Tuesday, 18 September 2018

TUESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

TUESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Following on from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s job ads being up 7 percent on a year ago, a record positive terms of trade and strong retail card spending, and the growing ANZ Truckometer, we can see a tangible example of our healthy economy on our skylines. On Sunday, Rider Levett Bucknall released its Crane Index quarter three 2018, which highlighted strong growth in New Zealand’s construction industry. The index is regarded as a good measure of the current state of the construction industry’s workload and New Zealand, in this quarter, showed a record high. As the company themselves put it—

Chris Bishop: How’s the GDP number?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —the level of construction activity remains high across the country due to “strong underlying demand across nearly all sectors” and is “showing no signs of tailing off.”, Mr Bishop. This is yet more real data which shows an economy that is moving along at a solid pace.

Kiritapu Allan: What do the reports say about construction in Auckland?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, the report shows the number of cranes in Auckland is also a record result—increasing to 90. New building work put in place increased 12.4 percent to $7 billion as a result of significant increases in both residential and non-residential work. In addition, new building consents in Auckland are also not slowing down, with the number of consents increasing 8.7 percent in financial year 2018. This evidence demonstrates the level of investment and confidence in the Auckland construction market.

Kiritapu Allan: What reports has he seen comparing the New Zealand economy with its overseas counterparts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On Friday, the New Zealand Herald published a piece from Brian Fallow which showed that despite the positive attention the US economy has been getting, New Zealand’s economic outlook is actually better. Mr Fallow pointed out that annual average economic growth in the US and New Zealand is expected to run at about the same rate this year, but “Beyond that, New Zealand’s forecast is sunnier.” Real wage growth is higher in New Zealand, inflation and wholesale interest rates are lower in New Zealand, and the US Government deficit is almost $1 trillion, while we are running sustainable surpluses. This is a useful comparison to demonstrate the relative strength of the New Zealand economy, and that while we are transitioning to a more productive and sustainable growth path, we remain competitive on the world stage. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

David Seymour: Does the Government—

SPEAKER: Order! Can the member resume his seat. Just—all right? We’ve settled down.

David Seymour: Does the Government have any more plans to talk up the dollar?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would expect that as people look at the strong economy that we have in New Zealand, the dollar will reflect that, but we do know that there are movements in the dollar all day, every day.

David Seymour: Why does the Minister suppose that the dollar has weakened so much lately, at the same time as terms of trade have strengthened?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The New Zealand dollar trades in a very competitive global market, and I think some of the forces from the US economy may have quite a bit to do with the movement in the New Zealand dollar.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Have she and her Ministers lived up to the commitment—

SPEAKER: Order! I think it’s “have”.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Right. Sorry, Mr Speaker. Has she and her—

SPEAKER: No. Order! Take the sheet, I think. Thank you.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, that’s what I said, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: No, you said “has”, not “have”.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Have she and her Ministers lived up to the commitment to “be the most open, most transparent Government that New Zealand has ever had” in respect of the process for appointing the Government’s Chief Technology Officer?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): No. As has been stated at the time, Clare Curran’s failure to accurately answer parliamentary questions about her meeting with Mr Handley did not meet my or the former Minister’s expectation. That is why I accepted her resignation from her open Government responsibilities.

Hon Simon Bridges: What were the communications between herself and Clare Curran on the matter of the Government’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) appointment, which were confirmed to have taken place by the State services Minister, Chris Hipkins, in Parliament last Thursday?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would need to go back and check directly, but my recollection is—because, of course, the CTO role was designed to report directly to the Minister but also to have some reporting lines to myself as Prime Minister—that the Minister kept me up to date generally with the process, but only as would have been appropriate.

Hon Simon Bridges: Were the communications between herself and Clare Curran about the Chief Technology Officer role in the form of emails, texts, conversations, or were they across multiple platforms, and, if so, which?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In order to answer that with accuracy I would need to go back and check across all those platforms.

Hon Simon Bridges: What was the content of the communication between herself and Clare Curran on the appointment of Chief Technology Officer?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I referred to in my second answer, the Minister kept me abreast generally with the process she was undertaking because of the anticipated reporting lines, but it was only as appropriate and, as Ministers do from time to time, on significant appointments.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was there an email between the Prime Minister and Clare Curran by way of private Gmail account?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would need to go back and check any of these questions. I believe that there are Official Information Act requests that have gone in to the Minister. Minister Curran has made sure that all of her Gmails have been handed over to the Chief Archivist, which means that they will be subject to the Public Records Act and the Official Information Act, and of course, the Official Information Act covers all my correspondence as well.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given I’m asking the Prime Minister about direct communications by private Gmail between her and her former Minister, does she really expect us to take it that she can’t tell us today?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What I’m saying to the House is I am happy to answer those questions in detail, if the member gives me notice, so that I can make sure that I answer them with accuracy. That, I think, is probably fair enough, given that as Prime Minister, I will receive hundreds of emails and a number of text messages, and the member’s asking me to recall with some specificity about both.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has the Prime Minister used private Gmail with Clare Curran?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, primarily, I conduct my business across my parliamentary accounts, but I want to ensure that I answer the member with accuracy, so if he wishes to put them down in detail, then I will do so.

Hon Grant Robertson: Does the Prime Minister recall the following quote: “I have quite a number of emails but because I have my electorate office and others I tend to use a private email address.”, made by John Key, the former National Party Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I have seen that statement, and that is why I have consistently told the House the most important piece of information here is that all of those forms of communication—be they LinkedIn, Facebook, WhatsApp, text message—are covered by the Official Information Act, because it is mode-neutral to ensure that we can document to this House where all of that work takes place. That’s exactly what the former leader of the National Party said himself.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has she had any conversations, emails, or texts with Derek Handley since she’s been Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, to answer with some accuracy, I would want to go back. My best recollection—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My best recollection is that I received, some months ago, a text from Mr Handley mentioning the CTO role, which I do not recall directly engaging with as that would not have been appropriate.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Prime Minister contemplated putting the leader of the National Party out of his misery by leaking the email?

SPEAKER: Further supplementary?

Hon Simon Bridges: Were the conversations, emails, or texts with Mr Handley about the role of the Government’s Chief Technology Officer, and, if so, what was discussed?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can rule out any direct verbal communication. I haven’t spoken with Mr Handley in at least a year, or maybe two. As I say, my best recollection is I received a text message that I didn’t directly engage in. For all other platforms, I would want to go back and check, but I don’t recall directly communicating in regards to that role.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did she agree to Derek Handley being offered the job of the Government’s Chief Technology Officer last month, noting that the Cabinet minute of last December states that the appointment would be made by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Government Digital Services?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The appointment went to the Cabinet appointments and honours committee (APH), where all members of APH make a collective decision. I, of course, am a member of APH, where that decision was made. I declared at that meeting my knowledge of Mr Handley.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it the policy of this Labour-led Government to increase the refugee quota to 1,500 a year in this term of Government, as previously announced by her Minister, and, if not, what is the Government’s policy?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I have said many times before, when we’ve made a decision as a Cabinet, that policy will be released. I know that the member is hotly anticipating the decision.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it the policy of this Labour-led Government to repeal the three-strikes law, as previously announced by her Minister; if not, what is her Government’s policy on this law?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: This Government’s policy is to have an effective justice system, which, unfortunately, we lost under that last Government. We have an increasing prison population and a static crime rate, and that’s why Minister Andrew Little is doing excellent work alongside Minister Kelvin Davis to improve rehabilitation, get the prison population down—which they are already doing—and make our communities safer.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it the policy of this Labour-led Government to pass the Employment Relations Amendment Bill as approved by all of Cabinet and reported back to select committee; if not, what changes are being made to the bill?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the Deputy Prime Minister himself has said in this House, the bill will pass. When it does, we look forward to bringing balance back to the workplace, and making sure that we have a fair go for workers and acknowledge the good work employers are doing to try and lift wages at the same time.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with her Deputy Prime Minister’s insistence yesterday that this Government was not Labour-led?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: While that member’s caught up on semantics, this Government is proud that a recent survey said that the people of New Zealand had greater confidence in us than in that last Government, and I don’t think they particularly care about descriptors and what was on a website. We have the support of New Zealand. That’s why we’re here and you’re over there.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m going to point out to the right honourable Prime Minister—when she’s finished the other conversation—that I’m here, and she doesn’t refer to me.

Hon Simon Bridges: Speaking of semantics, why are there over 50 references by her Ministers in this Parliament to it being a Labour-led Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because we’re in Government and you’re not.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Prime Minister, as evidence to the cooperative nature of this coalition, if she is aware of it being a fact that since the election—in less than 11 months—1,055 decisions have been made of unity and, since Monday’s Cabinet, more since?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I understand that to be the case, which is an incredible list of achievements that far outstrips anything that last Government achieved, I would say, in an entire nine years.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why did she say yesterday, in respect of the phrase “Labour-led Government”, “I’ve never used that phrase,” when Hansard records her using it more than a dozen times as Prime Minister, right in that seat?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I am the leader of the Labour Party. I don’t think anyone on this side of the House has lost sight of that. I am also the Prime Minister of a Government that has a coalition partner and a confidence and supply partner, and I am proud of all of them.

Hon Simon Bridges: When the Prime Minister commented on GDP on Hosking’s show this morning, was the reason she made the mistake that she did because she was distracted by managing coalition differences in her Labour-led Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. It’s not the first time that Mike Hosking and I have not listened to each other.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she know the difference between GDP and Crown financial statements?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did she know at 8 a.m. this morning?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. Next question.

Hon Simon Bridges: How will her Budget responsibility rules (BRRs) impact on GDP?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In our minds, of course, it will support them. We need to make sure that we’re delivering responsible governance, and our BRRs were delivered on in the last Budget and continue to show that we’re able to deliver surpluses whilst maintaining Crown spending at around 30 percent and debt to a level of 20 percent.

Question No. 4—Defence

4. Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Defence: Is it his intention to continue the deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq beyond 2019?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Ultimately, those decisions are for Cabinet to make. This Government will undertake a strategic reassessment in early 2019. All options will be on the table at that point in time. Those decisions will be made around the strategic situation, our values, our independent foreign policy, and how we think that this Government might make a difference to the lives of the Iraqi people.

Hon James Shaw: Does he agree that continued military involvement of outside forces has actually further destabilised the region and made it easier for terror groups to recruit, and has led to an increase in violence rather than a decrease?

Hon RON MARK: No, we don’t. We’re confident that the independent, principles-based decision that Cabinet made yesterday was the right thing to do. I think I would add that for Iraq to become a prosperous nation once again, for its people to enjoy a quality of life that we enjoy, and for them to enjoy the well-being and the support of a good Government such as we enjoy, they need security. Security is paramount to the well-being of the people of Iraq, and I think that is the greatest contribution we’re able to make at this time. But, again, come next year, this Government will reassess the situation.

Hon James Shaw: Does he agree that if New Zealand were to play a role beyond 2019, then the New Zealand public would rather it be focused on building schools and roads and hospitals rather than a seemingly never-ending military engagement?

Hon RON MARK: We understand that that is the view of some people, and we would share those views that, ultimately, that is where we would like Iraq to be. Right now, the most important thing is to guarantee security. Right now, where we can make a strong contribution, along with our Australian partners, is to improve the quality of the security forces there and thereby lend greater security. For NGOs to be able to deliver to those people, they need security. We’ve seen examples in Sudan where the wonderful efforts of NGOs have been interdicted by the lack of security. I would also point out that in Afghanistan alone, this Government, over the years since 2001, has put in over $100 million in aid. There’s another $2 million to the UN Development Programme and there is about $3.5 million going into the UN Development Programme around technical assistance for de-mining support.

Hon James Shaw: Well, would he agree that the money that we spend on these military deployments would be better spent on humanitarian aid and reconstruction?

Hon RON MARK: I guess a quick add-up of the cost of all of the deployments that the Government has just announced comes to a grand total of about $31.4 million, bearing in mind that a couple of those deployments are for two years, not one year. Ultimately, the Government will in time—and, I think, next year—look at how we can make a contribution. It may well be that there may not be a military contribution; the focus may be on humanitarian assistance. Of course we’d like to build hospitals. Of course we’d like to help build schools. Of course we’d like to help re-establish the infrastructure. Iraq, in particular, is looking at a $100 billion bill for reconstruction, but $31.4 million is not going to build a new school, it’s not going to build a new hospital, and it’s not going to rebuild the infrastructure. It can make a substantive difference to the NGOs who are delivering that sort of support and thereby enhancing security.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that he would like “less of a focus on celebrating economic growth that is driven by population increase”; if so, will he be disappointed if GDP per capita growth figures released by Statistics New Zealand on Thursday are lower than 1.6 percent, its average since 2012?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I stand by my full statement that the member is quoting from: “I favour more investment in New Zealand going towards the productive side of the economy and less of a focus on celebrating economic growth that is driven by population increase and people selling houses to each other, which is what we saw for the last nine years.” In answer to the second part of the question, I will await the quarterly results before passing judgment.

Hon Amy Adams: Has he also been given a hint on the upcoming GDP numbers, as the Prime Minister said this morning that she had?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No.

Hon Amy Adams: Has he seen reports this morning that the New Zealand dollar gained after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was “pretty pleased with the upcoming GDP numbers”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The New Zealand dollar has fluctuated throughout the morning, as it does on most days. I’ve also seen the Prime Minister’s statement that she was referencing the unaudited Government statements.

Hon Amy Adams: Does he think it’s acceptable for any core economic statistics to be indicated to the market ahead of their official release?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There is an awful lot of speculation about economic statistics. We see new economic statistics listed every day, and, as with every previous Prime Minister and finance Minister, we, of course, get material from Treasury on a regular basis before it’s announced.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: For the benefit of the primary questioner, would he tell her the—

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —difference between—

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to ask the Deputy Prime Minister to start that question again. We don’t do things for the benefit of individual members in here.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I’m always trying to be helpful, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Would the Minister of Finance point out the great difference there is between the Crown financial accounts and basic GDP figures?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Absolutely. So the Crown financial accounts look back over the previous year, and it will be an interesting occasion when they are released. What the GDP figures will show us is how things have been going in the quarter that finished at the end of June. I’m sure the member opposite will be very interested to hear that.

Hon Amy Adams: Does the Minister consider that it’s part of his job as the Minister of Finance to make sure that the Prime Minister knows the difference between GDP and core Crown accounts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Prime Minister certainly knows the difference between those things, as I do. But, you know, everybody makes mistakes, including the member, who put out a press release yesterday telling us that the Government’s anti-growth policies are hurting business confidence, and one that also said that New Zealand is now a very highly taxed economy, yet we’re 34th out of 35 in terms of tax wedge. So everyone makes mistakes, Ms Adams.

Hon Amy Adams: Is it the case that this sort of mistake by the Prime Minister on something as basic as knowing the difference between GDP numbers and the Crown’s own accounts is one of the reasons that business confidence is now at a 10-year low?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Prime Minister is very clear on the difference between those two things. She is also extremely clear on the fact that what we are striving towards is an economy that actually delivers to New Zealanders higher wages and better living standards. I, for one, know that the Prime Minister is not satisfied with GDP growth that saw New Zealand described as having the worst homelessness in the world. We know we can do better on this side of the House, and we will do better.

Question No. 6—Housing and Urban Development

6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many KiwiBuild homes has the Labour-led Government completed to date, and how many will be completed by 1 July 2019?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): The Government aims to build 1,000 KiwiBuild homes by 1 July 2019, ramping up to 5,000 in 2019-20 and 10,000 in 2020-21. The first 18 KiwiBuild homes are completed, and the ballot is open for young families. I’m very glad to say there’s been immense interest in these homes, with more than 500 people going to the open home in the first weekend.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it correct that the Mount Roskill development will cost $4 billion to develop over 15 years, with roughly a quarter of the houses being KiwiBuild?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I haven’t seen the origin of the $4 billion figure—it may be a gross figure—but, as I’ve pointed out to the member before, that development will wash its face. It will break even over time, and in the process—over a 10-year period—we will build 10,000 new homes in that community, with more than 2,400 of them being affordable KiwiBuild homes for young families. People in that community have been waiting years and years to have a Government that will actually build affordable homes for young Kiwi families.

Hon Judith Collins: What is the cost of the KiwiBuild component of the Mount Roskill development?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I urge the member to do the maths. If you’ve got 2,400 homes that are being sold within the Auckland KiwiBuild price caps—I leave the member to work that out. There is no subsidy in the KiwiBuild homes. There is no subsidy. We are simply choosing to build affordable homes, that people desperately need.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question’s pretty clear: what’s the cost of the KiwiBuild component of the Mount Roskill development? This follows on from a question where the Minister says he doesn’t know the origin of the $4 billion cost for Mount Roskill, when he was actually the origin of the $4 billion cost—

SPEAKER: Can the member come to the point of order?

Hon Judith Collins: He should address the question. I don’t believe he has.

SPEAKER: He not only addressed it but he answered it.

Hon Judith Collins: What is the time line of the KiwiBuild component of the Mount Roskill development?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I have to say, I appreciate the member’s concern for the speedy progress that is being made in the Mount Roskill development. The houses are actually already being built. There is demolition under way, infrastructure is being laid on the ground, State houses are being built, and KiwiBuild houses are being built. And we’re going to roll out that build programme in Mount Roskill around the construction of the light rail line which is going to serve that community, and in 10 years’ time, we will have built 10,000 new homes in that community.

Hon Judith Collins: If the Minister doesn’t know the cost of the KiwiBuild development at Mount Roskill, the time line for the KiwiBuild development in Mount Roskill, and doesn’t know where he got the $4 billion figure he was throwing around last week about Mount Roskill, then why should anybody think he’s going to do anything other than grin his way through while these poor houses are not being built?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, needless to say, I reject every premise in that member’s question, and I would point out—if she’s so concerned about public confidence, I invite her to read the Ipsos survey results which came out last week, that said that 50 percent of New Zealanders regarded housing and the housing crisis as being the major issue of concern for this country. Twice as many people said that they had confidence in our Government’s work on the housing crisis than the performance of the old Government.

Question No. 7—State Services

7. VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of State Services: Is the Government working to improve and modernise the way that the Public Service operates; if so, how?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of State Services): Yes, the Government is embarking on the most significant reform of New Zealand’s Public Service in 30 years. We want to see a Public Service that operates as one joined-up system to tackle the big, complex challenges facing New Zealand, and we want much more convenient public services that put citizens at the centre of service delivery.

Virginia Andersen: What’s a practical example of how this is likely to make a difference for the average New Zealander?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: One practical example of how public services can be improved is during significant life events. There are at least a dozen occasions in somebody’s life where they require major interactions with the Government: the birth of a child, moving house, moving jobs, retirement, the death of a close family member, to name some examples. These are all examples of where having one single contact with the Government would be much better for citizens.

Virginia Andersen: How are the working lives of public servants likely to be improved?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We’re committed to an impartial, politically neutral Public Service that will enable successive Governments to tackle the big challenges New Zealand faces, and the reform process will reflect that. Public servants will have greater clarity around their roles, and—importantly—obstacles to them working together in a connected way to provide better public services to New Zealanders will be broken down.

Question No. 8—Defence

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Has he seen the quote “Does he not realise that he sent our brave New Zealand soldiers to Iraq on a fool’s errand, and that training the Iraqi Army to stand and fight is literally Mission: Impossible?”, and does he agree with it?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can the member read the question, please? Read it again.

8. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) to the Minister of Defence: Has he seen the quote “Does he not realise that he sent our brave New Zealand soldiers to Iraq on a fool’s errand, and the training the Iraqi Army to stand and fight is literally Mission: Impossible?”; if so, does he agree with it?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Yes, I recognise that quote.

SPEAKER: No. The member will finish answering the question.

Hon RON MARK: Yes, I recognise that quote, and on the information I had at the time, I still stand by that statement.

Hon Mark Mitchell: How does the Minister reconcile his statement on Morning Report today that there was never any attempt by the previous Government to work across parties, when New Zealand First declined a briefing, an invitation, to visit troops in Iraq with Gerry Brownlee, Andrew Little, and myself in 2016?

Hon RON MARK: I have never received an invitation from Mr Brownlee or from that member on any visit, and, in fact, that member can enlighten people about the conversation that he and I had on the telephone where that member apologised for not inviting me.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to whether it’s a fact that contrary to being asked, with respect to consultation, the troops were already there, before the invitation was sent to the New Zealand First Party in the first place?

SPEAKER: Order! That is not something the current Minister has responsibility for.

Hon Mark Mitchell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There appears to be some confusion. The Minister stood up and said that he’d never personally received an invitation—and I was very clear about the fact that the invitation went to New Zealand First—and the Deputy Prime Minister then stood up and contradicted him and said that “We did receive an invitation.” Which is correct?

SPEAKER: Well, is that a point of order?

Hon Mark Mitchell: Yes.

SPEAKER: You’re not serious? Stand up and ask a supplementary, if the member wants to.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Why didn’t the Minister consult with or brief either the New Zealand National Party or the ACT Party before a decision was made to deploy our New Zealand Defence Force men and women into theatres of war?

Hon RON MARK: On numerous occasions, I have taken National Party representatives with me—in fact, I took Mr Simon O’Connor into Iraq and into Afghanistan. In those conversations that we had on that trip, it became very apparent and very clear to me what the National Party’s view was on the deployment. In fact, one would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to know that the National Party supported a continuation of that deployment, unless, of course, it’s just now changed its mind.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Has the Minister consulted with the ACT Party?

Hon RON MARK: No, I have not had consultation, but I would say this to that member also—and I would say it to Mr Seymour—the way that we have operated my office is that we make the door wide open. In fact, the member has been into my office for a briefing.

David Seymour: I’ll be right over.

Hon RON MARK: We will always keep the door open, and I am fully ready, at any time—Mr Seymour—to give a full background briefing. Members of the National Party sat in on the bilateral conversations with the Prime Minister of Iraq. They sat in on the bilaterals with the Minister of Defence of Iraq, and visited Afghanistan and sat in on the bilaterals with the NATO Ambassador to Afghanistan. A member of the National Party has participated at all levels of those conversations and has made it very clear to me that the National Party support it. To Mr Seymour: the door’s open. I apologise for not getting round to you. I would have done that after the announcement.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Mr Speaker, can I just seek some guidance from you, because—

SPEAKER: No, you can’t. The member can ask a supplementary question, or, if he has a real point of order, he can do it. But if he trifles with me again, he’ll be losing his supplementary.

Hon Mark Mitchell: It is a point of order, because—

SPEAKER: Well, the way the member does it is to stand up and say, “Point of order.”

Hon Mark Mitchell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The point of order is simply this: the Minister is talking about taking other members away on trips. That’s not the question. The question was around consultation with Opposition parties before decisions are made on deploying New Zealand Defence Force men and women.

SPEAKER: Between the last two supplementaries, that has been very clearly answered.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Why hasn’t he applied his own high standards to himself in terms of a cross-party consultation and consensus in an MMP environment?

Hon RON MARK: Right at the outset of being sworn in as Minister, I think I made it very, very clear that I sought, for the benefit of the men and women in uniform, to gain as wide a cross-party consensus on defence matters as we possibly can. It is for that reason that we have gone out of our way to invite National Party representatives to attend briefings. It’s for that reason that I have never refused a request from the Hon Paula Bennett. I think there are about two or three National Party members who’ve sought permission to go on to military bases and talk with Defence Force personnel, unlike what happened to me when I was specifically blocked by the National Government at the time.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s actually not responsible for that as Minister.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Did the Minister of Defence ever contact the previous Minister of Defence asking him for support to get access to military bases in the United States because he’d been blocked, and the previous Minister of Defence assisted that member in getting access to those bases?

SPEAKER: Order! There’s no ministerial responsibility for discussions that were had before this Minister was Minister.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is, however, a long tradition that matters that arise during question time from answers from Ministers may in fact lead to further supplementaries. Now, the Hon Ron Mark has just made a completely ridiculous comment in the House that he cannot sustain and is simply not the truth. The question the Hon Mark Mitchell seeks to ask is an opportunity for the Hon Ron Mark to set the record right, because he was clearly mistaken in his earlier, outrageous answer.

SPEAKER: Well, the member is absolutely aware that the area that was being discussed is something that is outside the Hon Ron Mark’s area of ministerial responsibility. If there is a view that the answer was in error, if it was deliberately in error, then I’m sure I will receive a letter on that matter, and if it was a matter which was accidentally in error, I’m sure that the member concerned will correct his answer.

Hon RON MARK: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, and I acknowledge and I want to thank Mr Mitchell. It slipped my mind—

SPEAKER: Order! Does the member want to make a personal explanation?

Hon RON MARK: Yes.

SPEAKER: Right. The Hon Ron Mark has sought leave to make a personal explanation. I expect it is to correct an answer.

Hon RON MARK: Correct, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Hon RON MARK: Thank you. I just wish to correct that answer, and I thank the member for reminding me. That member, when he was the Minister of Defence, did assist me to visit the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Luke Air Force Base on a private visit, just as I assisted him.

Question No. 9—Workplace Relations and Safety

9. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Is he confident the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, as reported back by the select committee, has the support of a parliamentary majority?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes, and I want to express my thanks to our coalition and confidence and supply partners, who have helped us, and continue to help us, to shape and deliver a bill that restores workers’ rights and strengthens their bargaining position, something that we can all—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s finished his answer. He probably finished it after one word.

Hon Scott Simpson: Was the Deputy Prime Minister then correct when he said yesterday it was “not the fact” that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill had been agreed to by Cabinet?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The bill as introduced was agreed to by Cabinet. Should the Government see any opportunities to improve the bill in the future, that will be a decision of Cabinet also.

Hon Scott Simpson: So when the Minister took the employment relations reforms to Cabinet in the first 100 days of the Labour-led Government, a bill that would, amongst other things, take away the 90-day trials, allow union access to business premises without—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Scott Simpson: May I rephrase, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: I think the member can start again, and it’s going to be quite a lot shorter.

Hon Scott Simpson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. So when the Minister took the employment relations reforms to Cabinet, did the Deputy Prime Minister and the rest of New Zealand First’s Cabinet members support it?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: As a Government that is focused on growing an economy that is growing and working for all of us—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —yes.

SPEAKER: Order! I’m now going to award the Opposition two extra supplementaries, and I’m going to ask the Minister to focus on answering the question in future.

Hon Scott Simpson: Sorry, I’m to ask the question again, or—

SPEAKER: No, he did answer it in the end, but he gave superfluous, not relevant, material.

Hon Scott Simpson: A further supplementary, then: what parts of the Employment Relations Amendment Bill are still being negotiated with the New Zealand First Party, or is he not involved with negotiations that would make changes to his own bill?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The bill as returned from the Education and Workforce Committee is what I intend to bring before the House for second reading. If the Government sees an opportunity to improve the bill, that will occur at the committee of the whole House, and that will be a decision of Cabinet.

Kieran McAnulty: How does this bill fit in with the Government’s objective to grow and share New Zealand’s prosperity more fairly?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: This bill provides some of the foundations upon which that objective can be met and restores the rights of Kiwi workers that existed under the previous Labour Government, which was a time of sustained economic growth in New Zealand.

Hon Scott Simpson: If the point of making changes to the bill at this stage of the parliamentary process is, as the Deputy Prime Minister says, to “pay attention to the public”, why were the changes not made by the select committee, which had a Government majority and is tasked with listening to all submitters?

SPEAKER: Order! That’s not an area that the Minister has responsibility for.

Hon Scott Simpson: With regard to the Labour-led Government’s proposed industrial relations legislation, at what point do actions undermining the principles of Cabinet collective responsibility, coalition stability, and cohesion cease being merely disloyalty and become workplace bullying?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: He’s just mischief-making.

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. That is not a question which is either in order or the responsibility of this Minister. Does the member have a further supplementary?

Hon Scott Simpson: Is he concerned that the employment relations reforms were originally supported by the Deputy Prime Minister through Cabinet, were supported by a select committee—sorry, I’ve misspoken, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, the member can start again. It’s a bit of a habit we’re getting into today.

Hon Scott Simpson: Thank you very much for your patience. Is he concerned that the employment relations reforms were originally supported by the Deputy Prime Minister through Cabinet and were supported by a select committee, which had a majority of Government MPs, including a New Zealand First MP, but are now being used as a political bargaining chip by the Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The last three questions from that member are against the Standing Orders, and, with the greatest of respect—he’s been around for a little time—he should not turn this into amateur hour with his baseless attack on the parliamentary process.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Mr Speaker, I appreciate your rulings in the instance of the first two questions, where, clearly, there was no ministerial responsibility as the question was asked, but it is the responsibility of a Minister to shepherd bills through the House, particularly once they have gone into the process. So to ask a Minister responsible about concerns they may have about potential derailing of original intentions is perfectly legitimate. And I would suggest too that in this newly created environment of MMP—which, apparently, the Deputy Prime Minister understands far greater than the rest of us—such a question is perfectly acceptable.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The only thing that concerns me about the passage of this bill through the House is the way in which the Opposition, that does not have a substantive argument to make against the legislation, has resorted to fearmongering and misleading the business community and the public of New Zealand in an attempt to make a political point.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That can’t be an answer to the question. That cannot possibly be an answer to the question. To simply—

SPEAKER: The member was asked—the member will resume his seat. At the tail-end of the question, the Minister was asked about his concerns with regard to the bill. He’s indicated what his concerns are.

