have contributed on this particular bill say that in order for them to work with our most vulnerable to effect positively the change that those vulnerable people and vulnerable communities require, we must actually make sure that they are fit and capable and are able to do it without any of the kinds of results that were explained by the member who spoke before me—sorry, not Mr McKelvie; the member prior to that, Marama Davidson. She actually spoke about some of the ill harm that has come to families who have had social workers, or those who have either pretended to be a social worker or practiced under the guise of being a social worker, actually have a negative impact on them. That is something we want to avoid. I know that there will be costs involved with a police-vetting process, but I am sure that it will be one of those provisions in the bill that will actually make it strong and make it so that when the public looks at the job that a social worker does, it actually has confidence that those people are the right people to be working in our communities, to be helping the most vulnerable, and—back to the first point of my speech, around the accountability—so that we can make sure that those who work in this sector are held accountable.
I will not go on too much longer, other than to say that this has been a long time coming. We are glad that the Minister for Social Development and this Government are taking a step in the right direction. We want to make sure that social workers have the tools that they need to do the job—the very important job—that they do, not just in the peak centres but also, like I mentioned earlier, across the regions. Without further ado, we want to commend this bill to the House. I hope that in the 52nd Parliament this bill will once again find a fast track and not be delayed, like this particular one has been over the 3-year term. We commend this bill to the House.
NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It is my honour to be the last speaker on the Social Workers Registration Legislation Bill in its first reading. Can I just acknowledge that previous speaker, Mr Henare, because what he did is he articulated exactly why this side of the House has actually put this bill forward. We have heard all of the debate today, but the main thing about this bill—and what this Government is about—is that this bill will assist in promoting the safety of our most vulnerable children. That is the real essence of this, and this is what this is about.
Being the final debate here, the other part that is also important is that we have kotahitaka or we actually have cross-party agreement across the House to support this bill right through to the select committee. It is a great thing in the fact that we have finally got that cross-party thing in this final bill that we are debating in the House.
I commend this bill to the House, but, finally, Mr Lindsay Tisch, Assistant Speaker, can I just also acknowledge the incredible input that you have had in this Parliament, particularly as the Assistant Speaker. What I can say, finally, to you is: Ka mihi nunui; haere pai e taku hoa.
[A huge acknowledgment; go well, my friend.]
Go well, sir, and your whānau as well. Nō reira, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora.
Bill read a first time.
Bill referred to the Social Services Committee.
Adjournment
Adjournment
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I move, That the House do now adjourn. Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, before I go too much further I would like to take a few moments to thank the many people who need to be thanked as this Parliament draws to its conclusion. There is, of course, the Speaker himself, you as Assistant Speaker, and the Hon Trevor Mallard, who also assists in that regard. I want to also particularly thank Chester Borrows for his contribution in that regard.
There are the many presiding officers—and I want to congratulate the Clerk for his successful transition into that role during this particular parliamentary term. I wish him all the best for future parliaments. I would like to thank those who clean and cater for the precinct, those who keep it secure, and the drivers and the range of other attendants who do work to make this Parliament work.
Then there are the teams of people who help us in our electorates, in our ministerial offices, and in our parliamentary offices so that we are able to do the work that we are required to do on behalf of New Zealanders. I want to say to all involved that your efforts are very much appreciated.
What a fascinating 3 weeks we have seen in New Zealand politics—plenty of downs and one or two ups. But, overall, there is a big question about the confidence and the capability of Opposition parties to be anywhere near Government in this country.
There is no doubt, though, that we have got to acknowledge that we are seeing the rise of a political star in the new Leader of the Opposition—a star in the sense of being light. I understand that Jacinda Ardern is intelligent, that she is competent, and that by all accounts she is a pleasant person to be around—a likable person. But a likable person does not necessary translate into a strong political leader. As she herself said yesterday, she has been caught between a rock and hard place. She was talking about being caught between Ayers Rock and New Zealand. But let me make it very clear that the rock she is caught between is, in fact, her own caucus—her own political colleagues—because apart from the new, smiley face, nothing has changed at all. Nothing has changed at all.
Then, of course, it is very obvious that the hard place is the great record of the National Government over the last terms of Parliament. Without question, that record has been exceptional, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a large number of people, as this Parliament will learn later this evening. Having a sustainably growing economy and a low-inflation, low-interest environment with strong employment and rising wages is important to all New Zealanders. The Leader of the Opposition and her party lack the depth that is capable of ensuring that that economic direction continues in the best interests of New Zealand. It is the one area where those members do not want to have a discussion.
The product of a strong, stable, confident Government is that it is able to serve the communities it represents. So there is the hard place for Labour. It is the place where you get the opportunity to show that you care for New Zealanders by doing things. It is where they get their financial security, where they get their welfare security, where they get their safety security, where they get their health security, their education security, and their general prosperity and opportunity in life. That is from the economy, and that is what Labour does not want to talk about.
I will tell you what. We are going to get a speech shortly, and I will bet the economy does not feature, other than to have a look at it with a bit of a squinted eye from a bit of a distance and to simply say: “We could do it better.” It is hard work—it is hard work.
Never mind that New Zealand is now the envy of the world when it comes to both social and economic matters—never mind, according to Labour, that it is of no account that Moody’s advice is that New Zealand will be one of the fastest-growing economies, with a Aaa rating in the years ahead. And then, of course, let us not pay any attention to the fact that we have a service sector responsible for two-thirds of the New Zealand economy that is growing and continuing to provide opportunities and jobs for New Zealanders.
The average annual wage, apparently, is not a matter of concern to the Labour Party. It is now around $60,000 and is projected to be $65,000 in the next few years. Apparently, it is just not true that jobs are growing at a remarkable rate. Apparently, the 180,000 New Zealanders who are now in work who would not have been in work had it not been for these policies do not matter.
The economy in New Zealand is diversified. We now have tourism bigger than the dairy industry, we have a wine industry that is growing at a massive rate, we have high-tech manufacturing growing at a huge rate, and, of course, we have so many other areas of the economy that are beginning to emerge as strong performers for New Zealanders. That is the stuff that is important to New Zealanders. That is what really matters.
