Thursday, 14 March 2019

THURSDAY, 14 MARCH 2019

THURSDAY, 14 MARCH 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Legislation to be considered next week will include the third readings of the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill, the Commerce (Criminalisation of Cartels) Amendment Bill, the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Bill, and the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill, the second reading of the Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill, and the first reading of the Organ Donors and Related Matters Bill. Wednesday, 20 March will be a members’ day.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I wonder if the acting Leader of the House could tell us if it’s the intention of the Government to adopt the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill (No 2) so that all New Zealanders will be able to watch the Rugby World Cup later this year.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Deputy Leader of the House): Off the top of my head, I understand that’s a member’s bill and it will be considered by the House in the usual fashion.

SPEAKER: Yes. And it’s a matter of tedious repetition as well. We were asked this quite recently. Thank you, Mr Brownlee.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Finance: Has he carried out appropriate oversight in all of his responsibilities as Minister of Finance?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes.

Hon Paula Bennett: Was he aware that Shane Jones had declared a conflict of interest with respect to the Kupe project when he allowed Minister Jones to remain in a meeting that considered funding for that project?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That information was provided to Ministers in the background documentation for that meeting.

Hon Paula Bennett: If he knew that Shane Jones had a conflict of interest, why did he allow the Minister to participate in the decision to fund the project?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’m not sure it’s a question of me allowing a Minister to do something. The Minister acted in accordance with advice that he was given around how to manage this particular conflict of interest.

Hon Paula Bennett: Can he confirm that he did not originally support the approval of funding for the project?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s on the public record that I raised issues around governance and the commercial operations of the project. Subsequently, when the project funding was finally released—which I believe was in August of last year—changes had been made to the governance arrangements. So the issues that I raised at that meeting were indeed rectified.

Hon Paula Bennett: Can he confirm that Treasury did not support the funding of the project?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Treasury had concerns about the funding of the project, and I would state that that is not unusual when it comes to Treasury about virtually any spending that the Government does.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister: in terms of any financial, pecuniary, or personal advantage to be gained by Mr Jones, exactly who has laid out what the conflict of interest being complained of is?

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. He’s not responsible for that.

Hon Paula Bennett: Did Shane Jones’ comments about the governance structure of the project influence his decision to approve the funding of it?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I took that decision on my judgment. The role of the Far North District Council—or their holding company, Far North Holdings Ltd—in the arrangements was important, but what was more important was the change to the overall governance arrangements, which, as I say, when the project was finally agreed to in August, was completed.

Hon Paula Bennett: Why did the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) official in the meeting state that Jones provided reassurances about the project, and because of those references, “Minister Robertson was comfortable to sign the briefing”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: You would need to address that question to the MBIE official, but I presume it’s because that’s the MBIE official’s recollection of events.

Hon Paula Bennett: So in light of the fact that Treasury did not support the funding, he did not originally support the funding, and he held a meeting specifically to seek reassurances about the governance structure of the project, isn’t it evident that Shane Jones influenced the decision to fund the project despite declaring a conflict of interest?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I disagree with part of the premise of the member’s question. The meeting was held as a regular meeting to assess a number of projects, as we’ve already traversed in these questions today. The issues I had around the governance arrangements of the project were resolved. I want to repeat an earlier answer: there are different types of conflicts of interest. They can be managed in different ways. For example, if someone or a member of their family were to be financially benefiting from an issue, then that may well be something that would require a person to step away or outside of a meeting. Other types of conflicts of interest, perhaps knowing somebody in the past who might have been involved in a trust, can be managed in a different way. That is the situation that occurred here.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: On what date was Sir Michael Cullen first appointed as chair of the Tax Working Group, and when will his contract end?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Sir Michael Cullen was appointed as the chair of the Tax Working Group on 22 December 2017. His contract was extended on 2 February 2019 to end on 30 June 2019. In practice, the contract is unlikely to be required until 30 June; this date was chosen as it is when the appropriation for the Tax Working Group expires. For completeness, I would note that the letter reappointing Sir Michael is date-stamped 30 January 2018, when, of course, it should be 2019.

Hon Amy Adams: Is it appropriate for Sir Michael Cullen to be undertaking political attacks while being paid more than $1,000 a day by taxpayers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I believe it is appropriate for Sir Michael Cullen, as the chair of the Tax Working Group, to explain the recommendations of that working group while the matter is under consideration by the Government. If, as part of those explanations, he is required to correct misrepresentations and lies, that is the role he has.

Hon Amy Adams: Does it count as explaining the recommendations for Sir Michael Cullen to make statements describing the Opposition, and I quote, as “salivating like a bunch of guard Alsatians from the German army in World War II”, and isn’t that simply a political attack being funded from taxpayers’ dollars?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Sir Michael Cullen is responsible for the words that he uses. A phrase does come to mind: “If the shoe fits”.

Hon Amy Adams: Why is he so cavalier about paying a former Labour Minister $1,000 a day to undertake clearly political attacks?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I am not being cavalier about this. The pay rate that Sir Michael Cullen has is based on the Group 4, Level 1 body rate under the Cabinet fees framework.

Hon Amy Adams: Why is the Minister using taxpayer funds to pay Michael Cullen $1,000 a day to do, and I quote, “favours for the Government”, as Willie Jackson stated in Parliament yesterday?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I don’t believe that’s a fair characterisation of what was a very full and rich speech by the Hon Willie Jackson. There is, however, one element of the Hon Willie Jackson’s speech that I am a little concerned about—or, actually, the comments he made after the speech—which was he told media that he was paid a thousand dollars to do a speech, by the ACT Party. I’m not sure what that says about the economic wisdom of the ACT Party.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it true to say that Dr Cullen is getting the same remuneration under the Cabinet fees framework as he got a number of times from the National Government?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Presuming that the National Party, when they appointed Sir Michael Cullen to various roles, obeyed the fees framework. Now, I don’t have the information to support that, but certainly he was a person—and indeed he is a person, who is widely respected around New Zealand for his knowledge, and presumably that’s why the National Party appointed him when they were in Government.

Hon Amy Adams: Well, is the employment Minister right that the reaction of average workers to Sir Michael Cullen’s thousand-dollars-a-day payment to do this sort of work would be one of, I quote, “disgust”?

SPEAKER: Hang on, I just want to think about ministerial—I’m going to get the member to rephrase the question so it clearly gets into the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.

Hon Amy Adams: Well, does the Minister of Finance agree with the employment Minister when he said that the reaction of average workers to paying Sir Michael Cullen a thousand dollars a day to do this sort of work would be one of “disgust”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I’ve said, it was a full and rich speech by Minister Jackson, during which he made a number of comments about Sir Michael Cullen’s role. They are Mr Jackson’s to own. What I believe is that Sir Michael Cullen has done and is doing a great job for New Zealanders. He was being paid in accordance with the Cabinet fees framework, and, indeed, he was no doubt paid similar or larger amounts of money by the National Party when they employed him.

Question No. 3—Finance

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): My question is to the Minister of Finance and asks—

Hon Amy Adams: Busy day for Grant.

SPEAKER: Order! Did—that member didn’t? So it was only Amy Adams who interjected?

Hon Amy Adams: I did. I apologise.

SPEAKER: Well, stand up and apologise, all right?

Hon Amy Adams: Now that you’ve asked me to, I withdraw and apologise, sir.

SPEAKER: Thank you. Start again, Mr Coffey.

3. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Finance: What effect, if any, would Brexit have on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): We continue to pay close attention to how Brexit unfolds. The UK’s departure from the EU would have a range of implications for New Zealand and New Zealanders. Current uncertainty means it is important for us to prepare for the full range of potential outcomes. Treasury’s assessment is that a no-deal Brexit would likely have a small overall negative impact on the New Zealand economy, mainly due to disruption of some specific New Zealand businesses and industries. For example, UK tourist numbers could fall, Kiwi goods could face delays at the UK border, and importers could face supply disruptions. This morning the UK parliament voted to take a no-deal Brexit off the table permanently. However, as there remains no clear outcome to the Brexit process, we will continue to monitor and plan for all contingencies.

Tamati Coffey: How is the Government working to ensure stability for New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses through this uncertain period?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Our aim is to ensure maximum continuity and stability for New Zealand interests through the Brexit process and to help New Zealanders who could be affected by Brexit to prepare for the full range of possible outcomes. New Zealand Government officials have established an interagency task force that is analysing and identifying areas where New Zealanders may be affected, and is working to mitigate these risks. The Government has also been conducting outreach in the business community, including through a series of seminars led by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and involving other Government agencies to help businesses prepare for Brexit as well as a regular newsletter update to exporters. I encourage all New Zealand businesses that may be affected by Brexit to consider the implications of the full range of scenarios for their business and ensure that they have contingency plans in place.

Tamati Coffey: What are the potential implications of Brexit for trade policy and settings?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: New Zealand and the UK have signed two agreements that will help ensure continuity and stability in the regulatory arrangements underpinning New Zealand’s trade. Looking ahead, both the UK and New Zealand Governments have publicly signalled their intention to negotiate a high-quality, comprehensive, bilateral free-trade agreement once the UK is in a position to do so. Beyond this, we are also working to negotiate free-trade agreements with the European Union, the Pacific Alliance, as well as continuing to conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and upgrading our China free-trade agreement. By continuing to open up new markets, we can ensure our export sector is more diversified and more resilient while continuing to grow.

Hon Todd McClay: What guarantees can the Government give exporters that tariff rates will not increase in a post - hard Brexit—particularly for lamb and butter exports, which currently enter the UK at a zero tariff rate within special quotas—and why did the Government not raise this when the Prime Minister gave assurances that New Zealand exporters would be no worse off in the post-Brexit arrangement during her recent visit to the United Kingdom?

SPEAKER: The Minister may answer as many of the three questions as he wants to.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can answer on behalf of myself, which is issues around tariff rate quotas were something that I raised when I was in Brussels and the UK in January.

Hon Todd McClay: What guarantees can the Government give New Zealand exporters—particularly for butter and lamb exports to the United Kingdom—in the post-Brexit, hard Brexit arrangement that their tariff rate within that quota won’t go up?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is exactly the issue that I alluded to, where New Zealand is not alone in concerns about these issues, and we are continuing to raise them both in the European Union context and in the UK.

Question No. 4—Housing and Urban Development

4. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Has the KiwiBuild underwrite of Mike Greer Homes passed the additionality test, and who undertakes and approves this test?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Yes, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development assesses each development and I’m advised that that includes assessment of the additionality requirement.

Hon Judith Collins: How many of the 104 Mike Greer KiwiBuild homes were already built at the time he and Minister Robertson agreed to underwrite them?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: To the best of my knowledge, I think that for 11 of those 104 properties, construction was at least under way. But I want to reiterate the answer that I gave yesterday, and that is the additionality test for these developments is applied not on individual homes but on the contract as a whole. The Mike Greer contract delivered 104 affordable homes for first-home buyers.

Hon Judith Collins: Did he inform those that perform the additionality test that all 11 Mike Greer KiwiBuild houses so far offered to KiwiBuild buyers were already built when he agreed to underwrite them?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s the job of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to undertake those negotiations and apply the additionality test, so they did know.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked if the Minister advised them. He then told me that it was the job of the ministry to undertake the test. The point is, did the Minister know; did he advise the ministry of that?

SPEAKER: I thought right at the end of the answer, he did answer that.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: They already knew.

Hon Judith Collins: Oh, they already knew? OK. Can the Minister release the street addresses of each of the 104 Mike Greer KiwiBuild homes so that the public can be reassured that they were not already built when he agreed to underwrite them?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I’d have to say I wouldn’t be particularly keen on that, given the member’s track record of personally targeting and harassing KiwiBuild homeowners.

Hon Judith Collins: In what month does he believe conversations with Mike Greer reached a level where Mike Greer was confident enough to change his designs to offer more affordable housing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: You’d have to ask Mike Greer that question.

Hon Judith Collins: Is the Minister aware that the 12 houses at 27 Dida Park Drive, Huapai, were all built before the underwrite, marketed before the underwrite, and all done to a design dated February 2017?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I’m advised that the Huapai deal enabled Mike Greer to speed up that entire development and to bring it to market by June 2020, and reduced the prices in the Huapai development by $2.5 million.

Hon Judith Collins: I seek leave to table an overall floor plan dated 27 February 2017 for all of the properties at 27 Dida Park Drive, and before you ask me, Mr Speaker, I’ve had to obtain this from Auckland Council with payment of a fee and after waiting some days.

SPEAKER: I will put the question that that be tabled. Is there any objection? There is none. It may be tabled.

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

Question No. 5—Transport

5. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: Does he agree with New Zealand Transport Agency chairman Michael Stiassny, who told the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that “There is no doubt that the way the GPS has been written is more about safety, and the time spent between A to B is no longer a priority for us. The outcome of that will be, I think we could all agree, that it will take longer to get from A to B in a lot of places, and there will be more congestion”?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes to the first part and no to the second.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, how does he account for the chair of his key transport agency having the wrong end of the stick?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, Mr Stiassny’s quite right to say that our policy has prioritised safety, and, as the other top line objective in the Government policy statement, ensuring that New Zealanders have more options that give them access to the things they need.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So how can he say that reducing congestion is still a priority, when it is nowhere stated, and when the priority of improving access, which he points to, is fundamentally about getting people out of their cars?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Because actually improving Kiwis’ access to the things they need is fundamentally about improving congestion. Our approach—which is about giving people options, including much better public transport in our cities and walking and cycling—is about reducing the car dependency and congestion that got worse every year under the former Government, when they spent 40 percent of the transport budget on a handful of motorway projects that carried 4 percent of vehicle journeys.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So does he accept that having a priority to get people out of their cars is not the same thing as reducing congestion, especially given that some transport planners think that increasing congestion on the roads is the best way to get people out of their cars?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I can’t speak for “some transport planners”, but I’ll say this to the member: providing people with modern public transport and rapid transit and walking and cycling is the best way to encourage some people to leave their cars at home. That allows the roads and the motorways to move more freely, and that is our policy.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So does he think Kiwis stuck in traffic—say on Auckland’s Southern Motorway, or crawling into Tauranga from Ōmokoroa, or many other places—would agree that reducing congestion should no longer be a priority, as the chair of his New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) thinks?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Reducing congestion is a priority, but it’s a subset of improving access. We had a nine-year experiment in the kind of policy that the member is promoting, and congestion and gridlock in our cities got worse every single year, and we saw a blowout in deaths and serious injuries on our roads.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So what does he say to the people of Tauranga, whose council has instructed the chief executive of Tauranga City Council to cease awarding any new contracts for transportation upgrade and safety projects because they no longer have agreement with NZTA to part-fund them, because they don’t fit within the Government’s new transport priorities?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, that’s not at all what the mayor and chief executive of Tauranga City Council have said. They actually have raised with me that they are having trouble getting some decisions made as speedily to see projects rolled out. I’ve asked them for detail on that, because holding up any road projects or transport projects is the last thing that I want to see, and I’ve said I will chase that up for them.

Question No. 6—Revenue

6. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of Revenue: What recent steps, if any, has he taken to help combat international tax evasion?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): I’m happy to inform the House that we are expanding our global information-sharing network by adding 30 jurisdictions to our current list of 60 to help combat tax evasion.

Kieran McAnulty: Well done.

Hon STUART NASH: Thank you. The addition of 30 new territories, which includes Panama, Nigeria, and Switzerland, reflects increased international cooperation by OECD and G20 countries to crack down on tax evasion. This Government is committed to ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of tax, including those who have financial interests in other countries. It shines a spotlight on those who try to evade tax obligations by hiding their assets offshore.

Dr Deborah Russell: How does the automatic exchange of information ensure that all New Zealanders and foreign tax residents pay their fair share of tax in New Zealand and overseas?

Hon STUART NASH: Globalisation has made it easier for people to invest money outside of the tax residence jurisdiction, and this has provided opportunities for offshore tax evasion. The automatic exchange of information enables information sharing about details of accounts of New Zealand taxpayers in overseas financial institutions such as banks, private equity funds, and trusts. Inland Revenue will review the information and verify that the correct tax is being paid on offshore investments. Since our first exchange in September 2018, New Zealand sent information on just over 600,000 accounts to 52 jurisdictions, and we received information on just over 724,000 accounts from 66 jurisdictions. The issue of multinational tax avoidance and evasion is a global issue and New Zealand is proud to be part of the global solution.

Dr Deborah Russell: What other measures is he taking to ensure multinational companies and individuals pay their fair share of tax?

Hon STUART NASH: This Government has an intensive work programme as we actively seek to tighten our international tax laws. Last year, we ratified the multinational instrument and passed the base erosion and profit shifting bill, which modified thousands of existing international tax treaties to incorporate the OECD treaty recommendations on anti-abuse, transfer pricing, dispute resolution, and the rules on hybrid mismatches. We’ve a bill in the House that proposes GST on imported low-value goods to even the playing field for New Zealand retailers, and we wish the Opposition would actually support this measure. We are also looking to consult on the design of changes to tax rules, which currently allow multinational companies in the digital services field to do business here without paying income tax. This Government is focused on strengthening our international tax laws. This should give New Zealanders confidence that our tax system treats everyone the same, whether an individual or a large corporate. We all have to pay our fair share.

Question No. 4 to Minister—Amended Answer

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): If I may just correct one answer I gave to an earlier question in relation to the number of homes in the Mike Greer KiwiBuild contract.

SPEAKER: The member’s seeking leave to make a personal explanation in order to correct an answer. Is there any objection? There is none.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I said that to the best of my recollection there were 11 homes. I think the member opposite said 12. In fact, the correct number was 13.

