Wednesday, 12 June 2019

WEDNESDAY, 12 JUNE 2019

WEDNESDAY, 12 JUNE 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Māori Education

1. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education): What announcements has he made, as part of the Wellbeing Budget, that support kōhanga reo, their teachers, volunteers, tamariki, and whānau?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Associate Minister of Education (Māori Education)): Good news. Last week, we announced that kōhanga reo will receive a $32 million funding boost to lift wages, pay volunteers, and improve and upgrade facilities. This announcement was about more than just funding; it was a long-overdue thankyou to the kaiako, the kaimahi, the nannies, the aunties, the mothers, the fathers, and the cousins, whose commitment to kōhanga reo never faltered. This announcement shows our commitment to them and is just the start of the work we’ll do together to achieve our shared aspirations.

Kiritapu Allan: How will the funding be distributed?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Through Budget 2019, we’ll be looking after the wellbeing of our kōhanga reo by providing $11 million for improvements to ICT capacity and capability and building upgrades, and over $21 million to increase existing pay rates for kaiako and kaimahi to the Government’s stated 2021 minimum wage rate and to maintain a level of existing relative pay rates of kaiako and kaimahi. We’ll pay kaiako and kaimahi currently working as volunteers in roles that would normally be remunerated. That is a total of just over $32 million for our kōhanga, our kaiako, our kaimahi, and, most importantly, our tamariki.

Kiritapu Allan: What has been the reaction to the Government’s investment in kōhanga reo?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: The response has been humbling, not just because of the recognition that this funding gives to kaimahi and kaiako but because this Government recognises kōhanga reo are not early childhood centres, nor are they kindergartens. They should not have to fit a mould designed for non-Māori organisations. They are kōhanga reo—unapologetically Māori. They do not need to be compared to something else to gain recognition, because there is nothing else that can compare. As Waihoroi Shortland said at the announcement, “Tears come easy when the kaupapa is treated so well”. He also said, in Māori, “Kua rangatira tēnei rā i a koutou. Nō mātau te hōnore kia mau i ēnei kupu i tēnei ata. Ka taea e tātau ēnei momo kaupapa te tuitui i te motu, ki hea noa atu te hīkoi i Te Ao Māori.”

[“This day has been enhanced by you, collectively. The honour is indeed ours to have secured these words this morning. It is possible for us to weave these kinds of initiatives into the country, or wherever we may walk in Māoridom.”]

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 and actions in relation to the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes, particularly the comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister in relation to the ethics and legality of the Opposition’s unauthorised access of the Treasury site.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she stand by her Deputy Prime Minister’s statement that every Budget figure released by National prior to the Budget was “Utterly fake, false, and will be proven so on Thursday”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister did not say that. What he did was produce a press statement two Tuesdays ago from that man’s office on which there were eight calculations, seven of which were then, and now, demonstrably wrong.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she stand by her Deputy Prime Minister’s statement in regard to the same accessing of Budget material that “The facts [are] very, very bad for the National Party”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I rush to stand by the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments because he has now got the very document put out by Simon Bridges’ office and of these eight calculations, seven are wrong.

Clayton Mitchell: What reported comments has she seen regarding the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, a number of commentators have determined that what Mr Bridges did had these features. There are some pretty good arguments that one or more of the provisions of the Crimes Act were breached. The implication that there was—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: The Prime Minister’s saying this?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Forget about it, woodwork teacher; you wouldn’t understand the law.

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption]

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, if you’re going to keep on shouting—

SPEAKER: No, the member will sit down. Can I say to the Hon Gerry Brownlee that this is a serious matter. His leader thinks it’s a serious matter. I’ve asked people in the House to try and treat it seriously, and his interjections, I think, based on about as much legal training as I’ve had, are not helpful.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Recognising your chastisement, I withdraw and apologise for any offence I’ve caused the House. I just hope that the Prime Minister treats the question as seriously as the Leader of the Opposition.

SPEAKER: Well, I’m trying to get him to do that. The member’s not helping.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, these comments are very apposite: “There are some pretty good arguments that one or more provisions of the Crimes Act were breached … the implication that there was clearly nothing criminal in the activity is difficult to square with the statutory language”—that from a leading law professor.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did member nations of Five Eyes contact the Government on Tuesday, 28 May in relation to the Government’s claim they had been systematically and deliberately hacked?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I personally can’t answer that question, because I’m not aware of it.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is that because some members of her Government, quite possibly including the Deputy Prime Minister, were out of the loop?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, no one in this Cabinet is out of the loop. Consultation is our middle name. But the reality is, in April 2017, a Cabinet Minister created the cyber-security one-stop shop otherwise known as CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team, which cost $22 million to establish. Those protocols under CERT were designed for reporting the type of data breach that occurred and accompanied the unauthorised Budget information accessed by the National Party spokesman’s staffer in this case.

Hon Simon Bridges: This is crazy town.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Mr Bridges, you wrote the rules; abide by them.

Hon Simon Bridges: Did the GCSB raise with the Government that Five Eyes members had raised concerns regarding the systematic and deliberate hack?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Again, on behalf of the Prime Minister, that is not a question that we can answer, because there seems to be information that is coming in to the Government, and maybe—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I thought you said you were in the loop.

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. Nick Smith—this is a very serious matter. It goes to both security and international relations, and the House wants to hear it without that sort of inane interjection.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, there seem to be allegations, which do not have any authorisation, coming from the Opposition, with respect to a possible leak, but that’s immaterial. What the protocol that was established by Mr Bridges was, and I quote, “When private, confidential information is released”—

SPEAKER: Order! I am going to interrupt the Minister acting for the Prime Minister now, because the question that has been asked has been answered, and this is extraneous material which is not related to the supplementary question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t it the case that as soon as statements from Treasury and Grant Robertson went out on Tuesday night alleging systematic and deliberate hacks, Five Eyes members contacted the GCSB who then immediately got in touch with Andrew Little and his office?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I am not aware of that. But I do not think that Five Eyes were struggling over themselves on a matter to do with Treasury. With the greatest respect, it’s not foreign policy, it’s not police, it’s not defence, it’s not customs—it’s Treasury, and I find it very hard to believe that. But what’s important, of course, is the protocol established by Mr Bridges required him to do the following: advise the organisation—

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she aware that the Government, through GCSB, provided assurances to Five Eyes members that they had not been systematically and deliberately hacked?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, the GCSB could not give such an assurance on behalf of the Government. It would be for the Prime Minister or, in this case, Mr Little, the acting Minister for the GCSB, to give such an assurance. That’s how responsibility works under this Government.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the Prime Minister aware that language such as “systematic and deliberate hacking” is often reserved by Governments for hostile foreign attacks?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, no, we are not aware of that. But the real issue is this: if the National Party hadn’t done what it did, this would not be an event.

Hon Simon Bridges: In addition to GCSB, did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also become involved in providing assurances to Five Eyes members that the Government had not been systematically and deliberately hacked?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, this is getting more close to the area of responsibility of the person answering the question right now, and the answer is no. But the real issue will never be—

Hon Paula Bennett: Out of the loop—you’re out of the loop.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The issue won’t change. This so-called scandal would not exist if the National Party hadn’t done what it did.

SPEAKER: Order! No, before the member gets up, the deputy leader of the National Party will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Paula Bennett: I stand and withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Well, actually, you’ll just do what you’re meant to do.

Hon Paula Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t it most certainly the case that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did become involved in this, and is it also the case that their Minister didn’t even know?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, there is no way that such an involvement of foreign affairs would’ve happened without the Minister of Foreign Affairs knowing. Being asleep behind the wheel is not what the present Minister of Foreign Affairs does.

Hon Simon Bridges: When did, to the Prime Minister’s knowledge, the Deputy Prime Minister get informed it wasn’t a systematic and deliberate hack?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I didn’t hear that question clearly.

SPEAKER: Ask it again.

Hon Simon Bridges: Thank you. To the Prime Minister’s understanding, when did the Deputy Prime Minister get informed it wasn’t a systematic and deliberate hack?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, when referring to the Deputy Prime Minister, that is a very moot point. There are two sections of the Crimes Act which are very, very concerning for that member over there.

Hon Tracey Martin: Does the Prime—

SPEAKER: No, no, sorry, I’m going to go back.

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

SPEAKER: I’m going to—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Are you going to rule on that?

SPEAKER: Yeah, I am going to rule on that. I won’t rule on the extraneous material, but there was a specific question which I know that the Minister answering on behalf of the Prime Minister should be able to answer. Ask it again.

Hon Simon Bridges: When did the Deputy Prime Minister get informed that it wasn’t a systematic and deliberate hack?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, that remains a moot point, which is the reason why there’s a State Services Commission inquiry.

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

Hon Tracey Martin: To the Prime Minister—

SPEAKER: Sorry, there’s a point of order from the Hon Gerry Brownlee.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: If a Minister’s going to give an answer in this House, particularly the Prime Minister giving an answer in this House, then the provision that it should be done so in the public interest, as set down in the Standing Orders, is going to be of most importance. Everyone knows that the question that the Deputy Prime Minister, acting for the Prime Minister, has just put to the House cannot ever be answered by the State Services Commission inquiry because of the very limited terms of reference that are well published. Now, if someone would like me to table those terms of reference—

SPEAKER: No, I think I can deal with that relatively easily. If it is a relevant matter to that inquiry, and it might well be, the timing of members’ staff, timing of departments, including, in this case, foreign affairs, giving information to the Deputy Prime Minister is most—the giving and not the receipt is certainly covered by the inquiry.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: There is no question of there being any investigation into matters that might be considered under the Crimes Act, as the Prime Minister has just told the House. So either the Prime Minister doesn’t know what the terms of reference are—and I’d be happy to table them for her—or the Deputy Prime Minister has not been told what the terms of reference are. Either way, this House should not be given a brush-off with what is a totally incorrect answer.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I think it’s important that the House notes that there are two issues at stake here. One is the investigation about what Ministers were told and when. The second is the broader inquiry into how the information came to be released in the way that it was. Those are two separate investigations, and as for what’s in the latter, it could well be in the latter.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: The effective answer from the Prime Minister again opens the prospect that there has been some kind of crime committed that would be punishable under the Crimes Act. Neither of the investigations are looking into that matter, and there’s no way that there can be any decision or conclusion around that, given the now public agreement by the agencies about what happened and our own knowledge in the Opposition of how it occurred. If that suggestion were to stand from the Prime Minister, then the Prime Minister is condemning every New Zealander who goes on to Google and uses a search bar today to the potential allegation that they are behaving in a criminal manner.

SPEAKER: OK. I just want to work through this one relatively carefully, because I think we have a matter of facts and law here. I think there’s a degree of acceptance around the facts of what occurred, and I have certainly read a variety of opinions as to what the law is that fits those facts, and therefore I think it is not out of order for the Prime Minister to say it is debatable whether or not a criminal act has taken place. That is—[Interruption] Order! If the Prime Minister is of the view that it is debatable whether or not a criminal act took place, then it is not out of order for the Prime Minister to say that she thinks it is debatable that a criminal act took place.

Hon Tracey Martin: Is she aware of any protocols or outlines about what should take place in circumstances similar to those that took place in this case?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, yes. In an April 2017 protocol assembled by the Leader of the Opposition, then the Minister for Communications, this is what was written: “when private and confidential information is released into an unsecured environment”—which is what happened with this data breach. The protocols advise that in the event of a data breach, an individual should contact the “relevant business or organisation”, namely, Treasury—and they didn’t, and that’s why they’re caught by sections 252 and 249 of the Crimes Act.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does the Prime Minister think it’s arguable that a crime was committed, and, if so, what is she going to do about it?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, that’s a marvellous question, because a law professor in a recent opinion here suggests that there are two breaches, sections 252 and 249 of the Crimes Act, and one is a seven-year sentence.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is using google search a crime now, Prime Minister?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That’s not a crime, but what is a crime is to, 2,000 times, try to gain unauthorised access, which was—in a $22 million documentary preparation in April 2017, prepared by that Leader of the Opposition—meant to be outlawed, but now he’s trying to seek refuge in some other scandal.

Hon Tracey Martin: Can she confirm that, historically, Budget documents have always been confidential until released by the Minister of Finance, and is she able to report any incidents in the past where similar information has been highlighted by a member of the Opposition to a Minister particularly in charge?

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister has no responsibility for what happened historically.

SPEAKER: I think if the Prime Minister has been briefed on a similar case and is comparing this to that, then that is—I’m going to listen really carefully as the question’s asked, but it can be brought into order.

Hon Tracey Martin: Can she confirm that, historically, it has been recognised that all Budget documents are confidential until they are released by the Minister of Finance, and is she aware of any circumstance where, previously, members of this Parliament had been made aware of confidential information and they then took it directly to the Minister responsible?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, I can answer the first part of that question by saying that there have been leaks in the past by accident, apparently, in 1985 under Roger Douglas. There was also a Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK walking into Parliament, and 15 minutes before he gave his Budget speech, he was asked, “Any tax on cigarettes?” and he said, “No.” and he got fired for that. So it’s a very serious issue, but of the type that that member asks right now, there has, to the best of our knowledge, never been such an appalling breach.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Who leaked it? Treasury did. Like a newspaper.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, you did, sunshine.

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

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Which one?

SPEAKER: No, that one.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I apologise.

SPEAKER: And withdraw.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: And withdraw.

Question No. 3—Housing and Urban Development

3. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Is he confident current State housing targets are sufficient, given the wait-list for State housing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In 2013, Otago University estimated there were 41,000 New Zealanders homeless and living in severe housing stress. We’re dealing with the effects of a housing crisis and massive unmet need. Budget 2018 funded 6,400 additional public homes over the next four years—an average of 1,600 a year—and we’re well on track to exceed this target in the first year. Since 1 November 2017, over 2,000 more families are in public housing, bringing us to the highest number of public housing tenancies since June 2009. I’m confident that our entire housing programme—including our public housing build—is ambitious, that we’re making progress, and that it will continue to put more families off the State house waiting list into public housing. It will take time to fully ramp up, but we are making very good progress.

Marama Davidson: Does he agree that the proposed urban development and housing agency, Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities, should have a mandate to rebuild our public housing stock to meet projected future demand?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities, the new urban development authority, will be the home of State housing. It will manage the State house tenancies, of which there are currently about 68,000, and Housing New Zealand’s development group will merge with HLC—the people who did Hobsonville Point—and KiwiBuild’s procurement operation to manage the entire Government build programme, including new State houses. As the member knows, this Government is ambitious about building as many public homes as we can in the context of a broader housing programme focused on increasing affordability and improving the quality of homes.

Marama Davidson: What work is under way to ensure new State houses are accessible to people with disabilities?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I’ve asked Housing New Zealand’s board to review their whole approach to how well they serve their tenants who have disabilities. I think they’re making great progress. The work is likely to include a commitment to a share of new State homes with universal design standards. Similarly, with the massive retrofit programme that Housing New Zealand has under way, there is an opportunity to make modifications for disability access at the same time as improving insulation, putting in modern kitchens, and heating.

