Tuesday, 21 May 2019

TUESDAY, 21 MAY 2019

TUESDAY, 21 MAY 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Resignations

Nuk Korako, New Zealand National Party

Nuk Korako

SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that I have received a letter from, resigning his seat in the House with effect from midnight on 15 May 2019.

Election of List Member

Paulo Garcia, New Zealand National Party

SPEAKER: I have subsequently received a letter from the Electoral Commission—a return declaring Paulo Reyes Garcia to be elected a member of the House of Representatives—

Hon Members: Paulo!

SPEAKER: —Paulo, I apologise—in place of Nuk Korako. I understand that the member is present and wishes to take the Oath of Allegiance. Would he please come forward to the chair on my right.

Members Sworn

Members Sworn

Paulo Garcia was called forward to the Chair by the Speaker, took the Oath of Allegiance, and took his seat in the House.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has her Government’s fees-free policy for tertiary students been less successful than she envisaged?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Simon Bridges: How can she say that when her Cabinet believed 80,000 students would get to tertiary education last year and, in fact, it was only 50,000 that enrolled—fewer even than the year before?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, when we put in estimates around the potential cost of fees-free, we wanted to make sure that we projected at the upper end so there was no chance of being caught short. The 50,000 people who have taken up fees-free actually represent a halt in declining numbers under that Government. One of the areas where we have particularly suffered in those declining numbers has been education and teacher recruitment, where we are now having to pick up the pieces of declining enrolment for people training to be educators. We are stemming that tide. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Before I ask for the next supplementary question, I want to say that I have received quite a lot of correspondence about noise across the Chamber, especially from my left. I would have intervened on that occasion other than the fact that it was being wound up by the Minister of Finance.

Hon Simon Bridges: Stop writing to them, Grant.

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she call 2,500 fewer students than the year before a “halt”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: There’s no question that we had experienced declining enrolment, particularly in vocational training, and some of the initiatives that we’ve undertaken to turn that around I’m particularly proud of. We’re not letting, for instance, our polytech sector continue to fall behind and decline in service provision. We have introduced, for instance, Mana in Mahi, which is all about supporting employers to take on apprentices, and they get the equivalent of the dole in order to do so. It has been incredibly well received by employers and is exactly the kind of initiative we need to get more people into vocational training and, ultimately, into work.

Hon Simon Bridges: Wasn’t the whole point of the policy to get more people into tertiary education and, on that basis, isn’t it a clear policy fail?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The goal of fees-free was to make sure that we reduced the barriers for vocational training, for apprenticeships, and for post-secondary education. One of the things we’re doing now is working actively with the Business Advisory Council to make sure that that fees-free policy is made accessible for those already in the workforce. Unlike the last Government, we are focused on the future of work, making sure that those who are already in workplaces, who are vulnerable to the digitised economy and may potentially lose their jobs, are retraining on the job. So we welcome the fact that businesses have already pledged to, in some cases, double their on-the-job training allowance, and that is something that we will keep working with them on—to use fees-free in the workplace, to make sure people are retrained.

Hon Simon Bridges: Will she confirm her policy of ensuring further years of fees-free past the first year of study?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That’s certainly the policy, but, of course, those are all intended to be rolled out in future Governments, not in the term of this Parliament.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why, then, did Grant Robertson last week take the Phil Twyford “neither confirm nor deny” stance?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: He said exactly what I’ve said: that it’s not something that’s implemented in this term of office.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did she ask her Minister of Finance to put the $200 million underspend from fees-free into resolving the teachers’ strike?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will probably well know that the fees-free policy is being used to equally support additional work around vocational training, because, ultimately, the goal overall of this policy has been to get more people into vocational training, into private training enterprises (PTEs), and into wānanga, ultimately, for life-long learning, and that is what the funding has been used for.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that without further investment by this Government, some of our vocational education providers, our polytechs and institutes of technology, would have faced further financial difficulty in the coming year because of the situation we inherited from the last Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can, and we were not satisfied with a system where we continued to bail out the sector instead of actually looking to put them on a footing that ensures they can provide for regional training and education, which is exactly what our communities are asking us to do.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Prime Minister confirm that until the Government stepped in to address the $100 million fiscal hole of polytechs, the opportunity for people to go to polytechs was being seriously challenged?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that fees-free is a policy fail just like KiwiBuild and a host of others, and how’s her “year of delivery” going so far?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I do not. I absolutely don’t accept that, and I take that, then, as a concession that the member will get rid of the fees-free policy.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Does she think it will make it easier or harder for a young person to save for a first home if they don’t have to borrow for their tertiary study?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Absolutely. In fact, we’ve already seen a considerable decrease in the debt that young people are carrying as a result of fees-free. Of course, we’re very encouraged that in terms of those who are first-home buyers in the housing market, we’ve seen an increase from 18 percent to now 24 percent of the market being made up of first-home buyers. The work of this Government to stop ownership by foreign buyers—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That’s gone too far.

Question No. 2—Corrections

2. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister of Corrections: What recent announcements has he made about reducing Māori reoffending rates?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Recently, I announced a $98 million investment into the creation of Māori pathways inside Northland and Hawke’s Bay prisons. The pathway allows prisoners to experience a kaupapa Māori and whānau-centred approach from pre-sentence to integration back into the community and beyond. It would initially focus on Māori men under 30 years of age—the group with the highest rates of reconviction and reimprisonment. One of the most important parts of this announcement is that it will be co-designed with Māori. Work towards implementation is well on its way at both sites.

Willow-Jean Prime: What makes this Māori pathways announcement different from Māori programmes already running in prisons?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: This is not another programme. This is a system change and a culture change inside our prisons. Unlike traditional Māori programmes that last 13 weeks, men and their whānau will walk this pathway for the entire sentence and beyond.

Willow-Jean Prime: How does this announcement support the Government’s priorities in this year’s Wellbeing Budget?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Good question. We are taking a whole-of-Government approach to reducing Māori reoffending rates. This pathway is a result of three Government departments working together—corrections; Whānau Ora, led by Minister Henare; and Social Development, led by Minister Sepuloni. To improve the wellbeing of whānau, we can no longer work in silos. We must work together alongside Māori to deliver the support that prisoners and their whānau need inside and outside the prison gates. This will not only have an impact on Māori reoffending rates but it prioritises the wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable whānau and tamariki. It will create safer communities and give these men the best chance of leaving prison and never coming back.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he consider that the Government’s policies and actions have contributed to New Zealand’s slowing economic growth; if so, will we see a plan from the Government to better support New Zealand businesses?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The Government’s plans are already supporting New Zealand’s businesses and supporting sustainable growth in the New Zealand economy, so the answer to the first part of the member’s question is “No.”

Hon Amy Adams: What is his response to business operators who have stated, in relation to Government policy changes, “Too much change too soon is hitting business confidence and operators’ bottom line, and many are finding it hard to keep up.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I see a variety of comments from the business sector around both the performance of the Government and the performance of the economy, but, overall, I see businesses who are out there working hard, adding to the New Zealand economy. Exports are improving; small businesses are feeling better. It’s time for everybody to cheer up about the New Zealand economy.

Hon Amy Adams: Does he accept that in order for the economy to grow, somebody somewhere has to be willing to invest, yet under this Government investment intentions have plummeted and growth in business investment has more than halved compared to the previous five years?

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

Hon Amy Adams: Why does he continue to try and blame global conditions for New Zealand’s slowing economic growth, when our growth per person over the past 12 months was just 0.6 percent and yet the OECD average for the same period was more than three times faster than that at 1.9 percent?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s not just me that is looking very seriously at our global growth forecasts. I note that the ASB in their quarterly economic forecast listed that as the very first topic—that global growth has slowed. New Zealand is an open, small economy. We rely on exports. When the global economy is slow that has an effect on us, but the good news is that the fundamentals of the economy are strong and we will be able to withstand these headwinds.

Hon Amy Adams: Well, can the Minister name one other country in the OECD where in the past 12 months economic growth has undershot forecasts by as much as it has in New Zealand?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh, I don’t have the exact details with me, but I can say that Australia most certainly didn’t grow as fast as New Zealand did in the last quarter and, in fact, the Reserve Bank of Australia recently downgraded their growth forecasts further. I can also say that the IMF, in their global growth forecasts, had New Zealand well ahead of other advanced economies, and I think New Zealand knows that while the global economy is slowing we have good strong fundamentals; we are shifting to a different kind of growth that’s based on actually adding value and increasing exports. That will take some time but the direction of travel is positive.

Hon Amy Adams: When New Zealand business confidence remains at very low levels, businesses are telling the Government that its policies are hurting them, and our growth per person is three times lower than the OECD average, why won’t that Minister take some responsibility for the damage that Government is doing to our economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I reject the premise in the member’s question. On this side of the House we’re focused on making sure that we do support businesses in a challenging time. We’re investing in research and development. We’re getting alongside them in terms of lifelong learning and skills and training. We are addressing the issues that business raised with us. It is time to back New Zealand and be positive about our economy.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister of Finance as to whether he’s received any reports as to who is advantaged by talking down the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It has become the habit of members opposite to talk down the New Zealand dollar.

Question No. 4—Housing and Urban Development

4. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many of the KiwiBuild houses offered for sale in Canterbury in February have sold to eligible KiwiBuild buyers, and how many has the Government had to buy as a result of the underwrite contract?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I’m advised that there have been no sales of the seven homes on the market in Canterbury so far. Three of those Canterbury homes have been bought by the Government, and that’s in the context of a contract with Mike Greer Homes that is delivering 104 affordable homes for first-home buyers.

Hon Judith Collins: Why did the Minister underwrite already built and marketed houses after officials had advised him that there was an oversupply of housing in Canterbury?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’m advised that none of those houses were built at the time I authorised the ministry to begin negotiations with Mike Greer.

Hon Judith Collins: Then did the Minister not read his briefing to the incoming Minister that told him that there was an oversupply of houses in Canterbury?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: That’s not the question that the member asked just before.

SPEAKER: Order! The Minister was just asked a very straight question. He will answer it.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Of course I read the briefing.

Hon Judith Collins: What tests were done before the underwrite was signed to determine if sufficient demand existed in Canterbury?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: That is a matter for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, who are responsible for doing the demand analysis and negotiating the contracts with KiwiBuild suppliers. But I will say this: Canterbury is our second-biggest urban area in the country. It has one of the fastest growth trajectories, and while housing there is currently relatively affordable compared to other main centres, it is rapidly becoming less affordable because of the high rates of growth. Our Government doesn’t want to see Canterbury go backwards like so many other urban housing markets under that Government’s rule over the last nine years.

SPEAKER: Order! The member will ask the question again.

Hon Judith Collins: Right. I’m just trying to work out which one it was, Mr Speaker. What tests were done before the underwrite was signed to determine if sufficient demand existed in Canterbury?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The tests that are done routinely by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development officials in the process of assessing and then negotiating contracts with KiwBuild suppliers include a consideration of both demand assessment and the additionality that one of these contracts brings.

Hon Judith Collins: If the Minister read the briefing to the incoming Minister, as he’s told us today, then why did he not point this out when he signed the briefing document that enabled KiwiBuild to sign the contracts for these new houses in Canterbury?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: As I said to the member, I did read the briefing, but can the member clarify her question—point what out?

SPEAKER: This is without penalty.

Hon Judith Collins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. If the Minister read the briefing to the incoming Minister, which points out that there is an oversupply of housing in Canterbury, then why did he not point that issue out to his officials when he signed the briefing that enabled them to sign the contract for these new houses in Canterbury?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’ve already explained to the member that Canterbury is one of our fastest-growing urban areas. It has the second-biggest city in New Zealand—Christchurch—and housing there is rapidly becoming less affordable. Our Government is not prepared to sit around on our hands, like that Government did, and allow those regional housing markets to rapidly deteriorate into unaffordability.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister as to whether or not he is aware of the number of tens and tens of thousands of homes around New Zealand, but particularly in Auckland, that are on the market for six to nine and sometimes 12 months waiting for a buyer, and does that mean that there’s no demand for that house?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I thank the member for his question, and it’s true that houses routinely take a number of weeks, even months, to sell in New Zealand. That’s nothing unusual.

Hon Judith Collins: With his ministry’s own figures showing that there is a deficit of 44,000 houses in Auckland and a surplus of houses in Canterbury, why did he sign up for even more houses in Canterbury when he can’t sell the seven he’s got now?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I have already answered that question. It’s important that, actually, we pay attention to the housing market in Canterbury and don’t allow it to go down the same track that so many other regional housing markets are. But what makes this Government different to the last one is that we are building public housing, transitional housing, and affordable housing in Auckland, in Tauranga, in Hamilton, in Wellington, in Nelson—all the markets of the country that are suffering from the effects of a housing crisis that that party allowed to get out of control for nearly a decade.

Question No. 5—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Several recent reports indicate that the fundamentals of the New Zealand economy remain sound in the face of increasing global economic headwinds. The BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index, on Friday, showed that the manufacturing sector expanded faster in April than in March, with a reading of 53 points, up from 52. The BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Services Index, on Monday, also continued its expansion in April, although economists and participants noted that the Easter break and school holidays may have disrupted some usual business activity. It is worth noting that New Zealand’s positive April services index reading was higher than Australia’s reading, suggesting that we are tracking well in a global context.

Tamati Coffey: What other reports has he seen about the New Zealand economy in the context of the global economic situation?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The ASB’s recent quarterly economic forecast noted how the global economic outlook had continued to weaken over recent months due to situations like the US-China trade tensions and Brexit. ASB economists said that New Zealand’s trading partners were likely to grow at their slowest pace since during the global financial crisis. In this context, the ASB’s forecast growth rates for the New Zealand economy, averaging about 2.6 percent over the next four years, is solid and square with the IMF, who have said that New Zealand is going to grow faster over the next two years than Japan, US, UK, Canada, and the eurozone.

Tamati Coffey: How is the Government’s economic plan helping to support economic activity in New Zealand?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The coalition Government has already introduced a number of policies to support the economy, including the research and development tax credit, reforms to our skills training systems, investment in our regions through the Provincial Growth Fund, and a record land transport infrastructure package. We are keeping a close eye on the global economic situation, and in Budget 2019 we will continue to support the New Zealand economy through this international uncertainty. We’ll have much more to announce about that on Budget day.

Question No. 6—Transport

6. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: Is he satisfied the Government has the right priorities for transport investment?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes, I am. Our Government is rebalancing investment away from a few expensive motorway projects, and putting it towards saving lives and getting our cities moving. Last year, 377 people died on our roads. We are not accepting neglected and dangerous roads. We’re committed to improving thousands of kilometres of dangerous rural roads, with interventions that prevent deaths—like side and median barriers and wider shoulders. I make no apologies for putting safety first. New Zealanders are sick of seeing their loved ones die on the roads.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why is an improvement to the already very good public transport service down Dominion Road his priority for the largest and most expensive single new transport project in New Zealand?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the member should consult his colleague the former transport Minister, Simon Bridges, who oversaw the work that selected light rail as the appropriate mode to reduce bus congestion on the Auckland isthmus and provide Aucklanders with rapid transit that connects two major concentrations of jobs: one in the central city and one out at Māngere. That is a priority project. It was apparently a priority for the former Government but not any more.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why did he tell reporters, last week, that he wanted to be reassured that investment in extra roading capacity—this time in Wellington—“won’t undermine the core objective we have to get people out of single occupant vehicles and into public transport and walking and cycling.”?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yeah, I did tell journalists that, precisely because it’s not our Government’s view that the only answer to congestion is to build more motorways or add extra lanes on to the ones you’ve got. We had a nine-year experiment in that, and during that time congestion got worse in all of our major cities. Our Government believes, actually, that building modern public transport systems alongside our roads and motorways is the only sustainable way to ease congestion and actually allow our people to move around our towns and cities and get access to jobs and education and all the things they need on a daily basis.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he worried that doing something to reduce congestion on our roads would only encourage people to use cars?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, our Government is committed to actually reducing congestion by building modern public transport systems in our city. That’s why we’ve committed, alongside local government in the Wellington region, to a $6.4 billion investment to get Wellington moving and to solve the chronic congestion that we inherited after nine years of the former Government.

Jami-Lee Ross: Is an airport to Botany connection still a transport priority; if so, what further progress will be made on this connection?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I thank the member for his question. In fact, only last week, Mayor Phil Goff and I announced the letting of a $60 million contract to build a public transport interchange at Puhinui on the southern rail line that will allow any Aucklander who has access to the rail network in west, east, south, or central Auckland to have a convenient congestion-free 10-minute access from Puhinui station to the domestic and international airports. That connection, which will start off as high-priority bus, moving to rapid transit, will be the first link in a rapid transit line that will connect the airport with Puhinui, Manukau, and up in to the south-east of Auckland.

Jami-Lee Ross: Does he support an extension of the Eastern Busway down Te Irirangi Drive as part of an airport to Botany connection?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, very early preliminary work is being done on that by officials in the Transport Agency and Auckland Transport, but that is the logical development that would lead to a rapid transit connection between the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative, Howick, Botany, Flat Bush, Manukau, Hurunui, and the airport. That would be a vital addition to the Auckland rapid transit network that the city desperately needs.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree with his colleague Julie Anne Genter’s description of some opponents of the transport plans for Wellington as “car fascists”?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Minister Genter has acknowledged that she didn’t, perhaps, use quite the right words, but what I would like to point out is that this Government is taking a balanced approach to transport. This Government is investing in rail and public transport, walking and cycling, and roads and motorways rather than just focusing its policy—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Question No. 7—Health

7. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: What national health target, if any, does the Government have for elective surgical procedures for the financial year ending 30 June 2019, and will it meet that target?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): The Government does not have a national health target for elective surgical procedures. That said, district health boards (DHBs) have been contracted to deliver 200,895 elective surgical procedures in the current financial year. I’m advised that as at the end of March, DHBs were reported to be at 98 percent of planned levels.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well, why then does the Ministry of Health’s own website, in a page entitled “Health targets:”, say, “What is the target? The volume of elective surgery will be increased by an average of 4,000 discharges per year.”?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I don’t have access to that particular page. It may be cached on his computer or it may be one that’s live that needs updating. But what I can say is that we’re striving to address the contracted volumes because we acknowledge that some procedures have been postponed or otherwise moved due to the industrial action that was under way. I’m happy to report that there’s been a great deal of progress on industrial action, which is, of course, addressing years of underfunding by the previous Government. In the example of the nurses, their settlement was worth more than all three done under the previous Government combined. We’re addressing a historic underfunding in the sector and, even still, hoping to get to a point where we deliver on those contracted volumes. Indeed, DHBs have plans in place to improve their elective performance.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he agree with Ministry of Health figures that show that the 105,378 elective procedures completed by DHBs as at the end of March are almost 6,500 fewer than those required even to get to last year’s activity level and 9,500 fewer than those required to meet the extra 4,000 target?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I don’t accept the member’s numbers.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Which part of the question does he not accept?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The numbers I’ve seen the members opposite use are ones that don’t align with the historic reporting of elective targets under the previous Government. They are not comparing apples with apples. Statistics are to be used in a way that illuminates rather than misleads, and I believe there are better ways of presenting the material that actually gives a clearer picture of what’s happening.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: So is the Minister saying to patients waiting for cardiothoracic surgery that there won’t be 300 fewer of those cases performed in this financial year, and to those waiting for orthopaedic surgery that there won’t be 1,500 fewer of those operations performed this year?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: What I would say is that DHBs are working hard to ensure that contracted volumes are delivered. There are some anomalies with the data. The system that we inherited is certainly not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The investment in health infrastructure was also neglected under the previous Government. But I am encouraged to see an increase in non-admitted procedures, which are up by 2 percent compared with the previous year. Procedures are now being done in an environment often more convenient for the patient and actually more cost-effective for the sector. So we’re getting away from the distorted incentives that were in there previously that had Avastin injections and skin lesion removals often done in more expensive settings just to pump up Government statistics. This is a Government that’s committed to ensuring New Zealanders get the care they need and deserve rather than pumping up the statistics for political gain.

Question No. 8—Health

8. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about support for ambulance services?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): This morning, I joined the Deputy Prime Minister for a pre-Budget announcement about extra support for our ambulance services to help them plan for a secure, long-term future so they can continue providing lifesaving care to New Zealanders. I know everyone in this House values the work of paramedics, clinicians, and 111 emergency call handlers. That is something they do every day, but we can’t take those services for granted. So today, I was very proud to announce that Budget 2019 includes a one-off investment of $21 million over two years to relieve immediate pressures on St John and Wellington Free Ambulance, and provide certainty while they work with the Ministry of Health, ACC, and the district health boards on the long-term sustainability of their services.

Angie Warren-Clark: Why is this one-off funding boost required?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Currently, the Ministry of Health and ACC fund approximately 72 percent of the operating costs of ambulances. The remainder is largely funded through part-charges and donations. We recognise the concerns raised by St John and Wellington Free Ambulance about the suitability of the current funding model. We want to work with those providers to better understand the full range of services they currently deliver and how they are best funded into the future. Today’s announcement gives us time to do just that.

Angie Warren-Clark: Will Budget 2019 include any further support for ambulance services?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: More good news—more good news: on top of the $21 million over the next two years, Budget 2019 also includes an extra $17.2 million of operational funding over four years. This is a significant combined investment of $38.2 million dollars in our emergency ambulance services and the lifesaving work that they do.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister, does that mean that in the far-flung reaches of New Zealand, way out in the provinces and the places often forgotten, there’ll be a better ambulance service in the future?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Absolutely. This is a Government committed to funding emergency services more sustainably over time. They provide an amazing service to New Zealanders across New Zealand—in the regions and around the country, from Kaitāia to Bluff. We salute their work and we thank them for it.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements, policies, and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does she believe drivers on our roads should be tested for drugs?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We absolutely believe drug impairment is an issue that we need to address, particularly to ensure that our roads are safe. In fact, that’s why, within 10 months of coming into office, we have agreed, in principle, that that reform needs to take place, and we’re consulting on specific changes to bring those changes about. I note that in 2014, National reviewed the drug-driving policy, but they left office without implementing any reforms.

Hon Paula Bennett: Why then, when the driving consultation document was available in December 2017, has it taken 18 months for her Government to make a decision about going out for consultation?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: One of the issues, of course, has been making sure that we use the most effective testing possible to check not just the presence of drugs but the impairment that that then leads to. That has been a complex issue to work through. We are now consulting on specific changes. Again, I’m not sure about the member asking that question when it took their Government five years and they did nothing.

Hon Paula Bennett: Well, on that, then, will the upcoming Budget have funding for police to enable them to test suspected drugged drivers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, when it comes to checking for impairment—which they already do—what we’re talking about here is enhancing the tools that they have to check impairment. So they already do that, and that is already funded out of their baselines. What we can say is that, of course, we do have additional police through the extra 700 that we’re putting into the police. That makes it, of course, possible for them to undertake these kinds of initiatives, which they already do; we just want them to do with a better evidence base.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a very straight question, sir, which was: will the upcoming Budget have funding? I accept she may not want to answer it, but she could just say that.

SPEAKER: I think it’s a long-term tradition in this House that people don’t get specific Budget announcements—[Interruption] Mr McClay will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Todd McClay: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: People don’t get specific Budget announcements unless the Prime Minister wants to make them, and, therefore, I think the question was—I let it run, but it might have been described as optimistic.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We’ve always been optimistic here in the Opposition, and, as such, we do like putting questions to the Prime Minister and to other Ministers. As I say, I quite accept that, but it’s also been the tradition that if they can’t or don’t want to answer, then they would say that.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Speaking to the point of order, I believe that I addressed the question. Whilst I’m not going to make Budget announcements in this House, I did draw the member’s attention to the fact that police already undertake these kinds of roadside testing, but just not with the specificity and evidence base that this House probably would want.

Hon Paula Bennett: Has she seen evidence there will be fewer or more drugged drivers on our roads if recreational cannabis is legalised?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, this raises a really interesting point, because we know at the moment that we have a problem in New Zealand, actually, with the issue of things like synthetic or designer drugs, and even the most sophisticated roadside drug-screening devices cannot detect that. This is exactly why we’ve tried to undertake the work that we have. Look, when it comes to the issue of recreational drug-use, this is a question that we’re putting to the members of the public. We do not have a Government policy on increasing access to cannabis as a recreational drug.

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was very straight as to has she seen evidence that there could be fewer or more. I got synthetics, I got that the public will be making their minds up, and not whether or not she has seen evidence.

SPEAKER: Yeah, I will ask the Prime Minister to—

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m happy to clarify again for the member: this is not Government policy. So, therefore, I wouldn’t seek advice on something—this is not a Government policy—that we do not have a Government policy on.

Question No. 10—Education

10. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Education: Does he stand by his statement regarding the offer to primary school teachers: “The latest offer that the Government has made is it. There is not going to be any more money”; if so, how does he expect to resolve the largest ever industrial action by primary and secondary teachers planned for 29 May?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I stand by my full statement, which was that “The latest offer that the government has made is it. There’s not going to be any more money, so they can choose to accept the offer, they can ask for the offer to be reconfigured, but striking in the hope that more money will eventuate is going to lead to disappointment.” I’ve also said that I respect the right of workers to take industrial action, but I do not think that striking is justified. That’s why I’m urging the unions to continue working with the Ministry of Education to find a way through, and that includes their potential to agree on other concrete ways to advance teachers’ concerns outside of the bargaining process.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Has he had a conversation since his statement in November with the finance Minister or the Prime Minister where he has specifically requested an increase in the financial envelope for primary and secondary teachers?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I discussed the matter extensively with the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister at the time the envelope was increased to accommodate the current offer, which is worth $1.2 billion—just to put that again: $1.2 billion is the cost of the current offer. We have continued to discuss the matter on an ongoing basis, but we have not discussed increasing the size of the envelope for the offer, because we believe that the envelope that’s on the table at the moment is a good-sized envelope.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Did he ask the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister whether the education underspend around fees-free could be used for teachers instead of vocational reform, given his previous comments, and if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, because I’m not willing to see more of our regional polytechs collapse and those young people lose their opportunities at vocational education.

Hon Nikki Kaye: With more than 12 months of negotiation with primary teachers and eight months with secondary teachers, is he categorically ruling out increasing the financial envelope, or will he just keep blaming National?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I’ve said very clearly that $1.2 billion is the extent of money that we would be willing to put into the salary packets of teachers in this bargaining round.

David Seymour: Is the Minister confident that teacher pay provides less than or equal public benefit with all other expenditure by the Government he’s part of?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m confident that the money that we are putting into teacher pay, $1.2 billion extra, does recognise the significant value that teachers provide to New Zealand—to our future generations in particular. Am I ever going to be completely satisfied that that’s enough? No, I’m not. I’ll continue to push for more money.

David Seymour: Can the Minister give some examples of expenditure by his Government that he might wish to be sacrificed in order to pay teachers more?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No.

Hon Nikki Kaye: What does he say to parents of secondary students who are facing three days of strikes—on 29 May, a regional strike, and a strike for their child’s year group—all in five weeks?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I would say to those parents that the Government is committed to addressing a whole host of issues that those parents want action on, including lifting children out of poverty, including dealing with the mental health crisis, and including ensuring that all young children in New Zealand have a roof over their heads and a stable home so that they’re not moving from school to school to school because their parents can’t find stable housing.

Question No. 11—Justice

11. GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) to the Minister of Justice: What recent announcements has the Government made on family violence and sexual violence?

JAN LOGIE (Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: On Sunday, we announced the largest single investment yet in tackling family violence and sexual violence. It means more prevention and more support for front-line agencies, communities, and whānau, taking a new and collaborative approach, working across 10 agencies to change how the Government responds to the needs of our communities, survivors, and those using violence. This is a long-term project. This package lays the foundations for a violence-free Aotearoa.

SPEAKER: Does the member want a supplementary?

Golriz Ghahraman: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, the member should ask it and not clap.

Golriz Ghahraman: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why is it important to invest in prevention?

JAN LOGIE: On behalf of the Minister, preventing future violence is our greatest opportunity to improve wellbeing. That is why we’re increasing funding for national- and community-led approaches; extending coverage to recognise the needs of diverse communities, including rainbow, disability, elderly, and new migrants; and putting resources into mending the harm of family violence on our youngest New Zealanders so we can break the cycle for them and us.

Golriz Ghahraman: What difference will this make for people impacted by family violence?

JAN LOGIE: On behalf of the Minister, we’re creating safe, consistent, and effective responses to family violence in every community. This includes extending community-based pilots which keep people safe; rolling out victim video statements, which give victims alternative ways to interact with the criminal justice system; and extending training to health practitioners so that they too can respond effectively when people make disclosures to them.

Golriz Ghahraman: What will this funding mean for survivors of sexual violence?

