Wednesday, 12 December 2018

WEDNESDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2018

WEDNESDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2018

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Points of Order

KiwiSaver (Compassionate Consideration) Amendment Bill—Leave to Introduce

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to introduce the KiwiSaver (Compassionate Consideration) Amendment Bill in my name and for this bill to be set down as members’ order of the day No. 1.

SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with Labour leader Jacinda Ardern’s statement that there will be no nationwide strikes under her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That statement was given during a very fine election debate, as I recall, with the then National leader.

Hon Member: Which one?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That was Dr Bill English, and I have to say—

Hon Member: Promoted him.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Oh, I have promoted him—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I know it’s the Christmas season, but I think if the question can be answered directly, that would be preferable.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well, relatively speaking, he deserved that lift in status. I think, to answer the question, that was, of course, an answer to fair pay agreements. I gave the confirmation then and I give it again now: there will be no strike action around fair pay agreements.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t it the case that there have been more strikes under her Government than at any time since she was a child at primary school?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member is referring to the fact that we are operating under the exact same law—

Hon Grant Robertson: That’s right. No different—no different.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —in terms of employment law that we did under that Government—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Now, Grant Robertson is mainly responsible for that and he is to be quiet.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Shall I complete it?

SPEAKER: Well, I could hardly hear a thing because of the exchange between Mr Bridges and Mr Robertson, so I’m going to ask the Prime Minister to repeat her answer.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I was saying, the exact same law, of course, has continued to be in force during the course of the strike action we have seen whilst being in Government. The only thing I will take responsibility for is coming into office at a time of dereliction and neglect under that last Government, where there has not been investment in our health services, our education services, and we are the ones fixing it.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given that, why does she believe Air New Zealand engineers and ground staff are striking for three days just before Christmas, affecting tens and tens of thousands of Kiwis at this special time of year?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That kind of action usually occurs when there is a pay and conditions dispute between employers and employees. Obviously, we as the Government have no direct role in that dispute. However, I am concerned enough by the disruption that would likely be caused that I have contacted both parties directly and conveyed my very strong hope that we will see some resolution, and I understand that they are in mediation as we speak.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t the reason for the strike that her Government’s pro-union stance and union laws have emboldened unions—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I am going to ask the Leader of the Opposition to ask this question again, and there will be some extra questions as a result of the whingeing and moaning from my right.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t the reason for the strike that her Government’s pro-union stance and union laws have emboldened unions in every single field in New Zealand, including aviation?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Simon Bridges: Will the fair pay regime coming in help bring down the level of strikes?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There is no ability to strike under fair pay agreements.

Hon Simon Bridges: Are there too many strikes in New Zealand today?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I acknowledge that the strike action that we experienced with the nurses was a negotiation that that Government failed to resolve and this one did.

Hon Simon Bridges: Are there too many strikes in New Zealand today?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There has been too much neglect, and it is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that us coming into action midway through a failed negotiation with the nurses—with teachers, we have put on the table more in one offer than that last Government put in nine years in office. We are dealing with years of discontent because of that Opposition party’s lack of investment in core services.

Hon Simon Bridges: Are there too many strikes in New Zealand today?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There has been too much lack of investment, and we are fixing it.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she concerned that the people who made representations on behalf of Karel Sroubek may have associations with her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. As I mentioned in the House yesterday and probably repeatedly last week, of course what will be in public interest is whether or not any representations were directly involving members of Parliament. As I conveyed to this House on many occasions, the Minister in charge has confirmed that no MP made any representations directly to him, and I have also mentioned that I knew nothing of this case personally until it was in the paper.

Hon Simon Bridges: How will it look if members of her Government are close to those who made representations on behalf of Karel Sroubek?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Look, of course what’s in the public interest here is if any members of Parliament made direct representations or had knowledge of those representations, and the Minister has ruled out any MP or Minister—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Listen to the question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —conversing with him directly over this case. Of course, that’s important because he’s the one who made this decision.

Hon Simon Bridges: When will the Opposition get the representations? Will it be in 10 days, under the Official Information Act, or more proactively?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, an Official Information Act request is in—that’s the process that the Minister’s currently dealing with—and I see that the member has questions on notice today, as well.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she going to move what appears to be a Government-wide Official Information Act dump day from 21 December to Christmas, given everyone may still be here next Friday due to the Air New Zealand strikes?

SPEAKER: Well—oh, I will allow it, but if the member follows the advice given to me from Mr Brownlee, I would have ruled it out.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I expect Ministers to uphold the requirements set upon them by the Official Information Act.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What progress, if any, has been made on implementing the Government’s economic policies?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Considerable progress. Yesterday, I talked about the changes we have made to the legislative framework that supports our economic policies and plan. Today, I want to focus on the work we have done to help businesses and workers prepare for the changing nature of work as we transition to a new economy that is more productive, sustainable, and inclusive. The transition to a new economy represents massive opportunities and challenges. The Government has set a clear goal of a net zero carbon economy by 2050 and, importantly, a just and deliberate transition to that goal that supports communities, industries, and workers through that transition.

Kiritapu Allan: What specific policies has the Government progressed to support this transition?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Just a few examples. The Future of Work tripartite forum, which brings businesses, workers, and Government together to advance polices in four key areas: just transitions, learning for life, technology, and workplace productivity. We have the Mana in Mahi programme, which is providing financial support to employers to fill the skill gaps by supporting the cost of apprenticeships for young New Zealanders who have been on the benefit for six months or more, and our fees-free scheme, which provides opportunity for post - secondary school education and training, including two years’ free for trade training and apprenticeship schemes.

Kiritapu Allan: What specific outcomes have come from the Future of Work tripartite forum?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The forum has developed a skills shift initiative in the manufacturing sector alongside ManufacturingNZ. This brings together employers, industry training organisations, unions, and training providers to plan the workforce training needs for this important sector for the next two decades. It’s this kind of forward planning that is essential if New Zealanders are to have a fair and just transition to a world of work that is being rapidly changed by new technology.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all of his statements and actions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context in which they were made and undertaken.

Hon Amy Adams: Does he stand by his statement last week that “The fees-free programme is an excellent investment … It is removing barriers, … where there are people who wouldn’t have considered going on to tertiary education until they were able to access it in this way.”, despite the Government having so far spent $236 million to deliver 2,400 fewer students in tertiary education?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In answer to the first part of the question, yes.

Hon Amy Adams: How does he reconcile his statement that this is a good investment with the president of the Careers and Transition Education Association, Warwick Foy—who is the one meeting and talking with those most directly affected by the policy—who says it has little influence on the decision of school leavers and didn’t seem to be convincing students from poorer backgrounds to enrol?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’ve got great admiration for the work that Warwick Foy’s done in getting alongside young people in the Taranaki area, in particular, on this particular matter. I believe that we’ve got to give this scheme its full time to run its course, and at the end of 2019 and 2020, we will have seen an impact that I believe is greater than the one that we saw in the first year.

Hon Amy Adams: How can he justify this $2.8 billion policy as good value for taxpayers when Otahuhu College principal Neil Watson has described the policy as being “a large amount of money spread over students who are probably going to go to university anyhow”, and universities and polytechs are reporting that they’re not seeing any change in enrolment patterns?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I believe that this policy is one that is dedicated to sending the message to New Zealanders that in the future of work everybody needs to keep training and retraining. We don’t care what background someone’s from; we want them all to achieve to their potential.

Hon Amy Adams: How does he reconcile his statement that “This Government’s approach is to ensure that expenditure is undertaken wisely and for the benefit of taxpayers,” with the decision to use taxpayers’ money to make a $10 million loan to a private dairy company on terms that the company have admitted are more favourable than they could have gotten elsewhere?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is about making sure that there are opportunities all over New Zealand for people to have good, fulfilling jobs. Unlike the other side of the House, we believe that wherever you live in New Zealand, you deserve a decent shot at a decent life, and the PGF is a good part of helping that happen.

Hon Amy Adams: Is it also using expenditure wisely and for the benefit of New Zealand taxpayers to make another $10 million loan to a commercial garnet-mining operation which is 100 percent American-owned?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s quite clear that members on the other side of the House don’t want the West Coast economy to thrive. Well, actually, on this side of the House, we think it’s time that the Government got alongside that community and the communities of Gisborne, the Far North, and Manawatū-Whanganui. So by all means the National Party can trash the regions of New Zealand—go ahead.

Question No. 4—Housing and Urban Development

4. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many houses built, bought, or underwritten by the KiwiBuild programme are contracted and scheduled to be ready for owner occupation by 1 July 2019, and when will the first KiwiBuild houses in Te Kauwhata be completed?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): To date, over 4,000 KiwiBuild homes are contracted to be built, and nearly 10,000 KiwiBuild homes are planned to be built in our large-scale developments, including at Unitec, Māngere, Porirua, and Mount Roskill. In terms of the year one target, 278 homes are contracted at this point and scheduled for completion in the 2018-19 year, with many more under negotiation. KiwiBuild staff are working closely with developers to finalise contracts, like the one we announced last week: the Wellington Co.’s apartment developments in Mount Cook and Lower Hutt. We’re working hard towards the targets we’ve set. We knew it would be hard, and we had to start from a standing start. The first KiwiBuild homes in Te Kauwhata are expected to be completed by Christmas 2019, and available for occupation in 2020.

Hon Judith Collins: If after being a Minister for over a year he has only been able to confirm 278 houses, can he confirm he cannot plausibly achieve his target of 1,000 houses by July next year?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’ve confirmed that we’ve had 4,000 KiwiBuild homes under contract and another 10,000 that will be built in the large-scale projects. I’m really positive about the progress we’ve made. We’re doing something that no Government has done in the last 40 years, working directly with builders and developers to build affordable homes for first-home buyers.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, no, I don’t think the member needs one. The Minister will now answer the question.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was in two parts. The Minister clearly addressed the first part of the question, which was how many homes had been contracted. The second part of the question related specifically to the current year. The Minister is not obliged to answer two parts of the question. If the member wants to ask two questions at once, she could ask two questions rather than have to ask a two-part question.

SPEAKER: I may be wrong, but I think the Leader of the House has conflated the primary question and the supplementary that was asked. I will, just to make things absolutely clear, ask my learned colleague the Hon Judith Collins to re-ask her question.

Hon Judith Collins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. If after being a Minister for over a year he has only been able to confirm 278 houses, can he confirm he cannot plausibly achieve his target of 1,000 houses by July next year?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s never been the expectation that contracts for completion in the 2018-19 year would be signed evenly throughout the year. The construction of these homes will be more lumpy than I would have liked because, as the member knows, it takes a while to put these developments together. But we are doing everything we can to build affordable homes for first-home buyers, which is more than I can say for that party’s Government over the last nine years.

Hon Judith Collins: How long must Te Kauwhata developer keep the 10 houses already balloted on the market before they are able to offer them to buyers who are not first-home buyers?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I don’t believe that amount of time has been set, but I would note that the homes at Te Kauwhata are not due to be completed for nearly a year and a half. There’s plenty of time to sell those homes, and the developer is very comfortable with the time frames involved.

Hon Judith Collins: If houses are sold for a price lower than the agreed underwrite price, which Crown account will this cost come from?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The underwrite for those homes is at a lower level, a lower price, than the price that they have been marketed for.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was: if that happens, which Crown account will this cost come from?

SPEAKER: And it is a hypothetical, and therefore the Minister has more flexibility in answering than he might have otherwise.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it acceptable that a Minister with access to a deep pool of official advice would contract to underwrite $2 billion worth of property off the plans and then explain that they are learning as they go?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We’re not contracting $2 billion worth of property off the plans.

Question No. 5—Conservation

5. MARK PATTERSON (NZ First) to the Minister of Conservation: What alternatives to 1080, if any, is the Department of Conservation involved in using or researching for pest control?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): In 2017-18, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Department of Conservation provided approximately $4.8 million for research into alternatives to 1080, and I am advised that across Government, this investment increased to over $7 million in 2018-19. The Government is supporting a range of research into different compounds, including things like PAPP, which is very effective for stoats; things like sodium nitrate; microencapsulated zinc phosphate paste; and also into traps like self-resetting traps. Four of the five projects which were announced this year by Predator Free 2050 Ltd involve large-scale predator control using traps.

Mark Patterson: What are the most promising of the alternatives to 1080, and where are they being used?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The best alternative at the moment is trapping, which is already used extensively across New Zealand. The Predator Free 2050 projects in areas like Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, and Wellington rely on traps. In Waiheke, there is work there that’s not going to be using any toxins. But I think some of the most effective projects that are being researched at the moment are innovative research involving things like pheromones—scents—to confuse predators; things like sodium nitrate; the PAPP, which is a more effective lure for species like stoats; and the work that Predator Free is doing at Lincoln to look at exclusion devices. So there is a whole range of tools which are alternatives to 1080.

Mark Patterson: Does the Minister support and see a future for 1080 alternatives?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Absolutely, but at this point in time 1080 remains a critical tool. Next year is expected to be a mast year, where forests produce a bumper crop of flowers and seeds. That will lead to a major increase in predators and a significant impact on our threatened birds. So aerial 1080 continues to be a critical tool if we are to prevent the regional extinction of kākā, kiwi, and species like that, but alternative research is well under way.

Sarah Dowie: Why did she instruct Predator Free New Zealand to stop looking at genetic engineering?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Because there is a lot of research under way into traditional tools like trapping, better use of 1080, and alternative vertebrate toxins, and because we have not had the public consultation and the development of a public mandate for genetic engineering.

Question No. 6—Transport

6. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: Does he think that the purpose of transport policy is to make it easier for New Zealanders to get around quickly, efficiently, and safely?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Under the Government policy statement released in June, the purpose of transport policy is to give New Zealanders access to the things they need, like work, education, and community, a safer transport system free of death and serious injury, reduced carbon emissions, and value for money, and I agree with that.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So if there is a range of purposes, where does making it easier for New Zealanders to get around quickly and efficiently rank in his list of priorities?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, if the member wants to think about it this way, it’s really a subset of access. It’s about giving New Zealanders access to the things that they need, and that often involves allowing people to move around quickly and efficiently.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he have a view on Auckland Transport’s proposal to reduce speeds across the entire CBD area inside the motorway network to 30 kilometres an hour?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, it’s not my role as Minister of Transport to comment on how local councils set local speed limits, but I can say that there are good reasons why one might want to set different speed limits in different places to save lives and support good urban design. While in the 1950s cities were built primarily for cars, the world has changed, and now pedestrianisation, shared spaces, and more walking and cycling are making our cities much more attractive and liveable places. Adjusting speed limits to make streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and scooter riders is an important part of this change.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So is he in favour of a 30-kilometre-an-hour speed limit on Nelson Street and Hobson Street?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s not my place to take a position on that, but I want to quote Shane Ellison, the chief executive of Auckland Transport, who said very recently that “Setting safe speeds is one of the quickest and most effective tools we have in reducing road trauma. The public will now have their say on our safe speed proposals early next year, and for Auckland Transport to continue its work to make our streets safer for everyone.” If the member is concerned about this issue, I urge him to make a submission to Auckland Council’s process on this.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Has he had any discussions with any Ministers about the threatened strike action at Air New Zealand that will make it more difficult for New Zealanders to get around the country before Christmas?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Could the member repeat the question—any discussions with whom? With any—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: With any Ministers.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No.

Question No. 7—Workplace Relations and Safety

7. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: How many workers have gone on strike so far in 2018, and does he believe it is reasonable for union workers at Air New Zealand to threaten strike action on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of December?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) reports that so far in 2018 there have been 7,588 employees reported to have gone on strike. I have no ministerial responsibility for the second part of the question, and it is important that as Minister I don’t interfere with ongoing negotiations. What I am responsible for is ensuring that the parties have every opportunity to reach a resolution, and I have made sure that that is the case. The only people who can actually resolve this are Air New Zealand and the staff they are negotiating with.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he consider it reasonable for engineers at Air New Zealand, who have an average income of $115,000 and with some 170 of them having incomes in excess—

SPEAKER: Order! The member is going to ask the question without unnecessary additions. The member will start again.

Hon Scott Simpson: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does he consider it reasonable for engineers at Air New Zealand to use New Zealand families and their Christmas plans as bargaining chips for their higher pay demands?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well, again, I have no real ministerial responsibility for that, but what I do say is that I have empathy for the families whose travel plans may be disrupted, and I encourage the parties to stay at the table and sort out this dispute.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with the Prime Minister, who said earlier this year, in response to a question by the Hon Simon Bridges, “I would encourage the member to have a long conversation with the likes of Air New Zealand, where, through their framework of working collectively with their employees, they have improved productivity, … health and safety, and they have a high-performance workplace.”?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes, absolutely, and I understand that high-performance engagement has not been used in this dispute—perhaps it should’ve been.

Hon Scott Simpson: What does he say in response to University of Otago Professor Alan Geare, who is quoted as saying, “the unions would have chosen to strike on these days to inflict maximum damage to the airline.”?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I would say he’s entitled to his opinion.

Hon Scott Simpson: Has he considered consulting the Rt Hon Jim Bolger for advice on inviting Air New Zealand and union representatives to his office in an attempt to resolve the stand-off?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No. We have excellent processes for dealing with these disputes. I have spoken with MBIE to make sure that they have made all of those processes available to the parties to this dispute, and I encourage them to stay at the table and sort it out.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why doesn’t the Minister ask the former National Party leader, who they put on the Air New Zealand board, to go and sort this thing out?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I think the people who are at the table are best positioned to do that.

Kieran McAnulty: Does the Minister believe it reasonable for there to have been wildcat strike action on 5 December when members of the National Party caucus abandoned their post at no notice?

SPEAKER: The member will now stand, withdraw, and apologise for a supplementary question he knew was out of order and disorderly.

Kieran McAnulty: I withdraw and apologise.

Question No. 8—Education

8. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What proposals has he seen on the future of schooling in New Zealand?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Last week, I welcomed a report from the Tomorrow’s Schools independent task force that contains bold proposals on changes to our schooling system. We set up the task force to get an independent view of the state of compulsory education in New Zealand. We asked them to look at ways that they could free up principals to lead, free up teachers to teach, and give parents the time to focus on their children’s well-being and learning—most importantly, putting children at the centre of everything we do. I hope that the recommendations of the task force will provoke robust and wide-ranging discussion about our schooling system—what it should look like in the next 30 years. New Zealanders have until April next year to have their say on the recommendations.

Jan Tinetti: Why did the Government establish an independent task force to take a look at the Tomorrow’s Schools model?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It’s been nearly 30 years since the Tomorrow’s Schools reform. During that time, inequality in our education system has grown significantly, and we’ve had an opportunity to work out its strengths and weaknesses. It was time to take a look at how we support equity and inclusion for all children throughout their schooling, their educational success, and how we equip all of our students in the modern world. The independent task force has provided some bold recommendations as to how we could do this, and I look forward to the discussion ahead.

Question No. 9—Immigration

9. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Immigration: Other than Karel Sroubek’s lawyer and family members, who made representations on his behalf in respect of the deportation liability that was the subject of the Minister’s decision on 19 September 2018?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister of Immigration): I can confirm that amongst the information I considered on 19 September were letters of support from family, friends, business associates, and fellow sportspeople. Alongside the letters of support were sworn statements by a private investigator and a lawyer in the Czech Republic regarding the Czech justice system in Mr Sroubek’s circumstance. I do not consider it in the public interest to release the names of those who provided support or information regarding Mr Sroubek. Some have requested anonymity, and I consider it likely that naming people would expose them to unwarranted attention. None of those who made representations were known to me; none were MPs or former MPs, or MPs’ partners. I am unaware if any of the people had or have links to any political party.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: If it’s his intention to never publicly release the supporting documentations and representation letters regarding his decision, why did he indicate in answers to oral questions on 6 November that he would commit to a release “at the appropriate time”?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I will release the appropriate information at the appropriate time as required by the Official Information Act.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Has he seen comments by Judge Venning regarding applications for court documents concerning Karel Sroubek that said “I am satisfied that the public interest in the review of Mr Antolik’s deportation status being fully informed outweighs any issues of privacy particularly given the publicity concerning this matter.”, and why does he think it’s OK for the courts to see this public interest but not him?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I will meet my obligations under the Official Information Act. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Has he seen any—

SPEAKER: No, no, the member’s going to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Brett Hudson: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Thank you—especially the extra one.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Has he seen any reports of the Prime Minister confirming that there were no “direct” representations to him, and, if so, what indirect or informal representations were made, including from MPs’ staff or supporters?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: None.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Did Richie Hardcore, a former martial arts champion, make representations in support of his application not to be deported?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: As I said, I do not consider it in the public interest to name specific individuals, and I’m not going to do it by a process of elimination either.

Question No. 10—Education

10. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: What advice, if any, has he received on the potential estimated cost of implementing recommendations in the report by the Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): The Government only received the final task force report in the last few weeks. We asked the task force to release it and seek public submissions. Once that process is complete, detailed costings will be prepared to inform the decision-making process.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Is he really confirming that the task force did no work on costings and that no Government agencies have given any formal view on what the proposals will cost?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That wasn’t what the question asked. The question asked what advice I had received, rather than what officials had done working with the task force. I’m not sure what costing information the officials provided to the task force. That’s a matter of conversation between them.

Hon Nikki Kaye: What is the legal status of the 2,400 boards of trustees, representing around 19,000 parents, under the task force proposals?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, under the task force proposals they’d continue to be Crown entities, but that’s a matter for discussion. The proposals the task force have put forward are bold and I certainly look forward to the conversation about whether or not there is acceptance that that’s the right way to go.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Does he agree with Avondale College principal, Brent Lewis, who referred to the proposals as “real Stalinist stuff”?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I don’t agree with that. I do agree with Lorraine Kerr from the School Trustees Association, however, who said that an ideal outcome will be enough change to enable school boards of trustees to perform their strategic governance roles on behalf of the local community without constantly getting tied up in the compliance aspects of running the business activities of the school.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Is he concerned that under the proposals the power of parents will be significantly reduced and they will be disempowered under this model?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m looking forward to hearing what parents have to say about that. One of the things that the task force found was that parents who serve on boards of trustees have often found that the job is much bigger than they thought they were taking on when they do it. They put their hands up to be involved in school governance thinking that they are there to improve the quality of the education their kids get, and then they find themselves tied up in complex legal discussions about the leaky buildings that they might have inherited from a previous administration, or a whole host of other administrative issues that they’re not actually that keen to be involved with and they would much prefer someone else to be involved with so that they can focus on the job that they actually thought they were putting their hands up for. The public submissions process is an opportunity to have all of those conversations. I do acknowledge the concerns the member has raised about the importance of ensuring that parents don’t feel disempowered through this process. I agree with that. I think it’s incredibly important that we continue to empower parents and their involvement in their kids’ education. That’s one of the things that this Government will be looking at very closely as we consider the public submissions process.

Question No. 11—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

11. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What recent announcements has he made to protect consumers and businesses from unfair commercial practices?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): On Monday, the Minister for Small Business, Stuart Nash, and I were pleased to release a discussion paper outlining options to protect consumers and businesses from unfair commercial practices and contract terms. The existing provisions of the Fair Trading Act and the Commerce Act protect consumers and businesses against a range of unfair commercial practices, but the Government wants to plug gaps in the current protections because small and medium sized business, and consumers, have highlighted issues.

Tamati Coffey: What types of unfair commercial practices are of most concern?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: For consumers, examples of unfair practices include traders using aggressive sales tactics to sell products to vulnerable consumers, or selling products to consumers without clearly specifying the total price. For businesses, examples of unfair practices include contract terms that unreasonably shift risk on to one party of a contract, the use of extended payment terms, and businesses not complying with contract terms. I’d like to thank some of the entities who have given us feedback. For example, the Food and Grocery Council have said that this is a pro-business move and that there is a need to strengthen New Zealand’s business law dealing with unfair practices, and these proposals would go a long way towards achieving that.

Tamati Coffey: What else is the Government doing to address poor commercial conduct and support honest business in New Zealand?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The Government has a broad programme of work in this space. For instance, we’re strengthening the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act to protect against high-cost loans and irresponsible lending, and the Government is also assessing changes made to the Fair Trading Act in 2013 to make sure they’re working effectively as well. We’ve also given the Commerce Commission recently the power to undertake competition studies.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Best Minister in the Government.

Hon Phil Twyford: He is pretty good.

Hon Member: High praise, Gerry.

SPEAKER: Now, shall we go to Jo Hayes?

Question No. 12—Whānau Ora

12. JO HAYES (National) to the Minister for Whānau Ora: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s statement on Whānau Ora incentive payments that “the Minister has said he is looking at the way that some of those arrangements work with Whānau Ora”?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Whānau Ora): Yes, I agree with the statement by our Prime Minister, including this statement in the same interview: “It was an incentive payment that the last Government set up with Whānau Ora.”

Jo Hayes: Why, then, did RNZ report that he wasn’t looking to make any changes to the contracts—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. It’s really important that questions start off with an area that a Minister is responsible for, and no Minister is responsible for why Radio New Zealand does anything.

Jo Hayes: OK. Why was he not aware of the incentive payments in Whānau Ora contracts when first asked about it last week?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I was aware of the incentive mechanism in the contracts that are entered into with the commissioning agencies, as the member will be, seeing as they were released to her in the Official Information Act request I gave.

Jo Hayes: Has he made further inquiries with his colleague the Hon Willie Jackson about his involvement with the National Urban Māori Authority and the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, and any dividends he may or may not have received from incentive payments following yesterday’s question in the House?

Hon PEENI HENARE: No.

Jo Hayes: When was he first made aware of his colleague’s administrative error as it relates to his Whānau Ora portfolio?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I can’t give the exact date of when I was made aware. However, I do understand that the resignation was received before my colleague the Hon Willie Jackson became a Minister, and that it took some time for the administration to catch up online.

Jo Hayes: Has he now received all of those facts in regards to incentive payments after his colleague Mr Jackson had said the Minister hadn’t received any facts?

SPEAKER: Sorry, can the member repeat the question.

Jo Hayes: Has he now received all of those facts in regards to incentive payments after his colleague Mr Jackson said on One News that the Minister hadn’t received all the facts?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I have always known about the incentive mechanisms in the contract.

Bills

New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill

Instruction to Committee

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I seek leave for the committee of the whole House on the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill to be able to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 184, despite Standing Order 302(3).

SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Three months ago today, I stood in this House and described the Government of the day—the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government—as being a shambles. Well, today, as sort of a quarterly update, can I say that it is now an omnishambles. Yesterday, we had a Government pass a bill allowing a defence for having marijuana on you and using it—loose leaf, any form—if, in fact, you’ve got a chronic pain condition. What that effectively means is that it’s OK to use it, but it’s not OK to supply it, it’s not OK to grow it, and it’s not OK to get it for somebody else. That is a regime that will not work unless, of course, the police turn a totally blind eye to the carte blanche use of marijuana in this country.

It’s interesting that the Minister of Transport stood up today and said, “We’re making great progress on keeping our roads safer.” Well, the road toll doesn’t quite tell you that. The thing he may like to know is that there are more road deaths now where people are killed by drug-impaired drivers than those who have excess alcohol on board, and this Government has just said that’s OK—that’s OK—because the police can’t pull you up, the police can’t prosecute you, and the police will not be around. I can tell the House that all the raids the police had on all those big marijuana crops throughout the country—all off. They’re not happening. They’re all off. On the roadsides, if you see it growing—and you will because everyone’s going to be right into it, and the long acre is going to be full of it—just stop and pick what you want. It’s all good—no problem whatsoever. That’s the sort of Government we’ve got: non-thinking, non-caring about the best interests of New Zealanders.