Question No. 7—Small Business

7. Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister for Small Business: Has he undertaken any formal consultation with any small businesses on a capital gains tax since last Thursday; if not, why not?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Small Business): No, because if the member is referring to the recommendations of the independent Tax Working Group, then I can remind the member of my answers of the last two sitting weeks, the answers from the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister for Economic Development, and the answers from the Prime Minister that no decisions have been made and the Government will respond to this report in April. So I’m hardly likely to formally consult, when there is nothing to consult on.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Wouldn’t it be prudent to be talking with small business to inform the Government’s response to the Tax Working Group?

Hon STUART NASH: I speak to many small businesses most weeks about measures that the Government is bringing in, like R & D tax credits, like the Provincial Growth Fund, like a whole lot of measures we are bringing in. But one thing I will say: when I said I’m not consulting on a capital gains tax, I’m also not consulting on the 19 measures that the Tax Working Group considers would reduce compliance cost to small to medium enterprises.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Why not? [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Jacqui Dean.

Hon STUART NASH: Because—can I say this again—there have been absolutely no decisions made on this, so why would I formally consult when there’s absolutely nothing to consult on.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Does the Minister for Small Business support small business?

Hon STUART NASH: Unequivocally, and I am part of a Government that I think is doing a hell of a lot for small business, as mentioned: the billion dollar R & D tax credit, the Provincial Growth Fund, putting GST on low-value goods imported from companies offshore. We are supporting small business in a way that the previous Government never did.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Does the Minister not wish to hear the views of small business on the capital gains tax?

Hon STUART NASH: Mr Speaker, I know that you don’t like hearing repetition, however, there is nothing to consult small businesses on when it comes to a hypothetical capital gains tax because there is nothing out there. Let me say once again: we are open-minded, we are listening, it was an independent Tax Working Group report, we are working through the recommendations, and, as the Minister of Finance has said probably about 800,000 times, we will present our recommendations in April. Until that point in time, there is nothing to consult on.

Question No. 8—Energy and Resources

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Energy and Resources and asks—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Oh, look! Order! The member will resume his seat. Amy Adams will stand, withdraw, and apologise again.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): I withdraw and apologise.

8. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does she expect the increases in long-term wholesale electricity prices to be reflected in household power bills; if so, when?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Short-term peaks in wholesale electricity prices driven by short-term gas infrastructure issues are unlikely to be passed on to the consumer as a result of how retailers manage risks and by smoothing their pricing structures. Under current market conditions, gentailers may choose to pass on longer-term increases in wholesale prices; however, this is likely to occur over a longer period of time. Longer-term price increases are likely to encourage new builds, and the Government is looking forward to seeing new renewable generation being built, as this—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Name one proposal.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —is the lowest-cost generation. Finally, we’re currently seeing slightly elevated prices on the ASX futures market, which reflects participants’ guesses of what prices might be in the future. We’re also seeing new generation being built, which would see downward pressure on those prices.

Jonathan Young: Will the wholesale electricity prices for calendar year 2020, which are 40 percent higher than this time last year, be passed on to consumers, and if not, why not?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: What the member is talking about is the ASX futures prices that are being projected out. This is, essentially, risk-pricing or insurance that people take to hedge. What happens with that as new generation comes on board and is built is we will see those—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Name one—one project.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —prices fall. We had 2,000 megawatts of consented wind electricity—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: There’s none.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Near where that member lives, there’s currently a new wind farm that is being consented, at Waverley, and is currently likely to come on stream. As they come on board, those futures prices will fall.

SPEAKER: Order! Mr Brownlee, the member might take a call if he wants to ask a question. Actually, he’s asked the same question from his seat at least five times, and it was actually answered.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No it wasn’t.

SPEAKER: Yes it was. The member should listen.

Jonathan Young: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe that the question was very straightforward, and the answer was full of conjecture around future builds. I asked whether the futures price that people are paying today, which is 40 percent higher than last year, will be reflected in future consumer prices, and, if not, why not?

SPEAKER: And the Minister said—and anyone who knows anything about the issue—that will depend on future builds. She should’ve said it more succinctly so the House can understand.

Jonathan Young: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked a question around prices that have been contracted for the year 2020, so this is just over a year away, and the infrastructure the Minister is talking about—they haven’t even turned a sod in the ground.

SPEAKER: Look, I’m probably suffering from too much experience for three periods as being Minister of Energy, none of which I asked for, but what the House has been told is absolutely accurate—that future builds are built into contracting both for wholesale and retail pricing. That’s what the Minister said, not clearly enough and in an extended manner, but the member’s question has been answered.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to your assistance to the House, Mr Speaker, I would point out that there was no forward market during your time as Minister of Energy; and, second, it is a price being paid now, and the question is whether that will be recovered by generators.

SPEAKER: Well, I don’t want to get into a debate in answering the member, but I give him an absolute assurance that power prices were being laid off between companies during that time, and there was a market for retail contracts.

Jonathan Young: So can the Minister inform the House that, apart from the Waverley project of a 100-megawatt wind farm, how many new generation builds will take place that will affect the 2020 electricity prices—it’s just over a year away?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I also explained in my primary answer to the member: in the short term, because of the way the market works, those forward prices don’t necessarily flow through. There are over 2,000 megawatts of consented wind. We currently have a programme of work in place around updating those consents. If the member wants to put in writing a request for a list of projects, I will happily furnish it to him.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In terms of the complained of electricity pricing structures market, precisely who was responsible for it?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: This is a Government that has some concerns about the prices that consumers are paying for electricity. That is why we are currently undertaking a review. We have a view that for many people, the market is broken. I note that the member who has been asking me questions thinks that we shouldn’t meddle with it. We think we should have the backs of consumers.

Jonathan Young: So how many megawatts of extra generation will come on stream within the next 12 months?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: More than are needed. I think the member is the only person who is scaremongering. What we know about forward projections of what we need over the long term, which will have the largest impact on futures markets, is that we need roughly a doubling of our generation by 2050. That member should stop scaremongering.

Jonathan Young: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I believe I asked a reasonable question. The Minister has been defending against my questions—

SPEAKER: No, no, get to the point of order.

Jonathan Young: Well, sir, she didn’t answer the question.

SPEAKER: She addressed it.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, the Minister’s at least half the wind power that’s coming on shortly!

SPEAKER: I have a suggestion that there’s a number of members who could be hooked up to it.

Question No. 9—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

9. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What recent legislative measures has the Government taken to ensure continued access to key global financial markets?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Recently, the Financial Markets (Derivatives Margin and Benchmarking Reform) Amendment Bill passed its first reading—

Hon Member: Say that again.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: It’s a snappy title. The amendments in the bill will align us with recent changes to international regulations designed to strengthen the resilience of global financial markets and reduce risk. By aligning our financial markets legislation with international best practice, New Zealand will help make aspects of the global financial system more resilient and more resistant to manipulation. The Government is committed to improving the integrity of our financial system and ensuring New Zealand entities continue to access important international financial markets.

Dr Duncan Webb: What does the bill implement?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you—an excellent question. The bill has two parts, each of which respond to different international developments. The first responds to G20 requirements related to over-the-counter derivatives. Part 2 of the bill responds to a separate international development around a new regulatory regime for financial benchmarks. While the changes are technical, this is, however, a critical piece of legislation that will allow major New Zealand financial institutions to continue to transact with important overseas parties in order to manage financial risk, raise capital, and continue to effectively engage in international financial markets.

Dr Duncan Webb: How will this bill benefit New Zealand?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you—another sharp question. Without these amendments, New Zealand’s financial institutions could lose access to offshore funding markets because they don’t comply with new requirements that have resulted from overseas reforms; therefore, these changes ensure we avoid potential damage to the economy. Not having access to these markets could also see an increase in the cost of raising capital, leading to higher interest rates, and this would affect all New Zealanders directly or indirectly, potentially costing millions of dollars to the economy. It could also have a negative impact on financial stability if it meant New Zealand entities were raising funds from riskier sources or were no longer able to hedge certain risks. The Government is futureproofing a significant part of our financial markets for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

Question No. 10—Regional Economic Development

10. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Does he stand by all of his statements and actions?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Yes.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: On reflection, does he think it was appropriate for him to call journalist Hamish Rutherford a bunny boiler?

Hon SHANE JONES: I have been counselled about my relationship with the fourth estate. Obviously, references, colourful they may be, offered in the robustness of exchanges that one has with the media—I don’t think anyone should be offended. And I understand the man wears that badge with an element of pride.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How does he think his “message to corporate New Zealand” yesterday, which included criticisms of Spark CEO Simon Moutter, will help improve business confidence levels throughout the regions?

Hon SHANE JONES: Strangely enough, my remarks are based directly on feedback from senior commercial leaders from the export community. They observed their understanding of the statutory obligation that that CEO was under. They described his reaction as going straight to the nuclear button, and I suspect an agenda.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Who does he plan to attack next?

Hon SHANE JONES: I do not go around examining, reviewing, inspecting, or investigating; it’s his leader who is being investigated.

Question No. 11—Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media

11. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media: Does he stand by all the actions of his advisers, advisory groups, and officials?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): As far as I am aware of those actions, yes.

Melissa Lee: What does he think is reasonable for one of his advisers, advisory groups, or officials to disclose as a perceived or actual conflict of interest?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Anything that that person might think is a perceived conflict of interest.

Melissa Lee: What would he think if one of his ministerial public media advisory group members had failed to disclose 2,777 shares in a company that calls itself “the Netflix of educational content”?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I have been assured by officials that all conflicts of interest with that advisory group have been managed well. If that person has not disclosed, then I would suggest that they might have to have a rethink.

Melissa Lee: What would he think if one of his ministerial public media advisory group members had failed to disclose directorships and shareholdings in companies such as a media company whose music catalogue includes multiple NZ On Air - funded artists, a company which he jointly holds shares in with a John Barnett—a known public media advocate who met with the former broadcasting Minister in January last year prior to his advisory group member being appointed as the chair of the group?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As that member would know—

SPEAKER: Sorry; I’m going to ask the member to ask the question again, because I think there’s a big bit in there that this Minister certainly doesn’t have responsibility for. He doesn’t have responsibility for Mr Barnett—who many of us have met many times—meeting with third parties. Try again.

Melissa Lee: What would he think if one of his ministerial public media advisory group members had failed to disclose directorships and shareholdings in companies, such as a media company whose music catalogue includes multiple NZ On Air - funded artists as well as a company which he jointly holds shares in with another person, named John Barnett—a known public media advocate who met with a former broadcasting Minister in January—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member can answer the first part of the question. The second part is not an area that he has any responsibility for.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As the member would be well aware, the ministerial advisory group was drawn from people with experience in the sector, so it’s highly likely that there would be, in some cases, something to declare as a potential conflict of interest. As I say, officials have said that that has been managed well to date. If someone has not disclosed, then, as I have said before, they might need to have a rethink.

Melissa Lee: Is the fact that none of these matters were disclosed as actual or perceived current or former interests of members of the public media ministerial advisory group concerning for the Minister in light of the fact that $15 million of funding that this Government has already undertaken was as a result of the advice to Ministers received from the advisory group?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I would like to think that the members of the ministerial advisory group—or any advisory group that I have oversight over—would take their conflicts of interest responsibilities seriously. If there are things that haven’t been disclosed that should be disclosed, then, as I say, they need to have a rethink.

Melissa Lee: I’d like to seek leave to table excerpts of two Official Information Act (OIA) responses dated 23 January and 5 March from Te Manatū Taonga, Ministry of Culture and Heritage, listing relevant conflicts of interest—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I just want to check; are they personal to the member or are they on the website?

Melissa Lee: They were given to me as an OIA answer, so—

SPEAKER: So they’re answers to the member?

Melissa Lee: Yes.

SPEAKER: So there are two OIA responses that the member has received from the ministry. Is there any objection to those being tabled? There is none. They may be tabled.

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

Question No. 12—Housing and Urban Development

12. GARETH HUGHES (Green) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Is he committed to energy efficiency in KiwiBuild and State homes?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Yes.

Gareth Hughes: Does the Minister agree with Judith Collins that it’s ridiculous that LED bulbs are not mandatory?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I think—knowing Mrs Collins—that if they were mandatory she’d criticise that too. If she really—

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If I can have your guidance—I’ve actually said that in relation to KiwiBuild homes, not—[Interruption] Authentication would show that I did not say that for all homes.

SPEAKER: I think that’s what the question was—KiwiBuild and State housing. That’s what the member was responding to.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Come down prepared—a bit of research first.

Hon Judith Collins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just wanted the opportunity to speak—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The pair of you—come on! I know it’s Thursday, but we can settle down.

Gareth Hughes: Will the Minister work towards overturning the decision that doesn’t require LED lights in all new KiwiBuild and State houses, because they use 85 percent less power and last 15 times longer?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the first thing to say is that there wasn’t a decision not to require LED lights in KiwiBuild homes, but I’ll say this: LED lights are rapidly becoming the industry standard. The great majority of both new State house builds—which we do have some, now—and KiwiBuild homes do have LED light bulbs. I’ve got work under way that’s setting standards for all Government-backed home building programmes, including KiwiBuild and State housing. It will include energy efficiency, and, undoubtedly, will include the use of the LED bulbs.

Gareth Hughes: Does the Minister agree that energy efficient KiwiBuilds and new State homes create a massive opportunity to drive better design practices and lower costs for everyone in New Zealand?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes, actually, one of the great opportunities offered by a Government house-building programme is the chance to use Government procurement to set standards—whether it’s for energy efficiency, whether it’s for universal design, high quality architecture, and urban design, it’s a chance to build stronger communities and warm, dry homes.

Gareth Hughes: Does the Minister agree that energy efficient KiwiBuilds could not just provide 100,000 houses, they could also deliver 100,000 cheaper power bills?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes. Reducing the operating costs of houses for the people who live in them is one of the best things we can do. The Government’s commitment to the healthy homes guarantee and warmer Kiwi homes—these are also very important public health reforms.

Bills

Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill

Second Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I move, That the Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill be now read a second time.

I’d like to begin by welcoming the people of Ngāti Rangi who are with us in Parliament today to hear the second reading of their settlement bill. Ngāti Rangi iwi, rau rangatira mā, ko aku mihi atu ki a koutou, nau mai, haere mai.

[To the people of Ngāti Rangi, ladies and gentlemen, I bid you a warm welcome here today.]

This bill gives effect to Rukutia Te Mana, the deed of settlement signed by Ngāti Rangi and the Crown in March 2018. The bill comprises five parts, detailing impressive cultural and commercial redress and the Crown’s apology redress. This redress has been carefully designed to aid Ngāti Rangi—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Could we just have a bit of quiet as people leave, please. [Interruption] There are, sort of, meetings down there. Could these two—

Hon Member: Oi!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The redress that I just referred to has been carefully designed to aid Ngāti Rangi on their journey towards a vibrant future. As kaitiaki in their rohe, the environmental and natural resources redress included in this bill is essential in enabling Ngāti Rangi to fulfil their responsibilities to the natural world. I look forward to describing the bill in greater detail at its third reading, so I’ll keep my comments for this reading somewhat brief.

This afternoon I want to acknowledge the work of the Ngāti Rangi Trust. For more than two and a half decades, the trust has held the Crown to account to its commitment under the Treaty to work in partnership with Ngāti Rangi. The Crown hasn’t always upheld the principles of the Treaty or reciprocated the friendship that Ngāti Rangi has consistently shown the Crown since 1840. Through negotiations with the Ngāti Rangi Trust, the Crown has come to learn what friendship and partnership with Ngāti Rangi actually entails. I’m optimistic that this bill contains redress which will support this relationship into the future with the post-settlement governance entity Te Tōtarahoe o Paerangi. I also acknowledge the work of the Crown team at Te Arawhiti, led by chief Crown negotiator Dr John Wood, my ministerial colleagues, and other agencies who have worked on this settlement.

Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge and thank the Māori Affairs Committee, who have swiftly and considerably progressed this bill. In 2018, 26 submissions were received on the bill and the committee travelled to Ōhākune to hear oral submissions from seven of those submitters in full view of Matua te Mana, Ruapehu. The committee reported back to the House on 7 March 2019 and recommended a number of minor technical changes to the bill. The committee also recommended changes that would ensure the deeds to amend, executed while the bill was in the select committee phase, are properly reflected in the bill. I’m satisfied that, with these recommendations as they are, they will ensure the redress agreed in Rukutia Te Mana, the Ngāti Rangi deed of settlement, can be properly implemented through the bill.

This second reading of the Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill represents the next step in the journey of this iwi towards reconciliation with the Crown, but it also brings the wider community of which Ngāti Rangi is a part closer to benefiting from the good that this settlement will bring to the Ruapehu district. I commend this bill to the House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

NUK KORAKO (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Tēnā koutou e ngā puawaitaka o tō tātou mātua tīpuna. Anei rā mihi hōhonu ki ngā uri o Maururu a Paerangi. Mā rātou i takatakahia te whenua i te timataka o te noho kai whenua o mātou tīpuna tūturu.

[Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Greetings to you all who are here to represent our ancestors. I want to particularly acknowledge the descendants of Mauruuru a Paerangi. It was they who set about exploring the land when our ancestors first made landfall.]

It is with real āhuareka that I stand to speak to the second reading of the Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill. A second reading is always interesting, because it’s a time for a considered reflection and report back on the process of the settlement from the Māori Affairs Committee to this House. The committee received 26 submissions, and I acknowledge the work of my parliamentary colleague and whanauka Rino Tirikatene for his chairmanship in this process.

