Thursday, 22 February 2018
Volume 727
Sitting date: 22 February 2018
THURSDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2018
THURSDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2018
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Prayers.
Visitors
Iran—Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee, Delegation
SPEAKER: I am sure that members would wish to welcome delegates from the Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Parliament, led by vice-chairman Mr Ali Akbari, who are present in the gallery.
Resignations
Rt Hon Bill English, National
Rt Hon Bill English
SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that I have received a letter from the, resigning his seat in the House with effect from Tuesday, 13 March 2018.
Business Statement
Business Statement
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): Next week, the House will consider the remaining stages of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2017-18, Employment and Investment Income, and Remedial Matters) Bill, the Customs and Excise Bill, and the first reading of the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill. On Tuesday, 27 February, as agreed by the Business Committee, there will be a debate on the report of the Commerce Committee on the Marrakesh VIP Treaty. On Wednesday, 28 February the House will consider the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Budget Policy Statement, and will debate the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The Rt Hon Bill English will make his valedictory statement at 4 p.m. on Thursday, 1 March.
JAMI-LEE ROSS (Senior Whip—National): That all sounds very busy, but I wonder if the acting Leader of the House can tell us if we’re likely to see more legislation introduced—or are there going to be Government filibusters on things like instructions and National Party - written bills all next week, as well?
Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): This Government has a comprehensive and ambitious programme, and the member can look forward to debating many, many Government bills in the future. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: Order!
Hon Kris Faafoi: Won’t be going home early.
SPEAKER: Was that a request, Mr Faafoi?
Oral Questions
Questions to Ministers
—Confidence
Ministers
1. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in all of her Ministers?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes.
Hon Paula Bennett: Does she have confidence in her Associate Minister of Education who, despite section 2.69 of the Cabinet Manual, which states, “Ministers should take care, however, to ensure that they do not become associated with non-governmental organisations or community groups where: a. the group’s objectives may conflict with government policy; b. the organisation is a lobby group; or c. the organisation receives or applies for government funding.” has not declared any perceived conflict of interest in relation to He Puna Mārama Trust?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Could I advise the member that there are three associate education Ministers. Which one is she referring to?
Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I answer the Minister’s question?
SPEAKER: The question’s been addressed—not quite in the normal frame, but it’s been addressed.
Hon Paula Bennett: All right. Have any of those Associate Ministers of Education declared any conflicts of interest in relation to charter schools?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: To cut to the chase, seeing as allegations have been in this House and they were against Mr Davis on this matter, can I say that the Cabinet Office has given a ruling on this matter inside the construct of the rules around the Cabinet Manual, and they have found that the allegations in this case are baseless.
Hon Paula Bennett: So in light of section 2.79 of the Cabinet Manual, which states any Minister who is an associate Minister to a portfolio irrespective of their delegations needs to manage any possible conflict, how has her Associate Minister of Education Kelvin Davis managed his conflicts of interest in relation to He Puna Mārama Trust?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Because in Mr Davis’ case, all he did—
Hon Steven Joyce: “How”, not “because”—“how”.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know whether it’s was, how, when, and why. If you’ll keep quiet, I’ll let you know.
Hon Steven Joyce: How? Just answer the question.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Unlike that massively conflicted former Minister, we know what the Cabinet Manual says. In Mr Davis’ case, he merely provided information to the trust pointing them to the publicly available information. Better independent judges on this matter in terms of the Cabinet Manual ruling have decided that he has offended no rule at all.
Hon Paula Bennett: Hmm, a bit defensive. Does she expect all of her Ministers to sign out their own answers to written questions?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I would imagine that every Minister is responsibly looking at their questions. I know that we were attacked with a telephone volume of questions by the former National Party Government when they went into Opposition in some sort of vindictive act, but I would imagine that every member, every Minister would be signing out their own written questions.
Hon Paula Bennett: Does he have confidence in her Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, who doesn’t seem to sign out her own answers to written questions and thinks a breakfast with a senior manager in a Government entity she’s responsible for isn’t a meeting, and fudges details in written and oral questions?
SPEAKER: Order! Well, I am going to let the Minister answer it, but there were probably three allegations that were made—unsubstantiated allegations made—as part of that question, all of which are strictly out of order.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The fact is that having a casual breakfast meeting with someone, which is very frequent given the proximity of the media to politics in this part of the country, namely Wellington, is not going to give rise to a conflict of interest, or failing to disclose information as to the official nature when it may well just have been sharing a breakfast.
Hon Paula Bennett: Does she have confidence in her Minister for Māori Development, given she had to withdraw 67 misleading written parliamentary questions?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The answer to that is if the officials wrongly prepared the answer—[Interruption] Well, I do recognise—
SPEAKER: Order! No, I just ask the Deputy Prime Minister to sit down. If members on my left want this line of questioning to continue, they will let the answers continue.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I do realise that some members of this House claim to have an elephantine memory and are able to answer all their questions without any preparation at all from their civil servants. We admit to being far more humble than that, and we rely upon the Public Service of this country to prepare the answers. Sometimes they may get it wrong, and that’s why they’ll be withdrawn. But there’s no—
Hon Paula Bennett: But you just said Ministers sign them out. You just said Ministers sign them out.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, I just said Ministers sign them out because, with civil servants having prepared them, you’d expect the Minister to rely upon those civil servants—bearing in mind, these were the same people gifted to us by the former Government after nine years of being in office.
Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Does the Prime Minister agree that in order to ensure administrative accuracy, it may be a possibility that written questions would have to be amended?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, most definitely. That sounds like the reasonable, rational, sane thing to do, which is why it has appeal on this side of the House and no appeal over there.
Hon Paula Bennett: So does she have confidence in her Minister of Foreign Affairs, given he railed vehemently against the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement for years, and now suddenly seems to be one of its biggest supporters?
SPEAKER: There’s no—sorry. Does the member want to have another go at the question.
Hon Paula Bennett: Oh, nah.
SPEAKER: All right. You understand? All right.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I cannot think of a Minister that the Prime Minister has got more confidence in, because what that Minister has managed to do, alongside the Minister for trade and other colleagues, is to take a ragtail sell-out of this country’s sovereignty and turn it around in the national interest. That’s why Donald Trump wants back in.
Health, Ministry—Funding for Rare Diseases
2. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: What are his priorities in the health portfolio?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Better health for New Zealanders.
Dr Shane Reti: Is it a priority for the Minister to honour his pre-election pledge of a $20 million fund for rare diseases?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: In fact, there was no amount specified in a pledge, but it is extremely important to me that we do have funds for rare diseases, and that’s why I’m quite pleased to say that Pharmac has announced they will be continuing the $5 million fund for rare diseases next year.
Dr Shane Reti: Why is Collette Bromhead, the CEO of the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, saying that she was promised there would be a new $20 million fund, and now Government MPs have told her that it is “off the table”?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I’m not sure why she’s saying that, because there was no specified amount in the Labour Party manifesto. There was a commitment, and I’ve made it very clear that this is an issue that is incredibly important to me, and I’m pleased that Pharmac will be continuing to fund rare diseases, and I’ve already asked both Pharmac and the Ministry of Health for advice on how we can continue to support those with rare diseases.
Dr Shane Reti: Why did the Minister write to the New Zealand Pompe disease network around Labour’s policy of establishing a rare disease fund when the Government is now saying the fund is “off the table”?
SPEAKER: Order! The member has now, I think, at least three times made an allegation that he’s based a fact on. Normally, when one makes some allegation, one needs to provide authentication, and I am seeking authentication from him.
Dr Shane Reti: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Shall I rephrase the question with the authentication?
SPEAKER: I think it would be a good idea, because I did happen to listen to the radio programme that the member might be relying on from yesterday.
Dr Shane Reti: Thank you. Why did the Minister write to the New Zealand Pompe disease network around Labour’s policy of establishing a rare disease fund, when the Radio New Zealand interview yesterday reported two MPs saying the fund is “off the table”?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: In the New Zealand Labour Party’s disability issues manifesto, there is a commitment to a specific fund for medicines to treat rare diseases. I am happy to say that Pharmac is continuing with the trial-specific funds for rare diseases this year, and that I’ve asked the Ministry of Health and Pharmac for advice on how we can continue to support funding medicines for those with rare diseases.
Dr Shane Reti: How could it be that the Minister told Radio New Zealand yesterday that “I wasn’t aware” of a vital funding cut to the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders, when CEO Collette Bromhead says, “He does know that our funding is at threat, because we sent repeated letters to his office and I have spoken to his private secretary.”?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I’m afraid that information is incorrect. The ministry has made no decisions on what is happening with funding for the New Zealand Organisation for Rare Disorders. It’s being considered along with all other things that are considered for funding in the Budget process for next year.
Dr Shane Reti: Is he confirming, then, that he has not received repeated letters to his office, and his private secretary has not been spoken to by CEO Collette Bromhead?
Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I’m afraid that I can’t confirm that one way or another, but if he puts the question in writing we might be able to answer it.
Angie Warren-Clark: Does the Minister agree with former chairman of the three Auckland district health boards, Lester Levy, when he told the Health Committee yesterday that the system in Auckland is under stress?
SPEAKER: Order! No, the member will resume her seat. That does not flow from either the primary question or the supplementaries.
Economy—Living Standards Framework and Performance Measurement
3. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Associate Minister of Finance: What recent progress has there been on development of the Living Standards Framework and other sustainable development indicators?
Hon JAMES SHAW (Associate Minister of Finance): Today, Treasury published four discussion papers and a position paper on natural capital, human capital, social capital, and a well-being framework. The papers are designed to spark conversations about lifting the quality of policy advice from Government departments by incorporating an intergenerational well-being perspective into policy formation, including environmental well-being. Our Government is committed to developing a more fulsome set of measurements for how we’re doing as a country, and these papers are a valuable contribution. For decades, the Greens have been advocating a more holistic view of the economy and well-being, rather than a narrow focus on gross domestic product. The Treasury papers today show just how far into the mainstream these ideas have come and that they are a core part of our Government’s economic strategy.
Jan Logie: Why is the Government working on measuring success differently?
Hon JAMES SHAW: What gets measured gets managed. Extending our focus beyond income to broader well-being will help to guide Government decision-making in the interests of all New Zealanders and the ecosystems that sustain us. Alongside the Living Standards Framework, Statistics New Zealand is working with Treasury to build a comprehensive measurement framework to support better policy-making.
Jan Logie: How will measuring success differently flow into Government decision-making?
Hon JAMES SHAW: This work will help to support the Government’s intention to amend the Public Finance Act to require reporting on well-being measures. The first step, as the House knows, is the Prime Minister’s work to insert child poverty data into formal budget reporting. Next year, the Minister of Finance has signalled a fuller integration for the well-being approach into Budget 2019. To quote a former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, we are working towards a system where “our success is counted not by the size of our GDP and our incomes but by the warmth of our relationships with each other and with nature, by the health of our children and our elders and our rivers and our land.”
Jan Logie: Will the Government still be measuring traditional economic indicators like GDP and gross national income?
Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes, it will, but GDP is too narrow and at the same time too generalised to be particularly useful for measuring actual well-being. GDP does not tell us if the poor are getting poorer, it does not tell us if homes are cold and damp and unaffordable, it does not tell us if our rivers are too dirty to swim in, and it doesn’t measure the scarcity of resources. In fact, Simon Kuznets, who standardised the measurement of growth, warned, “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from the measure of national income. Economic growth”—he pointed out—“measured only annual flow, rather than stocks of wealth and their distribution.” Our goal is not just a bigger economy; it’s a better economy.
Provincial Growth Fund—Initiatives
4. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Does he believe that the Regional Development (Provincial Growth) Fund is going to make a difference in the Tairāwhiti region?
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Yes, the Provincial Growth Fund will make a difference in the Tairāwhiti.
Jonathan Young: Following the comment of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment at their annual review this morning, that the present Government is continuing all of the previous Government’s regional initiatives, will he continue to support all the programmes around youth employment already started, and notably the commitment of $450,000 over three years to support the young people of the Gisborne-Tairāwhiti region to get their driver licence—noting the importance of a driver licence to perform many jobs and to get to and from work?
SPEAKER: Can I just remind members, as I have been this week, that that contained an extra bit on the end that was not necessary for the sense of the question.
Hon SHANE JONES: Obviously, interventions that enable people to go to and from work in the Tairāwhiti region, without being stopped by the police and charged for not having the right licence, is something that I look forward to championing. But I’m sad that it does disproportionately affect our young Māori folk in that area, and in that sense I look forward to working closely with Mr Jackson.
Jonathan Young: Is the Government going to announce the first project to be funded under its regional development fund tomorrow; and if so, will the Government publish the bidding and funding approval process for the Government’s regional development fund before or after the announcement of the first project?
Hon SHANE JONES: As a former MP of Gisborne, Sir James Carroll, was wont to say, you’ll have to tai ho.
Jonathan Young: Following their meeting with Juken New Zealand yesterday, is the Government planning to spend $20 million on a wood-processing plant in Gisborne, what was Treasury’s advice on the Gisborne wood-processing plant, and has a cost-benefit analysis of this project been completed?
SPEAKER: Any of the four questions.
Hon SHANE JONES: I guess I have met with the CEO of Juken Nissho but the majority of my discussions with him related to the future of the Kaitāia Juken Nissho factory. In relation to any specific proposal located in Gisborne, about the future of that firm’s investments, the member will just have to wait and see.
Jonathan Young: Will he guarantee 100 million trees a year will get planted, knowing that he is already 33.5 million trees behind, and can he tell us how many “neets” he plans to get off the couch, or will he need Willie Jackson to help him with that answer?
SPEAKER: Next question.
Human Rights Commission—Handling of Sexual Harassment Allegations
5. VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Justice: What announcement has he made regarding recent concerns about the handling of reported allegations of sexual harassment at the Human Rights Commission?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Yesterday, I announced a review of the Human Rights Commission’s culture, governance, management practices, policies, and procedures for handling internal sexual harassment complaints, under section 132 of the Crown Entities Act 2004. This review will be led by former Employment Court Judge Coral Shaw.
Virginia Andersen: Why is it important to have an independent review of the Human Rights Commission regarding this matter?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Public confidence in the Human Rights Commission is paramount. As an organisation whose functions include promoting awareness about discrimination and harassment, as well as advising on sexual harassment claims, they must be an exemplar of best practice. Also, a review under the Crown Entities Act respects the independence that the commission is afforded under legislation and under the Paris principles.
Virginia Andersen: Why is it important that the Human Rights Commission is an exemplar of best practice when handling sexual harassment complaints?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: A function of the Human Rights Commission is handling sexual harassment complaints. However, the standards of the commission should be the same as for any other employer in this country, and that is that sexual harassment is not tolerated and complaints are managed fairly and appropriately.
Youth Unemployment—Work Opportunities
6. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister of Employment: Does he stand by all of his Government’s policies on youth employment; if so, what is the number of 15 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education, or training?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Yes, I stand by all the Government’s policies on youth employment, and the number of 15- to 24-year-olds not in employment, education, or training is 80,000.
Hon Louise Upston: What is the number of 15- to 24-year-olds who are classified as “neet” and are on a main benefit?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I don’t have that information in front of me, but if the member wants to write to my office I’ll gladly provide the information.
Hon Louise Upston: For the 18,000 people getting the single-person jobseeker benefit who receive a benefit, what is the comparison between what they earn and what someone receives on the minimum wage?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Again, I don’t have that information in front of me. But, again, happy to take your question and respond accordingly.
Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Why is tackling youth unemployment a priority for the Government?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: The crisis of youth unemployment is real for many rangatahi and their communities, and providing them with pathways to sustained employment will help strengthen communities, improve living standards, and reduce child poverty. Yesterday, I started the first of my regional visits in Whangarei. It was wonderful to witness the commitment from employers and people in the community—Māori and Pākehā. It was a fantastic visit yesterday, and that’s why I wasn’t here at question time yesterday. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.
Hon Louise Upston: What is the Minister’s definition, on behalf of his Government, of “meaningful work”?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That’s a good question. I thank the member for the question. One of the problems we’ve had is, what is work? What is a job? Of course, it’s recognised as one hour, but the whole nature of employment has changed, and this Government is fixed on giving dignified work back to the people—dignified work, not just throwing them a shovel. We want to throw them a strategy, a future, and possibilities in the future. So we’re talking about dignified work, not just any work.
Hon Louise Upston: What is the Minister’s definition of “dignified work”?
Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Dignified work is not having a job on a week-by-week basis, that’s what dignified work is. Dignified work is about job security; about knowing you have a job three months down the track, six months down the track. Dignified work is about investing in employers, investing in communities, and investing in regions that that previous Government forgot all about in the last nine years.
Local Government, Minister—Correspondence with Whangarei District Council
7. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she stand by all of her answers to oral and written questions?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Yes, I do, within the context that they were given.
Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You’ve ruled previously that supplementaries must flow from previous answers. I’m in an unusual situation now where the Minister has just said she agrees with her answers to oral questions and her answers to written questions, and they actually differ now because she’s corrected a whole lot of written questions.
SPEAKER: The member can try and ask a supplementary if he wants to.
Jami-Lee Ross: OK. Does she stand by her oral answer on 1 February 2018, where she confirmed she had received no correspondence from the Whangarei District Council, or does she stand by her written answer, where she says she has received correspondence from the Whangarei District Council on 7 November 2017?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek a point of clarification.
SPEAKER: No, there’s no such thing.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: OK. Yes, I stand by the answers that I gave, but, for further clarification, I provided and included administrative adjustments to written answers, which included congratulation letters, invitations, thankyou cards, and Christmas cards.
Jami-Lee Ross: Is she now confident that all her answers to written questions are accurate?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: As best I can, yes.
Jami-Lee Ross: Does she stand by her newly corrected answer to written question number 15161, where she said that she had received no correspondence from the Masterton District Council between 26 October 2017 and 28 November 2017?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Can I repeat, for administrative accuracy, I included invitations, Christmas cards, and congratulations as a part of the answer that was amended.