Marama Davidson: Does he intend to promote high standards of energy efficiency in the design and build of new public houses?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, Housing New Zealand are making great strides in improving the energy efficiency of their homes. They’re currently spending $258 million bringing their homes up to the healthy homes standards. Housing New Zealand is also working towards Homestar 6 certification for its new builds. This would put it significantly ahead of much of the private residential construction market.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I disagree with the member’s characterisation of clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual. In answer to the second part of the question, that is a matter that is part of the State Services Commissioner’s investigation that is currently under way, and I do not believe that it is in the public interest to comment further on those matters.

Hon Amy Adams: Why did Treasury allege its website was systematically and deliberately hacked, in an 8 p.m. press statement on Tuesday, when there is already information in the public domain that Treasury had been advised by the GCSB approximately two hours before that, at 6 p.m., that the website had not been compromised and there was no hack?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I am not aware of the facts the member states there, but, regardless, they are the subject of the State Services Commission (SSC) inquiry.

Hon Amy Adams: What exactly did the Secretary to the Treasury tell the Minister the GCSB advice had been on this matter when the Minister met with the secretary prior to releasing his 8.18 p.m. statement?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, I’m not going to go into the detail of those matters today, because they are the subject of the inquiry. What I can do is quote from Treasury’s media statement on Tuesday night, where they said, “The Treasury has referred the matter to the police on the advice of the National Cyber Security Centre”.

Hon Amy Adams: Why does he think it is good enough to refuse to answer questions in this House as to the advice Treasury gave him, when he has told the public and this House repeatedly that he relied entirely on that advice before making his statement and now he won’t tell us what it was?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Because the State Services Commission is undertaking an investigation, which the Opposition called for. Now that that investigation is under way, it is not appropriate for me, as a Minister, to speculate further on those matters. I am sure that once the investigation is over, I’ll have the opportunity to say a lot more.

Hon Amy Adams: What steps did he or his office take to ensure the Treasury secretary was aware of the GCSB advice that there had been no hacking, before the secretary’s Wednesday morning television appearances?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, we are in the middle of matters that are part of the investigation. It is not in the public interest for me to comment on those—an investigation that the Opposition asked to be undertaken, and I would hope that they would respect an investigation like that. A faint hope, it appears.

Hon Amy Adams: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point of order is that we traversed these matters in some detail yesterday, around the extent of the State Services Commission investigation—that it is explicitly not looking into the actions of Ministers. This question was very specifically about what the Minister or his office had done, not what the officials had done. It is that same area we traversed yesterday, and I would ask the Minister to answer the question, because it explicitly is not part of the SSC investigation.

SPEAKER: Well, I disagree, because my view is that the breadth of the inquiry that is ongoing does, in fact, cover the Minister’s office.

Hon Amy Adams: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could the Minister, then, not be directed to address the question in respect of his actions if that is your ruling in respect of staff?

SPEAKER: The short answer is no, because what we’d get to is what I indicated before. What the Minister did mightn’t be covered, but the receiver of the information, if it’s anyone other than a Minister, and the giver of the information to the Minister are both covered if they’re not Ministers.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister as to whether it’s possible that his department’s mistake was not to look for the obvious culprit in the first place?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, I’ll leave those matters to other people to investigate, but the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that for the period of time which seems to be concerning the Opposition so much—Wednesday last week—there was a person who could have cleared the whole thing up, and that person was Simon Bridges, and he didn’t do it.

Hon Amy Adams: Why did he permit the chief executive of the agency that he is responsible for to state publicly on Wednesday morning that the Treasury system had been hacked, that it had been attacked, and, further, that the material accessed was never on the Treasury website, when all of those statements are now known to be patently incorrect?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I reject the premise of that member’s question.

Hon Amy Adams: Of course you do; how convenient! Dodged.

Hon Simon Bridges: That’s right.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Both of you.

Hon Amy Adams: It’s a joke.

SPEAKER: Order! Amy Adams will stand up, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Amy Adams: I withdraw and apologise.

Question No. 5—Health

5. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all of his statements and actions around Vote Health in Budget 2019?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Yes, and in particular I stand by my statement that, with the Wellbeing Budget, this Government is taking mental health seriously and, at the same time, investing $1.7 billion in hospitals and other health facilities.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he stand by his assertion to the Health Committee this morning that a 1.1 percent increase in Pharmac funding is enough to deliver appropriate access to medicines for New Zealanders?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The member uses his own words rather than mine, but I do stand by the statement that last year over 100,000 New Zealanders gained further access to medicines through the broadening of availability and so on. So that is a lot of people helped by the Pharmac model last year. On top of that, of course, we’ve invested $40 million extra in the current Budget to further increase access to medicines for New Zealanders.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Would he agree that an increase in Pharmac funding above the just 1.1 percent appropriated would mean considerably more New Zealanders would be able to access lifesaving drugs, and, if so, why was there an increase of just 1.1 percent in this year’s Wellbeing Budget?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Of course, everybody in this House will acknowledge that health got a considerable chunk of the Wellbeing Budget, because mental health in particular was prioritised and also the longstanding underfunding of district health boards (DHBs) was prioritised so that people can access services in our DHBs—$2.8 billion over four years. These are the trade-offs that we make when we put a Budget together, as any Government does, and in this Budget we decided to invest further in Pharmac, and we did invest $40 million further over four years, meaning more access to more medicines. Of course, it is logical that the more money you put in, the more benefit that can be derived, but I would say that Pharmac is very clear that for the list of medicines it has it is prioritising those top medicines which will bring the most value to New Zealanders.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Which one of his statements to the committee this morning is correct: that the elective surgery number as at the end of March is not a good proxy of full-year throughput because of a rush of sorts that occurs in the last quarter, or the DHBs won’t achieve their budgeted elective surgery figures due to industrial action?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I reject the member’s characterisation of my comments, again, in select committee this morning.

Hon Ruth Dyson: He just makes it up.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: There is an upturn in elective surgery outputs typically in any given year, in the DHBs’ performance, and they are working currently to deliver to the contracted volumes. Of course we acknowledge that interruptions with industrial action—because those staff working in hospitals have been underfunded for so long—did disrupt planned care during the course of the year. Fortunately, those things have been settled. We have a nurses’ settlement, for example, that is worth more than the last three settlements combined that were done under the previous Government—more than the last three settlements combined. That historic underfunding is being addressed. Those health professions are now more attractive to join and be a part of. We are determined to invest to make sure that the systemic underfunding that happened for so long does not destroy our health system, because we believe in public health services available and accessible to more New Zealanders.

SPEAKER: Before the member has a supplementary, we’re going way back to early in that supplementary answer. The Hon Ruth Dyson made an unparliamentary interjection; she will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Given the Minister’s reference to attractive professions, why, given the Ministry of Health had to apologise for their failure to prepare a 2018 Budget bid for community midwives, given their obligation to do so, was a 2019 Budget bid to reflect the co-design recommendations not made?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: This Government has continued to lift the fees available to midwives, recognising that a long period of under-investment does put in jeopardy the sustainability of the midwifery workforce. In the last Budget there was an 8.9 percent uplift in fees for midwives; this Budget, an uplift of 4.93 percent, and that is without the additional wraparound material in the midwives’ package, because we recognise that we do need to fund this service sustainably to ensure the safety of mother and midwife and child. We are proud to be investing more in our midwives and we recognise that that has been a long time coming.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question which was not addressed was “a budget bid to reflect the agreed co-design process”, and the Minister did not address that part of the question.

SPEAKER: That’s a fair comment. He will address it.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: There was a co-design process which happened under the previous Government. The Director-General of Health has written to the College of Midwives, apologising for the way in which that played out. My view: it was a very messy process because of how the last Government ran it. That is their failure. He’s trying to weaponise the incompetence of his own caucus.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Isn’t it true that he and his Labour colleagues in Government haven’t delivered on their promises in Budget 2019, particularly in the area of medicines, cancer care, elective surgery, and community midwifery?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Absolutely not.

Question No. 6—Finance

6. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What reactions has he seen to Budget 2019?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): More good news. One school principal wrote to me to say, “As a citizen of Aotearoa, I want a Budget that is driven by values that result in a quality life for every person who lives here.” She said that, for her school, the most that the school has ever received in donations in a year had been $2,000, but with the policy change in this Budget, her school will now be better off by $40,000. She went on to say, “So much in the Budget will start to move us as a country to a more equitable, compassionate, respectful, tolerant, and rich—in the widest sense of the word—society.”

Willow-Jean Prime: What responses to the Budget has he seen in international media?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: American author and Bloomberg columnist Cass Sunstein said that New Zealand’s Wellbeing Budget is worth copying. He noted, “New Zealand has taken an important step in the right direction. Other nations should follow its lead.” I agree with Mr Sunstein. This is indeed an ambitious Budget. It represents a step towards the Budget representing a comprehensive assessment of New Zealand’s overall wellbeing and our plans to improve that.

Willow-Jean Prime: What other responses has he seen to the Wellbeing Budget?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hope said that the Budget’s focus on innovation, research, and skills would help more businesses develop at higher levels and grow the economy. He said that investment in equipping young people with civics knowledge, financial literacy, and key workplace competencies was also important for business. Likewise, Brett O’Riley, chief executive of The Manufacturers’ Network, says the announcement of $6.8 million over four years to futureproof New Zealand’s manufacturing industry will help members understand and utilise digital technologies in order to be more productive and develop new products and services. I’ve even seen feedback from one commentator who said, “Don’t get me wrong. There are a few things in the Budget I can wholeheartedly support.”—a rare sign of positivity from Simon Bridges.

Question No. 7—Transport

7. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: How much more money is expected to be raised over the three financial years 2018/19 to 2020/21 as a result of increases in fuel excise duty and accompanying increases in road-user charges, and how much money is the Auckland regional fuel tax expected to raise over the three financial years 2018/19 to 2020/21?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): The increase in fuel excise and road-user charges is funding road safety improvements to save lives and much-needed infrastructure to get our cities and regions moving. Auckland Council’s regional fuel tax is funding roads that are vital to support urban growth and public transport that is giving people real choice and helping to unlock Auckland’s potential. Over the three-year period, I’m advised, the increase in fuel excise and road-user charges is expected to raise $1.056 billion and the regional fuel tax will raise $450 million.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he realise that in Auckland the fuel tax rises amount to nearly $2,000 per household?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the best advice that I have from the Ministry of Transport is that all three rises in Auckland together will cost families $2.50 a week all up, and the lowest-income families only $1.24 a week, and we are of course, as a Government, always looking to ease the cost of living. That’s why our Government is making over 384,000 lower- and middle-income New Zealand households an average of $75 a week better off because of the Families Package. We’ve increased the minimum wage to $17.70 an hour, giving 209,000 people a much-needed pay rise. We’ve passed legislation to enable the Commerce Commission to investigate anti-competitive conduct in the retail fuel market.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he understand the frustration of motorists who are being told they should pay more than $1.5 billion more in fuel taxes and the only thing they can look forward to is lower speed limits?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No, the message that I get back from Auckland motorists is that they at last have a Government that’s willing to do something about fixing the chronic congestion that, over nine years, brought the country’s biggest city to a halt and that was causing the city to lose $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Aucklanders just want us to get on with fixing the problem, and that’s what we’re doing.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: When he agreed with the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s question yesterday, “Can he confirm that the best way to invest in capacity for our motorway networks is to invest in the complementary alternatives”, did he understand that he was, in effect, agreeing that the best way to invest in the capacity for our motorway networks is not to invest in our motorway networks?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, I invite the member to consider the case of the Northern Busway, which currently now brings as many people in to the central city every morning on the bus as travel by car. A relatively cheap bit of transport infrastructure put in place under the Clark Labour Government has meant that the Auckland Harbour Bridge moves relatively freely every morning, and the country has been spared the expense of multiple billions of dollars for an additional harbour crossing—that would have had to have happened several years ago now—without State Highway 1 jamming up completely. The best way to get better productivity out of the existing motorway network is to have rapid transit and public transport running alongside it.

Kieran McAnulty: What reports has he seen on claims of how much revenue these increases will raise?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I note that the number Mr Paul Goldsmith used yesterday in the House on this issue and the number that the Leader of the Opposition has been using this morning—$1.5 billion, not including the regional fuel tax—is off by $450 million, and I think it’s disappointing that—

SPEAKER: I’m also disappointed at the approach taken by the supplementary question. In fact, members know that it is out of order to do a supplementary question of that type for the sole purpose of bringing up something that the Minister is not responsible for—there’s a warning.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How can he say, as he did yesterday, that his Government brings a balanced approach to transport, when it is refusing to build any—any—major new roads in the next three years?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, if we take the Auckland example, we are currently completing the improvements in the southern corridor to State Highway 1, the upgraded Takanini Interchange, and the Lincoln to Westgate project on State Highway 16. There’s a long list of roading projects that we’re building; it’s just that we’re not a Government that believes that only roads and motorways are worth investing in. We believe in a truly multimodal transport system, and that is the definition of a balanced transport policy.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So, 20 months into Government, does he have any timetable about when work would start on light rail down Dominion Road?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, as the member knows, it’s a multibillion-dollar rapid transit project. We’re determined to take the time to get it right, but what distinguishes this Government from that Government is that we are actually investing in rapid transit to get our cities moving.

Question No. 4 to Minister

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): I’m going to seek leave to table a letter. First of all, I just wanted to apologise for doing it now and not at the end of question No. 4, but I had to get the letter to check the wording of it. I seek leave to table a letter from the State Services Commission dated 10 June, from Mr Hughes, about the investigation. It relates specifically to Mr Makhlouf and his actions and statements, and I think it might help the House tomorrow if we’re still going down the line of questioning that we have been today.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that letter being tabled? There appears to be none. That will be tabled, and I’ll look at it very soon, I think.

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

Question No. 8—Housing and Urban Development

8. DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: Is he confident he is meeting the Prime Minister’s expectations around openness and transparency?

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

Denise Lee: Did he meet with the Mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff, and the Minister for the Environment, David Parker, on 2 March 2019 to discuss the Auckland Rural Urban Boundary?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.

Denise Lee: Why, when his and Minister Parker’s diaries were released, did Minister Parker reveal the meeting, but he did not?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The meeting was in my diary, but there was an error in the published diary—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Listen.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It was an oversight that has since been corrected.

Denise Lee: Is it correct—as was asserted in emails released to me from Minister Parker’s office—that he requested “a political meeting with no officials” with Mayor Goff and Minister Parker to discuss the Auckland Rural Urban Boundary?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: If I could just seek clarification from the member: is the member asking me whether it’s correct that Minister Parker requested a political meeting with no officials? Is that the question?

SPEAKER: That’s exactly what the question was, with a little bit extra.

