Wednesday, 4 April 2018

WEDNESDAY, 4 APRIL 2018

WEDNESDAY, 4 APRIL 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

List Member Vacancy

List Member Vacancy

SPEAKER: I have been advised by the Electoral Commissioner that, pursuant to section 137 of the Electoral Act 1993, Nicola Valentine Willis has been declared to be elected a member of the House of Representatives in place of the Hon Steven Joyce. I understand that Nicola Willis is present and wishes to take the Oath of Allegiance. Would she please come forward to the chair on my right.

Members Sworn

Members Sworn

Nicola Willis presented herself to the Speaker, took the Oath of Allegiance required by law, and took her seat in the House.

SPEAKER: As the member is signing, I was just noting that the last person who had the name Valentine was Ross Robertson: HRV—Harold Ross Valentine Robertson.

Points of Order

Adverse Weather (Timber Recovery on Conservation Lands) Bill—Leave to Introduce

MAUREEN PUGH (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to introduce the Adverse Weather (Timber Recovery on Conservation Lands) Bill, a member’s bill in my name—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s sought leave for a particular bill. Is there any objection to that? There is objection.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: A point of order. I hope we’re not going to go backwards over a matter that’s been dealt with, Mr Brownlee.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I’m aware of what’s in the leave motion. There is more in it.

SPEAKER: Is the member proposing to introduce another bill or to do something further?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Mr Speaker, on numerous occasions in here, people have moved to have a bill introduced and read at a particular time. That is simply the balance of the motion that the member is moving, and I think the House should hear it before it makes a decision.

SPEAKER: OK, I apologise for interrupting the member, but her leave has been dealt with. Leave was not granted.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If the leave motion was not completely put to the House, then hearing part of a motion you sought from the Government their opinion, how can it be reasonable to say that the House has considered the motion?

SPEAKER: Well, I’m not saying the House has considered the motion, because there was no motion. It was leave. The leave to which bill it applied was absolutely clear. That’s been put to the House and members have said no.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Government Financial Position—Reports

1. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he received on the Government’s financial statements?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Treasury this morning released the Crown financial results for the eight months to the end of February. The Government’s accounts continue to track slightly better than expected, with the Government surplus nearly $500 million higher than the Treasury forecast in December. This reflects underlying economic conditions, with surveys of business and consumer confidence pointing to sustainable growth rates of about 3 percent over the next few years for the New Zealand economy.

Dr Deborah Russell: What did Treasury say led to the better than expected results?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: A strong jobs market this year has meant employment growth has been higher in recent months than Treasury expected, meaning PAYE is above forecast. Greater residential investment and private consumption has boosted GST receipts, while a rise in customs and excise duties has also contributed to core Crown tax revenue coming in $692 million better than expected.

Dr Deborah Russell: What other recent economic reports has he seen?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: A consumer confidence report out from ANZ-Roy Morgan today shows that consumers are “feeling assured”. The current conditions index and the future conditions index are both considerably higher than they were at the end of 2017. As ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said, “Consumer confidence remains high. And why not? Jobs are plentiful, there’s talk of higher wages, and the Auckland housing market has found a floor.” This is also off the back of another improvement in business confidence for their own activity, with both reports pointing to sustainable economic growth rates of about 3 percent a year.

Prime Minister—Confidence in the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was the real reason Clare Curran advised Radio New Zealand chair, Mr Griffin, not to appear before the upcoming select committee not to correct the record faster but, in fact, to ensure questions wouldn’t be able to be asked and answered in Parliament about the Carol Hirschfeld meeting?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Simon Bridges: If the real reason was to get a letter of correction in as soon as possible, why didn’t Clare Curran advise Mr Griffin to do that and, in the interests of openness and transparency, also appear before the upcoming select committee to answer the questions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, it will be on record that Radio New Zealand were due to appear on Thursday. When it was drawn to Minister Curran’s attention that they were unable to appear, she passed on advice on the quickest way to correct the record.

Hon Simon Bridges: If Clare Curran was so concerned about ensuring the select committee record was corrected, why did she wait over three weeks to tell Richard Griffin to correct the record?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is incorrect. My understanding is that her office advised Radio New Zealand on the day.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was it wrong, no matter what the reason, for Clare Curran to advise the chair of New Zealand’s independent radio broadcaster, Radio New Zealand, not to appear at the upcoming select committee to answer questions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I reject the premise of that question. As has been stated, when it was found by the Minister they were unable to appear on Thursday, she left a message with the chair around the possibility of correcting the record in writing—something that the other side of the House has held the Minister to account on; correcting the record as soon as is available. Can I also—while I’m at it—point out that when it comes to written questions, there have been a number of occasions where both sides of the House have had to correct the record. I asked the Parliamentary Library for the number of times it happened for the National Government in Opposition, and the truth is it took them too long to get me an answer.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Oh, you continue with that affirmation and—

SPEAKER: Oh, sorry. It’s really whether the member should be, I’m sure.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Sooner or later, it might stick. The issue here is that some weeks ago, you admonished the Government for constantly taking a flick, in the answers to their questions, at the previous Government. You further, this week, have been quite firm and removed supplementaries from this side of the House for inappropriate comments added to questions to the Government. The Prime Minister’s attempt here, saying “While I’m at it”, simply led into what is, effectively, an unnecessary attack on the previous Government.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Speaking to the point of order, the origin of this issue is the error that the Minister made in not correcting a written answer some months ago. I was simply pointing out that when it comes to the standard the Opposition is lending itself to for the Government, there are so many occasions of corrected written answers that the Parliamentary Library cannot provide me with a number.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: The point, though, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Speaking further to the point of order?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I am. The point here is that while the Prime Minister may wish to characterise the questioning from the Leader of the Opposition and other members from this side of the House as being about a simple mistake, the reality is it’s about what was behind that simple mistake.

SPEAKER: Yeah, OK, and that’s not going to be traversed here, is it. No. OK. I feel somewhat responsible myself for the situation that we have got into because the Leader of the Opposition essentially asked a question from which I inferred a breach of privilege on the part of a member. And that is something which I should’ve pulled up at the time and not allowed the question to proceed. Having allowed that to proceed, I decided to, effectively, play the advantage and give the Prime Minister some more latitude because it was a serious and unparliamentary accusation that had been made by Mr Bridges. I should’ve stopped it, and I apologise to the House for doing that now.

Hon Simon Bridges: What will the Prime Minister do if she finds out that Clare Curran’s voicemail to Mr Griffin does suggest that he does not appear at tomorrow’s select committee?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the Minister has articulated, her recollection of the message she left was simply based on the fact that the chair could not attend as was previously scheduled and that in order to correct the record quickly he could do that in writing in lieu of an appearance. When the chair phoned her back to say, “I’m already scheduled to attend. Let me know if there’s a problem.”, the Minister did not respond.

Hon Simon Bridges: Having advised Mr Griffin to not appear before the upcoming select committee, hasn’t Clare Curran compromised her right to represent the Government as the Minister for openness and transparency?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I reject the premise of that question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the Prime Minister aware of anyone other than Clare Curran advising Mr Griffin to write a letter of correction rather than appear before the upcoming parliamentary select committee?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As was canvassed in the House yesterday when the Minister couldn’t reach the chair, she did speak to the chief executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage about the issue in case he chose to convey that message as well.

Economic Programme—Fuel Tax, Support for Families, and Transport Infrastructure Spending

3. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s policies and proposals?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: What is her justification for gutting $5 billion from regional New Zealand in order to make public transport cheaper for some Aucklanders?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m glad—

SPEAKER: Order! No. I’m going to ask the Leader of the Opposition to ask that question again in a parliamentary form.

Hon Simon Bridges: What is her justification for reducing by $5 billion regional New Zealand funding in roading in order to make public transport cheaper for some Aucklanders?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m glad the member asked that question. We’re not. In fact, what we are doing is, instead of spending money that 4 percent of transport users use, as that Government did, we’re investing in regional and local roads—in fact, doubling the amount of investment in regional and local roading.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the State highway improvements class reducing by $5 billion over the next 10 years and the various public transport classes increasing by around $5 billion; if so, why is she so afraid of owning that fact?

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, the member will resume her seat. That question is ruled out. [Interruption] No, the Prime Minister can’t respond. I let the Deputy Prime Minister last week, and we got into all sorts of trouble.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the State highway improvements class declining by $5 billion over the next 10 years and the various public transport classes increasing by around $5 billion; and, if so, why doesn’t the Prime Minister state that clearly?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As someone who was intimately involved in transport, that member should know that that class was focused on urban centres, not regional roads. We’re decreasing an area that our regional road users did not benefit from, in order to double the funding that they will benefit from.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why are people in Northland, the Waikato, and mid-Canterbury having to pay 12c a litre more for their petrol, yet are seeing no benefit at all, as their key projects, which would have supported local jobs and growth, are stalled, cancelled, or postponed for ever?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, we are doubling the investment in regional roading. For people who live in those areas, they will see a benefit. Can I also point out that that last Government increased excise by 17c—17c—and they spent it on urban centres and roads that 4 percent of road users use.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Speaking about investment and the soundness of investment for road users—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Start with a question word!

SPEAKER: That has been my ruling in the past, and, as a result of that, the Opposition have just lost three supplementaries. The Deputy Prime Minister will start his question again, preferably in a question form.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Addressing the issue of financial investment and value for money, is it a fact that of the three toll roads in this country—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. “Addressing” is not starting a question with a question word.

SPEAKER: If the member wants me to be absolute in my tightening up for all members, I’m willing to take that approach.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yesterday, twice, you pulled the Leader of the Opposition up for exactly that. Now, surely, the Deputy Prime Minister, who often touts his vast and significantly more experience than the Leader of the Opposition, should know that.

SPEAKER: OK, right, I will rule that question out. I’m sure the Deputy Prime Minister will ask it again, in the proper format.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Prime Minister advise as to how the latest expenditure compares with recent roading expenditure in this country?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: When it comes to the regions, as I’ve said, it represents a significant increase. When you compare that to Simon Bridges’ legacy as a transport Minister, he reduced funding to the West Coast by $54 million, Taranaki by $74 million, Southland by $56 million to $39 million, Otago by $110 million, Northland by $125 million, Hawke’s Bay by $88 million, Gisborne by $49 million, and the Bay of Plenty by $179 million.

Hon Simon Bridges: How does a $70 million increase in the regional improvements category nationwide or $5 million each across the New Zealand Transport Agency’s 14 regions in any way compensate for taking away $5 billion from State highway construction?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I will point out again—State highway construction benefited urban centres and took money out of the regions. And, as I’ve said, we are doubling the funding to the regions and local roads. Our focus is on access for regional New Zealanders, as well, unlike the abysmal track record of that member, who cut funding for the regions. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Come on, we’re not seals.

Hon Simon Bridges: How will announcing petrol tax increases on Auckland motorists of 25c a litre, in just her first six months as Prime Minister, help families supporting their kids?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because if they’d elected National, they’d be facing up to 20c, based on the last advice.

Hon Simon Bridges: How many hours will someone on the minimum wage in Auckland have to work in order to come out ahead after they’ve filled up the car for the week?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: A lot less, given we raised the minimum wage to $16.50 on 1 April. We intend to raise it by 2021 to $20, and more than 300,000 families will, on average, get $75 extra a week from this Government, because we are focused on lifting the wages of low- and middle-income earners.

Hon Simon Bridges: What is she actually doing to help families with their costs of living, given that the Government has already made renting more expensive and made petrol more expensive, and her pre-Christmas Families Package took $1,000 a year in tax cuts away from them?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If he’s referring to the fact that we’re getting rid of letting fees, or the fact that we’ve put $5.5 billion into low- and middle-income earners’ pockets starting from July, or that we’re bringing in the winter energy payment for those who are on low fixed incomes, or the fact that we’ve increased the minimum wage, and we did all of that in 100 days—I think people know where our priorities are, and they’re not with the top 10 percent of income earners.

Hon Simon Bridges: How does a petrol tax increase square with her Government’s promise to New Zealanders to not increase taxes this term?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Labour’s tax policy stated that alcohol, petrol, and tobacco levies will be adjusted as per normal Government practice, and it’s in writing. What we said on the trail, of course, was—amongst the scaremongering of the National Party, we had to dismiss their claims that we were bringing in new top tax rates, because it was clearly incorrect.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t this a broken promise on a core election issue—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Simon Bridges: —only months since the election?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, and I would also point out again that the last Government, when they left office, were considering a 10 to 20 percent increase in road user charges and excise. I’d say that road users are better off with this Government because we’re spending it more wisely and we’re spending less.

SPEAKER: Order! I just want to make it absolutely clear—and it could have been quite a few more—that members on my right must not interject when the Leader of the Opposition or, in fact, any other member is asking a question.

Transport Infrastructure—Auckland, Funding, Local Roads, Spending on, and State Highways

4. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Transport: Why is the Government proposing to cut the State highway improvement budget by two-thirds over the next 10 years, from a mid-point of $1.375 billion next year, to just $425 million in 2028?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Spending on new State highways will gradually be reallocated to deliver significantly greater investment in regional roads, in local roads, in the maintenance of State highways and local roads, in public transport, in road policing, in safe walking and cycling infrastructure, and in the rail network. Funding for regional and local roads and road maintenance increases by $1.2 billion over the next three years, far outweighing any reduction in State highway improvements. Instead of spending billions of dollars on a few hand-picked stretches of motorway, we are investing to improve transport right across New Zealand.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why is he proposing to stall new State highway construction that delivers improved safety and new jobs, and boosts regional economic development?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: This Government’s not stalling anything, but we are going to spend the $5 billion of transport expenditure every year more wisely, for the good of all New Zealanders. For example, for half the cost of the National Party’s proposed solution for the East-West Link, it would be possible to run a median barrier along every single kilometre of State highway in this country.

Jami-Lee Ross: Is Bernard Hickey wrong when he described yesterday’s announcement as “a surprise tax hike that will make provincial drivers help pay for new rail tracks in Auckland.”?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, Bernard Hickey’s quite wrong in that regard. It’s not a new tax. As the Prime Minister has pointed out, we’ve been funding the transport system since 1927 using petrol taxes. Our proposal to increase the fuel excise duty (FED) and the road-user charges (RUC) is at the lower end of what the National Government did for nine years—six increases in FED and RUC, and 17c on the litre. That party’s in no position to complain about rising fuel taxes.

Jami-Lee Ross: Will he rule out regional fuel taxes outside of Auckland, or will they too be paying 25c a litre more for their petrol soon?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I am willing to rule out regional fuel taxes anywhere outside of Auckland in this term of Government. I will say this: Aucklanders understand why this Government is willing to allow Auckland Council to levy a regional fuel tax in Auckland, because after nine years of neglect, that city is a transport basket case. We’re losing $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity because of congestion, after a decade of drift and neglect.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why does he expect New Zealanders to pay up to an additional 25c a litre at the petrol pump, yet get fewer new roads?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: New Zealanders are being asked to consider and give the Government feedback on between 9c and 12c per litre over the next three years. That’s the proposal that we’re consulting on. People around New Zealand will know that in every other aspect of the transport system, other than the so-called “roads of National Party significance”, they are going to be getting a better deal—local road maintenance, local roads, regional roads, State highway maintenance, public transport, road safety, and rail.

Todd Muller: Will he commit to funding for the Tauranga Northern Link, which the New Zealand Transport Agency say can, and I quote, “reduce death and serious injuries by 50 percent” or will he continue with his plan to remove $5 billion from regional roading priorities like this?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, frankly, I’m surprised that that member is willing to be so critical of the former transport Minister, who for nine years did nothing about the number of people being killed on that road. After nine years, they did nothing while they poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a nearby motorway project that nobody drives on. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! Order! I’d just like the temperature to come down a little bit on both sides, please.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Perhaps, then, Mr Twyford should, simply, answer the question rather than making his street corner - type political statement.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister recall a massive meeting at the Karekare hall on that very highway, where the member for Tauranga and transport Minister didn’t turn up?

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Point of order.

SPEAKER: No. I’m going to deal with this first. I think all members know that this Minister of Transport has no responsibility for the former Minister of Transport turning up to meetings or not.

Hon Louise Upston: Can he confirm that the Cambridge to Piarere State Highway 1 project is one of the seven roads of national significance already under way that will be completed?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The New Zealand Transport Agency decides which transport projects proceed, after an independent analysis of their costs and benefits. The purpose of this system is to ensure that decisions like this are free from political interference and pork barrelling. Instead of scaremongering, I urge that member to lobby her council to ensure that that project gets to the top of the list of the regional land transport programme. That would be a good use of her time, instead of scaremongering.

Hon James Shaw: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Is congestion in Auckland better or worse now than when the roads of national significance programme was initiated?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: On almost every count, congestion in Auckland is worse. It’s been getting worse year on year for the last five years, and a report done by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, commissioned last year, shows that the city is losing $1.3 billion every year in lost productivity because of congestion, after nine years of drift and neglect.

Andrew Falloon: Will extending State Highway 1 between Ashburton and Christchurch to four lanes proceed under the funding parameters contained in the draft Government policy statement (GPS) released yesterday?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: My recommendation to that member is that he lobbies his regional council to ensure that that project gets to the top of the list of project rankings, because under this Government we don’t engage in the kind of—

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

SPEAKER: Order! The member Phil Twyford should know that I shouldn’t have to get to my feet to sit him down when there is a point of order.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: We’re operating under a heavy penalty that you put on us today for various behaviours that you consider to be unacceptable, but that question was not even slightly answered. We’ve sat quietly listening to the Minister taking pretty hard shots at the previous Government, none of which can be sustained, quite frankly, but we can’t get the chance to debate that, and here he has a simple, straightforward question. It’s his policy statement that was released yesterday as Minister, on behalf of the Government, and he’s saying that the member should go and lobby his local roading authority. It’s completely—

SPEAKER: Well—[Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. No, I’m not interested in hearing from the member. I am never going to be responsible for the quality of the answers or the content of the answers, as long as the member is addressing the question, and I rule that he was—maybe overenthusiastically, and maybe a bit indirectly, but he was certainly addressing the question.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was: is the Christchurch to Ashburton four-laning going ahead inside the parameters of the GPS announced yesterday? The Minister said his advice to the member would be to go and lobby his local roading committee. That’s not an answer.

SPEAKER: Again, we’re going to get into a debate on the quality of an answer, but if the Minister’s saying that whether or not it’s in the parameters depends on the priority it’s given by the local regional council, well, that is an answer.

Hon James Shaw: Is the $1.3 billion in lost productivity that the Minister refers to better or worse today than when the roads of national significance programme was initiated?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The level of productivity loss in Auckland because of congestion now is far worse than it was nine years ago. Just the other week, I met a trucking contractor in Kūmeu, in the Helensville electorate. He told me that he can only do two deliveries of concrete across Auckland per day—five years ago he was able to do four deliveries across the city—because the congestion is far worse. The cost of delivering concrete is twice as expensive now for that contractor.

Regional Economic Development—Business Investment and Investment in Regional Roading

5. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Does he think there will be a greater or lesser level of investment in New Zealand’s regions in the next few years when he takes into account investment by the Provincial Growth Fund, other Government investments such as road transport funding, and private sector investment, both domestic and foreign?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister for Regional Economic Development: There will be a much greater level of investment in the regions.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why does he think an increase to the regional roading improvements funding class of around $35 million a year more than National proposed makes up for a $5 billion withdrawal of investment from the State highway network, the lifeblood of the regions?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The member just admitted that it was double what they were giving it, for a start, and then, if you look at the level of added investment arising from the regional fund and put in by private business, it’ll be much better than it is right now.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think provincial drivers paying higher petrol taxes, in part to fund trams in Auckland, will regard him as the region’s champion?

SPEAKER: Order! No responsibility. Further question? [Interruption]

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Isn’t it true that when it comes to defending the regions from big business—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! No, sorry. I am going to interrupt. I’m sure that the Hon Gerry Brownlee is not really inviting me to take the ultimate sanction with him, but his repeated interjections have caused his party now the loss of four supplementary questions. My suggestion is that he listen to his colleague’s question, and, being an experienced member who’s had experience in Opposition before—and I say, from being on the receiving end, has done it very well—gives some advice to his colleagues about how to ask questions that are in order. A starting point is that the question has to address something for which the Minister has parliamentary responsibility.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would simply point out that the Hon Shane Jones has repeatedly stood up in question time and day after day described himself as the provincial champion. To simply ask him: “Does he think that still stands?” seems perfectly in line with all the questioning that has been allowed in the House so far.

SPEAKER: No. There’s a difference between a question and an answer, and the member is aware of that. Is there a further supplementary question?

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the issue we have is—a very serious point of order—that you are taking a finely tuned, very minute approach to questions, and you’re effectively saying in relation to the answers that you don’t have responsibility for them. That makes it incredibly difficult and, frankly, unequal for the Opposition.

SPEAKER: Well, I suggest the member go back and listen to the tape.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Isn’t it true that when it comes to defending the regions from big business, he is a tiger, but when it comes to defending the regions from his own Government, he’s a pussycat?

SPEAKER: Order! I’m assuming that we’re going to have a repeat of the right honourable gentleman asking leave to answer an out-of-order question. If it is—[Interruption]. No, no; I’m ruling it out of order.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I seek the House’s indulgence and leave to answer that question?

SPEAKER: Leave has been requested to answer an out-of-order question. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Mr Speaker, thank you very much. Can I just say, here are the facts: in the next three years while State highway funding reduces by $500 million or 11 percent, funding for regional or local roads improvements and maintenance increases by $1.2 billion or 26 percent, far outweighing—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m of course listening very carefully to the answer being given on Mr Jones’ behalf by the Deputy Prime Minister, but it might help him if the question—although it be out of order—was asked again, because that answer bears no resemblance to anything that could be considered addressing the question.

SPEAKER: No, the question’s not going to be asked again. We’re not going to compound it. But one of the things that—[Interruption] No—can the member let me finish? One of the things that members have to learn is that when things are so badly out of order, there will be quite liberal interpretations of the answer and a bit of time given to the member to actually get to an answer. But I suggest that he could get to it pretty soon.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would just ask you, Mr Speaker—we’ve had “tiger”, “pussycat”, and I think the word you ruled out for me was “gutting”. I think these are words commonly used—there is commonly colour in questions; there has been for decades in Parliament. I just do want to understand, so we do get it right, what this position that you’re staking out today is so we can understand.

SPEAKER: I’m going to make it very clear to the member that all of those expressions are quite acceptable in debate and have been in the Parliament for a long time—[Interruption] Order! I will stand up, just to make absolutely clear the seriousness with which I’m taking this. Debate is different from questions. During debate, there are lots of words and lots of approaches, and irony is allowed. During questions, they are not. The tightest part of the parliamentary rule book about what members are allowed to say is in questions. Probably the next is in answers, and then debate is quite a lot broader. That’s always been the case. Therefore, I do ask, especially front-bench members on both sides, and I will say that the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as Mr Goldsmith, have been developing—in the Deputy Prime Minister’s case, over 30 years—a habit of being out of order in their questions, and I am beginning to believe that they know they do. If they are, that is very disorderly and will have serious consequences.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Right—finishing the answer.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: For the benefit of the National Party David Attenborough: a tiger.

Transport Infrastructure—Draft Policy Statement on Land Transport and Fuel Excise Duty

6. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) to the Minister of Transport: Why does the Government’s draft policy statement on land transport contain increases in investment in safety and local and regional roads?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): So far this year, more than 100 people have died on our roads. The new draft Government policy statement rebalances spending away from massive expenditure on a few low-value, hand-picked expressways, and towards reducing the increasing number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads. Regional and local roads are in desperate need of increased spending, after years of neglect and vast amounts of money being spent on expressways.

Kieran McAnulty: Will fuel excise duty be increased?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Rebalancing the Government policy statement on land transport towards safety and value for money means we will no longer need the 20c-a-litre fuel excise duty increase considered by the previous Government—

Hon Members: And rejected.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: —considered and left open under active consideration—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. It’s a very simple question, and the member will address it directly. I mean, I can’t insist on yes or no, but that was a yes or no question.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Fuel excise duty will be increased, because spending more money on making our roads safer and investing in local and regional roads where most people drive and where most people die on the roads is a sensible and prudent approach to saving lives.

Kieran McAnulty: What reaction has there been to the draft policy statement?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: One highly respected business editor today praised the Government’s transformative land transport package and its long-overdue focus on safety. She said that through the package, the Government is in the driver’s seat when it comes to delivering on its election promises. Another commentator said, and I quote, “One big change is that the Land Transport Fund will now cover spending across all land transport modes [meaning] the new … strategy [can] fully integrate planning for roads and rail, public transport … existing bus and rail services and the proposed new [urban] rapid transit network.”

Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Minister—Contact with the Chair of Radio New Zealand and Meeting with Carol Hirschfeld

7. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media: Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Yes, in the context they were made and taken.

Melissa Lee: When she was first made aware, on 1 March, of Radio New Zealand (RNZ) inadvertently misleading the parliamentary select committee, why didn’t she notify the clerk or the chair of the select committee?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: My office rang Radio New Zealand to advise of the discrepancy. I stand by the fact that that was the appropriate action at the time.

Melissa Lee: If she was so concerned about ensuring the select committee record was corrected regarding her meeting with Carol Hirschfeld, why did she wait more than three weeks to tell the RNZ chairman, Richard Griffin, to correct the record?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: My office rang Radio New Zealand twice during that time; so there wasn’t a gap of three weeks.

Melissa Lee: At the Astoria meeting in December, was she offered any documents or did she receive any documents from Carol Hirschfeld?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: No.

Health Services—Conflicts of Interest and National Oracle Solution

8. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: What steps has he taken to ensure Deloitte, as independent reviewer of the $90 million National Oracle Solution Programme, is independent of the companies under review?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): As I indicated to the member yesterday, I am advised that the potential, possible, and actual conflicts of interest were considered as part of the consultancy services order. Previous work done by Deloitte on the National Oracle Solution programme was listed in the conflict of interest declaration within the consultancy services order. This includes services provided by Deloitte subsidiary Asparona. I’ve been assured that no individual who had anything to do with Asparona’s involvement in the National Oracle Solution project has any involvement in the Deloitte review.

Dr Shane Reti: Will he release Deloitte’s conflict of interest declaration referred to in oral question No. 9 yesterday; and if not, why not?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I’ll take advice on whether that’s the normal course of action. The ministry advises me that, at all points through the process, the ministry and Deloitte fully complied with the guidelines of the all-of-Government procurement processes and conflict management procedures, which are the same processes used by the previous Government.

Dr Shane Reti: When he said in oral question No. 9 yesterday, “The conflicts of interest, perceived or actual, were declared before the review was commenced.”, does he believe a conflict of interest disappears because it has been declared?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No. The important thing with any conflict of interest is that it’s managed appropriately.

Dr Shane Reti: When he said in oral question No. 9 yesterday, “Yes” to the question of whether Deloitte or Deloitte-related entities had received funding for the $90 million programme, will he then release how much Deloitte have received over the life of the programme; and if not, why not?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I would expect that that would be part of the normal annual review process. That’s where the Opposition gets to scrutinise the spending of the Government. This followed a normal process in terms of using the all-of-Government panel that that previous Government used. This one is no different.

Schools—Tomorrow’s Schools Review

9. JAMIE STRANGE (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What progress has been made in setting up a review of the Tomorrow’s Schools model?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The terms of reference have been released, and this morning I announced the membership of the Tomorrow’s Schools review independent task force that will be charged with leading the biggest review of the way our schools are governed, managed, and administered in 30 years. The task force will be chaired by Bali Haque and will include Dr Cathy Wylie, Mere Berryman, Professor John O’Neill, and Barbara Ala’alatoa, a very distinguished group of people who have a wide variety of views on how our schools should be administered.

Jamie Strange: How will he ensure that the expertise of the teaching profession and others within the school sector is incorporated into the review?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’ve already discovered, as Minister of Education, that when it comes to schooling, almost everybody in the country has a view on how it should be done, and it’s important that everybody with that view has the opportunity to contribute to this review process. So I’ve set up, in addition to the task force, a cross-sector advisory group that will sit alongside the task force to ensure that all of those groups who represent and advocate for different people and different players in the education field have the opportunity to participate. That group will include, for example, school trustees, unions, principals, teachers, and many, many others with a view on education.

Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill—Effect

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Does he stand by his statement that his Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill does not allow party members to remove members of Parliament, when section 55A states that the seat of a member of Parliament becomes vacant when the party leader delivers the appropriate written notice to the Speaker?

Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I may have misheard the asking of the question, but the question as lodged referred to the bill not allowing “party leaders”, as opposed to “party members”, but the member will have to clarify whether or not he did ask the correct question.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I’m happy to repeat the question.

10. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Does he stand by his statement that his Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill does not allow party leaders to remove members of Parliament, when section 55A states that the seat of a member of Parliament becomes vacant when the party leader delivers the appropriate written notice to the Speaker?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Yes. The member overlooks the fact that the leader’s notice under section 55A must also comply with section 55C, which states that it must be accompanied by a statement that in turn complies with section 55D. Section 55D requires the statement outline that certain conditions have been met when the notice is delivered to the Speaker, and, most importantly, that two-thirds of the parliamentary members of that party agree with the notice being served. Furthermore, section 55D requires that any requirements of the rules of the particular political party must also have been complied with, and so it is not the decision of the leader alone, as the member suggests.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: How can the Minister claim that a two-thirds caucus vote is a substantive check on a leader’s power to dismiss an MP, when, in practice, any such caucus votes effectively amount to a confidence vote in the leader, and in any of the practical cases in recent history, whether it be Jim Anderton, Marilyn Waring, Derek Quigley, Tariana Turia, the leaders would easily have secured those numbers?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well, I can’t account for the conduct that happens inside the National Party caucus except to say that it is not always the leader’s recommendation about what happens to a recalcitrant member.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is his bill consistent and compatible with the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Yes, the bill has been vetted for the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and, as I understand it, is fully compliant with the Parliamentary Privilege Act.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was whether it was consistent with the Parliamentary Privilege Act—

SPEAKER: Well, if the member listened to the end of the answer, he would have heard the answer. Is there a further supplementary?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the Minister name one independent constitutional law expert who agrees with the Government’s position that the bill complies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, when 21 experts from five universities, including eight professors, say it breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have seen a number of submissions about the bill and I am stunned at the number of times professors, legal experts, constitutional experts have actually got their analysis about the bill wrong, because like that member—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: —they continue to refer to a bill that allows the leader to give a notice to the Speaker, effectively dismissing a member, and that is not what the bill provides for.

