Wednesday, 27 June 2018

WEDNESDAY, 27 JUNE 2018

WEDNESDAY, 27 JUNE 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Members Sworn

Members Sworn

Dan Bidois was called forward to the Chair by the Speaker, took the Oath of Allegiance, and took his seat in the House.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Prime Minister—Housing and Health Services Targets

1. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his Government’s policies and actions?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): In their context, yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he stand by his statement that it is a target of this Government that a solo homebuyer earning the living wage should be able to get a home worth five times their annual income?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: To the extent that there was a time frame put on that aspiration, which was, as I told the media, in the long term, and to the extent that anyone who knows anything about the law knows that young people, for their first home, don’t buy an average home; they buy down the bottom of the market for their first home, which means they can easily achieve that. And guess what? The ratio is 5.8 percent now.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is he aware that, in Auckland, this target would mean house prices falling to $213,000 or the living wage increasing to $100 an hour?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The mistake of someone who is not familiar with the housing market or the commercial market or, for that matter, has not had any experience in helping people to get into the market is to think that they buy average homes. No, they don’t, Mr Bridges. I don’t know about Mr Bridges’ first home, and maybe he was flush with money, but the rest of us had to start at the bottom and work our way up.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it his Government’s target to reduce Auckland house prices to $213,000 on average; and if so, what impact does he believe this will have on current homeowners?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It’s very hard to believe that someone would start with an absurd proposition like that. That is so ridiculous. What I said, and for the information of that member over there, who claims to be a lawyer as well, the current low quartile of housing is at 5.8 percent—the wage I’m talking about right now. I was talking about taking it down to 5 from 5.8. That is easily achievable or, to quote Hillary, “You just go there and you do it.”

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he agree with Newshub reporter Jenna Lynch that this target “announced on the hoof could be heading towards the fantastical” or with its commentator Mark Richardson that “There is more chance of the Abdominizer 2000 giving us great abs than this policy of his working.”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I was going to take that question seriously until he predicated it on a certain person in the press gallery and, right then, all sense of reality flew out the window.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why is his Government willing to set such long-term targets for house prices but, at the same time, remove specific, measurable targets that drive performance and accountability, such as in the health sector, and which will actually save lives?

SPEAKER: Order! The member has to remember: two legs to the question and no statements.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Dealing with the question of the health targets, the present Government inherited a series of targets which were distorted, perverted, false, untrue, and had to be changed. You had skin lesions being operated on in the public health system when they could have been in primary health, for a start—a whole lot of examples like that. So, being the rational, sane Government that we are, with a first-class health Minister, we’re going to find new, measurable targets which will—[Interruption] just be patient—have this effect: people in this country will be far healthier as a consequence.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he not consider the public have a right to know the length of emergency department stays, something which was proven to save hundreds of lives a year?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Could I say, from the observation of the claimed targets that the previous Government met, many of them made by public officials and expert advice, they were never met in the first place, but the reality is that ear, nose, and throat operations were down under that Government, paediatric operations were down, general surgery was down, and investment in public health was down.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did Cabinet consider either the removal of the health sector targets or the addition of the Government’s new house price target he announced yesterday?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: With respect to the house price targets, I was asked a question as to what I personally thought, and having probably had more to do with construction and house pricing in Auckland than all of the rest over there, all put together—

Hon Simon Bridges: You’ve done it all!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, yes I have. I’m not one of these people who only worked for a firm and never had ownership of it and has never been in business himself. Can I just say that that was a personal aspiration going on the present low-pricing of housing for first-home buyers, which is 5.8 percent of their annual wage, and usually they buy as couples, so it’s much more reasonable to make that assessment. That was a personal statement, which I stand by, and as for the health targets, well, the Hon David Clark came along with a system and plan and policies of hope to improve public health and Cabinet members agreed with him rather than those false targets put out there by the previous Government, which were never met in the first place.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he believe his Government risks looking non-transparent and unaccountable when they ditched specific, measurable targets like Better Public Services targets and the health targets but, at the same time, announced targets that will only ever be realised in the never-never?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The proposition being put out by that member is a political one to try and gain some public support out there in the constituency. It won’t wash, of course. It won’t wash, because the so-called targets that they had set had this effect on the Public Service: it gave the Public Service a haircut and was a boon for all the private consultants.

Overseas Ownership of New Zealand Property—Exemption for Te Ārai Development

2. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Minister of Forestry: What reports has he received about the effect of the changes to the Overseas Investment Act 2005 on forestry and other regional land?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I can do no better than to quote the Whanganui-based director of forest owners management services: “bloody good news”. These changes, as they pertain to forest land and forest resource, simplify the application process, vastly reduce the costs associated with forest investors wandering through that process, and, I’m told, it’ll be a boost to grow us at a greater pace to achieve the billion tree outcome.

Clayton Mitchell: Does the Minister consider these changes to be positive towards the billion trees strategy?

Hon SHANE JONES: There are a limited range of sources of capital in terms of funding this nation-building project. There is core funding coming out of the Crown; there is funding coming out of entities such as the Superannuation Fund, in the event that they are so inclined; and then there is the source of international capital. Our Government made a choice to simplify the process so we could tap into international capital, subject to rules and regulations that will be covered off by environmental legislation. This is positive for the billion trees strategy.

Clayton Mitchell: Are there specific concerns related to former Crown forestry land?

Hon SHANE JONES: Yes. Former Crown forestry land was given back. I’m aware, as the Minister of Forestry, of a range of Māori hapū and Treaty settlement assets, and on one such block of land I have been lobbied by parties associated with that Crown forest land, located in Mangawhai-Te Ārai.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Minister possibly help us all by telling us who was the concerned local citizen that contacted him and lobbied him on behalf of the local iwi and developers?

Hon SHANE JONES: I did attend a meeting at the Tara Iti golf course. That land was previously Crown forest land. Present at that meeting were members from the Te Uri o Hau hapū, Mr John Darby, and the US billionaire Mr Ric Kayne. I’m disappointed that the latter’s name has been traduced by the Opposition in the House. I had never heard of the man’s name until I was encouraged to meet him by the former Prime Minister the Rt Hon John Key.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Amongst all those people that the Minister mentioned, was it Sir John Key who was the local citizen that lobbied him?

Hon SHANE JONES: After I received my warrant in October, I was the Minister of Forestry and quickly grew to be, as dubbed by Gerry Brownlee, the champion of the country. It was in that capacity that—and I quite enjoy the company of the former Prime Minister, which may reduce my prospects for career development given the nature of the current Prime Minister, but having said that, I took his call. I didn’t think there was anything improper with meeting with those parties, one billionaire, and if it was good enough for him to encourage me to meet with them, listen to them about their concerns, that’s what I’m paid to do. The other side of the House might find more information if they look closer to home.

Hon David Parker: So let me get this straight: is the—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Question.

Hon David Parker: Is the Minister saying that after all the spurious and defamatory accusations levelled against me and the Government by the Opposition, the Rt Hon Sir John Key had been making representations on behalf of Te Ārai for help before I even knew about it?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point of order is simply this. Mr Parker is not asking a question; he is asking for a clarification. Further, he is making an allegation in his question, and, in actual fact, the only responsibility that the regional development Minister and forestry Minister might have in these circumstances would be for his own actions, which would be his interactions with the Hon David Parker that led to the extraordinary exclusion attempt in the recent Overseas Investment Amendment Bill, a bill which is currently before a select committee. Who lobbied who is of no concern to anybody in this House. It’s the actions—[Interruption]

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Speaking to the point of order—

SPEAKER: No, no, we’ll let him finish first.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, what this House concerns itself with is potential for corrupt practice, and that is the essence of what is at stake here. This sort of question—this self-justifying sort of question—does not do anything to improve the integrity of this House.

SPEAKER: Before I—I very rarely correct the honourable member on technical matters. The bill is currently before the House. It’s out of select committee.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Speaking to the point of order, the first thing is that the member, when making his point of order, was in grave danger of impugning his own former leader with the language he used. But the reason why Mr Parker is asking the question is because, like me and my colleagues, we are filled with so much incredulity as to the answer that’s been given by the Minister.

SPEAKER: I think the question did start off with a question. I think it was something like “Have I got it right?”, or similar words, and a set of facts were put there. I think we were getting close to the end of it, and I don’t want to cause disruption by having it all again, but if the member can just bring it to a conclusion, very quickly.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You made it very clear at the start of question time that the leader of the National Party could ask a question but not make a statement. I hope that the same rule will be applied here, because I know that it’s a matter of self-defence that we’re seeing in this question, but it should simply be a question.

SPEAKER: And there was a very clear question: “Have I got it right?”, and then a set of facts. It wasn’t the addition of a set of facts after a question had been completed, as the Leader of the Opposition did, and he did it again and I didn’t pull him up on it.

Hon David Parker: Just concluding the question, in effect, did the Rt Hon Sir John Key, former leader of the National Party, make representations on behalf of Te Ārai for help before I even knew about it?

SPEAKER: Well, I think what we’ve got absolutely clear now is there is no area of responsibility, because this Minister has no responsibility for when that member knew about it.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I find that a very narrow ruling, given the aspersions that have been directed at me, sir. The Minister has—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon David Parker: The Minister has responsibility for forestry matters, including relating to the forestry land to which this relates, and I’ve asked him whether he received—you know, have I got it right—representations from the Rt Hon Sir John Key on that issue, and I, sir, suggest that’s a question that’s in order.

SPEAKER: Well, the first part of the question certainly was in order, and the vast majority of the summary was in order, but the member asked the Hon Shane Jones to make a judgment as to the timing of that member’s knowledge, and it is my view that he does not have responsibility for that.

Hon David Parker: Could I just rephrase the final part of that, then, sir, because it’s a—

SPEAKER: No, you can ask a new question.

Hon David Parker: OK. Is the Minister saying that after all the spurious and defamatory accusations levelled against me and the Government by the Opposition and their proxies, the Rt Hon Sir John Key, the former National Party leader, had been making representations on behalf of Te Ārai for help before 6 March?

Hon SHANE JONES: I concede this to be a part of my job. When a former Prime Minister who I’ve got quite a bit of time for, rightly or wrongly, suggested, encouraged me to make contact with a fine investor, in my view—Mr Ric Kayne—and associated parties, I had no qualms in doing that whatsoever. Now, that meeting, to the best of my recollection, took place not long after the chief of the hapū, Te Uri o Hau, Mr Russell Kemp, died. I cannot recollect when Mr Key first made contact to me, but it was after that I was made a Minister, sir.

SPEAKER: I am going to ask the Minister now to—and I know we can’t insist on yes or no things. Was it before 6 March? That was the question.

Hon SHANE JONES: The contact with the former Prime Minister, Rt Hon John Key, most certainly took place prior to 6 March, and, to the best of my memory, I met at the Tara Iti golf course with the hapū, with the billionaire from America—a fine man—and Mr Darby.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: To the Minister for Regional Development—

SPEAKER: No—forestry.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Forestry—sorry. Did he at any time make representations to Cabinet colleagues about the potential for the exclusion of this property from the Overseas Investment Act?

Hon SHANE JONES: If I could answer it in this fashion: the Te Uri o Hau land was land that was transferred by Doug Graham and the Jim Bolger regime. I heard very clearly the concerns of that hapū that this compensatory land was suffering a further penalty as our Government moved to exercise article 1 Treaty sovereign powers. That is without a doubt, and I made my concerns about compensatory Treaty land known to Mr Parker. That is not the only block of Māori land that people have referred to me that is caught up with our universal and blanket ban.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Was he aware at the time of his representations to Mr Parker that the iwi had already disposed of more than 75 percent of their interests in the originally settled land?

Hon SHANE JONES: I do not recall the Rt Hon John Key referring to me that information.

Overseas Ownership of New Zealand Property—Exemption for Te Ārai Development

3. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Associate Minister of Finance: On what date did he become aware that the majority ownership in the Te Ārai development was not held by iwi but by other commercial and foreign investors?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Associate Minister of Finance): My understanding is there are no foreign investors in Te Ārai, as Mr John Darby is a New Zealand citizen and Mr Ric Kayne has New Zealand residency. There is no reference in the shareholdings in the submission to the select committee, although it was noted that the development is the most significant asset for iwi. Further, in the report I received from Treasury on 19 March, which cited the select committee submission, the development was referred to as “land transferred to iwi as commercial Treaty settlement redress.” In February 2017, Steven Joyce of the National Party told the House that “this is iwi-owned land.” I subsequently became aware of the level of iwi shareholding in the development from a Richard Harman piece Thursday last week.

Hon Amy Adams: When he told this House last week and RNZ last Friday that the Government’s intention in promoting the exemption was to help the iwi, why did he never refer to the fact that the majority of the significant financial benefit of the exemption would in fact flow not to iwi but to major commercial developers?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’ve never made any secret of the fact that the transitional exemption was to apply to the land. And, indeed, the member, as a member of the select committee, received advice from Treasury noting in respect of the conflict of the advice from the clerk of the committee as to whether the exemption transitionally was in or outside of the Standing Orders—traversed the fact that the beneficiaries of that would include the various developers of the land and the eventual purchases of those properties during the term of that 15-year exemption.

Hon Amy Adams: When he said in the House yesterday that the exemption was granted solely to the Te Ārai developers because, “There was no … similar submission” and so “the issue didn’t arise”, was he aware that other submitters to the select committee also sought similar exemptions to those sought by Te Ārai?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’m not aware of any other submission that sought an exemption, short term or otherwise, on the basis that their development was a Treaty settlement asset that was transferred to them. As I previously said, the Government was trying to balance the general proposition that all land is subject to the laws of this land as an article 1 right of the Government to govern with sovereignty, including Māori land and land transferred to Māori pursuant to settlements with the desire not to cause unfairness by diminution of value of a Treaty settlement asset.

Hon Amy Adams: Why did he say yesterday that the reason this individual exemption was granted to the Te Ārai developers and no others was because they were the only ones who asked for it, when the Te Ārai developers didn’t actually seek a specific exemption for themselves, but instead asked for a series of land and development classes to be excluded from the scope of the bill which would have included a number of other New Zealand land owners?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Quoting from the Treasury report to me dated 19 March on the submissions, “The submitters assert the bill will diminish economic returns from the development and seek an exemption.”

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Have I got this right? That the land was conferred on the Māori people there by the National Party; that the body set up called the Auckland super-city, set up by the National Party, then sought to take a 200 metre strip off the front on the foreshore off the Māori, who then decided that their asset was of such diminutive value that they needed to go into a consortium arrangement with the developers; and they seek now to retain the value of that, and that’s the only way they can get there, by going for the exemption that they’re seeking at the present time?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You would have been, I’m sure Mr Speaker, listening carefully to the question. The National Party did none of those things. The Parliament of New Zealand certainly put together some Acts that might have enabled some of those things, but I think it’s very important that the distinction is made. It’s made in all sorts of other ways. No leader, for example—

SPEAKER: Yeah, no, I agree with the member. The Rt Hon Acting Prime Minister will ask another question to that end.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Have I got it right that it was a National Government that conferred the land on the Māori at Te Ārai in the first place as a Treaty settlement, that then they passed the Auckland super-city legislation, which saw that super-city taking a 200 metre strip off the front—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The conferring of the land on the iwi was done by an Act of Parliament unanimously supported by the House.

SPEAKER: No. The member will resume his seat. The specific words were “settlement”. Now, the settlement was done by the Government not by the Parliament.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Reading again from the extract of the Treasury briefing to me dated 19 March: “The land was acquired by Te Uri o Hau and Ngāti Manuhiri as commercial redress in Treaty settlements signed in 2000 and 2011 respectively.” I am aware that there were significant planning delays that have been occasioned in this development, and that, as a consequence of some of their planning conditions, there has been a substantial amount of the former forestry land that has moved back into public ownership.

Hon Amy Adams: Is the Minister saying that iwi assets should be protected from the loss of value that comes with his law change, but that no other New Zealand land owner is entitled to have that same consideration from this Government?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No. It’s actually a bit more nuanced than that and I’ve said it on a number of occasions, but I will repeat it again for the benefit of the member. There is an article 1 Treaty right on behalf of the Government to govern in the interests of all New Zealanders. That means that Parliament passes law that affects all land in our country, including—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to ask the member to resume his seat and to start again, and this answer will be heard in silence. It is actually a constitutionally important point, and it’s one that deserves to be heard.

Hon DAVID PARKER: There is an article 1 right conferred upon Government that has the sovereign right to make laws for the benefit of New Zealand that cover every piece of land in our country, and that includes general land, Māori land, and land that passes to Māori under Treaty settlements. As against that proposition, it is also possible for the Government, by doing that, to create a new Treaty breach if they substantially decrease the value of a compensatory asset that passes to Māoridom, pursuant to a Treaty issue. Really, to balance those two issues, you seek to do fairness to the iwi who are complaining of that diminution of value. It is a moot point as to where you cross that line. The Government thought that the appropriate way through, in this case, was to have a transitional, not permanent, exemption for the benefit of the land, which cured the issue. That has been ruled out of order, and so we are taking advice as to what legal duty we have to do something more, but that won’t be progressed through this bill.

Hon Amy Adams: So given the importance that the Minister has placed on the iwi connections to the land, on what basis does the Minister claim this exemption was granted to benefit iwi, when land registry and Companies Office searches show that Te Ārai South development block is, in fact, 100 percent owned by a company controlled solely by John Darby and James Castiglione?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’m not aware of the finer detail the member mentions. If the member was worried about that whilst at select committee, she could have asked either the submitter or the officials to provide her with more clarity. I’ve explained the way we approached the decision.

Hon Amy Adams: Were any conflicts of interest declared by any Minister when the matter of this exemption was considered by Cabinet on 3 April?

SPEAKER: It’s strictly not the Minister’s responsibility, but I will allow him to inform the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, because there were none. The idea that because I know someone I have a conflict is a nonsense. It’s been asserted that I’m a friend of Mr Darby’s; I’m not. It’s been asserted that I’m a business associate; I am not and never have been. It’s been asserted that I may have acted for him in the past. As far as I recall, I have never acted for Mr Darby, but even if I had, that does not give rise to a conflict of interest. I acted for the current Mayor of Queenstown many decades ago. We laugh about it when I see him. That does not give rise to a conflict of interest. I have acted for Radio Otago in claims against the Hon McCully. That did not give rise to a conflict of interest in my current life. The Hon Chris Finlayson acted very well for many iwi through the years. That did not mean to say that he could not deal with iwi as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. These assertions are defamatory and untrue. I had no conflict of interest, and knowing someone does not give rise to one. I have no fiduciary duty owed to anyone else, and I’ve acted appropriately throughout.

Hon Amy Adams: How can he claim Te Ārai deserved an exemption because there was no one in similar circumstances, as he said yesterday, when the last line of their own submission says, “These projects—and others like it—are very beneficial for New Zealand and should continue to be provided for in any amendment of the Overseas Investment Act.”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The member misrepresents the nature of that submission. The effect of that would be claiming an exemption for wealthy people to sell to wealthier people overseas, like Hamish Price wants in respect of the exemption he proposes for Queenstown, where he says there should be an exemption for houses that are going to cost more than $5 million—the Government disagrees with that. I’ve explained why from a Treaty perspective we thought there was a case in this instance.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think in his second or third supplementary answer the Minister quoted from a document. I would like him to table that document.

SPEAKER: Did the Minister quote from an official document?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I’m happy to table it anyway, sir. It’s an extract from the Treasury briefing dated 19 March, which—

SPEAKER: Well, no, it’s already a document before the House because it was tabled at the select committee.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, it’s a briefing to me.

SPEAKER: Oh, sorry. It’s to you, not to the committee. That document can be tabled, by leave, even though it’s only an extract and not the proper document. Is there any objection? Certainly not.

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

Social Development, Ministry—Service Culture

4. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: What recent announcements has she made about service culture at Work and Income?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): Yesterday, in New Plymouth, I launched a package of changes that kick off this Government’s commitment to improving the culture at the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). Changes include a new client commitment posted up in all offices and online; a new layout that includes more private spaces, clearly marked spaces, and a kids’ play area; where possible, access to toilet facilities; easy access to drinking water; a new online eligibility guide; and changes to the process of suspending and cancelling benefits, which has already resulted in a reduction. This Government is committed to ensuring the welfare system is fair and accessible.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Why has she implemented these changes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Most New Zealanders will need the support of MSD at some stage during their life for a range of reasons: support while unemployed, support while studying, support due to disability or illness, or support for superannuation. All of these people deserve to be treated with respect, have their dignity upheld, and be provided effective support. This Government is committed to making our welfare system work for all New Zealanders.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What feedback has the Minister received on these changes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive; however, some people have raised that there’s more to do, and I agree. This is just the beginning. Some people have raised that we need to move more quickly. I agree, and we’re going to do our best. I was heartened by a client at Work and Income yesterday who said that the changes made him feel human. Staff said the changes made the workplace a more positive working environment. Even David Tua added to the hundreds of messages I received on these changes, stating “This makes me so emotional. Thank you, Minister, for bringing back the love and kindness; it will make a significant difference.”

KiwiBuild—Workforce and Meetings with Minister

5. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does he stand by all his statements and actions in the House?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Yes, except on the rare occasion where I misspoke. I particularly stand by my statement following the Leader of the Opposition’s Budget reply speech, that “I’m going to call it: the biggest winner of … 2018 was Judith Collins’ leadership ambitions.”

SPEAKER: Order! I’m now going to warn the member. He is developing, along with one or two other Ministers, the habit of putting additions on answers after he has answered the question. Like questions, they should be succinct answers, and once a question has been answered the member doesn’t need to add to it, especially in a way that’s likely to lead to disorder or discomfort in the House.

Hon Judith Collins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. So what changed since his statement regarding KiwiBuild yesterday that the Government is “not planning on bringing workers in from overseas.”, to the Government today announcing that they will be doing exactly that?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Nothing changed; I was simply reacting to the absurd suggestion that the whole workforce for KiwiBuild would be imported from overseas. Our policy, this Government’s policy, has always been that to respond to the legacy of nine years of under-investment in the construction industry workforce, we would not only invest in growing the local workforce but we would bring in skilled tradespeople from overseas, just as the former Government did after the earthquakes in Christchurch.

Hon Judith Collins: Before he told Parliament yesterday that the Government is “not planning on bringing workers in from overseas.”, what discussions had he had with the Hon Jenny Salesa, the Minister for Building and Construction, about bringing in 1,500 KiwiBuild visa workers from overseas to build KiwiBuild houses?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The member’s continual fake surprise at this Government announcing and rolling out long-established policy won’t cut any ice with thousands of Kiwi homebuyers who were denied the opportunity to have homeownership for nine long years under that Government. It’s never been our policy to import wholesale the workforce from overseas. It’s always been to grow the New Zealand workforce here in a way that the former Government never bothered to do.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked about discussions that the Minister had had with the Hon Jenny Salesa. I don’t believe that he addressed that issue.

SPEAKER: He didn’t. He will answer now.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’ve had many discussions with the Hon Jenny Salesa.

Hon Judith Collins: To assist the Minister, I seek leave to table a briefing from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment from December 2017 titled “KiwiBuild visa settings”.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none. It will be tabled.

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

Hon Judith Collins: When he told Parliament yesterday that he “met with a director and president of another organisation who are acting as intermediaries for the China Development Bank”, what was that organisation?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I was asked to do this meeting by the member’s former colleague Marama Fox—to meet with these officials who are intermediaries of the China Development Bank. I meet with many banks, but I can also confirm that I have never dined with a Chinese border official.

SPEAKER: Order! The member will now answer the question.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I don’t recall the name of the organisation of the officials I met with, but if the member wants to put a written question down or a primary, I will gladly get that information for her.

Hon Judith Collins: At this meeting on—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Apologies to my colleague, but, Mr Speaker, I’d ask you to reflect on that last answer. When the Minister in earlier questions said that he had been mistaken about this, he must have done some research to find out what the mistake was. You hardly find out that you’ve made a mistake if you don’t know what the mistake was or who the mistake was about—therefore he has not given an answer to the House.

SPEAKER: And I’ve got a lot of sympathy for the member and his point of order. Unfortunately, I don’t have responsibility for the quality of the answers.

Hon Judith Collins: At this meeting on 31 May that the Minister now tells he doesn’t now recall who the intermediaries were, who else was at that meeting?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I reject the member’s assertion. That’s not actually what I said.

Hon Judith Collins: Well, who was at the meeting?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I met with a gentleman by the name of Anthony Wilson. The answer to the question before was that I didn’t remember the name of the organisation. I believe the man is a consultant.

Overseas Ownership of New Zealand Property—Exemption for Te Ārai Development

6. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Is he concerned about the effect of Government policies on regional property development?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): The policies of the Government are varied and wide. In so far as property development is rolling out throughout the provinces of New Zealand, my colleagues have a host of priorities to address housing woes of a community nature, of a homeownership nature, and I’m looking forward to the Minister leading a body of work to protect the rights of renters in provincial New Zealand.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: When exactly did he meet with John Darby and Ric Kayne to discuss their concerns about the effect of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill on Te Ārai development, bearing in mind that Russell Kemp passed away on 11 January?

Hon SHANE JONES: The effect on the Te Ārai development can be traced back to the excessive zeal that people chose the fortunes of an indigestible bird over the rights of indigenous people. I was well aware of that bird, called a tara, which means a fairy tale. Consequently, I’ve always been sympathetic to the woes that Te Uri o Hau have suffered, and it has reminded me that we definitely put the boundary in the wrong place for the super-city. They would have had greater prospects had my own regional council considered that issue. I cannot remember the exact date, but it would have been very close, after the tangihanga for said chief.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Did he discuss the concerns raised by those gentlemen with David Parker soon thereafter?

Hon SHANE JONES: I’ve actually done more than that. I have been very loud on the marae in my own area in my community after I was approached by someone who I felt I should have no fear or favour following his advice encouraging me to meet with these developers—your old boss. Upon doing that—

SPEAKER: Not my old boss.

Hon SHANE JONES: Upon doing that, I proceeded to alert my caucus, my colleagues, to a potential new source of Treaty grievance as we exercise article 1 powers of sovereignty in order to protect our sovereign interests before the trans-Pacific deal was passed. We may inadvertently create a new raft of grievances for settlement tribes. I have said it then, I said it during our discussions, but I am faithful to the solidarity of the Cabinet’s position.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So I’m still trying to get an answer to the primary question, which is when he made those representations to David Parker; if the death was on 11 January are we talking about early February or when exactly does he think he raised those concerns with David Parker?

Hon SHANE JONES: Not only with my colleague Mr Parker; with my colleagues I have repeatedly warned about the danger of the way in which article 1 powers of the Treaty could inadvertently crib the ability of economic development to take place, and I’ve done a great job in preserving that opportunity in terms of the more liberal approach to the forestry resources.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There was a simple word that he hasn’t responded to, which was “when”.

SPEAKER: Yes, but part of the problem was that the member referred to a primary question which didn’t exist. I mean, I should probably have ruled the whole question out. The primary question doesn’t say “when”, does it, as the member asserted?

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I’m saying that the primary word in the question which I just asked him said “when”, and there wasn’t a reply to that.

SPEAKER: No, I think you said the primary question. That was what the whole premise of the question—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I said “the primary word” in the question, not “the primary question”.

SPEAKER: If the member wants to have another supplementary question to get it right, he may.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a very important point. The House this afternoon has heard from a question from the Hon David Parker to the Hon Shane Jones that apparently there was no discussion of this matter between the Ministers prior to a date that has been stated in the House today. We’ve now learnt that the Hon Shane Jones was made aware of this soon after a tangi in early January. The simple question was: when did he—

SPEAKER: The member can resume his seat. I’ve asked the member. I’ve given him another supplementary to try to get it right.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: When did the Minister raise the issues with the Hon David Parker that were raised at the meeting with John Darby and Ric Kayne?

Hon SHANE JONES: The issues that have been raised by me—I cannot recollect the exact date—pertain to the movement towards us exercising our sovereign power to secure our rights in the face of the trans-Pacific deal and, unfortunately, creating potential grievances under article 2 of the Treaty. I have done this on numerous occasions. I cannot recollect any specific date.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree with their contention—that’s the contention of John Darby and colleagues—that the bill as proposed would threaten regional property development projects, including their own?

Hon SHANE JONES: The Overseas Investment Amendment Bill, as it stands at the moment, is about to go into the committee stage, so let’s wait and see what’s the final shape and form. But in so far, do the policies impact negatively on the prospects of regional development? No. The Te Arai project fell as a consequence of an indigestible bird, in my view.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he concede that falling commercial construction intentions, which dropped sharply in today’s ANZ activity index from plus 5 to negative 11 percent, the lowest rate since 2011, is a sign that the effect of Government policies on property development has been disastrous?

