Wednesday, 22 May 2019

WEDNESDAY, 22 MAY 2019

WEDNESDAY, 22 MAY 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Vanuatu—Prime Minister, Delegation

SPEAKER: I’m sure members would wish to welcome the Hon Charlot Salwai, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, and his delegation, who are present in the gallery. The Prime Minister is seated to my left.

The Hon Charlot Salwai, accompanied by the Deputy Speaker, entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.

[Applause]

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Overnight, the OECD released its latest economic outlook, forecasting continued strength in the New Zealand economy over the next few years. The OECD says that economic growth in New Zealand stabilised at the end of last year and is forecast at 2.6 percent and 2.5 percent in 2019 and 2020 respectively. This would be faster than Australia, Canada, the UK, the euro area, and Japan. The report points out that the Government’s Families Package has supported family incomes, which in turn has supported consumption. Wages are expected to rise, in part driven by increases to the minimum wage, and business investment is expected to lift on the back of capacity pressures resulting from the tight labour market. It is great to see that the OECD recognises the solid fundamentals of the New Zealand economy and that we are continuing to outperform many of our peers.

Dr Deborah Russell: What does the OECD report say about risks to the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The OECD says that the slowing global economy poses risks to New Zealand and to our exports in particular. The OECD expects global growth to remain weak. It’s forecasting growth of 3.2 percent and 3.4 percent in 2019 and 2020 respectively—lower than was forecast in the March outlook and lower still than its November outlook before that. This worsened outlook is a result of high policy uncertainty and persistent trade tensions, which have caused a plunge in trade growth investment, and business and consumer confidence. The OECD says that the risks in the global economy remain skewed to the downside.

Dr Deborah Russell: How does the OECD report suggest the Government respond to these risks?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: According to the report, Governments need to be investing in infrastructure, digital transformation, and skills to meet tomorrow’s challenges while emphasising increased international cooperation and fixing the international rules-based system. Our Government is doing all of these things through our plan for a modern economy that is resilient to the risks posed by the international slowdown. We are committing billions more for capital investment, which will fund much needed infrastructure after years of neglect. Through the Future of Work Tripartite Forum, we’re partnering with businesses and unions to ensure New Zealand can meet the challenges and make the most of the opportunities presented by new technologies. And, finally, through our Trade for All agenda, we are working to ensure a trade that is both free and fair and that supports the rules-based international order.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. 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: Does she accept that one side effect of the weakening economy is lower tax revenue to pay for essential public services?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, there can be, obviously, effects in that regard around Government revenue. Of course, we have maintained a fiscal strategy that is still around responsible spending whilst, of course, also seeking to stimulate growth, and that is an agenda we continue to pursue.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she aware that her Government has taken in $600 million less in tax revenue than forecast in the year to March?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, I acknowledge there have been softer GST revenues, which do account, though, for about two-thirds of the forecast variance, but some of this has been said, at least by the ANZ, to be timing related, so there is an expectation that that should reverse in coming months. There’s also, I think, a view of course that the Families Package and other investments made by this Government are continuing to encourage consumption, which, of course, we know also has a positive effect on the economy.

Hon Simon Bridges: In light of that, does she believe the numbers will be better or worse at Budget 2019?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, I’m not going to speculate with the member in that regard.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the reason why her Government can’t fully fund St John Ambulance service because of the slowing economy and $600 million lower tax revenue?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I find it curious that the member is brazen enough to raise an issue that, of course, he did not seek to resolve. Obviously, St John has continued to be part funded by successive Governments, including his own, at a rate of roughly, give or take, 70 to 75 percent or so. We recognised that that was an issue. We want to ensure the sustainability of their funding. We have put in additional funding for St John while we work with them on a sustainable funding plan, which, I have to say, is more than his Government did.

Hon Grant Robertson: To follow up from that, can the Prime Minister confirm that, in fact, it was the previous Government who set a funding track of 75 percent, not this full funding we’re now hearing about?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can, and I can also confirm that that is obviously one of the things that have caused St John to come back to the Government of the day, obviously seeking resolution that they didn’t find with the last one.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did the last Government fund double crewing of St John Ambulance services and also mental health resources on each ambulance, which her Government cancelled?

SPEAKER: Marginal responsibility apart from the last bit.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My view would be that if everything was fine and dandy, St John would not have come to us.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the reason why there are 10,000 fewer elective surgeries being performed under her Government because of the slowing economy and $600 million lower tax revenue?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. The elective numbers do not have anything to do with the economy, because, of course, we fund district health boards to fulfil a certain number of elective surgeries. However, whilst they’ve reached, I’m advised, around 98 percent of the expectation around electives, we have seen them be about, I’m advised, 2 percent shy. One of the reasons, I’m told, for that has unfortunately been that there has been industrial action with the junior doctors. Whilst there’s been maintenance of life-preserving services, which we have of course appreciated, it has led to some cancellation, unfortunately, of electives. It has nothing to do with the economy.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why were elective surgeries—some 6,500 procedures—down even prior to the strikes, does she believe?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve actually been advised that the numbers the member is using to compare expectations on electives and deliverables is actually not the correct comparison, and so I’ve given the explanation that I’ve been provided. I acknowledge that we’re about 2 percent shy, but when we’re talking about, I believe, 140,000 or so procedures, that’s still a significant number of people who will have received the surgery they need.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Prime Minister confirm that, whilst being economic, provident, and frugal, there is going to be more money in the economy in the ensuing year than ever before to pay for infrastructure to ensure that businesses thrive, as does the working force of this country?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can actually go beyond that, though, and confirm that, despite the headwinds that are being experienced globally, New Zealand is in relatively good shape. We, of course, see the OECD outlook today demonstrating again that, in spite of some of those expectations globally, we are outdoing most of those who we tend to be compared to. But alongside that—because, of course, we’re worried about domestic outlook—I’m very proud that we’re a Government that’s ensured the average wage is up $65 per week, that 70,000 new jobs have been created, and that we have some of the lowest unemployment we’ve seen in a decade, and that’s something to be very proud of.

Hon Simon Bridges: Can she confirm that that $65 is entirely gone, if you’re renting, in both the rent increase on average and also the petrol tax increases her Government’s piled on?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, because we have seen rental increases, but on average, in the last year, they’ve been about half that. Of course, the $65 per week—of course, on top of that, we’ve also had the Families Package, which on average will deliver about an additional $75 per week. Of course, we know the impact of things like the minimum wage. The last increase benefited 200,000 people and, of course, their families. Those do outstrip those cost of living issues, which we are constantly mindful of and constantly working to address.

SPEAKER: The right honourable—sorry, the Hon Grant Robertson.

Hon Grant Robertson: Possibly.

SPEAKER: No, we’re not swapping.

Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Prime Minister confirm that an increase in petrol tax of 24c a litre over six or seven years would represent a reasonable increase even if it was done by the previous Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is absolutely correct that the last Government did pursue excise increases, but, actually, just speaking to the local member’s question, he’ll well know that one of the biggest decreases that’s been seen in the region in recent times was actually brought about when Waitomo came into the market. I think that again further reaffirms why it’s so important that the Commerce Commission is undertaking the work they are undertaking to ensure that New Zealanders get a fair deal.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has this Government increased the petrol taxes some 16c a litre if you’re in Auckland, and wouldn’t the petrol prices, if it wasn’t for that, be around $2, possibly less?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We openly campaigned on the fact that, of course, we would have a regional fuel tax, but none of that explains why, for instance, Aucklanders consistently are paying lower prices than, say, someone in Wellington or someone in the South Island. I watch those prices very closely. The regional variation is enormous. That is why it is so important that the Commerce Commission looks into these issues.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the reason why teachers will go on strike the day before the Budget and create huge disruption for parents and families across New Zealand because of the slowing economy and $600 million lower tax revenue?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. I think if you ask any teacher why they are striking, they will not say it’s because of the economy. We know that the issues that they are raising are around things like non-contact time. One of the issues we have—of course, non-contact time means needing extra teacher supply, and yet that member will well know, I hope, that enrolments in initial teacher education plummeted by 40 percent under his Government. We do not have enough teachers in New Zealand. And, yes, I hope the on-average additional $10,000 we are offering teachers will, hopefully, make that difference to attract people into the profession. We cannot solve overnight the supply problem they left us.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Prime Minister tell us why she is adamantly opposed to putting up the goods and services tax like the previous Government did?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think the member makes the point that there was, of course, an increase in GST under the last Government—something that was not flagged with the public before they did it.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Through Government’s actions in politics—unbelievable.

SPEAKER: Order! Sorry, did the member have a question?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, I had a comment meant for my colleagues. I’m sorry you had to listen.

SPEAKER: So am I.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does the $600 million in lower tax revenue from a weakening economy mean her Government will deliver less real wellbeing in Budget 2019 than she thought?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will have already seen that this is a Government that of course has operated with a fiscally responsible approach, as we’ve already done with the Budget responsibility rules, whilst doing something that that member didn’t manage, which is investing in people at the same time. You will already have seen our intent through the pre-Budget announcements—things like the $320 million investment in family and sexual violence, the biggest single investment ever made into that area. The priorities we’ve set as a Government have been about both transitioning our economy but also acknowledging we are nothing without our people, and that’s why we have a wellbeing Budget.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the weakening economy and lower tax revenue, in fact, her biggest policy fail in her year of delivery?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, and I can see the member is very enthusiastic to see what the Budget will bring, as am I.

Question No. 3—Education

3. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What recent steps, if any, has the Government taken to ensure that young New Zealanders leave school with the skills they need to succeed and thrive in the workforce and in society?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Earlier this month, I announced a number of improvements to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, or NCEA. They address limitations and unintended consequences that have built up over time, such as over-assessment. We’re going to strengthen the literacy and numeracy requirements, have fewer, larger standards, simplify the NCEA structure, and, importantly, show clear pathways to further education and employment as a result of qualification attainment. These improvements will make NCEA more credible and more robust.

Jan Tinetti: How will these changes make sure that students are getting a good grounding in literacy and numeracy?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Literacy and numeracy has been one of the big concerns around NCEA since it was first introduced, and various steps along the way have been made to try and address the issue. What we’re going to do now is develop a coherent, 20-credit package of standards for literacy and numeracy. These new requirements will need to be met as a co-requisite requirement in order to gain NCEA at any level rather than be part of the qualifications themselves, and students will be able to meet those standards when they are ready, which may be as early as year 7 in schooling. The standards are also going to be externally graded to avoid increasing teacher workload and also to strengthen the credibility of the literacy and numeracy requirements.

Jan Tinetti: Is there a risk that these changes will take us backwards towards an excessive focus on exams?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, and I want to be very clear about that. No changes have been made to the types of credits needed to gain NCEA. It will still be possible to gain NCEA through a large amount of internal assessment. What we’re aiming for is that half of the standards available be now externally assessed, so for schools where they are teaching standard subjects, external assessment would make up around half of the credits in each subject. But it is important to remember that not all external assessments are exams. They can also include things like portfolios, reports, performances, investigations, and common assessment tasks.

Jan Tinetti: Will these changes improve support for students to undertake NCEA through Māori-medium education?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, and this is long overdue. The default choice that many whānau face is to revert to English-medium schooling or English language schooling at secondary level. The Government has already announced more investment to recruit and train teachers in Te Reo Māori, and we’ll be ensuring that a much greater range of teaching materials are developed so that mātauranga Māori and Te Ao Māori have parity with the NCEA qualification and within our schools and kura.

Jan Tinetti: How will these changes make NCEA more affordable?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m very pleased to say that families of secondary school students will no longer have to pay fees for NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship. More than 145,000 households are estimated to benefit from the removal of the NCEA fees that they pay for around 168,000 secondary school students every year. As part of the Wellbeing Budget, we’re abolishing these fees to make things a bit easier for those families to make ends meet but also, importantly, to ensure that every student who achieves the NCEA can receive their qualification.

Question No. 4—Finance

SPEAKER: Before I call question No. 4, I just want to indicate that the Minister of Finance’s office indicated to my office that this may be a longer answer than normal. I also want to indicate to him that I thought his answers to question No. 1 and both supplementaries were excessively long; and that will be taken into account when I cut him off—if I cut him off.

4. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: What responsibility, if any, does he take for what the Reserve Bank described as a “sharp decline in GDP growth in the second half of 2018”, and what is the Government’s plan to grow the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The member needs to read just a little bit further in the May Monetary Policy Statement, that he takes that quote from, to where the Reserve Bank says “fiscal policy continues to support growth”—and I certainly will take responsibility for that. In answer to the second part of the question, we have a significant programme of work to support our plan for a modern economy that is productive, sustainable, and inclusive. The core objectives of that plan, as outlined by the Prime Minister last year, are to grow and share New Zealand’s prosperity more fairly; support thriving and sustainable regions; govern responsibly and develop broader measures of success; and transition to a clean, green, carbon-neutral New Zealand. I have a couple more pages but I think I might be testing the patience of the Speaker.

SPEAKER: The member’s right.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If the question that’s been asked is, “What is the Government’s plan?” listing the objectives of a plan doesn’t seem to me to be answering the question.

SPEAKER: Well, I think many of us could spend all day—and I’m sure we wouldn’t want to—listening to the Minister of Finance on that subject. I think he did answer the question.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What are the Government’s plans to meet the objectives outlined in his plan?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I thank the member very much for his question.

SPEAKER: I don’t!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Specifically the plan includes improving New Zealand’s productivity through investment in research and development, beginning with the $1 billion research and development tax incentive that will lift New Zealand’s R & D investment towards our ambitious target of 2 percent. In terms of growing and supporting thriving and sustainable regions, the core element of our plan is the Provincial Growth Fund, where we’re investing, over the term, $3 billion in infrastructure and productive businesses in the regions to unlock our growth potential. We’re working with our partners in the Future of Work Tripartite Forum and the Business Advisory Council to build more productive businesses and workplaces. A key element of our plan in that area is improving the skills of workers through initiatives such as the fees-free scheme, the reform of vocational education, the establishment of the micro-credentials system, Mana in Mahi, He Poutama Rangatahi, and a number of other initiatives. On moving to a more sustainable economy, we have initiatives such as Green Investment Finance Ltd, the establishment of the new national energy development centre in Taranaki, as well as a new science research fund for cutting edge technology. In terms of making the economy more inclusive, we are doing this by ensuring that all New Zealanders get a fair share of economic success. Some examples of our plan here include—

Hon Maggie Barry: Speech. Speech.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It is a speech, but I was invited to do it, Ms Barry, so I’m going to keep going. We raised the minimum wage to $17.70 on 1 April and we’ll gradually increase it to $20 by 2021. And—

SPEAKER: OK. That’s enough. [Interruption] Notwithstanding the warning, the member did ask for it.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he share the Governor of the Reserve Bank’s view that low levels of business confidence have contributed to the sharp decline in growth in the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There’s no doubt that we would like to see the levels of business investment higher. We did get a report today from the OECD that indicates that they believe that they will be higher over the coming year. In terms of business sentiment surveys, I leave that to others to divine exactly what lies behind that, but certainly the international environment has had a significant impact on New Zealand businesses.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why does he blame international headwinds for the sharp decline in growth, when our terms of trade—the prices that we receive for our exports—are at historically very high levels?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: One of the reasons is a little further down page 8 of the Monetary Policy Statement, from which the quote in the member’s primary question comes, where the Reserve Bank Governor says, “International factors have also contributed to the recent decline of GDP growth”.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: To the nearest billion dollars, what is an additional 1 percent GDP growth worth to New Zealand?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I believe it’s about $800 million.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: $800 million?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: About that.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think that the people of New Zealand would expect their Minister of Finance to know that 1 percent of GDP is about $3 billion and that’s the amount of money that we’ve missed out on given the sharp decline in growth in the past year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That’s not what the member initially asked. What I would say is that on this side of the House we are very confident in the growth rates that we are seeing. We know that they’re not as high as they have been in the past—there are many reasons for that—but this Government remains confident about those growth rates.

Question No. 5—Housing and Urban Development

5. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many first-home buyers purchased homes in the last financial year with KiwiSaver HomeStart, and how many with KiwiBuild?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): The KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme has been operating for nine years, after the Clark Government announced it in 2008.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: After the Clark Government announced it in 2008.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It started in April 2015.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: After the Clark Government announced the scheme in 2008. In the last financial year, 16,000 grants were provided to first-home buyers. There were no KiwiBuild homes available for sale in the last financial year, as the programme started on 1 July 2018. KiwiBuild and HomeStart complement each other. HomeStart helps first-home buyers with their deposit; KiwiBuild helps provide affordable homes that first-home buyers can afford to buy.

Hon Judith Collins: Why, with 18,000 first-home buyers in the last 12 months, can he not sell a few dozen KiwiBuild houses in Wānaka, Auckland, and Canterbury to first-home buyers?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, there are a number of reasons why in our most expensive housing markets it’s extremely difficult for first-home buyers to afford even a bottom quartile priced house. As the member knows, KiwiBuild houses are not subsidised; they are, simply, houses that are being built in the bottom 25 percent of the price range. One of the problems that we have is that the market on its own has not been building affordable homes. Policies like HomeStart don’t fix that problem. We must have supply side policies that increase the supply of affordable houses.

Hon Judith Collins: Does KiwiBuild continue to have a goal to deliver 100,000 houses over 10 years?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We’ve made it very clear that the KiwiBuild programme continues to have the ambition to solve the problem of affordability for first-home buyers. We are going to build houses. We’ve made it clear that we’re not going to have interim targets for the programme, but we will continue to be transparent about our progress towards the target of building affordable homes for young first-home buyers.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is house building in this country at an all-time record since the early 1970s?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I thank the member for his question, and the answer on two counts, actually, is that Government agencies together are responsible for building more new homes right now than at any time since the mid-1970s and, secondly, that under our policies, the market is producing more new homes than at any time since 2007.

Hon Judith Collins: Were the 27,000 houses to be delivered in Hobsonville, Māngere, Mount Roskill, Northcote, Tāmaki, and Porirua initiated by the current Government or a previous Government, as included in his briefing to the incoming Minister?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I’m sure the member will understand the fact that, unlike the former Government, this Government has committed to building more public housing, more State housing, and actually affordable housing. When the last Government was in the business of privatising State housing, they never promised to build any affordable homes for first-home buyers as part of that building programme.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked whether 27,000 homes in various places were initiated by the current Government or a previous Government. I don’t believe that the question was addressed. We got a lot about how much Mr Twyford would like to do, but, actually, that was quite a specific question.

SPEAKER: It was, and I’ll let the Minister have another go.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, it’s true that the former National Government announced plans to build extra private houses on publicly owned land. They didn’t actually make any progress on doing that. We’ve committed to building more State housing and more affordable housing—two things that Government never did.

Kieran McAnulty: How well has HomeStart worked in the country’s most expensive market?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: HomeStart has helped first-home buyers into their own homes, but it hasn’t increased the supply of affordable homes. What this means is that in our most expensive markets it has been completely ineffective in tackling the housing crisis. For example, in Auckland, Aucklanders have only received 10 percent of the number of HomeStart grants that have been given out, and that is grossly disproportionate to the number of first-home buyers looking for homes in that city.

Hon Judith Collins: Who is taking responsibility for the level of success achieved to date from KiwiBuild?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: This Minister and this Government are taking responsibility for a series of housing policies that are responsible, right now, for the fact that there are more first-home buyers buying homes in New Zealand than at any time in the last few years—24 percent of buyers in the market are first-home buyers. For the first time in a long time, wages are increasing faster than house prices, and under our policies—opposed by that member—thousands of children will not be going to hospital any more, because of warm, dry rental properties.

Kieran McAnulty: What effect has the HomeStart grant had on the housing shortfall?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, despite HomeStart being in operation for nine years, it’s estimated that over that same period of time—those same nine years—a shortfall of 71,000 homes developed. Now, HomeStart has helped some first-home buyers into their own homes, but it will not ease the housing crisis without demand-side policies. KiwiBuild and HomeStart complement each other, and KiwiBuild will ensure that there are actually affordable homes for people to buy with the help of the HomeStart grant.

Question No. 6—Seniors

6. MARK PATTERSON (NZ First) to the Minister for Seniors: What announcements has she recently made about support for seniors?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Seniors): I recently announced three initiatives in the Wellbeing Budget that will help seniors stay connected and improve their financial position. The most significant is $7.7 million to upgrade and enhance the SuperGold card, including building a new digital platform for card holders and businesses. A new SuperGold app, linked to an upgraded website, will be created to help show seniors where the card can be used when they are out. The app and website will be launched before the end of 2019. The Budget also contains $600,000 to provide some computer training and skills for those who need it, and ACC charges from 1 July include money which will mean that those older people who are still working and are seriously injured will no longer have to choose between receiving New Zealand Superannuation or ACC weekly payments.

Mark Patterson: How do these initiatives compare with what has been done in the last six years?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Very well—New Zealand’s over-65s really appreciate the SuperGold card. They particularly value the travel concessions and shopping discounts. The reality is, however, that the SuperGold card has been neglected for several years and it’s harder and harder for people to know where they can use it. This Government is doing something about that. The SuperGold website, which hasn’t had investment for the past six years, will now be upgraded and easier to use. A new SuperGold app, linked to the website, will also be created to show seniors where the card can be used when they’re out and about and will be launched before the end of this year. Businesses—currently there are more than 9,300 businesses with around 1,400 outlets offering SuperGold discounts—will be able to interact with the website better. They will also be able to provide standard promotions and people will finally be able to see where they can get their discounts.

Mark Patterson: How will SuperGold card changes help older New Zealanders?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Like Nick.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: A key objective—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Now, the member will stand, withdraw, and apologise. I think there’s been enough ageist comments made in his direction for him to start doing it. I think it’s a very poor example.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: A key objective of the changes is to help seniors on fixed incomes to stretch their dollar further. Forty percent of our seniors have less than $100 a week from sources outside of superannuation and other Government transfers, and so their annual income is less than $25,000 per annum. What we’re doing—addressing the card’s neglect—will help seniors with that, but it will also help businesses connect to this very large consumer demographic and, hopefully, provide more discounts.

Question No. 7—Transport

7. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his statements, policies, and actions on transport?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Yes, in the context they were given and done.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How can he say, as he did yesterday, that the “Government is taking a balanced approach to transport” when his Associate Minister refers to car fascists, and he has said his core objective is to get people out of single-occupant vehicles and into public transport, walking, and cycling rather than simply to reduce congestion for motorists?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I reject the premise of the member’s question. The Associate Minister did not describe motorists as car fascists at all. [Interruption] She most certainly did not.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I never referred to saying motorists were car fascists; I just said she referred to car fascists. What’s he saying?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, as I said yesterday, the Associate Minister said that her words had perhaps been not as well chosen as they might have been, but the point she was making, and the point I’ll make to the member, is that we do have a balanced transport policy, because our Government understands that cities of any scale must have alongside their roads and motorways decent public transport and walking and cycling. Without that, if we only build more motorways, which is what that Government did for nine years, we end up with chronic congestion in our biggest cities and a ballooning toll of deaths and serious injuries.

Hon Simon Bridges: Can the Minister name one genuinely new road his Government is starting?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I can name a number, but we’ve started work on—Mount Messenger has happened, the Manawatū Gorge replacement, the State Highway 1 loop road, the Matakana link road, the Awakino Gorge tunnel bypass, the Gills Road upgrade, and the Horsham Downs link road.

Hon Simon Bridges: Didn’t Minister Bridges start all of those?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Minister Bridges also promised six bridges in Northland and didn’t deliver a single one.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t the true answer, in fact, it was 10?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: Sorry, no. It’s not a matter yet. The Minister has to answer.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the Minister might have promised 10 bridges, but he delivered none.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did that Minister inherit a list of promises such as the 10 bridges, when one of them was not even a bridge?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The member is correct, and I remember well the election announcement on the side of the road with a pig standing next to the members as they made their pork-barrel campaign announcements.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is it true that the first two priorities of Let’s Get Wellington Moving are (1) to reduce speed limits and widen footpaths, and (2) to build more cycleways?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, both those things are part of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving package, but it also includes an additional Mount Victoria Tunnel. It includes fixing the Basin Reserve flyover without a hideous elevated concrete flyover, that was the sole commitment or promise that the last National Government made to the Wellington region. But it also includes investment in a rapid transit network, better train and bus services, more walking and cycling—it is a truly integrated transport package, that will unleash the potential of this beautiful city.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is the reason that he cancelled the planned Tauranga Northern Link because he expects people not to want to use their cars but instead to walk, cycle, or catch the bus from Ōmokoroa?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. The reason that the New Zealand Transport Agency re-evaluated State Highway 2 is that our Government doesn’t believe that every single transport problem can be solved by a four-lane, dual-carriage expressway. We believe in an integrated transport system, in contrast to the former Government, that spent 40 percent of the transport budget on five motorway projects that carry 4 percent of vehicle journeys.

Question No. 8—Health

8. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Have there been more or fewer elective surgical procedures undertaken in the 2018/19 year to date than in the previous year to date according to the Ministry of Health statistics web page entitled “Services delivered: Acute and elective patient discharge volumes”, and by how many?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): The data set on that web page does not capture all surgical procedures, as the member knows full well. I’m advised that according to the limited data set on that web page, there have been 4,098 fewer elective discharges in the year to March compared to the previous year. However, beyond the numbers the member is referencing, acute surgery is up by 2,225 and there have been 1,400 more non-admitted procedures delivered by district health boards (DHBs), so more people are getting the care they need in the most appropriate, cost-effective, and convenient setting.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he agree that the figures on that page indicate that DHBs are on track to perform 1,800 fewer gynaecology and 750 fewer urology procedures this year compared with last year?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: One thing I am clear on is that the member is cherry-picking figures to talk down our health service. The figures that the previous Government used in respect of the electives target—the figures that that Government used—were a third larger than the ones on that page. The member knows that those are not the figures his Government—the previous Government—used when it was wanting to inflate figures for elective surgery.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well, is he saying that he doesn’t have confidence in the data published by his own ministry, and if so, how can the public tell whether access to elective surgery is getting better or worse?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No. That page is just not the full picture.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Sorry, what was that? That page is what?

SPEAKER: Will the member repeat the end of his answer—neither of us heard.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: That page doesn’t represent the full picture.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well, what confidence can he give 81-year-old Kevin Gibson of Gisborne, waiting for urology surgery which has been cancelled four times in the past 18 months, that his prospects of receiving the procedure he requires are more remote under this Government?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I dispute that assertion, and what I would say is that this Government is committed to funding our health services properly after nine years of neglect. The system has been under strain. It is my expectation that DHBs will strive to meet the contracted levels for procedures. The year is not over yet. For that individual, he has, of course, my sympathies. For anyone who doesn’t get the surgery that they want first time, as happened under the previous Government through prioritisation in the health service, of course they have my sympathies.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Will he commit to DHBs performing more elective surgery this year than last, and if so, how will the public be able to tell if not by the ministry’s statistics?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The year is not over yet, and I expect that DHBs will be working very hard to deliver on the contracted volumes.

Question No. 9—Pike River Re-entry

9. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour) to the Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry: What recent progress, if any, has been made on Pike River recovery?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for Pike River Re-entry): I’m pleased to report to this House that on Tuesday, 21 May the Pike River Recovery Agency successfully breached the 30-metre seal at Pike River mine and re-entered the drift. In the presence of family members, experts from Te Kāhui Whakamana Rua Tekau mā Iwa, Pike River Recovery Agency, removed the final block of the 30-metre seal which prevented access and walked through two airlock doors, successfully re-entering the drift. More than eight years after 29 men went through that entrance to work at the Pike River coalmine and never came home, the promise to re-enter the mine drift has been honoured.