You can go around all you like, taking as many selfies as you like and as many smiley moments as you like, until it is made clear that to New Zealanders, this stuff matters. Then it is just: “I like that person but can’t vote for them.” I do not think Labour members can avoid talking about the economy for a lot longer. They are going to have to—
Phil Twyford: Don’t they ask you for selfies?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, actually they do.
Phil Twyford: Do they?
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Yes, and I always tell them: “Put on the wide-angle lens, and then we’ll both be in it.” There is no doubt—[Interruption] Well, I will tell you what. If I turned up to one of your meetings, everyone would think you had a crowd. It would be a novel experience. It would be quite a novel experience for Grant Robertson.
It is without doubt that it was “the Rock”—the then Minister of Finance and now Prime Minister, Bill English—who steadied us through the financial crisis that this Government inherited from the previous Government. People have got short memories, but we will remind them. We were facing decades of deficits when Michael Cullen and his crew left. We have done a lot, by requiring better value for Government services and by ensuring that we get the best value from the dollars that New Zealanders commit to education, to health, to policing, and to all the range of Government services, and we would have done it a lot sooner had we not been having to provide for the catastrophic earthquakes in Christchurch, which took some $15 billion out of our economy at that time.
The Labour Party will try to pretend that that sort of economic management is easy—that it just happens. Do not worry about how it happens; it just happens. Well, that is not going to be an easy conversation. When those members have to explain that their $18.8 billion worth of promises—so far—will be paid for from higher taxes, from higher mortgage rates, and from higher costs on all New Zealand families, simply saying “We can do it better, so just do it with us.”, is not going to work.
The other point I would like to make is the pride with which all National candidates go into this election. We are proud to stand on a record that has very much delivered for New Zealanders. In the Budget earlier this year, we were able to announce a $2 billion package for New Zealanders from April of next year—1.3 million New Zealand families will be able to keep more of the money that they earn and through family support and the accommodation supplement.
Labour voted against that, and the question is why. Well, apparently, because it is going to put together some hand-picked bunch of cloth-cap economists, who are going to give the Government advice on how to tax all New Zealanders more. What a tax—just one. And now you see those members out there saying: “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to put more costs on farmers, but it won’t have any effect on food whatsoever.” Well, that is the sort of economics that they are trying to sell to New Zealanders that just will not work.
Then there is the vexed issue of capital gains. I think—
Hon Member: Ha, ha!
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Oh, they laugh. They laugh—right? Hard-working New Zealanders who have made a few quid are going to have to pay more under them, and they laugh. That is very, very, very sad.
I would suggest to Jacinda Ardern that she should today tell the House the terms of reference that she will give to that bunch of left-wing economists to work out the tax system. [Interruption] I do not mind saying that—it is absolutely true. There should be a great deal more clarity around water tax—a huge amount more clarity around the water tax. To suddenly say “Oh, when we’re in Government, we’ll have better information, so we’ll know how much we can charge them.” flies in the face of a party in Government that says it will not work.
I think that as we go towards the election day, the great call that says “Just do it.” will be beaten by a Government that is delivering, and will deliver, for New Zealanders.
JACINDA ARDERN (Leader of the Opposition): Them there are fighting words, and I have to say I take the fact that the speaker who just resumed his seat, Gerry Brownlee, spent 80 percent of his time talking about the Labour Party as some kind of awkward flattery. But an adjournment speech does come with some tradition, and so I do want to spend some time acknowledging, as is tradition, those who support us in this House over the course of a term.
Mr Speaker, you are amongst those, as is the Clerk of the House, the Office of the Clerk staff, the Table Office, the Bills Office, Hansard, interpretation, select committee staff, parliamentary relations—basically, to everyone who is forced to listen to MPs and their words and their discourse, we of course owe our thanks. There are the buildings team, contractor staff, the Serjeant-at-Arms, security, our wonderful messengers, Parliamentary Library. A special thanks to the Datacom team, who I know share my relentless positivity in the face of great adversity—of great adversity. There are Epicure staff, the cleaning staff, Parliamentary Service, and my team of Clare-Louise Chapman, my Senior Private Secretary, who has gone through dramatic change in recent times; Neale Jones and the leader’s office team; Emma Williams in our whip’s office team; MPs’ executive assistants; and our out-of-office staff. They are a group of people in this country who are the front line of democratic services. They are the ones without whom people’s voices would not be heard. We own them our debt of thanks, and we say to all of them: “We’ll see you soon, even if it’s on the other side of the House.”
Today marks the end of the parliamentary term but the beginning of the campaign of our lives. This campaign is not about victory for the sake of it. Campaigns have never been about just the race or the run/walk, because winning is not the destination. Campaigns are about change. They are about what is possible, and 23 September marks opportunity and the 24 September marks the beginning—it marks the beginning. Now, as far as I am concerned—yes, they say in politics that campaigns are lost by those Governments that are in charge, but this time this election will be won by us, because this is our moment. This is our moment to show that even if the odd New Zealander feels OK, or even if they feel indifferent, we can be better. This Government has achieved what it came to do, and now it is time to do things differently.
That means we do not have to accept having the highest homelessness in the OECD. We do not need to accept that. We do not have to accept declining homeownership, as the Government has done. We do not have to accept that it will be a given that children, particularly in winter, will do their homework in a car by torchlight. We also do not have to accept that there will be families who are now at Te Puea Marae—and I acknowledge the work that they do, but they have families, and a family there in particular, a mother of nine, who thinks it is her fault that she has lost her rental accommodation. That is a family in work that cannot find housing. That we do not have to accept. We do not have to accept the highest teen suicide rates in the OECD or children not being able find mental health care, and we certainly do not accept 70,000 young people not being in employment, education, or training. It will never be a given for this party that 60 percent of our rivers will be degraded and unswimmable. That will never, ever be acceptable on our watch.
We believe things can be better, and under Labour they will be better. We can make homeownership possible again by building homes, by banning foreign overseas buyers from investing in our residential market, and by closing tax loopholes. We can house the homeless. That means stopping selling State houses and actually building some State houses and making sure we have emergency beds. We can give young people work and hope through Ready for Work and through investing back in employers to take on apprentices again. It is a simple initiative but one that they have supported and asked for. On mental health—something I feel particularly strongly about—why can we not start with nurses in every school and 80 full-time professionals in Christchurch working with kids who need it most? Why can we not do that? When it comes to our rivers, we will not accept that it is too hard. We will not accept that, and we will not accept a position that we simply sit back and allow this degradation to continue. We have set our standards and our sights higher no matter how hard that proposition might be.
