Wednesday, 21 March 2018

WEDNESDAY, 21 MARCH 2018

WEDNESDAY, 21 MARCH 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Families Package—Poverty Reduction Targets and Treasury Coding Error

1. VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What recent advice has he received on the impact of the Government’s Families Package?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Last week, Treasury corrected the coding error that they had made which affected the projections of the number of children that would be lifted out of poverty by this Government’s Families Package and by the previous Government’s proposed Family Incomes Package. Treasury have urged caution about the underlying data used for these projections, and work is ongoing to improve that data, but Treasury continue to indicate that the Government’s Families Package will still lift twice as many children out of poverty as the previous Government’s package.

Virginia Andersen: Does Treasury’s coding error affect the impact this package will have on New Zealanders?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. The coding error and Treasury’s subsequent revisions do not affect the number of families assisted by the Government’s package—384,000 families with children will still be better off by an average of $75 per week when the package is fully rolled out. There will still be a Best Start payment of $60 per week for all children in their first year, and many thousands of children up to the age of three. There will still be a winter energy payment to help superannuitants and low-income earners pay their power bills, and there will still be significant boosts to Working for Families and the accommodation supplement.

Virginia Andersen: How does the Families Package support the Government’s child poverty reduction targets?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government’s target to reduce the proportion of children living in poverty from 15 percent now to 5 percent within 10 years remains unchanged. This Government’s goal is for New Zealand to be the best place in the world for children. The Families Package will make a significant contribution to this goal. This Government will not neglect children living in poverty.

Prime Minister—Confidence in Ministers

2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in all her Ministers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: How can she have confidence in the Rt Hon Winston Peters when his statement on Tuesday last week on the Russian nerve agent attack carefully avoided any mention of the Russian Government and also didn’t mention the proposed free-trade deal with Russia?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I stated in the House yesterday, we were one of the earliest countries to come out to condemn the use of that nerve agent, before even the UK came out with further advice and evidence, which was following. We have since been updated, of course, given all of the evidence that then emerged and have the exact same position as our partners the UK, the US, France, and Germany.

Hon Simon Bridges: Could she really have confidence in the Rt Hon Winston Peters when he goes on TV and says things like there’s “no evidence” Russia was involved in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, and “We have a lot of allegations, but we do not have the facts laid out clearly on whether Russia interfered with the 2016 US election.” when there’s a wealth of evidence to support both?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I pointed out yesterday, in that same interview he pointed out that the missile certainly was Russian and that there is an international investigation going on into the downing of that plane as we speak. The point that I would make is, if we are so out of step with our international partners, why did Theresa May thank us for our statement and for the solidarity that we’ve shown? To continually misrepresent New Zealand’s position does us a disservice.

Hon Simon Bridges: Who directed the amendment of the statement issued last Friday evening clarifying the Government’s position on the Salisbury attack so that the version subsequently posted on the Beehive website reduced its word count from 214 to 197 words by removing all the quotes directly attributed to the Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I notice, again, the obsession with word count abounds. That statement always had, on the top of the header, that it was a joint statement by myself, as Prime Minister, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it her policy that Ministers can continue to meet with Russian diplomats in the wake of the events in Salisbury?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As we have made clear, Salisbury has changed things. We have continued what has been the suspension of the free-trade talks which were enacted in 2014—they have not resumed—and we have said it is too early to say if or when they would given the situation we are now in. I would ask the member: does he take a different view than this Government on Russia, because we have been very clear. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Can I suggest, first of all, to the Prime Minister that she shouldn’t, even in that form, ask the Opposition questions, because she’s likely to get the response that she did. But can I also say to the Leader of the Opposition that this is a matter of international affairs and is something which is of a lot of concern to a lot of people, and constant chirping from both members on his bench during the answer is not helpful either.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would you prefer that I address the question again? [Interruption]

SPEAKER: If the Prime Minister—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: No. I’ve had “Go on.” from the member’s leader, so I’m just about to rule that the Prime Minister can answer it again. Does the member have a different view?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, but—whatever.

SPEAKER: Well, can I ask the Opposition, between the leader and the shadow Leader of the House: whose advice should I take?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, of course the leader of the National Party calls the shots for us. My point was about the fact that, firstly, it is not for the Speaker to determine the importance of a question—which you just did. For you to then determine, because it’s important, that you should take a different attitude to the way it’s answered, I think, is inappropriate. Now, whether the Prime Minister answers again or not is a different matter entirely.

SPEAKER: I want to thank the—the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I nearly repeated my mistake. I want to thank the Hon Gerry Brownlee for his view, but it has been a long tradition in this House that matters of international affairs where nuance around diplomacy are important, are treated with more respect than a run-of-the-mill political question, and that’s why I did ask to have less interjection, both during the question and afterwards, from the Leader of the Opposition and his deputy. The Prime Minister—replying to the question again.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My understanding is that no member of this Government has met with any representatives from Russia since Salisbury, and the insinuation that he’s made suggests that that’s not the case.

Hon Simon Bridges: How can she have confidence in trade Minister David Parker when he failed to convince the US Government that New Zealand deserves an exemption from US steel tariffs, so that she had to resort to the rarely used step for a Prime Minister of personally writing to the President, seeking the exemption herself?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition is that we shouldn’t do everything we can as a Government to stand up for New Zealand exporters, frankly, I’m shocked by that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she support the Hon Shane Jones in his call for the chair of the board of Air New Zealand to resign?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I expressed yesterday, there will be many New Zealanders who will have sympathy with the opinion that was expressed. I’ve made similar statements around regional access in the past. However, as I’ve said today, calling for the resignation of the chair was a step too far, and I’ve shared that with Minister Jones.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, didn’t he do it in his ministerial capacity, as a Cabinet Minister with collective responsibility?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: He has no ministerial responsibility for Air New Zealand.

Hon Simon Bridges: Will she discipline the Hon Shane Jones for threatening the chief executive, the chair, and, indeed, the board of a publicly listed New Zealand company?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve shared my view with Minister Jones, but, just as this isn’t a sacking offence for Air New Zealand, it’s not a sacking offence for Shane Jones, either.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, is her Government boosting business confidence in New Zealand by floating the possibility the Government will make entire sectors, like oil and gas, disappear; attacking business leaders by name; and instigating wholesale reviews, creating a lot of uncertainty, into infrastructure like electricity and ports?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Most of that question was incorrect.

Charter Schools—Opinion Poll

3. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Education: Does he believe his Government has handled the issue of charter schools well?

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Education: Yes.

David Seymour: Will the Minister then be surprised to find recent opinion polling that shows 60 percent of New Zealanders disagree and disapprove of the Government’s handling, and 57 percent believe they should be allowed to stay open?

Hon JENNY SALESA: On behalf of the Minister of Education, I have not seen this poll that the member is speaking of, but I can assure the member that this Government is focused on and committed to ensuring that all of our students have access to excellent public education.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A point of order, the Hon—sorry, David Seymour. I’m not promoting anyone.

David Seymour: I turned that down. I seek leave to table a document which is a report from Curia Market Research on polling undertaken from 26 February—

SPEAKER: Is it a private report, or is it one that’s been published on a website?

David Seymour: It’s not available anywhere else except on this piece of paper right now.

SPEAKER: It’s not available anywhere else other than on that piece of paper?

David Seymour: That’s right.

SPEAKER: On that assurance from the member, I will put it to the House. Is there any objection to that unique piece of paper being tabled? It appears there is. Right, it won’t be tabled. Is there a further supplementary?

David Seymour: We take cyber-security very seriously. Will the Minister, after she has read the polling, reverse the Government’s position and allow those 1,500 students to continue in the school of their choice on those schools’ terms?

SPEAKER: Before the member answers, I’m just going to do the adjustment to make it “he”, to make it in order, rather than “she”.

Hon JENNY SALESA: I cannot comment on a report that I have not yet seen; so it would not be appropriate for me to say that I will reverse a decision, given that I have not seen that piece of paper.

Disability Issues—Employment

4. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister for Disability Issues: What events has she recently hosted regarding the employment of people with disabilities?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Disability Issues): This morning, Minister Jackson and I hosted the launch of the new disability employment support practice guidelines, a best-practice guide that details how to ensure any disabled person who wants to work has opportunities to receive skilled support to get work. I want to acknowledge the vision and commitment of the New Zealand Disability Support Network, who brought the sector together to develop these guidelines, and those groups from across the sector that took part in developing the guidelines. The views, experiences, and aspirations of disabled people have been included as it’s often said, “Nothing about me without me.”

Greg O’Connor: Why are the employment practice support guidelines important?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: New Zealand is missing out on the economic and cultural contribution that disabled people can make. Only 25 percent of disabled people are in employment, yet 74 percent of non-working disabled people want to work. Even more concerning, the number of disabled young not in any kind of employment, education, or training is about four times higher than their non-disabled peers. We need to accept we have a problem, when we were told today at the launch that disabled university graduates have the same employment outcomes as non - disabled high school graduates. While there are some disabled people who can’t work, this gap is too wide. This is why improving the employment experience of disabled people is key.

Greg O’Connor: What are the employment practice support guidelines?

Hon Tim Macindoe: Are you going to ask her what she had for breakfast?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The guidelines outline best practice for employment support services working alongside both disabled people and employers to tailor work opportunities to address their respective needs. By setting clear expectations, the guidelines will help improve disabled people’s employment outcomes. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Sorry—I’m going to ask the member to resume his seat. I think Mr Macindoe, Mr Hudson, and Mr Robertson could all show—all show—some respect for this question. I’d ask the Minister to restart her supplementary answer.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The guidelines outline best practice for employment support services working alongside both disabled people and employers to tailor work opportunities to address their respective needs. By setting clear expectations, the guidelines will help improve disabled people’s employment outcomes. The guidelines make absolute sense. It is a great tool, but it is only part of what needs to happen. I can assure the disability sector and New Zealand that there will be more work in this space, and I’m sure the general public will take it more seriously than what Tim Macindoe is doing right now.

Hon Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take great offence at that comment and would ask the Minister to identify whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing.

Hon Grant Robertson: I can easily identify for Mr Macindoe—he suggested that the questioner should ask the Minister what she had for breakfast. That’s disrespectful to people with disabilities, Mr Macindoe.

Hon Tim Macindoe: The Minister of Finance is picking up on an interjection that happened some time before the Minister made her gratuitous comment. The two are not related, and I continue to take offence at it.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Speaking to the point of order, the member was also inferring that this was a waste of space, in terms of being asked in this House.

Hon Tim Macindoe: Mr Speaker, I attended that breakfast this morning in my capacity as the ACC spokesperson for the Opposition. I take the issue very, very seriously, and I continue to take offence at the suggestion.

SPEAKER: I’m not prepared to require a withdrawal from the Minister. There was an interjection from the member and the member in front of him during the answer. I did not hear the detail of it but it clearly did cause offence. The interjection caused offence, and the fact that the Minister was a supplementary late in responding to it was probably inappropriate, but not to the point where I’m going to require its withdrawal. Everything—everything—as part of this exchange is on the record.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: The longstanding convention in this House has been that if a member takes offence, then that should be accepted and the person causing the offence should do something about it. Now, for a Minister who—we know it’s not an equal contest in here; it always is. We get to ask the questions and then the answers can range across a broad range of topics etc., etc. For a gratuitous flick like that at the end of a question, I think it’s completely out of order and a gross misuse of the opportunity to stand with the microphone in front of the full House and anyone who happens to be watching.

Hon Grant Robertson: In the last Parliament, rulings made by the previous Speaker indicated that it is no longer the case that it is automatic that offence, if it’s taken, requires a withdrawal and apology. That ruling was made by the previous Speaker.

SPEAKER: And in my experience, for the vast majority of my career, it’s not been automatic. We’re not, you know, petals. People need to be a little bit robust when these things are occurring, and I think especially when people are involved in interjecting, the fact that there is something which comes back in their direction is part of the ebb and flow of this House. The Hon Tim Macindoe, I think, wants to add further.

Hon Tim Macindoe: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The point I was making is that in her comment, the Minister was suggesting that I was doing something now. At that point—and, in fact, at least for a minute beforehand—I had said nothing, there was certainly nothing about my body language that could have caused her any concern. Members of the public watching this exchange on the television will only have seen the Minister speaking and would, presumably, come to the conclusion that I was doing something that was offensive. The point I’m making is that I certainly wasn’t, and I was asking the Minister to explain what it was that was offensive, and because I found it an offensive suggestion, I asked her to withdraw it.

SPEAKER: OK. Right, well, I—

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Speaking to the point of order, can I just—

SPEAKER: Well, I don’t think there is one.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: OK.

Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: It’s not related to this matter, is it? Because I have ruled on that. I’ve been fairly liberal with Mr Macindoe, and Mr Brownlee afterwards, and the member’s not going to continue—is she?

Hon Louise Upston: No, it’s a separate point of order. In question No. 4 and question No. 5 yesterday, as well as this question now, a Minister in their answer has used their answer to an oral question for a gratuitous statement. In Opposition questions to Ministers, you are very clear about stopping a member from asking anything additional and including anything in the answer that doesn’t need to be there. I’m interested, Mr Speaker, if you are creating a new ruling that allows Ministers to have gratuitous flicks at this side of the House.

SPEAKER: My view is that the member has just, in absolute contradiction to the assurance that she gave me at the beginning of her question, raised the very same matter, and as a result of that the Opposition will lose two supplementary questions.

Hon Louise Upston: The point of order that I understood immediately before me was around the issue of a member taking offence in this House and the Speaker ruling on a matter of offence, so I apologise, sir, but I see that as a different point of order that I was raising on a different matter.

SPEAKER: OK, well, I’ll accept the member’s apology.

Oil and Gas Industry—Exploration, Employment, and Fonterra

5. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her reported statement when personally receiving a petition from Greenpeace on Monday to end oil and gas exploration that the Government was “actively considering” the issue?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. I was flanked on that day by our Minister for Climate Change and our Minister of Energy and Resources, and I stand by that statement. We’re currently considering the block offer for 2018, and all options are on the table for that.

Hon Simon Bridges: When she said on Tuesday that “we’re considering everything” in regards to oil and gas exploration, had she consulted the Deputy Prime Minister, who also said on Tuesday “we know exactly where this is going” and “We will not compromise on what we’ve agreed”, which is “to support the extractive industries while ensuring core conservation values”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: He also referred to the fact that there was a decision-making process under way, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

Hon Simon Bridges: So, to be clear, is the Government “actively considering” everything in relation to oil and gas exploration or simply changes, say, to the block offer and the like, with ongoing exploration allowed?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I said, the Deputy Prime Minister referenced the fact that we were in the middle of a decision-making process, which we are. As I’ve said, that decision-making process will be forward looking. It’s about block offers in the future and, as I assured the House yesterday and have continually done so since, this is not a retrospective act. Everything that is currently in place remains.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she aware that oil and gas exploration supports over 8,000 jobs in Taranaki alone and that she’s put those jobs at risk or at least created great uncertainty for all of the businesses involved there, and does that concern her?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely dispute that. My understanding, actually, is that oil and gas exploration, based on, as the member will know, older reports, is that there are about 4,500 people directly employed in the sector. None of those employees will be affected because, as I’ve said, this decision is about the future, and everything that is currently in place will remain in place. I would, however, also like to point out that the Leader of the Opposition did say that “National emphasises the environment, and under me I think we’ll emphasise it a little more”. So I’d really like to hear the Opposition’s plan for dealing with this issue as well.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister with respect to her last quote, or the one that she borrowed from the leader of the National Party, was that going to be a small transition or a big transition or a mythical transition?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, according to the same interview, my recollection was that it was meant to be a just transition, but I’m yet to hear the Opposition’s plan for that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Speaking of the environment, what would be the cost to the climate if Fonterra were no longer able to use natural gas for most of their processing plants and had to revert back to coal in order to continue production and safeguard international food security?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Even Fonterra has acknowledged that they need to tackle this issue head on, even if the Opposition hasn’t. I’m sure I don’t need to educate that member that there are already gas reserves that can run as far as 2046 and that the decisions around exploration permits this year would run for 14 years plus an extra 20 on top of that. This is about decisions that will affect the next 30 years. This is a Government willing to have that debate even if that last one wasn’t.

Hon James Shaw: Is the Prime Minister aware of Fonterra’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2050 and to phase out coal use entirely?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. They share our ambition to be carbon neutral by 2050—again, something that the Opposition clearly does not.

Hon James Shaw: Is looking for new fossil fuels the same thing as shutting down existing operations, and what year are the existing operations currently scheduled to wind down?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I acknowledged, we’ve not said that we would be altering current operations, and a number of those fields actually have a shelf life that goes out as far as, potentially, 2046.

Budget 2018—Capital Project Funding

6. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: When he set the capital allowance for Budget 2018 at $3.4 billion in his Budget Policy Statement, was it his intention to fully fund all capital projects announced to date within this allowance?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): My intention when I set the capital allowance for Budget 2018 was for it to fund the capital projects that will be announced in Budget 2018.

Hon Amy Adams: Given his statement that “We don’t believe PPPs have a place in schools and hospitals,”, can he now confirm all new schools and the up to $1.6 billion Dunedin Hospital rebuild will be fully funded within Budget 2018’s capital allowance?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The former Minister may have some particular figures in mind for those things. I don’t know that those are the figures. What I can say is that on this side of the House, we don’t favour the privatisation of health and education.

Hon Amy Adams: Given his repeated refusals to commit to funding the Defence Capability Plan, is it his intention, then, to fund additional capital promises by cutting back on the defence budget?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I have said is that we want to undertake, as we have agreed through our coalition agreement, a review of defence procurement. When we do that, we’ll be able to understand what the costs are for making sure that we have effective capability and capacity in our Defence Force. What we won’t be doing is writing out a ghost cheque for $20 billion.

Hon Amy Adams: In his answer to question No. 3 in the House yesterday, when he claimed that the previous National Government was spending $30.5 billion on capital over the next five years, why did he deliberately use different time periods to compare the capital spending intentions of the previous and current Governments?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I did was use the figures that are available in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU).

Hon Amy Adams: What, in fact, is the correct forecast of capital spending from 2018 to 2022 from the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update that he referenced yesterday?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I referenced figures from the HYEFU yesterday.

Hon Amy Adams: No, no, no, no, no. No, you didn’t. Be very careful, Grant.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I did.

SPEAKER: Order! I think both supplementaries and answers have finished.

Environment—Aluminium Dross

7. Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour) to the Minister for the Environment: What announcements has the Government made regarding aluminium waste in Southland and Central Otago?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The coalition Government has reached an agreement in principle for the removal of stockpiles of partly treated aluminium dross, a by-product from aluminium production from sites mainly across Southland. This dross produces harmful gases when in contact with water, and while details are still to be finalised and a formal agreement signed, I’m encouraged the parties have agreed to share the multimillion-dollar cost of its removal. Thanks are due to the local community, the Gore district CEO and mayor, Tracy Hicks, who worked with local MPs Liz Craig and Mark Patterson, the smelter, and landlords to develop a solution.

Dr Liz Craig: So why has the Government chosen this approach?

Hon DAVID PARKER: This problem has a history going back many, many years. The coalition, however, is an active Government that gets things done, so we’ve taken a pragmatic approach to resolve it. Although polluters should be responsible for their own pollution, not taxpayers or ratepayers—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, you banned ironic expression in questions. Surely you’ll ban it in answers from Ministers.

SPEAKER: I’m tempted, Mr Brownlee. Continue, Mr Parker.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The coalition Government has adopted a pragmatic approach to resolution of the problem. Although polluters should be responsible for their own pollution, not taxpayers or ratepayers, the Crown and the council have agreed to share the $4 million cost with the smelter and landlords to avoid protracted and costly legal action and get the dross cleaned up.

Dr Liz Craig: What will the Government do should this situation reoccur?

Hon DAVID PARKER: We need to take care to avoid the moral hazard of stepping in. I believe primary responsibility for the by-product from the smelter should rest with the smelter. While we’re pushing forward with this solution in this instance, we’ve made it clear that if this issue arises again, I will be expecting the Crown to sue those responsible.

Child Poverty Reduction Bill—National Party Supplementary Order Papers

8. Hon ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction: Does she stand by her statement that “There shouldn’t be politics in child poverty”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Minister for Child Poverty Reduction): Yes.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: When she said, “we will do a bit of consultation with the Opposition and see if we can get some support from them,” why hasn’t she responded to the letters from the Hon Paula Bennett seeking support and consideration of our Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, usually the time in which we would have the ability to discuss those is when we come back to the House, but I’d like to extend to the member that if he’d like to sit down in person and discuss those SOPs, I’d be very happy to do that.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: Given that she has had a month to consider the proposals put forward by the Opposition, has she decided whether the Government will support our SOPs, having been given their three invitations to discuss them as well?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, as I understand, the original letter, as I recall, set out what the SOPs were intended to do but without the actual SOPs. I received the SOPs today. That gives me a good starting point to know what you’d like to discuss; so I’m happy, now that we have the full substance, that we can sit down and discuss them. In fact, the concepts would have been premature, because I see that you’ve actually proposed a specific target for, for instance, material hardship that wasn’t contained in the letter. In fact, it’s a target that last year, when suggested by the Children’s Commissioner, you rejected.

SPEAKER: Order! I’m just going to remind the Prime Minister that I’m not Mr Ngaro.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: So would she then be supportive of extending the submission date to allow the public to have their say on the three Supplementary Order Papers I tabled today, in the spirit of taking politics out of child poverty?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That would be an unusual practice. I do think there’s still ability for the public to be made aware of the suggestions that you’re making, but, obviously, the practice of this House is that we debate SOPs collectively when bills return to the House.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: So, just to clarify, will she meet with the Leader of the Opposition and myself to discuss our Supplementary Order Papers on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, in the spirit of taking politics out of child poverty?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Transport, South Island—Government Investment and Industrial Action at Lyttelton Port

9. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Transport: What actions is he taking to ensure the reliability of transport links for the South Island?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): The Government has an ambitious agenda for investment in transport in the South Island, after a decade of neglect and poor-quality spending that has cost—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. I’m going to require the member to start again and to address the question.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The Government has an ambitious agenda for investment in transport in the South Island. The soon to be released Government Policy Statement on Land Transport will see a shift in priorities towards safety, regional roads, local roads, road maintenance, and other investments that will benefit the South Island.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why is he staying silent as hard-working New Zealanders are having their livelihoods disrupted by ongoing strike action at Lyttelton Port?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, workplace relations are matters for my colleague the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway. However, I am advised that the dispute at Lyttelton Port is occurring under the current employment law settings passed by the former Government and that indications of a resolution of the dispute are hopeful.

Jami-Lee Ross: Can we take it from his silence in this matter that, after six strikes and six no-shows from this Minister, he actually supports the strike action at Lyttelton Port?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I don’t want to see—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry, I’m going to ask the member to repeat the question. I’m just trying to work out whether the Minister actually has responsibility.

Jami-Lee Ross: Well, it flows from the supplementary answer.

SPEAKER: No, whether he has responsibility. Just because it flows from his answer, it doesn’t mean he’s got responsibility.

Jami-Lee Ross: Can we take it from his silence as Minister of Transport that, after six strikes and six no-shows from this Minister in regards to strikes in his portfolio, he actually supports the strike action at Lyttelton Port?

SPEAKER: Only just.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I don’t want to see industrial action disrupting the transport system, especially when, under our policy, we’re about to invest more than ever in a modern transport system, and I urge the parties to reach an amicable settlement and build a modern and collaborate approach to industrial relations.

Jami-Lee Ross: If the Minister feels that way, will he speak to the parties involved to try and find a quick solution, or will he continue to allow millions of dollars of goods to be held to ransom by this union?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Transport sector unions and employers are well aware of my views on this. I don’t believe it’s my role as transport Minister to wade into the middle of every industrial dispute, and I think it’s odd that the member seems to be advocating something like that, particularly after the Ports of Auckland dispute, which went on for two years, and that Government never lifted a finger.

Electoral Law Reform—Electoral Law in Other Countries and Human Rights

10. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Will he be advising the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva this week that his first bill as Minister of Justice amends the Electoral Act 1993 to allow party leaders to dismiss an MP from Parliament, and that in the view of twenty legal experts from the Universities of Auckland, Victoria, Canterbury and Otago, it breaches the Bill of Rights; if not, why not?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Acting Minister of Justice): No; because I will be telling the international community how the coalition Government is resetting the human rights agenda in New Zealand by committing to tackling child poverty, to making tertiary education accessible again through fees-free, through confronting climate change and energy poverty, through funding and supporting the family reunification scheme for refugees, through speaking up for the elimination of nuclear weapons, through repealing the cruel year-and-a-day rule that has so hurt the CTV families in Canterbury, and by fixing the national—

SPEAKER: Order! That’s enough, thank you.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just because some members don’t like the answer is no reason for them to be braying like a bunch of donkeys and trying to shout down good common sense. And I’d ask you to ask them to desist.

SPEAKER: Well—[Interruption]—no. The member will resume his seat. I’m contemplating what to do. I’m listening to a point of order, which I think was right at the margins. But I actually had trouble hearing it—notwithstanding my deaf ear being my left ear—over the noise that was coming from left when there are to be no interjections during points of order. So I think what we’ll say is “1-all”, and we’ll go on to Dr Smith.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the analysis of the Inter-Parliamentary Union that the only countries with similar electoral provisions to those he is proposing is Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Central African Republic, and are these the countries that New Zealand should be modelling its electoral laws and human rights on?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: There will be a full select committee process where everybody, including the body the member has suggested, can make their views known, and they will be heard.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the Minister name a country with high standards of democracy and a respect for human rights that has the sorts of rules where a party leader can dismiss a member of Parliament, like what he is proposing for New Zealand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: New Zealand. But I do find it a bit rich to take lectures on democracy from the member who cancelled democracy at Environment Canterbury in Canterbury.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question to the Minister was whether the Minister could name another country. Another would not—

SPEAKER: No. I think the member said “a country”.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It was “another country”.

SPEAKER: Well, sorry. I will go back and have a look at it. I was under the impression that the member said “a country”. I’m getting some support on my right for that point of view. If the member gives me an absolute—and I will go back and look at it. If the member gives me an absolute assurance—[Rt Hon Winston Peters stands], I’ll take the point of order soon—that he said “another country”, then I will ask the Minister to answer the question. The member has given me assurance, so that is at a very high standard. The member has given me assurance.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. What’s wrong with that question is not the point that’s being made by Mr Smith but, rather, that it’s palpably, demonstrably false. The process that that bill encompasses—it is long, it is arduous, it’s required to be within the party’s constitution, and it is not at the behest of a party leader. It’s just plain false.

SPEAKER: No. I’m going to say to the right honourable gentleman, that could well have been part of the answer to either the primary question or one of the supplementaries, but not to this one. I’m now—[Hon Dr Nick Smith stands] No. I want the member to resume his seat, because, at the point of interruption, I was asking Megan Woods to answer the question in the form that Dr Smith has assured the House it was in.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Mr Speaker, it’s been some time. Can I please request that the member re-asks the question.

SPEAKER: As long as I have an assurance from Dr Smith that it’s going to be re-asked in exactly the form that he did previously.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, indeed. Can the Minister name another country with high standards of democracy and respect for human rights that has the same sorts of laws that enable a party leader to dismiss an MP, like he is proposing for New Zealand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I reject the premise of that question.

Hon Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it’s the first time, in the time I’ve been in the House anyway, where we’ve had the issue around the question of whether or not the wording of the question was correct. I want to understand, on this side of the House, what is the penalty or what is the remedy if Dr Smith in fact—

SPEAKER: It’s actually a very simple matter. There has been an assurance to the House by Dr Smith. If that assurance is incorrect, it’s a matter of privilege, but that will not be raised here, now.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question that was asked of the Minister was a very straightforward and clear question. To simply answer by saying, “I reject the premise of that question.”, when all that was asked was can they name another country, we either take that as a no, in which case it should have been given to the House, or the Minister should be asked to answer the question again. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Before Iain Lees-Galloway speaks, I’m going to indicate that the National Party has gained an additional supplementary, as a result of the interjection during that point of order. Iain Lees-Galloway, speaking to the point of order.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member asking the question characterised a proposed piece of legislation in a particular way, and the Minister rejected the premise that the legislation did what the member says it does.

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

SPEAKER: Well—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s an important point, Mr Speaker. The Clerk’s Office accepted the primary question. The primary question says that the law allows a party leader to dismiss a member of Parliament. It is now not possible—

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. There is no responsibility on the Clerk’s Office for assertions that are made within a question. Will he be advising X, does not mean that X is true. It’s an assertion made by the member. It was a marginal acceptance on my behalf—not by the Clerk, but on my behalf—of the question. I decided, given our long-term friendship, that I should be looser on the member than I might have been on other members.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In respect of the ruling that you have just given, if there was an assertion in the primary question, the Minister would have been obliged to challenge the assertion when she answered that question. That not having been done, it’s well within order for the member to ask a supplementary question with the same description and expect it to be more clearly addressed.