Denise Lee: No, may I clarify, Mr Speaker? I am asking for his confirmation that emails released to me from Minister Parker’s diary show that he—Minister Twyford—requested a meeting with no political—

SPEAKER: Oh, Minister Twyford. I apologise, I got it wrong. Is that accurate?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I had requested a meeting with no officials present.

Denise Lee: What does the non-disclosure by a Minister of a meeting with another Minister and the mayor of New Zealand’s largest city about, arguably, the most important factor impacting on the supply and cost of housing say about this Government’s commitment to openness and transparency?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, as I said, as soon as the error was pointed out to me that the matter hadn’t been transferred over to the published diary, it was corrected.

Denise Lee: I seek leave to table an email from Minister Twyford’s office requesting a meeting with the Mayor of Auckland to discuss the Rural Urban Boundary that states it is to be a political meeting with no officials in attendance.

SPEAKER: Can you tell me the source of that email? Where did the member get it?

Denise Lee: An Official Information Act request. It is not publicly available.

SPEAKER: I mean, it clearly is publicly available if it’s been released under the Official Information Act.

Hon Member: No, only to the member.

SPEAKER: Only to the member?

Denise Lee: Yes.

SPEAKER: Only to the member and not as part of the rest of the process?

Denise Lee: Yes.

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

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

Question No. 9—Housing and Urban Development

9. PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development: How many State houses are under construction in June 2019, and how does this compare to June 2016?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): I’m advised that Housing New Zealand, at the moment, has 2,700 homes contracted and under construction, with a further 5,236 State homes in the planning and procurement process to be delivered between now and 2021-22. This is a ninefold increase on the 222 homes under construction in June 2016.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Where are these homes being built?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The changes that were made in Budget 2018 meant that Housing New Zealand could start building on the considerable reserves of vacant land in regional New Zealand that we saw build up over the last nine years; 900 homes are currently being built in regional centres, predominantly on this vacant land. Significant numbers of new State housing is being built in regional New Zealand for the first time in decades.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: How will Housing New Zealand continue to increase the scale of its build programme?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Housing New Zealand is moving to multi-year capacity contracts with builders and away from project-by-project contracts. This is where Housing New Zealand guarantees a minimum amount of building every year. This contracting arrangement gives builders the certainty to invest in their business. It lays the platform to use more off-site manufacturing to take on more apprentices and reduce the cost of construction.

Hon Judith Collins: Thank you, Mr Speaker. So does he stand by the statements of Housing New Zealand Chief Executive, Andrew Mackenzie, who told the Social Services and Community Committee on 20 February this year that most of the State house new builds in 2017-18 were consented or started under the previous National-led Government?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I think in the months following a general election, you would assume, logically, that most of the houses that had been built at that stage had been consented a few months prior to the election, but I repeat: the number of homes that Housing New Zealand has under construction right now represents a ninefold increase on what was being done in 2016—a ninefold increase.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan: What benefits has the increased scale of the build programme already had?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The form of contracting with doing multi-year deals with large builders and developers has enabled Housing New Zealand to reduce the labour costs of new builds by 15 percent. Off-site manufacturing has already reduced the build time of Housing New Zealand’s developments—from 14 to 18 months, down to 4½ months.

Hon Judith Collins: I seek leave to table a document compiled by the Parliamentary Library from a number of different sources, including written parliamentary questions, oral ones, Official Information Act responses from Housing New Zealand, and other documents showing the number of State houses built for Housing New Zealand from 1999 through to 2018, year by year.

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

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

Question No. 10—Climate Change

10. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister for Climate Change: Does he stand by his statement in relation to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, “We’re estimating that they will peak some time in the mid-2020s and decline from that point on”, and by what year does he expect greenhouse gas emissions will peak under this Government’s policies?

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): In response to the first part of the question, yes. That statement was based on greenhouse gas emissions projections in New Zealand’s third biennial report, reflecting the policies that were in place in July of 2017. In answer to the second part of the question, New Zealand’s fourth biennial report will be published in December of this year and will include revised projections reflecting the policies that are in place under this Government.

Todd Muller: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have a question on notice where I specifically asked the year in which greenhouse gases will peak. The Minister made a reference—

SPEAKER: Sorry, I was temporarily diverted. I will ask the Minister to give the second part of his question again, and if he didn’t address the second part of the member’s question, he will.

Hon JAMES SHAW: Well, in response to the second part of the question, New Zealand’s fourth biennial report will be published in December of this year, and will include revised projections reflecting the policies that are in place under this Government. I cannot give him a year in which we’re projecting the policies of this Government to manage peaking; I can only give him the year that we have the most recent data for, which is the third biennial report, which is the answer to the first part of the question.

Todd Muller: Taking the Minister’s Radio New Zealand comments, then, around the mid-2020s, why can he not commit to reducing emissions until 2025—mid-2020s—given the Government’s promise, and I quote, “to urgently reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.”?

Hon JAMES SHAW: My comments on Radio New Zealand reflected the most recent biennial report that we had, which was the third biennial report, which reflects policies that were in place in July of 2017. The entire work programme of this Government in relation to climate change is intended to accelerate the peaking and decline of emissions in this country. It includes, for example, things like setting up an independent climate change institution, reforming the emissions trading scheme, planting a billion trees, developing a renewable energy strategy, heat and industrial processes work under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority fund, transport emissions—putting $14.5 billion into heavy rail, light rail, walking, and cycling over the course of the next 10 years, dramatically unlocking the transport in Auckland and Wellington and so on. So if you add up all of those policies, we’ll be able to give him a year in which we can actually project the decline in the fourth biennial report, in December of this year.

Todd Muller: Why has he, on the one hand, actively encouraged school children to strike for urgent action on climate change but, on the other hand, given himself six, seven years from the time he became Minister until New Zealand’s emissions start declining?

Hon JAMES SHAW: I have not. As I’ve said, my comments on Radio New Zealand reflected the policies of the previous Government, which is the year that we had the third biennial report for. The reason why I support people who are taking to the streets to protest the lack of action over the course of the past 30 years in relation to their future is because it is the single most important thing that they are facing. I think that that is up to them.

Todd Muller: Why is he video-conferencing into council boardrooms around the country urging them to declare climate emergencies while at the same time overseeing emissions that he has just said intend to peak into “the mid-2020s”?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Because video-conferencing has lower emissions than flying there in person.

Todd Muller: Isn’t this yet another example of the Government failing to deliver on its promise and, on all issues, the nuclear-free generation moment?

Hon JAMES SHAW: No, as I said in answer to the primary question and the supplementary, the data that we have is the third biennial report, that reflects the policies that were in place under the previous Government. We will have new projections which I am hoping will show that we will peak our emissions sooner as a result of the increased—those will come through in December, in response to your question. You’ll be happy to see that when that gets published. I think that the policies of this Government will show that we will peak emissions earlier than the policies of the previous Government.

Question No. 11—Transport

11. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Associate Minister of Transport: Does she stand by all of her statements, policies, and actions on road safety?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): Yes. In particular, I stand by this Government’s balanced approach to road safety that includes the largest ever investment programme in road safety upgrades, including $1.4 billion over three years to upgrade thousands of kilometres of roads, increased funding for road police, and targeted speed reductions.

Chris Bishop: Does she stand by her comment yesterday in relation to the $331 million Vote Police road safety programme appropriation, “The figure used by the police is simply a placeholder figure only”, and how many other placeholder figures are there in Vote Transport or Vote Police in Budget 2019.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Yes, I stand by that statement. I’ll explain to the member again that the 2018-2021 road safety partnership programme includes $1.045 billion in funding for road policing with $352.7 million in funding already approved for 2018-2019. This three-year funding represents an increase of $85 million above the investment level in the previous National Government’s road policing programme. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and police are finalising the details of the road safety policing programme because we’ve had this increased focus on road safety. We are looking to ensure that we have the right level of investment and that we have the most effective approach to reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads.

Chris Bishop: Given that, why is the Vote Police road safety programme not listed as a fiscal risk in the Budget?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I think that if the member puts that down in writing, we might be able to address that. It really is a question for the Minister of Finance, but I can say that it’s not a fiscal risk, because we’ve already approved the funding from the National Land Transport Fund in Vote Transport.

Chris Bishop: Why have safety upgrades for State Highway 58—described by NZTA as Wellington’s most dangerous road—been delayed?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: What the NZTA is currently in the process of doing is identifying the road-safety upgrades and improvements that will have the greatest effect in terms of reducing deaths and serious injuries across the entire country. Therefore, the prioritisation of projects is aimed at reducing deaths and serious injuries right across the country.

Chris Bishop: Supplementary—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: We will save more lives than you.

SPEAKER: Order! The member is going to have another chance to finish or to give another answer. She should wait until it’s her turn.

Chris Bishop: Is it correct she threatened to resign if the Let’s Get Wellington Moving project included a commitment to a second Mt Victoria tunnel ahead of mass rapid transit?

Hon Julie Anne Genter: No.

Question No. 12—Education

12. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made about support for Pacific learners and their whānau?

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Education): This year’s Wellbeing Budget makes lifting Pacific incomes, skills, and opportunities one of our top priorities. That’s why I was proud to announce $27.4 million in Budget 2019 to support a package of initiatives focused on achieving Pacific outcomes, growing cultural competency of the workforce, and providing opportunities for our students to learn in Pacific languages. This funding for Pacific education is just part of the $113 million specifically targeted to lift the skills and outcomes of Pacific people in New Zealand. It is a clear demonstration of our Government’s commitment to lifting the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How will this engage young Pacific learners?

Hon JENNY SALESA: What we know from talking to Pacific students is that a great teacher is someone who understands just how important their identity, culture, and language is and shows respect in ways as simple as pronouncing their names correctly. To support the thousands of Pacific New Zealand students who make up 13 percent of all school-age children aged between five to 18, we will expand funding for Tapasā, which is a cultural competency framework for teachers of Pacific students. There is currently a huge demand for Tapasā from teachers of our Pacific learners because, like us, they understand that Pacific learners who feel respected and are encouraged to have high aspirations achieve better educational outcomes.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What other initiatives will this fund?

Hon JENNY SALESA: This historical increase in funding for Pacific education will allow the continuation and expansion of successful initiatives with proven track records. Tapasā is just one of those initiatives. We’re also supporting extending the Pasifika Early Literacy Project; implementing DMIC, which is Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities, in many more schools; enhancing and implementing initiatives to support Pacific families, Pacific parents, communities, and Pacific learners; and support for Pacific bilingual education. This Government knows that it’s important to have community-driven initiatives and we know that we actually need to expand and fund these initiatives, unlike the last Government.

Budget Debate

Bills

Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill

Debate resumed from 11 June on the .

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): It is my real pleasure to bring more good news from the 2019 Wellbeing Budget. Members of the House will recall that there were five priorities in the Budget: taking mental health seriously, improving child wellbeing, supporting Māori and Pacific people’s aspirations, building a productive nation, and transforming the economy. I want to speak a little about taking mental health seriously. This Government takes mental health seriously. In our first 100 days, I launched the inquiry into mental health and addiction. All parties in this coalition—Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens—campaigned on having an inquiry into mental health and addictions, because we knew that these issues need to be addressed.

He Ara Oranga came back with 40 serious recommendations. It was a serious inquiry. This Government has stepped up and accepted—accepted in principle or accepted for further consideration—38 of those 40 recommendations. The first 12 recommendations related to broadening access and choice in primary care for mental health services, and they talked about the missing middle. This report talked about the people who had mild to moderate mental health needs, be they anxiety, depression, or other, and the lack of services that have traditionally been available to support people who are coming forward for support to work through those mental health challenges. We have accepted, or accepted in principle, all 12 of those recommendations relating to broadening access and choice. We are putting out a new approach which puts people at the centre when it comes to dealing with mental health.

Budget 2019, the Wellbeing Budget, allocated $1.9 billion across a range of portfolios to people’s mental health and addiction concerns, including $200 million in capital expenditure specifically for investment in mental health and addiction facilities. The portfolios of health, education, corrections, justice, and housing all contributed to the package around mental health, and I want to thank colleagues for the collegial way in which they’ve worked together to ensure the wellbeing of our nation is put to the fore in a new way.

The centrepiece, as I mentioned, was a $455 million investment in broadening access and choice in primary care to get to the mild and moderate needs of those in the missing middle. Over five years, that programme will be rolled out. In the fifth year, we expect it to support 325,000 New Zealanders with mild to moderate needs—and every year thereafter. I think people will recognise that that is a significant improvement on where we are right now in our support of people with mild to moderate mental health needs. One in five of us at any time could be wrestling with a mental health challenge. People know people in their own families, in their wider friends and whānau group, in this room in Parliament. We recognise that a lot of people are wrestling with these challenges, and, as a Government, we have stepped up to provide a way to address them.

There is also, in this Budget, $213 million going into the district health board (DHB) ring-fence for mental health support to ensure that existing services, particularly those struggling with really difficult mental health challenges, are better supported. We are also rolling out nursing in schools—starting to roll it out to decile 5 schools, having rolled it out now to decile 1 to 4 schools, and, also, for nurses in schools, we’re strengthening the existing support in decile 1 to 4 schools. Resilience-building, of course, is important. We need to look at the prevention end around mental health and wellbeing. We are providing resources for over half a million primary and intermediate school children, making those resources available for resilience-building, and we’re investing in digital and telehealth also—already rolled out, of course, in mental health. We didn’t wait for the report to come back. We invested in those things we knew already had evidence behind them and made sense.

So we rolled out Mana Ake into the primary and intermediate schools in the Kaikōura and Canterbury region, making sure that children wrestling with the legacy of the quakes had support at the coalface in schools. We rolled out nurses in schools, as I’ve mentioned already, to ensure schools up to decile 4 have that support in their schools. We rolled out the Piki pilot. I want to acknowledge the Green Party for their contribution there to the Greater Wellington region, ensuring that 18- to 25-year-olds have support for mild to moderate needs with talking therapies. We’ve invested in facilities like the Auckland City Mission—the addiction facilities there, new detoxification beds. We’ve invested, of course, in the community services card initiative, which means that for 540,000 New Zealanders—

Hon Jenny Salesa: How many?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: —540,000 will be able to access cheaper doctors visits as of 1 December last year, meaning that they will be able to access services through their GP, recognising that for a lot of people, that is the way into mental health services for people. That also goes to the fact that a large number of New Zealanders, historically, have said they can’t afford to go to their GP. This Government has been listening. We’ve wanted to make primary care more affordable and accessible, and we have already done that.

Infrastructure—I have a diagram here, which I think illustrates this very carefully and well for those who are watching at home, showing the investment in Budget 2019 really is significant. Over two years, $850 million per year over the next two years in capital investments, topping even the $750 million we put in last year, and, obviously, well ahead of the investments under the previous Government, recognising that capital stock has been strained for a very long time. We’re investing $1.7 billion in health facilities in this Budget; $1.7 billion so that we’ve got a capital pipeline, so that we are investing in the public delivery of health services, because we believe in the public delivery of health services. We believe every New Zealander should be able to access public health services. That is what we believe on this side of the House.