While we will continue to talk about what is possible on this side of the House and how we can be better, you are probably going to hear a little bit of scaremongering during this campaign. In fact, you may or may not have just heard 10 minutes of it from the previous speaker. Not only scaremongering—I do not mean to use such disparaging language about Mr Brownlee—but you will hear policies that do not even exist being thrown around this House and thrown around this debate.
You will hear, as well, that lifting everyone will come at the cost of the economy and that our view that we can lift everyone and have a more prosperous nation will come at the cost of the economy. From us, you will hear different. We do not have to accept falling GDP per capita. If you want to talk about the economy, Mr Brownlee, let us talk about the economy.
We have to make sure that a strong economy means people feeling better off. Currently having two-thirds of people in work with wage packets that are not keeping pace with inflation is unacceptable to the Labour Party—that is unacceptable to the Labour Party. A strong economy is not just measured by GDP; it is measured by how people fare, and if you ask New Zealanders whether or not they feel better off and whether they are going forwards or backwards, I can predict the answer that they will give you.
If you want to talk about the economy this election, then game on—game on—because on Labour’s side we actually have an intention to lift our economic sights, and, Mr Brownlee, that starts by talking about productivity. In fact, just in the last week the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Brian Fallow, and Bernard Doyle from JBWere have all raised the fact that productivity in New Zealand is hugely problematic and this Government has done nothing about it—absolutely nothing about it. This is where our weakness and our vulnerability lie. Where is the investment in lifting the skills of our workers? Where is the focus on the threat that automation presents for our workforce?
We should be making sure that education is not just a destination but a conveyor belt that we dip in and dip out of. That is why Labour has promoted 3 years of free tertiary, polytech, apprenticeship, or industry training for our workforce, because of our failure to improve our productivity. It is about educating our workforce.
It is about investing in our regions—they are our forgotten voters, Mr Brownlee. They are absolutely our forgotten voters. I ask you: when was the last time you visited Gisborne? When was the last time you asked there, Mr Brownlee, about the investment in regional economic development? We will partner with councils and economic development agencies to deliver projects that will deliver jobs.
Finally, some of the worst investment in innovation relative to other countries we compare ourselves with—and that is another reason why our productivity is not lifting. We need an R & D tax credit. That will give certainty to businesses when they are investing in their future and in our future.
We can do all of that together—all of that together—and I do not accept that when it comes to the economy the status quo is acceptable. We have lifted our sights higher. We want to work with business, with employers, and with employees on making sure that our economy delivers for everyone. We are not satisfied. New Zealand can be better. We can all be better. The Government can be better. And our intent is that on 23 September we will show just how much better we can be, so “Let’s Do This.”
JAMES SHAW (Leader—Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Well, what a year it has been in New Zealand politics. Of course, we began the year with a new Prime Minister, and we will start next year in exactly the same way. I do not want to say who I think the next Prime Minister of New Zealand should be, because I want this to be an impartial and an objective speech, but I do hope that she is someone who can let her hair down in the role a bit, someone who will bring energy and joy to New Zealand politics—kind of like a DJ does, whoever she may be. I do have to say that New Zealand’s original young hipster Prime Minister was, of course, actually, in 1856, Edward Stafford, who, at 37 years old, was just a touch younger than Jacinda Ardern and had an even more hipster beard than Gareth Hughes.
The election campaign, of course, has already begun. Bill English has hired the finest publicists, social media advisers, and big data analysts in the country to show us what a real and genuine person he is. His predecessor, John Key—right now his job is to play golf on behalf of an opera singing Shinto priest billionaire, and he is still more relatable to the average Kiwi than Bill English is. This was the year that, after insisting that we were not a tax haven, the Government finally buckled to pressure and closed the loopholes in our foreign trust laws, and a few minutes later three-quarters of all the foreign trusts operating in New Zealand closed down. Now, we will not ever get to find out who owned them or where the money came from or what they were doing with it, but the Prime Minister is very eager to talk about his walk/runs. We have a new finance Minister.
This was also the year that Parliament lost Todd Barclay, and it was the year that Parliament found out that it had Todd Barclay. Simon Bridges, the Minister of Transport—[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Mr Bennett.
JAMES SHAW: Mr Bennett. Simon Bridges, the Minister of Transport, has been urgently putting off Auckland’s airport rail link until the year 2050. If you want to find out the cost-benefit ratio of his latest motorway project, 2050 is also the year that he will get back to you on your Official Information Act request. In the meantime, the Prime Minister would like us to look at his pizza toppings.
Annette King, of course, is leaving Parliament after first being elected 33 years ago. Prior to joining the Labour Party caucus, she trained as a dental nurse. Her job was to sedate those who were in pain and to clear out rotten cavities. And she also worked as a dental nurse.
The Labour Party, of course, has really stepped up and has been ruthlessly and relentlessly dedicated to taking out the Government in Canberra. For a country that spends less on R & D than virtually any other country in the world, you have to admit that weaponising our citizenship laws is pretty innovative, and I would like to see Gerry Brownlee do any better, given his track record of standing up to Australians.
Now, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the help and the support that we count on from the Clerks, the parliamentary librarians, the ushers, the security staff, and the cleaners. It is often said—because it is true—that this place would not function without you. Your work in the background, mostly unseen, is a reminder of the role that so many New Zealanders play in our workforce that can all too easily go unnoticed and undervalued. With that in mind, the National Government might want to rethink its stance on cutting mental health workers out of its pay equity deal with aged-care workers.
I want to thank the parliamentary staff of the Green Party and to apologise for ruining every single evening and weekend of your lives for the last month, and the next month and the months after that. Thank you for all of your hard work and sacrifice.
Speaking of hard work and sacrifice, thank you so much to the members of the Green Party caucus who are leaving this year. Dave Clendon, Steffan Browning, Kennedy Graham, and Catherine Delahunty—thank you for all of your years of service. We will miss your courage, your values, and your wisdom, and I know that the end of your time in Parliament will not be the end of your service to New Zealand, nor the end of your struggle for environmental and social justice. Ka whawhai tonu mātou—our struggle is without end.