SPEAKER: I mean, I’ll let the Minister answer it, but it’s getting a very long way away from the portfolio. But I think it’s fair to say that the Minister himself has stretched fairly broadly, both inside and outside the House.

Hon SHANE JONES: Property development prospects are growing prodigiously as a consequence of major allocations of capital and an improvement in infrastructure, and that is why my name is being issued with great glee across every province in New Zealand.

SPEAKER: Question No. 10, Darroch Ball.

Hon Nathan Guy: Seven.

SPEAKER: Sorry, I’ve gone too far. It just felt like a long time.

Mycoplasma Bovis—Response

7. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) to the Minister for Biosecurity: What recent announcements has he made regarding the response to cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Biosecurity): After listening to farmers in rural communities at Mycoplasma bovis information meetings around the country, we are making immediate changes to help the tracking and tracing of animals. The changes are aimed at giving phased eradication the best chance possible for success. They include: neighbours of infected properties will now be informed; secondly, National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) numbers of infected animals will be published on the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) website; and, thirdly, MPI will ensure enforcement of the animal status declaration form. These measured steps balance individual privacy with the need for farmers to protect their farms. In partnership with the farming sector, we are taking our one shot to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis to protect our national herd and our economic base.

Kieran McAnulty: What next steps is the Minister planning for the response?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I have asked officials to draft changes to legislation to make the response effort more efficient. Those changes include, firstly, amending the Animal Products Act to add a new infringement offence for failing to use the animal status declaration form correctly; secondly, amending the NAIT Act to bring its search powers into line with the Search and Surveillance Act; and, thirdly, new regulation to control the use of discarded milk. I’m hopeful these changes will receive support from across the political spectrum as we continue in our eradication efforts.

Hon Nathan Guy: Is he satisfied there is enough funding that’s been allocated to providers, particularly around emotional support for farming families who are having to deal with their herds being culled; so is he satisfied there is enough funding available to the likes of rural support trust to support these farming families who are having to deal with their livestock being culled, and it’s causing a huge amount of anxiety in the family home and in rural communities?

SPEAKER: The Minister can answer both those supplementaries.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Yes, to both those questions. And I have informed rural support trust, in particular, and all the organisations—Beef and Lamb and others involved—that my door is open should they feel the need to come and request for more support or information.

SPEAKER: I’ll just make it clear that only counted as one.

Health Services—National Health Targets, Removal

8. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: On which date and by what method did he advise Cabinet of his decision to dispense with the national health targets?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): This matter did not need to go to Cabinet. The data is still being collected, but we are no longer spending tens of thousands of dollars publishing it. We’re developing new measures to ensure that health dollars are delivering improved health outcomes for New Zealanders. Those measures will be taken to Cabinet in due course.

Michael Wood: Does he agree with the Prime Minister, who said of child poverty reduction targets, “Our plan is to put an end to the debate over how we measure poverty by finally agreeing a set of robust measures, but also requiring successive Governments to set targets against them.”; and if so why are targets a good thing for child poverty reduction but not health improvement?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Where there are a broad range of measures, reporting that demonstrates that public money is being well spent on services can drive improvement in health outcomes. Where there is a narrow range of targets, that can incentivise movement away from where it would produce the best outcomes for New Zealanders. To use some of the examples in the targets of the former National Government, we have targets for childhood obesity that measure the number of times someone is referred, not if they’re actually getting any better. Likewise for tobacco: if people are educated, not if they are actually giving up smoking. I think the public can see that it makes sense to have a broad range of targets that actually achieve the outcomes that New Zealanders would expect, not a narrow range of targets that drive perverse incentives in the system.

Hon Simon Bridges: In light of his answer that the scrapping of the health targets did not need to go to Cabinet, why did the Prime Minister say, in this question time, that they did go?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member should not be allowed to get away with predicating a question on a falsehood, which he just did. Go and check the Hansard.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Acting Prime Minister a very clear question about why this didn’t go to Cabinet. He made clear it did.

SPEAKER: I’m not prepared to referee this. I’ve had an assurance from the Prime Minister that he did not say that, and, on that basis, the question is out of order.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: In respect of—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Both of you—please. [Interruption] I think the Prime Minister will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: In respect of his reply to my supplementary question, in referencing and criticising the vagueness of obesity targets is he aware that those very targets were introduced in 2007 by former health Minister the Hon Pete Hodgson?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: This Government acts on evidence; I don’t know what that Government did in its day—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was pretty direct.

SPEAKER: No, I don’t need a point of order. I need an answer.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: There are a range of targets that were introduced over time. There are performance measures that have been improved over time. We support those ones that are improving the outcomes for New Zealanders, not ones that are driving perverse incentives.

SPEAKER: No; it’s still not an answer. Answer the question please.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I’m not sure whether that particular one was introduced by Mr Hodgson, as the member’s suggesting—

SPEAKER: OK. Thank you.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he stand by his statement “when the overall statistics showed that the number of electives was going up, yet in centres like Northland, Auckland, Counties Manukau, Bay of Plenty, and Waikato, if Avastin injections and skin lesion removals were taken out of those pumped-up statistics, the actual number of surgeries was dropping.”; and if so, will he release those statistics?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The statistics that I was referring to were ones that were given by the previous Government, when I was in Opposition. They were reported in a news story on TV3 and used for that story, and they showed that when Avastin injections and skin lesion removals were taken out, in many areas of the country the statistics were going down. For example, in 2016, across New Zealand, ear, nose, and throat surgeries dropped, paediatric surgeries dropped, and general surgeries dropped—across New Zealand.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I realise it had two legs, but the question was “Will he release those statistics?” and he referred to them again in his answer.

SPEAKER: I think I might be over-interpreting. I think what the Minister actually said is he doesn’t need to, because they’re already in the public arena.

Inland Revenue Department—Families Package Administration and Business Transformation Project

9. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Revenue: What additional payments or changes to existing payments has his Government required Inland Revenue to administer?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): We’ve asked IRD to administer elements of our Families Package as part of the existing administration of Working for Families tax credits, the independent earner tax credit, and paid parental leave.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What advice did he receive from the Commissioner of Inland Revenue on the ability of IRD’s computer systems to cope with processing the Best Start tax credit payments?

Hon STUART NASH: The commissioner of IRD assured both me and the Minister of Finance that the IRD computer system can handle all payments without any difficulty.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he concerned with Stuff headlines yesterday that “Accountants fume over ‘perfect storm’ at Inland Revenue” and reports that many accountants are experiencing delays and issues logging on to the myIR tax system?

Hon STUART NASH: I think that headline was slightly disingenuous. What I can tell the member is that, last week, 700,000 people successfully logged on to myIR. The IRD processes 70,000 calls a week, and just yesterday 18,000 people filed returns.

Willow-Jean Prime: Is it unusual for IRD to manually process a new entitlement rather than automate during their peak season?

Hon STUART NASH: No, it isn’t. A recent example is that, in 2015, the child support changes were manually processed for a short period. Technology changes are not made during peak time, and automated processing of Best Start is expected to commence soon after 7 July.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So is he saying that everything’s fine in terms of IRD’s computer system right now?

Hon STUART NASH: In terms of IRD’s computer system, I’m assured by the commissioner that, yes, everything is fine. We are in the peak season at this point in time, but the computer system—everything is fine.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How closely is he monitoring the implementation of the billion-dollar Business Transformation project at IRD, and is he happy with progress?

Hon STUART NASH: Extremely closely.

Defence Force—Navy Patrol Vessel Activity

10. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Minister of Defence: What recent reports has he seen regarding Navy patrol vessel activity?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Yesterday, I saw a report about the successful ongoing deployment of the inshore patrol vessel HMNZS Taupo to Fiji. I was particularly pleased to hear that the combined operation, on its first patrol, confiscated the entire catch of six commercial fishing vessels that were alleged to have been fishing illegally inside the Quelelevu lagoon, which is traditional fishing ground. This is part of Operation Wasawasa II, where New Zealand and Fiji are working together to help patrol Fiji’s exclusive economic zone and enforce regulations for inshore fishing. Working with HMNZS Taupo are sailors from both the New Zealand and Fijian navies, and fisheries officers from both New Zealand and Fiji, as well. I’d like to congratulate the commanding officer of Taupo, Lieutenant Ben Flight, and his crew for their outstanding work.

Darroch Ball: How does Operation Wasawasa II support the Government’s Pacific reset?

Hon RON MARK: Navy patrols into the Pacific help aid regional prosperity and security, which is of fundamental importance to New Zealand. The Pacific faces a growing array of challenges. The strategic environment is also changing and becoming more contested. Recognising this, New Zealand has announced a reset of our approach to the region. Joint operations such as Wasawasa II are an important aspect of the Government’s focus on building deeper partnerships in cooperation with Pacific Island nations and assisting them in building their capability and capacity to effectively monitor and patrol and police their own territorial waters. This deeper and more mature partnership reinforces the significant increase to New Zealand’s official development assistance in the Pacific.

SPEAKER: Can I just say: both answers have been too long.

Darroch Ball: What further deployments to Fiji of navy patrol vessels will take place this year?

Hon RON MARK: In mid-August, HMNZS Taupo will be replaced by the offshore patrol vessel Otago. Otago, being a larger vessel, will conduct patrols much further out to sea, giving Fijian authorities even greater reach. Fishing, in Fiji, is their third-largest natural resource sector—

SPEAKER: OK, thank you. I think the member has answered.

Darroch Ball: What additional activity are navy patrol vessels conducting within New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone?

Hon RON MARK: Go navy. Recently, the inshore patrol vessel Hawea completed a three-day fisheries patrol on the West Coast of the South Island. Guided by information from an Air Force Orion and working with officials from the Ministry for Primary Industries, Hawea boarded 11 vessels over a 72-hour period, including six vessels of interest—

Hon Grant Robertson: How many?

Hon RON MARK: Six vessels of interest. Six infringements were detected, and this patrol is the sixth patrol conducted so far this year by our navy. I’d like to congratulate Lieutenant Troy Gordon and his crew, who are doing an outstanding job.

Police—Safer Communities and Better Public Services Targets

11. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: Did Cabinet make a decision to formally abolish the Safer Communities package targets for the New Zealand Police of 98 percent attendance at home burglaries within 48 hours and for 95 percent of New Zealanders to live within 25 km of a 24/7 Police base by June 2022; if so, when did Cabinet make that decision?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): No.

Chris Bishop: Why did he not take a paper to Cabinet formally abolishing those important targets given those targets were established by Cabinet in the first place?

Hon STUART NASH: The previous Minister never asked Cabinet to note or agree to the performance targets the Minister alludes to. [Interruption]

Chris Bishop: Does he agree with the comments of—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m just going to interrupt the member and indicate to the Opposition that they have an extra three supplementaries as a result of the animal noises from my right.

Chris Bishop: Does he agree with the comments of Police Commissioner Mike Bush, who told the Justice Committee in March, in relation to targets, that the right targets drive the right performance, and, if so, why does he think that 98 percent of burglaries being attended to within 48 hours is not the right performance target for the police?

Hon STUART NASH: Targets don’t keep our communities safe; resources do. It’s why we’re putting 1,800 more police into our front-line police over the next three years.

Chris Bishop: Well, does he agree with the comments of Mike Bush in relation to the nine performance targets set by the previous Government that “They’re the right targets for the police. They’re the things we should be aiming at. They’re the things that we, as an executive, think are the right performance outcomes for the New Zealand Police on behalf of the public that we serve.”, and, if so, why is he acting contrary to what the police commissioner thinks are the right targets for the police?

Hon STUART NASH: I see my role as the Minister of Police as providing the resources for the commissioner to actually achieve the targets of keeping our communities safe and putting the bad guys behind bars.

Chris Bishop: Why did he tell the Justice Committee a couple of weeks ago “There are only two performance targets I’ve asked the commissioner I would like to see.”, when this leaked Cabinet paper shows he wants to retain the previous Government’s 10,000 fewer serious crimes Better Public Services target and the 25 percent Māori reoffending reduction target, amongst others, and is he confident he hasn’t misled the Justice Committee?

Hon STUART NASH: There are only two performance targets I’d like to see. If the commissioner has operational targets that he’d like to deliver on, then that is fantastic and I back him on those.

Chris Bishop: Why did he tell Parliament in the annual review debate on the police that the Government was retaining the 10,000 fewer serious crimes Better Public Services target when he’s now telling the House he’s only setting two performance targets for the police?

Hon STUART NASH: I am only setting two performance targets for the police.

Housing Supply—Measures to Increase

12. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: What is the most effective measure he has put in place to increase housing supply since he received his ministerial warrant?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): There are so many and they are so interdependent that it’s difficult to single out one most effective measure. However, one important initiative was standing up for a 25-home Housing New Zealand development on Banff Avenue and calling out that member’s stigmatising of State house tenants.

David Seymour: Is that really an answer becoming of a Minister with such a large job in front of him?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes, because the issues of nimbyism, of urban intensification, and of affordable housing in our big cities have to be dealt with and addressed fairly and squarely. But we do have an urban growth agenda that is designed to increase the supply of housing—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s answered the question.

David Seymour: Is the member’s performance answering these questions today any clue as to why the new dwelling consents have not increased at all since he’s been Minister, any more than the trend he inherited?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We’ve inherited a market that is consistently underpowered and has failed to meet demand, and that’s why we have an urban growth agenda that includes reforming the planning system. It includes bringing in new sources of finance for infrastructure to support urban growth, more ambitious spatial planning between central government and local government, and a far more ambitious reform agenda than was ever attempted under the last nine years.

David Seymour: Supplementary—

SPEAKER: No, the member’s had two.

General Debate

General Debate

JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

In the next few minutes, using the privilege of this House, I’m going to outline a series of alarming and disturbing issues that have taken place under David Clark’s watch. The issues I will outline involve, firstly, an audit into fraudulent, unauthorised, and excessive uses of hundreds of thousands of dollars at the Counties Manukau District Health Board (DHB); secondly, the former DHB CEO and matters being audited subsequently being reported back to him as Director-General of Health; and, thirdly, the Minister of Health later sacking the very board members that raised the audit issues with his ministry.

On 29 January this year, the Auditor-General wrote to David Clark regarding Counties Manukau DHB and raised significant matters discovered by DHB board members during an internal audit. The Auditor-General was referring to this report: a report containing findings of an auditor’s investigation which identified remuneration and benefits paid to a senior DHB executive which were either unauthorised, excessive, or unjustified, and multiple areas where that executive exceeded their delegated financial authority. The word “fraudulent” also appears in the report.

The audit was so serious and troubling that mid - last year, two new board members, Rabin Rabindran and Mark Darrow, were involved in seeking assistance from the State Services Commissioner and the Ministry of Health. After the internal audit report was complete, using the powers of the Director-General of Health, a review was commissioned, carried out by forensic accounting firm Beattie Varley. Beattie Varley were assisted by the former Solicitor-General Michael Heron QC and Deloitte.

In December last year, the Minister issued a press release welcoming the appointment of Stephen McKernan as acting director-general. Mr McKernan’s previous experience includes him once serving as DHB CEO at Counties Manukau. The final Beattie Varley report into a DHB he once was the CEO of would eventually land on Stephen McKernan’s desk.

The situation is alarming. It’s alarming because, as a former Counties Manukau CEO, Stephen McKernan was directly mentioned in the auditor’s report, multiple times, over successive years as being involved in some of the inappropriate and unauthorised salary transactions. The Minister of Health is also involved. In March 2018, the final Beattie Varley report was returned to the ministry. A summary was requested for presentation to the Minister. Within weeks of that summary being prepared, the two DHB board members that were involved in the first discovery of the financial negligence and mismanagement, Rabin Rabindran and Mark Darrow, were sent letters by the Minister removing them from the DHB. While those board members were told the Minister wanted to rejuvenate the board, Mr Rabindran and Mr Darrow were the newest members of the board. They’ve also not been replaced, and their positions are still vacant on that DHB.

The nature of this situation is serious. We have a review of an audit that was provided to the Director-General of Health into a matter that he himself was implicated in during a past health role. We also have a Minister whose only action in this matter so far, despite having had the Auditor-General raise it with him directly, seems to have been to remove from the district health board the very members that discovered the financial negligence. They investigated it, sought an independent audit, pushed for a ministry-led review, and then got sacked from that board as soon as the review was completed.

What did David Clark do when the Auditor-General told him of significant matters involving financial practices at the district health board back in January? Why didn’t the Minister take action to ensure that the director-general, Stephen McKernan, did not play any part into a review into matters he himself was involved in while that review was being carried out using his powers as the director-general? And why is the Minister not now acting on serious issues involving the use of public money that he has known about for almost five months?

Members of a district health board have found an issue, they have investigated it, and the only thanks they’ve had for that is to be sacked from that district health board. We also know that the Minister of Health has attempted through voicemail messages to gag that district health board member—the former chairperson—from speaking publicly.

There are serious issues that David Clark—

Hon Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at that characterisation that the member’s making, saying that I attempted to gag someone. It has been clearly established that that’s not the case.

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. We are—I know this is a serious speech and an important speech. We are in the general debate, where the rules are quite a lot wider than they are, for example, at question time. I have been listening very carefully to this speech for a number of obvious reasons, and it is my view that the assertion is a refutable one and that may be the appropriate action to take.

JAMI-LEE ROSS: It’s clear from the voicemail message left by David Clark for Rabin Rabindran that the issue of future appointments was raised and the issue of media problems was also raised. That is the only real contact that member’s had from the Minister of Health recently regarding media issues. I say that these issues need serious consideration by the Auditor-General and the State Services Commissioner in future.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I think it’s very interesting today that Jami-Lee Ross has come to the House attempting to take a serious tone, attempting to deflect away from the fact that that previous Government failed the health system, failed New Zealand, for nine long years. Nine long years of neglecting the health system, and they want to come to the House today and start off with a speech making accusations about our health Minister, who is attempting to fix the damage that was caused under that previous Government. Well, I think that’s shocking—absolutely shocking.

But I understand why that member has taken that tone: an attempt to look like a serious Opposition, because, quite frankly, in the last two weeks, they’ve looked like a joke. They’ve had members going haywire. Mr Alastair Scott was out there telling the public that they’re going to sell our schools and that they’re going to sell our hospitals. First they don’t want to look after them; now they want to sell them.

They’ve got the Leader of the Opposition publicly out there making very inappropriate jokes on a radio station about a baby—thinking that he’s funny, thinking that it’s just boy humour, and thinking that New Zealanders will think it’s acceptable. Well, actually, they don’t find it acceptable, they don’t think he’s funny, and in the last two weeks the general public has been looking at that side of the House and thinking, “What a joke. What a joke of an Opposition.” And that’s why Jami-Lee Ross has come here today and attempted to look all serious, attempted to fire what he thinks are—and we know are not—credible accusations at our health Minister.

Well, it’s not going to work, Jami-Lee Ross. It’s not going to work, National. There’s a lot of repair work that needs to be done, and firing false accusations is not going to fix it.

You know, I actually think that that side of the House need to learn that New Zealanders value a few things, one of them being—

Erica Stanford: Toilets at WINZ! Ha, ha!

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: —just general respect. Someone over here’s making a joke about one of my announcements to do with WINZ offices. She thinks it’s funny. What that member’s name again?

Hon Members: Erica.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Denise Lee.

Hon Members: Erica.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Oh, Erica Stanford—sorry. She thinks it’s funny that today I announced one of the changes we’ll be making is ensuring that people who go to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) offices have access to a toilet. She thinks that’s funny. She thinks that it’s a funny matter.

It’s actually not funny, because when people go to an MSD office seeking support in very stressful situations, sometimes with children in tow, needing to queue for a long period of time because of the fact that that ministry was neglected under that Government as well and they need to go to the bathroom and they’re told, “No. Get off site.” and they lose their place in the queue—that actually is a really serious matter, and I don’t know how many times I’ve had it raised with me.

That side of the House underestimates the importance of upholding the dignity of New Zealanders, of expressing and exhibiting respect to New Zealanders seeking support from Government departments, and I think it’s shameful that she’s over there laughing about it.

This week I had the privilege of being able to announce a package of changes to the way we operate MSD. Moving forward, if you go to an MSD office, unless there is some serious risk imposed, you’re not going to be asked for identification or checked off on a list. When you walk in, you’re going to be greeted warmly.

If you want a glass of water when you’re in an MSD office, you can get that glass of water.

Erica Stanford: Ha, ha!

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There is going to be a space set up so that while parents—and she’s still laughing. She’s still laughing. Obviously, that woman is completely out of touch with New Zealanders and does not know that the majority of New Zealanders have to access support from MSD.

There will be a space where children can keep themselves entertained or parents can entertain them while they’re waiting to be seen. There’s a new eligibility guide, which will mean that New Zealanders can check online what they might be entitled to so we can ensure that they are getting everything that they need.

There is a new client commitment—and I need to tell that side of the House that I think it’s shameful under them that the charter that had been established by the previous Government disappeared and that they had no regard for ensuring that clients of MSD were treated respectfully. That is just only a few of the measures that we introduced this week.

It is only the beginning. There is much more to do to fix up the damage caused under that side of the House over the last nine years.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I find it difficult to take the Government’s claims of being concerned about the quality of social and health services when it is systematically removing any of the meaningful targets for delivery of social and other services, of which the most recent is the Minister of Health unilaterally abandoning any targets for performance in our public health system.

You see, in January this year, the Government dropped the Better Public Service targets, administered by the State Services Commission. These covered important areas, like a target to reduce by 10,000 the number of New Zealanders that are victims of crime, goals like reducing by 20 percent the number of people that are high-priority applicants for social housing, things like reducing the number of hospitalisations of children from preventable diseases, and things like reducing the number of people that are on long-term welfare. You have to ask the question: why on earth is the Government wanting to remove these performance measures on improvement in areas like health?

It’s not just health; we’re seeing it in education. We’re seeing it, as highlighted by Chris Bishop, in the area of police. Take the area of education, being championed by my colleague Nikki Kaye. The Government, with great fanfare, in January, removed the specific national targets on literary and numeracy and has left a vacuum for schools about what they are to do. I had representations from boards of trustees in my own Nelson community this week, alarmed at not being able to have, in future, reliable data on how well their children are doing. And it’s not just for parents; it’s for boards of trustees, it’s for principals, and it’s for ensuring good knowledge about where our Ministry of Education and Education Review Office should be intervening. Equally, it applies to the secondary sector, where, again, we’re wanting to take away national measures of how well our children are doing in secondary education with the changes around NCEA.

Then we come to yesterday’s announcements about district health boards (DHBs). We currently require our 20 district health boards to report their performance on six specific health goals—things like improving timeliness of being able to be seen in an emergency department, improving access to elective surgery, making sure people are getting timely access to cancer treatment, improving immunisation rates, making sure that we have active smoke-free campaigns and more New Zealanders quitting smoking, and improving the health status of our families and children. Why on earth do members opposite want to stop measuring and having targets in those sorts of areas?

You see, the value of being a local member of Parliament is that I can see how my DHB is doing. I’m hugely proud that the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board ranks amongst the best in terms of progress on emergency department see times, but, equally, I know that my own DHB is not cutting the mustard when it comes to smoking cessation rates. I suggest a key reason for these targets being removed is simply that this Government does not want to be accountable for actually delivering practical results for New Zealanders. We know the last Labour Government increased health funding by 50 percent and, at the same time, delivered no increase in elective surgeries.

Then we come to an area such as police, where we had very specific targets: 98 percent of burglaries being dealt with within 48 hours—target removed. Same again in respect of accessibility—no target for rural New Zealanders to access police services. What a contradiction in setting targets on child poverty but removing, across the State sector, any meaningful measure of how well this Government is doing. It’s a shambles, it’s a disappointment, and New Zealanders deserve better.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. It was 30 years ago this week that James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard space science centre told the US Senate in historic testimony, “The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.” Thirty years on, that same scientist says the world is failing miserably at the challenge of climate change. If you look at the science, someone born 30 years ago today has not known a below-average global temperature month their entire lifetime. What we know of global climate policy 30 years on is the temperature’s still rising, pollution’s still rising, the ice caps are still melting, the seas are still rising. We’re seeing more extreme weather events: we’re seeing floods, droughts, fire—an increase in them; the speed is taking off. Even this week, in Nature it was reported some of the world’s oldest trees—Africa’s baobab trees—are dying and climate change is the prime culprit. These trees have survived since the Roman Empire, gone through multiple climate fluctuations; yet rapid climate change is affecting them now.

Amidst the floods, the droughts, the wildfires there is a ray of hope in what is otherwise a doom and gloom story. And here’s where I in the general debate actually do a shout-out to the National Party. A ray of hope is the call from Simon Bridges to work with the Government on climate change issues. I’m incredibly hopeful. It’s something I know James Shaw, as our country’s climate change Minister, wants to see, cross-party consensus on climate policy. We need to see, we want to see, an enduring climate solution, and having all parties agree to it would be a step forward.

But it reminds me of a time that I was in Kiribati with Murray McCully about six or seven years ago. There, some of the poorest people in a country no more than half a metre above sea level—for them climate change, they told me, wasn’t something happening in the Arctic or in the academic papers; it was something happening there, now. It was their lived experience. In fact, they were using the only materials at their disposal—rubbish and waste—to try and build sea walls to stop the rising seas coming in. What could I, as a New Zealand politician six or seven years ago, say to them? The official Government line back under the previous Government, that we were such a small country that our emissions didn’t matter? Could I say to them that, in fact, the Government policies were intensifying—more cows, more coal, more carbon—that the Government was gutting the emissions trading scheme; that we were a so-called “fast follower” on the world stage; that our country was approaching climate change deals as trade deals, trying to maximise opportunities for our self-benefit, despite the impact on countries like Kiribati? I felt deeply ashamed as a Kiwi on the world stage, knowing we weren’t doing enough.

I contrast that to earlier this year, when I was talking to representatives from Mauritius and the Seychelles—again, small Island States. I was so proud to be able to tell them that, under the current Government, the Government was setting a bold, visionary, world-first, zero carbon by 2050 target. It was a Government which was fixing our emissions trading scheme. It was a Government which was establishing a Climate Commission; investigating 100 percent clean energy, solar panels on schools, a revamped home insulation scheme; stopping coalmining on the conservation estate; and starting a just transition away from oil drilling. We actually, finally, saw a separation of oil and State—no more subsidies going to the oil drillers and polluters. It was such a contrast, because here we have a historic opportunity to do something about climate change, to do something for our friends and whānau in the Pacific, in Kiribati and other countries—a transformational opportunity.

And here is where the opportunity is for the National Party, because they’ve said they’re going to reset their policies on the environment, I think acknowledging the terrible track record we saw. So my challenge to National is: are you going to walk the walk on climate change and environmental policy, or just talk the talk? It’s not a reset if you still support coalmining, oil drilling, fracking, dairy intensification, gutting the emissions trading scheme. That’s not a reset; that’s the same old pollution story set on replay. So you have the opportunity on the zero-carbon Act to work constructively for an enduring climate solution, but it has to be a climate solution.

We’ve seen 30 years of excuses, 30 years of avoiding responsibility, 30 years of debating the science but not doing anything about it. We have the opportunity today. We need to make sure that the zero-carbon Act is inclusive of all gases, that there are binding climate targets set by the Climate Commission, that there’s real action. I urge National to act on climate change, just like I urge all New Zealanders to have their say on the zero-carbon Act consultations, which are happening right now.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): When I get out and about in communities across New Zealand, one of the biggest things that comes up is what will happen in 2020. Will people kick this Government out because they see a disorganised, inexperienced Government that doesn’t believe in accountability, or will they trust them? My submission to the House is that we are in uncharted waters. We are in a period whereby this Government is dismantling every single aspect of accountability. Let me run you through it.

At the very basic level, this Government said they would be an open Government. Who is leading that great white hope? Clare Curran, and we know what happened there. We know, in the Opposition, that we have more redacted information; we have, arguably, blanket redactions occurring from across Ministers. This is not an open Government. When it comes to Cabinet Ministers and conflicts of interest, again, do we know anything or have any form of detail in terms of what Kelvin Davis actually declared? What we know is that partnership schools were discussed at the Cabinet table, but we can’t get information in terms of basic conflicts of interest. We hear this played out again with regard to David Parker, but this Government doesn’t believe in following the Cabinet Manual, and it gets away with it.

Then when we look at Cabinet papers—“What are Cabinet papers? We don’t need Cabinet papers”—we had the Minister of Education announce cohort entry without even talking to his coalition partners or providing a Cabinet paper. We had Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announcing major decisions around oil and gas, but who needs a Cabinet paper? So, gone are the rules of the Cabinet Manual, gone are basic Cabinet processes in terms of Cabinet papers, gone is open Government. But also, at the very basic level, you would think that Ministers would want to be accountable for things like education and health. We hear this week the extraordinary situation—health targets are gone. We know they’ve already scrapped national standards. What is this about? This is about a Government that is not only inexperienced, disorganised, ideological, but doesn’t want to be held to account by New Zealanders at all for any form of basic targets in health and education, and that is appalling.

