Tuesday, 18 December 2018

TUESDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2018

TUESDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2018

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Points of Order

Petitions—Number of Signatories

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hate to interrupt at this point in the proceedings, but, traditionally, the Clerk reads out the number of signatories to a petition. A lot of people work very hard to gather a number of signatures, and I just raise, for the House’s consideration, that they might like to hear those numbers.

SPEAKER: It’s a long-lost tradition. Now, if the member had been listening over quite recent years, he would’ve seen that that tradition has not been continued. I think the only occasion it’s occurred is where the House has been asked to note that a certain number of people have signed some other petition.

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 statements and actions in relation to Karel Sroubek?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, and season’s greetings to the member.

Hon Simon Bridges: Thank you. Will she release the precise content of the text message she received from Richie Hardcore about Karel Sroubek; if not, why not?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve already indicated in public interviews, I am concerned around precedent setting. Obviously, I receive hundreds of messages from members of the public on issues where I have no clear involvement or decision-making role. I have, however, given an indication of the content of that text. I’ve acknowledged that Mr Hardcore acknowledged to me that he knew Mr Sroubek and, of course, that he agreed and commended the decision because he knew Mr Sroubek. I’ve also acknowledged that I did not respond and that I received the message after the decision was made and after it was in the public domain.

Hon Simon Bridges: What exactly did the text message say?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, as I’ve said, I wish to seek some advice from the Ombudsman on the handling of information that I receive from members of the public, because I receive hundreds of messages. Indeed, on this case, I have received over a hundred messages—obviously, some not so favourable. I am seeking some guidance from the Ombudsman as to how I handle each of those individual pieces of correspondence.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was it a thank-you text?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: When we went down and advised ourselves that I had received that message—openly—I acknowledged that it commended the Government on its decision.

Hon Simon Bridges: How many text messages has she received from Richie Hardcore while Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I just simply cannot answer that. I have said from the outset that I’ve known Mr Hardcore for a number of years. My recollection is primarily that it was through his role with Community Alcohol & Drug Services as an anti - drug and alcohol campaigner based in Auckland, and subsequently his involvement as an anti - violence and sexual violence campaigner. My understanding is that he’ll know a number of members on that side of the House, as he does in Parliament generally.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is this the only text message she’s received from Richie Hardcore while Prime Minister: one solitary text message about Karel Sroubek?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve already acknowledged that I know Mr Hardcore through a range of his work and functions and roles. I’ve already acknowledged that publicly. This is the only text I received on the matter of Mr Sroubek. It’s the only communication I had with him on Mr Sroubek. I’ve had no conversations with Mr Hardcore on this case, nor would it have been appropriate. Again, as I’ve said time and time again in this House, I had no involvement in this case, no knowledge of it until it was in the public domain, and the member very well knows that the Minister himself made the decision one afternoon, with officials in the room, after no conversations with any other members of Parliament. It’s quite simple, Simon.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why didn’t she directly answer—

SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry; I am going to interrupt. It’s not an appropriate term to use for the Leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister will withdraw and apologise.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why didn’t she directly answer Susie Ferguson’s question today on Richie Hardcore on Morning Report: “How would you characterise him? Is he a friend or a family friend?”

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would not characterise him as a family friend. He’s someone I’ve known for a number of years, and I’ve been very open about that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she know why he has repeatedly, in the recent past, described her as someone he’s lucky enough to call a friend?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have no qualms about him doing so. What is at question and in play here is whether or not I had any engagement with Mr Hardcore over this case, and as I’ve repeatedly pointed out, the answer is no. In fact, when his name was first raised in Parliament, it was myself and my office that proactively acknowledged that I had received a message from him.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that Iain Lees-Galloway took less than an hour to decide the Sroubek matter?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, and this raises the contradiction in the member’s line of questioning, he has consistently criticised the Minister for making the decision the same day he was informed of the case but, at the same time, has tried to imply there was inappropriate involvement from other members and Ministers. The fact is the Minister has always acknowledged he made the decision on the day it was given to him, the first time he was told of the case, when he was in a closed room with officials.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that Sroubek is a gang-affiliated, convicted drug dealer?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m sorry, Mr Speaker; I didn’t hear the question. Can you please repeat it?

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that Karel Sroubek is a gang-affiliated, convicted drug dealer?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I accept that the Minister of Immigration has now made a decision that would lead to the deportation of that individual.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that Richie Hardcore made representations for Sroubek that are on the deportation file the Minister considered?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can only rely on what the Minister of Immigration has said in this House because I am not aware and do not know who made representations, but my understanding is that last week in the House, the Minister of Immigration ruled out him being involved or making representations on this deportation order.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that she knows that same Richie Hardcore well?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve acknowledged that in the House; I’ve made no secret of that. I have known Mr Hardcore for a number of years in a number of guises.

Question No. 2—Regional Economic Development

2. JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: What recent Provincial Growth Fund announcements has he made?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Upon arriving at Ōpōtiki, a neglected area, we announced several important grants—the first being the allocation of money to develop water storage for 640 hectares of land in Raukōkore, a sum of over $700,000. That’s a key feature which will enable the Government to create better land use outcomes for Māori landowners and a practical demonstration of what it might mean to find water-based solutions for Māori landowners. The most important thing was that we are continuing to shrink the $145 million cost of the Ōpōtiki harbour and wharf suggestion by allocating, on top of the $4.5 million, approximately, spent by the last regime, an additional $750,000 so that Ōpōtiki can achieve some happiness with being endowed with that infrastructure. And we are also supporting aquaculture.

Jenny Marcroft: How will these projects benefit the communities in the Eastern Bay of Plenty?

Hon SHANE JONES: The Eastern Bay of Plenty has been inhibited over a long period of time because of poor attention from successive Governments. With the allocation subject to a suitable feasibility study of up to $19 million to expedite the growth of aquaculture, the development of value-added products, this will give genuine hope, jobs, and economic development to a township where successive parliamentarians have arrived, made promises, but never delivered.

Kiritapu Allan: How have the latest Provincial Growth Fund announcements been received?

Hon SHANE JONES: The Māori language that was used to receive the first citizen of the provinces—the term “Haere mai, haere mai, haere mai” was exchanged for “Ho, ho, ho” as a demonstration that at long last those communities are seeing a Government that is willing to allocate genuine capital to grow jobs and to move on from what has been a retarded status, because the last regime talked a lot and did zero.

Jenny Marcroft: Why is digital connectivity so important for the regions?

Hon SHANE JONES: A sum of $40 million has been made available for various regions. Anyone who has travelled through Taika Waititi’s homeland would know that although it has created a great deal of talented individuals, it’s hard for them to communicate with each other when cellphones don’t work.

David Seymour: Before they received $1 million from the Provincial Growth Fund, was the Minister satisfied that the Whakatōhea trust had been properly exonerated from the investigation ordered just a few months ago by the Minister for Māori Development?

Hon SHANE JONES: Heron QC undertook an investigation. He found no case of egregious wrongdoing, a few loose ends—and it’s sad that it’s actually the wandering ways of the Waitangi Tribunal that have worsened the prospects of Whakatōhea.

Question No. 3—Corrections

3. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister of Corrections: What reports has he seen on the current prison population?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Reports from March this year showed the prison population peaking at 10,820. That number has been declining since April this year. Last Thursday, our prison population was 9,661—that’s down 1,159, or a reduction of more than 10 percent, in the last nine months. This change hasn’t happened by accident. It has come about through innovative programmes and proactive engagement, and by simply helping people to navigate their way through the system.

Ginny Andersen: Has the decline in the prison population had any effect on the safety of our communities?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: No. When this Government announced its intention to reduce the prison population, some suggested that it was impossible, was reckless, and would make New Zealanders less safe. I’m happy to say that while the prison population has been decreasing, so has the number of victimisations recorded by police, which has fallen by 3.5 percent—that’s 1,304 fewer crimes against a person. Maybe what could be considered reckless and unsafe is instead the Opposition scaremongering over the reforms—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member can’t use a patsy question to attack the Opposition.

Ginny Andersen: What actions has he taken to reduce the prison population?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: To be clear, the people who should be in prison are in prison. The changes we have made have improved people’s access to justice. It involves simple things: helping illiterate people fill in bail forms, giving people access to their phones so they can supply the phone numbers needed for the bail process, and getting prisoners better ready for parole hearings. People that end up in prison have their freedom taken away as a punishment for their crimes; our job, as Corrections and as a Government, is to help them and their whānau while they do their time, so that when they leave prison they never come back.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he think that there’s a serious problem and, if so, what’s he going to do about it, when prison numbers are going down in accordance with the Government’s plans and programme, as he said, and yet 143,000 people signed a petition, delivered today at Parliament, calling for tougher sentences around the death of Nathan Kraatskow?

SPEAKER: Order! Hang on. I’m trying to work out the responsibility of the Minister of Corrections for this justice issue. Maybe the member could try rephrasing it.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does he think that there is a serious problem and, if so, what will he do about it, when his plans that he’s just outlined are seeing prison numbers go down, and yet today a petition’s been delivered to this House with 143,000 signatures, seeking tougher sentences, given the death of Nathan Kraatskow?

SPEAKER: The Minister can answer the first part of the question. He has no responsibility for the second.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The prison population has gone down because corrections has sought efficiencies and effectiveness within the system. No laws have been changed, and it’s only in the National Party where efficiency, effectiveness, and the saving of taxpayer money is seen as a bad thing.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the policy he’s implementing, effectively, fewer criminals, more victims?

SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has no responsibility for that.

Question No. 4—Prime Minister

4. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, and compliments of the season.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she stand by her statements in relation to the safety of Karel Sroubek’s estranged wife: “My expectation would be that if we had information brought to us that raised concerns around her safety, we act appropriately on that.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she stand by her statement in relation to Karel Sroubek’s estranged wife: “She asserted one thing when the process was in place—again, falsely—and said something else today.” and she has “changed her tune now.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, a range of questions have been asked and answered on my behalf, as well as to me directly. But, to clarify, of course, the action that was taken when—I believe on 31 October—I was first advised via a journalist of allegations that Mr Sroubek’s ex-wife’s safety may have been at risk was that I immediately raised that issue directly with the Minister of Immigration. This prompted the Minister to follow up. An investigation was launched, I understand, within 24 hours of that issue being raised directly with him.

Hon Paula Bennett: If that is the case, then why has she repeatedly since then, even on her behalf, actually denigrated the ex-wife and made her out to not be a victim?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do not believe that I have done that. When concerns around Mr Sroubek’s ex-wife’s safety were raised with me, I raised it directly with those who had the most direct contact and the ability to offer that support and investigation—that was with the Minister of Immigration. It also came to my attention further down the track that the member Mark Mitchell had raised concerns with the Minister of Police. As soon as I was aware of that I followed up with the Minister of Police to gain assurances that he also had appropriately followed up on those concerns, and I’m advised that that was also done.

Hon Paula Bennett: Was Iain Lees-Galloway or anyone in her ministry at any point advised about the prison phone call of Karel Sroubek with his estranged wife where he threatened to send somebody to talk to her and said “This makes me angry so much.” and “I’m going to [effing] let this go. [eff] off.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My understanding is that the Minister of Immigration was not aware that that phone call had taken place.

Hon Paula Bennett: Is she aware that questions to her from me on 8 November raised questions around this phone call, and was it followed up by any of those people whom she said did?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, it was followed up before that. As I said, the first time these issues were raised with me and my office—in more general terms; I don’t believe at that time it was specific as to say a phone call, but in general terms around the safety issues—was, as I say, I believe on 31 October. That same day, I raised it with the Minister of Immigration, and I understand within 24 hours he had officials following up on that issue.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she stand by her statement that Iain Lees-Galloway was the victim in all of this?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In my recollection, of course, that was a statement that was made, I think, in the context of a set of wider issues on my behalf when I was, unfortunately, unavailable in the House.

Hon Paula Bennett: Who does she believe: the drug-dealing thug Karel Sroubek, who claims that this is all just a property dispute, or his estranged wife, who was screamed at, threatened, and placed under police—

SPEAKER: Order! No prime ministerial responsibility for that.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think she’s made it clear in the past that, actually, in answers to questions in this House—

SPEAKER: Well, I should have ruled it out.

Hon Paula Bennett: Well then, does she stand by her previous statement that she asserted one thing in regards to the estranged wife, she asserted one thing when the process was in place—again, falsely—where she is saying that she doesn’t believe the ex-wife, and does she still stand by that?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I have reiterated, the moment that I heard these allegations, I acted. Of course I was concerned around any claims that were made around coercion, threats of violence—anything in that regard. I raised it immediately with the Minister of Immigration, who acted, and I understand work was undertaken straight away as a result of those allegations, as it should have.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have a situation where I’ve got her saying one thing in this House. Since then, I’m asking her if she still stands by that—

SPEAKER: You mean the Prime Minister?

Hon Paula Bennett: Yes, I do, sorry—the Prime Minister, sorry. I have the Prime Minister, who has said something in this House in recent weeks in regards to the ex-wife. I have the direct quote. I’m asking her if she still stands by it, the Prime Minister, and I can’t get an answer to that, and it is in quite contrast to the answer she’s giving me today.

SPEAKER: I’m going to ask the member to ask it again, but I also want to make clear that the Prime Minister indicated that the important answer was one given on her behalf, which does give her some room to move away.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t ask for a ruling today, but I do ask you to reflect. As someone that used to answer on behalf of a Prime Minister, it was made extremely clear to us that our words were not our own in this House when answering on behalf; they were certainly the words of the Prime Minister, and that is something I took very seriously.

SPEAKER: The member will resume her seat. I think the member has heard me say this to the Deputy Prime Minister when he’s been acting for the Prime Minister, as may have been indicated to that member on occasion: that the voice being used was not exactly the one that the Prime Minister would have used.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she stand by her statement in relation to Karel Sroubek’s estranged wife: “She asserted one thing when the process was in place—again, falsely—and said something else today.”, and she “has changed her tune now.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I have reiterated several times both what I have directly stated and the action that I have directly undertaken. Those have been utterly consistent. I cannot hand on heart answer now as to whether the Deputy Prime Minister, when answering on my behalf, knew of the actions I had undertaken directly with the Minister of Immigration when I was advised by a journalist of concerns for her safety, but I’m being utterly clear with the House now about the action that I took.

Hon Paula Bennett: Was the Deputy Prime Minister, when answering on her behalf, wrong to claim it like that?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, without having the full transcript and context of the conversation, what I am outlining here is, again, the direct action that I undertook, and I absolutely stand by that.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I acknowledge that it’s the second to last day, and it may be next year but I do think that we need a more solid ruling on when speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister, that those words are the words of the Prime Minister. If there needs to be a correction to that record, there is a tradition and a way to do that in this House.

SPEAKER: I don’t think we need an additional ruling; the rulings on the matter are very clear. If someone answers a question and it’s grossly wrong, then there’s an obligation for that to be corrected. If members came back, on both sides of the House, to correct every error they made, we would be spending a lot of time doing it.

Question No. 5—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The BNZ and Business New Zealand have released their Performance of Manufacturing and Performance of Services indices for November. The Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) showed the sector continued to expand faster than the historical average in November. The seasonally adjusted PMI was 53.5, underpinned by a pick-up in new orders to 56.3. Business New Zealand said the result “bodes well for the year to end on more of a positive note”. In addition, the Performance of Services Index showed the services sector also continued to expand in November. And in breaking news, the ANZ Business Outlook, a document much loved on the other side of the House, saw business confidence rise 13 percent and own activity up by 6 percent—a little Christmas cheer for the Opposition.

Tamati Coffey: What reports has he seen on business conditions in New Zealand?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yesterday, the BNZ published the results of its new Business Banker Survey, showing positive business conditions in quarter four. The index measured overall business conditions at plus-17 due to strong trading conditions and profitability—this was stronger than in Australia. Business confidence came in at plus-four, in line with levels reported in Australia. In addition, capital expenditure conditions measured plus-15. These results show that businesses recognise that the economy is in good health and that now is a good time to invest, which supports our plan for more productive growth. That being said, we recognise that the biggest influence on confidence in the survey was the availability of suitable labour. That’s why we are working with businesses to address gaps through programmes such as Mana in Mahi and the skills shift initiative in the manufacturing sector being led by ManufacturingNZ.

Tamati Coffey: How do these reports align with recent Treasury forecasts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: These reports are consistent with Treasury’s recent forecasts in the 2018 Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, which shows serious momentum in the economy over the next few years. GDP is forecast to grow by around 3 percent per year into 2021, underpinned by investment, productivity, and wage growth. This shows the coalition Government’s plan to help transition the economy to being more productive, more sustainable, and more inclusive is working well.

Question No. 6—Finance

6. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Can he confirm HYEFU 2018 shows that, when compared to PREFU 2017, core Crown tax revenue is forecast to be $17.7 billion higher over the period 2018/19 to 2021/22?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The short answer to the member’s question is: no. The slightly longer answer is that Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2017 does not contain a forecast for the 2021/22 year but rather a projection that is based on a mathematical model. Forecasts are subject to a much more rigorous approach than projections, and therefore it is not appropriate to compare the two periods as the member attempts to do in her question.

Hon Amy Adams: I seek leave to table a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library that compares the core Crown tax revenue over the four years in the primary question and calculates the difference in each year.

SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

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

Hon Amy Adams: Is he aware that $5.1 billion of the extra tax has been added to the projections in just the six months since Budget 2018 when real economic growth over those same four years is now forecast as being lower than was provided for in the Budget just six months ago?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I don’t have that number in front of me, but what I have been advised is that the vast bulk of the lift in revenue actually comes because people are earning higher wages and there are more jobs—something to celebrate.

David Seymour: Has his rapacious overtaxation of hard-working Kiwis—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat.

David Seymour: Point of order.

SPEAKER: No. The question is out of order, the member knows it, and I’m not taking any argument.

Hon Amy Adams: Given the Minister’s reference to wages, is he aware that in the half year update, real wage growth forecast for the next four years has also declined since Budget 2018?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What they say is that wages will grow an average of around 3 percent a year, which is a significant improvement and lift on the record of the member’s Government.

Hon Amy Adams: I raise of point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked very specifically about real wage growth. He answered about a different set of numbers, which are nominal wage growth. The Minister of Finance, I’m sure, knows the difference.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No, I was going to add to the answer if that’s—

SPEAKER: Well, if the member wants to—away you go.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It may well show that, but that’s because those forecasts do get revised between the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update and the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update. They still represent good, solid wage growth for New Zealanders.

Hon Amy Adams: Does he still stand by his statement made earlier this year: “We’re actually transitioning away from an economy based on population growth.” in light of the half year update showing economic growth per person is lower every single year over the forecast period than the average over the five years before he took office?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We most certainly are in the transition that the member talks about in her question, and it’s a transition that, as I’ve said many times, will take some time. We can’t make up for nine years of neglect in one year, but what we are seeing is a Government that is finally committed to investing not only in the transition to an economy that’s got a lower carbon output, but also to one where we actually include people all over New Zealand, including in the regions.

Hon Amy Adams: Isn’t the real story of last week’s half year update that growth and growth per person forecasts are down, inflation and the cost of living have gone up, and, despite all of that, the amount of tax New Zealanders are having to hand over to the Government has gone up significantly?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. The real story of the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update is that the Government is managing the books well, is making sure that we’re investing in the things that matter to New Zealanders, and is that we have got a vision for an economy where everyone gets to share in prosperity.

Question No. 7—Regional Economic Development

7. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Does he stand by all of his responses to Oral Question No. 3 on 5 December 2018; if not, why not?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Yes. On said day, I identified, indirectly and directly, 4,000 jobs. I can report that that has now grown to 7,000 jobs.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Was the figure of 4,000 new jobs, now 7,000, created by the Provincial Growth Fund so far, supplied by an official, or was it based on his own arithmetic?

Hon SHANE JONES: The process of job creation is organic. Job creation is a reflection of demand, and demand grows once capital is invested. Substantial amounts of capital are being deployed into the regions. The point at which a job is created and then filled—there could be a slight time period between the two.

SPEAKER: No, no, the member might’ve added some fertiliser to the organic approach, but he didn’t answer the question.

Hon SHANE JONES: Well, I can assure you, I won’t tax it. Those officials found—those reports—and I’m advised by my officials, both the 7,000 figure and the 4,000 figure.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Of the 4,000 jobs he states have been created by the Provincial Growth Fund so far, how many new, permanent full-time jobs have been filled to date?

Hon SHANE JONES: As I said, the Provincial Growth Fund makes decisions shared by four Ministers. Funds are allocated, and then as projects grow, as they navigate through resource consent requirements, and as they put together business propositions, then it is our estimation over the life, such as the Tai Rāwhiti roading project of five years, that figure will be achieved. As of today, that figure is not as large as I indicated because many of the projects are still in implementation stage.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Are you satisfied with that answer? I asked how many have been filled to date, and he said—he didn’t really give an answer to that at all.

SPEAKER: Well, I think he did say, “not as many as I previously indicated”.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Would that figure be closer to 100 or 200?

Hon SHANE JONES: We have a situation where two parliamentarians are looking at numerical data. It is not unlike two parliamentarians studying an elephant: one sees tusks; the other sees a vacuum cleaner. The process is still being implemented, and it’s unwise to pick a figure at a time where the regions, the business leaders, and the civic leaders are implementing the projects being funded by the Provincial Growth Fund.

SPEAKER: No, I’m going to ask the Minister to answer the question.

Hon SHANE JONES: Sorry?

SPEAKER: Answer the question, please.

Hon SHANE JONES: The question is, is it 100 or 200?

Hon Members: Closer to.

Hon SHANE JONES: Yes. Was it closer to 100 or 200, was that it?

SPEAKER: That’s roughly the question, yes.

Hon SHANE JONES: So, roughly, the answer is 200 and above.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How can we have confidence in a Minister who uses Parliament to trumpet 4,000 jobs created so far when he has no idea how many permanent jobs have actually been filled right here, right now for all the millions that he spent?

Hon SHANE JONES: I repeat that since the Provincial Growth Fund, a highly successful and popular policy, has been implemented and acclaimed by every regional leader, obviously it takes time before this fiscal tree takes root, and as the projects are implemented, then we will achieve our figure of 7,000, but jobs are an organic feature of the economy.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’d ask you to have a look at the transcript of the series of answers just been given to those questions, as it would seem that he was asked initially “Does he stand by the 4,000?” He says, “Yes, but I’m updating it to 7,000.” and then has gone on to explain that, actually, “Well, it may not be 7,000 just now; it could be at some future time. I’m not sure about when it’s going to be.” Now, the public, of course, will draw their own conclusions about all of those things, but it is a little disappointing that that sort of cavalier approach comes on a day where you appear to have ruled that Speakers’ rulings 175/6, 7, 8, and 9 are no longer to be relied on by the Opposition. So if we cannot have a situation where a Minister acting for a Minister speaks for the Minister, as is required—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! No, the member will resume his seat. He’s not seriously going back to a matter that I’ve ruled on 20 minutes ago?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, of course not.

SPEAKER: No, he certainly won’t.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, I won’t.

SPEAKER: Well, don’t refer to that again.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Of course I can refer to your ruling. It would be ridiculous if I can’t—

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. I made a ruling earlier, and, actually, even then it would have been disorderly for the member to challenge it. To come to the party 20 minutes later to be disorderly, to me, is just outrageous, especially on what is clearly a pretext around this answer, which had no relationship to the matter that he’s now raising. The member knows—he’s been round here for a long time—that points of order are to be made immediately, and they’re not to be made 20 minutes later, when the member thinks he has a point.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to my point of order—

SPEAKER: No, no, the member will resume his seat.

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

SPEAKER: A further, unrelated point of order, Mr Brownlee.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I can’t say it’s unrelated, because you haven’t dealt with my point of order.

SPEAKER: Well, if the member can’t say it’s unrelated, he will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Mr, Speaker, I’ve got a point of order. I think you should hear it, and you’re not—

SPEAKER: I’ve heard you say that now at least four times, and I have instructed you to resume your seat.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, let me finish my point of order.

SPEAKER: No.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, that is just a waste of time being here.

SPEAKER: Well, that might be the member’s opinion, and others might share it.

Question No. 8—Social Development

8. PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: What evidence, if any, is there of the success of the Ministry of Social Development’s service delivery changes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): We’ve seen clients overwhelmingly positive about front-of-house changes. The eligibility guide has had 166,000 visits since its launch, in June. Manual suspensions and cancellations have dropped by 42 percent. We’ve forged 26 new partnerships with industry employers and have extended 10 existing partnerships. We’ve had a decrease in the number of reviews of decisions over the last year, compared to the year before, and over 75 percent of Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff report feeling much safer with the new security measures being implemented. There is so much more to do, but one year in and we know we’re heading in the right direction.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What feedback has the Minister received about those changes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: At a recent meeting with social service providers in West Auckland, I was told that they feel more confident now that their clients’ issues will be resolved when sending them to Work and Income. We’re now regularly receiving positive feedback on people’s experiences with MSD. In fact, one client wrote to MSD recently to say “Thank you, Work and Income, for giving staff further training in customer service. I’ve really noticed the difference in how I’m treated when I go into the office or need to call the contact centre. Keep up the great mahi.” There’s still more to do but, with the support of our hard-working MSD staff, we’re definitely on the right track.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Why are these changes important?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The Ministry of Social Development provides much-needed support to over 1 million New Zealanders every year, from all walks of life. The reality is that most New Zealanders, for one reason or another, will interact with MSD over their lifetime, whether that’s through study, when looking for work, or when they reach retirement age. New Zealanders deserve to experience a service that treats them with respect and dignity no matter their personal circumstances, and through our efforts to improve service delivery, we are well on our way towards that goal.

Question No. 9—Housing and Urban Development

9. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many KiwiBuild houses have been sold in Te Kauwhata, and what measures, if any, has the Government taken to improve its ability to sell KiwiBuild homes?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): As I told the member last week, I’m advised that no unconditional sale and purchase agreements have been entered into so far at Te Kauwhata. However, as the homes are not built until 2020, I’m advised that that’s not unusual. No specific changes have been made to the way KiwiBuild sells homes, and I’m confident that the homes at Te Kauwhata will be sold during construction or once they are completed.

Andrew Bayly: Will the decision to increase the price cap for a HomeStart grant to $500,000 allow KiwiBuild buyers in Te Kauwhata to potentially access a subsidy of up to $20,000?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.

Andrew Bayly: What Budget allocation will the cost of these HomeStart grants to KiwiBuild house buyers come from?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The additional cost projected for the raising of the price caps for HomeStart and Welcome Home is estimated to be approximately $3 million a year. That will be funded within the existing KiwiSaver deposit subsidy and Housing New Zealand budgets.

Andrew Bayly: Does that mean he is, effectively, using the HomeStart grant Budget allocation as a way to subsidise the purchase of KiwiBuild houses in Te Kauwhata?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, it means we’ve fixed an anomaly in the HomeStart and Welcome Home price caps. We’ve now made those homebuyer supports available to an expected extra 230 first-home buyers around the country.

Jamie Strange: What other changes has the Government made to help first-home buyers in rural centres like Te Kauwhata to buy KiwiBuild homes?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Housing New Zealand’s HomeStart grant and Welcome Home loan house price caps for new builds in areas outside the main centres are increasing, from $450,000 to $500,000, to match the KiwiBuild price cap. Regional New Zealand is the big winner out of these changes, particularly areas such as the Waikato, Northland, the Hawke’s Bay, and Otago. All these areas have relatively high house prices, so moving the cap will help young families in these areas the most.

Question No. 10—Foreign Affairs

10. Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Has he made a decision whether New Zealand will sign up to the United Nations global compact for migration?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs): On behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the member continues to display a fundamental misunderstanding of the diplomatic processes that apply. There is no document to be signed; there is a vote.

Hon Todd McClay: Why has the Government not yet been able to make a decision, given he has had the draft text of the UN compact since July?

Hon DAVID PARKER: On behalf of the Minister, because we are carefully checking all of the facts, including the irresponsible and incorrect assertions that this somehow curbs the sovereignty of countries that vote for the compact.

Hon Todd McClay: Can the Minister of Foreign Affairs confirm that the Government have been negotiating the compact since February, they’ve had the draft text since July, adopted it in Morocco last week, and are actually just keeping Kiwis in the dark until after Parliament has lifted for the summer recess?

Hon DAVID PARKER: On behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, no. I can confirm that the gymnastics of the Opposition, who signed up to the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants on—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Stop telling lies.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —19 September 2016—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. Mr Brownlee will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, it should be something that you would pick up, if someone is putting a gross mistruth to the Parliament.

SPEAKER: The member will now stand, withdraw, and apologise again.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Because it seems the rules are changing, could you advise the House what we do if a Minister stands up and says something that is grossly untrue?

SPEAKER: If the member is convinced that a Minister said something that is grossly untrue and it is a deliberate act, he writes me a letter. The member has been here since 1996; he knows that and is being disorderly in asking the question.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the circumstances, sir, I seek leave to table the resolution adopted by the general assembly on 19 September 2016, which is titled the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which the National Party, in Government, voted in favour of.