JAN LOGIE: On behalf of the Minister, expanding essential specialist sexual violence services will mean survivors can get help sooner and experience less trauma. Developing services for children and young people, improving wellbeing for male survivors and victims of sexual violence through peer support services, and restoring kaupapa Māori responses to violence will mean people can get the right kind of help.

Golriz Ghahraman: What changes will be made to the justice system to better respond to victims of sexual violence?

JAN LOGIE: On behalf of the Minister, our focus is on doing no more harm; reducing the risk of sexual violence victims experiencing further trauma when participating in the criminal justice process. This includes enabling them to give evidence in alternative ways, such as pre-recorded video, providing specialist counselling and communications assistance through the criminal justice process, and specialist training for lawyers.

Question No. 12—Transport

12. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his policies and statements in relation to Wellington transport?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes. Last week, I announced, with Wellington Mayor Justin Lester and Greater Wellington Regional Council Chair Chris Laidlaw, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving indicative package. It will reduce congestion by integrating modern rapid transit, walking and cycling upgrades, better public transport, with the city’s motorways and roads. Better public transport infrastructure and more services will encourage people out of their cars, freeing up the roads for those that have to drive, and I thank the member for his endorsement of the plan when he described it as sensible.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Can’t remember that. How does delaying the Melling interchange and Pētone to Grenada Link Road—two vital upgrades to coincide with the completion of Transmission Gully—get Wellington moving?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving project is designed as the biggest transport investment that Wellington City has ever had, but I would note that in doing the financial modelling for the project, a generous allowance of something like $4.4 billion in likely future regional transport expenditure was set aside for other transport projects, like Melling, like the cross-valley link, and I think that’s why the regions’ mayors have all unanimously backed the Let’s Get Welly Moving project, because they see it as a project of great regional significance.

Paul Eagle: What feedback has the Minister received from the region’s mayors about Let’s Get Welly Moving?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the feedback’s been extremely positive. I met with all of the mayors from the wider Wellington region and the chair of the regional council. All of them recognised the regional significance of Wellington’s job-rich CBD and the importance of access for the region’s people to both the airport and the hospital. In fact, all of these mayors have said to me, and publicly, that they support Let’s Get Wellington Moving. But why doesn’t the National Party support the regions’ mayors?

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Supplementary.

SPEAKER: Paul Eagle.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why have—

SPEAKER: Paul Eagle.

Paul Eagle: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Will there be a large, concrete flyover over the Basin Reserve?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Wellingtonians will be relieved to hear that there will be no concrete flyover over the Basin Reserve. This is despite the previous Government threatening to cut off all regional funding if the Wellington local bodies did not go along with their plan for a giant concrete flyover.

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

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why have safety upgrades for what the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) calls “the Wellington region’s most dangerous road”—the roundabouts on State Highway 58 in Porirua—been delayed, despite being previously funded?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Those projects are subject to the normal NZTA processes, completely separate from the consideration of the Let’s Get Welly Moving project. There’s a number of projects that are under way that are in the pipeline. The member mentioned Melling before; NZTA’s board has approved that project and commitment is subject to finance becoming available. In 18 months, this Government’s done more for transport infrastructure in Wellington than that Government did in nine long years.

Brett Hudson: Will he confirm that a second Terrace Tunnel and Te Aro undergrounding will be delivered as part of the package announced last Thursday?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, I will not confirm that, because there wasn’t sufficient money for those two projects, and the clear intention of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving project is to reduce car dependency and to provide a sustainable way to ease congestion by getting more people out of single-occupant vehicles into public transport, rapid transit, and walking and cycling. That is the future of this beautiful waterfront CBD, and our Government’s going to unlock all of that potential.

Brett Hudson: When is it anticipated that Wellington ratepayers will begin paying increased charges and rates to contribute to the Let’s Get Wellington Moving package?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, that, of course, is up to the Wellington councils. But I’ll say this: this project has a scale and level of ambition that Wellington has never ever seen, and, because our Government was willing to go beyond the tired old business-as-usual policy settings, because we’re prepared to make long-term financial commitments to this city and this region, Wellington councils were willing to front up with 40 percent of the cost of the total programme—that is unprecedented, and it shows what a great partnership our Government has with the people of Wellington.

Brett Hudson: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: No, the member’s had his supplementaries. I think he knows that—it’s a nice try.

Bills

Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): I move, That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 21 October 2019.

Today, we begin the task of amending the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to fulfil the commitment that we have made, as a country, to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Together with the rest of the world, New Zealand faces unprecedented challenges from the effects of a changing climate. It will be ongoing and, at times, unyielding. In Aotearoa New Zealand, it may be punctuated by more severe flooding, drought, coastal erosion, and storm surges than we have ever seen before.

Globally, climate change will increase existing risks, including the spread of pests and disease, threats to food security, and social disruption. These hazards will impact whole communities, severely strain critical public infrastructure, and result in unprecedented social, ecological, and economic losses.

When these crises occur—whether it’s flooding in Whanganui, fires in Tasman, coastal washout in Greymouth, storm damage in Coromandel, or droughts in Northland—we declare an emergency and we marshal the resources to respond. It is not alarmism to suggest that climate change is itself an emergency—it is the causal force driving up the frequency and severity of each of these other crises. We ought to call it what it is. We cannot say that we did not know or that we were not told. The world is on fire. The climate emergency that we are now facing will change the way we live, where we live, how we travel, how we work, and how we raise our children. Our response outlined in this bill needs to be appropriate to the scale of that challenge.

The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill before you today, Madam Deputy Speaker, has as its purpose to provide a framework by which New Zealand can contribute to the collective global effort to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as set out in article 2 of the Paris Agreement, thereby significantly reducing the impacts and risks of climate change. As far as we’re aware, we are the first country in the world to locate that commitment to hold global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees in primary legislation.

This ensures that whatever else we choose to do, it must further that critical outcome—and nothing we do should undermine it. The bill will establish a climate change commission—an independent Crown entity—to provide expert advice on the transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient New Zealand. This bill outlines an emissions reduction target for New Zealand, in line with keeping global warming to under 1.5 degrees. The target has two components: it will seek to reduce our emissions of all greenhouse gases, expect biogenic methane, to net zero by 2050. It will also seek to reduce our gross emissions of biogenic methane within the range of 24 to 47 percent below 2017 levels by 2050, and will include an interim requirement to reduce gross emissions of biogenic methane by 10 percent below 2017 levels by 2030.

Emissions budgets will act as stepping stones towards the long-term target. Each budget will state the quantity of emissions that will be permitted in a five-year period, and will be supported by a plan to reduce those reductions. Taken together, successive emissions budgets should define an optimal pathway towards our long-term climate objectives. Finally, this bill will require the Government to have a plan for how we adapt to the effects of climate change. The commission will conduct a national climate change risk assessment every six years and, in response to each assessment, the bill requires the responsible Minister to produce a national adaptation plan. The bill also gives the Government power to require appropriate organisations to report information for inclusion in the national climate change risk assessments.

Now, since I introduced the bill to the House, a number of concerns have been raised about it at hui and workshops with me and, of course, via the media. First, should there be a limit on the extent to which the bill permeates across Government? Should it, instead, be able to affect the interpretation of other statutes, as happens with our human rights and privacy legislation? Second, should the level of legal liability be prescribed or should the bill be silent on this, allowing common law norms to develop as public expectations evolve? Third, should the commission be advisory only, or should it have some level of decision-making powers, as some have suggested? Fourth, are the proposed emissions reduction targets too ambitious or too conservative, given the commitment to stay within 1.5 degrees of global warming? Fifth, should the bill exclude international aviation and shipping, as currently proposed for consistency with the Paris Agreement, or should we bring them into our domestic framework as has been done in France and as has been considered by the UK? Finally, does the bill adequately address the Crown’s duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi to protect land and water and to consult and engage with iwi Māori?

The feedback I’ve received so far suggests that these issues warrant thorough consideration by the select committee. But I want to say that the bill reflects nearly 18 months of consultation and negotiations between political parties and with farming leaders, environmental NGOs, businesses, and iwi Māori organisations, and so I wish the select committee the very best of luck.

The world around us is changing. Eighteen countries have already consistently reduced their emissions over the past decade, whilst their economies have continued to grow and develop. Joining those countries in the transition will ensure that New Zealand maintains and enhances our competitive advantage in a low-emissions world compared with those countries that do too little, too late. Climate change policy does not need to be a trade-off between economic development and emissions reductions. In fact, evidence so far suggests a correlation between reducing emissions and increasing productivity and wealth creation.

The challenge of living in an emissions-constrained world is the most powerful driver of innovation I can imagine, creating new technologies, new industries, new jobs. It is, I believe, the single greatest economic opportunity in at least a generation. My greatest fear is that we will let this opportunity pass us by and allow it to accrue to other bolder nations.

I’d like to thank the 15,000 organisations and members of the public who responded to our public consultation. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the leadership shown by our nation’s young people in bringing the bill to Parliament and in seeking to hold us accountable for decisions that will shape their futures. I want to thank the Prime Minister for her personal leadership on this, the nuclear-free moment of our generation, and the Deputy Prime Minister, for his efforts in getting us to this point. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the National Party leader, Simon Bridges, and National’s climate change spokesperson, Todd Muller, who put politics to one side and worked with us in good faith to try and shape a bill that could be supported across the House.

This bill has a 30-year time horizon. It must survive multiple changes of Government in that time. The pressures will be even greater in the future than they are today, but businesses and investors, and communities and iwi, need the predictability and the stable policy environment that this bill is intended to provide. The genuine attempt at consensus building during the process has shown that all sides recognise that climate change is too important for petty partisanship and politics. For, as was said in a different time about a different but equally existential threat, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all share this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): The National Party takes climate change seriously. I want to just reflect on the fact that, as a Minister of the Crown, in my last three years I led on the electrification of our vehicle fleet, of our energy system, and, wider than simply electricity, when it comes to renewables, we saw New Zealand go from 65 percent in electricity to some 85 percent—and, on a good day, 90 percent. By the way, the trend right now is downwards. So we understand these issues. We take these issues seriously.

I gave—in fact, in one of my first speeches as leader of the National Party, at Fieldays, on the issue of climate change last year. I set out our principles and our desire to be bipartisan on this issue, because I agree with James Shaw that it is too important—economically, socially, and, clearly, environmentally—for petty partisanship. Can I acknowledge Todd Muller in relation to that, for having done an outstanding job of thinking through the difficult and the intricate economic, social, environmental issues that go with this area of reform, and for working hard with James Shaw, with the Prime Minister, and with me on this law change.

What I said in that speech at Fieldays was, yes, we believed—in fact, before the Government had stated their position, I think—in an independent advisory climate change commission, with the requisite expertise economically, socially, environmentally, to do the work and the mahi required. I set out our principles in this area that we would follow and that we think should be followed on climate change. It is science based—that we work heavily on innovation and technology; that there are appropriate economic signals; that we are in step with and work closely with our international partners; and that we think very carefully and understand the economic impact of this. I am glad to say that in the bill that is before this Parliament right now those principles that we outlined are there, as is the split treatment of gases that we made clear in that speech, and our position was the right approach. Those principles, those things, as I say, are in the bill. For those reasons, the National Party will vote for this bill at the first reading, but I want to be very clear with the Government: on this bill, we have real differences with the Government, and I’ve made them clear to the Hon James Shaw, to the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and indeed to the New Zealand First Party. We need to see change in this law.

The primary area of difference that we have—it may not surprise the Parliament—is in relation to the methane target. There is, in short, no satisfactory basis for setting the targets in 2030 and 2050 as high as the Government has chosen to do in this bill. The 2030 target is negative 10 percent, the 2050 target is negative 24 to 47 percent, and I reflect, when I think about the 2030 target, on what James Shaw has realistically, I think, said himself: emissions in New Zealand are going to rise into and beyond the mid-2020s. So he is making it quite clear to New Zealand, in terms of methane and agriculture and what needs to be done, that that change is literally in the last three, four, five years before that target is to be met in 2030.

The stark reality is that the science isn’t there yet. I am all for investment in the science. I argued, in the previous Cabinet, that we needed to increase the funding we were making in Palmerston North in science, in the Global Research Alliance, to make sure—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, what happened?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, I succeeded, unlike you have for most of your career, Mr Peters, and I also have—

Hon Grant Robertson: No room for petty partisanship!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well, I just want to say, with respect to the member, given that they’ve chipped away at me for the entire speech, it’s not exactly the point in time to be making those sorts of comments when I’m reaching out to the Government.

I say, actually, that biotech is an incredibly important part of this answer. I think it’s a tragedy that the Green Party outright rules it out and the Labour Party isn’t sure of its position. Actually, Sir Peter Gluckman and people like William Rolleston, who know what they’re talking about, have made quite clear that it is an essential part of the answer. The reality is that, without doing that, by 2030 we will be culling significantly our herds. That’s not alarmist; that’s the reality of the situation. When half of our exports around the world are food, Mr Peters, who’s shaking his head on this issue, that’s how we pay our way around the world, and we take that seriously as well.

No one else—none of our partners—are doing this. They may have moved in other areas. There is not a country in this world, no First World nation, that is moving on agriculture, in what is a global problem that requires global leadership. But also, if we act unilaterally, it simply sends that production offshore, and 2050—a target set by the other side, unilaterally cherry picked, I’m sorry to say, for political purposes from parts of the United Nations report, but economically disastrous, wrong on the science. Don’t trust me; ask the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, ask Professor David Frame, ask many of the experts in the science throughout New Zealand who argue for a much lower target of 10 to 22 percent methane reduction, a target too high in this bill for the National Party and for New Zealand. The whole purpose of this bill, it seems to me, in dealing with climate change is based around an independent climate change commission that provides reasoned, worked-through, evidence-based advice, and my position certainly is that that is where we should be sending the methane targets for an answer on that issue to be thought through. The Government will say that’s non-binding but certainly, if done well, it’s difficult to ignore, and I’ve made those points to the Prime Minister and others.

I’m also concerned and the National Party, on behalf of New Zealanders, is deeply concerned about the wider economic impact of this law. We take climate change seriously, but we cannot accept—indeed, we believe it’s naive—when James Shaw stands up in this House and says that it’s the single greatest economic opportunity for us in at least a generation. James Shaw—I respect him; he believes we can bend the arc on climate change quite quickly, rip the plaster off and get to some sort of economic innovation nation nirvana. Well, the reality is not that simple. Short of someone inventing the new iPhone or the next great big thing, this will have very real economic consequences on working Kiwis, on working New Zealand families and on their petrol costs and their electricity costs and their incomes and their jobs. Indeed, the RIS on this bill—the regulatory impact statement—makes quite clear that, even with a tailwind, there is $300 billion of cost to 2050 on the New Zealand economy and New Zealand workers and families; a reduction in gross domestic product by 9 percent in GDP, $10 billion to $12 billion a year; and indeed at 2050 a $45 billion smaller economy.

So I say: let’s have an honest discussion with New Zealanders about this—the costs and the trade-offs—but let’s be clear, Hon James Shaw, Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, that those costs are real. There’s a phenomenon in our rural communities, which I’m sure others in my party will speak about. But what is happening right now with dairy conversions and other farming conversions and the very real effect of this Government’s policies, the billion trees and so on, for no good—that’s actually resulting in a hollowing out already in some parts of New Zealand. We worry and we’re concerned about that on behalf of New Zealand.

We get climate change, we want bipartisanship, but all New Zealand needs to come on this journey. We want to see this bill changed—it’s essential that it is—so that we take out the politics; we do this on the policy. I urge New Zealanders to be heard on this, from the students to the farmers, right around the country.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Thank you. I want to start today by acknowledging those who have worked so hard to get us to this place and to this moment, and if I’m doing that I need to start no further than the Minister himself, the Hon James Shaw. Many of you may not know that I’ve known James Shaw for a long time, since we were both—I was going to say “young people”; that would probably be an inaccuracy—people that were living in London, where he and I were both candidates for our respective parties. I even remember then his clear determination on the issue of climate change at the point in time when there was no global consensus, where there was still wide-reaching climate change denial, and he has been absolutely unwavering since that moment right through to this process, and for that, Minister Shaw, I acknowledge you and, on behalf of this Parliament and New Zealand, I thank you.

I also want to acknowledge that there are many others—part of your movement but more broadly part of civil society, and I can’t help but acknowledge Kennedy Graham in this House today—who have been champions for so, so long. But there is a generation we can also acknowledge that, were it not for them, we may not be in this place that we are today with this debate. I still remember as a candidate over 10 years ago being booed when I talked about climate change, and I absolutely believe it’s in no small part the work that the next generation have done to bring people with them and build consensus that means we are not having a debate any more about whether we should take action, but about the speed and nature of the action—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Talk to the Parliament.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —so I thank you. Actually, Mr Brownlee, I will talk to them, because they deserve to hear us and be heard.

But there is anxiety, and I want to particularly acknowledge Generation Zero, who have taught me more than probably anyone else that we have to hear the anxiety that young people feel when they see the consequences—the very real images—of climate change around them. Our job is to give them hope, not just in words but in action, and we also have to give certainty. This cannot be a three-year plan; it has to be a 30-year plan, which is why we have in this House sought to build consensus.

It is incredible. I have to acknowledge that we do at least have three parties in this House who are supporting this bill, and I will not give up—I will not give up—on the aspiration of bringing even more with us still. But in doing so, that consensus must be based on science—it must be based on science. So that is why one of the most important principles of this bill is that we are amongst some of the first countries in the world to embed 1.5 degrees Celsius into our legislation. Why? Because the science tells us that unless we commit to trying to keep warming below that level, we are committing to our Pacific neighbours that we accept they will risk devastating impacts of climate change, that we will lose cities and towns, that we will lose flora and fauna. How can we look our Pacific neighbours in the eye, unless we commit to the aspiration, as a nation, as a Pacific nation, that we will not accept those devastating impacts on their behalf and nor will we tolerate it? So that is why 1.5 degrees Celsius is in the bill.

Please, everyone in this House needs to remember that that is one of the most critical commitments that we are making, because it all flows from there. If we commit to 1.5 degrees Celsius, what does that mean for our targets? Well, the science tells us—and this is what Dave Frame would say—that unless you move on carbon, then frankly nothing else matters. We have to make a difference on carbon. This is why we have moved to net zero on carbon.

Now, the member opposite, the Leader of the Opposition, who I acknowledge has said his party will vote for it at first reading—I thank the member for that goodwill. I thank the member for taking this to the select committee, but what I did not hear was the alternative that they are proposing to what has been put before this House. I look forward to debating it, but the only suggestion I heard was to put it to the Climate Change Commission. Two things on that: first of all, some of the industries that that member likes to speak to frequently, including our rural and agricultural sector, actually wanted certainty rather than sending it to the Climate Change Commission, so he may wish to take that on board.

The second point is that my expectation would be that the Climate Change Commission—and we’ve given them this power to review our targets on an ongoing basis—would listen to the science. The only science that we have does not model on an individual New Zealand basis. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment did not produce a report at keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Parliamentary Commissioner did a report on 2 degrees Celsius. So we do not actually have a basis on which to base our methane targets.

The only thing that we have—science based, evidence based—is actually the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They undertook modelling that included what nitrous oxide, what methane would need to look like if we were aspiring for 1.5 degrees Celsius, and what did it say on biogenic methane? What did it say? It said exactly what we put in this bill. It said you would need to set a target between 24 and 47 percent. We listened to the science, and that is exactly what we need to be doing if we want to remove the politics from this conversation: listen to the science.

Now, I accept, though, that that individual modelling—some of the science just isn’t where we would like it to be. We want to be more definitive, but it is going to take time. That is why we are giving the Climate Change Commission criteria on which to review the targets that include looking at the most recent evidence base, technological advancement, and what the science is telling us. It is all built into the system we are trying to build to give certainty, to build consensus, and to give longevity to this piece of legislation. Mr Speaker, the member opposite also—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually, I’m “Madam Speaker”.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Oh, Madam Speaker—excuse me. The party leader opposite also raised the fact that, in his mind, no one was doing what we’ve done on methane, where, actually, some countries have gone all gases. Some nations have gone net zero all gases, and they include, for instance, I believe, the UK, which has gone net zero. So I just don’t think that’s accurate. What we have done, however, is acknowledge what the science tells us between short-lived gases and long-lived gases, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot have an aspiration around methane.

Secondly, the member also mentioned economic impacts. His statements around the impact on New Zealand’s economy doesn’t factor in that his party themselves have already committed us to a reduction in our emissions. What we are committing to here takes us an extra 0.2 percent impact on GDP. That’s actually if you don’t realise the opportunities of transitioning our economy, and this is where I am proud of this side of the House. We have invested $14 billion into transitioning our transport options in New Zealand. We are investing in low-emissions transport options like cycling, like the use of rail, and like the use of walking to try and bring down some of those emissions.

Annually, we’re putting $20 million into reducing agricultural emissions, and on the 10 percent methane reduction by 2030, that was based on advice by my Chief Science Advisor, who also points out we are reducing agricultural biological methane emissions by 1 percent a year already. We can do this, but we have to aspire and commit to doing it.

We have a $100 million Green Investment Fund. We have given certainty to the oil and gas sector by not continuing to release exploration permits into the future and, instead, we are investing $50 million into cutting-edge energy research in a new energy research and development centre in Taranaki. It is our region where they have traditionally relied on fossil fuels, and we must support them to transition into new energy technology.

Mr—Madam Speaker. It is delightful, Madam Deputy Speaker, to have you in the Chair—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have yet to see you—

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —but I’m just not used to it, I’m sorry. It is true that I called climate change my generation’s nuclear-free moment. I absolutely believe that it is, and what did I mean by that? Well, I meant that we are being confronted with an enormous issue and that we are the ones that are going to have to make a bold decision as to how we will want to be known going forward on and whether we will be on the right side of history—will we take a stand? My aspiration is for the next generation not to have to make that decision because we will have made it, and we will have set in place the foundations for making sure that the only thing that they need to worry about is that we keep the momentum and the action going.

Today, we lay the foundation in this House. We take our nuclear-free moment so that the next generation doesn’t have to.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak for the first time on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. Just over a year ago, our leader, Simon Bridges, in the Fieldays, outlined our approach that we would take in the negotiations with the Government over this bill. He touched on some of the principles that he felt, from a National Party perspective, were absolutely critical to inform this commission’s judgment.

The first was the importance of broad science. The second was the fact that we needed as an economy to have access to innovation and technology to assist us on this journey. The third was that we needed to calibrate our response, aligned with our trading partners in the global response. Fourthly, we saw a key role in the emissions trading scheme as a signal and an incentive for the change over time. Fifthly—and most critically—was that we assure ourselves of the economic costs of this transition. At the core of the National Party approach to this issue is that climate change is an issue that we have to confront as a collective country, but we do it best when we are informed in a dispassionate way about what the science is suggesting is available in terms of innovation for us to apply and what the economic costs are for this change.

We have had a fair discussion with the Government over the last 10 or 12 months. As I noted the last time I spoke—last week—for most of that period, it has been a very forthright and goodwill-based conversation between myself and my opposite number, James Shaw, and we are very pleased to see that in this legislation are the key tenets that underpin our principles and approach to climate change. There is science to inform the conversation and judgment of the commission. Innovation and the availability of that innovation is a critical part of their judgment. So is global response and so is the economic costs that we need to reflect on as a country, as is the importance of this commission being advisory and also the approach with respect to split gases. But, clearly, we have a challenge with respect to the target that has been landed with respect to methane.

I listened closely to what the Prime Minister said, and her speech today, more than anything else, reinforces the importance of having a commission to reflect on where this methane target should be. She spoke with authority in terms of her own interpretation of what the science says. She talked to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which says minus 24 percent to minus 47 percent of an interquartile range of four illustrative pathways out of 85, and each one of those pathways is hugely challenging. Most of them actually don’t see the economies reaching the targets, and they say in that report they are not to be used for national guidance. She used one line out of that and said, “That works, and I’m cloaking science and the credibility of my comments around that.” It is nonsense. That interquartile range is just one line from a series of illustrative pathways that can be considered by countries as they walk this journey. David Frame says methane should stay at minus 10 percent; the Parliamentary Commissioner: minus 10 to 22 percent.

The point is: why are we having this debate in this House? None of us are qualified, from a scientific perspective, to hold a view, when the economic cost of getting this wrong is eye-watering. This is not something that you can just wash away with lovely words. If we get this wrong, regional New Zealand will not look the same again. If we get this wrong, the standard of living that exists in this country will be materially impacted. The whole purpose of a bipartisan conversation around establishing a commission is for them to look at the competing objectives of science, of available innovation, of what the rest of the world is doing, and of what the economic impacts are.

The view expressed by the Government that the primary pinnacle perspective that floods all of this legislation is that we must do our bit to keep the global temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius. Well, the global temperature is already over 1 degree Celsius, it’s pushing to 1.3 degrees Celsius, and this country is 0.17 percent of global emissions. The very idea that our collective effort will somehow impact the global temperature is a nonsense. We have to call this for what it is. One point five is an objective in this legislation; it is one of the perspectives that the commission has to bring to bear along with what the science says is possible, what innovation is available to apply across the economy at a cost that works, and what the economic impacts are for New Zealanders.

The regulatory impact statement talks to the modelled cost on this economy between the current gazetted target, that we have supported previously as the National Government, and what is suggested in this bill. The sum of the difference is $300 billion; $45 billion different than what it would be if we stayed with the National Party’s target. Prime Minister, I’m sorry, those modelled assumptions assume that electricity has been integrated across our entire transport sector, assume that electricity is in our industrial heat, and assume that we have found technology to support our opportunity in the agriculture sector—all those innovations are baked into the model and it still costs us $300 billion.

So for us to sit here and say “This is a new nirvana and we’re just going to walk there together.” is not giving New Zealanders credit. This is hard transitional stuff. It will cost and it will continue to cost, there will be opportunities there as well, but it is going to cost. The Government’s own regulatory statement talks to the scale of the cost. I’d venture to suggest that there would not be a bill that has been in front of this House in the last two decades that has a regulatory impact statement saying that the cost is $300 billion. But on this side of the House, we stand willing to support a conversation around a commission that can guide us; but to frame this up as a headlong run, to commit to 1.5 degrees Celsius even if the rest of the world doesn’t, and that those other conditions are secondary, is flawed, from our perspective—seriously flawed.

I am not arguing that we do not progress our own emissions reduction journey over the next 10, 15, or 20 years. I am not suggesting that because it’s $300 billion we do nothing, because the world expects us to play our part. But what I am saying is that our communities expect us to be prudent and to be measured and to use evidence as we slowly make this transition, because if we get it wrong, the Taumarunuis, the Te Kūitis, the small communities who have been so strongly underpinned by our agricultural exports and activity, the most efficient and effective emissions-efficient food-producing sector in the world—I repeat that for people listening at home: our agricultural sector is already the most emissions-efficient food-producing sector in the world. No one here suggests that New Zealand does not put its shoulder to the wheel, but we must not be so naive that we get crushed under the axle. We need to be seriously measured and prudent as we step through this. That is why, when we go to the select committee, I hope—and I echo my leader’s comments—from students to farmers to academics to those who just have a passing interest in this: please, we want to hear your voices. We want to hear the scientists—you’ve rung me, I want to hear you at that select committee, because, as James Shaw has said himself, this is an opportunity but we have to do this together.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): New Zealand First rises in support of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill.

Mr Muller asked the question, and bravely so. He said, “Why are we having this debate in the House?” Well, Mr Muller, it’s because the National Party Government signed the country up to the Paris Agreement. If he doesn’t understand what he was doing then, then pray tell me: where are those people that signed that document, or did they go in there blindly? It’s no use blowing hot and cold now; the fact of the matter is that they signed up, and here’s the rub: today, his leaders said that they supported the person that they nominated to be the environment commissioner—that’s Mr Simon Upton—and then they wanted him to be the ultimate arbiter, have the final decision, and then they forgot to tell you that they don’t agree with this target. There it is in a very substantial article by Louise Gibson today, which every farmer should read because that’s how confused the National Party is. They want Mr Upton to be the arbiter, they don’t agree with his science but somehow they think they can blow hot and cold. I want to know what the reason is for, what you might call, all these different stances. Are we going to hear from the Mitchell-Bennett ticket or the Bridges-Bennett ticket or the Collins ticket—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think we’d actually prefer to hear about the bill.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —or maybe the Muller ticket?—I beg your pardon?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d rather we debated the bill.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: You might prefer me to debate the bill, but I’m just dealing with some of the inconsistencies that I’m hearing over there. It is a parliamentary debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, something which I know about slightly more than you. Now, can I get back to the point? [Interruption] Well, I’m not going to be taken—in one sentence being stopped in a speech that I’m making. This is outrageous. We will not be bullied by anybody in this Parliament, because you are talking about a serious issue: the National Party went off to Paris and signed an agreement, and they’re now back here—

Hon Member: What about the bill?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —half in and half out. Well, I’ve got the bill. Let me tell you why this bill is important. First of all, it fulfils New Zealand First’s agreement with Labour to establish a climate change commission, but one that does not resemble the statutory or arbitrary or final powers of the Reserve Bank, precisely what I heard Mr Bridges saying today. So that’s the number one thing that farmers should know. It begins with a process where the Climate Change Commission will provide the free allocation to agriculture, with all revenues cycled back into agriculture for mitigation, for the additional planting of forestry, and for research innovation—also part of our coalition agreement. Now, that’s critical. What we’re saying to farmers is that we know, as they know in Scandinavia and in great countries like Denmark, we will make the changes and we’ll have the money to make those changes, and that we are confident in the farming community to be able to get there, but not with the kind of double-talk cynicism that I’m hearing from certain people in New Zealand politics today.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What’s your view on biotechnology?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: In recognition of New Zealand’s—look, we do not want to hear from “the old man in the House”, Nick Smith. The last person we want to hear from is a person called Nick Smith. In fact, I can’t believe he’s still here.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Because I win my seat.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: In recognition of New Zealand’s unique methane profile—yeah, he won his seat. Yes, you won your seat way back in 1990 because somebody called Winston Peters came down and packed the Richmond hall for you. And what a mistake that was. I’ve regretted it ever since.