Whānau Ora—Review

11. JO HAYES (National) to the Minister for Whānau Ora: Does he agree with his reported comments to Māori Television on 31 October last year that he expected the review process of Whānau Ora to begin within the first 100 days of Government?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Whānau Ora): Yes.

Jo Hayes: When will he announce the terms of reference and the reviewers for his proposed review—more than 150 days after he first became the Whānau Ora Minister?

Hon PEENI HENARE: For the benefit of the member, she and the House can expect an announcement imminently. It has gone through a thorough and robust process to make sure that the administration of the review is proper before the review starts proper, and they can expect an announcement very soon.

Jo Hayes: How much longer will Whānau Ora service providers commissioning agencies have to wait for security around their futures in the Whānau Ora space?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Their security has never been in question. We’re talking about the review here, and the review will take place very shortly.

Jo Hayes: Will he commit to continuing to fund Whānau Ora at its current level?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Nothing’s happening with the funding for Whānau Ora. In fact, the review, I hope, will actually increase it, but let’s have the review first.

Product Recall—Takata Alpha-type Air Bags

12. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What is he doing to ensure the safety of New Zealand consumers?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Today, I announced the compulsory recall of more than 50,000 vehicles installed with Takata Alpha-type air bags, in order to protect New Zealand drivers and passengers from these unsafe air bags. A voluntary recall has been in place since 2013, but I am not satisfied with the progress to date. Alpha-type air bags pose a significant risk of misfiring in an accident and sending shrapnel fragments towards vehicle occupants. Although no deaths have occurred in New Zealand, there have been 23 deaths globally as a consequence of these faulty air bags. The Government will not take this risk by continuing the approach of the previous Government, which was to do nothing. The safety of our passengers and drivers is paramount, and New Zealanders can be assured that this Government is committed to ensuring that these unsafe air bags are removed and replaced as quickly as possible.

Kiritapu Allan: How will the compulsory recall provide certainty for the motor vehicle industry and consumers?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The compulsory recall has been welcomed by the motor vehicle industry. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of new vehicle sellers to replace the faulty air bags while the recall was voluntary, as replacement of air bags was undertaken at their cost. Making the recall compulsory will provide guidance to suppliers of both new and used vehicles, so that replacement air bags can be sourced and installed as quickly as possible. Consumers can rest assured that if their vehicle is affected, they can seek replacement air bags at no cost to them. I encourage vehicle owners to find out more information and to check the status of their air bags at the website www.recalls.govt.nz. In order to ensure progress is made in a timely manner under this recall, I have set up a monitoring group to provide monthly reporting on the progress of the recall.

Kiritapu Allan: Why is the Minister taking action now, given reports of issues with faulty air bags date back to 2013?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Upon first—

SPEAKER: Yeah, very carefully.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: OK. Upon first learning of the seriousness of the issue, the Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter and I commissioned an urgent report into the matter. Following a compulsory recall in Australia and after advice and discussions with agencies and the sector, the compulsory recall was decided as the most appropriate action. This Government inherited a situation where 50,000 vehicles being used every day by New Zealanders were exposed to a significant safety risk. This Government will not allow this issue to go unaddressed and risk the safety of New Zealanders.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

So I’ve found one—I have found one person that supports the transport announcements that were made by the Government yesterday. [Interruption] No, I’ve found one. I have found one that’s celebrating it, that’s leaping up and is thinking it’s fantastic, and her name is Clare Curran. She is loving it. She is loving it—anything possible to take the headlines away.

It has been a really busy week for the Government for the last couple of weeks—there’s absolutely no two ways about it—and one of them must have been last week, when they realised that, actually, what was going to happen was that we were going to have the chief executive and board members turning up to select committee tomorrow to correct it and possibly say all sorts of things about what’s been going on for the last two or three weeks. Imagine how busy they’ve been, trying to find somewhere for Clare Curran to be. Well, they did it. They found somewhere. They have found some tenuous kind of link between TVNZ being at the Commonwealth Games and, now, the Minister needing to be—so, kind of anything possible to get her out of the country so that they can possibly make sure that they can make their point well.

That would all be kind of amusing if it actually wasn’t so damned serious, and it is serious, because what we have is someone interfering with a State-owned broadcaster that actually prides themselves on their independence. What we have is someone that, at very best, did not give a full answer and has had to come back and correct it multiple times. What we now have, every time questions are asked by the member Melissa Lee and others, is that more and more comes out, but it’s not even forthcoming from the so-called Minister of open Government.

So what we have now is someone who is saying, “I was so concerned that the record be corrected as soon as possible in select committee that I waited three weeks to make a phone call myself—that, before then, I had felt it would be enough for someone in my office to make some phone call to someone in Radio New Zealand’s office.” But now, all of a sudden, here we were on 29 March, when Clare Curran thought it was so important that the record get fixed immediately and corrected immediately—this is what she would have us believe—that she made the phone call herself and left a voice message.

I have a simple message to the Prime Minister: if that message is not as the Minister has actually told us and her that it is, will she still be in her job, yeah? Clare Curran’s certainly spun this to everybody, including the Prime Minister, that it was a genuine question and a genuine request to the chief executive—that they simply write a letter to get the record corrected. But if in any way this is interfering with the independence of Parliament and how it actually runs and its members deserving to have the right information from people in front of them—if it’s interfering with that at all, as well as the interference to an independent State broadcaster, then I do see that as being very, very important.

And I think it’s disgraceful that we are having to squeeze every bit of information about this out of the Minister torturously and not with her being upfront and able to give the right information at the right time to the public of New Zealand, that, quite frankly, deserve better. It simply beggars belief that a senior, serious, and well-respected broadcaster felt that they had to mislead their bosses about the meeting and how it occurred and what had happened at it, and now we have a Minister that hides the facts, gets the facts actually drawn out of her slowly and painfully, and I think there is still more to come.

So I ask the Prime Minister to stand up in leadership and show the standards that she told New Zealand that she would hold her and her Government to—to stand up and make that true and to make that real for the people of New Zealand so that they can have, actually, faith in the integrity of what is happening in this place for all members of Parliament. And it’s time that that happened.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member that just took her seat, Paula Bennett, told us that it beggars belief. Well, I’ll tell this House what beggars belief, and that’s waking up to news about the fact that a hospital in our largest city is covered in black mould and has sewage in the walls.

It sometimes feels, when one sees the reports of this, like we’re stuck in some kind of Dickensian kind of vortex where we’ve been suffering so much neglect by the ruling elite of the previous Government that they’ve allowed our hospitals to get covered in mould and have problems with sewage coming down the walls. You can look through there, and it’s like a combination of Bleak House and Oliver Twist, I think—the state that the previous Government have left this country in—when we’re now at a point where we’re looking at needing $14 billion of upgrades and repairs over 10 years because the previous Government let things run into such a state of disrepair.

And why was this? It was to have their treasured surpluses. Well, anybody can have a surplus when you don’t pay the bills, and that is exactly what the previous Government chose to do. There is nearly a decade of neglect and dereliction of the part of the previous Government.

We had district health boards who were forced to run surpluses by deferring maintenance, and when the deferral of maintenance means that there are people in our country with respiratory disease being housed in a hospital with black mould, where we have sick people in places, trying to get well, where there is sewage down the walls—this is not a record that anybody on the other side of the House can hold their head up about, because they have absolutely let New Zealand down.

But this Government has a plan to fix it, and it’s not only in health that we are going to have to fix things. We can look right across the neglect that we’ve seen in our transport system, and we’ve seen that with questioning in the House today—the fact that this Opposition just doesn’t realise the neglect that they had put in, the fact that our regional roads have been neglected by that Government’s failure to invest in them, that we have maintenance issues, that we have councils right around the country that are telling us that they do need that money to go into fixing their roads. This is an Opposition that can only focus on the highways of national significance, because that is exactly the way they governed—it was by a myopic focus on a few small things and refusal to see what was absolutely around there.

In a week where there has been so much happening—there are so many issues facing our country—the deputy leader of the National Party leads off with a beltway issue. Is she addressing their neglect in health? Is she addressing the neglect in education, where that Government failed to account for what was coming in the future? Was she addressing the neglect in the housing crisis?

So yesterday in the House, the Opposition thought there was some gotcha politics when they asked the Minister of Housing and Urban Development what the square footage of the apartments in the Unitec build were going to be—the plan this Government has to actually provide affordable housing for New Zealand. Well, I can tell you, the square footage of every one of those apartments will be greater than the square footage of a car, which is what the previous Government seemed to think was adequate housing for far too many New Zealanders.

But this Government has a plan. We are not content to book out motels and think that that is a solution to homelessness. We are a Government that actually wants to build some housing for New Zealanders and, what’s more, to make it affordable and, heaven forbid, warm and dry. [Interruption] That’s right. We don’t want mould running down the walls of our houses any more than we want mould in our hospitals.

This is a Government that has the courage to think beyond the three-year term, that has the courage to think about what New Zealand needs, what our future needs—and it certainly isn’t the levels of neglect that we saw from nine years of a National Government. We are a Government that will invest in our people, that will invest in our future, and that will ensure that we have health, housing, and education for our people.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): That was a Labour MP from one of the regions that is so ashamed of what they came up with yesterday in their Government policy statement (GPS) on transport that she didn’t even mention their big flagship policy of the week. The reason why she and other Labour MPs from the regions are ashamed of what’s been put forward is because Labour is gutting regional transport funding by $5 billion. That’s $5 billion that is going in to fund about $5 billion of rail in Auckland and in other areas.

We’re seeing from Labour the way in which they have such disregard for regional New Zealand. We’re seeing from Labour and the New Zealand First Party how they talk tough, how they talk big in the regions, but actually when it comes to delivery, they’ve been found wanting.

We also learnt something new from the Prime Minister yesterday—actually, we learnt it this morning. We learnt from the Prime Minister this morning that, apparently, ramping up fuel prices, ramping up fuel taxes, is not a new tax because, all of a sudden, it’s an existing tax and therefore it’s OK to do it.

So I look forward to when the Minister of Finance stands up on Budget day in the future and ramps up income tax, and then claims it’s not a new tax because income tax is existing. That simply doesn’t wash with New Zealanders. New Zealanders around the regions are going to be paying large amounts more in fuel prices at the petrol pump because Labour is taxing regional New Zealanders more, to pay for Auckland’s trams.

Other speakers on this side of the House are going to be talking more about their regional projects, I’m sure. But I say to the people in Tauranga—and Todd Muller was asking questions about their road—that the good people of Tauranga are going to be paying more at the petrol pump, not seeing State Highway 2 upgraded, but the funding for trams in Auckland will increase.

They don’t like it when we talk about trams in Auckland and funding being lost from the State highway budget. The reality is, if we put together the 10 years of funding for State highways just using the baseline that we had—not increasing it at all; using the baseline that the National Government was proposing, over 10 years—and then see how much the Labour Government is putting into State highways, the gap in the big funding difference is $5 billion. They can’t deny it; it’s right there in the figures. If we look at the funding that’s there for mass transit and transitional rail and public transport, would somebody like to guess how much that is? It is $5 billion. Labour and New Zealand First are gutting the regions by $5 billion and putting it into trams.

I actually want to congratulate Julie Anne Genter. I want to congratulate her because she has been the winner, under that Government policy statement. She’s actually done very well. Shane Jones has been completely rolled over. The New Zealand First Party, the champions for the regions—they don’t care about the regions any more. In fact, Shane Jones completely lost this argument. So much for Winston Peters being the big champion for Northland. Northland won’t be seeing any improvements. The Waikato Expressway and the improvements around Waikato won’t be going ahead. We won’t be seeing the improvements to the Tauranga Northern Link that were planned. By the way, these are improvements that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) say would have led to a 50 percent reduction in the road toll—a 50 percent reduction in deaths and serious injuries.

The Labour Government does not care about the regions, in the way they like to talk. They can’t come up with the sophistry that Phil Twyford has, where he says that these aren’t political decisions. We know that the signals that he has sent have led to NZTA already, before the GPS was even issued, making radical changes to the project. We know that there were contractors all geared up, all ready, about to be shortlisted, about to see tenders issued for the Tauranga Northern Link—a road that will save lives—and all of a sudden the tender process was cut. We know there are people that were expecting to see Public Works Act acquisitions in relation to the Waikato projects, and all of a sudden being told this won’t be happening any more. He likes to claim big political credit for the East-West Link being cancelled, but when it comes to fronting up to New Zealanders about other roading projects, he likes to hide behind the New Zealand Transport Agency.

Well, I say to Phil Twyford that it’s time for him to front up to New Zealanders. It’s time for the Minister of Transport to be more honest and upfront with New Zealanders about what he’s doing.

SPEAKER: Order!

JAMI-LEE ROSS: I say that the Minister of Transport should be apologising to regional New Zealanders for gutting the State highway projects. They are taking money out of the regions, taxing people more for it, all to pay for Auckland trams. They should be ashamed of that.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): One thing that the present Minister of Transport cannot be responsible for is the appalling maths of that member who’s just taken his seat. What he completely overlooks is that under the previous Government, New Zealanders would be paying more for their petrol because of the 20c excise duty they had put on petrol over future years. New Zealanders will be paying less. The great thing is that New Zealanders living in the regions will have better-quality roads to drive on, safer roads to drive on, which is something that the previous Government could not give a damn about.

That party, when they were in Government, was the “coulda, woulda, shoulda” party. Well, they’re certainly that now. It is just incredible how little they got done and how much they try to take credit for now. Where do you begin? Take the Privacy Act. In 2012, they said they were going to rewrite the Privacy Act. We were going to have new privacy laws. And they did nothing. So it has taken this Government to introduce a new rewritten privacy law that’s fit for the 21st century and takes us ahead.

What about the year-and-a-day rule? Remember, they said, “Right, we’re going to get right on to it—right on to fixing that small element of the Crimes Act that is standing in the way of important prosecutions that should be taken.” What did they do? Absolutely nothing. So it’s taken this Government to actually introduce it. It didn’t stop the members opposite claiming it was all their work; it was their idea. But they couldn’t do what mattered most and that is to make the change.

And then there’s the law of contempt. Chris Finlayson—a member opposite who commands enormous respect on this side of the House—admitted that he has spent 10 years trying to convince his colleagues that this area of the law should change. And he may not be wrong. The Law Commission wrote a report on it. He struggled for 10 years but could not persuade his colleagues. He had to fall on the small matter of the lottery of the member’s bill process to get his law up, and he’s done it. The good thing is that it wasn’t just his luck in the member’s bill ballot; it is his luck to work with a Minister of Justice now who’s prepared to work with him to make sure this law might work.

And then, of course, there are the changes to the sale of liquor laws. Chris Bishop sits over here—it’s always a telling thing when members opposite are in so much despair, nothing’s going right for them. So what do they revert to? Talking about selling grog more easily. It’s kind of the political equivalent to self-medication—talk about the liquor laws. Chris Bishop’s done that now, but, of course, Chris Bishop has realised he’s also working with a Minister of Justice who’s prepared to be constructive and sensible and to help him make a difference.

But all of this pales into insignificance when it comes to what the last Government did, or failed to do, in the criminal justice sector. The truth is that we are standing on the burning deck of the criminal justice sector right now—that is how bad things are. Members opposite were happy to pass law after law after law that extended sentences, that imprisoned more people, and that banged more people up. I think the stunning thing about conservative parties is just how they love this thing about locking people up and punishing them. I think it’s a fetish—I think it’s a fetish. There is no act of human conduct that conservative parties will not think that a good spanking will cure, and so the members opposite, when they are in Government, they like nothing more than to punish people—lock them up—because it makes them feel good.

But, actually, the truth is it is not a way to deal with those who carry out criminal acts, and we have to do something better. The truth is our criminal justice system is verging on being broken, and it is time to fix it, and it will be this Government that will fix it. We have a justice system now that is less and less just, doing more and more harm and more and more damage, and, worse, is not protecting innocent members of the community. Our serious offending rate is going up. They don’t seem to have noticed that—lock more people up, criminalise more people, but not fix the fundamental problem.

So it is time to step up and fix the problem—time to step up and fix the issues that we are now facing. The priority is to keep innocent citizens safe. It is also to reduce offending. Simply leaving people for ever longer periods in prison doesn’t reduce offending and doesn’t create a disincentive to other offending. What we need to do is help the people who need to be changed, who can be changed, to be better citizens and to be more productive. In the end, that’s good for all of us. That’s good for all New Zealand. That’s what a sensible criminal justice system should do, and we’re determined to do it. It is time to have a Government step up and fix the mess of the last Government, and it is this Government that is doing it.

Hon RON MARK (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an absolute pleasure to be able to take a call this afternoon in this general debate. Well, just to continue on what Minister Little has just finished saying, looking at the Opposition, what a sad, sad, tired lot we have facing us these days. Five months in and we’re seeing absolutely the same old pattern that we saw in Government. And what do we know from the past Government? Well, we know a heck of a lot more, having gotten into our ministerial positions of responsibility and opened up some books.

What have we found? What did we see? This is a party that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The National Party is a party that is all sizzle, and at the end of the barbie there is no sausage. It’s a party that talks big on the games, talks big about its Budgets, talks big about the money that’s allocated, two, three, four, five years out, and when we get into Government, what do we find? Absolutely nothing.

In fact, this is a Government—and I’ve got to say to Minister Robertson, he was wrong. Minister Robertson, I’m sorry, mate—you were wrong. There was not an $11 billion hole in the National Government’s Budget; there was a $31 billion hole. And where do we find that $31 billion? Well, it’s the $11 billion that the Hon Grant Robertson identified during the election, but now we know that all the talk on the $20 billion capability plan was exactly that: talk, nothing else.

The irony is that we went into negotiations to secure that funding, to give our Defence Force personnel certainty and security going forward, only to find that there was never a dollar allocated. Oh, there was money allocated for this year—you know, operating costs. But when you look at those lines and columns and you pull out that wonderful, glossy book, the capability plan, there was one mention of the $20 billion, no tables, no outline years, no budget, no nothing. So all I’ve got to say to the National Party is it’s a good thing that they have time to sit in Opposition, to review their past performance, to wonder as to why they’re there and maybe do a bit of cleansing, which is well on its way right now, and I understand there’s more of that to come, Mr Carter—David Carter, that is.

So, look, this is the past Government that kicked the can down the road on some big issues that we’re having to deal with now. What’s one? Well, one was the frigate system upgrade—a $148 million blowout in the project—

Hon Tracey Martin: How much?

Hon RON MARK: —a $148 million blowout in the project, that could have been settled by Mark Mitchell when he was the Minister. But did he do it? No—can’t make big decisions. He can order up a helicopter to take him from Whenuapai, 35 minutes down the road from his home, to take him to a dinner at Papakura, but he doesn’t want to talk about that—he doesn’t want to front up and talk about that. He will talk about me getting on board an NH90, but won’t talk about what he’s done, his own track record. The track record is no decisions. The track record is kicking the can down the road, waiting until the election’s out of the way, then we’ll deal with it.

What about the decision round the systems communications upgrade of the frigates? Ah, silence—silence. So here we are faced with a situation where that project is yet to follow on the back of the frigate systems upgrade, which is seeing vessels put in dry dock and worked on. Why could Mr Mitchell not have brought both those projects together and have the projects done at the same time? Why? Because he can’t make big decisions—totally incapable of it, which is reflected in the mess that the Minister of Health is having to clean up with hospitals up in Auckland with mould, mildew, and sewage, and former members of the district health board now are talking about it.

Well, Mr Coleman had every bit of information he needed, but did that turn the minds or the heads of that past Government? Not one bit. It turned them as much as their sympathy about people’s housing plights turned them. This is a Government that has a plan. I’m so proud of the announcement on the road funding. Julie Anne Genter, stand up and take a bow—and Mr Twyford. Finally, mayors around the country are applauding a Government for putting money into the rural—

Hon Jacqui Dean: No, they’re not.

Hon RON MARK: —and provincial communities of New Zealand and dealing with the roading projects. We’ll see all those old one-way bridges fixed up—don’t worry about it, Ms Dean; those one-way bridges will be fixed up—and we will see a far happier local government in New Zealand than we have seen over the last nine years. Let me assure you of that.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am very proud, like the previous speaker, Ron Mark, of the transport policy that we announced yesterday. It’s finally going to deliver the 21st century transport system that New Zealanders have been asking for for decades. Of course, for the last nine years, unfortunately, while they had petrol taxes and road-user charges being increased, the lion’s share of the new investment was going into just a few highways, mainly in urban areas. Let’s see where those roads of national significance were. Oh—billions of dollars in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, and Tauranga. So that must be why there was such a massive decline in the funding available for local roads and regional roads over the last nine years—because there was. There was a massive decline in the funding in regions like Bay of Plenty, in—OK, I’ve got to get my list here—Northland, Chatham Islands, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Southland, Taranaki, and West Coast.

So all of those regions—producing regions, where they have milk tankers and other important freight and tourism going on local and regional roads—were completely neglected under the National Government’s policy of pouring all of the money into a few uneconomic highway projects. The worst part is they actually made traffic worse in the urban areas, as we knew that they would. We could have spent that money across the entire nation.

Now, Jami-Lee Ross was saying a little bit earlier that there was a $5 billion reduction in the State highways category over 10 years and that that would have been spent in the regions. I have bad news for Jami-Lee Ross, because about half of that was just going to go on a few kilometres of highway in Auckland—the East-West Link. Yet for half the cost of the East-West Link, we could afford to put median barriers on every kilometre of State highway in this country.

Now, I know the Opposition struggles with analytical analysis, reasoning, and quantitative analysis, so I’ve done some numbers for them, because, clearly, they read their little talking notes and they get all outraged, but if they actually looked at the Budget that we are proposing, they would see that their constituents are going to benefit much more, because we have a 20 percent increase in State highway maintenance and a 20 percent increase in local road maintenance—almost a doubling over 10 years of investment in local roads. Why is that important? Because half—half—of all car and truck journeys, all vehicle kilometres travelled in the country, are on local roads, and yet, over the last nine years, that National Government was spending three to four times as much on State highways as on local roads. How can that make sense? How can it make sense to spend three to four times as much on State highways when half of all the trips are on local roads and, in fact, those local roads have to be subsidised by ratepayers?

No wonder we have ill-maintained roads across the country. No wonder we have washouts up in Northland. No wonder we have a disastrous, catastrophic number of serious injuries and deaths on our roads, increasing every year for the last five years, because there was a reduction in road policing and a reduction in road safety improvements on roads all over the country, just to pay for a few kilometres of upgraded highway in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Tauranga, and Hamilton that hasn’t even given people what they actually want.

Now, I can tell the Opposition that the people of Hamilton are absolutely thrilled that we’re finally pursuing a passenger rail service between Hamilton and Auckland that might enable people to get to Auckland in a reasonable amount of time, because after the more than $2 billion they spent on the Waikato Expressway, it just gets people driving to the queue in South Auckland 10 to 20 minutes sooner, so they can just wait in traffic in Auckland longer.

So, finally, we have a smart investment in transport, and I don’t doubt that all New Zealanders are going to see the benefit. And let’s talk about those road-user charge and fuel tax increases, because do you know how much they’re going to cost? Less than one cup a coffee a week for the average household—even in Auckland—after three years. I think that’s a great deal to finally have a 21st century transport system that gives real choices to people: safe walking and cycling to school for our kids, which is good for their health and good for traffic; real public transport and rapid transit options between our towns and cities. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve been wondering for quite a while now why this Government’s policies seem so incoherent and fail to make any coherent sense. I mean, if you think about the first thing they did, it was to cancel the $1,000 a year tax adjustment because they were worried that wealthy families would receive too much of that, and then the second thing that they did was give those same wealthy families about $6,000 or $7,000 worth of free tertiary education. So I couldn’t work out the coherency or the logic behind those two choices.

Then we heard that they were very keen to help the young people who were not in education, employment, or training into work, and they had these schemes up in Northland that were going to help this group that they were terribly concerned about. But then, on the same day, they announced that they were doing away with the 90-day trials, so any employer who is going to take a chance on somebody who’s unskilled, hasn’t had any experience, or comes from a different background is, somehow, more likely to take that chance in the absence of a 90-day trial. So there was no logic or coherency in that policy decision.

Then we came along to regional development, and we had our good friend Mr Jones, the self-styled champion of the regions, going around handing out the money in little parcels around the country in order to help with investment in the regions. But, at the same time, this Government was proposing massive changes to the foreign investment rules that, basically, said to the rest of the world, “Clear off. We’re not interested in your investment. Don’t come here, please.” So the regions themselves may get some extra resources from Government investment, but it won’t anywhere near make up for the lost investment coming into the regions from foreign investors and, indeed, from domestic private sector investment, which has been put off by uncertainty around tax policy, uncertainty around industrial relations policy, and uncertainty around immigration policy. All these things add up to less investment going on in the regions.

Now, this week, the clanger is the transport policy, which renders the Government’s regional economic development strategy in tatters, because, again, we have Mr Jones talking about the provincial growth fund and $1 billion a year of investment, but, at the same time, the transport plan sucks billions of dollars out of the planned investment in regional roads. The lifeblood of the regions, such as the proposed highways into Northland that would open up that region, proposed highways around Tauranga and in the South Island—all these major investments that the regions were going to see in the years ahead have been pulled away. So the investment that Shane Jones is making is being overwhelmed by the sucking out of investment from the regions in our transport policy.

That’s why I said at question time—and the Speaker was kind enough to not let me ask the question, but it is interesting to see—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —that Shane Jones, when it comes to defending the regions from big business, is a tiger, but when it comes to protecting the regions from his own Government, in which he is part of that very Cabinet, he is a pussycat. There’s no question about it, and it’s rather embarrassing to see this man.

So I’ve been asking myself, well, why is this? Why is this Government so incoherent? And, of course, the obvious answer is—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! No, I am going to interrupt the member, and warn Chlöe Swarbrick that she interjects or she stands, but not both at the same time.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was in full flight trying to explain this incoherency in the Government, and the obvious reason for it is that it is not a coherent Government. It has three parties that are all pulling in different directions, and on each given day, one particular party wins a particular argument around each policy. So the Greens, of course, are crowing over the transport policy—they won that one on that particular day. The next day, New Zealand First will win a particular argument about having lots of money to spend in the regions, and all these policies fight against each other and make no sense because the Government’s pulling in one direction to appease that little group on Monday. And then, on Tuesday, they agree to something that the other little group of the Greens or the Labour Party agrees on, and on Wednesday it renders that asunder.

So the country, of course, is left confused and befuddled by a Government that on every day is proposing things that are working in the exact opposite direction of what they proposed the day before. That is why, I’m afraid, we’re seeing this reduction in business and consumer confidence in this country, because nobody can have any clear sense—

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

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Oh, it’s a great day to be in Government. It’s a great day to be part of this landmark Government of Labour, with our coalition and support parties in New Zealand First and the Greens. In particular, the engine room that we have within this Government—I mustn’t forget about our Māori caucus: 13 strong members of Parliament, seven of seven Māori electorates, and our other many capable members in our Māori caucus. It’s a great day to be in Government, unlike the very lacklustre, sad, befuddled lot on the other side. I do acknowledge Paul Goldsmith, the “Pink Panther” from Epsom there—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will withdraw and apologise.

RINO TIRIKATENE: I withdraw and apologise. But that contribution from the member from Epsom I think epitomises the state of the Opposition. They are very sad. They are forlorn. They are still grieving that they no longer have their Cabinet posts and are in Government. But, look, reality has hit home. Reality has hit home, and I think no more is that evidenced than by the lacklustre Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bridges. And I think I know what the issue is with Mr Bridges. I think he needs to bring back the Brylcreem. I think he needs to bring back the—

SPEAKER: Oh no. No, no. The member will resume his seat. I think there are matters of taste. I probably didn’t intervene quickly enough on the Hon Andrew Little earlier on, but I think there are areas that we won’t get into.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Well, it’s a free-flowing debate, sir, but I do—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Well, the first thing we’ll have, seeing as I’m on my feet, is Mr Bishop withdrawing and apologising.

Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: And now we’ll have Mr Tirikatene.

RINO TIRIKATENE: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: And I’m just going to warn the member that he’s had two strikes. If he has another one, he finishes his speech.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m just getting to the main point of my contribution today. It is great to be part of this Government, because, unlike the other side, which is really focusing on beltway, insignificant issues, this Government every day is making real changes for everyday Kiwis out there. None is more so than I can just give a selection of this week. From 1 April, 28,000 Māori families are better off, with an increase of 75c to the minimum wage—an increase to $16.50 for the minimum wage. That makes a huge difference to working people and also their whānau, and none more so than the over 50 percent of that group comprised of rangatahi, young workers. That’s making a huge difference, not to mention the impacts from our Families Package, paid parental leave—all of this host of measures which this Government is putting in place. Not being distracted by sideline issues, we’re getting on with it every day.