The Māori Affairs Committee went, on a beautiful day, to Ōhākune, and that is where we heard a number of the submissions for this bill. Of the 24 submissions, 17 supported the bill, three offered no position, and four were opposed. It’s those that are opposed that the committee—and it is one of the conventions of the Māori Affairs Committee to hear all submissions, but it’s also interesting that we do spend a lot of time hearing those who actually are dissenters.

Of the objections to this particular bill, the following were outlined. There were objections to the historical account and Ngāti Rangi oral history. There were allegations of Crown bias towards Ngāti Rangi. There were claims of insufficient redress left for other groups. There were objections to specific redress. There was also the Uenuku Charitable Trust, with not having their interests adequately represented, and also there was opposition to the Ngāti Rangi Trust by a Ngāti Rangi whānau.

We had submissions concerning the history of Ngāti Rangi rohe and that it was being rejigged and an alternative history was being put forward in the deed of settlement. It is difficult to make a determination on whether Ngāti Rangi was an up-river or a down-river iwi. Considering the evidence for who Ngāti Rangi were, and in hearing their own kōrero about their whakapapa and where it resided on the river, it appears Ngāti Rangi’s answer to the question “Are you up the river or down the river as an iwi?”—certainly, from a whakapapa perspective, the raranga of whānau who may more closely align to one iwi or other is entirely contingent, actually, on which whānau you are getting on with on any given day.

So, in considering the question of river location, we went back to the whakapapa and responded, noting that it is actually normal to disagree on the whakapapa of our tīpuna. Whakapapa, as a genealogy, is not just that, actually, and it’s not just a list of names that starts at A and finishes at Z. Rather, whakapapa is made up of detailed and concise information from a collection of all the kōrero that surrounds the various individuals of that whakapapa. It is also a memory from each person’s perspective who knew the people in the whakapapa and what they passed down to their descendants.

The Crown does not set out to establish a consensus of agreed facts between the iwi but rather to reflect the origins of the settling group, as it sees itself. That is why we take no position—and that’s why we didn’t take a position—on the agreed historical account in relation to other iwi.

I also want to pick up on another concern that the Crown was being biased towards Ngāti Rangi. Now, as a former chair of the Māori Affairs Committee and also as someone—as a member of Parliament—that has actually seen and been part of a lot of settlements, you just have to ask any iwi that has gone through a settlement with the Crown, and every one of them will probably tell you that the Crown was totally biased against them. And it will not surprise me that Ngāti Rangi may have a similar view of its dealings with the Crown. In some parts of this bill and listening to submissions, in some ways, that was the situation.

And so, related to the concern of the Crown with this one towards that bias of Ngāti Rangi, I think, is the concern that insufficient redress will be either left to other claimant groups. In fairness, though, when thinking about this, the Crown itself, its coffers are not bottomless. But nor is there a preference to one iwi over the other. So rather than each claim being assessed on its individual merits, we’ve got to go back to the Waitangi Tribunal for this one, because I note with confidence that the Waitangi Tribunal confirmed that other groups in the rohe were not precluded from obtaining redress within the rohe by this particular settlement.

I think that’s really one of the key points here around this take, or this issue—that it was actually that response from the Waitangi Tribunal. I’m encouraged, though, to see, when we look at these, and particularly the Ngāti Rangi settlement, that we do see a mutual sort of support being expressed between Ngāti Rangi and their whanauka in the Uenuku claims trust. The support that both iwi offered each other is a true expression, we believe, of tikaka and also manaakitaka that we Māori so proudly stand on.

I want to also comment on a submission from former members of the Ngāti Rangi Trust, because it is a rare iwi entity that manages to negotiate a settlement process without mamae arising between whānau. Unfortunately, in some ways, in this Ngāti Rangi bill and the submissions and all the kōrero and negotiations, there was some of that, but not a lot. But the desire to make good on sins committed against them by the Crown and to make a difference for iwi members can see whānau clash. To make a difference for iwi members but to see whānau clash with each other is difficult to watch and to experience. I think that one thing that we did here is that we listened, and then we made that informed decision based on that tikanga, particularly around whakapapa, and particularly around that manaakitanga that they both showed to each other. That’s how they reached through that conclusion to where this bill is today.

That said, the purpose of the submissions phase, really, and what we’re reporting back here in the second reading is to iron out the issues caused by inadvertent legislative writing or other reasons. So as a consequence, there were changes. There were 36 changes, actually, that were needed, and that’s what we’re reporting back at this second reading. Some of the changes they reflected were more important drafting changes. There was one particular one under the Fisheries Act, and then another one, particularly around the intent to transfer the New Zealand Defence Force land.

I think, when we look at this, this bill is definitely on its way, particularly with reporting back now for this second reading. I think the important thing I want to acknowledge, though, is the work that has been done by the Hon Andrew Little and the good work that he’s done to get it to this stage. I also want to acknowledge the Hon Christopher Finlayson as well, because it was on his watch, as the Minister, that this bill actually really did start its journey, but it’s been picked up well by the present Minister.

On that note, in this bill, I do honour those Ngāti Rangi whānui that are here today and wish you well, because once it goes through this stage, we’re there into the third reading of your bill. So kia kaha to you, and then, on that note, I commend this bill to the House. Nō reira, e mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, kia ora.

ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, otirā ki a tātou katoa, tēnei te mihi ake. Oti noa, ki a koutou ki ōku whanaunga o Ngāti Rangi tēnei ahau tuku mihi atu ki a koutou katoa kua tae mai ki te whakarongo ki ngā kōrero e pā ana ki tō tātou pire, kei roto i Te Whare nei, nō reira nau mai, haere mai, tēnei te mihi atu, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, greetings everyone. To my kinsmen of Ngāti Rangi, I offer warm greetings to you all who have come here to listen to speeches about our bill in this House; welcome, welcome, thrice welcome to one and all.]

It’s a real pleasure, again, to take a call on this debate, the second reading of the Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill. I sat on the Māori Affairs Committee, and I want to endorse the words of my colleague Nuk Korako for his elegant contribution to the select committee process. It is one of the select committees of this Parliament that does work collaboratively—as he would say, under kotahitanga. I just want to acknowledge all the members of the select committee, but I also want to acknowledge the clerk of our select committee, Aaron Williams, and the deputy clerk, Miles Sutton, as well, along with all of the officials that supported us in looking at this bill.

I went back and looked at what I said at the first reading, and I wanted to continue the theme that I spoke about then. One of the things I said was that, in the deed of settlement, it was Ngāti Rangitanga that permeated throughout that deed of settlement. Indeed, it also permeates throughout this bill here. One particular part that I wanted to look at in a little bit more detail is Te Mana Tupua o Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika, which is Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika framework. Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika starts on what we know as Koro Ruapehu—on the mountain, at the crater—and it goes all the way out to the sea, commonly known as the Whangaehu River, but not just the Whangaehu. It is an indivisible whole, including everything that flows into the river, and I think it’s important to recognise a couple of things about Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika.

Number one was that Ngāti Rangi had the tenacity enough to get this part of the bill into the deed, and now into the bill, because it sets up a framework for the protection of Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika. I think that not only does this piece of legislation do that for Ngāti Rangi but it also does it for all of Ngāti Rangi’s whanaunga who are connected to those waters through whakapapa, through the water itself and everything that is indivisible as that whole.

I think that’s an expression of, as I said, their tenacity but also their generosity. So, as part of that framework, it includes a set of intrinsic values known as Ngā Toka Tupua o Te Waiū-o-Te-Ika, and within the legislation it talks about exactly what those values are. It also has, in that part of the legislation, a subpart that gives legal effect to the framework and describes how it gives effect to the framework. It talks about the establishment of Ngā Wai Tōtā o Te Waiū, which is a group that provides the strategic leadership which is required under the deed of settlement and when it becomes an Act.

One of the things that this group has to do is, as I said, provide strategic leadership. It is made up not only of Ngāti Rangi, and this is where some of that generosity comes into it, but also of other iwi groups as well. It also includes local bodies with an interest in the river. They have a responsibility to go through a legal process to produce Te Tāhoratanga o Te Waiū, a strategic leadership document; although, that’s not the words that are used in the legislation, not exactly—some might say a “strategic plan”. I don’t think that would describe it adequately enough, but I’m sure members get the picture.

So there is quite a prescribed process to go through that is in the legislation to produce that document, and that document will, I think, along with all the other parts of the framework, become quite a powerful part of this legislation. It’s probably not received the attention that it deserves, and it probably has gone under the radar within the whole process, but I think that, in its time, it will become one of the most important parts of this legislation—notwithstanding the fact that all the other redress elements within the bill will provide an incredible future for the next generation of Ngāti Rangi, and that ought to be acknowledged.

I think the future for Ngāti Rangi is great, and, as my time runs out, I will say that I hope to have a call in the third reading and talk about that future. But, for now, there are so many good things within this settlement. Once again, I join my colleague Nuk Korako in expressing how wonderful it was to visit Ōhākune to hear the evidence during the select committee process. I think, if I was to characterise and summarise what Mr Korako said, we heard concerns; we sought further detail and information from officials; we considered that; and we made our decisions, which are within the commentary at the beginning of this bill. I truly do believe that this bill is the best that it can be under the framework of the Crown and next to the framework of Ngāti Rangi. I think Ngāti Rangi has maximised the possibility of the framework of the Crown to achieve what they have for their settlement. Nō reira kāore e roa tēnei tū, oti noa e tika ana kia tuku mihi atu ki Te Whare nei, otirā ki a koutou o Ngāti Rangi, tēnei anō te mihi ake ki a koutou, nō reira tēnā tātou katoa.

[Therefore, I won’t linger further other than to reiterate the greetings extended in this House, especially to you Ngāti Rangi, greetings one and all.]

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a significant bill for the people of Ngāti Rangi, and, indeed, it’s significant for all New Zealanders. So it’s an enormous pleasure and privilege to see so many representatives of the iwi here today. As someone from Ōtautahi, Te Wai Pounamu, and someone who’s seen Ngāi Tahu flourish and grow since their settlement was made, I understand the importance of today for you.

It’s been a very long time since 1840, when several Whanganui rangatira with Ngāti Rangi affiliation signed the Treaty of Waitangi and entered into partnership with the Crown—entered into partnership with the Crown with mana and in good faith. At that time, Ngāti Rangi was a powerful and prosperous community, embracing the future with confidence. I believe they backed themselves to grow and develop in partnership with the Crown. And it’s been a very long journey with many twists and turns to get here today to the second reading of their claims settlement bill.

It was in good faith and in partnership with the Crown that, during the 1840s, Ngāti Rangi rangatira worked with European settlers, selling land for a township to establish the township. They built whare in anticipation of settlers arriving, and welcomed them to their district.

During the very disruptive and turbulent times of the 1860s and 1870s, Ngāti Rangi maintained their mana motuhake and protected their rohe. They strategically aligned themselves with the Crown, but they also entered into commercial leasing arrangements with Europeans without the Crown’s involvement. During all this time, the Crown failed to honour the Treaty of Waitangi, and that failure is acknowledged today with an apology from the Crown. From a monopoly position, the Crown passed a series of laws that weakened the iwi’s position. They prevented Ngāti Rangi from leasing their land to private parties and then they purchased it, and, what’s more, they often broke their promises about the conditions of that purchase. Throughout all this, Ngāti Rangi were proactively protecting their lands, working with Te Keepa and his trust, and supporting Te Kotahitanga movement to assert their rangatiratanga and to protect their interests.

Over the next few years, the Crown also used compulsory acquisition to acquire significant iwi land for public works without consultation. No compensation was paid for land taken for the North Island trunk railway, and Ngāti Rangi’s connection and spiritual home of Mount Ruapehu was not even taken into consideration. They were not even consulted or compensated for land compulsorily acquired when the Tongariro National Park was established in 1907, or when the Tongariro power development scheme was constructed in their rohe, permanently altering the environment.

Today, all these issues and more are acknowledged, and the apology of the Crown recognises the distress of the iwi being unable to exercise kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, or whanaungatanga with other customary rights and responsibilities over their lands and resources. So it is absolutely appropriate that the cultural redress in this settlement recognises the traditional, historical, and spiritual association of Ngāti Rangi to their whenua, to places and sites, and especially to the Whangaehu River, and that it has resources to protect and enhance conservation values in these areas. Significantly and importantly, Ngāti Rangi is now one of the iwi that will take part in the collective negotiations over the Tongariro National Park and its future.

This claim settlement is an important milestone for Ngāti Rangi and the Crown. As their trust chairman, Shar Amner, says, this is another step towards healing the mamae between Ngāti Rangi and the Crown, and that’s what we celebrate today. Kia ora.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): I’d like to start with: e Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Ki ngā uri o Ngāti Rangi, tēnā koutou katoa. He nui aku mihi mahana, ngā mihi maioha, me ngā mihi aroha hoki ki a koutou. Nau mai ki tēnei Whare, ki Te Whare Pāremata, nau mai, haere mai ki te Poneke, nau mai, haere mai ki te rohe o Atiawa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Greetings to you all, the descendants of Ngāti Rangi. I extend a warm, sincere and heartfelt greeting to you all. Welcome to this House, to this House of Parliament, welcome, welcome to Wellington, welcome to tribal district of Atiawa, greetings one, greetings all.]

It is a pleasure, actually, to be able to address Ngāti Rangi here again this afternoon, and this time we’re on the second reading of their claims settlement bill. I recall speaking in the first reading some time ago, and before I go any further in talking to the bill, I just want to acknowledge and pay tribute to Ngāti Rangi’s steadfastness and their graciousness throughout the entire settlement process.

I also want to acknowledge the members of the Māori Affairs Committee, who I think have done a good job, regardless of which party they are. The select committee process when you’re hearing settlements can sometimes be challenging, especially when you have submissions from other iwi, other Māori, who do not share the same view of that which the Crown has reached with the claimants—in this case, Ngāti Rangi.

I want to acknowledge the current Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Andrew Little, and I want to acknowledge also the Hon Chris Finlayson. As one who was a lead negotiator for Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki Nui-ā-Rua, I greatly appreciated the manner in which the Hon Chris Finlayson engaged in those negotiations, and I have no doubt, Ngāti Rangi, that you will have had a similar relationship and working relationship and respectful relationship both with Mr Finlayson and with Mr Little.

I want to acknowledge humbly the contribution and sacrifice Ngāti Rangi have made to New Zealand and to the Crown over many generations. The history of Ngāti Rangi and its engagement with the Crown has always been honourable, from Ngāti Rangi’s side of the table at least. Standing as the Minister of Defence and Minister for Veterans Affairs right now, as the spokesman for New Zealand First, and as a former serviceman myself of 20 years’ military experience and a veteran, I acknowledge, with respect and humility, the contribution that many members of Ngāti Rangi have made to the security and stability of this nation and the contribution that Ngāti Rangi’s ancestors made in those early times of which this bill speaks and seeks to redress.

I also want to—as one who has worked through the difficulties of a Treaty settlement process—acknowledge the trials and tribulations that Ngāti Rangi have endured as they’ve worked through that process, which is a process laid down by the Crown, which in itself brings some challenges. I know from having personally experienced it.

I want to also acknowledge that this journey would have been made difficult at times as people who held the knowledge passed; as people who were engaged in lodging the claim and pursuing that claim passed before it even got to the mandate phase; and all of those subsequent people of Ngāti Rangi who are not able to be here at this point in time but who are so very, very much part of the claim, the history, the whakapapa, the trials and tribulations that Ngāti Rangi endured. So I mihi to those that have passed on and acknowledge them.

As I said in the first reading, much of what I’ve read about Ngāti Rangi’s claims and much of what I heard when I had the privilege of being with you in March last year, I think it was, has a very clear parallel with many other settlements that have come through this House. I guess, in the negotiation phase, the Crown is always looking—it knows that there’s a baseline because things happen throughout New Zealand to differing iwi that were the same. But the parallels with Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa are very strikingly similar. The nullification of leasehold agreements—legal agreement struck between Ngāti Rangi and settlers—is exactly what Governor Grey did in the Wairarapa.

The fact that Ngāti Rangi’s ancestors were so visionary and forward thinking about how land should be held and how land should be not so much sold but leased to people that it might be developed, that Ngāti Rangi would gain from the injection and infusion of other thinking, other skills, from the settlers in particular, that that would bring economic opportunity and advancement, is exactly what happened in the Wairarapa. The fact that a Government or a Governor of the day should see fit to step over the top of that and quash it—I wonder today, when I hear certain people railing against Treaty settlement claims, and so often from the right of the right, how they would react to the cancelling of property rights today if that were happening today, and what sorts of settlements they would seek in the courts against the Crown today.

There is no way that the Treaty settlement process can ever compensate Ngāti Rangi for those quashed leases that had a pound value at that time, and which are quite capable of being extrapolated through mathematically to produce a 2019 figure as to what the loss was. There’s no way the Crown can compensate for that, and it makes it clear that it won’t and can’t. But, again, the graciousness shown by Ngāti Rangi in accepting that there has to be a settlement, and it’s falling down where you have negotiated, speaks more—some would argue—of Ngāti Rangi than it does of the Crown, and I acknowledge that.

The interesting things about the situation with Ruapehu, I liken to what happened with Wairarapa Moana. The power development projects, which we all benefit from today—all of us, the whole of New Zealand—I liken to what happened to Kahungunu with the rail project that actually didn’t go ahead in the end, and they sold off the land anyway. I liken the contribution through the military—and I wish to acknowledge, as part of the cultural settlement, the gifting back of Irirangi to Ngāti Rangi, and then the gifting back of Irirangi again, by Ngāti Rangi back to the Crown and back to the Defence Force. Can I acknowledge that and thank you very much.