In recognition of New Zealand’s methane profile, it splits methane from the more longer-living greenhouse gases. Could I just say, I am very aware of a speech made to the most recent regional conference with the National Party. And guess who was making the speech? One Todd Muller, telling his own party not the message I heard today, but inside the in camera confidential meeting with his colleagues he’s telling them to wake up and do what they have to do. I agree, Mr Muller, but that’s the speech I wanted to hear in the House today. It’s no good inside the inner sanctum of the declining National Party—no, no. We want it here and in front of farmers in New Zealand so we can all be on the same wavelength.

It establishes an initial gross methane target of 10 percent from 2017 levels from 2020 to 2030, which it projected, all the way to 2050, corresponds with a 26.7 percent methane target. Now, let’s have the end of this alarmism from some people in Federated Farmers who are way out of kilter with their membership.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Are they the moaners? Is that what your colleague called “the moaning farmers”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, no. He called them—the so-called spokespeople who saw Fonterra go bankrupt, who saw Westland go into liquidation, virtually, and who saw, for example, Silver Fern Farms being sold off to foreign ownership. He said that those leaders were moaners and groaners and useless—and so say all of us, and so says every farmer out there.

I’m talking about the farmer that’s doing his job, trying to pay his way, and looking around for a bit of political leadership. He’ll be looking a long time to find it over there on that side of the House, because they do not have a position to preserve long-term sustainable farming. I am confident that farming will be more wealthy than ever before because it will also have this about it: not only being sustainable; it’ll finally get to added value, which is a policy that this country should have been pursuing a long, long time ago.

No, no—all they worry about is cow hoof numbers. It’s what you do with the cow that’s important. Instead of having, for example, Fonterra sell milk product at its lowest price like milk powder; no, instead of making sure that Fonterra got exclusive control of the world infant formula business, these people over there, who claim to be defenders of farming, did nothing—or, worse still, they facilitated, or, worse still, when somebody wanted an inquiry as to what was going on, they shut down the inquiry. Then, all of a sudden, here they turned up, all cloned, thinking they can get away with the kind of defence they’re trying to make now—as though they give a rat’s derriere about farming. Oh no they don’t, because if they did, when they went to Paris, they’d have got back home and said, “This means we have to do some work. This means we have to do some science. This means we must know, in a very short time, to be world leaders here and in the Pacific and alongside Australia”—which we hope comes our way—“we have to do some work now.” Not nothing, sitting there—not an idea. In fact, if I was to ask half the rural members “What’s your position?”, they wouldn’t know. Not surprising. When you’ve got a leaderless rabble, it’s quite possible half of them don’t know.

But that’s where it sits. That’s where it is. Who is it that set out with the Provincial Growth Fund to back up the process we’ve got?

Barbara Kuriger: What’s in the bill?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: What’s in the bill? Well, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll read it out slowly, and, for that member, I’ll send some cartoons. I’ll send a few pictures. This is the very member—I can remember her. I can remember her down in—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. Order! Order! Can we just come back to the bill and not—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Look, she interposed herself.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s right.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I just tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that, since 1854, if someone interposes themselves in the debate, you can respond to them. Or are you going to write a new rule?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s right. But without any personal—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, no, no—we won’t have your judgment of what that means, either.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry, but you will.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: If they want to get personal with me, if she, as uneducated as she is, wants to suggest I can’t read the bill with my legal background against hers, then she’s the one that’s getting personal.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no. I’m asking you to come to the bill.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: And I’m sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, you can try it with somebody else, but don’t try it with me—with the greatest respect.

I want to make it very clear—I want to make it very clear in my next 1 minute and 58 seconds—that what is important is also the back-up of the Provincial Growth Fund. There are so many things that we can do to assist the mitigation we’re talking about. For example, we’re not going to be dumping waste in the Pūhoi Straits.

Hon Member: Oh, this is embarrassing.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, no—no, it’s not embarrassing. We need to look at the emissions from waste itself. What are the Scandinavian countries doing? They’re not dumping underground and leaching it everywhere. No, no—they’re doing something about it, and so must we.

One of the long-term projects of the Provincial Growth Fund will be to start doing responsibly something with our waste—turn it back into energy instead of thinking we somehow can leach it out of the ground and out into our streams, into the Kaipara and everywhere else, and somehow it’ll be all OK. All those days, “Madam King Country”, are over. Everybody is responsible, and King Country farming will know that there is a new Government in place, that it has got a plan, and that that plan is clear as daylight. But I want to make it very clear. I want to hear from the next National Party person: have they read this article about the misrepresentation from the leadership of Federated Farmers where this bill is concerned, because it makes it very clear—and this is from a neutral person who reports to the BBC and elsewhere—that there has been a massive misrepresentation in and outside this House? What we have set out to do is set the goals as clear as daylight—Mr Shaw, the Prime Minister, and us. Thank you very much.

Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Well, what a shocking speech that was. I’ve been in the House for 14 years, and I’ve never heard one like that. A speech that was full of rhetoric, with no real substance. It was clear that the member the Rt Hon Winston Peters didn’t have a clue what the bill is about and what he’s going to vote for shortly in the first reading.

I’ll tell you what’s happened with New Zealand First. They got hoodwinked into signing up to this because they were doing a backroom deal on agriculture coming into the emissions trading scheme (ETS). That was it. So when their chief of staff came to their caucus meeting and briefed the leader of New Zealand First and said, “Yep. It’s all fine. We’ve got the split gases. That’ll be fine. The industry will back this outrageous methane target.”—he didn’t use the word outrageous—Mr Peters went, “Oh yeah. OK. That’s fine—that’s fine.” Well, he’s been sold a puppet. And we heard that this afternoon, because Mr Peters doesn’t even know what is in the bill.

Now, this debate this afternoon is about head and heart. It’s about emotional versus financial. Actually, what we heard from Mr Peters was none of that. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was speaking with his head or his heart. There are massive financial considerations in this bill, and it’s been talked about by our leader this afternoon—potentially $10 billion on cost a year, which is about $300 billion out to 2050. Those numbers are a big concern to us on this side of the House. We realise that we need to do something. I think the whole of the Parliament—well, we’re going to hear how everyone’s going to vote this afternoon. But when I look and read the regulatory impact statement and I read the section from Treasury in which they say that economic losses incurred via droughts and floods over the last decade have been $720 million dollars, it’s clear to me that things need to change.

What we’re voting on this afternoon is, effectively, the commission, how the commission is going to work, and these targets. And the targets are actually very challenging: 95 percent of the personal vehicle fleet—it’s about 4 million cars at the moment on the road—they will need to be electric by 2050. Then you look at renewables: 98 percent of renewables for our energy sector will need to occur by 2050.

Here’s a question for the other side of the House—maybe for the next speaker. Will the Government reform the Resource Management Act to allow some of these big energy projects—whether it’s hydro, whether it’s wind farming, or whether it’s geothermal—to be built quicker? I mean, can we have an answer? No—no. So the reality is we’ve got these grandiose targets. You get back to the emotional versus the financial. Yes, everyone wants the climate to change and we agree that we need to back this bill at the first reading, but I have, personally, got quite a few concerns, and I want to spend the next few moments talking about those.

We agree with the split gases. We agree with the commission. But we don’t agree with the biogenic methane reduction out to, potentially, minus 24 - minus 47 by 2050. When you look at what all of the agricultural sectors have been saying over the last week—it starts with Federated Farmers; they’re saying, “Outrageous, it will really hurt rural communities”. Then you step it down to Beef and Lamb, something a little bit softer but still concern and alarm. Dairy New Zealand—very concerned as well. So you’ve got the engine room of the New Zealand economy concerned about these methane targets.

Then we’ve heard this afternoon from Simon Upton, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who came out and said—actually, he is a fantastic individual, well-researched, his report is well worth reading—that the methane target should be in the vicinity of minus 10 to minus 22, and we heard something similar from David Frame. Of course, what we’ve also got to realise—nitrous oxide is down to zero. Actually, the rural sector is saying, “Yes, we can do that but we know it’s going to be tough”.

So farmers have been adopting technology for a long period of time; they have been making incremental changes. We heard a great quote before from Todd Muller that the agriculture sector is the most efficient producer of food in the world. What we don’t want to do is load them up with a whole lot more costs that are going to slow down the New Zealand economy—$45 billion of exports are generated by 50,000 farmers who go on to create 300,000 jobs. So if the Government takes their eye off those people it will slow down the New Zealand economy, and that is a hell of a concern.

Now, what’s happened in the last week—it’s been fascinating hasn’t it? Shane Jones has been getting it in the ear. His phone in his office and his cell phone have been ringing around the clock and, I’ll tell you what, he’s been getting it on two fronts: the methane target being ridiculous and also that this billion trees target is starting to have a real impact in rural communities. So what does Shane Jones do? He doesn’t just accept the criticism and say, “Yes, we’ll have a look at it”. He comes on the country radio station and says, “Those farmers, when they’re not milking their cows, they’re out there whingeing and moaning”. That’s right, just attack the farmers.

So when Winston Peters stands up and says, this afternoon, “We’re going to try and do all we can to support the agriculture sector to change”, one of his sidekicks is out there saying, “They’re a whole bunch of whingers and moaners”. Then about 48 hours later, he’s back on the radio doing a mea culpa and doing a Clayton’s apology. But that one particular comment will resonate right through to the election because we will keep reminding farmers that New Zealand First said to all our hard-working farmers that they are a bunch of whingers.

Now, farmers aren’t those people; what they are doing is they are concerned about the billion trees. We had the Labour Party and the Greens and New Zealand First in the election campaign saying, “We’re going to tighten the Overseas Investment Act”. Well, yes they did—they tightened it on housing, they tightened it on farm ownership but wait, here’s the rub: they loosened it for overseas investors to come in and buy farmland and plant trees. So what you’re seeing right now is all of these investors coming in and gobbling up land. You’ve got big concerns on the East Coast of the North Island and into the central North Island where farmers are worried about their communities. This bill here will do nothing to help them. I’ll tell you why: it’s because farmers can’t offset their emissions by planting trees. They can’t go and buy the farm next door and plant it in trees like Z Energy, like Air New Zealand, like the big power generator Genesis can with carbon farming.

So these are the things that are going to need to be debated in the select committee. What we also need to hear from James Shaw—I thought in the week’s recess he might have come out and said, “Yes, we’ve reached a negotiation with New Zealand First. Agriculture is coming into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)”. There’s a big discussion to be had about whether that is going to be seen as just another tax. I reckon it will. This Government’s ruled out the capital gains tax, environmental taxes. But wait, it’s like the Ginsu knives—but wait, there’s more. There are more—there are more taxes coming and it is agriculture coming into the ETS.

Now, here’s my bet this afternoon: when James Shaw stands up and says agriculture—and it will be with Damien O’Connor because he’s the guy that wants to inflict more costs on rural communities; he said it in the first few days when he was Minister. They’ll do a joint press release and it will say, “Agriculture’s coming into the ETS, but we haven’t got the measurement sorted to be able to collect the data inside the farm gate. As a result that will all be collected at processor level.” That’s going to be seen as another tax and it won’t change behaviours.

So I want to summarise in the last few moments: we support the intent of this bill. We are really, really concerned about that methane target. If New Zealand First had done their homework they would have wrestled that target down, and, actually, this debate this afternoon—I think it would have gone a hell of a lot better than it has this afternoon. There’s a lot of work to be done in the select committee. We’ll be constructive but we remain very concerned about the methane targets and the costs, not just on rural communities but the cost on New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Just three months ago, we saw school students marching in our streets in the climate strikes: thousands of students here in New Zealand pouring on to the streets of Dunedin, of Christchurch, of Wellington, of Auckland, of New Plymouth, of provincial centres around the country—thousands and thousands of young people urging us to take urgent action with respect to climate change. In my own electorate, students from Lynfield College marched, students from Green Bay High School marched—passionate about climate change. In my own home, my own two younger daughters, my twins aged 17; they were out there marching too, urging us in this House to take action with respect to climate change. They say we’ve got to move beyond the fine words, we’ve got to move beyond the fine sentiments. We must actually take action, and that is what this bill is. We are keeping faith with those students.

I grew up in the shadow of the nuclear threat, as many people in this House did. We grew up in a world where nuclear Armageddon hung over us. We were deeply concerned about it but there was one slight difference between the nuclear threat and the threat that our young people face today. We knew that the nuclear threat could be stopped if only the men with their fingers on the buttons could be sensible—if only the men with their fingers on the buttons could stop themselves—and so far they have. The problem with climate change is that the damage has been done, is being done, and will not stop. All we can do now is take action to try to keep the worst effects at bay. If we take action now, in New Zealand and as a global community, then we have a chance of keeping our world livable. That is what this bill is about—giving our children a chance.

In the speeches this afternoon, many people have talked about climate mitigation—that is reducing the greenhouse gases that are creating a heated world. But this bill concerns itself not just with climate mitigation but also with climate adaptation. Our world is changing already: ask the people of Haumoana and they’ll talk to you about how the sea is encroaching and threatening them even further. Look at the increase in storms around the world; look at the effect of rising temperatures; look at the sea levels increasing slowly; look at the increased flooding. We can’t stop some of that now, so we need to adapt to climate change.

The sorts of things we need to adapt to—well, every time I drive up State Highway 1 up from Wellington and up through the Horowhenua—up through Mr Nathan Guy’s electorate—I look at the low-lying level of State Highway 1 and I wonder: what are we going to do about that road? What about State Highway 1 just before the Harbour Bridge in Auckland—that low-lying road that gets flooded at high tides and through big storms already? What are we going to do about South Dunedin, threatened by climate change?

Part of this bill concerns itself with adaptation. The Climate Change Commission that is being set up has a responsibility to develop reports around the risks of climate change, to assess the risks of climate change, and the Minister for Climate Change has a responsibility to respond to those reports from the Climate Change Commission. What’s the objective of that? It’s to get central government and local governments to assess the risks of climate change and to take action to protect our communities on the beaches, along the rivers, but also to protect our communities like Te Kūiti and Taumarunui, referred to by one of the speakers this afternoon—towns that are dear to my heart. My grandmother was born in Te Kūiti and my family shopped in Taumaranui. These rural and provincial communities are important to us.

We’ve been told this afternoon that if we get this wrong, regional New Zealand will not look the same again. That is correct. If we do not respond to climate change, if we do not try to adapt to it, rural and regional New Zealand simply will not look the same. We do need to respond and we do need to adapt. We’ve heard about the worries around climate mitigation, around the science of climate change. Again, one of the important parts of this bill is about the make-up of the Climate Change Commission. It will not be a representative commission; it will be a committee of experts—a committee of people who have the knowledge and the wisdom, who can weigh up the conflicting claims of science, who can weigh up the evidence and come up with solid recommendations for the Government.

I refer you to clause 8 of the bill, which inserts new section 5H in the Climate Change Response Act. It talks about the qualities of the people to be appointed to the Climate Change Commission. They are people who must have an understanding of climate change mitigation and adaptation. They are people who have experience in working with local and central government. They are people who have a knowledge of public policy processes. They are people who have technical and professional skills and expertise in the environment and ecology and the social and economic and distributional effects of climate change. They are people who understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Ao Māori. They are people from a range of sectors and industries—all experts. They are the people that we will be relying on—not the grasping at straws of people who have reckons and hot takes on climate change but the people who have the actual knowledge. It is not cherry-picking experts. Anyone can cherry-pick an expert. This commission will prevent us from doing that.

Those are two important aspects of this bill that I want to draw the attention of this House to, and I think they are, actually, non-controversial. In finishing my last words on this particular bill, as I just reflect on it, some of the speakers this afternoon have pointed out that New Zealand is responsible for only a tiny amount of global warming. That’s genuinely the case—they’re correct—and the implication is, “Well, why us?” The reason is that if we can’t, no one can. Our energy sector is already 85 percent renewable. The next steps will be hard. Other countries can transition from coal for electricity—we’ve done that already, long ago. The next steps will be hard. We will be showing the world how to take those final few, hard steps. In agriculture, we already have an agricultural industry that is highly efficient with respect to greenhouse gases, but we still need to reduce the emissions from that industry. If we can develop the ways of doing it, then we will be showing the world how to do it. That is the leadership that New Zealand will take with respect to climate change. That is how we will fulfil our moral obligations.

At the Doha conference in 2012, Naderev Saño, the lead negotiator for the Philippines, said something interesting. He said, referring to storms, “We must stop calling events like these natural disasters … It is not natural when science already tells us that global warming will induce more intense storms. It is not natural when the human species has already profoundly changed the climate.” There are no disasters; there is just human action, which we must take action to mitigate. But, compellingly, he said this: “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” I say to the students at Lynfield College, to the students at Green Bay High, I say to my daughters, I say to all the young people: it is now and it is us. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call in this first reading of this historic piece of legislation introduced into the House today. It’s vaguely ironic to be following the chair of the select committee, who commenced her speech by saying that we had to, as a Parliament and as a nation, move beyond the fine words, and then proceeded to give us 9½ minutes of fine words and no detail.

Actually, it’s the detail in this legislation that counts. It’s the detail that is important, and it’s the detail that New Zealanders want to know about. At select committee, we’re going to get a lot of detail, and I hope that New Zealanders—organisations, communities, and people interested in this subject of climate change—will take up the invitation of my colleague Todd Muller and make representations and submissions to the select committee in their hundreds, if not their thousands, because this is important legislation.

It was the Bluegreens who about four years ago brought over to New Zealand to address our Bluegreen forum, held in Waimauku in Auckland that year, the chair of the British climate committee, Lord Deben. He came over because we were interested in what the UK model looked like and the establishment of a structure, a format, an institution that was based largely on the model that the UK had implemented some 10 years prior. He gave us a very good insight into how that model had been working, and members of the Environment Committee were fortunate to meet briefly with him when we visited London a year or so ago.

If I can just pause for a moment to continue that story, I want to acknowledge in the Chamber today Dr Kennedy Graham, who in the previous Parliament chaired the GLOBE-NZ organisation—a genuinely cross-party organisation, representing members of Parliament from all sides of this House, and every party in the last Parliament was represented in that. We worked together collaboratively on a very good piece of work that resulted in a Vivid Economics report that focused on options for a carbon-zero New Zealand, and this bill has its genesis in some of that work, and I’m very pleased that Kennedy is with us today.

When we had Lord Deben here, we looked at the UK model and we thought about the benefits of an independent, science-based, informed, impartial expert panel to create a pathway towards a zero-carbon economy for New Zealand and New Zealanders. When we looked at the UK model, we were, I think, impressed to a person that the independence of that model had received almost unanimous support in their Parliament, and that the budgets that had been set by the United Kingdom climate committee were then being implemented by the elected politicians of the day.

It was James Shaw, in his introductory speech today, that told us, actually, this is legislation that, if it’s really going to work, has to endure the changes of multiple Governments over its history, and knowing as we do that there will be a change very soon in Government, we on this side are determined to work collaboratively with the current Government in order to try and make this work, but we have some very serious reservations. It’s around the setting of targets within this legislation that is the core problem and the core concern for us on this side. In the UK, what’s been effective is—it’s been the committee. It’s been their equivalent of what we are going to establish in terms of a commission that has been responsible for setting those targets, people who actually know an awful lot more about this area than any one of us in this Parliament. The UK Parliament, the House of Commons, has deferred to those experts in a way that I think is exemplary and cause for reflection in terms of comparing their model to what we have before us today.

When we went as an Environment Committee to London and also to Brussels to have a look at the European Union’s methodology for coping with climate change legislation, what we found out was, of course, that in Europe, agriculture is so far down their list of priorities in terms of adaptation and mitigation that they’re not even looking at it, most of them. Their footprints are completely different to ours. They’re focused on transport, on heating, on industrial emissions—a completely different focus. In fact, when we asked them the hard questions about “What do you think should be done about agriculture?”, inevitably, they came back to us and said, “Well, boy, we were hoping that New Zealand will sort that out for us. We are hoping that by the time we get to having to address our subsidised agricultural sector, New Zealand will have provided answers for us.” They’re looking to us to provide answers, and right at this minute, this piece of legislation asks questions to which there are no answers in the world. Not only are there just no answers in Europe; there are no answers in the world.

We are being asked as a Parliament to inflict upon the economy of New Zealand a target that has been set to meet the political narrative of the coalition Government, particularly the Green Party, because this is a bill that is actually misnamed. This is not a Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill; it’s actually more appropriately and correctly named a “Climate Change Commission Bill”, because that’s what it does. It sets up a climate change commission. That’s really what it does. Then it seeks to put in place some targets that, as I said, have been put in the legislation to meet the convenient narrative, essentially, of the Green Party, to try and appease their frustrated, angry, and very upset base, who have felt now for 18 months that they’ve done almost nothing on the environment that they promised so much about. This was a piece of legislation that we were already supposed to have enacted by now. Such are the complicated, perverse goings-on within the coalition Government that it’s taken this long for a bill to be introduced.

Surprisingly, some of this country’s harshest critics of this piece of legislation have in fact been environmental NGOs, former Green Party members of Parliament, former leaders of the Green Party. Listen to what one Russel Norman had to say when this bill was first made public. The headline from him was “Toothless zero carbon bill has bark but no bite”, and the reason he said that was because the zero carbon bill has no ability to enforce its climate change targets. There is nothing binding about the targets that are proposed in this bill, as challenging and as scary and as economically frustrating as they are. Norman went on to say that “the Bill will have little … effect because it has specifically written out any mechanism that would hold any person or body to account for not adhering to it.” “There’s bark, but … no bite”, he said. “There is no remedy or relief for failure to meet the 2050 target, meaning there is no legal compulsion for anyone to take any notice.”

Therein lies the rub, because if this bill is to be an effective piece of legislation and is to take us along what I think now is the broadly accepted pathway towards a zero carbon future for New Zealand, then this bill actually doesn’t do that. This bill just sets up the commission—and we support that, the establishment of that framework, the establishment of the institution, the establishment of a group of experts to give advice to this Parliament and future Parliaments about what actions should be taken. But, ultimately, the actions remain the sovereignty of elected representatives sitting in this Chamber and future representatives sitting in this Chamber, and to think that this bill will solve all those problems is, as Russel Norman says, really just to acknowledge that there is bark but no bite in this legislation.

So on this side of the House we support the bill to select committee. We look forward to the select committee proceedings. We invite New Zealanders to participate in their hundreds if not thousands on this bill to pick it to pieces so that it could be a better bill, so that it could be a bill that New Zealanders could get behind and could get behind in a way that is not going to throw our economy under a bus. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Angie Warren-Clark, you have five minutes.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great honour to stand and speak to this bill. We have heard some extraordinary speeches today, from the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern to our Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw—sorry, I was just looking over his shoulder—right through to the Deputy Prime Minister. What we haven’t heard, really, is from the Opposition, who—yes, while they are supporting it in this first reading, what we haven’t really heard is a genuine commitment to this bill. What we have heard is that they like parts of it, or parts that they can agree with, but, genuinely, in 2050 I will be 79 years of age—

Dr Duncan Webb: No!

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: I know—surprising for you all. I will be 79 years of age, and it is my children and my grandchildren and my moko and my nieces and nephews who will actually have to bear the cost of us not doing the right thing.

This bill is actually creating a framework for us which looks at business, which looks at farms, which looks at the way that we as a society operate and actually suggests options and creates a standard system for how we will work in a measured way with stepping stones towards zero carbon.

For me, it is quite simply this: we can yell at each other or we can genuinely sit down and work together, because we are all in this together, and without us working together on this, business will not exist as we know it. Our brothers and sisters in the Pacific will be living with us because they will have nowhere to live—

David Seymour: Well, what’s wrong with that?

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: They have a right, Mr Seymour, to live in their own countries. We want to support them to do that. We will be facing catastrophic changes to our food chain, absolutely catastrophic changes to our food chain—acidification. It will be catastrophic if we fail to act.

Therefore, I am absolutely delighted that we have taken the first step towards this legislation. We’re moving in a way that is courageous. It will be difficult, and I ask the members across the House and also those who are in the community to please, like some of our members have said today, participate in this process.

We have four parts to this bill, and most people have spoken about it to some extent, although a few have gone off and talked about some, really, sort of side issues. One of the things that we know that is difficult for us is that approximately 48 percent of our emissions are from agriculture. We have roughly 40 percent from energy, 6.1 percent from industrial processes, and roughly 5 percent from our waste streams. We actually have some wins to make across all sorts of areas, but, as the member the Hon—I was going to say Simon Upton, but I’m not actually going to quote Simon Upton—Scott Simpson has said to us, when we visited and looked at what was happening in the UK, what we discovered is, yes, we are going to have to be the leaders. Lithuania, ourselves, and Ireland are the only with the footprint that we have. We must be bold, we must work in a way that is consistent with our particular framework, our particular emissions picture, and that is why I am absolutely delighted that we have codified and started to look at the way that we, ourselves, can make steps—small steps. But we’re acting, we’re starting, we’re beginning a process of trying to turn around what is going to be a disaster if we do not make this change. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I would just like to say to the member Angie Warren-Clark, who just took her seat, who complimented the Deputy Prime Minister on his contribution, that it would’ve been helpful if she had interpreted what he’d said for us, because none of us understood it. Certainly, I put the earpiece to my ear, but it wasn’t coming through on the translation, unfortunately.

I am very pleased to be speaking on the Climate Change Commission bill, which, as my colleague Scott Simpson said, would be a more appropriate name for this bill. I think we should all be guided, in fact, by the speech given by our leader Simon Bridges, who gave a great speech initially—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

STUART SMITH: —clearly, they weren’t listening—and by the principles that we would stand on: being science based. It absolutely has to be science based, any action that we take on climate change, and that is why I really wonder why there are targets put in this bill. We’re setting up a climate change commission. That is, essentially, a group of experts who will look at the costs, the implications, and what the targets actually should be, and which ones are able to be achieved. That is a far more sensible approach than to have somebody pluck a number out of the air, quite clearly which is put into the bill now, and that is just, you know, to me, quite strange.

To focus on innovation and technology, because, obviously, innovation and technology are going to be the keys for us to make any progress on this huge challenge that we’ve got in front of us—and biotechnology has to be one of those answers. Yet, when challenged and questioned in the House by Todd Muller, the Hon James Shaw said he’d be led by the science, but, effectively, the answer he gave was: only when it suits him. Biotechnology is one of the keys that will have to be part of the solution, and it’s just a pity that ideology is blinding some people on this particular subject.

We need to take long-term signals to our economy, and we have to send long-term signals. Business absolutely requires confidence when they make investment, and if they’re going to make investment to try—

Kiritapu Allan: But you guys don’t want to set targets.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Do not bring me into the debate.

STUART SMITH: —and meet the challenge ahead for us, they will need those signals. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. We also will move with international partners, and not in isolation. Yet we just heard from the previous speaker that we were going to be world leaders. Well, that isn’t actually the solution here. We need to work with other partners around the world because, if we simply jump in with significant imposts on our economy and our producers, then that production will simply go offshore, and that will then be a net loss to the global climate and the emissions targets. So simply cleaning up your own emissions and—not yours, Madam Assistant Speaker, but lowering our economy’s emissions—thereby increasing global emissions is missing the point completely. If we care about climate change, we have to take a sensible approach.