Likewise this week we’ve had the announcement of our transport policy. My electorate in Te Tai Tonga will benefit immensely from the doubling of the investment that will be going into local and regional roading in areas such as such as the West Coast - Tasman, Otago, and Southland. They will benefit. They’ve been neglected. They were neglected by the last Government for nine years, and now we are putting the priorities on bringing balance back to our roading network, led ably by Minister Twyford. This Government is getting on with the business.

Can I also mention the fact that under the nine years of the previous Government, massive under-investment was taking place in our health system. We’ve seen that this week also, through the shocking condition that has been reported through Middlemore Hospital. As we’ve heard, black mould and atrocious conditions are afflicting a major hospital in a major metropolitan area, and we are having to put the investments back into the health system. Significant investments—$14 billion—we’re having to put in to repair the state of our health and our hospital infrastructure throughout the country, which will also include a new hospital for Dunedin, and that is long overdue, too.

This is a Government on the move. We’re ably led by our executive team, under the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. We’re getting on with it. We’re working hard every day for hard-working Kiwis—hard-working Kiwis out there—none more so than the many Māori whānau that put their trust in our “Māori Battalion” that we have on this side of the House, which is bolstering the work ably under the five Ministers that we have, every day doing work which is taking our country forward and making a better life for all our whānau out there. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Mr Speaker, thank you. It is very telling when members of the Government spend a large part of their contributions in the general debate talking about National—thank you very much to the member who just resumed his seat, Rino Tirikatene. When they are not referring to and making nasty personal attacks on colleagues, they are delivering platitudes about hard-working New Zealanders. Well, that’s all very fine and good, but there is some real damage being done to this country by this current Government, and we are beginning to see the extent of the damage that is being done.

We are now getting a picture of what this Government is like. The tensions between the three warring factions are beginning to come out in the way of policy. I will give you an example. That example came to light yesterday in the Government’s policy statement on land transport. Earlier in the debate, we had the Hon Julie Anne Genter absolutely glowing about the wonderful, marvellous—marvellous—21st century traffic solution. What does that really mean? What does that really mean? That means trams for Auckland. What that really means is $5 billion of expenditure that would have gone into the regions being pulled in favour of trams and light rail for Auckland. Tell me how that is good for the regions?

New Zealand First must be spitting with rage. Here we have the Green Party over on one side of the House—for those members who follow Parliament—who are talking about a completely Auckland-central funding mechanism. Imagine stealing $5 billion out of the regions and standing up and being happy about it. Then on another side of the House, we have New Zealand First and the Hon Shane Jones with his regional investment fund, which they say is doing everything for the regions. Where is the compatibility between those two policies? Why are they stealing $5 billion in favour of Auckland and then they have Shane Jones trying to run a very strong campaign for is home town in Northland with his regional development fund? There is a lack of coherency in this Government policy. The trouble is it would be almost amusing if it weren’t having a real effect on New Zealanders in the region.

I had a chat to a relative of mine who lives down South, in my electorate, in fact. This relative of mine, a lady, lives on an invalids benefit—has done all her adult life, because she has got cerebral palsy. My relative budgets very, very carefully down to the last dollar. She puts the rest of us to shame. She budgets $7 per week for fuel. She needs that fuel so she can go to the doctor, so she can go to the supermarket, so she can go to the swimming pool to do exercise, and so she can go into town and do her job. She is not unlike many, many, many New Zealanders on low, fixed incomes—so $7 a week for fuel. A quick reckoning means that an extra 10c per litre fuel tax on this lady adds $3 to her weekly fuel bill, bringing it to $10 a week.

Now, $3 might not seem like much to some members in this House, but for those New Zealanders who budget very, very carefully down to the last dollar, actually, 100-odd dollars a year is a significant dent in their budget, which they cannot spend on other things. That is before every other thing that that lady and every other New Zealander in the regions has to factor in: the cost of food and the cost of every other commodity because of the fuel tax going on top. They don’t get any benefit out of it, because this is a transport policy for Auckland.

Do not tell us that this is a transport policy that is in any way going to benefit rural and provincial New Zealand, because it is not. It is going to drive cost for ordinary New Zealanders throughout New Zealand—never mind Aucklanders, who are going to be paying up to 27c extra per litre of fuel. This is a poor, poor policy.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an absolute privilege to speak in my first general debate. What I want to talk about today is the absolute dire state of our health system. I mean, everybody’s been focusing at the moment on the state of the Middlemore Hospital buildings, and they’re talking about that toxic mould growing on the walls. They are talking about leaking sewage. What they’re also saying is the district health board (DHB) CEOs talking about the fact that they were too reluctant to actually go back to the Government to get some more money to fix it, because of that whole pressure to stay in surplus, to balance the books.

The question is well, what has been happening beyond that in our health system? Before the election there was a lot of talk—and I used these figures—about a $2.3 billion underspend. The whole sense of that was that the previous Government hadn’t been keeping up with those basic cost pressures: population growth and staff wages. We were accumulating that gradual, gradual deficit in our health funding going on.

I think the problem, though, when I think about what was happening in my own DHB and what’s happening now across the health sector, what my colleagues are telling me—$2.3 billion is kind of hard to understand. You don’t really capture what’s been happening. But for me, thinking about it, what has been happening—the best analogy I can think about is when I used to work in A & E and we used to see these patients coming in with slow internal bleeding. I think the problem was when we used to work in A & E, people would come in with trauma and you’d jump on to it straight away. You’d see it, you’d put pressure on, you’d give them IV fluids, and you’d sort it out. But the ones we used to get taught about to be careful of were those slow bleeders—the one you get with that gradual, gradual dripping away, loss of blood volume. What had happened was you’d send them up to the ward, you’d send them home, and they’d suddenly crash. So the problem was that it was those ones who were actually much more sinister.

When I think about our own health system and what’s been happening there—the first sign something was going wrong in those patients was that their heart rate would start to go up. They’d start to have their heart beating faster, to get that blood round the system. And what I see in our own health workforce is they’ve been working harder and harder in order to keep things happening. Because they’re committed to their patients, because they believe in what they’re doing, they’re burning themselves out.

What we are seeing in our A & Es is those staff working really, really long shifts. What I’m seeing across our midwifery is those midwives are working really, really long hours, putting all that effort in. And what I’m seeing in our mental health system is these health professionals taking on this burden of care, and it’s starting to burn them out.

What was concerning me was some of these people I’ve been talking to, the health workforce, said initially that they were doing it out of love for their patients, out of care for what they were doing. But now they’re starting to burn out and give up, and they’re starting to walk away. So we’ve got a real problem there.

But the other thing is when a patient starts to decompensate further, they shut down the periphery, to divert all the blood flow up to the core heart, the brain, the lungs—the really important bits. What’s been happening in my own DHB is the DHB’s been diverting anything away that it can—the electives. Basically, anything that’s not urgent has been diverted away to core business, like the acute A & Es, so those with chronic medical conditions are missing out.

The number of people that came to me over the last few months, talking about how they were in absolute agony with hip pain, with knee pain—they’re in wheelchairs when they shouldn’t be. They are having to give up work because they can’t get the operations they need. There were delayed cancer diagnoses because they can’t get a colonoscopy, waiting months and months—six months, eight months for an ultrasound scan. Patients have been suffering. It’s not just an academic exercise with this $2.3 billion; it’s having a real impact down where I live.

The problem is, though, the DHBs can’t divert that blood flow away from anywhere else, because they’re overflowing in their A & E departments. There are people coming in with acute respiratory infectious diseases. And so our health system is starting to shut down. The problem is, with a patient, if you don’t stop the bleeding, eventually they crash. Then what happens is you need to get in and put in a massive resuscitation effort, with a massive bolus of IV fluids. And that’s what our health system is needing at the moment: a massive cash injection just to stand still, to restore that blood pressure.

I think the problem is that the previous Government prided themselves on being good economic managers, but how I saw it was that they were starving the kids to pay the mortgage. But now what we find out is they weren’t even paying the mortgage payments. What they were doing was kicking the can down the line, so we’re now up to $14 billion just in health infrastructure alone.

Our Government is going to fix it, but we can’t do it all in one Budget. We may not even take one term. But we are committed to restoring our health services for New Zealand.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Yesterday, the transport Minister, Phil Twyford, released the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport. For me, as the member of Parliament for Rangitata, and for many of my regional colleagues, it made for sober reading. More fuel taxes are on the way, with a fuel tax of at least between 9c and 12c and potentially more when the Auckland fuel levy is rolled out to other regions. Now, some members might recall the Labour Party travelling round the country before the last election, making all sorts of comments about tax—I certainly do. Just a week before the election, in an attempt to burnish his economic credentials, Grant Robertson made the following statement: “There will be no new taxes or levies introduced in our first term of Government beyond those we have already announced.” Now, Labour has been in Government for less than six months, and how many times has that already been broken? How many times will it be broken again?

What’s worse, though, is what we’re getting for that money. We’re going to pay more, but we’ll get less. The National Land Transport Fund is paid for out of road-user charges and petrol taxes. It’s vitally important for the continued maintenance of roads by the New Zealand Transport Agency and councils and improving the roading network. By cutting $5 billion out of it to spend on Auckland rail projects and cycleways, the transport Minister is putting a huge number of critically important transport projects in the bin.

I come from one of the regions that Shane Jones often likes to stand up and claim that he speaks for. Mid-Canterbury and South Canterbury have grown strongly in recent years. With a strong economy, our farms and businesses have succeeded, and as a result, traffic across the region has increased. The success of Prime Port in Timaru and the development and expansion of the inland port at Rolleston have seen more trucks travelling between the two.

There are more tourists on our roads. The number of international tourists has doubled in the last 15 years. Where previously they might have stuck to places like Auckland and Rotorua, now far more of them are coming to the South Island and are driving themselves around. All of these factors have caused State Highway 1—particularly between Christchurch and Ashburton—to become more congested, more often, and all of that growth is projected to continue. It’s impacting on safety. The road as it is now—two lanes, with passing lanes—is becoming more dangerous. Every week, I meet people who are no longer willing to drive on the road through to Christchurch, nervous about the number of trucks or drivers new to our roads.

What used to be a straightforward one-hour drive now regularly sees delays of 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or, as we saw on the weekend, even longer. Not only are those delays frustrating for passenger traffic, they’re also contributing to costly delays for freight—particularly in the Canterbury and South Island economies—through higher freight fees and missed deadlines. Those small deadlines, though, are dwarfed by the impact of the closure of the Rākaia bridge. As we’ve seen from the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes, to build resilience in the network we need second bridge crossings over the Rākaia River and the Ashburton River.

Unfortunately, the announcement made by Phil Twyford yesterday makes those sorts of investments nearly impossible under this Government. Important roading projects like four-laning State Highway 1 won’t happen. Belfast to Pegasus won’t happen. Upgrading the road between Queenstown and Milford won’t happen. A second bridge over the Ashburton River won’t happen. My constituents and others across the South Island and regional New Zealand will pay more but will get less.

This is a Government who have already turned their backs on the regions. Instead of backing our regions, instead of investing in the engine room of the New Zealand economy, Phil Twyford and the Labour - New Zealand First Government have decided to put all their eggs in the Auckland basket. It makes a complete falsehood of Shane Jones’ attempts to woo regional New Zealand. It makes his $3 billion pot nothing more than a slush fund to make up for the cuts made elsewhere by his Government, but only to his favoured region of Northland. It’s more evidence that this is a Government that has given up on the regions and given up on people south of the Bombay Hills.

SPEAKER: Before I call the next member—I have said something previously, and I’m now going to say it for the last time, and that is that in the general debate, members must not read their speeches. A cheery suggestion to the member Andrew Falloon is that until he’s confident, he might want to sit slightly further away from me, because it then doesn’t become quite as obvious.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Tēnā koe. I’m privileged to stand here today. It’s the first time I’m contributing in a general debate, so I just want to thank the members of the public for voting for a Labour coalition Government. Thank you, New Zealand.

Today, I want to acknowledge a leader who today, if she was alive, would be 90 years old. Maya Angelou was an American poet, a singer, a member of the civil rights defence activists, and today, if she was alive, she would be 90 years old. I mention Maya Angelou because I want to—there’s a quote of hers that I like. She has influenced millions of people. I’ve chosen one quote to share with the House today, and that quote is “Faith is the evidence of the unseen.”—faith is the evidence of the unseen. I put it to you today, to all the speakers on the other side, that New Zealanders, for the last nine years, had faith—or diminished faith—in the National Government. Why do I say that? I’ll get to that later on.

I live in Counties Manukau, which covers the Counties Manukau District Health Board. In 2016, the estimated population of Counties Manukau was about half a million, which represents 11 percent of New Zealand’s population. At the time of the census, 36 percent of Counties Manukau are living in areas classed as the most socio-economically deprived areas in New Zealand. I want to acknowledge that 36 percent, which means that 64 percent of New Zealanders in Counties Manukau are actually boxing above their weight despite being neglected by this Government in the last nine years. In that sense, I want to acknowledge Joseph Parker, who fought for New Zealand not long ago, in the weekend. We were all so proud of him. Most of us in this House were glued to the TV.

But despite Counties Manukau boxing above their weight, we’ve heard today in this very House, in this very House—I think I’ll go back to an experience. Because I live in Counties Manukau, I visit Middlemore Hospital all the time, and when I walk through the corridors of Middlemore Hospital—there were days that were reported in the paper, but I’ve seen it in real life: patients sleeping in the corridors. What the people of Counties Manukau had faith in was that the Government was funding the district health board sufficiently to be able to provide for the sickness of the people that lived in Counties Manukau. What they didn’t know is that there’s a building that cannot be used by the sick people of Counties Manukau because it has been neglected for the last nine years.

So I’ve said that despite being neglected by the National Government, Counties Manukau boxed above their weight, and, as mentioned by Dr Liz Craig, the district health board comes to the Health Committee and they’ve talked about—I can say that they had little faith that what they were saying in terms of the voice of experience would have been heard by the then Government.

I want to talk about the last—that health Minister Dr Coleman lives in Northcote. He was the last member for Northcote—he will vacate the seat. If you had to drive from Northcote to Counties Manukau in peak hour, it’d probably be faster for someone to drive from Whangarei to Auckland, really, because the traffic problem in Auckland is shocking—shocking that the last Government had neglected it.

There’s a member’s bill that’s been drawn under my name, and I’m asking this House that another language other than English and Te Reo Māori be used by members when they take their oath or their declaration of allegiance in this House. Today, we’ve heard a member from the National Party who has come in, because the tigers they were in the last Government have become pussies and some of them have just fallen off and have gone off, and we’ve had to replace them off the list. I want to send a message to Agnes Loheni and to the member who stood in New Lynn for the National Party to practise Samoan and Italian, because by the time they come in—it may be June, July—they probably will be able to, say, take their oath in Samoan or Italian, because, I tell you, people in this last Government are dropping off like flies. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I move, That the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

First of all, I’d like to thank the Justice Committee, who reviewed this bill. It was an interesting process. There was good debate. I think both sides of the argument could reflect and understand the others, and I appreciate that understanding across the select committee. But, unfortunately, neither side could have a majority. It was a four on four situation, and that is why we are here today, debating it and having a second reading. So there was no outright opposition; nor was there a majority of support.

I’d like to reflect on the select committee report, to start with, and discuss—so I’m going to preface this by talking about section 272 of the Crimes Act—I’m just going to refer to that as “272”; section 55 of the Arms Act, as “section 55”; section 202 of the Crimes Act, and I’m going to say “202” only; and section 51 of the Arms Act, I’m just going to say “section 51”.

There are a number of reasons that half of the committee recommended this bill not proceed, and I’d like to address a number of those points. The difference between a lot of these sections is quite subtle. For example, section 272, which is the section that this bill amends, does not necessarily require possession, whereas section 55 and section 202 do require possession of explosives to kick in.

Section 55, along with 272, also needs intent, but in section 202 there is not necessarily intent needed for the crime to take place. Instead of intent, the explosive must be found in a public place. So the public place factor outweighs, if you like, or complements or overrides the intent that other sections must have. So 272 requires intent but not possession, and I’m going to give an example of where this section 272 as amended might have applied.

In Australia, just this week, we had an example of explosives potentially being used to hurt people in Brisbane. So there’s been a guy charged with four counts: manufacturing an explosive without authority or without a lawful purpose or with intent to commit a crime. I’d like to reflect on the change in technology that enables people to commit crime without the possession of the explosive, without the possession even in their own home. We can operate so many more things remotely through technology, through the internet, so I’d like the House to consider the situation where 272 as amended applies.

So, as I say, no possession is required. The operator is remote. He or she is sitting in his office and is enabling an explosive that is held in another place. Now, there must be intent for that crime to occur under 272, so there must be evidence to prove intent. All I’m saying here is that where that situation occurs, where one can prove that there is intent to commit a crime using explosives but remotely, at the moment the maximum penalty is two years. It is only two years.

Now, that brings me on to a Law Commission report which was mentioned in the select committee, published in 2013. I’ll quote from that report. It’s study paper 21, Maximum Penalties for Criminal Offences. So a review of a number of offences took place but was not completed, but in any case the Law Commission chose to publish this report. It says, “The offence under s 272”—which is what we’re talking about here today—“of the Crimes Act of possessing or making an explosive device with intent to commit a crime carries a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment, notwithstanding the fact that in the worst class of case the person committing the offence will possess an explosive, again with the intent of committing mass murder or an offence causing catastrophic economic consequences, although not having reached the stage of an attempt.” So the button wasn’t pulled, the trigger wasn’t pulled. All right?

So this is all about the police or the investigators discovering, through technology probably, that this is probably or about to occur. We can talk about—we know that there are terrorist activities going on regularly and as close as in Brisbane and Sydney and in the Canadian Parliament. We don’t want them to occur. We don’t want to have to wait for them to occur before we arrest the guy or girl. We want to know and understand, and get the intent and prosecute.

So, to go back to the report: “We placed this offence in Category G, alongside offences that predominantly have current maximum penalties of seven to 10 years’ imprisonment.”—so seven to 10 years. “We note in passing that this puts it alongside the almost identical offence in s 55 of the Arms Act of possessing a firearm or explosive device with intent to commit an offence punishable by imprisonment for three years or more.”—so a minimum of three and a maximum of five for that section 55.

I’ll try and explain—well, I will explain—the difference between sections 55 and 272. Basically, the difference is the possession. So section 55, “[The offender] commits an offence and is liable on conviction … [da, da, da for] 5 years who has with him any firearm”. So there’s a possession that must take place for section 55 to kick in and there also must be intent to commit an offence—so only an intent, and this was part of the argument for rejecting my bill. The argument was that it was only intent.

Well, I say intent is as important and sits alongside the fact that one pulls the trigger. That’s the only difference. Someone pulls the trigger, or not. Someone gets an opportunity to pull the trigger, or not. So section 55 also only required intent and, as I say, carries a prison term of three years or more, up to five years. So the only difference is possession. I say possession is really not relevant. It doesn’t matter if one is in physical possession of the explosive, to come under section 55. I say possession is really a minor factor, because we know that one can control the device without being in possession. The device can be sitting in a car halfway across the planet but can be controlled by a person that is not in a public place and is nowhere near the bomb, near the explosive, and creates as much of a problem as if that person was in possession. So that’s the difference between sections 55 and 272, and I say that the punishment should be the same.

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. This is my third term in Parliament, and I’ve sat through a number of these members’ days. You can tell the bills that are probably going to make it, because the member stands up and he or she speaks with conviction, with passion. They go hard, they’ve done their research, they know what they want to say, they bring people into the gallery who are there supporting them because this is a passion of theirs. This is why they got into Parliament: to change the law, to change people’s lives. This is not one of those bills, and that was not one of those speeches.

I hold these things called “street corner meetings”. I’ve been doing them for about six years now, and every Sunday that I can, I go along and I speak to the people of Napier and ask them about the issues. Law and order is a big issue—law and order is a big issue—but I can tell you with my hand on my heart that no one has ever said to me, in a street corner meeting, or in my role as Opposition spokesman for police, or in my role as a Minister of Police, “Mr Nash, if you change the law from providing explosives to commit a crime from two years to five years, I’m going to vote for you.” And I’ll take it even further: no one has ever said to me, “I’m concerned about Kiwis making bombs to kill people, or I’m concerned about Kiwis providing explosives to terrorists.” It has never once come up.

Now, I’m not saying that the street corner meetings are a fair or true representation of what happens around New Zealand. I’m not saying that, in the Manawatū or Wairarapa or Masterton or Dannevirke, this isn’t a really big issue, because it might be. It might be. And maybe Mr Scott has been approached by a group of concerned citizens who have said, “You’ve got to change the law here because we are really concerned that there’s a group in Dannevirke who are making explosives.” But I doubt it.

When I said that this is my third term here and that I’ve sat through a number of these members’ days and have spoken to them, I also know what happens is that members like Mr Scott put a bill in the ballot because they’ve been told, “You need to fill a spot. You need to fill a spot, and you’ll take this one.” So Mr Scott said, “OK, I’ll put it in there, and the odds of it being pulled out are highly remote.” When my bill got pulled out of the ballot, it was fantastic because it was about an issue that was really important for the people of Napier, and we lost by one vote. But I know that when Mr Scott’s bill got pulled out, he went, “Oh my God! What’s happened here?” I remember because this was pulled out in the last term. This came to the select committee that I sat on, and the member sat in front of the select committee and said, “Well, this is what I want to do.” and we looked at him and said, “Are you really going to waste the select committee’s time with this?” And he said, “It got pulled out of the ballot.” So, as a select committee, we talked about how we were going to go through this.

I think, if I’m right—and the member may correct me if I’m wrong, and please take a point of order if I am, because I’m happy to be corrected here—there’s been about two people tried under this clause in the last 50 years.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Three people.

Hon STUART NASH: Three people, and is it 50 or 100 years? Well, anyway, this is not something that the police are spending an inordinate amount of time on, rounding up people and putting them in front of the judiciary so they can go to jail. In terms of the police work plan, in terms of the justice work plan, this is not high on it. I’m sorry, but this is just not high on it. Mr Scott, there are important law and order issues. There really are things that we want the police to concentrate on. There are things that really concern the people of New Zealand, about our law and order system in our communities, which we are going hard on, and that I know members from both sides of the House will have been petitioned on by constituents—things like burglary, things like sexual assault, things like robbery, things like car conversion, even homicide. These are serious law and order issues, and the lack of police to deal with them—the fact that less than 10 percent of burglaries, crimes against property, are being solved. These are big issues—

Darroch Ball: All under a National Government.

Hon STUART NASH: —and Mr Ball’s got it right. This is why we love coalition politics, because New Zealand First and Labour heard what the people of New Zealand were saying about law and order, and we have said that we are going to strive to put 1,800 officers on our streets over three years. It’s why Mr Bishop is being very, very quiet on law and order. He knows this is the right thing to do, and he knows his Government wouldn’t even come close to delivering this if they were there. Thank God they’re not. Thank God they’re not.

Chris Bishop: How’s the 1,800 going?

Hon STUART NASH: So we don’t hear anything from Mr Bishop on this one. But I will also say that Mr Bishop hasn’t come to me, nor has Mr Scott come to me, as the Minister of Police, and said, “Hey, can we work together on this one? Can we work together?” There’s been no reaching across the House to say, “This is an issue that the people of Wainuiōmata have come to me and said they want Labour and National to work together on because it’s important.”, because it’s not. It’s not.

The other thing is that we have a problem at the moment: it’s the fact that our jails are full. They’re full of people who, possibly, shouldn’t be there, because they haven’t committed a crime of violence; they don’t pose any direct threat to our community or our societies. But they’re there, and we’re trying to deal with this at the moment. Any piece of legislation that comes before this House that I have a look at that says, “Increase the term of imprisonment”, I take a good hard look and say, “Why? What is the overriding business case to keep someone in jail for five years rather than two years?”—if, in fact, they are put in front of a judge for committing such a crime; if, in fact, they are.

In fact, what will happen is that the judiciary will look at this and go, “Hmm, I don’t think that this really fits with where we want to be.”

Alastair Scott: Talk to the Law Commission.

Hon STUART NASH: Well, I’ve talked to the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Justice spoke to the select committee, and the Ministry of Justice said, “We don’t think this is a good idea.”—we don’t think this is a good idea. In fact, there are very few people who do believe this is a good idea. This is not the sort of bill that we want to be wasting a whole lot of time on, and what I urge Mr Scott to do—and I’ll be so bold as to give him some advice, and I don’t mean to sound arrogant about this, because I don’t mean to be in any way, shape, or form. His electorate sort of abuts the electorate that abuts mine. We’re provincial MPs. What I would ask him to do is actually go out and speak to his constituents. And that would be a drive, because he lives in Wellington, so he would have to drive over the Rimutakas. So he would have to be over there—he’d have to live there—but that’s beside the point.

What he would have to do is just have a talk to his constituents and be direct—just be really direct and call a public meeting, go to his constituents, put a message up on that big billboard and say, “I’m calling a public meeting on the issue of increasing penalties for providing explosives to commit a crime.” If he gets more than three people there—and they’ll be his electorate secretary, if he employs one—then I’ll eat my hat. The reason I say that is this is just not an issue that is important to the people of New Zealand. It’s just not an issue on the law and order spectrum, on the justice spectrum that’s front of mind—not even back of mind; it’s not even “in” mind.

Mr Scott, well done on getting the bill pulled out of the ballot. I think there was a little bit of analysis there, because you talked about a case that was in Brisbane. I didn’t see that in a google search, but maybe this is an issue in Brisbane. Maybe what we could do is take this bill, give it to the state Parliament in Queensland and say, “It hasn’t worked in New Zealand but maybe you need it here.” And do you know what the Queenslanders would say to him, “Go away. Go away. Have a beer and go away.”

This is just not an issue that is important to people, but good on you for getting it to the select committee. The fact is that the Government members on the select committee saw sense and actually said themselves, “We are not going to clog up our legislative agenda with something that’s not important. We’re not going to fill our prisons.” Well, we’re not going to fill our prisons, because no one’s been tried under this. No one’s in front of the judiciary. It’s like arguing about an issue that simply doesn’t exist. In fact, the issue does exist because Mr Scott brought it up. So it goes along like this: if this is the radar, it’s way below the radar, it’s up, and it will drop below the radar again.

I just hope that Mr Scott comes up with something meaningful, because I would hate to think that his legacy is being the MP that brought the bill before the House that wanted to increase penalties for providing explosives to commit a crime. Go and talk to the constituents about law and order. Go and talk to them about what is important, what the police should spend their time doing, who we need in our jails, what we need to do there, what the judiciary should be counting on. I’m not going to be support this bill, if that’s not obvious already. I can’t support his bill, because I just think it’s a nothing; it’s a waste of time. We don’t need it, it doesn’t address a substantive issue, and there are 10 minutes of my life that I’m never going to get back. Thank you very much.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to talk to the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill at its second reading. I think that the member Stuart Nash, who just resumed his seat, probably should stick to pumping iron in the gym and huffing and puffing his way through it. He’s clearly an expert on what is irrelevant to his constituents. If he ever does speak to them, for example, he might want to ask them why the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill, a four-liner spun into a legislative filibuster in this House—so much of Labour’s legislation, residential tenancies legislation and others, are all about padding out a legislative time frame and timetable which Labour has been woefully inadequate at being able to fill. So it’s very rich coming from that member, who, if he speaks to his constituents about pumping iron might get somewhere, but otherwise would appear to be quite out of touch with what people really want.

Increasing prison statistics is about keeping people in jail if they do bad things. Consistency is what this bill, I think, has at its heart and as its strength. For the member who resumed his seat to assume that we will not have a case like the Boston Marathon, where, people may recall, a young man with a backpack put it down. It was an explosive. It claimed lives. We have seen explosives in London, which have caused mayhem. That member may be completely out of touch with what may be coming our way, but I think deterrence and the ability to ensure that this country has a very tidy and consistent penalty regime is important, and that’s why this is a very useful piece of work.

We have an amendment to the Crimes Act and the Arms Act. This bill aims, in its consistency, for a maximum penalty for providing explosives to commit an offence from a maximum term of two years’ imprisonment to up to five years—so, consistency. It’s a little bit what the psychoactive substances bill is trying to do, also. It is to make it as serious a penalty as marijuana. So getting the message across to the people who would do bad things like peddle bad drugs or use explosives in a public place that they will get the consistent penalties that the law and the judiciary will have the ability to hand down. So I think it’s very important.

I think it’s also very important to note that New Zealanders do need to feel safe in their homes and their communities and, as well as that, in public places. There are a number of major public events that I have attended, and they include the respectful ones. Laying wreaths for Anzac Day is one that is coming up. We do not want to be, as a nation, fearful of what people may think they can get away with because the Government is soft on crime, and this Government is. They want to not build prisons. They don’t want people to go into the prisons, so what does that mean? All penalties will be reduced down to six months or a year. Let the villains out on the street. Let them do their worst, and the New Zealanders—we will be bearing the brunt of that.

The Law Commission, for example—an august body with possibly even a lot more knowledge of the law than the member who resumed his seat—has recommended increasing the penalty and the maximum penalties for criminal offences. In their report, they compared section 272 with section 55 of the Arms Act, and considered that the two sections are almost identical. However, section 55 carries a maximum penalty of five years, and there is no possible justification, says the Law Commission, for that lack of consistency. So this is about tidying up something that needs to be tidied up.

New Zealand First’s position remains unclear. They weren’t on the Justice Committee. I’ll be interested to hear what they have to say on this. It would be useful if New Zealand First stuck to its core brand of being tough on crime and making sure that bad people were locked up and dealt to, so it will be very interesting to see whether they will add their weight to support this bill.

