Tuesday, 5 December 2017

TUESDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2017

TUESDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2017

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Fiji, Niue, and Tonga—Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians

Mr SPEAKER: I am sure members would wish to welcome the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians from Fiji, Niue, and Tonga, who are present in the gallery.

[Applause]

Bills

Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill

Procedure

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill to be set down for first reading after question time today, and to then be referred to the Environment Committee, for report by 18 December 2017, and to pass through the remaining stages on 19 December 2017.

Mr SPEAKER: I’m going to put that with the slight caveat that I have a matter to deal with in between questions and that bill. Is there any objection to that process? There appears to be none.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Transport Infrastructure—Regional Rail Network

1. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Deputy Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements; if so, why?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): Yes, because I can.

Darroch Ball: Does he stand by his statements about the regenerating of regional rail; if so, why? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, and there will be one fewer question, Mr Brownlee.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Most certainly. Regional rail will, by the time we’re finished, once again become a core part of this country’s transport infrastructure—

Hon Steven Joyce: Ah, yep. National did broadband; Winston does rail.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —after years and years of neglect. Mr Joyce, in a democracy, a man who can’t listen can’t lead. We know the hidden benefits—

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is simply this: what responsibility does the Deputy Prime Minister have for regional rail?

Mr SPEAKER: I think that was possibly something that could have been brought up as part of when the question was asked. He is now halfway through answering it. The member didn’t bring up at the first opportunity, and I am going to allow the Minister to finish his answer.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a serious point of order, because, although KiwiRail is meant to be a profit-running organisation—therefore a State-owned enterprise (SOE)—it’s not under them, but I am the Minister for it.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, I think if that was the case—I think in future what we will do is we will be more careful about ensuring that questions are put down to the Minister for SOEs or the Minister for railways, rather than to the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Ball.

Darroch Ball: Does he stand by his commitment to boost regional economic development; if so, why?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: In my role as Deputy Prime Minister—

Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, that’s—I’m anticipating the point of order, and if the Deputy Prime Minister can explain his ministerial responsibility as Deputy Prime Minister for this, then we’ll continue.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: In my role as Deputy Prime Minister, it is my duty to ensure that the Government’s programme is advanced and progressed, and sometimes, alas, the Prime Minister has to be out of the country, and it will become my primary role. That being the case, yes, we are flat-out ensuring that for the first time for a long time—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think that might be in the category of “a nice try”.

Darroch Ball: Does he stand by his commitment to boost employment; if so, why?

Mr SPEAKER: [Shakes head] Are there any further supplementary questions?

Benefits—Sanctions

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): In the context in which they were given, yes.

Rt Hon Bill English: Does she stand by her statement in regards to her Ready for Work scheme, or Work for the Dole scheme, that “Our view was that you couldn’t compel people to take up a job.”

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: When I was discussing the way that we would roll out this programme, we were acknowledging that there’s a range of ways in which we could encourage the uptake of the opportunity for employment. I have also acknowledged that sanctions have long been a part of our benefit system, and that won’t change. Ultimately, though, this is a Government focused on getting young people into work.

Rt Hon Bill English: Does she agree with the statement of her Minister for Regional Economic Development in regards to the Ready for Work scheme that “They’ll be made to go to work. … there will be no more sitting on the couch.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve said, sanctions have long been a part of our welfare system, and that won’t change.

Rt Hon Bill English: Does she therefore agree with her parliamentary under-secretary Jan Logie, who said: “Benefit sanctions punish families who are already struggling to get by. … These are not the actions of a decent and compassionate government—benefit sanctions are punitive and cruel, and it’s going to take a change of government to get rid of them. … The Green Party in government … will immediately end … sanctions.”

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister has no responsibility for Green Party policy, or statements made by someone who was not an under-secretary at the time.

Rt Hon Bill English: Does she agree with the statements made by members of the Green Party in support of the Government that they oppose sanctions on benefits and intend to roll back those that exist?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely stand by the Labour Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party, which says that we will look at the excessive use of sanctions within the welfare system. I have to say, the excessive use of sanctions ballooned under that last Government, because rather than focusing on providing employment opportunities like this Government, that’s what they resorted to.

Rt Hon Bill English: Can the Prime Minister now outline Government policy on sanctions as they may apply to young people who have been on the unemployment benefit?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have already given a general statement that sanctions have long been a part of our welfare system, but details around the way our particular policy around getting young people into work will go to Cabinet and decisions will be made collectively. But what I am happy to say is that, unlike the last Government, we are not willing to allow more than 70,000 young people not in employment, education, or training to have their lives wasted.

Rt Hon Bill English: If a young person who may be eligible for a scheme of this nature refuses to participate, or attends for a day or two and then refuses to attend, will the Government apply sanctions to them?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve given the general principles that we’ll be working to, but final decisions of the programme will go to Cabinet. But, again, this Government is entirely united behind the idea that young people deserve opportunities, and under this Government they’ll get them.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister whether it’s her Government’s attitude that the wealth of a country is in its working people, and whether it would be refreshing if some people, instead of looking a gift-horse in the mouth, decided to put a saddle on its back and be grateful?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: This is a Government that is focused on providing employment opportunities, and that’s exactly what our Minister for Regional Economic Development has been speaking to. Unlike the last Government, who labelled young people “pretty damn hopeless”, we’ll get them into jobs.

Fiscal Strategy—Budget Policy Statement

3. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Finance: What are the main elements of the Budget Policy Statement that will be released on 14 December?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The Budget Policy Statement is a regular part of the financial cycle that sets out the broad fiscal parameters for the Budget and states the Government’s priorities for the Budget. It also summarises the economic and fiscal forecasts that Treasury will set out in the half-year update to be released on the same day.

Tamati Coffey: Will the Budget Policy Statement and the half-yearly update include further information about the Government’s 100-day plan, as outlined in the Speech from the Throne?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes, it will. Excellent progress is being made on implementing the 100-day plan, including today’s announcement of the details of the first-year “fees-free” programme by the Prime Minister and Minister Hipkins. The full costings of the 100-day plan commitments will be included in the half-year update, including the families package, the tertiary reforms, and restarting contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The Budget Policy Statement will also set out the operating and capital spending allowances that will provide for the other commitments that the Government has made, including the coalition and confidence and supply agreements.

Tamati Coffey: Will the Budget Policy Statement have anything to say about how the Government intends to measure success in the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Why, yes. While the member will have to wait until 14 December for details, what I can say is that the Government intends to measure the success of our economy on more than just fiscal terms—as important as those are. We will measure our success on how we improve the well-being of New Zealanders, how we reduce the rates of child poverty, and how we improve sustainability. We will not try to claim success when more and more families are living in cars, homelessness is the worst in the world, and many of our schools and hospitals are ageing in disrepair, unlike the previous Government tried to do.

Labour - New Zealand First Coalition—Coalition Documents

4. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her statements?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, in the context in which they were given.

Hon Paula Bennett: So which one of these statements from yesterday does she stand by: “No, the Ombudsman hadn’t written to me” or “I’ll have to check with my office” or “Yes, we have received that letter”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, to be fair, I said that all at the same time. I was in a post-Cabinet press conference when I was asked the question, and recalled that on my way down I had indeed been told that a letter had been received. I am happy to confirm we have now responded to that letter. So yes, I self-corrected on the spot.

Hon Paula Bennett: Oh, so what was the title of the document she or her office provided the Chief Ombudsman in respect of releasing the 33-page coalition document?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We’re in direct discussions now, working alongside the Ombudsman to resolve the issue that’s been raised by him, and, as I’ve said, we will accommodate him and work with him to see resolution to this.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was quite clear in my question, “What was the title of the document …”, and I didn’t get that answered, at all.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, have another go.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker, I need further clarification: is she asking what the Ombudsman called it, or what she called it? I can answer from my perspective. We’ve always referred to “a range of negotiating documents”, and that’s obviously the reference that the Ombudsman was raising. The member will no doubt know, because her Opposition party members were the ones who made the complaint.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister asked me a question to clarify. I’d like the opportunity to re-ask the question, to clarify.

Mr SPEAKER: You can ask the same question again, if you want to have the same answer again.

Hon Paula Bennett: So she didn’t answer my question at all, sir, but—

Mr SPEAKER: Oh, I think she did.

Hon Paula Bennett: No—“What is the title of the document?”

Mr SPEAKER: I think she did, and—

Hon Paula Bennett: She did not give a title of the document that she gave to the Ombudsman.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I think she came close enough.

Hon Paula Bennett: So what recommendations, if any, has the Chief Ombudsman made to the Prime Minister, and what was her response?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Look, again, the Ombudsman wrote to us having received a complaint from the Opposition. He’s of course following the process that’s usually followed when a complaint is made. He’s contacted us, we’ve responded to his questions, and I understand we’re likely to meet at some point.

Hon Paula Bennett: So what was the title of the document that her office gave to the Ombudsman when he requested it over the last couple of weeks?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve said, I’ve always referred to it as “a range of documents as part of the negotiations”; of course, the Opposition have called it something else. I don’t see how the title is material in this discussion.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the issue here is that if the answer to that question is, “Well, there isn’t one document. There’s a series.”, that would be an answer. But I think in light of a very direct question, that’s not an appropriate answer—

Mr SPEAKER: No, no, the Prime Minister has indicated that she’s referred to it as “a range of documents involved in coalition negotiations”. That’s clear enough.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This issue turns on whether or not the document spoken of is an official document and, therefore, subject to the Official Information Act. That’s the question being determined by the Ombudsman, and until that time, I think it’s improper that this matter be litigated here, for if he decides—as the Government has said—that this is not an official document, they will have a right to be privy to none of the document at all.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his advice, and I know that he’s had some experience in these areas.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: A lot of experience, in fact.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, yes, more than I have. But I have looked at this question quite carefully, and the question is not one for the Ombudsman. It is one for the Parliament and it is, in the end, my decision whether it is a ministerial document. I have not at any stage ruled that it is.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does the 33-page coalition document contain anything about a work-for-the-dole scheme, or any scheme whereby people receiving a benefit might be made to work?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Programmes to get young people into employment were referred to in the document that both parties signed and that is now public and in the public domain. That is already publicly available because it was in our official coalition agreement.

Mr SPEAKER: I apologise. I should’ve actually have ruled the question out, I think, because no one has yet established that there is a 33-page coalition agreement.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, you’re not going to relitigate this, are you, Mr Bridges?

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, I think—a point of order on that matter—I mean, they’ve accepted it—

Mr SPEAKER: No, no, Mr Bridges. I’ve apologised for allowing the question. I was too kind to Ms Bennett.

Hon Paula Bennett: I just need to get—because there’s a number of quotes here, I’ve got to say. So how does she then stand by her record, which says it is “a record of some of our conversations”, and Mr Peters’, which says it is “a document of precision on various areas of policy commitment and development”, and, as such, when will the document be released?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I said, I stand by my statements.

Transport Infrastructure—Funding for Roads and Other Transport Projects

5. Hon STEVEN JOYCE (National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his comments last week that the Government will seek to reprioritise spending programmes of the previous Government, and is investing in new roads one of the programmes that will be reprioritised?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I stand by my statement that Ministers will look at whether there are areas of spending committed to the previous Government that do not fit with the new Government’s priorities. This is important work, especially in light of the previous Government’s predilection for failed ideologically and politically motivated policies. I am expecting all Ministers, including the Minister of Transport, to take part in that exercise, and final decisions on reprioritisations will be made as part of the Budget process.

Hon Steven Joyce: Does he agree with the Prime Minister, who said yesterday, and I quote, “for instance in roading, we don’t consider it a priority in line with what we want to achieve as a government.”; and, if so, is he preparing to use petrol taxes for other capital investments or other operating spending outside of roading?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In answer to the second part of the question, we’ve been clear that the petrol tax that we allowed the Auckland Council to put in place is the extent of our ambition there. What I can say is that we won’t be continuing with the process of the East-West Link as announced by the National Government, which would have cost $327 million a kilometre, making it the world’s most expensive road, more expensive than the Sochi to Krasnaya road, which was described by locals at the time as it would have been cheaper to put foie gras and truffles down rather than tarseal.

Hon Steven Joyce: Coming back to the matter at hand, is it his intention to continue hypothecation of petrol excise tax and road-user charges revenue into the National Land Transport Fund?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes.

Hon Steven Joyce: Will he then insist that the revenue obtained from the regional fuel tax in Auckland also be hypothecated to transport projects of the Auckland Council?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is something that the Auckland Council is working on, but my expectation would be yes.

Hon Steven Joyce: What spending restraint and cost controls will he insist on as finance Minister as a condition of the Auckland Council being able to impose a $150 million per year fuel tax on Aucklanders so it is actually spent on transport projects?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We’re working closely with the Auckland Council to ensure that the massive funding gap that the National Government allowed to grow in the Auckland transport plan will be closed, and we are very confident that with a Government that is actually ambitious for modern transport solutions in Auckland we can form a partnership with the council to achieve those outcomes for Aucklanders.

Hon Steven Joyce: Given that the Auckland Council’s turnover has gone up hugely in the last four years and that its wage bill has gone up hugely and Aucklanders are quite suspicious about its spending of their ratepayers’ money, how can he reassure Aucklanders that the money from the regional fuel tax won’t go the same way, when that is the record of—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member had a question. He had two unnecessary bits before the question. I think we’ll just let the Minister answer the question.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We are working with the Auckland Council to ensure that we fill the massive funding gap left by the previous National Government. I can tell the member one thing we won’t be doing: we won’t be forcing the Auckland Council to sell assets in some mad ideological experiment, as he wanted to do.

Emergency Housing—Funding

6. PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Has he been informed of any funding problems in emergency and transitional housing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Since becoming Minister, I’ve learnt that recent Budgets left some ticking time bombs in the provision of emergency and transitional housing. Housing, first: the agreed approach to dealing with chronic homelessness has less than half the funding per place that it needs. Over $50 million has been spent on putting homeless people up in motels when only $2 million a year was forecast, and funding for a hundred front-line staff for emergency and transitional housing runs out at the end of this financial year. This underfunding helped the previous Government’s Budget projections look better, but it didn’t reflect the real costs of the policies.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Why does funding for a hundred front-line housing staff run out at the end of this financial year?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, in 2016 a hundred more front-line staff were hired in response to the growing number of families facing homelessness. But the funding for these staff was not made permanent in Budget 2017. Because of this, money for one-third—

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just go back to where we were last week. He doesn’t have responsibility for this, and this answer is almost entirely based on what happened—in his view, anyway—in the last Government.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I’m very happy, and I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 159/2. The Minister can address the activities of a previous Government, if he is required to take some action as a result of that. And unless there’s a new fact that we’re missing out on, I think Mr Twyford has probably finished his supplementary answer.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What is the Minister going to do about—

Mr SPEAKER: Sorry, a point of order, the Hon Steven Joyce.

Hon Steven Joyce: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just reflecting on that particular ruling that you’ve identified—

Mr SPEAKER: Well, no. The member will resume his seat now. The member doesn’t reflect on a ruling that I’ve made, at all, and certainly not after we’d moved on to the next supplementary question.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What is the Minister going to do about costs in emergency and transitional housing?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, a point of order, Mr Brownlee. If it relates in any way to a previous ruling that I’ve made, there’s going to be a significant loss of supplementary questions on behalf of the National Party.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Sir, I just think it’s reasonable that we get a clarification on the statement you’ve just made, because if members don’t reflect on anything that the Speaker has said, how can they learn from your vast experience?

Mr SPEAKER: That, again, was a nice try, and the member might have got away with it through flattery, but I don’t expect to hear in this House every time Mr Joyce reflects on something.

Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: If this is a continuation of this matter in any way, the member’s party will lose supplementary questions.

Jami-Lee Ross: It is different, Mr Speaker. You chastised Mr Joyce for not raising, in your view, the point of order right at the time.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes.

Jami-Lee Ross: In fact, he did stand up. And, Mr Speaker, I submit to you that he was on his feet right away and should not have been chastised.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, and I have indicated to members that my left ear is slightly deaf—that has mainly been to the advantage of members on my left. If Mr Joyce called, I didn’t hear him. Right, continue with the supplementary question.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What is the Minister going to do about costs in emergency and transitional housing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I will be discussing Budget bids with Cabinet, but the long-term answer is building more houses. The Government is currently spending about $90,000 a day putting homeless people up in motels, because there are too few State houses and so many were sold under the former Government. This Government’s solution is more State houses and more affordable homes so there is a decent place to live for everyone.

Pike River Mine Re-entry—Health and Safety Obligations

7. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry: Who will bear potential liability under health and safety legislation for any re-entry of the Pike River drift that he approves, and what is the range of penalties that could be imposed on them in the event of a breach of workplace safety obligations?

Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the Hon Andrew Little, I will indicate to the House that I have been informed by the Minister’s office that this is likely to be a longer than normal answer, and, because of the important nature of it, I’ve allowed that.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry): Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the first question: there are potentially many people liable as required under the Health and Safety at Work Act, which was passed by her Government. This includes employees, contractors, and subcontractors. Health and safety after all, as we all know, is a shared responsibility.

To the second question: in so far as the member would be aware that I am unable to give legal advice, the penalties in the legislation—depending on whether they are an individual or a company—range from an up to $50,000 fine for failing to comply with a health and safety duty or up to five years in prison or an up to $3 million fine for reckless conduct exposing someone to the risk of death. These penalties will be applied only where the agency fails to meet its obligations. But I can reassure her that I have every intention of ensuring that the re-entry work is consistent with health and safety obligations.

Hon Amy Adams: What was the recommendation from his Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials on the optimal decision-making structure for Pike River re-entry, given those health and safety obligations, among other things?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I received advice from MBIE and also from the State Services Commission, and I followed the State Services Commission advice, which was for an arrangement that allowed for maximum accountability to this Parliament. That’s what I am here for.

Hon Amy Adams: Why did the Minister reject official advice that a decision about safe re-entry will be best achieved by ensuring the decision maker is independent, with the decision maker being the holder of the key duties of care around ensuring health and safety?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: In putting together this project, I was acutely aware that the previous Government had handled the families involved in this matter in a completely shabby and appalling way, and I wanted to ensure that the arrangements we put in place allowed for full accountability to this Parliament, engaged the families fully and properly, allowed for good quality advice at all levels, and complied with our health and safety legislation.

Hon Amy Adams: Why did the Minister reject advice that the best decision would come from an independent decision maker?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I got a range of advice, including from the State Services Commission, which expressed their preferred option about having a structure that allowed for maximum accountability to this Parliament as well as flexibility and responsiveness. The member should read the papers properly.

Hon Amy Adams: On what basis does the Minister think it’s reasonable to expect public servants that report to him to carry the burden of criminal responsibility for decisions that that Minister makes?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: That member misunderstands the law that her Government put in place called the Health and Safety at Work Act, and she misunderstands the implied obligations in every employment agreement for every employee. Every employee, contractor, subcontractor—anybody involved in a task—has duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act. No employee under our employment law can be required or instructed to undertake unsafe work, and no employer can issue an instruction that is unlawful and unreasonable—and that won’t happen in this project.

Hon Amy Adams: I seek leave to table a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library for my office that makes it quite clear that the chief executive of the agency is criminally responsible.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to the tabling of that document? There appears to be none.

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

Fisheries, Recreational—New Zealand Initiative Report

8. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) to the Minister of Fisheries: Which recommendations, if any, of the New Zealand Initiative report The Future Catch does he intend to adopt and announce, before Christmas?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Fisheries): None.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Does he, at any point, intend to accept the recommendation that all recreational marine fishers should be required to have a licence?

Hon STUART NASH: No.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Will the Government announce that all water crafts supporting recreational fishers should be registered as craft over and above their trailers?

Hon STUART NASH: No.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Are there any recommendations in the report The Future Catch that he does intend to implement?

Hon STUART NASH: Certainly none before Christmas.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked if there were any he was going to introduce. The answer was “none before Christmas.” Well, that’s not really—

Mr SPEAKER: The member knows very well he can’t get a yes or no.

Rino Tirikatene: What other examples are there of the Government listening to fishery stakeholders?

Hon STUART NASH: Good question, Mr Tirikatene. Since coming into Government, I have announced a slow-down of the digital monitoring roll-out. It quickly became evident that the previous Government had not meaningfully consulted—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The member’s gone far enough to indicate to me that this does not flow at all from the primary question.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Are there any aspects of, or recommendations in, the report The Future Catch that the Minister is going to do some more work on, and if so, what are they?

Hon STUART NASH: I have referred the report to my officials. I’ll work through the report with my officials and the House, and we’ll wait and see what comes out of that.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Does—[Interruption] Supplementary?

Mr SPEAKER: Yeah. The member’s got the lost one back again.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thanks very much. Does he intend to announce that recreational sea fishers will have to record and report recreational catches?

Hon STUART NASH: No.

Tertiary Education—Fees-free Policy

9. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Who will be eligible for fees-free tertiary education and training next year? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Chris Hipkins—with an additional question going to the Opposition.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Fees-free, the flagship Government initiative that I launched with the Prime Minister at Aotea College this morning, is available to students enrolled at funded providers who are New Zealand citizens or have been permanently resident in New Zealand for three years, are studying at level 3 or above in a course that starts in 2018, and either are recent school leavers or have not previously undertaken more than half a year of study. If they meet those criteria, they can receive a free year’s study, and students can check their eligibility at www.feesfree.govt.nz.

Jan Tinetti: How many learners will benefit from fees-free?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The current estimates that I’ve been advised of are that there are around 76,000 students eligible for fees-free next year, and around 6,000 apprentices and trainees. These students include around 31,000 school leavers, but a majority—44,000—will be older students. An estimated 50,000 learners will be in polytechnics, wānanga, private training establishments, or industry training, compared to around 30,000 at university.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How many extra New Zealanders will start tertiary education next year as a result of the $380 million he plans to spend?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I hope that there will be a significant amount more. One of the things that make the exact estimates difficult is that forecasts for participation in tertiary education were to decline, had we kept the previous policy position of the last Government, by up to 2,000 students a year. So our intention is to, at least, stabilise that, and probably have an increase.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he aware that the slight decline in student numbers was a result of a demographic lowering of numbers in the cohort and, secondly, because there is an incredible jobs boom going on in this country, employing more young New Zealanders? Is he aware of that, and, secondly, exactly how many extra new students are we expecting next year?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Higher levels of employment don’t necessarily mean that this policy is not going to benefit those people, because, as we have said, we want to give people more opportunity to earn and learn at the same time, which is why this policy also applies to people doing apprenticeships and other forms of on-the-job industry training.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why is paying more for people to gain an in-depth understanding of golf theory, for example, a priority for new spending?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m not aware of any golf courses that will be eligible for this. The eligibility for this is based on programmes that were approved and funded by the previous Government; so if those programmes are currently being funded, I think the previous Government need take a good, long, hard look at themselves.

Benefits—Work Scheme

10. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Does he stand by his statement, “I am going to take proposals to Cabinet. I’m calling it Work for the Dole”; if so, how many jobs does he expect his programme to create?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Yes, in relation to taking proposals to Cabinet along with the Minister of Employment. In relation to what it will be called, no doubt Cabinet will suitably christen it. In respect of how many people the programme will deal with, I would point out that it takes 1,250 planters to plant a million trees a day. A hundred days’ work—a hundred million a year; times 10—a billion trees.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he agree with the New Zealand Herald’s editorial this morning that said his “work scheme deserves a chance” and that “he has the energy and experience to make it work”; and if so, what arguments will he be making to convince his Cabinet colleagues that it’s a good idea?

Hon SHANE JONES: In relation to arguments that I might muster, the first thing that I’ve taken on board is some sage-like counsel: when one front-foots an issue, do not completely shoot one’s own foot.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, does he agree with Barry Soper, who said, “It’s hard to see Jones winning, considering the trade unions are against it.”; and if not, what arguments will he be making to win the unions over?

Hon SHANE JONES: It’s a rather perverse outcome that I should be talking about the unions in my particular role; suffice to say I’m working with the Minister of Employment. Proposals will wend their way through Cabinet, and I’m sure that you’ll find there’s a suitable blend of stick and carrot.

Hon Simon Bridges: What consequences does he think there should be for young people who decline to participate in his programme?

Hon SHANE JONES: Once again, I’m sure that other Ministers belonging to Cabinet will provide their perspectives and balance my views that I reflect as a Ngāpuhi chief.

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Can the Minister confirm that we are in total agreement that placing young people in paid, decent employment is an aspiration this Government totally shares?

Hon SHANE JONES: Yes, and on matters of nomenclature, what is a name? A rose by any other name is just as sweet.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, given the seeming consensus on the other side of the House, what is wrong with there being consequences for failing to work?

Hon SHANE JONES: What is wrong is that for nine years, former Ministers on the other side of the House talked a big book and did jack.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the Minister backing down on Work for the Dole, meaning many will be destined to meaningless lives on the couch, when he’s spent years on this, and many in the media as well as the general public absolutely agree with him?

Hon SHANE JONES: Once again, prior to Christmas, I’m confident—such a busy schedule in our Cabinet committees—that answers will reveal themselves for the other side of the House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister if one of the employment programmes he might contemplate would be training a number of diction trainers so that they could possibly help that member ask questions that are halfway understandable in this House?

Hon SHANE JONES: Not wanting to trivialise—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Sit down! Sit down! You are going to withdraw and apologise, aren’t you?

Hon SHANE JONES: I certainly would never trivialise the House or the House’s man.

Mr SPEAKER: The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon SHANE JONES: I stand, withdraw, and apologise, sir.

Mr SPEAKER: No. The member stands up, and he says, “I withdraw and apologise.”

Hon SHANE JONES: Sir, I withdraw and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: I think the member’s been absent for some time, but I don’t think his memory’s that bad.

Benefits—Sanctions

11. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by all her statements regarding sanctions?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): Yes.

Hon Louise Upston: Will the Government be removing the sanction on those people who repeatedly don’t turn up to appointments with the Ministry of Social Development?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The Government has had a sanction regime for quite some time, and at this stage we are looking to review the sanctions that are in place. No decisions have been made about current sanctions, but, moving forward, where there are sanctions that are detrimental or not achieving the objectives that they were set up to achieve, then we will be looking to reassess whether or not we should have them in place or not.

Hon Louise Upston: Does she believe that sanctions should be applied to people who don’t turn up for Government-run work programmes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There are sanctions that should be in place, but we need to assess whether or not they are working, so I’m not going to make any statements about the current sanctions that are in place, apart from the one that we’ve already committed publicly to getting rid of, and that’s section 70A.

Hon Louise Upston: Does the Minister believe that a young forestry worker on a Ministry of Social Development employment scheme in Northland should be able to pass a drug test, and, if not, what sanction would there be if they didn’t?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions about hypothetical people with regard to sanctions. When we make decisions about what sanctions will be in place or will stay in place, it will be because we have reviewed them thoroughly.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a current issue; there is nothing hypothetical about it, and the Minister should answer it.

Mr SPEAKER: No, no, the member will resume his seat. The question put, without any authentication or evidence, is absolutely hypothetical, and there is no requirement on the Minister to respond.

Hon Louise Upston: Where does she stand on a young person being offered a role that they don’t accept, and should they be sanctioned?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Where I stand is that I’m really disappointed with the Opposition making assumptions about young people not wanting to work and taking a deficit approach to young people with regard to employment. I think the Opposition needs to be reminded that when they were in Government, on several occasions there were thousands of young people lining up outside supermarkets because they wanted to work, but there was a lack of job opportunities for them. We’re about creating those opportunities.

Mr SPEAKER: While the member got considerable support from her colleagues for the answer, she didn’t actually address the question. I’ll invite Louise Upston to repeat the question.

Hon Louise Upston: Where does the Minister stand on a young person being offered a role that they don’t accept, and should they be sanctioned?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: With regards to Government policy, we need to follow Government policy in every area. So we would need to look at that specific example and see what policy was in place, and apply that policy.

Mr SPEAKER: Question number 12—

David Seymour: Supplementary.

Mr SPEAKER: Oh. I’m sorry—the member’s on leave.

David Seymour: Well, look who’s back! Does the Minister agree with the statement in this House of former Labour welfare Minister Steve Maharey with respect to dads welshing on their child support payments: “It is a rort, and I have said time and time again in this Parliament that fathers must front up to their obligations, and we will make sure they do, as much as we can.”