I think we’ve got a really good steer from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, and, in fact, his predecessor Jan Wright came out very clearly in favour of biotechnology being a part of the solution. But Simon Upton made some very clear points about having the use of forestry for an offset for carbon dioxide. Having methane, as we have in our current situation, not being able to be offset against forestry is giving the large carbon dioxide emitters a free pass, and it’s not changing behaviour. In contrast, methane emissions will be charged at the processor, so it will not change any behaviour inside the farm gate. It works very well—when you put a price on petrol, people will, of course, find a more efficient means of transport to avoid the cost, but you’re not seeing that with farm emissions, and that’s wrong. It’s driving forestry planting into the small towns of New Zealand. We’re seeing a trickle of farms being bought up for carbon farming. That will become a tsunami, and that will kill rural communities. It takes with it jobs, it impacts on GDP that flows right through the economy, and we will have ghost towns in New Zealand. So we have to be very careful—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member; your time has expired. I understand this is a split call—you have five minutes, David Seymour.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. But before I do that let me surprise one or two people around the House by making a tribute to a couple of members: a former member who is with us today Dr Kennedy Graham, and James Shaw, the Green Party co-leader, because it’s a rare thing, in this House, to have members who come here with sincerely held beliefs about issues that they think are important, and to work conscientiously over a period of time to bring about legislative change. I think anyone that comes to Parliament to do that deserves to be paid tribute to. I would also tribute Todd Muller for hitching his wagon to James Shaw’s tractor in this regard, but, unfortunately, I’m not feeling that generous today.

I also would like to concede to the proponents of this bill that there is a certain intelligence in its design architecture, in that it looks to change the political incentives and the architecture of political decisions over time, and it looks to emulate the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which has been a very successful piece of legislation for reducing deficit spending in New Zealand.

So why oppose this bill? Well, it’s got nothing to do with whether or not we think climate change is a problem. I think it’s fair to say that most people would view the emissions of carbon dioxide as being problematical, although they may argue about the extent of it. Opposition to this bill has everything to do with the fact that it will not be effective at achieving the things that it wishes to achieve. The reason for that is that New Zealand, whether we like it or not, is a passenger when it comes to climate policy, and to emissions. It is a fact that we, as a country, at 0.02 percent of emissions, roughly, cannot change the climate. We can, however, set an example, and the example that we might set ourselves, for the rest of the world, at least, is that we might end up changing the world’s perception of climate policy by shooting ourselves in the foot. If New Zealand sets targets that are excessive, that get ahead of our trading partners, that we impoverish ourselves with, so that the proponents of the legislation experience a political backlash, and so that we end up pushing activity into other jurisdictions with less ambitious targets, where the same activity takes place with greater emissions, then we could impoverish New Zealanders and increase global emissions. That is a possibility if these measures actually require greater emissions reductions with more severe policies than our trading partners and our friends around the world are prepared to accept.

As a result, the fact is we cannot go further than our friends around the world are prepared to go. The result of this legislation can only be that New Zealand will end up reducing its emissions by about as much as—perhaps a slightly greater amount than—our trading partners. Once we accept that reality, we come to quite a different proposition. That is that if we were serious, we would not set up a bureaucracy, because that’s all this bill really does. It’s the climate initiative for people too scared to take on the debate and say, “We seek to actually reduce our living standards by giving up on the amount of carbon we emit, and pay more for the use of energy and transport and agricultural emissions.” It means that we are not prepared to have that debate, but we will outsource it to a bureaucracy.

If we were serious, and if we accepted the reality of our international situation, what we’d do is very simple. We would say that New Zealand is going to have an all gases, all sectors emissions trading scheme—which we almost have already, notwithstanding some arguments around methane. We would say that we are going to pay the actual price for carbon that our top five trading partners pay on a weighted average basis—maybe plus 5 percent, just to show that we want to be a little bit ahead. That would be a serious policy. That would be a politically tough policy to sell, but it would be an effective policy—not just outsourcing a serious issue to some bureaucracy.

So the ACT Party opposes this piece of legislation. It will not be effective at reducing carbon emissions. It hasn’t worked in the UK; why would it work here? We’re very happy to provide better policy and better evidence—

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

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I wonder if the argument that the member for ACT has just progressed around our 0.2 percent having no impact on the environment applies so too to the polling of the ACT Party. The science has been largely addressed so far—predominantly by the Hon James Shaw, Minister for Climate Change. As has been raised by multiple members in this House, this is an issue of both the head and the heart. So let’s get on with it.

This weekend, I was at a panel with politicians representing parties across this Parliament. We were asked questions by hundreds of young people who were present about the actions that we, as their representatives, intend to take on climate change. The answers and discussion largely, actually, reflected the debate which we have so far had in this House today. Politicians spoke about the economy, as if the environment, the planet, our home, the conditions required for human life are something to be addressed when the finances are in order.

After that panel, I was approached by some young people from the audience. A young man asked me why politicians blame poor people for their political inaction on this climate crisis. He said, “If our concern was increasing inequality, we could help those poor people now and ensure everybody is in a position to live a decent life, let alone be prepared and resilient in the face of climate change to come.” Some in this House have belittled the rangatahi who took to the streets to be active in their involvement in advocating for their future, telling them to “Stay in school.” I found that our young people demonstrate a resolute courage and far more moral clarity than many of the representatives in this Chamber who patronise them.

With all of this talk about the economy, I thought—as some speak about it as though it’s some kind of untouchable deity—that I’d like to quote the economist John Maynard Keynes, who said, and I agree, that “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” We’ve heard the arguments progressed by the Leader of the Opposition that we cannot pretend that this bill won’t impact the economy—and he’s right. We also can’t pretend that climate change won’t impact the economy.

The Hon Simon Bridges said that “We need to have an honest conversation about the costs and the trade-offs”, and we do. The reality of climate change is that insurers are retreating from engaging in contracts with seaside properties. The reality of climate change is that billions of dollars are being sent offshore to pay for countries’ inaction—whether it’s sending money to fulfil our targets for the Paris Agreement, or whether it’s the taxpayer or the ratepayer picking up the bill to clean up our air and our waterways, and build the retaining walls required due to the disproportionate pollution spilled by corporations in their mission to privatise resource and, therefore, profit. They do not pay the real costs of production. The climate is changing, regardless of whether we do.

Our farmers are seeing less seasonal predictability, increasing droughts and fires, and extreme weather events are exacerbating food shortages among the world’s poorest, and are driving greater human migration and conflict and refugee numbers. The honourable Todd Muller said in his speech that the “Idea that our collective effort will [have an impact] is nonsense.”, referring to our 0.17 percent contribution to global emissions. Where is the ambition that the National Party so frequently talks about? As the Hon James Shaw is on the record saying multiple times, “If we were to add up every country that contributes less than 1 percent to global emissions, together, we contribute a third of all of those global emissions.” So where’s the leadership? Where is the global responsibility?

The honourable Todd Muller also said that New Zealand will never look the same—and he’s right. New Zealand won’t look the same. Regional New Zealand won’t look the same whether we act or not, but the best chance that we have to protect people from the worst of climate change is to provide them with the certainty and the predictability that this bill shows. It is to proactively provide support for transition. It is not to sit back, to sit on our hands, and to watch the waters rise. This bill will now go to the Environment Committee, which includes nine MPs from across this House, myself included, and the public has a say in what this bill becomes; I say they submit.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): National is supporting the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill because a climate change commission is a good idea that will help New Zealand make progress on the challenging issue of climate change. This is the National Opposition being both responsible and being constructive about one of the most challenging issues that faces our country and, actually, faces the world.

I brought five climate change - related bills to this Parliament during the last Government. On not one did the Opposition support it. I do say it is a big step for an Opposition party to say, yes, it wants to back this idea because it’s constructive.

I’m the only member of this House that was here when New Zealand signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. You might not believe it, but I was even younger than Chlöe Swarbrick, and I was privileged to be part of the New Zealand delegation to Rio de Janeiro when that initial convention was signed. But if there’s an important lesson from the intervening 25 years that this Parliament must recognise, it’s that good intentions are not enough to be able to address this issue.

I’ve totalled up that over a hundred countries have made bold commitments on climate change that have failed and come to naught. The reason the Climate Change Commission is such an important part of the solution is that it will enable us to be able to have a more constructive, a more open, and a more honest conversation about how we actually can make progress on this issue. When the world signed up to the UN convention on climate change, global emissions were 24 billion tonnes. The commitment was to stabilise them. Today they’re 37 billion tonnes, or 60 percent greater.

I have to say I’m a bit tired of big, bold commitments that set ambitions way beyond the term of the Prime Minister or the climate change Minister, without the grit as to how you’re going to get there. I remind this Parliament that Prime Minister Helen Clark in coalition with The Alliance party, including the Greens, came to Government in 1999. They said it was our “nuclear-free moment”. Sound familiar? They said their goal was carbon neutrality. Well, what happened during the nine years of that Clark Government, supported by both The Alliance and then the Greens? Emissions went up by 10 percent. We actually went backwards on renewables from 73 percent of our electricity being renewable to 65 percent being renewable. So my plea to this House is to not be carried away with big bold intentions but to actually look to the policies that will make a material difference to our country and globally making a difference on this issue.

I remember when our party in Government worked hard to secure the Paris Agreement. Members on this side of the House say “Actually, New Zealand needs to do its fair share, but the solution to this has to be global.”, and I’m proud of the role that we played in securing the Paris Agreement and of New Zealand’s commitment to a 30 percent reduction by 2030. But the part that I do have to challenge parties opposite on—and this part, for me, is extraordinary—is that in all the talk, we know that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the key of this issue. And I choked on my cornflakes—I literally could not believe it, when we’re describing climate change as an emergency, when we’re saying it is our nuclear-free moment, to hear the Minister for Climate Change say that he expected emissions to continue to increase until 2025. I’m sorry; this has got an awful sound like KiwiBuild and some of the other big, bold intentions of Government—of not having follow-through. Effectively, what James Shaw said on the radio is that this Government would not do as well as the previous Key Government in making progress, and that would be a grave disappointment.

I also want to make a plea for scientific literacy around the issue of climate change. I totally support the provisions of this bill that set up the Climate Change Commission. The reason the Climate Change Commission is a good step forward is that with the expertise, with the setting of budgets—not just big, bold targets but actions—it will enable us to get down emissions, and that will help us get there. But scientific literacy is important. This notion of this bill being called “Carbon Zero” is really a misnomer. The first thing is, carbon is not the problem; carbon is at the heart of life. There would not be life on this planet without the existence of carbon. The issue is greenhouse gas emissions. Some of those greenhouse gases do not even have carbon in them: 11 percent of New Zealand’s emissions are nitrous oxide—I’m sorry; where’s the carbon in nitrous oxide? If this bill was to be scientifically literate—and I continually have a problem with the Green Party in not being scientifically literate—it should be a bill referring to greenhouse gases, or at the very least carbon dioxide and methane, which are the core issues.

Now, my colleagues have rightly challenged the notion of these incredibly bold targets around the issue of methane, one of the significant gases for New Zealand. Here’s my problem. I haven’t heard a single Government member or the Minister tell us how a mid-range on a 35 percent reduction in emissions can be achieved. You know how I think that can be achieved? I think our best hope is biotechnology. When I look at the development by Landcare Research of ryegrass, that can achieve as much as a 20 to 25 percent reduction in emissions, I see light, I see hope, I see a solution. For me, what is extraordinary is for the Government to set targets for the agricultural sector that go beyond what the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and scientists have said are realistic, and then take away from our agricultural sector and our farmers the very tools that would enable us to achieve those targets. So my last challenge to the Government is let’s have a conversation about the actions.

I say to Minister Shaw: let’s have an honest conversation about the cost. Ten years ago, I bought an electric car. It cost me $84,000. The petrol equivalent was $26,000. There is a real cost. My community at the moment is looking about getting electric buses. The cost of an electric bus is about $800,000, compared with $180,000 for the diesel equivalent. There is a real cost. If we want to convert over to wind, solar, and those energies, let’s have the honest conversation that there is a real cost.

For those who pretend that those costs can be ignored, I ask them to look at the “yellow vest” protests in France to realise that if we are to win these arguments, we need to take New Zealanders with us. Blind open commitments that say there are no cost impacts on New Zealanders in making progress on climate change risk repeating the mistakes I’ve seen of the last 25 years, and it is not being upfront and honest about the trade-offs that we need to have.

I’m very proud to have invited Lord Deben to New Zealand, the architect of the climate change commission legislation in the UK, and of being a member of the Environment Committee that triggered our visit there. In my view, the Climate Change Commission is a step in the right direction, but don’t let any member of this House pretend that establishing a climate change commission is going to take away the really gritty, the really tough, the really difficult issues that we have to work through in our energy sector, in our agricultural sector, in our transport sector, and in our industrial sector, if we’re going to have another round of meaningless targets and not get the runs on the board to really make progress on this huge issue.

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

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It is exactly those gritty, hard, gnarly issues that this side of the House is advocating for with the promotion of this bill. Dr Smith, I have just had to listen to a 10-minute speech that—it’s so disappointing, because what we did hear only a couple of months ago from the Leader of the Opposition was that there was going to be a real commitment from the Opposition to work with this side of the House. We’ve had the clear stewardship by the Hon James Shaw, who has worked with Todd Muller from the Bay of Plenty—a fantastic gentleman and future leader of the National Party. We heard that there was a commitment to a real bipartisan approach to this piece of legislation. But, I must say—yes, I have sat in this House for the last hour and a half of this debate and every single member of the Opposition has got up and said emotive quotes like this: “This debate is going to be all emotional. It’s head versus heart. It’s emotions versus economics, and this side of the House has to understand the economics. You have to understand the science because you don’t understand the money. You don’t understand the cost to this country.”

Well, I say to my fellow friends opposite on that side of the House: do they understand the cost of not acting now? At the end of this week, on Friday, what we have are young students from all across this nation who are mobilising, galvanising, and coordinating a second day of climate justice action. Why? Because it is that generation that will have to bear the burdens and the responsibilities for whatever decisions that this House makes right now.

Then I hear another quote from the opposite side of the House: “Why are we debating this bill? Why are we debating this bill now?” Well, we heard from the Rt Hon Winston Peters that it’s because that side of the House signed us up to the Paris accord. But, beyond that, it is because the whole world is watching and every country that signed up to the Paris accord—174 countries plus the EU—is trying to work out, right now, how to practically implement reaching no greater warming than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. We are all grappling with that challenge. So why is this House debating this bill right now? Because we don’t have a choice not to.

When you come up to an electorate like mine, in the mighty East Coast, and when you see those floods, when you see those plains flooded for miles, when you watch the productivity of our agricultural and horticultural sectors drop, when I look at the NIWA reports and they say that our farmers, our horticulturalists, our primary production sector can anticipate a 10 percent increase in droughts, we do not have a choice. This is not about some liberal urbans sitting up there in Grey Lynn, going, “Oh, let’s all go and try and achieve some great outcomes in climate change.” Why are we debating this bill right now? Because our primary production sector needs an answer just as much as our future generations do. So let’s all take ownership of what we need to do as a House right now.

I want to acknowledge and I want to thank the Hon James Shaw for the work that you have done, because I know how hard it has been, how challenging—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order!

KIRITAPU ALLAN: —and for the fantastic work and leadership that you have shown—sorry, that the Minister has shown—by working alongside industry, by working alongside scientists, by working alongside all aspects of this House. We know it has not been easy, but the member has produced an absolutely outstanding bill that recognises some of the challenges, that industries in my own community, in particular the primary production sector from my community, can look to and say, “At least we’ve been heard.”

We’ve heard a lot about the reduction of greenhouse gases and emissions. Now, what the Minister has done in terms of setting out a two-phase approach to greenhouse gas emissions—

David Seymour: The member’s slowing down.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Thank you! What we need in communities like mine, and we learnt this through the 80s, is that when we make radical economic reforms without a plan, if we don’t have a just transition for communities like mine that rely heavily on industries that are primary production - focused, if we do not have a plan, a just transition plan that allows us to transition from point A to point B, it’s the workers who get left behind. So what we do have is a two-tiered approach to the way that we look at the reduction of greenhouse gases.

A 10 percent reduction by 2030 for methane gases: now, we’ve heard a lot of discussion from that side of the House and a range of commentators in the news, but what I will say is that I was with my good friend and colleague the member Mark Patterson just last week. We went up and visited a biotech company—an agri-tech company. The opposite side of the House asks where we are going to get these solutions to bring about a 10 percent reduction by 2030. Well, ask the guys who are doing it. The agri-tech companies are already doing it. LIC, our biggest biotech company in New Zealand, which is working on securing future breeding programmes, have said that right now they are working towards a 10 percent reduction in methane. That’s what their focus is. If we look at what’s happening over at Massey, there’s a whole commission set up there—the greenhouse gas—

Mark Patterson: Alliance.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Alliance. Thank you, Mark. Their whole focus is on looking at how we can get the productivity of these sectors reduced down by 10 and, ultimately, 30 percent. So let’s not be so lacking in ambition and let’s not be a country that focuses on driving a wedge between the rural sector and environmentalists, between the regions and the city folk, because that doesn’t help anyone; that does not do this debate justice. I look over at the other side of the House. Now, I know Erica Stanford. She’s a greenie; she’s a greenie at heart—a “teal green” or whatever they’re called. I know Sarah Dowie; she’s another one. But they didn’t speak in this debate—they didn’t speak in this debate. The Opposition got their rural folk up to talk. No, no, no, this is an injustice to this debate. If we are to be responsible in managing how we, as 120 members of this House, approach something that is intergenerationally so significant, let us be responsible in the way that we approach it.

Right now, if we look over to the Pacific Island where we have primary responsibility, in Fiji 40 villages have gone because of sea rise—gone for ever. If we look all throughout our own country, we’re watching the erosion of coastal lands. Like I said, in the mighty East Coast, I’m watching the erosion of my coast and watching that sea level rise. We’re watching insurance companies that no longer want to provide insurance for coastal properties. These are issues that we can no longer afford to be flippant about.

This bill here creates a binding statutory target for the Climate Change Commission. We’ve got this guy Professor Jonathan Boston; he talks to us a lot about how important it is to have public policy that goes beyond three-year terms. This Climate Change Commission is something, and I’m pleased to hear Dr Nick Smith commend its capacity and its ability to do that future forward-looking. There needs to be a mechanism that takes away the politicisation—that takes it away from us, being able to step away from our obligations every three years and turn to debates like this, which are so critical to the way that we survive as a nation beyond the three-year term. So I think that both sides of the House can agree that this is a pragmatic and necessary step, and that’s something that this bill brings in.

Please let us not drive a wedge between the urban and the rural, between the primary sector and the environment, because we know on this side of the House that my rural primary-based community will no longer be thriving in the way that it can be if we don’t have the land to farm, if our communities are ebbing away in extreme weather events. The toll that the Edgecumbe flooding took on my community and our farming community was drastic. So I challenge that side of the House as they go through the rest of this debate and consider this legislation: when you say “Well, there’s nothing in this legislation for the farmers.”, please reconsider that position, because there is absolutely something for all of us in this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 119

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

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): I move, That the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 21 October 2019.

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

Ayes 119

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

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Bill (No 2)

In Committee

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (Third Whip—National): I seek leave for the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Bill (No 2) to be taken as one debate.

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

Parts 1 to 5, Schedules 1 to 5, and clauses 1 and 2

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): E Te Māngai, tēnā koutou katoa e Te Whare. I want to make it clear at the outset that National supports this bill and in fact, as the MP for the East Coast, I support this bill. I want to compliment Ngāti Porou for their patience for over more than a decade, because they were the only group to sign any sort of agreement under the infamous Foreshore and Seabed Act back in 2004, and they generously renegotiated that under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act, and we are now seeing that proceed through the committee here today.

The purpose of the bill, of course, is to recognise the unbroken, inalienable, and enduring mana of the hapū of Ngāti Porou, and I absolutely support that. However, they are not the only people to be fishing in the waters off Ngāti Porou land. Some of those other fishers did make their submissions when the Māori Affairs Committee came to Gisborne to hear the submissions on the bill, and they still have concerns about a couple of things still contained in the bill. I did write to Minister Little, who’s in charge of this bill, and I want to pay my respects to him. I understand he’s lost his mother, and having just lost my father recently I know how traumatic that is, and I send him and his family our very best wishes for him at this very difficult time.

But today I want to place the voice of the Tai Rāwhiti Rock Lobster Industry Association before this committee for consideration. As I said, I wrote to the Minister with their concerns, making some suggestions about some minor changes to the bill that would clarify some of the concerns that they have about their commercial fishing quota and their ability to fish in those waters that are now contained within this bill in front of the committee. I’ve turned their concerns into a couple of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), which are in front of the committee—SOPs 237, 238, and 236. I understand that SOP 236 is probably going to be ruled out of order, because Parliament can only tweak Treaty bills; it cannot change them, and SOP 236 changes it. I appreciate the Standing Orders and want to abide by them.

So if I go to SOP 237, the association wrote to me making the suggestion that the select committee had made a change to clause 13 of the bill, which further weakened the protection of the existing fishing rights, particularly when it’s taken in conjunction with the amendments that the select committee made to clause 51, which is in Subpart 5 of Part 2. They say that by including the reference in clause 13 to Subpart 5 of Part 2, the committee has then placed an additional exception to the preservation of fishing rights in section 28 of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act, which was not in the previous iteration of the bill. So, in other words, when the bill went out for public submissions, when they had a look at it, came and made their submissions, the bill they felt at that stage had given them adequate protection. Subsequently, the select committee have made some changes that the association is concerned no longer give them those protections. They say it weakens the protection of commercial fishing rights by adding a new exception to the section 28 preservation, inconsistent with section 28(2) of the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act, which provides that commercial fishing rights are only subject to wāhi tapu under section 81.

So, when read together with clause 13(1)(b), they maintain that the protection of existing fishing rights is weakened and the potential for considerable complexity is created for commercial fishers in areas that might have different and much more restrictive regulations. So I have an SOP on the Table that returns the bill to the original that was presented there in Gisborne, that the rock lobster industry, which is a considerable industry in the economics of the Gisborne region, made submissions on. So that’s the first SOP and the first change that I put before the committee on their behalf.

The second SOP, SOP 238, is slightly different, but again it’s about making sure there’s consistency with existing rules, regulations, and laws, and in this case it’s about the process of making fisheries bylaws. Under the bill, commercial fishing can be prohibited and can be restricted by making fisheries bylaws, and no one disagrees with that; that’s the whole point of preserving the mana of the hapū of Ngāti Porou. Under the existing regime, in the Fisheries (Kaimoana Customary Fishing) Regulations 1998, establishing a mātaitai reserve and making bylaws in a mātaitai reserve, the Minister must approve a mātaitai reserve if he or she is satisfied that it will not prevent persons with a commercial interest in the species taking their quota entitlement or their annual catch entitlement within the quota management area for that species. So, in other words, the Minister, when making that decision, has to ensure that those existing quota rights within that area—in this case, it’s Cray 3—are not prohibited.

The concern that the association have now is that whilst this bill protects their catch and the totality of their catch within the rohe that is covered by this bill, it doesn’t actually protect where they are able to fish when creating a mātaitai reserve. So SOP 238 puts into two clauses—clause 49 and clause 84—a new section that says: “(A) after the Minister satisfies the relevant requirements in the deed of agreement; and (B) only if the Minister is satisfied that it will not prevent persons with a commercial interest in the species taking their quota entitlement or annual catch entitlement within the quota management area for that species;”. So that is putting into this bill the same considerations that were there previously in the kai moana customary fishing regulations.

They are small changes that do not change in any way the totality of what we are doing here with this bill for the hapū of Ngāti Porou, but it is also putting on the table the ability of quite a significant industry that already has quota that they use in some of the areas that could be affected that the original writer of the bill, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, assures us was intended to protect their rights. These SOPs are just making sure, if the committee will agree, that those rights are well protected, so that the two—because they do actually get on really well. They work very closely together—the association and Ngāti Porou fisheries—so they can continue to work in harmony once this bill proceeds through its third reading in the House.

So I repeat again that I do support the bill. I think Ngāti Porou have been exceptionally patient and generous in renegotiating this bill. The terms of it are most acceptable. It will be a first, I think, for the country under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act, and Ngāti Porou deserve that, but we just want to make sure that we are not overriding the protection of quite a significant industry in the Tai Rāwhiti area. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Mr Chair, thank you for this opportunity. If I can, I too express our condolences to the Hon Andrew Little and echo the words of the Hon Anne Tolley—and also ours to her and her family, too.

The Māori Affairs Committee reported back the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Bill (No 2) to this House on 14 November 2018 and recommended it be passed subject to a few amendments set out in that report. Since then, a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) has been proposed which, on behalf of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, we’d like to discuss briefly. This SOP is SOP 233. It proposes a number of minor technical corrections to Schedules 2 and 4 of the bill. The corrections relate to geographical coordinates for hapū management areas and structures respectively.

In accordance with the 2008 deed of agreement signed between Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou and the Crown, it is necessary for the seaward coordinates for hapū management areas to proceed outwards from their landward marks at an angle of 90 degrees to the 12-mile territorial limit. Some of the coordinates presently set out in Schedule 2 of the bill define areas where the resulting lines are not exactly 90 degrees, with the result that the individual hapū management areas narrow slightly as they progress seaward. This SOP amends a select number of coordinates in Schedule 2 of the bill so that they are exactly 90 degrees, or due east.

Schedule 4 sets out the coordinates of a number of structures, including boat ramps, culverts, and launch markers. When the coordinates for these structures were originally surveyed in 2008, the technology at the time was not as accurate as it is today. This SOP takes the opportunity to update the coordinates in Schedule 4 to conform with the World Geodetic System 1984, which is now the internationally recognised system for GPS devices. On behalf of the Minister, I’d like to thank the Parliamentary Counsel Office for its thoroughness in ensuring the accuracy of the legislation passed by this House.

We look forward to hosting Ngāti Porou in the very near future, on Thursday, 23 May, for the third reading of this bill. I commend the bill to the committee of the whole House with the minor technical changes proposed in SOP 233.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 233 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 237 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley be agreed to.

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

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Noes 64

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 238 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley be agreed to.

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

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Noes 64

New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8; ACT New Zealand 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The Hon Anne Tolley’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 236 is out of order as being outside the scope of the bill and as it would be inconsistent with the deed of agreement.

Parts 1 to 5, Schedules 1 to 5, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Annual Review Debate

In Committee

Debate resumed from 8 May on the Appropriation (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, we now come to the Appropriation (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. The time remaining in this debate is five hours and 44 minutes. When we were last considering this bill, we were debating the question that the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the annual financial statements of the Government for the previous financial year be noted and that the reports of the committees relevant to the finance and Government administration sector be noted. The Hon Ruth Dyson moved that progress be reported, and the call is now available to her.

Financial and Government Administration Sector and Annual Financial Statements of the Government (continued)

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to make a couple of comments, on behalf of our committee, on internal affairs, and the first comment I want to make is around the RealMe services. The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) reported to the Governance and Administration Committee that they weren’t happy with the progress of RealMe, and I know a little bit about it, as some members in the committee will know a little bit about it, because it’s been an issue which has been under consideration for quite some time.

The last time I was part of any consideration of RealMe was when I was chairing the Justice and Electoral Committee back in 2015. We were conducting a review into the general election of 2014, and it was at that time that we determined that having a good, verifiable RealMe form of identification would be very helpful in terms of ease of voting in a general election and, then, in a local election. Five years later—five years later—in the second year of the term of this Government, DIA are still expressing to the committee that the satisfaction levels with RealMe haven’t been as high as they would have liked.

In this Government’s year of delivery, I would like to know from the Minister in the chair just what he plans to do about RealMe verification, particularly since there is a renewed interest, it seems, on behalf of the Government, in conducting elections online. So it does seem to me that if the Government is going to move forward with that policy direction, then verification of voter identity should be pretty crucial to that work. I could not find any evidence of any consideration around that. So I’m very interested to see whether or not the Government is going to continue to sit on its hands over something which might not well be attention-grabbing and headline-grabbing but is crucial if we are going to have a good, safe online identity verification process. So I leave that question.

The other comment I would like to make is on our examination of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC). Before the committee thinks this is about Crown limos and all sorts of other things, it’s not; it’s actually about the outbreak of M. bovis. DPMC worked with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to ensure it had the full support that it needed in the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. So having done that two years ago, it is now very disturbing to see that the M. bovis outbreak is not in fact tracking as well as MPI would like to have us believe. MPI just very recently reported that another 300 farmers—300 farmers—who’ve had high-risk animals move on to their property will now be contacted, and it is expected that 50 of those farmers will have notices of direction placed on them. So that means that there are 50 farmers who now cannot move stock on and off their property at a crucial time of year for them.

Now, DPMC have taken responsibility for that. So I want to know from the Minister, again, having set themselves up to support MPI, where we are with that. Where are we with that for rural New Zealand, who are already under a considerable amount of pressure from this Government, the latest of which is some totally unrealistic methane reduction levels in the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, that was debated this afternoon? So this is just another example of the Government saying one thing and, in this case, DPMC saying “We will support MPI in their response to M. bovis,” and yet the contrary is true.