Jami-Lee Ross: I seek leave to table a letter from the Masterton District Council mayor from 3 November 2017 to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta.
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Speaking to the point of order.
SPEAKER: It was not a point of order.
Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Could we get some clarification on the leave? Can I ask if the letter was written by the mayor in her capacity as mayor?
SPEAKER: No. The answer to that is no. If people are unhappy with it being tabled, they can decline. The letter has been described as being a letter of a particular date from the mayor. If it’s been inaccurately described, then there are consequences for the person who sought leave. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There appears to be none.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Jami-Lee Ross: How can we have confidence in any of her answers when she has twice stood in this House and said she stands by her written answers and then her office withdraws 67 answers for written question and then, after correction, she still can’t provide accurate answers to this Parliament?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: We ensured that we were accurate. In terms of the extent of the administrative response to the requests, we have included correspondence that otherwise might have been considered purely administrative so as to improve the answer to the member.
Jami-Lee Ross: How does the Minister stand by her answer that it is purely an administrative error when in her answers to written questions she told me she had received no correspondence from any council for the first month that she was Minister of Local Government? Does she think that was plausible? Was it her error or an administrative error?
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: At the early stages of becoming a Minister, the clarity around emails and the nature of whether they were considered correspondence or not is a matter which—
Jami-Lee Ross: You’ve been a Minister before.
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Either that member wants the answer or he doesn’t. At the point at which we were seeking to assure the member that we were covering all the administration components of the request that was made, we did decide to include invitations, congratulations letters, and “merry Christmas” cards.
Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership—Benefits for New Zealand
8. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister for Trade and Export Growth: How will workers benefit from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (CPTPP) is expected to have benefits for New Zealand workers. As New Zealand already has low levels of import tariffs, no sector in New Zealand is expected to have significant decline in wages or job numbers as a result of CPTPP. Lower tariffs, via exports of wine, kiwifruit, forestry, seafood, and meat, as well as lower non-tariff barriers for small businesses and the digital sector will lead to significantly higher incomes and greater employment. This agreement works for the freezing worker to the farm owner. Also important to people who work for their living is the ability to buy a home in New Zealand without having to compete with foreign buyers. [Interruption] This coalition Government has ensured that our existing homes, from the most expensive to the most modest, can only be purchased by New Zealanders.
SPEAKER: Order! Before the supplementaries are asked, I am going to ask the Hon Dr Nick Smith to tone down both the frequency and the volume of his interjections. He’s soon to become the father of the House, and he, I’m sure, has a very positive contribution to make, but I think when serious questions are being answered—ones that are important, I think, to all members of the House—we don’t need a barrage of interjections from him, which affect the ability of other members to hear the answers.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order.
SPEAKER: No. It’s not a point of order.
Willow-Jean Prime: What effect will the increase in exports from the CPTPP have on job growth?
Hon DAVID PARKER: The national interest analysis on the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership that was released yesterday shows that around 8,500 New Zealanders are employed for every billion dollars of exports. Job growth as a consequence of CPTPP is likely to be stronger in areas where New Zealand has comparative advantage, such as the primary sector and niche technology. [Interruption] That is why the four—
SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Dr Nick Smith will stand, withdraw, and apologise.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I stand, I withdraw, and I apologise, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: Dr Nick Smith, we’ve had this one once before. The member will withdraw and apologise properly.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Speaker, could you clarify as to what part of—
SPEAKER: No, I don’t need to clarify. The member has been here now for 27 years. He knows how to withdraw and apologise.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Speaker, I stand, I withdraw, and I apologise.
SPEAKER: And that will result in the loss of three supplementary questions from the Opposition, and Nick Smith will now withdraw and apologise properly and without any other comment added.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Speaker, I withdraw and I apologise.
SPEAKER: And from now on, for the rest of this question time, Nick Smith will not interject. If he needs to speak, he can talk to his colleagues and he might be allowed a supplementary.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Job growth is likely to be stronger in areas where New Zealand has comparative advantage, such as the primary sector and niche technology. This is why the forecast returns to labour from CPTPP are greater than the return to the overall economy. CPTPP is estimated to add up to 1 percent to annual GDP, while, again, for labour, is estimated to be up to 1.2 percent.
Willow-Jean Prime: How is this Government ensuring the benefits of trade are shared more fairly?
Hon DAVID PARKER: Many New Zealanders have been justifiably concerned at the increasing share of wealth going to the top 1 percent.
Hon Steven Joyce: That’s incorrect.
Hon DAVID PARKER: We need to rebuild public confidence in trade—
Hon Steven Joyce: Substantiate that answer.
Hon DAVID PARKER: It is patently correct, Mr Joyce. You are as ignorant—well, no, that’s the wrong word, sir. You are as incorrect on that issue as you were on the $11 billion mistake you made. We need to rebuild public confidence in trade, as the Deputy Prime Minister has said, by making capitalism regain its responsible human face. We’re doing this by pursuing productive, sustainable, inclusive growth to improve the well-being and living standards of all New Zealanders. Our first steps include our Families Package, which lowers income inequality, banning foreign buyers. It will also improve the opportunity of New Zealanders to own their home. There’s much we can do, including combating multinational tax avoidance—
Hon Steven Joyce: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m sure you can anticipate the point of order. That has now become a speech from the Minister rather than an answer to a question.
SPEAKER: When that member has a bit more experience, he’ll have a good look at the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings, and he’ll know that the only person who can interrupt on that basis is me.
Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In terms of interjections, I thought it was a practice in this House that every elected member of Parliament had the freedom of expression. I am interested to know if you are creating a new ruling today, based on your comments to the Hon Dr Nick Smith about participation—
SPEAKER: No, that member will resume her seat. Firstly, she’s trifling with the Chair, and, secondly, I think she should probably have a discussion with the Rt Hon David Carter, who has made a very similar ruling. I know because he made it to me.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to whether he’s received letters of congratulation for turning a sovereignty sell-out into a national interest sign-up, so much so that the anti – Trans-Pacific Partnership interests in the United States are now looking seriously at this new deal that he’s organised.
Hon Steven Joyce: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Earlier you asked my colleague to make sure that he could substantiate a claim in a supplementary question. I don’t think, with respect to the right honourable Deputy Prime Minister, that the claim that he made in his supplementary question could in any way be substantiated. [Interruption]
SPEAKER: No, I don’t need that. The fact that it is being contemplated is something that has been reported in the media, and I have no problem with that possibility being put to the Minister.
Hon Steven Joyce: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
SPEAKER: I hope the member is not going to trifle.
Hon Steven Joyce: No. I would never seek to trifle with the Speaker.
SPEAKER: No, I’m not saying whether the member is seeking to; the question is about whether he is going to try.
Hon Steven Joyce: I’m pointing out that I was referring to a different aspect of the question, which is in relation to the member referring to a sell-out of sovereignty and he would need to substantiate that if we are applying the same standard as we applied to Jami-Lee Ross earlier.
SPEAKER: I heard it. It was marginal. There have been comments made that have been, I think, stronger than that coming the other way during this very same question time, and I did not rule it out. And, again, I want members to take care as far as their challenging of rulings is concerned. Now, I think if the member starts his answer again, it might be the right approach.
Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have received copious quantities of correspondence congratulating the Government for protecting the sovereignty of not just this Parliament but future Parliaments, to protect New Zealanders against some of these excesses of globalisation, particularly by banning foreign buyers of their homes so that we have a New Zealand, not an international, market for our homes, which would have been lost had the prior Government continued on its course.
Prisons—Future of Waikeria Prison
9. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Corrections: Does he stand by all of his statements?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Corrections: Yes, and in the context in which they were given.
Simon O’Connor: Given his answer to question No. 9 on 12 December, “We are yet to make any final decisions on the rebuild of Waikeria,”, how long is the public going to have to wait on the decision to ensure that we are able to adequately house prisoners, given that there are only around 300 beds left in the prison network?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: In light of the chaos and crisis in which the last Government left the prison service, this Government is focused on making sure it makes a good-quality decision about the future of Waikeria Prison and on ensuring that we have a prison service that serves the needs of all New Zealanders.
Simon O’Connor: Is he aware that due to his inaction on increasing prison capacity, police holding cells and disaster recovery beds are being used to house general prisoners?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: There is no question that as a result of decisions from the previous Government it rapidly escalated the prison population, and the last Government left office with no plan at all about how to deal with the trajectory of increasing prisoner numbers. This Government has been left to deal with the problem, and we are doing good work and making sure we make good decisions to deal with this long-term problem.
Simon O’Connor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It’s possible—and, obviously, your call—that it was addressed, but the question was specifically asking about police holding cells and what I know as disaster recovery beds and were they being used—
SPEAKER: I think the member started with “in light of the Minister’s inaction”—at that point just about anything the member says is addressing the question.
Simon O’Connor: Is it his policy to hold prisoners in disaster recovery beds and police holding cells rather than build a new prison in Waikeria?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It is this Government’s policy to ensure that we have a prison service that treats prisoners with dignity and actually seeks to improve them so they leave the service capable of being good citizens. That is not the state the prison service is in at the moment.
Simon O’Connor: Given that addressing, can he still agree with Kelvin Davis, who said in 2016 that it was inappropriate to use emergency beds for routinely holding general prisoners?
Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It is inappropriate to hold a sentenced prisoner in anything other than a proper prison designed for the purpose of correcting their behaviour, but because of the crisis and chaos the last Government left the prison service in, we are left to fix up the mess.
Climate Change Policy—Consultation
10. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister for Climate Change: What aspects of a Zero Carbon Bill are up for discussion in the consultation planned for later this year?
Hon James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The piece of legislation that the member is asking about is a fairly significant piece of economic legislation with long-term implications, and due to the truncated number of supplementary questions available to the Opposition in this question time, I seek your permission to give a longer answer to the primary question than I otherwise would’ve.
SPEAKER: The member can try, and I may stop him.
Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): So I intend to consult on a range of matters in transitioning to a low-carbon and resilient economy, including the full range of options for the 2050 emissions reduction target, the roles and functions of the independent climate change commission, and what role the commission should have in supporting New Zealand to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The consultation material will be supported by a number of studies looking into how New Zealand can make the transition to a low-emissions economy. These include, first, the Productivity Commission’s draft report into the low-emissions economy; second, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report called Stepping stones to Paris and beyond; third, an expert report underpinning the Ministry for the Environment’s impact analysis on a range of potential 2050 targets, such as the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and Infometrics modelling the impact of targets across the economy, sectors, and society—the approach builds on and extends the 2015 modelling work—Sense Partners Ltd assessing the potential for targets to drive New Zealand’s rate of innovation and impact on New Zealand’s international competitiveness; expert reports underpinning the Productivity Commission’s analysis by Vivid Economics, Motu, and Concept Consulting Group on transition pathways to low emissions under uncertainty; and Sapere Consulting on moving to greater renewable electricity.
Todd Muller: Could you repeat that?
SPEAKER: I can’t, Mr Muller.
Todd Muller: Will the Government consult on the merits of excluding short-lived gases from within his zero carbon target?
Hon JAMES SHAW: At this stage, all options are on the table for a new domestic emissions reduction target. One of the key considerations will be our responsibilities under the Paris Agreement to have a sequence of all-sectors, all-gases international targets, including our current and subsequent nationally determined contributions, and for the 2050 target to be successful, we will need it to be compatible with our international targets as well as being sustainable, simple to understand, and internationally credible.
Todd Muller: Will the Government provide estimates of the comparative economic costs between a zero emission target for carbon dioxide only and a target that includes other greenhouse gases as well before public consultation takes place?
Hon JAMES SHAW: The series of reports that I referred to that provide the economic modelling underpinning the consultation will look at that range of options.
Todd Muller: Will the Government provide estimates of the regional and sectorial impact of those various scenarios for a zero emission target, such as changes in activity levels for steel manufacturing or pastoral agricultural production, before public consultation takes place?
Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes. We will be looking at the marginal abatement cost curves across sectors and regions. This is a much more comprehensive piece of modelling work than the piece of work that was done in 2015 in preparation for the Paris Agreement, but I do just want to caution that it is very difficult to make assessments 30 years out. This is the most sophisticated piece of economic modelling that this country has yet undertaken over an extremely long time frame, and so it does have its limits. It is, I guess, based on the best information we’ve got, the best set of scenarios that we can produce for the next 30 years.
Todd Muller: Will the divergent opinions and advice between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry for the Environment, and the Ministry for Primary Industries regarding the various economic costs of the various net zero scenarios be shared with New Zealand as part of that consultation?
Hon JAMES SHAW: I actually can’t answer that question. I expect agencies to provide robust advice based on their perspective, and that is part of the contestable nature of advice that we get from different agencies. I can’t commit, at this stage, before we’ve gotten too far down the design of the specific range of consultation options, on exactly what information will be included in that. The main reports that we’re talking about, like I said, are the series of economic modelling reports, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report, the Productivity Commission’s report, and work under way across different agencies on how different sectors can reduce emissions. We will also be doing reviews of international literature on the effects of climate policy on the economy and society at large, and within sectors and regions. But I can’t commit today to precisely what the consultation will include.
Cyclone Gita—Impact on New Zealand
11. RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister of Civil Defence: What reports has he seen on the damage caused by ex-tropical Cyclone Gita?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Civil Defence): I have received a number of reports updating me on the impacts of ex-tropical Cyclone Gita. In particular, I have received reports, and saw for myself yesterday, that the Tākaka Hill road is badly damaged. Today, the New Zealand Transport Agency is continuing to work to determine how long it will take to open at least single-lane access. It is likely to be several days, although I’ve been reassured that everything possible is being done to expedite progress. The New Plymouth District Council continues to work today on repair of a broken water pipe, and has started contingency arrangements for the supply of water. Additionally, efforts are being made by Powerco to restore electricity to close to 5,000 properties in Taranaki. Yesterday, I visited Gita-affected areas in Nelson, Tasman, Golden Bay, Westport, Greymouth, and Hokitika with my colleague the MP for West Coast - Tasman, Damien O’Connor, and saw the damage first hand. I would like to thank, on behalf of this House, the civil defence emergency management groups, emergency services, the Defence Force, and the many volunteers and members of the community who helped prepare and respond, and are now part of the community’s recovery from this event.
Rino Tirikatene: How well has the civil defence system stood up to these adverse weather events?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: While there was considerable damage, on the whole people were well informed and took appropriate precautions, and good decisions were made to declare local states of emergency early. This meant that local civil defence groups were able to keep people safe. Civil defence emergency management groups were also well prepared for this event. I’d like to thank communities, too, for their cooperation and understanding in Tākaka, where fuel is being limited to ensure supply, and in New Plymouth, where water is the concern. I would also like to acknowledge Fonterra for allowing a barge it is chartering to get milk product out of Tākaka to be used by civil defence to get crucial supplies of food into Tākaka while the hill road remains closed.
Rino Tirikatene: What steps can New Zealanders take to ensure they are prepared for emergencies like Cyclone Gita?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: With events such as ex-tropical Cyclone Gita likely to become more frequent, it’s more important than ever to be prepared. New Zealanders can start by having a conversation with people in their households and planning where they might go in the event of an emergency. Also, look to who can help you and who might need your help. We also encourage people, as they did in preparation for Cyclone Gita, to ensure they have at least three days’ worth of food and water and a grab bag in case they need to evacuate, and that they know where to get the emergency information and are able to do so. With Cyclone Gita, many New Zealanders took steps to keep themselves and their families safe and followed official advice. This helped limit the consequences of the storm and shows the benefit of preparation.
Biosecurity Management—Funding
12. BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country) to the Minister for Biosecurity: Does he stand by all his statements in relation to brown marmorated stink bugs?
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Biosecurity): Yes, in the context they were given. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the member for keeping this important issue in the public arena.
Barbara Kuriger: Thank you, Minister. Given the Minister’s statement that biosecurity was severely underfunded by the previous Government, what new funding that had not been already reserved for biosecurity has he requested from Cabinet?
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: In spite of us, unfortunately, facing some big challenges in the areas of biosecurity where a failure of the system has delivered us Mycoplasma bovis and a number of other incursions, recently I asked my colleagues for an extra $9.3 million in December for the Mycoplasma bovis response, which took pressure off other areas of the Ministry for Primary Industries and the biosecurity response team. I can tell you that we are shifting all the resource we can into these important areas to protect New Zealand from the brown marmorated stink bug and to try and eradicate Mycoplasma bovis.
Barbara Kuriger: Supplementary—
SPEAKER: I am going to let—because it is a matter of a lot of interest across the House, if the member has a point of order she’s allowed to have it. She will be allowed to have the next question, but as a result of Dr Smith’s further interjections when he was asked not to, next Tuesday the National Party will start minus two.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. One of the most important rights in this Parliament is freedom of speech, and if you as Speaker are going to say that I, as a duly elected—and, actually, soon to be the longest-serving—member in this House, am now going to face the Speaker in a partisan way of removing my right to interject, one has to ask why one bothers to serve as a member of Parliament in this Parliament.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker—
SPEAKER: Mr Peters, I know you are the longest-serving member and that member will never at current rates get past it. If the member has a question like that for his own future, he can contemplate it.
Hon David Parker: Speaking to the point of order, sir—
SPEAKER: No, there’s no point of order. Barbara Kuriger, supplementary question.
Barbara Kuriger: In accordance with the Minister’s answer, on behalf, in the House yesterday, can the Minister confirm that the $9.3 million in funding for biosecurity response, approved in December 2017, was additional to the $9.3 million reserved for biosecurity incursions by the previous Government?
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: The $9.3 million was a proposal put forward by me. I’m not sure that the last Government put $9.3 million. I’d be really interested to see those figures, if I can believe them.
Barbara Kuriger: I seek leave to table two briefings received under the Official Information Act from the Minister’s office, that in August 2017—
SPEAKER: Sorry, can I just check. Were these received by the member or the ones that have been proactively released by the department and by Treasury?