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, and the member will resume his seat. That’s not an area that—the responsibility for statements made by Mr Maharey is not an area that this Minister has responsibility for.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your assistance. My understanding was that I had asked the Minister, in her current capacity: does she agree with that particular statement? I’m not asking her to take responsibility for Mr Maharey’s statement; I’m just interested in whether she agrees with something that I thought he articulated very well.

Mr SPEAKER: I think we’re right at the margin. I will go back and look at it again. If the Minister wants to respond, she may, but I’m not going to require her to.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I’ll respond. Can I just say that since I have been the Minister for Social Development, I have been presented with evidence that shows that that particular sanction—section 70A—has not achieved its original objective or intention and, in fact, has been detrimental because 18,000 children are in households that have been sanctioned because of it, and that is why we have made the decision to repeal it.

Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m just asking if that evidence is in an official ministerial document, and if it is, I’d ask that it be tabled.

Mr SPEAKER: Does the Minister have that official document with her now, and is she quoting from it?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: No.

Mr SPEAKER: What I’m going to say to members on my left is that I think we’ve now had three or four examples of that sort of request—where Ministers have clearly not been quoting from documents. The idea that a Minister is quoting from an official document in response to a question from an Opposition backbencher is highly unlikely, and we’d want to see someone actually looking at a document when they were doing it. I think it’s coming very close to trifling with the House, and I will treat it as such.

Health System—Ministerial Advisory Group

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Why has he appointed a ministerial advisory group on the health system?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will have another go at asking the question.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Why has he appointed a ministerial advisory group on the health system?

Mr SPEAKER: No, I want to advise the member that she has to read the yellow sheet, or something which says the same thing.

12. Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Why has he established the Ministerial Advisory Group on the Health System?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Today, I announced that I have established a ministerial advisory group because it has become increasingly clear to me that all is not well within our public health system. I require strong, independent advice about how we can lift the ministry’s performance and leadership, to begin to address the challenges facing our health system and, in particular, to rebuild the relationships that were seriously strained under the previous Government.

Dr Liz Craig: Thank you, Mr Speaker. What does he expect the ministerial advisory group will do to improve New Zealand’s health system?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I expect that the ministerial advisory group will provide the strategic advice required to deliver on this Government’s commitments in health and ensure that the $8 billion we have committed to investing in health will make a positive difference in people’s lives. This will include, for example, improving access to primary care by lowering the costs of visiting a GP.

Dr Shane Reti: Isn’t it more correct to say he’s set up the ministerial advisory group to tell him what his health plan in health should be, because he doesn’t have a plan?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No.

Dr Liz Craig: Will the ministerial advisory group improve relationships across the health sector?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: One of the first things I expect the ministerial advisory group to do will be to rebuild relationships across the health sector. Strong and productive relationships are required to deliver the healthcare New Zealanders expect and deserve. I’m confident that the ministerial advisory group will be able to do this, and I have no doubt that its members will be talking and listening to district health boards, primary health organisations, and others up and down the country.

Urgent Debates Declined

Tertiary Education—Fees-free Policy

Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Paul Goldsmith seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the Government’s announcement today of its fees-free tertiary policy. The announcement is a particular case of recent occurrence for which there is ministerial responsibility. The announcement is a significant matter of public policy.

In deciding whether to grant an urgent debate, I consider whether there will be a future opportunity for the House to debate the subject of the application. In his application, Mr Goldsmith has asserted that legislation is not required to implement the policy. He has, however, not authenticated this assertion.

If legislation is not required, then that would significantly strengthen the case for an urgent debate, since the House would not have had an opportunity to debate the policy before it is implemented. Matters presented as facts in applications for urgent debates have to be authenticated. Since 1984, Speakers Arthur, Hunt, Wilson, and Smith have repeated this requirement and I refer members to Speakers’ rulings 189(3), (4), and (5).

The matters raised in Mr Goldsmith’s application that are not authenticated must therefore be disregarded. Since the matters central to the argument in favour of an urgent debate are not authenticated, the application is declined.

Bills

Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill

First Reading

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): I move, That the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill be now read a first time. Leave has been granted for the bill to be referred to the Environment Committee and to be reported back by 18 December 2017.

As a proud Cantabrian it is a privilege to bring this bill before this House. Reinstating the cathedral is an important milestone in Christchurch’s recovery. It is a building critical to our colonial past and to our future, and I am thrilled that this legislation will allow us to get on with the work of getting this local landmark reinstated and back open to the public. All Cantabrians want to see the situation sorted with a sense of urgency and momentum. This has been a long and often controversial process, but what local people want to see is progress and a clear way forward.

I believe that reinstating our cathedral is a vital part of our city’s recovery. It provides a visible opportunity to heal the broken heart of our city. It is a symbol of our city, both literally and figuratively. It sits at the centre of the social, cultural, and economic lifeblood of the city and the region. It is also a repository of memories for so many Cantabrians. I remember in the late 1970s, on trips into town with my parents, being convinced that it was where the Wizard of Christchurch lived, and I think many Cantabrians have very vivid childhood memories of this place.

I want to acknowledge and thank the people who have helped make this progress possible. I want to take a moment to recognise the Hon Nicky Wagner and the Hon Gerry Brownlee for the work that has been done to get us to this point. Both those former Ministers gave a lot of time and effort, and I thank them for that today. I’d also like to thank Bishop Victoria Matthews, the Church Property Trustees, and the other members of the Diocesan Synod of Christchurch for voting to make progress on the cathedral.

I’d also like to thank Mayor Lianne Dalziel and the people of Christchurch for their generous proposal to support the Crown’s offer. I’d also like to acknowledge Jim Anderton and Philip Burdon for their spirited campaign to see this landmark reinstated. As someone who has campaigned alongside Jim for nearly 20 years, I know firsthand the passion, commitment, and sheer determination that he brought to this project. Finally, I’d like to thank the people who intend to contribute to the Christ Church Cathedral Restoration Trust for the support that they will provide to fund the restoration of our city’s heritage.

What we are intending to do with this bill is facilitate reinstatement of Christ Church Cathedral through legislation to ensure that the cathedral’s restoration is not unnecessarily delayed any further. This is consistent with the offer of support made by my predecessor the Hon Nicky Wagner with majority cross-party support prior to the general election. As a category 1 historic place registered with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, the cathedral is recognised in statute as having special or outstanding historical or cultural significance or value. For many, that value has increased due to the loss of so many other heritage buildings in our city.

The cathedral suffered extensive damage in the earthquakes, and until recently its future has been unclear and embattled. I recognise that different people may prefer different designs or options. A wide range of options has been put forward, interrogated, consulted, and argued. However, after almost seven years of delays, it is now time for action. Furthermore, after years of court action, facilitation, and negotiations, we now have the opportunity to safeguard the cathedral’s remaining historic and cultural significance for future generations, while accepting that some significant and irretrievable loss has occurred.

The proposal at hand is to restore and reinstate the cathedral to the greatest extent that is possible, through a methodology that has been agreed by the previously opposing parties. This is the best possible and most pragmatic outcome in that context. It will deliver the progress that our central city needs. The Christ Church Cathedral Restoration Trust, which is in the process of being established, will raise funds for the restoration and enter into a joint venture with the Church Property Trustees, the owners of the cathedral, to undertake the delivery of the cathedral project.

This is Parliament’s opportunity to provide certainty for our city that the cathedral will be able to be restored without further unnecessary delay, to give certainty to people looking to relocate into our central city, in that it is coming alive again. It will also give certainty to tourism operators that one of the most beloved cultural landmarks in our city will be reinstated.

The bill provides a mechanism to grant exemptions from, modify, or extend any provisions of two pieces of legislation that relate to the restoration: the Resource Management Act 1991 and the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014. Specifically, the bill sets out a proposal that would allow the two pieces of legislation to be amended by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister by an Order in Council for the Christ Church Cathedral site where necessary or desirable to facilitate restoration of the cathedral. It is a flexible mechanism that allows us to ensure that delivery can be achieved after the detailed design work is completed.

I recognise that these are extraordinary powers. However, I think the House will agree that the bill is justified in the context of the damage to this unique and significant building, previous litigation, and the wider impacts these are having on the recovery and regeneration of central Christchurch. This approach epitomises the certainty, viability, and timelessness of the restoration project and reflects the high public interest in finding solutions for the building. It also recognises that this project is in an extraordinary situation. It is, essentially, a response and recovery project from the extensive damage caused by the earthquakes. I consider that it sits well within the response and recovery framework, in which mechanisms of this kind have been considered appropriate.

Similarly, it is appropriate to have a number of limits and controls on the exercise of the power in the bill. The scope of an order is limited. It must be necessary or desirable for the purpose of facilitating restoration of the cathedral. The bill applies only to the cathedral area; this allows for work to take place on and around the site as necessary to restore the main building, ancillary buildings, and the tower. The provisions of this bill are time bound. The restoration of the cathedral is expected to take up to 10 years or more, and consents or authorities are expected to be required in a staged manner over the life of this project. The sunset clause is included in the bill to provide for its repeal 15 years after commencement. This ensures that the extraordinary provisions are accessible for the delivery of the project and are repealed once they are no longer required.

An independent review panel is a key part of the process proposed in the bill, and the responsible Minister must have regard to its recommendations. The Minister will appoint a panel with knowledge of matters such as law, Māori and tikanga Māori values, and matters relevant to the restoration of the cathedral. There are certain fundamental rights and obligations that cannot be subject to the bill’s Order in Council process—for example, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Electoral Act cannot be amended. The Regulations Review Committee also plays an important role in the Minister’s decision-making process, as the Minister must have regard to any comments received. A disallowance provision has been built into the process so that orders are subject to the will of the House. The bill also proposes a truncated process for judicial review, which will balance the right to review with the need for certainty that the cathedral will not continue to sit by the wayside for another seven years.

This process is necessary. This bill facilitates restoration of the Christ Church Cathedral without unnecessary further delay. It is what we need to get progress in Christchurch. The bill balances the overwhelming desire to see progress in Cathedral Square with appropriate limits and controls. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. National supports this bill. It is an important part of the reinstatement of Christ Church Cathedral, and it is part of the reinstatement package that was agreed to in September. After the devastating earthquake in 2011, Christ Church Cathedral has sat derelict and decaying in Cathedral Square in the centre of our city. That has really impeded the redevelopment of the business area and the centre city and also the recovery of the people of Christchurch.

The cathedral plays many roles in our city. It is a church, of course, but it has long been the landmark and symbol of Christchurch, often used by the media to symbolise our city and to represent what we stand for, and also used by the Christchurch City Council as a logo. More importantly, of course, it is a significant category 1 heritage building, and perhaps one of the most well-known and well-loved heritage buildings in the country. It’s also a community facility, used for musical celebrations, used for community events, and used for special civic services. Finally, it’s one of the top tourist destinations for our city—over 60 percent of our visitors take the time to visit the cathedral.

Decisions about the future of the cathedral over the last seven years have been difficult—they’ve been divisive for the people of Christchurch. An enormous amount of work has been done by so many people, particularly the Church Property Trustees and the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust but also numerous other community and heritage groups, and they’ve not always seen eye to eye. But we thank them for their work, we thank them for their commitment and their passion, and we thank them for the fact that we’re now moving forward with this building.

In 2015, the Government commissioned the Dean report, which brought together a number of engineers to confirm the ability to reinstate the building and to provide costings. In 2016, the Government put together the Cathedral Working Group, which represented all interested parties, to develop a more detailed report. It recommended the establishment of a trust, methodology for reinstatement, detailed project costings, fund-raising opportunities, and, finally, time lines.

This work of the Cathedral Working Group provided the platform for the Government’s reinstatement package. That package, which was agreed to on 9 September this year, brought together the funding and provided for legislation to streamline the reinstatement process. That funding included insurance proceeds from the Church, Government and local government money, and also philanthropic support, and we thank the synod for agreeing to that package so that we can all move forward. This legislation is part of that package and is designed so that the rebuild can happen in a timely manner, it can be efficient, and it can be cost-effective.

We agree with the intent of the bill, but there are some details that need to be sorted out, and we do support the bill going to select committee for two weeks. The main issues that we’ll be looking at are how the work of the trust and the Cathedral Working Group document are incorporated into the process and whether there should be other Acts included in schedule 2, and we’ll also be looking at the timing of both the Orders in Council and judicial rules, and the grounds that trigger those processes. There’s also a series of operational issues to be considered, as well. But we need to finalise this legislation. We need this legislation to successfully deliver the reinstatement of Christ Church Cathedral, as agreed with the Cathedral Working Group, and so we support this bill. Kia ora.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call the Hon Ruth Dyson—the agile Hon Ruth Dyson.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Not as agile as I needed to be—thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I begin by saying that even though this bill has been described as a fast track, for most of us in Canterbury, it doesn’t feel like anything to do with the cathedral has been fast-tracked. It’s December 2017, and progress is at last being made on what I hope will be the final stage of the restoration of the cathedral.

Can I also do something that I guess has become more common in Canterbury than in other parts of the country, and that’s to acknowledge the National Party and the cross-party support that has achieved this legislation. I particularly want to acknowledge the former Minister, the Hon Nicky Wagner—who has just resumed her seat—who showed an inordinate amount of passion and commitment, not just to getting the restoration of the cathedral but also to include other parties in it. It was a refreshing breath of fresh air to have that from the former Minister.

So the concerns that the Hon Nicky Wagner raised, I think, need to be acknowledged, and I appreciate the fact that she’s been so open with them but also the fact that a select committee, while truncated, will have an opportunity to consider the issues raised. All members of the House will know the concern that has been expressed both in the House but also in Canterbury about issues being fast tracked. I don’t believe that the same degree of concern will be raised about this, but I do think we still need to listen to it and acknowledge that there are some concerns. I think, for most people, there will be just a relief that at last not only has the decision been made but we’re now well on the way to ensuring that the Parliament—not just the Government but the whole of Parliament—backs this process.

The cathedral is important for many people, not just those who are members of the Anglican faith and who have been to services there, but it’s a symbol of Christchurch and has become even more so since the damage of the February 2011 quake. So having this restoration, and the legislation to allow it to proceed, is a really important milestone in our recovery—one of the most important ones, I would say.

I want to pay a tribute to the people who have led the debate for restoration in Christchurch, and that has been quite contentious, as some will know. The amount of money that it will cost is significant, but it is a building that has a huge amount of significance for our city, and I think it’s an investment in our future. We have lost so much of our heritage over the last few years. Many buildings were destroyed for no good reason, and the fact that we are now working together to save this one is really important.

Our city was actually designed around the cathedral, and that’s part of the reason that it’s a core symbol, but it’s not the only one. It is a very harsh reminder of the damage that occurred during the February quakes, and I know that for many of us who lost friends and family in the February earthquake, it’s an ongoing reminder. It needs to be fixed so that we can look at it with a pleasant memory, rather than with such a painful memory.

It has also been a sign of what we’ve lost. We know that private investors in Christchurch have said that until a decision is made on the restoration—or demolition, some of them thought—of the cathedral, then their private investment money wouldn’t be put towards their own properties, so I’m hoping that this legislation will also be a very strong signal to the private investors that they can have confidence in investing in our square. There are too many empty sections still remaining in our city.

I am also sure that many of us would have liked to have seen this issue being progressed and resolved a lot earlier, but I don’t think we need to dwell on the stalling of the past or the reasons. The division that was within the Church has gone. The synod made the decision to back the recommendation, which was led by Nicky Wagner in her former capacity as a Minister, and, fortunately, was agreed not just by all parties in the House but, actually, by the synod as well. So now we’ve got to this point, I think, that this is going to be a huge and positive signal for Christchurch. I know that people will want to make submissions. I hope they understand that the truncated time period is not to cut out their voices but it’s actually a recognition of the need to make progress on this issue and, also, it’s being done on the understanding that we have heard those voices of concern.

We know there’ll be some details in the legislation that need ironing out but I hope that this is now a really good message from the whole of Parliament that we are working cooperatively under the leadership now of Dr Megan Woods in her capacity as the Minister responsible, and I think that people will receive that message in very good heart.

I seek leave that the Environment Committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting—except during oral questions—during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and 194(1)(c).

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave has been sought. Is there any objection? There is no objection. I call the Hon—oh, I call Matt Doocey.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for that indication. As a proud, one-eyed, born and bred Cantabrian, it gives me great pleasure to be here debating the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. As alluded to by previous speakers: another milestone in our recovery; another milestone in our regeneration for not only Christchurch—because it is easy to call it the Christchurch earthquakes—but of course, parts of my electorate, Waimakariri, were heavily affected in the first earthquakes in 2010. So we call it the Canterbury earthquakes.

I want to begin by acknowledging the new Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, the Hon Megan Woods, for her enthusiasm for and commitment to her home region of Canterbury. Also, to those who have gone before her, the Hon Nicky Wagner, it’s in fact her hard work—the Hon Nicky Wagner in her role as the former Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration—that this bill arrives here today in somewhat good shape. Also I’d like to take the time to acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee for his role of standing up and making tough decisions in the response stage straight after the earthquakes, through the recovery stage, and into regeneration. I’d also like to take the time to acknowledge all Canterbury MPs around the House, who have taken their role in rebuilding their home region very seriously, and for working cross-party. I’d like to acknowledge them and the ones that have gone before us: the Hon Kate Wilkinson, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, and Denis O’Rourke, to name a few.

As outlined with the first speakers, it has been seven years. But when you actually talk to the people on the ground in Greater Christchurch, it’s easy to get carried away with that binary debate of how long something takes and the equal frustration. But when you talk to people on the ground, most Cantabrians say, “Yes, we would like things done quicker.” But, in fact, what should drive our work is the quality: the quality of our anchor projects, the quality of our priority projects, such as reinstating the cathedral. So, yes, it has been seven years, but we should also take our time in this window of opportunity we have now to make sure that the legislation has good intent and that it is going to deliver what we need on the ground. So I look forward to those submissions coming in over the next couple of weeks.

It is quite right also, for the record, that the Government does intervene to streamline processes here to reinstating the cathedral. As well as the financial contribution, the Crown will make a $10 million grant and a $15 million loan. We also have a $10 million contribution by the Christchurch City Council, as well as just under $14 million by the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust, and, of course, the Anglican Church contribution of the $42 million worth of insurance.

It is also of note in this fiscal package that there will be quite an initiative around fundraising. This is not unique. If you look at the history of Christchurch, if you look at the history of building Christchurch, in fact, it is built on philanthropy, and when you look at the founding fathers of Christchurch, they built it through their own contribution. So it’s great that that ethos will be carried on; not only that, but the ethos of enshrining the recommendations of the Christ Church Cathedral Working Group. This is something that the Hon Nicky Wagner has worked hard on, and I think it is only fair that—working our way through this process, the legislation at the end when it comes out of the select committee stage and is endorsed by this House—the working group recommendations are enshrined in this legislation going forward.

What we’ve had over the last few years is pretty much one step forward and two steps back. We’ve had a lot of deadlocks. We’ve had a lot of stalemates. Yes, I think we’re on the right track, and we need to make sure that this legislative process continues to unlock the potential of the cathedral. It’s no surprise, when you look at the potential issues we face, because when you try to encapsulate what the cathedral means to Canterbury: an iconic symbol of Christchurch, our namesake, the place of worship, a tourist attraction, a community facility, a heritage building, and the heart of Christchurch—it’s no surprise that we have a lot of stakeholders, taking a lot of interest in that. That’s why it’s incumbent on this House to work hard through this process and ultimately come out with a piece of legislation that will drive the cathedral forward and drive through the regeneration of Greater Christchurch. Thank you.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It’s with a great sense of honour that I rise to talk to this Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. I rise as the most rare of beasts: a two-eyed Cantabrian. I’m now safely ensconced in Otago, but my heritage is certainly in Canterbury. That is where our family has been for generations, and where I was born and bred. This is also a very personal bill for me, as I have just picked up the spokesmanship within New Zealand First for this, and I will be following this with great interest.

New Zealand First are delighted to support this bill. We commend the work that has been done and the priority that has been put on this by the Hon Dr Megan Woods. I also acknowledge the other Ministers that have been so integrally involved in this: the Hon Nicky Wagner and the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I also note the leadership that has been mentioned from the likes of Jim Anderton and Philip Burdon. It has not been an easy task to find a way through some vested interests, and it is a building that creates a great deal of emotion and emotive.

I’d also note that New Zealand First and the Rt Hon Winston Peters have been strong supporters of this cause and have spoken with great feeling about the need to restore this building, and New Zealand First’s total support for that, and to find a workable solution.

Christchurch has many fine buildings that were devastated in that tragic set of earthquakes and events: the Arts Centre, of course; those iconic buildings, those 21 heritage one buildings, which it’s great to see they’re in various states of reinstatement back to their former glory. Some of our other iconic facilities: the Queen Elizabeth II Park—and, of course, one of my earliest memories is the 1974 Commonwealth Games and seeing Dick Tayler come down the straight and those great victory celebrations that he performed on winning the gold medal. Of course, who could not talk about the Christchurch buildings lost, without Lancaster Park. I mean, so many of my formative years were spent there, and the legends that went there well before my time. I remember my father talking about the great 1956 Springboks and when we came back in the third test, when Kevin Skinner came back. We’ve got Richard Hadlee taking his 400th test wicket there, the iconic 1971 Lions game—so many memories in those old facilities that are no longer there, and it is nostalgia for those memories. But this is not the past. We cannot live in the past.

But of all of those buildings and facilities, there is one that stands out: the Christ Church Anglican Cathedral. My own experience—and I hate to even mention this, because I was not affected in any way—I had family there, of course, but I was out on the farm in Lawrence. We felt a shake. There was a sense that this was a serious one. I raced home to look at the coverage and, obviously, tried to make contact with family. But there was one thing that I wanted to see. I cannot explain this, but there is one thing that I wanted to see. I wanted to see that cathedral. I wanted to see that that was all right, because that building, for some reason in that moment, wasn’t bricks and mortar, it wasn’t somewhere where the Anglican Church gathered for their great occasions; it belonged to all of us.

And I just cannot explain how important that building was, and I don’t want to trivialise the people that were there, experiencing the earthquakes there—their trauma was, of course, far greater than mine. But I think it just speaks to the significance of this building, and I and New Zealand First rise to support any efforts to restore it, as close as we can get, to its former glory. Of course, we’re never going to be able to get it right there.

So, on behalf of New Zealand First, I say it is time to step away from the courtroom, to come together under the leadership of Dr Woods and, I’m sure, the Parliament as a whole. It’s time to come together and bring this significant, historic, iconic building back to its former glory. Thank you.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m very, very pleased to be able to inject myself into this debate. I’m fully supportive of this legislation, and can I too just acknowledge the work of the Ministers, both past and present, who have been working very hard to come to a workable solution from what has been a very vexed issue that has been going on for some time. And we all know, for any visitors that come to the garden city of Christchurch, that the centrepiece is the cathedral. And to see it in such disrepair in its derelict state for so many years is quite literally heartbreaking to many of the local Cantabrians. So I’m just delighted that we are able to make progress with this piece of legislation.

Of course, being a son of Ngāi Tūahuriri, Ngāi Tahu from North Canterbury, the cathedral itself was a bit beyond my realm. The cathedral, to me, was the Tuahiwi hall, out at Tuahiwi, which maybe Mr Doocey would fondly remember. But that was the church and the Whare Pāremata, I guess, for our hapū out there. I do recall one of my earliest memories, going with my older siblings, my older sister, venturing into town and beholding the sight of this great cathedral and venturing right to the top of the steeple and looking out to the square. It was just such an exciting, mind-blowing experience for, I guess, someone of about four or five years of age—also, being able to call out from that steeple to the Wizard who was there in full flight. I distinctly recall him turning around and looking up strangely at these two Māori kids yelling at him from the top of the steeple, and then he waved his little wand and gave us an acknowledgment.

So the cathedral is a symbol. It is central to the city of Christchurch, to Cantabrians. I am looking forward to seeing all of the various parties coming together and all of the entities that will be created to give effect and to see through this project. There are a lot of parties involved. Can I acknowledge Te Hāhi Mihinare, the Anglican Church, and all of the concerned locals and heritage groups, and, of course, the local council, Mayor Dalziel, and, of course, the Crown itself. So all of these parties are now coming together under this legislation. There is a fast-track plan and processes that will be put in place to ensure that we can see, once again, the cathedral restored to its full glory. As I’ve mentioned in other speeches, there is a famous Māori saying: “Ka mate kāinga tahi, ka ora kāinga rua.”

[“When one house dies, another opens up.”]

I would like to think that the restored cathedral will mark and be symbolic of that famous kōrero that we have: when one house dies, another rises to replace it. We are, indeed, as Cantabrians—as locals—looking forward to seeing the completion of this project.

Can I also acknowledge, while I am on my feet, the role that the interim or temporary cathedral has played in Christchurch. I have enjoyed various Anzac Day events, church services, and the like that have been conducted in that cardboard cathedral, as it was colloquially named when it was first erected. So I know that that has played a special place in the interim, but, certainly, we are looking forward to getting back to the main event, which will be the restoration of the Christ Church Cathedral. So, without further ado, I will commend this bill at its first reading. Kia ora.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe, tuarua, ki ngā mema o tō tātau Whare, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātau katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and, secondly, to the members of our House, salutations and acknowledgments to you collectively and to us all.]

I am very pleased to speak on this bill, because the cathedral, with its huge gaping hole where the wonderful rose window once was, with the barricades around it since the time of the earthquakes, is a symbol of decay, of the earthquakes. With the pigeons being able to get inside it, with it being open to the weather, it hasn’t been a symbol of regeneration and where Christchurch wants to go in terms of the future. So this bill is a great step towards the reinstatement of the cathedral. Like others, I acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, and the former Government for the work that, particularly, Nicky Wagner did in working with the Church Property Trustees and Bishop Victoria Matthews to ensure that there was a proposal that went to the synod, was accepted, and formed the basis, really, for the bill that we have before us today.

The cathedral, as others have also said, is at the heart of the city. Like Rino Tirikatene, I can remember going up to the tower and looking out over the city after that steep climb up all of the steps to the viewpoint. In earlier days you didn’t often get that sweep of the city buildings from such a vantage point. The tower is now demolished. There are proposals for a new wooden version of the tower that might, potentially, form part of this reinstatement.

This bill recognises that the Resource Management Act and the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act may provide processes that might take quite a while, and, as we in Christchurch know, the division of views around the cathedral—the litigation that resulted from the section 38 notice under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority legislation, which could have seen the cathedral demolished—needed to be healed. Work was done setting up the Government working party to look at the options that engineers and the Church Property Trustees had to see whether there was a way forward in terms of not going through with wholesale demolition but, actually, with reinstatement, and then the former Government brought in all of the parties last year to actually look at how we could get a cross-party approach. So that’s why this bill, I think, is a really good symbol for Christchurch—because it has got support across the Parliament and the examination of it at the select committee may lead to some changes that strengthen it.

It is a challenging concept having Orders in Council that override the legislation that Parliament has passed, but there are a number of checks and balances in this bill, which mean that I am really comfortable to strongly support it. Those checks and balances include the fact that the Minister, the Hon Megan Woods, who’s brought the bill here, is able to consult the public on a draft order or proposal, and consult a particular review panel that’s being set up with a lot of expertise to provide feedback. It’s also a check in the fact that the bill provides that it will have Orders in Council that override only two pieces of legislation: the Resource Management Act and the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act. It’s got a sunset clause of 15 years; that’s another check.

There is also provision that some bills, particularly the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act legislation, are excluded from having Orders in Council that can overpower them. The Minister must publish reasons in the House for recommending an Order in Council, and the Minister must be satisfied that the Order in Council is necessary and desirable. So that provides a mechanism for judicial review, which the bill also enables through a truncated process in terms of having to start within 28 days. The fact that a draft order has to go before the Regulations Review Committee, or, if Parliament is not sitting, that it must go to party leaders, is another check. The Minister must have regard to the advice of the Regulations Review Committee and the advice of the regulatory panel.

So all of these are checks on this extraordinary power of having Orders in Council override our primary legislation. Why is it necessary? Well, when the Christchurch plan went through the process recently of developing the final plan, that plan did provide for reinstatement of the cathedral. It recognised that it would need a reasonably expeditious process, but still, under the plan, because the actual scope of work to reinstate the cathedral is not fully known, there may, in fact, be potential need for resource consents that would be fully notified and then could be tied up in litigation.