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

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

Hon Todd McClay: Was the Prime Minister correct on NewstalkZB this morning when she said that it’s Winston Peters who would be making the decision to sign the UN compact later this week and not Cabinet?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I have seen the transcript of that interview, and that is an improper characterisation of it. [Interruption] It’s an incorrect characterisation of it. Can I further—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. I’m going to let the Minister answer the question, but I don’t want him to in any way imply that it was a deliberate misquoting of the Prime Minister, because if that was the case, that would also be a breach of privilege, and the Minister can’t do that by implication. So I’d ask the Minister to just take care with his words.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It’s very clear in past Speakers’ rulings that where there is an assertion in a question, a Minister is absolutely at liberty to reject the assertion, which is what the Minister did. I don’t think he said that the member had been deliberately misleading. He said it was a mischaracterisation. He is challenging the assertion; that is absolutely a legitimate thing for a Minister to do.

SPEAKER: The Leader of the House does have a good point, but I think in the circumstances of today I’ll just ask people to take care.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Further, sir, I would say that if New Zealand does take the decision, which is likely to be made by the end of the week, to vote in favour of the resolution, I’m advised that the countries likely to vote in favour of the resolution are on that sheet [Holds sheet] and the countries in the world likely to vote against it, on that [Holds sheet]. The National Party is very lonely in their populist gymnastics.

Dr Duncan Webb: Would supporting the compact bind the New Zealand Government on future immigration policy or otherwise limit the sovereignty of the current and future Governments?

Hon DAVID PARKER: On behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, because of the falsehoods that have been spread about this compact, the Government has sought legal advice on its effect to be absolutely sure that supporting the compact would in no way restrict or limit New Zealand’s sovereignty, including our ability to set our migration policies. So the answer to the question is no.

Hon Todd McClay: Does he agree with the statement that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, made to media that the problem with these non-binding agreements is over time they become binding; and, if so, will he inform his Cabinet colleagues of his long-held position on UN agreements?

SPEAKER: I’m going to remind the member that he is, I think, speaking as Winston Peters at the moment.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you, Mr Speaker—that gives me considerable latitude. The first point to make would be that I’m sure that the Minister of Foreign Affairs was speaking in respect of treaties. This is not a treaty. The second point I would make is that the reversal by the National Party on its earlier position is desperate, opportunist flip-flop, which appears to show that the National Party takeover by Judith Collins is just about complete.

SPEAKER: Question No. 11—Kiritapu Allan.

Hon Member: Is that in order?

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): My question is—

SPEAKER: Sorry, would the member resume her seat. There are questions about whether that was in order or not. It was, I think, a reasonable response to a pretty aggressive political question.

Question No. 11—Immigration

11. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Immigration: What announcements has he made regarding immigration policy today?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister of Immigration): This morning in Ashburton, I announced consultation on significant changes to temporary work visa settings. I proposed to move from a one-size-fits-all model to a more regional and industry-based approach. This involves better connections between the immigration, education, skills, welfare, and employment systems to deliver better labour market outcomes for everyone working in New Zealand.

Kiritapu Allan: How will the changes benefit regional business?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The proposals will result in a much simpler and easy to understand system for employers. We’ll also make it easier for employers with a proven track record of training and looking after their workers to recruit from overseas. I also propose to take a different approach to immigration regionally and recognise that Queenstown is different from Kaitāia, and both are different from Auckland.

Kiritapu Allan: How will the changes benefit working people?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The proposals provide greater scrutiny on risky employers and those who employ significant numbers of migrants. Alongside the Government’s work to detect and deter migrant exploitation, this will help to stamp out those unfair practices.

Kiritapu Allan: What feedback has the Minister received related to the proposals?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Upon my return to Parliament today, I received a petition and letter, hand delivered to me by the National Party MP Barbara Kuriger. The letter encouraged the Government to take immigration policies that differ from region to region, noting that it is archaic to suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to immigration can meet New Zealand’s needs, and stated that current policy settings are crippling regional communities, hindering industries, and dehumanising hard-working people. I thank the member for her advocacy in this matter.

Question No. 12—Corrections

12. Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Corrections: Does the prison population of 9,844 as at 30 November 2018 reflect the Government’s policy to have a 30 percent reduction in the prison population over the next 15 years?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Yes; so does the prison population of 9,661 as of 13 December 2018.

Hon David Bennett: When the Minister says there is no effect on the safety of communities with the 1,159 reduction in prisoners, what evidence does he have that none of those 1,159 released prisoners haven’t re-offended?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: First of all, it’s important to note that there have been no legislative changes, so the settings that we’re operating under are the same as were operating under the previous Government; we’re just being more efficient and effective. I am advised that 17 people who engaged with the bail support service or EM Bail Ready Advisers have reoffended while on bail, but bear in mind that between 21 October 2018 and 30 November 2018, 85 people engaged with these teams and none of them have been convicted for re-offending.

Hon David Bennett: How can the Minister reconcile his statement that there is no effect on communities and that when they leave prison they never come back when, on average, 32 percent of prisoners are re-imprisoned within 12 months of release and 47 percent are re-convicted within 12 months of release?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: It’s interesting, because I’m of the understanding that under their regime, some 60 percent of people reoffended within two years, so it’s already an improvement.

Hon David Bennett: When the Minister says all offenders that should be are in prison, then how can he guarantee this when many recently released remand prisoners are yet to be sentenced?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: It’s also important for the House to note that decisions to grant bail are made by a judge in court and not by corrections.

Hon Paula Bennett: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: No, the Opposition has used all its supplementary questions.

Bills

Child Poverty Reduction Bill

Children’s Amendment Bill

Third Readings

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Minister for Child Poverty Reduction): I move, That the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and the Children’s Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Mr—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I call Jacinda Ardern and I’m going to admonish Mr King, who is exceptionally rude and somewhat noisy. The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern will start again.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I want to start with a reflection on some comments I made in this place 10 years and two days ago to this day. And those were actually the words that I spoke in this Parliament for the very first time. I don’t often reflect on my maiden speech, but it occurred to me, when thinking about my long-held desire to progress child poverty legislation, that it was in that speech that I first reflected on my motivations to be in here in Parliament.

I’ve spoken often of some of the places that I grew up in in New Zealand and the influence that that had on my social conscience. I think the way that I referred to that in my speech at the time was “My passion for social justice came from what I saw; my love of politics came when I realised that it was the key to changing what I saw. And there is so much to change. The fifth Labour Government made good progress on what I believe must continue to be our focus: reducing poverty in this country. Labour lifted 130,000 children out of poverty through Working for Families, but that does not mean that many do not remain there still. I will not pretend that the response is simple; it is not. … These children are not part of an underclass, as I have heard them called; they are part of our community, and we have a responsibility to continue the momentum of the previous Labour Government and to finally rid ourselves of poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is our collective challenge.”

You know, when I think about it, the reference to a collective challenge is one of the things that I feel most proud of, because in this House today we are not doing this on our own. This is no longer just an initiative of the Labour Party, although I’m very proud of the role that we have played. This is now an initiative that has been led by a coalition Government with the support of New Zealand First and the Green Party. And it also is an initiative that has had the support of the National Party. I want to acknowledge that. This is this Parliament’s collective challenge, and the groups that have come together in Parliament today to support it in this House mean that it will have an enduring legacy—unless by some shock of nature the ACT Party’s vote grows beyond one. It is a collective challenge and it has been collectively responded to by this House and for that I acknowledge each and every one of you.

But there are many others that I wish to thank and that’s where I want to start my speech here today—and that is with a note of thanks. I want to thank the countless individuals, organisations, researchers, and academics who have worked tirelessly on the issue of child poverty and child well-being over a number of years. I want to thank and reflect on the work of the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. It was established by the Children’s Commissioner at the time, Dr Russell Wills, and it was chaired by Jonathan Boston and Tracey McIntosh. Now, they shifted the debate and brought focus and rigour to this issue. They were the first who drew on the child poverty legislation of the United Kingdom including Wales and proposed that we take a hybrid here in New Zealand. John Hancock, as I understand it, was one of the people who drafted the first chapter that suggested that the legislation that we will, essentially, pass in this House today should be constructed. And John, wherever you are right now, I acknowledge your work and the role you have played in getting us here today.

I also want to acknowledge a very special man to this place, to the Ministry of Social Development, to Parliament, and to all Ministers who have ever engaged with him—Bryan Perry. No one knows numbers like Bryan. He has been critical in making sure that we have produced a robust document here that does what it attempts to do, and that is to hold ourselves to account. I also want to acknowledge the current Children’s Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, for his enduring commitment to improving the lives of children, and the members of the Social Services and Community Committee who worked on the bill—and the more than 600 submitters—and took on board the recommendations of many in making alterations to this bill.

So what does it do? It creates a legislative framework aimed to ensure that successive Governments—and with its cross-party support, I truly believe it will be successive Governments—are transparent and held to account in reducing child poverty. It recognises that we must have an enduring commitment in this area if we are to see long-term systemic change and ensures that we will have independent reporting to ensure progress is made. It sets out measures that accord with international standards and scorecards and it does so by setting four primary and six supplementary measures against which Government’s performance can be judged.

The four primary measures are made up of two income, one material hardship, and one persistence measure—the income measures applied both before and after deducting housing costs. They will ensure that they give us adequate information to know what policies will make the biggest difference to children and their families. Successive Governments will be required to set three-year intermediate and 10-year long-term targets for each of the primary measures. Governments will not be required to set targets for the supplementary measures; it is up to them how far their ambition goes and the Government Statistician must, independently of Ministers and Government, report annually on the rates of child poverty against all those measures.

Significantly, the legislation amends the Public Finance Act—I knew I would get my way in there somehow—so that on Budget day the Government reports on its progress towards reducing child poverty and how the Budget contributes to that goal. It also establishes a dedicated child well-being strategy, which requires Governments to make a commitment to ensure that all of New Zealand’s children can thrive and that we fulfil this Government’s goal of being the best place in the world to be a child.

I don’t want to underestimate the power and importance of the child well-being strategy. Measuring poverty is one thing; setting goals to reduce poverty is another, but making sure that we have an action plan that captures the voice of children is critical. We have undertaken to engage children in that process, and we’re undertaking that work now. I acknowledge the Child Wellbeing Unit and the Child Poverty Unit for the work that they are doing out of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet alongside Oranga Tamariki and the Minister for Children.

Here is just a small handful of some of the postcards that have been written directly to me as part of that process. Yes, I am reading every single one of them. The message that they send is really clear. They’re concerned about everything from mental health and the well-being of their peers to whether or not their peers have enough food to eat, enough money in the household to thrive, to participate, to feel like they’re making the most of their talents and their opportunities. From time to time, they send me their Instagram handle as well and ask for a cheeky follow. But either way, this is capturing the voices of children, and it is critical to the work that we do.

This legislation is pioneering. It is unashamedly bold. We have already, alongside that, I think, set bold targets—10-year targets that will, essentially, halve the rate of child poverty in New Zealand. These will be ambitious targets to meet, but if we are successful it will place us amongst some of the lowest levels of child poverty amongst countries that we would compare ourselves to. But, more importantly than that, it will make a substantial difference to the lives of children and their families.

We’ve already started. The Families Package—$5.5 billion of investment—means that, once fully rolled out, over 380,000 families will be on average $75 a week better off; the winter energy payment—over 700,000 people, many of whom will be on low incomes and have children, will benefit; free doctors visits for under-14s, thanks to New Zealand First; the mental health strategies we’ve been rolling out for under-25s, thanks to the Green Party; nurses in schools, which we put in last Budget; making sure housing standards are lifted so that children are warm and dry in their homes; and making sure that we increase the number of State and public housing for those who need it most.

Ultimately, we are focused on making sure that we can stand proudly and say we’re a Government that cares for the most vulnerable. But who better to sum up why we do work like this than someone like Nelson Mandela. He said that “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice.” Thank you to everyone who’s been involved in what I, ultimately, see as an act of justice. Kia ora koutou katoa.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): New Zealand is known—Aotearoa is known—as a pioneering nation. It’s known because the values that it has, over many, many years, over thousands of years—people have come here, and the conditions may have been hard, but we’ve toiled hard on the land and also, too, with the people to create success.

On 5 February 1966, a young New Zealand - born Cook Island boy was born into an old match-lining house, and it was three-bedroom. Match lining means there was no insulation. There was an outside toilet and no running hot water, and yet there were up to 12 to 15 people living in that house. It’s a classic story of migrants coming to this country, looking for a better future. That story tells of the classic story. The fact is that in those circumstances, though they were hard, though they were tough, there was an attitude amongst the people to succeed. The reason I preface that in this third reading speech around the Child Poverty Reduction Bill is that poverty is something that as a nation, we have struggled with, but it’s also, too, been an indication of some of the challenges that we have overcome as a nation to achieve some of the great results.

People talk about New Zealand, Aotearoa, as a country that’s punched well above its weight. It does so because we face these hardships with this attitude of can-do: we can achieve; we can overcome. So when we deal with this issue around poverty, one of the challenges that we have is that, on one hand, we have this character, this nature, this value that we have, this characteristic that actually underlies and is the foundation of who we are as a country and as a people, but, at the same time, too, we have these challenges of material hardship and also poverty that exist in our country. So I preface that because as we journey through this together—the coalition as the Government of the day, with support from National on this side—we do so carefully and cautiously. There are a number of reasons for that. We don’t want to do away with that hardship that has made us who we are today. We don’t want to do away with, at times, some of the struggles, but what we do want to be sure of is that children in this instance don’t become disadvantaged because of those issues and don’t come into a situation where they cannot achieve their potential, and we know the results of that will make a difference in their case.

As we have progressed through this bill, can I also, too, say that this has been an issue that has challenged Governments over a longer period of time. I want to refer to Bryan Perry, who was commented on by the Prime Minister in regards to the work that he had completed. In 2017, he completed some work, and inside of that work he also connected us to some of the past challenges of dealing with this issue. In 2000 to 2009, there were the child well-being surveys, which wanted to measure and monitor what some of the challenges were that were being faced. I have to say, under the National Government, in 2012, the Child Poverty Monitor technical report was established so that we could get a better handle on where the areas were that we could invest in, hence the reason social investment was part of that as well. The Prime Minister indicated around subsidies for children into healthcare and so forth—that was initiated by a National Government.

So, in saying these things, I want to indicate that the fact is that this challenge is nothing new; it’s been happening for some time. Each Government of the day will be challenged with this, but what we are now saying is that as a whole of Government, bar one, we are supporting this direction, but we hold it tentatively. We hold it tentatively because even though we see these are the measures to measure poverty and the reduction of poverty, we know the measures in themselves will not be the only results. I want to quote from Julie Chapman, the CEO from KidsCan, in her submission, where she highlighted that a measure alone would not only be the difference. You see in Bryan Perry’s report that he talks about the Government framework—which, by the way, was established under a National-led Government—and says “Let’s look at what that framework looks like.”

When we’re talking about poverty, we’re taking two key areas of indicators: we’re talking about income and we’re talking about material hardship. We talk about before household income and after household income—income in, income out. We’re talking about how we measure material hardship, and inside of those, these are some of the indicators. But Bryan Perry also, too, wants to remind us that that is not the only indicator that we need to be mindful and thoughtful of in our monitoring in the changes that we perceive. In fact, in his report, he talks about a framework that also takes into account what he calls “other factors”—not quite technical in its name. What are some of those other factors? They talk about family, they talk about whānau, and they talk about community. They even talk about other issues in which there is an attitude that people have in their prioritisation and how they live their lives and how they use their resources—some of the areas that we don’t quite like to get into because it may seem like a judgment, but they are critically important. That’s what he would call the non-income measures that are important for us. We don’t often talk about them. I want to mention these in the House because I think these are critically important for us to be mindful of.

While we have these two other measures that are important, we’ve supported them. Why? That’s because on this side, we know social investment has given us a framework to look at how we monitor and measure those. So those targets that have been set are critically important. We want to ensure that the Government of the day will ensure that they set the targets. They are multi-targets that will allow them to measure everything from health to education, which we think are critically important to the overall well-being of children as well. I think those things are critically important as well. We know that, for instance, for us, we think about those targets.

Another area that has been important under the “other factors” that Bryan Perry talks about is what support we’re giving to whānau and family. The best welfare system is actually the whānau system—it’s the family system. We believe in that. We adhere to that. We think that’s critically important. So we think that while we’re monitoring and measuring these areas, we want to encourage the coalition Government of the day to look at what supports are given to ensure that whānau and family—we’re not just talking about income, we’re not just talking about raising benefit levels; we’re talking about other supports that we know other organisations have. NGOs have continued to say in their submissions that it’s not just about the income; it’s also about how parents and whānau can care for each other in that area as well. So we think that’s critically important. We want to make sure we do that.

We’re looking forward to the Whānau Ora report that will come through as well. We think that’s important because, on this bill, one of the other key areas of indicators that we think are important to pay our mind and our attention to is those for Māori. We are encouraged by the fact that the Minister for Māori Development is factored into the consultation around the strategy as well, but also, too, around the Treaty of Waitangi. Now, again, there is more work that we think can be done here, because if we are going to do something different—if there is a point of difference—we would like to support the development of saying: how can we let Māori present their cases for Māori? Whānau Ora is a case that we think we absolutely support and endorse, as well, as we’re moving ahead in that regard.

As I begin to close my comments on this legislation, as I said before, one of the big challenges—and I said this in my second reading speech, actually—for the Prime Minister is the potential to hold this slightly, because the potential of this is the stigma that could be created. When we tag a poverty indicator to an income, there is the potential around that. When I think about a lot of our families who are migrant families who came here, they had low-paying jobs. They didn’t have much. In fact, in Bryan Perry’s report, what he also indicates is this: low incomes do not necessitate hardship. That’s what he said. So let’s be careful that we don’t tag the poverty indicator to an income that means people who are working hard, who are doing the best that they can to raise their families, and who actually do really well—they look after their family, they have them go to church, and they do other things like that that make sure their children have the best start in life. I would have to say there are many of us, and I will put my hand up as one of those, where my parents didn’t have much but they had an attitude that made sure that we would be successful and that we would do well. I think those are critically important as well.

What I want to finish off with is, again, when I think about what these changes are to the people that are out there—the NGOs that are working incredibly hard, people in our communities and with our whānau. The fact is that, actually, when they can look at the focus not only of this whole of Parliament working collectively together to be able to focus on income, focus on material hardship—things that we would indicate as well—I want to remind them that the fact is this: the foundation of this country was built on a pioneering spirit. That means that regardless of the hardships that we faced, we had an attitude that we would overcome any of those adversities that we had, and I think that’s critically important.

The reason for the season is the fact is that, actually, there’s a young child that was born in hope. Out of children—out of this hope—throughout the whole of the country and also throughout the nations around the world, we hope, too, that people will enjoy this Christmas, and that, out there, the families that may have been doing it hard will remember that the focus of that is to remember that children are the paramountcy of who we are—they are our future; they are also our present challenges—and also the responsibly they have before them. We do support this legislation and its intent and all that it may achieve into the future for New Zealand. I commend this legislation to the House.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): It’s a privilege to be speaking on the third reading of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill—now the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and Children’s Amendment Bill. The legislation reflects this Government’s commitment to the children of New Zealand. It embodies our focus on prioritising our tamariki and outlines how the well-being of children will be upheld now and for generations to come.

I really want to take this time to acknowledge the Prime Minister and our Minister for Child Poverty Reduction, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, who led the work on these bills and, as has already been indicated through the words that she used in her speech and from the time that she has been in Parliament, who has been committed to ensuring that as a Government and as a Parliament we genuinely work to address the issue of child poverty in this House. So I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister for that.

I also want to thank everyone who has contributed to this work: the policy analysts and officials, my colleagues in Government and on the other side of the House, the Social Services and Community Committee, children advocates from across the country and across various sectors, and the over 600 people who provided their feedback through the select committee process.

The feedback we have received throughout this process has resulted in what we perceive as being the best possible legislation that really does put children at the centre of what this Government does. It holds us all accountable for the well-being of our young ones. The experiences shared by the submitters during the select committee process emphasised the importance of acknowledging the specific needs of different groups of children.

As a result of this, we have made changes to align the child well-being strategy with the international obligations we have as a country, including fulfilling our requirements under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Alongside this, the legislation now requires child poverty reporting to include particular population groups of interest, specifically Māori children, and, if the data is available, other groups such as Pacific and children with disabilities. This is a really important acknowledgement that, actually, some groups in this country are overrepresented amongst those in poverty.

As the Minister for Disability Issues, I’ve been hearing firsthand that families of children with disabilities often face increased financial hardship due to the high and fluctuating costs of services and supports. This is why it is crucial that we take real steps to improve the accessibility and inclusivity of Aotearoa. All of our children deserve to have their rights and well-being upheld. For our children with disabilities or health issues, having access to the right supports and feeling like a part of the community is so incredibly important. One of our next steps, as we continue to develop our child well-being strategy, will be to set out how we can keep making progress for children with disabilities so that they can live their best lives.

In addition to developing a child well-being strategy, this legislation also requires Government to report, each Budget day, on progress made in reducing child poverty and on how measures in the Budget will affect child poverty. This legislation will also put in place a measurement framework for child poverty and establish four primary and six supplementary measures of child poverty. Overall, this legislation will establish an enduring legislative framework for Government action on child poverty and ensure transparency and accountability for progress in reducing it. This really is a transformational piece of legislation that solidifies our commitment to a better future for our children.

One thing that I’m especially proud of is the ambition that we’ve demonstrated as a Government. We are unashamedly setting goals to halve child poverty in 10 years. The three long-term goals we’ve set for ourselves are: to reduce the proportion of children in low-income households before housing costs from roughly 15 percent of all children to 5 percent; reduce the proportion of children in low-income households after housing costs from around 20 percent to 10 percent; and then to reduce the proportion of children in material hardship from between 13 and 15 percent now to 7 percent.

We all know in this House that child poverty imposes considerable social, emotional, physical, and economic costs. There is robust evidence that growing up in poverty can harm children in multiple predictable, substantial, and often sustained ways. Addressing child poverty is essential not only to secure the well-being of children in the here and now but also to invest in their futures and improve their future outcomes. However, what I know from working with my colleagues on this side of the House is that we are actually primarily driven by a moral imperative to make a better New Zealand for our children. In fact, our Government is so driven by this that we have explicitly stated, on a number of occasions, that making New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child is a priority for us.

We’ve already started taking real steps to address some of the hardship that we see in our community. Our Families Package, which was implemented on 1 July this year, will improve incomes for 384,000 families by, on average, $75 per week and will lift 64,000 children out of poverty by 2021. Under the Families Package, 26,000 more people are eligible for Working for Families, providing extra support for families with children. There are 65,000 children who will benefit from the Best Start payment each year, with the Best Start payment providing additional support for families in those critical first three years of their child’s life. We’ve also increased the accommodation supplement, extended paid parental leave, and introduced a new winter energy payment to provide extra weekly support for parents and grandparents in winter.

The Child Poverty Reduction Bill is relevant across all Government agencies. All of us have a role to play. The Families Package measures that I’ve outlined include things that the Ministry of Social Development have been integral to implementing in the last year, but it doesn’t start and end there. There is also other work under way to create a better, fairer welfare system. Upholding and uplifting the well-being of children has been one of the key drivers behind this Government’s decision to overhaul the welfare system, and I acknowledge the Greens for ensuring that was part of our confidence and supply agreement. We’ve already started making positive changes on the front line to make sure people have positive interactions with Work and Income, feel that the environment is friendly, welcoming, and offers privacy, are provided with all the support they are eligible for, and are able to access financial support as early as possible.

I think, surely, we can all agree that if people are treated respectfully and provided with the supports and opportunities that are meaningful to them, the likelihood of success and positive outcomes increases. That has to be critical to the well-being of our children. While as a Government we are already taking so many steps to make New Zealand the best place to be a child, we all know there is more to do. This bill will help drive the work we do in the future and will create enduring and sustainable change that lasts for decades to come. This is an achievement we can all be proud of, and I am pleased to be able to be here today to see this monumental piece of legislation passed through this House. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m pleased to rise and speak in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill in its final reading. I want to just, first of all, put on record the way that our leader, Simon Bridges, was very clear at the outset of this work that he wanted to work constructively with the Government, with the Prime Minister, on this piece of legislation. That is really following on from former leaders of National, both in Opposition—the Rt Hon Bill English—and then the former Prime Minister Rt Hon John Key, and it’s great to see that there is a continued focus on improving the lives of children in New Zealand.

I wanted to just look at a couple of figures, because one of the challenges in legislation that comes before the House is that it’s got to be more than just what the intention is and it’s got to be about the immeasurable outcomes that that legislation enables. So one of the jobs of the Opposition—although we’ve absolutely constructively worked on the legislation, and I want to talk about a couple of key areas shortly—is to hold the Government to account. The Government has set some targets. One of the targets that the Opposition was a little concerned about was the level of aspiration in terms of the targets set around the number of children that would be lifted out of material hardship.

And we’ve actually just heard with the speaker prior, Carmel Sepuloni, a bit of a contradiction in terms of ambition. In a five-year period when National was in Government, we lifted 85,000 children out of material hardship. And this Government has committed to lifting only 70,000 children out of material hardship over a 10-year period. But what the Minister for Social Development has just said is, by 2021, the Families Package would lift 64,000 children out of material hardship, so it’s a little confusing that there would be then only 6,000 children from the period 2021 to 2028. So this side of the House is concerned about the level of aspiration—when 85,000 children were lifted out of material hardship over a five-year period, 70,000 in 10 years doesn’t seem high enough. But it’s the Government of the day; the legislation is drafted in a way that the Government of the day sets their targets. They’ve done that. So, as the Opposition, we will hold the Government to account for the outcomes for those children, and the New Zealand public can rely on us for doing that.

As everybody knows—and only too well, those who work and listen to their constituents across the electorates—poverty isn’t just about lifting incomes. Again, the member who spoke before me talked about two of the three targets that were related to incomes. And what this side of the House is clear about are the other significant challenges that families face and the fact that it’s got to be a broader perspective than just about income. My colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro also very clearly made the point, which I think is important to repeat, that we don’t confuse the issue of households on low income—them kind of being in poverty—and being unable to provide a family environment as many Kiwi families do. We want to ensure that those families are supported.

I want to talk about the vulnerable families that are actually trapped in deprivation. Some of the things that trap them in deprivation include long-term benefit dependencies, low educational achievement, and also recidivist crime. That’s why one of the areas that we wanted to improve the legislation by was including child poverty - related indicators. And those who followed the work of the previous Government around the Better Public Service targets will recognise areas around housing, areas around health and education, child abuse, and crime that are all really indicators of a broader picture of poverty.

So what the Government of the day is able to do with these child poverty - related indicators being incorporated into this legislation is to choose which of those indicators—I’m optimistic that the Government will choose multiple indicators, not just one. As I said, housing, quality of housing, health, and education, because those are the areas that, if Government policy reflects on having an impact on that, will absolutely change the life course of the children that live in that household.

So it was a pity that, close to the time that the Child Poverty Reduction Bill was introduced, the Government got rid of the Better Public Service targets. And one of the things, as well as covering those child poverty - related indicator areas, was the Better Public Service targets had greater levels of accountability on the Government departments. This has been one of the debates that was had through the legislative process, that it’s one thing to have accountability on a Minister—and, in this case, it’s the Prime Minister who’s the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction—but, actually, where the work happens each and every day is the Government departments. And if you don’t have measures and accountability clearly and squarely on them, then the ability to produce the outcome, as opposed to just an intention, is watered down.

So, as I said, this legislation gives the Opposition and the New Zealand public the opportunity to measure the progress of the Government of the day. As I said, it’s not just about incomes. It’s got to be about improving health, improving education, improving our record on child abuse, as well as improving the number of households that rely on benefits.

The other area that I think is really important in terms of the way this legislation has been improved was the incorporation of social investment. So what we saw in the previous Government was quite a radical way of using data to drive innovation and tackle real problems for real families—very, very complex and hard-to-solve challenges, but social investment created absolutely the best tool kit to be able to understand both the context and the culture in which the poverty and hardship and dysfunction was occurring. The fact that that has been incorporated into this legislation as a Supplementary Order Paper that was initially lodged by my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro is important. And, again, he used the word “pioneering” in his speech—actually, the approach using social investment was also pioneering, and so I’m pleased that some of that has been incorporated into this bill, because, like the Government, the Opposition absolutely does want to ensure that every New Zealand child grows up happy, healthy, and with wonderful opportunities in front of them.

The other piece I want to just reiterate is that the family is absolutely the best form of welfare. Another area that the Opposition will be holding the Government to account on is the supposed welfare overhaul. As a Government that increased benefits in 2015, I was somewhat shocked that the Minister of Finance has come out and said that increases to benefits are off the table. So the Welfare Expert Advisory Group hasn’t even reported back. He said it’s off the table, and that was somewhat surprising because what we saw in 2015 was a marked increase in the ability of those families who were dependent on benefits to do better than they were. It’s also somewhat puzzling, given that those on the lowest incomes, I would have thought, would have been a priority and this Government’s well-being Budget, which, of course, it has spoken a lot about.

I want to finish my final comments on those that submitted on the legislation, but also they are often the same people that are working with our most vulnerable children and families on the front line. As we go into the Christmas season, I want to give a particular word of thanks to them and their organisations. Some of their workers are volunteers; some of them are paid. They do critically important work in our communities with our families. So I want to thank them for the work they do and to say that National is proud to support legislation that improves the lives of our most vulnerable children and we won’t shy away from holding the Government to account for their targets.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was going to start—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speaker.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Speaker. Beg your pardon. Sorry, I’ve just flown in. I’ve been down in Napier this morning, and I wanted to make sure that I was back here for the—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Suffering from jet lag.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Yes. Well, it’s only Napier. But it is almost Christmas. I wanted to be back here to make sure that I could contribute to the debate today in this final reading of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and subsequent legislation.

