Tuesday, 4 September 2018

TUESDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2018

TUESDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers

Prayers

SPEAKER: Because it’s Tongan Language Week, I have asked Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki to say the prayer in Tongan.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Ke tau lotu. ‘E ‘Otua māfimafi kuo mau taa‘imālie ‘i he ‘ofá. ‘Oku tuku homau lotó ka mau hū atu ke ke malu‘i ‘a e Kuiní mo tataki ‘emau ngāue ‘i Fale Aleá ke fai ‘aki ‘a e poto faka‘Otua, ‘ofá mo e ‘ulungaanga malū ko e ‘uhí ke mo‘ui mo nofo melino ‘a e fonuá, ‘Emeni.

Visitors

Japan—Delegation, House of Representatives

SPEAKER: I’m sure that members will wish to welcome Mr Shinjiro Koizumi and his delegation from the House of Representatives of Japan, who are present in the gallery.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Prime Minister—Confidence in Ministers

1. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in all her Ministers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, malo e laumalie. Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: When was she or her office first advised that there was a staffing matter in the Hon Meka Whaitiri’s office requiring an investigation by Ministerial Services?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I have said, I do want to keep the detail of this issue with Ministerial Services, where it belongs as an employment matter, though I can say that I was informed, my recollection was, last Wednesday night—if my memory serves best—and, of course, within a 24-hour period, the Minister offered up to stand aside while the investigation took place.

Hon Simon Bridges: Who told her on Wednesday night? Was it the Minister herself or someone else, and, if so, who?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don’t want to get into the details of something that is being inquired into by Ministerial Services. That is the best place for this investigation to take place. It is entirely appropriate that that is how it is dealt with.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did the Minister tell the Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve made it clear that, obviously, I’ve had a conversation with the Minister directly about it. She has said she wants this dealt with openly and transparently. That is what we’re doing. That is why she offered up to stand aside while this was dealt with. But it is being dealt with by Ministerial Services, and that’s the best place for it to be dealt with. If the Opposition leader has a range of specific questions around dates and times, he’s most welcome to put those in writing.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, was it the Minister that told the Prime Minister, or was it someone else?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: This is an issue that is being dealt with—rightly so—by Ministerial Services. That is the best place for it to be dealt with. I believe in natural justice. I also want to protect the privacy of individuals who are involved, and that’s why we’re dealing with it in the most appropriate way possible.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did she ask the Hon Meka Whaitiri directly what happened?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It is fair to say that the allegation is contested, which is why it’s being dealt with by Ministerial Services, and that is appropriate.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she stand by her reported statements that Labour monitored staff turnover in its Ministers’ offices; if so, how is this monitoring undertaken?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As would be the case for the member when he was in office, obviously, Ministerial Services are aware of staff turnover and the different circumstances that lead to staff turnover. When in Opposition, then it’s Parliamentary Service that plays that role.

Hon Simon Bridges: How will her Government foster a more open and democratic society, as outlined in the Speech from the Throne, when she has had to demote her Minister for open government for not being open and transparent in her answers to written questions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is exactly why the Minister has had to bear the brunt of the consequences of not upholding her own standards. And, on her own measure, she has acknowledged that those errors led to a perception that she wasn’t open in her actions, which is why she absolutely accepted, and offered up the role of open Government.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did she ask Clare Curran why she had not noted her meeting with Derek Handley in her diary, considering that just one week prior to that meeting, she’d been asked an oral question in the House about her failure to record her breakfast meeting with Carol Hirschfeld?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve been asked this question via the media and have given the same answer I’m happy to give to the House. The member, of course, recalls the meeting she had. It wasn’t recorded, and that’s something that she acknowledges was a complete error. It was set up via herself, and she has released all of the documentation surrounding that meeting and the establishment of that meeting to make it clear what happened in the lead-up to those events.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has she or her office sought an undertaking from the Hon Clare Curran that she has now transferred all appropriate records from her private Gmail account to her ministerial email accounts so that they can be searched for official information and to ensure that appropriate public records are maintained?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member will know, the Official Information Act (OIA) is mode-neutral. Regardless of whether or not information is held on a Gmail account or a parliamentary account, it is subject to the Official Information Act. That is the key. The member, though, proactively, when this issue came out, released a number of different pieces of information relating to this particular incident in order to be transparent around what happened. But it’s OIA-able.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with Bryce Edwards’ comments that the same mistake by the same person, leading to the same serious outcome—misleading Parliament within a few months—is corrosive, and, if not, why not?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do not.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was David Cormack correct in his New Zealand Herald column on 27 August, when he said the Department of Internal Affairs told the Prime Minister’s office about Clare Curran’s meeting with Derek Handley, and how does this square with her press conference on 24 August, when she said Minister Clare Curran’s office alerted her office about the meeting?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is the case. I was alerted by Minister Curran’s office.

Building Infrastructure—Announcements

2. CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Minister for Infrastructure: What announcements has he made recently?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Infrastructure): Recently, at the Building Nations Symposium in Auckland, Cabinet mandated me to announce the establishment of a new independent entity. It has taken not longer than nine months to have this entity well on the way to being erected, unlike the nine years where the industry called for it. The level of confidence reflected back to me through this decision reflects very well on the Government’s approach to infrastructure.

Clayton Mitchell: How will the new entity deliver longer-term infrastructure planning and strategy?

Hon SHANE JONES: When we came into Government, we discovered very quickly and very lucidly that there is a major infrastructure deficit. There is a desire on the part of the industry for us to create a portal: a clear point of visibility to enable international, domestic, trans-Tasman providers of either capital, construction services, or other professional services to work with the Crown so we can begin to deal more efficiently with the large infrastructure investment—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: “Blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.”

Hon SHANE JONES: Yes, Gerry, how is the “Pink Panther” going? Thank you very much.

SPEAKER: Order!

Clayton Mitchell: Nice. Thank you—

SPEAKER: Order! No, the member will resume his seat. The last comment, in two ways, was inappropriate. The member will withdraw and apologise.

Hon SHANE JONES: I withdraw and apologise.

Clayton Mitchell: What feedback did the announcement receive from the private sector?

Hon SHANE JONES: Infrastructure New Zealand described it as “positive news”, “a major step forward for the Government”, an acceptance that there is a wide number of challenges, and, through the creation of this independent agency, at long last they see a Government that is willing to engage with them so that we get the right balance between our political aspirations and harnessing the talent of the private sector and the public sector to deliver infrastructure outcomes in a way that has not been delivered, certainly over the last nine years. Kim Campbell, an occasional critic of the Government—forgiven on this particular occasion—described it as the creation of an entity with a “mandate to pull together the long-term pipeline of our infrastructure needs.”, and I would just say that what I’ve done in nine months failed to come into being over nine years.

Economy—Business Confidence

3. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he think it reflects well on the Government’s economic management that the ANZ business confidence index is at its lowest level since 2008 and the ANZ own activity index is at its lowest level since 2009?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Malo e laumalie. It is a reflection of the Government’s economic management that we have a strong surplus, net core Crown debt is low, unemployment is low, and, as at yesterday, our annual terms of trade are the best they have been since records began in 1926. The business confidence survey the member refers to is a reflection of a range of factors including global trends, skills shortages, and business-specific policy issues, all of which we are committed to working with business on.

Hon Amy Adams: Does he acknowledge that the sharp declines in business investment intentions, export intentions, and hiring intentions seen in the most recent survey provide a clear indicator of further slowing in our economy, as noted by the ANZ?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, I don’t accept that, and indeed the terms of trade numbers yesterday make clear that—particularly around exports—that’s not the case.

Hon Amy Adams: Is he aware that one of the only measures in these business confidence surveys that has remained positive since the Government has come into office is the number of businesses who expect to be raising their prices?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I note that in this survey, 76 percent of businesses expected their own activity to improve or remain the same over the next year, which I think is a slight tick up.

Hon Amy Adams: How will the Government’s recently announced Business Partnership Agenda give hard-working small businesses confidence and the certainty the Prime Minister promised them when 15 of the 26 policies in that document are working groups with uncertain outcomes?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, the small business sector can have confidence that we’re introducing e-invoicing and closing loopholes around GST, and there is just a small irony in the member’s question in that the one thing her leader decided to do was set up a working group on small business.

Hon Amy Adams: Does it reflect well on the economic management of the Government that the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research’s (NZIER’s) latest forecasts have the New Zealand economy $9 billion smaller in 2022 than was forecast just three months ago, and will he take any responsibility for this?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I certainly won’t take responsibility for NZIER’s forecasts and the fact that they’ve chosen to revise them. What I would say is that most forecasters still believe that we will have 3 percent growth, on average, over the next few years.

Hon Amy Adams: Does it speak well of the Government’s economic management that the Minister ignored Treasury advice when he decided to move $6 billion of debt to Crown entities in Budget 2018—costing taxpayers tens of millions more in unnecessary interest costs—simply to give the illusion of meeting his own Budget responsibility rules?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can quote no better expert on this than a former associate finance Minister who, when exactly the same facility was introduced, said “we believe that external financing will deliver additional commercial discipline for Housing New Zealand.” I agree with Amy Adams about that.

Economy—Reports

4. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): More good news. Yesterday, Statistics New Zealand released the terms-of-trade figures for the June 2018 quarter, showing the strength of New Zealand’s export prices over what we pay for imports. Strong readings for dairy and meat export prices led the way for a 0.6 percent quarterly rise in New Zealand’s terms of trade to the second-highest quarterly reading and the highest ever annual terms-of-trade index since records began in 1926.

Tamati Coffey: What else did Statistics New Zealand say about the terms of trade and the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Statistics New Zealands says that the terms of trade are an indicator of the state of the overall economy. The quarter’s figures show that exports were strong off the back of a lift in dairy and meat prices. The terms-of-trade data also shows that capital goods import volumes are up 13 percent from the previous quarter and up nearly 25 percent from a year ago. These are goods like new machinery, and industrial and transport equipment, which businesses invest in to improve productivity and to drive growth. ASB economists said that the terms-of-trade data showed capital goods import volumes were resilient in the June quarter. On this side of the House, we welcome the fact that real economic data shows that there is confidence among businesses to make productivity-enhancing investments.

Tamati Coffey: How does this fit with other reports he’s seen on the economy and business performance?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Over August, we saw the earnings season on the New Zealand stock exchange. There were too many reports of companies reporting record revenue or profit results for me to list them all in the House today, but I will note that the NZX 50 finished the month up about 4 percent from where it started, with the stock exchange hitting a record high during August off the back of companies’ earning reports. One other report which the House may find interesting is Treasury’s monthly economic indicators released yesterday, and I draw members’ attention to the line that “Overall our [Budget and Economic Fiscal Update] pick of 0.7% GDP growth in the June quarter is unchanged.” In other words, the sky is not falling in.

Hon Amy Adams: Would the Minister agree that given the record terms of trade he’s just espoused, the fact that our economic growth is slowing and that export intentions are down can only be laid at the feet of this Government’s economic mismanagement?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, because the member clearly wasn’t listening to my very last comment, which is Treasury picking that their GDP growth forecast for the June quarter is unchanged.

David Seymour: Well, what is the definition of “terms of trade”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I think I, helpfully, said that at the beginning. It’s the strength of New Zealand’s export prices over what we pay for imports.

David Seymour: So how does the New Zealand Government change those global prices?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: By working with hard-working business people around New Zealand, exports go up. It’s about encouraging an economy that focuses on productivity, supporting exporters through investment in transport infrastructure, in skills and training, and in research and development—the things that for nine years were ignored. But now exporters in New Zealand know they have a friend in the Government.

Housing and Urban Development, Minister—Statements on Urban Development

5. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Does he stand by all his reported statements regarding the establishment of an Urban Development Authority?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Malo e laumalie Mr Speaker. Yes, in the context in which they were made.

Hon Judith Collins: What is the budget for the establishment and ongoing costs of the urban development authority?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The policy process is not even complete. The legislation is not before the House. There is currently no budget for the urban development authority.

Hon Judith Collins: Was he expecting to recoup the cost of the urban development authority from the Auckland Council when he said it will become “the planning and consenting authority” and “have access to all the planning and consenting powers” currently held by the council?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The planned urban development authority is a new way of planning large-scale and complex urban development projects. The entity is expected to be established towards the end of next year, and the Government’s plan is that the urban development authority will lead and facilitate the establishment of 12 to 15 large-scale projects—projects that are capable of delivering thousands of new homes and planned new communities. The authority will have the planning and consenting powers that currently only local government has, but those powers will be exercised only in discrete project areas. It is not intended that it will be a rival or competitive consenting authority across the entire country.

SPEAKER: Order! I am going to ask the member Judith Collins to ask the question again.

Hon Judith Collins: Was he expecting to recoup the cost of the urban development authority from the Auckland Council when he said it will become “the planning and consenting authority” and “have access to all the planning and consenting powers” currently held by the council?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No.

Hon Judith Collins: If the urban development authority is to become the “planning and consenting authority” for KiwiBuild developments, why should mum and dad developers still be expected to endure the delays currently expected from the Auckland Council?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: They won’t, because this Government has a complex and ambitious urban growth agenda that is designed to tackle all of the problems and the roadblocks in the consenting system, the way that our planning system stops our towns and cities from growing, and the way that the infrastructure financing system is broken and acts as a roadblock to urban growth. So there is a whole reform agenda designed to tackle the problems that the current planning and consenting system put in the way of all developers, not just mum and dad developers.

Hon Judith Collins: If, as he has said, the urban development authority will “be able to override [Auckland Council’s] Unitary Plan”, why should every other Aucklander have to comply with it?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Because this Government recognises we have an imperative that in our country’s largest city, we have to build more houses, and we have to undertake high-quality, master-planned, large-scale development. We need an entity to do that because the current institutions and policy settings have singularly failed to deliver. We have that ambition, and I guess we probably shared it with the last Government, because they spent 12 months consulting with the public on the proposal for an urban development authority.

Marja Lubeck: Malo e laumalie Mr Speaker. Why is the Government establishing an urban development authority?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Because, traditionally, New Zealand’s towns and cities have grown simply by turning neighbouring rural land into suburban homes. Brownfield development in cities is more difficult and risky because of poor-quality infrastructure and disparate landowners. The urban development authority is a new way of planning these large-scale developments. It will be a one-stop shop for all the development capability this Government needs to build our way out of the national housing crisis.

Marja Lubeck: What is the Government doing to free up land and enable development?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The Government has an ambitious plan to create the conditions so that the market can respond to growth and bring down the high cost of urban land. The main objective of our Urban Growth Agenda is to improve housing affordability, encourage more competitive urban land markets, and improve housing affordability. The three key areas are infrastructure funding and financing to enable a more responsive supply of infrastructure finance, urban planning that allows our cities to grow up and out while delivering a quality-built environment, and, thirdly, a stronger spatial planning partnership so that central government and local government can plan together for growth.

Hon Judith Collins: Will he support substantive reform of the Resource Management Act (RMA) to enable housing and urban development to proceed efficiently for all New Zealanders?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, if the National Party’s offering a bipartisan opportunity to support reforms to the planning system that genuinely encourage more urban growth and more affordable housing, our side of the House would support that. But what we saw for nine years from that side of the House was ham-fisted attempts to gut the RMA of its environmental protections, and a series of reforms that only succeeded in making the RMA more expensive and more complicated.

Housing, Rental—Minimum Standards

6. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: What steps, if any, has the Government taken to ensure families who are renting their homes have secure, stable, warm, and dry homes?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): This Government is fulfilling our commitment to make life better for renters. Last week, the Government asked for feedback on our proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act. Tenancy laws are antiquated and don’t reflect the fact that renting is now a long-term reality for so many families. This morning, I announced our proposed healthy homes guarantee standards. The standards will set minimum requirements for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and drainage, and draught-stopping in all rental properties.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What effect will the Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act have on families?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, insecure tenure can force families to continually move house, which is particularly tough on children when they have to keep changing schools. By ending no-cause tenancy terminations while ensuring that landlords can still get rid of rogue tenants and increasing the amount of notice a landlord must give to tenants to terminate a tenancy, we can give families a more stable home and more secure tenure. We’re also consulting on limiting rent increases to once per year, banning rent bidding, and working out how we can better enable tenants and landlords to reach agreement about pets and minor alterations to their home.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How will the healthy homes standards ensure families have warm and dry homes?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, we know that rental homes are more likely to be older and of poorer quality than owner-occupied homes. Approximately 200,000, or more than a third, of rental homes have no installation at all. Many are cold and damp and mouldy and cause respiratory illness, toxic reactions, and allergies. In fact, some 40,000 children go to hospital every year with respiratory infections caused by illnesses related to poor-quality housing.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What reports has he seen on the need for these reforms?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: On almost a daily basis, we see stories of tenants in homes of unacceptable quality or being moved on from home after home. One tenant speaking to Radio New Zealand recently had moved between six different homes, including spending a week in a basement, and recently the New Zealand Herald reported on the Papakura “swamp house”, where a family with two young children were permanently sick because of a rubbish-filled pond under their house.

Transport Infrastructure—Fuel Taxes and Funding Priorities

7. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Transport: Does the National Land Transport Programme announced last week give New Zealand road users good value for the road user charges and fuel taxes they are paying?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes. The National Land Transport Programme is a record investment in our transport system, including a 37 percent increase in road safety spending to save lives; a $600 million increase in road funding to the regions; $5.7 billion for State highways, including Pūhoi to Wellsford, Mount Messenger, the Manawatū Gorge replacement, and Transmission Gully; and $4 billion to ease congestion in our major cities.

Jami-Lee Ross: How is it good value for people in Tauranga to pay 12c more in fuel taxes but not receive the much-needed four-laning of State Highway 2—New Zealand’s deadliest road?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I’m sure the member knows that that road suffered from terrible neglect over nine years. This Government is undertaking through the New Zealand Transport Agency a re-evaluation of the plans for that highway, but we recognise that it’s not good enough that nothing was done to that road while suburbs were allowed to expand along that corridor towards Ōmokoroa. It needs investment in safety improvements and, under this Government, it’ll get them.

Jami-Lee Ross: How is it good value for the people of Ōtaki to pay 12c a litre more in fuel taxes when they’re less likely to get the Ōtaki to Levin expressway completed, as the Prime Minister actually promised in the media?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the people of Ōtaki and Levin, like communities all over this country, are going to benefit from a more rational and measured transport policy that invests in safety improvements—passing lanes, median barriers, side barriers, intersection upgrades—because we’re concerned to improve safety and save lives across thousands of kilometres of the transport network, and not just a few dozen kilometres, which was the policy of the former Government.

Jami-Lee Ross: Will the tram projects in Auckland that he’s been championing be funded from revenue gained from fuel taxes?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the light rail rapid transit project in Auckland will not be funded through the regional fuel tax, as the member has consistently claimed through the media. But $1.8 billion has been set aside as part of the $28 billion, 10-year transport investment plan that this Government put together in cooperation with Auckland Council—the first time there has ever been a fully funded 10-year transport plan for Auckland.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why should people in Tauranga and Ōtaki pay 12c a litre more in fuel taxes to fund Auckland trams when his Government won’t commit to funding the much-needed roads in those communities?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No amount of baseless scaremongering from the member can change that fact that under our transport plan, we’re putting $600 million more into roading in the regions than is going into the six biggest metropolitan centres—a bigger increase than we ever saw under the former Government.

Health Sector—Appointments

8. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Does he believe he has followed the process set out in the State Services Commission document Board Appointment and Induction Guidelines in making appointments to health sector entities?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Malo e laumalie ‘Eiki Sea. According to the State services guidelines, Ministers may appoint or recommend those who, in their opinion, have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to assist the entity to achieve its objectives and perform its function. My answer is yes.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: How many of the 15 steps recommended by those guidelines were not followed in the appointment of the Hon Steve Maharey to chair the board of Pharmac?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Steve Maharey’s appointment followed the standard process for board chairs and was signed off by Cabinet.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: How could best-practice process have been followed in the appointment of the Hon Mark Gosche to chair the Counties Manukau District Health Board when the decision to appoint him was made prior to the formal decision to remove Rabin Rabindran and before the recommendation to appoint Mr Gosche was put before the appropriate Cabinet committee?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I reject some of the assertions made in that statement, but suffice to say that Ministers may appoint or recommend those who have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to assist the entity to achieve its objects and performance function. When I have good candidates, I’m willing to guide an appointment process that appoints them, and I’ve appointed dozens of board members since I became the Minister of Health and I stand by the appointments that I’ve made.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Do those appropriate skills and attributes include being former Ministers of the Labour Government?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Being a Minister of the Crown is a good qualification when it comes to skills and experience pointed to in the Board Appointment and Induction Guidelines from the State Services Commission. They indicate that skills and experience are very important, so Ministers of the Crown do have qualifications that can be useful for these appointments. As I say, I’ve made dozens of them, and a few of them have been former Crown Ministers.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Isn’t this just a clear pattern—those appointments, plus those of the Hon Pete Hodgson, Margaret Wilson, and Heather Simpson—of jobs for former Labour Ministers and a long-time Labour staffer being offered without even a basic nod to the very probity to which he claims to subscribe?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No.

Greater Christchurch Regeneration—Progress

9. Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) to the Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration: What progress, if any, has this Government made towards the regeneration of Greater Christchurch?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): Malo e laumalie ‘Eiki Sea. As this House will know, today is the eighth anniversary of the September earthquake that disrupted so many people’s lives. Since coming to office, this Government has worked hard to remove remaining roadblocks by, among other things, putting mental health support workers into our primary schools, reforming the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and accelerating the resolution of outstanding claims, and putting stalled anchor projects back on track while setting up a $300 million capital fund to finish the job. We’re also establishing an insurance tribunal, with legislation which my colleague Andrew Little will bring to the House this afternoon.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Ko ‘eku fehu‘i tānakí. Why is it important that the Government continues to prioritise the regeneration of Christchurch?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: It’s important because there’s still unfinished business in Christchurch. People are still living in damaged homes, families are still coping with serious psychosocial impacts, and businesses are waiting for certainty. This Government is committed to finishing the job and helping people move on with their lives.

Hon Ruth Dyson: What further progress does she anticipate in the coming months?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: There are a range of things we can expect to see over the coming months. Some include a global settlement with Christchurch City Council, more initiatives to speed up the resolution of the remaining insurance claims, an inquiry into EQC, and the development of a business case for a stadium enabled by the establishment by this Government of a capital acceleration fund.

Small Business Council—Role

10. Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister for Small Business: Does he stand by all his statements and actions regarding small business?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Small Business): Malo e lelei ‘Eiki Sea. Yes, in context.

Hon Jacqui Dean: What is the difference between the Small Business Council he announced three weeks ago and the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council announced by the Prime Minister last week?

Hon STUART NASH: One is about small businesses and driving growth in productivity across that sector; the other is to give the Prime Minister advice.

Hon Jacqui Dean: What is the difference between the Small Business Council’s role, which is to “build relationships with small businesses … and be the voice of small business at the Cabinet table”, and the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council’s role, which is: “I want to work closely with and be advised by senior business leaders”?

Hon STUART NASH: I repeat, one is to drive productivity and growth across the small business sector; the other is to give the Prime Minister advice.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Will the proposed small-business institute, to be located at a New Zealand university, have similar terms of reference, which will take the count to three new advisory groups?

Hon STUART NASH: Wait and see.

Hon Jacqui Dean: If business confidence continues to fall, will he go on to establish a small-business commission?

Hon STUART NASH: It’s quite interesting. The managing director of Xero, which provides services to over 300,000 small businesses, actually says their own survey of business indicators challenges the notion that the economy is in a downturn. But one thing I would say is that that former Minister actually put the Small Business Advisory Group into abeyance, so that for the first time in 15 years, a Minister for Small Business had no voice around the table. She stopped listening.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That can’t possibly be accepted as a reasonable answer to the very simple question that was asked about what he would do. He said all sorts of things that are perhaps interesting to him, but were in no way an answer to the question.

SPEAKER: Well, it certainly wasn’t a helpful answer, but I think it’s also fair to say that a part of the question headed away from that member’s area of responsibility. I don’t think he has a general responsibility for business confidence.

Unemployment Rate—Statistics

11. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Employment: Was the unemployment rate 4.9 percent when he was sworn in as Minister, as he stated on Newshub Nation on Saturday, 1 September?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Malo e lelei Mr Speaker. I thank the member for the question. I was happily mistaken when I said it was 4.9 percent on Newshub Nation. I’ve now been advised that at the time I was sworn in as the Minister of Employment, the official annual rate for unemployment was actually 5 percent.

Hon Paula Bennett: Is the Minister certain that the unemployment rate when he was sworn in was at—what did he just say?—5 percent and not actually at 4.6 percent?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’m actually absolutely certain that the annual rate was 5 percent. What the member needs to understand is that there are annual rates and there are quarterly rates. It’s easy to cherry-pick figures to suit the narrative. But you cannot argue: since this Government came into office, the official annual rate of unemployment has dropped from 5 percent in June 2017 to 4.5 percent in June 2018.

Hon Paula Bennett: So can we expect the Minister to continue cherry-picking numbers, as he put it, instead of putting the actual facts on the table and being across his portfolio?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That’s a sad question. I’m absolutely across this portfolio. We’re putting in a lot of investment. We shouldn’t get caught up in the 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 percent. It’s about the people—the people, sadly, that the Opposition forgot all about. The member Bennett, the member Goldsmith, and all the members on the opposite side—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That’s enough. The member will resume his seat.

Hon Paula Bennett: So when he said he had taken the number of NEETs—those not in employment, education, or training—from 80,000 down to 72,000, did he know it was actually 76,000 when he came into office, increasing, of course, to 83,000 in March this year, and, if so, does he know what the number is now?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Here we go again, talking about the figures. We’re very clear that the latest survey has been the best survey for a number of years. We have more Māori being employed, we have more women being employed, and the NEETs have gone down much more than it ever did with the Opposition.

Jamie Strange: Malo e laumalie. What other statistics did the Minister discuss on Newshub Nation on Saturday, 1 September?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: What a great question. I discussed the unemployment rates of Māori, of Pasifika, and of young people not engaged in education, employment, or training as well, and I’m proud to share that with the House today. This Government is making a difference for the key groups. Māori unemployment is now 9.4 percent, down from 11.1 this time last year, and the Māori employment rate is up to 63.9 percent from 61.3 percent. Pasifika unemployment is now 8.6 percent, down from 10.2 percent in the same period, and the employment rate is now up to 60.9 percent. The NEETs rate is now 10.9 percent, down from 11.2 percent. This Government is on track. We’ve made a great start, but there’s still much to do, and we’re more than willing to get on with the job.

Jamie Strange: What else did the excellent Minister discuss on Newshub Nation about—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member just lost his question.

Hon Paula Bennett: What is the current number of NEETs?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: The NEETs figure is down to 72 percent.

Small Businesses—Government Initiatives

12. JO LUXTON (Labour) to the Minister for Small Business: What initiatives has he recently announced to support small businesses?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Small Business): Malo e lelei ‘Eiki Sea. Last month, this Government announced the creation of the Small Business Council to work on initiatives and strategic issues to help drive improvement and innovation in the small-business sector. This builds on top of other initiatives in the previous quarter, including 12 successful small-business roadshows around the country, Budget 2018 initiatives that actually funded the invoicing, and the development of online tools such as the health and safety policy maker to modernise and simplify the way we support business.

Jo Luxton: What feedback has the Minister received from small businesses about these initiatives?

Hon STUART NASH: More than 1,000 small-business owners or aspiring owners have recently taken part in a three-month series of roadshows around the country. A survey of the sentiment showed that they were positive about the services and support that the Government agencies offer small businesses. Eighty-one percent also described the roadshows as excellent or very good, and each day there are between 5,000 and 10,000 Kiwi businesses visiting business.gov.nz. The average visitor satisfaction rating is 84 percent.

Jo Luxton: How did the Minister decide on the membership of the Small Business Council?

Hon STUART NASH: Alongside small-business owners, I deliberately included the so-called big end of town such as the New Zealand Bankers’ Association, Fonterra, and Xero as members on my Small Business Council. Access to capital, accounting and payments software, new digital tools, and prompt payment are some of the frequent topics that small businesses raise with me, and the need for the support of other businesses in order to thrive. And small businesses and large corporates need to work together and ensure that the needs of the small and medium sized enterprise sector are supported. I’m committed to supporting small businesses to that effect.

Question No. 11 to Minister—Amended Answer

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Mr Speaker, I just wanted to correct something that I said in the answer.

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s going to seek leave.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Can I seek leave to make a correction?

