Thursday, 29 March 2018

THURSDAY, 29 MARCH 2018

THURSDAY, 29 MARCH 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Resignations

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman, Northcote

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman

SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that I have received a letter from resigning his seat in the House with effect at midnight on 15 April 2018.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): On Tuesday, 3 April, the annual review debate will begin. It will continue over the following two weeks, interspersed with other Government business. On Tuesday evening, the third reading of the Criminal Records (Expungement of Convictions for Historical Homosexual Offences) Bill will take place. On Thursday, 5 April, the Heretaunga Tamatea Claims Settlement Bill will have its second reading. There will also be first readings of the Privacy Bill and the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill. Wednesday will be a members’ day.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I thank the Leader of the House for his indication of House business in the coming week. Two questions for him, though: I wonder, firstly, would he consider cognating the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill with the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2) that is being introduced to the House today? They are at different stages but would rapidly catch up.

The second point is I wonder if he might speak to some of his ministerial colleagues about their timeliness around replying to written questions. There are some written questions in the name of a number of people on this side of the House that are up to five weeks late, when the deadline under the Standing Orders is five days.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): In answer to the first question, absolutely I’m happy to consider cognating bills where it is logical to do so. Of course, if they’re at different stages, that can be more problematic, but it’s something that I’d be happy to discuss through the Business Committee, who have the authority to do so.

In terms of written parliamentary questions, if there are such examples, five weeks overdue is clearly unacceptable, and if he raises those with me or with my office, I will approach those Ministers directly to ensure answers are delivered as quickly as possible.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Intelligence and Security—Russian Intelligence Activity in New Zealand

1. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, in their context.

Hon Judith Collins: When she said in Parliament yesterday, “The Minister of Foreign Affairs made it clear that the action the Government has taken was on the advice of the NZSIS”, “who also acted in conjunction with our Five Eyes partners in the advice they provided this Government.”, which particular Five Eyes partners advised the NZSIS on this matter?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: First of all, the statement that we reacted on the advice of the NZSIS is totally correct; that the NZSIS at the time and Foreign Affairs, too, had intimated that Five Eyes partners understood New Zealand’s situation as being possibly different to their own because of the character, shape, and size of the Russian embassy in this country—that was as clear as daylight. So those statements are totally correct.

Hon Judith Collins: When she told Radio New Zealand yesterday that following SIS advice, there were “no Russians who qualified for expulsion”, but then said, “I’ve now asked MFAT … to advise me on whether there are people who should be the subject of visa exclusions for New Zealand”, how does she reconcile that with the statement of her Foreign Affairs Minister yesterday, “we don’t take knee-jerk reactions on this side of the House;”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Very, very, very easily. The reality is, and if I can go through this very slowly, the NZSIS statement was as to those within the Russian embassy, but the NZSIS went on to say that of course there are possible intelligence agents outside of that embassy—in effect, that’s what they were saying—and we have taken action against them in the past and will continue to do so. That’s a clear distinction that is not being understood by that member.

Hon Judith Collins: Which criteria will be used to determine which Russian citizens should be subject to travel sanctions?

SPEAKER: “Criterion”, but go on.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: First of all, not the same perhaps criteria that was in place in 2014, where there was a visa ban against certain Russians, but they were never told. So, in short, if they were coming out of Siberia—if Ivan decided to come out of Siberia to New Zealand, he only found that he was on the list when he made an application for a visa. How would that help anybody—but just be a tokenistic measure?

Hon Judith Collins: When she was provided advice that there were no Russian “undeclared intelligence officers” operating in New Zealand, what criteria was followed in reaching that determination?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, first of all, as any Minister in charge of our security services would know, there are certain actions and protocols and procedures which we cannot disclose as Ministers, otherwise we subvert the very security that we seek to enhance in our country. I’d ask that member and her colleagues for the first time for a long time to show some responsibility.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she really believe that there are no Russian spies gathering intelligence in New Zealand?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I think the Prime Minister and her Foreign Minister made it very clear yesterday that we admitted the possibility to the second category and that’s why we said so, with of course the authority of the NZSIS. But then again we don’t lose our diary or geographical maps on the way to—

SPEAKER: Order!

Economy—Investment Statement 2018, Condition of Health Infrastructure

2. Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What does Treasury’s 2018 Investment Statement say about the condition of the public health estate?

SPEAKER: Just before the question is answered, I am going to add two extra questions to the National Party as a result of two members of the Labour Party interjecting during that question.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The 2018 Investment Statement shows that district health boards (DHBs) are reporting that around 19 percent of assets are in poor or very poor condition. Further, Treasury said that there is a risk of an emerging health infrastructure deficit because of a need to rebuild a large number of hospitals, build major new hospitals, and repair existing infrastructure. Treasury also noted that depreciation reserves will not be sufficient to cover these investments, requiring additional funding from Government.

Dr Liz Craig: Did the Investment Statement say how the health estate had fallen into such a state of disrepair?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, according to the Investment Statement, Treasury found that a number of DHBs who were reporting underspends in maintenance also had net deficits, suggesting that some DHBs may be deferring repairs in maintenance to redirect expenditure into other operational areas. It is not good enough that public hospitals have had to delay vital maintenance just to pay their staff and keep the lights on. This reflects the consistent, year-on-year underfunding of the health system, which, based on work by independent economic agency Infometrics, is estimated to have been $2.4 billion over the last nine years.

Dr Liz Craig: So what will the Government do to address this?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, Budget 2018 will reflect the different priorities of this Government, focusing on getting the basics right, such as in health and education. Our priorities are to make investments we need to bring our public services back up to the standard that New Zealanders expect and deserve. This will be a large and important job and it will take more than one Budget to make up for nine years of neglect.

Intelligence and Security—Russian Intelligence Activity in New Zealand

3. Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Yes, in their context.

Hon Todd McClay: For how long has he been aware of Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Since I was a young boy.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! [Interruption] Order! While the member has a long parliamentary experience and a lot of experience as Minister of Foreign Affairs, it doesn’t stretch back that far. The question relates to his responsibility as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the answer will reflect that.

Hon WINSTON PETERS: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, you would expect anyone who was Minister of Foreign Affairs—or a member of Parliament, for that matter—to have come to this House with some experience; he’s entitled to recite it. And it’s well-known, in the fifties—the Molotov and other conflicts—and expulsions in Australia and elsewhere, and also expulsions from New Zealand, were something known for decades. That’s why I answered that way.

SPEAKER: Yes, and I understand why the member answered that way, and I think it’s fair to say that the question was loose. But I just want to reinforce to people on both sides that we are asking and answering questions with respect to ministerial responsibility held. Now, I will ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters to answer the question—

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

SPEAKER: I just hope, Mr Parker, you’re not going to dispute my ruling.

Hon David Parker: Well, point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A point of order, Mr Parker.

Hon David Parker: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would suggest that it is in order for a Minister to explain his understandings in order to answer a question, and that’s what the Prime Minister did.

SPEAKER: Well, the first point is, the Prime Minister is not in the House, and this is a question to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. And if the Minister of Foreign Affairs had answered, “I had some early briefings on this matter when I was first the Minister of Foreign Affairs in year X, and that confirmed my understandings from my youth.”, then that would’ve been in order.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I couldn’t have said it better myself.

SPEAKER: Well, I’m actually wondering whether I should get a share of the member’s pay.

Hon Todd McClay: Given this is such an important issue, who are the individuals undertaking Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand, as was referred to in his speeches to media yesterday, and are any of them stationed in the Russian embassy?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That goes to the core of the capability and modus operandi of our intelligence services, so I’m not going to compromise them, nor would any other Foreign Minister or Prime Minister have ever done that in the past.

Hon Todd McClay: When he told the House yesterday, “There are no individuals here in New Zealand who fit the profiles of those being expelled by other countries.”, what are the profiles of those being expelled from other countries?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The number one profile of those being expelled in other countries, but not 40 percent of the countries in the European Union, were that they were operating within the Russian embassies in those countries. That relates to this country, where we, in our advice from the intelligence service and also with the understanding of our Five Eyes partners, did not find one that fit that profile.

Hon Todd McClay: Has he asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for advice on the exact profiles of the 17 Russian diplomats stationed in New Zealand?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Not to that extent, but what I do know—

Hon David Bennett: What do you know?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, what I do know, in the converse, is they do not fit the profile of the expulsions in other countries. The New Zealand SIS has said that.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What profile?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The New Zealand SIS has specified that. Now, I know the briefly previous Minister of Foreign Affairs wouldn’t know it, but bombast and noise don’t pass for foreign policy.

Hon Todd McClay: As Minister of Foreign Affairs, has he received sufficient evidence that Russia is responsible for the Salisbury nerve agent attack on British soil?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: To the best of anyone’s investigations thus far, the product looks like it was manufactured in Russia, that it was sourced out of Russia, but as to who were the perpetrators of that violent terrorist crime, that is still a matter of substantial investigation in the UK. But, can I just say, this sound advice that I have received thus far came via Sam Sachdeva on 26 March, when he quoted this person saying, “They need to take this very, very seriously, they need to keep in touch with these countries that have expelled Russian diplomats, and they need to make a decision that is in the best interests of New Zealand.” I can assure Mr McClay, who made that statement, that long before he offered that gratuitous advice, we’d already done that and had acted 48 hours before our friends in Australia did.

Intelligence and Security—Russian Intelligence Activity in New Zealand

4. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) to the Minister responsible for the NZSIS: Does he agree with Rt Hon Winston Peters who said in the House yesterday that “NZSIS advises it is aware of Russian intelligence activity in New Zealand and, where it is seen appropriate, action is taken”; if so, what is that action?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs) on behalf of the Minister responsible for the NZSIS: On behalf of the Minister responsible for the NZSIS, yes. The member is well aware of the longstanding precedent in this House that we do not discuss intelligence operational matters. It is not in the public interest to more fully address the member’s question, except to say that I have confidence in the NZSIS, and the Government has a range of powers at its disposal to protect our country and its people, and we will use them when it’s appropriate to do so.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the answer to that question was a perfectly reasonable statement if you were wanting to make clarification about something, but the question was: if there are spies known to be in New Zealand, what action is being taken? Now, simply saying we’re not going to tell the country what the SIS do is unacceptable. If they’re being deported, we need to know they’re being deported. Otherwise, we should release the profile so that the general public can assist the SIS—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The Minister quite clearly indicated that it was not in the public interest to make any further comment on it, and the question was addressed. And I think that member knows better than any other that more specific answers, especially in this area, cannot be insisted on.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: When he said—that’s the Minister for the Security Intelligence Service—Mr Peters is almost certainly correct, what does the word “almost” suggest Mr Peters has missed out?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It’s just the precaution of a well-trained lawyer, not behaving in the absolutist way that is the penchant of that member, and by putting that caveat on that he is almost certainly correct, knowing that later on in the day he could have the discussion and reassure himself of not having any doubt at all about being correct.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if we might be permitted to get that answer again, because it’s not sure which person was speaking to who—

SPEAKER: Well, I thought it was quite clear. The Minister speaking was the Minister in charge of the SIS.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Right, so, presumably, he had the discussion with Mr Peters and was elucidated and would therefore today be able to answer the question.

SPEAKER: Well, it is absolutely clear to me that the Minister acting for the Minister in charge of the SIS indicated that he had a meeting with Mr Peters yesterday.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Does the SIS or the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), or both, have access to a measurable profile against which other countries have identified the types of spies or diplomats suitable for expulsion?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The NZSIS made it very clear to the Government that they had specifically looked, as other countries have, at the personnel of the Russian Embassy, and that no one there, in their judgment and the judgment of Five Eyes partners, as well as being a likelihood, fitted the profile. That being the case, we decided not to go down town, grab a couple of Russian names, and throw them out of the country.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Shame they weren’t Chinese-sounding names—they might have gone. Supplementary?

Hon Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Brownlee has prefaced every question he’s attempted to ask today with an out of order remark. You are very strict on both sides of the House around this matter, and I just ask for the continuation of that.

SPEAKER: I will be watching Mr Brownlee. Mr Brownlee gets a little bit of leniency as a result of being the shadow Leader of the House, but he should not abuse it.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Is the reason he declined to define Russian intelligence activity on the grounds it might “potentially disclose the way our agencies operate.”, because our agencies are asleep and oblivious to what the rest of the free world appears to know?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I regard that as an absolute affront to an agency that he had some connection with just five months ago. If this country was the subject of that sort of intelligence activity, why on earth didn’t he and the Foreign Minister take charge of it back then, rather than making the story up now? Can I just say this here, for example—

SPEAKER: Order! What I’m not prepared to have is members accusing other members of making stories up in the House. What that is is an indication that members are not telling the truth and are doing it deliberately, and that is a breach of the Standing Orders. You will withdraw, thank you.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I withdraw and apologise. But can I just say this: when a member of Parliament says “but he didn’t criticise Russia as almost every New Zealand friend or ally around the world did”—that’s on 29 March—and yet on 30 March this statement went out, in my name: “How this military grade nerve agent was transported from Russia and released abroad is the key issue here and warrants urgent international investigation.” That went out 48 hours before the Australians reacted. So let’s have an end to that humbug.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: If the New Zealand SIS had been able to inform the Government that there is Russian espionage carried out on New Zealand soil, why haven’t those spies been apprehended and deported?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: First of all, the NZSIS has made it very clear that they have in the past found such activity and taken action. But the real question that people will be asking now is: how is it that on 23 October 2017 people that hitherto had not operated in this country or for which there was no evidence at all, according to the GCSB and the SIS, were all of a sudden all around this country? That member should ask himself why it is he’s making the allegation now that this has all happened since the last election. That’s a humbug, it’s not true, and I wish you would stop doing that.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Can the Minister confirm that there was action taken post the event he refers to—he referred to it today, in fact, in one of his supplementary question answers—and can he further confirm that it was post the poisoning in Salisbury that the rest of the world has taken strong steps to show their disapproval of the way the Russians have been operating, but New Zealand is clearly out of step with that?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Much as I’m sure the Minister would like to answer that, the member questioning is asking about the actions of a previous Government or the actions that took place during the tenure of a previous Government—something that yesterday they were objecting to Ministers commenting on.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Point of order.

SPEAKER: No.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: He asked the question.

SPEAKER: No, well, there is an extra point and I am going to allow the member to contribute. The core of the question goes to the activities of foreign Governments, and is a question about whether the Minister in charge of the SIS is responsible for that. What I’m going to do is I’m going to ask Mr Brownlee to rephrase his question in an attempt to get it within the Standing Orders.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Has the Minister responsible for the NZSIS received any congratulatory messages from our Five Eyes partners on the stance this Government’s taken over Russia?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I just say, on behalf of the Minister—

Brett Hudson: Is that a no?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, I haven’t answered the question yet—and why doesn’t a hopeless nincompoop like you keep quiet for a second. Can I say, on behalf of the Minister, that he and his Cabinet colleagues and the Prime Minister have been the recipients of enormous praise from our Five Eyes partners, and people all over the world—including a conversation I had with the UK High Commissioner this morning; as recent as that. So let’s have an end to this attack on a very responsible Government, doing its duty in a very principled way.

SPEAKER: I’m just going to ask—because I’ve picked up something in the middle of that question. I’m going to ask the Minister acting for the Minister in charge of the SIS to indicate which Minister it was who met with the High Commissioner this morning.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Mr Speaker, you’ll recall I said—well, the Minister was me, but I did say that the Minister in charge of the SIS and his Cabinet colleagues have been the recipient of a whole lot of accolades from abroad, one of which was as late as this morning. That’s how I connected it within the Standing Orders.

SPEAKER: And it was “he met”, not “I met”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah, precisely.

SPEAKER: Right. Thank you.

Roading—Tauranga Northern Link

5. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his statements on transport priorities for this Government?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes, in the context in which they were given.

Jami-Lee Ross: Does he stand by his statement that “no existing and funded roading project other than the East-West Link has been altered by the Government”?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why, then, has the procurement process for the Tauranga Northern Link been axed just this month?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: If the member wants to put that question down, I’m happy to get a specific response for him, but I stand by my statement: no existing roading project has been altered since the Government took office.

Jami-Lee Ross: Is the Minister saying he knows nothing about the Tauranga Northern Link procurement process, where construction funding was granted in April 2016 for that project and the procurement process has now stopped; is he saying he knows nothing about that and he’s—

SPEAKER: Order! The member finished his question some time ago.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The member should know that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is responsible for administering hundreds of transport projects simultaneously around the country. If the member wants to put down a detailed question on a specific transport project, I’ll be happy to get him that information.

Todd Muller: Will the Minister commit to joining me to drive this road and see the danger and congestion as my community sees it, or will he continue to not reply to the community’s expectation to see him?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Transport priorities are being reviewed in order to place greater emphasis on safety and value for money. The Tauranga eastern expressway, for example, cost $455 million and carries less than 20,000 vehicles on average daily. Yet across town, on State Highway 2 between Tauranga and Waihi, there were 63 deaths and 196 serious injuries over the past eight years. Our priorities will rebalance spending away from a few hand-picked, low-value, over-engineered expressways towards practical solutions that save lives.

Michael Wood: Why is the Government reviewing transport priorities?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Thank you for that question. The reason is this: because we can make some very deliberate choices in the way we spend our transport budget. For example, for about half the cost of National’s East-West Link, we could install median safety barriers on every single kilometre of the State highway network.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why is this Minister able to make disparaging comments about the previous Government’s roading priorities—

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to give the member a chance to rephrase his question. If he follows a similar vein, he will lose it.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why is this Minister making disparaging comments about projects like the Tauranga Northern Link when NZTA themselves say that an outcome of that project would be a reduction by 50 percent in serious injuries and deaths on that road?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I repeat, for the member’s benefit, that the Tauranga eastern expressway cost $455 million, carries less—

SPEAKER: Order! I don’t think anything is gained by the Minister repeating the statement. He was asked something about another road, and he should address that.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Could the member repeat the question?