On top of that, we have committed to fully funding Dunedin Hospital. Excuse me if I get a bit excited about that. Dunedin Hospital will be fully funded. It’s in a contingency above and beyond that $1.7 billion dollars of capital spending. I had the pleasure of announcing the first of the investments out of that capital envelope in the Hauora Tairāwhiti Gisborne Hospital: a new inpatient mental health and addiction facility. Just last week I was able to confirm that spend.

Of course, we know that the impact will be more modern, safe, fit for purpose facilities, not only for patients but also for the staff, the hard-working staff in our hospitals and healthcare system who have been under stress for so many years as the previous Government failed to invest adequately in our health services.

Of course, that history of under-investment can’t all be made up overnight. No one pretends that we can make up for nine years of neglect in one or two Budgets, but we’re on the way. We are certainly investing in mental health, we’re investing in our DHBs—$2.8 billion into our DHBs over four years. Again, I have a wonderful diagram here—a little harder to see at home; I’ll explain it carefully so people can follow here—showing the investment uplift under the previous Government’s time and into our Government, where the lines start to take off because we are investing in a sustainable health service to make sure those people working in our hospitals are paid adequately.

But, also, let’s acknowledge that since we took office there are 1,300 more nurses in this country. There are 440 more clinicians. There are over 300 more allied health workers. We are making sure those services are sustainable, there’s enough people to deliver the services, and that they’re adequately compensated, because we believe in the public delivery of health services, making sure all New Zealanders, no matter how deep their pockets, where they live, can access quality care. That’s what they do, and I want to thank those clinicians for the hard yards they put in over many years of underfunding and for the hard yards they continue to put in as we start to right the ship after the years of under-investment by the former Government. We care about those staff and clinicians, and we recognise the hard work that they do for all New Zealanders to make sure they get the care that they need and deserve.

Specifically, in this Government, we’re also investing in Māori and Pacific wellbeing in the health sector. We have a Māori Health Innovation Fund that’s got an extra $4 million in it. We’ve got a Pacific Provider and Workforce Development Fund that has an extra $10 million in it. We’ve got a Māori workforce development fund that will help hundreds of Māori into health professions—that has another $10 million in it. We’ve got $4.3 million set aside for wraparound services to get Pacific midwives and nurses through their training, because we recognise we need more. There’s another nearly $10 million into the Pacific Innovation Fund. We’re investing in our Māori and Pacific communities particularly in the health area because we know we need to strengthen those workforces. On top of that, our Wellbeing Budget includes an extra $12 million over four years for rheumatic fever programmes.

I do want to acknowledge the Hon Jenny Salesa, who’s sitting next to me and who has advocated for Māori and Pacific communities alongside her colleagues in the Māori caucus. I want to pay a nod around the House here, because that Māori caucus has, I think, seen some significant investment—over half a billion in this Budget—and I want to specifically label, in our primary care initiative, that $62 million of that is set aside for kaupapa Māori services. We’re recognising that most Māori continue to access mainstream services but that, actually, kaupapa Māori is becoming an increasingly important vehicle for the delivery of services. There should be services available for people in the style and nature that they can access, built with the community to ensure everyone is getting the care that they need.

This Budget put the biggest ever boost in for disability support services, $72 million. The need has been going up—36,000 people now access disability support services. That is a good news story. More people are accessing these services than ever before, and that record boost came on top of a record boost the year before for disability support services. There will need to be more money going in; that demand is going up for those services, but we’re a Government proud to stand with disabled people to support them as they contribute to our society.

We’ve invested a lot more money in a number of other things: rural health and midwives-but my time has expired. Thank you.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): That was a long 10 minutes, wasn’t it? My goodness! Do you know what? I was listening to the Hon Phil Twyford yesterday. I was one of the only kind people who bothered to listen, and I was waiting for him to mention that word “KiwiBuild”. Did I hear it? I did not, no. Remember KiwiBuild? It was going to bring 100,000 houses to New Zealanders. Everyone was going to have one, it was going to be great—

Hon Member: How’s that going?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Oh, I think they’ve got about a hundred. It’s only 18 months and $2 billion. I’m just quoting the Hon Shane Jones of course—billion dollars, billion dollars. Two billion dollars and a hundred houses—I could’ve popped down to the shop and bought some, because that’s where Phil Twyford thinks houses come from.

What we did not hear from Phil Twyford is anything about what’s happening with this reset. In January this year, we got told KiwiBuild targets were going to be reset. It was going to be a rethink. It’s, sort of, recalibrate, and I think it’s actually going to be a retreat. So what we’ve got now is we have six months down the—

Simeon Brown: What about a “resign”?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well, it could well be a resign, Mr Simeon Brown, Pakuranga—excellent MP. It could well be a resign. The fact is that Phil Twyford has been struggling terribly with KiwiBuild, and it is, of course, as a kind and caring person, something I wish to feel pity for him on, but it’s so difficult because of my colleague Denise Lee, first-term MP, asking written questions of Phil Twyford, and the very sneaky meetings he was having with Phil Goff, his former boss, who’s Mayor of Auckland, and the Hon David Parker to talk about, I don’t know, urban development—all those things. There’s an email, released by David Parker’s office and not released by Phil Twyford’s office—but, apparently, it’s actually from Phil Twyford’s office—saying, “Let’s have this as one of those little secret meetings where we’re not going to talk about anything that’s not political.”, so no ministerial responsibility. I think that’s excellent work, but looking for what Phil Twyford was up to, well, he obviously didn’t talk about KiwiBuild, because nothing’s happened.

There’s something funny going on with KiwiBuild, and, at the moment, I’ve been going around with our colleague Andrew Bayly, MP for Hunua and building construction spokesman, and we’ve been talking to a lot of property developers. Every time they come in the door, they’re wanting to talk about KiwiBuild. Why? They are laughing about it, and I keep saying to them, “Look, you’ve got a great welfare scheme. Nothing can beat a welfare scheme for property developers.” Imagine if the National Party, in Government, had come up with a property developers’ welfare scheme. But they’re going one better. What they’re doing at the moment is they’re now talking to great big enormous corporate entities; you know, those great big enormous corporate entities, some of which have foreign shareholders—no, foreign shareholders—and they’re talking about having these foreign corporate people, as well as some New Zealand enormous corporate people, build—

Hon Scott Simpson: What do the names sound like?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —some of them. But they’ve all got “Kiwi” in them, apparently, so it makes it all right.

What they’re doing is they’re going to talk to them about building great big apartment blocks to house people for renting for life—renting for life. That sounds excellent, doesn’t it? It sounds excellent, until one thinks, who’s going to own the building and who’s going to get all the rent? Oh, that’s going to be the big foreign-type corporate people. And after that, what’s going to happen—how are they going to get all this stuff done? Well, Phil Twyford’s got the deal for them, and guess what it is? You’ll never guess what it is. He’s going to let them have all this Crown land around places like Auckland that is currently unoccupied and unused, and they don’t have to pay for it—no, not for ages and ages, and when they do come to pay for it, it won’t be worth much because it’s already at a set price; it’s going to be a deferred payment. Now, what numpty would ever do that? The answer is, that would be somebody of the sort of the Hon Phil Twyford, who is the property developers’ closest and dearest friend, and now he’s the big corporate friend.

So when I’ve been talking to these people, they say to me, “What do you think about this?” I kind of think if a National-led Government did this, what would be the howls of derision from the other side of Parliament? Would they be saying, “This is great corporate welfare for the rich end of town.”? Of course they would be saying it, and why are they not saying it now? Because they’re the ones who are being conned into it. These people in charge in KiwiBuild and all the other entities—by the way, it’s only $2 billion in last year’s Budget. There’s about $500 million here, there, and everywhere. It’s only money. It’s only other people’s money. It’s only money that hard-working New Zealanders who pay their taxes have paid for. It’s money that is something that people should expect this Government will respect and use with discretion. But no, let’s just funnel it off to the big corporates—funnel it off there and ask them, “How many ways would you like us to pay you?” That’s what’s happening.

This is an entire Budget about broken promises. Never before have we seen the Government be able to spin a botched Budget and call it a wellbeing Budget. Well, remember this promise about no new taxes? Oh, I don’t know, there’s only seven, to date. Seven—seven—to date. How about the $10 cheaper doctors visit for all? Sorry, not in this Budget.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Yeah, where’s the $10?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No, that’s going to the property developers in the KiwiBuild scheme. If you put away, Mr Mitchell, $2 billion for the property developers of Wānaka, Te Kauwhata, Canterbury, and anywhere else—McLennan Park in Papakura—there’s really not $10 left for the poor little kids who can’t—

Hon Mark Mitchell: What about the teachers?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —go to the doctors. And the teachers—and what about the teachers? What a good question. Early childhood education funding—100 percent qualified, they said. We’re going to have all of that. Oh, sorry, not in this Budget. How about ensuring all students have access to mobile digital devices? Oh, no, not in this Budget. How about the promise to increase the age of breast screening to 74? No, not in this Budget. How about the cancer drugs for the women, the youngish women in their 40s—actually, very young, really, frankly, 40—who are dying of terminal cancer, and drugs that are available in Australia are not here in New Zealand because there’s no money for Pharmac to pay for them? Now, how about that? I don’t know. I can tell you. There’s $2 billion in KiwiBuild that you can strike right now and take. How about the promise to get debt below 20 percent of GDP? Oh, that’s easy; this Budget’s increased the target to 25 percent—that’s how you deal with that.

The thousand KiwiBuild houses due for 1 July 2019—we’ve got three weeks to go. We’ve got a hundred, and they can’t sell them. Phil Twyford can’t sell them. So we’re supposed to believe, in New Zealand, that you’ve got 100 houses actually built. You’ve got half of them sold, half of them not sold. The property developers, who actually do marketing of houses, they can’t sell them; and Phil Twyford reckons he can do a better job selling them? Well, he could sell them at a discount or he could turn them into State houses, but he doesn’t want to do that. Why doesn’t he want to do that? Because he’s signed contracts for the developers saying he wasn’t allowed to do that. He got taken to the cleaners, and the problem with that is that New Zealanders got taken to the cleaners.

I remember that he committed that there was going to be no more housing people in motels, and nobody should be sleeping in cars in winter. I remember him saying that. Today, in select committee, what did Phil Twyford say? He said these famous words—I want us all to remember—“It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” I said to him today, “Why would that be? Why would it get worse?, and he talked about the National-led Government—except that he’s been in Government for 20 months, and, secondly, he tells us he hasn’t sold any State houses. He’s told us he’s built all these State houses. Well, where are they? Because I can tell you this: they’re not full of people who are sleeping on the streets or sleeping in cars.

He said, and the Government said, that they promised—and, actually, Phil Twyford said, he promised—to build light rail to the airport from the Auckland central business district within four years. Well, that was 20 months ago, and what’s happened? Not even a business case—and rumoured, I hear, that it’s heading for a scrapping, so it’s not even a business case. But it’s OK. They’ll just call it “KiwiTram” and they’ll try and sell it to the public at the next election and say, “Just like KiwiBuild, at some stage, it will be coming somewhere to you at the Māngere town centre.” This is the level of planning from this Government, and this is the level of delivery. No planning, no preparation, no delivery; just rhetoric.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I just say I really enjoyed that contribution. It put me in mind of the Rt Hon Rob Muldoon. The Rt Hon Rob Muldoon was on stage—remember, he did a stage play? The content was rubbish but the animation was brilliant. It was really entertaining. So thank you very much to the Hon Judith Collins. It’s brilliant—really good.

This morning I was at Estimates with the Social Services and Community Committee, and I want to spend my contribution here talking about Oranga Tamariki. The expert advisory panel in 2015, put in place by the previous Government, produced a report that said we must 100 percent change the way we deliver child protection services in this country, and they were right.

In that report, they said that in the 2019-20 year, there would need to be over a billion dollars invested in Oranga Tamariki so that it could deliver the services in the way that they needed to to change the game for children who needed us in New Zealand. In the Wellbeing Budget, this Government has invested $1.1 billion. We have kept the commitment of the previous Government. We have kept the pathway, because we know that it is too important to play politics with these children and these families. We know that to be true.

So I acknowledge the select committee this morning. It was interactive, as it should be. They probed, they asked questions, they wanted information, and they held myself and the chief executive to account. But it was a respectful debate. It was a debate that focused on the children and are we doing what we need to do for the children.

But where is that $1.1 billion going? There are lots of things going on, because the system itself was 100-percent broken. The way I describe it is that with the advent of Oranga Tamariki, we have been shifting from a child crisis service to a child protection service. We’ve never had a child protection service in this country before. So $31.6 million from the Wellbeing Budget is actually going to be invested in intensive intervention. What is intensive intervention? We have too many children in our care because we are not walking alongside our families, both at an early stage—and there’s $26.7 million for early intervention support for our NGO and iwi and Māori organisation partners to try and move in earlier to support families. The increases to Whānau Ora will also go some way towards putting in place early intervention systems where those who are closest to those families, those who have relationships with those families—because let’s get real, nobody wants Oranga Tamariki to show up at their door. We’re the last people they want to see. But let’s also be clear: Oranga Tamariki is not the problem; Oranga Tamariki is part of the solution. There will always need to be a service like Oranga Tamariki, because there will always be orphans. There will always be unsupported children. There will always be circumstances—the multiple ways that children come into Oranga Tamariki’s care.

I also want to make sure that people understand that when we talk about children in our care, there are some children who are technically in the care of the chief executive but they are still living with their family. They are still with their parents and they are being supported by our NGO partners, or sometimes directly by Oranga Tamariki staff. Then we have another group of children that are technically in the care of the chief executive but they are in extended family—grandparents raising grandchildren, aunts, uncles—who have stepped forward. Every child who is not living with their mother or father is technically a care-experienced child; they are in somebody else’s care. So there are multiple ways that the 6,400 children that are currently in the care of Oranga Tamariki are being supported. The majority are being supported with family and whānau.

I also want to make a point that there’s $140 million to extend the youth justice system. We have the committee stage of the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill coming through later this evening. Now, not only is that about making sure that we have the capacity to take 17-year-olds into the youth justice system, it is to do better by them. That goes to some of the strategic partnerships that we have created directly with iwi, because we have a responsibility to work better for Māori, to be better for Māori. This is as a nation, not just Oranga Tamariki. But Oranga Tamariki has section 7AA in its legislation, which is a responsibility upon the chief executive that no other chief executive has when it comes to Māori, and Oranga Tamariki takes that responsibility incredibly seriously.

So, for example, we have three strategic alliances at the moment, with Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tahu, and Waikato-Tainui. In the signing that I went to recently, the Waikato-Tainui chief executive themself has said that in the six months of the partnership building up to that signing, over 200 Waikato-Tainui children did not come into the State’s care—did not. That is where we need to go as a nation. When Māori say, “Give us back our children.”, we agree with them. We all need to work together to keep the children safe. With these strategic alliances, with these partnerships, as we walk forward, with the money that this Budget has provided for us, we will start to create the future that we jointly want for our children.

