Wednesday, 15 November 2017

WEDNESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2017

WEDNESDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Economy—Forecasts and Crown Debt

1. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the forecast for the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Last week, the Reserve Bank, as part of their Monetary Policy Statement, reported their forecast for the New Zealand economy, incorporating their assessment of Government policy decisions. They forecast that GDP growth will be higher than 3 percent annually over the next three years, following some weakness earlier this year. They also forecast the official cash rate track would reach 2 percent in March 2020, and that inflation is forecast to hit the midpoint of 2 percent in 2019. Overall, the Reserve Bank forecast shows an economy that, with the right investments, can become stronger and more resilient.

Tamati Coffey: What reports has the Minister received from other economists on the prospects for the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have received reports from several bank economists. None of these reports state that it will not be possible—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just want an absolute assurance that these are reports to the Minister he has received.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have received them.

Mr SPEAKER: To the Minister? Reports—[Interruption] No, no. You might have seen them; you only receive official reports.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’ve received official reports.

Mr SPEAKER: From banks, as Minister of Finance?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have received a range of official reports, all of which show that it will be possible for us to meet our goals within our Budget responsibility rules, and I can assure the House that that includes a commitment to the goal of reducing net debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years.

Tamati Coffey: What objective does the Minister have for core Crown net debt?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As indicated during the Speech from the Throne, the Government is committed to reducing net debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years. Progress towards this will be set out by the Government during the usual Budget reporting cycle to the House, starting with the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, before Christmas.

Hon Steven Joyce: Has he seen amongst those reports the economic forecast from ANZ chief economist, Cameron Bagrie, who calculates that the Minister, in fact, won’t be able to meet his own Budget responsibility rule No. 2, to keep net debt below 20 percent of GDP, even with some rather heroic spending assumptions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have seen those reports and I disagree with them.

Tamati Coffey: Why is the Government committed to this net core Crown debt track?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government is committed to twin goals of reducing debt as a percentage of GDP while at the same time dealing with the social and infrastructure deficits we have inherited. We make no apology for making provision for a $2 billion investment in affordable housing, a $3 billion investment in securing superannuation, or a $1 billion annual investment in giving regions a fair go.

Paid Parental Leave—Flexibility

2. Rt Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s policies?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Acting Prime Minister): Yes.

Rt Hon Bill English: Does the Prime Minister stand by her Government’s policy to deny mothers and fathers the flexibility to decide how they take their paid parental leave as it suits their own individual family needs.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Ēhara tēnā he kaupapa here—

[On the contrary, that’s not a policy—]

[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, the member will resume his seat. I’ll count only Paula Bennett as being the cause of National losing one; I could have taken four or five. The Acting Prime Minister will start his answer again please.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Ko te kaupapa here mō ngā 26 o ngā wiki, tō matōu kaupapa he reka, āta whakaarohia e mātou wētahi atu whakaaro ā tōna wā.

[The policy is for 26 weeks, our sweet policy; we will consider other views carefully at an appropriate time in the future.]

Rt Hon Bill English: So why does the Prime Minister think that the Government knows best how mothers and fathers should distribute the paid parental leave entitlement that they share?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Ēhara tēnā i tō mātou whakaaro.

[On the contrary, that is not our view.]

[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Was that Clare Curran on that occasion? Which member was it? [Interruption] Right, well that means that the Labour Party has just lost a supplementary.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: E kore mātou e whakaae ki tēnā whakapae nā te mema.

[We will never agree with that allegation by the member.]

Rt Hon Bill English: If the Prime Minister disagrees with that description, does she agree with this description—that under the Government’s policy the Government is saying it must be the primary caregiver, almost always the mother, who takes all the paid parental leave, and that the Government is opposed to the idea that the mother and the father, or the two parents, can chose how to distribute the paid parental leave?

Mr SPEAKER: I’m sorry to have to keep on doing this, but people will take a while, and seeing the chief Government whip has previously been punished, the Opposition will have two extra supplementaries.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Nā te Kāwanatanga i whakaroangia te wā ki te 26 ngā wiki, ka āta whakaarohia e mātou, whiriwhiri mātou i wētahi atu huarahi ā tōna wā.

[The Government considered the period of 26 weeks, and we will carefully consider and choose other avenues in due course.]

Rt Hon Bill English: So can the Prime Minister, therefore, having given this matter a lot of consideration, give us one reason why mothers and fathers should not be allowed to decide for themselves how to distribute their 26 weeks of paid parental leave?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Ko te pūtake o tēnei pire, kia whakaroangia ake te wā e taea ana e te māma, e te pāpā rānei ki te tiaki i ā rātou pēpi. Koia te tino pūtake.

[The reasoning of this bill is to extend the period the mother or father is able to nurse their babies. That’s the real reason.]

Rt Hon Bill English: So if the intention of the bill is to extend the time available to six months, why is the Government not taking the opportunity of the legislative process to allow parents—mothers and fathers—to make their own decision about how they use the paid parental leave, given circumstances they have to deal with, such as a sick child, or a mother with post-natal depression who may want the extra support of her husband?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Ko tā te Āpitihanga whakaaro kia whakapopotongia te wā e taea ana e ngā mātua ki te āta tiaki i ā rātou pēpi. Ko ngā rangahau e mea ana, me tō mātou hiahia, kia whakaaroangia ake ki te 26 ngā wiki, ka āta whiringia e mātou wētahi atu whakaaro ā tōna wā.

[The Opposition’s view is to shorten the period in which parents are able to nurse their babies properly. Research states, plus our desire is, that it be stretched out to 26 weeks; we will carefully consider other views at some time in the future.]

Mr SPEAKER: No, I am going to ask the Acting Prime Minister to have another go at answering that specific question.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Can he repeat that question?

Mr SPEAKER: Mr English, could you repeat the question, in rough form? It was almost like “Why not?”, slightly extended.

Rt Hon Bill English: So can the Prime Minister give any reason why, having considered the extension of paid parental leave, the Government will not allow two parents of a child the opportunity to decide for themselves how to use the six-month entitlement, for instance in the case of a sick child who needs extended and extra care, or a mother with post-natal depression who may need desperately the support of her husband?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Te mea e hiahia ana te Kāwanatanga kia āta whiriwhiria ngā kōrero, ngā rangahau e pā—mehemea e pai ana rānei, ki te mahia i tā te mema e kōrero ana.

[The thing the Government desires is that related comments and research should be selected carefully—whether it is OK to do it according to what the member has stated.]

Rt Hon Bill English: Can I take it from the Acting Prime Minister’s answers that the Government is opposed to this simply because it believes that the Government should decide how parents use their paid parental leave?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Kāhore.

[No.]

Government Financial Position—Crown Debt

3. Hon STEVEN JOYCE (National) to the Minister of Finance: Can he confirm core Crown net debt was $59.5 billion at 30 June 2017, and that it is his intention as Minister of Finance to increase net debt to $67.6 billion by 2022, as laid out in Labour’s pre-election fiscal plan?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I can confirm that at 30 June 2017 net core Crown debt was $59.48 billion. I can further confirm that it is this Government’s policy to reduce net core Crown debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years. As the member knows, the exact dollar amount of debt in each year will be determined by the Budget process.

Hon Steven Joyce: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a question written down on notice, and I don’t believe the Minister of Finance answered the second part of the question. He talked about something about 20 percent of GDP, but he didn’t actually answer yes or no to whether it was his intention to increase net debt to $67.6 billion by 2022.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Speaking to the point of order, I’m not sure if the member heard the last part of my answer, where I did specifically address the question of what the exact dollar amount might be.

Hon Steven Joyce: He didn’t answer the question. Nobody is any the wiser as to whether, actually, he will allow net debt to get to $67.6 billion by 2022, as laid out in Labour’s pre-election fiscal plan.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, Speakers’ rulings are pretty clear in this area. I think somewhere around page 171 is the ruling that members cannot demand a yes/no answer, and I’m just about confident enough that the former Minister of Finance understands that these figures might be affected by growth figures.

Hon Steven Joyce: Sorry to prolong things, Mr Speaker, but, actually, it is possible to say whether it will be higher or lower or about that figure. It is a question on notice—it’s not a supplementary question—and I do think that the Minister of Finance could be a bit more specific as to that number, given that prior to a certain date in September he was actually accusing people of showing an affront to democracy for—

Mr SPEAKER: OK—[Interruption] All right, OK. I think where I’m going to leave it is that I might be slightly more liberal, as long as they are direct, on the supplementaries, if the member wants to drill down that way.

Hon Steven Joyce: Can the finance Minister confirm that the pre-election fiscal update forecasts net debt to reduce to $56.2 billion by 2022, meaning that his forecast of $67.6 billion is over $11 billion higher than in the pre-election fiscal update?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can confirm that those were the numbers in the pre-election fiscal update. What we have discovered is that those numbers did not take account of the need for increased spending in education capital expenditure, health capital expenditure, or a range of other areas.

Hon Steven Joyce: Is the Minister then saying that, actually, he expects to increase debt significantly higher than $67.6 billion because of his concerns about the matters he raised in the previous answer?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The commitment of this Government has been that we will reduce net core Crown debt to 20 percent of GDP. The member well knows, from having prepared a Budget himself and being beside someone else who’s prepared Budgets, that the exact dollar figures for debt are never decided until later in the Budget process.

Hon Steven Joyce: Why then was it an affront to democracy to question those figures prior to the election?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no responsibility for that whatsoever.

Hon Steven Joyce: Why doesn’t he agree with the ANZ analysis of 7 November that concludes net debt will be billions of dollars higher than he has forecast, and that he will breach his own Budget responsibility rule number 2 to reduce net debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years, particularly as he’s just told the House—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s finished his question.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Because nothing that I have seen, in terms of the advice I’ve got to this point, would point to that, and because this Government is committed to reducing debt as a percentage of GDP—20 percent—within five years of taking office.

Hon Steven Joyce: If he doesn’t like the ANZ’s commentary, does he agree with the comments from the Bank of New Zealand on Monday, who stated that Labour’s election campaign budget was just too tight to be credible; if not, what does he think the BNZ has got wrong?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What this Government has committed to is a set of Budget responsibility rules, and we will work within those. We made commitments before the election to address the social deficits in health, in education, and in infrastructure, and we will do that. I make no apology for having a slower debt track than that Government if it means that we build affordable houses, contribute to superannuation, and invest in our regions.

Hon Steven Joyce: Just to be clear, does he commit to meeting all the Government’s promises, including those in his coalition agreement and his agreement for confidence and supply with the Green Party, and also the Speech from the Throne, while increasing net debt by only $11 billion, from what it was going to be, over the next five years?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I absolutely stand by those Government commitments and the Budget responsibility rules that we have put forward.

Kiritapu Allan: How does the Government’s plan for net core Crown debt compare with recent historical trends?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can inform the member that net core Crown debt in 2008 was 5.4 percent of GDP, or $10.3 billion. By 2016, it had grown to 24.5 percent of GDP, or $61.8 billion.

Hon Steven Joyce: Just to be clear, then, is the Minister saying—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to ask the member—and, again, I accept that it’s a bit of a new experience. I’m going to advise the member to have a look somewhere around Speaker’s ruling 173 about prefacing questions with statements. The “just to be clear” thing, or “in light of this” or “in light of that”, add nothing to the question. I’d like the member to go straight to it, and then I can be more helpful in getting an answer.

Hon Steven Joyce: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does he commit to meeting all the Government’s promises, including those in those coalition agreements from the Speech from the Throne, not in relation to a percentage of GDP but by increasing net debt by no more than $11 billion relative to the pre-election fiscal update over the next five years? A very specific question.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The final exact dollar figures, as the member well knows from the Budgets he’s been involved in, will be decided later in the Budget process, but we remain 100 percent committed to our goal of reducing net debt to 20 percent of GDP within five years.

Rt Hon Bill English: I seek leave to move a motion to refer the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill back to the relevant select committee for further consideration.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that? There is objection; it will not happen. [Interruption] Sorry, I just want to check that Mr Joyce is finished.

Hon Steven Joyce: Yes.

Schools—Teacher Supply

4. JO LUXTON (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Is he confident that schools will be able to recruit enough teachers next year to fully staff classrooms, particularly in Auckland?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Regrettably, no, I’m not at this point. Student numbers are increasing, the number of teacher trainees completing their training has been declining, and an increasing number of teachers are nearing retirement age. Some schools are already advising that they are getting no applications for the jobs that they are advertising. I’ve initiated an urgent package of measures, which I’ll be taking to Cabinet for approval very shortly.

Jo Luxton: Does he intend to proceed with the previous Government’s decision to extend the voluntary bonding scheme to all Auckland schools?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Regrettably, the previous Government made no such decision. While the previous Minister did make that announcement during the election campaign, there was very little supporting policy work, there were no supporting papers going to Cabinet, and, as a result, we are left with a $37.5 million hole because no funding was appropriated to meet that commitment.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Will he fund the extension of expat relocation grants and voluntary bonding for Auckland if this is such an urgent situation; if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: On the expat relocation grants, the money was appropriated for that by the previous Minister, so that will go ahead, but she didn’t appropriate the $37.5 million required to extend the voluntary bonding scheme, so I can’t give that commitment, because there’s a big funding hole where the money should’ve been appropriated by the previous Government.

Education, National Standards—Removal and Replacement System

5. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Does he stand by his statement that National Standards “will be gone very quickly”; if so, why?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes, because they will.

Hon Nikki Kaye: How does he reconcile his comments, then, that some schools will be able to keep national standards with the comments, as well attributed to the Secretary of Education on 6 November, that national standards will be replaced?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Because the Government will be abolishing national standards. Whether schools choose to use them or not is up to them.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Firstly, I seek leave to table a New Zealand Principals’ Federation newsletter—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! Don’t try; that goes to all members.

Hon Nikki Kaye: OK, well, I seek leave to table the Ministry of Education education leaders’ news bulletin, which doesn’t go to all members, of 6 November, where the Secretary of Education—

Mr SPEAKER: Is it available on a website? Is it available on a publicly accessible website?

Hon Nikki Kaye: I will have to check that, because it actually goes to a link that I don’t think is accessible to all members, but, also, the other point that I’d make is that, while it is available to education leaders, it’s not available to a whole lot of parents and, necessarily, members of this House.

Mr SPEAKER: What I’m going to advise the member, and all members, is to ascertain, before they attempt to table things here, whether they are in fact available on a publicly accessible website. I’m willing to, if the member comes back at the end of question time and gives me an assurance that it is not available on a publicly accessible website—at that stage, I will put the leave.

Hon Nikki Kaye: How can parents have confidence in the robustness of their future school reports on the progress of their child if there is no nationwide consistent set of data that enables progress to be benchmarked against?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, there hasn’t been up until now, because national standards have been neither national nor consistent. I think they can have trust in the teachers who work with their children.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Why will he not just admit that he does not have a detailed new system and that he is just trying to rename national standards and systems of progression that already exist, to please some of his union mates?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The previous Government acknowledged the problems with national standards when they themselves proposed to replace them and rename them. So there is already a widespread acknowledgment within the Parliament and within the education system that they were fundamentally flawed.

Roading, Auckland—East-West Link

6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Transport: Is he satisfied that cancelling the East-West Link Road of National Significance will be beneficial to transport in Auckland?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): The East-West Link has not been cancelled and it is not a road of national significance. That is simply a political label coined by the National Party. This Government will find a higher-value, lower-cost option for the East-West Link.

Hon Judith Collins: How does he respond to the chief executive of the Auckland chamber of commerce, who has said it is unfortunate that Ms Ardern’s Government did not consult with the Auckland business community before announcing a scaling back of the East-West Link project?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: In fact, we consulted extensively with the Auckland business community, including Mr Barnett, and I have to say that the Auckland business community along with the likes of Ken Shirley of the Road Transport Forum actually agree that we need to find a more cost-effective option than the $327 million per kilometre option that that side of the House chose without even a benefit-cost ratio.

Hon Judith Collins: Is he aware that there are over 6,000 heavily laden lorries and tankers passing through Neilson Street and Church Street, Onehunga, every day and that any delay in progressing the East-West Link will do nothing to alleviate major congestion and loss of productivity that leads to increased costs being passed on to New Zealand families?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The Government agrees that it’s urgent to find a cost-effective and higher-value option for the East-West Link. We just don’t believe that a gold-plated option that would have been the most expensive road project in human history would have been a good use of taxpayer funds.

Raymond Huo: What is—

Hon Judith Collins: How will—

Mr SPEAKER: I have called another—sorry, Ms Collins. I have called another member.

Raymond Huo: What is the benefit-cost ratio of the East-West Link option considered by the board of inquiry?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Incredibly, the past Government committed to a $2 billion East-West Link option without an up-to-date BCR, benefit-cost ratio, which shows a reckless disregard for the public finances.

Mr SPEAKER: OK. I am going to intervene and ask members who are asking supplementaries, on both sides, to listen to earlier answers, because otherwise what will happen is what just happened now and that is the member asked for something that—it was very clear from listening—did not exist.

Hon Judith Collins: Will congestion along Neilson Street and Church Street, Onehunga, be improved by his Government not accepting the East-West Link board of inquiry’s unanimous decision, published yesterday, confirming that the positive effects of the proposal outweigh the negatives?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’m sure that the member opposite understands that the Environmental Protection Authority’s board of inquiry is a resource management consenting decision that does not consider the economic merits of the project and does not consider any other option other than the one that the National Party put in front of it.

Hon Judith Collins: Does he agree with the New Zealand Transport Agency’s prediction that freight movements in the Onehunga-Penrose area will double by 2035 and that the East-West Link is a necessary road for the 68,000 people employed in the area, as well as the distribution and logistics businesses that contribute a whopping $4.6 billion a year to the Auckland economy?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes, which is why we’re going to invest urgently in a higher-value, lower-cost option.

Women—Gender Pay Gap

7. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Minister for Women: What is the most recent data she’s received on the gender pay gap?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The most recent data I’ve seen shows that, nationally, women’s median hourly earnings are 9.4 percent lower than men’s. Despite consistent improvement in the gender pay gap in the early 2000s, in recent years—in fact, over the past decade—progress on closing the gender pay gap has stagnated. Women continue to be paid less than men and, as of yesterday, women in New Zealand are, effectively, working for free for the rest of the year.

Marama Davidson: How does the gender pay gap specifically affect Māori and Pasifika women?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The pay gap is even worse for Māori and Pacific women, for Asian New Zealanders, and for women of colour. According to Statistics New Zealand, the median hourly earnings for Māori, Pasifika, and Asian women are between 18 and 21 percent lower than they are for men for the same quality of work, even taking into account education, hours worked, life experience—all of those factors. There’s still this huge gap. If we look at the average, it’s even worse. For Māori, it’s close to 23 percent. For Pasifika women, it’s nearly 28 percent. What’s clear is that Māori and Pasifika women and women of colour have been working for free this year for much longer than the average woman. That’s not fair, and that’s not right.

Marama Davidson: What is she planning to do to end the gender pay gap?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Government is committed to undertaking the work that is necessary to end structural discrimination, particularly against women, tangata whenua, wahine, Pasifika, and women of colour. This Government recognises that everyone in society is better off when they all receive fair pay for their contribution and their work. So we’ve started by halting the previous Government’s legislation that would’ve made it harder for women to find a clear pathway to equal pay. We’ll be bringing fresh legislation into this House that will implement the agreed principles of the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity. We will lead by example by closing the pay gap in the core Public Service, with a particular focus on Māori and Pasifika women, and we’ll be working with the private sector, because there are many businesses that are already seeing the productivity benefits of measuring and closing the gender pay gap. We want to help other businesses catch up with that.

Hon Paula Bennett: Can the Minister please confirm that the median gender pay gap was over 12 percent earlier this year but has closed to just over 9 percent very recently, and will she be getting a 3 percent drop in the gender pay gap within the next six months?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. There are different ways of measuring it, and so if you measure the average pay gap, it’s 13.1 percent. The median pay gap is 9.4 percent. I’m not aware of the accuracy of the figures that member has proposed, but I’ll certainly be talking to my ministry to see if that is correct, and I’m confident that, with an ambitious Government that is committed to equality and not afraid of talking about the hard issues, we will make enormous progress.

Provincial Growth Fund—Decision Making

8. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: When does he think that decisions on significant initiatives under the Regional Development (Provincial Growth) Fund will start being made, and when will the first of these projects physically start? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Who was that? Who made the interjection? Right, well that’s—

Darroch Ball: It was after he finished his question.

Mr SPEAKER: And if the member had been listening yesterday, I made it very clear to the House that the silence period finished when I’d called the Minister. I’ll be very generous and just call the Hon Shane Jones, and no one will be confused by that again.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would just like to make the point that you took a supplementary off this side because I did exactly that just earlier this question time.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, and I apologise for being inconsistent. When I get everything right, I’ll be very surprised.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Before I embark, Mr Speaker, I just want a little bit of clarity. The member is asking me what I think, which could be a guess.

Mr SPEAKER: I think it’s fair to say it’s a “what” not a “whether” question.

Hon SHANE JONES: In relation to his decisions on significant initiatives under the provincial growth fund, when will they start to be made? The criteria—the full character and content of the provincial growth fund—are still being developed. When will the first of these projects physically start? That depends on the quality of the analysis, but I look forward to early announcements, including one promoted by his colleague Mr Joyce in Ōpōtiki.

Hon Simon Bridges: So is it the case, therefore, that he cannot tell us when we can expect to see rail projects, tree planting, or large-scale capital projects at all?

Hon SHANE JONES: In line with the rules around supplementary questions, let me focus on tree planting. That is weather dependent, climate dependent, and seasonal.

Hon Simon Bridges: Who will make decisions, and on what criteria will they make them, regarding the fund? Can he give us any information in relation to that?

Hon SHANE JONES: A very good question. Firstly, the Minister is wading through the ragbag of ideas and mess that was left behind under the other side of the House, but I am making progress in that regard—with a very sharp slasher. I can assure the member that he will hear, as his colleague Mrs Tolley will hear, as they pester me for announcements about projects in their regions that they never got around to doing when they were in power, once the criteria have been settled upon.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he agree at least with what he’s previously said publicly: that the process must be rigorous and not just decided by politicians but meet a “higher threshold”?

Hon SHANE JONES: I’m presuming he’s attributing that remark to me. Obviously, I agree with it.

Hon Simon Bridges: Will he give the House an assurance that the $3 billion being spent this term, in terms of decisions and its criteria, will be to the highest standards of process and probity?

Hon SHANE JONES: It’s actually a serious question. It deserves a serious answer. The distribution and the allocation of such a large amount of capital will, obviously, meet very high criteria. It will not just be the decision of the Minister standing; a number of them will go through the full Cabinet committee process, something that members on the other side of the House have advised me to do.

Hon Simon Bridges: In light of all of the foregoing answers to the primary and the supplementary questions, how is it then that he has already told his local newspaper of the four regions that will get the fund and “Upgrading rail to Northland and a spur line to Northport, it is simply going to happen.”, and doesn’t this House deserve the same sort of candour that he gives his local paper when answering questions here?

Hon SHANE JONES: In relation to the extension of the rail and the spur to Marsden Point, what he has just reflected is dead accurate.

Hon Simon Bridges: So is it politicians deciding, or is it the higher standard he said earlier in questions?

Hon SHANE JONES: Naturally, given that I said it, it’s a high standard.

Benefits—Sanctions

9. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: What are the exemptions in section 70A of the Social Security Act 1964 that mean sanctions aren’t imposed on sole parents who don’t name the other parent?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): There are five exemptions to the benefit reduction. These are applied if, one, there is insufficient evidence available to establish who is in law the other parent; two, the client is taking active steps to identify who in law is the other parent; three, the client or their child or children will be at risk of violence if the client carried out or took steps to meet their child support obligations, or there is another compelling circumstance for the client’s failure to meet their child support obligations and there is no real likelihood of child support being collected; or, five, the child was conceived as a result of incest or sexual violation.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister now accept, given the comments just made, that there are already exemptions available for situations related to family violence?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The advice that I have been given—and the same advice was given to the former Minister for Social Development—is that the sanctions regime for this particular section has been applied inconsistently and also that there is no evidence to support that the sanction has achieved its own goals in terms of its original intention, and I’m concerned because there are 18,000 children that have a reduction in their income because of the way in which this sanction is applied.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There was actually a very specific question asked, and while the Minister gave a very good answer, it wasn’t to the question that was asked. Carmel Sepuloni, have another go.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: No, I’m not concerned.

Hon Louise Upston: When will the Minister do her job to make sure that existing policies and exemptions are actually implemented by her department?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The advice that I have been given on this sanction is the same advice that was given to the former Minister for Social Development, which points out very clearly that there is no evidence to support that this sanction is achieving its objective, but what it is doing is that it is punishing 18,000 children for a parent being absent. I think that this is my job.

Hon Louise Upston: What evidence does the Minister have that the current sanctions—which were introduced by a Labour Government in 1990 and increased by the Labour Government in 2005—are not working? That’s what I’m wanting to hear.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We are talking about section 70A here, and I think I’ve given a very clear description of why we will be repealing it.

Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was quite clear in my question around the evidence that she has. She referred earlier to the evidence, and I’m asking that that is put before the House.

Mr SPEAKER: Ask the question again, and I’ll make a decision about whether—

Hon Louise Upston: What evidence does the Minister have that the current sanctions introduced by the Labour Government in 1990 and increased by the Labour Government in 2005 are not working?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Advice from my officials and anecdotal evidence from places like Triple P and other beneficiary advocate groups.

Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would request that the Minister table that advice.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, she didn’t quote from an official document. Did the Minister quote from an official document right then, which she’s got now?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: No.

Mr SPEAKER: No, she didn’t, so there’s no—

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister accept that changing the rules and removing this sanction will mean that pressure will go on the very solo mothers you’ve been talking to, by their liable fathers, so that they don’t have to pay to support their own children?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: What I accept is that women and children should not be punished for an absent parent. There are currently 18,000 children that are being punished, and we want to stop that.

Crime Statistics—Trends

10. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Justice: Has he seen any evidence that victimisations of serious crime are increasing?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I’m advised by the Ministry of Justice that New Zealand Police data shows that since the 2014-15 financial year the number of reported victimisations for violent crime has increased from about 48,000 to 54,000, in the 2016-17 financial year. The rate of burglaries has also increased over the past three years, and that’s why this Government is determined to do something meaningful to address crime and its causes.

Greg O’Connor: How will the new Government reverse—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think Mr Joyce has just accepted that he’s lost a supplementary for the National Party. Mr O’Connor, could you ask the supplementary again, please.

Greg O’Connor: How will the new Government reverse the increases in violent crime?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: In two ways: first of all, by being tough on crime, as we strive towards adding 1,800 new police officers over three years and commit to a serious focus on combating organised crime and drugs. The second limb of our approach is doing what works and not political point-scoring. We will build more houses, making sure houses are warm and dry so there is housing security; have an education system that works and provides opportunity; have decent wages, jobs, and a New Zealand free of child poverty; and, finally, seriously address family and sexual violence.

Greg O’Connor: Why is it important to reduce violent crime in New Zealand?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: We all suffer when there are broken victims and broken communities, and we must break the intergenerational cycle of abuse that was ignored by the last Government.

Conservation—Minister’s Statements and Electronic Monitoring of Fishing Vessels

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Mr Speaker. To Eugenie Sage, the Minister of Conservation, does she stand by her statement in the House, “Under this Government, we will have a Minister of Conservation and an Associate Minister for the Environment who believes in nature and in safeguarding the values of our species here in Aotearoa”, and if so, how?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It’s a longstanding tradition in this House to read the question as it is on the sheet. In the nine years I’ve been here, I’ve never heard anyone named in a question.

Mr SPEAKER: I think what we’ll do is we’ll do the excusing, as we’ve done on a number of occasions, for people who haven’t had much recent experience in asking primary questions, and we’ll ask Maggie Barry to start again.

11. Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) to the Minister of Conservation: Does she stand by her statement in the House, “Under this Government, we will have a Minister of Conservation and an Associate Minister for the Environment who believes in nature and in safeguarding the values of our species here in Aotearoa”; if so, how?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Yes, by implementing policy that recognises that nature is at the heart of New Zealand’s success and by adequately resourcing the Department of Conservation to better safeguard our indigenous plants and wildlife and their habitats.

Hon Maggie Barry: So did the Minister specifically advocate for endangered marine species, such as Maui and Hector’s dolphins, in the Government’s decision announced on Friday to defer the roll-out of electronic observation on commercial fishing vessels?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The delay in the roll-out of the integrated electronic monitoring will allow the Department of Conservation to better identify how that monitoring can be used, because there are significant problems with the camera resolution: it is unable to adequately identify some of the by-catch species.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister was asked a very straight, factual question: did she advocate? She didn’t go anywhere near that.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I thought she did.

Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appeal to you: you ruled that we lost a question earlier when one of our side interjected before a Minister started speaking; Mr Jones did exactly that.

Mr SPEAKER: No. Mr Jones interjected after. He interjected, I think, three times, but all of them were after Ms Sage started her answer, or at least after the question was finished. Back to Maggie Barry.

Hon Maggie Barry: Does the Minister agree with Christine Rose, the chair of Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders, NZ that “the decision was fatally flawed, a massive disappointment, and a huge setback for conservation. Electronic [observation] coverage is essential” and “the new Labour Government has shown itself … to be no friend of science, or conservation”?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: No, I don’t agree.

Hon Maggie Barry: I didn’t hear that.

Mr SPEAKER: She said no, she doesn’t.

Hon Maggie Barry: Electronic surveillance on fishing boats is widely believed to improve outcomes for threatened marine species—

Mr SPEAKER: Question, please.