Ginny Andersen: What are the next steps for recovery from here?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Fulfilling the promise to do everything possible to safely recover the drift is an act of justice for families who have waited a long time. Over the next few days, the agency will continue to advance up the drift, assessing the state of the drift for potential hazards, and, in the coming months, a second forensically-focused mining team will examine and remove any evidential material. There is still a lot to do, but we are committed to finding out what happened at Pike River. As I’ve said before, safety has been, and always will be, the families’ and the Government’s bottom line for the recovery effort.

Ginny Andersen: What response has the Minister seen from Pike River families?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The families have been extraordinarily appreciative of the agency’s hard work and commitment to the recovery effort. However, it’s fair to say that re-entry would never have been possible without the determination, patience, and support of the Pike River families and the Family Reference Group. Now, I’d like to thank all those members and the supporters of the reference group and, in particular, Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse for their tireless work. Tuesday’s milestone belongs to those families and the memory of their lost ones. It also belongs to all New Zealanders, who know that going home to your loved ones is the least you should expect after a day’s work.

Question No. 10—Housing and Urban Development

10. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Is he confident the formula provided in the regulation for the heating capacity of qualifying heaters in the main living room, as published in the Residential Tenancies (Healthy Homes Standards) Regulations 2019, is suitable for New Zealand landlords to understand?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): The heating standard requires landlords to provide a fixed heating device capable of achieving a minimum temperature of at least 18 degrees Celsius. I am confident because these standards were widely consulted on with landlords, and they were, in fact, the landlords’ preferred option. Admittedly, there are some people who do not want to fix the problem of cold, damp homes causing the hospitalisation of children, but we decided this could not continue. I’m also confident because the ministry received $15 million in Budget 2018 to help landlords comply, and this will fund the development of an online tool where landlords can input the developments of their property and print out the details of the type of heat pump or heater required. It will also cover the support for landlords through advice, and the development of guidance material. Landlords also have two years, to 1 July 2021, to consider this material, to ask questions, and to ensure that their properties comply within 90 days of any new tenancy.

Simon O’Connor: How many variables will landlords need to know or measure to make this calculation using the calculator he refers to?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the online tool will require landlords to put in the full dimensions of the main living area, the number of doors, the number of windows, the level of insulation, whether or not the windows are double glazed or not. All of those are the variables that will go into the online tool that will tell them the power of the heater or heat pump that’s needed to heat that space.

Simon O’Connor: A visual aid, if I could, Mr Speaker. [Produces chart depicting algebraic formula] If the Minister does not know that a minimum of 37 different variables are required to perform the calculation, how will the average landlord or tenant know what heater the law requires them to buy when they go to Bunnings next month?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’m sure the member understands that landlords don’t have to be an expert in algebra—

Hon Members: They do.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, they don’t—no, they clearly don’t. They don’t need to know algebra any more than they need to know the coding on the website that will tell them the level of the heat pump or electric heater that’s needed to heat their room. Our Government is committed to the idea that warm, dry homes are a necessary reform to stop kids being sent off to hospital, and, unlike Ms Collins, we don’t believe that that is necessarily an attack on landlords.

Paul Eagle: Why is the Government implementing the Healthy Homes Standards?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Otago University recently found out that homes that are damp or mouldy caused more than 35,000 nights in hospital, and at least 6,000 children are admitted each year for what they describe as “housing sensitive hospitalisations.” We cannot continue to tolerate this. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum indoor temperature of 18 degrees.

Paul Eagle: Will the Healthy Homes Standards reduce the health costs of tenants?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The heating standard alone is predicted to reduce the costs incurred by New Zealand tenants because of ill health by $129 million a year. That excludes the non-quantifiable benefits such as increased school attendance and greater educational attainment, mental wellbeing, and comfort. This is additional to the predicted $476 million in energy savings.

Paul Eagle: Does he agree with the criticism that this is an attack on landlords?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, I do not agree with that criticism. We are lifting standards so that the bottom end of the market, “slum landlords”, will not continue to undercut decent landlords. Most good landlords have already insulated their homes some time ago, and we are lifting the standards because a report from Otago University highlighted that 15 percent of owner-occupier homes were reported to be cold, compared to 35 percent of rental homes. Only 3 percent of owner-occupied homes were damp or mouldy, compared to 12 percent of rentals.

Simon O’Connor: Is it reasonable to expect landlords to be able to calculate, from his regulations, “the transmission heat loss in respect of the living room’s building elements that are part of the … building’s thermal envelope”?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Not using algebra, but that’s why we are providing an online tool to provide an easy and convenient tool for all landlords.

Simon O’Connor: Could the Minister explain the difference between a “living room’s building elements that are part of the … building’s thermal envelope” and a living room’s elements that are not part of the building’s thermal envelope, as outlined in the regulations?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’m very happy to organise a detailed briefing by officials for the member if he really wants a detailed explanation of what will, effectively, be the back end of the website.

Question No. 11—Police

11. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by all statements, policies, and actions of the Police in relation to the theft of 11 guns from the Palmerston North police station?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Yes.

Chris Bishop: Did the police pay for the return of some or all of the eight guns that have now been recovered?

Hon STUART NASH: I’m not going to provide a running commentary on the day to day operations of a police investigation. I am sure that police will provide updates as and when appropriate.

Chris Bishop: I’ll ask again. Did police pay for the return of some or all of the eight guns that have now been recovered?

Hon STUART NASH: I will say again: that member will have to ask police for the background about how they recovered the firearms. Like previous Ministers of Police, I do not receive advice that would prejudice an active case. I’m also not going to provide a running commentary on a live police investigation.

Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to Speakers’ ruling 160/3, which is about operational matters. Now, essentially, what the Minister is arguing is that he’s not going to offer a running commentary on something that is, essentially, an operational matter of the police. You sir, I think, have ruled in the past—and the Speaker’s ruling I’m referring to is a ruling of Speaker Hunt in 2003, that “Although a reply that something is an operational matter is strictly not out of order, … on its own it is neither informative nor helpful. … a wider view is taken of ministerial responsibility.” I think, given the public—

SPEAKER: No, I don’t need any help from the member. The Minister on both occasions referred to prejudicing ongoing police operations, and I think that is a reasonable answer to the House.

Chris Bishop: Was it his intention for his gun buy-back scheme to start with the police buying guns back that were stolen from them in the first place?

Hon STUART NASH: Let me tell you what is not helpful, and that is for that member to stand up in a public meeting and tell—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I don’t know if I want to hear it or not, but I think the House has a right to hear it, and we will.

Hon STUART NASH: Mr Speaker, thank you very much. Can I say it is not helpful for that member to stand up in a public meeting, like he did last Monday, and tell members of the public that police are “bullying people.” That member should be supporting our good, hard-working members of the New Zealand police force, not undermining them.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was about the Minister’s expectations around the start of the buy-back programme; nothing to do with his commentary on a public meeting that some other member was speaking at.

SPEAKER: Yes, and I think that if it had been a straight question with no irony in it, I would have been tighter and stopped the member when he said “No” at the beginning.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaking to the point of order, if I might.

SPEAKER: Have another point of order, and then—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, I note that it wasn’t a ruling. So I’m just asking if, in fact, your assessment of there being some irony in his answer was because, in fact, the police did buy back the guns.

SPEAKER: All I indicated was that there was irony in the question, which meant that I was more liberal with the answer than I might have been otherwise. I’ve had some representations to be a bit looser and let things run a bit; that’s what I was doing.

Question No. 12—Ethnic Communities

12. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister for Ethnic Communities: What recent announcements has she made about supporting ethnic communities in Christchurch and throughout the country?

Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Ethnic Communities): Salaam alaikum and Eid Mubarak for Ramadan. Last night, while co-hosting a parliamentary Iftar dinner, I announced that this year’s Wellbeing Budget will boost support for our ethnic communities by increasing the capacity and capability of the Office of Ethnic Communities. The Wellbeing Budget provides $9.4 million over four years to strengthen our ethnic communities and to provide support for our diverse communities, including for our Muslim brothers and sisters following the 15 March terror attacks. This follows an additional $1.8 million for the portfolio announced in April. We know it is crucial that our ethnic, diverse, and multi-faith communities are connected, engaged, and supported. This funding will support that.

Dr Duncan Webb: How will this funding help support our ethnic communities?

Hon JENNY SALESA: Some of the new funding will support up to 15 additional community advisers and staff members in Auckland, Dunedin, and Wellington. This is in addition to the increase in Christchurch of eight staff members, from two confirmed in April. The funding will also be used to support the office’s work in meeting with ethnic communities, proactively addressing issues affecting them, and administering the Ethnic Communities Development Fund, which allows ethnic communities to develop and lead their own initiatives.

Dr Duncan Webb: What responsibility does the Office of Ethnic Communities have?

Hon JENNY SALESA: The Office of Ethnic Communities is the conduit between the Government and New Zealand’s ethnic communities. They provide policy advice and on-the-ground, culturally appropriate support for ethnic communities right across the country. They also administer the Ethnic Communities Development Fund. They are the Government’s principal adviser on ethnically diverse communities. This additional funding will help the office to better undertake all of these responsibilities, and this will be the most significant boost in funding since the office was first established in 2002.

General Debate

General Debate

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

It’s well-known that a Government starts to lose touch in connection with the people it represents when the Ministers from that Government start to believe their own policy rhetoric and ignore the consequences of their policy, and today, from the Prime Minister through, we have seen Minister after Minister denying the reality of the consequences of their policies and referring totally to the rhetoric that they’ve been banging on about for over 18 months now. Next Thursday, we are going to be presented with a Budget that will be entitled the Wellbeing Budget. Well, I predict there’ll be very little wellbeing in it for many New Zealanders at all.

One of the great leaders of the Labour Party was Norman Kirk, a man who was respected on all sides of the House for his care, his compassion, and his commitment to bettering New Zealanders. He had five things that he said his Government and successive Governments should be tested against. They were: housing, education, health, security, and of course the opportunity to work. Going through all of those, there are fails in those five.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That’s four.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, there’s the former primary teacher—no longer one, because he couldn’t count to five—sitting over there. Those are the things that a Government gets tested on.

Let’s just look at where things are at the moment. We’ve just heard the health Minister this afternoon trying to defend the abandoning of targets for elective surgery—trying to explain that, in actual fact, New Zealanders are better off although there are thousands fewer elective surgeries occurring in this country today. If one were to compare that much reduced figure with population stats, it would look even worse, but of course we can’t do that, because the Government have abandoned any hope of having a reasonable census document that might give that information so necessary to test their policies.

We also have the Government crowing about something like KiwiBuild—the opportunity for New Zealanders to get into houses. Well, the reality is that all the KiwiBuild houses are being purchased on special housing area land—purchased by the Government. The ones that the developers can’t sell, the ones that the 25,000 new first-home buyers in New Zealand weren’t prepared to buy—the Government’s buying them. The “Bank of Phil Twyford” is turning up to bankroll the various developers around the country. They were all put in place by a National Government, and those people getting into those houses—the 25,000 last year—were calling on the Home Start grant, the $20,000 contribution to their purchase from a National Government. Not one new initiative from the Labour Government beyond the paltry 70 KiwiBuild houses they’ve managed to build in nearly 18 months.

Let’s look at the job market in New Zealand. Just 18 months ago, there were 10,000 new jobs being created in the economy every single month. That’s now down to 600, and no wonder the number of people on the job seekers—we used to honestly call that the “unemployed” group of New Zealanders. That number now—the “job seekers”—is 11,000 higher than it was just 18 months ago and growing by the day, but you have got Grant Robertson over there telling us that the economy is humming along at a huge rate, and if it’s not, it’s not their fault; it’s somehow a problem of the international environment. There is too much of this blame going on, too much referencing to the sort of rhetoric that we are seeing from these Ministers about what they were so good at in the past.

Let’s look at education. Has there ever been a time where there’s been so much disruption to education in New Zealand? Never. Not ever. Has there ever been a time when there has been so much expectation created by Government, only to have it whipped out from beneath those whom they claim they’re there to insist on the wellbeing for? Let’s be very clear: the fees-free policy is a failure. Fewer students are going to university, tertiary training, and—I have to tell the Prime Minister—into vocational training, as well, as a result of that policy. That’s not working, but we get this rhetoric all the time about how good the Labour Government is for education. I’m leaving New Zealand First out of it because I know that they don’t have as much influence as they like to claim.

Then there is the issue of security. Time won’t let me say it, but, apparently, of 1,800 new police, there are less than 20 percent of that so far, and, on a population basis, closure of 24-hour police stations. Bad news for New Zealanders.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): It’s an absolute pleasure to rise after Gerry Brownlee, who is clearly the National Party’s best speaker. I’m just dumbfounded why he’s not on the front bench. Why has he been relegated back there to the second bench? But what I will say is there is one job that is distracting the National Party at the moment, and that job is the Leader of the Opposition. You can see it on their faces. Every day this divided, distracted bunch trundle into this House. It is the only thing on their minds and things are getting desperate.

It’s fair to say that some of us on this side of the House have been through our own years of disquiet—let’s say—around leadership. But even in the darkest days, did we ever have a leader who was so desperate that he tried to engineer someone to leave his own party and set up another one? Even in the worst of times we never got to that point. But these are desperate, desperate times for the National Party. And I guess when you reflect on the fact that the only thing that the National Party is holding on to, and Simon Bridges is holding on to, is “We’re polling 40 percent.”—well, newsflash: that’s all of you. That’s all your mates in the playground consolidated into one group. Forty percent does not make Government.

So what are they trying to do with the invention of imaginary friends? They tried it with the “teal deal”. It didn’t fly. Even the imaginary friend didn’t want them—even the imaginary friend didn’t want to play with them in the playground. So Simon Bridges, in the guise of “Snuffleupagus”, with “Big Bird”, is setting himself up with the imaginary friend of “King Alfred”—“King Alfred”—who is going to lead them into the promised land of Government. “King Alfred”—yeah. I guess it has gone, in a sense, like this: “You know, we need some friends. Go forth, form a party, and what we will do is we will try and get there.” It is not working, but that is how desperate it is.

Then we had the best speaker in the National Party, Gerry Brownlee, stand up and say “We will be judged on our score card.”, that Governments get thrown out when they neglect the things that Norman Kirk laid down. He said “housing”. So let’s have a look at how they did when they were in Government on some of these things. Let’s go through their report card. Housing: we inherited a shortfall of 70,000 houses, because that Government had no plan. Health: health was underfunded by $2.3 billion over the nine years that they were in office. That was a Government that neglected health, and in Government we are setting about rectifying it. Then let’s turn to education: a billion-dollar shortfall to meet the demands for school property alone over the next four years, 214 overcrowded schools, and pay that had not kept up in the sector by a group of people that simply did not care.

But, in only eight sleeps’ time, on this side of the House we will deliver a Budget that is beginning to rectify the neglect that that crowd left this country in—a wellbeing Budget that has people at its centre, a Budget that has the courage to lift its eyes beyond the three-year political cycle, to govern for the next generation and not the next election, because that is all the National Party did when they were in Government. They didn’t think about the long-term benefits. They did not focus on wellbeing. They did not focus on the big issues such as climate change and how we were going to address it. They did not focus on the wellbeing of their people. Instead, all we are seeing from the speech that the best speaker in the National Party gave us is a tirade about us.

I did not hear one thing that “Snuffleupagus”, “Big Bird”, or any of the other divided bunch in the National Party actually want to do to address the long-term issues that we have in this country. They are intent on being divisive, they are intent on making up friends because no one else will play with them, and they are not fit to get into Government. They have no ideas and they do not have the ability to think in the long term and about what is good for future generations.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well, that is the definition of irony, that the lead-off speaker of the Labour Party accuses our lead-off speaker of talking about nothing except about them and then spends 4½ minutes talking about the National Party. That is ironic in the extreme, but I’ll give her that in the last minute she did give something of a nod to the Wellbeing Budget that we’re going to hear about in eight days’ time. My question to them is this: how is the wellbeing of 81-year-old Kevin Gibson of Gisborne better as a consequence of this Labour-led Government? In December 2017 he was diagnosed with a benign enlarged prostate that required surgery. It’s not a cancer, but it is a very, very difficult condition but a procedure that is very straightforward.

There were four cancellations in 18 months and the Minister today admitted that his Government is now 4,098 procedures behind where they should be just to do what was done last year in our public hospitals, and he doesn’t know if there’s a target or not. He said that there isn’t, despite the Ministry of Health website saying that the target is to do 4,000 more this year than last, which means we’re nearly 8,000 procedures behind and falling. Here’s the inconvenient truth: he can do all the statistical manipulation he likes about minor procedures and injections, but we are on target to do 250 fewer cardiac procedures; gynaecology, 1,800 fewer procedures; orthopaedic surgery, 1,500 fewer procedures this year than last; and urology, the thing that Mr Gibson needs, 750 fewer procedures than last year. The question is: is there a target for elective surgery or not? Well, I think there was and I think it went through what I call the KiwiBuild filter; that is, raise the target, talk about it, and, when one realises that it’s absolutely unable to be achieved, quietly dust it under the carpet, call it an aspiration, call it some kind of other thing, but don’t call it a target.

The irony of that—here’s what I don’t understand—is today the Government proudly announces its targets for child poverty reduction, saying how really important it is that in order to meet that problem head-on, one sets a target for it. Why on earth not do the same for improvements in healthcare? It was done under the Clark Government. Pete Hodgson was the Minister of Health that proudly introduced what were then nine national health targets, which we refined down to six and continuously improved. Where are those targets now? Not achieved, so therefore they remove them.

It would be OK if there was something else, but all we have is a sea of red ink. The district health boards are slowly and surely sinking into deficit to the tune of $500 million, and remember that announcement yesterday—that $21 million for ambulance services? The Deputy Prime Minister asked the Minister—it was a patsy, but actually it was a very good question—“What extra services is the New Zealand public going to get out of that $21 million?”, and the answer was nothing—nothing. They bought the farm when St John said they were in trouble. There won’t be a single extra ambulance officer. There may be one or two extra ambulances with the capital funding. But the unions saw through it like a window. They know that there is going to be no extra pay for ambulance officers and no extra ambulance officers. What kind of announcement is that? Well, it’s one that the Minister has become very good at: funding deficits.

I’m going to talk next week about what’s happening with access to GPs, because that Minister also said this in Opposition. He said that there are half a million New Zealanders, adult New Zealanders, that can’t afford to go to a GP, and he was going to fix it. Guess what’s happened to that number? It’s gone up, not down. There are now 538,000 New Zealanders, 21,000 more than the previous survey showed, that cannot afford to go to a GP.

So when we go into a Budget with delivery as its theme, they better deliver for this health system, this ailing, sagging, health system that has had targets taken away from it, that is rudderless, that has no direction. The cost of that is going to be eye-watering. And if they don’t deliver for the health system, I think members can expect to hear a lot more stories like the one about the lovely Mr Gibson in Gisborne, because there are thousands of them out there—non-delivery in the year of delivery.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I get to the body of my contribution, I’d like to do two things. First, I’d like to acknowledge the families affected by Pike River and the mine re-entry—the families who have loved ones still in there. I would like to acknowledge them and their perseverance and acknowledge the suffering that they have gone through over these years. I’d like to thank all of those people who have enabled the re-entry, and I celebrate that this, I hope, will be a victory for these families, fighting tirelessly for answers.

The second thing I’d like to do is to acknowledge the Opposition’s release of their foreign policy document and say that, actually, we were quite looking forward to questions from the Opposition to the Minister of Foreign Affairs arising from their foreign policy document. But, sadly, there was nothing forthcoming—when I say “sadly”, I mean “amusingly”.

This is an exciting time for this Government, but, unusually—unusually—what I’d like to do first in the body of my contribution is acknowledge the work of the member opposite, Mr Goldsmith. I’ll tell you why. As I follow him—well, he hasn’t been out in the regions. As I follow my Minister, Minister Shane Jones, and I go out myself into the regions and the provinces, I have these awkward conversations with what sound like National supporters, or—I’m going to put it this way—probably, they were previously National supporters, asking me questions about the member in National from the big smoke who’s never been in the provinces and doesn’t know anything about our regions, who is attacking the Provincial Growth Fund. It’s an enjoyment of the job, I tell you, because what we are seeing in the provinces is the Provincial Growth Fund making a real, tangible difference already.

I would say that the members opposite who are actually based and have seats in the provinces sit silently because they’ve either been there themselves and been a part of it, or they are actually seeing first-hand, if they get out and about, the benefit that the Provincial Growth Fund is making, not only to the provinces but to the economy as a whole. They sit there silently, and it is confusing their membership, I have to say.

The Opposition would have New Zealand suffer through the vagaries of the world economy right now. We’ve heard from our Minister of Finance that the world economy is going through a downturn, but one of the things that this Government is doing, and it is doing well, is in our fiscal stimulus package. The Minister of Finance, in question time today, acknowledged just what a difference the Provincial Growth Fund is making, complementary to monetary policy and the Reserve Bank. But with what this Government is doing through fiscal stimulus in the economy, we are going to ride this world economic downturn high, and don’t take my word for it; take the word of the OECD, which came out with their report today, speaking of 2.5 percent growth, and then, in 2019-20, heading into the 3 percents—probably 3.2 to 3.5 percent.

Now, that is a strong New Zealand economy, and I want to thank the businesses in our region for that, because they are making a huge difference right now. You’ll forgive me for reading some statistics here, but in the primary industries, trade figures are incredible. Over 70 percent of New Zealand’s merchandise exports come from the primary industries and the food sector. Primary exports are booming. The Ministry for Primary Industries’ latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report showed that revenue for the year to June 2019 is now forecast to reach $45 billion to $47 billion, which is 7 percent higher than at the same time last year.

Mr Brownlee spoke about jobs. Well, let me tell him this: New Zealanders have seen an increase of 70,000 jobs in the economy over the last year. That’s what we are seeing in the New Zealand economy. New Zealand goods and services exports have increased by 10 percent in dollar terms in the last year—10 percent in dollar terms—and 6 percent in physical goods exports. I see that I had a whole page of good news, but I only just got to there, so thank you very much.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I want to talk about the gaping hole between the promise and the performance of this Government. While the Prime Minister talks about it being a year of delivery, all over the place there is massive non-delivery, and I particularly want to draw to the attention of the House the debacle of the Nelson-Tasman fires in my area.

Whether it be the small or whether it be the big, watch out for the gap between the promise and the delivery. We all know the capital gains tax was the flagship economic policy. It was going to improve productivity. It was pivotal to changing the housing incentives. It was what was going to close gaps of inequality. Well, I have to agree with James Shaw that this Government does not deserve re-election for binning that key policy.

Then, last week, we had the issue of tertiary education. We all know that the fees-free policy was one of the big policies of the last election. They said that they were going to increase enrolments from 50,000 to 80,000. Well, what happened last week? Did they go from 50,000 to 80,000? They went backwards, by 3,200.

Then you come, of course, to that policy of KiwiBuild promising a thousand houses in the first year, and in 18 months, they couldn’t get to 80. If I was a building company and I’d promised a consumer a thousand houses and delivered 80, I’d be done for fraud. I would. I’d be prosecuted, and that is why that was electoral fraud.

But let me bring the House back to the worst fires in New Zealand in 60 years. Colleagues will remember the Prime Minister standing up in the House and saying, “We’re there to help. We’re going to promise a $500,000 grant through the Ministry of Social Development.” It was championed with photo opportunities from the Minister of Civil Defence, the Minister of Internal Affairs, and the member of Parliament for West Coast - Tasman. I got an answer from the Minister for Social Development to my question as to how much of the $500,000 had been spent and how many of the 50,000 hours of support had been provided to the property owners. The answer was: zero dollars—not $1, not $10, but absolutely zero. How many hours of work were done to assist property owners? Not one hour. In fact, the Minister said the programme had been determined to be unsuccessful and was closed down in April.

Now, I say to the members opposite, as they roll out these big promises of dollars here and dollars there: look for the fine print, look for the performance. The mayor, the council, the MPs, and the community always said that this policy was a flop. The idea that, in an area where unemployment—as National left it—was only 2 percent right in the peak of the apple and kiwifruit season, somehow there were thousands of jobless that were going to be able to clean up, help build fences, help rebuild driveways, and help do the repair work from the fires, was always a fraud.

Here’s the worst part: the Government hid its non-delivery—absolutely hid its non-delivery. When they were asked by the media in April, the ministry said the programme was going fantastic and that this was really delivering for the community of Nelson-Tasman. The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, quoted that it was one of the great things that they were doing to help the fires. Well, I say Fire and Emergency New Zealand did a good job; so too did the councils do it with civil defence. But what sort of fraud is it when the Prime Minister and Ministers of the Government promise $500,000 and $50,000 of aid for people that are affected by those fires and deliver absolutely naught, and then secretly shut the fund down?

So my challenge to colleagues is this: when they go and announce a whole lot of funding—whether it be for housing or health or sexual violence or others—make sure that you follow up on the delivery. Whether it is in health, whether it is in education, whether it is in housing, whether it is in tax policy, or whether it’s in tertiary education, this is the year of non-delivery.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Well, after all of that noise, I hope that I’ll bring a bit of sense and calm to the Chamber. I’ll tell you one thing: what I am heartened with is seeing a Government that isn’t short-termist; that at last we’re looking out to the future—not just three years, not just 18 months, but we’re looking out for generations.

You only have to look at what we are doing. I mean, at last—where was the last Government? Only today, I’ve been sitting on the Finance and Expenditure Committee considering the Infrastructure Commission, a commission that will, finally, look at the structure of our infrastructure, the huge deficit we’ve got, and do some long-term planning—not just build six-lane motorways, roads of national oblivion, but rather we’ll actually look at some alternative solutions. Yet you only have to look at what our fantastic Minister, Minister Twyford, has been doing, recognising that building roads and 10 bridges to nowhere doesn’t help. What we actually need—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is that what Transmission Gully is?

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —is an integrated approach. Now, at last—Dr Smith is over there, yapping away as normal, and I thought he’d be the first, as a member of a region, to recognise the importance of rail. After years and years of neglect, rail is one of many areas that have been left to wreck and ruin. So what we have at last is a reinvestment back into rail.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: National funded the new trains in Auckland.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Hamilton to Auckland, there’s a good idea. Rather than driving backwards and forwards, burning carbon needlessly, at last we’ve got a Government that says, “Here’s a good idea: let’s use an existing rail line and put passengers on it.”

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Why hasn’t it happened?

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: “Move them faster and more”—that’s right, Mr Brownlee—“effectively.” A sleek, silver train—think about it. Something sleek—oh, yes.

Even in Christchurch, you know, my electorate is left with a legacy of a motorway from the north that’s spewing cars into the middle of my electorate, with no thought about what that’s going to do—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It’s Garry Moore’s fault.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: And you know what—it’s not Garry Moore’s fault at all, Mr Brownlee. Garry Moore stood firm against that, and it was the last Government that finally dumped those cars out from the dormitory towns into Christchurch Central, and now we have to manage it. But, you know, at least we’ve got a Minister of Transport and an Associate Minister who are doing a great job, because do you know what they’re putting first? It’s safety. I’ve heard in question time the Opposition say, “What are you doing about this? Why are you putting safety first?” We put safety first because lives matter. So it might be just a median barrier down Marshland Road or a separate cycleway, but you know what? Looking after the people who are injured and who are killed—two in the past 10 years on that stretch of road, and 13 seriously injured—that’s why we’re focusing on safety, because it’s the right thing to do.

When we look at the fantastic plan for Wellington, I’m almost jealous. If I didn’t have such a fantastic city already, I’d be jealous that Wellington was catching up too fast. The plan for Wellington is fantastic. It’s great to put walking first. We need to recognise that walking is the primary means of transport; almost everyone does it almost every day. So a Wellington city where people choose to walk first is going to be a great city. I’ll look forward to coming here, but not too much.

