Wednesday, 13 March 2019

WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2019

WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why does the Tax Working Group report recommend no discount for capital gains and no adjustment for inflation?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It was the prerogative of the Tax Working Group to make the recommendations that they chose to the Government, and, as I’ve said repeatedly in the House, it’s now for us to consider.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree that it is unfair to allow no adjustment for inflation, given it means people can go backwards when they work hard, save and invest, and make a gain?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, these are all issues under consideration actively by the Government.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t the reason the capital gains tax in Australia is around half New Zealand’s proposed tax because Australia wanted to, effectively, allow for an inflation effect, and isn’t that, does she agree, the right way to go?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I acknowledge that the member has now acknowledged that, of course, this is something that’s in place in a range of other nations, including the majority of OECD nations, bar two. There are different rates in different countries. Those are, of course, all matters that the Government is now actively considering.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that this proposed capital gains tax would be one of the highest in the world—in fact, I think, third in the OECD—and will therefore send more Kiwis to Australia, where the economy’s stronger and there would be a lower capital gains tax?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: For the purpose of context, I believe Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Denmark apply roughly the same rates or higher than what the Tax Working Group has recommended. But, regardless, again, these are the Tax Working Group’s recommendations. They’re now for the Government to consider. We have not endorsed any of the proposed recommendations. We are, instead, considering them and will, of course, let the public and the Opposition know when we’ve resolved our decision.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why did her Government do away with the statistics showing how many New Zealanders leave for Australia each year?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member is referring to the departure cards, that was an issue that was raised directly as part of the New Zealand - Australia business exchange which his Government, before us, directly engaged in. It’s where the idea of e-invoicing came up; it was all about simplicity at the border and removing some of the friction that our businesses, in particular, experience. It’s the exact reason why we’re pursuing e-invoicing—to reduce the compliance burden on business—and it’s been widely welcomed.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, is it actually because the Government doesn’t want New Zealanders to know about the thousands that are leaving and the many more thousands that will leave under a strong capital gains tax that the Tax Working Group’s put forward?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it the Government’s position that rather than mindless speculative questions in the House, we have a full discussion with the public up and down the country, the business end of town and the working end of town—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. I take the first part of that question as a reflection on me. I would not allow that sort of question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that inflation is a very real issue for people’s real after-tax finances, pushing people into higher tax brackets and making them worse off regarding their nest eggs, given the proposed capital gains tax on the table?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the question is, “Is this a Government mindful of the issues around the cost of living?”, absolutely. One of the very first things we did as a Government was put a $5.5 billion package in place to increase the incomes of low and middle income New Zealanders.

Question No. 2—Housing and Urban Development

2. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: What reports has he seen on the Housing First programme?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): We’ve seen a number of reports about the Housing First programme that show that it has achieved significant improvements and increases in the number of families who are helped. It’s one of the most promising ways internationally in dealing with people who experience chronic homelessness.

Paul Eagle: How are we building on this success to house more homeless families?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We are scaling up Housing First, and the decisions that were made in Budget 2018 mean that we are able to substantially increase the number of people who can be helped through Housing First, and we’ve extended Housing First to Rotorua, Tauranga, and a number of other regional centres that have experienced acute levels of homelessness because of the housing crisis that we inherited.

Paul Eagle: What feedback has he received from Housing First clients?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s been touching, the feedback that has been achieved by people who, it’s fair to say, are some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who have experienced extreme circumstances of often living on the street and sleeping in public places. Housing First has meant for many—in fact, several hundred of these people—that they are now living in warm, dry, safe, and secure housing.

Paul Eagle: What progress are Housing First providers reporting?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, Housing First providers are working together in a collective, and they’re working directly with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development on the expansion of the Housing First scheme. Several hundred extra families have been assisted because of the decisions that were made in Budget ‘18 to increase the scale of the Housing First programme. The people that Housing First is helping are the people who are the collateral damage; they have experienced the sharp end of the national housing crisis. We’re committed, as a Government, to working with them in the most practical and effective way.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in all her Ministers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have confidence in Shane Jones, who declared a conflict of interest regarding Manea Footprints of Kupe, then attended meetings regarding Manea and provided assurances for Manea so that Grant Robertson signed off on the funding in light of those very assurances?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. As I said yesterday, Minister Jones himself identified, at the very beginning of the consideration of the application, that he had a conflict of interest. He contacted the Cabinet Office, they gave him advice, and he followed it.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, how does she explain Shane Jones’ ability to “provide assurances on this project”, where his only connection to it—according to the Prime Minister on Newstalk ZB on Tuesday morning—was knowing one of the kaumātua quite loosely?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, he knew one of the kaumātua, and I also acknowledge that he had knowledge of the project. Minister Robertson asked a question around milestones, and Minister Jones answered one of those questions. Again, he himself has acknowledged that it would have been better for him to leave the room, but in terms of managing his conflict, he was not a decision-making Minister.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is what she really just said that he’s rather more closely aligned to this project than she let on on Newstalk ZB on Tuesday morning?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she think the Hon Jones “upholds and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards.” when he referred to Hamish Rutherford as a “bunny boiler” and threatened to use parliamentary privilege to continue to criticise him?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve already shared in public my view on those comments. I have said that I considered them ill-advised.

Hon Member: Say it again.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I just said it.

SPEAKER: Order! Can I just ask members on my left to actually listen to what’s being said, because they wouldn’t make the inane interjections that they did if they had.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have confidence in her Minister of veterans, who told veterans support group No Duff that they only got their funding because of him, and that they recognised that fact, and that they recognised the responsibility that comes with the funding—that is, voting for New Zealand First?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do not agree with the insinuation there that the member has made; however, the Minister, obviously, was speaking in a ministerial capacity. Of course I have shared with him my view that, when speaking in a ministerial capacity, references of a party political nature should be left at the door. But I reject the association the member has made between funding and votes. I do not believe that is accurate or a fair reflection.

Hon Simon Bridges: So has she got confidence in him?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I do, and I do want to also acknowledge that the member himself was speaking at an event with a group who, in a very short space of time, did incredible work around PTSD with returned veterans, and the Minister himself recognised that, saw that funding go to them within a very short time of us being in office, and—can I add—put RSA funding on a secure footing for a period of four years rather than the uncertainty they had under that Government.

Hon Simon Bridges: Doesn’t the amazing work they do make it all the worse to cheapen it with a shameless bid for votes like Ron Mark did?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, as I said in my last answer, he was speaking in a ministerial capacity, and in those cases I would expect that party political discussion to be left at the door; however, I do reject the idea that he has behaved in the way the member has relayed. In fact, No Duff Charitable Trust themselves said they hold “no view on the Minister’s recent comments, but we appreciate his willingness to speak frankly and with candour. The Minister is an important member of the veterans’ community. He is one of us.”

Hon Simon Bridges: Did Cabinet specifically sign off on the funding at Ron Mark’s suggestion to ensure veterans vote for New Zealand First?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, and that funding, if I recall, was through a Budget process.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What would the Prime Minister prefer: a Minister for Veterans—not “of” veterans but “for” veterans—who passionately does something rather than one that does nothing?

SPEAKER: I’d just like a day to go by without the member breaching.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I appreciate the huge passion that the Minister brings to his portfolio, and I don’t think anyone questions that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she think Damien O’Connor should be telling Animal Evac New Zealand that “You can’t go riding us and then come to us for funding.”, and does she think that threatening to withhold funding from a voluntary animal evacuation organisation if it didn’t stop its criticism is acceptable behaviour for a Cabinet Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There have been several occasions in this House when I have seen claimed quotes attributed to the Minister that have not been correct, and I would prefer to speak with the Minister directly on statements that the member claims he’s made.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have any reason to believe why the person from Animal Evac New Zealand would make up such a thing in regard to the Hon Damien O’Connor?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It wasn’t them, necessarily, that I was questioning.

Hon Simon Bridges: I seek leave to table a New Zealand Herald story from today that sets that quote out.

SPEAKER: I think the member knows he’s being disorderly.

Hon Simon Bridges: You disputed it.

SPEAKER: That’s actually not true. I was listening.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has the behaviour of Ministers Jones, Mark, and O’Connor been consistent with the requirements of paragraph 2.56 of the Cabinet Manual, which expects Ministers to “act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards … exercising a professional approach and good judgement in their interactions with the public and officials, and in all their communications, personal and professional.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Based on the advice I’ve received, yes. I also want to acknowledge, though, that we have in Minister O’Connor a member who is battling the eradication of Mycoplasma bovis, which has never been done before; in Minister Jones, a Minister who’s rolling out, finally, investment in our regions, the likes of which we have never seen before; and in Minister Mark, investment in our veterans that is consistent and assured, which they have not had in the past decade.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she making excuses for her Ministers’ appalling behaviour because they’re a little bit stressed with the rigours of Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. I think you’ll find that that was actually a list of achievements.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s comment in relation to any changes to tax legislation, “we want to make sure that there’s simplicity in our system and, of course, we want to make sure that we don’t see some of those perverse incentives that might lead to an accountants’ boom”; and in his view, would a capital gains tax increase the compliance costs and complexity of our tax system?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: On behalf of the Minister of Finance, I agree with the Prime Minister’s full quote. I also agree with the view of Australian tax expert Professor Chris Evans, who said the design features of any capital gains tax (CGT) “can either increase or decrease tax compliance costs”, which, of course, will be taken into account in any decisions we make.

Hon Amy Adams: Well, if he agrees with the Prime Minister that he wants to ensure simplicity in the tax system, and he also agrees with Professor Chris Evans, whom he’s just quoted, is he also aware that Chris Evans has gone on to say “it is almost universally accepted that [having a capital gains tax] is very hard to justify on the grounds of simplicity,”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I have two other quotes that I would reply with from Professor Chris Evans, because I think the member gets them out of context. He says, of a CGT, “It affects very few people, relatively, in Australia—4 percent of personal taxpayers and just over 3 percent of companies have to deal with the CGT”, and then he says, “Sensible design can mitigate most of these problems, and certainly any suggestions that the revenue will be outgunned by losses”—and efficiency losses in the economy, he means—“completely misses the point”, as the member does.

Hon Amy Adams: Well, does he agree with the views of the dissenting members of the Tax Working Group, who have said, and I quote, “The main beneficiaries of a capital gains tax will be accountants, lawyers, and valuers. The losers will be businesses of all sizes, who will need to comply with very complex legislation, with small businesses bearing the highest compliance cost burden”.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I don’t, and I would give three reasons. First, contrary to what the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, one of the valuations methodologies is the Government valuation, which costs zip, zero, not $10,000. The second reason I would give is, in respect of accountants—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I am going to interrupt. The member for the West Coast and member for Ilam are yelling at each other like they’ve got the Alps between them. Can they please just settle down.

Hon DAVID PARKER: The second of the three reasons I would note is that if you’re worried about accountant growth, the number of accountants in New Zealand—and I can say this, because I’ve got an accounting degree—they—[Interruption] It’s not an insult to accountants; they’re very worthy people. The number of accountants under the last Government grew 12 percent between 2000 and 2017 because of the enormous burden of compliance costs placed on them. Third point: administrative efficiency is important. The Labour Party and our coalition parties—we agree that administrative efficiency is important because compliance costs must be reasonable. But it’s no justification for gross unfairnesses between taxpayers or income types.

SPEAKER: I am going to remind the member that he is answering on behalf of the Minister of Finance, and therefore he has to be careful about his phrasing before he attributes qualifications to the Minister of Finance that I’m pretty sure the Minister of Finance doesn’t have.

Hon Simon Bridges: On the basis of that vast experience he has, who has more small business experience: him or the Prime Minister?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I effectively ruled out that part of the answer, and therefore, the question is out of order. If the member wants to rephrase it, he can, or we just won’t count it.

Hon Amy Adams: If he agrees with the Prime Minister, who said that a capital gains tax needn’t be overly complicated, what does he say to Paul Glass of Devon Funds Management, who says that a capital gains tax would “add huge complexity to one of the world’s simplest tax systems”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I would say (1) no decision has been taken and (2) any decision that is taken will be done in a way that would have appropriate minimisation of compliance costs, which have been terribly misrepresented by the Opposition this week, including the suggestion that you’d have to spend $10,000 to get a valuation of land, when you can use the Government valuation, which is available for nothing.

Hon Amy Adams: How can he deny that a capital gains tax would create a field day for accountants, when the user guide alone for a similar regime in South Africa is this mighty tome, which comes in at over 900 pages of complexity?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I can be confident in that regard because, actually, New Zealand would have last-mover advantage because just about every other OECD country has already got one and we could learn from their experience if we were to take that decision on which no decision has been taken.

Question No. 5—Pike River Re-entry

5. RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry: What recent announcements has he made regarding Pike River re-entry?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry): Yesterday, I announced the date to commence re-entering and recovering the Pike River drift will be Friday 3 May. Work in the drift will enable the Pike River Recovery Agency and police to thoroughly investigate the drift and find evidence that may help us to better understand what caused this dreadful tragedy. The recovery of the drift is an act of justice. By ascertaining the causes of the explosion, we can ensure that a disaster like this doesn’t happen again.

Rino Tirikatene: What work has been done in preparation for re-entry?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: There’s been an incredible amount of preparation to get ready for re-entry. This has included preparing bridges for heavy loads, installing a nitrogen plant, upgrading the power supply, laying many kilometres of piping for nitrogen, drilling more bore holes, installing monitoring equipment, and purging and ventilating the drift. There is still some more preparatory work to do, including installing compressed air lines, awaiting the arrival of underground equipment from Australia, and breaching the concrete seal at 30 metres. Once the 30-metre seal is breached, then the re-entry and recovery operation can begin in earnest.

Rino Tirikatene: Will safety be a focus of Pike River re-entry?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m happy to say that safety has been a non-negotiable bottom-line for the whole project, and everyone has agreed to that, including the families. The agency’s dedication to a safety-first culture has enabled good work and preparation over the last 14 months. There has been international expert consultation and the purchasing of specialised equipment to do the job. That dedication to safety will continue throughout the re-entry project.

Question No. 6—Housing and Urban Development

6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: On what basis have KiwiBuild homes underwritten in Marshland in Christchurch met one of the four additionality thresholds applied to determine if a KiwiBuild underwrite should proceed?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I’m advised the deal with KiwiBuild enabled Mike Greer to speed up the overall Marshland development and lower the proposed price for each of the homes.

Hon Judith Collins: How does the KiwiBuild house at 5 Te Rito Street meet the test for getting a development under way, as the house had construction under way seven months before the underwrite agreement was signed?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The thing that the member needs to understand in this case is that it’s not about whether an individual property in that development had begun construction before the deal was announced. The point of this arrangement with Mike Greer residential is that eight homes were included in the development. One of them had been under way before the contract was signed, but the point is that this is a collective deal, across eight different locations around New Zealand, and 104 affordable homes for first-home buyers is the result of this deal.

Hon Judith Collins: How does the KiwiBuild house at 5 Te Rito Street meet the additionality test for bringing forward a development, since the house had a code of compliance completeness check before the Minister even signed its agreement to underwrite?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: As I explained to the member in my previous answer, it’s not about whether that particular criteria for additionality is met in the case of one house. The fact is that eight houses at Marshland and 104 affordable homes around New Zealand are being delivered by Mike Greer as a result of this deal—104 affordable homes that wouldn’t have happened under the previous Government.

Hon Judith Collins: How does the house at 5 Te Rito Street meet the test for redesign and affordability, as the house had previously been marketed for four months with the same design, and the non-KiwiBuild house next door at 7 Te Rito Street is currently being marketed for a cheaper price without a KiwiBuild underwrite?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I think it’s really important for the House to know that the house next door at 7 Te Rito Street is not being sold by the developer in this case. I note from the marketing material that number 7 is being marketed “priced to sell”—and I quote the advertisement—and I’m advised that the owner’s circumstances mean that they need to sell that house urgently. That’s presumably why it’s on sale for $10,000 less than the house next door.

Hon Judith Collins: What are the implications for the Minister if he has underwritten houses with the Crown guarantee that do not meet any of the additionality tests?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, that would be a breach of our additionality test, but I don’t expect that we’re going to fail the additionality test.

Hon Judith Collins: I seek leave of the House to table the concrete pour inspection document provided by the Christchurch City Council.

SPEAKER: Is that a publicly available document?

Hon Judith Collins: I think—yes, if you organise it. You’ve got to apply and then all that sort of thing. So I could; not easily available.

SPEAKER: OK, we’ll try that one—yes.

Hon Judith Collins: Thank you. Also, a code compliance summary from the Christchurch City Council showing the date of the vetting officer’s pre-selection.

SPEAKER: And is that available online?

Hon Judith Collins: Oh, not easily—not easily.

Hon Member: Not for you!

SPEAKER: Not much easier!

Hon Judith Collins: Then, Mr Speaker, another document, which is definitely not easily obtainable and that is the advertisement in Chinese for the particular house at 5 Te Rito Street, which seems to be dated back in about July, which is definitely not easily available.

SPEAKER: I’m going to put the first two documents. Is there any objection to those being tabled? There is none. I’m not putting the third.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Too embarrassed.

SPEAKER: Mr Brownlee will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise.

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

Question No. 7—Local Government

7. JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany) to the Minister of Local Government: Is she satisfied that an overseas person that is not a New Zealand citizen or resident cannot lawfully make a donation of an unlimited amount to a candidate standing for local government election, and is she satisfied that the Local Electoral Act 2001 provides sufficient safeguards to ensure local government election candidates and local authorities are free from foreign influence by way of electoral donations?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media) on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: There is no statutory limit on who can make a donation or the amount of the donation. The Act does have requirements regarding the disclosure of donations that reach certain monetary thresholds. Things can always be improved, though, with respect to local election oversight. To the second part of the member’s question, I’m advised that the Justice Committee is conducting an inquiry into the 2017 general election and the 2016 local elections.

Hon Simon Bridges: Brian Henry will want to submit on that.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I would have thought that member would want to stay quiet during this question. The committee is able to consider the issue of donations to political parties as part of that inquiry. Further, I understand that the justice Minister has asked the committee to expand its consideration to include the issue of foreign interference. If the member has any direct concerns in terms of local body elections, the member might wish to raise these matters with that committee.

Jami-Lee Ross: Will she put forward or support amendments to the Local Electoral Act prior to the 2019 elections to restrict overseas donations and, at the very least, bring the Local Electoral Act donation provisions in line with the Electoral Act 1993?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: With any changes to electoral laws, the Government believes that it has to go through the correct amount of scrutiny given the enormity of them. The member does raise important questions around scrutiny of overseas elections to candidates, both local and central government. I would suggest that the best way to raise these issues is through the Justice Committee. I also understand that the member intends to put forward some Supplementary Order Papers to a bill that is going through the House at the moment. We don’t believe that tacking on those amendments to that current process is the best way to give oversight to ensure that there is the amount of scrutiny that those changes might need.

Jami-Lee Ross: Why is it acceptable that in elections in this country no restrictions exist in local government, where candidates can accept any sum of money from any person from any part of the world?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The member does raise another important question. There is a difference between the regimes for local government and central government elections in respect to overseas donations that can be made, and that’s why we think it is most appropriate that if the member has concerns, they can be raised through the Justice Committee process, which has now been opened up to the remit of overseas interference.

Question No. 8—Defence

8. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Minister of Defence: What announcements has he made regarding Defence deployments to the South Pacific?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): On Monday, the Deputy Prime Minister and I announced that the New Zealand Defence Force is deploying two NH90 helicopters and associated personnel to the Solomon Islands to support their general election to be held on 3 April—the first since the departure of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands in 2017. The helicopters, working alongside the Australian Defence Force personnel and assets, will provide a vital transport link to the approximately 1,200 polling stations that are expected to be established across many hundreds of islands. The tasks being performed by the New Zealand Defence Force will include transporting election officials and materials to polling booths as well as logistics support and command and control roles under the joint task force headquarters in Honiara.

Darroch Ball: How does this deployment support the Pacific reset?

Hon RON MARK: The deployment strongly aligns with the Government’s objectives under the Pacific reset as a tangible demonstration of New Zealand’s Pacific-wide support for good governance and resilient democratic institutions in close partnership with Australia. The deployment also underscores the commitment of the New Zealand Defence Force in the Pacific, as highlighted in the Strategic Defence Policy Statement 2018, which raised the priority placed on the Defence Force’s ability to operate in the South Pacific to the same level as New Zealand’s own territory.

Darroch Ball: What does this deployment mean for No. 3 Squadron RNZAF?

Hon RON MARK: Oh, they’re chomping at the bit. For many members of No. 3 Squadron, this will be their first operational deployment. It is sure to be personally and professionally very rewarding for them, and is an excellent opportunity to test the abilities of the NH90 helicopter on a sustained deployment. Overseas exercises have prepared No. 3 Squadron and the air force for this task, and I am certain—well, I know—that they are looking forward to doing what they joined the Defence Force to do. While deployed to the Solomon Islands, No. 3 Squadron remains ready to respond to a wide range of tasks back here at home—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: How’s the Minister going to get home while they’re out of town?

Hon RON MARK: —in support of the communities and the Government’s agencies, Mr Brownlee.

Question No. 9—Veterans

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Veterans. Does he stand by all his statements—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can the member ask the question as it’s put.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Oh, sorry. My question is to the Minister for Veterans.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

9. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) to the Minister for Veterans: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon RON MARK (Minister for Veterans): In the main, yes. In regards to my remarks to the No Duff summit held on 1 December 2018, whilst the assertions that I was campaigning for New Zealand First lack context, given the way they have been misconstrued, I acknowledge that my comments could have been tighter, and I’ll be careful in future.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Does he stand by his statement to No Duff Charitable Trust that “when I look at the polling results of my political party New Zealand First, then the veterans, the Defence base, you guys haven’t supported us. At all.”?

Hon RON MARK: Oh, that snapshot, out of a wider comment, made in context was something that I would probably—I’d say it characterises my approach to the job of being realistic. I have always said, Mr Mitchell, to all of them—and I think I’ve said it in that same 25-minute speech—that I take this job as a privilege. It’s an honour. I see it as a three-year posting. The chances of being re-elected can never be guaranteed, and I mean to get as much done for the veterans for the time that I am privileged to be in this position as I possibly can. And, yes, I—

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Hon RON MARK: —stand by that.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I thought the member was threatening to give us the full 25 minutes.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Does he agree with No Duff’s founder, Aaron Wood, when he says it’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to get from a Minister of the Crown?

Hon RON MARK: Interesting comment. Look, Aaron is one of those people who set up and founded No Duff, and hats off to Aaron. I would refer the member to the statement just released by No Duff and posted on their Facebook page, and I am very grateful for their comments.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister for Veterans as to whether his policy is to regard actions as being far, far more important than words?

Hon RON MARK: Look, a very good question. I guess that is the difference, that is the hallmark, that I would hope to leave on this portfolio should I not be here. The fact is in that speech we talked about delivery as opposed to non-delivery. The fact is that in 2008, a Labour – New Zealand First Government appropriated money to the RSA on a four-year tranche. The fact is that the National Government removed that. The fact is that this Government reinstated it. The fact is that we actually went out and gave funding to No Duff in recognition of the wonderful work they do. [Interruption] That’s performance, that’s delivery, as opposed to what that member’s Government did.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m not sure—was that Ms Barry who made that interjections or was it Ms Kaye? Someone made a most unparliamentary allegation. I think it was you, Ms Barry—a word beginning with “b”.

Hon Maggie Barry: Yes.

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

Hon Maggie Barry: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Given the Minister feels like he’s only got three years in the job, is he going to, in his ministerial role, continue to speak about New Zealand First’s party vote when he’s addressing veterans and New Zealand defence personnel.

Hon RON MARK: I think hindsight’s a wonderful thing. Given the concerns that are being raised and the way in which those two quite separate comments were spliced together and presented, I will be tighter in future, Mr Mitchell. But that will not stop me doing as much as I possibly can for veterans going forward, and that will not stop me advocating passionately for them. I just hope, at the end of the day, to be judged on what we deliver to veterans as opposed to what they used to get.

Darroch Ball: Of all the statements and policy statements and speeches the Minister has made since his being appointed, what is, in his view, the most significant issue facing veterans?

Hon RON MARK: It’s a very good question. There are a number of issues that affect veterans right now. One that has to be at the top of the list is the review of the 2014 Act, which the previous Government passed and which has now been proven by Professor Ron Paterson’s report to be thoroughly inadequate and in need of a complete rewrite. But the one that stands out, ironically, is the one around which this controversy is swirling: it is the work that people like No Duff do in addressing the issue of PTSD. It is the one that has been ignored for far too long of contemporary vets, of which, Mr Mitchell, there are 32,000 now who have completed operational service, and it’s about delivering quality service and support at the front line to those affected with PTSD as opposed to making a trivial issue of it through point-scoring in the way in which that member chooses to do.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister saying that the three-year time frame he gave represents the humility with which Ministers in this Government perform their job rather than the arrogant born-to-rule attitude of some?

SPEAKER: Order! The member may answer the first part of the question.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, what was the first part?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, shut up and you’ll find out.

Hon RON MARK: I’d like to think that I’m not one who feels he’s born to rule or privileged. I do believe I’m very privileged for being appointed as the Minister for Veterans by the Prime Minister and my leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. I am realistic, and I know you cannot look at this job as anything more than a three-year posting, Mr Mitchell. So I am focused on that. I am focused on that and delivering the very best that I can do for the women and men who serve us faithfully in uniform, and that’s all I hope to achieve.

SPEAKER: Before we move on, early in that answer the Deputy Prime Minister used an unparliamentary term, inviting members opposite to cease their interjections. Two points: one, it’s my role; and, secondly, the phrase he used is certainly unparliamentary. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Member: With feeling.

SPEAKER: Yes, with about as much sincerity as I’ve seen on the other side recently.

Question No. 10—Corrections

10. LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki) to the Minister of Corrections: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Yes, in the context they were made and taken.

Lawrence Yule: Why did he approve a $125 million extension to the rapid deployment prison cell contract without tendering the work?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: To be honest, I’m not sure what the member’s talking about. All the work that we’ve done to increase prison capacity has been by the book.

Lawrence Yule: Did he also approve the $59.1 million contract for the original rapid deployment cells on 25 November 2017?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: On the date he said, I was the Minister of Corrections, so the answer is yes. And the reason we had to increase the prison capacity was because, under that previous Government, the prison population was skyrocketing. If the prison population had have continued at the same trajectory it was, we’d be facing a prison population of around about 12,000 now. Instead, we’re hovering around 10,000—2,000 less than what it would be under that previous Government.