Question No. 10—Pacific Peoples

10. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Associate Minister for Pacific Peoples: What recent announcements have been made that highlight the progress of Pacific women in leadership positions?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Associate Minister for Pacific Peoples): This morning, members across the House celebrated 125 years of suffrage by honouring 11 Pacific women who have been recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday and New Year’s honours. Among the group was our very first Pacific woman in Parliament, Dame Luamanuvao Winnie Laban. On top of this, recently there have been several significant public appointments and acknowledgments of Pacific women across different sectors, including Fepuleai Margie Apa, appointed CEO for the Counties Manukau District Health Board, the first Pacific CEO of a health board; Faumuina Associate Professor Fa’afetai Sopoaga, last week awarded the Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for Excellence in Tertiary Teaching; and Tessa Temata, the first Pacific person appointed High Commissioner to her country of heritage, the Cook Islands—a great example of the Pacific reset in action.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What is significant about these appointments and achievements?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Having diverse women represented at the most senior levels of influence and decision making is crucial to advancing the priorities and aspirations of all women in New Zealand. While I’m proud of how far we’ve come, there is still much to do. For Pacific women, the pay gap is wider, there is a higher percentage in lower-skilled work, and they are still too often absent from decision-making tables. However, things are changing. This Government’s commitment to things like pay equity, access to upskilling and training, support for families, and diversifying representation at decision-making tables will make a difference to further advancing Pacific women.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Why is it important that Pacific women are supported into leadership positions here in Aotearoa and in the Pacific region?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: An initiative led by the Australian Government to grow women leaders in the Pacific shows that supporting women’s leadership is key to reducing poverty, promoting economic growth and democracy, and increasing the well-being of women, girls, and their families. This research was in reference to the Pacific, but the reality is New Zealand shares many of the challenges our wider region experiences. Our country is sure to go from strength to strength when we are able to truly embrace the value of our shared Pacific heritage, the people who we share it with, and the contribution that they make. This is important not only for the 300,000 Pacific people who call New Zealand home but for all New Zealanders.

Question No. 11—State Services

11. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of State Services: What was the date of all communications between Ministers and Derek Handley regarding the appointment of the Government’s Chief Technology Officer in addition to those publically released by the previous Minister for Government Digital Services and up to the time Mr Handley accepted the role?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of State Services): I communicated with Derek Handley on Monday, 10 September. Megan Woods has had no communication with Derek Handley. Clare Curran has advised me that she had communications with Derek Handley in addition to those publicly released between the final meeting of the interview panel on 30 July and 24 August. It’s worth noting that because discussion about Mr Handley’s interests was ongoing, the process was never completed.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Was the job offer to Derek Handley in August made through Clare Curran’s private Gmail account?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I understand it was made during a phone conversation with him.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What was the communication between the former Minister and the Prime Minister over the Chief Technology Officer that he referred to in answer to questions in the House last Thursday?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It was very clear that the Prime Minister and the former Minister had been having discussions about the appointment process, as the Prime Minister outlined in questions today. They also had conversations about the incorrect written parliamentary question answer that she had given regarding the matter, which led to her resignation from the portfolio.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will he apologise to taxpayers on behalf of the Government for the waste of over $100,000 of public money on this botched appointment; if not, can he explain what value New Zealanders got for their hard-earned taxes?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’d be happy to do so when the previous Government will apologise for all the payouts that were made during their tenure in Government.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he accept that leadership in the Government’s digital services has gone backwards in the last year in that the Cabinet promise of a Chief Technology Officer by February has been flummoxed, the Government Chief Digital Officer has, understandably, resigned through this fiasco, and the Government can still not tell nearly a year into Government what its policy is on his role?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first question, no.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he stand by his statement as the Minister of State Services: “The Government’s Chief Technology Officer is essential for leadership in digital services.”, and, if so, why is it that it is no longer Government policy?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In answer to the first part of the question, yes.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he stand by the answer given by Clare Curran to National’s question as to what Government business had been conducted through her private Gmail account, that was too incoherent and painful to repeat—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It was the answer—would you like me to read out Clare Curran’s answer?

SPEAKER: No, I don’t. I want the member to come to the question very quickly.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Well, the question is this: does he stand by the answer given by Clare Curran to National’s question as to what Government business had been conducted through her private Gmail account, and if he does not stand by that answer, can this Parliament finally get an answer as to what was in those Gmails?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It’s not up to me to stand by those matters or not. What I can tell the member is that those emails—all of the work-related emails, I’m advised by Clare Curran—have been handed over to the Chief Archivist.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point of order is that I have now asked eight questions to try and establish the content of those emails. I’ve now had eight answers in which I’ve been told I can get them under the Official Information Act and that they might be archived. How can that be an acceptable answer? Because if that were the case, we wouldn’t bother with question time in Parliament; members of this House would simply go to Archives and through the Official Information Act.

SPEAKER: My view on that is that if the member now, given the fact that they have been given to the archivist and therefore are available to the members, asked a very specific primary question—primary question—then there would be an obligation on Ministers to bring that to the House.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That very suggestion was made by the Prime Minister in response to the Leader of the Opposition’s questions earlier today. I have listed two very specific questions, last Thursday and today, and I still do not know the dates or the contents of those emails. So I’m happy to follow your direction, Mr Speaker, but the quid pro quo is that when we do ask direct questions we actually get answers—

SPEAKER: Order! I’ve just indicated to the member my intention of holding the Government to account if there are well-worded questions. I think that is a matter of the member’s responsibility and other members’ responsibilities, and one just has to look at the first sentence, the first phrases of his question, to know that the member will have to do better if he’s going to get my support—[Hon Dr Nick Smith stands up] No, the member will resume his seat. This issue is now closed. If the member wants a further supplementary, he can have one.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is not the issue that you were dealing with when you gave that instruction, but if you look at today’s question, it asks for one date—

SPEAKER: Order! And I just made that very point.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, he doesn’t know that.

SPEAKER: The Deputy Prime Minister has a wide range of responsibilities to do with the Government and to do with foreign affairs. Educating members of the Opposition on how to phrase questions is not one of them. That’s mine, I took it, and I would much prefer in the future not to have his support.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I will repeat, as a supplementary, my primary question from last Thursday and see if I can get an answer. How many undisclosed emails through former Minister Clare Curran’s private Gmail account are there that relate to the appointment of the Government’s Chief Technology Officer, and what is the content of those emails?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I have not seen the individual emails in question. They have been handed to the Chief Archivist. Clare Curran has explained to me that the contents of those emails are, predominantly, post her conversation with Derek Handley where he was offered the job, and related to the scope of the positon. That’s the information that I have to date.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House is still none the wiser of the number of Gmails—

SPEAKER: Yes, and the member will resume his seat. What I have indicated to the member is that if he asks his question properly tomorrow, or at some stage in the future, with sufficient detail, I will expect a proper answer. In fact, I think it would be a good thing for transparency if in answering a specific and detailed and well-worded question, the Minister brought the emails to the House and made them available in that way.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think what was clear in my last answer was that while those emails have been handed to the Chief Archivist, I do not have a copy of them, and I cannot guarantee that I would have a copy of them tomorrow.

SPEAKER: Well, my view is that the member is now on enough notice, and if there are email systems and there has been a transfer of them to other Government systems, then it should not be beyond the wit of the various people within the State Services Commission to sort out the relevant emails and to have them available for a fuller and more transparent explanation in the House tomorrow, if, in fact, members of the Opposition can get their question into the form where that is appropriate.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I’m not disputing anything you’ve said, but I wanted to use the point of order process to point out that there was an answer to a question last Thursday asking whether or not there were Gmail exchanges between the Prime Minister and Clare Curran. The answer explicitly from the Minister of State Services, who is now handling this matter, was “Yes.” So it is slightly inconsistent, I think, with his insistence today that he hasn’t seen emails.

SPEAKER: I think the member and I might have different memories of that. I think “communications” was the word used, not “emails”.

Hon Christopher Finlayson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week, you admonished the member for Northland for eating in the House. I need to point out to you that the vanquished member for Northland keeps chewing, or playing with his dentures, and it really is quite out of order.

SPEAKER: Right. Well, I’m going to work out the number of additional questions that I have today granted to the National Party, and they will be lost for tomorrow.

Hon Christopher Finlayson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is there one rule for one party and another rule for the leader of New Zealand First?

SPEAKER: The rules are consistent for all people, and the member should be aware of the form for bringing things up. The final part of his comment is something which was unparliamentary.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Does the member really want to continue this?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, Mr Speaker, with respect—

Chris Penk: Just woken up.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —that was an uncalled-for attack—

SPEAKER: Order! No, the member will resume his seat. I want to know who did that interjection.

Chris Penk: I did.

SPEAKER: Right. Well, I’m going to work out what the further punishment for the National Party is for that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That was a totally uncalled-for attack, and that member has been warned before. What will the consequences be if he keeps up that sort of behaviour? But, first of all, stop getting your knickers in a tangle.

SPEAKER: Well, the member was advised not to start, and the member continued and he sort of did “like for like” as part of his point of order. As a result of that, I will now be considering Mr Penk’s, but not Mr Finlayson’s, inappropriate comment. So I’ve cancelled that punishment, but I’m considering Mr Penk’s.

Question No. 12—Civil Defence

12. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour) on behalf of PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Civil Defence: What recent announcements has the Government made to improve New Zealand’s emergency management system?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Civil Defence): The Government has released its response to the ministerial technical advisory group report into improving our emergency management system. New funding of $5.2 million for specialist rapid response teams, known as fly-in teams, has been allocated to support communities in an emergency. A further $1 million in new funding will progress other initiatives, including the business case for a new emergency management facility, a common operating picture across the sector, and work on legislative changes required. Other non-fiscal reforms to the emergency management system are also being developed to ensure that all New Zealanders get consistent support in an emergency.

Kieran McAnulty: How will fly-in teams help in an emergency response?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Fly-in teams will be comprised of experienced emergency management personnel with appropriate skills and experience, including event controllers. Fly-in teams will respond without delay, wherever they are required, to work alongside and support the local teams to ensure a comprehensive and immediate response is under way. The $5.2 million in funding will resource four teams, each with nine staff who will hold specialist emergency management skills. The staff will be drawn from across agencies and civil defence groups and will be ready to respond when an emergency strikes. The deployment of these teams will not only directly assist communities during disaster relief but support local civil defence groups, who work tirelessly, often under tough conditions.

Kieran McAnulty: What other measures has the Government taken to keep people and property safe when responding to emergencies?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The Government has responded to each of the 42 recommendations in the report, agreeing to implement most of them, because we need to ensure our system is fit for purpose right now and in the years ahead. It is important we are robust in our response to the recommendations, because there are lessons to learn from previous emergencies. Among other things, I want to see the significant role that iwi play in emergency management acknowledged and incorporated into emergency planning. I look forward to working with community groups, local government, iwi, cross-party colleagues, and the emergency management sector to realise this plan.

Urgent Debates Declined

Chief Technology Officer—Appointment Process

SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Paula Bennett seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the Government’s decision to stop the process of appointing a Chief Technology Officer. This is a case of recent occurrence that involves ministerial responsibility. However, I do not think the matter is sufficiently urgent to warrant setting aside the business of the House today. It can be adequately addressed in tomorrow’s general debate. Therefore, the application is declined.

Bills

Social Security Bill

Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill

Artificial Limb Service Bill

Third Readings

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I move, That the Social Security Bill, the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill, and the Artificial Limb Service Bill be now read a third time.

It is fitting that I stand here today, almost 80 years to the day since the first Labour Government introduced the Social Security Act in 1938. The 1938 Act established one of the first comprehensive social security systems in the world, overhauling the pension system and extending benefits for families, disabled people, and the unemployed. Since then, New Zealand’s social security Act has been rewritten just once, in 1964. The Social Security Act 1964 remains the legislative basis of our welfare system today, despite being over half a century old.

When the 1964 Act was first passed, it had 135 sections. The current Act now boasts over 500 sections, some of which have been repealed and amended multiple times. This makes for a very outdated, disorganised, and complex Act. Since the 1964 Act, there have been many calls for it to be completely rewritten, both from within this House and outside of it. I’m proud to stand here today to present this long-overdue rewrite and bring our social security legislation into the modern day.

I want to acknowledge the honourable member for the East Coast, Anne Tolley, and her colleagues on the other side of the House for the role they have played in bringing this important piece of legislation to the House. I’d like to acknowledge the many people who have given their time and expertise to this rewrite. Thank you to the Social Services Committee and the 121 submitters, who provided invaluable insight into this legislation. To the Ministry of Social Development staff and Parliamentary Counsel Office drafters, who have worked on this rewrite over the past five years, I want to thank them for their dedication and commitment to rewriting this legislation, and I am sure they are all breathing a breath of relief.

When I came in as the Minister for Social Development, I had to consider how I wanted to progress this piece of legislation. I had made my opposition known in regards to the legislation as it had been introduced. I, like my colleagues on this side of the House and many others who presented during the select committee process, had concerns about the policy changes that had been included in the legislation. As the Minister, I could have chosen to put some new policy changes in there as well. However, I made the decision to remove those policy changes that had been put in and to progress it as a truly policy-neutral rewrite.

I’d heard the concerns about the legislation itself—about how hard it was to understand and use—and I experienced this myself when trying to look up different parts of the Act. This was too big an opportunity to use it as a political football. We needed a better legislative foundation for our social welfare system, and that is what this legislation provides. I really liked the analogy my colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta used—you have to sweep the floor before you can put down the new furniture—and that is what this legislation is. It is the sweeping of the floor so that we have a solid platform to make some real, positive changes to the welfare system.

I hope it is now clear that the purpose of this rewrite is to improve the clarity, coherency, accessibility, and legislative structure of the Social Security Act 1964. I have remained committed to this purpose, and before the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill’s second reading, I released Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25 that built on the widespread support for rewriting the Act whilst removing the significant policy changes from the bill.

One of the most controversial policy changes that I removed with this SOP—which I’m sure will be spoken to today in the House by the Opposition—was the insertion of a principle to further the previous Government’s rhetoric around social investment. Now, for me, personally, the idea of social investment itself is not a bad thing—investing more now to achieve better outcomes in the long term for our people is something that most people would agree with—but what the previous Government had called social investment was not that. For one, they seemed to forget about the actual investing part, which requires more support, more services, and more money towards people in the short term, and the narrative they used was not one of investing but, rather, one of liability and risk, and that is not what this Government believes in.

We know that our people are our greatest asset, and in order to further New Zealand economically and socially, we need to believe in people and support them so that they can reach their full potential. That drives everything this Government does. Already, we have made some positive changes to the lives of New Zealanders, which is reflected in this legislation. Through our Families Package, we have increased the income of 384,000 families by an average of $75 per week, and we will lift 64,000 children out of poverty by 2021.

I’m proud to have made progress in this rewrite and to be standing here today in the final stages of the legislative process to bring this old and patched-up Act into the modern era. Both sides of the House have recognised the significance of this legislation and that New Zealanders deserve social security legislation that can be read and understood by people without years of legal training.

The legislation we are debating looks very different to the 1964 Act. Following enactment of these three bills, the 1964 Act will be replaced by three new and separate Acts: the Social Security Act, the Artificial Limb Service Act, and the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Act. Legislation regarding the Artificial Limb Service and residential care and disability support services does not fit well within the current Social Security Act, and it is appropriate that these both become stand-alone pieces of legislation. Once enacted, the separation of these Acts will ensure clarity and accessibility for the public and it will also ensure that provisions are fit for purpose within the relevant legislation.

The Social Security Bill has a logical structure and flow, and there is a helpful guide to compare the 1964 Act with the new Act. The new legislation is clear, coherent, consistent, and accessible. As an example, the Social Security Bill groups all financial assistance measures together, unlike the 1964 Act, where main benefits are separated and supplementary assistance is included in seven different parts.

The legislation uses modern drafting style and provides more explanation and guidance for users. To improve accessibility and readability, there is a full contents table at the start of the Social Security Bill and a further contents table is provided for each part and each corresponding schedule. Taken as a whole, the legislation is easier for people to navigate, use, and understand. This will help ensure New Zealanders understand and have access to their entitlements. This year, we celebrate 80 years since New Zealand implemented one of the world’s first comprehensive welfare States through the 1938 Social Security Act. This will be the second rewrite in the Act’s history, and it is an essential and timely update of this legislation.

Most New Zealanders have relied on, or will rely on, this legislation at some point in their lives. It is the basis of the safety net that lies beneath all of us, and it is critical that we can all use it and understand it. I am proud to be here as the Minister for Social Development to herald in a new Act that will provide the foundation for a more empathetic, supportive, and positive welfare system for people, whānau, and their communities across Aotearoa New Zealand. I hereby commend the Social Security Bill, the Artificial Limb Service Bill, and the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill to the House.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. National, of course, did recognise the need to rewrite and update the Social Security Act after 80 years—a significantly complex piece of legislation. I also want to commend the Hon Anne Tolley, as she was the Minister who did the very, very heavy lifting to put this piece of legislation into a more workable order so that it was more user-friendly.

It is unfortunate that I stand, as the first speaker on the National side, to say that we will not be able to support this legislation because of the farce of a process that this Government undertook with a 500-page Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) dumped on us literally hours before the second reading and then refused any ability for the public to be consulted. For the Minister for Social Development to say that she valued the input of 121 submitters in the select committee process is a farce when she turns around and does that to them. The second reading was on 2 May. Even if an SOP that significant had had two weeks, there was plenty of time until now, 19 September, for our final reading.

We hear all these platitudes about this Government being the most open and transparent. Yeah, right! This side of the House did try very hard to improve the legislation with a number of SOPs that were tabled in the committee stage, but with the Government’s own Supplementary Order Paper 49, the Minister in the chair—having dumped it on the House at short notice—refused to even answer one question, which is an absolute outrage for the process in this House.

I want to just also say that it’s a significant lost opportunity, and I want to speak about the lost opportunity. Many of those minor amendments were all around enabling those front-line Work and Income officers to better serve the people who are in front of them. So that’s just the ultimate contradiction when the Minister talks about wanting to have a Work and Income that is more caring and compassionate. Well, Minister, you’ve actually got to give them some tools. This is the opportunity that you had, as the Minister, to give them some tools, and you completely avoided that opportunity. It is a lost opportunity, and it is the most vulnerable New Zealanders that will pay the price of that.

It’s interesting that the Minister in charge of this legislation, which is now split into three bills, is also the Minister responsible for the Social Investment Agency. It’s pretty dire that nearly a year into this Government’s term—a third of the way—they still don’t understand what social investment is. They still don’t understand it. The principle that was put into this piece of legislation—which National, when we were in office, actually believed—was about the most vulnerable New Zealanders: the families and the individuals that have the most complex and challenging lives. We wanted to serve them better than the system was serving them today, and the Government—the Labour-led Government—has removed that opportunity. It says that for those who are at risk of long-term welfare dependency, the Ministry of Social Development may identify appropriate assistance, support, and services. Why wouldn’t the Government want to do that? Why would the Government not want to provide the individuals and families in this country who are the most vulnerable with better support, better services, and better funding?

It’s very practical. It’s about changing lives of New Zealanders, that probably everyone in this House worries about—well, at least this side of the House does—and it’s about enabling and ensuring that people have the opportunity to lead better lives, to be able to move past what are incredibly difficult circumstances to lead lives that look quite different. I just wanted to touch on some of the very practical changes that the Government’s ripped out of this legislation, and there was a lot of work that had gone into this piece of legislation before they turned up.

One of them—it’s just an absolute no-brainer. Unfortunately, in some circumstances, we will have families that are separated where both parents have a requirement to seek support or benefits as sole parents, where both parents are looking after children from that family. The simple change with this split-care scenario was to allow both sole parents to apply for and get the sole parent support benefit—a bit of a no-brainer, really. Oh no, but the Labour-led Government have decided that that’s not a practical solution. Instead, you would deny the financial support of one of those parents and not allow them to get financial assistance through the sole parent benefit. How is that helping the most vulnerable families? How is that helping a family in need when you deny the opportunity of a parent who is a sole parent applying for the sole parent benefit? Absolutely ridiculous—it is an absolutely crazy, crazy change, particularly from a Government who bleats on about putting children at the centre of everything. Well, this was a lost opportunity. The Government could have made it easier on those children but decided not to.

Another practical example that, again, actually speaks to the heart of child-centred policy was the combining of the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit—pretty much putting them into one benefit and giving it a new name. It was actually a name that was far more positive and meaningful. It would have made it the “supported child’s payment”. But no, that was too much. That was too much of a stretch for the Government to think of that particular change, which introduced a new single rate of sole parent support and actually meant that those who are caregivers for orphans or for supported children would get the same entitlements and the same access that other sole parents do. So, again, it was a very, very, minor amendment and an opportunity to actually make it easier for the life of a parent—in this case, a foster parent—who is looking after a child. But, no, that was too much as well.

The third change—again, a very unusual one that the Government would dump—is a change in the name of the emergency benefit to the “exceptional circumstances benefit”, which actually reflects what it is: it is about exceptional circumstances. So part of that was clarification, and the whole process for this legislation was about making the legislation easier, making it more simple to use, and making it more user-friendly for Work and Income staff and policy makers, as well as, of course, for customers. But, no, the Government couldn’t accept that change either.

In terms of the process, I referred to the fact that it’s hardly been an open and transparent process when a significant SOP—500 pages—is dumped on us an hour before a second reading. The social security legislation covers $25 billion a year of taxpayers’ money—$25 billion a year. So, to the Minister in charge, Carmel Sepuloni: two weeks—two weeks—you could have given and provided the opportunity for consultation. In this House, the Minister in charge of this legislation could have answered questions on it and could have answered questions on SOP 49, which in her mind obviously didn’t even warrant any answers, which I think is a disgrace. When you’re talking about the scale of funding that this particular legislation will govern—$25 billion—this Parliament and the people of New Zealand deserve openness and transparency. But that’s a bit of a common thread of this Government—Labour-led coalition, New Zealand First - led, whatever we call it these days. What we do know is that it’s definitely not open and transparent, and, unfortunately, this is now legislation we can’t support, because this is a Government that actually didn’t take the opportunity to support the very people we’re all supposedly here to serve.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister for Social Development): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity. I rise in support of the third reading of these particular bills. I do want to acknowledge both you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and, of course, my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni for the hard work done to reach this point in time. I just want to pick up on a couple of points made by the previous speaker, Louise Upston. Talk about missed opportunities. Nine long years is what the last Government had to make sure that we had a piece of legislation that would serve the most vulnerable in our country, that actually would make sure that it empowered them and caught them at times of vulnerability, not actually penalise them, and not have a more systematic regime to make sure that we’re measuring the way we invest in helping these people instead of—guess what?—actually helping them. Our Prime Minister in this Government has made it very clear that we want to do everything in a humanistic way. Every piece of work must be humanised and must show empathy, compassion, and care.

For that side of the House, who don’t understand what a policy-neutral bill is, I’m going to offer, on behalf of the Minister and myself, the opportunity to sit down so I can explain what a policy-neutral bill is, because everything that that last member’s contribution pointed to was actually policies from her time in Government—her time in Government. What we set out to do was a policy-neutral rewrite that would allow us to actually build a platform—a strong platform—that showed empathy and that showed support to Kiwis and New Zealanders who needed it the most.

I don’t wish to take too much of the House’s time, but I do want to say this. On 14 September, great things happened. On 14 September 1938, 80 years ago, this particular piece of legislation, the Social Security Act, passed into effect. On 14 September 1975, a kuia by the name of Dame Whina Cooper set out from the Far North to march upon Parliament with the moniker, “Not one more acre.” On 14 September 1979, it was my birthday. I want to commend this bill to the House.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Can I wish the Hon Peeni Henare a happy birthday. I’m not sure if it’s 25, 26—he looks very young; he looks still like a spring chicken. Mind you, when he’s out on the rugby field with the Parliamentary Rugby Team, he’s still active and still very strong. So I wish him well on his birthday.

I want to make a couple of comments in regards to this legislation. We are discussing the Social Security Bill in its third reading.

The member talked about the phrase “policy-neutral”, and I want to take to task that comment. I’m happy to take his tutelage—he actually said that he’d be willing to spend time. But, when we say policy-neutral, then when we talk about Part 2, Subpart 9A, where it actually talks about the winter energy payment—well, that actually has come from a policy from the Labour Party. I’m not sure whether it’s Labour-led, and New Zealand First—bit confused at the moment—but it is a policy. So I want to challenge the member in regards to the fact that when he says and declares in this House “This is policy-neutral”, well, actually, it’s not, because that is a direct correlation to a promise that was made in a manifesto in an election in 2017. So I have to say that it is not policy-neutral. Winter energy payments actually come from the Labour Party itself.

I want to go back, because I want to—again, on the record—remind the members of Government in regards to what they are actually voting for, and what they are standing up to support in this bill, the Social Security Bill. I want to remind the members that—as the Hon Peeni Henare talked about—from 1938 to 1964 to now in 2018, in this rewrite bill, the purpose and the principles have not changed. And we support it. We support those purposes and those principles.

And here I want to read what those principles are, because I think it’s really important that the members and the Government actually realise what they’re voting for. So the principles on page 24 and clause 4 declare this: “Every person performing or exercising a duty, function, or power under this Act must have regard to the following general principles: (a) work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being: (b) the priority for people of working age should be to find and retain work: (c) people for whom work may not currently be an appropriate outcome should be assisted to prepare for work in the future and develop employment-focused skills: (d) people for whom work is not appropriate should be supported in accordance with this Act.”

I make this point because in this House, and even outside the House and in the public, in forums and debates, the National Party has been criticised. It has been criticised because it has upheld the principles that are declared in the Act. The best thing for all peoples, in reliance to the Social Security Act, is work. We’ve declared that, and yet many times I’ve heard this debate, I’ve heard the rhetoric, saying that we’ve become hard-headed and we’ve become cold and careless as a party. But today, in the third reading of this, members opposite will be voting for these principles. So what I would like to say is that if we have the rhetoric, if we have people debate and talk about this, then they are voting for the very things that we have declared that we support in this House.

We support the importance of work. We support the importance that all those who should be assisted to regain employment should be assisted. But, for those who cannot, then we support that it’s important to wrap around them to give them the ability to go through training or otherwise, or those with a disability—we understand and recognise that. But in clause 4, “Principles”, the word “work” has been named six times. I want to put that on the record. So for those on the opposite side, this is what you’ll be voting for, and, actually, we support that.

Here’s what we find really confusing on the opposite side: that the Minister then comes in with a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), and here’s what the SOP declares. The SOP then declares this—and it is this, from the Minister: the removal of hardened obligations for beneficiaries with additional children in regards to finding paid employment. Yet, in regards to that, the whole intent of this under the principles—four times mentioned; six times the word was said—is to help people find employment. So I find it really difficult that the Minister in the House has tabled an SOP that would ensure that the fact is that if it’s too hard, actually, it’s OK. That’s not the position that we have as the National Opposition. That’s not the principles that the Government and the coalition—and again, Labour-led, New Zealand First; whatever the mix is, OK—will be voting for. And so it’ll be interesting to hear their speeches, because their speeches should declare that. I think that’s really important.

The Minister then talked about social investment. And I know that members opposite—I know the honourable member Greg O’Connor doesn’t like it when he hears the word “social investment”, because it simply says this: social investment was asking the question that, actually, if we have the data, if we know where we can invest most, and if we invest early, then we can ensure we have better outcomes over the long term of the life of an individual, of a child, of their family, and even of their community, and then that’s what we should do. So what’s wrong with that principle? That’s exactly what it was.

What concerns us on this side is that at the moment the current Government of the day, the Labour-led Government, actually don’t want to ask those hard questions. Those questions were first asked to the Government departments. Better Public Services was a target that was set aside and in line with this Act to ask those Government departments, to hold them to account: what is it that they are doing to make a difference? It’s concerning to hear that the Minister who is the Minister for this piece of legislation but also for social investment actually now is saying, “We’re not sure what’s going to be happening.” Ten months on, we still don’t know what the Social Investment Agency are going to be committing themselves to. That is a concern.

I think, on our side, what we would say is that, again, this current Government is not prepared to ask the hard questions. I’d have to say that we had quite a courageous Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley, who was courageous enough to ask the question: actually, if we could invest early, if we could invest in a place that actually made the greatest difference, then why wouldn’t we do that? And that’s what social investment is actually all about.

I want to make just a couple more remarks as I finalise my speech in regards to the Social Security Bill in its third reading. We were looking for some flexibility, and, inside that, I know that I made a number of submissions of Supplementary Order Papers to the House. I’m disappointed that the Minister didn’t take this up. And, again, not policy-neutral: the winter energy payments—an opportunity to be able to look at the reality for some of those beneficiaries, where, actually, the paying of the power bill was not the biggest issue, but it was actually keeping the house and the rooms of their house warm and dry. We were asking, actually: would there be consideration where there was a discretion to allow them to look at other areas, for instance? It could be the top-up to paying for the insulation of their home. It could be other ways—of curtains. There are other areas that we felt were really important that could’ve supported that. There are a number of SOPs that were put forward to this House that, unfortunately, weren’t accepted by the Minister in the chair as well at that time.

We are really clear on this side that we are supporting the principles and the purpose of this Act that we believe and we uphold, from 1938 and 1964. We support the aspect that we are proud that as a country and as a nation the Social Security Act of 1938 was world leading. It said to the world that, actually, we cared. Those principles are still the same, and we uphold those principles. So, to the Government of the day, what would be really interesting is, if they’re upholding those principles, voting for them as they are, what will they do to ensure that those who can work should work? How will they be holding them to account, or will it be too tough? I know that others on the other side, different members of different parties, have again turned around and said that the focus on work is too harsh and the focus on retention of work is too difficult. The fact is that we make a commitment to hold people to make them accountable and obliged to the fact that if you receive a benefit, if you can work, you should work. We uphold those principles and those values because they are actually what’s inside this Act.

We cannot in all conscience support these bills. There are many parts that we do, but, in principle—to the intent in regard to this bill of the Minister and this current Government of the day—we cannot support this bill to the House.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m trying to figure out why the National Party isn’t actually supporting these bills. There is no real reason at all why the National Party is not supporting these bills. I was just having a think, and I made a note that I was going to say at the end, but I think I’ll say it at the start. All they’re doing is whingeing. They’re whingeing and having a cry because, for everybody that doesn’t know and is watching the progress of this legislation, it was first put into the House in the last term by the National Government. They stood up in this House multiple times and said that this was non-controversial legislation—policy-neutral—with no policies. And what did they do? They tried to put their policies into these bills.

Hon Member: That’s right.

DARROCH BALL: There were no comments from the National Party—no comments from the National Party because that is the truth. They tried to put their own spin and their own doctrine, their own mantra into this legislation. If it was truly policy-neutral, like these current bills are written now—and they will pass—then we likely would have supported it. The reason why we didn’t was because it was anything but policy-neutral.