What has been achieved, with the synod’s agreement to the Government proposal and the funding that has come into that, is a major opportunity to get started with the reinstatement. We must take advantage of the agreement that has been reached between the parties after years of litigation and years of division about the future of the cathedral. So this bill is critical in terms of its timing and in providing the legal framework for allowing reinstatement to occur expeditiously.

When you look at the cathedral, particularly if you are looking at it from the east, where you see what seems an intact roofline—quite an intact structure from the east; certainly not looking from the other direction—the potential for the cathedral to be a symbol of resilience is also really strongly there. Massive craftsmanship went into that building, with huge quantities of timber, of basalt, and of stone, and beautiful carvings both inside and out. The Arts Centre in Christchurch has shown what happens when we get superb artisanship, engineering skill, seismic strengthening, vision, and funding from philanthropists, from the city council, and from the Government coming together to restore such an important symbol of place and heritage in our city. This bill is going to allow that to happen to the cathedral. I commend the bill to the House.

JO LUXTON (Labour): It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. It has been over seven years since the devastating earthquake in Christchurch in February of 2011. I can recall exactly where I was when the earthquake hit: at preschool, in the nursery, rocking a baby. I will not forget the screams of the frightened children and the teachers. Then, upon hearing that there were deaths as a result of this earthquake, I recall the feeling of numbness that overcame all of us for the rest of that day and many days to come. For seven long years, the beautiful cathedral has stood in ruins, its future uncertain, like many other homes and buildings in Christchurch. It stands as a constant reminder to the people of Christchurch of that horrible day, and it is also a reminder of the slow pace of recovery, and a constant reminder of all that has been lost.

The cathedral was once the core symbol of Christchurch. I clearly remember my first visit to the Garden City. The highlight for me was the opportunity to see close-up the building that was on the front of so many postcards and brochures. It certainly didn’t disappoint, and it was truly a breathtaking, amazing building and piece of architecture. The city of Christchurch is literally built around the cathedral, so one could say it symbolises the heart of the city. When the earthquake struck, the heart was broken—a sentiment shared by many Cantabrians. It is truly heartbreaking to see how in an instant the cathedral was brought to its knees, in a cloud of dust and crumbling rubble. Whilst the cathedral was once the core symbol of the city, which stood tall and proud, and so did the people of Christchurch, it now lies in partial ruins, a sad shell of the truly majestic building it once was—somewhat representative of the way people felt about their own homes and lives as a result of that fateful day. It is now time to move forward, and this bill will allow for that happen.

The people of Canterbury need to see progress. This has been a very long, drawn-out process, and at times a controversial process. I believe that this legislation will deliver some much-needed certainty for Cantabrians. We know that there is some irreparable damage to the building, but it is important to restore and reinstate the cathedral to the greatest extent possible. So much of Christchurch’s history has been lost as a result of this earthquake, which makes this legislation all the more important. It is important to acknowledge the Hon Nicky Wagner and the Hon Gerry Brownlee for the work that has been done to this point. With this legislation, we will see the opportunity for resource management and consenting to be fast tracked. It will allow for the creation of a reinstatement trust that will provide governance and oversee fundraising. This bill allows for the opportunity to safeguard the cathedral’s remaining historic and cultural significance, which, in turn, will ensure future generations will be able to appreciate it.

It is great to see so much cross-party support for this bill. It will show the people of Canterbury that we can all work together on matters of such significance. I believe they will be heartened to see this. It shows them that we truly care and are prepared to work together to progress the reinstatement of the cathedral. They can certainly take heart from that that we are really serious about delivering the progress the city needs. So I am proud to stand in support of this bill going to select committee stage, and I am sure there will be many submissions made on this. After all, it is a very emotive issue for some. I truly believe we need to get the heart of the city beating again. Thank you.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I may say, as the MP for Christchurch Central, it would be hard to find a bill that was closer to my heart, and I recognise and acknowledge the very hard work that my predecessor Nicky Wagner did as Minister and the fact that she brought together people in a way that was admirable, and I acknowledge her for that.

This is an important building in Christchurch; that’s been noted by many already. I do want to recognise, to all of those other people struggling in Christchurch with other buildings—some of them of significant heritage value and religious value—that we want to keep working on those buildings, as well. Having said that, this is by far and away the most symbolic building in Christchurch. It does sit at the heart, in the middle of Cathedral Square. The city was designed around it, and it is in an architectural form, neo-Gothic architecture, that resonates around the city, with the Arts Centre, with the museum, with the provincial chambers, and with many other buildings. So even from an architectural perspective alone, it’s important that this building is restored.

I think it’s also important to recognise that we have no small task ahead of us. It has been a long time since this building was damaged, but let us recognise, also, that it’s going to be a long time until it is fully restored, as well. The task ahead of us is complex, and it will require a lot of people to get together and to make further compromises and to act with some understanding and graciousness that perhaps doesn’t always come naturally.

The bill itself defines “reinstatement”, and I think that’s important, because reinstatement in this era, with this building, cannot mean putting it back exactly as it once was. I think we need to recognise and trust the experts who will give advice on what can be done and what will work, both in a visual and engineering sense. I must say, as a new parliamentarian, it is great to come here and see the cross-party support for this bill. I think it important to also recognise that this bill will not be in its final form. I know our friends on the other side of the House will have useful and meaningful input into it, as will, of course, the other parties of this Government.

It’s been a long road to get here, and probably one of the lessons to be learned from the way we’ve got here is that litigation does not restore buildings. It would have been good to have got here earlier, but people weren’t prepared to sit around the table. This has been to the Supreme Court and back. Guidance has been followed, and only then were people ready to recognise that the building would sit there and remain derelict and decaying. More cases would ensue, more lawyers would be paid, but no rebuild or restoration would occur. So it’s good to see, ultimately, with cross-party support, with a bit of a nudge from certain key people involved, that a pragmatic solution was arrived at.

This bill, like many others, gives the Minister extraordinary powers. As a lawyer, I’m always exceedingly cautious of extraordinary powers being conferred on the executive. We’ve seen previously in the post-earthquake space those powers being used and challenged. However, the fact of the matter is that in cases like this, in cases where there is a real need for direction and for some urgency, extraordinary powers are appropriate, if properly controlled. Whilst, obviously, this will remain open for discussion, it’s clear that these powers are appropriate. Exactly how they’ll be controlled is yet to be finally settled, but I think we’ve got the outlines pretty good. Obviously, a really important part of this will be the advisory panel. The Christ Church Cathedral reinstatement review panel will give very useful advice to the Minister, and I’m quite certain that this Minister will listen to that advice carefully and take it. Of course, the appointments to that review panel will be important as well. Some legal advice is going to be needed, but also engineering and architectural advice. Advice from Ngāi Tahu will also be important, because this building is of significance to everyone.

It will be good to see this building restored, because, from a commercial point of view, Christchurch has been held back. There are plenty of people who would love to see the square, the thriving buzzing place that it has been in the past, but until this really gets under way that can’t happen. There is no confidence there, and, to be frank, the environment is not one to celebrate.

One of the things that this bill, the package that has been so skilfully put together by a number of people, contemplates is philanthropic support. If I can say in this House that it is not usual to be passing legislation that assumes philanthropic support, but it really is time for the wider community, both here in New Zealand and overseas, to step up, because this is a building well worth preserving. This really is part of the heart of Christchurch, and if we’re going to restore it in the manner that it deserves and that it requires, it’s going to need more than simply Government, Church, and council to come together—extraordinary though that is—it is going to need some additional support. So I encourage those who are able to assist in a real and tangible way.

The bill itself is, of course, the crux of the matter. It’s important to recognise that those extraordinary powers that are conferred on the Minister: the power to, essentially, suspend the operation of certain legislation—importantly, the Resource Management Act is still recognised as a disallowable instrument. So it, essentially, comes before a committee of this House, the Regulations Review Committee—a committee that I am very happy to be a member of—and is examined. Of course, it can be subject to disallowance. So it’s not entirely accurate to say that those powers are entirely outside of the ambit of this House. That committee of the House will examine and will scrutinise—and my experience to date is that it’s a committee that is very much going to cooperate on these matters.

The other interesting point that I’d just make a note of is their restrictions on judicial review. Certainly, some Ministers would be very happy to see judicial review not used as widely as it perhaps is, because it is a powerful tool for the judiciary to examine the conduct of the executive. This bill does limit the power to bring an application for judicial review, but only by saying it must be brought promptly, by saying that it must be brought within 28 days. I think in this case that is a matter that is entirely commendable, because far too often people sit on their hands and make threats and noises and only at the last moment do they bring a judicial review application when, once again, everything is on hold. Certainly, were any judicial review applications to be brought in this matter, I am sure that the courts would do their duty promptly and assiduously.

This matter is to be referred to a select committee forthwith, and might I also hope and pray that the people of Christchurch who have an interest in this matter will make submissions, because that is really how this is going to work. We need to understand what the people of Christchurch think and want and consider is needed. Also, I note that the Christchurch City Council has a decision ahead of it that it is accepting or has accepted submissions on, and I certainly hope that the city council will be on board and will, indeed, also submit on this bill.

There is work to be done—work to be done in examining this bill and on making it as workable and effective a tool as it possibly can be, and work to be done with the people of Christchurch to come together and to rebuild and reinstate this cathedral. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.

Bills

Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 30 November.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you so much for this opportunity to complete my speech. The last time, when time ran out, I was speaking about the use of online channels.

The expectation of the New Zealand public is to have ease of access to all historical records that are of importance to them. This proposed legislation will allow New Zealanders with a RealMe ID to access births, deaths, and marriage records online. This bill will help people to trace their family history. In this digital age, I would say that what is being proposed by the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill is, actually, really important. We should be able to trace our family history, our genealogy, easily and in an accurate manner in a society where we have eroding social capital, urbanisation, and technologies leading more of us to have more insular families. So I feel it is really important to understand one’s family roots and to be able to access and to be able to trace one’s family heritage in an online way.

This proposed bill will assist all of us in ensuring that we have online access. It will also update the language and order of the content to create a more cohesive and accessible document online. Any amendment that will create and make it easier for us to understand and access legislation can only be an advantage to all of us in our very diverse society.

This legislation includes development by the Department of Internal Affairs of an end-to-end digital service, which includes access to images of historical records online. It will enable people to access and find the correct records and it would also enable them to fill in crucial gaps, especially for genealogical studies.

One of the important gaps that this bill will address is it will fix—when a child tragically passes away before their parents, this legislation will be able to record on to the parent’s death certificate that the child has passed away, and this will enable all of us to access a complete family record. So children will now be able to see on an individual’s death record whether or not that particular child is alive. These changes will address the known cause of concern, especially for grieving families, and it would ensure a more complete family record.

This bill will also create a more cohesive piece of legislation, because there are changes that this bill proposes that would be fit for purpose, and it will ensure that it is more futureproofed for societal changes. We support this legislation. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on it. Thank you.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to stand and support the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne, the proposer of this bill, and it’s good to see that the Hon Tracey Martin, the new Minister, is carrying on the good work and continuing to work on this bill.

As has been mentioned by the previous speaker just now, Jenny Salesa, this bill is updating the previous Act, which was reviewed by the Department of Internal Affairs, and recommendations were made. Those recommendations have been taken care of in this bill. This bill will re-enact the original Act, which is the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995, and this will update it and bring it to the up-to-date mark.

As we know, technology is changing. Previously, we used to work on paper; now online facilities are available, and it’s easy for everyone to access these facilities. This bill will give effect to the recommendations arising from the Minister of Internal Affairs’ review of the access provisions in the 1995 Act, which was presented to the House of Representatives on 20 October 2016.

As the previous speaker also mentioned, we have to have access to the technology, and this bill will help internal affairs to make this bill an end-to-end facility, where RealMe can be accessed. That will provide help for if somebody wants to make their family tree. This bill will enable them to get access to all the family members who are part of that clan and make sure that they can access these things. With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise in support of this bill, the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill, which, obviously, re-enacts the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995 but in a much more readable form. That, essentially, gives effect to the Minister of Internal Affairs’ review of the Act, focused primarily, notably, around access and the issues raised in the Law Commission’s review of burial and cremation law.

This is a relatively uncontroversial bill, so my points will be brief, but, first and foremost, I would like to tautoko the point made by my Labour colleagues about the fact that this will enable greater access to the tracing of one’s family tree and genealogy, particularly in remedying the fact that in the 1995 Act a parent’s death certificate didn’t record children who died before their parents, which this update will of course change.

One thing that I think hasn’t yet been addressed by any in this House who have spoken to the bill is the tangata whenua o Te Tiriti considerations. We believe, as the Green Party, that this bill should be considered alongside the Māori Affairs Committee inquiry into whānau access and management of tūpāpaku, initiated originally by Metiria Turei and led by Marama Davidson subsequently. The reporting of a death didn’t explicitly come up in this inquiry review but is absolutely within the scope, so the Green Party would like to make sure that that is something that stays in the minds of the members in this House.

The second thing, which we’d actually like to applaud, is that the bill reflects, as has been noted, the non-discrimination provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the sexual orientation and gender identity—the nominated sex—of the individual on their birth certificate.

I have addressed all three issues—the Te Tiriti considerations, those of sexuality, and the genealogy tracing—so, on that point, I would like to simply state that this bill strengthens the integrity of information and provides for its secure, long-term, safe storage, as well as access to it, which is fundamentally of importance if we are to maintain an open Government, especially in 2017. It will assist families, researchers, and historians and is, simply put, user-friendly. It is a non-controversial update, but, as has been noted, attention should be paid at select committee stage to ensure there are no unintentional consequences and that safeguards to information are adequate, particularly from the perspectives of a cultural, familial, and spiritual sensitivity. The Green Party and I commend this bill to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to rise in support of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill in this, its first reading. I can say that with absolute sincerity, I am fully supportive of this bill, because, in fact, it is a bill introduced by the former National-led Government, which speaks a lot, actually, for the Order Paper, if one was to peruse it and to look at the work done recently in this House.

In its first 100 days, as the new Government trumpeted the measures it would take to in some way transform New Zealand, what we can see is they are led almost exclusively by implementing the policies of the National-led Government. In fact, the only measures that have been their own have been the backtracking and flip-flopping of promises they made on the campaign trail that they have since found too difficult to enact through legislation.

So we find ourselves here, just a little bit out from Christmas, instead debating a bill, in its first reading, that was the work of the previous Government. Looking on the Order Paper for the remainder of the week, it is all the work of the former National-led Government. At the moment, I like the work of this new Government. It’s actually doing some sensible things, and so I commend them. I commend them for progressing this, which is a pretty straightforward and minor set of changes; a refresh of a piece of legislation that nonetheless—nonetheless—does serve to continue to strengthen what the former Government called Better Public Services, and New Zealanders can do with those.

One of the good things about the changes—which, hopefully, by the end of the third reading, should it go that far, this will bring into effect—is to bring the whole area of births, deaths, and marriages and that register into, probably, the late 20th century. But at least that approaches the 21st century, with a default position that is towards a digital channel. For far too long, and for reasons that at the time were held to be fairly genuine—such as not wanting to permit such easy access to this information that it could be used for identity fraud, which you would look at the heart of and say, “Well, that’s pretty sensible.” But we’ve seen a little bit beyond that and realised that, well, we can’t stay living in the past, in the 1970s, as New Zealand First would have us—certainly economically speaking. We do have to bring these things into the 21st century, and this bill will do just that for that register. It will make it easier for people to find information around births, deaths, and marriages, for legitimate purposes. It will still provide protections against fraudulent use.

One thing that I think is interesting is the changes around the notification of death, an odd situation that exists today where there is ambiguity about the requirement to notify death or disposal of a body. The changes that are proposed in this bill will provide clarity around that and should lead to ensuring that notices of death are made in a more timely manner. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): As the previous speaker, Brett Hudson, just mentioned, it’s great to see yet another excellent piece of legislation carried over from our National-led Government. This bill addresses some issues related to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995, particularly the lack of coherence and transparency, and this lack of coherence and transparency has largely resulted from multiple amendments since the Act came into force some years ago.

A key purpose of this bill is to upgrade the 1995 Act to make sure all provisions are presented in a modern way and in an up-to-date and accessible form. So the bill will modernise the 1995 Act to make sure that it is futureproofed—just to make sure that this system of civil registration of life events, or what we call births, deaths, and marriages (BDM) information, can be accessed easily in modern times. It will also set up a platform that will support the provision of BDM information.

So we come to the access issue. A BDM access review completed last year suggested that there was a necessity, really, to modernise the BDM access regime. Like with many other public services, it is now time to provide digital and online access to BDM information. We provide lots of public services through digital channels, so this is yet another example.

The bill will also balance the public interest in having access to BDM information for legitimate purposes with the protection of at-risk individuals and also individuals’ private interests. The proposed changes were widely consulted, and therefore they have broad public and agency support.

Also, the bill has a number of small but very meaningful changes. For example, at the moment, under the 1995 Act, children who die before one or both of their parents are not recorded on their parent’s death certificate, and this will be changed. This change, of course, will enable historians and family members to have a better understanding of the family history.

As I said, it is great to see yet another piece of legislation that was proposed by the former National-led Government is being carried over. So I commend the bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Raymond Huo. I understand this is a split call—5 minutes.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. We all know how rapidly technology is evolving, and we must change and modify, as technology does. This bill re-enacts the 1995 Act to ensure all provisions are presented in an up-to-date and accessible form. This bill will deliver a piece of legislation that is modern, fit for purpose, and futureproofed. This Government wants to maximise the benefits of the growing digital economy. This bill will make it easier for New Zealanders to interact with the Government agencies in an online environment that is trusted and trustworthy.

I’d like to follow the members who spoke before me and thank the former Minister, the Hon Peter Dunne, who led a comprehensive review of the rules governing public access to registered information about life events—birth, death, and marriages. I’d like to thank him for his contributions to get this bill to this point.

The 1995 Act was the first time the law governing the civil registration of life events—birth, death, and marriages—had been brought together in one place. Civil unions were added in 2005. It is important to note that the 1995 Act was drafted at a time when paper-based access was the norm. During the review, a consensus was reached. Preference was expressed for digital and online access over paper-based access via certificates and print-outs.

It is also important to note that in this bill the language used has deliberately chosen to futureproof the law to provide the flexibility for future service delivery solutions. But the new service options will be in addition to, rather than instead of, existing ways of doing business.

This is the first reading of the bill. As the Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, who is responsible for this bill, said, we welcome the opportunity to test the policy behind all aspects of this bill through the select committee process. This is important. This is not only about modern technology. It is also about the participation of all New Zealanders in this democratic process, especially for those new New Zealanders who are from countries, regions, or backgrounds that are different from New Zealand.

Reflecting on my own ethnic background, we have often heard or witnessed kinds of observations from the Chinese community that there is an anomaly in terms of the matters covered under this bill. For example, during the Cultural Revolution, where the rule of law was interrupted and there was no order, for those who were born during that period of time, especially in the rural countrysides, which are remote from the city centres, they may not have a birth certificate or a birth certificate that has a similar or the same effect to the one we have in New Zealand. This has created a certain level of issues or problems with the Immigration Service.

Another example is the difference between the notary public system in China and the one here, particularly when coming to the issues of attestation. This may have created problems not only with the Immigration Service but also with Land Information New Zealand, when processing certain overseas-sourced instruments for a certificate of title to be registered.

So this is a good bill. It is not only about modern technology; it is also about encouraging participation, especially by those new New Zealanders, in this democratic process. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to stand and speak in support of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. I’ve come to realise that there are largely two categories of bills—those that have the power to transform the lives of large groups of people, directly impacting the way we live our lives, the way we’re allowed to, for example, express and affirm love, and sometimes transform society and the way society works; to address, perhaps, historical wrongs that have been perpetrated against specific groups. Bills that are explosive and command attention.

And then we have some bills that are quieter. They go about their business quietly and make some small improvements that are important to people, to us, at specific times in our lives. These are improvements, perhaps, that create a more cohesive piece of legislation, and by extension ensure that the lives of the people we’re here to serve tick along as smoothly as possible. These are perhaps bills that take us as a nation into the 21st century and ensure that we continue to be at, or move into, the forefront of the digital age. This bill I think potentially falls into that second category. Both types of bills, of course, have a huge amount of value to the lives of people, and this bill is no exception.

The main purpose of this bill, as we have heard from members on both sides of the House previously, is to re-enact and update the 1995 Act. This amendment bill aims to strike a good balance between public rights to access information—so it’s about openness, it’s about transparency. But it strikes that balance with the need to respect and protect individuals’ rights to privacy. For example, it makes it easier for individuals to get historical information online—say, about one’s family, about one’s ancestors. But it also authorises the registrar-general to establish a limited search function for non-historical information, namely information about those who are still living, whose privacy must be protected.

So it strengthens the privacy protections by ensuring that an individual who is, for example, looking up their own information online, is not accidentally given someone else’s information, where that person has obtained a non-disclosure direction. So it gives that protection to at-risk individuals that we absolutely must, and have a responsibility to, maintain.

This bill also responds to an issue raised in the Law Commission’s review of burial and cremation law that will enable more accurate and more timely information regarding death. It clarifies the existing law, which conflates responsibility to notify a death with responsibility to notify the disposal of a body. This is a few lines from the Law Commission’s report on death, burial, and cremation—it’s called “A New Law for Contemporary New Zealand”—that I particularly liked. It says: “… death is the point at which the profane and the sacred collide. It is a natural event yet surrounded by mystery and culture. It is steeped in the physical reality of bodily processes but surrounded by different ideas and philosophies about the long goodbye.” Legislation has an important role to play in making the profane or the secular aspects of death easier—easier for the families that are impacted by that death, making it more streamlined so that loved ones can focus on the sacred and on the rituals that are associated with death and dying that provide the closure that families need at that point in time and allow them to move on with their lives as quickly, as seamlessly, as possible when death occurs.

This bill aims to do just that. It aims to futureproof the system as well—the system of civil registration of life events—while aiming to strike that important balance between accessibility with the right to privacy. I want to add my voice to members who’ve gone before me and thank the former Minister, the Hon Peter Dunne, for the work that he’s done on this bill, and also the current Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, for picking up this bill.

For the reasons that I have outlined, for the balance that this bill aims to strike, and for the fact that it moves us as a nation into the 21st century and allows historical records that have been on paper to be digitalised—for all those reasons, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am delighted to get up and speak today to take a call on this bill, the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill. I am going to make it short today, because I am speaking in support and I’m reiterating what a lot of people have already said. So I won’t speak for a long time, but I would like to start by acknowledging Peter Dunne and all of the work that he has done on this bill, and also to thank Tracey Martin for picking it up. What I would like to say is that being in Opposition at the moment is almost like being in Government. When looking at the Order Paper, it is really nice to see much of the National Party’s legislation being picked up, so it’s quite a nice time to be around.

What I would like to say is just three quick things. Firstly, there is the fact that this bill really is moving with the times—it’s really important that, as technology expands, we make sure that our legislation moves along with it. The first part of this I’d like to speak to is the accessibility of documents now. To be able to go online and request those makes things much easier. Just a small, personal anecdote on that front is me losing my marriage certificate—very shortly after getting married, embarrassingly—and not having gone on to get a copy because it is just a lot of work. But, actually, this bill modernises the Act and allows someone with a RealMe identity to be able to go and order that online, which is something that we do every day in our lives and would expect that it be possible to happen, but, actually, under the current legislation it’s not. So this actually brings us into the digital age, moving with the times, and will certainly mean that I will now be able to go online and request a copy of my marriage certificate, finally.

Secondly, as previous members have said, for those children that, sadly, pass away before their parents, the changes in this bill allow for their deaths to be noted on their parents’ death certificates. That is a sensible amendment and something that we support—obviously; it’s our bill.

Thirdly, the ability to know your family history—having all of this digitalised and available online—is a massive advantage.

With those three things, we are, obviously, very much in support of this bill. Thank you to everyone who’s done the hard work on this, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): It’s a privilege to speak on the first reading of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill. This bill updates the 1995 Act, which provides the overarching framework that governs how information on births, deaths, marriages, and civil unions is registered in this country. It aims to provide more timely access to birth and death information, and rapid access to historical records in the digital age.

Having spent over a decade in child and youth health research, I was a frequent user of births, deaths, and marriages information. One of the biggest issues we had was timeliness, because it was often a two-year lag between when somebody had passed away and when we could access the death registration data. Also, for birth registrations, it was often several months—up to six months—before we could access that information. That made it really difficult when you’re trying to look for emerging trends—for example, clusters with suicides; or if you’ve got interventions like wahakura or pēpi pods for cot death, it was very difficult to be able to see what impact that was having in the region. Also, just things like some of the deaths from child abuse, and with the intense interventions that we’ve been doing within the health sector, thinking about whether that was having any impact—because it’s the ability to tailor what you’re doing to what you see in the data, and that’s not really possible in the current situation.

The other thing we had with the delays in the birth registration data was we couldn’t really assess how many births were happening each year, and so it was often difficult when we were trying to calculate accurate infant mortality rates—again, key to some of our monitoring. So what this bill says is that a preliminary notice of birth has to be provided to the Registrar-General within five working days following a birth, and a preliminary notice of death has to be provided by the doctor within three working days of giving a death certificate, thereby creating some more streamlining in the process. A lot of the changes in this respect address the recommendations of the 2015 Law Commission review into deaths, burial, and cremation. So it’s a fairly evidence-based approach; it’s been based on a very, very thorough review of the area.

Many others—like my father, who’s a family history buff—use births, deaths, and marriages data for family history research. I often remember him having to write away each time he wanted a copy of a historical marriage certificate or a death certificate, and then having all these big folders in his study downstairs where he laboriously recorded all of that on paper-based copy. What I really remember is that it’s an absolutely time-consuming process if you have write away for paper-based certificates and print-outs. What this bill aims to provide is greater electronic access to historical information. It allows people to request electronic access to pre-1998 registers that contain historical information about a named person. Still that provision is there—that you need to know the name of the person that you’re requesting the data on, rather than just having open access in that space. Moving to an online format will significantly speed up access to that historical births, deaths, and marriages information for family history research.

The bill, though, preserves the concept of historical information and a differentiation between what you can access on non-historical information that relates to people who have passed away or been married a long time ago. In some cases, it shortens the time periods required. So, for example, for accessing marriage information, it shortened that to 75 years or more since the marriage occurred rather than the pre-existing 80 years.

The other thing that the bill preserves is the requirement that people need to confirm their identity to be able to access births, deaths, and marriages information. Again, though, this can be done online via a RealMe identity, which means people can go online, confirm their identity, and then have access to this information in a very timely manner. Many of these changes—in terms of improved access—address the recommendations of the Department of Internal Affairs 2016 review of access provisions.

This bill, in summary, aims to improve both the timeliness of, and the access to, births, deaths, and marriages data. It’s also going to tidy up the 1995 Act and make it more flexible and futureproofed, because we’re now operating in that digital age. I’m also reassured by the fact that this bill is based on the work of two very substantive reviews in this area, one based on the Law Commission’s review looking at the death registration information, and also, when we’re looking at access in terms of that review, it recommended that we move to online formats so that people can get greater access to this information.

So given the information is incredibly useful for researchers—like my past role—because it gives us that overall ability to assess what’s happening in our community and to then make decisions in the health sector, based on an understanding of what’s happening on the ground, and also because it’s absolutely so valuable for family history researchers, I’m very happy to support this bill and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Bills

Customs and Excise Bill

Second Reading

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): I move, That the Customs and Excise Bill be now read a second time.

This bill replaces the 1996 Customs and Excise Act, which is over 20 years old, and, in some parts, over 50 to 100 years old. The Act is out of step with modern business practices and has been amended many times to deal with changes in trade, travel, security, and technology. This has increased its complexity. This bill carries over most of the provisions from the current Act; however, its modern structure and drafting style make it easier to understand and use, for both business and the Customs Service. It also aims to support economic growth by making it easier for traders to do business and by enabling businesses and customs to adapt quickly to future changes in technology and business practice.

The bill provides transparent legislation that balances the protection of the nation with individual rights. It contributes to national security by enabling greater information-sharing between customs and other Government agencies—the disclosure of information on people and goods crossing the border for national security, law enforcement, and public health and safety purposes. Greater information disclosure also supports economic development and the implementation of Government policy—like free-trade agreements, for example—through the sharing of information on exports, or to maintain regulatory regimes by sharing information on imports.