Hon Maggie Barry: —so does the Minister of Conservation agree with the decision to defer its roll-out and put further creatures at risk?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: If the member had listened to my previous answer, she would be aware that there are deficiencies in the integrated electronic monitoring that the former Government was proposing to roll out, and the delay allows some of those defects to be addressed.

Clayton Mitchell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A member made a comment to another member, saying that we’re in some pocket, I think. We take offence to that, and I would ask her to withdraw and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: Who made that comment?

Clayton Mitchell: Paula Bennett.

Hon Paula Bennett: Bit of banter.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I think the member is tempting me to have a bit of banter back. The member will withdraw and apologise.

Hon Paula Bennett: Oh, you want it to get that sterile around here? I withdraw.

Hon Members: And?

Hon Paula Bennett: Withdraw and apologise, with vigour.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member will withdraw and apologise unreservedly.

Hon Paula Bennett: I shall withdraw and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: Thank you.

Film Industry—Collective Bargaining

12. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Is the Government committed to restoring the right to bargain collectively in the film and television industry?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes. The right to seek fair wages and conditions by negotiating together is part of the basic human right to freedom of association. New Zealand has committed to this right by ratifying International Labour Organisation Convention 98. I am further advised that the current law would, in fact, be in breach of article 19.1 of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Willow-Jean Prime: How does the Minister intend to restore rights?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is important that any change works for the industry and the people working in it. To that end, we are convening a film industry working group to investigate and propose solutions. That working group will involve organisations such as the Screen Industry Guild, the actors’ union Equity New Zealand, Weta, the Screen Production and Development Association, and the guilds for directors, writers, and stunt people.

Willow-Jean Prime: What has the industry said about the proposals so far?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Good news: the industry has welcomed a more mature discussion around these issues. They’ve been clear that it is a delicate conversation but one that they are ready to have a constructive conversation about and to craft an enduring solution. Noted producer Barrie Osborne said he felt reassured by the Government’s approach, and he said, “I want to encourage the people back home this is a good place to work.”

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does the Minister accept that thousands of Kiwis will continue to enjoy great incomes from the $3.3 billion local film and television industry only if major international players choose to invest in New Zealand?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I do accept that, and that is why this Government is taking a constructive and collaborative approach. The only thing that will threaten that industry in New Zealand is scaremongering from Opposition members.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why, then, after seven years of good progress, is he risking ongoing investment in this country by introducing significant uncertainty into the industry at the behest of his union mates?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I recommend that that member listen more closely to the industry. The producers, the guilds, and the unions have all stated on record that they are confident in this Government’s approach. They have welcomed the joint working group that this Government has established, and what they have made clear to me is that the only thing that will threaten those jobs and will threaten that industry is misinformation and mischief from members like that member.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Supplementary question.

Mr SPEAKER: No, you’ve run out.

Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Debate resumed from 14 November.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): What a pleasure it is to rise for the first time in this Parliament to give a speech and to acknowledge this side of the House, which has developed a Government that is based on true MMP principles. One of the great lessons of this election campaign is that parties who campaign in the modern political environment need to understand that it is a majority of seats in this House that decides who a Government is, not a party with a born-to-rule mentality who think no matter what they should be in Government. On this side of the House, we are committed to an MMP-based Parliament, one that recognises the skills and talents of all the people in the three parties that make up this Government.

Before I go on in this contribution, I want to make reference to what I think was a situation where this Parliament, in the last term—actually, in the term before—upheld the true principles of MMP, and that was when we passed the marriage equality legislation, which had support from right across the House. Members may or may not be aware that Australia, in its plebiscite, has voted 61 percent in favour of marriage equality. I look forward to our friends across the Ditch catching up with us.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Another whack on Australia.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: When we look at the words that appear—there’s Gerry Brownlee, Gerry Brownlee who was sent across to Canberra to send a message to Julie Bishop and he lost it in his lunchbox. He couldn’t find it when he got Canberra to say anything. This Government, this Parliament, and our leader, Jacinda Ardern, are prepared to stand up on the world stage for the values and principles that we believe in. We will do that, Mr Brownlee, and we’ll do it with Australia, but we’ll never back down from our principles for political expediency.

When you look at the coalition agreement with New Zealand First and the confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party that the Labour Party has signed up to, there is a common piece of language that I want to read out. I’m sure you’ll indulge me to read this, because I think it’s important because it shows what this Government will be about—and this appears in both agreements: “Together, we will work to provide New Zealand with a transformational government, committed to resolving the greatest long-term challenges for the country, including sustainable economic development, increased exports and decent jobs paying higher wages, a healthy environment, a fair society and good government. We will reduce inequality and poverty and improve the well-being of all New Zealanders and the environment [that] we live in.” That is—

Mr SPEAKER: “Fewer” not “less”, I hope.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed, it’s all signed up now, Mr Speaker, so grammatical problems will have to be part of what we deal with. But that shared commitment between these three parties is what will guide this Government. If there was one lesson I took from the election campaign, regardless of who New Zealanders voted for, it was that they had come to see that the gap between those who have the most in our society and those who have the least has grown too large. Everywhere I went in New Zealand, and my colleagues around the country went, we heard that this was not the New Zealand that people wanted to live in. New Zealanders want to see their neighbours flourish, they want to see their communities grow and work together, and under the last Government we saw nine years of selfishness and individualism being promoted. We saw nine years of the worst excesses of global capitalism being visited on the most vulnerable people in New Zealand, and the time for that has ended.

This will be a Government that defines itself on how we include New Zealanders, not how we exclude them, and that means, to start with, the most vulnerable New Zealanders who the previous Government saw as collateral damage on the way to numbers on their spreadsheet. So no New Zealander will have to put up with knowing that we have the worst homelessness in the OECD under this Government, because we want to include every New Zealander in the basic right to shelter—the basic right to a warm, dry home. I’m incredibly proud that one of the first pieces of legislation that will come forward from this Government and be passed in this House will actually be modern standards for rental properties, because whether you own a house or you are renting a house, you deserve to live in a warm, dry home. And we will eliminate homelessness over the terms that this Government will have.

We will also include the people of our regions, and on this I do want to pay tribute to the New Zealand First Party for bringing to the table their advocacy for the regions of New Zealand. No matter where you live in this country, you should know that there’s the opportunity for a decent job. If we just leave it to the market, that will not happen, but if we support the innovative people in our regions, if we plant the trees, and if we build the rail lines, then there will be the opportunity for decent work throughout our regions. Unfortunately, the previous Government believed that it would just happen—that if Steven Joyce produced a glossy brochure, this would suddenly grow jobs in our regions. On this side of the House, we know that the route to growing those jobs is investment and partnership between central government, local government, business, and iwi, and we are committed to that partnership.

Not only will this be a Government of inclusion; it will be a Government of aspiration. Once upon a time, we were told by the National Party that there was a brighter future ahead, that they believed in New Zealanders. But over nine years they gave up, and Bill English said the Government had reached the limit of what it could do. Well, on this side of the House, we do not believe that. We believe that the Government can be a partner in those regions of New Zealand and can be a partner in growing a sustainable economy. We will do this, and we will manage the books carefully.

I want to say today that one of the things that we are rapidly discovering in Government is that Mr Joyce was trying to make out that there was some kind of problem emerging with the amount of money that was available for capital expenditure. Well, I can say this to members in the House: we have set aside in our Budget the investment that is needed to build our rail network, to ensure that we have a new hospital in Dunedin, and to ensure that we make sure that we rebuild the schools that the previous Government has neglected. What they did not tell New Zealanders—what they did not tell New Zealanders—was that in trying to look like they were going to pay down debt, they took that money away from the schools and the hospitals and the infrastructure that we need. When it comes time to put out the Budget figures in this House, we will see that this Government is committed to investing in infrastructure where that Government was not in the past.

It is time for New Zealand to measure our success in different ways. We need to grow a strong economy. We need there to be activity that we measure through GDP. But, much more than that, we need to measure ourselves on the things that we will improve and change in New Zealand, and that will be a reduction in child poverty, that will be an improvement in the quality of our rivers, and that will be an increase in the number of people who live in warm, dry homes. We are not content to measure ourselves by how the wealthiest New Zealanders do; we will measure ourselves by how we lift the well-being and living standards of every single New Zealander. I will be proud to be a Minister of Finance who stands up at Budget time and delivers on our Budget responsibility rules and delivers on our fiscal plan, but also stands up—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’re sticking to your numbers.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —and says that we will lift living standards and—we will measure ourselves on how the most vulnerable are lifted up. Nick Smith starts talking about numbers. This is the man who couldn’t even add up the number of houses that he wanted to build. He couldn’t even get there. On this side of the House, we know that what matters most to New Zealanders is the quality of life for them and their families. That can be measured in a number of different ways, and we will commit to making sure that those measures are public and that we are transparent about them.

Mr Speaker, this will be a Government of inclusion. This will be a Government of aspiration. This will be a Government of sustainable development. It will be a Government built on the best of New Zealanders’ efforts, and it will be built on the three parties that make up this coalition. We understand on this side of the House that MMP and the voters who voted for MMP wanted to see New Zealanders work together. We will do that, and we will deliver a country that is better and fairer.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): Madam Deputy Speaker, I did hear you referred to consistently there as “Mr Speaker”, but I am delighted to see a woman Deputy Speaker in the House. I know Trevor Mallard’s not here, but can I please acknowledge his standing.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you just heard there was a man who has not transitioned to Minister of Finance. What we heard then was an angry student politician, ultimately. He didn’t actually have the gumption to get in there and sound like a new Minister of Finance, a man that’s proud of his new role, that’s grown into it, and that feels the gravitas, actually, of such an important role. What we still heard was the kind of angry, bitter Labour politician that wants to blame everyone else instead of standing up. Look, we heard consistently from Ms Ardern, from the Prime Minister, that what she wanted to see was positivity for New Zealand. She wanted those smiles. I just say simply to Grant Robertson, “Turn that frown upside down; you have made it to the Government benches.” Congratulations to you all, revel in the moment, but at least try and grow into the jobs, instead of still standing like you did three months ago, quite frankly, when you were standing on this side of the House.

So here we are in the 52nd Parliament, and it is a great honour to be here. Can I congratulate, particularly, all the new members that got sworn in. I see them from all sides of the House. It’s a buzz, yeah? I do remember that buzz, and it genuinely has been really interesting listening to maiden speeches, hearing you put your hearts on the line. For your families, actually, it’s something that’s really significant, and I know it is for you yourselves, so I do sincerely want to congratulate everyone. Make the most of it. John Key always used to say that there are people that sort of talk about getting here, and perhaps have a wish that they might get here; you guys have, so be it, and be in it, and all the best to everyone, and that kind of thing.

Obviously, I would rather be in Government. Ha, ha! That’s the truth of it. You don’t campaign like we did, you don’t do what you do, to actually go into Opposition, so I make no bones about it. But there’s a key thing here: we were not going to be in Government at any cost, and New Zealand First know that. Mr Peters, there’s a price that one pays, and we weren’t willing to pay that, so that’s just kind of how things go.

As they say, it’s not whether or not life throws you curve balls; it’s whether or not you’ve got the gumption to pick that ball up and throw it back, and this is going to be an incredibly strong Opposition. This is one that has convictions in what they stand for. This is 56 MPs who are here to make a difference, and we shall do that in Opposition as we did in Government. We look forward to the next few years as we play our role on behalf of the Queen in the role of being Her Majesty’s very faithful Opposition, and it’s something that we will take seriously.

So there’ve been many, many, many, many, many promises. We have heard the promises, and they have been rolling out. We just heard another one. There they went again; yes, they’ve said it before: eradicating homelessness. So let’s hold them to that on behalf of those people. We will remember, of course, that they had homeless people in motels back in the 2000s. That’s when women actually find themselves in violent circumstances, need to leave, can’t find a house that day, and the State, in sticking up for them and looking after them, would at times put them into motels.

Well, we were told that was dreadful. It was OK when it was the previous Labour Government, absolutely dreadful when we did it, but now we’ve heard from Mr Twyford that it’s OK again because they’re in Government. So he’s going to keep using motels, by the way, and that’s OK. They won’t quite be eradicating—they’ll just be trying to make it better, but don’t actually hold them too much to account on it, because they’re not sure how they’re going to do it. They don’t actually have a target; it’s all just another wish list.

We’re going to have rail everywhere; we’re going to have zero emissions. Good on Dr Clark; he’s personally going to reduce suicide, which might be admirable, but, actually, I think it’s a slant on how complex the issue is. It takes more than one person, and it’s going to take something that is genuinely across a whole lot of people.

We’ve had a lot of rhetoric, we’ve had a lot of what it all sounds like; now we want to see real targets—we want to see what that looks like in practice. I think the smile might fade as good intentions hit the wall of reality. The smiles will start fading pretty damned quickly.

I’m suggesting they get organised. Cabinet committees are actually there for a reason, and they’re a damned good idea because it means you test things against them to make sure that you’ve got no unintended consequences—for example, like paid parental leave, where you could take an idea that actually is fair for families, instead of ramming down their throats how you believe families should actually be raised—sorry, not you, of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, but those on the other side that are telling us that they know best how a family should work. So they know best about that first couple of years. When we hear from new mums and dads that they actually want to be with their partner and spend that bonding time and see that, why shouldn’t we actually support them to decide how to split paid parental leave?

Jami-Lee Ross: How does Sue Moroney feel?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: It’s a good idea that’s come up. Yeah, Sue Moroney, who was a member that pushed this, of course, for many, many years, actually supports the idea that partners should be able to take some of that leave so that they can decide how it works for their families. But don’t worry; Labour knows best on how it works! They will dictate exactly how that happens.

If they’d actually had a select committee process, which we were lectured about repeatedly from that side of the House—about how important it was, and that due process for even a week would count, we were told repeatedly. Well, if they meant that, send it to select committee. Let’s toss this around. Let’s really work out what’s best for those women, for those children, for those dads, for those same-sex partners—what really matters the most to their family unit.

I only hope they take some advice, because they’ve been taking a little bit. We see that Mr Hipkins has taken some now on national standards—not such a bad idea now. They’re OK, so that’s good—that’s good. Now we’re hoping they take some advice on partnership schools. I will not have that Prime Minister stand up and lecture us on vulnerable children and what needs to be done without looking after some of our most vulnerable young people that are actually learning in an environment that works for them. Can I commend even some members of this House who are part of the partnership schools and how they work, recognising individuals, the different way that those kids learn, and how important that is for them. Instead of being ideological and dissing a good idea, I hope they take some advice and listen to what needs to be done.

Can I just say how disappointing it was, not so much when the Government made a mistake on day one—they didn’t know their numbers; it’s as clear as that. They did not know if they had the numbers. Actually, we all make mistakes and it was their day one, and I get that. What was a real shame, after lecturing us repeatedly on how much better and more principled this Government was going to be, was that the first thing they did was spin it. The first thing they did was actually walk out of here and not tell the utter truth. If they’d done that, Mr Hipkins, and simply stood there and said, “We made a bit of a mistake. We’ll never make it again.”, I reckon the public would have given them a bit of kudos for it. But, instead, they proved themselves to be absolutely as flawed as the rest of us. Welcome to the real world, but you should have had the guts to actually stand up and prove it and say it, is what I say to it.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I don’t like to interrupt, but the member knows well that that is not parliamentary.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I didn’t mean to offend, but I got a bit carried away there.

Can I say as well that we are going to be holding this Government to account for all of those promises. We want to see those targets really in place. Let’s put some real numbers on it. Let’s see intergenerational welfare, families in it for decades, not just the last three, four, five, even nine years, but actually decades; families that have been falling into traps of poverty and traps of welfare dependence—let’s see you get into the heart of what the real issues are instead of spreading money around and merely hoping that you throw it to the right person who does the right thing with it. It is hard, complex work. There are systems in place. I hope you take advice. I hope you take a breath. I hope you look at the things that are working and not throw them out just because you ideologically believe that you know so much better than anybody else.

So I end on wishing for this 52nd Parliament: that it be robust, that we have a contest of ideas, and that we don’t ever lose sight that it is about New Zealanders—and not just about everyone passionately being right—and doing it well. Thank you.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I waited until the deputy leader of the National Party had finished her speech, but I noticed that when you interrupted her in order to take her to task for inappropriate language, the clock on the wall didn’t stop counting down. Can you just clarify: is it expected that that would happen?

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is at the Speaker’s direction.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister for Māori Development): Madam Deputy Speaker, first of all, can I congratulate you on your ascension to your role. I know that you will do a good job. I’m kind of hopeful that you will mediate over question time; I’m not too sure about Mr Speaker’s use of taking questions or supplementaries here and there at will.

I also want to acknowledge two contributors to this House—as translators, as people who have stewarded through various Prime Ministers and Governors-General in their role—and acknowledge their passing: Matua Lewis Moeau and Rangi McGarvey. They have served this Parliament very well and leave a legacy of leadership in the work that they have done.

I want also to pick up on the points that were belaboured by the previous speaker, Paula Bennett. Now, let’s take the issue of paid parental leave. Let’s not lose sight of why Sue Moroney led—led—petitions on behalf of communities of mothers who wanted to move towards the World Health Organization number of 26 weeks’ paid parental leave so that they could breastfeed their children. At the heart of that petition, at the heart of that campaign, was 26 weeks of paid parental leave so that mothers could breastfeed.

Now, I acknowledge, and many of us on this side of the House acknowledge, there are many variations of parenting that can be provided for in legislation, but let’s start with what will matter most: that children, young children, have the ability to have their mum able to breastfeed them for a period of time that will set them up for life. I’m really glad; #26weeks—it’s done, and we can then move to the other policy issues, matters that have been raised in this House for further consideration around provisions for other carers. Now, we will look at that within the context of our policy development, but, hang on, let’s not stop a good idea on other issues, because at the nub of 26 weeks’ paid parental leave, it was about breastfeeding. It was about giving our babies the best opportunity to start their life healthily by their mums being able to breastfeed them for that period of time.

Secondly, the point made about people in motels. I acknowledge that, because when we were last in Government, I knew many people that, because of domestic violence reasons, were housed in motels as a transitional arrangement in order to move them from one region to another, or, in some very dire circumstances, to move them from New Zealand over to Australia. But that was a short-term fix. The problem with the situation that we had under the previous Government—that short-term fix ended up being a long-term solution towards the lack of housing availability in many of our communities. It’s not good enough—it’s not enough—and we don’t believe that motels should be used in a wide-scale way where people are staying longer than a week, longer than two weeks, and sometimes up to a month in a motel because there are no homes available within their local community. We’ll do something about it, and we’re proud to be measured on what we will do in this space.

The other point around partnership schools: now, again, we argued this matter very strongly in the House, but partnership schools have set up a two-tiered treatment of opportunities for kids. Some of the difficulty, when you look at some of the partnership schools that are currently able to deliver, some of the red tape under section 156 to transition them into a designated character school is actually one of the reasons why people went down that avenue. Now, in terms of outcomes for kids, if schools have got registered teachers, if schools are delivering outcomes that are going to lift outcomes for a lot of our kids, many who are Māori, then we should be looking at it in a way that, within the context of our public education system, we’re not setting up a two-tiered system.

But I am really pleased, and I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister’s opening speech in Parliament, because she made a really clear statement and we all heard it: things will be different. We have a different approach, a new energy, and a different generational shift that is not afraid to stand and be measured by our values and what we believe in. It is about people first, not profit for profit’s sake but actually investing back into what will ensure the sustainability of our whānau, our communities, our provinces, and our regions—that if we lift the well-being and opportunities for people, then everybody else can get on. It is about building a sense of community, because there’s a little bit of disconnectedness that has really impacted on a number of ways in which things aren’t quite working right at this moment. We’ll do things about that.

It is about caring for our environment, talking about sustainability but making it happen. And we’re proud—the Prime Minister is showing that—of our place in the global community and being a responsible citizen. But more importantly, in the hallmark of this Government make-up—because good things come in threes: Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens—we’re confident of our support for Māori and Polynesian identity and its place in New Zealand, founded on the Treaty.

The election result in the Māori electorates, and across the regions, indicated a seismic shift in sentiment—a seismic shift in sentiment. The gap between aspiration and action was simply too wide, too great. Too many people were suffering, finding themselves worse off when they were working—worse off when they were working. How could that be? You’d only need to go to your local Society of St Vincent de Paul and they would tell you that the changing profile of people coming to pick up food parcels were people who were working. Sleeping in cars became tolerable—we didn’t think so—and they were unable to get a home, unable to get work in their small town. They had to go to a city, struggling to survive there. So the gap between aspiration and action had just got a little bit too wide, too great, people were hurting, and that was the message about voting for change that we certainly heard.

Now, we have work to do. There is no doubt about it—there is no doubt about it. But that message of change has to be one where people see that hope is not just a word—that it provides some opportunity to people; that action and aspiration are about making a difference and getting things done, not just talking about it; and that our priorities and values, if we are given the opportunity to govern for the period of time that will see critical change, especially when we talk about child poverty, reducing inequality and poverty, will see some tangible shifts within households.

It is at this point that I really want to talk about some of those opportunities under our 100-day plan of action. I’m really pleased about this, because there are a number of hashtags: #26weekspaidparentalleave—done.

Hon Member: Oh, yeah.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Yeah. #banningofspeculatorsbuyingexistinghomes—done. In the new year, #threeyearsfreeducation will be done, starting with the first year in 2018. Young people love it, and they know we’re backing them for their future. This is about investing in people and opportunity, not just talking about it. So turn up to a tertiary institution in your region—against any one of the other Wellington MPs on this side of the House—and you will see people love that initiative alone.

But there are other things: ensuring that we are building more homes; working within regions with iwi to ensure that we are not only building homes but getting people migrating from rentals into homeownership as a tangible pathway; making sure that rentals are warm, dry, and healthy places to bring up kids. I’m really proud about those things in the 100-day plan of action where people will really feel the difference.

Working for Families: ensuring that those whānau who are working can still be supported at a level where it can make a difference for their people. But there are other things in our communities where actually we’re sending a clear signal that things have to be different.

In the mental health space alone—and we know, in our communities, the rates of youth suicide and what’s not happening in mental health—being able to set up a ministerial inquiry in order to fix the mental health crisis will make a fundamental difference. This, in many of the communities that I represent, is one of the key policies that signal things will not only be different. We’ll do something about it, and we will make sure that the investment into support for people in their communities—so that they can live a better life—will, alongside the rest of our 100-day plan of action, be the hallmark of a Government who cares about people, puts them first, and is committed to doing something different so that aspiration and action can be felt on the ground, in our communities, where it matters most.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote): It’s great to be back here for the 52nd Parliament. I admit it could have been greater to be back here, but here we are, and every question time, I think, it’s just getting better and better and more enjoyable.

I just want to congratulate you on your assent to the deputy speakership, Madam Deputy Speaker. You were an excellent ministerial colleague and you achieved a lot over your nine years of service as a Minister, and I’d ask you also to pass on our congratulations to the new Speaker. We’re enjoying his firm rulings and his simple punishments, and I think it is going to be a very—

Chris Penk: And his mild deafness.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: And his mild deafness, actually, in the left ear—considering we are to his left, here.

But I was having a flashback, actually, during question time today, because it took me back to 30 years ago when, believe it or not, Kelvin Davis and I, for two years, played in the same rugby team. I was the hooker and the Acting Prime Minister was the blindside flanker. But it soon became apparent that Kelvin wasn’t going to be able to remember the lineout calls, so by year two we were moving him up to prop, and that was really where his forte was: head down, bum up, not thinking too much, and just pushing. When you saw Kelvin today—Mr Davis—

Hon Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s been a longstanding tradition in this House that you have to address members by their full names, and this is the Acting Prime Minister.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, I called him Mr Davis.

Hon Tracey Martin: You called him “Kelvin”.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, I said “Kelvin—Mr Davis”. Come on, Tracey. Anyway, I will do that. When I saw Mr Kelvin Davis there today, having Grant—Mr Grant Robertson—whisper into his ear what was going on, it just reminded me that nothing changes. And I can tell you, the Acting Prime Minister can try answering questions in Māori, but rubbish is still rubbish whether you’re speaking it in English or Māori, and I think he’s going to be thoroughly lambasted in the papers tomorrow. He’s probably getting a thrashing on Twitter right now. It was a descent into some sort of absurdist theatre: “Waiting for Kelvin”—waiting for Kelvin to answer.

Hon Tracey Martin: Long name—full name.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: If you don’t get that reference, it’s—“Waiting for Mr Kelvin Davis” to answer. I don’t think an answer is going to come, because, you know, in the end, all he was being asked was a simple question: will this new Government trust New Zealanders to make up their minds about what’s best for them and their families. All Mr Davis—Mr Kelvin Davis—had to say was “No”.

But it got actually even more absurd. We had a run around the front bench there, and then the new education Minister, Mr Hipkins, was telling us that, actually, you can abolish national standards but you can use them if you like. So what does that mean? That is incredible. That is completely absurd. What I can tell you is that at my local school, Northcote Primary School, which my kids attend, I’ve been very grateful to be able to receive twice a year that very clear description of the progress my kids are making. What I can say is that New Zealand parents have appreciated that, and Mr Hipkins is now saying he’s abolishing that but he doesn’t know what he’s going to put in its place. He is going to remove that certainty that parents wanted, and that’s because the education and teacher unions have a big say in what’s going on in education. They’ll have a hotline straight into Mr Hipkins’ office, just like the health unions—[Bell rung]—will have a hotline straight into—

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do apologise. Wrong bell.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: That’s all right. Withdraw and apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Just like the education unions, every sort of union will have a hotline into every Minister’s office on that side.

Then we had Mr Twyford. Well, he’s telling us he can build 100,000 houses, but the BNZ is actually saying it’s going to be a net of 50,000 houses. So you can see, these guys have put pretty big targets on their backs. We had Mr Robertson before. He was up there telling us about all the things he is going to do. And, like the Speech from the Throne, Mr Robertson’s speech was just dripping with good intentions. But there’s no detail there about how any of this is going to be achieved.

And I will refer you—and this is the one bit I’m going to read out here, Madam Deputy Speaker—to the Leader of the Opposition’s amendment to the Prime Minister’s address, the opening speech by National in the Address in Reply debate. Bill English moved that this be added to the address: “that, in the context of the new Government inheriting a strong economy and strong Government books, it account for its progress based on the improvements it delivers for New Zealanders beyond the impressive achievements of New Zealand in the last decade;”. And we don’t want to live in the past, but I can tell you it’s without question that this Government has been handed a very impressive set of books.

We’ve got unemployment down to its lowest rate in years—4.6 percent. The average wage has grown to $60,000 from $46,000 nine years ago. Wages are growing ahead of inflation. New Zealand is in an excellent position. And what I’m really concerned about is that the new Government will blow it because they don’t have any idea of how the New Zealand economy got to this point. How we got there—it was the sum of a whole lot of small decisions across Government, backed up by hard-working New Zealanders, who went out each day and did their best to earn a dollar to support their family and make something of their lives.

And what I’m really concerned about is that the new Government seems to be under the illusion that it all just grows on trees and it’s all there to fritter away. Their policies are very confused. I mean, if you look at this free tertiary education, that is going to see Kiwi labourers—their hard taxes—paying the tertiary fees of Aussie accountants. And I can tell you what—if you were in Australia and your kids were facing the prospect of high student fees in Australia or free tertiary over here in New Zealand, what would you do?

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I wouldn’t do anything, OK?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You’d send them over here, and that—the Deputy Speaker wouldn’t do anything, but, you know, what would one do? And, exactly: one would take advantage of the largesse of the New Zealand taxpayer. So it’s extremely confused.

And then the new health Minister—and I congratulate him on his new position. You know, he’s on the front page of the Herald saying that the new Government is now going to take responsibility for the suicide rate and that he agrees with the Prime Minister that they are going to get suicide down to zero. Now, I don’t want to make, you know, too much of this, in that this is a very serious and difficult subject, but these people are going to find that, actually, you can talk big in Opposition, but you’ve got to deliver.

The new Government has to deliver a whole lot of stuff. They’ve got to live within their means. They’ve got to balance the books. They’ve got to get debt down to 20 percent of GDP. They’ve got to get the suicide rate down, because they’ve said they will do that. They’ve got to start building Dunedin Hospital by the end of this term, because they’ve promised to do that.

They’re also going to cancel charter schools, and I think that’s a huge shame, and I would encourage Labour members to take a break from the union meetings and the local committee meetings and actually go and visit a charter school. That’d be a really good idea. Go to Vanguard Military School in Albany and see the benefits that that delivers for children who weren’t having a very good time in conventional schools. I would urge those members to rethink things and go to a charter school and actually consider whether they might find it in themselves—[Interruption]

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but I will ask, Fletcher Tabuteau, that you stand, withdraw, and apologise. You cannot impute that on another member in the House.

Fletcher Tabuteau: I do withdraw and I apologise.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, thank you very much. Charter schools—that’ll be a very, very interesting debate, and I would like to be a fly on the wall in the Labour caucus when Willie Jackson gets up and makes the argument for charter schools. It’s going to be pretty important, I think, if we’re going to get those young New Zealanders the education opportunities that they deserve.

But, talking about more confusion, what about the Trans-Pacific Partnership? I mean, what are they calling it now? “CTTTP”, or something like that. I mean, it’s something. How different is it to the agreement that the Hon Todd McClay, through a lot of hard work and negotiation, managed to secure for New Zealand? Actually, out of 5,000 pages, there’s two pages that are different, and they’re saying it’s substantively different. But I don’t know how Labour is going to keep in the Greens and New Zealand First and actually support “CTTPP”, or whatever it’s called. It’s going to be very, very interesting.