But with Ngāpuhi, for example, up in the north, another example of a strategic alliance which has now won international recognition was where Oranga Tamariki went out and called for expressions of interest in creating a new remand facility. Ngāpuhi came to see us and said, “We want to do this but we don’t want to do it your way.” Oranga Tamariki said, “Fine, what’s your idea?” And so they put their idea out on the table and Oranga Tamariki said, “Let’s have a go.” So 30 Ngāpuhi families were trained up so that when young people had to be remanded, they were remanded to a home—somebody’s home. They were cared for and mentored. So far—considering that most people don’t know that that happened—it’s been incredibly successful. It is a risk, but we have to take a risk; not with people’s lives, not with children’s lives, not with babies’ lives, but we have to take a risk inside this system to—occasionally, something bad will happen, something might go wrong, but we cannot continue the risk-averse way that we were funding and providing what was a child crisis service. This Budget has given us the capacity to do what we needed to do.

I also want to just focus on that 60 to 70 percent of the children in Oranga Tamariki’s care are Māori. Nobody can deny those percentages, but I want to make this clear: 98.5 percent of Māori children in New Zealand are living and loved and cared for and supported by their mum and their dad; 98.5 percent of Māori children in this country are not in Oranga Tamariki’s care. We must ensure that when we have this conversation we don’t start to tar every single Māori child with some negativity because we have 1.5 percent of Māori children in this country who do need our support. Of that 1.5 percent of Māori children, 80 percent of them are either with their family or with extended whānau. We must ensure that when we have these conversations, we don’t generalise and make sure that everybody is the same through this process.

I need to set down, obviously, that there is a lot—a lot—in this Budget for Oranga Tamariki and these children, but I want to close with the $153.7 million that has been put into transitions and creating a transition service. I don’t know about the rest of this House but I know that the last time I needed to go home to my mum and dad and to their back room, I was about 27 years old. To be told at the age of 18 now, “That’s it, it’s over. You’re out on your own.” is too soon—it is too soon, and we recognise that. The previous Government recognised that. So what that money is going to be able to do is to actually support those children and the carers who have built a trusting relationship to stay together up to the age of 21. And there will be an advice and support service that will be set up so that they can seek that advice and still get support up to the age of 25.

So if they don’t know how to do their bond forms or if something comes up, like StudyLink or just another drama, they have somebody to call, because everybody needs somebody to call. Out of our youth justice systems, we’re going to create mentors. We’re going to make sure that there is a person that will walk alongside them—up until the age of 25, at least. This is what it’s about. That $153.7 million is about building relationships so that the young people that are in Oranga Tamariki’s care have the support that the rest of us have. Every other child has somebody that stands behind them and says, “We’re here for you. We will be here for you and if you need to look back in a moment and ask for our help, we will provide it.” Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve been reflecting on the intervention by the Minister of Health, the Hon Dr David Clark, a few minutes ago. I think the saddest thing about that intervention is that he honestly believes the rhetoric that he told the House—that things are somehow getting better on his watch. But there’s very little evidence to show that that’s the case, and there’s plenty of evidence to show that Labour have not delivered on so many of the promises they gave to the people of New Zealand. There’s very little of the extra money—certainly not the $8 billion that he claimed had been starved from funding under the previous Government. Those DHBs are now under massive, massive financial stress—stress that might be understandable if throughput was going up.

But, actually, what we’re seeing are fewer services being delivered, not more. So I want to go through these areas. I accept that there was one reasonably significant area where there was money invested, but how can this Budget be called a wellbeing Budget if, in order to fund that extra investment in one part of the health sector, the other parts of the health sector are stressed and starved financially? And I want to go through the areas of health where Labour aren’t delivering on their promises.

If there’s an area they’re not delivering on their promises that is most obvious to every New Zealander, it’s in GP fees, because it was for every New Zealander that Jacinda Ardern and a bevy of caucus colleagues stood in the Manukau shopping centre and said, “Every single New Zealander is going to get a reduction in GP fees.”—not delivered on that promise not only this year but last year. It was a “Maybe we will but not yet.” And we still wait for that promise.

I wonder what the people who were told they were going to get better cancer care thought about Labour’s delivery of that promise. Good people, who have come before the Health Committee, like Blair Vining, Wiki Mulholland, Terre Maize. There are about two dozen petitions talking about increasing funding for certain drugs or treatments, and there’s another big one coming from the Vinings. I wonder what they think about whether Labour have delivered on their promise to deliver world-class cancer care. That is certainly not the perception of many.

They haven’t delivered on their promises on pharmaceutical funding. I mean, that is so fundamental to what we are doing, and I was staggered to hear the Minister of Health, who criticised the previous Government for nine years for what he described as underfunding in pharmaceuticals management, saying that 1.1 percent is enough because we make savings by turning patents into generics and that’ll be all right. That is hugely misunderstanding the degree to which New Zealand is falling behind the rest of the OECD on world-leading medicines. It was one comment in Opposition. It was the delivery of promises but not the delivery of funding.

There’s another big, big area where Labour is failing to deliver on its promises, and that is in—and this is scandalous, in my view—the community of midwifery. Now, the community of midwives took the previous Government to the High Court for equity—a female-dominated occupation but, effectively, self-employed, so they didn’t have a pathway through the Equal Pay Act into the Employment Court. They did the novel thing and took the Government to the High Court under the Human Rights Act. The previous Government agreed a process for a mediated settlement which would result in a budget increase—a budget bid, at least—that was transparent. The Minister of Health, in the previous Budget, completely ignored it to the point where the Ministry of Health had to apologise to the College of Midwives for their failure to deliver a budget bid for Budget 2018.

One would think that, in the face of that sort of take down—and just bear in mind that not only was there no budget bid; there was zero communication between the ministry and the Minister’s office about even thinking about it. That’s what this Minister and that Government think about the community of midwives. In the face of that response, one would think that in Budget 2019 there would be something of a remedy.

Hon Scott Simpson: Nothing.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Not a sausage. Indeed, because of that failure to do what they did last year, a new mediated settlement was reached, with a pathway to conclusion in July 2020. That’s fine, but there’s another part of that settlement agreement, and that is that there should have been a significant bump in this year’s Budget. That’s why I call it scandalous. It is scandalous because they have been ignored, and midwives are voting with their feet to leave the profession or leave the country.

We had some staggering statistics today about net migration, where our greatest export is now our people. There’s been a 73 percent increase in the number of people leaving New Zealand, and my guess is that there’s a good number of the community of midwives among them.

Hon Scott Simpson: That’s what happened under the last Labour Government.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Absolutely. Quite right, Mr Simpson.

Now, I also wonder why Labour isn’t delivering on its promise to provide a free health and eye check for its seniors, because that was in the coalition agreement. It’s not like they could say, “Oh, well, you know, we only said that when we were the Labour Party; now we’ve got to balance the books a bit more, so we’re going to backtrack from that.” This was in the coalition agreement with New Zealand First. Not a dickie bird about when. We’re two Budgets in and there’s a heck of a lot of stuff backing up. The Minister of Finance must be having kittens over the number of “not yet but soon” comments that have been made by his colleagues. Breast screening—increasing the age to 74. That’s standard now around the world. They promised it. They have failed to deliver on that promise.

I was fascinated by the Minister’s comments about staffing, frankly, because he talked about this great increase in nursing. Well, actually, two things about that: that was delivered under the previous Government, and if there is such a big bump in the nursing workforce that’s coming, why does this Budget say the goal for the nursing workforce—for the number of nursing entry to practice trainees—is equal to or greater than two years ago. It was 1,135 this year—1,135. Next year? 1,135. That’s flat-lined like a really, really bad patient.

GPs was a specific campaign pledge where Labour has not delivered on that promise. They said they would increase the number of people in the GP registrar training programme to 300. It’s gone from 185, two years ago, to 180. Now, I have a degree in accounting. I don’t think I need it to know that that is lower, not higher, and certainly heading in the wrong direction if the goal is 300—a significant failure to deliver. To pretend that the workforce is somehow better off under this Government is going to make people laugh, but they’re not going to think it’s very funny.

The last, biggest failure is in the fact that the district health boards (DHBs) are drowning in a sea of red ink and this Budget does nothing to keep them afloat. The Minister admitted to the Health Committee this morning that he cannot expect financial viability from the DHBs—he’s just given up—and why would he? Three of the DHBs—Waikato, Counties Manukau, and Canterbury—still haven’t had their annual plans approved for this year. The year is about to end in two weeks. Their forecasted financial deficits are $210 million of the $390 million—that, I think, is actually way conservative, and so does Treasury; it’ll be closer to the half a billion dollars that I’ve been predicting for four months—and he says he can talk them into financial viability. He’ll give them a damned good telling off, he’ll fire the odd board and stick in a commissioner, but none of that is going to reduce the massive sea of red ink that the health sector has been put under, presided over by this asleep-at-the-wheel Minister.

My question is simply this: how can a Budget that is so punctuated by the failure of the Government to deliver on its promises be considered a wellbeing Budget? How can the wellbeing of all of those corners of the health sector that have had their tins raided to fund another part think that this is a wellbeing Budget? It’s not even well-meaning; it’s petty, and it’s penny-pinching, and it’s sending this sector—I feel very sorry for it; I’ve worked in it for a long, long time. I know these people well; they’re desperate to do better for their patients, and this Government is significantly failing them in their attempts to do that. And, as I say, we heard today that our biggest export is people, and many of them will be from the health sector. I think that is a crying shame.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. What we’re hearing from the Opposition benches is criticism, criticism, criticism but a failure to recognise the legacy that this Government inherited of lack of investment right across the social services, right across housing, health, families, young children, conservation—a total failure to invest. What this Government is doing through the Wellbeing Budget is actually recognising that people and planet matter and investing in that.

Mr Woodhouse, this is a wellbeing Budget because 600,000 New Zealanders now pay $20 to $30 less to go to the doctor. Mr Woodhouse, this is a wellbeing Budget because we have free visits for all children under 14. This Government is about remedying the problems of the past. Hon Judith Collins talked about housing. What that member fails to recognise is that 41,000 people were homeless in 2013, and right now there are more people in State house tenancies than at any other time. We have a programme, because of Budget 2018, of an extra 6,400 State houses over the four years, and that programme is well on track, as Minister Twyford noted in replies to questions today. It is recognising that people and planet matter. It is investing, and I’m very proud to be part of a Government that is doing that.

In conservation under the National Party when it was in Government, we saw the loss of 200 staff and repeated cuts to Te Papa Atawhai. Budget 2019 delivers the biggest increase in conservation funding in 17 years for the second year in a row—$181 million over four years last year; another $180 million over four years this year. This is ensuring that we recognise that nature is the heart of our success, whether it is in the primary production sector or in our biggest export industry, in tourism. I’d like to commend the leadership of the Hon Kelvin Davis, who’s got a far more strategic approach to that tourism industry, and it is the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy—the implementation of that through our legislation on Budget night—that is enabling a significant investment both in conservation and tourism infrastructure and planning. Under National, it was just interested in making visitor numbers grow but not protecting the landscapes and the indigenous biodiversity that so many international visitors come here to see.

Thirty-two percent of international visitors say that their major reason for coming to Aotearoa New Zealand is our natural landscapes, is our biodiversity. What was National doing? Slashing the funding. What is this Government doing? Investing to protect the basis of that industry, to protect the basis of our marketing brand overseas, and that is really delivering. We’ve got the biggest landscape-scale predator control operation being rolled out this winter in response to the beech mast year—over 12 percent of conservation land, a million hectares. We’ve got kokako. Now, new populations have been established in places like the Taranaki maunga, east Taranaki, and on the forested slopes of Mount Pirongia. What that shows is that where the Department of Conservation gets the funding, where it invests in intensive management of threatened species, we can turn around the decline that has been occurring.

Part of Budget 2018—$76 million is in a biodiversity package; increased investment across the terrestrial, the marine, and the freshwater space. Again, this Government is joined up. Ministers Parker and O’Connor, at Fieldays this afternoon, announced some of the detail of the $226 million that Budget 2019 is putting into more sustainable land and water use. Everyone has a right to swim in their local river, but under National we saw our rivers get more and more polluted; 80 percent of monitored sites in rural catchments unable to swim in because of elevated E. coli; nitrate levels rising in places like Canterbury, contaminating water supplies. Under this Government, we are assisting farmers—over 2,000 in this $35 million package—to get the tools that they need to transition to a much more sustainable land use that reduces nutrient runoff and pollution, that reduces greenhouse emissions, and that is about protecting our primary sector while also protecting the natural environment; that joined-up thinking—investing in the Climate Commission because of our commitment under the zero carbon bill to meet our commitments that we made in Paris.

This Budget is about wellbeing for both people and planet—the major investment in mental health services recognising the crisis that we have there in our country. I’m really proud of the work that colleagues like Chlöe Swarbrick are doing in that space, and the work that my colleague Jan Logie has done in the domestic and sexual violence space to recognise and own up to these problems and then to put in place the funding so that we can deliver services to all New Zealanders.

Across the board, there’s been an investment in the areas that matter. Another is waste: under the former National Government, we saw our waste going to landfill increasing year on year. What this Government is doing is recognising that we need to reduce that, both to reduce our methane emissions—5 percent of our greenhouse emissions are from the waste sector. We need to respond to the waste crisis that we have internationally—the images of plastic pollution in oceans around the world. That is why, under this Government, I set up a task force with the Ministry for the Environment to respond to the National Sword initiative. Budget 2019 delivers an additional $4 million to the Ministry for the Environment over four years to do much more policy work so that we can roll out the framework to reduce waste. In 2017, the former National Government had recommendations to expand the landfill levy. Nothing happened. This Government is committed to expanding the landfill levy to provide an incentive to divert waste from landfill, and that’s what some of that $4 million will go into doing: doing the policy work to support that, in responding to China’s National Sword initiative, working with councils and recycling operators around New Zealand to actually recharge our recycling and materials recovery system so that we have a more efficient economy.

This Government is about a sustainable, productive, inclusive economy and as we make that transition to a circular economy, that is far more efficient because instead of materials going to landfill, they are recovered, reused in new products. We’re doing that in the plastics space, investment through things like the Waste Minimisation Fund, and the landfill levy will significantly expand the revenue to assist progressive businesses, to assist councils, to assist community organisations to divert waste from landfill and turn around our rubbish record on waste.

In the Land Information New Zealand space, again there is an investment in the Crown’s management of Crown pastoral lands alongside leaseholders—an extra $3.6 million there so that the Crown can have a much more active role and not continue with the privatisation programme that was operating under the former Government, which saw so many poor outcomes. There is additional funding for Land Information New Zealand to implement the Landonline renewal and significantly improve that whole system, which is at the basis of property transactions around Aotearoa.