What we also know is there are other things that they are doing in terms of displacing accountability. We know that—separate to having no real rules around Cabinet papers, no real rules around the Cabinet Manual—at the very heart of their Government agenda we can’t get transparency around what is actually a Government commitment versus Labour Party manifesto versus the coalition’s agenda. So when we get around New Zealand, people are saying to me, “What does this Government stand for?” We’ve been through a process trying to get clarity on what the coalition agreed to over the next three years; we can’t get that.

We now have information being blocked by the Official Information Act. There aren’t any Cabinet papers. The Cabinet Manual doesn’t apply. This is a basic dismantling of our Government, and this week’s scrapping of the health targets is just another move by this Government to not be accountable for what it’s not achieving. Why do we know they don’t want any of these measures in place? Because we know they promised things that they can’t deliver. We see this in education—18 broken promises, scaled-back promises—because they naively went into an election, promised the world, they couldn’t deliver, and what they’re doing now is making sure they cover up and remove any—

Hon Member: Cover up!

Hon NIKKI KAYE: —form of accountability to New Zealanders—

SPEAKER: Order! No, I didn’t tell the member to sit down. I told the member who made an inappropriate interjection—I called him to order. The member has another 45 seconds if she wants.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. At the heart of why people will elect Governments in the future, it comes down to trust. Our submission on this side of the House is that we are dealing with the most inexperienced, ideological Government in our nation’s history. At every level, they are dismantling both the Cabinet process—in terms of Cabinet papers. They’re not following the Cabinet Manual. They’re getting rid of health targets. They’re getting rid of education targets. They’re doing that because they know that, when it comes to 2020, they won’t have delivered, because they overpromised, they couldn’t pay for it, and that is a tragedy for our democratic system.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Civil Defence): Can I begin by acknowledging and congratulating our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern—the boss—and Clarke, a former flatmate of mine in my student days, but we’ll leave it at that, for the arrival of young Neve last week. We hope that they are relaxing at home, enjoying some time off—a change of mode for the Prime Minister, but well deserved.

Can I just begin by responding to one comment from the previous speaker, Nikki Kaye, around transparency and put that in the context of one example that has stuck out for me that I remember very well from the last term of Government, where, all through some documents about a housing roadshow, just two lines were deleted. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand, in the context of the documents, why these two lines had been redacted from all these documents. You know, we could have left it alone or we could have pursued it. We did pursue it, but we still didn’t get any traction on the lines that were redacted, apart from where one official, I think, made a mistake and didn’t redact those two lines in an email. It said, “We want to make sure that there’s this Government-funded roadshow because one of the National Party MPs at the time was thinking about running for a by-election and wanted to lift her profile.” Now, I wondered why you would want to have that redacted, and why the Government would want that redacted, so if you’re going to start throwing around stones about transparency, you’d just better be a little bit careful about your track record in the previous nine years.

So, as well as acknowledging the boss, I’d also to acknowledge one of my colleagues in the House who is with us today, because we went and did a tour of the Wairarapa together, and that is my friend Kieran McAnulty.

Kieran McAnulty: Top bloke—top bloke.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Ha, ha! We started our day at Carterton, went to Masterton, and finished it up in Dannevirke. One day in about 2½ years, he will make a great member of Parliament for Wairarapa, because the current guy is making an absolute meal of it. We also heard from the previous speaker about dismantling of what we hold true here in New Zealand, but I just want to take a moment of time from last week where the National Party went back to the 1980s and Alastair Scott, the current member of Parliament for Wairarapa—I hope he’s not the policy chair for them—made some utterings in this House which, if you’re worried about accusations of dismantling from this side of the House, this guy’s taking it to another level.

In the front page of the Wairarapa Times-Age at the weekend, and I quote, “National’s associate finance spokesperson is unapologetic” for saying Governments shouldn’t own hospitals and questioning whether they should own schools, and “says there needs to be a debate about what governments should own.” So if that’s a debate that’s happening in the National Party caucus room, in 2020 we know what’s going to happen. We absolutely know what’s going to happen, because that’s the chair of the National Party policy council, Alastair Scott, and the National Party caucus was talking about selling schools and selling hospitals and not owning roads again. That’s a pretty solid three-plank campaign for them to put out, and I absolutely know the result that’ll happen.

But he doubled down—he doubled down. Alastair Scott didn’t stop there. He said, “Just imagine if we sold $30 billion worth of housing assets and gave it to 65,000 tenants and said, ‘See you later. Find a place to live.’ ” So, not content with selling hospitals and schools, he said we should just give away the housing estate. This is the man from Wairarapa, who no one recognises in his own electorate, who is driving the policy platform of the National Party for the next 2½ years. It’s very rich to sit on that side of the House and accuse us of dismantling what has been built up over decades when the policy chair of the National Party, the MP for Wairarapa, says we should sell the hospitals, sell the schools, and sell the houses. If that’s what the National Party wants to do to pull its policy together for the next 2½ years, then I say bring on 2020.

On 1 July—not too far away—in the short space of time we’ve had in Government, in this coalition, we’re going to start helping families in a very meaningful way. On 1 July, hundreds of thousands of more families will get support through Best Start; new mothers and families—thousands of more families—will get $75 more a week. So if you want to talk about dismantling, talk about the guys who want to sell the houses, the hospitals, and the schools.

SPEAKER: Just before I call the member, I just want to indicate to Matt King that you’re not allowed to eat in the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Call me Nostradamus, but I predict—

Kieran McAnulty: OK, Nostradamus. How you going, Nostradamus?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Thank you very much. Because I predict that somebody is going to come down to this House and make a correction and an apology, and my question is: is it going to be the Hon David Clark or the Rt Hon Winston Peters? Two things cannot both be true at the same time. In response to a question from the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Simon Bridges, Mr Peters said in regard to health targets, “well, the Hon David Clark came along with a system and plan and policies of hope to improve public health and Cabinet members agreed with him.” Then David Clark told me, in question 8, “[The] matter did not need to go to Cabinet.” Both of those things can’t be true. So either people are being forgetful—possibly asleep in Cabinet; you never know. But both of those two things cannot be correct.

Mr Peters’ comment is most interesting when he says the policies are policies of hope. That’s it: we hope things get better in the health sector. Well, in the National Government, and, as a matter of fact, in the previous Labour Government—the Clark Government—hope wasn’t good enough; targets were. Right across the country, in every national daily paper, every few months, was this chart that I’m holding, and it was read very, very carefully by people down my way and, I expect, right across the country. It’s entitled “How is my DHB performing?” and it has the quarterly results for things that matter to New Zealanders, matter to constituents: shorter stays in emergency departments, improved access to elective surgery, cancer treatment waiting times, immunisation, smoking cessation, and raising healthy kids. Mr Clark decides that they’re not good enough—they have perverse incentives.

Well, he should firstly do a bit of research about the origins of these, because he said in question time, in respect of the diabetes targets, the former National Government had “targets for childhood obesity that measured the number of times someone is referred, not if they’re getting … better.” Well, actually, that’s not true. That was a target of the previous Labour Government, and this document I’m holding is the document released, I am interested to note, by Dr Clark’s predecessor, Mr Pete Hodgson. He introduced the diabetes target that the National Government got rid of, because we agreed with Dr Clark that it wasn’t tight enough.

Let’s have a look at the results that occurred when those targets were being monitored and measured and published to the public. Emergency department waiting times—the best independent academic research by the University of Waikato says that 700 lives were saved—

Hon Member: How many?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —700 lives were saved every year by setting a target of no more than six hours’ waiting time in the emergency department. If that’s a perverse incentive, I’ll take it. Immunisation rates—up from 63 percent to 92 percent. The document that the previous Labour Government put in place talked about Māori and Pasifika inequalities. Well, the really important part of the immunisation target was that Māori and Pasifika immunisation rates were higher than non-Māori, and that is an outstanding achievement by our health authorities. Case-weighted discharges went up massively, elective surgery went up, and Dr Clark talks about, “Oh, well, they were eye injections, some of them.” Well, in his part of the country, in the Southern District Health Board, people were going blind because of disorganisation in the eye department at Dunedin Hospital, and he says that an eye injection is not important. Well, I bet it was important to those people with macular degeneration who did go blind and should not have.

What I don’t understand is how inconsistent these targets are. We’ve lost national standards, we’ve lost all of the Better Public Services targets, and now the health targets are not important to this Government. But, somehow, child poverty reduction is so important that the Prime Minister, when she was in Opposition and was spokesperson for social development, decried the previous National Government for not having a single target—a target that could be measured and published and endure across Governments. The only pattern that I can see out of the inconsistency is that anything the National Government did this Government is going to undo, and anything that it does is great and the right thing to do, but not when the previous Government did it. That is a real shame. It’s an ideological nonsense and it has to stop.

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): It’s always good to start off a debate with a real story about real people’s lives, and just last weekend I was holding a street corner meeting in Hutt South. It did happen to be raining, but, even though it was raining, people still came out. Even more interesting than the fact that people came out in the rain was that one of them self-confessed that they were a previous National voter. They came out in the rain, on a cold Sunday afternoon, to say thank you—to say “Thank you for the winter energy payment.” That person was over 65, and that person had struggled in the years before in paying their heating bill over those winter months. They said that even though they had voted National in the past, they were so grateful for having a Government that actually put people first and started caring about people. That pretty much sums up the state of the current National Party—that you’ve got former National voters coming out in the rain to say thank you to a Government who actually cares about people and their well-being.

We have a Government who is putting people first. And people are reminded of what they might have got under a National Government when you hear sterling comments from Alastair Scott, the associate member for finance, that Government shouldn’t own schools; not only that but they shouldn’t own roads—not even the tarmac, we shouldn’t own the tarmac; we’d like to privatise tarmac—and, furthermore, we shouldn’t be owning hospitals. Asked if Wairarapa Hospital should be sold or not, the member replied that he hadn’t thought about it. So at this point, it’s always quite good to do a bit of compare and contrast, and I just so happen to have the other example sitting quite handy, and his name is Kieran McAnulty. He’s the Labour list person based in Wairarapa. Just so you know the difference between the two, Kieran McAnulty won’t be selling Wairarapa Hospital, that’s his position, whereas the other guy, who lives in Wellington, is not so sure what will happen with Wairarapa Hospital.

Kieran McAnulty: Where does he live?

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN: I think he lives in Wellington, actually.

So Labour has always delivered to the people who need it the most. Labour has always based itself on making sure that we have those people who need it getting the basics they need. Part of that is not just houses, it’s not just wages, education, and health; it’s also about changing the culture of our organisations that provide basic services to people. It’s so heartening to hear what the Minister for Social Development has delivered in terms of changing the culture within organisations like the Ministry of Social Development by giving people a place to get a drink, to use a toilet, for children to be able to play while their parents wait to get services. That’s how you treat people—giving them the basics and giving people the respect and decency to get a good start and get on with their lives.

But as well as doing those basic things that we’ll be delivering for families—like the Best Start payment, like the winter energy payment, and by not giving tax cuts to the top 10 percent—we are also helping those families in the middle. It’s those families in the $70,000 to $100,000 per household bracket that are better off under this Government. It’s those families that also benefit in the middle. And when I’m standing outside the school gates talking with mums and dads, who are often on one salary for the best for their kids, when they’ve got two or three kids at school, it’s hard over winter. It’s hard to pay the power bill, it’s hard to be able to run the car and do those things, it’s hard to be able to look after kids and buy those school uniforms, and it’s hard to be able to make things go over the time where people are needing the doctor more and power bills are going up over those cold months. So it is really good to see the changes happening in the Families Package that will help people in New Zealand in the middle that struggle as well, and I’m proud to see this Government delivering those things.

This is s a Government that delivers to people, and the more we see those people receiving the benefits of this Government the more the shine goes off the National Party. We see that when we even hear Matthew Hooton saying that Simon Bridges should stay off Radio Hauraki. He’s giving his own advice that that should be a good measure for him to make on Radio New Zealand—good advice there from Matthew Hooton. And all we can hear from the other side of the House is that the Better Public Services (BPS) targets are great. BPS targets were never even met. This is a Government who is delivering for people in real terms, and it’s about time that the Opposition realise we’re on a winner.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak and participate in this general debate. The previous speaker, Virginia Andersen, mentioned “real people”, and I would like to acknowledge the real people who are working hard in the dairy shops, working at the liquor shops, and working at the petrol stations. When they talk to me, they tell the real stories. There are two things which they do mention from time to time. The first is safety—they feel insecure in their businesses. The second is the constant drop in business. They are worried about the economy. They have seen that, in about the past eight or nine months, sales are going down, and they are really worried about both of those things.

The previous speaker also mentioned some of the other issues being raised with her, like some of the National Party members saying thank you to this Government. I’m also talking about a real person: the councillor in South Auckland Efeso Collins. What was the promise by the Labour Party before the election? It was that there would be no fuel tax—and, from 1 July, we will have a regional fuel tax. What Councillor Collins said was that it is going to take food off the table of poor people living in South Auckland. But there was not a single mention from any of the Labour Party speakers who participated in this debate that they are going to increase the fuel tax.

Some of my colleagues—Chris Bishop, as well as the Hon Michael Woodhouse—interrogated two Ministers about the targets which have been dropped: one was Dr David Clark, and the other was Stuart Nash. We know that this present coalition Government doesn’t believe in targets, but without targets, how are you going to measure what results have been achieved? We know that when we announced the Safer Communities package in February last year, we set a target that 98 percent of burglaries would be attended by the police within 48 hours. That would have given a lot of confidence to the shopkeepers to whom I talk from time to time, and they always raise this concern with me. The second target was that 95 percent of New Zealanders would live within 25 kilometres of 24/7 police stations. That was another target which could have given confidence to the people living in that range, but those two targets have been dropped.

It is not just those two targets, but we were going to invest in the wider justice sector to reduce reoffending. That is another way we can make sure that people feel safe in their businesses or in their home, and that has also gone. We know this Government is not at all worried about the safety of people. We also wanted to ensure that the extra 1,125 police officers, out of which 880 were going to be front line, would have been distributed in 12 different police districts. Every police district would have got extra police officers due to this expansion of our commitment in the National Party.

These are the things which really make a difference, and we know that the health targets, which were set up by us, were transparent, sharing with the public how the district health boards were performing—and that was one of the things which was transparent. We have also seen that the national standards in education are also gone. That is another measurement which was very important for students. We know that families which are working hard in dairy shops, petrol stations, and liquor shops want to ensure their kids get the best education, and that is how we can see that the diverse workforce is coming out of the universities, who are paying a good amount of taxes and are very capable of serving this country. With these words, I complete my speech.

JO LUXTON (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s my absolute pleasure to stand here and take a call in the general debate this afternoon, and it is also an absolute pleasure to be a part of this coalition Government. I also want to just make note of the Hon Carmel Sepuloni and the announcements that she has made today around making the Ministry of Social Development a friendlier place to go. I commend her on that because I myself have experienced firsthand just how intimidating and frightening and uncomfortable it can be to walk into a place like that when you are feeling in an extremely vulnerable state. So I really want to commend her for making it such a friendly place for people.

The reason I’m really proud to be part of this particular Government is that this is a Government that puts people first. We stand up for hard-working New Zealanders and we have different priorities to the previous Government, and that’s why we have cancelled the tax cuts that they had proposed. We had people on low and fixed incomes suffering hardship under the previous Government, and it made absolutely no sense to have tax cuts that are just going to line the pockets of the top 10 percent income earners. It makes about as much sense as the associate finance spokesperson and MP for Wairarapa, Alastair Scott, who says that we should be selling our schools and our roads and our hospitals. You know, I worry for the people of Wairarapa should he become the Minister of Finance, given the fact that he hasn’t even said he would rule out selling their hospital. But that’s OK, because there is help on the way in the form of Kieran McAnulty, who will be elected as the local MP in 2020.

Anyway, coming back to our Families Package. The Families Package is going to be transformational. It is ambitious, and there is nothing wrong with being transformational or ambitious. It is long overdue that we have a Government that is transformational and ambitious. Everybody knows that people do better when they have a good job, they earn a fair day’s pay, they have access to good healthcare, and they have access to a good education. This Government has developed a suite of policies that address that, and hundreds and thousands of people will be better off.

We know New Zealanders are resilient, and they’ve been resilient in the face of some pretty difficult and trying times; needless to say, especially over the last nine years. But now there is a bright light at the end of that very long, dark nine-year tunnel, and it is in the form of this coalition Government that is ambitious and will be transformational. When I say hundreds and thousands of people will be better off, I’m talking about the 64,000 children that will be lifted out of poverty as a result of this package, the 26,000 more families that will become eligible for Working for Families assistance, and 384,000 families with children will be better off by an average of $75 a week. And, yes, families with babies born from 1 July will get a Best Start payment of $60 each week to help give their child the best start in life.

I also want to talk about the winter energy payment that approximately a million people will benefit from. I want to think about it in terms of superannuitants. In the electorate where I live, Rangitata, around 20 percent, or one in five, of the population will benefit in particular from the winter energy payment. We hear the rhetoric across the House about people that are rich that are going to get it that don’t need it. Well, they can opt out so they don’t have to receive it. But we do know that our elderly are some of our most vulnerable people, who will not turn heaters on and will just sit under blankets in the cold to save power.

When I think about this Government and how transformational it wants to be, I think about a video that I watched on Facebook the other day, and it was of Oprah Winfrey giving a speech at a graduation. She ended her speech quoting poet, singer, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, and it really hit home. She said, “Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched, every person whose life was either moved or not. It’s every person you’ve harmed or helped. That’s your legacy. Feel everything with love because every moment you are building your legacy.”

This coalition Government is building its legacy for the betterment of those who we are here to serve, from one suburb to another, from one generation to the next. Thank you.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): This is a Government without standards, and I mean that literally. They have no standards, because they’re dropping them faster than David Parker dropped his mate John Darby off his speed dial. Health targets: well, they went yesterday. This Government doesn’t want to measure emergency department waiting times. They don’t want to measure immunisation rates. They don’t want to measure smoking, cancer treatments, or elective surgeries. We lost Better Public Services targets almost straight after the election. Carmel Sepuloni doesn’t want to set targets around reducing long-term welfare dependency. But don’t worry; it’s all right, because she’s putting water in Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ). You can have a drink. Don’t worry, Greens, about taking your KeepCups to WINZ, because Carmel Sepuloni is going to have a glass of water for you when you walk in the door.

Our legacy: 30,000 kids out of welfare-dependent households under our term, and we know that because we measured it. Carmel Sepuloni’s legacy: well, you can have some water when you walk into WINZ. What a joke. And she gets her poor backbenchers to stand up here, who have to back her up—Jo Luxton and Ginny Andersen, and I remember your names because I have manners.

We’ve lost national standards because this lowering and scrapping of standards has seeped its way into our education system as well. Here we are, scrapping national standards, and we’re having a nationwide discussion about this Government’s plans to dumb down NCEA. It’s one thing to drop standards by which we measure this Government, but when this seeps into the lives of our children, when this Government tars our kids with their brush of mediocrity, then we have a problem.

This is a Government that when they’re faced with a measure that they can’t escape, like, let’s say, the latest business confidence surveys, they have this knee-jerk reaction to rubbish such a measure. What was it that Grant Robertson said the other day when he was confronted with these plummeting business confidence figures? He rubbishes the usefulness of the measure. “Oh, well, it’s about reality not perception.”, he says. David Parker says that they’re just unreliable junk. Or when Treasury delivers a report that the Government doesn’t like, what are their default positions? They rubbish the people who prepare the report, referring to them as kids who are completely disconnected from reality. So this is a Government that drops their own standards, rubbishes outside standards that they don’t like, and rubbishes the people who prepare reports that they don’t like.

This new Government knows full well, if we can measure them then they will be found wanting. It’s a classic Labour move, and I’m never sure if it’s nature or nurture with these guys. Do these Labour Ministers get into power and predict their own ineptitude by dropping standards just as an instinctive defence reaction to protect themselves from being found out? Or is it page 1, chapter 1 of the Labour Party playbook entitled Political Survival? Step one: befuddle the public with waffly rhetoric and over-the-top virtue signalling. Step two: remove all standards and measurable targets, describing them as having perverse outcomes, aka Dr Clark. Step three: tax and spend. I truly cannot figure out if this is political ignorance or political arrogance, although I think it may actually be a combination of the two.

Chris Bishop: It’s both.

ERICA STANFORD: It’s both. This may be about political survival for the Labour Party, but the reality is this is about actual survival for New Zealanders, because one of the health targets that this Government is dropping is the emergency department wait times, which saved 700 lives around this country last year. So while David Clark might think that this target is a perverse outcome, I’d like him to take that vision to one of the 700 New Zealanders who are still alive today because of those targets and run that by them and see what they say.

I almost feel sorry for Clare Curran—almost. That poor woman has to uphold the virtues of open and transparent Government in a climate of murky opaqueness, because when it comes to measures and standards that hold these Ministers to account, well it’s all a little bit too hard.

One of the measures that they cannot escape is the next election. I wonder if they’ll set a target for that or if it will just be about the vibe of winning. Either way, they’re in trouble. But, more importantly, New Zealanders are in trouble if this is how they’re going to continue.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s a real pleasure to speak today in this general debate and to really celebrate the great achievements that this Government has had over the past month. When I was thinking about and reflecting on them, it fell quite nicely to think about what this Government has done for people from cradle to grave. Right from the moment people are born, from when a young child is born, this Government has taken steps which will look after them right through to their senior years.

So, if we think about it, already, right out of the gate, so to speak, this Government enhanced paid parental leave so that children could be with their parents for longer and those parents would have some financial support there as well. Best Start payments are about to begin—$60 a week for newborns, up to two years old, just to take an additional amount of that financial pressure off; another step that’s really looking at those first two years. And, of course, in the Budget, there was additional funding for midwives—midwives, who had been left behind for years and years. So there you have it. In those first months and years, that’s what this Government has done.

Then what about children? Well, children, as we know, are a real focus for this Government, and I’m very proud that the Prime Minister has taken on the portfolio for child poverty reduction. What we’ve done there is to increase access to up to 14 years for free GP visits. We’ve increased ORS learning support—the ongoing resourcing scheme. And, I must say, in St Peter’s, one of my own schools, in my own electorate, one of the things they have said time and again is that we need more special learning support for those students, and also to take the pressure off so that better attention can be given to students who don’t need special support but who need to have their teachers paying them ordinary attention. Extending the nurses in schools programme to decile 4 schools, and, of course, an across-the-board increase for early childhood education. So children in preschool and in schools are being looked after by this Government, and I really do celebrate that.

Young people: well, we know that we’ve got a fantastic fees-free first-year scheme for vocational training, polytechs, apprenticeships, and other training as well. So we’re getting people off to a good start so they’re not going to be burdened with debt when they leave their tertiary education institution—and, of course, an increased student allowance and reviewing the eligibility for those students’ allowances as well. So that’s fantastic. So those young people—and then, perhaps they move on and they have families.

The Working for Families package is at the centre of what this Government is doing: increasing payments for the eldest child and children under 16; 26,000 more families eligible, That is absolutely fantastic. Accommodation supplement increases: this is addressing a package which has been languishing for years and needed an absolute review. Extending the community services card. And, you know what? I’m really proud to say that we’ve done things for working young people as well. You know, the previous speaker, Erica Stanford, proudly said that she got her start in life working in The Warehouse for $4.50 an hour. Well, I say, “Good on her.” But, you know what? I don’t want to be in a country where people, when they make their way in life, look back and say, “I was being paid a paltry wage.” I want everyone to be paid a decent wage, and raising the minimum wage is a part of that—and also reinstating the tax credit, the worker tax credit, which the National Party would have done away with. That’s something which working people on modest incomes get and deserve.

And, then, for other New Zealanders—New Zealanders who are bang in the middle—we’ve done a whole lot. We’ve restarted contributions to the national super fund so that we’ll be able to afford that into the future. We’ve moved to address the infrastructure deficit and have started to ensure that New Zealanders will be able to buy a home by banning foreign buyers and by starting KiwiBuild, addressing supply and demand, both at the same time.

And seniors—right through to seniors: winter energy payment, keeping our treasured senior people warm in winter, and, of course, we’ve got the insulation subsidies off again for people in their own homes. We have done a fantastic job for New Zealanders at every stage of their life, and I celebrate that here today.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I move, That the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It is a great day for me and for the credit union and friendly societies sector to have a much needed upgrade to outdated and inadequate legislation. This has not been for the want of trying. This particular bill has had several lives but never quite got in front of the Parliament. It’s here today, and I hope, with great anticipation, that it passes through the third reading today. It has had unanimous support to date.

I would like to thank all of the submitters to this bill and the Finance and Expenditure Committee for the hard work that they did. The submitters, they weren’t unanimous in their support, unlike the Parliament has been to date, but their concerns were allayed in an amendment that we put to the bill, which underlined a belts and braces—bulletproof, if you like—amendment to ensure that mutuality would not be impinged by this bill. I thank the select committee for the collaborative and cooperative way that they worked to ensure that we could get that amendment in place.

I also would like to single out Michael Webb, who’s in the gallery, who has been a fantastic resource for technical information. This is a very technical bill, and it is, actually, amending a very technical Act. I have had a great journey learning a lot about the sector, but I’d like to acknowledge Michael Webb for the contribution he made, so I thank him.

So this sector has been operating for 60 years and touches nearly one in 20 Kiwis, servicing their financial needs, and it’s a significant contribution to the New Zealand economy. The bill will allow additional growth for this sector, which has been constrained by the legislation. The scale and efficiency gains will enable them to deliver the services to their members at a time when competition in this sector is most needed.

I can point to provincial New Zealand, where small communities are in a position where, often, the trading banks are consolidating into large communities, and they are left without any face-to-face banking service. Often, what they’re only left with is an automated teller machine (ATM), and, when a person needs to go for a face-to-face meeting, they have to travel some distance. This is an opportunity for credit unions to get out there and to service those communities, and that will be greatly appreciated.

The credit union sector and mutual buildings sector have assets of $2 billion—so it’s not an insignificant industry at all—and they operate in 68 branches from Whangarei to Invercargill, and I anticipate those branch numbers will increase as a result of this legislation.

As I said, it’s antiquated and outdated legislation, although this sector services 190,000 members. Despite the legislation, the sector has shown that it is quite nimble and able to work, even with the fettered legislation and rules around the sector. They are offering transactional banking, internet and mobile banking, EFTPOS and MasterCard and debit cards, and a nationwide ATM network, and it’s all underpinned by a tier one core banking system, and that is also with a sophisticated anti - money-laundering system. It also has an ATM switch that also connects a third of New Zealand’s ATMs, so it’s quite significant.

So now, I want to turn to what the bill does. The bill allows credit unions to become bodies corporate, giving them what is known as the capacity and powers of a natural person. That will bring them into line with other mutuals and building societies and cooperative companies, and that will do so without lessening any of the particular characteristics of credit unions, such as the mutuality, common bond of the credit unions, one member one vote—all of those things that we know credit unions for. And it will reduce uncertainty and compliance costs. Sometimes, it has been that credit unions have had to seek often conflicting legal advice to tidy up and to ensure what they are doing is correct, and that has been, really, through no fault of anyone other than that the law has fallen behind what is common practice today.

Making the credit unions bodies corporate means that they will no longer have to have trustees to hold assets or operate. This was an inefficient and bureaucratic requirement which really did fetter the credit unions, and doing away with that need for internal trustees will reduce another layer of administration and cost and make it much simpler to do business.

I can give you an example. Any decision currently that a board makes that involves a credit union’s assets also needs a resolution to go through the trustees. So that has to be prepared by the board. Then, if a trustee is going to be overseas at that time, the credit union is required to put in place a temporary power of attorney so that someone can step in for that person—that trustee. And you can imagine the times when they’re running around town trying to get someone to sign a piece of paper just so that they can operate in a normal and modern way. So this legislation will make sure that that is done away with. It also removes the uncertainties as to who is responsible for the governance of the credit union. So I think that’s a very important point as well.

A further major change will allow credit unions who wish to do so to generate new sources of revenue and to expand their services. And, in particular, it will allow them to lend to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are related to its members. Those activities have, in fact, been lost to the major trading banks. So we’ve often seen a member of a credit union who has a small to medium sized enterprise who cannot borrow money directly for that SME through a credit union and they have taken all of their banking to a trading bank, and that’s not in the spirit of what we would like to see.

That will also be very important in rural and regional New Zealand and the smaller parts of cities, where, as I said earlier, the trading banks have—“abandoned” might be too strong a term—consolidated into the larger centres. So the day-to-day need to see face-to-face banking for a SME’s business needs is much higher than just making a home loan, although that’s important as well, and that will mean the space available for credit unions to operate successfully within small areas and small towns will be greatly enhanced by the change of this legislation. In fact, I understand one credit union is already looking at entering into this field and is allocating significant resources, in anticipation that we will pass this bill today, so that it can help its members who have small to medium sized enterprises.