Finally, I want to acknowledge Metiria. Child poverty was not an issue that most parliamentarians in New Zealand wanted to talk about. You made it an issue that every politician has to talk about. You stood in this Chamber and you spoke up for those who could not speak for themselves, and the next Government of New Zealand will have an end to poverty, the restoration of our rivers, and leadership on climate change at the top of its Order Paper. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will see you in 6 weeks.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): This being the last sitting day of this Parliament, New Zealand First wants to thank many people at this institution: the library staff, security, cleaning staff, the messengers, the buildings team, IT staff, Chamber staff, the Clerk’s office, Bellamy’s, Copperfields, and the office staff, particularly of New Zealand First. Then we want to thank all of those staff who work in our five offices in Northland—in Warkworth, Whangarei, Kerikeri, Kaitāia, and Dargaville. It is not like the old days, where there was one office and nobody turning up at all. It is a new regime here, and I want to tell all those people who know that I live in a place called Whananaki that the National Party’s greatest attack in this campaign is to try to say that somebody who has been in Northland for a thousand years does not belong there. That is how stupid those members are.
I also want to say to a number of people—Brett Hudson, Matt Doocey, Barbara Kuriger, Melissa Lee, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, Jian Yang, Parmjeet Parmar, Joanne Hayes, Chris Bishop, Nuk Korako, and Maureen Pugh—that I am going to move a motion that we extend the valedictory time for them to make their last speech. I have seen the future in the polls, and we, over here, have not started yet. We know how illusory those polls are. We know that whatever they say about us, you can add on another 30 to 50 percent, and that is why the cohesive, stable organisation of New Zealand First is going to be so important over the next 5 weeks.
You know, the problem with education is that you have got to be able to count, and in this Parliament we have got a Government that simply cannot count. It is such a basic, fundamental skill. That is why it is one of the first things that we teach young children—how they can count—and if they cannot count, well, things get very troubled very, very quickly. How else would you explain, for example, why there are parties in this Parliament that somehow think we can bring between 55,000 and 73,000 into this country and then go out on the campaign and front up for Auckland’s housing infrastructure and also the medical and educational infrastructure—every structure there is under stress—and claim that you have got an answer or a solution? How could you honestly do that?
My prospect in this campaign—and so is that of my colleagues—is to ensure that New Zealanders can count, because if you are going into this campaign and you are going to Auckland and you are saying “We’ve got a policy and a solution for you, and that includes 53,000 to 73,000 net immigration, and 226,000 work visas.”, that is over 310,000 coming in every year. If you are going to go ahead and do that, then you have not got a policy in any area of infrastructure. Do not point at those members. I know it looks like a mirror, but I am looking at you—I am looking at you. Any party in this Parliament that believes that with mass immigration, we will somehow eat our way out of this—we will consumer-indulge ourselves out of this—knows nothing about economics and knows nothing about the truth of politics.
In this campaign one party understands that unless we address that matter and unless we stop this going on, then anything else we might say is a febrile and illusory nonsense. How can you talk about having a housing policy when you cannot even house the volume you have got coming in? They are getting off the planes at Māngere airport and you cannot even house, educate, medically treat, or in any way look after them. So every other New Zealander, from Invercargill to Kaitāia, is now suspended—second on the list. It is dishonest. You are not going to win if you are a mass immigration supporter in this country.
I want to say straight off: go on our Facebook. You will see the thousands of people who are new immigrants who back New Zealand First because being Chinese, with the abacus—they can count. They can count. All sorts of names—all new immigrants. They understand that you cannot binge on consumerism, because the very essence of being an Asian is saving, it is looking after your own people first, and it is nationalism. It is China first, Japan first, Singapore first, Indonesia first, and they understand a party that believes in New Zealand First.
You are not going to win this campaign by fronting up at seminars and saying you have got an answer for Auckland transport that says 45,000 more cars are going to go on that gridlock every day and make it worse and worse. You will not get away with that. And you will not be able to say you are going to provide for trains either, when they know full well that Auckland’s infrastructural needs are blowing out of all proportion to any other population. It is dangerous, and one party understands it.
They cannot even count when they do not understand that there is a party in Parliament that believes in one law for all—the same law regardless of your background. We do not mind some of those people over there with an Irish background or a Scots background or an Indian background. No, we do not. We want there to be one law for all—not the parallel universe that you all in this House believe in.
One party is different. We know that our only future is by 4.8 million New Zealanders, old and new, confronting the world as one country all together. One party understands that. The rest are so scared and so PC driven that the very things that their young people need they would deny while they go down this pathway of ideological fellow-travellerism and weakness. One party understands that, and in this campaign, in the next 5 weeks, we are going to make sure that your fellow New Zealanders get to know who that party is more.
We are going to cut straight past the media, because the wonderful thing about social media in this country right now and the utilities is that you can go on being a bombast like Gerry and just a noise rocket, or you can be a party of substance talking about great issues and principles and an ideology that this country was founded on, which is that we are as good as anybody in the world.
Jack is as good as his master, but Jack, back then, used to get a fair go. Now, today, we have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people working their heart out, working longer hours than ever, working the second-longest hours in the OECD, going flat out, being good citizens, being law-abiding, picking their kids up on Saturday morning, going to the sport, doing their utmost, and guess what? It is keeping them now under the middle class, and they are all treading water.
They have had enough. They have had enough of mass immigration. They have had enough of a National Party obsessed with Auckland and the problems that it and other parties have created because they did not look after their own people first. Down there in the deep south, in Invercargill and Gore and places like that, like in Northland, where the real wealth is created with the hard-working, grinding sweat of ordinary people, who National treats as being second-class citizens, who National says to “Keep quiet. We’re the adults here. We’re not listening to you.” Oh, National turned up last night down there, and it chose a new candidate. Guess who they chose? A 32-year-old banker. That is just what the people of Otago-Southland need—a banker. A banker. They would not know one end of the cow from the other. They would not know one end of the bull from the other, either. But no, National has had the procession of these ideological clones, but the sad fact is that we have done the analysis on these polls, and they say that so many of your colleagues should be giving a valedictory.