This increased availability of information is balanced by the specific protections and the standardisation of the process for information disclosure. Protections include consultation with the Privacy Commissioner.

The bill is responding to businesses’ requests by making it easier for traders to do business and interact with customs. The value of goods can change after the goods arrive in New Zealand, and the current Act doesn’t recognise this. The bill will allow traders to declare provisional values for imported goods, which will be updated once final values are known. Importers will also be able to seek binding valuation rulings from customs to give them certainty about their duty liability before deciding to import goods.

An administrative review process will allow people who are dissatisfied with the decisions of the Chief Executive of the Customs Service in respect of a duty assessment to appeal that decision directly to customs before, or instead of, making an appeal to the Customs Appeal Authority. This will provide a less formal, lower-cost review process for duty assessments and will provide customers with an alternative or early option to resolve disputes.

Businesses will be able to take advantage of modern and cost-effective methods of storing business records in the cloud and offshore, reflecting today’s business practices.

Changes to the excise system will provide greater certainty around excise liability and protect Crown revenue. A new collection point for excise on fuel created by blending at tank farms will give greater clarity around when excise is due. The bill also clarifies when goods are subject to the control of customs. The potential risk of tobacco being diverted for elicit supply will be reduced by lowering the personal use allowance from 15 to 5 kilograms per annum and by providing that the curing of tobacco leaf is appropriately regulated as part of the manufacturing process.

The bill confirms the majority of customs’ existing powers while recognising privacy concerns. It provides greater scope and flexibility to address smuggling and national security. The bill restricts customs’ powers to examine and access electronic devices, streamlines the process to impose import and export controls, and enables controlled deliveries across a wide range of goods to investigate smuggling.

Most people who interact with customs comply with the rules. A range of penalties have been updated to be more consistent across imports and exports and compared to other legislation. The unduly punitive additional duty sanction and the grossly inefficient petty offences system will be replaced by a more proportionate, compensatory interest and late payment penalty system and an infringement notice scheme.

While the committee was overwhelmingly supportive of the bill, there were a few matters on which it sought reassurances or further amendment. It has therefore recommended a number of changes to the bill, all of which I heartily support. One area of focus for the committee was the proposed information disclosure regime, and the committee sought the advice of the Privacy Commissioner. I appreciate the critical gaze that the committee brought to the information disclosure provisions and support its amendments to it. The protections applying to the disclosure of information are strengthened by limiting the grounds for disclosure of sensitive passenger information and by requiring disclosure agreements to be made by Ministers, not chief executives, and to be published. The bill makes it even clearer that liability for excise arises when goods are manufactured, with payment due when they are released from customs’ control for home consumption.

The committee was supportive of the new provisional valuation mechanisms, which, in certain circumstances, gives importers the ability to provide provisional values at the time of import and to correct them later. To ensure it uses it in appropriate circumstances, the committee has amended the bill to require customs to consult the Inland Revenue Department on applications for provisional value relating to transfer pricing arrangements.

The bill makes customs legislation more consistent with that of other agencies in respect of prosecuting powers and penalties. Changes made at select committee will further improve consistency. As well as being fairer, the new compensatory interest and late payment system will be more consistent with the Inland Revenue Department’s approach. Select committee changes also clarify that customs’ approach to attempted offences should be in line with the Crimes Act, and they align the limitation period for lowest- and highest-level offending with the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, where possible. The limitation period will remain four years for all other offences. In addition, the changes made by select committee extend the Search and Surveillance Act regime for protecting privileged information to full searches of electronic devices, and they remove some “Henry VIII” provisions identified by the Regulations Review Committee.

I am pleased that the select committee recognised that customs is working to better support traders and businesses, and that the bill is a key but not the only part of that effort. The select committee was positive about customs’ intention to establish an advisory service for tax and trade matters, to enable excise manufacturers and traders to seek specific advice from customs. This service will be aimed at providing greater certainty about how to meet border requirements. The committee wanted to make the work customs is undertaking to recognise trusted traders more visible. The bill was amended to require customs to report annually on initiatives to reduce compliance costs for highly compliant traders.

The Government fully supports the bill as reported back from the select committee. I would like to signal that at the committee of the whole House, I will be moving one or more Supplementary Order Papers to update the commencement provisions and make minor and technical drafting changes, including to the transitional and savings provisions. I wish to thank the select committee for recognising the benefits the bill can bring for New Zealand and for taking the positive approach to resolving its concerns. I also wish to thank it for reporting back early.

My thanks also go to the Privacy Commissioner, whose significant involvement in the development of the bill and advice to the select committee enables me to give this House assurance that the bill balances the protection of New Zealand with the protection of personal privacy, and I would like to thank the many businesses and industry organisations who submitted on the bill and provided substantial input into its development. Many of the changes made by the bill were recognised by New Zealand businesses as having the potential to lower costs and make it easier to do business. Indeed, this close consultation with business has led to an exemplary bill that has widespread support.

I am confident that the bill will go a long way towards ensuring that New Zealand operates a world-class, efficient, and cost-effective border management system. I conclude by noting that the select committee unanimously supported the provisions of the bill as reported back. I hope that this cross-party support will continue and that the bill can progress quickly through the House. I commend the bill to the House.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. First of all, I’d like to congratulate the Minister across the House for her appointment, and I wish her well in her job as Minister of Customs.

The second point is that I’d like to lay down a challenge for her, and ask her whether she still supports her colleague Stuart Nash when he says that he would do everything he can to impose and collect the GST on physical assets coming across the border. That’s a public announcement from your colleague, Minister, and I look forward to your views and discussions and whether you agree with a colleague or not.

Now, isn’t it great that we’ve got another National bill in the House? Isn’t it fantastic? It just shows you, again, that that Government has nothing to put up that is more important than our National Party bills. I mean, they could have put up a waka-jumping bill, but they have not because, quite clearly, they don’t have the numbers. They haven’t done the deal, and that’s the problem they’re going to have. With any of their legislation that is even slightly controversial, you’re going to have a problem with the “Huey, Dewey, and Louie” combination not being able to manage and put stuff in front of this House. That is why we continue to discuss and debate National Party bills—National Party bills endorsed—

Brett Hudson: Because it’s the only good legislation they’ve got.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Well, it’s the only legislation that they’ve got. They’ve got no ideas at this point, at least, that they can present and have support for and be confident that they have the numbers on. But at least for this one there is support. We know that. We’ve got cross-party support for the Customs and Excise Bill.

The Minister has eloquently outlined a lot of the provisions. I’d just like to make mention of the good discussion that was, obviously, had that was contributed by the Privacy Commissioner, Mr Edwards, around the searching of electronic devices. Quite reasonably, the guys that are going to carry offensive material on anyone on their phone—it’s just not going to happen. So there was a reasonable balance between—because you can store that sort of stuff in the cloud, and that’s never going to be picked up on a personal device. So I think that compromise on protecting the everyday Joe Bloggs traveller—their privacy—is a good one. The test is that there must be reasonable suspicion or a belief of offending before that electronic device can be inspected. That was a very good discussion and it landed in the right place, I think.

As I say, the Minister’s gone through a lot of the points around the modernising of the legislation—the need for the modernisation, the changing of the times, the changing of the language—and around discussing technology in a way that can assist customs officers in protecting our borders. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Gee, I was just looking across at the House there. You know, 15 years ago, I looked over there and Gerry Brownlee was there, lost, disorientated, and didn’t know where he was going; 15 years on, nothing much has changed. Nothing much has changed. I look over there, and Gerry still doesn’t know where he’s going—disorientated.

Stuart Nash, the whanaungatanga with our Minister, Meka Whaitiri, over here, couldn’t be better. Hawke’s Bay, Ngāti Kahungunu is doing—he’s probably been the best police Minister we’ve seen in the last few years. No doubt about it—no doubt about it. We’re on track now. This Government is showing so much unity, and the select committee is testament to that—no doubt about it. No doubt about it.

Andrew Bayly: That’s why you have to talk about it. You have to talk about it.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Kotahitanga and unity is something you’re not used to.

Gerry—look at him. He can’t even concentrate, you know—doesn’t even know where he is. He doesn’t even—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —know where he is. He’s like the rest of you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You’re a disgrace.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes, Madam Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Could I ask the member—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What’s the name of the bill?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Members—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Concentrate, Gerry—oh, Madam Assistant Speaker, sorry.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): A little bit more just order in the House, please. Can I ask the member, when he’s referring to other members, to use proper names, and please don’t bring the Speaker into the debate.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: And stick to the bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): And that would be helpful, too. Thank you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, absolutely—absolutely. It’s a very important bill today, because, basically, it’s an example of kotahitanga in terms of the party. As you well know—sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker—we’re on course over here. You’ve heard the very eloquent Minister over here, who spelt it out—spelt it out better than any previous Tory—oh, National Party Minister, I should say.

Can I just say too that Shane Jones is doing a terrific job, isn’t he? What a fabulous job he’s been doing.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, great—why don’t we give him a go?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: He’s had a call today—has he had a call today? You’ll be hearing more from him as you hear the strength of the coalition over the next few days, in unity—no divisions, unlike yourselves. Jeez, you cleaned that Simon Bridges up today, brother.

Anyway, coming back to the bill in terms of the—jeez, that was a wonderful performance in the question time today. It was a fabulous performance from our whanaunga Mr Jones. Poor old Simon. He’s probably still having a bit of a tangi, but anyway.

Coming back to the bill today—the Customs and Excise Bill, yes.

Brett Hudson: Oh, yay!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Absolutely—it’s a very important bill for our Minister over here. She’s showing the way in terms of—well, you know, she’s one of our fabulous five Māori Ministers. We’re being led by Nanaia Mahuta over here—gosh, she’s doing a terrific job—and Kelvin Davis. We’ve got the “Dynamic Duo” in terms of Māori—of course, there’s Jonesy too, but he’s, you know. But we’ve got the “Dynamic Duo” in terms of Labour at the moment, leading us and doing the business, and, as you can see, someone who’s sort of under the radar gave a fantastic opening in terms of this bill today. And, as she pointed out, this legislation will ensure that Customs is in step with modern business practices.

Hon Member: Yay!

Hon Member: Well done!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes, we all knew that, didn’t we? It will support the movement of legitimate travellers and goods while providing the legal tools to protect New Zealand, balancing the protection of the nation with individual rights, you know—something you don’t have in the National Party, because you all follow Bill English and Gerry Brownlee and Simon Bridges, who’s—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me, member. Excuse me. Can I just remind the member not to bring the Speaker into the debate, thank you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Apologies, Madam Assistant Speaker. Apologies, Madam Assistant Speaker, but you know—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): And if we could narrow it down to the scope of the bill, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Narrow it down? OK. Kei te pai. Kia ū ki te kaupapa, kai te mōhio māua ki tērā, eh, Shane? So, a kia ū ki te kaupapa, āe.

[Remain fixed on the matter, we know about that, eh, Shane? So remain fixed on the matter, yes, indeed.]

Hon Member: It’s all custom.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That’s right. That’s right.

So this bill will maintain and clarify the existing excise regime and be better able to respond to a changing global environment and changes in business and broader management practices. You didn’t know that, did you, Mr Brownlee? As the Minister said earlier, the bill will enable better information-sharing between Customs and other Government agencies—the net effect being a more consistent and seamless approach that is more time and cost efficient, which is what it’s all about for us.

Hon Member: Bring back JT.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, don’t bring JT into this. Information-sharing agreements—

Hon Member: Come on.

Hon Member: Four minutes to go.

Hon Member: Don’t stop now.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, give us a go, hey, over there. Jeez. I haven’t been back here for a while. Information-sharing agreements made at the ministerial or chief executive level will—

Hon Member: You can’t read it.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, you’ve got to read it, you know. You can’t do everything off the cuff, you know. Information-sharing agreements made at the ministerial or chief executive level will specify protections for personal and commercially sensitive information.

The bill makes it easier for traders to do business and to interact with Customs through simple, transparent, and futureproof requirements for traders, which will help make New Zealand’s border management system amongst the most efficient and most cost-effective in the world. And that’s fantastic: Labour thinking laterally and broadly.

Hon Member: What a great bill!

Hon Member: It’s National’s bill. Sorry, Willie. It’s National’s bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You have to concentrate on the other side. I know it’s hard being in Opposition—depressed and going nowhere and you’re going to be there for another nine years.

If necessary, importers will be able to declare provisional values and seek binding valuation rulings. A lower cost and less formal administrative review process will allow disputes to be resolved without recourse to a tribunal or court. What also characterises this bill is the involvement of business through the development and drafting in Customs, which will continue to engage with business in developing regulations, custom rules, and staff guidelines.

What? I mean, see, I’ve got you there, Mr Brownlee. I got you there.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s our bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, no. It’s our bill now. No, we have embellished it. We have given it some edge. This is a real bill. This is a people’s bill now. Before—[Interruption] No, no! Before, it had a taint. It had a dirty—no, I shouldn’t say that. It had a Tory—no, I can’t say that word either, can I? But it had a taint.

Hon Scott Simpson: Is this is good as it gets?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, hang on. It never had the working class Māori edge, right? You don’t have that, because we don’t see any Māori anywhere, apart from Simon Bridges, who masquerades as one every now and then, but you know, we—poor Simon. Jeez, that was a terrible performance today, wasn’t it? Goodness me!

You know, I tell you what, here’s some advice for you: ask another question, Mr Brownlee. You’ve asked 6,000. Ask another one. That is a recipe for the National Party today. But I just want to say to you: what a wonderful performance from our Minister over here.

Alastair Scott: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I’m not sure why the member is advising the Speaker on how to do this or that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. I have reminded the member several times about bringing me into the debate.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Apologies, apologies there. I didn’t realise that it upset—OK, I apologise absolutely. I didn’t realise it upset the member so much, so ngā mihi aroha ki a koe, e hoa.

Can I just say, though, the Minister’s done a terrific job here, and this bill has gone—people are excited by this bill. Who would’ve thought that they would be excited by this bill? Labour has added to it. Nobody knew about this before. That’s because you’re all so boring, you know? That’s a fact. You’ve got no excitement about you. There’s no X factor.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me—[Interruption] The member will resume his seat. This is about the fifth time I have reminded you about bringing the Speaker into the debate.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Apologies. It’s been a long time, you know, since I’ve been here—15 years—I’m just trying to get through a few things, you know?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): The word you should not to use is “you”.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You—I mucked that up last time I was here, too. But I want to say again, it’s wonderful being part of this strong Māori caucus, you know. Jonesy’s a challenge, but, you know—

Hon Member: Tikanga—tikanga.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yeah, tikanga—see, he’s a challenge, but he’s going well. He’s just got to get that language right. You know, it’s that Ngāpuhi flair of his. I don’t know what it is. It gets him into trouble sometimes.

But, anyway, I just want to say again to the Minister—what a wonderful bill, which confirms the majority of customs’ existing powers while recognising privacy concerns, and it will balance the extent of customs’ powers to examine and access electronic devices with an individual right to privacy. Well, you know, you didn’t even think about that, did you, across there? You didn’t even think about it. No, no, I’m not talking about you, Madam Assistant Speaker—I’ve just got to get the phrasing right.

But I want to say today that I’ve enjoyed this bill and enjoyed contributing and again, ngā mihi ki a koe, ki Te Minita. And, Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you very much. Tēnā koutou katoa. Kia ora.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): If this House ever needed confirmation that Willie Jackson is a man who’s gone through the revolving door of life on everyone else’s shove, then it would have to be his contribution on this bill. Fancy Labour claiming this as being all their hard work—quite ridiculous, but if that’s the way they want to go, I would like to take a point of order right now. I move that all items on the Order Paper, from 2 to 7, progress immediately to their third reading.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I put the leave to the House. The leave has not been agreed to.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, there you are, you see. They have an opportunity to do some things to showcase how good they are as a Government, to show the nation that they have got a big programme stacked up there somewhere that they want to get into the House, to clear away all the stuff from the previous drought, get on with their own business—and what do they say? “No, no.” Because they haven’t got any business of their own.

I’m not going to take the House’s time on this, this afternoon. It would be ridiculous to do so. I’d start to sound like Willie Jackson, who actually mentioned the bill only once, and then it was only because someone put it in front of him in very large letters so he could read it. His claims that it is a good bill are absolutely right. And it’s entirely due to the previous Minister of Customs, who brought this bill to the House. I support the bill.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure that I rise here on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill. I just also note my former woodwork teacher, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, when he described going straight to the third reading; it was a little bit like our classes when we went straight from making the bottle openers to trying to make a chair. He sort of skipped through the processes pretty quickly, straight to the staff room.

I will note that this is actually a very important bill and it does require the oversight of the House. In fact, there was actually some commendation from our caucus this morning around this bill. We will note the National Party’s contribution to drafting this bill. I understand that it will require some tweaks here and there, but it is worth noting that this bill was, in its current form, passed in 1996. Some of these provisions are 50 to 100 years old, and it is well time that we simplified this bill for business—the rapid advances we’ve had in technology and the way that we do commerce. Of course, there will be much more commerce coming under our new regional development strategy, the billion-dollar-a-year regional development strategy. The produce will be pouring out of the regions over these next three years.

It has been quite an increase in trade. I haven’t got tonnages, but in 1996 there was $41 billion worth of two-way merchandise trade. That now sits at $105 billion, and although those are nominal terms it does give an idea of the scale of the increase in our trade. Of course, that is going to increase further when we introduce some of these very wise and measured new-age trade deals—not the old ones that sold New Zealand out and sold young New Zealand farmers and first-home buyers out. This new Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, with its extra provisions to protect the interests of New Zealanders, will again be boosting trade much further.

Also, we have to note the increase in tourism—in 1996, barely a million tourists to these shores. In 2017, we’re just sitting on—the latest figures: 3.7 million tourists and forecast to increase 5 percent year-on-year to be sitting at nearly 5 million tourists coming into these shores by 2023. So we need to give the Customs Service the tools they require to execute their duties. Also, this is not a nice world—1996 seems a long time ago. This is a world full of dangers and perils, and some of the provisions in this bill addressing national security, public health and safety, and international law enforcement are welcome and due for an update, and I would imagine that will be supported across the House.

Also, I think there have been some questions raised by some of the previous speakers around some of the oversight. We note the Privacy Commissioner’s oversight and the fact that the Privacy Commissioner has been intricately involved in drafting the bill to make sure that the powers that we are seeking are properly overseen. There’s the disputes resolution process as well—giving a preliminary step to importers or exporters as they seek to negotiate their way through this new bill: streamlining the system and taking some costs in the system.

Hon Shane Jones: Get rid of red tape. No more red tape.

MARK PATTERSON: No more red tape under this Government. We also note that the select committee process added some flexibility within this. We’ve got some provisional valuation mechanisms that will allow revaluation and corrections in a much more flexible manner. So I think that will be welcome, and is welcomed, by the business community that submitted on this bill.

So, on that note, I will commend the Minister on bringing this bill forward. This is an important bill. It is one that we support, as New Zealand First. I note the support across the House and we look forward to helping you progress this bill towards legislation. Thank you.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. Look, this legislation is a good example of how a select committee process can improve legislation. I hope everyone tuning in can see the good, honest constructive work done by all parties in this Parliament to improve this legislation.

When it was first entered, we understood and agreed with the case that we had to modernise our 1996 customs legislation. Just think of the vast volumes of imports we have—you know, fuel, for example; the vast volumes of exports, milk, for example, and the costs and burdens that apply on businesses. We want to make it easier, simpler, and more common sense. But there were some tricky problems with the legislation. One was the powers of customs agents to open someone’s phone or laptop at the airport, demand passwords, and access it, or threatening to. Now, the problem, of course, was that under a previous legislation customs agents were doing it without any clear legal basis. In fact, there were some quite serious legal questions raised over the legality of that practice. We know through the media that 1,300 people were subject to what’s popularly been known as digital strip-searches at the airport. Now, this is something the Green Party was incredibly concerned about. We want to protect our privacy in society.

Look, I can quite plausibly imagine a situation where someone is honeymooning overseas. You do not want the customs agent demanding access to your phone and your pics. What we also know, as was pointed out in the select committee process, is if you’re a hardened serious criminal, you’re not going to be carrying this stuff on your device, and the threats the custom agents were offering of penalties—of course, if you were a hardened serious criminal with damaging information on your phone, you’d take the slap-on-the-wrists charges and keep your information confidential.

So, look, we really want to acknowledge the members of the committee, in particular the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, for improving it. We think it has been significantly improved. The idea of a two-threshold test, in clause 207, gives more clarity to those customs officers, and more clarity and protection to those people who may face this at the border.

When you go through the airport, of course, there is a significant amount of power that customs agents and other border enforcement agents have in that environment. So it’s important that those rights and protections, and protections to access that criminal information, are further clarified in the legislation. We think the two-threshold test is a much better one. The idea of having proper evidential requirements for what they’re suspecting is an important one. Basically, we’re giving some powers to the courts to make sure that we’re not seeing it subject to abuse.

The other big controversial issue was the information provided to other Government departments. By virtue of the fact that most people entering New Zealand come in via the airport, particularly Auckland Airport, a huge amount of information is captured. We’ve seen in other cases—such as the potential cannabis-growing operation, the Switched on Gardener case from 2010—these powers to access information can be used by other enforcement agencies. So the role of the Privacy Commissioner here has been incredibly important. I note the improvements contained in this legislation.

I want to thank everyone involved for their constructive substantive contributions, because, ultimately, the select committee has delivered a much better product. Kia ora koutou.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): It’s a pleasure to take a call on this, the Customs and Excise Bill. Can I, first of all, start by congratulating the new Minister, the Hon Meka Whaitiri, on picking this bill up and bringing it to the House. I could tell by the excitement with which she delivered the bill that she could see the true quality of it. Then we heard quite an incredible contribution from—is he a Minister? Yes, he is, isn’t he? Yeah, the Hon—[Interruption] Well, there’s so many of them. The Hon Willie Jackson—what’s he the Minister for?

Hon Meka Whaitiri: Employment.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Employment. That’s right. Thank you. So I couldn’t believe it. For the first four minutes of his speech, do you know what he did? He tried to convince us of the unity of the coalition Government. He spent four minutes telling us there are no divisions, and then, at the end of his four minutes, do you know what he did? He turned his guns on one of his colleagues, the Hon Shane Jones; the man that’s doing the heavy lifting. The guy that—

Hon Shane Jones: Shameful.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Kia kaha, Jonesy. Keep doing what you’re doing, mate. He turned the guns on the Hon Shane Jones. Do you know what he said? He said this: “Jonesy’s got an eloquent mastery of the English language that gets him into trouble.” Well, I don’t believe that and I don’t accept that for one minute. I think that actually Jonesy’s doing the heavy lifting over there, and, like I said, Jonesy, kia kaha, mate. Keep it going. Well done. You’re doing very well.

The other thing that I noticed about Willie Jackson is that he seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with the Hon Gerry Brownlee. The last member that shared that same unhealthy—if you bear with me; I see you’re getting ready, Mr Assistant Speaker Rurawhe. Can I congratulate you too on your appointment. It’s a very good appointment and I know that you’ll be an outstanding Assistant Speaker of the House. But the last member in this House that developed an unhealthy obsession with the Hon Gerry Brownlee was the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, and he’s no longer here with us, although I do want to acknowledge him. He was a very good member of the select committee that I worked on.

I just want to very quickly mention the bill. It is a very important bill, because we are a small trading nation down at the bottom of the world. It’s important, actually, when our goods are moving across the border, that we have the right protections in place. But, at the same time, we are balancing that with a reduction of red tape and compliance costs, and we’re making life a little bit easier for travellers transiting and visiting New Zealand. So it is a very good bill. I do recommend to the House. Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on this Customs and Excise Bill. Look, it’s a bill that actually sits in the context of, well, a Government that is at this moment only putting forward, in orders of the day, what are previously agreed pieces of legislation from the last Parliament. So it’s got pretty lightweight—a little bit concerning, I’d have to say.

But on the bill itself—look, there’s wide agreement on this. There have been improvements made, but the whole point of this bill is to, basically, expedite or speed up the process around customs, and I think the best way I can articulate this is by doing it analogously, in a speech that is short and expedited and moves through the system quickly.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Ngā mihi nui ki a koe, tēnei te mihi o te wā.

[Huge acknowledgments, this tribute of the moment to you.]

As this is my first opportunity to rise in this House with you as Assistant Speaker, sir, may I add my congratulations on your appointment. I look forward to working with you and to your stewardship throughout the 52nd Parliament.

I am delighted to stand and take my first call to speak to the Customs and Excise Bill today. I look across the House and I see my colleague Todd Müller—

Sarah Dowie: Muller.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —Muller, sorry; Todd Muller—who is our electoral MP. I am going to be talking today a little bit about our Port of Tauranga, so I look forward to your interest.

This bill will replace the Customs and Excise Act 1996, which, we have heard, is over 20 years old, and parts are more than a hundred years old, and the Act is antiquated and currently has a piecemeal nature due to the numerous amendments. So we’ve heard all of that, and we know that this bill is a modernisation of the Act and operates to simplify the law by providing transparent and easy-to-use legislation. I commend my Minister for bringing this bill to the House.

The ongoing amendments have rendered the current Act increasingly inaccessible and complex. I am of the plain English school, and so improvements to form as well as functions are improvements absolutely, in my belief. It is also of note that the policies the bill gives effect to are not expected to cause any group to suffer a loss of income or wealth. This is not controversial and we all agree to it. Rather, it is expected that there is to be clarity around fees and duties and compliance costs, and it will therefore decrease expenses.

Of note, throughout the work that has occurred on this bill there was a stakeholder reference group and there were 91 submissions received. There were several workshops undertaken during April and May 2015, 45 businesses were asked to comment on the bill, with 17 responding. Forty agencies were asked to comment on the bill, and 15 responded. Indeed, there is cross-party support in the House today.

I would just like to address the matter Gerry Brownlee seems constantly to raise, and that is that we are constantly moving through bills that are from National. I would like to remind you all that in 2009, you passed seven of ours. This is called governance, and this is what we are doing.

So back to the bill: this bill balances the need to protect our borders with the right of individuals. The Privacy Commissioner was, as we have heard from New Zealand First, significantly involved in the development of this bill, and, therefore, the balance of the rights of individuals to privacy against border protection is clearly articulated. This is important where competing rights are involved. This bill makes it easier for traders to do business and interact with customs. This bill is simple, transparent, and futureproofed.

In my community in the Bay of Plenty, the Port of Tauranga is the largest and fastest-growing port in the country, with more than 22 million tonnes of export and import cargo annually. This bill will enable greater information-sharing between customs and other Government agencies for national security, law enforcement, and public health and safety purposes. I make reference here to a live issue in my community: recently, $20 million worth of cocaine was seized in Tauranga by the police and customs. Ports can be an entry port for drugs and precursor drugs. This bill contains a greater scope and flexibility to address smuggling and national security.

In conclusion, this bill will support Government agencies to respond to a changing global environment, changes in business, and border management practices.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and can I, first, acknowledge you in the Chair. It’s the first time I’ve spoken with you sitting in the Speaker’s Chair, and I am delighted that you have found that position. I’m sure you’ll do it very well, sir.

It’s a great privilege to be able to speak on the Customs and Excise Bill. As the former chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which ushered this through with the support of Ministers Wagner and Macindoe—we ran a huge process, and it’s so entertaining to see the Government now embracing it as its own. I mean, we had Rino Tirikatene—he attended most of our sessions. He represented the Labour Party. There was Barry Coates—he’s no longer here. And Fletcher Tabuteau—sometimes I found it, understandably, a little bit dense. But we drove this process because it was absolutely critical to do so, and this reading is the report back from the select committee.

The bill came back for its second reading, we went through the House, and it would have been progressed to third reading, except the previous Government had so much on the Order Paper that it wanted to progress that it didn’t quite get there.

And you’re right, Angie: in 2009, the then National Government did pass seven bills that were on Labour’s Order Paper. But that wasn’t our entire work programme. Labour’s programme didn’t dominate the Government’s agenda as you guys have over the last two weeks.

It’s just such a privilege to be able to be here and speak on bills that we had worked on, that we had driven through on behalf of the wider community, and get the support of both parties—to step through all of this detail to a pretty granular level, and get that support. And now, as we sit here, the Labour Government has afforded this bill a priority, acknowledging their Ministers as heavy-lifting through hours of work on this and, at the last three or four strides to the finish line, saying, “Well, what a great job by the Government.”