Jami-Lee Ross: Why is he able to make disparaging comments about roads like the Tauranga Northern Link which NZTA themselves say would reduce deaths and serious injuries on that road by 50 percent?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I didn’t make disparaging statements about the Tauranga Northern Link.

Health, Minister—Involvement in Nurses’ Industrial Action

6. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all his answers to Oral Question No 9 yesterday?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Absolutely.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: When he challenged the first part of supplementary question No. 5, was he denying that he had intervened in the nurses’ pay dispute or denying that his intervention was unsuccessful?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. For clarity, I did not intervene in the negotiations.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: If giving the District Health Boards (DHBs) additional funding to increase the offer to nurses doesn’t constitute intervening, what, in his view, does?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’ll take your advice on this, but it seems to me that’s a hypothetical question.

SPEAKER: The members are allowed to ask hypothetical—

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: With an assertion in it.

SPEAKER: I think it was a reasonable question. If the member thinks it’s too hypothetical or rejects the assertion, she can say so.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I reject the assertion implied in the first part of that question.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It’s very difficult for the Minister to reject an assertion that the Minister himself has made, and that is an admission in question No. 9 yesterday that they had increased funding but that that didn’t constitute an intervention in a pay dispute. My question was, if that didn’t constitute intervening, what would. The assertion about not intervening is being challenged—I can’t see how that could be the case. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Are you speaking to the point of order?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No.

SPEAKER: Does the member want to have a—I think there are two—no, I want to be careful about coaching. There’s a—

Hon Grant Robertson: I think it’s completely legitimate for two people to have different understandings of the word “intervention”. One can be quite a pejorative one; one can be a less pejorative one.

SPEAKER: I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, it’s very well put, and for that reason I’d seek leave for this question to be held over until the Minister of Health is able to answer it.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to this question being held over—is the member asking for it to be an additional question?—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, of course.

SPEAKER: —as an additional question next time the Minister’s available? Is there any objection to that? There is objection.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Just to clarify, before I ask a supplementary question, are you saying that that question has been addressed?

SPEAKER: It has been, as much as a hypothetical question has to be addressed. They can be asked, but Ministers don’t have to respond. Speaker’s ruling 165/1, I think, is the appropriate Speaker’s ruling.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Thank you. Is he planning to further not intervene by providing additional funding that he claims is needed in the sector in order to prevent the industrial action by nurses?

SPEAKER: No. Irony—an absolutely ironic question. The member can rephrase it if he wants to.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is he planning to increase funding to DHBs that he claims is needed in the sector in order to prevent industrial action by nurses?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister, it’s pretty clear, after nine years of horrific underfunding of the health system, that we need to increase funding to the health system, and that’s unrelated to negotiations around pay.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was pretty clear: is he planning to increase funding to settle the dispute? I don’t believe that was addressed.

SPEAKER: Well, I think it was addressed. I think it was a very—[Interruption] You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that if a Minister says there’s been severe underfunding, they’ll be in severe trouble if it’s not in some way remedied over the next couple of months.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Aren’t his refusal to meet the Otago branch of the New Zealand College of Midwives about their funding concern, his refusal to speak to Radio Live this morning about nurses’ pay and bullying, and a number of other examples of failure to engage the health sector better examples of his strategy of non-intervention?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister, I reject all the assertions in that question.

Mycoplasma Bovis—Release of Technical Advisory Group Report

7. Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) to the Minister for Biosecurity: Does he stand by all his statements and actions in relation to Mycoplasma bovis?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Biosecurity): Yes.

Hon Nathan Guy: How can his Government claim to be open and transparent, when he received the technical advisory group (TAG) report in December, and only released it yesterday, some four months after he got it?

SPEAKER: No. I just want to really reinforce to members that supplementary questions have to relate to the primary question, and the member did not make a link. There was nothing in there about a Minister’s action or statements.

Hon Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, have a go.

Hon Nathan Guy: The Minister is responsible for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). He would have received the report in December, and yesterday it was released.

SPEAKER: That’s right.

Hon Nathan Guy: And so therefore I’m questioning the Minister on why he hasn’t released the report sooner, when there is a huge amount of public interest in the tracing of this terrible cattle disease.

SPEAKER: Can I just ask the member whose report it was and who released it, and which action of the Minister he is referring to.

Hon Nathan Guy: Well, it’s MPI’s report. The Minister would have seen it.

SPEAKER: No. Did the Minister release it?

Hon Nathan Guy: MPI released the report. OK—supplementary question to the Minister.

SPEAKER: A new supplementary question—Nathan Guy.

Hon Nathan Guy: When did the Minister receive the tracing pathway technical advisory group’s report?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I received an initial report at the end of last year, and can I say that the report to the ministry gave advice to officials on how best to attack and control, and, hopefully, eradicate a disease that came into this country under that member’s watch because of a National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system that failed. The technical advisory group report was a report to give good guidance to officials, and has been updated and amended—

SPEAKER: OK. The member has answered, I think, when he got it.

Hon Nathan Guy: What assurances can he give to the 22 herd owners that compensation will be fair and fast, given that Kerry Dwyer said he has not seen any money from MPI six months after sending his calves to slaughter, and had struggled to get a clear answer about what he was eligible for compensation for?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I’m not prepared to talk about individual applications at all in the House, other than to say that those applications and payment for compensation rely on robust information, fair process, and timely information, and until all of those things are carried through, the Crown’s not in a position to pay compensation. I have insisted that we have sufficient resource to pay out as quickly as we can to all of those people claiming compensation when all the information is provided to MPI.

Kieran McAnulty: Why does the Minister consider there was no earlier action taken on the animal tracing system NAIT?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: There are numerous reports from officials, the technical advisory group being one group of them, that say the failure of the NAIT system has led to complications, an extension of time, and real challenges in trying to get ahead of this. That member oversaw a system that completely failed, and that Government did nothing about—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

Hon Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have ruled numerous times in the House that Ministers can’t use a supplementary question to attack the former Government. That is what we’ve just seen now.

SPEAKER: And three-quarters of the answer was completely in order. The last bit wasn’t, and I sat the member down. And if the member had been listening and looking in the right direction, he would’ve seen so.

Hon Nathan Guy: When the Minister said, “We’re going to make sure they’ve got the resources to do the job properly.”, why did the TAG group only last month raise uncertainty about the Ministry for Primary Industries’ capacity to ensure all tracing visits are completed?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I have to admit that this is a new challenge for the Ministry for Primary Industries. Never before have we had such an incursion in this country, and it’s a sad indictment on a system overseen by a Government that had failed—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!

Hon Nathan Guy: Will the Minister commit today to full eradication of M. bovis cattle disease in New Zealand?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: This Government has committed $85 million to the initial stages of the control and eradication of this disease. If that person had done more, we would’ve been in a better position to do it, and it would’ve cost us a hell of a lot less.

Kieran McAnulty: What does the Minister consider the key findings of the Mycoplasma bovis TAG report’s release yesterday?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: The technical advisory report makes a number of recommendations, but the latest update to the report notes the failures in the NAIT—the National Animal Identity and Tracing—system and problems it has caused for the tracking of this disease. The previous Government and that member, of course, were asleep at the wheel, and that’s half the reason we’ve got—

SPEAKER: Order! I just want to say that I had indicated a loss of supplementary questions to the National Party as a result of interjections when the previous question had been asked by Mr McAnulty. I’ve just reversed that because, for the third time, the Minister breached Speakers’ rulings.

Justice System—Iwi Community Panels

8. VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Police: What recent announcements has he made about community iwi panels?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Earlier this week, I was given the honour of announcing the collective name gifted to our Government for iwi community panels, Te Pae Oranga. I also confirmed the extension of this initiative to Gisborne, Hutt Valley, Manukau, Hamilton, Rotorua, Auckland City, and Invercargill, and look forward to this initiative being rolled out to five more districts in the next few months. This new name also symbolises the permanence for this justice initiative.

Virginia Andersen: How do iwi panels hold offenders to account?

Hon STUART NASH: In order to appear before a panel, the offender has to plead guilty. The panel has a summary of the facts, and the offender is asked to explain why they offended. The offender has to take part in the plan of action drawn up by the panel. And this is the main point: the offender has to take accountability and responsibility and set out a plan of action around how they will change.

Virginia Andersen: What feedback has the Minister received from Māori leaders about the extension of iwi panels?

Hon STUART NASH: The response and feedback from Māori leaders has been overwhelmingly positive. The presence of Kīngi Tuheitia and a number of Māori leaders at the formal ceremony here in Parliament on Tuesday was recognition of the importance and high-level commitment to making this initiative work. I’ve also seen another report from an iwi health provider who has said the system has to change and, I quote, “We can’t keep putting them in jail and throwing away the key. It is not working.”

Climate Change Targets—Impact of Billion Trees Programme

9. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister for Climate Change: Has he received advice from officials relating to the expected contribution to a 2050 climate change target from a programme to plant a billion trees over the next decade?

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Yes, I have.

Todd Muller: By 2050, what percentage of New Zealand’s present greenhouse gas emissions can be offset by planting one billion trees over the next decade?

Hon JAMES SHAW: The one billion trees programme is a 10-year programme. It’ll contribute up to an additional 35 million tonnes over the 2020s, which will help us, in particular, with our 2030 target. Current estimates are that the programme could contribute up to an additional two million tonnes in the year 2050. This estimate, I have to say, assumes no additional planting above business as usual after 2030, because the billion trees programme is a 10-year programme. So I would anticipate that successive Governments would see value in continuing to stimulate further tree planting beyond that initial 10-year programme.

Todd Muller: In order to achieve a 2050 zero-emissions goal, will a further one billion trees be required to be planted by 2040, another billion trees by 2050, and at what point does New Zealand just become one giant pine plantation?

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Why do you hate trees?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Ha, ha! I’ll answer the last part of the question first. Not all of the trees will be pine plantation trees, and we’re currently awaiting some further advice modelling the mix between rotation pine and permanent native forestry. The billion trees strategy is about having the right tree in the right place at the right time—if I may channel my colleague—so while carbon sequestration is an important part of the programme, it also has to achieve jobs in the regions, biodiversity, erosion control, and water quality outcomes, as well.

SPEAKER: I see the problem the member has with patsy supplementaries.

Todd Muller: Thank you for your contribution, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Not as much as I’m sure Mr Shaw will.

Todd Muller: So if we have a billion trees planted every decade for the next three decades, 100 percent renewable electricity and renewable transport, will we achieve a zero-emissions goal, or, if not, what further measures will be needed?

Hon JAMES SHAW: What we’re doing with the zero carbon bill is setting up the institutions that will help to answer some of the questions that Mr Muller raises. The intention of the zero carbon bill is to put in place the 2050 target and some of the specifics around that. It will also set up the independent climate commission, the job of which is to set up carbon budgets that help us to get to that net zero target by 2050. That may include sector-specific sub-targets or gas-specific sub-targets as well. It’s actually not up to me to say, sector by sector, where you’re going to get the emissions.

Todd Muller: Is an all sectors, all gases zero-emission goal achievable for New Zealand without turning all pastoral farming into pine and native plantations?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes.

Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Minister—Contact with Radio New Zealand

10. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media: Who from her office contacted Radio New Zealand on two occasions to raise the issue of the inconsistencies in Carol Hirschfeld’s account of the circumstances of their meeting?

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Immediately following the Radio New Zealand (RNZ) annual review in select committee on 1 March, a member of my staff alerted RNZ to inconsistencies. That was further reinforced with RNZ last week. It is not my practice to name individual staff members. I take full responsibility for my staff acting on my behalf.

Melissa Lee: Who at Radio New Zealand did her office contact on those two occasions?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: My understanding was it was the communications manager at RNZ.

Melissa Lee: How did the member of her office contact Radio New Zealand on those two occasions?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: By telephone.

Melissa Lee: Did she or anyone from her office contact Carol Hirschfeld to inform her that the circumstances of their breakfast meeting had been misinterpreted to the select committee?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: No.

Melissa Lee: When she found out on 1 March that the circumstances of their meeting had been misrepresented to the select committee, why didn’t she bring that to the attention of the select committee?

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just would like to receive some reassurance. There is a very clear Speaker’s ruling that if a matter is the subject of a breach of privilege complaint, it cannot be raised in the House. If a breach of privilege complaint has been raised about this then it cannot be the subject of questions.

SPEAKER: I can deal with that without referring to whether one has been or not. One can’t refer to a breach of privilege complaint, but the matters which might be contained in the complaint can still be the subject of questioning. Ask the question again, please.

Melissa Lee: When she found out on 1 March that the circumstances of their meeting had been misrepresented to the select committee, why didn’t she bring that to the attention of the select committee?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: I think it was appropriate for my staff to inform RNZ of an accurate account of events.

Melissa Lee: How many text messages has she exchanged with Carol Hirschfeld since the Astoria meeting?

SPEAKER: Order! I just want to ask the member to have a—oh no, I’ll let the member answer because I was probably slack earlier in letting her ask about Carol Hirschfeld when she wasn’t the subject of the question. Could you repeat the question? Thank you.

Melissa Lee: How many text messages has she exchanged with Carol Hirschfeld since the Astoria meeting?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: None.

Minimum Wage—Increase

11. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: What announcements has he made about the minimum wage?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): This Easter, the adult minimum wage will increase by 75c an hour to $16.50. This reflects the Government’s commitment to ensuring all New Zealanders get a fair share of this country’s prosperity.

Marja Lubeck: How much extra money will end up in the pockets of working New Zealanders?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The increase will put $129 million into the pockets of working people, which will circulate back into the economy. People on lower incomes are more likely to spend their wages on essential items like doctors visits, keeping on top of the bills, and buying more healthy food—things that too many Kiwis struggle to afford.

Marja Lubeck: Why is the Government doing this now?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well, the best time to raise the minimum wage is while the labour market is strong and tightening. Now is that time. The Government forecasts unemployment will keep falling towards 4 percent over the next three years, while average wages will rise by about 3 percent a year over that time due to a tight labour market.

Hon Willie Jackson: What will the impact of the minimum wage increase be on Māori workers?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: A very, very good question. Twenty-eight thousand Māori workers and their whānau will benefit from the increase on 1 April. More than half of those getting an increase will be rangatahi, with 15,500 Māori aged 16 to 24 set to be better off.

David Seymour: Why has the Government ignored official advice from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) that 3,000 jobs would be lost as a result of this increase?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: If the member spent a little bit less time dancing and more time actually reading the documents—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —he would know that that’s not what MBIE advised at all. In fact, what they advised is there is a potential but contested loss in job growth. That means that instead of 57,000 new jobs in the next financial year, there might be 54,000 new jobs—all jobs that those young people will be able to take up.

SPEAKER: I’m reflecting on the way that the member started his answer, and if Mr Seymour would like another supplementary question, he can have one.

David Seymour: So will the Minister continue to seek advice from MBIE, given that in this case he’s just ignored it?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Absolutely I’ll continue to seek advice, just as the Hon Michael Woodhouse sought advice when he was the Minister and increased the minimum wage. He was told that it would cost 2,500 jobs and, despite being told that, he increased the minimum wage and—what do you know—GDP kept growing and jobs kept growing too.

Budget 2018—Funding for Christchurch Regeneration

12. Hon NICKY WAGNER (National) to the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration: Does she stand by all her answers to Oral Question No. 10 on 22 March?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): Yes.

Hon Nicky Wagner: Why do the people of Christchurch have to wait till Budget 2018 to see if their $300 million in promised funding is available, when Shane Jones has already spent more than $61 million from the Provincial Growth Fund without going through the Budget process?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Governments spend money when money has been appropriated. The $300 million is a current Budget bid. The Minister of Finance in his wisdom will read that Budget on 17 May and whether or not that bid has been successful will be revealed then. I do note, to the second part of the member’s question, that the provincial growth fund also requires appropriation.

Hon Nicky Wagner: Why does Christchurch have to wait till Budget 2018 to see if their $300 million in promised funding is available, when David Parker can spend $114 million in Auckland on the America’s Cup without going through the Budget process?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I do also note that the people of Christchurch have been waiting years for stalled anchor projects that the previous Government failed to deliver, including that member who was the responsible Minister. In order for any of the money to be spent in the three areas that it was identified that it would be available for—that being the stadium, the residential red zone, and any remaining liabilities for the Crown in land drainage—the plans will not be drawn up before 17 May, so the money could not even be spent.

Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Minister explain what steps she is taking to secure funding for Christchurch in Budget 2018?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I have prepared a Budget bid, which I have presented to the very wise, fair, and reasonable Minister of Finance, who is currently considering—

SPEAKER: The member’s lucky you are allowed irony in answers.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —that bid alongside the other priorities of the Government. This is the way in which Governments appropriate money on which they can deliver on election promises.

Hon Nicky Wagner: Why does Christchurch have to wait till Budget 2018 to see if their $300 million in promised funding is available, when Phil Twyford can spend up to $117 million in Auckland to purchase land at Unitec without going through the Budget process?

SPEAKER: And as a result of interjections from two Labour and one New Zealand First MP, there will be three additional supplementaries to the National Party.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The money that my colleague the Minister of Housing and Urban Development has been able to spend, although I do not have responsibility for what my colleague the Minister of Housing and Urban Development does—the money that he has been able to spend was able to be re-appropriated. I’d like to remind that member, who was the former Minister, she only left great big funding gaps, not money that was waiting around that could be re-appropriated to fund the gaps in funding that that Government left for Canterbury.