And, of course, cycleways: I’m really excited about the cycleways that we’re seeing. Wellington needs more and better cycleways, and we now have a plan that’s—and I’ll tell you what else is good about the Wellington plan. Something they’ve learnt, no doubt, from Christchurch, is the joined-up approach: the fact that they’ve got their regional council on board, their city council on board, New Zealand Transport Agency on board, and, of course, the Government right behind it all the way.

This is a Government that’s looking out to the long term. It is supporting local government, and it’s supporting other agencies and finding solutions that will last. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. We’ve got a huge deficit. But we’re taking the right steps in transport and elsewhere. We’re putting an infrastructure commission in place. I’m so glad at last we’ve got a Government that cares about today, tomorrow, and the future. Thank you.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): The member who just resumed his seat, he started to speak so well. He promised that after all that noise, he would bring some order. Then, like George Orwell’s animals, I looked from Webb to Smith and Smith to Webb and Smith to Webb again, and still I could see no difference. I could hear no difference because they sounded exactly the same.

I’ve had quite an interesting week, I’d have to say, and it actually has taught me one thing: the great line out of the great movie Thank You For Smoking, “Let it be known, the public beating has not gone out of [fashion].”

It seems that an MP can’t even say that another MP who wants to regulate what you can say—and it does include you, Madam Deputy Speaker; it includes all of us—should somehow be a menace to freedom of speech. If one says that, then one deserves a public beating. You see, if one says that—an honestly held view about politics and the future of our country, which is what we’re supposed to be here to express—then one is responsible for violence and thuggery.

The logic of that is that we should have our speech regulated by the thugs and the bullies, because, if anybody makes a threat, then the victim of the threat is not allowed to be criticised—that they should have their participation in political debate curtailed and become a no-go zone. We allow the thugs and bullies to win, because we can’t debate things that they have said they are going to use violence against.

The reaction: well, let me say again, a good old-fashioned public beating ain’t gone out of fashion, even in this country at the time this Parliament’s talking about bullying.

You know, it started with a real surprise. Judith Collins, someone who can usually be relied upon to stand up for freedom of expression, thought it was more important to criticise how I said it than what I said. The specific threat to freedom of expression in this country—oh, that could have a free pass, but saying that somebody who wants to regulate all speech is a menace to that freedom, that’s a major problem.

Then, the next thing that came along was the media, and they didn’t ask the questions. They didn’t ask the question how an MP had to have a security detail. They didn’t ask why the first thing that happened was that they, the media, were told. They happily trotted out the narrative that it was because of the evil David Seymour’s innocuous debating points. A public beating hasn’t gone out of fashion.

Then came a real surprise—actually, there was one more expected one. The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians wrote to me. They didn’t ask any of those questions and said I should monitor my behaviour. Well, I’ve written back to them and said I do that all the time and, actually, it’s up to them to start asking the question: is it right that women in New Zealand should feel afraid to engage in debate because they are threatened and be held to a different standard if they’re victims of threats?

Then the surprise came. Even the Speaker of the House of Parliament weighed in and said that I was a bully. Well, a public beating hasn’t gone out of fashion here in New Zealand or in this Parliament.

What all of these people have done is very clearly demonstrated why it is so important that an individual has the right to express their thoughts and their feelings freely, so long as they do not directly incite violence, so long as they do not defame anybody, and so long as they do not directly threaten somebody. We have that freedom, and we must preserve it because, as we’ve seen in the last 48 hours, you can’t rely on other political parties, you can’t rely on the Speaker of the House, you can’t rely on the media, and you certainly can’t rely on the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. All of those people are happy to indulge in a popularity contest where the winners get to put the losers perhaps even in prison with the sanction of State power.

That is a future that we cannot afford in this country. That is the reason why we must continue to stand up for freedom of expression, and that is why, when people issue the kinds of disgusting threats that have allegedly been made against one member of Parliament, rather than politicising the issue and attacking each other, we should be united in condemning those people, we shouldn’t absolve them of any responsibility by accusing each other, and we should be investigating what those people have done and punishing them—not ourselves and not freedom of expression in this country. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): It was not part of what I was going to talk about, but, in light of that particular speech, I feel that as Minister for Ethnic Communities I must comment on the previous speaker, David Seymour, before I go on.

March the 15th is still fresh in all of our minds. There are some of us that get all sorts of comments—be they online, be they in person—mainly because (a) we’re women and (b) we are from ethnic minority backgrounds. We know that racism is linked to bullying. We know that the schools, actually—and this is something I found out when I was going around talking with ethnic communities directly and with Pacific communities directly late last year. What our young people, what our parents, and what our teachers were telling me is that discriminatory behaviour, racism, is rife for them and their children. This is an issue that as a country, we as parliamentarians—there are things that we could do to address it in a systematic way, and there are things that we also could do to address it as people, as human beings, and as members of Parliament.

But if I can just go back to the three things I wanted to cover. We’ve come into Government, and there are a lot of things that our Government is doing. There are a lot of long-term issues that we are addressing, and there are three things I want to talk about: building and construction; ethnic communities is one of those; as well as Pacific people in terms of health and Māori health as well.

I’ll begin with building and construction. When we came in as Government, we were confronted with the fact that we are short by 30,000 skilled people in the building and construction sector. It takes a few years to train electricians, plumbers, and builders—everyone that we need to build the houses, the roads, and the infrastructure that we need. We have begun that work.

When we looked at the building and construction sector, it is really fragmented. What have we done since we came in? A few things. One of them is we’ve actually got a construction sector accord signed. This is the first time ever that you’ve seen seven Ministers of the Crown coming together with leaders from industry and agreeing on nine areas of work. Our Government are leading two of those areas. First, we’ve said that we would use our procurement, and that’s $40 billion to $41 billion a year that we can utilise to ensure that as we procure, as we contract out, there are certain things that we could do to assist and to work with industry. The reality is we know that we need industry to help us train our apprentices. It is not something that we simply sit around here and say this is the policy and we can train those workers. So it is really important that we have come in partnership with industry.

The second thing that we have said we would lead as Government is looking at the Building Act 2004. Now, since that Act came into force 15 years ago, it has not really actually been amended in a major way to address a lot of issues. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is out consulting with the sector right now on my behalf up until the 16 June. It is open to the public to let us know what it is that we would need to do to ensure that the Building Act 2004 is indeed fit for purpose.

I want also to touch on rheumatic fever as it relates to Māori and Pacific children. On Saturday—earlier on this week—I announced that we will invest, from the Wellbeing Budget of 2019, $12 million to address rheumatic fever for Māori and Pacific children. I’ve got to actually acknowledge the former Government because they did put into place programmes to deal with this issue. However, in 2017, that particular programme—the targets for it were retired, put to rest, and the huge funding that was actually invested to ensure that the rates came down was, actually, not really continued.

So when we see the rates—37 percent Māori children affected by rheumatic fever, 57 percent of our Pacific children affected by rheumatic fever—this is an initiative that is absolutely needed in order to save more of our children’s lives. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Well, 2019 was supposed to be the year of delivery but all the Government is delivering is a nightmare for New Zealanders—failure after failure. Do you know what? Today we learned that, apparently, New Zealand police have started the gun buy-back programme some weeks and months ahead of finalising the regulations for how much they should actually pay.

New Zealanders might well ask themselves—in this year of abject let-down—which Minister could possibly be worse than the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, who, with his “Kiwi failed” programme, has delivered a mere 80-odd KiwiBuild homes? Who could be worse than that? Well, it’s the Minister of Transport. Last Thursday, the Minister of Transport—who happens to be the same person—announced, finally, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving initiative. Well, it should be called anything other than “moving”. It is a programme that is both underwhelming in its detail and what it will deliver, and completely overwhelming in the cost burden it’s going to place on Wellingtonians in the city and across the region. Apparently, we’re getting some things, and those things include mass transit, a second Mount Victoria tunnel, and something around the Basin Reserve but we don’t know when. Some time, at some point in the future, Wellingtonians are going to be blessed with some largesse from Mr Phil Twyford that is going to do some things.

We do know, however, because it was the National led-Government that instituted the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme—a programme that was put in place to give an integrated approach and solution for the transportation issues between Ngauranga and the airport, as well as some public transport improvements including mass transit. Well, the programme that’s been announced can’t possibly deliver that. As Mr Twyford confirmed yesterday, the indicative package he announced does not include the second tunnel at the Terrace, it does not include the Te Aro undergrounding from that tunnel to the Basin, and—guess what?—looking at the New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA) documents, which are the Minister’s documents, it doesn’t include the fourth southbound lane from Ngauranga to the Aotea Quay off-ramp either. It simply cannot deliver on the promises of Let’s Get Wellington Moving, which were unlocking productivity into and out of the city. It can’t deliver it because it leaves the major arterial route—not just for Wellington but of the country—State Highway 1, which remains blocked at the end of the Wellington motorway because they are not doing anything about it. They have this strange obsession with loss-making light rail that they will set aside all of the productivity gains that could be generated through this programme for their little $1.44 billion toy train set.

Now, the Prime Minister ruled out a regional fuel tax outside of Auckland. So Minister Twyford, along with the Labour Wellington City mayor and the former Labour MP chair of the regional council, got together and they cooked up this tricky alternative to a regional fuel tax. So instead of levying Wellingtonians on the amount of fuel they consume, they are going to put a regional transport tax on their rates and other charges such as parking—$2.6 billion. This is extra money for roads that Wellingtonians will have already paid for through their fuel taxes. Oh no, Labour-elected members have never met a tax they don’t like, and they’re going to slam Wellingtonians with another $2.6 billion.

While they’re doing it, they’re going to put in a massively expensive light rail system—$1.44 billion. Now, despite their protestations, it can’t be anything other than light rail because bus rapid transit would cost about one quarter of that amount, and everyone knows that even trackless trams would be hundreds of millions of dollars less simply because they don’t require steel rails in the ground—$1.44 billion. This is despite the Public Transport Spine Study in 2015 recommending bus rapid transit—that study being re-validated in Let’s Get Wellington Moving just a couple of years ago—and that original study finding that a light rail system from the airport to the railway station would lose between 90 and 95 cents on every dollar spent on it, and that was when it was half a billion dollars cheaper. This is simply going to absolutely gouge Wellingtonians for no benefit at all.

Talking about no benefit—the ones who are really worst off out of this, certainly in Wellington City, are the people all across Ohariu. They pay a disproportionate amount because, using their vehicles more, they would be paying more in fuel taxes, as well as their share of this regional transport tax, and they get absolutely zilch out of it. No southbound lane, no Terrace tunnel. Eventually, when they get to the Basin, things might be a little bit better, but it’s going to take them as much time in 10 years’ time to get there as it takes them today.

I could think to paraphrase someone about this plan: never in the field of human endeavour will so much be taken from so many for so little.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you for this opportunity to speak in the general debate. I want to take the next five minutes to talk about a couple of recent announcements which I am so proud of, and which make me so proud to be part of this Government. Just last week I was at Ngāwhā Prison. It was a very emotional and confronting day but it was one that was also full of hope. I was standing alongside my colleagues, my whanaunga—the Hon Kelvin Davis, Minister of Corrections, and the Hon Peeni Henare, Minister for Whānau Ora—where we made an announcement for $98 million for a Māori pathway to address Māori reoffending and recidivism rates in this country.

When I came to Parliament I shared a story in my maiden speech. When I was at university I opened up the newspaper—a two-page spread in that newspaper was full of faces and names of wanted and convicted criminals. The majority of them were Māori and Pasifika, and the majority of them were young. Many of them, I could tell from their last names, were from Ngāpuhi, and when I saw that I just couldn’t believe it. This is not how it should be for my people.

I remember when Ngāwhā Prison was opened, and it was very contentious at the time. The promise that was made to the people of Ngāpuhi was that that would be a place for rehabilitation of our Māori offenders in the hope that they would not be recidivists and they would not be back there again. I am so proud of the announcement made by the Hon Kelvin Davis and Peeni Henare. We are taking a different approach, not just a 16-week programme—one from the beginning to the end of their sentence, one with a joined-up Whānau Ora approach.

I was also proud, on Monday, to welcome the eight new graduates from the Royal New Zealand Police College who will be servicing our communities in Northland. We have focused on our community safety and wellbeing, investing and recruiting and training more police officers and putting them back on our streets. All whakapapa to the North. It was so beautiful to hear their stories—the challenges of undertaking the training so far away from home but the pride that they were returning home to service their communities.

At that graduation the district commander commended the Government for our announcement of the $320 million investment to eradicate sexual and domestic violence in this country. I remember, four years ago, joining the Hon Kelvin Davis on a hīkoi that he led to eliminate sexual violence—men speaking up in support of that kaupapa. So on Sunday, when the announcement was made for $320 million to be invested in this area—the single largest amount in a single Budget ever—I was so proud. We are tackling the long-term challenges, the long-term problems. I really want to acknowledge my colleague Jan Logie, who is in the House, for her work in that area. The feedback we have had has been overwhelmingly positive.

We are focused on wellbeing. We are focused on people. We are putting people at the centre of everything that we do. We are building a New Zealand that we can all be proud of. Yesterday I listened to the speech from our Prime Minister on the climate legislation that we have introduced on setting targets. It was an amazing speech—speaking directly to the young people, for they have been the ones that have been challenging us to do something. I heard a comment earlier in the Hon Dr Megan Woods’ speech where she said that we are governing for the next generation, not just the next election. How true.

We have banned plastic bags. We’ve banned offshore mining permits. We introduced climate legislation yesterday. We are working on a kinder, more caring society. We saw the images of our Prime Minister leading change globally in terms of social media to ensure that it is no longer a platform or a place for violent, extremist thoughts and ideas. How proud I was to see her leading that, the Christchurch Call, after, as we heard today, on 15 March, we had such a devastating event in this country. What that showed me after that event was that all of us as New Zealanders really want a kinder, more caring society, and I am proud that we are putting people and wellbeing at the centre of everything that we do. Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I sat in a room with the likes of the Employers and Manufacturers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, National Road Carriers, and Penrose Business Association, and we wanted to hear from Minister Twyford, and we did, about the East-West Link. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a major road that links up State Highway 1 and State Highway 20, because there are frozen freight—that’s the current circumstances right now. We sat in that room in March, and we were told that by May we would have four options that we’d all be looking at. That was May a year ago, and what has happened since then? Absolutely nothing. We have had nothing. Now, if you think that this is just another road—no, think again. This area is New Zealand’s second-largest contributor to GDP. It is a major engine room of this economy. If you had trucks delayed on Neilson Street alone for 15 minutes every day, that’s about, conservatively, $35 million a year of lost productivity. It has taken years to get to this point, and a $50 million process to go through the Environmental Protection Authority and get it signed off. So what’s happening and what’s the plan? Nothing. We’ve got silence.

Meanwhile, Minister Twyford and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) head off in another direction to a small footbridge in the area, and that footbridge—they’re about to spend $25 million breaking construction ground for that, and that was signed off four years ago by the public; consulted four years ago. Now, what’s wrong with that? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that. Since then, we’ve got a $1.8 billion east-west project and a $6 billion light rail project, and that footbridge takes neither of those into account. Why are they forging ahead with a footbridge in the same area that does not line up, does not match up, with billion-dollar projects? What’s the plan here? I wouldn’t know, because I was shut out of a meeting by NZTA to find out what the plan is.

This is the so-called year of delivery, but more than halfway through this Government’s term, Phil Twyford has no plan whatsoever for his delivery. Traffic and congestion is lining up and building up in Onehunga, and there is no plan. We haven’t heard a single thing about their alternative for the East-West Link. Meanwhile, 6,000 trucks a day are sitting in congestion in this area. They’re forced to drive through the suburban streets of Onehunga.

We haven’t even seen the business case for the $6 billion light rail route. They’ve realised how difficult and costly it really is. But the one thing that they’re doing is pushing ahead with the old Māngere footbridge. They’re pushing ahead even though, as I said, it was designed and consented all the way back in 2016. NZTA have admitted that they haven’t taken into account the East-West Link and light rail when pushing ahead with the footbridge. All three projects intersect in the same place—my patch, Onehunga, right next to the harbour—and there is no alignment between these projects. Phil Twyford’s too blinded by his dream for light rail and he’s taking a “make it up as you go” approach to Onehunga. Well, Onehunga deserves better, and so does New Zealand, because this is a major contributor to the GDP in this country.

Finally, all politics is local, is it not? Countless local intersections in Onehunga that used to be quiet suburban intersections are now experiencing high-risk, rat-running, seriously unsafe conditions. Here’s how I know: I started a petition to fix one of them up. Now, I’m pleased to say that Auckland Transport listened to me. Unfortunately, Phil Twyford’s not listening in a bigger way, but Auckland Transport did, and that intersection is being fixed up. But it’s caused by the congestion of inaction and no plan by Minister Twyford as the Minister of Transport. That intersection is in the top worst intersections of all of Auckland. I’ve done something about it. What is Phil Twyford doing for the rest of the transport projects? There’s a lack of action, there’s a lack of plan by Minister Twyford. He’s outside catching the sun rays while, meanwhile, a major engine room of New Zealand’s economy is grinding to a halt.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just really, tonight, want to mark what I hope will become a really significant moment in this country’s history—a commitment from the whole of Government to lay the foundations to end family and sexual violence in this country. I really hope that this is a turning point, and that our children in the future will look in their history books about a time where there were a million New Zealanders who were affected by family and sexual violence, and that they read that with a sense of horror and incomprehension that that could have been the case, but that they see a point in time where we all came together as a country to change that.

I hope our Budget announcement on Sunday will be a clear signal of that change. It was one of the proudest moments for me, personally, in my life, to be able to stand with the Prime Minister and announce the largest single Budget commitment in this area by any Government in one Budget ever. It represented not just one person’s work, or one department saying it was going to do this initiative, but, actually, eight different Ministers’ and agencies’ work, all committing to coordinating our actions, working with initiatives that exist in our communities, and working with our communities to turn this around.

This is a game-changing moment, because we know that there are some issues in our society that are so complex and difficult that they cannot be solved or even adequately addressed by a siloed approach. We hear stories from people in our communities of nine cars up the driveway coming to “fix” them. This announcement doesn’t represent another car in the driveway; this announcement represents the possibility that the right person will turn up in the driveway to be there to provide what is needed for that whānau for them to be safe and supported.

When I hear from the community of the case of a survivor who was undergoing, and I use that word advisedly, or having five different intensive case management programmes imposed on her—we are not adding another. We are providing the possibility of, actually, her getting the support that she needs, informed by all the expertise from all those different agencies, but not being overwhelmed by a whole lot of conflicting different messages. It’s the hope of actually having person-centred policies and responses from Government, that we hold our people and our collective safety and wellbeing at the heart of our work. So for me, this is a moment to celebrate.

I often feel cynical about politics. I did before I came in here, and I still do sometimes, but I really want to acknowledge that this is one of those moments where I feel some hope that we can do this differently. I want to acknowledge, too, the Opposition in terms of laying down some of the groundwork for this new approach, and I do hope that New Zealanders can see—because I know they want to—that we are all responding together to turn this around, because everyone in this country deserves to be safe and free. That is at the heart of wellbeing for the entire country. Kia ora.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill

Third Reading

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I move, That the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill be now read a third time.

It is a great honour to be asked by the local community and the Gore District Council to bring this bill to the House and shepherd it through to this point. That said, I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker and local Labour list MP Liz Craig, who I know had been involved intricately in bringing this bill to the House as well, particularly Hamish. I would also like to commend the Governance and Administration Committee, that travelled to Gore to hear, I think, 14 submissions under the guidance and leadership of chairman Brett Hudson.

This bill may not represent New Zealand’s nuclear-free moment, but it is a really important issue for the local people involved, and it’s really important for this community—one that contributes so much, particularly to the economy of New Zealand with the primary products that come out of that district and, of course, Southland as a whole, that produces, I think, 14 percent of New Zealand’s merchandise exports with just 1.5 percent of the population. Ōtama and the surrounding districts are absolutely a key part of that, so when they need the Government and when they need this Parliament to sort their issues out, it is only right that we should be there for them.

The purpose of this bill is to specify the process for which the Gore District Council transfers the ownership of the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme to Otama Rural Water Ltd. The bill will allow the Gore District Council to override section 130(2) of the Local Government Act 2002, which requires councils to meet their obligations for water supply under this Act. Councils must not divest ownership of water schemes supplying more than 200 households, and, of course, the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme, as we’ve heard in earlier readings, supplies 223 households, two schools, and the local Ngāi Tahu Hokonui Rūnanga marae. In seeking the exemption, the Gore council are drawing upon the very clear precedent set by the South Taranaki District Council in regard to passing the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Act of 2013.

My own involvement in this matter stems back, actually, to May of 2017. As an aspiring politician, I got a tip-off that this was a local matter that was generating some heat and it might be worth my while travelling the hour from my own home in Lawrence to the Ōtama Hall to get a bit of a sense of what was going on. What greeted me was actually a pretty familiar sight to those of us brought up in rural communities: a packed rural hall with the local councillors and the officials and the local mayor and chief executive lined up the front while some pretty heated discussion and debate was going on from the local householders and landowners. The catalyst, really, was the fact that the Gore council had been managing the scheme—the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee had been governing it, but the council had been running it. The farmers, being astute businessman as they were, were concerned about escalating costs and were looking to bring private enterprise in and get some pricing.

This unlocked what had been a historical ownership dispute. What had previously been assumed by the council was that they had ownership of the scheme, because in the wash-up of the Southland County Council in the amalgamations of the 1989 Local Government Act, they assumed that legally they owned the scheme. The local farmers, though, contended that they owned the scheme. It had gone back, in fact, to the local Otago Federated Farmers branch meeting in around 1969-1970, where local farmer Ian Robertson—and, Ian, I know you will be watching now. You’re 90 years old now, I believe—still a very astute observer of politics and someone whose advice I draw on regularly, but your influence in this scheme is acknowledged. It was soon local farmers—and there’s some very notable local names here, and I’m sure Hamish will traverse some as well, but Stuart Baird, Charlie Kerse, Hughie Chittook, Les Morrison, and, of course, no mention of the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme is complete without acknowledging the 25 years of chairmanship of Tom Affleck. Of course, we all recall Tom being here for the second reading of the speech and the great thrill he got from seeing his work being acknowledged in this House.

The scheme itself started in 1972, and the farmers themselves paid for it. They paid with their own money—they were, of course, in different times before the health and safety regulations of today—and put the original scheme in, needing 90 hours of their own labour to be contributed and a small loan from the Southland County Council, which, when Tom’s talking about it, he always emphasises the fact that that was paid back in double-quick time. Stage two and three followed soon after, and by the time stage three went through in 1976, it was providing stock water and potable water for houses for 73,000 hectares, and the Government actually put in a one-for-one subsidy in stage three. Isn’t it good to see the Provincial Growth Fund back enabling efforts like that to continue in regional New Zealand now?

The well itself is by the Pyramid Bridge, and the committee itself has governed this particular scheme beautifully over all of that time. They’ve provided high-quality water with good consistency and quality. They’ve upgraded the main line in the last 15 years, all the while running healthy surpluses and capital and depreciation accounted for.

So the upshot of the meeting was that there was a referendum that was called for by the council, and 76 percent of the respondents, which was actually 75 percent of the people that were eligible, voted in favour of the committee taking ownership of the water and forming a company for which that could be worked under. Of course, the backdrop of this, and where the contention probably could’ve been, is it does go against the direction of public policy, and we do know that the Havelock water crisis of 2015, the response to that, and the work that Minister Mahuta is doing in this field with the Three Waters Review will all be taken into account, but we’ve got to keep to the matter at hand here, which is we are operating under the laws of today. We’re not presuming anything. We have the legal precedent, as I said earlier, of the South Taranaki District Council (Cold Creek Rural Water Supply) Act 2013, and the water committee have committed to meeting any obligations that will come from any increase in requirements for water quality. I will acknowledge the select committee and the committee of the whole House for beefing up those clauses—particularly clause 8(1) and 8(3).

So, without further ado, I’d like to thank the officials for the good work they did, particularly in travelling down to Gore. As mentioned before, I thank again the select committee for the good work and good intent—Paul Eagle, I see, just pulled in here, still pulls me aside all the time to talk about the quality of the smoko that he got down there that day—and I thank members from across the House that engaged positively in this bill. So, Tom, the ball is back in your court, shortly. When we pass this bill, you will get the ability to take this board—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Just before the member finishes, can the member say the whole name for the record, and that is the tradition in the House—full name.

MARK PATTERSON: So, Tom Affleck, chairman of the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme, the ball is back in your court, and we know that you will guide this further astutely, as you have for the last 25 years. So it is an absolute pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Congratulations to Mark Patterson for bringing this bill before us as the local list MP, and it’s a good thing for a relatively new member to be able to advocate for the community in which he lives. I also want to congratulate Tom Affleck and his committee of the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme for their hard work in bringing this bill to the House and hosting the Governance and Administration Committee so very well down in Gore as the committee had a look into the issues. Credit is due to the committee for taking the interest to travel down to the lower South and just see what a rural water scheme looks like on the ground, because it is quite different from, say, for example, Wellington Water, or even a water scheme in a relatively small town. In Masterton, it’s quite different. In Levin, it’s quite different. In Shannon, it’s quite different.

A rural water scheme is literally a water scheme, as in the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme case, which was built by a farmer group who had got together and who get together in groups all around New Zealand historically. In fact, there’s quite a strong tradition of groups of farmers getting together, and, when I lived in rural North Otago, we lived at the top of a hill at the end of a rural water scheme. So those of you who do live rurally will understand that living at the top of a hill at the end of a rural water scheme is not a great thing when you have young babies and all you get out of the taps is slaters, because that’s what can come along if you haven’t got your allocation of water, and your tank isn’t quite big enough for the task. It is different. So you’ve got to take your hat off to any group of farmers who have those meetings. They might go down to the local hall, they might go down to the pub, they might go into different people’s homes, and they get together to put that essential infrastructure in.

That infrastructure goes in for stock water—very important in drought-prone areas of New Zealand, as North Otago is and will continue to be; and, of course, not so much in Gore, but, certainly, stock water is important to all animal life—and then, of course, water for the homestead—potable water for the homestead. So the group of farmers will have sat around the table, and they’d have done the costings, and they would have got the local town lawyer in and had a look at what needed to be done in terms of easements and talking to the council and ownership, and then there will have been working fees. I know this certainly with, in my area, the western rural water scheme. That scheme was quite old, but, I tell you what, the pipes would burst seemingly just about every week, and you’d find that the flag on your water tank would go down, down, down, and you go, “OK. Look, it’s going down”. It will keep going down over a few days and then go “clunk” against the top of the tank, and then you’d know you’re in trouble, and it was either because the water scheme had been turned off or there was a leak, so you’d go out and have a look for the leak.

That is life on a rural water scheme—or was life, because, these days, and I’m going back 30 years here, most water schemes now have evolved into a much tidier, more efficient sort of operation. So it is with the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme. Mark Patterson has given a bit of the history of the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme and the process that the farm group needed to go to in order to transfer membership to the farmer group. So I don’t think it would be useful for me to go over those things. The one thing I would say about any process like that is that one needs to have not only agreement of the members of the order group but the general agreement and support of the community, and without that it makes it very difficult. But that was achieved by the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee, and, now, here we are in the Parliament, taking the last steps.

I know others will mention the Havelock North campylobacter incident, which was devastating for that community, and, when we were in Government, we initiated a report into that and there were two reports. The second one came to Government and into the hands of the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who then has embarked on a three waters programme of reform. I mention that because rural water schemes have that quirky, “slater in the water” rich history, but there is a risk to human health with water schemes. It is well-known that water schemes rural and larger, as we now know from Havelock North, can fail. So National does support, broadly, the programme of reform which has been proposed by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta; although we haven’t seen very much of it, so it is a little concerning that progress seems to be glacial.