Lawrence Yule: Does he stand by his answer to written question No. 23415 when he said “I am advised that no expression of interest was sought for the work to deliver 600 rapid … modular beds as corrections used a contract variation of an existing contract.”; and, if so, why then did the Department of Corrections issue an expression of interest notice to respondents on 27 April 2018 and the CEO of corrections write to the New Zealand—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s asked two legs already.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Yes.

Question No. 11—Whānau Ora

11. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister for Whānau Ora: Is he doing anything to promote Whānau Ora and a whānau-centred approach across Government now that the Whānau Ora Review has been completed; if so, what?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Whānau Ora): My vision is for whānau to be supported to build on their strengths and achieve their aspirations. A whānau development summit will be held on 25 March 2019 here in Wellington with myself and my colleague Minister Mahuta. The objectives of the summit will be to highlight examples of successful whānau development—led or invested in by Te Puni Kōkiri—provide insights and tools that Government agencies and the philanthropic organisations can adopt to engage more effectively with whānau to improve well-being outcomes; and, finally, to promote the scholarship and methodology of whānau-centred policy and whānau development approaches that have been developed within Te Puni Kōkiri.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What will the participants get out of the summit?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Amongst many things, the summit will consist of four workshops and presentations from keynote speakers showcasing whānau-led initiatives, sharing what we are learning about collaboration and service design, exploring ways of measuring success, and testing whānau-centred policy.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What are you hoping to achieve from the summit?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Nothing.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What is he hoping to achieve from the summit?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I believe that participants will walk away with an understanding of how they can apply a whānau-centred approach into their work and how they can contribute to whānau development. The excuse of simple ignorance should no longer be tolerated.

Question No.10 to Minister

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise. I rise to speak to a point of order.

SPEAKER: Sorry?

LAWRENCE YULE: I wish to raise a point of order. I wish to table documents that I should have done at the end of my question.

SPEAKER: Can I ask the member—the normal practice is either to do it with the question or at the end of question time. So we will wait until Dr Reti’s had his question, then we’ll come back to it.

Question No. 12—Health

12. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all his statements and actions around vaccination?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Yes.

Dr Shane Reti: How does he explain to parents of 5 to 12-year-old Northland children who the ministry have decided are ineligible for the meningitis vaccine that last year, funding was announced for a $10 million vaccination programme in New Guinea?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The expert advice was clear in respect of the Northland outbreak: teenagers and young adults are known to be the main carriers of meningococcal disease—they are the ones most likely to spread it through the community—and children under 5 are considered most at risk of the disease. So our expert advice is that vaccinating these two age groups is the best way to reduce the spread of meningococcal disease across the entire Northland community. It is heartening that since the vaccination campaign began in December, there has not been a single case of meningococcal W in Northland.

Dr Shane Reti: How does he explain to parents of 5 to 12-year-old Northland children who the ministry have decided are ineligible for the meningitis vaccine that last year, funding was given for a $1 million meningitis vaccination programme in the Pacific?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Again, we take clinical advice on these matters, and I completely understand why parents of children of that age might want to get their children vaccinated. But I would point out respectfully that since the targeted vaccination campaign started, there have not been any further cases of meningococcal W in Northland. It’s not a guarantee there won’t ever be, but I think parents can take some heart from that.

Dr Shane Reti: Should we be vaccinating ineligible 5- to 12-year-old Northland children for meningitis before we vaccinate for meningitis in other countries?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I’m not responsible for vaccinations in other countries.

Dr Shane Reti: What does he say to parents of Kaihu and Hikurangi school communities who are fund-raising to buy meningitis vaccines for their ineligible children?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I completely understand why parents of those children might want to get them vaccinated, but I would point out that since the targeted vaccination campaign started, there have not been any further cases of meningococcal W in Northland. It’s not a guarantee that there won’t ever be, but I think parents can take some heart from that, and well done.

Question No. 10 to Minister

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): I seek leave to table two documents. One is the expression of interest notice to respondents on 27 April 2018—

SPEAKER: Can I ask: was that published on any ministry website?

LAWRENCE YULE: No, this is a letter I received from the respondent, so I’ve received it. Both letters are from a private source.

SPEAKER: And they don’t include—the basis of them is not material that’s on a website?

LAWRENCE YULE: No, that’s correct.

SPEAKER: Right. The first document, the expression of interest—any objection to that being tabled. There appears to be none. It may be tabled.

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

SPEAKER: The second document?

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): The second document is a letter from the CEO of Corrections thanking a company for his expression of interest and advising that he’s been unsuccessful.

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

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

General Debate

General Debate

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Pike River re-entry project is one of these Government projects that reflect the very important values that hold this Government together. They are values about treating people with respect—in this case, the families who were ignored for so long. It’s about treating people with compassion and with kindness. It’s about not being afraid to step up and deal with difficult issues, and this issue has been one of the trickiest that we’ve had to deal with, but the families had been shut out for so long in their pursuit of justice, and it was important to do it. It also reflects the fact that doing justice in this day and age, in our type of society, is more than about what happens in our courts. It is about the way that New Zealanders get to live their lives. It’s how citizens are treated by their Government. That’s what justice is about. The Pike River re-entry project is a classic example of all of that and all of those values coming together.

The Pike River re-entry project is an act of justice. For most of the families, they have yearned to have the promise that was made to them fulfilled, which is that everything that could be done would be done to better ascertain the reasons for that dreadful tragedy and, if possible, to recover any human remains. But the reality is there was something else that they wanted too. They wanted to stop being ignored. They wanted to be brought in and made part of the decision making about what has happened to their loved ones. And this Government, with the agreement of every party that makes it up, has extended to those families that simple act of respect.

We’ve seen incredible progress. I’ve outlined in the last day or so just what has been done to prepare for the real commencement of that project: the installation of a nitrogen plant, the fixing up of the bridges, laying lines in some of the most difficult terrain you will find across the country, getting a workforce on board that is totally skilled, deeply skilled, and has had more training in how to undertake this very difficult task. All along the way, another very important value that binds our three parties in this Government together is putting the safety of people doing the work first. That’s important too, and the families wanted that to be the absolute bottom line. It is the absolute bottom line. We have taken time to make progress with this project but we have done so safely, and we are now on the cusp of delivering the promise that was made to those families so long ago.

The point is this: every party that makes up this Government has signed up to this project. That, actually, reflects something else very important, and it is about what holds this Government together. It is what this Government does; the achievements that it is making. It is about the unified purpose that this Government has, which is about more justice, better justice for many, many New Zealanders who have missed out for so long: the people who couldn’t get a house; the people who couldn’t get a job; the people who couldn’t get a decent pay rise—all of those issues are right at the forefront of what this Government is doing. The people who have missed out for so long because they’ve been on a benefit—they’ve lived in poverty, they’ve lived in hardship—the people who have lived in families where domestic violence has been an issue now see a Government prepared to take that issue seriously.

This is a Government about providing for those who have missed out for so long, and that contrasts with what we’ve had before, because the reality is, opposite, we’ve had a party that has looked after the big end of town, that’s looked after the wide boys, the roosters, the boosters, the shysters, the zoot suit wearers, the tax dodgers. That’s who the National Party actually represents. No wonder they make a big deal about the people they speak for, doing more to avoid their tax responsibilities. That’s what they stand for. It’s not about including people; it’s about shutting people out, and it’s about looking after the wealthy and the privileged at the expense of everybody else.

Well, I’m pleased to be part of a Government that, in its acts of compassion, and kindness, and looking after people, is doing the right thing for families up and down the country—not just the Pike River families, and doing justice for them, but the many thousands and hundreds of thousands of others who have missed out for so long. This is a Government united by those good, standard Kiwi values of looking out for each other, of treating everybody fairly and equally, so everybody gets a chance—a country where people are proud of the Government they have, to live in the country they’ve got, to be part of the communities they’re part of. That’s what this Government is delivering on; that’s what this Government stands for.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, for the first 15 months of this Government, all we saw were platitudes and nice sounding words and virtue signalling, but apparently now it’s going to be the year of delivery. So now we’re going to see what it’s all about. I think, finally, to be fair, we’re starting to see the economic plan of this Government, and it’s pretty clear. The economic plan goes like this: tax every New Zealander more so that Shane Jones can go around with his increasingly dodgy Provincial Growth Fund, while Ron Mark can go out threatening people with funding for votes, and so that Phil Twyford can go around buying houses that developers can’t sell and that nobody else wants, and all on the taxpayer’s dollar. That’s the economic plan of this Government.

They’re slowly realising you’ve got to have a lot of money if you’re going to throw money around like that at dodgy unsold development properties, dodgy Provincial Growth Funds, and going around threatening people for votes. So we’ve got the Tax Working Group, who have come along and said, “Here’s how you can take a whole lot more money off those hard-working New Zealanders.” The Government’s trying to say “Oh well, we’re not really sure what we’re going to do about it.”, but we know that the Prime Minister desperately wants a capital gains tax. How do we know? Well, because in 2017, all through the election campaign—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who brought the last capital gains tax in? You guys.

Hon AMY ADAMS: —she said she was going to bring one in. She was going to bring it in. Winston Peters, of course, great defender of principles that he is, insisted he’d never vote for one, and let’s see how that goes. But, no, the Prime Minister insisted she was going to bring in a capital gains tax. And we know Grant Robertson wants one. We know Grant Robertson wants one because Michael Cullen told him to want one, and Grant Robertson does whatever Michael Cullen tells him to do.

The funny thing is, 18 months in, they’ve only just started to figure out that New Zealand doesn’t want a capital gains tax. So, in the last week, Labour is going to their own members and saying “Oh, what do you guys think? We’re not quite sure.”, or “What do you guys reckon? Have we got that right or not?” It is 18 months on and it’s just dawning on them that maybe they don’t know everything. It is utterly laughable. Here they’ve got all the way through the Tax Working Group report, they’ve been briefed on what it would do—they told the Tax Working Group to go away and give them a capital gains tax. The Tax Working Group told them last year it would give them a capital gains tax. They had the report for about a month before the public saw it, but “We’re still not sure what we’re going to do about it.”, they say, “Let’s just put it out there and see where it goes.”

So while they figure it all out, they’ve got Michael Cullen getting paid a thousand dollars a day to get political on the taxpayer’s dime. Isn’t that just another example of this Government’s callous disregard for the taxpayers who fund the expenditure? They think nothing of spending taxpayers’ dollars to get their old mate out there defending this proposal because Government Ministers—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Three weeks’ pension in one day.

Hon AMY ADAMS: —still don’t know what they think.

Let’s go through it, because Mr Brownlee makes an excellent point. This is Michael Cullen, who’s on the gold-plated Government superannuation scheme, who qualifies for the New Zealand super as well, and he’s getting more than a thousand dollars a day for four months after the Tax Working Group has finished their work programme. No one else from the Tax Working Group, by the way; just Michael Cullen out there raking it in at a thousand dollars a day on top of his Government super, on top of that gold-plated scheme, because Ministers won’t engage in the debate. I think that is irresponsible; it is outrageous.

So the Prime Minister, recently, in a media story, told small businesses and farms that they’ve got nothing to worry about—nothing to worry about. Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it, because small businesses all have to be revalued at 1 April 2021. We’ve been told that’s a minimum of $10,000 a business—a $5 billion compliance cost—but apparently, according to the Prime Minister, they’ve got nothing to worry about. “Small business shouldn’t worry.”, the Prime Minister says, and yet Peter Beck, one of the best entrepreneurs in this country, says that this will be an absolute death knell for innovation and entrepreneurship. But the Prime Minister and David Parker and Grant Robertson all know far more than he does about business, and they say there’s nothing to worry about! Grant Robertson tells us the family home is exempt, but forgets to mention that is unless you happen to run your small business from home, and then it will get caught—more and more misleading.

And look at the farmers. We know that farmers face tens of thousands of dollars in compliance—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon SHANE JONES (NZ First): Wow, what a week of irony. You know, Shakespeare said, “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.” On the other side, it’s rancid. On the other side, it’s fetid. On the other side, it’s festering while these false, spurious allegations are made about our Government and the modest role I played in the area of Hokianga. What do we find? Not only the police but the Serious Fraud Office is now possessed with information relating to people possibly on the other side of the House.

Now, the bar has been set for the provincial champion to declare a conflict of interest. Has the Leader of the Opposition yet been interviewed by the Serious Fraud Office? Was the Leader of the Opposition interviewed by the police? More to the point, will he declare to the New Zealand public that he has been and, if that is the case, will he stand down? No. Where is this self-styled crusader of civic responsibility from Fairfax pummelling and pounding the other side of the House? There’s conspicuous silence from the media.

This is a very dangerous development in the integrity of our electoral system. People who are investigated by the Serious Fraud Office often go to jail—go to jail. Now, I’ve already said earlier today that in the unlikely event it was the Leader of the Opposition, he’d go to the youth offenders’ wing. I won’t carry on, however, in that vein, because I know there are important conventions.

Look, out of a tiny, small issue—and if the champion of the regions has done anything that’s questionable, it’s to argue for the interests of the provinces. That’s why the provinces are continuing to act like an echo chamber for this far-sighted policy, the Provincial Growth Fund. So manea actually means “satisfied”. Our Government is satisfied that investments of that nature will bring growth, jobs, and overdue fiscal sunshine to the neglected parts of regional New Zealand.

Now, we’ve watched a pattern of this. We’ve watched a proud police officer be lampooned and suffer scurrilous allegations. He had done nothing wrong, yet he was pilloried, tainted, and stigmatised. May all of that wrongdoing rest upon the head of the Leader of the Opposition, because he says he’s the leader of the National Party but it’s not his responsibility in terms of what the Serious Fraud Office is looking at. I make a prediction: the Serious Fraud Office, once unwisely sicked by that side of the House on to our leader, knows we will study every single step that they take, to ensure—because it’s the National Party—it’s not whitewashed. We will ensure that happens. This is incredibly serious, and people may very well go to jail, because they won’t have offended the Cabinet Manual; they will have broken the law.

Now, there is another Simon that I want to spend a wee bit of time talking about, because that man over there is very much a political corpse. You don’t handle money and then suffer an investigation and expect to stand in front of the New Zealand public as clean as Caesar’s wife. He, unfortunately, is going to spend far too much money and far too much time diverted on these very serious, potentially criminal charges. So that’s what we’re going to hear about in terms of the National Party, going forward. There won’t be any talk about their prospects into the next election; rather, we’re going to focus on how many of them will still be fit to stand—a limited number.

Let me round up. There is another Simon who has let us down on this side of the House. This is a message to corporate New Zealand: do not arrogantly take upon yourselves the ability to influence foreign policy and make these unwise statements, as Mr Simon Moutter did to the sharemarket, thus providing an opportunity for anxiety and stress for all of our exporters. Show judiciousness. Do not go beyond your corporate writ. Wanderlust, you may be. Thank you very much.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, here I am, coming after Shane Jones, and I’m not quite sure what he actually said, but he seemed to say that they will ensure—presumably, “they” being the Government of the day—that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) does a thorough job on our leader. That would be an extraordinary statement to make. Is he now saying that he is going to guide the SFO, which is an independent statutory body on the police doing their work? He’s going to stand and guide the SFO as they do their work? What an extraordinary thing for a Cabinet Minister to say. I can’t believe he said they will ensure that the SFO does it well. Well, that’s a very interesting thing to be saying, for a Minister of the Crown, and I’d counsel Mr Jones to be a bit more careful with his language.

The last thing that this country needs is much higher taxation on savings, on investment, and on entrepreneurship, and those are the three things that are going to be taxed severely by this proposed capital gains tax that this Government is putting on. Savings, investment, and entrepreneurship—that’s what we need in this country. I’ve never met anybody who thinks New Zealanders save too much. We need to encourage saving. We certainly need to encourage investment. How on earth do we grow the economy if we don’t get investment—somebody somewhere taking their money and buying a new business, starting a new business, hiring a new person, buying a new plant, investing in equipment? That’s what we need to grow this economy, and entrepreneurship—people like the Peter Becks of this world starting up new businesses based on research and development. All those three things are what we need in this country, and this Government is proposing that we should tax that even more than we do today. What lunacy.

We heard Marama Davidson—and I’ll be interested to see what the Greens have to say today—saying that the wealthy elite need to pay more. Well, that’s not what’s being proposed here in this capital gains tax if the wealthy elite includes the 2.9 million New Zealanders in KiwiSaver, who would be hit by more tax on their KiwiSaver every year as a result of this tax. It includes the 500,000 business owners across this country—mainly small businesses—who get up every morning in their cafes, or the hairdresser’s, or the plumber’s, or the small businesses in local and regional New Zealand that the great bloated buffoon of a champion of the provinces says that he’s concerned about. Those people who get up every morning and grow their businesses over the next three decades in order to have something to save for their retirement—they are the ones who will pay the capital gains tax. The tens of thousands of farmers and horticulturalists, the tens of thousands of people with lifestyle blocks, the mum and dad investors who have bought an extra property in order to rent out and have an income in their old age—all those New Zealanders are not the wealthy elite; they are just New Zealanders trying to save and get ahead, and they are going to be punished by this vindictive act, which this Government is trying to put on New Zealanders.

The Prime Minister has said that they’re going to focus on simplicity. Well, as we saw the big stack of notes that came to explain the capital gains tax in South Africa that’s been introduced, there is no such thing as a simple capital gains tax. Where you draw the boundaries is amazingly complex and difficult. So your family home is exempted, but if you work from home, it’s not exempted. If you have a boarder or a renter staying with you, it’s not exempted. If you rent it out for Airbnb, it’s not exempted. All these complications massively make the tax bill longer, and it makes the accountants happy. Around about 40 percent of the work of the major accountancy firms in Australia is around capital gains, and that’s what we’ll be seeing here.

And then, finally, this Government is all around spreading wealth and not about making it. And, as a country, we need to generate some wealth in the first place in order to succeed and provide the opportunities for New Zealanders to do well. So here we have the proposal for a capital gains tax that increases tax on savings, on investment, and on entrepreneurship, and that’s the last thing we need in this country. And we certainly don’t need Michael Cullen getting a thousand dollars a day to tell us how we should take this bitter medicine and to have a spoonful of sugar for it to go well.

The other point I’d just like to make in passing, of course, is that the only reason they want this tax is that they want more money. They want more money because they blow it all in very ill-disciplined ways, such as Mr Jones and his Provincial Growth Fund. When you’re spending a billion dollars a year, flinging it out the door around the neighbourhoods, yep, you’re going to buy some useful things, but you’re also going to have some very poor quality spending. And if they were more disciplined, they wouldn’t need this new tax, full stop. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. What another negative, carping speech from the National Party. Typical of National: exaggerating all of the issues around improving our tax system. We need a decent tax system so we can invest in better healthcare services, so we can clean up the housing mess—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Revenue-neutral, you said.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: —that National left, so that we can invest in the environment, and that is what this Government is doing. It is delivering, Mr Goldsmith.

In the last Budget, there was $181 million extra investment in the Department of Conservation, so that we could invest in protecting our natural capital, so that we could grow well-being for New Zealanders. That’s an investment that counts. Not like National—not wanting a fair tax system, wanting to shred the Department of Conservation, and what are we getting for that extra investment? Well, I just recently announced the $76 million extra that was going into biodiversity. We are seeing increased investment in our marine reserves, more enforcement and monitoring, more research, more investment in tahr control to protect our fragile alpine lands, more work on pest control so that another six islands can be protected from pest incursions, and more work on our threatened species. And we see there that when we have the Department of Conservation working alongside communities, iwi, and hapū, investing in our threatened species, they can make a difference. They can turn around the status of rowi, takahē, mohua. That’s all improved, but we need that investment which National denied in its nine years of Government by its shredding of the Department of Conservation budget. This Government is delivering on the environment. It’s an area where National has no credibility.

This morning, I was delighted to announce that this Government is adding 64,400 hectares of land in the Mōkihinui catchment, north of Westport, to Kahurangi National Park. This is the largest addition to a national park in New Zealand’s history. It will increase the size of Kahurangi by 15 percent. It is a landmark day for conservation because it is the first time we’ve had a big addition to a national park in 17 years. This Government is delivering for the environment. I acknowledge Ngāi Tahu and Kāti Waewae for their generosity and their support. But I really acknowledge the thousands of New Zealanders who spoke out for the Mōkihinui River in 2007 when Meridian was proposing a huge dam that would have created a reservoir 14 kilometres long, flooded the Mōkihinui Gorge, flooded the beech forest, the rimu forest, and the habitat of threatened species like bats, giant land snails, the whio—the river duck. That was public activism—and the work that groups like Whitewater NZ, Forest and Bird, Fish and Game, iwi, standing alongside the Department of Conservation, did through the whole resource consent process to highlight why the Mōkihinui, the river and its catchment, is just so valuable. These stunning natural landscapes that are now part of the national park; this decision by the Government is responding to the desire of New Zealanders to protect our special places, to protect them for both present and future generations.

What does National do with national parks? Well, in 2010, under Minister Gerry Brownlee, it was proposing to mine in national parks. The first of National’s policy documents was about the environment. How can a party which wanted to mine in national parks have any credibility on the environment? This Government is investing in conservation. It’s increasing the size of Kahurangi National Park. This will be a major gain for the Buller and West Coast region, because we’ve got the cycle trail—the Mōkihinui-Lyell cycle trail—which is used increasingly by New Zealanders to experience those magic landscapes. Rafting, kayaking down the river; the opportunity for visitors to see the gorge, to walk up the river, experience the drama of its landscapes, the earthquake-shaped landscape, and to know that this river, the third largest on the West Coast, can now never be dammed, because this Government knows that New Zealanders love our precious wild places, want them protected—that’s why we’re adding 64,400 hectares to Kahurangi so that it is permanently protected. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): As I listen to the Minister the Hon Eugenie Sage, I realise that from that side of the House they see things through slightly rose-tinted glasses. On this side of the House, having been here now for 18 months—and far too long—but having seen a number of Governments through the time that I’ve been an MP, I have never seen a Government get into such a mess, such disarray, within 18 months. I’ve seen them get into this state after two terms and heading towards three. But after 18 months—let me just take two of their flagship policies as an example—KiwiBuild; we’re now learning, day after day, as the Hon Judith Collins pulls poor Minister the Hon Phil Twyford to bits, that in actual fact KiwiBuild now is about buying houses that have already been built, that are on the open market and struggling to sell, putting a KiwiBuild label on them, and then finding they’re near impossible to sell.

Then you have the other flagship policy: the Provincial Growth Fund, which we, on this side of the House said at the time, and we’ve now been proved right, is nothing but a slush fund—a slush fund that’s particularly focused on Northland, where the Rt Hon Winston Peters and the Hon Shane Jones know their only way back into this House after the next election is with the safety of an electorate seat. They know they won’t make 5 percent. They now have to spend taxpayers’ money to make themselves popular in two electorates—the Northland electorate and the Whangarei electorate—in a desperate attempt to secure a seat. Well, I want to tell them that they stand no chance against our superb members Matt King and Dr Shane Reti. They will do it and do it with ease.

Then today, we have further examples of the mess those Ministers are in. The Hon Shane Jones was on his feet, having to excuse his extraordinary behaviour of attacking a journalist and saying he’ll use parliamentary privilege to further attack that person. No apology from the Hon Shane Jones. We have the Hon Ron Mark trying to excuse himself after giving an appalling speech, where he threatened to take funding off an organisation unless that organisation en masse voted for New Zealand First. Then we had the example of the Hon Damien O’Connor threatening to again reserve funding from an expert organisation involved in the evacuation of animals in a natural disaster on the basis that that organisation would dare criticise the Government.

I do want to talk about capital gains tax in my closing couple of minutes and the effect that will have on agriculture and on the farming community. That’s made the other side go quiet. What I found extraordinary is Damien O’Connor’s comment in the New Zealand Herald that as of this day he has not read the Tax Working Group’s report to know the effect it’ll have on agriculture. That is just extraordinary—that he can claim to represent New Zealand farmers and he hasn’t bothered to read the report that advocates for a capital gains tax, advocates for a nitrogen tax, advocates for a water tax, advocates for an emissions tax, and, finally, advocates for a fertiliser tax. What effect will all of those taxes have on New Zealand agriculture? He doesn’t know, and what’s worse is the Labour Party doesn’t know. It’s now gone out with a survey amongst its members and the public: “Have your say and tell us what we should think about the capital gains tax.”

I heard an extraordinary story about a particular stand at the Wānaka show over the last weekend. Mark Patterson, that little-known New Zealand First member from somewhere down that end of the world—he had a stand, and he put out a sign in front of his stand saying, “Come and tell us what New Zealand First should do about the capital gains tax.” It had a queue longer than the Ferris wheels. There was such a big queue of people in the Wānaka show wanting to tell Mark Patterson what to do with the capital gains tax. And I won’t be rude—I’m sure a number of the farmers were particularly rude. Do you know what his response was? He took the sign down and shut up the tent. That’s how embarrassed he was.

JAN TINETTI (Labour): I’ve decided, listening to those speeches on the other side, it must be very, very hard to be so negative and so angry all the time. So just before I start, I’ll just give them a wee bit of advice. I just googled very quickly then “how do I stop being so negative all the time?”, and it does say here: live more in the moment, stop thinking about the past, believe in the power of positive thinking, focus on the now, and focus on the future. That’s exactly what we’re doing here on this side of the House: we’re focusing on the now, and we’re focusing on the future.

Now, I want to turn it around a wee bit and be a bit more positive here. Last week, we had a fantastic day that we celebrated on Friday: we celebrated International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day is a day where we can get the chance to celebrate all the amazing achievements of women, not just the amazing, wonderful, well-known women but also those that are striving to make a difference in this world every single day, the women that toil away and go, often, without notice. I have to say that I had the great privilege to attend an event—actually, it was on Saturday, the day after International Women’s Day, but I’m sure it was that day somewhere in the world. I went to a Shakti event, and just the amazing achievements that those women achieve on behalf of all women—I take my hat off to them.

I also want to take this time to acknowledge that this Government is delivering better outcomes for women through more productive, sustainable, and inclusive growth. I’m really pleased to see the work that this Government is doing. We already have got children and families at the heart of our programme, and we have already—I’ve got my wee list here, so I am going to look at that, but things like the fact that we have put in place already the Families Package, including the Best Start payment. How great is that for women, that in that baby’s first year, they can rely on that payment no matter what? I think that’s a fantastic achievement for our new mothers. Extending paid parental leave: it will be 26 weeks from July 2020. A significant increase in funding for family violence services—in fact, we saw the first funding boost to our front-line services in 10 years. It is something that I heard a lot about before that announcement was made, of how desperate they were for that funding and the difference that it will make to those services and the work that they do. We celebrated the passing of Jan Logie’s victims’ protection bill, which allows victims of domestic violence up to 10 days’ paid leave to deal with the impact of domestic violence—again, a real difference in the lives of those women.