So there are interesting times ahead for this Government. They’re full of big talk. I wish them well, actually, because it’s important that New Zealand succeeds. They’ve been left the books in a great state. New Zealand is making fantastic progress and, I tell you what, I really hope they don’t make a mess of it, because, from what I’ve seen so far in question time, you’d have to be very, very fearful of the track that New Zealand is going to go down over the next three years.

But what I want the public to be assured about is that this Opposition—we know those portfolios inside out. And we will be holding the big talkers to account. So it’s going to be really, really interesting. So I’m looking forward to the next three years and making these guys deliver the outcomes they’ve promised. It’ll be interesting.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. So I didn’t want to, you know, break my own flow; it was broken enough by various interjections. But, look, the Hon Tracey Martin—you know, it’s just a persistent stream of non-witty barrage. And, actually, I think it’s a good time to be able to raise the tone of Parliament. The new Speaker is very keen to do that. I don’t mind witty and occasional interjections, but, frankly, that continual spewing out of invective at a high pitch and volume—it just doesn’t help debate.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do understand the member’s point of order, and I would point out to the Hon Tracey Martin, first of all, that she has changed her seat, but, secondly, there’s a very good Speaker’s ruling from Deputy Speaker Braybrooke that says that interjections should be rare, reasonable, and, if possible, witty. I think it’s something like that. So just keep that in mind.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Sorry—just about the changing of the seat. Can I clarify—so if I’m on duty, do I need to stay in the same seat that I was—

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you need to think about your interjections.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I say, first of all, that it’s great to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, especially today, along with a woman in the Clerk’s seat. It’s a great thing to see.

I am immensely proud to have been returned as the member for Dunedin South with the strongest party vote since 2005. Across Dunedin, it turned comprehensively several shades more red. I’m immensely proud to be a member of the new coalition Government, with the support of the Green Party, and to be a Cabinet Minister in an active, focused, empathetic, strong Government that is open and transparent, and, also, to be the first woman Cabinet Minister from Dunedin.

Chris Bishop: Well done.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: Thank you. This is a Government of transformation, and it’s a Government that’s not sitting on its hands. It’s not sitting on its hands; it’s got a programme of meaningful change, and it’s getting on with it. We’ve got fresh ideas every day to solve the problems facing New Zealanders. We’ve got a 100-day plan, which we have made good progress on. You will see more progress, Mr Bishop. You will get to speak many times on legislation before the end of the year. We’re demonstrating that we are in touch with the issues that are most important to New Zealanders.

In the first few weeks, we’ve already made huge strides. We’ve outlined how we’ll stop foreign speculators from buying existing homes, negotiated and improved a trade agreement with our Pacific partners, reiterated our commitment to equal pay by cancelling National’s flawed legislation that would’ve made pay equity harder for New Zealand women to achieve, and we have almost finished progressing that paid parental leave legislation, finally, through this House. Thank you to Sue Moroney and to Iain Lees-Galloway, and to all those women and those groups out there in the community who have pushed this issue for so long.

The Ardern Government has been clear that this Government will do things differently—for my part, building more trust between citizens and their Government; a vision and a strategic approach using technology as a true enabler for our community; a blue-print for digital inclusion to stop the digital haves and have-nots gap from growing bigger; and setting the framework for the establishment of a full, non-commercial public media broadcasting service for all New Zealanders, a framework for strengthening citizens’ rights in the digital environment. This Government will address both the economic and the social deficits in this country, because we won’t leave anyone behind. We’ll also be modern and we’ll be future focused.

The last Government—and I think the previous speaker, Jonathan Coleman, patently demonstrated this—has been living in the past; arrogant and dismissive. They took a “build it and we will come” approach to technology. They ignored and entrenched the digital divide, which is becoming a new measure of poverty. They’ve starved public broadcasting and debate. They ignored and diminished citizens’ rights. In fact, through some of their measures, they put citizens’ rights at risk through the use of data, and they paid utter—utter—lip service to openness and transparency.

New Zealand is a fantastic country. I think we all agree with that; I think we all said that when we went out on the stump and talked to people in our communities. But it could be so much better. This Government talks about its record. We’ve got the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD, the highest rate of teen suicide in the OECD, home ownership at a 60-year low, and people who can’t get their operations and can’t even get an appointment with their specialist. We’ve got regions that have been neglected for years, we’ve got dirty rivers, and we’ve got kids that haven’t been properly prepared for the jobs of the future.

People, rightly, expect that Government should behave in an open and transparent way where it can. We absolutely support that. We will be absolutely committed to achieving those goals. Our 100-day plan is absolutely focused on the most important priorities: the first year of tertiary education free for young people leaving school, going into university, doing a trade, or doing any other tertiary training programme. This is not just about university. I noted what the previous speaker said, which seemed to be very much anti tertiary education. This is transformative; this is about helping to prepare our young people for the jobs of the future. Stopping the sale of State houses—all of the other measures that we have that are preparing this country for the challenges it faces.

We’ve got started; we’ve started implementing that 100-day plan. We’re trying to demonstrate humility, kindness, and determination. We’re absolutely a reformist Government. We believe in fairness, innovation, and participatory democracy. We’re getting on with it. We’re getting on with our 100-day plan. This is a Government that will make comprehensive change. We’ll do it in a way that is fair and equitable. We will close all of those divides across the country, we will measure those divides and provide those measurements, and we’ll do it in a way that brings the rest of the country with us.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you. I too, like others, want to congratulate you on your role as the Deputy Speaker, though I do see that you’re having a little teething problem of knowing how to work the desk at the front there, with the bells and whistles that are there. It is truly an honour to have you in that role, with all the wisdom and the experience that you bring with you, as you have been a member and a Minister in this House, as well.

As it is the Address in Reply debate, can I also just acknowledge Tamati Coffey—he is here, and Jo Luxton is also—who was the mover of the Address in Reply. Tamati, I too was honoured in the 50th Parliament to give the Address in Reply, on behalf of the National Party, as a new member coming into Parliament in 2011. I know the honour that it is to our whānau and our family as well, so I just wanted to acknowledge that it is one of those occasions.

And to Jo and all the others, and to all our new members too—to members on both sides of the House—I particularly wanted to pay respect to you, the new members for 2017, who have come here. They say that the maiden and the valedictory statements are your two speeches where you can actually express the sense of who you are, where you come from, the reasons why you’re here, and what you would like to achieve, as well. We’ve seen many of those through the speeches.

The Address in Reply, in a sense, reflects also from the Speech from the Throne in regard to what the current Government will be doing—what its intent is, and what it’s trying to achieve.

I do know that there was some talk about the Greens and New Zealand First. I know that the Hon Tracey Martin talked about how there is love there—there is the sharing of love. But I do have to say that when I was given the original seating plan for the House, it didn’t quite look like that. In fact, it looked like there was only one there—which was the Deputy Prime Minister—and the rest of New Zealand First were on that side. Obviously, things have changed, and now they’re seated over here. That’s just part of, I suppose, the relationship that they’re in, but it’s good to see them on the other side.

I’ve had a number of people come up to me and say, “How do you feel now that the election—because we can’t understand. You actually won. You got 44.4 percent of the party vote. You got the highest number of any political party.” It took me a whole hour at one stage in the local cafe to explain that to people, because they, in themselves, could not understand. I said, “Well, you’re correct. We were the highest-polling party in the party vote, at 44.4 percent.” But I did have to say, “Here’s the reality of MMP, and we have to accept it. We’ve accepted it. This is the reality of MMP. So while we may have been the highest-polling party, unfortunately we weren’t able to form a Government.” Now, some people found that really hard and really difficult to understand, but we had to explain that to them.

To me, it was a difficult thing because, for some of us, we had just become Ministers for the first time—we had that opportunity. We have to say that it was a privilege and an honour to serve in that way and to have the opportunities that we had as well.

The difficulty I have, which I want to talk about in my speech, is that, on the opposite side, there is a lot of talk about the things that they want to achieve from this Government. I would term it in the form of the words “power to the people”. So as they’ve sort of put their manifesto together, and as they’re talking about the Speech from the Throne, it’s all about, “We want to give power to the people. We want to allow them to choose. We want them to be more included. We want them to have a sense of equity in all the things that we are doing.” But I have to say that when I think about that, I think about some of the things that are happening now, and in this Parliament the first piece of legislation to go through is about paid parental leave.

They say, “Power to the people.”; we say the same thing too. Why? Because we believe it’s important. Even in our time, in nine years of Government, we increased paid parental leave from 14 weeks to 18 weeks, and we were going to increase it to 20. We had a commitment there. On this side, there was no disagreement. We wanted to do it in a way that was fiscally responsible, but we still agreed with the intent. There was no argument—we are supporting the bill.

But here’s the point of difference. The fact is that there is a small amendment that would not cost any more and would not take any more time—this gets implemented in July. So it is “Power to the people, but”—here’s the small print in their clause of contract of trust and confidence—“we get to choose.”, rather than “you get to choose”. You, mums and dads, don’t get to choose whether you want to share that leave, whether you want to say, “Actually, I need to have my partner with me, because, at the moment, I’ve got post-natal distress disorder; I need that support.” The Government is saying, “You don’t get to choose; we get to choose.”

So this is the whole point of what I am putting in my speech. They say, “Power to the people.” but with a little small print they say, “Hang on! We get to choose.” Here’s an opportunity, and here’s the confusing point of this: Kelvin Davis, when asked a question, said it’s a good idea. Willow-Jean Prime talked about it—we heard her. She said, “Actually, it was a good idea. We should do this.” Even Sue Moroney herself has said, “Actually, it’s a great idea. We should do it.” But the party on the other side has chosen to say, “Actually, we don’t want to do this.” Why? “Power to the people, but, actually, maybe not all the power.” Why? Mystery solved: there’s no difference there. That’s the same thing again.

“Power to the people.”—it’s the same thing they said in the nine years when we talked about Treaty claims for Māori. “Yes, we’re for Māori; we want to choose that.” In regard to the foreshore and seabed, “Don’t want to go there.” It’s an ugly part of their history. But in the nine years of the Labour Government, when we talk about Treaty settlements, how many did they achieve? Nine. Under a National Government, how many did we achieve? Fifty-six. I have to tell you again: “Power to the people. Oh, hang on! Let’s just slow down, let’s check it out, let’s see whether it’s going to work.” That is not truly power to the people.

Let’s talk about Whānau Ora. The criticism from New Zealand First around Whānau Ora was to remove power to the people. Now, we have to say, remember the history of where it came from. Dame Tariana Turia tried to put the pitch across to Labour. It was rejected. Why? Too much power. To who? The Māori people, to choose how they would care for their whānau in all the ways that they thought were appropriate. But no, Labour chose not to.

So when the National Party came into Government, we said, “Power to the people? Absolutely! You can have the power.” Whānau Ora was in there, as well. So it is going to be very interesting to see how they refrain and adjust that, because on one hand, most of the Official Information Act requests came from New Zealand First, who said, “No, we don’t want to have that. Race-based policies, we don’t believe in.”, but, actually, under the New Zealand First and Labour coalition Government, we’ve got more race-based initiatives coming out than they’ve ever had before. You’ve got to have to say that too and explain that to your constituents. You’re a little bit confused at the moment. You’ve just said, “Power to the people.”, but—

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am not confused.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: Madam Deputy Speaker, apologies. Partnership schools: power to the people. Here it is—that’s right. Why? Because 1,400 young people don’t fit into mainstream schooling. They’ve struggled and, do you know what? It was the communities themselves who turned around and said, “We have an alternative. It’s called partnership schools, where we get to choose.” The majority of them are Māori and Pacific. The majority of them are from communities who said, “We want to choose how we want to care for and look after our kids.” It is making a difference. It is only 1,400 children, and the majority are Māori and Pacific. Why? Because those communities want to choose. Those members say, “Power to the people.”, but they are going to take them away. They’re going to remove them. Oh, but hang on, it’s a little bit hard now. Why? Because there’s a bit of conflict in there. You’ve got Aupito William Sio, who is conflicted. Why? Because there’s a connection there, in Rise UP Academy. You’ve also got Willie Jackson and you’ve got all these other people who have got these connections. Hang on! Power to the people? Maybe. Here’s the small print coming out again: maybe not all the power will come to you.

Members on this side—members of the previous Government—truly made a difference. When we say, “Power to the people.”, we give them opportunities. Whether it be in Treaty settlements, whether it be in Whānau Ora, or whether it be through partnership schools, all of these have made a difference to our communities. Better Public Services and social investment was about this. It was about knowing what it is that we were doing to make a difference to those children.

The Prime Minister herself has turned around and said, “I want to deal with child poverty.” She actually made the statement, “That’s the reason I came into Parliament.” I remember being at a debate in the year 2011. It was out at Ponsonby, and I remember that she was talking about poverty. She was asked this question: “Then why, in nine years under a Labour Government, are there 145 children still in poverty? You couldn’t actually achieve it. You had a surplus.” The comments and the reply were this: “Actually, it’s a job undone. It’s a job unfinished.” So here we are again. This Prime Minister is now coming to a point that she wants to try and finish this job, which she failed to do in a Government that had a surplus and had the ability in nine years and is now saying “We’re going to make a commitment to do that.”

Under a National Government, we had more opportunities to be able to do that. Why? Social investment knew the data and the detail as to who these children, these whānau, and these families were, to truly make a difference. The key point of what I want to get across to the people who are listening out there is that when people talk and ask this question of this current Government “Power to the people—how true is it?”, they should look at the small fine print in the contract of trust and confidence. Does it truly say to us, “Power so that we can make the decisions.”? Does it truly say, “Power to the point where, actually, we want to determine it ourselves—not the unions or anyone else.”? The fact is that we get to choose what makes a difference to our whānau and our family. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I too would like to congratulate you. I would like to congratulate all of the presiding officers. The Rt Hon Trevor Mallard—he’s been around this House for a long time. He’s been involved in almost every role, and I think he’s perfect to be able to manage and look after the House in the future, but it’s particularly good to see you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and also my colleague from Christchurch Poto Williams. To have more women in the Chair is something that we all support. So, thank you, madam.

I think we should look at the 52nd Parliament of New Zealand as something that’s unique. It’s unique in so many ways. It’s unique because it’s got a large number of new MPs. It’s unique because it’s got a particularly large number of women MPs. We have 46 women MPs this time. That’s 38 percent of the House and the most that we’ve ever had in this Parliament, and, what’s more, the women in this Parliament are very diverse. They’re diverse in age, they’re diverse in ethnicity, and they’re diverse in life experiences, and I think that diversity will add value to this House but also add value to the people of New Zealand.

It’s also unique because we have a very large, very strong, very focused and experienced Opposition, and that’s a good thing because this Opposition is absolutely committed to support the people of New Zealand to make sure that the new Government is held to account. The session has begun well. It’s begun with a hiss and a roar, and we’re going to have some very interesting months ahead.

Now, I think the Speech from the Throne covered almost every wish and every desire and scratched every itch of any Kiwi in New Zealand. It was aspirational, it was idealistic, and it was dripping with good intentions. But—but—there was so little detail, so little substance, about how these things would be implemented, about how these things would be paid for, and about how this activity was actually going to happen. In some ways, it was a really expensive warm, fuzzy laundry list. Expensive, because it was funding for regions and funding for almost anywhere else. There was free this, free that, free everything. It was a little bit like a lolly scramble. Very easy to promise; very hard to deliver, and one thing we know in life is that over-promising and under-delivering normally ends in tears.

So there’ll be no surprises that bank economists looking at the speech and looking at Labour’s promises have forecast that Labour is going to have to borrow significantly to deliver their promises—borrow significantly. In fact, the ANZ thinks it’s probably something like about $13 billion—$13 billion—which is just $2 billion more than Steven Joyce was worried about, and the BNZ agrees. In fact, it thinks this is a conservative estimate. The thing that really frightens me most is that the ASB has revised its economic forecasts around the future growth of New Zealand. Those forecasts, which were sitting at a very high 3.8 percent, have now come back to 3.2 percent after these economists have had a good look at this new Government and listened to all their promises.

I actually think that was what a lot of people were thinking when they listened to the Speech from the Throne. “Yes, I understand the aspiration and, yes, I understand the intention, but, actually, how are we going to pay for it? How are we going to pay for it?”, because there was lots of information about ideas. In fact, somebody said there were 51 different promises, but there was nothing—absolutely nothing—that was convincing, that was concrete, or that was anything to do with how it was going to pay for it. No energy and no effort was made on the earning side of the equation. We all know—it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter how big or how small your budget is—that you have to earn before you can spend. Spending big—great—but you’ve got to earn big, too.

Now, the key issue here is—and I don’t want to be cynical; it’s not in my nature to be cynical—that any Government has to be fiscally responsible, they have to be economically savvy, and they have to be hard-headed. A Government cannot—cannot—over-promise and under-deliver. Even a Government like this, which has inherited such a strong, growing economy, with the numbers of jobs increasing every month, wages going up, and the future looking rosy, has got to understand where their next money is coming from before it can promise it all away. As I said, very little effort, very little idea, on the earning side of the equation.

But the thing that really bothered me is there’s two big issues that have been missing totally out of the Government’s Speech from the Throne. In contrast to the National Government speech in 2011 and 2014, there was absolutely no mention of Canterbury, Christchurch, or even Kaikōura and giving some support for earthquake recovery—

Chris Bishop: No mention? You’re kidding!

Hon NICKY WAGNER: —no mention of that at all.

Chris Bishop: That’s unbelievable.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: And we know that it’s going to be needed. So the Government has to come clean: where is the money? The National Government committed to stand by the people of Canterbury, committed to fund infrastructure redevelopment, committed to the anchor projects, and committed to transition out of Christchurch, and Kaikōura is only on the first year of that journey. But this Government—this Government—has committed to nothing. So I think it’s like the Government’s absolutely forgotten us. We used to have three Ministers in Christchurch—three Ministers who were committed to the future of Christchurch and to making sure our city was rebuilt. We now have only one. In actual fact, I’d like to ask that Minister—the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration—first of all, can she commit financially to supporting Greater Christchurch and is she going to make regeneration happen? We have absolutely no promises around that.

There is also a problem in terms of the fact that a lot of people in the South Island are feeling really nervous about the drift of influence to the North, with the Prime Minister from Auckland, the Deputy Prime Minister from Northland, and the Deputy leader of Labour a Northlander too. It’s as if the Government doesn’t know anything about what happens beyond the Bombay Hills. And, actually, there’s a lot of us down there, and we work pretty hard and we produce productivity for New Zealand.

But the other thing that really worries me is that there’s been no mention in the Speech from the Throne—again, unlike the National speech in 2014—no money for supporting disability, for supporting disabled people across the country. Now, back in 2014, the National Government committed to Enabling Good Lives, a transformation—

Fletcher Tabuteau: You didn’t put any money in it.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: —of disability support. We absolutely did put money into it, and what’s more, we’ve got money to roll that out. This is a co-designed, sector-supported initiative that will give disabled people more choice, more control, and more opportunities in their lives. This is incredibly important for the disability sector, but, again—not one peep about disability support in the Speech from the Throne.

The other thing they seem to have done is they seem to have forgotten how important the disabled sector is. Did you know 24 percent of New Zealanders have some kind of disability? But in this case, they tacked disability issues on to social welfare. It doesn’t even stand alone. So the problem that we have here is: yes, disabled people do use social welfare, but they have so much more that they need to be able to do. They need to have opportunities to be involved in every sphere of New Zealand’s life. They need to have opportunities to be part of the community, opportunities to be part of education, opportunities to be part of the workplace. So I’m really concerned.

The two things that are really close to my heart—the rebuild of Christchurch and looking at what’s happening in Kaikōura—no money, not a mention in the Speech from the Throne. And the second thing—the welfare, the future, of the disabled community and people with disabilities and how they can have more choice, more control, and more opportunities in our community—nothing about that either. So I’m concerned. We left New Zealand in good heart and a good support—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Sorry, your time has expired.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): Tuhia ki te rangi, tuhia ki te whenua, tuhia ki te ngākau o ngā tāngata, ko te mea nui, ko te aroha, tīhei mauri ora! E ngā mema hōnore o Te Whare nei, Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi ki a koutou!

[Write it up in the sky, on the land, and in the affections of people: empathy is indeed the important thing. Behold the breath of life! To you, the members of this House, Parliament of New Zealand, salutations and acknowledgments to you, and a huge appreciation to you collectively.]

Madam Assistant Speaker, may I first take this opportunity to congratulate you on your new position within this Parliament. I congratulate you and wish you the best in your new role.

I would, and could, love to take my 10-minute contribution to rebut the drivel coming from the other side of the House—

Chris Bishop: Away you go.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —but I have a few choice words, for Mr Bishop’s benefit. He is probably the only one who—oh no, I’m not going to say that either.

Mr Ngaro spoke about the choices for the people of New Zealand. What choices did that former Government—that Opposition party—give the people of New Zealand? Well, here’s an example: they had to choose between a home, a car, or a cardboard box. That is your legacy, which you hand over post-election.

When he spoke about the education system, what choice did they give to the New Zealand public—to those parents who wanted to send their children to Salisbury School, while all the time the Minister of Education and other Ministers artificially lowered the roll of that school? There was no choice for those parents. There was no choice for those children.

Can I just start by saying how grateful I am that the Rt—no, not the “Rt Hon”—the Hon David Bennett has been unfettered, or that his ministerial leash, as I’m sure he would have seen it, has been removed from his collar. I tell you what, for three years I have taken genuine pleasure in hearing the contributions of the Hon David Bennett, because every time he speaks, it’s just great for this side of this House. It’s just fantastic.

He was actually quite typical of the sad and miserable line-up of members proffered from the Opposition in this Address in Reply debate. The poorly thought-through messaging, the nine years in which that party had to make a tangible difference to this country, and already they’re talking about, after, what is it—a week and a half, or two weeks? They are saying that we’re not progressing enough and we’re not moving fast enough. Nine years—there are so many words that are unparliamentary that I would love to say right now, but I cannot.

To the “soon to be Leader of the Opposition Collins”—for that member to speak about the negotiations at all was insulting to me. She wasn’t there, let alone to imply that it was hollow and without good intent and honest engagement by New Zealand First with both parties. I was insulted. We engaged, we talked policy, and, in fact, the current Leader of the Opposition at least spoke about the honest—what were his words?—negotiations and how they were undertaken in good faith.

In summary, what we have seen from the Opposition line-up in the last week or so has been sad. In fact, it’s been inappropriate, it’s been unnecessarily personal, and it’s been toxic, and it has been an indictment on those members. Really and truly, I think the only word that sums it up is “sad”.

The New Zealand First caucus, in fact, decided in the end to make a choice for New Zealand, and we made a choice for real change, rather than a modified status quo. So I proudly stand on this side of the House in a New Zealand First - Labour Government and a Government with the Greens that represents real and meaningful change for the people of New Zealand. We did, and we sought out to, restore the face of responsible human capitalism in New Zealand.

The people of New Zealand have already seen from around the world the devastating effects of the current right-wing thinking. They have seen how those who need our help the most are those who will suffer under the policies of that side of the House, and New Zealand was absolutely no exception to what we saw occurring around the world. In fact, in the last nine years, it seemed to accelerate in an exponential manner. Inequality was that problem, and inequality by any measure—unless it was from that side of the House while they were in Government—did get worse.

So here we are: a truly MMP Government. I believe, and the feedback from the people of New Zealand is, that we truly represent a hope and a change for this country—a moving forward where everyone can be a part of this country’s success, not just those that those members would call mates.

National’s flawed thinking was bad for Kiwis who were already struggling. What I wanted to make a point of today in my contribution is that not only was it flawed for those who were already struggling—those who were on the breadline who are now without a home, who are transient, and who are just absolutely struggling—but what I want to say to those members opposite is that already the feedback from a lot of business-savvy business owners is that they actually see what we’re trying to do here. They understand that a rising tide lifts all boats.

So when you have people who are in homes, who are looking after their children, who have access to education, and who have access to good and timely healthcare, that’s good for business. That’s good for business. When the combined income of New Zealanders moves and increases—Mr Bishop can speak to the House about the movement of aggregate demand—that is good for business.

Chris Bishop: I could. Could you?

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: That is good for business, Mr Bishop, in case you were unsure of that.

So here we are, speaking about being an inclusive Government, and we have already actioned some of those aspirations for New Zealand. But for me, for New Zealand First, and I know for the Government, what we are hoping to achieve is not to bring that pendulum back from that extreme far right—where this country has, unfortunately, gone to under that party on that side of the House—and not to bring it back to the left, but to bring it back to a centre, common-sense state of affairs.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, and I say that in that broad sense because I have no doubt I will look forward to working with my colleagues on this side of the House. Already I see so much excitement and anticipation over here. But I actually say I look forward to working with my colleagues on the other side of the House, because I know, and everyone in this House believes, that we are living in the best little country in the world. I don’t think anyone’s going to debate that New Zealand is a fantastic country to live in. But let us now work together, and I implore those members on the opposite side—especially with the way that we have generously configured the select committee situation, where we can work together for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

We had had enough—we had had enough of that party. Let’s actually start delivering for all New Zealanders, and let’s do this.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. As everybody else has said, congratulations on your appointment. I’m sure that you’re going to do a fantastic job. Can I also express my congratulations to Adrian Rurawhe and also to the Hon Anne Tolley and the Rt Hon Trevor Mallard. I think that we’ve got a good, strong team.

After listening to the previous speaker, Fletcher Tabuteau, I can understand why they chose to go with Labour, because there’s such an enormous amount of misinformation and inaccuracy to his statements. The first thing he said was that inequality has increased, and only months before the election, the Ministry of Social Development came out with the report to say that over the last two decades—that is our National Government, and also the prior Government—inequality has not increased in this country, because of the transfer system. Then he talked about the “excessive right” Government that preceded this present one. We need to understand that the top three percent of New Zealanders, in terms of income earners, pay 25 percent of the income tax. Also, those in the four lowest deciles pay no tax, and in the five lowest deciles, once they have received transfers from the Government, there is no net contribution to the running of this country. And you say this is extreme right—that is wrong. We are a country that has income redistribution—probably more so than most countries in the world.

In the meantime, in all of this period of time over the last nine years, we have seen increased measures of employment, increased growth, and we have seen people stop leaving New Zealand and start coming back to live in this country. I think it’s important that New Zealanders do not forget what has been achieved over these last nine years. When you think about what the new Government has walked into, they have walked into surpluses, they have walked into increasing employment, and they have walked into economic growth. What did we walk into? We walked into a country already in recession for a year and then, as soon as National became the Government, the global financial crisis hit, went right around world, and created massive unemployment right around the world, including here. Then, just a couple of years later, we had the Canterbury earthquakes and that took $17 billion to $18 billion of Government money, as well as insurance money and Earthquake Commission money, to start that massive rebuilding project in Canterbury and Christchurch.

We understand that we’ve got a new Government. We want New Zealand to succeed. For the sake of New Zealanders, we want this to be a great country. But let’s just be careful about the kicks, all right? Let’s be careful about the kicks, because you’ve inherited a really strong fiscal position.

Darroch Ball: Oh, rubbish.

JONATHAN YOUNG: You really have. You have really inherited—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me, can I just remind the member not to include the Speaker in the debate.

JONATHAN YOUNG: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. While we have changed, not all change has great outcomes. But there has to be—and I am glad the previous speaker mentioned it—our select committee system, because our select committee system will ensure that legislation that comes through this House will be robust. It’s very unfortunate that the paid parental leave bill that was pushed through this House through urgency, but will not be enacted for another nine or 10 months, did not go through the select committee process, where some changes—some positive changes that the Government is already acknowledging it will support, but not just now—could have been incorporated for the benefit of those families, as Amy Adams spoke of yesterday on the bill.

The war against poverty is a very, very serious war. But I would say to the Government, who have made the war against poverty—like I said, be careful of the kicks. We hate generational poverty, but do not hate generational prosperity. When people succeed, do not blame them. Do not make them feel guilty. Yes, we want to see a human face in New Zealanders and to care for those who are in deprivation—of course we do—but be very careful not to hit those businesses, not to hit those entrepreneurs, and make them feel that this place is not a place where they can succeed and do business. It is on their risk-taking, their effort, and their hard work that we can continue to generate the jobs that will employ the young people who come through our education system.

Our education system—which, once again, the people on the other side of the House are giving a good knock and a good kick, because they feel they can do better; we need to understand some of the gains that have been achieved. When we came into Government, 50 percent of those young Māori boys, in particular, were failing the system. We worked hard. Hekia Parata, who’s no longer in this House, needs to be recognised and acknowledged for the hard work she did to ensure that achievement was lifted in those particular areas, where now 75 percent of those young Māori men are achieving NCEA level 2 and have been able to go to apprenticeships, go on to further studies and tertiary studies, and be able to succeed in order to actually build this society and our community and their own lives and the families that they are a part of.

So, in the last two years, we have seen incredible job creation at the rate of 10,000 a month, with 56,000 jobs created in just the last three months. Businesses are looking for people. Regional centres are looking for people who would go in and work hard, and we have got to be very careful that we do not take away the incentive for work. Yes, I hear what people are saying in terms of the issue around care and compassion, but listen, if you make it so easy that people don’t have to work, how is that caring for them? We want our young people to be full of skill and education, and also full of motivation and determination to get out there and to make a way for their own lives, and also to support those businesses that employ them. We want our businesses to succeed, because they are the ones who employ people. We as politicians don’t employ people. What we’ve got to do is make sure that the groundwork, the regulatory environment, the laws of this land are such that businesses prosper, that businesses can succeed, and that those laws continue to be fair and continue to enable those people to come through.