Hon Nicky Wagner: Why does Christchurch have to keep waiting?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I’d like to thank that member for her Easter present. Christchurch has to keep waiting because for seven long years the previous Government let the people of Canterbury down. The Metro Sports Facility, that should be open now and be able to be enjoyed by the people of Canterbury over Easter, is one of many stalled and failed anchor projects. This Government is cleaning up the mess left behind by the previous Government, including that member in her time as Minister.

Hon James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If you’re going to admonish Mr Muller for patsy supplementary questions, perhaps you could also admonish Nicky Wagner as well.

SPEAKER: Well, I think I was more admonishing the Minister for his reply.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, while we’re handing around admonishments, I accept the admonishment that the Hon Megan Woods just handed out, but would ask the question: will the Metro Sports centre and the stadium receive Government funding in the 2017 Budget or are they lines in her Budget bid she expects to be rejected?

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat and the member might want to rephrase his question and get it into this year.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, I know. Sorry, you’re right, Mr Speaker. So I’ll ask the question again, if I may?

SPEAKER: Sure.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Will the Minister confirm that there will be funding in the 2018 Budget for the Metro Sports centre and the new stadium, or are they two line items in her Budget bid she expects to be struck out?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The money for the Metro Sports centre is already there. What I have not been prepared to do is to keep throwing money into a stalled and overblown Budget process like the previous Government was prepared to do. The money is there and the Budget bid for the $300 million from which the stadium funding can be chosen to be drawn on by the Christchurch City Council, as it decides, is the subject of a Budget bid. I remind the former Minister that it is only a few more sleeps till we can hear Grant Robertson’s verdict.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: May I ask the Minister, in answering these questions, has she seen someone stand on a rake and have the handle hit them in the chin?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Yes.

SPEAKER: Order! I’m trying to work out whether it would be a punishment to give—who it would be a punishment to if I gave further supplementaries. I think I’ll just leave it where it is.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, I would certainly take them, but I think it was—

SPEAKER: Well, the member can have another one, then.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, thank you, because it was very odd that the Rt Hon Winston Peters should stand up and talk about his own answers in the House today.

SPEAKER: And—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: We just lost it.

SPEAKER: Yeah, at that point—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I know, yeah.

SPEAKER: —the member just lost it.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thank you. It was worth a shot. Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! And he just lost another one.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, no, the member’s lost them all now.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What? No, you gave us an extra three—

SPEAKER: I did.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: —and I’ve only used one.

SPEAKER: And Nicky Wagner used one, as well.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh well, that’s just outrageous. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! That concludes oral questions.

Bills

Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): I move, That the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

Following several destructive earthquakes between 1929 and 1942, the first Labour Government made the decision to set up a statutory scheme of disaster insurance, resulting in the Earthquake and War Damage Act of 1944. Over time, cover was extended to other natural disasters and to cover damage to land as well as buildings. The need to offer this extension to the cover was identified by the report that followed the 1979 Abbotsford landslip in Dunedin, where 69 homes were lost. For decades, New Zealanders have felt reassured by the fact that we have a public system of insurance cover in times of disaster.

In 1993, the Earthquake Commission Act brought together these two earlier editions and introduced new changes to the system. The insurance became known as the Earthquake Commission (EQC) cover. It was limited to residential buildings and war damage cover was removed from the Act. The changes that we are seeking with this piece of legislation are the first substantial changes that have been introduced since that Act was introduced in the early 1990s, and I would like to acknowledge the previous Minister Gerry Brownlee, who is in the House today, who began a review of the Earthquake Commission legislation following the sequence of events in Canterbury. In 2012, this work was begun, and this is the first time we have been able to bring changes to this House.

I am bringing a very limited set of changes that were part of that review to this House. I am bringing the changes that make common sense and were widely agreed upon in the submissions and the consultation that came out of the 2012 review into EQC functions. Together, I think the four substantial changes that we are bringing in will mean claims can be handled better and faster in the event of another major natural disaster. They are changes that can be introduced now, ahead of the independent inquiry into EQC that this Government has indicated it wants to carry out.

This Government has indicated that what we have been through in the Canterbury earthquake sequence and then the Kaikōura earthquakes is something that we must consider. We must learn the lessons from that and we must make appropriate legislative changes, and that is something that we are committed to doing.

Upon becoming Minister, one of the first questions I asked officials in regard to EQC was: what are the changes that we could implement from the 2012 review that just make sense and that will make life better for claimants if the worst happens and we have another event before we conclude the review and are able to implement these changes? The changes that we are seeing in the legislation that is before this House now are a result of that.

There are four amendments to the Earthquake Commission Act of 1993. The proposed amendments deal with substantive issues that, as I said, can usefully be put into place before we proceed with the findings of the independent inquiry. The four amendments are to remove EQC cover for personal property or home contents cover; to increase the EQC building cap cover from $100,000 to $150,000 plus GST; to lengthen EQC’s pay notification time limit; and to clarify EQC’s authority to share and publish information, including to facilitate settlement of EQC and private insurer claims. I think one of the things we have learnt from the Canterbury earthquake sequence is that the flow of information is vitally important. It is also vitally important that there may be required to be the sharing of information for safety reasons.

As I said, the EQC Act has operated with few changes since 1994 to provide capped mandatory natural disaster insurance cover for insured residential buildings, contents, and associated residential land. EQC cover helps to ensure affordable private insurance cover for residential owners against specified hazards. This helps support high overall levels of home insurance in New Zealand, and one of the things I think we can be grateful for over the seismic years that we have experienced in this country in recent times is the very high levels of insurance that we do possess in this country.

The experience of implementing the EQC Act for almost 25 years and during this recent series of large-scale events has highlighted a need to update and improve the EQC scheme design and operational requirements. The EQC legislative review, which included public consultation in 2015, identified several substantive issues with current EQC Act provisions and a large number of other potentially desirable technical refinements. Preparations for the statutory inquiry into EQC and its claims management process are progressing. Full-scale reform of the Earthquake Commission Act would not be appropriate until this inquiry is complete and we can learn the lessons of that inquiry.

However, focused, high-priority, self-contained amendments can be usefully progressed before the inquiry findings are reported. The proposed amendments retain the overall legislative scheme while substantially improving the operation of the EQC Act by simplifying and speeding up claims handling and resolving issues with the EQC Act that have previously been identified by both the Ombudsman and the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission.

Therefore, this bill provides the four amendments that I have mentioned. I’m going to go into some more detail on them in my remaining time. Firstly, the removal of EQC insurance cover for personal property, or home contents as it’s more popularly known—maintaining this cover reduces EQC’s ability to cope with major disasters by tying up the scarce organisational resources, which contributes to delays in resolving high-priority residential building and land damage claims. Consultations with insurers suggest that private insurers are willing to take this cover on.

The second major change that is happening is increasing that cap on residential buildings from $100,000 to $150,000 plus GST. What we know from both the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes sequences is there is a large number of claims that sat in that body between $100,000 and $150,000 that could have more easily been resolved with just recourse to EQC and not having to do the interaction between the private insurer and the public insurer. Obviously, this requires EQC carrying more of the risk in the increase in cover, but this will also require the private insurers to cover less of those, so there should be a cost neutral switch there.

The third change that we are making is enabling EQC to accept claim notifications for up to two years after a natural disaster. This was a recommendation of the Ombudsman. There are a variety of reasons of why people may not have got claims in in the specified three-month limit. The Ombudsman pointed to people with disability issues, such as people with sight impediments, that may not have noticed damage in that period, so giving the ability to stretch that time period out longer makes for a much simpler application of the Act. It could also, in an event such as the Canterbury earthquakes sequence, where we had several claimable events, allow people to take the time to properly assess the damage as it can be attributed to each separate event rather than having to do the attributions that were done across events, which complicated many of the claims.

Lastly, the last change that is being made is clarifying EQC’s authority to share information, to support effective implementation of the Act and settlement of insurance. The changes to the Act will allow the release of information it holds for the following purposes: preventing or lessening a threat to public health or public safety or to the life or health of any individual. It would allow it for the administration of the Act or the performance of the Earthquake Commission and its function, facilitating preparedness—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the honourable Minister.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We’ve become aware of advice this afternoon that the Government has decided to rescind all of the appropriations relating to Christchurch. In an answer to a question in the House this afternoon, the Minister responsible for Greater Christchurch Regeneration said that those appropriations remained in place and were available. Now that’s quite counter to what we’ve heard this afternoon in the last few minutes, and I just wanted to bring it up because if that is the case, then the Minister would need to correct that answer.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Can you just repeat the actual substance of your—I just want us to be crystal clear about—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, certainly. So it’s one of those situations where, you know, as soon as you know, you’re supposed to say.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Absolutely, I understand that part—just the appropriation for the Minister referred to?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: We’ve been told by people who have been told that the previous appropriations in place for Christchurch have been rescinded. Therefore, the answer the Minister gave in the House—if that is the case—would be inconsistent with that most recent advice.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): You are right. If the Minister is required to correct that answer, you can do so by personal explanation.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to clarify. As I understand the point that the member is making, I have no requirement to correct an answer because there has been no rescinding of appropriations for Canterbury.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Well, does that mean that all of the appropriations that are in place now were in place at the time of the 2017 Budget, and therefore—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I think, Mr—

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Point of order—I’m on a point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Yes, I know you are, Mr Brownlee. I think this is perhaps an opportunity for us to take the matter outside of this particular process. I think that what can be done is a review of the question and the answer that were given at question time, and then, if required, the Minister will need to make a correction by a personal explanation. Does that satisfy the member?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Not particularly, because the point was not that the Minister would determine whether or not a misleading of the House had occurred, but rather that a misleading of the House has been confirmed—in fact, by the Minister herself, who just stood up and said all appropriations remain in place. All of those appropriations were made by the previous Government.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Right, thank you. I thank the member for the question and the point of order. We are actually in the process of the first reading of the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. This is not an appropriate matter to raise at this point, but I will ask the Minister to check the answer given to that particular question, and she will make her correction if required.

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

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Brownlee, this is not a matter for the House at this time.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: With all due respect, a further point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Brownlee, I have made a ruling. It is not a matter for this time.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I’m not ruling against you. I’m not arguing with you; I’m making a new point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Point of order, the Hon Gerry Brownlee.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Does the ruling you’ve just made mean that the timeliness for bringing these matters up no longer applies?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No, that is not the case. What I’m suggesting as the way forward is that the Minister will check her answer and, if required, she will make a correction in the House.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, that’s fine.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to speak on the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. It is, actually, bringing in some key things that are great, and can I start by saying that we will support the bill through the first reading and to the select committee. It builds on a lot of work done by the member that was just on his feet, Gerry Brownlee, and particularly some of the recommendations from the discussion document of 2015, which is New Zealand’s Future Natural Disaster Insurance Scheme—a discussion document. In particular, increasing the cap to $150,000 from $100,000, plus GST, is absolutely required. Given the time that’s gone since that figure was put in place, it absolutely should be moved up to $150,000.

Removing the contents insurance is also innovative and absolutely needed, and was identified in that document I just referred to. Contents insurance is far better held with private insurers rather than a public-good entity like the Earthquake Commission (EQC), and I think that’s where it should lie. It also clarifies the authority to share information. I think that is, of course, with caveats, and that will be teased out during the select committee process. I think that’s very good.

However, there is an area I do have concerns about, which is enabling claim notifications—instead of within three months, going out to two years. I want to explore that a little further. I did put in an Official Information Act request to the Minister for any Treasury advice around that, and I’ll go into that a little bit more in detail shortly. But I think this is a really serious matter, and it is something that we should get full disclosure on. I don’t have a lot of confidence, I’d have to say, because I started out with a very reasonable number of written questions to the Minister and, with the avoiding tactics that were coming back with the answers, ended up with 480 written questions to try and get some answers out of the Minister, including one which asked the Minister: does she agree with answering written questions on time? It came back “Yes”, but it was late.

So I think this is a really serious matter. The information from Treasury should be shared with the House and with Parliament.

Clayton Mitchell: What’s this got to do with the bill?

STUART SMITH: And this does relate to the bill. The issue with extending the time period, as was identified in that discussion document—where the reinstatement occurs, after an event, the definition needs to be much more clear than it is, so there’s no room for doubt there, and also that goes to the matter of apportionment. That is really important, from a reinsurance perspective. This is a public-good insurance with EQC but it relies on commercial contracts, and those contracts are with international reinsurers. They don’t have to be here. They come here. It’s a commercial contract. But they want, and expect, to know what their liability is, so they can price it. That is very important, and this isn’t addressed in this bill. It should have been.

We have been promised there’s going to be an inquiry. Why we need another inquiry into this I have no idea. It will likely only cover off operational matters. We should have had this substantive bill now, and have the minor bill later on. If we don’t have, and maintain, the confidence of the reinsurance industry in our processes here in New Zealand, that will have a really potential impact on our country and the confidence in our own building sector. So I think that that should have been put in this bill. I’m calling on the Minister to release that information and advice that she had from Treasury on reinsurance. There’s nothing in the regulatory impact statement. There should be, but there’s nothing in there. So I don’t have any confidence on that.

Other than that, I do support the bill. As I said, we will vote for it and we will look to examine it very closely in select committee. On that basis, I commend the bill to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I look forward to working on the Finance and Expenditure Committee with Mr Smith on this bill, which is a very good piece of legislation. It has come to this House only now, and I must say that is disappointing, seeing that the document that initiated the review was the terms of reference of September 2012. In fact, when those terms of reference came out, legislation was scheduled for 2013. So it’s good to see that now we have a Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission who is taking some immediate action whilst we can and getting this low-hanging fruit.

I don’t agree with the former speaker, Stuart Smith, that we should have an entire review right away—a further inquiry looking into reinsurance issues. We’ve got to get those wider structural issues absolutely right. There is going to be a review and an inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC). The former speaker asked why that was the case. I will tell you why it’s the case. It’s the case because EQC let Christchurch down, and for six long years, claims were not handled well. One of those reasons was that the rules weren’t there for the hard-working claims managers to do that, and that’s what we’re going to get right. We should have got it right a lot earlier, so we could get on with it. But the last Government didn’t get around to it. It had other things on its plate, and Christchurch clearly wasn’t one of them.

I was very proud, I must say, to have petitioned the former Government to commission an inquiry. They didn’t do it, but I’m very proud to be part of this Government that is now doing exactly that.

We know that EQC is a critical part of our social infrastructure, and it’s fantastic that we’ve got an agency which guarantees insurance for homes. It is important, and both sides of the House agree on this, I think, that we want to make sure that continues and that we have rules around EQC which encourage both good Government-guaranteed home cover but also widespread insurance cover across the board. I think that this bill will be a further step in achieving that, because we certainly don’t want to see any great flight from the homeowner insurance market generally. One of the issues that’s occurring is increases in insurance premiums, and we know that there is a section of the community—a concerning section—that, when insurance premiums go up, don’t insure. We certainly want to avoid that. We know from the Quake Outcasts case that the Government, in fact, did step in—as it probably should have; as it appropriately did—and dealt with uninsured properties. We’ve really got to be cautious that we don’t have, in a sense, this implicit expectation that the Government will assume that risk. It’s much better to have a universal cover where the risks are explicit and they can be much more accurately priced. So, really, we absolutely do need the inquiry that’s going to happen.

One of the real disappointments for me in the regulatory impact statement was the fact that the Treasury paper looked to avoiding social distress and not just economic loss. One of the things that clearly has happened in Christchurch is not only ongoing financial distress but social distress as well, and that was never really addressed in the Treasury paper. But what this does is go some way to saying let’s get an organisation which can address these things. One, of course, is the extension of the cap to $150,000. That may indeed go up further, and there’s certainly an argument—at its inception, the idea was that the EQC cover would be sufficient to rebuild a modest home. We’ve departed miles away from that now, and one of the problems we have is, essentially, a two-layered insurance system. It’s cumbersome, and as the member for Kaikōura would know, there have been some changes there to address that, and, indeed, in this bill, we go some distance further. But by increasing that cap, it’s much more likely that EQC will be the sole manager of insurance claims, and that’s a good thing.

Of course, it does increase the exposure of EQC, and that means that the costs, the EQC levies attributable to that, will go up. But as the Minister pointed out in her opening speech, that will be offset in some way by the contents claims disappearing. It may well be that, in fact, those two things will offset each other.

In terms of contents cover, it’s true that the loss of contents is distressing, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s not catastrophic. The damage to your homes is a qualitatively different thing from a loss of contents. Loss of contents was only ever $20,000, so we can see that even in terms of that, the cover was not as great. I think it’s quite appropriate to move away from contents cover, to say that if anyone wants contents cover they can go to their private insurer, because it’s not catastrophic. The other important point is the administrative burden: that the administration of contents claims—and there were many tens of thousands of them—did not give the dividend it ought to have for EQC. So we don’t want EQC’s time to be taken up administering claims for vases when it should be administering claims for houses. So it is, in fact, largely insured in any event. Insurers have been consulted. They’re not going to abandon the home contents’ market. People can still get effective cover for their contents, and it’s really appropriate that EQC move out of that.

Mr Smith, in his speech, did touch on what I think’s probably the knottiest question here, and that is the extension of the time limit. It’s entirely correct that the time limit, the three-month hard time limit, is far too short. It’s entirely unreasonable to expect all homeowners to make that claim within time. I look forward to working with members from all sides of the House in select committee on examining this, because I’m not sure the Minister has got it quite right by simply extending it to two years and leaving it at the discretion of EQC as to whether that is extended to two years or not. There’s reference to the Insurance Law Reform Act and the fact there’s a similar provision, but they’re certainly not parallel. So I think this is one area where some tweaking of that reform, an entirely appropriate reform, will pay dividends, both for EQC in terms of administration—because what we’ve found is that leaving discretion in the hands of claims managers can be difficult. I think a much better idea would be a brightline rule there.