It does sort of raise those memories in the Wairarapa of land that was taken for rail and then was converted into ballot farms and given to non-Māori soldiers who returned from the First World War when none were given to Māori soldiers. It raises those thoughts in my mind again. I think of the Whangaehu, which I have been wet and cold in often, as a soldier, and I think of the Ruamāhanga in the Wairarapa because the claims are so similar as to what happened.

I conclude, on behalf of New Zealand First, by proudly saying to Ngāti Rangi that it is a pleasure to be able to stand here and support your second reading. We thank you for your graciousness, we thank you for your tolerance, and we wish you well as this bill progresses through to the third reading and look forward to seeing you back here again for that in due course. Kei te mihi.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou, ōku rangatira Ngāti Rangi. Koro Ruapehu, tēnā koutou, nau mai, whakatau mai ki Te Whare Pāremata e takatū nei. E tū tautoko ahau i tēnei pire, i tana pānuitanga tuarua.

[Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Greetings to you ladies and gentlemen from Ngāti Rangi. Most Revered Ruapehu, I offer greetings and a warm welcome to Parliament. I support this bill in its second reading.]

I’m delighted to speak in support of this bill at its second reading, and as I gaze up to the gallery and see Ngāti Rangi, who have graced us with their presence today, I’m reminded of the absolutely spectacular vista of Koro Ruapehu that greeted us when the Māori Affairs Committee travelled to Ōhākune last October. It was a spectacular day and it definitely set the scene for us in terms of not only the importance of the mahi that we were doing but just how spectacular the natural resources and the sacred maunga are to our manuhiri of Ngāti Rangi.

There’s been a lot of work that’s been happening since the last reading, and I’m pleased to be able to fill the House in on some of the good work that has been happening and that we also did as a committee. That work actually involved many, many aspects of the workings of this Parliament—from the Regulations Review Committee, the Business Committee, and also of course the Māori Affairs Committee. I know that the journey of this bill has been likened to running around the bases of a softball or a baseball game—and we definitely have arrived at second base and we are looking forward to the homeward stretch to the home base.

But, fundamentally, we mustn’t forget the purpose of this bill, which is to give effect to the deed of settlement which was executed by Ngāti Rangi with the Crown. That’s what this bill does, and I’m thrilled that there have actually been three additional deeds to amend the actual deed, Rukutia Te Mana, and that goes to show that Ngāti Rangi and the Crown wish to ensure that every possible detail is made correct and lasts. So, between the first and second readings, there have been some minor technical changes that were made. Again, though, that just goes to show that not only Ngāti Rangi but the Crown want to ensure that all aspects of the settlement are robust, are correct, and are enduring and lasting.

I don’t intend to take up my full call, because I know this is just the second reading, but I want to acknowledge Ms Wagner and Minister Ron Mark for their remarks. We mustn’t forget the history, which is why we’re here, in terms of what Ngāti Rangi has endured over the last 170-plus years. We mustn’t forget that—from the New Zealand Wars all the way through to Tongariro National Park and all the aspects which have been recorded and well traversed.

Ngāti Rangi are a really progressive, innovative iwi—very well lead, and that was evidenced by just the way in which we have been able to go about our work from the wonderful Te Pae Tata Ruapehu Community Learning & Tech Hub, which hosted us for our select committee hearings. It was really evident that Ngāti Rangi are really stamping their mark not only among their people, their iwi, but also across the wider community in Ōhākune, Ruapehu, Waiōuru, stretching over to Raetihi. They are doing some wonderful, wonderful mahi there.

I want to acknowledge actually today the work that Ngāti Rangi have done in actually changing—fundamentally changing—how all Treaty settlements from now on will be dealing with aspects around cultural aspirations. Up until this point—and it’s in every settlement that has come through this House, I would imagine; don’t double check me on that—there are taonga tūturu protocols and these are protocols with the Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage and with different arms within the Department of Internal Affairs, which includes Te Papa. Up until now, all of those different protocols have been separate with each agency, and what Ngāti Rangi has done is they have sat down with the Crown, I would imagine, and said, “Hey, why should we have to deal with each of these separate different agencies of Government? Why don’t we deal with them altogether in a cross-interagency relationship?”

So I commend them for this new instrument, which is called Te Whakaaetanga Tiaki Taonga, and by that arrangement it doesn’t change fundamentally, I guess, what was envisaged through the taongo tūturu protocol; it just ensures that all of the agencies are working together on those aspects together with Ngāti Rangi. So I want to acknowledge Ngāti Rangi for changing the landscape with the Whakaaetanga Tiaki Taonga.

There were many other technical changes that we’ve made to this bill. Again, we must acknowledge Ngāti Rangi is part of four large natural groupings within the Whanganui area, amidst 11 overlapping claims; so you can imagine the dynamics, and we certainly saw that through the submissions. I do acknowledge all the submitters. We hear it with every settlement: aspects around whakapapa, aspects around land histories. It’s not for us to judge those particular matters. Suffice to say that we respect everyone’s views of their own history, but this bill is all about Ngāti Rangi. It’s been well traversed and well recorded and has been agreed and executed through Rukutia Te Mana for Ngāti Rangi.

So, with that, I just want to once again acknowledge Ngāti Rangi, who have travelled to be part of this occasion, and I certainly am looking forward to taking this to home base and we can celebrate from that point. But, for now, I want to mihi to all those that were involved with our select committee process: to those that helped us just work on particular aspects, in particular, Mr Brownlee and the Regulations Review Committee, who raised some very pertinent points, which we have addressed; likewise to the Business Committee, which allowed us the extra time to be able to complete some technical aspects while still maintaining this date as the time for the second reading.

And so, with that, ka nui te mihi atu ki a koutou e Ngāti Rangi; e te rōpū rangatira huri rauna i tēnei Whare tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa [warm greetings to you all who are here from Ngāti Rangi; ladies and gentlemen throughout this House, I greet you, one and all].

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and my greetings to Ngāti Rangi in the House on this, the second reading of their claims settlement bill. I too want to add my voice of thanks for the hospitality for the select committee on the hearing of the submissions on this bill, and it is, as well as for other members of that committee, very vivid in my memory—the mountain behind us as we heard the stories coming to us from the submitters of Ngāti Rangi. I understand they identify as the people of the mountain, so it was a very clear day and, speaking for myself, I truly felt as if I was in the presence of the mountain and its people.

So the Greens are in unanimity in the House in supporting this, and in second reading I guess it’s about acknowledging the pathway to this point and the stories that we heard that are in the deed of settlement, Rukutia Te Mana, but also the alternative voices that we heard through the submissions process. For us in the Greens, Te Tiriti is not just about property rights—because it’s just such a paltry return that it couldn’t be just about that—but it is about an ongoing relationship with iwi, hapū, and the Crown. And it’s another chance for us to always emphasise that Te Tiriti cannot be settled; it’s about a relationship and an ongoing partnership. I want to acknowledge Ngāti Rangi and this Rukutia Te Mana for the new models of partnership that have been created in this process that are offering us a new way forward, particularly in relation to the care for the land and the waterways.

After the first reading, there was a media release that was put out from Ngāti Rangi Trust, and I really liked the framing after that moment, where they were acknowledging that, since signing their deed, they’ve moved from “Where the Crown goes, so goes Ngāti Rangi.” into a place where “Where Ngāti Rangi goes, so goes the Crown.” That’s the ideal place, I would say, that we would want to get to through the settlement process, where there’s the Crown acknowledging the history of colonisation and the great harm that was done and the theft—though, of course, we never use that word—and the putting of our values on to mana whenua; that, actually, we acknowledge that and rebalance the power and the relationships and start to listen and resurface that traditional knowledge to be able to move forward for all of our benefit.

Rukutia Te Mana is framed around the six poupou, in the settlement framework, and it translates to their being the pinnacles of the house of stone of Paerangi. In that, it includes a groundbreaking and integrated new framework for the Whangaehu River catchment called Te Waiū-o-te-Ika, which recognises the intrinsic connection between iwi and hapū of Whangaehu and with the awa. That’s been one of the problems of colonisation, apart from us taking the land and destroying its productivity and polluting the waters and denying people that water, its life; it’s also had a huge consequence on the people, because we cannot, of course, separate the water from the people or the people from the land. We are all one, and this settlement is a very clear acknowledgment of that, and I really strongly believe that the entire country will benefit from that rebalancing, from those values and partnership being put into our legislation and policy. So thank you to Ngāti Rangi for their leadership and their work to help restore the balance in this country in that area.

I do, of course, as with others, want to acknowledge that this, as with other settlements is not uncomplicated. As others have said, there are 11 overlapping claimant groups in this area, and Ngāti Rangi are one of four large natural groupings in this area. The Greens traditionally have been quite critical of the forcing of hapū into large natural groupings, and I think the consistency with which we hear alternative stories being told reinforces the problem of that approach. Te Tiriti o Waitangi was emphasising hapūtanga, and that does not seem consistent, to me, with an approach of forcing people into large natural groupings; it’s almost the very opposite.

The Māori Affairs Committee heard the other submitters who contested the history, but I do agree with colleagues on the committee that the Crown cannot be the one to decide whose history is right. That is not the role of the Crown. We can acknowledge that our process seems to create a truth that doesn’t actually match reality, because often histories have been suppressed and silenced through the impacts of colonisation. Histories aren’t simple; they get told in simple ways, but they aren’t simple, and multiple truths exist. I think it’s really important to acknowledge that, and to hear the pain and acknowledge the pain of those who feel as if this settlement does not reflect their history. I do hope that their time will come to tell their history and have that acknowledged. For those who are not part of any settlement and feel as if their history doesn’t have a chance to be heard, I do think that is something for us as a House to consider—how those alternative histories can be acknowledged and heard.

Also, mentioning the concerns about the amount of redress left for claimants and that this process may create bias towards Ngāti Rangi as mana whenua—the committee really considered those issues and wanted to, I think, in the final outcome, express the view that this is not intended to create a bias towards Ngāti Rangi as mana whenua and acknowledge that there are, indeed, multiple mana whenua and more settlements coming. The issue in terms of the concern, when there’s a limited pool of money, that enough may not be left for others—from the Greens’ perspective, you know, the pool of money has always been a problem, and that’s not the fault of Ngāti Rangi. I think their negotiation—they should be proud of the work that they’ve done, and the pressure should always be on the Crown and this country to acknowledge the huge generosity of mana whenua in accepting these settlements. It is on us to make sure that nobody is at a disadvantage as the result of any of the settlements.

So, again, just to finally acknowledge the many years of work and the generations of people that have been harmed by the actions of this House and those who have passed before we got to this point—the Greens are, with all of the caveats, happy to acknowledge the huge effort and the amazing leadership of Ngāti Rangi in getting us to this point. Kia ora.

JO HAYES (National): Tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e ōku whānau o Ngāti Rangi. Nau mai, haere mai ki te rā whakahirahira.

[Thank you. Greetings to you, my family from Ngāti Rangi. I bid you a warm welcome on this important day.]

It is with great pleasure that I stand to take a call in the second reading of the Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill. I want to acknowledge Che Wilson and his team from Ngāti Rangi for the work that they have done in this settlement claims process. I must admit—like the rest of my colleagues have articulated in the House—when we went to the hearings in Ōhākune, yes, Koro Ruapehu was over the top of us, and he stayed there all day, watching us and making sure that the process that was being done in that whare was being done correctly. I don’t know about the rest of my colleagues, but I felt rather at ease with the whole thing—nice and warmed up—and it was great.

About this time in the speaking order, you know, it’s always difficult to say some lovely words around claims settlement bills when you’re so far down the speaking order list, but in my contribution today, I want to actually focus a little bit on some of the history of Ngāti Rangi and some of the atrocities that happened to them that actually brought us to this day. Whilst I hear what Jan Logie and the rest of our colleagues have said in the House today—that there is not enough money to be able to compensate the atrocities that actually affected Ngāti Rangi—I mean, that’s how it is for the time being; however, you know, what is given over for the Treaty claims, whether it be land or money, I know that the iwi will do well by it and will grow their economic base.

But, as I said, I just want to traverse a little bit of some of the history of Ngāti Rangi and the amount of land that they lost—63,000 acres in 1900 to 13,500 acres today. That is absolutely a shameful past, and we should never ever let that happen again. When you lose that much land, that much economic base, it’s no wonder that self-sustainability for Ngāti Rangi, when it came to their rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga of their many taonga, was adversely affected. So I think that a lot of the loyalty that Ngāti Rangi gave to the Crown at that time in their history, went unanswered by the Crown. When we look at the number of leases that the Crown took away from Ngāti Rangi, or paid minimal rent for, eventually taking land completely, the leased lands noted for today, or the case in point, is the Murimotu district case.

Let’s also have a look at the use of public works and scenery preservation to acquire Ngāti Rangi lands and blocking access to significant wāhi tapu—these are just other examples. The failure to pay compensation for land compulsorily taken for the Main Trunk Line; the non-return of vested lands—namely the Ōhūtu No. 8 block; the Tongariro National Park; Matua maunga Ruapehu—that was part of our national park; significant blocks of Ngāti Rangi land taken by the Crown; and Rangipō North No. 8 block, known as tūpuna wāhi tapu lands Te Wai-ā-Moe, Paretetaitonga, and Te Ara ki Paretetaitonga—all taken. All taken by the Crown.

The damage to the Ngāti Rangi lands from the planting of pinus contorta—a weed—and I remember when I was doing my degree at Massey University, my science degree, one of the things that we had to do as students was go up to the plateau and pull out pinus contorta weeds to try and make room for growth that should be there of right; and also the New Zealand Defence Force lands at Waiōuru—all of these things were done by the Crown, almost, to Ngāti Rangi. Of course, we cannot forget Te Awa o Whangaehu, the Tongariro power station and Eastern Diversion, the loss of Te Reo Māori, the impact of socio-economic well-being on whānau, the loss of jobs, housing; all of those things are a history that should never be forgotten as we move into the future. I wanted to put that into the Hansard in this House so it will never be forgotten, because in years to come when Joe Average out there on the street sees all the beautiful development of the lands of Ngāti Rangi, they will need to know how that all came about, and that’s why I put it to the Hansard of today.

However, today, we are one committee of the whole and a third reading away from the end of your settlement journey, Ngāti Rangi. Ngāti Rangi whānau have spoken at the select committee hearings, you’ve spoken through the numerous reports, the kōrero that’s been written, the histories that have been written for Ngāti Rangi, and it’s all down on record for the world to see.

The advisers, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and the select committee—we’ve all done our work and we’ve all come together. Ministers have worked together—the Hon Andrew Little and the Hon Chris Finlayson—to get to this point. The amendments have been completed, as was said by our chair, Rino Tirikatene. All of that work has been done, and now we wait for the committee of the whole House and the third reading.

As I stand here, as the Hon Ron Mark has said in his contribution, we stand here often in all of these claims settlement bills, and we hear and we read and we speak about the atrocities; we speak about not enough compensation. Yet we try hard and we look at the way that iwi can grow their economic base from what we are able to settle in their settlements.

So, as we continue to talk through this today, we need to be, I suppose, mindful that our contributions do need to be kept short in the second reading so we can hurry up and get to the third reading, and then the bill needs to go to the Governor-General to sign off for Royal assent.

So I am humbled again that another one of my iwi are here in the House today and they’re getting their claims settlement bill through this House. I’m proud of the work that you have all done. I sit up there and I am in awe of all the mahi that you do, not just in this but what you do at home as well. For your knowledge, my mother was brought up by Karaitiana Karaitiana—te Whare Pono o Karaitiana—on the awa o Whanganui, and that is my home side as well from my mother. So, without any further ado, I’m proud to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. E te iwi, Ngāti Rangi, tēnei te mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa kua tae mai i runga i te karanga o te rā—te pānui tuarua o tā koutou pire, o tā tātou pire, nō reira ōku rau rangatira mā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. To the members of this House, greetings. To the people of Ngāti Rangi, I extend warm greetings to you all who have answered the call of the day—the second reading of your bill, of our bill. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I greet you, one and all.]

I’m pleased to rise in supporting the second reading of the Ngāti Rangi Claims Settlement Bill; I’m pleased, as a representative of the Tairāwhiti, to stand in honour of the second reading of Ngāti Rangi. Can I just acknowledge, for those who have travelled down here, and to remind members of the House, that we are talking about Ngāti Rangi who are based in the western and southern foothills of Mount Ruapehu. The area of interest includes Ōhākune, Waiōuru, and borders on Raetihi. Some would call it the venture capitalist, tourism capital of Aotearoa New Zealand, where many people come to enjoy the beautiful slopes of Ruapehu and of, of course, the lovely manaakitanga we receive from Ōhākune, Raetihi, and, of course, we had the Hon Mr Ron Mark talk about the military readiness of Waiōuru.

For those who are here and maybe those who are listening at home, it’s just timely to remind us that the second reading is to assure the House that the bill has been thoroughly scrutinised through the Māori Affairs Committee. As a member of that select committee, and all previous speakers, we have attested to the fact that we’ve had 26 submissions on this bill, of which seven were heard up in Ōhākune. It’s important to assure the House that submitters were listened to, that where we made technical amendments, they were made. It’s in that regard that I just want to touch on a couple of proposed amendments that the select committee have brought to the House, and make some comments on that.

The first is the Taonga Tūturu Protocol, and the Chair has touched on that, the cross-agency instrument called the Whakaaetanga Tiaki Taonga. And this reminds me of a former colleague who helped facilitate this negotiation, Che Wilson, in our time with the Department of Labour many, many years ago, coming in for his expertise in actually getting Crown agencies to work together. It’s a challenge. It was a challenge back in the early 90s, and it remains a challenge today.