The last thing I want to say to you is that when this Parliament started I warned all you backbenchers about why you should pay attention, why you should not trust these people up front, why they are no good, why they have not got ability, and why they have not got capacity. I remember the very speech that day—the first time Parliament opened. I told you to watch out for them because they would sink you. And, sadly, they have. They may not thank you, but I thank you for at least being here and being able to listen to a warning. And when you leave here, you will be a much wiser person. In fact, before you even get home this weekend, I suggest you will be going around saying “I should’ve listened to New Zealand First. I should’ve paid attention. When he talked about the Reserve Bank Act and running the country for the hard-working people who create wealth rather than the ephemeral consumerists of Auckland, I should’ve paid attention. I should’ve ignored the guy down at Tauranga and Bay of Plenty—all Brylcreem and no suds, and his next door neighbour, ‘$10 Tauranga’.” Let me ask you tomorrow at Red Square in Tauranga, at midday—it will be wall to wall, and we will see how good you guys are then.
Mr Speaker, I just want to say thank you very much, as well, for letting me extend my speech.
Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Hei whaiwhai haere i ngā kōrero kua kōrerohia i tēnei ahiahi, ka tapirihia atu e Te Pati Māori ōna mihi ki a koe, otirā, ki a tātau katoa ngā ringaringa o Te Whare Pāremata, i kaha nei ki te hāpai, ki te āwhina, ki te tiaki i a tātau. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa me te kī atu, hoi anō, me whakatā mō ngā 5 wiki, tai hoake nei kua hoki mai ētahi o tēnei hunga ki roto i ngā pakitara o Te Whare.
[To follow up on the contributions delivered this afternoon, the Māori Party adds its tributes to you but at the same time to all of us, the hands of Parliament, who worked hard to support, help, and take care of ourselves. A huge appreciation to you all and, saying at the same time, we will rest for 5 weeks, and then some of these ones will come back soon enough inside the walls of the House.]
I stand and follow up on the comments that have been made by other speakers ahead of me on behalf of the Māori Party. I bring happiness and joy from the Māori Party to say to you, Mr Speaker, and to all the other officials who have sat in the Speaker’s Chair, that I very much appreciated the effort and the way that you have conducted affairs in the House. I think it has been fair and down the middle, and I very much appreciate that and, indeed, your efforts in respect of Te Reo Māori over the time.
The Office of the Clerk and Hansard staff—thank you so much. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou. To the security people who look after us all of the time; the librarians whom we can get information from; all of the service people; ministerial support—I learnt about becoming a Minister this term—and Parliamentary Service staff, thank you. I make a special mention to Briar down in the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and those people involved there, for the efforts she gave in respect of Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill and Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori/Māori Language Bill. Please accept my huge appreciation for the work that you did to prepare that legislation.
I want to also acknowledge my friends, the best people who look after us as Ministers—the VIP drivers. We have a regular competition about trivial pursuits on songs on the radio. To the King, I say you are there for a short space of time, and I will continue to have the competitions, I hope, into the future. To the staff, the cleaners, and in particular all of our electorate staff, and some of our staff within the ranks of the Māori Party, thank you so much. Kei ngā wāhine, kei ngā tāne e noho nā ki roto i ngā pakitara o Te Whare Copperfields [To you women and men sitting there within the walls of the House’s Copperfields]—not that I go there too often, because I am too busy training with the Hon Alfred Ngaro and the Hon Mark Mitchell, when they turn up.
I want to thank all the other parties in our House for our interactions. While we do not always agree, at least we work together away from the camera, and that is most important. To the Māori Party volunteers throughout the country, to our caucus national executive, and to officials from Te Puni Kōkiri, thank you so much. Also, thank you to the officials of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. One of the great things I have managed be able to pull together is our virtual policy unity, which is a major breakthrough in agencies working together.
I thank our advisers, who give us just that little bit of steel from time to time. I thank our office staff, and in particular I give a special mention right now to Lisa Turia, who has had to go back to a tangi in Whanganui. I just want to mention her as being one who has been with the Māori Party since we first came here with her mother. She may not be returning into the future, so I want to acknowledge her today.
I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Bill English, for the way that he has maintained the relationship accord with the Māori Party, and, indeed, Sir John Key, for the way that he respected, again, our accord that was set up some 9 years ago. I think it has been great how we worked together, and, indeed, all the other Ministers of the Crown. Thank you for being nice when I have gone to Cabinet with special papers.
I want to say, just finally, thank you everybody for everything. Good luck on the election trail. But I did want to leave with one story. It is sort of a touching story. It came when I was out on the election trail just recently. Of course, as you do, people stop you and they say: “Well, how are you doing? We think you’re all right.” This particular lady came up to me and she said these sorts of words:
I can’t stop loving you
I’ve made up my mind
To vote for the Māori Party
Cos you’re our kind
I can’t stop loving you
And you don’t have to pay
So you’ll get both my votes
When we get to election day
I’ve voted blue
I’ve voted red
This time around
You’re it instead
I’ve realised that now
You are the best
You’re my No. 1
Too bad—belt the rest
That Marama Fox
She’s way out there
You get around
And show you care
And you, the shark
You are the man
Māori Party is it
I’m so much of a fan
I can’t stop loving you
I’ve made up my mind
To vote for Māori Party
Cos you’re the right kind
I can’t stop loving you
And you don’t have to pay
So you’ll get both my votes
When it comes to election day
Oh yeah.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): One of my greatest motivations for increasing ACT’s polling is to overtake the Māori Party so that I will not have such a hard musical act to follow every time I speak in the adjournment debate each year. I would like to thank a number of people around the parliamentary precinct—even ICT—including the library; the clerks; and yourself, Mr Speaker, for your judicious judgment over the House, along with the deputies and assistants that you have. I would like to thank the parliamentary security and all of those who support us doing our day-to-day work.
I would particularly like to thank my own team here in Wellington and also our team in Auckland, who have worked so hard to serve the people of the Epsom electorate and help me to discharge the duties that I have had in education, in regulatory reform, and here in Parliament. I would like to thank the Ministry of Education and Treasury for the support that they have given me in my under-secretarial roles, and I would like to thank my colleagues around Parliament—even the Opposition, for trying to hold the Government to account, and whose members have come here with the best of intentions and have been a lot of fun to work with, and against, at different times. Good luck to you.