We all know that it has been a great collective effort by the 51st Parliament to get this through. All parties contributed to it, through the leadership of the Ministers of the National Government, and that’s why this side of the House is so pleased to be able to add our voice to a bill that works for New Zealand. I too commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Sorry about my hoarse voice, everyone. It’s that hay fever phenomenon, and I can’t get rid of it, but I’m sure you bear with me. Firstly, congratulations to you, Te Māngai. I know one of our Assistant Speakers being Māori is something that we should be proud of. I’m incredibly proud of it and so I want to acknowledge your appointment. I’d also like to acknowledge Minister Whaitiri. This is her first bill before this House.

Actually, what I would like to say to Todd Muller, who was the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in the 51st Parliament, is that to some degree this shows how much of a priority this piece of legislation is. I have to say when you read the purpose of the bill, which is to manage the movement of people and goods into and out of New Zealand, to provide us with the tools needed to protect New Zealand from people or goods that may cause harm—and my colleague Angie Warren-Clark has just highlighted what one of those harms is—and also to empower customs to collect duty on imports and excise on locally manufactured fuel, alcohol, and tobacco, this piece of legislation is a priority for is, and we will not apologise for prioritising it on our work programme.

I specifically want to highlight one of the objects of the bill, which is to balance the protection of the nation with individuals’ rights, and so I have taken the time, as a current member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, to look at the report by the previous select committee on this bill. I actually want to highlight and reiterate what colleague Gareth Hughes said: there are a number of amendments to this piece of legislation and those amendments happened through the select committee process. So for the Opposition to say that we haven’t all contributed to what is a piece of legislation that has consensus across the House actually undermines the role of select committees. So I’d like to highlight some of those amendments and congratulate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on making them, because they’ve made these amendments for very good reasons.

On page 5 of the select committee report, “Restricting the power to examine electronic devices”—the reason that intervention was required and amendments to this legislation were required was to protect privacy. All the way through I think there’s been a balancing of the need to look at the harm of goods that are moved in and out of our country with individual rights. So what we have done is amend clause 180(6) “to provide that the relevant threshold in clause 207 must be met before a device could be retained or a power exercised under clause 207.”

Then, later on in that particular section, it looks at compatibility with the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012, Part 4, subpart 5. I’d actually like to highlight what that says. It’s titled “Privilege and confidentiality”, and what it says in section 136, “Recognition of privilege”—the reason that there needs to be a threshold—is that we must protect, for example, legal professionals who on their devices have communications with legal advisers. There could be preparatory materials, settlement information, mediation information, and it’s that information that must be kept private in a situation where an officer of the New Zealand Customs Service, in undertaking their duties, suspects, or has reasonable cause to suspect, and determines that there needs to be an initial search of the device. So it can’t just be a random process. There has to be something that triggers that reasonable cause to suspect.

If they then do that, there’s a second ability for the device and the material contained on that device to be viewed. So this amendment is incredibly important, because what also says is that there are types of communications that always must be protected. In the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, Part 4, subpart 5, it also talks about communications with ministers of religion. The types of information that they may have on devices relate to their parishes or the members of the congregation. It also talks about communications in criminal proceedings and by medical practitioners and clinical psychologists. These are really important pieces of information that could actually affect trials in court cases. So there are and always have to be limitations, from individual rights, on this need to protect the public good. They also mentioned, can I just say, that journalists also have the right to protect their sources. So that’s another specific issue that’s highlighted.

If we turn over to page 6 of the select committee report, I’d like to talk about the oversight of and the safeguards around information disclosure. There was some quite interesting commentary around that, and the Privacy Commissioner’s advice was sought with regard to this specific addition. That is a recommendation of a new clause, clause 298A, to require customs to publish, on a website maintained by or on behalf of customs, any written agreement and any variation of an agreement made under clauses 293, 294, 296, and 297. Just looking at those clauses, clause 293 is about direct access to information for other purposes, and it’s actually about sharing information between Government agencies. How do you facilitate that safe transfer of information between Government agencies and access to the information, which is stored in a database for assisting the agency to carry out its functions?

Clause 294 is about disclosure of information other than under matching agreements or direct access agreements from CEO to CEO. Government departments actually do have memorandums of understanding or they do have agreements about how they will work together and share information. Section 296 is the disclosure of information֫—I found this really interesting—to a private sector organisation. So there is scope for the CEO of customs to enter into a written agreement with a private sector organisation for regular disclosure. I think that’s really important, but what this insertion of this new clause 298A says is that any variation must be published on the customs website. That’s about transparency. It’s also about ensuring that everyone’s fully informed.

Section 297 is about disclosure of information to overseas authorities. How are they relevant? Well, they’re relevant in terms of international passengers. So it’s about border security, it’s about public health and safety. So those amendments before the select committee were really important. It must be emphasised, because the work of the select committee was really, really important. Again, I want to highlight that. That is the beauty of select committees. Governments propose pieces of legislation, but it’s the select committee process that actually makes that legislation the best legislation that it can be, on behalf the public.

I just wanted to highlight one other issue, and it was information matching and the whole issue about the $1,000 threshold. This is about students or other people who owe money over $1,000. There seems to have been quite a bit of discussion about Orders in Council and Order in Council amendments. For those who don’t know, an Order in Council is a legislative instrument made by the Executive Council, but it’s actually presided over by the Governor-General. All Ministers of the Crown are members of that Executive Council. So what this particular clause does—this is clause 288(6)—is they said they didn’t actually want Orders in Council for this particular issue. They didn’t want to vary it from $1,000 to whatever it might be, and they set an upper limit of $5,000. I found it quite curious that the select committee itself decided that; rather than arbitrate or, I guess, futureproof this particular clause in this bill, rather than say they are made by Order in Council, they’ve actually selected another threshold for the amount that then kind of instigates a whole lot of other agencies who are looking at a people who have come—students who are returning, for example—and all the implications from that.

So I do commend the bill to the House. I think it’s a great piece of legislation, and this Parliament should be proud of it. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of the Customs and Excise Bill. This is, indeed, my first opportunity to speak after my maiden speech, so it is fantastic to have the opportunity to be here and to be speaking on what was a piece of legislation that came through under the former National Government. Of course, when I came in, I was anticipating coming into Government, so it was a little disappointing to be on this side of the House—of course, a sentiment shared by the vast majority of New Zealanders, but, as we know, it wasn’t to be. The former member for Northland made the decision, and we are where we are.

Having said that, I do commend the Minister of Customs for bringing this bill before the House. I think it is fantastic to now be progressing another piece of former National Government legislation. Although we are in Opposition, it doesn’t feel like that, because there’s so much of our legislation that’s being progressed now. It’s fantastic. We’re still making progress. The strength of this former Government continues to flow through. So it is indeed fantastic to have the opportunity to support this.

This bill is updating some of those areas that are important. We’ve seen a lot of progress—free-trade agreements, for example, progressed by the former Government, of course. Many of those are in place now, providing huge opportunities to rural heartlands like the Waikato, where I come from. There is so much benefit to our constituents as a result of those free-trade agreements, but it is important to make some amendments, via the Customs and Excise Bill, to capture some of those changes, and, of course, some of the additional advances we’ve seen in information and technology, in the digital space in particular—previously you might have been able to withhold information such as a picture of yourself smiling next to a war criminal, whereas now those changes in technology will enable some of that information to be captured appropriately.

So, look, I don’t want to cover any more of the points that have already been touched on, but I think it’s important to commend this bill to the House. I’d just really take this opportunity, as well, to encourage the Government to be brave—take an opportunity to push forward some of your own legislation. We appreciate progressing ours, of course, but, by all means, we encourage you to put forward your own plan for the future. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): It is a privilege to speak on the Customs and Excise Bill, a bill that enables the New Zealand Customs Service to respond to the ever-changing border and environment that we now operate in. I’d have to say that one of the interesting things for me is I actually worked on this bill as an official within the New Zealand Police, and got to see the close coordination happening between a range of Government agencies.

A large part of this piece of legislation is about information sharing, and we’ve heard a lot of that already this evening. A big part, in terms of information sharing, is always striking a balance between increasing the ability of having a joined-up Government, of not wasting time of Government agencies putting paper back and forwards, and of quickly being able to share information that’s appropriate and efficient and works well in Government. We also need to be balancing that with the privacy and the rights of individuals, and we’ve heard already how the role of the select committee in the development of this legislation has provided a valuable insight into making sure that balance is appropriate.

So what does this bill do, in terms of information sharing? It continues to provide in areas such as the Inland Revenue Department, as they have always had access to making sure that there’s an information-matching agreement or direct access agreement for the purposes of student loans and for child support. Secondly, the Ministry of Social Development has the ability for information sharing, for matching information in terms of benefit entitlement or eligibility and recovery of benefit debt in giving mutual assistance. Thirdly, the Ministry of Justice is under an information-matching agreement for the purposes of fines enforcement.

Now, these areas of information sharing have been extended by this piece of legislation to take it further. So now the Ministry of Social Development can facilitate having greater access to customs information for the purposes of verifying benefit entitlement or eligibility and benefit debt recovery. Secondly, it can enter into an agreement with a Government agency to facilitate that agency having direct access to customs information for the purposes of sharing agencies to perform its functions, particularly the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution, or punishment of offences. This is where I worked on it, in terms of New Zealand Police.

The other big area that’s an interesting development in this space is enabling agencies to enter into agreements for ongoing information-sharing. This is a new thing, so there’ll be an ongoing ability for information to go from agency to agency. This is the area we have just heard about from Louisa Wall that has had big improvements in terms of having that oversight.

While Government departments are always eager to share information to make their life easier—to make their information flows go better—they’re not always considering the impacts of the everyday person in their life, and this is the valuable role that the select committee process provides in the development of legislation. The select committee has asked for a bigger balance in that space by having those changes publicly notified on the customs website, so if there are changes to how those information exchanges are being done, then the public have the ability to see those.

From having seen the inside of how this bill was developed, I would like to acknowledge the role of the New Zealand Customs Service for conducting a significant consultation process to engage in a number of agencies and to make sure that a balance was struck with agencies that have different focuses, different priorities, different work programmes, and different ways of getting their work done. To get consensus across a range of different agencies and develop a bill that fits all of those needs is a commendable piece of work, and I wish to acknowledge those officials that put in many weeks and months of work to make this happen. Secondly, I’d like to also acknowledge the Ministers who have worked on this bill in the past, the Hon Maurice Williamson and also Nicky Wagner, and also the important work that our current Minister of Customs, Meka Whaitiri, continues to do in this space.

There are clear benefits of working more closely together. There are clear benefits of protecting our border, particularly where I’ve seen, in the role of law enforcement. Methamphetamine is a big problem for New Zealand. Our biggest seizures come from far more cooperation between police and customs, and the vast proportion of methamphetamine comes from those interceptions. I note that this piece of legislation expands the ability for controlled deliveries to be conducted by the New Zealand Customs Service—an area in which we need to continue to be watchful, that is a growing problem for New Zealand.

To be able to expand the ability of controlled deliveries is an important area when we’re looking at the ability for Government agencies to work collectively to make sure that we are doing the best job possible to keep New Zealand safe. And, again, this goes back to the very purpose of the bill: to make sure that the New Zealand Customs Service is fully equipped to be dealing with a changed environment, a far more fluid and interactive world where we need to be making sure we have all of our information up and lined up to be able to be giving the best response to the challenges that continually face our borders.

I would like to conclude by, again, acknowledging the great work done by the select committee process. The two sides of good work done by Government officials and an excellent watchful eye through a submissions process conducted by the select committee have resulted in an excellent piece of legislation coming forward to benefit all New Zealanders. I would like to thank all those involved, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Legislation Bill

First Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education) on behalf of the Attorney-General: I move, That the Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

The Legislation Bill was introduced with cross-party support under the previous Government, and I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Christopher Finlayson, who put an enormous amount of work into bringing this legislation to the House. I’m very pleased to say I think this Government will make much more progress on taking it through the House than the previous Government did. If the current Opposition continue their streak as the largest and laziest Opposition in New Zealand’s history, we’ll be able to make a lot more progress on the legislation that they failed—that they failed—to progress through the House in their term in Government.

Much of the legislation, of course, on the Order Paper is passed with consensus—about 70 or 80 percent pass with consensus in this House—and given the somewhat lacklustre performance of the Opposition, I think we’ll be able to do it a lot faster than the previous Government did, as well. This bill will, I’m sure, be yet another one of those.

The bill has elements that are innovative and ambitious, and others that provide more technical improvements to Parliament’s lawmaking. We are progressing the Legislation Bill because the coalition Government has committed to open and transparent government, and the significant part of this bill is about enabling easier access to the law. Unlike the other side, who talk about open access to Government and to the law, we are actually going to deliver it, and the passage of this legislation is another example of that.

I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Christopher Finlayson, who put an enormous amount of work into drafting this legislation and bringing it before the House. He didn’t get the opportunity to hear me say that earlier on, but I do want to commend him for his efforts. I know how much he enjoys it when I do that.

New Zealanders deserve to have confidence that they can meet their obligations under the law, and this bill will make significant advances in that regard. In order to do that, the law must be accessible to the public so that they can find and understand the provisions that affect them. The bill’s main reform is to deliver better access to New Zealand by requiring that secondary legislation is clearly identifiable and available to the public online.

As a nation, we take pride in our international reputation for being law-abiding and free from corruption. As a member of the international Open Government Partnership, New Zealand has signed up to fostering good governance by increasing the availability of Government information and using technology to improve openness and transparency. As the Minister for open government, the Hon Clare Curran, said recently, this Government is determined to pay more than lip service to action plan commitments that we’ve signed up to.

One of those commitments is to make secondary legislation more accessible. This type of law is made by Ministers, officials, and a wide variety of Government and non-Government agencies under powers delegated to them by Acts of Parliament. Secondary legislation tends to be either technical, such as food standards, transport rules, and health and safety regulations, or the kind that is more appropriately made at arm’s length from the political process, such as broadcasting standards. This type of law affects the day-to-day activities of many New Zealanders. The problem is that there is currently no central register of delegated legislation, so there’s no way to know definitively what secondary legislation has been made and what is in force. Since there are a variety of ways it can be notified, published, or presented to the House, it is not always easy to find.

Two inquiries in 2014 highlighted these problems. Firstly, the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into regulatory institutions and practices observed that the volume and complexity of the regulatory stock in New Zealand poses challenges to people wanting to understand their regulatory obligations and for the centre of Government—Ministers and central agencies—to manage the system. Tools are needed to help people navigate the stock and for the centre to effectively govern the system. The absence of a central electronic repository constrains the ability of firms and individuals to understand their regulatory rights and obligations.

Secondly, the Government inquiry into the whey protein concentrate incident, or the botulism scare, found that the secondary layer of dairy industry regulation runs to about 12,000 pages, taking up more than 3 metres of shelf space. Submitters to the inquiry said the regulations were difficult to navigate, inaccessible, and a bit of a nightmare. The inquiry noted that the burden of this legislation is particularly felt by small and medium sized businesses. Crucially, the chair to the inquiry, Miriam Dean QC, stated the inquiry was unable to find all of the secondary legislation that applied to the dairy sector, and, indeed, there would be no way of establishing if in fact they had found it all. By remedying this confusion, Part 3 of the bill will enable businesses to find the law that applies to their sector and be sure it is complete, thereby reducing the cost of regulatory compliance in doing business in New Zealand.

Another benefit of the bill will be improving the oversight and scrutiny of regulatory regimes. The Regulations Review Committee has over several years recorded its frustration that its oversight role has been impaired because some of the legislation that it should oversee has not been presented to it. Surprising though it may be, the limits of New Zealand’s stock of secondary legislation has never been clearly and unambiguously defined. The current conceptual structure of legislative instruments and disallowable instruments is not only unnecessarily complex but also open to differing views and confusion about where the boundary lies between secondary legislation and purely administrative instruments.

To achieve this bill’s aims, we must first define the boundaries of secondary legislation and then identify, for the first time, all of New Zealand’s collection of secondary legislation. While this bill has a key role in this process, more work is required, and a substantial research project has already been carried out over the past six months to begin to identify the collection. This has involved analysing all Acts currently in force and identifying all of the thousands of provisions that may empower secondary legislation.

Once this process is completed, another bill will follow to amend the identified provisions to state that they empower the making of secondary legislation, ensuring that there will be no more confusion in the future. This outcome will support chief executives’ duty under section 32 of the State Sector Act to be stewards of the legislation their agency administers. It will enhance the regulatory design and lead to better legislative schemes, and it will ensure that Parliament can comprehensively supervise, on behalf of New Zealanders, the lawmaking powers that we have delegated to others. The ultimate goal is that the public can confidently access the entire collection of New Zealand’s secondary legislation from an authoritative source. We look forward to the public submissions to the select committee on how best to deliver these benefits as quickly and as efficiently as possible, bearing in mind the huge scale of this undertaking.

The Legislation Bill has three other main elements; though less innovative and ambitious than the parts that I’ve just spoken of, these nevertheless remain important for the good lawmaking in this House. First, it absorbs the Interpretation Act of 1999, with some technical enhancements; second, it enacts legislative disclosure requirements to make key information about the development and content of new legislation available to support legislative scrutiny; and, third, it re-enacts, with minor changes, the current Legislation Act.

Part 2 of the bill carries forward the general rules and principles in the Interpretation Act 1999. These rules and principles help to communicate the law clearly to people so they can easily use and understand the law. Standard interpretation provisions allow legislation to be simpler, shorter, and more consistent. The interpretation rules and principles need to be kept up to date to remain effective. The bill also makes some technical changes to address development since 1999.

The legislative disclosure requirements in Part 4 of the bill will enhance the quality of legislation and also contribute to delivering on this Government’s commitment to open government through supporting more informed parliamentary and public scrutiny of legislation. The disclosure statement brings together key information, including the policy background of the legislation; the testing the legislation has undergone; any departures from specified legislative guidelines or standards endorsed or adopted by the Government, such as inconsistencies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act; and any other significant or unusual features, such as provisions that retrospectively alter rights, freedoms, or obligations, or that could result in the compulsory acquisition of property.

As I draw to a close, the Legislation Bill, finally, in rewriting the Legislation Act, clarifies, updates, and recasts some of its provision. In conclusion, this bill will substantially improve access to the law for all New Zealanders and improve lawmaking by this House. I look forward to the Justice Committee’s consideration of the bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): What a dreary presentation by the Leader of the House of such an exciting and riveting topic. He talks about the 100-day programme of this Government when we all know that the Legislation Bill is as a result of my ideas and my work and my inspiration.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Oh, so modest!

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: That is the truth, I say to Mr Hipkins, and his comments have as much credibility as the comments by the North Korean leader about the desirability of world peace.

This is an extremely exciting and riveting topic and one that deserves a lot of attention from the likes of Mr Twyford, because it’s the transport ministry that will gain most from the kinds of changes that we’re talking about here. So listen very carefully while I take the House through it, in a far more exciting and compelling way than the Leader of the House.

There are a number of major changes to this legislation, which improve the quality of what was the Legislation Act of 2012. The first point, which the Leader of the House adverted to reasonably briefly, is to bring into the Legislation Act all provisions relating to interpretation of statutes. The Interpretation Act 1999 hasn’t been looked at for quite a number of years, and it was always intended, when the 2012 legislation was passed, that in the fullness of time the interpretation provisions would be brought in, and that’s happening now.

The second point is the one that he did spend a little bit of time on, and that is access to secondary legislation. I was, frankly, shocked when Miriam Dean reported on the whey protein scandal that she had had a great deal of difficulty gaining access to the relevant documents because they were unable to be found. That’s totally unacceptable. A similar incident occurred in England some years ago where a person was convicted of an offence against a certain regulation. The case went on appeal to the Court of Appeal, and just before the Court of Appeal judgment was to be released, it was found out that the regulation that had been the subject of the prosecution had in fact been repealed and replaced by another regulation. Both the judges in the various courts, defence counsel, prosecution counsel—no one knew about the existence of the new regulation. That kind of situation is wholly unsatisfactory. So the changes, in terms of bringing access to secondary legislation, are of vital importance to the rule of law that we all subscribe to.

The third point is the question of improving the quality of disclosure, so that when legislation is introduced, the various elements of it are properly the subject of inquiry and the quality of regulatory statements is greatly improved. Then, fourthly, there are some minor changes to the legislation. But what we have here is very high-quality legislation dealing with lawmaking in this country, and it’s something that will be of great benefit to whatever Government is in power.

The final point I would make is that in the 2012 legislation, and it’s carried over here, there is an ability to revise bills. The Attorney-General is required at the beginning of each Parliament to announce what bills are going to be revised. Three years ago I did that in relation to a number of statutes dealing with contract and commercial law. As a result of that work and the work of people like John Priestley, a retired High Court judge who was responsible for certifying that the bill could proceed, Parliament passed, in a truncated procedure, what is now known as the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, which has been widely acclaimed and, indeed, the Parliamentary Counsel Office has received an award for it.

The National Party, when in Government, had a very important programme of a continual revision of statutes. Just last week, the Minister of Internal Affairs was referring to the complete rewrite of the legislation relating to births, deaths, and marriages. Later on this evening, we will be looking at a complete rewrite of the trusts legislation—again, as a result of the work that my party did when it was in Government. On the Order Paper there are a number of other bills that deal with this issue: the social security rewrite, which is hugely significant. The Social Security Act 1964 has been the subject of numerous amendments over the years, and I certainly hope the Government will move on that legislation, because it’s incredibly important to have up-to-date legislation in that area. The Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill should have been dealt with in the previous Parliament but there was some petty and ignorant opposition to it by the Labour Party.

The other piece of legislation that has been the subject of a rewrite is Te Ture Whenua legislation, which again has been mindlessly opposed by certain people. Legislation affecting Māori land law has been amended on average once every year for the last 100 years. This is a complete rewrite. We’ve heard some, frankly, stupid arguments that the 1993 legislation is a taonga. How could legislation on its own be a taonga that one could never interfere with? It’s an absurd proposition, but that’s the level of the quality of argument that there has been against that legislation.

So it’s incredibly important that there be systematic revision of legislation. That is certainly what the National Government proceeded to do during its nine years in Government, and I certainly hope that this Government will do so in the 18 months that it’s going to be in power. So I commend the bill to the House.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Just before the Hon Christopher Finlayson leaves this House—he’s gone, but I just want to make some quick notes on his comments in respect of Te Ture Whenua and the way that this legislation, the Legislation Bill, interacts with such important pieces of legislation like Te Ture Whenua.

The Act, in and of itself, is not a taonga but the substance of what it goes to, the protectionary mechanisms, certainly is. Now, the honourable member who has just left the House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! You can’t mention members not being here.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Oh, I’m not allowed to mention that. Sorry about that—sorry. Apologies, I’ve still got my green shoes on, so I’m learning the rules of the House as I go. So thank you for indulging me, sir, and to the honourable member, my sincere apologies.

This Legislation Bill is a fantastic piece of work, and I want to turn to it in a couple of seconds and really commend the Hon Christopher Finlayson for his work in getting it to this House. But, actually, I applaud the work of the current Attorney-General, David Parker, and the Hon Christopher Hipkins, the Leader of the House, for expediting this piece of legislation, because it brings—

Andrew Bayly: They expedited it.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: —there we go—to the forefront what I think many of us came into this House to do, which is to ensure that the legislation—in fact, the laws that govern our country—is, in fact, accessible and accessible to all. I think there were 1,800 clauses that the Parliamentary Counsel Office found that had in some way, shape, or form a secondary legislative effect, in that they simply are not accessible.

I turn to the comments of the Law Commission paper that they presented in respect of the presentation of statute law. They said, “There are three aspects of accessibility. First [that] the law should be publicly available. Secondly it should be navigable. We mean by this that we should know how and where to find the parts of it that we want. Thirdly [that] the law should be clear; it should be as easy to understand as possible given its content. Some parts of our law will inevitably be complex because they have to regulate complicated matters, but the law should not be made harder to understand than it needs to be because of the way it is written or presented. It is important to understand that [the] law is not just for lawyers. Many people who are not legally trained use the law in their jobs (employees of government departments …). Members of Parliament who pass our laws need to be able to understand them. People who wish to make submissions on bills going through Parliament should also be able to understand the bills.”

Having reviewed this legislation in some detail, it’s very pleasing to see—I think you start to see a real shift, actually, in modernising the way in which law was accessible by the ordinary layperson. Really, there was a substantive push towards accessibility of the legal system in the early 2000s, and I want to commend the Law Society, the Law Commission, and others that contributed to that piece of work.

I see that this bill here is merely an extension of what many of us would just call a sensible amendment to our laws. In effect, this bill centralises and makes accessible our secondary legislation that ordinarily is not—well, actually, it is not accessible for many people. I just want to draw on the comments made by Miriam Dean QC, who did head that inquiry into the whey protein concentrate, aka the botulism scare report. Her comments were that she was not certain whether or not the dairy industry could in fact draw on all of the regulatory mechanisms that they were required to consider.

I want to echo the comments of the former Attorney-General, the Hon Christopher Finlayson. It’s actually egregious. The fact that a person of the most highest stature in our country could not be certain, in her report, as to whether or not a whole, entire industry that is so pivotal to New Zealand’s economy could in fact access or understand, let alone navigate, the regulations that it was required to is absolutely shambolic. So I applaud the work of those members that have come long before me that have seen it as common sense to bring some shape, and emphasis and focus on accessibility, as this piece of legislation seeks to do.

That was one substantive inquiry—the botulism scare. I think that they produced in excess of 12,000 pages and talked about the difficulty to navigate our current legal system, with the emphasis on—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Madam Deputy Speaker, as this is the first time I have appeared before you in your role as Deputy Speaker, I would like to commend you and say it is a mighty fine day for the East Coast, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Prior to the break, I was outlining some of the issues involved with the complexity of locating secondary legislation. Over the break, it became apparent to me that there wasn’t necessarily a clear distinction, not necessarily by members of this House but by many people out there in the general audience that have a clear understanding of the differences between primary legislation and secondary legislation, which this Legislation Bill, by and large, goes to the heart of making more accessible.

So primary legislation is legislation that is passed in this House under the scrutiny of three readings of a bill. Sometimes, they’re referenced off to a select committee, and, of course, there is the assenting by the Governor-General under the authority of the Queen. It is not necessarily an absolute, but there is not the rigorous scrutiny that, of course, secondary legislation is required to go through. Now, secondary legislation is legislation that is enacted by dint of delegated authority to a Minister or some ministry officials, and so on and so forth.

Over the break, I was thinking about why this Legislation Bill probably comes so close to my heart, and why I’m so pleased to see it go through under this Labour-led Government is because it is about enhancing access to law and good law. Really, it goes to the heart of the rule of law.

Now, reflecting back to my second-year classes, sitting in a public law class, being made to recite Dicey’s articulation of the rule of law, it prompted me to go back and have a quick recheck as to how the rule of law is defined. So the Oxford Dictionary says that the rule of law is “The authority and influence of law in society, especially when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour hence the principle whereby all members of … society including those in government are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes.” This Legislation Bill does exactly that.

Now, if I enter in “primary legislation” into the old Google search, up springs a myriad of direct sources, but they take me directly to legislation.govt.nz, and I can track the history of that Act and the various bills before this Parliament for debate and consideration. But when it comes to regulations and secondary legislation, I have no such luck.

I recall my time working recently as a lawyer for a client where they were required to navigate secondary legislation made by a Minister under delegated authority that had to comply with international free-trade agreements. I remember being huddled in a room with a couple of Harvard-educated lawyers, a few senior counsel, and a good handful of junior lawyers as we all cobbled around in a wee room trying to understand the intricate overlay between these secondary pieces of legislation as they related to the Treaty, and, of course, our domestic law.

This Legislation Bill, in my view, goes directly to what I would like this House to be passing, which is good, decent, accessible law that enables accountability, so that, for us as lawmakers but particularly those in the executive that are passing laws in this House, ordinary citizens can hold those decision makers to account. And adherence—so ignorance is no defence of the law; we know that, but in order to understand what we are compelled or obliged to do, we have to understand what that law is.