So I want to acknowledge Che Wilson and the negotiators for the hard work in getting and bringing forth this particular amendment to their settlement bill. So ngā mihi ki a koe. I want to acknowledge that he was also only a few weeks ago a chief judge of the largest matatini just down the road here, at the Cake Tin. Now, I won’t make a comment on who finally won, because there were about 38 judges, but let’s just say we love to share the love around the country from the Tairāwhiti. So I mihi to my colleague the Hon Peeni Henare as we travel to Tāmaki-makau-rau in 2021. Back to the bill—back to the bill.

The other amendment is, of course, the amendment to the Karioi Forest, and so I want to acknowledge the work in achieving amendments to accurately give Ngāti Rangi forestry licence to perform and benefit from the fact that they now have shares in a forest. Of course, that is another economic enabler for the people of Ngāti Rangi.

The other area I wanted to touch on is, obviously, the dissenters to the bill. Of course, there are always going to be people who believe that this is not the right way, and I’m glad particularly in acknowledging Uenuku Charitable Trust, who realised that because Ngāti Rangi is progressing, their own rights and interests are protected. I just want to acknowledge them in this second reading.

It is important to acknowledge the hard work of the Māori Affairs Committee. To all the officials; Parliamentary Counsel Office, which actually drafts the legislation; of course Te Arawhiti officials; and of course our own clerks of the Māori Affairs Committee; to all our members, who work collaboratively on the Māori Affairs Committee so that we can ensure that Treaty bills pass through this House in an expedient way: I commend this bill to the House.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): E karanga hoki au ki ngā tūpuna, ki ngā uri o Ngāti Rangi, ki a koutou katoa—nau mai, hoki mai, haere mai.

[I add my voice of welcome to the ancestors and the descendants of Ngāti Rangi, to you all I extend a warm welcome.]

I have been sitting quietly in the back benches but ever so mindful of my whanaunga sitting above me. I was just seated over here and have been for the duration of the kōrero this afternoon—but also ever so mindful and present for the duration of the kōrero over the decades. At the first reading, I addressed the House on the significance of the importance of the acknowledgment of the history, the acknowledgments of the Crown to our people of Ngāti Rangi, and the apology. Today, the second reading of this bill is focused very much on an explanation of the substance of the bill, its principles, and the purpose of the bill.

As one of the last speakers and with the very short call that I have, most has been traversed; however, I wish to briefly recap the navigable course over the decades, over the century: 1840, Ngāti Rangi signed the Treaty of Waitangi; throughout the 1860s and 1870s Ngāti Rangi, understandably, aligned with the Crown, portraying tino rangatiratanga—sovereignty—but also a strategic positioning for survival. Ngāti Rangi is strong and will continue to remain strong in the recognition of its special relationship with other of our iwi and also with the Crown. In the 1890s, Ngāti Rangi aligned with Te Kotahitanga to assert and protect one’s own interests. And then, over the last 28 years, has been the course, navigating towards the third and final reading of the bill—the agreement in principle, signed 15 March 2017; the deed of settlement, 10 March 2018; the first reading, 9 August 2018; and here I stand today at the second reading.

It is a privilege to stand to address as uri of Ngāti Rangi in this House, but I’m also mindful of the role that I carry now as a Crown representative and agent. Some 26 submissions were heard at the foot of Te Mana—at Te Mana o Te Tapu—Koro Ruapehu. And sitting there listening to those making a submission—17 in support, four dissenting, three still uncertain, but those of us very sure that the stories that were being heard were at the foot of Matua te Mana. And there in that presence were the stories of our tūpuna that we carried with us. I don’t have time to traverse the detail in terms of amendments. I sat on the select committee with Māori Affairs at the time. I now sit and am a member of the Regulations Review Committee. I will be seeking leave to be able to address this House again at the third reading of this bill to see its final passage through.

However, I note that there were some 36 amendments—some typographical, some relatively technical—but there was one that was of significant substance, and that was around the customary fisheries. Reference has been made to clause 128 of the bill. This bill, Ngāti Rangi, you will have a copy; this is yours. But the Regulations Review Committee recommended that there be a significant amendment proposed, and that was around ensuring that there was no need to reference it within your bill. However, the significant reference was ensuring that the Minister of Fisheries has that particular responsibility to engage and take heed of the advice and also for Ngāti Rangi to be part of those decisions around clause 128.

We prepare notes—we have them as a guiding tool as we speak—but the difficulty is that time is curtailing my opportunity to address you all further. I will seek leave at the third reading, and in commending this bill to the House, I’m ever so mindful that, again, Ngāti Rangi you have come to the Whare. Your presence remains with us until this goes through to its final reading. I commend this bill to the House. Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tā te mea kua huaina mai ētahi o ō tāua hoa mahi i tōku ingoa, e tika ana me tū au ki te whakahoki atu i ngā kōrero ki tō tātou Whare i te rā nei. E tautoko mārika ana ahau i ngā kōrero me ngā mihi i tukuna atu ki a Ngāti Rangi kua tae ora mai ki roto i tō tātou Whare me te pānuitanga tuarua o tēnei pire.

Kua kōrero mai wētahi o ngā mema o Te Whare nei, mō wētahi panonitanga, wētahi whakarerekētanga ki roto i te pire nei. Kua rangona ngā taringa o te Rōpū Whiriwhiri i Ngā Take Māori i wētahi kōrero e kaha tautoko nei i te huarahi e whāia nei e Ngāti Rangi, ko ētahi atu he hanga rerekē ngā kōrero. Nā, ko te āhua nei, i noho ngātahi a Ngāti Rangi me te Minita tatū i ngā kerēme e pā ana ki te Tiriti o Waitangi; kua āta kōrero rātou tahi, ko te āhua nei kua tau ki tēnei o ngā pire kei mua i te aroaro o Te Whare i te rā nei.

Ko ētahi o ngā take—ehara i te mea hou ki a tāua te Māori—e pā ana ki tēnei pire, he āhua ōrite nei ki te nuinga o ngā pire tatū i ngā take e pā ana ki Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Ko ētahi e meangia ana, e hē ana te kōrero, ko ētahi e mea atu ana nō mātou kē te mana motuhake o taua wāhi, o taua kaupapa rānei; nō reira i te rā nei kua kite atu ahau ki roto i ngā tuhinga o te pire nei, ko ngā wawata o Ngāti Rangi kua tae mai nei.

Nā, kua whai huarahi anō te Minita mō ngā take nei ki te āta whakarongo, me te āta noho ngātahi ki wētahi o ngā rōpū e whai pānga ana ki tēnei o ngā pire, nō reira i te wā nei ko Ngāti Rangi ka noho mai ki runga, e hiahia ana ki te whakatutuki i wā rātou kōrero ki roto i tēnei pire. Nō reira horekau he kōrero i tua atu i tēnei: ka tautoko mārika ahau i ngā kōrero kei roto i te pire, me te hiahia kia anga atu te titiro ki te pānuitanga tuatoru o tēnei pire, ko reira whakatutuki ai te wāhanga ki tēnei Whare. Me te kōrero anō ki a tātou e Te Whare: ka mutu te pānuitanga tuatoru ko reira ka tīmata ai ngā mahi ki te whakatutuki i ngā moemoeā o rātou mā.

Nō reira ki a Ngāti Rangi, kei konei Te Whare ki te āwhina atu i a koutou me tērā o ngā whāinga; mōhio ana au kei roto i ō koutou ringaringa te mana motuhake, te rangatiratanga ki te whakatutuki i aua mahi, heoi anō ko tā mātou, hei tautoko, hei tautoko i ngā whāinga o Ngāti Rangi ki roto i ngā tau kei mua i a tātou. Ko te hiahia kia āta tirohia e mātou te Kāwanatanga, e tātou o Te Whare nei, ngā tū āhuatanga kei roto i ngā pire pēnei nei nā. Kua kōrero ahau ki wētahi o aua āhuatanga; i kōrero mai te mema, a Harete Hipango i ētahi atu o ngā kōrero kei roto—ehara i te mea e whakahē ana engari ko tāku e hiahia ana kia kite atu i tētahi atu huarahi kia tutuki pai ai ngā kerēme o ia iwi, o ngā hapū puta noa i te motu whānui, ka whai pānga, ka whai mana anō rātou ki roto i ngā mahi o tēnei Whare, nā runga anō hoki i te rangimarie me te hiahia kia tau anō hoki te maungārongo ki runga i Te Tiriti o Waitangi me ngā pānga o te iwi Māori me te Karauna kei roto i tērā tū āhuatanga.

Nō reira ka nui tēnei māku. Kua tonoa mai e ōku hoa kia tū au ki te kōrero mō te take nei, nō reira e mihi atu nei ki a tātou, me te kī atu ki tōku tuahine nei, te mema mō Te Ikaroa-Rāwhiti āe, i toa a Ngā Tūmanako; āe, ka haere mai koutou ki runga i a au o Tāmaki-makau-rau ā tērā atu tau, me te hiahia ko reira anō ka tutū ai te puehu ki runga i te atamira o Te Matatini ki a tātou e ōku rangatira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Because some of our colleagues have mentioned me in passing, it is only fitting that I stand to respond to what is being said in our House today. I absolutely support the acknowledgments to Ngāti Rangi who have arrived at our House in good numbers for the second reading of this bill.

Some of the members of the House have talked about certain changes, some things that have been amended, in this bill. The Māori Affairs Committee has listened carefully to submissions that passionately support the direction that Ngāti Rangi is taking, as well as to those who have a different point of view. It looks as though Ngāti Rangi has sat down with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations; they have had good discussions to the point that we now have this bill before the House today.

There are some matters—and this is not new to us, to Māori—relating to this bill which are just like the majority of bills which pertain to the Treaty of Waitangi. There are those who dispute what is being claimed, who say that they are the rightful claimants of a particular place, of a particular grievance; so today I have found in the text of this bill, that the vision of Ngāti Rangi is evident.

The Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has also with prudence been available to listen to other groups who have an interest in this bill; therefore at this time it is the prerogative of Ngāti Rangi to promote their ambitions through this bill. Therefore, I have nothing more to add except to say: I absolutely support what is proposed in the bill, along with the wish that it proceed to its third reading and thereby bring to a conclusion the involvement of this House. And let us all be clear in the House: it is only when the third reading has been accomplished that the vision of those long gone, can begin to be realised.

I therefore say to Ngāti Rangi, the House is here to help you to reach your goals; I know that you have the mandate and the ability to bring this all to fruition, and that our task is to assist, to provide support for Ngāti Rangi to achieve its aims in the years to come. I trust that the provisions of bills like this are carefully weighed up by the Government, indeed by those of us in this House. I have touched on some of the relevant aspects; the honourable member Harete Hipango has referred to others—it is not that I disagree, but what I would like to see is a way forward which positively facilitates the resolution of claims by iwi and hapū throughout the country, and that they are afforded relevant and authoritative status in the dealings of this House as well as being treated with empathy and a genuine wish for peace to prevail in matters Treaty of Waitangi, as well as in dealings between Māori and the Crown.

That is enough from me on the matter. My colleagues requested that I speak on this matter, and I therefore greet all of us here. May I just mention to my sister, the member for Te Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, yes indeed, Ngā Tūmanako are the champions; yes, you will all descend on Tāmaki-makau-rau in two years where we expect to once again be thrilled by the Matatini stage. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you one and all.]

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. One of the great privileges in this House is when you get the opportunity to speak on a bill such as this on behalf of your colleague. Ian McKelvie, MP for Rangitikei, would normally be here and speaking but he is not in the House today.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

TODD MULLER: I acknowledge that, but I do want to acknowledge his connection to this process. So it has fallen to me to say a few words. I have not been, in any way, close to this journey or process—I am from Tauranga; MP for Bay of Plenty—and as I’ve sat here and listened to the kōrero this afternoon, I have some papers and notes and reflections that you get given.

My eyes were drawn to a news article from the Wanganui Chronicle, a couple of days after the deed of settlement was signed, that spoke to some of the events that occurred and, in particular, the comments and obligations of Che Wilson, the lead negotiator, whom I know personally. Our paths have crossed in different lives and different roles, but he is a man of much humility, fortitude, resilience, determination, and optimism. I was reflecting on the comments of the Wanganui Chronicle around how he spoke on that very, very important day and the messages that he imparted not only to his own people but, in my opinion, through them to the wider country. I would just like to reflect and honour them by repeating some of them today.

When he stood up, he first gave a snapshot of his people’s trauma during the past 178 years, and we’ve heard elements of that in the fine contributions by those who have spoken before me. He talked of Koro Ruapehu being added to the National Park in 1907; the Public Works Act taking the land around Ōhākune for a rubbish dump, sewerage pond, road, and metal pit; the Karioi forest established by proclamation; waterways surrounding the mountain, 26 of them diverted to add water to the Tongariro power scheme; a piece of their zone 1 becoming the army’s principal bombing range.

The Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations—in the spirit of the former Treaty negotiations Minister—stood up and apologised on behalf of the Crown for all of these, and other acts and omissions. But to me what is profoundly revealing about what this country can become was that Che Wilson stood up and said, “We must allow the apology to heal the pain”. Then he said that this was “a seedbed for the future” and presented a picture of two members of his iwi in 30 years’ time: “Mere and Tane would both have facial moko before they were 21. Tane would be the chief executive of the tribe, and of an inter-iwi investment company. He would travel the world and grow its assets. He would speak four languages, but only Māori at home with his children. Each whānau in the iwi would have people competent in the marae protocol. Marae would be upgraded and added to and relevant to everyday life.

The tribe’s papakāinga would be internationally recognised and it would be a world authority on sustainable housing. Ngāti Rangi would be the hub for an indigenous volcanology centre and help run a world famous mountain park. Waiōuru would grow and become a centre for leadership training. The tribe’s land and water would be healthy, and its households would be warm loving and prosperous”.

Then Che Wilson said that his vision was that the people of Ngāti Rangi, by 2048, would be culturally competent and connected to the world. That is not a vision just for Ngāti Rangi. That, in my opinion, is a vision for this country. And Che Wilson, at a moment of immense humility, gave voice to a vision that we all can reflect on and, hopefully, in our small way, build towards. Tēnā koutou.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Associate Minister for Māori Development): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Tuatahi, mihi ana ki a koutou Ngāti Rangi i tae mai nei i tēnei wā i whakarangatira mātou i tēnei wā, tēnei te tino mihi ki a koutou.

[Firstly, greetings to you, all of Ngāti Rangi who have come here today and who honour us with your presence, warm greetings to you all.]

Can I just say to the previous speaker, Todd Muller, that was beautiful kōrero, and I acknowledge that type of kōrero that has come out. These types of debates always see the House come together for this type of kaupapa; so I acknowledge that. I get a bit disappointed that not enough of us attend the House in terms of these types of kaupapa—I’m not just talking about the other side, either. I think that it’s an important time to remember our people’s history and our people’s fight for justice and fight for the kaupapa. Can I say there’s been some great kōrero today.

I’m not sure if we’ve gone through all the negotiators, so I want to acknowledge those negotiators: first of all, the lawyers, because my great lawyer mate by me said, “Don’t forget those lawyers in the gallery there.” So I’ll start off with those lawyers and say mihi nui to Paranihia Walker and Nathan Milner: “Ngā mihi ki a kōrua.” To our negotiators: it’s a tough job; I know it’s a tough job—Cassandra Reid, Carl Wilson, Toni Waho, Kemp Dryden, Shar Amner; and, of course, the famous or infamous Che Wilson, who has just been getting some wonderful mihis today. I have to ask the question: if he hadn’t spent half of his time trying to destroy Māoris in the Labour Party, I mean how really well would the tribe have done? I mean, he was actually coming after the Speaker. But he does a tremendous job, our Che Wilson, in terms of balancing things out in terms of his own personal political party and, of course, his whakapapa. I mihi to you, brother. I feel like he’s whānau to me—his sister’s my receptionist at my marae, and his brother-in-law’s been part of my life for too many years, but lovely to have you along.

I think in these times—there’s no doubt, as I acknowledge Che and the work he’s done, but he would acknowledge too—there’s so many unsung heroes that have been part of that whole process who don’t get the recognition, who don’t get the acknowledgment but are there at your side in support of this type of kaupapa. That means so much to the tribe—means so much to the people. Twenty-eight years of negotiation—my goodness—and at the end of it what do we have? Today, we heard Ronnie Mark. Ronnie said today—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The Hon Ron Mark.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: My apologies, Mr Assistant Speaker. Quite right, the honourable—he’s always been my mate; that’s the problem. The honorary Ronnie Mark over there—that flash title, but the honorary Ronnie Mark talked about the graciousness of our people. So right—so right what the honorary Ronnie Mark talks about. What does that mean? Well, go back to when the Treaty settlement process started, go back to 1996 and Ngāi Tahu, go back to 1996 and Tainui, and understand the loss, at the time, of our people and what that was in economic terms. Well, I’ll tell you what that was in economic terms. That was $18 billion in economic terms—$18 billion of loss was estimated in terms of Ngāi Tahu. And what did they settle on? I’m just trying to remember. I think it was $170 million—$170 million?

Nuk Korako: Yep.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: It was $170 million. Nuk, you know. See, Nuk’s sitting on the right side today. Nuk always comes to this side when it comes to the kaupapa Māori stuff.