This will also streamline the objects and powers of association for credit unions and Co-op Money is a credit union that operates here in New Zealand, and it offers the banking platform that credit unions operate under I alluded to before. That would be far too expensive for an individual credit union to operate on its own, but being able to utilise that with a cooperative association is much needed and has cleared up also that an association can provide services to third parties to the benefit of the member credit unions, and that was in some doubt under the law.

So, in summary, this is a much needed update to the legislation. It will be welcomed by the sector, and in a fast-changing world we’re actually seeing that the credit unions have a much bigger space to occupy than we would have thought a few years ago. This legislation will enable them to provide those services to their members. While I knew very little about the credit union sector before I got involved with this legislation, this is a vital part of our financial system, and it will actually provide some much needed competition into that area. I welcome the bill, and I commend it to the House.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Can I acknowledge Stuart Smith, the member who has just resumed his seat, and congratulate him and put him out of his misery—we will be supporting the bill, as we have—[Interruption] You looked like you were a bit worried, Mr Smith, but I acknowledge and congratulate you for getting this bill to this stage. I think members’ bills can be used in a number of different ways. You can put one in the biscuit tin purely to get a headline, knowing that the bill will fail, but Mr Smith has chosen an issue which might not necessarily be on the top of mind of most New Zealanders but has managed to get the bill to the third reading stage and will be passed. So I acknowledge that and congratulate him for his work. I believe the bill was pulled out of the biscuit tin well over a year ago, but, even though we’ve had a transition of Government, Parliament has seen fit to continue the work put forward by Mr Smith. So I congratulate him for that as well.

I also want to acknowledge some of the work done in and around the select committee table—the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I understand that my colleague Duncan Webb has done quite a lot of work with Mr Smith ironing out some issues that made their way to the select committee during the select committee stage. So this is one of those opportunities where both sides of the House can work together to make sure we get a good outcome. I also acknowledge some of the leadership shown by Co-op Money NZ in promoting the reforms contained in the bill that will be passed today.

Some of the issues that were looked at the select committee include making changes which will make it absolutely clear, as Mr Smith has said, that the core credit union principle of mutuality is being fully retained, and I congratulate the select committee for their work there. The bill will amend the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982. As Mr Smith has said, the Act is outdated and inflexible, and, although there have been ad hoc amendments, the Act has not been modernised to reflect the huge changes to the social and business environment that credit unions operate in. Thirty-five years ago, credit unions were managed by enthusiastic volunteers who are committed to core credit union principles, such as mutuality, along with “people helping people” philosophies. They retain those philosophies, but they are now managed much more professionally. In that environment, back in the 1980s, I understand that at its peak there were a little over 300 credit unions in 1983, but we understand there are only 13 today. However, the total assets under the control of the credit unions has been concentrated and quadrupled in real terms over the same period of time to more than $1 billion, so it is not insignificant, and the average credit union today is about 80 times larger than they were in 1983.

The bill does make a number of important changes that place credit unions in a much stronger position to meet the banking services needs of their members and to expand their membership. The bill will provide credit unions with a legal personality, and I know that not all credit unions supported this change. However, as reported in a Law Commission paper in 2011, the law that governs unincorporated entities is unclear and uncertain, and it is essential to remove these uncertainties from the credit unions for the benefit of their members and to protect the interests of third parties who will be able to transact with credit unions in good faith from now on.

In terms of loans to businesses, at present credit unions need to go through a cumbersome process in order for loans to be made to businesses associated with members of the credit union. They first must lend the money to the member, who then on-loans to the business, and the bill will avoid the need for that two-step process in the future. There were some issues, I’ve been told, around the details of those changes. However, Mr Smith and Mr Duncan managed to work through those changes through the select committee, and those changes would not have changed the credit unions’ membership focus.

The bill will also provide welcome clarity about the objects and powers of associations of credit unions, and those were addressed in a High Court decision in late 2017, which has obviously helped clarify this, and the bill will make this much clearer as well. The bill also confirms the general direction of the High Court decision by making it clear that credit unions can provide services to associate members and non-member entities as long as their rules provide for that, and I’m sure that will happen pretty fast as a result of this bill.

The journey is not quite over yet, though. The next step for credit unions will be to apply to their Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions for incorporation, and, once that transitional period is over, credit unions will be able to move forward with confidence and certainty. The reforms in this bill, as Mr Smith has said, are long overdue. They do provide a strong platform for credit unions to be more effective providers of banking services for years, if not decades, hopefully, to come, and this is particularly so with areas that credit unions have traditionally operated in, such as providing banking services to individuals who are unable to obtain those services from registered banks.

Just before I finish up, the ability for the credit unions to move into this space, as has been already mentioned in this debate, will allow them to, essentially, compete on even terms with the likes of the big banks. Some of this legislation has held them back, and there are opportunities in terms of technology that are available to banks and now, hopefully, credit unions which, hopefully, now they will now be able to take much more advantage of.

I think this will take them from what they used to be back in the 1980s—being community-based organisations, and, obviously, they’re being professionally managed now—to be able to take that further step, having the shackles of the old legislation taken off, and then to be able to be motivated to move into the areas of technology that other banks are moving into as well. I hope that that is a challenge that they take up, to offer to their members who obviously aren’t motivated enough to be a customer of one of the main banks and have done that for reasons that they know themselves.

I know Mr Smith is still in the Chamber, so I’d like to congratulate him once again for the effort he has put in over a long period of time. Again, I acknowledge the work and cooperation he had around the Finance and Expenditure Committee as well, to get to the stage where this bill—

Andrew Bayly: Three more minutes.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I’m waiting for your dulcet tones at some stage, Mr Bayly, but it won’t be as good as Mr Smith’s, I can tell you that. So on that note—because Mr Bayly probably wants me to be quiet—I say that we look forward to this bill passing through the House.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to congratulate Stuart Smith on working through all the issues to do with this Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill. It has been a bit of a process, quite technical, and he’s worked his way through those.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Kris Faafoi for his comments around the credit unions. As Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, he will be well familiar with the issues that have surrounded the credit unions, and he outlined some of the history of that in his contribution. But today belongs to Stuart Smith, because he is making, through the passage of this bill—and it is very good for Stuart to have the support of the Minister and also the Labour Party on this bill. The impact of the passage of this bill shouldn’t be underestimated, and I want to focus, in particular, on communities and then small business.

From the community perspective, it is the credit unions who will go into a community and provide banking services when the trading banks pull out. That is just a reality of what has been happening in New Zealand. In a prior reading of this bill, I did talk about the small rural town of Palmerston. Their last banking service moved out of town. The local authority held a meeting with local members of the community and acknowledged that business owners in particular, but also elderly people—and, indeed, everybody—needed a banking service to remain in that small town. Credit Union South then stepped in, and there is now a cash machine located in the library of that small rural town. We need to acknowledge that degree of community service that credit unions and friendly societies do bring to the banking scenario in New Zealand.

But, looking forward and to the other tranche of what I wanted to say, the benefit that the enactment of this bill will bring to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is potentially quite significant and potentially—and it will be, I believe—hugely helpful for those small businesses who find themselves, at the end of the month, generally around the 20th, not in a positive cash-flow position. The reason they find that—there are a number of reasons, but this is one of them—is they are waiting for their debtors to pay them so that they can go on and pay their own accounts and their wages bill.

Too many small businesses in particular trade off their credit card, and we all know the expense of trading off your credit card. So it would seem to me that the enactment of this bill and the focus of the credit unions and friendly societies will support SMEs, and, in particular, small businesses, who are not always well resourced—start-up businesses, family businesses, small tradie businesses; you know, the garage or the sole electrician who is not well resourced and has to come and go through cash negative and positive and resort to expensive credit. Well, if the credit unions and friendly societies make funding available to those small businesses, then bring it on, I say. I also say congratulations to them for having their focus on their initial reason for being, which is to support their members.

There are a number of other provisions in this bill which have been raised by the member in charge—the Minister over the other side of the House—and, no doubt, many other members, but I just wanted to reinforce the point that the enactment of this bill is going to have a significant effect on banking and the support of small business in New Zealand. I congratulate Stuart Smith, and I commend this bill to the House at its third reading.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I am very pleased to stand up and speak in favour of the further and final progression of the bill in the House. In a former life, I was a trade union organiser and negotiator for the finance sector union FinSec, and a part of my role was negotiating collective agreements across that sector, including with credit unions. While I was in that role, I grew in my appreciation for the role and the value that credit unions play in many of our communities. They have an incredibly interesting history, and they form quite a unique part of the financial services sector in New Zealand.

There are around about 194,000 New Zealanders who are members of credit unions, and I think, in a day and age in which, increasingly, in sectors like the financial services sector, the big players are seen to dominate and have significant market share, it’s incredibly important that we do actually provide our citizens and consumers out there with some different providers who might meet different needs. In the case of credit unions, the significant value that I saw in them is that they often provided unique and tailored services to communities who otherwise wouldn’t have access to financial services.

Some of this goes back to the history of credit unions, which were formed on the basis of what is called a common bond, and that’s something I’ll talk about a little bit more later, where they were initially formed either through the common bond of people who lived in a particular geographic area or people who had a particular common bond, perhaps through working in a particular workplace. So, for example, we have credit unions such as the New Zealand Police Credit Union, the New Zealand Firefighters Credit Union, or Steelsands Credit Union, which services workers in the steel sands and broader steel industry. So that’s a common bond, and so workers are able to pool their resources and access financial services through these credit unions.

Over the last 20 to 25 years or so, as we’ve seen some of the larger financial institutions retrench from some of our communities, sometimes the only financial services provider who’s actually stuck around and provided those services to people—to workers and to their communities—has been the credit union. I’ve been particularly critical in select committees and in this House of some of our larger financial institutions for walking away from providing direct branch services in some of our lower socio-economic communities. I think that is an abrogation of the social compact that those large organisations should hold. Very often, it’s the credit unions who have continued to provide those services, and I take my hat off to them for that. What the bill advances is a future for credit unions in which they can be more efficient and more effective and continue to not just exist but, hopefully, grow in terms of the range of services that they offer.

I do want to commend the member who’s brought this bill to the House, Stuart Smith, and all the other people who have shepherded it along the way. The Finance and Expenditure Committee, of which I’m a part, was unanimous in its support for this bill, and a range of members worked with Mr Smith to make sure that we got a bill that was in really good shape and that can continue to enjoy broad support. I want to acknowledge my colleague Dr Duncan Webb, who at select committee, in respect of a particular issue that was raised in submissions around the question of mutuality, did some work with Mr Smith to ensure that we’re meeting some of those concerns in respect of the bill.

The bill makes a number of quite important changes. One is to reform the current internal trustee structure, which is quite a sort of cumbersome, old-fashioned structure that credit unions are currently required to have if they want to hold property or to conduct business. Instead, what we’re replacing that with is a relatively simple, straightforward, and modern incorporation structure. This is going to make things much, much simpler for the operation of credit unions.

The other significant change I just want to touch on is the ability of credit unions, under this new piece of legislation, to be able to make loans to small to medium sized enterprises. This was really put through to us in a range of the submissions that came before the select committee. We have the situation at the moment where, quite often, people are loyal customers of credit unions, they see the value of a credit union, they or their family have perhaps had a relationship with it for many years, but they want, I don’t know, a $10,000 loan for a small business, a small lawnmowing business or a hairdressing business, or something like that. At the moment, the regime that we have prevents that credit union from directly making that loan to that person’s business, even though that person may in fact be an existing customer of the credit union and they might meet every other criteria that they would otherwise need to meet if they went to another financial institution to get that loan.

You have to have sort of funny work-around options where the loan is made to the individual, who will then loan it on to the small business. What some of the credit unions told us is that this actually resulted in people simply taking all of their business, including their personal business, away from the credit union, because it just didn’t work for them. There doesn’t seem to be any particularly good reason, as long as, of course, credit unions behave in a prudential way—that they do their due diligence—to prevent them from making loans to small to medium sized enterprises.

We were able to sharpen up some of the provisions around this at select committee stage, to make sure that the loans were going to businesses that were small businesses, and these are businesses in which the individual who is a credit union member, I think from memory, has at least a 25 percent stake and they need to employ fewer than 20 employees. So it’s not setting up credit unions to kind of grow overly big and mighty and get into risky situations. Again, it’s dealing with the small end of town, people who are credit union customers—owners, in fact—who want to expand their relationship with that credit union, and I think that’s important.

It wouldn’t be appropriate in this debate for us to not comment on the fact that there are a range of different views in the credit union community. We did have submissions from credit unions who were in favour of this direction very strongly and some credit unions who would have preferred that we stayed with the existing regime, and we have had to balance that carefully in this Parliament and at the select committee. Certainly, the view of the select committee, when we were considering it, was that credit unions do need these changes to remain efficient and to remain viable into the future. There were some comments about the costs that may be imposed on credit unions as a result of these changes. There probably will be some costs, but at no point were substantial costs substantiated in the evidence that was put before us.

I do need to comment that at the committee stage of this debate, there was Supplementary Order Paper 40 put up by David Seymour in the committee of the whole House, which would have proposed that we, effectively, have two different regimes—that we allow some credit unions, who wish to, to remain with the current regulatory regime and others to shift on to the new regulatory regime. This was something that was actually raised at select committee, that was thought about, and that was soundly rejected. And really, if you think about it, it’s completely absurd. This is a relatively small sector in New Zealand—they are not big organisations—and it simply makes no sense to add the complexity of overlapping and different regulatory regimes. Would we, for example, even when dealing with large organisations like the major trading banks, think that it was wise to have two separate regulatory regimes to govern them, depending on the preferences of the particular banks? It simply doesn’t make any sense in terms of good lawmaking, and, quite rightly, this House at committee stage rejected that approach.

This is a good bill. It makes some very real changes, some valuable changes, to quite an important little—but valued—sector of our economy and of our financial services landscape. I want to commend everyone who has participated and worked on this bill, including the members that I have mentioned in this speech; the officials, who gave very good advice to Mr Smith and the select committee along the way; and all of those people in the broader credit union community, including the leaders of credit unions, the staff of credit unions, who I had the privilege of representing in those union days, and all of those customers who have kept faith with the credit union movement over many, many years.

This is a really positive bill, and I think that most of us in this House are very happy to see it proceed to this stage in debate today and to be very close to being made law. I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to continue this contribution in the third reading of this friendly societies legislation. Can I carry on where the previous speaker, Michael Wood, left off and say what a pleasure it is to be at this stage of the legislation, to have arrived here and to be able to, as a Parliament, come to universal agreement and be able to pass this legislation in the House.

What I’d like to do is put that in context, because it is worthy of reminding the House and the people of New Zealand just what it is that our friendly societies and the likes of credit unions have been trying to achieve for years and what they’ve been trying to do under legislation that is—I think it was 1982 that the last piece of legislation was written in this area. So what they have been trying to achieve and what they’ve been able to deliver is a personalised service—a customised service. For me, what struck me in my conversations with the submitters and, actually, with members out in public engagement was the nature of the engagement—so this is actually members working for and with members. That’s quite a significant mentality, and it speaks to the nature of the operation of these endeavours.

What I’d like to add to that is to reinforce some of the contributions from earlier speakers about the nature of that provision in a kind of geographical sense. So when we talk about the provision of service by members for members, what we saw was that personalised service, and what we see in New Zealand is credit unions being incredibly successful in the smaller towns and provinces of our country because, essentially, it is people working for and with people. So that need has very much been a strong need over the decades, and continues to be so. I just wanted to take this opportunity in the House to commend those people, to commend those friendly societies, for the work that they have done and to remind the House and those listening that this affects nearly 200,000 direct customers of these credit unions, and to, essentially, celebrate that fact. So, as I said, it’s great to be able to speak in support of this.

Now, as I said, this is 35- or 36-year-old legislation, and the businesses have been struggling to operate in what has become antiquated legislation, so for quite a while, actually, the membership—those representing the friendly societies—have tried to engage with politicians on both sides of the House. So, in that, I think what we saw when it finally made it to select committee—and it’s controversial, the way it made it there, but this is not the time to bring that up. It got there, and we’re here now, and that’s worthy of celebration. I think what we saw in select committee, in the membership of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—of which I was privileged to be a part in the last term and continue to be so now—was this unanimous drive to see good outcomes for the societies. So we agreed, in principle, that the evolution of the legislation was necessary, and the question was how do we get there.

Initially, this legislation came before the House, or tried to come before the House, in an omnibus piece of legislation which was supposed to be non-contentious. Then we found out that some of the membership did have issues with the legislation. So I recollect, in my first contribution to the House in the first reading, that we made a commitment to those who had dissenting views that the select committee would hear their voices. Indeed, the select committee took on board very much and very strongly the words of those submitters who disagreed, I have to say, in principle with what was being done with the legislation, but I think I would have no debate here because, clearly, we’re all in support. We have found a way forward in this legislation, and, again, that is something to be celebrated.

What I haven’t touched on and would like to point out is that in pushing—well, not “pushing”; in supporting this legislation through the House, we’re empowering these credit unions to operate with good, modern technology. That was kind of their original drive. They wanted to offer facilities and services that the previous legislation made incredibly difficult. So, for New Zealand First in particular, in Opposition and now in Government, I think that’s something to be celebrated, where we have New Zealand firms and New Zealand money being empowered to work for New Zealand people. It’s good, old-fashioned competition in the banking industry and something to be celebrated, and I wish them all the best in their endeavours to be good competitors for our banks.

As the previous speaker noted, they’re not trying to be direct competitors, and they are constrained in the way that they can lend money, but what we do need to acknowledge is that one of those restrictions was that a member of a credit union would go in and talk to the manager there and say, “I’d like to borrow some money for my plumbing service. I’d like to buy a new van”—for example—“and I need to take a loan out”—

Andrew Bayly: Harley—Harley.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Stop interrupting my flow, Mr Bayly. They want to take out a loan on some capital investment for their small business.

Andrew Bayly: Take it over from him, Erica.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Be quiet. What the credit unions were having to do was create workarounds so that they actually—because they couldn’t lend to the business entity itself. They had to lend to the individual, and it made it very difficult and, in fact, created kind of obscure tax liabilities as often as not for both the credit union and the business operation.

So what we see now is an ability for that direct lending and an ability for the credit unions to loan directly to small businesses, and, as noted, the services are predominantly offered in the smaller communities and in our provinces. So this is a great outcome for these credit unions who want to be able to offer more to their customers.

The other thing I wanted to touch on—because, as mentioned, there were some contentious issues—was the issue of mutuality. It was incredibly important to submitters, and, in fact, what I celebrated in select committee was hearing the submissions—whether I agreed with them or not, what I celebrated was the passion behind the submissions. In all cases, the people who came to speak to select committee were passionate about what role they had in terms of the business and the way they provided services to their customers.

Now, what we have done—what the select committee has done and what this House does through this legislation—is make it very clear in the legislation that this continues to be an endeavour under mutuality and will continue to be so, and we believe it makes it very clear to those who are passionate about that aspect of their business that they can and must operate in that way going forward.

So, look, those were the big issues. It is a celebration. I’m going to speak longer now—thanks, Mr Bayly. It is a celebration. I would like to take this time to celebrate the good work of the select committee. We came in with a positive frame of mind. We came in with a thinking that we needed to help this industry modernise, and I genuinely think that we worked together incredibly well on both sides of the committee to work on those solutions.

I just wanted to finish by acknowledging the sponsor of the bill, Mr Stuart Smith. He worked with—

Chris Bishop: He did the whole 10 minutes—very impressive. He did the full 10.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —an earnest passion to make sure that this—did it feel like 10 minutes?—and I congratulate him on it. Thank you.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, and it’s a pleasure to be talking at the third reading of this important bill, the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill. Of course, after that last speech, I thought we needed to move on to some new areas of discussion. But, before I do that, I just want to acknowledge the sponsor of this bill, Stuart Smith. He is a dynamic local MP. He is one of the best MPs I’ve seen in this place.

Rt Hon David Carter: The member could learn something from him!

ANDREW BAYLY: Yes, I could. I could learn something from him. He represents the people of Kaikōura in a very good fashion—very conscientious. And, of course, he is an expert in financial matters, and that’s why I think it’s most appropriate that he was promoting this bill, which, I’ve got to say, was at times slightly testy, and we had a whole range of submitters. It showed to me that this was a dynamic industry where we don’t just have everyone aligned and trying to be self-serving when seeking a change to this piece of legislation. We have real tension across the industry. Most of them wanted many of the changes that we put in place, and some didn’t. And I think that’s a hallmark of a dynamic industry as well.

And, of course, what this is about, this important bill, which we’re going to talk about and, hopefully, pass today, is something that brings New Zealand into the modern age. And we’ve just heard that it’s a very old Act, and what this does is allow New Zealand credit unions and friendly societies to operate in a much more effective and, I’ve got to say, I think, a commercial manner.

And, of course, I think that most people forget how big the credit union / friendly society industry is. I was fascinated to see that there are 235 million members overseas, in 109 countries, with 68,000 credit unions. In New Zealand, we have roughly 200,000 members, and we’ve got about $2 billion worth of assets—financial products—that they’re holding on behalf of their members. And I think, from the perspective of what we’re trying to achieve, the 1982 Act was very inefficient. The wording was out of date. And what this has done is bring us up into the 21st century.

I think one of the most difficult things was the whole issue around how credit unions operated, the number of members in place—and one of the changes we did make was to reduce from seven to two the number of members required. And I think the other major point is about making sure the credit unions can operate and effectively sit alongside banks and, in some cases, compete with banks. And these are all good aspects, and I think one of the underlying structural changes we made was to enable credit unions to become bodies corporate. And, of course, Mr Smith talked about this in his summary at the beginning of this debate. Basically, what that means is that credit unions have the power of a natural person, which means it’s much easier to be able to operate and pursue what they’re going to do.

In essence, what the bill does is remove unnecessary operating and compliance costs—very important if you’re going to compete with banking and offer financial services; promote greater efficiency, innovation, and accountability; bring credit unions into alignment with other financial institutions; and maintain the element of mutuality, which I know we’ve talked about before. But, as we all know, mutuality is about having these entities that are focused on providing services for their members and only for the purposes of their members.

Dr Duncan Webb: Haven’t I heard this speech before?

ANDREW BAYLY: So you cannot see third parties coming; it’s all about working for their members. And that is the concept of mutuality, which I know Mr Duncan Webb understands well.

To achieve these aims, the measures in the bill simplify the statutory objectives of the association to cover the conduct of activities and provide for the incorporation of credit unions and enable credit unions to also provide financing directly to their members. And one of the issues, we all know, with credit unions under the current Act is that they cannot lend money to their members’ businesses. So, in effect, we had this convoluted process where it’d have to go to a member and be a trust and then it’d be on lent to the member’s business, which wasn’t really practicable, and what this bill does is deal with that and permit that as an operation.

So I think this is a great bill. I want to acknowledge Mr Stuart Smith. I also want to acknowledge all the submitters—I think they added to the robustness of that—and also the advisers, and I’m looking forward to seeing this pass into legislation.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. To all of the New Zealanders that are out there right now watching us, they probably think that this is the ideal Parliament. We’re both sides of the House, we both agree, we’re both putting our best into the select committee process, and both agreeing with the piece of legislation going forward. And that’s exactly what the case is right here.

I’m happy to be standing here—the third reading now for the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill. This here is a triumph for the member, as has so aptly been talked about this afternoon. Thank you, Stuart Smith, my colleague, for putting this through. It’s also a triumph for our select committee, the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I also want to acknowledge the work of Duncan Webb, one of my colleagues, who did a pretty stunning job in terms of carrying the load on this one with his detailed analysis of the bill in his contribution into that too.

But this is also a triumph for democracy. This is how it works, right? We actually listen to our communities, they put forward suggestions, we come up with a piece of legislation, we invite submissions, we go through the select committee process, and we get to this point where we’re able to put forward a pretty solid piece of legislation as a contribution into the law books. So it’s a great piece of legislation. This Government supports the bill. The Opposition supports the bill. This is something that when the—

Barbara Kuriger: It is an Opposition bill.

TAMATI COFFEY: —the submissions taking—what was that?

Barbara Kuriger: It was an Opposition bill.

TAMATI COFFEY: An Opposition—

Hon Member: It’s a member’s bill.

TAMATI COFFEY: It is a member’s bill. And this is a bill that was well needed. The call from a lot of our submitters when they came and presented to the committee was that it was in need of modernisation. Those people that work in the friendly societies and the credit unions out there across the country were very keen and very supportive for us as a select committee to be hearing their concerns, and that we did. We sat there through many submissions. We had 20 written submissions, 24 that actually presented; 13 of them made oral submissions and most of the submitters actually supported the bill. The majority of the credit unions that submitted also supported the bill. So it was pretty good.

I just want to take this opportunity to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 40 that was submitted in the name of one of my colleagues, David Seymour. This was something that he put forward because he thought that it was needed. He was wanting to amend the bill to allow unincorporated credit unions to operate. He thought that that was the right way to go. He claimed that the cost of incorporation was going to be a crippling factor to some credit unions. Well, during the select committee process we actually canvassed some of the other members who actually disagreed with his point of view too. So his amendments were not agreed to. He was outvoted—just like his dancing career was earlier this week, but I digress.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That’s a little uncalled for.

TAMATI COFFEY: Apologies, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Let’s drill down into some of the nuts and bolts of this particular piece of legislation. This bill is going to allow friendly societies to offer securities to their members which would allow them to raise additional funds to meet their minimum capital requirements. This bill is also going to put in provision for the incorporation of credit unions. It’s going to create requirements for credit unions to retain their mutuality. And I can’t say this enough. This was something that a lot of our submitters were very passionate about; making sure that credit unions retain their mutuality, it was very important to them, for a lot of these organisations. That’s where the whole credit union movement started. It was based on this idea of mutuality, and they were very keen to ensure that any future incarnation of the legislation retained that mutuality.

Also the bill is making sure that we have the ability for High Court powers to be able to do their thing if there was any organisation that was acting contrary to the Act or its rules. One of the biggest parts, which I was most excited about too, was the credit unions were submitting saying that they really wanted to make loans to enterprises related to their members. They made the point that it was happening anyway; they were just finding a way to kind of circumvent the process. But this actually makes it nice and clear. It creates a process whereby credit unions are indeed able to make loans to enterprises related to members. And that is actually a triumph for the small and medium businesses out there that are linked into credit unions, that sometimes find it a bit hard to raise the kind of capital that it takes to be able to operate your small business, especially when you’re just starting out. So the ability for credit unions to be able to do that is huge, needless to say. And it also allows credit unions the ability to provide services to non-members as well.

As I say, my colleague Stuart Smith from the other side of the House has put this forward as a bill that is going to modernise the friendly societies and credit union sector. There are 194,000 people spread out across Aotearoa that belong to either credit unions or building societies. So they will be all very happy, I’m sure, to hear about the progress of this bill through the House—the fact that we as a committee actually opened our ears, we listened to the submissions, and we stand here united as a House, actually, putting this piece of legislation forward. I have no problems in supporting this bill.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise to support this legislation. When you look at the last time New Zealand had a fundamental look at our friendly societies and credit unions legislation, it was all the way back in the past, in 1982. I mean, Muldoon was stalking this House. His wage and price freeze was stalking the country. The All Whites were at the World Cup finals in Spain. And I just quickly checked what New Zealanders were listening to back then, and the top single back then was “Beautiful Woman” by Toots & The Maytals. I’ve never heard of them before but they must have been good. We saw David Bowie up there, and Dexys Midnight Runners. Prince Tui Teka was sixth, and the world and New Zealand has changed since 1982.

I commend the member Stuart Smith for moving to modernise our friendly societies and credit unions legislation, because, as the member has pointed out, credit unions, up to this point, as we pass this legislation, are unable to incorporate, to lend to small or medium sized enterprises. Currently, loans have to be passed on to a business through a member. They couldn’t incorporate. They had to have internal trustees to hold property and conduct business. This wasn’t in line with the wider financial sector. And, in fact, for those 194,000 credit union members that we know we have in New Zealand, they weren’t operating on a level playing field.

So the Green Party supported this bill through all the stages. It’s in our policy to support legislation such as this. We note it was improved in the select committee process, and I acknowledge those who submitted and those who participated. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fortunate enough to be on the select committee for that process, but I know there was that huge discussion of mutually, which has been canvased in this debate and in previous ones. But you’ve just got to stop and think what a different country we would have if more companies and entities operated on the process of mutuality instead of competition red in tooth and claw, as many of our corporate entities do.