So what’s DPMC going to do about it? Are they just going to say, “Oh well, we tried. We helped MPI. We seconded a couple of officials across to a system.”? That’s not good enough. That is not good enough for those farming families in rural New Zealand, 50 of whom now have their farming operation stopped. I want the Minister to explain that to the committee.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for the opportunity. As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, it was fantastic to be able to receive the annual review and look at the work that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had done. The area that I am most particularly interested in is the good work that they’ve done on monitoring child poverty and how we’re doing and tracking in that space. There’s a bit of background in that space. I think it’s really interesting to point out how long it took New Zealand to put in place those very important targets that we now have in legislation that form a fundamental part of our ongoing Wellbeing Budget and how we’re tracking. I remember very clearly how it was, really, put in the too-hard basket for the last Government, how it was said that it was not possible to track and monitor something as important as child poverty. It was only in the very last hours before the last election that we actually got a commitment from the other side to try and track how we reduce child poverty in New Zealand. This Government is very much focused on providing housing and education, and making sure families are well provided for so that we can look towards actively reducing child poverty in New Zealand. I’m proud to see how well our Prime Minister has championed this area, in particular by fronting this, by fronting this legislation and by putting in place clear targets that we’re required to report back on on a regular basis.

So in the Governance and Administration Committee it was really good to be able to hear that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet said that the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, since enacted, works within the context of the framework and includes a requirement for Governments to report back on the impacts of their Budgets on child poverty. This works right across other Government departments and how we’re tracking on cases. If I can say this, one thing that I learnt in my time in New Zealand Police is that if it’s not counted, it doesn’t happen. So the fact that we count this and we monitor it shows that we care about it and we are determined to deliver on those outcomes, and that is why it is represented in legislation.

So a key part of this Wellbeing Budget is, in fact, to monitor on an ongoing basis the wellbeing of our people, and a big part of that is in reducing child poverty, to see how well we’re able to look at other parts of people’s lives, which goes a bit further than just measuring gross domestic product. GDP is a good measure of how we do, but it is rather one-dimensional. What this Budget enables us to do in the space of child poverty, and other very important parts of people’s lives, is to look deeper than that, because we know that there is more to life than simply balancing the chequebook. Yes, it is important to do that, but there is far more to people’s lives than just getting things into the black. We want to know how people’s mental health is. We want to know how well they are connected into their communities—are they engaged? We want to make sure that our kids have parents who are able to play with and then talk to their children, to give them that resilience for the next generation, because that is what contributes to the long-term improvement of our community’s mental health.

Too often we see the current economic conditions requiring children to be put into childcare before school, to be at school all day, and to have to go into after-school care. That’s because of the requirement for families to have two parents working very long hours. By increasing the hourly wages, by making sure we are actively reducing the housing crisis, and by bringing down the cost of housing, while that’s important to balance the books, it also means that mums and dads and caregivers right across New Zealand have more time with their children, and that is important for the children’s growth and for their development, and for the wellbeing of our country. That is what we are investing in this Budget—giving people the best chance to get ahead in life and giving our kids the things that they need the most to be the best generation that they can be in the future.

So I’m proud to have seen the good work that’s been done in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to make sure that these measures are in place across the board. I’m even more proud to be part of a team that’s delivering a wellbeing Budget that puts our people first.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to speak on the Appropriation (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. First of all, I would like to talk about the Office of Ethnic Communities. Before I do that, I would like to congratulate and welcome Paulo Garcia, another ethnic MP who has joined our team today. Now, we have got six MPs of Asian origin in this House, and Paulo Garcia is the sixth one and the first Filipino. As the National Party has always done this, it has brought the diversity into this Parliament—the first Chinese, the first Indian, and the first Korean, and today the first Filipino MP has been brought in by the National Party. So I congratulate him.

As I mentioned, I will be talking about ethnic communities. In May 2018, the Office of Ethnic Communities organised a Safer Ethnic Communities Ministerial Forum in South Auckland. What was disappointing was to see that the members of ethnic communities who are represented in this House were not invited. When we asked why other ethnic MPs other than the Government MPs were not invited, the answer was that it is the Government’s responsibility, not our responsibility. So it was disappointing for us because we want our communities to be safe and we want to contribute, and that opportunity was missed.

I would also like to talk about a very important area which comes under the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA): Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ). It has got a big role. We know that about 14,000 career, volunteer, and support personnel who keep people and property safe are part of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand team. I would like to acknowledge their contribution to our country.

FENZ revenue in 2017-18 was $612 million, which was a significant increase in revenue from $418 million. This is a very important thing which we need to understand: there was a bill which was passed recently through this House where they will have this increased budget for the next four years. That is important to understand—that the people who are paying their insurances will have to pay extra premium for the next four years. We supported this because we want to ensure that FENZ is properly funded.

Having that much of a surplus is just a burden on the insurance payers, and this levy should be revised. The Minister of Internal Affairs, who has been very cooperative in talking about this, and I would like to acknowledge her, hopefully will consider reviewing this levy structure and reducing it for the next three to four years so that the people who are paying the extra levy should get some relief.

Another thing which I would like to touch upon from this financial performance of FENZ is that there is an existing drive on the levy, and we saw that the expenditure of FENZ is not increasing in comparison to what the revenue is. So we need to understand that this levy structure is unfair to the people who are paying their insurance.

I would also like to touch upon the passport service. Same thing over there—we have got increased passport fees, and the revenue has increased from $34 million to $55 million, which means that they will have extra funding. We know that the questions were raised to the DIA around why we are increasing this passport fee. That is another area in which people don’t realise that has been implemented in the last year. We also know that the time period for the passport has also increased from five to 10 years. We understand that the validity of the 10-year passport will see the reduction in the numbers.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Mr Chair. I put it to the committee to get ready for a roller-coaster ride of excitement and a commitment from New Zealand First to work with Labour in this Government. Let me speak to the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s report on the financial statements.

This is a Government that is doing incredible things in a time in the world where the rest of the world’s economies are a little bit shaky. They’re only a little bit shaky, but the good news is our economy is projected to outperform them as we go forward. It’s projected to outperform them, and I put it to you that one of the reasons for that is this Government is one that’s committed to our international engagements around the world.

I speak of recent reports and statistics from our trade. The Minister for Trade and Export Growth was able to bring to this House some of the best trade statistics this country has seen in a very, very long time, and that is cause for immeasurable celebration. In a time where world economies are slowing down, we’re bucking the trend. We have businesses out there who are doing the hard yards, who are employing good Kiwis, especially in the regions—and hopefully I’ll get time to come to that—and who are employing good people in our regions and doing good work, all the while supported, and I commend the Minister in the chair, Grant Robertson, because this Government has run the surpluses, has run to the 20 percent confines that it has set upon itself, and is running a good Budget. We have achieved a lot in that time.

Already, I’m at the halfway mark, so I’d better tell the listening public what some of those achievements are. Unemployment in New Zealand is at its lowest in nearly its entire history. It is an economy that is going incredibly strongly, and add to that, those jobs are jobs where we are optimising labour utilisation, so engagement is better and higher and people are getting paid more. People are getting paid more. All the while, I think the statistic from just this quarter was 20,000 more jobs in this quarter alone and whilst wages are increasing, whilst there are more people working and contributing to this economy, to our exports, and to making New Zealand that export nation which we so proudly hold to in terms of our place in the world.

The wellbeing package: New Zealand First, and I in particular—I used to study wellbeing economics, so it is a pleasure to see New Zealand at the forefront of the world, actually, where our Budget is a commitment to the four wellbeings of our economy. The commitment to that speaks to the fundamental change that this Government has brought to New Zealand, in that we’re asking the question beyond strong GDP growth, which it is—2.8 percent is strong by world standards right now—and it’s forecast to get better. We’re making the commitment to ask that fundamental question: “And so what?” What does that mean for all New Zealanders if the economy is growing? What does that mean to my family in Rotorua, my cousins in Rotorua? What does it mean to people in Ōpōtiki or Gisborne—

Simeon Brown: Their locus of control.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —not just wherever that guy’s from—sorry, Mr Chairman—the member on the other side of the Chamber who’s annoying me. That is the fundamental question—

Simeon Brown: What is?

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —because we have to ask that. We have to say: how are we doing that? I come back for the benefit of the confused member opposite. One of those things is the minimum wage.

Headline figures—to conclude this contribution—$17.70 an hour for the minimum wage. The average wage has gone up $65 per week. I got it wrong—I got it wrong big time: there are 70,000 new jobs, and unemployment is down to 4.2 percent. We have a lot to celebrate, and I am incredibly pleased to have been able to be part of this debate.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Mr Chair, thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this debate. As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, I’d like to acknowledge our chair, Brett Hudson, for the work he does there, and I’d just like to elaborate on a few of the things that we’ve been focusing on.

It’s an exciting time to live in New Zealand. We’ve got a coalition Government who are working well together and who are tackling the big issues out there and at the same time running regular surpluses and keeping the Government’s books in a strong position.

I’d like to start on one point: the Provincial Growth Fund. The Provincial Growth Fund—as someone who lives in provincial New Zealand, even though we are the fourth-biggest city, probably soon to become the second-biggest city, but the fourth-biggest for now—is an investment in our regions by this coalition Government. I’d like to acknowledge the work that the New Zealand First Party, in particular, have done on this. People in the regions are once again lifting their heads. After years of under-investment and after years of seeing their towns slowly move into a state of huge social challenges, they are starting to lift their heads, they are starting to dream, and they’re starting to see what’s possible. They’re starting to see the potential in the regions, and we have a Government who are investing in the regions through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), and also other mechanisms. So what the Provincial Growth Fund is doing is it’s encouraging groups to get together to form business cases. Groups right across the regions—

Simeon Brown: Name two. Name two groups.

JAMIE STRANGE: I could name many, across many areas there, sir—right from agriculture, right across to the arts to all sorts of areas. Groups in the regions are coming together to dream. They see that we have a Government who are taking them seriously.

We heard from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) about M. bovis. So M. bovis was a very serious issue that affected our country. I’d like to acknowledge the work of Minister Damien O’Connor in this area. I’d like to acknowledge the Opposition who also signed on, to a point.

Hon Willie Jackson: No.

JAMIE STRANGE: We have to be fair there, Mr Willie Jackson. But we had a Government who had a decisive response to M. bovis. Now, if we didn’t choose to eradicate M. bovis, the issues for our economy would have been long-lasting, but we took a bold step to eradicate it. Now, why did we do that? Because our cows, they aren’t in barns; they’re in paddocks, and when they’re in paddocks they’re under a lot of stress. That means they produce high-quality milk, which, for us as a country, is obviously a strength for our economy. But if those cows have M. bovis, the stress that they’re under in the paddocks can have exaggerated effects on them. So we took leadership and we’re working hard on this issue. The DPMC have been playing a leading role.

I’d like to get to the centrepiece of the next few weeks—what everyone’s talking about is the Wellbeing Budget. I’d like to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, the Hon Grant Robertson. For many years we’ve had a lack of investment in our social services. Health, education—they’ve been run down. They’ve been run down, and that’s why New Zealand voted for change, because they could see it quite clearly. We have a Government who cares about people, who put people first.

One of the key aspects of this Budget will be around mental health. Mental health affects everyone. Right from business, through education, right across society, the mental health of people is so important. I’m excited as the Wellbeing Budget comes forth. We’ve already heard a few announcements. We had an announcement today supporting St John Ambulance.

We have a Government who is listening. There’s a lot going on. I’ve talked about the PGF, I’ve talked about M. bovis, the Wellbeing Budget—I could go on, but I’m going to leave it there and let someone else have a bit of a chat.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to follow on from my friend and colleague Jamie Strange, who is a tremendous advocate for the people of Hamilton and the Waikato. When I’ve been in that region—to answer one of the questions that came across from the Opposition—he’s brought together people from sectors including the arts, agriculture, and business to talk about the opportunities that are now on offer to the regions of New Zealand, because there is a Government that backs them. There is a Government that doesn’t come along and say “We know everything’s best.”, as the previous Government did, but goes to the regions and says “What have you got? What can we support?”

I want to congratulate Jamie Strange and MPs from right around the regions of New Zealand, including some, I might say, on the Opposition benches who, while they’re in the Chamber want to try and take the mickey out of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), but they’re pretty quick to get their letters in. They’re pretty quick to say, “Actually, we’d quite like a little bit of that provincial growth funding coming our way.”

That is, actually, reflective of the view in the regions. The cynicism that comes forward from the Opposition benches would pretty quickly disappear when they go to places like Gisborne and Ōpōtiki in the Far North and the West Coast. They see the difference it makes when there’s a Government that gets alongside the regions. There’s no cynicism out there about the PGF; there’s just gratitude that there’s finally a Government that takes this seriously.

I want to speak on the annual review of Treasury and the financial statements of the Government at the outset. What I also want to do as part of that is to thank Secretary to the Treasury, Gabe Makhlouf, who will finish at the end of June, after eight years in that position, to go off to be the Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland—that’s where he’s heading to. He’s played a really significant role in Treasury, in particular in its development of the Living Standards Framework, which sits at the core of the Wellbeing Budget. So I want to thank Mr Makhlouf for his service. I don’t think I’ll ever quite be able to forgive him for being a fan of the Chelsea Football Club, but other than that he is a very, very good person and somebody who has worked very hard on behalf of New Zealanders in the eight years that he has been here, and we wish him all the best in his next move.

But, as I say, Treasury’s work on the Living Standards Framework is at the core of the Wellbeing Budget. I want to be absolutely clear. From this Government’s perspective, wellbeing means making sure that we look after not just the finances of our country—as important as they are—but we actually think at the same time about other measures of success: how are our people going? How educated are they? How healthy are they? How secure do they feel? We also make sure that in measuring our success differently we take a long-term, intergenerational view.

One of the things that has been obvious after 18 months in Government is that when you simply measure your success by one indicator you run the risk of leaving people out and leaving people behind. We run the risk that we think in silos—that we only think that what matters is GDP growth rate, and that if that keeps going up we can be satisfied that there is success. Of course, we want economic growth and prosperity, but we want to care about who shares in that prosperity. We care about whether that prosperity will last for generations. Is it sustainable? We care about making sure that our focus is on the outcomes we want, not just the inputs that go in.

So this Budget will be different and I’m very proud of the initiatives that we have already announced that give evidence to that. On Sunday, when we did the announcement on domestic and sexual violence—the largest single investment in eliminating domestic and sexual violence that has ever been put forward by a Government—there were 10 agencies who came together to do that. That has never happened before—to bring those agencies together and say one set of outcomes, one set of goals. We will work towards eliminating domestic and sexual violence, working with our communities. I was very, very proud of that announcement.

I can help Mr Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, in fact, with his reference to the Office of Ethnic Communities, because by waiting to make my contribution until after 20 to 6. tonight I can tell him that another Wellbeing Budget announcement has just been made moments ago, which is to actually, finally put some resources into properly supporting our ethnic communities in New Zealand. So we’re announcing a nearly $10 million increase for the Office of Ethnic Communities to play its part in supporting our ethnic communities. I think, actually, in all seriousness, across the House we know that in the wake of 15 March, we can do much, much better on behalf of our ethnic communities to provide the resources for them to chart their own course, for them to be able to come together, and for the rest of our communities to be able to embrace the diversity that is New Zealand. I think Minister Jenny Salesa, who’s been in charge of that work, deserves a significant amount of congratulations.

While I said there will be things that will be different in this year’s Wellbeing Budget, there will be some things that will be the same. One of those is the commitment of this Government to fiscal sustainability, because while we are committed to investing heavily in the issues that have been neglected for so long, we also know that we owe it to future generations to do that in a way that is responsible. So I am proud that in Budget 2018—in the period that is under this review here—we were able to keep our levels of debt under control, we were able to run a decent surplus, and we were able to keep our spending at a level that is appropriate and a level that is sustainable.

We’ve had a lot of references in this debate already to Mycoplasma bovis. It is an excellent example of the unexpected and the fact that, as a Government, you have to be in a position to respond to the unexpected. There are always calls, there are always things that happen that you don’t expect, and that is why this Government knows that we have to do that, but it’s more than that. It’s actually about future generations, and that’s why in the report of the committee on these financial statements there’s one thing I want to pick out, and that is restarting contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.

I sat in this Chamber through debates exactly like this for the best part of nine years and heard that the Government was not prioritising putting money into our Superannuation Fund. It is one of the best-performing sovereign wealth funds in the world, one that is building up the reserves to make sure that we have superannuation for the future, and the previous Government said that that was not a priority; that is taking money out of the pockets of future generations. So I am incredibly proud that one of the decisions we made in our first Budget, in 2018, was to restart those contributions, and that is already paying dividends. Financial and fiscal sustainability is important because it is about making sure that future generations have options and choices, and we should be making sure that that sits at the top of our priorities.

The other element that I just want to focus on, which again is drawn out in the report of the committee, is the fact that we are starting to do things differently already. We have reinstated the research and development tax credit. We have created a Green Investment Fund, that will put us at the cutting edge of the new economy, that will make sure that we are looking ahead. The priorities for the Budget that will be out next week, which are listed in this report, include the fact that we need to transition our economy to one where we are a true low-carbon economy.

I want to re-emphasise the point that Minister Shaw made today: there is enormous economic opportunity here for New Zealand. We are very, very good at the things that people want to be able to see—how we make agriculture more sustainable, how we apply technology to primary industries, and how we improve manufacturing at the high-value end. These are the opportunities in the investments that we are making. The new energy centre up in Taranaki, the money that we’re putting into R & D—those will put us at the cutting edge, but things like the Green Investment Fund allow us to leverage off the private sector here as well.

The important thing for me is that what this report and the Wellbeing Budget show is that this is a Government that has got its eyes firmly focused on the 21st century. We’re not looking in the rear-view mirror, trying to hark back to a time when the Opposition might feel that New Zealand was going well, but actually looking out for future generations. That’s what Budgets should be about. That’s what these financial statements and these reports show—that as a Government, we have our eyes firmly fixed on the future. We’re going to build a more productive nation, we’re going to adjust to the future of work, we’re going to make sure that we are on the side of a low-carbon economy, and, at the same time, we will invest in our people. We will make sure that we get on top of the scourge of child poverty, we will make sure that we take mental health seriously, and we will make sure that we use the evidence that shows us that our Māori and our Pasifika populations have been left out for too long.

I am extremely proud of the priorities that are in this Budget. I’m proud of the record that this committee report outlines and I am certain that wellbeing is the right focus.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the annual financial statements of the Government for the previous financial year be noted.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Report noted.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the reports of committees relevant to the Finance and Government Administration Sector be noted.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Reports of committees relevant to the Finance and Government Administration Sector noted.

Health Sector

Louisa Wall (Chairperson of the Health Committee): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to the annual review debate of the health sector. As the chair of the Health Committee, it has been my pleasure to have overseen the review of 13 of our 27 entities, and they have comprised 10 of the 20 district health boards (DHBs) and three of the seven Crown entities.

I think it’s relevant that I outline who we did engage with so that the public are aware of the level of scrutiny that we undertook. The agencies were the Ministry of Health, Pharmac, and the Health Research Council. The DHBs that we engaged with were Southern DHB, Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Canterbury, Taranaki, Counties Manukau, Wairarapa, Lakes, Tairāwhiti, and Northland. I particularly want to thank and pay tribute to the leaders of those particular organisations for the spirit in which they engaged with the committee. It was a very robust process. But I also want to acknowledge that through this process, we do ask for a lot of information, and so I want to acknowledge all the staff that were involved in preparing reports to our committee, and the diligence with which we as a committee chose to review the answers or responses to those questions.

I particularly want to focus on two DHBs, and the first DHB is Canterbury DHB. The reason I choose Canterbury DHB, actually, in part is because of their response after 15 March. Can I say, on behalf of all of us, how very proud we were of their response to that terrorist attack and the tragedy that unfolded. Their response was such, I think, that we owe them a great debt of gratitude. In saying that, I acknowledge the 51 people that lost their lives but the many others whose lives were saved.

Canterbury DHB particularly focused on their relationship with the Ministry of Health. For them, it had become a collaborative and positive relationship to address historical issues, and they felt they were on a good pathway forward. I want to acknowledge that one of the areas where they had increased health outcomes was in the Māori health area. The average life expectancy difference is 6.3 years, but for Canterbury DHB it’s actually 2.4, and so they told us quite explicitly that they’d actively engaged in closing the gaps—they even used that language. I also want to highlight, from their perspective, that infant immunisations had increased, and they also had a lower rate of avoidable hospitalisation admissions for children aged zero to four.

The other area that they highlighted specifically was the Mana Ake - Stronger for Tomorrow programme. This is for five- to 12-year-olds, to address the trauma and anxiety faced by young people who have lived through the trauma of repeated earthquakes. So I particularly want to acknowledge the relationship between the DHB and the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the police, NGO consumer groups, and the focus that they all had collectively on wellbeing and resilience. I think it’s important that we highlight that those initiatives are actually working.

I now want to focus on Bay of Plenty District Health Board, and I start from a quote by Sally Webb, who is chair. She said that the “response to the negative effects of the anti-vaxx campaign needs to be addressed on a national level.” I highlight that because, actually, the World Health Organization has said that we have a global threat in terms of vaccine hesitancy. So these are parents who are actively choosing not to immunise their children, and in the Bay of Plenty DHB that number had increased to over 10 percent. They actually think they’re doing really well in making sure that all children whose parents want them vaccinated are being vaccinated. As a select committee, we will hear from Nikki Turner, who heads the Immunisation Advisory Centre—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the chair for the dinner break.

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

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s my pleasure to speak in this debate. It’s not a pleasure to talk about the issues that we have to discuss, but I want to start by acknowledging the chair of the Health Committee, Louisa Wall, and her very warm comments in support of the tremendous response by the Canterbury District Health Board (DHB) staff in relation to the terror attacks. That’s about where we end our agreement.

We saw, actually, the Canterbury District Health Board in February, and I think they’re a metaphor for the other 20 DHBs and the sea of red ink that our financial review process not revealed—it wasn’t easy to find where DHBs were at financially, and it still isn’t. I want to go into that in a little more detail. But I wasn’t actually at the committee when Canterbury came in; I was at the funeral for a friend in Dunedin and watched on Facebook—which is a great asset, I have to say; well done to the clerks—and I nearly fell off my chair when I heard David Meates say that they were then projecting the princely sum of $98 million of a deficit from one DHB—just one DHB—and I know it’s got worse. The Minister hasn’t released the information, but the combined Canterbury and West Coast deficits are likely to be in the region of $120 million, which is a quite interesting sum, because that exceeds the total financial deficits of all of the DHBs just two short years ago. Two short years ago, the combined deficits were $119 million, and the previous National Government budgeted for the same deficits in 2017-18. That deficit trajectory was well on target until November 2017. About a month into this administration and this Minister and away they went, away from budget, and they doubled—$240 million in the period of our financial review.

As members know, the financial review is a look backward and a look forward, and the look forward is a tremendously, tremendously sad one, because by the latest data, and this hasn’t been updated for a couple of months, we are now on track—this is the official number—for $344 million. Actually, I’m convinced that it’s going to be higher than that, and, indeed, sources that I have have informed me that that my estimate of $500 million of combined deficits is conservative. So as we review financial performance, it is impossible to overlook the fact that under this Government, these DHBs are sinking in a sea of red.

Now, most of us would be able to tolerate that, accept that with as much good grace as we can muster—particularly, it would have to take quite a bit of grace for this chartered accountant to say that was a good thing in the long run—if, indeed, more health outputs were accruing as a consequence of that deficit, but, actually, the opposite is happening.

Hon Nathan Guy: Well, what’s happened to the health targets?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, who would know? Now, that’s a very good question, Mr Guy, because I’m not sure now whether the Minister knows whether his Government has targets or not. The Ministry of Health web page says that the target for elective surgery is 4,000 more than the previous year, and that would suggest that they would have to do, based on the data the ministry has, about 153,000 procedures this year. They are, by my calculations, about 8,000 behind that target and 6,500 behind the year-to-date figure just to stand still. Yet in another part of the Ministry of Health website, the targets have been removed.

Actually, I thought the Minister was being a little bit tricky with information, because we haven’t had the financials updated since January. We should be at least at March and knowing whether my prediction of half a billion dollars of fiscal deficits is correct. Now, I don’t think he’s being evasive with the information; I just don’t think he has any sense of what’s going on in his portfolio or in his ministry. It’s going to elective surgery, it’s going to cancer treatment waiting times, it’s going to immunisation rates, it’s going to things like the response to meningococcal, and everywhere we saw, of the 10 DHBs—which were very representative of all 20 of them, I have to say—uncertainty about what to do in the face of this sea of red ink, because they’re certainly not getting any support from the Minister, who dragged the chairs and the chief executives into Wellington and said, “Fix it.” He didn’t say how, didn’t say why, and didn’t say what the industrial relations landscape was going to be. All he can do is bark instructions, and this is the result. We have a sector and a ministry sinking.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Madam Chair, thank you for the call. It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak to the review and the achievements of this Government to date in terms of making sure that we are addressing the underfunding that we inherited in the health sector. We are boosting critical public services, and as a Government we’re determined to tackle the long-term problems and challenges we’ve inherited. We know that when we took Government we had kids living in cars, we had hospitals with rot and mould in the walls, and we had rivers so dirty they couldn’t be swum in. We are determined to tackle these things. We’re determined to take mental health seriously. The previous Government did nothing. They talked about the need to put some money in; they never actually appropriated money specifically for mental health.

In this Budget that we’re discussing now, we picked off three big things that needed to be dealt with. The first was addressing the ageing infrastructure. Now, we know that some of the hospitals had rot and mould in the walls—that’s been well publicised. Of course, many have seismic issues. In this Budget, we put the biggest injection into capital spending in the health sector in over a decade. We put in $750 million. For many years, the previous Government didn’t put any in. They just expected district health boards (DHBs), off their balance sheets, to try to deal with the infrastructure that they had, and it’s been getting worse year after year after year. But we believe in a public health system where every Kiwi can access healthcare, not just those who have deep wallets. So we’ve been determined to get on with the mess we’ve inherited in that regard. It’ll take many years, and we are determined to make the investment that’s needed to have a strong public health system. Budget 2018 kicked that process off.

We also, in the Budget, put money aside to make sure that people could afford to go to their GP. We know that when we came into Government, over half a million Kiwis were saying they couldn’t afford to go to the GP in any given year—over half a million Kiwis couldn’t afford to go to the GP. Now, that’s just not right. So we as a Government said we’re going to do something to tackle this, and we have put in place a scheme whereby people can go to visit the doctor for under 20 bucks—any doctor around the country that’s registered in a regular practice—if they’ve got a community services card. Now, that means it’ll be, on average, $20 to $30 cheaper for those people to go to visit the doctor. But the important thing is—

Angie Warren-Clark: Say that again.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: —$20 to $30 dollars cheaper—that they will actually go to the doctor, because we know that before they were choosing not to. They were getting sick and they were ending up in our hospitals, but 540,000 New Zealanders who didn’t have that access before now have access to cheaper doctors visits—under $20—thanks to Budget 2018, which we’re discussing now.

It’s also true that we extended free children’s visits to under-14s. We made it able to be free for more kids to get to the doctor. We’ve extended access and accessibility for around 600,000 Kiwis. Also in Budget 2018, we got real about a growing and ageing population. We put more money into DHBs than had been put in in a decade—$2.3 billion over the forecast period. This had been underfunded for so long. In Opposition, we had a piece of work done by an independent economics agency that told us they had been underfunded to the tune of $2.3 billion—$2.3 billion—under the last Government. That was money required just to stand still with services. That was an estimate of what it would’ve cost just to stand still under the last Government.

Of course, some of the money we’re putting in now is money to address the fact that healthcare costs a little bit more every year as we get more expensive treatments, as we have more people going through. But some of it is to address that backlog of underspending on our health system from a Government that really didn’t care about a public health system and was more focused on looking after the wealthy and making sure the private system flourished.

So this Government is concerned about addressing those long-term problems that have accumulated over many years, and, as I said, we’re taking mental health seriously. In our first hundred days, we launched the mental health and addiction inquiry, and we’ll be reporting back on that before the Budget. But in the meantime, we put $200 million in this Budget into ring-fenced funding for DHBs to support existing services. We introduced the community services card initiative I’ve just discussed, which means that people can access, through their GP, mental health services at an affordable rate and get into services. We’ve introduced nurses in schools to decile 4 schools—a proven policy. We have brought forward Piki, which gives integrated therapies across the Wellington region to 18- to 24-year-olds. That’s a pilot; we’ll see more of that. We’ve put money into addiction beds in Auckland, and also invested in Hillmorton mental health facilities. There’s plenty more to come, but we take mental health seriously. That’s another problem that we’re determined to tackle.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s an absolute pleasure to speak on this year’s annual review debate on health, and, as Louisa Wall mentioned, we reviewed, as a select committee, a range of different entities. So we looked at the Ministry of Health, the Health Research Council, Pharmac, and around half of our district health boards (DHBs). The theme I’d like to touch on today is a similar theme to what Mr Michael Woodhouse spoke about in terms of that sea of red, because what I want to do is actually unpack a bit about what is the health system that we’ve inherited. I think, for me, it’s thinking about those twin legacies of systematic, chronic under-investment in our health system over a period of nine years and, basically, taking a very hands-off approach to that strategic management, that planning of things like workforce, and also our infrastructure.