Then we heard today the contradiction between the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety and the Prime Minister, where she has said she has personally intervened with the parties in the Air New Zealand strike, and he has gone out and said it’s inappropriate for any Minister to intervene in the Air New Zealand strike. Well, what we’re seeing here, of course, is a union, grossly empowered now by the Government and its new legislation that also passed yesterday, exercising the sort of position that they’ve got to really inconvenience the public so that they will, I guess, manipulate some kind of positive result for themselves. Well, what this tells you is that the cloth-cap brigade are back in charge of industrial relations in New Zealand. They’re all there, cloth-caps and all, making all the decisions about when the ferries are going to stop, when the buses will run—and we’ve seen the buses strike—and now when the airlines are going to fly. So of course those ferries will be just next. This is the sort of environment where you do not get the growth in an economy sustained as the Government is claiming they’re going to get.

Then, of course, there is this amazing Sroubek case—so many unanswered questions. Today, the Minister responsible for allowing this ratbag to stay in the country is saying that he will not release the names of those who have been his supporters, who have put in submissions on his behalf. Well, what’s the reason for that—what’s the reason for that? There can’t be one. Well, I’ll tell you what: the decision yesterday around marijuana and Sroubek are connected. Very soon, I predict the registration of “Sroubek Dak”—a new company to flood our streets with medical marijuana for all those people who have got headaches. It will be the new Panadol, no doubt about it. “I don’t want a Panadol; I want some Sroubek Dak.”—that will be the thing. The interesting thing will be to go to the New Zealand Companies Register and have a good look to see who the shareholders are in that company.

What are the associations of the shareholders of that company? That’s the sort of Government that we’ve got at the moment. They’re not letting hard-working people who come to this country to help this economy stay, but a ratbag who’s going to cost us for years and years as he drags it through the courts—and of course that will mean years and years of questioning to Ministers as it goes through the courts. This guy is just going to be a complete drain on our resources.

And then, to top it all off, we’ve got the rising rents. Well, people, the time today is not going to let me go into that whole story, but let me make it clear: when expenses of providing rental accommodation are ring-fenced for landlords, rents will rise. And that’s exactly what’s happening at the moment. People are not going to privately subsidise other people’s accommodation in this country. And you would think the people who’d know that the most are the socialists over there. Apparently, they’ve forgotten.

If there’s a headache—[Time expired]

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Despite everything that’s just been said and the wind wasted in the last five minutes, this Government’s had a great year—it’s had a fantastic year. We have a group of Ministers and MPs who’ve been busy getting on with the job and building a productive and inclusive and sustainable New Zealand that we can all be proud of—even those guys on the other side there.

We’re delivering on our promises to improve housing, to lift living standards, to protect our environment, and upgrade critical transport and other facilities. We’re rebuilding the hospitals, the schools, and the public services that all New Zealanders rely on and which for the previous nine years had been run down into the ground. And we’re responsibly managing the Government’s books. I mean, I remember the $11 billion fiscal hole that we were accused of running, and yet our finance Minister has run a fantastic surplus in his first year.

So we’re running surpluses, we’re paying off debt, and we’re making the sound investments we need for the future. And, on top of all this, Jacinda Ardern has been earning acclaim for the way she has been representing New Zealand on the world stage. When you go overseas and you hear people talk about our Prime Minister, saying what a wonderful job she’s doing, what a wonderful example she’s setting, all of New Zealand—even those guys over the other side there—can all be proud of our Prime Minister.

It’s been a busy year, but we’re just getting started. We’re just getting started on our programme of change. Meanwhile, while we’ve been busy getting on with the job of building a fairer and more modern New Zealand, I ask the question: what have the Opposition been busy doing? What have they been busy doing with their time and their taxpayer-funded salaries? Well, when they’re not busy tearing their own party apart internally, with almost daily leaks and infighting, they’ve been busy wasting taxpayers’ money to try and derail the Government by bombarding our hard-working Ministers with thousands and thousands of trivial questions and information requests that serve no purpose other than to waste time. And it hasn’t worked, because this Government is still going strong, and we are finishing this year very strongly.

So I’m going to give the Opposition a bit of a present—it’s an early Christmas present. It’s something they’ve been asking for all year. It’s my diary, because they’ve been bombarding us with requests for my diary as the Minister for Māori-Crown Relations, my diary as the Associate Minister of Education, and my diary as the Minister of Tourism, asking for the same information, just packaged in a different way and wasting a whole heap of time and energy.

So, here we go. On Monday, 6 o’clock: get up, have a shower, get dressed; 6.15 a.m. have brekky, cup of tea, read the news; 7.30 a.m. get into the office; then by 8 o’clock my first meeting for the day as tourism Minister looking at the package of initiatives this Government has brought in over the last year to ensure New Zealanders get the best from tourism growth. I get an update on the $8.5 million of funding we’ve made available to local communities so they can better manage responsible camping in the peak season that’s coming up. We also discussed an international visitors conservation and tourism levy, which is expected to raise about $400 million over five years for sustainable tourism. How much? $400 million.

Then, 9 o’clock, the first lot of written questions from the National Party comes in for the day, asking me what Cabinet papers I’ve lodged on a Saturday—on a Saturday. That just shows how hard-working they think we are. Then, at 9.15 a.m., a meeting with my fellow justice sector Ministers. We discussed the benefits of a joined-up justice sector and how these benefits are being seen with a significant drop in victim statistics, a drop in crime, and a 10 percent reduction in the prison population since it peaked in March, through safe innovations to make the system more effective.

Then, 10 o’clock, an Official Information Act (OIA) request comes in from the National Party, asking for my “dairy”. My dairy! Yes, my dairy. From 1 September to 1 October they want to know about my dairy! Well, I’ve never owned a dairy in my life, so I declined the OIA. My parents owned a tearooms in Kawakawa in the 1980s. Maybe they were wanting to know about my parents’ tearooms.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, can I ask you, on behalf of the Opposition, to put the Lord’s name back into the prayer, because thank God that the Minister stopped speaking then at the end of the five minutes.

SPEAKER: No.

Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, we’ll try again. So here’s the thing: there is only one thing that this country can be thankful for to Winston Peters, and it’s him choosing Jacinda Ardern as the Prime Minister. Without that, Kelvin Davis could well have been Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, and wouldn’t that be a concerning, sad day. When the Opposition are asking about a dairy in there, actually, it’s because every time he’s released his diary, all it talks about is the lunches that he has.

On behalf of the Opposition, I’ve got to say that that was a disgraceful speech from the deputy leader of the Labour Party, because there wasn’t a single thing of importance to New Zealanders that he spoke about. Up and down the country, this Government is being seen as ineffective and in a shambles. Winston Peters is about to go off to the US, but what he won’t tell New Zealanders about is what the Government’s position is on a UN agreement when it comes to migration. Does he and his Government accept that the United Nations have had an impact and a say when it comes to New Zealand’s immigration practices or not?

What I want to go through is just a little bit of process here, because what we’ve heard from the honourable Mr Peters is him not giving absolutely the detail that New Zealanders need about his involvement and the involvement of this Government. He’s right that in 2016 there was a process in the United Nations where the United Nations tabled an agreement or a document that went through with all members supporting, and that was about refugees. New Zealand was not involved in the negotiation, and when it was open for signature some 50 countries did sign it; New Zealand was not one of those countries. It dealt with the refugee problem around the world, with great numbers of refugees moving towards Europe and other places. Largely, the things that were in there New Zealand could support because it was more or less in line with our refugee policy. But where we had issues was where the United Nations wanted to start telling countries of the world what they should do around migration and immigration. That document said that there should be more discussion and debate and that a compact could be negotiated that could set out some of these rules.

Now we jump forward to Mr Peters, who is the negotiator in chief when it comes to the United Nations compact that has just been agreed this week. On 20 February of this year, the first round of negotiations took place. On 7 March of this year, Winston Peters received a briefing on the negotiation and he was asked to sign off on New Zealand’s negotiating parameters. He did that. Let me be clear: he is a negotiating Minister. On 13 July of this year, under a New Zealand First - Labour Government, that agreement was concluded. New Zealand was involved with the negotiation of it and its conclusion. Then, on 4 December, we jump forward. Winston Peters said last week that he’s concerned about sovereignty and the effect this UN agreement could have on New Zealand. He said that non-binding agreements have the problem and the challenge of becoming binding over time. He denied receiving any briefings or that Cabinet had made its decision.

On 10 December—Monday of this week—the Prime Minister tells the media that no decision has been made to support or sign this UN compact, and she’s seeking legal advice. On 10 December, the UN Secretary-General put out a statement saying that the migration compact has been adopted by countries that include New Zealand, on that list, and that it is going forward. On 11 December, Winston Peters denies that it’s been adopted, and on 11 December, Winston Peters tells the media that a decision around New Zealand signing off an adoption of it has been pushed out.

Here is the issue. The issue here is that this Government is not being clear with New Zealanders. I think they’ve decided to sign up to this, but they’ve seen that Australia and many other countries have concerns with it and have said they won’t sign it, and they’re not being upfront with New Zealanders. Why is that? Because Mr Peters knows that he made pledges to the New Zealand public, when in Opposition in the last campaign, around immigration and migration. The public knows that Winston Peters has made pledges over many years that he doesn’t believe the UN should have a say on New Zealand policy. Here is an agreement that will actually force New Zealand to do things it may choose not to. Winston Peters is on his way to America at this moment. Mark my words, New Zealand will sign this agreement next week. It is not in the best interests of New Zealand.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Today, I stand, along with my Ngāti Maniapoto relation Nanaia Mahuta, to support our Ngāti Maniapoto relation Simon Bridges. Simon Bridges needs support at this time and, as part of the Māori caucus and in the spirit of Christmas—[Interruption] No, no, we support Simon. OK, he’s at 7 percent. He’s 7 percent, but he used to be 6 percent, and, you know, the way he’s going, he could get to 8 percent.

We’re saying—the Māori caucus is saying—“You hang in there, Simon Bridges. Don’t buckle.” I know he’s got leakers at one side and Mark Mitchell is organising the other leakers, and they’re cutting each other’s throats, but what a leader. What a leader—handsome, Brylcreem-ed. You know, there’s a real future for him, so the Māori caucus want him there, right till the end, which will come—well, we don’t know when it’s going to come. But in terms of relations—and Nanaia and I can’t pick our relations; we can’t help it—we’re proud of what he’s doing.

We weren’t so proud of him as a Minister. He was the most useless transport Minister in the history of transport Ministers, and we’ve had to fix that. We’ve got Phil Twyford fixing Auckland now—fixing the infrastructure that the former, useless Minister of Transport Simon Bridges effected. So now we have the Hon Phil Twyford, who’s doing the business—doing the business for the people of this country—because poor old Simon Bridges stuffed it all up.

However, his transition to the leadership has been good, despite the National Party leaks and despite National trying to cut his throat every day. Poor Simon Bridges, he can’t even last question time. He’s going back to his office to check his email, to check what Gerry Brownlee’s been doing, and to check what the young fullas are doing. They’re such a traitorous, vicious lot on the other side, unlike this side, where we’re united, tight, and all together. We’re all united, and we’ve got a strategy going forward.

I’m so proud of this Labour Party, that’s done the business over the last 12 months. I’m most proud of the Families Package, where we’re putting money back into Kiwis who have been suffering. Up to $75 a week is going into the pockets of New Zealanders who were starved by the last Government, which forgot about people in South Auckland and forgot about people in west Auckland and put them in homes that wouldn’t have passed any day of the week. We’ve now ensured from our healthy homes bill that they’ve got warm homes and they’ve got comfortable homes, and in our health package, we’ve put billions back in—$28 billion—in terms of infrastructure. We’ve put $28 billion into the health system, where we’ve had rotting hospitals and where we’ve had an infrastructure that was totally stuffed up by the last Government.

So I’m rapt with some of the work that’s been rolled out by this Government, including some of the work that the Hon Chris Hipkins—I’m just looking at him—is doing in terms of reforming the education system. And in terms of employment, we’re so happy that, finally, we are getting our nephs off the couch. We’ve got a reduction in terms of NEETs from 80,000 to 70,000, so we’re pulling our nephs off the couch, as Shane Jones talks about, and we’re talking about more women now in employment and more Māori in employment—much more than we had before. We’re on the rise here, and it’s all due to the investment that we’re making in terms of our people in the regions and in youth.

In terms of what’s happening in the regions, I’m so proud in terms of what we’re doing with regards to He Poutama Rangatahi, where we’re deciding to get behind our young people in the North, in the Tauranga area, and on the East Coast, where we’re giving them an opportunity. We’re absolutely supporting our young people, and who would not support Mana in Mahi? Even that useless lot on the other side, they support Mana in Mahi. Why? Because it gives an opportunity to people who never had opportunities before, and that is the difference with this Government.

This is a Government that rules for everyone. It’s not just a Government that looks after their rich mates, as Gerry Brownlee and his mates have done for many, many years. It’s a Government that wants an economy that can fulfil the promise and look after everyone who should be looked after: young people, Māori, Pasifika, women, the people in the disability sector—the people who have been forgotten are the people that this Government supports, and I’m proud to be part of it. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Firstly, Mr Speaker, can I take a moment to wish you and all members in this House a very merry Christmas. But look, what I wanted to say at the outset is that on the back of that member Willie Jackson’s speech, this is one of the most shambolic Governments in our nation’s history. It’s a Government of spin. It’s a Government of broken promises. It’s a Government that is drowning in reviews.

I want to talk about education, because it is getting near Christmas, and I thought I would be in the Christmas spirit for education. Firstly, I want to acknowledge that I’m hoping that all members get home to their families, given that we do have the Air New Zealand strikes. While I like you, Mr Speaker, I don’t want to be standing around the Christmas tree at Parliament with you; I’d rather be back home with my family.

But the first Christmas present that I want to acknowledge—I want to acknowledge the Hon Chris Hipkins. In terms of second languages, it is a great week for New Zealand to see the dream closer for parents and students of second-language learning in our primary and intermediate schools, so thank you very much for that Christmas present, Chris Hipkins.

Can I now acknowledge that other people have had Christmas presents this year that may not have deserved them. I want to start with tertiary students. They got the largest Christmas present you could imagine: several billion dollars. And what do we know? There has been no increase in participation. What did we find out today? Potentially $50 million was wasted in withdrawals or student failure as a result of this fees-free policy.

The next Christmas present that we had this year was teacher strikes. Despite having billions more cash, there have been three offers rejected in primary and several offers rejected in secondary, and so what we know is that teachers are facing a more uncertain Christmas because we are staring down the barrel next year of multiple strikes, despite the Government having a whole lot of choices that National didn’t have due to the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes.

So what is the Ministry of Education’s gift this year? What is their present? Their present has to be drowning in reviews. There are more than 19 reviews in education, so my hope is that next year the gift that the Minister can give is certainty in many of these areas, because people want to get on with the job in education rather than be drowning in reviews.

The next gift that we heard of this year was to the partnership schools in New Zealand. Their gift, despite doing huge amounts of great work for disadvantaged students—we heard from Sir Toby Curtis, we heard from Dame Iritana, and we heard from the giants in Māori education how we should keep these schools. Their gift was to be disestablished and closed down despite doing huge amounts of great work for disadvantaged children.

So my message to the Government is: on the back of billions of dollars of extra cash, stop prioritising tertiary students and start to focus on teachers and ensuring that you deliver the 19-odd promises that at the moment people are seeing as broken—like your commitments around donations, like your other commitments around modernising buildings, and like your commitments to making sure that we don’t have continued and multiple strikes all next year. The gift that this Government could give next year in education, instead of spending a year dismantling everything that National has done—from communities of online learning to cohort entry, to national standards, to partnership schools. Next year would be a year where we could come together and agree on some common priorities in education. That would be a great gift for our country. That would be something that parents would welcome.

While I’m on parents, it is important to mention the Tomorrow’s Schools review. The reality is that while National sees some good stuff in that review and we are not arguing for the status quo, we are deeply concerned about not only the stripping away of power from parents in our education system but also the stripping away of principals and teachers, and that’s not a great gift in terms of Christmas.

So I say again that the challenge and the opportunity for next year is to not have an ideological year where people are put through huge amounts of disruption, where students are prioritised over teachers, and where the schools of disadvantaged children who are getting a huge chance in life are closed down. The opportunity is to work together for a greater education system, one where we can agree on some common priorities, and that would be the greatest gift that we could give parents, boards of trustees, teachers, principals, and all of those hard-working support staff and volunteers in our schools next year.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Normally I relish the opportunity to stand up and rebut the contributions from the Opposition members, but I think the contributions today speak more eloquently about the lack of contribution, the lack of depth, and the lack of understanding about what this Government is about and what we’re actually achieving than it does about the thought that they’ve put into their own contributions. So perhaps it’s apt to speak about Alice in Wonderland. I look into the eyes of the Opposition members over there, and I can see—I can see right now—how they must feel like Alice as she tumbled down that rabbit hole. They must feel it themselves as they tumble deeper and deeper down that hole.

Now, the problem here—and this is all about timing. This is all about timing. But the problem here is I think the Leader of the Opposition went down that hole first. Right, so he’s gone down, he’s got nothing to hold on to, and clearly there’s no support base for him amongst his own party membership let alone his caucus, and so there he is. The other problem he’s got going down that hole is that there seems to be a leak filling up the hole. So now he’s there. He’s got his head just above water. But what I can tell you is as his caucus colleagues come tumbling down, many of them will choose to deliberately land on top of him. Ha, ha! Why will they do that? Well, they don’t want to drown. They don’t want to go under the water themselves. And so the leader will take the damage and be pushed under the water as the leak continues to flood.

So I wanted to talk about what it is that this Government has done and what this side of the House stands for since coming into Government from the last election. This is a group of people, a group of Ministers and MPs, who came in with their eyes wide open. We were not sitting there like the Opposition was at the time denying a housing crisis, for example. We were not sitting there denying that our hospitals were not safe and sound for the people who were using them. So the Opposition still don’t really seem to understand that this is the real world, and on this side of the House everyone wants to get on with the job.

So while this Government protects New Zealand homeownership, for example; whilst we build new homes; whilst we celebrate—I think it’s tomorrow—1,000 graduating police officers; whilst this Government works to save Auckland from stifling and suffocating under its own weight, and I use the example of Aucklanders spending a month in traffic every year—every year—and then a billion of lost productivity every year in Auckland; that’s what they were happy to continue with on that side of the House, but we can’t let that continue. Whilst we work with our provinces and rural communities to grow and thrive in the regions and to grow their dignities again, whilst this Government works to make our hospitals safe and sound again and to do the same in our schools, in our classrooms, and, as Minister Davis alluded to in his contribution, to build infrastructure for the ever growing and amazing tourism market, the Opposition sits on the other side of the House, moans and cries, and does nothing but use illogical arguments to say that we’re not doing our job.

Mr Brownlee looks at me confused. Mr Brownlee is an example: just today, in his contribution in the House, he spoke about the undermining of the rental market and how no one’s going to want to own a rental property because of what this Government’s doing. And then, in the same breath, he talks about how rents are going to go up. Well, how is that not good for owners of rental properties? Come on, make an argument and stick to it.

On the other side of the House, the Leader of the Opposition and the finance spokesperson can’t agree whether it’s the Opposition’s good work from the previous Government with the economy now or whether it’s this Government’s run. There are just contradictory statements all the time, and I can’t believe I’ve already got out of time. This is a Government that’s doing great work, and I’m incredibly proud to be part of it.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think I’ve got to differ from my colleague the Hon Gerry Brownlee when he talked about this Government being chaotic. It’s shambolic, even. What worries me about this Labour - New Zealand First Government is, in certain areas, the deafening silence of nothing.

What I would like to say before I start out is that I do like the Hon Jenny Salesa, and I think she’s a well-intentioned Minister, but I am increasingly getting concerned about what is happening in the building and construction industry. It is a very vital part of it, and of course we want KiwiBuild to succeed; we want to see houses being built in New Zealand. But, unfortunately, I’m reminded of that Texas saying with regard to Mr Twyford—unfortunately, it’s “All hat and no cattle.”

The lack of progress in KiwiBuild is a real issue, and if you go to the KiwiBuild internet site, what it actually says they’ve achieved so far is 33 completed homes and 77 homes being under construction now—a bit different from what we heard earlier in question time today. But, by this time, by the end of December, they are meant to have built 500 homes, using his own target—500, and they’ve only completed 33. The Minister for Building and Construction’s role is closely aligned to that of, obviously, the housing industry, but, unfortunately, we have a Minister asleep at the wheel.

When I go around conferences and talk to those builders who are actually building something, the issues in this industry are blindingly obvious, and I think the most important one is the issue around skills. It’s a large industry—250,000 people—and what worries me is that in the time this Government has been in power there has only been a net increase of just over 3,000 people involved in training in the building and construction sector. I think that’s a worry. The Minister said that is her prime role; she’s convened this great big working party of, I think, seven Ministers. They had a lovely photo opportunity a couple of months ago—all these Ministers in hard hats—but, unfortunately, I want to know when we’re going to see some more people come into this industry. Soon, I hope.

The other thing is that when you talk to builders, they talk about the issue of consenting, the lack of site inspectors, and the time it takes to issue codes of compliance. It is the bane of their lives. Many councils are slow to process consents, the cost of consents is increasing, and the delay of getting inspectors on site—just things you hear all the time. But what do we hear from this Minister? Zip—zip. And that is also another worry.

The third issue is about the non-conforming products that are flooding into this market. We need innovation, but these products are coming in that don’t meet New Zealand standards, are often sold on the internet, and the current cost of them is estimated at between $100 million and $230 million because they have a long-tail liability to them. And what is the issue with CodeMark? We’ve seen the issue around the aluminium composite panels earlier this year. I was concerned. I questioned the Minister back in June. What she said to me—this issue about this product, which affects the safety of buildings—she said it was an operational matter—an operational matter—not one for her to be concerned about. But I am worried about it. Finally, we’ve seen a little bit of action, but we’ve still got a CodeMark system with only six people involved, although one has currently been deregistered. And 50 percent of those consents have all been undertaken by one Australian-based certifier. I am concerned that we’re not making progress on that issue.

The last one I want to talk about is subcontractor arrangements. We’ve seen the recent failure of Ebert Construction. The Minister has been absolutely silent on this issue. She needs to be protecting subcontractors. Those are four issues in the building and construction sector, and I’m increasingly coming to the view that the Minister for Building and Construction is following the lead of the Prime Minister when she is just saying I hope that something is going to happen.

Kieran McAnulty: Point of order.

TEMPORARY SPEAKER (Jenny Marcroft): Point of order—

Kieran McAnulty: I’m only joking!

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare—very nice to see you sitting in the seat there. It’s a real pleasure to take a call in this general debate, because so many good things have happened lately. I know that the many people listening and watching this debate—and my parents, up there in the gallery—will be hugely surprised to hear of all the good stuff that this Government has done in its very first year.

With our focus on supporting the well-being of all New Zealanders, we started this year with the announcement of the Families Package in December 2017. This package was rolled out on 1 July. It’s making a huge difference to people because it’s also our response to child poverty, and, after nine years of neglect, this is really overdue. We’re getting on with the job, and we are making a real difference. The Families Package is lifting the income of 350,000 families. What it does is it lifts out of poverty 64,000 children, 26,000 more families are now eligible for Working for Families, and we have 384,000 families with children that are, basically, better off by $75 a week, on average, and this is amounting to the largest income boost that we’ve seen in a decade.

On top of that, we’ve also had the winter energy payment, which is warming an extra 1 million people during the winter months. It’s helping people that either are on benefits or are having to make do on super with their bills to heat their homes, because what this Government doesn’t do is it does not accept that we have people in New Zealand that are getting sick and ending up in hospital because they are living in cold, damp houses. We are making sure that renters are getting a fair go with our Healthy Homes Guarantee Act, which is starting in July 2019. This Act will require landlords to ensure that there are minimum standards for insulation and heating, because people need warm, dry places to live in.

They also need affordable homes, and this is something else that we’ve been doing. We are bringing property speculation to a halt. We’ve stopped the State house sell-off and we’re helping young Kiwi families to get into their first homes.

What we’ve also done from today is we’ve removed the letting fees to make life better for renters. Over these summer months, when a lot of people are looking for different homes, tenants won’t have to worry about the pressure of having to come up with all that money, and this will make a huge difference for families that are currently struggling.

We’ve also lifted the minimum wage. That started in April this year. We lifted it to $16.50, and that is a start to making some improvements to their struggles. But what is going to make a real difference are the changes that this Government has made to the Employment Relations Act. Only last week it was passed, the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, or, as my colleague—fabulous colleague—the Hon Clare Curran likes to refer to it, the “Fairness Bill”. That is quite appropriate, because that’s exactly what it does. It brings fairness, respect, and dignity to the workplace. So what this new Act will do is it will do simple changes like giving working people a break during their working day, but it also has a very important change in it with regard to collective bargaining towards higher wages for working people.

Now, of course we know that rents and mortgages are astronomically high at the moment, but wages have not kept up with rising costs. Over the years, we’ve seen a decreasing share of the economy go to working people and their families, and we’ve seen a common theme amongst low-wage workers where they can’t provide for their families. They can’t afford to make ends meet. We’ve heard during the select committee process from families that are living off noodles, toast, and eggs in order to feed their children. It’s absolutely appalling.

Undermining the working conditions over the last years has, basically, put us in a race to the bottom, and that is going to stop, because pay rates can’t stay low while the economy does well. Now, the evidence is really clear that the best way to get a pay rise is actually through collective bargaining, and the stats are really clear on this. [Holds up chart] People on collective agreements—that’s the lines in blue—are twice as likely to get a pay increase as the people on the green lines, which are the individual agreements. So, once again, it pays to be with a union because virtually all jobs in collective agreements—virtually all jobs that are with unions—are getting a pay increase. It’s really good to see union membership is up, from 381,500 to 411,500.

We are very proud of this coalition Government, which is doing so much for this country and for working people. Thank you.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It would be fair to say that taxpayers’ money is supposed to be used to support the people of New Zealand with the provision of services that care for the oranga, or the well-being, of its population. It would also be fair to say that taxpayers’ money should not be used for the purpose of paying a dividend or a cash payment to shareholders; that is reserved for profit-making private businesses, not for organisations that are all about people. Whānau Ora is not a private profit-making business. It never has been; it never will be. It is a great initiative, yet here I stand today ashamed that a Government agency has allowed this to happen.

I’m shocked that the Minister has allowed it to happen again, because in this year’s financial annual report the dividend is to the tune of $988,000. I’m stunned because the very Whānau Ora providers that work on the smell of an oily rag are denied access to these funds. I’m actually speechless that a Government organisation can tell me that commissioning agencies can do what they like with any surpluses as long as they have made and completed their contractual obligations and/or outcomes. What I want to know is: why hasn’t the Minister intervened? I think it is quite a cheek when the Minister says on Radio New Zealand that the ability to pay dividends was in the contract and the contract was going to go for two years, yet there was no commitment to intervene. It needs to be intervened on by this Minister, and I’m really surprised that the Prime Minister has not called the Minister into her office, demanding that he fix this now—right now.