But I feel that this is a piece of legislation—while perhaps not the largest and most significant piece of legislation this House will deal with in this term, it is still an important piece. I commend the member for coming up with it, for the research, and for the work that he has put into it. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’d like to start by acknowledging the National member who is sponsoring this member’s bill, Mr Alastair Scott. I’d also like to acknowledge the intent behind the bill. The bill was very well-intentioned.

Labour supported the bill and voted for the bill’s first reading, to be referred to the select committee. I believe it was the Law and Order Committee and Mr Bakshi was the chairman of that select committee. I’d like to acknowledge Mr Bakshi, as well.

We heard submissions and had discussions at length. What I can confirm at this stage is we were convinced by the officials and we were convinced by the Law Commission reports, but we were not convinced by Mr Scott and his National colleagues. So Labour will not be supporting this bill, and this bill should not proceed. The simple reason is that probably Mr Scott has got his intention right but got the vehicle wrong, because section 272 is not the right vehicle. Section 272 is the preparatory offence, and I’ll come to that point later on.

For those who are interested in knowing the detailed analysis before such a kind of conclusion could be drawn, I would suggest that they have a good look at the brief report from the Justice Committee presented to the House in March 2018, the initial briefing dated 28 April 2017, and the departmental report presented to the Justice Committee in February 2018. Probably, I should run a caveat, because the following provisions that I’m more inclined to refer to are from the departmental report to show the seriousness and the gravity of the reasoning.

First of all, let’s look at the purpose of this bill. The purpose of this bill is to increase the penalty under section 272 of the Crimes Act from a maximum of two years’ imprisonment to a maximum of five years’ imprisonment. The stated aim is to increase the penalty for those who provide explosives to another with the intent that an offence be committed. I’ve got no problem with that, and I support the call that we should increase the penalty and should impose a harsher penalty in that regard.

Section 272 is a preparatory offence. It is merely about possessing or making an explosive with the necessary intent. It does not require another offence to ever be carried out with the explosive. Indeed, the intent that another offence be committed may never come to fruition, hence the relatively low penalty. So that’s the entire logic behind the relatively low penalty in terms of section 272. So the rationale behind the low penalty in section 272 is that it is a preparatory offence.

Section 272, if we have a good look at the Crimes Act, is drafted to deal with the situation where a person’s conduct has not necessarily reached the threshold necessary to create criminal liability for an attempt to commit an offence. An attempt requires an act of more than mere preparation and one which is immediately or approximately connected with the intended offence.

I heard what Mr Scott tried to do, which was to add more layers of his analysis to appreciate the reasons behind his member’s bill, and he specifically mentioned clause 202A of the Crimes Act and section 51 of the Arms Act. At the select committee hearing sessions, we did have some close looks at those sections, and, again, I would like to read out one paragraph which is very important for us to note to appreciate the reasoning from the departmental report.

Regarding section 202A of the Crimes Act, “The first limb of the offence in section 202A … requires both that the relevant offensive weapon (which includes explosives) be in a public place and that the person has no lawful authority or reasonable excuse for having it. Both those critical elements are missing from section 272. That means that a person could be liable for making or possessing an explosive under section 272 (with the necessary intent) in a secure, private place where there is no risk to the public and where the person has a reasonable excuse or lawful authority for making or possessing the explosive (for example the person manufactures or possesses explosives for a lawful purpose such as quarrying or mining operation).”

With regard to section 51 of the Arms Act, “Section 51 requires that both the explosive be in a public place (thereby increasing the potential for harm) and that no lawful purpose exists for having it. Therefore, the arguments for a higher penalty than in section 272 are the same in this context.”

So back to section 272, if I may oversimplify the scenarios—I could give two scenarios. One is from, probably, the National members’ point of view, which is that anyone who is not supporting this particular member’s bill could be seen as being soft on crime. The second scenario, again, if I may oversimplify, is that if Mr Scott’s reasoning and conclusion apply, then, for instance, a developer who has to use explosives for the purpose of development in a similar fashion as mining, quarrying, road works, or construction may be liable for and be subject to a term of imprisonment of five years. So this is the irony behind section 272, should Mr Scott’s reasoning and conclusion apply.

Again, the Hon Maggie Barry mentioned the Law Commission’s report, which was mentioned, again, in Mr Scott’s speech earlier. I’d like to draw to the attention of the House that in its 2013 study paper, Maximum Penalties for Criminal Offences, the Law Commission concluded that there is no justification for the difference in penalty in section 272 of the Crimes Act and in section 55 of the Arms Act, which has a current maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. But that should be taking into consideration the nature of section 272, which is, again, a preparatory offence.

To conclude, Mr Scott’s got his intention right. His reasoning sounds good, and his bill does sound good, and I supported the call for imposing such kind of harsher imprisonment and penalties for whatever the crimes would be in that regard. But, should the bill proceed, that would create a kind of confusion and anomaly, because the entire rationale contradicts some basic principles of criminal law in this country and in other comparable overseas jurisdictions.

Hon RON MARK (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, I really would like to congratulate that member, Raymond Huo, for his very considered and generous appraisal of this very thin piece of legislation, which we are called upon to debate here this afternoon.

I will, actually, as I did in the first reading when I spoke on this piece of legislation, congratulate the member for the Wairarapa, Mr Alastair Scott, firstly, on his clear and absolute victory in the Wairarapa, where 13,000-plus voters said that they wanted him to represent them as their elected member. And why did they do that? Because Mr Scott lives, eats, and breathes in the very heart of the Wairarapa. There is no denying that this is a member of the House who’s thoroughly, absolutely connected to his electorate—so much so that he reads the pulse from here, frequently. He reads the pulse of the Wairarapa from Wellington frequently.

That is why he was driven, as a new MP, to come to this House, to spend so much time researching the issues which I know thousands of the people who voted for him brought to his electorate office. I know he’d spend many, many hours sitting there holding clinics, hearing from hundreds of his electorate people, hearing their concerns, putting them together, coming to the House, researching the law, and coming to grips with the deficiencies in the law as pertains to the penalties for providing explosive devices to commit crime.

Mr Scott put that research together, came up with an amendment, put the bill together, put it into the ballot, and, hallelujah, he was successful. I mean, some other less generous people would say that Mr Scott, on the instructions of his own party caucus colleagues and his Ministers, crafted this bill together very quickly, ably assisted by the Minister responsible, and threw it in in order to act as a blocker to try and stop Opposition members getting their bills drawn. But I consider those to be very disingenuous comments, not befitting the hard-working Mr Alastair Scott, who brought this bill.

Now, at the time that we debated this bill—and I spent more time debating it than the Hon Maggie Barry just spent defending it, which I think just clicked over four minutes. She blew six minutes out the window, sat down, and there you have it. But I think I actually spoke for the whole 10 minutes in supporting Mr Scott and saying, on behalf of New Zealand, that I know that he spent many hours lying awake considering that act of terrorism that resulted in Ernie Abbott being killed at the Trades Hall.

I know Mr Scott is deeply concerned about the rights and the liberties of trade unionists, and it concerned him that Ernie Abbott was killed and his dog was seriously injured. I know in the background that must have been one of the things weighing heavily on his mind. I know that in the back of his mind he must have been seriously considering the Rainbow Warrior and the act of terrorism that was afflicted upon this nation. But I would’ve thought that he would’ve done a little bit more study and realised that the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was treated as an act of terrorism, and so too was the bombing of the Trades Hall that, unfortunately, saw Mr Abbott killed. And I would’ve thought that he would’ve known from there that the laws, as they currently exist, were perfectly suited to hand out a life sentence to those people.

But all of that being as it may, we supported his bill. We supported it, but we did flag some reservations, like why only five years? And I actually said—

Alastair Scott: Can’t even be bothered getting in a car—has to fly himself around.

Hon RON MARK: Oh, Mr Scott wants to interject over NH90s. And we all know that it was a member of his committee who was flying into Masterton at the time and made a comment on the radio—

Alastair Scott: Can’t even mention 272. Do you know what Act you’re talking about? You don’t even know the Act.

Hon RON MARK: —and fed Mr Scott, who couldn’t do it himself, so he fed it to Mr Mitchell. And Mr Mitchell—oh, Mr Scott’s still going. He’s really concerned about NH90s!

But we know that Mr Scott, unfortunately, put Mr Mitchell in the gun sights, because now everybody knows that Mr Mitchell flew to a dinner party in Papakura from Whenuapai in a Seasprite.

Alastair Scott: Which section are you talking about? What bill are you talking about?

Hon RON MARK: Oh, now he wants to get back to the bill.

Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member knows this is well outside the scope of the bill, which is to do with the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill. I ask the member to come back to the point.

Hon RON MARK: Speaking to the point of order—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, I don’t need any help on this, thank you. The member is actually correct, and this debate has been following that pattern for a while, and we’ll come back to the bill.

Hon RON MARK: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I would simply—as Mr Scott now wants to come back to the bill, I will definitely do so. I recall in the debate, Mr Scott, suggesting was five years enough? I recall asking why a minimum sentence of five years? I’ve seen nothing in the way of a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I see nothing in the National Party’s comments in the Justice Committee. I’ve got the select committee report here. It’s pretty thin. It’s really, really thin, and I see nothing in here from the National Party members saying, “Let’s make it life. Let’s make it life without parole.”

Alastair Scott: Where’s your SOP?

Hon RON MARK: No—Mr Scott is chipping away, so we go now. If the member was deathly serious about this issue, why did the member not bring it back to the Table with an amendment saying, “Let’s make it life.” or “Let’s make it a minimum of 10 years.”? Let’s make it a minimum—not five years; a mandatory 10 years or a mandatory five years.

You see, this is a joke Mr Scott, and it’s been treated as a joke because it is a joke. The fact that his own members can’t stand up and speak for more than five minutes in support of him on this bill says it all—says it all. For the record, there is no one in Masterton, Dannevirke, Pahīatua, Woodville, or Eketāhuna screaming out for this piece of legislation to be passed, in valuable Government time. Mr Scott was a member of the Government with direct access to the executive—direct access, where he could have gone and said, “We’ve got housing problems in the Wairarapa.” Remember, you turkeys sold off 541 houses—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I am not a turkey.

Hon RON MARK: No. Mr Scott could have referred to his own Cabinet Ministers and been very forceful and very strong in his representation of the homeless in Masterton, but, no, we have this bill.

So forgive me, Mr Scott, if New Zealand First has a little bit of a chuckle or is somewhat derisive of the legislation, because it is not what’s beating at the hearts, pressing the minds, of the Wairarapa people. I acknowledge that 13,000 of them voted for the member to come to this House and make a difference.

This piece of legislation—if we are to look at the seriousness of the issue that Mr Scott raises, it’s dealt with in the Crimes Act, it’s dealt with in the Terrorism Suppression Act, and it’s dealt with—

Alastair Scott: The Law Commission.

Hon RON MARK: Well, the Law Commission’s not the only person who had an opinion, Mr Scott. He chips in again. I love it when they keep coming back for more, you know? The Ministry of Justice says it’s not required. So we have the Ministry of Justice versus the Law Commission, and I do recall Mr Scott himself, on occasion, being quite critical of the Law Commission and some of the advice that it gave, where the Opposition was happy with that advice. So he can’t have ducks and drakes—I like the Law Commission today, I didn’t like them yesterday, I’ll like them tomorrow if they agree with me.

Mr Scott, if one is really serious about this issue, come back again, like I did with the suppression of gangs bill. Come back again and again—that bill that the member’s party voted against. Lowering the age of criminal responsibility—remember the bill that his party voted against? Don’t preach at New Zealand First about being tough on law and order, in a sort of whimsical attempt to try and get this piece of rubbish across the table. We deserve something more substantive, Mr Scott, and so too, by the way, do the people of the Wairarapa. They deserve more substantive representation than this. They deserve someone to take the matter seriously. They deserve to know that when they come to the House with their issues, it will override pieces of legislation like this.

Mr Scott, we know that the Crimes Act, that the Terrorism Suppression Act, the legislation that New Zealand First supported—in actual fact, I think the Rt Hon Winston Peters brought that legislation to the House when we were in coalition with Labour the last time. We have tried desperately to get some heavier penalties brought in to deal with crime, to try to get gangs outlawed—

Chris Bishop: Well, you’re in Government now.

Hon RON MARK: —only to be thwarted by the National Party, Mr Bishop—only to be thwarted by the National Party, Mr Bishop. Time and time again, Mr Bishop. So don’t come in here all pious, Mr Bishop. He’s chipping in again; he loves it. Mr Bishop, stand firm on this bill and support your colleague. We respect and admire that. But, Mr Bishop, you know, in your heart, that this is a load of rubbish, and it’s going to be treated accordingly. Thank you.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. What a spiteful speech. That’s the only way to describe it—just full of spite and vitriol. If the member who just resumed his seat wants a reason why he’s not the MP for Wairarapa, which he so desperately, obviously, vehemently wants to be, it’s speeches like that—spiteful, vitriolic, hate-filled. That was 10 minutes of hate towards my friend and colleague Alastair Scott. It was eight minutes on Alastair Scott—a sort of helicopter view of Alastair Scott, you might call it; a chopper view—and about two minutes on the bill, 90 seconds of which actually were on the substantive part of it. That was just a spite-filled speech.

This is a sensible piece of legislation. No one’s pretending it’s changing the world. No one’s pretending it’s the Terrorism Suppression Act or deals with gangs or is all of the legislation that Ron Mark has spent a lot of time trying to introduce. My message to you, my friend, is that you’re in Government now. You’re the Minister of Defence. You’re the Minister of a lot of other things. If you can convince the Green Party and your Labour Party colleagues in the coalition to do all the things, like lowering the age of criminal responsibility and cracking down on gangs, fill your boots, son, because the National Party may well support you. But we’ll wait and see where the Labour and New Zealand First coalition goes with its “tough on crime” policies, because they’ve got a pretty big barrier sitting near to me in the Chamber, who I don’t think will be supporting that legislation. But, you know, let’s wait and see.

That was a very poor speech by Mr Mark—a very poor speech. He says it’s a waste of Government time. Well, this is members’ day, and, actually, Mr Scott has put forward a useful piece of legislation. We had a good examination of it in the Justice Committee, and it’s fair to say that there’s, basically, a division of views between the expert advisers. The Law Commission recommended this change; the Ministry of Justice, I’ve got to say, argued vehemently—vehemently—against it. We had a clash of the experts. It’s always interesting at select committee when you have a clash of the experts, because it seemed to me they almost got more involved in the bill than we did.

The select committee was unable to reach a viewpoint as to whether or not the bill should proceed. We think it should proceed, and the National Party will be voting for the bill to proceed. We agree with the Law Commission, essentially. We think it is a sensible change. Members often exhort Parliament and the Government to pick up Law Commission recommendations. In fact, the Law Commission itself has said, on numerous occasions, that the Parliament does not act quickly enough upon what it does. The Law Commission is the expert law reform body in New Zealand.

Frankly, with due respect to the Ministry of Justice, the days of Geoffrey Palmer’s Ministry of Justice, with the legislative drafting team and the great law reform unit within the Ministry of Justice, are over.

Hon Ron Mark: Isn’t he on the Law Commission?

CHRIS BISHOP: Exactly! Ron Mark says he’s now on the Law Commission. That’s exactly right. He makes my exact point. Back in 1988, Sir Geoffrey Palmer set up the Law Commission and we exiled, for want of a better phrase, the expert reformers in our bureaucracy over to the Law Commission. We said to the Law Commission, “Take the considered time to use the resources that Parliament gives you”—and we’ve given them extensive resources over the years—“use the time and the resources and use the money to propose recommendations for law reform.” Andrew Little is making use of the Law Commission now, when it comes to abortion law reform, for example, and that’s actually an appropriate thing to do, because it’s a very technical area of the law. It’s a contested area of the law. It’s a tricky area, and you want the experts to go away and look at things like this.

So too with the Crimes Act 1961 and the various very technical offences around explosives, providing explosives to commit crimes. So the Law Commission has recommended increasing the penalty level of section 272, in its report, Maximum Penalties for Criminal Offences, Law Commission report 21. They compare section 272 with section 55 of the Arms Act and consider that the two sections are almost identical. Section 55 of the Arms Act has a maximum penalty of five years and the difference in penalty has no possible justification. That’s the Law Commission’s recommendation. There’s no possible justification for the difference in penalties.

So Alastair Scott, my friend and colleague, has introduced a very sensible member’s bill. No one is pretending it’s changing the world, but, actually—and I’ve made this point on numerous occasions in Parliament—not every bill that Parliament considers is abortion law reform or euthanasia or gay marriage or anything like that. Sometimes the process of Parliament and the reason why we’re put here is actually to tidy up the statute book and to improve things, and, actually, that is a very important job of a deliberative body and deliberative legislature like the New Zealand Parliament. Alastair Scott is doing a good job in doing that.

So he’s put forward this bill. It’s gone to the committee. We agree with the Law Commission—there’s no justification for the differences in penalties—and therefore we’re supporting the bill going forward.

We look forward to New Zealand First’s vote on the bill. It was not clear from Ron Mark’s contribution whether or not they’ll be supporting the bill or not. They supported it at first reading, albeit with caveats, as I know Mr Mark says. I suspect from the spite and hate in his speech towards my colleague Alastair Scott that New Zealand First will no longer be supporting the bill, and I think that would be a shame. Although, if it does get voted down at second reading, at some point Parliament is going to have to consider this issue again, perhaps under Ron Mark’s stewardship as Minister of Defence and Minister for law and order—the self-styled “Minister for Tough on Crime”. Let’s wait and see, but this is a good bill; it deserves to go forward through its second reading.

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this interesting bill, the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill. When I went down to the desk to pick up a copy of this bill, I picked up five, but I thought I was just going for one. So it’s quite short, this bill, and the purpose of the bill is to amend the Crimes Act 1961 to increase the penalty for providing explosives to commit an offence from a maximum of two years to a maximum of five years. Isn’t that interesting?

One of the things I’d be really keen to hear from the member who put this bill forward is where the idea came from. I’m assuming, maybe, it was the Law Commission’s view, but often with a member’s bill there’s a moment of clarity or greater good for all of humanity, where you see this great opportunity to make the world a better place, and you can tweak a piece of legislation in order to bring that wish or hope to fruition. I fail to see how increase this crime to a maximum of five years really makes any huge difference.

I will talk about the difference between the Law Commission’s view and the view from the Ministry of Justice that was debated at select committee, and look at those two different points of view. But before we get to that, I’d like a more general discussion around the value of increasing penalties, because that’s exactly what this member’s bill does—it simply increases a penalty from two to five years. So I’d like to know—and I’m interested to hear from members opposite as to how any given problem that society is faced with is addressed by increasing a penalty.

When I was thinking about this, I thought back on the things I’ve worked on in my past, where, time after time, previous National Governments have gone ahead and increased penalties. One of the areas that I worked in was fleeing drivers or failure to stop, and this is a fascinating area to look at. Time and time again, we’ve seen increased fines and increased penalties for those, and guess what? They still do it. Do you really think that the person—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN: —sorry—whether they be carrying explosives or whether they be fleeing from police, pause for a moment and think, “Oh, that’s right, I just looked up law online and I realised that that penalty’s gone up by three years. I’ll pull the car over right now and say sorry.” That doesn’t happen. Increasing penalties in general, as this bill proposes to do, does not address the underlying problem.

If we have an underlying problem in New Zealand of more individuals carrying explosives, of there being a greater risk of terrorism, then those are issues of social cohesion. Those are issues of how we have a good, healthy community where everyone can celebrate their differences and feel like they belong to New Zealand. That’s the kind of society that disincentivises people blowing up things, not increasing a penalty to five years. So I question the ability to change and influence the benefit of New Zealand by simply increasing prison penalties. As we have seen, what that does is fill up our jails. As we have seen, what this does is increase the amount of money that taxpayers pay to keep somebody in prison.

In 2009, when there was a problem with boy racers, as they were called—illegal street racing—we saw the failure to stop penalty increase. The fine was increased to $2,000. Lo and behold, in 2015, we have Michael Woodhouse, the then Minister of Police, with the following quote: “Increasing these penalties”—this is four years after they’d been increased already—“enhances the deterrent effect and sends a strong message from government that failing to stop is a dangerous [risk] and [it] … will not be tolerated.” And yet, still we face the problem of the same issue occurring. So my problem, the fundamental problem with this bill as it’s proposed—we can talk about the nuances around the different views from the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission, but the underlying problem is that a straight-out increase of penalties does not address the underlying problem.

Right, so let’s have a wee look at the differences between the two points of view that we examined at the Justice Committee. There’s one interesting point here—so what this bill, I understand, is endeavouring to do is to disincentivise those who may use explosives by enabling a harsher penalty for before the crime has been committed. It’s almost a bit sci-fi Tom Cruise movie stuff where you can have thought crimes. So they’ve not actually committed the crime, but they’ve got a detonator or they’ve got a cellphone, even, and so that is example enough that a crime is going to be committed with explosives, and that, in itself, warrants a harsher penalty.

It’s quoted here, from the Ministry of Justice, that “A person does not become guilty of a crime by merely thinking about it. There must always be some external manifestation of conduct to transform a criminal thought into culpable conduct. … Accordingly”—this is where the Ministry of Justice and the advisers do not agree—“while section 272 provides a mechanism to allow the Police to act in circumstances necessary to prevent another offence from occurring, we do not consider that a case has been made to justify a greater penalty than already provided. Indeed, the academic view expressed”—which I’ve just explained—“in [the paragraph above] may suggest that only a relatively low penalty is appropriate for such an offence.” So the view from the Ministry of Justice is the fact that the crime has not been committed means that it cannot be the same as the two compared. So it is not the same as section 55 in the Arms Act, and it, in fact, is a crime that has not been completed, so therefore it does not justify having a greater sentence.

I would like to round up by saying that, to be honest, I think that we could spend time in this House considering more significant issues than increasing penalties on the potential to blow things up. I think there are far greater issues that confront New Zealand in terms of housing, in terms of jobs, in terms of the state of our hospitals, in terms of the state of our schools. We should be looking at those issues that matter far greater than having to comb our minds for small pieces such as this to try and cobble together a member’s bill. I have a fundamental belief—and so, I’m pleased, does the Labour Party—that an outright increase in penalties might look tough and might come across as looking like some action has been taken, but it does not address underlying problems that are causing what will be happening in that space. I’ve already outlined that, yes, there are big concerns internationally with the threat of terrorism. There are big concerns in terms of how we enhance social cohesion, not just in New Zealand but right across the globe, but by threatening and by putting greater penalties and by alienating communities—that is not the way to go about it.

We have, here in New Zealand, a difference from other countries. We have the Treaty of Waitangi that provides a strong foundation for all cultures to work together to communicate in partnership and to have a greater understanding of the principles that are important to each other’s cultures. That is the pathway forward: greater understanding, greater communication, and greater ability to work together; not by standing over, by trying to increase penalties as a threat to make people work together more comprehensively. So for that reason, that’s why the Labour members of the Justice Committee did not support this legislation going further, and that is why we will not be commending this bill for further consideration. Thank you.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Whilst I do congratulate the member Alastair Scott, who has brought this bill to the House, for his work on it, it is a curious bill, and that’s largely because of the three premises that it comes to us with. In looking at this bill, I had a look at the previous file we have on it. The previous Green Party member dealing with this issue had on file a response from the previous Minister of Justice to an Official Information Act request in which the senior ministry official responding said, “Our original assessment of the bill is that the bill is not outside the range of comparable offences.” So the first premise of this bill—that the sentences for this type of offending need to go up to be in line with comparable offences—was actually rejected initially by the previous Ministry of Justice itself.

Then the letter goes on to say that section 202 of the Crimes Act, which the member referenced, broadly defines “offensive weapons” to include explosives. So, in fact, this type of offending can be charged to have the higher sentences applied to it in any case. As others have pointed out here, if terrorism is what’s being committed using explosives, or if murder is being committed, then those are also offences with much, much higher penalties—in fact, life imprisonment—available already within our criminal justice regime. So the initial practical premise of the bill in terms of consistency seems to be missing when we look at this bill more closely.

The second premise, of course, is that this type of offending is somehow on the rise or is of concern to us outside of, you know, terror, murder, and that type of thing, which are already crimes, as I’ve already just said. It doesn’t seem to be on the rise at all—I mean, we’ve already heard that there have only been two cases of this type of offending before our courts. So that seems curious, as well, in terms of why this bill has come so far.

But, of course, the third premise, and the one that concerns the Green Party—and this new Government, I happily note—is also largely refuted now by pretty sound evidence. That premise is that raising sentences in response to crime—even very serious crime that might actually be of concern within our criminal justice system—actually will reduce that type of offending. It will actually keep our communities safe. We now know, and we’ve known for about 15 years—it’s been 15 years since the first substantive study into deterrent effects of sentences was conducted—it’s just not true. It doesn’t work.

Luckily, we stand today at the start of a new era in responses to criminal justice issues. After nine long years of justice policy, of penal policy, being focused solely on making politicians look tough, we now get to adopt policy that actually works, that actually reduces crime, and that actually keeps communities safe. We will not do that by adopting the same old policies—by telling the victims of crimes and by telling our communities that raising prison sentences is going to keep them safe. That has now become callous.

As policy makers, as lawmakers, we have a responsibility to respond to the evidence. We know that every time we’ve raised sentences in any area of criminal justice, or in crimes of any nature, that type of offending has actually increased. Over the last nine years—and this was a policy initiated by Mike Sabin, the ex - member for Northland for the National Party—we raised sentences mostly in serious drug offending. We now know, based on evidence, that in terms of methamphetamine offending, every single year since we made that type of drug a class A controlled drug and raised the sentence to life imprisonment—every year—the instances of supply and manufacture of methamphetamine in our courts went up, to the point that right now, this year, methamphetamine offending is about to overtake cannabis in its prevalence before our courts.

A class A - type drug, since we made it a class A - type drug—since we started imposing sentences of 18 to 20 years regularly—is about to overtake cannabis. That’s frightening, and it is a testament to the total failure of this policy. We should be embarrassed as policy makers if, in the face of that evidence, we continue to do the same thing.

Last week, the Green Party was very happy to welcome the report by the Prime Minister’s chief scientist, Sir Peter Gluckman, that said that, in fact, imprisonment has failed to keep us safe in all the broad spectrum of criminal offending, that our justice system is in fact broken, and that doing the same thing over and over again is not going to fix it. It’s damaging to our communities. It diverts billions of dollars away from initiatives and from remedies that can actually stop crime and that can rehabilitate prisoners once we actually do lock them up.

I know from personal experience, from over a decade working in criminal justice, that our prisons are now not really well-equipped enough or staffed enough. Some of those are Serco corporation - run prisons not equipped enough to run programmes like drug and alcohol counselling, or even literacy programmes or anger management programmes. We can’t parole people—which is actually their legal right—based solely on how under-resourced these institutions are. So once they serve their lengthy sentences and we put them back out into the community, we’ve not invested anything. We’ve lost this invaluable opportunity to rehabilitate people, to help them to rejoin their communities, and to help them not to return. So recidivism is on the rise, filling our prisons again and again, because we’ve diverted money—resource—away from remedies that we know will actually keep us safe. As politicians, we have chosen—or the previous Government has chosen to make itself look tough, and that is callous.

So this new Government isn’t going to keep doing the same thing in the face of overwhelming evidence that it will not work. We are going to invest in people, whether that’s in housing, whether that’s in creating jobs, or whether that’s in mental health care. We’re not going to use prisons as mental health institutions any more, as we’ve been doing, unfortunately—sadly, heartbreakingly—in New Zealand for a decade now. We’re going to invest in people, so that we actually stop crime and so that we actually keep our communities safe. This will be a new era.

Our focus in justice policy is going to be on stopping crime, not on making ourselves look tough. That is why the Green Party will not be supporting this bill today.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi—you have five minutes.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to stand and support Alastair Scott’s bill. I think it is a very sensible bill which addresses an issue which was raised by the Law Commission. Increasing the penalty makes sure that we address the issue which was raised. National has been tough on crime, and we know that this present-day Government is very soft on crime. The contribution by Ginny Andersen clearly shows that they are going to be soft on crime.

I would like to acknowledge the contribution by Raymond Huo, the chair of the Justice Committee—a very sensible contribution which talked about the bill. Some of the Government members did not even mention about the bill, but were having a personal vendetta—for example, the Hon Ron Mark. He clearly, in his speech, wanted to just say that Alastair Scott—he lost the election to him by 13,000 votes but he could not say that. He kept on targeting Alastair Scott—that he won by 16,000, but he did not mention that he lost to him.

Coming back to what Raymond Huo mentioned—the intent of the bill is very clear, and that’s what is the crux of this bill: that we have to address the issues which have been identified. The identified issue was that imprisonment of two years is too low; it should be five years. That’s what this bill intends to do. I hope that there could be a change of minds still—there are a few more speeches—that the Labour Party might change their mind and support the bill brought by Alastair Scott. I commend this bill to the House.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I must admit I’m taken by surprise to have to speak so early. I thought at least the previous speaker, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, who stood to speak in support of his colleague’s bill, would be able to last five minutes, but he couldn’t. But I’m not totally surprised. It’s not a great bill. I’ve got to be honest: it’s not that flash, because it doesn’t actually provide us anything that’s worthwhile. But I do want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the member that introduced it to the House, the current Wairarapa MP, Alastair Scott. I want to reassure you that I will not use this opportunity to attack you personally, as tempting as that may be. The point is that you’ve put forward a member’s bill, and I believe it deserves the respect that it should get in this House, despite the fact that I don’t agree with it. I say that respectfully.