This is a Budget that, across the board, is about an investment approach to correct the legacy that we were left by the National Party of not caring about people, not caring about the planet, and not investing where it mattered. This Government is ensuring that the investments are strategic, that they are going to long-term change across all of those sectors, and that they recognise that New Zealanders have a right to dignity, have a right to living in safe, warm, dry houses, have a right to swim in their local river and to hear the dawn chorus. That is why there has been such a lot of additional funding in all these critical areas so that we are ensuring that our future here in these islands of Aotearoa is sustainable and that we have a healthy country and a healthy economy. Kia ora.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a sad day when a Minister of the Crown who has been in office now for two years cannot even fill up 10 minutes to talk about this Budget. It’s a botched Budget. It’s a litany of examples of the failure to deliver on promises. And if there was a really good example of how failure to deliver on promises occurred in a range of environmental portfolios, it’s that Minister, Eugenie Sage, who’s just resumed her seat. Very good on the rhetoric, very good on the academic theory, very good on the talk, very good on the slogan; absolutely hopeless on delivery. No delivery at all.

So when the much-promised and long-awaited and delayed Cabinet reshuffle occurs, it’s almost certain that that Minister will be reshuffled, and for good reason, because, actually, in Government, Governments need to deliver. They need to deliver on promises and in politics, and, in Government, promises are important and delivery is even more important.

I’m of an age where I can remember, as a child, from primary school days, the last one-term Labour Government that we had, and it was—Melissa Lee’s looking very surprised. I know that that’s hard to believe, Melissa Lee—

Simeon Brown: I wasn’t there, Scott.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —and I know that Simeon Brown certainly wasn’t there.

SPEAKER: I door-knocked for them, at the beginning and the end.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Ha, ha! I can remember it and I am sure that there are others—there are probably some presiding officers that might be able to remember it as well. Interestingly enough, I had an opportunity recently to spend a little time at a luncheon, actually, with a former Treasurer of New Zealand, a former finance Minister, none other than Sir William Birch. Sir William Birch is a fine fellow, in good heart and hale and hearty, and he was keen to remind me of some of the similarities between this current Labour Government and the last one-term Labour Government that we had.

Now, no one is, of course, of a mind that anything as awful as what happened to the Labour leader, Norm Kirk, will happen to the current Prime Minister, of course, but there are some similarities in terms of style between Norm Kirk and the current Prime Minister. Both of them like the grand vision. Both of them like the grand gesture. Both of them lack the detail. Both of them don’t want to be put under the scrutiny of intense questioning and detail. And then Bill Birch said to me that there was a bunch of ambitious reforming Cabinet Ministers, all of them going in different directions, all of them trying to do things that would mark them out as being a page in the history book of New Zealand. There were people like Joe Walding, Phil Amos, Martyn Finlay, and a whole group like that—Bob Tizard in finance—and they were spending like drunken sailors. Spending like drunken sailors, they were, and that’s actually true of this lot. We’ve got people like Minister Twyford, Chris Hipkins, Andrew Little in justice. These are very similar characters to those that were present in the last one-term Labour Government. Then Sir William went on to say that they didn’t deliver on their promises, and that was absolutely right. That’s, of course, true with this current crowd: made grand promises, didn’t deliver on them, and the people of New Zealand have a very low tolerance for non-delivery in terms of expectations that have been created and not put into action.

Then the other thing that Sir William reminded me of, of course, was that during that period between 1972 and 1975, during the last one-term Labour Government, there was an incredibly uncertain international backdrop all around the world, and that’s of course very similar to the situation that we have today: uncertainty in Europe, uncertainty in the United Kingdom, uncertainty in Asia, and some would say uncertainty in North America. So a failure to deliver on promises matched against a climate where the New Zealand public want the expectations that have been created to be fulfilled, and it’s in these areas that this Government is so lacking.

We had a Budget that actually delivered very little, almost nothing, for middle New Zealand, almost nothing for hard-working taxpaying New Zealanders who go to work every day, who slave away in their own businesses, investing their own capital, and who put together the wheels and the cogs of this economy. In fact, everything that this Government has done has actually slowed down and been a handbrake on growth in our economy. Even though this is a Government that doesn’t care much for the economy, actually it’s the economy that produces jobs, it produces wealth, and it produces the income necessary to provide taxation for Government spending.

I am reminded, while we’re just thinking about things historic, that actually it was Margaret Thatcher who said that the real problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money—sooner or later socialists run out of other people’s money. We’ve got a socialist Government in power now. In fact, they’re more socialist than most of us have seen in our lifetimes. They like to borrow, they like to spend, and they like to tax. There are seven new taxes this Government has introduced—seven new taxes that this Government has introduced—and much of it to be spent on profligate spending.

I wouldn’t mind so much if the spending was well targeted, if the spending was well measured, if the spending was responsible spending, if the spending was about getting better results and making the lives of New Zealanders better, because surely that’s the objective of Government. But no. We have a Government mired in theory, mired in socialist doctrine, complicated ideologies made up from the various component parts of the coalition Government, and the net result of all that is a quagmire of inaction and non-delivery, because the competing personalities and political ideological positions of the coalition Government mean that one small party can actually veto pretty much everything else, and they do.

I want to spend just a quick minute talking about non-delivery in the environment, because if ever there was an area where huge expectations were created during the last election campaign and no delivery has occurred, it’s in the area of environment. So there is still silence about so much—an announcement of $229 million, some detail of which we’ve heard today, but no real precise action—about land transformation. Farmers are seeing that and hearing that and they’re interpreting that as a myriad of clipboard-wielding officials coming around and visiting farms and telling farmers how to farm, what to do on their properties, and that’s a real problem for them. Farmers are worried about that kind of thing.

Then we’ve got the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. In the Speech from the Throne there was a promise that there would be binding targets—binding targets—yet again, a promise not delivered. And we find in the bill that has been presented by the climate change Minister, the Hon James Shaw—guess what? No binding targets at all. In fact, the name on the bill doesn’t even represent what the bill does. It’s actually not a zero carbon bill at all. It is not a zero carbon bill at all; it’s actually a bill that is designed to set up the framework and the establishment of the climate change commission. Actually, the bill should really be called the “Climate Change Commission Establishment Bill” rather than anything else.

Then we have a whole range of other things. Where were the promises and the delivery of promises on more alternative power? Where were the benefits or incentives for the installation of solar power? The Greens lost that one. What happened to all that stuff around electric vehicles? I bought myself an electric vehicle last year. I haven’t bought petrol since before Christmas. It’s a very great feeling, but there are thousands of people who want to buy electric vehicles—

Chris Bishop: That’s right—how good.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —Chris Bishop’s got one, Nick Smith’s got one, and Amy Adams; a lot of us on this side, we like them—and where were the promised incentives? Where was the delivery on that kind of stuff? There were none. A failure to deliver on promises. A failure to deliver on promises is what this has meant.

But there was something in the Budget and it was taxation for the good people of Coromandel, because many of them still do drive petrol vehicles. There’s no public transport in the Coromandel, so that extra petrol tax that’s being levied on the hard-working people of the Coromandel will actually be going to fund pet public transport projects, slow trams along Dominion Road, a train from Auckland CBD to the airport, we think—if it gets delivered, that promise. So people in my beautiful electorate are going to be paying for the theory, for the rhetoric, and for the academic insightfulness of a Government that thinks it knows best but actually doesn’t. A failure to deliver on promises will see this Government out.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I’m starting to understand why the National Party are polling in the 30s, because no one likes a whinger—no one likes to hang around with people that drone on and whinge, and that’s what we’ve just heard all day and ever since the Wellbeing Budget. In fact, we heard a fair bit of whinging leading up to the Budget, because what they were bemoaning then was that we should have delivered the tax cuts. Do you remember that? The tax cuts that they promised New Zealand if they were elected? New Zealand rejected that idea and they’ve whinged about it ever since.

Then they stopped whinging about the tax cuts because they saw that New Zealanders liked a Government that delivered a Budget that looked and focused on the wellbeings of New Zealanders, delivering for New Zealanders, and they thought, “Shivers! Actually, we can’t promise tax cuts and then promise to do what they’re doing and in fact criticise the Government for not doing enough. So we’re just going to forget about the tax cuts and then just pretend that New Zealanders are dumb and they’re not going to remember the tax cuts, and then what we’re going to do is complain that this Government is not delivering enough.” That’s what they’re doing. They decided, “Nah, that’s it. These guys aren’t delivering enough.”, even though this Wellbeing Budget is world leading, even though the IMF and the World Bank and many other overseas organisations are saying to Grant Robertson, the Minister of Finance, “That is a good idea. We would like to emulate what you’re doing, because this is world changing. This is going to deliver for people where it matters.”

But the National Party just can’t handle that. They have to whinge. They have to say that it is not enough, despite that $1.9 billion has delivered for mental health—not enough. Despite the fact that $1.2 billion has delivered for improving our school infrastructure—not enough.

I would put it to the House that the National Party members haven’t even read most of the Budget, because we wasted time in select committee today, in a public hearing—wasted time—when the education spokesperson for the National Party was complaining that it was $1.2 billion over 10 years. Her very embarrassed colleagues corrected her to say that it was over four years, and then she had no more questions because she realised that it was the biggest injection of revenue into the education sector to do up the schools—whinging when they don’t have any basis to whinge about.

Then, just take Scott Simpson, the last speaker, for example. What a rambling mess that speech was. He was talking about the 1970s, going on about Prime Ministers of the past and finance Ministers of the past—who are screaming out for relevancy now—and talking about how this Government reminds them of the 1970s and reminds them of this and reminds them of that. Then he criticised our coalition partners in New Zealand First and the Greens, and then he bemoaned MMP—that it allows small parties to get some concessions in Government policy. This is despite the fact that before this Government was formed, they were crawling to New Zealand First and the Greens, saying, “Look, come with us. We want to form the Government.”, and now that they didn’t, they’re packing a sad and they’re having a whinge. This just sums up this Opposition.

What they are not reflecting is the views that I’ve heard right around the country. In the last week, I’ve been to places like Hāwera and Stratford and Whanganui and Waipawa and Pahīatua and Dannevirke and Hamilton. All of those places are in National-held seats—for now—and so I went out there and I thought I’d talk about the Budget, and do you know what? I went there and I thought, “These are National-held seats. They will be emulating and copying what the National Party are saying, surely.” Not a chance—not a chance. They were happy that, finally, there was a Government that was delivering for New Zealanders in terms of mental health and, finally, there was a Government that was willing to put aside the old ways and focus on the new and deliver in things like education and health.

They told me that whilst they may have voted National in the past, they are sick of the whinging, and they are sick of the internal, inward-looking approach of the National Party that was on display today in question time and during Judith Collins’ contribution. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. When Judith Collins stands up, MPs duck for cover over to this side of the House. They didn’t want to be part of it, and then those ones that thought “Right. Well, this is the horse that I want to back.”, they just crowded around. I’ve seen it plenty of times before, and that’s what they were trying to do. The likes of Mark Mitchell and Michael Woodhouse thought, “I’m going to sit next to this. This is the horse I want to back.”

Well, I tell you what, they must be gutted. They must be gutted because at 6 o’clock on Sunday night, they were watching Newshub and they saw a poll, and they thought, “Right, here’s our moment.” Then they flipped over to TVNZ and they thought, “Blast! My moment’s gone. I thought we had an opportunity to roll Simon, and now Simon is saved.” And do you know what, Madam Deputy Speaker, for a long, long—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I do know that it is a broad debate, but, you know, there is a time when you do have to bring it back to the Budget.

KIERAN McANULTY: That’s right—dead right. So, anyway, I reckon these polls reflect the nation’s attitude—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please.

KIERAN McANULTY: —towards the National Party’s poor contribution to this Budget debate. That’s what I think.

Willow-Jean Prime: And it was after the Budget.

KIERAN McANULTY: Absolutely—after the Budget. So, anyway, what we see in this Budget—

Hon Members: Hooray!

KIERAN McANULTY: That’s right—that’s right. That is the most noise that that side of the House has made all night, even though Judith Collins tried to get—not even one clap after her speech. Judith Collins’ contribution to this particular debate about this Budget—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And, actually, just saying the word “Budget” isn’t enough—good try.

KIERAN McANULTY: Righto. You are dead right, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is called the Wellbeing Budget—thank you very much. The Wellbeing Budget is delivering not only for education and health, like I mentioned, but it is not even that revolutionary, in the sense that it is focusing on GDP. This is what that side of the House want to make it sound like—that we have absolutely moved aside from the fundamentals of delivering to this nation—but it hasn’t. What they are saying is that this Wellbeing Budget is moving away from responsible delivery for this country, and it isn’t. The Government’s books remain in good shape because the Welllbeing Budget focuses on delivering a strong economy so that that economy can deliver for the wellbeing of this nation. It delivers a sustainable surplus and strong GDP growth.

What have we heard from the other side about GDP growth? Nothing but whinging—whinging. Whinging that it should be higher—everything should be higher, if you listen to the National Party, including their polling.

But what we see is that the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update shows that the Government’s books remain in good shape. Net core Crown debt as a percentage of GDP is forecast to be under 20 percent by 2021-22—exactly what this Government said was going to happen when we were elected. We have delivered, yet again, a strong surplus, and we will continue to do so. It is projected to be $6.1 billion by 2022-23—that is exactly what this Government said we would do and exactly what the people want this Government to do. They know that we need to focus on the economy to deliver to people, and they also want to see delivery.

They want to see things like the venture capitalist fund, because they know, right across the country—particularly in small areas like those I visited last week, where we got a tremendous reception—that small companies get to a point and the investment stops. If they got to a certain point beyond that, then the investment kicks in again. There is a gap. That is why this Budget delivers investment for these start-up companies, because this Government knows that this particular aspect of the Wellbeing Budget is going to deliver for these companies—companies that are investing in themselves, investing in the regions that they exist in, wanting to employ people, and wanting to give back to this country.

Now, what this feedback is is a rejection of that side’s economic policy and that side’s belief in the market-driven trickle-down effect, because if the market was delivering, these start-up companies would not require the Government to kick in. We’re quite happy to do so.

That side, at the moment, are unhappy. Next week, they’ll probably say that it’s not enough, because that’s the trend that we’ve seen so far. They are saying one thing one week, and one thing another week. They don’t know what they’re thinking because they don’t know who they’re following, yet here we are. We can ignore all that, because everyone else is.

We can focus on what we want to do for rural New Zealand, for middle New Zealand, for those hard-working Kiwis at the bottom, and for those that just want to get out and start their own business. This Wellbeing Budget is looking after the basics, looking after people’s wellbeing, looking after their mental health, making sure that the education sector is well funded, making sure that infrastructure like rail and rural roads is funded, and making sure that the basics are looked after.