But this year what I am so excited about will be the passing of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill. This will address the historic inequalities that women have had for pay, and they have waited for so long. They have absolutely waited. Yesterday, I spoke to school support staff members. It just reminded me how important this bill really is in their lives. This group of women—who are actually mainly women; I think they are an over 95 percent female-dominated part of the workforce—are the backbone of any school. Most school principals will tell any of us that they cannot operate their schools without these essential, highly talented, highly wonderful, and highly skilled professionals, and yet I heard yesterday, when I was talking to some of these women, how they’re on little more than minimum wage, when they’re so essential in the workforce. They’re certainly a group that have been waiting a long, long, long time to have their claims addressed. That’s what’s exciting, when they were talking about their excitement at seeing this bill, not just for them but to address the inequalities for women everywhere.

It’s not only the bills that we are progressing, it’s not only the work that we’re progressing; we’re also progressing the work for women in the well-being Budget. The five priorities are there, but the one that I want to highlight, as I finish, is reducing child poverty and improving child well-being, including addressing family violence. Thank you.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Well, it got better in the end, that speech, on behalf of the member who’s just resumed her seat, Jan Tinetti. It did get better. Indeed, across the House, MPs are very much in support of women, so that was the good part, but for the rest of it—oh my goodness. Wouldn’t Toastmasters be proud of a speech like that? Well, well, well. We had a Google search—that was amazing. We had a list—that was pretty comprehensive. What other tricks? Oh, yes, that’s right; the speaker mentioned how grateful people were to them for all the nice things they were doing for them. Now, the sad thing about that is that’s about the standard of speeches that we have come to expect from the Labour members of Parliament as they lead the New Zealand First - Labour - Greens coalition Government. But it gets worse than that, even.

I spent a couple of days in the House this week asking questions of the Minister for Small Business around the capital gains tax. You would have thought—one would have thought, Mr Speaker, with apologies—that was such a significant piece of work being issued by the Tax Working Group on 20 February that this Government—the New Zealand First, Labour, and Green coalition Government—might have given that report some consideration, particularly those parts around a capital gains tax, and particularly, as far as I am concerned, those parts around the impacts of the capital gains tax on small business.

I am disappointed but not unsurprised at the level of answer that I got to my questions in the House this week to the Minister for Small Business and the Minister acting on his behalf—again, as the Minister for Small Business. I’m just going to run through a couple of the questions I did ask around the capital gains tax looming large in the political landscape just at the moment. I asked the Minister, “Is he concerned about the impact of a capital gains tax on small business?” His answer was, “Well, that’s a purely hypothetical question.” Excuse me? There is a Tax Working Group report on the Government’s table. They are considering their response to it, and the answer that I get from the responsible Minister for Small Business is “that’s a purely hypothetical question.”—not good enough, Minister.

I then went on to ask, “Will he guarantee that a small business with a home office will … be subject to a capital gains tax?” Now, listeners and viewers will recall that one of the Government’s bottom lines—ever like shifting sands, but one of their bottom lines—was that the primary home would be exempt. The Minister could give no answer. The Minister had not given it any consideration. Was he standing up to defend small businesses? No—no. He didn’t even have an answer, and on and on it goes. “Has he heard from any small businesses about their views on a capital gains tax?”—a fair question. It’s a fair question; he is the Minister. He does have an email address; he does get post delivered. His answer? “What I have heard is a lot of nonsense put forward [to] the Opposition which is simply not grounded in reality.” Excuse me? Is the Minister for Small Business in the New Zealand First - Labour - Greens coalition listening to people, or has he got his earphones on with his country music turned up loud? For the Minister to say that he had heard nothing from small businesses is patently—patently—unbelievable.

I asked him directly: “To the Minister, has he heard from any small businesses about their views on a capital gains tax?” The answer was, “No.” How can that be? Is this a Minister who is interested in hearing from small business in New Zealand, or does he just have his earphones on and is in denial? Well, I’ll tell him what they think, because small business have been talking to me ever since the Tax Working Group’s report came out: “I understand I can’t expect to pay myself much, but I hoped I would get what I earned back when one day I sell the business.”—[Interruption] You see, they don’t like this; they don’t like it—“But due to a capital gains tax, I might not only not be able to pay myself much but I won’t make any money selling the business. It makes me wonder why I should continue.” They don’t understand—[Time expired]

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini—my strength is not of one but one of numbers. I love that quote so much because it reminds me so much of why I’m part of this team and why the good work this Government is doing helps so many. Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.

I would just like to take a moment at the beginning here to give credit to the great Labour team that we have here, because I don’t get my strength alone; I get my strength from the experience, from the unity, and from the great talent that we have here of people that work so hard every day to deliver the good things. That good work and that strength and that unity and that pride in the power of a collective movement goes further than these four walls. It goes outside into all the people that work every day, strong in the belief that New Zealand is a better place when we help each other, and that we grow in strength when we support each other and we care for each other. I am so proud to be part of a Labour Government—part of a coalition Government with Labour—that has a leadership that has brought something new, a leadership that has brought not only just a strong, stable economy that goes ahead to pay down debt but also one that has kindness and empathy to people. That works so well.

Let’s just take a look for a moment at what this coalition Government is doing for New Zealand. Let’s look at how it looks at putting people first and how everyday New Zealanders’ lives are made better with some of the measures that have already been delivered. The Families Package: 350,000 New Zealanders now getting more money in their pockets each week. The Best Start payment: prioritising our children, putting them first to make sure they get those basics in the early years. The winter energy payment: to make sure people, particularly elderly, are warm over the winter—coming a month early this week. I know so many that are grateful to have that extra money to pay for heating bills. Investing in our regions outside of the main city centres: so needed for rural New Zealand, to make sure it goes further than just what we’ve been doing in the past, to grow those areas stronger. Mental health services: we know they are long overdue to put investment back into those people’s lives, to give people the services, the support, and the treatment readily when they need it, earlier rather than later. And rebuilding our hospitals and schools—also well overdue.

The other day, I was in Pak ’N Save Pētone—a great establishment; I go there quite often, a nice owner in there as well—and I was just about to choose some sweetcorn when a person standing next to me said, “Are you the MP for Hutt South?” I said, “No, I’m the list one, but I’m working on that.” And they said, “Look, I would just like to say thank you. I would like to thank you for the good work that your Government is doing in helping New Zealanders.” I was really taken aback. I said, “Thank you so much, and that means a lot to me.”—and it did. It made me smile for the rest of the day.

I went on that day to go to St John’s service awards, which is a great event—again, another event of celebrating the collective of people coming together to provide good community service. I heard an excellent speech at the St John’s service awards, and that speech spoke about the value of social capital. That speech spoke about how in the past we’ve been terrible at counting just the financial value of things, and that we needed to be better as a country at looking at how we can value and understand social capital. That excellent speech was by Chris Bishop, the current MP, and I was so heartened to see that Chris Bishop believes in the fundamental basis of the well-being Budget.

It’s so good to know that members on the other side of the House know the strength of investing in community spirit, know the strength of investing in people, and know that things go further than just counting money. We want to make sure that when this Budget comes around, we’ll be able to know that New Zealanders in their homes, in their communities, in their daily lives, in their schools, and in their voluntary organisations are doing well. That goes far further than the cheque-book; it goes into those areas of mental health that have been so neglected over the past decade, and we want to reinvest in there.

I want to say that I am so proud to be part of a Government that draws strength from numbers, because the strength in our communities, the strength in our people, is where New Zealand will always be proud to work together. Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Well, it’s an honour to follow that wonderful speech. Today, I want to pay tribute to a wonderful group of people who’ve done a fabulous job for this country and that’s the Tax Working Group. What a fantastic job they’ve done, and they haven’t got the credit that they deserve—well led by Michael Cullen. What I say to the group is they’ve put out issues that the Opposition were too scared to address over many, many years.

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No good?

SPEAKER: No. No, the “scared” word and lacking courage—not allowed to say it.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, all right. My apologies, Mr Speaker. But the Opposition would not address it over a number of years, but the Tax Working Group has been courageous. Sir Michael Cullen has fronted up on this group despite the disgraceful campaign from the Opposition, who keep telling us that the world is going to collapse and the world is going to fall in. The Hon Simon Bridges, who should be worrying about more things than Māoris getting some kickback in terms of the tax cuts, should be worrying about what’s happening to him at the moment. His carry-on that Māori are going to get these huge benefits is a disgrace. You know, this fear-mongering campaign needs to stop, because this capital gains tax needs to be put firmly on the table and New Zealanders have to address it. It’s as simple as that. We as a Government are showing courage on this. That’s why I compliment Sir Michael Cullen. I’ve got no worries about his thousand dollars a day. It’s peanuts, actually, when you compare it to some of the lawyers and people who’ve worked in this Government in the past. He’s under-charged himself—there’s no doubt about that.

But why do we need a capital gains tax? Have the Opposition worked that out? We need a capital gains tax because we need a more fairer and more equitable society. We need everyone paying tax. The big boys are skipping out. We only have to read the newspapers. We only have to read the newspapers, and today we’re talking about people avoiding $51 million in taxes. We’re talking about the Panama Papers. We’re talking about corporates who’ve come to this country and are making vast sums of income from New Zealanders and paying very little in tax—very little in tax. So the capital gains tax is an attempt to share the tax burden right across the spectrum. Workers have to pay every cent. They need some relief. This is about relief for working people. What is the problem, in terms of the Opposition, with regards to the capital gains tax? Why is that so offensive to the Opposition? Why should clerical workers, labourers, factory workers, and, in fact, everyone who pays PAYE shoulder the full weight of taxation? It’s a question that yourself and others have talked about for many, many years, but no Government has addressed it the way this Government has.

This is about inequality and how do we counter that inequality. Why should working people pay tax but those who can afford accountants pay nothing, or close to nothing? So there are loopholes in terms of the tax system that we all know have been exploited by National Party’s friends for many, many years. That’s an indisputable fact. And that strategy is all about protecting their friends. They forgot about the average worker. They forget about people out on the street, who are paying their way. Now, capital gains tax is only paid when you realise the value once you sell the investment property, and will only be paid once the property or business has been sold. And again, that is a fair tax. That is a fair way to go.

Again, all the scaremongering comes out and all the questions come out, but the group have done their job. They’ve put it on the table. They’re showing courage. They’re showing courage that no other group has shown through the years, and we as a Government, rather than collapse and say “Yes, you’re right, Simon.”, rather than turn up and answer every single question, we’re saying let’s just wait. Let’s take our time. Let’s address this. Let’s understand that workers have been covering the burden and shouldering the burden in terms of paying tax, and the big boys have got off, and we want to address that. So as far as we’re concerned, it’s time to be courageous and for a Government to finally address the question. We’re allowing the Opposition to petrify New Zealanders, but New Zealanders are not listening at the moment. We can see that in the polls. We can see that in terms of the response that our Prime Minister’s getting, and we think we’re on track. This is a Government that will face and front the tough issues. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to stand here to contribute to the first general debate of 2019. It is the 44th anniversary of the biggest Māori and Pacific Polynesian cultural festival that kicked off today, and I just want to take a different stance from all the speakers today to remind us of the contribution of our young people. So, as I said, it is the 44th anniversary of the ASB Polyfest. I particularly love the theme of the Polyfest, and I want to acknowledge all the teachers and everybody who has toiled hard in the last 44 years. I too was a performer in the Polyfest—

Hon Peeni Henare: Not that long ago.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: Yeah, I’m not going to say when. But the theme is—and I need to read it, because it’s really important: the blood of the ocean it flows through me. My sustenance; my nest of higher learning; my navigator. I am the living essence of the ocean, which is in me. Wow! That is so powerful. Again, I want to congratulate all the students, but, particularly, because I am the Labour list member of Parliament, based in Papakura and Tāmaki, I want to wish everybody in those two areas to just enjoy it—just enjoy it. And, of course, to my school, Onehunga High School, I know that you guys are just going to give it heaps and enjoy the day.

I want to talk about seeing, listening, doing what you said you were going to do, and delivering. I want to take three examples, but if I run out of time, I’ll just stop at two. Number one is I want to talk about the Ngā Karahipi Uru Rākau Scholarships. Last year at the National Field Days the honourable Minister Shane Jones and the then Minister Meka Whaitiri announced those scholarships, and they were about addressing the need where Māori and women were missing from the areas in terms of the New Zealand forestry industry. So what we’ve done this year is we have announced the winners of those scholarships. I want to go back to the point of the reasons why it is important for us to do that. I want to quote the Prime Minister, because it’s important that we are reminded of why we do things. The Prime Minister said, “Over the last five years less than a third of graduates of forestry degrees were women. While the industry is a significant employer of Māori, Māori are underrepresented in this professional and scientific areas of the industry. We hope this group of talented scholarship recipients will pave the way for the future and encourage other women and Māori to enter higher education within the forestry sector.”

So I want to acknowledge those people who we have acknowledged. I want to acknowledge Robyn Patient from Waikuku Beach, Jessica Stock from Tasman, Cole Grace from Gisborne, George Fanning-Ihaka from Dargaville, Nicholas Melvin from Winton, Thomas Brown from Matamata, Max Gomez from Dunedin, and Hannah Humphreys from Wānaka. We noticed that things weren’t right. We listened. Leadership is about just that. Leadership is about seeing, hearing, and doing something about it.

I am a pretty fair person—I might judge myself and say that I’m a pretty fair person. Last week, the honourable Minister Aupito William Sio announced the STEM, the Pasifika achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in terms of Pacific achievement, and the need to invest in those areas for Pacific achievement. I just want to say that this year’s award included 16 community awards and eight tertiary scholarships.

I’m running out of time, but I have recently returned from the Chatham Islands, and I want to say kia ora to Alfred Priest, the local mayor, and all the 600 or so people of the Chathams that we met. I want to voice their plight where a flight to New Zealand—they call this country New Zealand—was delayed on Monday and was delayed again on Tuesday, and to hear the stories from the people on how connectivity is an important factor in their lives. I just want to say to them thank you very much for sharing your stories, and along with the member for Rongotai, Paul Eagle, we will continue to voice those concerns, because we were there and we saw it. On that note, thank you, Chathams. Thank you for looking after us. Mr Speaker, malo.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to return to that speech from Mr Willie Jackson, who implied and inferred—

SPEAKER: No—he couldn’t.

ANDREW BAYLY: —that many of the top taxpayers in New Zealand are not pulling their weight and that people on lower tax rates, indeed, needed to have respite. Personally, I found that speech, that implication, rather offensive, and I just thought the rhetoric that he spoke of is the type of thing that you would find on talkback radio. But in Parliament, where we have to deal in facts and actually deal with the issues at hand, the interesting thing is that the top 11 percent of all tax earners pay 48 percent, or half, of all the personal tax paid in New Zealand—half of all the personal tax raised—and people with families earning up to $70,000, basically, do not pay tax because whilst they’ve paid tax on their income, because of the reimbursement through Working for Families and other benefits, effectively, they pay no tax. So the assertion that top taxpayers in New Zealand were ripping off other people and, therefore, that’s the basis for bringing in a capital gains tax is, to my mind, a perverse argument.

The other thing I think Mr Jackson should acquaint himself with is he should actually look at the accounts of the Government. In the year just gone, your Government, basically, racked in about $85 billion of revenue from tax—$85 billion. Now, during the term of this Government, even though they campaigned on not introducing new taxes, they have since—over the last 16 months—implemented tax changes that will, in time, raise $2.6 billion a year. If you look at the forward projections, Mr Jackson, of the Government—you know, looking at Treasury numbers, and this is where I would ask you to go and devote some of your time—

SPEAKER: Order!

ANDREW BAYLY: —you will see—sorry, Mr Speaker. You will see that the Government’s intended expected revenue will grow to $100 billion over the next four years without any further changes to the tax system.

So the argument that the Government members continue to roll out is that we need more money. Well, actually, we don’t, as a country, need more money, and certainly as a Government, we don’t need more money. We’re going to get roughly $18 billion of more money, per annum, over the next four years, and that is a substantial amount of money by anyone’s store.

But the other side of the coin, which I haven’t heard from the Government members, is the thing called discipline—financial discipline. What we do know is that the New Zealand First Party was very successful in getting $3 billion to spend and splash around the economy on the pretence of growing the economy in regions. We had $1 billion allocated to the Deputy Prime Minister for his foreign affairs, a large portion of which is going towards new curtains and cushions in Sweden, but we’ve also seen some other very costly platforms and cost structures brought in by this Government of Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens.

The issue around being clear about your spending and being robust and disciplined about it is perhaps more the issue, and it’s not the issue of continuously wanting to tax people and grab more money because you’re not being careful with it. We on this side think you should be more careful with it. At the same time, we’ve got a Government and a Minister of Finance saying “Look, the debt is fine, even though in monetary terms it continues to grow.”—in monetary terms, it continues to grow. The only issue with the debt is that they are going to allow the debt to grow in New Zealand because they’re growing the economy. So when you do it on a percentage basis, he is going to let the debt grow in this country.

Those two aspects are the most worrying thing about the capital gains tax, and this call to somehow say that people are not paying their fair share is rather offensive.

I think the other aspect of it is we have a tax system that is the envy of the world because it’s so simple in terms of collection. If the Government brings this in, we are going to turn that upside down and introduce one of the most complicated tax arrangements on top of what is now currently a very simple system, and that will be an absolute travesty. We will spend years spending time trying to fix up any legislation that may be brought to the House.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Local Electoral Matters Bill

Instruction to Committee

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): I move, That it be an instruction to the committee of the whole House on the Local Electoral Matters Bill that it have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt amendments relating to donation provisions in the Local Electoral Act 2001.

I move this motion because I think this bill provides an opportunity for the House to consider some amendments which may be ruled out of scope at the committee stage, and this instruction would enable the committee to consider Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that I’ve drafted but also, if any other further SOPs wish to be drafted around those donation provisions, it would allow for the committee to adequately consider those particular matters. The bill as it’s currently drafted does have some narrow scope. It’s an omnibus bill and it does deal with Local Electoral Act matters, but there will be some question, I’m sure, in the committee of the whole House as to whether the scope of that bill is broad enough to enable the committee to consider donation matters. I’m of the view that the committee should consider donation matters, and if the House is willing to pass this motion, it would properly enable the committee to consider those matters.

The reason why I think the House should vote in favour of this motion and allow that type of debate to happen in the committee stage is because when, as a country, we consider donation matters at the local government level—and I’m referring pointedly to the Minister’s comments in question time today—there are some legitimate questions that should be considered and debated in relation to local government electoral law. The Minister himself pointed out in question time that there’s an inquiry under way into this particular issue, and, actually, that inquiry’s broader around foreign influence in elections. The Minister made it sound as though there was some opportunity in the future to consider those matters by way of another bill. The problem is that the time frame available for the Parliament to consider amendments to the Local Electoral Act is such that it would be almost impossible for the Government to receive that inquiry back from the select committee and then progress a bill in the normal fashion to have changes made to the Local Electoral Act in time for the 2019 election.

The 2019 local government elections are in October this year. If we consider the three-month campaign period, which is, effectively, the campaign period and the time in which candidates would be considering what donations they might receive, that period starts in just a few short months. So I think that where we have an opportunity through our Local Electoral Matters Bill to consider issues around local government electoral law, we should absolutely be doing it. So this instruction would enable the committee to do that.

I’m sure there will be questions that some members might have in their minds about whether this is an appropriate mechanism to use—this instruction. You, Mr Speaker, yourself, have moved these motions in the past. But I point to just a couple of weeks ago, when the House used exactly this mechanism—an instruction to the committee—when it came to another issue. In fact, the Minister of Justice used it in relation to livestock rustling. This isn’t an unusual mechanism and, in fact, it was used only a couple of weeks ago. I’m asking the House to consider using this mechanism again so that we can broaden the scope of the Local Electoral Matters Bill to consider these issues.

It’s not as if these types of issues don’t enjoy any support across the House. In fact, spokespersons for parties that represent a majority in this House—or leaders of those parties and spokespersons—have made comments publicly that they would like to see changes made to the donation regime in the country. That was particularly around parliamentary elections, but the problem with local government elections, which operate under a different Act of Parliament, is that the donation provisions in local government elections are even broader than what they are for parliamentary elections. So I suggest to members in the House that if spokespersons and leaders representing parties that represent a majority in this House have said publicly that we should give consideration to donation matters for parliamentary elections, we should absolutely be doing that with regards to local government elections.

In the SOPs that I’ve already drafted, whilst I know I can’t go into great detail around them, there are a number of options that I’ve suggested by way of those SOPs, one of which is just to bring local government election donation laws in line with the Electoral Act. I think it should go further, but that’s a very simple issue. Where, in question time, the Minister observed that it’s important, with relation to changes in law around elections, that proper consideration be given to those changes, I don’t necessarily disagree with what the Minister was saying in question time. But if the question for us is have these types of measures been given consideration properly and been debated properly, the answer, in terms of bringing the Local Electoral Act in line with the Electoral Act 1993, is they have been canvassed over many, many years. A suggestion in one of those SOPs is simply that we adopt at the local government level what we already do at the parliamentary level. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the House to give the committee the power and the scope to be able to debate that.

Given there is strong support from parties in this House for tightening donation regimes, and given that currently the Local Electoral Act does not provide the same sort of protections for New Zealanders and protections for our democracy that exist in the parliamentary Electoral Act, I say the House should give the committee the power to consider these matters properly. It’s not unusual. It was done only a couple of weeks ago. There is support for changes in this area. There is support for clamping down in this area.

We just don’t have the time to wait until that inquiry from the select committee is progressed. If we sit back and say “Well, let’s wait for the inquiry. Let’s not do this now. Let’s not bother with changes to the Local Electoral Act right now.”, the problem we’ll have is that by the time that inquiry comes back, a Government would have to take urgency to ensure changes are made before the 2019 local government elections. I say that’s not good enough. We have an opportunity to make changes here. We have a chance for New Zealanders at the local government level to ensure democratic matters are protected, and so I ask that members consider this instruction.

To vote against this instruction is, effectively, to say parties are happy with the current regime around local government elections and that they’re not prepared to at least debate later on this afternoon, in the committee, whether the measures and the protections in place right now are sufficient. They are not sufficient. We do have lax laws, and we do have an opportunity to change it.

I move this instruction so that we can debate it later this afternoon in the committee. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable mechanism to use given the Government did so not that long ago and given there is support for this very issue in the Chamber from parties that have publicly expressed their concerns around donations. It’s too big an issue as well just to let go and let the local government elections in 2019 pass without an opportunity to make these changes.

A party vote was called for on the question, That it be an instruction to the committee of the whole House on the Local Electoral Matters Bill that it have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt amendments relating to donation provisions in the Local Electoral Act 2001.

Ayes 1

Ross.

Noes 117

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill

In Committee

KIERAN McANULTY (Junior Whip—Labour): I seek leave for all provisions of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Leave is sought. Is there any objection to that? There is.

Part 1 Amendments to Dog Control Act 1996

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Madam Chair. National supports this Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. I have to say that as I was getting my notes ready for this afternoon, there were several local government bills and I had to look very carefully to make sure I was addressing the correct one, because there are a number of bills which are not particularly notable. But here we are.

We support this bill because it’s our bill, essentially. It’s good. It’s pragmatic. It absolutely does what a regulatory system bill should do. [Interruption] It clarifies and brings up to date. Sorry, Mr McAnulty, what was that?

Kieran McAnulty: I was just saying speak to the part. It was a funny joke, but the moment’s gone. Carry on.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Yeah, OK. It was a joke and it wasn’t funny. Is that what I heard? No, I think that’s what I heard.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I think actually that’s my role. He does get that confused. That’s my role.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Thank you so much. So Kieran McAnulty does get confused and has been reminded by the Chair that it’s her role, so another great contribution from Labour.

Hon Members: Ohh!

Hon JACQUI DEAN: I know.

There are a number of Acts which are being amended through this. I have to say that of the variety of Acts—so Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, yep; Local Government (Rating) Act; Rates Rebate Act—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Actually, could I just remind the member we are on Part 1. It would be really nice if the member could mention dogs, because we are on the Dog Control Act.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Good—good. OK—right. My chance to mention dogs—that’s wonderful.

What this provision in the bill allows for is for disability assist dogs to now be noted against a schedule. So if there is a new organisation who provide services around disability assist dogs, then, instead of having to come back to Parliament to get an amendment to the Dog Control Act, they now will have the ability to have their organisation—say it’s the new disability dog assist organisation or something like that—just apply by Order in Council to have that new organisation registered as a disability assist dog organisation.

So that is Part 1 of the bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to take a call on Part 1 of this Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill, which deals with the Dog Control Act 1996. The amendment to the Dog Control Act will replace the definition of the disability assist dog, align the notification requirement of local authorities with those in the Local Government Act 2002, and clarify the organisations authorised to certify the dog as a disability assist dog.

It is important because we want to make sure that those organisations which are able to identify the disability dogs can help people with the disability, and it will be easy for them to get this. So it will be a collection of another regulation and will help the disabled people. I commend this.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Part 3 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 199 in the name of Jami-Lee Ross to clause 26 be agreed to.

Amendment not agreed to.

Part 4 agreed to.

Part 5 Amendments to Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I wish to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 199, which makes amendments to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. That SOP is in my name.

I put forward this SOP because I believe there’s a flaw in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 in that members of a local authority are treated exactly the same as members of the public are when it comes to questions around Official Information Act requests. I’ll call it LGOIMA because that’s what I was used to when I was in local government myself. The LGOIMA Act doesn’t provide any special treatment for those that are actually elected to a city council. When it comes to access to information, people may be surprised to know that a city councillor has no greater powers under LGOIMA to access information than members of the public are able to.

So a bit of history behind this SOP: when I—back many, many moons ago—was part of the National Party, I was the local government spokesperson at the end of 2017 and the start of 2018. This was a member’s bill I put forward in that time, and these provisions in this SOP are, effectively, a mirror of what was in that member’s bill that I put forward and was in the ballot at the end of 2017. Once I ceased to be the local government spokesperson for the National Party, the member’s bill that I had in my name was picked up by Denise Lee, and I’m glad that Denise Lee picked it up, because it was a good set of provisions. What I’ve done is, effectively, taken the member’s bill that was in my name and then transferred to Denise Lee—I’ve, effectively, mirrored the provisions from that member’s bill into this SOP.