I said during the last campaign that if I was lucky enough to get into this House, having been an opponent of Mr Scott at the previous election, then I would work collaboratively, and I would not have a go, and so I won’t. But the bill is pretty poor because it addresses an issue that doesn’t need to be addressed, and that was reflected in the Justice Committee process. Of course, it does suggest that section 272 of the Crimes Act be extended from the two years’ imprisonment to five years’ imprisonment, despite the fact that there have been only three instances since 2007 of people being tried under this legislation. That is not an example of some drastic need in this country to change this law through what is proposed here, in the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill. I note that the heading of this section, “Providing explosive to commit crime”, does not reflect the elements of the offence. No part of section 272 requires that an explosive be provided to another person. There’s simply not enough need to warrant this.

It is somewhat of a wasted opportunity, because there are many pressing issues facing this country, and I know of many MPs that have gone their whole career without having a member’s bill pulled from the ballot. I understand that the right honourable Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, is one of those MPs. After 27 years in this House—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Can we come back to the bill, please?

KIERAN McANULTY: This bill?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): It would be useful.

KIERAN McANULTY: This shocking bill? I’ll get back to this poor bill in front of us now.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That would be useful. If you have nothing further to say, you can take your seat.

KIERAN McANULTY: Oh, look, I’ve got plenty. I’ve got a minute and 53 seconds more to speak, Madam Assistant Speaker. The point here is that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Make it count.

KIERAN McANULTY: —increasing the length of a prison sentence is an expensive and, arguably, an ineffective way to reduce offending. There have been many examples brought forward to the House this evening that highlight the fact that increasing sentences just for the purposes of deterrence is not effective, and that is, essentially, what this bill proposes.

I do note in the opening address Mr Scott indicated somewhat of a frustration that intent, in his view, is essentially the same as the act, and that is something that I just simply cannot agree with. The member used the example of “pulling the trigger”, and I can’t see how the logic is there, that the intent to commit that act, to commit pulling the trigger, is as bad or almost as bad as actually doing that itself. If that is the logic behind this bill, then I’m not surprised that this has failed to get unanimous support at the select committee stage. There are numerous examples in the past, not just in New Zealand, where increasing the term of imprisonment in a bill has not acted as a deterrent.

There’s one point that I want to make, in my remaining time, around New Zealand’s prison population. It is at capacity already. There would be no sense whatsoever, if indeed anyone was tried in the future under this legislation with an increased prison sentence, to increase our prison population just for the sake of it, which I fear is what’s being proposed today. So, along with my colleagues here in the Labour Party, we will not be supporting this bill, but good on him for giving it a go.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a short call on this bill, and I’d like to start by congratulating my colleague the MP for Wairarapa, Alastair Scott, for working hard on this bill and getting this bill through here to its second reading. Well done. On this side of the House, clearly you can see we’re making no apology for being tough on crime, and, clearly, providing explosives to commit a crime is a serious offence and warrants a tough penalty. Surely there’s no one who cannot see that sort of linkage. Now, the current penalty is two years, and during the Justice Committee process Alastair Scott pointed out that the crime of conspiracy has a penalty of seven years. Surely we can see the disproportionality between those two.

Furthermore, as the committee was looking into this disproportionality, the committee was informed by officials—and I actually found it quite interesting, too, as I was reading through the document—as to how penalty levels are actually set. I wanted to read from the transcript here. “When assessing appropriate penalty levels for offences the Ministry of Justice does not take into account just one element of the offence. A range of factors including the mens rea (mental element), the actus reus (the physical element), on whom the burden of proof lies, the nature of harm being addressed and the proximity of the acts being criminalised [in] the commission of a prohibited (harmful) act are all taken into account. In addition, the relativity of the penalty to other offences dealing with the same or similar subject matter is [also] taken into account in assessing the appropriate hierarchy of penalties.” So I learnt something there as to, you know, how we come to have two years and seven years and so on and so forth.

Now, there were three submitters to the select committee, all in favour of the bill. There was one supplementary, also. Ben Fraser made three points. He was very much in support of the bill. He recognised the risk of explosives, and cited international incidents. He also said that the increase in penalty for the offence would be proportionate to the risk and harm, and he thought that increasing the penalties would be beneficial. The second submitter, Mr Forsyth, was also in support of the bill, and the third submitter, Mr Bryce, again was in support of the bill. He wondered if it could also be extended to include safety ammunition and propellant powders. This was kind of interesting. Officials came back and said, “Look, that’s probably actually covered under section 272, in that where it says ‘any explosive substance, or any dangerous engine, instrument, or thing,’ it’s likely that the court will also interpret that into existing legislation.” So, in summary, all the submitters supported this bill. We clearly support this bill. It makes sense, and I commend this bill to the House.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Madam Assistant Speaker, I rise to take a call on the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill, the title of which is potentially longer than the substance of the bill. I actually felt for the member Alastair Scott. As the member Kieran McAnulty said, I’m not standing up here to have a go, either, but it was actually quite heart-wrenching to see the member’s speech, which was a display of an abject lack of conviction in his own bill. It was very sad to see, because, you know, all of us, as members of this House, when we put members’ bills into that ballot, wait for them to be called. They’re often pieces of legislation that we are passionate about, and it was quite sad to see that complete lack of passion.

But anyway, I want to begin by addressing a couple of comments that were made by members opposite, one of which was the rhetoric “tough on crime” that we’ve heard a number of National Party members talk about. Apparently, increasing a penalty from two years to five years is them being absolutely tough on crime and stamping down on crime. Frankly, I find that a little bit insulting for two reasons—for many reasons, but I’ll go into two. One is that recent evidence has it that Mount Wellington, which is in the Maungakiekie electorate where I’m based, is the burglary capital of New Zealand. The Indian communities, where I do a lot of work, and a number of members which I have engagement with are often at the forefront of crime by virtue of the fact that they own dairies and work in small businesses that are targeted.

Frankly, I think that wasting the House’s time and the Justice Committee’s time with this bill, which is in essence about one and a half sentences long, is a travesty, because there’s so much more that needs to be addressed, and this will not do it. It will not keep our communities safer. New Zealand taxpayers collectively pay over $110,000 to house a prisoner for one year. If this bill were to pass into law, the additional three years’ imprisonment that it proposes will actually add $330,000 to the public bill per offender. I want people who may be watching this to let that sink in a little bit.

We’ve heard that rhetoric of the Opposition members being tough on crime. We’ve heard the narrative that they are sound economic managers, but does this sound like good economic management to anybody? It doesn’t to me, definitely. Prisons have been referred to as being extremely expensive training grounds for further offending. There was a recent report by Sir Peter Gluckman that said this. It also said that increasing the length of sentences can increase the likelihood that an offender will reoffend and, potentially, to a greater degree. So not only is this unsound economic management but it is actually not going to work either.

What actually works much better—and there’s extensive research on this—than increasing sentences and tougher sentences is the likelihood of offenders being caught, which is why this Government is focusing on measures like increasing the police force by 1,800, with a strong focus, which was talked about, on community policing. It’s not that we’re not tough on crime—that’s actually just scaremongering. It’s that we want to do what works. We want to do what actually keeps our communities safe, holds offenders to account, and provides victims with protection. We don’t just want to stand here and do what sounds popular, what potentially makes a few of us feel better—that’s not what we are here for—but that’s exactly what this bill will do. It’s not going to achieve what it sets out to achieve.

The other way to look at this bill, or the purpose of this bill, would be to see perhaps whether it addresses the fact that there is a crime wave and that there are a number of people out there busily running around providing explosives. We’ve heard that from a number of members who’ve spoken previously this evening, but that’s just not true. In the last, I think it was, at least 11 years, if not longer, we’ve only seen three people who have fallen into that category, basically. That doesn’t sound to me like it’s a massive area that we should be focusing so much time and energy on. So the second assumption fails, as well. There isn’t a massive crime wave of people providing explosives, where we absolutely have to increase the penalty from two years to five years. That falls flat, as well.

Now, the third assumption posed by this bill is that it needs to be somehow brought in line with other similar legislation and that there’s some sort of an inconsistency in the law that needs to be fixed by the tweak that’s proposed by this bill. Now, section 272 of the principal Act, the Crimes Act, contains an intent element. I think this is the crux of Mr Scott’s speech on this—that section 272 contains an intent element. Now, there are two other sections that deal with similar offences and so on: section 202A of the Crimes Act and section 51 of the Arms Act. But I think the point that Mr Scott was making was that the increase in penalty would fall in line with those.

But there are a few different issues with that way of thinking, or tweaking one piece of legislation, and not looking at how it fits with the entirety of the legislation that we have. The Ministry of Justice has come out and said that it is difficult to make direct comparisons between offences that have different objectives, that have different essential elements, and that have different burdens of proof that are involved as well, and different penalty levels. And I’ll go into that a little bit.

There are justifications. Justice officials have come to the select committee, and at this juncture, I’ll just mention that it was great to be part of the select committee that considered this bill. So we heard from justice officials on this. There are justifications for those other sections to have higher penalties—for example, section 202A of the Crimes Act. The first limb of that, basically, is that it poses a much higher severity of harm to people. It’s about offensive weapons and it includes explosives as well, and it’s about those explosives being in a public place—so, potentially, more people are harmed by that. It also talks about people who have no legal authority or reasonable excuse for having that, which is absent from section 272, which is what we are discussing today.

What that really means is that increasing the penalty in section 272 from two years to five years would potentially mean that someone who has a legitimate reason for carrying that explosive—perhaps they work as a courier, perhaps they work in a mine; they have a legitimate reason for having that—could actually be penalised by this and potentially even more so if it was increased from two years to five years. Section 202A(4)(b) of the Crimes Act requires evidence of prima facie “intention to use [the offensive weapon] to commit an offence involving bodily injury or the threat or fear of violence.”

Actually, one of the main points that justice officials have made is that you can’t really tweak one bit of legislation without looking at the implications on other pieces of legislation. I’m just going to read this portion of the Ministry of Justice report, because I think it lays it out quite well—it gives a really good example of what they mean when they say that: “An attempt to commit an offence generally carries not more than half the maximum penalty for the completed offence”, and I think that makes logical sense. So if you actually do something, that’s one thing. If you have the intent to do something but you haven’t actually done it, then the penalty under the law is half—seems fair to me.

By way of example of the point that they were trying to make, section 54(2) of the Arms Act provides a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment for committing certain offences while in possession of an explosive. If the person attempts to commit that offence while in possession of an explosive but fails, the maximum penalty that person could face under section 311 of the Crimes Act would be 2½ years of imprisonment. So that’s half of the five years that they would have got if they’d actually gone through with that. Section 272 deals with the conduct that may not be sufficient to create criminal liability for an attempt. In relation to the previous example, it would be perverse if the penalty under section 272 was actually double, and so I cannot support this bill.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to take a call on the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill. It seems to me that it’s worth starting with a constitutional nicety, if I may. There’s been some talk on the other side of the House about Parliament increasing penalties for people who commit the acts to which this bill will apply.

In fact, of course, it is the judiciary, the judges themselves, who will apply the penalty in any given case. So it’s worth noting that as a Parliament what we will be doing, if this law is to pass, is not in fact to increase the penalties, but the maximum penalties. Therefore, what we are doing in fact is providing a greater range, and we are increasing the discretion available to the judge in her or his discretion in any given situation. So to me, that’s the first point to be made.

Then we come to the point that it is true, however, to say that a piece of legislation of this nature does send a signal—or a message, is the language that is sometimes used—to people who might be contemplating offences or who have indeed carried out such offences. That signal is important, to have consistency with other equivalent legislation, and certain sections of the Arms Act have been discussed by this House on both sides already, so I don’t intend to traverse that ground further.

In absolute terms, however, I do think it’s important to note that the excellent member’s bill by my colleague Alastair Scott includes an understanding that explosives are, by their nature, somewhat indiscriminate in their effect, so their effect in legal terms, by way of punishment for those who dabble in them, should also be not insignificant.

I also wanted to make a point regarding the purpose of this legislation. It seems to me that the parties opposite have focused rather narrowly on the deterrence aspect of our criminal justice system, in somewhat sarcastic terms at times. But, of course, punishment and also prevention are also valid objectives of our criminal justice system and, indeed, this bill—namely, that if a maximum penalty of five years as opposed to two, for example, is exercised, then that’s a three-year period for which the community can feel safe against those who would knowingly supply explosives to people who would use those to harm others.

So, for those reasons, it seems to me this bill is very worthy of support, and I am very pleased to do so, along with other members of my party.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Noes 64

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 1.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

BRETT HUDSON (National): I move, That the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s quite amazing, the debate we’ve heard over the five months or so of this new Government—a lot of talk about reducing the prison population. They’re actually wanting to clean criminals out, and that’s fine. They’re saying they want a target of 30 percent reduction of imprisoned offenders, which is also remarkable because about 75 percent are violent criminals. So, if they meet their number, they’re going to have to release some violent criminals into New Zealand society, but that’s a matter for another day.

As it relates to this bill, it’s actually quite interesting, because if they claim that they want to reduce the prison population, this bill is a measure that helps to do just that. It does that because it offers an alternative to that harsher sentence for offenders serving a community sentence who fail to comply with the terms of their sentence. And, yet, all the rhetoric we heard from them on the select committee and the report indicate quite strongly that they will not be supporting this bill in its second reading. That’s an absolute shame, because it actually shows that, while they claim to have this goal of reducing reoffending, they’ll always let their ideology get in the way of what could, otherwise, be seen as something of a laudable goal.

The reality for these sentences, these community sentences, if we consider why they exist, is that, in some instances, it’s because of lower level offending. But, in many others, it’s as an alternative to more onerous fines that offenders might find and struggle to deal with—or, indeed, as an alternative to some level of incarceration. In so doing, in providing these sentences, offenders are actually given an opportunity to atone for whatever their crime may have been in a manner and in a form that has less stigma attached to it and, indeed, actually permits them to have some more of their family life and contact, which they would lose out on if they were, instead, in prison. But with that comes obligations.

The public expect, as does the Government, and our corrections department, that people who are sentenced to such sentences—community service—will turn up and will complete their duties. So if people are not going to comply with those sentences, the public have an expectation that they be treated accordingly. This bill, instead of a regime which has been shown to be more likely to see offenders who repeatedly fail to turn up to their community service more likely now to see them heading towards jail, would have offered, and would still offer, if people would vote for it, a short, sharp correction that gives a strong incentive for that person to re-comply with their sentence, with their service. It was a simple matter of “If you fail to comply several times, you’ll get a warning. You’ll get a benefit docked if you happen to be a receiver of a main benefit.” And that gives you some incentive to re-comply with your sentence.

Now, as the bill was initially introduced, it was a blunt yet effective instrument. It allowed for three warnings, and if you’d failed to comply after three warnings, bang, your benefit could be cut. But it didn’t allow, for instance, for the right of appeal on the basis of process or of fact. So I would like to acknowledge and commend the officials in the select committee process, who looked at it and felt that it had some issues of manageability, workability, and, potentially, some issues, in their consideration, of elements of natural justice. The officials said, and recommended, as the bill has been returned, or should have been returned on that basis, that what they could do instead is to allow an appeal right on process. So if the process was not followed properly, the offender could appeal and have, potentially, their benefit cut forestalled or removed. But it also allowed, in a balanced sense, for the offender not to have to fail to comply so many times before the department could look to issue that warning and invoke that cut to the benefit payment. So the bill, in the work that they did, would have come back to this House in a better shape.

That actually is the job of select committees, and when select committees do it well, the Parliament then gets to consider, in the second reading, a bill that is in better shape. It would have been a bill to see back here and, hopefully, to have seen pass through its stages—although it’s pretty clear that that members opposite are not going to support it. Yet that flies in the face of the substance of the data that was presented by submitters—not necessarily their views, because submitters were, fundamentally, mostly opposed, but the data in it was really quite interesting. You see, the reality is that, over the years, more and more people who fail to comply with their community services are ending up in jail. Is that really what we want? Is that really what we want? Does it help to reduce our prison population? It certainly doesn’t. Is it better for that offender if they’re then in an environment which not only provides greater stigma for them but actually helps them in their schooling in the art of criminal offending, or so we’re told? It isn’t a good outcome.

In 2004, 774 persons were imprisoned for offences against justice, which includes non-compliance for community services. In 2014, that number had grown to 1,307—that’s a 68 percent increase. Now, we don’t have the numbers for exactly how many of those were failing to comply with community service, but the submitter was very clear that the numbers had increased.

Darroch Ball: I’ve got them—I’ve got them.

BRETT HUDSON: And, look, I’ll take Kim Workman’s expertise in this area over Mr Ball’s any day of the week. In fact, by November 2015, Mr Workman submitted, in support of his evidence, that only 36 percent of offenders nationally were turning up to comply with their community service sentences. So the problem has been growing, the lack of compliance has been growing, and more and more often, those who do not comply are heading towards, and into, jail.

Mr Workman did also make a point that, as the growth has been there in failing to comply, failing to turn up to these community service responsibilities, he felt that the Department of Corrections wasn’t doing enough to manage people’s attendance. That’s a reasonable point for a person to hold, but I’d reinforce this point, particularly for the people of New Zealand, and indeed those people who have been sentenced: the obligation to turn up for community service is the obligation on the offender. If they do not turn up repeatedly, it’s not the fault of the Department of Corrections; it’s their fault for not complying with the sentence which was initially handed down in lieu of either a harsh fine or a bit of jail time. They have an obligation. They should be discharging it. They don’t need the Department of Corrections to mother them or to parent them into fulfilling their obligations in the sentence for the crime that they’ve committed.

I’ll tell you what happens then. What happens, as Mr Workman pointed out, is that because the offenders, of their own cognisance, fail to turn up repeatedly, when they get in front of a court for their failure to comply, his view is that the judge is left with little alternative but to lock them up. This bill would have given an alternative, and could still if members opposite would see sense. It could give an alternative to help provide an incentive for offenders to comply with that sentence—a sentence that is better for them and better for the community than jail time. If only they would indeed do so, and if the members would support it, they might actually go a small way—a small but significant way—to meeting their supposed goal of reducing the prison population. So, really, it will be over to them. If they truly believe in that goal, here’s an opportunity to take a small, measurable, but significant step in helping to achieve that goal. If they don’t vote for it, they’re voting for more people on community service today to be in jail tomorrow, and that should be on their consciences. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister for Social Development): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. Well, that’s confirmed everything I believe of the former regime, and what that is is turning a public service and a safety net, such as the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), into a tool for punishing beneficiaries, for punishing some of our most vulnerable people in this country. When somebody goes into the Ministry of Social Development they have to form a trust, because, let’s face it, not many of them want to be there. In fact, if they had a choice, they wouldn’t go there, but they go there because they need the safety net. So they go in there. They create a bond of trust with their case manager—a bond of trust with their case manager. And then when corrections come in, without even fully understanding all of the complicated matters in this particular person’s life, they sever that lifeline. They take away that security net. They punish them.

Once again, this is what I continue to talk about with Whānau Ora: look at the family and not just the individual. Because you’re not punishing just the individual; you are punishing the family. Children miss out. Loved ones miss out. Why? Because they are being punished. What we should be focusing on is how we support these people better to make sure that they are able to fulfil their community sentence, where they are able to meet their obligations with the Ministry of Social Development and any other benefit that they might be receiving from the Ministry of Social Development.

As a former case manager, I can tell that side of the House, actually, you do that with trust. You do that with a bit of faith that actually people are wanting to do better for themselves. A proper relationship with a case manager, whether they be from the Ministry of Social Development or in fact the parole officer, or whoever it might be with the Department of Corrections—a more meaningful relationship actually will serve that person and the community better in the long run. I have no doubt about that—no doubt about that. We should be allowing these people actually to fulfil their sentences not by punishing them or beating them or scaring them. Actually, we should be supporting them—supporting them—making sure that they have the tools to fulfil that sentence and also to meet their obligations.

I mentioned the impact on families. I know that many of the submitters didn’t support this bill, and we know that quite a number of them actually highlighted the fact that it has unintended consequences that impact significantly on children. So we’re saying now with this particular bill that the member’s promoted forward into the House, that we’re going to be punishing those children. We know how hard it is for many of the families out there, particularly in my electorate, in Tāmaki Makaurau, but I have no doubt that in many electorates across the country families are struggling out there. This is just another one of those tools to beat families into submission, to actually force many family members, including those who are penalised through this particular bill, to actually go out and commit more crime, to be able to make sure that they can provide for their families. The data is out there, that many who find themselves in these situations and in times of hardship have gone to the Ministry of Social Development or have sought assistance, and in the end have actually resorted to crime to make sure that their family or the individual themselves actually have what they need. Here is yet another tool to punish people.

I accept that where there is continual failure to comply, sure, we need to start looking at this a lot more closely, but I don’t believe that it’s actually in the form of punishment or punitive measures. I actually think it’s more about making sure that we support these people more holistically, making sure that they’re able to meet their obligations. It’s nothing new. Whānau Ora talk about it—a whānau-centred approach, a holistic approach, to make sure that we have a good hard look at why these people aren’t meeting their obligations and we deal with those issues. We don’t simply punish them because of failure to comply. Sure, once again, I admit if there’s continual non-compliance, then we have got an issue. But instead of going in, making sure that they actually have the support to achieve their community sentence prior to the warnings—by all means that’s what we should be doing. That’s exactly what we should be doing. What we’re actually requiring, what we’re asking now of our officials who deal with these matters in both corrections and the Ministry of Social Development, is actually that they take a more human approach to it. I talked about bonds of trust, whether you’re in the Department of Corrections or, of course, the Ministry of Social Development.

That raises another question, actually: the capacity to enforce. It’s quite simple to say that the Department of Corrections can go in and instruct the Ministry of Social Development to do this and it will be done, and we’ll all go home happy, and the person who is continually non-compliant will be punished. It’s actually not as simple as that—it’s not as simple as that. As a former case manager and a former service centre manager and a former manager in Work and Income in the Ministry of Social Development, it isn’t as easy as that. It’s not as simple as going [Clicks fingers]; gone. It’s not like that.

We know that there are steps in this bill to make sure that the person is compliant. Well, in an ideal world, and as we read it in this legislation, that might be the case but actually in an MSD and a Department of Corrections that are currently under the pump, under-resourced, understaffed, feeling the pressure of an explosion in prisoner numbers, and an explosion in the need for their services and the safety net that’s provided to them, these people are struggling.

Brett Hudson: Your problem now, Peeni.

Hon PEENI HENARE: It is in fact the challenge in front of this Government to fix that. Why? Because, as the member across on the other side just said, it’s now our problem. He acknowledges that they actually created it, and now we’re stuck with it—now we’re stuck with it. So our job then is to make sure that those people get the support they need to actually be meaningful contributors in our communities. So I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed by this type of bill that comes to the House.

Also, the member who promoted the bill to the House tonight talked about stigma. I say to the member that actually having dealt with many of those people who have come through the doors of MSD and also, actually, in corrections too, in a former life, the stigma is just as big there, outside of the prison, as it is inside. The member tried to offer that only for those who go inside, of course, the stigma’s bigger. Well, I’d argue actually the stigma’s just as big on the outside—just as big on the outside—and one of the problems with that is, of course, all that does is create more non-compliance. All that does is actually scare them into more non-compliance, not just for the individual but also for their associates and the family members that they associate with, and I’m really concerned about that. Any kind of bill that forces more non-compliance by stigma and by discrimination, I think is a poor bill.

I just want to, in my final couple of minutes, talk about the discrimination. Many in this House know the numbers of Māori who enter into the justice system, know the number of Māori in prison, and know also the number of Māori who receive assistance through the Ministry of Social Development. We know, and the evidence suggests it, that discrimination by a mere fact of numbers of a particular ethnic group actually does exactly what I just talked about, about stigma—stigma through discrimination—and that’s a real problem. It will disproportionately affect Māori people, it will disproportionately affect those in particular, I’d argue, as a good member for Tāmaki Makaurau, in urban settings who actually have some rather complex needs—rather complex needs—and we know that on this side of the House actually a more progressive-thinking bill to actually assist these people in fulfilling their sentences and supporting them in the way that we should be is something that would be considered by this side of the House and by the Government. But at the moment this particular bill does not do that.

So I’d encourage that side of the House to actually look into their hearts, stop using legislation and the tools at the dispense of Government to actually punish our people, and look at how we care for them better, look at how we make stronger communities, stronger families, and stronger individuals, because at the moment a bill like this doesn’t do that. In fact, it punishes them and takes a punitive approach to what, essentially, is a human issue. So therefore, Madam Assistant Speaker, I say to you and to this House we will not be supporting this bill.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Madam Assistant Speaker, I want to rise and stand in support of my colleague Brett Hudson and his member’s bill, that is the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders—and I want to say, “who Repeatedly Fail to Comply”—with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. And for the member that has just resumed his seat, Peeni Henare, I think that is the key part that he seems to conveniently have forgotten.

In the bill immediately preceding this, one of the other Labour members talked about the fact there is an expectation that offenders are held to account for their crimes. So this bill is not a bill about suitable sentences; this is about dealing with those who have been sentenced by the court and who repeatedly—repeatedly—fail to comply with the community sentence. So the speaker that just spoke before me completely missed the point in terms of what this bill is, and I want to provide a bit of context for this.

New Zealand actually uses community sentences more than most other jurisdictions around the world, and members opposite should be pleased about that fact because it is before incarceration. It’s an important step and, as Brett Hudson very clearly stated in his speech, one of the ramifications for people not being supported to comply with their sentences—one of the ramifications is that they could end up being incarcerated. I would have thought that side of the House wants to avoid that. I’m really hoping—and the New Zealand First member Darroch Ball is shaking his head. I was shocked that New Zealand First didn’t support this bill, really shocked because I thought New Zealand First were a party that supported the delivery of law and order. The delivery of law and order is offenders being held to account.

Darroch Ball: That’s right. They should be going back to court. Why are you giving them an extra cushion?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So the New Zealand First member would like to see more of these people that are on community sentences currently going back to court and going to prison.

Darroch Ball: Recidivist offenders. You can’t have it both ways.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well, actually, I disagree with you and I want to talk—the community probation staff of the Department of Corrections do an extraordinary role with these offenders. I do agree with the speaker before me; some of them have quite complex issues, and community corrections do an extraordinary job with these offenders. There are 27,000 offenders a year on some form of community sentence, right. So for those people they want to support them in complying with their sentence so that the sentence is done and dusted and they are never seen again. That is the intent.

Unfortunately, there are some people who are frequent flyers who do not comply with the obligations that are set down by the court and that taxpayers expect the offenders to deliver. That’s the guts of this bill and the opposition seem to have completely lost the point. These are people that have been sentenced. These are about ensuring that people who are sentenced fulfil their obligations, comply with their sentences. And when the officials were before us, they said it’s a tool in their tool box—they don’t have to use it, and, in many cases, they wouldn’t use it, particularly if there are children in the household—and, again, that point seems to have escaped the Government member who spoke before me.

This is about ensuring that offenders who have committed crimes of a variety of natures are stopped in their tracks and we stop them and get them out of the justice system instead of progressing them through. As my colleague said, 1,300 offences against justice. We want to keep them out of prison. It’s interesting some of the other comments that have been made by the other side in this debate, and the one prior about rehabilitation. Well, if the Government was serious about rehabilitation, in the first corrections bill they introduced into this House they would not have scrapped the requirement for rehabilitation in that bill. It’s outrageous that it was scrapped.

Hon Member: It was rubbish.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I was in charge of it at the time; I know it was in there. I’m shocked that a Government that proposes to be trying to reduce the prison population would scrap the one thing that makes an enormous difference—yes, to the lives of people who have challenges. They don’t care. They’re going to go back on what they did in their nine years where the prison population increased at a faster rate than the last nine years and they want to lock them up and throw away the key. This is the tool they could use to stop people getting into prison and they’re not going take it.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Any student of history will remember Dresden. That was a time when the Allies bombed a non-strategic city, a city that had no munitions factories, and they did it for one reason: they wanted to warn the Russians of how tough they were, of what the possible complications on the Russians were if they didn’t comply. Well, it didn’t work. History shows it didn’t work. So what it shows, in coming back to this bill, is that anything we do around crime, any legislation we bring in, we’ve got to know what we are trying to achieve with it. What we are trying to achieve in all Crimes Act amendment bills or whatever bill we bring in has got to be about reducing crime. It’s got to be about making society a safer place. And when I look at this bill, it simply fails that test.

What experience has shown—and one of the previous speakers from our side mentioned about proximity to offending, and how we actually influence and affect offenders is by ensuring that the punishment, or whatever we call it, is actually proximate to the offending. Attempting to punish offenders in this manner will simply not be relevant in what we are trying to achieve here in trying to reduce crime. It’s quite interesting, when I was reading through the submissions, even the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I see, were actually opposed to this bill, which gives some indication of just how effective it may well be.

I’m personally not saying we don’t punish these people, and the previous speaker, Louise Upston, talked about how we need to make sure that people are punished. What I’m saying is that this will not do it. In fact, what we are trying to achieve here is that the punishment that we are trying to achieve on people—that will just simply not do it. It will not achieve what we’re setting out to do. Also, because the very people we are setting out to punish—as in the example I used at the beginning around Dresden—the very thing we set out to try and achieve, it will not simply achieve it, because when we actually impose this, we’re actually going to be imposing it on those around the person we’re trying to punish.

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

GREG O’CONNOR: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to resume my presentation on this bill. Let me resume by saying I do believe there should be a consequence for those who don’t comply. You may remember I did use the analogy of ensuring that when we send a message, we’re sending it to the right place, and I repeat my Dresden analogy, where the Allies attempted to send a message to the Russians at the expense of many thousands of innocent lives. So, again, I am stipulating it’s important to get your message right, to signal right, and to make sure you’re targeting the right area.

I fear that, quite frankly, this legislation does not target the right area. For a start, it’s patently unfair because only the beneficiaries will be targeted by this. If you look at the report, it shows that the majority of people who don’t adhere to their community-based sentences or comply with their community-based sentences are actually people who are not on benefits, so we’re actually looking at a piece of legislation here that is actually just going to target a small proportion of those who actually don’t comply.