The other thing is, there, that EQC has the discretion to decline a claim for delay where they’re seriously prejudiced in the view of EQC. Serious prejudice is, of course, another judgment call. So I think, in this instance, that will come under some scrutiny, and I’m sure that we’ll improve that and the department will cooperate and the Minister will be overjoyed at seeing her excellent bill even better.

The fourth area of reform here is in respect of information, and it’s really important to note this. The royal commission of inquiry into the CTV collapse pointed out that EQC was the recipient of considerable information which affected public safety, and that what we really needed was an ability—an explicit ability—for EQC, who held considerable information of this nature, to disclose it immediately. The Privacy Commissioner has looked at this and is, of course, quite happy for that information to be disclosed. The Privacy Act has an exception in cases of public safety, so EQC now has an explicit ability—or will have an explicit ability—to do that. So it’s good to see that, as well. It’s probably a slightly more complex provision.

And, of course, the other thing is sharing information with insurers. There are some concerns in there that I think, again, need to be looked at. We don’t want information to be shared willy-nilly, so to speak—questions, for example, as to whether potentially fraudulent claims information will be shared. There are good reasons why insurers want to share that information and why they want to know that, but at the moment there’s no particular entitlement of EQC to share that kind of information. So we need to inquire into that and ask some tough questions around that.

Overall, this is an absolutely great piece of legislation. Can I just say, though, that it’s the beginning. Once the EQC—

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

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I want to begin by completely rejecting the comment from the previous speaker, Duncan Webb, that the Earthquake Commission (EQC) dramatically let Christchurch down. The reality is that they were confronted with over 470,000 individual claims. Many of those were contents, and I think it’s a good move that the private insurers will now pick up that particular task. But alongside the many remaining claims that were land claims, there were also 167,000 building claims as well. Now, 167,000 buildings—houses—is a huge amount.

While I reject what he said about that, I was pleased that he mentioned, in a positive fashion, the EQC claims managers, many of whom had their own homes damaged, their own families’ homes damaged, and were themselves dealing with the ongoing trauma of over 13,000 earthquakes over that four-year period. They did a great job, in my opinion. And, yes, you will get people who are unhappy, and, of that large number, 2,600, I think, is the number now who are still unresolved. The reality is that a large number of that 2,600 are second- and third-time claims, and often the property has changed hands. I’d invite the Finance and Expenditure Committee to get a full breakdown on exactly where that stands from EQC.

Christchurch was an event that I hope is never repeated anywhere in New Zealand. One of the reasons that EQC decided not to just go out writing cheques for people based on the claims information provided to them, but rather to engage in the actual physical repair of properties under $100,000 damage, was to ensure that the overall house stock of Christchurch was not left unattended for decades to come, but rather was repaired to as high a possible a standard. The mere fact that people are able to come back to EQC and say, “I’m not happy with the work that was done on my house.”, and that they are still able to do that is, I think, testament to that being the right decision that was made.

With regard to the time that it’s taken to get to this point in the legislation, it’s sort of a little bit worrying that after four years of what has been quite a torturous consideration as various aspects of the response in Christchurch and then Kaikōura came to light, we still seem to need to have some inquiry into what’s happened. It’s almost like the Government has a default position that is “inquire into everything.”

I think the select committee are going to enjoy their work on this.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Better than shutting your eyes and saying it’s all fine.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, the member over there says I’m shutting my eyes to some people’s suffering. That is absolutely not the case. I’ve just said before that EQC remains there for people to place claims in front of, whether it’s the first time, the second time, or the third time. I don’t think that had EQC simply written the cheque and closed the claims—as they could have done, under legislation—we would have had the results we’ve got now. There would have been other problems—huge problems—particularly where you had all the cowboy builders come to town with huge rates charged against people who were trying to get their houses fixed and then under-quality jobs done in many cases. As it stands, I think we’ve done extremely well and EQC have done extremely well.

The previous speaker raised the issue of not wanting to see the cost of EQC cause people to under-insure. This is one of the areas that I personally lose a little bit of sleep over, because I think, as we’ve gone through this exercise and the private insurers have said that they now want to only cover specified amounts, the temptation is there, right now, for people to under-insure, and at some point, in a disaster, that could become quite a problem for the Government. So it’s something that we do need to keep our eyes open for. In Christchurch, we discovered that over 99 percent of people had insured—a quite extraordinarily high number; an extraordinarily high number in an international sense; and, particularly, a high number in a country that is known to have earthquakes as a particular risk.

While the Minister gave a very interesting rundown—a correct rundown on the history of EQC—it’s true to say that the changes in 1994 came about because the private insurers said, “We’re not keen on covering earthquake damage any longer.” So the structure was put in place with EQC taking the first $100,000. It effectively meant that every household in New Zealand could pay a premium to EQC, and EQC could buy reinsurance on the international market at a much more efficient rate than any of the individual insurers might have been able to do. It did, though, mean that the Government, from that day, carried quite a high liability as, over those 20-odd years—just under that actually; 17 years—before the earthquakes in Christchurch, there was a national disaster fund built up, which is known as the retention that EQC is liable for in each time.

That raises the question about the two-year period, and I was pleased to see Dr Webb mention that as being something that might need to have a little bit of a look at. EQC goes into the market annually to buy what is known as “reinsurance”. It effectively means that they pay some of the levy they collect to higher-level insurers, who, at various trigger points up the cost-scale on any disaster, will cover the balance. That keeps premiums low. What we would not want to see, though, is the long period before a line could be ruled under the cost of any event, meaning that they were no longer interested or could not meet the requirements of their investors when it comes to that.

In the end, how insurance works is that private individuals put up private capital, which is at risk in any given period of a contract. If there’s no disaster, they do well; if there’s a disaster, they don’t do well. It’s to the betterment and, you would say, surety of all New Zealand homeowners that we don’t set a claim period for some who might not see damage during a period of time, at the cost of everybody else who pays insurance. It’s a very fine balance, but I think one that would be well worth putting a little bit of extra time into.

The other issue that’s interesting in here is that this interim measure does continue the land cover on the same basis as has always been there. Treasury were at one point advising that we should only look at the building platform. The problem with that is that the Act covers other natural disasters, and you could have circumstances where people lose land and not their building platform, and therefore would have absolutely no cover. So I think the decision to stick with that is the right one.

There will be many other things that the select committee will—I think I don’t want to use the word “learn”, because that sounds too patronising, and I don’t mean it that way at all, but they will learn about the operation of the bill and about the operation of the EQC commercial side. I think it would be useful if the select committee were to ask for perhaps some outside, independent body to give them advice on how that reinsurance market works, because there’s no doubt about it that when you have a disaster, cash is king. People can be in dreadful circumstances, but if there isn’t the funding available to help them out of those circumstances, then the misery just is prolonged. It’s not easy to talk about this, because, you know, I’m critically aware of some of the difficulties that people faced. I would not like to see us, though, in response to what have been seen as some small failings make some changes to the Act that might make some people happier, but create a potential degree of cost and potential misery for many others.

We are happy to support this bill. We look forward to the select committee process, and, indeed, we look forward to any improvements that might be made to the scheme, but we will not want to support measures that are claimed as improvements that will actually reduce the effectiveness of the scheme.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is a great pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this legislation, the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill, of course amending the 1993 Earthquake Commission Act, which goes back to the original 1944 Earthquake and War Damage Act. I actually want to just pause to reflect on that. In 1944, after the Wairarapa earthquake and, of course, subsequent to the 1931 Napier earthquake that killed so many—230-odd New Zealanders—the Fraser Government, that first Labour Government, put this far-sighted piece of legislation in hand, and I think the House should reflect, as legislators, that that is visionary and far-sighted legislation, and that we should aspire to look to achieve those same standards. We quite so often get caught up in our three-year election cycle, but these pieces of legislation—and, by crikey, didn’t it come in handy?

Of course, so recently we have had the devastating events of that cluster of earthquakes in Christchurch, and, of course, more recently the Kaikōura-Seddon cluster of earthquakes. I note there’s been a little bit of politics played tonight. I’m not going to enter into that. I was not in Christchurch for those events. I can only imagine what it must have be like, and the magnitude of that disaster and the three fairly large quakes there makes this something—I think we need to reflect on what happened, but I think the people involved—and I acknowledge the Hon Gerry Brownlee for his contribution. We can put a forensic lens over this with the benefit of hindsight, but when you were there in the heat of the battle you will have done your best for your city and for your country in those circumstances, and I certainly commend you for that and subsequent Ministers that have come in behind you. Of course, we heard that there were 470,000 claims. Even the Kaikōura earthquake, which probably wasn’t as big in terms of the damage, was still 38,000 claims, so it shows you how important this organisation is in responding to these sequences of quakes that we’ve been having recently.

OK, so this legislation comes from the review set up in 2012. If I would be critical, I would think, “2012, and we’re here in 2018, and we’ve only got some interim measures to act upon—I’m not sure what’s going on there.” I’m loath to sort of wade in, but it does seem a little inappropriate that we don’t have the full set of recommendations to act upon. But we do have the low-hanging fruit, and I commend Minister Woods in bringing those forward for us to look at today. New Zealand First is supportive of them. We’ve been supportive right through of all the legislation that’s come through. In fact, one of my personal highlights—in fact, the personal highlight of my time in this House so far—was the passing of the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Act. As a former Cantabrian, there was a lot of—pleasure’s not the right word, but acknowledgment—for the people of Christchurch, and I knew how much that meant to them.

So we’ll go to the four proposed changes in the bill. The exiting of the personal property or the contents insurance—I think that’s been well covered. That provision is overly complicated and the response you’re dealing with is vases or televisions and the like, and that’s not life-changing stuff. That’s stuff that can be replaced relatively easily, and I note the deflation in those sorts of items too. A flat-screen television, for example, that may have cost $5,000 or $6,000 10 years ago can be bought for mere hundreds, so it’s not, probably, the death-blow that losing one’s property is in these circumstances. So I think that’s a very good, common-sense part of this legislation that I’m sure will not have much opposition through the select committee process. I note in the Kaikōura earthquake sequence, 80 percent of those claims did not include contents, so it hasn’t been too much of a major feature, anyway, latterly.

Increasing the cap to $150,000—I think that’s, again, eminently sensible. I think when this legislation originally came in 1993 that that would’ve been a much larger chunk of the replacement. But I do concur with the views that have been put forward before. I think there is some personal responsibility here to make sure you’re insuring your house and your contents and your vehicles and other things. You shouldn’t be looking to the State unnecessarily. But I think that having this provision there—it does give our insurers and reinsurers the confidence that we have the capacity to respond and for them to be able to go into the private market. So I think, by having these provisions, we’re helping keep premiums down on a yearly basis.

The lengthening of the claim deadlines—I think this is probably the one, as has been identified earlier on, that the select committee will probably have a little bit of a play around with. I think if you go back to Christchurch, there was the September 2010 through to, sort of, June 2011. That sequence—how does that all, you know; what was the real life experience that we went through there, and how does that reflect what we’re looking to put up in legislation? So, unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of experience to draw upon, but I’m sure that will be ironed out within that select committee process.

The data sharing—I think that’s also one that has come forward out of experience. We need to be able to provide the information in a timely manner to the people that need it. New Zealand First is always a little bit loath to extend powers of the State or weaken privacy provisions, but we do note the oversight of the Privacy Commissioner. We’ve seen a lot of input from the private insurers and other expert parties within that process. So we’re confident that, certainly within that select committee process, those privacy provisions will be appropriately set and tested.

I think that’s probably all I’ve got to say on the bill, really. New Zealand First does support this legislation. It is common-sense legislation to bring forward those measures that we can reasonably do in lieu of the full report. So it makes sense to do this. The sequence of events we’ve had over the last decade suggests that we haven’t got time to wait. So we support bringing those forward. This should make the Earthquake Commission fit for purpose, and, I must say, it also allows us to learn the lessons that have been so hard won. So New Zealand First supports this bill and has pleasure in recommending it to the House.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I too am pleased to support this bill, because, as somebody who comes from Christchurch, we know how important the Earthquake Commission (EQC) has been. You know, there’s a little bit of love and hate that goes with EQC, but I think it’s really important that we understand that, because we have the Earthquake Commission, we have such a high percentage of people insured in New Zealand.

Obviously, we come from a country that has a lot of earthquakes and natural disasters. And if you compare us with Pacific Rim countries—such as the US in California or Japan—in those countries the insurance rates are down to about 20 percent. I’ve often thought, during the times of 2010 and 2011 when we had very large community meetings, and a lot of that discussion was about insurance, just how those meetings would’ve gone—whereas nearly 99 percent of them had insurance at the time—if only 20 percent of them had insurance. So it’s really important that we get this legislation right.

It is a continuation of the work that was done under National. We started a review back in 2012, and then we went on to provide a discussion document. But it’s actually only a first step, and I’m a bit disappointed that it only covers some of the issues. Some of the complex issues that had been identified during the Canterbury earthquakes are not being considered in this bill.

That discussion document had nine broad proposals, and it covered multiple issues. And it’s really important, I think, when we look at this sort of legislation, that it takes a holistic view of the environment in which EQC works. So it is a bit of a shame that Labour has only picked up four of them.

In saying that, these are important issues. Three are no-brainers, and they’re generally supported by everybody. And when I say supported by everybody, that’s by EQC itself, the insurance industry, stakeholders, and EQC customers. The first, of course, is to get rid of or get out of contents insurance—out of the contents insurance business. I think that is a good decision. Contents insurance simply complicates claims, and, at a time of natural disaster or emergency, we need to be able to have an organisation that can focus on the big issues, which is, basically, rehousing people and making sure they’re supporting community redevelopment. So, yes, contents insurance should go, and the insurance industry has assured us that they can provide that contents insurance at a reasonable price. So that’s a good amendment.

The second is to lift the cap of the limit payments from $100,000 plus GST to $150,000 plus GST. And as that cap hasn’t been lifted since the Act was done in 1993, that makes sense as well, and I think that’s a good amendment.

The third is the ability for EQC to share claim-related information—information that facilitates settlements and information that gives us knowledge about natural disasters, perhaps how we can prepare for them, how we can respond to them, and how we can recover from them. Basically, it’s information about anything that could threaten public health or public safety. And I think this is a good amendment too. It doesn’t change the framework, but what it does do is encourages and enables a proactive release of information.

But the last proposal is more controversial. That’s about increasing the length of time to lodge a claim. The proposal is that it should be increased from three months to two years. And, I have to say, I do agree with the member Duncan Webb when he thinks that the Minister has got this wrong. I think they have got these wrong, and I think the ramifications could be far-reaching. I really ask—

Dr Duncan Webb: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I believe I was misquoted by the member then. I said—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Sorry, can you repeat that. Sorry, I can’t hear that.

Dr Duncan Webb: I was misquoted by the member. I said it hadn’t been got quite right and there was room for improvement.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: I can continue?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Yes. We will deal with it.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Duncan Webb, I apologise. I said that the Minister got it wrong; he said that the Minister didn’t get it right, so I can understand that. I agree with him under this, and I think it’s important that the ramifications of this, which could have unintentional consequences, need to be really teased out during the select committee process, and I ask the select committee to do that.

The problem about this is that over that length of time—over a two-year period—in Christchurch we had thousands of earthquakes and aftershocks. One of the most difficult issues throughout the time was the issue of apportionment, which means: how do you identify which bit of damage was done by which seismic episode? That is significant, because the difference about which comes from which episode often means who’s responsible for paying, particularly in terms of reinsurance. Then there’s also the issue of how you manage the aggregation of damage from multiple events, and then what do you do about the reinstatement of cover after one event and before the next? These are the really complex issues that caused a lot of heartache during the time of the earthquake, so these do need to be certain. They need to be managed well, and they are particularly relevant if you increase the length of claim period.

We did learn an awful lot by the Christchurch earthquakes, and it’s important that this bill is updated in that knowledge. It’s important that it’s simplified and it’s important that it’s improved and that learnings are implemented. Unfortunately, this bill actually only scratches the surface. Yes, it does the obvious. It does the low-hanging fruit, and we get a tick for that, but in the longer term there are a whole lot of other important issues, including appropriation, reinstatement of cover, and who should be managing the claim.

Now, one of the learnings from Christchurch has meant that the EQC has taken a different approach to claims in Kaikōura. There, the insurers have managed the whole claim from the beginning, and EQC has just paid out the portion of when it’s necessary. This has proved to be a very successful method, and I would really like to see this included in the bill as well.

So, in summary, we do need to update the original Earthquake Commission Act 1993. National did look at this work. We did a review between 2012 and 2015. We produced a discussion document which covered nine broad areas. This bill only deals with four of them—three that are uncontroversial and the fourth, which I do believe needs to be teased out in detail in select committee so that we get a good answer for the people of Christchurch.

So National does support this bill, but we would like to see it go further, and we’d like to see it go further within a reasonable time frame, because we do live in shaky isles. We do have regular earthquakes. We have tsunamis, we have landslides, and we need fit for purpose EQC legislation to support New Zealanders in the time of natural disaster. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. It is a bit rich for the previous speaker, Nicky Wagner, to say, “We’d like to see this go further.” What the previous speaker seems to be suggesting is that in the first five months of a new Government we’d make wholesale changes to the Earthquake Commission (EQC) without thinking about how that looks for the longer term. We do things with care and reflection, but I would like to congratulate the new Minister for ensuring that the public can have confidence in EQC, for recognising the problems with 300 cases before the courts from more than 300 homeowners, and for recognising the fact that there are still around 2,500 claims which are outstanding from the Christchurch quakes, most of which are re-repair claims. The Minister, and the move with a new interim chair of the EQC, Dame Annette King, and with a new ministerial adviser, is signalling very clearly that the Government takes improving the performance of EQC very seriously.