Now, I just wanted to catch Mr Ngaro, because he said that these bills here are not policy-neutral. What he doesn’t get is that when the National Party brought this legislation into this House, they specifically wrote up policy to put into the bill. The policy that is in these bills as they currently stand, arising from the rewrite bill, was already passed. This is to ensure that the policies that have already been passed through this House can be—and it’s reflected in the foundation document that is looking after and ensuring that the social services of this country are well looked after and go to the people that need them.

The one major issue that has been spoken on by both sides of the House, which it is quite clear we have opposing views on, is the social investment approach. One of the main reasons why New Zealand First didn’t support this legislation in its original form, when it first came through from the National Party, was because they tried to have that tied into the purpose and the principles of the entire Act. And we have got a huge, fundamental issue with the definition—and not only the definition but the outcomes; the evidential outcomes that social investment has had on this country, and on other countries within the social services sector.

I’d also like to mention what Louise Upston was saying, and she used the word “farce”—that these bills were a farce. The question that Louise Upston needs to answer is: how on earth can a policy-neutral rewrite that is trying to make it easier to read, and more accessible for people to understand and for people to access their entitlements and what they’re entitled to—how could that be a farce? The only farce is that the clear message that we got from the National Party today is that “It’s either my way or the highway.” “It’s either what we want”—as in what the National Party wants in regards to policy and social investment and the way they want to run social services—“or it’s going to be nothing at all.” There is absolutely no loss whatsoever if the National Party votes these bills through as they are, because the legislation is a non-controversial, policy-neutral rewrite. Those are the facts.

Here is what the National Party is not supporting when they’re not voting for these bills today. Here is what the National Party is not supporting. Here are the main reasons why it needs to happen. The 1964 Act rewrite is long overdue. There are now well over 500 sections, and only four remain unchanged. Only four of the 500 sections remain unchanged while the other sections have been repealed or amended, sometimes hundreds of times. The National Party doesn’t want to see that changed.

Obviously, the Social Security Act 1964 is one of the most important pieces of New Zealand legislation. It is, as mentioned, the basis and the foundation of our safety net. It sets out the financial supports available to people who are not able to fully support themselves. The National Party does not want to see this legislation go through which will make it better for them. It makes it easier for people to navigate. It makes it easier for people to use and to understand. The National Party doesn’t want to support legislation to allow that to occur. And one of the most important things, or one of the good things that I’ve noted, is the fact that it actually brings the Act into modern drafting styles. That’s how old and outdated this Act is. And it sets provisions out in a more logical structure. With the National Party staying out and not wanting to support this legislation, those are all the facts that the National Party is denying that they want for the people of this country. It is an absolute shame.

New Zealand First will be supporting this, obviously, through this final stage. I congratulate the Minister for bringing it to the House and for the select committee for doing a good job on it. I think that the fundamental aspect of this, and the best part of this—which is quite a shame, the reason why the National Party isn’t supporting it—is what the Minister mentioned the analogy was: the sweeping of the floor before you put the furniture down. I think that’s quite apt. New Zealand First will be supporting this piece of legislation through the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): One of the funny things in life that—well, it’s the case of the lady doth protest too much. I know it’s gender specific, and we’ve had a speaker just sit down not of that gender, but if someone stands in the House and is constantly saying “policy-neutral, policy-neutral, policy-neutral”, the funny thing is that it doesn’t make it so. In fact, having followed this legislation through the House, and particularly through the committee stage, where I was particularly happy to spend many, many an hour discussing this Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill, the constant claims that it was policy-neutral, despite evidence to the contrary, remains here in the third reading. We’re going to draw a little of that out.

I acknowledge the member who’s just taken his seat, Darroch Ball, for continuing to push that particular line, but the very accusations which the Labour-led Government and members opposite have spoken to, particularly as they critique what they saw as the problems in the National bill, indicates the fact that now that they’re happy that, of course, it’s not policy-neutral. The fact that flexibility has been taken away from parents; the fact that children are not the centre of elements of this legislation; the fact of the winter energy payment, or bribing people with their own money—these are not policy-neutral elements, nor is removing social investment. But I think that’s a good illustration, which I will get to, of the difference between the mentality of the left and the right.

I am pleased to take a call on the social security legislation rewrite bills. It’s cognate legislation: obviously, it’s the Social Security Bill, the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill, and the Artificial Limb Service Bill. Fundamentally and importantly, this was a rewrite bill put forward by a National Government, and I think, probably, listening to some of the earlier speeches, all parties agreed many years ago—and, obviously, led by a very competent Minister at the time in the previous Government—that a full rewrite was needed. Now, obviously, as you get into some of the nitty-gritty, tensions develop. But, fundamentally, there is agreement that we need to modernise this legislation. In contrast to what the previous member was saying, I think, regardless of the debate around this, those seeking benefits will not be reading the rewrite bills themselves. What is and isn’t agreed upon by the National Party does not affect any entitlements whatsoever. What this legislation does do is provide, in effect—or was seeking to—better mechanisms in order to serve people. But I think it’s important to say that no entitlements, effectively, have changed.

National introduced the bill. It went to select committee, and I think that’s where problems began to develop. Fundamentally, having chaired a number of them now, committees across the House work very hard—or members, rather, from across the House work very hard—to try and improve a bill. The select committee reported back the bill with its suggestions, but just before we moved into the committee of the whole House stage, the Minister, now a Labour Minister, dropped the infamous, I would suggest, Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25—600-plus pages.

Hon Member: How many?

SIMON O’CONNOR: 600-plus pages of changes. I’d better be clear: not every page had changes on it, but it was a substantial rewrite of the rewrite. That never went through the select committee. That never went in front of the people of New Zealand to discuss. And, even more of an affront to the dynamics of this House, although I would suggest that it’s becoming sort of the norm from this Labour-led Government, is that there was no transparency, there was no openness. I remember taking call after call in this House putting very good questions—I would suggest some of the best questions from this side—to the Minister, and not once do I recall the Minister standing to take a call or to answer those substantial questions. There were sometimes deflections, but hour after hour of debate raising important questions around an SOP that was never discussed with the public was ignored. In fact, the last few hours of that committee stage was, effectively, a wall of silence from the Government while, at the same time, in press releases—those of course that the Government wants to put on the Beehive site, and one of the things I’ve discovered today is that we can’t even get a full list of press releases from this Government on our Beehive website—protesting open transparency, yet no engagement with the debate of this House.

So here we are, at the third reading, and I think, importantly and symbolically, we’re getting a sign of that continued frustrating attitude of the Government towards social security in general, in the process of this bill, of members opposite, members on the Government benches, taking short calls. They don’t appear to want to discuss this bill—

Hon Kris Faafoi: Oh, how they forget so fast.

SIMON O’CONNOR: —and, more importantly, they do not wish to discuss SOP 25. I am pleased that there is some heckling coming from the other side. The important thing to note, of course, because it won’t be picked up on the microphones, is that it’s got nothing actually to do with the legislation.

So this is the fundamental problem. We have no issue overall with a rewrite of the Social Security Act. It’s been many a year, and it’s needed to be updated. However, what was dumped on this Parliament at the last moment, without debate, without discussion, and without public engagement, was not and would never be policy-neutral. The first element is the introduction of the winter energy payment. That is a left-wing promise, and one that they’ve attempted to deliver through this rewrite legislation. As I said at the start, the winter energy payment, like many things of the left, is simply a bribe using other people’s money, or, in this case, people’s money already.

Hon Kris Faafoi: So what does that make a tax cut?

SIMON O’CONNOR: Those who are receiving a winter energy payment are fundamentally just getting that back through a bureaucratic process. Someone yells out, “What about a tax cut?” That member opposite forgets that taxes are taken off people in the first place. We’re not returning anything to them that they didn’t already have. But this is an occasion, like Working for Families and other things, where they take the money off the public, put it through a bureaucratic system, and then spit it back out so you can say, “Oh, thanks very much, everyone.” There’s nothing to be thankful for here, and it is certainly not policy-neutral.

We’ve heard a lot about trying to put children first and at the forefront, and, in another illustration of why this is not policy-neutral, there is a situation now where two parents who are looking after multiple children—

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Urgh!

SIMON O’CONNOR: I hear a sigh from the other side, because they cannot confront the reality of their decisions: that only one parent, despite both looking after the children, will get their money. And, look, that doesn’t surprise me from those who buy into all of this sort of gender stuff at the moment that goes on around gender stuff. Actually, I should expand that. Those who are into all this politics of identity and so forth will only ever allow one side to win. I just love that we just riled them up there. It always shows you that you’re hitting a raw nerve. I’ve said in this House many a time that those who buy into identity politics, and it touches on gender and inclusivity, are always about winners and losers, and what this legislation shows is they do not care about the children. They do not care about the parents.

Kiritapu Allan: This’ll be a good speech to put up on YouTube.

SIMON O’CONNOR: They only want to give the funding to one parent. That’s actually, and I’ve said it always in the House, not about diversity or inclusion; that’s about winners and losers, and that’s classic left-wing behaviour.

Hon Kris Faafoi: I’ll put this on Facebook myself.

SIMON O’CONNOR: The other one that we get—oh, yeah, definitely put it on Facebook; that’ll actually help me immensely. Ultimately, when you look at this legislation, and it’s playing down those lines, it’s always about winners and losers. This is, ultimately, not about both parents winning; it’s not even about the children winning. The changes they’re making are just to make one side, one parent, the winner, and I think that’s actually quite shameful.

The final one is, ultimately, around social investment. That concept’s been thrown out. Social investment is actually just a really simple concept—complex, in some ways, to implement, but a simple concept—that if you put moneys up front to support the needs of people, to target and measure, you can bring about fundamental change. It’s a real pity to drop it, but it doesn’t surprise me, because this is another divide in the left and the right. On the right, we’re prepared to put that money up front, to say to someone, “You’ve got dignity. We’re going to stand behind you, respect you, and bring you fully into participation in society.” The left, unfortunately, can’t handle that. The left always wants to be, effectively—and this is the other funny contradiction you get—that hierarchical person, always handing out the lollies, always being the person to provide help. They just want those needing help to always be grateful. See, the problem they’ve got with the fundamentals of the social investment approach is that after using it, those people will no longer need the support of the Crown and the State and other people. They’ll be able to stand up on their own two legs, and the left never likes that. The left, fundamentally, always wants a whole lot of people to be grateful to them, to always come back and always want more help, because it makes them feel good about themselves.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): My goodness, Mr O’Connor. Can the member believe that he was actually proud to put those words on the floor of this House? In suffrage week—125 years’ celebration of suffrage week—Mr O’Connor stands up and says, “I don’t know about people who buy into all this gender stuff.”, and then purports to uphold that “buying into gender stuff” pits genders against each other. This is the understanding that Mr O’Connor put on to the floor in this debate about uplifting peoples together.

We will not, here on this side of the House, buy into the false trade-offs where we cannot uplift people together. That is what that side of the House does, and it has become very clear that they will not support a simple legislative clean-up of connected pieces of law to allow us to ensure that this is simple, easy to understand, and accessible for practitioners and clients and people alike. It’s because of the massive ideology block that that side of the House has, epitomised by the words—I actually wrote them down, because they’re fascinating—of Mr O’Connor. The winter energy payment is going to some of our most vulnerable families, children, and people who are living alone, including elderly, who are struggling to pay power prices that are not just—that are unjust and are keeping people in hardship—and Mr O’Connor called that “a bribe with other people’s money”. It is that side of the House that simply does not get the concept of allowing us to bring people up together. No, that side of the House believes that there is always going to be a group of people who need to stay at the bottom, who need to keep struggling. That’s what Mr Simon O’Connor put on the floor just before I got up to stand and speak. So now I’ve almost had to put all my notes to the side to be able to respond to those words.

The Green Party is happy to support these bills now, because it is not hiding behind the previous National Government’s pretence of being a mere legislative clean-up when, in fact, they were pushing policy and ideology in it. Well, fine, but be really clear that that’s what you were trying to do and then stand up for that. So I’m very pleased that the Minister for Social Development has now made sure that this is a legislative clean-up, which was sorely needed—sorely needed. We heard the concerns around this legislation, noting that since the Social Security Act had been introduced in 1964 it had been amended 131 times. There had been 54 new sections added, and the Act as it existed included over 50 points of discretion. So, yes, it needed a simplification and a clean-up, because this is one of the most important pieces of law. It can either uphold or deny people’s basic right to live with dignity, and for far too long we have upheld a narrative that pits groups of people against each other.

And that side of the House—we just saw them keep doing that. We will not put up with that any longer. We reject that narrative that maintains that some people don’t deserve help. That’s exactly what that side of the House believes in: that some people will never, no matter how much—two jobs, 60 hours a week—they work, deserve a decent level of living. So we reject that, and this legislation is purely the legislative clean-up that is needed. It has fixed up the first rewrite proposed by the National Government, which was hiding policy—which was trying to hide policy—so I’m very pleased that we were able to stand and support this much better rewrite from the Minister.

I’m also pleased because we in this Government have managed to stop the increasingly punitive direction of the last Government—which, also, does not work. The evidence is very, very clear that that punitive approach does not even work for what it is trying to do. It does not provide a good incentive for good outcomes. So, fair enough, you want to keep going on with that ideology that doesn’t even work to do the things that you say it wants to—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into it.

MARAMA DAVIDSON: The members on that side of the House—thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. So I acknowledge the efforts of Work and Income, who are helping us to turn around the culture and ensure that people are properly supported. I acknowledge the oversight to stop what has become known as the Tinder sanctions, the change to office design, and the refusal to play political games with people’s lives. People live in a reality that in this House we know nothing about. We do not live that reality—us, here in this House—and we will stop playing political games with those lives. It’s not all fixed yet, and I’m very, very pleased and proud to be working with the Minister and various Ministers on this work. There is still increasing demand for food banks, there is still ongoing homelessness, and our community sector are still struggling to support people.

That was one of the oppositions we had also towards the social investment approach. While you can do social investment well, that is not what the previous Government were proposing, and, in fact, it became a way for the Government to protect themselves from the discriminative policies that they were putting up, and it became a way for the previous Government to justify cuts to public sector core services and Government. Yes, I’m very, very clear that that is one of the core roles of Government: to provide strong, robust public core services. So I am pleased that we are taking a whole different approach.

So these bills in themselves don’t represent that change, but we are being clear about that. We are not trying to hide policy in this legislation. I am, of course, impatient and want all the other changes to happen now, and we were disappointed that this Budget didn’t remove section 70A sanctions, but we recognise that tidying up the legislation first, which is what these bills do, gives the Government the best chance—the best chance—of achieving a comprehensive and coherent overhaul that the Greens will continue to keep supporting and pushing for.

I again want to put on record my support, as did Mr Darroch Ball, about—I think it was—the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who said, “This legislation in its current form is like sweeping the floor before bringing in the new furniture.” We in the Greens also have that understanding—that we are tidying up the hut a bit and laying that foundation down so we can truly become a proud nation that supports all of its people, especially at the hardest of times. So, again, I’m pleased that we’re able to work with the Government to ensure that this is a truly policy-neutral move and that we didn’t move policies into regulation that actually need parliamentary scrutiny.

I want to be very clear. We’re also pleased with the work of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, and our confidence and supply agreement with Labour offers the best opportunity that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime to put heart back into our social security system. That is not what this legislation in and of itself is trying to do. We’re very clear that it needs a clean-up, and we will keep pushing for further work. Thank you.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise today too to speak to legislation arising from the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. There’s never any shortage of material when you’re one of the tail-end speakers, and I have to take note of the co-leader of the Green Party Marama Davidson, who deciphered what my colleague Simon O’Connor said earlier and proceeded to tell us what we on this side of the House actually believe. But then they went and used the word “ideology”—“ideology” from the most virtue-signalling Government that we have ever experienced.

I’d just like to note for the House that some of the comments made by Marama Davidson, talking about those people at the bottom who, they believe, the National Party would like to see there—absolutely false. That is the difference in the philosophies between both sides of the House. We actually support people to become independent in their own lives and not dependent on the State. We also recognise that the problem that we do have with socialism is that we do, eventually, run out of other people’s money to fund it.

So there’s this legislation. There is no question that this is a large piece of work—a huge piece of work. And, in fact, the original Act—the Social Security Act 1964—was long overdue for an overhaul, and it was an enormous task, and it had languished without much attention to the overall overhaul, because the tweaks that had been made over the 50 or 60 years had, simply, made it very cumbersome. So it was filed away in the too-hard basket.

So who was it that took the initiative to make the legislation clearer and to make it more user-friendly and appropriate for the 21st century? The former National-led Government, of course. We did the hard work—and it was a massive piece of work—and we progressed it past the first reading and on to the select committee, prior to the Government changing, and the change did happen: by metamorphosis, into this Labour-led Government that we have today, the three-pronged coalition, now self-referred to as “dysfunction junction”. It’s a Government that’s had the handbrake put on it, because it is now completely incapable of making policy announcements, in case one of the partners has a bad hair day and withdraws his support, while at the same time he contemplates his next big bargaining chip. Now, to be clear, this bill is not about reforming the welfare system.

Hon Tracey Martin: Personal attacks. It’s beneath you—beneath you.

MAUREEN PUGH: It’s simply about making the law—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Don’t refer to the Speaker.

MAUREEN PUGH: Sorry?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Sorry, carry on.

MAUREEN PUGH: It’s simply about making the law clear, updating the language, and bringing it so that it is fit for purpose for modern implementation.

And we have heard this from both sides of the House today. There is no argument that this Act was in dire need of this rewrite. These bills will repeal the Social Security Act 1964 and the Social Welfare (Reciprocity Agreements, and New Zealand Artificial Limb Service) Act 1990, and they will provide a lot more consistency and clarity across all of those Acts.

But the process these bills have gone through has been a farce of a process by this Government, who have picked up a piece of legislation with all of the heavy lifting done—and all done by the National-led Government. It’s a farce because, without any prior notice, the Minister dumped this 500-page Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25 on the Table a couple of hours before the second reading. Essentially, it was a “dewrite” of the original rewrite bill, with no consultation and no explanation.

In the interests of good government and good governance and the process, this SOP really should have gone back to the select committee, but instead it stepped outside of the well-established process that we have in this Parliament, that would have given the community and the public an opportunity to scrutinise the changes that had gone on in the “dewrite” of the rewrite. It would have given officials an opportunity to write the departmental disclosure statement and a regulatory impact statement.

Now, the National Party members, as we’ll all be aware, invested a huge amount of effort and time in trying to improve this legislation. At the committee stage in this House, we saw literally dozens of further SOPs submitted in an attempt to make these bills better. However, none of them were accepted by the Minister. And then, during the final stages of the committee stage of this House, there was a flat-out refusal by the Minister in the chair to answer any questions about SOPs that no member of the public had sighted or had the opportunity to debate, which also denied this House of Representatives an explanation on that SOP. So this is, in my opinion, an outrageous abuse of the process in this House.

It might have been argued that there was a time constraint—that, actually, we needed to move this legislation quickly through the House. But what happened after we had been through the committee stage? Nothing. These bills have languished for a further 2½ months on the Order Paper waiting for their third reading. The final hours of the committee stage—it was a sad day in this committee when the Labour-led Government wouldn’t allow the scrutiny. I don’t believe this Government actually believes in allowing the public to have their chance to make changes on some of the most significant area of spend that any Government has. We’re not talking about milk money—we’re not talking about loose change here—we’re talking about $25 billion of taxpayer money a year.

Members of the public should be absolutely outraged, and the reason they should be outraged is because taxpayers—now, taxpayers are workers, they’re small businesses, they’re medium businesses, they’re big businesses who employ people. They all pay their taxes and they work hard every day to fund a fair welfare system that supports people in need, and yet they had zero opportunity to have their say on this SOP. Now, we have heard on many occasions—and I quote—“the most open, the most transparent Government that New Zealand has ever had.” Well, we are still waiting for that to materialise, because this is far from an open and far from a transparent Government.

This Labour-led Government has preached about placing the well-being of children at the forefront of everything that it does. I acknowledge the contribution made earlier by the Hon Louise Upston when she used the example of parents—and so too did my colleague Simon O’Connor—who separate who have children between them and want to share custody. One parent is going to miss out on support under this new system. They will not now be eligible for sole parent support despite both of them potentially needing financial assistance.

At the moment, the Social Services and Community Committee is currently working its way through the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, and that bill is all around child-centred policies. But these child-centred policies are not reflected back in this SOP in this piece of legislation. This is a Government that wanted cross-party support for the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, so alongside this legislation it will have direct effects on the same children—the ones we are all trying to lift out of poverty—

Hon Tracey Martin: Is National not going to support the child poverty bill?

MAUREEN PUGH: —yet they have dumped this document with very little time for scrutiny and for the Opposition to inspect it ahead of the committee stage of this House. So there are issues where cross-party agreement should be reached. I do acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin on supporting and continuing with the work in the social investment area. So this legislation and the adjoining SOP should have been sent back to the select committee.

I support my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro in his recent contribution where he said that those who can work should work. We owe it to those hard-working Kiwis, those workers and businesses who pay their taxes, and we on this side do not support these bills.

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

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Serendipitous—that that last speaker had the call before me, Maureen Pugh, sitting next to Dan Bidois, because so often when we discuss legislation in this House it can be a little bit focused: we’re talking about legislation, we’re talking about words on a bit of paper. But our select committee was lucky enough last week to go to the Work and Income office in Willis Street with those two members opposite and several others, and what we saw was a personification of the change that has taken place with this rewrite. The change has taken place because—as every member here who does electorate work, who does casework, will know—many of the issues we have are people, desperate people, coming to our offices who simply cannot navigate the system. They would go to offices and see a fortress-like mentality. They would go to an office and see, in the past, dispirited staff who, as a result of directions from above, were really there to bat away.

Well, what we saw last week—and I invite those two members to reflect on that—was a change. What we saw was an office where actually the whole rationale, the whole ethos, has changed, where if we treat these people properly they will get jobs, and they’ll feel like they are part of a system. And when I look at this legislation arising from the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill that’s actually the reality of where we come to.

This is a very short call and I don’t think it needs much. All I’d ask is that anyone here who has any doubts about the change speak to people who have come out of those offices and see how positive they will be. What we want them to do—and I agree with Alfred Ngaro; it’d be nice to have everyone working to their capability and earning towards what they need. But there are those who will not be able to do that, so it’s treating those people—and understanding that this is incredibly important, and this legislation is the start of that. So to those members and those others, I invite you to go and have a look at your local Work and Income office and just see the change, because that is where the words in these bills come to a manifestation of what we need to be as a country. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

JO HAYES (National): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand to take a call on this important legislation. It should be very important legislation for this country, but, unfortunately, I find it very difficult to actually support the third reading of the legislation.

Before I get into my speech, I just want to acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley for the work that she did in getting the bill through to its first reading—the hard work around the rewrite. It was the 1964 Social Security Act and it needed some changes. The previous Governments did not do anything with it, and as our National Party and everybody knows—the hard-working MPs in the National Party—the Hon Anne Tolley rolled her sleeves up and got going with it.

I also want to acknowledge another key figure in our party that has left, and that is the Hon Bill English. Why I mention the Hon Bill English is because it was Bill’s dream around social investment.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

JO HAYES: The Government can sit there and they can chuckle away about this, but he saw the need, he got the information, he researched the information, and he put together what would best be a good approach to the identification of some of the issues that he found, and hereto bore the social investment policy and the Social Investment Agency. It was the first time in the history of Governments throughout the ages that social investment was brought to the fore, in a way, to be ahead of the issues, to support the people that need it, and this is what the Hon Sir Bill English did. So I just want to make a call out, a shout out, to the Hon Bill English.

Now, everyone thinks that the Labour Government is a Government for the people. Well, it’s not, and I will say why it is not. Number one, the biggest thing people tend to forget is that when National was in Government, it was the National-led Government that actually gave the beneficiaries of this country their first pay increase—the first time in over 30 years. They say that National is not a party for the people. Well, it is; Labour is not. Labour cannot get there. It cannot get there without their other two coalition partners, whereas National didn’t need to do that.

We gave also, under the National-led Government, tax breaks—not just for business but for all workers. Every single worker that earned money, that was taxed, got a break. They got a break so that they could be part and parcel of the growing economy.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I just encourage the member to stay closer to the legislation at hand rather than to other policy. Thank you.

JO HAYES: I’m just getting there. Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you for that. The hard work that parents put into raising their children, especially sole parents—I was a sole parent—and to eliminate one of those parents out of the raising of their children, that’s not working for the people. That is not working for the people. That’s why this side of the House argued for that particular area of Supplementary Order Paper 25: that both parents would be acknowledged equally with payments from a benefit over the sole parent support benefit. And they did not. They are not acknowledged in this legislation.

Foster parents were also penalised in this particular legislation. We’ve heard it through the Hon Alfred Ngaro, the Hon Louise Upston, and my colleagues that have spoken. The Government decided to put the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit together—i.e., penalising foster parents and making it harder for foster parents. We need foster parents. They’re part and parcel of our society, they make up our society, but when we go and penalise them, then who wants to do that?

The name change from the emergency benefit to the exceptional circumstances benefit—that just opens up a whole area that people will be eliminated from, or it will be against them actually getting that emergency benefit.

It wasn’t policy-neutral legislation. The winter energy payment is a policy. It is a Government policy. It should never have been in the sections, and it is not policy-neutral. My mother said to me, “Hey girl, guess what? I’ve got some money for winter payment.” I said, “That’s right, dear. And you’ll only get it for a certain time and then it goes.” She said, “Well, I didn’t know that.” She said, “I didn’t know that, so how did I get it, and when does it end, and will I know?” All of these questions over these winter payment issues were never told to her.

So these are some of the things that have actually come out, the explanations. It is supposed to be policy-neutral legislation and it is not. Open and transparent Government—it was a bad start for the Government, wasn’t it? It was a very bad start.

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

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill that has been divided of course into the Social Security Bill, the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill, and the Artificial Limb Service Bill.

Now, we’ve heard some real gems from members opposite during this debate. The one that took the cake though—that has to be mentioned given that we stand here today to celebrate 80 years of when the Social Security Act was initiated in 1938, and the day before we celebrate 125 years of suffrage—was the gem from Simon O’Connor, which was absolutely derogatory and dismissive of over 50 percent of the population when he termed it “gender stuff”, and then anything that goes to advancing the status of women was “identity politics”, apparently.

Then of course, the de-writes of the rewrite of the Act, which Maureen Pugh referred to—yes. What was supposed to have been policy-neutral under the previous Government was actually a piece of legislation that snuck in a whole bunch of policies, so a de-write of that is actually policy-neutral. So thank you for actually making the point that we on this side of the House have been making.

The 500 to 600 pages referred to by members opposite as the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) was actually—if they had bothered to read that piece that was tabled, they would have known that that was actually the bill in its entirety with the changes, and not an SOP. So perhaps members opposite should actually read what they’re talking about before they stand up and speak in this House.

The final point that I will make is that what members opposite are doing when they’re not supporting these bills is not supporting a rewrite of an Act that has 500 parts, it’s inaccessible, it’s incoherent, and what we are doing here today is actually tidying that up and making it accessible and making it coherent. Members opposite, by throwing their toys out of the cot because we’ve taken out the policies that they held so dear and made this actually policy-neutral, are not supporting a tidy-up of an old Act that is out of date. What we’re doing is trying to make it accessible to those who need it most. With that, I commend these bills to the House.

Dan Bidois: Madam Assistant Speaker, it’s a pleasure to take a call—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Dan Bidois.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Oh! Ha, ha! Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the legislation arising from the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. It’s been interesting hearing debate from both sides of the House today. I just want to start off, certainly, by wishing the Hon Peeni Henare a happy birthday. I wish, though, his contribution in the House today reflected the uniqueness of today for his birthday, but, unfortunately, it did not.

I want to make a few comments and observations on the speeches that I’ve heard. Firstly, from the Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni—you know, I’m very happy that the Minister has acknowledged that social investment is “not a bad thing.” Then she goes on to say that the whole purpose of Supplementary Order Paper 25 (SOP) is to make it easier to use and understand and navigate. My question to the Minister is: how is a 501-page SOP easier to navigate? The Minister goes on to say that everyone in our lifetime will in some way have an interaction with social services. So, if that’s the case, why not make the legislation a little bit easier to understand, and that is what our original proposed bill that went to select committee was all about.

I would like to certainly acknowledge the former Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley, for taking the courage to rewrite this legislation and put it through to select committee. It is a shame that we can’t go back to that bill. I’m sure our party would be supportive of that bill. But, unfortunately, this lengthy essay—501-page document—really doesn’t lend any weight to us supporting it.

I want to start off by certainly acknowledging my Social Services and Community Committee member Greg O’Connor, who I understand is still taking learnings from certain radio interviews that he’s given in the past. I want to offer him some learnings that I have taken from the visits to the Work and Income offices—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

DAN BIDOIS: —both in Willis Street and also in my electorate of Birkenhead. So I’ve visited the Work and Income office in Birkenhead, and the feedback that I’ve heard from the Work and Income office in Birkenhead is that the transition to work off the benefit is still an issue for many of our beneficiaries. It is still difficult for people to find and retain work, and that is what the social investment approach was all about.

This legislation really suffers from bad process. I’m still a newbie, as you might suspect, and I’m amazed that a 501-page document gets tabled literally hours before it is to be debated in the second reading. This SOP didn’t have any regulatory impact statement attached to it. The public were not able to have their say in this very important rewrite. I just think that it sets a very bad precedent for this House, but it doesn’t surprise me with this dysfunctional Government that we have at the moment.

Now we tabled a number of SOPs in the committee of the whole House, and even I did as a newbie, and, unfortunately, the Minister didn’t listen to a single bit of it. This SOP—the 501-page document—will have an impact on child poverty, which is, as I understand, a very key priority for the Government. But the most important reason that we oppose this legislation is that it removes the ability to target support for those that need it most. In particular, in Part 1, it removes the ability to help those that need it by giving the Ministry of Social Development the ability to target their responses to those people. That is what the social investment approach is all about.

My colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro said before, around the principles of social investment—and for all of you at home, I know it’s a very abstract concept, but social investment is really about changing lives. It’s that simple. It’s about prioritising spending. You all at home want to make sure that your tax dollars are being used in the most effective way according to our ability. So, for every $100 million that goes in to social welfare, you want to make sure that it’s targeting the people that need it most—

Hon Tracey Martin: There’s a Treasury wonk for you. That’s what it’s about: money. Money, money, money; not people!

DAN BIDOIS: —and that’s what social investment is all about. The priorities and the principles of social investment are about prioritising—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

DAN BIDOIS: Now, I hear some sort of chatter in the background. It’s too light for me to hear, but I believe it’s coming from the New Zealand First member right over there.

But look, I’ll go back to my speech, which is around the general principles of social investment. Now, you know, again I want to talk to the people at home, because that’s really what matters here. You want your tax dollars to be spent the best and most efficient way that we can. Social investment is all about taking the fixed money that we have for social welfare and making sure that it meets and targets those that need it most. If you don’t need it, we’re not going to give it to you. That is the whole idea behind social investment: using the data to better understand who needs it.

“What’s the alternative?”, I hear some people at home say. Well, the alternative is this Government’s approach, which is to spray and walk away: the universal approach to basically dish out money left, right, and centre; whoever needs it, come and get it, no matter whether you’re high-income, you’re in a job, then you can come and get it. And that, quite frankly, is not the best use of taxpayers’ money, and that is why we support the application of social investment, which is about helping children particularly at risk of poor outcomes as young adults, and targeting those families in particular.

Other aspects of this legislation—of course we’ve had a conversation about the winter energy payment and that it is not net neutral; it is part of Labour’s election manifesto, as my colleague the Hon Simon O’Connor mentioned.

Let me talk about other things. We’ve talked, of course, about the separated couples who split the responsibility of their parenting duties. Unfortunately, under this rewrite—this lengthy 501-page rewrite—only one of those parents will be able to access that benefit. That is just a shocking set of principles that this Government is, you know, working under.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Occupying.

DAN BIDOIS: Yeah, good—excellent.

So, look, I just wish we could go back to the original rewrite bill, which would have simplified this important legislation dramatically. It would have ensured a modern approach to social investment in terms of targeting, and it wasn’t about reform of the welfare State; it was just completely tidying up the legislation. Unfortunately, this legislation removes a suite of support for parents who have split responsibilities, and Labour wants to, essentially, remove the hard-line obligations for people who are on a benefit to get back to work. We support the transition back to work as quickly as possible.

There was a member here who said that the National Party doesn’t support the people at the bottom. Well, I flat out reject that assumption, and that is about the social investment. We believe in giving people a hand up, not a hand out. The member opposite, Greg O’Connor, will remember—if he’s taking learnings on this, as well—that in the select committee exchange to Australia, we did see a lot of that: a hand up, not a hand out.

We in the National Party will absolutely flat out not be supporting this legislation rewrite. We believe that, unfortunately, this is not a friendly document to read for the people that actually are going to need to read it. It is 501 pages and, let me assure you, it is not easy bedtime reading. Also, it removes the general principles of social investment, and for all of you at home, let me tell you what the principles of social investment are: it’s about prioritising paid employment as quickly as possible; it’s about prioritising the ability to find and retain work; and it’s about giving the Ministry of Social Development the ability and power to target assistance where we need it most, and that is our most vulnerable children and families throughout New Zealand. We will not be supporting this horrible legislation in the House. Thank you.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It is an absolute honour to take the short and last call on the third readings of the legislation arising from the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill: the Social Security Bill, the Artificial Limb Service Bill, and the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill.

It’s disrespectful if I don’t respond to what’s been said today, but, firstly, I would like to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni—the leadership of this House—where she acknowledged that it’s 80 years to date that the first Labour Government introduced the Social Security Act in 1938. The Minister further thanked those who are in the Public Service who supported the journey of this legislation through the House. What I particularly like about what the Minister said is when she echoed Nanaia Mahuta, when she talked about sweeping the floor before putting down new furniture to form a solid foundation.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston. She spoke about lost opportunity. My reading of the submissions received is that it encapsulated, Supplementary Order Paper 25, the loud voices of the 121 submitters. They wanted a truly neutral policy rewrite, which is what this legislation is all about. The lost opportunity here wasn’t this rewrite; the lost opportunity was an opportunity for this House to truly be bipartisan—to truly be bipartisan—and support the rewrite. What the 121 submitters had said was that they wanted it policy-neutral.

The Hon Peeni Henare spoke about the importance of empathy and caring for people. The Hon Alfred Ngaro talked about—an almost comradely commendation of the Hon Peeni Henare’s birthday. It is sad that that wasn’t afforded to this legislation.

I want to acknowledge Darroch Ball, who said that this rewrite was policy-neutral, it was easier to navigate, and it brings the Act into the modern drafting era.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan, the gem wasn’t the gender stuff. The gem was from the Hon Simon O’Connor—let me get back to my notes. The gem was: “Me thinketh the lady protest too much.” I think that’s what he said. In this year, the day before the 125th anniversary of where the women fought and won the right to vote, it is shameful—shameful—that those words were uttered through his mouth.

What we heard today is that they complained about the 500 pages. Actually, I think the public who voted you into this House would expect you to have read those 500 pages. You owe it to New Zealand.

I want to thank the first Labour Government for their leadership 80 years ago. They cared for those who needed help, they cared for those who needed a home when they didn’t have a home, and they cared for New Zealand’s future—80 years ago. I want to say thank you for their leadership 80 years ago that did that, and echo the Hon Carmel Sepuloni. I commend this legislation to the House. Malo.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security Bill, the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill, and the Artificial Limb Service Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 56.

Bills read a third time.

Bills

Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Acting Minister of Education): I move, That the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

On behalf of my colleague the Hon Chris Hipkins, I wish to commend the third reading of this bill to the House. I want to acknowledge the incredible collegial, collaborative way that this Government has worked together to make sure that when we were in the Opposition listening to the tens of thousands of teachers having their identity stripped away from them by the previous Government—by taking out the word “Teaching”, for example, from the council, which they almost 100 percent fund from their own levies—we listened to them. We worked together to try and put some sense back into what at that time was a National Government who didn’t care about the tens of thousands of people represented by those that submitted to the Education and Workforce Committee, nor did they care about the fact that there should be no taxation without representation—that if the teachers themselves fund the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, they should have the right to elect representatives to it.

What was interesting in the readings we’ve seen up to this point is the fact that the National Party, the Opposition, has argued that because there was a low turnout by the teaching profession—a profession which had been under attack for over a decade, a profession that had been overworked and underfunded. This is something that this Government, on this side—all three parties that form up the decision-making body of this coalition Government, this MMP Government that works constructively and collegially, in an adult way—is doing to make sure that the issues that are important to New Zealanders are addressed as quickly as we can, as constructively as we can.

So we recognise that they were under-resourced, ignored, and insulted by the previous administration. They were overworked. Often—and this is the other bit—all consultation was done over the Christmas - New Year period, or during the fourth term. Now, anybody who has anything to do with education knows how difficult it is or would be to consult on a document such as this bill in the fourth term of a teaching year, but that was often what was done, and, some might say, deliberately done, by the previous administration.

So it is with a real thrill that I stand here today on behalf of the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, and on behalf of New Zealand First and say that we support this bill through the House. It brings back the level of democracy that should never have been removed. Rather than remove democracy, why wouldn’t anybody support a greater education programme or support programme, or even some sort of investigation to find out why teachers didn’t participate in the election of representatives on to the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand? This side of the House, who works much more collaboratively with the education sector, will ensure that there is greater understanding about how that process can be undertaken and about why it is of value to them, and will make sure that they are represented there, along with other members.

So, with that, I don’t want to take any more of the House’s time. Everything has been traversed here. The Opposition will stand and say something about money, remembering, of course, that they spent millions upon millions of taxpayers’ dollars renaming things in the last 10 years and re-announcing things that had already been announced. But they will go there in an attempt to justify their opposition to bringing back democracy to our education profession by bringing back recognition of teachers into the name of this council—by bringing back what is the voice of educational professionals to their professional body. The fact is that it is funded by them and it administrates and is the overview of them, and the fact is that they are the ones who are going to either benefit or be derided most by the Teaching Council of Aotearoa, so, therefore, they should have a say.

We support the bill. I recommend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look, at the outset of my speech on this piece of legislation, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge this incredible week for New Zealand and, actually, some women MPs in this House from both sides. I want to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata, I want to acknowledge Dame Jenny Shipley, and I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Helen Clark. We are very fortunate as a country to have had some outstanding female politicians. This is a week to acknowledge them, and more so than ever in our education system.

So I want to start with that theme. If we actually think about why this bill is incredibly important, we can take a moment to acknowledge that in our education system, there are huge numbers of incredible women delivering extraordinary things for young people, and probably none better than many of our teachers out there. That is why this body is actually so important. It represents more than 50,000 people who are in the workforce in terms of teachers but also the many principals out there and the support staff that work so hard every single week in our schools.

So when National previously made these changes, they were not out of a whim. We were not interested in getting rid of democracy.

Actually, we took on board very significant amounts of advice through the workforce advisory report. It was on the back of really serious issues around sex offending, and the way that our system might vet those people coming through into the profession. There was a huge amount of work done in that Education Workforce Advisory Group report, and then there were reports to Ministers. It was years of work. What it, basically, said was that when it comes to those hundreds of thousands of children in our schools, when it comes to the millions of parents out there that engage with our schools, and when it comes to the tens of thousands of teachers, we cannot afford to have a body making so many important decisions around registration, qualifications, and leadership that may possibly be vested. We must have a skills and competency - based model.

Now, we took into account at the time that we would have that as the main policy driver, that there would be independence, that there would be significant amounts of funding, and that we would have cost efficiencies in the way that that entity was run, and, with the stroke of a pen and some legislation going through Parliament, it is our strong view on this side of the House that we are seeing the reversal of major changes to this entity that will lead to, potentially, not the best decisions in our education system. That’s why we’ve fought it. That’s why we’ve opposed it. We believe we are doing the right thing in trying to ensure that people understand that the best-possible entity is one with a skills and competency - based model, and that’s why we fought so hard.

We do know, and we’ve heard throughout the course of this bill—these are some facts for you—that this entity will cost more than $700,000. That is 30,000 teacher-aide hours. This entity will go from nine to 13 members, and, again, we have not seen the arguments as to why that should occur. But, more importantly, what is extraordinary is that this House has gone through months of select committee processes, we’ve been in this House debating this bill, and we’ve had lectures from the other side about the importance of these changes in terms of the membership to ensure the independence of the profession and to ensure that that profession has an adequate voice. Again, what happened last week? Minister Hipkins, as I said—as I warned members would happen—has put forward a bill in Parliament that is hypocritical. It is. The whole purpose of that bill is to say that the Minister can then direct this council—which is supposed to be independent—on its functions.

So what I would say to the tens of thousands of teachers out there and the principals that are listening is to listen up. He may have argued that this entity was going to be independent and more of a voice for you and, somehow, that that would lead to better educational outcomes, but you need to look at the piece of legislation that is coming. The members in this House cannot consider this piece of legislation without considering that legislation, which, in my view, not only means we’re going to see greater cost. It means we’re going to see a larger entity, but it means that the independence of the profession is severely compromised with the legislation that is coming on board.

I think the other thing that I do want to acknowledge in this House is exactly what we are talking about. If we are really serious about lifting our education system—and I’ve just been through about an hour of conversation about governance and the difference that a great principal will make in terms of a school—then we have to get our leadership right. Again, I want to acknowledge all of the incredible principals out there that are working long hours. As I say to many chief executives that I meet, when I meet some of our best principals in New Zealand, they would give them a run for their money. They are dealing with often very complex situations and major social issues, they’re running major financial organisations, and, again, they deserve, in my view, to have the best-possible entity setting out the rules of the profession that is actually going to lift our education system, and we have not got that. We’re reversing to a model that will see, again, vested interests.

I want to acknowledge, I think it was, Nicola Willis in this House, who made the very eloquent point that it’s one thing to put up an entity and argue for a representative model, but the reality is the turnout is really low. I think it’s 13 percent in terms of recent elections. So we’ve not only got an entity that is shifting from being independent in terms of the profession to one that will be controlled by the Minister and we’ve got an entity that’s going to cost more but we’ve also got an entity that has been argued to be somehow more valid on the case of representation, but the turnout for some of these elections is around 13 percent.

So we on this side of the House feel very strongly that there is no greater cog in the wheel of our education system than, probably, something like this entity of the Education Council. The rules that it sets around qualification, registration, the discussions of policy around what the requirements are for someone to come into the teaching profession, and the way that we foster leadership in terms of principals will make one of the greatest differences in our education system.

We are sad. We are sad that we are moving to a system that was rejected by multiple reports. We are sad that we are moving to a system that will take away front-line funds from the teaching profession—$700,000 of that. We are sad that we are moving to a profession where it will be run by a larger entity. We are sad that we are moving to a profession that is going to have a ministerial direction that will see the profession less independent. Ultimately, we are sad for those incredible teachers out there that deserve the best-possible entity working on education policy. We are sad for those parents out there that deserve the best-possible teachers in our classrooms. We are sad for those principals out there that are working long hours and want the best-possible leadership policies, whether that is mentoring or whether that is the way that they deal with teachers in terms of their professional development.

I do want to finish with this: not only did the last National Government give this entity full independence, which is being taken away by this Government in the next piece of legislation; the other thing that the previous Government did was it said, “We are prepared to put up $200 million worth of professional development funds and give that back to the profession.” At this point in time, we are unclear as to what exactly is happening to the professional development funding. The message that I have for the tens of thousands of teachers out there is: you do deserve the best. You deserve the best in terms of this entity. You deserve the ability to have greater say over your destiny. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I’m sorry to interrupt the member. The constant barracking from this side of the House is not appropriate.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: So you deserve the best. You deserve to have an independent entity that has the heart of our education system at its forefront. It deserves to have the funding and the power and the independence to be able to do that. We are sad in this House that we are seeing the reversal of major changes to an entity like this, because children and parents and teachers deserve better.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Education): Thank you so much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise in strong support of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. I’d like to, first of all, acknowledge the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for his leadership in the education sector. I’d also like to thank the Education and Workforce Committee and everyone who came to make a submission on this bill. I agree with the Hon Nikki Kaye that our teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand, our parents and everyone, our students, as well—they deserve the best. Education is one of the keys to a successful, flourishing country. This legislation will ensure that we get the best, especially for our teachers.

I have spent the last couple of months talking with parents, with teachers, with students, and with community leaders right across Aotearoa. Initially, I started with Pacific communities, and I’m now talking with our ethnic communities. They have been generous with their time, giving us ideas about how we can ensure the best education system for their children’s future.

It is in all of our interests to ensure that we continue to have the best education system in Aotearoa. But we know that the education system does not work for all of our students, which is one of the reasons why we are supporting this legislation, because it is in our interests to ensure that our teachers—and many of our teachers have told us this—have a say in who is on their governing board. One of the best ways that we would ensure the support of our teaching profession is to ensure that they have full democratic participation in what it is that governs them. We know that teachers—because they’ve told us—would like to ensure that their name is in this council, so ensuring that the Education Council is changed to Teaching Council reflects that intention. Also, as a result of the select committee, one of the things that was recommended and added to this legislation now is that we should have Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, with the inclusion of “Aotearoa” in the name. That is really crucial, because it also reflects the bicultural nature of our country, Aotearoa New Zealand.

This House has heard many times before when we were talking in the second reading of this bill about how, in 2015, the previous council cancelled the right of teachers to elect their own representatives. This legislation, once it’s passed, will still have the majority of teachers being elected on this board, because seven of the members will be elected; only six of the members are going to be appointed by the Hon Chris Hipkins.

We fully support this bill. I strongly commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m taking this call to oppose this bill. This is a very interesting bill, because this bill was originally a member’s bill under the name of the same member who is the Minister in charge now, the Hon Chris Hipkins. This was put forward as a member’s bill when he was the education spokesperson in Opposition. I believe what happened is that when this Government was formed, for several months, even now, we are seeing that there are several National bills that are being debated in the House. They didn’t have any programme of theirs to go on the Order Paper. Even the Ministers were rushing to the House to take calls to extend readings on bills, because they didn’t have any legislation to put on the Order Paper.

I believe the Minister of Education thought “Well, education is a very important sector. We should have something to do with education on the Order Paper.”, and he decided to put this member’s bill of his on as a Government bill. It is very typical of this Labour-led Government, which believes in spending, and this is wasteful spending.

As we know, they are spending millions of dollars on working groups. They are spending millions of dollars on various summits. This bill is also going to incur expenses that are wasteful, because this is not going to deliver anything for the education sector. This bill will not deliver anything for the teaching profession. This bill will not deliver anything for students and deliver nothing for parents.

For a minute, if we look at the substance of this bill, this bill will change the name of the Education Council to the Teaching Council. Even the Education Council didn’t make any comment about the name change, so we can understand how insignificant that issue is for the Education Council. This is about changing the composition of the Education Council. It’s increasing it from the current numbers to 13—that is, seven plus six: seven members will be elected and six members will be appointed by the Minister.

From day one, the argument that we had from the Minister about this bill was that the Minister wants to make this council independent of the Government. That was the argument we heard from day one—that by having that mix of elected and appointed members, he believed that this will become an independent organisation. But what we know now, if we look at the Order Paper, is there is this bill, which is No. 7 on the Order Paper: the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). There are several provisions in that bill and one of the provisions is that this Teaching Council should work within the parameters of Government policy. So that independence that the Minister talked about from day one is out the window. It is not going to be an independent body. This is going to be run by the Minister. This is the level of transparency we have from this Government. So they’ve put this legislation in one bill and that it will actually be run by the Minister in another bill, thinking that this won’t get noticed. But it definitely will get noticed, and we will make sure that this is noticed. It’s not going to be an independent body, because it’s going to be run by the Minister.

Now, we know that the structure that the Minister wants to put in place is going to revert it back to the structure that we know was dysfunctional. There were some serious issues. We have heard about them again and again. There were even some serious financial issues, and that’s why the National Government decided to do an in-depth review of the body. Because of that in-depth review, we came up with the structure that has been put in place by the National Government. There is no evidence that the current structure is not working. There is no evidence, because the current structure is working really well. It is working within the code of ethics and responsibility. It is providing that stable governance that is needed in the sector, so I do not see any reason why we need to change this structure.

There is another point in this current legislation—not this one that we are debating; the one that was put by the National Government. The Minister cannot appoint any political cronies on the council. I believe that is the reason why the Minister wants to change this whole legislation, because that is what is going to happen. The Minister is going to appoint politically motivated people on this body—that is what is going to happen. As we can see, the other legislation which is on the Order Paper might come up tonight or some time this week for its first reading. There is no transparency. So this whole legislation which is going through here is based on them making this body independent, then we have another piece of legislation which takes that independence away. So this is a very serious issue. Why could this whole thing not be put into one piece of legislation? That’s a big question.

The other thing we know is that the previous structure was broken. It was not working. That’s why National decided to fix that. Now this Minister wants to revert back to that broken structure. Why does he want to revert back to that broken structure? There has to be some motivation. I believe that this is going to be a body that is going to be run by union members, run by the Minister. That is what the Minister actually wants to see happening in this body. This is not going to help with the teaching profession at all.

We know that unions are already complaining, saying that they put Labour in Government and Labour is not rewarding them back. FIRST Union—yes, publicly they have criticised this Labour-led Government. So here what we’re seeing is that this Government and unions are scratching each other’s backs. They’re just looking after each other, and that is what is going to happen with this change that is going to be put in place through this legislation that we are debating.

If the Minister was so keen on having proper representation on the Education Council, then why did he dismiss my Supplementary Order Paper 102, that was about bringing representation of experience that comes from the partnership school model? Very easily, the Minister dismissed it without realising that the Hon Jenny Salesa, the Minister who was in the chair before the Minister in charge of the bill, said yes, that would happen, because there are six positions that will be appointed by the Minister. But the Minister in charge, the Hon Chris Hipkins, said, “Oh, we are actually getting rid of partnership schools.” Yes, when I challenged him again—National has already announced that we will be bringing partnership school models back within 12 months of getting elected—the reply that I got from the Minister was that he doesn’t have a crystal ball to see what’s going to happen next. He doesn’t need to spend on a crystal ball, because we have already announced it. All he needs to do is be aware of what’s being done and what is being announced by other parties. So he doesn’t need a crystal ball.

If the Minister is so, so desperate to have a crystal ball—they have a crystal ball, and that is Greg O’Connor. Greg O’Connor knows what the Labour Party should be doing, what the Labour leaders should be doing, what the Prime Minister should be doing, and how the Prime Minister should be dealing with troubled Ministers. They already have a crystal ball, so they don’t need to go out to find another crystal ball.

Will this body do anything to improve the teaching profession? No. Will this body do anything to help students achieve better outcomes? No. Will this body help parents to know what’s happening in schools, giving them the assurance that the teaching profession is going to be kept to the level that parents expect? No, it’s not going to do that, because this is going to become something that is going to be run by unions and also controlled by this Government and controlled by the Minister, which is going to become very, very clear when we debate this other bill, the Education Amendment Bill (No 2).

So, overall, yes, we know that the Minister wants to revert back to the model which has significant flaws. We actually fixed that, but the Minister doesn’t care about that because it’s all about control—it’s about making sure that the Education Council is delivering what the Minister wants to deliver. So I want to finish by saying that I do support Greg O’Connor being the crystal ball of the Labour Party, but I do not support this legislation. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I have great pleasure in rising to reiterate New Zealand First’s strong support for this Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. This bill, of course, looks to amend the Education Act 1989. Of course, at its heart, this bill is about giving the profession of teachers their own voice on their own council. I cannot believe we are actually having this debate. This is such a no-brainer that it shouldn’t even really be of any contention; it should be supported from across the House, and it is disappointing to see, indeed, that that is not so.

At its heart, it’s about democracy. It’s about teachers having that voice and the balance. I would push back on the previous speech from the member Parmjeet Parmar: this does have an absolute balance. There are seven teacher-elected members out of 13. They have the majority. There is a balance from primary and secondary, principals and teachers, and early childhood—and we’ve heard how important that is from the second reading speech of Jo Luxton, as she represented her area of expertise in the early childhood sector. The six appointed members—it gives the Minister of Education the ability to look at where the skills gap might be and to appoint the appropriate people. It’s a totally appropriate, well-balanced board set-up which will serve this profession well.

This is a profession that is indeed in some sort of crisis. We are seeing that the number of teachers coming forward into training is down 40 percent, at a time when we have rising population and greater demand. Just last week in Southland, in the newspaper—in the Southland Times—there was a school that had to send a class home because they didn’t have a teacher. So this is about addressing the issues of making teaching a more—lifting it as a profession. We have talked quite a bit about this on our side of the House: how do we value teachers more? The absolute minimum we can do is allow them to elect their own representatives on their own professional body. It is absolutely demeaning to that profession not to accord them that courtesy.

There was a recent study this week—it got quite a lot of media coverage—about the number of young people, school-leavers, that are considering teaching as a profession, and it is concerningly low. So this is yet another measure we are putting in place. As the previous speaker alluded, there are a number of education bills before the House at the moment as we seek to redress a lot of the problems that besiege that sector.

There has been some talk that previously there was only a 13 percent turnout in those elections, and I did get mocked a little bit for pointing that out in my second reading contribution. It’s about having that mechanism. I’ve had some experience in this in my own industry—in the meat industry. We sought to change our cooperative, and at that stage we had 14 percent participation in our director elections. Within two years, that was sitting at 60 percent, as farmers rallied, and that’s the point: that mechanism exists. If teachers wish to rally around a cause, they’ve got the majority on their council and they’ve got the ability to vote for it. So it’s the mechanism that’s there. Sometimes when turnout’s low, it suggests some form of comfort with the status quo, so I wouldn’t use that as a measure, particularly. It’s about having that mechanism and the ability to have that voice.

Also, the cost has been brought up. The majority of those costs are spread out over three years. The $700,000—most of that cost is in running these elections, and since we’ve established that that principle is important, that is a small price to pay. The rebranding—I wonder how much the rebranding cost in 2015 when the New Zealand Teachers Council was replaced by the Education Council. It would be interesting to go back to the Hansard and hear the railing of the then Government about the cost of that particular transition, which I would imagine would be the same.

It is a little bit galling to be lectured by the Opposition about costs. At least we’re not having first-class airline tickets for sheep to go to Saudi Arabia, and absolutely outrageous and ridiculous expenditures like that. So I think that in terms of putting democracy into the Teaching Council, this cost is not something that we should be quibbling over in terms of the importance of this step.

So, in saying that, I will just conclude by, once again, reiterating New Zealand First’s strong support for this bill. It does demonstrate, again, the strong, cohesive Government on this side of the House getting on with the job and pulling together good legislation with a united front as we stand in lock step behind this bill. Without further ado, on behalf of New Zealand First, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I call the next speaker, can I remind both sides of the House that the third reading is about the bill as accepted by the committee of the whole House. We’ve had two speeches since I’ve come to the Chair that have drifted off on to other matters that are not part of this bill. So I just want to remind members.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I appreciate that contribution from the New Zealand First member of the Labour-led coalition Mark Patterson. I would like to start with referring to some of the contribution that New Zealand First—I don’t think I quite realised there was going to be a New Zealand First speaker before me. I thought it very interesting, back in the first reading—and then, of course, we highlighted this in the committee of the whole House stage—that New Zealand First had quite a significant contribution to this bill: it was ensuring that the term “New Zealand” stayed in the title. Unfortunately, that was the only contribution that I can recall, and it was—I’ll give them credit where credit’s due—vigorously debated by the Hon Tracey Martin, who said that she had an issue with the bill. They’d campaigned on it, but the one thing was the name.

If you want to see what quality debating looks like, then have a whole entire first reading speech around the title “New Zealand” being inserted into the name—that was it. That was the sum total of the contribution. I think, possibly, New Zealand First could have done a little bit better than that. We had an entirely vigorous committee of the whole House stage—loads of Supplementary Order Papers, loads of amendments, and not a squeak from New Zealand First, except for “insert the term NZ”. It sort of reminds me of their attempt to do something else in education, the Education (Protecting Teacher Title) Amendment Bill, and we know how that turned out—

Hon Members: Too soon.

DENISE LEE: —too soon—trying to take away the term “teacher” from dance teachers and cooking teachers and music teachers.

Look, I will move on from New Zealand First to some of the points that I raised, again, in committee of the whole House, and it was when we looked at, as the committee, reasons to delay the commencement of this bill. There were three really valid arguments that I raised and, unfortunately, it’s not quite what we see here in the House today. One is that we do need—and the previous speaker raised this—to increase participation in these elections. There’s no two ways about that. If the commencement was delayed and that particular amendment was passed—it wasn’t, and it was in the name of the Hon Nikki Kaye—then there may have been time to get some really good grunty, decent work around increasing participation. If the honourable aim of making this teacher-led and elections-led is, ultimately, around participation, then why not delay and plan for that?

The other is lessening the financial burden. Perhaps if we had a little bit more time before this came into play, that $700,000, which has already been quoted tonight, and I’m sure will be quoted again—$700,000 is a very big figure. Now, if you think that’s just a figure that this side of the House is bandying about, it was mentioned not only by the Education Council itself during the select committee process but also by the Waitakere Area Principals’ Association, strongly opposing that particular figure, and, lo and behold, it was also mentioned by the New Zealand Educational Institute, the union who said they urge “a cautious fiscal approach”. So there you go: three really notable submitters who had something to say around the $700,000 cost.

The other, third, point that was raised in regards to delaying the commencement was the lack of clarity and direction for the education sector at the moment. Sixteen reviews are taking place right now. This is some change around a peak body, the council, that has some big work ahead of them, and we don’t know what the work is that they will be looking over. In fact, they might find that coming into their jurisdiction and in their responsibility are results of reviews, results of reports, and working groups that they might want to take into account. Well, they won’t know what that is, especially if the commencement date takes place early next year—and that’s how it seems that this is going to roll out.

I’d like to also refer to what I’ll just call a really interesting thing that’s taking place, and you can see it for yourself on the Order Paper of today. I’ve got two yellow marks here for two particular bills on Parliament’s agenda—Parliament’s Order Paper—today and there’s a really interesting point to make here. So, right now, we know that the stated purpose of this bill is to raise the teaching profession status and give greater independence, going back to an elected membership model. In doing so, we are arguing that it’s going to sacrifice some of that really determinant direction that we had under our Government about bringing the skills and competency focus to the council. It’s been extremely successful. No one has been arguing that the current council is not successful. That’s, I think, a really strong point that should not be lost.

We’ve never heard, during submissions, from the other side of the House at any point that the current council is not successful. It is. So we’d like to know: if you’re going to sacrifice some of that skills and competency focus that’s there now, is it going to be worth it for what we see coming down the pipeline as potentially less independence? The irony is that what you’ve got now is a set of points and legislation for increased independence, yet on the Order Paper there’s another bill that we are possibly going to be debating later tonight and that bill would possibly see the Minister of Education being, in our opinion, extremely disingenuous by following up with legislation that gives him increased influence over the council. So here we are, from the other side of the House, saying we want increased independence and we want a lifting of teachers’ status and the profession, and then, later tonight, we’re going to be debating the first reading of a bill that takes away some of that independence.

I would like for someone to tell me how that stacks up. It does not stack up, and I think the other side knows it. It’s going to be a hollow gesture, I think, to pass this now and potentially have a first reading for something that blatantly takes away the independence that the other side of the House so-called longs for. I hope that we will not see the current system—the current council and all their work and all their proven work—sacrificed. If you’re going to go from no resulting increase, you’re going to have no resulting increase in that independence as a result of these two bills somewhat back-to-back.

I want to, in relation to that topic, finish by raising, I think, the travesty and the irony that when the Hon Nikki Kaye raised this back-to-back bill irony, she was called out by the other side of the House—by members Jamie Strange and Mark Patterson—as fostering a conspiracy theory. Well, to those two members, take another look at your Order Paper today and tell me if you see a conspiracy theory here. [Holds up Order Paper marked with two yellow tabs] There are the two yellow check marks. This is the bill that we’re on now. This is the bill that we’re going to be on later. One undoes some of the other, so that’s something that needs to be incredibly locked on—do you want to see the yellow marks one more time? It’s the colour of ACT. Is David Seymour contributing tonight? I’m not sure.