Barbara Kuriger: These have actually been received in my office under—
SPEAKER: As a result of your request?
Barbara Kuriger: Yes.
SPEAKER: The question is that the briefing of the date mentioned by the member be tabled. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
SPEAKER: Was there another document or just the one?
Barbara Kuriger: Those two—I mentioned—
SPEAKER: The same date.
Barbara Kuriger: No, there’s two. There’s one from 30 October and one from 15 December.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Point of order.
SPEAKER: No, I put the leave for the first one. I’ll put the leave for the second one. Is there any objection to that one being tabled? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure whether I have the ability to seek clarification but is this one of the many proposals put forward by the previous Government that never received funding—
SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I think that member is experienced enough as well to know when he is trifling with the Chair and running a risk going forward.
Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder, in the interests of balance, when a member obviously rises and raises a point of order that is not in the good order of the House whether the Government side should be docked two supplementary questions for next week.
SPEAKER: Thank you for the member’s suggestion. If the member was doing something that was her responsibility and not mine, then I might have contemplated it. I will take the judgments in this area and I will decline to have coaching, as I have, I think, three times today from my right. I will also decline to take coaching from my left in these matters during question time. The member is most welcome, as other members are—and have—to seek my advice in these matters either in my office or in writing, as members did as recently as yesterday, and I will reply to them as quickly as possible if it is in writing.
Bills
Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill
Second Reading
Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Associate Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Education: I move, That the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.
The bill supports better outcomes from the tertiary system by giving Government agencies better tools to identify and manage questionable behaviour in tertiary education organisations. It also imposes higher consequences where contract breaches or illegal activities are confirmed, and it broadens the protection and arrangements for students studying across our system to support student well-being.
I wish to thank the members of the previous Education and Science Committee—a particularly hard-working select committee it was, too—and the current Education and Workforce Committee for their diligent consideration of the bill. I also wish to thank the 2,000 organisations and individuals that made submissions on this bill.
I will briefly cover the substantive amendments that the Education and Workforce Committee has made to the bill. The Government intends to support the amendments recommended by the committee. The amendments illustrate that in its deliberations, the committee has been particularly mindful of submissions received from submitters during the select committee process.
The first change will be removing the principle of equitable treatment and removing the private training establishments name change proposal. The committee has amended the bill to remove the proposal to insert a principle of equal funding treatment of public and private providers into the Education Act 1989, and the proposal to change the name of the private training establishment sector to independent tertiary establishments. I welcome the committee’s amendments to remove these proposals. The vast majority of submitters on the bill were strongly opposed to both of these changes.
In response to submissions, the committee has also amended the bill to include a new type of private training establishment called a community tertiary education provider. I support this amendment. Inserting the term “community tertiary education provider” into the Education Act 1989 allows the Government to recognise the value of those not-for-profit private training establishments that have special roles or intentions, such as providing tertiary education for the public good.
Clause 10 of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill enables the Tertiary Education Commission to charge an organisation a fee relating to the cost of an investigation by the commission when a breach of funding condition is found to have occurred. This strengthens the commission’s ability to hold tertiary providers to account for their use of public funding. The committee has amended the bill so that the commission must provide notification to the affected provider when an investigation is commenced by the commission.
Clause 16 allows the commission to give funding approval to a provider, subject to conditions it considers reasonably necessary for the effective monitoring of the performance of the system in the tertiary sector. The committee has amended the bill to require the commission to consider any submissions from affected providers before giving funding approval. These amendments improve the bill by strengthening the accountability settings of the commission and by making the commission more responsive to providers.
To address ongoing concerns about provider behaviour, clauses 9 and 38 strengthen the offence provisions in the Act by clarifying the definition of a student’s record of achievement and introducing a new offence for making false representations on a student’s record of achievement. The committee has amended the bill to, firstly, clarify and improve the definitions in this section. Secondly, the committee has made amendments to significantly strengthen the offence provisions. These amendments increase the penalty for offences concerning the falsification of student records from $10,000 to up to $50,000. Increasing the penalty up to $50,000 also has the effect of increasing the time the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has to pursue a prosecution from one to five years.
I welcome the committee’s amendments to further strengthen the offence provisions. This provides a strong incentive for providers to act honestly and with due diligence in their maintenance of student records.
The committee has amended the bill to remove clause 28, which would have allowed a tertiary institutions council to pass resolutions in writing without the need for a meeting. I welcome the committee’s amendment. I think it is important to maintain public access to tertiary institution council meetings.
Clause 27 of the bill allows councils to conduct meetings via audiovisual means. This amendment goes a long way towards modernising council arrangements. The committee has made several minor amendments to the bill, which I support, such as including a definition of a “contract of enrolment” for international students in schools and clarifying that providers should publish compulsory student services fees on their websites, as per a student amount.
There is a Supplementary Order Paper that will be introduced. Clauses 26 and 27 of the bill allow a wānanga to apply for ministerial consent to use a protected term such as “university”. The committee has recommended no changes to this proposal, but the Government is proposing to make a small change. At the appropriate time, the Minister of Education will be tabling a Supplementary Order Paper that makes an amendment to the proposal to allow wānanga to apply for ministerial consent to use a protected term.
In particular, the Minister of Education proposes one change to the consultation process a Minister must follow. When considering a wānanga’s application for consent, the Minister of Education proposes that the Minister must also consult with experts in kaupapa Māori education. This is alongside the current requirements, which are that the Minister must consult with the institutions, organisations representing institutions, and other relevant bodies that the Minister considers appropriate. This amendment will balance the consultation requirements already in the bill.
The bill is a vital part of strengthening the tertiary education system, to strengthen accountability in the tertiary system, and to broaden student protections. I now commend the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill to the House.
Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): I’m very pleased to speak on this piece of legislation. At the outset, can I just acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee; the chair of the committee, Sarah Dowie; our spokesperson on tertiary education matters, the Hon Paul Goldsmith; and all of the members that have worked very hard on this bill.
This is an education bill that has come before this House that this side is supporting. I know there’ll be people listening who often think the role of the Opposition is to only criticise. Well, actually, there’s a lot of work that happens in this House whereby members do work together. We work together to improve legislation, to ensure that more young people get very good quality opportunities, and that’s what this bill is about.
There are four or five key aspects to this bill that National will be supporting. At the heart of it is ensuring that we have better quality in terms of our tertiary education and also our international education sector, but also that we ensure that our reputation on the world stage and also internally is very sound and solid. The export industry in terms of education is worth, I understand, about $4.28 billion to this country, so it’s a very important industry, and it is at threat. We have to acknowledge in this House that the previous Opposition—some of their immigration policies and election commitments that they made are a major threat to that industry.
So what this bill does is it also acknowledges the fact that we spend over $4 billion per year, and about $1 billion of that is spent on very generous student support, but that there do need to be changes. The first area of change is about greater flexibility in terms of funding. There was pretty unanimous agreement in this area in terms of the committee, but the next area is about improving the accountability of some of these providers. There’s a massive number of providers in this space. We know that this builds on the work of the last National Government, to ensure that where we may have fraud or where we may have people getting false credits, we build on the work and the provisions within this bill in this area.
There was a bit of a disagreement in terms of having a level playing field around equal treatment of providers. We are very surprised that Labour’s ideological opposition in committee has removed the clause in the bill that would have enabled public and private providers of tertiary education to be treated equally.
We also do want to acknowledge that while we are supporting this bill, it’s very important to understand the wider education picture. We have seen extreme ideology rear its head from the other side with the scrapping of partnership schools, with the scrapping of national standards, with the changes around cohort entry, and with a fees-free policy that is worth $2.8 billion that isn’t targeted. But this is a bill whereby we can work together, whether it’s on the issues of compliance or whether it’s on greater flexibility of funding.
The final area that I want to talk about is very dear to my heart, as a spokesperson that gets in and out of schools, but also as the member of Parliament for Auckland Central. Some of the most heartbreaking constituency cases that I’ve had have been of people who have come to New Zealand—they may have been international students, they may have been international students that might be 20 years old but they also may be younger, in school—and they’ve had some bad incident. Now, sometimes we know that the incident is not necessarily about them; it’s things that have happened to them. But sometimes it is an issue of conduct. This is where I think the committee did great work. I want to acknowledge the members opposite. We delved very deeply into these issues of ensuring that our code of conduct that was recently brought into train really is meaningful. What it does and what this bill does—and it’s very important—is it contains a proposal to amend the law to enable State and State-integrated schools to manage international student misconduct outside of school, including through the use of stand down, suspension, exclusion, and expulsion. This comes on the back of a court ruling.
So I want to finish by saying, look, this is a bill that is supported by this side of the House. It is in the context of much wider education reforms that our Opposition does not support because they are ideological, they haven’t targeted funding properly, and they’ve not helped vulnerable children when it comes to partnership schools. But we do support this bill because we think, ultimately, it’s going to lift the quality of tertiary education that is provided, it’s going to lead to less compliance, we think it’s going to enable greater flexibility in terms of funding, and it’s going to help some of our most vulnerable students, particularly where there may be a misconduct issue, where it may involve international students. So I have no hesitation in supporting this bill to the House.
Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Civil Defence): Can I begin my contribution by echoing the beginning sentiments of the Hon Nikki Kaye, in her contribution, in saying that this is a bill that has got to this House at second reading where, I think, the select committee that was considering it has done a really good job of working across the select committee itself to improve this piece of legislation.
As the Hon Nikki Kaye said, it’s not necessarily perfect for the Opposition, but when we’re dealing with the issue around tertiary education, I think it’s incumbent on this House to get as much cross-party agreement as we possibly can. There’s going to be differences, and, to change tack a little bit, obviously the Hon Nikki Kaye made comments around our position on charter schools being ideological. We would throw back to the other side of the House that their position on establishing charter schools was ideological, which I think is credit to our side of the House, which has given a pathway for some of those, as they call them, partnership schools to transition over to schools of special character, as long as they meet certain criteria. I won’t get into too much of that because I think we should focus on this piece of legislation itself before I start getting pulled up.
There are three themes that I did want to focus on in this piece of legislation, again echoing the Hon Nikki Kaye. The first one that I wanted to speak to was around improving the accountability of tertiary institutes. The one point that the Hon Tracey Martin made, which I think is a good development, is around the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) being able to charge an organisation a fee if it does an investigation into that entity and a breach of a funding condition has occurred. I think there are a couple of pretty high-profile cases where this has occurred. To give a tertiary education body that is charged with educating young adults in our community the funding to do that, and to find it to have misappropriated that money in any way, I guess is a wasted opportunity, because that money could have been placed elsewhere. I guess the question, whether it be a public tertiary institution or a private one, is, from the industry’s point of view, what might control the amount of the penalty that might be imposed upon it if they were to have cooked the books. In some cases, if the fee was exorbitant, then it may see that tertiary institution being put out of business.
I think, though, that the answer within the bill itself is a good one, because within the regulations that can be formed as part of this bill there is a control on how much of a penalty fee can be charged by the TEC for any breach or misappropriation of the money. I’m just looking at my notes here. Where there is a breach of a funding condition found to have occurred, the legislation and new regulation will put constraints on the recovery of funding, and this will include a limit on the proportion of costs that the TEC can recover. The TEC, obviously, will still be able to bear some of the costs of their investigations.
I just want to point out, also, that obviously these fees can be charged only if the TEC finds that there has been some form of misconduct. Obviously, if they do a series of investigations, as most of our tertiary institutions—we hope, obviously—are above aboard, then the TEC is going to have to wear the cost itself. I think that’s a good mechanism to ensure we don’t get fishing expeditions by the TEC if it doesn’t have good grounds to suspect that something is going on.
That is not to say that the TEC is doing that. But I think there’ll be genuine concern around the industry if they could go out willy-nilly, and, regardless of whether some misconduct has been found, a fee could be charged. So I think that is a good provision within the bill.
One other thing I did want to point out is something that isn’t going to be able to be done via this piece of legislation, and that is for decisions by the council of a tertiary institution to be made in writing. Essentially, if they have a whip-around of emails, the council can’t make a decision in writing. I think that is a good thing. I think we have to realise that public meetings of tertiary institutions having open access to the public is a very important thing.
I put that in the context of, let’s say, a tertiary education outfit in my electorate, which is Whitireia Community Polytechnic. It was established about 30 years ago with very much a community focus. It has evolved over time into a bit of a corporate behemoth, but still it’s very much at the community level. The community wants to make sure that that institution is there for the purpose of the community. I think if the community ever thought that it was getting too far ahead of itself, and it had the ability to do that by being able to make decisions without having any public scrutiny—not letting members of the public be able to attend its meetings—I think there would be some serious concern. So I’m happy with the fact that those meetings will still be able to have public access and those decisions won’t be able to be made by a whip-around of emails, which I think is good for community input into those institutions.
I understand that the penalties are going to be increased from $10,000 to $50,000. I think that is a good deterrent for anyone within a tertiary institution—again, going back to the earlier point I made—cooking the books. I think it is a good development there. I think it also opens the access to the window of investigation to move wider in terms of the time frame, too. That obviously gives the Tertiary Education Commission a lot more time to be able to look into these kinds of issues.
But I think, on the whole, we need to congratulate the select committee that worked on this piece of legislation—I think over the parliaments; yep, over the parliaments, in the 51st and in this 52nd Parliament—for making this piece of legislation as good as it possibly—[Interruption] Were you on it, Mr Macindoe?
Hon Tim Macindoe: It’s a good National Party bill.
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Made better by this Government. Thank you very much, Mr Macindoe. What I think this will increase is the accountability of the sector—the penalties put upon the sector if they’re found to have had misconduct. I think—I just have to be fair in the tone of my speech—this doesn’t happen a lot. But if it does happen, then I guess the ability—
Hon Tim Macindoe: It’s all warm and cuddly!
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I beg your pardon?
Hon Tim Macindoe: The member’s warm and cuddly.
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Ha, ha! But if there is misconduct, there’s the ability to take some action.
Obviously, I’d just like to point back to some of the points that the Hon Nikki Kaye made in a less conciliatory fashion, and just say that I think that the moves this Government has made in the education sector in our very short time in Government are very exciting. If you want to talk ideology and look at the fact that we’ve moved to get rid of national standards, moved to give young New Zealanders the chance to have a free first year of tertiary education—it’s going to be a game-changer for many New Zealand families, a lot of New Zealand families that I think wouldn’t even contemplate the opportunity of going and doing an apprenticeship, going to polytech, or going to university. So, I think, to have that kind of allegation thrown over to this side of the House, that this is based on ideology, is a little bit—I can’t use the word, but it begins with “h”.
I’d like to acknowledge that there is a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) about to be produced as part of this piece of legislation. I did hear my friend Chris Bishop say he’d send this to the select committee. The committee stage of the House will be the opportunity for those amendments in that SOP to be discussed. But, just to finish up, this will improve the accountability, improve the public and democratic nature, by the likes of open council meetings for tertiary councils, and I think that’s a good thing. I commend this bill to the House.
Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I am pleased to stand in support of a piece of legislation that was originally introduced by National when we were in office. I do want to just point out one particular issue that was very disappointing—another ideological issue that the current Government have taken issue with. It’s kind of interesting that the Minister Chris Hipkins has publicly stated that private training establishments often do a better job than polytechs, but at the last minute has decided not to put them on a level playing field. Speaking of level playing fields, this House is far from that. And so I choose not to use the rest of my time to speak in this House today.
JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I’d also like to join the Hon Nikki Kaye in talking about the select committee process. We do have an excellent select committee, the Education and Workforce Committee, very ably chaired by Sarah Dowie, who’s doing an excellent job, and I acknowledge the Hon Tim Macindoe, who’s a part of that committee. Unfortunately, I wasn’t present for the—
Hon Kris Faafoi: He’s all right.
JAMIE STRANGE: He’s OK. Unfortunately, I wasn’t present for the submissions, but I have taken the time to read a number of them, and those submissions will make their way into my speech as I make my way through it.
As we’ve heard, this bill supports better outcomes for the tertiary sector in three main areas: number one, by giving Government agencies better tools to identify and manage questionable behaviour in tertiary education organisations; number two, by imposing higher consequences where contract breaches or illegal activities are confirmed; and, number three, by broadening protection and arrangements for students studying across our system, to support student well-being.
Now, we had 2,000 organisations and individuals make submissions on this bill, so, certainly, this aspect of education is something that there is a high level of public interest in. It’s actually my third time in two days speaking on education matters, so that’s quite nice, as a former teacher—the fact that education is getting a bit of a spotlight in the House just over the last couple of days. The key aspect of this bill is around strengthening our education system. It’s about making sure it’s strong, making sure it’s robust, and making sure it works for young people, as well as families, as well as parents—basically, to provide for our community. I’m a big believer in public education and the outcomes that a strong education system provides for our country.
I’m just going to focus for a couple minutes here on some of the miscellaneous amendments in the bill. The first one is about enabling State and State-integrated schools to manage international student misconduct outside of school, including the use of a stand down, suspension, exclusion, or expulsion, so they can uphold their contractual duty to ensure international students’ health, safety, and well-being. I know it’s a miscellaneous amendment, but I see this as very important because we do have a number of international students coming to our shores. We certainly are a very popular destination, and that’s a credit to our institutions, to our teachers, and to our lecturers. It’s not just at the tertiary level we have international students coming; they come right through the levels, right from primary, intermediate, high school—and even partnership schools, I believe.
Erica Stanford: Which one in particular?
JAMIE STRANGE: Which one?
Erica Stanford: Say it.
JAMIE STRANGE: There you go.
So, look, on this topic of international students, I’m very pleased that this bill tightens up this area, because it is important that powers are given to boards of trustees. We do appreciate international students coming and we welcome them with open arms, and we’ll continue to do so, but it’s important that there are safeguards in this area. The particular safeguards in this bill particularly relate to a situation where a student’s having a bit of a challenging time and maybe pushes the boundaries further than they maybe should, and there are powers to sit the student down and say, “Hey, look, this is not working.”, have a talk to their parents, and work it out—which is just common sense.