I’m not going to sit here and whinge like the National Party. I’m not going to complain and talk about the old days and try and spend my energy on deciding who to follow. I am very proud to stand here as a member of this Government and say well done to the leaders in this Government—Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson, Winston Peters, Marama Davidson, and James Shaw—for delivering, as leaders in this Government, a wellbeing Budget that will be the start of something special in this country. I believe it’s something that we can all be very, very proud of.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Of that effort, I have to acknowledge Kieran McAnulty. Mr McAnulty, I’d like an appointment with you to take lessons on how one does speak for 10 minutes and say absolutely nothing, because after the last 10 minutes, I have no idea what that member actually said in terms of the Budget. The only thing was that he started off saying that no one likes a whinger, and, basically, he proceeded to whinge. He whinged. I mean, he started off his speech by saying that no one likes a whinger and that the National Party was whinging, and he whinged for 10 minutes and he talked about the National Party.

This is their second Budget. This is supposed to be the Wellbeing Budget of the Labour Government in their second year, delivering for the people of New Zealand. They’re supposed to be very proud of the Budget that is delivering for people, regardless of the fact that they actually referred to moon feelings when they’re deciding on how they’re going to divvy up the money in the Budget, or the locus of control to figure out how they’re going to deliver for the people, and yet that member could not actually talk about the Budget that he is proud of.

I have to say that this Labour Government is absolutely failing New Zealand. They are failing to deliver for New Zealanders and they are failing to deliver on their promises. In my particular portfolio, I like to, sort of, talk about how this Budget of 2019 has basically confirmed that RNZ+ is now dead in the water. There is no money for public broadcasting; basically, because they’ve not delivered. They promised that they were going to deliver $38 million per year for the next four years while they’re in Government—they said they were going to deliver $38 million—they actually delivered $15 million last year. And guess what? This year there is not money for that.

There is not even money for something that they’ve announced three days before the Budget. Three days before the Budget, the Minister actually announced that there will be a local democracy reporter pilot. I support that move, because that is an opportunity for people to report about what is happening in our local government, our funded agencies, and it is actually an opportunity for more reporters to be hired to write stories—real local democracy - type stories, which are really important in the public media sector. So that was very, very welcome. They were going to spend, I guess, about a million dollars for the pilot, and they were going to employ—I can’t remember exactly how many—reporters. But this is actually an example that they’ve taken out from the British model, where in the UK, the BBC has started the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme ,where they now have in excess of 150 reporters reporting on that. But that announcement, three days before the Budget, which made all of us think that it was the new Budget announcement, was not in fact this year’s Budget announcement; it is actually a hangover from the Budget of the previous year, where they haven’t actually spent the money. They gave extra money to New Zealand On Air and Radio New Zealand, and it was a one-off $6 million fund. It was an innovation fund that they gave to public media, but three days before the Budget they hadn’t spent the money, so they decided to make the announcement as if it is new money; it certainly is not.

There is also that whole manifesto. I mean, you know, this Government came into power with the proviso that they were going to be the most open and transparent Government of all time. As we saw in the actions that the Ministers have taken in not disclosing meetings, for example—and I’ve actually exposed at least one of those—the fact that they were going to employ a Chief Technology Officer, which is also dead in the water, because that has not happened. Imagine if they had, in fact, employed a Chief Technology Officer. I wonder what that person—he or she—would have advised the Government in relation to the supposed hack that this Government claims happened when people went searching—like doing a google search, going to Treasury’s website and hitting on the search bar “Budget 2019” and finding the freely available information that we were able to get.

Simeon Brown: The only time they’ve been open and transparent.

MELISSA LEE: That’s right. It was a lolly scramble, free for everybody to access for free—lolly scramble. The only time that this Government has actually been open and transparent; now they’re calling it a criminal hack, which is rather embarrassing—

Todd Muller: Outrageous!

MELISSA LEE: —rather outrageous. And whatever happened to the Digital Economy and Digital Inclusion Ministerial Advisory Group (DEDIMAG), ministerial advisory boards that the Government has spent millions of dollars on—the Public Media Advisory Board? There’s no money in this Budget for them to continue—I think their term comes to an end at the end of this month—and they’re supposed to advise the Minister and this Government on what to do about public media. DEDIMAG—I think they actually finished last month, so where are they? I mean, their minutes were never publicly available; they never even recorded the minutes. What about, you know, a public media group? I mean, in terms of the funding commission that they were actually going to create, whatever happened to that plan? This Budget does not provide a single cent towards the plan that the Labour Party and the Government set out and actually said out loud, very proudly, that they were the champions of public media and they were going to provide $38 million a year—and this Government has not actually delivered.

There are a couple of other things that Mr McAnulty said which I just want to take issue with. He said that we took issue with the small concession in terms of what the coalition partners got. Small concession is not billions and billions of dollars to actually plant trees or to actually place a roundabout in Shane Jones’ electorate, around his house—you know, billions of dollars that has actually delivered nothing. It’s supposed to grow economic development for the regions, and hasn’t really delivered. The last count I had was that it did not even produce a hundred new jobs, in terms of the money that Shane Jones has spent.

I have to say the KiwiBuild saga is also an absolute disaster as well. When this Government comes in and says this is what they’re going to do, and when you have KiwiBuild—their main policy area, the big chunk that they were going to make a difference in this country, as opposed to the National Government—this was their flagship portfolio. This was their flagship policy that they were going to deliver for New Zealanders. We know for a fact that it’s an absolute diabolical failure. The Minister’s a joke and he hasn’t actually delivered, and he’s spending good money after another, not delivering for people. When I have constituents who ring me up and say they’ve been homeless for the last 87 days and Oranga Tamariki and Housing New Zealand and Work and Income haven’t come to their aid, I get really angry. Although I’m not an electorate MP, I am a list MP who actually cares about the constituents, and I am championing their causes. No doubt the Ministers will hear about these issues soon as well.

But, you know, in terms of what they’re not delivering for New Zealanders, I mean, whatever happened to the cheaper doctors visits? We were going to pay $10 in doctors visits. What about the lifesaving medicines that we were all going to get? I just got an email recently about a woman who is desperate because her child’s—her four year-old daughter’s—epilepsy medicine is going to be changed by Pharmac against Medsafe advice, and she is absolutely frightened that her child is going to go through seizure after seizure; she is actually desperate.

This is the so-called caring Government that is apparently delivering the Wellbeing Budget. I say to the members opposite that they should hang their heads in shame because they certainly haven’t looked at the wellbeing of New Zealanders. They are not growing the economy, they are not providing the jobs that people need; instead, they’re providing 13,000 extra people on the dole queue, on the benefit. People are worse off. More people are actually homeless, more people are living in caravan parks. I think the members opposite should be ashamed of themselves.

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to be part of a Government with a vision—with a vision for New Zealand out into the future. When that member Melissa Lee talks about “Whatever happened to doctors visits?”, well, I can inform the member that doctors visits are now free for everyone 14 years old and under. For 600,000 more Kiwis, it is between $20 and $30 cheaper—that is what happens to doctors visits, because we care about Kiwis. We understand if you fund the health system in a way that keeps people healthy, you keep people out of hospital. This is a Government that is concentrating on the health and wellbeing of all our communities. It’s absolutely fantastic. The initiatives that are coming through, they’re not about one year, they’re not about two years; they’re generational—generational change. That’s what Government is about—it’s what this Government is about, anyway.

I hold four rather diverse portfolios, and I’d like to talk a little bit about what this Budget means for my portfolios and the key stakeholders. First of all, let’s look at the Inland Revenue Department. The Inland Revenue Department is in the process of implementing the largest systems change, the largest transformation in the history of the State sector: $1.8 billion on business transformation over a five-year project.

Release three was rolled out in April this year, and since that time, at the end of April, a quarter of a billion—$250 million—in refunds have been paid to Kiwis without them having to apply for it. This is this Government returning Kiwis’ money back to them. That is absolutely fantastic, and there’s a whole lot more to come. The release next year is release four, and the following year is release five, and at that stage we will have a transformational inland revenue system that is here to help. It is making a real difference in terms of pay-day filing.

The level of information that the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) now has means that when people are paying too much tax, they can actually get a call from IRD—or their employer gets a call—saying, “Hey, you’re paying too much tax. How about we go on this tailored tax code?”, and you pay the right amount at that point in time. They don’t have to wait until the end of the year or they don’t have to use a tax agent to actually get their money back. It’s about putting money back into the back pockets—

Alastair Scott: A great National Party initiative—great National Party.

Hon STUART NASH: —of good, hard-working Kiwis. It is absolutely fantastic, Alastair Scott, and the people of Wairarapa will be very, very happy about it.

Now, let’s talk about police. Let’s talk about the number of police that we’re rolling out around the country. But before I do, I want to just reiterate this $1.9 billion into mental health. The reason I’m talking about this in the same breath as police is because the police service sees the front end of this every single day. They are dealing with the suicides, the attempted suicides, and the mental health cases because there’s nowhere else for these people to go, because the system is so run down that the first people that are called are the New Zealand Police service. That is wrong. This is going to make a huge difference to the way that the police operate in this country, and it’s fantastic to see. I congratulate Dr Clark and the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for that $1.9 billion investment in mental health. But in police services themselves, there’s an extra $260 million—an extra $260 million. Fantastic.

Now, let me talk about some of the initiatives. We are going to get rid of the most dangerous guns that are designed, primarily, to kill people. You don’t need an AR-15 and you don’t need an AK-47 if you want to pot a deer, shoot a duck, go after a rabbit—

Todd Muller: A billion bucks later.

Hon STUART NASH: —or hunt. You don’t—a billion dollars later? We’re going to take these guns out of our community.

I spoke to a guy called Simon Mount QC. Now, Simon Mount QC worked with Justice Thorp on the Thorp report in 1997. What the Thorp report did was it made a whole lot of recommendations that are very, very similar to the recommendations that we’re looking at at the moment. Simon Mount QC said that if these recommendations had been implemented back when we made them, in 1997, he very much doubts that we would’ve had 51 dead on 15 March. This is going to be transformational, and we are going to take these guns out of our community because they are not necessary, they are not needed, and we heard that from a whole range of stakeholders. There’s $150 million in the Budget for that. The finance Minister has said if we need any more money for that, then we will find it, but we think that’s probably enough money to do it—

Simeon Brown: Probably enough?

Hon STUART NASH: —and it’s vitally important that we do. You don’t agree with this, Simeon Brown? You think we should leave these guns in our community? Well, you’re an outlier—I can tell you that. You’re an outlier, because the vast majority of people do support it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! Don’t bring me into it, thank you.

Hon STUART NASH: Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. That member is an outlier, because the vast majority of Kiwis think we don’t need these guns that are designed, primarily, to kill people. It’s a great initiative.

There’s also $45 million to tackle family and sexual violence. This is the nation’s shame. We have rates that are one of the highest in the OECD, and we need to do something about it. We absolutely need to.

Angie Warren-Clark: We do.

Hon STUART NASH: You know what I’m talking about when it comes to this. Again, the police are at the front end of this. Every single day, they are attending family violence callouts, and it is just wrong.

What police do is a whole lot of proactive stuff. It’s about preventing family violence. It’s about getting there before it starts. It’s about putting processes in place to ensure that when there’s a fuse that’s about to be lit, the men and women who are perpetrators understand that there are other options. This stuff has been trialled and it is working. It is working, and it’s important that we roll this out even further.

What else are we doing? Well, we’re on target to train an extra 900 men and women into our police service in the next financial year. Now, that is fantastic. This year, we had a record 856 officers enter into our police service. I know that, as a former Minister of Police—

Hon Peeni Henare: In the communities that need them.

Hon STUART NASH: —you’ll understand how important that is. As you say, Mr Henare, into the communities that need them. Policing is about perception, and when you have police embedded in the community, working really hard with key stakeholders, preventing crime but also going after the bad guys, then people feel safe. We broke a record set in 1996-97 when there were 680. We did 856. We’re going to do 900 next year. This is meeting a promise: we said 1,800 more police. It is making a real difference to our communities, and I’m incredibly proud, and it’s a real privilege to be the Minister of Police at such a time when we’re making a really big difference.

Let me tell you a story—and Madam Deputy Speaker, you’ll know the gentleman I’m talking about.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Don’t bring me into it.

Hon STUART NASH: The Mayor of Napier is a bit of an insomniac at times, and he has this radio beside his bed. Every now and again, I’ll get a call from the mayor saying, “Do you know what your police were up to last night? I heard on the radio scanner they’re doing this, that, and everything else.” What I’m saying is the integrity of the police communication system across a lot of New Zealand is such that it is just not secure. We need to invest money to get a secure communication system, and we’re doing that. It should’ve been done a while ago, but we’re investing in it now. So that’s going to be fantastic.

In fisheries, the Prime Minister and I stood on the wharf down in Auckland on Friday and launched stage one of cameras on boats. Now, this is really cool. This is really fantastic. This is not just about compliance, even though compliance is a part of it; this is also about enhancing and building our global brand. This is about when people are overseas, at the ultra-premium end of the market, and they’re buying New Zealand seafood, they will know that that seafood has come from the only fully sustainably managed ocean in the world. This is transformational, and the work that we are doing really is going to make a big difference, and it’s an exciting time to be the Minister of Fisheries—of that there’s no doubt.

Small business—well, where do I start there? There’s a whole lot of stuff in the small business space. We’re cutting compliance costs. We have Business Connect—we’ve got money in this Budget for Business Connect. Now, that is going to make a real difference to businesses that interact with local and central government. It’s going to drive efficiency. It’s going to free up more time for business owners to grow their business if that’s what they want to do, or just spend more time with their families and friends if that’s what they want to do. But what we are about in this Government is driving efficiency in a way that makes a real difference but also is a lot more profitable.

This Wellbeing Budget is about changing the communities we serve. This Wellbeing Budget is about putting more police into our communities. It’s about looking after the mental health and wellbeing of our communities. It’s about those who are struggling day to day not having to pay school donations. When you get international observers, who have no buy-in to what we’re doing here—they’re not conflicted in any way, shape, or form—coming out and saying this is a blueprint for the way—

Hon Peeni Henare: Branson.

Hon STUART NASH: —the world should do things, or Richard Branson, for goodness’ sake—you would hardly call him a Labour man—coming out and saying it’s a blueprint, we know we’re on the right track. But not only are the international pundits talking about this as transformational, as evolutionary, as revolutionary, the thing that I really care about and the reason that I’m so proud about being in this Government is that this Budget is actually going to make a difference to the men and women in our communities, those who every day go to work, who have got kids, who are putting food on the table and petrol in the car, and who are looking for work—because there are 70,000 more Kiwis in work than there was. This is a fantastic Budget and I’m very proud to be part of the Government that’s delivered it. Thank you very much.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Boy, I was sitting here, I have to say, and wondering if the Minister of Fisheries was going to get to cameras on fishing boats, because, frankly, I thought to myself that if I was him, I probably wouldn’t mention it. It’s not such a good thing, given that he’s been completely slammed by all of their mates—people like Forest & Bird, who have called this an utter abomination. In fact, it’s a massive back-down, because, in fact, out of 1,000 boats in our commercial fishing fleet, they’ve put cameras on 28. That’s 2.8 percent, my colleague Mr Todd Muller tells me—he’s very good at math.