SPEAKER: The member might want Speakers to start judging questions and answers more intensely than Speakers have in the past, but all of my predecessors have made it clear that we will not take responsibility for answers. I have ruled that that question was addressed.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the Minister aware that the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea (PNG) struck down near identical laws in 2010 to what he is proposing for New Zealand, on the basis that they breach the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and if these laws are unacceptable to PNG, why would they be acceptable in a democracy in New Zealand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As that member knows full well, the New Zealand Attorney-General, acting as the law officer, without the constraints of Cabinet collective responsibility, has reviewed this bill and found that the limitations in the bill are justified in a free and democratic society and are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister confirm that an almost identical piece of legislation was passed by the Clark Labour Government and it was highly successful and only failed because of the fact that in the end it had a sunset clause, but that it was used by the ACT Party to successfully get a rid of a member of their own caucus?

SPEAKER: No, there was too much in there that this Government has no responsibility for.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the Minister aware that Germany, the home of MMP, with 70 years’ experience with the system, has no such provisions, and that the German constitution or basic law developed with the Allies in 1940s to prevent a repeat of World War II atrocities specifically prohibits the sort of law that he is now proposing for New Zealand?

SPEAKER: Order! I will let the member answer it, but I will ask the member to have a look at Speaker’s ruling 174/1, which goes to the length of questions and related, unnecessary phrases, for the sense of the question.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I repeat my answer to the last question: as the member well knows, the Attorney-General, acting as the law officer, without the constraints of Cabinet collective responsibility, has reviewed the bill and found the limitations in the bill are justified in a free and democratic society. If that member wants to use hyperbole like that, he is welcome to it. I encourage him to submit at the free, open, and democratic select committee process, and I ask him to reflect on the fact that he denied democracy to Canterbury for nine long years.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the decision of the Supreme Court of the country of Papua New Guinea declaring that these sorts of laws—

SPEAKER: All right, that’s enough. Thank you. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There is no objection. It will be tabled.

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

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’ve just received advice that in asking one of his supplementary questions, Dr Smith definitely said “a country” not “another country”, and I put it to you that—

SPEAKER: Order! I made very clear before that this is a matter of privilege, and matters of privilege are not raised in the House. They are raised by way of letter to me.

Defence—2016 Defence Capability Plan and P-8 Poseidons

11. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) to the Minister of Defence: Does he remain committed to supporting the 2016 Defence Capability Plan?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Yes. My answer is yes. As detailed in the coalition agreement, we will be re-examining the defence procurement programme within the context of the 2016 Defence Capability Plan.

Hon Mark Mitchell: When does the Minister intend to announce the purchase of the P-8 Poseidon aircraft?

Hon RON MARK: It’s a very good question. The first point I would make is that we’re in the throes of going through a Budget round right now. The Budget will become very clear to that member in good time. But it does, I guess, raise some question as to why the member would be concerned about the P-3 decision, given that he didn’t make it when he was the Minister.

Hon Mark Mitchell: It’s actually the P-8, but, to the Minister, has he been able to achieve Cabinet support for the purchase of the P-8 Poseidon?

Hon RON MARK: The member will know in good time exactly where we stand on that decision. At the moment, my focus—as has been explained already by the Minister of Finance—is to review the capability plan within the context of the 2016 announcement to ensure that what we are looking at is what we should be looking at, that the proposals that have been put on my table do stack up, and that I’ve had an opportunity to run due diligence over all of the assessment and evaluation processes that have taken place. It would be inappropriate for me, this Government, to simply rubber-stamp the work that was done by the previous Government, particularly given—

SPEAKER: Order! It’s getting quite long.

Hon RON MARK: —that they didn’t make a decision.

Hon Mark Mitchell: So when the Minister is sure of what he’s looking at, does he think that he will want to support the purchase of the P-8 Poseidon for our New Zealand Defence Forces?

Hon RON MARK: That really is a wait-and-see question. When I have finished reviewing the information, when we have looked at what is available, and when we have finished our discussions we will announce that decision.

Business—Attracting International Businesses and Innovative Partnerships Programme

12. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister of Research, Science and Innovation: How much new money has the Government announced as part of her “formal” launch of MBIE’s Innovative Partnership Programme last week?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Research, Science and Innovation): No new money for the programme was announced as part of the formal launch last week. Companies are not offered any direct funding, grants, or financial incentives to come to New Zealand through this programme.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Did she really stand up and formally launch a programme which has been in place for more than two years now?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The programme was never formally launched by the previous Government. In 2015, it was initiated as a trial. Under National, I note, the focus of the programme was the attraction of multinational companies and the programme within Government was known as the multinational corporations attraction programme. This Government decided to do things a bit differently. We’ve called it Innovative Partnerships and have shifted the focus dramatically. The programme no longer specifically focuses on multinational corporations; rather, this Government’s programme now includes a much wider range of innovative companies developing new technologies that will help us grow a more sustainable and diversified economy that will benefit all New Zealanders.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What is the significance of the word “formal” in the context of this announcement? Does it mean re-announcement of the previous Government’s programme?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think I answered that question in my last answer, but I am happy to go through it again. We did—

SPEAKER: No. I agree with the member and we’re not happy.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: What evidence can she provide to back up her statement “This Government is committed to developing New Zealand as a hub for high-value knowledge-intensive businesses that create value through innovation and R & D”, beyond re-announcing existing National Government programmes?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: When I became the Minister, I found there was a very small amount of funding that was to go to helping companies come to New Zealand and develop R & D. I am not so close-minded that I would cancel that scheme. In fact, in my experience, much of science and research policy is reasonably non-partisan, and I encourage that member to look at a good idea and celebrate it when she sees it, rather than her constant negativity.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: No. No good. The National Party’s run out of supplementaries. I apologise to the member.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

If ever there was an example of a Government just six months in but already tired, out of ideas—if they ever had one—and looking like a Government that’s been there for 11½ years, it’s Megan Woods, who just told us that not only do they not have any ideas; they just reheat our ones. I thought using our laws in Parliament was bad enough—the only laws this Government passes are laws from the last National Government. But we’ve had an admission from the last question and answer in this Parliament today that, actually, all this Government’s got are reheated programmes from the last National Government.

This is a Government that is dripping with good intentions. The Ardern-Peters Government—do they mean well? Do they want to do well? Yes, I think they do. But have they got zero plans to take this country forward and make a difference on the difficult issues that we have? Of course they have zero plans.

As I say, Jacinda Ardern, I think, cares, but the team has nothing.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: All Brylcreem and no socks.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: So what do they do? Well, they reheat our programmes, and—Mr Peters being part of it—there are reviews, commissions, inquiries, and working groups. Six months—just six months—into this new Government, how many working groups and commissions are there?

Hon Members: How many?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, one a month would be six. Six? Twelve? Twenty-four? There have been 45 reviews, commissions, and working groups, and yet no real plans. No homes from the Minister sitting over there—not a single one has been started under his Government. No new transport initiatives, Phil Twyford; no trees from Shane Jones—absolutely no plan and no clarity for this country over the next 2½ years.

I tell you, some people are happy with this Government. If you’re a consultant who writes reports in Wellington, you’re doing really well. If you’re importing paper for the commissions of inquiry, your business is going through the roof, but most New Zealanders know, Ron Mark, that there is zero progress under this Government. There is very little happening. After nine long years in Opposition, Ron Mark got better at sudoku, but he didn’t do the work required. They had four-day weekends. They didn’t do the policy required to make sure they had a Government with initiatives that take New Zealand forward and make a difference.

They have achieved one thing. Ron Mark, Winston Peters, and Jacinda Ardern have achieved one thing in their short six months in Government: they have comprehensively undermined business confidence in this country.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Ha, ha!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: If there were one or two issues, Winston Peters—if it was just immigration, if it was just employment law, if it was just the overseas investment changes that you’ve been talking about for so long—I think business could live with that. Business and the jobs they created know that they can take a few changes and keep on moving. They want to work with the Government. That’s what they tell me. They want to be there with the Government, but this week alone this Government has taken a wrecking ball to the New Zealand economy, cavalierly and for political purposes, slicing off a segment of our economy in the oil and gas sector, with no clarity on what’s happening there. And then, today, Shane Jones was recklessly bullying Air New Zealand, a listed company in this country, simply for his own political purposes. If business wasn’t worried, Winston Peters, a week ago, well, I tell you what: they are now. They are now.

It was economic vandalism we have seen this week, for political capital and political purposes, and we won’t make those mistakes in this party. We know that we have to take the time right now to be out there with New Zealanders, listening to what they’re saying, engaging with them all over the length and breadth of this country, and coming out with a positive set of plans for New Zealand in 2020. We’re energised on this side of the House. We know that in 2½ years we can win the next election and make New Zealand a much, much better place.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Poppycock! That was an interesting speech. Looking around the House, looking around opposite, and seeing the faces of the members opposite when Simon Bridges tried to announce that in 2½ years he was hoping to take back the Government benches, there was not a single confident look in the Opposition benches. The only ones looking a bit cocky at that point were Judith Collins and Amy Adams, who think their chance is coming. That is an Opposition in disarray, and a chief rooster who’s going to be a brief rooster, in my view.

We know on this side of the House that we have inherited nine years of neglect. They eventually got the Government books back into surplus during their time. It took them a jolly long time. In fact, they borrowed more on that side of the House than any previous Government in New Zealand history. That is the biggest-borrowing Government in New Zealand history—those people sitting opposite that were a part of that Government.

We now have the opportunity to rebuild our economy. The only way they ever got to surplus was through building social and infrastructure deficits. We now, on this side of the House, form a Government, and we have the backfill to address. We need to make sure that we address those nine years of neglect. We need to make sure we address the housing crisis that built up under their watch. We need to make sure that we address the health system, under huge strain after their nine years of underfunding; an education system that’s been struggling; inadequate transport; joblessness in the regions—the list goes on—and rising crime.

This Government is determined to turn that around, and make sure not just that we’re—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I’m now going to remind members that speeches during the general debate are not to be read—at all.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Mr Speaker, I’d happily give you these notes, because they do not contain full sentences. This Government is going to turn around those nine years of neglect, and be absolutely clear that we’re going to build an economy that works for all New Zealanders. We’re not just going to achieve surpluses; we are going to build an economy that works for all New Zealanders. We are going to rebuild housing. We are going to get KiwiBuild under way by 1 July. We’re going to start rebuilding Dunedin Hospital, a project that was delayed time and time and time again. When I asked Tony Ryall in 2014 when that hospital rebuild was going to start, he said decisions were going to be taken by the end of the year—in 2014. This Government is finally getting on with the Dunedin Hospital rebuild, and the citizens are happy about it.

We’re going to make learning more affordable. This Government has introduced free tertiary education. That is a landmark decision. This Government has made the biggest change in redistribution of incomes, through the Families Package, since 1991. That is going to mean tens of thousands of children are brought out of poverty. This is a Government that is already delivering for New Zealanders, after so many years of neglect. We’ve got the provincial growth fund, and I think we’re going to hear a whole lot more about that. A billion dollars a year—a billion dollars—is going to make a significant difference in those neglected regions. As I’ve travelled round the country in my prior role as regional economic development spokesperson, I’ve heard from those regions. They were feeling the squeeze under the former Government, and now this Government has a plan to do something about that: to invest in the regions, invest in jobs, invest in incomes, and invest in the livelihoods and infrastructure needed in our regions so desperately.

Of course, all of these things will take time. We will not fix every problem built up after nine years in one Budget, and I think New Zealanders understand that. We can’t fix nine years of neglect in one Budget, but we are already making significant progress with the KiwiBuild project, with the paid parental leave, with the increase in police that we’re looking toward, with the Superannuation Fund contributions restarting, with the State house builds, and so on. This is a Government that is already delivering despite those years of neglect.

And what have we got on the other side of the House now? We’ve got National MPs publicly fighting—publicly fighting. We have Todd Muller attacking Simon Bridges’ transport plan. I look across the House for Mr Muller, and these days I have to look a long way back—a long way back. He’s not a happy man in this Government.

We have Amy Adams humiliating the leader—humiliating the leader—over the value capture proposal. She knows her time will come. She’s confident she’ll win the next round of the leadership. I can see her there. She looks happy hearing it. She knows she’s in next time, when the leadership change happens. She’s the next one off the block.

Judith Collins, though, already thinks she is there. She’s undermining him too. She is the real public face of National now: Judith Collins. She’s sniping at Simon Bridges, though, for his under-investment in local roads.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): Well, this is a debate and this is the time when I would, in general, reply to the previous speaker, but, to change a paraphrase, he lost me at “Hello”. It was, to say, ineffective and, yeah, “a bit pitiful” is an understatement. I suppose my message to the Government today is that words really matter—words really matter. Your actions after those words really matter. Saying one thing and actually meaning them—say what you mean, mean what you say, and, Mr Speaker, that is the message, through you, that I put to this Labour - New Zealand First Government.

I want to just go through a couple of—I mean, there were, of course, the 100,000 houses. We’re told that “Absolutely, 100,000 affordable houses.”, and I want to put the quote that “Your intention is reality.” is what the Prime Minister said. Of course, that intention is now a bit harder, now they’re in Government—

Hon Phil Twyford: Where are your houses, Paula? Where are your houses in nine years?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: —we don’t actually see that happening. We’re lucky if they’ll actually get there. In fact, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development is shouting out at me—it’s Phil Twyford, for anyone that’s interested—and he’s the one that’s recently reannounced developments that National had already got going.

“We’ll plant a billion trees. We will plant a billion trees.”—and now, of course, they’re backtracking from it. “Child poverty is most important but, however, we now have no money in the Budget.”

But, more importantly, the Prime Minister said that—and I directly quote—“The victims of the Roast Busters deserved better from the Government.” I heard direct quotes from then justice spokesperson in Opposition, Andrew Little, and he said, “If victims aren’t coming forward because of fears around giving statements or evidence, then let’s hear from Ms Collins”—who was the Minister then—“about how she will address that.” We had direct quotes from the now Government that, when in Opposition, said—and I quote—“The public deserves some answers and victims deserve to know the justice system is there to support and protect them.” Yet members of their own party have been in, frankly, a sickening and callous decision to avoid any scrutiny by trying to deal with serious allegations of sexual assault by internalising complaints and not directly sending them to police. And that, in my opinion and in the opinion of this side, is that words mattered when they were in Opposition but no action was taken when it was in their very own backyard under very serious allegations.

We saw in recent weeks that allegations were made around Russell McVeagh and things that may or may not have been happening in their workforce, and we had Government Ministers who were pretty keen and pretty quick to wade into that, and to have opinions, actually, on how they handled it. In fact, we had direct quotes that criticised them in appointing their own reviewer. So Andrew Little, as the Minister of Justice, said he criticised them for appointing their own reviewer, not referring it to the police, and he also levelled comments at the Law Society for its inaction after eventually learning of the allegations. However, the very next week we saw the Prime Minister’s own party actually appoint their own reviewer—not refer something in to the police until such pressure came on them publicly to do so.

As I say, words matter; your actions matter when it comes to matters of this. I think that the Labour - New Zealand First Government has been found wanting in what has happened in the last few weeks and should be ashamed of how they have treated these young people, of their lack of action afterwards, and that they want to get on with it. We hear a lot from this Prime Minister about how vulnerable children are the main focus, but when it came to children being made vulnerable under their very own watch, it was only when they were found out publicly that we have now seen something happen, and something happen for those very vulnerable children that, quite frankly, deserved more from a Government.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): That was a speech that that member is going to regret giving, and it won’t be before very long when she’ll discover that. But let me just say, what we saw today was a party that’s in the middle of a leadership spill, or in the aftermath of it, and they have gone from indifference to actually plain weakness.

As Simon Bridges was speaking today, I looked at that backbench, and I didn’t see anybody getting ready to clap, and they didn’t clap when he finished. That was his first opening outing and he fell over at the first hurdle. What did he say? Look, this man is all gel and no socks. He gets up and he starts making statements about, for example, Ron Mark. Well, let me tell you about Mr Mark. We did do a review—that’s true—when it came to defence procurement. The first thing we found was that there was a frigate upgrade blowout of $148 million. That’s just one review. He’s complaining about reviews. Guess why? The reviews are finding culpable, hopeless, useless, incompetent parties. That’s what they’re finding. They don’t want a review, because these reviews all have one place to go: back to the previous Government and their incompetence.

I want to say, though, that they represent most definitely the seven deadly sins. After Bill English, you’ve got the caucus malcontents and they’re showing awful sloth—just angry, embittered, like somehow, “We’re entitled to power. Whether we can win or not doesn’t matter; we’re just entitled because we’re born to rule.” Unfortunately, when you argue that you’re born to rule, you usually exhibit some class, and I’ve never seen a party with less class than the current National Party. I tell you, it’s evidence that money doesn’t make you somebody of status in society—it’s living proof.

The second great sin, of course, is pride, and, boy, that pride’s going before a fall, or a number of falls, because Mr English will be around—I’m sorry, Mr Bridges. Apart from mangling the English language every time he gets to his feet and announcing dates I’ve never heard of—I’ve never heard of “Mo-arch”, you know, for the third month of the year, and all these sorts of pronunciations. What was the National Party thinking of? When I saw today—I see only two people smiling, or one in particular. And I won’t say who it is, because I’m a nice person.

And then there’s lust. Lust is an arrogant and haughty beast and far from subtle, and subtlety is a word they don’t know. It is plain crude, their drive and desire and lust for power. As you know, the old saying goes that “Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple”, and is the National Party evidence of that deadly sin? Most definitely.

But to carry on, we’ve got two politicians talking about the use of helicopters. You know, the only people who used helicopters in Auckland were the previous Minister of Defence and the previous Prime Minister but one. All were on a helicopter going to golf matches, if you please. The very idea that he would raise it! “Yes, but it’s OK, because we’re National and we’re born to rule. We’ve got a sense of entitlement.” You look at their spending as Ministers compared with mine, for example. It’s a disgrace. I’m spending about a third of what they spent. No, no, they’re entitled to it—unbelievable.

Now, you’ve also got the sin of sloth. They say the lazy are always waiting to do something—the lazy are always waiting to do something. That accounts for the rest of the National Party caucus—listless and rudderless and breaking down to, probably, five teams. Why, on some days, they even make Mr Seymour look good, and that’s really a condemnation. At least he’s trying to do something.

And then there’s the gluttony—namely, National’s vanquished in their hunger for power. Mr Bridges should watch out for his wounded bulls and mares, because they are seriously wounded. If you look to the left and the right, Mr Bridges, you will sit there and you will see a very prophetic sight of somebody’s appetite, and it is more than one person. We on this side of the House have a lesson for members opposite over there: there is enough in this world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed—the further sin. Mark my words: during this term, the members opposite are about to learn the difference.

One last piece of advice: “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come, beware the member for Papakura—it’s soon her time as National’s mum.” Now, sir, that’s free; you can sell it online, if you like. I’m sure it’ll get something. It’s very good poetry. But, basically, what you’ve got here is a party that’s in between possibly the next three leaders, and they’ll put them up one after the other. But here’s the real point: not one of them could rate at 1 percent in the polls. Not even 1 percent or even a half percent. In fact, no one ever suggested they would be a leader until they, immodestly, said they wanted to be one.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Well, we’ve heard a lot about old sayings from the member who’s just resumed his seat, Winston Peters.

Hon Member: From the old member.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No, I’m not going to attack his age, because age can be a very good thing until you don’t have it. But I will say that there’s a saying that I think is actually made for that member, and that is that “Clothes maketh the man”, because apart from that, there’s nothing much else. But they’re very good clothes, though—very good clothes.

We could say the same thing about the current Government, except we’d have to say “Reviews maketh the Government”. We’ve had 45 reviews so far. I think that’s about as many sitting days of Parliament that we’ve had for this Government. I think it’s one review a day. They’ve had nine years—nine long years, they’d say in Opposition—well, what were they doing? We do know they were stabbing each other in the back and actually not getting on with their jobs.

Let’s see where we are now. We’ve been in this new Government for five months. We’ve got no new homes under KiwiBuild, we’ve got some plans to rehash some of the houses consented under National, we’ve got no trees that have been planted, we’ve got no roads built, we’ve got no roads even approved, we’ve got no trains approved, and we’ve got the oil and gas sector in disarray, with the Prime Minister saying the most ridiculous, virtue-signalling nonsense that she tends to say in front of the Greenpeace people, who she made the Foreign Minister actually wait for while she got to do a sign and have a photo. That’s had to be corrected by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Then she’s got the economic vandalism of actually going through and having companies like Air New Zealand being attacked by my dear old friend Shane Jones, who has today been responsible for making a big company like Air New Zealand be actually seen like a victim of a bully-boy Minister who thinks it’s OK to call for the resignation of the chief executive of Air New Zealand and also the chairman of the board, and, by the way, the whole board—“Well, why not?”, he would say.

We have the transport strikes—today, another strike. Seven transport strikes in five months, and there were none in nine years of National, for the trains and for the ships.

Hon Phil Twyford: What about the ports? What about the ports? Ports of Auckland?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: We’ve got seven—seven. Seven of them, and it’s the same union every single time. While Phil Twyford wants to talk about unions, let me just say this to him: MUNZ union. The MUNZ union, the Maritime Union of New Zealand, that sees itself as having some form of very close relationship with the current Labour Government, having had the Prime Minister go to visit them straight after the election to be congratulated. The MUNZ union’s up in arms that oil and gas is now at risk. They know what’s happening in the Pegasus Basin. They know there’s enough natural gas there to keep New Zealand not only going but actually to have a huge export industry for massive wealth for this country, and they know it’s their members who get the jobs. They’ve been on the phone to Jacinda Ardern, so although Winston Peters would like to claim credit for it, it’s actually the head of the MUNZ union that stopped that sort of behaviour from Jacinda Ardern, and she knows where her funding for her party comes from.

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: So what we have got is a Government in total disarray.

I’m really disappointed in Jacinda Ardern, and I’m going to touch on this, because it goes right to the heart of why she does not understand middle New Zealand. Your 16-year-old kids get indecently assaulted at a Labour Party function or any other function—you want to know. Do you know why you want to know? Because motherhood and fatherhood are not just jobs; they’re your life. You’re not there for eight hours a day; you’re there 24/7, and no parent wants to know that their kid has been put at risk, abused, and then sent home being told, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to tell your mum and dad.”, as though they’ve done anything wrong.

We have a huge problem with youth suicide. We have a huge problem with kids getting into drugs and alcohol. The one thing we expect from anyone in charge of our children is some responsibility. They’re in the place of the parent. For goodness’ sake! Start to act like it, instead of covering up for Andrew Kirton and the rest of the Labour Party. It’s an utter disgrace.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I have to admire that member’s gall.

Hon Judith Collins: But you always do.

Hon RUTH DYSON: She comes to this House—that’s pretty much all I admire. She comes to this House and accuses this side of the House of economic vandalism, and then she talks about leadership battles within Labour. That is gall to be admired from any distance.

Dr Duncan Webb: Irony.

Hon RUTH DYSON: And irony. I have watched many leadership battles within my own party, and, I tell you what, it is bliss watching it in the National Party, and it’s nowhere near over yet. I think the Hon Judith Collins knows that, the Hon Amy Adams certainly knows that, and Jami-Lee Ross is absolutely sure of where he’s going in the future. Simon Bridges’ time is limited. And couldn’t you tell that? Couldn’t we tell that from the response to his speech leading off the general debate today? Not a single bit of support from the back bench—not a single bit of support.

Then following his contribution was Paula Bennett. The fact that Paula Bennett is still the deputy leader of the National Party comes as a huge surprise, particularly to her colleagues. I’ve heard them say the only reason she survived was because Judith Collins was the opposition. But that isn’t a very high bar for the deputy leader who was, just a couple of weeks before being confirmed, being publicly criticised by her own colleagues. So don’t come into the House and lecture this side of the House on leadership battles when the National Party’s leadership battles are so obvious and are dividing them.

The other comment that I thought had gall to be admired from Judith Collins was talking about economic vandalism. That’s coming from a Minister as part of a Government that borrowed more money than any Government in the history of our country. The National Government borrowed more money than any other Government in the history of our country. They stopped contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, so we lost money that would otherwise have been invested in our future, and they didn’t pay the bills and then crowed about having a surplus. It’s actually not hard to get a small surplus if you don’t pay the bills. If the bills of Government are not paid, then a surplus can be created, but that is cheating on New Zealanders and, worse than that, it’s cheating on the future of our young people.

I am really proud to be part of this Government: this Government made up of Labour, New Zealand First, and Green Party members, all with different particular policies and identities but a shared set of values that says the future of New Zealand is worth investing in. I’m proud to be part of a Government that is doing that investment. We’ve seen investment in housing, in health, in public transport, in road safety, and in joblessness in our regions. It’s heartbreaking going to some provincial towns and seeing the destruction that was caused by nine years of neglect by the National Party—young people with no hope except moving to a city, no hope in their own town. That is wrong, and I’m so pleased to see our Ministers working together to address those.

Of course, as a result of that joblessness in our provincial centres, of the lack of hope of young people for a place in the future for them, we have seen rising crime. We’re investing in State houses and they will be warm and dry. We have put the bar up on our rental properties so they will be warm and dry as well. We have people, children and elderly people particularly, going to hospital with diseases because they live in a cold, damp house. How can that be right in a country like ours?

There are many things that I’ve been proud of in the last few months as we’ve kicked off this Government, but I do think that restarting the contribution to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is one which will see us better off in the future—not for our generation but for younger ones—and we should really, really support that. Of course, there is our Families Package, which will see so many thousands of families getting on average $75 extra a week. That’s a really huge boost to those families. They deserve it, and they deserve a better future with our Government.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was reflecting on the question of: what is the job of a politician; what is the job of a Government? I’d put it to you that it is to confront the challenges of today, so that the people of New Zealand can have a better tomorrow.

It was interesting to listen to Simon Bridges, the National Party leader, tell the House that the Labour Party and their associates are so devoid of ideas that they’ve had to steal his ideas in place of their own. I know how Simon Bridges feels, because if you look at the legacy of the Key-English Government, what are those improvements to New Zealand that have created a legacy that are now under threat, which the National Party declares itself ready to defend? Well, one of them is the 90-day trial: the idea that a person who is young, who has few skills, who employers aren’t willing to take a chance on, can get into the job market and start growing for themselves the skills they require to have a prosperous life.

Another idea was three strikes: the idea that the worst offenders, those who are violent and sexual offenders, who show that they cannot in any way be rehabilitated, and who do it not once, not twice, but three times, should go away for the maximum possible sentence—the simple idea that we put the worst offenders away the longest, so that New Zealanders can be safe in their homes and in the street.

Another idea that the National Party is determined to defend in the legacy of the Key-English Government is charter schools: the simple idea that there are people in every community who have kids who are disengaged from State education, who have ideas about how to set up schools that will engage them so that those kids can gain skills that turn into qualifications that turn into further education and jobs, careers, self-esteem, and, ultimately, the ability to feel good about themselves.

Three simple ideas, and the only three that are a legacy of the Key-English Government that the National Party has committed to fighting for—except maybe some tax cuts that never happened—since going into Opposition. And what do those three policies all have in common? All of them are policies that were advanced in the last Government by ACT. Had there not been an ACT Party in the last coalition Government, I’d put it to the House that the Key-English Government would have no legacy to defend at all.

But that’s enough beating up on them, because, unfortunately, this Government—Phil Twyford’s and Jacinda Ardern’s Government—are worse. Let me pay a compliment to our new Prime Minister. She’s good. Oh God, she is good at selling her policy. She is our first truly professional Prime Minister who has worked on herself and her communication and her presentation for at least a decade. The problem that she’s got is that the job of a politician is not to be a celebrity and it’s not just to sell; it’s to actually make people’s lives better. And all we’re seeing from this Government is poor quality spending. We’re seeing, for example, fees-free tertiary education. Well, that’s great for the kids who are already going to tertiary institutions, because the policy’s not going to bring any more in. What about the kids who don’t make it at all? They’re being denied an opportunity to get a tertiary education already, and now they’re going to pay taxes for the rest of their lives to subsidise those who do. That’s not making people’s lives better; that is simple cynical electoral politics.

What about the provincial growth fund? The idea that people all over the world, and especially in New Zealand, have somehow missed investment opportunities in provisional New Zealand that Shane Jones is going to detect—that’s not going to make New Zealand a better place with opportunity for all. It’s going to waste a huge amount of taxpayers’ money and we’re going to be all the poorer for it.

Our job is to make New Zealanders’ lives better with greater opportunity and I’m proud to say that in the last Government, the ACT Party was essential to any of that happening. I look forward to ACT coming back in a future Government where we can continue that work, where this Government is absolutely failing.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Mr Speaker, thank you. This is the first opportunity I have had to stand in the general debate and I love the fact that I actually don’t have to use notes. Strangely enough, I’d actually just like to agree with the member from ACT—what we do in Parliament is important and what we need to do is actually think about people, and what we as parliamentarians do in this House has impact. So please, David Seymour, do not use the term “beat up”—we don’t like to beat up people in this country.

I am going to speak a little bit about the actual effects of some of the policies that the National Party’s domestic violence work has impacted on the community. I’m going to talk about this because, actually, I’m not one of those people that is going to stand here and point and put down people. I’m actually going to tell you about some of the impacts that your policies over the last nine years have done—

SPEAKER: Order!

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Sorry, sir. Like I say, I’m new at this—the policies of the National Party have actually done.