SPEAKER: Is there any objection? The Hon Willie Jackson.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Sadly, I’ve made a mistake over the 80 percent to 72 percent young people not in education, employment, or training. I meant 80,000 to 72,000. Thank you.

Urgent Debates

Hon Clare Curran—Removal from Cabinet

SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Simon Bridges seeking to debate, under Standing Order 389, the removal of the Hon Clare Curran from Cabinet and her resignation of two portfolios. This is a particular case of recent occurrence that involved ministerial responsibility. Not every ministerial resignation will lead to an urgent debate being accepted, particularly where the Minister concerned has resigned portfolios rather than ceased being a Minister altogether. However, in this instance the Prime Minister has removed a Minister from Cabinet for conduct involving answers to questions from this House. After weighing up the circumstances and the public interest in ministerial probity, I have decided to allow the debate to be held today. Therefore, I call on the Hon Simon Bridges to move that the House take note of an urgent matter of public importance.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

Over the sorry Clare Curran saga, we have seen some of the weakest leadership this Parliament has ever seen occur under Jacinda Ardern—some of the weakest leadership we have ever seen. It’s been part and parcel—actually, it’s been more than that; it’s been symbolic of a torrid, an incompetent, and a shambolic few days for the Prime Minister, who’s leading a Government of absolute amateurs—look no further than Willie Jackson, who’s not here, actually. They are failing to get off the ground.

Let’s just go through the facts of what we’ve seen happen here with Clare Curran and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister found out—what was it?—three Mondays ago, we’re told, about her former flatmate, now Minister in the Government, and her meeting with Derek Handley. It took months and months and months to get to the point where the Prime Minister learnt and Clare Curran fessed up. Actually, according to David Cormack—someone who writes his columns usually on me but, for once, has done a column on something else—it was only because the internal affairs department had said so.

It took months and months and months for this meeting to come out, and we’re told that this was just an honest mistake—it’s just an honest mistake what’s happened here. Why, then, was it that the meeting with Derek Handley—wait for it; this is remarkable—was only a week after Clare Curran had been asked questions in this Parliament about the very same sort of thing: secret meetings she wasn’t recording with Carol Hirschfeld? The very same issue the week before—secret meetings, not declared—and we are led to believe that that’s just an honest mistake. Well, I say to this House that either it was intentional or, if it wasn’t, it was a special form of stupid by that Minister. Either way, Clare Curran should have been stripped of her warrant, stripped of all ministerial responsibilities, and no longer be in this Parliament as a Minister.

Hon Scott Simpson: Make room for Paul Eagle.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Paul Eagle’s coming through; I think that’s probably true.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Rino—Rino’s a runner.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Rino—I’ve heard that one, too. But there’s more to this than just the months and months that it took for this to come to the Prime Minister’s attention in terms of the timings, because when she found out—Prime Minister Ardern—about this on the Monday afternoon, do you think she acted, what, on the Tuesday?

Hon Members: No!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Tuesday afternoon?

Hon Members: No!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Wednesday?

Hon Members: No!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Wednesday afternoon?

Hon Members: No!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Thursday morning?

Hon Members: No!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: On Friday at 4 p.m., the Prime Minister put out the issue in relation to Clare Curran and told the public about it, some four—what was it?—five days later. That’s not only weak leadership; that’s stupid, and it is as cynical as it gets in this Parliament. And don’t believe me; my good old friend David Cormack made it quite clear. He said it was very cynical, and if he says that, look, I tell you, it’s at the top end of cynical.

And why was it at 4 o’clock on a Friday? Well, because the Prime Minister had come back, and she wanted to have an announceable every day to show everyone how good things were going. We had some really significant announcements over that time. We had wheel-clamping from Kris Faafoi—wheel-clamping from Kris Faafoi. “Well, it worked for me—it got me into Cabinet. It had no public importance, but it got me into Cabinet.”, so good luck to Kris Faafoi on that one. And we had our 153rd working group from the Prime Minister—an acknowledgment that they are failing business, they are failing the economy, and they are showing no leadership whatsoever in that area.

They couldn’t do the right thing until Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock. It was weak, it was stupid, and it was incredibly cynical. And it was too little, too late—it was too little, too late—because it could’ve been Tuesday, it could’ve been Wednesday, or it could’ve been Thursday. It could’ve been but it wasn’t, and it was too late, too little, actually, because after the secret meeting with Carol Hirschfeld came the secret meeting—with exactly the same secretive formula—with Derek Handley. We all know the saying: you fool me once—not you, Mr Speaker—shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

And yet Clare Curran still has her warrant. She still has her ministerial salary and her perks. I know what Helen Clark would’ve done in this situation.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, no, you don’t.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, what would she have done, Ruth Dyson? I know what she did to Ruth Dyson—it took about four minutes. Well, I tell you what: Clare Curran would’ve been gone straight after Carol Hirschfeld. She would’ve been gone after that Astoria breakfast, not by lunchtime, actually, and I know what John Key would’ve done in that situation—it would’ve been exactly the same. And yet Clare Curran—really, as a symbol of the Prime Minister’s lack of leadership—is still there on her ministerial salary and with those ministerial perks.

And what about the substance of the meeting with Derek Handley? What do we know about it? Well, firstly, we know it was in relation to a position of Chief Technology Officer—a solution looking for a problem. An absolute waste of time—no need for it. No one is calling for it. The tech sector is saying they don’t know why it’s happening, and as—look, no necessary friend of the National Party, but The Spinoff says, in relation to this, “Much of New Zealand’s tech community has reacted with derision to a report entrepreneur Derek Handley is all-but-certain to soon be announced as New Zealand’s first chief technology officer.” It goes on to quote many in the tech sector: “It ‘has the potential to become a major embarrassment for the government’, said one, while another referred to what they perceived as his ‘poor industry reputation… (he) was presumably unvetted.’ The storm was best captured by Nat Dudley:”—quote—“ ‘Literally everyone I know in tech, an industry known for arguing over the stupidest [stuff] like which almost-identical JavaScript framework they’re going to use, is united in the idea that Handley would be a terrible pick for NZ CTO.’ ”

Hon Amy Adams: He’ll still get it, though.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And it goes on, and it goes on. And we’re hearing—you’re right, Amy Adams—that he is going to get it despite the appalling, secretive process. This appointment

Hon Amy Adams: It smacks of Steve Maharey.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —leads to all manner of wider issues for the Government here. It’s exactly right, Amy Adams—it smacks of Steve Maharey. The arrogance of this Government that officials don’t need to be involved in appointments and processes—secret meetings, secret phones, and secret email addresses, not just in relation to Derek Handley but Steve Maharey.

Actually, we heard today in questioning that Mark Gosche was, we’re led to believe, actually in the process of being appointed while Rabin Rabindran was still in the job. And the Prime Minister talks to us today—she has the audacity to talk to us today about natural justice. Well, she should show Meka Whaitiri the same sort of natural justice she showed Rabin Rabindran—absolutely appalling.

Hon Shane Jones: Bye-bye. Bye-bye, Simon.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And it’s not just this person; it’s many, many others—well, my friend over there says “Bye-bye”. This is the guy that jumps up and down because he’s at 2 percent in the polls, and he knows it. Look at him—look at him.

Despite the rhetoric of transformation, of this being—what has the Prime Minister said?—the most transformative and the most open and transparent Government ever, what have we got? Their Minister of, quote, “Open Government” has been sacked for her complete lack of transparency and openness in relation to all things—secret meetings, secret mobile phones, and secret emails.

Hon Kris Faafoi: Easy, tiger.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And you know what we hear? Well, let’s see where it goes, Kris Faafoi—let’s see where it goes. This guy over here, Chris Hipkins, is vigorously writing—he’s getting his clever lines out—but he knows what I’m saying is right. It’s the kind of Government and secrecy Hillary Clinton would be proud of, Chris Hipkins—that’s what we’re seeing here.

And it’s not just Carol Hirschfeld, of course; it was Derek Handley, as well. What did Tim Murphy, New Zealand Herald editor to Newsroom editor, as well, say about the transparency of this Government—all hope, all transformation, all openness. He said, “Labour’s record of deletions or obstructions under the Official Information Act, for example, has been as bad or worse than” all previous Governments. Bryce Edwards, a commentator, has also made it quite clear on Clare Curran and the affair around this. It has led to a whiffy-ness on this Government, Chris Hipkins—

Brett Hudson: You can smell it from here.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —a whiffy-ness that I can smell right here, as I stand across from the member. A tarnishing effect on the Government—shame on Clare Curran, who is still getting her ministerial salary, and shame on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for her weak leadership for allowing it.

Clare Curran is a symbol of exactly what is happening in this Government. It is weak, it is incompetent, and it is a shambolic Government. Rather than fairy dust breezing around the Government, I think it’s asbestos, actually, and it’s breezing around the Cabinet table as we speak, with the litany of fiascos, because it’s not—Chris Hipkins—just Clare Curran. It’s not just that. Actually, it’s a Young Labour camp where zero accountability has been had for that. It’s Shane Jones in open defiance because he knows, actually, what a fiasco yet another working group is on the real issues that small businesses are saying to me and, if he’s getting out and about, they’ll be saying to him, as well. It’s Winston Peters on refugees. It’s Meka Whaitiri, where it’s very simple: all the Prime Minister needed to do was look that Minister in the eye and ask her what had happened. It doesn’t take another working group, another review, and several weeks’ process.

I know what Helen Clark and I know what John Key would have done on that, and on the incompetence that we’re seeing from the likes of, well, many, many Ministers, but let’s just pick on Willie Jackson this afternoon, who says a few percentage points don’t matter, and went on The Nation with more fake news than Donald Trump has in two months. It was absolutely a shocker.

Hon Kris Faafoi: There goes the US invite.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, on this side of the House, Kris Faafoi—the wheel-clamping man, who’ll always be famous for that, if nothing else—

Hon Kris Faafoi: We’ll clamp your car—clamp your Crown car, then.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, you’re focused on the big issues, that’s for sure! The Government really is!

Well, I say to those members on the other side of the House, on this side we won’t be weak. We’ll be a strong and stable Government with high-growth policies that will get this country back on track. We’ll provide the certainty that some 160 working groups, and counting—one every couple of days of their tenure is going on. We’re doing the work now, whether it’s on small and medium sized enterprises right at the moment, or whether it’s on other groups, to give this country a real choice at the next election, and to give it the leadership—not the weakness—that it deserves.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): There’s one message that’s abundantly clear from that contribution, and that is that it was probably the longest 15 minutes in Simon Bridges’ life, because having demanded the House set aside time for an urgent debate on a ministerial demotion, he then struggled to string together more than two or three sentences on that particular issue before veering off into other things. In fact, I would go so far as to say that contribution was two snappers short of a resignation. I’ve sat on that side of the House and I’ve watched the looks on the faces of the caucus. You could see as he went along that they were slumping further and further down in their chairs—been there before and seen that before. You’ve been there waiting for your leader to give a big, rousing speech to rally the troops and stick it to the Government, and they come up with that and you sit there and you think, “Oh, no.” That’s exactly what Simon Bridges just did, and you could see their morale sapping out of the Chamber, and Simon Bridges went on and on in the longest 15 minutes of his life.

But one thing that Simon Bridges did mention—which shows what’s really on his mind—was 2 percent in the polls when he was referring to Shane Jones. Well, if Shane Jones’ preferred rating is 2 percent, the one thing I’d say to Simon Bridges is that at least he’s a net positive. That’s a good thing. I’ve got to say that at least he’s a net positive. But let’s run through a few names here: Richard Worth, Maurice Williamson, Pansy Wong, Judith Collins, Phil Heatley, Nick Smith—so let’s talk about ministerial standards. How many of those people and in how many of those cases did that Prime Minister act as decisively and as quickly as Jacinda Ardern did? Not in any of those cases. In fact, in some of those cases, John Key had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anything about them.

I’m not going to bother wasting the House’s time with 15 minutes on this, because it doesn’t actually require it. There’s one message from the Government on this: the Prime Minister has set very high standards for her Ministers, and if they don’t meet them, there will be consequences in that. Now Clare Curran—I like Clare. She’s a good friend of mine, and I believe that she’s doing a good job. But she failed to meet those standards twice and she has faced the consequences of that failure, and I think that it’s a pretty tough one. I’ve got to say that if there were resignations from the previous Government every time a Minister failed to answer a written parliamentary question correctly more than once, most of that Cabinet would have gone.

In fact, it’s a very, very high threshold. Ministers across all sides of the House, including on this side of the House, give wrong answers. It happens and, I’ll tell you what, it’s embarrassing when it happens. I have one—which I am just about to correct—because Crown Law gave me wrong advice. I relied on that advice in putting out a written parliamentary question answer and it was wrong, and I have just literally, as I’ve sat here, signed the correction—because it was the first time I became aware that the answer was wrong—and that correction will be lodged immediately. But I’ve got to say that a very, very high threshold has been set here, and it’s one that all of us on this side of the House will be very mindful of.

There is a very high threshold for accuracy around written parliamentary questions, as there should be, and I think it’s a message to everybody that we have to get this right. We have to get this right. And yes, we need to do better on open government, but at least we’re aspiring to do so. Unlike the previous Government, who didn’t care about open government, this Government is actually aspiring to make Government a more open and inclusive process, and it’s something that the members on the other side might like to actually think about—the principle at stake here, which is that Government should be open and inclusive.

And yes, we’ve got a way to go, because we’ve inherited a culture of secrecy from the last Government, where information wasn’t released, where the Prime Minister, at the very highest level—the Prime Minister encouraged his Ministers publicly to ignore the Official Information Act. He encouraged his Ministers to break the law when it came to releasing information under the Official Information Act. The Prime Minister on this side of the House, Jacinda Ardern, has been very clear that her criteria, her standards, are very high. And that’s a message to all of us that we need to do better, and we need to continue to strive to do better.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think the Leader of the Opposition actually might have his inquiries mixed up. He spoke about stupidity and he spoke about the use of secret phones—well, clearly that’s a conversation that he’s been having on that side of the House with his own inquiry into his own caucus members. And then he asked about whether or not the Prime Minister had looked them in the eye. Well, my challenge to the Opposition leader is to answer this question in the House today: have you looked your own caucus members in the eye and asked them the question: who did it, yes or no—yes or no, whether he has done that or not already. Clearly, this is a failure of leadership on his part. I’d suggest that he might do his caucus a favour and resign, but I challenge him to do this side of the House a favour and keep to his guns. Stay strong.

I rise on behalf of this Government, and specifically on behalf of New Zealand First, to address the puffery from the Opposition leader, and to say to him and those on that side that the Prime Minister has made a hard decision. She made the right decision when she removed the Hon Clare Curran from Cabinet and removed her from those portfolios. Clearly, this Government expects a high level of conduct and integrity from all of its MPs on this side of the House and, most especially, from its Ministers.

Minister Curran’s actions were unacceptable. This Government continues to stand for transparency and accountability, and Minister Curran has taken full responsibility for that and has followed proper process. So the Minister has been removed; definitive and quite hard actions have been taken. She has been removed from Cabinet and two of the portfolios will now be in the hands of the Hon Dr Megan Woods and the Hon Chris Hipkins.

This is a stable Government that stands proudly to say that we have high expectations and we are willing to hold our own to account. Thank you very much.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, what I don’t understand about the so-called demotion of Clare Curran, and the question that I would like answered, is: how can it be that her behaviour is acceptable for her to be a Minister outside of Cabinet but not be acceptable for her to be a Minister inside Cabinet? What we’ve repeatedly heard is that the punishment is proportionate—yeah? The punishment is proportionate to the crime is what we heard both the Prime Minister say, and it’s certainly what we heard from Minister Curran, kind of, giving her sort of context to it. Proportionate for who? Proportionate for Clare Curran; not actually for the standard that we expect from Ministers and we should expect from Ministers.

We constantly hear that she hasn’t met her own high standards, and in fact the Prime Minister said that in the House this very day—that actually her Minister did not meet her own standard or indeed the Prime Minister’s standards, but she met the standard to remain a Minister in an area and in a role of just such huge responsibility and privilege. That standard was met. Somehow that standard was met. Her own actual poor standards were not met at all, but she’s met the standard to remain being a Minister in a hugely privileged role. Haven’t we seen, as many commentators have said, a level of arrogance by a number of Ministers that one would expect in a third or a fourth-term administration—so arrogant that they make meetings via their Gmail late at night and make sure that other people don’t know about them? I think that’s extraordinary, quite frankly, absolutely extraordinary: weak leadership that accepts that that’s actually the standard that can be set.

What we heard from the previous speaker, Minister Chris Hipkins, who was standing up to defend his colleague, is that actually the Prime Minister has set a very high standard. The Prime Minister has set a very low standard—a very low standard. It says you can misrepresent, and in the very week that you are being questioned in Parliament about the standards you’ve set over secret meetings with Carol Hirschfeld, who in the end lost her job—Carol Hirschfeld did; Carol Hirschfeld lost her job and had a major hit to her reputation because of the way that Minister Clare Curran represented a secret meeting that she set up to then have with her—in the same week she was being questioned on that, she set up another secret meeting with a senior person and then totally misrepresented that in a written answer to a colleague.

That is not right for democracy. It is not the standards one should have in their Cabinet. And by accepting that that is the standard that is acceptable, we have a Prime Minister, who, quite frankly, looks like she has no standards herself, and weak leadership in not standing up to what is absolutely despicable behaviour. [Interruption] It is. It is the behaviour and the arrogance from a Minister who believes in transparent and open government, by the way. I mean everybody can see the absolute irony of that.

So in a made-up portfolio that in itself had nothing much behind it, we now have a Minister who was perhaps the least open and the least transparent out of any of the—what is it?—28 members of the executive, and we could go into another whole speech about how many that is and how utterly ridiculous it is. By the way, colleagues, she is still a member of the 28 executive. So she is still in that incredibly privileged role and has met a standard that the Prime Minister thinks is acceptable and above many of her colleagues. So there must be many of them that are sitting there in the second and third bench, looking at her and thinking, “That is the standard that I actually have to meet to get into Cabinet, and she is better than me and has more value to add than I do.” You can see people like Michael Wood getting really, really antsy about it. The member’s own colleague, Darroch Ball, must be sitting there thinking, “Really? So if Clare Curran is the standard of excellence that this Prime Minister wants as part of her executive, then I’m not up to that standard or better and that’s somehow acceptable?”

I just want to go back through this, because this is really important. In the very week that she was being questioned and challenged about a meeting that she did not tell the truth about, with Carol Hirschfeld, who ended up losing her job, it was somehow acceptable for her to organise a secret meeting via her Gmail account with someone late at night, not tell anyone about it, and then forget to mention it in a written question. We had the current Minister of State Services, who previously spoke, who was able to stand up here and justify that it was only about not answering a written question correctly. Yet we all know that that is not the standard of excellence that one should expect from the privileged position of being a Minister in a Government, and I think it’s despicable.

Let’s get to the point of this being known—what was it?—on the Monday, but it happened to come out at 4 o’clock on a Friday. So into that great void of—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Free, open, and transparent.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: —“Let’s hope it’s lost in the weekend.” But you make an interesting point, Nick Smith. How open and transparent is it to actually drop something at 4 o’clock on a Friday and hope that it gets lost in the weekend sport that this country gets pretty obsessed with—and for good reason, because it is often more interesting than politics—but anyway, just to hope and drop it into that void that everyone knows is between 4 o’clock and 6 o’clock on a Friday and it might get ignored.

So knowing it since Monday—by the way, for any poor person that’s actually out there watching this, this happened in February, and then two weeks ago, it was acceptable for the Prime Minister herself to drop this at 4 o’clock and then have the audacity to turn around and lecture us about openness and transparency and kindness, and that’s the standard that’s been set in this current Government and it’s one that won’t be acceptable to New Zealanders and is certainly not acceptable to the Opposition.

We are seeing it in the behaviour of other Ministers, quite frankly, and that’s embarrassing. We might be in Opposition but actually we’d quite like to be proud of our country and proud of the work that’s going on. We’ve now, of course, got very serious questions going on with the Minister Meka Whaitiri. She must be sitting there going, “Well, that’s the standard that’s being set, and I just saw a colleague get vaguely demoted.” That kind of arrogance and that kind of behaviour, I tell you what, in the previous two or three Prime Ministers—I will put it, including Bill English and John Key and Helen Clark—none of that would have been acceptable. Absolutely, none of it would have been acceptable.

What would have happened is we would have had a Prime Minister that looked those two Ministers in the eye and said, “Tell me exactly what happened.”—but instead we get dodgy phone calls that might be happening—and then that Prime Minister would make a decision on what should be done. So look them in the eye, actually make a call on things, and show some leadership. Show some standards that you expect from your executive. Show exactly what you want to happen, and then stand up and have the courage of your own convictions to set standards that should be at a level not proportionate for the Minister, actually proportionate for this country. They deserve to have the very best that they possibly can in a Minister, and they’re not getting it in this current Government.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Before me sits an irony-free zone. We’ve just had the Leader of the Opposition stand up and talk for I think it was up to 15 minutes—I think he might’ve run a little short—about people conducting behaviour that he didn’t approve of, talking about leadership while sitting behind him—and at that stage the House was full—was someone who leaked all his details not a week ago.

So here he was, standing here, moving. No wonder he was moving so much, because clearly there would have been a little red mark on his back that he wouldn’t have wanted to settle anywhere between his shoulder blades. To stand here while all that is happening—boy, the stitching on some of those seats must be coming apart considering how much buttocks moving, squeezing, would have been going on as that absolutely ironic tirade came out from the Leader of the Opposition.

Just the week before last, I was fortunate enough to be in Canberra with a select committee. We sat there behind the Liberal Party benches as we saw the coup building before our very eyes. We had the pleasure of being out with the Speaker, out with the President of the Senate, and many other MPs on that Monday night when it was all happening. So what we did is we saw—we understand when we see this—a coup in progress, and, boy, it’s good to sit here and watch and see a coup in progress. Oh, Mr Mitchell, you’re laughing. Mr Mitchell, it’s funny; as I watched Peter Dutton, I thought, “Ah, Peter Dutton. Who in the Opposition fits the profile of Peter Dutton most?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! I know it’s a very broad debate, but there is a topic, and I would like the member to come to that topic.

GREG O’CONNOR: Thank you for your direction, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’ll just finish, perhaps, on that honourable member. As I say, I just thought—and I was nudging, and there were several of us watching. We thought, “Who fits what role in this particular place?”, and I thought the Peter Dutton of the Opposition is the man I’d watch, who I’d be moving—speaking of having little sniper’s rifle markers on your back; yeah, we know who’s most likely to have one of them, too. So I’ll be watching, Mr Mitchell—I’ll be watching. Of course, there was Julie Bishop there. Well, I looked about—who’s the Julie Bishop in there? Well, there were a few contenders there. Blonde hair—I thought, yeah, that’s a whole field we’ve opened up here.

And, of course, who was the one that came through? Oh, Mr Morrison. Who’s the real Mr Morrison? Who’s the one that’s actually going to come through? Who’s going to win? Well, I’m just sitting watching. We’ll watch that—it’s great. I sit up the back there most of the time. It’s a great place to watch; you can watch the body language. So we’ll be taking a few bets on our side of the House. In fact, I might even run a book on it, and we’ll see.

So, coming back from Australia, I feel like I’m fairly accomplished in watching coups take place, and, boy, I loved what I saw over there. But on a more serious note, Madam Deputy Speaker—and I’ll take your advice and come back to the topic—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the topic would be nice. To the topic—yes.

GREG O’CONNOR: Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was speaking too loud—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no, I want you to speak to the topic. It would be very refreshing.

GREG O’CONNOR: Oh, right—back to the topic. When I came to this House—and I’m a very new member—one thing I’ve always respected, and, of course, Mr Mitchell will be the same, is good, decisive leadership—tinged also with kindness. We know where we stand, and, boy, on this side we know where we stand now, and that’s absolutely necessary. Consistency is also what we like, and the word Oravida comes to mind there about consistency. I’ve loved it, again, when I’ve heard the Opposition on the other side talking about what’s happened over here. But just going back to Oravida, I sat there, and at that stage I—

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I really reluctantly interrupt the speaker, because I do respect a general debate, but, actually, this is blatantly about Clare Curran and her being stood down. We’ve not heard her name mentioned once. We’ve not seen that addressed at all, and we’re at nearly five minutes, and I think that it does need to be addressed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I actually support that point of order. I have spoken to the member twice, and if the member does not come to the topic for this urgent debate—it’s not a general debate; it’s an urgent debate—then I will have to curtail his time.

GREG O’CONNOR: Thank you for your direction there, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will come now—because I think I do like to build some context for my point in this debate. One of my main points in this debate is this: look, I agree with my colleague; I think I’ve seen what’s happened with the Hon Clare Curran and I’ve seen what’s happened. She’s been, really, the personification of what we understand now is the expected standard of behaviour. We will be left with no doubt on this side of the House.

But can I just make a little more serious point around this. I in no way justify what’s happened and absolutely agree with the decision of Jacinda Ardern, our Prime Minister, around this. But can I just finish by saying it will be a shame if Ministers can’t actually have conversations with people—casual conversations. I’m not justifying what happened, but it would be a shame if, as a result of this, Ministers never actually got to have conversations off the grid.

But thank you very much for the opportunity to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I’ll just say I’m very proud to be part of an organisation, of a party, that shows the decisive leadership that has been shown on this occasion.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): That speech was nearly as big an embarrassment as Clare Curran is as a Minister. This is almost comical in what has occurred. We have a Minister of open Government—actually, the very first Minister of open Government that’s ever existed in this Parliament—and the promise of the Minister of open Government was to be the most open and transparent Government that this country has ever had, and then what we find out from that Minister is that not once but twice that Minister behaved in a secretive, in a sneaky, and in a dirty way. The contributions from Greg O’Connor and Chris Hipkins in this debate show that the Government doesn’t get it. If you come to this Parliament as a new Government promising to be open and transparent—surprise, surprise! We expect you to practise what you preach.

Now, let’s come to the events that have led to Clare Curran’s resignation as the Minister of open Government. Firstly, we had the incident with Radio New Zealand. Let’s understand how important that is. A free, politically neutral media goes to the heart of how our democracy works. We are not—well, I hope we’re not; I sometimes doubt it when I hear members opposite—one of those countries where we have a State media that just spins the Government line, like you might get in North Korea or Zimbabwe. Here we have Clare Curran having private, secret meetings with the head of news—not some public servant. What is the Minister of broadcasting doing having meetings—secret meetings—with the head of news at Radio New Zealand? There wouldn’t be a member in this House, not even my newest colleagues, that wouldn’t have a feeling that, well, that doesn’t feel quite right. “I’m the Minister of broadcasting; I shouldn’t really be having secret meetings with the head of Radio New Zealand news.”

But here’s the part that has me gobsmacked: the week after this Parliament admonishes her for being dishonest about the secret meeting, guess what Clare Curran does? She arranges another secret meeting, this time wearing the portfolio as the Minister of digital technologies. I’ve been here for 28 years. I’ve seen some Ministers goof it up. What I have never seen is a dicky Minister commit exactly the same crime just one week after there’s a massive controversy. Now, as Simon Bridges correctly said, there are only two possibilities here. Either she’s dumb, or she’s dishonest. I’m sorry, there can only be two explanations for that course of events that has occurred.

Let’s dig into the issue of the appointment of the information officer for the Government. Now, is there a single member of this Parliament that doesn’t understand the neutrality of the Public Service? I heard lectures all the time, when we were in Government, about respecting the neutrality. I even heard speeches from Clare Curran lecturing the previous Government about the neutrality of the Public Service. I have never heard of a Minister privately and secretly meeting about the appointment of a very senior public servant to be made by this Government.

I challenge members opposite to tell me a single example that you can think of in the last 20 to 30 years, where a Government appointment has been made and that has been done in a secret meeting. I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I’ve had 14 different ministerial portfolios. I have never had a meeting in 14 years about which my ministerial staff did not know. What is going on in the culture of the ministerial offices of this Government that they have to keep meetings that they’ve having secret?

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Did you tell everyone about the Bronwyn Pullar meeting?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh, Megan Woods is interjecting. I say to Megan Woods: how many meetings have you had that you’ve kept secret from your ministerial staffers?

Hon Andrew Little: Two words: Bronwyn Pullar—Bronwyn Pullar! Tell us how many meetings.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Andrew Little’s confessing he has secret meetings without his ministerial staffers knowing, and all that reminds me of, including the interjections, is how low the standards of integrity have already fallen in this Government.