So I want to once again congratulate the member. It’s a good spirit of a member’s bill introduced to this House. A reasonable, common-sense proposal to fix what I think many members would think is an oddity—just that the laws hadn’t caught up to modernise those 82 laws, and it’s now being passed in a unanimous fashion. While we’re doing this, we also need to have a conversation about our wider banking sector, noting the almost $5 billion from profits we saw, basically, sent across the Ditch. While we modernise our financial services legislation, we also need to keep an eye on the wider sector as we modernise this to protect Kiwi markets and to protect Kiwi bank accounts. But, look, we’re very happy to support this very sensible, reasonable, and effective legislation.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak on this bill and to tell a story about the people and the organisations it will help. I want to tell a story that started on 5 May 1976, because, on that day, a meeting was held in Oriental Bay, here in Wellington, at the Central Fire Station. The meeting was one of the Brown Watch Night Shift. They had called along guest speaker Mr Peter Hills. And he spoke on credit unions and how they work. At the end of the meeting, by a show of hands, the Brown Watch Bank was formed, here in Wellington. It took initial deposits of $120, and within days the first loan of $100 had been made. The Firefighters Credit Union, which it later went on to become—that Brown Watch Bank—became an institution in this city. They were often seen standing outside the Wellington Pay Office collecting dollars, collecting cash for deposits and loans to their members. Sometimes a fire engine would even be seen outside members’ homes conducting the business of the credit union.

Today, that credit union, started here in Wellington, has grown to become a New Zealand - wide union. In 1981—also the year I was born—it became the New Zealand Firefighters Credit Union. And, today, that union has 2,200 members, $13 million in total assets, and an office in Petone; unfortunately, no longer in Wellington Central, but in the esteemed Hutt South electorate, represented by Chris Bishop. Today, that credit union provides savings, lending, and transactional banking services to firefighters and their families. To quote that union, “the dream in 1976 has become reality and we have an organisation of people helping people that we can be proud of …” saving and borrowing with the people we trust most, ourselves.” And so that is the kind of organisation, members of this House, that this legislation, brought forward by Stuart Smith, will help.

As an organisation, the firefighters union is very much looking forward to working in a more level playing field and simplifying the compliance work which has, at times, distracted them from the work they are there to do, which is to serve their members. It will also allow them, of course, to lend to small and medium enterprises, thereby increasing the benefits of their work. Quite simply, this bill allows credit unions and friendly societies to serve their memberships within a legislative context that better reflects banking services today. So I want to give credit to my colleague, the MP for Kaikōura, for bringing forward this legislation. This is an area of law that is complex, that is difficult, but it is by making these kinds of reforms that this House can allow historic institutions to continue to evolve with the needs of the day. Let us remember that back when the 1982 Act was written there was no internet banking, there were no smartphones, there was no email, and all of those things are now seen as essential to modern banking. So, by allowing credit unions and friendly societies to continue to serve their memberships and evolve to meet these things, we’re allowing them to survive.

I also want to give credit to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, whose collaborative work on this legislation has meant that the problems and issues within it have been able to be ironed out. As previous members have said, it is always a credit to this House when we are able to work together to serve the people we represent. That is possible, of course, when good legislation is brought forward with good intent. When I think of the New Zealand Firefighters Credit Union and its long history of serving its members, and I think of its ability to continue to do that to this day, it is clear to me that this is a worthy bill and something that this Parliament can be pleased to pass into law. Thank you.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m really happy to be here, because I had to fight my way to get here. When I met with the chief whip last night, I wasn’t on the speaking list. I said, “How can Parliament’s most friendly MP not be talking about any bill that starts with the word ‘Friendly’?” It was a long meeting, long into the night. She said, “Oh, I don’t really know. I wasn’t happy with you last week. We’ll have to see. Do 10 press-ups.”—that was hard. But here I am, through the door. I had to get past the Hon Alfred Ngaro eating fish and chips for lunch, but I’m here. And, as I said last time, I’m not part of this—what is it?—Finance and Expenditure Committee. I’m not a member of that, no, no, no. If there was a “Friendly Committee”, then I would probably be one of a few members on there, and—

Angie Warren-Clark: Hey! I’d be there.

PAUL EAGLE: —a couple of colleagues. But here I am today.

We’ve been dancing around thanking Mr Smith, but, look, as I said last time, this is his lifelong journey. He got here in September 2014 and said, “I’m going to sort this out.”

Hon Member: He can retire now.

PAUL EAGLE: Yeah. If he doesn’t run in a few years’ time, his life’s work is done. When I looked back at some of the notes, I thought, “He was so conscientious back then.” He actually said that, under the existing Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act of 1982, credit unions faced too much regulatory oversight and they were limited in what they could do. That’s what a good electorate MP does. He also said that credit unions were unable to incorporate, they must have internal trustees to hold property and conduct business, and this was not in line with other financial institutions.

This is no ordinary bill, and I am really happy to say that despite a little distraction—we did have an attempted derailment, and that’s relevant—from an Auckland MP by the name of David Seymour, who introduced a really unfriendly Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). He tried to undermine it. It was a distraction, as the member for Mt Roskill here said. But, luckily, Dr Duncan Webb came out and said, “I’ve got a quote.” That really said it all. There is nothing like a bit of evidence, even though it was from his own former legal company, but never mind. We have the evidence.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: He’s friendly now.

PAUL EAGLE: Friendly evidence that said, actually, this is the proof that we need to say, “No, no, no.” to what he was proposing. The great thing here—and there are a couple of happy moments. One is this clarifies the legal status of credit unions and friendly societies to that of an incorporated society. The submissions reflected that. We’ve heard in the House today how times have changed, we need to modernise, and that is all part of why that needs to be done.

The previous speaker, Nicola Willis, spoke about the New Zealand Firefighters Credit Union, and I mentioned, last time I was in the House, a visit that I took there. She was absolutely right, you know—that’s a fine institution and entity that has that mutuality, that has a membership based on people who know what each other does, a common work system, and a mechanism to ensure that their savings and hard work are put into a financial institution or entity that is safe. That’s underpinned in this legislation. That’s the cornerstone of what’s being proposed here. So there’s no change there, and I think that one of the things that most upset me last time was not only this unfriendly SOP but the intent that that would do to derail that.

This is a glorious afternoon for the member for Kaikōura. This defines his time here, his role.

Hon Member: He’s only just beginning.

PAUL EAGLE: I think this is his work done. They often say that sometimes if you can get one of these through, well done. So if this is all the member does, then he’s contributed to a better Aotearoa New Zealand. I commend this bill.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I was going to follow the previous speaker with a great dissertation about the wonderful member for Kaikōura, but I don’t need to, because the previous speaker did it for me. I think to get a member’s bill as complicated as this one and get it through in the form it’s got through is a great credit to both the member, the people that helped him, and, actually, to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, because member’s bills are not that simple, because you don’t have quite the monolithic bureaucracy behind you that you have with an ordinary normal Government bill, and to get something through as complicated as this I thought was pretty good.

I’m not going to go into detail on the bill—that’s been done—but I did want to talk a bit about why this is such a valuable part of New Zealand society. If you look at the financial institutions today, I think a lot of people find they’re extremely intimidating, and the great thing about New Zealand and if you look at our mutual history in New Zealand, we’ve had some very strong mutuals of all sorts—and, clearly, credit unions and, I guess, friendly societies are types of mutuals. They all have a situation where you’re all equal, effectively, and the boss and the person who puts the money in the bottom end or who turns up for association or for insurance or for assistance with building loans or whatever—they all have the same interests and the same, I guess, mutual aspirations. Consequently, there’s not the pressure on them you get in the normal commercial financial institution model or the normal commercial insurance model.

I think that’s hugely important for people, because I think an awful lot of people, or a large number of people, in New Zealand and in the world, of course, don’t really feel comfortable dealing with financial instruments and all sorts of matters that pertain to the finances of a family. I think that’s where these friendly societies and credit unions and building societies—and mutual insurance companies, for that matter—all have a great role to play in our country because they are organisations that deal with family issues in a much, I guess, more simple or easier manner than many others do.

I think they also give the public a greater deal of confidence in the financial sector, because you feel like you’re a part of an institution that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I have let the member go a little bit, but could the member please substitute “one” for “you”. That might just help with not bringing me into the debate. Would that be OK?

IAN McKELVIE: Oh, well, I’m very sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker. I certainly didn’t intend to give you that advice. Ha, ha!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you.

IAN McKELVIE: I’m very sorry. I’ll talk about “one” instead of “you”.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That would be great, thank you.

IAN McKELVIE: I think that public confidence in these types of organisations is really very important for people. People’s ability to understand the financial sector and the need for trust in that sector is also very important, and these institutions inevitably give people that sort of confidence, I think.

I also was surprised, really, that almost 20 percent of New Zealanders associate with or have dealings with friendly societies, credit unions, and, as I said, mutual insurance companies and the like. It’s really important that we encourage and enable those institutions to act with all the advantages that any other organisation in the financial sector has.

I think the other point I wanted to make was that every little town in New Zealand has an association with one of these types of organisations, and that’s part of our history. In fact, they go right back to 1842, which is pretty amazing. I think most of the commercial banks in New Zealand arrived here in about 1870, so it’s interesting that they have been here a lot longer than the banking sector as we know it today.

I want to congratulate the member Stuart Smith on his bill, getting it through to the third reading, and, obviously, with the support of the whole House, getting it through the House. I also thought, as I said earlier, the committee of the whole House and the select committee did a great job. I have no problem commending this bill to the House, and I wish all those friendly societies and credit unions all the best as they implement it in the future. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I stand to speak to this Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill, and I think it’s important that we understand exactly the place that friendly societies sit. In a sense, they’re really a form of social enterprise. They are a community that’s getting together to help each other, and the purpose is set out in the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act, which talks about not only mutuality but also thrift, cooperation, and, essentially, the relief of poverty.

I must say, after I last spoke on this bill, one of the members of a credit society—Victor Martick of Westforce Credit Union—took the time to email me because I had the temerity to suggest that they occupied a space which wasn’t of the, kind of, low-interest rate. They were paying slightly higher interest rates and he was very quick to correct me, and I thank him for it. He, in fact, sent me a spreadsheet which showed the place in the market that credit unions occupy, showing, in fact, that on some occasions they may even provide cheaper finance than a trading bank, but certainly considerably cheaper finance than most other non-bank lenders. So I commend him for pointing that out to me and showing, importantly, that these credit unions serve a sector of the community—often low-income, low-asset sectors of the community—that can’t otherwise get reasonably priced finance.

So it’s great to see that this bill of Mr Stuart Smith is enabling these credit unions to move into the modern era and to, in fact—despite what Mr Seymour would have us think—streamline their processes and lower their costs by this regulatory reform, and also to, kind of, meet the demands of modern society, where a lot of people do have small businesses. They may be low income and low asset, but they need finance for small businesses. A courier driver would be a really good example: needs $40,000 to buy his or her van, doesn’t have the asset backing for it, doesn’t want to pay horrendous interest rates. They can now go to the credit union and say, “I’m part of this community, I belong to the credit union, I’ve got a business plan”—which the credit union may well have helped devise—“can I have this $40,000?” Rather than going through some tortuous process of not lending it to an incorporated entity, they can lend it straight to that entity because the credit union member has a controlling interest in it. So those kinds of steps are fantastic and they are modernising, as the title to the bill says.

It’s worth noting that the credit unions and friendly societies have been around for centuries and centuries, and this is just another iteration of them. Of course, the critical thing and the item which caused the most consternation was the incorporation of these credit unions and friendly societies. To my mind, it really is, as night follows day, the right thing to do, because the need to have an incorporated vehicle so that the credit union and its members can be protected from the legal risks and can act as a single entity is really, really quite important. The trustee framework, which currently exists but will be changed when this legislation comes into force, is simply not workable, even from the simple requirements of signing documentation. If the credit union has to enter into a legal arrangement, you have to go around and find the trustees in order for each trustee to sign. That’s not workable. An incorporated framework is much, much more sensible.

It is also important to recognise that tucked away in there are important enforcement mechanisms. So, for example, the High Court can make restraining orders if these credit unions step outside of what they ought properly to do, and I think that is important and it can give some considerable comfort to those objectors who were concerned that the whole essence of what it meant to be a credit union would fly to the wind, that this whole idea of mutuality would go out of the window. Well, if there are concerns there, the members of the credit union or any interested party can approach the court and can say, “Stop these arrangements, stop this activity.”, so that, indeed, the rules—the essence, the mutuality—are adhered to.

It is important to recognise that mutuality and the idea that this is not a for-profit organisation. Members are not shareholders; members are very much members of a single community who have something in common, whether it be their ethnicity, their neighbourhood, or their workplace. They have some common bond by which they come together and agree to cooperate and support each other, and I think it’s really important to recognise credit unions having that function in society.

If I can just note, there are real concerns about non-bank lenders in the market place, and the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has—today, in fact—released a discussion paper on this to make sure that non-bank lenders are behaving properly. I would encourage anyone in this House or who is interested in this to make a submission on this matter, because there is advantage-taking that goes on out there. It doesn’t take much to start lending money out in the market place; all it takes is a bit of cash and a few forms, and there is a lot of advantage-taking and misbehaviour because of the underlying motives of some non-bank lenders, because they’re simply there for profit. They comply with the letter of the law and have, frankly, rapacious interest rates, rapacious fees, and rapacious penalty clauses. Now, that needs to be stamped on. It is my hope that with this modernisation framework, the costs of credit unions will fall, the accessibility of credit unions will rise, and, therefore, credit unions will expand and fill this part of the market, because there is a real place for people who know each other and who have something in common with each other to get on and help each other out in this way.

It was disappointing to see Mr Seymour introduce Supplementary Order Paper 40, which would have undone all of the good work of Mr Stuart Smith. It was, frankly, just a silly piece of gaming. I don’t know who he was pandering to, but it certainly wasn’t going to get anywhere in the House, and it’s interesting to see that when it came to the vote, the House voted against it. Only one member voted for it, and, really, it’s hard to see what he was thinking.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Name that member!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Yeah, I think that was David Seymour, the current MP for Epsom. Of course, the other thing to note is that this bill enables credit unions to, essentially, enter into the modern financial world in terms of entering into securitisation arrangements, so that they can go out and get money on the market, whereas previously it was deposits only. Now, the deposit-only framework, getting money only from members, that is a very limited market. It is necessarily going to constrain any growth in credit unions and constrain their ability to lend increased amounts of money out there. The ability to amalgamate more readily is another great move, so that when it’s appropriate the credit unions can band together, as is the ability to belong to organisations which aren’t simply organisations of other credit unions, so they could belong to a complaints scheme or a union of other deposit takers, or whatever it might be.

So really, this is a fantastic piece of modernisation and it really is my genuine hope that credit unions expand, because this kind of modern, social enterprise that recognises community, that’s not-for-profit, but at the same time recognises the place for interest-bearing credit is really important and it’s something that we need to recognise more—not only to relieve poverty but to grow business as well. This is a fantastic way for people to see small businesses in communities—that they can grow across any gender, ethnicity, community, income bracket.

So look, it was a great introduction, if you like, because I think it was one of the first things we did, me being a new member on that select committee. It was good to work with Stuart Smith on this piece of work and to see how we can make the law better. But really, my hope is that this is a piece of legislation which helps and strengthens our communities. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. First of all, I too would like to congratulate Stuart Smith on an excellent bill. Others have said it before me; I’d like to repeat it for the record. The second point I’d like to make—and it won’t be very often that I agree with the previous speaker, Duncan Webb, almost wholeheartedly. I’d like to commend his contribution that he has just made. I thought it was a very good one, particularly around the amalgamation and incorporation points that he made, and I’d like to acknowledge his contribution—already acknowledged by Stuart Smith, where Dr Duncan Webb contributed by amending and inserting new subsection (1AA) in section 101, which makes it very clear that these credit unions are, to quote, “for the mutual benefit and assistance of its members.” That, obviously, was of some contention, but the bill as amended has made it very clear that it is for the purpose of the members and must remain so.

Another couple of quick points I’d like to make: the fact that the members no longer have to go to trustees and so on to receive financial support from the credit union—that’s been touched on. That enables the credit union to compete with trading banks in facilitating loans. I was quite interested to hear Dr Webb talk about the interest rates that were lent. I too would have expected credit union interest rates to be well higher than trading banks, and Dr Webb gave an example where, in fact, the union lent at a relatively low or cheap rate, or below market, even. That’s because the people, the members, know each other. They know the risks. They know the businesses intimately that they’re lending to and assess the credit risk of the borrower accordingly, and more intimately. So that is also a benefit of these credit unions: they know each other, they’re a relatively tight community, and they support each other.

I’d like to touch on a point which not too many of us have contributed to or talked about, and that is the ability of these credit unions to be able to raise funds from their members—so, issue securities to grow the business; rather than wait for some sort of term deposit, to actually go out and issue to their members securities to enable the business to quickly grow, and to lend and grow their asset base accordingly. So I can imagine—just imagine, Dr Webb, that, one day, this credit union, friendly society, goes to its community, a rural community—rural community’s been talked about this evening—raises 20 million bucks, $30 million, and goes and invests that money and buys the buildings of the local school. Just imagine that and how that might affect that community, and imagine the lease payments that would flow into those communities from central government that would fund this school.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: This is going to end up in the general debate again, right?

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Oh, well, you invited me to—I had to comment, given the general debate, so I had to come back with something, didn’t I, Mr Lees-Galloway?

So that is the advantage of these credit unions. They are very focused on their communities, supporting their communities, and with that, I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Members, the House is in committee for consideration of the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. In accordance with the determination of the Business Committee, all provisions of the bill will be taken as one question.

Parts 1 to 5, clauses 1 and 2

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a stand. I was just packing my desk up, so it’s a real pleasure to take a call in regards to this bill. Of course, it’s recognised that Jan Logie has worked really hard for a number of years across the House, and I also recognise you for your commitment to this kaupapa.

I would like to talk about—I hope I’m allowed to—Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 41, which has been put in and made in the name of the Hon Mark Mitchell. I’d like to talk about the proposal to amend clause 14, and, basically, the way that he has put this SOP in place is to say that—it’s reverting it right back what actually exists currently, which is that we, essentially, allow people to use their annual leave or their sick leave. It makes it clear and explicit that it’s OK to use it when you’re a victim of domestic violence.

So I’d like to just address that in that what we do know is that this is currently what’s happening. If you are lucky enough to have an employer who recognises domestic violence, you might be able to have that conversation, but, if you’re not, if it isn’t the case, what then happens is people use their annual leave and they use their sick leave up. What we know is the intention of annual leave is to have holiday, to have rest, to recover from their workplace, to be able to spend with family, and to have an enjoyable—hopefully—time with that family. What we do know is that families who suffer from domestic violence and women who are needing to use this leave are actually going to be using their annual leave to take care of these matters. We know as well that, unfortunately, sick leave is also used particularly in the case of injury. But also, really, when people get to that point where they are out of any other leave, then they actually need to use that sick leave. I believe that this SOP therefore is redundant. It doesn’t actually address what this bill does, and I would like to recommend that we don’t follow through with this SOP.

I also want to make it really clear that when we are talking about a workplace, and I want to reiterate this statement, productivity gains in the workplace for our victims of violence—this is actually a really positive thing. This is actually what’s going to make or help make a real significant difference. So when we have a member put an SOP in that talks specifically to “Well, let’s just give them what they’ve already got, and let’s just tell them that they can perhaps fib, or they can use their sick leave.”—they’re not sick. They’re not needing annual leave because they want to have some time with their family. They’re actually needing help, support, and safety supports from their employer, some specific time to address and help—try and get to a place of safety. I think we need to constantly remember that and remind ourselves. So, accordingly, I do not believe that this SOP has value in terms of—I get the intent, I understand where the position has been placed, but I do not believe that we should support this. Thank you.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. I think we would all in the House have a great deal of sympathy for victims of domestic violence, and I don’t think anyone would not. I think that many people would feel a great deal of sympathy for what Jan Logie is attempting to achieve here, but I also have a great deal of sympathy for the business owners who are not actually the perpetrators of domestic violence and who would have to therefore, along with the workmates of the victim, pay for, essentially, someone to be able to take extra time off because they need it, outside of the sick days and annual leave provisions.

I actually think there is another way of dealing with it, and the other way is through the Government, through its Budget process. If the Government wants to fund the victims of domestic violence to be able to take more time from work because they need to deal with some of the issues around dealing with that domestic violence, then I think the Government should do that. I also think there’s another opportunity here for the Government another way, and that is through the Accident Compensation Corporation, of which I’m a former Minister, and I see that the Minister is here and is listening to this debate.

I say that not because I wish to use up all ACC money, because of course it wouldn’t, but actually because ACC is not there for accidents; it is there for injuries: injury prevention, injury rehabilitation, and dealing with issues around injury. So, for instance, if a victim of domestic violence in fact attends at an emergency clinic or whatever, medical clinic, they will actually end up—their bill will be paid for by accident compensation. In addition to that, if there are broken bones or other injuries or actually counselling, then that can well be paid for by ACC, because it is a natural part of dealing with the rehabilitation and treatment of an injury. So the misnamed, in many ways—the Accident Compensation Corporation is really the “Injury Prevention and Compensation Organisation”. I think that that is a better place to be.

So if the Government wants to reassess this issue and to take up Ms Logie’s bill and to turn it into another provision of ACC, I would personally not have any issue with that at all because I think that that is a better place for the costs of the rehabilitation and prevention to be placed. Certainly, I know that ACC has over the years put a lot of effort into these sorts of areas anyway. So it is not much of a stretch, frankly, for that to happen, and I would have thought that Ms Logie, with her position in the Government, would be able to help bring that about. I don’t think that’s a silly idea, even though it didn’t come from the Government—actually, probably because it didn’t come from the Government. But I think it is actually—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Oh, you were doing so well, right up until then.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I was just checking that they were awake, Madam Chair, because they were so quiet—

Hon Tracey Martin: We were listening, so carefully.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I thought there was something wrong. But I’m pleased that the Hon Tracey Martin is listening. But I think it is an idea, and I think that it’s a far better imposition to do that, because the ACC is an entirely different organisation than your average small business, and I think your average small business is not going to be able to cope well with this. They already feel somewhat put upon when it comes to taxes. They already collect the taxes that the Government seeks, rightly. They also collect and pay student loans. They collect the liable parent contributions. They collect the PAYE. They do all these things for nothing, for absolutely nothing, and we just need to be very aware that small business is small. It is not capable of paying any further for the wrongs of others. The perpetrators of family violence should be dealt with in the criminal justice system, and they should also, I think, when we look at dealing with the effects of their wrong and their harm that they cause to their victims, we should be going down the much easier route when it comes to the victims as well, and for business, and go down the ACC route. I think it’s the only sensible way of addressing this issue.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. In this intervention, I’d like to briefly introduce my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), which reflects the submissions that were made to the Justice Committee, but because we didn’t have a majority on the committee, we weren’t able to return the bill in a way that reflected that. So my SOP, SOP 39, makes the changes that were recommended in committee—or would have been. So, in effect, in this SOP, we are recommending that we change three pieces of legislation: the Employment Relations Act, the Holidays Act, and the Human Rights Act. What that will do is, altogether, provide a framework for employers to work out how they support their staff who are currently impacted by domestic violence.

I do want to pick up on some of the points raised by the previous speaker, Judith Collins: that employers shouldn’t have to pay for the violence of perpetrators. The misnomer is that—because that sounds rational, and I think we all support that concept—the problem is that they are paying right now, because domestic violence doesn’t happen just in the home; it happens between people wherever those people are. We have a huge amount of evidence now, from years of research, that tells us about the impact of that domestic violence in workplaces; where victims are stalked in their workplaces, where they are sabotaged from attending work or performing in their jobs by their abusers, and where they are also often harassed in the workplace. That is happening right now, and we know from the evidence that employers generally—most of them don’t know how to deal with it; either they don’t recognise that it’s happening and understand the impact on their workplace or, if they do, they’re not sure what to do. They want to support their staff members but they’re just not quite sure how to do it. So part of what this legislation does is provide them with the framework to walk through supporting that staff member. That, in turn, increases productivity, reduces staff turnover, and improves the entire workplace culture. There are significant benefits to those employers as well as to us as a country but, most importantly, to the victims.

I am really, really clear that I want every single victim in this country to have access to those protections. I don’t want to continue with the status quo, where it is a matter of luck whether you have an employer that understands this and offers the victims support. I do want to also challenge the point that this is just overwhelming and too difficult for small businesses. Well, actually, I’ve heard from small businesses who often tell me that they have almost a family-like relationship with their staff because it’s a small team. So, actually, for them to be able to support their staff members, if they were given a framework, is easier than it is for a large company that has to set up quite complicated HR systems to be able to ensure that that understanding filters all the way through their workplace. The cost on businesses and small businesses is actually less.

What we know from—and I’ve certainly spoken to small employers who have given their staff time off when they’ve needed it and have supported them because they’ve had that knowledge. Over in Australia, where 1.6 million workers are already covered by these types of policies, I have not seen a report of one business going out of business because of those policies and actions. Actually, it reduces the stress on the employers as well as the victims. But, of course, the primary—primary—purpose of this is to address the impacts of domestic violence and to provide a pathway to safety for victims, because one in three women are affected by this at the moment, and that’s got to stop, and we all have to play a role in doing that.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Just to take a call in support of the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill on behalf of New Zealand First, can I open by thanking all members of the Justice Committee. There was diligent work here. There was real conversation, a real commitment, and I don’t think anybody wants to deny that—that there was a real commitment by the members of the select committee to come to a place that supported the victims of domestic violence. What we are in now is just a small conversation about making sure that there aren’t any unintended consequences for those—and business is the topic that has kind of been at the forefront, I suppose, here.

So New Zealand First will be supporting the bill. We will be supporting Ms Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 39, in one part because it actually allows a Supplementary Order Paper on behalf of my colleague Clayton Mitchell to take effect if it’s fully supported with enough votes across the committee. There are two Supplementary Order Papers under the name of my colleague Clayton Mitchell. The first one, Supplementary Order Paper 47, is, actually, around some concerns that we had with regards to the amount of time that an employer could be taken to task for using the number of ways that they could decline giving domestic violence leave to an employee. I think Ms Logie has tried, and the select committee has tried, very clearly, to recognise that there are times when it will be too difficult for a company, a business, to do what they want to do, which is to care for another human being that they are connected to—and the fact that that’s a business relationship or a personal relationship or anything else.

But we did feel that 12 months was a bit long, and we felt that there needed to be some sort of immediacy to that, so we’ve actually put in a Supplementary Order Paper to take that 12-month period down to a six-month period. We feel that gives enough time for the victim to have got—we hope—past the crisis or the trauma which they were experiencing and that they’ve had time to think about and seek support if they feel that it is necessary to actually lodge that complaint or go into mediation with their employer around that request.

I also want to talk about the secondary Supplementary Order Paper that is on the Table in the name of Clayton Mitchell, Supplementary Order Paper 46. Actually, it was Rural Women New Zealand who brought this particular Supplementary Order Paper to the fore. It was part of their submission to the select committee, and, again, you can’t doubt those women’s desire to be part of the solution here. They brought with them a very rural and practical and reasonable suggestion that five days—for an employer, in certain circumstances, to only have five days to be able to come back to the employee and say, “We can” or “We can’t” change your flexible working arrangements—was a little short, and particularly, I think, haymaking was one of the examples. There are some real examples in rural life where this is a little short. So our Supplementary Order Paper has picked up on their submission and actually sets a maximum of 10 days the employer has to be able to try and work some flexible working arrangements for somebody requesting domestic violence leave.

Just before I sit down, I want to just say one other thing. I want to reiterate the fact that New Zealand First does see—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Sorry. I don’t want to interrupt the member, except to say our time clocks are malfunctioning. You’ve got about a minute.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Thank you very much. I beg your pardon. So just to say that New Zealand First has shared the concerns others have voiced around business. We have had some constructive conversations with the Minister of Finance. He has agreed that the Tax Working Group will be taking this up as an item to have a look at as to whether any days taken under this particular piece of legislation can be claimed as a tax rebate by businesses, and it’s a continual live discussion with the Minister of Finance around that so that we can do right by both sides of the conversation here. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to speak to the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. I was on the Justice Committee, not for all the submissions but, certainly, for substantial discussions around this bill. National take the issue of family violence very seriously indeed, and when I was in a ministerial role, I was part of the wider family violence group of Ministers who addressed a lot of the concerns and wanted to do things that would actually prevent domestic and family violence from occurring, for younger people and also for elders and seniors. So, across many ministries, we worked hard in a prevention role.

This bill, we feel, misses the boat and misses the main point, which is to try and help women who have been victims of domestic violence, but in a way that is going to work properly. The education campaign which has been suggested in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 42, in the name of my colleague Mark Mitchell, will require the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to put in a very widespread nationwide educational campaign, because one of the issues that emerged at select committee is that people didn’t really know what they could do if they were on the brink of being involved in domestic violence, in the midst of it, or in the aftermath. So being able to have additional information about what to do and where to go for help is a very important part. This was acknowledged by many of the submitters and by many of the members of Parliament who have had these experiences, at our electorate level.