Madam Assistant Speaker, just very briefly touching on the Speech from the Throne, climate change is the greatest challenge facing the world. I think we all acknowledge—we don’t resile from—that fact. But there are also other challenges that are facing this world: the technological wave, the tsunami that is coming to economies of the world. And while we are concerned, and justifiably so, about environmental challenges, let’s also be aware of the vocational challenges that face our young people, and not only our young people but current workforces where they will find themselves made redundant because of technology and because of increases in that particular area. Let’s not hide away from technology; it’s going to be the answer for so many things. But we need to be very, very mindful and also careful about what we do.

The Prime Minister’s speech read from the Throne says, “This Government will support a just transition for workers in industries that need to reduce emissions, and it will support the creation of jobs in sectors that are carbon free or carbon sinks, such as forestry.” Let’s be quite careful about what we do and what we think about this sort of thinking. Yes, we all understand. Yes, we all understand the issues and the challenges, but when we think about the swift but smooth transition that is spoken about, let us understand that most things that happened swiftly never happened smoothly. There needs to be considerable thought about transition—how it takes place—so that somebody who has received $100,000 salary because they are a highly qualified technical person in the oil and gas industry doesn’t find themselves with a very low income because there isn’t the job opportunity or the technology to bring them into.

So what I am saying in my final seconds of this speech is: let’s be mindful, let’s understand the challenges, but let’s be very, very careful about how we enact them. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

NUK KORAKO (National): E Te Mana Whakawā, e tuatahi, ka mea nui ki te mihi atu ki tō tātou Matua Nui-i-Te Raki, ā, ko Ia te tīmātaka me te whakaoti o te ao katoa, nō reira, ka mihi au ki te Kaihōmai o kā mea pai katoa! Ka maumahara mātou ki a rātou kai tua, kua wehe ki te ao wairua, nō reira koutou rā, o ia marae, o ia iwi, o ia waka, e haere i ruka i te āra whānui a Tāne ki tua o te ārai, haere, haere, haere!

Ka hoki, hoki ngā maumaharatanga mō Tō whānau whānui o Te Whare Pāremata, e haere atu rā Lewis Moeau nō Rongowhakaata, haere atu rā Rangi Karaitiana McGarvey, nō reira e te rakatira, haere atu rā ki Te Pā o Te Whakawairua, e takoto mai, takoto mai, takoto mai! E takoto i te rangimārie i runga i tō waka, hoe atu tō waka ki tua o te ārai, haere, haere, e haere atu rā!

Nō reira, tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, ka whakamihi au mō nā nohonā a Te Pika mō Te Pāremata, e rima tekau mā rua. Nō reira, huri noa i Te Whare nei, nā mihi hoki ki ngā mema o Te Paremata hōu o ngā taha ruarua hoki, me tō koutou rapu ara o Te Pāremata, nō reira, huri noa i Te Whare, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

[Madam Assistant Speaker, firstly, it is an important thing to acknowledge our Great Father in heaven. He is the beginning and ending of everything in the world, so I pay a tribute to the Provider of all good things! We reflect on those on the other side who have departed to the spiritual world, and so to you collectively of each tribe and each canoe who have traversed the great path of Tāne beyond the veil, go forth, journey on, depart!

Memories also go back to Your family at large of Parliament, that one who has passed away, Lewis Moeau from Rongowhakaata; farewell indeed Rangi Karaitiana McGarvey, go forth to the spiritual world, esteemed one; rest there, lie there, sleep! Lie there at peace upon your canoe, paddle it beyond the veil, go forth, go on, farewell!

And salutations to you Mr Speaker; I congratulate you for becoming the Speaker of the 52nd Parliament. Congratulations, therefore, throughout this House to all members of the new Parliament, on both sides, plus your search for an avenue via Parliament, and so I congratulate you all throughout the House.]

I would, first of all, just start my mihi by acknowledging this House, but also by acknowledging two very important people who actually worked tirelessly in this House and who have passed away during the transition from the 51st to the 52nd Parliament. Lewis Moeau had a long career in Te Puni Kōkiri or the Ministry of Māori Development. He was also the cultural adviser to Prime Ministers and also Governors-General. The other one was Te Rangi Karaitiana McGarvey of Ngāi Tūhoe, of Ngāi Te Rangi, and Ngāti Whakauē. I had the pleasure, even though it was a short space of time in the 51st Parliament, as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, to work very closely with Te Rangi. He was a tohuka of Te Reo and he worked tirelessly for the Waitangi Tribunal and also Te Whare Pāremata. I went to his tangi in Ruatōki—one of those beautiful people of the mist—where they made me welcome that I could tangi with them on such a sad departure. So I wanted to acknowledge those two who have passed away.

Madam Assistant Speaker, it’s also great for me to acknowledge you, and also as a member of Parliament from Christchurch, and also to acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson and also the Hon Megan Woods—and particularly Megan Woods, who is actually our only Cabinet Minister in Christchurch. I also want to congratulate the new MPs from right across the House and returning MPs, into this 52nd Parliament. I want to acknowledge also the former Minister for Māori Development and also former Minister for Whānau Ora, the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell, and also the former Attorney-General and former Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Christopher Finlayson. It is their work that we will actually see moving through this 52nd Parliament. It is the type of work that they did, the legislation that was put through, and that is still pending, that we believe will actually create better opportunities for Te Iwi Māori.

Also—just to go to the Governor-General’s speech—in this 52nd Parliament, it was acknowledged that we have, in the history of this Parliament, more Māori and Pacific Islanders than ever before. There are, in fact, just over 30 MPs of Māori or Pacific Island descent. This was also highlighted—and I congratulate the coalition Government—but also they actually have more Māori and Pacific Islanders in Cabinet than ever before. Ngā mihi.

I think it’s very, very important to acknowledge Te Tiriti o Waitangi, because this will have, I believe, a bearing on what I have just said. The largest number of MPs of Māori and Pacific Island descent in this Parliament creates the opportunity that we could collaborate together to move forward in the interests of our people and all New Zealanders. So, under the Treaty of Waitangi, it is always said that this is a Treaty for everyone.

In a maiden speech last week, there was quoted something from Dame Whina Cooper—that was by Willow-Jean Prime. But Dame Whina Cooper also said that the Treaty is for all New Zealanders, so I just want to make that point, and hopefully we’ll take advantage of that and be collaborative right across the House itself.

There is one thing I want to acknowledge: the new Minister for Māori Development, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and also the Associate Minister for Māori Development. I want to acknowledge the work that we did together in the Māori Affairs Committee, and I hope that she will take up the wero also to continue that work. It has been acknowledged around Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill. I would hope that Te Ture Whenua Maori Bill is going to continue through that committee stage, because when we look at Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, we have to acknowledge the fact that, under the current Act, there are still thousands of owners disconnected from their land. Fragmentation is getting worse, as opposed to getting better. There is little in the current Act for those small managed blocks. The other part of it is that there is nothing in the current Act to resolve disputes.

So a lot of the work was done. A special committee was set up to identify these issues in Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. In the new bill, the owners will finally be able to set rules making it harder to dispose of Māori land. Before 1987, there was only 5 percent of land in the whole of New Zealand under Māori ownership. So Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 was actually about the retention of Māori land. This new bill is actually about the utilisation of Māori land, to free it so that our people have tino rangatiratanga over it. So I would hope that this bill will continue through the House.

It is also great to know that the new Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Andrew Little, will actually continue to move those Treaty settlement bills through the House. Also, it’s great to know that he is working already on the Ngāpuhi settlement. I wish him well—we all do.

On that note, in the final parts of this speech, again I want to acknowledge the kotahitaka that needs to take place across the House. It is theatre in here a lot of the time around question time, but the real heavy lifting and the work is done in select committees. Hopefully, that can reflect the kotahitaka that we’re talking about.

I want to acknowledge the new chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, Rino Tirikatene, and also to acknowledge the deputy, Marama Davidson. Hopefully, we can continue as we have in the convention of the Māori Affairs Committee, which is to try and park our political affiliations at the door and move and work together for what’s best for our people. I acknowledge again that fact; let’s all try and work together. We’ll throw rocks now and then, but it’s actually about good legislation, at the end of the day, and it’s actually about our people—Te Iwi Māori and Pasifika, but also the whole of New Zealand.

Nō reira e Te Mana Whakawā, huri noa i Te Whare nei, e mihi, e mihi, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, kia ora!

[Therefore, Mr Speaker, I greet, acknowledge, and compliment you all throughout this House. Thank you.]

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. At 3.43 this afternoon, I received a request for information under the Official Information Act. It came from the Hon Paul Goldsmith, and what he wants to know is all about the work that we’ve been doing with the screen and film industry in the first three weeks of this Government. He wants to know what correspondence I’ve had, and what meetings I’ve had, and what briefings I’ve had from officials, and who I have written to. He even wants to know what phone calls I’ve made. I suspect that what he really wants to know is: how did we do it? How did this Government, a mere three weeks into its administration, manage to bring the different players together around an issue that caused such bitter division under the National Government?

The way the National Government dealt with industrial relations in the screen industry had people marching in the streets. It had the late and lamented Helen Kelly absolutely beside herself because that Government was destroying the rights of working people. It singled out one group of people—one group of workers in New Zealand—and diminished their rights, which was totally unacceptable and in contravention of a number of conventions that New Zealand has signed up to. It was all about division, and it was all about conflict. And, in three weeks, this Government has been able to bring all those players together and create harmony and work towards the commitment that we made before the election to restore the right to bargain collectively in that industry.

I am happy to share that information with the Hon Paul Goldsmith. We will be an open and transparent Government. We will not abuse the Official Information Act in the way that the previous Government did, but I say to Paul Goldsmith, “You don’t have to wait the 20 working days. It’s simple: constructive collaboration—working constructively with all the different parts of the sector—the producers, the unions, the guilds—getting everybody together, getting them around the table, and working towards a shared vision and finding a shared solution.” That’s how it works. Take the conflict out of industrial relations—the conflict that the National Government, the previous Government, used to thrive on. Take the conflict out and work together. It’s not that hard, and we’ve been able to demonstrate, in the first three weeks, that it’s actually something that works very well.

That’s the approach this Government will take to industrial relations. We have a progressive and substantial agenda to restore rights for working people in New Zealand, to ensure that we have a bargaining framework that ensures that working people in New Zealand get a fair share of a growing economy. Again, I am confident that by working with Business New Zealand, with the Council of Trade Unions, with chambers of commerce, and with everybody who has an interest in industrial relations, we will be able to construct a framework that works for everybody. I say to the National Party, “It’s not that hard.” They couldn’t do it in nine years of Government; we have demonstrated that we can do it in the first three weeks.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt the member. Could the members at the back of the House please take their seats. Thank you.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. This has been a busy few weeks for this Government. It’s been a busy few weeks for me as a new Minister. It started with halting National’s so-called pay equity bill, which was really a bill to deny working women the opportunity to make pay equity claims. Again, that bill has gone straight to the bin in the first couple of weeks, and we have begun the process of designing a new piece of legislation that will actually address the real concerns of working women in New Zealand. We will go back to the joint working group—again, working in a collaborative and constructive manner with both businesses and workers—to establish the principles of pay equity, to go back to the principles of pay equity that were established by that joint working group of Government, of business, and of unions working together, and we will introduce new legislation that adheres to those principles.

Unlike the National Party, this Government genuinely believes in achieving pay equity. This Government genuinely believes in closing the pay gap. Just yesterday, on Working for Free Day, the Minister for Women, Julie Anne Genter, and I met with representatives of working women, because, essentially, because of the pay gap in New Zealand, from yesterday through to the end of the year, women are working for free. Such is the nature of the pay gap that all the rest of the year women are working for free, because they earn less than men in New Zealand. Well, I have to say, I’ve been to that event a number of times over the years, and it was the first time I’ve been to one where there was hope—where there was actual hope that the Government would take those concerns seriously and would take genuine and progressive action towards closing the pay gap. What the people at that event said was that it was the right thing to do to throw the previous Government’s pay equity bill in the bin and start again. They like to put a little pressure on the Government; that’s fair enough. They’ve given us a one-year countdown to introduce new legislation to actually address that issue. I am committed, and this Government is committed, to ensuring that we don’t just make a lot of noise about pay equity but that we actually address the issue, that we make sure that we do close that pay gap, and that we do address the concerns about pay equity.

The second thing that we did is that the first bill this Government introduced was to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. Now, this is an issue that this Parliament has dealt with many times before. It’s passed through Parliament once and then got defeated at third reading after one party decided to change its mind at the last minute, and then it passed through Parliament again and actually was voted up at third reading—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The member is anticipating an order of the day, which is clearly outside the Standing Orders. He has a chance of addressing it later in the day.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The issue of paid parental leave is one that is important to this Government, and we will take action to extend paid parental leave. And then we do wish to work closely with parties around the House to look at other provisions relating to parental leave. There is an opportunity. And I am glad that after the years of division, the years of conflict, the years of fighting from the National Party against paid parental leave, they have now accepted that it is popular, it is what New Zealanders want, and that they are far better off being inside the tent than outside it. So, again, I extend the hand of friendship and the desire to work collaboratively and constructively with parties around the House. I do want to work with the National Party, with the Green Party, with the New Zealand First Party on what further developments we can make to paid parental leave. That journey will never be over. The introduction of 26 weeks’ paid parental leave was never going to be the end of the journey. There’s plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to work on other matters.

The other area where this Government has been working incredibly quickly is around the issue of ensuring that the trade agreements that we engage in are both progressive and comprehensive. We do agree, in the Labour Party, that we need to be connected with the world—that global trade is good for us when we have high-quality trade agreements. Again, the National Party told us time and time again that things couldn’t be done: that we couldn’t ban foreign buyers and enter into a regional trade agreement, that we wouldn’t be able to make any progress on investor-State dispute settlement clauses, that we wouldn’t be able to ensure the integrity of environmental law and labour law in New Zealand. Couldn’t be done! It could not be done, the National Party said. Well, again, in three weeks, this Government has been able to make progress on every single one of those issues. It simply takes willingness and it simply takes the talent of Ministers who actually know how to do their job to deliver on the promises that Governments make.

This is an active Government. This is a progressive Government. This is a Government that will continue to put people first, and as the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said, this is a Government that will act with empathy. We are more interested in people and the impacts of policy on people than we are on numbers and figures and statistics. We will rate ourselves and rate our success on whether or not people are better off. I have to say it is a pleasure and I am proud to be part of a Government that, in a mere three weeks, has demonstrated its determination to put people first and has demonstrated that if you have the will, it can be done. It has been a great start so far, and there’s only more to come.

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): Ko te mihi tuatahi ki Te Atua, nāna nei ngā mea katoa, ko te mihi tuarua ki Te Whare e tū nei, e Te Whare Pāremata, tēnā koe! Kai aku rangatira, e ngā tini me ngā mano o ngā hau e whā, nei te mihi kau atu ki a koutou katoa! E kore e mutu ngā mihi ki te whānau me te hunga e tautoko i ahau, tēnā koutou! Kai te haere tonu te pakanga ki te whiwhi i te tūru o Waiwhetū, kia ea ai ō rātou wawata, ō rātou hiahia hoki, kāore e roa, ka oti, nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, huri, huri mai tātou katoa!

[The first acknowledgment is to God. He indeed created everything. The second one is to the House standing here; thank you, Parliament House. To you my esteemed ones, you the innumerable, and the thousands of the four winds, I acknowledge you all. Tributes to the family and those who supported me will never end, thank you collectively. The contest to gain the Waiwhetū seat will continue, which will fulfil their aspirations and hopes. It won’t be long when it will be done. So acknowledgments and congratulations to you collectively and around, coming back to us all!]

It’s a great honour to stand and to speak in this House for the very first time. First and foremost, Mr Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your election to the position of Speaker of this House. Your experience, attention to detail, empathy, and knowledge of how this place works will serve us well. I also wish to acknowledge you as the outgoing member of Parliament for Hutt South. The people of Hutt South know you well for being an effective and caring member for these past 24 years. I know this because I have knocked on a lot of your former constituents’ doors over the last few months. While I was disappointed for Labour not to retain the seat of Hutt South, I wish to congratulate my colleague Chris Bishop on his success, and the work that he has put in over the past three years. I look forward to seeing more of you than ever before over the next three years.

The issue that has dominated the campaign in Hutt South was clearly housing. I am proud to stand here as part of this Labour Government knowing that the issues that are so desperately needing to be addressed for people finally will. The people in Hutt South stood and watched as State houses were torn down. That land has lain vacant for six years now while families have remained homeless. I look forward to now seeing warm, dry, affordable homes being built on that land under a Labour-led Government, and I will continue to strive to make sure I see every child in Hutt South go to bed at night with a roof over their head.

My own childhood was not spent in the Hutt but on Great Barrier Island. I grew up on the beach. We ran pretty free and wild. It was a big day if a dead shark washed up on the beach. As a daughter of two schoolteachers, we moved around quite a bit—Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, Great Barrier, and Christchurch, where I completed high school and university.

If I had to trace back to where my Labour-ness began, it would have to be from my parents, John and Patricia Andersen, who are here today. They dedicated their working lives to teaching in low-decile schools in New Zealand. I grew up seeing the impact a teacher could have on someone’s life. Going to rural schools often meant having mum or dad as my teacher. I sat next to kids and saw the beginning of the year, when they were quiet, withdrawn, even angry and violent. By the end of the year, a lot of those children became star performers. A bit of time, effort, attention, and care turned many lives around. It gave me faith in human nature—something I bring with me to this House. More than anything, I am grateful to my parents for teaching me to stand up and fight for what I believe in.

When I started high school, I was required to take an intelligence test. You were either in the top stream and got to choose languages; the middle stream, which was tech drawing and typing; or the lowest stream, home economics—or, as it was known then, cooking and sewing. I was lucky enough to make it as a language girl, and I chose Māori and French. The dean informed me that Māori was not considered an academic language, and I should consider revising my choice if I wanted to remain in the top stream. She also told me I’d be the only Pākehā girl in the class. I chose French and Māori. The dean informed me—oh, sorry. I chose Japanese and French—I changed.

When I got home from school, I found my dad digging in the garden and told him what had happened. He leaned on his spade and looked up at me and said, “Well, what do you want to learn?” I looked up and said, “Well, I want to learn Māori.” He said, “That lady will still be in her office. You go back and give her a call and tell her that you’ve changed your mind.” So I did, and it did changed my life. I passed School Cert and Bursary Māori. I completed a BA in Te Reo Māori and an MA on the Ngāi Tahu settlement. I got my first real job as a negotiator for the Office of Treaty Settlements. My Māori isn’t that flash, but what I love the most is it has given me a glimpse of life from a different perspective.

To my dad, to my mum, and to my brother Patrick: thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I’m proud to come from a long line of socialists. There’s a couple of communists in there as well. Both sides of my family hold strong beliefs in fairness and the rights of workers. Ingrained in me is the ethic of working hard and the belief that if you work hard enough, anything is possible in New Zealand. I want to make sure that New Zealand stays this way.

On my mother’s side, I would like to acknowledge my grandfather, Patrick McKinley, one of 11 children who grew up in the Rai Valley. He was a soldier, a truck driver, and a unionist who believed in standing up and fighting for what he believed in. He was a worker and a true Irishman—when the doctor recommended he make his drinks smaller, he just bought a smaller glass.

On my father’s side, I would like to acknowledge Bill Andersen. My first awakening to politics was listening to heated discussions around the dinner table about what he’d been up to. He was involved in the 1951 Waterfront Lockout. His front yard, along with many others’, was dug up and sown with vegetables to feed those families affected by the strike. He was the president of the Northern Drivers Union and the president of the National Distribution Union. Bill supported the Ngāti Whātua occupation of Bastion Point and organised union support during that protest. From 1972 until 1981, he stood for Parliament in the seat of Tāmaki against Robert Muldoon. While unsuccessful, he took much delight in letting Air New Zealand staff always seat him next to Muldoon whenever they flew together, always greeting him with a “Hello, comrade.” Both Bill and Pat were fearless when fighting for what they believed in. I hope I can continue in their footsteps.

During the past 16 years, I have served Ministers from both sides of this House. I’ve worked as a political adviser for the past Labour Government, and I’ve worked as a political adviser for both Labour and National Governments. During this time, I’ve seen both robust and poor policy developed and made into law. I have seen people placed under immense pressure and seen how they have treated others during those hard times. While this institution can be an unforgiving one, I know that people are remembered for not only what they have achieved but how they have achieved it. The tension between developing good policy and meeting the demands of politics to achieve “quick wins” will always exist, but so many of the issues that confront New Zealand are not able to be resolved within a political term. I’m of the view that if you are going to do a job, you should do it properly. If we are serious about reducing child poverty, homelessness, and the number of New Zealanders in prison, then I believe we need a greater degree of cross-party collaboration.

One thing that has motivated me to take the leap from being a public servant to a politician is seeing good policy thrown out because it was not popular. While consultation is an essential part of any decision-making process, I believe that it should not be purely driven by focus groups and polls. The public servant in me prefers a balance with research and evidence to show what works. I would like to acknowledge the work done by public servants that goes on behind the scenes. This House would cease to operate without their ongoing dedication and support.

The job I’ve enjoyed the most would have to be working for the New Zealand Police. It has been an honour to work alongside people who share the single common purpose of making New Zealand a safer place. I acknowledge their presence here today. My time at police confirmed to me that I have a strong desire to see positive changes made to the New Zealand justice system. As New Zealanders, we would not tolerate a health system that made us sick, nor an education system that made our children illiterate or innumerate, so why would we tolerate a justice system that makes people more likely to offend? This year, we have reached the highest number ever of prison inmates in New Zealand: over 10,000, with over 2,800 on remand. While it is easy to acknowledge that building another prison is a mark of failure to this country, it is much harder to do something about it. It is all too easy to push the fear button and generate public support, but it is much harder to take real steps to reform our criminal justice system.

There are few “quick wins” in this space, but there are huge opportunities for change and improvement: greater access to mental health support, drug and alcohol treatment, social housing, employment, closer working partnerships with iwi, and just being open to doing things differently. This Government has set a bold target of reducing our prison population by 30 percent over the next 15 years. I undertake to do whatever is required of me to work towards that goal.

Police is also the place where I met my husband. My mum gave me very clear instructions that I was to marry a neurosurgeon from Roseneath. I got a dog handler from the Hutt—love you, honey. Quite simply, Geoff, without your love and support, I would not be standing here today. I love you and our four children—and I’m sorry that I don’t do the washing more often.

One of the hardest things in making it this far has been finding a balance between being a mum and a worker, although I reckon that knowing how to continually function when exhausted and how to remain calm in the face of epic tantrums might just come in handy here. I am proud to be the stepmother of Piper and Corban and the mother of Jack and Eliza. You constantly remind me of what matters the most in life.

I am grateful to the New Zealand Police, in particular Catherine Petrey, for enabling me to further my career while being a mum. For each of the children I gave birth to, I was able to take a full year of maternity leave. After my first child, I returned to work at three days a week, and after my second child, I returned to work at four days a week and was promoted to policy manager. I can really remember having interagency teleconferences while pushing both kids on the swings—I learnt to bring my own can of CRC. This flexibility enabled my children to see more of their mum, a luxury that many families in New Zealand cannot afford. It is good to see the first piece of legislation introduced under this new Government to be 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. This, and upskilling people through free tertiary training, is a bold step towards creating a higher-wage economy. I want New Zealand to be where parents have more flexibility and choice as to their working arrangements and women get paid the same as men. If we wish to ensure our children are resilient enough to deal with this world, then we must give them the best possible start in life. Time with mum and dad is number one.

I am heartened to be part of an intake of MPs that has more parents of young children than ever before, and part of a Government that is committed to prioritising the well-being of children. I wish to give my thanks to those women that have helped me on my path to this House. Margaret Wilson, Maryan Street, Marian Hobbs, Annette King, and my mum: you have given me advice and strength during the times that I have needed it the most. I am excited to be part of an intake that has more women, Māori, Pacific, and Indian MPs than ever before. It is good to see the face of Parliament changing to be far more representative of the people it serves. I’ve always worked within this system to drive change, and I will continue to do so, but it is this opportunity right now, with these people and with Jacinda Ardern as our Prime Minister, that has offered the greatest opportunity I have ever seen to change New Zealand for the better. I look forward to the challenge.

[Applause]

Waiata

Mr SPEAKER: Before I call Chlöe Swarbrick, I do want to make it clear to members making maiden speeches later today and tomorrow that members have agreed that the waiata will be within their time for speeches. Members have agreed that. If they are going to have waiata, then they must complete their speeches in time for it. I don’t want to be insensitive, but it’s not beyond me to do so.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe, tuatahi ki Te Mana Whenua o tēnei rohe, Te Āti Awa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa!

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, to Te Āti Awa, the mandated authority of this region, salutations, acknowledgments, and accolades to you all!]

Mr Speaker, congratulations on your new position. I am immensely proud to be entering this 52nd Parliament at such a time where you’ve actively sought to make the House more family friendly to create a new normal. There’s been some critics of our having babies in this House. “It’s a place of work.”, they say. “Children do not belong in the midst of arguing.” I think, perhaps, these critics take for granted a nasty, adversarial culture and I personally hope that the presence of babies helps remind us all of the gravity of our task and the lives our decisions impact.

I want to acknowledge my colleagues from Maungakiekie, new electorate MP Denise Lee and my friend and new Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan. I also want to acknowledge my incredible new Green colleague, who I am honoured to be entering this House with, Golriz Ghahraman.

Four years ago, I started hosting a little current affairs show on Auckland’s number one alternative radio station. I spent a long time interviewing politicians of all stripes on daily issues, but the underlying questions were always essentially the same: firstly, how much do you understand this problem and the lives of the people affected, beyond your briefing notes, and, secondly, why should they trust you? With all due respect, the answers were never really all too satisfactory. There was an innocuous response mechanism that I think is kind of bred into politicians, and with it it’s like we become out of sync with the orbit of people’s daily lives. I don’t think I would be alone in saying that I couldn’t see myself, my friends, my whānau in politics.

Young people don’t have a monopoly on political disillusionment. It just happens that we listen to better music while feeling it. It’s hard to engage in a system that doesn’t look or sound like you, that talks down to you, that disparages your participation, and that you don’t feel that you can change. The issue is that regardless of whether people choose to participate in the system, it governs their lives. Institutions don’t have to look the way they do. They’re the sum of the people engaged and involved. Democracy doesn’t have to feel broken. It’s just a means, not an end unto itself.

The result of a few too many late night Google spirals and discussions with friends who have always entertained my very left of field ideas led to me running for the Auckland mayoralty in 2016. I tried to make it about the people of Auckland, to such an extent that I had a few people email me about the design of my posters, telling me that they couldn’t read my name but that the slogan was, however, readable, and it read “This is your city”.

I cut my teeth debating former Labour Party leader and my city’s new mayor, Phil Goff. A journalist asked me if my running and my candidacy were a protest. I said, “Yeah, it kind of is.”, and they took that to mean that it was a joke.

I don’t think protest is a joke. It is a method of organisation, of bringing people together around common purpose. It is a legitimate means to achieve tangible, meaningful outcomes, to make things better, and to change. We have a history in Aotearoa of standing for things: peaceful resistance at Parihaka, women’s suffrage, nuclear-free New Zealand, and anti-apartheid. Our country’s political history is rich with protest.

So it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to many in this House that a few weeks ago, freshly minted as a new MP, I attended a protest. The next day my dad texted me and he told me that he’d heard people saying mean things about me on talkback radio. I had to call him and remind him that I’m in the Green Party.

Whilst we’ve almost always been ahead of the policy curve, leading where others eventually follow, change is almost always uncomfortable. Change doesn’t often come from the top. Change most frequently comes in the form of a groundswell by the people, for the people.

The very reason that I stand in this Chamber is because of the combined efforts of thousands of Green Party volunteers and activists across Aotearoa. I am here because of the staunch, tireless dedication to a kaupapa that recognises that the well-being of our people and our planet are inextricably linked. I am here because of the tenacity, the good humour, and support of my campaign team, who turned up day in, day out, month after month after month. I am here to supplement the mahi of my lean, mean, Green caucus. I am here to show people that politicians can look a little different, can speak a little different, and can do things a little differently. I am here to drive home the message that politicians work for people and—the mind-boggling notion—that politicians are people too.

Anybody paying attention saw that this was a rough and generally rather exhausting campaign and, a week before election day, at my final debate, I broke down in tears. We were asked to speak about New Zealand’s shameful suicide rate, particularly with regard to our youth, our rangatahi. Another candidate took this as academic, speaking in numbers and fiscals, and they were abstracting the lives and the loss of my friends. As I cried, I couldn’t help but realise that this mental health epidemic rippling through our communities is the logical end point of austerity, the consequence of decades of economic and social reform that has shredded communities, safety nets, and, most fundamentally, care. It turns out that lives are more complicated than what may be written on a CV.

I spent a lot of my teenage years struggling with anxiety and depression. The reason that I talk about this is not because my mental health history makes me a stronger person or has necessarily given me any insights into the world. Rather than making me special, a history of mental health issues makes me quite normal, because, as I have said, these issues are pandemic in our society. We in this House have the power and the platform to help define normality. So I think that we have a responsibility to present ourselves as we really are: with our flaws intact.

I understand that all of that is no small task when, in this universe, we are supposed to be poised to jump at each other’s jugular at the faintest sign of weakness. But things like kindness—which I am so impossibly proud that our new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has put back on the agenda—are not a weakness. It’s human. I ask that we remember and reflect the people that we are serving. It is our job to empower them, not to insulate ourselves from their scrutiny.