This bill is a good bill because it is putting into the House changes to the EQC legislation which can be fixed now, taking into account that there is a wider review in train. The very least we can do for the people of Christchurch and for the people of Hurunui and Kaikōura, for the impacts that the quakes have had on them, is to learn the lessons and try to make the resolution of claims post-quake simpler, faster, and just easier for everybody involved. That’s why this bill is common sense, because it’s making widely agreed changes to the way EQC functions so that claims can be handled better and faster if we get another major disaster, such as on the Alpine Fault.

One of those key things is ensuring that it is private insurers rather than EQC that deal with contents claims, because EQC, after the Christchurch quake, was inundated with contents claims. Now, those are often for things like furniture, china, crockery, and electronic equipment. These things are all really important to householders, but much more important is ensuring that the claims in terms of the buildings—the houses themselves—are resolved quickly, because that’s the basic human need of good shelter. So having contents claims being dealt with by insurers will take a whole lot of claims away from EQC and will enable the more serious claims around the houses themselves to be dealt with and focused on by EQC.

So this is another sign that this Government is preparing for the future rather than just dealing with quick fix-ups, because these changes can be made now, and, similarly, with the proposal in the bill to increase the cap on residential building cover to $150,000 plus GST. That, again, is a practical response to what has happened in Christchurch, Hurunui, and Kaikōura. I think we’re glad of the Opposition’s support, but they’ve got to recognise that there are some things we can do now and some things that need to wait for that wider review. We certainly recognise that the Opposition, when it was in Government, started this whole process, but it is this Minister who has brought the bill to the House

I was a bit surprised, I guess, to see the press statement by Stuart Smith saying that one of the other issues that the bill deals with, in terms of lengthening the time limit for when people can lodge claims to up to two years, would cause too much complexity and too many problems. To me, that seems to indicate an attitude—so it’s three months to two years—and that this would prove expensive, “incredibly expensive”, Mr Smith said, and problematic to the EQC. What that suggests to me is that Mr Smith doesn’t recognise the validity of people’s claims and the frustration so many homeowners have felt with the sometimes imperious attitude of EQC in not recognising the severity of the damage.

Allowing the claim period to go out to two years will ensure that the claims are well made. It will also stop just cutting people off by a very short three-month period when people and their homes have undergone an incredible sort of grief, and trauma often, through a big earthquake event. So it’s giving people the space to actually look carefully at what damage has occurred and then to make the claim, and allowing a bit more time for that. So, I was very disappointed in Mr Smith’s comments and I hope he, and the National Party, will reflect on those in terms of the way the bill progresses through select committee.

We know, as other speakers have noted, that we live in the Shaky Isles. The Alpine Fault is overdue for severe movement. That would have major impacts on the West Coast. We are very lucky in New Zealand in having EQC and this form of insurance—the levy on their insurance contributes to funding EQC. That was very foresighted when that was set up post the Napier earthquakes, but the EQC fund has been much diminished, obviously, by the Christchurch quakes and the Hurunui/Kaikōura episode. We need to ensure that EQC functions as well as possible. The Minister has that in hand with the ministerial adviser and the new chair.

This bill is the first step in improving, in a practical way, the way EQC can actually deal with claims. So there’s the increase of the cap, up to $150,000; there’s enabling claim notifications to be accepted up to two years after a disaster, not just three months; there’s shifting the EQC insurance cover for contents over to private insurers, and reassurance that the Insurance Council of New Zealand and others have recognised that this insurance cover could still be affordable and has given some reassurances to the public for that.

Then the last major change, of course, is enabling EQC to share information to support the implementation of the Earthquake Commission Act and the settlement of claims where this is in the public interest and public safety. Of course, this was a recommendation of the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission. The Privacy Commissioner has commented on it, and the regulatory impact statement shows that there are no issues there.

So this is a really sensible bill; it’s implementing some common-sense, practical changes, which can be made now. It’s recognising that wider issues will come to the House in good time, but it’s actually improving the effectiveness of the EQC from 1 July when these changes are expected to come into force, provided the bill does expeditiously through this House, which I’m sure the Leader of the House will ensure happens. So, it’s a good bill and I welcome it being introduced.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I rise on behalf of the National Party in support of the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill in its first reading. Could I first acknowledge the sponsoring Minister, the Hon Megan Woods, the Earthquake Commission Minister, for her support of Canterbury, but also when I think of former Ministers: the Hon Gerry Brownlee and the Hon Nicky Wagner—in fact, all Canterbury MPs and Parliament, who have stood behind greater Christchurch and Canterbury over the years. In fact, for the former National Government it was one of the top four priorities. I think there’s always been a focus on Canterbury, and I thank this new Government for continuing that focus on rebuilding what will be one of the best new small cities in the world.

What is going to be the debating point, I think, for this bill? We have support across the House. The first reading is about intent. We’ve heard from all the speakers so far that they agree with the intent of this bill. It will go to select committee. But in the words of the Hon Megan Woods—she called it “a limited set of changes.”, because out of the discussion document, out of the nine recommendations, this Government’s only picked up four. I think why that is significant is because in Opposition they talked up a big game. They talked up a big game about earthquake recovery, and now they’ve got a chance to lead and they pick up four out of nine.

Hon Kris Faafoi: How many of the nine did you address?

MATT DOOCEY: Now, the Hon Kris Faafoi will yell out across the House around how quick things are, but if he was based on the ground in Canterbury he would know, by talking to Cantabrians, that the issue around earthquake recovery is not about speed—it’s never been about speed; it’s been about quality.

The reason why Cantabrians backed National in subsequent elections after the earthquakes—and that is on record—is because this Government stood up and made decisions. Not all of them were popular, but Cantabrians appreciated decisiveness. And what have we got here? The Minister saying “a limited set of changes”—four out of nine. And why? Because they’re holding off for another inquiry. Instead of putting the nine through select committee where that process could occur, they want another inquiry. Just like the mental health inquiry where the time lines were released this week and out of an inquiry that will take one year, the public’s got eight weeks to have their own submission. Eight weeks out of a year-long inquiry process.

They’re winding it all back. They spoke up a big game in Opposition and here they are winding it back. In fairness to the new Government backbencher Duncan Webb, he acknowledges that. He said about the time of notification “I’m not sure the Minister’s got it right.”, and I noticed the senior whip writing down a message to note “backbencher tutorial coming up next sitting week.” But it’s all right. It’ll dawn on the backbench Government MPs, their role in the heart of winter, their role of falling in line with the Ministers.

Brett Hudson: That’s right.

MATT DOOCEY: OK. But when we come back to this bill, what we want to see is the recommendations go through. What we want to see is a Government committing to Canterbury, and, ultimately, what we want to see is the best new city in the world being rebuilt. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Brett Hudson: Madam Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Brett Hudson. Is this a split call?

Brett Hudson: It is indeed, I understand.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you very much for advising the Chair.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Sorry, about that, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m also filling in for Mr Bakshi, so I don’t quite have the turban on today, but it is a pleasure to rise in support of the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill in this, its first reading.

I think the points are pretty well canvassed, actually. This is a missed opportunity. We support the bill; we support the four changes it brings in. Three of them are non-controversial; the fourth one, which, as colleague Stuart Smith and then the Hon Nicky Wagner have pointed out, does raise some real serious issues around apportionment between reinsurers and about the reinstatement of insurance by allowing claims to be lodged up to two years after an event instead of the current three months. But all of the points, whether it’s the cap or the contents, they have come out of a discussion document that it was the National Government that led, and, really regrettably, while we can support those, and we will, the other five elements from that discussion have been left for another day—in fact, for another inquiry that this Labour-led coalition Government are going to proceed with.

Ignoring the fact that the Earthquake Commission (EQC) is inquired of and on regularly through questions in the House, through select committee inquiries, through annual reviews, through Estimates hearings, indeed through legislation such as this—I mean, the Christchurch event was so large that they have indeed had inquiry from the Ombudsman and very much so from the Office of the Auditor-General. They’ve already been subject to all manner of inquiries and delving into what happened and what could be improved, so why would they need another one—another one to add to the more than three dozen that are already out there? A few days ago—it might have been a week ago—I think they counted that they were up to 39 inquiries. Surely, it’s over 40 now. I mean, they’ve got a run rate on generating inquiries that the Black Caps would be proud to have. It’s more like a Twenty20 game than a Parliament session. So, really, it’s a lost opportunity.

What we should be doing here is grasping the nettle and dealing with the nine recommendations—actually Parliament doing its job, involving the public, getting on with the bill, and getting through select committee, dealing with all of those nine important matters. Instead they pick off four relatively non-controversial matters and kick the can down the road on five other really important matters.

Well, that’s really a symptom of this Government—a Government that talked a great deal when it was in Opposition and, now it’s in Government, still wants to do a whole lot of talking. Well, they’re going to learn fairly shortly that the public actually want and demand doing, and with this bill, as with others that we’ve seen in this short number of months—far too many already, but this short number of months—it doesn’t do enough. It doesn’t do enough to address the problems of the people of Canterbury. It doesn’t do enough to get EQC on the right footing for future events. It doesn’t do enough to instil confidence in this Government from the people of New Zealand. We support the bill. The Government should and could do better.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Well, following a couple of fairly undignified efforts, I’d like to focus in a little bit on the bill that the House actually has before it. But just in opening up, I do want to acknowledge, in fact, all colleagues around the Chamber, whatever party they may come from, from the city of Christchurch, because, pretty clearly, we’re here debating this bill as a result of what happened in Christchurch. So I just want to acknowledge the work that all of those colleagues in different capacities did to support their city following on from those events in 2010 and 2011.

I want to especially acknowledge the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission, the Hon Megan Woods, because what we heard from her when she opened up this debate was that on coming into office she was determined that we got the horse moving on this one. The reality is that the Earthquake Commission (EQC) is an enormous organisation, and changes to the way it works have significant impacts on New Zealanders, and one does want to think a little bit carefully about those before implementing them.

I have to say that what we, effectively, hear from the Opposition on these issues is that we shouldn’t think before we act. Well, this is a Government that is going to think before it acts. On coming into office—following on from the previous Government which did nothing to reform the EQC in the nine years that it had—what the Minister has said very quickly to officials is, “Look, there’s longer-range work that has to happen, that is going to take deeper consideration, but what are the things that we can move on now?” And that’s why we have this bill before us, and that’s a symptom of a Minister who’s all about action and a Government that’s about actually getting things done.

The Earthquake Commission is a national treasure. The Earthquake Commission is a national treasure and it’s one that was bequeathed to us, as many of our other great institutions were, by the first Labour Government in the aftermath of the Napier earthquake and various other disasters in that period of our history. The reason that it is a treasure is that it is all about social solidarity. It is about New Zealanders saying, “When bad things happen to other New Zealanders, we’re not going to leave you hanging out to dry. We are all in this together.”

Virtually all New Zealanders who have a home and have an insurance policy pay in on a roughly equal basis and we all get the support. And whether you are rich or poor, in a place where a natural disaster hits you get the support that you need from the Earthquake Commission. That is at least how it is supposed to work, and so continuing to ensure that that institution meets the needs of New Zealanders and is sustainable and fit for the future is incredibly important. It’s part of our social fabric, part of that notion—that Kiwi notion—of social solidarity and looking after each other. That is very much at the core of this Government’s agenda.

It’s also worth noting that the Earthquake Commission is, in fact, one of the largest organisations in the world that has to go and seek reinsurance on the international markets. It is a substantial and quite unique organisation. I welcome the Hon Gerry Brownlee’s comments about the value of the select committee—which will be the Finance and Expenditure Committee—making sure that it understands those issues fully, and we will certainly be doing that.

The bill addresses four key areas, and just to quickly work through those, the first is that it removes the EQC cover for contents. To me, this is sort of a fox and a hedgehog thing. We have this organisation that has this incredibly important role in terms of supporting New Zealanders after a disaster. Do we want it to do a number of quite complex things, or do we want it to really focus in on the big thing that will help people get back up on their feet? That’s what this is, effectively, about. It’s about saying, “Let’s let the private insurance market sort out the contents so that the Earthquake Commission can focus on the thing that is really, really substantial in terms of people getting their lives going again, which is getting their home back.” So I think that’s a very sensible change, and there seems to be widespread support for that change.

The bill increases the building cover cap from $100,000 to $150,000. It’s my understanding that the $100,000 cap was set back in 1993, when the commission was established in its current form, so clearly, it’s well beyond time that that was increased to take account of increasing costs. The other benefit of that is that, potentially, it means that homeowners can have their needs met by simply dealing with the EQC instead of having to split a claim, effectively, between the EQC and a private insurer, which obviously creates duplication, confusion, and delay.

Thirdly, there’s the increase in claim notifications from a hard cap of three months to up to two years, with some caveats. That’s going to be explored at the select committee, but it seems sensible to me given that certain earthquake damage may not be discovered until a bit later.

Finally, there’s greater clarity around the EQC’s information-sharing rights. I think that’s good and proper given its role in public education.

This is a good bill. It’s a bill put forward by a Government that’s set to improve things, and I commend it to the House. Thank you very much.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Civil Defence): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to follow Michael Wood, the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, to speak to this bill.

This bill brings together two issues which relate to the two portfolios I have: civil defence and commerce. In the civil defence field, our primary function is to make sure that people are prepared and we’re ready to respond in the event of an emergency, and one of the many things we’re trying to achieve in the commerce sphere is making sure that people have good access and the right level of insurance or risk cover for them and their families. So I’d like to congratulate my good friend and colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods for getting a piece of legislation in the House which deals with, I think, the first tranche of issues that have come about from the review of the Earthquake Commission (EQC).

I echo the comments of Michael Wood and put on notice that we’re quite lucky to have EQC. The fact is that all New Zealanders have that level of certainty of cover to a certain degree if an event does happen. EQC was obviously tested in the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch and Canterbury. The changes that we are making here today are pragmatic and, I think, will allow us to get the settings right in order to deal with some of the other issues that came about from the review.

I find it slightly galling to sit and listen to some of the points made by the previous Government when this review and inquiry—where these recommendations or these changes have come about—started back in 2012, and to hear a previous Minister saying that we’re not going far enough when we’re dealing with four of the recommendations out of the nine recommendations from the review and the previous Government dealt with zero. That’s the point that I do want to make. While we have to get the quality right, I would disagree with the member from Waimakariri and say that, actually, Cantabrians and New Zealanders did want some speed but they did want to have some certainty because what they saw as a result of the Christchurch earthquakes they did not like, and they wanted to make sure, for them and for other New Zealanders, that the issues that came about from the treatment that they had and some of the things that happened in their experience post-quake were dealt with as swiftly as possible.

So we have dealt with—as many speakers have said—the low-hanging fruit, and I think making sure that we can extend the cover from $100,000 to $150,000 is a positive thing for all New Zealanders. I think that should also send a signal to private insurance companies that New Zealanders might be looking for a bit of give and take there, as well. I also think it’s pragmatic to do away with the contents insurance aspects of the legislation as it stands, because I understand that that took up a lot of administration and time, when I think it’s actually homes and properties that are the priority.

The current settings, as they are, are that New Zealanders have $100,000 of cover by EQC, plus the excess, and I think moving this out to $150,000 will give the surety and, I guess—as Megan Woods said—more cover and certainty for New Zealanders, because that is the range in which a lot of the claims to the EQC were post-Christchurch. So if we were to deal with an issue like that post-Christchurch—touch wood, hopefully not—that range would take in a lot of the public insurance cover as opposed to New Zealanders having to deal with their own private insurance companies.

Just going back to some of the comments that were made across the House, Mr Doocey said that the work done at EQC was one of the previous Government’s top four priorities. I find it hard to believe, when they started a review in 2012 and can’t get to a piece of legislation five years later, that they have delivered on one of their top priorities. I find that very hard to believe. So I’m really looking forward to the next National Party speaker who can stand up in this House and criticise this piece of legislation coming into the House five months after we have come into Government when the review that they started and the nine recommendations that they had ended up resulting in zero pieces of legislation and zero out of the nine recommendations being acted on.

The people of Christchurch and the people of New Zealand wanted to see both speed and quality. That’s what they’re going to get from this Government.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand to take a call on the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. To listen to that previous speaker, Kris Faafoi, talk about and criticise the previous Government’s programme around earthquake recovery was a bit rich, really, considering he wasn’t around there when the earthquakes hit in 2010 and 2011. Watching all of those people having to go through their recovery period—

Hon Kris Faafoi: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just on that point, my family was in Christchurch. I was there the day after.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): That’s not a proper point of order.

JO HAYES: That’s not a point of order, Mr Faafoi. My golly gosh, come on! You can do better than that, Mr Faafoi. Anyway, I digress, Madam—Mr Assistant Speaker. There’s been a change.

I just want to say that this side of the House—the previous Government—did a lot of good work in the recovery process for Christchurch during the earthquakes, and some of the people—our Gerry Brownlee, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, also suffered. Yet he carried on and pushed through, and to say that this side of the House only dealt with the low-hanging fruit when it came to Earthquake Commission (EQC) claims—I don’t think that 167,000 housing claims, building claims, are low-hanging fruit or that 470 insurance contents claims are low-hanging fruit, Mr Faafoi. This side of the House worked very hard to get response to the people that the earthquake affected, and while they were doing it they were also suffering as well, Mr Faafoi. So be careful how you criticise this side of the House, because we did a lot—we did a lot—of work on the Christchurch earthquakes.