So nine years without an increase in the current refuge that I worked in, Tauranga Women’s Refuge. Nine years, four times the increase of clients—the work continued to come. In fact, I nearly make more—I nearly make more—money as an MP than the refuge I worked for was funded. That was to work with 176,000 people in my community. That says to me that when we look at people and what is important and representing this Parliament, we actually need to consider what the people on the ground are suffering. So 176,000 was the population in my community we worked for. Let me tell you what the Government funded our organisation: $21.25 an hour, per hour, across 24/7, across 365 days a year. So when I hear that we need to work with business more and we need to do these things to increase our confidence across the world, I actually say to you—sorry, sir—I say to the Opposition, we need to actually focus on people. Business is not as important as the people, and the people who work in business are actually the people who suffer from the things that have been underfunded in this country.

One of the things that I think is important to raise is—member Paula Bennett spoke about economic vandalism. If we are to talk about economic vandalism, we actually need to focus on what that means. Economic vandalism is actually failing to support our people in this country. It’s about our people living in cars, and we hear this all the time, but let me tell you—let me tell you all—some of us here on this side of the House have seen the impacts of what has happened to those people who were denied the fact that they needed a warm, dry house.

Let me tell you what it is like as a refuge manager to throw someone out on the street because they were safe in the community but they didn’t have a home to go to, and I needed to evict them from the safe house in order to get them access so they could get a week in a hotel. Now that tells me there is something wrong with what has happened in this world. There is something wrong with the policies that have been created to ignore those in poverty.

We are lifting 380,000 families out of poverty over time. We are working with children, we are working cross-party where possible to support our families, our community; kindness is back in the House. Thank you.

Debate interrupted.

Personal Explanations

Oral Questions—Question No. 10 to Minister

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I seek leave of the House under Standing Order 358 to make a personal explanation in respect of my question in the House this afternoon on electoral law.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that proceeding? There is none.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: During the course of question time—of the Minister of Justice about any other country that had high standards of democracy and human rights that had the sort of law being proposed for New Zealand, the Minister answered “New Zealand”, and I raised a point of order with you about the appropriateness of that answer. In the course of that discussion, I genuinely thought that I had used the word “another”, as was on my notes and prepared questions for the time. I subsequently checked the audio I used and the word was “a” rather than “other”. The second time I did use the word “another”. I wish to apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and the House for what was a genuine error.

SPEAKER: I thank the member and say that is now the end of that matter.

General Debate

General Debate

Debate resumed.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want start by acknowledging the regional economic figures that have come out today, and what a wonderful picture they show of this country, which reflects the prosperity of New Zealand that we see all around the country and that New Zealanders are aware of. The engine of the jobs boom that we’ve seen in this country, that has enabled nearly 200,000 new New Zealanders into work in the past two years, has created opportunities for young people and people of all ages to get a job and to contribute and to be part of the New Zealand dream.

So if we look through the various regions, we see every region of the country growing in the past year and some real progress. Northland, for example, has grown 30 percent in their GDP since 2013. Many other districts—Marlborough, for example—have grown nearly 35 percent in the five years since 2002. So it’s a wonderful set of statistics—the result of the hard work of New Zealanders up and down the country, and in a country that’s going ahead, upbeat, and successful.

It’s also an economic record that has been helped along and underlined by the strong, consistent, stable, predictable, and disciplined Government that this country enjoyed for nine years under the previous Government, and I suppose the question that we have to ask ourselves is will this continue under the new regime. It certainly needs to, for the sake of all New Zealanders enjoying the opportunities that we’ve had over the past nine years, and what worries me is we’ve seen an incoherent, unpredictable, and undisciplined Government emerging over the past few weeks—incoherent in the sense that they talk about caring about the young, unemployed people but, at the same time, they axe 90-day trials, which give young, unemployed people an opportunity to get into work. We have “Pablo Jones”—sorry, I mean Shane Jones—out and about the countryside, handing out cash—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —for regional development. But, at the same time, the proposed changes to overseas investment rules will actually reduce the amount of foreign investment going into the regions and, at the same time, private sector investment going into the regions will be undermined by uncertainty in the Government’s handling of industrial relations, uncertainty around tax, and uncertainty around a host of things which affect business confidence. So it’s by no means clear, notwithstanding the fact that Mr Jones, a bunch of bureaucrats, and New Zealand First politicians will be making investments around the countryside to the tune of a billion dollars a year. We could easily lose more than that from private sector investment, both foreign and domestic, as a result of the Government decisions that are being made—so inconsistent and incoherent.

Then we’ve seen the Prime Minister really putting at threat the oil and gas sector, which is such a significant part of the Taranaki economy, by her ill-disciplined and ill-thought-through statements made in front of the House yesterday, where she just blindly said, “Well, you know, it’s all up for grabs in the future.” Well, this is an industry that employs a lot of New Zealanders and helps generate the wealth upon which we are able to afford the social backstop that we have in this country, so that we can afford the quality medicines that enable us to lead healthier lives and so that we can afford to do all those sorts of things. If you keep chipping away at the foundations of our economy, we’ll all suffer.

Then, of course, we’ve seen that a lot of people have been giving this new Government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the sincerity and seriousness about which they take economic development and the strength of the New Zealand economy. That’s been blown away in the last few days by Shane Jones, who has shown that nasty side that we see where, for political purposes, they are willing to attack personally companies in this country and their leaders in a style of politics that is wholly unhelpful in this country and that will undermine, over time, the business confidence that we have enjoyed, which, ultimately, leads to less investment in this country.

So it’s a quite perfectly legitimate thing to raise questions around the performance of Air New Zealand in the regions—a lot of people have questions there, and that’s quite legitimate—but to go to the next step that we’ve seen from Mr Jones and call for sackings, and to go about it in a personally vindictive manner, is wholly inappropriate. The Prime Minister was slow to reprimand him, but she has. But the signal that it sends is that this Government has no respect for New Zealand corporations and New Zealand businesses—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, it’s a privilege to do my very first speech in a general debate—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, really?

PAUL EAGLE: —and I thought—it’s been a long time coming. I’ve been neglected and overlooked, but in saying that, here we are this afternoon, on a pleasant afternoon in Wellington City once again.

Look, I just want to reflect on a few things. I mean, we’ve heard lots of numbers this afternoon. We’ve heard lots of words like “legacies”. I love that word because it suddenly brings up all these thoughts, the dark clouds, and lots of memories—bad ones at that. But what it does do is it reminds me of my wonderful wee electorate here. Most of you land in it every Monday or Tuesday morning—Monday night or Tuesday morning—and there you go home Thursday night, Friday morning, hopefully, back to your home electorates or wherever.

Hon Phil Twyford: We laud you as tangata whenua.

PAUL EAGLE: Absolutely. And I guess that’s the starting point, that we get there and the first legacy is right there, and that’s in the airport extension. What we have there is an example of what’s happened over the last nine years with the lack of decision making from the previous Government and the lack of foresight to say, “Look, what about an airport extension?” You’ll see the beautiful retail expansion, the new hotel, and the parking building, but there is no airport extension. No one made that decision in the last nine years—“We don’t have to make that decision.”—but it’s a real symbol of the bigger picture.

It’s easy then to—as you leave the airport and you come along Cobham Drive, instantly you’ll pass my old former college, and there, the traffic kicks in, because, once again, no one made that decision to build a second tunnel. In 1931, they built that tunnel, and it proudly says it on the front as you leave the wonderful Rongotai electorate, but it’s another symbol of a lack of progress. No decision was made, no investment was put in by that Government. It was too busy building holiday highways and cosy projects in the Hawke’s Bay—dare I say it, looking at the member there for Tukituki. But what I’m saying is that these are more memories and the dark clouds that hang over my electorate.

As you pass there, and as you land at the airport too, you’ll reflect on—just behind the golf course there, there are two schools, and there couldn’t be two better symbols of what went wrong in the last nine years. A merger or, really, a hash job—two schools hacked apart and roughly joined together. Thankfully, it’s a school that provides everything for free—it’s our lowest-decile school—but the journey that it took to get there was harrowing. Now, they need two new buildings. They’ve been asking for two years, “Where’s our building?”, but the symbolism is huge.

As I stand at the gate, you witness Scots College—Scots College, our only private school in the electorate—and there, they were able to purchase social housing on the flat and develop accommodation for their boarders. That part’s OK—the latter—but the former is not. Buying social housing and turning it into boarding facilities for those who have everything versus those who need it most—that is a symbol of the previous Government.

The symbols are everywhere. I can walk through the electorate, as I do because I live there, and I see this, day to day. I see what the legacy looks like.

SPEAKER: Not enough.

PAUL EAGLE: Not enough—he’s quite right. He’s quite right. The Speaker’s quite right. I need to do more walking. Look, the members are quite happy to join the “Eagle for Rongotai Walking Club”. It generally only activates in election year, but look, I’ll kick it off.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, a bit of competition.

PAUL EAGLE: The member for Port Hills is reminding me that I need to get out there, as is the Speaker, but the Opposition is always welcome.

But I’m just going to leave it there and say there are some symbols, and when I get the opportunity to come back and give you part two of a 10-part series of “The Dark Clouds of Rongotai”, thanks to the previous Government, you can all listen and learn a lot about what the real people of New Zealand have experienced. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): First, can I say congratulations to the previous speaker, Paul Eagle, on his first general debate speech in the House.

On Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the rally on Parliament’s forecourt that the Government was “actively considering” an end to oil exploration. Four hours later, the Prime Minister told her weekly press conference that—and I need to quote this—“What I’m pointing out is that every Government around this time of year actively considers how it will manage block offers, and that’s what we are doing.” And I would say that she is doing both things at the same time. She’s using block offers consideration to be the mechanism to stop oil exploration.

And you might say, well, I’m cynical. You might say that I’m taking a biased point of view. Well, today, Greenpeace are giving Jacinda Ardern the benefit of the doubt because they don’t know what she’s doing either. Those first words that I read out in my speech come from Richard Harman of Politik. And Hamish Rutherford from the Dominion Post said, “I was on the steps of Parliament and I’ve listened to the audio again and unless the Prime Minister whispered it or my recording cut out she did not once mention the block offer. She gave a clear impression she was talking about the end to oil exploration.” And this is what I want to talk about.

Let us consider some facts. New Zealand emits 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. That figure is dropping per capita, but it’s not dropping far enough. Of those emissions, 50 percent are from the agricultural sector—they are working hard to bring them down—and around 4 percent are from the oil and gas exploration and production sector through flaring, and they are working hard to bring it down as well.

Flaring used to happen all the time, but now flaring only happens in emergencies. There are different plant designs to enable that. There’s different forms of oxidisation processes to reduce the need for flaring, and international companies like Statoil and Shell intend to remove it completely from all of their operations. That is the reason why there are emissions from the exploration and production of oil and gas.

So what I’m saying is that if the Government succeeds in removing oil and gas exploration and, ultimately, production from New Zealand, we will still be importing crude into the Marsden Point oil refinery for jet fuel, diesel, and petrol. Our liquid fuel emissions will not change one iota, except for the introduction of electric vehicles. So taking out this industry of 4,300 people in Taranaki, who earn over $100,000 each, and another 4,000 people in New Zealand who earn their income through this industry will not change New Zealand’s liquid fuel emission profile.

All it will serve to do is be an example to the world of what we will do to make some effort towards climate change mitigation. But it’s not going to change anything here. And, in fact, every expert I hear in the world is saying there is a place right now for companies who can produce natural gas. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said one year ago in their report to the German Government that “Limiting the rise in global mean temperature to well below 2°C would require an energy transition of exceptional scope, depth, and speed,” Then they said, “As recent IEA estimates show, global energy-related CO2 emissions stalled for a third straight year in 2016.”—so 2014, 2015, and 2016, energy emissions have stalled.

They give three reasons. Number one: growing renewable power generation. That’s a good reason. The second reason is switching from coal to natural gas. So yesterday, here in question time, Todd Muller asked James Shaw: would he support us exporting natural gas to coal-dependent countries? James Shaw said no. And this is where I find it to be intellectually outrageous of this Government that they would throw a sector and a region under the bus when they could be utilising the skill and the work of this region to export gas to coal-dependent nations and reduce emissions around the world, but they won’t do it because they want to make a statement.

Jacinda Ardern went to APEC and said, “Look at me, and follow me.”, and she’s the Joan of Arc of climate change. James Shaw is the only Green climate change Minister in the world, and he’s got a reputation to build. And we are making wrong decisions in this Government. We’re seeing wrong decisions take place—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Thank you.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora.

I want to start with a personal story. I remember being on the beach at the time of the Rena oil spill, seeing those oil globs wash up, the dead birds in the buckets, and the people in the hazmat suits. Oil spills had been something you’d seen on TV, but here it was in New Zealand—it was something you could see, you could touch, you could smell it. We discovered then we couldn’t even cope with a small oil spill, let alone a larger one. And, at the same time, or a few years later, Anadarko was drilling deep off our coast, and we discovered that it would take 110 days for critical equipment to actually get to New Zealand at the time that oil could be gushing out on to those beaches.

The threat of an oil spill on the beaches we loved was real, but the bigger risk was something you couldn’t see, you couldn’t touch, you couldn’t smell. It was the greenhouse gases that warm the planet. So while the media right now are debating the pros and cons of oil exploration, you can’t debate the physics. Scientists warn we can’t afford to burn 75 percent of the proven fossil fuel reserves if we want to avoid dangerous climate change. A study in Nature Communications published last year found if we burnt the available fossil fuels—not even the stuff that the last member, Jonathan Young, wants to go exploring for—we would see the fastest rise in global temperature in 420 million years. Exploring for more oil is like pouring petrol into an already filled gas tank and lighting a match. This is the nuclear-free moment of our generation. Then, the defining image was nuclear explosions and nuclear ships; today, it is oil rigs and rising seas.

We find ourselves at an important turning point. Will we continue exploring for new oil and gas that we can’t afford to burn? We have the opportunity now to stop looking for the very stuff which is causing so much pain and hardship. After nine years of this country being a climate laggard, of actually subsidising pollution and subsidising the oil companies, we now have the opportunity to do the right thing.

I was recently at a Commonwealth conference, and I felt proud, as a New Zealander, telling members from small Island States such as Kiribati, the Seychelles, and Mauritius that New Zealand now had an ambitious target of being climate carbon zero by 2050. To start the transition to get there, we need to stop looking for fossil fuels like oil.

Given some existing permits don’t expire until 2046, we can’t keep granting more. That’s why I’m calling on the Government to stop offering new exploration permits for fossil fuels. Secondly, I’m asking, while existing production continues, for us to do the urgent safety and environmental recommendations of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. And, thirdly, to put in place the infrastructure for a just transition for the workers and regions affected.

Calling for a transition away from oil and never actually starting that transition is a recipe for more pollution. Just yesterday, the oil industry reported that we had to keep exploring for more we couldn’t afford to burn because you couldn’t leave a monetisable resource unmonetisable. What value do these people place on billions of people and literal cultural extinction?

The industry says we have to explore for more or the lights go out. But that ignores the growth of clean energy and the fact that numerous studies have shown 100 percent clean energy is affordable and is achievable. Some are worried about gas supplies if we stopped exploring for more. But if we use the existing gas supplies for the most efficient use, which is direct use in homes, as around 260,000 Kiwis currently do, we have more than 200 years of gas available right now. Others say, “Well, what about the plastics?” Callaghan Innovation recently told the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that everything we do with plastics that come from oil has a bio-alternative.

Then the industry says we have to keep exploring to increase exports. Again, this is something we can’t afford to burn. We can’t afford the stuff we’ve already found, let alone looking for more. But why on earth would New Zealand look to last century’s economy when we could be looking forward? Internationally, more is invested in clean energy than fossil fuels for electricity. The World Bank’s sister group, the International Finance Corporation, say that clean energy investment opportunity is $23 trillion. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, it is a sunset industry. In New Zealand our royalties have halved, a succession of oil companies have left, and almost twice as many permits have been surrendered than granted since 2012.

So no one here is suggesting shutting down what’s left of the industry, but they are calling for a transition. The good news is the options are there. Clean energy grows four times more jobs. Our future isn’t oil rigs off our coasts; it’s wind turbines on our hills, insulation under our rooves, solar panels on top, modern public transport in our cities—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member, but the time for this debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill

First Reading

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): I move, That the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

It is a pleasure to rise and introduce this important bill to the House. This bill tackles an increasingly important issue in our country. It will address the growing danger and considerable concern in our communities that is caused by synthetic drugs. For many people, there exists a false narrative around synthetic drugs. Such people suggest that these psychoactive substances are innocuous, so that we can find an acceptable place for them in our society and in the lives of our young people. They’re called party pills, natural power, and herbal highs. They’re all horrible euphemisms, designed to lessen public concern and hide the harm that these drugs cause. In truth, they’re far more than a bit of a high on a night out or an occasional pick-me-up.

For far too many, these drugs are the beginning of the end, leading to lives of dependency and addiction. Tragically, more than two dozen people across New Zealand have died from these drugs over the past year. Calum Jones, a 22-year-old father, was one such man. But I think that the most tragic aspect of Jones’ story is that he was going clean. After wrestling for months with addiction, he had finally found help. He’d spent weeks in rehab and was clean, but because of how easy it is to get these drugs, within days of leaving rehab he was dead.

One of the most reprehensible aspects of synthetic drugs is that their potency and toxicity vary so much that it is not possible to know the effect they will have. When you light up, will it mean experiencing a high or will it be the last thing you ever do? It is a gruesome game of Russian roulette, being played out on the streets of cities and towns across New Zealand.

After his death, texts found on Jones’ phone showed that during the three days before he died, he was texted by a drug dealer almost 100 times. He’d been clean for six weeks, but was hounded by someone who had no interest in his health or in the dangers these drugs pose but only in the profit he could make out of Calum’s addiction. He harassed him until he made what would be his final purchase. I cannot imagine the pain Jones’ loved ones feel, knowing that he’d almost escaped from the grasp of these insidious drugs only to be taken away by the bullying of some despicable merchant of death.

I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge Calum’s father, Lewis, who is here in the gallery with us today. Lewis has faced what no father should ever want to face—having his son Calum stolen from him, far too young, by drug dealers who know no compassion. Standing here in this Chamber, I do not even know half the feelings he and his family have felt, but I know that we can do something this afternoon to help ensure that other families don’t have to face what they have faced.

These drugs are causing a tremendous amount of harm. That is why it is necessary for us to address the easy access that so many people have to these substances. Men and women like Jones, who want to be clean, are being pursued by dealers who show no regard for the law and scoff at the penalties that are in place. Synthetic drugs are causing far greater harm than addiction to codeine or cannabis seed, but these substances are classified as class C drugs and carry a maximum penalty of eight years in prison, while dealing synthetics carries only a maximum of two years.

Over the past four years, we have seen the number of convictions for dealing synthetic drugs greatly increase, from 23 in 2013-14 to 145 in 2016-17. But if the most the law can do is put people in prison for a few months, we shouldn’t pretend that this is of any real deterrence. The majority of convictions for supply wouldn’t even come close to receiving the maximum two-year penalty.

The High Court determined in 2015 that in order for someone to be given a sentence of between one and two years, they must be supplying at a commercial scale. This highlights the inconsistency in the way we treat harmful substances in our communities, and must be changed. Changing the penalties in place will address the supply side of this issue and highlight the importance that Parliament places on it. But we must also address the demand and consumption side.

I do not claim that this issue is solely a matter of law and order that can be resolved just by bringing the force of the law against suppliers. That will not fully solve this problem. To address the harm that is presented by these drugs, we must maintain our consistent narrative and impose consistent penalties for those who deal drugs. But we must also provide support, treatment, and care for those who suffer from addiction to these drugs. Those who are addicted need our help.

To fully and comprehensively do our duty to the people of New Zealand, we must also ensure that solutions are found to the health aspects of addiction, not merely law and order. That is why I launched a petition with the Jones family for a parliamentary select committee inquiry into addiction to synthetic drugs and how we can best address the issue from that aspect. This is the two-pronged approach necessary to address both the supply and demand elements of this issue. The need for a multifaceted approach, however, does not negate the need to amend the law to correct the appalling inconsistency in the way these drugs are treated under the law.

The greatest help and support that we can provide to those who are addicted to these substances is to remove the drugs from our streets. Too many people have been told, when seeking help for a loved one plagued by addiction to synthetic drugs, not to worry so much as they are only synthetics. Too many young people have no healthy fear of these substances because they’ve heard, over and over again, that they are just synthetics—drugs that not even Parliament is too concerned about. We have to change the conversation about synthetics.

As a Parliament, we need to send a very clear message that to supply these drugs to another person is a serious crime, one of callous indifference to another person’s life and health. Increasing the sentences not only sends a message but also helps make the community safer by taking those convicted off our streets. Some people recoil when they hear about tougher sentencing for drug supplying. They argue that such legislation advances the so-called war on drugs, and does nothing to actually help those who suffer from addiction to synthetics.

Simply put, these suggestions are patently wrong. This amendment bill and the petition that I’ve launched are necessary and measured responses to the growing drug problem New Zealand faces. Together they address both sides of the issue, considering both the criminal and the medical facets.

This is not a bill which targets the victims of drug addiction and mental illness. Maximum sentences are there for maximum offenders. Judges will use their discretion when handing down sentences, taking into account the seriousness of the offence, but, without a maximum sentence of eight years, judges are constrained in how they can deal with those who are profiting from the misery of others.

Having made this clear, I am optimistic that no MP will oppose this bill on the grounds that it is not appropriately holistic in its approach. That being the case, I call on the Greens in particular to support this bill to the select committee. Please let the public express their views and tell their stories, so that MPs can hear what people are saying in the communities up and down our country.

The people of New Zealand don’t want a Government and a Parliament to be soft on crime or soft on these dangerous drugs. This bill is on their side. This is a targeted amendment that will make significant and desperately needed changes to important legislation and to the lives of many New Zealanders. The tragic loss of Calum Jones, Kahu Harawira, Marilyn Makikiriti, and too many others like them demands that we take this step to restrict access to these drugs.

At the moment, the penalties that are in place are completely inconsistent with the harm that is being done. I call on all members to vote for this bill so that Parliament can take action against the supply of these drugs and to help create a safer community for all New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. Like the last speaker, Simeon Brown, I believe that the death of someone like Calum Jones and everyone who has died from using synthetic drugs is an absolute tragedy and is needless. I can’t imagine, to be honest—as a father of four children, I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a son or a daughter to a drug overdose. I suppose unless you’ve been there, you just do not know what it’s like.

But, first and foremost, we are opposing this bill, not because we don’t think there needs to be changes, but we don’t think that just changing one line in a bill is the right response when this needs a much bigger response. What I would say to that last speaker is: please don’t use the language around “soft on crime”. Please don’t come out and say the only way to stop this is to lock people up, because that is the language of the last generation. That is the language of a community and a society that has lost its compassion.

Let me give you a couple of statistics: 62 percent of everyone in jail—who walks through a prison door—has a current mental health and/or addiction issue; 91 percent of people who are in jail will end up, at some point in time, having a mental health and addiction issue. But what we’ve got to stop doing is seeing everything as a law and order issue—saying the only solution for this is locking them up and forgetting about it.

What we do know in corrections is what’s happening at the moment is people are being locked up and we’re throwing away the key, and then when we find that key in six, 12, or 24 months’ time and let them out, we say, “Oh, see you later.”

Simon O’Connor: What a load of rubbish.

Hon STUART NASH: You know what’s happening? We are seeing them later—we absolutely are. We just do not have the systems in place to deal with the mental health and addiction problem we have in our society at the moment. And if that member, who was a former chair of the Health Committee, rejects that, then he just needs to look at the evidence—he just needs to have a look at the evidence.

We are investing, as a Government, $8 billion over the next four years in terms of mental health and addiction. What we are also undertaking is a mental health and addiction inquiry to see where we have fallen down. I remember in Napier—I run these full-page ads in the community weekly, and I said, “I’m going to put something in this paper about the scourge that is mental health in our community.” I was told, “Don’t do that. People don’t want to hear about this. We don’t want to know about this. That’s the sort of thing that’s hidden under the carpet.” I said, “Absolutely, it is time to get it out into the open, because it is a real problem in our communities.”, and anyone who denies that has got their head in the sand, or somewhere else that’s reasonably dark.

Hon Phil Twyford: In the cupboard.

Hon STUART NASH: Yeah, in a cupboard—in the cupboard. This is not the answer to the problem we’re facing at the moment. I talked to the police commissioner about this and said, “How do the police view this?” What they said is they actually back higher, harsher penalties for supplying synthetics. But what we need to do is have a look at a whole solution. You can’t just take one line out of a bill and say that solves the problem, because it doesn’t solve the problem. What we need to do is a complete rethink about how we deal with this as a community and how we deal with this as a society, because this is not the way—this is not the way.

Synthetics are terrible. In Napier, we have an area called Clive Square. It’s a beautiful, park-lined area. Down the northern end of Clive Square, you have professional dentists and other bodies—Lawrence Yule knows it well. It’s where people go with their kids, to sit underneath the trees, there’s a fountain there, there’s chimes—it’s a fantastic place. You know what’s happened recently? A whole lot of men and women on synthetics have started hanging out there, and it has become unsafe. It’s become unsafe to the point where people are coming into my office and saying, “My clients and my staff are unsafe, let alone the people who are walking through this area.” We need to do something about it, but if we think the answer to this is locking people up, then we’re completely missing the point.

To the parents of Calum Jones, I know you’re in the gallery tonight—I know you’re in the gallery—and, like I say, I cannot imagine the pain that you’ve had to go through, to have a son in this state that’s hooked on these terrible, terrible things.

Matt King: He’s up there.

Hon STUART NASH: Well, sir, I can’t see you, but what I would say is you have my deepest sympathy. But what we need for people like Calum Jones—and, actually, thousands of other Kiwis who are not just hooked on synthetics but are hooked on P and other drugs—is the mental health and addiction services that they can access, to the point where they’re ready to leave and go out and become productive citizens.

I remember reading about this case in the paper—I remember reading about this case in the paper—and this poor chap kept being texted by his dealer a whole lot of times, saying, “I’ve got some stuff for you. I’ve got some stuff for you.” He sent texts back saying “No, I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”, and the guy turned up on his doorstep—if I remember the right case, and I apologise if I’ve got it wrong.

But this is terrible, and we need to support people like Calum Jones in a way that we’re just not doing at the moment. There should be no politics around this. But what I will say is that mental health and addiction services have got to the point where they are so run down that we are just not delivering in a way that meets our community’s expectations around this. It’s got to change—it really does. As a Minister of Police, I hear it the whole time from police. They turn up to mental health callouts—there’s about 120,000 a year—and, you know what? They call up the mental health trauma unit, and they’re just not there. So our police are dealing with issues that they’re just not equipped to deal with—they’re just not equipped to deal with.

So there are two paths we can take as a Government and as a community. We can take the punitive approach, and the punitive approach is where we say, “We’re just going to lock these buggers up—just put them in jail, and we’ll ask questions later.” Or we can take the compassionate approach, and the compassionate approach is saying, “OK, what is going on here? How can we deal with this in a way that involves the community?” I’ll be honest: it is an expensive approach, it really is, because it’s a whole-of-Government approach. But I would argue that it’s actually a cheaper approach than the punitive one, because every time we put a man or woman in jail for a year, there’s $100,000—there’s $100,000. In fact, corrections’ operational budget has increased by about $800,000 between 2005 and 2017—sorry, did I say $800,000? It’s $800 million. You’ve got to wonder: if we’d spent that $800 million on community housing, on community policing, on mental health and addiction services, on education, then perhaps we wouldn’t have needed to lock so many people away.

This is the thing that the justice Ministers—myself, Andrew Little, and Kelvin Davis—are grappling with: how do we take the compassionate approach and invest in our communities in a way that’s going to make a difference and turn these people away from a life of crime? One thing I’ve heard, and I’ve read—I’ve heard the stories—and I know about a lot of these people is they’re not bad people. I’m not talking about the suppliers and the dealers; I’m talking about the people who’ve got hooked. They’re not bad people, but they’ve ended up in a really, really bad space, and often, to feed that habit, they’re engaging in petty criminal behaviour. What the police used to do—and the police fully admit this—is they would round them up and they’d put them in the paddy wagon and put them in front of a judge and let the judge sort them out. Now, what they’re doing is they’re rounding them up and they’re giving their names to social services.

Dr Shane Reti knows that in Whangarei, the police and the district health board are doing a brilliant job on working together to implement this compassionate approach, and what they have done in terms of P is they’ve got—I think it’s about 36—former P addicts into jobs. They’ve given them an opportunity, they’ve given them a chance to be productive citizens, and this is how we’ve got to view the situation we find ourselves in in our country at the moment.

There’s something worse coming—there’s something called Fentanyl. In the States last year, 64,000 Americans died an opiate death—died, let alone using. It will come here. The Drug Enforcement Agency and Department of Homeland Security say it’s not a matter of if; it’s just a matter of when it comes here, and we’ve got to be ready, because if we aren’t, more Kiwis will die.

I would like to say that the intent of the member’s bill is right—we do need to deal with this. This is just not the right way to do it. No one is arguing that this isn’t an issue. No one is arguing that we haven’t got a problem in our communities with drugs in a way that we need to sort out.