You see, the members opposite campaigned on being the most open, transparent Government ever. My criticism this afternoon is not just of Clare Curran. I want to go to the Prime Minister. How open and transparent was it for the Prime Minister to announce Clare Curran’s resignation at 4 p.m. on a Friday? Does that meet the standard of the members opposite for the standards of openness and transparency? Strange silence. They have their heads hung, across on those Government benches, and appropriately so, because this actually goes deeper—deeper than just Clare Curran. This goes to the heart of and to the character of the Government we now have, because it’s not just in the area of open and transparent Government that there is a canyon between the promise and the performance. Actually, if you dig into every single area of this Government, it’s all as though if they say words, somehow that delivers results for New Zealanders.

Here’s the bit from Clare Curran that I found extraordinary from the Government. You have the Government announce that open Government is so important that we’re going to have to have a strategy for open Government. So members of the Cabinet opposite produce a 24-page open Government strategy, and members on this side of the House ask Clare Curran: can we have a copy of the strategy under the Official Information Act? And here’s the comical part. Every single page of the open Government strategy was kept secret—was kept secret. Now, it would be hilarious if it were not so serious. Again, it illustrates the gulf between the promise of this Government and its performance.

Here’s the last part: does any member of this House recall any time in the last 30 years where you’ve had two Ministers, effectively, fall over in one week?

Hon Members: No.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That is a shambles. That is the sort of incompetence that is now being shown in this Government, and it’s more serious than this. This is a Government that’s been lecturing New Zealanders about issues of physical violence, and it’s being practised by one of its Ministers. Isn’t that extraordinary? And then we have the incident over the same recess of their secret report on the Labour Party camp. I challenge members opposite: where is the openness and transparency when you commission a report about the awful incident that occurred at the Labour camp over the sexual abuse of young people and keep it secret?

So whether it is on sexual abuse issues, whether it’s on physical violence, or whether it is on open Government, this is a Government that says one thing and does the opposite. They have lost their moral authority, and the resignation of Clare Curran is just a smell of the rot that exists within this Government, in which they are promising New Zealanders one thing and delivering the exact opposite. Any Prime Minister—whether it was Bill English, whether it was John Key, whether it was Helen Clark—would have dealt with the Clare Curran issue that occurred way back in February far more decisively, and it equally applies to the very serious accusations that I have not heard of in 30 years of a Minister assaulting a staff member. The rot in this Government runs very, very deep indeed.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Well, goodness me! If we’ve ever heard a case of the pot calling the kettle black, that absolutely had to be the finest contribution that we could have ever had from an Opposition member, who was, if I recall, demoted from his rank as a former Minister for ACC for having secret meetings with a former client of that ministry that I think he probably wishes he’d put in his diary. So if we want to get really frank about previous ministerial behaviour, I think that some of those members currently sitting on the Opposition benches need to take some hard time to reflect on their previous administration’s lack of administration.

Look, they say in sport that the best defence is offence. And if I was the member for Tauranga right now, I’d be wanting to put up a mighty good defence to cast away any light that could ever be put on me, because I’d know I had a bright light, a burning light, a sniper-red light shining at the back of my head that I would not want to draw any further attention to—whether that be the polls that I know that the member from Tauranga will be seeing crashing down or whether that’s public opinion about the fact that they have some internal squeaky leaks that they need to tidy up on the Opposition benches. They will do whatever they need to do to distract from the fact that they are on a sinking ship with a captain that’s losing credibility.

I turn to the matter at hand. The question is whether our Prime Minister has acted with decisiveness, with certainty, and with a steady hand. What we’ve seen from our Prime Minister in the management of Minister Curran has been absolutely decisive, has been absolutely steely, and has been absolutely assertive. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I can say we stand as a Government that is prepared to act in a determined, decisive, and swift manner in holding our Ministers to a high account. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yes, that previous member, Kiritapu Allan, said “a Government that would like to act”, and I agree with that—act in an underhanded and sneaky manner. They are a dodgy Government. The thing I think that this demotion of Clare Curran highlights most of all is that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is weak and indecisive. She’s indecisive because it took five days from once, apparently, she knew about Ms Curran’s second indiscretion to finally make a decision public. It’s kind of odd, isn’t it, that that decision was made public at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon, right about the time when the bad news dump might get hidden in the weekend’s activities. She’s weak—weak in that all she did was strip her of a couple of portfolios.

The message that the Prime Minister sent to New Zealand, and indeed to her own caucus, in taking just a couple of portfolios was that if you’re a Cabinet Minister, openness and transparency apply, but if you’re a Minister outside Cabinet you don’t need to worry about any of that stuff. You can be as sneaky as you want to be, because Ms Curran remains a Minister outside Cabinet. She still gets a good salary, gets the privileges like the ride in the Beemer—there’s hardly a punishment there at all.

“Proportionate”, the Prime Minister says. Proportionate? I don’t think that’s the way the rest of New Zealand sees this at all. What they see is what they heard. When the Government came in they said this would be the most open and transparent Government New Zealand had ever had. So New Zealanders expect that what they’ll see is what it says on the tin. Instead, what they get is at least one Minister who hides meetings, and then gets a little bit sort of clever about what that first meeting with Carol Hirschfeld was about, and in the second case simply tries to sweep it under the carpet to begin with.

I was quite astounded because when the information dump came out, what did become clear was that Mr Handley approached Minister Curran about the possibilities of the Chief Technology Officer role, and they sort of conversed via Twitter about whether they might meet. It was Minister Curran that initiated an email exchange that led to the appointment being made, and she did so on her private Gmail account—not on a ministerial mail account, not on a parliamentary mail account. She carries, probably, two mobile devices: a BlackBerry for secure communications that Ministers are required to have, and probably an iPhone for other communications, I would have thought. She had plenty of opportunity and ability to communicate with Mr Handley to set that meeting up using parliamentary devices. She chose instead to use a private email account. Now, there’s only one thing New Zealanders are going to take from that, and that is the Minister was deliberately seeking to make that a secret meeting. She had no intention of anyone ever finding out about it.

All that happens when that underhandedness is finally uncovered is she gets a minor demotion—a minor demotion. That’s weak government, weak leadership from the Prime Minister. Her actions and the limited sanction actually warrant an investigation, if you will. They warrant the Prime Minister and her Government actually being open with us for once. We deserve—New Zealanders deserve—to know what communications, what conversations were had between either that Minister or other Ministers around the appointment process of this Government’s Chief Technology Officer role, because there are just so many questions. We don’t know. We don’t know how many other times things have been hidden. We don’t know what conversations have been had. We don’t know what influence Ministers may have tried to have over that appointment process.

One thing we do know is that Mr Handley did apply for the job, and he applied for the job in the second wave of recruitment, at or before the closing time for those applications. And then on 9 June he was interviewed by Lisa Owen on The Nation in his capacity as a technology entrepreneur. He was asked questions directly about the characteristics of a Chief Technology Officer, knowing he’d applied for it. So he was asked what he thought the right characteristics were—deeply conflicted—and then asked if it was him for the role, and he fudged that too. This is a senior Public Service role. He completely failed the test of managing conflicts of interest, and he could yet be appointed to that role. It certainly calls into question his fitness for that role, but equally, behind that, given that all the rumour is that he will be appointed, I think it’s important that we know what influence Ministers might have had or tried to have on his appointment to the role, because there’s more to come from this yet. Ms Curran deserves to be sitting down the back of the House, and that’s what a strong Prime Minister would have done.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Technically this call should have been a 10-minute Labour call, but the Greens didn’t take their call, which means that proportionality has been slightly affected, so I’m going to give a five-minute call each to National and Labour.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I stand here today proud to be a member of a ministry led by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, a woman who shows leadership, who shows fairness, and who shows proportionality. Minister Clare Curran has paid a hefty price for behaviour that she has admitted herself was not up to the standards demanded by our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. She has been stripped of two portfolios and she has been placed outside Cabinet.

Now, I want us to actually just calm down a little in this House and actually think about what has happened. A Minister did not meet standards. She did not record a meeting in her diary. Was this something that was revealed by the Opposition? Was this something that came out? No. This is something that the Prime Minister found out about and then dealt with openly. Did she try to sweep it under the carpet? No. She dealt with it fairly, she dealt with it decisively, and she dealt with it transparently. She was the one who made public what had happened with Ms Curran’s failure to record the meeting in her diary after it was found out, and I think we should keep that proportionality in mind. That is what leadership looks like.

What we’ve had here is a lot of behaviour that begins with the letter “h”—a word that we can’t say in this House—from members on the opposite benches this afternoon. To have Paula Bennett standing there talking about standards when Ms Bennett, as a Minister, released the details of two beneficiaries who dared to criticise her Government—well, I think she should come back and talk about the standards that her boss, John Key, required of her, because that is despicable behaviour. Then for Nick Smith to stand there and say that to do things twice was unbelievable—well, Mr Smith, you intervened on Bronwyn Pullar’s case not once but twice. It wasn’t just once.

So this is a rough place, and this is a workplace where the consequences for not meeting standards are high. Ms Curran has not met the standards demanded by Jacinda Ardern, and she has paid the price. But I think what we need to do is we need to make sure that when we’re standing in the Opposition benches having a go, we actually think back about other things that have happened over the life of this House. This is a place where perhaps we do have to accept that when people make mistakes they pay a price bigger than in most workplaces. I am proud of the kind of leadership we are seeing from Jacinda Ardern. She is a leader who is leading by example. She is a leader who is demanding the highest ever standards of her Ministers, who is dealing with issues as they come up and not attempting to sweep them under the carpet, as we saw from the previous administration. So what we have is an unfortunate situation where a member of this House has paid a price, and we have a Prime Minister who we can rightly be proud of. Thank you.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, here we are back after a fortnight’s adjournment, and when I reflect back on that last fortnight, what a terrible period it has been for the current Government. We’ve had Shane Jones with his attacks on Christopher Luxon, his attacks on Fonterra at an event that I attended, and all sorts of other things. We’ve had Willie Jackson with his tongue running away with him in an interview for which he was fundamentally ill prepared. And we have had two Ministers who have fallen on their swords, either because one has been demoted or because the other has been forced to stand aside. As the last Minister of Customs, I have to say I am watching with particular interest what happens with that inquiry.

But today, of course, we are focusing on the other Minister who’s in trouble, and, as the Hon Dr Nick Smith noted a short time ago, this is an issue that goes to the very heart and character of the current Government. And so, much as the Hon Dr Megan Woods might like to trivialise the importance of this particular issue, it is very important. There is a very high threshold that is required for the Speaker to set aside the business of this House and grant an urgent debate. This issue met that threshold, and so it behoves the members opposite, the members of the Government, to engage in the debate and to come up with substantive reasons to defend what their Prime Minister has done. What we’ve seen, though, is members either being reluctant to take calls at all or taking very short calls and, in some cases, speaking totally off the subject.

It isn’t just once that the Hon Clare Curran has committed a significant indiscretion that is unbecoming of a Minister; she’s done it twice. She’s done it twice in one calendar year—and, as Brett Hudson’s mentioned, at least twice. This debate highlights the weakness of the current Prime Minister in being able to run a ministry and set and demand the standards that are required of Ministers—well-paid Ministers who must meet a very high standard of public service.

In the current Prime Minister’s desire to minimise the damage that these incidents have done to her ministry, she has failed in her duty to New Zealanders. She has failed to set and enforce high standards. She has failed to insist that the earlier mistake over the Carol Hirschfeld secret appointment, that got Clare Curran into trouble in the first instance, was unacceptable and must never be repeated.

And yet what sort of responses have we had from members opposite? I thought the member for Ōhāriu would take his chance today to really hammer home his audition for a place in Cabinet, but instead he produced his best Uriah Heep impression. He wrung his hands, he rocked from side to side, and he alternately grimaced and chortled, but he said absolutely nothing about the Hon Clare Curran and her conduct or her indiscretions.

As the member who’s looking down knows, that Minister has now offended twice in the same year. So why is it that that Minister is still a Minister of the Crown—albeit now outside Cabinet? She’s now being paid a lower salary, as a Minister outside Cabinet, but she’s only got half the workload. And I’m here thinking, well, surely, if you’ve only got half the workload, your pay would go down by half as well, wouldn’t it? But, oh no, there she still is because the current Prime Minister won’t rock the boat any more than she feels is absolutely necessary. I’m left wondering: is the current Labour Party caucus so bereft of talent, so bereft of potential, that there is nobody else who could do a better job, particularly in the role of Minister for open government. I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that somebody who held that portfolio should have committed these indiscretions.

And, as I say, we’ve had the Hon Dr Megan Woods seeking to trivialise the issue and suggesting that the Prime Minister’s response was proportionate. Well, it was not. This is not good enough. This Government needs to sharpen up quickly, tidy up its act, set much higher standards, show the public that they are focused on dealing with the important issues that they have been charged with as they lead the Government of this country, and not lurch from crisis to crisis, sideshow to sideshow, in a way that totally undermines the confidence that the New Zealand public have in their Government.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill

First Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Courts): I move, That the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

It’s been eight years—in fact, to the day—since the first Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and a little less time since the big earthquakes of 2011, starting with the first major earthquake that year, on 22 February, and yet thousands of insurance claims arising from those earthquakes remain unresolved. This delay has left many Cantabrians feeling weary and frustrated, and we saw an expression of that in the weekend just gone.

This bill—the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill—establishes a specialist tribunal and a fully funded mediation service to help the people of Canterbury resolve longstanding residential insurance claims. I believe the tribunal will act as a circuit-breaker for these claims and provide people with the closure that they have long deserved. The tribunal has been developed to be homeowner initiated to ensure that policyholders feel empowered and in control of their situation. The bill puts the choice to access the tribunal in the hands of policyholders by allowing them, rather than insurers or the Earthquake Commission (EQC), to apply to the tribunal. I know this has been an issue of some controversy for some, but what is absolutely evident is that those who are missing out, those who have been seeking justice for so long are the policyholders and the insured parties, not the insurance companies and not EQC.

This tribunal is not intended to replace the courts or any other dispute resolution process. Rather, it has been developed as an alternative, to provide policyholders with the option of choosing a pathway that is tailored specifically to the Canterbury earthquake’s context, with emphasis on speed, flexibility, and cost effectiveness. If parties have already filed claims in court, the policy holder can apply to transfer the case to the tribunal.

As a specialist body, the tribunal will have jurisdiction to consider residential insurance claims between policyholders and their insurers or EQC. However, in some circumstances, the tribunal can join other potentially liable parties to the claim, such as a builder, where it’s necessary to reach a fair or speedy resolution. Claims must relate to damage caused by the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The purpose of the tribunal is to help homeowners in Canterbury, many of whom have been waiting a long time for resolution. To make sure the tribunal can deliver speedy resolution and that certain cases remain with the courts, the tribunal will not consider claims related to onsold properties. Some legal issues emerging from these claims are novel and may have no clear precedent, and I consider that they are more appropriately considered by the courts.

The tribunal has been designed to provide processes that are easy for Cantabrians to access. There will be no application fee to access the tribunal, and people can choose whether or not to bring a lawyer. To ensure people feel supported throughout the process, they also have the option of choosing to be represented by someone who is not a lawyer. Detailed guidance will be available to help people feel prepared and informed about what to expect at the tribunal.

One of the key elements of the tribunal process is its flexibility. We know that the remaining insurance claims are complex and that a one-size-fits-all approach would be unhelpful. This is why there will be no standard process that all claims must follow; rather, the bill allows the resolution process to be tailored to the needs of each claim. The tribunal will take a proactive approach to case management and work closely with the parties to find the most appropriate way to resolution. Case management conferences can be used as often as necessary. These meetings will bring the parties together to exchange views, identify issues in dispute, and work collaboratively towards resolution. The tribunal can also use these meetings to set time frames for each stage of the process so that claims continue to progress without unnecessary delays.

The tribunal has a number of powers to help it consider claims. For example, it will be able to appoint independent experts. These experts will play a key role in helping the tribunal to understand complex information and will be able to provide an independent view of competing expert opinions. It is about trying to remove one of the big impediments to the resolution of claims at the moment, and that is the war amongst experts. We’ve got to bring that stuff to an end and have experts available to a tribunal like this who can be arbiters of technical difference, and so bring claims much closer to resolution.

I’ve decided to include an independent and fully funded mediation service within the tribunal process. Mediation empowers parties to settle disputes themselves. It can also be a useful tool to help narrow down the issues in dispute and provide a confidential environment for the parties to speak freely. However, it’s important to acknowledge that, after eight years, parties may already have tried to settle their claims through other dispute resolution processes. Therefore, the bill gives the tribunal flexibility to decide on a case by case basis when mediation will be helpful.

It will also be able to refer parties to mediation more than once if required, or direct a claim straight to a formal hearing without mediation. It’s not unusual in situations like this with complex claims where parties have reached, frankly, a stand-off situation, that once they get into a process such as that contemplated under this tribunal, they do find common ground and the points of difference are not as great as the parties might have once thought, and so it’s appropriate to have an avenue open to the parties where they can restart or retry mediation to try to bring them to resolution. As we know, the strongest and most enduring resolutions are those achieved by agreement, rather than being imposed on the parties.

When determining claims, the tribunal will apply existing law, precedent, and the terms of any relevant insurance contract. You would expect that. The rule of law will continue to apply. But this means the tribunal will apply the same legal rules that are applied in court. A tribunal decision will be enforceable as a District Court order and tribunal decisions will able to able to be appealed on matters of fact and law to the High Court and with the leave of the High Court. Appeals beyond the High Court will be on matters of law only.

We want the tribunal to work for those people who are still waiting for resolution. That’s nearly 3,000 claims sitting in courts or sitting with insurance companies for resolution. These people have waited too long. It was the explicit promise of all parties who make up this Government in the election campaign last year to explore ways to find a more speedy, more flexible, more custom-tailored means of resolution for their insurance claims. I am confident that with this bill and this tribunal we have found a means for those Cantabrians still waiting for resolution to achieve resolution in a speedy and efficacious way.

We want the tribunal to work for those people who have waited for so long and I encourage members of the public, now that the bill is here and will go to a select committee, to provide submissions during that process. We need to hear the stories, we need to hear from those people who are waiting for resolution of their insurance claims, and we need to hear from the insurance companies, and indeed EQC themselves. I commend this bill to the House.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’d like to begin my speech on the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill by pointing out that the National Party will be supporting this to select committee, but we do have major reservations about the bill, and I’ll go through those points now. Before I do that, we all have great empathy with the people that are still trying to get their insurance claims settled—and who wouldn’t? To try and find a way to resolve those as quickly as possible is of course something we all support. However, it’s not as simple as it might sound.

But this bill has gone through a rushed process. There’s been a lack of consultation. There was no consultation with the claimants, there was no consultation with the Earthquake Commission, there was no consultation with Southern Response, and there was no consultation with the experts—from engineering experts to building experts to legal experts—who are involved in these cases. It seems also the Minister was unwilling to take advice from his own ministry and other ministries. It was an election promise which the Ministry of Justice in fact advised against. We’re still waiting for answers about the onsold homes, which won’t be able to take part in this process. These are the most complex of issues, and they have been specifically excluded from this process, and so the Government needs to give some answers on that because that will make up a significant number of those unresolved claims.

There are 3,600-odd claims that are remaining, and most of them are complex, and it quite specifically states that no complex or novel claims will be considered by the tribunal. So those claims that are already in the courts—they also won’t be considered by the tribunal unless they seek leave to move from there, and none of the remaining claims that are too complex will be considered. In fact, the regulatory impact statement on 14 July says it expects that most of the outstanding claims are complex, so quite a small number, I suspect, out of those 3,600 will actually be suitable to go into this process.

The appointment of tribunal members is also an area of concern for us because there’s carte blanche for the Minister to appoint members to that tribunal. However, there’s no requirement for any qualifications for those members. I would have thought at the very least a law degree would have been the minimum—also, I would have thought some experience in practising in this area—and I’m very concerned about that. It seems to me that the only way to get around this would be to have an appointments panel. I think that appointments panel should have a High Court judge chairing it, with some others on that tribunal, in order to appoint the people who would have relevant qualifications and be able to handle these claims.

While they won’t accept complex claims, quite where “complex” starts and ends we don’t know, and so there will be some quite significant claims and complexity to deal with for that tribunal, and, if the members of that tribunal don’t have the relevant qualifications and the relevant experience to judge these submissions based on their merits not on the emotions involved, we’re only going to be seeing more problems caused rather than solved.

It can also transfer claims back to the courts. That means any claims that are too complex could go into the tribunal process then simply be transferred back to the courts. That will only slow the process down, and that’s something that we should be trying to avoid. So it’s, effectively, a doubling up on the court system. We all want good results, but we don’t want results that are only going to slow things down.

It also means that there are less experts to go around. The experts that are involved in hearing and working on these cases can be in the High Court, they can be in the District Court, and now they can also be operating in a tribunal. So they can only spread themselves so far, and I think this is going to be one of the major problems with this. In fact, in the regulatory impact statement dated 2 February, I quote, “Claims may take just as long, or longer, to be resolved through the new tribunal than under the status quo. This is due to the risk that it will be difficult to ensure sufficient numbers of technical experts are available to produce technical reports. … The need for suitably qualified lawyers … may also create [significant challenges].” That’s a very serious matter, and a significant part of solving these issues are those experts.

So it won’t be speedy, as has been claimed. There is the lack of experts and geotechnical engineers and lawyers, as I’ve alluded to. They’re already caught up in the courts. And when will this particular tribunal be up and running? It’s envisaged to be in March. I submit that it would be a far better course, as was advised by one of the reports, to have a mediation service instead of a tribunal and enhance the status quo. I think that would have been far more effective.

There is no requirement of a cross-examination—in fact, it’s only at the discretion of the tribunal—and yet members, and particularly the Minister, I advise, should look at Parkin v Vero to see in that case where an expert under cross-examination admitted that the evidence that they had submitted was a cut and paste that had been done by the counsel representing the claimant. So if you don’t have the ability to cross-examine those witnesses, how do you find out and tease those particular issues out? That is why we have cross-examination in the courts.

The tribunal doesn’t have to hold hearings, even. It can decide based on papers alone, and, again, I think that’s a very dangerous route to go down. Parties are unable to make submissions if questions of law are referred to the High Court—well, that’s usually the case anyway—and non-lawyer representatives are not bound by any ethical standards, and that’s really important. We’ve seen examples in Christchurch of claimants wishing to settle but being unable to do so because of the terms and conditions they signed up to with the person who is representing them—and they were quite outrageous in one case. There’s no code of ethics for them. I think that there should be, at a very minimum, an ethical standard for those people involved.

Unequal access—as the Minister said, insurers can’t take claims to the tribunal, only claimants can, and that’s outside of normal practice in our law, and I think that’s something to be concerned about. The departmental disclosure statement states that there is inequality in access in there. In fact, I’ve never seen reports so critical on a Government bill. I think that’s really quite poor, and it doesn’t reflect well on the Minister, unfortunately. It raises concerns of natural justice, and, particularly, when you can’t cross-examine and when we have unequal access, I think that’s something—a major tenet of our law—that is being trodden over on this. As I’ve said, the mediation, I think, would’ve been a better course of action—and, in fact, the Ministry of Justice recommended that—and I think extra money into the Residential Advisory Service, working alongside the mediation, would’ve been a far more effective strategy.

The final point I want to make is about damages for mental distress. Currently in our law, damages for mental distress are not available in contract law; they’re only available to be argued for tort claims. So this is a major departure from our legal system as it stands today. In fact, I refer the Minister to Dr Duncan Webb’s unsuccessful case, where he argued for damages of this kind in contract law in Parkin v Vero, where that claim was lost. I think the Minister would gain valuable insight as to why that should not be available in the tribunal and under contract law. That is a longstanding principle in our law, dating back many, many years, and I think it’s a very dangerous state of affairs to trample all over that.

So we will be supporting this to the select committee. The select committee has a lot of work to do—work that should’ve been done by the Minister—and it doesn’t reflect well on him. However, we will ensure that that select committee process follows through and does that work that should’ve been done before. Thank you.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration): It’s an absolute privilege to rise in support of this bill, which will make an enormous difference in Christchurch and in Canterbury. I want to begin by acknowledging my colleague the Hon Andrew Little for bringing this bill to this House. Andrew is not only a man who had the very good sense to marry a Christchurch woman but also a man who was with us on the day of the 22 February earthquake, and who has spent a lot of time in Christchurch over the last eight years, speaking and meeting with people who have been going through the trauma that is having an unsettled insurance claim.

Today, in my contribution, I want to focus on the human element of this bill, because this is a bill that will change lives, Madam Assistant Speaker, as I know you know. It will restore hope to our people. It will help people get their homes fixed and, most importantly, their lives back on track eight years on from an earthquake. I think that for many people who live outside Christchurch and Canterbury, it is very hard to imagine that eight years on there are still, literally, thousands of people who are stuck fighting the Earthquake Commission (EQC) or their insurance companies to get their homes properly mended.

I want to take this point in my speech to acknowledge today the eighth anniversary of the sequence—the beginning of the sequence—of earthquakes that changed our city and region for ever, and the enormous impact it has had on the people of that area, and the number of people who have shone over the last eight years. But I also want to acknowledge the people that have struggled, because we know there are many of them, and that is what today is about. I am enormously proud that on this eighth anniversary, this Government can deliver on its promises to the people of Canterbury to do things differently. Too many people are trapped, unable to move on with their lives, and I think that is unimaginable.

This tribunal is about giving people a way out, about giving them a tool to help break through that deadlock. This is part of a pipeline of initiatives that this Government is putting in place so that we can finally deal with the thousands of unresolved insurance claims in Canterbury. It is not the only thing. In December, we put money into the RAS when that funding was due to run out—the Residential Advisory Service. We have expanded the mandate of that service and we are continuing to do so. For us as a Government, doing nothing, or doing what had happened over the last eight years, was not an option. The status quo has not worked. There are thousands of people who cannot get on with their lives.

As an electorate MP in Wigram in Christchurch—as I know electorate MPs all over our city have—I’ve spent the last eight years seeing first-hand this struggle that people have gone through, and the thousands of pieces of correspondence that we receive on a daily basis. I want to read a very recent piece of correspondence that I received from a woman in her 60s to tell me about the limbo that she’s living in: “I live with four-by-twos diagonally bolted through my lounge carpet, propping the middle wall of my house up—house unpainted, leaks in my roof, angry neighbours because the shared driveway is not repaired and can’t be done until a resolution on my property. For the past eight years, I’ve not invited friends to my home because of the embarrassment of the condition of it.” I am not content for people in Christchurch and Canterbury to continue in this hell, and this is why we, on this side of the House, are taking action. Just think what it would be like if that was your life, your mother, your auntie, or your grandmother that was living through that.

I’ve heard some of the concerns that the Opposition have, and I hope they can be allayed in select committee, because I think most of them are misplaced. The Opposition spokesperson Stuart Smith said that he thought that a mediation service would be better. Well, there will be a mediation service. The Minister outlined in his speech that as part of the pipeline and the suite of services—the change that we are bringing—we know that an alternative dispute resolution service through mediation will be required, but what we are not content to do is waste millions of dollars in the courts when there are other ways to do this. In the last three years, EQC alone has spent $21.8 million in the courts defending cases, many of which it lost, and that doesn’t count the millions of dollars that the people of Canterbury have had to spend in the courts. This is why we are going to do something different.

The Opposition spokesperson was also concerned that this service wouldn’t be able to deal with complex claims, and said that most of the remaining claims are complex. It’s true, some of them are, but I can tell you that at the rate of re-repairs coming in, particularly to EQC, there are a number of claims sitting there that could so much more productively be solved through an alternative dispute resolution service such as this. There are many thousands of lives that can be changed by this. There are 3,600 unsolved EQC claims at last count—600 with Southern Response and thousands more with the other private insurers. We’re talking up to 10,000 people in Canterbury who cannot get on with their lives. If this tribunal can help some of them, then it is a worthwhile addition to the pipeline of services that we have available.

Stuart Smith was also concerned that we wouldn’t be appointing people with the right qualifications. It stands to reason that what we have said—and we have publicly said that we see people of the calibre of retired High Court judges, senior members of the legal profession, being the right people to sit there. We also don’t agree that this will slow things down, because the other bit of the regulatory impact statement that the Opposition spokesperson didn’t go into is that it said only if there wasn’t enough expert advice available. We haven’t been content just to keep doing the same thing that happened for the seven years before we got into Government; we have been talking to professional bodies about how we can make sure that that expert help is there for people, because we will not let people languish in the way they have been left to languish for the last eight years.

Also, the issue of the ability to cross-examine was brought up by the Opposition spokesperson, and I think it shows where I hope the Opposition through the select committee process will begin to understand what this is trying to do differently. This is an alternative dispute resolution service. This is the kind of approach that we saw used to finally break the deadlock in a group action, or a class action, against Southern Response that had been going on for years. But when we came into Government and tried something different and employed alternative dispute resolution techniques, we were able to settle those claims so those people could get on with their lives, and that is the important thing that we have to do.