It set the test for the Earthquake Commission process and where that was going to go to. It was tested. It was sad the way that it had come about, but it was tested, and in 2012, once we got the greater Christchurch earthquake recovery going, that’s when the review started, Mr Faafoi. Why try and review when everybody’s in stress? Come on. Perhaps you might need some lessons in that, if your area went through the same impact that Christchurch did.

To keep Canterbury as a top priority, and this side of the House has and it will continue to be, because we respect the people of Christchurch. It’s our second-largest city in New Zealand, and we want to make sure that when it recovers it will be leading the world in recovery from earthquake and catastrophic incidents, Mr Faafoi. It all happened on this side, Mr Faafoi.

So when we start to look at the four areas that this bill—and I don’t even know why the Government’s taken four out of the nine recommendations from the 2015 discussion document, Mr Faafoi. Why only four? Why not the whole nine? Perhaps the select committee could go and review all of those and actually start to see the value of adding the other five recommendations, Mr Faafoi.

But I want to talk about only one of those recommendations, and that’s increasing the cap limit on EQC’s residential building cover to $150,000, which I commend the Government on. It should have been $200,000, but I’ll take $150,000. So one of the messages I would like to send to the select committee when they’re reviewing this, as it goes to first reading, I just want the select committee to consider adding a clause into this particular part of the bill to review the cap every five years so it keeps up. It keeps up with everything that’s going on each year, with property values and all the impacts that house owners, homeowners, would face.

So I’m not going to stand up for much longer. I want this bill to go to first reading. I just want to say to the Minister of Civil Defence over there, how come he was late when there were the issues over in Coromandel? How come you were late there, eh? I know that that happened.

If the Minister is going to be a good Minister, he needs to be front and centre on disasters that happen and what people face, under civil defence. Our side were there. On the day they were there, and they were working. From the time that people needed that help, they were there. Every other time an earthquake has hit Canterbury, the Canterbury MPs have been front and centre, Mr Faafoi. I commend the bill to the House and look forward for it to go to first reading—to committee, sorry.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): That’s certainly five minutes of my life that will not be returned to me. What a nasty, bitter little speech from a member who supports the legislation, who attacked us for only introducing four of the nine measures, who was part of a Government that did zero—zero—for changing the Earthquake Commission (EQC). What a disastrous way to end a Thursday, for the Government—for the Opposition.

This is just one—nine years of habit—of a number of measures that our Government is putting into place to clean up the mess that the National Government left behind. There is a lot of cleaning up to do, and I am very proud of the leadership that the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has shown in this space. We’re working so well with New Zealand First and the Greens. This is a great combination of three parties with separate ideas but shared values and principles, who are working together to improve the lives of New Zealanders, and this legislation is another example.

So I want to particularly congratulate the leadership of my friend and colleague the Hon Megan Woods. She has taken to this challenge like a duck to water. She has accepted the resignation of the former chair of the Earthquake Commission, and, I think, with considerable insight into the needs of the leadership of the Earthquake Commission, has appointed the Hon Dame Annette King. If there’s anybody that can see a problem and get it fixed, it’s the Hon Dame Annette King. I can’t get used to calling her Dame Annette, but it does suit her. I feel really confident, in the increased pressure that will be on the commission, to ensure that finally, after seven years, the earthquake damage needs of our constituents in Canterbury are met.

I want to also acknowledge what I think is the new template for the regulatory impact statement (RIS). I think that having a really clear—what the decision is going to be, the problem that is laid out, the options that were considered; this is a much better format than previous RIS’ were. This is the first one that I have seen in this new format. I might have missed others, because even though I really love reading RIS’, I don’t always read them. But I think this is a document to be commended, and I want to acknowledge Treasury for giving Parliament a document that makes it easy to understand what problems the legislation is seeking to address, what options were considered, and how these options came to be viewed as the most favourable.

So this is the start of a series of reforms of the Earthquake Commission. It’s not the end. These are areas that everybody agreed needed to be fixed, during the review that was instigated by former Minister the Hon Gerry Brownlee in 2012. I think they make sense. They do also reflect the lessons that were learnt from Kaikōura, as well as from the Canterbury quakes. They’re widely agreed, they’re common sense, and they can be instigated quite quickly. We needed to make some progress, but this certainly does not reduce the amount of work that still needs to be done following the inquiry into EQC that we are instigating.

We acknowledge the problems of the past. I think one of the biggest faults of the previous Government was that they acted as if everything was going right, and actually it wasn’t. Nobody from Labour, when we were in Opposition then, wanted anyone’s head on a platter. We wanted acknowledgment that this was not the way that we needed to recover from the series of earthquakes.

The Earthquake Commission was not in a position to respond appropriately and in a timely way, and now we have that acknowledgment we can find a way, moving forward. So increasing the cap limit on EQC is a very good idea. Lengthening the notification time that EQC can accept a claim is a good idea. In fact, I was surprised at Stuart Smith, having been a member of Parliament representing an area that has gone through that, querying that. In fact, it was a recommendation from the Ombudsman, is my understanding of it—removing EQC’s insurance cover for contents. That will be picked up by private insurers and obviously clarifying the authority to share information. That’s been a big gap in the way that we’ve operated.

So I think we’ve had a good debate. I’m sad that the National Party has chosen to continue to ignore the problems of the past. It has used political point-scoring—actually, not very effectively—during this debate, in a way that I think is inappropriate, because everyone in this Parliament should want to make improvements to an area that is so important to the well-being of New Zealanders’ lives. That’s what Labour and New Zealand First and the Greens seek to do with these changes, and I look forward to the bill’s progress through this House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Bills

Corrections Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 28 March.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): When the House was last considering the Corrections Amendment Bill, Chris Bishop had the call and he has five minutes, 30 seconds remaining should he wish to take his call.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I don’t think that Mr Bishop could fill another five minutes on what he was speaking about last night.

It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Corrections Amendment Bill. In reading quickly through the bill, it became quite apparent to me that, at some stage, through the day-to-day operations of corrections, at some time they must be, let’s say, pushing the boundaries of the law as written at the moment, just to have some day-to-day practical application of dealing with the prisoners, because of some of the really, I think, astounding issues or parts of the legislation that will be covered and amended through this bill. I will get to them in a second.

Firstly, I just want to address a couple of comments that David Bennett made last night in the House. I’m glad that he’s in the House at the moment. It revolves around the National Party’s topic du jour at the moment, or one of them, in regard to criticism of the Labour - New Zealand First coalition Government with the support of the Greens.

Hon David Bennett: Soft on crime coalition.

DARROCH BALL: Well, that’s one of them. That’s what Mr Bennett says. But one of them is that our aim is to reduce the prison population by 30 percent. First of all, the National Party tries to criticise us for trying to do that, for attempting to do that. They try and make it sound like it’s a bad thing—like it’s a bad thing.

And then we get the whole: how are you going to do it? Are you going to release prisoners? Are you going to open the doors and release 30 percent of the prisoners? Because that, I guess, is the limit of the logic of how the National Party members’ brains work. But what they don’t get is that prison is the end result of a failing justice system. It’s not the start of it. It’s not where you begin to look at the problems of a failing justice system. That’s the end result.

So if the National Party and Mr Bennett want to have a more than one-dimensional think about how a prison and corrections system should work, then perhaps they should look a lot further before that individual gets into prison, and how this Government is proactively going to stop and going to reduce the prison population by 30 percent. Then they might be getting somewhere.

Then, the National Party and Mr Bennett, on multiple occasions, have criticised the Government’s increase in the police numbers by 1,800. The logic that the National Party is using is that more police means more prisoners. Again, one-dimensional—looking at the prison and corrections systems as the start, the be-all and end-all of when and how and why that person is in prison in the first place.

So the logic from the National Party is more police, more prisoners—more police, more crime, apparently. That means if there’s more prisoners, there’s more crime being committed. The logic from the National Party is that the police must be committing the crime. Because if there’s more police, there’s more crime—that’s exactly the logic that the National Party is saying. But then if you hit them up about that, they say, “No, the police catch the criminals. The police catch more criminals. The police catch more criminals and then they put them in prison and they become part of the corrections system.”

Well, now we know—they’ve made it quite clear—the National Party’s approach, and how they could stand there for their entire nine years and say that crime was coming down: they just don’t put police out there. If the police go out there, then they can catch people committing crime, and then they can put them in prison.

In any event, the last thing that Mr Bennett said that I want to address, before I get on to the details of the bill, is that—one of the criticisms is that the current Minister left out one of the most important things, which is rehabilitation, or one of the rehabilitation clauses. Clearly, over the last nine years, the National Government has failed at improving, one iota, the rehabilitation of our prisoners—the rehabilitation of prisoners. The evidence can’t be more blatant than the skyrocketing prison population—the skyrocketing prison population over the last nine years. What the National Government has done is thrown and lobbed this huge corrections grenade and said, “Here, catch.”

And now they’ve got the gall to stand up and criticise, first of all, what we’re going to do with the outrageous prison population—and not just the prison population, but the increasing prison population. They’re going to say, “What are you going to do? What are you going to do? What are you going to do? How are you going to reduce it? How are you going to reduce it?”—like it’s our problem.

Hon David Bennett: You’re Government now, you tosser.

DARROCH BALL: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure if you heard that unparliamentary remark, but I was offended by it, and he needs to withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I didn’t hear the remark.

DARROCH BALL: Well, Mr Bennett made an unparliamentary remark, Mr Assistant Speaker, and I’m offended, and I want him to withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m going to ask the Hon David Bennett whether or not he did make an unparliamentary remark.

Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Thank you.

DARROCH BALL: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Kieran McAnulty: You’re a disgrace.

DARROCH BALL: It’s unbelievable. No, no—I’m not surprised. That’s just typical, losing the argument, and so he has to try and be insulting about it—losing the argument, so he has to try and be insulting about it. All right, sir. Ha, ha!

I just want to go through a couple of the points and the details of the bill. Some of them came as quite astounding to me—that they actually existed before we started amending them. And some of them are quite basic, and some of them are really just trying to tie up loose ends to ensure that the corrections officers are able to deal with the prisoners in a much more practical and day-to-day better way. Also, for the prisoners themselves—not just for the staff, it’s important for the prisoners as well that we have law in there to protect them as well.

So in total there are about 16 of the amendments—but there’s a couple of them. There was one addressing self-harm, and what the legislation wants to do is to address this by ensuring requirements relating to the assessment and observation of a prisoner and the development of an at-risk plan. That’s just common sense. I’m not sure how it was previous to when this law change will occur, but it’s really just common sense that we are observing individuals who might have some mental health issues and that need a plan, an at-risk plan, and a review of the prisoner’s at-risk status as well.

One of the ones that I found surprising is information on disciplinary offences. So when a prisoner first arrives at the corrections facility, only now, in this legislation, with what needs to be amended, do the prison managers need to provide newly admitted prisoners with information about disciplinary offences. So, basically, they’ve got to tell them what the rules are in the prison. You’d think that that would be common sense—if an individual was first to a corrections facility, that they would need to know the rules, the ins and outs, and whatnot like that.

The other one that I found surprising was that it was still in legislation that it was OK to use chains and irons in prisons. Sometimes the corrections officer might want to use them on some of the prisoners because of their behaviour, but it is totally not acceptable, and it’s a good thing that these will be amended.

I guess the most applicable one that I’m glad is being amended is any prisoner that has some restrictions on who they can contact and write letters to, or just contact in general in the general population—right now, before the law has been changed, if an individual prisoner is writing a letter to someone and trying to get it to someone that they shouldn’t or were not allowed to, they would only be committing an offence if they got caught doing that, if the corrections officer actually intercepted that letter—not the fact that they intended to or tried to, but only if they got caught in the act of doing that. So it’s obviously a good thing that—and it needs to be addressed. It’s the intent with which the court order’s been put on that person not to try and contact the individual.

In the last 30 seconds of my speech, I just want to highlight something that’s written in the impact statement that highlights the current issues and the challenges faced by both prisoners and the staff. It says that “while the proposed provisions are expected to change behaviour of prisoners and corrections staff responsible for the treatment of prisoners and control and command nature of the prison environment, it makes it difficult to predict behaviour, particularly given that 62 percent of people in prison have recently experienced mental health disorders and 47 percent of people in prison have an addiction problem.” That’s one of the major aspects of corrections that people need to realise when producing legislation like this. Thank you.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It occurs to me that in passing this legislation, or at least at this initial stage, we will be committing an act to correct the Corrections Act—if you’ll allow me that palindromic parsing. Essentially, of course, the Corrections Amendment Bill is what we’re speaking to. If I may, before I proceed any further, wish you a happy New Year. This is, in fact, the first time that I have spoken in this House in 2018, with the exception of some brief and witty interjections. It possibly reflects the quality of my contribution prior to Christmas, so I wonder if, in addition to wishing you a happy Chinese New Year in the meantime, I should get in early in case my next contribution is similarly delayed, and wish you a happy Easter and, indeed, Anzac Day to follow.

In relation to this bill, it seems to me that there are some good things in it, but, of course—as is inevitably the case—there are also some good things that are not in it, which we might say are conspicuous by their absence. I’ll deal with the first category in the first place: some things that are present that I think are highly laudable and worthwhile—some of which have been touched upon, of course, by parliamentary colleagues on both sides of the House.

In relation to the previous speaker, Mr Darroch Ball did point out the provisions in relation to prisoners’ knowledge of disciplinary offences. I would support the idea that this is a worthwhile thing for the legislation to cover. I would add, on a theoretical basis, that if we are to say to people, including prisoners, that ignorance of the law is no excuse for not following it, then we are obliged as a society—and in this case in the executive Government, specifically the corrections system—to give them an opportunity to comply with the law by knowing what it is, in the first instance. I’d also add the comment that the symbolic value of people who, by definition or invariably, have entered into the corrections system because they have not followed some more general law—it seems to me very worthwhile that they should start their time in incarceration, knowing what the things are that they need to do to comply with the rules of that specific place. So, as I say, it seems to me a positive move to require, explicitly, that those operating the corrections system do give those prisoners knowledge of the disciplinary offences.

With regard to things that are not in the bill but perhaps might be, reducing the prison population by 30 percent is, again, perhaps a laudable goal of the current Government, in so far, of course, as it does not reduce the safety of the general population, but I note that conspicuous by its absence in this legislation is any measure to achieve that. Perhaps that may be coming. I won’t hold my breath on that, but perhaps in another three months or so, when I give my next speech—which just seems to be my current rate of speech making in this House—there will be something further to report in that regard.

So, with nothing further to contribute at this point, I commend the bill to the House on that limited basis and look forward to its passage through select committee and beyond. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’m trying to hear who wants to take a call.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): This bill covers a lot. It is a reflection of all the detailed reform that this new Government will need to undertake in the area of corrections and our criminal justice system to make it effective—to move away from what has been failing.

I note, today, the release of the report by the Prime Minister’s chief scientist, Peter Gluckman, that says unequivocally that our criminal justice system is broken and imprisoning more and more New Zealanders is not going to fix it. We in the Green Party commend this. We have been saying it for years and years. We need a focus on rehabilitation, and we need a focus on evidence-based policy, because the rhetoric of politicians calling for tough-on-crime policies—their policies have failed. Crime is up, imprisonment is up, and it is not helping. Telling victims over and over again that being tough on crime by locking more and more people up is going to protect them from crime has now become callous. It’s expensive and reckless. All it does is make those politicians look tough whilst they keep failing their communities and keep filling up our prisons.

Hon David Bennett: Keep talking. It’s good stuff.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Thank you. So we must acknowledge the evidence, otherwise we will continue to fail. That’s what the Green Party calls for; that is what this bill introduces to our corrections system.

Where imprisonment is necessary, a rehabilitation focus will help us keep people out of prison once they rejoin their community. Sometimes that’s going to look like fairness and compassion for offenders, and we’re OK with that—because it turns out that, as a society, the way we react to deviancy, the way we react to crime, is going to be the making of us, and it also turns out that that is exactly what reduces crime.

In particular, in this bill, I just want to highlight a few points—because there is a lot to it, as you will know. The first of those things is the framework for treating detainees that are at risk of self-harm. Now we know that the overwhelming majority of our prison population have come to prison with serious mental health issues, with brain injury, or with addiction issues. As the previous Government defunded mental health services and addiction services, our criminal justice system was the only point of intervention. Our courts were forced to lock people up when they needed mental health support. Right now, those people, when they do come to be identified as at risk of serious self-harm, don’t have a way of planning for their treatment. This bill introduces an at risk of self-harm plan. They will be supported through that, which will aid their rehabilitation once they rejoin their community. That’s the kind of move we need to make.

The next thing is the use of imaging instead of strip-searches. I can’t believe that this technology wasn’t already in use. Strip-searches are sometimes necessary but, hopefully, in an ideal world, in very, very few cases. However, we know before the courts right now is a human rights case, because our prisons have been using strip-searches en masse as a preventative measure to prevent risk rather than assessing where the risk is actually there. This is incredibly invasive, it places prisoners at risk of abuse, and it’s probably also enormously burdensome on guards, who probably don’t actually want to be conducting a mass strip-search of detainees. This kind of imaging will mean that that kind of degrading treatment won’t happen in our prisons any more.

The next thing is something close to my heart, as a Green Party MP in particular, because I want to remember the work of Sue Bradford, a previous Green Party MP who first brought legislation before this House that eventually enabled mothers and babies to stay together in places of detention—in prison. This bill wants to introduce an appeal process. When mums are denied the right to be together with their young children in prison, they can appeal that decision, and, hopefully, more mums and children will be kept together. We know it’s enormously traumatic for children to be separated from their mothers, and it is also traumatic, of course, for those mums. Keeping those familial bonds intact while people are in detention is something that will also aid in rehabilitation and better behaviour in prison, because of that very deep trauma. So we’re going to keep more of those bonds intact while mothers are in prison, and that’s only a very good thing.