I turn now to the New Zealand Labour Party view. We did report back to the House with a select committee report which contained parties’ views. There was support for the bill—of course there was, because it’s a local bill. It had done everything right, it’s aims were quite proper, and it will have an outcome that benefits not only the local community that it serves but also water quality. But the Labour Party did take the view that this bill should be set aside, or deferred, until after Cabinet announces its decisions regarding the drinking-water reforms. It says that these policy announcements are expected in June 2019; don’t bet on it—don’t bet on it. There’s no sign at all that the House, or we, or anyone is going to see any clear direction around the three waters reform, and that is a concern because the three waters work was announced with great pomp and circumstance, and trips overseas and over to Australia, and great, lofty plans about what was going to happen with aggregated, compulsory water schemes and raising drinking-water standards. What have we seen so far? Very little—very little.

In the year of delivery, the Minister of Local Government, Nanaia Mahuta, has delivered very, very little. In fact, the only deliverable, if you like, has been a bill which sits on the Order Paper, in the name of the Hon David Clark, which is the drinking-water standards bill, and it’s sitting somewhere—here we go—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order!

Hon JACQUI DEAN: But I am returning to the Otama—thank you—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Members shouldn’t be anticipating what’s coming up on the Order Paper. The member should return to her speech.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. So the drinking water: there is lodged, and it is known—and forgive me if I transgress, although I don’t think I am—there is a drinking-water standards bill, which is part of the three waters work. Well, you know, let’s do the math. There’s only about 14 months until this current Government rises to contest the next election, and we’re not seeing a lot of progress. So that is why for the National Party, while we cannot stop the Labour delaying tactic in this bill; we weren’t in a position to stop them having the view that this Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill shouldn’t go ahead.

But I just feel that it was not taking the interests of the Ōtama water scheme community first and foremost. What it was doing, I think, is—I don’t know—just being a little too cautious, perhaps, because the water scheme, upon being transferred into the ownership of the water scheme owners, is still required to comply with drinking-water regulations as they stand now. So there was no benefit in delaying consideration of this bill, in putting it aside and deferring it—for what; how many years? Nobody knows, but how many years, leaving all those farmers waiting? We couldn’t support that, and so we didn’t.

Neither could we support the Supplementary Order Paper 206 of Marama Davidson: “In clause 8(1)(d), after ‘[transferred] the Company’, … insert ‘, including its ability to meet any relevant regulatory requirements’.” No point. It has to anyway. So, again, here was a bit if meddling by the Green Party and trying to put more regulation in, which they always seem to be very in favour of—not needed. Perhaps it would have been more useful if the Green Party had actually understood regulations around drinking water, but that is as may be. I commend the bill to the House.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’m delighted to speak at the third reading of the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill.

Hon Members: “Gorre”.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Have to roll those Rs—have to roll those Rs. But this is a great, great day and a great occasion. When it comes to third readings, it’s all about giving the acknowledgments that are definitely due. Can I acknowledge Mark Patterson, sponsor of the bill, and fellow local members down in the Clutha-Southland region, Hamish Walker, Liz Craig, and my good self as well. I want to acknowledge the Gore District Council and the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee, who have, over many years, worked together to ultimately get to this point now where we have a bill which will clarify, once and for all, the ownership of a very important water-supply scheme, which was built, funded, and established by the good farmers and rural folk in that beautiful part of the country.

So I don’t intend to prolong this speech, but I simply want to acknowledge the Ōtama committee. I look forward to them ultimately going through all of the processes which are prescribed in this bill to ultimately have ownership vested back in the owners of this scheme—the households and the farms that built the scheme, including one marae, which is affiliated to te Hokonui Rūnanga. I want to acknowledge, just lastly, my whanaungas down there in Hokonui. When acknowledging them, I acknowledge the two Ngāti Māmoe chiefs, Te Rakitauneke and his taniwha Matamata, which you can see through the Hokonui Hills; and also Paroparo Te Whenua, who resided in the waterfalls of Mataura there.

I want to thank Taare Bradshaw and the team and Terry Nicholas, and all my relations down there in Hokonui for the work that they did in supporting this bill. I have drunk many cups of tea at that marae, and I can say the water is absolutely fine. I am looking forward to seeing the ultimate transfer of these assets to the company. I congratulate them on all the work that they’ve done and I support this bill at its third reading. Kia ora.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I’d just like to start by acknowledging fellow member Mark Patterson. Mark, you’ve done a good job of this, mate. It’s not always easy in your first term—as I’m working out—getting a bill through the House. You’ve worked well with both sides, so I just want to congratulate you on that.

To the previous speaker, Rino Tirikatene, you represent a large patch of New Zealand—the entire South Island. Just for the record, I’ll have you know, Gore is the brown trout capital of the world. I’m quite happy to take you on a personal tour there. Just for the member beside you—Mr Paul Eagle—one of the highlights of the day when the Governance and Administration Committee visited Gore was your comment to me after we had some amazing Southland cheese rolls, some amazing kai, and you said to me, “Hey mate, I’ve got a question for you.” I said, “Oh, what’s that Paul?”, and he goes, “Oh, when are you getting out of this political business?” I said, “Well, what do you mean?”, and he goes, “Oh, I wouldn’t mind a seat like this—the people down here and it’s a pretty beautiful part of the country.” So we had a lot of fun that day.

Can I just acknowledge the excellent work of the chair of the select committee, Brett Hudson. It’s a hard-working committee which seems to have quite a high number of bills going through it. I just want to also thank all those other members. To the chairman Tom Affleck: Tom, I’ll be speaking about your submission shortly. No doubt you’re watching. I hear the weather’s pretty chilly down there. So I hope you’ve got a heater.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’m just going to interrupt the member for a moment. There’s a lot of use of personal pronouns in the member’s speech, bringing the Speaker into the debate. The member should alter his use of the word “you”, and if all members can note, when they’re mentioning other members or members of the public, they should say their entire name—their first and surname, I should say.

HAMISH WALKER: Thanks, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tom Affleck, I’m sure you’re watching. To the other committee members, Hamish Mackay, John Kerse, Chris Affleck, Gavin Cruickshank, David Smith, and Donald Johnson, you should be proud of your efforts. You’ve done a fantastic job, and I hope you’re staying warm down south—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): “They”—“they”, not “you”.

HAMISH WALKER: This bill is a practical and fair solution for the local farmers. This is not a significant economic asset. The people that use it—the farmers, the shareholders—they’re the ones that have spent the last 50 or so years getting the scheme up and running. I think this is a lot more than just a water scheme. Those original innovative farmers back in the early 1970s, they’ve inspired future generations. I think there are a few families of third generation farmers that are now using this scheme. This is like history, and it probably won’t make the grade for a Hollywood movie, but I think you could write a reasonably good book about the history of the water scheme.

I just want to talk a bit about some of the submissions that were made in Gore and also written submissions to the Governance and Administration Committee, and this gives you a sense of how much pride there is in the community for the water scheme. George Morrison, he made a really good point that the man who pays is the man who has the say. His father was the local Southland County Council member who played a vital part in getting it off the ground. He also made mention that the county at the time had no intention of taking the scheme over, and it’s not fair and not right that it’s owned by the council.

Another submitter, David Smith, also sits on the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee, made some interesting points. One of those was that after leaving school in the mid-1970s, he volunteered to work on the insulation of this scheme. He goes on to say that the scheme’s success is obvious, and he wants the ownership rightfully passed back to the scheme committee.

Another submitter, Alan Falconer, purchased his property 50 years ago and is one of the original parties to the scheme: “Without the Scheme, the ability to carry livestock was … limited.” In the primary referendum, he voted in favour of the moral owners becoming the legal owners, and I think that’s a good point to note.

I just want to talk a bit further about Alan’s submission, as it paints a picture of what it was like when the scheme was first implemented and why it’s so, so, so needed. He recalls being in situations during summer months when his farm was receiving no water: “Investigation indicated that sufficient water was being introduced to meet the demands of consumers, however no water was reaching my tank on the hill. Further investigation, after checking for leaks etc., discovered a dairy farmer requiring more water than his entitlement, had chosen to bypass the restrictor valve”—therefore taking away water from other users. The committee, on finding out this information, “acted immediately and made it very clear that any unauthorised tampering with the equipment would result in the offending property being permanently disconnected from the Scheme. As a consequence water flowed to the end of the line!” That sums it up for Southland people—good, honest, hard-working people.

Another person who’s played a huge role is Hamish Mackay, a wonderful chap. In his submission, he said that “the scheme has been very well managed by the … committee in conjunction with the [Gore District Council] 3 Waters department.”, and on that note, I’d just like to acknowledge the Gore District Council.

Chris Bishop: Yeah, they’ve done a good job.

HAMISH WALKER: They have done a good job, Chris Bishop. Upon discovering this, they’ve been very good to work with and held the referendum, where three out of four people turned out—just over three out of four, I think; 75 percent turned out—and 76 percent supported it. Hamish goes on to say that, as a consumer, he’s “happy to provide labour and machinery if and when required, to help on capital works projects.”

Another favourite submitter—one of my personal favourites—was Douglas Wing, who has been a user of the water supplied by the scheme since 1976 and has since subscribed for around 50 years: “My only usage of water from the Scheme for the last 43 years has been for stock water”. Over the years of connection with the scheme, he has “contributed to the upkeep through mainly providing labour for some maintenance tasks [and] machinery on occasion”.

John Gardyne: “We use the water from the Otama water scheme for our livestock and homes.”—he’s been involved in this scheme for three generations—“Clarence Gardyne was on the original committee and served as secretary. And I can remember him working with farmers to organise work days to lay pipe lines and negotiate with farmers access to put pipe lines through their land and carting abestos pipes on tractor trailers to trenches dug by the southland county grader. So 50 years have nearly past with the committee taking an active role in the governance and helping out with the physical work as well. The committee have had skin in the game all the way, it was the water they used for their homes as well as their livestock, that drove the committee to have good quality water as well as affordable water that was reliable in supply.”

Last, but not least, Tom Affleck, who has been involved in the scheme since it was first proposed. His property ranges from 100 metres to 250 metres above sea level. “Water was [only] available in the bottom of the gullies or creeks. Household water was roof water, a small spring with a pump in a gully that barely saw the sun during the winter. To have water easily accessible to stock in every paddock has been a huge advantage in stock management and also a happy family with no water restrictions.” He’s a long serving member, as he was voted on to the committee in 1972 as secretary and has been chairman since 1993. “Initial financial contributions was $200.00 for the 1st tank”—remember this is a few decades ago, because that was a lot of money back then—“$100.00 to the 2nd tank and $50.00 to 3rd tank plus 90 hours of labour from every consumer. In later years the committee and other consumers have contributed voluntary labour to lay new pipes, renewing the reservoirs and permanently fencing the same.”

One of Gore’s famous sons, Jamie Mackay, who is actually the current host of The Country, a farming show which is played daily from Monday to Friday, is also from there, and I’d like to also acknowledge Jamie for his interesting interview last week with Shane Jones. This is the difference between the National Party and other parties: we were founded for and by farmers—incredibly disappointing to hear Shane Jones say to Jamie, “If farmers aren’t milking cows, they’re moaning.” Well, they’re certainly not moaning at the moment. They should be absolutely proud of themselves, and well done to the committee.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much e Te Māngai. It’s a pleasure to be able to speak on a bill in which I had the privilege of going to the beautiful town of Gore to see what this issue meant to local people, and to hear those submissions in person was also a great opportunity. We received 14 oral submissions in Wellington and in Gore. The committee has also recommended some minor amendments to this bill, but the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill is a local bill that we believe will help local consumers regain control of a local water scheme.

The key issue in this area has been that the ownership of the scheme has been unclear as to whether that sits with those who administer and look after the scheme or whether that would be local council. So this bill makes the ownership clear by vesting it into those of the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee, known as and referred to in the bill as the committee.

I think it’s important that I briefly outline how this bill sits with Labour values and sits with the wider work that we are doing in terms of the Three Waters Review. This Government has taken a strong view that the management of drinking water, storm water, and waste water is a priority. We believe that those things are very important for New Zealanders, and it’s important to make sure that the quality of our water is of a high standard and keeps our people and our children safe.

It’s important that the committee, going forward, are fully committed—and, when I say “the committee”, I mean the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee—to ensuring the safety of users and to complying with all of its public health and other legal obligations. As part of the transfer process, the council and the committee have been agreeable in developing a water safety plan going forward. I believe that that is a good pathway.

Just to note, in conclusion, that on 15 May, a decision was made by the committee and the council to start chlorinating the scheme’s water and to provide that that would be safe for drinking purposes, and that’s important.

So without further ado, I’d like to acknowledge the member in charge of the bill, Mark Patterson, and also the local member, Hamish Walker, for their work in this space. I commend this bill to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It is an absolute pleasure to rise in support of the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill, and I too wish to acknowledge the members from the area—firstly, Mr Patterson, for promoting the bill into the House along with the Gore District Council. He’s done a great job for the people in the area to promote their interests around this matter and, ultimately, to see this to fruition as law. But I’d also like to recognise my colleague and the MP for Clutha-Southland, Hamish Walker, who’s done an exemplary job in promoting the interests of his entire electorate, including the people of Ōtama and Gore. Mr Walker accompanied us on our select committee day in Gore to hear submissions, and he substituted regularly on to the Governance and Administration Committee to be a part of the proceedings that saw this bill come successfully through select committee, well amended so that it exited that process in better shape. He has definitely played a very constructive and very real role to the point where we are about to support this third reading and see this enacted into law.

When this was first presented—certainly, from my perspective—and we got to read the submissions and then hear from the people of Ōtama, I found it a very easy position to reach that finding a way to navigate through the bill to an outcome that would see those assets back in the hands of the people who felt they’d always owned them is a very easy thing to accept, principally because the history is so cogent to that position. It feels so natural. It’s just under 50 years ago now, of course, when those residents—scheme users—from Ōtama put together not only their own capital but their own physical labour to institute a water system that was principally about stock water for their farms but, obviously, over time also for a school and a marae, to put into place their own water system.

The country is built on a lot of legends—some might say “myths” in some instances but a lot of legends—about hard-working Kiwis just mucking in, getting on with life, making the most of what they have and making things work, such as the old number eight wire mentality. I felt this was a great example of that—local farmers, principally farmers, getting together, having a problem about water to, obviously, improve their lands and improve their yields, and getting stuck in and doing it for themselves and then maintaining that system in what was really more of a collegial type of arrangement rather than a deeply complicated contract based under law, one where they then maintained that for many years, ensuring that, again, through their financial contributions but also the continued contribution of their own labour, the system would be maintained and improved where required, and there was at least one major capital upgrade—one major physical upgrade—to that system over this period of time.

I think we should probably phrase it as “an accident”—an accidental case that, upon someone reviewing the law and determining that the structure that existed for this collective, this group of people from Ōtama did not support the position of ownership of assets under New Zealand law. So the assets for this water supply were, effectively, transferred or deemed to be under the ownership of the council. Now, those users—the scheme payers, the people who have paid every cent to both the original deployment of the system and every cent of its maintenance and improvement over the years—became quite shocked when they discovered what it really meant: that the assets they had built and maintained were no longer theirs. Some of them, we heard, felt quite aggrieved by that, and so, reading that and hearing that, I’ve found it quite easy to accept that it was the right thing to do to return the assets to their rightful owners and to work through a bill so that we could make sure that that would be the ultimate outcome, and, hopefully, in a few minutes, when this has passed its third reading, that is indeed what will happen.

It wasn’t without some challenges, and I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Government members of the select committee. They had very honestly held concerns with the Three Waters Review that’s under way and how findings and decisions from that might then have implications on the scheme and that, in transferring it back into the ownership of the scheme, users might in some way prevent decisions made by Government from being reflected in the future of this scheme and its use. We were able to work through that—work through the members’ concerns—but equally importantly, with officials, work through the provisions of the bill to make sure that the potential risk at least wouldn’t be realised in the future. So the scheme company that will hold the assets is going to be required to ensure that they meet Government regulation and law, particularly, but not solely, with respect to drinking-water standards, because that is something that I think most people foresee as likely to come from the Three Waters Review. So there is that safeguard, which I think is important.

There was also consideration about how we as Parliament, and indeed the local council and the ratepayers, can be confident that this is what the people who will bear the ongoing burden—because they’ve borne it all this time, anyway—of the maintenance and upkeep of the water scheme want, and so, taking from local government processes, officials recommended, and the committee agreed and Parliament has continued to endorse, the idea that there must be another referendum held within five years of the enactment of this legislation that gets a majority of people that do wish for the assets to return to their ownership and will acknowledge, in doing so, through that water company that the onus, financial and otherwise, into the future will remain with those scheme users through that company.

So that can give us all confidence, particularly Parliament, because we’ve obviously got to pass this law to allow that to happen, but it can give us, it can give the district council and their officials, and it can give ratepayers across the district and particularly people within the scheme geographical area confidence that should that referendum be successful—and the previous referendum would suggest it certainly will be—then everyone can have confidence that it is the will of the people in the area and it is therefore the right thing to do.

I want to make a comment about the people of Ōtama, or certainly the people that participated in this bill. What a wonderful, wonderful group of New Zealanders. I mean, Southland and the South Island are already known, are already legendary, for hospitality even in this country, which itself has a reputation around the world for hospitality. That was true when we went and visited for the select committee, but it has been true all the way through with the way that the proponents from Ōtama have engaged with us in this process, supported us in this process, and, particularly, welcomed us.

Every one of them would be worthy of mention, but I wish to pay tribute specifically to Tom Affleck, a man who’s been at the forefront of this water-supply system for many, many years. He has really championed the cause. I particularly want to remark that he’s got a remarkable physical appearance, a similarity to someone who I can only presume is his younger cousin, Ben. I’ve seen him in the House here for the second reading and thought to myself, “It’s an uncanny resemblance, and it’s a shame his presumable cousin couldn’t be a part of the process as well.” We all would have enjoyed that. But Mr Affleck was indeed a wonderful champion for the people of Ōtama and a wonderful gentleman to work with as we worked through this bill. I don’t think we’ve had a single voice—certainly, since the select committee—in this Parliament that has given any dissent to what we are seeking to do.

What we are seeking to do is not a dry piece of law. What we are seeking to do is to acknowledge and return a set of important business and personal assets to a group of people who in themselves and their forebears, if you will, created and have maintained every piece, with their own finances and their own physical labour. They built the system, they’ve maintained the system, and they want to remain responsible for it. It is only fitting that we in this Parliament do them the respect and honour of returning to them the assets and responsibility which always really have been theirs.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party supports the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill. I think that some of the comments that Mr Hudson made about the strong community desire to have ownership of this water scheme—that is one of the reasons, in terms of the strong local support for that demonstrated in the referendum that was held, that the Green Party is supporting the bill. There was a 75 percent turnout in that referendum, with 294 voters, and 76 percent of them voted in support of the ownership of the scheme being transferred to the Otama Rural Water Supply company.

Certainly, water belongs to all of us, and we all have a responsibility for its management. This scheme, when it was built in the 1970s in the heart of prime dairy farming country around Gore, was all about providing water to the community—some 253 connections, 210 farms, two schools, and one marae. It was built to provide a source of water for stock, but over the years it has also become really important in providing potable drinking-water.

Everyone wants safe, healthy, secure water, and that’s why Supplementary Order Paper 206, which my colleague Marama Davidson put and which was adopted by this House, is to ensure that when the scheme is transferred there is an assessment of the ability of the company to meet regulatory requirements. It’s those regulatory requirements in terms of the work that this Government is doing in response to the Havelock North drinking-water disaster to ensure that everybody’s right to safe water is safeguarded. That is a useful addition to the bill, and I was pleased to hear Mr Hudson endorsing that, given that Ms Jacqui Dean was opposing the inclusion of the ability to meet those regulatory requirements around safe drinking-water, which I found quite odd.

So this bill does specify the process by which the assets belonging to, at the moment, the council should be transferred to the Otama Rural Water Supply company, and, as others have mentioned, there are a number of safeguards in that. There’s the one about having another referendum. The first referendum showed that there was overwhelming support for this. That needs to be confirmed in a subsequent referendum, and I think it’s interesting, because the scheme was established with the help of a loan from the Southland County Council and with a subsidy from central government. But, of course, there was a substantial contribution of time, energy, and skill from the local community. The loan was eventually repaid, but I think the community also understands that maintaining an effective and healthy water-supply comes with significant costs.

The recent decision to install chlorination has some quite significant costs of over $30,000, and I noticed in media coverage that because the scheme draws its water from a bore from the Mataura River and then the pipeline takes the water from the bore across the river—and that pipeline was on the Pyramid Bridge, when that bridge collapsed last year—the community was looking to Environment Southland to contribute to the costs of restoration of the pipeline. So this transfer that’s proposed will involve costs in maintaining an effective water-supply system, but the community is prepared to take that on, because they’ve already been investing quite a lot of effort in that, and the bill is needed because, of course, the Local Government Act makes it very clear that you cannot transfer the ownership of water schemes without an Act of Parliament if that scheme is supplying more than 200 users.

That’s an important threshold in the Act, because it does ensure that management of our water supplies remains the domain of councils on behalf of the wider community and that they are subject to regulatory requirements to ensure that the drinking water is safe, and that’s why the work that Minister Mahuta is leading around the three waters and the work that Mr Clark is involved with around improving the standards for drinking water and responding to the Havelock North crisis is so significant. This Government is committed to ensuring that we have really good management of storm water, of waste water, and of drinking water so that everyone can be assured of having healthy water to drink.

This is a small bill, but I commend the Governance and Administration Committee for the fact that they visited Gore. They heard members of the community speaking directly to them about the history of the scheme and about their desire for it to be transferred and the ownership settled. I commend the sponsor of the bill, Mark Patterson, for the work that he has done in channelling this bill through the House. It is a rare privilege for an MP to be responsible for a bill that does become law. So congratulations, Mr Patterson. I think the bill will respond to that very strong demand that was there in the submissions, in the hearings to the select committee, and in the media coverage about the bill for the community actually taking full ownership of it, given that they have been so active in actually building the scheme and maintaining it for several decades.

The bill, by just listing and setting out the process by which the transfer should happen, makes sure that there is certainty and clarity around that after there has been another referendum. So it is a good bill. I commend it to the House. Thank you.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and it’s my privilege to stand in support of this bill, the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill. What it does is it transfer the assets from the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme to Otama Rural Water Ltd.

I would like to start by acknowledging Mark Patterson, as everyone else has done, for sponsoring this bill. Moreover, I would like to acknowledge him for the way he has shared this whole history of the scheme, how it has started and how the farmers got together to build this asset, which is very important for the people living in that area. As was mentioned, it is connected to the farmlands in that area as well as the houses, the marae, and the school. They all benefit from this scheme. I would also like to acknowledge Hamish Walker, the local MP from Clutha-Southland, who also participated in this whole process. He came to the Governance and Administration Committee as well as to the hearings in the Gore District, and his contribution is also really well appreciated.

As we know, water is going to be very precious and we have to take care that we use water in a manner that our future generations can use water in times to come. If we look at some areas of the world where there are droughts, water is very precious to them, and we have an abundance of water. As the previous speaker, the Hon Eugenie Sage mentioned, this Government is looking into announcing a policy about the three waters. That is also a very important part, and I think that will show the right path to New Zealand for how we are going to utilise all three waters and treat them.

In this scheme, in the early 1970s, following meetings of farmers, the community considered that supply and recirculation of the water on farms should be a great assistance to stock management and health. The costs of the scheme were met by contributions in cash and labour from the users of the scheme and subsidies from the central government and a loan raised by the Southland County Council. It was a big ask in those days, because we know that sometimes providing cash is tough, but there were people who were ready to provide the labour to ensure the scheme was implemented. The scheme is governed by the Otama Rural Water Supply Committee, which comprises eight users appointed by the users of the scheme as well as a councillor elected for the ward.

The scheme is still primarily used for stock but also services an estimated 223 dwellings that are likely to use the water for drinking purposes. The water is untreated but is chlorinated. We know that there was issue in Havelock North. After that, the decision was made that this water, which can’t be treated right now, be chlorinated so that it is safe for drinking. For over 120 years this process has been used, and I think that is the wisest thing which could be done.

According to the current situation, we know the ownership of the scheme has historically been unclear, but the council considered it currently has a legal responsibility for the scheme. The committee has governed the operation of the scheme on behalf of the users from the establishment of this asset. Day-to-day operation and maintenance are done by the council—and that is very important because the maintenance work is quite important for any asset—and technical advice and reporting to the committee. The maintenance and operation cost of the scheme is met by the committee. The fees are collected from the users, and they are responsible for paying all the bills.

Following the meeting in May 2017, a referendum was held, and the users of the scheme overwhelmingly voted that the ownership of the scheme to be transferred from the council to the committee. There was a 75 percent turnout of the users, and, out of those 75 percent, 76 percent of the people supported the motion that this should happen. As the result of the referendum, the council confirmed that it supports the users of the scheme taking over the ownership in future.

As part of the transfer process set out in the draft bill, the council and the community are currently developing a water safety plan and undertaking a catchment risk assessment, which found that there is a potential risk to the water supply. Currently, there is no issue with the water itself. However, in the light of the findings of the Havelock North inquiry, the council has decided that a permanent boil-water notice be issued for the scheme, and the people who live in that area are required to boil the water before it is to be consumed.

The users would like the scheme to be transferred to them so that they can ensure that the scheme continues to meet the needs and remains cost-effective.

In the select committee process, we received 26 submissions, out of which 14 submitters wanted to be heard orally, and those hearings were held in Wellington as well as in Gore. I missed out on going to Gore because of other commitments, but I have heard from many of the members who went there. Paul Eagle was one of them. He mentioned that there was great hospitality extended to the committee by the local people over there, and I hope that at some time, the next time when I am there, the local MP will take me along and extend this hospitality again.

Rt Hon David Carter: Cheese rolls.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: The cheese rolls—exactly, Mr David Carter.

Maureen Pugh: Oysters.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: I know that Maureen Pugh is looking for the next slot to speak and contribute, and I had her hospitality in Hokitika a couple of years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As I was mentioning, the select committee process was quite comprehensive. I would like to acknowledge Brett Hudson, the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee, for his leadership and for ensuring that a fair go was given to all the members of the public who were present there.

Lastly, before I conclude, I would like to say that it is important that assets that have been built with the support of the public and that are maintained for more than almost 50 years should be given an opportunity that they can be kept in the right position so that they can be used for the future generations. With these words, I would like to commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Jamie Strange, you have five minutes.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill. I was a member of the select committee who actually travelled to Gore and heard submissions, and I’d just like to highlight that aspect of our parliamentary process. It is the fact that we have a select committee here in Parliament, the Governance and Administration Committee, and we knew that there were around 18 to 20 people from Gore who wanted to submit. So we had a decision: we could stay here and they could make their way up to Wellington—and it would have been quite an expense for many of them—or we could go to Gore. I’d like to highlight the leadership of our chair, Brett Hudson, who stated quite strongly that “We need to go to Gore. This is an important issue and we need to head down there to listen.”, and so we did.

We heard the submissions, and they were certainly quite compelling. We also shared in the hospitality, which I know has been mentioned, and I’d like to just also highlight that because I know there’ll be many people from Gore watching at the moment.

Hon Clare Curran: “Gorre”.

JAMIE STRANGE: “Gorre”—yes. The water is probably the nicest water I have ever tasted in my life. The water was absolutely pristine, almost as good as Hamilton’s water—almost as good.

Paul Eagle: Chlorination.