So, look, I would invite members from all sides of the House to acknowledge the work that the current council have undertaken. I’d like to pay special tribute—and I’ve done this before, but I’ll do it again—to Barbara Ala’alatoa as the chairman of the council. She happens to be the principal of a school in my electorate of Maungakiekie. I know that Barbara not only does fantastic work in her local school but is often involved in education sector big pieces of work. She must be one incredibly busy woman. I’d like to lay down one final plea, for the other side of the House: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. I personally am stoked to hear the Opposition members of the National Party declaring that teachers deserve the best. Welcome to the party, guys! Welcome to the party. This is, obviously, happening alongside their new flagship policy of decreasing class sizes. I mean, it’s not like they were in power for the last decade or anything! So we’re stoked that you’re now joining this party, members of the Opposition. You’re welcome to it, and we’re looking forward to working with you on implementing these policies and, obviously, ensuring that we get the best for the teaching profession—indeed, what they are asking for.

When the Nats removed elected representation in 2015, we heard from the likes of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) on the changes, who all, I would note, vehemently opposed it. The NZEI said “how can it be independent when all of its governance … is directly appointed by a politician?” There will be a lack of ownership by members. Extensive consultation showed the sector clearly wanted an independent body whose members were directly elected out of the profession, by the profession, along with appointments made in the public interest. This bill delivers on exactly that, I would note.

The PPTA at the time, in 2015, when the Nats were pushing through these changes and removing elected representation, said “provisions about membership of the Council which could result in there being no current practising teachers or principals on the Council, is very dangerous.”, “Members of EDUCANZ must understand that they will serve the minister and the government of the day—not the teaching profession.”, and “The EDUCANZ model as it stands allows the minister to hand-pick an exclusive club. By stripping away the professional voice of teachers and not allowing us to elect our own representatives to our own professional body, EDUCANZ will struggle for credibility.”, and, indeed, those are arguments that we heard throughout the select committee process. This select committee, I would note to the House, is a fun one to sit on because it does happen to be one of the most polarised, I would note, in this 52nd Parliament.

To the point about cost—which has been raised time and time again by members of the Opposition, who are so fixated on this cost that I think they’re forgetting who is paying for it—I ask members of the Opposition if they’ve heard of the teachers levy that they use to pay for this body?

To the point around participation and around turnout, with regard to those who are voting in these elections and the kinds of discussions about who turned out throughout the previous elections—before the National Party removed them in 2015—no one is proposing, with declining turnout in general elections, that we replace politicians. So I would simply say that often what the response tends to be when we notice a decline in participation or turnout is we try to reinvigorate democracy, and a good way to do that is to engage people on the issues and, indeed, to shine a light on the professionalism of the body, not to stomp on them.

So this is a professional body that we’re talking about—our teaching procession. The National Party themselves have said that teachers deserve the best, and, interestingly, they’ve continued to speak about skills and competency focus when it comes to the board. But what they’re doing is not talking about elected representatives from the teaching profession; they’re talking about ministerial appointees. To that point, I would ask: who has a better insight into the profession than current teachers? It’s as simple as that. Teachers deserve to be able to elect their own representatives in the same way that doctors and lawyers get to. This is, indeed, about recognising that professionalism.

I am stoked to stand here as a member of the Green Party, in confidence and supply with this Government, to be delivering on this, returning elected representation back to the teaching profession and, more so than that, the broader work programme that we are undertaking to transform the education sector in Aotearoa New Zealand. I am proud to stand on behalf of the Green Party and to commend this bill to the House.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. “I am stoked to be here.” is what I would say if I was indeed at a party, but I am not at a party; I’m in the House, so I will say that I am very pleased to speak on the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill at its third reading.

One of the things that I would like to start off by saying is that there has been quite vigorous debate over this bill through all of the three readings, and I have spoken at all three of them. The one thing, though, that I would like to say is that we agree, on both sides of this House, about one thing, and that is how much we all value teachers. We all value the incredible job that they do, going above and beyond their regular duties to look after our kids, to make sure that our kids get the best start in life. I spend a lot of time in schools in my electorate talking to teachers and listening to their stories: the amount of extra work that they do with special needs kids, with priority learners, with high-needs learners, and with gifted students. We absolutely value that work that they do, especially the work that they do above and beyond.

But the question has always been, throughout this debate—and the question remains—what is the need for this bill? Has that need been established? We’re still asking these questions with the bill as it stands today at the third reading. All this Government has said is that the teachers want it. That’s their first point. Their second point was that we need a council with teachers on it. Their third point was independence, and their fourth point, made by Mark Patterson today, was that it would encourage more students into teaching. Well, let’s just take those things one by one, because they’re still very relevant with the bill as it stands now.

The teachers want this: as I mentioned, I’ve been to speak to many, many teachers in many schools throughout my electorate—in fact, all schools. I note that Jenny Salesa said today that she’s heard from many teachers who have said that this is what they want. I have heard from teachers, and they’ve got a lot of concerns. One of those concerns is their pay. They say to me that they don’t want $2.8 billion spent on the fees-free policy. They would rather that they were better paid. There’s a range of things that they’ve said to me when I’ve been out, but one of those things is not: “Hey, by the way, we’d actually quite like you guys to change the name of the Education Council. That would be just great if you could do that for us.” They’ve never once mentioned that—not in a single visit. And I don’t think any of my colleagues—if I can get some nods around—have ever heard that from any of the teachers they’ve ever visited. Not one. They’ve got many valid concerns but that ain’t one of them.

Another thing that they’ve never said to me is that “We want to be able to elect our own people on to this council”. Never said it—not a concern. So for all—

Marja Lubeck: You weren’t listening.

ERICA STANFORD: I’m not listening? I’ve been to every single school in my electorate and I’ve spoken to hundreds of teachers, and not one of them has ever said that. It’s all very well for the members opposite to get up and say that they’ve heard that from a couple of teachers, but in my experience and the experience of my colleagues, it’s not come up a single time.

One of the things that we’ve traversed and that is still relevant is the fact that they haven’t established that there are any problems with the current Government’s model. There hasn’t been a single person get up in a single debate, from the opposite side of the House, to say that there have been any decisions made by this council that could have been improved if there was a different governance model—not a single one. There haven’t been any contributions that have made that claim. The Government’s cry of “We need teachers on the council.”—and that’s been made many times, and it’s being made again today. We have pointed out so many times that the current council has six of the nine members on it who are current teachers, and the others are incredibly well-respected individuals who are leaders in their field. This is a council of highly respected, highly knowledgeable, incredible individuals who are making great decisions.

This brings us to the point of independence, because one of the points that this Government has made in their contributions throughout—and it’s still relevant at third reading—is the fact that by having elected members to the council, the body will be more independent. Independence is questionable with only 13.7 percent of teachers actually voting. I do remember at second reading we pointed across the floor and we asked Mr Jamie Strange if he voted in the council elections, and I do believe that he said that he couldn’t remember or that he didn’t think he did.

Jamie Strange: Pretty sure—pretty sure.

ERICA STANFORD: He’s not sure—he’s not sure. But, look, only 13.7 percent of teachers actually voted, so the ability of the parties with vested interests to put up candidates to get successfully elected is very high, and that is a concern for the independence of this body, especially when the majority of the body is elected. None of the amendments that we put up were accepted. I had a really good one about making sure that we know the affiliation and the backers of candidates. None of those were accepted to counter this point, so we have a question around independence.

Given all this talk about the independence of the council by the Government, one would hope that the Minister doesn’t interfere with this council any further, say, by allowing a Minister to issue a direction relating to the teaching council. Surely he wouldn’t do that, given the cries about the importance of the independence of this council. Or perhaps by—I don’t know—requiring the council to consult with the Minister prior to making changes to teacher qualification requirements or registration criteria. Surely he wouldn’t do that, because if he did consider such changes, surely this would seriously undermine the independent nature of the council, which we have been so vigorously debating in this House, and talking about how important it is. Surely he wouldn’t do that. Oh, but wait, he is doing it.

Denise Lee: Here it is. [Holds up Order Paper marked with two yellow tabs]

ERICA STANFORD: That’s right—two yellow markers. He is doing it later on today—watch this space.

I think it’s important to traverse some of the other issues with this bill as well, because one of them, as we’ve mentioned, is the cost and working out the value for money. Now, Chlöe Swarbrick did actually say tonight, “Oh, but it’s not Government money. It’s not taxpayers’ money. It’s teachers’ money.” I think the point is that it’s someone else’s money, and the Government has a real disregard when it comes to other people’s money: “Oh, don’t worry that it’s $700,000. It’s not taxpayers’ money; it’s the teachers’ money. Don’t worry—it’s not our money.”

Chlöe Swarbrick: Teachers are asking for it.

ERICA STANFORD: Teachers have never mentioned that they wanted this, yet they’re paying for it.

It’s important to go over the history of where we’re at today, because we had an old elected model, and we’re back. Here we are again: out with the old, in with the older. The reason that we got rid of the old model was because of—well, a multitude of reasons, but one was the serious financial difficulties. It needed to be bailed out, and in 2010, the council was described by the Education Workforce Advisory Group as lacking the capability and the capacity to carry out its functions. It was not best placed to carry out its functions. It had no ability to self-regulate or to self-review, and it was not the best body to serve teachers.

It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again: we didn’t make those changes on a whim. We did them on good advice. We did them on the advice of a review, because there were serious problems with the existing body. A review told us that we needed a body with capability, with knowledge, and with people who were well respected in their field, and that’s what we ended up with. So here we have this highly competent body, with 66.6 percent of the people on the council being teachers, doing a great job that nobody questions or has a problem with. But it has to be changed, because—well, why, actually, we don’t know, because we actually haven’t had a good argument from the Government as to why these changes are needed. It hasn’t been adequately answered. It hasn’t been established.

I’d like to take my final minute just by acknowledging the current members of the council—highly respected individuals, highly capable individuals—one of which is Claire Amos. She is the principal of Albany Senior High School in my electorate—just one of the many teachers that are represented on the council, despite what the Government has said. I’m not going to go through them one by one, but they’re all highly respected individuals. One of them is Clare Wells. She is the chief executive of the New Zealand kindergartens association and, despite what Jo Luxton said at first reading—that there wasn’t any early childhood education representation on the board—she is a fantastic representative of the early childhood sector.

All of the people on this current body are highly respected, incredibly knowledgeable individuals, who were put on there because of their skills and because of the fact that we had a body that wasn’t performing, and here we are, potentially going back. Out with the old, in with the older; back to a seven out of 13 board—

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

JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am really, really thrilled to stand and take a call in absolute support of this bill, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. Why am I thrilled? Well, because today is the day we give back the power and the ability to teachers to manage their own governing body. These teachers pay registration fees towards this governing body, so why on earth should they not be able to be part of this governing body? The reason that we are giving this back to them is because we believe in democracy, on this side of the House. We trust teachers, unlike the previous Government, who took that choice away, did not trust them, did not value them, did not see them as professionals, and did not see them as being capable of managing their own governing body. Well, we do. On this side of the House, we do. We trust them and we believe in lifting the status of teachers.

We hear from the other side that “Oh, it’s just, you know, changing a few words—changing a title.” Well, actually, words can be extremely powerful, and these words have a lot of meaning to the teaching profession. I too go out and speak to teachers about various things, but I actually make the point of asking them what they think about this bill. Sarah, the principal of the Timaru Girls’ High School, is really, really rapt that we are undertaking this piece of legislation because she was really, really disappointed when the choice was taken away from teachers previously, and we hear that, “Oh, only 13 percent come out and vote for this.” Well, you know, does that mean that when we don’t get a high turnout in voting for our local council and stuff, we should just not do it? Absolutely not. People still should be given the opportunity to stand up and have a voice and have a vote on what they believe in.

I think that it’s really exciting, as I’ve said many, many times before, that early childhood education (ECE) is going to have representation on this council, in the form of an elected ECE teacher—elected by their own sector, I might add—and an educational ECE leader in that space. It’s time that we had a seat at that table, and I’m so proud that this Minister of Education recognises the importance of ECE education and ECE teachers in the profession. I absolutely, wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Sarah Dowie—five minutes.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s an absolute surprise, actually, to take a call on this Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill in its third reading, because I am no longer the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, and I certainly didn’t expect to take a call after the previous speaker, Jo Luxton, had only spoken for two minutes, despite her being so excited about this pedestrian bill that simply goes to change a name. This Government is something else. They campaigned on having a fairer, transparent Government. Did we get that? No. We got the sacking of their Minister for open and transparent Government Clare Curran because she is a disgrace.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): And that’s not in the bill, so come to the bill, please.

SARAH DOWIE: I will certainly come back to the bill, because I’m coming to the fact that this is a Government that is completely out of ideas. They’ve been disgraced in the record that they campaigned on, and I’ll come back to it: transparent Government, fail; environmental record, fail; industrial relations—look what we’ve got. We’ve got a Labour-led Government trying to grapple with New Zealand First and with the Greens, and they can’t seem to bring them together.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Second warning. Please come to the bill—the third reading of this bill. Thank you.

SARAH DOWIE: And now what have we got here? We’ve got the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill, and what does it do for $695,000? It changes—

Tim van de Molen: How much?

SARAH DOWIE: —$695,000—a name.

We know that this Government likes reviews, because I lost count when we got to about 300, but this is on the back of a review that was done in 2010—a comprehensive review that looked to raise the standard of teaching in New Zealand. We’ve heard on both sides of the House that that’s what we agree on: we want our teachers to be held in high esteem, we want our teachers to be well-supported, and we want to enable our teachers to innovate, and the way we do that is to have them represented by a body that is full of competency.

Now, all you have to do is look at that side of the House to see what elections bring about. You’ve got people that are cut from the same cloth, rather than people that have core competencies, and, certainly, it is true what we’ve heard on this side of the House: this is not top of mind for teachers. From a Government that spent billions on tertiary education, yet promised to support teachers, where is this Government with respect to pay negotiations? A big fat fail. We need to support our teachers and recognise them for the work they do.

We need to move on from this ideological situation that the unions have put us in and innovate with regards to teaching, and that’s what the current Education Council does. That’s what the current council does. We have core competencies and appointed members that represent teaching across the sectors that are there to enforce standards to make sure that all teachers meet the bar and to improve teaching performance, and that’s not necessarily done the way it was in the 1950s.

Let’s look at innovating. Let’s look at, actually, communities of online learning—which I believe the Government is looking to scrap also. I can tell you that I’ll be opposing that one, given that my students on Stewart Island learn singing from a teacher in Nelson.

Jamie Strange: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would the member like me to give her a copy of the bill so she can—

SARAH DOWIE: Oh, I have a copy of the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! That’s enough of that—both sides. I do not need help from Jamie Strange or anyone else. It is the sole decision of the Chair. I have given two warnings. This is the third and final warning. I don’t usually give third warnings. The member needs to speak to the bill.

SARAH DOWIE: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Well, I am speaking about education in general and what is planned by this Government, and, certainly, this bill, in my opinion, is a waste of money. It’s about a name change, and it’s simply playing around with a configuration that won’t bring about core competencies. What it says in the bill, Mr Strange, is it’s a prescription—a list of teachers that hold various positions. Now, that does not ensure competency. It does not ensure competency through election because, let’s face it, when you look over that side of the House, any old Joe Bloggs can stand.

We want a council that is going to perform, that is going to raise the bar, and that is going to innovate and hold our teaching profession in high esteem because, let’s face it, these are people that shape the minds and hearts of our future, and we need to make sure that New Zealand is in a fit place to lead going forward.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill. This is an exciting time for education in New Zealand, as we reach the third reading of this very important bill, which will once again ensure that teachers are elected on to the teachers’ council.

I spend a lot of time—as Erica Stanford mentioned she does—in staffrooms, and whenever I talk to staffroom teachers about this bill and I talk to them about teachers going back on the council, without fail, their heads are nodding and people are saying, “That’s fantastic news.” This Government has been listening to teachers around putting teachers back on the teachers’ council.

We have heard from Opposition members around competency and around knowledgable people, and teachers, teacher educators, principals, and early childhood leaders are competent. They are knowledgable. They do know what’s taking place in their field. In fact, they are at the coalface, so they know better than anyone what’s happening in their industry.

I’ve got a few friends who are real estate agents, and I thought I would have a look at the Real Estate Agent Authority board, just to compare. On there, we have a barrister, a Queen’s Counsel, an accountant, a consultant, and we have a director of a real estate company on the board. We have a real estate agent on the board of the Real Estate Agent Authority.

Kieran McAnulty: Get out of here!

JAMIE STRANGE: I know—outrageous! The point I’m making there is that if it’s OK for the real estate agent board, why isn’t it OK for the teachers’ council?

I’m particularly excited that the name is changing from Education Council to Teaching Council, because it highlights the important role that teachers play in our society. It elevates the teaching profession.

We heard from the Hon Nikki Kaye that people on the teachers’ council have to make decisions around registration and leadership. Who better to make decisions around registration than teachers who are registered and who understand the process? Who better to make decisions around leadership in schools than principals or than early childhood leaders?

I commend the work that the Minister has done on this bill. I think it’s common sense. It’s certainly welcomed by the profession. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak on this, the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill, or, as I have suggested, what should be better named the “Back to the Future Bill”, a bill that, like so many initiatives by this Government, is just another step in the long march backwards that Labour have planned for this country.

Now, in describing this bill, I want to turn to the words of the Ministry of Education. I want to turn to the words of the Minister’s own officials, who, in the impact summary released today in this Parliament on the bill that’s about to be introduced following this bill, have said that the Teaching Council of Aotearoa amendment bill: “In making changes … [this bill] … will reduce government’s ability to protect the public interest”—this bill will reduce the Government’s ability to protect the public interest because—“Council could exercise its function in ways that do not align with government’s policy directions for the wider education system.” This could have implications for the safety of children and young people, for teacher supply and diversity, for the quality of teaching, and for Government’s fiscal commitments.

So if there has ever been a statement that would confirm what this side of the House has been saying about the potential impact of these changes, it is this impact statement that has been released today—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! Members can’t anticipate business that is about to come to the House, and you need to turn your attention to the third reading of the bill before the House.

NICOLA WILLIS: I am very much paying attention to the third reading of this bill, and I am sure—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’ve made my ruling. That’s the end of it. The member continues on her speech.

NICOLA WILLIS: What this bill does is it claims to introduce independence for the Teaching Council, and what the Minister gives with one hand in this bill, he intends to take away with the other. This is a comment that members on this side of the House have made throughout the passage of this bill, and we continue to state at this third reading that it is one thing to say we are going to elect members of a council and it is another thing to truly give them independence.

I turn to what this bill disestablishes. This bill disestablishes, effectively, the Education Council, and I want to take some time in this third reading to acknowledge the work of the Education Council, because this is the existing professional organisation for teachers. It represents all teachers from early childhood education through to secondary. Its role has been to promote good practice, to promote new ideas, to provide inspirational leadership, and to boost the status of the teaching profession, and we have had words of derision from the members opposite about the way in which it performs its function. We have had members opposite claiming that somehow it is not representative of teachers and that it somehow does not give independence to the status of the profession.

I would like the members opposite to tell me which of the members I am about to describe somehow let down the teaching profession. Let’s talk about the people that currently sit on the Education Council that this bill today disestablishes. They are Barbara Ala’alatoa, who is the principal of Sylvia Park School, a registered teacher, a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education, and someone who has been shortlisted for the New Zealander of the Year. Is she the one that shouldn’t be representative of the teaching profession, or is she OK?

I want to talk about Anthony Mackay, a moderator of the annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession, who is someone so respected by the teaching profession internationally that he is the moderator of the international summit. Is he the problem that members opposite have—that he is somehow non-representative of the teaching profession and its interests?

Or is there a problem with Claire Amos, the principal of Albany Senior High School. Is she the one that fails to represent the teaching profession adequately? Or is it Simon Heath, the principal of Renwick School, or is it Ripeka Lessels, who is on the Principals Council of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and who has taught for 30 years? Is that the member that is somehow non-representative of the teaching profession?

Or is it that we need this bill read for the third time today because of the membership of Michael Rondel, who has extensive experience as a statutory appointment adviser and who has worked with the Ministry of Education on advisory services for at-risk schools for a number of years? Is it his appointment that somehow demeans the role of the current Education Council? Or is it Nicola Ngarewa, the principal at Pātea Area School, or is it Helen Timperley, who has had a career of teaching and educational research, who is a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit? Finally, if it is none of those people that are somehow non-representative of the profession, perhaps then it is Clare Wells, who is the chief executive of the New Zealand Kindergarten Teachers Association, who works with teachers in the early childhood sector every day of her professional life.

What I put to you is that it is absolutely superficial and misleading in a sense, but not in a sense which this House would put it. But it is not fair for members opposite to claim that the current Education Council does not do a good job of representing the teaching profession, and I want to thank the members that I have listed in this House today for their service to New Zealand education. I want to thank them for their service to the teaching profession and I want to thank them for the efforts they have made to support and boost the status of the very important teaching profession. I want to say to them that it is regrettable that this evening in this House, a piece of legislation will pass that will take us backwards.

I want to remind members of this House how the Education Council came about, because, of course, there was extensive examination of the previous Teachers Council, which did exist, which today we are taking ourselves back to the future of. In that extensive review, one of the comments that the Ministry of Education felt free to make was that the Teachers Council was seen “as a vehicle for government policy and lacked a distinctive brand for an effective public voice.” But, never mind, we’re going to go back there anyway because Labour members have decided it’s important.

So we have been, throughout the debate on this bill, throughout the select committee process, trying to establish why this change is required, because change does have a cost—in this case, at least $700,000. Change also has the cost of disruption and distraction, particularly at a time of teacher shortage and at a time when primary teachers have been on strike for the first time in 24 years. We have asked why the change is necessary. The answers have not been forthcoming. But what we do know is that the previous model that we now revert to was found in the past to have had significant flaws. There were problems with enforcement of standards. There were problems in providing sustainable leadership and governance. That is why we have the Education Council we have today. Since it was implemented, this Education Council, I would argue—and members opposite have not argued otherwise—has worked incredibly well. It has adhered to a code of ethics and responsibility, it has actively engaged in policy development, it has provided stable governance to the sector, and it has encouraged leadership and professional development.

We have been told in this debate that the new Teaching Council will increase the independence of the profession and of its representation. Now, if that were the case, and if that is to remain the case, I would not expect any legislation in future to come in that would remove that independence—that would allow, for example, the Minister to issue a Government policy direction relating to one or more of the Education Council’s functions. We need to be wary that in examining this legislation that this House debates tonight, we haven’t been given the opportunity to consider what future directions the Minister might give this body.

Of course, this legislation does not allow the Minister to give any directions, and I note that that was not examined by the select committee. That wasn’t even considered as an option, I think, by many of the submitters, had the NZEI or Post Primary Teachers Association considered that a future bill might allow the Minister to issue such directions. Of course, the reason why that might happen is because what this legislation clearly does is it ensures that teachers are there, elected and—according to Ministers opposite—are elected in a representative way. But at no point have we had an answer to the question put by many members on this side, which is: how can they be adequately representative when only 13.7 percent of their peers vote for them? That is a very small number and it raises concerns.

I would put to you that when Government officials say that a bill of this sort has implications for the safety of children and young people, then it is upon us—[Interruption] Well, that is what they have said. Those are not my words; those are the words of officials. If that is the case, then we would all do well to pause and to consider that this is a bill that takes us back to the future, that has had no case for change proven, that is expensive, and that gives with one hand so the Minister later on, on the Order Paper, can take with the other.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): Like my colleague Chlöe Swarbrick over here, I was getting a little bit excited coming into this debate here tonight about the fact that we might have had a new-found regard for teachers coming from the other side of the House, but when I hear this bill, which I’m very proud of, being called a pedestrian bill that simply goes to change the name—I’m sorry, but that excitement has really gone right down.

This is about raising the status. This bill is about giving democracy back to our teachers. While the other side of the House might not value democracy, because we’ve heard that “Oh, it’s about competencies. We couldn’t have those teachers you know just being elected. Imagine the skills that they’re bringing.”—while we see that from them, we do value democracy on this side of the House and we do value our teachers. So we are bringing democracy back to our teachers.

While that side of the House might not listen to their teachers and might not talk to their teachers, I certainly do. In fact, just prior to coming to this House, I had a group of teachers in my office who were excited about this bill. They are absolutely excited. I was a teacher in 2015, when the Teachers Council became the Education Council, and back then it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. In education, we had been demoralised through legislation after legislation that showed that the then Government did not value us as teachers.

This is about putting this right. While that side don’t listen to their teachers, I do, and I hear in staffrooms right around this country that they are excited about this bill coming back in and they’re going to have that democratic representation back on their professional body again. This is what is right, and we are putting it right, so I therefore commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The question is that—

Tim van de Molen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): A point of order? I’m about to put the question, so unless it’s about—I’ve started the question—

Tim van de Molen: Yes, but not completed it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Tim van de Molen.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you. I draw your attention to Speakers’ ruling 59/7: “It is a longstanding convention that when a member is speaking from the backbenches other members who are sitting near that member do not interject, because of the effect it has on the live microphone.” That has been a constant—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! You can raise that after the vote.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Education (Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

New Zealand National 56; ACT New Zealand 1.

Bill read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Just ruling on the point of order: that is the sole discretion of the Chair.

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

Bills

Maritime Powers Extension Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 13 September.

Hon RON MARK (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It gives me pleasure to be able to rise and speak on the Maritime Powers Extension Bill. I want to start by acknowledging that this work commenced under the previous Government. I do acknowledge the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee report that has been tabled in the House, which indicates that the select committee recommended that the bill proceed. There are a number of amendments made to it.

I think, at this point in time, it appears that unanimity has broken out all over the House in support of this legislation. I think I can pretty much sum it up by saying that all parties in the House are as gravely concerned about the levels of drug trafficking which we have been witness to, the increased level of that, and the potential harm that it poses to our communities, to our society, and particularly to our young people specifically. I don’t think that there’s an MP in the House that doesn’t worry about the well-being of the young people and not-so-young people who wish to indulge in some of these activities. But the fact of the matter is that trafficking drugs into New Zealand, across our borders, is a problem and there has existed an issue around our ability to effectively interdict.

This problem was first looked at by the previous Government, and I know that this current Government looked at that work. Meka Whaitiri, the Minister of Customs looked at that work and decided that it was appropriate to progress this legislation. The legislation, effectively, amends the Customs and Excise Act of 2018 and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to incorporate New Zealand’s rights and obligations under article 108 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—that’s UNCLOS—and article 17 of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

It is well known, and I think the previous speakers, including the Minister, have highlighted it, the issues that we face when we know that there is a vessel moving into our waters or towards our waters, or we suspect strongly or we have intelligence to suggest that their intention is not good; that their intention is to, by some means or another—we’ve had examples put before the House of the use of mother ships, where ships sit outside your territorial waters and they liaise with or rendezvous with smaller vessels which then come and pick up their illicit cargo and make their way into shore to connect with those elements who would supply our city streets and do the harm they do. Unfortunately, our laws do not allow us to deploy the assets and the resources that the Defence Force has to conduct these operations. This legislation corrects that.

I just want to remind the House that the Defence Force has a large number of resources that it’s able to make available to customs operations of this sort. Whether it’s the P3, soon to be the P8, aircraft; whether it’s naval vessels; whether it’s offshore patrol vessels; whether it’s the use of policing elements or special force elements to actually assist the navy or assist customs with those boarding operations, what is fundamental and key to the success of those operations is that we as a nation act legally. This legislation enables us to stop, board, and search vessels suspected to be involved in drug smuggling in international waters beyond New Zealand’s 24 - nautical mile contiguous zone.

All I will say is that, from New Zealand First’s perspective, we have long been very firm and clear about our view of this sort of activity. We have seen many examples. I’m holding one such newspaper report here, going back to November 2017—“$20m cocaine bust in Tauranga …”.

Interestingly, we have assisted Fijian authorities most recently in Wasawasa, too, with interdicting a supply of cocaine that was destined for Fijian streets and assisting Fijian authorities. It’s good to be able to do that. We’ve also deployed, through the maritime operations as part of the coalition element, counter-terrorist operations aimed at stopping drug trafficking, which actually finances terrorist operations, and stopping and interdicting gun-running, which equips terrorist operations. Our navy, in conjunction with our coalition partners, has been extraordinarily successful in the past, during the last term of Government, in these operations. It is timely and appropriate that we as a nation give ourselves the powers to interdict these operations off our own shores. On that note, I’d simply say that New Zealand First wholeheartedly supports the passage of this bill.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker. It isn’t often that I find myself endorsing all of the comments of the Hon Ron Mark, but on this occasion I’m happy to do so wholeheartedly. May I thank him for his generous acknowledgment at the start of his comments of the fact that this is work that began under the previous Government, because for about 20 minutes last year, I had the great privilege of being the Minister of Customs—

Simon O’Connor: What a 20 minutes—what a 20 minutes.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Thank you, Mr O’Connor. Yes, it was a very fine 20 minutes. I’ll work on the principle that less is more, and try to take some credit for this measure. But, in all seriousness, this was a measure that I and others were working on at this time.

There is no question at all that serious drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and other hard drugs are doing enormous damage in communities the length and breadth of New Zealand. It is incumbent, I think, upon all of us as members of this House to do everything we can, within reasonable parameters, to ensure that our authorities have the ability to do the job and to rise to new challenges, which are actually increasing almost on a daily basis at the moment. So, in the spirit of that generous acknowledgment, could I acknowledge the Hon Kris Faafoi, who has, of course, recently taken over the role as Acting Minister of Customs. I wish him well in that role for however long he may hold what is just such a superb portfolio, and what a great privilege it was to be the Minister of Customs.