But before I want to go into that in more detail, I just want to touch on, again, what Michael Woodhouse mentioned about targets, because the previous Government very diligently monitored emergency department waiting times. But what they didn’t do is actually count the number of people coming into emergency departments with preventable conditions—things like housing-related preventable conditions, infectious respiratory diseases, and those that could be prevented by early access to primary care—or look at people’s access to primary care and housing, which are two big things that our Government is focusing on.

But coming back to the review of the DHBs, what was very, very stark was that pretty much all of the DHBs that we reviewed were in deficit, and while each of them talked about different reasons for that deficit, there were a number of common themes, and one of them was just systematic under-investment over the past few years. One DHB said that they’d had their budget capped for three years up to 2017-2018, and while they were happy that that cap had now been removed, they said, “We had to think about the challenge of coping with the $30 million that we didn’t receive in those previous years.” So for many of our DHBs there’s no fat in the system, so that if they get an increase in acute demand, there’s none of those buffers you could accumulate from previous years to be able to cope with that.

Others were talking about those increases in acute demand—things like people coming in for ambulatory sensitive conditions, those hospital admissions that could be prevented if you went to the GP early. So they were talking about those, increases in demand for acute surgery, and also mental health. These are things that our Government has been investing in. Last year we put in that huge extra investment so that community service card holders could get low-cost access to their GP when they needed it, and we also made sure that children up to and including age 13 went to the doctor for free.

While it’s too early to really check that in the hospital admission trends to see a reduction at the moment, because those investments are just bedding in, I think in future years we are going to see the impact, because people now don’t have to think twice before they go to the doctor if they’re on a low income and worrying about the cost. The other thing that we’ve signalled is that mental health is going to be a very big priority in this year’s Wellbeing Budget, because that’s something, as a country, we really have to address.

One of the other things, though, that some of the DHBs were talking about struggling with was the workforce, because we’ve really taken our eye off the ball in terms of that strategic planning, in terms of how many specialists, how many medical staff, how many allied health professionals, and how many nurse practitioners we need. Many DHBs were saying that they were struggling. One DHB was saying they were having to share their specialists with the neighbouring DHB, because they couldn’t recruit enough. Another was talking about the challenges of getting GPs into smaller towns. One DHB was citing some of the reasons for this deficit. It was because they were having to pay so much for locums, and outsource some services, because they just couldn’t attract regular staff—so, really, the whole legacy of that lack of strategic planning.

But another one, the third thing that really stood out, was the impact of the lack of investment in our infrastructure in our hospital buildings. I think the Ministry of Health in their report put it very politely—just reading their quote—that they had quite a “challenging and constrained operating environment”, and what that had resulted in was deferred maintenance, some buildings being too old, and seismic assessments on buildings since the Canterbury earthquakes leading to some that needed to be strengthened.

I think the actual media was much more honest in their reporting when they talked about some of the mould and the problems in the walls of Middlemore Hospital, and taking your eye off the ball in terms of investment in our assets. So I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s going to be investing back. In last year’s Budget, we put $750 million back into our infrastructure, and we’re really investing in primary care, cheaper doctors visits, our health infrastructure, and mental health. Thank you.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe and thank you, Madam Chair. It’s my pleasure to stand and take a call on this appropriation review debate in health. I am very pleased to be a member of the Health Committee, and I acknowledge the chair who spoke before the dinner hour and outlined all the organisations that came before the committee and engaged with the committee. I note that she mentioned the Canterbury District Health Board and the debt of gratitude to all of those who were involved on 15 March, and the work they did at the front line, taking care of all of those injured people. It was a tragedy that has reverberated across the country and around the world, and I particularly note a debt of gratitude to all those from the district health board (DHB).

I’d like to take my focus now to look at a DHB from my hometown that I grew up in—the Lakes District Health Board. Recently, last year in fact, they opened a new centre. It’s called Te Aka Mauri. Rotorua Lakes Council’s Te Kaitiaki Ahurei Māori—that’s Monty Morrison from the well-known Morrison family—was at the opening of the centre called Te Aka Mauri; te aka, meaning a vine or interconnection, and Mauri, meaning life force. Now, the name reflects a shared vision to create a facility of excellence to advance community wellbeing and understanding. So I really want to focus on the amazing work that they are doing, because I think it’s really important to look at these models and how the community is shaping a new way of looking at health services in their particular community. So I acknowledge Lakes DHB for a couple of really great initiatives that they have undertaken.

So the Rotorua Lakes Council, alongside the Lakes DHB, opened up Te Aka Mauri and, basically, they’ve created this hub where children can go. It has maternity services, paediatric outpatient clinics, a child development team, and vision and hearing screening, and it’s actually centred in a refurbished library. Now, anyone who goes to a library, particularly if you take children to a library, knows what a fun environment that is, unless, of course, you’ve got overdue books. So inside the library it’s this great environment, and they’re getting much more engagement with people coming in with their children and engaging in that health process. They’re also open in the evenings when the library’s open, and this health hub can be also opened in the weekend. So it’s been a great success, because the attendance now is so much higher than it was when it was just a medical clinic. So this is a great relationship that they have developed between the council and the DHB, and it’s very, very positive for their community.

They’re also running another programme called Tū Taua programme, and this is around methamphetamine. We know that synthetics, P, and meth are a scourge on our society, and so they’re looking at ways of dealing with methamphetamine in the Lakes District, and it’s a programme that is by Māori, for Māori, and it’s providing support. It’s also providing counselling, and helping to facilitate whānau support, and they’re having great success. But they are finding that it is a struggle. It’s difficult to get figures. Not every user actually ends up in hospital, so it’s quite difficult to actually have consistent data on P, on synthetics, but certainly this Tū Taua programme is becoming quite a successful programme.

The final thing I’d like to mention, which was a theme which came across in many of the DHBs that came to the select committee, is around immunisation. It was too for Lakes District. In their DHB there’s been, overall, a decline in parents choosing to immunise their children, and many DHBs actually said that there are actively declining numbers for this area. They suggested there could perhaps be a lot of difficulty in getting children of high mobility immunised—where they don’t seem to have permanent homes. So this is something in the area that all these DHBs are actively involved in improving.

I’d just like to finish off and make note of a great injection—$750 million has been injected into the health sector. This will be addressing this backlog of underfunding, and I’m very proud to be a part of a Government which is ensuring we have good health and wellbeing in our community.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I too would like to pay my respects to the Canterbury District Health Board. On March 15, I happened to be at the hospital, and I have to say it acted like a well-oiled machine. Obviously, it was a huge challenge, but they rose to that challenge, and I think we need to be very proud of them.

The health budget for 2017-18 involved $13 billion of funding for DHBs and another $3 billion for health services from DHBs and organisations that don’t directly report to Parliament. But I’m concerned that during our annual reviews, we heard that some of the essential services that our families are desperate for, despite all that money, are deteriorating rapidly. The key here is that because the health targets have been dropped—they’re gone—there’s no ongoing accountability and healthcare outcomes are sliding backwards.

So I’m particularly interested in two areas. One is the immunisation rate—and we’ve heard people talk about that this evening—and also better help for smokers to quit. Now, both of these were health targets under National. Both areas had been increasing in effectiveness and had improved health outcomes, which have now either stagnated or slipped dramatically over the past year or so. Without the health targets, the only way that we can monitor these failings is through increased numbers of people with disease or through deaths, and we’ve seen that.

So let’s start with immunisation. Back in 2008, 76 percent of two-year-olds were immunised, but because of the health targets, by 2017, 92 percent of them were immunised. There was a very high percentage for both Māori and Pasifika. Now, that was a huge step forward, because immunisation is one of the easiest and most effective ways to protect our children. When I was the Minister for Disability Issues, I used to meet with groups and individuals who lived with disabilities. I remember very well going to a meeting in Christchurch in 2017 for those who still suffer the effects of polio. It was a support group that consisted only of older New Zealanders—only of older New Zealanders—because now our children are immune to this crippling illness. But they’re only immune if we continue to immunise. We do not want another generation joining these older citizens with the effects of polio. This is only possible if we immunise and people immunise all children across the board.

But during the recent reviews of our district health boards, they consistently told us that their immunisation rates were dropping and that there were alarming trends of people actually being against vaccination. The result: recently we’ve had recorded deaths from meningococcal disease in Northland, and there’s been a large number of measles cases right across the country—and that’s totally unacceptable. People actually die of measles. We’ve forgotten that. So as we head into 2019-20, I hope that the Government will act to help address these alarming impacts that the anti-vaccination movements are having on public health. We must have more funding to support immunisation and to manage the outbreak of these diseases so that that can be prevented by immunisation. If anyone has any doubts about that, they just need to talk to the older generations who are still suffering from the effects of polio.

Another loss for health targets has been better help for smokers, and that’s been a retrograde step. Thousands of smokers die of smoke-related diseases every year. Research tells us that although most of them would like to quit, they can’t. I’d just like to put in a plug for vaping. It’s been a game changer internationally, and this Government really needs to recognise the value that vaping has for people who want to quit. They must encourage people to vape rather than smoke. The previous Government sought to pass legislation to clarify the position on vaping and to promote it as an alternative to smoking. It is 95 percent less harmful, and it’s a far better option.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise and give a good speech, I hope, on the Health Committee review. We’re a hardworking select committee and, generally speaking, we get on very well—we’re pretty collegial and we work well across the floor, I believe.

What we do know, though, is that this Government inherited a chronically underfunded health system. Everyone here on the Government benches has talked absolutely about a health system that was groaning—groaning under the weight of people accessing but not having the services that they needed, not having the funding, and the infrastructure failures etc. Most of us have had friends or family on waiting lists. Many of us know people who were desperate to access mental health or addiction services and just weren’t able to get them. I myself operated a women’s refuge and often we would call the police rather than the crisis assessment team (CAT) because the mental health services were so overloaded in my community.

But there is some good news—there is some good news. Our Government came in. We put $50 million immediately towards mental health and instigated, as our Minister has indicated, a mental health inquiry, with findings coming out shortly. It is important work. We cannot hurry this. We have put in early-intervention counselling for 18- to 25-year-olds experiencing mild to moderate mental distress. Prevention is better than waiting for a crisis. I applaud our Government for doing that. Piki was launched in Porirua. It’s now available in the Capital and Coast District Health Board and tertiary institutions throughout Wellington, the Hutt, and Wairarapa. We heard about Mana Ake: supporting five- to 12-year-olds in Canterbury and Kaikōura. Again, this is about prevention, and health is also about prevention.

The Hon Nicky Wagner spoke to us about smoking, and spoke to us about the fact that we’re no longer counting smoking. So let me tell you what that looked like previously. When a person attends a hospital or a health facility, they are asked if they smoke. If they say yes, the person says to them, “Would you like to speak to someone about that?” That is the intervention that occurs, and that is the intervention that is counted. So I for one am not at all upset about the fact that when we count the meaningful aspects—the giving up of smoking etc.—those targets are not really important or necessary.

I think it’s really important to say that with the $750 million set aside for capital works, we are going to have fit for purpose health facilities again in this country. There was mould—really; mould?—and operating theatres where the rain was coming in, and specialists were sitting and being paid but were unable to operate. This is what we inherited. I’m so proud of our Minister for the work that he’s done in this space.

Finally, I would also like to just mention our family violence intervention work that occurs in the health sector. So with the 10 district health boards (DHBs) that we spoke to, I had the opportunity to ask questions about the family violence interventions that occur, and a training package that works across the social services agencies in the community to help train to identify and vet for family violence. Everyone, without a doubt, spoke absolutely of the importance of that work and the continuation. So I’m absolutely proud, with our $320 million that we’ve just invested into family violence and sexual violence, that health is a big player in that.

Finally, I would also, in the last five minutes—five seconds—just like to say I think it is so very important that we are looking and have invested $12 million in rheumatic fever for our Māori and Pacific families. My daughter got rheumatic fever as a child, as a Māori child, and this will be a game-changer. Thank you, Minister.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak to this theme and to work with other members of the Health Committee through the annual review process and Budget 2017-18 with our responsibility to hold the Government and Minister to account for public funding.

We saw half of the district health boards (DHBs) in person. The remainder we received in writing. At this point I just want to congratulate Bay of Plenty DHB, who did an excellent job in returning the annual review questions indexing and cross-indexing their questions. That’s spectacular. Auckland, thanks for turning up. But, otherwise, it was an excellent job. I want to congratulate them for that. It made it really easy to find the holes in this Government’s policies. So I want to thank them very much for that.

We had the Northland DHB appear in front of us. Their CEO, Dr Nick Chamberlain, talked to—when prompted—amongst other things, the meningitis outbreak in Northland. More will be said of that in the coming days. But I want to commend the Northland DHB for what they’ve done with the meningitis outbreak in Northland. They followed the instructions from the ministry and the Minister as best they possibly could. Well done; congratulations. I’m firmly of the view that the ministry and the Minister could have done more. I do not understand why, when the outbreak was triggered with an attack rate of 12.3 per 100,000—one of the key World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for an outbreak—for under-10-year-olds, we in fact stopped vaccinating at age four. We raised these questions with Nick Chamberlain and he couldn’t explain it either, other than as the Minister has said, “It’s what the expert groups told us.” That’s not even close to a good enough explanation, and, again, we’ll hear more from that over the coming days.

I just wanted to comment very briefly on rheumatic fever. My colleague over here who raised it, yes, also I want to congratulate. I think that is very much a good programme to be investing money into. It is not clear to me why Whangaroa Harbour and some of the other parts of Northland are excluded from that. It wasn’t many years ago when Whangaroa had the second-worst incidence of rheumatic fever outside of Soweto. We put a lot of money into that and had some improvements with the acute sore throat, rheumatic fever clinics. So it’s not clear to me why this new money is all going to South Auckland when we haven’t done so well up north either. But that’s a different story.

I think of all the questions we posed to the DHBs the one I want to focus on here very briefly is the National Oracle Solution, much of which changed over the 2017-18 period. I asked every DHB, both in writing and in person, about their progress with the National Oracle Solution. That multi-platform customer relationship management IT piece of software is also to do important things for logistics and procurement. It’s customer relationship management logistics and procurement, multi-million dollar benefits of scale, of course, in procurement and logistics. If you recall what happened there was it was struggling, so the Minister organised an independent review with Deloitte, who were actually key people, key stakeholders, in the National Oracle Solution. We raised questions and said there needed to be an inquiry. There was a huge conflict of interest, and eventually the Minister sent it to Audit New Zealand. Audit New Zealand came back saying, “Absolutely huge conflicts of interest, poorly managed, do better.”

We raised questions around National Oracle Solution with every DHB. There were four DHBs who were in the wave one: Waikato, Canterbury, Bay of Plenty, and West Coast. In about July the Minister paused the other DHBs, apart from those four in wave one. He said, “The rest of you stop. I don’t understand this. Don’t figure out what’s happening. But you four have sort of moved far enough along. Keep going and see what happens.” When you do that, you create a balance-sheet impairment because suddenly your software is no longer suiting the purpose it originally was there to suit. And so the question I was interested in, and asked every DHB, was “How much impairment against the National Oracle Solution have you put to your balance sheet?” It varied; in Bay of Plenty, for example, a smaller DHB, it was still a large sum of money—$255,000 they were recording as impairment. They’re part of the wave one so they’re still operational. But Auckland, where it was paused completely for them, their impairment, their write-off, due to the Minister’s decision to pause was $2.774 million dollars just from one policy setting, just from saying “You’re now paused, you four can continue.” They’ve had to write off that sum of money. And, of course, what’s happened here now is everyone’s been told to pause; even the wave one have been told to slow down. So we’re going to be very interested as to what sort of contingent liability, what impairment, is going to need to be recorded in the upcoming balance sheets. Furthermore, as I understand it, the software licence is due and the hardware doesn’t support it any more.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I want to respond to a few the points raised in the debate. I will begin by just speaking to the issue Dr Reti’s raised around the National Oracle Solution. I find it particularly astonishing that a member from that side of the House would be raising this issue in the Chamber for us all to see. This is—I think it’s been called before—weaponised incompetence. This is a programme started by the National Government, where they spent over $100 million before we took office. And, clearly, it’s run into all kinds of problems to do with governance, to do with being implementable, and so on. This Government had a review. Dr Reti’s fussed a wee bit about the review, how it was done, and so on. He’s asking questions about how much impairment there’s going to be as a result of that poor investment by that side of the House. I think this is genuinely a case of weaponised incompetence. But I don’t want to spend too much more time on that now. I want to cover a number of the other issues that have been raised as we’ve gone through the debate.

Dr Reti also raised the issue of meningococcal W, and spoke about how the district health board (DHB) had said they were listening to expert advice. He spoke in very disparaging terms about the DHB listening to expert advice on how to run an immunisation program. I’m quite comfortable with experts making the calls on these things. I don’t actually think it’s the job of politicians to decide what the best healthcare is. We’re here to fund it and support it. But the actual technical decisions need to be taken by those who are experts in population health.

To speak to some of the other issues raised, quickly, we had the Hon Nicky Wagner, a former Associate Minister of Health, raising questions about health targets. She was saying, for example, that nothing’s being measured any more, then going on in her speech to speak to all of the measures that are in place—obviously, a contradiction in her own rhetoric. But she spoke about the immunisation rate. I think the important thing to note that the member did not raise at all is that that immunisation target of the previous Government was never achieved—not once. They never achieved that at a national level, the immunisation target. Immunisation is incredibly important. On our side of the House we’re determined to do something about those low immunisation rates. Certainly it is of deep concern that the anti-vaxxers have been getting some traction out there. But I actually think it’s also incumbent on all of us to explain to people the importance of science and the importance of confronting the danger that’s presented by diseases like meningococcal W and like the measles.

We’re here on this side of the House to invest in health, and to make sure that people across New Zealand can access health services. In my previous contribution I covered the community services card fee cuts for visits to primary care and general practice, meaning people will be able to afford to go to the doctor when they couldn’t afford to go before, because we believe in making sure that healthcare is accessible.

But we’re also investing in our workforces. They’re around 1,300 more nurses in New Zealand in our hospital system than when we took office. That is because we’ve chosen to invest. We’ve invested in safe staffing. We’ve had a nursing accord that commits to safe staffing. We’ve also done settlements with healthcare workers, who’ve been stretched and strained for too long and who were giving up. We’re finding that there were staffing shortages across the system because people just were not prepared to put up with it anymore.

This is a Government that is investing. A record amount was invested in the Budget we’re debating—more than had been put in for a decade. I’m very much looking forward to the Wellbeing Budget that’s coming up, when we will get to invest more again in our health system. We will invest again in the capital infrastructure that’s been neglected for so long, so that our hospitals are fit for purpose, so that they’re good places for staff to work, so that they are pleasant places for patients to visit, so that they can get the care, because we on this side of the House believe we need services for people, be it education, be it healthcare, be it roads. We are going to invest for the future of all New Zealanders and fix the problems that have accumulated over so many years of neglect by the previous Government. We are determined to tackle those harder issues—the consequences of that underfunding—to make sure we’ve got a healthcare system that delivers for all New Zealanders.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. Madam Chair, it’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand on the appropriations debate for health. My contribution will focus primarily on the issues of mental health and addiction and actually align relatively nicely with the Government’s mental health and addiction inquiry, which has been canvassed by a number of those who have contributed to this debate so far. I also, before I start getting into the meat of this issue, want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon David Clark, for his brilliant work and for working alongside us in good faith on a number of issues, particularly the very vexed issue of drug law reform, which I’ll note is an incredibly emotive issue and has elicited emotive responses from many in this House as we have progressed with legislation.

One of the many things that we’re proud of as the Greens, as a supporting party of this Government, is delivering the Piki programme delivering free, culturally appropriate, fit-for-purpose mental health services for those between the ages of 18 and 24 in this country. We, working in confidence and supply with the Labour Party and, obviously, they in coalition with New Zealand First, have delivered—that’s you, Mark Patterson and Jenny Marcroft—this Piki programme now throughout Greater Wellington. I was fortunate enough to join the Minister and Associate Minister Julie Anne Genter at Victoria University of Wellington a few weeks ago. Actually, what was most exciting about being at Victoria University of Wellington to announce that rollout was the fact that we got to acknowledge the incredible mahi of students, whom I had hosted in my office only a year before as they planned their campaign to try and raise awareness of the issue of mental health and indeed to try and get resourcing to make sure that none of their friends and whānau had to go through many of the dark times that they themselves had found themselves in.

I also want to speak to the mental health and addiction inquiry, which the Government is expected to respond to relatively quickly in the next few weeks in the lead-up to the Budget. I’m incredibly proud to have been involved in the Government’s response to it. The mental health and addiction inquiry supports, of course, the huge, growing amounts of contemporary research into the issues of mental health and addiction. I have found frequently that politicians like to demarcate the issues of mental health and addiction, being that one has to do with the vexed, as I just said, issue of drug substance abuse. However, I think it is important for those who are listening to this debate tonight to recognise that, as was reflected in that report, there are the same environmental drivers for people who experience mental ill health as for those who begin to pick up and engage in addictive or dependent behaviour when it comes to substances. This report also reflected the experiences that I have heard from students across the country in my touring up and down and also, actually, from services such as Te Whare Mahana in Golden Bay and Te Kauwatawata in Gisborne, who are both providing incredible, incredible services for their local communities.

I also want just briefly to touch on the costs and benefits, actually, when it comes to drug law reform, because, as has been mentioned multiple times, throughout my five-minute contribution, this is a vexed and controversial issue, but in October of 2018 the New Zealand Drug Foundation commissioned an independent report from Sense Partners, an accountancy or economist projecting firm by any other name. They focused on three key areas of drug law reform and, essentially, found out that on the first, when it comes to decriminalisation of people who use substances, New Zealand would be better off to the tune of $34 million to $83 million per year; when it comes to regulating and legalising cannabis, that New Zealand would be better off by $10 million to $53 million a year; and when it comes to providing better mental health and addiction services, it would cost us a $159 million investment but, ultimately, in terms of the social returns, we would end up $244 million better off per annum. This is reflected in the Government’s work programme when it comes to mental health and addiction, primarily in our response to the synthetics crisis—the misuse of drugs amendment—and also, of course, by the referendum to legalise and regulate cannabis.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the reports of committees relevant to the Health Sector be noted.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Reports of committees relevant to the Health Sector noted.

Justice Sector

RAYMOND HUO (Chairperson of the Justice Committee): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I rise to take a call in the annual review debate on the justice sector. The Justice Committee conducted hearings and tabled reports from 11 entities, and I want to give a quick highlight of the entities and what the committee heard. We conducted hearings and tabled reports from 11 entities, including the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Corrections, the New Zealand Police, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, the Electoral Commission, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the Crown Law Office, the Human Rights Commission, the Abortion Supervisory Committee, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

The Ministry of Justice provides a wide range of justice services to New Zealand. Its core functions include administering the court and tribunal systems, negotiating Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and providing policy advice and administering Vote Justice. One of the highlights for the ministry was that the ministry hosted the justice summit in 2018 and the outcomes will be used in its policy work. Following the justice summit, we heard that Te Rōpū organised separately its Māori summit and that the ministry’s chief victims’ adviser has organised a workshop on strengthening the criminal justice system for victims.

One of the main focuses for the ministry in 2017 and 2018 was modernising and improving the New Zealand court system. For the Department of Corrections, its total revenue in 2017-18 was $1.474 billion—about 11 percent more than that in 2016-17. In its opening statements to the committee, the department outlined some of its significant achievements in 2017 and 2018, including: (a) more than 1,000 prisoners have completed an intensive drug and alcohol treatment programme; (b) nearly 8,000 prisoners undertook rehabilitation programmes in prison, with nearly 90 percent completion rates; and (c) the department’s programme called This Way For Work placed 922 prisoners and ex-prisoners into employment. Since reaching an all-time high of 10,820 in March 2018, the number of prisoners had decreased to 9,661 at the time of our hearing.

The department told us that it is developing a new strategy to address offending by and to improve outcomes for Māori. Currently, over half of the prison population identify as Māori.

For the New Zealand Police, the 2018 Budget included funding for the recruitment of an additional 1,800 police officers and 485 support staff. At the hearing, we were given an update on recruitment and we were informed of other matters such as road safety and police involvement in mental health incidents.

From the Electoral Commission, we heard that it is an ongoing challenge to engage and motivate young people to enrol and vote. In the 2017 general election, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled was 72.3 percent, which was less than in 2014, which was 76.5 percent. However, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who enrolled and actually cast their votes increased by 6.5 percent.

The Law Commission reviews, reforms, and develops New Zealand law and has played a very important role in our justice system. Thank you very much.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I just begin by acknowledging the previous speaker, Dr Raymond Huo, the chairman of the Justice Committee, and acknowledge the good job that he does in chairing the committee and the work that the committee has got through in the last 12 months.

He spoke about the justice sector summit. To me, it’s disappointing when you have a Government now that was in Opposition for nine years and had some very definitive ideas and plans and were very vocal about that in Opposition, and came into Government as the incoming Government and were very clear that they were going to reform our criminal justice system and it was going to be a reformist Government and we were going to see them launch their policies in relation to reform—it’s disappointing that, 18 months in, we still have had no signals. I have no idea at all, as the Opposition justice spokesman, exactly what this Government intends to do around reforms. I’ve been very clear. I’ve been very clear with the Minister, the Hon Andrew Little: if you come up with some good reforms that we think will benefit this country and benefit our nation and our communities, then we’ll support those. But if you come to this House with a bunch of reforms that are fundamentally going to dilute or weaken our parole, our sentencing, and our bail laws, thereby transferring risk back into the community, we will not stand for that and we will take a very strong position against it.

We kicked off with a justice summit, a justice summit that forgot to invite victims. I can assure you that the National Party puts the victims at the heart of our criminal justice system. That’s where they should be. It was a justice sector summit that forgot to invite victims. The reason why I say that is because afterwards they came under so much pressure that they had to go back, and the chairman alluded to it. They’ve now had to put a summit on for victims. Well, it’s good and it’s pleasing to hear. It’s a shame it’s taken 18 months for this Government to actually organise something to hear the voices of the victims that, through no choice of their own, come into our criminal justice system. I don’t want to go too much into the cost of that. It was outrageous. You know, we held the Government to account. A registration desk that cost $30,000 to set up, venison burgers and crème brȗlée! It was an outrageous use of taxpayers’ money.

Then we saw the next step, which was an attempted repeal—this was the first thing they did in their justice sector reforms, as a Government—of the three strikes legislation. Well, the partner threw the justice Minister under the bus. As he went to Cabinet that morning, he had to come out and make a public announcement and say, “We’re no longer going to pursue the repeal of the three strikes legislation.” That was a disgrace, in my view, and I’m still highly offended by it—the fact that the only example they could use to try and make a case for repealing the three strikes legislation was to trivialise an indecent assault against a female corrections officer. That’s the best that they could do, and they couldn’t apologise for it, and to this day, their partner parties have not come forward and apologised either.

Then they bring a bill called the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. This just goes to show how little this Government has done in 18 months. This is a bill that they want to protect the name of the Ombudsmen, something that will affect one group—one group. And, by the way, their own ministry advised them not to proceed with this and not to bring it to the House. There’s got to be more priorities. That’s all that they could bring to this House for the House to debate. That shows how little they’ve got going on in the justice sector.

But they did bring a very good bill to the House. They brought the Trusts Bill to the House—they brought the Trusts Bill to the House. That’s a bill that actually makes a fundamental change and difference in a lot of Kiwis’ lives. But the thing is: that wasn’t their bill; that was the Hon Amy Adams’. That was her bill. That was our bill that they brought to the House that will actually make a difference. Their bill is the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill.