So this SOP is, effectively, the same as a current National Party member’s bill in the ballot. And I know it has the support of the National Party, because I took it through the National Party caucus myself back in 2017, and I took it through the caucus because I felt there needed to be more opportunity for members of city councils and local authorities to have access to information. So what the SOP and what the changes I’m proposing do is set up a new regime, effectively, so that requests from members of a local authority are treated differently to those from members of the public.

I think if a local authority is operating properly, then the chief executive will be sharing information with members of that local authority on a day-to-day basis. But there are situations—and I encountered them several times when I was a city councillor for six years. I encountered situations where, as a councillor, I wanted to access information but I was denied that information by the chief executive. If we are to take the view that those in governing positions should have good access to information so that they can act as governors and make determinations and decisions as governors, they should have as broad an access to information as possible. There still should be a requirement for confidentiality when they access that information, but they should have greater access to information than members of the public.

So in the regime that I’ve, effectively, set up—would be set up if this SOP goes through and these changes to LGOIMA go through—we would have a situation where, within six working days, if a member of the local authority makes a member request to the chief executive, then within six days the chief executive has to reply. There are also fewer reasons for the chief executive to be able to decline that elected member request. If we’re to say elected members should have greater access to information, then we should provide fewer reasons for the chief executive to say no. So by broadening the access to information for members of a local authority, we enable them to do their job much better.

When it comes to elected member requests, the chief executive shouldn’t be able to use the same type of mechanisms and options available to them when it comes to members of the public. Only in situations that deal with, effectively, personal privacy or the maintenance of good law and order—those are the only types of situations where I think a member of a local authority shouldn’t have the access to the information. For example, a member of a local authority shouldn’t be able to ask for information about his next-door neighbour’s dealings with a local authority if it’s going to impact the privacy of his next-door neighbour.

Elected members, though, should be able to have broader access to information that is otherwise confidential to the local authority, because it will enable them to do their jobs better. The best example we have in recent years of when members of a local authority were denied access to information was in Auckland, when the mayoral office in Auckland sought information and had a whole report written about an issue that members of that council weren’t able to access. Members of the Auckland Council, quite rightly, protested the fact that Phil Goff—the mayor of Auckland—held back that information from his own councillors. It highlighted that there were trust issues within that council, but what it also highlighted is that our local government legislative regime and framework does not allow local authority members to do their job properly, because it denies those local authority members access to information.

It would, effectively, be the same as Ministers in the Cabinet not being able to see information that the Cabinet might be making a decision on. It would be wrong to suggest that should be the case, but it is the situation in the local government sector. Members of a local authority who have been elected to that local authority should have as broad an opportunity to see information as possible, provided they maintain the personal privacy of individuals.

Now, questions might be asked about whether local authority members are able to properly maintain confidentiality. Well, the code of conduct regime is in place and there’s the normal type of checks and balances on individuals through the court system. We should be having a high-trust model in terms of local government information legislation so that councillors and members of a local authority can do their job. So this SOP would do exactly that type of thing. This SOP would enable members of a local authority to access the information.

So I ask the committee to give some serious consideration to this. If we have a view, as individuals here, that members of a local authority should be able to see enough information to do their job, then we should be making changes to LGOIMA. And especially to my old friends in the National Party, if they still support the member’s bill that is in the name of Denise Lee right now that used to be in my name, then they should be supporting this SOP because they’d, effectively, be voting against their own member’s bill that currently sits in the ballot. All they’ve done is taken the member’s bill, which I initially drafted myself, and turned it into an SOP.

So we have an opportunity through this bill to make some changes to local government legislation, so there is that opportunity to broaden the trust that’s there. The problem with some councils is there is a breakdown in relationship between members of the local authority and the chief executive, but that shouldn’t be a reason for them to be denied access to information. Right now, the chief executive is the gatekeeper of what the elected people get to see, and I don’t think that’s right. Right now the chief executive—and this happens regularly—can favour some members of the local authority over others. The chief executive can favour certain councillors that they like and trust, more so than if there are councillors that they don’t think should see the information. The reality is every member of a local authority should be treated equally. Every member of a local authority should be able to access information.

There are also provisions in here which enable a local authority and a chief executive to have confidence that elected member requests won’t be treated in an improper manner. There are protections there and requirements for a local authority member that accesses information by way of a member request, because there should be a higher degree of confidentiality required if they are receiving this information that members of the public aren’t getting. But the bottom line is they should get the information. The bottom line is it’s not good enough right now that councillors are denied access to information. The bottom line is we have real examples where right now, in our biggest city, councillors were denied access to information when they should have had the ability to see it, and that should not have happened and the mayoral office shouldn’t have denied that information. The mayoral office was found to be in the right when the Ombudsman looked at the situation because the Ombudsman was operating under the LGOIMA as it currently sits, which doesn’t allow those councillors to see the information.

So I say this SOP makes a worthwhile change and it improves the LGOIMA right now, and I say to my friends in the National Party, “I think you should be supporting a member’s bill that’s already in the ballot under one of your MPs’ names.”

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s my pleasure just to refer to Part 5 of the amendment bill, and I want to just focus on just some of the positives that are in this particular part—in the clauses that make up the part. One of them is section 2, amended in clause 29(1) where it talks about the internet, and really what that’s saying is that that local body will now have to publicise those Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests on to their internet site. And I think that’s beneficial.

We see a host of third parties who have taken on that role, and what it will now mean is that they’ll be able to see who’s been asking for what on the entity’s website. Some do it. I don’t know the names of the various local authorities who do that, but I do know that in terms of the way that we interact, if you wanted to do one and thought “Hey look, let’s have a look at something.” or “Let’s ask.”, you will now be able to see that on their website and go “Hey look, it’s already being done.” Maybe the request can simply be to ask for that information that’s already gone through that process rather than waiting another 20 days or thereof to get the information you need. And that really goes there in section 2(1) also, where it doesn’t take away what’s happening or what’s in place at the moment; it really adds to that. It just does some refining of some definitions there around the working day.

Clause 30, amending section 46, again just reinforces that practical part of a council’s business where sometimes they can’t fully abide by the current Act, and so therefore they will now be able to call for an extraordinary or emergency meeting without the current process where some of them want to do the meeting but can’t because they need to then advertise in a certain way of that meeting and that makes it a whole lot easier—and that’s what’s important. Kia ora.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill and, particularly, Part 5. I just wanted to elaborate on and extend the comments made by my colleague MP Paul Eagle, particularly around the definition for “working day”. One of the proposals is to amend the definition of “working day” within the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. The reason for that is to make it consistent not only with what is being recommended in terms of the Local Government Act 2002 but also with definitions included in, for example, the Building Act 2004. The advice is that it’s really important when people are interacting with local government that, as far as practicable, we remove any anomalies or confusion and make it as easy as possible for people to understand that.

So when we look at what’s being proposed in the new wording—if I can just take you to it on page 10—clause 29(3) amends section 2(1) by inserting the new definition for “working day” by replacing paragraph (b) with it to actually capture the situations where there are provincial anniversary days being observed in the time between 20 December and 10 January. And so the recommended text that has been included in there hopes to ensure that the definition will be consistent with what is being proposed under Part 4 of the bill for the Local Government Act, which we have already just passed, and also the Building Act. So I think that, in speaking to that, it’s really important that those anomalies are removed from other legislation and clarification is given for people who are interacting with their local authorities. Kia ora.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Madam Chair, thank you very much. As I was sitting there listening to my colleague Willow-Jean Prime talk about this particular part, something caught my attention, so I’ve just got a wee question for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Peeni Henare. Hopefully, he might be able to clarify something because I haven’t really paid too much attention to this bill. It hasn’t come up in front of a select committee that I’ve been involved in. And so here we are. I happen to be on whip duty and I thought I’d get the bill out and have a look.

In particular, I’m talking about Part 5 and clause 29 amending section 2. In clause 29(3) we’re talking about “In section 2(1), definition of working day, replace paragraph (b) with: (b) the day observed in the appropriate area as the anniversary of the province of which the area forms a part;”. It was the particular wording that caught my attention and I would like the Minister in the chair to, hopefully, clarify some things, because I note that anniversary days—you know, for example, Wellington Anniversary Day at the start of January, it’s actually not just Wellington that falls within it. And so if the wording says that “the province of which the area forms a part;”, Manawatū, Wanganui—and, you could argue, Wairarapa to some extent, but certainly Manawatū and Wanganui—don’t fall within the Wellington region and therefore with the current wording “forms a part of”, you could argue that they don’t fall within that. The same can be said for Auckland Anniversary Day. You’ve got Coromandel and the East Coast and areas along the top of the Eastern Bay of Plenty there. Under the current wording, I’d just like to know that those areas do actually fall within this, because I know that that’s clearly the intention of the bill, but as it’s worded I thought it posed a question that was worthy of asking.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair, and thank you for this opportunity. I wish to stand not only to address the question I’ve just been offered by my erudite colleague Mr McAnulty but also to support the words of some of the members of the committee who have far more local government experience than I: namely, I think of the member Willow-Jean Prime and of course the member Paul Eagle, and others in this committee who have long-standing ties with local government. If the committee will allow me, I do think, in reply to the contribution made by the member Jami-Lee Ross, it’s fair that from my position here we offer a reply, and then I’ll talk to some of the mentions already made by my colleagues from the Government.

If I can just remind members of the committee—and in particular with this bill—the purpose of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill is to make a number of minor and technical amendments to seven local government Acts. It is a repairs and maintenance bill which will clarify and update statutory provisions; address gaps, errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of local government legislation; and remove unnecessary compliance costs.

The bill can be split into two broad things: efficient operations and administration and effective local governance and representation. I just wanted to highlight that part for the member, for Jami-Lee Ross, because, while I appreciate the points he raises in this debate, this particular bill that we’re currently debating at the moment, once again, talks about repairs and maintenance and minor and technical amendments. The member, in his contribution, constantly spoke of trust, and I’m mindful, when we consider such an important part in modern democracies, whether what he’s considering is something far beyond what we’re actually trying to propose here in this bill. Maybe that’s a debate for another time or something that can be taken up with the Minister. But I certainly want to reiterate to the committee, if I can, it is a repairs and maintenance bill which will clarify and update statutory provisions; address gaps, errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of local government legislation; and remove unnecessary compliance costs.

To Part 5, my colleagues have already mentioned a number of, I think, rather important things. The definition of an “internet site”—Mr Paul Eagle talked about that. And, of course, Willow-Jean Prime talked about Part 5, using her experience as a former local government member—a local government member, yep, that’s the one. I just want to, now, touch on the point that Mr McAnulty raised around the definition of a “working day” as a “day observed in the appropriate area as the anniversary of the province of which the area forms a part”, and then of course the amended section 2(1)(c) in clause 29, “a day in the period commencing with 20 December in any year and ending with 10 January in the following year.”

More generally speaking, on this particular clause: one, I’ve already mentioned the definition of the “internet site”, and we’ve already heard comments about the definition of “publicly notified”. But, more importantly, to the question offered by the member, the definition of a “working day” is updated so that it is consistent with the definition of “working day” in the Local Government Act 2002 and the Building Act 2004. If I can offer to Mr McAnulty, it’s simply just, as I mentioned earlier, a minor technicality bringing things in line with Acts that actually affect and govern the way our local government operates. So just a reminder, again, the definition of a “working day” is updated so that it is consistent with the definition of “working day” in not just the Local Government Act 2002 but the Building Act 2004.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wish to speak very briefly to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 199, in which there is proposed to be a new clause 29A, relating to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. I just note that it is our very strongly held view that any changes made by way of an SOP do not have, or do not allow for, the participation of the general public in debating the matter that is contained in that SOP.

So were this, or any other, SOP brought in at this late stage of the debate, it would be, in our view, entirely inappropriate to introduce a subject matter which may well be the subject of a member’s bill but in any event has not had the opportunity of any public debate and wouldn’t have the opportunity for any public debate should this SOP be accepted. So I just wanted to add those few words. Thank you, Mr Chair.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): I have to say, listening from up the back here, listening to the Minister and listening to Jacqui Dean provide their reasons not to support a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), it struck me that if we are to accept those two reasons given, what is the whole point of having a committee stage? Jacqui Dean, effectively, just said that unless an SOP has had public input, unless it’s something which has been debated and consulted on, then it would be—and here is her word—inappropriate for it to be considered by the committee.

Just think about what she just said. She just, effectively, said that any SOP that any Opposition comes up with that hasn’t been consulted on with the public is inappropriate. I think that just says that everything that gets put forward from now on by the National Party, by way of SOP, is, to use her definition, inappropriate. That is, effectively, what she just said. I realise that they hate me so much that it will be difficult for them to support an SOP that I’ve put forward. Even when that SOP mirrors what one of their own members has in the members’ bills ballot, they’re still going to vote against it, even though they support it, it’s been through their caucus, and they know that it wants to happen.

The fact is that they now have a standard for Supplementary Order Papers. The National Party’s standard for Supplementary Order Papers now is that anything that hasn’t been consulted on is inappropriate. So the next time Government MPs front up with hundreds of SOPs to delay Government business—that’s inappropriate by the National Party’s standard. The National Party doesn’t believe the committee stage should, effectively, exist any more, because they think any SOPs that haven’t been consulted on are inappropriate. That has got to be one of the most pathetic excuses for voting against an SOP I’ve ever heard, but it is the reason they’re using to vote against something that is already in the ballot under one of their MPs’ names. It was a member’s bill that I drafted originally; it was handed to another MP later on and it sits in the ballot right now. That’s why they’re voting against their own policy by way of this SOP—SOP 199.

Minister, respectfully—because, hey, one does not have guns on both sides—to effectively say that we can’t support an SOP because the bill is only doing small, technical things is a pretty poor excuse too. I mean, the scope of the bill is determined by the Chair. If this is so foreign to the scope of the bill, then the Chair could rule it out. The Chair hasn’t ruled it out, unless he’s about to change his mind.

This does put in place some suggestions that I think would be helpful, and, in fact, it would seem logical that members of a local authority should have greater access to information. One of the changes, for example, that I’m proposing in this SOP is that a chief executive can’t charge a member of a local authority for access to information. Let’s just run through that for a second. A councillor on any council can ask for information from the chief executive. The chief executive can charge money to provide that information to the councillor. Do we think that’s right? Do we think people in governance positions in local authorities dealing with multimillion-dollar—or in some cases like Auckland, potentially multibillion-dollar—decisions should be charged for getting access to information that the chief executive holds? It would be like saying members of Parliament should be charged money for access to information that we might be seeking by way of the Official Information Act or by way of written questions. It’s such a logical situation for us to have, where members of a local authority are not charged for access to information.

I say respectfully to the Minister, if we’re talking about tidy-ups in the local government set of legislation, then a tidy-up should be that we don’t charge members of a local authority for access to information, and a tidy-up should be that there should be greater ability for a member of a local authority to access information. To say no to this SOP simply because we wanted the bill to be quite narrow—that’s a ridiculous reason, respectfully, to say no to an SOP.

So now that I’ve just had a crack at everyone in the House, I’ll sit back and go back into my hole, but, you know, it is not inappropriate to put forward ideas, it is not inappropriate to put forward SOPs, and if that is the new standard that we’re setting in this Chamber, what is the very point of having a committee stage? I say to the National Party that they should reflect on whether they believe now that SOPs are inappropriate, because that’s now the position that they’ve just established.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution on Part 5. In new section 46(3), inserted by clause 30, it talks about “If an extraordinary or emergency meeting of a local authority is called and cannot be publicly notified in the manner required …, the local authority must cause that meeting and the general nature of business to be transacted at that meeting”. So it says there that there’s two things the council must do: “(a) to be publicly notified as soon as practicable before the meeting is to be held; or (b) if it is not practicable to publish a notice in newspapers before the meeting, to be notified as soon as practicable on the local authority’s Internet site and in any other manner that is reasonable in the circumstances.”

So my question as it pertains to that area there is: how will people know that a meeting is on? So an extraordinary meeting is called. It will either go in the newspaper, if there’s a daily newspaper. Now, the daily newspapers tend to be papers that are paid for, subscription-based, like, for example, the Waikato Times. So people who pay the subscription will obviously have that notice, but those who don’t pay that subscription will not have the notice. My understanding is that would be at least probably 60 percent to 70 percent, may be even higher—maybe even 80 percent of the public do not subscribe to a newspaper. So they will not be notified by the paper. So the point is here that they will be notified on the internet site, which is what the legislation is talking about here. But are people expected to go on the internet site every day to, sort of, check, to see, “Oh, is there an extraordinary meeting or an emergency meeting?” Are people required to put that into their daily habit of checking the site? Or is there a way that they can be notified, whether it’s an app on their phone or whether there’s a notification that may come up for those who are interested?

I wonder if the intent of the legislation permits things like Facebook advertising—for example, sponsored posts. A number of us in here are familiar with sponsored posts, which is basically where a Facebook post gets put up, sponsored, so it goes far and wide. So anyone with the Facebook app who is scrolling through the feed would see the sponsored post come up. So I’m not sure if that’s something that would line up with the intent of the bill—maybe a sponsored advert on something like LinkedIn, for example. And if that was the case, that sponsored posts were reasonable in the circumstances, obviously it leads to the question of who pays—who pays for that? You know, at the moment the ratepayer is paying in terms of newspapers, and I guess they sort of seem to be OK with that, but would ratepayers be happy to pay for a sponsored post, for example, in a newspaper? I was wondering if the Minister had thought through some of those details around where it says “other manner”.

There are a couple of points there I’d like the Minister to please address. So the first one is the newspapers, which if someone does not subscribe to a daily newspaper, they will not receive the notice of the special meeting, and that those who do subscribe are a smallish portion of society, to be fair. I’m not sure what the percentages are. My guess would be probably 20 percent to 30 percent. Then the second point and the second question relates to the online aspect: what other sites? As I’ve sort of talked about, if it’s only on the council website, it’s quite difficult for people to know that there is an extraordinary meeting on there, unless there’s someone who every day or maybe a couple of times a day checks the council website. I’m not sure there are many people who actually do that as part of their general daily routine, hence, you know, looking at other points.

The other thing is around social media. So social media is continually changing and there are continual challenges out there for councils, for local government administrations—how they engage with social media and how they increase engagement. So I’ve talked about things like maybe sponsoring adverts. So there’s a couple of points there. One is around the newspapers, and the second one is about the online advertising, if the Minister could relate to that and other matters, thank you.

Brett Hudson: Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Peeni Henare.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I apologise to the good member—just to address a couple of points made by the member Jamie Strange. Look, I think the words speak for themselves: “extraordinary” or “emergency”—“extraordinary” or “emergency”. We can appreciate, particularly in light of the Tasman fires, that that’s clearly an emergency where all practicable steps or reasonable steps are taken to ensure that public notifications are received and are sent out in a timely manner. We appreciate that in circumstances of emergency, where time in particular is of the essence, if you like—where emergencies happen as we’ve experienced here in Wellington when an earthquake hits—nobody can predict them. So therefore the term “emergency”, I think, has an expectation that every reasonable step can be taken to ensure that the notification of such emergencies actually takes place.

In terms of “extraordinary”: look, I myself have been part of a number of organisations and been on boards where an extraordinary meeting or a special general meeting has been called. We appreciate that while readership of papers might be in decline, I think—once again, it mentions it there—that “reasonable in the circumstances” is the key phrase in there.

The member mentioned on social media and on Facebook how sometimes many members of the public won’t go on to the internet site of a council. I think, you know, as politicians across this entire House, when we look at the way word spreads on Facebook and how messages are passed and promoted on Facebook, or any other social media platform for that matter—one loses control of that. So I think, if anything, the role of the local authority in this particular instance is to do the best that they can in reasonable circumstances considering, as we all know, that outside of this House, once the words pass your lips, they no longer belong to you. That’s, of course, just the general danger or general warning, if I can, about social media and that platform spreading messages or any other conversation that one wants to spread.

So just to acknowledge the member for his questions, I think they’re valid. I did indicate to the officials here to my right: then who is accountable to make sure that at least reasonable effort has been made considering the circumstances of “emergency” or “extraordinary”? I have it, at least, that the local authority will be, and I guess that particular responsibility or accountability falls upon the shoulders of the chief executive. If I am incorrect, I would be more than happy to come back and correct that, but that is my understanding. I thank the member for his questions.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you, Mr Chair. I think all members in the committee feel very fortunate to be here debating Part 5 of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. These kinds of bills—you know, they sometimes get dismissed a little bit, but they include some very important things about the way that our local government system operates.

For my own part, I have a great interest in the passage of this bill, because along with, I think, a couple of other members of the House, I have a background in local government. I want to acknowledge the other member from the world of local government who is currently in the Chamber, my former colleague on the Auckland Council, Jami-Lee Ross. So there are at least two former members from local government in the Chamber at the moment. One of the things I think we’ve got to be cognisant of in this House is that we do have—and the Hon Ron Mark as well, sitting down there as well, and any other members who might have a background in local government as well. One of things we need to be cognisant of in this House is that we have a pretty centralised system of Government in our country, and sometimes we overlook and dismiss the role of local government somewhat. That’s why these bills are important, because these bills are a way in which central government sets a playing field for how local government, through its regulatory systems, may operate, and Part 5 is no different.

There are a couple of aspects of the bill itself I want to speak to, but I do also want to address Supplementary Order Paper 199, tabled by Jami-Lee Ross. I want to say that I think in the remarks he made in respect of his Supplementary Order Paper, he is both right and wrong in different ways. The respect in which I believe he is right is that he was very right to identify the spurious arguments put up by the Opposition, by the National Party, the Hon Jacqui Dean, as reasons for not proceeding with the Supplementary Order Paper. The argument, as Mr Ross said, would, effectively, invalidate any Supplementary Order Paper coming to the House for meaningful debate and consideration. The argument from the Opposition, effectively, was that you couldn’t really ever seriously consider a Supplementary Order Paper, because, by definition, a Supplementary Order Paper has not been through a prior legislative process in most cases, and clearly that would invalidate and make virtually pointless any Supplementary Order Paper, and would invalidate and make pointless much of the current procedure that we are going through. So I absolutely support Mr Ross in that contention.

Where I think he is wrong is that there does have to be, within the assessment of any Supplementary Order Paper, some consideration as to how significant it is and whether it is at a level where the committee of the whole House can consider the issues that have had significant public canvassing and that an effective judgment can be made on the efficacy of the policy approach being proposed or not.

Now, in the case of the issues that Mr Ross raises in the Supplementary Order Paper, I do think they’re genuine issues that do warrant some public consideration. As a member from the world of local government, I’ve experienced this myself in the past: a system whereby unelected officials can sometimes deny to elected members the information that they might need to come to consider judgments and make decisions. I think that is something that, sometimes in our system of local government, is used and abused and can in fact be an obnoxious and anti-democratic process. But it is an issue that requires pretty careful consideration and consultation with the local government sector before we do go and change statute in respect of it. Clearly, there are times when local government deals with sensitive information, and calls do need to be made and avenues do need to be found to ensure that that information which may be commercially sensitive or prejudicial is managed in an appropriate way to protect the legitimate interests and rights that people have.

I acknowledge that in his Supplementary Order Paper, Mr Ross has set out some criteria by which those decisions might be reached, but what I would say is that while the issue is legitimate, it isn’t enough just to bring it to the House and debate it at the committee stage; it is something that, was there a will to pursue the issue further, would require significant consultation with the sector before this House decided to make changes in this area. So, as I say, I think Mr Ross is right in the fact that we must allow Supplementary Order Papers to come to the House and sometimes be acted upon, but I think he’s wrong in making the judgment that there has been enough work done on this one in order for the committee of the whole House to be able to make a considered assessment and alter legislation as a result.

So, really, that is the main contribution that I would like to make. As some of my other colleagues have said, Part 5 is quite an important part of the bill in respect of the way in which it deals with the way in which you keep the public informed about important decisions and meetings that local government might have to make. Having a degree of public participation in our system of local government and meetings that might be called by local government officials is very important. So I certainly commend the provisions of this part but, for the reasons that I’ve just outlined, at this stage I don’t think the House can support Mr Ross’ Supplementary Order Paper. Thank you, Mr Chair.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair. I actually just want to pick up from where my colleague Mr Michael Wood left off as well, and I also want to start by acknowledging the work that many colleagues of mine across the House who have been involved in local government have put into their former roles and, of course, their current roles. I’m finding out, as a first-term MP, the overlaps between central government and local government, and I think it’s an actual privilege to be debating this particular bill, the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. I just want to acknowledge also my colleague Paul Eagle. I know that Michael Wood acknowledged many others, but he too was part of local government previously.

I wanted to say, with this particular bill, though, that the part that I was most interested in was the Dog Control Act, as a dog owner myself, but particularly making sure that there is public notification of some of those reports of dog-related complaints that come out as well. Previously, there wasn’t the requirement to make those reports publicly available. I know that we are, at this point, discussing Part 5 specifically, so I will get to that before Mr Chair shuts me down on the Dog Control Act.

Part 5 makes some pretty important changes to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, and I just want to highlight one of the points that Michael Wood made, because I do agree that it’s incredibly important that members of the public are notified and are kept informed of the many changes that happen at a local government level and have a say to be involved in some of those changes as well.

I do have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair, and I will get to those in a second, but, basically, the main changes in this part are, as per my reading of the bill, that the definition of “internet site” is inserted in Part 5 and the definition of “publicly notified” is also updated just so that there’s consistency across different pieces of legislation. I was really interested to note that the definition of “working day” was updated as well, and that leads me to my first question to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Kris Faafoi. I note that the proposed definition would exclude anniversary days, and I think that’s pretty obvious as to why that was included as an amendment, and that pertaining, of course, to different local authority areas. But I was particularly interested in the days between 20 December and 10 January, and I can, obviously, tell from that period that Christmas falls within that, Boxing Day, and a number of both statutory holidays but also days that are significant to many members of our different communities. But I was just wondering “Why those specific dates?” and whether there could be some clarity around that. It’s probably so that it would, again, be consistent with various pieces of legislation, but I thought some clarity around that would be good.