But, as I keep saying, it’s not the only thing; we are looking at other measures. We’re seeing a reformation of the way in which EQC deals with its claims. This is a Government that has worked with EQC, that saw—it took away the resource that was required in terms of the on-the-ground claims managers in Canterbury. That was scaled down far too quickly by the last Government, and we have worked with the commission to ensure that we have more people on the ground there. So I am confident that once we put together all this suite of measures, we will finally be able to get to an end of these insurance issues that are bedevilling our city and our region. It is not enough to say these are complex, these are hard, and these are difficult. Yes they are, and that’s why we’re a Government that is putting in place measures to deal with it.

One of the most complex issues that we have—which the Opposition has questioned why this won’t deal with it—is the question of onsolds. This is an issue that needs to be dealt with by the court. It is an incredibly complex issue where we have to determine where legal liability lies. It does not mean we should not set up this tribunal, that we shouldn’t be doing everything within our power to make sure that the issues of those Cantabrians—like the lady in her 60s whose experience of being too embarrassed to invite people over to her house eight years on—do not endure. We owe it to the people in our city and our region.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak to the first reading of the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. This is a Government bill and National is supporting it, but with some reservations. I guess, like much of the legislation that’s come our way in the last eight or nine months or so, it is in a poor state and an incomplete state. There has not been sufficient consultation with any of the key stakeholders, including the insurance companies or the Earthquake Commission (EQC). These are the people, really, who ought to have been involved at the formation of a piece of legislation of this kind, but because of the rush to get this done—and I guess that’s because there is so little other work that is standing ready to go by this Labour Government, that really was not prepared for Government and was really ill-prepared with a body of legislation that needed to go through. Perhaps that’s why this was rushed through. So it will fall to the select committee to make some massive changes. It goes to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Before I go through the parts of the bill that I think are better than others, I would like to say this: it is the eighth anniversary of a sequence of earthquake events that changed for ever the face of Christchurch, of Canterbury. I’d like to acknowledge the pain and the suffering of the people of the region who have been through that—[Coughs] Excuse me, Madam Assistant Speaker. Excuse me. I think that when we look—[Coughs] I might need a moment; I’ve just choked. Excuse me. [Hon Member offers glass of water] Thank you very much.

I think that one of the things that happens when you need to ensure—and no pun intended—that there are 3,600 claims that need to be settled is that there is something more that is required, but whether it is this tribunal or not remains to be seen. One of the things that the Minister said was that an independent, fully funded mediation process would be allowable and would be part of this. I think, given the complexity of some of the cases that will be coming before this tribunal, that is an absolutely important element of all of this.

I think that there are things that have occurred—thank you, Kiri, for bringing over some lozenges. This is indeed a cross-party cooperative venture. It’s not often that somebody who’s been a broadcaster for 30 years gets even mildly affected by the throat, but I appreciate the gesture. Thank you, and excuse me for sucking a lozenge while I do this speech. OK.

So let’s look at some of the issues that are raised with this piece of legislation. It has been touched on before, and that’s the onsold homeowners, which, from what I understand with my association with the city and in a previous select committee—on the Local Government and Environment Committee—we looked at a lot of the work that has been done to complete the rebuild of Christchurch. The onsold homes are indeed a looming issue. That is an issue that will need to be addressed, and, perhaps if there had been more time, it could have been brought under the auspices of this particular tribunal. I wish it had been the case, but I think that is certainly one of the big issues that will need to be addressed at some point.

I guess this is a tribunal that has been set up for the homeowners. They are, at the moment, in the dark because of the lack of consultation, but the Minister did make the point, and I’m sure that people will take him up on the offer, that they make submissions to the select committee, that they tell their stories, that they make people who are on this tribunal, whatever level of skill and expertise that might have—those people need to be aware of the broad range of difficulties that people have experienced in order to rule fairly and properly. The insurance companies and EQC will also be making submissions on this, and I think that there is some comfort to be had from that, and I think that is a good thing.

I worry, though, that some of the out clauses in this bill may mean that some of the decisions that the tribunal might make can then be appealed to the court, which runs the risk of doubling up the process and slowing things down yet again. When we see the impact summary that was prepared by the Ministry of Justice to inform this bill and the policies around it, they refer to the short period of time to scope and develop the bill. That’s why they were unable to consult with those key partners, and therefore there is a lack of data about the nature and extent of the problems and the number of stakeholders affected. So they are advising that there is a lot more that is needed, and I agree with them.

They’ve listed, as well—the justice officials—some of the risks, and they point out that these claims may take just as long or longer than the current processes, and that must be concerning. I think that if a bill like this, when it’s put through the House, and I’m sure it will be—there will be about a year’s delay while the tribunal is set up. There will then be only a year’s funding allocated for it, which I think is concerning. A tribunal of this kind needs to be set up with a longer-term view than just being around for one year. And only being funded for a year, I think, does send a message to people that this is a quick sweep-up, really—that’s its intention as a tribunal. I think it needs more than this, and I think the people of Canterbury deserve better than this.

But the idea that the key objective of the initiative, in terms of the general risks, is not realized might mean that public confidence in the whole process is affected. I think that the system needed to resolve the final Canterbury earthquake disputes needs to be robust. It needs to do the job, and my concern is that it will not. We will hope it can be corrected and added to within the select committee process, but, again, we worry about the resourcing level and the volume of cases that might come before the tribunal.

The advisers have pointed out, as well, that this might be, as a process, misused by some litigants—that they could, in fact, try to hold up and relitigate some of the cases that have gone through. So there are a whole lot of things that will need to be very carefully considered and resolved, and I think that—you know, this is a tribunal that will take a little while. Others—my colleague Stuart Smith has pointed out that we need to have people on that tribunal that have got the kind of skills, and Dr Megan Woods did refer to the need to have somebody at a retired High Court judge level to chair it, and, hopefully, a legal qualification to guide people through the quagmire and make the correct decisions as a tribunal.

I think that they do only have the power to consider the simple cases that have not already come before the courts, and out of those 3,600, my understanding is that they are the more complicated cases. They are the ones that are going to be tricky to do, so I’m not sure if this tribunal will be well-equipped. I think that when we look at the concerns over equal access, only policyholders and insured people will be allowed to apply to this tribunal. Again, it’s narrowing it down, which might mean that the tribunal will have less work to do, but it also might mean that the very people that it seeks to help will not be eligible, and the complexity of their cases will not be able to be heard.

Who can bring claims? Not the insurance companies, which surprises me somewhat. I would have thought that equal access and natural justice would mean that insurance companies could also be involved in bringing cases to the tribunal, because that has been a problem and something that has held up the process of being able to resolve some of these claims. The unequal access thing will, I think, need to be kept in mind.

When we look at some of the other issues that have emerged through Christchurch, with regard to getting advocates who act on behalf of people, I think that we always need in these kinds of cases to have appropriately trained and skilled people, and having advocates there could be something of a murky area within a tribunal, particularly if it is not set up with the right level of legal rigour around it. So while I wouldn’t want to cast any aspersions on individuals who have advocated in the past, I think there’s a real need to be vigilant around those who might demand contingency fees or who might get involved for the wrong reasons. Again, when I look at the make-up of what is considered around the recommendations and within this bill, I am a little concerned that it will be a little underskilled and, therefore, potentially somewhat underwhelming. I certainly hope not.

I think that the people of Canterbury deserve something that will give them what they need and that will resolve the most complicated of cases. I remain a little sceptical that this is the tribunal that will deliver it, but I certainly hope that within the select committee process, this bill, which has been put together in a rush—it will take more than a year to get established as a tribunal and will then only be funded for a short period of time—will be allowed to have much more than that. It doesn’t sound very promising.

I commend the bill to the House, but with some reservations. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I rise to offer New Zealand First’s support to this Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. I note that today is actually the eighth anniversary of the September 2010 quake.

My, probably, overriding sentiment around this bill is I think it’s probably three years too late. There are a lot of people who have been put under enormous stress through this process, through no fault of their own, and actually, probably, in many cases, through no fault of the system. This is an unprecedented scale of event for our nation, and mistakes were always going to be made. The process was always going to be difficult as we responded to this.

So I have in my contributions on various earthquake-related bills steered away from the politics for the reasons I’ve just given. I think the scale and the unprecedented nature—certainly, in modern times—of this event means that our response was always going to be less than perfect. But for the 2,500 to 3,000 people, or however many it is, whose cases are still unresolved, I think we really need to do what we can for them and elevate matters. I think this bill does exactly that for the 2 percent of claims that are unresolved, although I would add that as of 30 June, there have been 142,451 domestic insurance claims that have been made and payments have totalled $10.7 billion, as well as 26,275 commercial insurance claims totalling, to date, $10.3 billion. So that just shows you the scale of this particular event.

I might say that I was in Christchurch last week—as a hard-working list MP for New Zealand First based in the South Island—and I must say that for the first time that I have been there in recent times, I left feeling encouraged. In that central city, which has looked like a bombsite—most of us aren’t there all the time and when we go back we’re generally pretty shocked at the state of Christchurch—it does seem like the modern, new buildings and the buildings that are under construction are now outnumbering the parking lots and the building sites. So I think we are seeing, finally, after these six or seven years since the end of the quakes, that there is a genuine revival.

Most of the time when I go from Christchurch, I leave with a bit of a heavy heart, but this time I left feeling some hope and embracing the future, as opposed to maybe dwelling too much on the past. But, of course, for these 2,000 or 3,000 people—I’ve heard various quotes now of 2,500 claims, and I’ve heard Maggie Barry, the previous speaker, saying it could be as many as 3,500—their reality has not moved on. Just in recent times, we’ve had a report on Stuff of Roy and Jeanette Walker. Roy is 94 and Jeanette is 81—so he’s done pretty well for himself there—but after those events, they are still trying to work through this process, at their age, and the stress of the events has taken a significant toll on their health, to the point where doctors have, basically, ordered them into a rest home. Jeanette said, “Roy’s health has not improved and I had a breakdown arguing with the insurers who seem to be making it as difficult as possible. The doctor said it was beyond us now. I just got exhausted.”

It’s for Roy and Jeanette, and for people like them, that we stand here today and bring this bill to the House. It is a sensible bill. It does recalibrate the power imbalance that we do have between insurers and claimants, and it does allow the homeowners to initiate this process, because that is important.

I’m actually involved in another bill before the House at the moment, the Farm Debt Mediation Bill, so I actually have been getting quite a bit of feedback through that angle on the process of mediation when businesses, in that case, are under stress. I have been given quite an insight, actually, into the pressures and the stresses and the power imbalances that do apply in these situations, where you have, in many cases, incredibly well-resourced, multinational companies going up against individuals who may be quite limited in their understanding or ability to respond in kind. There’s this huge power imbalance, so this mediation process is a really, really important step.

As I say, I think we’re well too late in getting to this point. There are people there like Roy and Jeanette, and all those other people that will be at their wits’ end. We could not even imagine, I think, individually how hard it would be to be battling large corporations like that—or the Government, in some cases, through the Earthquake Commission—for that period of time. So these measures will be welcomed, I’m sure, by those individuals.

Of course, the key to this is that the tribunal actually has some teeth. I think that its ability to set time frames and also to appoint independent experts where necessary—and you would have to think that many of these cases are very complex. They will have gone through a number of phases already. So this tribunal does need to have some teeth. It does need to be able to rattle some cages and have some powers to make progress happen.

We have budgeted for it, with the $6.5 million operating budget and the $1.5 million that is in the set-up costs, and the foresight that went into that Budget round, as Minister Little said in his opening address, is something that was supported by the three parties on the Government benches. We recognised the importance of this and we have made provision for it. The fact that no onsold properties can be included in this—I think that’s thoroughly sensible. I think if you’ve bought a property you will have gone in as buyer beware, and it was up to you to have sorted through or recognised what the obligations would have been in that sense. So I think this is to sort out the issues for the genuinely bogged-down people who have been put in this position through no fault of their own.

Of course, the tribunal is enforceable, but its powers are in line with the District Court and are open to appeal. So I think that is important. It has been mentioned that that may bog down the process, but I think that’s after the event. I think there will be far more disputes resolved before it gets to that point than would be the contrary. And I again refer to the work I’m doing with the Farm Debt Mediation Bill, and the work that they have done in Australia has—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): No. That’s not relevant.

MARK PATTERSON: Well, it is part of the bill, because it’s absolutely the same principle—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Come back to the bill, please.

MARK PATTERSON: The experience there in a mediation sense has been that it has taken a lot of that court time away. I do note there has been a little bit of criticism about the lack of consultation, but, of course, that’s what a select committee process is for. It has been well signalled, as was pointed out, and there has been a Budget allocation made to it. So it’s been perfectly transparent, what we’re looking at doing. As I say, that has been supported by all parties on this side of the House.

So without further ado, New Zealand First is thoroughly behind this eminently sensible measure. In conclusion, I would reiterate that I think it is too late. There are too many people that have been through too much unnecessarily. We should have put this relatively cost-effective—or very cost-effective—measure in place before we got to this point. I commend Minister Little and Minister Woods, of course, who has been so active in this space, for bringing this bill forward. And New Zealand First absolutely commends it to the House. Thank you.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): There are two essential questions that Parliament needs to focus on with the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. The first of those is: will this result in speedier settlements for those people that still have claims? And, secondly, will it result in more just settlements for those that have outstanding insurance claims? I want to focus on those two questions in my contribution on this first reading, but, before doing so, it is appropriate that we acknowledge today the eighth anniversary of the massive earthquake centred in Darfield that, very early in the morning, shook Canterbury back in 2010.

I’m a former Canterbury lad and have drifted a little north. I spent a good part of my university time studying earthquakes. What occurred that day will rate as one of the largest economic civil defence challenges that this country has faced, and I want to put on record the effort by people like Gerry Brownlee, like John Key, and Nicky Wagner in the intervening eight years to address those huge challenges.

I heard the previous speaker, Mark Patterson, note that the Government was spending $1.5 million on this tribunal. I’d just like, then, to take a moment to reflect on the $17 billion—$17 billion—that National committed to in Government to come to the aid of the people of Canterbury over that huge disaster that affected all of our country.

When I reflect on—if I take the new bus exchange, if I take the temporary stadium, and if I look at the new Justice and Emergency Services Precinct, and I was in Christchurch yesterday—the way in which Christchurch has rebuilt itself over the last eight years, it is a tremendous story in which New Zealand, Canterbury, and the previous Government can take great pride.

I want to, firstly, focus on the question of whether this will result in speedier settlements. I do have to say to Government members that I read that the regulatory impact statement, from the Government’s own officials, says this, and I quote: “Claims may take just as long, or longer, to be resolved through the new tribunal [process] than [is] the status quo.” That’s what the Government’s officials are saying about this bill.

The reason I have a degree of cynicism around all the promise that’s associated with this bill is—can I just look back to a previous experience, for this Parliament. In 2002, a previous Labour Government, under Clayton Cosgrove, introduced the Weathertight Homes Tribunal with a near identical process as is set out here. When that weathertight homes process was introduced into this Parliament in 2002, the then Government—a Labour Government as well—promised that all of the claims would be settled in two years. Go back and check Hansard. I have. They said all the claims would be settled in two years. Do you know what portion of claims were settled within two years? Not all—3 percent were settled in two years. Even after four years, only 7 percent of claims, and the Weathertight Homes Tribunal actually took 14 years to get the job done. So when I hear Labour members introducing this bill and pretending it is a panacea for the difficult remaining insurance claims in Christchurch, I would love it if either the Ministers or one of the other Government members would explain why it will be different from the very disappointing experience with the previous Labour Government’s attempts over the Weathertight Homes Tribunal.

I also want to challenge members opposite in respect of the record of settlement of insurance claims in Christchurch. This was the largest number of insurance claims not just in New Zealand, but in 2010-11 there were more insurance claims generated in New Zealand than in all of the developed world. Isn’t that extraordinary? In little New Zealand, we had over 260,000 insurance claims—260,000 insurance claims. And so when I hear members opposite trying to deride and denigrate the record of the previous National Government, in which 98.5 percent—98.5 percent—of those claims were settled, I think they are being a little naive and they are being a little unfair. Here’s a simple challenge for Labour members: how many claims will be settled by this tribunal, and by when—OK? I’ve heard Megan Woods decry my colleague Gerry Brownlee for years on this issue. Put some pegs in the ground and give us some commitment—OK?

We’re going to face a new election in September of 2020. We know from this bill that there are 3,800 claims still outstanding. I ask a member opposite: how many of those 3,800 claims will be resolved by the time we go to the polls in 2020? Is there a member opposite that can give an answer and a commitment? The silence is deafening, because while the rhetoric is strong, members opposite are not prepared to put their money where their mouth is and actually connect some performance with this bill.

The second point that seems to be lost on members of the Government is that when you change the contracts around insurance, it is a free good. It is not. Any New Zealander who has received an insurance bill, from Kaitāia to Bluff, in the last 12 months knows the huge increase in costs facing families as a consequence of when they go to secure their insurance, whether it be through the EQC—the Earthquake Commission—or whether it be in terms of their private insurance. Here’s the bit that members opposite forget: every time you impose an additional cost or you extend the entitlements with respect to insurance claims—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Just stop referring to the Speaker, please.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: When the Government extends those insurance entitlements, there is a real cost for other New Zealanders. Whether it be in the housing sector or the insurance market or any other sector, they are imposing costs on New Zealanders.

So I’m very supportive of the statements made by Stuart Smith, my parliamentary colleague from next door in Kaikōura, who’s had enormous experience with these issues and is raising the quite legitimate question: for all the rhetoric, is this tribunal going to make a positive difference? And I do need to question the urgency. Labour announced in its policy, when it became the Government, that this legislation would be introduced as quickly as possible. Well, it’s been nearly 12 months since this Government was elected. The select committee process is going to take a further six months. Did the electors of Canterbury really believe that the first tribunal hearing would be in the latter part of 2019, and does that match up with the rhetoric and the promise that Labour members made in Christchurch when they said that this tribunal would be put in place? I think not.

My colleague Stuart Smith has also raised some quite legitimate questions about the specifics of this bill, as to whether it will improve the timeliness and the justice of the outcomes from the insurance settlement process. The evidence that’s in the officials’ regulatory impact statement on this bill, and the experience previously of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal, raises real questions as to the rhetoric from Government Ministers and the reality.

So, again, I say to members opposite: if we are to believe that this bill is going to deliver all that they say, why will the Government not commit to specific targets? Why will they not commit? We know at the moment that about 1,000 claims are being settled per year. How many more are going to be settled more quickly by this tribunal? How do we know that the outcomes are going to be more just when the very process that has been set up has received quite substantive criticisms from those that are there? Let’s go back, fundamentally, to the issue of the technical expertise that is required. In my view, they are some of the key issues that do need to be resolved to resolve these remaining settlements of insurance in Christchurch.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. The previous speaker, Nick Smith, is being too negative. As Minister Little said, this tribunal is intended to be a circuit-breaker. There are over 2,500 claims that have yet to be resolved, and as the regulatory impact statement on the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill, which the Green Party is please to support, notes, there are a number of frustrated and vulnerable claimants. So by setting up this tribunal, it’s seeking to actually cut through some of the issues which have bedevilled the settlement of those claims. They are generally the more complex claims, but they also may not have been settled because of the vulnerability of the claimants. The processes that this bill enables, through the tribunal, provide a less threatening environment than a court system and one which, because of the recourse to mediation, can enable those claims to be settled.

So I congratulate Minister Little and Minister Woods who have done all of the work in bringing this bill to the House. I think it is being innovative. We have a tradition in New Zealand in forums like the Environment Court where mediation is used to really good effect and similarly with the disputes tribunal. It is this ability to have the tribunal refer claims to mediation to enable the parties to get around the table, to either narrow the issues that are subject to debate to potentially go for a hearing later, or to actually get them resolved in that mediated forum that is one of the major benefits of the bill. The bill also ensures that people don’t need a lawyer to take their claim to the tribunal. They must have an insurance claim. They must be a policyholder or an insured person. They must either have a dispute with their insurance company or, as an insured person, with the Earthquake Commission.

We know that there is this tail of difficult to resolve claims, so this is the Government saying we need to get these nearly 3,000 claims actually dealt with, given that today is the eighth anniversary of the earthquake in Darfield along the Greendale fault. It has dragged on too long. It’s caused significant distress to those families who haven’t been able to get their homes repaired, who are still negotiating and putting all of that energy into the negotiations with the insurance companies, and who are facing enormous stress because they haven’t been able to move on with their lives. So this Government cares about getting these issues resolved and that’s why this bill is before the Parliament.

It will enable people to represent themselves if they feel that they would prefer to do that rather than having a lawyer. That doesn’t deny access to justice. Proceedings can still go in front of the courts, but it enables things to be worked through in a less formal way through things like mediation. It aims to be speedy, despite the Hon Nick Smith having doubts about that, it aims to be cost-effective, and it aims to be flexible. It will be able to be flexible because of the case management approach that is being used here to recognise that each claim has its own circumstances and there needs to be flexibility rather than just a one-track process to deal with that.

Stuart Smith raised concerns about the lack of ability for cross-examination. Cross-examination is a very formal procedure. It does ensure that evidence is robust, but it normally takes place where proceedings are adversarial. This tribunal is inquisitorial, so there is the ability for those presiding over the tribunal to delve into the issues in each claim and to ask probing questions. That guarantees the probity of the process, but it ensures that we are not setting up an adversarial system the way you have in a court, and it’s often by recourse to an inquisitorial system, to a system which is flexible, which focuses on case management, which enables the party to go to mediation that is often the more effective way to resolve some of these difficult claims.

It’s combining the best of a court system and a more flexible process, because the tribunal, like a court, can actually make orders, given that the presiding officers do have those inquisitorial powers and they are very independent. It also—by the fact that it is not requiring fees or a claim to be filed—means that it’s accessible to everyone. There will be the power under regulations to set fees if necessary, but it enables access to justice for everyone.

So there are a number of benefits here with this circuit-breaker process, with the flexibility it provides, with the ability to make orders, with the ability to refer the parties to mediation, with the ability to ensure that the appropriate experts are brought in—they may be engineers or geotechnical experts—and the assurance that they are brought together and have call conferencing so that they share their advice and help all the parties actually work through the claims.

So I think it’s an opportunity for a different way of working, which is why the Government is introducing the tribunal to deal with this tail of claims which are causing significant stress to the householders concerned. I think it has the potential to be a circuit-breaker. I think the Hon Nick Smith should have a little more confidence that it will work. We are not setting performance targets, because that is not appropriate. It would cut across the flexibility, the case management approach, and the emphasis on mediation that the bill enables. It does provide an alternative to the court but without taking away parties’ ability to access the court.

So the parties taking a claim to the tribunal must want to seek resolution, there must be a dispute, and this tribunal is a way of resolving those really difficult claims. I think, as Mark Patterson noted, that because it’s not dealing with the whole issue of onsold properties—because if you’ve got a claim and you’ve bought a property from someone else, you can’t take a case—it does set some parameters around the tribunal’s work and it is intended to actually deal with those nearly 3,000 cases where people are still subject, on the eighth anniversary of the first of the quakes, to the fact that they haven’t got the earthquake damage to their single most important asset, their house, resolved. So I commend the bill to the House.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I too would like to note that today, 4 September, is the eighth anniversary of the Canterbury earthquakes and the first major earthquake of a 15,000 - earthquake sequence, and I remember that morning extremely well.

Everyone who lives in Canterbury and in Christchurch has been affected by these earthquakes. Everyone has been touched; everyone has felt the loss. But I do have to say that I think we can all be very proud of how Cantabrians have responded over this length of time, over the last eight years. There have been enormous challenges, of course, and one of the most major challenges has been insurance issues. When you think about it, there were over 600,000 individual claims with about 200,000 properties affected, and over the last eight years, of those 200,000 properties, all have been completed, with 3,600 left still on the Earthquake Commission’s (EQC’s) books.

Of course, we always knew that there was going to be an enormous amount of work and an enormous amount of heartbreak, I suppose, that went through these insurance policies, and we always knew that some people would be the last. The last people are the ones that are often the most vulnerable, the ones who’ve had the toughest times, and so it is really good that we are looking today at this Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill, because if we can use this to clean up those last 3,600 claims that are still with EQC, that is a very good thing.

So National will be supporting this bill. We’ll be supporting it because we think it’s important to try everything we possibly can to complete the insurance settlements in Christchurch, not because we have any faith in the bill. In fact, we have no faith in it, in terms of its shape, in terms of its substance, or in terms of its practicality. Like all Christchurch and Canterbury MPs, I’ve been deeply involved with insurance claims over the last eight years, and we’ve supported thousands of people to go through the EQC process. So we’ve learnt a little bit about insurance, and we’re very hopeful that we can finish those last claims, but what we have found over that length of time is that things like the Residential Advisory Service have provided support for some of these very complex and difficult claims very successfully.

Now, just looking at the principle of this bill. The principle of the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill is “to provide speedy, flexible, and cost-effective services to help resolve insurance claims between policyholders and insurers … and insured persons and the Earthquake Commission”. As I said, National supports this purpose, but we feel that this piece of legislation is flawed. It has been rushed, as has been noted today, and there’s been very little consultation either with the industry or with the insured people. It’s really supposed to be to help homeowners, so it was particularly important that homeowners were part of the process, and that hasn’t been the case. It sort of feels that rational policy development with good information has been sacrificed for the rhetoric of the election promises, and that’s a real worry.

It’s a real worry that even the regulatory impact statement identified as well, because what it said was the lack of consultation has compounded the lack of data—both of which you could’ve got if you’d talked to the people involved—which means that Cabinet faces significant unknowns. Now, that’s particularly concerning, because, really, what we want right now is a little bit of certainty.

So, as I said, National supports the idea of “speedy”, we support the idea of “flexible”, and we support the idea of a cost-effective process, but let’s test whether this legislation actually delivers on that. First, let’s look at “speedy”: well, again, the regulatory impact statement says it “may take just as long, or longer, to be resolved [by] the new tribunal than under the status quo.” On top of that, we’ve heard that the tribunal won’t be up and running till at least later next year. So, taking longer than the status quo, not starting till later than next year—would we consider that speedy?

Secondly, “flexible”: the tribunal only has the power to decide simple cases—simple cases that are not already in the courts. So it rules out a large number of EQC claims already in the system. The final 3,600 claims that are on the books are largely not only complex but very complex and technical, because that’s why they’re outstanding—they’re the ones they haven’t been able to solve. So this tribunal needs to be flexible enough to deal with those issues, and it’s obviously not. Equally so, as has been mentioned today, it doesn’t deal with onsold properties, onsold claims, and that’s an issue that’s becoming increasingly pressing. This Government has done absolutely nothing to deal with them.

Finally, decisions by the tribunal can be appealed back to the court. Now, that’s neither speedy nor flexible, and, in fact, Mr Little’s own department, the Ministry of Justice, preferred a mediation process to this tribunal, something along the lines of the Residential Advisory Service. Now, that’s the service that National set up nearly six years ago, which has been running very successfully. It’s morphed and it’s tweaked to deal with the issues that’ve come up. It’s dealt with thousands of cases, very complex cases—cases that have got very vulnerable people. I actually say they have been very flexible about how they’ve dealt with those cases, how they’ve dealt with EQC, and how they’ve dealt with the insurers. So it seems to me that something like the Residential Advisory Service on steroids would actually deal very effectively with these last 3,600 claims.

Finally, let’s test the idea of cost-effectiveness. Because the bill has been so rushed, there’s actually no information about any cost-benefit analysis at all. We don’t know whether it’s going to be cost-effective. We’re only going to find out when we get a hefty bill, and right now there’s only one year’s worth of funding allocated in the Budget, so where will the rest of the money come from? So, cost-effective? I doubt it, and, again, because of the rush, we not only have been unable to understand the data but also can’t understand how that data can be used to get effective outcomes.

So, in summary: the new earthquake insurance tribunal, will it be speedy? I don’t think so. Will it be flexible? No, it can’t be. And will it be cost-effective? Well, we won’t know until we get the bill. As I said in the beginning, National absolutely supports this bill because doing something is better than doing nothing, but I really believe that the strengthening of the Residential Advisory Service would’ve been a much more speedy, much more flexible, and much more cost-effective approach. We’ve seen it being successful—thousands of claims have gone through that service—and I believe it’s far better to build on a success, build on something that’s working and something that can give the flexibility to finally close off these very last insurance claims. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes. I call Jo Luxton.

JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am really thrilled to be able to take a call on the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little for bringing this bill to the House. He quite clearly understands and empathises with the issues that several thousand people in the Canterbury region have faced or are facing every day. I also want to acknowledge the people in Canterbury, and in particular Christchurch, on this, the eighth anniversary of the 4 September earthquake. This earthquake marked the beginning of a series of events that has changed people’s lives for ever.

I can recall where I was at the time of the earthquake in September. When the earthquake hit, the house that I was living in at the time felt like it was nothing more than a cardboard box being thrown around. Thankfully or miraculously, we were never put into the position where we had to look to make an insurance claim because the house wasn’t damaged in any way. However eight fast years may have flown for me—which I feel like eight years has really flown by; I can’t believe that it’s been that long since that earthquake—there are people in Canterbury who are still struggling after eight years, who are still trying to get their claims settled.

Now, we can’t control an earthquake and we can’t control the immediate aftermath of an earthquake, but what this bill does is it gives some control back to the people of Canterbury, and many of those people have felt that they’ve had no control and no hope over their lives for the last eight years. They are living their lives—some of them, I believe—in a truly, truly dark way. They are living—it’s like Groundhog Day: you wake up, every day it’s the same. You’re facing the same battle trying to settle your claim. It’s not fair. It’s not good enough, either. This bill will also bring back fairness and equity to the people who are fighting their claims. We know there are several thousand outstanding claims—several thousand too many. I acknowledge that some of these claims are likely to be quite tricky to work through, but still, eight years is a really long time.

This bill provides a pathway forward. People still, after seven and eight years, are living in caravans outside their houses because their houses are unsafe to live in and they are still fighting their insurance claims to get their houses fixed, repaired, or replaced in total, so that they can actually live a normal life again in their homes. As I said, it is a pathway forward. It’s really important for the people of Canterbury that they have this pathway forward, which this bill enables, because they have been left weary, worn down, suffering serious mental health issues trying to navigate their way through this legislation in order to get their claims resolved.

What I think is really important about this bill is that it enables a shift from being worn down and weary to people being empowered and in control again. It gives policyholders a choice—a choice to access the tribunal, which allows them the option to apply to the tribunal, rather than going through the insurers or the Earthquake Commission. It’s not going to be regimental in its approach, and it will assess each individual claim, and be flexible and tailor their response and their approach to each individual claim.

This Government is delivering on its pre-election promises by establishing this tribunal for the people of Canterbury and, in particular, Christchurch. I really, absolutely, happily commend this bill to the House.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m rising in support of this very important bill for the people I represent, of Waimakariri, and for the people of greater Christchurch and Canterbury.

It is a special day today. In the early hours of this morning eight years ago the people of Waimakariri were woken up with a violent jolt. Many in the town of Kaiapoi lost their houses that day. We lost just under 1,000 residential houses—the town of Kaiapoi being one of the only places outside of Christchurch that has a residential red zone. That’s why it’s important that we call it the “Canterbury Earthquakes”—which this bill does do—not the “Christchurch Earthquakes”. Quite rightly, we focus on the 2011 earthquakes where we lost the lives of 185 people, but we shouldn’t forget that the first earthquakes were 4 September 2010. That has scarred many of the community in the electorate I serve. As a constituent MP, I just want to take the time to acknowledge the former MPs of the Waimakariri electorate and list the Hon Kate Wilkinson and the Hon Clayton Cosgrove for the work that they undertook in the time of need for the people.

As an electorate MP, unfortunately there are still cases coming through the front door of my office. These cases are at the tail end—very legally challenging and technically complex. I think that even though today we’ve heard support across the House for this bill in the first reading, as some of the previous speakers have outlined on this side of the House, we think there are some real deficiencies. Or, to take a strengths-based approach, there are real opportunities.

But first, I do want to acknowledge Parliament. I think the people of Canterbury genuinely feel that Parliament has stood behind them right from the start—the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act, the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act, we’ve done local bills on the Arts Centre of Christchurch, as well as Christchurch Cathedral. So this Parliament has worked well for the people of Canterbury. And I do hope, in the legislative process that we are about to undertake, Cantabrians voice their concerns, we hear them as submitters, and this bill will come back amended and better for that process. There are some areas that we need to focus on.

One small detail that comes through my constituents many a time is about the land information memorandum (LIM) reports. I think we need to have a serious think about whether we standardise the reporting of the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and earthquake damage of properties on those LIM reports, because there are situations where people are buying property and potentially, maybe, not taking due diligence, but not having access to the resources to understand the full scope of damage to the property and buildings they’re buying. Onsold properties are a huge issue. There’s a constituent I’m working with who bought a property in good faith, to find out that, actually, the EQC report was incorrect—was inaccurate. EQC have acknowledged their report has failings, but, unfortunately, even though they can acknowledge that, they can only pay out the cap—just $110,000.

Of course, now this person is in limbo, because their insurer says “Well, we didn’t hold the policy of the house during the earthquake.”, and the insurer of the house during the earthquake says “Well, this person wasn’t the policyholder.” The problem is, if we exclude this group, they are actually one of the biggest groups of people left. I do hope we can look at that, because, actually, we need to think: what are the issues? I think it’s time to open that up in the select committee process, hear from the submitters of Canterbury, and, ultimately, bring a bill back to the House that is fit for purpose to address some of these very technically and legally complex challenges for the benefit of some very vulnerable people in Canterbury. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Malo e laumalie, Mr Assistant Speaker. Warm Tongan greetings from the member for Te Tai Tonga. I am pleased to speak in support of this Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. It is eight years to the day since we had that initial quake on 4 September 2010, which started the series of seismic events which have totally transformed and affected the whole Canterbury region. As is customary, I note all those difficulties that families have gone through, but in particular I also think of the fatalities, as well. In particular, Mr Doocey was talking about Kaiapoi—that’s our home pā where I come from—and the whanaunga that we lost in that. So āpiti hono tātai hono, rātou te hunga wairua ki a rātou, tātou te hunga ora ki a tātou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[So let the connections be made, the spirits remain amongst themselves, and the living now turn to the living, greetings, greetings to us all.]

I am pleased to speak in support of this bill. I think what we’ve heard this afternoon is a glass half-full, glass half-empty debate, but I’m pleased that all of the parties of this House are in support of this bill at its first reading, because this is fulfilling a promise that we made. I want to commend Minister Little and Minister Woods for their work in bringing this bill to the House. What we’re doing here is we really want to get to the completion of the tail of outstanding unresolved insurance claims, which are affecting so many families across the Canterbury region. I too deal with cases of whānau that are still in suboptimal situations within their houses, whether it’s draughts or uneven living conditions and the like. So this is a means for us as a Parliament to actually put a mechanism in place whereby we can deal with these cases and make sure that they can be resolved.

Eight years is a long time. Eight years—and then the subsequent events that happened later—is a long time for families to be under the stress and the difficulties that they have faced in dealing with these insurance matters. This bill puts in place a user-friendly type process. We are putting in place a tribunal process. It’s an inquisitive process. It’s not adversarial. It provides options from case management conferences to fully funded mediation. So it is tailored to ensure that those policyholders, if they so choose, can elect to go down and use this tribunal process to ultimately get to a resolution of their insurance claim. So we are wholeheartedly in support of that.

Yes, there will be issues, I guess, as have been raised in the debate so far, and I’m sure the Governance and Administration Committee will be carefully going through all of those issues. I’m sure submitters will be raising those and many others, because we want to make sure that we get this as right as we can. Certainly, if there are little tweaks that can be made, as long as we’re improving the ultimate outcome, which can ultimately lead to the resolution of these claims, then I think that’s what we should be doing as parliamentarians. So I acknowledge the contributions that have been made.

Ultimately, this is taking action, because the overhang has just been lasting too long. Families and policyholders want resolution. They have been worn out. I know many that have been just simply worn out by the whole process and have given up, and maybe they’ve settled for something suboptimal. But this is a process for those remaining claims, so that people are able to, confidently, at their own election, access a range of different processes to ensure that they can get to the outcome that, hopefully, will bring finality to the matter. And then, of course—it is just an option—there are always the courts that we have, to deal with the more complex issues and the more, I guess, litigious issues that only courts can examine and can adjudicate upon. So this is just merely putting in a mechanism of a specialist tribunal and a range of different avenues which a policyholder can elect between.

The aim is, as has been mentioned, speed, flexibility, and, of course, being cost-effective, as well, because eight years of seeking legal advice and being at war with insurance companies, whether it’s the Earthquake Commission or others, is not cheap. I’m sure a lot of expense has been outlaid in that intervening period. So that’s we want to achieve with this legislation. We want to eliminate that tail and deal with all these cases, and ultimately the outcome that we want is for those policyholders to reach finality with their claims. It may be to their satisfaction or it may not be, but at least this is a mechanism whereby it can come to a conclusion and they can move on with their lives. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

NUK KORAKO (National): Malo, malo e lelei. E Te Mana Whakawā, huri noa e Te Whare nei e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. I too want to acknowledge all the previous speakers, and those that have actually, in their kōrero, remembered either those that have gone because of the earthquakes or, particularly, those who have been affected as well. I say that because, on Sunday, which was Father’s Day as we all know, my whānau and I went to Rāpaki. Early that morning when the earthquake hit the 15 houses that are there, 39-odd people, that is where we all actually came out of our houses and came together. I can remember in the dark as we were moving through the village, the kāika, just checking on how our whānau were. Were there any injuries? There was a lot of fear, though, because walking down the road, our mauka, Te Poho o Tamatea Pōkai Whenua—we could hear the shingle or the rocks actually coming down the mountain. So we actually met over there just to remember some of those very fearful incidents that took place eight years ago.

Then this morning I was at Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Tuahiwi. It wasn’t so much about remembering the eighth anniversary, but it was also there that we were talking about the effects of the earthquakes—first of all, the first one, back in September, eight years ago, but also the main one as well, in February. But we were actually talking through with Regenerate Christchurch about the incredible programme that’s going on there—the project that they’re looking at around the Ōtākaro. So all of this is a direct reflection of what had happened eight years ago, and also moving through to the real bad one in February the following year.

I’ve heard, also, a lot of the discussions here. The previous speaker, my whanauka Rino Tirikatene, did also mention the fact about the glass being either half full or half empty. I think the important thing here, though, is that what these Christchurch earthquakes and a lot of the legislation that has come out of the Christchurch earthquakes—I think one thing that we can all be proud of, right across the House, is the fact that there has been that legislation, right from the beginning and all the way through, to try to actually find better ways to ensure that those that were affected by death, loss of property, or mental health have actually been, as much as we can actually do in this House, in some ways addressed.

So it is indeed my pleasure to talk about the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill on the first reading. As our previous speakers on this side of the House have said, we do support this bill with some major reservations, and so are supporting it through to select committee because, as we all know, the select committee process is a process where we can all work together to make this bill a much better bill than what it is now. The reason for that is because there are some reservations, as has been well articulated by my colleagues on this side of the House. The major one is particularly around consultation—particularly around consultation. I think the important thing, though, with us on this side, is let’s just have a look and put some of the results or some of the themes in context that I don’t think have actually been discussed or actually highlighted here.

I want to talk about the last nine years that we were in Government, and particularly when we were addressing the huge issues post-earthquakes. When you look at that—particularly with the legislation, but also around the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and insurance companies. I’m based in the Port Hills in Christchurch. Obviously, the name suggests that that is actually the very hilly area between the Canterbury Plains, Waitaha Whakatekateka o Waitaha, and then across those hills you have the beautiful Te Pātaka o Rakaihautū, or Banks Peninsula. On those hills are really where a lot of the very hard and technical cases are that we’ve been working through. So that’s why, in some ways, we do support this bill, but let’s get it moving to select committee so we can hear more submissions and more kōrero on this bill.

I just want to reiterate for the record that, as a proud Cantabrian, yes—and I watch with real concern of post-earthquake trauma and all of that. But also I think it’s important that we—the National Government—did work very, very hard, and that is why, when you look at the stats today, that is a true reflection of that: 98.5 percent of these claims have actually been settled—and that’s a Ministry of Justice number. The remaining 1.5 percent are already under consideration through the Residential Advisory Service, EQC, and Southern Response. Of the remaining approximately 3,000 dwelling claims, 20 percent are already on a clear pathway to settlement. A further 36 are being considered for cash settlement right now by the claimants.

What I’m saying here is that one of the reasons, possibly, that there was not a lot of consultation is that even the Ministry of Justice officials are struggling with this bill, because they’ve said “this is a misconceived, poorly thought through, ‘seat-of-the-pants’ policy that runs roughshod over natural justice.” And that’s what it’s about: natural justice as well. Going through the select committee process of this will actually bring this out. But I think the important thing with this bill, though, is that it’s going to take possibly two or three years before anything’s going to happen on this bill.

Basically, one of the reasons why there’s no consultation is because the officials would have probably said, “It’s already happening.” It’s already happening. So why would you want to put another process in place when it’s already happening? We know the answer to that: because this was an election promise. But, unfortunately, it’s just put another layer on it—another layer that will hold up a lot of the great work that is going on which will actually assist these people to have a final settlement.

Even though on this side of the House we believe strongly that this bill is not really needed, what we’re going to do again—as we have supported the people of Canterbury and Kaikōura—and what we have done, is continue to support them by supporting this bill. We will actually work hard to ensure that this bill is going to be better than what it is here at the moment, and that is why we’re supporting it.

As someone from Waitaha, from Canterbury, and as someone, actually, that has been in this Parliament during these terrible periods of rū whenua, it is indeed my pleasure to be able to say that we support this bill to select committee. Kia ora. E mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I must say, it’s a huge privilege to speak in this first reading of the Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunal Bill. It’s a privilege and a pleasure for three reasons, one of which has just been alluded to, and that is that the Labour Party, in its campaign, did say that this tribunal to speed up resolution of earthquake claims would be implemented and we are fulfilling yet another promise. A second reason is because this is exactly what is needed to get rid of these last claims; not a vast amount of claims when measured against the huge destruction that hit Christchurch and Canterbury, but far too many—thousands of claims.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is because this is an innovative piece of legislation, it’s an innovative tribunal, and it’s a new way of doing justice. This is not something that’s been given a retread; this is a radical circuit-breaker that is re-examining how we can deliver civil justice to the people of New Zealand, and I’m hopeful that this model will be used much more widely.

The idea that we should have speedy, flexible, and cost-effective justice is nothing new, but for far too long our civil justice system has struggled to provide that to ordinary New Zealanders, and what has happened in Canterbury and Christchurch has, simply, thrown that into stark relief. Whilst we could ignore it when it was small-business people or the odd homeowner who had a fire in their house and a squabble with their insurers, when it’s thousands upon thousands of people who have got a problem and the courts can’t provide speedy, flexible, and cost-effective justice, we see there’s a massive problem, and so this bill has identified the problem and it’s laid out a template for us to progress that.

This is a non-adversarial approach. It’s one which is expressly inquisitorial, one that isn’t led by lawyers but is led by experts. Some would think that I’m the last person to try and shift things away from the lawyers, having had a career in the law to date, but I have been there. I have stood in court and watched money walk out the door between experts and lawyers and what have you, whilst homeowners, hard-working, decent New Zealanders, employees, and business people—whatever you like—haven’t been able to afford to keep the case going, and they’ve had to accept less than what they’re legitimately entitled to simply because they have been worn down—worn down by time, worn down by cost, and worn down, simply, by the emotional exhaustion of the conflict.

So this is an entirely different approach. It’s one I entirely endorse. I think it’s really important that we recognise now that this tribunal—its success will rest heavily on the shoulders of the tribunal members who run it. And we must give them a mandate, a mandate not to be bound up by the rules of procedure, not to be browbeaten by the lawyers who will no doubt have something to say about how they should run this, but to actually be innovative in their approach.

I’ve heard concerns raised, and this is the place to raise them—concerns that the procedures will not be robust enough. But I want to say this. I want to say that justice—natural justice—is not an absolute concept. It is a balance. So, yes, we want a fair procedure. We want people to have a right to be heard. But we need to right-size justice to the size, complexity, and difficulty of the problem.

I heard Mr Stuart Smith, and I must say I was a little disappointed in some of his comments. I heard him be alarmist about the fact that the tribunal can say that they need not hear from the parties, that they can decide something on the papers. Look, when you’ve got reams of papers of experts’ reports, in fact that can be a very good thing. Far too often when you hear something in court, all that happens is the person who’s paid the most for the lawyer or the expert prevails, not because of merit but because of cunning, and that’s not a justice system I want to be part of. I want to be able to give the courts the ability to look at things objectively on the papers before them, if that is appropriate. The rules of evidence are there for a reason, but let them be our servants and not our masters. We don’t need necessarily to have a right of cross-examination in every instance. In many cases, evidence will be uncontentious. There’s no need to let point-scoring go on in court when all it does is add cost and nothing else at all.

Really what we’ve got to do is give these tribunal members an absolute mandate to try something new, to say, “Don’t buy in to the conflict-oriented resolution that frequently typifies a usual proceeding.”—but to actually engage, to allow it to be expert led, to take on an independent expert where necessary. We need to avoid a battle of the experts where all lawyers do is line up expensive engineers or quantity surveyors—or whatever it might be—in a big long line and the one who’s got the most wins. The fact of the matter is any situation which advantages people who can pay more and spend more time at it doesn’t advantage homeowners, small-business people, and anyone else without a big pot of money and a huge amount of resources behind them. I know that everyone in this House wants to see justice resolved fairly and appropriately and not on the basis of some irrational consideration.

Let’s also not be alarmed by the fact that there might be tribunal members who aren’t lawyers—God forbid. Mr Smith, MP for Kaikōura, identified this as a concern. Well, don’t. Don’t be concerned. Sometimes the person with the most knowledge about a problem is an expert. If it’s a problem about engineering solutions, let’s ask an engineer. If it’s a problem about costing, let’s ask a quantity surveyor. You know what? Lawyers don’t have a monopoly on knowledge in expert areas. I know, surprising—all but one, all but one. Ha, ha!

You know, there are rights of appeal here as well. So the fact of the matter is that the quality check is there. If there’s something that goes badly wrong, there’s a check there. I heard Nicky Wagner, former member for Christchurch, saying that rights of appeal were a thing to be concerned about. I’m very surprised at that. We absolutely need rights of appeal for two reasons: for error correction and also to make sure that the law’s right.

And I want to mention just one other thing that I was very surprised about from the member from Kaikōura, and that was the suggestion that the express provision that claimants could claim for mental distress was a bad idea. I was horrified to hear that, because, in fact, if you look at what’s gone on in Christchurch, there are instances where the anguish and distress suffered by people through these disputes is palpable. Now, I’m not going to pretend that that’s the case all the time—that it’s always the insurer’s fault or the Earthquake Commission’s fault. Sometimes problems are difficult. But in a concerning number of cases, there has been a woeful inattention to these claims and it has clearly caused distress on those people that should be compensated.

Mr Smith referred to some arcane rule of law which has no foundation in principle that we should keep it to the law of torts and not contract. If one person’s wrong causes another harm, the law should compensate it. That’s a principle and it’s a principle that this Act will apply.

So look, this is innovative. A lot of the concerns that have been raised have said we’re going too fast. I don’t apologise for trying to fix things quickly. It has been eight years to the day and waiting is not a solution. We are absolutely going to get on with this as we have with the rest of government. The Insurance Council—Tim Grafton, chief executive, is on the record saying, “If this speeds things up, I support it.” I welcome that kind of attitude from Mr Grafton and I welcome the fact that his organisation will submit to the select committee. That organisation—and I’ve had a few disagreements with it—is an important organisation. It brings valuable knowledge to the select committee process. I look forward to it.

This is a new approach and I don’t apologise for that. This is exactly what’s needed. It is the circuit-breaker for justice and for the earthquake issues that exist in Canterbury. I’m very pleased to commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Bills

Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 14 August.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Look, I enjoy rising to take calls on trade-related bills. I’ve always had a passion and interest in trade, and the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill here in its second reading is no exception to that.

This is a piece of work that was started under the former Government. Actually, it was first developed in 2009. It’s gone through a reasonably prolonged process to ensure that it meets the needs of all the expected signatories of this particular bill. As this House will well be aware, the previous Government had a strong focus on trade, understanding the benefits it presents to us as New Zealanders when we get these sorts of trade agreements right, when we can match those with the needs of the countries we’re looking to trade with. It provides a significant mutual benefit to all concerned parties. Certainly, that is the intent of the PACER-Plus bill as well.

We have 11 different signatories forming part of this particular agreement, and I’d just like to touch in fact on not only the fact that we’re doing this PACER-Plus agreement but also that there’s been a lot of other work in some of those different free-trade agreements that I touched on. We’ve seen the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a significant trade agreement progress under the last Government as well. Obviously, we had a bit of a name change and a few other tweaks that added a couple of extra pages into the end of it, which, effectively—those changes to it were, I think, the two words at the start of the title, which then subsequently, allegedly, made it comprehensive and progressive. Regardless, though, we’re encouraged to see that the now Government has understood some of the benefits that these trade agreements can provide and were able to come to the party and support that one through, noting their significant objections earlier in the debate on that particular bill.

Also, PACER-Plus—another good piece of work. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement—that’s still progressing at the moment. There are a number of trade elements that were a key focus for the previous Government, and I just encourage this Government to continue to maintain, to enhance, and to grow those trade opportunities for New Zealanders, because we are such a high-export - focused nation. We need these continued, ongoing, and access-improving opportunities to provide us the potential to grow and to develop, and, actually, that’s exactly what we’re trying to offer here for some of our Pacific partners, too.

So this is a trade agreement. As I mentioned, they all need to be mutually beneficial, and what we’re looking at here is, of course, providing some benefits to New Zealand in terms of more secure and more stable access, more certainty, reduced tariffs, and reduced red tape, but, actually, it’s focusing on providing significant opportunity into the Pacific community. We do take our leadership role in the Pacific seriously. We are a major player in that space, and, of course, it is important that we provide opportunities where we can to support the trade focus, the economic development, and the general prosperity of our Pacific partners, as well.

We currently have exports of about $650 million - odd.

Simon O’Connor: How much?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: It’s $650 million a year in terms of goods and services exported into the 11 countries involved in the PACER-Plus agreement, so this will be a great way to help reduce some of those tariffs. Actually, it’s worth noting that a number of the signatories are not currently part of the World Trade Organization, which means there are no maximum tariff levels in terms of what they can potentially impose on goods coming across their borders, and that’s something that we are facing as a challenge in some of those areas. So this will help to reduce that over time.

There’s actually quite a long time frame involved in this particular agreement to enable those Pacific countries to adapt and to evolve and capture the benefits without being unnecessarily hamstrung or impacted negatively by the potential revenue impact that may have from reduced tariffs. It was good to note that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee focused on that as one particular area and were comfortable that the revenue impact had been addressed and was acceptable, and that there were time frames and options around extending the reduction in tariffs if there was to be a potentially detrimental impact from the result of bringing those in earlier.

So, actually, this was progressed through select committee and supported by the majority without amendment, so it’s a good piece of legislation. Obviously, the Green Party did oppose that. That’s no surprise when it comes to trade. Hopefully, perhaps under Government they might be able to expand their understanding of the benefits of trade and what that can provide to all signatories. I reiterate that, actually, for any agreement to be successful, it has to provide benefit to all parties, or else why would they sign up for it? And that’s exactly what we’re looking at here as well.

Coming back to some of those benefits these Pacific partners will capture, it’s about improving the economic development opportunities for them, creating jobs and wealth, raising the standard of living off the back of that, and actually providing them with a more predictable trading environment, as well. These things are really important for a small country looking to participate in a larger international context. To have that certainty is absolutely key, and this will provide that for them through the measures proposed under the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill.

Now, unlike a number of other free-trade agreements, there are actually several different development components to this agreement as well—requirements of New Zealand and Australia to add additional value into these particular areas. So, combined, we’re injecting A$25 million to help modernise customs facilities and biosecurity services, to reduce those biosecurity risks, and to help meet international obligations in those Pacific settings so that they can trade at a more sustainable and internationally accepted level with their particular partners, not just those incorporated in this deal but, actually, in other areas that they may look to trade or interact with as well. So that A$25 million is a pretty significant injection to help promote that development and those systems as well.

Alongside that, we are committing to spending 20 percent of our development assistance in the Pacific region for the first five years once this agreement comes into place. We’re talking 20 percent of around $340 million, or it will be about $340 million—that’s the 20 percent. That’s injecting a significant amount in terms of economic infrastructure and capacity-building, so this is, again, a significant benefit for these signatories.

I encourage the Greens to understand that, actually, there are benefits alongside this. It’s not just about providing additional income and more security for New Zealand’s exporters and reducing their risks and tariffs; it’s actually about providing significant opportunity through that wealth creation, through the certainty of trading parameters, through the improved systems that enable them to interact internationally, and, actually, through wealth creation via more jobs, more certainty around those jobs, and the raised standard of living that I talked about initially.

I’d just like to come back to those 11 signatories. Now, this agreement comes into place six months after at least eight of those signatories sign up. So there are 11. They all, obviously, have to go back and gain agreement with their individual country settings in terms of what their expectations are, how they align that, the time frames, etc., but once we have eight signed up and on board—and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t believe that will happen promptly—then this will come into place. So we progress from there. That would be the start point of the five-year contribution when we are committing that additional 20 percent to economic development as well.

Alongside that, this is providing additional benefits into those communities. It enhances their access to trade but also their access to sourcing finance or additional capital and to supplying markets that may be perhaps outside their reach at the moment or that perhaps they are unable to access because of the inability to provide confidence around the biosecurity risks or the particular processes that they manage with their export products. So this really helps to provide that additional capacity for them as well. Alongside that, that additional injection of capital from New Zealand and Australia can provide significant opportunity in developing aviation and maritime infrastructure, for example.

So, really, this is a collective agreement that is providing, of course, benefit for New Zealand but also for all of our Pacific partners that are looking to sign up as signatories. It comes back to—as I said at the start—our importance around taking a regional leadership role in the Pacific. We take that seriously on this side of the House, and so I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is with pleasure that I rise to take a call on the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill. I say “with pleasure” because I’m actually a new member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and this is the first trade-related bill that I’ve had the honour to speak to in this House. Mr Simon O’Connor has left, but what a fine select committee it is under his chairmanship, as well.

The Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill and, indeed, the time that I’ve spent on the select committee has given me a much greater insight into how we can use trade policy to contribute to addressing some of the global and regional issues of concern. Indeed, our Trade for All Agenda that the Government recently announced—and, indeed, we’re launching public consultations on the Trade for All Agenda, and I’m looking forward to the Auckland consultation that I’ll get to attend next week. Indeed, that’s what the agenda does.

Even though I’m a relatively new member to this House, I’ve had the privilege of going on some of our overseas trips that have been trade-focused as well. I’ve seen the kudos that this Government has received because of the inclusivity of our trade negotiations internationally, where trade isn’t just “trade for the sake of” but also looks at mitigating some of the impacts that it might have in terms of our environment, being inclusive of some of the more marginalised groups when it comes to trade, and, in fact, looking at some of the gender aspects of trade as well, which is what our Trade for All Agenda does—mitigating the climate change impacts that our Pacific nations are undergoing, in fact, as well.

That’s why the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill is so exciting. It’s not just a trade negotiation but a trade negotiation that takes into account some of the aspirations and the needs of our Pacific partners as well, because we all know that a stable and prosperous Pacific is a secure Pacific, and New Zealand is part of the Pacific. The global trading environment is one that’s becoming much more challenging for small countries, particularly like—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but it has come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Colleagues, the House is resumed. We are debating the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill. When we broke before dinner, Priyanca Radhakrishnan was speaking, and she has seven minutes 25 seconds remaining to speak should she so wish to do. Otherwise, is—

Alastair Scott: Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, I call Alastair Scott.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Whew. Just about—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, I couldn’t see. There were so many people standing up.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: No, no. I wasn’t clear and we just about missed the call, so here we are.

Matt Doocey: No, no, we took their call. Well done.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: Oh, we took their call, excellent—excellent.

So it is a great pleasure to speak on the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill. It sounds like a—

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Paper Plus.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: —Paper Plus advert or a pacemaker advert—I’m not sure—but it does relate to trade agreements. Trade agreements are good things. They enable parties to get together and to mutually agree beneficial mutual agreements on how they’re going to structure and arrange things in the future so that their communities on both sides of the agreement—and in multilateral cases, many sides of the agreement—can benefit. It is also known as a win-win situation if we can promote and continue to develop and update these trade agreements that we have with counter-parties all round the world. Just because it might be completed doesn’t mean it ever finishes. These trade agreements do evolve, do change. Situations change so that these—and, as we know, we were the first country to sign a free-trade agreement with China, and, as we also know, that is up for renewal and will be improved so that both parties can see the changes that have occurred over the intervening years and make amendments. So, again, both parties can have mutually beneficial agreements.