JAMIE STRANGE: Yeah. Now, many of the aspects of this bill have been laid out by previous speakers, so I won’t really touch on that, but, just to summarise, really, the builders and owners of the scheme thought they owned it. However, it had transferred to council use, unbeknown to them. Then they found out about the transfer, and so they asked us to have it transferred back. The arguments for that were clearly laid out in the submissions, and we’ve heard them tonight. This is a piece of common-sense legislation, and I commend this to the House. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I call Maureen Pugh—five minutes.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s, again, my pleasure to stand in support of the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill. Although I haven’t been involved with the select committee that has been considering this bill, I think probably because of my connection with council over time, they saw me as a valuable contributor to the discussion—I hope so, anyway. As we’ve heard today from many of the speakers, this is a very non-contentious bill. It simply seeks to determine a pathway forward for the Gore District Council to transfer the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme—including all of its assets—to those who have built it, who have paid for all of those assets and who have paid for all of the maintenance, right from the beginning of the scheme and through to any replacements and upgrades that have happened over the years. Of course, those people, who are users of and payers for this scheme, the Otama Rural Water Ltd company—as it is formed now—will take receipt of the assets from this water scheme.

So, simply to outline a little bit of history about this scheme, we need to go back about 50 years, to when this particular scheme was set up. As we heard before, back in the 1970s, when there was a need, the local community simply got themselves together, they got some local labour, they got some cash between themselves, they got a grant and a subsidy, and, together, they pulled this scheme together. But back in those days, as we probably all remember—well, maybe some of the people in this House won’t remember—

Simeon Brown: Winston remembers well.

MAUREEN PUGH: Winston Peters certainly would remember. But back in those days, things weren’t as tight as we needed them to be about who would actually own the assets, because back in those days, they simply didn’t care. All they wanted to know was that when they turned the tap on, they would get water. But as time moves on, as we all know, rules change. There are risks and responsibilities that need to be owned, and so here we are today.

So I commend the community on the Otama Rural Water Supply for getting this process through the system, and I imagine that some of them are at home now, wondering why it has taken over nine months for it to work its way through the system. The parliamentary machine probably does look a little bit tardy, but, simply, there is no opposition to this bill, and, unbeknown to them, it could take an awful lot longer—as some bills have had to—to work its way through this House. But the end is in sight for the community, and today we will see this legislation in place and see the assets transferred to Otama Rural Water Ltd.

I would just like to make a note about local bills. I’m a very firm supporter of them as a mechanism for working through local issues, and I certainly look forward to more of them coming into the House.

As we heard today, the Gore District Council has maintained these assets and taken care of the day-to-day operations of this particular scheme, but the governance of the scheme has sat with the community, the user group. So when it came time to sort it all out, my good friend and former colleague Mayor Tracy Hicks and his councillors at the Gore District Council pulled together this process that we’re working through and finalising today, and they consulted with their community, as is required by the Local Government Act 2002. But the reason that we have this bill in front of us is because, under the Local Government Act, a council can only divest a water scheme if there are fewer than 200 users on that scheme and, of course, the Otama Rural Water Supply scheme has more than 200 users. So that is why it has required this special legislation: to support the transfer back to the community.

One thing I would like to note about this particular local bill is that we are talking not about the water but about the reticulation assets. I also note the comment from my colleague Kanwaljit Bakshi, who talked about the permanent boil-water notice. For some city folk, that may seem quite an onerous task, but for us that live in the rural areas, we don’t bother boiling the water; that’s just real water to us. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): If you would just give us a moment, gentlemen, we’re just trying to sort out if this is a split call. It isn’t normally, with a local bill. Just bear with us for a second. We might need to put some leave for that to occur, just a second—just hold your horses. Can I just check with the Labour member whether he would be prepared to split the call with the ACT member?

Paul Eagle: Yep.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): OK. David Seymour—five minutes.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party. Paul Eagle needn’t wait long to get his speaking time.

This is a very good bill; it’s gone through a very robust process. I commend the member in charge, Mark Patterson, for the work that he’s done, and others who have apparently shared cheese rolls and travelled to Gore and done all of those wonderful things.

There have already been a number of speeches that I feel were needlessly long. I can only guess or hazard that perhaps those members had only recently learnt to talk and were revelling in their new-found ability or needed practice at that. So I decided that rather than following them and doing exactly the same thing, I’d say about as much as them and communicate about as much information as they did in about the same period of time but minus eight or nine minutes. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Well, look, that was worth waiting the extra few minutes to stand. Can I just say there have been a lot of comments about cheese rolls, so I don’t want to hold things up, because it is dinner time in 50 minutes, so let’s get on with it.

Can I just acknowledge that extra hard-working select committee: the Governance and Administration Committee. There’s a waiting list to get on it, I hear. Once again, it does these sorts of fantastic bills. The local bill is the life’s work of Mr Mark Patterson MP, and, if this is all he’s done in his 35 years here, then he’s done a great job.

The Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill is really about ownership and water quality. These guys convinced us, after travelling seven days and seven nights to get there, we finally got there ship and all, pōwhiri out on the beach, and we get up to Gore, and what do you know? Tom Affleck greets us with quite a stunning array of his pals who convince us that “Look, we’ve been here since 1972. We’ve done the mahi, we know how to do it, and we want to do it.”—much to my horror. I thought “Jeepers, they’d want to make a quick exit from owning and managing their own water.”—but look, fantastic.

I know some of my colleagues didn’t know where Gore was, but they do now. They do now know that they’ll have a water scheme that they’ll own and manage, and so they deserve it. Good luck to them. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I rise to speak on the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill. Now, first of all, I would like to acknowledge Mark Patterson, the sponsor of the bill, and also would like to acknowledge my colleague the local MP Hamish Walker, who went down to Gore along with some Governance and Administration Committee members to hear oral submissions in Gore.

As I said before, this bill is actually a quite straightforward bill and the case is quite straightforward. Basically, a water scheme was built in the 1970s, the contributors were largely the farmers who used the scheme, and then a committee was set up. The committee members are overwhelmingly representatives of the farmers who use the scheme, plus a local councillor. While the council is involved in the management of the scheme, the committee or the users have actually covered the costs of the maintenance of the scheme. So historically it has not been very clear about the ownership of the scheme, and people were not particularly concerned about this. However, it is understood that the council now has the legal responsibility for the scheme. Then, in May 2017, there was a public meeting regarding ownership, and after the meeting there was a preliminary referendum in which 75 percent of the voters voted and then, among those who voted, about 75 percent voted for the ownership of the scheme to be transferred from the council to the committee. So that was a bit of history.

It is clear that this has always been a community effort. It sounds very reasonable that the ownership of the scheme should be returned to the community. So the users would like the scheme to be returned to them so that they can ensure that the scheme continues to meet their needs and to be cost-effective. I believe this is largely about returning the scheme or rewarding a community effort, because the scheme itself has always been regarded as a community effort, and, for that reason, the scheme should be returned to the community. Now, because of the preliminary referendum, the council decided there should be a return to the committee and to the users, and this bill will simply facilitate that transfer. We believe this is a practical and fair solution.

Well, this is not really a major bill or a huge bill. It is not a very significant economic asset, because those who are affected by the bill or by this transfer, or those who may benefit from the transfer, are those farmers who use the scheme; so not a very large number.

Nevertheless, we believe that this is still a very important bill, so the members of the Governance and Administration Committee went down to Gore to listen to the submitters. I think that was a very special effort made by the committee. Of course, it’s not very often that members of Parliament would travel down to that part of New Zealand to hear the oral submissions—but we did. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the submitters and particularly the leader of the scheme or the committee, Mr Tom Affleck. Mr Tom Affleck was elected to the committee, actually, in 1972, and there he became the secretary of the committee in 1978 and stayed until 1993, and then he became the chair of the committee in 1993. So he has served on the committee for a long time. So I thank him for his effort, and I thank all the submitters for their efforts. The submissions were very well-organised and the message was very, very clear.

After the hearing, along with a couple of other members, we went to visit the site. It was very impressive because to stand on top of the hill we could see a very beautiful piece of land—a very green land—and, of course, water is particularly important to the land and therefore to the farms.

But this bill itself is not particularly about water. It’s actually about water infrastructure—about some pipes and concrete. So this bill itself would actually enable the committee or local people or the users of the scheme to own the water infrastructure. So it’s not about water itself.

Now, this bill also makes clear the steps to ensure a very smooth transfer and sustainable management of the scheme. It specifies the process for obtaining the authorisation to transfer the scheme. Now, first of all, there should be a referendum, and, if over 50 percent of the legal voters vote for the scheme to be transferred from the council to the new company—well, the shareholders will be the farmers who use the scheme—then the council will start the process.

Well, of course there are some very specific requirements there around how to transfer the scheme from the council to the new company. First, the referendum—and the referendum must be done within five years on which this scheme was supposed to be transferred.

Now, before the referendum, the council needs to make some documents publicly available, and that is also important because the voters will need time to read, to digest, and then to make decisions. It’s important to make the process transparent—so such documents like the views of the medical officer of health, the transfer plan, and the proposed agreement outlining the roles and responsibilities of the company and any contractors, including the council, in relation to the scheme as prepared by the company. So this would, as I said, enable voters to have time to read those documents and then make informed decisions.

The bill also specifies requirements for the plans and assessments. For instance, the transfer plan needs to have five specific elements. So that’s also listed—those five elements are listed in the particular bill. Also, the company must prepare analysis of the types of contractual arrangements that the company will need to enter into with the council and other parties to obtain goods and services in relation to the maintenance and operation of the scheme, because you do need to have a plan there to make sure that once that scheme is transferred to a new company, a new company will be able to maintain the quality of the scheme—make sure that it’s sustainable.

The company must also assess the likely future capital and operating costs of the company to maintain and operate a scheme for a period of 30 years. So, again, the company is required to have a long-term plan in terms of maintaining and operating the scheme once they have ownership of the scheme. So all these documents will be accessible to the voters and will make sure that once the transfer is done, this scheme will continue to operate in a sustainable way and cost-effectual way.

Now, the bill also defines who will be the eligible voters. Of course, the residents in the area and the farmers who use the scheme will be legal voters. All these are clearly defined. So, to conclude, I will say this is a local bill. This is a bill which returns to the community what they deserve. Thanks.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m the last speaker on this bill. I won’t be repeating what everyone else has said, but I would like to say well done, “Patto”—Mark Patterson, the member who has brought this local bill. Local bills are important, and I just want to really make the point that local solutions to local problems can occur within a wider framework and not be caught up and lost because of larger issues facing the nation. I think this is a really good example of an agile approach to governing and demonstrates trust in local decision-making, and I say that because it’s a small water scheme—small but important.

I’d also like to say that everyone in this House should know where Gore is, and, if they don’t, they should visit, because it’s one of the jewels in the crown of Southland. This is a scheme with local control through local users. As we’ve heard, the water comes—I’m sure people have said this—from a bore next to the Mataura River, at the site of the former Pyramid Bridge, and it supplies about 253 homes, 210 farms, two schools, and a marae.

So the crucial thing about that is, as part of the transfer process that this bill enables, the council and the committee have been developing a water safety plan. That is important—and this is where I go to the wider framework. Safe, clean water is a birthright for every New Zealander, and this Government takes that incredibly seriously no matter where people live and the communities that they come from. The context that sits behind this is a major piece of work that’s being undertaken at the moment because of that Havelock North campylobacter outbreak in 2016, when 5,500 people became ill, which resulted in the deaths of at least four people.

The final thing to say is that the subsequent inquiry recommended a dedicated water regulator, and the Minister in charge of it, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, has been working on a very, very important piece of work that is about to go to Cabinet which is about how our three waters framework is handled in New Zealand. This local bill—no matter how small it is or how small that community is, it’s critical that the water is managed properly, and I think that this bill demonstrates that there can be a trust in local community and how local community can handle this. I commend it to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

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

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 1 May.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. While I’d like to begin by commending the member in charge of this bill, Simeon Brown, who’s a fellow first-term MP, on having his member’s bill drawn from the ballot, I do have to say though that I’m quite disappointed that this bill has made it this far. Evidence tells us that if this bill were passed, not only would it not achieve—well-meaning and well-intentioned as it is—what it aims to but it would actually be damaging. Now, if the Opposition really wanted meaningful change, they would propose legislation that would actually be effective in cutting the rate of demand and supply and minimising the harm that is caused to our communities by these drugs. This bill won’t achieve that. This bill is same old, same old: lock them up, lock them up for longer, and throw away the key.

Now, the war on drugs—increasingly there is consensus internationally that the war on drugs has failed. In fact, the deputy leader of the National Party, the Hon Paula Bennett, wearing her drug spokesperson cap, has actually acknowledged that. It’s a shame that the leadership doesn’t quite have a unified view on this, because the Hon Simon Bridges in fact has stated the direct opposite and signed up National as an ally in Donald Trump’s war on drugs. Instead, this Government has recently announced a significant move to align psychoactive drugs with class A drugs and create class C1 for new substances awaiting categorisation. That bill, when passed—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! This bill please.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Well, this bill would be redundant if that bill were passed. But, anyway, this Government takes the issue of illicit drug supply and abuse incredibly seriously. What we don’t need is yet another ad hoc measure from that side of the House. This coalition Government has a more comprehensive, well-thought-out plan that will do much more to address drug demand and supply, and address the illicit drug trade. That sits alongside work to fix the health system and ensure—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! The third reading is generally as reported back from the committee of the whole House and a summary of this current bill. Please don’t traverse into other policy matters.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: But the point of this bill is that it doesn’t actually address what it aims to address, in terms of making sure—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Well, speak to that directly, thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —that those addicted can get the help that they need and addressing drug demand. This bill does neither of those and, in fact, on this side of the House we act on evidence and not on what is politically expedient. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I rise to speak on this, the third reading of the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill in the name of MP Simeon Brown. I, again, want to put on the table a congratulations to Simeon for bringing an issue of absolute importance to the House and being so passionate about it.

In summary, there were 78 submissions from interested groups and individuals on this piece of legislation, and the Justice Committee heard oral evidence from seven submitters. I’m actually going to quote from the select committee report because it’s incredibly pertinent. The heading that I’ve chosen to focus on is “The impact of psychoactive substances on Māori” and I particularly want to emphasise that Hāpai Te Hauora and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua submitted that “increasing penalties around psychoactive substances would have a disproportionate effect on Māori.” They suggested that any changes to legislation should have an approach that includes support through health services, education, and rehabilitation, and the effects on Māori should be specifically addressed to avoid further disadvantage.

I now want to focus on some submission points, and these are pertinent. One of those was that drug use should be treated as a health issue and, in fact, this bill does not do that. So if anybody wants to know fundamentally why we are voting this bill down, it is because of that particular point.

The other thing I want to highlight is that Simeon Brown’s bill wanted to focus on drug sellers and suppliers. He thought they should be punished and sent to jail. Well, the reality of focusing on that group is that those people have addictions. Those are the people that we want to provide with the education and the health and the ability to reform their lives. So what I do want to put on the table is that our response to this bill has been very clear. It’s called the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, which addresses the issues that I’ve outlined. We want to treat drug use as a health issue, we don’t want people to go to prison, and the other aspect is we want to make sure that the importers and manufacturers of these drugs do go to jail and are punished.

That is my contribution tonight and I hope that the public are very clear as to the rationale and our side’s view about this particular bill. Kia ora.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s my privilege to stand in support of the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill under the name of Simeon Brown, a hard-working MP from Pakuranga. He has brought in this bill—

Michael Wood: Makes one on that side of the House.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Sorry, I didn’t get that Michael, what did you say?

Michael Wood: I said it makes one on that side of the House.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: All right. The thing is that the person who got the bill drawn is, I think, hard-working; who has got a thought to put in front of Parliament to discuss. Bringing this up to this stage, the third reading, makes a lot of difference. It is not just that he has got this bill to this stage—I remember that when he was a member of the local board he organised a protest when a shop was being opened up in Manurewa and he managed to organise a really big protest and the result of that was that shop was not opened. So I know he is hard-working, passionate, and wants to make sure that the harm to the community is stopped.

A little while ago we were also debating another bill where the leader of the ACT Party was trying to say that I have just learnt this speaking skill. For the nine minutes I have taken to express my views I would like to clarify for him—I know that he is very passionate, he wants his bill to be debated but it takes a while; keep some patience, you will get your turn in due course.

This bill is needed to protect New Zealanders from the harm of illegal psychoactive substances which are currently being supplied and are proving to be extremely dangerous. I would like to clarify what Louisa Wall was trying to say: it is important that we should stop and make sure that the suppliers don’t supply these harmful substances to the users, and they are not the addicted people—the addicted people are getting supply from someone who is making some profit and has got a motive behind supplying these things. The non-approved products which are being seen are having far greater harmful effect than was envisioned when the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was put in place. What we have seen is that every time there is a product which is banned, there is a chemical change in some formulation and that product becomes un-banned, and that is being supplied to the people.

Day by day, the strength of these products is increasing, which is really harmful. We have seen in the last 18 months more than 80 people have died because of the effect of these psychoactive substances and we want to ensure—and that is the main intention, that we should make sure that the suppliers don’t supply these things to the addicted people. Definitely, we want to ensure that the addicted people should be given treatment under the health—but, obviously, if there is no supply how are they going to use these products? So these products are far more potent than what was seen before the regulations were put in place, and require strict penalties to deter people from producing and supplying these products to individuals.

This legislation targets the suppliers and the distributor. I would like to repeat that: this bill is targeting suppliers and distributors, rather than the users. We will maintain a focus on treating the use of psychoactive substances as health issues, encouraging health and rehabilitation services rather than punitive measures. It is very important that we make sure that the suppliers are targeted to stop supplying this product. I am repeating this again and again because some of the parties were supporting this bill up until the second reading, but now they are not supporting it. They should understand that this is an issue which is affecting New Zealanders, and we should be passing this bill tonight so that we can have effective control—

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

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker—a real pleasure to rise and speak briefly on the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill. I do also want to congratulate the member Simeon Brown on getting his bill drawn from the biscuit tin, however, that’s about all I do want to say in regards to this bill. Essentially, the bill as we see it is going to absolutely punish those who are also using and are addicted to drugs.

Simon O’Connor: That’s a presumption.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: It is not a presumption; it is what we know about drug use. I’d just like to address what the previous speaker just spoke about. He talked about the fact that this bill is about getting those baddies, right—getting those baddies who create these substances. Absolutely, we agree with that, but what we know is that the majority in the crossover of drug use is quite substantial for people who are placed in a position of dealing in order to take care of their addiction. It’s a really sad picture, and I agree—80 deaths we understand have happened—this is not a good story for us. However, what I can say is that this bill will become redundant because of the work that the Government is doing. In fact, we will be treating drugs as a health problem. The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is occurring. We are working through it, and we have heard the evidence. So it is particularly useful for this debate to come very quickly to an end and, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): I welcome the news that the previous contributor to the debate commends the bill to the House, and I look forward to her vote and perhaps that of other colleagues on her side. I think I can not only agree with the end of her speech but also the start, in which she commended our parliamentary colleague Simeon Brown for having the hard work and the good luck of, first, putting the bill into the ballot, and, second, of course, having it drawn—hard work and good luck respectively.

In this, the third and final reading of the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill, I’d like to acknowledge, as is usual, not only the member, as I’ve done, but also those who have contributed throughout the process in other ways. I acknowledge—as I’m sure all members of this House do, albeit that ultimately, sadly, some, it seems, will not support it, but nevertheless I’m sure they would join us in acknowledging—the victims of these awful substances within our community; those who have campaigned for sensible drug laws, including and especially the families of such victims; and political parties who have supported the bill at least until this stage, albeit that we understand that may not continue.

In relation to the bill and its intention, much has been said that I don’t need to re-traverse. Of course, within the title of the bill, we see that it will be increasing the penalty for supply and distribution. It does what it says on the tin, and lest there be any confusion about the point, it is for suppliers and distributors as distinct from those who use. I do appreciate the point that was made by Louisa Wall in relation to the potential crossover, but nevertheless there is a large number of people who—there are a large number of people? I might have been right the first time. In any case, many people are in the category of supplying and distributing but not using themselves, and it seems to me obvious that we should do something about that problem.

The commencement date of the bill, if it should pass, would be the date after which it receives the Royal assent, and I just make that point simply to note the urgency of the matter, not only in relation to the bill but in relation to the difficult and tragic issue, indeed, of those who are suffering in this way. So it is that if this bill doesn’t pass, then I hope that the Government will at least do something else useful in that space.

Previously within the legislative process, we had an amendment to the really key part of the Act, which was to increase the penalty for supply and distribution from two years to eight years initially, in the form of the bill that was introduced by Mr Brown. That was extended so that it would be increased from two years to 14 years. That was at the initiation of New Zealand First, so something of an auction—but they’ve been all auction and no action, because they are going to go missing, it seems, in action at the final and crucial stage of the bill, which is a shame. They will go as silent as the “p” in psychoactive. That’s a real shame, actually, for reasons that are all too real and all too meaningful for those in our community who desperately need this change to our law.

There are a number of different dichotomies we can explore. We’ve talked about supply and distribution on the one hand versus usage. Another is the distinction between that which is necessary and that which is sufficient. It’s been a criticism of Mr Brown’s bill from the other side of the House that it won’t be the silver bullet, that it won’t do everything that is needed in this space. Of course, they are right, but that much was never claimed by Mr Brown or anyone on this side of the House. It was not ever said or claimed that this would be an entire solution to a difficult and complex problem within our society. But while it’s not sufficient, it is necessary, at least, to do something, so while it is not everything, it is, at least, something that can and therefore should be done towards solving this terrible problem in our society.

Another dichotomy that’s been raised with particular emphasis from the other side of the House is justice versus health. So we’ve been hearing discussions on the head of a pin—maybe not by angels, but, in any case, by those who would draw a false choice between justice and health in saying that drug use and supply should be treated as a health issue and not a justice issue. Well, of course, it should be treated as both because it is both those things. I don’t think anyone in this House would deny the fact that we do need to treat drug use as a health issue, and so for those who are addicted, it is a matter of health in that we must emphasise, encourage, and do everything necessary and, indeed, possible to facilitate their rehabilitation. But that’s not to say that it’s not also a justice issue and that we shouldn’t also treat harshly those who would increase the misery of their fellow Kiwis by dealing in these substances.

Other distinctions we can draw, perhaps for the purpose of highlighting a meaningless contrast, is the causing of death in other ways that our statute book recognises as criminal to the extent of murder or manslaughter, whereas we’ve had relatively light penalties for those who cause the death in a very foreseeable, almost reckless way, I would argue, by supplying drugs to them that would eventually cause their death. So there’s a moral and a legal imperative for aligning the penalties for such drug suppliers and to do justice for such drug users in those situations.

As opposed to the arguments made on the other side of the House regarding prevention versus deterrence, I just want to make a quick comment, which is to say that whereas the argument is frequently made by those on the other side of politics, including in relation to this bill, that harsher penalties do not necessarily deter would-be criminals—that may or may not be true. I don’t think it’s as straightforward a matter even so far as that goes, but it’s worth noting that there is a preventative element as opposed to a deterrent element, such that a drug supplier—a dealer, in common parlance—for the period of time that he or she is prevented physically, by being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure, from continuing to ply their trade of such misery—that’s actually a useful thing to society. They, in turn, can be rehabilitated, not necessarily from a perspective of physical drug addiction but in terms of their ways, perhaps other shortcomings in their life or lifestyle such as a lack of education, such as a lack of opportunities within society, a lack of connection, a lack of purpose in their life, and so on.

So I will draw to a conclusion my response very shortly by simply noting again the hard work of Simeon Brown and others who have advocated in this space. I think that he has done a wonderful job of bringing this to the attention of the House. I hope, perhaps in vain, that it might receive the support that it deserves and that the people of New Zealand who are affected in this way certainly deserve and, indeed, so desperately need. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): This is a split call. It will go to Labour first. I call Dr Duncan Webb—five minutes.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. A very short contribution—I just want to say, you know, this is a bill which was brought to the House with all the right intentions, and the fact of the matter is that many of the objectives underpinning the bill we all share. So in that respect, I think that this has been a valuable exercise, that we absolutely want to address the harm that these pernicious substances cause, and we’ve absolutely taken steps in this regard, but it’s a real demonstration of the fact that we need to do this in a planned manner, in a manner which addresses all aspects of the harm, not only the criminal law aspects but most importantly those health-related aspects. Also, we need to make sure that the victims of the crime, those people who are in fact having these substances sold to them, are appropriately dealt with and not criminalised, not further victimised and further traumatised.

So good work in bringing this to the attention of the House, but this is work that the Government is undertaking in a much wider, more effective programme. So with that very short contribution, this bill is not supported on this side of the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill, and the reason for that is called evidence. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but the only decent contribution to this debate, except for the one that’s in progress, perhaps, was made by Chlöe Swarbrick. The reason I can’t believe it is twofold. One is I’m just not used to praising Green MPs, and two is I can’t understand why the Green Party thinks that people should be able to buy and sell marijuana but their approach to regulation of business means you can barely sell or buy anything else.

But the real contradiction is actually in the National Party putting this bill through. There seems to be a belief that with no evidence whatsoever, they can reduce harm from drugs. I’ve just looked through the member in charge’s contribution—there is no evidence. That’s why Chlöe Swarbrick made the best speech, because she was the only one that came to the House armed with facts and pointed out that the history of trying to fight drugs with stricter penalties has not been successful. The National Party comes to this House and says, “We want to expand sentences, but we have no proof that expanding sentences will keep our kids safe or reduce harm from drugs.” That’s the problem.

I might add that there’s a political problem with it, because we are starting to witness a National Party guided by its backbenchers with this kind of Ronald Reagan, moral majority approach to social issues that is more at home in Alabama than Ashburton. It’s a far cry from the John Key who could mince down the catwalk at the Pride Parade in his lilac T-shirt and effortlessly win urban liberal voters, and I worry for my erstwhile allies in Government and, hopefully, my colleagues in Government again that they are taking that approach. But that’s what it looks like to the average New Zealander tonight.

We need to reduce drug harm. It is a tragedy that we have substances being made and sold to vulnerable New Zealanders and harming their development and leading to deaths when we have alternatives that could be better. But it’s also a tragedy to recognise that the bill put before us is exactly cut from the same mould as the legislation that formed those substances. You see, nobody in an open market would ever purchase synthetic cannabis if that was the option available and there were other options there. The simple fact is that these drugs are created by prohibition. The only reason it’s viable to make and sell them is that the natural alternative has been prohibited by this House, and the National Party comes along with this suggestion that maybe if we do a bit more of the thing that created the problem, we’ll solve it. How crazy is that?

So I won’t be supporting this bill. What I will be doing is supporting a rational approach to keeping New Zealand’s kids safe from drugs, and that goes a little bit like this: we need to first of all ask the question “Has prohibition been a success?” That is how you get to deciding whether or not to support a bill that would increase penalties for people buying and selling drugs. Then we might ask what other options are available. This is just simple problem definition, option generation, and cost-benefit analysis—how any Government should make laws and regulations. We might ask ourselves what is happening when our friends around the world in Canada and Colorado start to try different approaches where they treat drugs as a health problem and don’t just try and force it underground and have people taking clandestine substances from criminal elements, getting upsold on to worse drugs. That’s what our friends around the world are trying.

Let me concede something to the proponents of prohibition: there are some points being raised. It may not be all rosy, but it’s a debate that is well worth having, a modern debate about how we keep our kids safe from the harms of drugs, because we’re not doing very well now and we’re not going to do better just by changing the sentences. That’s the kind of debate that we should be having. Sadly, we’ve had this retrograde step in the form of Simeon Brown’s member’s bill, and for that reason, I proudly oppose it so we can have a more enlightened drug debate. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The issue of synthetic drugs such as synthetic cannabis is killing about 50 New Zealanders a year, and what is even more concerning for this Parliament is those that are dying are some of the young people who have the greatest prospects and future ahead of them. I am simply appalled, as a member of the Justice Committee that listened to the impassioned pleas of families the likes of Lewis Jones, who listened to the people on the front line in our ambulances and our accident and emergency departments, that this Parliament would stick its head in the sand and pretend that this is not a problem. We had an awful tragedy earlier this year in Christchurch with the shootings at that synagogue, and this Parliament came together and said that we were not going to sit idly by and watch 51 of our fellow citizens lose their life. In just three weeks, we passed the laws to deal with those semi-automatic weapons. Why, I ask this Parliament, can we not come together on this issue of synthetics, recognise its seriousness, and back my colleague Simeon Brown’s bill?