I was going to start my contribution saying how wonderful it is that there is no politics in this bill, but unfortunately just in the last contribution I can’t start with that now. But fair enough—fair enough to the honourable member, Carmel Sepuloni, who just finished her contribution. Can I then start by acknowledging the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, Minister for Child Poverty Reduction and Prime Minister. I want to acknowledge her because there is one thing that the Prime Minister and I share and that is a passion for New Zealand’s children and an absolute commitment to making what is currently New Zealand’s reality for some of our children different. We are decades apart in age but that doesn’t mean—and so my past is a little bit further away than the Prime Minister’s past, but we share that commitment to New Zealand’s children.

I also want to acknowledge Hon Alfred Ngaro, because he shares it also. He has a job to do as a member of the Opposition—having sat there for six years—his job is to make sure that—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’re back there soon.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: —this is not just about headlines. Thank you, Mr Smith for your Christmas contribution. It’s not just about headlines, that it actually becomes a reality. So I want to acknowledge the Hon Alfred Ngaro. It’s always interesting to sit here and listen to him speak, because he comes from such a place of truth; that combined has created a coalition of a Parliament, actually, to make sure that this legislation goes through.

I also want to make sure that I acknowledge the Hon Alfred Ngaro and his recognition of the coalition agreement between New Zealand First and the National Party back in 1996, which led to the healthcare that he referred to, which was free doctors’ visits and prescriptions for children under the age of six. So it is amazing what New Zealand First can do when we finally get into a place where others work with us.

But coming back to this piece of legislation, it is a pivotal moment—this is a pivotal moment. This is a moment where the New Zealand Parliament—this is not the first time in our nation’s history that we have had poverty, nor is this the first time in our nation’s history that a Government has come together to step in to do something about that poverty. But I think it’s one of the few times that a Parliament has said, “We acknowledge and we recognise, as all of the representatives in this House—almost all of the representatives in this House—that something must be done. We cannot set aside a real focus on a particular area.”

The Hon Louise Upston was absolutely right: poverty is affected by so many parts of what is Government decision making. That is why one of the pieces that falls out of this legislation that we’re passing today is the child and youth well-being strategy. We have had thousands of voices of children as part of the consultation around that child and youth well-being strategy. The Prime Minister held up some postcards that she had received directly from children to articulate their submissions into what is the current piece of legislation we’re talking about. The Children’s Commissioner, along with the units inside the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Oranga Tamariki, other youth panels, and so on, have made sure that the voice of children in this whole process has been clearly articulated.

This is a serious topic but it’s also a topic of hope. We’re in the season of what should be hope; a hopeful season. For some of our families it’s always a challenging time. But one of the things—and this is why I want to articulate what the children have told us at this time—one of the major things they ask for, probably number one at the top of their list, if they could have one thing from us for their parents, for their family, for their whānau, it was time. It was to give back time to their families so they could give it to them, their children. I ask for all those families that are going to be under stress during the season, I ask for all of those that we have yet to provide the housing for, the income for, the education for, the employment for, all those things that this Parliament will continue to strive to deliver for you, I ask for those of you who are under stress this Christmas to remember that, if nothing else, what tens of thousands of New Zealand children have said is the most important thing to them is time for you to spend with them. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it truly can be that simple. There are so many stresses that once we get this piece of legislation in place and we continue the work, whether it was started by this coalition Government or started under the previous, the fact we’ve come together to make a decision that we are going to move forward on it at this moment in the year is a powerful thing.

I’m not going to take up much more time because I think we need to get this passed, we need to collectively move on, and we need to remember and reach out to those at Christmas that we haven’t been able to take away that stress and that time for yet as a community, as a Parliament, and just as New Zealanders.

I do want to finish by acknowledging all those in this House that have come together in this moment, the Hon Alfred Ngaro who has led the way for the Opposition, for the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern who has led the way for the coalition Government, to acknowledge you and to say that this is a good thing we did here today, people. Kia ora. Thank you very much.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is indeed a great privilege, even an honour, to stand in the third and final reading today of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill.

I pay tribute to all of the speakers today. As the Hon Tracey Martin has said, there is very little politics involved in this debate. But I’d like to especially acknowledge the contribution of the Hon Alfred Ngaro, who spoke about his humble upbringing and the situation that he experienced as a child. I think there’s quite a few of us in this House who come from similar backgrounds, myself being brought up on an old railway house with not a great deal of money. But in those days we were poor but happy.

There’s no question that across this House we are all combined in our desire to bring our children of Aotearoa out of poverty. This bill certainly sets the way for us to begin that journey. This is a bill of the whole Parliament. I think this is actually an indication of where cross-party agreement really does good for New Zealand. This bill, as we’ve heard, actually sets on paper the direction of travel that the National Government was on its journey towards in lifting 100,000 children out of poverty. It was a collaborative approach to getting this bill to its introduction with the Prime Minister and the National Party leader Simon Bridges working very closely on some of the details that now form part of this bill that we are debating for the final time here today.

The issue of child poverty certainly transcends politics. We, on this side of the House, are very supportive of the move to enshrine the measures that are now embedded in this bill into legislation. It gives it longevity, and it gives it continuity across former Governments into the future. At the core of the bill are our tamariki, our children of Aotearoa, the most vulnerable that are in our society. So if we are to build a nation of successful and competent people then we must also begin with our children, and ensure that they can function without the stresses of poverty.

As part of the Social Services and Community Committee visit to Australia earlier this year, we were very fortunate to learn about the value of having longitudinal data. That data supports and guides decision making. So in that study that is being undertaken in Australia there are 10,000 families participating. In the study—it’s called Growing Up in Australia. It began in 2004 and is still ongoing. It covers a range of issues including health and physical development, social and emotional functioning, family circumstances and relationships, learning and cognitive development, and emerging adulthood. One of the glaring results that has come out of that study already is that the desire for children—the biggest priority that they had—was to feel safe and to be loved. The measures in this bill will actually give us some longitudinal data over time, and it will paint a picture for us.

Now, lifting child poverty is not just about achieving a one-off target; it’s actually about ensuring that the reduction in child poverty is sustainable, and we want to be able to hold ourselves up against other countries with low rates of child poverty, such as Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. So this bill is not the end; it is merely the end of the beginning, and the real work and commitment to lifting our game for our children starts after the passage of this bill. We must continue to work towards building an economy that creates good paying jobs and gets families off long-term welfare dependency. It is not all about the Government continually throwing money at that issue.

We must also continue to support those who struggle with either health challenges—mental or physical—or with disability. And I acknowledge the work and commitment from Alfred Ngaro during the select committee process, supported by his National Party colleagues, where we were adamant that this bill also reference New Zealand’s commitment to our international treaties and conventions, and they are now forming part of this bill. I refer to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to, and celebrate with, Dayaram Ganda and Jo Sholes of Greymouth, who’ve recently been recognised nationally with the Attitude ACC Employer Award, who employ staff with disabilities, and they now currently have 50 percent of their staff from the disabilities sector. So I congratulate you Dayaram and Jo, and your team at BP Greymouth.

We also require this legislation to set the legislative framework for lifting our children out of poverty. So this legislation is, in fact, the “what”, and what we are looking forward to now is the result and the outcome of the child well-being strategy, which is the “how”. And that is really the crux of the whole programme towards lifting our children out of poverty. Parliament is taking a major step forward today in the passage of this legislation, and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of the children in New Zealand a safe and very happy Christmas. I commend this legislation to the House.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koutou. I think we in this House understand that we are pleased to be standing in unison to support some real measures on finally actually understanding what is going on with children and whānau living with poverty and how we are going to have a set of indicators. This is a historical day on these third readings, and I think we’re in unison when we stand and rise to say that we are pleased—that we are honoured—to speak on this.

I think too there will be no disagreement when I say that I am not honoured to have to stand on this. I am not honoured that we have reached this situation of poverty here in Aotearoa, where our tamariki and whānau have called us to account and now we are sort of doing a bit of backlog work here. Things should never have gotten this bad. There is absolutely no excuse or reason why things have gotten this bad—why we have tamariki who are being sent to hospital from poor, inadequate, and unhealthy housing; why incomes and household incomes are so low that tamariki do not have all they need to live healthy, happy, dignified lives.

I think we all agree that this is not what we should be looking at today. The country, as it is today—we’ve just had the Child Poverty Monitor report come through—is not what we would want. So, yes, this is an incredible step. It’s a start that often frustrated former co-leader Metiria Turei in her particular work to bring a similar bill into the last Parliament, while we were in Opposition. I did, absolutely, in these third readings, want to acknowledge her and the longstanding call from the Green Party to at least commit to child poverty reduction targets, and it was with frustration that many, many times she stood in this House to ask the question again and again and again of at least committing to targets.

So, in that vein, I am incredibly proud of my colleague the right honourable Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty Reduction for taking this leadership step and bringing us to this point today, having a clear commitment, a clear reduction target across a range of indicators. And I firstly wanted to offer my sincere congratulations alongside the Hon Tracey Martin, who will have a particular leadership role under her ministerial portfolios in the area of child poverty reduction. I wanted to pick up on my colleagues—their leadership in this issue—because I have sat with them in the halls of Parliament and am truly satisfied and pleased with the absolute integrity and genuine commitment that they have as professionals, as politicians, and as human beings to this call to transform our nation to one that is fair.

I think that if we go to clause 45 of the Children’s Amendment Bill, inserting new section 6AC, I wanted to acknowledge that it stipulates that “children should be viewed in the context of their families, whānau, hapu, and iwi, other culturally recognised family groups, and communities.” And this is particularly relevant for me, as we heard this consistently through submissions, firstly, and always have, particularly from Māori, that while this is called the Child Poverty Reduction Bill we cannot separate children from their context, and if we are being truly honest, we are talking about children and their whānau—whatever that may look like—and community and their community’s ability, their family’s ability, to raise and nourish their children in a way that will sustain dignity, well-being, and happiness. And so I’m pleased to see that come through in this legislation—new section 6AC(c). So I wanted to pick that out.

I wanted to pick up on Minister Martin’s work to ensure that we had the lived experiences and insights of children included in the work to pull together the draft of this bill, and that is important. I’m pleased that we are constantly hearing, through this Government’s programme of reporting, reviews, and inquiries, a theme of: “We will do harm if we do not centre the voices of those with the lived experiences of the very problems we are trying to solve.” And so I wanted to acknowledge that that expertise—it is expertise that the children offer us—needs to be continuously called on and centred throughout the rest of our ongoing work. Now we’ve set the targets; now is the rest of the ecosystem structural work on what we do about those.

So going forward from this bill is then about the actions that we hopefully put through as a whole of House parliamentary team for the well-being of tamariki, and that is going to have to include systemic and transformational change across all of the other systems and public core agencies like education, health, housing, justice, and so on and so forth. We cannot—and I think there will be agreement—look at child poverty in a narrow vacuum; it is all relative and it is all connected. And, for that—I’m trying my hardest to be pleasant, but I think a little bit of politics is an order—I do pick up on the term “welfare dependency”. This is about people having adequate incomes. This is about the fact that we have kept incomes low, that house prices and rents are incredibly high, and that this is about having a social security system that ensures people live with dignity. That wealth is currently held in the arms of a few at the exploitation and on the backs of the majority, and so I want to challenge that firm dependency on welfare. Our country’s wealth has been dependent on low-income households and communities.

I want to acknowledge that poverty does not impact on everyone in the same way, and, again, this is why a strong, truly compassionate social security system is essential. I want to acknowledge that not having enough income will not be the same if you are a child with a disability. If you are already a low-income household, it will further accumulate that harm. If you are Māori, Pacific, refugee, or in poverty, we know—it’s very clear—that it impacts on those different groups differently, and for that reason, our measurements are going to have to take that into account.

Lastly, I wanted to pick up on the fact that it’s clear, too, that Māori children are disproportionately represented in struggle and hardship and in households that do not have enough. Many of the submissions picked this up as a breach of Te Tiriti—and the Greens absolutely support this—alongside the breaches of, for example, our human rights instruments for people with a disability. We will continue to breach a range of human rights agreements that we have actually signed up to a long time ago if we do not at least acknowledge the different effects that poverty has on different groups of people.

With that, I’m incredibly pleased to see these bills coming to their third readings today. I look forward in the new year to all of us working together to pick up the work to actually reduce poverty for children and their whānau. Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker.

JO HAYES (National): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call at the third reading of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and the Children’s Amendment Bill. I’m really pleased to stand here today even though I’m not on the Social Services and Community Committee. They have heard this legislation and worked on it very hard and did a very good job of it, and I am privileged and honoured to stand and speak on behalf of Māori whānau who struggle. They are going to be the majority population, unfortunately, affected by this bill, and to do anything that we can to reduce their poverty is what this side of the House is all about as well. So I want to thank the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, for shepherding this bill through the House.

I say that about Māori whānau, because it is really tough out there for whānau. I have three mokopuna myself. I spent the weekend with them, and I saw first-hand some of the struggles of their friends and neighbours with some of their children, and either the pressures that parents put themselves under or the peer pressure from other families outside of their family unit. I do feel for those parents because they want their children to have everything that all the other kids have got, but they can’t afford it. They can’t afford it. Therefore, priorities are mixed, and it is the children who lose in this situation. I think that these bills are a really good step towards actually reducing child poverty for those children.

I want to acknowledge the Hon Alfred Ngaro for his persistence in getting his two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) included in this bill, with the first SOP being indicators—which he spoke about today, and other members in the House have also spoken about—that will specifically measure and report on child poverty in this country. It’s always about the numbers. It’s always about the research on how well our legislation is actually performing out there in the community and asking: is it hitting the right spots, and are the people that it’s aimed at actually benefiting from these pieces of legislation? That’s what’s going to be the telling part over the next few years as this bill gets embedded into legislation and is rolled out amongst the various departments and organisations.

I do want to thank the people from the Whānau Ora community. That particular programme—Whānau Ora—was set up as a strengthening programme, and it was about empowering families to do things for themselves, because, as a legislative group, we should not be trying to throw money at these things; we should be putting in place certain aspects of our society that will actually help whānau to reach out to help themselves. At the end of the day, that is actually the key, and it’s really, really difficult to be able to do that. So I think that this select committee has done really well at trying, through this legislation, to put in some of those steps so that whānau can reach out and help themselves to actually improve themselves, and that’s what the whole crux of Whānau Ora is all about. So when I talk about that, I think that this particular legislation is another addition to the kete of Whānau Ora to help out our tamariki and our pakeke ā matua.

I really don’t have a lot more to add to this. There’s so much that this select committee has done, and the people who have submitted to the select committee and who came and gave their ideas to the select committee, who were very passionate about their submissions. So I just now look forward, as I said, to the next couple of years to watch this bill actually be embedded amongst the rest of the legislation that actually supports tamariki and supports whānau and that will actually grow this country into a better place for everybody.

So, without any further ado, Madam Assistant Speaker, I want to wish you a merry Christmas. I want to wish my parliamentary colleagues a merry Christmas. To all the whānau out there, please do not let Christmas get you down. It is very simple: it is all about when Jesus was born, and as long as you keep that in the forefront of your minds, you will have a very merry Christmas. So, without any further ado, I commend these bills to the House. Kia ora.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand that this is a split call. You have five minutes—the Hon Peeni Henare.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Whānau Ora): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Ka noho tonu ahau ki roto i Te Reo Māori. He aha te take? Tā te mea ko te nuinga o ngā tamariki e pāngia nei ki roto i tēnei pire, he Māori. Te nuinga o ngā whānau ka pēhi nei i tēnei mea te rawakore, he Māori. Nō reira ka kapohia ake ahau i wētahi o ngā kupu o ngā mema i kōrero i mua i a au, ā, taihoa ake nei.

Tuatahi ka mihi atu ahau ki te Pirimia, nāna tēnei pire i ārahi nei ki roto i te roanga ake mai i te pānuitanga tuatahi tae noa mai ki tēnei wā. Ki ngā mema katoa o Te Whare, hei aha rā ko te pāti ACT, engari, ko ngā mema hei tēnei taha, anā, ko te pāti Nāhinara e tautoko nei i tēnei pire. Ko tēnei pire he tūāpapa. He tūāpapa mō te nuinga o ngā mahi kei mua i te aroaro o te kāwanatanga. Ko tētahi o ngā kaupapa hei hāpai ake i ngā kiko o tēnei pire, kua meingia mai i tērā taha o Te Whare, arā ko Whānau Ora. Nā te Whānau Ora ka piki ai te oranga o te whānau, he mea māmā te whakaaro ake ki tērā tūāhuatanga.

Heoi anō ko tāku e hiahia ana kia whākī atu ki tēnei Whare, nā kua rongo ngā taringa o Te Minita mō ngā take Whānau Ora, kua rongo ngā taringa a ngā kaikomihana o te kaupapa o Whānau Ora. Anā, me ngā ratonga hapori puta noa i te motu whānui. Mā tēnei pire ka taea e tātou te patu i tēnei ngāngara, arā, e kīia nei ko te pōharatanga, anā, e kīia nei ko te rawakoretanga. Nō reira ka mihi atu ahau ki tērā tūāhuatanga.

Heoi anō, kua riro ki a au nei te rima miniti. Ka whakaaro ake ahau, anā, kua kōrero mai ētahi atu o ngā mema o tā rātou whakatupuranga. Ka whakaaro ake ahau mō te wahanga ki tōku tupuna ki a Tā Hēmi Henare. Ko āna tohutohu, ko āna whakatauākī i waihotia mai ki te iwi Māori he mea hei hīkina atu i te iwi Māori mai i te pōharatanga ki roto i tēnei mea e whaiātia nei e tātou, arā, ko te oranga. Anā, anei ko wētahi o wāna kōrero hei whakakapi ake i taku kōrero i te rā nei. Tuatahi, ka kī atu tōku tupuna a Tā Hēmi ki te motu whānui, hei tāna “Kua tawhiti kē tō koutou haerenga mai ki te kore e haere tonu. He nui rawa ō koutou mahi ki te kore e mahi tonu.”

[Greetings, Madam Assistant Speaker. I will remain in the Māori language. Why? Because most of the children who are affected by this bill are Māori. Most of the families who are oppressed by this thing, poverty, are Māori. Therefore, I will seize some of the words of the members who spoke before me a little later.

Firstly, I acknowledge the Prime Minister, who has led this bill for the duration from the first reading through to the present time. To all the members of the House, other than the ACT Party, the members of this side and indeed the National Party are supporting this bill. This bill is a foundation, a foundation for the majority of the work before us as Government. One of the initiatives to carry forth the contents of this bill has been expressed by the Opposition, namely Whānau Ora. Whānau Ora has increased the well-being of families; it is easy to consider that phenomenon.

However, what I want to say to this House is this: the ears of the Minister for Whānau Ora have heard, the ears of the commissioners of the Whānau Ora initiative have heard, and, indeed, the community services throughout the country. This bill will enable us to get rid of this problem which is known as poverty and is known as destitution. Therefore, I acknowledge these aspects.

Nonetheless, I have been allocated five minutes. I considered—and some of the other members have spoken for their upbringing. I thought about the load carried by my ancestor Sir Hēmi Henare. His directions, his aphorisms that he left to the Māori people were there to lift the Māori people out of poverty and into the thing we are all pursuing, that is, well-being. And here are some of his words to conclude my speech today. Firstly, my ancestor Sir Hēmi said to the country, he said, “Your journey has been long indeed if you don’t continue. Your work has been vast indeed if you don’t continue working.”]

In translating the words of the my grandfather, and I often reflect upon his words in times like this—he was often considered to be a sage and a leader for Māoridom and, in particular, for Ngāpuhi and Te Tai Tokerau, but I think his words resonate with the bill that’s being discussed right now and the work of the Prime Minister, where he said, “We have come too far not to go further and done too much not to do more.” This bill sets a foundation for us to do more. It sets a foundation for us and a challenge for us to make sure that we strive to lead our children and our communities into a better place.

I’m also reminded of another one of his pearlers that he left to his family and, indeed, to the people of Te Tai Tokerau—and this is, I think, more to the relevance of my kōrero in relation to Māori families and Māori tamariki—where he says, “It is preposterous that any Māori should aspire to become a poor Pākehā when their true destiny, prescribed by the creator, is to become a great Māori.” And I take those words and I reflect upon them, because while we have one goal, and that’s to lift tamariki, children, out of poverty, there is also an impoverishment of mind. I think about the plight upon my people, our people, the Māori people, who, after many generations of impoverished lifestyle, after many generations of repression, suffer, I would argue, a greater poverty, and that is the poverty of the mind. And I want to, with this bill, take up the challenge, with my hat of Whānau Ora and also with my hat of being the Minister for Youth, to enable future generations of Māori tamariki and, of course, tamariki right across this country to aspire to be great leaders. Kia ora tātou.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to talk today to the third reading of what is the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. I just want to start out by acknowledging, certainly, the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. I’d like to acknowledge, certainly, my colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee, of which I am a proud member, for looking through and working tirelessly through the submissions in this process. Unfortunately, I came into the committee a little bit later, having come from the by-election, but no doubt I got a little bit more of an up-to-speed to this bill. I also want to acknowledge the contributions from the speakers today—in particular, the Hon Alfred Ngaro, and the Hon Peeni Henare and his acknowledgment of his late grandfather, Sir James Hēnare, in his uplifting and aspirational statements. I do agree that his aspiration lives through this bill, because this bill is an aspirational bill that is shared by virtually all of the House today.

I acknowledge Marama Davidson for her words around how much we are speaking in unison about this bill, because we all have the same desire in this place: to see a New Zealand that is most prosperous and where our children are alleviated from poverty. I do want to acknowledge the collective aspirations and intent through this bill that we will be passing today.

This is a good bill, in purpose and intent, in terms of its aspiration to reduce child poverty, which everybody in this House wants, and in terms of improving the measurement and the accountability for aspirations and targets around child poverty measures. Those accountability measures have been well versed in this House today, around the four primary and six secondary targets, as well. It is a good general framework for us to consider with respect to child poverty reduction. It is also going to help coordination amongst ministries so that we have a coordinated approach to measures and policies which aim to reduce child poverty. I want to, in the short time that I have, reflect on something that my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro said. He talked about the importance of attitude and the pioneering spirit in reducing poverty. While this is a good bill in its intent and its purpose, intent and purpose alone are not enough to, in fact, alleviate child poverty.

I reflect on my own story and my grandmother, who grew up poor in Hokianga and then spent 27 years in a State house in Glen Innes. I reflect on her story and how my auntie and my mother managed to climb out of poverty. There are a few themes that come from my own grandmother’s story about hard work, about getting a good education, about having a decent house to live in, and about family values. It is important to reflect on stories like my grandmother’s where, in fact, it is much more important around the multifaceted nature of child poverty. To assume that we can take a few measures and say “If we can improve those measures, then we are all hunky dory.” is, in fact, misleading and disingenuous.

So while this side of the House is very supportive of this bill, we do want to acknowledge that there is much more that needs to be done in the areas of housing and building housing—much more than what has been done to date. There is much more that needs to be done around the family unit, and I want to acknowledge the contribution from speakers on this side of the House who emphasised the role of the family unit but also that hard work and that pioneering attitude. How can we as politicians encourage and lead that work ethic throughout New Zealand society? I think if we can do all of those things, then we will truly alleviate child poverty in New Zealand. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. David Seymour, you have five minutes. It would be normal custom to have the Government precede the Opposition; however, it looks as though the Government is going to give way to you in this instance.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Madam Assistant Speaker, I remind you that the power and discretion is really all yours and thank you for using it in this way. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this Child Poverty Reduction Bill, and I suspect that I’ll be the only vote recorded in this House today opposing that legislation.

But, you know, while being the sole member of a political party is sometimes disappointing at election time, it does give a certain amount of freedom to say things that other members can’t say. I thought Peeni Henare gave the best speech in this House today by a member who was voting for the bill but disagrees with it. He said it repeatedly and strongly whilst the Prime Minister and the author of the bill were sitting metres away from him. He said it’s not really a question of a poverty of material things—nothing that this bill matters—it’s a poverty of spirit.

And Dan Bidois, who I would say is one of the sharpest public policy minds in this House—he worked for the OECD in Paris; he’s an economist. And he got up and he thought, “What do I say now? The National Party, my party, is supporting this. I completely disagree with it.” So he got up and he acknowledged here and he acknowledged there and he acknowledged people everywhere. And then he thought, “What do I say now?” And then he talked a bit about describing the bill without endorsing it, and then he thought, “I’ve got two minutes to go.”, which he rounded out by talking about his grandma and how she beat poverty in ways that wouldn’t be acknowledged at all by this bill.

They don’t believe in this bill. Neither Peeni Henare nor Dan Bidois believe in this bill; neither do I; and the difference is the ACT Party is not going to vote for it. Why? Because it’s an admirable intent. There’s almost nothing Jacinda Ardern does that is not admirable in its intentions. But what will be the outcomes? The outcome of this bill, if we’re to believe its promoters, is that it will change the way that we look at child poverty. It will make us reflect each year on the level of income that different households have and what the gap is and what the distribution is for different household incomes. It won’t tell us anything about consumption. It won’t tell us anything about the absolute amount of resources that a child has or that they consume.

What it will tell us about is simply the amounts of income and the relative gap between the incomes of different households. That is folly, because what it tells us is that the best way to reduce poverty under this bill is to tax some people and transfer income to others. Well, if that works to reduce child poverty, then we would have solved child poverty in this country a couple of hundred billion dollars of Government spending ago. But it’s worse than that, because when this bill has its effect and encourages people to tax in this House and to spend in this House, to transfer income to reduce those income gaps, what they do is they increase the amount of money that low-income earners lose when they earn more. The incentives that this bill creates are actually to increase and strengthen the very poverty trap that we are supposed to be getting rid of through better policies in this House.

The National Party are supporting it because they have negotiated for a minimum of one measure to be added to the bill by the Minister of the day, who is probably a Minister that they deeply disagree with in every aspect of their philosophy. I think that it is absolute folly to sell out to bad policy for such simple reasons.

I have to acknowledge that there are some measures of absolute consumption in this bill. They will be swamped by the income measures, but they are simply not the right ones being defined by the chief statistician as measures of absolute poverty. The measures of consumption that are in this bill—and I should acknowledge them—are simply inadequate.

So what do we have? A well-intentioned Prime Minister, on a mission throughout her political career, introducing a bill that is going to have no effect other than changing the incentives for politicians, who will tax more, who will transfer more, who will make the poverty trap worse, and leave the real welfare of children no better than she found it. I’m proud to oppose this legislation on behalf of ACT. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It was just through my sheer West Coast politeness that I sat down when the previous speaker, David Seymour, rose to his feet. But I’m so pleased I did, because he gave me such good context for what I want to speak about now. That member and his party—when we want to see how his policies work, we have no problem doing that. Look at history. Look at Victorian England, that place where so many of our ancestors came from: the wealthiest country ever was full of poor people.

That’s actually what the context of this bill is about. We all come to this House, and it doesn’t matter what hue you are; we all come to make this country a better place. But when we get here, so often we find that the parameters of Government, the parameters of the party system, and the parameters of the machinery of Government really do mean that the opportunities to make a major difference are limited. I’ve been on some very busy select committees this year. Most of the bills have gone through the hands of the Justice Committee and the Social Services and Community Committee, but none of them come near the importance of this bill. We talk about a reforming Government. This is the type of reform that I believe every politician comes in and wants to be proud of, because what is the difference with this?

Go back to the Budget day. Budget day’s the day where everyone’s out there with their templates, everyone’s out there with their calculator, their abacus, their fingers, or whatever it is that they balance money in and money out with. It’s so often now, in the modern world, and it has been—it certainly was in Victorian England, which I’ve referred to—that success was measured on money in and money out. Now, think about Budget day, because now, as a result of this reform, we are actually going to be considering how well-off our people are as a country, and particularly our children.

Now, there’s an old saying from Aristotle or Ignatius of Loyola—no one really knows where it came from—but it basically says, “Give me a child until it is seven and I’ll give you the adult.” I have desexed that for the modern time. But, really, if we can turn that into how we should operate as a country, then, as a country, if we focus on those under seven, if we focus on our children, it means that in the future those people will have the opportunity.

Various speakers have talked about wealth—how we measure that success. Is it about wealth? Really, it’s about participation. It’s about the ability to participate, because the very society that ACT would have us return to means that anyone’s ability to participate in society is completely limited. So that’s what this bill does: it ensures that we are giving those who are coming, those under seven, those that we are ensuring are able to go into adulthood—we’re giving them the ability to participate. I remember seeing a very well-heeled lawyer from a very, shall we say, privileged background. We were talking about poverty. Her definition of poverty was no musical instrument and crooked teeth. That lawyer had come from her relatively sheltered background to work in the court, and that was her idea of what poverty looked like. It was probably a reasonable one, and certainly that’s what she considered.

Coming back to the bill, what’s really important about this is that we’re going to require the Minister of Finance—whatever hue he or she may be—to look at more than just the balance sheet and more than just the top and bottom line. They will still be important, to ensure we can achieve those things we want to, but what we’ll be doing is making sure that we actually look at the results and that we’re actually measuring the success of our society in a different way.

I’ve seen what’s happened. We’ve had talk today from the Opposition about Better Public Services. I believe they were just simply cheaper public services that believed that if we counted the paper clips then everything would be fine; that wasn’t going to be fine. It never worked, and it was a failed system.