This also brings to mind the various conflicts of interest. As we know, the Hon Willie Jackson, who became a Minister after the 2017 election, saw his former organisation benefit from dividends paid in the 2017 report and the 2018 report. Yet nothing was said and he only resigned his trustee role with these authorities in February of this year. It’s not good enough. I want to know why the Prime Minister hasn’t also asked Minister Jackson to come into her office and please explain. I think, actually, that the most amazing part of the whole Whānau Ora commissioning agency rort is that, when I asked Te Puni Kōkiri if Whānau Ora was best placed with them, they said, “Yes, it is.”, because they have all the connections. I think that is a long, long, long bow to draw for that organisation to say that, especially with what has been revealed.

To me, this whole thing smacks of underhanded deceit. Heads need to roll—the heads of those who knew it was wrong yet let it happen, heads who had the power to intervene and stood by and have done nothing, heads who say they are best placed to do this work yet failed in their duty to keep Whānau Ora safe—and that is the main, main crux of my speech today.

I would like to advise the Minister to be careful on what he actually responds to when I ask him the questions, because the whole population is judging. They’re standing and they’re judging. I can say that this whole business stinks. It stinks because of an inexperienced Minister who is not across his portfolio, let alone the conflicts of his colleagues. I think Minister Henare and Minister Jackson have both let Māori down, the very people who put them into Parliament this year. I want to say that I cannot see how both of those Ministers can espouse Whānau Ora when they have both failed in their duties to Māori. It would be safe to say that Ministers Henare and Jackson are both now on notice from this country.

I also want to add to the debate today that I’m asking the Minister: where is the Whānau Ora review? We have waited all year for this. We were told it was going to be here in November; then Te Puni Kōkiri said they had given the report, the draft report, to the Minister on 1 October. It is nearly the end of December, we are only a few days away from rising, and we still have not received the Whānau Ora report. There are providers out there who are sitting on the edge of their seats wanting to know whether their contracts are going to be safe, and nothing has come out. I ask the Minister to give us that Whānau Ora report. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with a bit of a heavy heart that I rise in this House again to talk about the issue of violence against women and children in our country, but this is a conversation we are having as a country at the moment, and I believe it’s an important conversation to keep having in this House. One in three women in this country are likely to experience violence from the person that is supposed to love them. We know there were 121,000 family violence call-outs in the last year to the police, and that’s one every four minutes; that between 2009 and 2015, 92 women and 56 children were murdered in this country; and that those involving partners—for 98 percent of those women, there was a recorded history of abuse by a male partner. We knew that they were being hurt, and we failed them. In the deaths of children where a man was convicted, in 77 percent of those cases, there was also a history of that man abusing his female partner. We didn’t intervene, and we failed those children.

Every single person in this country has a born right to live free from fear and violence, but we have to face up to the fact that that is just not a reality for too many of our women and children in this country—and some men as well, but it is mostly our women and children. We have to do better by them, and it’s going to take all of us in this House and in our communities to make that difference. Every year, there’s a campaign of 16 days of action to end violence against women between November and December, and this year, in this country that, in some ways, is a village, two women were murdered just during those 16 days. We don’t know how many other women died without being directly murdered.

I am proud to be in this Government, to have the position in this Government to focus our efforts on ending this violence, for restoring our faith in each other and our ability to do something about this. I am proud that within our first year in Government, this Government has created that position and has increased funding for front-line services by 30 percent to ensure, through New Zealand First and Labour’s coalition agreement, to make sure that those services are able to respond. We’ve passed three pieces of legislation: a world-leading domestic violence victims’ protection bill and workplace protections that other countries are now coming to us asking us for advice on how they might do it; protection against forced marriage of children, that was initiated by the National Party and supported unanimously by this House; and a transformational change to our family violence legislation, involving new offences that have already come into force, including strangulation, which, already, from 3 December, we’ve had 26 charges on that one offence. We are making a difference—

Tamati Coffey: Wow—26?

JAN LOGIE: Twenty-six already—this is happening, and this is us responding and engaging. We have set up a Family Court rewrite to actually make sure that that system is working to protect and ensure the support and the safety of our women and children. And we’ve set up a whole-of-Government response, a new way of working in Government that for the first time ever will have the Government held accountable by the Opposition for our actions on family and sexual violence, which has never happened. We are committed to turning this around and look forward to the help of other New Zealanders.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in this general debate. I’d like to go back to the theme that we have been talking about, which is the omnishambles of this Government. This week, the Government has reached 200 reviews, working groups, and all sorts of other types of groups of people having a look and doing their policy work on it—

Kieran McAnulty: Not true.

SIMEON BROWN: Actually, it’s true—it’s not true, sorry; it is not true. It’s actually 201—it’s 201. That’s right. It’s 201, because yesterday the Government passed legislation to set up a working group to put in place the marijuana regulations for medicinal cannabis. So it’s 201—thank you for the correction, Mr McAnulty. I really do appreciate it. And what’s the cost of that? It’s $279 million, wasted by this Government; $279 million—that’s almost $1 million every single day that this Government has been in office.

This afternoon, I’d like to talk about the fees-free fail that this Government is continuing to pursue. In education, there are 19 reviews. About 10 percent of the reviews are being done in the tertiary sector, but one area that this Government decided to implement policy without a review—about the only area, I think—is the fees-free policy. Yes, they implemented the fees-free policy without undertaking a working group or a review or something else before setting it up, and what an omnishambles of a policy that has been. This policy was meant to increase student participation and enrolments at our universities. It was meant to increase the number of people who were going to university, going into tertiary qualifications and trades. It was meant to make a positive difference to New Zealand.

Let’s look at some of the results which we’ve seen from this $2.8 billion policy—$2.8 billion, and here’s the results: 2,500 fewer students studying at university—yes, 2,500 fewer students studying at our universities—1,188 fewer at our wānanga, 674 fewer at our private training establishments, and 4,740 fewer students undergoing industry training—4,740 fewer people undergoing industry training at a time when we have a construction boom here in New Zealand—all at a cost of $2.8 billion. So we have thousands and thousands fewer students going to university, going to study, and going into industry training, and yet the Government continues to dogmatically pursue a policy which they failed to think about before they implemented at the end of last year.

And what did we learn at select committee earlier today? Fifty-three million dollars has been wasted. The Tertiary Education Commission was before the select committee, and we’ve learnt that this policy—at least $53 million of it has been wasted just in this last year. Thirty-five million dollars from the cost of students who took up fees-free but have failed, and $18 million from the cost of those who have reviewed.

There are 2,619 students who successfully enrolled in fees-free and then have decided to unenrol and withdrew from their studies part way through the year. That has cost the taxpayer $18 million over the last year. And there’s a good question from my colleague Andrew Bayly: how many houses could you build with that sort of money? How many houses could you build with $50 million—probably a few more than what they have built. The 33 that they’ve managed to build—that’s over $1 million per house. I’m sure Andrew Bayly’s got some better housing policies than our friend the Hon Phil Twyford and his pipe dream of houses.

Then we have the number of students who have filed false declarations in order to receive fees-free: 246 learners filed false declarations in order to receive fees-free this past year. Well, that’s the 246 which have been found out and caught. The Tertiary Education Commission said there may be others; there may have been others. So that’s only the ones which have been caught, and I just want to applaud the work of the Tertiary Education Commission in actually undertaking that serious review and making sure that they catch as many as possible and the good work that they’re doing there.

This is a Government which is wasting taxpayers’ money left, left, and left. They’re wasting taxpayers’ money everywhere, and, on top of that, we’ve seen the constant reviews, the constant omnishambles, and if there was one policy that should have had a review it should be this one—the fees-free.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): When Gerry Brownlee got up at the beginning of this debate and said he was introducing a new word—“omnishambles”, which, actually, I’ve heard lots of times before—I thought he was talking about the National Party because it’s been a long time since that party, that caucus, has had to do any real thinking, and the National Party, that Opposition, is all over the place. So I’m going to introduce a new phrase this afternoon and that’s called “cognitive dissonance”, which is, really, that they can’t work out what they think. Are they liberal or are they conservative?

Are they liberal? Last week, they staged a walkout and then, hours later, they voted against the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which will stop employers from being able to dock the pay of workers—stop employers, and they walked out but they voted against the bill. So it’s one rule for them and another rule for everyone else. Or are they conservative? This week, Simon Bridges described the medicinal marijuana law as decriminalisation by stealth. I’d note that this bill sets up a statutory defence to allow those who are close to death in palliative care to consume illicit marijuana with a legal defence if prosecuted. But Simon Bridges believes it’s a slippery slope resulting in big chunks of people smoking dope outside schools with the police unable to do anything about it.

That reminded me of my seventh form year and the dire warnings of my then principal, Sister Ambrose, whom I describe as a bit of a militant nun, warning us as seventh formers of the perils of burning incense, which led to going to boys’ flats, taking drugs, having sex, and ending up at the venereal disease (VD) clinic! But that wasn’t the worst thing. I don’t know if everyone knows what VD is—I think we all can guess—but that wasn’t the worst bit: the worst bit was ending up at the VD clinic in your school uniform! That was the heinous sin! These days we’d be encouraging a visit to the health clinic or the GP if you had a sexually transmitted disease and making sure that you were provided with good information about safe sex, and that’s the approach that most schools would take and, no doubt, parents. But, to my mind, Simon Bridges is stuck somewhere in the 1970s and keeping up appearances rather than addressing the core issues, such as pain relief and quality of life left for the terminally ill and the chronically sick—Mr Cognitive Dissonance.

I recognise the phase that the National Party is going through, because we were there, and my advice is: dig in. It doesn’t get any easier. Do the genuine work on policy and try—and this is a message to the backbenches, to the newbies—to stay out of the nasty cliques, and no matter what happens to you, your own sense of dignity and self-respect is actually what really matters. Senior MPs set the tone for the behaviour of the newbies. They come in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed mostly and they want to make change happen, but they get caught up in the place. There is a dark side to politics, and don’t let yourself be dragged there. That’s my advice to you. Don’t—not just because I’m giving you that advice, but because your constituents don’t like it, and the public don’t like it.

This is a Government that is cohesive, strong, collegial, and it does know what it stands for. It stands for a better life, for more opportunities for New Zealanders, and we’re getting on with it. Of all of the things that we have done—and I could read you a big long list; I know others have gone through a lot of those things—three things stand out for me: the winter energy payment, which has made a real difference; extending the royal commission on the abuse of children in State care to faith institutions—a huge difference; and the culture and attitude change that I’m seeing, and that my constituents are seeing, in Work and Income staff treating people with respect and care. I thank the Minister for Social Development and the Prime Minister for that; 2019 will be the year of well-being.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill

In Committee

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I seek the leave of the committee for the seven clauses to be taken as one question with one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be not.

Clauses 1 to 7 and schedule

A party vote was called for on the question, That clauses 1 to 7 and the schedule be agreed to.

Ayes 112

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Noes 8

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Clauses 1 to 7 and schedule agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I move, That the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill be now read a third time.

This bill is the last piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle to enable the Waimea community dam to be built, and I note it will be the largest dam built in New Zealand in more than 20 years. It will enable the storing of 13 million cubic metres of water in an 87-hectare reservoir, stretching 5 kilometres up the Lee Valley, 20 kilometres south-east of Brightwater.

There have been so many challenges in getting any sort of water infrastructure project over the line that very few make it off the drawing board. There are the complex issues of getting through the Resource Management Act and getting consents and, subsequently, dealing with any appeals that occurred back in 2004. There’s the tremendously challenging job of trying to get the funding for such projects—in this case, over $100 million worth—for a scheme to happen. The third key issue that needs to be resolved for such schemes is getting access to the required land. It is a tribute to so many people that all those hurdles have been passed.

Now, this bill deals solely with the issue of enabling access to 9.7 hectares of public conservation land for the reservoir and 1.3 hectares of Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) riverbed. It’s not a complex bill. It creates an easement over the Mount Richmond Forest Park for the reservoir; it enables the council to be able to purchase the 1.4 hectares of LINZ land. The bill has two important caveats. It says that the council cannot sell the land, and, importantly, I acknowledge our parliamentary colleague Rino Tirikatene, in terms of ensuring that the three Te Tau Ihu settlements in the top of the South and their first rights of refusal are respected.

Three changes were made to this bill by the Governance and Administration Committee. Firstly, the public access provisions around the conservation land have been strengthened in response to submissions from the Federated Mountain Clubs, the Walking Access Commission, and the Nelson/Marlborough Fish and Game Council. Secondly, the bill gives a bit more time for the construction of the dam to begin, extending that from 2020 to 2025. And the right of first refusal provisions have been strengthened to ensure that whether the land is in the hands of the council, in the hands of a council-controlled organisation, or in the unusual incident that the dam does not proceed or the dam is decommissioned at any time in the future, those rights of first refusal are respected.

I want to make a few points about the land. The first: we are talking about 9.7 hectares out of a Richmond Forest Park that is 166,000 hectares. It’s not 1 percent, it’s not 0.1 percent; it’s not even enough to make 0.01 percent. Nor is this land some precious one of those 14 different types of reserves. This is not an ecological scientific reserve. It is not national park. I would take a very different view on this bill if it was proposed in a precious area like the Abel Tasman National Park or Fiordland. It’s interesting to note that there is no record by the Department of Conservation (DOC) of this area being used for any purpose of recreation, giving an indication of how remote and inaccessible it is. I also, importantly, note that the Environment Court orders made in August 2014 with the agreement of DOC, with the agreement of Forest & Bird, and with the agreement of Fish & Game provided for the inundation of this land. If I can put it very simply, the small loss of the forest park is more than compensated for by the opportunity this scheme presents to be able to restore the health of the Waimea River.

Some years ago, as Minister, I was responsible for putting in place a national policy statement that requires minimum flows in rivers and which also provides for water quality standards for New Zealand rivers and lakes for the first time. This project is the only practical way to meet those water quality standards, and I’m proud to represent a region that, with the introduction of the scheme, will be one of the very first regions in New Zealand to fully meet the requirements of those new water standards.

Now, I do acknowledge there are some critics, including the Green Party in this House and others, who have said, “Well, the easy way to resolve the problems with the Waimea River is to cut back the existing water consents that have been provided by the Tasman and Nelson councils for town water supply that has been provided for irrigators and has been provided for industry.” People that propose that scale of cuts have no practical idea as to the level of impact that would have on local residents and on the regional economy.

I hear speeches all the time from parliamentarians across the House saying that we should process more of our wood products. Processing wood products takes water. Not proceeding with this dam would be devastating for one of New Zealand’s biggest and most successful wood processors, in the form of Nelson Pine Industries. It would be equally devastating if we went down that road of cutting water takes for Nelson’s horticultural industries, whether it be our apples, our grapes, our kiwifruit, our hops, or our berry fruit. So many people, again, give speeches in this House that they want to see New Zealand diversify its primary exports, and this dam and this water scheme is a mechanism to do it.

Can I also draw members’ attention to the issues around housing. In my time as the member of Parliament for this region, the number of people living on the Waimea Plains has expanded, doubled, from 10,000 to 20,000 people. We need more houses to be built, but you cannot build more homes unless you have the water infrastructure to support them.

So, in summary, if you want clean water, if you want more added-value processing, if you want to grow exports like horticulture, or if you want more houses, you need more water.

Can I also make the point that for neither Nelson nor New Zealand do we have a water shortage issue. That is, we only use 2 percent of the rainfall that falls on this country for extractive purposes. That is one of the lowest levels of anywhere in the world. Many countries use 30 percent; some use 60 percent. The issue for New Zealand is that we have shortages in quite distinct areas at quite specific times of the year. What could be simpler than storing some of those massive winter flows of water, retaining that water, and enabling it to be able to be used in the time of drought and dry period?

I want to acknowledge the Crown Irrigation scheme established by David Carter, supported by Nathan Guy, which has been critical, as well as the staff of Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd, and the Freshwater Improvement Fund for their financial support. I want to acknowledge the Hon David Parker and Minister Shane Jones for honouring the previous commitments by the previous National Government to the scheme. I want to acknowledge Richard Kempthorne, the Mayor of Tasman District; the councillors that supported this project; and a big team of staff at the Tasman District Council—dedicated people like Dennis Bush-King and Joseph Thomas, who have worked on these issues for many, many years. I also want to acknowledge the contribution from the Nelson City Council and the huge contribution that has been made by irrigators and landowners in the Waimea area.

This project has its genesis in the awful drought that afflicted the Nelson region back in 2001. A collaborative group was established at this time, and the work of organisations like the councils, like the Department of Conservation, like iwi, and like the landowners in that area brings us to this concluding point. Can I again thank the many MPs from National—my colleagues—Labour, New Zealand First, and ACT, who are supporting this bill through this final stage. My hope for this project is that it not only gives water security for my home community but also provides a flagship of what is possible in terms of improving water management in New Zealand.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I, too, am very pleased to speak in support of this bill at its third reading, the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. This bill is some 20 years in the making. There’s been a lot of work that has gone on, and I do want to acknowledge the Hon Dr Nick Smith for shepherding this bill through the House and for paying the acknowledgments to all those that have been involved. We’re at the last sort of phase within this parliamentary process, and, of course, it is critical that we pass this bill, because there are a lot of contractual and ongoing commitments that need to be met for it to actually get built—and that’s what we want to see. We want to actually see this project come to fruition and be able to service the Waimea district.

I don’t intend to take long with my contribution today. I merely want to acknowledge the Tasman District Council, under the leadership of Mayor Richard Kempthorne, and all of his team who have been involved, working very hard with the local communities and with all the affected groups, and, I must also say, with all of the relevant iwi as well, to ensure that we can stand today in this House and speak strongly in support of it.

I want to just speak to one particular point which came through the committee stage which was raised by the Governance and Administration Committee, and that was around the iwi of Te Tau Ihu, the eight tribes of the top of the South Island, and just ensuring that they were supportive of the additional recognition of their rights of first refusal which would arise on a possible future decommissioning of the site. I can speak in this House today and say that the bill does have the support, and I acknowledge all of the iwi concerned, but, in particular, the one iwi who actually are part of the scheme, which is Ngāti Kōata, who are committing some of their tribal lands to the actual infrastructure project. So I’m pleased that those issues were addressed with all of the iwi concerned, but, in particular, with Ngāti Kōata, who will have ongoing relationships with the Tasman District Council, and that will be continuing from now and well into the future.

Returning to what this bill is about, it is about water infrastructure. It is about storing that water and making sure that when it’s needed in those dry summer months, there is water available to service the rural lands, and to service the urban communities as well. I want to acknowledge the Government and our support partners. Our Government has continued the commitment of funding through Crown Irrigation to ensure that financial facility is available to the project, likewise through the environment fund, as well, that’s also committed to the project.

So this is really a collective effort from the people of New Zealand through the Government in terms of their contributions, and I know that we are entrusting—and this project is actually being led by the Tasman District Council with the local community. It’s entrusted to them to actually bring the whole project to fruition, and I certainly look forward to the day when the dam is operational, and I’m sure that will be a day which many in that community who will benefit from the water infrastructure will be looking forward to as well. So with that, I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise also to support the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill to the House. There are a number of people who should be acknowledged: Mayor of Tasman District Council Richard Kempthorne and his councillors, and the proponents of this dam project who have worked—and that wasn’t a joke, but it has been an at times lengthy and troublesome project for community leaders and proponents of the bill. I want to acknowledge also the Hon Nick Smith, who has steadfastly supported this bill and the Waimea Community Dam over the course of the last 18 or so years.

Our part in Parliament is the easy part of this process, and I want to acknowledge most of Parliament for seeing the value and the sense in providing this supporting piece of legislation, in providing for access over Crown land, and in providing easements so that the local community and the council can get on and get the job done.

What was very apparent to us as Governance and Administration Committee members, when we travelled to Nelson to hear submissions on the dam, was that for some people there was an awful lot to gain, and for other people there was an awful lot to lose. As parliamentarians, as select committee members, our job was to listen with an open and clear mind to the evidence and to the values and concerns expressed to us, which we did. We spent a considerable amount of time listening to those voices.

Those who felt they had a lot to lose—their arguments were based around environmental concerns, financial concerns about the cost of this bill, whether or not security of water was in fact needed, or maybe there were other ways to achieve security of water supply. Then there were those voices who had an awful lot to lose, and it was those voices, such as those in the forestry industry, those in the horticulture industry—in fact, economic development of all kinds and of every nature throughout the Waimea district—and those voices we also heard.

It is the measure of a community and a measure of its local authority and the proponents of a large project such as this that they have had the perseverance to keep working at this project and not give up, because a large capital project in a relatively small community is never going to be easy—not in any way is it ever going to be easy. So I want to end my intervention and my support by just again acknowledging and thanking all of those people, from the community leaders to the supporters, to all of those who gave their views in support or not in support—acknowledging them all. Very soon, I hope, we will be celebrating the passage of this bill, and then the dam really truly can commence. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. It’s great to see this bill proceeding so quickly through the House, as I know that there are some contracts in place in order for work to go ahead that need to be done by a certain date, and it’s important that we see the quick passage of this legislation in order to reach that time frame.

There are some really clear economic and environmental benefits that need to be weighed up. Those have come through the submissions process and through the good advice that we’ve received during the select committee process that this bill is beneficial for New Zealand and very much beneficial for those people involved in horticulture in the area on the Waimea Plains. This bill will enable a secure water supply for the local community. While it does directly affect horticulture in the form of many forms of berries that are grown on the Waimea Plains, as well as apples and other fruits, it will also ensure water supply to residential households—and good quality water supply, which is so important.

The dam will ensure increased river flow, and this will ensure that the water supply to those local households and to businesses will continue, particularly in the summer months. No doubt members will remember that the region had a very extreme drought back in 2001, known as the big dry, in which there were severe water restrictions put in place and it affected everybody in the region. So having in place this dam and having in place a scheme that will replenish those aquifers beneath the Waimea Plains will mean that there is security and protection against droughts that may well come, in the climate change age we face, more frequently in the future.

A secure water supply is the lifeblood of any region, so I’m pleased to see that the people in Nelson and the Tasman District area can benefit from having that security and that confidence. We know that there are some clear environmental benefits with this change as well. The scheme will minimise the risk of saltwater intrusion into the aquifers along the coast—so close to the sea along that way. While there are concerns that have been noted by environmentalists about the area of land being inundated by the dam, the overall health of the Waimea River and its fish life depend on a good water supply, and that’s exactly what this will do.

It is good to see that there has been good consultation and that this is supported by the Tasman District Council. There’s been consultation and compromise through the course of this piece of legislation reaching this point in time. The main area and the main point of contention has been the cost of the dam, and this has been revised in order to reach an agreement and a way forward. I will note that there are those that are still not happy with the cost that some ratepayers will bear with this process, and we heard that loud and clear through the submissions process. Affordability has been a critical issue along the way, and the new funding model represents a compromise between the parties involved, including an increased contribution by the Tasman District Council’s partner in the project, Waimea Irrigators Limited.

I would like to also, as my final point, flag that there’s been consultation on rights of first refusal under the Treaty settlement legislation. The land that will be transferred from the Crown to the district council has rights of first refusal upon it, which were put in place under the Treaty settlement negotiations with Te Tau Ihu iwi. The land must remain under the direct or indirect control of the council until that occurs, and the riverbed land must be sold back to the Crown if the dam does not proceed or is removed for any reason, to ensure that those rights are not infringed upon.

Look, I would just like to say that I’ve really enjoyed being a part of watching this piece of legislation come through, seeing the differing points of view from a community, and understanding the benefits of what a good water scheme can provide to a community. Labour supports this bill for the good and the well-being of the environment, for the community, and for local businesses which thrive off the security of water supply. I therefore commend this bill to the House.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is with great pleasure that I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. As we know, this is actually quite a technical bill. At its core, it’s the 9.7 hectares of the Mount Richmond State Forest Park and the 1.3 hectares of Land Information New Zealand riverbed being transferred from the Crown, basically, through to the Tasman District Council for easement and for a reservoir. So that’s the core of what we’re doing.

But, of course, it’s much bigger than this. This is enabling legislation for a significant piece of infrastructure for the Tasman region, and I note that this has been 20 years in the making. I can only imagine what that was like to the farming leaders—and I note that Julian Raine is in the building, and I’m sure there are many others who are not so well known to me. Julian, of course, is very prominent in agri-business circles. Those discussions, I’m sure, happened in the pack houses initially and on market day or whatever might have been the meeting places of those growers back in the day, from herding those cats—those small conversations—to get to this point where we are, in the Parliament of New Zealand, enabling this piece of legislation that will allow a dam to be built on the Waimea River.

Of course, irrigation is a fairly emotive topic, but it is time that we had a more sensible discussion about irrigation in this country. This is a water-rich country. We don’t have to look far across the Ditch, to our neighbours—they could not dream of having the wealth of water resources that we have. The debate has got very narrow around water equals cows equals pollution. It does not, and this particular proposed scheme absolutely proves this. The 1,200 or so hectares that are to be irrigated under this are primarily horticultural land. I think there are only about two dairy farms.

One of the things I learnt on the way through with this bill is that boysenberries are one of the main crops here, and that New Zealand actually produces 60 percent of the world’s boysenberries, and a good proportion of those are in the Waimea Plains. That’s something to be very proud of for those farmers. We certainly get that we need to do better with the nutrient budgeting, and I note that today we had a significant report on the OVERSEER model. We are working hard as a Government and, I’m sure, as a Parliament to bring the tools together so that we can have irrigation and we can still have a pristine environment as well.

Of course, it’s not just the rural users; it’s the urban users, both domestic and industrial, and there are some significant large employers within that Nelson/Tasman region who will benefit from the security of water from this scheme when it is up and running. As Dr Smith outlined in his contribution, this is a fast-growing urban population. It’s a wonderful part of the world and will continue to grow at pace; so we’re futureproofing not only the farmland but also our urban and industrial users. And, of course, there are the environmental benefits. Having the water flowing consistently and being able to have some control over that is of real benefit. We note the biodiversity offsets that have been negotiated as part of this. I think that’s really visionary and leading stuff, and the sort of thing that we’ll probably look to be doing in the future. I think this is a good exemplar.

The Crown, of course, is extending a loan of $35 million to the farmers involved in the scheme, and I would like to emphasise that: it’s a loan; it will be paid back. It’s not a grant; it is a loan, and this is a multigenerational decision for the farmers, and they will recompense the Crown many times over not only with their lift in production but also with the interest bearing on the loan. Of course, there is a $7 million grant, and that was part of a freshwater grant under the previous Crown Irrigation Investments. I note, with some irony, that the Opposition are now quite vehement in their opposition to the Provincial Growth Fund, but this is exactly the same principle at play here—wise investment in the regions enabling significant infrastructure.

I also would like to commend the tenacity and the vision of the local political leaders, and I note Mayor Kempthorne is here today. This has been a contentious issue. We’re aware of that. One of the votes did go against the dam and there was a lot of leadership involved, I would imagine, in bringing that together. I note that some of the regional leaders are here today. I commend you on that. It is not easy sometimes to step back and look at the bigger picture when you have your ratepayers, many of whom are on fixed incomes, and for them any increase in their rates is something that can’t be trivialised. But you have to step back and look at the bigger picture. I think some of the rates rises are somewhere between $29 and $150 per annum. Even at the top end of that, that’s $3 a week to secure this very important futureproofing piece of infrastructure for this region. This is about a 100-year vision; this is not necessarily about what the rates bill will be next year. I believe that those political leaders will be remembered fondly in the future for the leadership they have shown.

Of course, the economics of this were pretty well set out. I believe it was the Northington report that showed that, over 25 years, this could add $935 million to the Tasman/Nelson economy. That is a significant increase. Of course, it’s the security of that income, too, for the $103 million, I think, it is now—it might even be $105 million—that the scheme cost. I think, up front, that will pay dividends year after year.