Hon Maggie Barry: Do something about it.

Hon STUART NASH: We are, Maggie Barry. We absolutely are doing something about it, and it’s more than just putting people in jail, believe me. We’re investing in a way that your Government didn’t even come close to, so don’t say we’re not doing anything about it. Don’t say we’re not doing anything about it, because we have made a choice—we have made a choice—to take the compassionate route and not the punitive route. Thank you very much.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak to this bill, and I’d like to congratulate the member for the hard work he’s done in getting it here and for having this drawn. This is very thoughtful and very thorough. We’ve all heard the intent that we all share around the House—it’s just how we operationalise that and actually do something with it.

I’ll speak to three statements. The first statement is: increasing drug penalties acts as a deterrent. Secondly: this bill increases penalties for psychoactive drugs. And, thirdly—in complete agreement with my colleague Stuart Nash’s last statements here—undoubtedly, education support and specialist rehabilitation is the complete package around drug support. This is indeed what we’re seeing with Te Ara Oranga in Whangarei and their methamphetamine project.

Effectively, this bill quadruples the class C penalties that we currently have. I want to briefly talk to that classification system. I then want to talk to the tools we have to manage psychoactive drugs. I’d then, finally, like to come to the clinical consequences of psychotropics and maybe even the New Zealand Drug Harm Index, if time allows.

As I’ve mentioned, this bill quadruples the current penalties under the Misuse of Drugs Act for class C medicines. If we can consider that—sometimes we can get them mixed up: classes and schedules. The class system actually developed in 1961. It came out of the UK and the UN. It came here to New Zealand, and we ratified the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Now, the problem with that was that it was primarily around coca, opium, and morphine, and, as time moved on—certainly as we’ve moved into the late 1960s, the early 1970s; the time of free expression, if you like—that UN convention was no longer applicable in New Zealand. So in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Deputy Director-General of Health, Geoffrey Blake-Palmer, was put in charge of a parliamentary commission looking at how we might deal with new drugs that were coming into the environment.

What they found was that in 1955 to 1963, there were only 40 people per year who’d been charged with drug offences, but in 1972 alone, there were 700 people who were charged with offences. It was the Blake-Palmer committee that recommended a harms-based classification schedule. We call it classes A, B, and C, but it’s also schedules 1, 2, and 3, which you see in the back, that actually define all the medicines—a harm-based classification system.

The psychoactives appeared in the early 2000s in the Misuse of Drugs Act, the 1975 Act that installed that classification system. It didn’t really deal to that for one prime reason: because all of these synthetics are chemically unique and could not be considered as controlled analogues. I say again, the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was initiated once we’d sort of fallen out of our decisions around 2007-08 around how we might manage these ever-changing psychoactives.

Let’s then come to the current regulatory environment—what tools we have for psychoactive substances. New Zealand’s ratified three UN conventions on psychoactive substances. I won’t go over them individually, but they’re the 1961, 1971, and 1988 conventions. The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, which is the statutory body that decides what classification psychotropics go into—interestingly, the Smoke-free Environments Act also prohibits the sale of herbal smoking products such as synthetic cannabimimetic substances. There’s also temporary class drug notices that can be introduced for misuse—so these are the tools we’ve got, but they’re clearly not enough. They’re clearly not enough, because, as we’re all aware, we’ve got synthetic cannabinoids, which have caused and are causing significant harm. How much more harm can you have than a death—20 of them, at least, prior to the end of the year. We have this class of drugs, of which there are seven major categories, these synthetic cannabinoids acting on CB1 and CB2 receptors—so similar to where THC acts, but much more dangerous than we ever considered in, certainly, 1975 and in the 2013 Psychoactive Substances Act. We need more. Clearly we need more. I have seen many patients and many families who have had the consequences of psychoactives. It is not an easy challenge.

I think if we were to frame the nature of the consequences, the New Zealand Drug Harm Index—and I want to give attribution to Peter Dunne for propelling this, lifting it back up and giving it some momentum—broke down the drug harms into economic consequences, social consequences, and, for the very first time, measured community consequences. It’s a fascinating story when you say to someone, “How much would you pay to rehabilitate your brother if they were on drugs?” and actually giving it a dollar sum. It’s well worth looking at the New Zealand Drug Harm Index.

Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of harm done from drugs in my clinical life. I do believe that increasing penalties will decrease the chances or the incidence of dealing and use of psychoactive substances. I do believe it’s a deterrent, and I think it needs to wrap around other mechanisms. Thank you.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia orana. Firstly, I’d like to congratulate the member on his first member’s bill, the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. I also want to pay respect to the memories of those who have lost their lives through drug use and acknowledge the hurt of their family and friends. However, Labour does not support this bill. From the onset, while we take the subject of illicit drug supply and abuse very seriously, New Zealand does not need another measure—which I will extrapolate later on—in terms of penalty.

Can I remind the House of the purpose of this bill. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 to increase the penalty for selling or supplying psychoactive substances from two years to eight years. The purpose of the primary act, which is the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013, is to regulate the availability of psychoactive substances in New Zealand to protect the health of, and minimise harm to, individuals who use psychoactive substances.

I want to acknowledge the last speaker, Dr Shane Reti. He spoke about the response being a complete package—that this bill addresses a complete package—but I didn’t hear that in terms of most of what he said.

I also want to remind the House that this amendment bill seeks to amend section 70 of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013. If I could just bring it back, in terms of what section 70 is, just to remind members of the House and those listening actually what that section is. So in section 70, “Offences relating to psychoactive substance that is not approved product”, subsection (1) states, “A person commits an offence if the person, without reasonable excuse,—(a) sells or supplies a psychoactive substance …” It then goes on to “(b) offers to sell or supply …”, and then it goes on to “(c) possesses a psychoactive substance that is not an approved product with the intent to sell or supply …” Then it continues on to subsection (2) and talks about the penalties in terms of subsection (3). Section 70(3) states, “A person who commits an offence against subsection (1) is liable on conviction,—(a) in the case of an individual, to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years: [and], (b) in the case of a body corporate, to a fine not exceeding $500,000.”

So at the moment, what we’ve heard is there is no convincing evidence that increasing penalties will reduce drug-related harm. As the Minister has alerted us to, 62 percent of prisoners in New Zealand have either a mental health disorder or a substance use disorder. Extending sentences is not an acceptable response to the drug use issue. What we do know—we’ve heard it today—is that synthetic drugs can be highly addictive for those who use them and greatly difficult in stopping. For the fourth year running, the Global Drug Survey identified that the risk of seeking emergency medical treatment was higher following the use of synthetic cannabinoid products than any other drug. It is therefore important for this Government to take a preventative first approach to crime, which will tackle the root of crimes to reduce offending and make communities safer. For the variety of costs involved, this measure will significantly benefit communities.

What I’m trying to say is that my interpretation of this bill is focused on the drug user. What this Government intends to do in terms of the review, and what the Minister alluded to, is we’re investing $6 billion—was it $6 billion?—in terms of the review of—I’ve lost my place. What I’m saying is that the Government is taking an approach on a complete package in terms of this review. This bill only addresses the offender, and I think it’s unfair that we forward this bill in terms of just looking at the penalty.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): The last thing that we just heard from the last member that sat down, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, was actually quite true: this legislation is isolating and focusing on the drug dealer, the offender, and not on the innocent user or the user of the drug. That’s quite true. And in no way do I believe that the author of this bill has in any way pretended, or said in this House in his opening speech, that this bill is all-encompassing and deals with all of the issues around drugs in our society and the abuses and the harms that they do to the individuals that use them. It’s not perfect, and I’ll get into those bits in a second, but what this bill intends to do and what it does is increase—and focus deliberately and specifically on the drug dealers and the drug manufacturers. If we look at that in its isolation, which we should, then every member of this House and every party in this House should be supporting this bill.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through to the select committee phase. That is no guarantee that we’ll be going past that because we do have some issues with what’s in it, but let me first say that I can’t actually fathom why any party wouldn’t be supporting this bill. There is a huge difference, and there has been ambiguity with the speeches from the Labour Party so far, between identifying the drug dealers and the drug users. Of course this is not a silver bullet, but it’s common sense to target those suppliers, to target those dealers, and to hold them to account, and that’s what this legislation does. Unfortunately, the Minister of Police, Mr Nash, said in part of his speech that these weren’t bad people. What he was talking about were the people that were using the drug and being addicted to it, and he’s quite right—they’re not bad people. He also said that the suppliers are bad people, so why are we not supporting this legislation through to select committee, to iron it out and to have a look at the positives of what this legislation can bring?

One of the stats that Mr Brown used was the number of convictions, which had increased from 2013 to 2017, and he used the numbers 23 to 145. That’s a 600 percent increase in three or four years. Now, if that’s not an epidemic such that we must look into every single avenue that we can to deal with these drugs and the abuse of these drugs, then I don’t know what is. New Zealand First is not willing to do nothing about it. There is a piece of legislation that is in front of this House that has the potential at this stage to do some good, to hold these people to account, and that’s why we will be supporting this bill.

I’d just very quickly like to run through a couple of the very latest convictions for the supply of these drugs. A man who sold synthetic cannabis in Rotorua was in jail for 4½ months after previously pleading guilty to two charges of the same. In one of the first prosecutions of its kind, two men have been sentenced to home detention for importing deadly psychoactive chemicals. A woman caught peddling a so-called zombie drug has been told she could be off to prison for all of this. It needs to be kept in mind, when talking about this bill and talking about what this bill intends to do, from two years to eight years for the maximum sentence, that this is the maximum sentence, for the worst of the worst—the worst of the worst. So when we stand up and speak in this House and address this bill, we can only be talking about the worst of the worst drug dealers and manufacturers, not about the people—the victims—of this deadly drug.

New Zealand First will be supporting this, like I said. We do have some issues with it—for instance, one of the main ones is why the member has chosen eight years. Why has the member chosen the class C drug level of punishment? If you look at the class C drugs, you’re talking about cannabis oil and cannabis seed, and we’re dealing with something much, much greater. I’d like to see the logic behind why it’s gone from two to eight years, but New Zealand First will be supporting it from this point.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. Fantastic to hear the support of New Zealand First that will allow this bill to be passed tonight in its first reading and go to select committee.

I just want to follow on where Darroch Ball left off, and I agree with him—where does eight years come from? But, in fact, that speaks of the process this bill will now go through—the legislative process of going to a select committee, hearing evidence from the public and the experts, maybe looking at experiences overseas, and understanding what the best penalty is, because what we had today was Stuart Nash from Labour defending a line that, let’s be honest, he struggled to defend. Every point he raised was, basically, a reason why Labour should be supporting the bill.

Stuart Nash said he agreed with the intent of the bill. Well, what’s the point of a first reading? For parties to debate the intent of the bill. If you agree with the intent, send it to select committee, work out the detail, and then, if you don’t like it, you don’t need to vote for it further down the legislative process.

Look, I can accept that rhetoric from the hand-wringing, liberal-left Green Party, but to hear it from someone like Stuart Nash and the Labour Party—I mean, you can’t fall into this dichotomy that it’s either rehabilitation or punitive approaches. In fact, if you look at drug treatment, it’s both. Both are levers for changing behaviour, and that is why this is one lever the MP Simeon Brown, sponsoring this bill—and I must say, what a start to this guy’s political career, because what this bill represents is a member of Parliament who’s engaging his community and listening to the issues that are affecting them.

What’s he done? Well, he’s made a bill, put it in the ballot, and it got pulled out, and it will go through and make a real difference in the community he serves. What’s the point of being a member of Parliament if you’re not listening to your community and passing bills that will make a difference in the community you serve? Not only that, but he’s started a petition, so he’s gathering support wider than his electorate, across the country, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from Simeon Brown about this bill and other issues that he will bring to the House.

Coming back to my point, it’s not all about rehabilitation at one side of the continuum and punitive approaches. It’s both, and how do we give people and the Government agencies the levers to ultimately break the cycle? But let’s not forget—because you’re going to hear arguments from other parties, right, when I sit down, who are going to talk about concepts of harm reduction—harm reduction does not make drugs safe. It reduces the risks of drugs—a clear difference. It reduces the risk of drugs. It does not make drug taking safe.

But, in fact, that’s a red herring, because this bill is not about drug takers. This bill is about drug dealers, who prey on people, and we’re probably here not even talking about recreational users, because, yep, the evidence will show a lot of young people will try things in that risk-taking period of their life—teenage years, young adults—and they move on quite successfully. Unfortunately for some people, they get caught in that lifestyle, and it’s an addiction. These are drug dealers, and Stuart Nash tried to propose, “Well, it’s all about services for mental health and drug addicts.” Well, what’s the evidence? I would say a lot of these drug dealers probably don’t even use the drugs themselves, but they’re happy to peddle it on to people who are addicted themselves.

So it’s one lever. It’s one lever to support this field. When you look at it, the increased risk of synthetic drugs—their growing intensity and severity has killed 20 people in 12 months, and the penalty is up to two years. A drug that is actively killing 20 people every 12 months, and the penalty is two years. This bill will make it up to eight years—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): I rise today to speak to this bill with a heavy heart, in the memory of all those families, all those victims, affected by drug offending and by drug addiction, in terms not just of psychoactive drugs but of all manner of drugs here in New Zealand, and the rates are high—they are rising. It is in the memory of those victims that I say, with great disappointment, that this bill represents an archaic approach to drug offending, an approach that has failed here—that has failed repeatedly all over the world. Promising victim communities that higher prison sentences will put an end to drug offending or addiction is sadly irresponsible.

This bill seeks to amend the Psychoactive Substances Act to bring prison sentences in line with class C - type drug offending, to eight years from two years. There is no doubt that these substances are dangerous. They are devastating. In fact, they’re far more physically harmful to users than natural cannabis, which is a class C drug. There is no doubt that we need to take this seriously in our approaches to controlling these drugs. But I remember from the front lines of our criminal justice system when we did this with respect to pseudoephedrine, when we made that controlled drug a class C - type drug and we upped those sentences, the manufacture, supply, and import of pseudoephedrine has gone up exponentially every single year from that year. This approach has failed. The other grave, devastating example of that in our own system is that methamphetamine, at this moment, this year, is now as prevalent in our criminal justice system on the streets of New Zealand as cannabis.

The exponential growth of methamphetamine can be linked directly to the very year that we made that drug a class A - type drug. We increased the maximum sentence to life imprisonment. I’ve watched in courtrooms all over New Zealand as our courts impose the only remedy they have. We watched the prevalence of methamphetamine devastate our communities, and we just imposed higher and higher sentences—18 years, 20 years, or life is common here now for methamphetamine, and it’s about to overtake cannabis. There are as many P operations now on our streets as there are cannabis plants. It has failed. The war on drugs—this approach of upping prison sentences in reaction to drug addiction and drug offending—dates back to Richard Nixon’s time, the 1960s in the United States. We know that that approach is widely accepted now in that country to have failed. It has had devastating effects on communities.

But this bill asks us to adopt that same failed approach here again. It asks us to ignore the evidence. In light of how serious the effect of this type of drug is on the user and on our communities, how can we ignore the evidence? How can we be too proud to let go of a failed policy? How can we ignore that drug offending is, in fact, caused by social dislocation, by the types of social ills—homelessness, lack of mental health services, lack of actual health services—that the party that now asks us to adopt this bill brought about in New Zealand? How can we ignore that inequality was at record highs over the past nine years—that that is what causes addiction? But we are asked again to ignore that evidence. I don’t think we can afford to do that. Upping prison sentences is an embarrassingly impotent policy in terms of combating drugs.

When did vengeance become a greater virtue than compassion? When did punishment become more an aim of the criminal justice system than stopping crime? Well, it isn’t for this Government. This Government wants to actually stop crime. That’s why we’re going to invest in the types of things that stop the causes of criminal offending. We’re going to invest in people, in our communities, in our health system, and in our housing and mental health services. That is why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. We will not be supporting another policy that fills our prisons at the expense of investing in people.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia orana e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Firstly, I’d like to congratulate Simeon Brown. He’s been working on this kaupapa since 2013, when he was a member of the Manurewa Local Board, and with our Manurewa Youth Council and our Warriors of Change, when the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was passed, and I just want to remind us all what that bill allowed. It was to regulate otherwise unregulated psychoactive substances, such as party pills and other legal highs in New Zealand.

So as a country we legalised psychoactive substances, and at that point in time, when that legislation went through, there were 20 untestable brands of synthetic cannabis that were legally on sale in New Zealand. Some of them were called Anarchy, Voodoo, and White Rhino. In 2015, there was amendment legislation and we ended the interim product approval—so everyone had to go through an approval process. At that time, Simeon, like myself, fought against the High Zone store in the middle of Manurewa. He wanted to create a 1-kilometre buffer zone so that schools were protected, places of worship were protected, and community halls and facilities were protected. I want to quote from Simeon at that time. He said, “I do not believe any of these products, even if they are proven to be safe, should be marketed to our young people because they are still drugs, that is [in] essence, these are still drugs.”

We as a Parliament and as a country have to think back to a time when legal highs were something that we thought, “We should actually approve and they should be available just like alcohol.”—so lest we forget where we’ve come from.

What I want to highlight in this bill—and it is about the selling or supplying of psychoactive substances, and I want to bring us back to a community that’s incredibly affected by psychoactive substances, and it is our homeless community. Of the 20 deaths that we have talked about—and I do want to acknowledge any whānau in the Whare today who have lost any of their loved ones through the consumption of psychoactive substances—we lost two homeless people in Manurewa last year, who took psychoactive substances. Those vulnerable people actually are being exploited. Those vulnerable people will be captured by this legislation, because it does say, “selling or supplying psychoactive substances”.

I think the community that’s going to be the most targeted by this piece of legislation are, in fact, those that the petition that was lodged in the Parliament today was about. There will be an inquiry into addictions into psychoactive substances that the member—it was like an appendix to his particular legislation. It actually is incredibly valid. I want to quote from a woman called Julie Nelson, who’s the Housing First Auckland project leader. She said this about homelessness: “It is very important that we all work together to develop a Government-led housing strategy for New Zealand that incorporates policy, funding, and practice so we … understand how to collectively end homelessness, and so organisations can work to their strengths as part of that strategy.”

What does that actually mean? We need to house homeless people first, and then we need to help them with their addictions. I know that the previous Government actually invested $3.7 million in that initiative, and Auckland Council contributed $1 million, so there are active programmes under way to support our homeless people. But lest we forget the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act—again, another piece of legislation that the Hon Peter Dunne was responsible for this House approving, and that’s to ensure that individuals who are considered to have a severe substance addiction and who do not have the capacity to participate in treatment actually get the treatment that they deserve. Our Health Committee is waiting to hear from the Ministry of Health about the enactment of that Act.

In fact, that is the solution: providing people who have addictions, who are vulnerable, who are being used by the people who manufacture these drugs—they need the help, firstly, to get into a home but, secondly, from the base of a secure home, to have the treatment support that they require.

I think that there are too many loopholes in this piece of legislation, and I am clear, as are my colleagues, that this isn’t the solution for the question that’s being asked. Kia ora tātou.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise with true conviction to speak to the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill at its first reading. I support this bill. I congratulate the member Simeon Brown on the enormous amount of work that he has put into this. I acknowledge the previous speaker, Louisa Wall, for going back over the history and the background of this, and, for one moment, I thought you were going to vote for this bill, because you seemed so persuaded by it.

Anyway, there does seem to me to be a real need to take a multifaceted approach, and this approach that this bill does actually does allow for the people who are pushing this stuff and who are supplying it—to bring the penalties for them into a consistent level with the other drugs and the other suppliers. Although it is a small bill—a mere page—I think it is a very important part of this war against drugs, and that’s what it is. Going soft on the people that supply it, sending them messages that psychoactive substances aren’t as bad as other substances—whatever. The inconsistencies are cleared up by this bill, and I think, as a class C drug under section 6(2)(c) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, it is absolutely appropriate to do it.

So why is it that this inconsistency has occurred? Some of the other members who have taking calls today have pointed out the history and the way that we have gradually discovered the extreme toxicity of these drugs once readily available at the corner dairy. I know of people who were caught up in them, parents of young children who were unable to persuade or use their parental authority on their kids because they was so readily available, there was no harm to them. The reality is they are highly toxic, and that toxicity is not visible.

I commend the courage of the people who have lost family members in this terrible situation. I think it takes huge courage to come forward, and I commend you all for not only your personal loss but because you have done so much to help other people and to bring this to our awareness and to make it a point of discussion. Dependency and addiction are things that transcend all boundaries, and when a drug has people in its grasp, they need to have what part two of what Simeon Brown has been doing has offered, and that is this holistic approach.

So not only do we have a piece of legislation, or an amendment to it, that will beef up the penalties, show how serious we are as a Government, as a country, and as a Parliament about this, but also not only doing the supply thing but also the demand, to help the people who are addicted, to make it possible for those people to get ready help and access to that help—so, that holistic approach. The petition that requests that the House pass the amendment bill to increase the penalty further requests a select committee inquiry into addiction to psychoactive substances, and I would hope that the Health Committee and the Government would look favourably upon that. I think it is a really important part of dealing with people, particularly young and vulnerable people, those that are clearly predated on—as we saw in the Jones case—by drug dealers who are highly motivated perhaps by their own addictions or perhaps by their dark-heartedness, that they just want to make money at the expense of other people’s misery. But the easy access must stop. We must, in this House, do all that we can to stop the ease of access, to get rid of these drugs, to marginalise the people that promote them.

So when I hear other parties who will not support it, particularly the Greens—what a mealy-mouthed, ridiculous assertion was made by the member who stood for that party, saying this bill is embarrassingly impotent. It is not so much the member that uttered those words; what a soft and ludicrous option the Greens are taking here. I think that Labour also really needs to look at itself carefully. The idea that this won’t make a difference, says the police Minister, Stuart Nash. Well, if there’s anyone who ought to know better, it would be the Minister of Police. They are playing politics. The idea that if it goes to a select committee it can’t be improved is ridiculous—of course it can. So if there are any positive ideas or any initiatives coming from that party and the Greens, then why don’t they come up with them and use them in the select committee process?

That’s what happens in this place. If you don’t think every aspect of the law or the legislation that’s proposed works, then move in to change it. Don’t vote against it. Cite mental health and that we have to do everything before we can do anything—what an absolute crock of an argument, and I’m deeply disappointed in Labour and the Greens for their gutless approach to this. We need to increase the penalty, and as a member of the Justice Committee, I’m happy to be getting it. Thank you.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Synthetic cannabis is clearly a scourge, and I applaud Simeon Brown for bringing this to the attention of the House. It’s just disappointing that the measure he proposes would have absolutely no effect whatsoever.

We want to attack this problem on the basis of good evidence, and the evidence says that increasing sentences for addiction-based crimes has no effect. All we’re going to do is take the people who are victims already—victims already; people who are not cared for by our society, people who are ill in many ways—and incarcerate them, and to lock them away where we don’t care for them. I want to care for those people, and this Government is not going to attack those people. It’s going to attack the problem—the problem of a society that has let things slide and that hasn’t been addressing these issues. This is a problem of health and of mental health and of addiction, and that’s what we need to attack, not the people who suffer these problems.

I know that this is a terrible tragedy for many. We need to stop it, but we’re not going to stop it simply by further criminalising these activities and increasing sentences out of all order. This is a problem of health and of economics, a problem of opportunity, and a problem of growing inequality. This is a problem which afflicts our weakest and poorest most, so this is poor policy. That’s the first thing: this is simply poor policy.

This is an Act which was, in fact, designed entirely differently. It was originally designed to regulate, not prohibit, and can I just say that, in fact, section 106 of the Psychoactive Substances Act—if the member had taken the time to read it carefully—sets out that the Act is to be reviewed five years after commencement. It commenced July 2013. A few months away, we’re going to have a review tabled in this House. Yes, we can look at the problem; let’s look at the whole problem.

Look, in the nine words of the operative section, it is simply all over the place. We’re attacking supply in this bill. We don’t even address the question of importation or the question of manufacture, so it’s still a two-year sentence for those, but eight years if you happen to be caught with a wad of this cannabis in your pocket. So look, it’s poorly implemented, as well.

So we’ve got poor implementation, it’s poorly timed—we’re looking at this in a few months’ time—and it’s poor policy. What this is really just a knee-jerk reaction—a reaction where we see a problem and we say, “Increase the sentence.”, as if a person who is afflicted with these problems is going to even know that there’s been a law change.

We know for a fact that people in these communities don’t follow with close attention what goes on in this House. It matters to them not one whit if we increase the sentence. It changes behaviour not at all. What we need is to be there, on the ground, addressing the social causes of this problem, not simply incarcerating these people so we can put them out of sight and out of mind. There are real and critical social and health problems that we need to address. This is not a criminal problem in the same manner. Whilst absolutely we need to address it, this is not the way to do it.

So really, what we’ve got here is ignoring the problem. It is miscategorising the problem in a way that we can be comfortable about as a comfortable society. Well, let’s not do that. Let’s face up and accept that there are members of our community that we have failed. Some of them are young members. Some of them are members who are mentally ill. Many of them have addiction problems. Let’s reach out and lift them up, not cast them down, and that’s what this bill would do. It would take someone who suffers from these problems and cast them down and away into a descending spiral of criminality.

So look, we don’t want to revictimise the victim. We don’t want to live in a society where we lock away our problems. This Government is committed to addressing questions of health and mental health and addiction. It’s got a massively ambitious plan to spend the money that is needed to do that, and for that reason I will not be supporting this bill.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’d just like to take a few moments to respond to some of the comments that I’ve heard from the other side of the House. I’m not sure what bill the member who just sat down was reading, because I’m not targeting the victims and the ones who are taking these drugs. This bill is about targeting the suppliers and the distributors and those who are selling these drugs. And from all that, I think, those people who are making money out of other people’s misery need to be locked up and they need to have harsher sentences, and that is what this bill is designed to do.

I’ve been quite confused listening to, particularly, members of the Labour Party. It almost feels like they want to vote for this bill. “We like the intent—we like the intent of this bill.” is what the Minister of Police said. The opportunity here, at a first reading, is to vote for this bill, to send it to the select committee, to let the public have their say, and to consider the issues which come up from the submissions.

One other objection which has been raised has been that this will continue a so-called war on drugs, this is an archaic bill or it’s a failed process, or even those who are in favour of decriminalisation and regulation of illicit drugs should support this amendment. The law regarding synthetic drugs allows for the sale and supply of a substance if the supplier can prove them—we’ve heard that from the member Louisa Wall. But what this is designed to do is if those people are breaking the law, they should face the consequences of it.

Another objection has been raised that this Act is coming up for review. Well, I haven’t seen the terms of reference for that review. I don’t know how long that review will take. I don’t know when it will be, who’s going to be doing it, whether the public would have their say, and then we don’t know whether there will be any legislation actually recommended to the House from that review. So we have an opportunity here today to fix a discrepancy in the law as it currently stands. It is obvious it is needed, it is measured, and it is appropriate. It is vital that synthetic drugs are no longer considered to be a drug that Parliament is not too concerned about. We need to act, and we need to act now, to send a clear message that supplying these drugs is a serious offence.

Another objection which has been raised has been that there is a mental health inquiry coming up which will look into addiction. I’ve read the terms of reference for this inquiry and it doesn’t make one mention of the harm that is being caused by synthetics—not one dicky-bird of a mention. Again, this is another review which will take time. We have an opportunity here to look into this issue, to address it, and to make the changes which are needed.

This bill is a targeted amendment focused on increasing the penalties available for those found guilty of dealing those dangerous drugs. These are maximum sentences available for maximum penalties. I call on all members of this House to vote for this bill to go through to the select committee. I would also like to just acknowledge New Zealand First and thank them for their support of this bill. I acknowledge the issues which they have raised, and I look forward to those issues being addressed and discussed at the select committee so that the public can have their say and that we can work through those together.

I call on members not to let party affiliation affect your vote; to not let ideology affect your vote. The people of New Zealand don’t want us in this Parliament to be soft on crime or soft on drugs. This bill is on their side. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 65

New Zealand National 56; New Zealand First 9.

Noes 55

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Bills

Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill

First Reading

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I move, That the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

A substantial and growing number of New Zealanders are employed in a triangular employment arrangement. While this is a legitimate form of employment, a small but significant number of employers are exploiting the absence of law in this area for the purposes of undercutting wages and depriving those workers of particular conditions and rights that the rest of us who are in direct employment take for granted. This is unacceptable in this country and this practice needs to end.

This bill will restore legitimacy to this essential part of the workforce: that of labour hire companies and temporary employment agencies. It is based on the principle of ensuring fairness in New Zealand’s employment practices and it responds to what has become an increasingly alarming call to protect workers from exploitation which currently exists in some places where you find triangular employment in this country. There is a clear need for action in this area. This has only become more clear in the 10 years since this bill was originally drafted by former Labour MP Darien Fenton. I acknowledge the immense work she put into this bill at that time and her lifetime commitment to workers’ rights.

Triangular employment is where a person has a direct employment relationship with one entity, the primary employer, but works for another, the secondary employer. Labour hire companies and temporary employment agencies have a legitimate place in the economy, where they can provide labour to businesses that need it for a designated period and often at short notice or as part of a seasonal cycle.