The last, but certainly not least, of the rehabilitative—I’m going to call it “rehabilitative”, but actually this is huge for our justice system. The last point I want to emphasise in this bill is a Green win, and it’s something that’s enormously close to my heart, personally, because before I entered this House I worked on children’s rights. I helped draft New Zealand’s last two non-governmental reports to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, and this bill will, for the first time, introduce a prohibition against children under 18 being put in places of detention and police cells with adults. I say with some confidence that in terms of international human rights law, our refusal to abide by the prohibition against age-mixing in places of detention is one of the most serious breaches ever. Since 1990 we’ve refused to abide by this human rights prohibition. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most universal pieces of international human rights law, and we are in breach. So this law brings us a bit closer in line with what’s expected of us.

If we look at the general prison population, we say that it is overwhelmingly filled with people who suffer from mental illness and brain injury. If we look at the population coming in conflict with the criminal justice system as young people, those stats are even more horrifying. For girls, it’s more often than not immediate trauma that they’ve suffered that’s caused them to offend and act out; for boys, it’s generally longer-standing mental health issues that have come about as a result of serious neglect or abuse. That is who we’re locking up with adult criminals, at the first point of intervention, when we actually have a chance to protect those kids, who we failed before. So it is a good day when we say that we are going to try a bit harder to stand up for the rights of these children, because the criminal justice system should be fair and it should be about helping people to rejoin society and to lead healthier lives, and to keep our community safe through what actually works.

In terms of the child rights aspect of this law and the approach to compassion that we need to bring further into our youth justice system, I want to quote from the director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Yury Fedotov, who said, “On any given day, children in conflict with the law encounter violence, including from police and security forces, from adult detainees, from staff at detention centres and from their own peers, while some even attempt suicide. These are the invisible children; our role is to bring their misery into plain sight”. This bill does a little bit of that, so I am happy to commend it to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a quick call on the Corrections Amendment Bill, and in so doing wish my colleague Chris Penk a very happy New Year, as well. I’d like to return that to him. He can read that in the Hansard, I’m sure.

I’ve just been listening to the Green Party talking about this bill, and I’m not quite sure what they’re sort of feeling about it—whether they’re supporting it, whether they’re not supporting it. They’ve gone from talking about how the prisons are expensive and reckless to talking about how there are some Green wins, and I’m sort of not sure which way they’re going to be voting on this piece of legislation. I guess it’s because they’re not quite sure what they actually think in regard to this coalition and its desire to make sure that we pass National Party pieces of legislation like this one, which makes some sensible changes to the Corrections Act, or whether they’re going to try and catch and release, so they can fulfil their 30 percent reduction in the prison population. I’m not sure whether they’re still deciding who that 30 percent might be.

So the National Party will support this piece of legislation to select committee because, in large, it is a piece of legislation which was started by the Hon Louise Upston while she was Minister of Corrections—an excellent piece of legislation which she did. We made a large number of changes over the nine years while we were in Government, and this was the latest in a suite of changes to ensure that we continued to work in this area of law and order.

So we will be supporting it to select committee, but one of our concerns is around the fact that this Government has removed some of the work that was in place around enhancing rehabilitation. I find that really fascinating. They have an opportunity here to continue some of the work that we were doing around rehabilitation, and they’ve taken it out. I guess that raises the question of whether they are more focused on rehab or release, and I think it probably goes towards the latter.

So we will be sending this to select committee. I am pleased with a large number of the changes which are proposed in this piece of legislation, and in particular one of them which relates to a member’s bill in my name, the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill, around the Psychoactive Substances Act. I’m pleased to see that this bill will be defining these drugs as drugs, so that the corrections system are able to deal with them appropriately and test for them, as they should be. That’s a particularly important change which will be made. It makes changes to the use of police jail cells, segregation of prisoners at risk of self-harm, and a large number of other important issues. So we look forward to addressing those through the select committee process, and we’ll see what comes back from that. Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes. I call Greg O’Connor.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): As a much younger man, I worked as an undercover police officer, which meant living among criminals and with them. One thing I learnt about prison was that quite a vulnerable time, to me, was when someone came out of prison. Because when these people came back into the scene that I was in, they were the first ones to recognise there was a new face there, because they expected to come right back into the place that they had left, and they invariably did, and they invariably began their offending again.

And that, even as a younger man, sowed the seed with me that we’ve really got to do better, that when people do come out—I often am a great believer that the fact of prison is as important as the length of the sentence, and that the certainty of capture is one of the most important things in crime prevention, making people believe they’ll get caught, which makes the Labour Party policy of increasing the number of police by 1,800 a very positive one. Because more and more people out there will believe they are going to get caught, and that will have a greater impact on the prison population than anything.

But the other thing that, really, I did learn is that when we send people to prison, there is a tendency to sort of treat ’em bad, lock ’em up. But one thing I believe—and this is not only in prison, but right through the justice sector—is that we’ve got to be better than them. There is an expectation that when people do end up in prison, it doesn’t matter how badly treated they are. Actually, I disagree with that. I actually think they need to know that society—the society we expect them to come back to, the society that eventually they’re going to end up back in—is actually a better place than the one they left to go to prison from.

When I look at some of the provisions of this, particularly the way we treat those with mental health issues, I think it’s incredibly important that we understand that these people are coming back. We are not going to go the way that Louisiana did, where the greatest growth industry is geriatric prisons, because they have such prescriptive sentencing that people who are no longer a threat to anyone—not even themselves—can never be released, even though they are often in dementia wards, and the growth of dementia prisons, simply because that regime has gone down that path.

We have to accept in New Zealand that we’re not going to go that way—that the people are generally, although there has been some good work in identifying the people that shouldn’t ever get back. But most are going to come back into our society, so we’ve actually got to give them some tools to come back with. That’s why I look at some of the provisions of this bill and—just a little one, like the tattoos.

It was always a matter of pride to have your boob dots—to be able to walk into any hotel and anyone could identify immediately which prison you’d been to by not only how many dots you had, that generally was commensurate with how many times you’d been to prison, but even just the shape of the dot, the shape of the star, and where it was. And it was actually like reading DNA—to actually be able to read someone’s whole life in prison. It’s hardly surprising that when you’re in prison, you are locked away from society, and the mere fact that you’re eventually going to have to walk in public with some unfortunate pieces of tattoo art on your face—it’s a long way away.

So everything we do with people in prison, it’s got to be giving them the ability that, when, eventually, we do release them, they’ve got at least some chance of having a go, having success—and tattooing is one of them. I’m pleased to see—I’ve been involved in the past myself in having people remove them. One of the first things, when people do start to go straight—get on the straight and narrow—is often removing tattoos, because nothing identifies them worse than that. In the past, I’ve actually had to help people who have rehabilitated in getting their tattoos taken off, and the State has actually been quite good at that.

So, actually, in prison, taking some steps to try and prevent the tattooing—it won’t be easy. Anyone I’ve talked to, anyone who’s been involved in the corrections system will tell you it won’t be easy, but at least having a goal and some methodology and, more importantly, some sanctions around trying to prevent that from happening—again, helping that, when these people do go out, the chances of them reoffending will be reduced. Because that, again, is the only way we’re going to manage to do so.

Because, at the moment, one of the other unfortunate parts of this legislation is that we’re going to enable—it’s around enabling police cells to be used for overflow prisoners. And I do remember walking into the Waitakere Henderson police station on one occasion when it was full of—

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

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a short call on the Corrections Amendment Bill—the first reading. Well, it really is quite something, sitting on this side of the House listening to the Government pass judgment on the merits of this bill—yet another piece of legislation whose intellectual core that has driven the thinking on this sat on this side and was driven by Louise Upston.

That famous saying that “Success had a hundred fathers, and failure is an orphan.”—well, we just heard that for the last 20 minutes. Each Labour and Green speaker was talking about the merits of this legislation and completely ignoring the fact that this is yet another example of a party and a Government that is so bereft of their own ideas that they are spending time lauding the detail of the previous Government’s legislation agenda. And that is quite remarkable.

With respect to some of the contributions that we’ve had today, I just listened quite intently to, I think, a very considered observation from Greg O’Connor about the various components in this bill. He talked about his own experience around the importance of ensuring that prisoners, when they leave from prison, have the appropriate support to ensure they don’t reoffend—that they are welcomed into society and that they make that very difficult transition, which he understands because he has been on the front line of this challenge. That, he says, is very important.

Well, we had expressed provisions with respect to enhancing rehabilitation—specific provisions which would’ve done exactly what Greg O’Connor had wanted, that would have helped prisoners through their period of incarceration to be able to transition back out into society in a way that maximised their success. But the Government removed them. But here he is, standing up, lauding the fact, and focusing the fact that that is actually what is needed in this legislation, unaware, clearly, that his party and his Government have removed precisely those sorts of provisions that the Hon Louise Upston had put in the original thinking of this bill.

We heard Darroch Ball talk about the importance of mental health and support for those with addictions. Again, that falls into the same category of enhancing rehabilitation in the provisions that we had put in this legislation that that side has taken out. It is just extraordinary. Even the Green contribution, talking about how the prison system is broken—but any particular sections in here about rehabilitation and enhancing that have been removed. These guys talk out of both sides of their mouths, and this country is increasingly seeing that and seeing it for what it is: a party bereft of ideas, bereft of the ability to actually take anything to this Parliament which has got real, comprehensive thinking. We had a complete bill which included rehabilitation. They have taken it out, and this is a lighter version of what our vision was. Frankly, it is a lost opportunity that they will, of course, have to account for in due course.

I look forward to the robust debate that no doubt will occur through the select committee process as this bill is considered, and I very much commend it to the House. Thank you.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call to support the Corrections Amendment Bill. It’s particularly interesting to follow the National member who just resumed his seat, Todd Muller. To partially cover the issues he just raised, I would like to read a paragraph from the Department of Corrections annual report. From the annual report 2016 to 2017, we have learnt that “The prison muster grew by over 700 over the last year, the equivalent of a medium-sized prison. In the last two years there has been a 16.7 percent increase in the prison population. We now have more than 10,200 people in 18 prisons across New Zealand, and a further 30,000 people are on community-based sentences.”

So what does that tell us? Where do those stats position us? Those statistics provide us with a picture of the size and scope of the problems or issues we’re dealing with. Like the Minister who introduced the bill to the House last night, Stuart Nash, said, we’re not only talking about prisons; we’re also talking about our staff members, talking about officers and Department of Corrections people on the ground. They are working hard to ensure the safety of our community.

Now, back to this bill. One issue I do want to bring to the House’s attention, as other members have already done, is with regard to the mental health issue. Mental health issues are very common among those in our prisons. The following data is from my learned colleague Dr Liz Craig, and I thank Dr Craig for her hard work and knowledge. In 2015, a corrections survey of 1,200 prisoners spread across 13 prisons found that 62 percent had either mental health issues or a substance use disorder, and that 20 percent had both. Seven percent reported having psychotic symptoms, like hearing voices or seeing things that were not real, and 6 percent had previously attempted suicide.

Since 2000, on average, corrections have experienced between three and six suicides in prisons each year. In 2015 and 2016, there were 11, while in 2016 to 2017, there was one, but in 2016-17, over 3,000 prisoners were placed in an at-risk unit.

Section 60 of the Corrections Act, “Segregation for [the] purpose of medical oversight”, currently deals with prisoners with physical health issues or who are at risk of self-harm, but those provisions or relevant sections create a kind of ambiguity and are not terribly clear in terms of the issues we’re dealing with. This bill provides a much clearer framework for managing prisoners at risk of self-harm. It includes eight new sections to ensure our prisoners are assessed properly, and if they do need to be segregated, they are checked on regularly and plans are put in place for their care and management.

The bill also covers a lot of other areas, including, first of all, making it a disciplinary offence for a prisoner to tattoo another prisoner or consenting to receive a tattoo from another or tattoo themselves.

Secondly, it amends the definition of a drug to align with the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 so prisoners can be tested for a wider range of drugs, including synthetic cannabis, and be charged with a disciplinary offence in the event of a positive test.

Thirdly, it allows for the use of imaging technology, like body scanners, to more effectively detect contraband, including drugs and weapons, and reduce reliance on rub-down or strip searches. These changes will help keep prisons free from drugs and weapons and will help make the prisons safer and also make it safer for prisoners and staff. With those notes, I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Kia ora. I’m delighted to have been asked to speak to this bill. Initially, I hadn’t been listed as one of the speakers, but I’m delighted, because I can speak from the context of experience as a criminal lawyer advocating for people who have either been remanded in custody and/or sentenced. I also acknowledge my colleague across the House Mr Greg O’Connor because we do come from that context of having worked with people who are affected by this. We’re not just speaking from reading a piece of paper; we can speak from the heart, we speak factually, and we speak based on life and professional experience.

Just following on from the other speakers, I will share that I find it, professionally and personally, extremely disappointing that the lens and the importance on rehabilitation has been pulled away, and I would invite the Government to reconsider that when it does come before the select committee. I speak from the experience of dealing with many of all ages who, either having been remanded pending sentence or having been sentenced, have been scared about not just their vulnerability on entry but also their departure. Mr O’Connor has talked about the vulnerability of release from prison. There is vulnerability when going into prison, and we talk about the mental health concerns and the addiction concerns. A provision within this bill focuses on the segregation of prisoners at risk of self-harm.

An automatic consequence and flow-on from that would be looking at the importance of a rehabilitation programme. There’s been many times when I’ve been counsel, advocating for my clients in the court cells, up in the court room, then back down to the cells again, when my clients have been pleading, and I have also had to make special requests of the attending police officers taking these inmates out to the prison, to ensure that they do have the necessary oversight in terms of the risk that they are presenting themselves with. The same can be said about the importance of rehabilitation programmes as well.

I have limited time to speak, so I’ll just move on in terms, again, not only of my professional life experience but that of my husband, who has served as a prison officer for a number of years. He has talked about the vulnerabilities, not only of the prisoners themselves but of the prison wardens or the prison officers. So it’s reassuring to see aspects such as the use of mechanical restraints on prisoners being treated in hospital. He’s spoken from personal experience many times about accompanying those who have required medical treatment, and although they have been restrained, they have had to be released for that medical attention and treatment. As a result, that’s exposed the medical staff and practitioners, as well as the prison officers in attendance, to personal threats and personal harm. So that is reassuring. I speak again from the experience of having a number of clients over the years who have self-tattooed. So seeing that there’s the oversight and the disciplinary actions taken in relation to that may have a positive consequence.

Now, I speak as a family lawyer, in terms of letters that have been written in prison from inmates to many of my clients who have been the subject of protection orders. To see that there are disciplinary procedures now, in so far as those inmates who have made attempts to write too, and that there are consequences and sanctions for that, I’d invite the Government or the select committee members also to consider phone calls. I’ve had many clients, over the years, who have been protected by protection orders and they’ve been subjected to phone calls that haven’t been monitored and haven’t been picked up. So that’s another precaution to consider.

A concern that I also share is the use of police cells to carry the overflow of inmates where there’s insufficient room in the corrections institutions. I’ve been a youth justice practitioner as well. We have a number of our youth who are detained in police cells, where there are insufficient placements for them into youth justice residences. So that would need to be a coordinated, collaborative approach between the Minister of Corrections and the Police, and also the Ministry of Social Development, as to how effectively that can be managed. So, despite the good intention that’s there, it really is about the implementation and how well that would be managed.

Just in conclusion, a final note and comment is just looking at prisoners’ management plans. The bill has required management plans; however, I’m concerned as to why there has been a reduction in oversight in the importance of rehabilitation. I leave it at that, and although I’ve made those comments, I do invite the select committee and the Government to heed those concerns that have been expressed, and, undoubtedly, you’ll hear further from submitters at that stage of the select committee. But, from those of us who stand and speak in the House based on our experience, please take heed. I commend this bill to select committee for further consideration.

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Corrections Amendment Bill, and thank you to all those who have already provided their thoughts and wisdom in this space. While several of the amendments contained within this legislation are required because clarity is needed in the law, this bill also provides for some real progressive change in an area that is long overdue.

There needs to be far more careful management of prisoners at risk of self-harm, and this bill provides the ability for that to happen, going forth. It also provides a review of mother and baby placement decisions, which is also a positive and progressive change to see. There are better detection services of contraband entering prison for prisoners, for family, and for corrections staff. This is an area, I understand, where this legislation enables a less invasive and far more comprehensive process to happen in order to detect contraband substances that may be brought into prison.

In general, what this bill sets out to do is to improve the ability of the Department of Corrections to safely and humanely manage prisoners, and, secondly, to ensure that there is prisoner safety, which is so important, and also to ensure the fair treatment of prisoners. There are many areas where there is a level of agreement across this House where policy is good and legislation is required. Given, as it’s been pointed out numerous times, that this is a bill that was generated by the National Party when in Government, it is surprising that there is a very clear difference in opinion on this issue in particular. This gap has widened even further over the last few months, given comments made on both sides of this House.

It is very clear from the short and somewhat uninspiring speeches we have heard this evening that there is no real intention to address the problem of reoffending and the growing prison population within New Zealand. What we’ve heard so far is that this Government is, in fact, soft on crime—that’s the repeated statement I have heard tonight. I’m not sure what that statement actually means and I’m not quite sure that the members opposite actually know what that means. I’m still looking forward to hearing how the strategy—how you are hard on crime—actually addresses the problem that is identified here in this bill.