The other point that I wanted to make was—and I caught the tail end of the previous Minister’s, the Hon Peeni Henare’s, response to this—around the definition of “publicly notified” and the definition of “internet site”. So I take that to mean, of course, that if there is an extraordinary or emergency meeting, that, say, Auckland Council would then notify members of the public through their website. But I, actually—like many of my colleagues here, I suspect—get a lot of my information through social media, and I note that most if not all of our local government entities have Facebook sites. They have Instagram accounts and pages as well, and a lot of information is actually shared through those platforms, and I wanted a little bit of clarity about whether that would be included in the definition of “internet sites” and the requirement to notify members of the public as well; and if not, why not? Because that’s where most of us these days get a lot of our information from.

On the whole, though, I think the amendments proposed in this particular part are excellent and that they would go a long way to ensuring that members of the public are aware of what their local government entities are doing and how and when they can actually contribute and have their say as changes are proposed and voted on at their local councils and, I’m assuming, local boards as well, although that’s not very clear, but I’m assuming that those entities would come under the Act as well. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr Chair.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just quickly, if the Minister Nanaia Mahuta would help me out here, I was wondering if the Minister would take the opportunity to provide a succinct explanation for the committee, actually, as to why we are not going to be supporting Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 199 in the name of Jami-Lee Ross. I think, just speaking to the SOP, firstly, it seems to, from my read, both try to balance protecting how information is used while also providing greater rights for members of a local authority to access information. So based on that high-level purpose of the SOP, I wondered if the Minister would make a contribution around whether or not that is deemed a big issue in the overall purpose of this bill that is going through in the House, and whether or not the Minister feels that there is protection enough already, as well as an ability to provide those greater rights, or whether there is merit to even do that.

Other than that, I just picked up—I could be wrong; this is Part 5. Both the departmental disclosure statement and the regulatory impact statement, I’m assuming—it feels that there is lesser risk, or lesser substantial information-gathering that needs to happen in Part 5. That sends a signal to me, and possibly would, as an ordinary member of the public, that the level of impact that these particular clauses in this part of the bill would have on the overall workings—and I don’t want to say “is minimal” in proportion to the amount of research and information gathering that is required—doesn’t quite reach a threshold where that would be useful. Is that the Minister’s understanding of why, as far as I can see, those parts weren’t actually included in those overall disclosure statements and regulatory impact statements?

But other than that, it seems that Part 5 focuses quite a bit on public notifications, the means of a notice, and going on to extraordinary emergency meetings and how those will be called and publicly notified. It may have already been traversed—and I apologise if it has—but I was wondering, because there was one small mention of whether we could clarify extraordinary meetings. I think that previously the Minister has spoken a little bit on that, but I thought that I would note that for the Green Party’s perspective in the House as well. Thank you.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 199 in the name of Jami-Lee Ross to Part 5 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 1

Ross.

Noes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 5 be agreed to.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7; Ross.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Part 5 agreed to.

Part 6 Amendment to Local Government (Rating) Act 2002

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 6 be agreed to.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7; Ross.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Part 6 agreed to.

Part 7 Amendments to Rates Rebate Act 1973

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I feel compelled to stand and speak very briefly on this particular part, just to acknowledge the contribution of the Hon Ruth Dyson in bringing this matter to the House. This particular change—and especially amending section 7A to the Rates Rebate Act—allows retirement village residents who are eligible to apply for a rates rebate, and that is going to make a substantial difference to people’s lives. I know that if Ruth wasn’t busy with important business, she would probably make a contribution herself. So on that basis, here on this side of the Chamber we just wanted to acknowledge her contribution.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 7 be agreed to.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 7; Ross.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Part 7 agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party 7; Ross.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Clause 1 agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7; Ross.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Local Electoral Matters Bill

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I give the call on Part 1 of the bill, I want to advise that I have ruled that the Supplementary Order Papers relating to electoral donations, in the name of Jami-Lee Ross, are outside the scope of the bill as agreed at second reading and therefore are not available for debate, and no vote will be taken on them.

KIERAN McANULTY (Junior Whip—Labour): I seek leave for all provisions in the Local Electoral Matters Bill to be taken as one debate.

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

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I just seek a little bit of indulgence from the committee for a point of order to table some documents. There have been Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) tabled, Mr Chairman, that you have ruled out as out of scope around the very serious issue of potential foreign interference in elections, on which the select committee is currently doing an inquiry. I seek the leave of the House to table relevant documents to that to reinforce the seriousness with which the House and the select committee is taking that issue. To be specific, I seek leave—and, Mr Chairman, would you prefer me just to do it as one motion of leave? They’re all select committee documents that are relevant to the questions that have been raised in the SOPs, and I think open disclosure would be best for the committee. So would you prefer I do it as one motion or five separate?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The member will have to describe each paper.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, I’ll describe it in one motion taken. The first document I wish to seek leave on is the transcript of the Electoral Commission’s engagement with the Justice Committee on the issues of foreign interference in elections as it relates to the select committee’s inquiry into the 2016 local election and the 2017 election.

The second document—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Just on that, is that available to the public already, and is it still subject to privilege in front of that?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The first document was in public session, but people would not necessarily have been able to get copies of the transcript that was recorded by the Clerk’s Office. So the advantage for the public in being able to have access to this transcript is they can see quite openly and transparently exactly the discussion that occurred last November between the select committee and the Electoral Commission on this issue that led to the extension of the inquiry. That’s the first document.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m going to take some advice just very quickly.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The committee is in control of its own destiny.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah, and we are in committee, so I’m taking some advice on whether or not the committee can actually make, one, a decision on that which should be made by the House, and whether or not the documents before the select committee are available to be released anyway. Given—[Interruption]—just one additional point—that it would seem to me that it’s not necessarily immediately important for the committee to hear—considering that I’ve just ruled out of scope the Supplementary Order Papers—that the member is now seeking to add further information for the committee which it’s not going to discuss. So I’m kind of thinking that it would be more helpful for me to actually seek further information and guidance from Mr Speaker and from the Clerk’s Office, but if you’ve got anything else to add?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The reason it has some public importance is I think the whole House realises that the issue of the interference, potentially, of overseas countries is a very serious issue and that we’ve had a substantive debate on an instruction to the House in the committee stage about whether we could debate those SOPs. Some may interpret that as Parliament’s not interested in the issue. The purpose of tabling the documents is to make plain that Parliament, on all sides of the House, is taking this issue very seriously and that there is a proper inquiry before the Justice Committee.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m not doubting the importance of the information; I’m wondering whether or not this is the right process for that information to be released—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: But that’s, ultimately, a choice, Mr Chairman, for the committee as to whether it wishes to grant leave. It has been common practice for my period in the House that members can seek leave to table documents during a committee stage of a bill. When we have three SOPs that have been tabled, albeit ruled out of scope, on the issue of the Local Electoral Matters Bill, and the inquiry is about local electoral matters, I think it’s appropriate for there to be public disclosure of the work that’s going on in the select committee about this issue.

Rt Hon David Carter: Speaking to the point of order—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m just going to take some advice, sorry.

Rt Hon David Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Just trying to assist you, Mr Chairman, but if you look at Standing Order 377, the first thing I think was of concern to you is whether a document can be tabled at the committee stages: 377(1) “A member may table a document by leave of the House or a committee of the whole House.” I think the second thing is, then, my advice to you as Chair is to consider whether the information is publicly available, is frivolously being tabled. You need to take that into account before you decide whether to put the leave. My experience in this is if in doubt, put the leave—let the committee decide whether the papers are relevant. I only offer that as guidance to you, sir.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Just one question to the Hon Dr Nick Smith: is this information already publicly available?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Mr Chairman, you’ve only given me the opportunity to refer to the first document. It may be appropriate for me to refer to the other documents and to explain the relative status of them. The first document that I am wishing to release is the actual transcript that was had in public session. The transcript has not been publicly released, but the discussion occurred in public session, so it’s not like the committee was in private. Does the Chairman wish me to go through each of the documents and explain their status?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m going to put the leave for that first document. Leave is sought for the release of that document. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I seek leave of the committee to table the letter from the Minister of Justice to the Justice Committee on including the issues of foreign interference in the Justice Committee’s inquiry into New Zealand’s electoral law.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I seek leave of the House to table the letters from the Justice Committee to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) and the New Zealand GCSB into the issues of foreign interference in respect of the inquiry of the Justice Committee into the 2016 local election and the 2017 general election.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Can the member indicate whether or not that’s still confidential to the committee or not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: These are letters that the Justice Committee agreed to send and that have gone to the GCSB and the NZSIS. They are letters of invitation. They set out, quite specifically, the issues that the select committee is inquiring into.

Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I can speak to the point of order. We’re entering into this territory where, effectively, any member could front up here and utilise an “I want to table a document” procedure to break the confidentiality of a committee, and by describing the document and the very existence of those documents, break the confidentiality of the committee. You are, effectively, establishing a precedent that any member could grab any document from any committee that isn’t yet available and attempt to table it and utilise the describing to do so. Now, the describing might be a political tactic to answer for having voted against doing something earlier this afternoon, which is what is happening here, but that is not a legitimate reason to get off the hook politically, by breaking confidentiality of a select committee.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Speaking to the point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, I’m going to respond. No, that’s why I asked the question before the member took his point of order, and the Hon Dr Nick Smith answered. My question now to the Hon Dr Nick Smith is: when is the report on this issue before the select committee due to come to the House, or has it already come to the House?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: For guidance for the Chairman, when a select committee conducts an inquiry, as it is under the general election and for the local body elections, there isn’t a timetable of which it is required to report; it’s when the House finishes its business. Can I also make plain to the Chair that the sole reason for having these documents released publicly is because, in the interests of transparency—there being a substantive element of public interest in these issues—and there being no practical reason why this correspondence and information should not be in the public arena, I think there is a public interest in transparency and disclosure.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I will put the leave for that document. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. Members, we now come to the debate on the Local Electoral Matters Bill.

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This is a very minor bill that makes some very narrow changes to provisions of the Local Electoral Act. The first issue is the issue of electronic voting. The bill proposes no more than extending the provision that exists in the law right now for there to be trials of novel voting, and for it to be able to be done in a subpart of a district. In other words, all it allows to take place is rather than a trial of, for instance, internet voting occurring in all of a district, it could occur in just a ward or a local board area of a council. In anybody’s terms, that’s a very minor provision. I commend the officials on the work that’s gone into the technical drafting to enable that to occur in a sensible way, as well as the other provisions.

I do wish to make a brief contribution on the debate in respect of foreign interference in elections. It is National’s view that this issue has raised its head internationally with the high-profile case of Hillary Clinton in the US and her emails being hacked, allegedly by a foreign power. There has been a recent announcement, last month, by the Prime Minister of Australia about the potential for external powers to try and hack a Parliament. There has also been commentary around the issue of electoral donations. Now, my view is the select committee is diligently going about its business of an inquiry into those matters, as is evidenced by their work that has gone on since last November. It is not appropriate for a bill that has nothing to do with those issues to be trying to tag amendments on in the committee stage. But we as a party want to see through, with the proper consideration and as much cross-party work as possible, ensuring that both our local and parliamentary elections are protected from those potential risks.

So while we have voted down the motion seeking to extend this bill, and the Supplementary Order Papers that you have quite rightly ruled out of scope, that is nothing less than taking this issue very seriously and having a robust process for dealing with those issues. Finally, I say the select committee did a lot of work with officials on these quite detailed provisions around local elections. We think we have got them in good shape, albeit we remain cautious as a political party as to whether internet-based voting is sufficiently secure and robust for New Zealand to be able to contemplate that at this stage. We should keep a watching brief of international developments. We should be cautious of ensuring the integrity of our electoral system, which is consistent with the provisions in these parts of the bill.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I picked up on a word that Dr Smith used that was used in a previous debate on a previous bill in committee stage: “inappropriate”. I thought it was just an aberration. I thought Jacqui Dean was just saying Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) are inappropriate to get through a sticky situation, but now that we have a second example of a member of the National Party saying SOPs are inappropriate, I’m starting to wonder whether there’s a new standard there where anything that is proposed by way of an SOP isn’t something that should be considered by the Parliament. That’s, effectively, what Dr Smith said—he said it would be inappropriate.

When it comes to whether we consider matters in this Chamber and whether we consider matters in debate, it shouldn’t be a case of a select committee is looking at something by way of an inquiry. There’s the opportunity to do something when there’s a bill, and it’s a time-honoured tradition for members of Parliament to put up SOPs on things they are passionate about and things they care about. For goodness’ sake, the Opposition has done that the whole time this Parliament has been here, and it will continue to do that.

I absolutely reject the arguments from my old friends in the National Party who think putting up things by way of an SOP is inappropriate. It’s inappropriate to suggest members of Parliament shouldn’t raise issues and to try and get off the hook politically for the way in which they voted earlier this afternoon by saying, “Oh, we’d like to table some documents; it’s going to show how seriously we’re taking an issue.” They voted against doing something. They voted against something which their leader has been in public saying they want to pursue. So I think the inappropriateness in this debate is for members of this Parliament to suggest moving SOPs and moving amendments—that members of Parliament doing that is wrong.

It’s wrong to suggest we can’t raise issues, it’s wrong to suggest that these issues shouldn’t be discussed, and it’s wrong to try and use points of order and tactics like that because they didn’t want to vote for something and then they felt guilty about it afterwards. So I wholeheartedly disagree with what Dr Smith has said. We should have been debating and voting on these issues, and I provided a mechanism for it. They chose to vote against it. They should own the fact that they voted against it, and not come into this House and use that ridiculous “It’s inappropriate to put up SOPs.” argument.

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

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7; Ross.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill

In Committee

KIERAN McANULTY (Junior Whip—Labour): I seek leave for all provisions of the Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I’d like to get things ticked off in this committee stage of this bill and, first of all, thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for its consideration, of sorts, of this bill. The bill amends the Commerce Act to introduce a new criminal offence for cartel conduct. Cartels are agreements between competitors to fix prices, restrict output, or allocate markets. Cartels enable firms to charge more for less, and cartel conduct, obviously, is widely regarded as the most egregious form of anti-competitive conduct.

Can I move to clause 4 in Part 1, which is the main provision that introduces a new criminal cartel offence new section 82B, in which there are two linked offences. Offence one, entering into a cartel agreement: a person commits an offence if the person enters into an agreement that contains cartel provisions and intends at that time to engage in “price fixing, restricting output, or market allocation” or (b) offence to giving effect to a cartel agreement.

I would like to add that there is already a civil regime for cartel behaviour. I believe the previous Government also proposed a criminal regime for cartel behaviour, but the record will show that they lost their ambition in that respect. I will point out that there is a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 194 for this bill. The first change in the SOP is to amend the category of offence for the purposes of the Criminal Procedure Act. After some discussion, I think with the Ministry of Justice, the change from the category 4 to category 3 offence means that these cases may be heard in a District Court or referred to the High Court, as opposed to only being heard in the High Court, and the lower category of offence is consistent with other similar commercial offences, such as insider trading or market manipulation.

I will just take a small call but pre-empt some of the debate that is going to happen today, probably from the Opposition in opposition to the introduction of this new criminal regime to cartel behaviour, and to also just forewarn the Opposition that I’m looking forward to rebutting some of that opposition with their own words in the previous Government.

BRETT HUDSON (National): The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs can say whatever he likes, quite frankly. This bill and its Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 194 shows that we shouldn’t be listening to a word of it. We do oppose this bill. We have since its introduction. We put in civil offences for cartel behaviour in the previous term. Our position has been that they are very onerous and they are a very strong deterrence. All through, along with some submitters, we have said that this attempt to put criminalisation provisions in will simply lead to uncertainty and the potential for otherwise fundamentally innocent people to be criminalised. The Minister has introduced an SOP, and I’ll just make a point that he’s making a bit of a history now, a bit of a trend, of introducing significant SOPs just a few hours ahead of the bill being debated—this one, and there’ll be another one that we’ll be debating when we move on to the next bill. And that SOP quite as clearly shows—or rather the regulatory impact statement that comes with it shows—that officials have realised lo, the bill as it stands runs the very real risk of criminalising people whose behaviour is actually, if not reasonable, certainly not that of meeting the standard of criminal behaviour.

Minister, if you hadn’t put this bill forward in the first place, we wouldn’t be trying to sort out the mess that your officials are trying to sort out for you with this SOP. It was never required, and, actually, the argument they are using in the SOP is not even elegant; it’s an absolute kludge, it’s a bodge to try and fix up inferior and unworkable provisions. They’ve not reached a solution. They’ve not come up with an elegant way of dealing with this problematic potential. They have said the best way we can possibly try to deal with it is here are three options—none of them are actually perfect. Let’s go with this one—at least it’s sort of the worst of the three. And yet the Minister should read his own officials’ documents. He’d have a good read and a good chuckle—I certainly did.

So we’re still trying to go forward—the Minister is—with a flawed bill, which is only marginally less flawed in fundamentally the viewpoint of his own officials. It’s only marginally less flawed than it was on Monday. We opposed it beforehand for very good reasons. We will continue to oppose it. Minister, the best thing you could do is one of two options: send this thing back to select committee, to kick it around again where it should be, or actually, even better, defer it until officials maybe one day can come up with a genuine solution with genuine, practical, workable provisions for these sorts of issues, rather than the bodge you’ve brought to the House.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I’d like to quote from a previous debate on this issue: “I am delighted with this bill. It is clearly taking on the evils, the worries, and the concerns around hard-core cartel behaviour,”—yeah, it’s, guess who?—“it does address the negatives of cartel behaviour, and it is important that it does so, because if it did not, we could end up with a terrible situation where the tiny minority—the nameless and the faceless—are controlling outcomes, delivering things that many do not want.”

The person whose name is beside that quote from a parliamentary Hansard is Mr Brett Hudson himself back when the National Party had some bottle. Also, another one of his colleagues, and I’m going to quote Simon O’Connor here: “This [criminalisation of cartels] is ultimately … at the heart of what the National Party believes is the way forward for our economy.” Mr O’Connor being probably a very good local member of Parliament said he was, and I quote, “I was talking, actually over the last 24 hours, with some people in this sector, and they are very keen to see this bill progress. They are keen to see that that balance occurs here between allowing pro-competitive collaboration but also making sure that we are not going to have those sorts of hard-core cartel operations either.”

As I predicted, the words of the National Party have come back to haunt them. And I’m looking forward to—I’m only going to take a short call, because I would like to challenge them to keep taking calls, because I’ve got a tonne of this stuff. Ha, ha! And Mr Hudson, it’s not looking good for you. So, you know, whatever happened to the good old, strong National Party who were taking proactive measures against hard-core cartel behaviour? So I would like to challenge—actually, I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to the many calls between now and probably 9 o’clock from the National Party, to speak and oppose this piece of legislation, because every time they say something negative on that side of the House, I’ve got something to come back and throw back right in their faces.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I was slow to get to my feet because my jaw had dropped to the floor and I had to pick it back up. Often in this House, I believe it’s an irony-free zone—and, yes, scuttle away from the House, Mr Hudson—because—

Brett Hudson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member just made a reference to a member potentially not being in the House. That’s out of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Did that—

GREG O’CONNOR: Sorry, is my eyesight failing me?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Is that correct?

GREG O’CONNOR: That the member is not in the House?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m asking you: did you mention a member that is not in the House?

GREG O’CONNOR: No.

Brett Hudson: Speaking to the point of order—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, there are no more points of order—

Brett Hudson: The member’s words were clear—“scuttling away from the House” were his words.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): E noho. I am telling you: do not speak over me when I’m standing—OK. Now, you’ve made your point of order. I asked the member the—I did not hear it. The member assures me that he did not. If he has, he will have to come back to the House and state so. OK? So, Greg O’Connor.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Thank you, Mr Chairman, and it is a genuine attempt to bring some clarification to this point. I think the point that Mr Hudson was making was that, potentially, the member speaking referred to him exiting the Chamber, rather than him being absent from the Chamber. I don’t know what your ruling might be on referring to someone exiting rather than being absent, but for the sake of making sure that the member has been correct, he responded to your question asking did he reference someone being outside of the Chamber. I believe he was correct in saying that he did not, but we might just need some clarification about him referring to someone exiting the Chamber.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Greg O’Connor.

GREG O’CONNOR: Mr Chair, did you want me to respond to that, or carry on with my—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No, carry on.

GREG O’CONNOR: Thank you, Mr Chair. As I say, the irony-free zone that exists on the opposite side of the House was highlighted again by the speech by Brett Hudson, the member opposite speaking previously.

But just more broadly, though, cartels are what this bill is about. Again, I find it incredulous that anyone would come here and speak against any legislation that ensures that cartels are put under some sort of control or some sort of sanction, because that is simply what this bill is about. We only have to look at cartels. I mean, look at American history. The anti-trusts that were necessary—we saw what was probably the most stark example in history of how having organisations or businesses out of control can affect a whole country, and we can see why it was necessary to bring that under control.

This legislation is simply a piece of legislation that’s absolutely necessary to ensure that businesses, in particular, in New Zealand—those businesses that those members opposite claim to be representing—are given a fair go and that where there is any evidence of the sort of behaviour that is described in this bill, there are meaningful sanctions. So I certainly believe that this is necessary, and I commend this bill.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 194 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Parts 1 and 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 62

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7.

Noes 57

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

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 62

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 7.

Noes 57

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

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Can I acknowledge that this piece of legislation has come about from a review in 2016 to, essentially, rewrite the legislation and regulation in and around the financial advice sector in New Zealand. Can I acknowledge that these changes have been a long time signalled, but, obviously, will come into force very soon.

As I said to a group of financial advisers at a forum earlier today, here in Wellington, we will be working alongside the financial advice sector to ensure that the change in the regime in the financial advice sector is one that is done in the best interests of consumers to make wise, informed, and motivated decisions, because, as I pointed out to that audience, some research done by the Retirement Commissioner’s office found that 68 percent of New Zealanders are nervous about making basic financial decisions. A lot of that will have come about as a result of the relationship or, in some cases, the lack of a relationship that many New Zealanders may have with financial advisers. This piece of legislation goes a long way to amending a number of Acts—the Financial Markets Conduct Act, the Financial Advisers Act, and also the Financial Service Providers Act—to ensure that a much better regime in the interests of customers is in place around financial advice for New Zealand.

I guess I have to put this piece of legislation into the context of other things that are happening in the finance sector. We had two reviews undertaken by the Financial Markets Authority and the Reserve Bank: the first one into the culture and conduct and practices of the banking industry, which was delivered late in 2018, and also a similar review by those two regulators into the life insurance sector, which was released in late January. As a result, a regulatory gap was recognised in the areas of conduct and culture that the Government has already committed to ensure that we will close. But, in a large way, the Government recognised that there was an issue, and it made a priority to get the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill that we are debating here this afternoon in train in order to make the changes that are required in the sector, both for the sector, to offer some surety given a long term of wondering what was going on because the review took place in 2016, and also for consumers, who I think have been crying out for some certainty and a better relationship between financial advisers as well.

I think, if we overlay that, some of the changes that are being made in Part 1 do pertain in somewhat of a way to some of the issues that have been borne out across the Tasman as part of the royal commission into the finance sector over there. We saw across the Tasman some blatant, awful behaviour from some of the players—actually, a lot of the players—in the financial services sector. As a result of that, both of those reviews have taken place, but I have great confidence that we foresaw some of those issues and progressed this piece of legislation.

I’m sure there will be some debate and some questions in and around the FSLAB bill, as we know it in our office. So I will listen to the debate with much interest and offer any answers to queries that may be offered up during the debate.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Mr Chair, it is with some surprise but much delight to be standing here and speaking on the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill at the committee stage. I hear what the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs was saying in terms of lifting the financial capability of New Zealanders through this bill. I am intrigued, because, once again, this is one of the many bills that I haven’t actually had any involvement with, despite being in my whips role. I go from select committee to select committee quite often and cover the position; however, I haven’t come across this one in my travels.

I am intrigued, though. As I was looking at the bill, and leading up to this, I’m particularly interested in what the Minister has to say in terms of the provisions around here more around financial capabilities. I want to hear what the Opposition have to say about this, because I don’t know what their position is. I’m not too sure whether they have voted in favour of this at this first reading or against it, and, of course, we’ve seen many bills come through this House where the Opposition haven’t supported it and, because this is the Government with a majority, it’s carried through. But I am intrigued to know, actually, where the Opposition stands on this.

I note that this particular bill has been in the mix for quite some time—around 2011, from what I gather. I was reading while the Minister was speaking, and I note that there have been 72 written submissions in favour of this, so I’m not surprised that he was able to stand up with much confidence. I mean, he’s been able to deal with any question that’s been thrown his way thus far, but in this particular bill I was intrigued by what he had to say, and I am looking forward to hearing more. So on this side of the House we commend the Minister and the officials that have assisted him up to this point. Well done on getting to the committee stage. I’m very much looking forward to hearing what the National Party has to say about it.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I would like to speak to the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has tabled, Supplementary Order Paper 195. It’s quite a substantial Supplementary Order Paper, and I would encourage members to give it a thorough examination, and I’d also encourage members to vote in favour of this Supplementary Order Paper, because I think it makes some thoughtful and helpful amendments to the bill that the Minister Mr Faafoi is progressing through the House.

I note that it amends several aspects of Part 1, which we are currently debating. It amends clause 23 of the bill by inserting new section 403(4) of the Financial Markets Conduct Act (FMCA), a condition prohibiting or restricting a financial advice provider from engaging a financial adviser who is also engaged by another provider. I should imagine that is to ensure that there’s no suggestion that they are in any way operating against the best interests of the advice provider that is engaging them and, obviously, potentially operating against the best interests of any client who might be receiving advice from that provider. If I’m incorrect in that assumption, then I’d be very happy for any member to put me right on that. But that seems like a useful and sensible addition to the legislation.

Likewise, there are changes amending the transitional provision in new clause 76 of Schedule 1 of the bill to ensure that decisions relating to transitional licenses can be appealed under section 531 of the FMCA. That is what is usually considered a reasonably technical amendment to the legislation but is nevertheless one which I’m sure will make a significant improvement to the legislation.

It seems to be that, actually, in fact there are a number of changes to the transitional provisions of this legislation, and, of course, it’s always important to ensure that as we are moving to new legislation or making amendments to legislation we move from one regime into a new regime, we get those transitional arrangements correct. One of the things that I think all Governments hear—from business, from community, and from anybody operating under the legislation that we pass in this Parliament—is that they need certainty and clarity, particularly through transition phases, where it is important that people understand their obligations and they understand their changing obligations and what has been put in place in the legislation to support their transition from what they are currently obliged to do to what the requirements will be under the new legislation. So I applaud the Minister for bringing these amendments to those transition arrangements to bring more certainty and more clarity to the way in which those transitional arrangements will be implemented and to give certainty and clarity to those financial service providers who will be regulated by this legislation.