Tamati Coffey: It’s safer here—safer.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: He’s safer because he knows most of his mates can’t see him because most of them aren’t here, but we know he’s an integral part—the honorary member—of our Labour caucus. So it’s lovely to have Nuk on this side. You know this, though, Nuk—you know, what your people settled on. It was $170 million and the loss was $18 billion, and wider New Zealand doesn’t acknowledge that. Bob Māhuta settled—he was the first to settle, and he settled on the same number. Wider New Zealand doesn’t acknowledge that. It’s a travesty that this country has not acknowledged the contribution of Te Ao Māori in terms of the economic contribution we have made.

Māori could have bankrupted this country—Māori could have bankrupted this country, but what we’ve done is we’ve settled, we have been compliant. I know that the people in the audience and those that have been involved, like our good Assistant Speaker Adrian Rurawhe and others here, Kiritapu Allan, they know that at the start of the Treaty settlement process our people were rallying at the marae, “Don’t settle. Don’t be part of this process. You’re selling your people out.” Everywhere they were rallying. Tame Iti was the star of the show. We remember this, but we settled. We got involved because we knew that a little bit was always better than nothing—a little bit was always better than nothing. So I always mihi to our negotiators through this type of process, because I know how hard it is. I know how hard it is when you get called a sell-out. That goes with the territory, and if you can’t handle it, don’t get involved. You’ll get called that in the Treaty settlement process and in the political process, and again I mihi to all of the people who are here and who’ve been involved very much in this process.

I just think it’s great that we’re not even at the third reading yet and our people are here to tautoko, to celebrate the efforts in terms of what’s happened. Some parts of this bill—it’s just fantastic: in particular, the roles in terms of governance and management of their taonga and environment, especially decisions relating to the Whangaehu River and management of reserve sites. What a tremendous area—that acknowledgment that has been gained in this area, because this is what we strive for, isn’t it? We don’t want to just be a part of the whole solution; we want to be the solution.

This is what all tribes are striving to do around the country: be part of the set-up; work with councils, not be ignored by councils; be part of shaping a city’s destiny, not just the people’s destiny, a whole city’s destiny. I mihi to you, Che and your team, for this type of acknowledgment. And, of course, the commitment to cultural revitalisation through reo: wānanga, kōhanga reo, and te kura kaupapa o Ngāti Rangi—that cultural redress in this bill is incredibly important, because the reality is that some of our tribes have been devastated in terms of the loss of Reo Māori and the loss of identity. It’s been part of that whole process of decolonisation.

So this area will be led by our people who are so committed to Te Reo Māori—and it’s not easy. It’s not easy. I look forward to seeing how the tribe advances this, not just in the rohe, but for me, obviously, in the urban areas where many of their whanaunga have travelled to. How are they going to be incorporated in terms of this whole process? There are so many challenges that the tribe have in front of them, but I mihi to them on this day when they’ve come together to support this bill. We’re just about there, and, as they can see, they have a House that doesn’t come together too often, but we’re so happy that we can come together on kaupapa like this. Nō reira he hōnore nui ki te kōrero ki a tātou katoa; tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā anō tātou katoa.

[It has been a great privilege to speak to all here; I greet you, one and all.]

Bill read a second time.

Waiata

Bills

Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Amendment Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 13 February.

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act (continued)

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190 in the name of the Hon Dr David Clark to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments 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.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): I move that the local government regulatory amendment bill now be read a third time. I’m pleased to bring this bill before the House for its third reading. The bill is of a minor and technical nature—essentially, a repairs and maintenance bill for seven local—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. I don’t believe the member has read the name of the bill correctly. Can you read the motion once more.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Mr Assistant Speaker, the Local Electoral Matters Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No. You need to move it. “I move …”, and it is the Local Government Regulatory—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Systems Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Yes. So if you can—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Go from the top? OK. Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I thought I’d said that at the top. So, Mr Assistant Speaker, I move that the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill now be read a third time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Be now read a third time.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Kei te pai? I move, That the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m pleased to bring this bill before the House for its third reading. The bill is of a minor and technical nature—essentially, a repairs and maintenance bill for seven local government Acts. As such, it can be hard to find time in the parliamentary calendar for such bills, as there are always grander and more urgent matters to attend to than legislative maintenance. This was noted by the Productivity Commission in their 2014 report, Regulatory institutions and practices. They also noted, however, the importance of keeping regulatory systems up to date and fit for purpose.

Many of the changes in the bill will make local government more accessible to the public and make operation of the legislation by local authorities more efficient. I’d like to again acknowledge and thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their constructive work on this bill. The requirement for local authorities to ensure public notices are published online will make these notices more accessible. Many of us look online in the first instance when we want information. This requirement will reflect the reality of living in a digital world. We have retained the requirement for newspaper notices as this is still an important medium for many of our citizens to find public notices.

We’ve also removed the requirements for a local authority to send hard copies of various documents to the Secretary for Local Government, the Auditor-General, and the Parliamentary Library. These documents include a local authority’s long-term and annual plans, their annual report and summary, and ratings resolutions. These documents will still be publicly available online, but the cost of producing and sending the hard copies is reduced.

The new power for the Secretary for Local Government to create rules for the form of documents will ensure digital documents are made in accessible and consistent formats. This will make documents more accessible generally, but particularly for those with visual impairments. The consistency of format will also make it easier for comparison and analysis between documents.

We’ve aligned the definition of “working day” in the Local Government Act 2002 and the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 with the definition of “working day” in the Building Act 2004—another minor change, but for those navigating the processes governed by working days, it will make it easier to calculate and more efficient for the local authorities running processes with working day timing requirements.

One amendment that has garnered interest in the House is the principle to foster substantial and representative participation in local elections. We have inserted the principle into the Local Electoral Act 2001. Local authority chief executives will now be responsible for ensuring this principle is supported leading up to and throughout the electoral cycle. Substantial representation means that the level of participation in a local election is significant enough to be considered reflective of the public will.

Representative participation means that the electoral participation should reflect that diversity and make-up of the electorate in characteristics such as age, cultural background, ethnicity, and economic status. Achieving substantial and representative participation in local elections is a worthy goal, given the impact of local government on everyday life for New Zealanders.

This bill is not the largest or most complex bill before the House, but it’s still an important and necessary bill, and so, for the final time, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Oh, thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m happy to endorse National’s support of this bill, which is for another excellent piece of work under the previous National Government. It is a tidy-up bill. Regulatory systems bills are just that: a tidy-up bill—modernisation, clarifying some slightly uncertain clauses, perhaps, and just generally tweaking and making smoother and better the process of the various acts that are contained in this bill.

The Dog Control Act has been talked around a lot, and all that simply does is add a schedule to the Dog Control Act. It sounds simple, but for any new organisation which provides services around disability assist dogs, then having their name added to the Dog Control Act, giving them statutory treatment and protection, is certainly smoothing out that process, because otherwise they would endlessly have to come back to the House by way of an amendment bill, which is a much more clunky process.

In a nutshell, I guess that is the benefit of a regulatory systems amendment bill: the House can consider and select committee can consider a number of statutes. If I just very quickly—I’m not going to go through them all, but the Local Government Act is amended in a couple of iterations, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act is amended, the Local Government (Rating) Act is amended, and so on. We are very happy to support this bill and very happy to commend the bill at its third reading.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker, and thank you again for this opportunity to speak at the third reading of this bill. The previous speakers have already talked about what seems to be the rather mundane nature of this bill, and it has been fleshed out over the course of this bill—the true impact, if you like, that these relatively minor changes can have in a community. One in particular, and I know it was mentioned only very briefly in the two contributions before mine, is, of course, the fostering of participation in local elections. I think that of all of the parts in this particular bill—and there are several parts—this one in particular is the one that gives me the most excitement. Why? It’s because as Minister for Youth, this is the common theme that comes through my office: how do we engage our young people in civics?

We also heard it from those with disabilities who struggle to simply participate, whether it be as a candidate or someone who wants to simply come along to a rally, to engage in a debate or in a political rally. They find they are left out. Now, while it may sound rather mundane and minor in making such a change, I think another clear part that I like about this particular clause—clause 10—is that, actually, there is a line of accountability for this particular task. I know some people think that it should be the task of those like the Electoral Office or the Electoral Commission to make sure that people are far more engaged in this space, but this one clearly says that there is a responsibility upon the council—namely, the secretary of the said council—whereby there is an accountability there. It’s easy to say something, but, actually, to follow it up and make sure that there’s an accountability there is, I think, an important part—one that gives confidence to those who wish to participate in this particular process—because without that, then it’s simply just words on paper. It’s simply just words that mean well but actually have no follow-through. Really, of all of the clauses, that’s the one in particular that I really endorse in my contribution today.

I mentioned it in another part of the process that this bill has travelled on, whereby a select committee has heard the submission by Mojo Mathers about the barriers that are confronted by those with disabilities who wish to participate in electoral matters, in local government matters, in central government matters. The submissions on that particular bill were absolutely astounding. I don’t say that in jest or lightly, because as an able-bodied person and someone who’s been able to fully participate in Government matters locally and centrally, we take that for granted. We really do. The fact that, if I recall correctly, in the last election—and I ask your forbearance for this minor digression. I was thinking about some of the debates that were entered into and scheduled for candidates running. Six of the 10 debates were held at a venue with stairs—no other access for the disabled community. We take it for granted that I got there and thought I was talking to constituents and locals about matters that related to them, and now, upon reflection, I realise just how poor that process was.

So while it might sound like I’m going on about this particular bill, it is a very important one, as I’ve already mentioned. It is important. Some of the other matters that are covered by this particular bill, which have already been canvassed, are, of course, the—

Hon Jacqui Dean: What’s the matter—doesn’t this Government have much business?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I’d like to thank that member for that interjection, because she’s going to see very soon that this House and this Government are going to deliver on what the people of this country have been waiting for. I don’t say that lightly, because they waited for nine years, and what did they get? What did they get? They got deficits—they got deficits. In fact, if there’s one thing that the last Government can claim, it’s to open the Waterview Tunnel. What a joke, because that started under the Labour Government. So, you know, it’s instances like that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I encourage the honourable Minister to come back to the bill. Thank you.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Look, some of the other matters that are covered in here—and while that side might laugh at how mundane they are, indeed, the fact is that you can make a public notice far more accessible and far more transparent to those who see it relevant. While that side, being cast in the Stone Age, have only read notices in the paper—well, the world has moved on. Papers aren’t the only way that people receive public notices. In fact, the readership is declining, which probably works in favour of the National Party, actually, because it stops people from getting involved, but I digress.

I think that particular clause 2 around public notices and allowing a far wider reach in terms of service of public notices—and it also tidies up some of the language in there—is a step in the right direction. As the father of a 22-year-old son—and I’ve mentioned him several times in the House now. If the notice was posted on Fortnite or on PlayStation 4, he would probably read it. So there were questions as the process of this bill was going through the House about “Well, what kind of platform are we trying to talk about?”

Hon Andrew Little: It can’t be brand-specific, though.

Hon PEENI HENARE: Ha, ha! No, that’s right. But the internet, more broadly speaking, is one pathway to do that, but we’ve also got to remember, too—and I’m going to give away a secret to the members on the other side of the House: if you go on to a gaming forum for Medal of Honour, you can speak to approximately 3,500 New Zealand gamers on a Sunday afternoon. That’s what I do. They engage with me, and they all vote in local body elections. I’ll be one to make sure that I actually share the public notices and encourage them to get involved in local government.

Hon Ron Mark: What’s your gamer tag?

Hon PEENI HENARE: I can’t give that away; there would be too many friend adds—probably from that side of the House! But it goes to the purpose of defining what “internet” is and exactly how we access the public and share these public notices. It’s easy to say “the internet”, but the PlayStation 4 is one of those things. Gaming online, on the internet—

Hon Jacqui Dean: That member is talking far too much about PlayStations.

Hon PEENI HENARE: If that member would like to challenge me on the PlayStation 4, I’m up for it. Look—

Hon Jacqui Dean: I haven’t got the time.

Hon PEENI HENARE: I wonder if she knows what a PlayStation 4 is. Actually, she probably still uses an iPhone 1, but I digress.

The public notice clause is a particularly good one. One of the other ones, and it was mentioned in the debate as the progress of this bill went through the House, was, of course, the good work by the Hon Ruth Dyson around the rates rebate. We want to acknowledge her not just for her contribution in this particular bill but, of course, for her contribution throughout her entire career.

Just for the record, my gaming tag is “Rekless”—R-E-K-L-E-S-S—“_Hua”—H-U-A. Add me up and I’ll beat any other National Party member, like I did in the 2017 election.

It is my duty, indeed, as somebody who sat through many of the submissions, to thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their work on this particular bill. Since I’ve been digressing into the realm of the internet and PlayStation 4, this Saturday is the first Māori Fortnite gaming platform. This Saturday in Tāmaki-makau-rau, any of the members of this House—

Tim van de Molen: At least have a go at talking about the bill.

Hon PEENI HENARE: This is relevant to the interjections from that side of the House, which I understand are fair game, the last time I checked. This is an awesome way to connect with young people. Bringing it back to the bill: Fortnite on Saturday—all the Māoris join up. There’s $10,000 to be won. I commend this bill to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Hudson, I hand the challenge to you now.

BRETT HUDSON: Well, Peeni Henare, the speaker that has just resumed his seat, has just told the House that he’s reckless. Well, I just want to point out that that simply makes him completely representative of the Government. Now, this bill makes some simple changes, whether it’s around dog control, encouraging participation in local government elections, or fixing the mix-up, the mess, that the member when she was a member of the Opposition made of their rates rebate bill when they finally made it into Government. We are just fixing up that little mess. The bill makes small but important changes, and we support it. Because we support it, there is little point in us taking up a great deal of the House’s time. If the Government members wish to filibuster this bill, as they did all of the bills last night, then let them. It is simply a reflection of their lack of confidence in their own Government and the changes they are seeking to make. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to rise and speak to this amazing bill, the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. I say amazing—and deserving of full and complete explanation and discussion—because it was indeed a bill that commenced under the steerage of, one, the Hon Anne Tolley, as I understand, and another member who’s sitting in the Opposition benches, who really should take the opportunity to speak in fullness to this bill—another person who also was heavily involved in the groundwork for this bill, and I refer to the Hon Jacqui Dean, who’s sitting over there. I know that she dedicated most of last term to this work, and the studiousness and the diligence that she put into it is reflected in every word of this bill. It is therefore only befitting that we acknowledge the sterling work of the Hon Anne Tolley and Jacqui Dean, both of the National Party and former members who held ministerial positions in the last administration—to actually stand up and take some credit for this stunning piece of legislation.

Of course, like a lot of things that the National Government started, they never quite got stuff finished, and then there was, of course, the stuff they got finished that we wish they’d never ever started, but that’s another whole topic, and I won’t even go into the housing problem, will I.

Maureen Pugh: Lucky. Otherwise you’d have nothing to talk about.

Hon RON MARK: But this piece of legislation never—and Maureen Pugh, from the National Party, is another erstwhile colleague and friend of mine from the local government family, our local government whanaunga of former mayors. There have been a few former mayors in this House, and I know that Lawrence Yule also—not just a former mayor but also a former president of the Local Government New Zealand—has a great interest in this piece of legislation. No doubt his fingerprints are on the back of every page here, because this bill deals to the things that Lawrence Yule had to contend with when he was the president for, I think, about three terms of Local Government New Zealand. Of course, then there was the other National Party member in the last Government’s ranks: Jonathan Naylor, mayor of Palmerston North at that time. I actually take with some pride the fact that there are so many members of Parliament across the House who have local government experience and have been able to in some way, shape, or form contribute to pieces of local government legislation that have gone through. It does actually beg the question how the heck did Nick Smith ever get the job as Minister for Local Government, because most of what that member did was—he never seemed to have much involvement here. It was a bit of a disaster.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I’ll just remind the Minister to make sure he will call the member by his full and proper name. Thank you.

Hon RON MARK: The Hon Nick Smith—yes, of course. As I cast my mind back through local government legislation such as this—

Tim van de Molen: Stop talking to the bill—get to PlayStations.

Hon RON MARK: —and I notice that this is the third reading—yes, young man. I can’t remember your name, but I’ll just say I will get to this point. But it is worth acknowledging the sterling effort of people behind the scenes, not just Jacqui Dean and Anne Tolley but also David Carter, who was a Minister of Local Government; Chris Tremain—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): All three members, who have titles. Thank you.

Hon RON MARK: —the Hon Chris Tremain; the Rt Hon David Carter; and there have been a couple of others in there as well who have all held the local government portfolio. Yet it took until the Hon Anne Tolley came to the seat that these issues, which are technical by nature and small when some people look at them but are actually important—let’s take one. Let’s talk about the areas that my erstwhile colleague, the Hon Peeni Henare, was speaking of, where the changes that have been made with respect to public notices are a small thing, one what might suggest, but if we look at how technology and media and the means by which we communicate have changed, I guess it does stand out that it took the Hon Anne Tolley and her coming into the job to recognise that local government needed to change the way in which it communicated.

If we look at the issues that come before local government—and Maureen Pugh and I know this, as former mayors—everything that we’re meant to do in local government, almost everything, has to be publicly notified, and sometimes that’s a very expensive exercise for very little feedback. We would often lament that publically notifying our annual plan, or the long-term plan, or even that great, wondrous 35-year plan that got inflicted on us by the Hon Nick Smith in his reforms when he took all the well-beings out and left us with that—one would advertise them in the conventional way that was required by the Act, by public notice, not acknowledging the large numbers of New Zealanders who don’t read the newspaper.