I want to say this is not a choice of whether you have serious offending and criminal sentences for dealing in this stuff as compared with whether you have education or treatment or proper customs controls. Members on this side of the House say that you need to have all of those. But what I find insulting is this: a single dealer in synthetic cannabis has been shown to sell—one dealer—sufficient product to kill 14 people, and the maximum penalty that that person can face under the law is a maximum of two years in prison.

Hon Scott Simpson: How much?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Two years. Now, does any member of the House think that really is just? I do not. That’s why I am backing this bill.

There is a fantastic editorial in the New Zealand Listener this week, and it poses this challenge to people like Mr Seymour, who says that prohibition does not work: what we do know is legalisation works even worse. Why do we know that? Well, in 2013, this Parliament was persuaded by Peter Dunne to try and regulate these drugs. It was a disaster. We, every one of us, saw in our accident and emergency departments that the moment that the Government said that something like synthetics was safe, use went through the roof, and what a disaster we had being confronted in our accident and emergency wards. This Parliament came together within a matter of weeks and passed law to undo that and to ensure that we had proper penalties.

Now, my colleague Simeon Brown has talked about the 50 deaths that occur from these synthetic drugs. In the last week, I’ve been working with the families of the worst road accident in New Zealand in the last decade. On 27 June last year, we had the tragic loss of seven lives—not included in my colleague’s number. What was absolutely plain was that the driver of that vehicle, on a perfectly clear morning, had been stoked up on synthetic cannabis. Again I say to members—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am strongly supporting this bill of Simeon Brown, because the scourge of synthetic drugs is costing the lives of so many young New Zealanders, and I am appalled by the reasons that the Government parties—Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens—are giving for their opposition to this bill. It is disingenuous, and it is political. They, basically, do not want any National Party MP to get any bill through this House. You could not find in this Parliament a more gentlemanly, polite, and well-intended member than my colleague Simeon Brown, and if you cut to the chase of members’ opposition to this bill, it’s that they dare not allow him to gain the credit for dealing with this very real issue. It is costing the lives of a New Zealander, on average, every single week, and the argument that members opposite are making, “Oh, at some point we might have a Government bill.”, is simply putting at risk further young lives.

I also want to challenge the Government on the process this bill has been through. This isn’t a bill that turned up yesterday. I remember on the issue of the awful tragedy that occurred in Christchurch, we banged the law through over the loss of 51 lives in a very short period. This bill came to the House in February last year. It’s been through a full select committee process, it has been through a full committee process. The Government parties’ opposition to this bill also reflects a broader and deeper problem: that it is fundamentally soft on the issue of drugs. If we look at the amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act—that it is, effectively, going to prohibit, according to both the Police Association and in terms of the New Zealand Law Society, any possession for any of the range of drugs, including these that we debate here, is extremely concerning. The fact that they are having a referendum on the legalisation of cannabis has them sending a signal to New Zealand that this isn’t really serious, it isn’t a problem, and, if we look at the 17 months that this Government has been dragging the chain on officials’ recommendations for the introduction of random testing, what we see with the Government parties’ opposition to that bill, and those other legislative measures, is a Government that fundamentally is soft on drugs.

Let me tell you why that matters: I am sick and tired of hearing members opposite talk about issues of wellbeing, and having this complete blind spot about the issues of drugs and what they are doing in our society. I don’t care whether it’s the issue of domestic violence, whether it’s the issue of suicide, particularly amongst our youth, whether it’s the issue of educational underachievement, workplace deaths, deaths on our roads. Actually, so many of those are negatively impacted by the use of drugs, and this Government is ignoring that problem.

I also want to say there’s a real naivety in the Government around this issue of drug dealers and drug users. Here’s the Government line and why it is flawed: they live in this world that says, “There’s a bunch of drug users over here. They are innocent. They need drug treatment, and they are completely separate from those that are the dealers”. Actually, that’s not the way it is in the real world. Many of the people that are selling and profiting from the use of synthetics are also the dealers, and that became very clear in the Justice Committee. So this sort of soft approach, that the only response to this country’s drug problems is going to be treatment, is out of step with the reality. We do need to take a firm approach with customs at the border in preventing drugs coming into this country. We need to take a firm approach with the manufacturers, and with the dealers. We need to have an approach in our schools of education, so that young people can make better choices. But enforcement has to be part of the picture, and ensuring that the penalties for those that are spinning and selling synthetics and ruining the lives of New Zealanders—there needs to be accountability, there needs to be enforcement, and that is what my colleague Simeon Brown is seeking with this bill.

So I plead to the conscience of the Labour, New Zealand First, and Green MPs that are opposing this bill: they are doing New Zealand a great disservice, they are doing those that work in the coalface, of those—

Hon Member: Our young people.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Our young people—that are being hit by the scourge of these synthetic drugs, they are doing a grave disservice, and every day that we delay putting proper penalties in place and adopting this bill is putting more lives of young New Zealanders at risk. I’m pleased to stand with National colleagues. We will not have the next death from a synthetic drug on our conscience, and I challenge the conscience of those members opposite who continue to turn a blind eye to this very serious issue.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

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.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments relating to triangular employment

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Well, it’s marvellous to be here at this point. It’s been quite the journey to get to here. Here we are tonight, in the committee stage of the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill, a bill that was not drafted by myself but a bill that I was happy to take on. I acknowledge Darian Fenton, the former Labour MP and stalwart of the union movement who originally drafted this bill.

Simeon Brown: The bill doesn’t look anything like it.

KIERAN McANULTY: But the interjections from my left are correct. This bill has gone from one which sought to include those employees within a triangular employment arrangement into a collective arrangement within the particular workplace that they found themselves in. What we found in the select committee process was that those submitters that turned up to select committee had an issue with this particular part of this bill and not necessarily the personal grievance part of the bill, and we took that on board. We said “Okey-dokes. We hear what you have to say. We will amend the bill accordingly.”, and this is what has been presented to the committee for discussion tonight.

This bill seeks one very simple goal: the extension of the right of a personal grievance to those workers that are employed within a triangular employment arrangement. It is my hope that members to my left, the National Opposition, do speak in favour of this bill. It is my hope that after a period of reflection, they have seen that this is such a simple objective. The basic provision of a personal grievance should be applied to everyone in this country that is employed. It is a right that most employees enjoy, except, of course, for those that find themselves in a triangular employment arrangement. That arrangement is when an employee is employed by a labour hire company or a recruitment company as their employee, but is then placed on assignment under the direct control of a controlling third party—what was originally drafted in this bill as a “secondary employer”. But, again, we took on board the feedback from those who submitted to the committee and we changed that definition.

I will point out that this bill does not take into account employees that work for a contractor—say, for example, a shearing contractor or a horticultural contractor. I say this because the National Opposition have mentioned this in the past. They seemed somewhat confused, so I thought I’d cut it off at the pass. I say to the members to my left that there is a very clear difference between those employees who work for a contractor and those employees who work under a triangular employment arrangement. When I worked for the shearing gangs in Wairarapa, I was under the direct control of the foreman, and no different to someone who worked for a building contractor under the direct control of their foreman. It is no different under a horticultural contracting arrangement, because they are directly employed by the people that have direct control over them.

Where it is different under this circumstance is that whilst these employees are on placement at this controlling third party, under the direct control of these companies and employers, they have no right to a personal grievance. They could be treated poorly with no redress, and we say that’s wrong. My challenge to the National Party tonight is to explain to New Zealand why you think that not all workers should enjoy the protection that you enjoyed before you came into this House.

Everybody that works for a living should have the right to redress. If we, as employees, are treated poorly, we should have the right to be able to take that to the court and explain why. That is why I am very proud to present this bill. I look forward to the discussion, and I look forward to hearing what the National Party have to say: an explanation to New Zealand as to why they think the simple principle of taking a personal grievance should not apply to these workers, who—just like us—work hard, but don’t have the protections that the rest of us enjoy.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Mr Chair. Well, the member in the chair, Kieran McAnulty, has got one thing right, and that is that this bill, the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill, is nothing like the bill that was introduced and first drafted by that trade union stalwart who came from the trade unions, who did her compulsory parliamentary service here in the Labour Party, and then returned back to the trade union movement: Darien Fenton. She drafted a piece of legislation back in, I think it was 2009 or—

Dan Bidois: 2007.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —2007—way back then—that was designed to do nothing other than grow the strength of the trade union movement. So Darien Fenton’s no longer in the Parliament. Kieran McAnulty picked this up, probably without reading it, and signed it off, and then found that it was drawn from the ballot. Then it went to select committee, and it was found wanting in every single regard. It was wanting so much that at the Education and Workforce Committee, the entire bill was rewritten, apart from two things, one of which was the title. The entire bill was rewritten at select committee.

Now, we on this side of the House do still oppose it, but we acknowledge that it’s a much better bill than it was when first introduced at first reading, and the select committee, I have to say, did some good work, not the least of which was convincing the sponsor and promoter of this bill that the union-friendly stuff all about collective agreements was utterly unworkable, totally unnecessary, and not worthy of pursuing. To his credit, he saw the logic and the good intent of that, and took it out. But still we have a piece of legislation that seeks to over-define an arrangement that works really well in almost every employment situation. It’s topical at the moment because not the least of which are things that are going on within this precinct at the moment, or that have been topical and newsworthy just this very day.

So I want to just refer in Part 1 to the definition which will be in section 5 of the principal Act when this bill gets passed—if it gets passed—which is the definition of a “controlling third party”. Many people out there in the real world, I think, don’t actually understand the meaning of a triangular arrangement. So, for many people, they will understand a triangular arrangement as maybe one where, if a reception person goes on leave for a few weeks, the employer will go to a temp agency and ask a temp agency to provide a temporary reception person for that period of time, and in due course, what happens is that the temp agency sends an invoice to the company that is hiring the services of the temp for that period of time. The relationship exists between the temp agency and the temp who is doing the work, and it’s a financial transaction between the engaging firm and the temp agency.

Now, that’s not dissimilar to thousands of employment situations all around the country. Doctors on locum, for instance, are in triangular employment arrangements. Indeed, staff employed by members of Parliament or engaged by members of Parliament in their offices—technically, those staff are in a triangular employment arrangement. They report on a day-to-day basis to the MP, but they’re actually employed by the Parliamentary Service, and that’s why these matters are topical today.

So the definition that we are confronted with is quite unwieldy, because what we’ve done is now change the definition to define a “controlling third party”—a “controlling third party”—because, for the Labour Party, it’s all about control. The definition in clause 4(a) is someone “who has a contract or other arrangement with an employer under which an employee of the employer performs work for the benefit of the person; and (b) who exercises, or is entitled to exercise, control or direction over the employee that is similar or substantially similar to the control or direction that an employer exercises, or is entitled to exercise, in relation to the employee”. Now, that is a definition that will be lost to almost all employers, to almost all labour hire and temp agency organisations, and, actually, to most people out there in the real world. This is a complicated piece of legislation and unnecessary in every respect.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I just want to start by saying, in the context of events today, I thought that Scott Simpson’s attack on Darien Fenton was scurrilous, and possibly even bordered on bullying. He said that she was a trade union member and that that characteristic of Darien Fenton had led her to bring this bill, and then he went on to say that Darien Fenton may not even have read it. I don’t know if he was implying that Darien Fenton couldn’t read it, but if that’s what he meant to say, then that could definitely tip over into bullying. I think we should all be very, very careful how we address each other. A personal attack of that nature really should have no place in this House.

I also want to say that the policy debate is the one that we should be having here. We are going to have a debate in particular about the economics. The economics is essential. Some people call it the dismal science, but it’s very difficult to make labour laws without understanding the way that the supply and demand of different quantities interact and how they lead to prices. I note and, I have to say, I highly agree with amendments that have been made in the previous stage, and I think that they should be retained. I think that the bill as drafted comes much closer to matching its intentions in its current wording than it did before, and I want to explain why that is.

It is not possible to raise wages sustainably by restricting the supply of labour. That’s what this bill would have done by imposing collective agreements, by ensuring that if a person working on a particular site was not with the employer that employed other people on the site, they would none the less have to be in the same union agreement. That is a way to constrain the number of people who might offer their services to work on that worksite, by requiring them to be part of just the one collective agreement. It precludes other workers from coming along and saying, “Hey, my best opportunity might be a triangular agreement. My best opportunity might be to come and work on this worksite but, actually, I won’t be getting paid as much or the same conditions as the people who are there now.” That’s what that provision in clause 5 would have done, and I think it’s very right that it’s been got rid of, because it’s got us much closer to a bill that reflects its true policy intentions in its current drafting.

The reason why unions can’t sustainably raise wages is, I think, best explained by Henry Hazlitt in his brilliant 1945 book, Economics in One Lesson. I think that this Parliament could be immeasurably improved if more people were to read that classic tome—particularly chapter 20. I can see Dan Bidois is getting a bit excited there. He’s twitching because he’s read it and he’s a good economist, and he knows that chapter 20 explains why clause 5 of this particular bill was such a bad idea. It explains why it is that trying to constrain the number of people that can work on a particular worksite is not actually going to raise wages, but it takes some explanation, Mr Chair, and I really hope you’ll give me a second call because it’s some quite interesting and important economics that I think the committee could benefit from a wider exposure to.

It goes a little bit like this. While it, in the first instance, would seem that constraining the number of people that can work on a worksite will mean that there’s less competition amongst workers for wages and that wages will actually be raised by that constrained supply of labour on the worksite, the problem is that they cannot actually raise productivity on the worksite by constraining labour supply. So the only result is that the price of goods and services produced is higher than it would have been had we not had a clause 5 - style restriction on how many people could actually work on a particular worksite.

Of course, those costs—those monopoly rents held by those particular workers—have to be passed on to the consumers who purchase the product. They might be paid by those people who supply the capital that makes the particular workplace possible, but nevertheless those increased costs are passed on to other workers. The wages earned by those other workers are worthless because they have to pay the monopoly—[Time expired]

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Those were the words of a man driven by an Ayn Rand world view, hanging on by his fingernails to relevance. This bill is about fairness—simple fairness—something that that side of the House really doesn’t practise, doesn’t understand, and certainly doesn’t allow to prevail in our country when they have the Treasury benches. Thankfully, this side does.

Ultimately—to boil it down—for workers employed by one employer but working under the control and direction of another business or organisation, it allows those workers simply to apply to the Employment Relations Authority to have their host employer, or controlling third party, joined to a personal grievance. It’s not that complicated and it’s ultimately about fairness. Certainly, in the select committee process—and I was on the Education and Workforce Committee for part of the time—it was identified that there is a gap in the law around fairness, and that is what Kieran McAnulty’s bill is seeking to address. So for all those listening at home and thinking “What on earth is this all about?”, this is what it’s about.

I want to just reference what the select committee was told by officials during the process of its deliberations, just to explain how that works. They referenced the case of Boyce v Kelly Services (NZ) Ltd. In this case, an on-hire worker was on assignment with a controlling third party and the assignment was ended early by the controlling third party and with little notice due to the worker being unable to work on a particular day. The authority found that the worker was unjustifiably dismissed, not by the controlling third party that entered the assignment, but by the on-hire firm. It made no effort to provide ongoing work for the worker or to represent the worker’s interests to the controlling third party. That third party was entirely within its rights, they found, to end the assignment, and the on-hire firm had the responsibility and duty of good faith to attempt to resolve the situation for its employee. Had they met their duty of good faith, it would not have been an unjustified dismissal.

What the officials said to us was that the status quo already allows employees to raise personal grievances if they have been unjustifiably dismissed, even if they’re working in a triangular arrangement. The bill does not propose to change this or to shift the responsibility of—

Andrew Bayly: You don’t need to read it, Clare.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: —well, it’s because I don’t think that the members over there understand—providing work to the controlling third party, but, rather, what it does is it provides on-hire workers with the ability to raise a grievance which relates to the actions of the controlling third party and provides for that third party to be responsible for their actions if they led to the grievance.

That is what this bill is about. It’s quite simple. It just gives that worker, who has very little power and very little opportunity to address issues that arise in their employment, anyway—and, as I think the member from the National Party said, he seemed to think that it was thousands and thousands of workers. Where is the fairness for them?

It’s a small bill and important—small can be important—and is fixing a gap in the law. It’s about fairness. Let’s just get on with it and pass it.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you so much, Mr Chair, for giving me this opportunity to take this call. This bill when it came to the select committee had two components, as we heard from the member in charge and also from the member who just finished before me. During the select committee process, as another member from our side said, this bill was rewritten entirely. I won’t use those words, so let me describe it.

In Part 1, there was clause 4, clause 5, and clause 6, and that was it. So clause 4 has been fully rejected and there’s a new clause 4. Clause 5 has fully gone, clause 6 has fully gone, and there appears to be a new clause 5, a new clause 6, a new clause 7—there was no clause 7 before—clause 8, new clause 9, and new clause 10. So the Education and Workforce Committee didn’t only rewrite this bill but they also provided for other provisions that were required to make this bill actually a bill. The member clearly didn’t understand when he decided to take this bill up. Before the select committee process and during the select committee process, the member had the opportunity to decide to pull out, rewrite this whole thing, and bring it back. But, no, the member didn’t do that. I don’t know if it’s visible, but I’ve deliberately got this coloured copy, because all the red marks are crossed out and the blue ones are the rewritten parts. So we can clearly see that.

Now, let’s come to what the member Clare Curran, who just finished speaking before me, said. The member repeatedly kept saying that this side doesn’t understand. From day one, we opposed this bill for several reasons, and one of the reasons was the collective bargaining issue—the provision in this bill. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment advisers thought that it was a risky thing and should be taken out. Yep, they said that the aim of this provision was to improve the terms and conditions of on-hire workers, extending access to collectivism, protecting the bargaining position of already unionised workforces. But they said that the bill does not align well with the objectives and has significant risks, so that’s why that provision was taken out.

Talking about submitters, we had this huge number of submissions coming from E tū—that is, the union. Seventy-two submissions were facilitated by E tū. So, of course, they thought “This is 72. This is going to be the biggest delivery by the Labour Government.”, giving them the opportunity to bring more people into their union. That was a big goal of this legislation. It has been chopped into half, so what we have left now is just one provision that we have already heard about.

But in this I want to share my concerns about how the controlling third party has been defined. The member came up with this idea of having a primary employer and a secondary employer. If a person is registered with a hire company, that hire company becomes the primary employer and the place where that person actually goes to work becomes the secondary employer, and that was going to create a lot of confusion. So in the select committee process we said that the secondary employer should be the controlling third party and that they should be only employee and employer—that’s fine.

Let’s look at this definition now. It says, “ ‘controlling third party’ means a person—(a) who has a contract or other arrangement with an employer under which an employee of the employer performs work for the benefit of the person;”. So I have concerns about this “benefit of the person;”. Why only for the benefit of the person? “Person” here is the controlling third party. When somebody goes out to work, they’re not working only for the benefit of their employer. It’s mutually beneficial because the employee also gets benefit out of it. It’s not just the income, but there are so many other indirect benefits that the employee gets. But the member is very happy to accept this as the definition of the “controlling third party”.

This is a very typical attitude of the Labour Party that when people go out to work, they’re only working for their employer, not for themselves. People want to be in employment because employment, of course, gives them income but it gives a lot of other things too. So I have concerns about this definition, and it would be really good to have an explanation from the member to understand how this member thinks that this is appropriate to say that “controlling third party” means a person for whom this employee of the employer performs work for the benefit of the person. The person here is a controlling third party, so the person goes out to work for themselves too. That’s why we reject this provision as well in this bill.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I thank the member Parmjeet Parmar for the invitation to explain why I support the definition of a “controlling third party”. This side of the House understands that there is a power imbalance in an employment relationship. That is why there are minimum conditions applied to ensure that employees are treated fairly. That is why it is called a controlling the third party, because in an employment relationship, there is an element of control. I point the member to this quote, which was said in the House on 3 March 2016, which I have very quickly become rather fond of. It reads, “I can fully understand that feeling of power imbalance between employers and employees. That has come through quite a lot.”

Mark Patterson: Who said that?

KIERAN McANULTY: Parmjeet Parmar. Dr Parmjeet Parmar, in a previous Government, when it was National’s idea to include minimum standards for employees, said that that member understood the power imbalance between the employee and the employer relationship, yet she had five minutes to explain to the House why she disapproves and opposes this bill. Did she? Did she, my foot. What she did was she stood up and she complained that the bill had been redrafted. Whoop-de-doo! That is what the select committee process is for. You bring a bill up to the select committee, you listen to the submitters, and then you change it.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Don’t bring me into the debate, thank you.

KIERAN McANULTY: I apologise, Mr Chair. I am rather perplexed, however, that on the other side of the Chamber we’ve had two speakers from the National Party. Both of them have complained that this bill has been changed through the select committee process, and they have both highlighted the very part of the bill that has been removed as the reason why they oppose it. They have referred to submitters in front of the select committee that opposed this bill on the basis of the part of the bill that’s been removed.

I have heard no argument from the National Party as to why this bill as it is presented to the committee right now is bad for employers, is bad for employees, and should be opposed. They’re opposing it on the basis of what it used to say, not of what it does say. It’s quite typical of the National Party, living in the past—living in the past—not thinking about now and not thinking about what is right. I do wonder why Dr Parmjeet Parmar, the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, was so worried about the power imbalance between employers and employees on 3 March 2016, but doesn’t seem to care on 22 May 2019, and I’ll tell you why. This is what I think. When it’s their idea, it’s good, and when it’s our idea, it’s bad—that’s the guts of it. This is the level of debate that the New Zealand people can expect from the National Party when this is the case.

I will point to the committee’s intention that both of them pointed out—both speakers, the Hon Scott Simpson and Dr Parmjeet Parmar—about union influence on this bill. I’ve got another quote, and I quite like this one.

Mark Patterson: Who’s this?

KIERAN McANULTY: Well, let me say the quote first, Mr Patterson. This quote says, “The first thing is that unions have a very vital role in our economy and in our workers’ representation, and [we] understand and acknowledge that. Collective bargaining has a very important role as well.” That was on 22 October 2014, the Hon David Bennett—David Bennett. He’s about as right-wing as you can get, but when the National Party put forward a bill that looks to seek and to preserve minimum standards for workers’ rights, they’re all over it, kowtowing, making themselves look good.

But here, the proof is in the pudding. This is where the rubber hits the road, and in a very basic bill that extends the provision of personal grievance to all workers, workers that that side of the House—

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Explain the definition—explain the definition.

KIERAN McANULTY: —and the member that’s interjecting—sought to provide for when they were in Government, and they now oppose it when they are not.

I think that sums up very clearly that in the opportunities that they’ve had to oppose this bill and outline why, they’ve talked about parts of the bill that no longer exist and they’ve talked about things that in the past they supported. I don’t think that side of the House has any opposition to this at all; they’re simply playing politics.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and thank you to the member in charge of the bill for that quite colourful run of clichéd and rather hackneyed colloquialisms. I’d say to him that he’s a conscientious member. I suspect he’s an insomniac, because he’s spent a lot of time reading Hansard over the years, and the problem he might find is that people might remember something he just said—that the way his opponents make policy is it’s a good idea when it’s on their side and it’s a bad idea when it’s on our side. Well, what he might find is that if his career progresses, those words will come back to haunt him once or twice, I suspect. I can’t speculate whether any members will bother to look up the Hansard to see what he said, but if they did, those are some words that might come back and haunt him.

Mr Chair, I thought it was also a rather loose speech, if you don’t mind me saying. The purpose of the committee of the whole House stage is to debate whether or not the bill as currently drafted and its wording suits the intention of the bill that the House agreed to during the second reading. I don’t think we got near that, particularly when the member was talking about the integrity and philosophy of members opposite him throughout most of his speech. That’s demonstrably a long way from where the bill should be.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! To the member, it’s entirely the role of the Chair to decide. I’ve been listening to all contributions very carefully and some have strayed. Most have then come back to those clauses. So a general encouragement to everyone contributing is to get to Part 1 of the bill quickly. Kia ora.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you, Mr Chair. I don’t mean to at all trespass on your territory; I was simply trying to be helpful. As an example of what could happen if members were to stray, I might take offence at what Clare Curran had said—that I was scrambling for relevance—and it occurred to me that Clare Curran saying that one is irrelevant is like Albert Einstein saying that one’s a physicist, because she’d know all about it.

But perhaps we should just stop saying things like that to each other—OK—and maybe get back to talking about Part 1 of this bill and whether the way that it’s worded will achieve the kinds of intentions that we’d like to achieve. I was just saying before—and it’s a shame I couldn’t carry on, because I was just getting into some really interesting economics, and I know it’s interesting, because Dan Bidois told me so. I could see him getting excited in his chair. I was talking—

Hon Stuart Nash: You’ve wasted three minutes already.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, I know, Mr Nash, and the problem is that members of your party have been so—how shall we put this—rambunctious and disorderly that it’s become difficult to give my economic sermon. I’m trying to get back to it, but Stuart Nash is interrupting me again. But, as I was saying, it might be that clause 5 of this bill restrains the supply of labour on a particular worksite, and it might be that restraining that supply of labour will make the price—i.e., the wages paid on that particular worksite—go up. That’s absolutely true. The difficulty is that those costs are passed on to consumers, and the problem—

Hon Dr David Clark: What about a competitive market?

DAVID SEYMOUR: —with this idea is that workers are also consumers. Ah, Dr David Clark is entering into the debate into economics and I welcome him. The problem is, Dr Clark, that this law—and this is why it’s so important that clause 5 has been taken out. I’m glad—

Hon Dr David Clark: The profit goes down because the market’s competitive, surely, for the employer.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, that’s a very good observation, Dr Clark, because, you see, the point is that clause 5 of this bill would stop the market being competitive. It would require all people on a particular worksite to have the same collective agreement. That’s why I’m so glad it’s gone. So, Dr Clark absolutely gets it. I think he’s got a lot of potential as an economist.

What does Dan Bidois think? Dan Bidois is not so confident. But I look at the alacrity and the pique with which David Clark grasped that point. I think that even though he sort of grasped it back to front—he was sort of pulling the plough backwards—he grasped the point counterintuitively, and I think he’s got some potential. So we’re going back to the story. Ha, ha! He’s surrendering. He’s waving a white flag. The effect is that those increased wages end up in costs of products that are passed on to consumers, and workers are also consumers. Of course, the answer might be, if we follow the logic, for—[Time expired]

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to take a call at this committee stage on the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill. I would like to thank the previous speaker for bringing us back to a rational debate here tonight, which is an important debate about the economics of this bill and the impact that it has on the business community and our society as a whole.

It is very clear that we are opposed to this bill. We are opposed to this bill, not just because of the things that were taken into account and changed in the select committee, but because we don’t think it is necessary. This is a bill that was started 12 years ago, and yet our society has moved on. This bill is really about flexibility. We believe on this side of the House in having a more flexible and efficient labour market, and we don’t think that personal grievances—in particular, in Part 1, these clauses—

Hon Scott Simpson: Who introduced this bill?

DAN BIDOIS: Darien Fenton, I believe was the—

Andrew Bayly: Who’s Darien?

DAN BIDOIS: Darien Fenton was the author of this bill originally and then it was reincarnated in Kieran McAnulty’s name. I don’t think he’d read the bill at that stage, but no doubt he’s read it now, although he didn’t refer to it in his previous speech. But it is a watered-down bill, and we don’t believe that this bill is needed. It’s going to make us less flexible in our workplace. It’s all about the cumulative costs that are facing these labour hire companies that have organically grown in a free and competitive market, as David Seymour, the previous speaker, said, and there are going to be fewer opportunities in these labour hire companies, because why would you go to these companies and why would these companies hire if the cumulative costs from all these changes going on in this Labour Government are going on?