This bill is about restoring fairness to the workplace that services that part of the economy—rebalancing what have become increasingly unfair and exploitative practices in this area. Exploitative practice happens where triangular employment arrangements are used to avoid providing fair work terms to staff engaged in short-term contracts via another entity. I’m conscious many individuals, businesses, and groups are taking a strong interest in this bill. I want to acknowledge those that I’ve consulted with in preparing for introducing this bill today. They include workers, employers, and groups that represent them.

I was struck by the willingness of all those I’ve spoken with to see action in this space. What is clear is that there is an agreement across both employers and workers that exploitative behaviour as a result of the absence of protections in the law related to triangular employment arrangements must be addressed. Our task is to reach agreement on the appropriate mechanism to achieve this, without preventing those companies that operate legitimately.

The proposed mechanism within this bill is twofold. It allows an employee to have the benefit of a collective agreement whilst working for a secondary employer if they have those terms in place. It also provides a mechanism under the Employment Relations Act to join, at the discretion of the court, a secondary employer to a personal grievance. The objective of this bill is to ensure labour hire companies and temporary employment agency workers have access to the same rights and conditions as the permanent employees they are working alongside. This is an important conversation which can be had with the seriousness and in the detail and with the intelligence it deserves at the select committee stage, and I urge the members of this House to let that conversation happen.

The labour hire and temporary work industry is important. There are businesses, particularly in rural and regional areas around this country, which rely on the business model of temporary workers. These may be businesses which are prone to seasonal fluctuations or small to medium sized businesses who may receive a contract for service which increases their need for labour at short notice. It is not the intention of this bill to undermine that business model. However, there are stories of exploitation in triangular relationships which should be heard at select committee. There are also important stories of legitimate and good practice. A good practice protects workers. It ensures a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and it allows a person to prove themselves to a potential employer and gain valuable skills by taking up a role in a triangular work relationship.

The goal is simple: job security, dignity, and an opportunity to progress in a working life, predictable hours of work and income, and the capacity to plan financially for themselves and their families. When a person works in a role for a long period of time, that worker would receive appropriate entitlements or job prospects, and the right to contest unjustified employment practices or dismissal. These are basic conditions to which everyone should be entitled. It is the intention of this bill to ensure that businesses operating in this way—a legitimate and good way—can continue to do so.

I’ve been presented with many examples of such practice, and voting this bill to select committee will allow these businesses to share their examples of good practice so that they can contribute towards the development of a mechanism that is fair—fair to workers and good employers. What this bill looks to address is exploitative practices which come about when the responsibility for a worker is split between a primary employer and a secondary employer. I’ve heard many stories of such exploitation. It is clear that the topic requires attention. Many in these situations are vulnerable and earn a low wage for their hours.

An example of the way these types of contractual arrangements can be exploitative was seen in the Employment Court case Prasad v LSG Sky Chefs New Zealand Ltd. LSG Sky Chefs chose not to hire staff directly, doing so through labour hire companies, often way beyond the short-term assignments that these companies intended. This practice undercut the wages and protections negotiated in their collective agreement. In this instance, the absence of law around triangular employment arrangements allowed them to pay significantly less than the market rate and avoid conditions that would have otherwise been available.

Another example presented to me was of a woman who was on an extended assignment with a secondary employer. After informing this employer of her pregnancy, she was almost immediately let go. This would normally be a breach of New Zealand employment law. However, in this instance, the woman had no rights. Selective employment practices on the grounds of discrimination have also been outlined to me. I have heard examples of secondary employers selecting their staff on the grounds of discrimination—a very clear message: no Pacific Islanders, no women of childbearing age, and no homosexuals. This is the sort of behaviour that would otherwise not be tolerated in this country. We mustn’t continue to have the absence of protections in this area, but we now have an opportunity to address this.

The effect of this bill is that it would be targeted and reasonable. Temporary and labour hire workers would have the benefit of the same terms and conditions as those of staff in the existing workplace while working for the same company. That is reasonable. This will only apply where the secondary employer has a collective agreement in place, yet it provides for consistency of treatment while continuing to enable businesses to fill their need for short-term workers.

I urge members of this House to support this bill to the next stage to allow these issues to be dealt with at select committee. I do not anticipate that the conversation will be an easy one. I do expect that employers, unions, employment law experts, and individual employees will bring valuable perspectives to the table which will highlight the important place of labour hire and temporary work agencies and employees in the economy and make clear that some change is required to restore the principles of fairness and integrity to that industry.

Exploitative practices have no place in a country that prides itself on fairness in employment. Let’s take this opportunity to do something about it. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I begin, firstly, by acknowledging the initial author of this bill, Darien Fenton, as Mr McAnulty has done. Ms Fenton and I were on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee of the 49th Parliament—one of the most unusual committees where, in matters of road safety and the transport legislation more generally, there was a strong degree of unanimity and collegiality, whereas on matters of industrial relations, employment law, ACC, and immigration probably not so much. But despite that and our different philosophical predilections, Ms Fenton and I got on extremely well, and I know that she was then and is now a very passionate supporter of workers’ rights and I support that sentiment. I want to also acknowledge a relatively new MP for the good fortune that he’s had to get a bill drawn out of the members’ ballot. Nearly 10 years after arriving at this place, I’m still waiting. I have had a member’s bill passed but it wasn’t drawn out in my name, and I’ve authored a few but they were drawn out in other people’s names, so that’s the luck of the draw.

Look, I want to start, firstly, by providing strong support for the sentiment that underpins this piece of legislation in so far as I certainly agree with the rights of fairness, flexibility, and safety in our workplaces. It was those three legs, if you like, of any policy or legislation that was being considered by me, as the previous Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, that was basically the lens that we looked through, and I think we can stand extremely proud of the increases in employee protections that were provided in the last three years or so particularly—

Marja Lubeck: Oh! Sorry—did I say that out loud?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: If she needs some medical assistance, I’m sure we can help, but, actually, that’s the sort of reaction you get from the select committee, and I know Ms Lubeck, as a member of the committee that may consider this bill, will be up like a meerkat on the things that she doesn’t agree with.

But look, that employment standards legislation bill—the sorts of protections that we put, the extra punishments for breaches of minimum employment standards, the stand-down periods for employers that breach those standards who also rely on the international labour market, and even the sorts of flexibility that underpin the 90-day trial, and the sorts of rest and meal breaks provisions that, I continue to maintain, are actually good for workers—was certainly something that I think was very helpful.

So it’s necessary, I think, to deconstruct what this bill does and to try and understand whether or not there is an issue that is requiring a remedy and whether this is the correct remedy. Now, I was very interested to note that Mr McAnulty referenced Prasad v LSG, a recent decision of the Employment Court, which deals with the issue of triangular relationships and, indeed, the Employment Court referred to them as such. The difference between the remedy that this bill seeks to achieve and that case is that the facts of that Employment Court were that those plaintiffs were considered to be independent contractors by—using the nomenclature in the bill—the primary employer and the secondary employer, and the question was whether or not they should have been treated as such.

Now we will probably be dealing with a situation such as the LSG case, where the Minister brings probably phase two of the employment law reforms that he seeks to implement as part of the Labour Party manifesto, and I think we’re going to have some interesting conversations in respect of, for example, the collectivising of independent contractors. But the LSG case was significant. Indeed, I think when we deconstruct this bill, it reinforces the point that I don’t believe that this legislation is necessary, and the reason is this: very clearly, the court determined that those plaintiffs were indeed employees, and as a consequence, in a triangular relationship, they were afforded the protections that the Employment Relations Act and the Holidays Act and the paid parental leave Act and all the other employment law legislation provides for an employee.

Now, it is true—and the sponsor of the bill mentioned this—that agency relationships, triangular relationships, have been a feature of the New Zealand employment landscape for many, many years. I’m not quite sure Ms Fenton would agree with his argument of the legitimacy of them. There is no doubt that she and many others in the union movement and the Labour Party believe that these types of arrangements add to the increasing casualisation of labour in the New Zealand workforce. Now, I think it’s quite an emotive term. What we do have is a much larger number of people who want to work flexible hours, whether they’re starting out, whether they’re returning to the workforce, or whether they are part-time workers who are studying at the same time. There are many, many reasons why these sorts of arrangements are perfectly necessary and appropriate, and the overwhelming number of employers treat their workers fairly.

Indeed, when we see the sorts of temp agency, overload sort of arrangements, it’s not unusual for the employee to be paid more than the permanent employee, not less. I spent nearly 15 years in the health sector. It was necessary from time to time to use nursing overload services. Two things were apparent, in my experience. Firstly, the nurses were almost invariably members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, the union that supports nurses—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Good employer—a fine employer.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —which Mr Lees-Galloway knows very well—and, secondly, they were paid more than my staff, not less. Now, for temporary assignments, that’s often the case. There are a few employers who are using this—and LSG’s a very good example, in my view, regardless of the fact that they were considered to be contractors, wrongly—who work on a very long-term basis, and that is not, frankly, the purpose of agency or overload services, but, nevertheless, those employees are entitled to the protections of the Employment Relations Act. Even if they were on casual agreements, they would, if they have a regular pattern of shift work—as LSG did—be entitled to paid parental leave, to holidays, to bereavement leave, and to sick leave, according to the Holidays Act. Clearly, the freedom of association provisions enabled them to join a trade union and bargain collectively with their primary employer, not their secondary employer, and I think this is the confusing feature of this legislation.

It definitely is the case that there is—so, getting back to the fundamental question: is there a problem to be addressed that isn’t covered by existing law? My answer to that is no, there isn’t. All of the protections that are available to the employee are available now. Secondly, is this the solution? Well, again, my answer is no, and for that reason, the National Party will not be supporting this bill at first reading.

Now, there is a case, as the sponsor of the bill has said, of actually supporting it to select committee and then having that conversation there. We’ve thought very carefully about that and, try as I might, I cannot see how the bill could be improved to the point where it would answer those two questions: a problem that isn’t being addressed by existing legislation, and is this the solution?

I want to just finish by addressing, in the second part of the bill, the joinder provisions to a personal grievance. Now, it is not my understanding of employment law—although if the bill goes to select committee, we’ll have this conversation—that a personal grievance is not possible against the primary employer for the actions that took place in the secondary workplace. But I think the more concerning feature of this is the asymmetrical nature of it, where a personal grievance is one thing, but what about a performance issue? Is it possible that a secondary employer could have a significant employment issue, but there is currently no provision in this bill for them to act on that in employment law because they are not the employer? Those responsibilities and the employee’s rights are with the relationship between the employee and the primary employer. And, looking at current law, I don’t believe there is a weakness or a loophole that would justify this bill being necessary.

So we will oppose it. We’re not going to the wall over it, and it may well yet get to select committee. So, as a member of that select committee, I’ll be looking forward to the submissions and the exchange. I have no doubt it will be robust, as it was in the 49th Parliament, but I look forward to that conversation, if we have it.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Yes, I’ll look forward to that, too, from the former Minister Michael Woodhouse. First off, though, I’d like to congratulate my colleague Kieran McAnulty on this and also my old mate, former union boss Darien Fenton.

I worked in the union movement for over 15 years and saw the inequality that the previous member, Kieran McAnulty, talked about. The problem with what we have in the workplace is that it’s an unfair workplace, which was pointed out very aptly, I think. It’s an unfair workplace when individuals who have no background or experience in negotiations are asked to negotiate. I know that the previous Minister thinks that that’s somehow fair, but that is unfair. The market flexibility that the National Party so rejoices in and so celebrates does not work for a lot of ordinary, average Kiwis. It just doesn’t work. It is something that we cannot celebrate. So this bill goes some way to putting some protection and stability around workers.

Employment now manifests in many forms. Some of our workers work multiple jobs to make up their 40 hours, while others are employed on a temporary basis through hire companies, who facilitate them through to a host employer who controls how the work is done. So it’s really important that we revisit our employment relations legislation regularly to ensure that we get the balance right, and that’s the problem here. The balance—well, there is an imbalance. That’s just a fact.

The Opposition will say, no doubt, as we go down the track, that this employment relations amendment bill is some sort of union shopping list that will hurt New Zealand’s economy. But this isn’t about unions; this is about people. This is about ensuring that we have a robust and resilient economy that everyone can participate in and, more importantly, an economy that also works for all the people.

In most cases, a worker will only be able to take action against a labour hire agency if they’re treated badly. This bill will allow the authority or court to determine when the responsibility should be split fairly between the two. As a Government, we’re committed to fairness to all Kiwis, to all New Zealanders, and I’m not sure who would argue that these workers shouldn’t have the same protection as everyone else. Even the former Minister, I’m sure, would agree with that. The reality is some employers are using agency workers in order to avoid paying the negotiated rate under the collective agreement. This bill will allow workers who are union members doing work covered by the collective agreement and not covered by another collective agreement to get the same terms and conditions as direct employees.

It’s an honour to support this bill as Minister of Employment, and, as Minister of Employment, I’m focused on identifying and developing solutions for barriers to employment, working with groups of people who are not positively represented in employment statistics, and supporting communities to identify and respond to local issues with local solutions. Part of my focus will always be about ensuring that we have legislation in place, which I’m proud to say that this Government is going through, that supports a fair and equitable labour market for all participants.

It’s important to remember that being a contractor instead of an employee means the same rights enjoyed by other workers are denied, and they can’t bargain collectively under the Employment Relations Act.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: That’s not the issue in this bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, no; that is the issue. And the issue is also the coldness and heartlessness shown by yourself and your mates on the other side. Shame on the lot of ya, because you have no understanding about what workers have gone through because you’ve never been a worker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker. So, in summary, we must strengthen our economy by making it work for everyone, and I commend my colleague Kieran McAnulty for this. We must help our regions grow by creating and sustaining jobs; we must help our families to become homeowners once more; and we must make a real dent, as our Prime Minister keeps saying, in child poverty. And I commend her for her commitment to that and our party—our coalition—for that commitment that we are making on behalf of all New Zealanders. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I too would like to commend the member Kieran McAnulty for bringing this bill to the House, for its intention is good. It is there to protect exploitation, and he repeatedly talked about the exploitation of workers being his primary purpose for bringing this bill to the House.

But this bill does not contribute to the protection of any exploitation of workers in New Zealand. In fact, there are very good rules and regulations and laws already in place that protect the worker. Even in the last Parliament, Mr Lees-Galloway was part of that committee which strengthened and protected further the rights of workers, particularly immigrant workers. There was legislation that punished and—what’s the term?—exported the offending employer if they happened to come from an offshore country if they were caught, seen to be abusing or exploiting other colleagues or immigrant labourers. They would themselves be—what’s the term?

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Liable for deportation.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Deported—deported. Thank you, Mr Woodhouse. They would themselves be deported forthwith. So we strengthened the law around immigrant exploitation. We increased the number of labour inspectors in the market, and I would like to also commend Mr Lees-Galloway’s initiative in increasing that even further.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: We’ll see.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Apparently—if Mr Robertson allows the funding to take place.

So that is the programme that has been put in place by the National Government. That is the programme, which I’m sure will be continued and supported by the Labour Government, to make sure and to minimise exploitation of workers.

Triangulation is not the reason for the exploitation. The triangulation agreement doesn’t necessarily bring about exploitation at all. Exploitation happens in bilateral—in two party—arrangements. The exploitation is going to happen whether or not you’ve got triangulation, so let’s address the issue of exploitation directly, and not try and fudge it by blaming some triangulation arrangement on the exploitation of immigrant workers.

That brings me to the point that this legislation is redundant. It is not necessary. In fact, you’ll remember, in a triangulation arrangement, you’re talking about a different group of people who want to work as contractors, who want to work part time, who want to be temporary workers. And they can be paid more. In fact, I was one of those in London a long time ago, and that’s quite right: nurses, accountants, and labourers—temporary workers—tend to be paid more than full timers.

Marja Lubeck: Ha!

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Absolutely right. “Ha!”—there’s a scoff across the room. But has that person across at the back behind Mr McAnulty ever employed anybody? Has she ever employed anybody? Contractor—has she ever employed a contractor? Has she ever employed full-time workers? Has she ever run a business? And if she has, she will know that to get someone on short notice, short term, is expensive. You have to pay over the odds because of the nature of the work. And that is a good thing because that enables more people to enter the workforce on the basis that suits them. It allows flexibility in the labour force.

This proposal from Mr McAnulty will actually reduce flexibility, reduce the ability for people to enter work on a temporary basis, because they are going to have to comply with a bunch of regulations that are set, quite rightly, by those who are in different conditions, by those who are wanting, and are in, let’s say, full-time employment. But temporary workers are a different group; they want different things, they have different needs. Whether they are temporary or full time, there is room for exploitation. There is room for prejudice against pregnant women, homosexuals, different races. Triangulation doesn’t cause that; triangulation is not the problem. So I suggest that dealing with the nature of exploitation, as we have been doing for many years, is the right method, and that this bill should be opposed.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I too commend Mr McAnulty on bringing this bill to the House, and I see he’s one of the rising stars of the Labour Party, as I saw him on the breakfast telly this morning in his regular gig. It’s good to see him, though, rolling his sleeves up and actually doing a little bit of work, and this is classic Labour Party legislation.

Of course, as the party that came out of the Blackball mine in 1916, this is exactly the sort of legislation you would expect a Labour Government to be bringing to the Parliament. It’s important when we look at employment that we aren’t doing so through a backward lens, because we have a lot of disruption coming up in our workforce. Again, I think it is the Labour Party that has led the way on this in the last Parliament. The Hon Grant Robertson had the Future of Work Commission, which looked to address and looked forward at some of these issues that are coming at us. This bill here looks to amend the Employment Relations Act of 2000, and 2000 is an age ago in terms of where we’re going at the moment. Many issues are with us now that were never even envisaged back then.

New Zealand First gives qualified support, I might say, to this bill. We will support it through to select committee. One of the things that New Zealand First takes great pride in is being a voice for small and medium sized enterprises, particularly in our regions. We have stood up within this Parliament for the rights of small employers to retain the 90-day trial period. We have won concessions within the food safety bill for those small cafes and food businesses. We are looking out for their interests, and this will be the lens that New Zealand First looks at this bill with in the select committee process.

My colleague Clayton Mitchell, who is our official spokesperson on this bill—our workplace relations spokesperson—is doing quite a lot of work at the moment on this with employer groups, looking at some of the international best practice on some of this. We totally accept that this is an area that we have to look at. We’re looking at some of the examples in Australia. Their casual loading provisions—there’s some stuff around there on percentage of time worked, some detail around that that we would like to bring to the table in the select committee process. So we look forward to doing that, and Clayton will be a constructive contributor.

I think, as legislators, we need to be cognisant of these changes that are happening in our workforce. We are no longer—look, there’s so many occupations that just will not exist in 10 or 20 years’ time. I think, as politicians, we will be pretty safe because we’ll make the rules that we are here for ever, but for the rest of society, they don’t have those safeguards, so we have to keep looking forward. There are technology disrupters out there, they abound, and we just have to look, as best we can, into the future at what those challenges are going to be.

So I think this bill gives us the opportunity within that select committee process to do just that, because I don’t know what the numbers are, but there will be vast numbers of people that are employed under these casual triangulated contracts, and probably, as we go forward, there will be more and more. So we need to make sure that the safeguards are in place.

This is a bill that affects people, as Mr Jackson said. We need to inject fairness into the balance of workplace relations, and New Zealand First totally accepts that. But we also have to accept that a job is often only there because employers have taken a risk to create that job in the first place. We don’t want to be stymying those employers—people that are risking their own capital—so we’ve got to make sure we get the balance for the employers as well as for the employees. We have to ensure that there is flexibility, so that the unintended consequences of these good intentions are not that people actually don’t get employment or miss out on opportunities in the first place.

So these are the questions that New Zealand First will be looking to address, and address constructively, at the select committee. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I commence, as others have done, by congratulating the member Kieran McAnulty for having had his bill drawn after just four or five months in this House. As Mr Woodhouse noted, he and I are both feeling a little bit frustrated that after nearly 10 years, neither of us have had that privilege, and Mrs Wagner after nearly 12 years. So some people get the luck. But anyway, that’s the way it is.

I have no doubt that the member is well intentioned, but he’s taken over what is, essentially, a union-drafted bill that was originally sponsored by the union organiser and our former colleague Darien Fenton. It is, at best, a naive piece of legislation, but, more obviously, it’s a fairly cynical measure that is designed to reward the unions, who are clearly looking for a little bit of payback for all the work they did in helping that Government to get into office last year.

I’m assuming that the Greens will probably support the bill, but we will find out in a moment. So that’s why I was really hoping to hear, a moment ago, that New Zealand First would not. In fact, when I look at what I understand New Zealand First to believe in, I can’t for the life of me figure out how they could be supportive of this piece of legislation. So it was very, very disappointing to hear that Mr Patterson is indicating that they are, and I really didn’t feel that his heart was in that speech at all. It was a fairly confused and rambling speech, and I doubt whether many people listening will have a clear idea of that party’s position.

The bill seeks to amend the principal Act, which is the Employment Relations Act of 2000. It will do so in several retrograde and very dubious ways. It may well be welcomed by the unions, but it certainly won’t be good for labour relations, business confidence, or the investment that is needed for economic growth and job creation that all MPs ought to want to foster when we come to this House. It certainly won’t be a piece of legislation that any of us can be proud of.

The three main provisions of the bill are outlined in clauses 4, 5, and 6 and they are deeply misguided. The member who sponsors the bill told us earlier that the intention of the bill is not to undermine the sound business model that companies rely upon—or words to that effect—in order to be successful, profitable, and therefore secure, which, of course, all employers need them to be. All employees, therefore, are hugely dependent upon those conditions. Yet, undermine that model and those vital conditions in relationships, and it most certainly will, and that’s why we on this side of the House are so strongly opposed to this bill.

I echo and strongly endorse the concerns that were outlined by Mr Woodhouse in his very incisive contribution earlier in this debate and also the comments of the member for Wairarapa a few moments ago. Triangular relationships describe situations whereby a worker is hired by one employer but works for another.

Such arrangements are common in my city of Hamilton. The electorate of Hamilton West, that I’m proud to represent in this House, has many such examples. Under current labour legislation, Hamilton is a growing, thriving city. We’ve enjoyed steady growth, having survived the domestic recession that we inherited when National came into office back in 2008 and the global financial crisis that followed.

We’ve enjoyed several years of economic growth right around the country. I think in the last three years it’s averaged 3.3 percent. That is a very good sign. Strong business confidence has, of course, gone hand in hand with that, and it’s led to many—

Todd Muller: Almost as good as Tauranga.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Almost as good as Tauranga, the member for Bay of Plenty tells me. It’s led to many new businesses getting started in the Waikato, and that’s, of course, brought many new jobs, which people in my electorate need. As a result, this country now enjoys the highest rate of employment that we have had in our history. We should celebrate that.

Many of those businesses are supported and enhanced by the availability of temporary labour, which is sourced through labour hire agencies. I’m thinking in my electorate of a wide range of industries that are all prevalent and doing well, such as construction, nurses in the health sector, retail outlets, the hospitality sector, and so on. They’re all doing well.

But this bill will undermine that confidence in those employment relationships. It may, as I said at the outset, be good for the unions by making their lives in recruiting easier, but it won’t encourage employers to take a chance on migrants or first-time job seekers or the most vulnerable in our communities. We should not support this bill.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Firstly, I too would like to congratulate the member Kieran McAnulty for getting a bill drawn.

Kieran McAnulty: This is getting embarrassing.

JAN LOGIE: Yep. Ha, ha! I’ll hold back my, you know, kind of envy but I think it’s really great when good luck coincides with a good bill. It’s not always the way, but in this case it is, and the Green Party is very pleased to be able to support this piece of legislation.

While we’ve heard from the previous speaker, Tim Macindoe, that anyone supporting this bill is clearly just in debt to the unions and possibly union lackeys, I would like to start my speech by acknowledging Kamlesh Prasad and Liutofaga Tulai, who were two working people who, with the help of their union E tū, took a case to the Employment Court, after working for years at minimum wage or just above minimum wage, with no holidays, no sick leave, or KiwiSaver and even having to pay their own ACC coverage, for years. Liutofaga had worked for 34 days in a row without a break—

Marja Lubeck: 60 hours a week.

JAN LOGIE: What I had is 62.8 hours a week, on minimum wage, as a parent trying to sustain her family.

This case was taken to the Employment Court on their behalf, from their union E tū, challenging that arrangement, which was justified because of their supposed employment by the labour hire company Solutions Personnel, when their day-to-day management was with LSG Sky Chefs, who provide food for many of the planes moving around this country. It was a clear case of exploitation that was being justified by this triangulated arrangement. The courts decided that those two workers were under the day-to-day control of LSG Sky Chefs and, therefore, should be considered employees of them, rather than the labour hire company.

That was recognising that, in our legislation as it stands at the moment, we’ve gone to some efforts to try and recognise that some employers may want to pretend that people are contractors, when in actual fact they are employees. Despite what we’ve heard from a previous speaker, often that means less compliance costs for the employer. They may not have to pay for sick pay or holidays or ACC, and all of that burden is put on the person in the contracting arrangement.

That’s fine, if you’ve set yourself up as a consultant with lots of social capital and you’re going about your business in that way. Fine—that’s fine. This bill will not affect those people. But it’s not so great when people are vulnerable workers who are being set up to be exploited just to keep the costs down for the business. When we heard from the previous speaker that this bill will be bad for business and that it undermines the model for business in this country, what we heard was that exploitation, from their view, is built in to the model of successful business in this country.

This bill just protects people against exploitation. It doesn’t stop contracting, it doesn’t stop labour hire companies; it stops exploitation. That is all it does. So when you’re saying that undermines the business model, you are saying exploitation is inherent in your idea of a successful business model, and that is not something we support on this side of the House. We want our business model in this country to support good employment practice and basic, decent rights, and it clearly does not when people are able to be employed by a labour hire company and undermine the working conditions of the staff who are in employment arrangements—so that companies are incentivised to pay less by going to an employment labour hire company.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, and it’s great to be able to rise on another member’s bill tonight. Let me just congratulate Kieran McAnulty for having yours drawn. I think it was on the same day as mine, so congratulations and well done.

Hon Member: Very special.

SIMEON BROWN: It was very special—quite the bonding moment, I felt. I was reflecting on the speech that I’ve just been listening to, where the Green Party was saying it’s more likely to stop exploitation. Well, I think it’s more likely to stop people being employed, I think is how you could sum up this piece of legislation. We already have, in our legislation, legislation which addresses exploitation, and National has done a huge amount over our time in Government: increasing the support for the labour inspectorate, passing legislation to eliminate zero wages, modernising New Zealand’s paid parental leave scheme—all these changes which have made a huge impact and have supported workers in their workplace and in the relationships that they have with their employers. We promote a fairer and more productive workplace by providing protections and benefits to both employers and employees.

I think this bill could probably be more summed up as just ticking another one off the union’s shopping list—for their support of the Labour Party over nine long years. This is just a few of the things on their shopping list: forcing businesses to accept multi-employer collective agreements, even when those businesses were not part of the negotiations; union leaders being allowed to walk into businesses whenever they want; reintroducing a 30-day rule where new employees must be treated as if they are union members for the first 30 days, and this is despite the fact that unions represent just 10 percent of private sector workers.

The question I’ve got is: why was this bill not put in with Labour’s Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which was passed on 1 February as part of their 100 day plan? Why was it not included? If it’s such an important piece of legislation, why was it not put in place as a Supplementary Order Paper or something like that, to make a change under that?

This bill will make it harder for people to get on the employment ladder—for migrant workers, young people, and those who are looking for a first job. National does not support this bill. Thank you very much.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I don’t know where to start—all of that rhetoric, and one by one I would like to tackle them, but I have five minutes, so I can’t even say thank you to Mr McAnulty for this bill because I’d run out of time before I get there.

First of all, I’d like to agree with the member of the Green Party Jan Logie. She is absolutely correct in everything that she says when she talks about the fact that this bill doesn’t actually give anything more to workers than terms that are already agreed to by the employer. This only applies in places where there is already a collective agreement. That means that the company has already agreed that that is the cost of doing business, so all the Opposition is allowing by not agreeing with this bill is that the employer gets out of an agreed employment agreement by employing people at lesser terms and conditions.

So this bill is about fair treatment for working people. It is well overdue. We have seen nine long years of a Government that, quite frankly, does not give a—does not care—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

MARJA LUBECK: —I forgot where I was for a moment; I thought I was in a different kind of meeting—about working people or their families. They don’t want working people to get a fair share. We have seen, over the last years, working conditions going backwards. People are struggling to make ends meet. As a result, we see child poverty, homelessness, and kids growing up in cars. We’re going to stop that under the leadership of our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. We are starting to attack these neglected problems of the past.

Now, coming back to this bill, the labour hire companies—and I agree with the member Michael Woodhouse—actually can fulfil a legitimate role in short-term labour requirements—

Hon Member: That was my point.