What this does is it makes sure that those things that we are going to be looking at, those things that we are going to be counting, and those measures of success are going to be measures that are going to ensure that the society—the New Zealand that we are here to make better—can be better. Because, as I went back to, it isn’t going to be necessarily about the wealth, the money in their hands; it’s going to be about the ability of the next generation to participate fully in the society we leave them. For that reason, I’m proud to commend this legislation to the House.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. This is one of those days in Parliament that I tell people about, because when people say, “Why do you want to do this politics thing? There’s all this conflict. People disagree with each other all the time.” I say, “You know what? Actually, we agree on the important things.” When it comes to our intentions and what we are here to achieve, I think you’ll find most people in this House agree that lifting incomes, increasing the prosperity of our nation, taking people out of poverty, improving our physical and natural environment, delivering better health services, improving what happens in our schools—those are good goals to have. Those are things that we can all agree on. The question for this Parliament is not what we should set out to achieve; it’s how we do it.

It is a good day today because in this legislation we have Parliament working together. We had an OK bill brought forward by Labour: a bill that said, “Yeah, actually, what we measure is important, and that which gets measured, gets done.” All of us in Parliament agree that child poverty is a scourge. It actually takes away the potential of young New Zealanders to fulfil and be the best that they can be. It takes away from the ability of this nation to improve. We do not want child poverty in New Zealand. We agree on that. But how do we measure it? How do we ensure that we are doing a better job on it?

These were the discussions that were had at the Social Services and Community Committee and National put forward amendments saying, “Actually, the measures need to go into some deeper areas. We need to look at what’s happening in the education system. We need to look at what’s happening with housing. We need to look at what’s happening in health, because it is not enough to simply measure how much we are redistributing income. That is not sufficient. We actually need to look at what is happening in the individual lives of children, so let’s broaden the measures.”

National further improved the bill by saying, “Let us think about what’s actually going to move the dial on these measures.” National said that that will be a social investment approach that acknowledges the importance of data, of evidence, and of intervening early in children’s lives. So in coming together in this Parliament today, we’re demonstrating that we agree on our intentions and we can work together to get good legislation in place.

But let us not be complacent, because good intentions are not enough. And it would be dangerous today if we were to say that the child poverty reduction legislation’s third reading was the day that child poverty got solved, because, in fact, what we have before us is a significant challenge and it’s a challenge, actually, that previous parliaments have faced head on, and we would be arrogant to think that this was the first ever Parliament to consider that poverty is an important challenge to be met. And I want to remind everyone in this House that if we are to meet the targets that this legislation sets out, we need to remember that the economy is the foundation on which equality of opportunity is built, because unless mums and dads have jobs, unless they have the prospect of a rise in income, unless they are able to find opportunity in their own community, they will never have the dignity of independently raising their children outside of poverty.

So let us look at what a strong economy can deliver, because it is very easy to forget that even in the time of the global financial crisis, the major Christchurch earthquakes, we had a National Government that remained focused on the economy. And during that time—and I place it on the record today because it is forgotten too easily—85,000 children were lifted out of material hardship. And that didn’t actually happen because Bill English or John Key were nice men. It didn’t actually happen because the Cabinet had a great discussion. It happened because individual New Zealanders made the decision to invest in their businesses, to hire more people, to pay them better wages, to embrace a new idea, to export more, to do more, and they created opportunities for everyone, and that meant that children were being raised in homes with less material hardship and that was a good thing. So let’s remember that the economy will remain the foundation on which we make these improvements.

Let’s also remember, as we come together in support of this legislation, that strengthening families is not just about increasing incomes. We would be naive in this House if we were to suggest that simply giving some families more income will alleviate their problems, because in New Zealand we have cycles of dependence and disadvantage that are ingrained, in some cases, and that are particularly upsetting to speak about and to observe but are real. And what we know is that if we are to do something about those cycles of disadvantage, we need to get into families on the ground, because actually no child is truly living a life in which their potential is ultimately fulfilled unless that child is given the strength of a strong family. And so how do we do that? How do we break those cycles of disadvantage?

This legislation compels us to break those cycles, because we will not meet these targets if we simply redistribute income. We need to think about social investment. What are the initiatives—whether they be housing, whether they be education, whether they be health—that will truly make a difference to families and allow them to lift themselves out of disadvantage and that will allow them to embrace opportunity? And the exciting thing for us as members of Parliament, the exciting thing for us as a country, is that we are living in a time of unprecedented data. We have information, we have evidence, and we have research which tells us what works and what doesn’t. And so we should be compelled to use that information and that is what social investment is about. It says “Let’s intervene as early and effectively as we possibly can. Let’s not just pat ourselves on the back for doing another press release saying we’re doing another initiative. Let’s test whether the initiative actually worked and how many lives it actually changed.” That is the measure of whether or not a Government policy is effective. And we owe it to every New Zealander in this country who wants to see child poverty reduced to use the best data available to us as we intervene.

You know, Marmara Davidson got up in this debate today and she said she rejected the word “dependency” because she thought that that was a nasty word. Well, I say to Marama Davidson, “I agree with you, Marama, because I want for every New Zealand family the dignity that comes from independence. I want for every New Zealand family the dignity of having their own value and contribution respected, that they do not just get ahead with handouts from the State, that they can do it themselves.” And I say to Marama Davidson that the Kiwi way is actually a way of hope and opportunity because we here in the National Party are optimistic about the power of individuals to shape their own lives. And we urge all members of this House to share that optimism, because when we give people the tools, when we give them a strong economic platform that actually has jobs they can apply for and promotions they can receive, that is when child poverty will be reduced in this country.

It is a good day. We are agreeing that child poverty should be reduced. We are agreeing that if we measure it, it’s more likely to get done. We’ve come together as a Parliament to improve this bill, but let us not give in to the dangerous complacency of good intentions. It’s the delivery that counts. Let us measure the achievement of this bill by how many lives it changes. The work starts today. And I encourage members opposite to get on with it and to not just put more headings on press releases. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is with a great sense of privilege and, indeed, honour that I rise to make a contribution to the third readings of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and the Children's Amendment Bill. I want to begin my contribution by paying tribute to the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction—indeed, the Rt Hon Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has been the driving force behind this bill. She's said time and again in this House that one of the motivations for her entering Parliament has been to work towards reducing child poverty. And as this bill passes with near unanimous support this evening, we are one step further, a significant step further, towards realising her vision, this Government's vision, to reduce child poverty.

I also want to begin with a quote by—actually, something that Associate Professor Susan St John, who was a founding member of the Child Poverty Action Group, said to the Social Services and Community Committee. She said that having a Prime Minister who has children at the heart of all that she does is a great thing. And that reminds me of, I understand, a Japanese proverb translated that I quite like, which goes like this: “Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare; vision and action can together change the world.” And I absolutely pay tribute to the Prime Minister for her leadership, vision, and action to make Aotearoa fairer and the best place to be a child.

We've talked in this House about the face of poverty in New Zealand. We've talked about the children and we've visited schools where principals have told us about children who go to school hungry and can't concentrate. We've heard and seen families who are forced to make choices like buying cheaper food or taking their children to the hospital to access healthcare. Children—too many children—have been hospitalised as a result of preventable respiratory illnesses. We've all seen the evidence, the research that tells us about the links between poverty, poor health, and educational and social outcomes later in life.

I just want to clarify something that the member Alfred Ngaro mentioned in his contribution earlier this evening. He cautioned us about making or placing a value judgment on poverty, on families who are on low income, and ensuring that we don't further stigmatise them. I just want to say in response, really, that this is about—I accept what he says, absolutely we shouldn't do that, but this legislation doesn't do that. This legislation is about addressing deprivation. It's about ensuring that all our families and all our children are supported to thrive.

This is legislation that aims to build enduring political accountability, consensus, and action to reduce child poverty. And I'll just touch on the specifics of the legislation. I won't go into too much detail because we've heard that from previous speakers this evening. But this legislation will introduce a framework to measure and target child poverty. It sets into law a range of widely accepted measures that will require successive Governments to set short- and long-term targets to reduce child poverty. It requires annual reports relating to child poverty to be produced and published independent of Ministers, and it requires our Minister of Finance to report on child poverty reduction at every Budget. It includes a strategy to improve the well-being of all children, especially those with greater needs, and there is a specific focus as well on children from specific population groups that are disproportionately represented in poverty statistics.

An action plan that captures the perspectives of our tamariki—and yet, the beauty of this legislation is that it’s flexible enough to accommodate different Government approaches and priorities, and that’s why there was a huge amount of discussion amongst the select committee members about targets. But the reason that targets are not specifically included is for this very reason: to ensure that it’s flexible enough, to ensure that the legislation isn’t too prescriptive, to ensure that successive Governments commit to lifting the well-being of all our children.

This is legislation that is ambitious. This is indeed a historic moment. It is the culmination of the advocacy and passion of so many over so long. It’s the commitment, or a reflection of the commitment, of this Government to focus on lifting the collective well-being of Aotearoa and it aims to entrench this commitment to endure over time.

It sits within the Government’s wider work programme to ensure that the benefits of a strong, growing economy are shared more fairly. It sits within a work programme that focuses on fixing critical problems in health, housing, education, transport, and so many other sectors. It fits within the programme of a Government that is tough on the causes of crime, that focuses on addressing family violence, supporting those with mental health needs and drug and alcohol addictions to get the help that they need, improving incomes and employment conditions, and it fits well as we work towards the well-being Budget that will take place next year. This is a Government that takes on these important challenges, and I’m proud to play a supportive role to that Government.

I want to thank, in the time that I have remaining, so many who have been part of this journey to get us to where we are at today: the researchers, the advocates, the NGOs, and the individuals who have fought for this legislation for so long. There were over 600 submitters at select committee and, overwhelmingly, they supported the intent of this legislation. I thank the officials who’ve worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that the select committee had the tools that we needed to finesse the legislation. And the select committee—as the deputy chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, I want to thank the chair, Gareth Hughes, and members from both sides, who worked hard. We had some very robust discussions at the committee to suggest improvements to this legislation, and I believe we have achieved that. The over 600 submitters, as I mentioned, have worked over so many years to ensure that we’re here today.

This is legislation that’s powerful. It is legislation that has the power to lead to transformational change for so many families. And I, too, as the Prime Minister did, want to end my contribution with a quote by Nelson Mandela—a different quote, though. He said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” I’m proud to support a Government that’s getting our society’s soul back on track, and it is with great delight that I’d like to commend the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and the Children’s Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and the Children’s Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Bills read a third time.

Bills

Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’d like to thank all members who have contributed to this bill at all stages, including the select committee chaired by the excellent Michael Wood and all the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, for the hard work that they did in progressing this legislation to this point.

I also want to make a special mention to the officials from Treasury and the staff from the Reserve Bank who have worked behind the scenes on this. This is an area of policy where for, by and large, 30 years not a lot has changed, and so it has been a significant amount of work for the officials from Treasury and the staff from the bank and I want to put on record my appreciation for the work that they have done in this particular piece of legislation.

This is, from our perspective, a significant moment because it is the first of two phases of reform and modernisation of the Reserve Bank Act and, indeed, of the way we approach monetary policy in New Zealand. I am going to mainly talk today about the two significant changes: that of the introduction of a dual mandate for the bank to maintain price stability but also to support maximum sustainable employment and, then, secondly, the change in the decision-making process on monetary policy with the establishment of a monetary policy committee and the various processes that flow from that, including the creation of a remit and charter.

Before I do that, though, I want to mention the change that we’re making to the purpose of the Act, which hasn’t had as much attention as we’ve gone through the other stages in the House. I want to read that out for the benefit of the House. The change that we’re making is so that the purpose statement begins with “The purpose of this Act is to promote the prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders, and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy,”. That is the core purpose, in my view, of all of the different parts of the apparatus of our economy, and while monetary policy is set independently by the Reserve Bank, that purpose statement should draw together why we have a Reserve Bank and then the tasks that it has in order to influence those objectives. That change recognises that monetary policy does indeed have a significant impact on the real economy and on the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. By somehow or other divorcing it from our overall economic apparatus seems to me to be wrong, and so the purpose statement does draw that back together and it makes clear to New Zealanders that monetary policy contributes meaningfully to those wider objectives around prosperity and well-being and the sustainability and productivity of our economy.

So after that change to the purpose statement, the main change we are passing through this bill is the amendment around section 8 of the Act, and this is the change to the mandate. I want to make clear that throughout this process, the commitment we had to price stability and for that being a key focus of the work of the Reserve Bank remains.

I am just old enough to remember the days in New Zealand of double-digit inflation and the impact that that can have on working people. It is something that causes huge difficulty in the lives of ordinary people, and you can only look to examples around the world subsequent to that period of time in New Zealand where we can see that impact, so controlling and managing inflation remains absolutely critical. It is equally critical that we have a measure within the mandate of the bank for the real economy, and that has been chosen to be maximum sustainable employment. We believe that together these objectives represent a balance of what it means to make good monetary policy, and to see that monetary policy in the context not only of the economy of today but of the future.

I want to note that the creation of this mandate is not new in the world. The United States has it, Australia has a mixed mandate, and other countries have beyond just the words around price stability in their legislation. But what it represents is a modernisation and, indeed, a reflection—as we have heard in other stages of this debate—of, in fact, the factors that the bank takes into account when it’s making its decisions anyway.

We believe that it is right that in making those decisions we are explicit in the Act on the way the bank actually operates and what it actually puts into its decisions. So if it’s good enough for the bank to take into account aspects within the real economy, then having them within the objectives should be no trouble at all and, in fact, is a positive development to provide that clarity around the role of monetary policy in the wider economy. It is a change. It is a significant change, but it is one that has been well signalled and understood and I believe will stand us in good stead in years to come.

The other significant change that we are making is obviously around the way in which monetary policy decisions are made. At the moment, the Reserve Bank Governor has the sole responsibility for taking decisions on monetary policy. Over the last 30 years since the legislation was passed in New Zealand, other countries have taken different approaches, and it is time for New Zealand to catch up and understand that, in fact, having a monetary policy committee will make for better decisions. In fact, I believe that the previous Governor of the Reserve Bank and the current governor both have been operating models where they have been more consensual about the way in which decisions are made on this. This, again, is reflecting that reality and making it transparent, which I think members of the public have a right to see.

So the monetary policy committee will have the governor at its head, but it will include a majority of members from the Reserve Bank. It will include the deputy governor and two other internal members and three external members. The proportions there can change. It has to be between five and seven members. I’ve been very clear that is my intention that I will be appointing three members to be external members and that we will have the four members from the bank.

The process for appointing those members is actually the same process by which we appoint the Governor of the Reserve Bank, in that it’s on recommendation from the board to the Minister, who makes the final decision. It is, effectively, what’s called the double veto. It’s an opportunity for the board and the Minister to be in that decision-making process together. That is important.

Nothing here compromises the ability of the bank to make independent decisions. This is simply about making sure there are more voices at the table that reflect the wider New Zealand economy. The governor of the bank will chair that committee and, I’m sure, will continue to be a critical part of all of those decisions.

There will be a Treasury observer at the monetary policy committee. That person does not have the right to vote on any decisions within the process, but it does provide an important link with the fiscal policy of the day to the monetary policy decisions. Again, the current Reserve Bank Governor has been experimenting with this, and I think it’s an approach that’s appreciated and not new in the world either—it’s undertaken by the Bank of England—and we think will do a lot to bring together those aspects that are important to our economy.

The other parts of the legislation deal with how we will now put in place monetary policy. The policy targets agreement that’s previously been signed between the governor of the bank and the Minister of Finance is now replaced with a remit to acknowledge the fact that we’ve moved to a committee-based process. It is important to note that what is in the remit in terms of the way in which monetary policy will be put in place has to be consistent with the economic objectives of the Act. It must still require a medium-term price stability objective and how this should be achieved, in addition to the new objective of supporting maximum sustainable employment. The remit is an important part of this process. It provides a new, formal role for the advice of the bank in setting operational objectives. Prior to me as Minister, or whoever succeeds me in years to come, issuing a remit, the bank is required to provide advice, and that advice and public consultation about it will be published. So there is a level of transparency there.

We also in this bill put out the process of a charter. That’ll, effectively, be the rules that govern the way that that monetary policy committee works. We would expect the publication of minutes from that so that people can see the decisions and how they’ve been come to and the way in which accountability, transparency, and decision making will take place. These are, and this is, an important process to creation of the charter, and that is set in motion by this bill.

I am very proud of this legislation. It represents the modernising of our monetary policy, phase one. Phase two: we are under way now with consultation around other aspects of the bank’s work. But this marks an important stage in the evolution of our monetary policy so that it will play its part in contributing to the overall economic apparatus. It has represented some significant work. There is broad consensus about it in the community, and I commend the legislation to the House.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you. We come this afternoon to the third and final reading of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill. In the spirit of Christmas, I just want to acknowledge that it’s the Minister’s first piece of legislation that he will have passed as the Minister of Finance, and that’s always a big occasion for a Minister, so I certainly want to acknowledge that.

While I’m in a generous frame of mind, I will also just sort of comment on the timing of the bill going through the House, because it has been quite a quick process. We’ve moved quite quickly through the readings of the legislation, but I know that the Minister wanted to make sure the rules were very clear heading into the next Monetary Policy Statement. So for the side of the House, we acknowledge that it’s useful for the Reserve Bank, going into next year’s Monetary Policy Statements, to know exactly what the framing is for that.

So that’s the bouquets; now on to the brickbats. This isn’t a piece of legislation that this side of the House can support. We made it very clear to the Minister that we wanted to see if we could find constructive middle grounds, because I do think something as important as the Reserve Bank legislation, the rules under which our monetary policy is conducted, should actually be bipartisan, enduring frameworks. I mentioned in the my last contribution on this bill at an earlier reading the words of Sir Michael Cullen, who actually made the point himself of how important it is that something like the Reserve Bank legislation should be progressed with bipartisan support, because it does need to be enduring and stable. This bill doesn’t do that. It doesn’t have that support, and I think, therefore, there is an enduring question over the very enduring nature of these reforms.

The Minister, in his third reading contribution, referenced the purpose of the legislation, and that’s something I wanted to turn to as well, because the purpose as amended by this legislation into the Act does include a new framing, which, actually, oddly enough, this side of the House thinks is quite a useful representation. Our concern is that that purpose isn’t then given effect to in the rest of the bill. So the purpose, as the Minister noted, talks about the reason for the legislation being to promote the prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders and contribute to a sustainable and productive economy—well, all good stuff. We think that’s a very useful framing, and yet, if that is the Minister’s intention, if he was truly concerned about reforming the Reserve Bank legislation to contribute to a prosperous and successful and productive New Zealand economy, why has none of that been picked up in the economic objectives, which is where the rubber hits the road in this legislation?

The economic objectives—for those playing along at home—is, fundamentally, the mandate. So when we talk about this new dual mandate, it is the economic objectives that set that. That is the riding instructions to the Reserve Bank—this is what we, the Parliament of New Zealand, want you to achieve. Now, you would think what we want the Reserve Bank to achieve should be pretty similar to the purpose of the legislation, but, unfortunately, not. All the mandate, or the economic objectives, asks the bank to do is not to concern itself with prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders and a successful and productive economy—no, no. Instead, it pulls out simply one aspect that goes into that basket of economic objectives and says, “Just focus on employment.” I think that is at the nub of our concern on this part of the legislation—that while the bill and the Minister have talked a good game in the purpose clause, with framing that we support, none of that has been followed through. So, again, we’re seeing more big, good-sounding words from this Government, but the action being a very, very different story.

The Minister, in his contribution today, also tried to tell this House that, actually, lots of countries have this sort of dual mandate; we’re not unusual at all. Actually, he left the House with quite an, I think, incorrect understanding of that position, because while it’s true to say that some other countries don’t have a singular mandate, I can tell you that most countries where they have other parts of their mandate don’t simply pick out one piece of the economic puzzle. They include a range of things to get that whole flavour of what economic prosperity, well-being, and a productive and successful economy looks like.

The Australian mandate, which the Minister referenced, is a very good example. It talks specifically about the prosperity of Australians and raising the economic success of that country. They haven’t just picked out one single thing and said, “While we say we care about the whole economy and prosperity, only turn your mind to employment.” Therein lies the real nub of the problem. I mean, the bank has told us on many occasions that they already consider the wider economic situation, and yet the legislation tells them to stop doing that and look at employment—that’s the one to care about. And that’s why we certainly can’t be supporting the legislation.

The other part of great concern—and, again, I have to reference the Minister’s contribution, because he said the bank will continue to make its decisions independently. Well, unfortunately, that’s simply not the case. What the Minister is doing through this legislation seriously erodes the real independence of the bank, because now, of course, you have the Minister not only determining who the governor and the deputy governors are who make up the majority the committee—not only does the Minister effectively appoint the board of the Reserve Bank; the Minister will now also appoint all the remaining members of the monetary policy committee, and those members face the Minister’s pleasure as a determinant of whether they stay in their jobs. So I’m sorry, but nobody can tell this side of the House that that isn’t going to see the Reserve Bank much more closely tethered to the political whims of the Government.

I don’t care which Government or what sort of Government we have in New Zealand; the Reserve Bank should be free to act independently, to criticise the Government of the day, and to disagree with Treasury. I can tell you now—mark my words—you’ll suddenly see the Reserve Bank being far more in lock step with Treasury. That’s what this legislation will do. Not only are you going to have the Secretary to the Treasury sitting in the meetings, undoubtedly directing the debate and ensuring that the Reserve Bank pulls in the same direction; you are going to see a lot less of the Reserve Bank coming out and disagreeing with the Government, calling the Government out on bad economic policy, and calling Treasury out on pandering to the Government, and that, I have no doubt, is what this legislation is really designed to do.

There was no problem here for the Government to fix. No one in New Zealand was calling out for an overhaul of the Reserve Bank legislation. Be under no doubt: this is about the Labour-led Government exerting control over one of the few truly independent economic organisations in this country to reduce the risk of the Reserve Bank calling them out for poor, badly formed, negative policies that are going to hurt the New Zealand economy. I have no doubt at all that that is what we’re going to see happen. [Interruption] While we’re hearing all sorts of blowhards over there blowing hard, the reality is exactly that.

Now, the Minister said that this has widespread support in the community. He clearly hasn’t read the submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, because the submissions to the select committee were very clear that they didn’t support the dual mandate and they were worried about the lack of independence of the Reserve Bank board. So for Mr Jones, who wants to barrack and prevaricate and shoot off from the lip on something he knows absolutely nothing about, which is like most of his portfolios, the submissions to the select committee made it clear that they do not like this legislation. There is no problem that needs to be solved here, and the Minister, in saying it had widespread support, shows how out of touch he is.

A year into the term and we’re seeing the sort of arrogance and belief that only those people sitting over there know anything about what needs to happen. It should deeply worry this country. What I’m deeply worried about this afternoon is that we’re seeing the eroding of a central plank of the New Zealand system, as we’re going to continue to see, because this Government doesn’t want to be held to account. Instead, they want to neuter the very organisations whose job it is to hold them to account. We don’t support it, and I will not be voting in favour of this legislation.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I’m very pleased to stand in support of the bill at this, its third reading, but I have to say, after that last address, I’m a little bit confused. You see, throughout the course of the debate that’s proceeded through the House, the main objection that the National Party has fired away at this bill is that it would be too hard to have a dual mandate. It would be too hard for the Reserve Bank and the highly qualified men and women who make it up to consider two things at any one time! Yet what we had from Amy Adams and her comments today was a suggestion, actually, that there isn’t enough in there. Actually, we if we go to the purpose of the bill, her main criticism of it is that we don’t have an expansive enough approach to the factors that we are going to be asking the Reserve Bank to consider.

One of the things that I think has been very difficult for the Government to grapple with in terms of its engagement with the Opposition on this bill is what it is that they actually want. So my question for Amy Adams is: if she supports the purpose of the bill but she is critical that the subsequent provisions do not include enough factors from the purpose statement of the bill, where was the Supplementary Order Paper statement on the Table during the committee of the whole House stage? What actually are the factors in the purpose that are missing that she would like to see in there? We haven’t heard a single constructive critique that actually gives us some direction on that from the National Party. In fact, what we have had from the National Party on this bill is absolute Chicken Little catastrophism, and that came through very strongly in the absurd statements that we heard today and throughout the course of this debate about Reserve Bank independence.

The fact of the matter—and this is reflected very clearly in virtually all of the submissions that the Finance and Expenditure Committee heard—is that this is a moderate and balanced piece of legislation that seeks to strike a good balance in terms of ensuring that we have the ongoing objective of price stability while ensuring that the real economy concerns, particularly around sustaining employment, are considered by the Reserve Bank. Members who are familiar with the operations of the Reserve Bank will actually know that the key changes, which are formalised and put in legislation in a transparent fashion through the course of this bill, are things that the Reserve Bank is actually moving on already.

So what this bill does is confirm that we will have a monetary policy committee. This is a good idea, because what we know is that in all institutional settings, it is better to have a number of people feeding in with different perspectives before you make major decisions than to leave all the power in one person’s hand. In an informal way, the Reserve Bank confirmed to us at the Finance and Expenditure Committee that this is, in fact, the way that they have been informally operating for a number of years, so doesn’t it make sense to actually have legislation that (a) reflects that, and (b) actually sets that up in a transparent fashion?

In the same sense, we have had policy targets agreements under this Government, and also the Government of 1999 to 2008, which asked the Reserve Bank to consider the factor of maximum sustainable employment. That’s because on this side of the House, we actually do believe that that is one of the most important things in our economic architecture. It is not the contention of members on this side of the House that the Reserve Bank has sole preserve over determining the rate of employment within the economy. Clearly, that is a function of a number of economic factors. But what we do know—what we do know—is that the Reserve Bank, at the extreme ends of the economic cycle, does have the power to influence that. Why else was it that after the global financial crisis, the Reserve Bank dramatically cut interest rates? It was because they wanted to stimulate aggregate demand in the economy to try and keep growth going and to try and keep employment going.

So the changes that are made in the course of this bill are moderate and they are balanced. This bill preserves Reserve Bank operational independence, and there is not a single serious non-partisan, independent commentator that the Opposition can cite who says anything other than that. One of the messages I have for the Opposition in the course of this bill is that they can’t just sort of stand up and say “It has to be bipartisan or you shouldn’t be doing it.” when they don’t actually engage in the debate in a constructive and informed way, and simply act as a block. As I say, there’s not a single independent, non-partisan commentator who actually seriously contends that Reserve Bank operational independence is changed through the course of this legislation. The monetary policy committee still has a complete remit—a complete remit—to set the official cash rate and make the other important decisions that it has to make. People like Adrian Orr, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, are not shrinking violets, and the suggestion that we just heard in the speech from Amy Adams that somehow they are going to be cowed and not carry out their duties independently is simply absurd.

Once again, this is a moderate and a balanced piece of legislation. It is in the mainstream of legislation for central banks around the world. It makes the operations of the Reserve Bank more transparent to the people of New Zealand and to this Parliament, and for all of those reasons I commend it to the House. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I rise to oppose this legislation. The previous speaker, Michael Wood, said that there’s nothing to see here, nothing to worry about; it’s all standard stuff and the Opposition should be supporting it. I suppose what we would be saying is that the Government has not made a case for change, and that was the strong feedback of most of the submissions. The strongest feedback in most of the submissions was that New Zealand’s monetary policy has been performing very well for the last 25 to 30 years and we are now still enjoying a strong economy, which had massive momentum after a number of years of expansion and growth and stable currency, a stable dollar not being eaten away by inflation, and incredibly strong employment growth.

So we had 245,000 jobs created in the last two years—245,000 jobs created in this economy in the past two years. Now, the Minister over there, Shane Jones, says he’s going to create 4,000 with $3 billion in spending, but, of course, we haven’t drilled down into the details about exactly what those jobs are. But that’s all by the by.

Now, what we can say about this bill is that it is at the behest of one Winston Raymond Peters, and it has been his focus and absolute obsession over many years in politics to change and attack the Reserve Bank. If you go back to his speeches—and I encourage anybody listening into this debate to go back and have a look at the sorts of things that he predicted—we have had the accusation, or claim, from the Government today that the National Party is being alarmist and Chicken Little about these things. Well, just have a look at the sorts of things that Mr Peters said about the Reserve Bank in the mid-1990s. He blamed it for everything. He blamed it for high unemployment, for doom and gloom in the economy, and suggested it needed radical change. Of course, then he became the Treasurer of the country in 1996 after doing a deal with the National Party, and his changes were just slightly increasing the band from 0 to 2 percent, I think, to 3 percent. So, after all the tub-thumping, he just slightly expanded the band within which the Reserve Bank should be targeting.

Now, he’s back on his bugbear and implying that there’s something wrong with the way that the Reserve Bank operates in New Zealand, and has brought about this change. Two elements: there being a committee and, yep, you’re quite right, it won’t be the end of the world, but we don’t see any strong case for it and, in fact, we worry about the potential politicisation of the decision making, but the real thing is around this introduction of the bank having two goals. For the last 25 years it’s been focused solely on inflation—keeping that low so that people can make long-term decisions and have a sense that the currency is solid and we’re not going to inflate our way out of problems and you’re not going to find that the savings that you have have been eaten away by inflation—and that’s been very successful.