As the Hon Judith Collins put forward, turning it into an ACC situation—a vast organisation, already very well geared up to deal with victims of trauma. Whether it is rape, whether it is any other form of violence that occurs, ACC already has the mechanisms to be able to move into prevention, into rehabilitation, or into helping in the aftermath—not only the immediate victim herself or himself but also their family members and others. These methods, we feel, are very important ones for New Zealand, as a nation, to think carefully about and to support in a meaningful way.

I would urge this Government—and this member too—to be supportive of the Integrated Safety Response pilot, because about five years’ work across more than nine ministries led to this pilot. It is very effective in its early days. It is something that we feel will bring together all of the various agencies, whether it’s police, justice, ACC for that matter, health, and so forth—all of the ministries that have any involvement in helping people recover from violence but also giving them the help that they need to prevent themselves getting into worse situations.

This body of work is entirely where New Zealand ought to be going, and it’s almost there. I would urge this Government and this member to speak in favour of the Integrated Safety Response pilot, to be funded from beyond next year. The police and others and the early reports of it say that it’s going very well indeed, and we would like to see that continue, because it is addressing the fundamental issues and the problem—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I would encourage the member to come back to the specifics of the bill. That is another programme.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: Sure.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: So that’s something that we feel very much would work as a preventative. Those are tried and true.

The member—and some of our submitters, as well—talked about the situation in Australia. Australia, we feel, is a very different environment, indeed, from us. It has not been accepted, incidentally, beyond certain employers. It has certainly not been accepted across all of Australia, and there’s probably very good reason for that. The member would like New Zealand to be the first country in the world to trial this and to put it into law; I feel that that would be inappropriate, for all of the reasons that colleagues have put forward. The burden it would place on the wrong people, and the idea of having support people and others also being entitled to 10 days, runs out of control and runs contrary to what a sensible approach would be.

The Supplementary Order Paper that my colleague Mark Mitchell has put in, to really enshrine and to give more backbone, if you like, to employers to be able to do the right thing in this situation by allowing domestic violence to be, absolutely, held up as a way of applying for sick leave and so forth, I think is a very correct way to go. I think that Supplementary Order Paper 41 is something that we are very much in support of, and qualifying for paid annual or sick leave for the purposes of dealing with the effects of being victims of domestic violence is very appropriate, along with Mark Mitchell’s other SOP on education. So we believe domestic violence is a scourge and a problem. We do not support this bill because it does not address it.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It is indeed a privilege to stand and take a call at the committee stage of this bill. I thought I’d begin with a little bit of an overview as to what this bill would actually—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I’m sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Thank you, Mr Chair. As I said before the dinner break, it is indeed a privilege to stand and take a call at the committee stage of the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. This is a bill that gives victim survivors of domestic violence options for flexibility at work. It includes leave entitlements that allow them to access support. It is a bill that actually provides financial security and, in fact, gives victim survivors the option or removes a pretty significant barrier to women leaving situations, environments, of abuse, which is financial security. I was part of the select committee that considered this bill—not the submissions but, of course, came in sort of part way through the process—and I know there was a submitter who talked about her personal experience of being subjected to domestic violence, requesting the flexibility, the leave, that she needed to be able to access the types of support that she needed, and not being allowed that, and having, actually, her job taken away from her through no fault of her own. That often becomes a barrier to women being able to leave.

The other thing this bill does that is phenomenal is that it allows for the routine or the schedules of women who are victim survivors of domestic violence to be disrupted. In many cases, it’s not just the incidents that make up domestic violence—that is domestic violence—it is a pattern of power and control that these women are subjected to. The way that translates into reality—and I’m thinking of many women that I’ve supported through my years working in the sector—the way it plays out is that the abuser knows what the routine of this woman is. He knows that she will go to drop the kids off at school at a certain time. He knows that she goes to work at a certain time. He knows where she works, and, therefore, he knows how to stalk her and how to continue to exert that pattern of power and control. We know, working in the sector, that that time when a woman decides to leave is the most dangerous time. So that disruption of schedule is what this bill allows for.

There are a number of changes—a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs)—that are being considered as well, and I’ll just go through them very quickly. There are two from the member Clayton Mitchell: one that deals with extending the time within which an employer is required to deal with a request for flexible working short-term arrangements for those who are affected by domestic violence—the SOP will amend the bill from five working days to 10 working days; the other amendment is to reduce the time that an employee has to make a choice of procedure. What that means is: if an application is put through for the flexibility or the leave and it isn’t given, there are methods of redress for the employee. This SOP will change that amount of time from 12 months to six months. They’re two reasonably minor SOPs that I’m quite happy for us to support.

There are two others, however, in the name of the Hon Mark Mitchell, that I will speak to as well. This has been brought up by members opposite time and again: the fact that there are other mechanisms for victim survivors of domestic violence, other pathways that they can take or avail themselves of—annual leave, sick leave. We on this side have said ad nauseam: those are not appropriate. Annual leave is supposed to be for holidays. It’s supposed to be for some rest and relaxation. It’s supposed to be for when people need to take a break. It’s not for when you’re subjected to domestic violence and you need to access support; that’s not what it’s for. That’s not what sick leave is for, either. Many women, especially those who’ve been subjected to physical or sexual violence, have often used up that leave. Many times children are sick and, therefore, women have used up that leave. Victims of domestic violence, I would argue—[Bell rung]—actually need annual and sick leave perhaps more than most.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Is the member’s seeking another call?

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Yes, Mr Chair. So that particular SOP by the member Mark Mitchell, honestly, is lidicrous—ludicrous; I blame the cold. Annual and sick leave already exist for all of us. They’re not appropriate for domestic violence victim survivors, because that’s not what they’re for. What we’re seeking is for leave so that a woman can actually apply for the time that she needs to go and access medical care, access legal care. Sometimes it’s about having to leave the city that she lives in because of the danger that is posed to her and to her children. So this is actually a bill that would allow a woman to seek the safety that she needs both for herself and for her children.

The other SOP in the name of Mark Mitchell is about an educational campaign. Basically, he says that, within six months of this particular bill coming into force, “the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment must undertake an educational awareness campaign throughout New Zealand to advise small and medium businesses on how to comply with the changes contained within [this] Act.” Honestly, I think this is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, especially to those who run small businesses, because if you know how to comply with the other aspects of leave that you need to provide to your staff—namely, annual leave, sick leave, and bereavement leave—you’re going to know how to comply with this as well. It’s really not that complex. It’s a simple bill that makes a profound change to those whom it affects. So I would not be supporting either one of those two SOPs.

Going back to the bill, I’m just going to maybe address a couple of amendments in Jan Logie’s SOP, which is a very fine SOP, I might add, and came out of some of the changes that were taken to the select committee, one of which was actually the proof of domestic violence that we debated quite a bit at select committee. The initial bill had quite a detailed part that talked about the types of documents, I guess, that would constitute proof. We felt, at select committee, that that was a little bit too specific and that proof should actually be much broader than that. It’s not everyone who goes to the police to press charges. It’s not everyone who goes to a refuge organisation to seek help. The experiences of women who experience domestic violence are diverse and incredibly varied. Narrowing the type of proof that was required, through this bill, we felt wouldn’t be fair on those women, and so it’s much broader as a result of that.

Also, there is a clause that will be added in both the Employment Relations Act and the Human Rights Act that, basically, will stop the discrimination that often women face when they’ve been subjected to domestic violence at work. There’s a huge stigma, and especially, sometimes, from some of the smaller communities. I’ve worked with a number of women from those communities. There is still quite a strong stigma. It’s beginning to change, and that’s great, but there is a stigma that women are often subjected to that then stops them from seeking the help that they need. That’s another reason that this bill is so important. It sends a signal that we’re all in this together, that we all have a role to play, including small businesses, to keep women and children safe.

It’s not about punishing small businesses for wrongs that weren’t theirs, as members opposite have pointed out previously in this debate; it’s about increasing options for women to get out of abusive situations and get the access to the types of help that they need. It sends a clear signal, as I said, that we all have a role to play. It keeps people safe. It keeps women and children safe. It is one crucial part of the work programme that this Government is undertaking to eliminate violence against women and children. Thank you.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. It is with reluctance that we do not support the passage of this bill. I say reluctance in the sense that we understand and very much acknowledge and get right in behind—before, during, and after—the idea that family violence is a scourge on our society. That is the first and it’ll be the last thing that I say tonight, and it’s very much something that we have taken great detail and great care in when we were in Government around taking some significant action. I know that speakers before me have referred to the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) pilot and its success, which saw, in 18 months of its initial pilot, the percentage of clients comfortable reporting cases going to police from 25 percent to 50 percent. There were incredible wins in that regard—so too in the creation of the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, which is rather interesting tonight, knowing that that’s sitting languishing on the Order Paper and hasn’t been brought forward for its second reading. That’s something very tangible and preventative that the Government could be doing right here, right now. It doesn’t negate the importance of the debate we’re having tonight, but it’s an extra and significant debate that we should be having, because it addresses structural issues of family violence—significant structural issues of family violence.

Tonight’s bill is very incredibly well-meaning and well-intentioned, but it places the burden of responsibility of family violence on businesses in this regard, and it’s not the solution. When you’ve got a massive societal issue, it requires a massive societal and Government response, a Crown response, not entirely a business response in this regard. We’ve had the Hon Judith Collins speak earlier in the night about a possible solution around increased access to ACC funding, and there are other solutions that could be tabled. Instead, we’re having to deal with this particular mechanism for change and for support.

I really caution anyone on the other side of the House to promote or to pitch this as a pro-business or pro-victim response by our particular party. That is not at all the case. What we’re dealing with here is a considered response for the impact that business will have, and it’s the right thing that we evaluate that and that we cut across right intentions for the business community. When you’re dealing with a threshold that’s as low and as broad as this bill contains, we have to be very careful about impact on those who employ victims of family violence.

I’d like to touch on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in regards to an educational campaign, SOP 42. I’m aware that that may, as a previous speaker has just pointed out—I think she used the word ridiculous. It is not at all ridiculous, and here’s why. I sit on the Education and Workforce Committee. There are massive changes coming to small business—in fact, to all business—incredibly soon, in the form of the Employment Relations Act, and we are required here to forearm and forewarn and gear up business for any change that they face if we’re the ones in fact imposing that change on them. So it is the right thing to do to require the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, if this bill passes, to embark on an educational campaign and make sure that business is geared up for—after all, change, if this is going to pass, shouldn’t be happening at business; it needs to be with business. They are the lifeblood of our nation, and that’s something that we should be doing here in Parliament tonight.

So I would like to, again, as I said earlier, finish with my remarks: family violence is a societal scourge, and we are incredibly determined, as we have been through our ISR pilot scheme, through our family and whānau violence bill—massive changes in the past decade. Thank you.

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’m standing up tonight in my role as the Minister of Police and also the Minister for Small Business. I’ve heard the arguments, and I’ve listened to this debate—the various readings—and one thing I would say is that there is not a single approach to family violence or family harm. If there was, we would’ve implemented it years ago and we would’ve done away with it, but, as everyone acknowledges in this Chamber, it is a scourge. It is a real problem.

I suppose where I disagree with the previous speaker, Denise Lee, and with a number of speakers is that we do need to deal with this as a society, as a community. If it was just a community issue, then we would just deal with it within the community. If it was just a Crown issue, then, believe me, we would be implementing the steps to deal with this here and now, but it crosses right across every single part of our community. The Crown—yes, we have a very important role to play, which is what we’re doing. The police have an incredibly important role to play. The honourable Jan Logie is playing a very important part, but also our businesses are a really important part of our community. Maybe, in my role as Minister of Police, I’ve seen a little bit more than most people, I’ve heard a little more than most people, and I’ve seen evidence of the massive harm this causes and this imposes on our families.

I would like to talk about Part 5, and this is about the changes to the Human Rights Act. The reason I want to talk about the Human Rights Act is we believe that this is so fundamental to human rights. We are not just implementing a Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill; we’re coding in human rights legislation that this is so important, and what this means is that you cannot discriminate—not you, Mr Chair; society or businesses cannot discriminate based on someone who is a victim of domestic violence or family harm.

I just think that there is a time to play politics. We’re politicians, and we argue across the House because we’ve got different philosophical beliefs and we have different ideas about how to solve problems. But there are times when, as a Parliament, we should come together and actually do the right thing. When I heard Melissa Lee speak about this—not Melissa Lee, sorry—

Hon Members: Denise Lee.

Hon STUART NASH: —Denise Lee; sorry, Denise—I thought there was a lack of sincerity in her voice, because I am sure—I am sure—that, deep down, Melissa—

Hon Member: Ms Lee.

Hon STUART NASH: —knows that this is actually the right thing to do. And do you know the interesting thing I heard in a number of speeches? People were saying, “You know, the vast majority of businesses actually do do the right thing.” They do actually look after people who are victims of domestic violence, because they understand that that person is a really important part of their business. Well, I tend to agree with that—I do—but there are some employers who don’t. There are some employers who will discriminate against someone who has reached rock-bottom.

I’ll tell you some of the interviews I have seen. This is the worst thing that can happen, and all the stats say it is usually—not exclusively, but it is usually—a dad who is smacking the living daylights out of a mum and, sometimes, the kids. There has got to be a safe place. If, in fact, there is prejudice in the workplace, let alone in the home and in places in society, which Ms Lee highlighted as well, then let the workplace at least be a shining example of where we are going to stand up for the rights of people who are victims of domestic violence. It is why it is in the Human Rights Act. It is why we are actually saying we’re going to change the definition from “and social and racial harassment” to “sexual harassment, adverse treatment in employment of people affected by domestic violence and racial harassment.” We are putting this on the same level as racial harassment. I think that’s exactly where it belongs, because it is just totally unacceptable in this day and age to discriminate against someone who has absolutely reached rock-bottom.

What would the Opposition have us do? Are the Opposition saying, “No, no, no, it’s OK. Small business can’t cope with that, so when someone’s down, let’s just give them a couple more kicks and get them out of the workplace.”? If we think that is the way to treat Kiwis who are totally and utterly victims, then the Opposition has a problem.

As mentioned, as the Minister of Police and as the Minister for Small Business, I completely buy into this bill, and I thank Jan Logie for bringing it here. It is a really important part of what we need to do.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I stand to take a call. I might end up taking two in a row, actually, because I want to also add my thinking around the insidious nature of domestic violence—or any violence against somebody else, actually. What I want to talk about is strengthening this bill, and I believe that our Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 41, under the name of the Hon Mark Mitchell, will actually enhance this bill. Even though I’ve sat and I’ve listened to what the Government members have said—you know, “It’s no good; it’s nothing”—I think that we need to actually take a step back, stop being so aggro towards one of our SOPs from the Opposition, and start to look at this with an open mind, because we are dealing not just with the victims of domestic violence but also with their families as well.

I’ve sat here and I’ve listened to the member in the chair, Jan Logie, talking about the value of small to medium sized businesses gaining some education around domestic violence. So when I look at the bill and I see the SOP under the name of Mark Mitchell around clause 14, we’re looking at, in new Subpart 5 of Part 2 of the Holidays Act, inserting proposed new section 72B, “Interpretation”, of the parts of “domestic violence”. One of the areas in the Domestic Violence Act 1995, section 3, actually describes what “violence” is. We’ve heard about small businesses and medium businesses needing some education, so in that particular part of the Domestic Violence Act 1995, it actually just gives a definition around what “violence” is. That alone should help in the education of employers around giving them an idea of what violence is.

In the next part of section 3, it talks about the victims’ children and what they’re subjected to, and I think that needs to be inserted into this bill, because—as I heard the Minister of Police, the Hon Stuart Nash, just talking about—the victims’ children actually witness this violence actually happening in their families towards their mother and/or their father, because whilst women are the majority of victims of domestic violence, there is also a small portion of those victims that are men, as well. I believe that in this bill we want to protect not just the victim of domestic violence but also their whānau.

As I said, by inserting section 3 of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 into this bill, it will actually help, number one, with the education for small and medium sized businesses without them actually even leaving to go and start some education programmes—especially through the organisation Shine—but it will also give them an idea of what they’re actually looking for. Some may understand what domestic violence victims may look like, but the majority of them will not know, and I think that this particular section in the Act will actually help to identify that. I think it will strengthen this bill, and I’m asking the member in the chair, in whose name this bill is under, to actually consider putting that particular part into the bill to actually strengthen the bill.

The other section that I want to talk about is the proposed replacement section 72C to Part 2, new Subpart 5. We look at subsection (3). “The request must—” is what the subsection starts at, and it’s “(a) state that the request is made under this subpart; and (b) state—(i) the employee’s name; … (ii) the date on which the request is made; and”—this new insertion is paragraph (c)—“provide appropriate evidence verifying the request.” Now, this isn’t meant to sound like we’re getting at people, saying—we’re not saying to them that what they’re saying is incorrect. What we’re asking them to do is to be able to provide some information to the employer, so the employer makes an informed decision around the type of leave that that person will get.

Not everybody shows up to work as a domestic violence victim with bruising. Some of them are psychologically bruised. Some of these people, they show up to work—the victims of domestic violence—and they’re not physically bruised, but they are inside, and that is what the employer doesn’t see. They cannot see that. Therefore, with a discussion and an interview between the employee and the employer, it will actually help for the employer to actually be able to grant leave to their employee.

So I think that what we’re asking for isn’t unreasonable. We want to strengthen this bill, and we do support victims of domestic violence. I think these are very sensible changes or inclusions. They’re not new things. They’re already in legislation, but, by adding them into this bill, it actually gives strength to this bill. It protects the victims of domestic violence, it protects their families, and, at the end of the day—as we have heard many times in this House—if children are surrounded by domestic violence right from birth and right through their lives, it affects them as adults. It actually can move in towards generational domestic violence, and that’s what we want to stop at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Everybody in this Chamber must agree that we want to stop that generational cycle of domestic violence. By including these parts into this bill, I believe that it will make it a better and stronger bill. Thank you, Mr Chair.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just rise to address some of the issues that have been put up by the Opposition and a few inaccuracies. I will try and do this carefully. I don’t want this to be an antagonistic debate. I want this to be one that’s grounded on the legislation, but I must admit that I’m a bit confused from the last speech.

We’ve heard the member Jo Hayes speaking about strengthening the bill and talking about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 41 that will make changes to clause 14, which is the clause in the bill that provides up to 10 days’ leave, and they are suggesting we actually get rid of the 10 days’ leave. That’s at the very heart of the bill, so I really struggle to see how removing the heart of the bill could be understood as strengthening it.

I really, really respect the conversation about us needing to care for our children and recognising the impact of family violence on our children. It is profound and it carries on beyond generations. That is why in this bill—in SOP 39—the leave is available to victims of family violence and people caring for children who are affected by family violence. At the absolute core of this legislation is that understanding that this is about how we strengthen our whānau.

That leave is available to—usually—mums, but it could be another parent who is coming out of a violent situation where the children have been traumatised and they’re expected to carry on as if nothing has changed. The kids are dealing with trauma and freaking out, and they’re expected to leave them at home and go to work. This leave is to enable them to stay with their kids when they’re freaking out and they just need them there. That is at the heart of what this is about.

I also just want to address too the point that we need to do some education around what is domestic violence and to expand people’s understanding of it. The bill links to the Domestic Violence Act. So it does do that. And while we are not supporting the SOPs that have been put up by the National Party—and I do feel a bit of frustration about it, because maybe we could have actually had a discussion about the education. But bringing it and putting it up today without coming to us and actually engaging in that discussion about what is the best method for implementation and going through and educating people—you know, actually, maybe we could have had that conversation, but putting it up today, it does look a little bit disingenuous to say that they’re committed to that. And I would also say that, actually, we’ve got it. We know that implementation is incredibly important in realising the potential of this legislation, and we’re not just going to pass this legislation and not engage with employers as well as our communities. We have got that under control.

I also want to touch on some of the issues that have also been raised: that this is placing—I will touch on them again—the burden on business and that the Crown needs to take responsibility. Well, I do want to say that, actually, that is what we’ve been doing for a really long time. Almost all of our response—and the research that the previous Government did was about where Government spending is and where society spending around family violence is—almost all of it is after the police have been called. It’s about police and prisons and our healthcare system—1.5 percent of Government spending is on prevention and not much more on early intervention.

Actually, if we’re going to turn around these horrific rates of violence in our society, it’s going to take all of us. We can’t just leave this with the Government. We need to be joining hands to actually support changing this culture of violence, and that is part of what this bill does. And there will be very real benefits to businesses from doing that. I would talk to the research from Suzanne Snively in New Zealand that showed that it’s over $3,500 per victim per year cost to businesses now. So this idea that businesses won’t be able to deal with the cost of what the Australian experience shows is women taking an average of, I think, 43 hours a year—

Hon Tracey Martin: A year.

JAN LOGIE: A year—that businesses couldn’t deal with that cost when it’s costing them about 3.5 grand at the moment is just not getting with it.

And the saying, as well, that actually this is unfair on business—we had businesses submitting to us supporting this, saying that it’s made a real difference to them. We have evidence from businesses in Australia as well that have been saying this has been really positive for those businesses that have engaged and put these policies in place. Those policies cover 1.6 million workers in Australia. I think they’ve got some experience of this.

And I would also say that I know Suzanne Snively has written passionately in support of this legislation and she’s done the research modelling on it. She was a previous governor or board member of the Reserve Bank, partner in KPMG—she’s a very, very experienced business leader and very aware of the challenges for all of our businesses in New Zealand, and she believes that this legislation will help improve the wider culture in business to improve productivity by helping employers get with the programme that if they support their staff, they’re going to have increased productivity.

So it has benefits for business on a wider level. But at the very heart of it, what this is about is saving lives and when a victim comes to their employer and says that they are experiencing domestic violence or they need some help, I believe that the right thing to do is to ensure that person gets the help that they need. And that is what this piece of legislation, at its heart, will do.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute in this, the committee stage debate of the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill.

I do want to provide some context for the relevance of this bill, particularly to women. So a third of New Zealand women suffer from family and domestic violence—a third. Let’s ponder that. Twenty-four percent of New Zealand women have had some form of sexual assault in their lifetime, and 6 percent of men. The police respond to 120,000 family violence incidents every year, and, apparently, 76 percent of family violence incidents are not reported. So the actual number is close to nearly 500,000 incidents. Context matters. The reason I quote that is because this piece of legislation—and I do want to focus on new sections 69AB and 69ABB, set out in clause 7, which actually are about what this bill is trying to do, and that is to provide a statutory right to victims—people who are affected by family and domestic violence—to be able to deal with the effects as employees. So let us ponder that.

Evidence before the select committee from groups such as the University of Auckland, ANZ, Countdown, The Warehouse—these are employers that actually, in some form, I call it self-regulation, actually, haven’t required the Government to tell them to implement these policies. They’ve chosen—

Hon Member: Westpac.

LOUISA WALL: Westpac. Thank you. They’ve chosen to do it themselves. And why? Because, from their perspective, actually, it saves them money and resources: sick leave that they can tally up, the turnover of staff, unexplained absences. And the reality for the businesses that presented to the Justice and Electoral Committee is that this makes economic sense to them—to actually invest in their employees.

I just want to focus on new section 69ABB, set out in clause 7: (1) An employee who is a person affected by domestic violence may make a request—(a) at any time;”—and this is the bit that is the most poignant—“(b) for the purpose of assisting the employee to deal with the effects on the employee on being a person affected by domestic violence.” The reason I want us to think about that concept is, actually, we’re asking people to disclose, and we have completely ignored the fact of those 76 percent of family violence incidents that don’t get reported, because these are people who will not tell anybody. They keep it a secret.

I managed to find a piece of research called Help-seeking amongst women survivors of domestic violence: a qualitative study of pathways towards formal and informal support. And what that piece of research has said is that domestic violence and disclosure is a long journey of ambivalence. It’s a journey of being anxious, being depressed, self-medicating, being unwell. And the other finding in this piece of research was that many women needed an enabler. They needed someone or something for them to be able to disclose. And guess what happens when women disclose family violence? They get help. They can stop the cycle, because they are strong enough within a context that they know will support them to disclose. And, in fact, that is what this piece of legislation is going to enable us to do. It will completely change the game. And for the Opposition not to realise how significant this piece of legislation is is incredibly sad.

The other thing that is very clear is that because this provision is specifically for victims of family violence, there is a specific need for family violence leave. So Mark Mitchell’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that wants to convert annual leave and sick leave into de facto family violence leave completely undermines the whole purpose and intention of this piece of legislation. This SOP speaks volumes about the Opposition’s so-called want to be part of a solution. This completely undermines the credibility of the Opposition.

So I’d like them to actually think about what they’re going to do in the third reading—I’ll be presumptive and think we’ll get through this phase of the process of making this very good bill into a piece of legislation—because if you really want to help and be part of the solution, then go and talk to all those business owners that you’re scaremongering and saying that you’re opposing this bill because you don’t want to impose extra costs on them. Actually go and talk to them. Maybe all of you should go and talk to 10 businesses in your electorates and actually get some evidence and get some voices from—

Harete Hipango: Did you consult with them?

LOUISA WALL: —the community. I was part of the process. I was in the last committee that heard all these submissions. I’ve had an intimate knowledge of this piece of legislation and the evidence that has been presented to the House about this piece of legislation.

So do I feel I need to get myself more evidence to make an informed decision? No. No I don’t, because this piece of legislation, actually, as Suzanne Snively said, is so historic. She put this up with women getting the vote in New Zealand; 125 years of women’s suffrage in New Zealand this year, and what a wonderful way for us as a society to put on the table, actually, the status of women in this country. And the reality is too many women are victims of family violence, and if we really want to change it, then we do need a society systems approach to ensuring that people can disclose—as I said before—to get the help that they need, and also, for the children of those families to get the support that they need too.

Unfortunately, I think the missing element in all of this is our kids who have to grow up living in households where they witness this violence, they internalise it, they go to schools. We’ve got big issues with bullying. Anyone who’s been visiting their schools in recesses or on Mondays and Fridays when we’re not here—and if you haven’t been told that we’ve got behavioural issues, issues of bullying in our schools, then actually you aren’t constructively engaging with some of the issues that our principals and our teachers are having to deal with. And that doesn’t come from nowhere. That comes from a culture and a society where we have internalised violence and made it an acceptable and normal part of how we deal with each other as human beings.

And so I do implore the Opposition to please look further at the evidence, because I think it would be a wonderful thing. If your only two SOPs for this House are Mark Mitchell wanting to get rid of the 10 days and allow people to use holiday leave and special leave for domestic violence, and if the other part is you want the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to engage in an education process—and I quite clearly heard the Minister say that an implementation plan is already under way, and that that will be an absolute part of what the Government will do in terms of disseminating this legislation, and what businesses are required to do, and MBIE will work with those businesses—then there actually doesn’t seem to me to be a reason why the National Party will not support this bill. So let’s have and continue to have a constructive discussion and dialogue; that’s what committee stage debates are all about.

But I just, finally, would like to commend Jan Logie and her work in working with New Zealand First and working with the Greens and working with the Labour Party to present an SOP that actually fulfils all our requirements, and also we’ve had other SOPs tabled from Clayton Mitchell. And I guess that offer is still there. Obviously, one of those SOPs is off the table—well, both are actually—but if the National Party want to come up with another one and consult with the member in charge of the bill tonight, maybe, there’s still time, I don’t know. But I really do implore them to change their position, because it would be wonderful to see all of Parliament supporting this piece of—

Hon Member: Do the right thing.

LOUISA WALL: Yeah, do the right thing, and try and actually end the rates of family violence that we see in New Zealand today. Kia ora.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Mr Chairman. It’s a great pleasure and an honour to take a call at this stage of this very important piece of legislation, the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. Like my colleague who has just spoken, Louisa Wall, I’d also like to acknowledge and pay tribute to the author and champion of this bill, and indeed of this cause, Jan Logie, who is an outstanding under-secretary for Justice. And, actually, the energy that she has brought to the cause of getting domestic violence in the forefront of policymaking for this Government has been absolutely outstanding. It’s been a privilege for me to play a supporting role in making sure that we advance that cause. And there’s a very good reason, and I think most in this Chamber know that. One of the biggest scourges that we have in this beautiful, peaceful country of ours is the appalling record of domestic violence in this country. So many families are afflicted by it, so many children are affected by it, and it is an issue that, simply, we have to take seriously in this country if we are going to make a real difference and give the next generation, and every generation that follows, a decent chance of living a decent life.