As a school teacher, I certainly taught a number of international students, and it can be challenging for them at times, coming to a new country. A lot of times, particularly if they’re younger, they will leave their family for a period of time to come over here. There’s a language barrier. Confidence needs to be built. Sometimes they don’t understand areas around safety, and I think one of the key aspects for the international students is that they’re often put into a boarding situation with a family, and it can often be a completely different environment from what they’re used to in their country, so they certainly can, at times, be a little bit unsettled. Sometimes they settle down, but sometimes there are a few challenges around that. So, look, certainly this bill recognises some of the challenges in that space and puts some things in place—not just for the school and the other students but also for the protection of the international student who is over here, to make sure they have a good experience in New Zealand.
I’d like to look at another amendment here, and that’s around changes to, or clarifying, the number of technical matters relating to funding and reporting. Now, on this area of funding—and in terms of funding private and public institutions in a fair and equitable way—we did have quite a few submissions. I’m just going to mention a couple of those submissions now, because this was an area that certainly came up in the committee. We had a submission from the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations, and they talked about the treatment of international students, but they also—oh, no, sorry, that was international students.
Sorry—it was the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA), and, basically, what they said was “We are concerned that the provision to provide private institutions with the same funding as public institutions will lead to the dilution of funding for these public tertiary providers. The purpose of public institutions, such as the University of Otago, is not to solely provide returns to its shareholders but instead to produce well educated individuals who will serve society. Large public institutions, such as the University Otago, are accountable to their community and to other external organisations such as OUSA, which holds to account the organisation on the quality of the service in which they provide. Private institutions are accountable only to their shareholders and in providing maximum returns on shareholders wealth.”
So what this submission does is it clearly outlines the difference between the private institutions and the public institutions, and they’re strongly advocating for the same funding rather than private institutions having a bit of a better deal. That’s certainly something that people on this side of the House agree with. A strong public education system is absolutely vital—vital—to our country.
Just a couple of other amendments here—it talks in the bill there about making it an offence for a person to falsely award credits to a student studying towards a qualification. This is in relation to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA)—allowing NZQA to pursue action against tertiary education organisations for falsely awarding credits to students who have not been appropriately assessed for those credits. This is certainly common sense. It is important that we have a certain amount of robustness in our system around credits, and if people are falsely being awarded credits, then I think everyone in this House would agree that that’s something that we don’t want to see in our country. So this bill allows some teeth for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to act when that situation arises.
Another one here—it talks about allowing tertiary education institutions (TEIs) to pull assets from a number of trusts to create a common fund for investment purposes. Pooling assets into a common fund provides economies of scale and administrative efficiencies, and creates the opportunity to generate a higher return on an investment. It is important within an institution to look at the finances, as we know, and it certainly makes sense if they can cut down on costs by pooling funds, pooling resources, administration costs—yeah. In this bill, like I said at the start, there is a lot of common sense, and there’s a lot of cross-party agreement on these things, and that’s an important aspect.
Just a couple more in my last, sort of, couple of minutes here. The bill also talks about changing the term “private training establishment” (PTE) to “independent tertiary establishment” to allay PTE concerns that “private” implies they are for profit, when, in practice, PTE covers a range of types of organisational forms, from small trusts to large conglomerate not-for-profit and for-profit education providers. So, obviously, we’ve had a bit of an issue here, and it has come through in some of the submissions around some of the private training institutions who are not for profit being lumped in with the profit-making institutions. So they’ve clearly said, “Well, look, we aren’t for profit, and so it needs to be clearly stated that we aren’t, and have the aspect there of difference.” We’ll be listening to submitters on that.
I’ll probably finish with one more.
Rt Hon David Carter: You’ve only got 39 seconds to go. You’re doing very well.
JAMIE STRANGE: This one’s for you: modernising the TEI council operations, such as allowing councils to convene meetings via teleconferences and other electronic means. Now, I’m not sure if the member opposite knows much about the modern electronic means, but this is, basically, just about—[Interruption] You use things like social media, you know, or other sorts of aspects around there.
I’m very happy to speak about this bill and very happy that we have general consensus across the House. It is just sort of tightening up on a few areas within the education sector, and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.
Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. I join with my good colleague the Rt Hon David Carter in congratulating Mr Strange on managing to draw that contribution out for the full 10 minutes.
The purpose of this bill has been well articulated by my colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye and some of the Government members who have already spoken, so I’m only going to speak very briefly. I am delighted to see another important piece of National Party legislation from the previous Parliament being picked up by the current Government and progressed further through the House.
I will, just for the benefit of those who may be listening outside the Chamber, draw to their attention why it is important, for two reasons. One is that international education is currently our fourth-largest export industry—worth, today, $4.2 billion per annum to our economy. So that is a very, very significant contributor to economic growth in this country. And our tertiary education organisations obviously need to remain at the cutting edge of technology and innovation, to attract domestic and international students, and ensure that they can respond to the changing needs of those students in our labour market. This bill gives them the funding flexibility to do exactly that, so it is a very sensible measure, which, as I say, will contribute substantially to further desirable growth.
Just quickly, may I say how concerned I am that the new Government has decided to remove the equal treatment clause. In fact, the current Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, is already on record as saying that private training establishments often do a better job than polytechnics. Now, I don’t wish to make a comparison between the two, but it doesn’t make any sense, having made that comment, that he now wishes to punish those private training providers by removing the clause that ensures they receive equal funding to their public counterparts. We on this side of the House can see no reason for the Government to do that, and believe it is purely based in ideological dogma. We hope that they will step back from that retrograde step when we move into the committee stage of consideration of this bill.
GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I just want to say, after nine long years of voting against all the terrible National legislation in tertiary education, from reducing access to education to increasing the amount of money people were spending on their student loans, and when National removed people aged over 55 from accessing the student allowance. In fact, I used to carry around a giant list of all the negative changes where National had made studying less affordable, less accessible, and, in some cases, down right impossible for thousands of students. So boy, it’s great to be in this Chamber tonight voting for positive tertiary education that’s going to make it more affordable, more accessible, and see more people educated—it’s a wonderful thing.
Now, I heard the last member say this was an ideological piece of legislation; this is simply unwinding National’s ideological legislation. This original bill, as introduced by National, was to protect private interests and private profit in the tertiary education space. Previous Governments of both hues have made sure there was a differential in the funding between public and private for-profit providers. What National wanted to do, in their ideological bill, was to lock future Governments into giving what they called equality, which, in fact, was paying extra for private profit in the tertiary education space.
I’m proud to be voting for good tertiary education. I’m proud of all those hundreds of thousands of Kiwis who voted to change the Government because they wanted to see more progressive policy. They wanted to see smarter, evidence-based policy; they didn’t want to see the taxpayer ripped off, which is what would have happened under National’s existing legislation—it would have locked future Governments in.
I just want to acknowledge the fantastic work of the Tertiary Education Union (TEU), and the thousands of academics who turned up to the select committee, who protested, who wrote letters, signed things online, did all they could to protect their public education system. Now, this is one of the great taonga of our history: that we do have a wonderful tertiary education system and we inherit the system built by previous generations. The way National had introduced the bill would have eroded that for private profit—that was the ideological position taken, not this side.
So, look, we’re really proud to be voting for this legislation, because it fundamentally changes the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill as originally introduced under the Hon Paul Goldsmith.
Now, when we’re talking about the ideological nature of legislation, let’s also not forget how they were trying to change the framing and language. What we know is that that is an incredible part of the political discourse—how you name and the words you use in the discourse. So what they tried to do was change private tertiary establishments to independent tertiary establishments, trying to actually remove the fact that these were private companies for profit. Now, look, I don’t want to come across that I’m giving them a bad rap. Private providers do some tremendous work in our communities, but it’s not the same as a public education system, and this is why I was standing with the TEU. Our public education system must be protected, because what we would have quite simply seen is an erosion of public standards. You would’ve seen cherry-picking of the most high-value, low-cost courses. In fact, what you had seen over the last nine years was that polytechs were underfunded. They had to outsource some of the courses to private providers. The private providers then, for limited rental, actually went back to those training institutes—the polytechs—and used their facilities and made a profit on top of it. So changing the language was all about changing their ideological nature to present them as independent, as not-for-profit.
I’ll give the Government credit, because while language matters, they have managed to refine some of the terminology in the sector. So now we’re introducing a new sub-type of private training establishment, which is a community tertiary education provider. Look, we shouldn’t be seeing games with language for political point-scoring; we should make sure that language in fact reflects what truly is occurring. Calling something a community tertiary education provider when it’s a non-profit, private provider is an entirely reasonable and accurate description. This is simply what the legislation does—introduces accurate terms.
I won’t talk for long, but after nine long years of an erosion of our tertiary education sector, of these ideological policies, which have made it harder to study, harder for our academics, significantly underfunded, it’s great to be able to reverse some of those changes. This is an entirely reasonable step to make sure that that existing and previous funding differential, which previous Governments had enumerated, was simply because the taxpayer shouldn’t be subsidising the capital asset base of private providers.
There is a role for the State to be providing a subsidy for education if a private provider is using it, but something National members never in the House, never in the select committee, could answer was why the taxpayer should be providing that capital asset base for public providers, building future greater profits from. That’s not the role of the taxpayer, to subsidise private providers’ long-term profits; it was to subsidise the actual courses being provided because it was in the public interest. This is why I’m so proud to be part of the Government, with the tertiary education Minister, the Hon Chris Hipkins. It’s putting the public back into public education. It’s a good day for New Zealand. Kia ora koutou, Mr Assistant Speaker.
ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): I rise to speak to the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill at its second reading. This is another piece of good National Party legislation, another good bill, and can I acknowledge my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith for his good work in bringing this bill forward. Can I also congratulate the Education and Workforce Committee on their hard work in scrutinising this bill. The committee’s changes to this bill have been well documented in the speech earlier by Ms Tracey Martin, so I won’t go into them in any great detail, apart from to talk about the fact that a couple of clauses were removed. I wasn’t part of the select committee—I wasn’t privy to the discussion—but from what I’ve seen and what I’ve read, clauses 12 and 13 have been removed.
Labour’s opposition to privately delivered services has reared its ugly head, with the removal of these two clauses that treated public and private providers of tertiary education equally. It treated them equally. The clauses established the principle for providers of tertiary education with similar offerings and similar outcomes for students, no matter whether they were public or private providers, to receive the same rate of funding. As my learned colleague Mr Tim Macindoe pointed out earlier, the education Minister, Chris Hipkins, has publicly said that private training establishments often do a better job than polytechs. So it’s difficult, given this, to understand why he would now want to disadvantage these private institutions by removing this clause that ensures they receive equal funding to their public counterparts.
We can see no reason why this Government has removed this clause from the bill other than pure ideology. Regardless, this is a good bill that we broadly support, and I commend it to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes.
JO LUXTON (Labour): I’m really rapt to be able to stand and take a call on this, the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This is the first bill that I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of in select committee and have it come through to the House. The Education and Workforce Committee worked really well together. It was really collegial working with the members of the Opposition on this bill. It’s something I really enjoyed, and there were only a few minor things, in my view, that we didn’t quite agree on completely.
So the purpose of this bill, as we’ve established today, is to strengthen the accountability in the tertiary education sector. It’s to provide for consistent treatment of tertiary education organisations and to broaden student protection arrangements. Now, I wasn’t part of the process when the committee received submissions, but there were over 2,000 submissions, and the vast majority of them opposed new section 159NA. I’d just like to, if I may, read one that particularly stood out for me—well, actually, there’s two here, but one was made by Laura Molles. It reads: “Public tertiary institutions provide the breadth and depth of educational opportunities that allow thousands of individual students to pursue their interests, and they are necessary to ensure that New Zealand continues to benefit from a diverse, innovative workforce. Some areas of study and research may not be highly profitable in a monetary sense, but provide social, scientific or artistic payoffs that enrich our lives and drive progress. Public institutions, already chronically underfunded, should not be required to compete on equal terms with private, profit-driven companies for government funding. If a tertiary provider aims to benefit private owners, rather than the public good, then it should be required to do so under its own power.”
So we are very, very proud of our public institutions here in New Zealand, and our universities are ranked among the top 500 around the world. Our polytechnics meet the needs of our communities by providing education, often, in our smaller regions. So with the removal of new section 159NA(1), which stated that “Every funding mechanism must be consistent with the principle that an activity or approved programme or training scheme is to be funded at the same rate as … directly comparable activity or directly comparable approved programme or training scheme, regardless of the identities of the tertiary education providers concerned.” Now, we removed that in the select committee, and that’s because we are very proud of our public institutions and believe that they should be funded so.
The other thing I wanted to mention was repealing the definition of “private training establishment”. We, again, removed this from the bill because we feel that it was just purely wanting to be able to trade on the standing of our public tertiary institutions. It’s important that we maintain the distinction between our public institutions and those of the private training providers that are run for profit. Also, in the past there’s been questionable behaviour from providers, and this amended bill addresses ongoing concerns in this area.
Taxpayers’ money is used to fund these providers, and, as such, they must be able to be held accountable for questionable behaviour—and by questionable behaviour, I mean falsifying student records. So what this bill does is it makes amendments to strengthen the offence provision and increase the penalty for falsifying student records from $10,000 to up to $50,000. This is going to encourage providers to act honestly and ensure that they maintain student records accurately.
In closing, I want to thank all those that took the time to submit on this bill. It’s great when people participate in our democratic processes. And, again, I really want to thank all previous and current committee members for their work on this bill. I commend this bill to the House.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Five-minute call—I call Lawrence Yule.
LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Well, here we are again, just before we go home after the week, and I reckon over half the bills that have been put before this Parliament this week are National Party bills. I’m delighted to actually speak to the second reading of this bill—
Hon Member: All of them.
LAWRENCE YULE: Well, I haven’t actually done the numbers, but it feels like that; if it’s more, that’s great.
This bill is a great thing. It increases funding flexibility to tertiary education. But there are two things that I actually want to specifically comment on. One is the number of changes that are being made to support domestic and international students. In some of my previous roles, I’ve seen how that hasn’t always been perfect, particularly some of the welfare issues out of the actual institutions themselves. So we need to ensure that the right settings are in place to support domestic and international student safety and well-being, and to ensure that they receive a consistently high-quality education while in New Zealand. As has been alluded to by my colleague the Hon Tim Macindoe, over $4 billion goes into our economy every year.
Importantly, the second part is how we increase funding flexibility, because, actually, tertiary education has asked for this, and I think this is a great way of responding to the request. There will be new conditions placed on funding. It allows less bureaucracy, it allows more flexibility, and, importantly, it reduces the compliance burden for tertiary organisations. And it actually provides incentives for them to be innovative and to focus more on students and less on compliance. So, in summary, with those two things, I think this is an important bill. I commend it to the House, and I reiterate that it’s another National Party bill. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.
MARJA LUBECK (Labour): I’m rising to take this call on the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Yes, I agree with the previous speakers that this bill started its life as a Government bill in the 51st Parliament. But the Government of the 52nd Parliament definitely has made significant improvements to it and made it a lot better, and I’ll talk about that a little bit later on.
First of all, I want to mention that in general this bill has quite a few aspects to it that show a strengthening of the tertiary education system by addressing accountability in the system and increasing student protection. Something that this bill is adding as an improvement is that it tidies up a loophole with regard to falsely awarding credits on a student’s record of achievement. This issue, a while ago, received quite a bit of publicity when the International Academy of New Zealand was closed and students were not receiving correct assessments of their studies. So while it was already an offence to issue false qualifications, there was a loophole with regard to falsifying credits or marks for students’ assignments.
So, as my colleague Jo Luxton mentioned before, the increases to the penalty for falsification on student records has increased significantly from $10,000 to $50,000, so that makes it comparable to similar offences. But what the increase also does is it increases the timeline that this offence can be prosecuted, and it extends it from one to five years. That’s important, because it can actually take up to four years before reviews or routine checks show up that there has been an offence. So as a result of this change, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) can prosecute persons who falsify components of a qualification and who, when they do that, are undermining the confidence that the public can have in the integrity of our NZQA system.
Now, as I said before, I’d like to talk a little bit about the importance of the deletion of some of these proposed clauses, because, in fact, the changes that this Government has made to this bill go to the core of how we are fundamentally different. This Government bill started out as a bill that puts profit first; we put people first. So this is not about creating a level playing field, as the Hon Nikki Kaye mentioned, and—unlike the member Tim Macindoe said—this is not about punishment of private providers. I’m not sure actually if the honourable member Tim Macindoe was part of the previous select committee or not, but I know that the previous Minister of Education, the Hon Nikki Kaye, should be aware of the thousands of submissions that were put forward to that particular select committee at the time—the vast majority, as my colleague Jamie Strange pointed out, not supporting the change at all.
What the provisions proposed by the previous Government would have done is they would have provided the same funding rate across the board, whether that education provider was a public or a private entity. Now, that’s not right. As I said before, during the select committee there was an overwhelming number of submitters pointing out that public money should not be spent on what is a private business. The majority of submitters were opposed to the clauses that would put in a law that public and private providers should receive the same rate of funding. The majority of submitters were clear on the fact that they saw public providers committed to the communities they serve and they work in, and that legislation to provide private, for-profit providers with the same funding would, ultimately, undermine these public institutions. It was submitted that using public funding to subsidise for-profit providers would create unacceptable competition for public providers, and the main focus should not be on what the economic return will be. Again, that is where we are so fundamentally different from the other side of this House: people first.
As private training establishments are not accountable to the Government for the quality of programmes they teach, it would give them an unfair advantage if they had the same funding, because they could cherry-pick the courses that would give them the greatest return on investment, rather than putting the focus, as public institutions do, on what is best for the community. So, really, it would have been going as far away as we can think of from a level playing field. So what this new bill has done, from this Government, is it has removed those clauses and has left the situation to be determined, as it is now, in funding policy.