Could I acknowledge the Minister for the excellent address that he made in introducing this second reading, and say that my only disappointment was that I had so greatly hoped that I would have been the one who would be delivering it, but never mind. I shall get over that and move on. I note that the coalition Government has eagerly embraced the bill and they’re claiming it as their own, and that’s fair enough—they are now the Government—but, as I say, this is a measure that has had its gestation in our time in Government.

So I am delighted to see it return to the House, having had thorough consideration by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. As the Minister who spoke before me has done, I too acknowledge my committee colleagues, under the excellent chairmanship of the member for Tāmaki, Simon O’Connor, who has steered this bill through the select committee. I also want to acknowledge the officials, who give us always such good advice on that particular committee, but also the men and women of the New Zealand Customs Service and the Defence Force, who do such an outstanding job in protecting our borders. We cannot overstate how much gratitude we owe them, nor can we overstate how well they do their jobs, because this is a very serious issue.

So I’d just like to pick out a couple of comments—given that this is an interrupted debate, and there’ll be members of the public who will be listening tonight who won’t have heard the speeches last week—just to draw attention, again, as the Minister did, to the fact that the purpose of the bill is to amend the Customs and Excise Act of 2018 and the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1975. People may be surprised to hear it’s the Customs and Excise Act of 2018, but we’ve only just finished that piece of work, which also began under the previous National Government, and this is an important part of ensuring that the changes in the Customs and Excise Act can work to their best effect.

The aim is to provide a clear domestic legislative framework for responding to drug smuggling activity in international waters beyond New Zealand’s territorial sea. In years gone by, those sorts of incursions were fairly rare. Now, they are very common, and while we are a small country—in fact, because we are a small country—the area of international waters that we have to protect is huge. In fact, it is a very daunting task, and those who wish to deal in this pernicious trade of smuggling drugs have, in some ways, quite an easy role because it’s so easy for them to detect capture, particularly if we can only go out to the edge of our contiguous zone. So I welcome very much the extension of powers that this gives.

Monitoring our maritime borders is, of course, a very challenging area for policing. Drug trafficking by small, independent marine craft offers a number of advantages to drug traffickers, and criminal groups have the flexibility to manage and disguise the routing and timing of their voyage to avoid official attention. Ships can land at remote locations or mother ships can transfer drugs to smaller craft, and that is probably happening right now, as we speak in this House. They then bring the drugs to shore and, boy, it can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. So, if detected, the traffickers have the option of trying to outrun enforcement vessels—sometimes they have craft that can do that—and they can move outside our country’s maritime jurisdiction with relative ease.

The aim of this bill is to plug some of those gaps in our legislation, because smuggling drugs has always been a great risk to our nation and, as I mentioned at the outset, probably never more so than it is today. Over the last two years, it’s become apparent that organised crime groups are employing this option more often. There have been 16 reported seizures of illicit drugs using the mother ship method that I mentioned a moment ago in the South Pacific region, with at least four this year alone. So we are talking about a very real, serious, and increasing problem. Some of those drugs were destined for us here in New Zealand; others were destined for Australia.

Because this is a second reading debate, I think it’s customary and appropriate to acknowledge those who made submissions on the bill and also, as I mentioned before, the work of the select committee. I do, as I say, acknowledge the valuable assistance of the officials.

We actually received only three submissions on the bill, and that is one of them. [Holds up submission] It’s admirably brief in its support of the bill, and I do commend the submitter and thank him, nevertheless, for having made it. There’s probably not a lot that I can say other than acknowledging he was in support, but I would like just to comment briefly on the other two because they came at it from a slightly different perspective.

One of those made the point that rather than pursuing this bill, the Government should focus on identifying local production of harmful drugs such as methamphetamine and reducing the harms caused. Now, it’s an interesting point of view, and I understood it, but, nevertheless, I think it probably ignored the vital point that here we are talking about how many, frankly, pretty despicable creatures are out there trying to penetrate our borders. While it’s appropriate, naturally, that we put as many resources as we can into dealing with the drugs once they’re here—and the Customs Service and others in the police do a fine job in that regard, as well—this is about prevention. It’s the fence at the top of the cliff approach, which is much, much better and a much safer option for everybody.

The other submitter who I want to comment on recommended that additional funding should be directed towards enhanced naval combat and offshore patrol capability to ensure New Zealand has the capability to respond to drug smuggling and wider maritime security matters, and I’m sure that was a matter that the Minister of Defence, in particular, took careful note of. We were advised that this particular bill will not substantially increase the demand on the New Zealand Defence Force’s resources, and I think it’s probably encouraging to hear that, because the Defence Force already provides support for customs’ responses to drug smuggling operations, and this is coordinated through the maritime coordination centre.

So I just wanted to acknowledge those three submitters and, as I say, thank them for making their submissions. While we’re not actually recommending changes to the bill as a result of them, we certainly took careful note of their opinions, and we thank them for doing so.

As I’ve mentioned, there have been numerous attempts over the last few years to penetrate our borders with this vile trade, so what we are looking at here is stepping up efforts offshore to disrupt the flow of illicit drugs through greater collaboration with international partners. In addition to relying on specific intelligence, we are also, through customs, able to monitor vessels approaching New Zealand and to determine suspicious movements. We already do that. This will give them the powers to go further out and to broaden their effectiveness, and at the moment there is no legislative basis for them to do that. We’re a little bit out of step with some of our other international partners with whom we often compare ourselves, and I welcome the fact that this bill is looking to plug that gap.

The changes proposed in the Maritime Powers Extension Bill build on the Customs and Excise Bill, as I mentioned earlier, that was passed earlier this year and will, again, be a useful tool in the tool box for those who are doing this important work. It’s fiendishly difficult, but when we look at how serious the problem is of drug abuse is and the distribution of hard drugs, which is undermining communities the length and breadth of this country, everything that we can do to give our authorities the power to stop that pernicious trade is welcome.

I have a personal view that those who smuggle and distribute hard drugs should be treated the same way as murderers because, frankly, they are destroying lives. They not only destroy the lives of those who receive the drugs but they actually destroy the lives of their families and their communities. So, to my mind, it is very serious, and I strongly welcome this bill.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): The last member, Tim Macindoe, was admirable in going the full 10 minutes, but I’ve got to take umbrage at the last statement, that hard drug dealers should be treated the same as murderers. It’s the same tough on drugs, tough on crime, soft on the causes of crime approach which for decades has failed us, which for decades has seen high incarceration rates but actually more damage, more harm in our communities. It’s failed—the evidence is clear—but when it comes to what’s happening in international waters, it’s clear that there’s a legislative gap in the system.

There are various international conventions, from UNCLOS—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—through to the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. But the issue, of course, is that while we try and interdict drug suppliers coming into New Zealand or, less likely, being exported from New Zealand, there are some legal grey areas regarding those international conventions. That’s why the Green Party supports this legislation, which is, essentially, modernising, harmonising, and cleaning up our interdiction powers under both the Customs and Excise Act 2018 and the Misuse of Drugs Act, to modernise those two laws.

What it does, essentially, is—there’s been this gap when it comes to what’s happening in the international waters. In the territorial sea, New Zealand legislation applies—that’s out to 12 nautical miles. What happens out on the international waters has been subject to some pretty onerous provisions, including trying to contact the flag State of the ship, where you want to interdict or suspect there are drugs on it, and try and get approval, since it’s that flag State that has responsibility over that vessel. Equally so, the New Zealand Government has the responsibility for New Zealand - flagged vessels, but given that there are so many foreign-flagged vessels in the Pacific, in our neighbourhood—many of these ships carry flags of convenience or can switch between countries with more convenient registration laws—it has been very difficult for the Government.

For anyone watching who may not think drugs coming into New Zealand is a problem at all, when you just look at what I understand we’ve seen interdicted in New Zealand’s close neighbourhood—this is between New Caledonia, Australia, and French Polynesia—we saw, in 2017, 237 kilograms of cocaine seized; on 27 July 2017, 1.4 tonnes of cocaine on a yacht off the coast of Tonga; on 12 June this year, I believe, 501 kilograms of methamphetamine; in February 2017, 1.4 tonnes of cocaine in the Tasman Sea from a yacht. We also see multiple tonnes and hundreds of kilograms of drugs being seized. What we want to make sure is that while there’s work to do the research to find potential suspects—there has been this legislative gap. So that’s why we’re very happy to support it.

As the last member pointed out, there were only three submissions to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—pretty resounding support amongst those three—but it’s important that we do modernise our rules. But I would just urge this House that while we’re dealing with the gaps in our international regime, let’s also fix the very clear and present gaps in our domestic regime. I respect the previous member highly, but there is this, I believe, misguided sense—and when you look at the evidence, it is misguided—that being tough on all drugs is the way to stop those worst, most pernicious drugs which reach our communities.

There was a sense that cannabis, for example, was a gateway drug—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speak to the bill.

GARETH HUGHES: —but what we do know is that while this legislation covers drugs such as cannabis—and we know that domestically in New Zealand, $200 million per annum is spent on cannabis enforcement, and that’s both in terms of surveillance and disruption of the courts and justice system—it’s not a gateway drug to those heavier drugs. In fact, what we know is the legal system that we force our young people, and particularly young Māori—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the member speak to the bill. Just mentioning cannabis in relation to the bill isn’t enough to focus on what this bill is about.

GARETH HUGHES: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was just trying to make the point that we need to make sure that while we’re using an evidence-based system internationally, we should do it domestically, and we’re going to have a great opportunity before the next election.

But, look, this is good, modernised legislation. We’re glad it’s been modified and improved marginally in the select committee. It is good legislation that the Green Party is happy to support. Kia ora koutou.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, an unsurprisingly soft stance on drugs from Gareth Hughes, the previous member who has just spoken, who was talking about how we need to be focusing not on the impact of drugs but actually on the source of drugs and around education. Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t see many criminal drug traffickers wanting to stop their business on the high seas to sit down for a lesson around the table in the ship’s galley on the potential impacts of drug use. Quite frankly, they’re focused solely on profits and on ensuring they can get those products into our New Zealand environment, and that is something that we strongly oppose on this side of the House.

Actually, it is encouraging to see that the Green members are supporting this bill in this second reading, and I do commend them for that because this is indeed an important aspect to refine both the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 and the Customs and Excise Act 2018. So what we’re really doing here, as we’ve heard from the previous member on this side of the House and one-time excellent customs Minister the Hon Tim Macindoe is that this is really about enabling us to meet our obligations internationally and to ensure that we contribute to the reduction, where possible, of the flow of trafficked drugs across our borders, obviously, extending outside, in this instance, past our territorial waters, 14 nautical miles, and another 14 nautical miles, past the contiguous zone, into those international waters.

One of the key aspects that I think is important here is around the intent. With those boats and ships that are trafficking these drugs and that currently sit outside that zone, we don’t have the capacity under current legislation, and, of course, that’s what this is looking to amend, by inserting a new schedule 5A to actually enable our defence forces and our customs people to reach out, as appropriate, where there is a clear likelihood of drug trafficking being conducted, or about to be conducted, and to act accordingly with that.

Actually, I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the fantastic work carried out every day by our New Zealand Defence Force personnel and by our customs officers in the environments that they operate in. The risks they are faced with on a regular basis to protect New Zealand to the best of their capacity is admirable, and I certainly thank them for all they do, have done, and will continue to do in that space.

So in terms of this particular bill, there are a couple of aspects that I wanted to highlight around it, really. One, for me, is around international responsibility. As a major player in the Pacific realm, it is very important that as a nation New Zealand does take a strong international leadership role in a raft of different areas. Of course, some of those are around trade, which is very important for us. We recently passed through this House the Tariff (PACER Plus) Amendment Bill relating to the trade deal with a number of our Pacific neighbours, and this is another area where it’s really important for us to take some leadership to demonstrate that, actually, we are adhering to and adopting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea article 108 and article 17.

So this is really, as I mentioned earlier, enabling that strengthening advancement of powers, perhaps to beyond what we have seen, to give greater flexibility to react to the range of different scenarios that our fine people might be presented with in trying to restrict drug flows. That is one of the areas that has grown, evolved, and presented significant challenges over a number of years now, as these drug traffickers—unsurprisingly perhaps, but surprisingly on one side as well—display increasing variety in the manner of methods in which they try to implement the movement of drugs. They have greater innovative techniques, their complexity has increased, and, indeed, the technology they’re able to harness and utilise as part of everyday society gives them additional options when they’re trying to evade our authorities and bring their products into our country. So it is important that we can evolve with the times and make sure that we remain relevant and current and we are able to operate in an appropriate manner with an appropriate response and in an appropriate time frame to ensure that, actually, we are protecting our citizens as best as possible.

If you look at the stats from 2017, we had over $1 billion worth of drugs seized by our customs people coming into New Zealand—$1 billion. That is a massive amount of damage that could have been done on the streets around our country. Unfortunately, in my electorate, in the Waikato, we have some areas that have drug challenges, as well, as there are all around the country. This is not an area-specific challenge, but it’s something that New Zealand as a whole faces, and so it’s really important that we take any step possible to actually expand our potential and our capacity to negatively impact on the flow of drugs across the borders. Taking that $1 billion out is a fantastic mark of progress.

That’s actually ramped up over the last couple of years. In the year prior, I believe, it was about $800 million, and prior to that it was about $650 million. So it is trending in the right direction, I suppose, although I guess that there’s an element—there could be an argument that it’s hard to say exactly how much is coming across the borders if, indeed, we’re not capturing it all or necessarily seeing it all flowing through to the market as well.

The estimates would suggest that there was about $1.8 billion of drug harm done domestically in New Zealand in 2017, as well. So through that same comparative time frame, $1 billion was stopped through the border, but there was $1.8 billion, unfortunately, in drug-related harm. So I guess, looking at that $1 billion out of $2.8 billion, that’s five-fourteenths, or about 35 percent that we did intercept at the border, which is a great step, but, actually, there’s, obviously, been 65 percent getting through our clutches at this stage.

So the two proposals that we’re looking at under this particular bill will provide greater capacity for our forces, our people out there, to employ the right skills to actually delve into their tool box and to have another option available to them that they can explore or deploy to enable them to react appropriately. That impact on drugs is just something I wanted to touch on, as well, and we heard from the Green member, briefly, about that. Whilst we need to be mindful of what we’re talking about here in the bill, actually, the overall intent is to stop drugs coming into New Zealand, because of the significant negative impact they have in our society, within our young people, often, but also in older people, and the impact that has on families, in particular, and communities even more so.

So anything we can do in that space, I absolutely support, as we do on this side of the House. That’s why I would be very happy to see this pass, and, indeed, I’m happy to see broad support across the House for this as well—in particular, from the Greens, as I mentioned, who are typically not supportive of any additional powers when it comes to the impact that might have on a drug environment, drug traffickers, or any criminals engaged in that sort of activity.

Matt Doocey: Invading farms, they like.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Well, that is an interesting point, because this bill provides powers for defence forces and for our customs agents to extend past our current boundaries, and we saw that just recently, where the Government chose to support the extension of warrantless search powers in a National Animal Identification and Tracing environment. There are some similarities there, but then, on the flip side, when it came to firearms prohibition, they were not prepared to support warrantless search powers.

So with this bill, actually, it’s important to demonstrate clear consistency in the messaging that we’re giving to our forces and the tools we’re providing them with when they look to enact on our behalf safety and security in our border environments. Certainly, I think it’s very key to get that highlighted today, which is why I just wanted to raise that point in particular. Now, when it came to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee’s report, there was very broad support and very wide-ranging agreement on that. There were minor drafting changes within that; otherwise, there was very little made to change it. So it was really about clarity and consistency through those minor drafting changes.

I just want to highlight, in particular, the key change that was proposed off the back of the select committee process: clause 7, inserting new section 12D(2)(c), in terms of adding the controlled drugs or prohibitive equipment or material into New Zealand—so really specifying down, Mr McAnulty, into what it is that we’re looking to capture under this particular bill to ensure that our customs officers have the right powers to secure and protect our borders as they need to. I think that’s something that I would just finish this debate on: that that is absolutely key. I would like to remind the Government of that—all parties in this Labour-led Government—that it is absolutely critical we contain and minimise the drug impact where possible and have a strong stance on crime. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. As a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, it was my pleasure to hear those three submitters. I speak in support of this Maritime Powers Extension Bill, which, essentially, is creating the legal mandate and justification for our customs officials, our police officials, and our defence officials to stop the supply of illicit narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, which is actually the title of article 108 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—I’ve just had a look at it. The interesting part of this discussion—I just did a Google search, actually—is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Europol estimated that the global drug trade is worth $435 billion.

Dr Duncan Webb: How much?

LOUISA WALL: It’s actually—$435 billion, and that was in 2013. There may be some more up-to-date figures. The reality is that this industry is lucrative, so we need to implement measures such as this. I want to agree with my colleague Mr Macindoe. In his previous role as Minister of Customs he was responsible for helping secure $54.2 million for the Customs Service. We know through that investment—because this is a complementary piece of legislation, you’re absolutely right. What have we done with that money? We’ve actually got people on the ground in Washington, Hong Kong, and we will have in South America and South-east Asia, and what I wanted to highlight is that having people in those destinations has meant that $114 billion worth of illicit drugs have not arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand as they were designed to do.

In fact, that’s what this bill is all about. We need to cut supply. We have to do it using whatever tools we have, and these international instruments actually force us to cooperate. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. We need a concerted, collective effort to continually fight against drugs that are doing massive damage in our communities. I don’t have much more to say, other than to commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did overlook the fact that this was a split call. I call Harete Hipango.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Kei te hiahia au te karanga o tēnei Whare mō tēnei pire.

[I would like this House to take a call on this bill.]

Māori Language Week was last week for many, but for those of us who wish to endorse and continue Te Reo, I just simply invited the House to take a call on this bill. I stand to address the House in the second reading of the Maritime Powers Extension Bill. It’s a time now to marry, to extend, and to amend the powers under the Customs and Excise Act 2018 and also the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. To make it clear, National supports this bill, so there’s no “naval-gazing” around this piece of legislation, and, also, it has cross-party support.

To dispense with the puns, I move on now to acknowledge our—

Kieran McAnulty: Oh, sorry. I didn’t realise.

HARETE HIPANGO: —officers who enforce this legislation. The member across the House indicated that he didn’t realise there were puns. Perhaps it’s indicative of the level of intelligence that comes from that portion. But in so saying, I think it significant to move on to acknowledge, in all seriousness now, the agents who enforce our security in this country, so I do heed and acknowledge our security defence forces: our customs officers, the Ministry of Fisheries, the New Zealand Defence Force, and our police.

This is significant legislation. It’s incorporating into domestic New Zealand law two provisions from international treaties: article 108 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which obliges signatory States to cooperate in suppressing maritime transit of illicit substances and providing a framework for cooperation when one State party has reasonable grounds to believe a ship flying the flag of another State party is engaged in the trafficking of illicit substances.

The other international treaty is article 17 of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. This provides a framework for States to board, search, and prosecute—in other words, interdict—drug traffickers on the high seas.

Kieran McAnulty: Is that a pun?

HARETE HIPANGO: So the member, again, across the House, is indicating a level of intelligence that I think is probably quite becoming from the position in the seat that he sits in, and I’m going to refocus back to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

In summary, the bill makes the following changes to the existing law. That existing law includes—

Hon Member: It just sails right over him.

HARETE HIPANGO: It does sail, beyond—expanding the powers of The New Zealand Customs Service—that’s customs—to stop, board, and search ships suspected of drug smuggling in international waters, and also establishing offences that apply when an individual is on a ship outside New Zealand waters but intends to smuggle, or is involved in the smuggling of, controlled drugs or prohibited equipment or material in or out of New Zealand.

Interestingly enough, today—and each day does reveal interesting events—I had the pleasure of a visit from the ambassador of the United States of America. In part of that discussion, he brought up the issue around the importance of security and intelligence to our nation. He spoke about Five Eyes. So I’m going to come back to this bill because this is about “custom eyes” in relation to the Maritime Powers Extension Bill.

As we know, drugs are a plague and a scourge on our society, and I mentioned that in my first reading speech to the House. New Zealand has an expansive coastline of some 15,000 kilometres. That is 9,300 miles—and I indicated that that’s the ninth longest in the world.

Time is limited, so I wanted to turn—and this was something “custom eyes” as such. There’s been much discussion in the House from previous speakers about the detail of the bill. But I do wish to reference that in New Zealand, customs is the oldest Government department. It was established on 28 January 1840 in Kororāreka—that’s up in the Bay of Islands. However, prior to that, we must also remember that Māori as first-nation mana whenua were also a trading nations’ people. This is about pulling in the importance of maritime powers extension in relation to ensuring that there are those protections and security. Time is coming to an end, regrettably. I commend this bill to the House so that it sails through to its third reading. Kia ora.

VIRGINIA ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Maritime Powers Extension Bill. It is a bill that does two things: it, basically, gives customs the powers to board ships and look for illicit substances, and one of those most likely to be looked for off the coast of New Zealand will be methamphetamine. Secondly, it also creates new drug offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 for drug smuggling, to enable those powers to come through.

Now, one of the things that has been interesting over the development of drugs entering into New Zealand over the last decade or so has been the change in the way that they’ve arrived on New Zealand shores. Initially, we saw methamphetamine being manufactured here in New Zealand, largely through clan labs and largely through using pseudoephedrine—large amounts were bought from pharmacies and then extracted to make methamphetamine here in New Zealand. That’s changed. What we see now is that the vast amount of methamphetamine brought into New Zealand has been ready-made in other countries and then brought into New Zealand.

I’d just like to pick up on the point already made of this idea of being tough on drugs. If we look at how we got tough on drugs in the past, one of the things done under the previous Government was to reclassify pseudoephedrine—that kind of drug that was quite useful when you had a cold or flu. It was made unavailable to the average New Zealander, and it was made a class B drug. It meant that you needed to go to a GP and get a prescription in order to get that. That has made absolutely no difference, because of the way that drug markets change, and what we’ve seen is a vast increase of the amount of methamphetamine coming into New Zealand, to the point that we got 500 kilograms off Ninety Mile Beach in Northland last year, which completely blew out all statistics—the largest amount ever found. If that’s just a drop in the bucket of the amount of methamphetamine that can reach New Zealand shores, then we should be very concerned.

So I stand in support of this bill, as does the Labour Party, because it’s important that we have the ability to interdict those substances before they reach New Zealand shores. I know that very much of the strategy that customs undertakes is to prevent those substances reaching New Zealand’s shores before they need to. I’d like to note the good work done at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. Although there were only three submissions, it’s good to see that the vast majority were in support, with two being in full support of this change to the two major pieces of legislation it covers.

The last point I’d like to briefly touch upon is the importance to state that cracking down on drug trafficking is just one side of the coin; that’s controlling the supply. What we need to also concentrate on—and that’s what this Government is focused on—is also controlling the demand, because you need to have a demand for methamphetamine in order for that supply to be wanted. That’s where it’s important to have drug treatment and have facilities available, not just in New Zealand prisons but also right across New Zealand, so those people who are in need of help for methamphetamine addiction issues are able to be assisted when they need to. That is the most effective way, I believe, that we will curb the drug issues that are confronting New Zealand currently. So, without further ado, I wish to commend this bill to the House.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I just want to start by acknowledging the amazing work that the customs officials do across our country and offshore. There are a number offshore; I believe it’s somewhere in the few-hundred mark—I’m sure the honourable member for Hamilton East—

Hon Tim Macindoe: West.

HAMISH WALKER: Sorry, Hamilton West—the one-time customs Minister, the Hon Tim Macindoe, would know. I also want to acknowledge the excellent work by the previous Government and also the Hon Nicky Wagner.

The first time you often come across a customs official is when you see the video just before you fly into one of our international airports, which runs in conjunction with the Ministry for Primary Industries. Then you meet these lovely people on the border. They do an amazing job. They put themselves at risk every single day. For me the hardest part is sort of resisting the urge to pat those beautiful dogs—very cute dogs.

Hon Tim Macindoe: You’re allowed to do that.

HAMISH WALKER: Is that right?

Hon Tim Macindoe: You are allowed to.

HAMISH WALKER: Thank you, the previous Minister.

I was just having a read of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee report. Unfortunately, this is about the extent of the submissions, which is a little bit disappointing—I believe there were three submissions. I do want to talk to those later on, but this bill has some good objectives, including providing the New Zealand Customs Service with an additional option to disrupt drug smuggling into New Zealand—basically giving them another tool in the tool kit. It also establishes clear rules, clear laws, over offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975.

The bill will amend the Customs and Excise Act 2018 to provide for a framework for how customs may stop, board, search, and take necessary enforcement action in international water. It’s important to note that these powers are consistent with customs’ existing maritime powers in New Zealand, but it’s important to note that they are only limited to a number of situations. Those situations are when customs have reasonable cause to suspect that a drug smuggling offence has been, is being, or is likely to be committed and, in the case of foreign ships, the flag State has authorised actions in accordance with the drug-trafficking convention.

This will enable customs to respond to suspected drug smuggling activities before ships enter into our waters or after they leave. We have been told that the powers proposed in this bill will not be exercised lightly; customs will consider these options available to them and determine the most effective response, along with the other tools available to them. This will establish a clear set of guidelines over drug smuggling offences committed in international water.

The bill also amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to establish offences relating to drug smuggling outside New Zealand. This makes it an offence to be involved in the importation or exportation of controlled drugs, or prohibited equipment or material such as precursor substances, equipment, or materials to be used in producing or manufacturing controlled drugs.

This is a very important piece of legislation. I visited a police station in my electorate yesterday, and they were telling me, they were sharing with me some of the horrific stories of the damage drugs have done in our communities. After that, I visited a lovely lady. Her granddaughter has been addicted to P since the age of 16, and now they’re struggling—really struggling—as a family as to how to help her overcome this horrible, horrible addiction. They also told me that drug dealers are becoming more savvy these days. In the good old days, a drug dealer may have smuggled a few supermarket bags full of cannabis. Now it’s a lot more sophisticated: it’s just small bags of P, which is obviously very hard to track and to capture—with the big supermarket bags of cannabis it’s easy to see, it’s easy to smell—which is a concern.

We know the attempts to smuggle drugs across the maritime border into New Zealand have been increasing in recent years. You only need to look at the recent attempts made to get into our shores. I just want to talk about two examples which just show how extreme and how far the lengths are that criminals will go to smuggle drugs into New Zealand.

You’ll recall back in June 2016 up on Ninety Mile Beach—it was a bit like a movie from Hollywood, really; it played out something like a plot that you would see in one of those movies. In a joint operation with customs, New Zealand Police, and other Government departments, they found 449 kilograms of methamphetamine in the back of a campervan on the beach, and a further 52 kilograms buried at Ninety Mile Beach. Through the excellent work of customs and the police service, two men admitted going in a boat more than 12 nautical miles off Ninety Mile Beach, picking up the drugs from another boat, and then returning back to the beach. Back on the beach the drugs were then handed to other members of the group. What’s great to hear is that the two men were jailed for more than 20 years, and I just want to commend and thank the New Zealand Police and the work of customs for catching these offenders.

In another incident, towards the start of last year, I believe—February 2017—a New Zealand - flagged yacht was intercepted off the coast of Australia near Sydney with 1½ tonnes of cocaine, worth $320 million, on board. Searching the New Zealand and Australian law enforcement agencies websites, it tells me that the yacht sailed over from Tauranga and met the mother ship in the southern Pacific Ocean, where the men helped to transfer dozens of black bags on to their boat.

I just want to acknowledge the previous National Ministers Nicky Wagner and Tim Macindoe. Tim, listening to you earlier in the House, quite clearly you’re an expert in this area. You know how these drug dealers think, and if I didn’t know that you were a previous customs Minister, I would have serious concerns.

The Customs and Excise Bill was introduced by the previous National Government and passed at the beginning of the year, which, back then, enabled customs to deal with the considerable growth in trade and travel. Every single day there’s about 180,000 items that cross the border—whether it’s postage items, whether it’s people—which is a huge amount and a huge increase from some years earlier. It’s actually amazing. I was in Australia recently and I was walking down the corridor and I actually started chatting to a customs official. He was telling me about the sensors they’re about to put in place, which will, basically, automatically detect if you’re carrying drugs or not. I was a wee bit concerned that he did stop me for a yarn.

On that note, I just want to commend the recent rise through the ranks from Minister Faafoi. I heard very positive remarks from the parliamentary rugby game in Napier previously. Hopefully your new roles don’t take you away from those duties. But I hear you did pull an injury, so maybe a bit more training will help.

In January this year, customs launched its newest patrol vessel, Hawk V. This vessel cost the previous Government $4.5 million, and it was designed and built in New Zealand. It’s significantly faster than its predecessor, can handle rougher seas, and contains state-of-the-art technology, including thermal imaging systems to track vessels at night. And it’s great to see that late last year, in Tauranga and Paihia, it led customs to seizing a total of 70 kilograms of cocaine, resulting in five arrests.

This bill will continue to enable customs to take more of a proactive approach, as opposed to a reactive approach; one where, hopefully, it’ll stop drugs getting into our communities and causing such significant harm. And one last final comment, I was interested to see that if you think about people that are caught illegally fishing, then they have to forfeit their fishing gear, their fishing boat, their fishing vessel—it’s interesting to see that this bill will require people to forfeit their vessels. Obviously there’s a large capital upfront cost to purchase a vessel to take your drugs across waters. So a bit like under the fishing rules, where you have to forfeit your fishing equipment, I think this is a very good initiative.

I just want to, once again, commend this Government for taking on the previous Government’s work and I commend this bill to the House.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Maritime Powers Extension Bill, which makes two tweaks that sound pretty simple but have some significant implications. Currently, there’s no legislative basis in New Zealand’s domestic law to exercise customs powers in international waters in respect of ships that are suspected of attempting to traffic drugs into New Zealand, and this amendment bill will change that.

It, basically, empowers customs to be able to board and search and take enforcement action in international waters, and it amends the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 to create offences relating to drug smuggling in international waters outside of New Zealand. Basically, what we have now is domestic law that governs what’s known as New Zealand’s territorial sea, which is about 12 nautical miles out from the shore, and what’s known as the contiguous zone, which is, sort of, 12 to 24 nautical miles. But beyond that, which is international waters, we have no powers—or customs has no powers now—to respond to ships that are potentially smuggling drugs and are in those waters. There’s always been a risk of organised criminal groups evading border control, but of late we’ve seen that it’s happened more often than not—a small number of cases, but typically they’re at the very highest end of offending.