Now, the suggestion is that we focus also on stable employment, and the point I’d make is that there’s no evidence to show that monetary policy—which is the control of interest rates that are charged by the Government—can have a long-term effect on employment. There’s no question that it can have a short-term effect, and that’s why it used to be used prior to elections back in the 1970s and early 1980s in New Zealand, but there’s no evidence that it has a long-term impact. The things that do make an impact on employment are the basics of good economic policy, which is what we saw in New Zealand over a long period of time. It’s about ensuring that there’s plenty of money coming in for investment, because where do you get a job? Well, you might spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to create a job, as Mr Jones is good at, but most jobs are created by individuals—private sector businesses—deciding to invest some money and hire a person, build new plant, start a new business, take a new risk. All those investment decisions are what drive real employment growth, and Government can influence that by making either positive or negative impacts on those investment decisions.

So if you’re dangling the prospect of a capital gains tax, for example, then people are probably less likely to make an investment decision. If there’s a whole lot of uncertainty around how Government acts, such as was introduced with its oil and gas decision, then people are less likely to make investments. So the point is that this piece of legislation here is all about trying to increase employment, and I’m making the simple point that, actually, this is not going to increase employment. It’s the basic Government policies around investment that make a difference to employment in New Zealand, and also around skills. So you’re going to get employment growth if you have a good generation of New Zealanders coming through with the right skills that we need, which is why it’s so disappointing that this Government has decided to waste about $2.6 billion of the tertiary budget on free fees to people who are already going to university, and so we haven’t got any more extra people. So that is not going to lead to further employment.

Then another way you’re going to get more employment is to enable New Zealanders to have greater access to the resources of this country in order to make a living. And this Government, of course, with oil and gas—New Zealand is so rich, apparently, that we don’t have to look for oil and gas. There are only two countries in the world who think that they’re that rich that they don’t have to even look for it, and that’s New Zealand and France. Of course, you might have noticed that the French have got a few issues at the moment, like they’re good at rioting, but they’ve got nuclear energy and they don’t have much oil and gas. So New Zealand and France are the only countries in the world who think they are so rich that they don’t have to look for oil and gas.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Interesting as that is, you might want to come back to the bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, the point I’m making is that if you want to create jobs—sustainable jobs and employment—you don’t turn to monetary policy and the Reserve Bank; you do basic things in Government that lead to jobs and investment.

Then the next thing is around infrastructure—you invest and continue to invest in infrastructure. Again, I look at what the Government’s doing and I scratch my head and I think to myself that instead of building roads to Northland, which will actually grow the economy and create jobs in Northland—much more than Shane Jones’s stuff—we’re going to spend it all on a slow tram down Dominion Road that nobody can make any sense of. So that’s another one. Then, if you want to have more jobs and employment, you look for export markets. That involves actually having to go overseas and talk to other nations, and we didn’t do any of that. As a result of that, we haven’t got much hope of an upgrade to the Chinese free-trade agreement.

Finally, if you want to grow jobs, then you make investments in technology and the knowledge-based economy, and we haven’t seen much of that. In fact, if you look at the universities budget, for example, they’ve got less money per student than they’ve had in the past, coming from Government. So how we’re going to get a knowledge economy growing out of that, I’m darned if I know.

So this piece of legislation—it’s not the end of the world. The world will not collapse. We’re not claiming to be Chicken Little here, but what we’re saying is that it is a perfect example of a Government that focuses on everything else apart from what is actually important in terms of growing this economy and providing the opportunities for New Zealanders and their families to get ahead—and we do that. New Zealanders have the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families and to make a contribution in this country and to live a good quality life in this country, if they have a strong economy, and that’s based on those sorts of things: enabling investment, delivering good quality skills, having access to natural resources, building quality infrastructure that actually makes a difference, expanding our export markets, and making real investment in a knowledge-based economy. Those are the things that lead to full and strong employment such as we’ve seen over the past few years, not mucking around with the monetary policy and the organisation of the Reserve Bank. On that basis, I oppose this bill.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): As befits this bill, this contribution will be based on the dictum that less is more. I follow the presentation by the list member of Epsom, Paul Goldsmith, who has overlooked the fact that we won the election. We—as a part of enjoying the spoils of electoral victory—are changing, in this important fashion, the mandate of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. We campaigned on it. We articulated our perspectives before the electorate, and they blessed this side of the House—such prescience across the maraes, the courtyards, the villages; indeed, the four winds of Aotearoa.

The changes are not to be feared. They bring us into international best practice area. This is not a journey into the unknown; this is to link-up a progressive, far-sighted Government passing legislation that shows a great similarity to other reserve banks and their mandates, which have moved away from this bare, sparse, barren approach reflective of Don Brash’s stewardship of said bank. That is why we have introduced—and we will be most certainly voting for it—a dual mandate, and that’s to ensure that when decisions are made, the impact on the employment labour market is equally as important as the interests of the moneylenders in the fiscal temples that pass for corporate New Zealand.

We campaigned to change it, and we are now at the final hurdle—otherwise known as the third reading speeches—before such changes come to pass. I’ll make a prediction: the other side of the House, despite all their lamenting, will not change it back, partly because they won’t have the opportunity in the foreseeable future. But, look, I don’t want to get petty about this. There is an opportunity. It would spoil the occasion as we prepare for one of our members to move into life outside of politics, which is an improvement for qualities of the House that I currently enjoy.

So we will be voting for this. There will be the ability for Treasury to have a non-voting member on the committee. Despite the fearmongering and pretty tedious speeches from the other side of the House, our party has not a sliver of doubt this is the way forward. Thank you very much.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): It’s my pleasure to take a brief contribution in which National will oppose the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill, but can I first of all the breach the Standing Orders very slightly and acknowledge the distinguished guests in the gallery today. I never thought I’d see that crowd coming to hear my contribution on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act!

My first point would be to correct the Hon Shane Jones, the “First Citizen of the Provinces”. New Zealand First didn’t campaign on this amendment to the Reserve Bank Act. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has campaigned relentlessly to change the Reserve Bank Act and bring in a dual mandate which was controlling inflation and the exchange rate. That, obviously, got lost in the coalition agreements. This is sort of a hybrid arrangement which brings in, now, a dual mandate on inflation.

Hon Shane Jones: Detail—detail.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER: Well, it is detail. I accept that, the Hon Shane Jones—it is detail. It’s detail I’d have expected the member to know if he claimed he campaigned on it.

Be that as it may, the first point I’d make about this—and the very reason that National will oppose the amendment to the Reserve Bank Act—is there are two sayings that spring to mind “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and “If this is the answer, then what is the question?”. I want to take an opportunity here to congratulate the Labour Government—the Labour Government of 1984 to 1990—and the fact that they brought in the Reserve Bank Act 29 years ago. It’s dated 1989. The independence of the Reserve Bank has served this country magnificently well now for almost 30 years.

I did not see any reason that was given to me while I attended every one of the Finance and Expenditure Committee hearings as to why we need to change the Reserve Bank Act. It is about the potential to introduce political influence, and that will ruin the independence of the Reserve Bank. Grant Robertson has given us a promise here today that he won’t see any political influence coming here, but then he points out that he alone has the ability to appoint members of the monetary policy committee. He alone has the ability in this legislation to set the remit of the monetary policy committee. Now, Mr Robertson might come to the House and give assurances that he, as Minister of Finance, won’t politicise the decision making of the Reserve Bank, but he cannot talk for any future Minister of Finance. So I think today we’re going down a very dangerous track.

National will oppose the legislation. There is no need to change the Reserve Bank Act—it has served this country well. In establishing today, in this legislation, a dual mandate of controlling inflation and keeping an eye on what is termed maximum sustainable employment, we are in danger of compromising the very focus of the Reserve Bank Act and the Reserve Bank Governor, and his role of controlling inflation. When you get two mandates to follow, inevitably there will be a time in the future when there must be a compromise between those two mandates.

I can conclude with this comment: even when they were before the select committee, no one could explain to me what maximum sustainable employment meant. I raised that question with the Minister during the committee stage in this House. He attempted to explain it. I couldn’t understand it, and I suspect that by the time the Minister himself sat down, he had no idea what he had just told the committee of the whole House.

I think this legislation is totally unnecessary. It is dangerous. It will be opposed by the National Party, but it will fulfil yet another argument advanced by the Rt Hon Winston Peters in the coalition discussions after the election of 2017. The score is, I would say again, New Zealand First one, Labour nil, or to put it another way—because this has been a long argument between Treasury and the Reserve Bank—it’s Treasury one, Reserve Bank nil. Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill, which is part of a framework of revisions that this Government is committed to making to the way that economic policy is set for New Zealand to reflect the realities of the 21st century but also to reflect a more nuanced, useful way of reviewing our economy and how well we’re doing as a country.

As others have mentioned, the current Reserve Bank Act is almost 30 years old now, so we did need a review. The Government announced last year that there would be a review of the Reserve Bank Act in two parts. This bill reflects the first part of that review. It seeks to, as a starting point, change or to expand the breadth of the purpose of monetary policy that’s set by the Reserve Bank to include maximum sustainable employment. It’s almost surprising that that wasn’t a part of the purpose of our monetary policy. This bill, of course, retains what was previously the sole purpose of the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy setting or sole consideration which was price stabilisation. That is, of course, very important. It’s really important to consumers, it’s important to business people, and it’s actually most important to lower socio-economic communities that inflation is controlled and is stabilised. That is an important purpose of the Reserve Bank’s work that is being retained. But the purpose has expanded to include sustainable employment because we recognise that, actually, well-being should include not only employment but actually quality employment that is sustainable.

That fits really well with the rest of the work that this Government is committed to, including the work we’re doing on the well-being indicators and the well-being Budget that was introduced as well. Other jurisdictions have both explored and introduced these types of measures, including what’s being proposed and adopted through this bill in terms of sustainable employment, which is to say that the well-being of an economy shouldn’t be limited to myopic focuses like price stabilisation—that we need to look at what is, in fact, in the interests of having a stable economy across the board, and that includes quality employment. So we’re doing that. We’re introducing that as part of, actually, a big revision and an update of our economic focus but also law.

The second big change, or much needed change, that’s being recognised and adopted by this bill is something that, actually, the Reserve Bank had already been doing by way of practice, which is to make its decisions by way of a committee. So what’s called a monetary policy committee is being adopted. It will be a committee of five members to seven members, with two external members at any given time. That is to recognise that, actually, evidence shows committees make better decisions than individuals because they bring a diversity of perspectives, of expertise, and points of view that get tested through participation of a group—of a diverse group. So that is a welcome change, and, as I say, it’s actually something that the Reserve Bank has already been practising itself, because as it has developed as an institution, it has recognised that this is best-practice decision-making. So we’re reflecting that.

I just wanted to point out a couple of parts of the bill that no one else has picked up on, as such. I remembered these bits being pointed out by my colleague, Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick, who’s particularly interested in public participation in politics—that is to say that in schedule 3, clause 3(2) of new schedule 2 she found actually requires that the committee develop a process for advice from the public on policy that it adopts, which is to say that we’re lifting the lid a little bit on a part of our policy-making process, or type of policy, monetary policy, that’s probably a bit of a mystery to the public. But this requirement for further consultation, or consultation at all, is lifting the lid on that.

There’s also a requirement that this bill produces that the bank must publish its proposed policy online on its website, which will create a far bigger level of transparency and, through that, accountability, because, as we know, when policy is made in secret and without consultation there’s very little by way of accountability—especially policy that is usually considered so complex as monetary policy.

Those are two further welcome and much more modern changes to our monetary policy that are coming in through this bill. So I happily commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It’s pleasure to be talking to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill, although it is a disappointing day for the financial arrangements in New Zealand, particularly with regard to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. The structural arrangements at the moment are cherished and cited as world-leading practice around the world. This is because the bank is known to have a very clear mandate, it is highly professional, and it also lacks any degree of political interference in its decision making. These changes are not warranted, they’re not required, nor have they been requested. They certainly haven’t been requested by the Reserve Bank. In fact, they’ve been brought about by a Minister who’s a soft touch, who’s chosen as one of his key planks to cut away at the very independence of the Reserve Bank.

As my colleagues have highlighted, these changes are significant. As we all know, the Reserve Bank sets the official cash rate—the OCR—which has a direct bearing on interest rates, which, in turn, have a direct bearing on foreign exchange rates. The financial consequences of these decisions regarding monetary policy are incredibly significant. It affects what New Zealanders pay when they borrow money from banks, it affects what businesses pay when they borrow money from banks, and it also affects what people pay when they want to buy foreign currency.

I think the thing about these changes is that there are three real issues for me: one is the issue of now having a dual mandate, the second is the politicisation of the appointment process for the members of the board and the monetary policy committee (MPC) itself, and the third is the issue around transparency of decision making.

My colleagues have talked at length about the dual mandate, but it does create a potential for conflict. What happens when we’re in recessionary times and a political ruling party is under pressure? Do they want the bank to have a greater focus on reducing unemployment or increasing inflation to help grow the economy? Conversely, in growth periods, the reverse will be true. Under these new arrangements, the finance Minister now has the ability to influence indirectly the results of the monetary policy decisions by specifying what they want in the remit that he or she puts forward to the bank.

I just want to turn to the second issue around the politicisation of the appointment of members of the board and the MPC. We have new arrangements. What happens now, under these new arrangements, is that the Minister appoints the members of the board. He or she will appoint those people that he or she is most comfortable with. The board then recommends to the Minister who should be appointed to the monetary policy committee. The Minister then has the right to appoint those people whom he or she chooses to the monetary policy committee, and they have long terms—periods of four to five years. So the best analogy is Donald Trump appointing the last member to the Supreme Court as a bench member. That is what is going to happen with the Reserve Bank—whoever is the finance Minister has the right, effectively, to determine who sits on the board but, much more importantly, who sits on the monetary policy committee. That is the real issue around the lack of independence. I think the thing about boards is the need to have diversity of thinking and to have people who are challenging on that. Under these arrangements, there is the potential for members to be appointed because they have the same aligned process or concept or mind-set as the Minister, and I think that is totally wrong.

The other issue I just want to talk about is this issue around transparency of decision making. We’ve had this issue around how monetary policy decisions are to be disseminated, and this is yet to be determined because it’s not specified in the bill. But what we heard at the select committee is somewhat alarming because consideration is going to be given to who should make the pronouncements around what are the monetary policy changes—i.e., is the OCR going to be changed or not? The question is whether, in fact, the decision-making process and the decision-voting process will be made public.

I’m particularly perturbed about this, because foreign currency dealers spend a lot of time analysing where the Reserve Bank is going to go with its OCR because it has such a significant impact on interest rates and foreign exchange rates. There is a certain naivety to think that we’re going to have all the decision making of those members displayed for everyone to see because, if it is a split decision, with maybe the casting vote of the governor, that will show to people that there is likely to be a change, maybe, in the OCR announcement after that. That will drive markets, and that is totally wrong because at the moment, we have one person—the governor—making the pronouncement, which is totally appropriate, and it’s carefully controlled so that we do not see people in the market taking advantage of this type of situation.

I think this also opens up the possibility of those members of the MPC actually being lobbied, and I think all those issues strike at the core of why this is such a bad bill. It strikes at the core of the loss of the independence of the Reserve Bank, which, at the moment, is one of the best in the world, and this is a shame on this Minister who’s pushing through these changes.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It’s an absolute delight to rise and speak to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill this afternoon. I know it was well publicised that I would be giving my remarks on this bill at about this time, so I’m really pleased to see that there’s been a lot of interest in the delivery that I’m about to give! So thank you, all.

What the Minister of Finance has tried to do here is relatively simple, and the amendments that we’re making by way of this legislation are three-part, and these have been traversed in some detail by speakers previous to me. Basically, we’re amending the objectives of the Act, and that is to give greater clarity to what the role of the Reserve Bank is when it comes to developing monetary policy. We’ve heard extensive debate this afternoon about the dual mandate in terms of monetary policy objectives by way of both price stability and ensuring maximum sustainable employment, and, third, the establishment of the monetary policy committee.

Before I turn to the nuances, I guess, of each of those amendments, I think it’s timely to reflect upon what the role of monetary policy is in New Zealand. The reality is that monetary policy affects every single New Zealander—every single consumer, every single worker, every single employer in our country. Monetary policy, in its evolution and development, affects investment decisions right through to the cost of bread and butter. But as this bill has traversed our Finance and Expenditure Committee, I’ve been struck by the words of the founder of Ford Motors Co. It was Henry Ford who said, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and our monetary system, for if they did, I believe”—he said—“there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” As we have covered off aspects of what is required to be considered by the bank in developing our monetary policy, I think I’ve come to share Henry Ford’s view.

Debate interrupted.

Valedictory Statements

Valedictory Statements

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): Mr Speaker, I have to say, I’m delighted to be leaving. In fact, I would have gone sooner, but I stayed on a few more months for a few reasons. First, Jim Bolger advised me not to go straight after the new Government was formed but to wait until about October, and I always follow the advice of Jim Bolger. I have to say, secondly, I’ve really enjoyed the camaraderie of the caucus, especially getting to know and work with the 2017 intake. Thirdly, I’ve been very keen to progress reform of the law of contempt, a hugely important topic I had spent many, many years trying to advance, and it’s one of the ironies of politics that I succeeded in Opposition. The recent debate over suppression orders shows why the bill is so very important. It’s now in the Justice Committee, in safe hands, and so I don’t need to stay until the bill is enacted. Finally, I became increasingly irritated by journalists asking me when I intended to go, and I started serious planning after Lloyd Burr was posted to London.

There are two parts to my speech. The first are acknowledgments of people I need to thank, and, secondly, there’s the inevitable lecture.

Could I begin with the acknowledgments. In no particular hierarchy or order, I want first to acknowledge my opponents. The Labour opponents that I had in Mana and Rongotai, Winnie Laban, Annette King, and Paul Eagle, and their spouses are very, very nice people. I really enjoyed their company. The campaigns were pleasant and issues-focused.

I especially acknowledge Annette’s husband, Ray, who would sit through campaign meetings in Island Bay with a beatific smile on his face as Paul Tolich, Ken Findlay, and the rest of the Island Bay Labour gang yelled at me. I once told Ken Findlay in 2014 to sit down and shut up—I always had a special rapport with constituents. After that meeting, he accused me of being a CIA agent. A few days later, I was appointed Minister in charge of the GCSB and the SIS, so perhaps dear old Ken wasn’t totally deluded.

One person at those meetings who always asked tough questions but was always very pleasant and courteous was Peter Conway. I think of Peter and his family a lot. He was a fine man. I also acknowledge Paul Swain, Rick Barker, and Fran Wilde, former Labour MPs who were great Treaty negotiators and whom I regard as good friends.

I have to say I have great respect for social democracy, though I prefer liberal conservatism. But I still admire the courage of the 1984-87 Labour Government in the economics area, even if the Labour Party doesn’t. The changes they made were essential and overdue.

Can I say something about the Greens—far from me politically in many areas, but we always got on well. Kennedy Graham is someone I regard as a good friend, a man of principle and courage, and someone who still has a lot to contribute, and I hope that party can look beyond divisions of the past and use his talents. I also acknowledge James Shaw and, particularly, Teall Crossen, who was the Green candidate in Rongotai in 2017. I think she has a great future, or perhaps she had a great future till I started praising her.

I know my colleagues very well. By now, my colleagues will be whispering to one another that I’ve gone troppo. Well, fear not, because I now turn to talk about New Zealand First. The most I can say to them is: thank you very much for not choosing the National Party in 2017. As is well-known, I think we dodged a bullet. That decision lays the foundations for a National Government in 2020. It’s very hard to say much about their candidates in Rongotai, as I’m sure Mr Eagle would agree. They tended to wear black shirts and rage at me over the foreshore and seabed and Treaty settlements—very strange people.

Can I acknowledge the staff in Parliament. I especially acknowledge Jim Robb, who worked so hard on development of the new building, sadly shouldered for reasons I still don’t fully understand.

I had a ministerial suite in Bowen House for about eight years. I did not want to move to the Beehive, but Mr Brownlee offered me Murray McCully’s seat if I agreed to speak to my colleagues from time to time. It was my staff who made me move. I tried to organise an exorcism of the suite, given that McCully had been there for eight years, but was told the incense would set off smoke alarms.

Bowen House is past its use-by date, and the annexe should proceed. The real reason for the delay has never been made clear.

I really do need to acknowledge the Public Service. There are so many people to thank: the Office of Treaty Settlements—Lil Anderson, and her wonderful team. I especially thank John Wood for his work on the Tūhoe and Whanganui River settlements. We did a lot of work in the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and can I acknowledge Lewis Holden. We achieved a lot with very little money, and we reformed much of our cultural legislation. I need to mention Crown Law and especially Solicitors-General with whom I have served: David Collins, Michael Heron, and Una Jagose. I acknowledge the intelligence agencies, and I acknowledge the excellent work of Ian Fletcher, Andrew Hampton, and Rebecca Kitteridge. I think those agencies are in very good heart because of their work.

Can I especially thank John Grant for the tremendous work that he did on Treaty settlements and reform of Te Ture Whenua. I am very disappointed that reform is stalled for the moment. The next National Government must urgently progress that reform.

Can I thank Lou Sanson, the Director-General of the Department of Conservation, without whose help Treaty settlements would never have been achieved. We’re so very lucky to have public servants of that calibre, and, while I never worked with Brendan Boyle and Martyn Dunn, I particularly want to mention them as I have always admired them and the work they did in critical areas.

I’ve had wonderful staff over the years: the formidable Sarah Ferguson, who worked for Simon Power and Michael Cullen; Richard May; Ben Thomas; Lucy Askew; Leah Walls; Hamish Journeaux; Luke Redward; and Brayden Mazey—a very happy team, and they remain very good friends. I especially acknowledge James Christmas, who’s the brightest person I ever worked with and whose work on the intelligence reforms was simply outstanding.

Then, there’s my National Party family, but especially Judy Kirk, whose decency and warmth helped the National Party recover in 2002. I also acknowledge and thank those who tried to help me in my quixotic quests in Mana and Rongotai. Thank you to Bernie Poole, Ross Brown, Elizabeth Neilson, Michael Newman, David Ryan, and the late Patricia Morrison, and I especially acknowledge Glenda Hughes for her friendship and wise counsel for over a decade.

I need to say something about the media, because they are not the enemy and should never be referred to in that way. Their work is essential to our democracy. I promised Tova O’Brien I would say this: I especially acknowledge the young, clever, and classy TV3 team, Audrey Young, who’s the best bush lawyer in Wellington, and I’d better mention Claire Trevett and Barry Soper, otherwise they’ll get snarky.

I’ve almost forgiven Guyon Espiner, who taught me a very good lesson: do not appear on Morning Report just after you have woken up. I remember very well the morning he interviewed me and put a proposition to me from Metiria Turei, and I said, “Oh, well that’s what happens when one is dealing with a left-wing loon.” And he put another proposition to me, and I said, “Well, that’s what happens when one is dealing with a right-wing loon.”, and he said, “Well that commentator was John Key.” The message came down from the ninth floor that if I wanted to be Minister for Consumer Affairs I was on the right track.

I’ve worked with a number of wonderful, wonderful communities over the years. Just a few examples: the Jewish community, a welcoming, loving community who’ve contributed so much to our land. Sadly, even in this country, they are exposed too often to that incurable disease of anti-Semitism. I acknowledge members of the Assyrian Christian community, who, faced with the tragic destruction of Eastern Christianity in ancient lands, have come to our shores. I think we should try and bring in more of these people. They are hardworking and decent folk with much to offer New Zealand.

I’ve really enjoyed my time working with the Chatham Islands community. Peter Dunne and I got the new wharf, and Paul Eagle—he has to deliver the new runway. I acknowledge Alfred and Robyn Preece in the gallery today and hope I shall be able to continue to work with the islands in the future. And then I also especially want to mention, of all the school communities I’ve dealt with, the Mount Cook school community, and I want to acknowledge Sandy McCallum, who, as Grant Robertson knows, is an excellent principal and is retiring after many, many years of superb leadership of that school. It’s a delightful multi-ethnic school, and I really enjoyed being part of that community over the years.

I need, as we all do, to acknowledge our friends from outside this place, who have been so good to us. People like my golfing buddies: Ian Ko, David Cochrane, Charles Finny, Pat Walsh, Chris Baker, and a special mention of John Brocklesby, whom I almost took out on Sunday afternoon with an appalling nine iron shot on the 14th at Heretaunga. John, my apologies for the 20th time. There’s my great gym instructor, the son of Ngāti Raukawa ki Te Tonga, Karanama Peita. He is a tough and demanding physical coach, and one needs that sort of discipline. There are my friends—well, I could—no, I won’t go there. There are friends in the arts, some of whom are no longer with us, people like Athol Mann and Denis Adam. And then there are those who have provided me with a politics-free zone—and every member of Parliament needs a politics-free zone—far, far too many to mention all by name. But I want to mention two people: my dear friend Maria De Liva of Island Bay, mother of five sons, helper to so many less fortunate in that suburb. I wanted her here tonight, but she promises me she’s watching. She’s recovering from a stroke. So I thank her for her kindness—and Sam Perry, lawyer, counsellor, friend, and first-class fellow.

I’ve worked for so many iwi over the years, so many people to mention: my old friend O’Regan’s sitting up there from Ngāi Tahu; Vanessa Eparaima from Ngāti Raukawa; the gentle and kind Tiwha Bell from Maniapoto; the wise Tāmati Kruger from Tūhoe; Kirsti Luke from Tūhoe, also of Ngāpuhi, who needs to go to Ngāpuhi to sort out a few of her cousins; and all of my wonderful colleagues in Taranaki. I especially mention my friends in Parihaka, who cannot be here tonight because of their commitment on the 18th of each month. People have said some nice things about me in recent days, but these people are the ones who made the settlements happen. I also acknowledge John Key and Bill English, without whose active support nothing would have been achieved. I say to Andrew Little that this is the best job in Government. Don’t worry about setbacks. Just when it seems a negotiation has gone all wrong, something very good can and invariably does happen. I mean, who knows, Sonny Tau could decide to go and live in Iceland!

Lastly and most importantly, my family: I acknowledge my mother, who is Annette King’s second cousin, a great person. She developed an unfortunate tendency to send me texts during question time this year telling me not to look so stern and to smile more. After I threatened to put her in Sprott House, this aberrant behaviour ceased.

So that’s the nice warm stuff, and now for the inevitable lecture. Although I cannot wait to leave, I have great respect for the institution of Parliament. I think there are ways to improve our institution, and I outline a few of them now.

How long should the parliamentary term be? I think it needs to be four years—three years is too short. A longer term will make for an effective Parliament. The proposal to lengthen the term failed in a referendum many years ago. It’s time to revisit the issue.

How long should MPs be permitted to serve? Imposition of term limits is a non-starter, but I think there should be a compulsory sabbatical after five three-year terms or four four-year terms—don’t look at me like that. A break would allow MPs to re-enter the real world, and, if they’re odd enough to want to come back, well, they can do so.

How should parties be funded? A very important question, because generally I think our funding rules work well. But I have become concerned about funding of political parties by non-nationals. That’s why I think both major parties need to work together to review the rules relating to funding. I have a personal view that it should be illegal for non-nationals to donate to our political parties. Our political system belongs to New Zealanders, and I don’t like the idea of foreigners funding it. Similar concerns are now starting to be raised in other jurisdictions, and we need to work together, without recrimination, to ensure that our democracy remains our democracy.

How should MPs be paid? The key principle is that those in public life should have no say in what they are paid. This should be determined by an independent body. The principle has been undermined in recent times, and so I think all MPs are going to need to work together over the next year to establish the principles for remuneration once and for all and then leave the issue to the remuneration authority. There will always be criticism of MPs’ pay.

And then, finally, what’s the relationship between the courts and Parliament? One of the things that amazes me in this place is that there really is a lack of practical understanding of the separation of powers. For example, the Ministry of Justice constantly fails to recognise the judiciary as a separate branch of Government, and sometimes the courts overstep the mark with Parliament when they go too far with parliamentary privilege, as they did—David Parker knows these things. We passed the Parliamentary Privilege Act. Now, Parliament must deal with the consequences of the prisoner voting case. Parliament could nullify the decision, as we did in 2014, or recognise the court’s jurisdiction, provided Parliament makes it clear that there is no jurisdiction to strike down legislation. This will be an intensely important issue for Parliament in 2019. I shall be watching it with great interest from the sidelines.

Finally, I want to address a few comments to my fellow National MPs—my friends and colleagues for many years, a diverse and a talented bunch, you lot. I’ve said quite a bit over recent times about John Key and Bill English, so my praise for those two great New Zealanders can be taken as read. I have no intention of saying any more nice things about Ian McKelvie. He’s had his quota. But I do want to say something about two MPs I greatly admire. First, Gerry Brownlee: when the history of the Key Government is written, his work rebuilding a shattered city will be regarded as that Government’s greatest achievement. I witnessed in Cabinet his absolute commitment to and compassion for his fellow Cantabrians. Sometimes I felt that his contribution has been taken for granted—well, not by me, because I think he’s a great New Zealander.

And secondly I want to acknowledge Nikki Kaye, who won Auckland Central in 2008 and has held it since then. Auckland Central is very like Rongotai, except Nikki wins Auckland Central. She was a Minister with a brilliant future and, as we know, was very unwell last year, but she fought that cancer and is doing a tremendous job in Opposition. I strongly support her bill on teaching foreign languages. She's an example to all of us of grit, of courage, and of determination.