MARJA LUBECK: Yeah, exactly. If companies need staff and it’s a short amount of time, and there’s an unreasonable burden on the administrative side, they can employ people for a short term. But what has happened recently—we’ve seen a shift from that legitimate practice to situations that have led to exploitation of workers in New Zealand. So instead of these agencies recruiting staff for short-term staff shortages, they are increasingly using that resource to fill what should be permanent positions, and the member Jan Logie pointed out the case of Miss Tulai, who worked for four years under a temporary contract, up to 62.8 hours a week—minimum wages, no holiday leave, no sick leave, no ACC, paid her own ACC cover, no KiwiSaver, no input in health and safety laws, and, of course, this was “her choice”.

As soon as a labour hire worker starts building up any entitlements because they have been at a company for quite some time, or even if they simply speak up on any issue they see in a workplace that they don’t agree with, there’s the threat of just not coming back the next day, because, under the current law, that labour hire worker has no ability to challenge that dismissal. Having no right to raise a grievance and having no secure hours also makes labour hire workers extremely vulnerable to sexual assault and harassment at work.

So the workers have no job security, no leave entitlement, no sick leave, and no annual leave. They’re even denied the basic human right of maternity leave. They have no voice on health and safety in the workplace. They have no career prospects. They have no training. There is no skills development for them, and because, also, they have no guaranteed or predictable hours of work, they don’t have a guaranteed income. With that comes an inability for families and people to make any plans. They can’t get a mortgage. Basically, what is being done is denying working people a fair go at getting ahead. These people are treated as a commodity to their employer—a liability. They’re treated unfairly, without respect. They have no dignity. This current law shifts all of the responsibilities to the very vulnerable workers, and that just isn’t right.

If this bill gets passed, it will not increase costs beyond what the employer has already agreed is fair through a collective bargain. It will still enable labour hire operators to operate in the way they were meant to, and the employer will still have the ability to deal with increased labour demands without facing an unreasonable administrative burden, but it will stop exploitation of workers by giving labour hire workers equal rights and treating them decently and respectfully. Working people are, first of all, people, not a commodity, and I commend this bill to the House.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a very short call in opposition to this Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill. The reason that I oppose it is quite simply on the basis of the second purpose of this bill which relates to giving leave to apply to the Employment Authority to join, for want of a better term, one employer with a secondary employer for a personal grievance, and that’s simply because that already exists in New Zealand law. Provided there is a nexus of liability between one party and another, you can go to the court and join the two as defendants. Therefore, this just confuses the issue. The judiciary and lawyers have been doing this for some time. This confuses the issue.

My first question to the member would be: what is the threshold of that application? Let’s assume that it’s a very low threshold—OK then, two parties are now joined; they’re jointly liable. How are we going to apportion the liability between them? This bill simply opens up a can of worms with regards to questions as to process and how this is going to work. When you’re talking about a remedy for what a person who is bringing a personal grievance seeks, what if there is a person on a secondment between one employer and the next?

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

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’d like to start this reply by offering my sincere thanks to our coalition partners, New Zealand First, and our confidence and supply partners, the Green Party, for acknowledging the need for action in this area. In indicating support for this bill to send it to select committee, the Labour Party, the New Zealand First Party, and the Green Party have sent a clear message to this country that exploitation of workers and treating them like commodities is not acceptable behaviour in this country.

I want to acknowledge the FIRST Union and E tū union and the employers, small and large, and the groups that represent them that have met with me in preparation for this point in time where we have presented this bill to this House. The perspectives that they offered me throughout that process buoyed me and encouraged me, because they acknowledged, across the board, that there is a need to stop exploitation of our workers in this country.

So I was dismayed that the National Party stood in opposition to this. Despite the clear message that something needs to be done, they have reverted to form and dismissed any attempt—any reasonable attempt—to look at workers’ rights in this country, and I hope, when we get to select committee, that the National Party will work constructively with us to find a mechanism that is fair for both employers and workers to try and stop this behaviour that is totally unacceptable in this country.

Mr Woodhouse spoke about the case of Prasad v LSG Sky Chefs New Zealand Ltd, and what I took from that is that he thought the outcome of that case, which was indeed celebrated as progress, was enough to fix this issue. He couldn’t be more wrong. All that case did was indicate that there is some need to try and address the issues that triangular employment arrangements raise.

We also saw that Mr Scott’s contribution to the debate this evening was simply to point out that he himself is an employer and to suggest that my colleague Marja Lubeck did not have an understanding of the issues, because she did not know what it is to be an employer. It is an aside, but I would point out that Marja Lubeck has indeed got experience as an employer. She understands both issues of the debate, as I do, and it is such narrow thinking as this from Mr Scott that brings down the integrity of this debate. Referring to prior experience as an employer as an argument simply creates too simple an opposition. You can as easily argue that it makes him blind to the issues, but that isn’t the case.

Being an employer does not negate one’s ability to understand that fairness is a fundamental right—that it doesn’t have to be us versus them. Working productively means working together with respect showing dignity. Employers I have spoken to throughout have been thoughtful and alert to the issues which arise in triangular employment arrangements. I’ve spoken with employers right throughout this process and anticipate that they will participate very constructively in the next phase of this bill going through to select committee. They acknowledge the need for changing the law in this area.

So to make this contribution, that this bill is somehow not something that would be welcomed by employers, is not based on any real engagement with this issue, but, I would suggest, simply the National Party going back to form—one argument, again, that we hear so often from that party in response to a clichéd idea of what they see as the Labour position on all things.

This bill provides an easy and effective way to address the issues that have been outlined today, and it makes a clear right to seek leave to join a secondary employer to the right that we all enjoy, that we all take for granted: that if we are treated poorly in the workplace, we have a right to bring on a personal grievance.

The fact is that in this country in 2018 we are still dealing with the issues that we were facing 60 to 70 years ago of exploitation and discrimination in an area where there is an absence of law here with triangular employment arrangements. All we are proposing here is to have a conversation at select committee to find that mechanism that will ensure fairness in our workplace. I thank again our support partners for backing this bill. I’ve heard so many examples that would prove the need for increased protections. It is right that those examples be heard and examined in this House through the select committee process. It is indeed to deal with this issue and treat it with the respect that it deserves. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 8.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Bills

Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill

First Reading

MELISSA LEE (National): I move, That the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

This bill took a long time to be drawn from the ballot. I almost forgot that it was in the ballot. I put it in the ballot when I first came into Parliament, almost a decade ago, and when it was drawn it was a bit of a surprise for me that I could get that lucky, whereas some new members have had other bills drawn—once, twice, some of them three times.

This Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill is an important piece of legislation, I believe, to fix an existing anomaly in New Zealand’s ACC law. At present, the law prohibits migrants and returning New Zealanders from receiving ACC support once they reach superannuation age even if they are still unable to work as a result of their injury. This is because the weekly compensation that ACC provides to claimants currently ceases once a person reaches the New Zealand superannuation qualification age, on the basis they are now receiving superannuation. However, that leaves those that may not meet the requirements for superannuation without support.

There are a number of returning New Zealanders, migrants, and citizens who are not eligible for weekly compensation because they cannot currently qualify for the residential criteria. To me, that seems really unfair, because these are people who have lived and worked in New Zealand who, through no fault of their own, suffer an injury as a result of an accident which means they can’t work, causing them to rely on the support from ACC to get by.

The Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill will amend the Act to allow continuing ACC weekly compensation for this group of people until such time as they meet eligibility for superannuation. It is important that this gap in ACC provision is filled to ensure support for people when they’re at their most vulnerable. For context for this bill, it is not simply an issue for foreign workers but also for hard-working Kiwis who may have been born in New Zealand but gone abroad for part of their lives and are now returning to New Zealand to continue working and raising their families.

The example I actually gave some of the Opposition spokespeople on this was that of a Kiwi who was born and raised in New Zealand and had, at the age of 49, an amazing job offer from, let’s say, Europe, decided to go overseas and have an amazing career there, and then decided at the age of 65 that they wanted to return to New Zealand but continue working, because, you know, people are still continuing to work after the age of 65. If they returned to New Zealand and had an accident, they would not qualify for the residency requirement of New Zealand super even though they were born and raised in New Zealand, had lived here and paid taxes until the age of 49 or 50, and then had gone overseas, because you have to be in New Zealand for at least five years after the age of 50 in order to qualify. So that New Zealand - born Kiwi who had in fact travelled overseas and worked and come back has to wait five years to qualify for that. Ultimately, what it means for that person is that they would not, at the age of 65, qualify for the ACC weekly compensation, and nor would they qualify for New Zealand super.

The ACC weekly compensation pays 80 percent of people’s wages. This person does not qualify to transfer to New Zealand superannuation, which sort of becomes the surrogate payment for ACC when they reach the age of 65. The 65-year-old migrant who becomes injured on their first day of work will be entitled to treatment and ACC weekly compensation at 80 percent of their access earnings for up to 24 months, or until they regain capacity or are vocationally rehabilitated. If they regain capacity, then their weekly compensation will stop once that is determined, and they can return to their jobs. If they gain vocational independence, but not capacity to return to their old job, then they have three months from the date that they are assessed to be vocationally rehabilitated. They too, once they reach the age of 65, would not qualify, because they would not meet that residency requirement for New Zealand super.

I believe that this Parliament and this country care about the most abandoned in our society, and we talk about those issues quite often in this House. And National cares about the most vulnerable in our society, as well. It is our job to find a solution and get these people’s lives back on track once they have an accident. They otherwise are, you know, stuck in this legal quagmire where they don’t get the compensation through ACC that they should, and nor do they get that surrogate payment through New Zealand superannuation. With the growing age of New Zealanders, there is an ageing workforce, and as more diverse nations move into New Zealand, more people living in New Zealand may be working after the age of 65. If they have an accident, they will not qualify for the ACC weekly compensation.

Officials so far have been unable to identify how many people are being affected by the weekly compensation stoppages and can’t access New Zealand super due to residency requirements, but I think, going back to when I first drafted this bill, there were about 90 people who actually did get their ACC weekly compensation payment stopped at the age of 65. Some people transfer on to the New Zealand super. Some people choose not to, but the thing is that once it actually gets to the age of 65, the data doesn’t seem to sort of exist. It may not be a lot of people, but the thing is that it is that vulnerable group of people who should be paid ACC weekly compensation but are not.

For many New Zealanders and hard-working residents of our country this loophole needs to be closed. This is in the interests of fairness and of justice, and to ensure that our laws actually work the way we want them to. I note that the Hon David Parker and the Ministry of Justice informed me on 14 February—Valentine’s Day—that this bill was consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, and that is important, because this bill is designed to ease the suffering of the forgotten few who are unable to have their voices heard and their issues resolved without the passage of this bill.

This bill is about righting a wrong and about supporting our fellow Kiwis and friends who were invited to build their lives in Aotearoa, particularly because those affected are near the end of their working life. And it is not just about migrants but also about New Zealanders who were, in fact, born in this country and travel overseas but come back to live and retire in this country. If they actually have an accident, they should be supported, as well.

The role of Parliament is to hear out, and speak for, the forgotten few, as well as for the masses, and I’m here today to speak out for those very few affected by this oversight in New Zealand law. I implore you all to vote for the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill, in the interests of fairness and of those affected. Hopefully, members opposite would vote for it, but the smiling Minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, who’s actually looking very dapper with a bowtie, by the way, did actually tell me that Labour’s position is to actually oppose this bill. I have to say I’m very disappointed, but I will look forward to hearing why he feels that a few people in this country—I mean, it’s not like it’s going to cost the Government amazing amounts of money—will miss out on an ACC weekly compensation that they should rightfully be paid by ACC.

Often, some of these people will actually transfer on to benefits, and, you know, technically, that means Government doesn’t actually spend money. If they’re hard up they will be going for emergency benefits or what have you, but ACC should be the ones who should pay for it, because it is due to their accidents and their inability to continue their work.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for ACC): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, first of all I want to thank the member Melissa Lee for bringing this bill to the House. I want to congratulate her on getting her bill drawn from the ballot—some members do have to wait a very long time before they get a bill drawn from the ballot, and it is a thrill to be able to introduce legislation to the House and to have it debated in the House—and I want to thank Melissa Lee for the conversations that we have had and the opportunity for the Government to consider our position on this legislation. In considering it, what we had to do was consider the principles of the accident compensation system, and also the principles of the New Zealand superannuation system, and decide whether we felt this legislation was consistent with those principles.

What the bill seeks to do is to allow people who do not qualify for New Zealand superannuation to be able to receive weekly compensation from ACC, that other people over the age of 65 would not be entitled to, until such time as they qualify for New Zealand superannuation, which could be up to 10 years. I think it’s important the House understands exactly how this works. When a person is injured and they are over the age of 65, they are entitled to one year of weekly compensation alongside their New Zealand superannuation. The second year is an election, so they need to choose between their New Zealand superannuation or the weekly compensation. So people aged 65 and over can get two years of weekly compensation, and the reason that is limited is not, as the member stated, that they receive New Zealand superannuation. The reason it is limited is that there has to be a point at which we determine people have come to the end of their working life and are no longer eligible for weekly compensation, because weekly compensation is a replacement for lost wages. And so in the accident compensation scheme we use 65, the age at which people become eligible for universal superannuation, as a proxy for the end of a normal working life.

We know that people do work beyond 65, but we need to have a point. We need to have a rational point to stop the payment of weekly compensation. I want to make that clear: it’s not because people receive superannuation that they become ineligible for weekly compensation, or in fact they have an up to two-year limit on weekly compensation; it is simply the fact that in the accident compensation system, we need to have a rational point where we determine that people have come to the end of their working life, and the age of 65, because it is the point at which people become eligible for superannuation, is used as a proxy for that end of working life.

That’s one side of it. We then need to look at the other side, which is New Zealand superannuation. And, yes, we do say in New Zealand that people need to have lived and worked in New Zealand for at least 10 years from the age of 20 onwards, and at least five of those years have to be after the age of 50, before they become eligible for New Zealand superannuation. That is because New Zealand superannuation is something that we all contribute to through our taxes, and we expect people to make a contribution through their taxes here in New Zealand. If people are working overseas, they’re likely to be paying into superannuation schemes overseas. If they have not, well, actually, we do have an expectation that when people migrate to New Zealand that they come with the resources necessary to be able to support themselves.

I would actually refer the House to the fact that the previous Government actually temporarily closed the parent category for family visas, because of concerns about older people migrating to New Zealand—the parents of people who had already migrated to New Zealand—where the children had made a commitment to sponsor those parents, to support them, to ensure that they have the resources necessary to meet their living costs, to meet their health costs etc., and there was a suggestion that sometimes the children of those elderly migrants were not providing that support and the New Zealand welfare system had to step in and provide that support.

So acknowledging that that was inappropriate—that people should come to New Zealand without resources to be able to support themselves in their old age—the previous Government temporarily closed that category so that we could actually review the evidence and the facts and see whether that was the case, whether the immigration system needed to respond to that, and whether any changes or obligations needed to be placed upon those older migrants to make sure that they’re able to support themselves.

So it’s true that for some older migrants New Zealand superannuation is not available to them. There is an expectation in our system that they come to New Zealand able to support themselves. Now, if they work in New Zealand and they get injured, just like every other person working in New Zealand, they are eligible to up to two years of weekly compensation if they are over the age of 65. We make no distinction between whether someone has been in New Zealand all of their life or if they have recently come to New Zealand; ACC is available to everybody, and there is no distinction in the way we treat people who are aged 65 years or older.

Effectively, what this bill does is it asks the ACC scheme to offer an opportunity for people to get superannuation when they otherwise would not qualify for it, and that is not the role of the ACC scheme. If we want to have a debate about whether people who have lived in New Zealand for less than 10 years should be entitled to New Zealand superannuation, that is a debate we should have, but we should not ask the Accident Compensation Corporation to fund that superannuation if we were to determine that that is something that we wanted to do.

I think if you take a principled approach to this, if you look at how the ACC scheme works, if you look at how the New Zealand superannuation scheme works, if you look at what our expectations are around recent migrants, then the only conclusion that the House can come to is to oppose this bill. Now, it’s not to say that the member’s heart is not the right place. She is looking out for people who could very well find themselves in a situation where they don’t have the resources to take care of themselves. But, actually, we need to make sure that our immigration system does not allow people to get themselves into that situation, which is exactly what the previous Government did in closing down the parent category.

Whilst I acknowledge that the member is trying to do a good thing and is trying to support a small group of people who may have got themselves into a less than ideal situation—

Melissa Lee: Returning New Zealanders.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —this is not—well, returning New Zealanders as well. It’s fair that the member asks that I refer to returning New Zealanders. The same applies. We expect that if people have been working overseas, they’ve either been saving or contributing to a super scheme while they’re overseas and they’re able to bring that back with them to New Zealand and they’re able to support themselves in New Zealand. Again, I go back to the principle of the New Zealand superannuation system, which is that we contribute to it through our taxes through our working life and we have an expectation on people who have not made that contribution to spend at least 10 years in New Zealand before they become eligible, so exactly the same principle applies to the returning New Zealander as it does to the new migrant.

If you take that principled approach, if you look at it with clear eyes through that lens, then there is only one view that the House can take, and that is to oppose this bill.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. In the closing moments of her address, Melissa Lee, the member introducing this bill, complimented the Minister for ACC on his very dapper appearance, and I heard him charitably call out “Flattery will get you everywhere.” Well, I would like to suggest to the Minister that the lovely way that he could show that he really meant it would be by changing his position and supporting this bill.

Dr Duncan Webb: That’s the best reason you’ll come up with tonight.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Ha, ha! I too will pay him a compliment if I think it might have that effect. But I would like to just say to the Minister, thank you for an intelligent engagement in the issues being presented. There are, clearly, valid points of view to be considered, and it’s for that reason that I’d like to urge all members of this House to support this bill at least through to select committee by passing it tonight in its first reading so that those valid considerations can be given a thorough examination with expert advice and people being able to submit, and we can get to grips with just how significant a problem it is and whether there is a way to fix it, because I believe that there is. I want to congratulate Melissa Lee on her success in having this bill drawn. I’m beginning to think that Nicky Wagner, Michael Woodhouse, and I are the only MPs who have been here for more than 20 minutes who haven’t yet had that opportunity.

I am very proud to support this bill in what is my first speech in the House as the Opposition’s spokesperson for ACC, and that’s because there hasn’t been any legislation introduced by the new Government on this particular topic since they took office. It’s another reason why I’m really disappointed to hear that the Labour Party at this stage is intending to oppose the bill. I can only hope that New Zealand First and the Greens will see the merit of giving it a fair hearing and will help it through to select committee.

I also hope that we’ll have another chance to consider an ACC measure this year when I finally do get lucky and have my own success in the Parliamentary Lotto syndicate that is the members’ bill system and the Accident Compensation (Notice of Decision) Amendment Bill is drawn to widespread rapture and thunderous applause. My bill is also designed to correct an anomaly in our system, as does Melissa Lee’s, which fixes in unfair provision, as she’s outlined, prohibiting migrants and returning New Zealanders from receiving ACC support once they reach superannuation age even if they are still unable to work as a result of an injury.

The weekly compensation that ACC provides to approved claims currently ceases once a person turns 65—it’s that qualification age for commencing receipt of New Zealand superannuation. Now, most make the transition at that point from ACC to national super, so that’s why it’s inequitable and anomalous that a number of New Zealand citizens who return from overseas at or beyond that age, as well as some migrants, are not eligible for weekly compensation despite the fact that they have lived and worked in New Zealand, paying taxes, and have unfortunately suffered an injury as a result of an accident which prevents them from being in paid employment.

Those are the circumstances that ACC was set up to support us through. It’s a scheme which we can all be very proud of and which has been a vital source of protection and security for hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, sometimes for relatively short periods but, in some instances, for very lengthy spells. All of us who represent electorates in this House know many constituents in those circumstances, and many of us, of course, have close family and friends who’ve also been in that category. Now, you can think of somebody who may, as Melissa Lee has said, have spent 49 years continuously in this country, almost entirely in work apart from during their schooldays, and yet because they’ve taken the opportunity to go overseas—and you can perhaps think of Chris Liddell in this category, although I have people of more modest means in mind—and because they’ve spent that time out of the country between the age of 50 and 65, suddenly, on coming back here, as they’re perfectly entitled to do as returning New Zealanders, to have their final days in this country, they find themselves left out because of this anomaly in our legislation. To keep them waiting until 70 in those circumstances is manifestly unjust.

ACC is all about fairness, security, and New Zealanders avoiding costly judicial proceedings, which, frankly, only benefit the lawyers. So this Parliament should be eager to protect that fairness and support for our own, and it’s for that reason that I again strongly urge members from all parties to support the bill at its first reading through to select committee. Let’s have the chance to consider its merits, if necessary to make some changes to it, but to ensure that we don’t do a chronic injustice to our own.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I too just want to begin by thanking the member Melissa Lee for bringing this bill to the House, and, as the Minister said in his speech as well, I acknowledge that the member’s heart is in the right place. However, this is a slightly murky bill, if I may put it that way, because it kind of conflates two completely separate issues, and I’ll just provide a little bit of context before I make the points that I’m about to make.

Basically, what this bill, the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill, does is it affects two separate Government schemes, one being the ACC weekly compensation scheme, or that particular part of the ACC compensations. ACC, of course, provides financial compensation and support to pretty much everyone—citizens, residents, temporary visitors to New Zealand—who has suffered personal injuries through no fault of their own. Let’s park that there for a second. So that’s the ACC scheme. You get the weekly compensations if you’ve been in, say, an accident that has rendered you incapacitated and you can’t work—you’ve been working full-time, and you can’t do so anymore. The ACC weekly compensation scheme then provides you compensation for the loss of income, and that’s, basically, what that scheme is about.

Now, New Zealand super is completely separate. You’re eligible for New Zealand super, obviously, if you’re aged 65 or over, if you’re a legal resident of New Zealand, and if you’ve lived in New Zealand for 10 years since the age of 20, with five of those years being in New Zealand since you turned 50. So those are, basically, the eligibility requirements for NZ super. It’s a universal Government pension scheme meant to provide for you, as it were, to support your retirement. So two completely different things: one about accident and loss of income, the other about supporting retirement in your twilight years. That’s what we’re talking about.

What this bill does is change the eligibility for super for a certain group of people. It’s actually quite a colour-blind policy, or amendment, if I could call it that, because it’s not specifically just about migrants; it’s about returning New Zealanders as well, and I acknowledge that. However, what it does is—and let me just give you a quick scenario so that people who may be watching from home understand this a little bit better. Now, if I’m a migrant and, say, I come to New Zealand when I am 40 years old, I’ve got a job—full-time employment, I’m contributing to New Zealand’s economy, society, in fine ways. I work for about 20 years, I suffer that horrible accident, and I can’t work anymore. I’m 60 years old and I get weekly compensations if I’m eligible and I meet the other criteria. I get that for five years till I turn 65, at which point I transition into New Zealand super. That’s one scenario.

The other scenario: same migrant comes to New Zealand when he or she is 60 years old—fine citizen, or resident, or person resident in New Zealand. He or she works and contributes for a year, has that same accident, is incapacitated, gets weekly compensation just till they are 65—so, for four years, basically—at which point, I take your point, they’re not compensated through accident compensation.

But the point of this is that we’re not meant to be transitioning from the weekly compensation straight into super; that’s not the point of the two different schemes. It’s actually about the retirement age. The age of 65 is a bit of a proxy for a retirement age, from the point of view that at 65 is generally when people stop working, and so it’s rational. It’s a rational conclusion, and it’s logical that you would not then be compensated for loss of income past 65, because under other circumstances you actually wouldn’t have been working past 65. So it’s not an automatic transition. The New Zealand super is not a social safety net. It’s actually two different things that this bill conflates, in my view.

Also, I’ve got to say that it doesn’t take into account the fact that if, in the second scenario, I’d moved to New Zealand when I was 60, chances are I’d be contributing to an overseas pension scheme that I would still be getting money from. So this bill doesn’t take that into account.

I’ve got to say, in closing, that the Minister stole my thunder a little bit, because the only category that would have been affected by this is the parent category, those that came here as parents of their dependent children, and that was closed by the former Government. Thank you.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, he mihi mahana ki a koe [Good evening, Mr Assistant Speaker, and warm greetings to you], and thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and speak on this bill on behalf of New Zealand First. I’d just like to reiterate the call to Melissa Lee and congratulate her on having this bill come before the House, the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill. It is a thrill indeed, as I have had my first bill read, and I’m sure, even after a decade, a thrill it is indeed to have a piece of legislation before the House.

I like to make mention of the Minister, Mr Lees-Galloway, and the statement he made right at the beginning of his contribution on this bill to consider the principles of the Accident Compensation Corporation as well as to consider the principles of New Zealand superannuation. I’d also like to thank the Minister for the detailed explanation that he gave of how ACC works for those who are over the age of 65. His clarity on this is much appreciated.

Looking at the bill, the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill, what does this bill do? In reality, who will it affect? It’s going to be a very small group of people that this legislation will create a change for. The bill will contain provisions to continue entitlement to weekly ACC compensation for those who are over 65 years of age. They may be recent migrants or they may be returning New Zealanders until they meet the qualifications for New Zealand superannuation.

So this small group people—who are they? Well, if you take a look at the numbers, and if we go to the 2015-2016 statistics of those granted residence over the age of 60, 90.7 percent fell under the parent category. That’s a very large number in there, that 90.7 percent in that parent category. Now, those under this category should be in fact supported by their children if they happen to injure themselves, so why would they need ACC? Now, currently, migrants and expat Kiwis are entitled to full New Zealand super after just 10 years’ residency. Now, this also requires that five years has to be after the age of 50. However, I’d just like to note that recently it was amended for a small group of pensioner residents in the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau—there has been a change there. Ten years to receive full super is unusually generous by international standards.

So just taking a look now at the member Melissa Lee’s press release that she put out on 1 February, she says this is unfair in terms of making these changes for this small group of people because these are people who have lived and worked in New Zealand who, through no fault of their own, suffer an injury and as a result of an accident maybe, which means that they can’t work—causing them to rely on support from ACC to get by. But, I don’t in fact believe that that is strictly correct, and I’ll point out why. Migrants who have not been in the country for 10 years have not paid much into the ACC, as much as maybe the average citizen who’s worked and spent their life working here in New Zealand. So, frankly, it would be a little unfair for them to be utilising the ACC system when they’ve not paid any substantial amount of money.

Now, if this amendment did go through, depending on the individual’s income level even from a short stint on ACC they would have drawn more from the system than they’d actually contributed to. This bill could force New Zealand taxpayers to help pay for double superannuation for non-residents who may be injured in New Zealand but receive also at the same time an overseas pension. Now, that’s not fair on New Zealanders either, and it certainly doesn’t make sense. Migrants who have had permanent residency for two years will in fact be eligible for sickness or invalid’s benefits, so it’s not like there isn’t a basic minimum already in place. There’s already a mechanism for them to be taken care of by the State.

So ACC, if someone did get injured, it would be 80 percent of their income, and if someone is over the age of 65—maybe they’re a lawyer and they’re still working—imagine the cost of that to the State. At 80 percent income cover, it’s usually more than the New Zealand superannuation if they happen to be injured and can no longer work. So just in summary, New Zealand First—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Congratulations to Melissa Lee for bringing the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill to the House. I know that Melissa Lee brought this bill to the House because there is an identified gap of entitlements for a number of returning New Zealanders or migrants. The numbers may indeed be small, which has been pointed out by Government and support party members, but they are people who have reached the age of 65 and, it was noted in a previous speech, that’s generally about the time these days that people seek to retire. They have had an accident that does prevent them from working. They’re not eligible for ACC, they’re not eligible yet for national super, and so there is indeed a gap in support for people in New Zealand, no matter what their status.

I’m surprised at the Government’s attitude—its seemingly hard-hearted attitude—towards this small group of people. When I contrast it to their throwing money at students in their first year of study, for whom nobody asked for that support. It has had no impact on the number of students accessing tertiary education, and just the sheer cost of that policy compared to the very modest cost impact—because we are only dealing with a small group of people who are not well because they’ve had an accident, they cannot work because they’ve had an accident, and they’re not eligible for national superannuation. So where does that leave them?

As a constituency MP, I’ve had a number of people come into my office in very stressed circumstances. There are a number of reasons for that stress for people who come into my office, but what happens is that some event happens in a person’s life. They have an accident—and I’m just broadening my example here. They may have lost their job. They’re 65 or they’re 66 or they’re 67 and they’re not entitled to national super. And then very quickly we find that people’s lives can unravel. They unravel to the point where if they own a home they may have to sell that home, if they own a vehicle they may have to sell that vehicle, or perhaps they can’t afford to run the vehicle. They have to go to bed early at night because they find electricity charges—I’m talking about the deep South here; it gets cold in winter.

So I have seen over the years people coming into my office whose lives are literally spiralling downwards because of an event in their life, and in the case of this bill, that Melissa Lee has brought to the House, it is because they have suffered an accident in their life. These are the people that this bill seeks to assist, and I’m surprised—frankly surprised—that the Government of the day is not prepared to have the generosity of spirit to send this bill to select committee for further examination of the issues that it raises. I’m surprised that this Government, who so willingly supports other groups of New Zealanders, has chosen to target this particular group, and potentially penalise this particular group who fall between the cracks of accident compensation and national super.