So I am absolutely pleased to commend this Legislation Bill to the House as it accords with the rule of law.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I start by acknowledging the fact that it is International Volunteer Day today, and thank and acknowledge all the 1.2 million New Zealanders out there who do volunteer for a number of community organisations and, of course, particularly those in the beautiful Rangitata electorate.

It’s a pleasure to be taking a short call tonight on another fantastic piece of legislation from the previous National Government. I’d like to take this opportunity to commend the Labour Party for their commitment to progressing National’s programme with such vigour in their first 100 days in office—in particular, the Legislation Bill before us this evening. It must be said that the new coalition Government are nearly as good at progressing our legislation as we were.

The Legislation Bill will substantially improve public access to the law. The bill will make it easier to find and access secondary legislation by requiring that it be published on the New Zealand Legislation website. More than 100 Government agencies are empowered to make secondary legislation on a range of matters. It is appropriate, as technology improves, that Government and this Parliament seek to make legislation and regulations more accessible to the public and, ultimately, those who have to follow the law.

It was a pleasure to hear, this evening, my colleague the very learned former Attorney-General, Christopher Finlayson—

Hon Member: QC.

ANDREW FALLOON: —QC, indeed—speaking on this bill. In fact, I refer back to some comments that he made previously—

Hon Christopher Finlayson: Better than being a bookie.

ANDREW FALLOON: —indeed—that this bill will “provide greater certainty for the public about their rights and obligations, reduce compliance costs and enhance Parliamentary scrutiny for secondary legislation.”

This is a good bill. I commend it to the House. I once again congratulate the Government on progressing this and other quality National Party bills and can tell them that we’re very happy to offer up more if they run out.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Over the last two or three weeks, I’ve had quite a rude awakening about the realities of being a backbench Government MP and the expectations of one’s position as a backbench Government MP. I made it quite clear to all of my colleagues last term, throughout the three years, that in no way would I stoop to the level of asking patsy questions in this House, and yet it seems I am the only one from our party that is asking patsy questions. Not only that, but I’ve had the pleasure, for want of a better term, of speaking on a few bills thus far in the last couple of weeks. One was the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), the other was Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill, and now we’re talking about the Legislation Bill. It’s been quite a treat, actually!

The previous Labour member that spoke, Kiri Allan, actually got to the level of quoting the Oxford Dictionary in regards to this legislation. Now we’ve got the National Party, who are standing up and actually talking about themselves rather than about the bill, and that means that we’ve stooped to the lowest level of creativity and entertainment in the face of what is, obviously, some quite dry legislation. However, it’s often the dry legislation that is the most important, because it deals with things that people don’t really realise or understand, or things that go around in the background that actually do affect everyday people throughout their lives, and this bill is actually one like that.

One of the good things about speaking on bills that you don’t know anything about is that you end up learning quite a lot about something that’s important. One of these things—and it has to be acknowledged that the Hon Chris Hipkins actually noted it as well—is that this is actually a bill that was put through last term, through the National Government, by the Hon Chris Finlayson. It has cross-party support, and it always did, even though the legislation isn’t the most simple or easiest to understand. That’s why it’s quite important to understand that it is important, because it deals with one of the most important aspects of running any Government in a modern and robust democracy, and that’s open and transparent Government. The key to that—and the key to this legislation and what it tries to instil—is enabling easy access to the law. That might seem like a simple intent, and I guess it is, when you look at it in the explanatory note, but the way in which this bill—and the size of the issue and the problem, the breadth of the issue and the problem that is trying to be addressed, is quite large and quite huge, so it’s quite a good thing that the coalition Labour - New Zealand First Government is getting through it before Christmas.

The most important thing that this bill actually addresses and enables is the fact that it actually affects ordinary Kiwis, especially small businesses. It gives them access not only to the knowledge of the law and the obligations they are required to meet but, most importantly, I believe, to the rights they have as well.

The biggest problem that this legislation is trying to address is that, when it boils down to it, there is no central register of delegated legislation. What this bill will do is allow access to that secondary legislation that has been made. First of all, it will identify what it actually is—because, at the moment, there is no way of identifying that clearly; it’s quite ambiguous—and, most importantly, what parts of those legislation are in force. Again, it comes down to obligation and rights.

In fact, two inquiries—and I know it’s already been mentioned previously by Minister Hipkins—have identified this as being a huge issue: one by the Productivity Commission, the second a Government inquiry into the whey protein botulism scare. It was actually quite amazing to understand, or to comprehend or to find out, that in the dairy industry—just the dairy industry itself—the regulations are touching on 12,000 pages. I think the scariest point that was made by the chair of that inquiry was that they weren’t even sure whether they had found it all—they didn’t know. So if some organisation can’t get, or doesn’t understand whether they get all of and identify all of, the secondary legislation, then how can we expect ordinary Kiwis to?

If we break down the legislation into what the benefits are that the bill will bring, there are a number of things. It will enhance the ability of individuals and businesses to find a law that applies to them, which sounds like it’s pretty simple and should have been happening in the first place, but it hasn’t been up to this point in regards to this part of the legislation. It’ll enhance regulatory design and lead to better legislative schemes. It will result in more efficient oversight of the regulatory regimes, and it will assist New Zealand to meet any transparency requirements, which is important for the international trade and investment agreements made.

The way it will achieve this will be to sweep away the existing confusing definitions of legislative instruments, require all secondary legislation to be presented to the House, provide for narrow expectations for the duty to present legislation to the House, require the agency that makes new secondary legislation to notify it to the Parliamentary Counsel Office, provide transitional arrangements for existing secondary legislation to be captured and republished, and also not apply to secondary legislation made by local authorities.

One of the most important benefits of this legislation is the fact that it improves the oversight and the scrutiny of the regulatory regimes. It’s been noted that the Regulations Review Committee have voiced their frustrations over a number of years in regards to this, and this bill goes a long way to addressing those concerns.

In essence and in conclusion and in summary, the bill will define what will be classified as secondary legislation, which is very important. It will implement a system to streamline the process for the notification, publication, and presentation of the secondary legislation. This will, in turn, improve the accessibility of the law and improve institutional understanding of regulatory rights and obligations, and the improvement of these areas will have a flow-on effect of greater compliance and more business efficiency. For those reasons, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a very important piece of legislation, and, actually, you would be forgiven for thinking, from Mr Ball’s speech, that this was some dry-as-dishwater bill that, basically, did nothing. But, actually, this piece of legislation, when it becomes an Act, will become part of the New Zealand constitution, and it is absolutely of critical importance to the rule of law that people out there listening and watching the debate know where to find the law of New Zealand. It is absolutely critical.

Up until now, when it comes to what are known in the vernacular as DINLIs—disallowable instruments that are not legislative instruments; this strange type of legislative instrument that actually affects people’s rights and obligations—people out there listening and watching tonight will not have been able to find, in a consistent way, things that affect their day-to-day lives. There are hundreds of organisations out there empowered by statute and empowered by regulation to make rules and make regulations and make proscriptions for people that affect how they live their lives.

There are all sorts of bodies out there, and one just has to go and read the very good reports of the Regulations Review Committee to find out about all of these various bodies. They’re small bodies that have the power to—and do—enact what are, essentially, legislative instruments that affect people’s rights and obligations.

I had the privilege of serving on the Regulations Review Committee in the last Parliament, and I am very pleased to see this bill come to fruition, because the Attorney-General, the Hon Christopher Finlayson—

Hon Christopher Finlayson: Former.

CHRIS BISHOP: Former Attorney-General, I should say. Sorry, sir.

Hon Christopher Finlayson: I know my place.

CHRIS BISHOP: He’s saying he knows his place. He’ll be back—he’ll be back. The former Attorney-General, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, recognised the power of the Regulations Review Committee. It’s fair to say that not all Attorneys-General have done that in the past, but this former Attorney-General responded very positively, and, indeed, possibly you could even say proactively, to the report of the Regulations Review Committee. That committee was chaired—very well, I should say—by the Hon David Cunliffe, and I served on that committee with the Hon David Parker. So it was a very high-powered committee. We issued a very good report that called for precisely what is being enacted in Part 5 of this very good bill.

The other point I want to make, just in the closing of my remarks, is to say that the Government should listen and reflect on what is in this bill, because what this bill does is put requirements on departments and on Government agencies to disclose information about particular bills when they introduce them: useful background material and policy information, quality assurance assessments and processes, and any departures from specified legislative guidelines—that’s in Part 4 of the bill.

We already have noticed from this Government that for the bills they are about to ram through under urgency before Christmas, they have been told to ignore those requirements. They have told their Government departments, “Dispense with the regulatory impact statements; dispense with the quality assurance requirements. This is part of our 100-day plan; therefore we can just ram things through.” That’s outrageous.

This bill will stop Governments doing that in the future, and it’s a good bill. I commend it to the House.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): I would, like the honourable Minister, like to start with congratulating the Hon Mr Chris Finlayson QC for his foresight and commitment to upholding the rule of law via this draft legislation. It’s a testament to this coalition Government’s commitment to those same principles that we are now passing that into law.

The Green Party supports the Legislation Bill because we are committed to any measures that better strengthen and promote open good governance. Transparency of, and accessibility to, the law are essential to good governance. Despite this, secondary legislation has, essentially, been opaque and inaccessible for some time, which is, arguably, a breach of the rule of law in New Zealand. Individuals and businesses and entire sectors have, for a long time, been governed by thousands of pages’ worth of regulations that are not knowable to them, even in their existence. This has at times amounted to a breach of the rule of law.

The rule of law, as we all know, requires that the law is clear and accessible and knowable to those whom it binds and those whom it affects—individuals, businesses, the New Zealand public. The absence of a public register of secondary legislation has, arguably, been a longstanding breach of those requirements.

Regulatory regimes need to be knowable by the businesses that they bind, so that those businesses can fairly be bound and held accountable for breaches. The introduction of the proposed register in the Legislation Bill will finally define the boundaries of secondary legislation and identify all that exists in New Zealand’s collection through an authoritative source.

A readily searchable online register of secondary legislation will finally go a long way to bringing New Zealand in line with 21st century standards for compliance with the rule of law, but the bill also introduces legislative disclosure requirements, so that the very process by which secondary legislation is developed is also knowable and transparent to the public and businesses affected by it. As we know, the rule of law also requires democracy, and transparency of those processes is essential to that. This will, of course, in turn improve oversight of those processes and scrutiny of regulatory regimes.

Given that over a hundred agencies are empowered to make secondary legislation on a wide range of matters from consumer rights and food standards to business reporting, there is a need for greater transparency in the way that those processes come about and those standards are set. The incorporation of the Interpretation Act into this bill is also important. This will make easy access to interpretation of all our legislation under one law—which we also welcome—further contributing to transparency and accessibility of the law and enhancing and strengthening the rule of law in New Zealand, which is to be celebrated. I thereby commend this bill to the House.

MATT KING (National—Northland): It is a pleasure to take this call today. This bill rewrites and updates the Legislation Act 2012, placing provisions about legislation into one statute. It encompasses—and get a load of this—the Acts and Regulations Publications Act 1989, the Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989, and the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920, and now includes the Interpretation Act 1999. The significant detail I’d like to highlight is that this bill is ours from the last term, by our former Attorney-General Chris Finlayson. So it’s a National Party bill, and of course we support it. It’s purely structural and procedural matters, and it certainly isn’t urgent.

The Labour Party told everyone they had a 100-day plan to right the wrongs of this evil former National Government, and then they gave us this—and then they gave us this. They told us that National had left the place in a mess. They promised to plant a billion trees, build a hundred thousand houses, end child poverty, and have zero suicides. I’m waiting for them to announce that they’re going to cure cancer and solve world peace.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m waiting for you to address the bill.

MATT KING: They’re certainly not going to do all that by bringing legislation like this to the House. I urge the coalition Government to organise themselves and get on with the job. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is split. Dr Liz Craig—five minutes.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): It’s an absolute privilege to be speaking in the first reading of the Legislation Bill. This bill rewrites the Legislation Act 2012 and also absorbs the Interpretation Act 1999. One of the main aims is to improve access to the law by ensuring that all of New Zealand’s secondary legislation is available in one place: the New Zealand Legislation website.

Secondary legislation is made by Ministers, officials, and Government and non-Government agencies under powers delegated by Acts of Parliament. That includes things like food standards, transport rules, and health and safety regulations, and apparently there are over a hundred agencies that are empowered to make secondary legislation, with some of them publishing it on their websites and others gazetting it. So it’s really, really hard to track down where all of this legislation is and what’s currently in force.

I think we’ve heard a lot about the Government Inquiry into the Whey Protein Concentrate Contamination Incident, which people have referred to already, and what that found was that a piece of contaminated pipe ended up contaminating huge volumes of whey protein concentrate. When the inquiry had a look into it, they found that there were just heaps and heaps of different Government regulations. They were spread across a whole lot of Acts and instruments—regulations—and it took up about 12,000 pages, which was like three metres of shelf space. So people were really struggling when they were submitting, talking about how they couldn’t access and navigate the legislation, and it was a “complete nightmare”—to quote somebody.

As we’ve already heard, the chair of the inquiry said they couldn’t find all of the secondary legislation that applied to the dairy sector and there was no way of figuring out if they’d found it all or not. Yet the problem is that in industry, in our various sectors, we’re actually required to comply with all of the regulations, and the problem is you can’t plead ignorance as an excuse for not complying. So this bill will make it much, much easier for people working in different industries to identify all of the relevant regulations that apply and that they have to comply with.

The other thing that this bill will do is it should produce significant productivity gains across different industries, and across New Zealand as a whole, because all of that awful task of tracking down all those various regulations will get done once and done well by the Parliamentary Counsel Office. What that means is that people working in different sectors and businesses don’t have to bother with assigning all of their staff to that particular task.

The other thing for us, as members of the Regulations Review Committee, is that it’s going to make it a lot easier for us to identify the whole breadth of all that secondary legislation that would benefit from us taking a look at it. That could be quite extensive, because the Parliamentary Counsel Office has identified that there are potentially over 5,000 provisions that empower people to make secondary legislation. For us, that would be a formidable task if we’ve got to track down all of that and then have a look at it to make sure that it’s up to scratch.

So we’ve got a real issue that needs to be sorted. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): I wish to congratulate you on your new role—my first time to be able to do so—Madam Deputy Speaker.

I’m privileged to take a call on this first reading of the aptly named Legislation Bill. I commend the first reading and its passage forward, and I’d like to highlight one main provision, as many other speakers have done so before me. It’s a practical provision, and it’s currently that there’s no single place where individuals and businesses can see all of New Zealand’s secondary legislation. It’s pretty remiss of us when more than 100 Government agencies can draft and make secondary legislation and it’s not generally published on the New Zealand Legislation website. On a very practical note, if you have access, then authorities have increased ability to enforce regulatory regimes.

These changes will create ease of publishing and presenting legislation. Publishing and presenting legislation—a lesson the Government could take on board, because they appear not to be publishing and presenting much of their own legislation at the moment.

I’m delighted to commend the bill at this stage. After all, its origins sit with us, and I symbolically turn to my right to congratulate the Hon Chris Finlayson. Thank you.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My fellow members of this House, I rise to speak on this bill, which is about the importance of housekeeping: of putting things in place, of tidying up, of creating new uses for old materials, and, where necessary, spending a little bit of time, effort, and money in making the place neat and tidy and clean again—or to make things run a bit more smoothly, to do better, to refresh and renew. This is the essence of housekeeping.

I guess we often doubt the value of housekeeping. It’s underpaid, undervalued, and typically done by women. It’s “women’s work”. I’m delighted to see so many people here gathered so enthusiastically in the task of housekeeping our legislation; I think it’s a task we should be taking very, very seriously indeed. You know, the need for ongoing housekeeping has long been recognised in thinking about Government. As far back as, say, Aristotle—Aristotle recognised and claimed that, over time, monarchy, if it was not tended, would turn into tyranny. Aristocracy, if it was not regularly cleaned, would turn into oligarchy, and democracy—our precious democracy—would turn into anarchy.

Aristotle’s solution, because he didn’t think of doing regular housekeeping, was the need for a great man to refresh, to revise, and to reform. Now, lest the former Attorney-General thinks that I am referring to him, I say that 2,000 years later we’ve moved on from the need of a great man to set things right and we’re a bit more optimistic about democracy, and we are, indeed, a bit more optimistic about the efficacy of housekeeping, of keeping our own house in order, but only if we continue to do that.

The particular dust ball that needed to be cleaned up this time—in fact, not so much a dust ball as a great horde of bric-a-brac and lumber stashed in the back shed where nothing could be found or ever seen—was access to secondary legislation. In terms of access to secondary legislation, we know the problems with it. We know that people couldn’t find it; we know that people didn’t understand it. We know that it was dusty old tomes locked in a box somewhere where no one could understand what it was about.

The particular one, I suppose, that is the most important one that has been discussed tonight, is the whey protein concentrate contamination incident. In the investigation it was found that the secondary legislation ran to more than 3 metres of desk space—3 metres. You know, that sounds like the US tax code, which runs to metres and metres and metres of desk space. But here, in New Zealand, we take great pride in our Tax Act, which is quite small. It occupies maybe 40 centimetres of desk space—or if it’s in a larger font, maybe a bit more, depending on who’s doing the reading.

I say that this bill does exactly what we’ve done with our tax code. We’ve refined it, we’ve made it easier, we’ve turned into simpler language, and we’ve made sure that it hasn’t expanded to fill ever more and more space. And this is exactly what we’re doing with our rules: the new legislation that is being introduced in this bill to control secondary legislation and act to it and the control of it.

So it’s a really important piece of legislation in that way, and it will improve access to secondary legislation, and that’s incredibly important. You know, our fellow citizens need to know and understand the rules that govern us. That is a fundamental part of the rule of law. You know, there’s some fairly standard accounts of the rule of law, some fairly general characteristics of the rule of law: that the law should be general, that it should apply to everyone, that it should be prospective not retrospective, that the law should not be changed too frequently, that there should be no contradictions in the law, that there should be a congruence between official action and the law, the laws must be known to those to whom they apply, that the laws should be clear, and that the laws should not be impossible.

I suggest that our secondary legislation did not comply with the rule of law and this is a problem that we must fix. We must fix this, not as a simple matter of keeping the place clean and tidy because we like it that way, but because it is a way that enables our fellow citizens and us to participate in our incredibly robust democracy. The rule of law is an important part of the way that we govern ourselves, and our secondary legislation was an effective barrier to doing that. Our secondary legislation was complex, it was hidden, and it was obscure. We are opening the curtains, we are bringing in the light, and we are making sure that it can be seen. That is why this legislation is important.

Kieran McAnulty: It’s vital.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Vital—thank you, Mr McAnulty. It’s not just secondary legislation that’s important in this particular bill. There are also changes being made to the Interpretation Act so that the interpretation of our law will belong in the Legislation Act, so that our fellow citizens can find it all in the one place; bringing some of it up to date so that we are using modern and contemporary language forms, and doing some stuff as simple as updating the definition of Te Ika-a-Māui and Te Wai Pounamu to make sure which offshore islands are included in which major island. You know, that’s a little bit like keeping all your cleaning materials in one place. When our fellow citizens need to know how to interpret the law there will be one place that they can go to, to find it exactly how the law should be interpreted, and that will be in the Legislation Act.

Another thing that this bill is going to address is disclosure statements, and that is all about making Government more accountable and more open. It ensures that all the background material on Acts is being made publicly available to our fellow citizens, and that any initial circumstances are being highlighted. It is a much more enduring commitment to a disclosure by us in this House. If I may, I would make this be like the woodwork being polished so that marks will be seen and can be scrutinised clearly and effectively.

All of these steps—a number of steps which are being taken—will enhance our democracy. They will all help our fellow citizens to understand the law. They will help our fellow citizens to access the law. They will help us in our own daily tasks to understand what we are doing in this House and to search out the law and to be able to apply it. So, for these reasons, I recommend this particular bill to the house. We are making our democracy truly clean and livable.

There is one final aspect of this legislation that I want to speak to, and it is to do with the wonderful website www.legislation.govt.nz.

Chris Bishop: Great website.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It’s a great website. As a former tax lecturer, I used this website extensively. I would pull it up on the screen for my students to follow; I would use it myself for my own research. But the most effective use of it, for me, was with my students and helping them to trace their way through the sometimes complex rules in the Tax Act—clicking through from one definition to another, from one clause to another, getting back to a schedule, and finding all the legislation that applied in a particular circumstance. It was an invaluable tool in that regard. I think that’s a marvellous website and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to find their way through the law.

But one brilliant aspect of this legislation is that much—and we hope in time, all—of our secondary legislation will be available through this excellent website, making it much more accessible to our fellow citizens, and much more accessible to us. I suggest that, as well as being an invaluable teaching aid for our lecturers and our universities and polytechnics and the like, it will also be invaluable to all of us who are trying to follow the law on a daily basis. Again, if we go back to that housekeeping analogy, this is not just merely cleaning out under the beds and behind the fridge; it’s actually building something new and fresh and creating a new way for us to understand and access the law, to understand its complexity, and to understand how it operates in our democracy.

So, if you have not done so already, I recommend that you access the website and have a play around; see what you can find of law. It will be invaluable to you and invaluable to us and especially invaluable to our democracy. So, we will not need a great man to reform our democracy; instead, all we need is the ongoing daily quotidian work of housekeeping, and it is for that reason that I recommend this bill to you.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the member is recommending the bill to the House, not to the Speaker. I think it’s a good bill.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill, the Legislation Bill—something of a tautology. I think that speaking on it is probably my punishment for referring last week to the fact that we live in a global world. At the risk of personalising my contribution unduly, I would note that I can think of perhaps four categories of New Zealanders who might benefit from this bill: first, law students; second, lawyers; third, parliamentarians and other lawmakers; and, fourth, all those affected by the laws of this land. I note that I have been at some point or another, or indeed currently, in all of those four categories, so it seems very important to me.

In mechanical terms, of course, the legislation repeals the Legislation Act 2012 and updates the Interpretation Act 1999 and, in addition to the learned contributions being made already on the legislation on both sides of the House, I would just add, with particular emphasis, some notes on the accessibility. It seems to me, and again, it has already been noted, that access to the law is a crucial aspect of the rule of law, so I’ll speak briefly on the subjects of cost, clarity, consistency, and the comprehensive nature of the legislation that will result from this legislation.

First, as to cost, obviously there are aspects of time and also money in terms of cost. The money aspect is neutral in that most rules are available online, and that will remain so, but the cost in terms of time to New Zealand’s private citizens, businesses, NGOs, and the like will be considerable—the saving of time that this bill will allow in the sense that it brings together in a single place many rules, regulations; indeed all manner of secondary legislation. It is very valuable in that sense, on the cost aspect.

As to clarity, the disclosure elements in Part 4, it seems to me, will add considerable clarity to the way that such secondary legislation is made. On the subject of consistency, I note that it will apply to all manner of secondary legislation and indeed the way that that is made. Fourth and finally, comprehensive in nature obviously means the fact that it’s all in one place, and others have already spoken on that, so I won’t labour that point further.

Given that there are, as has already been stated, over 100 different sources of secondary legislation, it’s helpful that we will have a one-stop shop, so to speak. I’m reminded of that phrase: sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know—or one doesn’t know what one doesn’t know, Madam Deputy Speaker. So it’s valuable in that sense too. So, for all those reasons, I commend the bill to this House.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As this is the first speech in this House, outside my maiden speech, I’d like to take the opportunity to congratulate you on your ascension to this role. You’re probably sick of hearing that now, but I assure you, ma’am, that I actually mean it.

The fact is that this is a tremendous bill. This is an exciting bill, for it is a role of this House to keep pace with the changes and ensure that the very important and central laws on the statute book continue to operate in a way that is relevant to today’s world.

Whilst the previous Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson, did make note of his own work, which is uncharacteristic, for which I am commending him for, this Government and our new Attorney-General of course will continue the important work of progressing our bills, which makes sense, while also progressing those that we have inherited from the previous Government. It is important to do so. We in this House must not be petty. We must not stand here and say, “You’ve taken our ideas. How dare you? You’ve taken our ideas”—

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I haven’t taken anybody’s ideas.

KIERAN McANULTY: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise. I have fallen at the first hurdle. I am ashamed for myself and my family. Please forgive me. The fact is that I have sat here all day and I have heard arguments from the other side of the House. They have missed an opportunity to explain the relevancy of this bill to the people that it will affect. They have missed an opportunity. Instead of standing here and discussing with the whole House the elements of this bill that are important and the effect that it will have on this country, they have stood up and said, “This was our bill. You’ve taken it. It’s not fair.”, and they’ve sat down again. It is, frankly, pathetic.

I have a list here, which I hope you will permit me to read: the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill, the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill, the Immigration Bill, the Unit Titles Bill, the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill, the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill, and the Land Transport Amendment Bill. This may not seem relevant just as a list of legislation, but let me assure the House that as the members opposite stand here and complain that this Government is taking on their bills, so to speak, I have just read a list of seven pieces of legislation that the National Government in 2008 took upon as their first items in the House. They stand here and they tell the people of New Zealand that this Government is doing something that they would never dream of doing, despite the fact that they’ve done it themselves.

For, you see, this is the normal procedure of the House. When there is a new Government, they take on those bills that make sense. They take on those bills that are important to this country and need to be done. If we were to listen to those on the opposite side of the House, this Government would not take on this bill, and in doing so we would delay something that needs to be done. For the fact is this bill is vitally important. It may not seem like much on face value, but, actually, it will mean a significant difference to the way that this country is run. It will enable easier access to legislation. As previous speakers have said, this will indeed be of interest to politicians and lawyers and students. But this actually touches at the heart of everyone in this country. For laws impact everyone’s lives.

You only need to look at the botulism scare a few years ago and the inquiry that came from that, to realise the impact that not being able to access secondary legislation can have on the way this country runs. It was a disgrace that that inquiry was hampered by the lack of access to legislation. This bill is going to change that. It is vitally important to the way that this country runs. So let’s give this bill and the people that it will impact the respect by actually giving this the discussion that it deserves. Let’s not dismiss this for petty political purposes and try and claim that this Government is not taking things seriously.

We have 100 days of activity, led by this Government. We have already seen legislation such as the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2), which will ensure that people who rent are guaranteed a warm and dry home. This is a significant piece of legislation, and I’m proud to be part of a Government that has introduced this already.

What about the paid parental leave bill? My colleague here, Willow-Jean Prime, has a young baby.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: [Gestures with hands] That means come back to the bill on the Table.

KIERAN McANULTY: Oh, does it? I apologise, yes, yes. Jeez, this is a great bill, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I’m just so excited about this coming through the House. As an MP based in Wairarapa, I know how important such legislation like this is to the primary industries of this country. I referred to the example of the botulism scare earlier, but it is not just that. You see, secondary legislation determines the way that our producers in our economy are able to run their business and employ and contribute to our economy. Why would we want to make it more difficult for them to be able to have an understanding of the regulations that determine the way they operate? Why would we want to restrict that? Therefore, I pose the question: why would we want to wait? If something makes sense, let’s do it. It doesn’t matter whose idea it is. This is going to be good for the country. Let’s get on with it. Let’s get behind it, and let’s support it. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Bills

Trusts Bill

First Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Trusts Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

In New Zealand, trusts play a very important role in the life of many families, and, indeed, in commercial life as well. Many Kiwis use trusts to manage their main asset, which is their home. Trusts give protection so that future generations—our children and grandchildren—can enjoy certain property or have financial support. They’re a significant part of the economic backbone of our commercial and social sectors too. They’re very important in terms of charitable projects and charitable purposes, and some even use them to avoid tax liabilities and responsibilities too—but I am not going to dwell upon that tonight, because this is a happy occasion, about a bill that is a happy bill, and has the happy support of most members of this House.

Trusts are a very important part of our legal infrastructure. It’s the belief of this Government that all New Zealanders should have access to a justice system that protects their rights, and in line with this and to achieve this, trust law ought to be simple for people to find and to understand. Families and businesses need to be able to manage their affairs with confidence. In reality, the essential principles of trust law are not presently located in one place. The current legislation, passed in 1956, is convoluted and out of date, and this bill addresses this problem.

I’d like to briefly mention the background to the bill. The Law Commission undertook a comprehensive review of general trust law from 2009 to 2013. This comprehensive review recommended a new Trusts Act to modernise and improve trust law in New Zealand. The Trusts Bill largely reflects the commission’s final recommendations, and I want to thank the commission for its thorough work. The bill has been informed by public consultation on an exposure draft version of the bill in late 2016, and I’d like to thank those who made submissions as these enabled the bill to be further refined and improved.