I would particularly like to thank my colleagues on this side of the House: Te Ururoa Flavell, Marama, Peter, and all of my colleagues; John Key, Bill English, and all of the other National Ministers for all of the work that we have been able to do together to make New Zealand a better place. By and large, it has been a fantastic time to work together. I would like to acknowledge Hekia Parata, who is here today and whom I worked with most closely on partnership schools kura hourua, the policy of which I am most proud of all. I would like to thank the press gallery for their superb reporting on all of ACT’s excellent policies and would like to encourage them to keep doing it for another 5 weeks with renewed vigour and volume.
I would like to thank the people of the Epsom electorate, because there is no greater honour than being elected by your neighbours, and sent to Wellington to represent their interests. I hope, to the people in Epsom listening at home, that you are happy with the job that I have done, and I will be coming to see you on the doorstep in the next 5 weeks just to see about a wee extension of time for another 3 years.
I would also like to thank the ACT Party—all of those people who have stuck with me, a single, rookie MP, re-establishing a party that has had its challenges but that I think everyone here will acknowledge is looking better, stabler, and stronger than it has for a very long time. I cannot wait to take that proposition to the voters up and down New Zealand this year.
The theme of our campaign this year is “Own Your Future”, and it alludes to the No. 1 issue in this campaign, which is housing. Old “Mr Mussolini” over here thinks that housing is a problem because of immigration. Well, there are people on the other side of the House who are concerned about income inequality; they are concerned, really, about housing. The fact of the matter is that no matter which side of the political divide you find yourself on, the numbers do not lie. Nick Smith gets up in this House—and I admire his tenacity—and tries to persuade the people that we are actually in the middle of a record building boom, when the practical reality is that the number of residential units consented in the last year is half what it was at New Zealand’s real peak in 1974, when we built twice as many homes per capita without nail guns, without half of the technology that we had today, and also without any of the red tape, regulation, and lack of infrastructure funding that holds back the construction of housing in New Zealand today.
If we really want, as someone said earlier, for Jack to be as good as his master, and if we really want people to be able to have the security and the access to a secure future and to own their future, then we have to accept that the market as it is currently regulated is hamstrung and has been unable to deliver houses that people want, in locations they can get to, at prices they can afford. The only way that we are going to deliver that is to fundamentally reform the Resource Management Act—in fact, reform has not worked; we have to replace it.
The problem we have had in this Parliament is summed up in a conversation I had with John Key. I said: “John, when are we going to reform the RMA?”.
Hon Simon Bridges: Sir John to you, sunshine!
DAVID SEYMOUR: John, as he was then—thanks, Gerry. Sir John, as he is now, said to me: “Well, you know, we’ve got 59 votes and you’ve got 1. Do you know anyone else in Parliament who might be keen to do substantial reform of the Resource Management Act?”. So we went to Labour. I once said to Andrew Little: “We need to reform the RMA. This could be your smacking moment. You could cross the House, give the Government the votes, and make New Zealand a better place.” Well, Andrew Little never took advantage of that—so much for him.
Winston Peters said he would give the votes, but the problem with Winston Peters is that he is the best Opposition politician this country has ever seen and the worst governing politician this country has ever seen: sacked from three Cabinets by three different Prime Ministers, voted out of two electorates so far, and the third electorate has not had a chance yet—but do not worry, the people of Northland, it is only 36 days away. So he could not help, because, fundamentally, he cannot be trusted to do what he says he is going to do.
Our colleagues in the Māori Party seem to believe it is more important to be consulted about someone else building a house than to have one for yourself—and that is a shame. Peter Dunne told us that Sir Geoffrey Palmer told him that the principles of the RMA are “sacrosanct” and we could not reform it. So where does that leave us if we want to reform the biggest handbrake on this economy and the biggest constraint on building the homes that we all know New Zealanders want to build and need to build? The only way that you are going to get substantial reform of the underlying regulation that has stopped us building the homes that New Zealanders want and need is to give your party vote to the ACT Party. It is not a political conjecture; it is just a matter of fact. Going around the House, looking at people’s positions, counting up the numbers—we can count and if we want to be able to count to 61 on RMA reform, the only safe vote is to vote for the ACT Party—not to reform it but to replace it so that a country that has one of the lowest population densities on the planet will be able to use that land for the benefit of the next generation, building the homes that every other generation has enjoyed.
There is one other issue where the ACT Party is the only credible vote, and that is on the issue of education. Partnership schools kura hourua up and down this country, in Taupō, in Hawke’s Bay, in Rotorua, in Auckland, in Northland, and in Hamilton are changing kids’ lives for the better. The Opposition has spent so much time opposing them that I cannot work out any more why it is so opposed to success and greater opportunity for the kids in New Zealand who need it most.
There is a theme here. If we want Jack to be as good as his master—as someone said earlier in this debate—if you want equal opportunity for all New Zealanders to be their best, the free markets work pretty well. Poor people in New Zealand do not lack for electronics or cars or clothing or even food—all of those things that we provide on the free market are widely available. What the poorest people in New Zealand need and lack is a warm, dry home at a price they can afford and in a location where they want to be, and a world-class education, regardless of where that location might happen to be. And only the ACT Party is saying that we actually want people to be more equal and have more equal opportunity, but the way to do it is not going to be more Government taxes, more politicians with grand Government schemes, more regulations, more “we know best”—it is actually going to be to set New Zealanders free with more opportunity, more flexibility, lighter regulation, and a greater range of options in education.
Mr Speaker, if you missed any of that, please consider purchasing my new book Own Your Future, which sets out these ideas, and many more, in a very readable 189 pages, and Mr Speaker, I look forward to seeing you back here, bright and early, after 23 September.
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): We are now into the dying moments of this, the 51st New Zealand Parliament, and judging by the looks on the faces opposite, it is clear we are in the dying days of this National Government. If Mr Brownlee’s speech was anything to go by, it was all backwards looking. It was like one of those best hits albums that is reproduced multiple times after the band has run out of material to use. But I have got a message for the members opposite when they huddle back to their offices and watch the 6 o’clock news tonight: we are just getting started, and we will spend every moment in the next 5½ weeks fighting for every single vote. We will win the confidence of the New Zealand people over the next few weeks by convincing them that New Zealand can be better. This is not as good as it gets. We can provide housing for everyone. We can clean up our rivers. We can deliver healthcare to those who need it, and we can meet the challenge—the massive challenge—of climate change. We can upgrade our schools and provide kids with genuine 21st century learning. We can eliminate child poverty in this country, in New Zealand. And we can raise incomes and provide opportunities for all New Zealanders and jobs for all those who need them.