We are talking about PACER-Plus, which deals with the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations. There are 11 countries involved. It is, if you like, a cut-down version of what might be expected of, say, a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in that there is no reference to the ISDA—is that the right term?—International Swaps and Derivatives Association clauses. Is that right, Mr McClay?

Hon Todd McClay: Yeah.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: That’s right. Exactly. So it’s a very simple, it’s a starter for 10, if you like. These trade agreements, as I say, are mutually beneficial, so I can absolutely understand why, generally, both sides of the House are supporting it.

But it is disappointing to see that the Green Party have put a minority view into the report. If I can just quote from the Greens’ minority view: “We remain concerned that, among other considerations, the PACER Plus agreement undermines efforts to promote Pacific regionalism”. So, if it does undermine the ability to promote Pacific regionalism, please explain how that is the case, because no one’s compelled or obliged to join these agreements; it’s an opt-in situation. If a country does not see the benefit, does not see the overall arching benefit to their community, there is no obligation, and there is certainly no way that it would undermine Pacific regionalism. In fact, it will promote Pacific regionalism. There are 11 countries involved, mostly from the Pacific. So I’d like to hear from the Greens to explain how this undermines—as it says in the report—efforts to promote Pacific regionalism.

Then it goes on to say, “reprioritises New Zealand’s existing aid budget into problematic ‘aid for trade’ initiatives”. Why would it be problematic to promote a free-trade agreement that is mutually beneficial so that all parties can benefit? Then, finally, it says “and burdens Pacific states with unfair export rules.”—burdens Pacific States with unfair export rules. So if it is unfair and it is burdensome on those parties, why would they sign into it? Why would they put their name to the paper if it was burdensome and unfair and it was, essentially, against their export—or did not promote their export—markets? So that’s what I’d like to hear from a Green speaker at some point. I see free-trade—[Interruption] They won’t speak on it? No, because they’ve got nothing to say on it? No, no. So are we going to get a Green speaker to speak on it?

Marama Davidson: Just carry on with yours.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: No, doesn’t sound like we are.

Free trade is a really good thing, so I’ll give you a little example. We’ve got two islands and one is very good at fishing—excellent fishermen, they’re the best in the region. Then you’ve got another island who are excellent at growing—I don’t know—lamb. The marginal costs for both those products in their respective countries are very low—they’re really good at it. But the fishing country, the guy that’s really good at fishing—he’s hopeless at growing lamb. He just does not know how to graze sheep. In fact, do you know why? He has very little grass on the island, but he tries. He struggles. He needs to diversify his diet. He wants red meat on the side as well as fish. He’s a little bit sick of fish, but he needs the red meat, so he continues to struggle away and produce very expensive sheep.

But the problem that he has is that his Government won’t allow the really efficient lamb grower next door to bring lamb into his country. And wouldn’t it be great if it did, because the marginal cost of lamb over here is so cheap that if we can get lamb into the fisherman’s country, that would free up all those guys struggling away trying to grow lamb, trying to produce red meat, and would let them focus on fishing, which they’re really good at.

Then the fishing guys, they’ve got more fishing guys fishing. They don’t need to bother with the lamb because they’ve got a free-trade agreement with this crowd now, and they’ll be able to import it cheaply. Do you know what? They’re really good at growing fish or fishing for fish, and, hey presto, these guys over here, they’re great at growing sheep, but are they fishermen? No, they are not. They wouldn’t know how to bait a hook if their life depended on it, but they have been trying, and their Government has in the past supported them by putting barriers in place to protect the few fishermen—inefficient fishermen—that they have on their island. Then, hello, hello, the free-trade agreement is now in place and those guys that just did not enjoy getting on a boat—they were prone to seasickness, didn’t know how to fish—they don’t have to fish any more. They can import the cheap fish from the guys who love fishing and are very good at it. Hey presto, these guys who were struggling away growing lamb, they can now, more productively and efficiently, provide fish—are these guys the fishermen or the lamb guys?—to the guys across the way.

So that’s the benefit of a free-trade agreement. You focus on the stuff that you’re good at. You are able to be really productive and efficient at that thing or that production, and you share and you collaborate—you share the knowledge and expertise and product—with the other country, who will have to take away the barriers over time.

I think this agreement—coming back to the bill—does take time to take these barriers down. It’s quite, as we know in this country, extremely disruptive if we take barriers away very quickly all in one hit. We’ve seen that here. This enables the barriers to be drawn out and reduced over something like 20 years and 25 years. Of course, as time progresses over that 20 years and 25 years, and the parties agree—mutually agree—those time frames can be shrunk, the agreement can be amended so that both parties, again, can find ways of agreeing to mutually benefit one another.

That’s why I’m very pleased to see pretty much the Parliament, except for the Greens, support this agreement. They see the benefits and mutual benefit of supporting free-trade agreements. I commend this bill to the House.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Malo e laumalie. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will indeed be rising to strongly support the Green Party’s position. We will be vocally opposing the PACER-Plus agreement tonight in the House. We have long vocally opposed the PACER-Plus agreement. We believe it undermines the interests of the majority of the Island nations. I think it’s worth noting that only 14 percent of the actual Pacific population are on board with this, because the other bigger Pacific nations—we’re looking at population here—have said, “This deal isn’t for us. What is this deal actually going to produce in terms of benefits for us?”

So I might start by acknowledging the really fantastic analysis—actually, Alastair Scott, the previous member, might want to have a listen—of Dr Cleo Paskal, who goes back to the purpose of what this trade deal says it is trying to achieve and how it fails on every count. If the PACER-Plus deal is trying to create economic integration, it fails. Some of the countries are not signing up and some are pulling out. How can that be economic integration? If this deal is supposed to create stability, it fails. There are internal frictions and political problems being created by this deal and we cannot deny those—not least with Tonga and Vanuatu. If this deal is supposed to ensure—as it actually says in the bill that it is supposed to—that all trade passes through Australia and New Zealand, then why would other nations and other trading partners even consider this? In actual fact, Washington DC and London have actually questioned this deal and asked what on earth the purpose of it is and what it is actually trying to do.

So we’re on good ground in the Green Party in continuing to oppose this PACER-Plus deal. We have always said that it doesn’t include the largest Pacific regions and nations—as I’ve just pointed out, for example, Papua New Guinea and Fiji—and that it undermines initiatives towards greater Pacific regionalism, which, apparently, this trade deal was supposed to be about. It actually does the opposite.

We have said it provides for New Zealand to divert 20 percent of the aid budget to Aid for Trade purposes, coming from the existing aid budget. What is that about? That’s a bit of a rort. We know that the burden of trade rules in the agreement is on the small and the poor Pacific countries, not on Australia, which maintains its high barriers—so what is that about?—to the export of fruit and vegetables from the Pacific. So, actually, what it says—especially under the initiative of the previous Government—it is trying to do is a bit of a farce.

I want to acknowledge that this Government has a new approach to the regions and the relationships. This Government has a new direction, and there is opportunity, therefore, to reassess how this deal could actually benefit the Pacific region in the way that it says it wants to. I do want to acknowledge there is that opportunity here and, particularly, that voices from New Zealand’s and Australia’s domestic strategic community raised the undermining and the trade-off, actually, between what has largely been driven by business interests, which can, in actual fact—and an analysis says that it is—undermine the strategic and economic interests of the Pacific economies themselves. So I don’t understand—and that’s why we are proud to oppose the direction that this Pacific trade agreement is going in.

Coming in from and led by the last National Government, it was absolutely a bad deal. I do acknowledge the opportunity that we have under this Government to reassess this, but the Green Party will be continuing to oppose it.

If I can—yep, there’s time—just pick up in more detail three of our concerns that I mentioned at the start of my contribution. So, tariffs: under this deal, New Zealand gains privileged access to Pacific markets, while they gain no new access to our markets. There has been some analysis of a little bit of bullying—that has been the word that has been used—from Australia and from New Zealand as a nation towards Pacific nations.

Now, if this is correct that we gain new access but they gain no new access to our markets, then I think that holds true. For example, nowhere in the agreement are Australia and New Zealand required to drop our protectionist policies against the export by those nations of their fruit and vegetables that are also grown here. So these small Island nations have to drop tariffs on most goods being imported from Australia and New Zealand, but not on the other side—for example, Australia maintains high barriers to the export of kava and of fruit and vegetables from the Pacific.

So we have pointed out previously that New Zealand exporters will gain $20 million in reduced tariffs, but this is lost revenue for Pacific Governments that are already struggling to provide basic healthcare and education to their people. For example, Tonga spends $270 per person, annually, on healthcare, compared with New Zealand’s spend of $4,016. So we may be better off, but they will be much worse off.

Secondly—yep, we’ve got time—it’s about deregulation and promoting corporate rights, and this was clear from the get-go, particularly under the previous Government. As a result of this, experts have said that we’ll likely see these small States face pressure for them to privatise their core State-owned enterprises, and that is what allows external players to come in and section off parts of the Pacific economies—to actually fractionalise Pacific economies—when this trade deal is supposed to be able to bring in and regionalise their economies.

So if we really are after a trade deal that will help integrate Pacific economies and provide a regionalised base where we can give fair trade deals that look to the long-term sustainability of Pacific business, economies, and equalities—social and economic—then this is not the deal. This is why the Green Party is proud to continue opposing this bill. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Malo e laumalie, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you. It seems particularly appropriate to commence this speech on the second reading of the PACER-Plus bill, given that we are in Tongan Language Week, but—

Matt Doocey: That’s right—keep going in Tongan.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: I probably won’t carry on in Tongan, Mr Doocey, but thank you for the encouragement. I wouldn’t wish to upset my Tongan constituents by murdering their language. I would, however, like to wish talofa lava, kia orana—and I would say “bula vinaka”, but, of course, the Fijians are not part of this agreement—and warm Pacific greetings to all who are parties to the agreement in what is a very important measure for all the parties who at this stage have committed to signing up to it. At some stage in the future, it is certainly my hope that many more from throughout the Pacific region will feel encouraged and welcome to do so.

I am conscious of the fact that there is always a danger when readings have been interrupted of a degree of repetition. In fact, this second reading commenced several weeks ago and it was interrupted at that point. It then recommenced before the dinner adjournment, when I was not able to be in the House, so I apologise in advance if anything that I say repeats some of the information that is critical to the consideration at the second reading, but I do think it’s important to get some facts on the table.

I have to say that there is a certain irony in having so much enthusiasm from the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party for a free-trade agreement when those of us who are on this side of the House, who were on the other side of the House just a year ago, remember that this agreement was at that stage being concluded—or, rather, the negotiations were coming to a conclusion—in June of last year, under the fine leadership of the Hon Todd McClay, and we had just emerged from a period of sustained, belligerent opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement from those parties opposite. At that stage, it seemed that they hadn’t a good word to say about free trade. Now, suddenly, they’re on that side of the House and they’ve become converts, and I do welcome their conversion, but, as I say, there’s a little bit of irony in it. I do think it’s therefore important to give credit where credit is due and say, “Malie Fakafofonga.” I apologise if I’ve got that wrong, but I understand that means “well done”, “bravo”, “a brilliant effort”, and I want to say that I won’t say it again to the Hon Todd McClay, but he and his partners throughout the Pacific did a very good job. It is, naturally, something that we would all hope will be of mutual benefit to all the parties who are concerned.

And I have to say to the Green member who’s just resumed her seat, it’s always fascinating to hear Green arguments on topics of this type because, listening to Ms Davidson, you would assume that there was not a single benefit to any of the Pacific partners who have at this stage committed themselves to PACER-Plus.

Simeon Brown: What have they been vaping?

Hon TIM MACINDOE: I shall leave that question to the realms of being a rhetorical question, Mr Brown, but still happy to have written you into the record for asking it.

In all seriousness, I say to the Green Party: do they seriously believe that all of the nations that have gone through a very detailed consideration of this topic, who have had the benefit of expert advice, who have had the benefit of trade commissioners and others going to their countries, talking them through in detail what the opportunities would be, showing them that it’s not only trade but also services that can make an enormous transformational difference in many of their countries—are we seriously meant to believe that at the end of all of that, they would say, “Well, there’s no benefit to us in that. That’s absolutely predatory. We will be seriously disadvantaged, but hey, we’ll sign up anyway.”? Because that is the logical conclusion of the argument that is being put forward: “There’s no benefit to us in any of this, but we’ll sign up anyway.” Well, I want to suggest that that is a fairly farcical—

Alastair Scott: Patronising.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: I wouldn’t go so far as to say “patronising”, Mr Scott, but I thank you for your assistance. I would, nevertheless, describe it as a farcical conclusion. So I just want to refer to some of the documentation and, in particular, draw the Greens’ attention—now this is presumably not new to them, but there is a very detailed national interest analysis that has been produced on the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations, the PACER-Plus agreement. Now, admittedly, this is for the New Zealand tradespeople, but, nevertheless, we read it and we look into it to see—well, what does it tell us of the national interest for each of the member nations who are a part of it? There is no question that there is a very significant economic cooperation package being made available as part of the PACER-Plus agreement, and this is being made available to help Pacific countries to meet their obligations and realise the benefits of the agreement.

Now, New Zealand and Australia have offered to provide more than $55 million in direct and indirect trade-related support for the Pacific through PACER-Plus and associated initiatives. So that’s one commitment. “PACER Plus will leverage New Zealand’s Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) investments to increase regional trade, investment, and labour flows.”, and New Zealand has committed to investing at least 20 percent of its total official development assistance in Aid for Trade in the Pacific for the first five years after the agreement comes into force.

Now, previous speakers have drawn attention to the Government’s commitment to the Pacific reset. I would make the point that much of that work was already under way under the previous Government, but I acknowledge the fact that they have taken it a stage further. They’ve put some more money into it, and I think it’s fair to acknowledge that, and I think there’s pretty broad agreement in this House on the fact that we have a strong, not just a sense of obligation, but almost a family tie to our Pacific neighbours, and we have a very strong desire to be of assistance to them. While New Zealand tends to think of ourselves as a small country, when it comes to Pacific matters, suddenly we become a very large country, and I’m pleased that, as a country, we are stepping up to acknowledge that and to do our best to help.

So you read in the national interest analysis that “PACER-Plus seeks to facilitate trade in services between New Zealand and Pacific Island Forum countries by building on current commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA)”—which is a Trade in Services protocol—and “It covers all service sectors and modes of supply, with exceptions which preserve services supplied in the exercise of government authority, government procurement, subsidies, and air transport services.” Now, that all sounds fairly wordy, but when you look down the list of how some different countries can be affected by this, these include the following sectors: taxation services to Tonga; veterinary services in Samoa; services provided by midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, and paramedical personnel in Tonga and Vanuatu; computer and related services in the Solomon Islands; research and development services in Tonga; real estate services in Tonga; rental/leasing services without operators in Samoa and Tonga; advertising services in Samoa—and I’m only not quite halfway through a list in this particular assessment.

So the point that I’m making is that this is comprehensive in its application. It is designed to ensure that there is very real benefit for all the parties that take part. I don’t see why on earth the Greens would think that there is absolutely no benefit in that, and, of course, they haven’t been compelled to sign up.

There are a number of Pacific nations that at this stage are staying outside PACER-Plus and looking to see whether there will come a point when it might be more attractive to them. I hope that in time it will be and we’ll—certainly in New Zealand, I’m sure—be keen to ensure that, and I wish the current trade Minister, who’s in the House, well in his efforts to do that. I’m sure he’ll represent us very well in reaching out to those Pacific nations because, as I say, we take our obligations to our neighbours seriously, and, as I say, the very important point to note is that this is an agreement that has real benefits to all the parties involved.

Inevitably, when there is a trade agreement, there are things that have to be compromised. There is a bit of give and take. That’s in the nature of negotiation, but to suggest, as the Greens are doing, that this is a horrific agreement where there is no benefit whatsoever to the Pacific nations is, to my mind, absolutely farcical and completely refuted by reference to the facts. I do suggest to any member of the public who may be interested to have a look at the national interest analysis. By all means, agree that you’re reading our particular analysis through New Zealand eyes, but also reach out and see how this will have attractive benefits for many other nations.

So I am absolutely delighted to welcome this particular bill that will see PACER-Plus advance to the next stage in the process in the House tonight. I’m sure that from this point on, the Government will be keen to ensure that we complete the remaining stages fairly soon. I will be pleased to take another call at that point. I commend the Government for the work that it’s doing, and the National Opposition is very happy to support it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This next call is a split call.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Malo e laumalie ‘Eiki Sea. It’s my pleasure to take a call on this, the second reading of the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, I want to thank my colleague Tim Macindoe, because I won’t be now having to outline what this bill means in terms of benefits for our Pacific brothers and sisters, can I call them. But what I do want to say is that what this bill will do specifically is ensure the application of preferential tariff rates for parties to the PACER-Plus agreement and amend the rules on goods re-entered after repair or alteration.

So, actually, it hugely benefits our Pacific whānau, this piece of legislation. I’m not quite sure about others’ interpretation of the bill, other than to say that we know, as members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and having to hear submissions about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership itself before then considering the bill, which is before the select committee, that people are just anti-trade, and those that are anti-trade don’t believe that it benefits anyone other than the corporates. But what this piece of legislation does—this specific one—is actually provide better access. We’d reduce those tariffs, as I’ve said, so that commodities from the Pacific can enter our country and they are advantaged in doing so.

We only had one submission before the select committee. It was a really interesting submission by Rural Women and the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women of New Zealand—so, Angela McLeod and Hellen Swales. They came to present on behalf of their sisters in the Pacific, and they wanted to make sure that the voices of women were included in these agreements because, from their perspective, women actually have been explicitly excluded.

So what I want to share with the House is that part of this piece of legislation—and I do want to just focus on what the objectives were when this particular agreement was discussed at the Pacific Islands Forum at their 40th meeting in August 2009. The “why” was all about jobs. The “why” was about increasing standards of living, it was about regional, sustainable economic development, it was about reducing poverty and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and that really is what I want to focus on, because what SDGs are we talking about?

We’re actually talking about SDG 9, which is about improving industry, innovation, and infrastructure. It is about SDG 8: creating decent work and economic growth. It is about SDG 7: providing affordable, clean energy. It’s also about SDG 5, which is all about gender equality. Herein lies the commitment that we managed to put in the select committee report. We were told—and I know Minister David Parker, who is sitting in a chair beside me now, is committed to ensuring that women are consulted on in terms of the Trade for All Agenda and the Pacific reset.

So I just want to take the opportunity to thank Angela McLeod and Hellen Swales for bothering to make a submission to our select committee, for coming, and for advocating for our sisters in the Pacific. I’m reassured because of some of the statements our Minister has said, and because we have committed to the Trade for All Agenda. I saw a press release on 6 August 2018—this is in the New Zealand context—and I quote, “We want small and medium sized businesses, women and Maori—who haven’t always benefited as much as big business from trade deals—to succeed on the global stage.” So there it is in writing.

This Government is going to engage with groups such as indigenous peoples and women to make sure that these agreements actually fulfil the potential that we all hope them to have. It isn’t just about big business; it actually is about supporting small and medium sized business owners—you know, the mums and dads who are harvesting in our Pacific Islands—and providing clearer pathways, easier pathways, for their goods to come to New Zealand so we can purchase them. We can help to grow communities in our Pacific Islands whose main source of income isn’t from their family who live in New Zealand, who send that money back to the Islands; it’s actually providing them with the tools and the resources to be able to look after themselves. Kia ora.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Malo e lelei, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my sister across the House, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki. This is acknowledgment to the Tongan reo this week, as we will also, next week, pay acknowledgment to Te Reo Māori. So I acknowledge you, e tuahine, and in acknowledging you I also acknowledge the people of Tonga, who may be viewing this debate this evening, and also our brothers and sisters throughout the Pacific realm.

Speaking specifically to this proposed legislation, having presided as a substitute sit-in member on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, I’ve been privy to only part of these discussions, but, in saying so, I will continue the pace of the debate this evening as we speak about the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill. For those who are listening out there in the public, the PACER-Plus—as previous speakers this evening have addressed the House upon—is a landmark trade and development agreement. It will lower barriers and provide greater opportunity for New Zealand businesses whilst raising living standards, creating jobs and opportunities, and increasing exports in Pacific Island countries.

I’ll just hearken to some kōrero that was shared by the co-leader of the Green Party this evening, and with the Greens taking a minority view on this, it’s somewhat not surprising that, again, they’re jumping the waka when it comes to trade. It’s not surprising that, again, it’s calling into question a level of integrity around this coalition Government, where one of the parties to that is challenging what the views are of its other party participants.

However, I will come back to the bill. It’s known that this Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus—the PACER-Plus—is a free-trade agreement, and, coincidentally, it was signed in June 2017 in Tonga. Under the national interest analysis that has been provided around this agreement, PACER-Plus is a plurilateral, treaty-level agreement that has been negotiated between 14 countries. Eleven of those have signed to this. Those 11 countries are Australia, the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru—which is very topical in our news at the moment—New Zealand, Niue, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and, none the less, Tonga.

Just in summation, the background has been canvassed. Statistics: New Zealand is home to almost 296,000 Pacific people. It has a growing youth population of our Pasifika peoples here in Aotearoa. New Zealand exports around $1 billion of goods to the Pacific regions a year. Around 30 percent of Pacific nations’ exports go to Australia and New Zealand, and New Zealand and Australia, notably, are the largest source of tourists for the Pacific. New Zealand has also committed to invest at least 20 percent of its total Official Development Assistance into Aid for Trade in the Pacific region. It’s important that in relation to that, for the first five years after PACER-Plus has been entered into, there is an estimated $340 million invested into economic infrastructure and capacity-building within those Pacific nations.

The intended benefits of PACER-Plus are, in summary, a more predictable trading environment, more consistent and transparent rules throughout the region on sanitary and phytosanitary measures—that’s around animal and human imports and exports—

Fletcher Tabuteau: Are we exporting humans—what? Didn’t read that bit.

HARETE HIPANGO: —technical barriers to trade, and customs procedures. It also—well, that bit, if you’re interested, is at page 58, I refer to the member across the House. It’s at page 58 of the agreement, so you may be enlightened by learning something this evening, as well.

Also, just by way of summary and in concluding around that, the benefits are that PACER-Plus will enter into force 60 days after eight of those negotiating parties, that I outlined, of the 11 have notified Tonga that they’ve completed their domestic requirements. In due course, this will come into implementation. To our trading partners in the Pacific Rim, this is something to be celebrated for all. Kia ora.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Malo e lelei, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Simeon Brown: What’s on page 58? What’s on page 58?

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I’d like to start by acknowledging—

Simeon Brown: Page 58.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —the Hon Todd McClay, and ask that the incessant buzz from the opposite side of the House stop. I was with the Hon Todd McClay when this was signed by those in attendance at the time, and I acknowledge his efforts. I have no doubt that the other side of the House has brought up New Zealand First’s position at the time. We did write a minority view on PACER-Plus, and I’d just very briefly like to touch on the thinking of that.

I acknowledge the Minister for Trade and Export Growth for his fantastic effort, but our position at the time was around, essentially, the timing of where PACER-Plus had got to in the conversations with our Pacific neighbours. So when you look at the current state of the signatories and at the time it was signed, we still have the critical issue of not having signed in, or brought into the conversation to any great degree, some of the biggest players in the Pacific.

Fiji is still not a signatory, Papua New Guinea is still not a signatory, and they represent, in terms of Pacific trade, population, economic activity, and actual export/import figures, a large and significant proportion of trade in the Pacific. At the time, New Zealand First said “Well, what is the rush? Why are we trying to push this now?”, and we wrote our minority view. Now, some have made the point in the House of why have we changed our position. Well, I’ll tell you why. As many have acknowledged, this isn’t a traditional trade agreement. This is an agreement where New Zealand has sought to empower that blue continent and to say to our cousins, our neighbours, “Actually, what we’re trying to achieve is to grow your economies through trade, to make a sustainable economy through good export—and, yes, to help you with imported goods where we think New Zealand has those efficiencies.”

What’s changed, what is fundamentally different—and it’s very important to note it in the House tonight—is that the Rt Hon Winston Peters, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs with this Government, set out to reinvigorate, to make significant again, our relationship with the Pacific to say that together, and only together, can we move this blue continent forward. So what we have created, what this Government has done, through the Rt Hon Winston Peters, is the Pacific reset. I acknowledge the contribution—I think it was the contribution from the Hon Tim Macindoe. He acknowledged that this Government has absolutely raised the stakes in terms of monetary contribution.

Actually, I now am very proud to talk to the House about my efforts in the Pacific, because I personally see PACER-Plus now in connection with the Pacific reset, and, actually, I’d like to acknowledge our trade Minister in regards to our focus on trade and our Trade for All Agenda, because that has resonated in the Pacific. They understand what it is we’re trying to achieve. So if you put all of that together and in this House talk about the potential synergies we’re trying to create with the Pacific reset—and I would argue tonight that New Zealand First is absolutely focused on using PACER-Plus as an enabling tool to engage with our Pacific neighbours.

The previous contribution from Harete Hipango spoke about phytosanitary measures—biosecurity. Well, actually, what we’re trying to do here—and, once again, I say it for the House’s benefit: this isn’t a traditional trade deal. This is an attempt to empower our Pacific neighbours, our cousins, and to build capacity for sustainable exports and sustainable economic growth so that long term, this blue continent grows together, and New Zealand is absolutely a part of that.

So already, on the ground, for those Pacific Island countries who have signed up to PACER-Plus, we have deployed resource in terms of empowering and enabling the issues that they’ve had with the compliance issues in terms of our quite high standards for accepting imports in New Zealand. We’re adamant that we must maintain those standards, but we’re absolutely adamant that we cannot block our neighbours from exporting into New Zealand, because that’s potentially a great income generator for them. So the question is: what do we do? Well, we don’t tell them, “You haven’t met the requirements.” We go to them and say, “How can we help?”, and that is what we’ve been doing. Those are the conversations I have had the privilege to have on behalf of this Government in the Pacific about empowering the Pacific itself to take advantage of that.

We see today—and we saw at the time—that there are nations there who have said “Yes, this is a way forward for us.”, but if you take the Marshall Islands and Palau, for example, they had a regime change, and in my conversations with them, they hadn’t been briefed by their own bureaucracy, their own administration, on what PACER-Plus was and what potential it represented for them. So New Zealand needs to be part of the solution there because I believe that if they knew what it was that this agreement had to offer for them in conjunction with the Pacific reset, in conjunction with New Zealand’s philosophy on Trade for All, I think that is a conversation that they want to have. Actually, I think that New Caledonia and French Polynesia have been mentioned. They are excited about the possibility of PACER-Plus; we just need to have those conversations with them.

So look, it’s something that’s important. I’m proud to be part of the efforts in the Pacific in this space. I do believe that PACER-Plus is a tool that we can use for empowerment for our Pacific neighbours and for New Zealand. Let’s not kid ourselves, this Government thinks it will be good for New Zealand exporters as well. So on that note, Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf New Zealand First to support this enabling legislation. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m not going to attempt Tongan, out of respect for the language, but happy Tongan Language Week.

I want to talk a little bit about the change in attitude by New Zealand First. I think that’s great that they’ve had an epiphany, although I don’t quite follow the logic, given that the Pacific reset has been criticised by officials as being poorly targeted. It just seems strange that this sudden epiphany and embracing of free trade only comes with the Treasury benches from that side. We’re quite consistent in our view and unapologetic for that, and I think that’s what comes with—

Darroch Ball: Come on, Matt. Tell him he’s wrong.

Matt Doocey: You know he’s right.

STUART SMITH: Well, yes, absolutely, and it’s disappointing. Perhaps political maturity might come upon that party in time and they’ll understand the benefit of trade—the true benefit of trade—right across the Pacific and, particularly, for our close neighbours.

Actually, I want to also touch on the Green Party’s attitude on this. The previous speaker from the Green Party, Marama Davidson, was defending their position in opposing this, and I did find it quite condescending, really. Some of the language around it I just find quite strange. In their minority view, they said, “We remain concerned that, among other considerations, the PACER Plus agreement undermines efforts to promote Pacific regionalism, reprioritises New Zealand’s existing aid budget into problematic ‘aid for trade’ initiatives, and burdens Pacific states with unfair export rules.” I just don’t understand that, quite frankly. It seems strange that the party claims to have all of these principles and that it stands by them, and yet Rod Donald’s principles against the oxymoronic name of a bill in the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill—they simply abandoned them then, in what would’ve been so important to the Green Party. Then, in this case, where it’s for the good of everybody, they maintain a “no way will we support this bill” attitude, and I think that’s very strange. I don’t understand those principles.