Finally, I’d just like to commend the member Dr Smith, the local MP for Nelson, for bringing this bill forward and shepherding it through. It will be a bit of a legacy for you, I think, in your region that you have been able to do this. I commend the Governance and Administration Committee. I know they engaged and went down to Nelson to hear the submissions. The officials—as always, we’re very well served in this House. This is a really good, sensible piece of legislation to enable a very important piece of infrastructure, and New Zealand First are delighted to support this through to the third reading. Thank you.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s an absolute delight to rise in support of the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. I understand it’s the 50th bill supported by the Hon Nick Smith in this Parliament. It’s quite an achievement, Dr Smith. Well done.

Just reflecting, too, on the member who’s just resumed his seat, Mark Patterson, waxing lyrical about irrigation and how great it was for New Zealand, and yet it is his party and his Government that has killed off the irrigation fund that this project will be the last beneficiary of. Instead, New Zealand will have to rely on the largesse of the Hon Shane Jones with his $3 billion slush fund if there are to be any more irrigation projects supported—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The Greens say, “No irrigation.”

BRETT HUDSON: —and which the Greens, as Dr Smith notes, don’t support at all. But, none the less, we absolutely support this very practical and pragmatic step for the people and region around the Tasman District.

Ultimately, this bill is about supporting the livelihoods of the people who live in the area. It’s estimated that over 25 years, this dam will help to secure an additional $925 million of economic product or gross domestic product (GDP) to that area of the country. In contrast, if the dam were not to proceed, the risk to the same area is a negative loss of $1 billion in GDP.

Now, when we talk of gross domestic product, too often it’s seen as some abstract economic concept. It’s not. It fundamentally equals jobs and livelihoods of people. This dam, which secures water supply for businesses and residents, is a means to providing and securing jobs for many hundreds and thousands of people who, over the course of this dam’s lifespan, will benefit from the jobs that can be sustained from it. That’s about opportunity for New Zealanders; the opportunity for jobs and futures, and the opportunity for them and their families to live the lives they want. By taking this step in the House today, Parliament supports those people to get ahead.

I’ve reflected, as I’ve listened to contributions, how can I help right now for this to proceed? The most effective way that I can help right now for this to proceed is to commend this bill to the House.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Look, it’s always enjoyable to stand up in the House and talk on anything related to local government, so it’s my—

Chris Bishop: Ha, ha!

PAUL EAGLE: Oh! It’s the honourable member for Hutt South. Don’t get me going. I don’t want to say dishonourable, because that would be dishonourable—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Yes, it would be.

PAUL EAGLE: —but what I do want to say is—thank you, Mr Speaker. I do want to just acknowledge my colleagues on the Governance and Administration Committee. It’s a pity I wasn’t too attentive during these hearings because I wasn’t there, but, look, I’ve got a great relationship with my colleagues. It’s a pretty collegial committee and probably one of the better ones. In fact, probably the best select committee, dare I say it. We talk, we debate, but we get on and we look at the things that are important to local communities. So I want to acknowledge the hard work that that committee does.

The local member for Nelson—he’s been there so long I thought his colleague was going to mention maybe a valedictory next week or something, but that’s not the case. But I do want to just acknowledge that His Worship the Mayor is here from the mighty Tasman—welcome to the capital city—and other officials who put this together.

Look, I don’t want to repeat what’s been said. Those upstairs and on TV will be going, “God, how boring.”, but I do want to just look through. It’s been interesting—I had a look back at the Department of Internal Affairs report and I just want to, sort of, balance up some of the views. Since I last spoke, one thing I did have is just some feedback from local people. Coming from local government, you know, you’ve got to—what did they say? Yes, let’s get to it. I had Victoria Davis and Lewis Solomon write to me. They just wanted me to be aware and to balance up some of the submissions that were made. It was interesting. I went back though 137 submissions. Actually, 57 were in support, and they made the comment that 27 would benefit or stand to gain—or “profit” was the word that was used—20 were neither for nor against, and 60 were opposed.

Mr Solomon, for example, is a qualified electrical engineer of 25 years’ experience at Nelson Pine. I guess what I’m really saying is that these people bring some valid concerns to the table, but, if I reflect back on my speech that I made, one of the big things that local government has to do and should do is make some bold calls. This is, I think, a bold call. Infrastructure—those smaller districts sometimes find it a bit tough to get the dollars together to say we need to look at the unsexy stuff. That’s generally the infrastructure, but I know—and I can see a former mayor opposite me, Maureen Pugh—that you’ve got to make the big calls and invest wisely on things like this that will carry the district through. Maybe they’ll amalgamate one day—oh, God, I shouldn’t mention that, but maybe for the next century they’ll have core infrastructure in place that will serve their community. I guess that’s the decision they’ve made.

We are certainly supporting it, and I’m proud that we are, because it would be easy—I know, as a former local elected member, that many a time it was the unsexy stuff that people couldn’t see, they didn’t want to see, and the price tag had lots of zeros in it, but, actually, you do have to make these calls and someone’s got to be bold enough.

I don’t know if the mayor will get re-elected over this, but good luck to him next year. Local body elections are less than a year away. Good luck. I’m sure he’ll have a narrative and a story and a product, really, and that he’ll be able to say, “This is my legacy to the district and to Te Tau Ihu”—the top part of the South Island—“and this is good for the people.”

Look, I’m not going to talk too much. I know the member for Hutt South gets a bit nervous when I talk, but I just want to commend this bill to the House.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā tātou katoa. Throughout the whole reading of this, the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill, the Green Party remain opposed—and also in this, the third reading. Actually, I consider it a duty and a responsibility to stand and raise the valid concerns and to allow those concerns from community and other groups and individuals of the community to be given a fair hearing in this House, alongside the values and the visions of the Green Party, which go to why we are opposing this particular bill.

I am very, very aware—and we all are in this House—that water is life, and I want to acknowledge up front the water shortage issues for both people in households and also for the economy of that region. What we are disputing here is whether or not the dam is absolutely the best solution and the longest-term solution that takes everything into account accordingly. So I’m happy to go through a number of the valid concerns raised from various groups and from the Green Party.

I cannot stand in this third reading speech without raising the concern of costs to ratepayers that I know has been loud and strong throughout the entire passage of this bill. It was heard in submissions and it was seen in written submissions. Although I am not on the relevant select committee, I have continued to receive particular concerns about whether the cost of this will be shared equitably; about whether there are the absolute safeguards in place for any potential blowout to ratepayers that might happen and that we have seen happen on other similar schemes, both in Aotearoa and around the world; and, in fact, questioning whether council is absolutely upholding to the best of its ability its duty to ensure that the costs do not fall unfairly on residents and ratepayers.

There are several actions and processes that I have been taken through by several submitters, and I am not clear yet whether council itself is upholding the necessary full measure of checks and balances that could be put in place to at least ensure that there are fair and just benefits going back to ratepayers without the unjust actions of further costs on ratepayers; things like simple, standard business credit checks of relevant shareholders and things like having a projection of whether adverse weather events—which are a feature in our world more and more—or detrimental effects of a disease on a particular product, which we also are dealing with in our country, are properly planned for and accounted for. So I’m really happy to raise those points in this House today as a sample of some of the valid concerns that ratepayers have.

The issue of land use is paramount to this dam, and no one will be surprised that this Government has actually already, in fact, announced a wind-down to the subsidies of large-scale irrigation projects. So that there is a signal that we ourselves, as Government political parties, have identified and acknowledged that we really need to think better, deeper—literally deeper; below to aquifers, below soils—as to the long-term effects of large-scale irrigation and the fact that it has been shown to encourage intensification of land use. What we know from that, from decades of that way of making decisions over land and water, is that it has not gone so well for our rivers and for our water bodies and our water tables and our aquifers. So those are fair and valid concerns.

In one sense, this is a plaster. This is actually a plaster to try and address those very real water shortages, yes, but we should also be going back a step to consider the ongoing decisions that we make about water and land use and land intensification, and whether or not this dam will encourage more of those same decisions which have dirtied up our rivers. So I raise that, as well.

Using conservation land for commercial purposes should always be considered to the depths and the entire strength of our risk assessments—absolutely. I am aware that processes have happened through the Environment Court and that agreements have been made about biodiversity offsets, and that plans have come up—I acknowledge all of that. But there is a precedent that people have raised very valid concerns around and that we must, I think—to have a balanced discussion and debate—make sure that we understand.

We don’t know enough. There is growing acknowledgment from the scientific field and from the water community, water warriors, that we think we know—and I will quote Mr Patterson, I think it was, who said that we are a water-rich country. Well, we should be, but, actually, we have made decisions over generations where now we actually need to think about whether we are that rich when it comes to water. We have paru-ed up our rivers—we have dirtied our rivers—and we still have New Zealand households who cannot guarantee that the water out of their taps is pure and safe enough to drink. Therefore, we have a duty to understand more about our water tables and our water aquifers, and I don’t know if anyone in this House can, hand on heart, say that we know exactly how long the sustainability of our pure water aquifers really is.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: This will improve the river.

MARAMA DAVIDSON: So I’m really proud, despite the heckling on that side of the House, to stand up and make a statement to that fact that we don’t yet know the full strength and longevity of our aquifers.

What I’m going to be very proud to stand on here today is the fact that we need overall holistic, cohesive planning of the entire ecosystem of how we make water and land decisions.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What waffle—just waffle.

MARAMA DAVIDSON: No one should be surprised that the Green Party has had to make that statement, and I’m also not surprised that the member Nick Smith thinks this is all waffle. That sort of thinking has led us to the degradation that we are seeing in our country today. I’m really pleased to be making a plea that we actually take bigger steps back and have a look overall at the decisions we have made around land and water and soil, and they have not done us the best that they possibly could have.

That’s why the Green Party—well, some of the reasons why the Green Party—is standing proud, as a sole voice in this debate, to oppose the Waimea dam. What I hope for going forward—because I know that this is going through—is that we will continue to monitor the biodiversity impacts of this dam. Even though we think we’ve got it right, that has proven to not be true when we make these decisions. We must make sure that we are not going to heap ratepayers with any future blowouts and that we monitor at every point the passage, the build, of this dam and the construction of this water infrastructure. For that reason, I’m very proud to stand with my opposition today. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I give the next call, there’s a lot of chatter around the Chamber, so can we keep that down? I call Dr Jian Yang—five minutes.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I’d like to speak very briefly on this bill. It is very hard to understand the logic of Marama Davidson, the previous speaker, but I will focus on just three points. Number one is that local people have wanted such a dam for decades. The first study was commissioned in the early 1970s, but it was not until the big dry in the year 2000-01 that the big dry highlighted the problem with water shortage, because the drought was the most serious one that local people had experienced in 60 years and, basically, it affected everyone in the region. So the first point is that people have wanted it for many years.

The second point is that there is a huge benefit economically. We can understand that horticulture is particularly important to New Zealand, with a national value of over $8.8 billion, and the Nelson-Tasman region is particularly important to our horticulture. So the dam will help to make the horticulture in the region more sustainable. It will create more jobs, and, environmentally, this dam will help the flow of the Waimea River, which means it will have a better river ecology because of the continuous flow of the river.

The final point is that it has not been easy to come to this stage, so we need to thank many people, including local leaders, organisations, scientists, and also, of course, Dr Nick Smith for his contribution. So it is a good bill. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Angie Warren-Clark—five minutes.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise to take a short call on the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill—probably the thing that I don’t like most is the name. This is a local bill, sponsored by the Hon Nick Smith on behalf of the Tasman District Council. I’ve not had the pleasure of sitting on the Governance and Administration Committee during the process of select committee, and therefore I feel quite privileged that I have the opportunity after about 17 years of hard work across this community to have a speech and to speak in this final debate.

I’m given to understand that the scheme has been in planning for nearly 20 years, and our Government, as the member Marama Davidson has noted, is going to wind down now from this public funding from these kind of events. But we made a promise that we would honour commitments to schemes that were sufficiently advanced, and we have agreed to keep that promise. I want to commend everyone who has worked very carefully on this bill, and to note that we’ve put $42 million towards this dam of a total cost of $99 million. The community will own this, and they will pay back for a long time, but it will improve the needs of the community, including the berry farmers, and we all love a boysenberry.

I think that I will leave it there. I do commend this bill to the House.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege for me to stand and make a contribution to this debate on the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill. I simply want to make a short contribution to pay tribute to the people who have been involved in this from the outset. I pay tribute to Mayor Richard Kempthorne—Mayor Richard has gone grey over the course of this project. His councillors, his staff—I pay tribute to all of those people who’ve worked on this scheme since the big dry of 2001. But I also acknowledge the industry and business interests that have also contributed to this project over time. And, of course, I do acknowledge my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith for his efforts in progressing this legislation through the House.

As I’ve said in previous debates, the big winner out of this water augmentation scheme is the Waimea River and the aquifers. No longer will we have the river running dry and poisonous algae developing. We will have minimum flows that can be controlled all year. This is a significant day for the Waimea Plains. It’s a significant day for the security of businesses on that plain, and it is also a massive day for security of the domestic water supplies in Tasman. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): Being someone that hasn’t sat on the Governance and Administration Committee that looked into this bill, I’ve done a lot of research and thinking about it today, but in hearing the speeches here, there isn’t a lot more that I can actually add to those speeches. While we’ve had divided opinions from people on this, and that’s great because that’s democracy in action, this is a pragmatic piece of legislation. Looking into this today, I was totally impressed at what a great water augmentation scheme this is. Doing my research into it, I thought this is absolutely fantastic and this must happen and this needs to happen.

I think that, like my colleague Paul Eagle said, our leaders on the Tasman District Council have made some bold calls, and I think it’s fantastic that they’ve coped with the issues that they’ve had. But the leaders have stood up and they have led, and it’s good to see this going through. As I’ve said, this bill will add to both horticulture and residential use in the Waimea Valley area. There’s not much more to say to that, because it is a great bill, and I look forward to seeing this come to fruition. So, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill now read a third time.

Ayes 112

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Noes 8

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill

In Committee

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. I move, That all provisions be taken as one question.

Motion agreed to.

Preamble, clauses 1 and 2, Parts 1 to 5, and schedules 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): We have a couple of technical amendments that the Parliamentary Counsel Office would like to make to the bill. We’re just finding out what the process is for that, seeing as the wish of the committee is to proceed quickly.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 184 in the name of Jonathan Young be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Preamble, Parts 1 to 5, schedules 1 to 3, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I move, That the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill be now read a third time.

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Madam Deputy Speaker and members of the House, tēnā koutou. To Te Atiawa iwi, tēnā koutou. To New Plymouth District Council, tēnā koutou. To Taranaki Regional Council, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koe, Mum—great to see you up there.

This bill addresses one of the most contentious land issues that this Parliament has seen in recent years, an issue that has vexed the people of Waitara, the people of Taranaki, and the people of Aotearoa New Zealand for over 150 years.

In 1860, the first shots of the New Zealand Land Wars were fired at Te Kōhia Pā, just to the south-west of Waitara, over the Crown’s attempted purchase of the Pekapeka Block. Wīremu Kīngi Te Rangitake refused to let the land at Waitara be sold. He said, “I will not permit the sale of Waitara to the Pāhekā. Waitara is in my hands. I will not give it up.” The Crown persisted in the purchase of the Pekapeka Block despite its prior commitment not to purchase disputed land, and when it came time for the block to be surveyed, Wīremu Kīngi sent a party to prevent this, but martial law was declared. I have reflected on the words of Wīremu Kīngi—the words that he made to Governor Browne about the Pekapeka Block in April 1859. He said, “You should remember that the Māoris and the Pāhekās are living quietly on their pieces of land, therefore you do not disturb them.”

However, in early March 1860, the Crown took military possession of Waitara. Kīngi’s supporters then built a fortified pā at Te Kōhia on 15 March. Two days later, on 17 March 1860, the Crown fired and bombarded Te Kōhia Pā. This action of the Crown firing shots against the people defending their rights under Te Tiriti o Waitangi sparked the New Zealand Land Wars.

In 1861, peace was reached and the agreement to investigate the purchase of the Pekapeka Block was committed to. In the meantime, it remained occupied by military troops. Before the investigation was completed, in April 1863, Governor Grey renounced the purchase of the Pekapeka Block. Sadly, though, this did not help the people of Waitara, as it later became part of the land confiscated in 1865 for rebellion against the Crown. Over one million acres of land at Taranaki was taken.

I was once conversing with somebody on Facebook and, at that point in time, they were asking questions about Te Atiawa Treaty settlement claim. They asked me “How much will it cost?”—I know this is separate to this bill—and I replied, “Not nearly as much as it has cost the iwi of Taranaki and of north Taranaki.” And the reply came back: “Fair enough.” So somebody out there had seen just the tremendous loss that had occurred in those periods of time. So, of those one million acres of land at Taranaki taken, only three hectares today remain in the ownership of Ōtaraua, and Manukōrihi owns no land. That’s what’s happened.

The Crown apologised to Te Atiawa tīpuna, hapū, and whānau for the dispossession, in its 2014 deed of settlement, and I’m so pleased to have beside me the Hon Christopher Finlayson, who has led such tremendous work in our country and, particularly, in Taranaki. The Crown in the 1860s granted much of the confiscated land in Waitara to settlers. However, it also transferred land to the borough council and to the harbour board as what is termed “endowment land”. Over time, this land was developed into leasehold land in order to provide much-needed housing and a reliable income stream for both borough council and harbour board. In the 1940s, all land was consolidated into the hands of the Waitara Borough Council.

New Plymouth District Council took over the endowment land as part of the 1989 local government amalgamation. Since then, the district council has been attempting to address the historical issues in relation to the Waitara lands. This bill is the council’s third attempted resolution, after previously promoting a local bill to Parliament in 1992 and then offering the land to the Crown for inclusion in Te Atiawa’s settlement.

The Supplementary Order Paper 184 provides for a number of funds to be established. The Hapū Land Fund has been established to enable the Waitara hapū to be able to form a strong economic, cultural, and spiritual base for their onward and future development as a hapū, and I believe that is one of the core facilitations of this bill. There is a Waitara Perpetual Community Fund for the social, economic, cultural, and environmental benefit of the Waitara community, another fund to enable health and well-being of the Waitara River and its catchment, and a fourth fund to improve Waitara and the lower river catchment.

So accumulated income and future income from the Waitara endowment lands through lease income or freeholding of leasehold properties enables these different funds to receive income, and the expending and investment of those funds is for the community of Waitara—for the hapū, for the people there, for the health and well-being of the Waitara River, and I believe it is going to be, in terms of what this bill seeks to achieve, an incredible opportunity for the people of Waitara as they look forward to that.

So I want to thank the people who have been involved in this. This is a bill that has come from the local people, New Plymouth District Council, the Regional Council, Te Atiawa iwi, Waitara hapū, leaseholders, and it is something which, as a community in North Taranaki, we have worked together to develop and bring to this point. It has been a long journey. The long journey of this bill has been only since 1992 and, latterly, in the last couple of years, but for the people of Te Atiawa, it’s been a journey of 160 years. So we acknowledge that. My hope and my prayer is that this becomes a foundation for going forward, for establishing the aspirations and being able to fulfil the dreams that you have for your people.

I would like, in the last minute or so of my speech, to acknowledge a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the person who has worked relentlessly behind the scenes, Nashwa Boys, who has done a tremendous amount of work as she worked between all parties. Thank you, Nashwa, for your amazing work.

I would like to acknowledge my good friend and colleague the Hon Christopher Finlayson for his work, and the Hon Nanaia Mahuta and my North Taranaki fellow MP Adrian Rurawhe. Thank you very much. I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little for his contribution as well, and I would like to acknowledge also the Mayor of New Plymouth, Neil Holdom. Thank you to you and your team, in particular Alan Bird. Thank you for the work and the willingness and the vision that you have shown.

Thank you to the Waitara hapū, who have had to grapple with not only the past but you have needed to take hold of the future in this bill. I acknowledge you and I thank you for your courage and your belief and your faith in your future. I’d like to acknowledge David Cochrane and his team at Simpson Grierson, David McLeod, and chief executive Basil Chamberlain from the Taranaki Regional Council. I’d also like to acknowledge Andrew Judd, the former Mayor of New Plymouth, and thank him for his care and his vision.

Without a willingness of all parties to find solutions and progress this issue, the Waitara community would not be able to anticipate a strong, unified, prosperous future. Through this bill, our prayer is that that can be achieved. Thank you very much. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker and tēnā koutou katoa to those of you in the gallery who are visiting here from Taranaki and from New Plymouth. Can I begin by acknowledging the member who’s just resumed his seat, Jonathan Young, not only for his contribution today but actually for picking up this legislation on behalf of the New Plymouth District Council and shepherding it through, doing so over many years in what, I think, has been an incredibly sensitive and sensible way.

Mr Young has, in his engagements with me and my colleagues on this side of the House, been very clear that this is and has been a difficult issue. The history has been fraught, and we all agreed that this was not about ramming something down people’s throats but about treading very carefully and understanding the sensitivities and taking people with us. So I want particularly to acknowledge the work of Jonathan Young in that, and I know he’s been well supported by the Hon Chris Finlayson, whose contribution to the world of Māori/Crown relations has been extraordinary and will be a great legacy when he leaves this House.

Can I also acknowledge my colleague Adrian Rurawhe, also MP for that area and MP for Te Tai Hauāuru, and the work that Adrian Rurawhe has done in working with local parties in that area—also my colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who has brought her incredible skills of dealing with difficult situations and bringing people together and forging solutions. She is totally remarkable in that respect and unmatched, in my observation and experience, for people dealing with difficult situations. Can I acknowledge the mayor, His Worship Neil Holdom, who is here, the former mayor Andrew Judd, the regional council chief executive Basil Chamberlain—I know there are other councillors here. Can I acknowledge the people of Te Atiawa, and can I acknowledge the people of the hapū of Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua.

This has been, as Jonathan Young has said, a difficult journey in recent years as we have striven to come to terms with the history that, I think, in the Pākehā world we feel considerable regret for and, in fact, wish had never happened. But it did happen. The land confiscations in the 1860s did happen, and in Taranaki it was brutal and it was harsh and it left a people dispossessed for generation after generation after generation. Much work in recent decades has gone to reconcile, to understand the history, and, most importantly, through the Treaty settlement process, to come to terms and to provide redress, but the issue of what happened at Waitara was never truly settled, and members in the House and members in all parties of the House have acknowledged that and understood that.

The local district council has been grappling with the issue of what to do with the lands that it owns in Waitara, knowing that in order to heal the wounds of the past it had to come to a solution on the issue of the leasehold land at Waitara and the other lands around Waitara. So this bill seeks to do that. It is not perfect, and there will never be a perfect solution, I suspect, as we strive 160 to 165 years after the events to come to terms and to try to provide fairness as a consequence. More recently, for the people of Te Atiawa, as they have come to terms and sought agreement over their Treaty settlement, this issue has been left to be dealt with separately, and that has been the origins of this local bill.

It does a number of things, and it provides for the use of funds that come out of either the leases that will continue or the sale of the lands in ways that will benefit Waitara and the people of Waitara, whoever they may be. But there is the issue of the interests of the leaseholders as well, and this afternoon, very late in the piece, a petition has been presented by Grant Knuckey on behalf of several hundred others. Their request was to slow the process down and to delay the third reading of this bill, but I think we all realise that a lot of work and a lot of effort has gone into this. It has been difficult for some of the leaseholders over the last 20 years as they’ve litigated their position, as they’ve sought to find a result for them that is fair as well. But the passage of time means that opportunities that might have been taken some years ago are no longer available, and I think this bill has allowed us to arrive at a position and a place that, in the end, is the fairest even if it is not perfect. So those who are leaseholders will have the opportunity to buy out their leases and to take freehold title of the properties that they have.

There are some, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, who have been opportunistic over the last several years. There are some who have gone to take up multiple leases and who have urged a result that would give them a windfall gain. Well, you take your chances in these things but “If it don’t work out, it don’t work out.” And, for some, that has not worked out. There are others who have been longstanding occupiers of their leasehold property but who are at a time in their life where it will be difficult for them to summons the means and the funds to buy out their lease and purchase the freehold. That is unfortunate. They won’t be able to take up the opportunity that is provided for in the bill, and over the next 15 months they can purchase the land at the frozen rate that is provided for in the bill.

That is one of the reasons why the bill is not perfect, but it could not be perfect, and the challenge for Jonathan Young and the respective mayors of the New Plymouth District Council, the other MPs who have been involved, those who have been talking and in kōrero with the various interested parties—there were so many interests, over such a long period of time, that it is not possible to produce, and has not been possible to produce, the perfect result for everyone. But there is now a result.

I would hope that what has been achieved here with all of those who get a chance to utilise the provisions of the bill—that it will allow everybody, if not tomorrow but in the months and years ahead, to start to turn their gaze towards the horizon and towards the future, and to think about what the future of Waitara might now hold, a Waitara where people are settled, people can take the opportunities that are presented to them, resources can go into those things—the cleaning up of the river, that mighty river that flows from the hills of the maunga out to the Tasman Sea—and that we will see a Waitara, a township, that is revitalised, re-energised, a town that can find peace amongst its people and be at peace with itself. If this bill helps us take an important step in that direction, then the bill will have served its purpose.

So I conclude simply by acknowledging the mahi that has gone into it—the work that has gone into it—and the extraordinary emotional investment that has gone into it from all parties: from the iwi, from the hapū, and from all the people of Waitara. Let’s now see this as an opportunity to put to bed the unrest and the unease that has been sitting there for generations, and let us turn now to the future and strive to fulfil the hopes of the next generation and those who follow to make this a place, a town, of prosperity, of hope, and of great good fortune to all who live there. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): Madam Deputy Speaker, as I’m out of here in the next couple of weeks, I’d very much like to give a general statement about Treaty settlements and Taranaki without being reprimanded by you for not strictly complying with the Standing Orders on third readings.

I remember very well going to Māui Pōmare Day at Owae Marae in 2009 as a rookie Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and saying to the representatives there how great it would be if we dealt with the remaining Treaty settlements, and I don’t think I was too popular at the Office of Treaty Settlements on the Monday after Māui Pōmare Day, but we got started. On 17 March 2010, the then Prime Minister John Key and I signed the terms of negotiation with Te Atiawa in New Plymouth, and I went around the coast to sign the terms of negotiation with Taranaki, and then we also signed with Ngāruahine. They were great settlements and great negotiations, even if Mahara Okeroa, whom I welcome to the House today, and Jamie Tuuta, who’s in the gallery, drove me to distraction at the eleventh hour when they said to me, just when I was ready to initial the deed in relation to Taranaki, “What about Parihaka?” I was angry then, I have to say to him—through you, Madam Deputy Speaker—but I understand now why it was so important to deal with the issue of Parihaka. Mr Little and I and the Chief Justice and others went to Parihaka in June 2017 to acknowledge what had happened there and to apologise for it.

The other delight for me as a Minister—this time, as the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage—was to work with others in Taranaki to ensure that those beautiful Motunui panels could come back from Geneva and now to Puke Ariki, where they hold pride of place there thanks to the work of Kelvin Day.