This bill will allow customs an additional tool to intercept drug smuggling, and this, of course, is one part of what this Government is doing to address the issue of the drug epidemic, which also includes investing $8 billion over four years in health, and making mental health and addiction a priority. So without further ado, Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): I move, That the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Could I also thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for their work and consideration of the bill. I’d also like to thank all those who submitted on the bill for their valuable feedback. I also wish to thank officials for their work on progressing the bill to this stage.

We are moving to a new fibre world, and this bill modernises the Telecommunications Act to reflect that. It will establish a stable and predictable framework for fibre access services here in New Zealand. In light of the fibre roll-out, the bill removes copper regulation; it also streamlines regulatory processes to enable a rapid response to any competition problems. In addition, the bill gives the Commerce Commission greater oversight over retail service quality, and puts in place wider consumer protections. The roll-out for broadband is making good progress. The ultra-fast broadband (UFB) programme is ahead of schedule, and the second phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative and Mobile Black Spot Fund is picking up speed. Overall, the bill will provide a stable platform to further enhance New Zealand’s connectivity and meet the growing demands of consumers and business in New Zealand.

I’d now like to discuss the new regulatory arrangements in the bill. The changes made in the bill can be grouped into four main categories. First is the new utility regulation framework, and under the new regime, UFB providers can expect reasonable rates of return. They’ll also be incentivised to make ongoing investments in maintaining and upgrading their networks. However, the system will ensure that they cannot make excess profits at the expense of consumers. Under this new regulatory framework, Chorus will be subject to a revenue cap. The revenue cap gives Chorus flexibility in how it sets prices for most of its product, but it also ensures that Chorus does not earn excessive returns on its fibre assets.

In order to protect consumers, Chorus will be required to supply price-regulated entry-level voice and broadband anchor services and this will also anchor the prices of other products it offers. Chorus and other local fibre companies (LFCs) will be subject to information disclosure regulation, and this means that they will be required to disclose information publicly to enable scrutiny of their performance and profitability. LFCs will face competition from copper, cable, and fixed wireless networks, so they will not be subject to revenue caps. However, they can be regulated further if problems arise in line with other Part 4 regulation.

The second set of changes relates to the deregulation of copper services. In areas where fibre services are available, Chorus will be allowed to remove copper services, subject to consumer safeguards being met. Consumers will have a wide range of choices in these areas, including the option of moving to fibre networks with better services and similar prices. In areas where fibre is not available, the telecommunications service obligation applies, which provides for price-capped landline and dial-up services, and they will be retained. Chorus will be required to continue supplying copper services at prices capped at 2019 levels with inflation adjustments over time. This will ensure consumers continue to have access to basic telecommunications services at affordable prices even when alternative networks are not available.

The third set of changes provide greater consumer protections. The bill improves the Act by boosting consumer protections, because it’s clear that the telecommunications industry needs to do better in meeting the needs of consumers. The bill augments consumer safeguards and provides for more regulatory oversight of retail quality standards and dispute resolution processes.

Finally, in this area, the process for regulating services is being streamlined. The bill will encourage further competition in telecommunication services through streamlining the process for the Commerce Commission’s investigations into regulating telecommunications services. These changes allow for more timely intervention by the commission when issues are identified, and further encourage commercial settlements as an alternative to regulation.

Changes were made at the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. They supported the bill and, as I say, recommended some changes, and I’ll discuss five of those main recommendations. First of all, the line of business restrictions—the bill as introduced relaxed what are known in the Act as the line of business restrictions. These restrictions limit the kinds of activities that Chorus can be involved in. Submissions to the committee raised concerns about the relaxation of these restrictions, but the committee considered the concerns held by the retail service providers and others that lifting the restrictions would distort the market. On the other hand, Chorus and the other LFCs supported the relaxation of the restrictions, noting that the change would allow them to provide innovative products and stimulate competition. To address this issue the committee has recommended retaining the restrictions while creating a new exemption power for the commission, to enable innovative solutions for consumers that would not harm competition.

The bill as introduced did not provide specific guidance on how the Government’s contribution to the costs of building the ultra-fast broadband network would be treated in the new regulatory framework. The committee considered it would be helpful to clarify how this concessional finance would be dealt with, and the committee has recommended that, in relation to the asset valuations of UFB providers, they should be given the opportunity to recover actual costs to finance they have incurred—in other words, the commission should take into account the concessional finance received from the Government and should not assume that commercial finance rates were applied to the whole asset base. In addition, the committee recommended that the bill make it clear that regulated providers will not be protected from all risk of recovering their costs.

Thirdly, the purpose statement for the new fibre regulatory framework in the bill had a focus on outcomes for fibre users. The committee recommended a change to enable the commission and the Minister to consider all end users’ interests where relevant, not just the interests of fibre users.

Fourthly, the convergence of broadcasting technologies is blurring the boundaries between providers of broadcasting and telecommunications services. For example, it’s now common for consumers to stream television through the internet. To address this issue, the committee accepted advice and recommended that the definition of “a telecommunication” be amended to include broadcasting transmission services also. This proposed change could improve consistency in how the servers are treated in the future, particularly given the emergence and growth of fibre as a means of transmission for TV. The commission will be able to monitor or investigate the commercial conditions for digital terrestrial transmission through its existing Telecommunications Act processes, if this is needed.

And, lastly, as I noted earlier, the new system will require Chorus to provide price-regulated anchor services in order to protect consumers. The bill specifies that the price of the anchor services is based on the prices Chorus charges in 2019. The committee received submissions raising concerns that consumers could face a substantial increase in prices because Chorus could raise prices before the new system kicks in. The committee considered that consumers should not be exposed to price shocks but that there was not sufficient time to address the issue at the committee stage of the bill. So I would like to note that I will be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper for this bill at the committee of the whole House stage.

In conclusion, the new regulatory framework put in place by this bill will bring the Telecommunications Act up to date in light of New Zealand’s fibre-focused telecommunications environment. The system will encourage further investment by network providers while also protecting consumers. The coalition Government commends this bill to the House and hopes that the National-led Opposition will too.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): May I just express our congratulations to the new Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, who managed to do 10 minutes on this speech, in such a new portfolio—well, 8½ minutes. I just want to acknowledge the communications Ministers we’ve had in this Parliament, starting with Steven Joyce, who really kicked off the whole ultra-fast broadband (UFB) rollout in New Zealand, followed by Amy Adams, Simon Bridges, Clare Curran, and now Kris Faafoi. It’s incredibly complex and anything to do with regulation that has monopoly powers is something that needs a lot of thought. Can I also say thank you very much to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for the very intensive work that you have done and for how we worked together to try and bring together a passage of legislation that is going to work for our future. It’s very important that we, in these particular areas, try the very best to find the right position for New Zealand to operate in.

At the end of the previous Government, just before we went into the election, this bill came into the House. It went into abeyance because of the election, and it was taken up by the new Government and brought forward. At that point in time, almost 1.2 million New Zealand households and businesses had access to ultra-fast broadband, and we were fast approaching our 1.5 million households and businesses able to connect. Currently, that figure is 1.4 million. So we’re well on the way, and I think, as the Minister made a comment, this is incredibly important for New Zealand’s economy, for our education, and of course for entertainment. I have discovered—maybe my facts and figures are a little bit old—that New Zealand is doing quite well in terms of international rankings. If people out there were going to download a 7.5 gigabyte movie, it would take just over an hour. It is a bit quicker in Singapore, but if you lived in Yemen, that same movie would take two days to download. So New Zealand is doing well.

In terms of worldwide rankings compiled by broadband comparison service cable.co.uk, they put Britain one place below us. The United States is 21st; so they are nine places in front of us. Australia was 25 places behind us in terms of world rankings in speed of broadband. And South Africa, as we know, is just 2 points in front of us. Nobody got that one!

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

JONATHAN YOUNG: A few! So this National-led Government allocated approximately, in the previous Government, $2 billion to deliver better connectivity. In the Telecommunications Act 2001, it required a review of the telecommunications regulatory framework to be undertaken, to be commenced by 30 September 2016 and to be completed no later than 31 March 2019. So we are right in the middle of that time frame.

This bill came to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee in November 2017. We had 257 submissions. There was quite a bit of interest in the country, and we had 31 submitters who came to the committee in Wellington to express their concerns, their thoughts, and their ideas on how to improve it. In fact, there was one group of people—let me just mention them briefly—who were very concerned about electromagnetic radiation, and we do hear this issue now and again, from time to time, regarding people’s concerns about microwaves. As a committee, we wanted to take every concern at face value and take these matters seriously; so we asked the Ministry of Health to come in and to brief us. They summarised their views to us orally and then we asked them to put it into writing, and that report is available on the website. They said this bill has no impact on exposure to wireless radiation. They said there are international standards that set limits for maximum exposure levels to radio waves, including the wireless radiation emitted through cellphone and wireless transmissions. These New Zealand exposure limits are consistent with the guidelines published by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, and New Zealand complies with these standards.

They went on to say that mobile network operators also commission independent monitoring of exposure levels and the Ministry of Health has advised that 5G networks will be subject to the same limits that New Zealand has currently, and they also advise that no cell site has failed independent monitoring tests. So I thought that would be interesting for listeners to hear tonight as we look at this bill, because that is a subject that, of course, gets a little bit of airtime, particularly on social media.

Coming to the bill, the bill will establish a new approach to telecommunications regulations, and that is so important because we are in this zone where we have a whole new network that has been laid out, rolled out, in play, and it’s getting very significant uptake. At the moment, 1.4 million households or end users are able to connect. And we are seeing the number of people who are actually doing the connections increasing exponentially.

And so we fully expect that over the next number of years people will migrate from their copper lines to ultra-fast or to fibre lines. With the fibre lines come so many more opportunities in which we can use technology, so there needs to be some understanding around that, some regulation around that. Some who have had what are probably best to be described as monopoly powers have wanted to enlarge their ability to build and to extend technology through the network that’s been established. You can understand that, because this network offers a platform for exciting innovation that is going to be very, very important—it already is, but it’s incredibly important for our next steps as an economy. It’s important to work our way through that.

One of the areas, if I can just touch on another couple of areas before my time finishes, and I think the Minister did touch on this, was the line of business restrictions. There have been in the past some restrictions constrained upon monopoly groups of people, and that is right throughout our economy in different areas. The Commerce Commission, of course, is the regulatory authority that looks at this. There was this line of business restrictions that I think became probably the most debated issue that came before the committee. It was very, very strongly felt on both sides. There were companies who saw the opportunities of how they could develop new innovative ideas, who had the capacity, who had the size, who wanted to step up into that space, and Chorus was one of those who wanted to do that. Then there were retailers who felt that they had the nimbleness to be able to innovate and felt that the market powers exercised by very strong companies would quench that innovation. And so it became quite a difficult situation.

So we decided—just in my last 30 seconds—as a committee that we would retain that line of business restrictions, but after the first regulated period, we would enable the Commerce Commission to do a case-by-case exception, when there is application and when we have bedded this down and seen how it works, to open up the possibilities that exist for New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

JO LUXTON (Labour): Thanks, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’d just like to begin my contribution with a quote from Vinton Cerf, who’s recognised as one of the founding fathers of the internet. He said, “The Internet is for everyone”, and this bill will help to ensure that this remains the case. It’s going to give certainty to the industry as well as protection to consumers—and that’s something that I particularly like about this bill: protecting the consumers. It’s going to give the Commerce Commission a greater oversight, which will actually increase transparency. We’ll have the ability to ensure that internet providers are going to be required to disclose information publicly, and I think that gives the public certainty to ensure that there’s nothing going on behind closed doors—that everything is out in the open and consumers can be informed and know what to expect. InternetNZ, in one of their submissions, said, “Our vision for New Zealand’s Internet market is one where competition, investment, and innovation deliver better opportunities for New Zealand. Our fibre network will soon reach 85% of New Zealanders, and we want to see its potential delivered. Beyond fibre, we want to see efficient investment and innovation to deliver better connectivity to all New Zealanders.”, and this is something that this bill will also allow.

I’d like to think about my background of owning a small business and being in a rural area. I think these sorts of things—having good quality connectivity and internet services—are hugely vital for our small businesses and in the rural community, and particularly when you get the two of those combined. In the space where my business is, we are communicating with parents and children all over the internet through connectivity. We are talking about the progress that children are making every day, allowing the parents to be able to contribute to their learning stories. It’s really important that we have that good, fast connectivity so that grandparents overseas can use the services as well that we provide. So I really like the fact that a lot of this bill focuses on the end consumer and that it’s meeting their needs and that they are better protected, and I commend this bill to the House.

MELISSA LEE (National): It’s a great pleasure to rise to take a call on the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill, and I’d like to start by commending the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, who actually spoke on the second reading. Considering the fact that he’s only recently just been given the portfolio, I thought he actually did a spectacular job of doing a 10-minute speech on a subject that he may not necessarily be familiar with. I have to actually say he probably was briefed really well by his officials. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the great chair that we have in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. I have to say that Mr Jonathan Young is probably a very open and generous chair who actually gives members on the committee a bit of a wide berth to have a free conversation about issues, and I thank him for his hard work.

I really don’t want to sort of get into the whole bill, because there was quite a large number of debates that actually happened during the select committee process. The bill sparked a huge amount of submissions, and, as the chair pointed out, we had a total of 257 written submissions, of which 37 were heard as oral submissions before the committee. I thank the secretariat for their due diligence in compiling and administrating the hearing processes, which is sometimes quite difficult to manage, with, you know, all the wishes of the submitters wanting to speak all at the same time.

I’ll also, perhaps, go into an area where something has actually come up after the fact of the select committee. I haven’t actually had an opportunity to have conversations with many of the members of the select committee, but if Minister Faafoi—I had a quick chat with him. I’d like to note that the Minister’s office hopefully will have actually advised and informed him in the changeover process that there have been some issues that were raised after the select committee process with the former Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Clare Curran, and she was engaging directly with some of these stakeholders about this particular issue facing them: the LFCs, the local fibre companies in the private sector. This morning I lodged several parliamentary written questions around this particular issue over the definition of “fibre network”—in particular about access points as they relate to those who currently provide the fibre services to those who will be supplying future cell towers, perhaps, for the provision of wider mobile connectivity in our country.

The concerns these particular LFCs have are in relation to the use of the phrase “access point” in the definition within the legislation. The way it was actually drafted did not actually talk about access points. I think we were talking about “building”. You know, sometimes what happens with legislation when it actually goes a select committee, and the debates that actually happen over time, we sort of haven’t quite done the recall of specific discussions, but I remember the concerns that some of the select committee members actually had were that if the connection was being delivered to a particular building—let’s say for a farm, where the actual dwelling was quite a long way away from the actual road, for example. If the connection was only delivered to the building—it could be a shed—the people, who were actually living maybe a kilometre away, may not actually have the access to fibre. That was one of the discussions I think that we actually had.

The way it was actually developed through the select committee process was we’ve actually come up with a word in the report back, in the legislation, called “access points”. What that might inadvertently do is actually make local fibre companies provide fibre to actual cell towers, and that might actually, perhaps, impact on the business of the LFCs. These are some things that maybe the Minister should perhaps consider.

And I know that as members of the select committee, we never actually had an opportunity to discuss this with the officials, because it was never raised during the process of the select committee, because it wasn’t actually a concern at the time and nobody actually raised that with us. And perhaps, in the officials’ and the Minister’s consideration of the comments that are actually made by the LFCs, the Minister might consider and support a Supplementary Order Paper during the committee stages to make sure that we don’t actually have an inadvertent hindrance to the businesses going about in their business.

I guess I also wanted to talk about some concerns that some members of the public actually raised—and I think Jonathan Young actually stole my thunder when he talked about that—in terms of their concern about the 5G and the mobile network innovation and how the radio waves were going to be impacting on people’s health. One of the quotes that I actually remember from the Ministry of Health coming to the select committee and telling us is that the Ministry of Health meets every six months to access the latest information regarding health effects resulting from the exposure of radio waves and that the committee last held meetings in February of this year and the conclusion from their discussion was—I quote—“that there is nothing in the research which would indicate there is a need to change current policy on the health effects of radio waves.” That was the reassurance that we actually had from the Ministry of Health officials who actually came to our select committee to explain that, which was raised as a result of the submissions that were raised, which were not necessarily part of the scope of the bill but were, obviously, enough of a concern that many people actually wrote to us.

As the chair actually pointed out, there were two particular issues that were very prominent during the select committee discussions. One was in relation to the anchor products, and the other was in relation to the line of business restrictions, and the Minister has also actually addressed those issues.

In terms of the anchor products, I think most of us actually struggle with things like that. When somebody says “What is an anchor product?”, we go “What?” An anchor product is the very base product that a fibre company would actually deliver. It is the anchor service to ensure that voice and basic broadband services are available to consumers at a reasonable price and to provide an anchor on the prices and quality of service around other fibre products that are actually being offered. What the committee has heard—and it was actually quite pleasing to hear from some submitters who actually came from Australia, who were suggesting that New Zealand has such an amazing broadband service compared to our Australian neighbours. It was really pleasing to actually see. There were lots of recommendations as to whether we should have it lower or higher, and we actually came to an agreement as a committee that we would actually sit on an anchor product where we are looking at 100 megabits per second upload and 20 megabits per second download and a voice-only product as anchor products as a base, and that it should provide a price stability for consumers. I guess that actually indicates to the retail service providers that that is the price that they need to actually work with and that they have products around that they can actually offer to consumers.

The other issue, which both the Minister and the chair have actually dealt with, which was quite controversial, I guess—and we heard a lot of submissions and talk after the fact as well—was in terms of line of business restriction. You know, the local fibre companies and the wholesalers actually wanted the ability for them to innovate. They keep talking about innovation. But I guess there are other companies who are worried that that innovation might encroach into the retail area and that it might actually mean that the competition—that perhaps a bigger player like Chorus might encroach on some retailers, and that as a small company dealing with retail might not be able to compete against a big giant like Chorus, it was a concern.

I think I can understand Chorus’ perception and all the other fibre companies’ wishes to actually innovate, themselves, because they have new technology actually progressing at such a fast rate. But where we actually landed on was that the committee in fact decided that we will retain the existing line of business restrictions. But it doesn’t actually mean that they can’t innovate, because after the first sort of period, case by case will be provided so that they can—

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

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. On behalf of New Zealand First, I rise to take a call on the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. Can I just take us back to the first reading speech, actually, which was in the previous Parliament, and can I just talk about a piece that is inside the explanatory note: “In areas where fibre is available, Chorus will no longer be required to supply copper fixed line access services, or meet the obligations specified in the TSO instruments.”

Now, I understand that through the New Zealand First member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, Clayton Mitchell, this was raised with the select committee at that time, and I just want to recap for the members of the public what the telecommunications service obligation (TSO) instruments are that are going to be removed under this piece of legislation.

So when Telecom was privatised in 1990, the Kiwishare obligations placed a number of requirements on Telecom in respect of a local Telecom service. In December 2001, these requirements were superseded in an enhanced form and became the TSO for local residential telephone service. The local TSO is primarily a consumer protection mechanism that ensures the availability and affordability of basic telecommunications services in New Zealand. The local service TSO ensures that the residential local telephone service is (1) available to residential customers throughout New Zealand, and (2) is available in rural areas at a price and quality comparable to the local service available in urban areas. The TSO deed further requires Telecom to offer residential customers the option of toll-free calling—e.g. Warkworth and Wellsford into Auckland—limit price rises in the standard residential line rental to no more than the rate of inflation; and enable residential customers to make emergency 111 calls.

That last one, of the TSO deed, is the one that New Zealand First asked for the select committee to address. As I say, in my understanding, from the member of the New Zealand First caucus who was on that select committee, it was raised with the select committee and a solution was provided by the officials at that time, which was that the answer was that those who could not or did not—who were going to have their home line switched to fibre would have to go and buy themselves a mobile phone and a battery pack. I just want to acknowledge the previous Minister of this bill, Clare Curran, and the current Minister of the bill, Kris Faafoi, for the collegial and consultative way that they have worked with New Zealand First around this particular issue. I cannot see inside the bill that has been reported back to the House from the select committee—I’m happy to be wrong, if a member of the select committee could stand and point me to that clause—any amendment that provides an alternative to fibre in a power cut to any vulnerable member of our community—e.g., the elderly or those who cannot afford a mobile phone or a battery pack. This is a transference of expense from what has been an obligation on a telecommunications company in this country to the consumer.

Now, I can see inside the bill that has been reported back to the House that the select committee has placed an obligation upon Chorus to inform the consumer that they will need to go and get a phone and a battery pack. That hardly addresses the issue of a transference of expense.

And so, again, I want to acknowledge the Minister—both the past Minister and the current Minister—for working with New Zealand First incredibly constructively to come up with a solution here. We will be bringing that solution to the committee of the whole House. I do have to articulate we’re disappointed that the select committee themselves was not able to amend the legislation to take into account those vulnerable New Zealanders, but we look forward to working with the Minister constructively at the committee of the whole House and making sure that rather than pass on this cost to the New Zealand consumer we make sure that they are acknowledged.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be taking a call tonight on the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. I’d like to start by acknowledging the chair of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, Jonathan Young, for a very able chairmanship of that committee. We are a very hard-working and diligent committee. We sat for many hours considering this piece of legislation, and I think we’ve done a very good job. We do so in a very collegial manner on the committee and—I guess, the comments from Ms Martin aside—I think we all came to acceptance of this bill in its current form.

I do just want to cover off some of the submissions that were raised in relation to this bill. It’s fair to say that some of the submissions that came forward to us were fairly dry and some of them less so. The background to this legislation is a fairly long one. In the middle of 2016, the then communications Minister, Amy Adams, released the results of the telecommunications review and set out a new direction for regulating broadband and phone services. At the time, she said, “Digital technologies are transforming the way New Zealanders live, work and do business. To help reach our 2025 broadband target and to keep our economy growing, we need the right laws in place to make sure high quality and affordable communications services are available for consumers and businesses. The communications sector is vastly different to the market in 2001 when the Telecommunications Act was introduced, and it’s time for our laws to catch up.”

That new direction formed the final telecommunications reform package as it was announced by the then communications Minister, Simon Bridges, on 1 June 2017, and in August of that year this piece of legislation was introduced to Parliament. At the time, Minister Bridges noted, “The telecommunications market is changing, with new technologies, shifting consumer behaviour and evolving business models. Alongside this, consumers have vastly improved connectivity through the Government’s $2 billion rollout of world-leading communications infrastructure, with more to come.”

I would particularly like to congratulate both of those former Ministers, Simon Bridges and Amy Adams, today for the work that they did in bringing this very important piece of legislation to the House. They, effectively, did the hard work and the heavy lifting on this legislation and brought it forward to Parliament. I’d also like to acknowledge the current Minister, Kris Faafoi, on taking up the piece of legislation and progressing it through the House. I’d also like to acknowledge former Minister Clare Curran and thank her and her officials for the support that they provided the committee during our deliberations.

As has been said, our committee received 257 submissions from a range of companies, interested groups, and individuals. We heard from 31 of those in person or, in some cases, by phone, and we received, it’s fair to say, a fairly wide variety of feedback on the bill. We heard some very useful and substantial submissions from the likes of Chorus, who said that they support the policy aims of the bill, but they noted that the Telecommunications Act review started in 2013 and so they sought timely implementation of the new regime and made suggestions to support it. Those suggestions included that potential extensions to implement the model should be reduced from 24 months to six months. They also asked that, in the event of any extension, key elements of the regime, including the critical decisions that will determine the allowable revenue, the copper withdrawal code, and copper and telecommunications service obligations, should be in place by January 2020.

They also advocated very strongly for a flexible, technology-neutral, and durable regime which could adapt to changing technology and changing consumer demand. They also asked that the committee consider ensuring the regime continues to support geographic differentiation for initiatives like Gigatown. Gigatown is a subject that is fairly close to my heart as someone who now lives in Timaru. Of course, Timaru was, unfortunately, robbed, frankly, by the city of Dunedin when it came to which city would be given that. So I’m very happy to see that Chorus are keen to continue that differentiation, and I live in hope that Timaru, which I think was in second place to Dunedin, will be their next Gigatown. I’d also like to add that Chorus are very, very keen to see this legislation pass in a very expeditious manner.

Vodafone also submitted on the legislation to us, and they raised a number of substantial amendments to the bill to better realise the full potential of the Government’s ultra-fast broadband roll-out. We also had Spark submit on the legislation. They too offered a number of quite substantial suggestions including removing the proposed regulatory holiday for fibre access and backhaul services; removing Commerce Act ouster provisions for fibre anchor products; extending the purpose statement to allow the commission to consider all end-users’ interests, not just the interests of fibre customers; and, finally, removing the direction of the commission to add “prior losses” to the Chorus regulatory asset base.

I think, on the whole, the bill that we’ve brought back to Parliament from the select committee would satisfy most submitters—much more so than perhaps the bill that came to the committee—and so I thank the submitters for making their thoughts known. I accept, though, that some submitters will not be happy with the legislation that we’ve brought back. We did hear from a number of very interesting submitters, as has been said, from a number of individuals who are concerned about the health effects on the brain of 5G and increased prevalence or use of electromagnetic transmissions.

It’s fair to say that sometimes those discussions became fairly robust, but I’d just like to put on the record that all members of that select committee were very respectful in the way that they engaged with those submissions and, in particular, I’d again like to acknowledge Jonathan Young, who was unfailingly polite with all submitters during that process.

I do accept that some of the submitters will be unhappy with the decision that the committee came to, to recommend that the bill pass and, ultimately, I think, what will happen tonight with the passage through second reading. However, we did listen to them. As has been said, we sought advice from the Ministry of Health. They came back and, essentially, said that there was next to no risk with this legislation passing, in a health sense. That certainly satisfied for me the concerns that those submitters raised.

This is a good bill and, as others have outlined, we will be supporting it. The new regulatory regime enabled by this bill will modernise the Telecommunications Act so that it is fit for purpose for New Zealand’s fibre-focused telecommunications environment. It will put in place a balance of incentives so that ongoing investment by network providers will continue to be encouraged while consumers will be protected. It will create a more predictable telecommunications environment, target regulation more effectively, and support consumers. It builds on the very good work of the previous National Government in rolling out ultra-fast broadband to connect more New Zealanders with the rest of the country and with the rest of the world. I commend it to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I’m just sitting here listening to the debate and reflecting on when I first entered Parliament and became the Greens’ ICT spokesperson. We still had a thing called Telecom, our internet was slow, we had things called data caps where if you went over a certain limit you had to pay extra. We had local loop unbundling; it happened a few years before under the Hon David Cunliffe, but still our internet was slow and unaffordable. We were down the international rankings.

But I’m trying to acknowledge both sides of the House. Think of what we’ve seen in progress over the last eight years. We’ve seen ultra-fast broadband rolled out to more than 75 percent of New Zealand homes—a massive Crown investment close to $2 billion. Telecom is no more; it’s been split into Chorus and Spark. And I think for me, it’s quite a telling sort of example, but any parent in this House or watching will know about the phenomenon that’s Fortnite. A couple of months ago, we demonstrated the resiliency and the effectiveness of our internet system in New Zealand. What we saw a couple of months ago when a Fortnite upgrade was released to the internet, we saw the most unprecedented highest amount of internet demand in our country’s history: 20 percent above normal. In fact, there were 30,000 gamers downloading it simultaneously while everyone else was downloading Netflix. In other countries their internet falls over, it slows down. In New Zealand we are able to resolve an unprecedented challenge.

So when you think what we’ve done over the last 10 years—it’s been building this network, the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and the Rural Broadband Initiative. What Parliament is doing tonight is turning to what’s next: how do we deal with a system which has been built with taxpayer contributions; significant private contributions, I’ll add as well. But what’s the appropriate regime? I’m glad to see unanimous support amongst the House for a regulatory regime built around the utility model, which is basically a regulated monopoly with an independent body, in our case the Commerce Commission in New Zealand, regulating it. I think we’ve seen widespread support from numerous players in the market, through to commentators, that this is the appropriate model for what’s next.

I want to thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, thank the chair, and thank the submitters. I understand there were 257 submissions, 31 of them oral—many of them incredibly technical and multi-page; some of them, no doubt, written by lawyers. But I want to acknowledge the substantive work the committee did. This bill has been substantially improved. It’s important that it was improved, because what we are talking about is hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money that’s going into it, and where money can be made on that Crown contribution, but, I think more importantly, the billions of dollars of New Zealand consumers’ money which is going into telecommunications in New Zealand.

I was really excited by this legislation because, having a wide interest in electricity market regulation, there are very close parallels with what’s happening with this Part 4 of the Commerce Commission - type utility model. Two, I think, quite fixed issues facing the committee were—in the electricity sector analogy, it is vertical integration, and the second was the regulated asset base, the RAB regulated under Part 4 of the Commerce Act. First was the line of business restrictions. Now, it was interesting hearing from officials that they hadn’t anticipated such widespread—quite frankly—opposition from retailers with the original legislation. Under the Telecommunications Act, line of business restrictions were established when Chorus was split from Telecom, basically saying that Chorus’ job was to focus on the wholesale market; they weren’t allowed to enter retail. The idea of the original incarnation of this legislation was to weaken or relax those business line restrictions. The theory, of course, is that you promote innovation and competition in those markets.

What we heard very clearly from retailers was that an impact of such a large, vertically integrated wholesaler-retailer, which is what Chorus would’ve become, would’ve been damaging to the market and damaging for consumers. So the business line restrictions have been retained in the legislation, but I think what we’ve tried to do is find that flexible approach, because there is a potential need for those restrictions to be eased in the future, and that’s why the committee has delegated to an independent body, the Commerce Commission, who I believe is best fit to make those decisions.