But, more importantly, I look at those who we’re actually going to punish with this one as well, because, again, my experience is that those who end up on community work are those who often don’t live, shall we say, lives where the sort of normal sanctions that we might apply to those who have a relatively, dare I say, normal life will actually apply. They’re people that, whether we like it or not, are not going to give up their cigarettes—those that smoke. They won’t give up their drugs. What they will give up is paying those around them who will often be supplying the food, supplying the necessities of life, and even those who they supply the necessities of life to—for many of these people, in fact, their benefit will actually be their fixed costs, and much of what they live on is what they’ve managed to eke a living out of, often criminally. It’s the very reason they ended up on community work in the first place.

So, going back to what I said originally, we’ve got to be careful what we want to achieve with any legislation around crime. We’ve got to ensure that we actually reduce crime and don’t inadvertently increase it. What I very much fear with this piece of legislation is that we will actually end up increasing crime, because those people will—and you may say it will be petty crime. Well, the people who actually lose out from petty crime most are those who can least afford to lose out from petty crime. Often, it’s the neighbours of those people, often in the lower socio-economic areas, who don’t have insurance and who don’t have the ability to actually even replace what they lose, and they are the people who actually lose most. So, again, we have to be very careful where we target legislation like this. I think it will almost invariably result in an increase in crime, which is one reason why I am opposed to that.

I also mentioned before—around proximity. My experience is that when we’re dealing with people—particularly at the lower end, who are the people who are likely to not comply, for any number of reasons here—is that when we do seek to impose some sort of sanction on them, it’s incredibly important that they understand the sanction. A financial one like this will take some time. If it actually does bring about or give them some cause for regret or cause for second thinking about their actions, it actually won’t be related to the act that they actually did or didn’t do. It won’t be related to the act of not complying with their community work.

I think it’s important to actually look at what those community work provisions are, as well. It’s community work, which requires an offender to do a specified number of hours of unpaid work in the community for non-profit organisations; supervision, which requires an offender to take specified rehabilitative programmes to address the cause of their offending; community detention, which requires an offender to remain in an approved residence during certain time periods; and intensive supervision, which requires an offender to take rehabilitative programmes to address the cause of their offending.

So, again, the proximity between a financial penalty which would be imposed on them and, as I said before, mostly those around them—it won’t actually have an effect on their behaviour. So when we do seek to impose the sanction—again, as I said, I think there should be a sanction on this—we’ve got to make sure that it’s something that is going to work best for the whole of society. That’s where we come back to—we cannot impose something that is very much piecemeal and that by itself will simply end up in an increase in crime. That will mean more people either on the community work or more people who, if not on community work, are actually in prison—that very thing we need to address.

So I’m always a little suspicious of and often opposed to this type of legislation, which starts as a good idea, and probably those that conceived it did so with the right ideas. But when it’s taken in full, and when we work out how it will affect not just those who are going to be financially punished, if they are beneficiaries—less than half of the people who don’t comply. If we’re only going to apply this sanction to those people, then, quite frankly, it will simply not work.

So while, again, I think those who conceived this—and I think this legislation has been through several sets of hands before it arrived at this stage—I think I’d invite them to sit back and have a look and see just what it is they want to achieve. If it’s about making this country safer—I’ve heard claims across the House of being tough on crime. I mean, so many of the tough on crime measures actually don’t end up doing what they’re intended to do. I personally am a great believer in “A belief you will get caught is the greatest deterrent to crime”. We need only look at our own driving behaviour for that. So I oppose this bill.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I honestly don’t know where to begin with the number of reasons why New Zealand First, and, I know, the rest of the Government, will be opposing this bill. I think—I truly believe—that I’m going to be running out of time before I get to complete my speech.

I’m going to start with a couple of things that Mr Hudson said—ridiculous in the extreme—and the worst part about it was it’s quite clear that he didn’t even read his own bill. I’ll give him a little bit of a break, because it’s not really his bill—it was Mark Mitchell’s bill—but he stood up in his first speech and he said that “The public expect that those who are given community services turn up.”, which is fair enough, I guess. Then, in the same breath, he said that “The public’s expectation, the consequences that they don’t.” Now, if that’s true, why oh why is National promoting two separate pathways, or two separate consequences, for whether you’re a beneficiary or a non-beneficiary?

If it’s all about ensuring that the Government who’s in charge at the time holds the people who are on community service to account—not just the beneficiaries, because that’s what Mr Brett Hudson said—then why are there two separate pathways? That’s the question that that member needs to answer. The second thing he said—oh, and this is a good one—was “The origins of community service were because it was an alternative to a harsh fine that the offender couldn’t afford.” It’s an alternative to a harsh fine that an offender couldn’t afford. So what is this legislation doing? Going to the beneficiaries, who can’t really afford it in the first place, and pretty much fining them—cutting them by up to 50 percent.

If that’s not a flip-flop, and I’d like to say some other words, but if that’s not a flip-flop I don’t know what is. This is a member who is the author of this bill, or he was the guardian of this bill, who was supposed to be standing up in the first reading or the second reading, after he wanted it so badly to go through the select committee, and he has absolutely spoken against it. He’s given evidence about reasons why they should be voting against it. The last thing he said—well, not the last thing but one of the last things I want to talk to him about was—the problem has been growing, those who don’t comply has been growing. Who’s been in Government for the last decade? First of all, who’s been in Government for the last decade? That’s been National. Who’s been in control for the last decade? National. Who has had the chance for the last decade to put this bill in if it was such a great idea?

Kieran McAnulty: Those guys.

DARROCH BALL: Them. Why didn’t they do it? Why didn’t they do it? Look, this is a nonsensical bill. It’s not about tough on crime. It’s not about soft on crime. To be fair, if you listen to the speeches, and I’m sure the speeches for the rest of the night from the National Party but definitely the ones prior to this, they’re caught in a sort of no man’s land. You can tell they want so desperately to say this is being tough on crime—tough on crime—but it’s just not. It simply is not. It’s just ridiculous in the extreme. The National Party knows that this will cause—just like the Labour Party member who just spoke said—more crime in the end, and they know that.

I’ve got some evidence to show why the National Party didn’t want this bill to go through. They didn’t actually want this bill to go through even though they had every ample opportunity to as a Government. Here’s the time line for this bill. So the first reading was in August 2016. The first reading, when National was in Government, when this got pulled out of the ballot, was August 2016. It was referred to the committee on 10 August 2016, and the closing of submissions was 20 September 2016. So the member, when it was pulled out of the ballot, had two years to convince the Ministers of Justice and of Corrections, and the Minister for Social Development to put it in his Government’s bill. You’ve got to ask why.

I went back and had a look at the minutes from the—no, not the minutes; the letters that the Social Services Committee sent, and Alfred Ngaro knows this because he signed it—well, one of them, anyway. The letter asked for an extension to the Speaker at the time Rt Hon David Carter—that’s how old it is, the Speaker was the Rt Hon David Carter—“It is due to be reported to the House by Friday, 10 February 2017.” This bill was due to be reported to this House in February 2017. They want an extension on 30 November 2016, right. Another letter: “It is due to be reported to the House by Thursday, 13 April; now we want it to be extended to Monday, 8 May 2017.” Then another letter, and this one’s signed by Joanne Hayes because by that time she was the chair and Alfred Ngaro had then moved on to become a Minister, that’s how long ago it was. “It was referred to us on 10 August 2016. We have made substantial progress in our consideration of the bill.”—yes, we did, because everyone knew that we didn’t want this bill going through, including the National Party.

They wanted to push this through to 25 October 2017, after the election—after the election. It was quite clear to everybody sitting in that select committee that the National Party did not want the report to come back here to be debated, because they knew that it was a rubbish bill. They knew it—they knew it. So now here we are—April 2018—20 months since the first reading and 18 months since the first due date back here in the House. Now, if Alfred Ngaro wants to take a call I’m sure he will try and explain that, when we didn’t need to have those delays as a select committee, I’ll be very interested.

If anybody who is watching, and for that matter any of the National Party members, including and especially Brett Hudson, wants to know why no one should be supporting this bill, just have a look at the report of the Social Services and Community Committee of March 2018. You only have to read the first page. You don’t really have to read all of it, because there’s enough in the first page to justify why we shouldn’t be supporting it.

First of all, I’d just like to point out that the first heading is “Reasons for recommending that the bill not proceed”, and that goes on for one, two, three, four pages. Then it comes to “Reasons for recommending that the bill proceed”, and it’s two paragraphs—if you can call them paragraphs, it’s probably about two or three sentences really. First of all, some facts that Brett Hudson failed to mention: in 2015, there were 33,000 people who were required to complete a sentence of community work. Of these, 5 percent—that’s 1,500 people—did not comply with their sentence. It says, “Compliance rates were in fact higher for those receiving a benefit, at 77 percent, compared with 67 percent for those not receiving a benefit.” If this was such a law and order issue, if this was such a piece of legislation that was supposedly ensuring the public’s expectation of people on community work not breaching and turning up, then why are we ignoring the largest proportion of them—the non-beneficiaries? What did the National Government do when they were in Government about them? Nothing. About nothing. Only 23 percent of those receiving a benefit—so, 23 percent of the 5 percent—were breaching.

Hon Member: Is that it?

DARROCH BALL: Twenty-three percent of 5 percent. Of the 33,000 people, we’re talking about 300 people. Now, this doesn’t go any deeper, this is 300 people here, but that doesn’t talk about the highly recidivist offenders or breaches. So, the 300 could just be one breach. So if this bill is looking and trying to dig down in to the high recidivist people who breach community service, we could be talking about just dozens of people whom this bill is trying to target. They knew that. Brett Hudson knew that. The Ministers knew that. That’s why they didn’t put this through as a Government bill—that’s why it didn’t go through as a Government bill.

Madam Assistant Speaker, I told you that I was going to run out of time. I haven’t even begun to get through it. I got through some of the main nonsensical facts and some of the things that Brett Hudson said. But New Zealand First will clearly not be supporting this bill—not because it’s not tough on crime, or because it’s soft on crime, or because it’s in-between; it’s because it’s nonsensical, because it will not work.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. The previous speaker started off his speech by saying that he doesn’t know where to start. Well, he didn’t even know where to finish, and he didn’t even begin to talk about the bill itself. But what I would have to say about that member Darroch Ball, who’s just sat down and who just made his speech—I want to use an old Kiwi colloquialism that’s actually in the Oxford Dictionary, and it says this. It’s called sucking the kumara. “Sucking the kumara” refers to the fact that when someone has failed—and it’s a terminology that’s used that he’s sucked the kumara—he didn’t keep his promises. He didn’t actually achieve what he intended to do.

I would have to say that when New Zealand First stood up in the election campaign of 2017, here are the things that it talked about. In fact, if you go to Newshub of October 2017, they talked about the 16 different things—and it relates to the bill that we’re talking about now because one of them was about benefits—that are different between New Zealand First and the Greens. One of them was about Māori seats. “Abolish them.”, is what New Zealand First said. Well, that didn’t happen. The other one is around Whānau Ora: “Get rid of it.” That hasn’t happened. We just heard today there’s going to be a review. The others were about mining, but in particular was actually No. 10, and here’s what it said about benefits. Here’s what the Greens said. Their manifesto said this: “We want to increase benefit payments by 20 percent and remove all sanctions and obligations for beneficiaries.” But here’s what New Zealand First said. Wait for it—they said this: “Greater scrutiny of the benefit system”, and that’s exactly what this bill is about. OK? At the heart of it, it’s the scrutiny of the benefit system.

So let’s talk about this and see what this bill is actually all about. It’s in the title, which says, “Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply”. Now that surely is something that’s part of the New Zealand First manifesto. It wants to scrutinise the benefit payments.

In other words, these are people who are beneficiaries already who’ve actually committed an offence. It could be everything from robbery. It could be all sorts. It could be male assaults female—we don’t know what it is, but they’ve committed an offence. They’ve gone into court—I know Greg O’Connor will know this—and they’ve been held to account, but the judge has mitigated the sentence. He’s actually said to them, “We’re going to give you a community sentence.” A community sentence is where the offender can go back and can contribute to his community. It means that he has a certain number of hours that he has to comply with. It lessens the ability for them to go into incarceration—to go into jail. That’s what the sentence is actually all about.

So we’re now talking about people who have offended. They’ve gone to court. They’ve been charged. They’ve been convicted. They’ve been sentenced. Now they’re going into a situation where all they have to do is complete—it could be 10, 20, 30, or could be even 100 hours. That’s what they have to do. That’s all that’s being asked of them. When they don’t comply, not once, not twice, or maybe not even three times—now you have to say this, on the other side—when do you get to the point where you have to hold people to account? When do you have to say to people, “There’s been a lesser sentence. It’s been mitigated.”? And that’s what this bill is actually talking about. It’s saying this. What we’re saying is this is one tool to incentivise compliance. That’s what this bill is about. It means that corrections can use this as an ability to be able to incentivise that process.

But let’s walk and talk the way through what this bill actually is telling us and what is trying to be achieved in being able to implement this bill. Speakers on the other side have said it’s being mean-spirited, it’s cold-hearted, and it’s not actually caring for those that are in need. Again, we’re talking about people who don’t comply. So here’s the process. With the relationship with the corrections officer, the probation officer who’s working with them, or it could even be a social worker—after 30 days, they cannot apply a written notice but they will apply one written notice.

So, say the offender hasn’t turned up. They’re meant to be doing some gardening, or meant to be out there, maybe at the local school, maybe in a park, to help beautify a community, and they didn’t comply with that. They’ll be contacted. They’ll be talked to and asked for the reasons why. If there is no valid reason for that, then there will be one written warning. Now, it’s another 14 days afterwards in which they can then also apply a second warning.

So let’s talk about this. Fourteen days—the ability to be able to go again, to comply with the sentence they’ve been given. It’s a community sentence. It may be gardening, or it may be weeding. But what it means is the opportunity for that person, who’s receiving, by the way, a taxpayer-funded benefit to help support them and their family and their whānau—all they need to do is comply with that. Again, it could be gardening, or it could be weeding. But if they don’t comply for a second time, they get a second warning, right. A second warning. Then, after that, another 14 days has to lapse before corrections will then contact them or talk to them and say, “Look, it’s been over two weeks, three weeks, and there’s been non-compliance. You haven’t turned up. If you do not, there will be some serious consequences.” That’s what this bill is asking of them.

So, tell me, where’s the hardship? Where’s the cold-heartedness in this? It’s actually ensuring that we are walking through, with offenders, to make sure that they comply.

Here’s the other point that this bill is trying to achieve. It’s accountability with discretion. This is not cold-hearted. This is not mean-spirited. It’s trying to make sure they complete it, because the sooner they complete the sentence, the sooner they can get on with their lives.

Here’s the other alternative, where this bill is trying to mediate this and give another opportunity and an alternative to going back into court, going back into the system, and potentially going back into prison. It’s saying to them, “If you comply, and if you do the things that you’ve been asked to do simply to uphold the sentence that you’ve been given, then you will just continue and finish your sentence.” End of story—there’s nothing else to be done. Now, where’s the cold-heartedness in this? I would say that the people outside, that are inside of New Zealand, would say, “Actually, that’s OK. That’s accounted for.”

Mr Darroch Ball talked about the numbers. In actual fact, it’s around about 27,900 offenders that have a community-based sentence. Out of that, when you talk about splitting the percentages, it works out at about 1,600 who breach their compliance with the sentence that they’ve been given, and those are beneficiaries. So we’d say this: out of the 1,600 that are beneficiaries, it’s not untold to be able to hold them to account. Again, there’s a process that has discretion to it, to allow them to get to a point. All they simply need to do is to comply and finish off the sentence. I would have to say that that’s what this bill is trying to do. That’s the intent of the bill. There’s accountability with discretion, and that’s inside of that. And for 1,600 breaches, I believe that, actually, it’s a bill that’s worth considering.

I am surprised that New Zealand First have sucked the kumara on this. They’ve gone along and, next thing, it will be an increase of 20 percent in benefits. They’re removing the sanctions and the obligations that have been proved to make a difference. The fact is that those who have been found in breach of benefit fraud—so there are around about 89,000 people who were found in breach. That calculates as $34.6 million that was actually taxpayer-funded. I have to tell you this. Taxpayers that are out there, who are giving their taxes to the Government to hold people to account in this particular area—look, it definitely won’t increase crime, but what it will do is hold people to account.

I will finish by saying this. New Zealand First campaigned on the fact that they would have better scrutiny of the benefit system. That’s exactly what this bill is intended to do. I have to say to New Zealand First on the other side that your supporters that are out there in New Zealand—I have to ask the question. You made a promise; you haven’t kept it. You’ve sucked the kumara. I think it’s a sad day for New Zealand First, who are not supporting this bill. I support this bill to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party and to oppose this bill and, hopefully, to see the end of it from this House. There are many reasons that I’ve been pleased to see a change of Government and, I must be honest, seeing the end of this bill is one of those reasons. It was quite—I don’t know the right adjective, really, but it was bemusing at times to sit on the select committee and hear the overwhelming submissions telling us what a bad idea this was and to see the then Government members on the select committee just keep engaging as if it was possible to fix it despite all of the evidence that we had. It started off being just amusing and got to the point of being disturbing, actually. We were being told just so clearly of the dangers of this bill. So it is lovely to rise and speak on this tonight, knowing that this will be the end of this bill.

I do just need to reference, for a second—not to defend New Zealand First or speak to their policy—that the last speaker’s view, that this was somehow something to do with scrutiny of the Social Security Act, to me is just a bit of a stretch and a bit of a bizarre concept. I would have thought scrutiny of our social security system was actually about ensuring that it was meeting its purpose, which was, I thought, about ensuring that we had a safety net through which nobody in this country would fall, and that actually this piece of legislation was fundamentally undermining the purpose of that piece of legislation. So, therefore, good scrutiny of our system would involve rejecting this bill, and I think that seems entirely consistent, to my mind, and certainly is consistent with the views expressed by the New Zealand First member throughout the hearings of this committee, not just post-election.

I will just briefly recap for people who may be enduring this debate that the point of this piece of legislation is that it is to enable corrections to trigger a process that would lead to benefits being cut for people who are not complying with their community work sentence obligations. To do that, the corrections staff would send a written warning. There would be two written warnings, two weeks apart, stating that the benefit may be cut if the person doesn’t comply within 14 days of that second letter. Work and Income would then be in a position, if they weren’t compliant within that time frame, to cut their benefit. Now, this was only for certain benefits, not all benefits. It was for people on main benefits; it was not for people receiving New Zealand superannuation, it was not for people receiving a veterans pension, it was not for anybody receiving Working for Families entitlements and benefits, and also it wasn’t for anyone who was earning wages, despite the fact that they were the people most likely to be non-compliant with their community work obligations, in terms of numbers.

The idea that this would fix things—that cutting people’s benefits would motivate them to be good people and get compliant—overlooked several key things. One of them, which I do think it is worth reminding this House of, is some of the reasons that people aren’t compliant. Sometimes, the reasons that they’re not compliant have nothing to do with their desire to be compliant but are actually to do with the way that the system works, and I’d like to give the House three examples of that over recent years.

In one case, in April last year, there was a spike in non-compliance in the Nelson area. This was because they had moved the reporting location for people on community work service from Nelson to Richmond, 20 kilometres away—for a group of people, many of whom were ineligible to drive, in an area where there is very little public transport, and there was no transport being provided by corrections. So a whole lot of people became non-compliant because they just simply couldn’t get themselves to the place of reporting. Now, would anybody sensibly say that the answer to that would be to cut that person’s benefit?

Angie Warren-Clark: The Opposition would.

JAN LOGIE: The Opposition would. As has been pointed out, they seemed to really just not want to engage with that point through the process at all.

Another example we heard: in 2016, in Canterbury, there were so many issues of non-compliance that, actually, supervisors were fired; so there were fewer people able to engage with people to find out why, what was going on, and to be able to support them to meet their obligations. So there was less support in being able to follow this up, and you’ve kind of got to see this piece of legislation in that context of “Well, let’s just send a letter. We’ll just send a couple of letters—job done. Don’t need many staff to do that. Just fire those letters off, and then we’ll cut their benefits, and that’s not our problem, because then the police will pick them up and they’ll be in court again for somebody else to deal with.” You really do have to question the basic logic of this proposal.

We also saw another example, which I think speaks more positively around the Department of Corrections’ engagement around non-compliance. In Tauranga, I think, in 2013, there was some research done on the reasons for non-compliance, and they found that one of the major drivers for non-compliance was that people were choosing to go into seasonal piece work and earn some money rather than comply. It was a chance to get some work to be able to support their family and to keep engaging, because they saw that as better for their long-term benefit. When Tauranga looked at this and did the research, they thought, “Actually, for the betterment of society and that person or their family, let’s support that. Let’s not consider that non-compliance, and let’s shift their times of responsibility for when they don’t have the opportunity to work. Let’s try and build support around people and have them engage positively in their society.” That is the Green Party’s vision in terms of rehabilitation for people, rather than cutting people’s incomes and driving them—and we heard this evidence so clearly through the select committee, of the very high chances that this would drive more crime, as people didn’t have enough money to be able to pay their rent or put food on the table.

It also needs to be pointed out, too, when you think of the people getting these letters and the idea that that will just magically trigger them to be able to become compliant—because it had nothing to do with the State’s setting up of a system that didn’t work! But we also have to acknowledge that among young offenders, as an example, 40 percent of them have foetal alcohol syndrome, 20 percent of them have head injuries, 80 percent of them are struggling with alcohol and drug issues, and 40 percent of them with mental illnesses. These are the people whose incomes we’re going to be cutting for not responding appropriately to a community work obligation or a letter that we’ve sent them, which they may not even be able to read, because we know that there are high levels of illiteracy amongst this population.

So it is with a great deal of relief that I expect to see this bill voted down in the House this evening, and to stand in support of a social security system that moves us out of the Victorian age and that actually recommits to supporting everyone in this society to be able to put a roof over their head and to be able to participate in society, not just those people who have been fortunate enough to have good enough lives never to end up in the situation of engaging with the justice system and be on income support.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill, a bill that I absolutely cannot even begin to support because it’s so unbelievably punitive, for one, and, secondly, will not even achieve what it purports to achieve. I’ll begin by outlining, for those who may be watching, what this bill aims to do. I’ll speak to, maybe, the heart of what it wants to achieve, and then outline, based on submissions that the select committee heard—and I am part of the select committee that considered this bill. I’m not even sure that we had one submission that was in support in any way. Overwhelmingly, submitters were incredibly opposed to this bill.

So, to begin, what does this bill do? It, basically, enables the Department of Corrections to instruct the Ministry of Social Development to withhold all or part of a person’s benefit where that person has repeatedly failed to comply with a community-based sentence. According to members on the opposite side of the House, this is a new tool that corrections can use because these people who are on a community-based sentence just don’t turn up and don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and, somehow, cutting the money that they get—and this is money for people who already can’t afford to pay. As the member Darroch Ball rightly pointed out, these are people who can’t afford to pay the fine that has gotten them into this position in the first place. Somehow, members opposite think that taking away even more money from them is going to magically motivate them to comply.

Who’s on these community-based sentences? What are they? They’re sentences of community work, supervision, intensive supervision, and community detention. One of the reasons—or, I guess, the main reason—that I’m so incredibly opposed to this bill, as I suspect members on this side of the House are, is because it strikes at the very heart of the values that we stand for: values about social security; values that say, for example, that everyone, regardless of who they are, deserves to live with dignity, and this strips them of that.

Members opposite will stand up and continue to say, “But of course, they’re really bad people and they should be motivated or encouraged to do what they’re supposed to be doing in the first place.” I don’t think anyone will disagree that people should comply. Those who are on a community-based sentence should comply, but, as the member Jan Logie pointed out as well, perhaps we should be looking at why people don’t comply. How do we define compliance and non-compliance? Those are some of the substantive issues that I would have wished members opposite would have looked at, instead of beneficiary bashing. Really, that’s what this bill is about. That’s the crux of this bill, because it doesn’t apply to someone who’s not on a benefit.

So basically, what it’s saying—and we’ve heard some of the numbers as well: 27,078 offenders were serving a community-based sentence, over half of them in community work; 5 percent of offenders serving a community-based sentence are prosecuted each month for a breach. Putting on a policy analyst hat from my previous life, if you were tweaking the law or you were developing policy, you’d look at the scale and severity arguments. Really, this bill kind of falls down on both those calls as well, because, firstly, in terms of scale, we’re looking at a very small number of people. In terms of severity, it’s even worse, because you’re talking about people who are on a community-based sentence who don’t have money, and therefore are on a benefit, and who are doubly penalised as a result.

Now, let’s go into some of the issues as to why this bill’s not going to stack up from a workability point of view either. One of the submitters talked about the fact that this will actually increase the potential for crime. I want to read a couple of quotes which were quite powerful. So this was, I believe, a submission by Kim Workman—Institute of Criminology, Victoria University. He says, quite apart from the fact that this is a punitive bill, and I quote, “What is an offender likely to do to survive financially, once deprived of a benefit? [I’ve] discussed this Bill with a group of consumers from that group. Apart from [the] disgust that the state would take food from the mouths of their children, their responses were two-fold. First, that their confidence in the criminal justice [system] and the social welfare systems would deteriorate considerably, and, second, that there will be people within that group who will engage in unlawful activity, in order to feed themselves and their children.”

This leads me to a second point that submitters have raised, a very valid point, which is what is the effect that this bill, if it passes, will have on children and families? It penalises young people. It penalises children and families for something that their parents or their caregiver has done. Over half of submitters on this bill raised that as a massive concern—the concern about whānau well-being. In fact, cutting—and this is what it’s going to do; in reality, this is how it’s going to impact people—the sole parent benefit by half would reduce a family’s income by about half the average weekly rent and less than the average weekly food bill. So, basically, what this bill does, in its claim to motivate people to comply to their sentences, is to cut down what they have for rent and for food, which is, basically, what you need to lead a life of any semblance of dignity.

So what is that going to lead us to? An increase in homelessness, like we’ve seen over the last nine years; more people on the streets; more people living in their cars or in their garages; children studying in the back of cars; and people not able to feed themselves and their families as a result. And this is going to make people more compliant? I somehow don’t think so.

Further harm was another issue that was raised, and the member Jan Logie touched on this as well. Basically, what about beneficiaries who are affected by this bill—if it were to pass, which hopefully it won’t—who have a significant impairment, like brain injury or mental illness? A large number—in fact, 40 percent—of, specifically, young offenders on the community-based sentences have foetal alcohol syndrome, 20 percent have head injuries, and 40 percent have a mental health illness. What about them? Is cutting food and rent money from them going to motivate them to comply as well? What are the root causes?

That is the crux of this whole thing. We stand here discussing this bill that will cut benefits. Just before, earlier this evening, we talked about a bill—again a member’s bill from the opposite side of the House—that talked about increasing a penalty from two years to five years. That was their example—they lauded that example as them being tough on crime. That was going to fix everything. It was going to solve all our criminal justice issues. Just as that bill didn’t look at the root causes of crime—it didn’t take a holistic approach of all the things, the mess that we have to fix to actually get people out of the situations that they’re in—this bill does the same. It doesn’t address the root causes of anything, really. It doesn’t address the root causes of those who are committing any crimes. It doesn’t look at why they’re non-complying in the first place, and I remember reading in some of the advice—I can’t exactly remember where—there are issues like transport—just really simple things where people can’t get to where they’re supposed to be serving their community-based sentence. And then what? So we don’t actually address that, but we’ll cut all their money because that’s going to fix it!

Address the root causes. Increase the likelihood of people getting caught—this is going back to the previous bill, so in terms of community policing. Fix the social safety net. Fix the housing crisis and the health crisis. Then, perhaps, people will feel supported to actually, firstly, not commit an offence in the first place and then, once they do, to comply with whatever punishment that they’re supposed to go through. Let’s actually support people to get there instead of just punishing them and kicking them when they’re down. That’s absolutely why none of us on this side of the House will be able to, with any semblance of conscience, stand here and support a bill that will punish people at a time in their lives when they absolutely should not be punished but should be supported to get to where they need to get to, and that also will not achieve what this bill wants to do, which was a fine aim, which was to try and get people to comply to a sentence. Sadly, this bill is not going to achieve that, and for that reason I cannot support it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Simon O’Connor—five minutes.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): You know, here was me thinking that the Labour Party, after doubling the taxes on Aucklanders, couldn’t lose any more votes, but, after listening to this left-wing, socialist drivel, I am delighted to stand up and say this is a good bill. The last speaker, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, said, “Oh, we shouldn’t be punitive.” Absolutely, we should be punitive. This is not about giving teddy bears to criminals and making up excuses. This is what we’ve been filled with here tonight: apologists for crime and bad behaviour.

We get it from the left wing time and time again: criminals are a product of everybody else; people commit crimes because we as a society are being bad to people. Well, wake up on the other side. Crime exists in human nature, and all your talk of health and kindness ain’t gonna make a lick of difference.

Maybe if some of you, like myself, had been to the prisons and worked on the front line, you might just have a little bit more of an understanding.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Excuse me.

SIMON O’CONNOR: They’re clearly apologists—actually, Madam Assistant Speaker, I have absolute confidence that you do have an understanding—absolute apologists for crime here.

Allow me to give the members opposite and those committing the crimes a little bit of advice: if you don’t want to get your benefits cut, well, don’t commit the crime in the first place. If you have committed the crime and you don’t want to have your benefit cut, well, turn up when corrections asks you to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I just remind the member I don’t want to be brought into the debate.

SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh! I am sorry.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you.