They’ve got no plan. There’s been no legislation brought to this House. And I’ll tell you what. Let me make a prediction. Let me make a prediction right here tonight in the House. This is not a reformist Government. We’re not going to see the biggest reforms we’ve ever seen of the criminal justice system. It’s a Government that’s paralysed with indecision, not knowing what to do, and not knowing what to bring to the House. I hope I’m proved wrong, but let’s see. You’re 18 months into it. This is the year of delivery. We’re still waiting to see what you’re going to deliver in the criminal justice sector. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I’ll just reflect on what the member opposite has been talking about. It’s a real shame actually, because we do have an opportunity and it doesn’t matter who is in power—let’s not look at the last 10 years; let’s look at the last 20 years and actually just take a real good look at this. Actually, as someone who’s been involved in industry, as has the previous speaker, I defy him to say or see anything that really has worked in our time. He’s been a police officer for some time, been involved in the industry, as have I. The reality of it is that we all did our best. We all did what we could to try and stem the tide of what we saw. We did it, whether we were a dog handler, we did it as a detective, and we all did it—everyone involved in the sector. Whether you’re a corrections officer, whether you’re in the courts, we all actually want to do the same thing. Whatever else we do for a day job, we actually live in that community and anything that fails it not only affects us; it affects our families, and it affects our whole communities. So we actually all want to do something different.

I think the reality of it—and I’m probably someone who’s been reasonably guilty of it in the past myself—is thinking that if we just go harder, tougher, dig ’em deeper, hang ’em higher, then we’re going to fix this thing. But the reality of it is it is not going to happen. We actually do have to look at another way to do it. Now, I’m not standing here saying I don’t agree with prison. I actually think that a smarter use of prison has got to be a very important part of what we do.

We heard from corrections about recidivism rates. This is very important. We heard about 47 percent of prisoners released from prison in 2016-17 were reconvicted of an offence within 12 months. Now, we can go through a whole pile of other stats, but really that’s what we’re looking at. Now, we can keep them in for longer. That might actually stop it, but I suspect that that actually won’t do it by itself. I personally am a believer in smarter use of sentencing for—firstly, determine why we’re putting people in prison. The first reason is to prevent crime. Now, there are some people who are incorrigible and actually need to be inside, and some of the quite good work done by the previous Government, I have to say, has meant that we’re looking at identifying those people to make sure that they are where they should be, and I’ll give credit where it’s deserved. However, it’s at that often lower level where the smarter use of prison for disrupting crime is actually what we really need to be about. So disruption can often be as little as six months, where, if you’re a drug dealer, you lose your drugs, your customer base is gone, and you’ve actually been disrupted.

If we take a bit of a broader view of what we’re trying to achieve here, and I know that when I’ve been involved in various strategies in smaller areas, where if you had actually just taken the right people out and had been smarter about it, just forcing ourselves—and it’s not just in New Zealand. It’s a worldwide initiative, where Opposition parties—and, I’ll have to say, probably my own party has been guilty of it at times—build up this whole fear of crime thing because it’s an easy win, and, again, we’ve just heard that from someone who was a very good police officer and who was out there and whose dog was well reputed. But, again, none of the things that he or, I have to say, I myself said really actually made a difference when we tried to turn this thing around.

So in the justice system, putting the people together who are in the system—and I was in Christchurch just last week and I was very lucky to see one of the initiatives down there and to see people that are actually working together. Again, I challenge the previous speaker to recall at the start of his own career how things were dealt with then. They were very much piecemeal, and, actually, it didn’t really work. But now, it’s actually a lot more smarter, and we can be so much smarter about this whole thing.

So I invite them. There will be more speakers here, and we’ll stand up and they’ll beat us around the ears for various other things, and they’re basically hoping that people listening at home will end up scared as heck about crime. That will work. If you want to do that for the next nine years when you’re in Opposition, then fine—do it—and it will probably work. But, actually, at some stage down in the future, those who are responsible for that are actually going to be responsible—they’ll be hoist on their own petard.

So let’s just see if we can actually take a little bit of a cooperative approach to how to do this, and one of the real problems that’s looming—in the last few seconds left to me—is one of the things we know we really are going to have to focus on, because if we get into the big stuff, we’ll forget it. It is organised crime. Each of the entities that came to see us, we asked them about it, and the sad thing about it, I have to say, is that most of those entities didn’t really bring that up. It was only on questioning that we really talked to them about it.

On organised crime and a joint ability, I make this plea, really, to all in the committee. It’s only going to be joint initiatives that are going to really deal with something that if we don’t deal with it, those who come after us in this place are still going to be talking about it for years to come. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): In talking to the review of the justice sector, what we, again, see is this massive gap between the promise and the delivery, and I want—

Kieran McAnulty: Oh, rubbish.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member says that’s rubbish. Well, let’s go and take the core thing: this was a Government that promised radical reform in the justice sector. We had this massive justice forum. The part that I enjoyed about that was the work that my colleague Mark Mitchell did on the money that was wasted on it.

Here’s my question: is there a single bill or legislative reform that has flowed from all that big talk? Answer: absolutely zip—zero. Here we are, 18 months later, at the halfway mark of the Government’s term, and absolutely zero on the non-delivery front. Here’s the irony: we keep passing laws to increase sentences. We did it on stock rustling. We did it in respect of psychoactive substances. We’re doing it in respect of first responders.

So here is a Government that gave us all this rhetoric around “Prisons are a failure. We’re going to have radical justice reform.”, and here’s the truth: when prosecutor Simon Bridges challenged Jacinda Ardern, she wasn’t prepared to defend the turf. Up went the white flag and, just like with the capital gains tax, there is a complete lack of delivery.

I particularly want to challenge Kelvin Davis, the Minister in the chair. I heard him rave for nine years alongside the Green Party on the issue of double-bunking, and here’s the part that’s got me just dumbfounded: the Minister now has a bill before the House to make it easier—

Brett Hudson: Oh, really?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —to have double-bunking—that’s right. So the member who made his career in the corrections area on the basis of undoing double-bunking is now going to make it easier for the Department of Corrections to double-bunk.

Then, the other part that’s amused me is that every time there was a fight or an incident in prisons during National’s nine years, the Minister in the chair raged about it and said they would never happen on his watch. Well, guess what’s happened in the last week in the prisons in Christchurch? Have I heard the Minister in the chair raging about the issue of assaults that occurred in Christchurch Prison this week? He has been a complete lion in Opposition and a total lamb now that he has got into Government.

Now, my colleague Chris Bishop has joined us in the Chamber, and the most interesting part of the Estimates was Chris Bishop exposing the massive gap in delivery around police numbers, because we had these absolutely binding commitments about the 1,800 cops. I’ve got to give Chris Bishop 11 out of 10 for, actually, at the select committee, making a complete wally of Stuart Nash over the delivery of the number of police. It wasn’t like there was a little gap between the rhetoric and what was actually in the delivery. There was a massive gap.

Can I draw members’ attention: here’s my maths. You promised 1,800 extra cops over three years, and 1,800 divided by three is 600 per year. Well, how many did they get? We’re 18 months in, eh? Halfway through the Government—well, that says we should have 900. Do you know what the number is? It’s 267. Now, look, I accept it’s not quite as bad as Phil Twyford promising 1,000 houses and getting 80. No, it’s not in the absolutely D minus class, but you’d have to give it a D. It’s miles off what was promised.

The truth is members opposite promised a big game, and whether it’s been legislative reform, whether it’s been the number of cops, or whether it’s been 17 months of sitting on a report from police to deal with drug-drivers, what sort of an action programme is it? The Minister of Police said he was going to deal with it urgently. A discussion document sits on his desk for 17 months, and he thinks that’s urgent? Why does it matter? Because a hundred lives have been lost to drug-drivers in the 17 months that that report has sat on the Minister’s desk. What these Estimates show is a massive gap between promise and delivery.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a great privilege to be able to rebut some of those outrageous assertions made by members on the other side of the Chamber—absolutely outrageous assertions. Let’s talk about some facts tonight. Let’s talk about some facts.

Let’s have a look at what we’ve heard at the Justice Committee and, in particular, if we’re concerned about numbers and the way they’re tracking, let’s look at what the plan is from this Government. If there are concerns from the members opposite that there is not one, I’d like to remind them of a few things that are going on, and those things have taken a long time indeed to materialise. It’s very quick to be criticising what hasn’t happened in a few months when those opposite have sat on their hands for year after year and watched the numbers go in the wrong direction with an absolutely hands-off response and an ability to call out “Lock ’em up!” without any other underlying response to the root of the problem, and that’s actually why we’re here tonight.

So let’s take a look at what the Department of Corrections’ annual report gave back to the Justice Committee. One of the first things we saw was that it was the first time we’ve started to see—started to see—a decline in the prison numbers in New Zealand, and that’s where we want to keep that tracking. We want to see that reduction of 30 percent over 15 years, and how are we going to do that? The first thing we really need to look at is the rate of Māori reoffending and try to address that. That’s exactly what this Government has done, and the previous one made no real attempt to address it.

So Māori are four times more likely to be arrested, Pākehā are far more likely to get warnings and diversion than Māori, Māori are five times more likely to be charged by a police officer, they are five times more likely to be convicted and caught, and they are eight times—eight times—more likely to go to prison than somebody who is Pākehā. So what is this Government doing about that? You will have seen, as part of this Wellbeing Budget, an announcement in the past couple of days, one that looks directly at a Māori pathway that is whānau-centred and Whānau Ora - driven, and that is a new approach. That is a new approach and a structural change to the way this system has previously worked.

So instead of operating on the same basis of enabling recidivism and enabling Māori to be incarcerated time after time again, this is a Government that’s taking action to try and turn around those areas—and how is that being done? That is being done by jointly funding agencies so that we can have agencies working together for a collective response, and that’s exactly what we’ve got going on.

This is an initiative: the basis of our Māori reoffending rate being targeted by co-designing and implementing it with Māori, corrections, Te Puni Kōkiri, and the Ministry of Social Development working together with hapū and iwi to make sure that we have supported and understood those issues that are going on, to make this problem no longer a significant one for New Zealand, and that’s exactly what’s happening. The unique thing about this—the unique thing about having a whānau-centred pathway to break the cycle of Māori reoffending—is it uses the Wellbeing Budget structure and the wellbeings to jointly fund agencies so that they’re working together, and this is the difference—this is the difference

I would like to use the example of the Gang Intelligence Centre set up under the previous Government, which set up eight different agencies but didn’t fund them together, didn’t enable them to work together, and set them up to have to find that money out of their own departments, which meant non-committal, which meant no ability to collectively work and share information, and which meant an initiative that was set up from the beginning to not deliver. So that is the change that the members opposite are asking for.

That is the difference with a wellbeing Budget that goes further than looking at just trying to get the books in the black. It goes to the heart of where problems are and tries to address those by using whānau, by using the connections on the ground, and by caring about people—and that’s where it’s different: by caring about trying to address those issues and trying to put people first, in a way.

That is why there is a real difference between the direction that we’ve been going in the past and the new direction that this Government takes, because we are committed to turning around that reoffending rate and we are committed to reducing the prison population by 30 percent in 15 years. You can get hung up on targets, but we’re here where it matters—and that is people. Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Well, on this side of the Chamber, we are hung-up on targets. I’ll tell you who else is hung-up on targets: the Police Commissioner, because when the Police Commissioner appeared with the Minister, for the estimates we’re talking about, do you know what he said to us? He said, “The good thing about targets is they drive performance incentives and they drive behaviour.” So yep, on this side of the Chamber, we do care about targets because it’s precisely targets that drive behavioural change. The police have a lot of targets in their organisation, and rightly so.

I think, actually, one of the deleterious effects of this Government has been the eradication of those targets. We’ve seen the Better Public Services targets go and we’ve seen a whole bunch of police operational targets—for example, just to pick a random one that members might be interested in, the target of expanding 24/7 police station coverage around the country. Under National, there was a target of 24 stations to be upgraded over the next four years; that target has been scrapped. Now there are police stations up and down the country that were looking forward to having the 24/7 coverage and they are no longer going to get it. I’ll give you a good example: Balclutha, the mayor down there, Bryan Cadogan, is very upset about that. I know my good friend Hamish Walker, the MP for Clutha-Southland, is very concerned about that.

I do want to give the Government a little bit of credit for the announcement made just on the weekend about the integrated safety response pilot, because this was an initiative trialled under the National Government in Hamilton and Christchurch, as members will be aware, in 2016, quite a significant investment and it’s an expensive programme but it’s an investment that makes a difference and it is well worth doing because it does change lives. I do welcome the announcement from the Government about the expansion and the continuation of this programme. I have to say I think that they should have done it in the estimates that we’re talking about. They should have done it in last year’s Budget, because actually the money runs out on 30 June 2019—so in just a few short weeks’ time. Actually, it would have been better to give certainty to the initiative last year, but it’s great to see that programme rolling out, and we look forward to the investment in the Budget.

Look, the interesting thing about the estimates we’re talking about, that we examined in relation to police—which I have the privilege of being the spokesperson for—is that the Minister didn’t get all he wanted. So the Minister was advised by Treasury and by the police, in a leaked Cabinet paper, one of many leaks that we in the National Party get—oh, I see my good friend Hamish Walker’s entered the Chamber. We have just been talking about the 24/7 police coverage down in Balclutha. You’re doing a great job on that, Hamish—I know you’re very concerned about it. But to go back to the point about the money, the Minister was told to roll out the 1,800 police, the coalition commitment to roll it out within three years, which is what they’ve committed to. He required $515.3 million over four years—

Hon Member: How much?

CHRIS BISHOP: It was $515.3 million—quite a significant sum of money. Well, what did he get in Budget 2018, in the estimates we’re talking about? He got $299 million—$298.8 million to be precise. So there’s a $216 million gap there. I’ll tell you what: if that’s not filled in this year’s Budget coming up next week, next Thursday—just nine days’ time—the Police Association and the police are going to be very upset, and rightly so, because 1,800 new police over three years is a coalition commitment—and I’ll get to exactly how they’re tracking on that in a minute. But they need the money, and the money at the moment is not there. In fact, Stuart Nash admits this, because when I questioned him about it in the select committee, he freely admitted “Oh, I’m going to have to go back and get a top-up. I have to go back to Grant Robertson.” Now, Grant Robertson is no fiscal Scrooge. On this side of the Chamber, we would certainly not regard him as some sort of fiscal dry—certainly no fiscal discipline. I’m telling you now that Ministers of Finance do not like it when Ministers stand up in Parliament or the select committee and admit that they have to go back and get more money, because I’ll tell you what that does: that puts the pressure on him to deliver the money, and Ministers of Finance do not like being pressured. You know, old mate Stuart Nash has done it. Good on him, and I’m sure they’ll be having a constructive and robust, I think is the language we use—“robust” is the word of the day when it comes to working round here. It will be a robust conversation between Stuart Nash and Grant Robertson.

Just on the 1,800 new police: well, this is a fail—this is a dismal failure. Stuart Nash has now been reduced to counting back to July 2017, when he wasn’t the Minister of Police, to counting all the new cops that the National Government funded and then he starts to try and count the cops—he doesn’t take into account all the attrition, even though he’s on the record as saying he has to take account of the net new police. Well, the real number is 496 in 18 months. They are not on track to delivering 1,800 new police over the next three years. This is an incompetent and useless Government, and the Budget in a few days’ time will show it.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to take this opportunity just to address a few of the issues raised by the Opposition. First of all, I’d just like to say that this side of the Chamber, this Government, has averted a catastrophe when it comes to the prison numbers. Now, to go back to the justice sector forecasts from a couple of years ago, at this time it was predicted that we’d have close to 12,000 people in prisons. We’re just hovering around 10,000—2,000 lower than what was predicted two years ago. The thing is that we’ve got a programme where accommodation is being built in prisons. That accommodation would not have been in place if the previous Government was still in—it would not have been in place; I do not know where those 2,000 extra prisoners would have been housed.

I just want to address the Hon Dr Nick Smith. He’s criticised me tonight and the other day about the double-bunking and saying that we’ve made it easier for double-bunking. Now, what he should have picked up on in the select committee process is that if we didn’t make this small change that we’re doing in the Corrections Amendment Bill, then it would have left corrections with a risk of a legal challenge. Now, he was praising the previous Minister of Corrections, the Hon Louise Upston, for the great work that she had done, and yet what he was praising was this element that would actually have left corrections at risk of a legal challenge if we didn’t fix the loophole.

He also spoke about how there’s been a few assaults in prison recently. Well, assaults happen in prison, sadly; it is a fact of life, and it’s unacceptable. I just want the Hon Dr Nick Smith to know that the rates of assaults are 0.12 per 100 prisoners. Under two years ago, that rate was 0.24—sorry, it might be a thousand prisoners, sorry, not 100 prisoners. So the rate under this Government has actually almost halved in comparison to the previous Government. I hope he’s listening, because he’s full of criticism, but then, when the facts come out, we realise that he was wrong.

He spoke about the lack of legislation. Well, look, the reality around corrections is that we’re not responsible for who comes through the gate at corrections. We don’t have any say on the numbers of people committing crime and who enters the gates. But we have to make sure that when they arrive in our care, we give them the best chance to rehabilitate and emerge out the other side and contribute to their communities. We’ve done this without the legislation that they’re saying we must implement. All we’ve done is create efficiencies in the system. Corrections has had a look at what we can do better and have made those efficiencies, and the result has been that we have 7 percent fewer prisoners in prison now than we did in March of 2018—7 percent fewer.

The new justice sector forecasts made a really interesting statement. They said these forecasts are a future but they are not the future. We on this side have determined that it doesn’t matter what the forecasts say; we have the ability as a competent Government to change the future. We don’t have to actually use those forecasts as a prediction, like the previous Government did, but we use them to make decisions to make things better.

The high-impact innovation programme has been exceptional in the work they’ve done to reduce the prison population. I think that the Opposition need to give credit where credit’s due. They have done this without changes of legislation. I think, because we have averted a catastrophe, that the Opposition should really just say thank you, because this country was facing a disaster because of the lack of work that they did. They didn’t believe it was possible to actually reduce the prison population.

Dan Bidois: What have you done for Māori?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The Māori pathway—thank you; someone just said what have we done for Māori—$98 million has just gone into Māori pathways, a pathway where Māori will enter from the start of their sentence through to the end of their sentence and beyond. We’re doing it through the Department of Corrections, Whānau Ora, and the Ministry of Social Development cooperating, working together. Now, these are for the hardest to reach prisoners—those Māori males 30 and under who are at the greatest risk of reoffending. But we’ve taken the bold leap—myself and my fellow Ministers—to address this head on. We’re very proud of the work we’ve done.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Very briefly, I just want to tell the Minister that he’s too modest by half, because without his outstanding leadership, this turn-around in the prisons would not have occurred. I sat on the Justice Committee on this review, and I must say I was curious, because the officials and the CEO of the prisons gave a very good presentation but I wanted to go and see for myself. So I took the time to go and see Christchurch Men’s Prison and Christchurch Women’s Prison, because I think you get an entirely different view when you’re there. I’ll tell you what: the corrections staff in those prisons had a different attitude. They were relieved that at last they had permission to help the people who they were incarcerating. They were relieved.

I was disappointed on that committee when I heard the National Party members express concern. They expressed concern because corrections staff were helping inmates with bail applications and with parole applications. They said, “Oh my goodness. Doesn’t this mean we might be putting dangerous people out on the streets?” No. What it means is that people are getting their rights and entitlements. If someone is deserving of parole or deserving of electronic bail when they’re on remand, then the fact that they can’t write effectively should not be a barrier to it.

That is part of the turn-around on the prison numbers—that all of a sudden corrections staff have been given permission to assist these people to find the best place in the community for them, whether that be out there on bail, whether it be on parole, or, in some cases, whether they remain in prison. I must say that the recent announcement of the Māori pathway is just another example of that with various departments coming together. Whānau Ora, Minister Henare, and Minister Sepuloni, the Minister of Social Development, and Minister Davis—three fantastic Ministers committed to working together with their departments to make sure that there is a continual pathway so that a person who receives a prison sentence receives all of the attention they need at every level—and bringing in hapū and iwi and bringing in their family as well.

This is another example of the fact that we don’t need to use the sledgehammer of legislation. What we need, simply, is to change—to use the tools we have got and change the approach and change the culture.

Had we not done this, we would have had a huge amount of double-bunking. I went in and looked at some of those cells, and some of the cells that were having to being used when we had our peak muster were, quite frankly, horrid. They were tiny, and they weren’t fit for purpose. There was a row of empty double-bunk cells that were no longer needed, and that was a fantastic thing to see because it meant that our prisoners could be kept in conditions which recognise their humanity far better.

So I want to congratulate all the Ministers involved here—Minister Davis especially, for initiating his high-impact innovation programme, for looking at ways in which we can lower that prison population and reduce reoffending. All of the statistics—the assaults, the escapes, and the prison muster—they’re all falling. We’re on track. We’re doing something right, and we’re going to keep doing it. This was an outstanding review of an outstanding department.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): Strangely enough, the new Crown-Māori relations portfolio is under the justice review, so I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about the work that’s been done to establish Te Arawhiti. Now, last year we set about on initially 18 hui around the country to talk to people about what the new Māori-Crown relations portfolio should look like. Due to popular demand, that number of hui increased to, I think, 33.

There were some consistent messages that we heard from people throughout the country in terms of what they wanted to see from—well, it wasn’t named Te Arawhiti at the time—the portfolio. One of the things that they kept saying to us, one of the messages, was, “You know, Governments, you’ve got to stop going around and telling Māoris that they’re the problem and that we’ve got the solution.” They said, “Stop telling us what you’re going to do. Come out and talk to us and have the discussion about what the solutions are going to be.”

Te Arawhiti was formed. Te Arawhiti, translated into English, means “the bridge”, and it’s a great analogy for what we’re trying to achieve. The name comes about because of a sermon that I used to hear from one of the old uncles up north, an Anglican minister by the name of Charlie Shortland. He spoke about there being a Māori world—like a river bank—and a Pākehā world—the other side of a river bank. Te Tiriti o Waitangi was a bridge that connected one world to the other world.

He asked the question: how often and who has crossed from one side, from their world, into the other side—learnt the language, learnt the customs, learnt everything. Almost entirely, the traffic has been from the Māori world into the Pākehā world, and Māori have learnt the ways and the customs of Pākehā. The question he posed was: how many times have people from the other world crossed back over that bridge into the Māori world and learnt the customs and the language and everything? He said it does happen but very rarely.

To use that analogy to describe what Te Arawhiti is doing, it’s, basically, bringing Government ministries, agencies, and departments from the Pākehā world across that bridge into the Māori world so that public servants understand how Māori think and feel and why we do the things the way we do. Part of it is to stop, to prevent, Māori having to continuously justify our world point of view. So that’s part of what Te Arawhiti does. It’s trying to bring people across that bridge, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, into the other world. The question is whether people actually want to cross from the Pākehā world into the Māori world, because that would be telling if they don’t want to.

Aside from that, one of Te Arawhiti’s jobs is to monitor the post-settlement commitments. Now, there is something like 10,000 of them, and the monitoring of those 10,000 commitments was, basically, done—it was paper based: spreadsheets and things like that. So what we’re developing is a portal where somebody can tap in something to do with their Treaty settlement and that will come up, and they’ll be able to see all their commitments around that. It’s quite intensive work and, hopefully, we’ll be able to launch that portal properly in a month or so.

Just a couple of examples of the great work that Te Arawhiti has been doing: one, Waitangi Day. People will know that Waitangi Day over the last two years has gone really smoothly. One of the things we’ve done is depoliticise the occasion. I think, as politicians, we all need to take ownership of the mess we caused because Waitangi Day became a bit of a popularity contest—who can bring the most people wearing red or blue or green or black on to the marae, down the bottom of Te Tii Marae, and make it into a sort of popularity contest. We’ve depoliticised it.

We want Waitangi Day to be a day that we can all celebrate as New Zealanders, and hence that’s why we all go on together. We have made sure that the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of New Zealand First, the leader of the Greens, and Labour speakers all have an opportunity to speak. We all stand up and sing and support everybody so that we depoliticise that occasion so that we can create a great celebration of our national day for all New Zealanders.

Quickly, the other great thing that we’ve been doing is working with the Iwi Chairs Forum on shared priorities, on shared work streams, and reporting back together at the quarterly meetings—as opposed to how things were in the past when, basically, random Ministers turned up and spoke about the random things that they’re doing, with no real direction on how it all fits together. Kia ora.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the reports of committees relevant to the Justice Sector be noted.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Reports of committees relevant to the Justice Sector noted.

Māori, Other Populations and Cultural Sector

RINO TIRIKATENE (Chairperson of the Māori Affairs Committee): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to lead off this section of the annual review debate as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee. I would like to acknowledge the members of our committee and our staff and all of those who are involved with the annual reviews that we conducted.

Unlike other committees, Māori Affairs is somewhat niche. We have three standard entities that get referred to our committee and they are Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry of Māori Development; Te Māngai Pāho, which is the Māori broadcasting funding agency; and Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori, that’s the Māori Language Commission. So we have substantial public funds that go through these entities through Vote Māori Development, primarily through Te Puni Kōkiri, and through Te Puni Kōkiri that vote gets dispersed to our Māori language entities that I’ve also referred to. We really enjoyed our exercise of inviting in the chairs and the CEOs, respectively, of our Māori entities that were conducting their annual reviews.

Starting with Te Puni Kōkiri, I’d like to acknowledge Michelle Hippolite, the chief executive. Te Puni Kōkiri is the Ministry of Māori Development. It has quite a breadth of role. It not only is a policy ministry, you could say, with also a regional presence with some 17 offices around the country, but it also administers a lot of significant amounts, actually, of investment funds which it puts into Whānau Ora and also into Māori language revitalisation and a whole host of other non-departmental appropriations.

So, by and large, Te Puni Kōkiri, in terms of its audit results, came through very, very well—very good ratings from the Office of the Auditor-General and that was reflected in, basically, its results. It had continued to make very good progress not only on its departmental side but also in its ensuring that outcomes are delivered through the likes of Whānau Ora. Can I acknowledge, at this point, the Ministers who are in charge of these entities—the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for the Ministry of Māori Development, the Hon Peeni Henare, the Minister responsible for Whānau Ora—because under their leadership we had great confidence in the presentations that we were given by Te Puni Kōkiri and, likewise, their reporting on the results that have been coming through from the Whānau Ora appropriations which are administered by the three commissioning agencies which look after Whānau Ora.

In fact, I think if there was one word that was coming through from our annual reviews it is “collaboration”. We have seen that with Te Puni Kōkiri and their collaboration with whānau, hapū, iwi in terms of their Māori lands and papakainga. Likewise, through Whānau Ora, a lot of collaboration between Whānau Ora, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Department of Corrections—just in the recent pathways for announcements there. But that also spans into other significant collaborative ventures—Well Child / Tamariki Ora. So it’s collaborative arrangements which are getting very good results.

That also spans into Te Reo Māori revitalisation space. As I mentioned, there are not only the two entities that we conducted annual reviews on but under those two entities sit, pretty much, the language industry of Māori Television, Māori radio, Māori media, and all of it is about revitalising the Māori language, which is a Treaty responsibility on the Crown. I want to commend those agencies.

Te Māngai Pāho—it’s a challenging environment. We all know that technologies are ever-accelerating; different platforms are required to reach out to connect with audiences. Likewise, the content that is produced has to be fit for purpose and be able to be transmitted across these new media platforms. So it’s a really dynamic space, but I’m really pleased it can be summed up in Te Whare o te Reo Mauriora; we can now celebrate, the house of the revitalising of our Māori language now stands. We have te Maihi Karauna, te Maihi Māori, represented by our various entities and some fantastic leadership which is now leading it through into the future under our Government and with this administration. Nō reira, kia ora tātou.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. That was a lovely speech, thank you, Rino Tirikatene. I do want to acknowledge Rino Tirikatene, the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, and members on it.

My contribution actually concentrates on how disappointed I had been over the funding of Māori development with this Government—$37 million in Māori development wasn’t exactly the greatest amount of money that anybody could invest into Māori. Also, the fact that Whānau Ora got no funding over that Budget period; that was a big disappointment, not only to this side of the House but to a number of Māori providers, of whānau out there who had come in to support the number of Māori members on the other side of the House and were disappointed, and being able to express that to us.

When I look at the total funds that were given over for Māori development, it was $56 million; $19 million went to Te Arawhiti. As we heard in the previous vote, around $22 million of that came from Whānau Ora into the corrections announcement. The $98 million—$22 million of that coming from Whānau Ora. What I wanted to say was that if $22 million could go into a corrections budget, why couldn’t it have gone into Whānau Ora in the 2018 Budget? Why couldn’t that be invested in Whānau Ora? The review of Whānau Ora that took place in the last 12 months gave the Government no reason to do nasty things to it. It was actually a very good review, and I have not seen any additional funding spoken of from the Minister for Whānau Ora into Whānau Ora, and neither have the commissioning agencies or the providers out there.