So, to our philosophy, we don’t believe that these labour hire companies are evil like this Government sees them. They are providers of a huge amount of opportunity. The majority of these labour hire companies are in fact very good employers, and the people—most importantly—choose this form of working for a reason: because it’s flexible. Yet this Government on the other side of the House believes that they are victimised and that this clause in Part 1 is to seek to redress those victimised workers.

We don’t think that this bill solves a problem. There is no problem. In fact, if there is a problem, one thing that came from the Education and Workforce Committee is that we should license these labour hire companies, and something I’m very passionate about—and we’ll make sure it’s a priority in our next Government, post - 2020—is making sure that we look at labour hire companies and regulation and a framework to encourage this type of practice, similar to what has happened in Queensland with their labour hire licensing law.

To our philosophy, what is in Part 1 that I disagree with and I think needs to be removed in its entirety is the lack of flexibility that this gives employers who have sought to engage these labour hire companies. It’s about productivity, and this bill, in fact, does nothing for productivity of both labour hire companies but also the companies that hire these workers, or what we call secondary employers.

So it is very clear, and I would like to ask a question in my remaining minute around how this law will, in fact, reduce flexibility in the workplace. I’d like the author of this bill to address the impact that this law will have on flexibility, because, time and time again, the feedback that we get from the member’s own electorate, which he doesn’t represent because he’s a list member, is that businesses in the great electorate of Wairarapa are saying to us that that they deserve and want a flexible labour market. I would like the member in the chair, Kieran McAnulty, to, hopefully—or not “hopefully”—address that problem, because that is something that’s coming up within his own electorate about the businesses and the impact on productivity that it will have.

We don’t support this bill. We don’t think it is necessary. Part 1, I think, needs to be removed in its entirety. I would like the member to address how this is going to impact productivity.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe and thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to comment on some of the nonsense that has come to us from members on the other side of the Chamber. It started pretty much with Kieran McAnulty, our member in the chair and the recipient of this bill, talking to the Opposition about what this bill exactly means. However, as they are doing now, they’re trying to drown out any sound of a reasoned debate with their nonsense repeat of slogans. Our member in the chair fairly clearly explained that there is a gap in the current employment legislation that will not allow people that are employed by labour hire companies to raise a personal grievance. Now, a personal grievance is all that this bill is addressing—very correctly stated. So their keeping on repeating “We get it all.” but then not listening to what is being explained to the other side will just end up in this being an endless debate as we continue to explain what this is about.

So at the moment, the labour hire worker cannot raise a personal grievance. I say to Mr Dan Bidois, our colleague from the other side from Italy, that this has nothing to do with a lack of flexibility. This has nothing to do with a loss of productivity. This is about a person who is unable, when he is either unjustifiably dismissed or when someone tells him just to not come back the next day—they can’t raise that as an issue. It’s a recognised human right that everybody else has in the world, except for in this part of the legislation, where that is written out of the law.

Now, we also heard from the member Scott Simpson about our submitters. Well, actually, without any exception, every single one of the submitters has acknowledged that there is exploitation in the industry. So every single labour hire company that came before our Education and Workforce Committee said, “There is a problem in the industry and we need to address it.” This is a start, and I’ll tell the other side exactly—again—why.

Mr Simpson mentioned the issue that has been flagged up recently with the environment here in Parliament and how we are dealing with some of these issues that have arisen, and he mentioned in particular the triangular employment arrangements that are part of that. Now, it is a really good example showing the problems that triangular employment relations bring with them, because the person is unable—because they’re scared of maybe losing their job—to raise any health and safety issues they may see. The most common complaint that is not raised under these employment arrangements is sexual harassment. Now, imagine this: you are a labour hire worker, you are being bullied—

Simeon Brown: Mr Patterson did a good job.

MARJA LUBECK: —you are being harassed, you are suffering sexual harassment—and I believe that is not a laughing matter, Mr Brown. You are suffering sexual harassment, and you cannot bring that up, because what happens? Your employer—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! Don’t bring me into the debate.

MARJA LUBECK: Sorry. The employer is not allowing that worker to bring it up, because if the worker were to do that, they would just be told not to come back the next day. That’s the end, and there is no personal grievance ability. So what happens? The person—

Melissa Lee: The labour hire company is the employer.

MARJA LUBECK: —is quiet and the sexual harassment and the bullying continues, and, Ms Lee, I don’t think that’s acceptable. You might think that’s acceptable, but we on this side of the House believe that needs to be addressed. I think it’s appalling, that attitude.

Melissa Lee: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would hate to stop the member in her tracks in her speech, but when she’s actually telling mistruths when she’s actually calling out my name and it’s going to be recorded on the Hansard, I think it is actually very wrong for a member to do that when I have not actually said anything that that member tries to claim that I have.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): This has been a robust debate. I haven’t heard anything from the member Marja Lubeck which I would consider to be out of order, and so she will continue.

MARJA LUBECK: Thank you, Mr Chair. So we know from the recent annual health and safety reviews from WorkSafe that too many workers get hurt and injured on the job. Our very poor health and safety statistics are evidence of the fact that we need to make sure that workers in the country remain safe. This bill is only starting to address that massive gap in our legislation. We on this side of the House are convinced that workers need to be safe in their working environment, and that’s why we completely endorse this bill and commend it to the committee. Thank you, Mr Chair.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): Mr Chair, thank you for this opportunity to speak on the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Bill, and I want to bring members’ attention back to the actual bill we are considering. It is this one here. There’s a lot that’s been removed from it, and there’s very little that remains, and what’s important is that we don’t fall into the trap here of dressing this up as a major move forward.

That would be a complete triumph of spin over substance, because what we’ve had Marja Lubeck, the member opposite, just claim is that somehow members on this side of the House think that bullying and harassment is acceptable. I find that allegation outrageous. Of course we do not, nor would we expect any employer to engage in that sort of behaviour, and, in fact, the current law does not allow employers to engage in that sort of behaviour.

We need to be very clear that the current law already allows people who are employed by labour hire firms to raise personal grievances. This is a matter that members on the opposite side of the Chamber and the member sitting alongside the chair this evening seem very confused about, so I’m going to go to the departmental report, a neutral report from the officials. I’m going to read from it what they said about the current provisions relating to personal grievances. They say, “The personal grievance provisions in the [Employment Relations] Act already apply to the relationship between the worker and the on-hire firm,”.

So what I put to you, very clearly, is that these personal grievance measures already exist and that, in fact, all that Mr McAnulty’s bill does is have a little party about how you divide up the pie of the personal grievance. What it actually does is it inserts a new section 103B, which allows the employee or the employer to join a controlling third party in a personal grievance. So what it’s actually saying is “You already had a personal grievance, but now we’ll let you jump through a thousand more legal hoops to decide how those two people involved in your employment relationship divide up the liability.” This is about how two people involved in working with someone divide the liability when one of them has done wrong. This is not a great step forward for workers’ rights, and to cast it in those terms is verging on being disingenuous.

What is also does is a whole bunch of tricky process things, and on this side of the House we know that where you introduce additional processes—there’s a whole section in here, a new section 115A about how you notify the controlling third party and what that looks like, and there’s a new section 123A about the remedies—and when you insert these sorts of things and you create the potential for dispute between two parties as to who is liable, you are making hay for lawyers. I would put to you that making hay for lawyers in this way won’t actually benefit individual employees.

But, you know, what I do want to do is I want to thank Mr McAnulty, because what he did with this bill was he gave us the opportunity to hear from real labour hire companies and to hear the reality of what they do for workers in our workforce. We heard from some extraordinary people who have provided opportunities to New Zealanders from all walks of life.

We heard, for example, from the Shamrock Recruitment Group, based here in Wellington. It is an organisation that has given literally hundreds of New Zealanders a pathway back into work. What the Shamrock Recruitment Group said to us was that in its original form—and I quote—“Put simply, this Bill caters for an employment and contracting market in New Zealand which existed two decades ago, and is not fit for purpose in 2018.” That’s why the bill that we are considering tonight is so, so different from the one that first came into this House, because, put simply, that bill had the mentality that members opposite had, which is that it was written for a world that no longer exists. We now exist in a world where people actually enjoy the flexibility of individual employment agreements in individual circumstances.

I just want to tell you a couple of examples from Shamrock Recruitment Group that they shared with me. When I sat down with them and said “Tell me about the people whose lives you’ve changed.”, they said, “Well, let me tell you about the women that we hire who want to be able to have the school holidays off. We give them flexible jobs. Let us tell you about the people who we hire after hours because they are removing asbestos from buildings and we’re able to work around their day jobs. Let us tell you about the people who are students at university and whose timetables we can work around.” Actually, this bill seeks to demonise third-party hiring agencies. Actually, they create flexible employment opportunities for dozens of New Zealanders.

This bill is not a great step forward. It just creates a whole lot more process to the benefit of no one. Thank you, Mr Chair.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I thank the member Nicola Willis for her comments, particularly the reference to the departmental report. I am puzzled, however, why the member chose to stop halfway through a paragraph, so perhaps I might be able to enlighten the committee on what followed what that member referred to.

She is correct that the departmental report said “The personal grievance provisions in the Act already apply to the relationship between the worker and the on-hire firm,”—of course it does, because that is the whole point. The employee is employed by the labour hire company, but they have no provision to take a personal grievance against the company that they are under the direct control of.

It continues: “This part of the Bill has the effect of mirroring those personal grievance provisions for the controlling third party”—there we have it. These employees do not have the right to a personal grievance under the controlling third party, although Nicola Willis, due to her speech, would make it sound like they do, by quoting the departmental report. It would appear that Nicola Willis forgot that I also have a copy, as do the general public.

The fact is that it doesn’t matter how they spin it or how many times they complain that the bill has changed or how many times they refer to submitters that were complaining about the part of the bill that has been repeated—which is a common theme of all the speakers thus far—this part of the bill is very simple. As it currently stands, the departmental report confirms that employees under a triangular employment agreement do not have recourse through a personal grievance against the controlling third party—that is the point of the bill—and the other side say that they do not need to.

There is no example available where they can show that a worker who was treated poorly by a controlling third party was able to take that third party through a personal grievance. There is an example where, through E tū union, some workers took Sky Chefs to court, and the court said that they were essentially full-time employees. It doesn’t apply here because the law has not changed. Actually, we should look at this because the court is sending this Parliament a very clear direction that these employees should be treated as the employees under the direct control of the controlling third party, and this is what this bill seeks to do.

Since I last rose, we’ve also heard from two speakers that this bill is not necessary. Either they cannot have been listening or they cannot have a heart, and I’ll explain what I mean by that. In the first reading and the second reading and now, again, today, I alert the House to the example of a worker who was employed by a labour hire company and placed on placement with a controlling third party for seven years. Now, there are some serious questions to raise about why a company is using a labour hire company to take on an employee for seven years, but that is not what we’re here to discuss tonight. What we are here to discuss tonight is the specific conditions as to how she was dismissed. This employee was under the direct control of a controlling third party for seven years. She found out she was pregnant and was dismissed the next day. Now, if the National Party are comfortable with that, by all means, I invite the members to stand up and say so, instead of skirting around the issues and saying it’s not necessary.

What we say is that in any circumstance when an employee is unfairly dismissed—be it the extreme of the one that I have just given or any small example where a worker is treated poorly—they should have the recourse to a personal grievance that the rest of us enjoy. Thus far, I have heard nothing but repeated arguments and failed arguments to explain to this committee and the nation why they oppose this bill. They have failed to directly address that. They’ve talked in rhetoric and all sorts of flash words. They’ve even resorted to having a crack because I’m a list MP—you know you’re winning the argument when that is the best they’ve got. All I’ve heard tonight are pathetic attempts to try and prove to their mates why they oppose the bill, when in previous attempts they’ve said that they support the exact thing that this is trying to achieve.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. Could I begin by agreeing with the member in charge of the bill, Kieran McAnulty, that it’s really not necessary to attack people for being a list MP or for any other characteristic of their own when there are so many good reasons to attack the bill, and I was just getting to them when my last speaking slot ended. So I hope that this time there won’t be too many interruptions from other members around the committee and we can get down to some really good economic analysis of clause 5. This is now the third call in which I’ve been trying to do this—

Chris Penk: Repetition.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —and it hasn’t been particularly easy to get there. But I think what we’ve established so far as we’ve traversed through chapter 20 of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson—someone’s saying I’m being repetitious. Well, you know, I guess the problem is that there have been so many interruptions so far. The difficulty with constraining the supply of workers who can work on a particular worksite is that it may push up wages for them, but workers are also consumers, and if the same thing happens on every worksite, then we may get higher wages in a nominal sense. But the great difficulty is that those higher wages are passed on in costs, which, of course, in their role as consumers, those same workers have to pay.

So what union membership can do, if it’s restrictive of who can work on a particular worksite—as clause 5 would propose—is it can certainly push up the wages of a certain worksite, but that is just to advantage some workers at the expense of others, who have to buy the goods that those workers consume. Then the next question is: what if everybody did it?

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: No, still not talking about the bill.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, then we’d end up with no particular worker being better off, because productivity hasn’t increased, just price levels. Iain Lees-Galloway—he’s come to join in the discussion, and I welcome him, the Minister for labour—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: If I did, I’d speak to the bill.

DAVID SEYMOUR: He’s very welcome, and he’s complaining that I’m not speaking to the bill. Unfortunately, Iain Lees-Galloway hasn’t been here to enjoy this committee stage, and if he had been, he would understand that we’re talking about the removal of clause 5 from the bill during the select committee phase. I’m saying why I think that’s such an important change that’s—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes, but this is the committee stage.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —been made, and it’s taken some time. Well, no it’s really about—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Do you remember what stage you’re in?

DAVID SEYMOUR: The committee of the whole House stage, as Iain Lees-Galloway will know—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes, I do know.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —is all about—well, he doesn’t know what he knows, and he doesn’t know much. But the problem is that the committee stage is all about deciding whether the wording of the bill as reported back from the Education and Workforce Committee truly reflects the intentions that the House agreed to at the second reading. I’m not sure that Mr Lees-Galloway did know that, because he just looked a bit surprised right then. So that’s what we’re debating. I’ve been saying, and I’ve been giving a very robust public policy and economic case for why clause 5, as currently drafted, certainly meets those criteria.

However, I’d like to push on to other clauses, namely clauses 6 and 7, because those ones, as Mr Lees-Galloway, being a King’s College old boy—great result on the weekend, incidentally—will know, come after No. 5. Numbers 6 and 7—25 grand a year and he learnt that much, I know. The fact of the matter is that those sections, as the member in the chair has said multiple times, extend the personal grievance provision to people who are on the same worksite. We’ve heard a bit about this. The member in charge recently challenged the National Party to decide where they stand on the existence of personal grievances, and I think the member in charge has got a point. If it’s true that personal grievances are a good thing, then surely they should apply to people whether or not those people are in a triangular employment relationship. It seems like a rather strange and arbitrary division to make.

So I think, really, in order to decide whether to support clauses 6 and 7, does the committee think that personal grievances are a good legislative instrument? This got me thinking about another, I guess, labour economic theme. Mr Chair, with a little bit of luck you’ll give me another five minutes and I can actually really get into it, and who knows? Mr Lees-Galloway might join in the discussion and Dr David Clark might look up over his papers again, having put away the white flag that he was waving last time he got into a debate with me, and then we can really get into some detail around whether personal grievances are a good thing. I suspect that I’m going to run out of time but I’ll try again.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): I move, That the question be now put.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Chair. That’s precisely the opportunity that I was hoping for. I hope that I can make a contribution that will further enlighten the committee, because the question is not whether or not personal grievances are a good thing—that’s a version of the question—but it’s actually whether or not we as a Parliament should make them mandatory, because it’s quite possible in contract law that people will have personal grievance provisions and that they will enter into those kinds of arrangements without Parliament making them mandatory. So it’s not even about whether personal grievances are a good thing, but about whether or not they should be made mandatory in law, and the funny thing is that what we have is a situation where people are voluntarily entering into a labour law arrangement where you don’t have to have a personal grievance availability. So we actually have two types of employment law. That’s what this bill, ostensibly, would seek to fix.

The question is: would it be better if we actually gave everybody the option of going to a workplace where they didn’t have personal grievances against the person operating the workplace—not just some people who happen to be in what the member in charge of the bill would describe as a loophole, but where everybody could actually choose to be in an employment relationship that didn’t have personal grievances? The question, really, is: why do people believe that there is a power imbalance between employers and employees? I know what the Labour Party’s answer is: “Oh, you’re from Epsom. You don’t understand. You don’t know what the working people go through.”, and blah-blah-blah. It’s all totally untrue and quite an unfair mischaracterisation of myself, having grown up in Whangarei, where my first job was at TDC Sawmills.

But, putting that aside, they miss a perspective, which is that of the employer. If they think that workers and employees seek desperately for jobs, then they should see how hard employers seek for employees. If it’s the case that employees and employers are equally desperate to find each other and form relationships that are productive and where they can work hard and generate new wealth, then it would seem that, actually, there is no asymmetry in the relationship.

If that is true, then we can get back to the question of whether or not personal grievances, or at least whether this Parliament should be making them mandatory, is something that is necessary at all, because if it’s true that employers and employees are both equally invested in trying to find jobs and trying to find workers, and there’s no asymmetry of power, then, actually, it’s not clear why this Parliament needs to screw the scrum and make sure that one side has to have a different level of power than the other. You certainly, as an employer, don’t have anything like the same sort of rights to stay in the working relationship when you’d like to get out of it that employees have. Why should this House put that asymmetry in place?

I’d ask the member in charge of the bill, and some of the members opposite that are scoffing, why is it that they think there’s an asymmetry of power between employers and employees, when both of them report that they’re desperate to find the other one, with equal measure as far as I can see. Maybe they think that employees are less intelligent—you know, is it a question of their ability? Do they think that as a group there’s some sort of inherent difference—

Marja Lubeck: Yes, yes—that’s it. That’s the word here: “inherent”.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —that makes them in greater need of protection from the State? Are they actually saying—I think Marja Lubeck was just saying that employees are somehow an inferior group of people. Well, that’s offensive, and on a day that we’re trying not to bully each other, to say that everybody who’s a worker or employee is inferior—coming from the Labour Party, of all parties—is a disgrace. So it can’t be that employees are inherently inferior people.

So why is it that the Labour Party believes that employees need additional protections and can’t work out how to enter into a labour arrangement just like everybody else? If that’s true, and if personal grievances, it turns out, are not something that this Parliament needs to enforce on employment relationships, then it would seem we don’t need clauses 6 or 7, and that would be a reason to dump Part 1 and abandon that part of the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to properly run out an argument—[Time expired]

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to contribute here in the committee stage of this particular bill. You’d be forgiven if you thought that this particular atmosphere that we have traversed in this bill was simply to undermine labour hire companies, and that’s what those of us on the Education and Workforce Committee found as we traversed through the public submissions stage and, certainly, listened to the contributions from our colleagues across the table from us. There was a pervasive attitude that if you weren’t in full-time employment, then something attributable to a labour hire company was precarious or vulnerable or an undesirable type of employment, but what we heard from submitters from labour hire companies was actually a very different story. I remember with clarity one particular company coming to represent from South Auckland and the way that they were able to offer some flexible and some really good arrangements for their employees and how they were getting people into employment—the type of employment that they wanted and look forward to.

I would like to just quickly run through what clauses have changed, but I want to bring out one particular submission in relation to those clauses. It was a late submission and it was from Auckland Council, and the fact that it was late is really telling.

So, as we know, the bill does two things. First, those employees in triangular employment will automatically be bound by any collective agreement in the workplace of their secondary employer, and, second, those employers will be able to raise a personal grievance against their secondary employer. We go on to amend section 5 in clause 4, and insert a new section in clause 5 and a new section in clause 6. So, as my colleagues have said before, the original bill was gutted and what we have here is something quite new.

In Auckland Council’s submission, which was late—and that allowed them to do something very specific. It allowed them to analyse the submissions that had already come in, and analyse them quite clearly and succinctly. What Auckland Council said was that noting the submissions that had already come in to support the bill, the types of concerns that kept popping up in those submissions of support didn’t appear at all well-connected to the solutions that the original bill was offering. Now, I realise that the bill has completely changed, but this is important to understand what Auckland Council saw as the tenets of the original bill. For example, they said that the solutions were a real mismatch to unfair treatment by a secondary employer, there was a mismatch on lack of clarity around entitlements as a temp, there was a lack of understanding of the relationships or terms of the contract, and there were even problems—basic problems—with the agency and the primary employer.

So this is my primary question for the bill’s sponsor. What they were saying, then, was that a better solution, if that’s what was coming through—and we know the bill’s been gutted. Why were these concerns addressed in the way that the bill now addresses them when, in fact, as Auckland Council points out—and this is what they said—surely we should be just ensuring primary employers are providing adequate information and support to the temporary employees for their contract? Better contracting could have been a different solution.

I’d like to back up what my colleague Dan Bidois said in relation to these concerns. Another solution could have been a registration system. Why didn’t we debate that and look at that—a licensing of the industry. Some of the industry players said that, and they offered it themselves. Why aren’t we looking at that? They wouldn’t mind having that discussion. They weren’t afraid of that discussion.

A reference has been made again by my colleague to the Queensland legislation, which is, essentially, a fine system, an infringement system, and a beefed-up inspectorate. So when you look at what Auckland Council analysed from the original bill, and they were saying it didn’t even match up to what the proposed intent of the bill was, why then did we go down this path and not do what they were suggesting?

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): What we’ve seen tonight—and it was shown, yet again, by Denise Lee’s contribution—is the same old arguments rolled out again and again. They have a crack at the bill for being changed, and yet I note Denise Lee stood up and read a description of the bill that isn’t this bill, but the old bill. She said that the bill seeks to do two parts and that it seeks to include workers in the collective arrangement, despite the fact that we’ve covered, again and again and again, that that part is no longer in the bill. Her colleagues accused us of not reading the bill and she’s made herself look utterly foolish by reading the old bill—I mean, good Lord!

What I will point out to the members, and especially David Seymour, is it is now 10 to 9. There is no mathematical way we can get to the End of Life Choice Bill. So those that are wanting to filibuster, you’ve done your job, so good on you. But those of you that are wanting to discuss—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m not—

KIERAN McANULTY: You’re dead right, Madam Chair. You’re dead right—I would certainly not accuse you of doing that. But what I am happy to accuse the other side of doing is saying the same old thing but not saying anything different, because they’ve actually failed to outline why they oppose this bill. They’ve pointed, as Denise Lee did, to the submission of Auckland Council—just like Nicola Willis did—forgetting that we’ve got exactly the same information as them. What Denise Lee failed to point out was that in Auckland Council’s submission, their primary opposition was to the collective agreement clause that is no longer in the bill. Every single National speaker has opposed this bill on the basis of the part that no longer exists.

Now, I’m not blaming Denise Lee, because she didn’t know that it was taken out, despite the fact that she’s standing up and talking about it. But nevertheless, here we are at the committee stage. It’s an opportunity for people to look to improve the bill, just like the select committee—although every single National speaker has pointed out that the bill has changed, despite the fact that that is what the point of the select committee is.

The only person thus far on the Opposition benches to speak to this bill was David Seymour. Even though he framed his speech as a lecture in economics and he was speaking to the Associate Minister of Finance at the time, he still addressed the bill, and I will acknowledge him for that. As I said, he’s achieved his goal—we won’t get to his bill tonight. He’s accused us of speaking in clichés. He’s accused us of speaking in colloquialisms. I have a cliché for Mr David Seymour: get some mates. Get some mates, David Seymour, and then perhaps you’ll be able to say that your opposition to this bill reflects the views of the country. But as you stand there as a one-man party, you can hardly say that your particular point in opposition to this bill has broad support.

I must admit the National side don’t have anything on David Seymour, because at least he spoke to the bill, at least he bought original arguments to this, and at least he wanted to discuss whether or not the provision of taking a personal grievance, which this bill does in extending it to those workers in a triangular employment arrangement—at least he discussed that. He didn’t go down the route of complaining that the bill was gutted at select committee. He didn’t go down the route of having a crack because I’m a list MP, not an electorate MP. He didn’t go down the route of saying that this wasn’t needed and then referring to the submitters that opposed the part of the bill that no longer exists.

We have heard numerous speeches about this part of this bill. They all said the same, but they all said nothing.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

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

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.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Further amendment to principal Act

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Colleagues, that brings us to Part 2, which is debate on clause 11 and the Schedule.

David Seymour: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m not surprised.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I have to say—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): This is a very tight debate.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —I believe that Part 2 is an excellent part relative to the quality of the rest of this bill, which is still a very low bar, and I intend to debate it with the same level of tightness and precision and closeness to the actual contents of the bill as Kieran McAnulty, the member in charge of the bill, showed in his previous speech. I want to give him an opportunity for personal growth, because one hopes that in our society we have a virtuous circle where if somebody is kind to you, refrains from personally insulting you, and actually defends you from personal insults, then the thing to do is to try to reciprocate. Reciprocity is what Kieran McAnulty, I think, should be trying to grow into.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’d like you to grow into the part in the bill.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I leave him with that thought, because if he did that, then who knows? He might have done a better job of drafting Part 2. But, sadly, he hasn’t, and that’ll have to be for another day. Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): OK, that was very enlightening.

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

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.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Kieran McAnulty to the Schedule be agreed to:

delete in the heading to new clause 16 of schedule 1AA “and (5)”; and

delete in new clause 16 of schedule 1AA “and (5)”.

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

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.

Amendments agreed to.

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

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.

Schedule as amended agreed to.

Clause 1

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

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.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

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

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.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 3 be agreed to.

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.

Clause 3 agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I move, That the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to make it possible for any foster parent or kin carer who has proof of responsibility to approach a KiwiSaver provider to open an account for a foster child in their care. Currently, the only way for a foster parent or kin carer to open a KiwiSaver account is by application to their approved or allocated social worker, and experience has shown that this is a very low priority for social workers as they are very busy people and have more urgent tasks to address. The CEO of the Ministry of Social Development currently has the power to open a KiwiSaver account for a child who has contested or no legal guardians. However, this current set-up relies on complex processes to take place within a Government framework where the CEO’s priorities are in urgent demand in other areas. Under current KiwiSaver legislation, foster parents are prevented from opening a KiwiSaver account for their foster children as they are not technically the legal guardian. Instead, the CEO of Oranga Tamariki is the only person that can apply to open a KiwiSaver account for a foster child.

The current process has far too much red tape and prevents foster parents from acting in the best interests of foster children. To give every single foster child in New Zealand that chance of success, we need to change this. There are more than 6,000 foster children in State care in New Zealand. This bill will reduce demands on social workers, which will free them up to focus on more important, pressing issues. This bill simply gives every foster child in New Zealand the same rights as any other child to open a KiwiSaver account.

A KiwiSaver account, unlike your bank account, is the only financial instrument that no one except the owner of the account can access. This bill will add to the work of the previous National Government to improve the lives of New Zealand’s most vulnerable children. If anyone opposed to this bill says there is no need for it because there has never been an application, the reason why we’re here tonight proves this point. There have been applications through social workers, but none have ever made it through to the CEO because they are busy people and the social workers can’t get it through.

I introduced this bill to give 6,000 foster children the same choice as any other child to open a KiwiSaver account. I was a little bit disappointed with certain aspects of the report back from officials. This bill in its amended form, as recommended by the officials, only helps about 10 percent, around six or seven hundred, who have already got a guardian. What about the 5,900 foster children who don’t have a guardian and will never be able to open up a KiwiSaver account if this bill is passed in its form recommended by the select committee majority report?