What we also have deleted, listening to the thousands of submitters, is the proposal to change the name of “private training establishment” to “independent tertiary establishment”. There were over 1,900 people and institutions that were submitting on this point to the select committee; every single one opposed the change. There was not one person or institution that supported it. It makes you think that the previous Government was kind of out of touch with the people. It was widely felt that the word “independent” would imply that public institutions were not independent, and that both the terms “public” and “private” education are used all over the world, are well recognised everywhere as well as here in New Zealand, and there’s absolutely no confusion that would have warranted a change in law to somehow tidy that up.
This version of the bill also removes the provision for councils to discuss topics by email and, eventually, after their emails, make decisions by email. That would have had the effect that council meetings would not be open to the public, which is against the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. This particular Act stipulates the very important requirement of the need for public access to meetings. So this bill has very good tidy-ups, and it’s closing the loopholes that pose a significant risk to our education system.
Now, we talked about the over 2,000 submissions. There’s also one that was quite significant from the Otago University Students’ Association. It talks, again, about the wording of “independent”, and it states that they don’t support the amendment to the bill: “We understand the wide ranging nature of the PTE sector, however, we believe the change to ‘independent tertiary establishment’ may in fact obscure the true nature of these organisations, it providing a return to shareholders. We believe it is important to be able to clearly distinguish between public and private tertiary education providers. We believe this would serve students in better understanding the nature of their training providers.”
The same Otago University Students’ Association also wrote a very good paragraph on the removal of new section 159NA, the equal funding for private training providers and public institutions. It states, “[The] Public tertiary education providers have an important responsibility to society. They have a duty to education those of any background, to protect intellectual freedom and provide quality research that will take this country forward. Private providers however are not required, or held accountable to be of any service to society. They can if they please, serve only their shareholders in increasing wealth. This duty to increase shareholders wealth can also leave these private education providers ‘cherry picking’ those courses [to] provide the greatest return on investment instead of [focusing on the] greater good for the community. Private education providers can also be motivated by increasing shareholders wealth to shift away from communities that need education providers into larger populated areas in an attempt to increase market share. For these reasons [the] OUSA strongly opposes equal funding for these private training providers.”
That actually puts it really eloquently—the fact that we have been talking about not creating a level playing field at all but, in fairness, actually creating a very unlevel playing field by having unfair competition and giving private providers a huge advantage to use the funding the way they see fit, and that is taking money out of the taxpayers’ pockets.
So, coming to the end of my spiel, I also would like to thank the members of the previous select committee, the Education and Science Committee, for the work they did when they passed it on to us, the Education and Workforce Committee. We enjoyed making some changes to it and making it a more enjoyable bill, thereby now supporting it and commending it to the House. Thank you.
DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m taking a call on this bill here this afternoon. I’m happy to take a call on the second reading—my first opportunity to do so since becoming an MP. I have picked up on a linkage between the three select committees that this bill has been through. There has been, as the previous speaker, Marja Lubeck, has noted, the Regulations Review Committee, then it was the Education and Science Committee that took it, and now, of course, we’re the Education and Workforce Committee, and I acknowledge those here this afternoon who are on that Education and Workforce Committee with me.
I wanted to pick up quickly on one aspect. The former Regulations Review Committee in the former term had expressed concern that the bill would provide for disciplinary action against international students governed solely by the code of practice. I guess the concern was that that code of practice was designed to primarily protect domestic students’ access to schools. But, of course, what we’ve discovered in our committee is that the code of practice has been specifically designed to protect international students’ well-being and rights.
In our committee, we asked the ministry a series of questions. There’s been a theme here this afternoon around student misconduct and the way that the bill helps to address issues in that regard. We asked the ministry to provide information about complaints involving younger international students and their guardians. What came from that particular query of ours to the ministry is that the code of practice and the international student contract disputes resolution scheme, the DRS, which took effect back last 1 July 2016, is something that is fulsome and can address the concerns of that original Regulations Review Committee.
So I just wanted to highlight the fact that we as a committee have been very happy, and very much able, to support this bill. We on this side of the House do so as well, and we look forward to its passage through this Parliament. Thank you.
JAN TINETTI (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m delighted to rise here this afternoon to speak on the second reading of the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I too, like the previous member, Denise Lee, would like to acknowledge the previous committees that this bill has been through, but particularly the Education and Science Committee of the 51st Parliament. It was this committee that took the time to work through the over 2,000 submissions that were received on this bill.
It is a wide-scoping bill in the tertiary education space, and, as my colleague from the Green Party Gareth Hughes said, it is a bill that is a good bill for tertiary education, because it is a bill very consistent with this Government’s policy in the quality public education space. It’s good to see that being acknowledged right from the word go right through to the tertiary education area.
It is a bill that has an odd name—the odd name being “Tertiary Education and Other Matters”. It’s the other matters that we have heard of here this afternoon, and that perhaps is the area that I would first like to highlight in my speech here this afternoon. It’s the other matters that start with the protection of our students and our international students who come to this country—so looking at schools’ management of international students. There were only two submissions on this part of the bill. One came from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, but it’s the other submission that I would like to focus on, because it is a wide-ranging submission, and perhaps one of the better form submissions that I have seen. It really clarified for me why we had to make changes to this.
That submission came from the Schools International Education Business Association of New Zealand, or the acronym SIEBA. SIEBA’s submission was supported by Tauranga Boys’ College and the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand, or SPANZ. The reason I highlight this is because it has actually come from an issue that arose in the international student space that no school or no host parent had ever anticipated would happen. I would like to thank SIEBA, Tauranga Boys’ College, and SPANZ for actually putting this submission together and highlighting such a serious issue in this space so that we can get this right. That’s where the Education and Workforce Committee has made a few changes to the bill—so that we are making this really strong for schools, and this legislation really strong for schools.
We know that international education in the school sector is really important to those schools. It’s really important to the New Zealand economy, and I would also like to speak on this having been a host mum for five international students over many years. I never actually anticipated over that time the issues that SIEBA, Tauranga Boys’ School, and SPANZ brought up in their submission. So it was really good that that actually happened.
I want to take the time just to read a couple of paragraphs from that submission, because they are key paragraphs as to why this has been a really, really critical amendment that was made from the select committee process to this reading. They say, “The limitation of the [overall] Act has long been recognised by schools. In order to respond to this challenge, schools have attempted to create a second line of authority in the form of enrolment contracts which are intended to allow the school to supervise students’ conduct in other areas, under the guise of responding to breaches of these contracts. This was attempted”—by the school in question—“as is discussed in the High Court decision, and is also what was recommended by the Ministry of Education in its Guidelines on the code”.
Then the next paragraph that I want to read goes on to the judge’s decision about why just using that code alone wasn’t so good. “However, the decision of [the judge] also drew this practice into question. In particular, her Honour raised concerns about the ability of these contracts to be binding on people under the age of 18. While accepting that certain breaches, such as the non-payment of fees, could result in the termination of enrolment, [the judge] appeared to reject the contention that enrolment under a contract could be terminated for misconduct”. So just having that conduct alone—those guidelines in the overall code of conduct—was not a good thing for that particular school, and therefore that school got taken to the High Court. That’s what the intent of this part of this particular bill has aimed to cover.
Now, SIEBA proposed that the initial writing and drafting of this bill didn’t go far enough, and they proposed that a definition of “enrolment contract” be inserted into the Act. So the bill was amended to this part now, after select committee, for that to happen. Talking with the SIEBA representatives, it was also important that the changes were made to this—and this is really critical—so that they weren’t only to deal with student conduct and discipline of the student at the time, but they must also allow schools to make the decision to have students return when they are at risk due to non-disclosed conditions.
Now, what I didn’t realise—and I’ve never been a principal with international students—is it’s actually quite common for international students to be enrolled in schools and their parents overseas don’t disclose the conditions, according to SIEBA. The reason for that is that they’re scared that if they do, the school won’t take enrolment. So SIEBA recognised that this clause also gives protection for the student and the schools in those situations as well. So that clause was put in there.
The member that just spoke, Denise Lee, talked about the Regulations Review Committee, and the Regulations Review Committee also said, “Why did the contracts need to be put into this particular bill?”—that maybe we could just amend sections 13 to 18AA of the Education Act. Sections 13 to 18AA allow for the stand-down, suspension, and exclusion of domestic students, but they do not cover international students. Now, SIEBA state very clearly in their submission that it is really important to keep the two completely separate, that it needs to be a completely separate area, and that they need to have that ability to be able to look at the international students separately. So I’m really delighted that the select committee didn’t take that recommendation up and have actually put in the recommendation around the guidance around enrolment.
At the same time, in the submission SIEBA asked for schools to have the ability to outsource disciplinary matters involving international students. Now, section 17 of schedule 6 of the Education Act already allows boards to delegate authority, and it allows them to delegate the functions and powers of the board by resolution in written notice to certain individuals. So what that means is that a board can already bring in outside expertise to support the board in helping them make a decision.
The reason SIEBA had asked for this was that they felt that there are schools that are wanting to set up international student areas, departments, in their schools. They felt that if they were able to outsource the discipline side of things to someone else, that might encourage those schools to actually do that—to set those departments up. But what the select committee decided was that, because the Education Act already has that there, that wasn’t needed. So we didn’t make that decision to go down that track, because they already have the ability to be able to do that.
So, once again, I would like to take the opportunity to thank SIEBA. As I said, I’m not someone that has had a great deal of experience with the international students in my schools. I found this very, very, very enlightening—this submission. I understood a lot more about that space after reading it, and I believe that the changes that the select committee made are very strong and make this a very good part of this bill. So with that I commend it to the House.
Bill read a second time.
Bills
Food Safety Law Reform Bill
Third Reading
Debate resumed from 20 February.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Before I call the honourable Minister, I just want to remind the House that the last time we were debating this the Minister had nine minutes and 30 seconds remaining to speak, and if the Minister would look to me for guidance for the countdown of time, it will not be the same as what is displaying on the time clock.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Food Safety): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to be able to speak in support of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill, which makes a range of improvements to the legislation that underpins our food safety system.
Hon Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but this Minister did not commence this speech, and I’m just wondering whether you can advise the House whether it is permissible for a different Minister to continue the speech.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you very much for your point of order. The Minister in charge of the bill is able to continue an interrupted speech. Minister Hipkins—
Hon Tim Macindoe: Under which Standing Order?
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): It is convention. I will find the Standing Order for you. Just a moment, the Clerk will find that for you. It may take a moment. We will permit the Hon Damien O’Connor to continue with this speech.
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. This omnibus bill amends the Food Act, the Animal Products Act, and the Wine Act to address the remaining issues raised by the whey protein concentrate—WPC, it was known as—inquiry. The House will recall my support of the legislation when it was in the Primary Production Committee and my desire to see its passage sooner rather than later from a position of Opposition. I now have the privilege, I guess, of being the Minister.
The previous Government committed to implement all 38 recommendations of the WPC inquiry, which was set up after the Fonterra botulism false alarm of 2013. Most of the recommendations have already been addressed, including several key initiatives such as the establishment of the New Zealand Food Safety Science and Research Centre and a Food Safety and Assurance Advisory Council. The bill sits alongside these and other multiple operational actions taken since the WPC80 inquiry.
The bill was introduced in June 2016 and was considered by the Primary Production Committee, and I’d like to acknowledge the efforts of that committee, which approached this in a non-partisan way. It was reported back by the committee in December 2016 and was read a second time on 22 June 2017, so it has been around for some time.
I’m pleased that the bill has unanimous support in this House. It shows the outcome that can be achieved when the House cooperates to pass legislation for the good of all New Zealanders. Many speakers in previous debates mentioned the importance of food safety and its regulatory system in New Zealand. I’d like to emphasise to the House that this Government is in complete agreement about the importance of food safety to New Zealand, to its consumers, and to its exporters.
Protecting New Zealand’s reputation as a world-class supplier of safe food that is suitable for its intended purpose cannot, however, be the role of Government alone. We must harness the combined efforts of others who are well placed to act, such as food business operators and industry groups.
Our system is designed to ensure the careful management of food-borne disease and illness risks while recognising the costs associated with that management, so that we can keep consumers safe, enable business to develop, and maintain and increase international trade. The bill reflects the priority that this Government puts on food safety by making amendments that will be of benefit across the whole food system, and the bill is a result of a very collaborative process at every level.
In the bill’s first reading debate, many members talked about the key themes that run across the amendments, and it’s useful to emphasise these here. Firstly, we need to continue to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the food safety system. We need to make sure that resources are allocated according to the level of risk food poses and are used to deliver the greatest level of consumer protection possible. We need to be able to make sure we’re ready and able to deal rapidly and efficiently with food incidents as they arise. These actions build and protect New Zealand’s reputation, which is so pivotal in our international trade success. The bill’s provisions will improve the management of food safety and other risks across the whole system.
Secondly, we need to ensure that the level of regulation is justified and balanced against the level of compliance impacts for food businesses, and I’d like to acknowledge our coalition partners, New Zealand First, who have had discussions to ensure that small food businesses are not clobbered by this new round of compliance through the Food Act. So we will work with them and the Green Party to ensure that small innovative food producers can carry on and develop their businesses without paying ridiculous compliance costs. Industry and advocacy groups engaged extensively with the development and progress of the bill, and submissions from a wide range of perspectives helped inform and shape the recommendations made by the select committee and now followed through by the coalition partners in this Government.
Thirdly, we need to futureproof the legislation as much as possible so that it has the flexibility to allow food safety practice to evolve over time, along with the creativity and the innovation that is the hallmark of the New Zealand primary sector and secondary processing sector. We harmonised the requirements, where possible, so that obligations are similar in a world of increasingly multi-ingredient food products.
The original bill was adjusted by the select committee to make sure these three outcomes are achieved. The select committee members from both sides of the House have stated they consider we now have the balance about right, and I welcome endorsement from the Opposition for the passage of this bill.
The amendments that were made through Parliament will help futureproof the legislation, and I acknowledge the Supplementary Order Papers that we’ve brought into the House. Firstly, two provisions that have delayed commencement will now come into force within two years of enactment. This means that regulations for risk-based plans and programmes will have to be made speedily, so that businesses know what the requirements are in a timely manner. They need certainty.
The clauses throughout the original bill that related to operators providing full copies of their risk-based programmes to their verifying agencies have been removed, as they were deemed unnecessary. We’ve also removed clauses relating to verifiers having to hold and store up-to-date copies of the programmes for the businesses they verify. These changes address compliance impacts that were raised in the select committee, and they show we are listening to business. It also reflects the existing requirements where operators already have obligations to notify verifiers of changes made and must supply these programmes to the regulator within two working days on request.
In particular, the bill gives us the ability to deal with the interface between health legislation and food legislation—both important. The new regulation-making power that will let New Zealand companies use low THC hemp seeds in food products is something industry have been asking for for years. New Zealand worked closely with our Australian ministerial counterparts and we worked closely with our colleagues in coalition to make this happen. The move evolves our regulatory system to allow companies to innovate.
The bill also makes sure that all the tools to rapidly inform and protect the public when a food safety incident occurs and to deal proportionately with any breaches of obligations by businesses are readily available. It allows the increased use of automatic electronic systems and electronic transactions—something that might have been considered automatic, but we needed to make the legislative change.
In closing, I note that the bill helps strengthen and maintain New Zealand’s world-class food safety regulatory system. Speaking as Minister for Food Safety, food safety, alongside biosecurity, are the two most important elements of our primary production systems, and this bill will make the changes necessary to take our systems forward and, hopefully, prevent any such WPC80 incident occurring in the future and offer both the capability and the legislative background to ensure that we produce the best food in the best way for the best customers in the world. This is our reputation. This bill helps ensure that we maintain that into the future. Thank you.
Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s good to see that—
Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We had asked for a clarification on the issue of whether the speaker who’s just resumed his seat was able to do that speech, and we would actually have liked to have heard that before the speaker concluded.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you for that. I have just received some advice from the Clerk about Ministers speaking on behalf of another. Ministers are entitled to act in the House on behalf of absent Ministers. That is a long-established convention in the House. You could see McGee, page 212. In this instance, a Minister moved the third reading of the bill on behalf of the Minister in charge of the bill. That speech was interrupted. If the Minister in charge of the bill is present in the House, then he or she is entitled to continue the speech commenced on his or her behalf. However, if the Minister in charge of the bill is absent, any other Minister may continue the speech instead.
The same event has arisen in the House previously. In 2007, a Minister moved the third reading of a bill on behalf of the Minister in charge of the bill. The debate was interrupted. When it resumed, a third Minister continued the speech. You can refer to Hansard on Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill, Volume 641, at pages 11,251 and 11,298.
The situation is different to any other speech made on a bill. The Minister in charge of a bill must move a motion in relation to the bill and may speak in support of the motion. Because this must happen in order for a bill to be debated, it is permissible for another member to act on behalf of an absent member. The remaining speeches on a bill may be made, but are not essential to the progress of the bill. If a speech subsequent to that of the member in charge is interrupted, then only the member who had the call is entitled to resume it. I hope that clears the matter up for members of the House.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’d just like to thank members of the House for supporting this bill. It is a very important part for New Zealand agriculture and horticulture, making sure that we have a strong biosecurity and food safety network, and that is really important in part of the food security area.