They might read the front cover. They might skim through the sports section in the back. They might look at the births and deaths. But do they wade through the New Zealand Herald looking at every public notification, particularly those from the local councils? No. They do not. They probably—if they read the courts columns—are looking at their devices, and they’re taking advertisements that are popping up there, maybe when they’re trying to play solitaire. Or maybe when they are on their Xbox or their 360—and it’s interesting to know that the Hon Peeni Henare has noticed the same thing I’ve noticed when I’m gaming. When I’m gaming I see advertisements all the time coming up on Xbox, coming up on—I don’t have a PS4.

So if one wants to reach into the youth stream, why would one not communicate through the mediums that young people are utilising day to day, and some of them for many, many hours on end? I have to wonder, as a former mayor, how much reach I would have had with the youth when I was trying to encourage young people to stand for local government. How much more reach might I have gained if we’d been able to access other media or been required to put our notices out through other means and through digital means? I think this is probably a very understated change but a very important and very significant one.

Introducing a definition of the internet site into the Local Government Act so that council websites are placed where the public can find them—these are important things. But giving that opportunity to use the power of the internet and the power of other mediums is extremely important. I’ve got to congratulate the Governance and Administration Committee team for putting so much work in behind that. The giving of powers to looking at the Local Electoral Act and recognising—and by the way, the Hon Peeni Henare, if you’re listening, my gamer tag is Norkram2. Norkram is actually “Ron Mark” spelt backwards, if you forget that, but I’ll look for you next time, and maybe we can publish some public notices there for local government in the time it takes us to get Royal assent.

But the Local Electoral Act—putting the responsibility with the chief executives rather than the electoral officers to try and facilitate and foster greater electoral participation I think is a very, very smart move. I congratulate the Minister of Local Government, the former Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley, and the select committee for their wisdom in reaching into that space and recognising that, actually, often the electoral office doesn’t have the same vested interest or focus as chief executives. Putting the responsibility with the chief executives makes it apolitical, and it is the chief executive who has the continuity—some people come and go, but generally chief executives don’t. By putting it with chief executives, I think you’re going to get a higher level of conversation at the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM) conferences when they start discussing how they might do this.

It is an important thing to recognise that we have to encourage more participation in local government. We have to encourage a higher level of voting. I think that the current voting patterns—particularly in metropolitan New Zealand—in local government are, astonishingly and sadly, very low. They tend to be higher in rural and provincial areas. Maybe it’s because in rural and provincial areas, people take a greater interest in what’s happening in their infrastructure than the metropolitan areas do—I don’t know.

But the fact that the responsibility will rest and lie with the chief executives is, we in New Zealand First think, a very, very good thing. It’s a smart move, and the members of the committee and the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, should be congratulated, and I have to acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley for moving the legislation in this direction.

Enough from me. I think it’s a great piece of legislation, and it’s very good to see it moving through the House. But I do hope that the National Party speakers from hence on in give it the credit and the respect that it’s due—particularly for Jacqui Dean and the Hon Anne Tolley.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I’m pleased with the progress of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. I would like, firstly, to thank the members on the Governance and Administration Committee. My colleagues worked very hard. Although some of them may be very good at gaming, nevertheless, they worked hard. Particularly, I would like to thank the chair, Mr Brett Hudson, for his leadership and outstanding work.

So this is not a major policy bill. Nevertheless, it’s a very important bill, simply because such bills are important vehicles for us to improve and update our government regulatory regimes. As I said before, New Zealand has a very large and complex regulatory sector made up of 200 or so regulatory regimes, and these regimes, of course, need to evolve along with the development of technology, democracy, ethics, or the society as a whole. So we need to keep updating and improving such regimes, and such bills would be really good to do that. Outdated and poorly conceived regulations can create unnecessary costs, complexity, and ambiguity, and then they would create problems for our regulators and regulatory bodies. So we need to keep updating and improving our regulations to make sure that they serve our public interest.

The select committee made a number of changes. I mentioned some of them in a previous speech at the second reading, and so there are many other good changes. I will not delve into those changes; I am here simply to commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on behalf of the Green Party in the third reading of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. As has been stated, this is an omnibus bill that will make minor and technical changes to the legislative framework that councils operate under. It’s possibly not the most interesting bill for people listening—I’m looking at the faces of the people in the gallery—but we have had people make the connection to gaming, so it’s amazing what can be brought into a debate on something that’s minor and technical.

I will do my best—I can’t promise it will be interesting—to go through some of the points that are covered by this legislation. It was started by the last Government, I understand, and it has been considered by the Government and Administration Committee. It amends seven principal local government Acts, which are all administered by the Department of Internal Affairs. The select committee made some amendments to the bill that have been confirmed by this House, and some of the points in it are that it makes changes to the Dog Control Act. I understand, from a previous speaker, that it extends to organisations that weren’t listed and covered by that. But also what I found a little more interesting was that it requires local authorities to make reports publicly available on the number of registered dogs and dog-related complaints received and prosecutions taken. Those reports have been required to be compiled before, but they’ve pretty much been kept in-house, and so this bill requires councils to make those reports public.

Personally, as somebody who has a concern for animal welfare and who believes that the conversation around how we care for our animals is a really important conversation, I welcome that information being put into the public sphere so that the communities can actually find out if there’s a real problem in a particular community and start engaging in how they can be part of the solution. You know, as part of the Green Party, we have a lot of passionate members right throughout the country who care a huge amount about animal welfare, who would really welcome that information to be able to help care for our animals in the community. So that’s welcome.

Another thing, which has had a little bit of discussion, or possibly quite a bit of conversation, actually, considering the significance, in the bill—but it is actually significant—is that it requires the chief executive of the local authority to be responsible for facilitating and fostering representative and substantial electoral participation. When we know that we have a real issue with declining participation at a local government level, which undermines the legitimacy of local government when it’s a minority, in some areas, of people who are voting of those who are eligible, it raises questions about the legitimacy of the representation at a community level. So it is really, really important that we do more to actually make sure that people understand the importance of the decisions that local government makes and that they understand how our democracy operates at that level.

I was having a conversation with some people recently and letting them know that they can contact their local councillors. If they’ve contacted their council to complain about something and they haven’t had a response that they’re happy with, actually, part of the role of their local councillor is that they can contact their local councillor and say “Hey, look. I was in contact with this person about the rubbish all over my neighbourhood. I haven’t heard anything back.”, and they can intervene on their behalf. So it’s about kind of making decisions to represent the community, but it’s also to have your advocate to make sure that the things that need to happen in your community can get done. These people had no idea that that was part of the job of their local councillor.

So I think we’ve got so much more work to do to help people understand the role of local government and how it all works, and even when it comes to elections—and I’ll own up to this. In years past, when I’ve looked at voting at a local government level, I’ve really struggled at times to know where to go to find out information about the candidates and to know if, actually, I think they would be a good representative for me or not, and I’ve kind of gone through those booklets that they have and they put out, where there’s a little photo of somebody and they’ve written maybe 100 to 150 words. That’s been my experience of their accessible information, and it’s not enough to go on. I’ve looked for key words. If somebody’s said “green”, I’m like “Yeah, OK.”, but who knows? There’s lots of different definitions of “green”, as we’ve heard from the other side of the House—“green” and “washing” do tend to go together at times.

So I really think this provision is really important. There is so much more that we can do to help make it easier for people to find out who the people standing are and to understand what they’re offering for their council, and to help get that out into a range of different communities.

Hon Ron Mark: How can 48 percent of the population determine the direction? That’s the turnout.

JAN LOGIE: Yeah, exactly. For there to be real legitimacy, we want a majority. We want it, actually, to be as many people as possible, as close to 100 percent of people who are engaging in this and have the ability to be represented and have their voice heard in the local government process.

What I would also mention with this is that it’s particularly important for communities who—often in our democratic processes, there are some people who know how to use the systems a little bit more. There are quite a few reports that talk about the squeaky wheel, and they tend to be a certain group of ratepayers who are quite comfortable with speaking up and writing letters; and the writing letters bit may indicate the age group that we’re talking about. We need to go broader than that. Their voices are important, but it should be a voice amongst others. So the Green Party very definitely supports this provision in this bill to actually make sure that more work is done to facilitate and foster representative and substantial electoral participation.

Another change I will touch on in this bill which is, I think, worth noting is that it makes a change to the Rates Rebate Act. I’ll also add my voice of acknowledging the work of Ruth Dyson, previously, on making changes to that legislation that were very important in updating it and making sure that it worked fairly for all people who should be eligible for it. So what this bill does, though, is it ensures that recipients on main benefits—New Zealand superannuation or the veterans pension—who are entitled to receive a winter energy payment under the Families Package—that this isn’t counted as income when it comes to considering their rates rebates, so that their rates rebate isn’t cut because they get that payment. So this is, in effect, another way of ensuring that the value of that winter energy payment is maintained and not reduced through its interaction with the Rates Rebate Scheme.

We know that the issues of poverty for people on welfare are very, very real challenges for us as a country to do more in reducing and taking responsibility for ultimately eliminating the poverty felt by those people who are trapped in unfair situations at the moment. So this is not enough, obviously, and neither was the winter energy payment. We have a lot more work to do, but it is important to maintain the value of that. On that note, we support this bill.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and it’s my pleasure to stand in support of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. There were many passionate speeches today in the House. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the Hon Ron Mark for his speech and his passion about local government. His 10-minute speech was totally dedicated to the local government. I think he is very passionate about it, and local government elections are around the corner. In his role as Minister for Veterans, he did not touch upon Part 7 of this bill, which says about the winter energy payment, and he did not mention it—this was a little bit disappointing. Before I conclude, I would like to suggest the honourable Minister—

Hon Members: You only just started!

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Yeah, yeah. We are going to support this bill. We are not filibustering like you people are doing. So you have to consider this. So, the Hon Ron Mark, I have got a suggestion for you: local government elections are around the corner; I think you should go back to the Wairarapa and take a role over there. Leave this role. This is not for you. Thank you very much.

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

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Well, thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s always a pleasure to talk about local government, particularly on a Thursday afternoon just before the break. Who said this bill is about repairs and maintenance? This is probably the most important bill we’ll see this year, no doubt. There’ll be other more important ones, but that’ll be next week.

So this will be the hour of delivery for local government. There we are. But look, let’s get serious, because it is local government, and local government is very serious, as many of my colleagues in this House will attest to. Can I just say: look at some of the wonderful things that we’ll be resolving in this bill. One of the things I most like is the way I believe that this bill will ensure much greater turnout. Well, it will go to some extent to ensure a much better than 40 percent turnout. I know, after running in three elections myself, that one of the most disappointing things is that despite a whole lot of different things that the electoral officer would do, it still wouldn’t produce a turnout of more than roughly 40 percent—and that’s in an educated, urban metro like Wellington. That meant that something’s not quite right, if decent Wellingtonians are saying there’s something not quite right here.

My Green colleague, Jan Logie, who spoke before certainly mentioned some of the issues, because, when you get the material, you’re suddenly faced with the reality of saying, “Look, we’ve got these ward councillors, we’ve got regional councillors, we’ve got district health board members, and, of course, we’ve got a mayor to vote for.” You’ve got so many choices to make. You may never have met any of them. So ensuring that a better marketing campaign or better promotional effort goes on will go some way to ensuring that at least residents and citizens—because, look, when things go wrong, they’re certainly not shy to express their views. But sometimes they get a little bit—uh, what’s the word? I’ll attack it from another angle. Sometimes they just are simply overwhelmed when they go into—in fact, they don’t even go into booths. They have to open up an envelope. They get the material. They look through that booklet and they go, “Who and what are we going to vote for?”

Nicola Willis: Not this time. They’ll be voting on the buses.

PAUL EAGLE: Oh, did I hear buses?

Hon Andrew Little: Not when they look at your photo, Paul.

PAUL EAGLE: But look—absolutely. The Minister points out, when they used to see the Eagle on there, they used to think, “Oh, there’s a handsome man. We’ll vote for him.” But being handsome is not the only thing that will get you votes. That’s correct, but you do have to ensure that you are going to stand for something. I don’t want to digress too much, because it is important to know that at least there’ll be some boost there, hopefully, in the voting numbers for the local elections this year.

The other thing that this will go some way to resolving is the production of various reports, and making sure that now great effort goes into producing those statutory documents—the draft annual plan, the annual report—and to ensure that those documents now—and they are a telephone book in size. Not the Wellington telephone book though, because it’s quite a large document. But it’s none the less a document that costs money. There are certain places that it must be sent to, and certain entities must receive them, but this time a PDF document will be fine. So using the internet is better for those documents and for other communication there. I mentioned the other day that even advising of an extraordinary or an emergency meeting can now be done in a different way too, via the internet.

So this, as I said, is probably the most important bill, I believe, in the last hour. It’s certainly the hour of action, as I’ve said before. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. I really appreciate the chance to give a short call on the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill and appreciate the contribution of the last member, Paul Eagle. He probably deserves to have put in Hansard one more time that he called himself a handsome man. I think that’s what took place. I’m not sure.

I think he might recall, the previous speaker, that it was myself—have others used the term “repairs and maintenance”? Because that’s exactly what we’re doing, which is why we need to pass this bill and get on to hearing more Government members, who are not taking up their full allocation of speaking, for reasons which are surprising and unbeknownst to us.

So what I would like to do is commend the bill and then highlight one particular part that I did in the second reading following the select committee process. It was a curiosity to me, and it was simply that there’s a lot of talk about online digital access, but the Governance and Administration Committee felt that they should get down to the details of what should be published in a good old-fashioned newspaper. So I’m going to use this chance to do a shout-out for good old-fashioned printed newspapers, and the fact that the committee wanted to talk about getting plain language into the subject matter of a newspaper print-out and that they wanted a reference source for more detailed information. So that’s the type of fantastic contributions that the select committee made to this bill, and for that and many other reasons—not least that National began this bill—I support this bill and so does the National Party. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this excellent bill, the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. It is surprising that we don’t see the members opposite wanting to engage in debate on such a fascinating bill, because it goes right to the heart of the purpose of democracy at local government level: people participating in their communities, people being engaged with what’s going on around them, and people being represented in a way that reflects the diversity of New Zealand society. It is very surprising and quite alarming that we do not have members opposite prepared to contribute on a lively and interesting debate in this space.

We have lots of issues at local government, and what I find particularly interesting is that while the average person you speak to in the community really cares about local issues—it is the rubbish collection, the speed humps, those sorts of things that are happening in your backyard; dog control is another one this bill touches on that always really concerns the constituents I speak to regularly—there is something strange going on, because the level of the care factor of local issues is high compared to national ones, but the turnout in local government elections is low, and that indicates that there is something wrong going on in this space, in that we have 40 percent, or even lower in some regions, of people turning out to vote in their elections.

So it is heartening to see that this bill provides specific responsibility to chief executive officers to encourage people to vote and to think about the strategy they will be developing within the area to make sure that they are reaching out and making people aware that there is a local government election going on and also—the point that the good member Jan Logie has already made—who the candidates are. It’s very difficult to get information on who the candidates are. There is one booklet put out often and sometimes that information’s not online. So I look forward to this bill encouraging those chief executive officers to be able to look at new ways of giving greater information about them.

I think when there is greater information and greater participation we will see an increased level of diversity in our local government representation. No offence, but the vast majority of local government representation is alarmingly pale, male, and stale, and we need to move beyond that. We need to have representation that is reflective of our communities, and, in particular, Māori, Pasifika, and youth are the three areas that we really need to concentrate on having greater representation. I am quite encouraged to see tomorrow—we’ve been notified and made clear—that there will be school students who are prepared to strike in terms of their concerns around climate change. While this Government is taking some very good actions in that space to make sure we are ahead of the pack, what’s important is that young people are thinking about how they can be more engaged in issues that affect their lives, and this is good in the sense that we might see increased participation in areas that are so important to the future of New Zealand.

What we also need to think about is how we can encourage community engagement. In my own area in Hutt South, for example, we’ve got a significant issue happening and we’ve had really low turnout in terms of that engagement. The Pētone library is proposed to be bulldozed or knocked down and redeveloped by putting the library in the bottom and on top 52 apartments. Some of those apartments are one bedroom with no windows, and that doesn’t seem to be the best possible model for the community. There are far greater models out there that I’m sure that they will be far more interested in looking at.

But the problem is that the level of community turnout to the engagement meetings that have been facilitated by the Pētone Community Board have been quite low, and it would be good to see more people getting engaged in that space, because I’ve always believed that if we get more people interested in local issues and engaged in local issues then it increases the good opportunities within our communities and the facilities that people use. So I’m pleased to see that this bill really focuses on fostering that participation in local government elections.

One of the other very good areas that this bill looks at is, of course, the Rates Rebate Act—and it has already been mentioned, the excellent work that the Hon Ruth Dyson has covered in this space. What her work covered was ensuring those that were in residential homes were also able to access the rates rebate, because previously that was not available. But what this legislation does is it makes sure that those who get the New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension, who get that winter energy payment put through by this coalition Government, are able to have that taken into account when assessing the eligibility for a rates rebate. It would have meant that if that was taken into account, some recipients would have had a rates rebate that would have been unfairly reduced. It was considered and agreed to that this was an unintended consequence, and the recommended insertion into this piece of legislation is that it would exclude the winter energy payment from the definition of income when assessing that eligibility for a rates rebate under the Act.

I personally have seen a good number of people coming into my office to personally say thank you for the additional money over that period of the wintertime. Those people are retired, and so it’s really heartening to see that that additional money won’t come—and I had someone come in to me, actually, this week, someone with a hearing disability, and they own their own home, they live in the Hutt, but their rates have been going up, and they really felt that they’ve been struggling to meet payments, struggling to be able to afford the bills that they receive as rates have gone up. The one comment I did say was, “Well, do you get your winter energy payment?”, and they agreed that they would probably not have been able to meet a number of bills coming through without that additional money, starting a month earlier this year, over the winter period. So it is really good to see that this bill takes into account the difficult circumstances that some of the people who are on a fixed income have to deal with when there are increasing inflation costs associated with owning a home and being retired. To take that into account is fantastic.