SIMON O’CONNOR: Apologies. We will get that right.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): The word you were using is “you”.

SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh, I know, it’s such a—look, the English language has many failings in it, and that’s one of them.

The other side would do very well in suggesting to those committing the crimes: well, actually, don’t go against what corrections says.

The third part—and this really, really gets me down; we get if from the left all the time—is using children as pawns: the “Oh my God! Who will think of the children?” I worked on the front line in the social service for year after year, and what was striking was the number of people with bad behaviours who would bring their children in and basically use them as pawns to go away and to continue poor behaviour. Well, let’s put out a radical idea. If that’s happening, maybe we should have a conversation with those parents and ask them why they’ve got those children—and maybe we should be doing some more interventions. I want to make it really clear tonight: to the left and to those who are against this bill, stop using children as pawns.

At the end of the day, if you want to wax lyrical about rights, and the rights to welfare and all of this, well, also understand the real basic of rights is it comes with obligations. One of those basics is if we as taxpayers are going to continually fund behaviours, well, then we’re going to expect that you actually, well, you know, follow the law—that might be helpful. We’re not here to make apologies. If you commit crimes, there are consequences. At the end of the day, we’re talking here about something fairly low level, and we’re just adding another tool to corrections’ arsenal to push back—to push back and to actually put an obligation in place.

From the other side all we’ve heard is—basically, it’s like their drug policy and everything else. It’s basically a principle which says: do whatever the hell a person likes and everyone else will clean up the mess. That’s exactly what we’re hearing from the left here: commit your crimes, don’t follow the rules, don’t do what corrections tells you—in fact, use your children as pawns. We’re just going to say, “That’s OK. It’s all our fault. Sorry; here’s more money.” Well, that’s absolutely absurd, but it is absolutely typical of progressive, left-wing thinking.

As I said right at the start, mainstream New Zealand, those that are listening in, will completely understand that these guys are gaga, and, unfortunately—and shockingly so, and I don’t quite understand it—New Zealand First used to say they were tough on crime. They were all about consequences. Well, here’s a bill—it’s relatively simple; it’s adding another consequence—and New Zealand First is not prepared to back it.

Darroch Ball: Listen to my first speech.

SIMON O’CONNOR: I did listen to your first speaker. It was what we call incoherent.

It’s really confusing, but I’m looking forward to going out—not so much into my electorate. I think there’s a couple of New Zealand First voters; they’re a bit remorseful now—all three of them. But in other parts of the country, when we go around, they’re going to be absolutely shocked that the left, and New Zealand First in particular, say it’s OK not only to commit crimes but to go completely against the directions of corrections and to actually remove one more tool.

And I think what will shock them even more is, actually, the apologist behaviour which is coming from the left here, that these poor criminals—it’s what is the classic case. I’ve come across it many a time. It’s mixing up—and it’s very easy for the left to do this, because, you know, not always working—the difference between reasons and justifications. There are reasons people commit crimes, but they don’t justify it. So go away and noodle on that. It’s a bit of a distinction. It might be a bit brain-hurting, but, you know, it’s an absolutely great bill. To Brett Hudson, thank you for bringing it here. Look, it’s not a surprise—those who came in front of the committee and spoke against it. Again, it fits a complete and utter stereotype. And I would just end with a little bit of advice that I gave at the start: if a person doesn’t want to lose access to their benefit, don’t commit the crime. Listen to corrections and actually support society rather than work against it.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Oh, my goodness—where to begin? The member Simon O’Connor—the bleeding hearts here, we find it so difficult to keep railing against the children. Well, guess what? We do care about the children. We actually do care about the children, and we’re absolutely clear that our children don’t deserve to be punished for the actions of their parents. So let’s face the fact, quite clearly, that that is what it will do. According to the members over there, not only will we be going light on justice but we will also be somehow telling the whole world that this is a bad thing. We’ll lose votes. Well, guess what? Our parties here are in Government, and all—all—of the advice against this bill is that it is a poor bill. It is a poor bill and it is not evidenced and it is not good law.

So let’s look at—I mean, even the name. I can’t even stand to read the name out, because it actually only refers to beneficiaries. We are not talking about people who commit crimes who are actually just committing crimes and then not being compliant. No, no, no, no. We’re actually only talking about a specific class of people within a specific group of people. We’re not talking about the elderly who are on super. We’re not talking about the pensioners who have gone to war for us. No, no—they’re a special class, too. They don’t get covered. We’re only talking about people who are on benefits who are actually not in work. That’s what we’re talking about, and this legislation makes me feel sick. Actually, when I read this it made me feel sick, because I can tell you this: I have worked on the front line and I have seen some of the reasons why these people are non-compliant, and I swear to you that a lot of people want to be compliant. They try their best and they admit that they’ve made a mistake and they’re criminally convicted for those things. They want to do better, but they don’t have the means.

Let me tell you about a family that I worked with.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Don’t bring me into the debate, please, thank you.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Sorry, ma’am. Let me tell you about a family—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No, don’t. Don’t tell me.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: No—no, no. Let me tell the Opposition—sorry, ma’am. I’m all impassioned. Let me tell you—

Hon Member: No.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Ha, ha! Let me explain. Ha, ha!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Take a deep breath.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Yes—I’m all impassioned. Let me explain about a family I worked with in the refuge. A mum who was on a community sentence came to the refuge, due to the fact, obviously, of domestic violence. Now, what we did was we sat down with her and we said, “You’re not compliant at the moment.” She said that she knew that, that she hadn’t been able to get there. Her ex-partner knew the time she was supposed to report in. She did not want to go. She didn’t have credit on her phone. There was a private number ringing; she didn’t know who that was. She didn’t answer her phone. She was also unable to receive mail, because she was transient—OK? So this is a woman who has been affected absolutely. So what did we do? We didn’t say, “Let’s cut your benefit by half. Let’s sit down and go, ooh, we’ll punish you so you and your family can’t eat.” No. We said, “Let’s work out a way. Let’s case manage you”—sorry, ma’am. “Let’s case manage, let’s work side by side, and let’s try and get you there—let’s try and get you there, and let’s try and explain the circumstances.” That’s actually better than cutting off a benefit and saying to someone, “Well, that’ll fix ya. That’ll learn ya. That’ll learn you and your family.”

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Sorry, ma’am. “That will learn your family.”

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Ha, ha! Oh, I was just so incensed about this poor piece of legislation. I am absolutely opposed to this, and I cannot commend this bill to the House.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): In contrast, I rise to support the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. It’s been a really interesting debate tonight. There’s been an enormous amount of emotion, and there have been two distinct points of view: one that this bill provides an unreasonable punishment, and the other that it provides a positive intervention that can allow people to have another chance. I think we should reflect on where this all comes from, because I think New Zealanders are justifiably proud of our social security system and the policies that underpin our idea of a welfare State.

We’re basically a compassionate and generous people, and we value fairness in life, and we want to make sure that our fellow citizens are never left out in the street without means of support, and that’s a very good thing. But we also believe that it’s fair to expect our citizens to be part of the community, to be basically honest, and to live by the laws of the land, and if people choose to break the law and victimise other New Zealanders, there should be some consequences. Now, there are always consequences in life, and learning to understand those consequences and manage them responsibly is really a part of being good New Zealanders. So providing realistic consequences is another way to try to stop offenders reoffending and then creating more victims of crime.

This bill is about giving corrections an additional tool. It doesn’t have to be used for everybody. It’s not something that is compulsory. It is an additional tool to incentivise compliance from offenders—those ones which are subject to community-based sentences. Now there are about 28,000 offenders who get community-based sentences in any year in New Zealand, and the interesting thing here is that 95 percent of them, approximately, front up and can fulfil their obligations. But about 5 percent don’t, and it’s this 5 percent that, if they don’t front up, at the moment are liable for prosecution for breaching their community sentence, and can be sent to jail. This bill provides an alternative to prosecution. It provides an alternative that might end up with people in jail, and I think everybody in this House knows that sending people to jail is not necessarily a good answer. So it provides an alternative to prosecution as a last resort when offenders are not prepared to meet their obligations imposed by the courts.

There’s been quite a lot of discussion tonight about the people who may get one of these sentences, but let me make the point clear that when a court imposes these sentences, it takes those things into account, and the fact that 95 percent of people can manage to front up and fulfil their obligations means that it’s working.

Now, there’s also been talk that it discriminates against beneficiaries, but there’s a flipside to that too. It also means that beneficiaries have another chance before prosecution. They have a chance to work their way through the process and to comply. What it means is that after two warnings, not one—two warnings—and an extra 14 days for people to be able to have that discussion, to look at the consequences, if they still don’t comply they may get their benefit cut, or, if they’ve got a family, half of their benefit may be cut. I think that’s pretty reasonable as a tool in the tool kit for people who haven’t managed to front up, like 95 percent of the offenders do.

So I support this bill. I see it as an opportunity to give offenders who do not attend their community-based sentences another chance to avoid prosecution and to end up in jail. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): It will be no surprise that I rise to oppose the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail to Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. Gosh, that’s a big mouthful, for such a bill that I am so appalled with—a Draconian, appalling bill that can only lead to social harm and further criminal offending.

But I will say this: even though it is such a bill that appals me so much, I will actually congratulate whoever drafted this bill, because it must be a very hard feat to draft out a bill that two absolutely opposing groups have both come out in opposition of. No Pride in Prisons, against wanting to actually have real reforms in our prison system, said that this was a bad bill—probably no surprise there. But also, I see here a quote from the Manawatū-based Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesperson also coming out opposed to this bill. So we’ve got people from all political spectrums who agree that this is an appalling, bad bill.

Now, I want to start with a quote here from one of the groups who submitted, who was JustSpeak, to the Social Services and Community Committee. The reason I want to start with this is because this particular quote talks about what is wrong with the fact that the department would be put in charge of “punishing”—and that is the only word that they use here—people who are not turning up for the sentences. JustSpeak says this: “It is the role of our courts to determine the appropriate punishment when someone has committed a crime. It is the role of the Department to enforce and supervise that punishment. Withholding benefit payments goes beyond enforcing and supervising a court-determined punishment, and amounts to imposing a punishment above and beyond that which the sentencing judge determined was appropriate for the crime committed. The Department is not equipped to determine the appropriate punishment … Nor does the Bill provide an appropriate framework for such a decision to be made.” It’s that not having that framework or the department having the understanding of why that non-compliance happened in the first place.

Now, my colleague over here from the Greens Jan Logie talked about the reasons for non-compliance. We have reasons such as transport issues, accommodation, and childcare issues. People who had opportunity to work—and I was very pleased to hear Jan talk about the Tauranga example of our fruit pickers, our people that go to get their work in season fruit picking. Some of those people were actually parents at my school who took out the time to actually go and get work, and corrections worked with those people. That, unfortunately, is not happening anywhere, and is being seen as a reason why those people don’t come for their correction service that they have to do.

I want to tell a story, not particularly around someone that’s going through probation—but a parent of mine who I worked with in a school that I was principal at, who was taken right off the system because they couldn’t show up to work—a parent who had a six-year-old son when she was 21 herself. So she was a child when she had a child, and she had very little support around her. One day, this particular boy had severe behaviour problems—lovely little boy—and we’d got help through a child mental health foundation to actually support this particular boy and the mum so that both of them could grow and be stronger together.

Transport issues were big for this particular mum and when her car continually broke down and she couldn’t afford to get fuel in that car, she couldn’t get to the appointments. She had no money on her phone to contact anyone to tell them that she couldn’t make those appointments. She was sent a letter to her old rental place—she had changed twice because of housing issues. The letter had gone to her old place, nobody followed through, and when she didn’t make the appointment for the third time, she was completely wiped off the list—completely. No follow up whatsoever. So the child and the mother were hurt, because they can’t get the support that they need.

This is the intent of this bill. The intent of this bill is to actually hurt people, because they can’t get there. We don’t know what the issues are. We don’t know what the issues are and why they don’t turn up. How does that make it right that we would put in a Draconian, punitive punishment that will not fix the root cause? To make a difference in behaviour, to actually help these people, we need to walk alongside them.

I am appalled that we have people in this House in the Opposition who believe that it is OK to punitively punish these people. They are looking at these people through their lens. They are not walking beside these people. They have no idea of the troubles that these people face, and then they have the audacity to stand there and say, “If we had known what these people were like.”

Well, I will tell them that I have worked with these people for quite some time, and I know the troubles that these people face. I know the hardships. I am prepared to walk with them. I am prepared to look at ways as a Government that we can make things easier, that we can allow these people the opportunities and the frameworks that will help and support them, and that’s what we will do. I have no shame in saying that we care. I have no shame in saying that we will show kindness. It is being used against us at the moment as something that is supposedly bad. I have no shame in saying that I will put a lens of kindness and a lens of caring when we are dealing with these issues. I know that my colleagues along this side of the House feel exactly the same.

We need to wrap around. We need wraparound. We need to walk alongside. One thing that I’d like to say is that there was no understanding from the member who raised this bill about incentivisation. He mentioned that this would incentivise people to do the right thing. He needs to go back and study psychology, I’m afraid. There is no such thing as using punishment to incentivise. It does not work. That will not change behaviour. It absolutely will not change behaviour. As I have said, we need to walk alongside.

I was pleased when my colleague from New Zealand First Mr Ball talked about Brett Hudson’s quote that he said, “This is an alternative to the harsh fine the offender cannot afford.” Tell me what the difference is. This is an alternative to the harsh fine the offender cannot afford! So we won’t fine them, but we’ll take the money off that they can’t afford to pay for the fine anyway. So we’ll get around it by saying, “Oh, we’re just going to take the money away.”, and that is supposed to be an incentivisation. What incentivisation is there around that? It is not. It is an absolute stick to use to punish people further. It is kicking someone when they are down.

Hon Member: Have you been drinking, Matt?

JAN TINETTI: Ha, ha! The last point that I would like to make, in conclusion, is that I will also make absolutely no apologies for putting the needs of children at the centre. I have been doing that my entire working life. So to have someone stand here tonight and tell me that we are going to pull out our violins and put the children and use the children—I have always put the needs of children at the front of everything that I do. I will make no apologies about this.

To say that we will take money away from these families hurts the children, and anything that will hurt the children I will always stand up against, and I will always rail against anybody that will do that. This is a terrible bill, and I am actually pleased to stand here and say that I am totally against it. Thank you.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, we’ve heard it all tonight, but a thing that is missing out of all of the debate that I’ve heard here tonight is that we are actually talking about criminals. These are people who have been to court and they have been convicted of a crime. The difference is they have been sentenced to a non-custodial sentence. A lot of these people end up in our communities, they end up doing community work, and, for me, I’m extremely grateful for the contribution they make back to those communities. They’ve seen the product of their toils. We have seen some wonderful community projects completed by people doing their non-custodial sentences. Most of them I have found to be really good people, who have just done something quite stupid that’s ended them up in this situation.

I was most impressed by one young man who was convicted of a crime. He did his community service and worked on a special project in town, in Hokitika. His community sentence was up before the project was finished, and he had invested so much of himself in that and got so much pride out of what he had done that he came back to finish the project as a volunteer. I think that’s a huge credit to the corrections staff that work with these people doing their community service. I want to give a shout out to the corrections staff, because it’s not always easy for them. I’ve seen the effort that they put in, in helping the people that are doing this community work to actually achieve their sentences and put things right.

But, as we’ve heard tonight, there are a few that are hard to reach, and they are the 5 percent that are the most difficult. They’re the ones that are non-compliant with their non-custodial sentences. So what are the consequences for these people that fail to turn up? Well, there actually is a precedent for this bill—that precedent is the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Act of 2013. That Act actually withholds benefit payments for people who have outstanding warrants, and they are on benefits. So there is precedent for this bill.

I think my last closing comment I would like to make to the other side of the House is if you do the crime and don’t do the time, don’t expect the taxpayers to pay you when you don’t turn up. We on this side of the House are not soft on crime, and we simply want those people who have been convicted to do their time. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders who Repeatedly Fail To Comply with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Noes 63

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

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 21 March.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is my pleasure to come back and resume the speech that was interrupted a couple of weeks ago now, because this is an incredibly important issue and this is something that we on the Government side of this House care very strongly about. In fact, our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has promised she will not rest until pay equity is achieved in New Zealand.

The bill that we have on the floor of the House tonight that we are debating simply will not achieve that. When we heard the member—who, I believe, had the best of intentions in bringing this bill to the House, but when we look at the mechanisms that are contained in this bill, and we’ve heard members talking about this, vaunting what a success the Kristine Bartlett settlement was and the number of women that were lifted out of poverty through this settlement, we agree with that. We agree that was a great moment, and, as I said in my previous contribution, I am a proud member of the union that took that action and got those women that pay rise, against a Government that fought them every step of the way in the courts—the previous Government. I am proud to say those women—Kristine Bartlett and all the other members of that union—fought hard and won a rightful case there.

But the bill that we have on the floor of the House tonight simply would not allow another settlement such as the Kristine Bartlett case, as it has come to be called. There’s some very simple mechanistic reasons contained within this legislation why that would not occur. It’s why we would not vote for this bill when the Opposition were in Government and brought this to the House as a Government bill, and why we won’t vote for it now that it’s reappeared, recycled as a member’s bill. It’s because of the comparator mechanism that what we have in here, the reason—the very reason—that Kristine Bartlett was able, and those women and that union were able, to achieve that historic win against the Government, who took them to court every step of the way, was because they were able to make comparisons with comparable occupations. Under this legislation that we have here tonight, that simply would not be possible, and that is why we will not support this.

We believe passionately in equal pay on this side of the House. It is in our DNA, politically, and is one of the things that we stand for. But what we will not support is legislation that purports to achieve it and actually achieves the opposite.

Michael Wood: Virtue signalling.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Because one of the things—that’s right. As my colleague the Hon David Parker has said, it’s a virtue signalling. [Interruption] Oh, sorry, no—it’s Michael Wood. Sorry, there—you’re sounding like David Parker. What this does is it distinguishes between equal pay, unlawful discrimination on matters other than remuneration, and pay equity claims. It sets out the processes for making and resolving those claims, and equal pay claims are treated as claims for recovery of wages under section 131(1)(b) of the Employment Relations Act of 2000.

Now, these all sound like very dry ways to describe it, but what this does is it forces parties to a pay equity claim to get bogged down in the arguments about sometimes irrelevant comparisons with the treatment of people doing different jobs in other sectors. That was precisely the reason, because that didn’t have to be achieved, that we could actually achieve the win for Kristine Bartlett and those other women.

This Government is committed to implementing policies to help women of all ages, all ethnicities, all abilities, and all sexualities achieve pay equity. This bill does not meet the Government’s objective of making it quicker, easier, and cheaper to achieve equal pay and to eliminate the gender pay gap.

And we hear a whole lot of shrieking from the other side of the House, from the Opposition. There were nine years that those members had in Government where they could have prioritised closing the gender pay gap, where they could have prioritised issues such as pay equity. Instead, they started their term in Government by cancelling measures that the previous Labour-led Government had put in place to achieve pay equity and never rebounded from it. This bill describes a less progressive approach to achieving pay equity than the one that this Government is currently working through with the joint working group, and it is that process that we are committed to doing.

It is so important that we remain committed to putting the right mechanisms in place so people can achieve that. New Zealand women continue to receive less pay than men in similar roles. That is not right. It is not something this Government is prepared to stand by, as the previous Government did, and let continue. We want to put in place measures that will make real change. I do congratulate the member that has had her bill drawn, but we can’t support this, because this will not make the real and meaningful change that we require in this country. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I didn’t interrupt my colleague in the final minute of her speech, but during the outburst of interjections, the honourable member of Parliament for Selwyn made an unparliamentary comment, and I’d like to ask you to ask her to withdraw and apologise.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I didn’t hear an unparliamentary; I heard a lot of—but I’ll ask the member, if she made an unparliamentary comment, if she would withdraw it.

Hon Amy Adams: Madam Deputy Speaker, I did call her a hypocrite, and I withdraw and apologise.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Is someone seeking the call?

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. We’ve just heard the most remarkable bluster and prose from the member Megan Woods, who seems to think that simply shouting and being domineering makes up for action. I have to say to this House that empty words, hollow promises, and a lot of talk do nothing for the women of this country. In this House any of us can stand here and make speeches and we can claim to represent the downtrodden and support those who need it and stand up, but actually it’s actions that matter. And from the last speaker we just heard a long-winded speech about how much they cared and how much they would do.

Here’s the reality: the first thing this new Government did on taking office was to wipe from the Order Paper a bill that gave women the chance to have an equal pay claim heard. It’s worth reflecting on the fact that this is not just because they didn’t agree and it was the old Government’s agenda. They left almost every other bill on the agenda, and they disagreed with most of them. The one bill that the incoming Labour - New Zealand First, supported by the Greens, Government wanted to strike from the Order Paper was the bill that gave women a process and a way to have a fair claim, an equal pay claim heard. It’s a matter of fact, and anybody can go back and check the reinstatement motion. I’m happy to point them to the place in Hansard if they don’t remember, if their memories have blacked out their own egregious actions. The first thing they did was strike the equal pay claim legislation from the Order Paper.

My colleague Denise Lee has done exactly the right thing, which is to say that the women of New Zealand deserve an actual process—not empty words, not hollow promises, not baseless rhetoric about all the good they want to do. This is action. And the one thing this side of the House and my colleague Denise Lee have said to the Government is: women deserve to know how and when they can make an equal pay claim. We have asked the Government repeatedly: what is the time frame? When will women be able to make an equal pay claim? What is the process they can follow? Are you going to force them to go—[Interruption] Not you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will the Government force them to go to court to argue their case? And—nothing.

The only concrete thing this Government has done is remove this bill that was well through the processes of this House, that implemented the joint working group’s recommendations for a process to give women an opportunity and a real process to have these claims heard—wipe it from this Parliament. Now, on this side of the House, we don’t just talk about gender equality, we don’t just talk about supporting women, we don’t give speeches about how important it is, and do nothing. This is a real bill with content based on the excellent work of the joint working group that my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse introduced in his time as a Minister. This is a hard piece of policy work that our Government progressed because it mattered, that we put on the Order Paper because it mattered, and that this Government had just dispensed with because it didn’t suit their agenda.

Well, I commend my colleague Denise Lee for bringing it back to the House, because this is a woman who wants to see other women have a chance, have an opportunity to make a real difference for themselves—not to have to go to court; real action for the women of New Zealand. We are the Opposition; we understand that. We don’t have the power and the numbers in the House to take through our own agenda, but what we won’t do is sit quietly and watch the women of New Zealand have no opportunity to make a claim, have their real, genuine issues be pushed aside while this Government wants to rebrand, reframe it, and claim it as their own. We’ve seen that time and time again.

We want to put the women of New Zealand first. This bill gives them a chance to do it. It doesn’t put them on the eternal never-never of when they can bring a claim. This is a real chance to give women that chance to have their claims heard. Now, if the Government was genuine, if there was anything genuine in the Government’s wish to help women bring their claims, they’d say, “OK, National. You know what? This is bigger than politics. Let’s get this done, and if there are things we disagree with, we’ll work on it. You know, we can disagree with the structures or the provisions, the comparing of the comparator industries, we can work on that.” They haven’t done that—they haven’t done that. All they did was wipe it from the Order Paper and say no to the women of New Zealand. Well, this side of the House wants real action for New Zealand women, not just talk.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I mean, after that load of nonsense, are we meant to believe the National Party are the great advocates for women? Ha! Next minute you’ll be the great advocates for workers and the great advocates for Māori. The sad part is that some of us in this House have advocated for women. I was part of the equal pay for work of equal value campaign in 1986. The Northern Clerical Workers Union, as the Hon Andrew Little will know, led the fight for equal pay for women while the National Party were doing their right-wing training for opposing women’s rights. Now, today, you would—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. The National Party would have us believe they are now the great advocates. It is an absolute joke, the nonsense we’re hearing tonight. Eight years of doing nothing.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: We did it—you undid it.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You did nothing. The National Party did nothing for eight years, and then finally, hello, in election year, “Oh, we’d better do something because there’s an election coming up.”

Hon Ruth Dyson: And the court case said they had to.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, that’s right, there was a court decision. Ah, that’s right. We’ll care about women in 2017, because we might just lose the election. And you lost—the National Party lost. But what did we get in 2017? A 2.6 percent reduction—a 2.6 percent reduction.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could the member come to the bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’m talking about the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Discuss the bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I oppose the bill, Madam Chair. I thought you might have got that by now, Madam Chair, but I totally oppose the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m actually Madam Deputy Speaker—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: —and you will address me with some respect, and you will address the bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’m addressing the bill, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I haven’t heard it yet.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I absolutely oppose the bill, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, then, talk about the bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’m talking about a bill that has been set up that actually will restrict women in terms of what they’re doing. We have these types of statistics: women aged between 25 and 39—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. Would you discuss the bill—the contents of the bill before the House. Not statistics, not election results, but the bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Well, I’m saying the bill’s not necessary, because this coalition Government has already got a plan in terms of equity. We have a Prime Minister who is committed to reducing inequalities, particularly in terms of women.

Hon Member: Do something about it then.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: She has made that statement. We know all about it. Sadly, that member over there knows very little about it because she’s done very little in terms of addressing equity in terms of women.

Pay equity and equal pay are core principles of this Government, and we have a Prime Minister, as I said, who will not rest until pay equity has been addressed. So, as a Government, we’re absolutely committed to this. This Government has supported the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles, which is comprised, as the Opposition should know, of business, worker, and Government representatives, and this is the best way of addressing pay equity issues.

Hon Member: Stop reading.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, I’ve got to read because when I talk you keep yelling and screaming, so I’ve decided to come back to the bill. This is a bill that we’re absolutely committed to opposing, as you’ve heard tonight, because it is absolutely opposed to what we want. Our great advocate Kristine Bartlett would not support what the Opposition are trying to do with this bill. It actually works against everything that she aspires to have, to want, in terms of women’s equity. It actually would go contrary to everything that we want. We want absolute equity for women in the workplace. What we do know is that as men get older they get wage increases; as women get older their wages decrease. That’s just absolute fact. That’s a fact that this Labour Party has espoused for many years. We can’t address those types of areas with this type of bill, which is contrary and opposite to all the principles that the Labour Party stand for. Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to start by acknowledging Denise Lee’s bill being drawn from the ballot. It’s a great honour to have that and it’s a very, very worthy cause and a great opportunity to try and rectify a wrong that’s being going on in this country for far too long. Also I acknowledge Nicola Willis. Welcome to the House, our newest member, and I look forward to hearing your contributions after you’ve got your maiden statement under way, which I’m sure the House will be filled for.

Look, this is a very worthy bill in so far as it is trying to fix a problem that we’ve had to deal with for a very, very long time. In fact, if you look back to 1998, I think the pay equity of women to men was a ratio of about 16.4 percent lower. Now we’re actually starting to head in the right direction and I understand what this bill intended to do, but the reason why New Zealand First will be opposing this bill is we don’t believe it goes far enough.

We are now sitting at a pay equity gap of about 9.2 percent differential. Again, I say we’re heading in the right direction, but it’s really quite ironic that here we are in 2020 and we’re actually in Parliament discussing the pay equity of men and women. I see absolutely no difference between the jobs that men do and women do. We shouldn’t be paying people a different wage for doing the same job or a similar job because of ethnicity, because of race, because of gender. We should be treating everybody equally and the same, no matter what. It’s about fairness and it is about equity. New Zealand First has always been a strong advocate and I look around the House and I have to say our coalition partners also have a very, very strong ethic on this issue and have been fighting for a very long time.

I think the Novopay and Kristine Bartlett’s outcome was a fantastic result. I think the group that was put together—the joint working group to come up with ways to ensure that we don’t have these problems—also came up with some good solutions, but this bill doesn’t quite go far enough and we can see some problems with this bill. Yes, we could potentially work through this in select committee, but the reason why we’re opposing this bill is because this coalition Government is working on this very same issue to iron out those problems. It wouldn’t make sense to put the time of this House into two bills trying to get the right outcome simultaneously. So we will be opposing this moving forward.

I have to say I do love members’ day. You know, having members’ bills being read in this House shows the passion. There’s a very, very robust conversation going on this evening, and most evenings, in fact, when it comes to something that we’re very passionate about. But I have to say we are equally passionate on this side about this issue, and again I commend the member for her passion for this, and the last speaker, Amy Adams, when she spoke—it very, very strongly resonates.

You know, I grew up with my mother, who would be described in any society as a feminist and a very, very strong passionate supporter and person who stands up for the rights of women. So I grew up in that environment, but I’m not a feminist, but I don’t have to be a feminist to stand up for what is right about equal pay and pay equity. I’m a humanist and I go back to my point about saying, “Let’s make sure that everybody gets treated the same in the workplace with equal pay, with pay equity.”

The part that this bill doesn’t go far enough in is to do with the comparators—the way that this bill, if it goes through, will be checking the balances of other industries with those people being paid differently. It is about looking within the industry itself so it’s internalising the externalities, but we want to externalise the internalities of this problem and make sure we’re actually reaching out looking at other working groups, other working environments, with people that are equally skilled, that work just as hard, to make sure that they have the same right of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, which absolutely underpins this Government, this coalition Government.

So I again thank the House for their contributions. I thank the member for her heartfelt positive attempt to fix the wrongs of our history. We have got work under way that is being discussed now and will be coming out in the very, very near future, that I’m sure the House will actually join forces in to ensure that it goes through all stages uninterrupted. Again, thank you very much.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to begin by congratulating, for the first time publicly, Kristine Bartlett on her award of being made Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year—I think very well deserved. I also want, for the second time, to acknowledge and thank the officials who worked with me on the crafting of this bill. I can tell the House that it was literally thousands of hours that went into the framing of this legislation that has—once again, we are debating this for the second time, and while I congratulate Denise Lee for her initiative and her good luck, what we should be doing this week is debating this bill, in its second reading, as a Government bill picked up by the Labour-led Government and amended as they saw fit because of the shortcomings that they perceived. But they did not do that, and the sad thing is that the actions of the Government in throwing this bill away and starting again have set back the progress of equity for women in this country by months if not years.