Now, we know that we’ve got the most slippery Minister of Agriculture that we’ve ever had, that fails to answer questions, that has been abject in his failure in many basic issues since he’s taken over the role—how he’s destroying the New Zealand dairy industry through the Mycoplasma bovis, how he’s destroying the New Zealand dairy industry through the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) reforms, how he’s destroyed the New Zealand honey industry through his failure to get mānuka honey right, and how he’s going to destroy—
Hon Meka Whaitiri: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. All due respect, we’re here on the third reading of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. I would hope that the learned colleague across the way would address the bill that’s in question.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I’d encourage him to do so.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: If you gave me a chance to get to my point, I would have made the point very clearly that the Minister made a lot of talk in his speech about things that he as Minister has done, especially in regard to his coalition partners, and there hasn’t been one single change in this bill from what was introduced by the National Government before the election and debated in this House—not one single change. It is very, very rich for the Labour Party and the Minister—a failed Minister that has a history of abject failure in the three or four months he’s had the job—to actually come into this House and then say that he has been such a master of food safety and delivered such a great result for this country when he has not at one stage even helped in preparing this bill. He has not done one thing that actually added to this bill, and then says that he has worked with his coalition partners to make that a reality. So I’m just bringing some reality to the debate and showing the truth of the situation, and not letting the agenda of a Minister who has completely failed in everything he has done since he has been a Minister to take advantage of this House at this time.
Now, that Minister, of course, is completely protected at question time by the Speaker, who makes it extremely difficult for questions to be undertaken in this House. There’s been a loss of democracy in this country through the way that question time has been attempted to be run—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me, if I could just bring the member back to the substance of the bill.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: And it is very important for the substance of the bill, because if one cannot debate a bill in this House and one cannot have a decent question time to look at—
Hon Aupito William Sio: What’s the name of the bill?
Hon DAVID BENNETT: It is the food safety bill, my friend, and we introduced it to the House, rather than the Labour Party at all. Part of the legislative process is also to be able to hold a Government to account, and that is a very important part of any legislation. When we’re in the third reading of a bill it’s also important that we are able to hold a Minister and the Government to account, and you just cannot do that in the current environment we are in. There is no democracy at question time. The example today, with the Rt Hon—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! If the member has an issue with regards to question time, I believe that the Speaker at the time offered some remedy to that: to either speak with him directly in his Chambers or to write back. We are on the third reading debate of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill, and I will encourage the member to come back to that bill. This will be the last time I do so.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s important that we do that, but if opportunities are not made that are actually realistic for anyone to take up, then people have to take the only opportunity they have, and that is to speak in this House, because there is no realistic opportunity to debate with the Speaker his actions in this House, and this is the only time that we have that opportunity.
Hon Ruth Dyson: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It’s not appropriate to bring the Speaker into disrepute, and I’d ask that the member be required to withdraw and apologise.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I didn’t actually hear the comment.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: So the bill has something that—
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Sorry, I haven’t called you yet; I’m just referring to the matter that the Hon Ruth Dyson brought. I didn’t actually hear the comment, so—this is a very robust debate. There is lots of interjection from across the House. If I’d heard the comment, I might agree with the member, but in this case I will allow the Hon David Bennett to continue with his speech.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. And it is good that all parties in this House—I presume all parties—are going to support this bill.
Greg O’Connor: He does tend to repeat himself, so it will be back.
Hon DAVID BENNETT: So is that member over there saying something? The member that was a big protester and a big supporter and told us how great a dairy farmer he was, and who at the same time was putting the knife into the New Zealand dairy industry only a week ago through the DIRA legislation, at the same time telling us his pedigree as a dairy farmer. When it comes to a bill like this, talking about food safety, how can that member sit in this House and honestly say he represents or even has any linkage to the rural sector, when he has attacked, deliberately, the rural sector and made it very difficult for farmers to actually survive in this country.
I don’t want to take too much time in this House. There has been a gross failure within the system that we see in this Parliament. It’s a disgrace for the New Zealand Parliament to be acting in the way that you see at question time. That makes this place a farce. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.
Hon RUTH DYSON (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think that you did hear the most recent contribution from the member—criticism of the Speaker; Standing Orders 17/6, and probably the whole of page 18. I’d like you to require the member to withdraw and apologise.
Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I seek leave to table a tweet from the Hon Ruth Dyson in which she criticised the previous Speaker. I would suggest to you that what goes around comes around.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I will ask that we just take a moment. I’m just going to check with the Clerk. [Pause in proceedings] Just on the matter that the Hon Ruth Dyson raised, unfortunately the member that you had an issue with is not in the Chamber at the moment. At this point, I think just to restore order, I will speak with the Hon Ruth Dyson as to the matter at hand. But for this particular matter, we will continue with the debate.
Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Could I ask you to rule on the point of order that I raised, which, actually, was seeking leave to table the tweet from the senior Government whip when she was in the previous Parliament.
ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): OK. Leave is sought for that action to be taken. Is there any objection to that? There is.
Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. Today is a special day for me and for my whānau. I beg the indulgence of the House to wish my mother a happy 80th birthday today. Happy birthday, mum.
I’m pleased to speak on the third reading of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. It’s sad to follow the previous speaker, David Bennett, who in his contribution sounded like “could’ve, would’ve, should’ve”, but didn’t do it. That side of the House had opportunities to pass legislation in this House to help not just our primary sector but of course our food safety producers throughout the country. I want to say I’m really proud of the work that the Hon Damien O’Connor has done. Not only did he usher through the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2), which helped our southern dairy farmers, but he also did go to Cabinet and got $93 million—not hoped to get it, not planned to get it, but actually got it—before Christmas last year, to deal with the biosecurity system that was badly let down by the other side. Of course, now we have the Food Safety Law Reform Bill, which we are passing today.
Can I just say that this bill amends the three main food safety Acts—the Food Act, the Animal Products Act, and the Wine Act—to address the gaps identified by the whey protein concentrate (WPC) inquiry and to make other improvements to the food safety regulatory system. I remind us all that the bill arose from the botulism false alarm in 2013, which resulted in the independent Government inquiry and its 38 recommendations.
It’s important to identify that the objectives of this bill are to protect human health. It is aiming to maintain New Zealand’s reputation as a supplier of safe and suitable food, both domestically and internationally. It does attempt to ensure all steps have been taken to address the recommendations of the WPC inquiry, and it also attempts to harmonise the implementation of the WPC inquiry recommendations across the three food safety Acts.
I want to touch on the parts of the bill that I’ve identified are important for members of this House, around what it is actually trying to do. I want to highlight not only what the bill is doing but actually how the bill enables particularly our officials at the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) to implement them. The first part I just want to comment on is the improving responses to food safety incidents. This bill will improve the ability for MPI to identify incidents quickly and respond appropriately. How would they do that? They would do it by permitting the Director-General of MPI to compel parties that provide services to a food business to provide information. It will also allow the director-general’s statements to be made to inform the public. It will also clarify that MPI has a statutory role in contingency planning.
And then we go into what the bill is attempting to do around traceability and recall. And it’s important to note that this bill improves the regulatory system for tracing and recalling foods. How does this bill do it? It makes the obligation in the Act to have traceability systems more explicit. It enables regulations for setting prescriptive requirements, for example, of mock recourse.
Then the bill, I want to highlight, talks about the verification, and in this part it’s about improving to fill gaps identified by the WPC inquiry. How is it intending to do that? It states first that the duty of the recognised agency or person—the verifier—is to the relevant regulator. It then requires the agency seeking or maintaining their formal recognition to provide all accreditation reports to MPI. Then it further allows regulations to, where necessary, set requirements for the independent verification of obligations.
Then I want to touch on the electronic system enhancements. The bill attempts to improve efficiencies in interactions with operators and overseas trading partners, and it helps to promote modern business practice. It does this by permitting use of automatic electronic systems under the Animal Products Act and the Wine Act, as in the Food Act, and it permits the director-general to require information electronically.
These are just a few examples of how this bill is going to modernise and protect our food-producing sector in this country. I’m proud that the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Damien O’Connor, has acted as swiftly as he has to bring this bill to the House that we are debating for its third and final reading.
In the time I’ve got left, I do want to acknowledge the work of the Primary Production Committee. I particularly want to acknowledge the 43 submitters who submitted when the bill was first referred to the select committee on 16 August, but who submitted on 22 September. I also want to acknowledge the 11 submitters that appeared before the select committee in late 2016.
That then begs the question: if we had the select committee hearings in late 2016, we are here now in 2018, and there was every opportunity for the so-called side of this House that purports to be the representative of farmers and growers to have ushered this bill through the House. So it’s a bit rich when that side attacks this side for doing something that is actually right and correct, and should have been done but wasn’t done. So, like the previous speaker, I’m pleased that this side takes our food producers, our farmers, and our growers seriously, and we take them seriously because this bill did need the attention that this House has been so poor in giving it. It is important for all our growers throughout New Zealand to preserve our international reputation when we’re trading on the international markets—that we have a sound and robust food safety system to give us that competitive edge internationally. So without further ado I’m proud to stand in support of this Food Safety Law Reform Bill and commend it to the House.
Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thanks very much for the opportunity to take a call on this very important bill this afternoon. It’s great to follow the Associate Minister of Agriculture, Meka Whaitiri. Can I thank her for her honesty this week when she was answering questions yesterday on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, where she said that $9.3 million had been given to biosecurity for the Mycoplasma bovis response. What’s really telling, when that Minister responded on behalf of Damien O’Connor and we went back and checked, is that that money was appropriated by the previous National Government. So there’s more stories to unfold there, when we get into the detail and the weeds about whether that funding for Mycoplasma bovis actually was new funding.
Now, coming specifically to this bill that we are discussing and debating this afternoon, this is a good bill. It’s taken a long period of time to get to where it is today and I acknowledge everyone that submitted: that was the big end of industry in New Zealand and a lot of small, niche producers as well. This bill and the regulations that follow actually combine a huge amount of work that underpins a lot of investment and us as a producing nation of food. We have a very proud track record as a producer of safe food, but it was tested in 2013 with the whey protein concentrate when, indeed, there was the precautionary recall that Fonterra did on some of its products. When that was all unpicked and worked its way through over a period of time, it was indeed a false alarm by Fonterra, but, as a result of that event, there followed these recommendations and this bill that we are now debating. There’s been a huge amount of consultation that’s gone on since then, and there was a big test for Fonterra and for our food producers in New Zealand.
Then what followed was the criminal blackmail of food products in New Zealand, where a letter was sent from an individual to Theo Spierings, the chief executive of Fonterra, and to the chief executive of Federated Farmers. Then what followed from that was a massive response where the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), as the lead agency, worked across the whole of Government in what could have been a disaster for our food exporting companies in New Zealand—particularly the dairy industry—because the intent of the individual was real. I applaud MPI and what they did in getting on top of a significant event, working very closely with the New Zealand Police. Ultimately, they found the individual, and that was literally like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
The reason I raise that is because it’s really important—when we hear from Government speakers this afternoon. Because of Labour’s rhetoric around food safety and biosecurity and wanting to smash MPI apart, there’s so much disappointment now in industry, because, had the New Zealand Food Safety Authority been standing on its own and not embedded into a wider ministry like the Ministry for Primary Industries, there’s no way that they could have stood up, the response that they stood up to deal with that Operation Concord.
So now we have the Government who have decided—and there’s been a huge amount of pushback by industry and, importantly, by officials saying—that MPI would be worse off if they decided to set up separate entities for food safety, biosecurity, and the like. The importance of this is because MPI is considered a competent authority for both and, when you break that down—like Labour wanted to do—into separate entities, that becomes very difficult for MPI as the competent authority and export markets.
So what happened—and I’ve read the Cabinet paper in some detail—was Damien O’Connor got rolled by officials and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and also by his colleagues when they realised that the cost was going to be over a hundred million bucks to smash MPI apart. So now MPI is in a position of trying to save the Minister’s face, so they have come up with a bit of a rebranding exercise—putting stickers on doors to try and create something within MPI so that there is seen to be some form of separation. But the reality is that’s costing $17 million of research and development that is being robbed from the primary sector.
The reason I raise that in this debate is because it all comes back to one primary objective, and that is that MPI is the competent authority and oversees food safety and biosecurity and the like, and to smash it apart is just plainly dumb. So the reason I say that is because they’ve now realised—they; not you but they, the Government has realised—it’s really important to keep MPI together. And, yes, there’s been a rebranding exercise, and food safety will carry on, and it will be better and stronger by being a part of the whole of MPI.
So, in summary, this is a good bill. It’s very important for our food producers up and down the country—and, of course, we export about $25 billion a year generated from food products. So this bill is really important, and on this side of the House we are pleased to have been involved with it and we do support it.
MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. In addressing the third reading of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill, may I please just seek the indulgence of the House for a second on a personal matter in thanking the Rt Hon David Carter for a wonderful tribute to my recently deceased father. It was very much appreciated by me and my family. And thanks also for the many other kind reflections from other members from across this House.
Of course, the passing of someone from natural causes at the end of a well-lived life is one thing, but to lose someone tragically through nourishing themselves, through eating an item of food and getting sick, or having their life changed dramatically through just the food that they eat is totally unacceptable, and, of course, it is something for which New Zealand food products’ and food producers’ reputation goes well before us in that respect. We have a proud tradition in producing quality food products. I think it’s one thing, when you travel overseas, you do realise the quality of the food here and you appreciate the safety that we have.
Of course, this bill is to address some of the concerns that came out of the false botulism scare and the whey protein concentrate bacteria that was found during some safety testing, which caused all sorts of problems and issues for our food producers across the board. We had 1,000 tonnes of consumer product across seven countries that were affected in various resultant recalls. This is something that we’re totally unused to, and we cannot afford this to become a regular occurrence. To the credit of members across the House, we have recognised that there is a need to bring some reforms. And, actually, across industry, they have—as they often do—responded well ahead of where Governments are and have moved, already, to implement a lot of the recommendations that we’ll be doing, if they weren’t already.
Of course, going back—we’re talking about food safety—we remember the melamine in the Sanlu debacle and tragedy in China, which Fonterra had an ownership stake in but, of course, no control. So we can see that as the worst-case scenario and why we have to avoid that under all circumstances.
Of course, within the whey protein thing there were no sicknesses. It was a false alarm. It was the result of a simple breaking of a torch lens in a Waikato dairy factory, and the ripples were significant. But, as the Hon Nathan Guy has just mentioned, we have $25 billion of food exports, and the primary exports, generally, still underpin our economy. We heard, earlier, on the Education (Tertiary Education and Other Matters) Bill that now export education—$4.2 billion. It’s great to see our economy diversifying, but we are still so reliant on our food producers. We also, at New Zealand First, did have some questions about this, and the Minister addressed that in his contribution.
We are concerned about the effect of this on the small food producers—the artisan, the niche food producers—that are so important culturally for us. Now, I get to spend a bit of time on airplanes and I read the inflight magazine and there’s always a feature on a section of New Zealand, and prominently amongst those features are the artisan food producers that are unique to that particular area. And, subsequently, New Zealand First is very concerned that we’re not putting compliance on those small producers that would burden them unnecessarily while tidying up our regulations in terms of our export companies. So it’s a balance that we have sought. The Minister addressed that in his earlier contribution to this reading, and we have been assured that that work is in progress. We have sat with the officials and they have given us an outline of what they are looking at. The integrity of the Minister is beyond question. With us, the working relationship, I might say, in the primary industry sector space and, indeed, across the Government, but particularly with my involvement in the primary industry side of things with Minister O’Connor, is excellent. That communication is going back and forward. He is well aware of our concerns, and he is looking to bring with it a further body of work. So that’s something that we are conscious of on this side of the House.
I note that just in our local community of Lawrence, we have a local chocolate shop that’s opened up, a small manufacturer. They are immigrants from Australia. They are great contributors to our community. They started off as a small chocolate-making business. I was sitting down with Alisa and she told me about first-hand experience that the regulations are actually pretty tough now to comply with. She’s very, very experienced. She’s brought a lot of skill with her, but without that experience, she felt that she would have been struggling to get that business off the ground. So I think that is an area where New Zealand First will be working with our Labour coalition partners, and the Greens for support, to bring some further clarification and streamlining, I guess, to make sure that they’re not caught up with unnecessary compliance costs.
This bill, of course, looks to amend all three of New Zealand’s main food safety Acts—the Animal Products Act 1999, the Food Act 2014, and the Wine Act 2003—and bring some alignment into the operation of those Acts to protect human health and our global reputation, which is paramount. We just cannot do that. It’s been referred to by other speakers, the biosecurity situation. We’ve had a recent one with the Mycoplasma bovis, of course, amongst others—
Hon Nathan Guy: Yeah, stink bugs.
MARK PATTERSON: The stink bugs now—so these are live issues that we have to deal with all the time. One of the, perhaps, lessons of that in some respects is that it does give us a test run, as a country, as to how we would react to something like a foot-and-mouth disease or a botulism situation. So we’ve had some heads-up, some ability to test our systems in real time. They have been found wanting in some areas, and this is part of a tidy-up in making sure that we can respond and respond appropriately in these areas. The bill does address the segments that require statutory change to implement these measures.
It gives us a clear direction. It gives business a clear direction of the expectations, and, as I said before, many of our businesses, if they hadn’t already, have already amended their practices ahead of this legislation to make sure that they are fully compliant and futureproofing their own business.
I have a quote here from a United States food safety expert, Debbie Newslow: “We can no longer learn from our mistakes. We cannot allow mistakes to happen in the first place. In today’s world of food safety, we must be proactive in preventing mistakes before they occur.” I think that pretty much sums up what we are doing with this regulatory reform, but what industry has already gone ahead and pre-empted in most cases.
New Zealand First supports this bill and is happy to vote for it. We’d like to thank the officials for the good work that was put to the select committee. There was a famous presentation, I think, from Biddy the cheesemaker from the Wairarapa, who I understand had a very big impact on that bill and the shaping of this regulation and some of the stuff going forward. So I think it does show that this House and this Parliament are working as we would hope for such an important piece of legislation, that all views were taken into account and reflected. So New Zealand First has much pleasure in commending this bill to the House.
Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It’s a pleasure to offer a few reflections on this, the third reading of the Food Safety Law Reform Bill. I’d like to start by acknowledging previous Ministers who have done a lot of work on this: the Hon Jo Goodhew, the Hon Nathan Guy, and the Hon David Bennett, who put a lot of effort to get this bill through to its third reading today.