There were two remaining issues on the Treaty front that needed to be addressed—first of all, the issue of Mount Taranaki and the issue of legal personality, building on the excellent work done in the 1970s by the Hon Venn Young, Jonathan Young’s father, who was then Minister of Lands in the Muldoon administration. I never got to that stage, and it’s going to be a task that will be carried out, I am sure, by Mr Little. The final issue in Treaty settlement terms was a settlement with Ngāti Maru, and that is progressing under the leadership of Mr Little.

But there was one issue, after all that enjoyable and wonderful work, that worried me intensely, and that was the issue of Waitara. That is why I am so very pleased that today we reach what I believe is a very satisfactory conclusion to that issue. No one, as the Minister so insightfully said, is fully satisfied. What happened in Taranaki—and for me, it’s been the education of a public man—was very, very serious, a blot on our nation’s history, an affront to the rule of law, cruelty of a degree and of a magnitude that I think is without parallel in the history of our country. I can understand the depth of feeling and the fact that there probably, as someone said to me not so long ago, won’t be true forgiveness in the Taranaki region for a couple more generations. But the good peoples in the gallery today need to understand that local and regional government have worked very hard with central government to at least try and create the conditions where, ultimately, there can be reconciliation. That is why this bill is so very important, because it was in Waitara where the Land Wars started, where there were such dreadful abuses, and the lands, the Pekapeka lands, were and are lands that mean so much to the hapū of Waitara.

But the threefold aims of this bill, I believe, go a long way to create a more just situation. Land is to be returned to the hapū of Waitara. There’ll be an opportunity to purchase further land. Leaseholders receive a right to freehold; they are victims of those dreadful Glasgow leases—I almost was tempted to move a Supplementary Order Paper to include a right to achieve justice for Te Aute in the Hawke’s Bay, because they’re victims of Glasgow leases as well—and then a fund to be used for the benefit of the Waitara community and, as the Minister said, the Waitara River. They’re very important components of this bill, and I believe the fund is going to be used for the benefit of the people of Waitara for years to come. Through this fund, we will be also able to address environmental quality issues in the Waitara River.

So I can’t say it’s with great pleasure that I stand here and speak, because I know too much. I know the suffering that there has been in the Taranaki over the years, and that is why I was so lucky, as a Minister, to be involved in dealing with these issues. But I really do want to commend my very dear friend and colleague Jonathan Young for his tireless work on this issue, the sensitivity with which he has approached it. He hasn’t tried to rush the issue; he’s tried to deal with it very carefully and methodically, working in more recent times with the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, seeking the counsel of Andrew Little, of course, who grew up in the New Plymouth area and knows so many of these issues instinctively. It’s been a tremendous effort by parliamentarians across the Chamber, and I acknowledge that and thank them very much.

Jonathan Young was very generous in his comments about Nashwa Boys, and I too want to say how much I have appreciated her contribution. I first got to know her when she was an official in the Office of Treaty Settlements. Since then, she’s been an independent contractor, but she’s really thrown herself at this task and has done a wonderful job, and I want to acknowledge her. I want to acknowledge Briar Gordon from the Parliamentary Counsel Office for her wonderful contribution, building on the excellent drafting of the bill by David Cochrane, who is a consultant in Simpson Grierson. One of the real pleasures of knowing that this bill has passed will be that David Cochrane, with whom I play golf on a regular occasion, will not start talking about the bill when I’m about to tee off. So that, if anything, is a positive that will come out of this legislative mechanism.

It has been a long and difficult struggle. There will be people who will question the justice of this, but I truly do believe that very good efforts have been made by the district council and the regional council and central government to deal with these issues justly. I believe that in years to come, we’ll all look back and say this was a very good piece of legislation which tried to do the very best it could to play its part in addressing the shocking inequities of the past. So I do commend the bill to the House.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te W’are, otirā, e tika ana kia tuku mihi atu ki te tokomaha o ngā tāngata nō Waitara kua tae mai ki Te W’are nei, nō reira koutou i tae mai ki Te Whare Pāremata, Manukōrihi, Ōtaraua, Te Atiawa, koutou katoa. Tēnei ahau e tuku atu te mihi ki a rātou.

Nō reira, he tika hoki kia tuku mihi atu, kia whakapiri tōku nei mi’i ki ngā mi’i kua mihia e te mema a Jonathan Young. Nō reira, ka tuku mihi atu ki a ia, ki te mema me tēnei pire. Kei te mihi atu ahau ki a ia mō ōna ma’i katoa ka mahia mai e a ia i roto i ēnei āhuatanga. Nō reira, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Greetings to the Speaker, and indeed it is right to greet the large number of the people from Waitara who have arrived at this House, therefore to those of you who have arrived at Parliament, Manukōrihi, Ōtaraua, Te Atiawa, all of you. I am delivering my greetings to them.

Consequently, it is also right to deliver greetings, to append my greetings to the greetings which have already been expressed by the member Jonathan Young. Therefore, I acknowledge him, the member, and this bill. I acknowledge him for all his work that he has done with regard to these matters. Therefore, greetings to us all.]

It is a great honour for me to speak on the third reading of this bill. I spoke on the first reading and the second reading. In the first reading, I spoke about all of the competing and different interests that a number of groups had. I talked about what each one of those, in my opinion—what their interests were. I reflect on the words of the Hon Andrew Little in his contribution, and I would add to what he has contributed around looking for a perfect solution. The unfortunate part is that to provide a perfect solution for one of those groups will provide an imperfect solution for another, and the Māori Affairs Committee, I believe, did a very good job on working through all of those issues along with the member Jonathan Young. I want to commend him for his patience and his understanding, because it cannot have been an easy task to shepherd this bill through every stage of this process.

It has been a very long process. The first reading was in September 2016. We are now 27 months later. It hasn’t been rushed. It’s been a very slow process, but I would say a very thorough one as well. It’s also a pleasure for me to follow the contribution from the Hon Chris Finlayson. I think Mr Finlayson’s contribution contextualised what happened before this bill, and Mr Young and Mr Little have talked about everything that’s happened up until now.

I want to add my thoughts around this, and my thoughts are mainly about the future. Some of the things that Mr Finlayson spoke about were the challenges of coming to a solution, but I would also add in there the generosity of everyone that was involved in it to try to find a solution. In particular, I also really want to acknowledge, along with colleagues, the contribution that Nashwa Boys made to bringing us to this point, because she did work closely with every single party on this bill and, in her own quiet way, challenged all of us to do better. I think that was the right thing for her to do and for us to hear.

Not everyone will be happy with this bill, but, as I said before, a perfect solution for one group would be an imperfect one for other groups. Thinking about the future, what this bill does is provide the avenue for both the Waitara hapū and the Waitara community to fulfil their aspirations and gives them the means by which to do it. I think that’s a really important point to note. It won’t happen tomorrow, but over time it will happen. I say to those who really don’t want this bill to go through today that this is just one part of a long-term solution, I believe. I think I can honestly say, with my hand on my heart, that passing this bill today in its third reading is much better than not passing it, because not passing this bill will have implications for much longer than passing it today.

I hope that over time we are proven correct and that the benefits of this bill—this Act, as it will be—will provide the means for Ōtaraua and Manukōrihi, the Waitara hapū, to establish themselves in the way that they would like to establish themselves and to achieve the aspirations that they want to achieve. As I said in the first reading of this bill, and at that time we had not yet had the third reading of Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill—we had that about a week or so later—I talked about the opportunities that Te Atiawa Claims Settlement Bill would have for all of the hapū. It’s well-known that the hapū weren’t happy with everything that was in that bill and the process that that bill took, but I’m certainly hoping that this today—this bill and the future of the arrangements within it—adds to their ability to be able to achieve their aspirations.

I want to encourage the new entity that has been established—Te Kōwhatu Tū Moana. I believe that through this vehicle, the hapū will be able to achieve those very aspirations that I talked about. I believe also that help and ongoing relationships with both local government and central government will be critically important in the days ahead for the Waitara hapū.

Nō reira, kāore e roa tēnei tū. Oti noa e tika ana kia mihi ake anō ki a rātou i mahia ngā mahi mō tēnei pire.

[Therefore, this speech won’t be long. So then it is right to acknowledge again those who carried out the work for this bill.]

I just want to, as other members have, acknowledge the New Plymouth District Council, Mayor Neil Holdom, the Taranaki Regional Council, and the leaseholders who, no doubt, were going through stages of wondering what was going on with this bill. I hope that the future is much better for the whole community. My hope is that this bill will add much more to the community, the wider community of Waitara. I believe that through this particular bill, that will be so. Nō reira, tēnei ahau anō e tuku mihi atu ki a tātou katoa, nō reira.

[Consequently, I am standing to deliver greetings to us all, therefore]

I commend this bill to the House.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is with much pleasure that I get up and offer my support on behalf of New Zealand First for this New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill. We note that this seeks to resolve part of a longstanding dispute going back to the 1860s. I am not as versed in the background of that as the previous speakers, who I think have done a fantastic job of outlining the circumstances that have brought us here today. I can only just imagine the injustices for your people of having a million acres of land confiscated—quite unthinkable. I think, actually, it is of great credit to us as a nation that we have sought to redress some of these wrongs. I note that we are about to have a plaque mounted on the Parliament here, in this debating chamber, to commemorate the land wars, which are probably not as well understood as they should be—and possibly wilfully so from past generations. It’s great that this generation, and, hopefully, generations of the future, are seeking to right some of those wrongs as best we can under the circumstances.

So we know that, overall, the bill enables some transfer of lands back to Te Atiawa and the Waitara hapū, and it does allow leaseholders to freehold some of their properties—I think they’ve got about 15 years to do so, or continue on with those perpetual leases. This must be quite the balancing act, because it’s important that we don’t create a fresh set of grievances out of addressing the past. So I commend all those involved in bringing this agreement together. Of course, this is off the back of the Crown acknowledging the dispossession of the lands of Te Atiawa and Waitara hapūs back in that 2014 deed of settlement.

The funds that will come flowing from the fund that will be set up—we hope that it will provide economic boost to your people, and that they will be used wisely. I note one of the uses for this money is to clean up the Waitara River, and that is to be commended.

New Zealand First actually abstained in the second reading of this bill. We had some concerns about 25A and just the mechanism or the make-up of that subcommittee, where there were—I think now we’ve landed on three from the hapū and three appointed by the council, which we’re quite happy about. We just wanted some clarity on that during those earlier readings, but we are happy that that’s landed where it has.

I think, in closing, we definitely have to acknowledge, first of all, the local member, Jonathan Young, and I will just endorse the comments that were made earlier about him in this. This will have been a significant achievement for you as a local MP. There are a lot of issues to bring together, and your temperament, as has been noted earlier, will have been a great asset in doing so, and it’s a great credit to you, Mr Young. The previous Minister, the Hon Chris Finlayson—I think his legacy in this field, across a number of Treaty settlements, he will be remembered for, and we acknowledge him. And, of course, the current Minister, Andrew Little, is picking up that baton and is attempting to progress these settlements on behalf of the Government now, and is really rolling up his sleeves and doing that. Of course, the local leaders—Mayor Holdom, I believe, may be here. Congratulations for getting your end of the deal sorted out. There is significant local leadership needed in bringing these issues to hand. So without further ado, New Zealand First is delighted to support this bill, and we commend this to the House. Thank you.

NUK KORAKO (National): Ā, tēnā rā koutou ngā puāwaitaka o tō tātou mātua tīpuna. He mihi hōhonu ki ngā uri o Awanuiārangi. Nō reira, e koutou rā, e ngā mane, e ngā reo o rau rakatira mā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, he mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

[Well, greetings to the fruits of our ancestors. Profound greetings to the descendants of Awanuiārangi. Therefore, to the authorities, to the voices of the many leaders, greetings, greetings, greetings to you all.]

What a hard process the passage of this bill has been. I want to just acknowledge very quickly the Māori Affairs Committee of the 51st Parliament, and particularly those members that are not here in this 52nd Parliament—Chester Borrows, Marama Fox, and also Pita Paraone—because there was a lot of work, actually, that was done on this particular bill.

There are two aggrieved peoples before us: the Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua hapū of Te Atiawa, and the leaseholders on the iwi’s lands who were given reassurances of being able to buy the land they leased. It’s been encouraging to see all parties acknowledge the grave injustice committed against the Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua hapū. Not 20 years after a treaty was signed between the iwi and the Crown, fighting had broken out in Waitara. Notwithstanding the loss of life that occurred on both sides of the fighting lines, any reasonable view of Māori land alienation could only have concluded the Treaty obligations the Crown then, and to this day, had. The various hapū of Te Atiawa, Taranaki iwi, Ngāti Mutunga, and Ngāti Tama, along with the support of their once mortal enemies, Ngāti Maniapoto, reluctantly took up arms to try and protect their diminishing landholdings.

The Crown response was almost gleeful as they took up the patu of confiscation to hasten the alienation of the land Taranaki Treaty partners were objecting to. Confiscation is a dreadful tool that shines a poor light on our predecessors in the House here. Quite how a New Zealand Government could think it just to impoverish a people for protecting lands they held for hundreds of years—what did the Crown think would happen to Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua? I shudder to think of what the answer might have been from my predecessors. That history—and we are bound to repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. Are we going to do that?

Before us today is the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill. Finally we can begin to correct the hara of the past. As is so often the case with matters Treaty and endeavours to address the past, the solution here, in a lot of ways, is imperfect, and that is because we cannot address one injustice by creating another injustice. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the past, and irrespective of how the leaseholders came on to the land, they are here, the leasees, and they have made lives for themselves and their families. They have invested time, money, and sweat into the property. They were mistakenly told they could convert their freehold title. I think it’s a callous person that is unreceptive to the genuine anguish of ordinary Kiwi folk trying to minimise their family losses.

Our role as politicians in this House is to carefully balance the needs of all New Zealanders as we seek to address the past wrongs. This bill is that balancing act in action. This is, I believe, a pragmatic, albeit imperfect, response to the issue before the House today, and it has the support of the New Plymouth District Council. It is to this council now that I turn my gaze. Like us, you are a Crown creation, and like us, you have Treaty responsibilities that extend back to 1840. I applaud you for having been in discussions and finally coming to the point we are at here today. As the Crown’s parliamentary representative, I have to take the accolades and spoken attacks that go with my role. I have to be responsible for the actions of my parliamentary predecessors. I have to own Crown failings as though they are my failings, and, to the New Plymouth District Council, so do you—so do you.

It has taken 30 years for you to get to this point, and I have to express my surprise that it took this long. Notwithstanding that the fault lies with people who were in your seats before you, it is still your responsibility as a collective entity. The issue was, indeed, black and white. The lands unlawfully taken were passed across to people who were given reassurances that should never have been made. It is as much these reassurances in the leases that brings us here today that finally is the end of this journey.

All the acknowledgments have been made to those that have assisted in this bill, but one thing that I’d like to do is to finally acknowledge again the hapū of Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua, because your journey has been hard, but you have now the opportunity to actually make that journey, and then it is for your children and their children after you. Nō reira, e huri noa i Te Whare nei, he mihi atu ki a koutou katoa.

[Therefore, right around the House, greetings to you all.]

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister for Māori Development): Koutou kei ngā mana o Ōtaraua, koutou kei ngā mana o Manukōrihi, koutou kei ngā mana o Te Atiawa, mauri whakaheke, pupuru ngā taonga i waihotia e ā tātou nei mātua tūpuna. Tēnei ka tū ake ki te mihi atu ki a koutou. Ka tū atu rā ki ngā kaihautū o ngā kaunihera ā-rohe e ārahi tēnei o ngā kaupapa. Tēnā tātou katoa.

[To you the authorities of Ōtaraua, to you the authorities of Manukōrihi, to you the authorities of Te Atiawa, the transmitted essence, hold onto the treasures that were left by our ancestors. I am standing to greet you. Also to the leaders of the regional councils who have led this initiative. Greetings to you all.]

I rise to take a call in a significant bill that is a local bill, but you would think by listening to all the contributions that we’re doing something a little bit more and a little bit more special today. Jonathan, the accolades around stewarding through a very difficult issue across the House, I think, is something that one would want to have as a positive reflection in the service to Parliament but also to an electorate, and I acknowledge you for that.

In the preamble to the bill, there is a statement that really, in my mind, sets the context for what is being achieved here. I will read it from the preamble as it’s stated: “In the words of the whakataukī written by Whiti Te Rangitaake to the chief land purchase commissioner in 1859—‘Ko enei whenua ekore e hoatu e matou ki a korua ringaringa ko te Kawana, kei rite matou ki ngā manu o te moana e noho ana i runga i te kōwhatu, ka pari te tai ka ngaromia taua kōwhatu e te moana, ka rere ngā manu, no te mea kaore he nohoanga mo ratou’.” Translated, it reads: “These lands will not be given by us into the Governor’s and your hands, lest we resemble the seabirds which perch upon a rock, when the tide flows the rock is covered by the sea, and the birds take flight for they have no resting place …”.

That was an insertion of a part of a context of history that has been well spoken about across the House today, but it sets, I think, a nice sense of purpose as to what we’re trying to achieve through a very difficult circumstance of history, but rectifying a challenged space that has been very hard to deal with, which is freeholding leasehold lands. In doing so, it was evident through the first reading and the select committee process that unless we tried to do something a little bit more to address the significant historical issues that have already been referred to, which are the first confiscated lands at Pekapeka, we may create more harm than good.

So while much of our contribution sounds like a Treaty settlement, it isn’t. For that reason, I want to acknowledge albeit a very difficult journey for the conversations across the district of New Plymouth District Council, as well as Taranaki Regional Council. The path to reconciliation requires continual effort and commitment to do the right thing, and, for New Zealand, it’s a long road. For New Zealand, albeit through a Treaty settlement process, we have a way to try and move in the right direction. It’s still a long road.

This is a local bill, and I can remember when I came into this House as a very fresh-eyed MP, if you like. My electorate extended down into actually as far as Te Tai Hauāuru and to Whanganui. But one of the people who stewarded me through my parliamentary career around understanding the other side of the picture and what happened in Taranaki—because I grew up very much understanding the Māori historical context—was a former colleague who is here in the House, Harry Duynhoven. In fact, we had a number of clinics and visits into the Waitara area, and, even at that early time, I knew that we needed to show much more commitment as a country, but also as local MPs, into the way in which the Waitara community could thrive and sustain itself. Harry, I’m glad that you’re here to witness something significant as well, and I know you’ve had a hand in some of that.

There are aspects of the bill that have been well commented on, but, really, if I was to tie everything up into a nutshell, it’s around the ability to ensure that across the catchment there will be a significant opportunity to contribute to the well-being of the health of the Waitara River catchment, and that’s significant from an environmental point of view. From a community point of view, the ability to ensure that funds go to the Waitara community, of which both Ōtaraua and Manukōrihi are a part, will see in time a contribution directly into the community around the regeneration of Waitara, and that’s been commented on. But, significantly, what it delivers—and it is an opportunity, and it isn’t everything but it’s something for the hapū of Ōtaraua and Manukōrihi. It secures and anchors a footprint of hapū who belong there to actually have more of a say about how their community evolves and goes forward. It’s an opportunity.

This has been a really difficult path for those who have really worked alongside Nashwa Boys to negotiate in many respects some innovations into a local bill that we wouldn’t see otherwise—some innovations into a bill that we wouldn’t see otherwise. To the Manukōrihi people, Patsy Bodger, Māwhaturia White, and Moana Denness, I acknowledge you. I acknowledge the work that you’ve done. To Ōtaraua, Rāwiri Doorbar, Donna Eriwata, and Alice Doorbar, I acknowledge you.

To the communities that have come together to try and ensure that you’ve been kept abreast of what’s being achieved here, I acknowledge all of you, and I acknowledge that while it doesn’t go to the full extent of your aspiration, it does create an opportunity to work forward. But here’s the thing: what this will secure and anchor to the hapū of Ōtaraua and Manukōrihi—and in time, we would hope, alongside their other whānau of Te Ātiawa—is to secure the history to the community of Waitara in a way that tells the story and balances up the way in which New Zealand recognises what actually happened in Waitara and on the Pekapeka Block.

I’ll leave one last comment, really, and it is to the acknowledgments of Nashwa. The innovations in this local bill would not have been as they are were it not for the Treaty settlement experience that you brought to the table, but more importantly the listening heart to the people of the hapū of Ōtaraua and Manukōrihi, because we have seen—again, captured within the context of this bill—the types of innovations that happen in Treaty settlements but not in local government legislation. I had many a meeting with the councillors, the mayor, and the Taranaki Regional Council about aspects of this bill that I was trying to nudge along.

One last comment: there is an aspect of the bill should we continue down a path of reconciliation with a mind to do something more. The nature of the Hapū Land Fund being a perpetual land fund is something that should be revisited, because if we want to ensure that the hapū continue to be a presence that can sustain itself in its contribution to the heart and soul of the way in which Waitara develops, that may be an area that we look to for the future.

I’ve taken up more time than I need to, but I want to acknowledge this hasn’t been an easy path. Every group represented in the House today have got many, many stories to tell. Briar, from a drafting point of view, I know that you worked tirelessly to make sure we shape the words and the intent of the bill in the way that it was going to ensure and give assurance to all the parties that are represented here. So we’ve done something right.

Nō reira, he iti tāku kia tuitui ki ngā kōrero mō tēnei kaupapa, Jonathan, koutou, tātou katoa, tēnā tātou.

[Therefore, my contribution is but small to weave in with the speeches about this initiative, Jonathan, all of you, all of us, greetings.]

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Ki a koutou o Ōtaraua, Manukōrihi, Te Atiawa hoki, kia ora tātou katoa.

[Greetings to the Speaker. To those of you from Ōtaraua, Manukōrihi, and Te Atiawa, greetings to us all.]

My discomfort in standing here today is in trying to balance the mana of all of the hapū and all of the uri of Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua and the work that you have all done to try and seek true justice. My discomfort is to try and acknowledge the genuine work that has happened in this House, in the council, and among all of the hapū, and yet stand and say that the Green Party will be opposing this bill today. Despite all of the genuine efforts, we do not feel that we have the full mandate of all hapū to be able to support this bill in its entirety. We absolutely welcome the positives of this bill, and we absolutely uphold the mana, particularly of mana whenua katoa, Manukōrihi and Ōtaraua, in seeking to do their best.

My discomfort is absolutely nothing compared to the injustice that happened to Taranaki iwi, to people, to Waitara, to the original birthplace of the tragic land wars at Pekapeka, to the lack of the return of the land that was illegally confiscated, or to the ongoing generational impoverishment—both spiritual and physical—that happened as a result of that injustice, of that cruelty, and of the inhumane treatment of peoples and hapū. I stand here trying to uphold the vision of what we could really actually do to see true justice, while not wanting to take away from the efforts of various Ministers, the Māori Affairs Committee, the council, and Ōtaraua and Manukōrihi leadership at all levels to try and drive forward where hapū can make do and do the best that they can with what the Crown is offering.

I want to acknowledge Catherine Delahunty, our previous Green Party member, who has brought the bill to its passage before now when she was a member in this House, and particularly her ongoing discussions with hapū members. I also want to acknowledge Metiria Turei, who nominated that the Māori Affairs Committee would take this bill through its passage, which is absolutely the right place that it should have gone through.

Out of that injustice that this House and, of course, all hapū members know far too well, some things have come from the bill that we are passaging through today. The Green Party absolutely welcomes that there will be a return of 44 hectares of land to hapū, and with the sale from leaseholders being able to purchase land, some of those proceeds will be able to go back to hapū.

We absolutely acknowledge the importance of the Waitara awa, and a fund will be established to help restore the mauri to that awa. I am particularly pleased to hear about the Hapū Land Fund. That will help hapū to be able to acquire and develop whenua into the future and, of course, also the reserves that will be transferred at the discretion of hapū from council, should they wish.

I am congratulating everyone for the benefits that have been worked hard to bring the hua, the fruit, to account in this bill today. What I am standing here to do, as uncomfortable as it is, is be truthful that we should really be aiming for full justice and for the peace and restoration that will come from truly realising it. That is not to undermine any negotiations that happened but merely uphold a Crown responsibility, one that fully understands that the full return of land—that the burden of those challenges has been on the shoulders of hapū this whole time. The burden of that pragmatic challenge should rest, absolutely, with the Crown. We can’t keep passing the buck as to who is going to fix up this mess the best. So I am standing here to acknowledge the privileges that have happened from that land confiscation over generations, and the dilemma that faced Ministers, council, Parliament, and hapū in trying to reconcile that incredible raupatu in what happened.

So we wish every bit of aroha to the work that is ahead of us. If a peace and reconciliation process is demanded or wished for from any hapū, I would be pleased to be able to add my support to that in any way that is appropriate. I don’t wish to delay my contribution any further. I am pleased to honour the benefits of this bill. I am also proud to do my duty to uphold that we should be reaching for a further vision and a higher vision of true justice. Kia ora.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It’s a pleasure to welcome the people of Taranaki here and to take a very short call in the interests of your time frame. You’ve waited a very long time for this to happen. I want to congratulate Jonathan Young, Chris Finlayson, Nanaia Mahuta, and others who have been actively involved in where we are at today. So I’m not going to take any more time out of your timetable, because I remember as a child with this growing up knowing about Waitara. I’m 58 years old, and it’s a lot longer than my lifetime. So I want to commend this bill to the House and congratulate you all today. Thank you.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I understand, if I take more than one minute, then we’re all coming back in an hour and a half to finish this off. So I’m going to make this really speedy, whānau, because I know that you’ve been up for a long time. I know that you had karakia at 6 a.m. I know that the bus picked you up at Ōwae Marae, and I know that it made a stop off at Stratford to pick some people up as well. So I want to move this through.

I want to acknowledge you and acknowledge the compromise that you have gotten to by even just being here today. I acknowledge you, I acknowledge the pain and the heartache that it’s taken to get to this point, and I say that as one of Te Atiawa whānui as well. We are the Coffeys from Rāhotu—that’s right. And, once upon a time, way back when, we made the journey down to Wellington. I grew up here, in Lower Hutt, because my family had escaped the terrors of the land wars. So I say that as one of your whānau: I wish you all of the best going forward. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora anō tātou katoa. I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 112

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; ACT Party of New Zealand 1; Ross.

Noes 8

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Bill read a third time.

Waiata

Haka

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill

Procedure

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): I seek leave for the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill to be set down for its third reading forthwith following the completion of its committee stage.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you’re perfectly entitled, I suppose, to seek leave. Is there any objection? Oh, funny that—there is.

In Committee

Debate resumed from 28 November.

Clause 4 Section 70 amended

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. This is, of course, the most substantive part of this proposed piece of legislation, that being to increase the penalty for those who are supplying, or who are presumed to be supplying as a result of the threshold that they possess, synthetic substances, or rather actually all psychoactive substances—a point that has been made abundantly clear throughout this debate.

The Psychoactive Substances Act was created in 2013 for the sake of catching all substances that were not encompassed within the Misuse of Drugs Act classifications scheduling. It was an attempt to try and fill the gaps in terms of the large amount of substances that were being produced by backstreet chemists. As proposed in clause 4, it amends section 73(3)(a) of the Psychoactive Substances Act to replace “2 years” with “8 years”. There are a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to this clause, many of which seek to provide things that must be considered by judges in their sentencing of those for eight years. A number of those are actually in the name of my colleague Dr Duncan Webb, who is obviously an esteemed former lecturer in the legal profession, so I think that he probably takes quite a bit of pride in his work on these Supplementary Order Papers. I think that they are worthy of pride because they do offer a whole lot more clarification around the purpose, I think, and the general thrust of what it is that Simeon Brown and the National Party propose that they are trying to achieve with this increasing penalties for psychoactive substances.