I know, in my role as Minister of Justice, that the price we pay for not doing better and not doing more on domestic violence is represented in our prison system and in other parts of our criminal justice system. It is not true to say that every child exposed to domestic violence becomes an offender themselves, but we do know that a huge percentage—the vast majority—of those who offend and who wind up in either our youth justice facilities or our prisons are themselves victims of family violence. That is the price we pay. And so it makes absolute sense to me that we have a piece of legislation that allows victims of domestic violence the opportunity, during work time, to deal with that issue, to sort out their affairs, to see the people they need to see, because that is the way we will start to make some progress in dealing seriously with this issue.

I hear members opposite saying, and you see it reflected in their Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), “Well, why would you give 10 days’ leave? Everybody will be taking it.” That’s the low trust model. And, unfortunately, historically, that’s actually the way the National Party regards working people. They regard working people as people not to be trusted. That’s why they hate legislation like this, which affords rights to people for important things, and then sort of have to add so many barriers and hurdles. It is enough at the moment that the level of prescription in this legislation is as it is, because the truth about employment-related legislation is that the overarching culture in this country is one of not trusting workers. Be that as it may, but when it comes to an issue like this, and provisions for those who are the victims of or who are deeply affected by domestic violence, by violence in the home, when they have their opportunity to extricate themselves from it, to seek help about it, to find safe refuge, to talk to specialists and get the support that they need, then why should they not have that opportunity available to them?

Good, responsible employers know that and understand it and afford that opportunity to people in that situation. There are plenty of employers who, even without this, would say to their valued staff member, “Of course this is an important time for you in your life, and I want to support you as part of my way of valuing you.” This is not a right that is going to be exercised by every employee. The underlying premise to one of Mark Mitchell’s SOPs—No. 41—is that, somehow, there’s going to be a flood of applications for leave for domestic violence; it’s not the case. But it is right that we have on our statute book a provision that pays respect to this as an issue and gives those affected by it the opportunity to do something serious about it. This is one thing. It is one thing that can make a difference, and we should allow it to happen. It is one thing we can do that can seriously help to make a difference for the victims of domestic violence, and really—especially—for children who are exposed to domestic violence. If a victim—more likely a woman but including some men—gets the opportunity to take time out from work without loss of pay, without putting themselves under even greater financial pressure, to get an issue sorted out that goes to the heart of who they are and can enable them to find peace and security and safety again, then actually good responsible legislation like this should allow that to happen.

This House, discharging its responsibilities to every citizen of New Zealand, and indeed to every business in New Zealand, will know that the responsible course of action is to ensure that these rights are provided for, appear on our statute book, and the people affected can exercise the rights accorded to them under this bill. So the mere fact that we have to provide for the opportunity to request provisions like these in employment agreements is—well, I guess we have to have it on our statute book because there will be some employers, and I would hope a small number, who will say, “If it’s not black and white, if it’s not in the law, on the statute book, then I’m not going to do it.” I actually happen to think there are many more employers who will say, “I value my workforce, and for those who face tragedy in their lives, I want to be a supportive employer and I know that we a run a business and run an organisation that can accommodate and provide for and be a supportive place for people in that situation.” So we should allow that to happen.

As it is, the bill requires, for those who take leave or apply for that leave—there are prescriptive processes to go through. That gives, I guess, some certainty to employers, at least, and indeed to workers who are availing themselves of this. But I trust the majority of New Zealanders, in a situation like this, when they have the opportunity to provide support to somebody in this situation, that they will do so willingly, without being grudging about it, and knowing that it is the right thing to do. This bill achieves that, and it is right that this House, at this time, should be making provision for it.

The bill is necessarily prescriptive about setting up clauses in agreements, and it goes through the various hoops there. It allows for mediation and intervention by the Mediation Service and labour inspectors to enable disputes to be resolved. I would hope that that simply is not necessary, simply because the small proportion of the workforce who will be drawing on these provisions to enable them to get to a safer place and a better place are already facing a level of indignity. They have already been afforded a level of disrespect, and I would hope that a culture would develop where, actually, they are not going to be revictimised through the processes that they need to go through to get to a point where they can get the support they need and make themselves safe again and spare any children in the relationship or any children exposed to domestic violence from continuing to be exposed.

This legislation sends a signal that this country will at last take it seriously, and this country, through this Government joining with employers and the employer community, are prepared, at this point in our history, to say, “We are going to take this issue seriously. We are prepared to recognise the problem, and we’re prepared to recognise that a solution is that people affected by these insidious incidents can get the help they need. There will be no impediment and they don’t have to bury themselves in shame in order to get that help, but it is acknowledged and is something that we can usefully do something about.” That’s what this bill does.

I’m not quite sure what the purpose of the Supplementary Order Paper calling for an education campaign is all about. Typically, these things will be duly notified. With all due respect to the author of it, from the party opposite, it just looks like more patronising from those members, who clearly don’t seem to understand the purpose of this bill.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. It’s with great pleasure that I support this Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. There’s a few strange things that have been said that I just want to point out. There seems to be a suggestion that a person who suffers from domestic violence is sick because they need sick leave. That’s simply wrong. The idea that sick leave should be used for a person who suffers from domestic violence is quite pernicious. It’s an entirely different issue that’s being faced. As for the suggestion that they should go on holiday, that simply beggars belief—beggars belief.

What this bill is about is giving a person who suffers from domestic violence some time, a breathing space. If I may say, one of the things I’ve learnt about domestic violence is it’s not about dictating to the victim how to sort out the issues that face them but giving them the opportunity to work through that themselves. That may include leaving the home. It may include going to court, but it might not. It might include sitting down and working through some really difficult issues with a person they love. It’s not for us to judge that. You know, the suggestion that there’s going to be a wholesale uptake of this is also offensive, because it’s a huge barrier facing up and owning up in the face of a sense of shame for many people that this has happened to them—they’re the victim, but nevertheless the sense that it’s in some way their fault and they should feel bad about the fact that they’re a victim.

There’s not going to be a flood of people going to their employer looking for a few extra days off. I admire any person who has the courage to say to their employer, “I am a victim of domestic violence.” Look, yes, there will be costs on employers that they will have to bear. They will have to get cover for people who can’t come to work because they’re desperately trying to hold on to their life, their job, and their family all at once. But let’s remember this also, that there will be benefits—benefits not only for that family and that person, benefits for the community and society, but benefits for that employer as well. Let’s start having a culture where we are a community that hangs together, that recognises that if we look after each other we will all flourish. So I absolutely commend this bill.

Look, one other thing I feel I must point out: the suggestion that this fits within the ACC framework is also entirely misplaced. There may be injury, and certainly it is an accident, from the victim’s point of view, that that injury has occurred, but there may be many and manifest examples where it simply doesn’t fit within that. Domestic violence does not have to be a punch in the face; it can take all kinds of forms which don’t manifest themselves in injury at all. So to put it within the accident compensation framework is placing it entirely in the wrong place. It would mischaracterise what’s going on, and it would entirely undermine what we need to be doing, which is addressing domestic violence and abuse in all its forms and not pretending it’s this archetype. That, again, would undermine the very good work that’s being undertaken here.

So, look, Ms Logie, I absolutely commend you for the hard work you’ve done here. It’s disappointing to see that we don’t have broad-based, cross-party support, and I am a little bit surprised about that. But this is a bill which absolutely must pass, because this is an evil, a scourge, an absolute disease in our society, which we need to attack from every—every—angle. Thank you.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (Third Whip—National): Thank you, Mr Chair. I move, That the question be now put.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s with pleasure that I take a second call tonight. I just wanted to raise a couple of matters that haven’t been raised so far this evening. I am going to talk a little bit about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 42, in regards to the educational campaign that Mark Mitchell has submitted. Essentially, what he is saying in this is that there needs to be a systematic educational process around leave applications and how to manage that. He’s also saying that there needs to be some education about flexible working environment requirements. One of the things I have to say in response to that is that I actually believe that our employers know what they’re doing. I am an employer; I work my way through legislative requirements. There are some amazing tools online if people get stuck. Those tools even include just looking at writing up contracts, and they’re automatically there. So there’s the Department of Internal Affairs, there’s Government departments, etc. There is access and help and support in order to be able to navigate through this process.

The second part is around the educational awareness, and I really just wanted to draw this committee and the wider community to a really brilliant resource for employers, which is actually out there right now and very valuable. It has been in place for quite a number of years. For those employers who are seeking and need to know what to do right now, I recommend that they go to “It’s Not OK”, www.areyouok.org.nz, to the business resource, and have a look at the provisions and the support available and the way to help your employee in that situation. It’s really important, and often in my role at the Ministry of Justice, and also in my role at Women’s Refuge, we had employers just wanting to know what to do. We often directed them to this and also talked them through the process. Compassion is the key, really, when you’re an employer and you have an employee suffering.

One of the things that is really clearly articulated in that tool is the following findings: when an employee is managed appropriately, there is less absenteeism, there is lower staff turnover, there is greater productivity, there are fewer safety risks, there is better morale, it meets the health and safety requirements that everyone must follow—and, in fact, has been pulled back from this bill—they have a reputation as a good employer, and the community recognises that. And the community recognises that. So that’s the first issue.

The second issue is just in relation to when this leave arises, and there’s a concern that there’s a cost. Well, there are a couple of parts in the member Jan Logie’s SOP 39 that limit that liability, if you want to call it that. So, new section 72F says that domestic violence leave is not to be paid out. So this is not an accruing entitlement; when you leave, you don’t have to be paid out this leave. It’s very much exactly like sick leave. That’s important so that people know that this isn’t going to accumulate. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that there is no carry-forward provision. As an employer, we’d sometimes put in place that a person could hold up to 20 days of sick leave and they can use that at any time. There is no provision in this SOP for that to happen. So, in lots of ways, we are limiting the cost to an employer, and that is an important fact, even though I firmly believe that most employers out there would very happily support the ending of domestic violence for their staff. I’m very happy to say thank you, Jan Logie, for your wonderful work on this.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 46 in the name of Clayton Mitchell to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 39 in the name of Jan Logie be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 47 in the name of Clayton Mitchell to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 39 in the name of Jan Logie be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 42 in the name of the Hon Mark Mitchell to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 39 in the name of Jan Logie be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Noes 63

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

Amendment to the amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 41 in the name of the Hon Mark Mitchell to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 39 in the name of Jan Logie be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Noes 63

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

Amendment to the amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 39 in the name of the Hon Jan Logie be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Parts 1 to 5 and clauses 1 and 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Parts 1 to 5 and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 13 June.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill, which will undergo a title change, I believe, at the committee stage.

I’d like to congratulate the women of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, because that is one of the places—this bill started originally with other women, and one of those women was Jackie Blue, so let’s make sure that we keep the name of Jackie Blue on the records. Then it sort of morphed into a cross-party women’s conversation at the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. That is an organisation that many people—many people don’t think that consensus decision or collective, collegial decision-making goes on in this House, and it does. It does, and through the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians is one of those organisations where it happens.

I remember that it was actually that particular group of women, cross-party—there were only two parties not represented there, and that was because they didn’t have any women, so they couldn’t. But what we did as a group of women was we actually asked the Speaker at that time—this was in the last Parliament—“Can we please put this bill forward with the name of every woman from each party inside this Parliament?” and, unfortunately, there is no capacity for that to be done.

Louisa Wall: No, there is.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Uh, oh! There is, apparently, so I’ll allow—I was giving the benefit of the doubt to the Speaker of the day, so let’s just leave it there.

But if it is true—Louisa Wall tells me that it is possible to be done; I will leave that for her. She’s probably technically more correct, on many levels, than I am. But if it’s not true, then that’s a failing, because there are issues like this where a member from every political party could place their name on a bill because there is no contention here, it’s something we all agree that we need to do as a Parliament, and we should have the capacity to do it.

But because we couldn’t do it, Jo Hayes, who was the co-chair at the time of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, and at that time a member of the Government, took up the cudgels of this particular bill, and we thank Jo Hayes for doing that. She needed the permission of her caucus to do so, and she gained it, so you have to give credit to the caucus that she was sitting in because they allowed her to place this particular piece of legislation into the members’ ballot, and, as fate would have it, it was drawn.

Can I also acknowledge the author of the bill and the select committee that worked upon it, the Justice Committee, for the inclusion of de facto relationships inside this bill. In the passage of this bill up till select committee, it had never been raised. It hadn’t been raised in any of the conversations that I had had as a collective, so that was smart—really, really smart. So to whoever, anywhere, brought that piece of knowledge to the table, thank you very much.

Let’s get real about what this bill does. This bill recognises a problem. In numerical terms, it might be a small problem. If we think about the number of young people—in one of my first reading speeches or my second reading speech; I can’t remember—back in 1933 I think there were 247 young women who were married at the age of 12 in this country, because that was what the legal age was to be married. But, of course, time moves on and society moves on, and we all learn new ways of doing things, and we all think about things differently. I think, on the foreword of this bill, it talks about the fact that there’s probably only 30 young people a year who, with parental consent, currently get married at 16 and 17 years old.

For many of those young people, that’s probably not a problem, because they’re in love, they care about each other, and they have the emotional maturity and the intellectual maturity to make that decision. But even if it’s only one or two of those young people who aren’t there of their free will, even if it’s only one or two—and, ultimately, if I look at the numbers, what it tells us is most of the young people, the 16- and 17-year-olds, who are currently getting married with parental permission are young women. So even if it’s only or two of those young women who are not there of their free will, that is enough for this Parliament to say, “Let’s put in another step.”—let’s put in another step.

I also want to acknowledge the member of the National Party Parmjeet Parmar. I want to acknowledge her contribution to this conversation because she quite clearly articulated the difference between “arranged” and “forced”, and I think that’s really important, because this is not a judgment on cultures. This is not trying to judge individual families. This is trying to accept that, in a few cases, we have people being—whether because of a cultural pressure, in a small instance, or whether it be for some other reason—forced into a relationship. I remember the conversation—the articulation between myself and Chris Bishop where he said you can’t prove that it’s a sexual issue inside this relationship. But the reality of most marriages is there’s a consummation that takes place, and if we’re saying that even one or two of the young people that are being forced to marry somebody that they do not willingly, of their free, will choose, then in those few cases, that is State-sanctioned rape.

That’s not what many of us want to articulate about our nation, so this small measure—which is that a 16- and 17-year-old who wishes to marry or wishes to enter a de facto relationship will have to go and talk to a Family Court judge on their own, away from all other influences, so the Family Court judge can make a decision about their emotional capacity, their mental capacity, their ability to understand what they are entering into, their ability to be making this decision of their free will—is a small price to pay to make sure that even if it’s only small in numbers, we are ensuring that when people enter into the institution of marriage, when they enter into a civil union or a de facto relationship, they are doing so of their free will.

Every single one of us could reach out not too far from us today and find a story where there has been a young woman—more often than not a young woman—who has found themselves under a pressure to do this against their will. In my situation, I know two young women. So I applaud all the members across this House, because this was a collective effort. I want to acknowledge the Assistant Speaker in the Chair, who also has placed her weight as an MP in a previous Parliament and in her time as a huge advocate for women across this Parliament, and also pushed her weight behind this bill. So I want to acknowledge all the women, but I want to acknowledge all the members of Parliament, because there has been no man who has opposed this. We have been supported by the men of our parties. There’s never been a question of anything—this is fully supported by our Parliament. It’s a small step that will make a huge difference to a few people, but the difference it will make is enormous. Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak to the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in the name of Jo Hayes. May I begin by commending Jo Hayes for her tenacity, her diplomacy, and her ability to consult and talk and ensure that this bill had the support that it needed from all parts of this House, and also of a larger section of society that was a little sceptical about its use, and others who firmly believed it was important. It is a bill that reflects a small group of women, who are very adversely affected, and it’s a story that is not often told. I think that, as a result of this bill, there have been discussions which have shone some light on some very unfortunate practices. So, in a number of ways, Jo Hayes, I think that what you’ve done with this bill is commendable because it has raised consciousness, as well as put this bill through the various paces it has needed to get to this stage.

It has had a long history. I believe it was about 10 years ago that Jackie Blue, the member of Parliament for National, worked on this bill with a number of migrant communities and others—Priyanca, I know, and Louisa Wall. There were a number of people who were involved with this for a long time.

Louisa Wall: From 2010.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: That was 2010, so it’s been eight years’ gestation. When Jackie Blue left Parliament, she gave the bill to me. I gave it to someone else who was here briefly, and Jo Hayes has picked it up from there. So this has passed through many hands within this House to get to the stage it has now, and not without surprises around the amendments. It needed to become an omnibus bill because it amended so many Acts, and, as civil unions came through, as de factos became discussed, this bill needed to future proof itself and remain relevant within the law, which is what it has done.

There were, indeed, robust discussions at the Justice Committee, not because people believed that this bill was wrong but because they wondered if it was still relevant. Was it still needed? Was there a requirement for a bill of this kind in this modern age? And the submitters and the information that we had through our select committee members, who are in touch with these communities, repeatedly assured us that it was essential.

So it is with enormous pleasure that I state the words rarely uttered by me in this House, which are that this bill enjoyed unanimous support. There’s the argy-bargy that happens in the engine room that is the select committee, it comes before this House and further arguments unfold, but this is a bill that has unanimous support. It is needed, it is wanted, it’s been a long time coming, and I’m hesitant to take up too much more time in the House, actually, because it’s taken long enough. This bill needs to be passed.

If this is passed, a Family Court judge will now need to consent to the marriage of a 16- or 17-year-old, and that is appropriate because, at that level, the Family Court judge has the wisdom, the capacity, and the knowledge of how these things work, to give a wise decision. If parents are coercing their children—and there is a very big difference between coercion and force. We looked at those definitions for a long time to come up with something that we felt would address the issue.

So I think, with all the to-ing and fro-ing and with all the things that have happened around this bill, it has returned to this House for this final reading in a form that is one that we really can accept as being the best possible law that we can all make to protect this group of vulnerable people. So, without hesitation or reservation, I commend this bill to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I’d just like to start with some international context for this piece of legislation and then relate it back to Aotearoa New Zealand. So there are groups internationally called Girls Not Brides and Ending Child Marriage, and their definition of child marriage is “any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age.” Each year, that’s 12 million girls. That’s 23 girls every minute—nearly one every two seconds—who are getting married. In New Zealand, that equates to approximately 80 child brides a year, and, of interest, 388 or 48.6 percent of those women are actually married overseas, and they come into our country. So, actually, in addition to this whole issue about child brides, we also have issues about the immigration status of those women.

What happens to a number of those women if they end up in domestic violence situations? That’s been another issue that we have been pursuing as the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP). Globally, today, there are 700 million women who were child brides. Of those, 250 million were married before 15 years of age, and I think we should all think about what happens to those women who are married. What happens to them is that they are at risk of violence, abuse, exploitation for life. Of the babies born to women who are child brides, 60 percent are at greater risk of dying in the first year of life.

New Zealand’s, I guess, contribution to this international campaign did start in 2010, and the Hon Maggie Barry is 100 percent correct that Jackie Blue engaged with Shakti; so I too want to acknowledge my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who was working for Shakti at that point in time. Some of us may not know, but there was a John Hudson Sunday story that did a big exposé about this issue in New Zealand, and there were 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old girls who were being married in New Zealand in cultural and religious marriages. And one of those young women, a 14-year-old, had been raped and her parents had made her marry her rapist. She suffered torture, beatings, isolation. She escaped and was seeking refuge with Shakti, and we started then having this discussion, because Shakti then engaged with people like Jackie, who talked to the National Council of Women and a whole lot of other people. I have tried to look back to when we first referenced this to the UN, but actually this issue is relevant in New Zealand; so our contribution to this global campaign of Girls Not Brides, Ending Child Marriage, is incredibly significant tonight.

I do want to acknowledge that, to date, this has been the one and only piece of legislation that we as parliamentarians across the House have agreed on. So, Jo, I want to commend you as the co-chair of our CWP group and, also, as somebody who put her name to this bill. It doesn’t matter how you got it, although I think that inheritance is a great legacy; the fact is that this bill is in your name and you are incredibly passionate about advocating it not only within your party but across the House, and I know you’ve done a number of media interviews about what we’re trying to achieve.

So, essentially, what we’re saying is that marriage should actually be between adults but, in lieu of it being between adults, because in New Zealand we do allow 16- and 17-year-olds to get married, because of the issues of consent, and the issue of coercion, and the fact that, from the evidence that I talked about just before, we know that some parents are making their children, their girl children, marry older people, there is an issue. What this process will ensure is two things. One is informed consent—so the judge has to be convinced that that 16-year-old or 17-year-old girl, young woman, absolutely knows what she is entering into, in wanting to marry somebody else, and that judge will determine, based on that interaction, whether or not that young woman wants to get married and has the capacity to give informed consent. Why do we do that? Because of some of the harms that I outlined earlier.

I have to say, I’ve been at some events, though, where women have come up to me and have said, “I got married at 16 and I’ve had a wonderful marriage.” And that’s fine. That’s great. We’re not trying to stop it, which was actually one of the big discussion points when we presented to the select committee: if we really want to end child brides, why aren’t we saying you can’t get married? And one of the reasons that we said we couldn’t was that that was a big change—because that went back to 1955. But we felt, by adding a layer of credibility into the system, where a judge, through the Family Court, could make the determination about that young person giving informed consent, therefore assenting to the application for a marriage licence, reassured in that process and that that would also guarantee that no harm would come to that young woman.

I also have to say that the other advancement in this piece of legislation, which the select committee actually have been incredibly helpful on, is saying, “It’s not just marriage. This also applies to civil unions and also to those who are in de facto relationships.” And, I guess, that really highlights, again, the constructive process that our select committee engages in, because we were able to have those discussions, people were able to bring to the table pieces of information that, actually, we just hadn’t considered, because in other legislatures around the world—or in other democracies—they have only marriage; they don’t have civil unions or formal recognition of de facto relationships in their laws.

Just finally, I do want to pick up on one of the points that my colleague the Hon Tracey Martin talked about, in terms of this whole concept of a multi-member bill. Now, the multi-member bill concept came about because, as a cross-party group of women, we were thinking, “How can we get this bill into the House if everyone agrees with it?” We didn’t have a Minister who was prepared to propose it, but we thought, “How can we do it?” Obviously, we had somebody put their name to it, and it was in the ballot. But I consulted Mary Harris, the then Clerk of the House, about how we could enter a multi-member bill into the Parliament. The way that we could do it—it’s just that no one has ever done it—is that if we had a bill that we all agreed on, every political party in this House would nominate one of their members, for their name to be on that bill. And if every political party did that, we would then seek the leave of the House for that bill to be tabled, and then it could be debated.

The fact that it’s never happened before doesn’t mean that it can’t; it actually just means we haven’t found the right bill. And so, I guess, our experience from this cross-party endeavour is: let’s try and find a bill where we can find every political party supporting it, we can all put one person’s name on it, and we can agree as a House for that bill to be tabled in this Parliament, and let’s create—it’s fun—consensus around really important issues like this one. So that’s a challenge to all of us: let’s start thinking of some bills that we all think are incredibly important and that might not be on Ministers’ work programmes, and rather than put them in the member’s ballot, let’s see if we can work constructively as a Parliament.

Just finally, I do want to commend Jackie—hopefully she’s watching. I know you won’t mind, Jo. She will be interested in what’s happening.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I just encourage the member to use the sponsor’s full name.

LOUISA WALL: Oh, sorry. Thank you. So Dr Jackie Blue, wherever you are, I’d just like to say that this bill has progressed to this point not only because you were able to work with the community to construct the bill, not only did you have somebody in your National caucus who was prepared to take it on, but also because, when you’d left, you came back to the cross-party women’s group and talked to us about this being a piece of legislation that we could work on together, which we have done. And so, without further ado, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise and add the Green Party’s voice of support to this, the second reading of the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill, as it is named right at this moment. Firstly, I too would like to congratulate the member Joanne Hayes on shepherding the bill through the House to get it to this point and on keeping all of us on board and engaged and happy through that process. That is, clearly, no mean feat.

I also want to acknowledge Dr Jackie Blue for the work that she did with Shakti: for picking up on their concern, which—and it has been acknowledged by others—is an issue that they have been raising for a very long time, because of their experience with working with young women coming into their safe house and contacting them who have been forced into these relationships against their will. They have not felt as though those young women have adequate protections in our laws. So it is well overdue, in fact, that we as a Parliament create a protection for those young women to save them from those lives of forced servitude and, as I think was described by Minister Tracey Martin, basically, socially, legally sanctioned rape.

I wanted to just touch on the work of the Justice Committee. The Green Party don’t have a seat on the Justice Committee, so I really want to acknowledge the committee for the work that they’ve done; it’s substantive and really does seem to have addressed some quite tricky issues—where the bill was initially responding to marriages, that it is for 16- and 17-year-olds who wish to marry. This will now be extended to civil unions and de facto relationships. I can imagine that that issue of working through how you create the system for de facto relationships in law, where we don’t normally have an engagement with the court at all for these young women, must have taken a degree of consideration.

I absolutely support the point that the committee got to, of actually having this process for all relationships. So it is marriage, civil unions, cultural marriages, and de facto relationships. The point was made, in the commentary from the committee, that that seemed to be consistent with the Human Rights Act and the provision to not discriminate against anyone on the basis of marital status. So all of our young women and girls should have the same protection from being forced into relationships, and I think that’s great. And, to reflect that, there is, sensibly, the recommendation to change the title of the bill to the “Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill”, as opposed to “(Court Consent to Marriage of Minors)”.

For anyone who is listening, I’ll just briefly reiterate the process that this sets up. If a 16- or a 17-year-old wishes to get married, then they will need to make an application to the court and a judge will then consider their application, and the select committee has added a bit more guidance for the judge around how to consider that application. In the first instance, the judge must be satisfied that the applicant has made the application voluntarily—free of undue influence or coercion—and that the applicant understands the consequences of the application and, indeed, wants the judge to consent. So that’s the first consideration for the judge, which is quite a significant number of issues for that judge to work through. And if they are actually assured of the free will of the young woman concerned, then they need to do an objective assessment to assess whether the marriage will be in the best interests of that girl, taking into account the person’s age and maturity, the person’s views, any views held by the parents or guardians, and any other information available.

Considering the severity of the consequences—typically, it is a girl being forced into a relationship against her will—I absolutely think it is appropriate that the court works through a very, very thorough process to make sure that they understand the consequences and that it is of their freewill to enter into that relationship. And the select committee also made the recommendation that the judge should be able to access a cultural report to be able to aid their consideration of that assessment. Again, I think that is appropriate, and I have certainly been hearing from judges over time about how they would appreciate more access to cultural reports in a whole range of situations, because, actually, it is really an essential piece of information to understand the context when you’re dealing with people, and particularly if there is violence involved.

Also, finally, legal representation should also be available if the judge considers that necessary or helpful for the applicant. So this is a really important step today in terms of making sure that our commitment to end family and sexual violence works for everyone in our society—for our children, and for people of all cultures. It is with huge pleasure that I offer the Green Party’s support at this second reading.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Kia ora. I take this brief call this evening and my mind is somewhat distracted. I have a heavy heart because, as the member of Parliament for the Whanganui electorate, my thoughts turn to the community in Waverley, South Taranaki, with the double fatality car accident, six deaths there, in the worst car accident in 13 years. So my aroha to the families there and also to the community of South Taranaki.

I now turn to the business before the House, and it is a privilege to be able to address the House and acknowledge my colleague Joanne Hayes here as the sponsor of this legislation, or this proposed legislation, the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. It’s no minor matter in addressing the court but it is a bill about minors. It’s proposed legislation, and it does have cross-party support so it will, I anticipate, see it through to the third passage with a final reading.

This is legislation that is not gender biased, although I acknowledge my colleagues who have addressed the House this evening in terms of the particular concerns about young women and forced marriages—some may have considered at a previous time arranged marriages, but this legislation is specifically about ensuring that the most vulnerable become the least vulnerable and are protected by this legislation. I also am pleased to be able to address the House because the safeguards, the checks and balances, in this legislation are very much premised on much Family Court legislation that I’ve advocated in my role previously as lawyer for children, youth advocate, and also court-appointed counsel for those incompetent and incapacitated persons.

I turn to what this bill is about. It’s proposing changes specifically to the Marriage Act 1955 and the Care of Children Act 2004. For three decades, I advocated represented children. Many of the abused are children in welfare—the most vulnerable—and to ensure that they were represented well before the court, their interests, their views, and their welfare were not only undertaken but the court took great heed of those through the advocacy and the responsibility that I had and many of my former colleagues as well.

So the protections and safeguards that are outlined within this Act-to-be very much align with other procedural checks and balances that I’ve talked about: for example, the Care of Children Act; the Family Proceedings Act; guardianship legislation; the former Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, now Oranga Tamariki Act; and also the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act. So the safeguards and the checks and balances that I talk about are very much what’s outlined in this bill as well. It’s focused about reducing the risks of minors, young persons, 16-year-olds and/or 17-year-olds. So it aims to reduce the risk of minors being forced into marriage by requiring court consent. So, in effect, the consent of a Family Court judge is now required, replacing that of parents, to ensure that, again, with the checks and balances, those most vulnerable become the least vulnerable. The court will seek to run through this checklist of ensuring that the young person’s views are represented, that there is the appropriate cultural report that is sought, that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. I didn’t advise it was a split call. You have about a minute left on your call.