So I do urge the Government and their support partners, who have traded for many, many years on looking out for vulnerable people, to recognise that this bill from Melissa Lee targets and aims to make better the lives of those same vulnerable people who have suffered an injury and for whom there is a dearth of support. So I think it just goes to show that people like Melissa Lee, a member of the National Party, do, in fact, consider the needs of vulnerable people in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and I too would like to offer my congratulations to the member Melissa Lee for getting this bill drawn and for starting this discussion. I do want to acknowledge that I think the member’s intent with this bill is positive and good, and I think having the debate is useful. The Green Party, however, can’t support it—

Hon Members: What?

JAN LOGIE: We won’t support it. You’re right—of course we could, but we haven’t been persuaded by the evidence. I do want to reflect on some of the discussions that I’ve heard and the assumption that people who would be covered by this legislation, who have had an accident and who are not entitled to superannuation, are de facto in need and that they’re a vulnerable group.

Actually, we don’t know that. We don’t have the evidence that they’re not entitled to superannuation from an overseas scheme, and we know that probably many of the New Zealanders coming back will be. We also know that people coming in as recent migrants are required to show, as part of their visa conditions for gaining entry into New Zealand, the ability to support themselves in the event of unemployment or the inability to be in work. So actually we haven’t had the case made that there is hardship here. It sounds persuasive, as if people are falling between a gap, but actually we don’t know that.

What this does in the way the legislation is set out is that it’s saying that people who are not entitled to ACC or superannuation because of that age and residency threshold would be entitled to either weekly compensation for an extended period of time or the New Zealand superannuation rate, whichever is less, which is in effect giving people access to New Zealand superannuation if they’ve had an injury and they don’t otherwise meet our criteria for accessing New Zealand superannuation.

That’s quite a big debate. We know the social contract that exists around New Zealand superannuation is something that a lot of thought has gone into in this country. There’s been reticence from previous Governments, including the previous National Government, to reopen the debate about shifting that social contract of who is entitled to superannuation or the age at which people should be entitled. The Green Party doesn’t believe that that debate should happen through this member’s bill in this way—that if you want to challenge the access to entitlement to New Zealand superannuation, then that’s a big discussion for us as a country and isn’t one, we believe, to be dealt with in this narrow way.

I do also just want to remind people listening, where there is that sense that maybe there are people who may be in crisis and without support, that they will still access treatment and rehabilitation services from ACC for as long as they need them. None of that is being cut off through our settings as they exist at the moment. Also, the perception that it cuts off exactly at 65 is inaccurate. At the moment, if somebody suffers an injury close to the age of 65, there is provision to get weekly compensation for up to about two years after the event of that injury, even after the age of 65. So the perception that at 65 it’s all over and there’s no support is really a very inaccurate portrayal of the situation. There is support for people beyond that point. Most of the people in this situation will have their own means, and there is baseline support through our Work and Income system as well. Let’s not reopen the debate on entitlements in the social contract of superannuation when we don’t have evidence that there is even a group of people suffering.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a privilege to be able to reflect and provide comment on this bill this evening. I do want to acknowledge my parliamentary colleague Melissa Lee for being lucky in getting it drawn from the ballot and being able to debate the work that she has put together. I get quite enthusiastic when people talk about vulnerability and find solutions to resolving it for those who through, sometimes, no means of their own find themselves in situations where they need genuine and authentic assistance from the State. So when I started hearing the Opposition talking about these words and the word “compassion” too, I thought, “Well, then there’s something in here that must be good.”

However, when I looked closer and more deeply into what’s being proposed, I reflected on what the Minister said when he introduced the paper around principles, first, because I think a good amendment—or a good bill, full stop—should be based on solid principles. He reflected on the superannuation scheme and ACC, and also—he didn’t talk about this but important to the conversation—there is immigration. So when I looked at what underpins those three areas, I suddenly found myself thinking there’s a lot more to this, and, when I looked at the vulnerability and compassion statements, I thought even in the previous bill around triangular employment that that would make a big contribution, and it was a pity the Opposition didn’t support that because that would go in itself a long way to supporting some of the migrant communities—in particular, women—who would benefit, and, in fact, will benefit, from the outcome of that bill.

The Minister talked, I think quite strongly, about just getting very clear around what was the guts of the bill in terms of what was in and what was out and who it would impact. I think the thing that struck for me was just a couple of themes: one in terms of migrants, those coming to New Zealand—that they come with the resources necessary to ensure that they have the support in their old age. That was one theme. Secondly, when you work in New Zealand and you are injured at work and you are over the age of 65, everyone gets treated the same anyway. I thought that’s another theme that’s important to the debate this evening.

He also talked about the age of 65 and why they use it with ACC. What it suddenly became was “What is the problem that we are trying to fix here? Is there a problem here that still exists?” We know that the category was closed—the parent visa category was closed by the previous Government—so when you join the dots around principles, these themes, and the current situation, I struggled to see what this bill was going to achieve and what problem it was going to fix. I think that’s fundamental to anything that comes through this House: what exactly does this bill want to achieve? I think that that’s where there are some issues because I’m not sure if this bill will fix the problem that it purports to resolve. If we want to have a conversation about extending access to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund or the scheme to a new group, then that is a different conversation from what we should and are having this evening. So Labour doesn’t support this amendment bill. I can’t find what it’s trying to fix. I don’t say that in a mean-spirited way, but I think there are other bills that will deliver the compassion and vulnerability solutions that this bill may try to achieve. Thank you.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to take this call on the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill. I would like to join other colleagues in congratulating the member in charge of this bill, Melissa Lee, and I have to admit this, that I used to hear this all the time—that sometimes a bill can sit in the tin for a number of years and not get drawn, and this is a real example, so I can fully understand the excitement that the member had when the bill was drawn.

It’s really unfortunate to see that the Government members don’t see any value in supporting this bill. Whereas this is to support a small number of people, that doesn’t mean the impact of this is small. The impact of the current system can be quite huge on this small number of people. This bill is actually to link ACC payment to superannuation payment rather than linking it to the superannuation age, which is 65 at the moment. So this bill is correcting that assumption which is there that when someone is receiving ACC payment, when that person reaches the age of 65, by the time they have reached 65 they are unable to come back to work, that their superannuation payment will kick in at the age of 65.

So that assumption is not correct. For some individuals, superannuation payment does not kick in at the age of 65 because they have not fulfilled the criterion that is there for residency here in New Zealand. We know that people are required to fulfil this criterion of being lawfully resident in New Zealand for 10 years—this is after the age of 20—and five after the age of 50. So this can be the case for New Zealanders coming back to New Zealand and this can be the case for immigrants coming to New Zealand.

I heard a Green member’s contribution before—that this is a big issue and should not be considered through a member’s bill. I refute that argument. Just because it’s a big issue doesn’t mean that this cannot be raised through a member’s bill. Then I also heard another member, the Labour member Mr Paul Eagle, who spoke before me. He said that when immigrants come to New Zealand they are expected to bring resources to live through their retirement. That is true in some cases, but when they come as skilled force to fulfil the job vacancies here in New Zealand we cannot expect them to bring resources that will be enough for their retirement. So this bill is not about that.

This bill is actually ensuring that when an individual is injured and is unable to get back to work by the time that individual is 65, and their superannuation payment has not kicked in, the ACC payment continues until the superannuation payment kicks in. I fully understand that, yes, it is not at 65 that it necessarily gets cut off. The ACC payment can continue for two years after the age of 65, but that may not be enough, because it will depend on when that individual will fulfil that residency criteria that is there to become eligible for superannuation payment. So this bill actually brings in an amendment that helps that small number of people, but it is a very useful amendment in the Accident Compensation Act.

For us, it’s really important that we look after our elderly, because the well-being of our elderly actually reflects the state of our country. People deserve to spend their older age with dignity. Monetary support is important for all age groups, and it becomes even more important for that age group that is 65-plus. So ACC payment at this stage is linked to age—that is, 65—but this bill is to change that to link it to when the superannuation payment actually kicks in. Yes, I fully understand we have a very good welfare system. People can go on benefit, but that is not fair for those individuals, and we should not assume that people want to retire at the age of 65. There are people who might want to continue working after the age of 65 as well, so ACC cover should be available to them.

So I think it’s a good bill. It’s really unfortunate to see that Government members are not supporting this bill. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): As New Zealanders, we are, I think, rightly proud of our accident compensation scheme. It’s an astonishing scheme. It is based on the idea that we need to look after people who have had accidents, and we do it on a no-fault basis. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve caused the accident yourself. It doesn’t matter particularly what the circumstances are around it. If you have been injured—whether it’s at home, at work, on the sportsground, bungy jumping, or whatever, and you’re injured—we will look after you. We’ll ensure your injuries are treated, and if your injuries are such that you cannot work, we will even replace your income. It’s an extraordinarily generous scheme.

That generosity is actually part of our superannuation scheme, too. Just as we led the world—and still lead it, actually—with our accident compensation scheme, we led the world with New Zealand superannuation. It started in 1898. It was extraordinarily early for an old-age pension but, back then, it was only a small payment. You had to have lived in New Zealand for 25 years to get that old-age pension, and it was only available to persons of good character. We actually had a moral character test sitting in our superannuation. Now, over the years, we have changed that. We have no moral character test for our superannuation, just as we actually have no moral character test for accident compensation. We’re not interested in testing people’s morality; we are simply interested in ensuring that they are supported, as needed.

Of course, we’ve actually changed some of the aspects around these schemes, and, in particular, these days, we have some time requirements around New Zealand superannuation. It’s not as hard; it’s only a 10-year test. Provided you’ve lived in New Zealand for at least 10 years after age 20 with at least five of those after age 50, you are eligible for New Zealand superannuation. The extraordinary thing is that if you arrive at age 65, then at age 75, you can collect New Zealand superannuation. We really are very generous when it comes to supporting people.

Now, we need to test the eligibility for claims on it, and there are some complicated rules around accident compensation for what happens when someone has an injury just before the age at which they might have received New Zealand superannuation. If you are injured less than 12 months before your 65th birthday, then from age 65 you can choose super or ACC, but only for another 12 months of ACC, maximum. But if it’s 12 to 24 months before your birthday, you choose again, but there’s a limit on it. You can only claim 24 months’ max of ACC. If you’re injured two years or more before your 65th birthday, then, again, your eligibility for ACC stops at age 65, and that’s because, actually, people do stop working.

The problem with this bill suggested by Melissa Lee is that in some cases for migrants, it would somehow extend that eligibility for ACC for up to 10 years. Now we know that people are working longer. We know that people do work past age 65, and we know many people who work up to their late 60s, but I suggest that, in most cases, we do not have people who work full-time up to age 75.

Here’s the thing with ACC: we replace 80 percent of your income. That’s a lot of income that we’re replacing, and in the way that this bill is drafted, someone would be able to choose that right through for nearly up to 10 years. Now that might help a small group of migrants, but it would be unfair to other New Zealanders who, by the time they’ve been injured for two years after their 65th birthday are kicked off ACC. That is the unfairness that is in this bill.

So I commend the idea behind it. We do want to make sure that people do receive support, but we want to make sure that it is fair, that it treats all people living in New Zealand fairly and reasonably, and that they are treated as much as possible with parity. This is why I do not support this bill.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’d like to first of all kick off my final speech on this bill by thanking all members who have contributed to this debate for their considered debate tonight. One of the things that I’d like to talk about is—I think I’ll start from the back. Ms Deborah Russell was talking about how she wants the ACC to—it is a fair system. But I don’t want people who are listening at home and anyone who is listening to this debate to actually think that this debate was all about redefining New Zealand superannuation. This was not it.

It’s also not a back-door entry into receiving New Zealand super for new migrants who come to this country. This debate was about people who are actually working before they have an accident at the age of 65, for example. They have to be working in order to qualify for the ACC weekly compensation. So if they happen to be working and they have an accident, they are entitled to that ACC weekly compensation.

However, as one of my learned colleagues, Mr Tim Macindoe, suggested, it could even be Chris Liddell, for example, if he had returned at the age of 65 and, working in New Zealand, he had an accident. If he hadn’t actually been in New Zealand since the age of 50 for five years, Chris Liddell would have to wait for five years before he would qualify for super, which would entitle him to the ACC weekly compensation. When they hit the age of 65, superannuation kicks in, rather than the ACC weekly compensation. People have to choose whether they do the ACC weekly compensation or they go for New Zealand superannuation. Most people tend to go for the New Zealand superannuation because they are entitled to it, but if you are not entitled to it, you’d choose ACC, and it literally, basically, gets stopped if you’re not entitled.

So I’m not just talking about migrants who come to this country, and often when migrants come to this country, they have the means to actually support themselves. Often, at the age of 65, if they’re coming into this country, they probably would not be entitled to the weekly compensation, as some members might actually suggest they would, because they’re not working, so they’re not entitled to this. This is purely about people who are working before they hit the age of 65. When they have their accident, they won’t be entitled to their weekly compensation.

And I know that Ms Jan Logie was talking about how there was no evidence. Perhaps I haven’t actually made it very clear: there have been complaints to the Human Rights Commission about the unfairness of the gap that currently exists for New Zealanders who actually have to come back to this country and don’t qualify for ACC weekly compensation. And perhaps it’s because we don’t keep the numbers—the records. I tried to get the number off the Minister, but he actually did not have them available. Perhaps when we actually go to select committee, maybe we might hear from some of these people who have missed out on this ACC weekly compensation. But considering the fact that there are members in this House who won’t be voting for this bill, it is unfortunate indeed that we will never find out how many people will, in fact, fall through the gaps.

I think this was actually about, as I said in my first speech—you know, we make laws for the masses in this country but we also have to make laws for the vulnerable few. Ninety people, basically, do not get paid ACC weekly compensation every year because they have to transit on to the New Zealand super when they reach it, because they have to choose ACC or super, and those New Zealanders who are coming back from overseas don’t qualify for either. And I know Ms Marcroft actually said that New Zealand has a very generous and great welfare system. Fair enough, but I don’t think it is about paying them welfare; it is about their rightful payment pathway. If you have an accident, you should be compensated by way of ACC weekly compensation if you happen to be working until such time that you’re able to return to work or are recuperated. And if you suggest that it stops at age 65, I urge the member to perhaps have a conversation with her leader.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Accident Compensation (Recent Migrants and Returning New Zealanders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Noes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 8.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill

First Reading

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): I move, That the Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.

It’s a pleasure to stand up and speak to this bill tonight. We’ve heard a lot of words in the House tonight about people who have been in the House for short times or very long times. This is my bill that’s been in the tin for the last almost three years. It was originally put in the tin by our member Mike Sabin. And Mike has had a huge amount of experience in the police and with people who are working with youth and drugs, and it is a pleasure to stand here and put this bill up today.

Whatever you think about any parts of this bill—and I want to go through some parts of this with you—there is a great need in this country to do something around youth and crime. And so every day we talk—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! That member, if he wants to stay in the House—there’s no problem with interjection, but we would like it to be a bit witty and a bit quieter.

BARBARA KURIGER: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Every day in the news, we read about young people, we read about crime, we read about dairy robberies, and we read about all of these things that are on our screens every night on TV. And, obviously, over time, things have changed in our communities around parental responsibility. Part of the reason why I’m really excited about putting this bill up—and you can tell me all the problems and the challenges with it, but I’m interested in fixing this problem.

Last year, I was lucky enough to go to a women parliamentarians conference in Iceland, and during that conference, we learnt about what Iceland did for their youth. Now, they have a much smaller population than we do—330,000—but, basically, they top the European table these days. The percentage of 15 and 16-year-olds who had been drunk in the previous months, right from the 1990s, went down from 42 percent in 1998 to 5 percent in 2016. And the percentage who have ever used cannabis is down from 17 percent to 7 percent, and smoking cigarettes has gone from 23 percent to 3 percent. [Interruption] You can laugh and yell if you like, but—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually, could the member stop bringing the Speaker into the debate.

BARBARA KURIGER: Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. Those on the other side of the House can laugh and yell if they like, but Iceland, to curb the drug, and I’m quoting this now, “To curb [the] drug abusing, booze swilling youth, simple measures were implemented under a plan called Youth in Iceland. Alcohol sales—

Hon Kris Faafoi: It’s just the youth!

BARBARA KURIGER: Well, if you don’t listen—if the Government over there on the other side of the House ain’t going to listen—we’re not going to solve this issue. So kids aged 13 to 16 were placed under a 10 p.m. curfew in winter, midnight in summer, and each local community got together and the parents pledged. They worked with the police. And Iceland is now exporting its models to 35 cities.

So we can have a look at this bill and we can say, “Hey, it’s not quite right.” The Hon David Parker came to me yesterday and he has taken some advice, which he has given me, which says that this may not be suitable for the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act because it may go further than what is necessary. And so I have got that document with me, and I think if it does go further than necessary, it would be great to be able to take this to a select committee and just figure out how far we might get this to go, because we have an issue to solve in this country, and I think it would be very remiss of us not to have a look at this as one of those opportunities, given the success that’s happened in Iceland.

And if there’s not exactly the right words in the bill or the right criteria, well, let’s take it and have a look at it, because, under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the advice we’ve been given says it enables, rather than requires, orders to be made in respect of parents and guardians. It could therefore be argued that the bill leaves scope for the Youth Court to make orders that are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and, indeed, the judges must exercise their discretion to make orders in a way that is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

So it’s not impossible to get over this with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. All we have to do, as a Parliament and as New Zealand politicians, is sit down and work out some answers. And I know we talk a lot about children and we talk a lot about the social investment approach. And we call it “social investment”, and I know on the other side of the House it’s being called something different, but we have children in this country that need us, who grow into teenagers who need parents, who need boundaries, and who need places where they can get safety. Teenagers need boundaries and I think it’s our responsibility to put some of those boundaries around teenagers. Personally, I think that that’s a late stage.

So when we talk about our social investment, as we talked about it when we were in Government with Bill English, we talked about getting five to nine-year-olds and wrapping the services, wrapping all the tools, around them and involving their families and parents. So what this bill does is it talks about an extension of that. It talks about actually taking them when they’re teenagers, involving their families and parents—and most parents want to be responsible. In fact, lots of parents want to be responsible, but if you’ve got a child that’s young and growing up and they don’t get those boundaries and they don’t get those responsibilities, nothing’s actually going to change by the time they’re teenagers. So look, we have to find a solution to this problem, and this bill says—look you can argue all you like, but one of the primary factors identified in studies and by the police—I’m sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker—judges, and the wider community working with young people, is the lack of suitable parental or guardian oversight.

So we have a responsibility in this Parliament to deal with that. I would urge you to take the bill to select committee and have a look at it. What has struck me, in the last 3½ years that I’ve been in this Parliament, is that we have a lot of things in common about the what and the why. We can look 20 or 30 years out, and we’d probably all agree on the same goals and end goals. But we often disagree on the how and the why.

So I know that over the course of the next little while, members from the other side of the House are going to stand up and they’re going to be having a discussion about the how and the why of this bill. I’m open about the how and the why; it’s the intent of the bill that I think is important. I think we owe it to our youth to have a look at it. So, with that, I think we should let the discussion begin. It’s my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Youth): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the House will indulge me, just very briefly—in farewelling a good man by the name of Bill Wiki, from Ōtara; a staunch Labour Party member, but, more importantly, a community stalwart. I will farewell him in Māori first, and I’ll link this to the rest of my contribution on this particular bill.

Nō reira e te Pāpā, e Wīremu, whakangaro atu rā koe ki a rātou kua ngaro atu ki te pō—i oti i a koe ngā mahi rangatira ki roto i a Ō Taramainuku, hei tutuki, hei hāpai i ngā mahi me ngā wawata o te hapori o Ōtara. I mate koe, i aituangia koe ki roto o Ōtara engari i tukuna atu te taone o Tāmaki-makau-rau i tō tinana ki tō wā kāinga ki roto i a āu o Ngāti Hine. Kotahi te kōrero ki a koe e te papa: haere mai, haere.

[And so we farewell you, elder statesman Wīremu, as you join those who are no longer with us—you who achieved great things amongst Ō Taramainuku, so that the aspirations of the Ōtara community might be realised and advanced. Even though the accident that took your life happened in Ōtara, the wider Auckland region recognised that your remains must return to your people of Ngāti Hine. Only one thing remains to be said, dear sir: farewell.]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to farewell Bill Wiki. I mention Bill Wiki because Bill Wiki was a staunch man in the community of Ōtara. Bill Wiki was a big family man. Bill Wiki would take young, mainly male, Māori and Pacific Islanders off the street and into his home. He would take them into his home because these kids had nowhere else to go. They didn’t have families they could go home to and eat meat and vegetables for dinner and sleep in a nice warm bed. These were street kids—many of them hardened street kids. He took them in, out of the goodness of his heart.

Sadly, when I read a particular bill like this, I can’t help but think about Bill Wiki. The reason is that some of the orders that can be imposed by the introduction of a bill like this actually stop the good heart of Bill Wiki for his community. They actually say to him that because of the actions of one, the multiple kids that were taken into his home shall be punished for it. Why? Because it says that if one particular bad apple tends to play up, because of the order placed on Bill Wiki by the court then all of the other kids would miss out.

This doesn’t take into consideration the dynamics in a community such as Ōtara, where cultural disconnection is a real thing, where family disconnection is a real thing, where tribal disconnection is a real thing, and where church disconnection is a real thing amongst Māori and Pacific Island communities.

So I want to remember Bill Wiki, as we contribute towards this bill. It is important to make sure that the approach we take—and I take the point of the member whose name is on this particular bill. We do want the right outcome for our families; not a punitive one. We want the right outcome for our families—one that is whānau ora - centric, one that puts the family at the centre of all we do in making sure that young people get the support and the care that they need to be successful in this country.

I’m sad to say that in this particular bill, it doesn’t achieve that. It takes a very staunch, punitive approach, and I’m not surprised by that, given the bills in the House this evening. The Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill is another one that, while well intended, looks to solve a particular problem but, if anything, creates more problems. It also contributes to the well-known fact in the public—that it was the former regime that actually was quite happy to build prisons, and now we know why. Because bills like this actually look to punish families.

Let’s look at the whānau dynamic. In many whānau across my electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau—and this isn’t unique to Tāmaki Makaurau—the whānau dynamic is very different. I’ve spoken about Matua Bill, and I know that many grandparents actually find themselves inheriting—whether it was by force of law or by the good nature of the grandparent—more than one child. They inherit families; they inherit all of their grandkids in one go.

Sure, we might be able to point the finger at absent parents, absent mums and dads, and blame them for the culture and the behaviour and the delinquency of these young people. But I’d argue that this particular bill actually doesn’t focus on the young person. My experience in my communities is that when grandparents take in their grandchildren, they do it with the acknowledgment that the parent is actually absent. They have other issues—mental health issues, addiction issues.

The last thing we want to be doing is locking these people up—whether it’s the parent with the mental health issue, the alcohol or substance abuse issue, or just the hard fact of living in the current environment where expenses are far too high. They struggle. They work hard. They try their best to raise a family, but just can’t do it because times are hard.

This particular bill sets out to punish those kinds of people and, even worse, sets out to punish the grandparents who are actually filling that role of looking after their family, keeping whānau together. I recall, in the last parliamentary term, that was what one of the focuses was. It was about keeping whānau together. Sadly, what this particular bill does is, it doesn’t do that.

I want to touch on another aspect that isn’t unique to Tāmaki Makaurau, but is certainly heightened in Tāmaki Makaurau, and that is a housing crisis.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d rather you talked about the bill.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, it talks about one of the imposable conditions in this particular bill. It requires parents or guardians to reside at a nominated address with the child or young person. Many children and young people actually live on couches. They live in sheds. They don’t have a fixed abode. They travel around their friends’ places, they sleep on the couch, until their mother or father or the guardians of that particular house kick them out. Are we suggesting, then, that we can impose upon parents who struggle in the same way—we need not look past Te Puea Marae, all of the emergency housing places in Tāmaki Makaurau. Are we expecting parents to actually find themselves, all of a sudden, in a house where they can be there with this particular young person, to care for them? I reiterate the point: there is a housing crisis.

I want to touch, too, on the comments made by the member around the advice from the Attorney-General, who makes it very clear that this is a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This is a clear breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. While we might take the point from the member who introduced this bill in saying that, sure, we can flesh out the well-intended purposes of this bill through another stage, through the select committee, and through other readings and processes in this House but the fact remains that this is, in the words of the Attorney-General, still a serious breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—on multiple levels; not just on one level but on multiple levels.

I’d argue then that this particular bill, as has been mentioned numerous times in the House this evening, is well intended but poorly drafted—poorly drafted, without consideration of the realities of whānau, the realities of young people, a prison system bulging, in fact bursting, at the seams, and social factors that are affecting communities. They simply aren’t being considered in this particular bill. And, of course, that’s not good enough. What we hope to see in a particular bill of this nature is one that does actually focus on the family.

Pūao-te-ata-tū is a classic example. It’s a great piece of work that can advise bills like this and that actually puts a whānau-centred approach on these types of bills to make sure that we’re not taking a punitive approach but one that says, actually, the young person is a part of a whānau, and it is a wider whānau. It might not be the guardian or the actual biological parents but they’re part of a wider community. What this particular bill does, and I’m sad to say, is it doesn’t do that.

In fact, I’d argue it would break the family down. It would cause more strain on a service that simply cannot take any more punishment. I’m talking about the prison system. I’m talking about the social welfare system. I’m talking about all of the public services that our communities expect to be there but simply can’t cope. This bill will simply add a further burden on that particular public service, let alone the arguments about whether or not something like this can actually be policed—can actually be policed.

In the closing seconds of my contribution, we on this side of the House, the Labour Party, will be opposing this bill, and we would encourage the member to think a bit wider in drafting a bill of such nature, in the hope that it may pass in the future. Kia ora tātou.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): The joy of a nation is when we stop to celebrate all things that are good and great about what makes us New Zealanders, what makes us Kiwis—it could be sporting, it could be cultural, it could be commercial. All of those things, the things that we say and uphold—that is the greatness and the goodness of a nation.

But the issues that are the shame of a nation are the abuse and neglect. The member, Peeni Henare, talked about the realities—that is our reality. The realities are that we know the names of the families and of the whānau. We can see the faces of those young children, and even children who’ve been in care, and we know the cause and the issues behind them. It burdens us as a nation, and it should burden us as a Parliament, even here tonight, in this place and in this Chamber. The purpose of this bill, the Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill, in its first reading, is to address that very issue.

The member who just spoke, the Hon Peeni Henare, talked about facing some of those realities. Here are some of our realities: there’s 158,900 notifications every single year on average to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services; there are 33,000 further actions that are taken into place—in other words, there is a duty of care and a care of concern in which there must be some action taken apart; there are 6,100 family group conferences; and there are 5,700 children that are currently in care at the moment. So if we’re not taking it seriously—if that’s not our reality, as that member has said—then that’s the reason why we’re here tonight.

This bill is not about playing tiddlywinks. This is not tiptoeing through the tulips or anything else that other members may turn around and say. This is a bill that’s serious about addressing the issues of abuse and neglect. If we look into the core roles and responsibility—in fact, the briefing to the incoming Minister for Oranga Tamariki declares this: the core role, and one of them in section one talks about this, is “delivering family-led decision-making to address care and protection concerns”. This bill is doing that very action. It’s saying this: the responsibility and the burden should not just be on children and young people who are offenders. Actually, it should be something that should be shared right across the board.

This issue has been raised by police, social workers, counsellors, and even the courts themselves. This has come out because what they are saying is this: that we need another tool to hold to account the issues of concern that are out there.

At the moment, if we look through some of those issues—and let’s talk about this. When we think about the youth justice system, there are 2,400 FGCs—family group conferences—for young people alone, 550 young people remanded in residence, 300 young people sentenced to youth justice supervision, and that number doesn’t decrease but grows every single year. To the member who just spoke—and I want to honour him by the fact that I know Bill Wiki too was a great man. This bill does not take away the responsibility or the voluntary nature and the spirit of generosity that people like Bill Wiki play every single day. This is what that does—it says this: that the responsibility is not just with the Bill Wikis of our communities; it’s also with the parents and the guardians who have a care responsibility.

This is not some broad sweep. This is not to judge and to condemn all parents that are out there. No, it’s to those who do, and have to be held to account—that’s what this bill is doing. I hope that New Zealand First will listen to this, because they too know the importance of holding a community to account—people who do have that responsibility. We’re only talking about a small amount. We’re only talking about those, as I said—when there is abuse and neglect, when you’ve gone to the point where there is the wonderful generosity of people like Bill Wiki, who cared for those who are in need of care, who’ve been abused and neglected. It’s at that point where there is a small minority who need to be held to account. That’s what this bill actually does.

It does two things: it holds them to account. It says this: there are two areas—the liability serves two purposes. It’s the relationship between the guardian or the parent and the child. It talks about the importance of that role. It also talks about recognising the consequences of their behaviour. That’s about as plain English as you can get. Now, if the members opposite can’t get that, the members opposite need to talk to the police, to the youth justice social workers, the coordinators that are out there in the community, and ask them this question: who else needs to be held to account?