The consultation process highlighted the many good features of the bill, which will provide welcome changes for those involved in the administration of trusts. I believe that it is fundamental in a society governed by the rule of law that the justice system is accessible to all citizens, and a key part of that is ensuring—as indeed we debated in the last piece of legislation—that people can get access to information about the law so that they can understand their rights and obligations. It’s also vital to support people to resolve their disputes both inside and outside the court system. The Trusts Bill advances these important aims.

The Trustee Act of 1956 is outdated. Many of the provisions are difficult to understand. The Act needs to be read alongside a considerable body of case law. Trust law has evolved over centuries in the courts. This means that the core principles are often not easy for people who have no legal training to access. Many trustees don’t fully understand the nature of their trust arrangements or indeed their obligations. This bill will ensure that core trust law principles are clear and accessible to all. To achieve this, the bill brings common law principles into the legislation. The bill doesn’t seek to alter central principles of the common law where those principles are sound. Instead, including those principles in the legislation using clear and modern language supports the people that use trusts to be able to find and understand the law.

The bill continues to allow the courts to refer to the depth of the common law when interpreting and applying the bill. The new bill will, therefore, balance certainty with flexibility, so that it applies appropriately to the many different situations in which trusts are used. The bill includes foundational provisions that explain important aspects of trust law. It sets out what express trusts are, how they are created, and how long they last. A good example of how the bill makes the nature of trusts clearer is by setting out that a trust requires ownership of the property to be transferred to the trustee. Although this is currently required by common law, many trust users may be unfamiliar with this basic concept.

Being a trustee involves significant obligations. However, it’s apparent that trustees are often unaware of what is required of them in this role. The bill addresses this issue by providing a clear statement of trustee duties. It sets out five fundamental mandatory duties that apply to all trustees. These include knowing and acting in accordance with the terms of the trust, and acting honestly and in good faith. The bill also includes other widely recognised common law duties, which can be modified or excluded by the terms of the individual trust.

One area where the bill provides clearer rules for trustees when compared to the common law is in the provisions that deal with providing trust information to others. For trustees to be held to account for fulfilling their obligations, the beneficiaries need to have information about the trust. The bill clarifies when and what information a trustee is required to provide to beneficiaries. These provisions ensure that trustees can understand their obligations and beneficiaries have access to information about their rights—although I note in the current drafting of the bill that one of the pieces of information that a trustee is not required to give a beneficiary is the beneficiary’s entitlements under the trust, but that is a matter that the select committee can consider, and no doubt there will be submitters who will want to seek a clarification of that particular point.

Another benefit of the bill is that it replaces and modernises parts of the Trustee Act to make day-to-day trust administration easier. Many provisions of the Trustee Act are routinely overridden in trust deeds and the Act no longer reflects how trusts are currently used. This can make trust administration difficult and costly, so the bill provides for a degree of flexibility in that. The bill simplifies trust administration by providing clear rules that are easy to understand. The rules are sufficiently adaptable to accommodate a wide variety of circumstances and are consistent with the way that trusts operate today.

The bill removes unnecessary restrictions on trustees and provides useful and practical powers for them. The Trustee Act currently sets out highly specific powers to deal with trust property and administer the trust. This often creates unnecessary complexity when dealing with trust property. The bill replaces these specific provisions with the general powers that are necessary for the trustees to manage trust property and carry out the trusts. The bill provides general principles of trustees’ liability, indemnities, and protections. This will assist both trustees and people who are dealing with trustees to have a good understanding of their legal position.

Currently, there are archaic and complex rules against perpetuities. To put it simply, these perpetuity rules limit the life of a trust. The bill replaces these rules, introducing a clear-cut maximum duration period of 125 years for the majority of trusts. This provides certainty regarding the life of a trust. While the courts continue to have oversight of trust issues, the bill ensures that this oversight is reserved for complex or principled cases, such as where it is necessary to resolve trust disputes.

The bill facilitates non-contentious trust procedures that do not require court involvement. This is evident in the bill’s approach to the appointment and removal of trustees. In particular, the bill addresses the common situation where a trustee becomes incapacitated, perhaps because of developing dementia, and needs to be removed as a trustee. In this situation, despite this change not being contentious under the Trustee Act, it’s often necessary to go to court to remove the trustee and transfer the property. This bill allows this to happen in most cases without recourse to the court. This will help to ensure that trustees don’t need to make unnecessary applications to the court to ensure that the trust is properly administered.

The bill also makes it clear that alternative dispute resolution, such as arbitration or mediation, is generally available for trusts disputes even if the trust deed is silent on this matter and supports people to resolve disputes outside of the courts in appropriate cases.

This will be the first significant change to our trust legislation in over 60 years. We need to ensure that trust law is fit for purpose for the 21st century. This bill comprehensively refreshes and modernises the law while still maintaining its fundamental aspects and its ability to adapt to the evolving nature of trusts. Our trust law needs to suit the needs and realities of everything from family trusts to corporate structures. With thousands of trusts in New Zealand, estimated to be somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 trusts, many people will benefit from an easy-to-understand, more accessible, and practical law. Because of the extensive number of trusts we have, which have a broad range of issues, it would be important to encourage submitters from a wide base of interests to come forward. Also, allowing submitters sufficient time to consider in some depth the impact of the bill on their type of trust would help to ensure well-considered submissions. I’m confident that these submissions will greatly benefit the select committee consideration of the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): It goes without saying that the National Party will support this excellent reform of Amy Adams. This is, as the Minister of Justice has said, an extremely important piece of legislation. Indeed, the current trusts legislation is over 60 years old, and, as the Minister said, there are so many trusts in this country, it’s of critical importance that the law on the subject is clear. In his final comments, the Minister made a very interesting point, and one I wholeheartedly endorse, and that is the importance of ensuring that the committee—the Justice Committee, to which this bill will be referred—will have enough time carefully and thoroughly to analyse the law, because this is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it will be extremely important that there be a broad range of submissions on the bill. This is the chance to get our trusts law into a good state.

If I can just remind the House that some years ago I was on the Justice and Electoral Committee, and we had to consider the Evidence Bill, and because of its importance, a subcommittee of the Justice and Electoral Committee was formed. It was chaired by Russell Fairbrother, the former MP for Napier, and I thought he did an excellent job chairing this small committee. We appointed a special adviser in Robert Fisher, a former High Court judge, and that subcommittee met on separate occasions really to drill down into the detail of the Evidence Bill. The resulting legislation, which is subject to a five-yearly review from the Law Commission, is so good that it hasn’t required all that many changes over the last decade. I really commend to the Justice Committee that kind of approach for this legislation, because, as the Minister said, one of the key purposes of the reform of Amy Adams is to make the law of trusts more accessible. Simplicity of language is a very fine ideal, but we need to make sure that things are expressed very carefully.

If I can just refer to a couple of points, the first point relates to the definition of “court” in clause 9. The committee will need to consider whether it should be other than the High Court. For example, there are other courts of competent jurisdiction, like the Family Court or the Māori Land Court, that could well be considered as appropriate fora to determine issues relating to trusts within their jurisdiction. We ought to look very, very closely at Part 3 of the legislation, and I refer honourable members to the mandatory duties that are set out. The mandatory duties in clauses 22 to 26 look like statements of the obvious, but could well end up being a poisoned chalice for trustees.

Take, for example, clause 22, which says, “A trustee must know the terms of the trust.” How many trustees, I’d ask Willow-Jean Prime, of settlement trusts know their terms? At most, the obligation should be, perhaps, to be familiar with the relevant terms. Then there is the interrelationship between clause 22 and clause 23, which provides that “A trustee must act in accordance with the terms of the trust.” So they’ll need to look very carefully at those terms, and they’ll need, also, to consider very carefully the default duties, because they are very baldly stated, and they’ll need to test those statements up against some practical, real-life situations. For example, the duty to invest prudently, which is set out in clause 28, sounds obvious, but prudence could imply diversity, but do we want to see family trusts whose sole asset is a house or farm considering selling up just to achieve prudent investment in sectors other than real estate?

Then, and I’m sure the MP for Christchurch Central may be able to help us on this, I’m very interested in the term, set out in clauses 37 and 38, of “gross negligence”. In fact, I do regard it as a somewhat troubling provision. What’s the difference between negligence and gross negligence? It’s a new term, and new terms, as that member knows, bring with them at least the potential for litigation. Clause 37 says the trust terms must not limit or exclude liability of trustees for gross negligence, and clause 38, as I said, also includes it. So it’s worth considering the concept of gross negligence in the context of the elements of negligence that I’m sure the MP for Christchurch Central taught very carefully when he was at Canterbury University. Is negligence gross because of the high fiduciary duties owned by trustees to beneficiaries? If so, then all negligence is going to be gross. Is negligence gross because of the nature of the breach? Is negligence gross because of the extent of the damage or loss? These are all issues that the committee is going to have to consider very carefully.

So within this legislation there are some very, very serious issues that need carefully to be considered, and the Justice Committee is going to need to apply itself to these issues, listen very carefully to submissions, and not adopt a once-over-lightly type of approach, because, as I say, when you’ve got terms like “gross negligence”, if it’s not carefully thought through it could give rise to a lot of litigation, which would be great for lawyers but not so great for trustees and trusts. I’m very happy that we’ve reached this stage of the reform. It is one where the real work is going to have to be done in the select committee, and I strongly suggest to the select committee that it would be wise to appoint a subcommittee, like we did with the Evidence Bill, so that some of the matters I’ve raised—and there are many, many other issues that will need to be looked at—can be considered very thoroughly and carefully. With those very few comments on Amy Adams’ bill, I commend the bill to the House.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on the first reading of this bill, the Trusts Bill, and I’d like to join with the Minister of Justice on this side of the House in adding my support for this bill. This is a very welcome piece of legislation. We are updating a piece of legislation, the Trustee Act, that’s, what, over 60 years old, and also the Perpetuities Act, which is about 50-odd years old, as well. So it’s long overdue, and I’m sure that all the legal practitioners out there—trust lawyers especially—will be paying very close attention to the passage of this legislation, because, as the Minister outlined at the outset, trusts are quite pervasive across New Zealand society, across property ownership. Family trusts, commercial contexts—they are very common in administering Māori assets, as well, through our own unique legislative provisions under, for instance, Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, and also through the establishment of Treaty settlement entities, which are all trusts. So this is an important piece of legislation.

I’d like to acknowledge the member who has just resumed his seat, Christopher Finlayson, as well, for saying at the outset that this is about making trusts law easier to understand and simplifying it, and in the same breath, upon saying that, actually proceeding to make it real confusing by raising a whole lot of issues that no doubt will be considered by the select committee. And they are serious issues.

Hon Christopher Finlayson: Where’s the problem with that?

RINO TIRIKATENE: I’m not—oh, nothing wrong with that, and I’m not the one to be delving into the interplay between various terms within the provisions of the bill. I’m looking forward to the consideration that the select committee will give, and to closer examination of those terms.

But I think we must go back to, I guess, the Law Commission. Now, that’s a very august, learned organisation that prepared a report. It was several years in the making, and so I think we can stand with confidence in this House that this bill has been very well thought through. It has been backed up by some of the—probably the most experienced legal minds that we have in the Law Commission. They have given it very close examination, and this is the bill that we’ve ended up with.

Granted, there are some issues that may not be picked up under this bill, particularly specialist trusts in a commercial context—superannuation trusts or trusts of that nature—but I think this really cuts to the core, as stated in the definition of express trusts. That’s really just the basic elements of a trust: a set law, trustees, beneficiaries—those, plus the various variations that can be created around those, are what this bill is all about. It’s really cutting to the heart of the day-to-day running of everyday trusts that operate across the country. It’s about making the rules a lot more accessible and easy to understand by having them all nicely contained in a nice piece of legislation, rather than having to go through a whole bunch of text books or running to case law and checking advice through legal advisers to understand what the position is.

I think for anyone who is—particularly if you’re holding the position of a trustee, having clarity around the role that a person plays by being a trustee is very important, and this bill goes a long way to setting out those obligations in a very clear fashion, therefore it’s going to be much easier to understand. I’m sure the Law Society and practitioners will be giving seminars up and down the country on this piece of legislation, because it is such a major piece of legislation as it concerns trust law.

One particular aspect I like—just on a quick, cursory glance at the legislation—is that there are certain provisions that can be modified by the parties to the trust. So it’s analogous to a company’s constitution. By drafting a trust deed, there are a whole bunch of—and I’m sure it will be happening right now; there will be boilerplate trust deeds being drawn up as we speak in anticipation of the passage of this bill, which will, I guess, recognise the ability for parties to tailor the wishes of the parties to the trust through this piece of legislation.

Just on a final point, I do look forward to the submissions that are made on this piece of legislation, because it is so far reaching and wide ranging and covers so many different contexts. In particular, I’d like to encourage those Māori land trusts, entities that are created under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, and also settlement entities to make submissions on this piece of legislation, because this impacts on all of their operations as well.

I guess for a very quick glance at all of the Treaty settlements that have been enacted in this House, one just needs to look to schedule 5, and it’s there, plain to see: all of the various Treaty settlements that have been enacted and that are amended by this bill. Sure, it’s just a technical changing of the rule of perpetuity, but it’s interesting to see the whole scope, and just the number of Treaty settlements that have been enacted. So I would invite and encourage all of those iwi members that are affected by this bill, whānau trusts, ahu whenua, or trusts that are created under Māori land legislation to study the bill and to make submissions on this bill. Likewise, I’m sure we will receive a lot of submissions analysing those finer legal points that the Hon Chris Finlayson touched on in his contribution.

So, to conclude, this is a welcome piece of legislation. It’s going to have far-reaching consequences. It will touch on so many different basic operational aspects of trusts, which are prevalent right across New Zealand society. I commend the Minister, and, likewise, all others that have been involved in its development stage. I commend it to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. So, the Trusts Bill—the Trusts Bill. After five long years of work by the Law Commission on this most profound and exciting area of law—300,000 to 500,000 trusts in New Zealand—we come to the Trusts Bill in the middle of the “100 days of inaction”.

Hon Member: Week four.

CHRIS BISHOP: Week four. We’re sitting in here on a Tuesday night and we’ve got 2½, three weeks to go until Christmas, and this exciting, reformist, progressive Government that’s going to make bold and exciting changes to New Zealand law has put before us the Trusts Bill, which is a bill that is literally eight years in the gestation.

To be fair, in contrast to other pieces of legislation that this Government’s put before the Parliament, at least this bill has been through the proper process, because you couldn’t say that this bill hasn’t been through a process. It was referred to the Law Commission, we had a five-year inquiry, and every QC and every trust lawyer in the country made a submission. The Law Commission would have done their various drafts, and they would have put out an exposure thing, and then they would have had the submissions, and they would have had a final review. Then we had an exposure draft of the legislation under the previous Government, under Amy Adams and Judith Collins as Ministers of Justice, and then we had the introduction of the bill and the bill sat on the Order Paper for about a year. Now, in the middle of the 100-day action plan, we’re getting on with it—we’re getting on with the Trusts Bill! Well, what an exciting day for the Parliament. What an exciting day for this new Government.

Let’s go through what we’ve passed: the Trusts Bill, that’s exciting; we’ve passed the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill, that’s very exciting—

Andrew Falloon: Births, deaths, and marriages.

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill, Andrew Falloon says—another very important bill; the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation and Validation Bill—now Act—a very important piece of legislation

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Can you come back to the bill.

CHRIS BISHOP: Coming back to the point, sir. Thank you, sir. So we’ve had a lot of exciting bills. I can’t wait for the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill, at number six on the Order Paper; that’s a classic. I can’t wait for the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill—that’s going to be a cracker—and then the Military Justice Amendment Bill in Ron Mark’s name. That could be Ron Mark’s first bill. It could be his first Government bill. Well, Ron Mark’s going to get very excited about that. I personally can’t wait.

This is a good bill. It was introduced by the previous Government and it just continues a long line of legislation. Maybe one day, maybe tomorrow, this Government will finally get on with its own business. I commend this bill to the House.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. This Trusts Bill before the House is a relatively technical type of bill, but a very important one that’s taken eight long years to get here today—a technical bill that has a wide-ranging effect for everyday, ordinary New Zealanders. The current trust laws are simply antique. They’re old and outdated. It’s been 60 years since the trust laws came into effect, and now, all these years later—and several generations as well—this law is very much in need of modification to bring it in line with our modern, evolving society. I would like to acknowledge the former Minister of Justice for her work in bringing this reform to the House.

In fact, we can trace the history of trusts back to England, to about the 13th century, but in New Zealand trusts grew to popularity in the 1950s. Perhaps this was due to the high rates of death duty and the introduction of wealth transfer taxes.

Trusts are not just for the corporates. Trusts are for the protection of everyday, ordinary New Zealanders, and these antique laws need to be changed so that ordinary Kiwis can understand and access information about the law. In trust law, private express trusts are probably the most common form of trust. They’re a traditional means of providing financial security for families. Trusts play a significant role in people’s lives and in the economy. There are estimates of between 300,000 and 500,000 trusts in the country. Now, because of the sheer volume of the number of trusts, this law change will have an impact and the potential to affect a wide cross-section of society and the country’s economy.

The bill aims to provide clear, simple, and accessible trust law. The bill follows the recommendations of the Law Commission in 2013 and proposed reforms for modernising and clarifying the trust law. It was a strongly held view of the commissioners that this was something that perhaps ought to have been done a while ago, and now was the time to do it. It replaces the Trustee Act 1956 and the Perpetuities Act 1964. The Trustee Act 1956 is outdated and no longer reflects current trust practice. Many of the provisions are difficult to understand and need to be read alongside a considerable body of case law. The bill will help to ensure trusts are administered properly. Existing trusts should be able to benefit from the provisions. There is an 18-month transition period from the date of commencement for existing trusts, to allow those involved in trusts to review and consider the application of the bill to their trust if they so wish.

What are some of the issues with the current Act? Well, aside from the fact that it’s a bit of an antique piece of law, currently there is little reference to trustee duties in the Trustee Act 1956, and various administrative powers are scattered throughout the Act. The language of law is at times difficult to understand for ordinary folk. Part 3 of the bill outlines trustee duties in simple and easy-to-understand language. Trustees in general are your everyday people, and the bill sets out the rules in a clear manner so that the trustees can understand their roles and what is required of them. It will also help the beneficiaries understand what their rights are too. It’s important that trustees and people who are dealing with trustees have a good understanding of their legal position. This bill brings clarity to this.

Ordinary people have trusts, not just wealthy folk. They set up a trust so that in the case of some unfortunate event—say, maybe, a parent dies, and then at some point in the future that surviving spouse remarries—the property inheritance of the children does not get swept away and lost in the reconfigured new family. If a parent wants their own children to inherit their wealth, their property, then the protection of a trust will keep the assets secure for the beneficiaries way into the future.

Trusts are used in New Zealand for many purposes, not just the one I’ve just outlined. A trust offers a way to separate the legal ownership of assets from those who are to benefit from it. Using a trust is also one of the ways to allow property to be held collectively rather than individually. Aside from a common family trust, trusts are used in a wide range of industries. This includes farming, research, and charitable sectors, as well as for listed companies. There are unit trusts, trusts for superannuation schemes, energy trusts, and Māori land trusts.

So how can these trusts be used? Well, they’re used to provide for family members with special needs—for example, if a family member has a disability. They could be used to protect personal assets from business risk; to keep a farm within a family for successive generations; to hold, collectively, Māori land and other assets; to protect assets from relationship property claims; and in the capital markets, both in structured financial transactions and for investment purposes. But sometimes things go wrong—and they do, on an incredibly regular basis—and they can go wrong in the most spectacular of ways. This can see a rift in families, a division that cripples and sees the loss of large amounts of money, and sometimes property too.

This bill will carve a pathway for alternative dispute resolution, either arbitration or mediation, and if it is appropriate, the bill will enable people to sort out and resolve their disputes outside of the courts. So while the bill aims to provide clear, simple, and accessible trust law, it also covers other categories of trusts at the discretion of the court, where it’s necessary and appropriate. It clarifies various administrative powers of trustees, including managing trust property, investment decisions, and delegation of powers.

This bill also defines the processes for the appointment and discharge of trustees. The bill will introduce a range of changes and new functions, which include: it will define for its purposes what an express trust means; trustees must keep relevant documentation for duration of the trusteeship—the maximum duration of an express trust is 125 years—guidance for the distribution of property under the expiration of the express trust; and promotion of the alternative dispute resolution process to resolve those trust disputes.

There is some good news too. A reduction in costs will be one of the benefits of this bill over the medium to long term. Simpler and clearer law will reduce the need for trust users to seek legal advice. Having had the pleasure of engaging a lawyer from time to time, I certainly know that this is not a very cheap exercise. There will also be savings from no longer needing to take some of the issues to court—for example, transferring a property title when a trustee is no longer mentally capable. For those who have had to do this, they will know that they could’ve been stung anywhere to the tune of $5,000 to $10,000. So, on the upside, there will be savings in judges’ and registrars’ time, along with savings in court costs.

So, in conclusion, the Trusts Bill aims to provide clear, simple, and accessible trust law. It’ll be easier to understand, and it updates and modernises a legal antique relic. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. Kia ora koutou.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the first reading of the Trusts Bill, in the name of Andrew Little. I’d like to commend the Minister for bringing the bill to the House, following in the footsteps set down by his predecessor, Amy Adams, who is responsible for this excellent piece of legislation.

I’d also like to just take a moment to commend Andrew Little for a moment, because I don’t believe he’s been given the due regard that he is due in respect of the election result. He took on a—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member needs to come back to the bill.

ANDREW FALLOON: I apologise. I will just beg your indulgence briefly to say that a large part of it was due to—

Hon Tracey Martin: No, no, you don’t trifle with the Chair.

ANDREW FALLOON: Fair enough. Similar to the previous bill we debated, the Legislation Bill, the Trusts Bill also seeks to make legislation more accessible to the general public, which is a very laudable and important goal. The bill replaces two Acts, the Trustee Act and the Perpetuities Act, and is the most significant update to trust legislation in the last six decades. The changes the bill makes are largely based on the recommendations of the Law Commission. They found much of existing trust law exists in a considerable body of case law, and this updated legislation will set out those principles in the new Act.

This is a worthy bill. It is another example of good housekeeping that Parliament must attend to from time to time, though I note that time usually is late on a Wednesday night in the middle of winter, rather than as one of the first Acts of a new Government. Regardless, National will support this bill. I look forward to hearing submissions on it as part of the Justice Committee, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): I am very happy to rise and speak to this bill and to speak to what the member Chris Bishop said earlier. It’s not very exciting, but it is important. Frankly, this bill is massive. It will have far-reaching implications. As was mentioned by the Hon Chris Finlayson, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to completely review a massive body of law.

I speak to this bill as a graduate law student who, I will be the first to admit it, wasn’t very good at equity and didn’t very much enjoy the law of trusts. It was, as I’ve just said, massive. It was multifaceted and it was all over the place—found in case law, most commonly. So this bill here and this contribution to the debate is for all of the law students out there reading Hansard. For all of those who will read and have to attempt to understand and analyse trust law—this is for you.

This bill is about bringing legislation into line with practice. Its purpose, in an overarching manner, is to enact the vision for a participatory democracy, to reduce barriers to participation, to reduce technocratic waffle, and to enable accessibility. It will reduce costs and burdens for those who are families who participate in the realm of trusts, and reduce the barriers for the average person who is seeking to participate in the legal process. Less court time will be bound up, and resources as well, in that respect. It will have an incredible consequence—which is often what I expect is the intention of legislation that we pass through this House—which is that more people will be likely to follow the law because they are more likely to know what it actually is. It also, predominantly, and, perhaps, most excitingly for those law students out there, simplifies the language in the legislation surrounding trust law.

So just how many people are affected? Well, it is a difficult one to get into because trusts are largely private. The Law Commission, in 2013, issued a report that estimated that there are between 300,000 and half a million trusts in Aotearoa. At the very least, that’s one trust for every 12 people in this country. In the 2013 census, 215,000 households reported that their home was owned by a trust. But this, again, is the very tip of the iceberg, as those are only the people who are self-reporting. Around a quarter of a million income tax returns were filed for trusts or estates in the last tax year, but, again, none of this captures those who do not submit tax returns.

I did some light reading over the break and delved into the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament: Summary of annual returns as at 31 January 2017—the final such report of the 51st Parliament. So it is an estimation of how many MPs were affected in the previous Parliament and, thus, may be assumed to be a relatively valid estimation for those affected in this Parliament. Of the 116 MPs listed in this register, 75 of those, past and present, are either trustees or beneficiaries of trusts or both. There are 132 trustee interests and 111 beneficiary interests. So it might be said that this bill, this piece of legislation, is very much in the interests of those in this House as well.

There has been some debate in the past as to whether New Zealand should have a trust register for all citizens in the same way that we have a trust register for members of this Parliament. The Law Commission said that this was unnecessary in its review because it would fundamentally change the nature of trusts and deviate from international and historical norms. On that point, I would submit that the context that we have found ourselves in, in 2017, deviates from those international and historical norms.

It has come to light numerous times over the past several years—most recently in the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers—that New Zealand is perceived by some as a bit of a tax haven for offshore foreign trusts. On this point, I note that many have stated that this realm is the role of tax law, not trust law. But I would suggest that this is something to be considered at the select committee stage. As the opportunity presents itself for a massive overhaul, that select committee stage is going to be integral to ensuring that we get the best form of legislation for all New Zealanders. On that point, we commend this bill to the House.

MATT KING (National—Northland): It is a pleasure again to take a call on this bill. Isn’t it great to see another excellent piece of legislation from the Hon Amy Adams. We’re confident it’s such a great piece of legislation. Why else would the new Government have made it a part of their 100-day agenda? They’ve run out of ideas—40 days into a 100-day programme, and this Parliament has passed five pieces of legislation: two of these members’ bills turned into Government bills, one passed under urgency on its third time round. Two of these are National Party members’ bills and one is a former National Government bill.

The only bills on the Order Paper are former National Government bills and members’ bills. I had a look through the Order Paper: the Autonomous Sanctions Bill—we’ve done the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill, the Legislation Bill—the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill, the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill—

Hon Tracey Martin: Try reading this bill.

MATT KING: Tracey Martin, keep it down over there. The Hon Gerry Brownlee offered today in the House to fast track—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member needs to come to the bill that we’re discussing.

MATT KING: I’m coming to it. The Hon Gerry Brownlee—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, no. You’ll come to it now. Thank you.

MATT KING: OK. He offered to fast track this legislation. We supported it all, to save the House the time and the expense. But hello! The coalition Government objected. We’re glad they support our programme, but we can think of some more urgent legislation to bring on to the Order Paper. Let’s debate Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill and unlock the billions of dollars of potential Māori land—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’ve asked you once, and I’m asking you again. You need to come to the bill that we’re discussing, the Trusts Bill. OK? Kia ora.

MATT KING: OK. I’ll wrap it up. Not only did we leave this country in a strong position—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sit down. No, it’s not permission for you to continue with the narrative that you want to. You either speak to the bill or you resume your seat.

MATT KING: I won’t waste any more time. I commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Tamati Coffey—five minutes.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Tēnā koe. Ā, tuatahi, me tuku whakaaro ki ngā mate huhua o te rohe o Te Waiariki—ā, tuatahi, a Hamilton Manaia Pīhopa Kīngi rāua ko Wīkeepa Te Rangipuawhe Maika, ngā rangatira o te rohe o Te Waiariki kua hinga—me ngā mate o Aotearoa katoa, ā, haere, haere, haere atu rā ngā mate! Rātou ki a rātou, tātou ki a tātou, tēnā koutou.

[Thank you. And so, firstly, let’s give a thought to the many deaths of the Waiariki region—in the first instance, Hamilton Manaia Pīhopa Kīngi and Wīkeepa Te Rangipuawhe Maika, esteemed ones of the Waiariki region who have fallen—plus the deaths from the whole of New Zealand, so go forth, depart, farewell indeed, the dead! They to themselves and we to ourselves, acknowledgments to you collectively.]

I’m still trying to work this House out, if I’m being completely honest—the rules, the protocols, where the line is. And it seems as though the last speaker just crossed that. But I’m expecting that in my time I’ll break probably a few rules.