I want to particularly reflect on the first part of the bill, which deals with modifications to the Food Act, and reflect this as a legislative process that brings into account the findings of the whey protein concentrate contamination inquiry. We’ve heard parts of that. We’re aware that in 2012, at the Hautapu factory at the back of Cambridge there, they had an issue where a broken torch lens entered into the product stream. Unfortunately, it was reworked against standing policies, and pipes and hoses that were unclean were used. The product also wasn’t dispersed through other products; it should’ve been a 10 percent dispersal—that wasn’t followed. And, subsequently, the product entered the product line.
About a year later the product goes offshore to an Australian facility that tests for SRCs—sulphite reducing clostridia. Fundamentally, that picks up two of the clostridia, which is the gram positive rod clostridium sporogenes; and clostridium botulinum. It’s the second one that’s important to us here because that produces a neurotoxin that’s actually quite dangerous. So they test for that; it’s positive. Then discussions go back and forth between Fonterra and AgResearch. They decide to test it for toxins here in New Zealand—again, against protocol, in an unaccredited laboratory. It turns out, when two Government laboratories in the USA actually test it, that it’s clostridium sporogenes, so we have this, sort of, false laboratory test.
If we look at that and look at the key findings—and I tried to pull the one sentence out of the recommendations from the inquiry that this legislation brings forward—we notice how much it’s about communication and information. So if we look at the contributing factors from the report we see organisational pressures and a silo mentality. We see that communication was unclear. We see there was a lack of adequate escalation procedures; testing, communication, and readiness; and that it lacked an updated well-rehearsed crisis plan. Also, the response was slow. All parties could also have coordinated better during the crisis. There was inadequate tracing—undeniably a complex task—in a food safety culture.
There was a sentence here that I particularly liked. It said, “A food safety programme and a food safety culture are entirely different. One is concerned with documentation and processes, the other with employee behaviour and a top-to-bottom commitment to putting food safety first.” I think it’s a nice way to frame it: a food safety programme and a food safety culture. So Part 1 of this bill, amending the Food Act, deals to these recommendations. It spends a lot of time talking about food control plans: what their form might be, what their content might be, and how they’re regulated. Clause 23 of this bill spends a lot of time looking at food tracing and how we might follow that pathway—again, coming from these recommendations.
So again, I want to acknowledge the hard work that has gone into this. I didn’t mention the Primary Production Committee; I’d like to do that now. It’s my pleasure to commend this bill to the House.
GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Let me just start with the wonderful news that we’ve just had from Korea, which is that Nico Porteous, the New Zealand skier, has earned the country a bronze medal.
Hon Andrew Little: Second one for the day.
GARETH HUGHES: I understand the second of the day, Mr Little. Look, I think that’s absolutely wonderful. I wish all our athletes over there the best of luck for the remaining days of the competition.
I think I’m going to enter the “segue” event—maybe a future Commonwealth or Olympic Games—because if you look at New Zealand’s agricultural sector, we get the gold medal for sheep meat exports and the gold medal also for dairy exports; we get a silver for wool exports and a silver for softwood log exports. Look, we are 12th in the world for the value of our agricultural exports, the food, and primary products we send around the world. Look, it’s a tremendously big part of our economy, and when you think that we’re 12th by value, it’s actually the value that this country needs to focus on. It’s the value that is going to grow the prosperity, going to grow the jobs, but also going to protect the environment, which is at the heart of our economy.
Now, while we’re talking about value, on the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) website they talk about the need for being a trusted brand. That trust is built on strong animal welfare standards, which, I regret to say, is prominently in the media today. We need to make sure we have strong animal welfare standards so our international consumers can trust our products. We also need to make sure we’ve got the strong food safety standards, and that’s why the 2013 whey milk contamination botulism scare was so important to New Zealand’s food exports. That scare damaged the confidence of international consumers, and while the report found that there was no actual contamination, no sickness, as a result, the inquiry did find a number of recommendations. That’s why the Green Party is voting for this legislation tonight, because the recommendations here are all about protecting our food safety standards so our consumers both domestically and internationally can have confidence in New Zealand food products. This is how we trade. This is how we’re going to go up those rankings from 12th—hopefully with the gold medal for market value one day.
I acknowledge this legislation has the unanimous support of the Parliament. That’s important going forward so consumers here and around the world can have confidence. Basically, at the heart of the legislation is a risk regime that is based on the risk profile. It’s all about ensuring traceability and recall requirements are met. For us, an important concern we had going in—and one I’d acknowledge was adequately canvassed in the Primary Production Committee report, which has been presented to the House, mostly from the work of Steffan Browning, a departed member, who I’d like to acknowledge—was the need for a balance, because when you’re using a risk approach for your food safety regime, there’s obviously a huge scale difference between your big producers, your Fonterras, your Mainlands, versus your, maybe, boutique home producer of cheeses or olive oil.
Now, what we heard in the select committee submissions was that for some of these smaller food producers, 40 percent of their revenue actually is taken up in compliance costs. Now, what no one, I believe, in this House wants to see is compliance costs—literally seeing businesses go under or not being able to innovate or provide these boutique value-added products, which are so important to growing the value of our agricultural exports. So, I think the balance has been struck quite right. I know a lot of work was done by the committee, and I acknowledge all the members present in the House who participated on that—the need to get that balance right, to make sure that we can ensure food safety standards but at the same time not have an onerous or burdensome compliance cost regime.
A second area that we’ve been pushing for for quite a long time is the low-THC hemp seeds, and making sure—I guess you could call it a bit of a regulatory quirk or something, which had to be addressed—it is being addressed in this legislation. Now, I don’t want to out myself as a flamin’ hippie who loves eating organic hemp bliss balls, but, look, it’s a product that a lot of consumers like to eat. There is no psychoactive effect from the low-THC hemp. There are quite a lot of documented health impacts, and, look, it’s been eaten for literally thousands of years and the medicinal health impacts are quite widespread. In fact, one of the first ever medical documents from history, ever discovered, talked about the medical impacts of this. So, it’s good that we’re finally getting some clarification here. It’s pretty important for New Zealand food producers. They can have the certainty to be providing this ingredient if that’s what their consumers want.
When you look at the select committee report, as issued to the House, another issue canvassed was the risks of GE food and irradiated foods not having the legal statutory requirements for labelling to be investigated. Now, I’d really like to acknowledge the work of the Hon Damien O’Connor in this space, because it is on our law books—for more than a dozen years—that organic and irradiated foods have to have labelling requirements on New Zealand food products—very good.
The problem, however, is that no one had actually been investigating or doing the checking in our food stores whether in fact they were being complied with. Now, if you want to try and avoid all genetically engineered foods, it’s critically important that you can have trust in the labels to know what you’re eating so you can effect your consumer choice. Now, I’m very proud to say that we’ve been working with the Minister for Food Safety, and MPI will be conducting a review, a stocktake, of the labelling regime in New Zealand so that consumers can have confidence that when a product says it doesn’t contain genetically engineered or irradiated foods, they know, with certainty, that it won’t. It’s a very good step, and I’d like to acknowledge the Minister.
We also saw, in the select committee report considering this legislation, the issue of country-of-origin labelling, because while it was ruled out of scope by the select committee, it’s something 55 other countries around the world have—mostly developed countries; I’m talking about the UK, Canada, the US, and Australia. It’s something we require in New Zealand for footwear we import into New Zealand, to know which country the footwear’s come from. It’s something we apply to wine in New Zealand, and most other countries do too—you know which country the wine’s coming from—but when it comes to the vast bulk of our food, we don’t have the same rights as Australians or Americans or Brits, because we don’t know which country our food comes from. So while it was ruled out of scope of the legislation, I would point out that almost half of the total submissions were calling for this. So while we’re looking at our food safety regime, having consumers have the adequate information—I’d put it to the House, the right to information—should be protected, and that’s why I’m also proud to say that Parliament will have the opportunity to work on this with my Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill, initially introduced by Steffan Browning, which is currently in the Primary Production Committee, so consumers can have that right.
So we’ve talked about some of the areas the Green Party was really focused on in improving the legislation: protecting small consumers to make sure the balance between food safety and an onerous regulatory regime wasn’t putting them out of business or reducing—or was unbalanced for those compliance costs—the GE labelling issue, the country-of-origin food labelling issue, and those low-THC hemp seeds. So I’d like to acknowledge all parties in this House for supporting the legislation and thank those committee members who worked on it. Look, it’s a good step forward, and this is how we’re going to grow those agricultural exports, not just the low-volume commodity exports—you know, the brown paper bags of coal-fired, dehydrated milk products we send around the world—it’s talking about real value, because there’s a limit to how many cows we can cram in our paddocks if we just focus on increasing the volume. Just like in the tourism industry: there’s a limit to how many tourists we can cram down in Fiordland. There’s no limit to the export of value-added, smart, innovative products, and this is where our future, a richer New Zealand, is going to come from, not just increasing volume and cramming things in and reducing the quality; it’s going to come from value.
That’s why I think, in the food space, we can look to our wine export industry as a real exemplar. In fact, per litre of wine—of grapes, sorry; the source ingredients for wine—we are top of the world for the value of it. Now, we see tens of thousands of tons offered from low-cost producers like Chile, even Australia, because of low labour costs and, I put it, potentially, low labour standards. We’re on the other side of the market, actually focusing on a higher-quality, higher-value product. That means the wine we export around the world commands some of the highest costs. That’s exactly where we want to be positioned in the global wine market, accessing the value, and this is why this legislation’s so important, to make sure the food standards are giving our consumers the trust and confidence in New Zealand agricultural products.
So, look, I’m very happy to be supporting this legislation. I’d like to thank the House. Kia ora koutou, Madam Deputy Speaker.
TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and talk on this bill, actually. We’re at the point now where we’re just about drawing a line under this botulism issue that’s been hanging around for a wee while, and it is nice to be at the point where we have progressed through and we’ve got a few appropriate changes in place to ensure that we don’t see a similar issue arising in the future.
This is a really important issue for our country. Most of us would be aware of the impact caused by the false botulism scare, a number of years ago now, and the impact something like that can have on New Zealand. We’re a major exporting country. We’re very much reliant on our primary sector. As we’ve already heard, food and beverage exports account for 60 percent of our merchandise sold overseas. So that’s a really critical part for us, and we need to be making sure that we have the right processes in place, and there were some valid points raised off the back of that scare.
So strengthening our response to those food safety issues is absolutely critical, and this bill does a good job in that regard, so I’d like to commend the Hon Jo Goodhew for first bringing this forward, and then the Hon Nathan Guy for continuing the work, and, finally, now, the new Minister the Hon Damien O’Connor for continuing and seeing it through to completion.
This is, as I mentioned, really important, and we’ve seen a little bit of focus on the primary sector at the moment, which is great. We saw, of course, last week, the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill (No 2) going through this House as well, and whilst we had some changes made there, which, again, we did support, there were some real concerns raised out of that in terms of the breadth of the review that is now in scope for the Government—
DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a third reading; it’s quite focused on this bill.
TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Yes, thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; you’re quite correct. So with that, like this bill, there is a lot of need to remain clear on where we’re going, and we certainly didn’t see that with what was being proposed in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act review. But, in this instance, we’ve got a much clearer message around where the industry can target its communications going forward.
So on that as well we need to make sure that we’re having a strong focus on biosecurity, on traceability—those food safety aspects, all of which are really critical to New Zealand as an export nation focused around the food production sector. We employ over 79,000 people in this sector domestically, so it is hugely critical for all of them to have confidence in their jobs and their industries as well.
So look, I won’t labour the point, but the Food Safety Law Reform Bill has the appropriate changes as needed, and I commend it to the House.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, the next call is a split call—five minutes each.
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, ma’am. I’m pleased to add my support at the third reading of this Food Safety Law Reform Bill. We’ve heard a lot of the background to this bill, and I do want to pick up on what Tim van de Molen said in his contribution when he said that this issue has been hanging around a while, because it goes all the way back to around 2012-13 with the whey protein contamination incident, or the botulism scare. Following that, there was an urgent Government response, through the inquiry, and here we are today, probably nearly five years later, putting in place the final recommendations of that inquiry, which require statutory change, or statutory implementation. So I’m pleased that we are progressing all of those recommendations from that inquiry. It was a comprehensive inquiry.
I do want to pay tribute to those inquiry members, who were esteemed and highly qualified individuals: Miriam Dean, Tony Nowell, and Dr Anne Astin. It was also independently peer reviewed by Professor Alan Reilly, from Ireland. It was a major scare that not only rippled all the way through, obviously, initially, the dairy industry but had wider implications, of course, across our whole food sector and our food industries, which are major exporters, as we’ve heard across contributions today. So I do acknowledge that inquiry, because we are just implementing those changes.
The enhancements that we’re making with this bill are really centred around three areas that were identified in the inquiry, and they were around enhancing the risk-based management plans and procedures, better access to information in food safety incidents, and aligning the major food safety Acts that we have. That’s why we’re here today with this omnibus bill, where we’re making changes to the Animal Products Act, the Food Act, and the Wine Act. So it is a comprehensive amount of work that has been done. Likewise, through officials, through extensive consultation, and through the select committee process and the many submitters that presented on this bill, I think we’ve hit the right spot. We’ve managed to ensure that we can adopt those recommendations that were from the inquiry but also ensure that that has the least amount of impact on our food sector and on our food companies.
Whilst we are passing this bill today and we are incorporating these statutory amendments, it must be said that we still have a way to go, because, of course, there is another two-year process ahead of us whereby the actual detail, which is contained in the regulations, will be, hopefully, developed and passed—in fact, it has to be, under the legislation. So we still have another two years to go. There’s still a lot of work ahead with the promulgation of those regulations. I know there’s extensive consultation, no doubt, going on by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) across all of the affected food industries. I’m sure the legislation, though, that we are passing is probably the most shining example of how best to implement tertiary legislation through notices and through regulations. A lot of work has gone into making sure that we set the framework right within this legislation so we can actually roll out those regulations.
There is still substantial work yet to be done, but I’m pleased that as far as Parliament is concerned, in implementing the recommendations from the whey protein contamination inquiry, we are on the verge of completing our task and incorporating those changes into these three pieces of legislation. I commend the bill to the House.
HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I am delighted to rise to speak to this bill, which the National Party supports. It’s been an interesting six months since I entered Parliament. In my experience with the member of Parliament for West Coast - Tasman, who happens to be the Minister responsible for this, we’ve had a bit of trouble agreeing on certain things, so it’s great that we finally agree on something. In my experience with M. bovis and drought, he’s been a bit slippery, like an eel—a bit like a slippery eel from the West Coast.
Hon David Bennett: Yeah, a little one, too—throw it back, I say.
Kieran McAnulty: You’re using Bennett’s line.
HAMISH WALKER: That’s right.
I believe food safety is one of our country’s highest value-adds. Our reputation relies on it. Many countries around the world aren’t as privileged as New Zealand to have such high food safety standards as we have. Consumers these days are demanding more and more information about where food comes from. We recognise that in a world that is demanding a sustainable strategy and return, people want better food with a better line and traceability to source.
The area I represent, Clutha-Southland—I’d also like to acknowledge Mark Patterson, who contributed a couple of speakers earlier, and also acknowledge Mark’s contribution to the National Party. I believe he was a chair in Clutha-Southland for a number of years.
Hon Nathan Guy: When—when was that?
HAMISH WALKER: Well, you joined in 2004, Nathan. I think Mark joined a few years before that, so I’d better acknowledge Mark’s contribution to the National Party—appreciate it, Mark.
The Food Safety Law Reform Bill addresses the whey protein concentrate contamination inquiry recommendations that require legislation and reinforce New Zealand’s reputation as a reliable supplier of food and suitable food. I’d also like to comment on the excellent work of the Primary Production Committee, who all agreed to the bill, with some amendments that were in turn supported by the previous Minister. It is a delight to support this bill, and I thank Minister O’Connor for doing so.
GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Like other speakers, it gives me pleasure to rise to speak on this bill. Timing is everything. Just this week I spent several hours at the Taylor Preston freezing works not far from here. Those who do come to the city and think it’s purely for those suit wearers should go just 10 minutes down the road and you will see a freezing works down there. It is a very efficient freezing works, the biggest employer in the Ōhāriu electorate—export only. But the reason I bring this up is that I was given cause to reflect on when I worked in the Horotiu freezing works, some years ago, and the difference in the way food is treated. To be able to stand and walk the line and see the animal identification right through to the end, compared to, perhaps, my time in a freezing works many years ago, when we were scuttling around looking for ear tags to make sure we’d attached them to the right animal—I see just how far we have actually come.
Who can forget the botulism scare. It was something that we hope was one of those little exercises we went through that did prepare us, forced us to go back through our legislation. While it wasn’t quite a clean bill of health, certainly we found that our systems were in place, but there were some improvements that could be made, and I’ll just look at some of those technical amendments. They are incredibly common sense, and what they do is ensure that there will be cooperation through the industry and, not only through the industry, cooperation through New Zealand.
We don’t need reminding of just how important farming is to New Zealand. We don’t need reminding to understand how we are all in this together, and that if farmers get a cold, the rest of the country gets pneumonia. Perhaps that might not be quite as accurate as it was in the past, but certainly I am reminded to say that the employer that I spoke of, the Taylor Preston freezing works, was previously the biggest employer in Wellington, but it’s now been overtaken by Weta Workshop and the film industry, which again just shows the diversification that’s taking place in our economy. Nevertheless, it is still an incredibly important part of our economy and far too important a part of our economy to play politics with. So we just do hope we won’t get a repeat of what we saw from the Opposition in the last election: an attempt to open a divide between country and city in New Zealand for cheap political points. So what we have to do is make sure that we are cooperating.