There is also an SOP in the name of my colleague Kiritapu Allan, which is actually, I think—even though I myself have a number of Supplementary Order Papers in my name—probably my favourite Supplementary Order Paper posed on clause 4 because it provides for the need to take into account a number of different factors in the sentencing of individuals who are prosecuted for supply or distribution, or presumption of supply or distribution. These are the factors that Kiritapu Allan proposes should be taken into account, and I would note, as well, that I think that it’s incredibly brilliant that there are Te Reo Māori names for each of these things that must be taken into account—for example, face-to-face reconciliation between the offender and the affected person. That is obviously part and parcel of a rehabilitative, restorative justice process. Appreciation and shame in respect of wrongdoing and its impact, rehabilitation, then the likes of the hauora—the physical aspect, the spiritual aspect, the family aspect, and the psychological aspect as well—and I would note that the offender’s whānau background is important. There is “the principle that we should strive for values and practices of aroha (love and compassion), manaakitanga (support and kindness), wairuatanga (the importance of spirituality), and whanaungatanga (the value of connectedness to family and community):” and we are to take into account “any wider matters that indicate that social and cultural influences may have had an impact on the offending: … and any matters drawn to the court’s attention under section 27 of the Sentencing Act 2009:”.

I think that all of these factors are of critical importance to be considered when we are looking at sentencing people for any form of criminalisation that we’ve come up with under the so-called war on drugs, because as all of the evidence and research demonstrates, particularly with regard to this Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill as it was put forward at the select committee stage, there is absolutely no evidence that increasing penalties will have a dent with regard to affordability and access of these substances, but it will only serve to increase our prison muster.

However, one thing that I do want to commend Simeon Brown on, as far as this members’ bill goes, is the point that he has raised multiple times and which I’d like to address and ask him today, and that is: does the National Party agree to not penalising drug users?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Madam Chair, thank you for the chance to speak to clause 4 of the member’s bill, which does one simple and substantive thing. It amends the principal Act and changes the penalty from two years to eight years.

This is an extremely important issue for all communities. On Monday night, I had a meeting in my own electorate office with four principals of the local college and the local health provider, all very concerned about a sudden uplift in the use of synthetic cannabis and the effect that that is having on their communities, their students, and also, obviously, from a health perspective, the medical community in our community are extremely concerned. We have seen a spike of use of psychoactive substances but also a spike in suicides from our youth. It is an issue of extreme importance to my community, so it is an issue which has to be taken seriously.

The point that I would like to make around clause 4 is that not one of those principals and not one of those health practitioners in the room once mentioned increasing the penalties to in any way make any significant difference to the harm that it’s causing in our community—not once. They did talk about the need for more health resources in the community and more support for the schools themselves who are finding themselves having to deal with issues that they may have to see within their school-grounds. But beyond the school-grounds and the bell going off, they find it very tricky to deal with. So while Mr Brown might be trying to tackle a serious issue for some time during this debate, we have argued that this is not the way to deal with it. Simply increasing the penalty by six years, evidence has shown, is going to make little or no difference to the harm that is actually happening in our community. So while this is well-intentioned, on this side of the House we seriously question why this is coming before the House in such a manner, and whether or not Mr Brown has actually done any research to get hard evidence as to whether or not this is going to make a difference.

I will reiterate that it is having a massive effect on our communities and is putting some of the most vulnerable people in our communities—especially young people—into the position where they’re thinking of taking their lives. So this is not an issue to be sniffed at, but it is an issue that if this House is going to look at how we deal and support those communities, we look at and seriously resource things that are going to make a difference. So I would ask a question in and around clause 4 of Mr Brown: where’s your evidence that this is actually going to make a difference? That is a question that I think my community deserves to have answered, if you’re seriously going to stand in the House and say this is one of the silver bullets to deal with an increasingly troubling issue in communities.

What I think they do want to see is not just increasing the penalties. They do want to see a Government that’s taking action on mental health, they do want to see a Government that is taking action on supporting young people in our community, and they do want to see a Government that is supporting vulnerable young people in our communities, and I think that’s where the focus of this debate needs to be: making sure we’re supporting those workers in our community, whether they be inside the school or out, to make sure we’re supporting those vulnerable young people in our communities who are extremely vulnerable and looking at self-harm and suicide, and who have taken that action because of their use of psychoactive substances.

So, again, just one simple question to Mr Brown: what evidence do you have that this is actually going to make a difference? If you stand up in the Chamber and give me some evidence, I’ll take it back to those four principals at my colleges who are desperate for help for their students, because they’ve seen far too much pain over a long period of time and too much talk from politicians in this House. They want to see some serious action and serious resourcing to make sure that they can back up their commitment to looking after their students with support with a health bent, not a punishment bent—because this is all we’re doing here by lifting the penalty from two years to eight years.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia orana, Madam Chair, and thank you very much. I always listen to the Hon Kris Faafoi with great respect. I appreciate his thoughtful contributions, and I listened to the last one. He’s the finest Minister in the current Government and probably one of the busiest, and he’s just demonstrated that he’s also an active local constituency MP. Like him, as an electorate MP, I listen carefully to what people say to me in my electorate, as well. While I don’t for a moment question that that was the feedback he’s got, I wonder whether his colleague in front of him, the former secretary of the police union, would suggest to him that police officers in this country would articulate a very different view, because it’s certainly my understanding that many in the police would suggest that increasing the penalties—particularly for these psychoactive substances—will make a very significant difference, and that is why I’m very supportive of this particular bill.

When I spoke in the second reading of this debate, I began by asking a question which provoked an outraged reaction from the member Chlöe Swarbrick, and I’m pleased to see Miss Swarbrick in the Chamber tonight. I’m not going to repeat the question that I put because I don’t want to provoke a similar reaction, but I do just want to clarify that the point that I was trying to make—and I think it has been confirmed for me, listening to a number of the contributions in this committee stage—is that to some extent, we’ve been talking across each other in this particular debate. I have no doubt at all that for many people who are addicted to these drugs or who are exposed to them for perhaps the first or second time, this is predominantly a health issue, and I don’t have any problem with treating it as such. The point I was trying to make was that this is a bill about increasing penalties for those who manufacture and, in particular, supply the drugs, and that is why I am so strongly in support of it.

In my own community and, I think, probably in communities the length and breadth of this land, the horror is at those who peddle these pernicious drugs in such a way that they do enormous harm to vulnerable New Zealanders. That is why I do believe that there is considerable evidence—and the police would back this up—that stiffer penalties will send the right deterrent message, and that is what the bill is aiming to do.

It is not about toughening up on those who are using the drugs; it is about getting tough on those who supply the drugs. That, as I say, is where I think there has been a lot of debate at cross-purposes and talking over the top of each other, and I do want to clarify that the reason I and my colleagues on this side of the House are so strongly in support of the bill that Simeon Brown has put forward is because we absolutely endorse his view that we need to send a very clear message in the community. My colleague Matt King, the member for Northland, who’s also a former police officer, has confirmed to me that it is definitely the view of his former colleagues that this bill will be effective, that it will send the right message, and that it will help to reduce the problem that psychoactive substances are causing in our community, not least because it will actually address the illogical imbalance at the moment in the way some other drugs are treated in our criminal justice system when these drugs are actually being treated in a way that is very lenient.

So as we debate clause 4 of this bill, which is all about that key provision of increasing the penalty, I am strongly in support of that. I want to acknowledge the support of New Zealand First, who I think have listened to New Zealanders as well and who are pushing in the same direction.

I strongly commend Simeon Brown for the great work that he has done. I send my aroha and sympathy to all who are suffering from the effects of these drugs in our community, and I very much hope that the House will see fit to pass this bill to send the right message to those who are involved in this horrible trade, to try to reduce the problem—we’ll probably never be able to stamp it out altogether—that is endemic in so many communities. So I commend Simeon Brown, and I urge the committee to support this bill.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair. Tim Macindoe, the previous speaker, talked long and hard about sending a message, and it’s right. This bill, if passed, would send a message. It would send a message that we’ve given up and we’ve stopped caring. We both agree—and Mr Brown and I were in the Justice Committee on this matter—that this is a very significant problem, but the only message that this bill sends is to the fearsome community that they should be afraid. It doesn’t send a message that there’s something that we can actually do.

We know for a fact—and the statistics are there to be seen—that increasing penalties does not have a deterrent effect for people who are in these communities. There’s a fallacy that these offenders are smart-thinking people who make calculated choices. They’re not. By and large, they are themselves addicted to substances and often mentally ill, so they are in the thrall of the very substances that we’re trying to address.

So what we need—and as my Supplementary Order Paper 170 sets out—is to, in every decision we make, ask: how can we address the root of the problem? Rather than incarcerating someone for long periods of time, we should first ask the question: is that the right response? So the first question should be: “Well, is this wrong, is this social harm, and is this cancer that blights society best addressed by incarceration or by addressing the mental health needs of this person?”

So my Supplementary Order Paper accepts Mr Brown’s eight years, but says this: when determining the length of a sentence, the court shouldn’t automatically go through their usual tariff process, which is to start at the midway mark and look for aggravating and mitigating factors. No, the first question should be: “Does the offender need the health and mental health services?”, so that we can make sure that those person’s needs—the very things that caused this social harm—are addressed so that we break the cycle and not compound the cycle, and compounding the cycle is exactly what incarcerating people for longer periods of time does. It’s exactly what we don’t want to do in this area of the law. What we need to be addressing in respect of drug law is a situation where we don’t punish people for their own, essentially, illnesses and frailties, but we address those through the health system.

The other thing that my Supplementary Order Paper would do—again, accepting if Mr Brown manages to get this eight years through—is to look at the availability, when making a sentencing decision, of access to the required health and mental health services for the offender. So if we have a humane prison framework which can address those things, then all well and good—that might be the right place—but we know that the prison system we’ve inherited is not one that has the resources needed to do exactly that. So the place for these people is in community facilities that can address their health and mental health issues.

The signal we should be sending is not “Look out, these people are dangerous. They are harmful. We need to lock them away. We need to fence off part of our society.”—and we know for a fact that this afflicts our Māori communities particularly, so there’s an element in there that Kiritapu Allan’s Supplementary Order Paper 162 looks at. We need to be able to say, “No, these people remain part of our community even if they are incarcerated.” We recognise they’re coming back into our community, and we want them to be useful, healthy members of our society. So when we make a sentencing decision in any drugs area but especially in the particularly pernicious psychoactive substances, we need to look at the offender’s needs for health and mental health, we need to look at the availability of those services, and we need to make sure we place that person in the area that’s best for them, best for the community, and best for society. That is the signal we need to send.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to address the points made by the Hon Tim Macindoe with regard to the fact that we seem to be speaking at cross-purposes a lot of the time when we do address this issue. I also wanted to speak to his point around how I got quite elevated the last time that we were debating this, and I wanted to acknowledge that, because I did. I didn’t intend to come into Parliament to be an advocate for drug law reform. I managed to fall down this rabbit-hole by virtue of investigating and looking at the evidence—actually, primarily off the back of medicinal cannabis, and falling further and further into the research—of the injustices and inequities that are perpetuated by the war on drugs.

I believe that the sparring match that occurred, the verbal sparring match between myself and the Hon Tim Macindoe, was largely around his—and I don’t mean to, but for lack of a better term, I put this out there—accusation that I didn’t care about the loss of life. I understand that that may not have been his intention, but that was the way that I had perceived what he was stating, and the reason that I got so elevated in response is because I take this deeply seriously. I have had numerous debates with people who are at the front lines and at the coalface of dealing with this crisis—notably, a number of people in the police service, those who are in Housing First, and those who provide addiction mental health support services—and all of them are saying that something has to be done differently.

I work with Lifewise, which is one of the two youth housing providers in Auckland, for about three hours every Monday. They have raised that whilst the coroner’s figures approximate that about 50-odd people have died as a result of consuming synthetic cannabis in the past year, those figures are probably higher because, as the coroner’s reports demonstrate, the demographics who are largely consuming these synthetics are homeless and jobless and don’t have people to care for them.

To the Hon Tim Macindoe’s point around the police and how this was something that the police may actually want, I just wanted to refer him to page five of the Justice Committee’s report, because the New Zealand Police Association did submit on this legislation, and they asked for a difference or a change in approach. I’ll quote from the select committee report stating, “The New Zealand Police Association argued that substance use and crime are often linked, due to the high cost of a drug habit, fed by a criminal marketplace. While the association supports the intent to target suppliers, it argues that the bill is not supported by evidence that increasing penalties will deter them.” That’s the Police Association. They also stated that “The association supports an holistic approach to [dealing with] the problem.”

The police themselves, who are at the front lines, are saying that increasing penalties will not deter suppliers, and all of the evidence and research that we have accumulated from jurisdictions across the world for decades has proved that. We had all UN member States in 1998 signing up to the war on drugs. We said that if we continued to ratchet up penalties, we would have a drug-free world by 2008. But, instead, by virtue of cracking down on all people involved in the trade, we have ended up with a proliferation of harm. Substances have got more dangerous, and that’s actually what we saw and what Kevin Hague, a former Green MP, warned of when we took away the temporary licences that were put in the first version of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 by way of a 2014 amendment in response, again, to a moral panic. If we want to reduce harm, we have to take the issue out of the darkness and put it in the light, and we have to—we absolutely have to—treat drugs as a health issue. We have to walk the talk on that.

To Tim Macindoe’s point about how we seem to be speaking at cross-purposes, I think that’s something we can all agree on. I think, fundamentally, all of us in this House actually agree on the point that we do not want to be criminalising the people who are addicted to these substances. But, unfortunately, at present, this is what this piece of legislation does, because it does not recognise nor demarcate that often the people who end up using these substances, because they become addicted, end up actually getting involved in what can otherwise be termed a pyramid scheme. They become suppliers themselves to help feed their own habit, and, in turn, they end up cutting substances and making them more dangerous.

Nicola Willis: No, it doesn’t.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Nicola Willis, that is what all of the evidence shows, and I can send that through to you. I would love for you to speak to the evidence, to any evidence at all that increasing penalties—I would like to hear from either the member in charge of the bill, Simeon Brown, or any National Party members that increasing penalties will have any impact on drug harm, because all of the evidence demonstrates the contrary.

So that brings me to the three Supplementary Order Papers in my name. I think that they’re incredibly valuable for sake of debate on particularly this point about reducing drug harm, which is this proposed premise of the piece of legislation that the member Simeon Brown has brought before us today. The first, Supplementary Order Paper 159, I would like to think that the National Party would support, given the position that they have put forward that they don’t want to criminalise users, because this amendment removes the criminal offence of possession of personal psychoactive substances by deleting section 71. I would love to hear from the member in charge, in follow-up to the question that I earlier posed: if the member does support a genuine health-based approach for people who are using and addicted to these substances, then will the member support Supplementary Order Paper 159 in my name?

The other two Supplementary Order Papers 160 and 161 are kind of two sides of the same coin. Supplementary Order Paper 160 changes clause 4 to provide that the sentence is a maximum of eight years imprisonment only if an individual has been convicted also of illegal manufacture and importation, because I believe that’s the heart of what the member and the National Party are attempting to get to with this legislation. The very name and title of the legislation as it was put forward is Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. The arguments that are being put forward are around targeting the supply chain. So surely my Supplementary Order Paper 160 should be something that is genuinely considered by the member and by the National Party votes.

So on the flip side of that is Supplementary Order Paper 161, also in my name, and it requires the court to consider a lack of involvement in manufacture or importation of psychoactive substances as a mitigating factor for the purposes of sentencing. That’s something I think it’s really important to drive home and to make clear to those who are listening in the gallery tonight or, indeed, at home, potentially on Parliament TV or otherwise. Most people are unaware of how the sentencing process works, and that is at the core of this member’s bill around increasing the penalty from two years to eight years. The member in charge of this bill has progressed the argument multiple times that this simply allows judges or courts more discretion when they are looking at sentencing somebody. What we are providing for in these Supplementary Order Papers are a number of named, explicit, mitigating, or aggravating factors in sentencing somebody for a crime.

So to make it clear to those who are listening, the sentencing process is the first step when you go before a court. You are found guilty or not guilty. Sentencing is a process that occurs after that, and it’s actually how we end up with a whole bunch of strange oddities in our law—for example, the way that two people can end up being found guilty of the same crime, but one person can end up with home detention and another can end up going to prison. So those sentencing factors come in the form of aggravating and mitigating factors, and I touched on a number of those mitigating factors in Supplementary Order Paper 162 in the name of Kiritapu Allan in my earlier contribution. These mitigating factors around considering whether somebody has been involved in the manufacture or importation of these psychoactive substances, I think, really go to the heart of what it is that Simeon Brown, the member in charge of this legislation, is progressing tonight.

So if I can summarise, the questions that I have—primarily the first question that I want answered by the member in charge, Simeon Brown, are, firstly, does the National Party support treating those who use or are addicted to drugs with a therapeutic approach? If so, will the member consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 159 in my name? But I would really like to have that first part of the question answered. The second is: will the member consider Supplementary Order Papers 160 and 161?

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s an absolute pleasure to follow on from Chlöe Swarbrick in terms of my Supplementary Order Paper 175, which also takes a health-based approach to this issue. What it proposes is that a judge can adjourn the proceedings at any time after someone’s been convicted of an offence but before imposing a sentence to find more information about the opportunities for rehabilitation, and that’s either in custody or in the community, and also where the offender is in need of health—including mental health—services to look at whether those services are best delivered in custody or in the community.

I actually agree with the intent of this bill, which is to reduce the huge impact that synthetic drugs are having in our community, but if we’re going to be doing something about it and taking this whole process through Parliament, we’ve actually got to make sure that any intervention we put in place actually works, and the problem we’ve got here is one where you’ve got somebody who may be a dealer but simultaneously is actually using synthetic drugs and then has become addicted to those drugs and then has become involved in the supply side in order to fund their habit. We’re not going to have any impact by just increasing penalties if you’re dealing with an underlying addiction.

I just want to talk about the story of Emma. Her story appeared in the New Zealand Herald in September last year. Emma—I don’t think it’s her real name—basically said that when the whole synthetics issue started, she hated everything about it. She said she was very anti the drug and would never use it. Then, suddenly, she found that her and her partner were using up to an ounce a day. She said, “The first time I tried it, I didn’t actually like it.”, but then, over time—she wasn’t actually aware when the addiction actually started. But once it had started and kicked in, it was really, really hard to stop.

So in a short time, Emma and her partner were addicted and were spending about a thousand dollars a week on their combined habit. To fund that, they started selling synthetics, because she said they had to find some way of paying for their addiction. So within a month, her partner went from just using it to running a business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Basically, Emma decided that she couldn’t face that addiction any longer and she went cold turkey and stopped, but it took her partner another eight months to actually stop using synthetics.

I think that at the time this story was written in the New Zealand Herald, Emma had been free of drugs for about two years, but she said that every day she lived with that guilt about what she’d put into her community. So I think in cases like this, what we’re dealing with is actually an underlying addiction. I don’t think that tougher penalties are going to turn that situation around. So this is why we need to take that health-based approach that Chlöe was speaking about—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! The member’s proper name, thank you.

Dr LIZ CRAIG: —and what it does is it allows the judge to consider, where an offender is in need of health or mental health services, what options are available to that offender and whether they’re best served in custody or the community. So I really encourage the member in charge of this bill to consider that health-based approach as we move forward. Thank you.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I rise to take a shortish call, really, to speak to the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in my name, SOP 167. The reason that I want to talk about this particular Supplementary Order Paper is that it follows on from some of what Dr Webb and Miss Swarbrick and Dr Craig have been talking about—the research, the evidence, what we actually really ought to be doing in the field of synthetic drugs or psychoactive substances—and it fits with a compassionate response to treating addiction as a health issue, not as a criminal issue.

The particular Supplementary Order Paper recognises that people who use drugs often supply drugs on the side, as a minor side matter, and that very often the drugs that are found on a person are, in fact, for the person’s personal use. The worry is that if someone is found with a sufficient quantity of drugs but they’re for personal use, they might be characterised as holding those drugs for the purpose of supply—

Chlöe Swarbrick: It’s a presumption.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: That’s right—that’s right. And under Mr Brown’s proposed bill, that person, even though the drugs were there for the person’s own personal use, would nevertheless be charged with supply and end up with an eight-year penalty. That is disproportionate.

Leaving aside worries about two years versus eight years and the like, this particular Supplementary Order Paper proposes that “For the purposes of subsection (1)(c),”—of section 70 of the principal Act—“where a person is an individual who frequently uses a psychoactive substance, the court should presume that any psychoactive substances possessed by the person are intended for personal use only.” So we start by presuming that the drugs are for the person’s own use. Now, of course, that can be defeated. It can be shown that the drugs are, in actual fact, for commercial supply. It can be shown that the person is intending to make money off them by preying on vulnerable people by selling drugs themselves, but it also asks us to remember that people who use and deal drugs at the same time are themselves vulnerable users. So we want to start with that presumption—that the person whom the drugs are found on is actually a user themselves, that because they are a user they are a vulnerable person, and that they are entitled to some consideration in respect of that.

So what it means is that if you show that the psychoactive substances are intended for personal use only, then I believe that under the Act as it stands, the penalty that would apply would be a $200 fine. That’s absolutely consistent with a lot of what we do elsewhere in the laws in this country where we have something that sits between a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket and incarceration, which is a severe penalty. We actually do use fines, substantially, in order to kind of reach that space where a person is not engaged in criminal activity, or is not engaged in anything that demands a heavy penalty but nevertheless perhaps needs a reprimand of some sort. So by starting with the presumption that a person is a user and, therefore, a vulnerable person, we just start at the level of an infringement. That presumption can be defeated, and in that case the penalties for supply would stand if the person was convicted. That does seem to be an appropriate way to sort of wend our way through the difficulties of this matter.

So I would very much appreciate it if Mr Brown would address this particular issue and address the issues that have been raised by people who are expert in this area: Dr Webb, Dr Craig, and Miss Swarbrick.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to start by congratulating the member in the chair, Simeon Brown, for attempting to do something about this. We are all, as electorate MPs, faced every day with people who come into our office and we want to do something about it. Now, we like to send them away with a solution, but solutions, as we learn—a quick fix; “just add water and stir” - type solutions—are not generally those that are available to us because, if they were that easy, then they wouldn’t have ended up in our office so often.

Coming to clause 4 of this bill, the sentencing option, so often in the history of law enforcement and particularly those who make the laws, we look for that easy fix—something that is going to look good, something we’re going to feel good about, and something that we can probably reassure those who come to us with problems with. However, one advantage of standing here with a little grey hair, having seen a little bit in my 40 years in the police—I was a police officer in the 1970s, when we had a major heroin problem in this country. We had heroin deaths. The signs or the symptoms of a heroin problem are generally overdose deaths—that’s how you really know you’ve got a problem. There will be crime, there’ll be others associated, but really, ultimately, it’s those who die because of overdose.

In the 1970s, when I was a young police officer in this very town, we had major problems with heroin overdoses, and that was happening around the country. I wasn’t really aware of the political environment at that time, but the debate was something of the same outcry, and the sentence for heroin dealing went to life imprisonment. It still is on the books now as life imprisonment, and it made no difference at all. As a result of that, the deaths continued. In fact, in Wellington, we had a bigger problem, because in Auckland, there was a homicide that resulted in a lot of pressure going on heroin dealers, not around the sentencing but around trying to solve the homicide. So Wellington became full of heroin addicts and, of course, dealers, and we ended up with a raft of deaths similar to where we are today. That life sentence made no difference whatsoever.

What actually did make a difference was when the Mr Asia syndicate collapsed, because they had become so effective at bringing heroin into New Zealand—so good at what they did—that they’d squeezed out all the opposition. So when they fell apart in the late 1970s and early 1980s, all of a sudden there was no heroin in New Zealand. New Zealand heroin addicts jumped on a plane and went to Australia. That is when we got a really bad name over there. So while I may sound like I’m drifting a little from clause 4, this is all about the sentencing and the ineffectiveness of the sentencing. I was anticipating a rebuke, Madam Chair, but I’m pleased to see that that’s not coming my way—but back to the subject.

In that case—and I was probably, it’s fair to say, a much younger man in those days and didn’t quite have the broad outline—it’s when you get to the stage when you sit and reflect on those things you’ve learnt that I know that, again, going back to this bill and what it is attempting to fix, it won’t actually fix anything. I’ve sat on the select committee, and we’re well aware of the terrible stories out there. I’ve had family members who have been involved in this. Interestingly, in the history of the sentencing when the problem was at its worst, in about 2011-12, that first piece of legislation went through. It did actually fix the problem in the short term, because the suppliers, of course, were legitimate suppliers, and when they were taken out of the market, there was actually no one who filled the gap at that time. There’s a history of how we got to where we are that’s for another time perhaps. It does not really come within clause 4 of this bill.

Can I just encourage the member that while he will be doing this for the right reason, and certainly he will have had people come into his office, this won’t fix anything, and the worst thing about it is that we will end up thinking, “Well, we’ve done that, fixed that, let’s go on to the next problem.” Unfortunately, it will not solve anything. It will stop us from really addressing the issue—those issues that my colleagues have talked about and the fact of why people end up using these substances in the first place. It is something that, really, generally affects the lower socioeconomic part of New Zealand—those who probably, for the rest of their lives, will not be in great shape. So using these substances is just another part of that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I too rise to make a shortish contribution on this bill, but the place I want to start, I guess, is that no member in this House denies the fact that there’s a huge amount of harm in New Zealand as a result of these psychoactive substances. What we on this side of the House are arguing is that this particular bill is not going to change things. I can’t remember who it was who said that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result—I think it might have been Einstein—but that’s exactly what we’re doing here. Internationally, if you look at the trends, if you look at the evidence, Governments are moving away from this punitive approach and towards a health approach for a reason, because that’s what’s working—not this.

I want to echo the comments made by the member Chlöe Swarbrick, who said, “Show us the evidence.” Where is that compelling evidence that increasing sentencing alone as an ad hoc measure is actually going to fix the problem? The problem—

Tim van de Molen: Where’s the evidence that it doesn’t?

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: It’s not compelling. There is no compelling evidence, because then, if you look at the fact that this is about locking people up for longer and throwing away the key, potentially—how has that helped? If that were the answer to all our problems when it comes to offending, then the fact that our incarceration rate in New Zealand has been sky high should have actually fixed the problem, but it hasn’t, has it? So that’s not the key. There is so much more that needs to happen.

Actually, back on that point about locking people with addictions up—because that’s exactly what this bill is going to extend—we have 62 percent of our prisoners in New Zealand who have either a mental health issue or a substance abuse issue, and 20 percent who have both. What this bill does, and going back again to a point that Chlöe Swarbrick made as well—and this takes me back actually to a submission that was made to the Justice Committee. I was on that select committee for a portion of time while this bill was being considered by the committee. We had a submitter who came to us and told us about the work that they do on the streets of South Auckland, where they’ve seen issues of people who have been supplying psychoactive substances as well. This is cheap, nasty stuff. These are potent drugs that are made cheaply. They’re cheap to manufacture. Those who supply them are not supplying them to become millionaires; most of them are supplying and selling to feed an addiction that they have. So that’s the point that members opposite don’t seem to get.

When the Hon Tim Macindoe stood up and said that he’s strongly in support of this bill because it affects those who manufacture, sell, and supply psychoactive substances, with great respect I say that he is missing the point, because the point is that those who are selling and supplying are also those who are affected by the addiction issues here. So, by then putting them into prison when we have a huge percentage of prisoners already with mental health issues and substance abuse issues, how is that going to help?