HARETE HIPANGO: Right. It’s outlined there in the bill, but just to say that in terms of the safety checks and balances there, they are aligned with what has been before the court, and that this bill is very much about the most vulnerable becoming the least vulnerable, minimising risks associated with their compromised positions. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. I do want to, firstly, thank and acknowledge Joanne Hayes for having this bill in her name. I think it’s really important to thank the Justice Committee. Whilst I’ve not been a part of this process prior to it, I think it’s really important to acknowledge and thank the committee for the work that they have done on this bill. My understanding is that they’ve worked really, really hard, and they’ve had some really good collegial discussions and conversations around this bill.

I just want to come back to something that the Hon Maggie Barry said. She said that this is a story that is not often told. That was actually quite a poignant and sobering statement for me to hear personally. It made me stop and think and try to imagine how it must feel for some of these young people that are forced into a situation of marriage. Actually, I can’t even begin to imagine how that must feel. So for me it endorses just how important this piece of legislation actually is. I also want to acknowledge my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan who has worked in the sector and worked with women who have been forced into marriage.

Around this bill, what it does is it amends the Marriage Act 1955 whereby, currently, 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds who want to get married must get the permission of their parents. What this bill does is it provides a safeguard to our young people to ensure that the marriage is consensual and that it will require the consent of a Family Court judge for the marriage of a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old.

Sometimes forced marriage can be confused with arranged marriage but it is not the same. With an arranged marriage there is the element of choice. Two people are introduced to each other by their parents. The idea behind that is that marriage is actually difficult enough so they introduce individuals that have similar interests and similar family values and backgrounds to try to make the potential marriage as smooth sailing as possible. After a period of courtship, the couple can choose to continue with the relationship and into marriage, if they so choose. However, forced marriage and the motivations are and can be quite different. At least one partner doesn’t have a choice, and anecdotal evidence does suggest that it is quite often the young woman. Whatever the motivations for that might be, it doesn’t make it right.

This is an important bill because it does go to the heart of what we in Government hold dear and is core to our values. Preventing forced marriage will protect New Zealand children. I just want to quote from a submission from the Wellington Community Justice Project: “[This] Bill adds a layer of protection where parental protection fails, in requiring court consent after ascertaining the consent of the marrying individuals. This goes a long way towards eliminating coercion and thus forced marriages.” It ensures that those children who don’t have the protection are given the safeguard of the judiciary.

New Zealand is a democratic society, and we are really proud of that. We were the first country to give women the right to vote. It is important that our children are—and feel—safe, and we know that young people around the ages of 16 and 17 are a vulnerable group of people and they deserve better—better protection under the law.

I just want to also quote from an article that has a quote by UNICEF. They’ve said that “Child marriage is a violation of the rights of girls and women. Girls who are married as children are more likely to be out of school, suffer domestic violence, contract HIV/AIDS and die due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Child marriage also hurts economies and leads to intergenerational cycles of poverty.”

So this bill will go a long way to ensure that children don’t have to continue being forced into marriage against their will, and I really commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. Can I start by congratulating Jo Hayes. Jo has been a stalwart supporter of this bill, but I know that she comes from a lineage of strong wāhine toa supporting the bill from both sides of the House, including Jacqui Dean, and I know Louisa Wall paid tribute to some of the members who have supported this. It has genuinely been a collegial cross-party approach and Parliament working at its best; so congrats, Jo. I know what it’s like to have a member’s bill pass, and it looks like this one will soon pass into law.

In my brief remarks, I just want to canvass the difficulty the committee had—because I was a member of the Justice Committee that dealt with this bill—in working our way through the submissions. What I mean by that is they did actually conflict. I actually went into this thinking there would be, essentially, unanimous support for the bill, that 95 percent of the submissions would be in favour and we’d just kind of, essentially, tweak it a few times and we’d carry on through. But it wasn’t quite like that. The National Council of Women of New Zealand came and they said, “We support the intent, but the bill should say that only 18-year-olds should be able to get married.”, so no 16- and 17-year-old marriage at all. That would get rid of parental consent but also get rid of what this bill actually proposes, which is the ability to go to the Family Court and seek an order that that marriage be allowed. They said, “No, that should be a blanket for 18-year-olds and above only.”; so that was quite interesting.

Then we had the Human Rights Commission, and they said exactly the same thing. All committees, particularly the Justice Committee, pay attention to what the Human Rights Commission says, particularly when it comes to issues around age and consent and things like that. They said, “No, there should be no exceptions. It should be 18 only, and to do otherwise would be a breach of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).”—which New Zealand is a signatory to, of course, through the United Nations—“We actually need to go further to implement our CEDAW obligations.” So I thought that was quite interesting.

Then, of course, we had the Office of the Children’s Commissioner come along, and they took the exact opposite view. I thought that was very interesting, because we get these, sort of, august rights-protecting bodies and rights-protecting institutions, and they’re opposed to the bill. I found that very interesting. They came along and said, “No, we actually don’t support the bill, because it breaches the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, because 16-year-olds are children.” Actually, because 16-year-olds are children, their parents have rights over them, and to take away the ability of parents to consent to marriage would be a breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; so they, essentially, said the status quo should remain. I’ve got to say, I actually found that very hard to accept. I found it very hard to comprehend, because although 16-year-olds are children in the strictest sense of the word, I think the proposition that we should therefore allow parents to make decisions around their marriage choices, which flies in the face of a lot of the evidence that the committee heard from respected organisations like Shakti, is quite a difficult proposition to take.

So, basically, what the committee had to do was work through this area and protect the human right of association and freedom of association, and the right of people to fall in love with people of the same sex or different sexes, or genders, and to fall in love and get married, but also make sure that Parliament was protecting the vulnerable from abuse. It had to allow autonomy and the autonomy that all humans are inalienably born with, and the ability to associate or to marry and to love, but also walk that fine line between allowing that but protecting the vulnerable from possible abuse and possible coercion. It sounds like quite a slight change to the law, to move it from the parents consenting to moving it into the Family Court, which is that authority, but I actually think it will make a big difference.

I think there is a debate to be had out there, frankly, about whether or not the actual age of marriage should be lifted to 18. Eighteen is when you can vote, it’s when you can drink—well, at least buy a drink—and it’s when you can serve in the army. You know, I think there is actually a genuine debate to be had out there about whether or not 18 is the appropriate age. That is, basically, when you become an adult. And marriage is a pretty big responsibility.

So, look, I think there’s a debate to be had out there. Maybe that’s a bill for down the line, but I think it’s good that the Parliament’s going to agree that this is a step forward in protecting young people from coercion and abuse. Let’s face it; it is primarily women we’re talking about, young girls—because they are girls—and I think it’s a great thing that the Parliament’s working together. I commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai, ōtirā ki a koutou, ā tātou nei mema o Te Whare, tēnei te mihi.

[Greetings, Mr Assistant Speaker, and to my fellow parliamentarians, greetings.]

Actually, it’s a real delight to be able to speak in respect of this bill. To you, Joanne Hayes, I just really want to acknowledge the work that you’ve done in stewarding this bill to this phase, and, obviously, you inherited it from, or worked alongside, the Hon Jacqui Dean, so I want to acknowledge Jacqui and some of my parliamentary colleagues from across both sides of the House. I know the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians were very instrumental in the support that’s been provided to you. But also to Chris Bishop and his team over there in the Justice Committee, I’m sure that they’ve spent many hours debating the nuances, and I was actually really pleased just to hear some of the challenges that you’ve had to wade through when, I guess, trying to strike the right balance with this piece of legislation that does exactly that: it goes to the heart of what we’re trying to do here as members of this Parliament—make good law to protect our children, in this circumstance, against coercion and abuse.

I didn’t know a whole lot about child marriages growing up, and I was preparing some remarks this evening, and, you know, you look to the experts amongst your own colleagues to help give you a bit of a steer, and then it was quite interesting to stumble across the work of my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who wrote the first ever comprehensive research in New Zealand on child marriage here in New Zealand, in 2012. Some of the issues, for me, that I was trying to grapple with in the brief period that I had to try and understand the complexities around how we make laws to protect kids that come from this particular circumstance and background, she helped to really put in context for me. I think, for me, I was coming at it from, you know, how we can avoid applying a Western cultural lens to things that can be inherently quite culturally complex issues. So I think that’s where I was coming from.

Anyway, I read her thesis. She said, “The interconnectedness between families and culture is an important aspect to consider when examining structures that contribute to the perpetuation of violence against women and more specifically, honour-[bound] violence and the influence of ‘culture’.” She goes on to say that “It must be understood that ‘violence against women is not an inherent part of anyone’s culture’ … It is an issue of power and control that, in the case of immigrants, may be exacerbated by issues such as isolation, changes in the economic status and language barriers. Forced marriage is a reality in New Zealand, as it is in many other parts of the world.”

I want to pick up on some of the comments made by previous speakers in this debate. It’s almost less of a debate but a discussion or an affirmation of New Zealand’s values, actually, when it comes to the role that children play or the value that we see of children in our society. I think that there was this—I think we’re unanimous across this House, because, you know, I read through just story after story. Yeah, there’s some confusion—that’s where I was going—as to whether or not child marriage was, in fact, really an issue here in New Zealand. The argument was made that “Oh, it doesn’t happen so much here.” Well, Shakti, the organisation that has been the main promoter of getting rid of child marriages here in New Zealand, said that over a five-year period, approximately 300 young people had been forced into under-age engagements to be married as soon as they turned 16 or 17. There were 300 here, in New Zealand, over a five-year period, and I was really surprised by that significant number.

So, to me, this is really very much so a New Zealand issue, and it is very much so that this bill here and the work that’s been done in this House is going squarely towards protecting some of the most vulnerable members of our society. In order to place those young people that we’re trying to protect with this piece of legislation and put their voices at the centre of this debate, I want to pick up on a couple of stories that were shared through the select committee process and to have their stories told here in this House.

So this is a story from 2016. We’ll call her P, and this is a story that was shared by Shakti. She was a 14-year-old child of South-east Asian descent, and she was referred to Shakti by a high school counsellor. Her mother had been verbally and physically abusive towards her since she was a 10-year-old child. When she was referred to Shakti, she disclosed that her mother was going to get her married at the age of 16 years old. Her mother did not ask for her consent, but told her that it was going to happen. She didn’t feel like she had a choice in the matter. It was a decision that had already been made. Since Shakti spoke to her counsellor, she said that her mother had changed and that they’d be allowed to continue with her education. Now she’s aware of Shakti’s services if her mother changes her mind. So that goes towards the work that Shakti’s doing, but then the stories keep going.

In 2017, there was a young woman of Middle Eastern descent, a survivor of forced under-age engagement and marriage. She migrated to New Zealand when she was a six-year-old. She grew up in a Western country and her views were relatively liberal. However, her family had very Eastern, traditional values. At the age of 16, she was taken to her country of origin under the pretext of visiting her homeland. Once there, she realised that her parents wanted her to marry her first cousin so that he could come back to New Zealand. She was not interested in getting married but was stuck in a situation where it looked like there was going to be no hope. She knew that if she were to get married, then there would be no turning back. She convinced her parents that she would agree to the wedding if they let her finish her studies. They relented and agreed to an engagement only, and she was engaged to her first cousin from her father’s side.

After the engagement, the couple were left to talk, ostensibly. In that room, that young woman’s fiancé, who was considerably older than her, tried to force her to perform sexual acts, and so on. They didn’t go well. She was abused, and that continued into the marriage.

I read story after story of this ilk, and I was so heartbroken to know that that’s happening all throughout for young children here, in Aotearoa New Zealand. So to the members across both sides of this House, thank you for recognising the harm. Thank you for being, I guess, bold enough to tell the stories of those that may not have had the opportunity to have somebody be the voice for them. Thank you, too, for the work of organisations like Shakti.

I must say that if this wee exercise just in preparing some brief remarks has given me any personal insight, it’s just how fascinating some of our colleagues are and the working history that they come from. So I really do want to acknowledge too just the work of Priyanca Radhakrishnan. It was a leading piece of research that she commenced, and this is back in 2012, I think—the first piece of work in this area.

A fantastic occasion, I say to our colleague Joanne Hayes across the House. May the passage of the rest of this bill be successful. So, nō reira, ki a koe e Te Māngai. I’m glad to stand in support of this bill.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise in support of the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill. Let me begin by congratulating my colleague Jo Hayes, as members before me have. She has shown tenacity in continuing to herald this legislation through the House and, of course, in taking it through from Jackie Blue, who first introduced it to Parliament.

I want to also acknowledge the role of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, the cross-party group who promote an increase in women’s participation in Parliament and work on issues of importance to women and girls. It’s a credit to that cross-party group that a piece of legislation like this has gained the support of all parties in the House. It demonstrates that, as MPs, we can work together constructively to make improvements to our law, because, as previous members have commented, this was not an entirely straightforward piece of legislation. It came with challenges along the way, and, as MPs, we were able to work together on it.

Of course, what this bill does is reduce the risk of 16- and 17-year-olds being forced into marriage, and it does that by requiring Family Court consent and by also continuing the requirement for parental or guardian consent. I think it’s important to note that this is a safeguard. This is not a practice that is hugely prevalent in New Zealand society, but still it is something that we all agree we must protect against, because the idea of young people facing physical, emotional, or financial pressure to marry and, at the age of 16 or 17, being forced into a marriage that they do not want through that fear is abhorrent to us all. And that potential for coercion has been recognised in the consideration of this bill by a range of organisations, especially those who are interested in protecting and advancing the rights of women. So that risk of coercion has been recognised by the National Council of Women of New Zealand, New Zealand Family Planning, the Women’s Refuge, and many other organisations who examined this piece of legislation.

So this legislation really ups the bar for a 16- or 17-year-old to get married in this country. A Family Court judge has to be satisfied that that person has been free from undue influence or coercion, that that person understands the consequences of marriage, that they want the judge to consent, and that marriage is in their interest. Reflecting on those things, I thought back to my own marriage some 11 years ago—my wedding, back in 2007. And, you know, I was pretty young. I was 26. But the idea that that day of joy and that choice of absolute free will and that desire to commit to someone for the rest of my life would be something that was forced upon me is an idea that’s both foreign and frightening.

And I, thinking back on that experience, then contrasted it with the experience of another young woman who marched just earlier this month against forced marriages, in Auckland, and whose words I think this House should hear tonight as we consider why it is we are passing this legislation. She said, in relation to being forced into marriage, “If I had agreed to it, I would move from a psychologically abusive family to an abusive husband, having to deal with emotional and physical abuse, as well as rape. I know that listening to your parents seems like the right thing to do. But it was wrong.” Like most young women, she too wanted to fall in love the right way, with someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. “I realised it was wrong when my parents were making the decision for me to spend the rest of my life with a complete stranger … I did not know him, I did not like him.”

So it is that woman and others like her that today this House is supporting. And before I finish my speech, I want to further commend to this House, as we reflect on this issue, another piece of legislation that would protect the rights of women like her, and that is the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, a piece of legislation that National brought forward and took to its first reading and that included a proposition of a new offence of coercion to marry as part of the family violence reforms.

I implore the new Government to continue with that reform and maintain that new offence, because that would criminalise a person who coerces another person into marrying someone or coerces someone into entering a civil union against their will. That’s contained within the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, and there is nothing to stop the new Government from progressing that legislation through the House a.s.a.p. I commend this bill to the House and thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Bill read a second time.

Name changed to Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill.

Bills

Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill

Second Reading

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I move, That the Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill be now read a second time.

Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you for this opportunity. I’m taking this call with mixed feelings. I’m saying mixed feelings because I’m happy and I’m also sad. I’m happy because this is my member’s bill—because this reflects my passion to do more for newborns and new mums. And I’m sad because this Government, this Labour-led Government, has decided not to support my member’s bill, which is to enrol newborns with a general practitioner before they are six weeks old.

I ask: what’s wrong with enrolling newborns with a general practitioner of the family’s choice before they are six weeks old? Nothing—nothing. I ask: what’s wrong with denying the ability of general practitioners to not enrol the newborns because they don’t know the family or there is debt owed by the family to the practice? Yes, that ability should be stopped, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I ask: what’s wrong with giving the ability to general practitioners to be able to deny a pre-enrolment request received on behalf of a newborn if the general practice is running at full capacity or if there is another good reason? Yes, general practitioners should be able to deny a pre-enrolment request if they are running at full capacity or there is another good reason. There’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong with having a preventative approach towards the well-being of newborns? Nothing.

There is nothing wrong, so I ask: what is wrong with this Government—that this Government is not supporting my bill, which is to enrol newborns with a general practice before they are six weeks old? This bill exposes the real side of this Government, and that is that this Government is big on talk. When it comes to talking about children, talking about newborns, their talk is really big. But when it comes to action, there is no action, and that is what this bill exposes.

The Prime Minister’s, Jacinda Ardern’s, flagship policy, her bill the Child Poverty Reduction Bill—I have read submissions online for that bill, and I have seen that people are saying that well-being factors should be included in that bill to deliver the full outcome that she wants to deliver. And my bill is exactly about that. So my bill is about the well-being of newborns, and this Government is not supporting my bill.

I want to thank all submitters—those who took time to write to the Health Committee during the submission process and those who appeared before the select committee for oral submissions as well. We saw that most of the submitters agreed with the intent of the bill. We saw nearly half of the submitters actually supported the bill, and some submitters came up with some suggestions as well to improve this bill.

And one common suggestion that came through from submitters was that this process should actually start from the gestation—from the pregnancy phase. And they wanted to make sure that this is actually happening before newborns are six weeks old, and that’s why they were suggesting that we should start this process from the pregnancy phase.

And what I saw during the select committee process was that the Ministry of Health came with their advice at the start. After the hearing of evidence finished, the Ministry of Health came back with exactly what they had advised at the start—to recommend. And I had to push back. I had to push back because it is not acceptable to keep the status quo, because this bill is about moving beyond the status quo. It is about ensuring that newborns are enrolled before they are six weeks, and that is not happening at the adequate rate that we would like it to.

So, after a big pushback, the Ministry of Health came back with a watered-down approach, a completely watered-down approach under the watch of the health Minister, Dr David Clark. So the approach is that they will have two performance measures in the district health board accountability framework. The first is to see that 55 percent—I repeat, yes, 55 percent—of newborns are enrolled with general practitioners before they are six weeks old. We know where most of the births are happening. We know that most of the births are happening in some form of lead maternity facility. So why can’t we see more newborns be enrolled before they are six weeks old? It will need some resources—yes, like every other legislation, this legislation will need some resources as well. We need to streamline our IT process so that our lead maternity care providers are connected to general practitioners so that newborns are enrolled and we can measure the enrolment rate in real time.

So 55 percent of newborns enrolled before they are six weeks old, and this is the measure that the Minister is happy to accept. And this is the measure that Government members voted for—55 percent. We are in a developed country, and we are talking about enrolling 55 percent of newborns before they are six weeks old with general practitioners. And the second performance measure that was recommended by the Ministry of Health under the watch of this Minister Dr David Clark is 85 percent of newborns to be enrolled before they are three months old. That could be already happening. And, if it’s not already happening, that is another reason why we need a legislative framework to see that newborns are enrolled in time.

My bill is in line with the recommendation to the Health Committee in 2013 which was made upon the inquiry into improving child health outcomes, work on findings of the inquiry into improving rates of childhood immunisation in 2011. So two reports—2013 and 2011. And this is also in line with the policy that was put in place in 2012 to enrol newborns with general practitioners—this is through the National Immunisation Register notification.

Ministry of Health accepted there are delays because of the time it takes for the request to go through the National Immunisation Register and also because general practitioners can just deactivate that request. They don’t have to accept or decline. So, yes, this is something that we need to fix, but this Minister doesn’t care about fixing this.

All the three parties in Government supported my bill in the first reading. That was in the last term. Yes, they all supported my bill in the first reading in the last term, and I know why: because they thought, yes, this bill will require some resources, and they didn’t have any hope of being in Government. They thought National is going to be back in Government so the resources will be put in place by the National Government. So now they are in Government, and all of a sudden they have realised that “Oh, actually, we will have to put some resources to streamline the IT system in our health system to ensure that lead maternity carers are able to connect with general practitioners in time for this to happen in a timely manner that this bill requires.” And, all of a sudden, because they realised it will need resources, they have decided not to support my bill.

And this was the exact line which I got from the Minister Dr David Clark when I accidentally bumped into him in Copperfield’s cafe and I asked him about my bill. He said, “Oh, it will need resources.” And I said, “Yes, just like every other legislation, this legislation will also need resources.” And then he said that, “Oh, we might have a better way of doing this.”, and the better way is to enrol 55 percent of newborns before they are six weeks old? It is embarrassing. I don’t accept this to be an acceptable way of going forward.

So this is what this Government is about. This is the ambition they have for newborns. Well, why would they care about newborns? They can’t vote. All they care about is those who can vote, because the tertiary Fees-free policy is about enticing voters. That is the age group that votes. Newborns can’t vote, so why would this Government care to look after newborns? Why would they care about newborns and new mums getting access to several health checks and social services through Well Child? There are 12 very important points of contact for health checks of babies before they start school. Also, mums can get several connections which are helpful to new mums as well through the enrolment of a newborn with a general practitioner. But what I’m seeing is that this Government, this Minister, Dr David Clark, is clearly depriving newborns from having access to health services and having access to so many free social services that are available, depriving so many new mums from having access to so many social services that are available for free.

It’s unacceptable for this Government to come up and give any excuse for not supporting my bill. There is no excuse to not support my bill, except that they have used all the money they had for their spending policies that were to attract votes, and newborns cannot vote. But, on this side, I’ll keep fighting for newborns and new mums. Thank you.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Parmjeet Parmar’s bill is a nice idea in theory, but it’s clear, when you look at it more closely, as many members did in the Health Committee, that it really lacks substance and, unfortunately, will not achieve what it sets out to do. It’s not a resourcing issue; it’s simply not an effective way to achieve the thing it says it wants to achieve. The bill would legislate for outcomes that are already expected, without putting any levers in place to achieve them, without any consequences for their not being achieved. It’s completely toothless. It’s a well-intentioned bill. It’s a nice idea, but I think the facts speak for themselves.

If the previous Government had thought this was a priority and was the way to do things, the previous health Minister would have adopted the idea and would have put the legislation through the Parliament. But, in the previous Government, clearly the health Minister thought this was not the most effective way to do things. It was not a priority. He was happy to let it sit in the ballot and then make its way slowly through the members’ bill process, because he could see it was a reasonably hopeless way of trying to achieve what it said it was wanting to be achieved.

I think members in this House can appreciate that legislation is not always the best way to solve an issue. Legislating for something that is already required doesn’t make anybody want to do it any more; and if there’s no consequence and it’s already required, legislating and having no consequence isn’t going to make any difference, either. It just uses up parliamentary time.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: The Minister wants to punish parents.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I can understand the member’s disappointment, and I can hear her across the House expressing that disappointment and frustration loudly. This was, I guess, meant to be her moment in the sun. But we have to look at the facts, and we have to make a rational decision about what the most sensible way is to achieve these goals. This Government believes in improving outcomes for young children; that’s why we passed the $5.5 billion Families Package. It was the first action of this Government, actually—the biggest change in income distribution in this country since 1991. Our priority is with children: $60 a week more in the family will make a big difference to those vulnerable families. That is the priority of this Government. That’s why the targets for improving child poverty have been set down. That’s what this Government is about. This Government cares about making a difference. Tweaking something to make it a law when it’s already an expectation and making that law have no consequences is nothing but window dressing, and it’s unfortunate window dressing.

We are more ambitious than that. We as a Government—we on this side of the House; this coalition Government—are more ambitious than that. We don’t just want one enrolment; we actually want a GP practice in there, we want a Well Child provider, we want them to be on the National Immunisation Register, and we want a dental programme. It’s called “quadruple enrolment”, and if you talk to clinicians up and down the country, they say quadruple enrolment is the way to go. So we’re looking at ways to incentivise that, to make sure that primary health organisations (PHOs) are incentivised to actually deliver that, to make sure that the cultural supports are in place, and to make sure that midwives are given opportunities. Actually, this bill would undermine the role of other health professionals, like midwives, in newborn enrolment and their particular role and place. The particular set of time frames could actually undermine midwives’ role in caring for young children and in making sure that they go through those early stages and that mothers are supported to get those right enrolments and to have the right things happen at the right time for that child’s development.

It would place also an administrative burden on GPs because of the requirements laid down in the bill, and these are already stretched GPs.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Oh, so who is supposed to provide support to GPs?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I hear the member saying sarcastically, “Pity for the GPs!” Well, they are burdened. The GP workforce works very hard and they do try to make this happen, and they do support this already. Legislating without any consequence achieves nothing in this situation. So I’m afraid that this bill is not one that we can support on this side of the House. We actually think we need to take real steps to improve the well-being of young children. We need to make sure that families are supported, that they have the incomes to make sure that those children can be looked after, that they should actually have quadruple enrolment, and that expectations should be put on PHOs and mechanisms put in place to make sure that happens in PHO service agreements. We’re already working to make that happen. We think the district health boards should be more accountable. There are a number of mechanisms for making this happen that don’t require legislation—toothless legislation, well-meaning legislation that the previous Government wouldn’t even support its own member to get through the House. We believe in making a real difference in people’s lives rather than window dressing.

The suboptimal newborn enrolment rate—and let’s admit that things are not as good as they could be—is something we need to tackle in a serious way, not through window dressing, not through a bill that the member’s own Government, the previous Government, wouldn’t support through the House, not in a bill that might, potentially, undermine the role of midwives in newborn care, not through putting extra administrative burdens on the GPs, who already try to support these young people, these young families, as they wrestle with these issues. So we think that we should get the quadruple enrolment, as I said. We don’t think this is the most effective way to improve newborn enrolment.

We do extend our sympathy to Parmjeet Parmar, who, of course, had the frustration, under the previous Government, of a Government that wouldn’t fund healthcare properly. I understand that; we were frustrated with that when we were in Opposition, because we saw the effects of it. We saw the effects of an underfunded health system. We saw that health system getting run down. We saw it getting harder to get surgeries that people needed. As MPs, we saw people coming through our electorate doors, complaining about the way the health system was being run down, the burden being put on the workforce, the lack of sustainability—we saw all of that, too. We understand the member’s frustration that her own Government wouldn’t support her to make positive change. We understand that on this side of the House, but we can’t support it out of a sense of sympathy. We actually need to see the best policy rationale put forward. We need to put mechanisms in place that will actually work, not just legislate for something that’s already a requirement.

I want to say also that there are other things that can be done to support this, and that is making it more affordable and accessible for people to go to GPs, so that they have relationships with their GPs. This Government, in its Budget, has just passed a measure that will ensure 540,000 people will get access to a community services card that gives them cheaper doctors visits. For many people, that will mean their doctors visit becomes $20 to $30 cheaper—for some, it will be $50 cheaper. That will help them establish a relationship with their GP, where they get the regular care they need. When their child is born, they’ll feel comfortable going to the GP for that enrolment. That will make more difference than this bill here—this resource, going to primary care so that families are getting the support that they need.

That Government had a report, the Moodie report, which recommended this kind of care and support—the community services card extension—but they did not act on it. They simply would not act on it to give people better access to GPs. Instead, they’d rather legislate. The interesting thing is that they won’t legislate to make it compulsory for parents to take their children along. There’s no suggestion they’ll do that; they just want to blame the GPs. They want an extra level of blame on the GPs; that’s what they’re calling for here. Well, we can’t support it, I’m afraid. We supported it to select committee because of the intention. We thought that maybe out of this you could make something reasonable—that you could somehow put something together in a select committee that did achieve an outcome. We thought it needed a good looking over. It’s the right thing to do. If a bill has good intentions, you tend to support it to select committee, but it really didn’t stand up to scrutiny.

It’s well-intentioned, and we have sympathy with the member that she couldn’t get her own Government to make progress in this area. The frustration with the underfunding in the health system was something we shared too—the lack of leadership on these issues by the previous Government—but that won’t stop us being more ambitious. That won’t stop us supporting quadruple enrolment for young children. That won’t stop us getting on and addressing the neglect of the health system, making doctors visits more accessible, making sure that hospitals that have got rot and mould in them are repaired so that we can have the health system and the health services that New Zealanders expect and deserve. This is a Government that believes in action, not window dressing, not good intentions. But let’s get on and make New Zealand a better place, where people can get the health services they need and where we actually see progress on having people enrolled.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member. This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.