It has been quite a week for me in this House. I just want to put a few rumours to bed. I do want to make it absolutely clear that the rumour that I have been drafted to prove that half of this week’s Bledisloe Cup Wallabies team are, in fact, New Zealanders is patently untrue. I have had quite a week, and I do want to reflect somewhat soberly on that for a moment. It is difficult to stand in front of the New Zealand public and the Parliament and admit that one has made a mistake. I have had to do that this week. I am not afraid to admit when I have made a mistake, and I did make a mistake earlier this week. I want to thank my colleagues for their support and their tolerance of that. It is not easy to front up and say that you have done something that you should not have done. I did that and it was not easy, and I want to thank people for their tolerance and their willingness to move past that.
As we enter the final moments of the Parliament, I would like to take an opportunity to thank a few people, and one of them is you, Mr Speaker. I would like to thank you for your collegiality, particularly outside the House if not so much inside the House, and the good humour with which you have approached the job. I would like to thank Chester Borrows and Lindsay Tisch, who are both leaving, for their fair chairmanship of the House, particularly in the Committee stage. It is difficult to be a Chairman of the House when the Opposition is getting stuck into you, but we have certainly appreciated your willingness to humour us on occasion, to give us a fair hearing, and to protect the rights of the minority in this House, which is one of the very important roles that presiding officers take. We have appreciated the fact—
Kris Faafoi: Why don’t you mention Trevor?
CHRIS HIPKINS: —that you have done that. I will not mention Trevor, no. I would like to acknowledge all of those members who have delivered valedictories and who are not returning to Parliament after the election: my colleagues Sue Moroney and Clayton Cosgrove, and my very good friend and work mother, the Hon Annette King, whom I will certainly miss the company of.
I want to acknowledge all the members opposite who have given their valedictories, and I do want to particularly acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata, who has been my sparring partner in the House on more than one occasion over that time. While I have disagreed with many of the decisions that she has made as Minister of Education, and while we have certainly had some robust exchanges in the House and in the media, I want to genuinely acknowledge her passion for education and for the children of New Zealand. It is a very difficult job that you did for 5 years, and I do wish you all the very best for the future, whatever that may be.
I also want to acknowledge a group of people who do not get acknowledged in this House often enough, and that is the families of members of Parliament. We do a difficult job. We are in the media. We get scrutinised a lot. We put ourselves up for that; that is part of it. But our families pay an enormously high price for that—all of them pay a high price for that—particularly so when we are in a little bit of trouble, as I have been reminded of over the past week. But I think it is important that we acknowledge that, whilst we enter this House and we put ourselves up for scrutiny, they pay a huge cost for us being here—all of them. I want to acknowledge the families of all members of the House and thank them for their willingness to make that sacrifice as we endeavour to make New Zealand a better place.
I want to thank all of the cleaners, the parliamentary staff, the Office of the Clerk, the Chamber and gallery staff, the people who work in the leader’s office, all of our executive assistants, and our electorate staff. I would like to thank the whip’s team, who worked with me when I was the chief whip and who now work with my colleagues Kris Faafoi and Carmel Sepuloni—in particular, Emma Williams and Peter Hoare. Peter Hoare is a fountain of knowledge around Parliament, and he has certainly, I think, helped us to lift our game in the House, and I want to thank him for that.
Finally, I would like to end with thanks to one person who is also leaving Parliament and whose departure from Parliament should also be marked today. She is someone who has given 42 years of service to this Parliament without any fuss and without ever being acknowledge properly, and that is Sheryl Grace, who is a member of the Parliamentary Service security team. She is up in the gallery this evening. I think all of us around the House would acknowledge that we are incredibly well served by the people who work in this place, the parliamentary staff. Sheryl, on behalf of all of us, thank you for your years of service, and we wish you all the very best for whatever the future may hold for you as well.
That is the totality of the contribution I intend to make in this speech. I look forward to seeing members back after the election. Good luck to all for the next 5 weeks. Happy campaigning.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the House): It is fantastic to speak in this adjournment debate and to follow Chris Hipkins. It was a good speech. He got round to a sort of, almost, maybe, possibly, kind of apology there for his “weekus horribilis”, I think they call it. It is not that hard: “I apologise.” But can I agree with Chris Hipkins that it is a hard job, but it is even harder for families, and I acknowledge the various thanks that he made, which were absolutely right and which we agree with, acknowledging also Hekia Parata and the sparring between them. What a contribution she has made to New Zealand.
Of course, it is customary to do a lot of thankyous. Can I thank you, Mr Speaker—chief zookeeper in this place—for the job that you have done. As someone who has now had a bit more time with you up close, I can say you do it with aplomb and you do a great job for this House, so thank you. I thank, also, as we have heard, Chester and Lindsay, who are retiring and who have made fine contributions, particularly as officers of Parliament. Can I thank the staff of Parliament and of the Government, whether it is the cleaners, whether it is the caterers, whether it is security. We have heard about Sheryl, and we just thank her for her service. To the librarians, Hansard officers, the Clerk’s Office, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the Cabinet Office, the research unit, ICT, all of those who have been involved, and staff across parties who have found ingenious ways to try to catch me out on Official Information Act requests and written questions over time—but I am up to the task—thank you all for what you do and the role you play in this Parliament and in democracy.
Can I thank and acknowledge all of the colleagues who are retiring—on both sides, though particularly, of course, for us on this side those whom we have worked so closely with. I see around me Chester, Lindsay, and Hekia. I think I saw Craig and others, as well—Todd is up there. Can I just acknowledge your contribution to this House and the great work that you have done. And, of course, you are, just like us, the ones remaining behind, entirely energised for the campaign ahead, what we have got to do, and the tough but strong campaign that we will be waging.
Most of all, I am sure members on this side of the House will want to join me in thanking the person who is leading us, and leading us, we believe, to victory, the right honourable Prime Minister of New Zealand, Bill English. What we know is as Minister of Finance of this country and now as Prime Minister, he has taken us from the tough times, actually, to the much better times, and there are better times to come under this Government. Whether it has been the global financial crisis, whether it has been earthquakes—we have heard from the Hon Gerry Brownlee about the $15 billion of damage and the work that has gone on there year after year—whether it has been the Rena, whether it has been Pike River, there has been a steady hand at the tiller, but also one that has brought a lot of experience and innovation in social investment and other areas, and that is our Prime Minister. He has had the criticism from the other side of being a rock; well, I say he should wear it with pride, because he has taken us from tough times actually to better times, and there are better ones to come. His strength, his stability, and his knowledge of this place are second to none, and we thank him for his role.