I think those are the particular aspects of this Supplementary Order Paper that took my attention, but I do note there are a number of changes in this Supplementary Order Paper, many of which pertain to Part 1. I have no doubt that those are matters that the committee will want to consider and examine at some length.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Seeing as the Minister Iain Lees-Galloway has taken some interest in Supplementary Order Paper 195, and in particular in new section 403(4) of the Financial Markets Conduct Act, I would like to just actually thank some of the advisers who we met during the process of consultation who raised the issue of advisers who may work for more than one financial advice provider—or FAP, as they are known in the sector.

There was some concern that those who are working for multiple FAPs might have conflicts in some of the advice that they are giving clients, but also the concern was, if something were to go wrong for a client of an adviser who worked for multiple FAPs—depending on the product and what product was being sold by which financial advice provider—where the accountability would lie.

I think at the outset there was a move through the consultation and through the Supplementary Order Paper to, essentially, ban the ability of advisers to work for multiple FAPs. But given that this legislation will, in a large way, reorientate the environment that financial advisers are working in, the Government decided to take a slightly different approach and, while trying to address the issue, leave some flexibility for the likes of advisers who might be working part-time and working for a number of financial advice providers. This was to ensure that that didn’t restrict the ability for those who might be—and I think we’re more concerned for those who are—working part-time and leaving the sector, or on their way to leaving the sector, from being able to work for multiple FAPs, while still giving the ability to have some accountability as to when something might go wrong.

So, again, good spotting, because that is something that didn’t necessarily come up as an issue, and that made its way to that SOP because it actually came from the sector of itself and was not necessarily something that the officials highlighted during the process. I guess, with just a minute to go, in particular around new section 403—[Interruption] I’ll talk very slowly!

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

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you, Madam Chair. I only had a matter of seconds left in my contribution before we interrupted the debate for the dinner break, and I was responding to a contribution from Iain Lees-Galloway around the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which inserts new section 403(4) to the Financial Markets Conduct Act. And the only other contribution I was going to make in relation to that was to thank Nick Stewart, who is a financial adviser out of the Hawke’s Bay who alerted us to the issue, amongst others, and was quite forthright in his advocacy for us to do something about that within this piece of legislation.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Madam Chair, thank you, and thank you for allowing me to make a brief contribution this afternoon on Part 1 of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill.

My attention was brought to some of the more preliminary provisions in this bill—as you have just covered off some of the more substantive issues, but I’m sure that many of my other colleagues will want to contribute on some of those at a further date, and I myself actually might want to contribute to that debate. But, just as a very brief matter, Minister, my mind was taken directly to the commencement provisions. What we do have is you’ve got a couple of provisions right there that—

Brett Hudson: We’re not on the commencement yet, are we?

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Oh, I mean my mind was there, but I’m happy to go into the more substantive part of the bill which, of course, is Part 1.

So, in terms of Part 1 of this bill, my mind was drawn to, I guess, some of the definitions and how some of those definitions have evolved. I saw, through some of the initial stages and deliberations of the bill, and I noticed that those definitions had changed quite substantively from the initial proposed measures to the ones that we have before us. There were some quite substantive discussions around what is deemed as an authorised body. So I was wondering if you can, perhaps, just give us some of the considerations or help describe the way that this bill has determined that in relation to the market services licence. It’s an entity that’s authorised under section 400, in clause 22, to provide that market service under that licence. I did see that there had been some quite substantive discussion around that.

In terms of what it means to be engaged in relationship to the financial advice provider, again this is an area that I picked up that there’d been some discussion evolution over the preliminary courses of the bill coming into this committee stage this afternoon. At which particular stage is somebody deemed to have engaged the financial advice provider? I know that there had been a whole range of contributions in that respect. So if you could help, I guess, enlighten the committee this afternoon as to why you’ve landed on that definition there in section 431DA.

Now, if I turn to clause 20, the substance of the bill has been amended substantively. So I guess I just want to commend all of the officials that have been working studiously over a long period of time to get the bill to this stage.

So if I just turn to the actual application for the licence for what the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) may determine that licence to be. The example there is provided in clause 20, inserting new section 395(1A). So it’s that we “(a) specify any of the matters referred to in section 548(1)(p)(i) to (iv);”—that they must be different matters for different classes of applicant or other circumstances, and it has been included there in the bill that those time frames must be specified within which different classes of the applicant must make an application for the licence, and then that the FMA may refuse to consider the application if the person does not apply for the licence in that specified manner, and there is an example provided for. I guess that there has been some amendment from the previous draft, and I was hoping that we might be able to just get some further considerations about why there needed to be this type of amendment for the application of the licence.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity to speak on the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill. If you’ll just indulge me for 20 seconds, I actually researched this for my speech tonight. I gave a speech on it in its first reading, and I acknowledged my first financial adviser being my man who was here with the baby at the time, and time has passed since then—a lot of time has passed since then. Thank you to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that has worked on this and come back with the version that we’ve got today.

In my original speech I actually talked about disclosure, and I just want to refer to something that I said there, and then come to the sections and the proposed wording and amendments for that, and then I actually have a question for the Minister around that.

So I put in there: “Disclosure ensures that consumers have sufficient information about the person providing them with the financial advice before actually engaging these services. However, current disclosure documents are too long, they are too complex, and they are too jargon-filled, and so they often end up not even being read, and even if the statement is read by consumers, it is far too complex and, for most, it does not contain the information that consumers actually need to make informed decisions.

Now, I’m aware that there was a royal commission across the Tasman on this. My question for the Minister is: does he think the disclosure provisions in section 431—I was going to say new subsections “X Y Z”; it actually is W, X, Y, Z, ZA, B, C, D, E, F, and G—are actually in some way going to address the concerns that were raised on that? So if I could just get the Minister’s views, in particular, on the disclosure obligations for services for retail clients—on page 3, you can see them outlined there. Thank you.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I’ve been looking at this Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill and the way it’s come back from the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. That isn’t a committee I sit on. So I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss this bill in detail. One of the things I’m particularly interested in is the code of conduct that financial advisers will have to adhere to. Looking through the bill, what I’ve become aware of is that authorised financial advisers are going to have to comply with a code of conduct. As far as I can tell, the particular code of conduct is in existence already, or it may be being updated.

I guess one of the things that I know from my background in having taught business ethics, professional ethics, applied ethics, ethics ethics, and meta-ethics—at the time when I was lecturing in philosophy, that was a bit scary. But one of the known aspects of the codes of conduct is professional bodies, organisations can write the most beautiful codes of conduct and write the most fabulous codes of ethics, can have the most beautiful ideals, but what really matters is how they are communicated, how members of that profession take those codes of conduct on board, how they are updated from time to time in order to take account of changing situations, and, most importantly, how they are enforced. A code of conduct is just pretty words on a page if there is no mechanism for enforcement or if the enforcement is trivial or weak. If the penalties for misconduct really amount to a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket—probably a wet Snapper card would probably cause a little bit of pain, but the old bus tickets did nothing. So I am quite interested in that particular code of conduct: first of all, that aspect of how it’s actually developed, communicated, and enforced. I think that’s a very important issue.

In terms of that code of conduct too, one of the issues around the development is the extent to which the development of it draws on the expertise of people involved in the industry already. Now, that’s fine because people involved in an industry already obviously have an in-depth understanding of how the industry operates and what the particular crunch points are for people within that industry. But, of course, people within an industry can also participate in a mode of groupthink so that something that seems perfectly acceptable to them within an industry might seem quite egregiously wrong to someone from outside the industry.

So what I’d like to understand is to what extent in the development and ongoing growth in the regulation and the enforcement of the code of conduct to which authorised financial advisers must adhere—as well as drawing on the knowledge and the expertise and the lived experience of people in the industry—it also draws on the knowledge and the experience and the lived experience of clients of the industry, because they might have quite a different experience from the people who actually sell the services. And of course they are experts; the people who live the life are the experts.

But the other set of experts that I would like to understand the extent to which they might be involved is the people I would call the professional experts: those who actually do have the academic expertise in ethics and in business ethics, who’ve got the oversight over a number of codes of conduct and codes of behaviour and codes of ethics or whatever, can see the similarities, can see the differences, and can see the pitfalls. So I’d like to understand the extent to which those people might also be involved and if, at this stage, they’re not involved whether there would be a possibility for them to be involved at some stage, partly, as I say, to draw on a broad range of expertise, because I think that might be one of the best ways to get a very effective code of conduct in place. So I’d be interested to hear from the Minister in the chair on those issues if possible.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Just to address some of the questions that have come through from members who have taken a call so far in this debate. Can I begin with Deborah Russell and her inquiries around the code of conduct under this Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill.

There has been for some months now a code working group that has been slavishly working itself away through consultation with the sector to ensure that it gets what I would call some pretty common-sense things within the code of conduct itself. The member did ask about the make-up of the code working group, ably led by Angus Dale-Jones. Probably, when I think about the make-up of it, a majority of them have been practitioners in the area, but I can assure you—as the member inquired—there is certainly a strong consumer voice on that code working group to ensure that some of the suggestions that they came up with in the code do have a strong consumer within it.

The code working group delivered a draft of the code to me at the end of February and we now have three months to consider that. In amongst that consideration, along with the ministerial office looking at it, also the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has a duty to give feedback on it as well. Obviously the member asked a question about enforcement. The Financial Markets Authority will have the responsibility for oversight of that to a degree and also—and I don’t want to give too much away because it hasn’t been made public yet—it has within it the necessary qualifications so that there will be a bare minimum for those who are offering financial advice to consumers within that space. I noticed that Kiritapu Allan also talked about commencement dates. There is a transition period within the bill to enable the sector to get ready for the new regime—part of that being the new qualification regime—and I think that’s important to make sure that we do give some time for the sector to get ready for the new environment.

Just going towards some of the questions that Willow-Jean Prime asked around new section 431W, set out in clause 27, around disclosure, I think you’ll see what I would have hoped would have been the point, before this legislation came in, around disclosure before receiving client money and when that should be done. That is pretty plainly set out in new section 431W. But also a little further down—and I think she alluded to the Australian royal commission—on page 31 under new sections 431Y, 431Z, and 431ZA and 431ZB there are some new pieces of a regime there around conduct obligations for financial service providers.

This piece of work, I think, was done obviously foreseeing some of the issues that may have come down the line because of the Australian royal commission and concerns around the behaviour of financial advice providers in Australia, and of course, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, some of the conduct that we saw from the review by the FMA and the Reserve Bank into banks and life insurance providers. I am glad that we took these measures well before the FMA and the Reserve Bank instigated their reviews, because we recognised the importance of making sure that the financial advice sector was robust and that the issues around conduct and disclosure for the benefit of both the sector and the consumer were dealt with.

We’re obviously also looking at insurance through the insurance contract review and, as a result of both the FMA review and the Reserve Bank review, the gaps in the conduct and culture regulation will be addressed. We’ve already talked about the likes of soft commissions, which are driving bad behaviour in the sector, and, at the end of the day, that isn’t in the best interests of consumers, which is something that this Government has put very high on its priority list.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Madam Chair. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee and listen to a lot of the submissions that came through from all areas of financial service providers. We had everybody from the Citizens Advice Bureau coming to present, through to the Financial Services Council of New Zealand. Everybody brought with them their own concerns, and I’m glad that we’ve gotten to the stage where the kinks are slowly starting to be ironed out, but I just wanted to drill down into something that kept coming up time and time again. That was the little section which talked about the duty on behalf of the financial service provider to give priority to the clients’ interests.

Now, this sounds really, really standard right? You’d think that everybody that offered a product as a financial service provider would actually do so ethically and with the clients’ interests first, but unfortunately what was revealed was that actually quite a few financial service providers were marketing their own products, they were in it for themselves, and they weren’t at all putting the clients’ interests first. A lot of our submissions centred around that, and argued back and forth about whether or not we should be looking after the clients’ interests first, or whether or not an employee of, say, a bank, has got a duty to the bank, first and foremost, to put the bank’s interests first.

That, then, gives rise to questions around commissions, and whether or not commissions are something that are ethical in that kind of forum. Bob goes into the bank; he is applying for a loan. The question is: is Rob, who’s sitting there and getting paid a commission to push the bank’s products, acting in the best interests of the client? And, actually, I would argue that, no, he’s not; he’s arguing in the best interests of the bank. So clause 27 inserts new section 431J into the Financial Markets Conduct Act, and that would impose a duty on financial advice providers to take all reasonable steps to put the client’s interests first. It is ideal, but it is fraught with difficulty as well.

Of course, there was the concern that was raised that Mary, who works at the bank, would then have to list every single product from every other bank available to try and understand exactly where the best product was for the customer sitting in front of them. It was kind of argued that maybe there needs to be carve-outs in that process. Maybe we need to take into consideration the fact that the financial service providers don’t actually know what every product on the market is, and whether or not that holds up that ideal of putting the client’s interests first. So I guess that I’m keen to hear from the Minister just how that process evolved.

Once we’d heard the submissions it was quite clear that there was a desire to put the client’s interests first, but actually drilling down into where we got to with that would be incredibly helpful. I guess the fact of the matter is that the financial service provider wouldn’t know all of the products out there on the market. They’d actually know the products that they’re selling, or that they’re getting commission for, as well. One of the submissions by the Citizens Advice Bureau was strictly around that—around whether or not we should be disincentivising that whole commission situation, whereby, if you are giving financial advice, maybe you shouldn’t be getting a commission. I know that there were a lot of submissions that centred around that whole debate around commissions.

So I would really like to know where the Minister got to with that, because, on behalf of all of the submissions that we heard, we should probably get an answer to that. As I say, it’s quite ideal, putting the client’s interests first, but, hopefully, this bill gets to reflect some of those submissions that were presented to the select committee when the time came. So if we could hear from that, that would be incredibly helpful. Thank you, Madam Chair.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for allowing me to make another contribution to this Part 1. I must say, Part 1 is a very substantive provision in this bill, stretching approximately 46 pages long. So I know that a number of my colleagues will be eager to address a range of the amendments it made. As my colleague Deborah Russell said before, she’s not on the select committee that did have the opportunity to consider this bill. Neither am I, but I am on the Finance and Expenditure Committee and we did recently have the banking inquiry before us. There are a lot of themes that, I guess, are aligned, and my colleague Tamati Coffey just touched on some of those. I think, for me, it was really interesting because when we went through the banking inquiry, one of the areas that we didn’t have an opportunity to turn our mind to, or that I recall in a substantive way, was the issue of offences that arise, and, of course, penalties that arise.

Now, I guess my considerations here, just with regards to the substantive amendments that you’ve made in new sections 431E through to—well, they’re pages long, they go right through to 431Q, I think, or further, set out in clause 27. But you’ve really stretched out, and, perhaps, amended the position under the previous bill. I was thinking in terms of the intentions of the original bill, it was, effectively, to bring in legislation that regulated what could have been called “cowboys’ territory” a little bit, because the financial markets and the provision of financial information at that time were completely unregulated. So it was good to see that there were a range of different mechanisms put in place but, I guess—without having had the opportunity to go through the substantive submissions—what I was really interested in is there have been substantive amendments to these provisions here in this offences component.

We’ve got everything from things as small as terminology that deletes the word—for example, in new section 431K “Duty to exercise care, diligence, and skill”, there is “prudent person engaged in the business”. You’ve deleted the word “business” and amended it to “profession”. I understand what the intention is to do there; it’s to place a higher onus on those that are in this line, or in this sector, giving this advice. But I want to know what the actual substantive implications of those types of amendments are. That was one minor amendment I was interested in.

Then I looked at new section 431G, “Liability for [those] duties”, set out in clause 27. Now, what we’ve got there is you’ve really got the separation between who is civilly liable, and who isn’t. Now, those that are in the provision of the advice—so there you’ve got the financial adviser; they’re not deemed to be civilly liable for contravention. But if we skip down to new section 431G(4)(c) the entity “may be civilly liable for the contravention”. So it seems to be that the adviser, they have been let off the hook a little bit in terms of what they are liable for, but the institution and the organisation bear the burden. I understand that, in terms of the fact that the organisation, I guess, has a higher onus of responsibility. They’re the ones that have to employ, and, I guess, they have the insurances and so on and so forth.

But if you have somebody within the organisation that’s undertaking a practice which intentionally is undermining what we think a prudent and responsible professional would provide as their advice, I just wanted to understand whether there was another ability to be able to ensure that they were held liable to the extent possible. So if you would be able to enlighten the committee through this phase about that distinction between those standards of liability, that would be most pleasing.

BRETT HUDSON (National): I move, That the question be now put.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn’t sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for this bill, but I have sat on what was formerly known as the Commerce Committee for a number of years. So with reference to Part 1 of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill, this is a brickbats and bouquet speech—a bouquet to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Kris Faafoi, for moving ahead with the important work around identifying what needs to change in this space. I feel quite horrified, actually, looking at the figure that’s been given by the Commission for Financial Capability that 68 percent of New Zealanders have money worries and at the complexity of the financial environment and how difficult it is for people, particularly people on low incomes, to navigate their way through our financial system. I will come to a bouquet also, actually, to banks, or at least one of the banks in my electorate which actually is doing some very good work about trying to reach out to vulnerable communities.

But the brickbat is, essentially, to the behaviours of financial advisers. Despite the terrible history that resulted in the formation of the Financial Markets Authority, and for any of those sitting across the Chamber tonight, I’m not sure—oh, Melissa Lee, who would have maybe been sitting on the select committee around the time that we heard the submissions from the small investors that had lost everything due to the awful behaviours of companies and individuals that led to all those collapses back in the 2008-2009 period that resulted in an inquiry, that resulted in the formation of the Financial Markets Authority, that resulted in really important legislation that is the base legislation here. But we’re still seeing behaviours where the people who are coming for financial advice aren’t being put first.

I ask myself, you know: to what extent do you have to go to hold people to account who are giving, quite frankly, crap advice? Sorry, Madam Chair, if that’s an unparliamentary term, but I think in this particular instance it’s quite apt. I’m sure that the people listening tonight would agree. One of the things that appalled me back then, during the 2010-2011 period was the advertising marketing strategies that were being delivered to the people of New Zealand to convince them that going with this product or that particular organisation was somehow going to reap them heaps of benefits, when in fact it resulted in them losing their lifetime earnings. New section 431J in clause 27, which is the duty to give priority to the client’s interests, which is the clause that I’m referring to—it’s such a shame that here we are in 2019 and we still haven’t quite got there. So I applaud the measures.

I give credit to my local Westpac branch in South Dunedin that regularly reaches out to me to talk about the social issues around in the 10,000-odd community in South Dunedin, one of the most vulnerable communities, as to how they can offer better ways of communicating difficult complex financial terminology and practices in ways that actually enrich people’s lives rather than putting up barriers. That is what we need in this country, that is what we want to see from our financial sector, and let’s get on and move this bill.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Madam Chair, I don’t want to prolong the debate too much, but a number of my colleagues raised questions, which I think are probably worthy of a response. First of all, to Kiritapu Allan around liability of advisers, I just want to also point out her concern in this area should be allayed by the fact that advisers are still subject to disciplinary committees, can be banned from the industry, and can be fined up to $10,000 if they’re found to be in contravention of their own code of conduct or anything within the bill itself.

Also raised by another colleague of mine was the issue of commissions. I just want to make sure that we address the issue, because a number of submissions that came to the select committee were around commissions. I think, putting all these issues together from the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill, but also too the issues that were raised as part of the Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank reports and concern around commission structures, they’re certainly a part of commission structures that the Government does want to crack down on, and this may have come up during the select committee, and that is what is commonly known in the sector as soft commissions, when advisers are churning life insurance policies just to get the likes of an overseas trip to Rome or that kind of reward from an insurance company.

We certainly have made some clear statements that those types of commissions are going to be gone, but also we said that we’d consult with the sector and look very closely at the other commission structures, many of them that may be within the financial advice sector, to make sure that any changes to commissions are done in a balanced way, and also look at ensuring that any kinds of outcomes that aren’t in favour of a good outcome for consumers are dealt with, but we don’t necessarily need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So we will consult on that. I think we’re getting some advice on that from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment soon and we’ll consult with the sector in May to make sure that we get the balance right with the industry on commissions as well.

Clare Curran did talk about vulnerable consumers, in her contribution, as well. I guess I’d like this piece of legislation to be thought of in the context of some legislation we hope to introduce into the House soon, and that is the amendments to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act that the Government will be looking to introduce in cracking down on loan sharks. Again, that is in the financial advice realm. We’ve seen plenty of examples where those vulnerable consumers have been preyed upon by the third-tier lending sector and they’ve got the most vulnerable consumers into huge debt spirals. I don’t want to go too much into that, because it’s not a piece of legislation that is yet before the House, but I did want to put this bill into the context of measures that we’re taking to ensure that consumers are protected.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Chair. Might I commend the Minister on the work around conflicts of interest, which have for a long time been seen as a real issue in respect of financial services.

I want to go back one step and just inquire of the Minister as to the workings of the various clauses around competence, in particular. I’m looking at new section 431H, “Duty to meet standards of competence, knowledge, and skill.”, in clause 27. Now, that section relates back to what must be delegated legislation in terms of a code of conduct. I’m just really inquiring as to the interface between the legislation and that code of conduct, and also how that might relate to new section 431K, “Duty to exercise care, diligence, and skill”, which is perhaps a wider duty. In terms of legislative efficiency: competence, knowledge, and skill, and exercising care, diligence, and skill seem to be somewhat redundant. I wonder if there is some explanation as to whether the need for both of those sections is warranted, in particular.

But also, new section 431I, “Duty to ensure client understands nature and scope of advice” is obviously very, very important when we’re dealing with what can be quite complex financial products, and the fact that some people may not have good English, may have English as a second language, or may just be hard-working people with a bit of money in the bank, but particularly astute. Exactly what the scope of that duty might be, and whether in fact that duty—the duty to ensure the client understands—requires further filling out, is another issue, as is whether that will be done by, perhaps, regulations or in some other way. So those are a couple of issues that it would be useful, perhaps, if the Minister could respond to.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Let me just deal with some of those questions directly, because I think they are good ones. I think, Mr Webb—well, I know, Mr Webb—that the details of the code of conduct, which are yet to be released and which the sector itself is quite keen to see, will have a lot more fleshed-out detail of a practical nature, which will enable them to know how they should properly meet those obligations. It’s fair to say, I think—and I said in an earlier contribution—that the draft of the code of conduct was delivered to us on 28 February, and it’s fair to say that I think that the sector probably wanted to see it on 26 February. When I spoke to a group of advisers at the Financial Services Council of New Zealand this afternoon, the detail of the code of conduct is really where the rubber hits the road for them.

So I think the number of new sections that you alluded to will directly link to the code of conduct that will have some obligations in terms of the qualifications that advisers will have to have in a couple of years’ time to ensure that they have the level of qualification and skill to offer advice in a way that meets the obligations under the bill. Again, I’m not wanting to give too much detail away on the contents of the code of conduct; a lot of that practical detail will be fleshed out there. You’re obviously keen to know that, and the sector is too, but I can assure the member and the sector that we’ll get that detail to them in a timely manner once we’ve gone through the process of consulting with the likes of the Financial Markets Authority to make sure that they’re happy with where that lands too.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I’ve been looking at the commentary that’s come back from the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, in particular one of the changes that they’ve recommended, because if the committee’s recommended a change, that always says they’ve examined that particular clause particularly well.

The clause that caught my eye is clause 27 of the bill. It introduces—well, actually—a whole lot of new sections. But the particular one that I’m interested in is new section—gosh this is long—431J(2), which imposes a duty on financial advice providers to take all reasonable steps to put the clients’ interests first. Now, obviously that’s ideal. We do want financial advisers to put the clients’ interests first. I guess, in the ordinary course of events, a financial adviser who has no particular financial stake in the products or the services that they’re reviewing for their client, that’s not going to be an issue for them because they haven’t got a financial stake in it themselves. That would be a simple protection there, but what I’m puzzled by is, really, just how realistic it is to expect a financial adviser to put someone else’s interests first. That’s what we’re trying to do, that’s the objective, but I do want to understand it, and—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! I just want to apologise to the member. We have started to stray into areas we’ve traversed before. There is plenty in this part to discuss, but we have talked about this particular area several times already in this part of the debate. So I’d be encouraging members to find other areas of discussion.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you, Madam Chair. The particular reason this caught my eye was that there was a change at select committee, which is what I want to have a look at in new section 431J(2). That made me go and read the section very, very closely—so it’s not just part of the code; it’s a particular section. And what was going on was that the committee felt that was a very broad obligation imposed on the financial adviser. So they wanted to make it a little less broad.

I’ve been looking at the drafting of it and I can’t quite see how that makes it less broad. It’s still quite a broad duty for the financial adviser to make sure that they place the client’s interests first, and the particular way that the select committee has come back is they’ve changed “(B)” to “(C)”—so that was a particular change. I can see why they’ve done that, and they’ve added a bit of a discussion about a person who is connected with the giving of the advice, as a change from someone who is “associated with” the advice giver or the person’s own interest, and things like that, to the connection with the giving of the advice. It’s just a slight change in the drafting there, and what I’m hoping to understand from the Minister, possibly, is just how that, I guess, makes life a little bit easier for the financial adviser. So that’s a particular change that I’m interested in.

I can see the various steps that it goes through there—“person associated with A”; you know, the financial advice provider and so on—and it talks about “interposed” persons and “a person associated with an interposed person.” But why exactly those particular changes? If I could just have a little bit of enlightenment on that and, in particular, as I said, how it makes life easier for the financial advisers without actually also removing the duty of care, and just how it was that that particular change came about. So it’s not an urgent request—if you’ve got time to answer it, Minister, I’d be happy to hear some views on that.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Before we go back to the Minister and hear some of the answers to some of the questions that have been put forward, I thought I may as well pop on the schedule. Just a little bit about the dispute resolution scheme: if I remember rightly, it was Consumer New Zealand that came to the select committee and they identified the number of dispute resolution schemes that are out there. In their opinion, there were too numerous and too many dispute resolution schemes. In their assessment, they needed to be slimmed down quite a bit. So that was what they presented on.

One of their submissions was that actually not all of the breaches of the Act actually were reported back and, in their opinion, they should be reported back. I know that in the select committee we did do a lot of debating around whether or not we should actually be reporting every single infringement back or whether or not we should just report the big stuff and leave the small stuff. So I’d be interested to hear from the Minister just exactly where we landed on that. Dispute resolution schemes are numerous and plentiful, and we need to make sure that the mechanism is in place for those people that have got an issue when they go to see a financial services provider. But, obviously, that question still remains about whether or not we need to report everything or whether or not we need to just report some of them. Regulators, regardless, should be informed about infringements, but should they just be significant breaches of the law?