Too many of those that we serve and represent are navigating insecure housing and insecure work at the moment. When you don’t know your neighbours or your co-workers to any depth, then when you have a problem, you’re not quite inclined to talk about it. You internalise it, and you individualise it. It’s your problem. It’s therefore a problem with you.

Without strong communities, without mainstream recognition of the power of collective action, we don’t hear each other’s voices and we don’t put our finger on systemic issues that affect us all and we need each other’s help to solve. There’s this old joke: a fish is swimming up a river and it sees a dog standing on the bank, and the dog says to it, “How’s the water?” and the fish replies, “What water?”. It’s funny; you can laugh. The most fundamental realities of our lives are often the hardest to see, you see, and the hardest, often, to talk about.

Kids from all over Aotearoa are brought up here, they sit in this gallery, they watch us in Parliament, and the teachers tell them, “This is politics.” When question time is on the news, everyone sees the yelling and the screaming, and they are told, “This is politics. This is what politicians do.” But what happens in this room is largely theatre. Politics is what happens when all of us in here go back to our rooms and we close our doors and we shake hands and we make decisions.

The consequences of those decisions saturate our lives. These decisions inform who is rich and who is poor, who gets sick and who gets better. They decide what we eat and what we drink and the quality of the air that we breathe. They decide who has, or may have, a future and who does not. The consequences of political decisions are so pervasive in our lives that we don’t really even see them anymore.

So we in this room get to choose the rules. That means that those falling through the gaps at the moment are either there by systemic neglect, or by design. It means that we, as the Green Party, as one moving part of this great new Government, have an opportunity, a duty, to try and fix things.

When I was 11 years old, Mrs Nabi—an excellent teacher of mine in form one—made a point of telling off one of my friends. It was a decile 3 intermediate and I was one of a handful of Pākehā kids. My Pasifika mate was looking down at his desk. She pointed out that this is what Pasifika kids are taught respect looks like, but those suspended in the Pākehā world, where eye contact is respect, would see this as rude. Because of this, she said, brown kids are treated not just as naughty but as disrespectful by those who may not understand cultural cues. That is the tip of the iceberg of what systemic racism looks like, she taught us.

With that lesson, I started understanding that this system—systems like this—are designed for people who look like me. That’s what echoes of colonisation look like. If we are ever to heal those wounds, we need to look at them in broad daylight. They hurt, and they are uncomfortable when we bandage over them, because they require attention.

I am who I am because of my family. We might not share all of the same politics, but I was raised on a diet of robust and challenging discussion. To my dad: you gave me a tool kit of resilience. At seven years old, writing my first speech on the double standards between kids and adults—as only a petulant seven-year-old could—you taught me the value of putting myself in other people’s shoes, that it is our perception that informs our reality. You showed me that nobody—not even a grumpy seven-year-old—is the centre of the universe.

To my mum: you gave me my love of art, my love of reading, and my love of theatre and film and creativity. You’ve shown me how our histories do not necessarily define our futures. To my little sister, Grace, and my little brother, Ollie: I’m stoked to be your big sister. Grace, I have appreciated how little you care about anything and everything to do with my job. I love using you as a sounding board for people for who politics plays out on the periphery of their lives as white noise. Ollie, I love learning with you. It is such a privilege to hold the position of working on this education system in our country just as you’re about to start at intermediate school.

To my best friend and partner, Alex: who could have imagined, when we met nearly six years ago outside Philosophy 101, that this is where we would end up? Thank you for being my anchor amidst turbulence in life and in self-discovery. Thank you for being my home when I didn’t feel that I had one. Thank you for putting up with me as I follow each and every new passion.

If I can accomplish just one thing in my time here—if I can change just one thing—I want to change people’s awareness of what politics really is, because if we can change that, everything else can change. I want to start that work here, today, by asking people to look critically at the world around them. Look at our culture and our society and our economy and ask if it is fair and just. If it’s not, who profits from that injustice? Who pays the price of that unfairness? Because politics is not me standing here giving this speech; politics is all around us. Like that old joke, politics is water. Politics lives in our relationships, in our conversations, in what we believe, and in what we’re willing to fight for.

I stand here on the shoulders of giants, like the Green pioneers Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald, and I am here to fight, both here from my privileged position inside these walls, and protesting out on the streets with the people I am proud to represent, until nobody ever needs to fight again.

E ai ki te whakataukī, “He aha te mea nui o te ao, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!” Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa!

[According to the aphorism, “What is the most important thing of the world? It is people, it is people, it is people!” So therefore, salutations, acknowledgments, and accolades to you all!]

[Applause]

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou katoa. Te mana whenua o tēnei wāhi, Te Āti Awa, tēnā koutou, otirā, e ngā iwi whānui, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Salutations to you all, the authorities, languages, and the many callings. Salutations to you, Te Āti Awa, mandated authority of this place, but at the same time, to tribes widely, acknowledgments to you all.]

Mr Speaker, I congratulate you and I look forward to your guidance in this House. I acknowledge also that we stand on land that was never ceded, so I have acknowledged tangata whenua.

I begin by acknowledging what a breathtaking honour it is to sit among this Green caucus. It’s a dream. I also acknowledge those who’ve sat among you before now, in particular Catherine Delahunty and Keith Locke. You spoke to injustice wherever it happened, and, to someone like me, that meant a lot. Mojo Mathers, you taught me and us all that we are far more than our labels. And Metiria Turei, for baring your scars to highlight the pain of others, I thank you.

But today I also want to acknowledge those who tell me every day that I don’t belong here, that I should go home where I came from, that I should have been left to die, or that I have no right to criticise any politician in this country or take part in public life because this isn’t my home. Some of them call for rifles to be loaded. It gets frightening.

I’m numb to it because that actually is the reality for those of us in this country from minority backgrounds if we do stand up and become visible. I want it noted that it’s also the consequence every time someone in this House scapegoats migrants, every time a TV presenter is allowed to ask the Prime Minister when our Governor-General is going to look like a Kiwi and sound like a Kiwi and that Prime Minister just laughs, every time we call refugees the leftovers from terrorist nations for our political gain. We feel it on the streets. We can’t shed our skin.

Patriotism that seeks to quash dissent and divide us is archaic. It’s dangerous for our democracy. We can’t tolerate that. It’s antithetical to our culture. I love this country, but a love of this country—patriotism—means expecting the very best for her. It means fighting for the country we know is possible. So I criticise leaders who fall short, I protest, and I fight for equality and justice, because that is what loves looks like in public—that’s Dr Cornel West; that’s not me. So today I stand here proud and determined because today is about democracy and equality—values that New Zealand embodies, stands up for so boldly.

I am a child of revolutionaries. My parents faced tanks for democracy, at gunpoint fought for human rights. They faced torture to take back their country’s resource from imperialists, from dictators, and from corrupt corporate interests and put it back in the hands of the people. The Iranian revolution was one of the biggest popular revolutions in modern history. Everyone was out on the street—students, communists, socialists, and Islamists—fighting against inequality.

But their revolution was hijacked, and ultimately my life was shaped by one of the most repressive regimes in modern history. Everyone knew someone that disappeared into a torture chamber for speaking out; everyone knew a woman flogged for disregarding Islamic dress—and that wasn’t our culture, even those of us who were Muslim; everyone feared their phones being tapped. That was my childhood.

But it was also just the backdrop to a bloody eight-year war we fought against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I remember the bombs and the sirens, running to a basement and just waiting. But mostly I remember kids my age who stopped talking from the shell shock, and I still don’t know what happened to them. Then scarcity set in, because America was on Saddam’s side and we were sanctioned. We had to use coupons to buy food. Years later, we realised that the West had backed both sides of that war—sold weapons to both sides.

That is what refugees are made of.

I feel a kinship with First Nations people, with tangata whenua, because we too have been alienated from our land and our resources by imperialism—by wars that we did not profit from. We share the same degradation and prejudice; I want us to work closer together. Migrants, refugees, Pasifika people, tangata whenua—we have far more that unites us than that which divides us. I want Te Tiriti o Waitangi to be a living constitutional document in this country, leading policy, even on immigration.

My mum was a child psychologist, but she never worked because she didn’t believe in taking religious exams, especially in the mental health field. My dad was an agricultural engineer who worked on research trying to extract energy from plant sources—Green to the core. So let’s remember that our values exist in all cultures. The Middle East, just like the West, has fierce feminism, environmentalism, Government selling us off to multinationals, and—yes—religious fundamentalism. I want us to amplify the voices in all cultures who speak of democracy and equality above those who would silence them.

When that repression got too scary, my family and I fled. We landed in Auckland Airport and the fear was palpable; I can still feel it now. I was nine years old. We didn’t know what would happen if we were sent back, but we weren’t; we were welcomed here. That warm welcome is my first memory of my homeland. New Zealand recognised our rights and our humanity; that’s what that was, though I didn’t know it then. My second memory is that this country was so green. Those two vivid first impressions are going to lead my work in this House.

I became a lawyer. I never intended to do that, but I wanted to make human rights enforceable. The criminal justice system leads on human rights in our system. The most frightening thing that I’ve seen in about 15 years of being a lawyer all over the world is the sight of a 13-year-old child sitting behind a very large table awaiting his trial for murder at the Auckland High Court. I was part of his defence team. He’d thrown a rock over an overbridge, tragically taking another young life. He was tried as an adult because our system requires it. He suffered from mental illness, as do most people that come through our justice system. He was brown. He was from South Auckland. His family was so poor that they shifted houses every so often just so that they could have electricity for a while. He didn’t have a lot of schooling, because of that, and his Child, Youth and Family file was the stuff of nightmares. Our most vulnerable.

The front lines of our justice system are where I learnt about unchecked prejudice. That’s what turned me into a human rights lawyer, and I focused on children’s rights. But it was living in Africa, working on genocide trials for the UN, where I learnt how prejudice turns to atrocity. It starts with dehumanising language in the media. It starts by politicians scapegoating groups, as groups, for social ills—I think that every time I see it happen here. I saw it in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and when I prosecuted the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia—holding politicians and armies to account for abusing their power, and giving voice to women and minorities, because we are always most viciously attacked by abusers. These experiences have instilled in me a commitment to human rights that I first got as someone who has seen the world without them.

Human rights are universal. We don’t have fewer rights because of our religion, because of where we were born or who we love. We don’t have fewer rights because we had our children out of wedlock, or because we’ve been charged with a crime. We don’t have human rights because we are good, but because we are human. There is no such thing as the deserving poor or the good refugee.

Human rights are indivisible; we have a bundle of rights. You can’t realise one without the other: you can’t say we have a democracy or free speech unless we also have the right to education, and we don’t have the right to education unless the kids we are teaching have food and homes. For too long, for about 10 years now in New Zealand, our very democracy has been undermined because too many of our rights—our economic, our social, and our cultural rights—have been breached. I want to entrench those.

Finally—and of most interest to this House—human rights are enforceable against Governments. These are our obligations. This is our mandate to govern. We can’t privatise them away. They are not charity; people don’t have to beg.

I want New Zealand to get back to a culture of expecting this from us, and none of that is separable from the environment. Protection of people’s rights and nature’s rights are intrinsically linked. Just ask the people of the Pacific—our neighbours—whose homelands are being drowned out because of waste pollution consumption that they have not participated in or benefited from.

One of the greatest threats to both human and nature’s rights right now is subjugation of our democracy to corporate interests. A rampant market on a finite planet cannot exist. New Zealand must lead by example on this, as we have done before. We’ve stood up against status quo interests on the world stage, and I want us to be that righteous little nation again.

I never intended to run as the first ever refugee MP but I quickly realised that my face and my story mean so much to so many, so my fear of tokenism dissipated. I had such an outpouring of support from all over New Zealand and the world—even Trump’s America—and I remembered getting notes and emails from my female interns, mostly of minority background, back in the UN, telling me what it meant to them to have someone like them forging that path. Some of them are carrying that mantle now. I realised then that it was important for that process to have a former victim of governance by repression and mass murder stand up in those courtrooms that are normally dominated by Western men.

So this is a victory for a nine-year-old asylum seeker. But it’s also a victory for everyone who has ever felt out of place, who has been excluded, or who has been told that she has limits to her dreams.

For getting me here, I thank the voters. You’ve humbled me for ever. You voted for diversity and fairness and nature this election when you voted Green.

I thank our Green activists and our staff, especially our Auckland staff. You worked harder and harder as things got harder this election. You will inspire me for ever. To my campaign team—especially Ron and Daniel, who are up there—and my second, political, family, the Chalmers clan: I’m so happy you are here. Your support is life affirming to me.

My parents, both strong Iranian feminists—you lost everything. You lost your friends, your family, your professions, and your language because you weren’t willing to raise a little girl in oppression—thank you.

And to maybe the most political person I know, although a very large, loud white boy—my partner. Thank you for stopping me mid-rant—it seems like a lifetime ago now—when I was lamenting the loss of activism in politics and some of my favourite MPs. I was saying, “Who’s going to be the candidate that will stand up to the GCSB? Who’s going to be the candidate who will be the new Keith Locke?”, and you said, “You will be that candidate.”—and I was. We’re both political, we are both adventurers, but you are also patient. I thank you for that, and for love, but mostly courage, on that day and every day.

I stand here as a child of revolutionaries, as a child asylum seeker, as an international human rights lawyer, as an activist, as a Green, and my standing here proves New Zealand is a place where a nine-year-old asylum seeker, a refugee, a girl from the Middle East, can grow up to one day enter Parliament. It proves the strength and the goodness of New Zealand’s values.

He oranga whenua, he oranga tangata, ka ora tātou katoa, nō reira, e Te Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa!

[Good health to the land, to individuals, and to us all, and so to you, the House, salutations, acknowledgments, and accolades to you collectively and to us all!]

[Applause]

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Ā, “Whakarongo atu ki ngā ngaru e whati ana i runga i onepū, i runga i te taniwha ko Whātaitai. Whakarongo atu ki te mahi a Tangaroa, kua rongo au i te tai, ko Rongotai tēnei e kōrero ai, tīhei mauri ora!” Ko Tainui te waka, ko Taupiri te maunga, ko Waikato te awa, ko Waikato-Tainui te iwi, ko Kīngi Tūheitia te tangata, ko Horohoro te marae, ko Paul Eagle toku ingoa, tēnā koutou katoa!

[And so, “Listen to the waves breaking upon the sand and the deity, it is indeed Whātaitai. Listen to the performances of Tangaroa, I hear the tide, this is Rongotai indeed talking, behold the breath of life!” Tainui is the canoe, Taupiri is the mountain, Waikato is the river, Waikato-Tainui is the tribe, Kīngi Tūheitia is the man, Korokoro is the marae, and Paul Eagle is my name, salutations to you all!]

Mr Speaker, honourable members, whānau and friends—the whānau are still coming in, the friends are here, and I’ll keep going. Look, it’s a privilege to stand here before you as the member for Rongotai, and the first Māori male to win a general electorate seat for the Labour Party.

To be an MP in this House is an honour for which I owe a tremendous debt to a good many people—the wonderful people of Rongotai, for starters, and many others who are here in the gallery today. Thank you for coming. Unfortunately, I can’t name everyone in the time I have this afternoon. However, there’s one person who I must name, and that’s my wife and closest friend—there she is—Miriam. Thank you for believing in me, and thank you for giving up your 40th birthday to doorknock and deliver brochures for me instead.

Hon Members: Oh!

PAUL EAGLE: I know. I also acknowledge my predecessor and mentor, the Hon Annette King, and her husband, Ray Lind. Annette, I humbly follow in your footsteps today. Thank you for your wisdom, for your remarkable patience, and for your advocacy. Thank you for also being my weight watcher and ensuring I can’t open an account at Copperfields.

I must also thank the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban and her husband, Dr Peter Swain—I saw them walk in—for believing in me from day one. Winnie, your tenacity to push me to achieve my dreams and aspirations has been incredible. And thank you for being my Pacific mum. Your advice to attend church every Sunday and eat lots of chop suey has paid off.

A maiden speech in Parliament marks the beginning of a member’s political life. So when writing my speech, I wanted to make sure that my words today would stand the test of time, and that’s why my maiden speech is dedicated to my son, Tamarangi, in the form of a letter to him. As I stand in this debating chamber, I’m filled with hope for my son’s future and that of all children in Aotearoa. Now, he is a little young to understand what is happening to his dad right now, so when he gets older I want him to know that right from the very beginning of my political journey he was and will always be at the centre of all I do.

Here goes: Dear Tamarangi, it’s your dad’s first official speech on the job. I’ve already got lost a few times in this big place, but don’t worry, son. I’ve figured out that I can get from my office in Bowen House to Copperfields and back without passing the whips’ office, and fingers crossed, no one tells Annette King either.

You are sitting up in the gallery right now with your mum, and, although you may be more interested in watching Moana on the iPad, my heart swells at the sight of you. You see, Tama, your Auntie Annie used to be the member of Parliament for Rongotai, which includes your home, the Chatham Islands. Rongotai is the place where you will grow up and belong.

After serving the people of Rongotai for 24 years, Auntie Annie, hopefully, decided to spend more time with Uncle Ray, and your dad got the nod—whoo!—from the Labour Party and the people of Rongotai—whoo!—to carry the mantle on. And I’m grateful for it. With the help and support from a whole lot of people, they put their trust in him and on election night he won the great seat of Rongotai and became its new MP.

Your dad wanted the job because he wants to serve and care for others. He wants to make sure everyone has a home, a good education, access to affordable healthcare, and a place to belong. Like your birth mother, my birth mother wanted to give me a better life than she herself could. She once told me, “If the DPB had’ve been around when you were a baby, I could have kept you.”

In 1973, the late Norman Kirk and the then Labour Government introduced the domestic purposes benefit. But your dad was born in 1972—a year earlier—which meant that when my birth mother found out she was pregnant with a child she could not afford to care for, to a man who couldn’t care for her, she had to let me go. And, sadly, there was no State support or sympathy for solo parents back then. My birth mother had already been judged for her actions, but she wanted more for me than she could give: a safe home, a warm bed, good clothes, and a full tummy—I think I got that last one.

But it wasn’t possible at the time, so the difficult decision was made to give me up for adoption—a decision that changed our lives forever. It would be more than 20 years before I’d see my birth parents again. My birth mother told me of her sadness and how she missed me and worried about how I was doing. At shopping malls, she would look at each little Māori boy and wonder if it were me. But over 45 years later, it’s still nice to know that she wanted me and would have kept me if she could. But it’s even more rewarding to know that because of Kirk and a Labour Government thousands of mums and their babies got the support they needed to stay together. And that’s even if your dad wasn’t one of them.

I don’t like to think that my birth mother gave me up. It sounds as if she gave up on me; when what she did was give me a loving family, a happy childhood, the best shot at life a boy could ask for, and a place where your dad truly belonged. I understand this more than ever, son, because when we adopted you, your dad realised how hard the decision for our birth mothers must have been, because to decide to let go of a child is the most selfless act any person can do.

But your dad was lucky enough to be adopted into a wonderful family: people who opened their hearts and gave me a decent start in life. Fortunately, for me, son, they gave me the things my birth mother could only dream of, and that was that safe home, a warm bed, good clothes, and a full tummy. My mum, son—your gran—worked for many years in the health sector and tirelessly volunteered her time for good causes; and my dad, your poppa, was a minister in the Methodist Church for 49 years, and both were heavily active in the Labour Party. They instilled in me the importance of caring for and serving people and the significance of getting involved in political action if things that you believed in weren’t right.

The Springbok Tour came to our shores in 1981 and gave me an insight into what it meant to stand up for your values. Churches became hubs for a campaign activity against the rugby team from a country who treated people of colour differently. Your poppa and his Methodist minister mates, all wearing their collars, hit the front line with homemade shields, batons, and Gran used to wonder if he was going to be put in jail or come home all beaten up.

But it was then that your dad learnt that sport and politics do mix, and it taught him that doing something popular wasn’t always the right thing to do; it was standing up for your values and what you believe in that really mattered most. Gran and Poppa also gave your dad a thirst for knowledge, a good education, and strong values to live by—Labour’s values. But, most importantly, son, your gran and poppa gave your dad a place to belong.

There are thousands of Kiwis who are adopted, including over 40,000 Māori, who still today don’t know where they’re from. They deserve better, because whakapapa is essential to Māori identity and social inclusion. Son, you will know your whakapapa and Chatham Islands heritage. You will never be invisible, and you will be firmly anchored in this universe.

Your dad will work steadily to ensure that no law is made in this Parliament that will impede or hinder anyone from knowing their true identity and where they belong. Further adoption law reform is needed, and your dad will seek to promote a member’s bill to do this, because it’s time the secrecy ended once and for all and we open up adoption to the thousands of Kiwis who are desperate to provide Kiwi kids with the best shot in life. Your dad will do this for you, my son, and for all the sons and daughters of the many who are yet to find a place where they can belong.

But, my boy, like I said, this speech marks the first address in my new role, and your dad has lots to do. Your mum and dad want to make sure you get the best opportunities in life; that you inherit a country where you can go down and safely play in the Owhiro stream there in Happy Valley and not get sick; a country where you fall over and you get hurt and you can go to your local hospital, Wellington Hospital, and get the help you need; and that when you grow up and come to buy your own home you can afford to buy the home in Rongotai—if you choose to rent, your home is warm and dry. And, son, when you are at school, you have the option to learn Te Reo no matter where in Rongotai that school might be.

Your mum and dad want this for you and for every child growing up in Aotearoa. That’s why your dad is here today because kids are going without, parents are struggling, healthcare providers don’t have enough resources, and people can’t afford to buy their own homes. So, son, I’m going to need you to give a big cuddle to some of the people that helped get your dad here today, especially our Rongotai Labour whānau who are here, and the many sitting next to you in the gallery today—and, of course, your mum, Miriam. She loves you as much I do—sorry, as your dad does—but she has stuck by Dad through it all. So be kind to your mum, son. Clean your room, put away the dishes, and tell her that you love her, because without her, your dad wouldn’t be here in the New Zealand Parliament today.

But it’s also time to give you a wee apology. Being an MP is a big job, and at times I’ll miss out on going down to Kilbirnie Park, watching you play for the Pōneke Rugby Club, having dinner with you and your mum, and reading you that all-important bedtime story. But I promise to be the best dad to you that I can be, and to work hard to ensure that I do you proud by being a strong representative of Rongotai. Know that, from the very beginning, you were at the heart of my political journey. But, my boy, this does not mean you can have a car when you turn 16.

I love you, your dad.

Tōku tama, ngā mema o tēnei Pāremata, nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[My son and members of this Parliament, therefore, greetings, acknowledgments, and accolades to you collectively and to us all.]

[Applause]

Waiata

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe, e Te Whare Pāremata, tū tonu, tu tonu.

[Salutations to you, Mr Speaker; continue, and remain standing, Parliament House.]

On 2 October 1849, a brave young Englishman left his home in Swindon and travelled to London with his mother, father, and three siblings. As the dark-haired 21-year-old said goodbye to his family on the wharf, he proceeded to board a ship, beginning a 12,000-mile journey to the other side of the world. Robert was leaving behind a society based on class, entitlement, a lack of opportunity for the common man, and widespread poverty. He hoped for a better life, a more equal society, and a country where if you worked hard, you could succeed, regardless of which family you were born into.

While on the boat, he formed a special relationship with a 16-year-old girl named Blanche. Upon arriving in Nelson, they were married. Robert became a policeman, mainly presiding over goldfield matters. He and Blanche had three children, they worked hard, and purchased some land and built a house, all of which stayed in the family for the next 150 years. My great-great-great-grandparents Robert and Blanche Strange had hope and aspiration, and in 19th-century Aotearoa they combined that with opportunity in order to bring about success.

I’d like to begin by thanking my wife, Angela. I appreciate your friendship, support, and unconditional love. Thank you for making me the man I am today. As I promised you 21 years ago, marrying me won’t be boring.

To my four children, who are watching this at home—Jack, Brooklyn, Chloe, and Charlotte. You keep my heart soft. I love you all.

While I was writing this speech on my computer, my son came up to me and he said, “Daddy, I know how you can write it really quick.”, and he started tapping random words into the computer. You’ll be pleased to know I have only partially taken his advice.

To my mother and father—my mother is here today—thank you for all you have invested in me, from coaching my sports teams growing up, making me practise the piano, and always being available to talk whenever I needed you. I’ll do my best to make you proud.

To my brother and three sisters, I appreciate you all. We’re in this life together. Growing up, my brother Daniel and I shared a room for 18 years, often talking long into the night, picking World XI cricket teams.

To those in the gallery today—friends and family—I appreciate you making the effort to be here.

I would like to acknowledge my fellow MPs from both sides of the House, all of whom care deeply about our country. I would also like to thank our parliamentary staff, who serve our democracy with professionalism and enthusiasm.

My parliamentary career was almost over within two weeks when I inadvertently sat in the Hon Damien O’Connor’s chair during one of our caucus meetings. Fortunately, my family connections with Damien were enough to smooth it over.

You see, Damien knew my late grandparents Murray and Dawn Strange. Murray, a dairy farmer in Collingwood, Golden Bay, had three ambitions in life, which he stated in the late 1960s: number one was to milk 300 cows, number two was to produce 100,000 pounds of butterfat in a calendar year, and number three was to be president of the New Zealand Rugby Union. The first two he achieved in 1982—and was likely to have been the first in the South Island to do so—and after much perseverance and dedication, in 1984 he did become president of the New Zealand Rugby Union. The All Black captain that year was the late Jock Hobbs.

My grandfather proved that good things come from small towns—Morrinsville, anyone? Regional New Zealanders are not just there to make up the numbers. They’re the engine room—the tight five—of our economy.

My grandparents often spoke about a time in New Zealand history when everyone was basically the same. In the pre-1960s, before refrigeration, people relied on each other for their very survival. One farmer would kill an animal and share it among the others, and then another farmer would do the same, and on it would go. They had haymaking gangs, all the children went to the same local school, and a strong sense of community permeated every aspect of New Zealand society. Community is at the heart of everything we do. When people lose their sense of belonging, they become isolated, often causing harm to themselves and others.

In 1976, my 19-year-old mother gave birth to me in the Nelson general hospital. My father worked for the Public Trust Office, and still does to this day. At age 12, we shifted to Hamilton, where I began attending Hamilton Boys High School. After training as a schoolteacher, my mother applied for 70 jobs without getting one. Then one day she came home and announced, “I got a job.” “Great,” my brother and I said, “where?”, and she said, “Hamilton Boys High School.”

The motto was “A wise man carves his own fortune”. I was taught the importance of hard work, dedicated focus, and respect for authority. I would like to acknowledge in the gallery today former Hamilton Boys High School old boy and Labour MP, Martin Gallagher. I would also like to make mention of current and recent Waikato-based Labour MPs, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Sue Moroney, Dianne Yates, and the Hon Mark Burton.

My path to Parliament came via the Taupō electorate in 2014 and Hamilton East in 2017, before being elected via the Labour Party list. I would like to sincerely thank both the Taupō and Hamilton East Labour Party members and volunteers. Your tireless support for a change of Government and a new way of thinking has brought all of this about.

I was bitten twice during this year’s election campaign—by dogs, that is—prompting a local reporter to pen the phrase: “Twice bitten, still not shy.” I believe this mantra will serve me well in this House, as I will certainly not be shy about standing up for the hopes and dreams of those who are not achieving their full potential in our society.

I’m passionate about Hamilton and the Waikato. Hamilton is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It’s a cradle-to-the-grave city. I would like to acknowledge Hamilton’s Mayor, Andrew King, and the two National Party MPs, the Hon Tim Macindoe and the Hon David Bennett. I will be a strong advocate for Hamilton and the Waikato region.

Hamilton is a growing, vibrant city, as the Hon Phil Twyford found out on the weekend. Due to the large number of people visiting Hamilton, his car was stuck just north of the city for an hour in traffic.

This explosive growth is creating a number of infrastructure challenges, particularly in terms of housing and transport. Also, a number of our city’s assets are beginning to age. Much of this growth is from Auckland. After years of making fun of Hamiltonians, thousands of Aucklanders each year are now packing up their rucksacks and venturing south over the Bombay Hills, realising that the Waikato is a pretty awesome place to live. And we have the best cricket ground in New Zealand. Many of my favourite memories have taken place in Hamilton, including the birth of our four children, in which I played a small but important part.

Children have been a strong focus of this 52nd Parliament, which is wonderful to see. They are not just our future; they are our present. Our tamariki and mokopuna deserve the best start in life. I believe many of the social issues we are encountering today can be linked to challenging and often difficult family environments. We must strengthen the confidence, skills, and knowledge that parents, grandparents, and caregivers have in the task of raising their children. Kids who have support over the crucial first years are much more likely to do well in school, more likely to move New Zealand ahead in decades to come, and less likely to live in poverty and commit crime.

We need a productive, export-led economy that encourages New Zealand businesses to focus on high-quality niche markets. If we want better wages, we need a dynamic manufacturing sector, supported by Government and built around enterprising, innovative companies, with a well-trained, productive, and engaged workforce.

In my 20s, I worked as a church minister. We would run hot dinners for those who were struggling, help out at-risk youth—one of whom we fostered for a period of time—prepare and deliver food parcels, help families reunite, and care for the elderly. I developed the skills to engage with a wide variety of people, and the altruistic aspects of the job were very rewarding.

When someone breaks an arm, the injured limb asks the heart for more blood. The heart can either say, “No, it’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have been climbing that tree.”, or the heart can provide extra blood for a period of time until the limb has recovered, knowing full well that when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer.