I could comment on others and my team, but it is time to stop, so let me say this: New Zealand needs a liberal conservative Government in 2020. Some say we have no friends; I think friendship’s overrated—just a joke. But I actually think we're turning back into a two-party State. There will be much to do in the years to come, but can I ask my colleagues if they would mind attending to the following for me: reviewing the role of the State. I think the State-owned enterprise model is past its use-by date. In particular, Landcorp needs to go and its farms need to be sold to iwi. In my nine years as Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, I regret to say—well, Ron Mark knows these things—I always found Landcorp difficult and uncooperative.

We need to continue to update our constitution. The Senior Courts Act is now law, and soon we're going to have a Parliament Act—I hope. Then we need to review the Treaty of Waitangi Act. There have been some complaints recently that insufficient attention is paid to the tribunal's recommendations; it would help if they were more practical. The “shares plus” decision, for example, was described as incoherent and ignoring basic principles of company law. Finally, we need to pass Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill in the first 100 days of a new administration. The product of a careful review and many years’ consultation, it's going to provide landowners with a world-class regime of registration and dispute resolution.

When I delivered my maiden speech from this very seat in November 2005, I said the liberal conservative was concerned to govern in the public good and the national interest, confident in the knowledge that this is a great country full of talented and decent people. Other countries have problems; New Zealand has a project—an exciting, sometimes difficult, but nevertheless achievable project. As I give my last speech in the House today in the same place where I started, I stand by those words. I'm very pleased to be going but grateful I've had the opportunity to serve.

Members probably know the old wisecrack, “Some people please wherever they go; other people please whenever they go.”, and I'm sure many will be thinking the second part applies to me—although, I understand, not Mr Robertson. I have it on excellent authority that he's distraught and is currently undergoing counselling.

In 2005, Michael Cullen said in the Address in Reply debate that he wasn't convinced of “this sort of Latinate habit of everyone kissing each other after every maiden speech”, and I agree. It's a dreadful habit. I think the same principle applies to valedictories, so Mr Speaker, fellow members of the House, that's all from me. If anyone needs a lawyer in the future, don't bother me. All the best. Goodbye.

[Applause]

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

Bills

Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m sorry, it will be a bit of an anticlimax after the last speech, but I shall endeavour to do something useful.

Kieran McAnulty: Back yourself.

IAN McKELVIE: Ha, ha! Thank you, Kieran—that’s kind of you, Mr McAnulty. Thank you.

It’s a pleasure to speak—well, I don’t know whether it is, actually—on the third reading of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill, and in the words of Dinah Washington, “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes”. Actually, that kind of sums up my attitude to this bill, because you can do what you like with monetary policy, but monetary policy can only manage us—well, it should only manage us—in a stable manner that continues, I guess, to be the voice of reason when all else fails. And, of course, with monetary matters, all else fails us quite frequently, and so I think it’s hugely important, the monetary policy stuff, not so much for what we do with it but for what it does for us.

This bill makes some changes that you could see as progressive, you could see as destabilising, and you could see as slightly worrying, and I probably see them as slightly worrying. I think that when there’s opportunity for political interference in matters of State, or monetary policy, or whatever you like to say, then it could be of concern. The speech of Grant Robertson earlier on kind of reminded me of a former Labour leader of Britain—I don’t think anyone in the House will remember; you won’t even remember that, Paul Eagle—Harold Wilson, who said, “I’m an optimist, but an optimist who always takes a raincoat.” I guess that summed up, I thought, Grant Robertson’s speech, really: he might be an optimist, but he always wants to take his raincoat with him just in case.

The issue I want to talk about, really, is, I guess, where they’ve got to with this bill in respect of what I’d call governance by committee. The board is, effectively, appointed by the finance Minister; some members of that committee are now appointed by the finance Minister as well. So, effectively, the finance Minister has a degree of control over the Reserve Bank, which wasn’t the case under the old system.

Under the old system, there was a board, who then appointed a Reserve Bank manager, or “governor” as he or she was known. In recent times, of course, that governor has tended to use a committee of their own to manage the monetary policy; so I guess you could argue—and I’m sure the finance Minister would—that, from that perspective, all he’s done is change the structure to put in place a formal committee, whereas in former days the committee wasn’t formalised. And I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing. I don’t have a strong view on it—I do think that it’s probably a bad thing—but what I do have a strong view on is where we get to the point of there being the potential for political interference in the stability of the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy decisions.

Stability’s an issue. The independence also is an issue, and the third thing that I’m particularly concerned about is that, with an enlarged group managing, effectively, the decisions of the Reserve Bank, the degree of security around that group must surely be of concern. We’ve seen already, in the last 12 months, where, effectively, leaks from the Reserve Bank have triggered some, I guess, pretty interesting reaction from the international markets. The decisions that the Reserve Bank makes are hugely critical to our place in the international markets and to our international monetary policy relationships, and so security of the decisions that that committee makes is hugely important. I think that’s one of the concerns I have with it.

I think that this bill is of concern to us. One of the speakers earlier made the point that we may well not change it were we to become the Government. Well, he was optimistic we would become the Government—“When we become the Government,” he said. That’s a matter for future debate, but I guess that I don’t think we should be playing with something that is, frankly, not broken. So we’re not supporting this bill—probably unusual, but, none the less, that’s the position we’ve taken.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to take a very short call on this, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill. We’ve thrashed this out in select committee for quite some time, the Finance and Expenditure Committee. We’ve all put our five cents into this. All of the officials have inputted it into it. The submissions have come in. We’ve been ably chaired by Michael Wood MP, who’s been guiding us through this piece of legislation.

We, as the Government, have always the ability to modify legislation for the benefit of New Zealanders, and that’s exactly what we’re doing in this particular policy. I’m particularly impressed with the dual mandate, which the Opposition have always had a problem with. They think that monetary policy should always be around a strictly monetary policy. We’ve actually incorporated this dual mandate in here to ensure that we’re looking at price stability over the medium term but also supporting maximum sustainable employment.

This here is a fine piece of legislation. It’s been through the checks and balances of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is normally a split call, if the ACT person goes for it.

David Seymour: Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: So I am going to award a five-minute call to ACT.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’ve been called many things in this House, but never “the ACT person”. It is a new description, but I’m glad that I could be here in time to oppose this Reserve Bank Act amendment bill.

I’m not sure that the gravity and importance of this bill has received anything like the coverage and the attention that it deserves. I think it would be fair to say that of all the legislation that has gone through this House this year, it has been one of the lowest-profile pieces of legislation, publicly, that we’ve seen. And yet the importance of it is difficult to overstate.

This is a Pacific paradise: a country at the edge of the earth that led the world in making first-class public policy; a country that faced a problem—that whenever an election was coming along, Muldoon would come along too, and he’d say “Heh heh heh” and he’d pump up the money supply and give everybody the short-term sugar hit of free and cheap money to guarantee his own re-election. That was one of the economic follies that brought this country to its knees, and the response to that from ACT’s founder, Sir Roger Douglas, was to lead the world and later be copied by many other countries in creating, in this Pacific paradise, a truly independent Reserve Bank where it was politically impossible for the Government of the day to intervene, for their own narrow political gain, in the money supply that every New Zealander depends on.

This was a time when New Zealanders around the world could be proud of what our public policy was achieving; when The Economist magazine called the then governor, Don Brash, the world’s best central banker. That is the legacy that is being erased by this bill tonight: the legacy of a Pacific paradise, proud and free, leading the world in public policy.

That’s what’s at stake tonight. And with what are we replacing that independent Reserve Bank Governor who offered price stability in spite of the wishes of the politicians of the day? Well, this bill means that the decision about how fast or slow to print money, how fast or slow to run those printing presses by setting the official cash rate, will not be set by one individual at arm’s length from the Government and accountable on pain of losing his or her job for failing to give New Zealanders stable prices year in year out—no, no, no. Under this bill, a committee of people appointed by the Government of the day—not by the board of the Reserve Bank but directly appointed by the Minister of Finance—are going to make a decision not based on price stability but instead are going to make a decision based on short-term employment and economic activity.

Let me wind this up for you with the following question. Let’s say you are on this decision-making committee and an appointee of a Labour Party or, for that matter, a National Party Minister of Finance—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You’re not talking about me, I hope.

DAVID SEYMOUR: No, no, no. Well, you are in this debate too, surely. You can think about this. If you found yourself in that position, what would a person do if they genuinely believed that the re-election of the current Government was for the best of the country and boosting employment in the short run was going to help secure that election? Would they run the printing presses faster and destroy price stability in this country? I think this is not only a naive bill; it is a truly evil bill. I oppose it strongly. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I am still not convinced that this bill is necessary. The wheel has been spinning well. It is absolutely unnecessary at best, and, at worst—well, you’ve just heard the worst scenario from the speaker before me, David Seymour.

There are two prongs to this. The first is what Mr Seymour has just alluded to: the political interference of the process. The Minister of Finance will argue that is not the case but, unfortunately, the perception is reality. Perception, in the market place, is what counts. A perception that there is Government interference in the monetary policy is not a good thing for the economy of New Zealand and therefore the outcome for all New Zealanders. So I totally agree with the previous speaker and Mr McKelvie before me highlighting the issue around political interference and the appointment by the Minister of Finance.

The most important point—for me, at least—is the dual task given to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. Mr Coffey just earlier talked about maximum sustainable employment as being one of the targets, and it’s explicit in the bill, but he didn’t tell us how that was to occur. He didn’t tell us how the Governor of the Reserve Bank was supposed to maintain maximum sustainable employment, and I would say that it’s not able to. The Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Reserve Bank are not able to do anything to ensure maximum sustainable employment.

The Reserve Bank Governor has only a limited number of tools, the main one being setting the official cash rate (OCR), the interest rates. The Minister, even in the chair at the committee stage, could not tell us how the Governor of the Reserve Bank was going to use it, and what tools to implement to maximise sustainable employment. In fact, he said, “I don’t know. It’s the committee’s prerogative. It’s up to them. I sort of set the framework and it’s for the committee, with the Governor of the Reserve Bank, to work it out and to give priority.” We’ve displayed and we’ve clearly enunciated the conflict that arises vis-à-vis the employment rate and inflation rate: both can go up, both can go down at the same time, and they can go against each other as well.

So, as I say, the Minister has sort of abdicated his responsibility and has not explained why he’s put employment in. Why maximum sustainable employment? He may as well have said GDP per capita. That would have been more useful and more measurable for every New Zealander. But he didn’t; he chose employment. Of course, the Governor of the Reserve Bank cannot control GDP per capita, just as he can’t control maximum sustainable employment. Of course, he considers employment. He considers employment when he’s setting the rate of interest, because he has to understand the rate of activity in the economy. He has to understand how fast inflation or the perception of rising prices is out there. Employment is just one measure that one would look at. There are a whole lot of other measures that the governor would look at when considering the OCR rate setting—for example, immigration.

Now, we’ve seen immigration being maintained at relatively high levels. The Governor of the Reserve Bank has continually, for months and, in fact, years—for years—expected immigration to come off quite aggressively in their projections, but we know that it hasn’t taken place. But, again, my point is that the governor cannot control immigration but must consider it, just as he cannot control confidence levels in the economy—confidence levels and business people’s attitude to taking on another employee—but he must consider it.

Surpluses—we don’t set the Governor of the Reserve Bank surplus targets, but he must consider them. There are a whole lot of things the Governor of the Reserve Bank considers: asset prices, the levels of leverage in the banking system, household debt, inflation, imported inflation, tradable inflation—all of these things the Governor of the Reserve Bank considers when setting the OCR, which is a tool that does directly affect inflation. That has been his target for years and, in my view, that is what he or she should continue to focus on, because it can be controlled by the OCR, which affects the yield curve, which affects expectations, which, of course, is what inflation is. It’s just people’s expectations of where prices go, including the price of labour.

But I come back to my point: there is absolutely nothing that the Governor of the Reserve Bank can do to effect maximum sustainable employment. In fact, price stability—another mandate in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act—in the medium term has also been really difficult for the governor to manage, but he introduced tools such as the loan-to-value ratio. He was also considering leverage related to income levels of individuals but disregarded that tool that could have been available, thankfully.

But I come back to the main point: this bill is absolutely unnecessary. It focuses on the political interference—reality or perceived—in the process of setting the policy statements, and, of course, the target of maximum sustainable employment is outside of the Reserve Bank Governor’s control. I submit that they should continue to focus on the inflation rate, and that is why we will be—and I’m not going to waste this House’s time by continuing for no purpose at all, because I think I’ve made my point very, very, very clear.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): The good people of Wairarapa do not like people that drone on, so this is a marvellous bill and I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 13 December.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: When the House was debating this last, Jan Tinetti had the call. She has three minutes to speak, should she so wish. That was one of the split calls, so I call Dan Bidois.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure today to speak at the third reading of the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill. Now, I know that speaking about death can be a bit sombre for some, but it’s actually a really important topic for us to consider today. And I just want to acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee—not only the current Māori Affairs Committee but the select committee from the previous—the 51st—Parliament, which originally considered the recommendations which led us to the bill in the House today.

The bill that we’re considering is pretty simple. It requires the coroner to consider tikanga Māori and the expectations of other cultures when determining whether someone can remain with a dead person. Really, it’s about cultural considerations.

It’s a pretty small bill. I mean, as we can see here it’s only about a couple of pages long. But it’s actually a really important change that we’re considering to be making here today. What we’re talking about is, essentially, amending section 26 of the Act, which allows and requires the coroner to in fact consider cultural considerations when they’re interacting with a dead person. And the coroner does have that discretion at this moment and often does work with whānau when this is required. But this bill, essentially, enshrines this as a mandate—that the coroner must in fact consider cultural and other religious or ethnic intricacies when referring to whether they can remain with a dead person.

So the impact of this bill is pretty clear. There’s about 31,000 deaths per year in New Zealand, and about 20 percent, or one in five of those, are referred to a coroner, so that’s about 6,000 on average. So the 6,000 that we’re talking about—section 32 of the current Act sets out the criteria that the coroner should have in mind when, for example, considering whether to conduct a post-mortem. And the amendment bill that we’re considering is really about bringing in the ethnic origins or social attitudes or customs or spiritual beliefs in order to give the coroner a bit more intricacy when making that decision that’s required for many different cultures.

And I think for those out there in the public—certainly in Māori culture it’s really important and I can imagine for other cultures it’s important to possibly remain with a dead person for a number of days. And so this bill, essentially, enables the coroner the discretion or the mandate to in fact do that on a case by case basis.

And so the Māori Affairs Committee from the previous Parliament made a number of recommendations to this Parliament. The recommendation that we’re considering in this bill is one of those recommendations, but I thought it would be worthwhile just running through a number of other recommendations that have also been accepted by this Government around developing a code of best practice that balances cultural considerations with the public interest in finding the cause of death.

Other recommendations are around making sure there’s a code of conduct in place.

Simon O'Connor: A what, sorry?

DAN BIDOIS: A code of conduct. That’s my honourable colleague the Hon Simon O’Connor just wanting a little bit more information on that matter. So, essentially, this about enshrining that requirement in the law so that the coroner must take into account these ethnic differences when considering whether whānau should have access to and remain with the body of a dead person.

So this bill, in summary, is a pretty simple change to the legislation. It’s about improving our cultural awareness, and the National Party stands very happy to support this bill.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker and, on behalf of the good people of Dunedin South, can I wish you and the House a very happy Christmas and a restful break.

My contribution on the third reading of the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill is short and sweet. Can I first of all just say that little is huge—little can be huge. I know that that’s a slogan, and it’s a slogan that’s used by Spark for advertising campaigns—which are actually quite good, can I say—but what sits behind that is a sentiment, which is that small things can have big ramifications and be of big import. This particular bill fits into that category, and there’s three short points to make with regards to this establishment of the coronial framework in New Zealand and the regulation—it’s a regulatory bill, really, that regulates whānau access.

Can I say, though, that these points were made—or one of these points was made—by the Minister in his third reading speech; that it’s largely an reaffirmation of existing process, which I think is quite important, because what it tells us is that the system is actually working. But the fact is—and this goes to the second point—that reaffirming it in law is essentially taking a cultural practice and giving it significance in law.

So it’s not just acknowledging that this is practice and it’s largely practised by coroners. We’re actually putting it into law, which leads to the third point, which is that this may resonate further than this particular piece of legislation, because it’s an affirmation in law of cultural practice. It’s cultural practice and recognising tikanga Māori, but also it’s of cultural practice more widely, and I think that’s really important.

I want to acknowledge, just quickly, the point that the member Harete Hipango made in her contribution last week, which is that, while it factors in tikanga Māori, it also factors in other cultural requirements, needs, beliefs, values, and systems. And she referred to a Muslim social worker who died unexpectedly and the customs and practices of his people and the confusion and the grief that went with that.

This bill, I think, has huge ramifications—little can be huge—and I commend it to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill. I think the member opposite, the Hon Clare Curran, is generally right when she says small things can be huge, but when Kieran McAnulty stood up and gave a 10-second speech before, that wasn’t huge. And I’m pretty sure the people of Wairarapa know that quality is better than what he just delivered there, and that’s why they voted for Alastair Scott.

But back to the bill, which National is supporting here tonight, which is the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill, which is a small bill which deals with a very important issue in regards to addressing the need for cultural requirements to be taken into account by coroners when deciding whether someone should be able to stay with a dead person who may be requiring an autopsy or going through something else which is being done at that time where there’s a question over the death of that person.

That is something which happens in a large number of cases, where people do pass away and the coroner is required to intervene and undertake a post-mortem. Under section 32 and section 37 of the Coroners Act, it already requires the coroner to take into account social attitudes or customs or spiritual beliefs when deciding the criteria for a decision whether to direct a post-mortem, and also when deciding whether a post-mortem may be performed early in some cases, and that’s when a post-mortem may be required to be taking place very quickly. This is putting into law the requirement that when making the decision over whether someone should be able to stay with the body at that time, part of that criteria should be the cultural requirements.

There’s a number of other requirements which have to be taken into account already at the time. That is generally around risk to evidence, risk to the security of the body, whether there’s a requirement for staff to be available, risk to visitors, and whether suitable rooms and facilities are available. So those are a number of the requirements which the coroner has to already take into account, and this, essentially, adds an additional requirement that they have to take into account cultural aspects when making that decision.

I think, as a Parliament, it’s very important for us to recognise the different cultural beliefs and faiths that we have in our community and the different ways that they relate to the body of a dead person and the requirements that they put on the process from when that person dies to when they’re either buried or cremated. This is, I think, something which is not just something which we should see as a small technical change to a law—to put into law something which is already taking place—but it is us as Parliament saying that we are going to recognise the different faiths and the different cultural observances which are required and put into law what coroners generally are already doing, which is for coroners to take that into account when making those decisions. And so, while this is something which is only a small piece of legislation, I think it should be celebrated as recognising our freedom of religion in this country and the freedoms that we enjoy, and further embodying that in our legislation as we continue to recognise that in our country.

So the National Party supports this bill. It’s been outlined where it’s come from, through the review with the Māori Affairs Committee, and why the recommendation was put in place. Without any further ado, I commend the bill to the House.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, otirā, ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to take a call on the Coroners (Access to Body of Dead Person) Amendment Bill in the third and final reading. Can I first acknowledge the hard-working office of the coroners, who do an amazing job right throughout the country. I also want to acknowledge the work of the Māori Affairs Committee in bringing this bill to the House.

Obviously, as member of Parliament for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, one of the challenges is actually the availability of coronial services in places like the Tai Rāwhiti in some of our remote areas, and that’s definitely an area that I believe the coalition Government is working very hard on. But the bill itself amends, like previous speakers have said, section 26 of the Coroners Act, to take into consideration cultural protocols. Yes, tikanga Māori, but, in my earlier contribution, I hopefully elicit enough explanation that when we talk about tikanga Māori, we’re actually saying that that is the premise: whereby we respect other cultures. It’s a way of respecting those that have passed and those that are grieving. As we head into the festive season, one hopes that nobody is put at danger—no family or no individual, particularly in this House—that requires the coroner’s services.

It is a straightforward amendment, but it also acknowledges how far we’ve come in this House when we talk about “lore”: l-o-r-e and “law”: l-a-w. I just want to share with the House that yesterday afternoon we had the launch of Te Arawhiti, which was the Māori-Crown relations portfolio under the Hon Kelvin Davis. One of the key speakers at their launch talked about the bridge—Te Arawhiti means bridge—and the importance that Māori and the Crown, as we move forward, put on the relationship on which this opportunity sits.

I don’t want to go on further, but I absolutely support this bill with this hope that the issue of availability of pathologists and coroners in some of our rural communities is also addressed to ensure tikanga Māori under this amendment and under this bill doesn’t just extend coroners’ consideration of immediate families but also to the other cultural considerations of the release of the body in a timely manner so they can be tributed and paid their proper farewell in the process of grieving. So without further ado, I do want to commend this bill to the House and want to also wish, on behalf of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, a very merry Christmas to you and to all my parliamentary colleagues. Kia ora tātou.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Conservation (Infringement System) Bill

Third Reading

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I move, That the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill be now read a third time.

This bill will benefit conservation, and it will be fairer to offenders involved in minor breaches of the law. Enforcement is a key part of conservation work because there is little point in the deliberative process that goes into making law in this Parliament if it’s not then enforced.

The bill amends eight conservation statutes which guide how protected areas and protected species such as our indigenous birds are managed. Offending against conservation legislation ranges from minor infractions by people who may be ignorant of the law or overly careless about whether they abide by it through to quite deliberate crimes that can have major impacts on conservation values of species and other users. The bill provides a new tool to deal with the minor end of the spectrum of offending—the whitebaiter who leaves her net unattended, the trout fisher who fishes without first buying a licence, or the tourist who harasses a fur seal because she wants to get a better picture for social media.

At the moment, under eight different conservation laws—the Conservation Act 1987, the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978, the Marine Reserves Act 1971, the National Parks Act 1980, the Reserves Act 1977, the Trade in Endangered Species Act 1989, the Wild Animal Control Act 1977, and the Wildlife Act 1953—the Department of Conservation (DOC) can only issue a warning to a lawbreaker or prosecute him or her in the courts.

DOC advises that in most years, between 60 and 80 whitebaiters are likely to end up with a criminal conviction because they have breached the whitebait fishing rules. Now, those rules certainly need to be enforced in order to protect the fishery and to provide an incentive for fishers to obey the law, especially given that whitebait is the equivalent of white gold given the prices that it can now be sold for. But for some of these offences a criminal conviction is unduly harsh, and with this bill the Department of Conservation can now issue an infringement notice for minor breaches. If the person pays the fee, they won’t need to appear in court, and they won’t receive a criminal conviction.

The bill has had quite a long gestation, arising out of a comprehensive review of the Department of Conservation’s enforcement powers, and I want to thank and acknowledge the Hon Maggie Barry, the former Minister of Conservation, for her work with the department in developing the bill and introducing it to this House where, unfortunately, it languished for almost a year before this Government rescued it and sent it to select committee.

I also want to thank the Environment Committee, ably chaired by Dr Deborah Russell, and submitters for their diligent work in considering and refining the bill—assisted, of course, by our parliamentary staff. Can I particularly thank DOC staff Bronwyn Barnard and Paula Warren, and the department’s compliance team, for their work on the bill.

The bill as introduced was not controversial, but there was a significant shortcoming. The Department of Conservation administers the internationally renowned Taupō trout fishery. So the bill and the infringement powers that it provides are available to DOC for the Taupō sports fishery, but they weren’t, in the bill as introduced, available to Fish & Game councils for other sports fisheries and game bird management throughout the rest of the country. What this, effectively, meant was that if an angler forgot to get her fishing licence in the Taupō area, they would get an infringement notice, but they could be prosecuted if they were fishing in the Rotorua lakes, because there, of course, Fish & Game, not DOC, manages the trout fishery. So that would clearly be inconsistent and unfair to anglers.

Given that Fish & Game councils already have extensive enforcement powers and they regularly take prosecutions, it seemed to me that the management of both trout fisheries and game birds like ducks would benefit from Fish & Game councils having access to the infringement notice system that the bill proposes for DOC. So I asked the select committee, at that first reading, to ensure that it consulted the public and it made recommendations on whether it considered it was appropriate to provide infringement powers to Fish & Game councils, and what if any safeguards were needed to protect the public interest. I am grateful for the detailed advice which the select committee provided, and it was certainly the main issue that submitters addressed. I was very disappointed that there wasn’t consensus, but I’m very satisfied with the conditions that are now included in the bill, and it has been in the interests of sports fish and game bird management to enable Fish & Game councils to access those powers—potentially access them.

The bill that has come out of the committee of the whole House stage doesn’t give access to the infringement notice system automatically. It requires the Minister of Conservation to consider and improve a national compliance and enforcement policy before any Fish & Game rangers can be warranted to issue infringement notices. Before approving that national policy, the Minister’s got to consider whether the policy is consistent with best practice for existing enforcement functions, and I’d expect the plan to set out evidential requirements, a peer review system, some measures to ensure consistency in decisions, a mechanism for independent review if infringement notices are challenged, a mechanism for recording any complaints, and to ensure that there’s an effective record of those so that the annual report that Fish & Game councils do for the Minister includes those.

The Department of Conservation is developing a system for how it will use infringement notices, and I’d expect Fish & Game’s system to be of a similar standard. Until that system is bedded in, my expectation is that infringement notices would not be issued in the field. Evidence would be collected, that would be assessed centrally, and then there’d be a decision made about whether a warning should be sent or an infringement notice. That’s very akin to the system for speed camera tickets being sent after the offence, whereas parking tickets, of course, are generally given out on the spot. So my expectation is that both the Department of Conservation and Fish & Game will run an infringement system that the public can have confidence and trust in.

The work of the Parliament in passing this bill—I hope tonight—is a really essential step in creating that infringement system, but there is more work required. In particular, DOC has got to develop some regulations to set the infringement fees, and it’s got to ensure that there are systems in place so that offenders are treated consistently across the country, and that work will be done in 2019. So I expect that in coming years, a lot more whitebaiters will find themselves being issued with infringement notices rather than finding themselves in the courts.

Can I once again thank everybody who’s been involved, over several years, in getting this important legislation to this stage. I wish you and members of the House a merry Christmas, and I hope you all have time to enjoy some respite in nature.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Look, thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise in opposition to the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill. I do feel a little bit like the Grinch that stole Christmas, rising in opposition, so I will take this opportunity, given it may be my last time speaking in the House this year, to wish the Minister Eugenie Sage and to wish the chair of the Environment Committee, the members of the Environment Committee, and everybody of this House, and yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year—and, of course, the people of New Zealand. I agree with the Minister’s sentiments that people should get out and enjoy nature this summer, and, hopefully—fingers crossed—it will be a very good summer out in nature.

I do rise in opposition to this bill, and I certainly won’t lament the point. We have traversed this quite considerably in our second reading and in the committee of the whole House. While this originally was a National Government bill, introduced by the Hon Maggie Barry, this bill has changed considerably into a form that we cannot support. So while we do support the Department of Conservation, being one of the largest enforcement agencies in the governmental system, and we realise that they need a midway point—currently, they have a warning system for offences that are very minor, and then the alternative is, with respect to more serious offences, that they must prosecute. A midway point is, of course, an infringement system, which is basically like issuing a ticket. When they come across an offence in the field, they issue an infringement. It doesn’t go on the offender’s record as a criminal offence; it is simply a straightforward offence, and they, if found guilty, would be expected to pay a fine.

We do support the Department of Conservation having that remedy in their tool box, especially given that with respect to conservation, offences occur in the field. The logistics of coming across offences and dealing with them appropriately are quite challenging, so an infringement system is that midway point that allows rangers to deal with offences very swiftly and appropriately and proportionately. But what we don’t support is the fact that this infringement system is being extended to Fish & Game rangers. We’ve heard that the Minister is going to put in place safeguards—so-called safeguards—to monitor the issuing of infringement notices by Fish & Game rangers to the public, to make sure that the system is consistent, but, quite simply, we don’t have that confidence.

There are 12 Fish & Game regional offices that loosely report to a national body. We want to make sure that there are systems in place that mean that this infringement system is monitored consistently across the board and that there is accountability. These Fish & Game rangers are not subject to the same codes of conduct that State Service employees are, and so any infringement system that is extended to Fish & Game rangers does need to have in place very rigorous conditions that mean that this infringement system can be tested and that we can make sure that it is an objective infringement system right from Kaitāia to Bluff.

For that reason, because of the extension of these infringement powers, we simply can’t support this bill. However, again I reiterate that the National Party is extremely supportive of conservation and conservation initiatives. With respect to departmental rangers, we were the Government that extended powers under the Wildlife Act in the previous Parliament to give departmental rangers those extra powers to deal with offences that occurred under the Wildlife Act, especially in some of the most remote places that our rangers work where some members of the public can get away more easily with offences relating to native wildlife. So we want them to have those powers to deal swiftly with those issues, but, in this regard, with respect to Fish & Game, we cannot support this bill.

So we believe in accountability, we believe in the credibility of a system, and we want consistency across the board. And, for that reason, therefore we cannot support this bill. Again, merry Christmas everyone and have a happy New Year.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I rise in support of this bill, the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill, which, at this season of good will, we find actually has a lot of goodwill across the House for the basic principle of this bill: that there should be a mid-range point between a warning and a prosecution—that there should be an infringement system within the conservation estate, and this is what this bill seeks to achieve.

There is only one real point of contention across the House, and that is the powers extended to Fish & Game councils. At this stage, I would simply like to remind the Opposition of the series of checks and balances that are built in in order to ensure that where, if, and when Fish & Game councils are given the authority to issue infringement notices, there is a series of checks and balances to ensure that those powers are not exercised unfairly or unreasonably, and that they are exercised as we would expect them to be: carefully, cautiously, and only when needed. So those checks and balances do exist in the bill.