I want to give an example of Pacific trade that is working well, and it actually comes from the RSE scheme—the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme. Around 2,400 RSE workers come during the winter into my electorate in Kaikōura, particularly in the Marlborough region, and one of the employers there, Vinepower—in Jono and Claire Bushell and Jason Kennard, who are the principals of that company—employs people from Vanuatu, particularly. But they’ve gone further than that: Jono and Claire spend six months of the year in Vanuatu, out on the island of Tanna, and they have helped the villagers set up a business bottling coconut oil and selling it. In fact, they sell it at the farmer’s market in Blenheim and other places. I think that is a small but important trade.

It seems as though having anything to do with big business is a dirty word, but big business, like little business, is all about trade. It’s all about getting goods from one market into another market for the betterment of both parties, and, as is certainly well-known in business circles, you’ve got to leave something in it for the next person when you’re trading. If you don’t, then it won’t work—you won’t have a business for very long—and I think that’s quite poorly understood.

Remittances are also quite important, from the RSE workers going back into the Pacific Islands, but not only that: when it comes close to the end of their time working in New Zealand, the groups from villages go and buy a lot of goods, put them into containers, and send them back to their islands. Those goods can be things from building materials to tractors to all sorts of things, so that they can enhance their own businesses and their own lifestyles in their villages. Now, that is, I admit, what you’d call a cottage sort of export industry, but it is a very important industry for those villages and for the lifestyles of those people, and it’s lifting up their lifestyles. To sit back and say, “Well, we don’t want to support free trade in the Pacific because we don’t believe those people are actually able to make their own decisions in that area.”—I just don’t accept that.

To draw another analogy for you on that argument, if we look at the Brexit situation at the moment, who’s the UK looking to for help in getting a trade policy together to actually negotiate trade agreements? It’s New Zealand. It wasn’t that many years ago that the UK joined the Common Market and New Zealand had a complete reset in its trade policy. We were in a very poor situation, and now we’ve become a leading trading nation. How have we done that? By being in the game—that’s how we’ve got there.

So I think that to gloss over it in the way that the Green Party did shows a very poor understanding of trade in general, and a very poor understanding of business in general. That may not be surprising to anyone. I’m absolutely delighted that the Labour Party is behind this—they always have been—and now it’s great to see an epiphany on the part of New Zealand First. It would be great for them to have a few more. We could perhaps have a general debate where I could point out a few more epiphanies that they might like to have in the future, though that might be hoping a little bit too much. Anyway, look, with that in mind, I commend the bill to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much. It’s with real pleasure that I rise to talk and commend this bill, the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill, to the House on its second reading.

This is not a bill about free trade. There’s never really been such a thing as free trade, and it’s a bit pernicious to bandy that term about. What this is about is a framework of rules. We need regulated trade and we need fair trade, balanced trade, and sustainable trade. That’s what this bill is about.

I must say, it is a huge step forward in trade agreements because, for the first time, it recognises that equitable trade does not necessarily mean the same rules for everyone. I’m very pleased to see that in this PACER-Plus agreement, New Zealand and Australia are really stepping up to build the capacity in our Pacific neighbours to engage in meaningful trade by building capacity around customs procedures to ensure that the biosecurity measures are in place so that, in fact, those economies can develop, and wherever they develop, whether it be in agricultural exports, or whether it be in light industry, or fishing—whatever it might be—in fact, they can generate real wealth in their own countries by trade around the Pacific with New Zealand and Australia and elsewhere.

So this trade agreement is an outstanding one because it’s really based on the concept of trade for all. It isn’t simply trade that benefits developed nations; it’s trade that’s based on a genuine understanding of both the economy and the culture of our neighbours, genuine friendship, mutual benefit, collective ambition, and sustainability. That really ties in with the Pacific reset. We simply don’t want to have our neighbours limping along and leaning on us. We want to have them as empowered, fully developed nations with developed economies, generating wealth for their families. That is what this bill does, and for that reason I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 112

New Zealand National 56; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1.

Noes 8

Green Party 8.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2)

In Committee

Debate resumed from 16 August.

Parts 1 to 28 and clauses 1 and 2 (continued)

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). Members, when we were last considering the bill, we were debating the question that Parts 1 to 28 and clauses 1 and 2 stand part. Dr Jian Yang was speaking, and has 3 minutes 51 seconds remaining should he so wish.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): OK, sorry, I didn’t realise that. I thought—well, it’s good, it’s great. Thank you, Mr Chair. As I said in my earlier speech actually, this bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), deals with a number of issues. Some amendments would make Acts more rational, some would update some Acts, and some would simply clarify the statements in some Acts.

So let’s look at Part 22, “Policing Act 2008”. Part 22 would amend the Policing Act 2008. That would give police the power to basically destroy or give away some properties that police are holding. So at the moment, police have to sell the properties by auction, which is, of course, sometimes harder to do, because there are properties there which may not be valuable at all. So the police may decide that these properties are not particularly valuable and could be destroyed, or sometimes could be given away by the police. So that would give the police more freedom in dealing with lost or found property. That is basically making the Act more rational, I would say. So this is Part 22.

Also, then, if you look at some other parts in this bill, you will find that these amendments would clarify a few things. For example, Part 12. Part 12 would deal with the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012. Now, basically, this would give this Act more clarity by clarifying some particular statements. If you look at Part 12, you will find that it says that clause 42 amends a transitional provision in section 164A relating to permits issued under the Maritime Transport Act 1994. The amendment provides that “[A] reference in [the] permit to Maritime New Zealand, the Director of Maritime New Zealand, or the Director must be treated as if it were a reference to the Environmental Protection Authority.” So this would clarify, basically, the reference.

Now, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is particularly important to us because we have about 4.1 million square kilometres of it, which is, of course, a huge area. It is actually about 15 times the land that we have. So the EEZ actually makes New Zealand a wealthy country in terms of resources. It is, therefore, very important for us to make sure we have a good understanding of the laws, and also to make sure that we are able to protect our EEZ. If you look at Part 2 of this bill, that is an attempt to amend the Biosecurity Act 1993.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Justice): I want to thank the member Jian Yang for that contribution. I just want to take a brief call, and that is to say that in the previous sitting of the committee I had tabled before the committee of the whole House two Supplementary Order Papers for inclusion in this bill: Supplementary Order Paper 55, which amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018, and Supplementary Order Paper 53, which amends the Food Act 2014. Due to timing constraints on reaching cross-party support, I have withdrawn Supplementary Order Paper 53, and this will be addressed at some stage later in the legislative programme.

So I just want to clarify for the committee of the whole House that we will be progressing one Supplementary Order Paper, and that is Supplementary Order Paper 55, which amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018. The purpose of this amendment is to insert a new Part 9A into the bill to repeal clauses 30(1) and 31(1) in Part 5 of Schedule 3 of the Customs and Excise Act 2018. These clauses exempt champagne from excise equivalent duty under the 2018 Act, which is due to come into force on 1 October this year. This was not intended and would cost the Crown $2.7 million per year if the clauses are not removed. So I thought it was important to clarify that for the committee before we continue the debate.

The CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Jacqui Dean.

Hon Member: Oh, good choice.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m happy to take a call on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). We are debating all stages of the bill, and just to restate, probably, this is a tidy-up of legislation exercise. There might be some drafting errors, some oversights, some provisions that are non-controversial, and, indeed, the House does support this. There are a number of clauses in this bill, a number of changes to be made, much to the relief of the relevant Minister and department, no doubt. So I’ll just go through a couple of them.

The Parole Act—this is quite interesting, actually. So this bill will amend the Parole Act, and that will align the treatment of interim supervision orders and extended supervision orders. While National was in Government, we made some excellent changes and amendments to the Parole Act, and I’m interested to see that this clause is in this bill. Currently the Act allows for an arrest without warrant to be made if there’s been a breach of an extended supervision order. Extended supervision orders are an important tool that the justice system has. So this bill recommends in clause 60A amending section 73(2) of the Parole Act, and this would allow an arrest without warrant to be made for a breach of an interim supervision order. So this is absolutely logical, making good progress around justice laws in New Zealand.

Here’s another one: the Public Records Act. So, yeah, this was around a name change, or not, clause. The Governance and Administration Committee recommended removing Part 25 of the bill. The amendments in that “would change Archives New Zealand’s name to the National Archives of New Zealand. We do not consider that this name change is necessary at this time.” My colleagues are riveted. I’m just having a look around the room—yes, they are; across the Chamber—again, riveted. I know you are—or they are, because I wouldn’t bring you in, Mr Chair.

There’s another one which I thought was worth a mention.

Andrew Bayly: Just stay on that one.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Oh, you want me to go over that?

Andrew Bayly: Yes, I do.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: No, no. I’m going to move on. Just finally, the State-Owned Enterprises Act I think is worth a bit of a mention. This—Part 27 of the bill, I’m talking about—seeks to amend the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986. The amendments that are being put in through this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) would require State-owned enterprises to publish accountability documents online after, of course, they have been provided to the Minister. So the Minister receives the accountability document; it then becomes publicly available. And, of course, in 1986, when this State-Owned Enterprises Act was brought about, there were no online facilities for distributing documents. Actually, you do see this increasingly through New Zealand legislation. When a bill comes to select committee often there will be a clause in there which provides for the release of documents to be online, and I’m thinking, maybe, of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act—that sort of public accountability and accessibility. Perhaps electoral law might be another example where we are now recognising that the New Zealand community is increasingly moving to an online platform, and the more we can put legislation online, the more accessible it becomes.

I’m just checking my team to see whether they’re riveted by—

Hon Members: Yes!

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Yes, they are. And just checking over the other side—yes, they are, because this is an important clause in this bill. I won’t go on. I might take another call, because there are a number of other clauses in here that are probably worth a good going over, but in the meantime I know there will be other members of the committee just champing at the bit to make a contribution.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Chair, and I would like to acknowledge the previous speaker, the Hon Jacqui Dean, for taking three clauses which I was going to take. She has already addressed them, so I’ll take some other clause. I would also like to acknowledge Minister Sio for letting us know that Supplementary Order Paper 53 has been withdrawn, otherwise I would have spoken on that.

I would like to touch upon Part 19, “Justices of the Peace Act 1957”. Clause 57 states: “This Part amends the Justices of the Peace Act 1957 (the principal Act).” It has been a coincidence that I had a constituent who came to my office regarding this issue. He retired, and wanted the word “retired” with the title “JP”, because he was no more able to provide this service. By chance, this bill was in the House, and I discussed with him that there would be an amendment very soon, in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), which would give him that opportunity to have “(retired)” written with “JP”.

The reason was that he had had an accident, and due to that he is suffering from dementia, and he could not remember the things that were happening in the present. That’s why he wanted to retire, but there was no provision. I am very pleased that this bill is addressing that issue, and somebody who has served less than 10 years can write as a “JP (retired)” because of this provision being ratified.

The second part that I would like to touch upon is Part 21, “Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006”. I was part of the Government Administration Committee in my first two terms. It was very well chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson, and she remembers that every term we had this Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act addressed in some manner. Again, this term I have become part of the select committee, the Governance and Administration Committee, very well chaired by our colleague—what’s his name?

Hon Jacqui Dean: Brett Hudson.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Brett Hudson—exactly. I am touching on this part, where the board of drainlayers, gasfitters, and plumbers has got the right to impose some fees for the people who are doing this work. The ability to set the fees depends upon whether the notification is required under the prescribed terms and conditions of the licensee that operates the supervision. This is being done so that some money can be generated for the board for the running, and that is going to help through this provision.

The last part I would like to touch on is Part 22, “Policing Act 2008”. Part 22 amends the Policing Act 2008. Clause 67 amends section 41, which relates to unclaimed property. I remember that this issue was raised some time ago—that there is property under the supervision of the police which nobody claims, which does not have any value, and which the police can dispose of in due course. So this part will be amending the Policing Act. Subsection 5 of section 41 is replaced. The new subsection provides that property that is of little or low monetary value may be given away as an alternative to being destroyed, and that property that is not appropriate or practicable to sell may be destroyed or given away. That will reduce the burden on the police to take care of property that is not sellable or does not have much value.

These are some of the things which are being addressed in this bill. We know that all the parties in the House are supportive because these are non-contentious issues. There is no opposition to this Statutes Amendment Bill. I commend it to the committee.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Mr Chair. What a pleasure to be talking tonight. We’ve been away on recess, and, you know, we all miss this place. Of course, I wanted to talk about something quite dear to my heart, it’s called the Public Finance Act 1989. Of course, as we all know, finances drive this economy and drive the ability to be able to spend on good social programmes. If we’re slack and lazy, that means we have less money to look after the good people of New Zealand, and that’s why I think this Government needs to be held to account, and that’s why this bill is very relevant: because it actually has a lot about the Public Finance Act.

What I would like to talk about—apart from just congratulating all the good members from this side who have done such wonderful speeches tonight; the only thing that’s missing is some wonderful contributions from the Government side. I’m feeling sad that our listeners can’t hear Government spokespeople actually stand up and deliver something that’s worthwhile in the Parliament tonight, because this is an important piece of legislation, as everyone has remarked, because these are the little changes that mean that we can achieve the great things for New Zealand.

Of course, this piece of legislation is always put through the House from time to time to try and tidy up things that do need addressing.

Hon David Parker: Say something relevant?

ANDREW BAYLY: I heard something from Mr Eagle over there.

Hon David Parker: No; it was me.

ANDREW BAYLY: Oh, Mr Parker. I’m glad you’re here, Associate Minister of Finance, with a razor mind, thinking about these things.

The issues I want to talk about are clauses 76 and 77, on the Reserves Boards. What this Governance and Administration Committee amendment in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) does is it actually strikes out clauses 76 and 77. What that means—and I know you will be someone who has a great deal of expertise in this, Mr Chair—is that these relate to schedule 4 organisations. Some of you may wonder what those might mean, but probably the best example, I think, might be where you’ve got small private cemeteries that are looked after by volunteers in remote parts of the country, even in parts of my electorate in South Auckland, where they are under an obligation to provide an audit.

Of course, you’ll probably be aware that Audit New Zealand, I think from memory, does about 3,500 audits a year. Many of them relate to very, very small entities. What this does is provide some flexibility. Those wonderful volunteers that go out every week and mow the lawns, get the weed-eater out—it’s good exercise—and look after those little cemetery plots in many of these places where many people do not even know that they exist: they’re the hard-working Kiwis, and what this does is reduce the burden that’s placed upon them. Often they’ve been set up as a historical trust—or a company or a partnership; but often a trust—that may have been in existence for 100 years, and this removes the requirement for an audit. It removes the requirement for the audit, which means that the Audit Office can actually concentrate on those entities that really do need to be focused on to make sure everyone is paying their proper share of taxes.

And, of course, what this does is it sets—at the moment there’s a threshold of $100,000, and that’s quite a high threshold.

Hon Member: Don’t go!

ANDREW BAYLY: I’m very sad to see more Government members taking a walk—I don’t know where to, but they’re taking a walk.

What this does is it has a $100,000 threshold, and on the face of it, for an audit, that’s actually quite a lot of money. What this does, under new section 450AAB, is gives the Governor-General the power to amend the $100,000 amount by Order in Council made on the joint recommendation of the Minister—currently the Minister of Finance—and the Minister of Conservation. Now, by being judicious about that, that means that we can capture a whole range of these small trusts and entities and actually look at that $100,000, because that is actually quite—[Time expired]

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Malo e lelei. Kia ora anō—kia ora anō. In standing to address the committee on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), perusing through this, it is about tidying up legislation, as my colleague the Hon Jacqui Dean indicated, and clarifying minor technical corrections that need to be made.

As I have perused through this bill, it’s interesting that now, as a member of Parliament, I note that there are a number of parts to this bill, as proposed amendments, that I have acted upon as counsel. I refer specifically to Part 3, “Care of Children Act 2004”, and Part 4, “Child Support Act 1991”. The parts that I’ll be reading out in the relevant corresponding legislation are about aligning them in terms of an amendment, where a lawyer appointed to represent a child or young person or to assist the court may submit his or her invoice for fees and expenses to any registrar of the court. Previously, it was the case that counsel, having been appointed by the particular court, was required to file their invoice to that court that they were appointed by, which may have been out of town at times. So that’s Part 5.

There is also Part 11, which is to do with the Domestic Violence Act. Again, similarly, it is about streamlining and increasing efficiencies to facilitate the development of a central unit for the processing and payment of service provider invoices. So where counsel have been appointed by the court to assist in that capacity, either representing a child or any other person or a party, with this amendment under the Statutes Amendment Bill, they are now enabled to file the expenses to any registrar of the court. So that’s for Part 13 as well, “Family Proceedings Act 1980”, and Part 23, “Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988”. This is all legislation under this bill that is standardising and making consistent and aligning.

It’s also interesting that I note there are other provisions under this bill where the amendments proposed are for pieces of legislation on which I’ve appeared before the court in acting and addressing the court. I refer to Part 10, “District Court Act 2016”, where it is conferred on community magistrates and justices of the peace the same powers as judges to deal with contempt in the course of proceedings before them. There has been occasion when, as counsel, I have appeared in court, judges have been abused, magistrates have been abused, and justices of the peace have been abused. However, there has not been recourse for our magistrates and justices of the peace, as there now is with this proposed amendment.

I also speak further to my participation and involvement with justices of the peace at Part 19 of this bill, “Justices of the Peace Act 1957”, which seeks to enable or to empower the Secretary for Justice to authorise a justice of the peace with fewer than 10 years of service to use the designation “JP (retired)”—that is, if the secretary thinks it appropriate in the circumstances, which may be ill health, injury, or disability, to have them designated as a JP (retired), rather than having to, in effect, serve 10 years of service before that recognition and acknowledgment is duly accorded.

I also refer to another piece of legislation that I have acted upon as counsel. Part 20, “Parole Act 2002”, makes it an offence to breach an extended supervision order. There is an amendment proposed, adding a new offence where a breach of an interim supervision order would require imposition of a penalty—previously, it hasn’t. Importantly, under the Parole Act there is a further proposed amendment, significantly, placing on the chief executive similar requirements to notify victims in respect of these interim supervision orders that have been breached. The same entitlement or standard that is there for the extended supervision order is now proposed with the amendment.

There are other pieces under this legislation that, opportunity permitted, I would speak to. Time permitting, it is a case of other members within my party to address the Chairman, unless the Hon Aupito William Sio wishes to respond to any part that has been addressed to the committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 55 in the name of the Hon Aupito William Sio be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Parts 1 to 28 and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Justice): I move, That the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

By their very nature, statutes amendment bills do not address significant policy matters. These amendments are technical; they are short and non-controversial. They make amendments that individually would not receive the necessary priority to be progressed, and they are a very important and vital part of the Government’s legislation programme—the Government of the day—and they allow us to keep the law up to date and accurate. Many of the amendments in the bill are designed to correct drafting errors, omissions, and incorrect references. Some amendments make improvements to how some Acts work in practice. Other amendments—changes—make technical changes to facilitate functions of governance.

Following consideration by the Governance and Administration Committee, the bill was reported back with two parts removed and one new part inserted, as well as a number of minor tweaks to existing amendments. The bill before the House has had a further part inserted by a Supplementary Order Paper, and this brings the final total to 29 Acts administered by 12 different Government agencies. As you will be aware, the committee voted to include Supplementary Order Paper 55, that I tabled, in the bill. This Supplementary Order Paper makes minor but urgent changes. It amends the Customs and Excise Act 2018, which is expected to come into force on 1 October this year. Without this amendment, champagne would have been inadvertently exempted from excise-equivalent duty, which represents approximately $2.7 million per year in revenue for the Crown. This amendment remedies that omission.

The amendments in this Supplementary Order Paper are suitable for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill. All parties were consulted on this Supplementary Order Paper and they supported the inclusion in the bill at this later stage. I just want to summarise by saying that these Supplementary Order Papers are important. They do not change policy in a significant way. They are minor, they are short, and they fix a range of legislation, and they are the key way that the Government ensures that legislation keeps up with changes and remains fit for purpose.

I want to acknowledge a number of people who were instrumental in the passage of this Statutes Amendment Bill. I, firstly, want to acknowledge members of the Governance and Administration Committee for their time and effort, and for including amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act in the bill. Secondly, I want to thank the committee of the whole House for voting in favour of the Supplementary Order Paper that I tabled. Finally, I want to thank all parliamentary parties for their backing of the amendments contained in the bill. This bill was supported by every party at each stage of the process and does demonstrate the importance of working together as members and representatives of this House. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): I move, That the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

Our indigenous freshwater fish are a precious part of Aotearoa’s natural heritage. Freshwater fisheries are also important economically, culturally, and socially. But as Minister of Conservation, I have inherited an antiquated legal framework for managing these fish, including regulations that haven’t been reviewed since 1983. So this bill is a small but important step towards providing a better framework for improving the protection and management of indigenous fish and fisheries. We need to prevent the loss of any more native freshwater fish species and restore the health of their populations and fisheries.

The bill doesn’t make major changes to how fish are managed on the ground in lakes, streams, and wetlands, and I’m committed to fully engaging with iwi and the public before any changes are made here. What it does do is make some technical changes to the Conservation Act 1987 to give us better tools to manage both indigenous fish and noxious fish like koi carp. It fixes some uncertainties and gaps in the law and will enable better regulations.

So why do we need this bill? New Zealand has 77 species of freshwater fish—56 of those are indigenous, and most of them are found nowhere else in the world. Twenty-one of our 56 indigenous freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction, and that’s a higher proportion than in almost any other country. Most of these fish, including some of those which are closest to extinction, are little known. They are often nocturnal, they are shy, and many of our lowland waterways no longer have healthy populations of them. With species like eels and the species that make up the whitebait fishery, they are important fisheries, but they are also in trouble. It’s hard to believe that whitebait were once caught in such quantities that they were used as fertiliser, but over the last century, all of our native freshwater fisheries—eels, whitebait, lamprey—have experienced catastrophic declines. That’s due to drainage of wetlands, declining water quality, obstacles to fish passage and their ability to move between fresh water and the sea, and the loss of spawning sites. So we need to tackle all of these issues if we are to restore our fisheries.

Freshwater fish and indigenous fisheries are managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) under the Conservation Act, and by Fisheries New Zealand under the Fisheries Act. Broadly, DOC manages all freshwater fish species, the whitebait fishery, noxious fish, fish passage, and indirect threats to fish, such as impacts on spawning sites; Fisheries New Zealand manages customary fisheries, aquaculture, and the eel fishery. So the bill clarifies the relationship between the Fisheries Act and the Conservation Act. It changes the definition of freshwater fish to make it clear that species which occasionally use fresh water, like mullet and kahawai, are managed under the Fisheries Act rather than the Conservation Act. It also makes changes to clarify how fisheries management arrangements under Treaty settlement legislation relate to management arrangements under the Conservation Act. In clauses like clause 5, that’s changing the provisions for freshwater fish management plans so that the department can prepare a statutory plan for a particular freshwater fish species, and have it apply nationally if that was desirable.

The only native fish in Aotearoa which enjoys legal protection is the grayling, and it’s extinct. So native fish—if they’re in waterways in national parks and scenic reserves, they are protected from fishing, but if they’re in a conservation park, they’re not. The bill changes this so that native fish in waterways are given the same level of protection as other native wildlife and plants in conservation areas. In other words, if fishing is to occur, it needs to be specifically authorised. The bill also protects fish in local council reserves from recreational fishing, unless the council has specifically authorised that through a sign, for example. That covers situations where communities want eels and other native fish in their local recreation reserves to be protected from fishing, but none of these changes affect customary fishing.

The bill will make it easier for teachers and others to educate the public and students about native fish, by deleting the current regulations which make it illegal to take native fish out of a stream—fish like bullies—show them to students, and then return them promptly to the waterway without being harmed. That’s currently illegal; the bill removes those regulations.

Clause 9 relates to spawning sites, and it will provide more flexibility around how these sites are protected. Fish have very strong preferences for where they lay their eggs. The number of eggs they lay and the proportion of those which hatch depend on the availability and quality of the spawning sites. For example, with inanga—one of our whitebait species—they lay their eggs in vegetation on the banks of streams, at spring tides, at the highest point that the saltwater reaches. They need thick vegetation on those spawning sites to catch the eggs, to keep them moist, and to prevent them from drying and dying. So where you’ve got concrete and rock gabions and closely mown lawns, that means that the spawning site won’t have successful spawning.

At the moment, the Conservation Act protects eggs and it makes damage to spawning sites an offence. What the bill will do is allow regulations to define what activities constitute damage to a spawning site and what don’t, and that will provide more flexibility. It means that things like mowing a riverbank at certain times of the year, where the spawning is not going to occur and there’s no risk to the eggs, can occur, and that might be needed for things like flood control.

Clause 12 amends section 26ZM of the Conservation Act, and that’s the section which controls the movement of fish between water bodies. It clarifies the application of that section, because both DOC and Fisheries New Zealand have experienced problems in how that section applies to issues like fish movement, and the issues that arise there around biosecurity and the disease risks to other fish. It will also streamline the process for low-risk decisions. Clause 13 amends and clarifies the existing provisions which allow temporary closures of fisheries, for a period of up to five years, and this is needed sometimes to allow for a research project, for restoration work to be undertaken, or to give the fishery a chance to recover from an adverse event, and longer-term closures can be made through regulations.

Most of the controls on fishing and the activities that affect our indigenous fish are done through regulations. There are regulations which control whitebaiting, barriers to fish passage, and noxious fish, and what the bill does is provide some new regulation-making powers to fill some significant gaps in these powers. At the moment, there’s no power in section 48A of the Conservation Act to make regulations on noxious fish, and only limited powers to regulate barriers to fish passage. So DOC hasn’t been able to update the 1983 regulations that it inherited, and the bill will fill this gap.

Having the ability to make regulations to control activities like emptying drains and then killing the fish in the process, or emptying the pumps that you can sometimes have in flood-control schemes, will allow better protection for our native fish. I would note that in drafting the bill, there’s been quite a lot of care taken to ensure that it doesn’t impact on the ability of the managers of sports fisheries, such as Fish & Game, to do their work, but I’m aware that Fish & Game may believe that the bill could better address the interface issues between their management of sports fish and the Department of Conservation’s management of indigenous fish. I’m confident that a further clarification is needed here. This can be done through the select committee process.

This bill is technical in nature. It’s designed to amend the tool box for fisheries management rather than to change management on the ground, and it is a vital first step to improve the management of our very special indigenous freshwater fish, and I commend the bill to the House.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. As the spokesperson on conservation for the New Zealand National Party, and as lead for this bill for our members on the Environment Committee, it’s a pleasure to lead off this debate from our side.

It may be surprising to the Minister of Conservation, but we, too, believe in protecting our indigenous freshwater fish, so we will be supporting this bill at the first reading and to select committee. However, I do wish to make it very clear that we have some concerns and some reservations about this bill. We have concerns about its reach, and about some of the ramifications it will have on our recreational fishers and some of the costs that it may pose toward private land owners. So while we are happy to send the bill to select committee, we will be very vigilant about it. We will be questioning officials. We will be taking heed of what the submitters say. We’ll also be expecting quite a wide consultation process given that there was certainly a lack of consultation before the introduction of this bill. We want to make sure that the effects of this are truly investigated.

I do want to commend the Minister with respect to her acknowledgment of the importance of indigenous freshwater fish in New Zealand and with respect to freshwater ecosystems. From my research, I see that there are 57 species of freshwater fish and 22 of them are threatened with extinction. As the Minister noted, our freshwater fish play a really important role in aquatic ecosystems with respect to the recycling of nutrients. So their extinction or decline can pose a serious risk on our freshwater systems and their productivity.

She mentioned the longfin eel before and, actually, freshwater-wise they’re one of my favourites, albeit very prehistoric looking. They may not be as cuddly as, obviously, some of our native birds but they’re certainly unique to New Zealand. If you watch any of the fishing shows, they’re often held up as quite a significant and unique beast in New Zealand. But not only that, they’re a valuable part of our commercial fishery. So it is important that the population is monitored and obviously it is a productive one. In fact, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd estimates that the commercial eel fishery is worth about $6.1 million annually. So the future of our eel population is certainly important from an economic point of view as well.