In my 30s, I worked as a schoolteacher. I believe we need a diverse education system with a wide curriculum that caters for many learning styles. Education changes lives. It’s the single best way to lift people out of poverty and deprivation.

As a music teacher, I taught a year 8 boy I will call Jimmy. According to national standards data, Jimmy had spent every moment of his primary school education well below the standard. Twice a year, for eight years, he was told, “You’re a failure.” However, when he came to my music class, Jimmy excelled. He had a natural sense of rhythm, and quickly mastered the drum kit. For the first time in eight years, he was top of the class. As time went on, I could see his confidence grow, which then spilled over into other areas of his schooling.

As a teacher of the arts, I was not just teaching guitar, drums, keyboard, and rock band; I was developing confidence, creativity, and cooperation. Which employer would not want those attributes in their employee? And creativity in particular is going to become more and more important as our job market continues to evolve.

The key to fixing the much-talked-about educational tail is by addressing social issues: a full stomach, children getting enough sleep, ending child poverty, and encouraging parents to see the benefits of their child’s education.

In my 40s, I’ve become a member of Parliament. I bring with me my life experiences, including extensive overseas travel, and a belief that I can add value here. I will never forget the sense of honour and humility and the weight of responsibility I felt when I first entered the doors of this building. It’s vital that we as MPs remain in touch with the grassroots members of our society. We must continue to lean our ear to the whispers of the most vulnerable and broadcast their message loudly for all to hear.

In today’s “me first” society, a number of people have become isolated. I believe Government must work with community groups, churches, iwi, sports teams, and other organisations to promote a shared sense of well-being. When people are connected, they can dream. When they dream, they can achieve. And when they achieve, they can help others achieve.

And what does this achievement look like? It’s the young family turning the key in the door of their first home. It’s the small-business owner competing with the multinationals in a globalised market. It’s the solo parent throwing their graduating cap in the air as their children look on with pride in their eyes.

There’s a generational change taking place in politics across the globe, as a new group of people say, “Let us have a go. We’ve got a few ideas on how we can improve our world.” And it’s not just about age; it’s about having a progressive, collaborative philosophy. It’s about putting people first.

I believe climate change is the number one global issue currently facing our planet. New Zealand can lead the world in this area. As our Prime Minister recently said, we owe it to ourselves, our children, and future generations to mitigate the effects of climate change.

In closing, I recently read a children’s book where a young boy is told by his father that he loves him, regardless of what he does. The son replies, “So even if I do bad things, you will still love me?”. “That’s right.”, his father says. After thinking for a while, the child asks, “Then why should I do what’s right?”, to which his father replies, “I don’t know. You tell me, son.” After a few seconds, the son responds, “Because I love you, too.”

I love our country. I appreciate the diverse, colourful culture we have created over hundreds of years. We’re not perfect, but we value honesty, hard work, equal opportunity, and genuine community. We’re not 19th century Victorian England; we are Aotearoa New Zealand. Kia kaha.

Kia kaha! Nō reira, e kī ana te whakataukī, “He waka eke noa”!

[Be resolute! The proverb says, therefore, “A canoe used without restriction!”]—a canoe in which all belong. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Applause]

Haka

Waiata

Sitting suspended from 6.10 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Senior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I move that the order of the day for the committee stage of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be discharged.

Mr SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. That is not order of the day No. 1. We are on another matter.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That, when the House rises on Thursday, 16 November 2017, the House adjourn until 2.00 pm on Tuesday, 28 November 2017, and that the sitting pattern for the remainder of 2017 be: November 28, 29, and 30; December 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, and 21.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill

Discharge

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Senior Whip—National): I move, That the order of the day for the committee stage of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be discharged and that the bill be referred to the Education and Workforce Committee for consideration.

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

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Noes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Motion not agreed to.

In Committee

Debate resumed from 14 November.

Clauses 1 to 4 (continued)

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): This is a bill that the National Party has a tremendous amount of interest in because it is actually entirely within our own policy for the last election, with one exception and that is the exception around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 3, which Amy Adams put in, that was allowing parents to have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they shared their parental leave time together, or they had it both together, so that they could, in fact, have two parents at home. That is something that the Government could choose to support but it has not. So we think that the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill is actually quite—we could say it is a selective Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill, because what it doesn’t do is it doesn’t actually empower parents.

We have seen a lot of opportunities in the House over this week for the Government and its allies to front up to the fact that it takes two people to be parents. It takes two parents to have a child and, in some cases, parenthood is not, what I’d say—or another generation would say; obviously not mine—all beer and skittles. It is really hard work and particularly as a new parent, a new mother at home, dealing with breastfeeding, mastitis, abscesses, all those sorts of things, post-natal depression—not particularly unusual, not at all unusual; that just goes with the territory—and to say to those mothers, “Well, you can’t have your partner at home with you on paid parental leave, even though we believe you’re adult enough to decide to have babies all by yourselves, we think you’re adult enough to bring up your children all by yourselves, but we don’t think you’re adult enough to make some decisions about whether or not you can do something with your paid parental leave because it might suit you and not suit some sort of Government directive around motherhood.”

I would have thought that the Government parties—Government parties in coalition and whatever else they have; some other form of support—would actually want to empower parents, they would want to empower mothers, and they would want to empower fathers. Why wouldn’t we want to do that? So we think that the name of the bill is really a bit amiss. I personally think it should be something around “Selective Parental Leave if it Suits the Labour Government Protection Amendment Bill”. But I think it’s the sort of issue where a Government that actually wanted to listen to people would not worry that the idea came from this side of the House. A Government that wanted to listen to people would actually think, “Gosh, that’s a really good idea from my colleague whose SOP it was.”, and a Government that was thinking would think, “Well, this is an opportunity for us to take an excellent National Party policy, call it our own, and tell everybody it only got passed because of us.” And they’d be very clever if they did that, but they’re obviously not clever enough.

The bill, as it is, is set to commence only in July next year, so there’s no particular rush for it. There’s no particular need for this to be thrown through in urgency to make sure it all happens. There won’t be many couples out there deciding that they’re suddenly going to have a baby because of this bill. There certainly will be some couples who will think, “Oh, I wish when Parliament was changing this Act that they would have actually made some provision for adults to make some decisions around how they use their paid parental leave.”

I saw on the television tonight a woman from UNICEF, who are obviously, clearly, experts in parenting, telling us that mothers should not be allowed to make these decisions all by themselves. I actually thought that was the sort of idea that was really prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, where there were still a lot of people who didn’t think women should be allowed to work once they were mothers. I would have thought that we had moved on and I would have thought that a Labour-led Government with the Greens and New Zealand First—or maybe not with that last party; anyway, the Labour-led Government along with the Greens and their friends—would have put some belief in parents, given them some choices, and understood that parenthood, the first time in particular, is really tough, and particularly if you’ve got twins or any child with special needs, it’s really tough. Why can’t they put some faith in parents, because this side does?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Madam Chair, I’m delighted to take a call on clauses 1 to 4 on this bill and to really challenge members of the Government to give the Opposition a single reason as to why they oppose a broader title and a broader approach to this bill that equally recognises the role of fathers and men in the role of raising children, because our frustration is that a perfectly reasonable proposition has been put forward. I was even surprised to have Sue Moroney, the previous advocate and Labour member of Parliament, saying, “Yes, that’s what we should do.”

So my proposition is, firstly, with respect to the title. If the Government insists on such a narrow approach to paid parental leave, call it what it is: a Victorian view of families where mums raise the children and dads are nowhere to be see, because that is, effectively, what the Government is proposing with its approach to paid parental leave. There just isn’t the recognition by members opposite. Despite having babies in the Chamber, and in light of all the maiden speeches about family, we’re still taking this incredibly narrow, old-fashioned view of families, not recognising that dads today are, properly, far more involved in the raising of young infants. I’m incredibly proud that the leader of the National Party actually noted that in support of his very talented wife he spent a full year as a father caring for a child, being the primary caregiver. I would have thought that the members opposite, who so much champion and want to be able to say how PC and modern they are, when it comes to the very issue of recognising the role that dads play in children’s lives have ignored that plea in the debate on this bill.

We then come to the issues of commencement. The part that fascinates me in the commencement provisions of this bill is I’ve just listened to over a dozen speeches from members of the Government saying money doesn’t come into it. “If you want to care about families—that’s it. The problem with the old Government is that they kept talking and thinking about balancing the budget and doing boring things like that. Well, we’re new. Money doesn’t count. You’ve just got to do what’s right for mums and dads.” If they truly believe that, why are they staggering the commencement? I have yet to hear a logical reason from members opposite as to why they’d want to stagger that.

Perhaps, actually, all that rhetoric was just another one of the multiple double standards that we are seeing from this Government in its first weeks. We shouldn’t believe what they said prior to the election. We shouldn’t believe what they said with such passion in their maiden speeches. Maybe they have come to the realisation, with such a huge blowout in the difference between the financial numbers that they promised during the election campaign and their wild promises, that there is a canyon between those, and, as a consequence, actually, the commencement dates do need to be different, because otherwise it would just make their numbers. Well, why don’t they just come clean and say that? Why don’t they simply say exactly what the previous Government said, and that is, “We want to extend paid parental leave. We think it’s an important part of a modern New Zealand that better supports families, but we need to stagger the introduction of that extended paid parental leave at a pace that is affordable, so that we can also ensure that New Zealand continues to prosper and that we don’t end up raking in a whole lot of debt.”—because we do nothing for the children of this country if, in providing them with the very best of paid parental leave, we leave a legacy of billions of dollars of extra debt, as this now Government is accepting it is doing.

So I am frustrated—frustrated that with all the time that there is before these provisions come into effect we can’t refer this bill to a select committee, tidy up this issue around fathers, and do what every New Zealander would want us to do, and that is to provide for flexible, modern paid parental leave where mums and dads can both access what’s provided for in this bill.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Madam Chair Tolley, for the opportunity to take part in this debate in the committee of the whole House. From what I see in clauses 1 to 4, I would like to first comment on the commencement. We support that this policy is going to come in two steps—that is, from next year it will be increased to 22 weeks and then in 2020 it will be increased to 26 weeks. But what we see is that the commencement of this policy is from 1 July 2018, and there are several months until 1 July 2018. I believe, just like my other colleagues on this side of the Chamber, that we have enough time for this legislation to go through the proper select committee process.

When we were debating Part 1 and Part 2 of this legislation in the committee of the whole House, we saw that some really good ideas came from our colleagues from this side of the Chamber, the Hon Amy Adams and Sarah Dowie. That is the kind of contribution that people can give during the select committee process, which this legislation is not able to take advantage of. If the commencement was, for example, 1 January 2018, then I would understand that there was a need for this legislation to be put through urgency. But with a commencement date of 1 July 2018, I do not see why this legislation has to go through urgency or why this legislation can’t go through the select committee process.

About the title: yes, we had Supplementary Order Paper 3 from the Hon Amy Adams to allow both parents to take parental leave at the same time. When we look at the title, it says “Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill”. “Parental leave”—yes, we have evolved, and, as we know, our election policy had that, so we wanted to contribute to this legislation. What Labour wants to do is they want to allow only one parent to be on paid parental leave to look after their newborn, so I think, actually, the title should not be Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. It should be “One Parent Leave at a Time and Employment Protection Amendment Bill”, because this bill actually allows only one parent to be around their newborn. We understand that families have different circumstances, and families should be allowed to choose what their circumstances allow for them to do when it comes to paid parental leave.

I also want to comment on new clause 4, in schedule 1, to be inserted into schedule 1AA of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act—I would like Minister Lees-Galloway to clarify this for the committee—it says in subsection (2) that: “A person referred to in subclause (1) may, before 1 July 2018, (a) give notice of a request to take parental leave, in which case the person may begin the parental leave before 1 July 2018 as if those amendments were already in force;”. I understand this is for people who are expecting their baby from 1 July 2018, but what I want to know from the Minister in charge is: how far before can people take this parental leave? As far as I understand, the summary of this bill says that the funding for this bill will be allocated in Budget 2018. If someone decides to take leave before the Budget is announced, where will the funding come from for this advance period of parental leave that is taken by that family?

I really want the Minister to explain, because we really want to know that there is funding available for this legislation to go through. We do not want to do a legislation-stamping exercise here without getting full assurance about funding—or is this just another thing that has been overlooked in this legislation, as my colleague Sarah Dowie pointed out? Those are the kinds of things that we get the opportunity to iron out when we put legislation through the select committee process. I really want the Minister to take a call and explain for the benefit of the committee what will happen if someone goes on leave—even if the newborn is expected from 1 July 2018, if someone takes that leave before the Budget is announced, where will the funding come from?

Finally, it is quite disappointing to see that this legislation is being rushed through the House when there is no need because the commencement of this legislation is 1 July 2018. If they really wanted to justify this urgency, I think they should have decided an earlier date for the commencement. Thank you.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Chair Tolley, for this call to speak to the title and commencement of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. You’ll have to forgive me, Madam Chair; I’m new, and I want to speak about commencement, and what I don’t understand, as a new MP, I suppose, is the fact that we have such a long time before this bill comes into force—in fact, 7½ months—but we don’t have a select committee process to consider a range of issues. A select committee process would no doubt have fully investigated the issue that makes up the substance of Amy Adams’ Supplementary Order Paper 3. Instead, we’ve been forced to sort of play out that role of select committee here in these proceedings. The commencement date of this bill, 7½ months away, gives a select committee plenty of time to consider the issues of both caregivers taking parental leave at the same time.

What we’ve heard from many people tonight, and indeed last night, is the role that both parents play and the importance of fathers when a mother has multiple births, a caesarean, post-natal depression, or other issues with her birth and needs that other partner to take time with her. What we haven’t heard about, and what I want to talk about tonight, is same-sex couples. Last night, we heard a lot about fathers and their rights, but, actually, what I want to talk about tonight is the fact that we have 7½ months before the commencement of this bill and nobody is talking about same-sex couples, and the fact that two mothers who are bringing life into this world are unable, under this bill, to take time off to bond with that new baby at the same time.

We have come so far with marriage equality, and I even heard Grant Robertson today stand up in the House and say, “Oh, look, it’s great that Australia voted the way they did today, and isn’t it amazing to see that they’re finally catching up with us.” Well, I put it to you and the members here today that, actually, it won’t take long before they do catch up with us, because this is a giant step backwards, to not allow two same-sex parents to take that time to bond with their baby at the same time. The commencement date allows us the time in a select committee to sit down and carefully consider these issues, because two mothers have the right to look after their baby at the same time and to spend those few months at the very early stages bonding with that baby.

I know that there are members across the floor that agree with me—I can see them nodding at me as I speak. Indeed, I heard Willow-Jean Prime last night saying that she—

Hon Phil Twyford: That was nodding off.

ERICA STANFORD: Hilarious! Last night we saw Willow-Jean Prime agree—and, look, she is a thoroughly lovely person, and she’s just been through the experience of having a baby. She, in fact, said that that time with her partner in those very early stages was so very important, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. The commencement date is 7½ months away. We have plenty of time to consider this.

The other thing I’d like to also consider is who this has the greatest impact on. I put it to you that parents who have the means to be able to have one partner take time off—unpaid leave—to look after the baby and bond with the baby, with perhaps the mother or the other caregiver—that’s great for them, but what we haven’t considered, and we have time to consider before commencement, is the fact that the people who have the least ability to be able to afford to do this are affected the most. The people who are on average incomes—they are the ones who are most affected by this because they don’t have that ability to take time off, that unpaid leave.

Actually, I agree with an earlier speaker to say that perhaps this bill should be called something like the “Selective Parental Leave Bill as Dictated by the Labour Party”, because it doesn’t allow flexibility. What it does is dictate to families, to same-sex couples, and to people who don’t have the means to be able to take leave at the same time—it dictates to them what they should do. It says, “This Government knows best.” If you’re a same-sex couple and you want to spend time—reduce your leave so that both parents, both mothers or both fathers, can take time off at the same time to bond with their baby, well, this Government knows better than you do. This Government thinks that 26 weeks, and one after the other or one and then one—it’s ridiculous. Same-sex couples, if they want to bond with their babies at the same time, should have the right to do that.

I put it to you: people who don’t have the means and the ability to take time off because they don’t have the leave available, or they don’t have the savings to be able to take unpaid leave, have the same rights as people with more means. The Labour Party, in their approach to this—it’s heavy-handed, it’s inflexible, and it’s unfair. I would like to hear from the Minister his views on this. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Just before I take the next call, the member’s a new member, so I didn’t pull her up, but these title clauses—I refer her and any other new members on either side that want to take a call to Speakers’ ruling 112/6, which talks about exactly how this discussion should happen. So it’s a time to summarise what’s been discussed before; it’s not a time to bring up new issues.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Senior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Madam Chair, thank you. I ask the House: what’s in a name? Would a bill by any other name smell as sweet? The name of this bill is the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill, so let’s look at that.

Before I start analysing that in relation to the content of the bill, I ask: have we talked enough about what’s best for the child? We’ve heard a lot about what is best for the parents. We’ve heard a lot—as always—about what is best for adults, but the perspective of the child, the perspective of what is best for that young life, or those young lives, must surely be paramount.

So, first, returning to my theme of the title of the bill. “Parental”, it says—from the Latin “parere”, meaning “bringing forth”. This word is not gender-specific. “Maternal”, on the other hand, from the Latin for “mother”—as I’m sure the sponsoring Minister knows—would imply something completely different. So if there is a renaming of the bill—I might add to the thoughts of my learned colleagues, including the Hon Judith Collins, in relation to alternate titles—might I suggest that the “Paid Maternal Leave Bill” might be at least a little bit more intellectually honest.

Second, regarding the process, much has been said on this, but I would like to relate this to a broader theme of the new minority Government, and it’s about this desire to have conversations. It’s about the desire to have reviews. It’s about the desire—stated in no less than two coalition agreements that the public’s seen, and possibly more that we have not—for inquiries. So, specifically in relation to this particular bill, I say let’s have a discussion. Let’s have a “conversation”. Let’s have, heaven forbid, an inquiry. One might almost say that if the procedures of this House allowed for such a thing, we might call it a committee. We might even call it a select committee—we might even give that body a chance to have a look and have a discussion. Who knows, they might come up with some ideas to improve the bill—ideas such as allowing both parents to have the ability to have some time off to raise the child.

Much has been said in this House as well, including in relation to this bill—you’ll be pleased to hear, Madam Chair—in relation to diversity. Gender pay gap is something that’s also been raised. I put it to you, Madam Chair, that there can be no more significant diversity for a young life being brought into this country than to have the benefit of not one but two parents at home on paid leave. It’s a doubling, obviously, in simple mathematical terms, of the wisdom and care available to that child.

I might add, as a footnote—at the risk of straying from the ambit of the bill—that in relation to the discussion that’s frequently held in this House regarding a gender pay gap, gender gaps exist in other realms as well. In relation to parenthood, I put it to the committee that it’s been remarked before, in relation to the bill, at earlier stages—short though they have been—that it is highly important, indeed crucial, that the children have the opportunity not to have these gaps in their life. They will fall through gaps. They fall through cracks; we see it far too often.

Too often the word “leave” in relation to parents in New Zealand has been one or tother of them leaving. The child deserves, if the circumstances do allow—and I appreciate that there are complex and many different types of circumstances and family situations in this country, but as a male, I’m happy to say that, oftentimes, fathers are not present as they should be. While that is a matter of personal responsibility and family responsibility in many cases, it’s also the obligation of this House, in passing legislation such as this, to give what signals and what indications it can about the things that we think, as the House of Representatives of the New Zealand people, are most appropriate. To send a signal by refusing to allow this Supplementary Order Paper—effectively, amendment—to allow both parents to be able to have some off is sending a very poor signal indeed, it appears to me.

Finally, I note that with limited time to discuss this bill so far, it would be perhaps in the interests of all sides of the debate in the House, but more importantly New Zealand children, to have it canvassed more fully.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Madam Chair Tolley, for this opportunity to speak in the committee stage on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill, on the title and commencement clauses. Look, I’m going to start in a positive vein. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve long been a supporter of paid parental leave. It was a policy of the National Government to periodically and methodically extend it in a fiscally prudent way. We campaigned on it, and with the roll of the dice—or, should I say, the close of the door on the negotiations—the new Government has the opportunity to extend paid parental leave. And it’s a good thing—it is a good thing. It is wonderful that the Government will extend it in two tranches, notwithstanding that we would like to see the costings. It’s going to be extended in two tranches, firstly to 22 weeks and then to 26.

We’ve long debated the benefits of paid parental leave. It is well documented and well researched that it gives the ability of parents to bond with baby. In the case of mothers, biological mothers, it gives them a chance to become proficient with breastfeeding. As I’ve said in this House before, don’t underestimate those who bottle-feed, who can’t breastfeed, notwithstanding the World Health Organization’s recommendations. It’s still a vital time to bond with baby. But, in saying that, with respect to Amy Adams’ Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which has not been accepted, it is also a vital time for the other parent and other family members to bond with baby.

Before I move on to discussing that in more detail, I do want to congratulate the Government for accepting my SOP in respect of extending the keeping-in-touch hours. It is an acknowledgment that keeping-in-touch hours and days are very important to nuance paid parental leave; to make it fit for purpose for modern-day New Zealand; to keep people connected with the workplace; to make sure that they have opportunities to train, to hand over caseloads, workloads; and just generally keep in touch with their colleagues so that they don’t miss out on that confidence, I guess. When you leave work and you’re away from work, it gives you that ability to go back to work, stay in touch with your peers, and remain confident about your career while you take a break to have a baby.

But it is disappointing, given that the Government has acknowledged that this bill requires work, that they haven’t seen sense to accept the Hon Amy Adams’ SOP, which suggests that we need more flexibility in paid parental leave—the ability to take parental leave concurrently. We need to acknowledge that there’s more than one type of family in New Zealand and that there are situations that give rise that require two parents to be at home, to give baby the best start in life. I think that if this bill had been given more time—and we’ve already heard throughout the debate that the commencement is not for some seven-odd months, so there was time to take this to a select committee and debate the merits of this. We need to acknowledge that there are different situations that that families find themselves in, and there are valid reasons to have two parents at home. As we’ve discussed at length, there are some things that go wrong when you’re having a baby. They are not pleasant, and they need to be effectively dealt with.

So this is an opportunity, absolutely. We need to keep our eye on the ball, though. Paid parental leave is a fantastic opportunity for New Zealand families to give baby the best start in life, but this is not the end of it. It needs to continue to evolve, and, certainly, the issues that the Hon Amy Adams has raised are very important. They need to be discussed. They need to continue to be debated and moved forward as paid parental leave evolves generation by generation.

Again, I thank the Government for taking up my SOP—again, another fantastic tool in the toolbox to make paid parental leave relevant.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It really is a privilege to be able to stand for my second time in this House and speak. Let me just start by congratulating you on the position that you have as the Deputy Speaker of this House and as Madam Chair, taking us through this important committee stage of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill, which is a Government bill in the name of the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway. Congratulations to the Minister on his new appointment.

I have a few comments, and I’ve been thinking about some names that we could call this bill, because without the Government supporting Amy Adams’ very well thought through Supplementary Order Paper, which would allow both parents to be able to take parental leave at the same time, I thought of some new names that we could call this bill. The first one: we could just get rid of the “al” at the end of “Parental”. We could call it the “Parent Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill”. I’m not sure what members think about that, but I’d ask the Minister, while he’s writing his Christmas cards, to consider that one.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank-you cards, actually—campaign thank-you cards.

SIMEON BROWN: Oh, thank you. The second one would be the “One Parent Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill”. That’s another idea, because, at the end of the day, it’s only one parent who’ll be allowed to take leave at any one time, being the mother. So why don’t we call it the “Mother Parent Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill.

Hon Tracey Martin: Why do you assume it’s the mother? What’s that about? Unconscious bias.

SIMEON BROWN: I’m just giving alternative names for the bill. We could also call it the “Government Knows Best Which Parent Bill”. What about that name—the “Government Knows Best Which Parental Leave and Employment Amendment Bill”?

Hon Shane Jones: Relevance—relevance!

SIMEON BROWN: This is relevant to the title of the bill, and these titles would actually give a far better reflection of what this Government has done to the bill in ensuring that only the mother is able to take parental leave. And, look, we’re in support of ensuring this legislation—this was the policy that the National Party went into this election with, in extending parental leave. But this bill, I guess, could also be called the “1960s Back to the Future Parental Leave Bill”. So there’s a whole range of different names.

Hon Tracey Martin: What about the “2016 Didn’t Do It When We Could Parental Leave Bill”?

SIMEON BROWN: Well, I guess, we’re still not doing this. It’s still not being done, so I think the “1960s Back to the Future Parental Leave Bill” would be a good one.

Let me just get on to the second point, which is regarding the commencement. This point has been discussed a number of times, but this bill won’t be coming into force until 1 July next year. Now, I mean, that’s a long time—we know a week’s a long time in politics, but that’s 7½ months until this legislation is coming into place. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting a number of calls from constituents and emails coming through regarding this. Why can’t we let parents actually have their say and put forward their own thoughts, and actually let them say what—because when I was on the campaign trail, listening to people, talking to parents, there was a lot of discussion on this issue, and they thought that our policy, which would allow both parents to be able to take leave concurrently, or separately, was a good policy.

So I think these issues could have been dealt with far better if the bill had gone to select committee. I’m disappointed that this Government has voted down leave for that to have been done twice today. I’m disappointed to see that they have chosen to push this through rather than to allow the proper select committee process to go through on such important legislation so that it could be well thought through and so that we could get better outcomes for the parents, because, ultimately, it’s about parents and their children and making sure that this legislation is done in the best interests of them.

So, thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s been a privilege to be able to speak on this bill, and I hope that the Minister will take into account my suggestions for the name. I’ve given him a number of options. They’re all very well thought through, and I really look forward to consideration by the Government benches. Thank you very much.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Noes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Motion agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)

In Committee

Clause 1 Title

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a great pleasure to stand in the Chamber today for the beginning of the committee stage of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2). Labour is very proud to be bringing this bill to the committee. It is a bill that has been making its way through the parliamentary system for some time. It had its start in life as a member’s bill that I was proud to bring to this House. It didn’t make it all the way through three stages, and it found new life under the sponsorship of the now Hon Andrew Little, and we have, since taking Government, made what was a member’s bill, which passed its second reading at the end of the last parliamentary term, a Government bill.

This Government is committed to making life better for renters, and there are some very important reasons for that. Given the falling rate of homeownership now, more than half of all New Zealanders rent, and yet we have some of the most archaic tenancy laws in the Western World. One of the most damaging things that face renters in this country is the appalling quality of much of the housing stock—the poor quality of that housing stock. The fact that more than half of our population are more than likely to be living in cold and damp homes is responsible for the fact that in this country some 1,600 mostly older New Zealanders die premature deaths every winter. The reason? Cold, damp homes and the fact that so many of them simply cannot afford to heat their homes.

Every year, more than 40,000 children in this country are packed off to hospital, hospitalised with respiratory and infectious diseases that leave them, in many cases, with permanent lung damage, shortened life expectancy, and a lifelong tendency towards respiratory illness. It’s time that we dragged the housing stock in this country kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The passage of this bill, when it becomes law and we set clear, enforceable minimum standards that will ensure that rental properties in this country are warm and dry, will amount to, I believe, the single most important public health reform we can make in this country at this time.

I want to acknowledge the fact that every new Government, often in many cases, builds on the work that was done by previous Governments, and I, perhaps more than anyone, have criticised in this House the record of the past National Government when it came to housing policy. But I want to acknowledge that under the tenure of the Hon Dr Nick Smith efforts were made in this area. After years and years of campaigning, advocacy, some of the finest public health research done by the University of Otago’s healthy homes team, and a tidal shift in public awareness and thinking about the importance of warm, dry homes, the former National Government did actually move. They passed an amendment to the 1986 Residential Tenancies Act last year that put in place some standards that required a level of insulation in rental properties and a requirement for smoke alarms in rental properties and, importantly, established an enforcement mechanism that would give the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) the responsibility to enforce those standards.

We criticised it at the time because it did not go far enough, and we stand by that. I think probably it was about 30 percent of the job done. What this bill does—the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)—is it finishes the job. It does a decent job, because rather than just setting standards for insulation, it sets standards also for ventilation, drainage, dampness, and moisture. All of those things are critical, because I think everybody realises it’s not enough just to insulate a home. If you insulate a cold home, it’s still a cold home. If you insulate a damp home, it’s still a damp home, and that’s the critical thing. We have to take into account those other factors, because ventilation, draught stopping, moisture, drainage—these are all critical factors, but the most important factor, other than insulation, is to have a fixed, modern, efficient, and affordable heating source. That’s one of the things that this bill will achieve.

Now, the mechanism in this bill is that the bill when passed into law will give the Government of the day the power to make regulations by Order in Council—to set standards. We don’t want the politicians having to pass a law every time the standards need to be updated, but the legislation gives a clear direction that standards for insulation, heating, moisture control, drainage, and ventilation will be set by the Government of the day and regularly updated. The second key thing is that we build on the enforcement mechanism that currently sits in the Residential Tenancies Act, but we give the chief executive of MBIE—the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—the mandate to undertake proactive investigations and risk-based auditing, to ensure that the standards are being met in rental properties.