That’s really the only point of contention. As this is my last call on this bill, I would like to thank the members of the Environment Committee who worked with me hard on this bill: Sarah Dowie, who led the case from the Opposition side, and also Todd Muller, Scott Simpson, and Erica Stanford from the Opposition side, and from the Government side: Jenny Marcroft, Chlöe Swarbrick, Poto Williams at times, and then Clare Curran and Angie Warren-Clark, all of whom contributed and worked hard on this bill, as did our committee staff.

As a newish MP, I’ve been told many times that select committees are the workroom of Parliament. The way this committee worked on this bill certainly exemplified that. So I thank the members of the committee for their hard work, and I recommend this bill to the House.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and in the tone and spirit of other speakers in this debate, may I offer my sincere best wishes to you and other presiding members for the festive season, and my fervent hope that you and other members of Parliament will have an opportunity to spend time and, more importantly, money in the beautiful Coromandel electorate over the summer break.

I think the Environment Committee chair has, actually, neatly summed up the philosophical difference and objection that we have on this side to this bill. Originally introduced by my friend and colleague the Hon Maggie Barry in the last Parliament, this was a bill that made sense. The concept of an infringement regime for Department of Conservation rangers makes eminent sense. It’s a good idea, and I think that there’s no objection to that at all, but why we now find ourselves critical of the bill is because of the inclusion of those powers being extended to Fish & Game.

Now, this principled objection is not a criticism of the good officers of Fish & Game; this is a question of principle in terms of whether the role of the State is to intervene with the role of non-State sector employees or even volunteers. From our point of view, extending that to Fish & Game personnel is a step too far. We know that, for instance, Fish & Game personnel are not subject to the State Services Act. They don’t come under the same disciplinary or professional code of conduct practices that are required of other State employees or civil servants. That, for us, is a matter of concern.

Now, in the second reading debate, there was a Labour list MP from somewhere—I’m not sure—who got up and read a list of organisations where there are no similarities. That MP went through a long list of organisations and in some way tried to suggest that by extending that list, this would be a good thing. Actually, I would take the contrary view that, in principle, not to extend it would be a good thing. Rather than the Minister now confessing that we’re going to have to have a long list of complicated checks and balances that she’s going to have to administer, surely the better suggestion and the better option is just to have the bill as originally introduced by the Hon Maggie Barry and exclude the option of extending the infringement regime to Fish & Game. That surely is a much better outcome, and one that could be completely supported across the House.

So I think the issues have been well litigated in the debate through the House. The select committee certainly gave it a good going over. We’ve had an opportunity to quiz submitters and also to hear the various cases for and against. So it simply remains for me to reaffirm that the National Party Opposition, regrettably, is forced to oppose this legislation at third reading, and, sadly, I cannot commend it to the House.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s very much a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and take this call, but firstly I must do so as we are following the honour of acknowledging Christmas and celebrations and salutations to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as to all the members of this House as we head off very shortly, and we are—some of us—counting down the hours until tomorrow, when we head off for Christmas to spend time with our families, and, as the Minister also noted, maybe head out into the great outdoors, into the ngahere, and spend time communing with nature somewhat. And so too: happy Christmas to you all.

My contribution is in support of this, the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill. I’d like to acknowledge and congratulate the Minister the Hon Eugenie Sage and also the chair of the Environment Committee, Dr Deborah Russell, for shepherding this through the select committee process; and to all members of the committee, it is a pleasure working with you. You are generally a very collegial team of members from across the House, and I do wish you all well too for your festive season.

This bill seeks to provide the Department of Conservation with a more effective system of enforcement. That’s the aim of it. It’s to ensure that the penalties for offences are in line with the seriousness of the offence. So, currently, offenders at the moment who commit minor offences either will get slapped over the wrist with a damp bus ticket or will end up in the court process. And so, really, that’s not appropriate for the minor-end scale of an offence. This bill actually hits that mid-point with an infringement notice and a fine; therefore, it will sit comfortably between the lower end of a warning and the upper end of a prosecution.

In New Zealand First, we’re all about common sense. We think this bill is fair. It’s a common-sense approach to dealing with offending at that minor end of the scale. So this infringements system is more efficient. It will be easier for everyone involved. The Department of Conservation won’t be tied up with prosecutions, and people won’t have to go through those really costly court processes for those minor offences, and it will actually free up quite a lot of court time as well.

Some of the offences that will be looked at, in terms of what will be an infringement, will be quite a lot of things pointing towards littering. And I’d just like to make note that, back in the 1950s, the Rotorua tramping club was set up, and a couple of years later they decided to add skiing to it. So they built a hut up on the maunga, maunga Ruapehu, and they had 32 working parties to get all the building materials and to build that hut, which is now called the lodge, up there on Ruapehu. What they did was they created this great environment—a great family place to go and be in nature, to be part of nature’s stores—and one of the things, in terms of the tramping aspect of that club, was to pack in and pack out. Whether it was on a tramp up the mountain or through the Mamakus or the Taraweras, any rubbish you took with you, you actually brought it back out as well. [Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could we just give the speaker a bit of respect on both sides of the House please.

JENNY MARCROFT: You packed it in and you packed it out, so therefore you weren’t littering. So this is something that, perhaps, we could be reminded of today: that we really should take our rubbish back out with us, and therefore we would avoid any form of new infringement system that will come to pass.

So my contribution is a short one. I’d just like to finish by saying that much of New Zealand’s taonga exist inside nature’s stores. It is the lure of New Zealand’s environment for many people, whether it’s Kiwis or those visiting us, to enjoy our national parks, our reserves, our native wildlife, and our outdooring culture. It is a part of being a Kiwi. It is our responsibility as kaitiaki of our nature spaces that we look after it, and it’s the responsibility of all those. Just as the Minister the Hon Eugenie Sage has mentioned, the Department of Conservation and Fish & Game will run an infringement system that the public will have confidence in.

So, on that note, happy Christmas; I hope you get plenty of figgy pudding. I commend this bill to the House.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon Member: Fresh from Poland.

TODD MULLER: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to talk briefly on this legislation and follow the good contributions that we’ve had from all our committee members. In the spirit of Christmas, can I also acknowledge the festive season, particularly the presiding officers and everyone in this House, and, of course, particularly our select committee, who I agree, actually, I think on balance collectively bring some good judgment to the table.

I was actually going to reflect, and I still will, in the spirit of Christmas, you know, what one could wish for in terms of a Christmas outcome. I was following Kieran McAnulty’s vehicle into Parliament this morning, and on the back of his ute he has got his promotion, but he’s completely lacking the back end of his ute. The glass has shattered. It’s no longer there. He’s basically got an empty sort of frame. I was suggesting that that, perhaps, could be something he could put up for a Christmas wish, that he perhaps could get his ute fixed.

I see David Parker—

Hon Scott Simpson: It’s a metaphor. It’s a metaphor.

TODD MULLER: Yes, it’s a pretty clumsy one, but there is a metaphor there. David Parker—it’s a shame that he has not yet contributed. I very much enjoyed his contribution last time, where he accused us all of being statists. That’s one of the highlights of the year, your contribution around statists. I know I wish the member a merry Christmas as well. Hopefully, you can, perhaps, get an electric fence from Santa, and can actually see what one does on a farm in terms of protecting our waterways from our stock, and how effective that is, applied across nearly all our farms. It’d be a good education for you.

But back to this bill. The Minister, when she gave her contribution, said that this bill, as introduced, was not controversial. Certainly, from our side of the House, we echo that. At its core was a sensible intent where we provided a more fit-for-purpose capacity for the Department of Conservation to assess when there was a breach and ensure that there was the right response for that particular breach. Had it stayed there—had it stayed as a sensible addition for the Department of Conservation to be able to do their job effectively—we would have supported it. But, typically, this Government decided to overreach and, as you’ve heard very well stepped out by Sarah Dowie and Scott Simpson, decided to expand those powers to provide for Fish & Game officers to also have those powers. That point is essentially the key difference here in terms of whether this side of the House supports this legislation. At the core were some good ideas. But in their zest to overregulate our natural resources and community, this Government has fallen for the, in my view, poor judgment of suggesting that Fish & Game officers should have that power. So that is essentially why we resist it. Otherwise we would be supporting it. Unfortunately, they have included that in the legislation, so we can’t.

I look forward to a bit of a break. I’m sure many people do here. We know from an Environment Committee perspective that we have much in front of us next year. Certainly in my area, in terms of climate change, I look forward to those conversations. But until then, that’s my contribution. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. To everyone listening, have a great Christmas and New Year. Thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I won’t use my contribution to wish everybody a merry Christmas because I get to do that tomorrow during the adjournment debate. But I will, however, echo the merry sentiments that have been put forward by a number of people, including, most recently Todd Muller, who is, of course, a member of the wonderful Environment Committee. It is a hard-working select committee, chaired quite ably, I might add, by Dr Deborah Russell.

The contents of this legislation have been well traversed by speakers previous to me. But long story short, at the core of it is the kaupapa that we want to stop trashing our conservation estate. I think that that is something which has been progressed and worked upon in a huge way by the incredible Minister the Hon Eugenie Sage. I will say, in the spirit where things are kind of getting a little bit somewhat less formal than they typically are, that I was speaking earlier today with our advisors in our parliamentary office. I noted when it came about that I would have the opportunity to speak on this bill that I would use it as an opportunity to extol the incredible value that the Minister Eugenie Sage brings to our Parliament and in her position. Absolutely I think that that is manifest in a number of things, not least the confidence and supply agreement between Labour and the Greens to see an increase in funding for conservation work.

But this bill gives the Department of Conservation (DOC) more tools, essentially. It allows for a greater opportunity among the spectrum of things that DOC can do, because currently they can only prosecute or give warnings. So prosecute on the one hand and on the other end give warnings. What this legislation proposes is kind of a halfway house whereby DOC can issue fines—a kind of spectrum of responses, if you will; in the same way that, for example, the Fisheries Act allows the Ministry for Primary Industries to fine people. This will enable operational flexibility, which I think, ultimately, is about convenience and about appropriateness of response, and ensuring that that response is weighted appropriately to the offence. In summary, I’m incredibly proud as a Green MP to be supporting this bill before the House today.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m very pleased to talk to this bill today as well. Even though I’m not a member of the Environment Committee, certainly I’ve had quite a lot to do with this bill.

I’d like to agree with the member who was speaking, Chlöe Swarbrick, that we do want to make sure that we look after our environment. We do want to give the Department of Conservation (DOC) more tools in their tool kit, but unfortunately this bill goes a little bit too far for us.

I’m really disappointed that National can’t support it, because, as has been mentioned today, this bill was originally begun by the Hon Maggie Barry. I remember it well because I was the associate Minister at the time. And we worked hard to try and get a middle ground in terms of managing offences on the DOC estate.

We do understand that most New Zealanders like to do well by our great outdoors. Most New Zealanders only leave footprints. They don’t want to do bad things to our trees or to our animals. But every now and then we get people who break the law. So it’s really important that DOC, who are charged with looking after our nature, have tools to be able to do that well. DOC rangers are out there day and night. Up until now they’ve only really had two choices: they could either issue a warning if it was a less serious offence or they could actually prosecute somebody and take them to court. The reason that this bill was so important is that we needed to have some middle ground. We needed to be able to do something that was more than just a warning but wasn’t a full-blown prosecution. In many cases, less serious events did need more than that warning. They did need something that could have some teeth to it, but they certainly didn’t want to go to court. This bill gets that middle ground by introducing an infringement and fine regime, and that is to deal with those less serious offences efficiently, effectively, intelligently, and in a useful way.

If you think about a court prosecution, it takes a long time, it tends to be a pretty expensive process, and if someone is successfully prosecuted, they end up with a criminal record. So it meant that it really had to be something pretty serious before DOC wanted to go through all that process. So this infringement system will give warnings the teeth that DOC needs. The fines would be set by regulation, and they’d probably be somewhere between $100 and $500, and it will provide that timely, efficient, and effective mechanism to manage those less serious offences.

Of course, a prosecution is always an option, and there are certain misdemeanours or certain activities for which we do need to keep prosecution in mind—things like risks to public safety, firearms offences, things that perhaps would give significant commercial gain, and serious harms to conservation values. So this does not mean that a prosecution will never happen, but it does mean that you’ve got a greater range of options. So whereas National absolutely supports the principle of this bill, we don’t believe that the powers should be extended to either Fish & Game or local councils. And I know that this was the debate that was at select committee, and I do thank the select committee for the work that they’ve done. There’s no doubt about it that National is comfortable with the philosophy behind this, and we’re comfortable with allowing DOC to manage an infringement and fine regime. Basically, that’s because they’re part of the State services and there are significant checks and balances in that position. But we think extending it just takes it a step too far.

So, Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I thank everyone for the work that they’ve done on it. Certainly we agree that DOC needs these tools, but we don’t think it should go any further. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Oh, well, thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Look, there’s been some grumpiness in the House, but that’s expected. The Hon Christopher Finlayson MP QC is departing, so there’s a little bit of upset, but that’s OK; let’s get on to this bill, which is an important bill.

Conservation—I don’t usually speak on such an important topic, but once again I’ve been brought down from the palace of Bowen House and the harbourside views that we get, in order to speak. And if you look at the harbourside views, you’ll see that beautiful electorate of Rongotai and Watts Peninsula—managed soon, I hope, by the Department of Conservation (DOC). What a great Public Service department that agency is. We’ve got a marine reserve there in Island Bay and also an array of secret islands, etc., in the Chathams. So we won’t talk about those today, because we’re talking about enforcement.

Now, no one really likes enforcement. I mean, we think about parking wardens when we think about enforcement, but no such move from our wonderful Yogi bears, the DOC rangers. Look, people have got a little bit upset about giving the same powers to the Fish & Game guys, and I’m reassured by our wonderful Minister of Conservation, the Hon Eugenie Sage, who’s assured me that, look, folks, our DOC people do the indigenous stuff, and our Fish & Game do the introduced stuff, except in Taupō, where Tūwharetoa do it, and that’s because they wanted DOC to do it. That’s common sense. That makes sense, and I’m sure we all agree. You know, if there’s naughty people running around doing foolish stuff, being ignorant to conservation—and we all claim to be green these days. So I don’t think there’s a big issue here.

I’m sorry. I heard the member next to me. Yeah, she’s green, too. Look, I think we’ve been a bit silly this evening. There are quite a few people upset with one of their colleagues leaving but, really—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Name him!

PAUL EAGLE: Name him? I’ve named him.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Simon and Paula?

PAUL EAGLE: Oh, that’s going a little bit too far there, eh, but we’ll name him later, in the next speech I give when I return from my harbourside views in the palace of Bowen. Look, this is decent stuff. It’s practical. We’re getting a bit silly. I commend this bill to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. If people were listening at home, they would have been hearing a very kind and friendly voice then, just speaking, and I must say, in the spirit of Christmas, with Paul Eagle’s lovely red tie there, you could think he’s just like Father Christmas, but he was trying to say, “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” That was kind of what we were all hearing on this side of the House. But there is some evil in this bill, and that’s what we need to talk about, and that’s what we need to be debating here tonight. I know that sounds a bit like the Christmas Grinch but, actually, it’s important that here in Parliament we debate the real issues, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a week out from Christmas—we still debate the real issues, because we should not be shying away from our responsibilities to scrutinise the legislation which is in front of us and make sure that it is fit and proper for what it is to do.

So it is important to remind ourselves that the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill was a very good National bill. It was brought to Parliament by the Hon Maggie Barry, an excellent Minister, and can I just applaud the Hon Maggie Barry for all of the excellent work that she did in the conservation area. She championed Predator Free 2050, the War on Weeds, the Battle for our Birds—a whole range of different programmes which are making a massive difference in New Zealand. And also she championed this bill, which was to bring about an infringement system to ensure that Department of Conservation officers were able to issue infringements or fines to those people who undertook low-level offending.

But the problem which we now have is that the Green Party and their Minister have got hold of this bill, and they have, along with their Government mates in the Labour and New Zealand First parties, ripped it apart, torn it apart, and inserted the ability for a whole range of other people to come along and start issuing infringement notices left, right, and centre out in our conservation estate. We need to hold firm to the principle that the non-Governmental agencies should not be issuing fines and infringement notices unabated from the House. I hear some noises from across the other side of the House. I’m not sure exactly what they’re trying to say, but all I can say is that we need to be firm in our lawmaking powers—

Stuart Smith: An extinct dodo bird.

SIMEON BROWN: Oh, it’s a formerly extinct dodo bird on the other side. Oh, that’s what Stuart meant.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Come on, pull it in. Wind it back in, please.

SIMEON BROWN: I’m sorry. I apologise, Madam Assistant Speaker. That was a terrible interjection by Stuart Smith. So we will be opposing this bill. We don’t want to go back to the dark ages. We want to stand for good legislation and we want to ensure that our conservation estate, while it is protected—that it is the right people issuing these notices, doing it through proper legal processes, doing it with a proper regulatory regime over the top of that. And so National will be opposing this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Thank you. Before I call the Hon Clare Curran, I just want to say one thing. I don’t want to be the Grinch that stole Christmas, but we are passing legislation here tonight. A passing reference to the bill would be appreciated. A little bit of wit would be very welcome, but could we just get to the business at hand. I’ll call the Hon Clare Curran.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and a happy Christmas to you. Well, I thought that that party over there was the party of law and order, and with reference to the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill and this last reading, they seem to be running quite a curious argument. I didn’t sit on the Environment Committee. I now sit on that select committee, but I didn’t sit on the select committee for this piece of legislation. But even I can go and read a departmental report that actually tells me that Fish & Game already have powers of enforcement. Not only do they already have powers of enforcement but they use those powers and have done for some time to enforce game bird hunting regulations and rules, and sports fishing regulations and rules. We know this because we consider Fish & Game to be an important part of the conservation ecosystem, where one goes and gets a licence in order to undertake these activities, and if one doesn’t, then one does suffer some consequences.

So when we are looking at the extension of powers that ensure that the intention of the bill, which is to introduce an infringement system into eight core Department of Conservation statutes—which the Opposition seems to support in principle, because they talked about the previous Minister of Conservation Maggie Barry supporting that. They don’t seem to want to enforce or to actually support the system that underpins it, which is that by extending some powers of enforcement to Fish & Game—and they’ve gone very quiet now, because maybe they are all reading the departmental report.

At page 20, point No. 90, just in case they wanted to go and have a wee look—and I’ll just note a few of them, Madam Assistant Speaker. The infringement notices in the infringement system—the system is yet to be established in regulation—relate to things like taking, harassing, and injuring marine mammals, failing to comply with any requirement or notice issued, unauthorised activities in parks, littering, altering boundary markings, and a whole lot of hunting without landowner permission. They are those sorts of things which are all of the level that I think the intent—which I think the Opposition agrees with—should not be considered as prosecution, but rather infringement, and so therefore it requires an enforcement system to underpin it.

So they support the intent, but they don’t actually want the system. They don’t actually care. So, being the party of law and order, they don’t actually care whether or not there is an enforcement system that’s actually going to work to protect our conservation values. So I do agree with the Hon David Parker when he referred to them as statist. “Cognitive dissonance” was the phrase I used last week in a speech, and I think that it’s completely relevant tonight. We support this bill, and I hope it gets through its whole passage tonight.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m rising to speak at the third reading of the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill, at its final reading. Because it’s that time of year, I just want to briefly join with previous speakers in spreading some Christmas cheer. I do so now because, unlike Chlöe Swarbrick—the amazing Chlöe Swarbrick, who’s been selected, she told us, to participate in the adjournment debate tomorrow, and good on her; she’s had a fantastic year—we have 55 incredible MPs and the competition is fierce. So while I remain hopeful, I am also realistic. So happy Christmas, everyone. Actually, it’s probably more to do with the fact that I was in the adjournment debate last year and made many jokes about Simon Bridges’ hair which has ruled me out of this year’s debate.

I have had a great year on the Environment Committee, and I’d just like to say—well, we’ve been a little bit light on work—thank you very much to Deborah Russell, who did a great job at shepherding this bill, which I’m getting to, through the House. This is a bill, as we’ve heard—I won’t take very long, because I think we’ve heard all the arguments—that had its genesis with the National Party and with the very honourable Maggie Barry, who, rightly, agreed with Department of Conservation (DOC) officials that an infringement system was required. She did a lot of the background work, the heavy lifting, to get this bill to where it is today, and she should be commended for that.

We all agree—in fact, we all said so at the first reading, on this side of the House—that it is important that DOC should have the power to issue an infringement notice, for good reason. As people have already said, it’s a good midway point between a warning and prosecution. It stops those harsh prosecutions when perhaps an infringement notice would do. It frees up the courts’ time, it saves money, and, in fact, it’s really good for the care and protection of our environment, because it is more of a deterrent for people to know that they could likely face a fine rather than just a warning.

But, as we mentioned, this bill has somewhat been derailed. There have been additions to this bill where somewhat, some would say, unprecedented powers are given to non - State sector employees to issue fines. That is where we differ on this side of the House, and for that reason, while we agree that Fish & Game do great work, we cannot support this bill. We don’t believe that non - State sector employees should have these powers when they’re not subject to the same codes of conduct and minimum standards as DOC rangers. So, bearing that in mind, for reasons of fairness and maintaining integrity in the system, we will be opposing this bill.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): I’m delighted to stand here in support of this bill this evening. For someone who has not been on the Environment Committee, I think this is an absolutely fantastic bill. I’ve looked at this in great detail over the course of the day. I’ve had a look at the departmental report, and I am actually struggling a little bit to understand why you would oppose such a fantastic bill.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Just for the sake of it.

JAN TINETTI: Yeah, I think you’re right there. My colleague’s just said it’s for the sake of opposing, really, because the Department of Conservation needed this enforcement. They’re the only enforcement agency that has no infringement system, and we’ve heard many speakers here this evening who have talked about the fact that we need that middle ground.

The one point that has become a little bit controversial seems to be that our Opposition don’t want to see consistency in this infringement system, and I struggle to understand why you wouldn’t want to see consistency. I think it’s fantastic. This means it’s going to clear up our courts system. It makes the whole process a lot easier. It makes it a lot more understandable for people as well. It helps our conservation estate.

Throughout this day, all I could see is that this bill is a fantastic bill. I commend and congratulate the select committee for the fantastic work that they have done. My colleague here, Deborah Russell, in leading that committee has, I think, done an absolutely amazing job, and it’s been said here before, but there is nothing further to say. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission): I move, That the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The changes in this bill will improve the Earthquake Commission’s efficiency and ability to respond to future events. This is a bill that has four straightforward changes that can be made now, ahead of a more comprehensive review of the current Earthquake Commission Act. The support for these changes comes from across the House, and it’s a good indicator of how logical they are. I thank the members from the Finance and Expenditure Committee for their work on this bill and for the improvements made as a result of submissions that were received.

The changes we’re seeking to make with this bill are the first substantial changes to be introduced since the current Act was introduced in the early 1990s. The inquiry into the Earthquake Commission (EQC), which will commence shortly, is a step towards a fuller review of the Act. Learning from the experiences of the people of Canterbury and Kaikōura will identify further areas for improvement. I expect to bring further, more substantive changes to the Earthquake Commission Act following that review.

The four changes in this bill include increasing the amount the EQC can pay per claim from $100,000 to $150,000, plus GST. The cap on claims has not been increased since 1994, and this change acknowledges the increase in building costs since then. Secondly, the bill removes contents and personal property cover from EQC. This will now be picked up via people’s private insurance policies. Following a significant earthquake like the Canterbury sequence, EQC needs to focus resources on restoring people’s homes rather than being diverted on to contents and personal property claims. These two changes will come into effect as people’s insurance policies are renewed from 1 July 2019. Any new property insurance policies entered into from 1 July 2019 will also reflect these new clauses.

In my role as the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission, from time to time I come across a situation that reminds me why changes to this bill are important. About the time of the second reading of this bill, I received a letter from a man who found that his reclusive aunt’s Christchurch home was earthquake damaged. She had not let anyone into her home for a number of years. The family did not know the extent of the damage to the house. With a three-month deadline for lodging a claim, the elderly woman and her family could not receive EQC help to repair the home. It’s situations like this that demonstrate the need for a longer claims lodgment period. The bill includes that change. It enables EQC to accept claim notifications for up to two years after a natural disaster, rather than the current three-month time limit. EQC will need to be satisfied that the failure to make a claim within three months has not materially prejudiced their ability to assess the claim.

Further to this, the bill provides for regulations to be made either to extend the two-year deadline or for EQC to consider accepting claims in exceptional circumstances more than two years after the damage-causing event. The changes in the bill also improve EQC’s ability to share information. I want to thank the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for their submission, which greatly improved these clauses in the bill. Specifically, the changes in the bill mean EQC may release information that it holds to prevent or lessen a threat to public health or public safety or to the life or health of any individual. EQC may also release information for the administration of the EQC Act or the performance of its functions. Information that will facilitate natural disaster preparedness, response, or recovery, including the settlement of insurance claims by insurance companies, can also be released by EQC. EQC may also make property-related information available publicly. The bill requires EQC to have appropriate protections in place to maintain the confidentiality of personal information. These second two changes will come into effect on 1 July 2019.

The changes I have outlined are straightforward to make. They are also logical ones that can be put in place now in preparation for a future event, should it occur, and will increase the efficiency of EQC’s claims management. I’d like to take a brief moment to comment on why I did not support Supplementary Order Paper 156, which would have allowed claims to be lodged directly with private insurers, making them agents of the Crown for that claim. Firstly, we don’t need it to be in law for this to happen. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was put in place after the Kaikōura sequence of events was put in place before this law change. We could do the same thing again quickly if it is the best model for the event, following that event. Any new MOU would also build on the strong relationships that have further developed between EQC and the small number of private insurers in New Zealand. I have not yet received the review of the Kaikōura MOU, and I want to receive Dame Silvia Cartwright’s report following the inquiry into the Earthquake Commission before we undertake a substantive review of the EQC Act.

We need to make sure we aren’t putting in place a model that may have unintended consequences, while ensuring we make any improvements to the model that are identified in the review. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, it is a pleasure to speak on the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill in its third reading, and we will be supporting it, as we have all the way through this process—however, with some reservations. The two years, I think—that was extending the time period to make a claim out to two years—was something that we did initially oppose. We’ve agreed to it reluctantly but with qualifications, and I think that it is incumbent upon the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission now to ensure that it’s quite clearly communicated to people that while they have an opportunity to wait up to two years to identify earthquake damage or other damage and make a claim with the Earthquake Commission (EQC), that is really putting themselves at risk, because there is the material prejudice clause in there, and I think it’s very risky when you’re getting up to a period like two years to actually meet that test and get a successful claim.

It should also be pointed out to people that they most likely won’t have cover for their house if they haven’t been living in it for more than 60 days. Most insurance companies have a clause that you must live in or visit your house continuously, or if you’re away from it for more than 60 days, you’re actually required to inform the insurance company, or your insurance can, in fact, be null and void, or you can have a material increase in the excess—quite significant; $10,000 in one case. So that might be quite significant for damage. You would think that the damage that wasn’t obvious would be at the lower end of damages rather than at the higher end. So that’s the two years. So I understand what would drive the Minister to want to do that, but I think there needs to be quite a bit of caution there.

Sharing information and tidying that up in the law and making it very clear that EQC can share information around natural disasters to help with preparedness and share it with other agencies is absolutely needed. As the Minister said, this is the first opportunity, really, to do that. There was a lot learnt from the Christchurch event, and lifting the cap from $100,000 to $150,000 and also removing the contents cover—there was quite a bit of work done on that by the officials, in fact, in a normal earthquake event that is likely to actually lower EQC’s exposure by a small amount. So it wasn’t a significant or material amount. But I don’t know why and I don’t understand why that couldn’t have just been adjusted by Consumers Price Index rather than having to wait for legislation to change, because inevitably legislation will come in well after the inflation has occurred and it’s inevitable that they’ll be behind and therefore the cap will be out of whack with where it should be.

But the Minister alluded to my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 156 at the end, and I will cover that, and I think that she also said that one of the aims of this bill was to promote efficiency. Well, that’s exactly what the memorandum of understanding (MOU) did. It was very clear right through the select committee process that all of the evidence supported having the MOU or the ability for an insurance claim to be made, and that that would be deemed as an EQC claim, and to take the middleman out, effectively, which is EQC, and that the insurance companies, who were the main submitters, and legal practices as well—that that needed to be in the legislation rather than an MOU. We know it worked really well, and I look forward very much to when the other piece of legislation that the Minister alluded to comes in and it has what is effectively my SOP in there—that the Minister will look for a really decent bottle of chardonnay that she can give me and thank me very much for all the work that I did on that. And if she doesn’t like to bring me chardonnay, a very good pinot noir would be good. It wouldn’t be political to give a brand but I could give a price band. A good Marlborough wine or a good Waipara would be quite adequate for my tastes.