I want to recognise that despite our efforts in the freshwater space, the productivity of freshwater fish populations and their size has decreased over the past 50 years to 100 years, especially with regards to whitebait. With the opening of the season, it’s certainly been back on the radar of people whitebaiting. The Department of Conservation (DOC), obviously, regulates the activity of whitebaiting, not with respect to catch size but it limits the methods and seasons and hour in which whitebaiting can occur. But it was stated by DOC, and it has been indicated, that it is freshwater habitat loss and degradation which is the significant problem with respect to the whitebait population.

So our position—obviously when we were in Government we were the first Government to bring in freshwater standards. We were concentrating on freshwater ecosystems through targeted funding and with restoring habitats, and certainly recognising the importance, for example, of wetlands. Waituna, down in my area, is no exception. It received extra funding to help its management. Of course, we looked at the eradication of invasive estuary weeds.

So I again reiterate that we are supporting this bill at first reading but we do have significant concerns with respect to whether these changes are going to be measured, whether they are sensible, and whether or not they will unreasonably or unfairly impact recreational fishers and/or cost private land owners significant amounts of money.

With respect to a few finer points of the bill, as the Minister has mentioned, it doesn’t in itself, on the face of it, bring any new management measures into the current regime, but it does allow the Minister of Conservation to review and improve old regulations on which fish passage and the control or eradication of noxious fish can occur. So, again, while we’re looking to improve the protection of indigenous freshwater species, we do have concerns as to the reach of how far that can go.

The first concern that I have is that further reform or too much reform in this area, as I’ve mentioned, could have significant cost on private land owners. One of the things that has been recognised is that there could be designated significant spawning habitat of, let’s say, whitebait on private land, and the question then becomes as to its management, its rehabilitation, and its protection, and where the cost falls with regards to that habitat on private land. We’re talking about more than protection on the conservation estate; we’re talking about going further and extending that to private land owners. Land adjacent to whitebait spawning areas are not off the table in which the Department of Conservation officials will look at.

A certain case study and concern of mine—while it’s a very good conservation outcome—was when I visited Denmark and they had significant trout issues, population issues, and, in some Scandinavian countries, extinctions. What they legislated for was that fish passage across rivers that were on private land needed to be cleared and that fish passage needed to be accommodated for. The cost of that fell on the private land owners. They were able to reintroduce trout and obviously maintain healthy populations, but like I say, that significant cost did fall on the private land owners, and we will need to question, in our case, as to the extent of that in the realm of New Zealand.

The bill also allows the Department of Conservation to manage water flows: so discharges, intakes, flood control works, and any infrastructure that may go to control that. So, again, where does the cost fall? Do we really need this extra tier of freshwater fish management, will it be arbitrary, how will it be controlled, and where will the costs fall? The other thing is that, as the Minister noted, it can allow the Department of Conservation to close certain fisheries and so this would adversely affect our whitebaiters and others that catch native fish.

Another thing that the Minister noted is that DOC’s native fish plans would actually take precedence over sports fish plans. So the Department of Conservation’s direction would outrank the longstanding tried and true management system of fish and game councils, which are designed for representation and implementation at the coalface. Certainly, in Southland we take our recreational fishing very seriously. We take our hunting very, very seriously—as I’m sure others do on the West Coast and further north. Duck shooting weekend in Southland is like a provincial staple. Certainly, recreational fishing puts food on the table, it provides tourism opportunities, it contributes to our economy, and the simple act of recreation as well. It provides enjoyment, it provides relaxation and exercise.

So, again, coming back to the lack of consultation, the fact that some of these stakeholders, Fish & Game, have not been consulted is very, very disappointing. That was certainly noted by Treasury in the regulatory impact statement—a lack of consultation.

So we support this bill at first reading, but we will be taking a closer look at it at the select committee.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment) Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I take a call on behalf of the Labour Party in support of this bill at first reading.

Can I respond to the last speaker’s comments about what a landowner’s rights are. The idea that a landowner who owns a wetland somehow is facing a cost if they can’t reclaim it, is wrong. The idea that a landowner who owns a wetland, because they own a piece of land that includes a wetland, somehow has a private property right that enables them to destroy that wetland, is wrong. That’s never been part of the private property right in New Zealand, and it shouldn’t be.

The member who has just spoken, Sarah Dowie, said that the last Government had acted on water issues. Well, actually what they did was spike the national policy statement that was going to prevent further intensification of land use and caused our water problems to get worse. In respect of wetland protection—and I accept that the member Sarah Dowie is well-informed on these issues and is well-meaning, having, before being elected, been an employee of the Department of Conservation (DOC) in the Southland area, and she—

Sarah Dowie: Don’t hold that against me.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —I don’t hold that against you—now lives in Invercargill. I’ve got to say, the stats I’ve been provided with show that due to the fact that there has been a lot of wetland reclamation over the years long gone, New Zealand has lost 90 percent of its wetlands already. The biggest problem that we’ve got with native fish is actually habitat. We’ve already lost 90 percent, but the sad truth is that the State of the Environment report that came out earlier in the year said that we’re still losing them. In respect of Southland, they said that in the period since 2007—which is, essentially, the period of the last Government—Southland lost another thousand hectares of wetland. That’s why we’re running out of native fish—we’re running out of native fish habitat.

Now, I know there are water-quality issues and there are fish passage issues as well, but it’s interesting that the areas where we have the greatest abundance of whitebait left are actually on the West Coast, where the habitat hasn’t been as modified. Essentially, if we’re going to save our native fish from becoming extinct—and I think it’s terribly sad that unless we do something different in our country, more species of native fish are going to become extinct. That’s the trajectory that we’re already on.

So I agree with Minister Eugenie Sage bringing this bill to this Parliament, because part of the answer lies in this bill. Actually, this bill, overall, is not really where we can protect habitat. That’s more to be done in the national instruments under the Resource Management Act in respect of fresh water, including estuarine areas, and, again, it’s notable that the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management that the last Government promulgated doesn’t properly control for these effects. So that’s one of the areas that we’re going to have to have another look at the national policy statement and do better in that regard.

In respect of the issues that are raised in respect of predator fish, it is true that introduced species, including trout and salmon, quite like the little cockabully if it goes past. Now, that doesn’t mean to say that we should be ignoring the proper role of Fish & Game to look after the sports fisheries, and—

Hon Nathan Guy: Well, that’s your mate.

Hon DAVID PARKER: What’s that?

Hon Nathan Guy: That’s your mate who’s running it. Martin’s your mate.

Hon DAVID PARKER: He’s very competent. He’s behind you, looking down at your bald spot.

Hon Scott Simpson: Now that’s a Minister that shouldn’t be talking about bald spots.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, that’s true, too. That’s true too. But it—[Interruption] It is true that I have a bald spot. It’s also true that in terms of the parts of habitat in New Zealand that do not currently have sports fish in them, actually, we do have to be careful that they don’t expand into those areas, because those are some of the remaining habitats that have not been subject to predation pressure by introduced sports fish.

I am sure that that issue can be worked through between Fish & Game and the Department of Conservation. My understanding is that the greater concern in respect of introduced fish is the likes of koi carp. Now, I was shocked, upon becoming Minister in the current Government, when I went to have a look at some of the problems in the Waikato catchment about how bad the problems with koi carp are there. They are an introduced goldfish that grow to a large size in the wild and, uncontrolled, their spread of population is awful. There are farmers and other community members in the Waikato catchment who are just tearing their hair out, but no matter what they do to improve fresh water quality, they can’t get on top of the problem caused by koi carp.

Koi carp burrow into the beds of the rivers and the banks. They kick up sediment. They really ruin the habitat. It’s a problem that we haven’t got under control in New Zealand, and we don’t really know at the moment how far they’re spreading. Sadly, there are occasions where New Zealanders deliberately spread them because they like the fish to catch and eat, but it causes such terrible problems environmentally that we’ve really got to do a bit better with koi carp. So if we need more regulation-making powers on the part of the Minister to control koi carp—and I think we do—I’m in favour of that because they really are a scorge, a scourge.

Hon Members: “A scourge”.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, a scourge—thank you. So I don’t think I need to say much beyond that. I do think we need to look at these issues as to the border between DOC and Fish & Game on this. I note that Fish & Game do have statutory authority in respect of sports fish, so I’m sure that we can work those issues through.

A final point before I sit: I hope that you have the ability to look at tidal flaps. Tidal flaps are used as a cheap way of reclaiming land. They stop the tidal inflow coming in on the incoming tide. They block it because they push against the drain and then against the culvert, and then, as the water builds up when there’s a low tide, it opens up and it drains the water. They are an effective, really cheap way of, effectively, draining wetlands.

I was involved in litigation with this years ago, where we put a stop to any more of them on the Merton tidal arm, and the structures that were then consented—at a time when perhaps we weren’t aware of the threats in respect of the extinction of native fish—were time-limited, but the practice has been that we should always just renew them. I think we actually need to look at whether we’ve got that right as a country, because we really are running out of native fish.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call in this first reading of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. I just wanted to make a couple of comments about the contribution made by the Hon David Parker, because I thought he brought some thoughtful consideration to the interconnectivity of a range of issues that this bill seeks to address. He effectively highlighted the complicated nature of our ecosystem, of our freshwater ways, of our water quality, of wetlands, of indigenous species and of introduced species, and how no one single factor really is dominant in terms of the long-term preservation of indigenous freshwater species, but they are under threat from a range of activities—human, physical, historic—that have caused us to get to a fairly awful state where so many of those species are now under threat of extinction, and, certainly, that’s not something that any of us want to have occur.

He particularly made a point about the issue of koi carp. I know that in my electorate of the Coromandel, across the Hauraki Plains, that is an issue in the waterways and the drains, and in the areas where koi carp are prevalent, farmers do tear their hair out. Minister Parker acknowledged his bald spot. I’m sure that that has occurred not for any reason to do with koi carp, but it does highlight the overarching concern of a wide range of New Zealanders who have multiple interests in ensuring that our indigenous freshwater fish species are preserved, maintained, and enhanced.

I wanted to just also comment on Minister Sage’s introductory speech. She made it very clear that she had a preference to be utterly committed to engaging with the public and iwi, but in terms of that engagement, she didn’t actually mention Fish & Game until very late in her contribution, and I think that is a bit of a challenge around this bill.

So my colleague Sarah Dowie, who is the National Party’s conservation spokesperson, has acknowledged that we are intending to support this bill to first reading. We’ll send it to select committee. But as is the case with so much legislation, the devil is in the detail, and I regret to say that this Minister introducing this bill is rapidly developing a reputation for being well intentioned but not good on detail. There are some concerns in this bill that highlight that lack of attention to detail yet again, and only go to enforce, or reinforce, the rapidly growing perception of a Minister who’s not completely over her portfolio areas.

This bill is well intended. It seeks to make amendments to some legislation that is now quite old—probably no longer fit for purpose. But there are some issues. There’s no mechanism in the bill, for instance, to ensure that Fish & Game is consulted before decisions are taken by the Department of Conservation that could negatively impact on sports fish management in New Zealand. And that’s an obvious and glaring oversight in this legislation—so much so that Fish & Game have taken it upon themselves to seek independent legal advice ahead of this bill being introduced, and they’ve gone to none other than that well-respected oracle on things legal, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Queen’s Counsel, no less. They’ve commissioned an opinion from Sir Geoffrey Palmer that creates some obvious concern.

I’m sure that Fish & Game, at select committee, will make a detailed submission to the committee, and it will largely be based on the legal opinion that’s been provided by Sir Geoffrey. But Fish & Game, as members will know, represents the 110,000 anglers and some 30,000 game bird hunters who are active in New Zealand. And when they look at legislation that comes before this House, they look at it in terms of a starting position that basically says, “Does this legislation maintain Fish & Game’s status quo position? Does it improve their interests, or does it undermine the interests of Fish & Game?”

Frighteningly, in terms of this piece of legislation, Sir Geoffrey, in his legal opinion, has identified some very significant issues for Fish & Game. His conclusion, in his legal opinion, is that, and I quote, “aspects of the reforms impact directly and negatively on Fish & Game”. And he specifically draws attention to proposed clause 6, which, in Sir Geoffrey’s opinion, he believes will allow Treaty settlements to actually override the several important elements of the sport fisheries management regime that exists in New Zealand and has done for a long period of time. Indeed, he cites a case from the Court of Appeal in McRitchie v Taranaki Fish and Game Council back in 1999, where those matters were traversed and canvassed, and where those matters that are of great concern to Fish & Game, in terms of the legal opinion provided by Sir Geoffrey, are highlighted.

Sir Geoffrey goes on in his legal opinion—and I’m sure that the Minister will be taking careful consideration of this. Sir Geoffrey says, and I quote, “I consider that this bill has the potential to seriously impact on Fish & Game’s interests. The amendments are, on the whole, quite technical. Aspects of them will impact on the sports fishery regime managed by Fish & Game. I understand that Fish & Game were not consulted on the bill despite the impact on its interests, and I consider that to be concerning and unusual. Fish & Game is a statutory body that has a no-surprises arrangement recorded in its memorandum of understanding with the Department of Conservation, and that does not seem to have been honoured here.”

In fact, if one turns to the departmental disclosure statement there are some concerning matters in that that go to the very core of the lack of consultation, which again goes to reinforce the impression that this Minister hasn’t done the detail, hasn’t done the homework, and isn’t across her portfolio. It says that “The Bill only relates to indigenous freshwater fish, and threats to those fish (including noxious fish). The Bill does not relate to introduced sports fish”. Then when we get to paragraph 2.3.1 of that paper, the question is asked “If so, did the RIA Team in the Treasury provide an independent opinion on the quality of any of these regulatory impact statements?” And the answer is “The review team considers”—and this is Treasury, remember, saying this—“The review team considers that it partially meets the quality assurance criteria. … However”—and it’s a big however—“the key constraint, which has been acknowledged in the Regulatory Impact Assessment, is that the time frame did not allow consultation with iwi and stakeholders.” It goes on to say “stakeholders are likely to have some concerns about the lack of consultation and the limited scope of the review.”

So here we have Treasury, the advisers to Government—on this piece of legislation at its first reading, coming to the House in what clearly is an incomplete and not fully prepared situation. Now, that’s just not good enough. Notwithstanding the good intentions of the bill—again, the detail and the preparation has not been achieved. It’s not been fulfilled, and it goes to a Minister who is keen on getting something into the House, hoping that the select committee will do the legwork on her behalf, and that the select committee will do the consultation with Fish & Game that hasn’t been even attempted to have taken place during the preparation phase for this piece of legislation.

So, in summary, Opposition members in the National Party will support this bill at first reading, but we have some grave reservations about the detail; we have some grave reservations about the lack of consultation; and we have some grave reservations about the intent, hidden or otherwise, that this bill may seek to achieve. In short, we are concerned that there is a hidden agenda here, so we will be on great alert at select committee as we peruse the bill.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First—and my colleague, Jenny Marcroft—to take a call on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill at first reading, but we cannot commit to supporting it further. We have some concerns—

Hon Nathan Guy: Oh, coalition’s falling apart.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —but let’s start with—oh, Mr Guy. What’s really interesting, what is incredibly interesting about a working coalition Government, is that the National Party doesn’t recognise it. The National Party doesn’t actually recognise how a group of people can come together and discuss things in a grown-up and constructive way, and actually make things better. But that would be because Mr Guy and the National Party have never had to discuss anything with the cling-ons that they have been in Government with before.

If we come to the bill, let’s start with the bits that are good. Let’s start with the bits that New Zealand First supports. So first of all, we actually support—the Minister of Conservation quite clearly articulated about what has actually been a silly piece of legislation before, where, for example, the Wai Care project that many of our schools run to make sure that our young people are able to participate in greater learning about what is their natural environment, what is part of protecting the future of New Zealand, by going down into the streams and waterways that feed into the major waterways around their schooling areas and taking out some of the living organisms in that stream for a short period of time—strangely enough, they work with the Department of Conservation to do this. And the clarity, what is in that waterway—they learn how that shows the clarity of that water, how clean the streams are, and they quite quickly put them back. The whole purpose is to teach the young people how to be part of what is the process of actually protecting our nation. New Zealand First celebrates the changing of that piece of legislation to make sure that the Wai Care project and similar projects in combination with our education system and the Department of Conservation can go forward, without worrying about six-year-olds or 10-year-olds being arrested for taking bullies out of the stream.

Around fish passageways, those migrating fish that need to get to places and where man-made implements have been put in their way—again, we celebrate the fact that there must be a much more concentrated effort to make sure that when we disturb the environment, we do it in a way that takes into account how we can work better with it. I take on board the Northern Gateway, which was the large motorway, actually, that ran to Ōrewa from Albany, or wherever. But the culvert adaptation that was created during that project, it was a brand new adaptation to create culverts with the possible ripples through it. There were plastic inserts inside the culverts, so that as the water ran, as the streams ran, the ripples and pool effect of a normal stream was able to be duplicated so that it didn’t interfere with what is the process for our native fish. There are ways for us to better work with our environment and make sure we don’t just override what is our progress, supposedly, and then make sure that we take away things that are incredibly important to us.

However, the concerns we have are the concerns around, for example, those articulated by Mr Scott—

Hon Nathan Guy: Simpson.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —Simpson. Mr Simpson. Thank you, Mr Guy. It’s all right. We’ll get there in the end.

Hon Nathan Guy: Here to help.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: He’s loud but not very effective. Ha, ha! So we do have similar concerns to Mr Simpson’s, which is around the level of consultation that has taken place, which is around actually making sure that while we’re trying to protect one part of our environment, we don’t have unintended consequences that affect another.

If we do talk about, for example, trout in this nation—and can I just mention, though, the comments by the Hon David Parker around koi carp. I absolutely agree that we have an issue in this nation with koi carp, and we really do need a concerted effort in this nation to deal with that problem. That needs to be at an educational level about those that are actually releasing goldfish into the environment, about those that have decided that it’s a great species to have here, without recognising that, actually, it’s doing more to destroy our environment and costing us other species on the downstream of it.

But, I mean, 110,000 people buy trout fishing licences every year. We do need to make sure that when we make some rules over here, we don’t have unintended consequences over there. The Hon David Parker acknowledged that there must be a way—there surely is a way—through this, through Fish & Game and through the Department of Conservation. And that is exactly, I would say, Mr Simpson, the real value of the select committee. The select committee is where those groups can come and talk to the representatives of the Parliament without having to come and talk to representatives of parties individually, and where representatives of the Parliament can come together and, through their—I suppose, what would you call it?—collective brainpower that might be at a select committee, they can come forward with those recommendations that make sure that as a nation we move forward. And that’s the value of the select committee.

I know that it was a particular line that the Opposition wanted to run about a particularly effective and very hard-working Minister. I know that it’s one of those things that they like to run when they see somebody doing their job as well as this Minister is doing—then the opportunity to just have a little chip is always there. But that is exactly what select committee is for. That is the power of select committee, to send a piece of legislation that has been thought out as well as it can be and gets sent to select committee—

Hon Scott Simpson: I think there’ll be another redhead in the conservation department very soon.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —so that the combined power of the Parliament. Yes, Mr Simpson, you can participate fully. The combined power of the Parliament can actually bring their weight to bear and improve in those places where Mr Simpson would like to improve.

Before I sit down, I would like to say one further thing. Ms Dowie, in her contribution, talked about, I think it was, her favourite fish, which is the longfin eel. One of the things that is happening with regard to—it’s interesting when we talk about whitebait—that glass eel. Juvenile eels are actually being depleted in the wild because they are being fished so that they can be grown in sort of a farmed environment and then sold on. And it was the previous National Government, unfortunately, that refused to provide any research dollars so that Mahurangi Technical Institute, for example, could break that 12-day barrier where young eels can actually feed off their own egg sac, and then we wouldn’t have to deplete from the wild stocks, but we could actually have a highly profitable eel farming industry here in New Zealand without depleting our wild stock. So it is interesting that it’s something that Ms Dowie loves but, unfortunately, none of them could fund.

So, with that, I will give the floor over to other colleagues. But, as I say, New Zealand First hopes to work constructively, as we always do, with our Labour Party coalition partners, with the supply and confidence Green partners, because we know on this side of the House that when you talk with each other, anything can be solved. Kia ora.

Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): What we just heard from Tracey Martin was the payback for the Greens voting and supporting the waka-jumping bill, wasn’t it? Because we heard that New Zealand First said, “Yes, we’ll support it to the first reading, but we’re not quite sure whether we’ll support it thereafter.” Well, I’ll tell you what’ll happen. That was a speech written by Shane Jones, because he’s the true fisheries Minister. So the Minister standing in for Shane Jones, Tracey Martin, had to come down and deliver that speech. I thought what was really fascinating was she spent more time talking about ripply culverts on the Northern Gateway—she seemed quite an expert—but what she failed to mention is that New Zealand First are dead against a four-lane highway carrying on from there through to Whangarei, which I think is really disappointing.

Focusing back on this bill now—this is a very important bill, the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. It provides more tools for fisheries management of indigenous fisheries and, of course, the threat to fish and, in particular, noxious fish. We have heard numerous contributions this evening and, actually, some concern from this side of the House. And I want to run through some of those concerns that we do have.

We are cautiously supporting this bill to hear the debate in the select committee. We look forward to hearing from iwi. I wonder if the Minister of Conservation has already spoken to iwi about this bill. I wonder if the Minister for Crown/Māori Relations has bothered to pick up the phone and let iwi know that this bill is coming. All the heads are down on the other side—even Willie Jackson’s not even sure, in the back row, and you would’ve thought that he would’ve picked up the phone, being connected to iwi, and said, “Hey, this bill is coming. You may want to be alerted to it and spend some time focusing in on the deal.” Was there any pre-consultation done by the Green Party Minister Eugenie Sage? That’s a live question. It’d be great to hear the response from the next speakers. I doubt that there has been any. Iwi will be a bit concerned about this bill, in particular their Treaty settlement and the obligations that this bill—this bill is, basically, going to give Department of Conservation (DOC) officials more power, and I’m a little bit concerned about that.

It also has an aspect to do with—it gives the director-general the right to declare any specified land to be a spawning ground for freshwater fish, and prohibit or impose entry restrictions on to that land. These are wide ranging powers that need to be explored and fully debated in the select committee. That means the director-general can, basically, go on to a landowner’s property and say, “This is a very significant waterway for spawning of native fish species, and we need to put a closure on it.” Well, then who’s going to—if it’s not fenced—cover the cost of the fencing? Who’s going to cover the cost of the signs? What about compensation for that? These are all the questions that need to be explored through the select committee.

Also this bill proposes, effectively, to outrank and come in over the top of the sports fish and game management plan. These plans have been in place for a long time. It’s interesting seeing the political power play, because normally these environmental NGOs—whether it’s Greenpeace, Fish & Game, Forest & Bird—they all tend to line up with this Government, but there’s quite a bit of factionalism that’s actually playing out in the background at the moment, and that will play out in the select committee. So Fish & Game have gone as far as paying a QC to give them advice on the wide-ranging nature of this bill. So there’s quite a bit of concern from Fish & Game, and they represent—as we know—a hell of a lot of people.

It was interesting to note that Horizons Regional Council, covering the area that I represent—Iain Lees-Galloway and Ian McKelvie, both MPs in the House this evening, where Horizons represent the areas that they are constituency MPs for—wrote to the Minister in April. They wanted clarification from Minister Sage on trying to balance the interests of protecting trout and native fish species. The Minister said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll come back to you in several months.” Presumably, this is her answer. We know that trout are a very invasive species. I think what’s going to play out in the select committee is the Resource Management Act section 6, that has particular regard for the protection of trout and salmon, where this bill is fundamentally about protecting native fish species and giving more wide-ranging powers to DOC officials, that I have some concerns about.

Also it’s interesting, and it’s not covered in any of the speeches so far, to note the work that farmers are doing, and, in particular, Fonterra farmers who have signed up with DOC, and they’re on the crusade with a plan that covers off Living Water, which is a partnership. And I have seen numerous examples where Fonterra farmers have worked in partnership with DOC to protect fauna and also do more to protect waterways and native fish species.

It’s heartening to see that Springston farmer down near Christchurch, Phil Musson, a dairy farmer, who won the working with nature environmental award on behalf of North Canterbury Fish & Game—he restored the Powells Road drain, which is a tributary into the Selwyn River, and very important for a trout spawning area. So we have progressive farmers that are out there doing their bit to enhance these particular native fish species that we are all so concerned about.

What’s also interesting—in the last couple of moments—is to have a look at the recent media commentary around Federated Farmers indicating that farmers should be out putting their hands up to stand for the Fish & Game Council, which I think’s very appropriate, isn’t it? The elections are coming up in a couple of weeks’ time. Farmers, on most occasions, when someone rings them up or knocks on their door, let recreational users, anglers, duck shooters, or hunters come on their property. You should have seen the negative comments that came back from Martin Taylor, who’s the relatively new chief executive of Fish & Game. He said, “The idea seemed to be to get less progressive farmers on the councils”—this is the Fish & Game councils throughout New Zealand—“in order to stop Fish & Game pointing out that the intensive farming emperor has no clothes.” And I could go on and outline other negative comments from Martin Taylor that really disappointed me, because you would have thought that Fish & Game would want to have councils that are inclusive. Myself, a dairy farmer and an avid and very excited duck shooter, in every duck shooting season I go and buy a licence. What’s wrong with me or my colleagues putting their hand up to say, “We’re interested in fishing and hunting. We want to have our voices heard on the Fish & Game regional councils.”? Potentially, they could get elected on to the national body, where there’s 12 gentlemen sitting on there at the moment.

So I think there are challenges for Fish & Game, who will no doubt be coming into the select committee saying, “We’ve all got concerns about our fish and game management plans.” The biggest concern that they’ve got is about being inclusive and getting farmers democratically elected on to their regional councils so that they can actually bridge the gap and the divide, because these are the people that let hunters and anglers on to their property.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Dr Deborah Russell.

Hon Scott Simpson: Next Minister of Conservation.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Ha, ha! This bill is small fry in terms of what it does—in terms of what it concerns itself with. It is actually only tidying up some small matters in the Conservation Act. You know, the scales have fallen from our eyes in terms of what might actually be in the Conservation Act. We’ve seen the holes in the net of protections around our precious fish and come across problems, such as that native fish in national parks and in scenic reserves were protected, but native fish in conservation parks were not. It was a slippery set of rules that people found hard to understand. So this bill is a bit of a grab bag of measures. It is not a dredge, scooping up everything on the ocean floor. In fact, it’s a set of tools—you know, a set of flies, of hooks, of rods, of sinkers—each targeted at a specific purpose to try to catch exactly the right problem. To snag the particular problem, to untie the knot, to sort it out—this is what this bill aims to do.

In fact, for all the cries from the Opposition side of the House that there was no detail in this bill, I tell you, Mr Assistant Speaker, that in fact there is a lot of detail in this bill, and it tries to sort out some very specific problems. If we look at clause 5 of the bill, something that it makes very clear is that sports fishing will be permitted, but not at the expense of freshwater fish. So in other words, there’s a balancing of provisions there. Clause 5 amends a particular definition. It inserts a provision saying that where there is a provision in a freshwater fisheries management plan and a provision in a sports fish and game management plan, then the provision in the freshwater fish management plan prevails. It’s a really straightforward ordering rule, there.

If we go to clause 7, it inserts new sections 26ZHA and 26ZHB into the Act. What it is doing is it is making it very, very clear that a person can take indigenous fish from a fishery if it is taken primarily for food consumption, including for sale of food, and it can be taken if the fish are taken in a manner that does not lead to their injury or death. So it does allow for sports fishing, provided that those fish are returned to the waters as soon as practicable after being taken. That sort of detail is present in this bill.

If we want to have a look at some of the real detail that’s in here, if we go to clause 13 of the bill, it replaces section 26ZP(1) to (3) about closed seasons. Instead of having a closed season that may be imposed for any length of time, it limits those closed seasons to five years. That’s the kind of detail that has been put into this bill by the very careful and conscientious Minister of Conservation. So I say to you, Mr Assistant Speaker, that the Minister has been very, very careful with this particular bill, trying to catch exactly the right rules and trying to catch exactly the right regulations to make it clear what this bill would apply to.

So for all the cries from the other side of the House, I think this is a very careful bill. There has been one objection raised, in particular for the Fish & Game councils. And I think this is quite an important objection, talking about how Fish & Game has perhaps been excluded from this bill. But if we look at what Fish & Game’s objectives are, their objectives are “to manage, maintain, and enhance” sports fish and game birds. In other words, it’s an objective that conflicts with the objective of protecting our indigenous fish. That’s something we need to think about long and hard.

As a final word, may I pay a compliment to my former colleague at Massey University, now at Victoria University, Dr Mike Joy, whose work on fisheries has been so important.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.