What I think, actually, being hard on crime means is actually scaring the general public of New Zealand, because that’s what’s done. What is done is to inflate a problem and to scare the average person in their home, which will endeavour them to vote out of fear—not for rebuilding lives, not for changing the number of people who continually enter our prison system time and time again, but just to engender fear in others in order to score a few quick political points. That is where this Government is so much different from the previous one, because here is a requirement and a genuine desire to turn around and stop New Zealand being in the top rankings of the OECD for our prison population.

So this Government is not soft on crime, but I endeavour to say it’s smart on crime and we believe that $100,000 a year for a person to be in prison is not a smart investment. We see investment in education, health, jobs, training, and strengthening communities to be a good way of investing money, and for those people that we continue to pay, through taxpayers’ money, $100,000 a year to be incarcerated, that is a waste of our money.

Rehabilitation—we’ve heard already that there’s this dismay from members opposite that there’s the lack of rehabilitation provisions that were previously in this bill. Well, after nine years of having the ability of introducing some interesting rehabilitation initiatives, I fail to see any of them. In fact, I fail to see a single one, and in terms of being a previous employee of New Zealand Police, I saw time and time again initiatives that were designed to simply increase penalties, increase prison sentences, and prevent people from having the opportunities to rebuild their lives and to actually achieve rehabilitation. So I find it quite rich that there is an incensed notion from the members opposite that this bill is, in fact, lacking that. There has never been a plan I’ve seen from the members opposite to actually rebuild and prevent offending. All there’s been is a desire to look tough, lock them up, and hope it gets a few votes.

Well, let’s take a look at this bill and look at what is there to start out a process in which Labour has set out a very bold plan. This Government has made a commitment to reduce the prison population by 30 percent in 15 years. While this bill makes some positive changes in this space, there’s a whole lot more to be done yet and I look forward to seeing further bills and further policy changes to enable New Zealand to turn this ship around and make some positive change in a space that has been needing it for a very long time.

In terms of what we can see of providing mental health change, it’s really good to see that there is an increased structure around looking at those people who are at risk of self-harm, and access to good quality mental health support in our prisons is lacking at present and far more needs to be done in this space. The Act currently provides for the management of prisoners who are or may be at risk of self-harm to be further segregated and have greater monitoring. That’s a real relief for not only those who are prisoners but those who are family members of those people in prison—to know that they are adequately given care and support if they are needed and are at risk of harming themselves.

The second area which is also really encouraging is reviews of the mother and baby placement decisions. It’s heartening to see that there will be a greater ability for women who are pregnant or have children up to 24 months old, I understand—two years old—to have that time with their children. How important that is as a step to try and stop the cycle of reoffending—to have a close connection with a primary caregiver and to give those women who are in prison time to bond with their child and to understand and to have the support around them to make far more pro-social, positive choices not only for their own lives but for those of their tamariki. So that’s heartening to see—that this legislation enables that to happen.

The third key area that I will speak on tonight is around the changes to psychoactive substances and the adverse effects that those can have. I understand that the present legislation does not make specific provision for psychoactive substances in order for those to be detected and also to make sure that they are not used within prison.

It’s interesting to see also that we are enabling the Department of Corrections to search prisoners, staff, and visitors to detect contraband and to carry out that search to ensure that there is a lesser degree of contraband substances entering our prisons. This alongside with, hopefully, increased access to drug treatment is also important.

An area that I’d like to flag that still needs further consideration and is not covered by this bill is around access for those prisoners on remand. Some prisoners are on remand for 12 to even 18 months and are not able to access some of those services at a time when they are probably most vulnerable. This is an area where I would like to see an increased ability for mental health support and drug and alcohol treatment, in the area where people are ready to change and are wanting to be accessing services more readily, but sometimes are unable to access them.

So, without further ado, I commend this bill. I’m happy to see some positive changes, but I know that we’re going to be doing a whole lot more in this space. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Bills

Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I move, That the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.

Around half of all New Zealanders are renters. This Government is committed to making life better for them, and this bill is a down payment on that commitment. Banning letting fees will save renters up to $47 million a year.

I think the first thing to say about letting fees is that they are unfair and they have no economic rationale. It’s a significant cost on families at a very expensive time. When someone’s taking on a new tenancy, they have to find, often, two weeks’ rent in advance and four weeks’ bond, and to add the equivalent of a week’s rent plus GST to that, for many families, risks pushing them into financial hardship. In a market like we’ve seen in Auckland in recent years and, in fact, in many other parts of the country, where landlords have been cashing in on a rising market with some frequency, renters have often faced having to move even as frequently as once every few months or once every year. The costs associated with moving, including removal costs as well as rent in advance and bond, and to then slap a letting fee on top of that, can act to keep families in poverty, and certainly to prevent aspiring homeowners ever building up enough savings so that they could contemplate taking on a mortgage.

The fee is supposed to cover the costs of advertising a property, conducting open homes, and vetting potential tenants. These are services that are provided to the landlord. The contractual relationship is between the landlord and the letting agency, but somehow the existing law allows the fee for those services to be charged to a third party: the tenant. Now, in what other area of law are two parties contracting with each other for an exchange of services allowed to charge a third party? It’s an anomaly in the law.

The existing provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act specifically prohibit the charging of key money. Landlords are not allowed to charge key money. It’s a quaint, old-fashioned term for a fee that landlords used to charge tenants just for the privilege of being able to secure a tenancy agreement. That’s prohibited under the Residential Tenancies Act, and what this bill does is it actually closes an inconsistency and a loophole in the Act and it treats letting fees in exactly the same way. Someone said to me last week that letting fees are, basically, like a supermarket charging you for the privilege of going into the store so that you can buy their goods. That’s a perfect analogy. There is no justification for letting fees.

In reality, there’s no relationship between the letting fee and the costs of letting a property. It’s pretty standard for letting fees to be set at the equivalent of a week’s rent plus GST. Now, rent varies from city to city and from suburb to suburb, and for different kinds of houses the rent varies, but the letting fees are set regardless of the cost of the services that the letting agency is providing for the benefit of the landlord. There is no competitive tension on the amount charged. It’s just a week’s rent. What this bill means is that landlords will be able to shop around for the cheapest or best property manager or letting agency, and that will bring some competitive tension to the property management sector. That’s probably the reason why Barfoot and Thompson, who are one of the biggest property management companies in Auckland, came out publicly in support of this bill.

Hon Judith Collins: No, they didn’t. They’re against the bill.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Ms Collins, who I’m pleased to see followed me from transport to housing and urban development—and it’s nice to see Ms Collins taking on the responsibility of being the National Party’s spokesperson on housing and urban development. Her main contribution to this debate seems to be to suggest that letting fees will just increase the rent. First, she ignores the fact that even if we accept, for argument’s sake, that landlords will try to pass on the cost that currently is being sheeted home to tenants through these letting fees, if landlords do try to recoup those costs, then rents will go up a few dollars a week. Now, even if that was the case—and we don’t expect it will be—that would surely be better than tenants being whacked with a letting fee that’s the equivalent to an entire week’s rent all at once, up front, at the very moment when they can least afford it, when they’re having to fork out for removal fees, for bond, and for rent in advance. So I guess it’s some time since the Opposition spokesperson on housing was renting properties.

Let’s look at what happened in Scotland. In 2012, when they banned letting fees in Scotland, there was no evidence that it led to any increase in rents. The UK housing advocacy group Shelter did research on this. They found that only 2 percent of landlords in Scotland increased their rents after letting fees were banned there.

Hon Judith Collins: For goodness’ sake, it’s Scotland.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: If Ms Collins is interested in doing some further reading on this subject, there are many good sources, and I would recommend the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, who noted in a recent report that rents are driven primarily by supply and demand. Landlords are not in a position simply to take a cost-plus approach to setting rents. There are so many other variables out there in the market, not least the actual supply of rental properties in the market.

Treasury has also concluded that, and I quote, “Experience in other countries shows no clear evidence that banning letting fees will lead to increased rents.” That seems pretty clear to me. I would note that the UK Government of Theresa May—now, that’s a Government that’s far more committed to the idea of compassionate conservatism than Ms Collins is. The UK Conservative Government also introduced a bill recently to ban letting fees. Their reports—the reports that were written in the UK at the time—noted that there was no evidence that their bill would lead to an increase in rent.

Under the current legislation, private landlords cannot charge tenants a letting fee. So tenants can experience different up-front costs depending on whether they rent from a property manager or a property management company or a letting agency. What this bill does is it amends the Residential Tenancies Act so that no one can require a tenant to pay a letting fee or any other fee at the start of a tenancy. If there are genuine costs that are incurred in the course of a tenancy—for instance, by renewing a tenancy or breaking it early, changing the terms of the tenancy, and that’s done at the instigation of the tenant—then those costs can be passed on to the tenant. But what this bill does is it puts all tenants, whether they are working through the landlord letting the property or a letting agency, on an equal footing.

If someone does charge a letting fee, in contravention of this legislation, then the Tenancy Tribunal may order exemplary damages of up to $1,000. This is the same maximum threshold for charging key money. Since it’s a similar thing, it makes sense that it’s treated in exactly the same way. The tenancy compliance and investigations team at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has a role to ensure compliance in the tenancy market, and this will become part of their brief to ensure that the prohibition on charging letting fees is enforced.

This is a down payment on the Government’s commitment to make life better for renters, and we are about to commence public consultation on reforms to the Residential Tenancies Act that are designed to modernise that archaic legislation, to give more rights to renters, to make life better for renters, to encourage more security of tenure. We’re going to look at things like making it easier for tenants to have pets, to make a house a home. We’re going to look at getting rid of no-cause terminations. We will make life better for renters. Thank you.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): The National Party opposes this bill. We oppose this bill because it has not been properly thought through. If I look at the regulatory impact statement, it is very clear that there has been, in the words written in the regulatory impact statement, “no consultation on the proposal, [and] the full extent of impacts cannot be identified.”, but they do say in the statement that there are several risks. I know that Mr Twyford’s contribution was somewhat—

Hon Member: Muted.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well, I’ve got to say it was a bit muted, but he seemed to constantly want to talk about me, and I’d say to him that it’s actually not all about me, Mr Twyford. It’s actually about the people of New Zealand. I suggest that he stops with the patronising “Cunliffean” speeches and gets back to what this is all about. Let’s talk about property and landlords and tenants. We’ve got—[Interruption] Yeah, on this side they’re Churchillian, but on that side it’s “Cunliffean”. Everyone knows that I’m very indulgent to Mr Twyford’s flights of fancy, but that’s because I’m a kind-hearted person.

Hon Phil Twyford: Stop, stop—you’re making it worse.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I’ll drive him out of this House yet.

This bill is well-meaning in its intent. The intention is to take away the stress and strain of having to pay a cost of letting fee, which is, essentially, paid to a property manager to vet tenants, to take tenants to the property, to talk to them, to work out who is the tenant best placed for this property, and also to manage the property. The Labour Government, in trying to do its best, has said that that’s now going to be free. It’s going to be free to the tenant. We’ve heard from Mr Twyford today that it’s not fair because the tenant shouldn’t have to pay. The tenant will pay. The tenant will end up paying in terms of rent.

It’s all very well to say, using a supermarket example, “Well, you don’t ask people, when they go into a supermarket, to pay for the cost of selling them the goods.” Well, that’s entirely wrong. Yes, you do. When I go into a supermarket—and other people do, too—when we do our shopping, we’re not just paying for the food. We’re paying for the cost of storage. We’re paying for the cost of people to work in that supermarket. We’re paying for the cost of food that is spoilt. We’re paying for the cost of every single thing.

Hon Phil Twyford: Yeah, but they don’t charge you at the door.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Mr Twyford is calling out to say, “Well, you don’t charge for coming into the place.” Well, actually you do. It’s just it’s spread across the cost of all the goods in the store, and that’s the thing with this bill.

Obviously, if you’re going to pay rental fees or leasing fees or management fees, it’s going to be a bit tough. It’s going to be tough for some families and people who want to rent. But, having said that, if you are actually going to be a long-term tenant—and what we see now from the reports is that for most tenants now, the average stay is two years. That is a significantly long time. If people are having to pay the cost and maybe a landlord is saying, “Well, maybe within the next six months or year, I’ll have to find a new tenant, so I’ll put that into the cost of the rent.”, and if someone actually stays, the longest-term tenant is actually going to end up paying more because they’re going to be paying this increased rent every single week or every fortnight, depending on when they pay their rent. So it can actually end up with a worse outcome for tenants who are very stable, who want to stay in a place—

Hon Phil Twyford: That’s illogical.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Mr Twyford says it’s illogical. Well, it’s not illogical, because if a landlord puts a $10 increase on the rent when they come to rent out a property because they feel they’ve got to pay a manager to go round and check out all the tenants and everything else—a lot of people do ask for a manager to do it for the very good reason that they actually feel very uncomfortable, often, dealing with people and having to deal with all the issues, and they don’t like asking the questions. Lots of landlords are just mum and dad investors. They feel very nervous and very worried about having to deal directly with people’s problems and they worry about getting it wrong. They also worry about getting the law wrong, so they ask to get managers in to help them with it.

The fact is that if you add $10 on here and add $10 there, at the end of that year, you know, you’ve paid an extra $520. If you stay for two or three years, that’s basically added on every single week that you’re paying, and you end up paying more. So that’s quite a perverse outcome. It’s actually a perverse outcome because it means the most stable and the best tenants end up paying more than those who go in and out of different places. So I think it’s sort of quite perverse, frankly, and that is something which I think is very unfortunate. Ultimately, I would have thought most landlords want to have stable tenancies. They want to have tenants who do not trash their places. They want, in addition to that, tenants who are long-term tenants, because the cost of dealing and the hassle of dealing with constantly changing tenants is really painful both for tenants and also for landlords.

So, although this is clearly well-meaning, the one country that Mr Twyford wants to point to is Scotland. Now I’m not sure that Scotland’s had quite the same increase in immigration that we’ve had, or certainly decrease in emigration that New Zealand’s had, over the last few years, and I think it’s important to note that Scotland is not necessarily always going to be exactly the same as New Zealand. We certainly have quite a high rate of homeownership here compared to some parts of the United Kingdom and I would like to see us have more homeownership here, and I think most people would see that.

I’m very concerned to hear that this is just the start of significant changes to the Residential Tenancies Act, which, I can tell Mr Twyford and the Labour Party, already causes a great deal of concern for mum and dad investors and landlords, because they worry so much about how to deal with tenants who don’t pay their rent and who trash the place. And to hear that tenants will be keeping dogs and other animals in their houses—I think, you know, it’s quite important to understand it’s not just the house that belongs to the landlord, and there’s the trashing of houses that happens with dogs and all these other animals, but it’s the fact that neighbours don’t like this, either.

In my electorate in Papakura, we have a lot of State tenants and State housing. Most of those people are very good tenants, who do their very best and they’re excellent—they’re excellent—and, actually, there are other people who aren’t, who breach their tenancy arrangements and who keep not just a little dog or a dog but, actually, keep massive pit bulls. They have gang members there and they drive their neighbours to distraction, threaten them, and everything else. And it’s all very well for Mr Twyford to say, “We should still have to house them somewhere.”, but, actually, think about the tenant’s neighbours, who have to then put up with pit bull terriers ripping at their kids. We have this time and time again.

So when you actually think about this, most tenants want their neighbouring tenants to live their lives in a decent and calm way, and not attack them, scream and shout, and have parties all the time, but that would be the number one complaint that we get in our office. It is about some of the behaviour of the neighbours of people who live in large State housing areas. That is the responsibility of the Hon Phil Twyford, and what he’s proposing today is—this bill’s actually just about prohibiting letting fees. But he has now signalled he’s going to make it easier for these people who are not decent neighbours to their neighbouring tenants, who should be able to expect from the landlord a decent neighbour who is not going to attack them.

Hon Phil Twyford: Are you talking about all renters?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I think it is—actually, well, Mr Twyford’s saying I’m talking about all renters. I’m actually talking about the good people who rent properties from him and his organisation, who expect that he will make sure that they are safe and that they don’t have to fear their neighbour, because that’s the number one issue we get. It is around the behaviour of one or two people in a street who destroy it for every other tenant. He thinks that’s funny, but, actually, I don’t, because I represent an area where we care.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member’s time has expired. Can I remind members about the use of the personal pronoun “you”—both sides. That brings the Speaker into the debate. Please be careful.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister for Housing and Urban Development): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for this opportunity to take a call on the Residential Tenancies (Prohibiting Letting Fees) Amendment Bill. I would like to wish everyone a happy and blessed Easter—especially my colleague the Hon Judith Collins. I hope she has a good break in the next few days.

Hon Judith Collins: And you too.

Hon JENNY SALESA: Thank you, the Hon Collins.

This is not just a well-meaning, well-intentioned bill; we are addressing housing with this legislation. We’ve been experiencing a housing crisis for a number of years, and we are No. 1 in the OECD right now for homelessness—for the rate of homelessness. So this bill is one of many that the new Government has brought in to address this issue. I wanted just to remind the prior Government that we are introducing legislation, including this one, because we are where we’re at in terms of housing. The housing crisis is something we have inherited over the last nine years.

But can I say, as the MP for Manukau East and South Auckland, I see this in my office, sometimes on a weekly basis, sometimes on a daily basis. I see families that come asking for help because they don’t actually have a roof over their heads. They live in cars and they bring their families, they bring their children with them, or they live in a garage, or they live in a working shed. This is one of the reasons why we’re introducing this bill. We know that in the part of South Auckland that I live in there are so many families that move and move and move. They’re not the average that I heard the prior speaker, the Hon Judith Collins, talk of—that, apparently it’s two years for these families to live in a place—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.