There’s quite a bit of heat coming from the Opposition there, about this bill actually having been drafted by the Opposition and the Law Commission. Oh, there he goes; ka kite. While they are to be congratulated for this particular bill, it’s actually us that’s going to finish this one off. As well as that, we’re also going to pick up the many balls that they’ve dropped over the last nine years—www.feesfree.govt.nz.

But we are here to talk about the Trusts Bill. It’s not a particularly enticing piece of legislation, for those people that haven’t gone through law school, for those people that haven’t lectured in law, and, actually, for the people who will be standing around the water cooler tomorrow; I’m pretty sure that they’re not going to be talking about this particular bill. But it’s important, right? As previous speakers have indicated, between 300,000 and 500,000 trusts are in operation here in New Zealand. The statistic goes so far as to say that one in four people are actually affected by trusts in one way or the other. It was this afternoon, as I was thinking about this, I realised that, actually, I’ve got quite a bit of involvement in trusts.

I have the privilege of sitting on the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust. It’s a very, very proud trust that we are part of. Many years ago, we took a capital injection of $30 million. As a community in Rotorua, we invested that money and we’ve grown it into a pot that now sits at around $130 million, of which we skim off the top of it and we distribute that back to the community in terms of grants and scholarships to our young people. When I first signed up to the trust, when I was first elected to the trust, there was a lot of misinformation around. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about what my responsibilities were, so it took quite a bit of time for me to wrap my head around exactly what the responsibilities were for a trustee, where the boundary was between what you had to divulge and what you didn’t have to divulge. And I’ve got to say it was a pretty steep learning curve. Not too long after that, I was also put on one of our Māori land trusts in Papamoa, a trust that our whānau have been part of for quite a long time, and I got the privilege of actually sitting on that. Thankfully, because I’d been appointed to the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust, I knew a little bit more about what trustees’ roles were, what their responsibilities were, and I took that on board.

I’ve quickly, as I said, got my head around it, and I can only say that if this bill purports to do what it says it’s going to do, which is make it clearer, make it easier for trustees to understand, make it easier for beneficiaries to understand exactly what’s going on in terms of trusts and the obligations and the information provided, then it’s got to be a good thing for New Zealand and for all of those people that are, in one way or another, part of the many trusts around New Zealand.

So on behalf of the many Māori trusts around New Zealand, on behalf of the many charitable trusts around New Zealand, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. I’m entrusted to speak this evening in relation to a proposed piece of legislation introduced by Hon Amy Adams. I put it to the House that this is a worthy piece of proposed legislation, introduced on 1 August 2017. It will replace the Trustee Act 1956 and the Perpetuities Act 1964, legislation that has been complex, and, over the last 60 years—now is the time to contemplate seriously, with the first reading of this piece of legislation, putting it into law.

So in addressing matters, before I commend this bill to the House, it is a piece of proposed legislation—a bill—that will make trust law more accessible to everyday New Zealanders. This is an excellent piece of legislation proposed by the Hon Amy Adams, and, as a practising lawyer of many years, it’s a pleasure to be able to speak and address the House in support of this bill.

Trusts are an essential part of our legal system with around 300,000 to 500,000 trusts operating in New Zealand Aotearoa today. In fact, many of us here in the House and those who may be listening to the addresses being made this evening will have had the experience of serving either as trustees or as beneficiaries of trusts. Ordinary New Zealanders use trusts on a daily basis to manage their finances, and trusts form the economic backbone of the commercial and social sectors.

Our current trust law, as I addressed, is unnecessarily complex and difficult to navigate. This bill will seek to simplify matters, ensuring that trust law is more practical, usable, and cost effective so that families and businesses can manage their affairs with confidence. Under this bill, the guidelines and the clauses within the bill will provide guidance—much better guidance—for trustees and beneficiaries to make it easier to resolve disputes. This is an update of our trust law that is long overdue—as I referenced, 60 years. So the proposed reforms will seek to clarify, simplify core trust principles, and make the legislation more useful, fixing practical problems and reducing costs. The reforms will ensure trust law is better suited to the needs of New Zealanders.

In conclusion, I simply say that much has been addressed before the House this evening. I defer to my senior colleague the Hon Christopher Finlayson QC, who has gone through and actually identified on his study of the proposed legislation that there is still much that will need to be addressed by the select committee in terms of the detail. That is something that I’ve not turned my mind or my eyes to, but in conclusion this evening I simply say that this is a worthy bill, it is a trustworthy bill, and I commend the Trusts Bill to the House. Kia ora.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koutou katoa. I was trying to think of a waiata or a whakataukī or something like that to start my speech off tonight, as has been the custom of my previous speeches, but I struggled to find one. So I thought instead I would tell a couple of stories, which are absolutely relevant to the legislation that we’re talking about tonight.

The first is that my law lecturer too will be watching this debate with interest. Equity was one of the most difficult subjects for myself when I was studying law at Waikato University. However, I did get it in the end and I passed very well with good grades, but I couldn’t understand why it just had to be so complex. Then, when reading the background to this bill, perhaps the fact that the law has been the same for 60 years and is quite archaic explains why many law students, I think, struggled with equity when I was at university.

The other thing that I wanted to share was a bit of a funny story from when I was participating in a moot competition at university. It’s all about interpreting law and putting it into your own words, and then arguing your case. After our presentations, the judge said to my colleague and I that her language was too wooden and fuddy-duddy and mine was the opposite and too casual and relaxed, and what we needed was something in between. I really struggled when that judge pulled me up on that, because I thought at the time, “Aren’t we supposed to make laws so that they can be obeyed by the people, so that they could be understood by the people, and if the language that we use in those laws is so difficult to understand, then how can we expect people to understand it and obey it?” So I’m really pleased that this bill is looking at modernising a very old piece of legislation so that the objective of these changes—that it will be easier for people to understand and to administer the law—will be achieved.

My friends in the legal fraternity might not appreciate me saying some of the comments that I do tonight because, of course, there is a whole industry in statutory interpretation and providing advice in these areas. But I, like the member who spoke before me from the Labour Party, Tamati Coffey, found myself in the situation of being a trustee on several trusts before my time here. It is something that I saw with my own eyes: people who struggled to understand the law that they are required to administer without the help of legal advice. So any changes that make it easier for people to understand and to be able to fulfil their duties, or for beneficiaries to understand what their rights are, I wholeheartedly support.

So this is a bill to make trust law easier to access and understand. It is the result of the Law Commission review and a 264-page report, and I want to acknowledge and thank the Law Commission for their work. The Trusts Bill will update and replace the Trustee Act 1956, and, as I said, this is the first significant change in the trust law in over 60 years.

Trusts are a big part of our legal system. The Ministry of Justice says that there are between 300,000 to 500,000 trusts operating in New Zealand today, so this is a significant piece of legislation that affects a significant number of people. For an area of law that is so well-used, it is time that we refreshed it.

The objective of the Trusts Bill is to provide better guidance for trustees and beneficiaries and make it easier to resolve disputes, and it does this by providing a number of changes, which I summarise here: a description of the key features of a trust and the duties of trustees, clear rules about when trustees are required to provide information to beneficiaries so that beneficiaries can enforce the trust, practical and flexible trustee powers that allow trustees to manage and invest trust property in the most appropriate way, and options for removing and appointing trustees without having to go to court in straightforward cases.

I wanted to talk specifically about Māori land trusts, which are unique to New Zealand and make up a significant proportion of New Zealand’s trusts. In fact, in the Law Commission’s report, it notes—and this is back in 2013—that there were 9,230 whānau trusts, 5,575 ahuwhenua trusts, 33 whenua tōpū trusts, 3 pūtea trusts, and 2,726 kaitiaki trusts. Along with the settlement legislation and the trusts created through treaty settlements, this is a significant area of law for Māori.

Māori land trusts are unique and, as I said, make up a significant proportion of trusts. Unlike express trusts, though, Māori land trusts are generally not settlor made, but are created by order of the Māori Land Court, and they are primarily land management structures. They continue in perpetuity and are mostly fixed trusts. It is the intention of this bill that the Māori Land Court and appellant court would continue to apply general trust law in a way that reflects that particular context. The provisions of the Trustee Act and general trust law are applicable to Māori land trusts where Te Ture Whenua Maori Act is silent. Now, at the time that that the law commission wrote this report, there was also a review of that Act being undertaken, but with the Hon Meka Whaitiri here, and others, I do not propose to talk about the review of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act tonight.

This is about making trust law accessible. Large numbers of people are finding themselves as trustees or beneficiaries of trusts who may not have been legally trained, and there’s confusion amongst many of those trustees as to their role or duties and amongst beneficiaries as to what they can and cannot expect of their trustees. This leads to problems—problems that I have seen in my own communities. If settlors and trustees are confused or unclear as to the nature and effect of settling a trust and their obligations, then there’s a greater risk of it being improperly administered, and this can also increase the likelihood of disputes and litigation between settlors, trustees, and beneficiaries. So with that I would like to commend the bill to the House because it has great objectives. Kia ora.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the call on the Trusts Bill. I feel entrusted in taking the call on the Trusts Bill, as we discuss a bill that is to replace the Trustee Act 1956 and the Perpetuities Act 1964—so it was quite some time ago, according to those dates, that this legislation was last reviewed. This is one of those bills that come up every now and then, where there is a need to update and a need to ensure that these pieces of legislation that impact on everyone’s lives in our society reflect the changing times in our community. Today, amidst Labour’s first 100 days, we’re doing just that.

This piece of legislation has been in the process for a number of years. A Law Commission report was issued in 2009. It was then that a draft trust bill was released for public consultation. People were able to have their say and, as previous speakers have noted, people have had their say, and now we have the bill that we’re debating here tonight. So it’s good to see that this piece of legislation is going through. As has been noted, there are 300,000 to 500,000 trusts in this country, and I think this shows the impact this legislation will have on people up and down our country.

I think it’s also an example of good lawmaking process. I’ve heard members of the Government say, “Why has this been sitting on the Order Paper?” Well, it shows that we’ve taken the time to consult and taken the time to go out there, and now we see this new Government feeling like this is a top priority to put through in their hundred days. Well, I’m not sure, but I don’t know whether New Zealanders can trust them to deliver on their promises, if we’re delivering on this piece of legislation in their top 100 days.

So it’s a good piece of legislation. It’s a well-thought-through piece of legislation. It delivers good policy objectives. It makes changes that are needed and necessary. It provides an 18-month transitional period for those changes in order for trusts to look at them and to make appropriate changes to their constitutions. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you very much.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s disappointing that the National Party hasn’t chosen to take this bill as seriously as it might, because this is, of course, the first reading, and this is a matter of considerable importance. This codification of trust law will be a major change in the way we approach these matters.

It’s worth noting that amongst many people—many ordinary citizens—they don’t really even understand what a trust is. They’ve heard about it, they know that it’s handy from time to time to protect assets from creditors or the taxman or ex-partners, but they don’t quite understand that it’s a division of ownership and entitlement. What this bill does is it makes very clear what a trust is, how a trust comes about, and the duties that attach to trustees. And, I must say, that’s the other thing that will come, perhaps, as quite a surprise to trustees, should they take the time to look at those duties, because the duties are indeed very demanding. Many people, in fact, think that trusts are more or less an alter ego where they can dip into trust funds and make decisions pretty much unilaterally, but it’s simply not the case.

This matter was referred to the Law Commission way back in 2009, so that’s how long it’s taken us to get to this point. This Government is committed to clearing the decks, because we’ve got some serious business to do. We’re not going to sit on our hands for that long. One of the really important things here, as the former Attorney-General, member Finlayson, mentioned, is the select committee process. If I must say, the former Attorney-General did turn to the substance of the bill and made some meaningful comments, and I commend him for that. I hope his other members will follow him in future.

This is about trusts as a vehicle. It’s not about what trusts do; what we’re talking about is the structure of trust law. So it is worth just looking at what the bill does. In fact, the law of trusts at the moment—if you’re trying to find a definition of what a trust is, you’ll be looking for quite some time, and I sympathise. It’s a pity Miss Swarbrick’s left, as well, because I could’ve educated her—and she sounds like she needs it. Ha, ha!

The creation of a trust is set out in clause 15, and, look, it’s pretty straightforward. We’ve got to have trust property, we’ve got to have beneficiaries, we’ve got to have an intention to create a trust—and we can’t have a beneficiary and a trustee and that’s the end of the matter; we’ve got to have more than that to the matter. So, straight away, what we’ve got here in this bill is some clarity about how a trust is created and what a trust is.

Of course, the other thing that’s being abolished, or at least replaced, is that arcane rule against perpetuities, where we have that a trust can only exist for a life in being plus 70 years, with all kinds of strange rules around whether we can have a fertile toddler or a precocious octogenarian. Now those rules, whilst law lecturers might like them, are utterly meaningless to ordinary people, and so it’s now being replaced with a rule that says a trust can last for only 125 years—a great clarification.

But probably most important, as member Finlayson pointed out, are the trust duties. In fact, those duties are quite onerous, right from the duty to know the terms of the trust, the most fundamental duty of all—to simply know what the terms of the trust are. Now, we know as a matter of fact that many trustees don’t even know what the trust deed is, let alone where to find it—yet another duty. There is a duty to actually act in accordance with the terms of the trust—pretty fundamental, but if you don’t know what those terms are, you’re not going to be acting in accordance with them—and some of those perhaps more well-known duties. A duty to act in good faith—a duty to act only in the interests of beneficiaries. In fact, there is the heart of trust law, the idea that a trustee has fiduciary obligations—an obligation to put aside all other interests and put the beneficiary’s interests first. Now, the fact of the matter is that many trustees out there don’t understand in any real detail the concept of conflict of interest, but at last it’s out there in black and white in Part 3 of the bill, setting out what those obligations are.

The other really important thing that we need to point out is the liabilities of trustees, because many people think, “I’ll be a trustee of this or that.”, and my colleague Tamati Coffey tells me he’s a trustee of many trusts. Does he know—a highly educated young man like him—that he’s personally liable for his actions as trustee and that if he slips up, the trust and the beneficiaries, through the trust, can look to him and his enormous wealth to make good that loss? So that’s a really important point that trustees need to know, that whilst there is some protection, whilst the trust will indemnify them for their actions, if taken honestly in good faith, the assets of the trust might not be enough, certainly if third parties have suffered. So it’s really important that we understand that.

The former Attorney-General also mentioned the fact that that indemnity of the trust is not unlimited. It is limited. Certainly where a trustee acts dishonestly, the law will give them no protection. It never has and nor should it, and that’s certainly a good thing.

He also mentioned gross negligence, that a trustee who acts in a grossly negligent fashion will not get the protection of those statutory indemnities. Now, that also is an important point, and I accept that those kinds of concepts lie at the boundaries. It will be important for this to go to select committee.

If I may say, the Law Commission report is an exceptionally well-drafted report. It has been given assistance by many learned minds, and, what’s more, I’m aware that the previous Government put a draft bill out for consultation. That also went through a number of iterations, and I commend that process. So this is not a bill that has come to the House without a great deal of careful thought already. Having said that, I look forward to it going to select committee, where those matters of detail will be looked at—things like whether gross negligence will indeed be an excuse, or whether they will be liable.

The other really important reform in this piece of legislation is a great clarification around the information that trustees must give beneficiaries. In fact, it seems almost bizarre that we have to have a piece of legislation to say that a beneficiary must be told that they’re a beneficiary, but, you know, that is actually an important clarification. A discretionary beneficiary tucked away in a trust over there—the trustee actually has an obligation to let that beneficiary know that they’re named as a beneficiary in a trust, and also, if requested, to provide relevant trust documentation. Now, that means not only the trustee—“the trustee” almost goes without saying—but also any other information so that the beneficiary can understand whether the trust has been properly administered. That’s going to include things like trust accounts and things like that.

So, look, those are all really important points, but probably most important of all is really bringing all this law together. This is not an absolute codification—the common law will still exist. It doesn’t deal with all trusts; it deals only with express trusts. So there’s still a whole lot of trust law that those academics can get excited about, and I’ll leave them to do that. But what it does do is it brings together, in a really coherent way and a really understandable way, these core duties—these critical duties.

So to the drafters of this bill, I commend them for great drafting. To the Law Commission, I commend it for its extensive work. To the National Party, I commend it for eventually coming up with something, and it’s great to see that we now have it in front of the House. We’re going to get this bill passed so that we have a clear trusts law, so trustees and beneficiaries can understand their duties and really get on with it. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Bills

Maritime Transport Amendment Bill

In Committee

Hon RUTH DYSON (Senior Whip—Labour): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave has been sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

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

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Thank you very much, Mr Chair.

Chris Bishop: This will be good!

JAMI-LEE ROSS: No, it won’t be good, Mr Bishop. We are getting down to the weeds of the night. We’ve come to the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I see we have the Minister, Julie Anne Genter, in the chair, who has submitted a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) on this bill. I see that the Green Party Minister is enacting, effectively, the minority report that the Green Party and the Labour Party put in with the select committee when they were considering this at the select committee.

The National Party does support the bill. We won’t be supporting the Minister’s SOP, however. We are of the view that continuing with a drug and alcohol management plan process, whereby there is mandatory drug-testing of workers carried out on a random basis, is important and should be continued with. We don’t believe in the arguments that have been put forward for removing that section from the bill. I see that, effectively, the Minister’s SOP takes the bill as it stands, with its amendments, and removes the drug and alcohol management plan and the random testing of workers from that.

I accept the bill still does have the ability for director testing, and that is in place, but I think when it comes to an issue such as the operation of ships in this particular industry, the arguments that were previously put forward by the department, by a number of submitters, still hold: that there should be the ability and the requirement for an operator to put in place a drug and alcohol management plan system where there is random testing.

I do note that there was quite a lot of support for the drug and alcohol testing amendments that were in place in the original bill, from the likes of the Transport Accident Investigation Commission. The Privacy Commissioner even went as far as to say that he considers that “the proposed changes are a valid and proportionate response to … the Bill’s risk management and public safety objectives,”. The Law Society and the Federation of Commercial Fishermen were supportive, is my understanding.

The groups that were opposed were, effectively, the unions. So what we’re seeing here is an amendment to the law in the bill, by way of an SOP, that was asked for by the unions. Granted, the Labour Party and the Green Party have the right to support the union position if they want, but I’d suggest that this House and this committee should come down on the side of safety. And when it comes to safety of these ships, when it comes to safety in the maritime industry, when it comes to the safety that those operators are responsible for, there should be in place the higher standard than what the Minister is proposing, so that the higher standard around drug and alcohol, where these people—let’s just remember, they are operating some very large vessels, operating sometimes in some difficult circumstances whereby there may be situations where, as the previous Minister and the ministry put forward, there is some risk there that needs to be mitigated, and this was one way of doing it.

The Minister is essentially gutting some important risk management and gutting some important safety mechanisms within this bill, and we reject that. We believe that the committee should vote down this SOP and ensure that the original position of having drug and alcohol management plans should prevail.

What I also ask, and really want to know the answer to, not from the Minister actually but from some of her colleagues: in the committee’s consideration of this bill there was a minority report put forward by the Labour Party and the Green Party. The New Zealand First Party members on the select committee supported the Government at the time, the National Government. So what we have here is an SOP that was put forward on behalf of the Minister, advocating the union position, to remove safety elements from the bill—safety elements that the New Zealand First Party supported in the select committee. So is the New Zealand First Party today going to come down on the side of safety and are they going to come down on the side of the maritime operators? Are they going to come down on the side of those people that wish to see greater safety mechanisms in the maritime industry, or are they going to go with the Minister’s SOP, which guts the safety mechanisms from the bill?

So we don’t support the SOP. We do support the wider objectives and principles of having greater safety and management, and greater ability for operators to ensure that their crafts and their vessels are conducted and operated in a safe manner. We don’t agree with gutting the safety elements from the bill and we won’t be supporting the SOP.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): Thank you, Mr Chair. Fantastic to hear the contribution from the member Jami-Lee Ross, although I’m sorry to hear that the National Party won’t be supporting an amendment that is clearly going to be better for small-business operators, as well as being better for safety.

Just to set the record straight with the member, I think he got a few things wrong in that prior contribution. The amendment put forward by the Government, and supported by all three Government parties, still allows for director testing and actually does meet all the objectives that were set out by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission. The primary motivation for the change is to ensure that there is an ability for there to be testing for impairment following an incident, and that is very much provided for.

What we heard from submitters—and this is why this Government is amending this law, because we listen to the submitters at select committee, unlike the National Party. We listened to the submitters and what they told us is, one, all the large operators already have in place drug and alcohol management plans. Two, there are already provisions under other legislation and the maritime operator safety system that provide for drug and alcohol management and that make clear the expectation that people who are undertaking activities that specifically have safety sensitivity—that’s what they’re called; safety-sensitive activities—are expected to not be impaired while on the job. So that’s already provided for under other regimes, and what this bill under National had been proposing to do was to set up a whole new regulatory framework that was going to impose enormous costs, particularly on small operators, for no additional benefit.

There was no evidence submitted by the prior Government that made any sort of connection between random drug and alcohol testing and an actual reduction in impairment. There have been a few high-profile incidents, and it is important that we have the ability to do post-incident testing. What the director testing still provides for is a regime in which the Director of Maritime New Zealand, when there are appropriate risks and reasons to believe there’s a problem, can go and undertake testing—non-notified testing. They can audit an organisation and ensure that they are complying with the rules.

So what this Government has done is it has found a simple solution that won’t impose an enormous bureaucratic hurdle and burden on small operators and that will none the less be more effective at achieving the safety outcomes that we all share. I would also note that it was not just the unions that opposed this. In fact, all the submitters who are actually involved in the maritime sector had reservations specifically about mandatory random drug and alcohol testing. Now, nothing in this bill prevents drug and alcohol management plans with random drug and alcohol testing, but this was going to make it mandatory. So where it’s appropriate, it will be done. Where it’s not appropriate, we will have another set of rules and we will have a clear mandate for the Director of Maritime New Zealand to undertake testing when there are concerns about risks.

There are other amendments that have been made by this Government—again, responding to what we heard in submissions—and one of those is around the opening up of shipping for vessels that are foreign-flag vessels to the Chatham Islands and other offshore islands. All of the submissions on that particular provision in the legislation were opposed, and so we’ve quite simply removed that.

So what this Government has agreed to do, and I’d say all three parties are very much in agreement, is to achieve the safety objectives, where still—and I think one of the most important aspects of this bill is the provisions around oil pollution compensation. So, finally, we’ll be increasing the compensation that’s available for pollution damage from a tanker spill, from a paltry $394 million to $1.457 billion, at current exchange rates. That’s in Part 2 of the bill. That remains unamended.

I am extremely proud to be the Minister in the chair speaking to our first bill where we’re able to make substantive positive changes to the bill, which will not only achieve the safety and environmental outcomes that we want but won’t impose costs unnecessarily on small businesses for no additional gain.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you, Mr Chairperson Rurawhe. I’m very happy to take a call on the bill. I want to focus my comments in on Supplementary Order Paper 4 in the name of the Minister in the chair, the Hon Julie Anne Genter.

Most of us in this House—in fact, I think, most people—admire the quality of chutzpah; that is, the ability and the willingness to sort of stick your jaw out there and make an argument or a proposition no matter how preposterous it might be. I want to thank the member who launched off in this debate for demonstrating ample qualities of chutzpah at the outset.

Jami-Lee Ross: Preposterous!

MICHAEL WOOD: Well, let’s come to that, Mr Ross, because what we had here was a National Party member from a Government that oversaw the Pike River tragedy, and the carnage in our forests, lecture the Labour Party and demonise the unions about worker safety. Of course, we’re getting to this very quickly in National Party speeches. Anything that comes up, the unions are the bogeymen—the unions are the bogeymen. Well, actually, what we’re seeing in the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by the Minister is quite simply a position that is about evidence. What we had in the original bill from the Government, in respect of drug and alcohol management plans, was a solution looking for a problem.

If you actually review the submissions, if you actually review the select committee process, and if you review in fact the majority report from the select committee, what you actually find is an absolute paucity of evidence that there is a systemic problem that requires the implementation of drug and alcohol management plans. It should be a fundamental precept of the way that we make policy in this House that before we impose legislative burdens on whole sectors of our economy, we actually clearly identify the evidence and the problem and then work out a solution that is proportionate to that. That is simply what we do not have in this case.

So the Minister makes a very good point. The Minister makes the very good point that still within the bill, with the provisions as changed by the Supplementary Order Paper, we still in fact have rigorous provisions for ensuring the health and safety of people working in the shipping sector. Let’s just talk through those briefly. The very first point, and it’s affirmed in the Supplementary Order Paper in the bill itself, is we still in fact have the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act that apply. It was a bill that was passed by this House, what, one, two years ago? That’s all. It was a bill that was worked through in a pretty collaborative manner, which imposes an extremely systemic health and safety framework across every employment sector in our economy. It places a burden on the person conducting a business or undertaking, which will generally be the employer in this sector, to ensure that risks are appropriately managed. They must identify the risks, and, if they identify a risk around drug and alcohol abuse, they must have a plan in place to eliminate or minimise those risks. They must. Those are the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act that already apply.

Now, overlaid on top of that, we have in the bill still—and this is left in place as a result of the Supplementary Order Paper—the relatively extraordinary power for the director to require random drug and alcohol testing, and the Government continues to support that provision to ensure that there is a backstop where the evidence supports that that should happen. So let’s just be very clear: this is not any sort of soft bill, as has been made out in the opening comments from the Opposition, in which we’re going to have Cheech and Chong captaining vessels on the New Zealand high seas. This is a bill that sees the continuance of the Health and Safety at Work Act and its provisions, and the implementation, where required, of random drug and alcohol testing in place. But we’re not going to put in place additional legislative burdens on that whole sector that, in fact, aren’t necessary and are not supported by the evidence that has been put before the House and put before the select committee.

The second point I just want to touch on relates to the other change in the Supplementary Order Paper around shipping services to the Chatham Islands. Really, this is one where the committee just needs to listen, because the people of the Chatham Islands, who are represented by Mr Paul Eagle, are entirely reliant on a sustainable shipping service to sustain their society and their economy. They are deeply concerned—and they made these representations to the select committee—that opening up that line would allow, effectively, predatory commercial behaviour to come in to undermine the current operator and to potentially put at risk a long-term sustainable shipping service to that island. It’s a small population. Quite frankly, it’s unlikely to justify multiple operators. They have a situation that works well for them now, and the changes put forward by the Minister in the Supplementary Order Paper will simply ensure that this committee listens to those concerns and doesn’t disrupt a very important service. Thank you, Mr Chair.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Chair. A brief call to highlight some of the points that the Minister was making—talking about following an incident, testing after the incident. Now, Minister, isn’t that just too late? Isn’t it better to have a culture where people understand that there is going to be random drug-testing. It’s a bit like saying, “Well, we won’t bother with having police check for alcohol randomly. We’ll only do it after there’s been an accident on State Highway 2, and see what happened and what occurred.” That’s exactly what—you’re taking away the disincentive, or the incentive, to misbehave.

So my question to you, Minister, is: isn’t it similar to random alcohol-testing that we have every day and everyone accepts as being normal, and is a disincentive to take alcohol and drive? Similarly, a drug and alcohol management plan or random drug-testing are an incentive to not take drugs and operate machinery, large vessels, safety-sensitive—I think the term is—machinery. So I think you are, Minister, being soft on the fact that you’ll go in only after the event. The event is done, the damage has occurred, and it gives some licence to those—not everyone of course, but it does allow people to think that they can get away with it, by taking on drugs and alcohol when they’re in positions of responsibility. So I’d like you to comment on the analogy between what I’ve just highlighted: the random alcohol-testing that we have on our roads is OK by you, Minister, I assume, but it’s not OK on ships.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): I’m rising to take the call on the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. It’s a real privilege to speak on this bill, as it will support maritime safety and tackle pollution. This bill will increase the amount of compensation available to meet the costs of a major spill from an oil tanker in New Zealand waters. In the legislation as it currently stands, there are limits on the amounts that the New Zealand Government can claim back in case of an environmental disaster, as we saw with the Rena in 2011. The result of that will be that the taxpayer, in the end, pays to clean up the mess. The limitation of liability under the international convention prevented the New Zealand Government at the time—

The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.