That takes me to Supplementary Order Paper 168 in my name, which would replace clause 4 and amend it to add new clause 4(a)(ii), which says, “when sentencing under subparagraph (i), the court must have particular regard to the health, including mental health, of the offender:”. This would actually provide a bit of sentencing guidance, as it were, to judges by recognising that in many cases, a higher penalty will not serve any useful purpose, because these people are already addicted and the reason they’re selling is to feed the addiction. Many have mental health issues as well, and those are the underlying causes that are driving offending when it comes to psychoactive substances, which we must address if we are to make any meaningful change in reducing drug harm in New Zealand.

I want to emphasise once again that simply increasing the sentence from two years to eight years is an arbitrary measure that’s just plucked out with no compelling evidence. I don’t believe it’s going to solve this issue. I think it’s incredibly short-sighted and, therefore, I will not support the bill. Thank you.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair. Kia orana. I want to put to the member in the chair, Simeon Brown, whether he has really, seriously considered the Māori dimension of his bill, because we know that in our prison population, Māori are overrepresented—horrendously overrepresented—in our mental health statistics, they’re overrepresented; and in drug addiction and affliction, they are overrepresented as well.

Kiritapu Allan has put in an excellent Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), and it draws on a recent decision of the High Court in Solicitor-General v Heta. That is a very important decision, and I would ask the member whether he’s had a chance to perhaps have a look at that or similar materials, because what it does is it lays bare the grievous effects that not all but many Māori have had through the, essentially, post-colonial lives that they’re living, that in fact they have never had an opportunity to flourish in the way that many others—and I suspect the member and I are amongst those others. That is a sentencing decision of Heta, and Justice Whata, using tools given in the Sentencing Act, looks in great detail at the broad spectrum of the life that Heta, who was a woman charged with assault and grievous bodily harm, had gone through.

One of the things I would ask is whether the member has carefully thought about the actual circumstances of the people who he is proposing to incarcerate for this extended period of time, and the fact that they are tangata whenua—they are our Treaty partners—in many cases, and that here we are doing something which I think really breaches the obligation of the Crown to care for, to respect, and to give rangatiratanga to our Treaty partners. I would absolutely ask him to look very carefully at Kiritapu Allan’s Supplementary Order Paper, because what it does—and there are a number of aspects to it. One is in respect of the offending and the personal circumstances of the offender, and their cultural setting is something that Heta says should be taken into account. So that is the personal circumstances question. Then there is the question of restorative justice, and Heta makes it clear that a restorative justice process and one that, perhaps, is in an appropriate cultural setting will also be appropriate, but also sets out the wairua, the spiritual dimension of the wrongdoing, and the hauora, the health dimension—it puts it in a Māori setting.

What this one-line amendment to the Psychoactive Substances Act does is it entirely ignores those very important factors. So I really invite the member to stand and answer the question: what will this do in terms of the Crown’s obligation to Māori? Does he accept that the people who will be most adversely affected by this amendment will be Treaty partners, and I’d ask him, what steps does he think are consistent with the Treaty that this bill does? Will he support Kiritapu Allan’s bill, which—

Hon Ruth Dyson: SOP.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —SOP—accepts Mr Brown’s eight years in there but also says, “Look at all of these other matters.” Te taha wairua, te taha whānau—the family aspect. What family setting do the offenders come from? What are their relationships with iwi and hapū? Te taha hinengaro—the psychological aspect: what is the spiritual and psychological setting in which the offending took account?

So, Mr Brown, what are you doing here? Have you taken these important matters into account, because I think you are harming an important relationship.

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

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Noes 63

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

Motion not agreed to.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Madam Chair, thank you. I’d just like to continue on the theme that I explored in my last five minutes on my feet—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): As long as it’s not repetitious, that would be fine.

GREG O’CONNOR: —in relation to clause 4. In relation to that, I would like to ask the member in the chair, Simeon Brown, if he has looked at the effect of moving the sentencing for dealing in heroin to life imprisonment in the 1970s and seen if there’s any evidence that it had any effect at all on the use of, price, and availability of heroin in New Zealand at that time, because that moves us on to the whole sentencing regime.

I have been in the police for some time, and unlike some of my colleagues, I see a role—an important role—for imprisonment. I see an important role for smart imprisonment. When the Sensible Sentencing Trust was formed, I had some dealings with them, and I remarked to them at the time—I said, “You’ve named yourselves very well: ‘Sensible Sentencing’ ”. Unfortunately, what happened with the Sensible Sentencing Trust is they became the “Longer Sentencing Trust”. All that they ever talked about was longer sentences, and they lost a really important opportunity to be an important part of that sentencing debate.

Smarter sentencing really means that short, sharp sentences are often more effective because, particularly when it comes to drugs and particularly drug dealing, it is the disruptive effect of removing someone from their environment. They will undoubtedly owe a lot of people money, they’ll undoubtedly be owed a lot of money, and removing them from their environment means that all of a sudden, that whole environment, that whole drug-dealing enterprise they’re in, is disrupted. That is the effective way to use prisons.

In New York, following the changes that they made around the well-known or so-called broken windows theory, the effects were quite dramatic on the streets of New York. I was lucky enough to spend time in New York to look at the sentencing, and I compare this with clause 4 of this bill—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): It’d be good if you could come to the point.

GREG O’CONNOR: I looked at the sentencing there, and what they found was that, actually, their prisons were full. They went to the prisons and said, “Let them out. We don’t care. Actually catching them is more important.” It is more important—the fact of jail. It is more important, when we catch these people committing crime, that we’re able to send them to prison—didn’t matter how long; send them out the top end, and we will catch you. If they recycle in, we’ll catch them again. That was what had the biggest effect. It’s a well-known—and, again, don’t rely on my experience; this is well through the research. It is the fear of getting caught or, more importantly, the belief you’ll get caught which is more important than the sentence.

So I go back to clause 4 of this bill, which is around merely increasing the sentence. What that does and will do, ultimately, is prevent the system from using something that can actually be a very effective tool in preventing the dealing, in particular, and disrupting the whole flow of drugs, because disruption’s about getting people off. Sending them to jail for eight years actually risks doing the very thing that we don’t want to do. It means the prisons do become more full. It means that those that should be coming at the front end—it makes it more difficult to do that. We end up having to build more prisons and we lose the real effective part of what sentencing can be.

That’s not to say there are not people, of course, that should be in prison and should never see the light of day, and I think we’ve got some effective methods in place to make sure that happens. But I would suggest that merely looking to solve any problem by making the sentence longer is to ignore so many other possibilities that can be effective. In doing so, and going back to clause 4 of this bill—and it is that part of a bill that is most significant which is being most heavily debated tonight. By doing that, by seeing that as some sort of panacea of all ills, the thing that is going to fix things overnight—just add water and stir—then that will deny us the opportunity to use sentencing for what it should be used for, which is to disrupt criminal activity and, in this case, to decrease the chances of those vulnerable, mostly youth getting hold of this substance in the first place. Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Before I call—

Chlöe Swarbrick: E Te Māngai.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Actually, I just have to check how many calls the member has taken. Remember, this is clause 4 with the debate continued, so we just have to check that. However—would you just resume your seat—I just want to send a very clear message to the committee: repeating the same sentence several ways within the same call does not make that an effective call. [Interruption] This will be heard in silence. It might cause the members some amusement, but this is very serious. We want to hear new debates, new arguments. This particular clause has been debated for some time now, and I have to sit and listen to all of the debates and all of the arguments. So I’m looking for fresh material or I will sit members down.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): I am happy to progress a new argument.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): And this is your final—

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: This is my final call. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The one question that still remains in my mind, given the numerous questions that I have put before the member and, indeed, before members of the National Party, who have taken no qualms with heckling throughout the contributions of other members, or laughing or scoffing, is: why have National Party members or the member in charge not risen to respond to any of the deeply serious questions that have been put around the impact and the evidence that clause 4 will have on reducing drug harm and, indeed, in reducing the harm proliferated in our communities by way of synthetics? Does the National Party agree with treating drug use and addiction as a health issue? And where is the evidence that the proposition, or the supposed solution, contained within clause 4—to increase penalties—will make any dent whatsoever on reducing the harm of synthetic substances?

I want to ask the member: who believes that what is being proposed in clause 4 will make a difference? Who believes that what is being progressed in clause 4 will make a difference, because it was put earlier by the Hon Tim Macindoe that the police believe that it will make a difference. As I raised in the select committee submission from the New Zealand Police Association, the police in this country do not believe that this will make a difference—that solely increasing penalties will have any impact on reducing drug harm. Academics don’t believe that increasing penalties will make a dent in reducing drug harm. Addiction services and specialists don’t believe that increasing penalties, as proposed in clause 4 of National Party member Simeon Brown’s bill, will make any impact in reducing drug harm. Not even those who are former addicts or who have engaged in harmful drug behaviour believe that this will have an impact in reducing drug harm.

So if it’s not police, if it is not academics, if it is not addiction and drug-abuse specialists, and if it is not even people who have been formerly engaged in the criminal black market who believe that this will have any impact in reducing drug crime, who believes that it will reduce drug harm and the harm proliferated in communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand by synthetics? The remaining answer is politicians—politicians who are giving false hope to New Zealanders around this country that this represents any form of solution—because the evidence and the research backs up that this will not have any impact as far as affordability or access to the substances go. Greg O’Connor, former chair of the New Zealand Police Association, spoke of his front-line experience with regards to heroin and reclassifying that—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Yes, and we are straying into repetition.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I want to speak, Madam Chair, to the debate that I’ve raised with regards to reclassification of methamphetamine, because that has been correlated in debates in the public to the issue that we have with regards to synthetics and why we need to increase penalties. When we increased penalties for methamphetamine to life imprisonment, we didn’t see a reduction in harm and, in fact, we didn’t actually see a reduction in usage, because Ministry of Health data demonstrates that usage data fluctuated to actually increase.

So, if it is not police, if it is not academics, and if it is not addiction specialists, I put it to the member to be bold and brave enough to stand up and speak to any shred of evidence that he has that this will do anything to reduce harm. Does he have any evidence at all that solely increasing penalties will save lives, because it is not the police, it is not addiction specialists, it is not those who are at the front lines dealing with this issue at the coalface, and I am so concerned that what this represents is false hope.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Sometimes when these bills come to the committee, we ask members in the chair questions, and because none of the questions from this side of the Chamber have been answered, I think we will try in vain to ask a couple more.

The Hon Tim Macindoe, in an earlier contribution after I spoke, asked me what my local police might think about this issue, and I think that’s a fair enough question. So, about a month ago, I spent an afternoon and an evening with our local police in an incident car, just to get an idea of what they were dealing with and how much time and influence synthetic cannabis has on a daily shift.

The question that I would like to put to Mr Brown is: if you think that clause 4 changing the sentencing from two years to eight years is going to change the thought pattern and the psychology of those dealing synthetic cannabis, when was the last time you got any feedback from people who are selling synthetic cannabis? On that afternoon and evening that I spent with my local police, we happened by chance to run into some locals who I think the local police considered to be heavy in the trade, I should say. We managed to spend a little bit of time talking to them, and my message to Mr Brown, in a very simple sense, is I don’t think they’ll care that the sentence is going to increase from two to eight years.

In their calculation of when they are dealing the drugs, the sentence of getting caught doesn’t really factor high in their motivation for selling the drugs. I’ll tell you what does: profits do. But also what rates higher in their calculation, I’m assuming, is whether or not they might get caught. In that afternoon that I spent with police, when we ran into them, they looked pretty sheepish about their interaction with the local constabulary. They were worried about getting caught. They knew that they were being monitored, but I would hazard a guess, from the type of conversation that I witnessed and the interaction, that they couldn’t give two hoots if this Parliament increased the sentence from two years to eight years, and that is the reality of the piece of legislation that is before us.

I think Mr Brown may be introducing this with good intentions, hoping that the people who might get caught might change their thought process to say “Well, Simeon Brown has changed the sentence from two years to eight years, so I’m not going to deal drugs or synthetic cannabis any more.”, and I would put to that member that that would be some wishful thinking, unfortunately. But I think that’s the reality of the thought process and the psychology of the people that are dealing synthetic cannabis. What they do need at the front line, as my friend who spent decades on the front line said, is more enforcement and some confidence in the eyes of the public that if they are dealing synthetic cannabis, they’re going to get caught.

To the earlier contribution that I made where I spoke to some local principals, we really care about the people who are being victimised in all of this: those people who are suffering mental health and who are suffering at the hands of this drug. You’ve got to deal with this issue from both ends, but increasing the sentence—I’m sorry, Mr Brown—I don’t think will make the foggiest difference to those who are selling the drugs in our communities.

So to Mr Macindoe, I think it was a good question to ask, as to what our police think, and going out on the front line and actually interacting with some of these people who we think are dealing in these drugs—this piece of legislation won’t make one iota of difference. Well-intentioned as it may be, the reality is this will not enter the thought process of those people who are dealing these drugs. If you want to get real about tackling them, then I think some of the actions that we’re taking by increasing the numbers of police on the front line are going to make a difference.

I think Mr Brown knows deep down that if we pass this legislation—and I’m not sure if it will—it won’t make any difference whatsoever. Other measures need to be taken to make sure we crack down on the dealing. I think a lot of the debate in and around this piece of legislation has focused on making sure we have sufficient support for those vulnerable people in our community who are being seriously harmed by synthetic cannabis. Nice try, Mr Brown, but I don’t think it’s going to make any difference.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair, for an opportunity take a call on this, the committee stage on clause 4. I would like to note that this is the third evening we have been debating this in the committee stage and that I have already taken calls on this clause in previous evenings.

I would like to remind the committee that this bill is about targeting suppliers, manufacturers, and dealers of synthetic drugs, and that a number of the Supplementary Order Papers try to seek to make significant changes to what would be the Sentencing Act. I would ask members whether those changes that they seek to make represent their new Government policy in regards to the justice reforms. I’d also like to point the committee to the sentencing guidelines from Justice Brewer of the High Court, who has already very clearly outlined clear guidelines around how those who are convicted of supplying synthetic drugs should be treated, and that it depends on the amount of drugs, the circumstances of the individual, whether there is an intent to make a profit, and whether the supply is of a size which is on a commercial scale. So there’s a range of different factors which have already been provided by the High Court in their sentencing notes and their guidelines from Justice Brewer, which I would encourage members to read in terms of ensuring that they know that the courts already take those factors into account.

I guess the purpose of this bill is to ensure that we are targeting the suppliers and dealers and manufacturers of this drug. Currently, if you are found guilty of supplying synthetic drugs, the maximum penalty is two years in jail. If you’re supplying cannabis, it’s eight years in jail. There is a complete mismatch here in our legislation. This bill seeks to address that, to give powers to our law enforcement agencies to target those who are making money from people’s misery and address the significant harm caused by these drugs. Thank you.

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

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 23 in the name of Darroch Ball to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; Ross.

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Dr Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment replacing “8 years” with “2 years” and with special direction to the court to impose rehabilitative and reintegrative conditions on any sentences is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 160 in the name of Chlöe Swarbrick to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 66

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 161 in the name of Chlöe Swarbrick to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 66

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Kiritapu Allan’s amendment replacing clause 4, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 162, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 167 in the name of Dr Deborah Russell to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 66

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Amendment not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s amendment replacing clause 4, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 168, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee. Greg O’Connor’s amendment replacing clause 4, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 169, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee. Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment to replace clause 4 to require the court to have regard to health and mental health services, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 170, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee. Dr Duncan Webb’s amendment to replace clause 4 to require the court to consider any non-custodial rehabilitation plan, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 174, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 175 in the name of Dr Liz Craig to clause 4 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 66

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 4 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 65

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; Ross.

Noes 54

New Zealand Labour 46; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Clause 4 as amended agreed to.

New clauses 5 to 9

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Members, Chlöe Swarbrick’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 159 inserting new clauses 5 to 9 are out of order as out of scope of the bill. Members, we will not be debating these amendments.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Arbitration Amendment Bill

Second Reading

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I move, That the Arbitration Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s an absolute pleasure to be talking on the Arbitration Amendment Bill, second reading. This is, in fact, the first time that I’ve had the opportunity to talk on this bill. This is because this bill was originally introduced under the name of my former colleague Paul Foster-Bell in mid-2017. Unfortunately, Paul is no longer a member of the House, and he asked me to continue to steer this bill through the House, which I gladly accepted. So this bill has had a long gestation period just to get to this second reading stage.

The original genesis of this bill came from members of the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand Inc. At this stage, I’d like to acknowledge the significant contributions of the renowned arbiters such as Sir David Williams QC and Mr John Walton. They and other members of the institute quite rightly highlighted that New Zealand has an enviable reputation as a place to do business. International commercial arbitration has grown significantly in the last 20 years, and promoting New Zealand arbitration, New Zealand arbiters themselves, New Zealand law, and New Zealand as a destination for conducting international commercial arbitrations is consistent with the policies of both our Government and the previous Labour Government.

But improving arbitration proceedings generally in New Zealand is also an important objective. This is because when disputes arise, many New Zealanders genuinely want to be able to access a professionally run alternative resolution process rather than having to immediately resort to going to the courts. There are many reasons for this, and they are varied. Arbitration is a bona fide option, as it offers the following advantages: it’s, first of all, a much cheaper process for resolving disputes; it’s often much quicker compared to a court process; it’s less confrontational; and it’s logical as a first step in seeking to resolve disputes.

What many people do not know is that our arbitration rules in New Zealand are based on the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law model law. In fact, New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to adopt the 2006 amendments. We also ratified the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and we are regional leaders in arbitration. However, having got ourselves into that leadership position, places such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and increasingly Pacific Island States such as Fiji have and will deliberately target their respective areas as centres to undertake international arbitration dispute hearings. In fact, the Asian Development Bank is actively seeking to support Pacific nations to improve their standing and adopt the model law legislation. The reason for this is that it’s highly desirable. Big international arbitration disputes regularly cost over a million dollars per case and naturally benefit local experts. It also enhances the country’s reputation as a place where local laws are regarded as robust and fair, and enhance the country generally. These attributes are exactly what New Zealand offers, and this bill seeks to promote that.

Unfortunately, there are some aspects of our current legislation that need to be reformed. I’m grateful that the Justice Committee has agreed to address some of these issues. In reaching this position, the committee was advised by the Hon Paul Heath QC—a retired High Court judge—as well as hearing submissions from a range of participants involved in New Zealand arbitration. The agreed changes are, first of all, to avoid a late jurisdictional objection—this is article 16(4) in schedule 1, inserted by clause 6(1)—to deal with the issue of parties to arbitration deliberately using a provision to wait until the end of the arbitration proceedings and, if they’re unhappy with the outcome, to then claim that the arbitration tribunal did not have the jurisdiction to rule on the proceedings. This clause seeks to specify that a party must make a timely request—and that’s the insertion—on the tribunal’s jurisdiction, otherwise that right is lost. It’s an important aspect.

The second change that’s been agreed to is the application to set aside as recourse against an award, and this is covered in an amendment to article 34 in schedule 1. The committee agreed with the need to replace the reference to “the schedule” with “the Act”, as this amendment corrects the original drafting of the 1996 Act, which incorrectly used the word “schedule” rather than “Act”.

The third aspect is what is commonly referred to as the “quick-draw procedure”. Clause 1 of schedule 2 in the Act sets out default procedures for the appointment of arbiters where parties have reached no agreement as to the appointment. This appointment process, commonly referred to as the “quick-fire appointment process”, allows one party to the proceedings to appoint the arbiter if they’re quick enough in the process, and this is in conflict with the principles of good arbitration. The committee was keen to address this issue but was concerned that the issue was outside the scope of the bill’s original intent. For this reason, the committee asked the Business Committee of Parliament to extend the powers of the committee of the whole House in considering the Arbitration Amendment Bill. I’m again grateful that the Business Committee agreed to allow the committee to address this issue and has proposed to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper at the time that this bill is considered in the committee of the whole House.

The other aspect is around confidentiality. Madam Deputy Speaker, I’m just worried about the time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have the correct time, so you keep going.

ANDREW BAYLY: You have? OK. Whilst these changes are important, they still put New Zealand at a disadvantage when it comes to trying to attract investment arbitration disputes to New Zealand. The core issue is the risk that if arbitration proceedings fail, then the New Zealand courts operate on a rebuttable presumption of open justice—that is, all evidence is heard in open court hearings. Privacy and confidentiality are frequently cited as defining characteristics and valuable benefits of arbitration over litigation. In fact, a recent survey said that 87 respondents in the international arbitration survey believed that confidentiality is one of the most important.

Other jurisdictions in the Trans-Pacific region—and, notably, Singapore and Hong Kong—have enacted legislation and developed arbitration law that has, as a major feature, provisions for the protection of confidentiality in court hearings related to international arbitration proceedings. Given the quality of our legal profession and particularly those involved in arbitration, this represents a real loss of commercial opportunity for New Zealand.

The recommendation that I propose is that New Zealand not overturn the important principle of rebuttable presumption of open justice, but to give judges more discretion when deciding whether or not to proceed to hear international arbitration cases in private. The clause I proposed was an insertion to section 14H. This was an important aspect, in my view, as it would have provided some flexibility for New Zealand judges to respect the rights of international parties who choose to undertake their international arbitration proceedings in New Zealand. And, of course, such a change would ensure that New Zealand would become a far more attractive destination for international arbitration awards.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to convince Government members of the advantages of this approach. Without such an amendment, we will still be at a significant disadvantage. However, we have made significant progress, and any progress is a good thing. I want to thank all the members of the committee and particularly the Hon Paul Heath QC for his support during this process, and, as a wider context, I’m heartened that arbitration issues are also being dealt with in the Trusts Bill that the committee is currently considering. I look forward to debating and talking about this issue further. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before I call the next speaker. For the benefit of those newer members in the House: the timers up there are for your assistance. Actually, the Speaker controls the times, so the Speaker always has control of the clock. So even if they’re not working, the Speaker is actually controlling the time—you can rest assured.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to start by acknowledging the member who has just resumed his seat. As the member who is sponsoring this bill, Mr Andrew Bayly should be feeling lucky, as seldom do members’ bills, especially technically driven ones, attract so much attention. On that note, I’d like to acknowledge the initial sponsor of this member’s bill, Mr Paul Foster-Bell, who is present in the House tonight.

I want to thank our officials, advisers, and PCO—the Parliamentary Counsel Office. Without their knowledge, experience, input, and, should I add, their patience, we could not have achieved what we have achieved now. I want to also thank the Minister Andrew Little for his leadership, support, and, should I add again, patience and tolerance, without which we cannot achieve what we have achieved in terms of both the substance and procedure in terms of the progress of this bill.

We might have made history, or at least set a rather unusual precedent. If members are not quite sure about the historical side of that, at least members can agree that we had a very robust process and had robust debate and worked constructively on this bill. We considered two departmental reports: one from the advisers from the Ministry of Justice and another one from our independent adviser, the retired High Court Judge Justice Paul Heath QC. This bill has also attracted the attention of Chief Justice the Rt Hon Sian Elias. To a large extent, the views expressed by the Chief Justice have helped shape my own views and also others’ views in terms of fundamental principles, as well as specific provisions proposed under this bill.

Lastly, this bill went all the way back to the Business Committee, where we as the Justice Committee sought advice and sought instruction from the Business Committee for that committee to determine whether a particular amendment to a provision which would be outside of the scope of the bill could be considered by the House, and the Business Committee has duly determined that the amendment could be considered by the House. That particular point concerns clause 1(4) of schedule 2 of the Arbitration Act 1996—the primary legislation. The Justice Committee received strong representations from submitters that that clause should be repealed. That provision sets out a default procedure for the appointment of arbitrators where parties cannot agree. It gives rise to a problematic aspect called “quick-draw procedure”.

Let me read out one direct quote from Paul Heath QC’s report: “It would be undesirable for an arbitration that had continued for … months to be challenged successfully at a late[r] time on the basis that [Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand] had no power to make the appointment.” That’s a direct quote from QC Paul Heath’s report, therefore clarity is required. However, the proposed repeal of clause 1(4) of schedule 2 is not contained in the bill, and a question of scope therefore arises.

Another important issue concerning this bill is open justice. Arbitrations are conducted in private by default, and confidential information cannot usually be disclosed. However, when arbitration proceedings are elevated to the court, our laws provide that proceedings are conducted in public by default, although a party can apply for private proceedings. One of the key and contentious proposals of the bill was to extend the presumption of confidentiality to cover court proceedings related to arbitration.

What the advisers from the Ministry of Justice provided in the departmental report is that the current section 14F provides a process for a party to apply for a private hearing. Before ordering a private hearing, the court must consider, basically, three elements. The first one is public interest in the judgment, the second one is the private nature of arbitration, and the third one is the open justice principle. Paragraph 64 of the departmental report made it clear that where hearings are open to the public, the courts can still order that information not be published if there is a compelling reason to do so. As noted by law partner Jeremy Johnson during his oral submission, it is rare that courts will decline an application to anonymise their judgment.

I do not intend to spend too much of the House’s time at this stage simply for two reasons: (a) I’m very much looking forward to the committee of the whole House stage, where I understand certain Supplementary Order Papers will likely be introduced; and (b) I’d like to come back to some other important issues, including open justice and also the views expressed in the two letters of the Chief Justice, which, again, helped to shape my own view and, I believe, shaped the committee’s view. So I look forward to the progress of this bill. Thank you very much.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak to the second reading of the Arbitration Amendment Bill.

As others have said, this has had a long gestation. If I could commend the sponsor of this bill, Andrew Bayly, for his hard work, tenacity, and not inconsiderable political skills in guiding this through a rather fraught process, and also to acknowledge the architect of this bill, Paul Foster-Bell, who is in the Chamber with us tonight.

As a relatively recent person coming onto the Justice Committee and following on from our chair, I would have to say that this was full of technical complexities. We were dealing with the Trusts Bill at the same time and if members would like to look, this is a small amount of the paperwork that the arbitration bill generated. This is not to say that whole forests were chopped down in this bill coming to where it is tonight, but I would have to say that there were a number of technical disagreements around the way that this bill was originally conceived, and its interaction with the Trusts Bill.

I absolutely agree with what the chair has just said, that we needed the influence and intervention and understanding of Minister Andrew Little. So I’m very grateful that that occurred. We also had, bringing with him a great degree of intellectual rigor and legal experience, the Hon Christopher Finlayson QC, who also brought a lot of wisdom to this process, which was a long and involved one.

It was a very pivotal turning point, I think, when the retired High Court judge, the honourable Paul Heath QC, came in to really pull this together. We could’ve got bogged down, and we did, actually, in the international arbitration area. And I’m not surprised. As somebody who didn’t know very much about this area before I came into the committee, I’d have to say we were fully lawyered up. We found out a lot about arbitration, how important it is as an effective resolution for commercial and other disputes, but also that there’s not a great deal known about this in the world. Many nations have established arbitration centres, and apparently Hong Kong and Singapore are the best at that. But many other nations, perhaps a little bit like ours, are scrambling to establish themselves as arbitration hubs of one sort or another. So it was timely but complex and needed to be done.

Arbitration is a very good thing on a whole lot of levels, one of which is that it reduces the caseload in the courts, therefore making it a more cost-effective method of resolution and the mediation of the international commercial disputes without jurisdictional issues, so I guess the least complex ones. International arbitration, which is the determination around cross-border disputes, is one of those areas that really has developed significantly and the issue of confidentiality was one of the most crucial ones that needed to be negotiated. There were, indeed, some very choppy waters that this particular bill had to circumnavigate.