The analogy in the electricity sector, of course, is that our local lines monopolies, the distributors, are now getting into other markets such as battery services, demand response—would love to get into retail markets. But if those local monopolies become vertically integrated, they can exercise that market power but also—and this comes to the secondary major amendment in the legislation—can manipulate the market in such a sense that they can invest in assets, put it in their protected regulated asset base, and get a guaranteed rate of return based on the input methodologies of the Commerce Commission, which is acting in an uncompetitive fashion for other players in the market who can’t access those regulated asset bases and guaranteed rates of return. So I’m really glad that we saw those business lines restrictions. It’s a big deal when you’ve got 5G wireless coming. We want to see a thriving, innovative retail market in that area, not old-fashioned Telecom thinking, but I think we’ve found the balance quite right.

The second thing I was touching on was the regulated asset base, and this is important because of the significant Crown contribution. Now, the committee process was incredibly constructive—we worked together—but here I am going to make a political point, because in the original legislation there was absolutely no certainty or clarification or guidance for the Commerce Commission as they were going to go about deciding the input methodologies for Chorus’ asset base. Basically, what I’m saying is the previous Government’s given Chorus a ton of money and, in drafting this legislation didn’t tell the Commerce Commission how to approach that Crown contribution, which we know is close to $2 billion. This is why I’m saying it has tens of millions of dollars of impact for these companies, because if they could put the entirety of the Crown contribution into their regulated asset base, get a guaranteed rate of return on money that wasn’t theirs, that was the taxpayers’, that’s a huge wealth transfer from taxpayers to consumers.

So what the committee has gone and done is clarify the treatment of the Government’s contribution—this is new section 176(3A), inserted by clause 23. What the committee has agreed is that recovery can only be limited to actual costs. This is incredibly fair and reasonable. Chorus should not be able to recover the costs which weren’t a result of their investment. What the committee has decided is that it’s fair that they can recoup money from that base to pay back the Crown loan, but the Commerce Commission cannot presume a commercial interest rate on that theoretical—it was theoretical—case of an interest-bearing loan. This is incredibly important to provide certainty to consumers and the players in the market that we do have a fair, robust, and transparent system.

The analogy here in the electricity sector, of course, is: should these companies and lines monopolies investing in batteries be able to put it in their regulated asset base and get a guaranteed rate of return, stifling other competitors? We heard the analogy of, say, someone who’s wanting to underground a powerline, and there was a private contribution towards undergrounding that powerline—whether the lines company should be able to put that in their regulated asset base even though it was a third party who actually paid for it—and in the electricity sector, that isn’t the case. I’m readily running out of time, but these were the two areas that I was particularly focused on to make sure we got a fair suck of the sav for Kiwi consumers and a robust market going forward.

I want to touch on Tracey Martin’s point, which is Part 2AA, deregulating the copper market in specified fibre regions. Now, I understand the concerns, and we did hear them from a few submitters. The problem, or the concern, is that the country and consumers can’t afford to fund and maintain two totally separate networks when most—the vast majority of—consumers are using a fibre network. Paying for, and the maintenance costs of, an increasingly old and out-of-date and hardly used copper service is becoming increasingly unaffordable, and the country can’t afford to pay for two networks when there’s only an absolute minority using that old network. Now, I’ve been raising this issue with the previous Minister as well, and I understand there is need for amendments at the committee stage, because we do need to make sure those vulnerable consumers are protected.

The answer, of course, isn’t throwing, wasting, billions of dollars in keeping two different networks alive; it’s about protecting those vulnerable consumers, and I know the Minister has a great interest in that. So there is a code to protect them, but more work, I agree, needs to be done.

Other areas of the legislation that were improved were making sure that the Commerce Commission would have to make a decision based on the long-term interests of consumers. Previously, in the first iteration of this legislation, it was the long-term interests of fibre customers. Now, when you’ve got these questions of the copper network, wireless markets, it makes sense to have an integrated system where the Commerce Commission is actually looking at all consumers in the market. We’ve seen changes to information disclosure and, importantly for players in the market, some confidentiality requirements as these companies are providing information to the Commerce Commission. We are seeing, I guess, a pragmatic move in terms of a potential deferral for entry of the model if the Commerce Commission requests that the Minister—if they haven’t had enough time to develop those input methodologies, that they can ask for a two-year deferral. I hope that’s not the case. I think all participants in the market want to see certainty as soon as possible. A new levy’s been introduced, raising, I believe, $12 million for the Commerce Commission to undertake their work, and then, of course, anchor services.

But, all in all, this is good legislation, setting us up for the next few decades of the fibre network in New Zealand, and I’m glad that all parties have worked together to protect our consumers and make sure we’ve got a great, modern, fast fibre network.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): This’ll be a bit of a test—thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Whether the last speaker, Gareth Hughes, knew what he was talking about or not, I’m not sure, but he certainly convinced me, and I thank him for his contribution, because I think it was a pretty good effort at summing up this legislation. It’s a pleasure for me to take a call on the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill in the second reading. I noted earlier the praise of the Minister for picking up this thing at such short notice. Well, he’s had a lot more notice than I have, and he had a much better speechwriter than I’ve got, but, none the less, I’ll do my best.

Interestingly, both Gareth Hughes and Tracey Martin touched on a subject that I want to mention a little later my contribution. This is an immensely complicated and challenging topic for New Zealand. The sector changes so quickly, and I think we’ve seen that in the last nine years with dramatic change in the way services are provided, the way we can access all this sort of thing—telecommunications and the like—and it certainly is a challenging task to regulate this in a manner that’s sustainable going forward. I want to talk about that a little bit later as well.

I find this whole area quite challenging, and I think it’s a really interesting area to get involved in. I myself live three kilometres from State Highway 1, have a copper network—it goes past my house. I have two fibre lines that go past my house—both Ministry of Defence lines, which we can’t access. Interestingly, my phone doesn’t work and nor does my internet, and because it’s so slow I don’t bother with it, as you can probably tell. That’s one of the challenges we have in rural New Zealand. The issue that I want to raise, which, partly, Tracey Martin touched on and so did Gareth Hughes, is that we can, with all the best intentions, put this sort of legislation in place, and often it’s the unknown that catches us, and it’s the unknown that trips up rural and isolated New Zealand.

I guess I got very nervous when I heard Gareth Hughes talking about the electricity industry and the legislation around that, because, in fact, that’s a good example of where we have, to some extent, tripped up in rural New Zealand as a result of legislation passed in the 1990s. So we can put this legislation in place with the best intention, but what the outcome of that will be in some parts of New Zealand is comparatively unknown. While I don’t have a great understanding of this, I do think there’s always that unknown risk. I suppose I’m only saying that because I want to say in a few years’ time, if it does come to pass, “I told you so.”

I want to touch on new Part 2AA, in clause 7, which is a new part that was put in place to deal with some of the challenges I’m talking about. It, effectively, gives the Commerce Commission responsibility for declaring which geographical areas become specified fibre areas where fibre fixed-line access services are available to end-users. The challenge with that is that this kind of legislation is all very well but I don’t know whether we always account for what goes on in our communities. That’s actually a hugely important thing for rural New Zealand particularly, for provincial New Zealand really, because the advent of these extraordinary telecommunications systems and connectivity is massively important for our ability to diversify in provincial and rural New Zealand. It not only enables our farming communities to diversify extensively and to use technologies that you wouldn’t have dreamt about some years ago but it also enables people to live in those areas and operate businesses from those areas that would have been unheard of some years ago. So it’s hugely important that we have regulation in place and legislation in place that enables those services to continue to be provided, and to be provided in a manner that is useful to those communities. I think that that’s the key factor we’ve got to deal with.

I was interested to note that this bill sets a date for this to be implemented—1 January 2020—but it provides for the Minister to delay it by up to two years if the commissioner requests it. How they decide whether it’s necessary to delay that or not, I don’t know. That’s, I guess, the challenge that I think I’m talking about, because I do think that there are some significant challenges in this stuff, and we have seen it with the electricity sector in rural provincial New Zealand. We’ve also seen it with this sector itself in rural provincial New Zealand as we’ve struggled to get connectivity. To be fair, it’s very expensive to get both the electricity and connectivity into some of those areas that I’m talking about, but, none the less, they are places that we want people to live, and we must enable them to live in those places. So I think that’s an important factor. We will never know whether we’re right or wrong, actually, but it is an interesting factor and one that I think is very important for the future. So, as I said, I can support the piece I understand about this bill, but it’s what we don’t understand that I think is, as I said, the important factor for us.

The other thing that this kind of connectivity and the provision of these services into the more remote parts of New Zealand does is enable us, because of the access provided by this type of thing, to use things that we would have never dreamt of, particularly with respect to the environmental challenges we face in all parts of rural New Zealand, the forestry challenges we face, and even things like mapping. I guess when you get to carbon credits, which are also a little bit telecommunications—a bit complicated for me—it enables us to measure that kind of thing remotely and very easily. Of course, satellites do that too. It also enables the users of those services to access that information very quickly. So whilst this bill, for me, is pretty complicated, I think that it’s certainly necessary. It’s difficult to understand whether we have it right or not, but it’s something that as a sector we must—from a Government perspective, or from a Parliament perspective—put in place.

I just want to comment briefly on the Ministers that have been involved in the time that I’ve been around this institution: firstly, Amy Adams, who did a lot of work on this sector; followed by our leader, Simon Bridges, who also put a lot of work into this sector—and, actually, both of them had to face quite a lot of flak from those rural MPs among us who are pestered by constituents for the lack of service, on frequent occasions. They were followed, of course, by the past two Ministers who dealt with this, including Clare Curran. A lot of work has been put into it, a lot of thought has been put into it, and no doubt a lot of work by the offices has been put into this, and I hope that from that perspective it works.

I was very interested in the comments around the health aspects of this, because it’s certainly not something that I would ever think about a lot, but I guess that people of my generation didn’t think about those sorts of things a lot anyway. We certainly weren’t intimidated by what the stuff going through the air might do to you; it was more what smoke and things like that might do to us that was intimidating, but certainly not the stuff that was going in your ear and coming out the other end. So I was fascinated by that discussion.

I probably don’t have a lot more useful contribution to make to this, but I do want to just reinforce the—

Dan Bidois: Keep going. Come on—you’re doing a great job.

IAN McKELVIE: Shh! I don’t want you to listen either! I just want to reinforce the fact that I think that it’s the unknowns of these pieces of legislation that always challenge us in the future, and in my experience, from a rural New Zealand perspective, it’s almost always the rural sector that is challenged the most by what wasn’t foreseen at the time legislation was put in place.

So that’s my contribution to this bill. It’s not an area I have a lot of expertise in, but, none the less, I have a great deal of pleasure in supporting it as it progresses through the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call; Dr Deborah Russell.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Kia ora.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: This is a complicated bill. It’s got a lot of technical detail in it, and, I think, for those of us who are perhaps not even familiar with the sector, it’s rather hard to understand what’s going on with it, so it does help to have an understanding of the telecommunications sector as to why we need this legislation.

What happens in this particular sector is we have four companies across the country, which have local monopolies—in the case of Chorus, it’s not exactly local; it kind of goes over most of the country. But they have monopolies on supplying ultra-fast broadband to their own areas. Where you have monopolies, you need regulation. We need regulation in order to ensure that the rights of the consumer are protected but in order to ensure also that the provider makes a reasonable profit. This is part of what this legislation sets out to do. It is trying to balance the rights of consumers with the needs of companies to make a decent return on what they’re doing.

So as the Minister took us through at the start of their speech, taking us through some of the really rather technical detail in here—almost as technical as a tax bill, and that’s saying a lot—when you spin it down, it’s down to some very basic things that this bill is doing. It is ensuring that fibre networks are rolled out across the country, but, at the same time, with protections for the rights of consumers, and that right across the country ultra-fast broadband providers will provide a basic service at a reasonable price so that everyone may access the internet and, in fact, may access ultra-fast broadband. It’s about deregulating the copper networks. We actually don’t really need those copper networks any more as long as we’ve got ultra-fast broadband there, so there is no need to regulate them any more.

So that’s what we’re trying to do there. It’s about boosting consumer protections to ensure that ordinary consumers don’t have to pay too much for their ultra-fast broadband, because monopoly providers can charge high prices if they want to. Right along with those consumer protections are the needs for protecting vulnerable consumers, as well. May I suggest to the previous speaker, Mr McKelvie—who, quite rightly, is concerned for his rural constituents—that our other concern needs to be for low-income people, who also need to access the internet.

I just want to speak a little bit to that. The internet is ubiquitous now. It is part of our lives. It is as much essential to modern living as the water networks, the stormwater networks, and the electricity networks. That’s why we do need to regulate it, and that’s what this bill does. It’s an excellent bill, put together by a series of Ministers. I commend this bill to the House.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It’s my pleasure to take this split call on the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. I do so because what this bill actually says is that it brings into play a change in the system from 2020 or, if the Commerce Commission agrees, in 2022.

Ultra-fast broadband (UFB) and fibre is the next wave of technological advancement for New Zealand, and the last National Government spent about $2 billion rolling it out in a leading-edge way across New Zealand. I heard a previous speaker talk about the fact that our broadband speeds are higher than Australia’s. In fact, in most countries I’ve travelled to, our broadband speeds are higher in New Zealand than in most other comparable countries. We’re in a very good space, and it enables a whole raft of technology to be rolled out in New Zealand in homes, businesses, factories, workplaces, and for recreation; so it is important that we have a regulatory framework that is new and modern and updated, particularly now that we have 1.4 million people with connections and, as I’ve said, the previous Government spent around $2 billion on rolling that out across New Zealand.

The Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—even though I wasn’t part of it at the time—did a really good job, in my view. It had 257 submissions and about 31 oral submissions. They did a really good job, and I do want to compliment and acknowledge the Hon Kris Faafoi for picking this up and outlining to the House in his speech what it was about from the Government’s perspective.

I do also want to acknowledge the limitations in this bill that have been placed on Chorus. For listeners who may be listening at this time of night, effectively, what the select committee considered was whether, in fact, Chorus would have a monopolistic advantage over other players in the market if it was allowed to get into the retail space. The select committee was persuaded that it did and, therefore, it made some rules and regulations to protect that from being exploited.

This really is about making sure that there is a level of minimum standard and commitment for UFB in parts of New Zealand and, where that doesn’t exist, a requirement to continue to provide copper-based technology. When the Hon Simon Bridges announced this in June of 2017, it was very much about making a fit for purpose framework.

I want to particularly go to new sections 69AA and 69AC, in clause 7 in the bill, which are specifically around specified fibre areas. The main point for me is that “The Commission must, before the implementation date and at least annually thereafter, carry out an assessment to determine the geographic areas in which fibre fixed line access services are available to end-users.” In other words, that assessment needs to be made before you can roll out to new section 69AC, which allows people to withdraw copper from those same areas. In other words, if you have fibre in an area, under this provision, copper can be removed, and it’s pretty clearly spelt out. But I want to reiterate and repeat something that my learned colleague before me, Mr Ian McKelvie, said: it is really hard to understand the unintended consequences in this space.

I refer to an article from Mr Pattrick Smellie on 7 December 2017, where he talked about the 5G network and the requirement to look at the 5G network—which pretty much means there’s thousands of new cell sites in New Zealand that need to be rolled out—and how that needs to be done. That is a new change.

I also acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin and Mr McKelvie. I think the committee of the whole House does have a role to make sure that vulnerable people and low-income people who actually can’t afford UFB to the house—it might be going past their door—still have access to basic phone services, because older people and vulnerable people who are not yet connected to UFB don’t understand what a modem is, let alone what to do if it goes wrong, and actually need to be looked after.

So I look forward to the committee of the whole House, and I think there’s a lot of ground we can do as a Parliament and a lot of things we can do to make this bill better in that process. I commend the bill to the House.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I’m very happy to come to this telecommunications amendment bill, and, looking back on the first reading of this bill, it was, in fact, one of the last debates the previous Parliament held, back in August of last year. Members might like to refer to speech number six in that debate, which I thought was especially good.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Whose was it?

MICHAEL WOOD: It just wouldn’t be modest of me to say, Ruth Dyson.

I want to refer to—firstly, actually, what I wanted to do is acknowledge and thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for their work on this bill, because when one looks at the changes that have been made to the substance of the bill in that process, the select committee has done its job. It was clearly a bill that had broad support across both sides of the House, and the select committee has assiduously worked through some of the technical and other issues that do arise during these processes. It’s made important changes to things like the definition of “telecommunication” and the definition of “fibre network” to make sure that they are flexible in what is a fast-moving technological environment.

But what I just really want to turn to, in what’s going to be a reasonably brief call, is the fundamental purpose of this bill. This is actually really important, because what we are talking about here are services that are monopoly or near-monopoly services, and it is the duty of this House to protect consumers with good regulation, in my view, where that situation applies.

In respect of this, there was a very good quote from the head of InternetNZ, Jordan Carter, in the consultation phase of this bill, and here’s what Jordan Carter said. He said: “It is … important that New Zealanders have confidence and predictability in internet prices. InternetNZ believes that’s best achieved by proactive regulation of pricing for fibre and copper services to be in place by 2020—so we all know where we stand. Regulators are the vital protection for consumers. Commercial deals in environments like telecommunications access pricing never end up with the best deal for customers—in the absence of a contractual price (as initially set [up] under the UFB programme) only a well-funded, capable regulator has the analysis and power to stand up to the interests of companies worth billions of dollars, and to encourage competition while driving the best possible bargain for those paying the bills.”

That is, fundamentally, what this bill is about: ensuring that we have the appropriate regulatory controls in place by way of price equality, by way of information disclosure, and by way of a range of other mechanisms to ensure that these companies, which are monopolies or near-monopolies, give Kiwi consumers a fair deal in what really is a utility in our modern life. I commend this bill to the House for reaching those objectives. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): It is a pleasure to be able to speak here at the second reading of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. This was, of course, introduced by the Hon Simon Bridges last year in the previous National Government and it carries on with widespread support across the House, and National supports the bill. The new regulatory framework enabled by this bill will modernise the Telecommunications Act so that it’s fit for purpose for New Zealand’s new fibre-focused telecommunications environment. It will put in place incentives so that ongoing investment by network providers will continue to be encouraged, while consumers are looked after. It will also create a more predictable telecommunications environment, target regulation more effectively, and support consumers.

The work began during the last Parliament and we made good progress. I do want to thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, of which I am currently now a member, that worked their way through it, but also the many submitters who went through the detailed areas of this bill and made some suggestions, and the committee made some changes in relation to them. But before I go into that detail I just want to put this bill within the broader context of the economic development strategy that the previous Government brought to the table. It was all about trying to build a more competitive and productive economy here for New Zealand so that New Zealanders can have access to higher incomes and greater opportunities. When we broke down that challenge—how do you actually create a more productive and competitive economy—well, there were six areas that we looked at. One was increasing the flow of investment into New Zealand, because, ultimately, you only get jobs and opportunities for New Zealanders if somebody somewhere decides to invest an extra dollar into starting a new business, hiring a new person, taking a risk, and getting into business.

We were very concerned to increase the flow of capital into New Zealand both through domestic savings but also with open markets and open trusted markets, well-regulated markets, and so the work of the Financial Markets Authority and the Commerce Commission are an important part of that. Then we also focused on expanding our export markets, and we see this Government is continuing the efforts there in terms of free-trade agreements with the EU and in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). We then focused on continuing to invest in the science and innovation space, with $1.6 billion a year invested, so that New Zealand businesses have access to a strong knowledge and science backdrop, and the ultra-fast broadband (UFB) that the previous Government invested around $2 billion in rolling out across the country is a very important enabler of that science and innovation framework.

Businesses also need access to a skilled and willing workforce, and all MPs in this House who are out and about in the countryside and in the cities of this country are talking to businesses which are employing people, and the cry that you hear most often is “We struggle to find and we need to find more skilled workers.” Having a good effective schooling system and production of skills coming through the polytechs and university sector is important. That’s why it’s so frustrating that we are seeing $2.8 billion wasted on free tertiary fees.

Finally, there is the area of the access to good quality infrastructure. Often when people think of infrastructure, they think of roads and they think of rail, but, actually, one of the most significant pieces of infrastructure put into this country in the past few years has been the rollout of ultra-fast broadband by the previous Government, and it continues. As a result of that, New Zealand is very well placed in terms of access. Now, it doesn’t just mean that we can watch Netflix and Lightbox and YouTube more quickly—although, that is a happy outcome of this investment. It also enables New Zealanders to be connected—fundamentally faster and much, much more powerfully—with the rest of the world, and so for a little country in a remote part of the South Pacific we have a golden opportunity to connect.

Now, of course, it wasn’t just the Government investment in ultra-fast broadband that put us in such a good position as we are today. There has been massive ongoing private sector investment right across the telecommunications sector, whether it’s been through the roll-out and maintenance of the copper network, but also through the many cellphone towers and the great 4G capacity that we have in wide areas of New Zealand. In fact, any New Zealander travelling overseas can see the very poor quality of the mobile networks in many countries that are much more densely occupied, even in the UK, for example. It’s amazing what we have managed to achieve in this sparsely populated country in New Zealand in terms of the quality of our network.

Part of that, of course, ongoing private sector investment in the telecommunications framework has rested on the predictable regulatory environment that we demonstrated over nine years. I suppose it is a point worth making that that predictability and soundness in the regulatory and Government decision-making has been shaken to its very core by this Government in its first 10 months with the way that it went about the oil and gas decision, for example, with no evidence, no analysis, and no Cabinet process.

Hon Tracey Martin: Unbundling fibre; turning off copper—anything to do with the bill?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: And so you have—yeah, well, it is highly relevant because if you want to see investment underpinning what this bill is all about in the telecommunications network, the sorts of things that this Government does every day in other areas shakes that predictability and that confidence that investors have, and so that is a point that’s worth making. It’s also a point worth making that a lot of the investment that’s gone on in this sector has been from capital imported to this country from overseas. The highly restrictive overseas investment rules that this Government has also brought in—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I think that’s far enough away from the bill to pull the member back. Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: And so, well, these are—thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for your forbearance. But these are broader issues that we need to consider when we’re thinking about just how we got to this situation here where we have such a strong, competitive, and successful telecommunications sector. And this bill is about ensuring that we continue to see investment in this sector with a clear, well-thought-through regulatory framework.

Just in terms of—before I wrap up—some of the amendments made during the select committee stage, I think the point that I would draw attention to was, I suppose, the more controversial element or the point of greatest debate. It was around Chorus’ activities, in terms of getting into retail activities. There had been restrictions on Chorus’ involvement in retail activities. The bill, which we introduced in the previous Parliament, would have removed two of those restrictions—on Chorus providing sophisticated wholesale services, known as above - layer 2 services, and I’m not going to go into the details of all that, but also restrictions on Chorus linking its wholesale service imports together to provide an end-to-end service which resembles a retail product.

After a lot of consideration and a lot of feedback backwards and forwards across many submitters, the committee, on balance, considered that actually the potential benefits in terms of innovation and efficiency, which is what we were looking for, were actually outweighed by potential disadvantages from changing Chorus’ commercial incentives. So we have recommended retaining the existing line of business restrictions, but also giving the Commerce Commission the ability to provide exemptions for particular services on a case by case basis.

So that’s obviously one of the detailed changes that have come through the select committee process. But, on balance, this National Party continues to support this bill, and we think it will actually continue to create what we think—to get that balance of incentives right so that there is ongoing investment in the network providers to continue to be encouraged while consumers are protected. I finish by just making that point: please, Government, don’t underestimate the importance of having a strong, stable, and predictable regulatory framework, and don’t fall into the habit of doing decisions—

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

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take the final call on the second reading of this Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. As a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, my colleague here was not wrong in saying that this is a very technical bill. I’ve got to say it was the first time I’ve sat in a room and talked to people about line of business restrictions, anchor services, and electromagnetic hypersensitivity, but there’s a first time for everything and I had my time.

Hon Tracey Martin: Oh, you’re just new yet.

TAMATI COFFEY: Ha, ha! Yes, I am.

We got to sit there and listen to the many submissions—the people that came forward with all of their doubts and their concerns. There are a couple of things that I wanted to talk about in my very short submission. It was just about the deregulation of the copper line services. There was a lot of alarm amongst some of our submitters about what that would do—you take away the copper lines and it means that our airwaves will be filled with radiation and lots of harmful things. I’ve got a stack of submissions from people who submitted about that very point. To that, I assure them that we took it very seriously—their concerns around this.

To those people that submitted on that and are listening to this tonight, I want to reassure them that the Ministry of Health ticked it off. They said that the bill has no impact on exposure to wireless radiation under international standards that set limits for maximum exposure levels to radio waves, including the wireless radiation emitted through cellphones and wireless transmissions. That gave me a bit of certainty, so I can tell those people that submitted that, actually, we’ve got your back. The Ministry of Health actually came and gave us that information, and it was very welcome, in fact.

This is a very good piece of legislation. Look, I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Education Amendment Bill (No 2)

First Reading

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Education: I move, That the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider this bill. At the appropriate time, the Minister of Education will move that the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be reported to the House by 21 March 2019, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) amends the Education Act 1989, the Education Act 1964, and the Education (Update) Amendment Act of 2017. The bill ensures that key Education Council decisions are made in the context of Government policy; second, requires private schools to be safe places for our students; third, repeals recent legislation on communities of online learning to provide time for a public debate on the future of distance and other forms of online learning; and fourth, provides more effective and efficient provisions on cohort entry for children over the age of five years old.

The bill will ensure the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand’s decisions on matters relating to teaching professions are made within the context of Government policy. As we know, the Education Council has a range of high-profile functions, including setting standards for teacher education and setting teacher registration criteria. There is a high degree of public interest in these and other council roles, and there needs to be the opportunity for the Government to influence the council’s work on behalf of all New Zealanders.

The Education Council has significant influence over the quality of teaching and the supply and diversity of the teaching workforce. This creates a substantial public interest in its work, which affects all New Zealanders, children and young people in particular. For this reason, it is important that Education Council decisions take into account Government policy for the wider education system. The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) requires the council to consult the Minister of Education before making changes to the standards of qualifications that lead to teacher registration and to teacher registration criteria. It will also give the Minister discretion to issue a Government policy direction relating to one or more of the council’s functions. If the Minister issues a policy direction, the council must have regard to it when performing those functions. These provisions will ensure that the public interest is protected and that the Government is able to respond to Education Council proposals and decisions in a timely manner.

State and State integrated schools are required to ensure their school is a physically and emotionally safe place for all of our students and staff. The Government considers that the minimum standards of safety for students expected in the State system should also apply to private schools. At present, there is nothing in the private school registration criteria that enables the Secretary for Education to consider the physical and emotional safety of our students. This bill changes this so that students’ physical and emotional safety is considered by the secretary when assessing a private school’s application for registration. A private school’s registration may be cancelled if the secretary has concerns about the safety of the school students, and the Education Review Office can review the private school’s safety policies and procedures.

The Education (Update) Amendment Act of 2017 introduced a new regime to expand the provision of distance education through communities of online learning. These provisions allowed for distance education for part-time and full-time tuition, and enabled accreditation of distance education provision by public or private providers through a statutory accreditation system. The Education Amendment Bill (No 2) repeals these provisions. In so doing, there will be more time to consider the future of online learning in Aotearoa New Zealand with all affected communities in the context of wider education sector reviews. Existing providers such as Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu The Correspondence School and the virtual learning networks will continue to offer distant education on the same basis that they do now.

Before 2017, State schools had to allow children to start school on or after their fifth birthday. The 2017 amendments to the Education Act of 1989 enabled schools to adopt policies where children could start school on the first day of term closest to their fifth birthday. This, effectively, means that some of our four-year-olds can currently start school, which is inconsistent with the recommendations of the 2015 Advisory Group on Early Learning. Under the proposed changes, if a school adopts a cohort entry policy, only children over the age of five years would be able to start school in a cohort. There will be two entry points: on the first day of term, and at the midpoint during a term. The two entry points per term will give parents more flexibility to determine when their child starts school. Parents and the Government will not have to pay as much in fees to keep their children in early childhood education for longer, and schools will have more manageable cohort sizes. To ensure that schools have time to consider and make new arrangements, any existing cohort entry policies will expire on 1 January 2020 and new policies will be able to take effect from that date.

In conclusion, this bill will continue to improve education in Aotearoa New Zealand. In particular, it will protect the public’s interest in Education Council decisions, it will require private schools to be safe places for our students, it will provide time for a public debate on the future of distance and other forms of online learning in the context of wider education sector reviews, and it will enable school boards to adopt a cohort entry policy for children at least five years of age and will now not allow four-year-olds to start school. I now commend the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) the House. Tēnā koe.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Look, I’m pleased to be able to speak in this debate, but I am also not pleased for the future of education. The reality is that we know that this Government is intensely ideological in terms of education. We’ve seen that through the scrapping of partnership schools, we’ve seen that through the scrapping of national standards, we’ve seen that through the scrapping of the Aspire Scholarship for many Māori and Pasifika students—a snuffing out of opportunities. And that is why it is no different when it comes to this Education Amendment Bill (No 2).

The first point, which I want to start with, is actually on the back of a previous bill that we’ve had. The reality is that, for tens of thousands of teachers in New Zealand, this bill enables the Minister to be able to direct the Education Council on aspects of policy. It will lead—and this is actually put in the regulatory impact statement of this bill by the Minister of Education. It says, “This is likely to lead to a limited independence of the Education Council.” The reality is that this is about ministerial control and State control of the profession. That’s the first point.

The second point that I want to make is that the heart of this bill is anti-choice for parents and anti-choice generally in terms of education, and we can see this in cohort entry. Fundamentally, the reason that National put the cohort entry policy through previously was that we saw the research and the evidence. What it showed is that there is huge disruption happening at year 1. There are a whole lot of teachers who are dealing with different kids coming in—their ability to form long-term relationships. That’s why we put through that cohort entry policy. All it did was preserve the right of every child to start school at the age of five, with a view that, in order to do that and implement cohort entry, there would be a small group of students who might start weeks—potentially, at the most, eight weeks—before their fifth birthday.

What this bill does, make no mistake, New Zealand, is rip up the concept that every child in New Zealand could have the right to start school at their fifth birthday, because what it says is that, for schools that adopt cohort entry, there will be a group of children who will be held back because of the nature of the way that this cohort entry has been designed.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member; the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.