Oranga Tamariki consistently say it creates an unhealthy precedent to have someone other than the legal guardian to have the right to open a KiwiSaver account. Name for me one bad outcome from someone having a KiwiSaver account. If a KiwiSaver account is not a good thing, why do we as a country sign up everyone when they start working and force them to opt out if they don’t want a KiwiSaver account? Oranga Tamariki say only legal guardians should be able to open a KiwiSaver account for their foster children. Oranga Tamariki have never opened a KiwiSaver account for a foster child, despite several requests made by social workers.

As part of this journey, Oranga Tamariki—it’s great that they say they intend to review their current processes. This is a good thing. However, this is apparently part of their general review, and when I asked them in the Social Services and Community Committee for a time frame, they said over the next year or two. The only way to give foster children the same rights as other children to open a KiwiSaver account is to force Oranga Tamariki to give them that right by legislation.

I want to touch on a couple of submissions made throughout the process. Several submitters expressed concern that this provision is too broad. There were concerns that a short-term foster parent may not be best placed to consider what is in the long-term financial interests of the child. Several submitters who were foster children also said they want the same rights as other children in New Zealand. This fact has been conveniently omitted by officials pushing their point of view.

The committee also heard concerns about situations where foster care arrangements are short term and may change over time. One submitter noted that a child’s caregivers may have different views about finances, including KiwiSaver. No one is forcing any foster parent to contribute to a KiwiSaver account. A KiwiSaver account simply protects any money the child has placed into it against any potential abuse by an adult. It may be difficult for KiwiSaver scheme providers to identify who is authorised to enrol a child into KiwiSaver—not if the legislation is clear.

Officials recommended amending the bill to enable only those foster parents who have committed to a long-term care arrangement to enrol a child in KiwiSaver without the consent of a child’s other legal guardians. The National Party will be lodging Supplementary Order Papers at the next reading on this bill, and I just want to touch briefly on the National Party minority view. National members are concerned that the original intent of the legislation will not be achieved and that foster parents with children in their care are not able to enrol them in KiwiSaver. National members accept that there will be several hundred children that will have the opportunity to open a KiwiSaver account. However, this bill does not achieve the original intent and fails to assist the remaining 5,500 foster children.

This bill was always intended to provide a pathway for foster parents to enrol a child in their care in KiwiSaver whose only existing guardian was the CEO of Oranga Tamariki, and the evidence to date was there is no effective pathway to that CEO. Experience with trying to get a social worker to carry out that application to the CEO, which is the current route, has proven fruitless. I have examples of foster parents trying to open up KiwiSaver accounts, which, as I said earlier, is why we’re here today. Megan Barclay, whose child has been in her care for several years—she’s been trying for the last three or four years to become the legal guardian and has still not achieved her purpose, her goal, of giving financial security to her foster children to ensure they have a secure financial future. She has been fighting Oranga Tamariki for over three years, and, to date, no luck. That child will not benefit from the amended bill as suggested by the select committee.

I just want to finish up with thanking the select committee, under the leadership of Gareth Hughes, for working with me on this bill. It hasn’t been easy, but I just really want to thank all members of the House for supporting this and ensuring we give a level playing field for those foster children living in New Zealand.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll just remind the member: I didn’t stop him during the speech, but you shouldn’t be reading your second reading speech. You should be able to do that. You might be new, but you’re not that new.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I begin my contribution to the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill by commending the member Hamish Walker for the intent behind his bill, which is to make life a little bit easier for foster children. It is a well-intentioned bill, and he worked very collegially with members of the Social Services and Community Committee to get to this point. The amendments that were recommended by the select committee do narrow the scope of the bill a little bit, but at the end of the day, this bill will still benefit hundreds of foster children, and I just want to state that up front.

The original bill sought to enable any foster parent or kin carer to open an account with a KiwiSaver provider for any foster child in their care. Now, under the current legislation—and I’m just going to read this bit because it’s quite precise: under the current legislation, section 35 of the KiwiSaver Act states that children under the age of 16 can only be enrolled in KiwiSaver if all of their guardians consent. Children under the age of 16 with a CYPFA, which is the Oranga Tamariki guardian, can be enrolled by the guardian without the need for consent from all the other guardians that this child might have. Now, the Act defines the Oranga Tamariki guardians as the following: it could be the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, it could be an iwi social service, it could be a cultural social service, or the director of a child and family support service. So any other person who is a natural guardian or who might be appointed as the child’s legal guardian under the Oranga Tamariki Act can only enrol a child in KiwiSaver when they have the consent of all the other legal guardians of this child. Foster parents who are not legal guardians are unable to enrol a child in their care into KiwiSaver, and that’s the crux of what Hamish Walker’s bill is trying to change.

Now, the main amendment that came through officials’ advice and has been recommended by the select committee is to enable only those foster parents who have committed to a long-term care arrangement to be able to enrol their foster child into KiwiSaver without the consent of the other legal guardians. So that’s where the scope is a little bit narrowed, but it’s still broad enough to benefit, I think it’s about, 500-600 foster children.

Now, I just want to point to the fact that this bill raised some very valid concerns in the eyes of the select committee members, one of which came through submitters and was the time that it takes for children in care to obtain documents like birth certificates and IRD numbers, which are prerequisites for their KiwiSaver account to be opened with providers. It takes some time, as the member Hamish Walker has pointed out in his contribution as well, and we were gladdened to hear from Oranga Tamariki officials that there are processes in place to actually speed this up and it is an issue that they are looking into as well.

Some of the concerns that were raised by members and also through officials were that allowing all foster parents, even those who have very temporary care arrangements with their foster children, to be able to make what is considered a major financial decision for foster children, including temporary ones, is out of step with current legislation and with current practice, where, often, temporary caregivers can’t even make decisions like being able to cut their foster children’s hair. So this sets a precedent, and that’s one of the points that was raised by officials.

Now, while members on this side of the House laud the benefits of KiwiSaver given that it was a previous Labour Government that introduced KiwiSaver as a scheme in the first place in 2006 to encourage working New Zealanders to set aside a portion of their earnings to fund their long-term income security, we note—and I’d like to note specifically—that the previous National Government watered that scheme down considerably, and this came up in discussions in select committee as well. I’m actually now pleased that the National Party finally recognises the importance of the KiwiSaver scheme that they tried, again, I mention, to weaken by removing the thousand-dollar kickstart payment. Again, this came up in select committee, and the point was made that it would have been easier to get to a point of agreement with regard to this bill if there was actually that incentive still in place. The second was to introduce an employer superannuation contribution tax and decrease the maximum annual member tax credit from $1,042 to about $521.

Now, the third problem—and this was a bit of an issue that I particularly wanted to look into in select committee—with allowing all foster parents, including those who have very temporary care arrangements with their foster children, the ability to enrol their temporary foster children into KiwiSaver is the issue of fees. Now, there are currently about 30 KiwiSaver scheme providers out there, and only one, Simplicity, has said that they will waive fees for foster children. I commend them for that and applaud them for that decision. The problem if foster children enrol through any other KiwiSaver provider, though, is that those fees could accrue, and especially in temporary care arrangements, it means that one foster parent might put in a lump sum of money; many others may not. If fees continue to drain the amount of money that they have in that account and it reaches a balance of zero, by law that account will be shut, which then means that those foster children have to go through the whole palaver all over again of opening another account. It could be detrimental for them because they end up losing that amount of money that’s in there.

So, in conclusion, the recommendation of the select committee was that this bill be passed with the amendments that came through and that are laid out very clearly in the select committee report. Once again, I just want to thank Hamish Walker for engaging so constructively with the select committee and for his ambition to make life a little bit easier for foster children. I also want to thank, as deputy chair of the select committee, members who worked collegially to get to the point that we’ve reached today. I’d like to thank submitters, many of whom shared very personal stories at the select committee as well, and, finally, officials for their work that assisted us to make the decisions that we had to make. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. A real pleasure for me to stand and speak to the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill in its second reading tonight. As we’ve heard, this is a member’s bill in the name of Hamish Walker and today is the second time I have spoken to a bill that’s had its origins in the Southland electorate. The first one today was the Gore District Council (Otama Rural Water Supply) Bill, so I’m wondering if there is something, indeed, in the water in Southland that generates so much legislation.

Now, this bill came about when Hamish Walker was approached by one of his constituents who has had no end of barriers in applying for a KiwiSaver account for a child in their care. Now, we heard from Hamish Walker in his first reading speech about this particular family, and a real-life example was the grandfather, who wanted to ensure that all his grandchildren, including his foster grandchildren, were taken care of by him into their future, and, as a result, wanted to open for them a KiwiSaver account. This is where they realised that, actually, it wasn’t going to be that simple. The identification documents that are required—the IRD number, and the birth certificate—found to be quite a struggle for them to achieve. So it was this trigger that has brought this piece of legislation to us tonight.

We would’ve thought that, for any of us, to get a birth certificate or an IRD number would be quite a simple process, but, actually, for these foster children it is not. In fact, for the people that have been trying it is impossible. Because the children are in the State care under the guardianship of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, that chief executive is the caregiver, so therefore is the only person that can apply for those IRD numbers or the birth certificate, and so even to open a bank account is proving difficult for some of these children in care. We do appreciate and respect the burden of work that the social workers and, indeed, the chief executive have. So in terms of priorities, we found that the issuing of a birth certificate, or IRD number, or opening a KiwiSaver account simply did not find its way to the top of the work pile, and so languishes. One family that we heard from during the submission period had tried three times over 2½ years to open a KiwiSaver account, that so far they still have not achieved it.

The significance of the bill that we’re discussing tonight is important, because it will ensure that those children who find themselves in the care of foster parents are receiving the same rights and privileges as other kids. Now this bill will ensure that the kids who need the support the most, those within the Oranga Tamariki system, are getting the future support that they deserve. I thank my colleague Hamish Walker for responding to a real need in a very special portion of our communities—these children who are under the care of Oranga Tamariki. I believe that KiwiSaver is a universal right for Kiwis, that, you know, we are entitled to have our savings secured, that they are not able to be accessed by anyone else, and that we have the security there accumulating for our retirement. We actually did hear one heartbreaking story from one family who told us that the child in their care had part-time jobs, had saved up about a thousand dollars in cash—now, that was a huge amount of money—but, unfortunately, the money was not secure. He had it in cash, he had it hidden, but an unfortunate other family member got their hands on it, and it was stolen.

These kids that came to talk to us and submitted to us told us, as my colleague has mentioned, other heartfelt stories about why they feel that they deserve the right to have a KiwiSaver account opened in their name by foster parents. They want their savings protected, they want it tamper-proof, and they want it there for if they choose at some point to buy their first home, to realise the Kiwi Dream of owning their home, or to have it there accumulating for their retirement. But of course, these kids aren’t getting the same service that other kids are, and there seems to be an assumption within the banking sector and with the KiwiSaver providers that all applicants are going to come from what I might call regular families, where they have access to the documentation that is required to open these accounts. But of course, we know now that they are not.

The 6,400 children in this country that live in foster care families deserve the same support in terms of their KiwiSaver. Now, we did hear from officials during the select committee process that were directly involved in the system, but I believe the ones that had the loudest voice were the young people themselves. We had some come along and speak to us, and, you know, one story that has stayed with me was from a young man who said to us that he simply wants to be treated like every other kid. He wants the same right to have his savings go into this account, and one of the recurring themes that came from these young submitters was the voicelessness that they felt. They felt like when they go into care, they have lost their identity, and that was the words of one of the young submitters from VOYCE. He said, “We lose our identity.” They cannot get the documents to prove who they are, and then they cannot move forward into getting these accounts opened.

We’ve heard from my colleague about the feedback that we had around the whittling away of the KiwiSaver account through fees, but we have also had assurance that there are providers that will waive their fees, and Simplicity has been mentioned—they do waive all of their management fees, at least for the first five years to get the account built up. I am aware that there are other providers who will do that. In fact, I had a similar arrangement with a KiwiSaver provider quite a few years ago when I ran a campaign to get all of the children, pre-schoolers and schoolchildren, enrolled in KiwiSaver when it first happened. We brought millions of dollars into the western district by doing that and we now have hundreds and hundreds of children enrolled in KiwiSaver. Their money is protected, their future is secure, and because they have been in there for quite some time now—must be, maybe, coming up to nine or 10 years—when they get to the point where they want to buy their first home, they will be able to take advantage of the HomeStart programme and withdraw some of those funds.

Now, while it’s true that around 500 children will benefit from the bill that we have in front of us today, there are over 6,000 other children who are going to miss out because of the technicalities that we have. I am sure that we’ll have a further debate on those other issues as Hamish Walker submits his Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) when we come to the committee of the whole House stage, and I do encourage colleagues across the House to think kindly of those SOPs so that we can open the door to all of these other children in care.

The submitters from VOYCE—we had three young submitters from VOYCE. They were very articulate, very confident young people, and they had quite an impact on me, and I’m sure they did on the whole committee. What I’d like to implore from members across the House is to recall the message that they gave us. They simply want to be treated as all other children in this country. They want to know that their savings are going to be safe and secure, and they want to know that when it comes to the time that they can buy their first home, they do have access to the funds that they have saved so diligently for. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to stand here tonight to speak on the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill. I want to take this opportunity to thank the member Hamish Walker for his passion and his due diligence in bringing the voice of the young child who is in care, the foster parents that he’s been speaking with, in terms of ensuring that the young person is involved in KiwiSaver.

Before I speak on the bill, I want to acknowledge that this is Youth Week, and to wish all the young people in New Zealand a happy Youth Week. The theme for this year is called “We are more than what you see”—“We are more than what you see”. According to Manaakitia a Tātou Tamariki—or the Office of the Children’s Commissioner—there are 1,124,040 children under 18 in Aotearoa New Zealand. That’s about 23 percent of our population: 71 percent are New Zealand European, Pākehā, or New Zealander; 26 percent are Māori; 15 percent Asian; 14 percent Pacific peoples; and 2 percent Middle Eastern, Latin American, or African.

I’m talking about this because I want to drill down to what the members on the other side speak about these vulnerable children—over 6,000 are vulnerable because they do not have KiwiSaver. The fact is that every child born in New Zealand has a guardian—so all 1,124,040 have a guardian. The only time that person is not a natural guardian is when the court decides who the guardian is. So let’s just say for the young people who are from the age of zero to 17 it is 847,740—what does that mean? That means that, unfortunately, the State has determined—an assessment has determined—that 6,401 children are in need of care and protection, and that’s when the State intervenes. With the changes to this bill, it means that 500 out of those 6,000 children actually have the State as their guardian.

To get a passport in New Zealand, the guardian has to agree to that. To open a bank account, the guardian has to agree to that. To turn off a lifesaving machine in hospital, a guardian needs to do that. If the intention of the bill was to allow every foster parent to open a KiwiSaver account for every child in their care, it’s an erosion of the natural right of a guardian, of a parent. I myself am a guardian of a 13-year-old. If for some reason she ends up being in my sister’s care and they determine that she is a foster child, that means that my sister can open a bank account for my child, which means that anybody who could be a short-term carer for a child, actually, can open that, which is over a million children.

I just want to urge on the point that they talked about, which was that these children want the same rights as every other child in New Zealand. Well, wake up—they do. That’s why the State’s in there—that’s why the State is in there to ensure their rights are upheld. Unfortunately, in my experience as a social worker or as a manager or a senior adviser in Oranga Tamariki, children are moved from home to home because, for some reason, it didn’t work out with that caregiver. Now, that is not saying it’s because they weren’t enrolled into KiwiSaver. It’s because something along the way didn’t work.

I do want to acknowledge you, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you were the Minister when the changes came through, through the white paper, then the green paper, then we made the changes. I was privileged enough to be working and serving these children.

I heard this member from across the other side talk about the presentation from VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai, where we had two children who are currently in care speak about their experience. The submission of Jennifer Thonrithi, who has no family in New Zealand, who is a current child in care, who is now at university—what she said in her submission was that caregivers need to listen to young people. She said that caregivers need to listen to young people as well. We had the manager of VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai—I know her very well—Tracie Shipton. She spoke about the things that weren’t working. The things that weren’t working were obtaining birth certificates, obtaining IRD tax numbers. But I was able to share that day that every child who the State pays board payments for is automatically provided with an IRD number, because there is actually a liable parent that needs to pay those contributions. So really it was good and hopeful to hear from the ministry, from Oranga Tamariki, that they are working on those.

Really, we talk about KiwiSaver now as if it’s something that’s just common—KiwiSaver is common like KiwiBank, KiwiSaver. We talk about it, but it was the Labour Government that brought it in in 2006. Unfortunately, when it came in, I didn’t take up the option to enrol my child so that she was eligible to get the $1,000 with it. The original intent of the KiwiSaver was a kickstart for our children, for all our one million children, which then the people across the House, when they got into power—they just deleted it, and changed it, and then started talking about KiwiSaver like it was their idea.

I want to come back to the bill in terms of changes to guardianship in section 110. Guardianship: it’s the sole guardianship by the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki. I think you can count; it’s probably not even 100. But the ministry informed us that this bill will, in fact, allow 500 children and young people in the care of the chief executive to be enrolled into KiwiSaver, and I think that’s a good thing. The remaining children actually already had a guardian who could do that, and sometimes, from my experience in Oranga Tamariki, to have a guardian who no longer has custody of their child fight to have that right to have a say in their child’s life is the only connection the child has to their whakapapa. If we take that away—if we take that away—then what is there left for this child, for the children who are in care, for all 6,400 children?

I want to share, in my final comment, that the reason why I became political was because I firmly believe that the Labour Party—that this side of the House—actually can lead this country better, and I believe that we do support this bill. We support it to the point that, yes, 500 children will benefit—children who are in care—and we’re saying no to any other alternative arrangement that is outside the law.

I want to bring it back to say we can do better. We can do better. We can do better for our children in care, and I want to acknowledge the Minister for Oranga Tamariki in terms of her leadership in taking us into the next phase of what I mentioned before with the white paper, the green paper, and the Vulnerable Children Act that now is Oranga Tamariki. Those are the stages where we’re going. It now needs new leadership, and I commend the Minister in terms of taking us forward in this journey, but I do support this bill and I commend this bill to the House. Malo.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First, but everybody will know that I’m the Minister for Children. So, first of all, I want to acknowledge the author of the bill, Hamish Walker, and I want to acknowledge the intent. It’s the intent of many, many, many New Zealanders when we talk about children in care. There is a level of commitment to children in care in this country that we need to harness, and we need to empower those in New Zealand with the same positive intent as the author of this bill to know the appropriate ways by which to harness it and use it for the benefit of these children. But I also want to acknowledge the previous speaker, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, and her level of practical reality around the real life not only of these children in care but of their parents.

Their parents do not become instantly invisible when we, the State, have to step in for a short time, a medium-term time, or a long period of time to look after them, to care for them as we try, if at all possible, to bring their family back together again. I heard that representatives from the young people of VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai—care-experienced young people—came to speak to the Social Services and Community Committee. If the select committee has listened to them on a number of occasions, in the times that they have gone public with what they have asked of us as a State and the changes that we are striving to make with Oranga Tamariki, it is that, in the first instance, they want to be with their family as long as they can be safe. They ask us to support their families, to empower their parents to be better parents, to be safe parents, and to be able to be together with their parents and their siblings and their whānau and their whakapapa. Everybody has whakapapa regardless of their ethnic background. Everybody has a genealogy, and that is all that word means—who am I connected to, and how have I been connected through them to this moment in time?

So, while I acknowledge the author of this bill, I have to say it is very unlikely that New Zealand First will support any Supplementary Order Papers that he brings forward in an attempt to bring this bill back to a wider or broader application that disempowers the parents who are still the guardians of these children. Law cannot be made on one family alone. Law cannot be made because one of us has an association with a family that wants an outcome that they have been unable to achieve. That is not good law—that is not good law—and I would caution that member. In this instance, what the member has achieved is a broadening—he has alerted Oranga Tamariki to a process problem inside Oranga Tamariki around those who have guardianship rights or joint-guardianship rights, around the process problem there and the ability of them to open KiwiSaver accounts for children they care about, that they love. But we will not, through this Parliament, disempower these children or disempower their parents. I know that that member is also a parent, as I am, and he should understand that what he is proposing for these children and these parents is that anybody in New Zealand—anybody in New Zealand—can open an account, has legal capacity to open a financial account.

Lawrence Yule: Hamish isn’t a parent.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Apparently the member is not a parent. I take it back. I apologise. I apologise if I have predicted his future.

Simon O’Connor: It’s prophetic.

Simeon Brown: He will be soon!

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: This is a really serious issue, and I had thought that I would deal with it seriously; so I apologise to the members of the Opposition if I was too serious. I apologise to the Opposition if I actually took this seriously about the futures of these children. I thought that member was serious about the futures of these children, and perhaps he would like to control his colleague in front of him while we discuss something that is incredibly serious.

These are care-experienced children who have already suffered trauma. They have parents that the member is suggesting we disempower further. We cannot support any further disempowerment of parents, but we do support the fact that the member has drawn to attention internal issues that need to be streamlined around Oranga Tamariki for those foster families, those foster parents who have joint guardianship. We acknowledge that the member has drawn to the attention of the Parliament the fact that there are approximately 500 other care-experienced children that may benefit from his bill. I’m deeply saddened that his colleagues around him think that this is something to be laughed at or joshed about or treated with such lightness, because I know that that member is actually attempting to do something for the benefit of children.

So New Zealand First will support this bill in the way it is written and the way the select committee has brought it back to the House. We acknowledge him for the work he has done, but we also acknowledge the children, the voice of care-experienced children and what they have asked us to do for themselves and their families, and we acknowledge those parents who strive every day to improve their lives so that they can continue to be the guardians of their children and can continue and gain back the guardianship and the physical capacity to care for their children again.

AGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is very interesting. I’m not sure if the previous speaker, the Hon Tracey Martin, and I are actually talking about the same bill, because actually we’re not disempowering parents, we’re not disempowering children; the intent of this bill is to give some equity to these children who actually form the most vulnerable in our community.

Guardianship is now in the hands of the CEO of Oranga Tamariki. What we’re asking and what Hamish Walker has wanted to do and the intent—he wants to stick to the integrity of the bill, to the intent of the bill, which is to allow these children to have the same access as all our children, the same access as my children. So I’m delighted to take this call on this bill, the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill. I’d like to commend my colleague Hamish Walker for putting this bill forward.

Hamish Walker’s advocacy for these children adds to the significant body of work that this National Government did to improve the lives of vulnerable children in this country. And it’s fair to say that the member Hamish Walker has been very strident and forthright throughout the passage of this bill to safeguard the intent of the bill, the integrity to the intent of the bill, which is to support these vulnerable children in our community to have equal access to a KiwiSaver account. That seems pretty straightforward—pretty straightforward—just to want to open a KiwiSaver account, something that many of us just take for granted, and yet it’s actually not been a simple process. It’s not been straightforward at all. If you’re a foster child in this country, in fact, it’s been nigh on impossible. This is why we are here debating this bill in this House.

So under the current KiwiSaver legislation, foster parents are not able to open a KiwiSaver account for their foster children as they are technically not their legal guardian. And it’s really sad, when we talk about foster children and foster parents, because we have to acknowledge that these children have not had a great start in life to end up in this position. So therefore we have to help and support them as much as possible.

At the moment, the CEO of Oranga Tamariki is the only person who can apply to open a KiwiSaver account for these children, and as you can imagine, filling out the paperwork, the forms, for an account for these children is not a high priority for the CEO, and nor should it be. He’s got a big workload on his hands—that’s understandable.

Hon Members: She.

AGNES LOHENI: She. Social workers have attempted to assist in this process, on behalf of these families, but to no avail. This has created a necessary bureaucratic process, which many foster parents have found utterly frustrating and disheartening.

A KiwiSaver account is a financial tool, but is actually something that gives hope for their future—again, something that we take for granted. The good news through this process is that not-for-profit provider Simplicity have offered to set up KiwiSaver accounts for every foster child in New Zealand if they want one. They’ve indicated that they will waive all administration, membership, and trustee fees for at least the first five years.

Again, let’s bring our focus back to these foster children, who are in vulnerable positions to be where they are. Mr Hamish Walker’s intent was to give those foster caregivers the ability, the ease, to make an important financial decision for the children they are caring for—not just a financial decision but some security for the future. There are many foster parents who want the option to leave a legacy for that child even if they never achieve legal guardianship. Foster parents want to provide the best possible future for children in their care, because, unfortunately, often these foster children haven’t had the best start. It’s a selfless act to set up something for that child, knowing that they may not become their legal guardian, knowing that there may be some uncertainty or instability in that child’s life.

Foster parents can in some way give them something tangible and positive for their future. It’s an honourable motivation for the foster parents, and this sentiment is highlighted in a submission made by a foster parent Sheryl Blythen. In her submission, she wrote: “A KiwiSaver account provides a way for these children to save funds that cannot be accessed by any family or whanau member who may not have the child’s best interest in mind. It would also be a good way to start a saving habit for young people who may not have had financially responsible behaviour role modelled to them.” I support this bill to the House. Thank you.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to rise and speak on this very long-named KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill. I would, first of all, as has every member here tonight, acknowledge the member Hamish Walker, who is not a parent, who has very courageously brought this bill and raised the matter with this House. I thank you for that, and I thank you for the intent behind this bill.

I am not a member of the Social Services and Community Committee, and so I have not had the benefit of listening to the submissions and sitting in. However, I have had a look and a read of the submissions, and I’ve looked at the proposed changes and the final report by the select committee. What I can say is that this is a small matter in terms of the number of children that will be affected, but it is actually really important.

I want to acknowledge also—before I talk some more about the bill—those foster parents out there, who are doing an amazing job. I would like to acknowledge them and also, a little somewhat selfishly, acknowledge my own mother, Linda Hahn, who has been a foster parent for a long time. She is what we would probably call a kin carer in that we have a whāngai brother, who has been with us since childbirth, and then, latterly, as he is now a grown man, we have had other children in my mother’s care. I know of the care and the energy and the love that is put into those children on behalf of the State while their parents cannot care or are currently unable to care.

So I do want to acknowledge those foster parents out there, and I also want to very quickly just acknowledge the Homes of Hope in Tauranga. Hilary Price and her team work absolutely to keep groups of siblings together. They do some amazing work, and I want to acknowledge them for the work that they do. Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, back to the bill—thank you for allowing that.

This bill in its original form had the purpose of enabling 16- and 17-year-olds, along with a guardian or a carer, to enrol themselves, as one of the aspects, and the second aspect was it was proposed that children under the age of 16 would have the opportunity if one guardian or foster parent chose to enrol them. The Minister has just mentioned about the erosion of the rights of guardianship, so the report that returned was most certainly narrowed and changed the full gambit down to including about 500 children who would be affected by this. This gave the 16- and 17-year-olds who have a guardian appointed the ability themselves, alongside a guardian, to enrol, so that gave those young persons the opportunity to have some control. The second aspect was to enable those children under the age of 16, along with one guardian.

Now, the reality is that the natural guardians—and I’m not sure, but people may understand that when a guardian is a natural guardian, they are the parent at birth. So that’s very often mum and, if dad is present at the birth, also the father. That is an innate right as a guardian, and guardians have very important rights. However, when the State intervenes and appoints additional guardians, there are additional duties. But the original guardians do not lose their rights, and that is the point that Minister Tracey Martin was making.

The parent, most importantly, still retains their right, and therefore it is so very important, because State care is not something that we hope that our children stay in. It is not a destination. State care is something that we hope will be a short term and small part of this child’s life. If it continues in that child’s life, then, obviously, guardianship is appointed.

So the reality is that the shaping of this bill has been to still ensure the rights of the natural guardian alongside those guardians who are appointed, and it is very important that we do that because we recognise absolutely that the family member—the natural guardian—needs to retain their right. Now, KiwiSaver is a great initiative.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.