As well as international, we’ve also done regional conflict resolution, which is something that successive New Zealand Governments have really come around to acknowledging that it needs more support. So I think, for example, the model law that we adopted in 1996, which was “to encourage the use of arbitration as an agreed method of resolving commercial and other disputes;” was something that has long been on the minds of lawmakers and legislators and we, as Andrew Bayly has indicated, had a number of very high-powered and high-level QCs and others who came in to give their wisdom. There was not always agreement. That was why it was very important to argue it through very carefully.

I was interested to find out that every arbitration case that’s heard in New Zealand is worth, on average, $1 million dollars to the local economy. So there are incentives and perhaps perverse disincentives that can come to clash here. But such things as international conference venue hires, accommodation, food, travel, legal, and secretariat support is yet another industry, if you like, around this arbitration area that will also benefit from this legislation going through.

So it is complicated. There are a number of issues that we will examine in more detail as we go through to the third reading and the committee of the whole House. But I would have to say, as an exercise in discussion which sought to get the best possible outcome for New Zealanders and for people who wanted to argue arbitration not before the full courts but to try and achieve some resolution, this is a bill that is very much needed in this country. So I commend its authors and I commend this bill to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Congratulations to a somewhat subdued Mr Bayly over at the other side of the House for getting his bill to this stage. As the Hon Maggie Barry said, he did so with some real political acumen, because certainly there were a number of tricky questions to be addressed.

It must be remembered that arbitration is, in a sense, the privatisation of justice. I don’t say that in a bad way, but it’s taking the dispensing of justice outside of the public realm into the private realm. There are places where that is entirely appropriate. But one of the important philosophical threads, if I can say it, of the select committee procedure was the discussion around the importance of having the backstop of the courts retain their open justice principle. I can entirely understand why particularly large commercial parties would want to have a pretty much closed procedure for the resolution of their commercial disputes. Indeed, the court procedures themselves allow for this in some instances. But there is a very strong presumption, a right presumption, in favour of open justice.

Mr Bayly made very persuasive arguments that didn’t ultimately sway the day, but very persuasive arguments that there was business to be done, that we could create a market for arbitrations in New Zealand. I think the committee was rightly cautious in going down that path. Because whilst the court system is a precious resource, and whilst having international arbitrations is all very nice, and I absolutely encourage it, I’m not sure that we should be selling our courts to international parties who have no connection with New Zealand, and thereby overburden the courts again. So, ultimately, the suggestion that there should be a presumption of secrecy in arbitrations did not find its way past the select committee. I must say the Chief Justice had provided very firm views, as entirely appropriate as the head of the courts, about the role of the courts, about the role of open justice. As the chair Mr Huo said, that was very persuasive indeed.

The other important part of this bill, and I don’t want to be too negative, I want to explain, particularly from this side of the House, why the bill has not been adopted in its entirety. This was the use of arbitration in trust disputes. Now, once again, I am a huge advocate of alternative dispute resolution. We know that the earlier a dispute is settled at the lowest level of formality is pretty much always the best for all parties. Trust disputes pose particularly difficult problems for arbitration, problems that are addressed in the Trusts Bill, as Mr Bayly points out, but in slightly different ways. A really difficult problem is the fact that beneficiaries may not be identified or they may not be well represented. So we’ve got to be really cautious about how we address arbitral provisions in trust deeds. We want to absolutely make sure that, for example, child beneficiaries under a trust deed aren’t simply steamrolled by an arbitral procedure which is essentially dishonestly designed to side-line them. The supervisory jurisdiction of the court is of critical importance there. Miss Barry waved a wad of paper which represented some of the deliberations on this bill. The Trusts Bill magnifies that somewhat, but that’s where those provisions will be found.

But that’s not to say this is not a useful and an important bill. Mr Bayly did an outstanding job in teasing out some of the really important technical provisions. I think our arbitral law will be significantly better for his and his predecessors work in this area. One of the points was the clarification around objecting to jurisdiction. You can’t just haul someone into an arbitral tribunal before an arbitrator, the parties must have agreed to it, and it must meet certain bare minimum thresholds. Every so often—a good example is the consumer, not many people know that a consumer cannot be compelled to arbitrate unless they agree after the dispute has arisen. So there’s a jurisdictional problem. In some of these situations the parties might simply let the procedure grind on without raising any jurisdictional objections.

That’s not a good thing, because what we want in any dispute is a speedy, straightforward, procedurally robust dispute resolution procedure. Now, what this does is require anyone who has a procedural objection to, essentially, raise that and pursue it promptly. So you can’t simply say “You’ve got no jurisdiction.” and then sit on your hands, because that’s unfair on the party pursuing the dispute resolution procedure. You’ve got to actually pursue it.

The other important point that was raised here—another great improvement—is the use of what’s been called the quick-draw procedure, and, really, its utility has been superseded by the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute, because the quick-draw procedure is what the parties resort to where they cannot agree on the appointment of an arbitrator. It’s essentially a default locus procedure whereby one party says “Well, here’s my chosen arbitrator. You’ve got seven days to object.”, and, of course, nine times out of ten, the objection comes too late and it’s a default appointment. Now, it can be a sneaky way to appoint an arbitrator who isn’t impartial. It cuts across what arbitration is supposed to be.

What we do have in the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute—and I recognise them now as a really important and a highly respected institution—is a professional body which can now fill that appointment vacuum. Really, all that’s needed is to go to the institute and make that appointment, so that’s a much better outcome. So what we have here is some really significant improvements, and I note the fact that that’s had to go to the Business Committee because it is something that may not have been in the original bill.

The other tidy-up is just around some tidying of the language of the Act. Mr Bayly referred to references to “schedule” when it should be “Act”. Again, we want to make sure it’s consistent. The arbitral law sits within an international framework, so it is, in fact, very important—particularly for international arbitration—that our domestic law tracks pretty much exactly the international framework. So that’s another thing that we’ve done here.

So look, I know that this bill doesn’t meet all of the expectations of its proponents, but I do hope that they’re happy that we had a really robust process in which we were extremely well advised, not only by some of the most high-quality submissions I’ve seen from real specialists in the area who took an interest but also by Mr Paul Heath, former High Court judge, a former law commissioner, and Queen’s Counsel, who, I must say, gave some of the most thorough advice, but, frustratingly, never gave us his own view on exactly what we should do—because we were desperately looking for it on some occasions. But what we have now is a piece of legislation or a position which says, “Look, on policy grounds, open justice is paramount.”

Parties can have private arbitrations, but when we get to the court system, the court must be free to make a decision about what information becomes closed. The court has an ability under its existing procedural rules to close some information and not other information, so that is entirely up to the court. Now, it may well be that this doesn’t create a thriving international arbitration market, but, for policy reasons, I think that’s where we’re going to sit. I’m confident that we have a judicial system which is highly respected, and people will come here for the quality of our judiciary, the quality of our advocates, and the fact that we have an extremely transparent country and they can trust what goes on here. So well done, Mr Bayly—another win for justice.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Arbitration Amendment Bill. First of all, with your forbearance, I’d just like to acknowledge the former member Paul Foster-Bell in the House—a hard-working and determined member of Parliament in his time—and I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate him for his work in bringing this bill to the House and publicly commend him for the work he’s doing now. He’s a great guy doing a great job.

It then makes it hard—no, it doesn’t!—to speak to Andrew Bayly, the current sponsor of the bill and congratulate him for his advocacy, actually. He has taken the proverbial bull by the horns, as it were, and has been a strong advocate for this legislation. He has undertaken a lot of work behind the scenes and has been very willing and open in his discussions with all members who are interested and who want to know more about what it is that is being aimed for within this bill.

I think it’s appropriate to point out that when this bill was first introduced to the House, by Paul Foster-Bell, New Zealand First spoke quite strongly in terms of reservations. We spoke about the fact that we had concerns that the bill would introduce new presumptions of confidentiality in relation to proceedings concerning arbitration, in contrast to court proceedings, which, as has been aired repeatedly this evening, are normally open proceedings. They are open to the public, and the information itself is accessible by the public. So this is a well-established principle in New Zealand’s legal system.

In the Justice Committee, the recommendation around deleting clause 5 from the bill has assessed that “the current regime for arbitration-related court proceedings strikes the appropriate balance between open justice and the private nature of arbitration.”, and then we had some concerns around trusts within this legislation. But I rise in support of this legislation—I thought it appropriate to clarify that at this juncture—and say that of course New Zealand First does support arbitration as an alternative to disputes. As was outlined previously, if two parties can work through issues in a less formal setting, perhaps the less formal the setting is, probably the easier it is to get through the issues that they have cheaper, quicker, and it is ideal for both parties, and the international arbitration here is part of that. So we support this and we support, with professional assistance, of course, this being done.

I think the submitters spoke to how this can be improved. I would note, actually, that some of what is being sought in this legislation actually seeks to align our legislation with international standards and, hopefully, make arbitration more attractive in New Zealand. But I will point out and acknowledge the words from Dr Duncan Webb, the previous speaker, that, actually, the attraction of the New Zealand system is based around our professionalism, the level of integrity, and the competence of those practitioners in the New Zealand legal system. So, in that, we are an attractive proposition to those who would use New Zealand as an international arbitrator, and I suppose I would signal that there is still to be some debate about the way that we move forward in terms of the open justice system in these arbitration-related court proceedings.

So I think I have outlined quite briefly the reasons for our support. I don’t think I need to go through the technical aspects of what arbitration is—

Hon Members: Go on!

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —in the New Zealand system, despite the protestations of my colleagues on this side of the House. We support the legislation and we look forward to it proceeding through the House. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): It’s a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of this Arbitration Amendment Bill. This is one of those bills that are about improving New Zealand’s business laws and are part of the many dozens of things that we need to do well as a country, to protect that reputation that National built during its nine years in Government of New Zealand being a good place to do business. In international surveys, New Zealand is recognised as one of the best places in the world to do business, and, equally so, a reputation that New Zealand should be equally proud of is New Zealand being the least corrupt place in the world to do business.

Can I congratulate Andrew Bayly. He is a member that’s come to this House with a deep level of experience in the business community, and the sort of contribution he’s making to New Zealand’s law is just a fraction of what he will do in the next Government as a person that actually understands how wealth is created and the importance of good law in an area like arbitration.

I want to cover four specific issues. The first is that we on this side of the House recognise that for New Zealand to be successful we need to be globally engaged. And actually, an increasing number of contracts, whether it be for major infrastructure projects, whether it be in terms of the huge amount of trading activity, does involve commercial contracts of New Zealand and other countries. And when those contracts are signed, people have a choice as to whether they want to have an arbitration procedure and where that arbitration will occur. And the advantage for New Zealand having modern, robust arbitration law is that more people will choose to have that arbitration process in New Zealand, and that is to this country’s credit.

The second issue that is important in this bill is the degree to which we limit the scope of our court system to intrude into arbitrations that have been entered into around commercial contracts. And a key part of this bill is actually improving the certainty around the arbitration process and the degree to which the courts can intervene, either in terms of a timely way or putting limits on where our courts may undo what has been decided through an arbitration tribunal.

The further part I want to refer to is this issue of secrecy and openness and where the public interest lies. It is true and I totally agree that where you are dealing with issues of criminal justice and public law that there is a strong argument for transparency. But when you are dealing with private contractual disputes, my view is that the onus is in a different sense and the parties are able to resolve the issues in a private way that is often to the interests of all parties concerned.

My experience prior to coming to this Parliament was in the construction industry, and often, both from the point of view of a client and a contractor where there are reputational issues at stake, people want a confidential, robust, but efficient system to be able to resolve disputes that may amount to many hundreds of millions of dollars in construction disputes. And I think the provisions in this bill that respect the confidentiality of those arbitration processes is an outcome that is in the public interest. I think in that respect New Zealand First is a bit naive. This is not the only area.

Clayton Mitchell: Oh, come on, Mr Smith.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the member opposed the bill on first reading. He’s now supporting it. He’s now accepting the wisdom that is in this bill and the superior knowledge that he has about how the real business world works and also, in my view, a reality of the importance of robust commercial arrangements that can transcend national boundaries and ensure that international commerce occurs on the very best standards.

The Justice Committee has worked hard on this bill. We have made changes. It is a better bill as a consequence. This is not the most exciting bill, but, Madam Deputy Speaker, I tell you what’s important: it is getting every piece of law that’s associated with the business community refined world’s best practice that makes New Zealand a successful economy. That is something the English - Key Government understood. It’s something the National Party understands, and I urge members opposite to understand the importance of detailed commercial law of the sort to be in good shape for New Zealand to be a great place to live.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Arbitration Amendment Bill has been one of those bills that one felt that as a new member of the Justice Committee there are certain bills that come through that actually do thoroughly increase your understanding of an aspect of the world, of the law that I knew very little about before. Although, having said that, having been part of an organisation, the only organisation that actually had binding arbitration as its manner of settling pay disputes, I probably didn’t have to understand much about the give and take of the arbitration system. So I do thank the member Mr Bayly for the way in which he has pushed the bill through. It made for quite strong deliberations to the committee and certainly has made sure that when we did come to deliberate on the bill, we were certainly as well informed as we could expect to have been.

The early stage of the debate was of course around making New Zealand bring in a confidentiality clause, so where a case had ended up in arbitration that the presumption of that being heard in public was reversed. So the presumption would actually be that it would be confidential. And the rationale around that, on the surface of it, certainly from the commercial point of view, was that it would assist New Zealand to establish an international base around arbitration, perhaps with the benefits, financial in particular, that would arise. So that really brought us to the nub of the matter in what we did consider much of our debating time.

We heard from some very smart, wise, informed people to the committee. Probably, it would be fair to say that for a member’s bill, the resources that went into it, the advice we got, probably exceeded that that most will ever be allowed or permitted on such a bill. However, it did certainly, when you had people of the likes of Paul Heath QC to advise us through this, ensure that when we did come to the deliberation and it brought us to this stage, we were making sure we were playing with the best information available.

When we did go to the confidentiality, some of the arguments that were brought up were ones that if we did have confidential settlements all the time, then we wouldn’t learn anything. No judgments would be published; therefore, there would be no learnings.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Can I just interrupt the member’s speech? I have stopped the clock. Chlöe Swarbrick, can I refer you to Speaker’s ruling 16/3 about the device that’s on top of the desk. There is a Speaker’s ruling about that. It is just above the one that refers to knitting in the Chamber, for the members. So can I call Greg O’Connor to resume his speech?

GREG O’CONNOR: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and being a student of history, I’d be very wary if, while standing on my feet, people were knitting, knowing what that preceded in the French Revolution.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Slightly odd juxtaposition.

GREG O’CONNOR: However, I can go back to the Arbitration Amendment Bill. Again, going back to the fact that much of our discussions were around the confidentiality—this basic principle, really, of confidentiality for public; that justice should be seen to be done and that these things should be conducted in public. And I was certainly left—from the new information that I received, the discussion with some of these very learned gentlemen, and I believe they were all gentlemen, the learned ones that came before us—with the impression that there was certainly no justification that we would actually go against the basic tenets of our justice system, of open justice. So it did take us a while to get there, but we got there, and I think it was something that, because of its importance, we should really deserve the time that we actually spent on it.

When we were considering that there was one celebrated case—the Hawksbury case—that came up about how much, and this is, again, a matter that was considered; it was settled by arbitration but it was around public money. And that certainly became the centre point of much of our discussion around whether, with a confidential settlement surrounding public money, using this legislation could have prevented that being known. So, again, another case came to us that helped us in our decision making.

As we come to consider the second reading of this bill, it goes back again to the basic tenets of this. It was about improving the framework for arbitration as a helpful method of resolving commercial and other disputes. Arbitration or alternative dispute resolutions are very much part of our criminal justice system now with the introduction of pre-charge warnings etc. or alternative resolution, right through to these rather large cases that we will hear of.

At one stage we did also consider, when we were looking at that confidentiality and whether it was possible to set up this international arbitration system, whether we could have a two-tier system to preserve the confidentiality—those basic understandings of the way we do our business in New Zealand—whether, in fact, we could have a system that, provided the two parties had no interest in New Zealand, were domiciled elsewhere, whether we could actually have a system that would allow us to take advantage of the perhaps vast amounts of money that these big corporations coming to New Zealand to do their business might have been able to avail ourselves of, and just then have another system for New Zealand - based companies, which would have to work under the current system.

While there was some work done on that, again, one of our learned QCs—I think Mr Paul Heath was one of the ones who looked at that—came back and, while there was some attractiveness, again, it had that two-tiered justice system, which started to have that smack of a bit of third world about it, and started to make New Zealand start to look like a country that, you know, perhaps was going away from those beautiful, basic justice principles that make us one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

So, again, these were the sorts of discussions that we came to. So I won’t say it was quickly dismissed, but that was one of those suggestions that was brought, explored, and rejected, which brought us then back to the bill we have before us today. The practical purpose, again, to improve—it really is about improving justice, arbitration of course being a helpful method of resolving commercial and other disputes based on the consent of the parties.

One of the other things we spent some time on too was the late jurisdictional change. One of the important things here is that—and again we debated whether it was possible for parties to go through what is inevitably quite an expensive process of going through a whole system of arbitration and then one party being able to object to the jurisdiction. And that’s a case that came out of Singapore, and if one of those parties objected, it was quite possible then for the whole expensive process to have to be restarted or thrown out. That was one of the clauses, again, which we spent some time on. And, of course, it very quickly became obvious that we needed the protection to make sure that wasn’t the case: that an unsuccessful party could stand and say, “Well, I don’t like the result. I’ll look for an alternative.” So we were very fortunate to have time to consider that.

Again, going back to the matter we talked about, about the benefit of New Zealand being a venue for overseas arbitration, being considered. And William Somerville, one of those submitters, said it “should not drive [a] weakening [of] a fundamental constitutional principle.”

That was really where we arrived. What we have now, this Arbitration Amendment Bill—I’m very happy to commend this bill to the House and again congratulate—as it’s turned out. Because knowing that I’ve been part of the very hard-working Justice Committee, I’ll remind, as I have before, that at one stage I was reminded that two-thirds of the sittings of the select committees in this House were the hard-working Justice Committee. I see Mr Bishop over there nodding his head vigorously, as a fellow member of that extremely hard-working Justice Committee. So I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Greens): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party to, and I’ll front foot it, commend this bill to the House. I want to lend my congratulations to Andrew Bayly, as the member in charge of shepherding this piece of legislation through the House and, indeed, through the select committee process, and also, obviously, to the member formerly in charge, who introduced this legislation into the 51st Parliament, if the record is correct, Paul Foster-Bell, whom, I would note just for the sake of some fun for law students who may later be going through the Hansard, I met on the bus a few weeks ago. So I might say there is hope for that blue-green idea yet.

What this piece of legislation does—and a number of speakers before me have really spoken to the crux of it—is improve the arbitration process. It was actually Barry Coates, a former Green Party MP, who spoke at the introduction of this bill, at the first reading, about the importance of supporting transparency but also about the importance of practical changes to the arbitration process to make it work better for those who engage in it.

As a number of speakers have addressed, the arbitration process is an important part of the alternative dispute resolution cachet in that it keeps the courts free of those disputes which can be settled in those rooms that are somewhat more private but, obviously, somewhat a bone of contention, I would note, given the points made around open justice. I would refer members to the submission of William Somerville, who, I think, summarised it quite well. I believe it was the Hon Maggie Barry who spoke to how arbitration cases from overseas bring in, on average, approximately a million dollars each. That is evidently quite a high financial incentive, but as William Somerville put it—and I quote—“The suggested benefit of promoting New Zealand as a venue for offshore arbitration is legitimate, in itself, but should not drive weakening a fundamental constitutional principle.”, that being open justice. I think that’s a really critical point; so I would commend the committee on what, I am sure, were incredibly robust discussions and debates. And this, I know, is one of the most weighty reports that I’ve seen back from a select committee; so I will tautoko the point made by Greg O’Connor that it is evidently a hard-working committee—hey, Chris Bishop!

On the point around trusts, this is, as I understand, going to end up being dealt with in a Government bill, which is being dealt with by the same Justice Committee, and there are also a number of technical amendments proposed within this legislation—those being, avoiding late jurisdictional objection and application to set aside as a recourse against award.

I’d note the point, which has been alluded to by other speakers, around the appointment process for arbitrators. This is an interesting one, which a number of submitters chose to use their submission time to speak to, despite the lack of clarity as to whether it could end up being included or was out of scope of the member’s bill.

The problematic area, which I hope is capturing the attention of the Hon Alfred Ngaro, who asked for Greg O’Connor to put this in a poem—this is a fun fact, Alfred Ngaro—is quick draw procedure, which is where a party can trigger a process to appoint an arbitrator if the other party fails to respond to communication within seven days. The more you know! And it was Paul Heath QC, who advised on removing the quick draw procedure, who said—and I quote—“It is the most important practical issue from the perspective of the arbitration profession”. My understanding, listening to the debate but also delving through the interim report of the Justice Committee, is that this point was put before the Business Committee and that it could be considered as an amendment before the House. So I think that the committee of the whole House stage will be very interesting as a debate.

As a member who had not known that they would be speaking on this bill until about two hours ago, I hope that I have made a somewhat meaningful contribution and would like to echo the sentiments of former speakers to the legislation thus far and commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Oh, thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Look, can I just say, in response to Miss Swarbrick’s speech, that she may not have thought she was planning on speaking on the bill, but it was a more learned contribution than Greg O’Connor’s, who was actually on the Justice Committee, which is slightly embarrassing for Mr O’Connor, but well done, Miss Swarbrick.

This bill has had a long and complicated legislative history, and it’s a testament, really, to the fine work of Andrew Bayly, my colleague, that we are at a second reading and it looks like it will receive unanimous approval of the House. This bill came into being with the lamented Paul Foster-Bell, who left the Parliament at the 2017 election. He introduced it in May 2017, it had its first reading, and it was sent off to what was then the Justice and Electoral Committee. I think we opened for submissions and I think that they came in, but we didn’t actually hear any. That was left to the newly reincarnated Justice Committee of the 52nd Parliament, and that’s where things got interesting. Andrew Bayly, the member in charge of the bill, is nodding his head. I won’t discuss exactly what went on at the committee, but it was an interesting process. We heard the submissions, and they were very learned submissions. We heard from noted arbitrators like Jeremy Johnson down in Christchurch, from Wynn Williams and Co. We heard from David Williams QC—we heard from a variety of different QCs, actually. We heard from the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand—AMANZ—and we carried on.

We did have a lot of difficulty in getting to grips with the recommendations made by—I suppose you’d say we had some difficulty reconciling the views of the submitters, who were very learned and very expert and very knowledgeable in their field, with the views of the officials. Of course, we were also—and still are, in some ways, actually—still considering the Trusts Bill, and there is a degree of overlap between the Trusts Bill—the massive rewrite of our trust law—and this bill, the Arbitration Amendment Bill. So we had to deal with the overlap and the potential overlaps between the two bills, which we were considering at the same time. We issued an interim report; we sort of threw our hands up with a cry for help.

We issued an interim report and we put a departmental report out, and then we hired Mr Paul Heath QC. I think that was a very smart idea, because Mr Heath QC came in like the white knight, and we were able to work with Paul Heath, and between us on the committee, the members—some of whom are, you know, quite au fait with trust law, some of whom are coming at it for the first time, and some of whom, like me, have an entire honours degree in law but absolutely loathe the subject of trusts and arbitration. But, anyway, between us on the committee and Paul Heath QC and the submitters and the officials from the Ministry of Justice, we have managed to fashion, I think, a good piece of legislation.

It’s highly complex. Miss Swarbrick is right that we’re going to have quite an interesting debate, I think, at the committee of the whole House stage, but what we have sought to do as a committee is not adopt every single thing that the submitters wanted. We have amended the bill reasonably substantially, we have made some fine-tuning amendments as well, and we have landed in a space where it looks like it is going to receive majority support. That is really good, because, as the Hon Dr Nick Smith said in his contribution, certainty in the area of commercial law, when it comes to this, is really important. I actually think it’s one of those areas where it is good to have as much cross-party support as possible in the House, because that consensus, or at least unanimity, provides some ballast to the idea that the law is set in stone, and it means that those out there who are making commercial decisions based on what the law is know that if there’s a change of Government, you know, the National Party’s not going to come in and overturn what Parliament’s just passed. You need to be able to make decisions based on some sense of certainty. Hopefully, as we move through the remaining parliamentary stages we will get this.

Just in my final 30 seconds, I want to just tautoko what Nick Smith said about New Zealand as a potential home of commercial arbitration. We have huge potential for it and we did some work on that in Government—the previous National Government. There is huge potential. In the world today, a society based on the rule of law, the certainty of the law, with high-quality legal procedures and legal tribunals, is something to be prized and valued, and this bill further entrenches it. Thank you.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. What an extraordinary bill this is. I actually almost wish I was sitting on the Justice Committee through all of this.

Chris Bishop: No, you don’t.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: Ha, ha! Well, when I’m looking through the list of reports, submissions, QC reports coming out your ears—not yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, apologies—it’s an extraordinary trajectory for a member’s bill. I acknowledge Paul Foster-Bell and Andrew Bayly for the work and for the commitment, clearly, that you’ve put into this, because I know that you have put a lot of commitment into this. There were 10 submitters, a departmental report—I presume that was the interim report—then you heard again from the submitters, and then QCs were engaged to provide advice, and it went on and on.

For those who are listening at home, what we’re talking about is arbitration, which is—it’s basically described as a helpful method of resolving commercial and other disputes, and it’s based not on litigation but on the consent of the parties. That is what we are discussing, and what the original bill set out to do was to try and introduce some significant changes. I think where we’ve ended up is what good legislators should do, which is with important technical tidy-ups with a bigger discussion around the role of arbitration and where New Zealand could fit into that space. But where we’ve also ended up is with a bill that’s come back from select committee with some significant recommendations for taking out two of the key clauses—clause 4 and clause 5—which, ultimately, means that you are left with the technical tidy-ups.

I’d like to just make a couple of comments in the couple of minutes that I’ve got, particularly around the principle of open justice. That was seen as being so important. I just want to refer to the New Zealand Law Society submission and then contrast that with what Nick Smith said earlier. The New Zealand Law Society submitted “that any derogation from the principle of open justice”—and “derogation” means moving away from the principle of open justice—“requires a compelling justification and should be limited to the least derogation necessary to achieve the objective.” They said that “Comparable provisions in other jurisdictions, [such as] Australia and the UK, should be considered.”

Now, from what I can gather, the basis of the discussion to move away from the principle of open justice was based on Singapore and other jurisdictions—Hong Kong—where a lot of arbitration takes place, commercial arbitration. I think the aim was to try and see New Zealand as being a centre for that kind of commercial arbitration, but to do that would be to move away from the principle of open justice. I think that where we’ve ended up is to say that, actually, in our rule of law and the way that our justice system and our democracy operates, we don’t believe that it’s worth it to do that.

That open justice—and I think what Nick Smith was arguing for was a qualified form of open justice. I’d love to hear what Chris Finlayson had to say about that. I hope he does make a contribution in the committee stage around what that actually means. Is qualified open justice worth giving up our principle in order to get more commercial arbitration into New Zealand? We say no to that. We think that we’ve ended up with a bill where there is obviously some unanimous support around the House.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.