So the other area that I’d like to touch on before concluding is that it looks at really making sure that this Act lines up with the other key areas in other bills, and we want to make sure that there is a balance right across all the Acts in terms of the terminology and the references. So one in particular that has been of concern that this bill rectifies is the definition of “working day”, which occurs in section 5 of the Local Government Act. There have been some differences in what a working day would be, and it’s important that there is consistency across all those pieces of legislation to avoid confusion. So it is good to see that that is happening.

The last area which is really good—and I know my learned colleague Jamie Strange gave an excellent speech that pointed out the importance of the Dog Control Act 1996, and this bill does some great work in that space to make sure that there’s public notification of a lot of those notices that go on. There can be some real big concerns in communities in terms of incurring costs and in terms of having to have their dogs licensed, and for ongoing issues in that space. This piece of legislation states that it must be publicly notified that a report has been prepared and adopted, and also a copy must be given to the Secretary for Local Government. Local authorities have not been required, in the past, to make that publicly available, so for those people that are concerned about the level of issues in relation to dog control, that information now being made publicly available will be able to be of a benefit to those interested in that space.

So I think that this bill is a fantastic bill. It brings together a whole lot of areas to make sure there’s consistency across legislation, it makes sure that there is an increased incentive for local government to be thinking about how they foster participation, and it also does that great job of making available online public notices that were previously only available in newspapers, which weren’t as widely read. So I’m very pleased to be a member of the Governance and Administration Committee that got to consider all the good work in this space, and without further ado, I commend this bill to the House.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I, too, have pleasure in standing and speaking to the third reading of the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill today. This bill has been well canvassed; the details have been well debated, even today—the good contributions from all parties—and why not, because this is another piece of fantastic legislation that was initiated under the former National-led Government. I take note and acknowledge the contribution of the Hon Ron Mark—as he pointed out, a former colleague in the local government world. As he will well remember, every time central government imposed new legislation on to local government, it did create some inconsistencies. There are a myriad of Acts that local government works under, and so inevitably—

Hon Ron Mark: Not to mention the cost.

MAUREEN PUGH: —there are some inconsistencies that come out of that—and I do acknowledge that the cost was always borne by the ratepayers for the central government legislation. As a demonstration of the complexity of some of that legislation coming down into local government, a software package that was in use in the council that I was involved in was the finance package, and following the introduction of several pieces of legislation, it required adjustments to the financial package that councils used. At six years ago, I can tell you that there were 52 add-ons to our financial package simply because of legislative changes, so who knows what that is up to now. It certainly won’t have become any easier. But a piece of legislation like this, that actually does simplify things, that does get rid of some of that inconsistency, is always going to be welcomed by the local government family. With that, I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call tonight—the final speaker on the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill. So we’ve heard a lot of speeches tonight of varying lengths. I will endeavour to give a long, fulsome contribution tonight and, in a way, sort of sum up a lot of what we’ve heard tonight. Before I get into the aspects of the bill, I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Local Government, who does a wonderful job in this space. As I speak to councils all around the country, they are very impressed with the work that she’s doing. They’re particularly impressed with the engagement. They recognise that we have a Government who are working hard to engage with local government and with councils, and there’s certainly lots of appreciation there.

As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, I like to acknowledge our chair, Brett Hudson, for the excellent work that he’s done, and all of the members. I’d also like to acknowledge all of those who made a submission to this bill. There are a number of councils, in particular, who made submissions, as it affects them, but also lots of general members of the public.

There’s an important aspect that local government plays in all of our lives. There’s a saying: “All politics is local.”—and that’s absolutely correct. There’s a strong link between central and local government. You know, for a lot of people out there, it’s often difficult to know what central government does and what local government does. From time to time, I’ll get an email asking about street lights or maybe a pothole and so I’ll, obviously, inform that person that that’s a local government issue. There’s certainly a strong link, and I believe that the Government are working well to strengthen those links.

So some of the key things that this bill talks about—tonight, I’d like to start with the one that is absolutely vital for our country, and that’s around participation in elections. The participation in most local body elections, as we’ve heard, is around 40 percent. I’ve stood for Parliament myself, my wife has stood for council, and—

Tim van de Molen: Is she standing again?

JAMIE STRANGE: —we would have both benefited—possibly, possibly. We’ll see—wouldn’t want to make any announcements tonight there, sir. But both the times we stood, the turnout was around 40 percent. If we’re going to have diversity—if we’re going to have youngish people, like myself—on councils, then it’s important that we have a high level of turnout. Now, why do I say that? Because a higher level of turnout creates more diversity on our councils.

We’ve heard it before from Ginny Andersen. There are three key areas that we lack around representation on councils: that’s youth, Māori, and Pacific. There are a number of other areas as well, but those are three that have been highlighted quite a bit. If we’re going to increase diversity, if our elected members are going to be representative of the general public, we need higher voter turnout. So this bill addresses that. The way it addresses it is by putting the onus on the CEO of the council to increase participation. If the onus for that is put on the elected members, then we could potentially have the situation—and I think we probably do—where some elected members, and often the majority of elected members, would benefit from low voter turnout. So a low voter turnout will, effectively, keep them in their position. So, therefore, they’re not incentivised to increase voter turnout.

We see things like online voting being muted in many cases, and more often than not it gets voted down by the elected members. I mean, I don’t presume to know all their thoughts, but I do suspect that there’s an aspect of job security for them. If they’ve been elected on a lower voter turnout, they will, hence, generally not want to see an increased voter turnout and more diversity. But by putting that responsibility on the CEO of the council, I believe we will see some good movement in this space, because the CEO is impartial, as we know.

There’s an aspect there I touched on that I just want to build on a little bit, around online voting. Now, I don’t believe online voting will be, you know, some sort of fix-everything silver bullet, but I do believe—and the research shows—that online voting will increase voter participation, particularly among youth.

So this bill puts the responsibility on the CEO to increase turnout. The CEO, in his or her wisdom, may decide that online voting will make a difference; therefore they will be able to do that. They won’t have to take it to elected members and say, “Elected members, please make a choice on this.”; they will be impartial. So I would like to encourage councils and CEOs, in this case, to look at online voting, because I believe the time has come for that.

The second point I’d like to touch on is around public notices—making public notices more readily available. So at the moment, as we know, public notices are in newspapers, and newspapers are not always delivered. They rely on hand-delivery many times—

Chris Penk: It’s the year of non-delivery.

JAMIE STRANGE: Unlike this Government, Mr Penk—the year of delivery! But sometimes newspapers are not always delivered. For example, if someone has a “No circulars” sign on their letterbox, they will often not get a certain newspaper even though they would actually want that newspaper. I was talking to a newspaper delivery person recently, who said, “Oh, I’m not going to deliver down that street, because there’s quite a few ‘No circulars’ down there, so I’m not going to bother.” So it’s a little bit sporadic at times.

So we can’t rely only on newspapers for delivery. Newspapers do an excellent job, but we can’t rely just on them; we need diversity within that communication. We can’t always rely on the daily papers. They are subscription-based and they will be delivered, but only a smallish percentage of our society pay for a subscription. For a lot of people, the newspapers that they receive are weekly free newspapers; and we have a couple of excellent newspapers in Hamilton. So if there’s a special meeting that’s taking place, say, for example, tomorrow, and the council put that in a daily newspaper, it will get to a sort of smallish percentage of the population, but others will miss out, and they can’t put it in the weekly newspaper which has a wider readership, because, you know, the meeting is tomorrow. Hence the importance of online notices.

I’m hoping that this bill will see councils think creatively around how they engage with people, around how they inform people, around meetings, around events, and around important things that are happening that affect them. So, for example, the CEO in this case may choose to look at things like sponsored adverts on Facebook or Instagram, and the reason I say Instagram is that Instagram is a platform that quite a few young people are engaged with, and so on their feed, as they’re looking through, they will see an advert come up which relates to council, which relates to their elected members, to increase engagement.

A lot of people get their news only from social media, particularly young people and even people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. The sole place they receive their news is social media—Facebook, obviously, the biggest one—so if councils and, in that case, Government are not engaging on social media, then there’s a large portion of society who aren’t being reached, who aren’t being engaged with, and in a way it’s little wonder that we aren’t seeing the voter turnout, because people are not being reached.

So this is a very important bill around that aspect, and, as we’ve heard from previous speakers, we’ve got local body elections coming up later this year. So I’m sure the members in this House, as there is strong support for this bill, will be watching with interest around what CEOs choose to do in this space. I’ll be talking to the CEO of Hamilton City Council and maybe suggesting one or two things that he may be willing to explore in this space.

There’s a final point I’d like to touch on in the last few seconds, and that’s the winter energy payment. Previous speakers have explained what this bill does around that: it’s just ensuring that everyone is eligible for that rates rebate. But I’d like to finish by acknowledging the Hon Ruth Dyson, who, for many years, spoke about this issue and now has enacted a piece of legislation around the rates rebate. I’ve had a number of people come into my office thanking myself and the Government for that. I commend this excellent bill to the House. Thank you, sir.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Local Electoral Matters Bill

Third Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: I move, That the Local Electoral Matters Bill be now read a third time.

The Local Electoral Matters Bill amends and modernises two pieces of legislation and is one component of a broader effort to improve civic participation in local government. As New Zealanders are using postal services less, this creates increasing challenges for local authorities to deliver postal voting effectively and affordably. Innovation is required to adapt to the changing public expectations about how people wish to engage with central and local government.

As a brief summary, the bill comprises two parts. Part 1 amends the Local Electoral Act 2001 to make explicit provision for local authorities to conduct trials of new voting methods. In particular, the bill allows a new voting method to be trialled with a subset of voters within a local election, giving local authorities more options to manage risks when they’re designing trials. The bill also makes important improvements to the contingency mechanisms for local elections in the event that a serious problem occurs with a voting method.

The amendments in the bill enable electors to vote again if a voting method fails or is compromised, and the electoral officer makes a formal decision to abandon the method during the voting period. If a serious failure of the voting system is discovered after polling has closed, the bill provides for an electoral officer to apply to the District Court seeking a judgment that the election be voided and rerun. I acknowledge the good work of the Justice Committee in making and consulting on these additions to the contingency provisions for local elections. While these changes provide an important backstop when new voting methods are being developed, they also provide a more robust contingency regime for local elections generally.

In Part 2, the bill amends the Electoral Act 1993. This includes amendments to clarify that people analysing voter participation in local elections are able to access age group and Māori descent information for this analysis. Local authorities have told us they are keen to use this information to inform their understanding of voter turnout and their efforts to improve voter participation. Another amendment to the Electoral Act 1993 is to allow local authorities to be supplied with date of birth information from the database of registered electors where this is explicitly required in order to conduct an election. This change will support local authorities in developing new authentication measures for voting methods while ensuring this information is handled carefully.

The bill was introduced into the House on 5 April 2018 and referred to the Justice Committee on 9 May 2018. I thank the members of that committee for their careful consideration of the bill and for constructive amendments they made, which have certainly improved the bill. The committee reported back to the House on 7 December last year, and the bill had its second reading on 12 March this year. I’m very pleased the bill has been able to move through its remaining stages rapidly so that we can soon put the bill into effect and begin to realise the benefits it will bring.

I welcome members’ active engagement in debating the bill’s provisions during the committee of the whole House stage, and members’ support for the bill. Some members commented that this bill is not a far-reaching piece of local electoral reform, and that is correct. However, the bill does make the necessary and important changes to support development of new voting methods so that local authorities can adapt to our changing times. The amendments in the bill are the first step in modernising local elections and providing greater flexibility for local authorities. The changes will also benefit New Zealanders as this lays the groundwork for improvements so that casting a vote will become more accessible for more of the voting population.

Some of the second reading speeches also referred to the changes made by the Justice Committee to allow for a fit for purpose contingency mechanism to be in place during a local election. As I mentioned, I commend the Justice Committee for making these amendments, as they provide better safeguards for our local elections, particularly when a new voting method is being trialled. These are valuable additions to the bill, as one of the core principles that the Local Electoral Act 2001 is designed to support is public confidence in local electoral processes.

To conclude, I’d like to acknowledge those individuals and organisations who took the time to make submissions on the bill, members of the Justice Committee for their efforts in considering the bill, and all members of this House for their constructive engagement on the bill. Although the working group of interested councils has decided not to proceed with the trial of online voting at the 2019 local elections, the changes in this bill are an important step forward towards developing a new voting method or methods for local body voters.

The passing of this bill will benefit New Zealand because it will enable local authorities to trial new, more fit for purpose ways of voting in local elections. There are also changes in the bill which support the integrity of local elections more generally and the quality of research on voter participation. It is an important contribution to the ongoing efforts of this Government to improve civic participation in local government. I commend the Local Electoral Matters Bill to the House.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m very happy to speak in support at the third reading of the Local Electoral Matters Bill, but do wonder why it is that such a minor bill which makes two, maybe three, minor changes to a couple of Acts needs to have such fulsome time given to it in the House—if consideration of the previous bill is any guide. On this side of the House, we understand the contents of this bill very well. We’ve spoken extensively in all the readings and given this bill very good consideration in select committee, as have Government members. So I don’t plan to traverse the contents of the bill too carefully, but I would like to make a couple of comments on, perhaps, the shortcomings that we see in this bill.

The bill does make minor changes to both the Local Electoral Act and the Electoral Act. The misgivings and the concerns that I might have are around the first part of the bill, which relates to better enabling trials of internet voting. I agree with the Minister in the chair, who brought the bill forward, that internet voting could well be a part of the suite of options for local councils and, indeed, the general election, in a voting method which best suits the times.

I disagree with the member, and I disagree with the Government, that this is the panacea for low voter turnout. I don’t believe that for a moment. New Zealand is a very diverse country. Paul Eagle noted in a previous speech, on a previous bill, that in greater Wellington there was a turnout of something like 40 percent in local body elections, and, quite rightly, he lamented that. But in places like Mackenzie, which is a small South Island local authority, they have a much, much higher voter turnout, in the 60s. Indeed, a number of smaller provincial centres do have a much better turnout, and I’d venture to say that there are other factors at play other than the potential for online voting, which is going to bring the larger centres, literally, up to what is a better rate of participating in local elections. So I think a wider discussion needs to be had around that, rather than just pinning the Government’s hopes on internet voting.

I also have concerns about the security of online voting. I acknowledge that, yes, postal ballot papers can fall out of letter boxes and be swept away by the wind, and there might be occasions where people go round collecting them up and indulging in fraudulent behaviour. I acknowledge all that, but I do think that the councils who were proposing to undertake a trial—and that is a provision in the bill, where an internet trial wouldn’t have to be across a whole local authority area but could be confined to a ward—is a good step forward. But, again, that’s laying the legislative framework. I am pleased to see that the local councils who were considering, as part of the working group, a trial of internet voting have determined that it is not yet secure enough, so I think that’s very important.

The second part of the bill makes very minor changes to enable age-related data to be provided in statistical format by age bands to local authorities. Surely, that is the most minor of minor amendments, and whether it deserves full 10-minute speeches on a Thursday afternoon, where the Government are proposing that this is a significant and major piece of work and part of “the year of delivery”—not buying it. Thanks, Mr Assistant Speaker.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Isn’t it wonderful to conclude the busy sitting week by supporting the third reading of this relatively small but important bill concerning local body elections. The Local Electoral Matters Bill seeks to modernise two pieces of legislation—namely, the Local Electoral Act 2001 and the Electoral Act 1993. The purpose of the bill is to provide greater flexibility to enable local electoral arrangements to adapt to changing circumstances, and one of the measures is to develop new voting methods for the future. The bill is one component of a broader effort to improve civic participation in our local government.

The busy Justice Committee received and considered 27 submissions from interested organisations and individuals, and we heard oral evidence from 10 submitters. We also heard from submitters who shared at the Justice Committee their experience, their international experience, in relation to online voting such as in Australia, Switzerland, and other countries. The Justice Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the 2017 general election and the 2016 local body elections.

I acknowledge the Minister of Justice, who, last year, sent a letter to the Justice Committee inviting the committee to look at the resilience of our electoral system against foreign interference risks. We then invited the Electoral Commission to appear before the Justice Committee, and then had them again as part of their annual review hearings. The commission duly advised the Justice Committee, and the committee then resolved to invite the SIS, the GCSB, and the National Assessments Bureau to advise the committee as part of the inquiry, and specifically with regard to that particular new angle, as outlined in Minister Little’s letter to the Justice Committee before Christmas.

The Justice Committee has so far considered 19 bills, and this particular bill must be one of the 14 bills that the Justice Committee has sent back to the House for their second reading. In 2018 alone, we had 340 hours of meeting time—just to show how busy the Justice Committee has been over the last 1½ years.

The reason why I listed all of these sorts of steps is simply to try to demonstrate that in terms of this inquiry, the committee has been on the right track, until last Thursday, when we had 13 agenda items over five hours and 50 minutes. But the most important business last week was to consider and deliberate on the Privacy Bill, because the report-back date is due, and also we were to consider two more important bills—namely, the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill and also the End of Life Choice Bill.

The committee last week received a letter from Professor Anne-Marie Brady, requesting to make a late submission. So one of the business matters for the committee is to consider whether we should accept a late submission, and the rest will be widely reported in the media. I look forward to further debate on this bill.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.