I noticed that, in the commentary report back as well, there was the view that reporting back about breaches should only apply when there are reasonable grounds to believe that the participant has breached or is likely to breach the law. So there were a couple of recommendations on just how we might be able to mitigate that and, as I say, I would be really interested to hear back from the Minister about exactly where he landed with that particular one. I remember, in the select committee at the time, we did have the discussion about whether or not everything should be reported back or just the big stuff, but I’d be interested to hear regardless from the Minister about where exactly he landed on that. Thank you for that, Madam Chair.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (Third Whip—National): I seek leave for the remaining parts of this bill to be taken as one debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. Unfortunately, we will be taking it part by part.

Part 2 Amendments to Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): One issue I would like to raise here—one matter, one question, one observation—is simply that of “What is a financial service?” and, really, the point I have is the—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thirty years, a doctor of law, and he asks a question like that! Unbelievable!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Oh, Mr Brownlee, you should be so lucky. The question is relating to cryptocurrencies, and we’ve seen in Christchurch recently the failure of a cryptocurrency firm, and this is a grey area, and it’s one where the regulatory framework is not entirely clear. It’s with some satisfaction that I look at the relatively broad definition of financial services and it appears to me that clause 61, which amends the meaning of financial services, relates to the operators of financial product markets, and I’m heartened that it would appear that bitcoins and cryptocurrencies and all of these strange and somewhat shady products would seem to be captured by that. It’s a matter where it would appear that operators who might be on the fringes of the law—and, in fact, the difficulty I have with some of those cryptocurrencies is that they seem to see very little purpose other than transacting business outside of the eyes of the law. It seems to me that this bill would draw them at least within the purview of the regulation of financial services providers.

My concern is that there are some innocent people who foolishly think that cryptocurrencies are some kind of investment option rather than some quasi-currency which is used by disreputable people to engage in transactions on the dark web and other places, which is because of the blockchain framework where they’re entirely untraceable. In respect of the recent failure in Christchurch, what it has shown is that it’s extremely hard to trace funds or assets—whatever you might call them—in respect of cryptocurrencies.

So look, really all I wanted to observe was that, at least in this reform of the law, cryptocurrencies seem to be drawn into the regulation, and I look forward to seeing further work on this in this regard, so that in fact these very unusual, largely unregulated financial instruments, or whatever we want to call them—which are really simply no more than codes, no more than a series of encrypted codes—are being used as a means of exchange in an extremely volatile market which has no foundation and, in fact, very little foundation in law and certainly no foundation in respect of real assets. This is being drawn into the law here and I hope soon elsewhere as well. Thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution during the committee stage of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill. Really, I think, at the heart of this bill is fairness, because it comes down to the regulation of financial services and service providers as well, and the ability, really, to lift the financial capability of all New Zealanders so that everyone can live their best lives.

It ensures that people are put at the heart of everything that happens and the financial services and products that are offered to them, and that good quality financial services and advice can be provided. Also, I wanted to mention the consistency that is needed. We’ve talked a lot about the consistency and stability that the business sector requires to be able to conduct their business in the past, but that same consistency and stability is needed in the way that advisers are held to account as well, and it’s essential to build trust in the sector.

One of the questions that I wanted to ask the Minister in the Chair, Kris Faafoi, at this point is that we’ve heard quite a bit about the fact that consumers have had a voice in the developing of this bill, in ensuring the code of conduct is developed well, as well. But I wanted to talk about the fact that there is a need that the different communities that we have here in Aotearoa—we’ve got over 200 ethnic communities alone. We’ve got the Pasifika communities as well. I want to make sure that there has been a fair bit of input from these different communities, both as the code of conduct was developed but going broader as well in the other parts of the bill, to ensure that different consumers have had their voices heard, that different players within the financial services market have had their needs considered as well—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Are you sure this isn’t a Part 1 debate?

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: No, it’s getting to the bones of Part 2, Madam Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you. We’ve traversed Part 1 quite well, thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Yeah, so I would be keen to—but, actually, if we do look at Part 2, which, of course, we are considering at this point, the registration of providers. The previous point that I made also holds true when it comes to the registration of providers, and that’s a huge part of the amendments in the second part of the bill, which looks at how they’re registered and deregistered as well and some of the exceptions that are made with regard to both.

So clause 74, for example, talks about, in quite a bit of depth and detail, the deregistration of financial service providers—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Bust a newcomer.

Brett Hudson: Yeah, sorry Kris.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Even if you’re interjecting, you should use the member’s correct title. Carry on, Priyanca Radhakrishnan.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going back to clause 74, which lays out in a fair bit of depth the deregistration of financial service providers and, actually, if you look at subclause (1), and I’m just going to read this bit because it’s quite technical, “at any time after the expiry of 3 months after registration, is not in the business of providing a financial service or is otherwise no longer required to be registered under section 11”, that’s reasonably straightforward. In subclause (2) it says “has made a representation to the Registrar or the FMA that is false or misleading in any material particular in connection with obtaining or maintaining its registration”, and I’d be quite keen to get to know, I guess, how that information is communicated so that financial services providers are clear and make sure that they aren’t misleading as well and that they comply.

Compliance is a part of the second part as well. But it’s really important that we communicate that message out really well to different groups, so that everyone’s included as part of this as well. The suspension of registration, the registration of various types of financial advisers, and sharing information with various other bodies—so this is ensuring that people are aware of what’s going on is part of Part 2 as well. Who are retail clients? If you look at clause 86, it deals with who retail clients are and, of course, we know, as I mentioned previously, that clients span a number of groups. So a huge amount of detail in this part, Madam Chair and it’s been wonderful to be able to contribute to the discussion on this. Thank you.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that Part 2 as amended be agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 Repeals and amendments to other Acts

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Part 3 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Schedule 1 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Schedule 2 be agreed to.

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Schedule 3 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 3 as amended agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to Schedule 4 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 4 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Kris Faafoi to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Accident Compensation Amendment Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 12 March.

Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 to 3 (continued)

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): I seek leave for the remaining parts of this bill to be taken as one debate.

Hon Tim Macindoe: Speaking to the point of order—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Just answering that point of order, the committee has already agreed to that course of action. So thank you for that.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to resume this call, not least because it finally brings to an end the embarrassing spectacle we’ve just had to sit through for the last hour on the previous bill. In fact, I have to say, members of the Opposition, after listening to the filibustering of the previous Labour members, are feeling we might be entitled to some accident compensation ourselves.

When the House moved into committee last night, it was already 10 to 10, so my one contribution at that point was the only speech that was possible before the Chair at that stage reported progress five minutes later. At that time, the Associate Minister for ACC was in the chair, and I raised a few matters seeking his response. I don’t want to repeat everything I said at that time, but in view of the fact it’s now nearly 24 hours later and that was the only call, I would just like to reiterate three of the key points that I made at that time, particularly for the benefit of those who weren’t able to tune in last night. The first is that this is a very sensible bill that enacts changes to the Accident Compensation Act which were identified during the time of the last National-led Government, and they were being worked upon by the previous Minister for ACC. So the National Opposition will of course continue to support this bill.

The second point that I made last night is that the main changes that the bill provides for are aimed at ensuring fairness for those who are injured near the age of retirement, and also to streamline the complaints process to remove confusion. I’m going to return to the latter point shortly, and I hope that now that we have the Minister for ACC in the chair, he might take some time to comment on the former—i.e., how fairness will be achieved for those who are injured near the age of retirement. It is something that is naturally of considerable interest throughout the community, and it’s a major reason why this bill was drafted in the first place.

The third point that I raised last night and that I wish to reiterate now is just to indicate that while there is a lot of enthusiasm amongst ACC clients throughout the country for some significant changes to our accident compensation legislation, it has to be said that this is not the bill to meet those expectations, as it is largely a technical measure that is neither controversial nor comprehensive. That certainly isn’t a criticism; I simply mention it as I know that there are several people who submitted—or at least attempted to submit—to the Education and Workforce Committee as they worked on this bill who were disappointed by its very narrow scope, because they were told that the submissions that they were making were outside the scope of the bill and that while there might be a time to consider them, this was not the particular time.

Accordingly, I asked the Associate Minister last night if he could indicate to the committee and to the country what plans the Government has to introduce a more comprehensive bill that will deal with some of the matters that submitters sought to bring to the select committee’s attention following the first reading, only to be told, as I say, that their submissions were out of scope. So I am very much hoping that the Minister tonight will be able to give an outline of the Government’s intentions when he takes a call shortly.

Furthermore, as I indicated a few moments ago, there are many New Zealanders who feel aggrieved by the way their complaints and disputes have been dealt with by ACC and the disputes resolution service over the years. So I hope the Minister tonight will also take a few minutes at this stage of the debate to outline to New Zealanders how the bill will alleviate some of those New Zealanders’ concerns and frustrations.

I’d also like to ask the Minister if he and his officials have given some thought to adopting my member’s bill that has now languished in the ballot for some time. As I seem to be surrounded by mostly new colleagues, I just point out that I’m now in my second decade as an MP and I’m still waiting for a bill to be drawn out of the ballot. Most of these guys got lucky pretty quickly. So I’m just saying that I am feeling a little bit hurt.

But the point I wanted to make is that my bill is the Accident Compensation (Notice of Decisions) Amendment Bill, which would give employers the right to request a review of an ACC decision to accept a claim in a case where an employee suffers aggravation or re-injury of a prior work-related personal injury. I believe that members of this House would be very receptive to such a change and that it would be widely supported by members of the public. So I hope it is a matter that the Minister has given some attention to, and he might be able to comment on that when he takes his call shortly.

At present, if an employee suffers re-injury or aggravation of a previous personal work-related injury, then the interval of time often means that an additional claim decision is required. In such cases, ACC is not currently required to inform the employer of the outcome of that decision. Likewise, current legislation does not require ACC to review such a decision should an employer wish to request a review. My bill would give claimants greater access to compensation if they experience re-injury or aggravation of a prior work-related personal injury, and give employers greater capacity to advocate for their employees. So I do commend it to the Minister for his favourable consideration, and I would welcome hearing his thoughts on this matter.

Another matter that I invite the Minister to comment on is the concern that some New Zealanders feel about the independent allowance, which is a transitional clause within Schedule 1 of the legislation. It is my understanding that this clause detrimentally affects individuals who’ve suffered a treatment injury where the injury does not present itself until years after the treatment, such as someone who suffers a stroke decades after receiving poorly administered radiation treatment. It’s been suggested to me by somebody who is in this category that the clause should no longer be used by ACC as it is a transitional clause only intended to cover the crossover period between legislation in 2002 and 2005. I hope the Minister can comment on it.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for ACC): That was one of the more unusual committee stage contributions that I’ve heard from any member ever—the committee stage, of course, being the point when we consider clause by clause the legislation that is before the House. The member spent a considerable amount of time referring to matters that are not addressed by this bill at all. When I’m in the chair, I do like to respond to matters that are raised by members, so I will briefly touch on some of the things the member has raised and then maybe draw the committee’s attention back to the matters that are actually dealt with by this legislation.

The member Tim Macindoe, firstly, identified correctly—I think he said all the matters addressed in this bill were being worked on by the previous Government. That’s almost correct—most of them were. It was good to be able to pick up some work that had been done by the previous Government, but they hadn’t been able to bring it to fruition. The one matter which, of course, was new in this legislation is the matter dealing with the dependants of people who are posted overseas and extending the provision of ACC to those people. That was a new matter, which I’m happy to come back to later on.

It does indeed address fairness for those injured near retirement. The member asked how that will happen. Well, that’s fairly well laid out in the legislation. He then went on to say that people want significant reform of ACC and that a number of submitters were frustrated, I suppose, that this was not their opportunity to discuss the need for significant reform of ACC. I find that an interesting matter for a member from a party that has just been in Government for nine years to raise—that there seems to be significant public outcry for reform of ACC in the state that it was left by the previous Government. Now, it is true there is considerable call from the public for the Government to look at some of those matters, but I do find it interesting that the Opposition are now saying that we need significant reform of ACC, given that that would be reforming the ACC as it was left to us by the previous Government.

New Zealanders feel aggrieved by dispute resolution—well, actually, this is a matter that the previous Government did respond to. There was the Acclaim Otago report, and I believe the previous Government, when the Hon Nikki Kaye was the Minister for ACC, initiated the Miriam Dean report to respond to those matters. Now, 19 out of 20 of the recommendations in the Miriam Dean report have actually been addressed. There are a couple of outstanding matters. One is around a navigation service to support people who are seeking resolution to disputes with ACC, and the other is around the independent medical panels that provide advice to ACC around claims and the review of claims. But those matters are being dealt with. I think the previous Government, rightly, responded to the issues that were raised by Acclaim Otago, and this Government carries on with that work. I have instructed ACC to continue reporting to me about progress against those matters.

The member says he has a bill in his own name that raises an interesting matter that we may get to consider. I wish the member the best of luck in getting his bill drawn from the ballot, and perhaps that is a matter that will be before the House and that we will get some opportunity to consider. But I would like to draw the committee’s attention back to what this bill actually does do. Part 1 is—and I appreciate we’re debating all parts of the bill—really the meaty part of this bill. It amends section 17 of the principal Act so that the spouses, partners, and dependants of staff who are posted overseas in the course of their duties to a New Zealand employer also have the ability to access ACC. So people who are posted in their normal duties—they have long had access to ACC, but their partners and dependants have not been able to, and there was certainly a question of fairness there. If there’s a member of your family who is posted overseas and their family travels with them, it is right and proper, I think, that we should extend the provision of ACC to those family members as well.

Clause 6 amends the regulation-making power in section 329(1)(a) of the Act to provide the ability for regulations to set the method by which the maximum and minimum amounts of earnings are determined. This will allow regulations to adjust maximum and minimum earnings in respect of year 2 levies by indexing these to the labour cost index and minimum wage, respectively. The other major aspect of this legislation is dealing with the question of people’s entitlement to weekly compensation if they are injured around the age of retirement. Previously, by and large, people had to elect whether they would receive their superannuation payment or their weekly compensation. They could receive it for one year in total and then had to elect between the two for a second year. What this legislation brings into force is the ability to access both New Zealand superannuation and weekly compensation for two years if you are injured at work and suffer a loss of income as a result of that, after the age of 65.

Now, I appreciate there is considerable debate around the fact that a lot of people are working past the age of 65. They may be reliant on both their New Zealand superannuation and the income they receive from wages, and that will continue, I think, to be a topic of conversation. But it is correct that ACC has a cut-off after which it no longer pays weekly compensation in the normal course of events. Everybody’s working life comes to an end at some point in time, and it would be inappropriate for someone who is injured to carry on receiving weekly compensation until the end of their life. So 65 has been used as the proxy under legislation passed by both Governments because it is the age of universal superannuation. It’s a proxy retirement age, and I think that it’s appropriate to align the age at which there is not universal eligibility for weekly compensation to the age at which there is universal eligibility for New Zealand superannuation. But this is a small change that will certainly relieve some of the loss of income for people who are working past the age of 65 and are injured in the course of that work.

Those are the major aspects of this legislation. It is, largely, full of some technical changes, but, nevertheless, important changes, that I think will make a significant difference to those families of people who are posted overseas and those people who find themselves injured at work over the age of 65.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I refer to the select committee process of this bill, the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill, where I think there were 25 submissions. There was oral evidence from 13 submitters, but many of the submissions that were received by the Education and Workforce Committee—and I think the Minister for ACC has already referred to this—reflected issues that were out of scope of this particular bill. What that reflected was a huge degree of frustration with the previous administration, and it was really interesting to hear Tim Macindoe get up and talk about that frustration as if his party had been in Opposition for years and that whatever the regime was that had been managing the ACC system, it was not his own party and it was not his own Government. I think it’s really important that we actually note that in addressing the committee stage on this bill.

This bill deals with some important issues, but, alongside that, the Government—the current Government—has actually been implementing changes and putting in place changes that were hard fought for by the sector and by the community that really needed to happen, but didn’t happen under that Government. So I think that when Tim Macindoe really does reflect on what he actually said in the committee, that will become clear, but I’m not sure—he lives in some kind of time warp.

So I want to talk in this part of the debate around the series of changes to boundaries that this bill addresses, particularly around the interface between weekly compensation and superannuation, and how important that is. I’ll refer to the National Council of Women of New Zealand’s submission on the bill, which, basically, said that those changes around people that are injured around the time of retirement, and the relief on them rather than having to make a choice, is that this provides “for a fairer and more consistent relationship between weekly compensation and superannuation by allowing an injured person’s financial situation to more closely reflect their income had they not been injured.” They referred to Westpac New Zealand’s survey in early 2018 which showed that New Zealand women were saving less than New Zealand men for retirement.

This goes to the whole issue—wider issues—around the gender pay gap and the impact on women and how this bill, when you think about the fact that it’s making a series of changes to boundaries, actually will have a material impact on people if they’ve been injured and they’re entering into that retirement age. That’s going to take away some of that stress, and that is a really, really critical thing, which I’m sure that, hopefully, the whole of the Parliament agrees with tonight. Obviously, there’s a lot more to be done, but this bill really does make some core differences. It is providing a fairer and more consistent situation for people who are entering into that superannuation period, and I’m sure that I’ll have more contributions as we go through the committee stage.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’m taking a very short call, because this is a very interesting committee of the whole House because this bill is being supported by us. It was really interesting to see that the Minister for ACC actually took that call only to attack us, the Opposition, and to blame us for all the submissions that came through during the select committee process. But the Minister in charge realised that ACC is a department that touches many lives, and people have different kinds of experiences with ACC. Whenever we have any legislation to do with ACC or any such department, people come forward and they want to share those experiences. The Minister should actually be really grateful to those submitters for raising those issues. We fully understand that those issues were not in the scope of this bill and could not be considered during this process that we are going through to address this bill, but we were given hope during the select committee process by the Minister’s officials that nothing will go to waste, and that is the assurance we sought during the select committee process.

So we are really hopeful that the Minister will take those submissions seriously instead of just using this for politics to attack us. The member Clare Curran, who just spoke before me—the Hon Tim Macindoe interjected several times when she said that, yep, they are making some big changes in ACC, asking what those changes are. She could not give that answer. So maybe the Minister is more capable of providing that answer to us.

It’s really disappointing when we are dealing with such a simple bill and, here, we actually are seeing that the Minister is actually blaming submitters and blaming the Opposition for the views that came through during the select committee process. So the work on this bill actually started under the previous National Government, and that’s why we are fully in agreement on what’s happening in this bill. We are fully an agreement with the changes that came through during the select committee process. One change is to the commencement date. That has changed to 1 July 2019, and we fully support that because that has to align with the other processes in the select committee process.

Other than what the Minister said when he was attacking us and attacking submitters, I want to add my supportive voice to all the changes that this bill is to make, because it’s going to make a positive difference in many, many people’s lives. So, yes, I can understand that it’s a small number of people, but those people will be hugely thankful for these changes because they have been waiting for this legislation to go through a.s.a.p. It’s really good to see that this legislation has come to this stage—that is, the committee of the whole House—because that means it is going to be passed very soon, but we understand that the commencement is going to be from 1 July 2019, as was amended in the select committee process.

So clause 4 in Part 1 is, I would say, a very important clause where we are extending the entitlements to ACC for people that accompany an individual when that individual is overseas on duty—that is, when the remuneration for that is treated as income derived in New Zealand for New Zealand income tax purposes. It’s really unfair for that individual to go by themselves and not take their family just because their family, or anybody who is dependent on that individual, will not have the entitlement if they go overseas with that individual. So it’s important that we extend this entitlement to ACC to individuals that would normally accompany the person that is on duty overseas. So this is during that time of duty, or up to six months after the completion of that employment. So it’s an important change.

Then, in clause 9 in Part 1, the changes that we make there result into some consequential changes in other Acts. This is merely to remove references to the interaction between weekly compensation and superannuation, and that change is going to be in the New Zealand Superannuation Retirement Income Act 2001. Then, the second change is merely to align the weekly compensation provisions and that change is in Veterans’ Support Act 2014.

So, overall, we are very supportive of this bill going through, but, as I said, we are quite disappointed to see that the Minister actually doesn’t look like he is serious now about taking the feedback that came through during the select committee process into consideration when any other changes to ACC are made. We would really urge the Minister to take those submissions and that feedback seriously and make it a part of any other changes that would be made to any ACC legislation.

So it’s a bill which started under the National Government. We are very supportive of this whole bill going through the committee of the whole House. Thank you.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for ACC): Well, I just want to briefly respond to the comments made by Parmjeet Parmar, the member who just spoke. I absolutely reject the assertion that I somehow attacked submitters. I understand why those submitters came to the Education and Workforce Committee and said that comprehensive change is required for ACC, because that’s the state that it was left in by the previous Government.

I also look forward to—in the event that that legislation does come before the House in this term of Parliament—the National Party’s support for the kinds of changes that those submitters sought during the submission process, because they are exactly the changes that the National Party refused to make when they were in Government, but now, from the Opposition benches, they’re calling on the Government to make the change that they were not prepared to. They’re taking an unusual approach of using the committee of the whole House on a bill that does not deal with those matters to raise these issues.

So I do say to those members opposite that in the event that legislation comes to this House that addresses the matters that were raised by those submitters, I ask of members opposite: will they support it?

JAN TINETTI (Labour): We’ve heard a lot here this evening about the out-of-scope submissions that we actually had in this particular select committee, the Education and Workforce Committee, for this bill. I found that quite interesting at the time, because it actually helped me understand the whole wider Accident Compensation Act completely. I totally agree with everyone that has spoken so far in this debate in the committee of the whole House about how people’s sense of frustration has come through and the reason why they felt the need. They saw the word “ACC” in the bill and had many, many frustrations, and felt the need to actually come forward to submit to our committee.

But I think perhaps the wider objectives of this particular bill probably point towards the wider work that’s being done in the ACC space and the wider objectives of ACC continuing to meet society’s wider expectations and providing cover to our society that’s appropriate and consistent and also sustainable, because that came through a lot from those particular submitters. Also, this bill improves the Act—we’ve heard it here from people that have spoken before us—by ensuring that it’s effective, efficient, and is really ensuring that it accords with best regulatory practice.

But there are two clauses that I want to pick up on. One of them has been mentioned by a couple of speakers here, but I do have a question surrounding it, and that is clause 4, which amends section 17 of the Act. The reason I do want to ask a question around it, even though I was on the select committee, is that we had no oral submissions on this particular clause. As we’ve heard, we had a lot of submissions that were out of scope. This particular clause, I felt, was a really, really important clause. This is the one that—as we’ve heard mentioned here already—extends ACC cover to the spouses and partners of dependants of staff posted in overseas posts.

Many of us in this House here have met those people, so many of us know how important those people are in our overseas posts and what an absolutely magnificent job they do, and how much easier it would make it for their dependants and their spouses and partners to be able to get this ACC cover, because that is a huge consideration when those people go overseas. I’ve actually had it said to me by a person posted overseas that they couldn’t take their partner for that particular reason.

The question that I had around that is that I know from going through the submissions that any changes made to ACC cover and entitlements are, generally, prospectively done, and so I note that in this bill it is retrospective for family members and dependants of those posted overseas. I’d really like to know what the reasoning is behind that, and I’m really sorry that I didn’t pick that up at the time. As I said, it was because we didn’t have any oral submissions on this particular clause.

The other clause that I wanted to ask a quick question about—I think I have it right in my head, but I’d like to hear from the Minister—is clause 7. Clause 7 amends section 391 of the Act to provide that after the amendment comes into force, all appeals will be to the District Court. So the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority won’t be there any more to hear those particular appeals. The question that I’m wanting to ask around that—because I couldn’t find this, and it might be just me and my research skills—is how many cases are under the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority currently, and how many are under the District Court as it stands? I’m guessing that the reason for that simplification is so that we’re not getting a double up in those particular areas, but I’d be really keen to hear from the Minister about those two questions that I’m asking there. Thank you.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for ACC): Just to very quickly address the questions raised by the member Jan Tinetti, it is certainly unusual for legislation to be retrospective. However, the advice that I received in drafting the bill was that we’re essentially fixing a drafting error. So looking back at when the extension was made to people being posted overseas and whether or not that should apply to their families, the best evidence that we could find was that it was actually a drafting error that it was not applied to families.

Actually, from memory—and I apologise if I get this wrong, and if I do get it wrong, I will correct myself—I think ACC was applying it to families for a period of time, and then realised that the legislation did not match their practice, so stopped covering the families and dependants of people posted overseas. What we are doing here is bringing the legislation back to what is believed to be the original intent when that was first brought about.

As to the question of how many cases are before the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority currently, I don’t know the answer to that question right now. I may be able to source the answer to that question, possibly not during this debate, but I’d be very happy to come back to the member with the answer to that very reasonable question. Thank you.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Associate Minister for ACC): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair, and thank you for this opportunity. While the other side might trivialise very important matters with regard to ACC, many of the constituents in my constituency come in with ACC queries. If I can follow on from the line of questioning from my colleague Jan Tinetti—and I appreciate that. In particular, in clause 7, where we deal with the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority, I’m curious, then, if there is any reassurance that can be given from the Minister that in place of that authority, there is still a robust system in place to allow for the appeal of decisions.

Hon Member: Oh, read the bill—read the bill.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Look, while it might be clear to those political geeks, in particular, in this committee that read the bill, I think it’s actually worthy of comment to make sure that those watching at home actually do get a sense that regardless of this particular clause, the right of appeal for our people across this country is still in place.

I wanted to—if I can—refer to clause 10, and just like nobody being prejudiced by the removal of the appeals authority, I wonder if the Minister can at least explain and give some guarantees that those who are affected through clause 10(1), (2), and (3) aren’t being prejudiced in any way, or certainly aren’t being penalised in any way. I appreciate that for some who are in receipt of both or all of ACC payments, New Zealand superannuation, and the veterans pension, there might be some questions that they have about how that all aligns and what they are eligible for. If it’s your partner who’s in receipt of New Zealand superannuation and you are younger than them and they pass away, how does that work with the ACC payments? There are some of those questions that I’m sure, more generally speaking, the public—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Does the member not know that?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Like I say, if the other side want to continue to trivialise these things—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: All these years in the House, and the member doesn’t know this.