As I start to go through the various areas of the Māori development portfolio, I just want to say to those Ministers: your positions in Government as Ministers were there to actually do something for Māori. To be honest, it’s been a big disappointment for Māori. All of you have been a big disappointment for Māori. So far, the $20 million promise that this Labour Party gave in their 2017 campaign manifesto never came true. So when we start looking at that promise, we can see that the Minister for Whānau Ora is now behind the eight ball. He is going to have to give a lot more in this next Budget for Whānau Ora than what he is most probably looking at giving.

What we’re looking at now is a fund of over $50 million, $60 million, $70 million for Whānau Ora. Will Whānau Ora get it? I don’t—

Hon Willie Jackson: How much?

JO HAYES: I’ve just said—not listening. Not listening—need to listen. You need to listen. Therefore, will it actually happen that way? Will it happen that way? I don’t think it will. I think, actually, in the Whānau Ora budget, even though we’re talking about a wellbeing Budget based on Whānau Ora—let’s see what will actually happen. I don’t think it will happen, to be honest. It won’t.

So when I look at Māori development—what’s going to happen with Māori development? Are we going to get any more than $37 million from that last Budget round? I don’t think so. So many things are happening within this new Wellbeing Budget that are actually clawing out funding from Māori development and Whānau Ora, and we can see it. Already corrections has taken some. We’re going to see it through housing, we’re going to see it through all those areas, and we will see a dissipation of funding into the future for Māori development, and it is a disgusting way to look at it.

When I look at the Māori Land Service—that was actually not even funded in the last Budget. Why was that? The Hon Chris Finlayson actually mentioned that in his contribution last year. Why was it missed out? Why was it not included in the Budget? Nobody knows. It was a great opportunity, he said, but no—couldn’t actually figure out why that Government would not fund it. Then when we start to look at our surplus that came through on Te Puni Kōkiri last year, over $5 million in surplus was redirected and then came back into the fund. Why is it that the surplus cannot be expended in the year it is given?

Come on, Government, get your agencies moving. Get them investing in that, because what will happen is, if there is a surplus in this year, then the Government will look at it and say, “Well, you made a surplus, so we’re not going to fund you any more.”

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Associate Minister for Māori Development): Kia ora. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, that was another shocking speech from another Māori member, anyway. But I’m here to talk about the Māori appropriations. I’ll stick with the subject and we won’t get personal, but it’s hard not to after that type of speech.

Can I say, in terms of what we’ve done in terms of things Māori, I’m very proud of what’s happened over the last 12 months. I think we’re on track now. Whānau Ora has been brought up by the member on the other side, who was so wrong. She made allegations against myself and John Tamihere in terms of what we did in terms of the commissioning agencies, and was 100 percent wrong; so much so that Nuk Korako had to tell her that she was wrong. As far as I know, she hasn’t apologised to Nuk or myself, where she actually made allegations that we—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! You’re talking about some quite serious matters here. I think we should get back to the appropriations, thank you, and could we just settle down.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes. No, I am, Madam Chair. I’m talking about Whānau Ora. This is very important, Madam Chair, because—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Are you talking about Whānau Ora in the context of being an MP?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Absolutely.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve gone through a review of Whānau Ora, and the kaupapa is now set. The Minister has overseen a review. It’s been a comprehensive review, and we were challenged, absolutely, by that member there, and, of course, everything’s come out hunky—

Jo Hayes: I have every right to do that.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Oh, absolutely. You’ve got every right, there’s no doubt about that, but that speaker was wrong, absolutely, like the other National MPs. Now the Minister has an opportunity with this next Budget to prove that member wrong again, which, no doubt, he will.

Of course, this Māori caucus has really shone over the last 12 months. What have we done? There has been investment in our people. That’s what I’m particularly happy about. For myself, in terms of Te Puni Kōkiri—they supported us in terms of our investment in terms of young people, rangatahi. He Poutama Rangatahi has been a huge success in the regions—regions that have been deprived of support by the previous National Government. It was absolutely shocking.

We go into the regions and we ask them what sort of support they got over the last few years—myself and Shane Jones—and they say, “Nothing.” So what we’ve been able to do is invest in these regions, particularly through He Poutama Rangatahi and the Provincial Growth Fund, which has proven a huge success. Our people in the regions are saying, “Why couldn’t they get more than just baseline in the Hawke’s Bay, on the East Coast, and in the north?” When you see the type of support we’ve been getting, some people would be surprised.

In terms of what’s happened, we’ve invested in four regions where deprivation was able to flourish under that previous Government: Tai Rāwhiti, Bay of Plenty, Tai Tokerau, and the Hawke’s Bay. He Poutama Rangatahi is now supporting 22 projects in four regions. These projects are targeting over 2,530 rangatahi NEETs to support them on pathways to employment. It’s fantastic, what’s happening.

Shane Jones and myself were in Kawerau last week, a town that was forgotten in terms of the previous Government, and the local mayor was with us, Malcolm Black. He said that the investment in terms of the town was something that the township has been waiting for for so long. So over there in Kawerau, we were able to give $969,000 to Kawerau Pathways to Work, $598,000 to Eastern Bay of Plenty Driver and Operator Training Centre, and $370,000 into Te Kaha in terms of the landowners group. This is the Provincial Growth Fund and He Poutama Rangatahi working for the people, investing in areas that have had no support in terms of skills, no support in terms of the workers, and no support in terms of the local area. I’m just so pleased that we’ve been able to do this under the umbrella of Māori over the last few months.

There’s been a lot of criticism, particularly from the other side, in terms of us not delivering in targeted funding, but what this Government has shown in the last couple of months, in fact, is that targeted funding is starting to work. We’ve had a $100 million investment in terms of whenua Māori. Minister Davis and Minister Henare—$98 million in terms of corrections. That’s a fantastic investment in terms of Māori, with a Budget still to come in the next week, where the members, again, will get egg all over their faces because they will see the investment again in Māori in the next week, and I’ll come back up here to get my apology from those members. Kia ora, Madam Chair.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to take a call on this annual review discussion that we’re having. It’s always a pleasure to follow the Hon Willie Jackson because you know when he’s speaking off topic. You know when he’s got nothing to say when he starts lashing out at Opposition MPs, telling them to go back to Italy or that they’re not Māori enough. The real fact of the matter—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Let’s come back to the matter at hand, thank you.

DAN BIDOIS: —yes, we’re coming back, Madam Chair—is: what have they delivered? The consistent thing that we’ve heard tonight is that Labour promised big and they have failed to deliver. And what we’re going to see here tonight, time and time again, is that they’re failing to deliver for Māori. What our leader Simon Bridges said up in Rātana a few months ago was very true, when he said we do the mahi and Labour get the credit for Māori development. It’s 18 months into this Government, and it’s time to reflect on what they have delivered, what they have promised, and where they are not delivering, because this is the year of delivery. Māori are expecting a year of delivery for them, and, unfortunately, they’re not getting it.

So what did they promise in their 2017 election campaign manifesto? They promised $20 million extra for Whānau Ora. What have we seen to that to date? Zero—nothing. What else did they promise in their election manifesto? Supporting teachers to learn Te Reo in our schools. Where have we seen that? What else have they said? Yes, they’ve done a review. That’s great to hear. They also promised better homes for Māori. Well, Willie Jackson, how many homes have you built for Māori in the last 18 months? Is it—how many? Eighty. How many of those were planned already under this Government? Probably half—probably half.

So, unfortunately, this is a Government that promised big that is failing to deliver. It’s failing to deliver for Māori. What’s been delivered so far is unclear. Te Reo that’s been promised in our schools is unclear. We’ve had Whānau Ora, where there’s been no extra money for the budget. What are the results? Well, they’re very simple. Māori unemployment: still twice the national average rate in New Zealand. We’ve got eight Māori Ministers that have failed to deliver for Māori and continue to do so. We’ve got the proportion of Māori—and we’ve had a discussion here tonight about the proportion of Māori in our prisons, and there’s a marginal decrease. Well, the real fact of the matter is that the proportion of Māori in our prisons is still far too high, and they are failing to deliver across—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Could I ask the member, in the last two minutes that he has, to come back to the matter at—you know, we are talking about a specific sector, thank you, and the entities within it.

DAN BIDOIS: Absolutely—yep, absolutely. Absolutely. So there are three entities, and we’ve talked about Whānau Ora. Whānau Ora’s a great initiative. It’s a whānau-based initiative linking different providers, and this Government promised big. They promised $20 million over the next four years, and what have they delivered? What have they delivered on that? Nothing—nothing in the Budget to date. What we’ve seen is a Government that continues to promise big, continues to be big on rhetoric but light on delivery—this in the year of delivery.

We’ve also talked in the annual review process about Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) and about improving their accountability. We do want to see them improve the impact that they have on other Government agencies out there. It is a limited budget. As the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee said, it’s only about $71 million that is in this agency, and we do want to see more accountability for TPK to make sure that they are in fact delivering for this Government, because this Government is, unfortunately, not delivering for Māori. It’s consistently promising a big game. Where is Te Reo that is being promised in our schools? I’m holding the election manifesto for Māori development right here, and it’s all very fluffy and big on rhetoric, but what have they delivered in this? It’s absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. What did the previous Government—because the Government keeps talking about what we didn’t do in the previous nine years. Well, what did we do in the previous nine years? We got over 50,000 Māori work between 2012 and 2017. Thank you.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to respond to some of the accusations that have been made in the last 10 minutes around this Government. First of all, what has this Government done—where is Te Reo Māori in schools? Well, I don’t know where the member who just sat down, Dan Bidois, has been for the last couple of months. He obviously missed the announcement—it was in the newspapers, it was on TV, we had a big launch, and it was called Te Ahu o te Reo Māori.

Let me explain what Te Ahu o te Reo Māori is. Te Ahu o te Reo Māori is our promise to integrate Te Reo Māori throughout the school curriculum by 2025. What have we done for Te Reo Māori in schools? We have launched Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. It’s been launched in four regions. Waikato-Tainui is one, Taranaki-Whanganui is another, Horowhenua is the third, and Te Wai Pounamu, around Ngāi Tahu, is the fourth area. We expect 700 teachers to take part in that. In the five or so weeks since that launch has been had, we’ve had over 500 teachers ask to be part of Te Ahu o te Reo Māori. It’s where we help them from whatever level their language ability is at; we help them, and we help them to grow further. We have face-to-face support, we have online support, and we have resources. So when Dan Bidois stands up and says “What has the Government been doing in terms of Te Reo Māori in our schools?”, it’s obvious that he’s been doing the Rip Van Winkle for the last few weeks and been sound asleep while we’ve been making announcements.

Then the other announcement that we had a week afterwards was Te Kawa Matakura. Te Kawa Matakura is a programme that brings back the traditional mātauranga Māori. In our schools, we have NCEA and things like that. Now, the big question that I heard in 2004 at the hui mātauranga Māori in Tūwharetoa was we want our Māori students to be achieving as Māori. Getting NCEA proves that you achieve; it doesn’t mean to say that you are achieving as Māori, and Te Kawa Matakura is bringing back old-time, true mātauranga Māori. Now, these are things that the previous Government never, ever considered, and I think that Dan Bidois should stand and apologise because, as I say, he hasn’t been keeping awake.

Then I want to just address something that Jo Hayes raised. When I look here on page 611, around the Ministry of Māori Development, Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK), the financial performance, it says, “The ministry is funded mainly through Vote Māori Development. In 2017/18, its revenue was $73.204 million (about 11 percent more than in 2016/17).” But she stands up there and she first of all says the Government just got $35 million for Māori. Then a few minutes later, after a bit of waffle, she says the Government gave $56 million for Māori. Now, what is it, Jo Hayes? Is it $35 million for Māori or is it $56 million for Māori? Well, it’s neither. It says here on page 611 that its revenue for TPK was $73 million, 11 percent more than in 2016/17, 11 percent more than the previous Government gave to Te Puni Kōkiri—not $35 million, not $56 million, but $73 million. So another person has been asleep at the wheel. She sat in on the select committee. Surely, she must have seen this, read it, heard it. I mean, this book’s available for everybody. This is what we refer to when we come here and talk about these reviews, and she didn’t see the headline: 11 percent more in 2016/17, $73.204 million.

Then the final thing is Te Mātāwai. Te Mātāwai was established by the previous Minister for Māori Development, the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell. It wasn’t quite complete, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta has taken that to hand. We’ve established the Maihi Karauna. It has audacious goals to raise the numbers of Māori speakers—a million Māori speakers by 2040, I think, is the audacious goal. What are we doing for Māori? We’re doing a hell of a lot more than that previous Government over there, who’s sitting there throwing paper rocks at us. Honestly, they’re bouncing off because we know that we’ve done more than they ever did for Māori.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise to take a call specifically speaking to the financial review of the Ministry for Women and in my role as Minister for Women. I just want to talk very briefly about the priorities that the Government has for women, why those are important, and how we are in fact delivering on those.

As Minister for Women, it’s my priority to work for a better New Zealand for all women and girls in New Zealand. The reason we have a Ministry for Women and have this role is because despite all the progress we’ve made over the past few decades, still women are under-represented in Parliament. Women are under-represented, seriously, at local government levels. They’re under-represented in governance and leadership of private companies and there is a large pay gap, particularly for Māori and Pasifika women. So in my work in the past year, the ministry has prioritised an action plan and work programme specifically about closing the pay gap in the public sector. We recently made progress announcing our action plan, and, right across the public sector, organisations are focused on ensuring that they are making progress on gender parity in starting salaries, that there are no barriers to women taking up roles in senior leadership. For the first time, 50 percent of our chief executives in the public sector are women, and we have a target for 50 percent right across the top three levels of management in the Public Service.

The reason we do this work is because we want to live in a fair society, and all New Zealanders would agree that women should be treated fairly, that they should have the means to live a good life, and since we still have not achieved gender parity across so many different aspects of society, we have to sit down, develop some action plans, make sure that we’re sorting out our own house, and so that’s what we’re doing. But, of course, we want to set an example for private business and organisations so that they can achieve some of the same goals, and I have to say that some private businesses already are doing even better than Government in the space.

But, as I said before, closing the pay gap isn’t just about gender. It’s about recognising the ethnic dimension in that and that’s why we must recognise that the pay gap for Māori and Pasifika women is significantly worse, and that means that they are being underpaid—women are being underpaid in this country, Māori and Pacific women are being underpaid for the work that they do. That is not fair. Another big part of our work programme—and I just have to give a shout-out in terms of eliminating gender-based violence and sexual violence—is the fantastic announcement that was made at the weekend by my colleague—and the Prime Minister—Under-Secretary Jan Logie, who’s led an impressive work programme right across 10 different Government departments. That will be transformational in terms of eliminating gender-based domestic and sexual violence, and also providing that support and rehabilitation to offenders as well as to survivors, and that is how we make a difference for women. That’s how we eliminate violence and barriers to justice right across our beautiful country.

So I’m very proud of the work that we’re doing. This Government set a new target in terms of achieving appointments of women across public sector agencies. We increased it. Where the previous Government had decreased it to 45 percent, we increased it to 50 percent, because that’s right, and I’m happy to say that we’re making very good progress on that goal. I also want to talk about just the importance of the unpaid work that is predominantly undertaken by women in our society. I think we still have some way to go to recognising and supporting that work, but it is all part of how we transform our understanding of what our economy is, really, because what is the economy for? It’s so that people can live good lives, so that we have the resources we need, we have a warm home, we have an opportunity for meaningful work, and we have enough resource to put food on the table, to save some money for our retirement. The reality is that there is a huge gap when it comes to retirement for women, and that is because, so often, women shoulder the burden of the unpaid work in society.

But we have no society if we don’t have women giving birth to children and raising them, and so there are several steps that we need to take to recognise that. One is sharing the parenting responsibilities between parents—[Time expired]

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): E Te Mana Whakawā, good evening. We’re at that time of the evening where things can tend to get to be a little bit jovial, although there is still that element of seriousness about it. Look, standing to speak as a former member of the Māori Affairs Committee, I did enjoy the time that I gave service there, and I considered that I did add value as a member from the Māori community and also as a member from the National Party community. I look across the House, and I refer to the fact that I will be addressing the House and speaking about Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry of Māori Development; Te Māngai Pāho, which is the Māori broadcasting agency; and also the Māori Language Commission, Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori.

As I look across the House, the Hon Willie Jackson—the member still talks a big game. I hark back to the days when you were playing club rugby with my husband, and you were well-versed and you were well-known for talking the big talk. But it’s a bit of a different story when it comes to walking that talk, to the honourable member; so, as I say, talking the big game. I also refer to the Hon Kelvin Davis—in so far, again, as those relationships—and you talked about Te Arawhiti. I do acknowledge the importance of relationships that we as Māori reference, and, the Hon Kelvin Davis, the days that you played club rugby, as well; so I just reference that.

But I also connect into some previous discussion this evening—in the Minister’s portfolio, in responsibility for the Department of Corrections—my husband has worked in the Department of Corrections, and this ties into the kōrero wrapped up around wellbeing, in terms of Māori wellbeing. It was referenced earlier in the House by Dr Duncan Webb that corrections officers, they’re helping inmates in terms of legal matters. That’s not something new that has arisen and come about under a Labour coalition Government. That’s something—and I know this for a fact from the days when I’ve worked with corrections officers, my husband giving service previously there—that corrections officers have done irrespective of which Government has been in power.

Coming back to the Māori Affairs Committee, I hearken to the chair of that committee, my colleague Rino Tirikatene. The difference that I’ve noted from serving on the select committee with the Māori affairs members is the level of collegiality and the level of collaboration, but also focusing on the importance that we can come from a different perspective and we will challenge the big talk as it comes about.

So that’s what I’m standing to address the House about this evening. The catchcry and the rhetoric of this Government, as we heard it right from the beginning of their tenure taking up office, was “Let’s do this”; actually, a lot of that has been re-rhetoric-ed to “Let’s review this”.

I come to Te Puni Kōkiri. In Vote Māori Development, the honourable Minister Davis talked about the 2017/18 allocation of an increase of 11 percent in that Budget. My understanding as a new member—and I stand to be corrected—is that that was an amount that had been committed under the previous Government, with its allocation, and, therefore, that 11 percent increase had been locked in. This Government has been required to carry that forward, so acknowledgment to the previous Government in terms of the commitment to Vote Māori Development.

“Let’s review this”: so, as we know, the talk has been big, the walk has been somewhat a little bit little. In that regard, there have been some 200-plus—or even nudging up to 300—reviews around that. So Te Puni Kōkiri—my colleague Jo Hayes made reference that there was a surplus, and I recollect, when I sat on the committee, challenging that as to why. When there is a surplus, that could be considered an underspend; therefore, why allocate any more in the next Budget? So that was questioned, and the department was asked about better measuring and explaining the impact of the ministry’s work. That’s something that we look forward to. My goodness, the time that goes by.

I do recollect as well that the Māori broadcasting, in terms of the Māori radio stations, they talked about that their funding has been locked in, and it needs to be increased because of the service and the reach and value of that to it.

Look, in concluding, the Māori Language Commission: I just want to say that before I did leave the Māori Affairs Committee—Maika Te Amo, who is our translator there. I talked about living the language. I just planted the seed; he’s picked it up. We have our Te Reo Māori classes now that are available to all members in the House. Tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock, I would encourage everybody to go and live the language.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I call Michael Wood. I just want to caution members: please don’t speak past the bell or I will award a second call, and your whips may not be happy with that. I call Michael Wood.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you very much for the call. I want to, after that admonishment, though, hand out a gold star to the member for Whanganui who has just resumed her seat because, in the comments that she brought forward to the committee, she was, of course, singularly accurate in identifying that the topic of this debate is, in fact, the annual reviews for the 2017/18 year. In doing so, she invalidated virtually everything that her preceding two colleagues—Joanne Hayes and Dan Bidois—said, because the entirety of their contributions were, effectively, slamming the Budget allocations for Te Puni Kōkiri, which are in these annual reviews. That was the entire content of their contributions.

What was just noted by the member who has resumed her seat, of course, is that the annual reviews that we are reviewing are annual reviews which actually span the period from between the two Governments for the 2017/18 years, and predominantly relate to appropriations that were set in Budget 2017. Mr Bidois might just want to listen up there, because his colleague from Whanganui has just taught him a little bit of a lesson about how this process actually works.

When it comes to those figures, it’s worth looking at where the money actually goes and how the community actually benefits. What we’re told on page 612 of the collated reports is that in terms of the money that was actually distributed via Whānau Ora through the three commissioning agencies, the amount in 2017/18 was $71.297 million. So this is the money that actually goes out to agencies in the community who deliver real benefits to communities. What we then learn is that that was an increase from $71.237 million in the 2016/17 year—a 0.08 percent increase. What we actually learn here is that under the money that was allocated by the previous Government between 2016/17 and 2017/18, there was basically a flat line in terms of the money that went through Whānau Ora actually out into communities where it might have some benefit.

So members on this side of the House are not going to sit back and take the kind of criticism that we’ve heard today—that there has been some kind of diminution of financial support for Māori communities through Whānau Ora, when the facts in the report that we’re actually debating in the committee today show that the funding was, effectively, frozen under that previous regime in their final year when money was actually appropriated. I think that’s important for the committee to note.

The other area that I want to touch on in this sector is one that hasn’t come up in debate so far, and that is, I think, one of the jewels in the crown of our public estate, and that is Radio New Zealand. Notwithstanding my previous comments which relate to the fact that we have a bridging between the two Governments being reflected in these reports, what we can acknowledge through the report which has been tabled by the very hard-working Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee is that Radio New Zealand does a huge amount of work in terms of reflecting the stories and the culture of our country and keeping New Zealanders informed about the issues of the day and providing analysis that supports our public life.

We know that Radio New Zealand has done that under huge financial pressure, and the report reveals that. I know that from the hearing there was quite a bit of discussion about this. We know that that agency, for about nine years leading into this annual report, did have its funding frozen by that previous Government. That is why it is so good to see, in this report, that as we head into the 2018 year, there’s actually some funding going into Radio New Zealand, under the current Government, to support their important work. We see that $6 million extra going into the joint innovation fund with New Zealand On Air to enable Radio New Zealand to work with New Zealand On Air to actually work off digital platforms to make sure that New Zealanders are hearing their stories and we have a quality public broadcasting service in this country.

The other thing I want to note in the annual report from Radio New Zealand is a section which talks about the effort that has gone into getting Māori voices on Radio New Zealand. Many of us who listen to Radio New Zealand, of course, will note Guyon Espiner, who I think has been someone who’s really led the way in this area. He has recently departed, but he, and others working within Radio New Zealand, have really left an imprint in recent years in terms of the normalisation of people hearing Te Reo on our public broadcasting networks. It’s appropriate that that is reflected in this report, and I’m sure that it is something that will continue under the current leadership there, and this Government will certainly be supporting it with real funding and real support. Thank you, Madam Chair.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the reports of committees relevant to the Māori, Other Populations and Cultural Sector be noted.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Reports of committees relevant to the Māori, Other Populations and Cultural Sector noted.

Primary Sector

Hon DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to speak in this debate. It was a very illuminating session which the Primary Production Committee had when we had our annual review process. I want to start with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), who was probably the biggest part of our annual review sessions. There was one really important thing that came out of that meeting, and that was that the ministry had been working on a levy for farmers. This levy was going to be a new biosecurity levy that was in addition to what farmers already pay. So farmers already pay through their industry organisations funds to the Government for biosecurity.

Hon Tracey Martin: Are you sure you’re in the right year? You’re sure you’re in the right place?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Now we all heard what a great Government we have that was going to give money around the M. bovis outbreak, and I’m just referring to the review of the Biosecurity Act that is on page 6 of the annual review of MPI.

The question to the CEO of MPI was “Will there be a levy that your organisation is investigating?”, and he said yes—he said yes in the committee. Then within half an hour of that committee ending we had an email from the Minister’s office to the ministry basically telling them to retract from what they said in that committee meeting. That is completely against—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Can I call the member—

Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Just a moment, I can deal with this.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —what happened in the committee.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Can I just call the member to order. As chairman of the select committee, you are to report back to the committee according to the reports. It is to be a non-political discussion.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes. And that’s why I’m reporting the facts of what happened in that meeting when the CEO was asked directly are they investigating a new levy, and he said yes—that was his exact words. He said “Yes, we are.” Then the department came back to the committee later to change their opinion. Farmers out there need to be aware of what that actually means. That means that this Government isn’t putting the money up for M. bovis, they’re actually going to—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Yip. Can I just—

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —charge farmers for that over time. And that was an important part of the MPI one.

Another part of the MPI one was the one billion trees programme. Now we have this and there’s a grant to landowners. Now, one of the issues raised was that the particular loss of jobs for that transition from farming—you know, that could be in dairying, it could be sheep and beef—going into forestry. It was said that there would be a thousand jobs that could potentially be created from the one billion trees programme.

Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. You gave the member a very clear directive, and in my view he is absolutely trifling with that directive because he is ignoring everything that you’ve asked him to do.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I tend to agree with you. I have asked this to be a non-political report back to the committee from the select committee.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: And I’m just reading what was said here, that the billion dollar programme would create one thousand jobs.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): But take my direction in how you present this report back to the committee.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: OK. So thank you, Madam Chair. So that positive issue for the one billion trees programme would be the jobs created. But then there’s the potential loss of jobs of the land use change there. We heard about them in committee. When we reflect on that, it’s interesting to relate that back to another part of our committee hearings which was around Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). So we had LINZ come in front of the committee as well, and that was really interesting because they talked about the approvals for the sale of sensitive land. If you want to refer to page 3 of their report, it will go through that for you. Ninety-four approvals given; that’s a 96 percent approval rate under this Government for applications to LINZ. We knew that New Zealand First had come into this House in the election campaign saying that they would stop foreign investment. Billions of dollars. It says here, “We noted overseas investment had risen by over a billion dollars and sales at gross value by over $2 billion from the previous year.” This is a Government that was going to stop foreign investment, and they have increased it by $2 billion.

There is no consistency in that approach, and that’s one of the things that we have seen in recent weeks.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Was that reported back from the committee?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes, I’ve got it here—page 3, if you want to have a look.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): OK. Just for clarity.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Page 3—it says there, in the second to last paragraph, that gross value had risen by over $2 billion since the previous calendar year, since this Government had come into being. When we consider that, that’s about a 96 percent approval rate. Then when we look at some of the things that weren’t approved—it’s really hard to see how in some cases, like we had last week where the Associate Minister of Finance approved a deal and then the Minister disapproved a deal on her behalf, saying that a $350 million investment is not of economic value to this country. We have seen an over $2 billion increase in investment, and yet a $350 million investment on 178 hectares in Waihi was not considered to be of economic value. That shows the inconsistency of the New Zealand First Party and the approach of the Green Party.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): It’s a privilege to be able to stand and give a contribution this afternoon on the 2017/18 annual review of the Ministry for Primary Industries as the deputy chair of the select committee. I must say, before I turn to my remarks about the actual annual review, it’s been an ongoing disappointment to operate in a—

Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. I apologise to my colleague but I know she won’t mind. The role of a chair, as you have ruled, is to outline in neutral terms what is in a select committee’s report. I’ve just checked, and the speeches that are allocated to chairs of select committees are not a part of the allocations given to parties. Given the nature of that speech by Hon David Bennett, I would ask you to reflect on whether that should be included in the allocation.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: I think that one of the challenges that we’ve had in our select committee has been that we haven’t been able to really give due consideration to some of the matters that impact all of our communities. Now, I know that there’s a ton of rural members of Parliament over that side of the House; there’s a ton on this side. Basically, our task as members, whether it’s in Opposition or as part of the Government, is to give due consideration, review the substantive matters that come before us, and, where we can, work to create better laws and refine the policies and really put our colleagues that are working within these ministries to task.

So it’s been challenging because of the behaviour of the chair more frequently than not that we have been unable to get to the real ngako, as we’d say, or the issues that are before us, because what I want to talk about is the role that the Ministry for Primary Industries has played in the last year. They have played an absolutely incredible role for all of our communities, both on that side of the House and on our side of the House, in responding to a whole range of issues. In particular, I want to acknowledge the work that they’ve done in the area of biosecurity.

Biosecurity has presented a number of challenges for our rural communities and also for our trade and export markets. We’ve had the incursion of the brown marmorated stink bug. We’ve had, obviously, the ongoing and very challenging Mycoplasma bovis. For both of those biosecurity incursions, what the Ministry for Primary Industries, under the leadership of the Minister for primary industries, Hon Damien O’Connor, has been required to do is work closely and collegially with industry and the key components of our primary sector.

Now, the way that we go about doing that is not by giving ranging, rampant political debates and turning everything into a political point-scoring football to kick around. It’s actually by turning to how we can work together to ensure that our people within our communities who are supporting the backbones of our industries are being protected and provided for. So, look, I hope that we can change the tone of the debate a little bit tonight when it comes to the way that we consider our primary industries—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. The time has come for me to report progress.

Debate interrupted.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Bill (No 2) with amendment and progress on the Appropriation (2017/18 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.