But I think that it is important that we actually think about these things while we’ve got the opportunity, and to wait for another inquiry I think is really abdicating your responsibility, and I really don’t believe that that’s the right thing to do. I think that the more substantive changes—we’ve had enough time, we’ve had enough inquiry, and I think it is, really, just trying to deliver on an election promise. We had, actually, the chairman, Sir Michael Cullen, and Sid Miller, the chief executive of EQC, in front of the Governance and Administration Committee last week, and I was quite alarmed, because I really believe the MOU and the SOP—the opposition to those, particularly from EQC, is about patch protection. I think that they’re out there to try and grow their influence. We were told, under questioning from myself about the risk-based insurance pricing models and the impact on the market, that EQC are looking at, with Treasury, becoming the insurer of last resort in New Zealand. I was quite shocked to hear that and I’m quite concerned about it, so I’m flagging that now, that we are certainly keeping a very close eye on that because that is a serious development. So, with some caveats, I commend the bill to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Well, to the member for Kaikōura: shame on you. Shame on you for being half-hearted in your support of this bill. Shame on you—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —for naysaying—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Dr Webb, please. Not me.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Shame on the member—shame on the member for being half-hearted in his support of the bill. Absolutely. Think about it. And shame on the member for not reading it clearly. For a start, read the amendment. The current position is, under this bill, that three months is the required time limit in which someone must make a claim. Shame on the member for not even understanding how reinsurance works. Nobody wants to put in a late claim.

As for your Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 156, Mr Smith, you don’t seem to understand how insurance works, because if we think about it carefully, then we don’t even need the SOP. The memorandum of understanding that was put in was a very useful memorandum of understanding, but we can’t require insurers to agree to an arrangement. So the suggestion that we need to put into legislation a requirement that Earthquake Commission (EQC) agree with insurers is meaningless, and not only meaningless, it’s mischievous. It’s a recipe for disaster.

This bill, however, is a good step forward that should have been taken some time ago, because the work underpinning it was done years and years ago. But what we have is some very useful progression so that we can get in place some efficiencies in the system whilst the inquiry is being undertaken. Let’s not pretend that the system’s working perfectly. That’s well acknowledged, but we don’t want to be hasty in a redesign of the entire system. These are improvements that can be made very easily, and improvements that everyone recognises. The increasing of the cap to $150,000 is an obvious and reasonable improvement of the system, so that that first level of cover will cover most of the damage that occurs in a major event. We can be a little dismissive, but getting rid of the contents cover is a very significant improvement because the administrative burden associated with administering $20,000 worth of contents cover is extremely high, and the idea of having to have an EQC step for $20,000, which often was for curtains and carpet, before you could move on to your insurer and get the wider contents cover—well, it’s well we do away with it. In fact, that simply slowed down contents claims and, I must say, from personal experience, was a huge frustration for homeowners.

In terms of the extension of claim time, can I say that this is probably the point which I consider to be the most significant improvement, because a number of people that I have dealt with over time did not put their EQC claims in within the required period, and it is an absolutely legislative hard deadline. If you’re outside of the statutory deadline, then there is no give whatsoever. Many people had very good reasons for not putting that in. They might have been an absentee, they might have been overwhelmed, or they might have been suffering from illnesses of all kinds. It was entirely unfair that they were not entitled to make an EQC claim simply because they hadn’t done it within the rigid statutory three-month period.

What we have now is an ability for the Minister to push that out not only to two years but, in special circumstances, beyond that. Whilst in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which I sat on, there was all kinds of discussion about what it might mean for reinsurance, the fact is that it means nearly nothing, because we know the vast majority of people put their claims in on time, for a very good reason. They want to be paid. They want to get their claims settled. So, in fact, that very small percentage—1 percent or less—who don’t get their claims in on time do it through oversight, through omission, through hardship, and through all kinds of other reasons. That has no impact on the cost of getting reinsurance, because everyone wants to be paid on time. The idea that someone would maliciously not put their claim in is fatuous. It’s a ridiculous proposition and there’s no motive for it whatsoever.

The other important innovation here, and it’s one which is far more structural and less, kind of, immediate for any affected homeowner, is the information-sharing provisions. Now, these are contentious in that we are gathering information about individuals and individual claims, but, in fact, the purpose of this is for the preparedness and the management and handling of claims. That personal information is not going to be identifiable. So what we really need to know, what EQC needs to know, is wider risk questions—questions about where the vulnerabilities are, questions about what the damage to properties is—so that the claims can be managed much more effectively and the forward-looking risks can be managed much more effectively. In fact, what that will lead to is a more effective claims system and more effective risk management, and those preventative steps and educative steps that EQC can take are much better managed in the long run.

As the Minister noted, the Privacy Commissioner had very good advice for the select committee on that, and, having sat on that select committee, I’m very comfortable indeed with the fact that that information-gathering exercise will be effective and that the bill, as a whole, will vastly improve the EQC system. So this is a great improvement. We’re looking to further improvements once the commission is concluded, and I commend this bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Well, I often think that in life there are lawyers and there are others, there are environmentalist and there are others, and, luckily, every time I think of it, I’m in the “others”. Sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker, I want to take a brief call on the—well, it might not be so brief, actually—the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. But before I do, I really want to wish everyone—because it will be my last opportunity to speak in the House this year—a very merry Christmas, some a merrier Christmas than others, but I’ll reserve the right to tell them in due course who they are.

Simeon Brown: What do I get, Ian?

IAN McKELVIE: Ha, ha! I’m not sure about you, Simeon.

We’re not here to argue about what’s in this bill, because we support what’s in this bill. I think it is a timely, I guess, review of the activities of the Earthquake Commission (EQC). Frankly, if we didn’t have an Earthquake Commission in New Zealand, we may well not have insurance for earthquakes, particularly in some parts of New Zealand; so it’s a critical part of what we do in New Zealand. In fact, I suppose, when we think about it, it’s probably been a critical part of what we do in New Zealand since 1931 at least. It certainly is now, and the events of recent years—particularly with Christchurch and Kaikōura and the events in Wellington—have pointed to the huge requirement for this commission to operate and to operate in an efficient manner.

The changes that have been proposed in this bill, particularly increasing the cap and, as the last member spoke about at length, the ability of people when required to make claims up to two years after the event is, I think, a very positive change. It also removes the EQC insurance cover for contents, which is certainly a necessary change to the bill—well, I don’t know whether it’s necessary or not, but it’s easy enough. You’ll always be able to get insurance, within reason, for contents cover in the private sector, and that’s how it should be. So this commission really shores up an issue in New Zealand which is hugely important for us, and that is the fact that earthquakes do a lot of damage to our ability to attract insurance. If we think about Australia, in Australia, fires are really their earthquakes, and the same thing happens there. In fact, in many parts of Australia, you can’t get cover for fire insurance; so an EQC-type arrangement shores that up.

I want to talk about a couple of things—one the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission mentioned actually, and that was the measure that Stuart Smith introduced around insurance companies handling, effectively, the first contact claims and, in fact, handling the whole of the claims process. The Minister mentioned the fact that that can be tacked on to any natural disaster. And I accept that; it can be. But we then heard Duncan Webb go on to say that we can’t force insurers to accept those types of arrangements. Well, we certainly can if it’s a law, because the law is the law. So if we put it into law, there would be no problem ensuring that the insurers accept those requirements. And so I didn’t think there was necessarily a sensible argument to that. In fact, if we put it in law, we could enforce that and we could ensure that that happens.

But I think that, initially, the changes that have been made to this legislation and to the Earthquake Commission’s activities are sensible. I do think, though, that there’s a significantly large amount of work required to further changes to this legislation in the future, because as we review what happened, particularly in the two Christchurch earthquakes and probably Kaikōura and Wellington, I think we’ll come up with a different solution in due course to the challenge we’ve got. I think it does need to be connected to the private insurers because, at the end of the day, they make the market in New Zealand. They’re hugely important to where we get to, and I think that we need to accommodate them in the way we write this legislation. I don’t think for a minute that it’s the Government’s business to be providing any kind of business activity where that is adequately covered by the private sector.

Now, you could argue that in some cases, and certainly in the earthquake situation, it may not be adequately covered by the private sector, in which case I think there’s very good reason for Government to intervene. So, as I said earlier, we support all the changes that are made in the course of this. There are some improvements that could be made in the future, and as the reviews come to hand I hope that the Minister will go on and make those changes.

I just also want to very briefly mention the background to this legislation, in that three Ministers, at least, had an impact on this: Gerry Brownlee, who dealt with the initial Christchurch earthquakes; certainly Nicky Wagner has had an input; and the current Minister, Megan Woods. I think that, when you’re dealing with this kind of thing or with this type of legislation that is specific in a lot of cases to the personal effect it has on people, that’s pretty significant. So Parliament, across the board, needs to make changes that enable people to live better lives in times of natural disaster, and that’s really what this is about.

I think I’ve mentioned in the House previously that I’ve had experience myself of EQC claims going right back to 1931—they weren’t EQC claims in those days, but I certainly have buildings that were damaged in 1931 and have been re-damaged since. So it’s quite interesting, and I understand the challenges that those people would have. It didn’t perhaps affect me in the same manner because it’s not recent damage, but I think it’s hugely important. I commend the bill to the House, and I’m sure that there will be some reviews coming to us in the future that will change it again. Thank you.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and confirm our support for this Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. Of course, we’re debating here or confirming these four common-sense changes which represent the low-hanging fruit of our experiences, and our hard-won experiences, in the series of quakes that have afflicted us as a nation over the last eight years. I commend the Minister, and New Zealand First commends the Minister, in bringing these, as I say, low-hanging fruit or more obvious changes forward, pending the more comprehensive review by Dame Silvia Cartwright.

Of course, there is the lifting of the cap to $150,000 from $100,000, as it was set in 1994, and of course we know that real estate and building prices have lifted considerably in that time. But I think there was some debate on where that cap should be set. I think some had advocated for a higher cap, but I think $150,000 is a fair level. I think we’ve got to be careful here with moral hazard. It is up to individuals to insure their own property, and we can’t have the State just being the default provider. The same goes in terms of the removal of contents from the process. That just merely clutters up what is—and we know there were hundreds of thousands of claims within the Christchurch and the Kaikōura sequences of quakes. So taking out the contents and personal belongings provisions does unclutter that process. It is a common-sense provision, and, once again, it’s a moral hazard. It shouldn’t be up to the State to be insuring your telly or your vases or nanna’s antique cups. That’s up to you, and I think that’s fair enough.

To extend the claim time—we’ve had a bit of debate about that tonight as well. I think three months seems to me to be an extraordinarily short period of time. These are absolutely traumatic events, and it does not make sense to have an arbitrary three-month period. People will get their claims in as soon as they can, but it does stretch that out for two years in the most extreme events, and it does take some pressure off those people in traumatic circumstances.

The information-sharing provisions—we do note that it was amended under advice from the Privacy Commissioner, the select committee doing its work as it does well in this Parliament, and we support that as New Zealand First. It does streamline the response and improve the efficiency of the Earthquake Commission.

I would just like to touch on Stuart Smith’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). New Zealand First actually supported that SOP in principle. We thought it had merit. It had worked under the memorandum of understanding (MOU) during the Kaikōura sequence, and we did seek some assurances from the Minister that that would be considered properly within the scope of the Cartwright review. We have had that assurance, but we do share the Minister’s view that it does not make sense to make ad hoc provisions on something that is a bit more complicated and that may have unintended consequences. We know that—the Kaikōura example is that we can bring this MOU in, should it be required, in lieu of the Cartwright report coming back and recommending that going into the fuller review of the legislation.

So in closing, I’d like to commend the Minister for bringing these common-sense provisions forward. I commend the Finance and Expenditure Committee. They obviously did quite a bit of work in panel beating this bill out, particularly around those privacy provisions. The officials, as always—and I would just like to thank also, by just reiterating the words that have been spoken tonight, as this will probably be my last contribution of the year: to you, Madam Assistant Speaker, a very merry Christmas, and to all members of the House, and in fact, the precinct too, in this weird ecosystem that we live in. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and look forward to working with you all again next year. So with that, New Zealand First has pleasure in commending this to the House. Thank you.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to follow what I thought was a very considered and excellent contribution from the New Zealand First member Mark Patterson—one of his better contributions that I’ve heard in this House. I thought it was very good.

Can I also take this opportunity, Madam Assistant Speaker, of acknowledging you and the role you’ve played throughout the year. This will probably also be the only opportunity I get to speak between now and the adjournment debate, but I think you have done an exceptional job as a presiding officer of this House. And to all members from all sides of the House, a merry Christmas to you all.

Now to the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. My first point would be that I think it’s a missed opportunity. I think there was a substantial amount of research and inquiries done in response to two major earthquakes—or three major earthquakes in Christchurch and one major event in Kaikōura—that actually gave the opportunity for the new Minister coming into this portfolio to do something that was significant, and I think the opportunity has been missed, for a reason that I’m not sure of. I could be unkind to say it’s incompetence. I could be unkind to say the Minister simply hasn’t had time to consider the issues.

But to put a bill before the House which does, effectively, four relatively minor things is a missed opportunity. And I know the Minister’s working on further reform and further legislation. I hope that that will come through with a little more guts and gusto to actually set ourselves up for, inevitably, another major disaster which will sadly occur in this country.

So the four changes include lifting the cap from $100,000 to $150,000. It sounds like a big increase, but when you consider the second aspect of the bill, which is to remove the fact that, currently, the Earthquake Commission (EQC) covers contents up to $20,000—when you take that out of the $150,000, the adjustment actually is probably inflation since it was set in 1994. I fully support legislation taking contents out of the cover of EQC. I think that was the point that was made well by Mark Patterson, that it’s the complete responsibility of the individual owner to insure their contents in the event of an earthquake. EQC was set up for major coverage of things like the dwellings etc., not for contents. So I support that part.

The fourth amendment this legislation does is around EQC’s authority to share information—no problem at all with that.

The one I certainly am very nervous about is the second major change. It’s extending the time of notification from three months to two years. And I know that Dr Duncan Webb gave us an incredible example during the select committee process that I still find, frankly, incredulous. But he gave the example of a house that had been in the Christchurch earthquake that had suffered no known visual damage above the ground at all. No contents had fallen off the shelves. There were no cracks in the GIB board. But sometime afterwards, they went to lift their carpet to replace the carpet and they found a massive fracture in the concrete foundation floor.

Now, I suppose it could happen, but I just find it very, very strange that a massive fracture could occur in a concrete foundation with absolutely no sign of any damage at all above that ground level. But Duncan Webb assured us that he’d had a constituent case like that, and that’s why he was strongly supportive of extending the time from three months to two years.

I can accept some extension of time—I think to take it from three months to 12 months. But I just think by taking it to two years, the longer that is open, the more possibility there is for questionable or fraudulent claims, and if there are questionable and fraudulent claims, then there is a possibility that that has to be covered, ultimately, and that means levy increases, and levy increases, frankly, mean that the cost of the levies increases for those that are honest. That’s how insurance works.

The last point I want to make a comment on is the superb Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 156, moved by Stuart Smith, which has been rejected by the Government. But the interesting thing was the comment we just had from Mark Patterson, the New Zealand First member, when he said New Zealand First were actually supportive of the SOP. Well, if they’d been prepared to support the SOP with courage and conviction, it would actually have passed in the House during the committee stage.

Be that as it may, I speak from some experience. I had buildings—a home, in fact, that was affected by the Christchurch earthquake. I had a farm dwelling on a property out of Kaikōura—out of Cheviot, actually—that was affected by the earthquake in Kaikōura. From my own experience—and I say this without criticism of EQC—they fell woefully inadequate in being able to assess the damage.

In the first earthquake, they arrived at my place and said, “Minor damage—it’ll be below cap.” The second earthquake, they said, effectively, the same. The third event in Christchurch, they acknowledged it would be above cap, but, at that stage, they underestimated the total cost of the repair, which ended up being over $400,000. If it hadn’t been because of the good faith of my own private insurer being prepared to negotiate with EQC, it could’ve ended up in a very messy battle between the two.

Stuart Smith’s SOP would solve that problem, and, in the case of the Kaikōura earthquake, the Government then agreed that instead of using EQC you use immediately your private insurer. That is the most efficient way to do it. That’s what happened to the dwelling that I’m talking about in my Cheviot property. FMG Insurance came in as, effectively, the first responders. They worked in assessing the damage. They then were prepared, with agreement from EQC, to bill, in those cases, the first $100,000 to EQC. The claim was settled very quickly.

Now, I know that the Minister says, well, of course, you don’t need a legislation change to do it, and she’s working on this idea because she thinks it has merit. I go back to the very first point I made: it seems to me that this legislation is being rushed through. It achieves four things which are, yep, satisfactory—four things which, of course, National supports. But, if we had a Minister who was prepared to grab the challenge of the portfolio, this is an opportunity where we could have seen a substantial review to EQC legislation. We could have set things up that would position EQC in far better shape to serve the needs of New Zealanders who may be very unfortunately affected by a major event such as an earthquake in the future.

Having said that, despite it not being enough change and not being substantial enough, National does support the legislation. I take this opportunity of commending the legislation to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I’m very pleased to take a short call for the Green Party in support of the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill.

Now, the National Party is once again contradicting itself. Stuart Smith put out a press statement in March of this year saying, “I’m pleased that the Government has picked up most of the recommendations particularly raising the cap from $100,000 to $150,000.” in terms of the Minister’s announcement that she was going to be making changes to the Act. Now we have the Rt Hon David Carter criticising the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission for rushing things through, seeming to ignore the fact that there is a major review going on, chaired by Dame Silvia Cartwright, in terms of doing the things that can be done now, and then waiting for the recommendations that come from that review before implementing more comprehensive reform. So I congratulate the Minister for bringing these changes to the House, which are really good fixes, and yet waiting for more comprehensive recommendations before doing the bigger work around more fundamental changes.

I would note that these changes actually pick up issues that were identified by the ombudsman and that were identified by the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission. The whole issue of the cap of $100,000 plus GST was a major issue in terms of claims. It makes really good sense to increase that to $150,000. Similarly, having the Earthquake Commission (EQC) focus on the repair and recovery of homes rather than focusing on contents makes sense, moving the responsibility for dealing with contents claims to private insurers. Similarly, extending the notification period for claims from three months to two years, and the Finance and Expenditure Committee made a change there to allow it to be further extended by regulation under certain conditions, because in those initial three months after the earthquakes—as anybody in Christchurch, Hurunui, or Kaikōura understands—the focus is very much on just dealing with the trauma of having homes completely destroyed in some cases, severely damaged in others, and getting to grips with quite changed circumstances. Three months is too short, so that two-year period makes a lot of sense.

I then, again, commend the work that the Finance and Expenditure Committee did in response to the submissions of the Privacy Commissioner around the provisions about sharing information to expedite the finalisation of claims and settling those.

But Stuarts Smith’s amendment—again, the Minister has quite clearly said in earlier stages, “Wait for the review recommendations and then look at that in the whole, rather than just doing an ad hoc change here.” As the Kaikōura and Hurunui quakes showed, there can be cooperation between EQC and private insurers through a memorandum of understanding arrangement without necessarily needing the law to change to do that.

So these are four really sensible changes to help improve implementation of the EQC legislation and to help speed the settlement of claims. I commend the bill to the House, and I wish you, Madam Assistant Speaker, a very merry Christmas, having already wished other members of the House that.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s great to have the opportunity to talk on this Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. I haven’t actually had an opportunity to talk on it, even though I was a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, so it’s a great pleasure to be doing that tonight. I just thought I’d particularly wish you, Madam Assistant Speaker, merry Christmas for, just as my other colleagues have noted, the great job that you’ve done this year and your role acting as an independent arbiter of these fine debates in this great institution.

Of course, to the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, it’s been a pleasure working with you this year, ably chaired by Mr Wood over there. But, also, I think as a committee across the House, it has been an effective and hard-working committee this year, and I think we’ve achieved quite a significant amount, particularly with some of the tax bills, and, more recently, we’ve just debated the Reserve Bank bill only a matter of a couple of hours ago.

But, of course, this is about this bill, which is the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. First thing: we’ve made progress with this bill. We’ve made some progress, but, unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve made the progress that we should have made with this very, very important issue. I’m reminded of the time after the Kaikōura earthquake when I spent three days with that hard-working local MP Stuart Smith, driving round the back blocks of Kaikōura visiting farmers and other people who lived in quite remote areas, many of who, immediately after the earthquake, had suffered from a lack of communication—mobile services. Very few people had been visited by anyone—emergency services.

In fact, the only people we really encountered over the three-day period, where we drove into many, many places, was the local insurance firm, who was driving up to make sure that their clients were fine and that they were happy and, if they had issues, that they were lodging their claims. They were doing that as they were driving around, and it was a fabulous piece of service to the rural community, but it also highlighted the issues of providing insurance and actually actively putting in place mechanisms following a major tragedy, like our earthquake that Kaikōura and Christchurch obviously encountered.

That actually meant that those claims could be expedited and completed quickly, because that is the purpose of any insurance and, of course, the role of the Earthquake Commission, which is to provide that framework, that backstop to major events. Of course, it’s funded by the Government, and unfortunately we’ve seen wholesale loss of funding over the series of those three very significant earthquake events, to the point now that the Earthquake Commission funding has now been largely dissipated, and, as a result, we’re in the process of rebuilding that fund. But, of course, that is the purpose of the fund. The purpose of the Earthquake Commission fund is to actually act in times of difficulty and to pay out, and I think that probably strikes at the first issue.

Whilst the bill picks up four of the minor issues—and to some extent this is a National Party bill, and we originally proposed nine issues to be dealt with in the Earthquake Commission (EQC). Unfortunately, the Government only did a half-hearted job and we’ve only picked up four of those issues. I think one of the outstanding issues—and I haven’t heard anyone speak about it tonight, but the first one was around the issue of apportionment. This bill ignores this issue, which is one of the most fraught issues in the Canterbury experience: namely, whether EQC cover reinstates after each seismic event, and what constitutes an event for the purposes of that reinstatement. That definition is really, really important.

Apportionment is the process by which EQC determines who is liable for claims under the Earthquake Commission Act. Without that clarity, what you have is the issue of, if there is an event, who picks up the liability. It may be that EQC has to pick up the liability, it may be that a private insurer has to pick up the liability, it could be the reinsurance component, or there may be other arrangements in place. These costs have to be split up correctly, because unless you do so, you cannot settle the claim.

I spent some time early this year with a very specialised seismic engineer, Mr Brown, who had been deeply involved in working with insurance claims in Christchurch around the issue of when you had this series of seismic events, at what point did the liability to the EQC or to the private insurer—and in some cases, the building owner or the property owner had changed their private insurer. So, in fact, what we ended up with was a whole cascade of events, and the question was: who picked up that apportionment? I can tell you that that person, a very skilful man—Mr Brown, and his team—did very extensive modelling, and what they basically had to do was backfill, by looking at the seismic events, the size of those seismic events, and then work out from an engineering perspective to what extent each of those events had affected the building and at which point in any of those seismic events the building had been damaged, and therefore create a new claim. I’m saying that that apportionment has not been dealt with at all in this bill.

The other thing is around the issue of reinstatement. Of course, we had a very important submission from the Insurance Council of New Zealand, who said that EQC cover should only fully reinstate at the completion of the repairs during the period of insurance, as this would significantly reduce EQC’s exposure, preserve the principle of indemnity, encourage repairs to be undertaken in a timely manner, and remove incentives to under-insure for catastrophic events.

Now, again, this is an important aspect, and this bill, unfortunately, falls silent on this issue. I think that it is disappointing that we have a Minister from Christchurch who should have taken the opportunity to deal with these hard issues. It’s fine doing the soft issues and to give the perception that you’re moving forward—and they are improvements, I will acknowledge that—but I think they really should have done more to deal with that issue in itself, the reinstatement.

Now, the other thing I just want to talk to is the very good Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 156 in the name of Stuart Smith. I think this is where the travesty falls. That SOP, which the good member from Kaikōura put up, basically said “Let’s learn from the example of Christchurch”, where we had all of these multiple claims going on, and the history of EQC having to gear up through having to recruit all these people. In many cases, those people had to be recruited from outside the insurance industry, and therefore had to be trained in what they had to do in terms of, first, assessing claims, and then ultimately going through the process of settling those claims. So we had to gear up, from the start, very quickly and immediately following a catastrophic event.

That model proved to be less successful than the Kaikōura one, where we saw the very good practice undertaken by our Government, I should say, where a memorandum of understanding was entered into between the EQC and private insurers. That meant that when an event happened—and with Kaikōura, what happened is that those people who had significant property damage could immediately lodge a claim with private insurers, because that meant they had access to people who understood the insurance industry, understood the terms, could handle—and had the processes and IT platforms to be able to handle—the level of those inquiries and, as a result, by filing that claim with a private insurer, that claim was therefore activated against EQC. I think it’s absolutely a travesty that this has not been picked up. I am aware that Dr Woods talked about speeding up processes, but, unfortunately, missed this very important component. But, none the less, we will be supporting it, but we’ve got a lot more work to do on this issue.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It’s a pleasure to follow the member Andrew Bayly, and I want to acknowledge and thank him for his support of this legislation and his considered contribution to this debate. I want to particularly commend the Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods. She’s taken ownership of the Earthquake Commission (EQC) portfolio, and finally people in Christchurch know that they have a Minister who is on their side, who’s listening, and who’s taking note of the issues that have been raised with the Minister and is moving to address them. The instigation of the inquiry under Dame Silvia Cartwright is going to reveal, probably, things that we don’t want to have revealed, actually. But, as long as we can do it in the same way as we have tonight—across the House, join together and say, “These are problems that need to be solved.” The four problems here—the level of the cap, the contents and personal property cover from EQC, the period for claim lodgment time, and the regime around sharing information—are all issues that need to be progressed.

There are others—as Andrew Bayly and other speakers have rightly pointed out—that need to be considered, but let’s try and get it right this time, not just push ahead and not give it proper consideration. We need to do it once and do it right. I think this is an excellent piece of work, and I commend its progress to the House.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m delighted to support this bill, the Earthquake Commission Amendment Bill. It seems appropriate that, coming up to Christmas, sweetness and light is across the House and we can all wish people a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I think it’s really important that we do support this bill, because having a bill that is fit for purpose, particularly in terms of a country like New Zealand that is so prone to earthquakes—I mean, we weren’t called “the Shaky Isles” for nothing. I think it’s also particularly important that there is sweetness and light across the House.

I’d like to take up Ian McKelvie in his discussion on cross-party agreement, in terms of this type of legislation, this type of legislation that tends to go over a length of time—and he was talking about the Earthquake Commission going back to 1931—but also the type of legislation that comes into play in times of a disaster. It’s something that everybody needs to agree with, because that’s what we’re here for: to support the people of New Zealand.

Now, of course, this bill implements work that was begun by the National Party back in 2012. A review was done between 2012 and 2015, basically, to update the 1993 Act. I see that it’s been mentioned as 1993 and 1994. I’m not quite sure what’s correct, but I’m sticking to 1993. Basically, it was to update that Act in light of the Canterbury earthquake experience. Unfortunately, this bill does only cover part of that review. There were nine parts of this review, and only four parts of it come into this bill. These four parts are important, and they are in need of change, but we definitely need another bill to pick up the other parts of the review and also any other work that’s in progress at the moment.

I was pretty surprised to hear Dr Duncan Webb talking about how this should be done urgently. I agree that it’s important that we get this legislation done, but, if he feels that it should be done urgently, you would have thought that we would have done more than less than half of the review.

The first thing, in terms of the points that we are covering, is the removing of the $20,000 limit for contents. I think that’s pretty important. If you think about in the face of a disaster, the legislation and the Earthquake Commission should be looking at the big picture. In terms of a disaster, the big picture is people’s homes. There’s absolutely no doubt that insurance companies are perfectly capable of looking after contents. So let’s get rid of that distraction, and let’s focus on the big issue.

The second issue is about raising the cap limit. It was $100,000 plus GST. That’s been in place since the Act was originally done in 1993, so to lift it to $150,000 makes a lot of sense too. I was interested to hear the Rt Hon David Carter talking about the fact that it is actually more than a 50 percent uplift because, of course, the $20,000 for the contents comes out of it. So it goes from $100,000 to $150,000, but the $20,000 is taken out of it.

The next thing about the proactive sharing of information is a lot of the issues that we had during the Canterbury earthquakes were to do with where the information came from, and sharing that makes a lot of sense. Greater transparency and greater discussions are important. However, I do think we need to be careful about how we share that information. I’m sure that we will do that sensibly and well.

The fourth thing, and this is the issue that has been debated—it was debated, I know, at the select committee process but is also still in discussion—is about the length of time. It can go from three months to up to two years with regulation. But one of the issues that was particularly important in Canterbury was the number of seismic events. How you manage those seismic events over a length of time is pretty important.

This bill is important. I’m glad that it’s got to this stage. Unfortunately, it’s only half of the review, but I’m sure that the Minister will bring a new bill in future, and we’ll be interested to see that. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I’ve been advised in the past that when you face a big problem, such as eating an elephant, the way to do it is to take one bite at a time. I think with this piece of legislation we have a Minister who is determined to ensure that we have a fit for purpose Earthquake Commission (EQC), who is taking just that approach. This piece of legislation makes some sensible and timely changes to EQC to ensure that it is adapted to the needs of our country in 2018.

I have to say, as the Chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, I was very pleased with the way that the committee worked on this piece of legislation, considered the submissions that came in, and made some very sensible changes to it.

This is a very good piece of legislation. We know the Minister is working hard on the next stage, which is the inquiry. We look forward to what comes out of that. But in the meantime I wish to commend this piece of legislation to the House for the benefit of the people of Canterbury and New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this bill. This will be the last contribution I make in this year. I wish all members on both sides of the House a very merry Christmas. It must be something in the air. It’s great to feel it. It’s a shame that we—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. Can I wish those who serve in this House and in this precinct a very restful summer break and a very merry Christmas to you all. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.