If we go to the technical amendments in this bill, they are the sorts of amendments that actually look at addressing, and they are about cooperation. One of the technical amendments was designed to align the relevant two-year limitation period for bringing criminal proceedings to allow for a four-year period, as currently in the Food Act. Well, who can forget the 1080 scare, previously spoken about by one of the previous speakers? I have to commend my former colleagues. It took some time. I can’t remember who the speaker was who quite accurately explained it and described it as looking for a needle in a haystack. But my former colleagues, which I looked after, did find that proverbial needle and the gentleman in question is now in Her Majesty’s care—hopefully, for some time. But the important thing there is the fact that we are looking at extending the period of bringing criminal proceedings, and it just shows how important it is that we do find these people and that we provide the disincentive to carry on.
But carrying along those technical amendments, there’s another there—and these are all from the departmental report, from the Ministry for Primary Industries, to the Primary Production Committee. It states: “Allow that when taking compliance action compliance officers may rely on the reasonable belief of a superior officer or the Director-General when forming a reasonable belief”. Well, what we’re really talking about there is making sure we’ve got the best people involved in this industry: people that we can actually trust; people that work together, because we’re giving them some reasonable powers there, and they’re taking that compliance action. So their senior officer, their supervisor, or the director-general, who’s making these decisions—we’re actually giving some quite substantial power. Generally, when a lot of those powers are given out there’ll be some sort of judicial oversight, so again—just an idea of how important this is to our economy.
Another sector in there provides that “matters started by one compliance officer may be completed by another compliance officer”. Again, it’s just common sense. It’s just that we’re in the middle—I know in the past, having been involved in a possible foot-and-mouth outbreak in my younger days as a compliance officer, just the full effort that is going to have to be put in to making sure that we isolate and we do what is necessary to give the reassurance. I hope we won’t have to go as far as they did in Ireland when they had their foot-and-mouth outbreak when even Gaelic football was banned on Saturdays and the weekends to ensure that there was no chance of things moving around. I’m sure our rugby, and netball and hockey courts, will survive that.
We also clarify—and this is an important one here, another technical amendment—that “no ‘right of review’ exists in relation to a decision to suspend an export operation made by a person acting under delegated authority”—no “right of review” exists. Again, this is a pretty heavy piece of legislation, so I’m complimenting those that put that together, and it’s very important. Again, it just shows how much cooperation there is going to need to be and that we should avoid any policies or any strategies that have the long-term effect of causing a divide between country and city, because it’s quite clear, when you look through this, that most of the people that are going to be required to help, most of the people that are going to be required to be operationalised when this occurs, if this occurs, are going to be from the cities, from the towns. So we need to be cooperating.
Also, one of the technical amendments is “the Director-General decides whether a review of a decision made under delegated authority is to be undertaken by a person designated by him or her”. Again, just another example of where we are empowering the right people and, of course, the director-general—that’s the person who should have this sort of power. It’s an operation that shouldn’t have to go through 15 sets of hands, because we will all know what that will mean: the old—dare I say it; I’m not sure we are allowed to say it—whispers, shall we say, that can change through the telling.
Brett Hudson: Get ready, Kieran. The greatest two minutes of your life, Kieran.
GREG O’CONNOR: Another proposed amendment is to “Clarify that where a person is designated by the Director-General to review”—I’m sorry, do I really have two minutes left? But perhaps you’ll get another chance with this: “Clarify that where a person is designated by the Director-General to review a decision made under delegated authority, the decision made by that designated person is final”. Again, we come down to, “I’ve made the decision, I’m going to give this delegation, the person underneath can make that as well.” And also, another amendment: “Clarify that the Food Act regulatory regime may apply in relation to a non-animal product business operating in the same premises as a dual operator butcher”. Again, this is forward thinking, to make sure that we don’t get that technicality that just because there’s one business operating in there, others can carry on. It is actually making sure that we have absolute faith that what we’re trying to achieve we will achieve.
Also there is an amendment to “Clarify that the Director-General may exempt exporters from certain requirements whether those requirements are specified by regulation or by notice”. So again it’s not an out clause, but again making sure that business does have to go on through this. As I’ve looked at this bill, I believe we have achieved the balance in terms of making sure that we have the power to do what needs to be done in any of these emergencies, or at any time, to protect our industry. This will protect, particularly, our generally rural industry, although obviously this bill does, of course, amend the Food Act, the Animal Products Act, and the Wine Act. So it does actually cover—[Interruption] I’m not sure whether the Wine Act—that these things do all. So of the 34 recommendations, of course, they’ve all been taken up, as was mentioned before. Those recommendations really clarify things to make sure that we can get what we want to achieve.
I come back to the fact that we will need cooperation, and the technical parts of this bill ensure that the cooperation that will be needed by all New Zealanders at every level can be achieved. Those that need to be empowered are empowered. So I commend this bill.
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I obviously don’t need to say anything about the bill at all after that dissertation from Greg O’Connor. But I do have a couple of things to say, which I find intriguing. The first was that I had the privilege to spend some time chairing the Primary Production Committee, which put this bill through the onerous part of the business and got it back to the House.
The second thing is I want to thank Mr O’Connor for mentioning the Rangitīkei-Ōtaki- originated business of Taylor Preston—two families from the Rangitīkei and Ōtaki—and, interestingly, the supplier C R Grace, also out of the Rangitīkei. I also wanted to just make the comment that my colleague Brett Hudson spent quite some time touring round the very good business. The thing about that business, of course, is that it relies hugely on the outcomes of a bill like this to get it into place.
I just want to say a couple of words about the history of the bill, because, clearly, the previous Minister of Food Safety, Jo Goodhew, who introduced this bill, went through quite a challenging time, and, actually, the whole of the Government went through quite a challenging time at the time of the whey protein concentrate issue. Of course, food contamination is absolutely the most important factor that affects New Zealand’s ability to export to the world. So this bill is hugely important, and while it might seem at times a little pedantic, there’s a very good reason for that. We need to make sure that all of our gaps are closed in the food processing chain and that we can guarantee the safety of whatever we send round the world.
One of the other interesting things that came up in the course of this bill was the difficulty that it creates for small businesses in New Zealand, and, interestingly, the current Minister was very vociferous on this. It’s going to be very interesting to see how he gets on as he implements this bill and how they get on with dealing with those small businesses.
So I think it’s a good effort and it is a very difficult subject, and I think the Parliament’s done well to get this bill to this point. We’ve passed it through all phases, and I’m pleased to see it finally get to its third reading tonight. So thank you. It’s a good bill, and I commend it to the House.
KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is indeed my joy and good fortune that it appears that every time I stand to speak in this House, you’re adjudicating in the Chair, and what a pleasure that is indeed, as it is to stand here and speak on this bill. This bill, as you may have heard, if you were listening—oh, not you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do apologise. Crikey dick, I’ve done it again. I do apologise. I’ve brought you into the speech. I think I’ve done that every time, as well.
I’m going to slow down and concentrate, because this bill deserves our concentration, not only as individual members of Parliament but as parliamentarians as a whole.
Hon Meka Whaitiri: That’s right. We take it seriously on this side.
KIERAN McANULTY: I will take this seriously. I will take the whole 10 minutes, and I will talk about this in detail, because the brand of this country as a food producer deserves just that. It deserves our attention, and it deserves the full scrutiny of the House.
I note that this bill will make a range of improvements to the legislation that underpins the food safety system in this country. Our exports, our economy—a large part of our economy, as I touched on earlier—depends on the brand that we hold our exports on. If New Zealand does not live up to its “clean, green”, “100% Pure” image, the value that we can extract from our products is severely undermined, and food safety plays a big part in that. So, in amending the Food Act, the Animal Products Act, and the Wine Act, we are addressing many of the issues that were raised as a result of the whey protein concentrate inquiry.
Now, this inquiry came about as a result of the false botulism scare. Thank the Lord that this was only a scare. What damage could have been done to this economy going forward if the botulism scare turned out to be true?
I think we should acknowledge the efforts of Fonterra in that regard, because in many respects there weren’t the safeguards that were needed for the industry at the time. As a company, they were proactive and withdrew before even finding out if it was indeed true, and I think that is worth mentioning.
What is also worth mentioning is that this is a bill that was originally introduced by the previous Government—the National Party; the party that is no longer in Government—and well done to them for doing so. We’ve said this a wee bit over the last couple of weeks. We said it about the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill, and there are some similarities between the two. The main similarity is the fact that the National Party fluffed about on both. Both are vitally important—this bill and the previous one—and both were introduced in the previous term, but they fluffed about. This was introduced in June 2016, and here we are, in February 2018, finally getting the job done.
I do, like the previous speakers, want to acknowledge the Ministers that were involved in this, but I particularly want to acknowledge the Hon Damien O’Connor. A visionary. A visionary—the man that has taken this by the horns and has finally got this across the line. Now, we could sit there, like those on the other side of the House, and point fingers and call names—like the Hon David Bennett, who spent all of his five minutes getting told off by the Assistant Speaker and calling the Hon Damien O’Connor names. But the man is a visionary. Just like this side of the House, he takes this issue seriously.
I would, if I’m permitted—I don’t know but I’m sure Madam Deputy Speaker will let me know if I’m not—read a contribution from the Hon Damien O’Connor to this debate when it was first introduced to the House, just to demonstrate what a visionary this man is. He says, “In order for this bill to get through, it will require the change of a Government.”—because the previous National Government were fluffing about so much. Damien O’Connor said in the House that he “can commit that the incoming Labour Government will progress this as quickly as possible”, and that is exactly what we’ve seen today. This bill, once passed, will make a significant contribution to our economy in ensuring that what we produce and what we export will live up to the high standards that we portray our products as.
We do need to continue to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our food safety system. We need to make sure that the resources are allocated accordingly, to ensure that what we produce is, frankly, safe. One scare, that’s all it will take—one scare to undermine the economy and the significant contribution that not only primary production but food production and export play to that.
We also need to ensure that a level of regulation is justified and balanced. It could go heavy-handed here, just like there have been many examples in the past, sometimes under a National Government, sometimes under a Labour Government. These things happen, but it’s important to learn from the mistakes of the past. We need to make sure that any regulation that we place on exporters and on business is justified. I note that, in clauses in this bill, it does impose more requirements on those that export, but I do believe they are balanced. It is up to those that export and produce food to ensure that what they are producing is, indeed, safe.
There are two questions that I am certain that those who have been watching and listening to this House today would have wanted answered. The first is, of course, why does the Director-General of Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) need wider powers to require information?
Brett Hudson: Oh, they’ve been waiting all day to hear this.
KIERAN McANULTY: That is a good question, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to provide some insight to the members on the other side of the House. Now, information is often needed to determine answers, isn’t it? This will be able to require the Director-General of MPI to actually do the job. No one wants to go off half-cocked. This provision will ensure that the director-general actually has the oversight and the powers to do what is needed to do this properly. But what about future-proofing the bill? We could bring something in now, and five years later it becomes irrelevant or ineffective. So, looking at the automated electronic systems in here is one way in which the Minister has identified that we are able to future-proof this bill, coming forward.
Of course, it is not just our view; I think it’s important, just for the reassurance of the House and also those that might be affected by this, to consider the contributions that were given to this bill by those who made submissions in the select committee process, because we want to ensure—not just those in the export industries but the general public as a whole—that there is confidence in this bill. There’s no point playing silly political games. Just give it the respect it deserves, which I’m pleased that on the whole this House has done today.
The New Zealand Meat Industry Association stated in their submission that they do support this bill. They identified that it is vital for them, their industry, and the people that they deal with that they can absolutely demonstrate what they claim as a country—that their food is safe. But it’s not just exporters as well. Organisations and companies such as Foodstuffs submitted a submission to this bill demonstrating general support, because they themselves know that if they, as a large-scale retailer in this country, get implicated in a food safety scandal, then that affects not only their customers but also themselves. The same can be said for the New Zealand Food and Grocery Council, which has a much broader mandate than just one individual company, obviously. They demonstrated support for the bill. They don’t represent just exporters but they also represent those that are domestic players as well. [Deputy Speaker’s phone rings] If I may continue, Madam Deputy Speaker—I wasn’t sure if that was the Deputy Speaker’s opportunity to interject, but it wasn’t, so I will continue, even though I now have only 34 seconds remaining, which is a real shame.
The Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand also submitted in favour of this bill. They actually identified the high importance for New Zealand of maintaining a robust, fit-for-purpose food safety framework. That is exactly what this bill does. I think the people of New Zealand will be pleased to see it happen, and they’ll be pleased to see that the Labour Party, at least, has given it the respect that it deserves. I commend it to the House.
Bill read a third time.
Bills
Customs and Excise Bill
In Committee
Debate resumed from 14 February.
CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I would like to remind members that, in accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, we are debating the bill in four themes: information disclosure, powers and obligations, revenue and trade, and mechanics and miscellaneous. When we were last considering the bill, we were debating the powers and obligations theme. Raymond Huo had the call and he has four minutes and 55 seconds remaining.
Powers and Obligations (continued)
RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I thought I had broken the record by delivering the shortest speech in the House; it turned out to be not the case. It’s a great pleasure to stand in support of this bill. The Customs and Excise Bill strikes a balance between border control and economic growth, between border risks and the law enforcement, and between the existing powers and privacy concerns.
The Customs and Excise Act review has led to the establishment of a modern and fit for purpose legislation that supports economic growth by making it easier for traders to do business. Now, we’re not only talking about traders; we’re talking about travellers, international visitors, and holidaymakers coming to New Zealand. So it is a great pleasure for us to learn from tourism Minister the Hon Kelvin Davis that international visitors’ spending reached a record high of $10.6 billion in the year to December 2017.
The latest International Visitors Survey result from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, released yesterday, showed expenditure increased 5 percent compared with the year ended December 2016. Australia and China remain our biggest markets, with Australians spending $2.6 billion and the Chinese spending $1.5 billion.
The Customs and Excise Bill enables customs to deal with considerable growth in trade and travel, and the security and other challenges this growth brings. This bill strikes a balance. Theme 2 covers powers and obligations. I can give two examples.
The first one we can see is in clause 187, “Cases requiring investigation for public health or law enforcement purposes”. A person who has arrived into or is departing from New Zealand and is suspected or is liable for arrest or detention, has contravened a court order, or has contravened specific Acts may be directed to remain in a designated place for up to four hours for questioning. On the recommendation of the Regulations Review Committee, the select committee removed the ability to extend the range of statutes covered by this power by Order in Council. The power in this clause can now only be extended by Parliament, through statute.
Another example we can see is clause 207, “Data in electronic devices that are subject to control of Customs”. This clause restricts customs’ power to search data in electronic devices, in comparison to the current Act. It does this by setting out thresholds and other safeguards that are designed to protect privacy. In particular, a two-threshold test would apply to the search of data in an electronic device by a customs officer.
A test of reasonable cause to suspect relevant offending would be used for an initial search of a device. To carry out a full search, namely a forensic search of a device, the customs officer must have reasonable cause to believe that the device contains evidential material relating to relevant offending. If a threshold is met, access to information such as passwords must be provided to a customs officer. It is an offence to fail to do so. So this bill—[Time expired]
Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Mr Chairman Rurawhe. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this very important committee stage of the Customs and Excise Bill. If I could just pick up where my learned friend Mr Huo had left off, he was talking about the two-stage threshold test for the examination by customs officers of electronic devices. The bill provides for that power of search and examination, but in order to exercise that power, a customs officer, first of all, has to be satisfied, or at least to have a reasonable suspicion, that a person in possession of such a device—it would be a cellphone or a laptop or anything else that might be described as an “e-device”—has been involved in criminal offending.
That suspicion, no doubt, would be the subject of guidance, both judicial and non-judicial—so somebody walking through the customs hall at Auckland Airport sporting a T-shirt that says “I support the Mafia” may well find themselves under suspicion as they surrender their bags for examination. Then, when they place their cellphone and other devices before the customs officers, if the customs officers have a sufficiently reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in criminal activity, then the customs officer may then examine the device to ascertain whether there is evidential material of criminal activity on it. So they will look for various apps or messages that they can get access to.
And it doesn’t stop there, of course. The power of the customs officer extends to requiring the person to assist the customs officer to get access to the device, either through relaying or disclosing the password or any other thing that is required to break the encryption of the e-device. This provision alone highlights the significance of the customs function and the role of customs officers, and sometimes I think we take for granted the functions of the Customs Service—the very important function that they play, which is to protect the Crown’s revenue and to ensure the safety and security of New Zealanders as people pass through our borders. I would say that the powers of customs officers are second only to the powers of the police in this regard, which is why it’s important that the legislation we have governing our Customs Service achieves the objectives that this legislation sets down for it, which is that they are clearly laid out, they are coherent, they are clearly spelt out, and they are defined in a very modern and 21st century way. That’s what this bill seeks to do, and indeed does.
It is important in this day and age, when this Parliament is granting powers to officials of the State, that we make those powers very clear, and, when we are granting extensive powers to officers or officials of the State, that we do so advisedly and carefully and cautiously. I think that the examination that this bill has been given in the early proceedings in the House, to the point where it now provides for the powers that I and my colleagues have been talking about—I think it is in a very satisfactory state.
There are many powers that customs officials have, and that the Customs Service has. One of those is the power to require craft and vessels that are coming from overseas, or coming from outside our territorial waters to land at ports in New Zealand, to disclose passengers on the vessel, the names of crew on the vessels, and any cargo or goods that the craft or the vessel is carrying. So our Customs Service gets to know exactly what is crossing our borders and who is crossing our borders.
The legislation, in order to be effective, also sets up various offences: a failure to provide information that is required or requested, a failure for a vessel or craft to get the appropriate authorisation, a failure for those required to assist the Customs Service to do so, and a failure to answer questions posed by customs officials at the border to assist them in doing their job and to protect New Zealand and the safety of its people. So these powers are extensive. They are now cogently and carefully and coherently laid out in this bill.
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m very pleased to take a call on the Customs and Excise Bill. We are considering the theme of powers and obligations. I wanted to, actually, just start my contribution by going back to real first principles and asking a real basic question around a key role within the bill—
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 5.56 p.m.