This is a country that today is absolutely, I believe, upbeat and aspirational—more upbeat and aspirational than it has been for some years. It is travelling in the right direction, and I believe that most New Zealanders understand that. And it is because, actually, when it comes to the economy we have got growth of 3 percent. We have had growth every quarter, I think it is now, for the last 7 years in this country. We have got employment that is nearly the strongest in the OECD—I think the strongest ever in New Zealand’s history. We have got unemployment that is falling, and that means more people able to get jobs, able to get ahead, able to provide for their family in a system that, because it is going well, is able to pay for the things that New Zealanders expect and deserve. We have heard already from the Hon Gerry Brownlee, but we have a country where all of the regions are growing, actually, where fundamentally we have got an economy diversifying into all sorts of areas, and we should be proud of where we are as a country and from where we have come over the last few years.
We on this side of the House are incredibly focused on New Zealand, on its issues, and on the economy. You did not hear that from Labour in its two speeches. It has got sort of a “2-minute microwave meal” view of the economy—you rip the cardboard off, you put it in, and you walk away. That is what we have got on the other side of the House. We heard, of course, from the Labour leader in a speech that sounded a little like a Whitney Houston song, I have to say, on repeat. We have heard there—
Kris Faafoi: You’re a big fan.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Eventually, Kris, she did mention the economy—once, at the end. She strayed into our field, she realised her error, and she quickly moved on. She got off the patch. I do not think we heard it once from Chris Hipkins. Well, on this side—from Gerry Brownlee, from me, from any National speaker who would get up, you would hear from them about the economy, because we realise that it is the economy that needs ongoing, persistent effort in this country to do the things that New Zealanders need, to pay for the environment. It is only countries that have got strong books that can have better environments and have the solutions in those areas—in health, in social welfare, in all of those areas.
The Labour Party, we know, wants a breather. There is a very clear contrast. It, along with New Zealand First and the Greens, wants to slow down immigration. It wants to slow down the inward investment. It wants to stop the trade. It thinks that somehow the Trans-Pacific Partnership and opening us up to 40 percent of the world’s economy is a bad thing. It says “Actually, let’s put a handbrake on this.”, with more taxes—I think at the moment it is about three a week, but Grant is just getting started. I can tell from his smile. There is his capital gains tax, water taxes, and regional fuel tax—and more to come.
I remember, as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new candidate in—
Grant Robertson: Oh, it is your valedictory.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No, no. You will have to wait a few years for that. You may even be here, Grant. I remember those adverts with John Key and the Cake Tin, and that many—what was it; 30-something thousand people a year were leaving this country. Now we have come from those times—the brain drain—when people were leaving, to a country where people want to stay. They know that this is a better place, that there is more to come, and that we are moving in the right direction.
They know—they want to come home from all around the world. They know that we have got the answers that New Zealand needs on the modern issues, whether it is environmental issues, and there were a series of announcements that we made over the last week or two; whether it is in mental health, where we have taken a very evidence-based approach from Dr Jonathan Coleman on those issues; whether it is dealing, as Amy Adams has, with the 150 hardest youth in our society and having good, strong answers, evidence-based, to hard questions. This is a party, on this side of the House, that is energised, that knows New Zealand is going in the right direction, that knows we have the answers to the modern issues that New Zealand faces, and that has gone from tougher times to better times, and, under this Government, with the right decision on 23 September, there will be better times to come.
Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, the 51st Parliament has certainly been a busy one. It has sat for a total of 257 calendar days—so, more than the statistics suggested by the Leader of the House earlier, and certainly more than the 50th Parliament when we sat for only 238 calendar days. We have sat for a total of 1,544 hours, as opposed to 1,409 hours in the previous Parliament. The Government has passed 272 bills, and we have passed three local bills, four private bills, and six members’ bills. I have presided over 2,988 questions for oral answer, including 60 questions to members and four urgent questions. I do not have a percentage of how many were answered to the satisfaction of the questioner.
During the 51st Parliament, we have seen a seamless transition to David Wilson as Clerk, and I want to take this opportunity of thanking him and his team, on behalf of all members of Parliament, for the professional and apolitical way that advice is given to us all. My personal thanks to you, David, for your guidance through some very tricky issues that I have had to contend with, and to Andie in the office for settling both of us when our nerves were frayed at times, often with a very fattening cupcake.
The other organisation I engage with on a daily basis is Parliamentary Service, and Parliamentary Service continues to make good progress as it repositions that organisation with a real focus on the needs and the challenges of members of Parliament as they carry out their duties both here in Wellington and in their electorates. So a very special thanks from me to the general manager, David Stevenson, and Corinne Messenger, and to the senior leadership team.
To my fellow presiding officers, the Hon Chester Borrows, Lindsay Tisch, and the Hon Trevor Mallard: thank you for sharing our workload and for the support and advice that you have given to me. With the retirement of Chester, and particularly with the retirement of Lindsay, the next Parliament will start with a huge gap in institutional knowledge of the role of the presiding officer, and that will be a challenge for whomever is the next Speaker.
To my own office and its tight-knit team, Roland Todd, Oliver Whitehead, and Lisa Kinloch: thanks for the daily support and commitment to me. As mentioned by many of you, thanks to all those who make this place work: the Serjeant-at-Arms, messengers, cleaners, caterers, Hansard, security, drivers—to everybody who supports us, thank you for what you do for us.
Finally, to our retiring or retired members of this 51st Parliament: thank you for your contribution to New Zealand’s democracy. During this term, eight members of Parliament have already retired and 19 MPs have said they are retiring at this election. That is 22 percent of Parliament, so regardless of the election result per se, there will be a very significant number of fresh faces coming into this Parliament after 23 September.
In conclusion, honourable members, I want to thank you for giving me the privilege of being your Speaker, and to those of you embarking on an election campaign, I wish you all the success that you deserve. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
Motion agreed to.
The House adjourned at 5.36 p.m.