There were many submitters at the select committee who came to us and said a complaint-based system is simply not realistic. Given the nature of the rental market, especially when you have a tight rental market like we have now, most tenants simply will not complain, because they’re scared of being moved on down the road. So we have to have a system that goes further than just being based on the complaints of tenants and actually provides Government with the mandate—not the opportunity; it doesn’t allow them to do it. It mandates risk-based auditing and investigations by a team within MBIE to make sure that the standards are being met.

Under this legislation there is an 18-month commencement period, so the regulations will take effect from 1 July 2019. There is the opportunity in the regulation-making process for a further grace period, if it’s deemed that landlords or certain groups within the landlord community may require an additional period, once the regulations have been published, to prepare themselves for compliance. Then, the way it works is that from that point on, once the regulations themselves take effect, every new tenancy agreement will have to contain a certification by the landlord that this property meets the standards of the regulations contained in association with the Healthy Homes Guarantee Act.

We know that tenancies turn over very quickly in this country. We know that the average tenancy is less than a year, but we have allowed a full five-year implementation period so that any tenancy agreement that hasn’t turned over within that five-year period will have to comply at the end of five years. But we expect, probably at the end of two years, probably two-thirds or three-quarters of all tenancies will have to have complied.

I look forward to this debate. I’m looking forward to hearing the questions and the comments from Opposition members. I think this is a bill that the whole Parliament can be proud of. This, as I said, will amount to the single most important public health reform that we can make in this country and, alongside the other elements of Labour’s housing reform programme, this will transform housing policy in this country. And next year, when we review the Residential Tenancies Act to deliver more security of tenure to renters, alongside this bill, which will overhaul the quality of rental housing in this country, it will amount to a very significant improvement in the lives of renters.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chairperson Tolley. It’s my pleasure to open the batting on behalf of the Opposition on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), and I will be begging your indulgence: it will probably take me more than one call just to lay out the Opposition’s position. It’s appropriate that that be done in the clause related to the title, because I think the title is aspirational, progressive, and everything Labour stands for.

In my research into the genesis of this bill and the journey that it has been on, I have been looking at the Hansard of the first and second readings of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) and also the Hansard of the previous Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2), passaged last year by the Hon Nick Smith. And it rather saddened me, I have to say, with the amount of venom and hyperbole that was injected into the discussion by the then Opposition that somehow, if one did not support this bill—which was then in the name of Andrew Little—those parties did not care for the 42,000 children suffering every year from preventable illnesses as a consequence of cold, damp homes, and the 15 children who die of preventable diseases who also live in those cold, damp homes.

So I want to put on the record two things: one, my absolute agreement, and my party’s absolute agreement, that it is not acceptable for children—for anybody—to live in those conditions, and that we as a Parliament should do everything that’s practically possible to improve their lot and to prevent that situation from occurring; and, secondly, to express a hope that in this committee of the whole House we can have a detailed, analytical, technical examination of this bill and what it will do, without that sort of rhetoric. I don’t think it’s helpful, and I think we’re better than that. The Prime Minister has talked about a kinder Parliament, and it will be robust, but it serves no purpose for us to politicise poverty and cold, damp homes.

So it was with that in mind that I looked to this legislation and whether or not we could support it to the degree that it improves the lives of New Zealanders, particularly those vulnerable New Zealanders. In clause 1, we have the title, and it is a lofty aspiration: a healthy homes guarantee. There are two very strong words in there: “Healthy” and “Guarantee.”

Hon Andrew Little: “Homes” is pretty strong.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, they’re all homes. They’ve got people in them.

Dr Deborah Russell: Cars have people in them.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, is the Government so lacking in ambition that they want a healthy cars guarantee? I thought it was their ambition to get people out of cars? So we’ll get to that in a minute.

But it is for a healthy home, and it’s guaranteed, according to the title—lofty. So I looked to the bill to decide, to determine, the degree to which it is going to achieve that goal, and I am disappointed to note that there isn’t a single thing in it that will do a single thing to achieve that goal. And, worse than that, Legislation 101 says that if you are going to bring a bill to the House, primary legislation that gives the Government the power to amend secondary legislation, or introduce secondary legislation, that comes with a responsibility.

It is a responsibility to at least inform the House, at the committee of the whole House, what that regulation might look like. It was what the previous Government did when we introduced the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and the Hon Nick Smith brought details of the draft regulation that would be brought, which then became the Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Regulations. We were able to determine how effective the legislation change was because we knew what the regulation would look like.

The Health and Safety at Work Bill, the bill that I was famously lampooned for because of worm farms and lavender growing, that came out of my efforts to inform the committee of the whole House as to what those regulations would look like. A good thing, some would say; we made it better as a consequence. I say that not for self-denigration, although it probably has achieved that goal, but simply to point out that it is vital that this House, this committee, understand what on earth we’re doing. And, the reality is we have no idea. We had no idea when the bill was first introduced—that was the advice the officials gave to Mr Little—we are none the wiser, given the fact that the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the Minister’s name, which has completely rewritten the bill and has taken out some of the sillier things that were in it when it started, thanks to the advice of the officials—and I have to acknowledge the Minister has made the bill somewhat better in form because of taking the advice of his officials, but no better in substance, and we are none the wiser about what this will do.

Now I draw the committee’s attention to the departmental disclosure statement, which contains a regulatory impact analysis, and a very important question is asked in this. It says: “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this Bill?” And the answer is no: “a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) was not provided at the time the Government decided to adopt the Bill.” To the extent that the impact analysis is available”, it says at 2.4: “MBIE prepared some analysis of the Bill’s potential impact, after it was adopted as a Government Bill. See heating and … standards for residential rental properties, MBIE, 10 November 2017, (accessible at: … [the following URL]).” Well, I’ve got a message for the committee and for the Minister: this is what you get when you go to that URL [Holds up printed sheet of paper]—“We’re sorry, but that page does not exist.” There is nothing.

The very minimal thing that they could have done is point to the URL that creates a link to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) website, and the page doesn’t exist. We are no more informed—in fact, we are less informed—about what on earth we’re doing here. I would love to be able to guarantee that homes were healthy. And when I asked the Minister in question time yesterday whether he intended to inform the committee—

Hon Ruth Dyson: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The Opposition refused the opportunity to debate this as a whole and are debating it clause by clause. It sounds very much as if—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The point of order will be heard in silence.

Hon Ruth Dyson: —this speaker is speaking to clause 6 rather than the one that’s before the committee at the moment.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I don’t need any help, thank you. I thank the member for that point of order; however, I did consider it while the Minister was speaking, and he spoke for quite some time in his first call—in fact, over four minutes—in quite a general way before he came to the details of the bill, so I felt that, in fairness, I had to give that same opportunity. But I can assure the member that when we come to the actual clauses, they are very tight and very narrow, but perhaps the opportunity on the title is there to be a little bit broader.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The chief Government whip has just indicated that leave was sought and denied.

Hon Ruth Dyson: No, I didn’t.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That’s exactly what she said when she got up.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): She said, “the offer.”

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I was at least misled.

Hon Ruth Dyson: I did not say that leave was sought. I said they declined the opportunity. I had a conversation with the senior whip, made that offer, and he said no.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I will continue to speak to the title, because I think this is fundamental to what we’re doing here. What the Opposition want to do is determine whether or not we are guaranteeing healthy homes. I restate: not only are we none the wiser, we are less well informed now than we were when the bill was introduced two years ago, because what we don’t know is how this intersects with current legislation and regulation.

I am really very keen to get from the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, what we are doing here. How are we going to guarantee healthy homes? What is the regulation going to have in it? We know the titles, and, indeed, it doesn’t give us any clear steer about what those sections are going to do in order to achieve our goal of healthy homes, because all six of the criteria that are laid out in the bill—which were deleted and then reinstated at heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress, draught stopping, drainage, and then any other thing—already exist in regulations formed under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986.

We can debate the merits or otherwise of a strengthening of the insulation standards, for example—and I remind the committee of a certain Opposition spokesman on housing, Phil Twyford, running around this House and into the press gallery with pieces of insulation saying that the bill that the Government was passing last year was simply not good enough and that this is what we should be requiring. Well, I ask the Minister in the chair: is that what we’re debating here? Because we cannot tell. We cannot tell if this bill does nothing—in which case, we will oppose it—or is a Draconian imposition on landlords that could drive rents up, in which case, we will oppose it.

So I do tell the Minister that the Opposition has not changed its position, but we would really benefit from an explanation about which part of this we argue. Is it irrelevant, innocuous, and do-nothing or is it a Draconian imposition on the landlords? Please advise.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise in this very important stage of this very important bill, one with which I have an intimate acquaintance, since I originally sponsored it. The question that the honourable list member who’s just spoken, Michael Woodhouse, raises, given that we’re on clause 1 and talking about the title, is: can the content of the bill provide the guarantee that he seems to be looking for of warm and safe and healthy homes—or, at the very least, healthy homes, because that’s the other word in the title of the bill? Not just homes, and, of course, not just healthy, but a guarantee—I want to engage him on that point.

It is pretty clear in this bill what it is all about. It is about upgrading the landlord’s responsibility to tenants through the tenancy agreement to meet these elevated but, actually, vitally important obligations. You see, if they were there already, or if landlords were already observing these very simple obligations, then we would not have this bill and, more importantly, we wouldn’t have 42,000 children turning up to hospital each year with respiratory conditions—avoidable respiratory conditions. We wouldn’t have people with cold damp homes with black mould running up them, homes that are not properly ventilated, or homes that are not properly insulated.

If the current regulations and the current legislation provided for those things, then this bill would not be necessary. But it is, because those problems exist. There is a problem for which this is a remedy, and it is the failure of far too many rental homes and the landlords who own them to provide a safe and healthy environment for their tenants.

When you look at the specific guarantees that this legislation will provide, a requirement that things must be specified in a tenancy agreement—and what are those things? Madam Chair, I’m not departing from clause 1 in talking about it. I am talking about what the guarantee is that’s referred to in clause 1, and the aspects that will be guaranteed are there, laid out, in replacement section 138B, in clause 6, on Supplementary Order Paper 1. So there will be requirements under regulations for heating, for insulation, for ventilation, for moisture ingress, for draught stopping, for drainage, and for any other material thing. Look, if it was any more specific, it would be requiring landlords to put the telly in one corner and the couch opposite it. We haven’t gone that far, because we’re not into nanny State; we’re into allowing people to make their own choices about how they furnish their homes and where they put the furniture. But when it comes to minimum standards of health and safety, in the 21st century, this is the least we could do, and we have to do it because it’s not being done now.

When this bill talks about the “Healthy Homes Guarantee”, it is very clear about setting up very specific obligations, allowing for regulations to make very specific obligations, referred to in the tenancy agreement, that will lift the quality and the standard of the homes that are falling short right now. It is about that guarantee, and it is about making them healthy, and, above all, it is about ensuring that people, when they go to the place that they call their home, can call it a home—their place of sanctuary and their place of safety—in a way that too many cannot do right now. That’s the guarantee—that’s what it’s guaranteeing.

Is it too much to ask in this day and age for the growing number of people—young people, couples, and families—who are dependent on rental accommodation to at least be assured that they will have minimum standards observed, and is it too much to ask for this House, discharging its responsible duty to the citizens of New Zealand, to require rental housing to meet that minimum standard and for this House to give permission to the executive to create regulations to ensure that that’s going to happen? That’s what the bill is about—short and simple, clear on its face. That is the guarantee. New Zealanders want it, because they’ve voted for it, and now they’ll have a chance to get it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The problem is the gaping hole between the rhetoric that we’ve just heard from Mr Little and the reality of the bill. You see, it’s an issue about spin versus substance, about rhetoric versus reality. Let’s, firstly, remind the Parliament that a residential amendment Act was passed by this Parliament—a residential amendment Act; don’t dress it up in spin. Just say what it is; none of this “Healthy Homes Guarantee”.

It reminds me of what the Government has done over the vigorous objection to the evil of the Trans-Pacific Partnership! Now that we put the words that it’s a “comprehensive, progressive” Trans-Pacific Partnership, suddenly it’s a beautiful international agreement that the Government is now going to adopt. The relevance is that it is the same with the title of this bill: there is nothing in a guarantee of healthy homes in this bill. Next minute, we’re going to get the “Eradication of Poverty Bill”. We’ll get another bill that says it’s the “Prosperity for Everybody Bill”. Somehow, if you pass a bill with a fancy title, you magically fix the challenging issues that our country faces!

Let’s, firstly, be clear about the record. The previous Government insulated 340,000 homes and invested half a billion dollars in doing so. Let me just compare that. When you compare that, 340,000 homes under nine years of a National Government—this issue of cold, draughty homes didn’t arrive yesterday; I wonder how many the Clark Government did?

Hon Member: How many? Tell us.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: 35,000. We did 340,000, and they do 35,000, and Mr Little thinks he can give us a lecture about caring for children and about healthy homes. Then—here’s the extraordinary part—every single operational clause of Mr Little’s bill is being deleted by the member’s Supplementary Order Paper 1. There isn’t a single provision in the bill that is retained. What a dog. Why not be honest and just introduce a new bill, and not put up this facade? I know there are hurt feelings, with Mr Little being dumped a few weeks before the election, but that is no reason to play with this Parliament about such an important issue.

Then there is this: the member Mr Little claims that this bill elevates the standard required for the standard of our rental accommodation.

Hon Kris Faafoi: And he’s right.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I say to Mr Faafoi: where in the bill does it raise that standard? Let me take him through it. Number one, we passed legislation—and I have in front of me 20 pages of regulations—around what’s required to insulate homes in New Zealand by 1 July 2019. Can Mr Faafoi answer: how will this bill make this change?

Hon Andrew Little: Better insulation.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, there’s nothing in this bill—nothing in this bill at all tells me anything about what the new insulation standard will be.

Then let’s go through the other issues. I have in front of me the housing regulations passed under existing law. They set down and say that houses shall not be damp, houses shall have appropriate heating, housing will have appropriate electrical safety, houses will have appropriate issues around security, and all those issues. They’re all in the regulations.

So the claim by Mr Little that somehow this bill is actually going to elevate the standards of homes and guarantee healthy homes is a load of wash. It is a load of spin. There is nothing in this bill that actually delivers on the highly moded, the highly sort of spin-doctored claim that, somehow, if you pass a bill through this Parliament that is called the healthy homes guarantee, magically, homes are somehow insulated and made healthy.

Hon Kris Faafoi: Why are your colleagues blaming you, Nick?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh, they’re not, at all. In fact, we are incredibly proud of our record, because here’s what we know. We know that the standard of homes was improved by a greater level—[Time expired]

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I think in that exchange between Messrs Little and Dr Smith, we have now come to the nub of the question of whether the title “Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)” is accurate, or whether it should be given another title. In two interjections by Mr Little on Dr Smith’s speech, Mr Little described the 1978 regulations insulation standards as being inadequate—I’m paraphrasing. I hope I caught the essence of what he has said. He then said that what the regulation will do is provide for “Better insulation.” It’s very important that I accurately characterise what he said, because my question to the Minister is this, and it is fundamental to our consideration of this bill. I implore him to provide the committee with an answer.

Under the regulations, when they are passed, will houses currently legally insulated to the 1978 standard be required to upgrade to the 2008 standard? Will houses that are just 10 years old but that were insulated under the 2001 standard of 87 percent of the maximum thermal properties be required under the regulation to upgrade to the 2008 standard?

Unless we know the answer to that question, we are flying blind. We are asking for a virtual blank cheque from landlords—and bear in mind that the Government is the largest landlord in the country—and a detailed regulatory impact assessment should have advised the Government, and Mr Robertson, who is already $13 billion in a hole, how much Housing New Zealand—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Keep digging, Michael.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh, we’re digging deeply into the costs that are being incurred on that side, and this could be one of them. This could be a massive cost on Housing New Zealand, because the Government should set an example. I’m sure it’s not the Government’s expectation that they set one law for private landlords and a lower standard for Housing New Zealand. So what I want to know is (a) will those regulations, when they’re passed, require those legal homes to be insulated under the 1978 and 2001 standards, but not to the lofty standard that Mr Twyford had last year—when he paraded around Parliament with insulation material—or not? That is going to determine whether or not this bill truly is a healthy homes guarantee. I would contest that anyway, and the reason is that, despite not being the absolute gold standard in insulation, in fact, both the 1978 standards and the 2001 standards are still very, very good.

Now, Dr Woods came in and talked about growing up in the 1970s in cold houses. Well, I can probably guess at Dr Woods’ age. My guess is that she lived in a house—like I did—that had the pre-1978 insulation standard, which was virtually none at all. So to ask landlords to upgrade at a cost of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to go from the 1978 and 2001 standards to 2008 is the heart of the question that we have to answer tonight.

I do hope that the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, when the opportunity arises—and it’s not actually in clause 1, so I’ll give him time to think about whether or not he is going to give us, when we come to the appropriate clause on the contents of the regulation—I think it is clause 4 or 5. I’ll need to go back and have a look. It has the six categories, which are without exception already contained in the Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Regulations or the Housing Improvement Regulations. We need to know: is all we’re doing asking landlords to certify that they are complying with the law—in which case this bill does less than nothing; it wastes the House’s time—or is it going to set a higher standard, in which case we should be able to have a cogent, coherent discussion about the costs and benefits of those higher standards?

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to speak on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)—and it’s actually a number 2 bill because there was a first bill. In fact, the Minister Phil Twyford himself sponsored that bill as a member’s bill, which was defeated, and now this is bill number 2. When I heard that, I thought of number 2, or Mark II, and actually, the Mark II Zephyr. I don’t know why that came into my mind, but it was probably because when I was playing rugby, our coach had a Mark II Zephyr. We had many fond memories of the Mark II Zephyr. I know the member Ron Mark will remember those days. They came in a four-cylinder and a six-cylinder model.

Getting to the point, though, what I am trying to say about the bill is this. It is Mark II, and I think about the Mark II Zephyr, but the word “zephyr” actually means a soft, gentle breeze. I have to say that when I look at this bill, it’s nothing but a soft, gentle breeze in regards to the thundering and the strong advocacy that we heard from the then Opposition to the bills around the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill when they were coming through.

I remember those days in the House. In fact, Mr Faafoi was there. He used the props that the Minister was using at the time, where they had these forms of insulation that was there. They were saying this: “If we truly want a guarantee that these homes are warm and dry for the families of those who are vulnerable, then we’ve got to make a difference, first of all, to the insulation that we have in our houses.”

Now, the 1978 insulation regulations—and it’s the R-value rating that’s used. So 1.9 is the R rating for insulation, and that was back in 1978. Then it was amended again in 2001, and so what we had from 1978 to 2008 was that the R rating went up by 1 percent. So it’s actually at R2.9.

When we had submissions in regard to the healthy homes bill, those who were retrofitting insulation simply said to us this: there is no difference in regards to the way they measure. The way they measure that is by looking at the amount of heat loss that comes from that insulation. So with the insulation of 1978, the maximum amount of heat it contains is about 83 percent. Seventeen percent gets lost. When you go up to 2008, it’s about 92 percent. Here is what they said to us: so, really, realistically, there is not going to be any difference if you go from 1978 to 2008.

Hence the reason why the Residential Tenancies Act said this: for those who have the standard at 1978, those can remain—there needs to be no change to that. But, then, those who don’t have insulation need to bring it up to the code of standard for 2008. But what we heard on the other side, from the Minister himself, and when we had the props—they said, “Here’s the difference: 70 millimetres is what it was in 1978.”, and then they didn’t know what the other was, but it was probably about 140 centimetres. This is the difference that they advocated for. In fact, they told us that’s what it should be. They said it should double the amount of insulation.

I suppose the point that I’m trying to make that goes to my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse is that on the other side they talked about the regulations. They knew what the measurements were. They knew what the insulation should be, and yet when we come to this what do we see? A zephyr—a soft gentle breeze. There is no regulation here. There is no standard.

In fact, inside the Hansard that’s clearly what it states. It states there, from the honourable Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, that we should have minimal standards. Now, that member, here in the Hansard, talked about the fact that it should be double; that 1978 shouldn’t stand. In fact, what it should be is we should bring everything up and retrofit it to the 2008 standard, and yet here we have the Minister almost backtracking.

We’re not having any indication about whether he’s going to retrofit to the 2008 standard that we think he’s been trying to advocate for. So, again, I plead to the Minister that he will rise and actually give us an answer to that question: will he advocate just as strongly as he advocated when he was on this side of the House, when he had his props, when he talked about the fact that the minimum standard should be at 2.9—1978 won’t count? In other words, then, he’ll have to answer the other question: what will be the cost? What will be the cost to the landlord, who will need to do that? What’s the subsidy that they will give? He hasn’t done that. And if he’s costed that, what will that look like? Those are critical questions that we want to ask on this side as well.

I think what’s also really important—when we talk about the comparison with the existing legislation and where the bill is—is that in the signed agreements that we have in the initial bill it was 12 months after the Royal assent. The amendment bill is July 2019. We don’t see any difference here. We’re trying to get a sense that, again, what we’re sort of seeing—there is an underpinning of when it will be passed and how could this actually apply to those who don’t meet that standard.

I just want to make that point. There are other points to be made, but I hope that the Minister in the chair will be able to answer those questions being put forward.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m really pleased to rise and speak in this committee stage on the title clause, because it is somewhat of a mystery. As I have listened to my colleagues’ contributions in this debate—

Hon Andrew Little: You’re listening to the wrong people.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —actually, it gets murkier and murkier and murkier as the debate continues. As that member that just interjected, Andrew Little—actually, if I was him, I would be deeply, deeply embarrassed. I’d be deeply, deeply embarrassed about a bill that is entitled the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)—and my learned colleague has explained the reason for the number 2—but, actually, it should be a big fat zero, because at the end of the day, this bill does zero. So I’m just a little confused about why they would bother calling it the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

They could have renamed it the “Residential Tenancies Amendment Act is So Great We’ve Got Nothing to Add Bill”, because that, in reality, is what it is. Or the title could’ve been the “Healthy Homes Guarantee Act (No 2) That Doesn’t Really Exist But it Sounds Good Bill”, because that’s exactly all this is attempting to do. So, as my colleagues have said, this is just an exercise in spin. It’s a bit sad for a new Government not to have legislation to put into the House—real, meaningful Government legislation. They’re so desperate they have to pick up members’ bills that have been languishing in the ballot, that have been absolutely stripped bare. I don’t even know, actually, how you can call this bill the same, given that the Supplementary Order Paper 1 that’s been put forward strips out anything meaningful that happened to be in the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

So, in terms of the title, it is somewhat of a mystery. It’s a mystery to the members in the Opposition. Clearly we had, in our time in Government, a huge commitment to ensuring and improving the quality of rental homes that New Zealanders live in. As my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith talked about, the reality is that the number of the homes that our Government ensured were insulated over our period of time, I think, is extraordinary.

I will actually take you back to the early days. Some of that was with the agreement of the Greens. The Green Party actually should be quite embarrassed today. They should be quite embarrassed at a bill that is called the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) that actually does nothing. It’s actually probably a step backwards from what we agreed with them when we were in Government in 2008 and actually produced tangible, real results for New Zealanders and those that are renting. We have agreed that we wanted to see the standard of the homes that people were renting improve, and that was absolutely delivered, and actually comes into effect kind of on the same date as this one is proposed, which is another reason why we’re not sure why you’d even bother with this piece of legislation that does absolutely nothing, other than to just say you can turn up to the House and have a piece of legislation that you’re debating.

So another name could be, instead of the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), “Fill the Order Paper with Something Because We’ve Got Nothing Else To Debate Bill”.

Matt Doocey: That’s right—(No 2).

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: That would be (No 2). They might actually get to (No 3) or (No 4) or (No 5). So it is absolutely, just as my colleague has suggested, an exercise in window dressing, because there is absolutely no substance in this bill. I would ask the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, to actually go into a bit more detail in terms of why this is the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), because there is absolutely nothing in here that qualifies any one of those three main words. About “Healthy”—how is that described? What is the standard? Where would you find it? “Homes”—I think, you know, most of us could kind of figure out what that is. But, actually, given the lack of depth or anything of substance in this bill, one could apply it to just about anything. In terms of a “Guarantee”, I think that is totally and absolutely overpromising, and I know that this Government—[Time expired]

Hon RUTH DYSON (Senior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Motion agreed to.

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

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 Commencement

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This clause 2 on the commencement is even more remarkable than the title in its duplicity.

Fletcher Tabuteau: You’re remarkable!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the member interjects. Let me just take him through it. The bill that was introduced by Andrew Little reads—this is the bill we have before us—that the provisions in this bill will come into effect “5 years after the date … the Act receives the Royal assent”.

Hon Member: Five years?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Five years. Righty-o. We passed a law that said that all homes that are tenanted need to be insulated by 1 July 2019—roughly 18 months away. Now, how can members like Mr Little; the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford; and the members over the other side of the House—who want to trot round the Parliament and the country, and say, “We’re the ones about healthy homes.”—want, in this bill, to do it in five years, rather than 18 months? Isn’t that kind of bizarre? Doesn’t that sort of contradict everything that members opposite stand for?

And here’s the funniest part. I’ve read through the Hansard from when my bill was introduced. I’ve got a speech—I’ve got the exact words from Mr Twyford. He said at that stage, in response to a bill that requires all 180,000 uninsulated tenanted homes to be done by 1 July 2019, “that is [excessively] far too long”. He says it’s a “massive loophole”. He says it’s disgraceful—disgraceful—that the Government is going to allow until 1 July 2019.

I could quote the comments from Mr Kris Faafoi. I note he’s in the House. He said at the time that 1 July 2019 was way too slow, and that it was not nearly ambitious enough. Now, I’m not sure what’s changed, Mr Faafoi.

Hon Kris Faafoi: The Government.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh! Hey, I’ve got the answer. Kris Faafoi has said what’s changed is the Government. I’m reminded of that famous comment from Steve Maharey: “Well, that’s just what you say in Opposition.” That is the integrity and the standard that this Government has set itself in week number two—week number 2. I have never—and I’ve been through a few Government changes—seen a Government—

Hon Kris Faafoi: You’re responsible for the last one.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Ah, just been around a while, mate. Won my seat a few times; been here a while. I’ve never seen a Government become so cynical and so duplicitous so early in its term.

What’s extraordinary: guess what date the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper chooses for the bill to come into effect—1 July 2019. That rings a bell—it rings a bell: it’s the current law. The current law provides for the insulation of homes to be put in place by then. So I simply say: this bill doesn’t do anything. It’s like an emperor with no clothes. Mr Little says, “Oh, no, the detail’s not in the bill; the detail will be in the regulations.” The problem with that is this: the existing law allows all those regulations to be passed.

There are the Housing Improvement Regulations—if the Government wants to amend those and change the standards around what might be required in a heating device or for ventilation or any of those, that’s fine. He can do that. If the member wants to change the insulation standards, the powers already exist to do that. So the nonsense of this bill is it adds absolutely nothing to what the Government could do right now. Here’s the truth: you’ve got a new Government, it hasn’t done its homework, and it hasn’t got anything to do, even in the second week of its Parliament, and so we get nonsense bills of this sort, which have got grandiose titles, that do no more than choose a commencement date that is absolutely identical to what is already in the law of the land.

Again, I state, on 1 July 2019, National’s law will require every one of those 180,000 homes to be insulated. What does this change? Absolutely nothing, and I question why we are wasting the—[Time expired]

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, it’s a pleasure to follow the Hon Dr Nick Smith in discussing the commencement of this bill. The reason for that is that Nick Smith was part of a Government that did more than any other Government in our history to create healthy homes in our country, which is of course the name of this bill and what we are debating tonight.

The last Government provided subsidies to insulate 290,000 private homes across New Zealand, making them healthier, and it insulated every State house in the country that could be insulated. All of that happened within the space of five years, which is exactly the amount of time that this bill will take to be enacted in this House. That goes to show what can be achieved in five years, unlike this bill.

Madam Chair, I seek your indulgence for a moment. I just want to read part of the explanatory note of this bill, which says: “Landlords already have obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act with respect to the properties they let out. However, there is no guidance about the specific standards they must meet to ensure warm and dry accommodation. This Bill amends the Residential Tenancies Act to require the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment to set minimum standards for heating and insulation in rental properties within 6 months.” So my question to the Minister in the chair is: why not wait?

He said himself that he is going to be reviewing the Residential Tenancies Act next year. If it is going to take 6 months for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to work on regulations, why not include that in that review? He could have done that over the next six months and brought a bill to this House with the detail in it. We don’t know what we’re debating. My question to him is: if the regulations will take six months to determine, why not include them in the review next year, when we know what we’re voting for, rather than us voting blindly for what the regulations might be?

I came to this place to debate good legislation. I saw Duncan Webb in the House earlier tonight. I’m sure that’s the reason he came here as well. Unfortunately, this is not good law and not good policy. I’m sorry to say this is a poor way to create legislation. There is no guarantee of healthy homes in this bill, and the Government have us voting blindly on what the regulations might look like. It’s a Clayton’s bill—it’s the sort of bill you put up when you don’t have a bill. This bill should be withdrawn until the Labour Government have done their homework. They haven’t done that yet, and that’s been the case across the last few days of debate in this House. They haven’t done the work. Time and time again—and I’m sure we’ll see this over the next few weeks—they’ll bring legislation forward—

Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. It is pretty clear that this is a debate that is clause by clause in this legislation. We are now on clause 2, which is about the commencement of the legislation. What we’re hearing from the honourable member is a very wide-ranging—I wouldn’t say dissection of the bill but a glossing over of it, but nothing about commencement. He’s used 3½ minutes of his time already, and we haven’t heard about commencement, and that’s what this debate needs to be about.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): It’s OK, Dr Smith, I can rule on this. Members, I am allowing this member to be a little more free-form in this debate, given that he is a new member to the House. But I do take your point on board, and I would encourage the member to be much more specific about the commencement provisions within this clause.