Hon PEENI HENARE: If that member wants to trivialise these things, he must remember that what we do in this House is actually for the people of New Zealand and not for the benefit of the Opposition.

So if the Minister can provide some of that information for us and for the clarity of the public, that would be really appreciated. As I’ve already mentioned, there are some changes in the time for those of when they are eligible for—

Tim van de Molen: This member should be embarrassed at himself. It’s a terrible contribution.

Hon PEENI HENARE: —and if that side care to, often, can they tell me: is it from the date, then, that the surviving spouse is eligible for super, or from when the person passes away? No, I didn’t think so.

So I’d like to seek a bit of clarification from the Minister on that particular matter, like I say, for the benefit of the general public, which this particular bill is for. I want to acknowledge Minister Iain Lees-Galloway, of course, for the work that he is doing in this space to make sure that the majority of the constituents that come into my office and others for ACC-related claims—and I leave those questions for the Minister to consider.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to stand and talk to this Accident Compensation Amendment Bill, now in the committee stage. I just note the work done through the Education and Workforce Committee on this amendment bill. Obviously, I’m not on this committee, but I do believe they have some fantastic members on it, including my colleague Mark Patterson, who is here in the Chamber tonight.

I would just like to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway, for the work he is doing on this particular bill. I acknowledge what he has said already tonight, which is that this bill brings fairness back to those—and of particular interest to me are those close to the age of retirement, when they’ve had an accident and require ACC, but who are at that age of receiving their New Zealand superannuation at the age of 65 or so, which is when they get the SuperGold card. I’m particularly interested in the clause which enables that instead of them having to choose between either having ACC for their injury or having their superannuation payment—and I am particularly interested in the fact that through this amendment, they’re going to be able to have that for a period of two years.

I’m interested to hear from the Minister how the two-year period came to be because, previously, there was a much shorter period of time, and they had to give up and had to elect which one they had, so there was some discrimination on their hitting that age and having to give up either their superannuation or their accident compensation. So I am interested in that, and in where the committee landed in terms of how they felt that it was a pretty fair place to land on that two-year period. Literally, this is a very short call on my part, but I’m interested to hear about that.

Certainly, it’s a very sensible and timely amendment to this particular legislation. I’d also just like to quickly note, too, the honourable member from across the Chamber, Tim Macindoe, who was using the opportunity to not so shamelessly promote his member’s bill. But, certainly, thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to refer to a couple of the issues that this bill addresses, and I think there’s been one mention of the disestablishment of the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority, but also they’re moving from an annual review to a biennial review of the Accident Compensation (Liability to Pay or Contribute to the Cost of Treatment) Regulations 2003—rather a mouthful. But, actually, there were submissions on these matters. In the committee stage of the whole House, this is when the opportunity is to actually talk about what those changes mean and why they’re necessary and why they are being progressed.

With the disestablishment of the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority, “The Authority is a historic entity that hears only”—as I understand it, and this is what the departmental report told us—“a small number of appeals under the repealed Accident Compensation Acts 1972 and 1982. The majority of appeals are now heard by a District Court Judge in the Accident Compensation Appeals District Court Registry.” That might sound really boring and dry, but, actually, these things are set up decades ago for a purpose, and then they were overtaken by other mechanisms.

As I understand it, there are currently no cases before the authority. The last case was lodged before Christmas in 2015. There was a submission around this by the Federation of Women’s Health Councils Aotearoa that did not support this proposal to disestablish the appeal authority and to move to the District Court due to concerns over the costs that this would impose on claimants, and Rural Women New Zealand also expressed concerns about the effect of this proposal.

If the Minister is minded, he might like to just tell the committee, given the fact that there has not been a case before that authority since 2015, whether there is any basis to those concerns—which isn’t to diminish those concerns, but actually whether there is any basis in terms of the costs around the appeals and what that actually means.

The second point is around moving from an annual review to a biennial review. Now, again, there was a submission from Hazel Armstrong Law that submitted that moving to a biennial review—and I’m not going to read out the whole thing again, because it’s a mouthful—would double the lag between an increase in inflation and an increase in costs paid under the regulations. The submission by Hazel Armstrong Law said that it wasn’t clear that the annual reviews were currently being undertaken, which is interesting, looking across the Chamber—just saying. The response from officials on this was that—and this is the sensible thing, basically, if you think about it—an annual review of the regulations wasn’t resulting in regular updates to the regulations, and the way in which the review was required to be carried out required ACC to begin to undertake the next review. So, basically, by the time they finished one review, they had to already have started the next review, in what was sort of a self-fulfilling going around in circles.

Moving to a biennial review sounded like a sensible approach to that. So if the Minister had any comments he’d like to make about that in this important piece of legislation, we’d welcome that.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for ACC): Just to speak very briefly to some of the matters that have been raised by members. A number of members have addressed the issue of bringing to an end the Accident Compensation Appeal Authority. The member Clare Curran is absolutely correct that it’s something of a historical body that only deals with cases under the repealed Accident Compensation Acts of 1972 and 1982. Actually, and I think importantly, because most cases—in fact, I wasn’t aware that there were no cases before the authority at the moment, so thank you for that. All cases, currently, really, are being dealt with by the District Court, but having two processes can lead to inconsistency, and a very clear message that we heard through earlier submissions was that people want consistency in process and consistency in outcome. So removing the authority and having cases go before the District Court will certainly help with that consistency.

On the question of whether there will be an increase in costs, the advice I’ve received is that we could actually anticipate a decrease in cost and certainly no increase—and likely a decrease in costs—in appearing before the District Court rather than the appeal authority.

Jenny Marcroft asked why two years: really, it’s aligning with the previous provision that you could have one plus one, but the second year was elected. You had to elect between weekly compensation and superannuation. It will cover the vast majority of claimants: 68.4 percent of injured people return to independence within 10 weeks of being injured, 80 percent within nine months, and even of those who have more complicated injuries, the vast majority are back at work within that two-year period. So it will cover the overwhelming majority of people who are injured in that circumstance.

I thank members for their questions and queries about this bill. It is an important piece of legislation, and I’m happy to be able to provide some context.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 186 in the name of the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise and talk on this very, very good bill, the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill. I propose to talk on Part 1 of this bill, but first, before I do that, I would like to commend our very friendly and hard-working Health Committee and all the officials for their great work. When I was reviewing what we had done, because this was quite some time ago that we’d done this report, we actually did a lot of work—a lot of really good work. So I would just like to congratulate the officials and the entire team. We came to some really good outcomes, I believe.

So I’m going to speak very briefly on two parts that I think are particularly interesting to me. One is—and I did raise this originally when I spoke in the second reading—around the opportunity for the electronic mechanism for, basically, having a practising certificate issued. Now, the reason I think this is particularly useful is that under new clause 5A of this bill, it ensures that we’re more modern, but, actually, when we listened to all the health practitioners out there, I was absolutely gobsmacked to discover the hundreds of thousands of certificates that were issued manually across the health practitioners’ organisation. So it’s actually a really positive move forward.

I raise that because we discussed quite clearly how having an electronic practising certificate will be managed, and I think we managed to work this through very well. Essentially, a practitioner must issue an electronic address. If their certificate has been revoked, it’s really important that they are given an electronic notice of that or they have it physically returned, and they’ve got, essentially, 14 days to do so. Now, what we thought about was “Hey, what if someone doesn’t get that notice and fails to receive or give receipt of that?”, and, essentially, what will occur is a fine. So there is an actual penalty for not returning that certificate.

That brings me on to the second part of this bill, which I particularly like, and I do have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair. So we’ve talked about an electronic certificate and what I would like to talk about is the next part of this, and that is particularly, I guess, what we’re all concerned about, which is when a certificate needs to be surrendered. That is, essentially, when there’s been a notice of conviction or practice issues with the person. I’m particularly proud of this particular part of the bill. I’d like to read a little bit of that, with your permission, Madam Chair.

So this is new section 67A, “Action to be taken by authority on receipt of notice of conviction”, which says that “(1) This section applies if a responsible authority receives a notice of conviction—”, and it’s about “an offence punishable by imprisonment or a fine exceeding $1,000; or … is otherwise an offence that the authority considers raises concerns about the appropriateness of the conduct or about the safety of the practice of the health practitioner.” It’s particularly useful. We’ve often known about people who have concerns, so it’s really important that this is addressed.

The part that I’m particularly pleased about is the compassionate aspect of what we’ve put in place. So the first part is they must “refer the notice of conviction to a professional conduct committee, or”—and this is the part I really like—“order the health practitioner to—(i) undergo any specific medical examination and treatment; or … undergo any specified psychological or psychiatric examination, counselling, or therapy; or … attend any specified course of treatment or therapy for alcohol or drug abuse.” So this puts that compassionate aspect into the treatment—for example, if someone has a drink-driving conviction but is an orthopaedic surgeon, losing their career might not be the right method.

This part of the bill enables that process to, basically, balance out, based on public safety, etc. But it’s not just about “You have to go and do these things.” You also must have a date that you have to comply to do these specific things and a date to report back. So these are really important aspects of this bill. I think it is tremendously compassionate but also practical that we do this.

Now, what we haven’t said—and this is the question I have for the Minister—is what might happen should the person fail to do so. Now, essentially, if the person doesn’t do this in the time frame, for example, or they may be in the process of having counselling, etc., but that is not necessarily useful or hasn’t been completed, what might happen at that point? I’m essentially just wanting to know. These are health practitioners. These people have our lives in their hands, etc., so what might happen in your reading, Minister—would that prevent them continuing to practise or not? I think that I will leave it there. Thank you.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I will address the question that the member Angie Warren-Clark has raised, but I also do want to first put on record my thanks to the Health Committee, who have worked on this bill and made quite a number of significant changes on the way through, and for the better, actually. This is a good example of what a good select committee process looks like, in my view.

The review work done, of course, which fed into this, was work that came about under, well, actually, the two previous Governments. There was a review in 2007 and a review in 2012, and that work has been put into the shape of a bill which makes things more transparent and gives the public confidence in an Act that is working well. So it brings it up into the modern age. It contributes electronic decision-making and so on to the process.

The question the member asks is around the electronic certificate: when is it surrendered and what might happen if people fail to undertake counselling or other prescribed treatments? My understanding—and I’ll ask officials to give me advice if I haven’t got this in the right, plain English—is that, of course, there could be recommendations made by the committee that provides guidance, and the responsible authority could reach a different conclusion. This whole Act really—or great chunks of the changes we’re making—is about instilling confidence in the public, giving more feedback to the public about complaints they’ve laid, and making sure that we actually have a fit for purpose Act that is relevant to modern-day practice.

So, alongside all of these changes, I also want to acknowledge the constructive role that the responsible medical authorities have played in interacting with my office and with the select committee to make this bill fit for purpose. I do want to acknowledge that it is an Act that’s largely working well and the regulations are largely working well as they stand. The short answer to the member’s question is that if they refuse to surrender their certificate—if that’s the recommendation—it is an offence under new section 33(4) in new clause 5C.

So that’s all I wanted to say at this stage for my early contribution, other than to say that the public should have good confidence in the workforces represented here, the steps that we’re taking to make sure that they are encouraged to work together more, that there’s a more integrated workforce plan, that there’s going to be more transparent reporting, and that as a result of the increased transparency in the mandate that the responsible authorities have, we will also have better data collection for future workforce planning. So, given all of those things, we have a bill that’s going to make the Act even better. It seems to have a good deal of agreement around it, and I expect that this will be a friendly debate filled with bonhomie, acknowledging the good work of those who work in our healthcare system and the way in which the regulatory authorities work to protect the interests of the public. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. In my contribution I’d just like to focus on clause 28, inserting new sections 122A and 122B, which talk about the requirement for performance reviews for responsible authorities, because at the moment we’ve got a situation where the general public really doesn’t have any idea about how efficiently or effectively responsible authorities are carrying out their required functions. I think with performance reviews what they provide is that valuable opportunity at a point in time for organisations to reflect and think about how effectively they are functioning, and not only thinking about their strengths and opportunities but also taking a good look at some of their processes and policies and thinking about how they could be improved.

So what new sections 122A and 122B talk about is the fact that now these responsible authorities will be required every five years to undertake a performance review, with that first review happening within the first three years, and what the process that’s outlined would be is that the Ministry of Health needs to consult with those responsible authorities about the terms of reference for that review and also appoint an independent reviewer. What we’ve talked about in the Health Committee, and one of the recommendations that came through, was adding some extra sections there about who else the ministry might consult when they’re thinking about those terms of reference, because there’s a lot of other organisations—for example, professional bodies—that are very familiar with the work that the responsible authority does. Having their input into it so that those terms of reference are quite effective in identifying what some of those functions of that responsible authority are—so that’s that additional bit of emphasis there so that we can get a much more effective review.

But the other thing is it’s about transparency. So, once completed, the reviewer needs to provide a report back through to both the Minister and the responsible authority, and what they have to outline is the conclusions they’ve reached but also any recommendations for the responsible authority to change. With that transparency, as soon as possible, that responsible authority needs to put that report up on their website so that everybody’s aware of what that review identified and those potential recommendations for future change.

The original bill, though—what it didn’t include was any mechanism whereby that responsible authority had to take into account any of those recommendations. So what has been included subsequently was the requirement that that responsible authority in their annual reports immediately after receiving that information—what they need to do is in that report outline which of those recommendations they plan to implement, and also the timeline for that implementation. But if they decide that they aren’t going to implement some of those recommendations, then they need to outline why.

So I think what this does in terms of the bill in this particular area is it’s going to make it much easier for members of the general public to understand how effectively these responsible authorities are performing their functions. The onus is on that responsible authority to make sure that that information is available to the general public but also to outline very clearly and take very seriously those recommendations and how it’s going to implement them, and if it decides that it won’t implement particular recommendations, it needs to be very, very clear about why. So I think this actually adds a lot in terms of the bill in terms of the way that we oversee our medical practitioners and our health practitioners and their competency within the sector. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill, which has made its way through the Health Committee and was thoroughly investigated in the select committee. Fundamentally, this bill I think is sort of adding protections to the four key actors across the system. If we identify those actors, we have patients, we have providers, we have responsible authorities, and then, just to the side, if you like, we have the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. I think the protections to all of those actors are quite significant in this bill and I’d like to just talk to some of them. Some of them have come post - select committee and been raised—maybe even some in the second reading.

Certainly, if we look at some of the benefits to patients, previously, the only people who could refer to the responsible authorities were health practitioners, employers, or the Health and Disability Commissioner. One of the clauses in this bill says that a range of sources needn’t be that narrow and that general members of the public can refer people to the responsible authority. This is a good thing, and I think as we look back across the submissions from the select committee, most people were saying that this is a good thing that several agencies—several people or entities, if you like—should be able to refer to that very important committee. So there are protections there for patients.

If we look around at protections for providers as well, there are benefits in this bill for them, because otherwise the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act could just be a down on providers, and that’s not the case. There are protections and benefits to them too. Now, previously, it used to be that if you were appearing before a tribunal, the tribunal would need to meet and then decide to prohibit publication of name pending a hearing, and indeed we were made aware that in some instances those providers had been named before the hearing had even appeared. What this this bill does is it allows the chairperson of the tribunal to actually make that decision to prohibit the publication of a name if it’s in the interests of the tribunal. That’s a reassurance and a protection for providers, so that they should be pleased with that. This is not just a down-on-providers sort of bill.

I think that responsible authorities benefit here too, as you heard my colleague just say. They’re reviewed every five years. I think this is a good thing. The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal (HPDT) also has some benefits here, although mostly administrative, and a lot of discussions arose from this particularly around the funding of the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. The discussions that were had were around whether it should be on a pro rata basis. Everyone agreed with that—that the more people in the profession, the more risk; therefore, the greater contribution you should pay to the HPDT.

However, there are a number of substantive professions like the nursing profession, for example, who said, “That’s unfair. We’re low risk and the biggest profession, and we’re going to overly contribute.” I think there is some argument there, but I think their better argument was that “We’ve got thousands of people who are registered with us but not practising and they’re unlikely, if ever, to come before the tribunal.”

I think this is a very valid case and the committee did, as did officials, and the departmental report reflected that inasmuch as how the HPDT team will now be funded will still be on a pro rata basis, but it will be by members who are practising at the end of the financial year, not just registered. This is a big benefit to the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and other large organisations that, actually, those who are more at risk and more likely to appear in front of the tribunal will be those who will be contributing.

I think what was also interesting—just to close off that segment, if you like—was that the cost to all practitioners of funding the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal is $1 per year. So when you average that out, it’s actually not significant.

I’d also just like to comment on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 190. We’ll be supporting this. It has two main actions and it’s very clear on the order sheet here that both of these we agree with, and so we’ll be supporting it. We’ll be supporting this bill and this SOP further. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. We had an extensive process, as others have commented on, and I too want to acknowledge the collegiality across the House in terms of this bill. I just want to reiterate the purpose of the Act, which is to protect the health and safety of members of the public by ensuring health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their professions via their scopes of practice but also to ensure professional competence.

I want to highlight that in our contribution to the definition of professional competence, it actually centres around the cultural competence aspect, because of what came through from many of our submitters. We had 49, and all of the regulatory bodies submitted—there are 16 of those. They made it really clear that, actually, their commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and their commitment to ensuring that they, as regulatory bodies were competent in giving effect to the Treaty were incredibly important. So you’ll see in section 118(i) in new clause 27(1A), we have added that it must include standards that will enable—and I quote—“effective and respectful interaction with Māori)”.

I highlight that because that was a standard contribution across all those regulatory bodies. I think there’s a growing recognition of the importance of cultural competence within clinical practice and that, historically, we haven’t emphasised that as we might have, or as we should have. In fact, if you have medical competencies, but don’t have the cultural competencies to engage and interact with those patients that Dr Reti outlined, then, actually, you become really ineffective. So as an addition to this bill, I want to acknowledge that we were really clear in supporting the regulatory bodies’ call for that specific inclusion. But, in saying that, it didn’t actually diminish our regulatory bodies or our professionals from also engaging with other New Zealanders—new New Zealanders—and having Pacific competencies, having Asian competencies. But at the heart of it was actually ensuring that the people who were receiving the services received those services in a way that upheld their culture. So I actually think it’s quite a big deal, us including that in the bill, and that’s why I’ve chosen to highlight it.

The other aspect of the work that we did was in terms of the workforce data, and we were really clear that we thought the collection of workforce data was incredibly important. Another aspect of that that we have included as an amendment to the bill is the requirement to include ethnicity and gender. The reason that we did that, again, was to ensure that our regulatory bodies were fit for purpose going into the future and that there were opportunities for many of our medical practitioners. I just want to highlight for people who don’t know that in terms of the 16 regulatory bodies, they span chiropractic, dental, dietician, medical, midwifery, nursing, occupational therapy, optometrist, osteopathic, pharmacy, physiotherapist, podiatrist, psychologist, and psychotherapy.

So what we’re now saying is that within each of those specific sectors who provide medical services to the people of New Zealand, from our perspective, the workforce that provides that service is incredibly important. So the requirement now to also report against gender and ethnicity, I think, will provide an impetus for some of those professions to look at how they are representative and what they can do to encourage not only more women into their professions but also more Māori, more Pacific, and more Asian.

The reason we’ve highlighted that was the relationship to cultural competency. It’s not only individuals having cultural competency but the professional bodies and the professions themselves needed to have cultural competency, and how do you demonstrate that? You actually demonstrate that through your workforce. So, for me, the relationship now between our focus on cultural competency and ensuring that we collect that data is going to make sure that we have a fit for purpose workforce, which is absolutely the intention of this piece of legislation. So, well done us—we did that as a committee, and so I want to acknowledge that. Thank you.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I want to pick up on one or two things that have been said—briefly—to discuss and also to speak to the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), which I probably might have done in my initial contribution but will do now. I think one of the things that Dr Reti raised that I haven’t covered is the review of the authorities every five years, which I think is a valuable thing which will give the public confidence, and having that now enshrined in the Act is a very useful thing. The member Louisa Wall just raised the issue of cultural competence. I’m assuming that that will also be covered as they go through that review. So I do want to thank the Health Committee for the various suggestions they’ve drawn out in the process of receiving so many submissions.

I want to again draw attention to the fact that this legislation may not make great headlines. It might in the New Zealand Doctor or some such, but we probably won’t have the cover of the New Zealand Herald tomorrow, if my sources are correct on this particular topic. But this legislation matters a great deal actually for New Zealand, and it matters certainly to the practitioners who are practising that they can have confidence in the way that they are regulated and that they are being held to account, and that the public can know that the professionals in our health system are doing a good job. So I think it’s important that the House appreciates how significant this legislation actually is, although it may not capture the headlines in the way that some other legislation does.

Dr Reti also drew attention to the fact that the costings of the tribunal essentially amount to $1 per health practitioner per year, and I think that’s extraordinary, that’s good, and that points to efficiency. Of course, some of some of the changes we’re making around electronic certification and so on, allowing documents to be electronic, will improve efficiency further and bring the Act into the modern era where that is contemporary practice, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have that in any case.

Now, I wanted to speak to a couple of the SOPs which make minor, technical amendments but don’t really represent a change in policy per se. One is that we will be reverting to the current provision in section 80 of the Act, rather than proceeding with the proposed amendment in the bill to amend section 80 of the Act, to allow professional conduct committees to make a determination to place one or more conditions on a practitioner’s scope of practice. This is something I’ve had a few conversations with the responsible authorities about. It’s come to an amicable conclusion where everybody’s happy with the outcome, but it actually required a bit of working through. It’s one of those things that I think around the select committee process there were some submissions one way and another. Actually, the conversation amongst the responsible authorities had not concluded at the stage that the select committee process itself had concluded, so it was nice to have the extra run-on time to work through those issues and get to the right place so that we actually continue to allow them to have the jurisdiction that is appropriate.

The other SOP—a minor, technical amendment—is one around section 116A of the Act that enables the Director-General of Health to publish in the New Zealand Gazette a consolidated list of all responsible authorities and the health professions for which they are appointed. So it stated that the main change to the bill in this SOP is the retention of the current section 80 of the Act, which means that professional conduct committees will continue to be able to recommend that a responsible authority review a health practitioner’s scope of practice, but it will not be able to make a determination to place conditions on a practitioner’s scope of practice.

So, overall, the bill’s changes, including those in the SOPs, will improve information available, and it will give confidence to New Zealanders that when something goes wrong in health treatment, there is an authority besides the Health and Disability Commissioner that can look into the incident and take appropriate action, if possible. The changes will improve operation and will improve responsiveness to people’s concerns about practitioners, improve public confidence in the operations as they do that, and improve integrated services through encouraging collaboration between different responsible authorities and the practitioners that sit under them.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to take another brief call in regards to new section 69A, “Interim suspension of practising certificate pending prosecution and investigation if risk of harm to public”, in new clause 15AA. I wanted to discuss this aspect of the bill because it provides a power that perhaps—and we discussed this at quite some length—may be considered as the suspension of your rights as a practitioner. It’s really important that we talk about this and how we would manage the process of ensuring that natural justice occurs.

So, essentially, there is an aspect where—and we’ve all heard of these situations—a health practitioner is perhaps up on a criminal conviction of a serious nature, they have a proceeding pending against them, or they’re being investigated. So, essentially, in the opinion of the practitioner’s responsible authority, they have to hold a belief that there is a risk of serious harm to the public, and if they do so, at that point there is the ability to suspend the practising certificate of that person because of that risk. The bar is quite high—it’s “serious harm to the public”—but, as we know, the person has not yet been convicted, and they have not yet been investigated.

So this is quite a serious aspect, and it’s important that we talk about this because how we have managed this in the legislation is that the suspension can occur and it can occur quickly, but the person whom the suspension applies to has the ability at that point—they have 20 working days—to respond. They can be heard personally, they can have a representative, or they can make a written submission on the matter. That takes care of the aspect of natural justice and also public safety. So this bill is very clearly about the aspects of balance between ensuring public safety and ensuring that people are certain they are safe with their practitioners, and also ensuring that there is natural justice involved as well.

So at the point after those 20 days, there are different steps that can occur at that point. There are four of them, and I’m not going to go through them, but, essentially, they are that if you’re satisfied as a responsible authority, it can be revoked and the person will practise again, right through to where if in the investigation it’s found to be reasonable, the person is a risk to public safety. So these are things that we considered in quite some depth. It was extremely important that we did have that balance, and it was extremely important that we did ensure that the public would be safe in these very rare circumstances where there is a serious risk of harm to the public.

I think that I will leave it there, but I wanted to raise this matter particularly because, as the Minister has said, this is actually a really useful and important bill, in that it does some quite far-reaching things which are all to ensure that we, as citizens, can have good faith in our health organisations. Thank you.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to talk a little bit more about new section 134A in clause 29, which talks about the health workforce data, because what is a requirement in the bill is that the responsible authority provides the Director-General of Health with information about their health practitioners. So there was the provision, which is often collected already by many of these responsible authorities—I’m thinking about date of birth and where a person works and also their hours of work. As a select committee, we also recommended that other aspects, including ethnicity and gender, also be routinely collected. Many of the responsible authorities actually already collect a lot of this data. Many of us who are familiar with filling out our annual practising certificates are familiar with providing information on how many hours we worked in what specialty, who our employer was, our age, etc.

But what this will do is it will ensure greater consistency across the responsible authorities so that we have very similar information for our doctors, for our nurses, and for our allied health professionals, and so we can look from a planning perspective across that wider spectrum of professions and have a real sense of where our workforce is. But also within each of those responsible authorities, or each of those professions, we can look through and see where our workforce is spread. So, for example, if we’re thinking about general practitioners, we can look across and see what the average age of our GPs is and also where they’re practising, because are we thinking about workforce development in our rural areas and also being able to predict, if we’ve got an aging workforce, how we might need to be able to think about our training programmes and bringing that next generation of workforce through.

The other thing within each of those professions is that we were asking that we would look at gender and ethnicity, because I think if we’re thinking about how we deliver culturally appropriate services, we need to know what health practitioners we’ve got in terms of being able deliver those services for workforce planning, and also for gender and thinking about gender equity in terms of many of our professions.

The other aspect is also thinking about—so, for example, within medical practitioners—the levels of specialisation. I know in my own time working with child health professionals, there were a lot of concerns that we only had one or two paediatric pathologists who could look at that very particular skill mix—in thinking about succession planning. So I think it’s very, very important that the responsible authorities are available to provide this information—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for us to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill without amendment, the Local Electoral Matters Bill without amendment, the Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill with amendment, the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill with amendment, the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill with amendment, and progress on the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.