I want to just reject a couple of the main claims that have been made by the opponents of the bill: firstly, that the previous Government was led kicking and screaming into the TerraNova settlement. That was not true. The Government wasn’t even a party to those negotiations. The Employment Court’s ruling, under section 9 of the Equal Pay Act, was that the Equal Pay Act applied to work of equal value. That was it. All it did was get E tū and Kristine Bartlett to the start line, and had the Government and Cabinet not taken this issue so terribly seriously, they could have been tied up in knots for years and years. But the previous Government decided that this was worth it for women and got those parties together, took it out of the courts, and settled to the tune of $2.3 billion.

The second claim that I just simply reject is that the TerraNova settlement couldn’t have been achieved had this bill been in law prior to the claim being made. It’s just not true. Indeed, the process that the parties to the TerraNova settlement followed mirrored the bill. It mirrored the bill in respect of establishing the merit of the claim and working towards what was an appropriate settlement, using comparators that started within the industry. Indeed, this opposition to starting within an industry is completely irrational when one thinks about, for example, the health industry, which is by definition dominated by women. One of the criteria that even the Government, when it brings its bill back—whenever that might be—will have is that if there is no comparator occupation, because they too are dominated by women, then they will have to go outside the industry, and that was the provision that was made in the bill in Denise Lee’s name.

Now, I note that the officials provided me with advice about comparisons with other jurisdictions around the world, and I can inform the House, again, that this bill, if it is passed, would make New Zealand by far the most progressive country against any that we compare ourselves to. The EU, Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, and Finland all have less progressive frameworks than this bill has, and I note that New Zealand actually starts in that comparison with the lowest gender pay gap amongst those countries.

But I think I better understand now why those people who are opposed to this bill do so. My goal, and the previous Government’s goal, was to create a framework that keeps the Crown and the courts out of bargaining and leaves it to the parties, who are best placed to negotiate in good faith, and I realise now that the opponents to this bill want completely the opposite. They want the Crown involved. They want the courts involved as the place of first resort, not last resort.

We are going back to bargaining the way it used to be in the 1960s and 1970s, and that will be bad for employment relations. It will certainly be bad for women. That’s a setback for women because this is a really good bill, and it is a shame on the Government, who won’t even tell us when they’re going to bring an alternative piece of legislation before this House. The women of New Zealand deserve much, much better.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. I really want to give a polite speech and I want to acknowledge the member who’s had the bill drawn in her first few months of being an MP. I want to acknowledge that I’m sure that she thinks she’s doing the right thing, but it’s really hard to respond politely to the speeches from the Opposition because they are so unbelievable. It’s like an alternative reality. It’s really hard to be polite.

I’d love to take the Opposition seriously, but I can’t even respond politely because the honourable member Michael Woodhouse just said that if this legislation had passed, we would be the most progressive country in the world. Well, let me just read one submission, OK—just the opening line of one submission. The executive summary from the submission on this bill, when it was at select committee the first time it was there, from the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW), an international organisation with representatives in over 100 countries, said, “Our organisation’s aims are to link Professional and business women throughout the world so that they may provide support to each other, lobby for change and promote the ongoing advancement of women and girls.” They work for equal opportunities. Now what was their statement in the executive summary? “BPW NZ strongly disagrees with several key clauses in this Bill and believes that this legislation, in its current form, would be a step backward for the pay equality/equity cause. We believe, for marginalised women in particular, that this legislation would result in further discrimination.”

So there’s a whole host of organisations who are expert on this issue who are not political—BPW isn’t political. A bunch of you are probably members of BPW. They are not left or right. This seems to be the problem for the Opposition. It is they live in their own little world and completely refuse advice, and have their own dreams about what this legislation would do.

So let me just give a little history lesson for the members who weren’t here when this legislation went through the first time. So, in October 2015, the previous Government established a Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles, which reported back on 7 June 2016. They didn’t bring new legislation to the House for over a year after that group reported back. They sat on the advice from that working group, and they waited until the day after—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d appreciate the member talking about the bill that’s before the House, not—

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: This is the bill. This is the bill, the first time it was before the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill that is before the House now, not history.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I think that it is worth—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you—is the member arguing with me?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Do you—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am asking the member—

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Can I ask a question? Point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would you sit down while I am standing. Thank you. I’m asking the member to come to discuss the bill before the House tonight; not the history. I’ve given the member some time, but I do want the member to discuss the actual bill that’s in front of the House.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The bill before the House right now is identical to a bill that was before the House—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is this—that is not a point of order, and you will not argue with the Speaker. Will you discuss the bill in front of the House.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Yes, I’m happy to discuss the bill in front of the House and how all of the submitters previously said that this legislation was flawed, and that’s why the current Government withdrew that bill and it has reconvened the joint working group. It has already received recommendations that made specific points about merit and comparators that make this piece of legislation completely redundant and completely out of line with what Business New Zealand and the other members of the joint working group have recommended.

So that is why this bill is completely useless and redundant, and the member sponsoring it clearly has no understanding of the content or the context, because literally no one apart from the National Party Opposition thinks this bill would advance the cause of pay equity. The very specific issues with the bill that BPW NZ raised had to do with the issues around establishing merit before a pay equity claim can proceed. This means proving that their part of the workforce is historically undervalued. The onus will solely be on the employee to prove all of this before bringing a pay equity claim, and that is why this legislation was specifically designed in the first instance, and again, to make it harder for working women to be paid fairly.

That is the universal opinion on this bill outside of the National Party Opposition, and I’m so glad they’re no longer in Government, because this Government is already making real progress on pay equity for women. We have the recommendations from the joint working group, which clearly saw the problems with this piece of legislation, and we’ll be introducing new legislation within the next few months that will actually make it easier for women to achieve the pay that they deserve.

It is just unbelievable—unbelievable—that they claim that this piece of legislation is about fair pay when it is the opposite. It’s putting in place barriers for the most marginalised women.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you, and I am rising to take a call on the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill. I would have really liked to support this bill drawn in the name of the member Denise Lee. I think she’s actually a good sort. We work together quite collegially in the select committee. But not this bill, I’m sorry.

This bill is a dog’s breakfast, and this bill has been before the House before. I remember taking part in an equal pay rally in August 2017, and the women were absolutely outraged with this bill. They didn’t have the wool pulled over their eyes. They knew damn well that this bill was not a good bill. Someone referred to it as a turd wrapped in glitter, and I have to agree with that.

So, about pay equity—everybody here agrees, I’m sure, that the gender pay gap is not acceptable. It’s the result of decades of discrimination and prejudice. Work that includes a caring component is just paid less because it’s seen as women’s work. So it was great to see predominantly women, 55,000 last year, in caring roles—aged care, disability, and home support—receive a pay increase when Kristine Bartlett and the union E tū won their case through the courts. This is why I was quite astonished that the member Michael Woodhouse asked us to question whether this Government was going to force the women to go through courts when the previous Government supported the employers appealing against the Terranova case all the way to the Supreme Court. So it’s a little bit rich to throw it back this way.

But what wasn’t great was that after the low-paid women, who put heart and soul into some of the most difficult work that is being done in society—they won their settlement after fighting all the way through the courts, and what did the previous Government do straight away? They enacted legislation to try and force it through with a one-vote majority—one vote—in July 2017, and had they been successful, the legislation that had then gone through the House would have eroded and undermined the actual settlement. But, luckily, we had a change of Government, and the bill was withdrawn.

But today, unfortunately, through the members’ bill process we see the hideous bill back before the House. Now, I have gone through this bill painstakingly to try and find a difference—one difference with the previous bill—and I didn’t find any at all. Actually, no, I should apologise, there’s one on page one where it says Denise Lee instead of Michael Woodhouse. So that’s the difference that I did find.

What it would do, if we revive this bill, is it would keep women on low rates. Now, I’ll explain because I think what has been kept from some of the members on the other side of the House is the big problem with this bill is in clause 24. So if you look at “Identifying appropriate comparators”, what this section of the bill does is it forces women through their unions to firstly identify appropriate male comparators in their employer’s business, then similar businesses to their employer, then the same sector or industry, and only then, according to this bill, could they use comparators outside their industry. I know that the member Michael Woodhouse, back in July, called this a very straightforward and practical process, but what I’ve just run you through hardly sounds like a practical process to me. This bill would’ve made it much harder for employees to file pay equity claims directly, and it would’ve slowed down significantly any of these pay equity claims.

So just to reiterate, this bill before us today is exactly the same bill as the previous Government tried to rush through. It’s not practical, it’s not fair, and it’s actually completely inconsistent with the court decisions. It’s not consistent with the recommendations from that working group that the member Michael Woodhouse referred to. It’s actually omitted the recommendations made by that joint working group.

The previous National Government has pretended it’s leading the way, but it’s only because they have to. They have to because they couldn’t win in court so they made this legislation, which basically does the opposite from what the agreement had done. It does not support women, it does the opposite. This coalition Government has already reconvened that joint working group on equal pay. They’ve reported back with recommendations, and these recommendations are going to be very soon considered at Cabinet. What will happen from that process is that that will result in a much better bill. So I have great pleasure to not recommend this bill. Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I do feel as if I need to put on record the fact that this is a members’ day, this is a member’s bill, and one of the key opportunities to improve legislation is to have it go to a select committee. So to have a coalition Government that purports to be supportive of women’s equality who won’t even allow a piece of legislation that will reduce, if not eliminate, discrimination for women in the workplace in terms of both their terms and conditions and their pay is outrageous. It is absolutely outrageous that they won’t even allow a piece of legislation to go forward to a select committee for the ability for the New Zealand public—and, as my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse said before, we recognise that the new Government has a slightly different take on some aspects of the solution to pay equity.

Well, why not use the legislation? The first opportunity was the bill that was previously before the House that the Labour Government discharged with immediacy—I think one of only two that were discharged—but no, they didn’t want to talk about it then. This is the second opportunity, brought by my fantastic colleague Denise Lee, for the Parliament to discuss and debate the issue, for the Government of the day to provide input in terms of what improvements they would see, but no. What does the current Government say? More women up and down this country will be forced, because of their delays, to go through the agonising process of going to court, when we want to make a simple, practical solution.

The other thing I do want to do and put on record is that I’m really offended on behalf of the joint working group previously led by Dame Patsy Reddy. I’m offended on their behalf that the previous speaker, or the one before that from the Green Party, was so scathing and dismissive of the months of work put in by business, by unions, and by the Government to come up with a solution: a set of principles, that was workable, practical, and fair. I do want to just put on the record of the House my utter disgust that a member of this House would disregard the months of work that was entered into in good faith—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder if you’d consider two things. Firstly, I take offence at what that member is saying about my speech. It’s completely misrepresenting what I said. Secondly, the previous member, Michael Woodhouse—most of his speech was about his experience in drafting the original legislation, which then I was unable to speak to during my speech.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the comment that you took offence to.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: She implied that I was putting in to disrepute the previous joint working group, which is ridiculous. I did no such thing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I don’t think that you can take offence on behalf of someone else, particularly if they’re not even parliamentarians.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: What I take offence at is that member’s characterisation or mischaracterisation of my entire speech and what I was saying.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that is a debatable point and I think the member herself said she found it very hard to make a polite speech. So I’ll ask Louise Upston to continue.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. So the issue here—and I don’t think there would be any member of Parliament in this House that wants to see further delays in real solutions and real pay increases for real New Zealand women. Unfortunately, by members opposite not supporting this legislation to go forward to the select committee, that’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve heard lots of talk from them—we’ve heard lots of talk about their intentions and what they want to do. Where’s the legislation? Where’s the time frame? What is that side doing about it?

So in terms of results, absolutely, we know that pay equity is a significant part of reducing the gender pay gap. We’ve seen significant reductions in that since 1998, so over the last 20 years we’ve seen significant reductions. Part of that is resolving issues of pay equity, so it is really frustrating to stand in this Chamber and to know that members opposite are willing for women to wait, for women to have to go to court, like Kristine Bartlett did, and struggle for years, when this is a piece of legislation—they have the ability to influence it and change it so that we do get outcomes for women. It’s just unfortunate that that side of the House is unwilling to advance this.

It is somewhat frustrating to hear the comments and the empty language and statements about their intentions when how you deliver for working women in New Zealand is through legislation making it easy for them to engage, not making them go to court to fight for it. This is a simple solution with the joint working group recommendations that business and unions and the Government agreed. So it’s a sad day in this House when women aren’t supported by the members opposite.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): I rise once again—it won’t be of any shock to people that I rise to oppose this Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill. But I would like to congratulate the member Denise Lee on having her bill drawn out.

I too, like the colleague here beside me, would love to support this but I just will not be, because this bill does put things backwards for pay equity. It is not a great day for women. This is absolutely not a great day when we have these discussions in the House. That would take things backwards in the pay equity field.

I have been in a female-dominated workforce my entire working career up until coming in to Parliament last year. I have worked as an educator, but the people that I look to in the pay equity space are the people that I worked very, very closely with, and they are our wonderful support staff who support wonderful, quality education in schools. They are tired of feeling undervalued; pay equity is their ray of hope. But one thing I would like to say is that they want to get this right. They don’t want something that is rushed through and will not give them the pay equity that they deserve. They want to make certain that we, as a Government, get the pay equity legislation correct. That is why, as a Government, we reject this bill and rejected it in its last iteration as well, and we will reject it here this evening.

We have been led by our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. We’ve heard here tonight that she has said she will not rest until pay equity is achieved in New Zealand. But we need to make certain that we get that right. As I’ve said, the legislation has to be correct so that we get that right and we make certain that this discussion becomes part of history.

I have a dream that one day my sons will be able to have a conversation with their children that this was part of history: “Remember the day they had the argument in the House about pay equity?” We might have an Opposition who might laugh and trivialise it, but actually that shows their lack of regard for women and pay equity. It’s an absolute lack of regard that we are seeing for them, that they don’t want to take the time to get this right.

They have heard here tonight that the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles has reported back to them with recommendations, which will be soon considered at Cabinet. But again we’ve heard an absolute lack of regard around that. They want to make this harder for women and a more difficult space. There will be women shaking their heads at that reaction. They will be shaking their heads that people don’t want to get this right.

I’m confused as to why an Opposition would put up another piece of legislation when we are working on a progressive approach to pay equity. It is incredibly confusing that you would put another piece of legislation on top of this. This bill would make it harder, not easier, for any future Kristine Bartletts to win their landmark pay equity settlements. Kristine Bartlett was a hero, an absolute hero, in this pay equity space.

We need to see other professions and other people having those wins as well. This piece of legislation would set that back. This would force parties to a pay equity claim to get bogged down in arguments about sometimes irrelevant comparisons with the treatment of people doing different jobs in other sectors.

I think that we are having a conversation this evening that was absolutely unnecessary. We have got the working group recommendations. We need to see those come through, and that will happen incredibly shortly. I have no hesitation in saying that this is a poor bill and I would not be recommending it to go further.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s beyond belief that this is the point that we’ve reached. Throughout this debate, the Government has rubbished this bill, piece by piece, and I am disappointed that they are so clearly misrepresenting the framework that it sets up with political point-scoring.

How can the Government honestly say that this bill is so fundamentally flawed, filled with so many holes that can’t be fixed by later debates, when the principles that this bill is founded on have been reconfirmed by not one but two individual working groups? These working groups were operating under National and Labour Governments, with input from business and unions alike. The hard work has already been done, and this bill is ready now.

What we have here is the only real progress towards pay equity that anyone has seen since August 2017. We have heard, and it’s been quoted tonight by the other side—we’ve heard the Prime Minister say, “We will not rest until we have pay equity in New Zealand.” Well, if they had stepped up when they had the chance, they would be able to be resting by now. In 2017, they voted against the first reading of this bill. That was eight months ago. They then took this bill off the Parliament’s agenda. That was five months ago.

Just six weeks ago, this bill was pulled from the ballot and in all that time we still have not seen any meaningful action from this Government towards pay equity. Instead, it seems they are actively holding it up. How can they say with credibility, any credibility, that pay equity and closing the gender pay gap are priorities for this Government, when they continue to delay any action? Instead, they choose to wait—wait for another working group, wait to introduce legislation. They are keeping the women of New Zealand waiting.

Let me point out something so simple and so obvious. It must be that the Government cares more about their politics, their pride, and their partisanship, than they do about getting a solution for women in this country now. How do I know that? It is because they could use their numbers to amend this bill. They could send this bill to select committee right now and, if necessary, they could make any changes to bring it up to the standards that they expect. The Government could arrest right now what will end up being months and months of delay—and it looks like there’s going to be an 18-month delay for when women will actually be able to lodge a claim. Women across New Zealand deserve the opportunity to submit and voice their opinions on this bill to the select committee.

I would like to thank tonight the speakers who joined me on my team—all formidable colleagues who have slogged on this topic immeasurably more than I have. I’m humbled by their faith in me, to attempt to carry the flag. I would like to thank Amy Adams, Michael Woodhouse, Louise Upston, and Paula Bennett for her counsel. I call on the other side of the House to picture women they know, women they’ve met, women who have worked, and women who have grown tired both physically and emotionally with the weight of being undervalued, and then do the right thing. We have an obligation to vote this to its next stage so that we can engage with women in this idea. The women of New Zealand deserve progress now.

A party vote was called for on the question that the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill be now read a first time. [Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, there will be silence while the votes are being taken.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Noes 63

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

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill

First Reading

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): I move, That the Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 came into force on 4 April 2016, so it’s coincidental that today, 4 April 2018, I address this House and its members with a proposal to amend a provision of the Act as it affects volunteer associations, to amend the section 17 definition of a PCBU—that’s a person conducting a business or undertaking—so that that definition does not include a volunteer association and does not include an association for which any person or persons are employed or engaged to carry out paid work for the association for greater than 100 hours per week.

It is also coincidental that inheriting this bill—it brought with it some measure of volunteered goodwill and fortuitous timings. I signed it off for a slot in the ballot biscuit tin on the afternoon of Wednesday, 21 February 2018. On Thursday, 22 February 2018, it was drawn at noon, and this evening I stand with this quick-draw bill and much goodwill, seeking the House and members to afford and volunteer their support to what I submit is a well-intentioned bill, less the price of overregulation and unnecessary, costly compliance.

National is committed to not only improving but refining workplace health and safety and its laws. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 was approximately five years in the making, as you well know, long-serving members of this House. The catalyst for the overhaul of New Zealand’s health and safety law was considered to be the Pike River mining disaster in November 2010 and the Christchurch earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011.

The major changes introduced by the bill are the classification of a PCBU—as I’ve referred, persons that are conducting a business or undertaking; the primary duty holder. Also, a positive duty of due diligence on those in senior management roles, and a tiered, more stringent penalty regime.

Volunteer associations play an active and important part in Aotearoa New Zealand. They are diverse. Around a third of New Zealanders undertake voluntary work for an organisation, placing New Zealand consistently in the top five countries for donating our time. The latest detailed information, from a 2013 Statistics New Zealand data release on non-profit institutions (NPIs), shows that there are a total of 114,110 NPIs; 11,003 of those employ staff, and of those, 7,505 organisations employ between one to five staff, so the majority employ less than five staff. Approximately 1.3 million volunteers and 136,750 salary and wage earners work for NPIs. However, the reality of the volunteer sector is that there are diminishing numbers of volunteers, capacity, and input, and increasing demands of administrative operational tasks, regulatory compliance, and responsibilities requiring a range of volunteer associations to have to employ a person or persons usually for targeted or specialised or specific tasks.

So this simple, pragmatic change proposed by way of this bill will make it easier and less onerous for those small volunteer organisations that employ staff for not greater than 100 hours per week—an equivalent of 2.5 full-time employees—by exclusion from the definition of PCBUs; an exemption from the ambit of the bill. Volunteering New Zealand’s State of Volunteering 2016 report and its 2017 overview of the sector provides anecdotal information that volunteer associations believe that legislative requirements, particularly health and safety, are a deterrent to volunteering, slowing down the recruitment process, and costing precious time and resources. The time and cost of compliance and regulation is killing the volunteer sector in New Zealand. Red tape and paperwork doesn’t save lives; it crushes the dreams and aspirations.

As a result of the Act’s regulatory focus, there’s been a shift in the role of managers of volunteers to more administration, compliance-orientated, and less person-orientated. There’s an unwillingness of people to take on such voluntary roles, which could have a negative impact on the volunteer section in communities. So many organisations are incurring considerable expense to get advice on, and implement, health and safety compliance standards, whilst, however, accepting, of course, that all organisations, voluntary or commercial, have legal and moral duties and responsibilities of care and health and safety.

The definition of a PCBU in the Act specifically excludes volunteer associations where none of the volunteers employs any person to carry out work for the association. So a central element of the definition refers to “employs”. Consequently, a voluntary organisation that is entirely voluntary and does not have any employees is excluded from the Act. The Act also creates a primary duty of care for all PCBUs to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of their workers, of other workers, and of other people who are not put at risk by the PCBU’s activities. The Act also imposes significant penalties on PCBUs that fail to meet these obligations—up to $300,000 for an individual, $600,000 for an officer, and $3 million for an organisation.

Health and safety is an important responsibility for all organisations, including those in the voluntary sector. However, it’s so important that concern for avoiding risk and responsibility does not stifle the activities of voluntary organisations. The amendment is simple, reasonable, and pragmatic, such that any volunteer association which cannot afford to rely on volunteer services is afforded to employ to keep the volunteer service viable, and may employ a person for no more than 100 hours per week. It is not deemed a PCBU and is exempt from the Act, but—here’s the catch—still has a legal duty of care and responsibility. Many fail to comprehend that volunteer associations which are not PCBUs—in other words, do not pay or employ staff and do not fall within the limitations of the Act—are still bound by legal principles of duty, care, obligations, and responsibilities in relation to health and safety under civil and tort law and are accountable by law, just not under the Act. So there are still general legal principles that apply and create obligations for all voluntary organisations in relation to health and safety, whether they are PCBUs or not.

So, in summary, voluntary organisations that are not covered by the Act should still, and do, actively take steps to protect the health and safety of those affected by their activities, although legal liability for the organisation and its officers is unlikely and limited by the ACC regime—yes; we do have ACC here in this country, which is a scheme that generally prevents liability for personal injury but it does not prevent claims for property damage arising from negligence. So under the ACC regime it’s not limited by that. Prudent steps to protect health and safety should still be taken, and are to be taken, in order to protect the organisation’s volunteers and users of its services, protect the organisation’s reputation and funding, limit the risk of negligence claims for property damage, and limit the risk of negligence claims for personal injury arising from gross negligence.

In conclusion, this bill is about recognising and valuing the value, recognition, and importance of the volunteer sector in Aotearoa New Zealand, heeding the concerns of voluntary organisations reliant on the goodwill of volunteer services and limited funds. This bill will—should members of this House permit and support it—permit and support our voluntary sector and volunteer associations in their ability not to be bound by the stringent and onerous conditions under the Health and Safety at Work Act. So I implore that you don’t kill this bill and that you don’t kill the goodwill and volunteer time of all of our volunteers in the sector. Kia ora.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much. It is indeed a great pleasure to speak and provide this party’s—the Labour Party’s—perspective on the Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill. I’d like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the member Harete Hipango for putting forward this bill and her good fortune in getting it pulled out of the ballot. I take her word that this is well intended. However, it is a poorly drafted bill that actually misses the point.

The framing of the opening address was to make this bill about volunteer organisations—to acknowledge the fact that volunteer organisations across the country are struggling to recruit volunteers. This is fair. I’m a volunteer myself, as I am sure many on the Opposition benches and the Government benches are. Throughout my life I have worked in many volunteer organisations, and they have all struggled to recruit people that are willing to give up their time and to volunteer their services to their community and the organisation. But the solution to that issue is not what is being proposed today.

It is simply not acceptable that we create a distinction where some workers can be exempt from the protections of health and safety in the workplace while others continue to enjoy them. It should not matter who your employer may be; you should have the same protections and provisions that the rest of us enjoy whilst you are in employment. It does not matter if you work for a small community organisation or, indeed, a large corporation; there should be no meddling from Government—or Parliament, I should say—into the protections that we enjoy in terms of health and safety. That is the fundamental point here in this Labour Party’s opposition to this bill: that no worker should go to work with less provisions and less protections than the rest of us enjoy.

What is being proposed here, in the Health and Safety at Work (Volunteer Associations) Amendment Bill, essentially, removes those employed by volunteer associations up to 100 hours a week—so, essentially, 2½ full-time equivalents—away from worker status. So I had a look at the bill. I’ve got it here. What this bill would do is create a very strange loophole in the Health and Safety at Work Act where volunteer associations and those that work for them are exempted from pretty basic provisions. If you’ll allow me, Madam Deputy Speaker, to read, I want to just point this out to the House. They’d be exempted from the primary duty of care to ensure that as far as reasonably practicable they ensure the health and safety of their workers and others—that’s section 36. They’d be exempted from a ban on levying workers for health and safety, charging them to provide protective equipment, or requiring workers to provide their own—section 27. They would be exempt from a duty to engage with workers on health and safety—section 58. It’s important to note that what is “reasonably practicable” for an organisation to do includes a consideration of all relevant matters, and that this will include the resources available to an organisation. We simply cannot allow those workers that work for these organisations to be exempt from such pretty basic provisions.

There would also be an exemption on a ban requiring workers to avoid work where they do not have the required qualifications or authorisation to do that work. That is of grave concern. Because these employees would not be considered workers under the Act, they’re also exempt from, for example, duties to take reasonable care for their own health and safety or that of others, or to follow reasonable instructions relating to health and safety—section 45—and also exempted from their ability to refuse to carry out unsafe work. Let’s just consider that for a moment. A worker, regardless of whether they are employed by a large organisation or a community volunteer group, should have the ability to refuse to carry out unsafe work. But the implication of this bill, as it is written and as it is proposed, would remove that right from workers for volunteer organisations. It’s absolutely unacceptable in New Zealand in 2018 that some workers in this country can be forced to carry out unsafe work.

There is no way that the Labour Party, with our proud history of ensuring workers’ rights, can support such a bill that would take away such a right. In the original Act, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, a volunteer association is defined, in section 17(2), as “a group of volunteers (whether incorporated or unincorporated) working together for 1 or more community purposes where none of the volunteers, whether alone or jointly with any other volunteers, employs any person to carry out the work [of that] volunteer association.”

If we want to ensure that people have the time and the capacity and the ability to volunteer, this is not the way to go about it. The question of volunteer associations having person-conducting-a-business-or-undertaking (PCBU) duties was actually fully discussed at the select committee at the time of the health and safety at work legislation in 2015. The exclusion of volunteer associations that do not employ any workers repeated the position under the former Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

Now, there were submissions on the health and safety legislation with similar proposals to the current member’s bill in terms of increasing the employee threshold for volunteer associations. These were not accepted. We’ve been here before: in a bill that the previous Government brought through, which went through select committee, this exact issue was brought up, considered, and discussed by that member’s very own party. Where we’ve also been before is when we start to meddle with the exclusions around access to basic health and safety provisions. I ask members of this House—perhaps those members on my own side might remember the last time that the National Party meddled with health and safety, we ended up with the worm farm debacle.

I wonder if members in this House remember when the National Party proposed that worm farming was more dangerous than farming—than the agriculture industry. This is an absolute nonsense. There is a principle at stake here.

Hon Andrew Little: The worms bite.

KIERAN McANULTY: The worms do bite, Mr Little. You’re right. I didn’t consider that. I guess perhaps a bucket may have been tipped on somebody’s head.

But the fact is, once again, there is a principle at stake here. No one, regardless of what the job is or whom they work for, should go to their work having less protections for health and safety than anyone else. We expect a basic level of protection, and this bill takes it away. It proposes to take it away for those organisations that would hire a worker up to 2½ full-time equivalence.

I’ve been advised that WorkSafe is not aware of any particular issues with volunteer or community associations having unreasonable obligation placed on them or compliance issues with regard to their health and safety acquirements.

Life would be easier if there were no regulations. Life would be easier if there were no rules, but just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean you should remove them, because we’re talking about the health and safety of people that work for a living. It is totally unacceptable that we could even consider supporting it, even though I acknowledge it has good intentions. The implications, perhaps unintended, of this bill are not acceptable.

The fact is that the Labour Party will not be supporting this bill and will be taking every opportunity to speak, strongly opposing it. Once again, we cannot undermine the simple rights and privileges that workers have fought over generations to preserve in this country. The Labour Party once again will be standing up for those workers.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Kieran McAnulty has actually now, sort of, carved out a reputation as the filibuster king of the bills. He either speaks off the bill and has to be corrected, to be brought on to the bill, and when he does speak on the bill, he actually doesn’t read the bill. He’s gone on and on. He’s talked about—he’s waxed lyrical about a whole lot of things bar talking about the bill. So what that tells us very clearly is that he’s carved his reputation. He tried to be sympathetic and empathetic about all of the things there, but what Mr McAnulty doesn’t know—and if I was to ask him—is how many not-for-profit organisations are out there in New Zealand?

Kieran McAnulty: A few.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: 114,932. How many charitable registered trusts are there? 27,900.

Kieran McAnulty: That’s right.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: That’s right. So what’s the current contribution to GDP? 4.4 percent of the GDP, which equates to $9.4 billion. So the member can talk a lot about his experiences and what’s out there, but if he did a little bit of work, if he concentrated on the bill, he’d realise what this bill is actually trying to do. We live in a country where people are generous—and thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.