ANDREW FALLOON: I thank Madam Chair for her guidance, and I also thank the Hon Andrew Little. He perhaps missed it: I did actually refer to the commencement of this bill. It’s not coming into force for five years, and in that time, this party, when we were in Government, insulated hundreds of thousands of homes.

In that time, what they are talking about is talking about it. They’re not talking about insulating homes; they are talking about talking about it. The Minister in the chair—I’d like him to take a call, because I want to hear from him why he won’t include in his review next year exactly what we’re debating. We wouldn’t need a bill, we wouldn’t need a commencement of a year, or five years, or 10 years if he was to bring that forward to next year and, instead, have the debate as part of the Residential Tenancies Act review, which he has promised next year, rather than creating a bill that’s stand-alone, pushing this through. It does nothing. It’s a Clayton’s bill. It’s the sort of bill that you bring forward when you’ve got nothing better to talk about.

Clayton Mitchell: Go for the hat-trick—hat-trick!

ANDREW FALLOON: I thank the member opposite. I’m sure he’d like to take the credit for it, but, unfortunately, this is a bill that the entire Government benches are responsible for, and it’s not a good bill. That’s why we will be opposing it. Thank you.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon Kris Faafoi: Come on, guys. Be a bit more enthusiastic.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: Well, actually I was waiting for the honourable member up there. He looked like he was about to take a call. But look, Madam Chair, it is clause 2 and it is about the commencement. I don’t want to labour the point, but it is significant—

Hon Member: I see the pun.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: Ha, ha, that’s right. But the point that has been made, and the Hon Nick Smith made it, is that we are talking about five years. I want to also point this out, because the Hon Andrew Little for whom this bill was the Zephyr Mark II Bill, said—and he spoke very passionately—that it is about time that we do something for those who are vulnerable. He actually talked about the fact, the importance, that if we’re going to care for those who are in need—they talked about the homes, they talked about the fact that there are young children out there. In fact, they used figures like 42,000 children, and so forth. Well, if it’s that important, then why are we waiting five years? Why are we waiting five years?

It’s actually quite a simple point. Why are we sort of prolonging the aspect of being able to get on and do the business? The Minister knows this. He’s actually spent, as the spokesperson for housing, almost six years—I think that’s probably the period that he was the spokesperson for housing; he knows these issues—advocating for them very strongly. So if he knows what they are, he knows what the regulations are—and also, as Andrew Falloon has said, he has also promised there’s going to be a review of the Residential Tenancies Act too for next year, and he knows these things—why are we waiting five years for the commencement of this?

Now, there’s silence on the other side, because I sense even they over there realise actually it is way too long. You see, you are only going to have to wait another 2½ years when the nation will ask you this question: you went out and you promised these things, that you would make these houses warm and dry. You turned around and said you’re going to do the big KiwiBuild—sorry, “KiwiBuy” scheme now, not KiwiBuild but “KiwiBuild and Buy”; it’s a combination, a sort of fried rice thing going on. Now all of a sudden there’s the back tracking, right? Because the realisation is this: when you are on the Government benches—right?—you realise that the aspect of being able to moderate what you promise comes into reality. You can be on this Opposition side all care and no responsibility, but when you’re over there now the responsibility lies with you. So the Government on the other side are going to have to answer to the public this question: we went out and promised that we would make these homes warm and dry. And you’re also going to have to be able to compare that to the record of the National Government in five years: 31,000 of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes insulated; 295 in the private market in rentals were insulated. You’re going to have to be able to put that record on.

But you are going to have to say this: “Oh, that’s right. We are actually going to take five years to get there. So we’re going to need you to give us a bit more confidence to give us another term to get to that point where we can commence the work that we want to do.” Now, I have to say to you this—and on the other side I guarantee there are those that are now questioning—why is it taking so long? And I hope that the Minister in the chair will stand and give us a good rational reason why. In that reasoning will he talk about the costing of the reasons why? Will he talk about the implications of the change in the regulations? Will he talk about the impact on landlords, the effect that that will have to those who are renting? Will he have thought through all the details? He’s actually had six years in Opposition to speak, to understand, to meet the industry, to talk about that, because that’s actually what he promised.

Here on this side we can laugh a little bit, we can joke and banter a bit, but let’s get down to the seriousness, because you promised that. You promised the very people in those communities—even over in Porirua, even in those places like that, you said to them this: “We will, if we become the Government make these homes warmer and drier.” But guess what? It’s going to take you five years to do it. Yet in five years, under a National Government, again 31,000 of Housing New Zealand homes were insulated, 295—you’re going to have to stack up your record against that, and I’ve got to say to you it’s going to be pretty tough.

How will you do that? How will you tell them? How will you speak to those people in Carterton and Masterton? How will you tell them that under this Government, under this coalition, with New Zealand First and Labour, we agreed to this commencing in five years’ time? What will you say to them? What will be your rhyme and reason? How will you explain it? You can blind them with science but the bottom line is this: talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words. What will be the record that you put on record to be able to say, “This is what we achieved.”?

So I think that in regard to the commencement I’ve stayed true to scope around the commencement date. I think actually the point is really clear—

Hon Member: Just because you say it doesn’t make it true.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: And I hope the member will stand up and actually take a call.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, I don’t want to waste the time of the committee responding to all of the hyperbole and the rhetoric that we have heard from the Opposition benches, but I just want to say this: for the next nine to 12 years we are going to be spending a lot of time debating the Labour-led Government’s housing legislation and housing policy. If that side of the Chamber wants to spend all of that time debating the legacy of the Hon Dr Nick Smith, we are quite happy with that. In fact, we welcome that.

But I want to just make a few brief comments about the time frames around the commencement and compliance period. The first point I want to make, in response to a number of queries from the Opposition benches, is that the current compliance period for the insulation and smoke alarm standards contained in the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act persist. They’re still there, so the requirements on people to meet the standards for smoke alarms and insulation as contained in last year’s amendment bill still continue. A number of speakers have questioned why in this Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) there is a longer compliance period of five years from the point of commencement. The reason is that this bill will go a lot further than last year’s Government legislation. So it will add—it will contain in the regulations standards on drainage, heating, insulation, moisture control, and ventilation. It goes a lot further than the Government’s legislation last year. It will be more complex and, yes, it will be more expensive for landlords, because it actually does the job properly. It will make all rental properties in this country warm and dry, and that is worth voting for.

But I want to correct some of the statements that were made, and most recently by the member the Hon Alfred Ngaro, who seemed to be under the misapprehension that under this bill there will be a five-year commencement period. It’s not a commencement period for five years. There is an 18-month commencement period. From the moment the Governor-General signs this bill into law, there is an 18-month commencement period during which the Government will be designing and testing and consulting on the regulations. The first of July 2019; that’s when it comes into force, OK? Then there is a five-year compliance period—but hold your breath, because during that time, every time a tenancy agreement is renewed, varied, or set up, the landlord in that tenancy will have to certify in the agreement that the property meets the standards set down in the regulations. And during that time, we know—we know that the average tenancy length in New Zealand is less than a year, right? So in the first year, approximately 40 to 50 percent of those homes in the market of rental properties will have to meet the standards. In another year it will be another 40 to 50 percent. So it will be staggered over the first few years and then, when the five years is up, if there are any properties that still don’t meet the standards they will then have to certify that they meet them.

Hon RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I thank the Minister of Housing and Urban Development for taking the time to stand up and explain to the Opposition precisely how the lead-in will work, and the compliance. I appreciate the arguments that have been put up by the Opposition around the commencement date. It is heartening to know that they are concerned that it might be too long and that they would want it done earlier, which in some ways sort of seems a bit strange, given how that party used to be the champion of small business. It used to be worried about compliance costs and used to be worried about the ability for small businesses and landlords and small mum and dad investors to meet the Government legislation that they were quite happy to pass through in their time in Government. If this gives those mum and dad investors that time—to find the money, to get the work done, to get the assessments done, and to complete the work—then I guess that is a good thing.

But let’s also consider what the options could have been. If we look back on housing history over different Governments’ times, I can remember, as a brand spanking new member of Parliament, running a list MP’s office in Christchurch and taking in constituency work that wasn’t being done by elected electorate MPs, either because they were too lazy or too incapable to do that work or because they simply weren’t trusted. So I would get work from Gerry Brownlee’s electorate and other electorates, and one of the streets that I recall, if I go back to then, is a street called Roxburgh Street, where a whole line of houses was suffering mould. I can go now into Masterton, after nine years of National governance, and go over to the eastern side, and see houses right now that aren’t insulated and, quite frankly, that many people say shouldn’t even be occupied. So if we could make this retrospective, and pick up those houses and have the work done, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? But this work, despite all that the National Party might like to trumpet was done that was positive—and I will thank the Hon Simon Bridges for assisting me to get some homes insulated in Masterton—the fact is that the standards—

Hon Simon Bridges: Good Minister.

Hon RON MARK: Well, it was a good response, because his own MP had told the constituents that he couldn’t do a damned thing to help them, so they came to me. But imagine how much better things would have been if we’d had this legislation enacted five years ago, nine years ago, 10 years ago—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We did—we did it. It’s already done.

Hon RON MARK: —imagine how much better. The former Minister, Nick Smith, interjects, but if there’s no need for this legislation, then tell us in this House why and how it is that there are still so many homes that are unhealthy, that have poor drainage, and that have mildew issues.

I can take that member into houses that, actually, don’t belong to Housing New Zealand any more, because they sold them. They sold them to an, apparently, responsible community housing provider who has not done the work, because they are not obligated. If we could take this commencement date back five years, maybe those houses owned by Trust House Charitable Trust in Masterton would be insulated and would be more healthy—you know, the 541 houses that National sold that are still substandard. In fact, now I hear Trust House Charitable Trust making pitches, saying they want to come and talk to this wonderful Minister of Housing and Urban Development, because they want help to upgrade their homes, actually, that they’ve owned since 1999.

So maybe the commencement date’s wrong. Maybe we should backdate it. No—the Hon Nick Smith says no, that’s not a good idea. Maybe we could have backdated it nine years, or backdated it six years, or three years, because somehow, somewhere along the line, despite all the good work that the Hon Simon Bridges tried to do helping me help people in Masterton, we still have homes that are unhealthy. We still have that.

New Zealand First looks forward to further reviews of the Residential Tenancies Act, because we look at things like earthquake strengthening. We look at the opportunity to address those matters that are still lagging behind. This is a good first step. Maybe the Opposition would like the legislation advanced forward another three years, but I actually think the Minister’s explained why it sits where it is, and the fact that most of those houses, due to the length of their occupancy—go to Hampshire Street. Those people have tenancies that last one year. The bill will pick them up.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Oh, thank you so much, Madam Chair Williams. I’m really pleased to be speaking on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), and I’d just like to start by congratulating you, Madam Chair, on being appointed Assistant Speaker of this House. As it’s only one of my first times speaking—it’s my third time speaking in the Chamber, actually, and it’s a real honour to be here—I do ask for your patience, because I am just learning. I am just learning.

Let me just start by saying this is a Clayton’s bill.

Hon Members: Hooray!

SIMEON BROWN: That’s right.

Clayton Mitchell: No need to bring me into the debate.

SIMEON BROWN: And there’s the Clayton. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Members.

SIMEON BROWN: Thank you—thank you. So, as I said, it’s a Clayton’s bill, and as we discuss the commencement of this bill, we realise that five years is quite a long way away.

Hon Simon Bridges: Not really—you’ll be a Minister by then, my friend.

SIMEON BROWN: Oh, thank you, thank you—thank you, Simon. In five years’ time it will be 2022—2022. Labour will be back in Opposition, and we’ll be cleaning up the mess that they have left behind.

Matt Doocey: The economy will have tanked.

SIMEON BROWN: The economy will have tanked, too—that’s right, Mr Doocey—as they said, as Winston said when he announced his decision a few weeks ago. Five years, as I was saying, is a long time to be bringing in these regulations, and I think that just goes to show that this bill is a bit like some insulation. You know, it just fills some gaps. You know, we’ve got some gaps to fill on the Order Paper, so they decided to put forward the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

Hon Kris Faafoi: This one’s getting the new-member leniency, too, is he?

SIMEON BROWN: That’s right—that’s right. We’re debating this bill in regard to the commencement of it, and we’ve got to ask the question—we’ve got to ask the question—why didn’t they just keep to what National had already put in place? Why didn’t we just go ahead with what the Government had already put in place: regulations that were going to be—but now we’ve got a question of regulations and no one knows what they’ll be. No one knows what they’re going to say. It says in this document that I have seen circulated—the cover says “Heating and insulation standards for residential rental properties.” It was prepared by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, so it’s an official document, and it asks the question: “Where do the costs fall?” It says, “Further clarification on the composition of proposed standards for insulation, heating, draught proofing, ventilation, controlling moisture ingress, and drainage is required before total costs can be determined accurately. These costs can then be considered through the assessment process for regulations that will give effect to these standards.” Later on, it says, “The cost to private landlords will depend both on the current state of the properties and on the exact standards set in regulations.”

So we’ve got five years—five years—for people to work out what these standards and regulations might be, and five years, then, in which they’ll then be able to do—I’d just like to say I’m delighted to have been appointed to the Regulations Review Committee, a very important committee. It is a very important committee, but it looks like this is going to be a committee where we look after Clayton’s bills, because there are going to be lots of regulations that we’re then going to have to scrutinise and make sure that we look after—

Hon Simon Bridges: This is what Parliament’s here for—high-quality scrutiny.

SIMEON BROWN: Yes, high-quality scrutiny, Mr Bridges, is exactly what we will be doing on that committee—

Hon Simon Bridges: Holding the Government to account.

SIMEON BROWN: —holding this Government to account—and I think this piece of legislation may be one of the first that we may have to be looking into to make sure that they’re doing a good job and to make sure that they’re putting through regulations that actually make a proper difference. It goes back to the point: they could’ve just gone ahead with what we’d already put in place, but now we’ve got a five-year truncated process, we’re fluffing things out, and we’re making it all take a lot longer than needs to happen. We’re making a whole lot of uncertainty, and I think that’s where this will end up. So I’m looking forward to looking at this under the Regulations Review Committee. Thank you.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Chair. I tell you what, mate, you’ve got to be a bit brave and quick off the hips there, mate. Put your guns away. Look, I wasn’t going to come down and speak to this bill tonight, ladies and gentlemen, but Madam Chair Williams—great to see you sitting there—I heard the Minister with his opening comments, and I was just compelled to come down, particularly when I got brought into the debate. Madam Chair, I understand now what it feels like to be brought into the debate. I think I lost count at about seven Claytons in the House tonight. That’s absolutely unheard of, all right.

I think this bill was probably more adequately named the “Gerry Brownlee Bill” because it’s more apt with the “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too Bill”. At the end of the day—[Madam Chair points to bill] I’m getting to that, to the comments. I’m just catching up with everybody. But at the end of the day, we have got a bill that is talking about bringing in some regulations over a period of time that is sustainable for landlords to bring in. Had we gone the other way and taken a retrospective legislative look at this problem that we’ve seen the National Party do for nine years, we would have reversed it and opened it up and done it last week.

Guess what—we’ve been in Government for only three sitting days. For three sitting days I get to hear the chirping in, the chiming, the chastising, the mud-slinging, the stone-throwing from a former Government that’s had nine years to look after tenants.

Now, I can proudly say I’m a landlord, and I’m not a slum dog landlord that we are trying to protect our tenants from. There is nothing wrong with capitalism; we are pro-capitalism. What we’ve got to do is give the face to capitalism—regulate capitalism to make sure we don’t get what we’ve been having for a number of years.

The vast majority of landlords around this country are responsible landlords that see their legal and moral obligation is to ensure that they provide warm, safe, dry homes that aren’t full of moisture and black mould, causing all sorts of problems with tenants. But there are those—I’m looking directly at you, Mr Smith—landlords that don’t abide by those moral obligations, and this legislation brings into place, over a timely fashion, an ability for landlords to get themselves up to speed. That is ensuring that we have warm, safe, dry homes, without mould causing all sorts of influential problems on our youth. Now that’s a responsible approach.

You can’t have a “Gerry Brownlee Bill” here today. It’s not a Clayton’s bill, all right—that’s the bill you’ve got when you haven’t really got one. In actual fact, it probably is a Clayton’s bill, because this is a bill you’ve actually got when you’ve actually got a bill, right? So I’ll take that, lads. Well done, Mr Falloon, “Mr What’s-his-name”—I forget his name. I’ve got to learn these names—great speeches, by the way. Mr Brown, Simeon—great stuff. But I don’t know if you own properties, I don’t know if you’ve rented for long, I don’t know what sort of price bracket you rent in, but at the end of the day we have got a legal and moral obligation, and this House is here to make laws.

We’re not here to regulate; that comes after we make the law. When you ask yourself—when you’re sitting at home, when you’re sitting in your nice, warm, dry, safe house, think about those people that don’t have a nice, warm, dry, safe house to sleep in. You have an obligation as an elected member to ensure that we can deliver on all the necessities that the people that aren’t as lucky as you can actually enjoy as well.

So you can sit there and you can chirp away. You can say it’s a Clayton’s bill. You can say that it’s a bill that you have got when you haven’t got the bill—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: You said that.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: —but in actual fact—oh no, they’ve said it like six times. I’ve still got five more to catch up; get these guys up to speed with it. That’s why I call it the “Gerry Brownlee Bill”, because you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Mr Woodhouse.

Hon Members: Oh!

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Now they’re catching up—now they’re catching up. Right, so I just want to finish off this short call by saying that every journey starts with a step, and this is the first step to actually ensuring we are looking after the vulnerable people in our society.

I tell you what else—there’s another step coming, and there’s a whole raft of steps that we’re going to be taking, looking after middle Kiwis, bottom-end Kiwis, instead of the top-end that we’ve been seeing being given privilege under that Government—the multinationals that don’t pay their tax, and now you can bring me in a little bit.

At the end of the day, we’ve got to create warm, dry, safe homes that are affordable to live in, that actually can get Kiwis back into a home-owning democracy that we once used to enjoy. Even years ago under a National Government they used to enjoy that, and where’ve they gone now? Absolutely deaf ears, because you know you’ve sold yourself out to a country that used to look after those vulnerable people. We are there to restore the faith in this democratic House, this Parliament, to ensure that we deliver for all New Zealanders. Madam Chair, thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Members, if you could just resume your seats. I just want to remind members that this is supposed to be a robust and lively debate, but the amount of heckling is actually turning into a bit of a barrage. So just respectful and useful interjections I would ask for. Thank you.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): Thank you, Madam Chair Williams. Being a humble member from Clutha-Southland, I thank you for giving me a go in front of the Hon Michael Woodhouse and the Hon Nick Smith here—two Ministers that I have looked up to for a number of years.

Madam Chair, I just want to start by congratulating you on your role. It’s a bit like refereeing rugby. I’ve been a referee for 10 years, and if this was a game of rugby, it’s great that our team’s got 56 points and your team’s got 46 points, Labour. Over the years of refereeing rugby, I’ve seen some bad calls in my time—a few first-class rugby games, 50-plus premier games; I thought I’d seen it all. I thought I’d seen some pretty bad spectators and some pretty bad calls—that’s until I got to Parliament, so I look forward to the friendly banter over the years. I’d just like to congratulate the “class of ‘17” from both sides of the House, and, in particular, list MP Mark Patterson—looking forward to working with you, Mark, to progress the interests of our people.

Simeon Brown: Thanks, Hamish.

HAMISH WALKER: My concern with this commencement—and, of course, Simeon Brown. Thanks, Simeon.

My concern with this bill is the imposed costs on tenants, and also around the lack of detail. For a number of years in my previous life, I ran a property management company; we managed a few hundred rental properties. So I’ve been into hundreds of rental properties. I’ve done hundreds of inspections. I’ve met probably thousands of tenants, hundreds of landlords, and this bill gives no detail for the landlords. I used to run landlord seminars, and what they need is a sense of the framework.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: What would you tell them?

HAMISH WALKER: Exactly, Mr Woodhouse—what would you tell them? The lack of detail is very, very concerning. I urge the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: if he can, basically, update the bill with some detail. It would give investors a lot more clarity and structure around the bill. The seminars that I have run in the past, talking to different landlords—they just need a clear framework, and with this bill, it’s so sparse with detail you could actually run a bus through it. What are you going to tell these landlords?

I just want to congratulate the previous National Government on insulating nearly 200,000 homes—sorry, 340,000 homes, and counting. By July 2019, all private homes will be insulated. That’s a pretty spectacular achievement. That’s excellent. I put that down to the Hon Nick Smith there, and I congratulate him—

Hon Member: The team.

HAMISH WALKER: —and the team, of course, for this.

This title is complete fabrication, as there’s no guarantee—

Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I don’t want to sound like I’m beating an old drum, but, again, the members opposite agreed on a clause by clause debate. It’s pretty strict in scope: we’re on clause 2; it is about commencement. I think that member mentioned the word “commencement” once, which is fine for the first 30 seconds, but, actually, we’re now, kind of, three minutes into the contribution. These debates in the committee of the whole House require a strict application to the scope, so we need to hear about commencement.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: That might have some merit if it was not for the fact that Government member Mr Ron Mark, the other further Government member, gave a very wide-ranging speech. The Minister took a speech from the chair and actually made a very wide record about all sorts of housing issues that are well beyond the commencement—

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you—[Interruption] Thank you. I thank the member—thank you both for your comments. I do agree we are starting to range. This is a very, very specific clause. I would encourage the member to stay to the specifics of the clause.

HAMISH WALKER: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Andrew Little, for pulling me up on that. It’s great to have your experience in the committee.

I’d just like to finish my comment on the commencement of this date with a comment by Andrew King, who is the investors’ president: “The new regulations”—this was the quote from the national regulations implemented a few years ago—“appear reasonable. We have been saying for years that a full rental property [WoF] actually isn’t in the best interest of [the] tenants. It is expensive to administer and comply … and would no doubt be added to over time with the potential to take some properties out of the rental pool.”

I just want to talk about a constituent who came and saw me last week. He’s a young guy, early 30s, married with two kids. He owns one rental property, trying to get into a second rental property, and he said to me, “Hamish, there’s no detail here. What am I actually going to do when I buy the second investment property? How much extra cost do I have to impose on the tenants?” Lack of detail—is it going to be $10 a week, is it going to be a hundred dollars a week? So, to the Minister, my only suggestion is: please put in some detail to give landlords some idea of what on earth is going on, because I’m a simple guy from Clutha-Southland, and, judging by this bill, I’ve got no clue myself.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 1 in the name of the Hon Phil Twyford to clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 8; Green Party 7.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Clause 3 Principal Act

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s my pleasure to talk on clause 3 of this bill, a relatively straightforward, one-sentence statement, which says that “This Act”—when passed—“amends the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the principal Act).” I would simply ask this one question: why? Why on earth are we here, amending the Residential Tenancies Act, which needs no amendment? Even if the Minister was of a mind to create a regulation-making power, he already has it. It’s already there in the Residential Tenancies Act. He can pass this regulation without the grandstanding, the virtue-signalling of the introduction of what was an Opposition bill, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill—remember? They’re going to guarantee healthy homes—a lofty goal.

But I want to come back to the comments that the Minister said in his intervention in clause 2. It is revealing on one level but not on another. It was in essence why we are doing this. His argument was that the standards that he intends to promulgate go further because it covers other matters. So that could be illuminating to the degree—he didn’t say it goes further because the standards would be higher; he said it goes further because there would be more of them. Only, they don’t, because every single one of the standards introduced by the amendment of the Residential Tenancies Act is already possible. And that was the advice the select committee in the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill got. That was the advice that was given.

I draw the Minister’s attention to that subsequent advice in a memo to the committee, dated 5 August 2006, at paragraph 26, referencing, actually, the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947. Those regulations place requirements on landlords, and owner/occupiers for that matter. So it’s not just a requirement on rental properties. Every living room shall be fitted with a fireplace or other approved form of heating. Every bathroom should have a means of ventilation. Every habitable room should have windows to allow for adequate lighting and ventilation. Every house must have efficient drainage. Every house must be provided with gutters, downpipes, and drains. Ventilation, dampness, weatherproof—they’re all here, and they were augmented and strengthened by the passage of the Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Regulations that were the consequence of our amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act last year.

So in our efforts to examine clause 3 and to ask what amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act we are passing, I once again implore the Minister to confirm or otherwise whether we are here because the standards go further, because there are more of them—which is not correct—or whether the standards that already exist are going to be strengthened.

The Minister can sit there and smirk and gloat all he likes, but he was the one that ran around Parliament with the insulation material. He was the one that said this bill, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which the previous National Government passed, was not good enough and when he became the Minister he was going to make it better. Only he’s sitting in the chair. We want to analyse the bill. We want to know how the Residential Tenancies Act is going to be amended and what regulation-making power is going to be given to the Minister, so that we can make an assessment of whether that is worthy, cost-effective—

Hon Andrew Little: It’s pretty clear what the power is. It’s in the bill.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It’s not clear, Mr Little.

Hon Andrew Little: It’s very clear. Read it.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: If it’s that clear, please answer this one question: will the new regulation that the Minister intends to bring about by the passage of this legislation require houses with insulation under the 1978 and 2001 standards to be upgraded? It’s a reasonable question. It’s not a political question. It’s absolutely crucial to our understanding of what we’re doing here. So the member who had sponsored the bill before his party became Government said, “It’s clear.” I might be a bit slow. Tell me the answer to that.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to rise to take yet another call on this very important and innovative piece of legislation that does new things, as we sit here and speak.

I think this year’s general election will go down in history as the one where the party opposite, the members opposite, not only lost the election but they lost their coalition partners that actually brought some sense to the debate on this piece of legislation. The two coalition partners they had, the Māori Party and United Future, supported this legislation. They were ahead of their big brother because they knew what was good. So let me address the issue about what clause 3 does when it says that this bill, or this Act, amends the Residential Tenancies Act, and it does it in this fundamental way that members opposite clearly have not cottoned on to just yet.

They have focused on the regulation-making power, and, indeed, that is a party that when it was in Government passed legislation that had regulation-making powers that did not specify the content of the regulations, because the reason you legislate for a regulation-making power is so you don’t put in the primary legislation the detail that you want. Instead, you do as my learned colleague, the Hon Phil Twyford, pointed out: you go through a consultation process on this very broad area. Hear from the landlords; don’t just listen to Andrew King from the New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation, according to the honourable member from Clutha-Southland.

We don’t just listen to them; we listen to everybody who’s got a stake in this—not just the landlords and not just the progressive landlords who are up for doing the right thing because they are good Kiwis and good New Zealanders, and, for that matter, not just the slum landlords, but everybody in between. And we talk to the tenants as well, and the tenancy advocates, and we’ve probably talked to some of the Tenancy Tribunal adjudicators as well to look at how this thing can be perfected, because we are all here to achieve perfection in legislation and in regulation.

So you legislate for the regulation, but here’s the kicker. Here’s what this bill does—that you haven’t cottoned on to yet—that is different from National Party legislation. You see, this bill is about making it real.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: How?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It’s about making it meaningful. By requiring—and I know the members are eager to find out, because, clearly, they haven’t read the bill. I can imagine the grief you go through from Government to Opposition. You’re struggling to read this legislation, and it’s been before the House before. But here’s the thing: it requires, in tenancy agreements—and you don’t have to wait five years for this; this will happen from 1 July 2019—to have in them the requirements or have clauses that fulfil the requirements of this legislation.

The members opposite know because the bill says it. The regulations will be in place and enforced by then. So tenancy agreements—the document that is signed between the tenant and the landlord, and mostly lodged with the Tenancy Tribunal, because that’s where bonds are paid—will have written down in these clauses these obligations that will bind the parties. We’re not going to repeat what has happened up to now, the regime that the last Government was happy with, which was: we’ll do a bunch of regulations knowing that no one is ever going to enforce them—the odd exceptional case, perhaps, but no one ever enforces them. That doesn’t work. That’s not real. That’s not how people live their lives. People don’t spend their lives looking at Government regulations and looking at the Gazette notices. Half of New Zealand wouldn’t know what a Gazette notice is. But people do know—those who are renting do know—what’s in their tenancy agreement. This makes it real. This makes the difference.

That’s why when in clause 3 it says, “This Act amends the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the principal Act).”, that is one of the key amendments—are we allowed to use “key” any more in this House? I think we are now. It’s safe to use the word. That is one of the principal amendments, that it requires these obligations to appear in the written tenancy agreement. I know the members opposite are stunned into silence when they hear that, because they clearly did not read the bill beforehand to see that that’s what is in it. That’s what makes this unique, and it is great that tonight, in this debate, we take occasion to celebrate the glory of debate and discussion and we get better understanding, and I hope now that the members opposite do better understand exactly what this legislation is doing and why it is doing it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The first thing that was notable about Mr Little’s contribution is that he could not answer the very simple, good question from my colleague Michael Woodhouse. A simple question, that is: if somebody’s got a house that was insulated to the standard 10 years ago, will this bill require them to upgrade? Fair question; what’s the answer? Andrew Little can’t answer it, and we’ve got no indication from any other member on the Government benches.

Here’s the second point: Mr Little has just argued that the big change in this bill is that when you sign a tenancy agreement, it’s going to have to meet the standards as set out in the regulations that are empowered by this bill—but that’s the law now. I have before me the Housing Improvement Regulations. It covers every single one of the issues: heating—

The CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I’m sorry to interrupt the member; the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill with amendment, and progress on the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2).

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.