I have to say this: if the speakers across the House, in the Government, are serious about holding people to account, if they’re serious about addressing the shame that exists in our community of abuse and neglect, then they should send this bill to the first reading, through to select committee—allow the community to speak, allow them to have their voice, to declare that this bill is a good bill that actually serves a purpose in our communities.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The previous speaker, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, asked that we should send this bill to select committee and allow the community to speak. I just want to say to that member, my colleague, that the community has spoken, four months ago. They don’t want them in here. They don’t want them to be in Government. In fact, because they continue on that same path, they—I don’t know why the previous speaker was so angry and so antagonistic, because that conveys their whole attitude about youth justice.

I want to say to Barbara Kuriger—look, I accept when I’m listening to her. Her spirit is very different from the previous speaker. Her spirit is very different from Mike Sabin, who supposedly drafted this. To hold this bill with Mike Sabin is not a good look, Barbara. I’d ask you to go back to the drawing board—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you should use the full name.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: —because I think if you are sincere, and if I accept what you’re saying on face value, Barbara, there are no quick—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member will use another member’s full name.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: I would say to the member Barbara Kuriger that there are no quick fixes for this. To blame parents for the sins and the crimes of young people is just utterly wrong. It reflects badly on the National Party and their whole attitude of treating offenders and their families as scum, and that’s reflected also in the attitude of the previous speaker. It also reflects that you guys—that lot—have run out of ideas. It’s precisely the reason why you now sit on that side of this House, because the country recognises that for nine long years you’ve swept aside many of the problems that this Government is now having to fix, and one of the problems is the issue of youth justice.

The Hon Peeni Henare recognised one of our kaumātuas, Bill Wiki, who passed away recently. He’s absolutely correct: Bill Wiki was an example within the Ōtara community, a place which he referred to as the capital of Manukau City, and he used that to try and provide support and confidence to the young people in Ōtara—and, indeed, Manukau—that they were something of worth. This bill actually condemns not only the young people who need help but also their families, their whānau, who are essential to provide support for a lot of our young people.

Look, there are no quick fixes for this, and I think the fact that they are resorting to this blaming the parents for the sins of the young people shows the lack of ideas that they need—the lack of ideas, not only that, but also the lack of wanting to genuinely do something right for the young people, whom we all know are the future of this country.

I have to say, they know the numbers. They’ve known the numbers for nine long years, and chose not to do anything about. I also feel suspicious that when they know the numbers and it reflects high for Māori, reflects high for Pasifika, it begs the question: are they so intent on showing their racist attitude towards these families? Because that’s how I see it—that’s how I read it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look, I really think the member—

Hon Alfred Ngaro: Point of order—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I understand the point of order. I think I will ask the member to stand and withdraw that comment.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: I withdraw, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The bill as presented is inconsistent with what all researchers tell us, what all organisations tell us: that it needs to be a holistic approach of supporting help not condemning families, because, ultimately, these young people need their families and there’s a range of problems—families is only one factor. Employment, poverty, education, health, and drug addiction—all of those require a holistic approach and a long-term aim to make sure that we strengthen families. This bill here is not about strengthening families; it’s about dividing and condemning families.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Firstly, New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill, and I’m going to spend these five minutes explaining to the National Party why, if they have any common sense, they shouldn’t actually be supporting this bill either.

Over the last nine years, the National Party has been in Government—the previous nine years. Especially in the previous term, every second week I stood up in this House and I gave evidence after evidence after evidence that the youth justice system was failing. The contrast and the inconsistency with which the National Party has expressed their view over the youth justice system in the last term from the two speeches that we’ve just heard now is absolutely palpable. The contrast couldn’t be any larger. All I heard, and all this House and the public heard, in the last term was how great the youth justice system was going, how youth crime was down, and how it was the best in the world. The two speeches that we’ve heard tonight, so far, are all about how it’s failing and about how if this Government took it seriously enough, then we should put the bill that’s been on the Table right now through to select committee.

What the National Party has just indirectly admitted is that over the last nine years—or for however long that bill has been in the ballot—they have not taken it seriously enough as the Government, when they were, to put it through to select committee and put it through as a Government. That’s the question that that member needs to answer: if it was such a great answer, if it was needed so badly—if it was needed so badly—then why didn’t the National Government put it through over the last three years? Perhaps, just perhaps, when they answer that question themselves, they know why this side of the House is not going to be supporting it—why this side of the House is not going to be supporting it.

Alfred Ngaro mentioned something about New Zealand First: that we understand about parental responsibility and how it is needed to ensure the proper upbringing of these young people to make sure they’re on the right track and off the pathway of crime. And he’s correct. But at least New Zealand First come up with common-sense policies and pathways, and not the slam the fist on the table and say, “Let’s put the parents in jail.” I mean, how nonsensical is that?

For the last nine years, we’ve been hearing and been lectured on the social investment approach and about how the vulnerable children that they want to focus on are either in poverty or their parents are in jail. What does the National Party want to do? They want to fine them and they want to put them in jail. How ridiculous is that notion—how ridiculous is that notion?

I want to read something out very quickly. It’s dated 3 March 2017, and it will prove that the Government, in what they’re saying tonight in the first two speeches—and, I can guarantee, in the next speeches they do for the rest of the night—don’t believe a word they’re saying—3 March 2017. It’s titled “Parents of Young Offenders [Need to Take Greater Responsibility]” and says, “There needs to be greater responsibility [taken] by parents for young offenders, says New Zealand First. Parenting orders [which] were meant to play a vital role in helping parents of youth offenders address their children’s issues, provide the support needed and … reduce re-offending but are just not being utilised. Child Youth and Family have stated that [the conclusion must be that] parenting orders are rarely sought and never enforced and that a lack of parenting support is one of the underlying causes of offending.” Yet … over [the] 5000 Family Group Conference[s]”—which Alfred Ngaro mentioned—“… against youth offenders in 2015 the number of parents on parenting programmes numbered just 131—and of [those] only 7 were under a parenting order by [a] court. In 2016 this number was just 3.”

New Zealand First came up with the solution—a solution that already exists. It is there already in legislation; it is not being utilised. It is a step that is even further in front of the Youth Court—before the young person gets to Youth Court. When the young person gets there, it’s far too late. The solution already exists: parenting orders. There is no need for new legislation. New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a great pleasure for me to be back in these hallowed halls and to have as my first speech in the House since my return on Tuesday this Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill, in its first reading. My area of responsibility is now as associate spokesperson on children, so this bill fits very well with the aims of the bill and my role. The aims in this bill are to give the courts the ability to connect how the parent’s behaviour impacts on their child’s offending, and it also is to help parents recognise how their parenting has consequences on the behaviours of their children.

As any parent will tell you, raising a child is a tough job. Most achieve great outcomes for their children. They live in secure and loving homes and with appropriate discipline. But there are some parents who do struggle—they struggle with the job of bringing up their children—or some, as we know, simply, do not care about their parental role, and they fail to provide that necessary oversight that their children need when they grow into young adults. As my friend and colleague Barbara Kuriger mentioned earlier, there are numerous studies that have been done by a range of organisations that clearly demonstrate there is a link between the lack of parental or guardianship oversight and youth crime.

I’d like to read out an excerpt from a probation officer in the UK: “V. Increase in material standards has corresponded with a lowering of moral standards—easy living encourages moral flabbiness. VI. Ideas on the care and training of children on the ‘no repression’ lines have not been fully understood by many parents and have encouraged an emotional instability amongst the youth. [This] old type of discipline has been discarded, but nothing constructive put in its place. VII. The influences from abroad (particularly USA) have largely been responsible for [this lack of discipline], but it is interesting to see that the USA has (a) the highest standard of living in the world, (b) the greatest emotional instability, (c) the highest crime rate—both Juvenile and adult. … IX. This USA influence and emotional instability seems to be increasing and is likely to be a more serious problem than larceny offences. The growth of gangs … flick knives, brutal fighting … [etc.] are all against English tradition and have only had a destructive effect on life.”

This report was dated 1958. Now, we all know there have been and always will be tensions between young people and their parents, as the boundaries between them get tested, and for some that will overflow into tensions with the law. The work will never be finished when it comes to finding more creative and effective ways to assist our young people to avoid falling into this downward spiral of lawlessness. We all agree there is no one magic bullet, but that is not a reason why we should not keep making progress.

This bill adds another tool for our judiciary to assist them in dealing with our young people who come before the Youth Court. Currently, there is no ability for the judicial system to hold parents to account for the lack of their oversight that leads to some young people committing crime. Parents do hold that responsibility. By giving the judges the ability to impose conditions on the young offenders who find themselves in the judicial system, who are charged with an offence and released on bail, it will help focus and support parents to comply with the imposed appropriate conditions. The judge has discretion over these conditions. As we’ve heard tonight already, they can impose a curfew or where that person can live, and I actually trust our judges to impose the most appropriate conditions for each individual on a case by case basis.

I’ve also had experience myself where young people were knocking on doors in my local town, and I can tell you that there was a parent at the far end of the spectrum training those young people to be criminals. That is the far end of the spectrum that we are addressing with this bill. I have pleasure in committing it to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Normally, I would congratulate a member for getting a bill drawn and note that that is a rare occurrence, but I must say in this instance I feel a little sorry for the member Barbara Kuriger having this bill drawn in her name. I felt from her initial speech and recognition of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet that came back raising quite a few issues that she realises that this isn’t the answer, that if we want to be supporting our young people and our families actually we need a very different approach to this. I’ll note that the member in her speech spoke about Iceland, which has been quite inspirational, but it wasn’t about, in my understanding, the curfews or the “chosen” parental response, but actually a lot about providing good programmes and making sure that they were readily available to young people.

I do think I also need to echo the views—the Green Party shares the views that were expressed by New Zealand First in acknowledging that this has been sitting around since the previous Government had the opportunity to consider this as a policy intervention, and that choice was never taken, because, I think, it is inconsistent with the concept of a child-centred approach and with the direction that the previous National Government was going in around supporting whānau and redressing the terrible outcomes, particularly for tamariki Māori and whānau Māori. So the Greens are certainly opposing this piece of legislation. We think it takes us in very much the wrong direction.

I acknowledge the idea of parental responsibility, and that when you hear that phrase it conjures up the idea of a parent freely able to choose how they act, and relationships of love and trust in a family. I think underlying part of my concern with this bill is that it misses our context of epidemic levels of family violence in this country, and that we don’t have the services in place to be able to support behaviour change and support positive parenting out of the context of leaving violent relationships.

I was in Australia this week looking at the changes they’re making in response to family violence and got to sit in on a session looking around youth offending and their youth courts, and the research that they’ve been doing shows really clearly that we need to be working with mums who have left violent relationships even when they’ve got very, very small children, because the impact of the trauma on that child often goes unaddressed, and we have no systems, really, to address that in New Zealand at the moment.

It ends up with that child being violent towards their parent, and that child will often end up in our Youth Courts and in this exact situation. Now you’re looking at adding that mother potentially being at risk of being sent to jail for not meeting an accountability in the relationship of that child—ending up in court because of the behaviour and the result of the initial abuse and the State’s failure to respond appropriately. It’s just the wrong way to go.

We have to make sure that we understand the dynamics of domestic violence on our children and on the parents and create a system that addresses it and responds appropriately and has all the bits working together. We don’t have that, or anywhere near that, at the moment. Even in our family group conferences, where there’s the option of parenting orders, we haven’t got a family violence analysis in that.

People don’t understand the dynamics, and people have been put in dangerous situations, and now you’re looking at adding penalties that could fine people or send them to prison when that is so much of the context that this operates in. It’s dangerous, and the Greens won’t be supporting it.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Madam Deputy Speaker, it’s an absolute privilege to stand here to speak on this Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the member Barbara Kuriger. I’m counting my six months in this place, and I see her as someone who is hard working, but I’m sad for her that this is something that—yeah, I’m just going to start this.

I chose to become political because I come from a place where I can actually say that I bring the voice of experience. In 2000, I became a youth justice social worker in Grey Lynn, Auckland central. In 2007, I became a youth justice manager in South Auckland, Māngere-Ōtāhuhu. So I think it’s fair to say that I bring the voice of experience. We’ve heard it from all over the place—the passion that’s come out of here—but I think what I can contribute to this is that we are legislating what I think is punishing vulnerable parents. In my experience, I’ve heard members of this House talk about vulnerable children, vulnerable communities, but for me vulnerable children come from vulnerable parenting or vulnerable homes. That’s why I am saddened for the hard-working member from across the floor that this bill is in her name. This is about punishing vulnerable parents.

The member across the floor, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, stated that there are over 5,700 children in State care. I might say in those statistics there are 1,109 young people who are over the age of 14 years, and I want to say that because at any one time the State can become that parent who has been talked about today. So I want to refer to the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, where it defines what a young person is. Part 2 of this Act talks about a young person over the age of 14 years but under the age of 18 years. That is care and protection, and that’s what the rest of everyone has been talking about, which is separate to what we are talking about tonight, which is Parts 4 and 5, which define a young person as being over 14 years and under the age of 17 years. So that is youth justice.

If we take that definition and we look at the number of young people who are in care, we’re looking at 1,119 young people who are currently in the care of the State, who is the parent and the guardian. If, in an unfortunate experience, this young person ends up in the Youth Court and under section 240, conditions of bail, subsection (1), “Where a child or young person is released on bail pursuant to 238(1)(b), [that] court may impose … a condition [on] that child or young person’s release [to] the child or young person shall not”—it goes on to talk about the child’s or young person’s parent. So who in the State is going to be that person who is going to be under new section 240A of the bill, if you’re talking about that?

I want to also talk about social investment. Because I bring personal insight into the workings of Oranga Tamariki, in my 30 years’ experience in this organisation, I want to refrain from talking about what I actually know and go to the stats. I know it’s late at night, but can you please bear with me. The total Youth Court outcomes for the last financial year were 2,013. In the total Youth Court outcomes, there were 1,278 young Māori people, there were 453 European people, 189 Pacific people, and 93 others. Of those 2,013, the court discharged 618 of those charges. But what I want to get to, in terms of social investment and investing in vulnerable parents, is that 93 of those charges ended up being convicted and sentenced in the adult court. What are we doing? What are we doing? We are subjecting vulnerable parents, who have got vulnerable young people—according to the last financial year, 93 ended up in the District Court. We are feeding our prisons.

I say to you, the member from across the House, I don’t support this. We really need to invest in supporting vulnerable parents, if that’s what you call social investment. Thank you.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to speak and participate in the first reading of the Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill, introduced by Barbara Kuriger, a good friend of mine. I congratulate her that her bill has been drawn and is going to the first reading. It’s my pleasure to support it, and I would like to share a few things.

I would like to start with one of the news items which I read today. It says that “Police are hunting for an Auckland teenager believed to be responsible for a … ‘crimewave’ while on bail and facing a raft of serious charges, including kidnapping and assault.” We are talking about a teenager. We see, now and then, teenagers and youth attacking hard-working people working at dairies, petrol stations, or takeaways. That is not what we expect our youth to do. If we have got good parenting for these children, they won’t be going out and getting involved in crime. We don’t want them to be responsible for some of the crimes that are heinous, because the trauma of which these workers go through after they are attacked and beaten up—I have seen so many people that they are traumatised for a long, long time.

I was in Hamilton last weekend where there were about 70 shopkeepers together discussing why it is happening. One of the reasons we can see is that the parents are not looking after some of these children who get deviated from their track. And that is what this bill is asking: that the parents and the guardians should be responsible for a good upbringing of these children. The children are the future of this country, not only the country but for us also. We have to look after them.

There is a simple example we can see. If we plant a plant and if we don’t look after it, it will not grow. There are more chances that it will die if we will not water that plant—same way with the children. If we don’t give them proper training, proper education, and proper cultural education, then they are going to deviate. We have seen in many cases—I’ll give another example: yesterday, when I was coming to Wellington, I met a young girl, a Pacific Islander of Samoan origin, and she was so much cultured into her culture that it was a pleasure talking to her. Her parents have given her a good education. She came all the way from the North Shore to work at the airport—I think her age would be around 18 or 20—and she was working as an assistant manager at a shop. That shows that if we properly give education to our children or upbringing of the family values, then they can too be a good citizen of this country.

This bill takes a step in the right direction by making a parent or a guardian accountable for their child’s offending where it is linked to a lack of supervision. There are a number of factors influencing a young person’s decision to offend. One of the primary factors identified in a study by the police, judges, and other wider communities working with young people is a lack of suitable parental or guardian oversight.

If we make sure that the children are back home before it gets dark and the family sits together, has dinner together, and discusses all the things that happened during the day—that brings a lot of difference in their attitude. That is what I have seen in my own family. My children come home, we have dinner together, and it is a good upbringing for these kids. I am hoping that when they are grown up, they will give the same kind of care to their children so that they can be good citizens of this country. I commend this bill to the House.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a short call on this member’s bill, the Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill. I congratulate the member Barbara Kuriger for having her member’s bill drawn. However, I share what we’ve said on this side of the House: we feel sorry for you, because this bill is a bit of a dog.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hope you don’t feel sorry for me.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Oh, sorry—I feel sorry for the member, because this bill is a bit of a dog.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Oh, too young to be arrogant.

Kieran McAnulty: Well, that’s not very nice. She’s older than she looks. Ha, ha!

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: This is a very short clause bill, which, essentially, amends the Oranga Tamariki Act of 1989 and gives the Youth Court judge the ability to impose conditions on parents or guardians—I’m 46, thanks—of young people against whom a charge has been proved.

The second part of this clause also gives the courts powers to impose the liability on those parents where the orders are not complied with. The liability will be a fine or imprisonment, because parents of youth who are in the youth justice system are best criminalised in the justice system—surely not. I mean, really. Let’s make parents criminally liable—I suggest that this is a nonsense. Let’s make things harder for families by making these parents into criminals!

We all know that the prison route is a failure, and that keeping people out of prisons is better for society. The Youth Court works in a unique way in that it can be mutually restorative for the young person and their parent or guardian. I have worked with lots of young people, and I can tell you that those children—even though they don’t like the behaviour of their parents, they still love them and they still want to be with them, and, eventually, hopefully, with intervention from the youth justice system, or some other system prior to youth justice, our children won’t go down this path.

So this bill seeks to insert new section 240A into the principal Act. I’m going to get a little technical here and look at the specifics of the wording of this bill. Firstly, the bill, in clause 5, refers to “Where a child … is released on bail … the court may make … orders in respect of the young person’s parent or guardian where they are lawfully”—that’s right, lawfully—“entrusted with … care or custody:”. So what this bill therefore says is that even though these parents or guardians are lawfully entrusted with care and custody, they’re actually not trusted or, in fact, good parents. What this bill says, therefore, is that a group of parents, the ones who have young people in the youth justice system, are to be blamed and not helped.

I hope that across this House none of the members here ever have a child in this system, but if a member has that great misfortune, your duty of care is therefore in question, and we as parents in this country—we may have conditions imposed upon us. Remember, we too can be grandparents caring for these children.

Let’s look at these kids. The youth who offend are 80 percent male, 73 percent are aged 15 and 16, and 63 percent are Māori. They most commonly commit burglaries, theft, assault, and robbery. We have heard from the member Jan Logie about domestic violence, and I think she covered that area well, so I won’t talk about this. These are actually a group of kids who need the support from all of us. They need to be held to account for their behaviour—and that’s the youth justice system—but also supported to make better choices, helped to get jobs, to attend school, to deal with addictions, to get help with mental illness—all the areas that have been woefully neglected by the last Government; all the areas we’re working on on this side of the House.

The idea that we want parents to be home, we want them to provide a loving and stable home, we want them to be free of addictions—these are things we can agree to. We need to build the capacity of those parents; we need to offer help and support, not punitive or criminalisation. I therefore cannot commend this bill to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a right of reply tonight. We’ve had some very heated discussion, and, to me, that is positive because it shows everybody across this House cares deeply about youth and cares deeply about some answers that we need to find.

But I want to put a few things in context here in that we are not talking about rounding up all the parents and putting them in jail. Sometimes, when discussions are had, people take this topic to the extreme, and I really want to commend particular members like Jan Logie, who stood up before and she made some very positive comments about some of the other tools that are in the toolbox. This bill was really about one tool that we were trying to add to the toolbox, which was there because the youth justice system has not failed, as someone mentioned before—I think it was you, Darroch, when you were very wound up—but we do have some people in the system that have reached extreme, and it’s very difficult to deal with. So there’s a lot of tools in the toolbox that we can use, and this was just going to be one other one.

Alfred Ngaro talked about it not taking away the spirit of generosity. I don’t know Bill Wiki, who we had Peeni Henare paying a tribute to—I didn’t know Bill Wiki, but I commend people like that, and I know that there’s lots of people out there like that who are prepared to give of their time, to give of their effort. There is no intention, with putting this piece of legislation forward, to start attacking people who are doing their absolute best, but, unfortunately, there are some situations in this society that no matter what Oranga Tamariki do, no matter what the police do, and no matter what the justice system does—there are some people that just get too hard, and this was really about putting an extra tool in the toolbox.

I had to wonder at some point whether some members over the other side of the House actually had any agreement that parental responsibility existed at all. Teenagers need boundaries, as I mentioned at the start of the discussion, and I think it’s really important that they get those, and there’s lots of ways there, and I’m really pleased that we’ve had this discussion tonight. There’s been lots of animation in the House, and there’s been lots of people who really care about the youth. It’s my pleasure to commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Oranga Tamariki (Parent’s and Guardian’s Responsibility) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Noes 63

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 8.

Motion not agreed to.

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Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill

First Reading

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): I move, That the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

I am honoured to stand here and introduce my first member’s bill as a member of Parliament. I recognise my beginner’s luck to have had my bill pulled from the ballot while some MPs often wait for years or even decades to get such a similar opportunity. I am relieved that I am making the most of this privilege by bringing forth a bill that champions a worthwhile cause and ensures that female-dominated occupations, which have been historically undervalued, are recognised for their true worth. Now, before any steps are taken to establish a system for lodging pay equity claims, what is first necessary is to actually establish what a pay equity claim is and how this differentiates from other forms of sex-based discrimination in the workplace.

Pay equity and equal pay claims are often confused and lumped together. While both are important tools in preventing discrimination and closing the gender pay gap, the main difference between them is scope. Equal pay discrimination claims are primarily focused on the individual and make sure that women are equally rewarded for performing the same work as men. Pay equity claims, on the other hand, look at the gender pay imbalance with a wide-angle lens. These claims rightly recognise that there are entire professions that have been historically undervalued because they’ve been traditionally dominated by women—women’s work, as they may call it. This bill stands up for the principle that women deserve equal pay for work of equal value, not only the same pay for the same work.

While Kristine Bartlett reached a great outcome at the end of the TerraNova Homes and Care Ltd case, we saw how much of a lengthy, protracted, and expensive process that was. The primary purpose of this bill is to establish a seamless system where claims such as Kristine’s can be recognised and resolved in a way so all parties are happy.

The first thing that this bill does is set out the criteria to establish whether a pay equity claim has merit. In other words, it determines whether the work is being predominantly performed by women while also establishing reasonable grounds to believe the work has historically been and continues to be undervalued. Once the merit of a claim has been established, the bargaining process that this bill creates is flexible, practical, and fair and it’s based on the principle that pay comparisons can be made with male-dominated equivalent professions.

I want to draw attention to what are two very important aspects of this process. First is the ability for employees to consolidate claims: clauses 19 and 20 of this bill highlight the ability for employees to consolidate not only similar claims against the same employer but also similar claims from employees of multiple employers. These clauses are important. They recognise that the undervaluation of these professions are not isolated or the fault of a single company but they’re based on historical prejudices towards an entire industry. Another key characteristic of this system is its resemblance to the already-established bargaining procedures that are in the Employment Relations Act of 2000. As a result, all parties to the pay equity claim, whether it be the employees or the employer, are held to the same high standard of good-faith bargaining. It also provides an option for any issues relating to the claim to be referred either to mediation or to the Employment Relations Authority.

Now, I was not yet an MP when this bill was last debated as a Government bill, but I have gone through Hansard to better understand why there was such vocal opposition to this bill from the other side of the House, and there seem to be three main points that I’d like to address. Firstly, the limiting of back pay: opposition to this is based on the failure to recognise the fundamental differences between equal pay and pay equity claims that I mentioned earlier.

I want to quote from the report on this bill from the Attorney-General’s office, signed by the Hon David Parker, which states that this limitation is justified because pay equity “takes account of historical discrimination against an occupation, and therefore is not caused by an individual employer.” We cannot unfairly punish individual business by making them pay for historical injustice. It’s important to note, though, that this bill does not actually prevent the parties from agreeing to additional back pay if deemed appropriate.

Another key issue of opposition was around the comparators used to determine pay, so the current Government made it a key focus for the reconvened working group. It turns out, though, that they stood by all the original principles and made no changes. Finally, there was opposition to the methods of establishing merit. Even though the requirements in this bill were adopted nearly word for word from the original recommendations, it was argued that these were too difficult or onerous. It turns out that the reconvened working group stood by these principles noting that some parties had misinterpreted the original system as a higher evidential hurdle than intended. While they recommended some minor cosmetic changes to clarify the process of establishing merit, I am sure that these can easily be adopted once this bill reaches select committee stage.

With what remains of my time, I want to go over this bill’s history and wider context, even though I am sure many members will be familiar with it and they’ll recognise the work that has fed into the development of it before I adopted it in my name. As many would know, and I mentioned this earlier, this bill and the discussion around pay equity has its roots in the court action taken by Kristine Bartlett and the E tū union for what is now known as the TerraNova case. This case resulted in the key finding that the Equal Pay Act of 1972 applied not only to cases of equal pay but also to cases of pay equity.

The previous National Government did two things. First, it engaged Ms Bartlett and the union in negotiations which resulted in a $2 billion pay settlement for 55,000 aged and disability support workers. Secondly, it created a joint working group on pay equity principles. The working group’s recommendations were gladly accepted by the previous Government and formed the basis of legislation that was introduced by my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse. It successfully passed its first reading and was then referred to select committee. It appeared progress was being made and that women in New Zealand would soon see the historic opportunity to launch pay equity claims. There was, however, an unexpected stumbling block and, after a series of unfortunate events, the Government changed following the election.

On top of that, to everyone’s surprise, this bill was not reinstated for business in the 52nd Parliament. Forty-three bills from the previous National Government that were campaigned so vocally against were prioritised. Many of these we’re still debating today, but not one bill that represents such a significant step towards closing the gender pay gap.

Instead, this Government reconvened the joint working group and delayed by months and months any progress that had been made on pay equity legislation. While I was honoured and excited to have this bill drawn, I’ll be honest and say that I was quite apprehensive about the reconvened working group and what they would report back with. They had the ability to make the systems and frameworks in this bill—my bill here tonight—obsolete. It turns out there was no need to fear. As I previously mentioned, the reconvened working group completed its work earlier this month and made no substantive changes to the principles recommended. Like many of the other working groups and reviews that have been started by the Government, this one was part of a delay tactic while they struggled to get ready for their own legislation.

I have no doubt that all parties represented here in Parliament recognise the importance of pay equity, closing the gender pay gap, and achieving wider gender equality. We’ve got an obligation to act here today. I call on the Government to support this bill to first reading for real progress for women, mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunties. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call on this bill. I’d like to congratulate Denise Lee, the member that has just taken her seat. It is a fantastic opportunity to get the chance to bring a member’s bill to this House so early in your term, so I’d like to congratulate you. I would also like to outline the reasons why Labour will not be supporting this bill.

Nobody could have been prouder than when a fellow member of my union, E tū, was named New Zealander of the Year—Kristine Bartlett—earlier this year. Kristine Bartlett is a fearless campaigner who, alongside her colleagues—the women, largely, that she worked beside in aged-care and home-care facilities—worked hard, along with her union, to pull off a remarkable triumph. The previous speaker, the member that has brought this bill, talked about how that process took so long. That process took so long because the previous Government fought that union and Kristine Bartlett every step of the way in the courts. They only settled when they were forced to do it.

We will not be supporting this legislation, because under this bill, the triumph that Kristine and her union were able to achieve simply could not be possible. When it comes down to it, what is the problem? The Bartlett case and the case that E tū brought to achieve this amazing triumph for women turned on the fact that we could compare work that is traditionally seen as women’s work with work that is traditionally seen as men’s work, and this is where the rub of this lies. It’s in the lack of the ability to do this comparator work that is in the bill that this member has brought to the House that lies the problem.

This is why the Government did not support this bill when we took over the Government benches. We said, “We need to do this properly. We want to put in place pay equity legislation that will allow for more triumphs like Kristine Bartlett and her union were able to achieve.” This bill, this legislation, is recycled Government legislation from a Government that was unelected at the end of last year—let’s bear that in mind—and a Government where Kristine Bartlett, the woman that they’re saying is the triumph of what we should be aiming for, criticised this very piece of legislation because she recognised that what she achieved, and what her union achieved, in bringing 55,000 women more pay could not be achieved under this piece of legislation.

So we are determined to do this properly. We do not want to legislate against the Kristine Bartletts of this world. We do not want to legislate against the opportunity that exists for women who are seeking substantially increased pay packets because of that triumph.

I have spoken to many workers in my electorate who now talk about the fact that they don’t have to walk to work. They can afford to get the bus because of the settlement of that case. That is the fundamental difference that it is making to people’s lives, and the fact that we have a piece of legislation that would make it impossible for other groups to get that—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it is time for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.