But let me tell this House something else about those 28 boats: they already have observers from the Ministry for Primary Industries on all of them.

Hon Peeni Henare: No, they don’t.

ERICA STANFORD: Yes, they do—yes, they do. They already have observers on those boats. So here we have a Minister trumpeting his Government as being transformational with 28 boats having cameras, out of a fleet of 1,000 who already have observers on them.

This is actually a massive failure. It’s not transformational at all. The reason, if anyone is wondering—I’m sure everyone knows, but for the people out there in “Voter Land”—why they’re not rolling it out as promised across our fishing fleet, it’s three words: New Zealand First. New Zealand First don’t like this because they have ties to the fishing industry. The ironic thing in all of this—the ironic thing; the thing I find the funniest—is that the Hon Shane Jones, prior to being in this Parliament, spent a good three years travelling around as our roving ambassador of the Pacific and his job was to look after the fisheries. What did he do while he was appointed in that role? He put cameras on fishing boats. That’s what he did, and he comes here to this Parliament and his party puts the brakes on and stops cameras on fishing boats across our fleet because of the ties that they have to the fishing industry. That is, frankly, appalling.

For Minister Nash to get up here today and tell us how transformational it is to put cameras on 2.8 percent of our fishing fleet is, frankly, appalling and a massive joke. I can’t believe that he even mentioned it. If I was him, I would be hanging my head in shame because their mates—people like Forest & Bird; people like Kevin Hague—are now coming out and calling this a major back-down and saying that they’re frankly appalled by it themselves.

This Budget has been specifically designed to embrace New Zealand in this cloak of warm, fuzzy, buzz, “make you feel good” rhetoric. Much like the cover of the Budget was wrapped with those two people with the happy smiling faces—nothing to see here—we all know how that ended up. This Government’s inability to grow our economy and their increasing of costs drove those people overseas to Australia where, in fact, actually, they would be happier because the opportunities aren’t here any more. The simple fact is that the reason these guys don’t want to talk about GDP or productivity or the economy, and they’d rather talk about something else that they’ve rebranded wellbeing, is because they know very well that whenever they talk about the economy, their vote drops because New Zealanders don’t trust them with the economy. In this country, when they hear the words “Labour” and “the economy”, they turn off. They turn away because they don’t trust them.

So in this clever move to avoid ever talking about the economy or GDP or things that actually matter, they’ve concentrated on this other thing that they’ve rebranded as wellbeing which, funnily enough, ties really well into the thing that they’re actually quite good at: spending New Zealanders money in a willy-nilly fashion with no accountability. They’re terrible at growing the economy but very, very good at dishing out the fruits of New Zealanders’ labour. It’s all this massive rebranding exercise to trick and divert our attention. It’s that sleight of hand—“Don’t look at that thing over here that really matters. Look at this shiny new thing over here that we’re going to call wellbeing.”—this new buzzword that’s pretty much what every Government in the history of this country has done to appropriate money for the wellbeing of New Zealanders. The issue for this Government now is that this thin veneer of fluff and rhetoric is wearing off. Their promises that they trumpeted are starting to not be delivered on and we’re piling up with them in this so-called year of delivery.

One of their biggest areas that I’d like to focus my contribution on today is the environment. I’m going to talk about water in particular, but I do just want to start with the Greens’ investment fund, because whatever happened to that?

Todd Muller: That’s in my speech.

ERICA STANFORD: Sorry, I’m stealing Mr Todd Muller’s thunder. I’ll just mention it very briefly because it was heralded and trumpeted as this wonderful thing that the Green Party won in the coalition negotiations, and then there was silence. In fact, I was in, very recently, a meeting in my electorate with a company who had applied for the fund quite recently and were told that it wasn’t ready to be dished out yet because they were still working on it. We are 20 months into this Government, 20 months into this greenest Government ever, and the Green Party’s big win, the Green Investment Fund, still ain’t ready. How embarrassing for this greenest Government ever.

But one of the biggest things—and Labour trumpeted this in the election—and one of their most important promises to the country was that they were going to make rivers swimmable in a generation. In fact, water was their No. 1 environmental issue. There are two main things when it comes to water: Labour’s failure to deliver on their promise of swimmable rivers in a generation, and the second thing, can I say, is massive uncertainty. For a Government that made this the No. 1 environmental policy at the election, and they campaigned on this day after day—“We’re going to clean up our rivers in a generation”—in August this year it will be 23 months since they were elected, and what have they done? Why has this taken them so long? I say “August” because that is apparently when we’re going to see the first national policy statement on water, perhaps. Maybe it’s the working groups that they’ve had that have tied them up for so long. They’ve got a council working group, a scientists working group, a freshwater working group, and an iwi working group.

On The Nation—if anyone watched The Nation on the weekend—the Hon Minister Parker described the issue as extremely complex and very difficult, and not very simple. Well, go figure!

In Opposition, on the campaign trail, it was easy: “We’re going to clean it up in a generation. Nothing to see here, it’s all very easy, in fact.” When they’re in Government, well, it’s all a lot more difficult and they fill the air with fluffy rhetoric. It’s all very nice and well to say “Clean it up in a generation.”, but, in fact, it is very difficult. In two years of Government so far, what they have done is absolutely nothing for fresh water—nothing at all.

Let me remind this House of what we did when we were in Government: we set up the Land and Water Forum, we measured waterways around the country, we set limits, and the biggest thing, the most important thing was that we—

Hon Member: And it got worse.

ERICA STANFORD: In fact, more waterways in this country showed improvement than decline for the first time. The Labour Government, prior to us, only invested $300 million, sorry, $30 million—not even $300; $30 million. That’s all they invested. We invested $400 million into cleaning up our waterways. Let me tell this House what we can gather, so far, that Mr Parker has put in this Budget into cleaning up some waterways, that he’s unable to identify as of yet because he’s not quite sure where they are after 20 months: $12 million. Now, it’s a huge difference to go from $400 million in cleaning up our waterways to a measly $12 million.

But the biggest thing I want to talk about in my remaining two minutes is the uncertainty that we face around this Budget, because there is a sustainable land use package that has got no detail around it. Now, members will be aware of Minister Parker’s comments at the last election, when he was in Ashburton talking to farmers. Basically, it was a thinly veiled threat, where he said, “Well, if you don’t get on board, I’ll double the price of water from 1c to 2c.” So, given the lack of detail in this Budget around the sustainable land use package, all I can suspect that this big pot of money is is another tool for him to get at farmers to say, “Well, I’ve got this money and if you don’t get on board with me, well, maybe you won’t get any of it.” There’s very little detail, and given his past issues with farmers, I can only guess that that’s what this is here to do. I’m very suspicious of this fund, given that there is no detail around it.

Farmers are gathering today at the Fieldays. It’s our biggest agricultural trade show. All they have is uncertainty from this Government and this Budget. They don’t know if they’re going to be in the emissions trading scheme, they’ve got no idea about whether or not they’ll be charged for water or how much, and they’ve got no idea about the climate change bill and how that will affect them. Now, we have got Minister Parker telling us that we won’t even perhaps see a national policy statement on water until August—almost two years into their term.

Massive uncertainty for our farming and rural sector, who are producing some of the finest products in the world at very low emissions—some of the best in the world, in fact—and yet here we are, with more and more uncertainty on them. We wonder why our economy has gone from 4 percent to 2 percent growth, and it’s because sectors like this have absolutely no certainty. They’re not hiring, they’re not investing, and they’re not growing. This Government is failing to deliver on its promises.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Now, I understand this is a split call.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. It would be remiss of me not to respond to that speech. It reminds me of this Māori proverb, or whakataukī: “He mahi te ana āta noho, e kī ana te wheke [There is work in remaining quiet, according to the octopus].”

It is the octopus who says that sitting is working. We have inherited rivers and lakes that our children cannot swim in, and yet the member on the other side, Erica Stanford, just said something like “This Government is only investing so much.” Actually, we’re doing something.

From question time until now, I’ve sat here in this House and I’ve listened to google search or whatnot from the other side. I’ve listened to them critique about what the Government is delivering and only partially delivering that. Well, actually—note to everybody—we started with the foundation Budget. Now we’re in the Wellbeing Budget, and we’re still going ahead next year with another Budget that’s going to focus on the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

It’s a certain privilege to be around in Papakura, and in Tāmaki, where the Pacific people are saying to me—and I quote—“Anahila, can you tell Grant and Jacinda, thank you very much for valuing us and having the Pacific people in the Government’s five priorities of this Wellbeing Budget.” Many articulate speakers on this side have reminded us of what the five priorities are, and I’ll just remind us again. It is about taking mental health seriously, improving child wellbeing, supporting Māori and Pacific aspirations, building a productive nation, and, last, but not the least, transforming the economy.

Treasury had published a report on the Pacific economy, and a couple of things I want to bring from that report. It said that 310,000 New Zealanders are Pacific. It said that every week there are 27,000 hours of voluntary labour provided by the Pacific community. They also said that the average income of the Pacific person in Aotearoa New Zealand is $40,000. The non-Pacific person earns $13,500 more than the Pacific person.

Ko taku reo taku ohooho; ko taku reo taku māpihi maurea.

[My language is my treasure of immense value; my language is my object of affection.]

My language is my awakening; my language is the window to my soul. This whakataukī is closely associated with language revitalisation, a struggle which is very important in maintaining culture. Since I arrived on these shores, I have been taught English from the minute I wake up to the minute I sleep. Why? Maybe it is important in maintaining culture. We are supporting the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to establish a new language unit with a set of language priorities, to support and function to ensure the survival of New Zealand Pacific languages.

This year’s Wellbeing Budget makes the lifting of Pacific incomes, skills, and opportunities a priority. In education, there is $27.4 million to support a package of initiatives focused on achieving Pacific outcomes. Earlier today in question time, Minister Salesa spoke about Tapasā, which are cultural competencies for teachers who are teaching Pacific learners. What the Minister says is that there is currently a huge demand for Tapasā from Pacific teachers, because—like us—when we feel respected, when people pronounce our name correctly, we will achieve better. We know that it is important to have communities-driven education and communities involved in education. Tapasā is just one initiative. There are a few initiatives, like extending the Pacific early literacy project and a provision for developing Pacific languages.

I have just returned from the Pacific, from Melanesia, and—just a note to everybody in this House—this Parliament is actually broadcast in the Pacific. It’s broadcast in the Pacific, and when they see us use their language, they respect us as a nation. They respect New Zealand as a nation, and I just want to remind people that language and culture is more than having a language week. It is important to contribute to the people who live in this land, which includes Pacific New Zealanders.

I am privileged to be a member of this coalition Government, and to be in the leadership with the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. Malo ‘aupito.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): That was a great contribution just then from my colleague Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, and it’s great because she actually highlighted some of the things that are in this Budget for Pacific peoples. For the last week, I’ve been travelling around my electorate, talking about the great things that are happening for our Pacific peoples but also for our Māori peoples as well. So in my travels, I’ve been everywhere, from Ōpōtiki to Kawerau, and from Welcome Bay to Whakatāne to the Whakarewarewa rugby club, to talk about this right here—the Wellbeing Budget—and it’s long overdue.

People were really pleased to hear what we were doing. They were pleased to hear that we were looking at our success as a country differently, because up to this point, you know, it’s been quite easy to say “We’ve measured our success according to how much money we make.” But, in fact, that’s not everything, because, actually, what we realised, especially in the run-up to the last election, was that there were a lot of people out there that had jobs and were contributing to the economy, but doing it really rough. The term out there being “the working poor”—those people, the parents, couples, are earning their money, but it’s still not enough to live on, especially in places like Tauranga, where they’re earning good money, but, actually, they’re spending a heck of a lot of it on their day-to-day living on their rents, if they’re fortunate enough to even have a house.

We talked about, when I was out there, the direct Māori spend, because we were criticised in last year’s Budget about not having enough targeted money for Māori spend. I’m proud to say that this year, our Budget has allocated $570 million to targeted Māori initiatives. That was music to the ears of the people that were holding us to a very high bar and asking us to step up to the plate.

Well, I was proud to stand there and tell them that we have stepped up to the plate—$32 million of that was announced to go towards our kōhanga reo. Now, our kōhanga have long been in a bit of a state, and they’ve been looking for some support. I was fortunate on Friday to be standing at Te Pākira Marae down at Whakarewarewa, where 72 new Māori graduates were graduating, and they were going to go out there and to be on the front line of our kōhanga reo. I had it told to me by one of the kuias who was sitting there. She said, “You know what? The Māori Party, when they were here, we swung in and we supported them, but, actually, they never did for us what you guys have done for us. So thank you for the money.”

Also, just remember this is just the start, because this isn’t the end of the story for our kōhanga reo. Our kaiako that go in there, our kuia, our kaumātua, our koroua—they’re out there at the front line. When we talk about child poverty amongst Māori children, it’s our kaiako that see it first. So they were pleased to hear that and I was pleased to stand there and see 72 new graduates going out into our kōhanga, all across the Waiariki. They’d come in from all over. That there is a win for our Reo Māori, which is a win for our kuia and our kaumātua that started the kōhanga reo movement, and it’s also a win for those kaiako themselves.

I was fortunate enough to be sitting next to one of the graduates. Her name was Patience. She was a young girl. She’d been through quite a bit in her life, including having a few kids, but she’s actually managed to turn herself around because she’s found her calling in life, which is kōhanga reo. I’m proud to say that through this Wellbeing Budget, we have actually put our money where our mouth is, and we’ve gone and supported that movement.

Let’s just remember that it was back in 1987 that the Māori Language Act was passed, and still to this day we’re fighting the challenge as a country, as a nation. Although Māori is an official language, it’s still really hard for lots of people to pronounce. Lots of people haven’t taken it up as the challenge, and I wonder when that time will come. Hopefully, as a result of this spend that we’ve put into Te Reo Māori through the Crown’s initiatives—the Maihi Māori; the Maihi Karauna—we’ll be able to get to that point a whole lot faster.

I’m proud to talk about the Wellbeing Budget, but I also have a whakataukī “Kāore te kūmara e kōrero mō tōna ake reka [The kūmara does not speak about its own sweetness].” The kumara doesn’t talk about how sweet it is; we leave that to other people.

We have canvassed some of our biggest critics, and I stand here and say that it was the Māori Party themselves that off the back of the Budget were quite quick to point out that “the Labour Government’s recognition of a fundamental change to the system of the national account—acknowledging that GDP is not an accurate measure of success—but that the oranga, the hauora, the ‘ora’ of whānau is worth investing in.” They were pleased to see what we had done through this Wellbeing Budget.

Just a comment from a colleague of mine, who told me the other day that when he was down in Christchurch talking to Ngāi Tahu about the Wellbeing Budget, one of the koroua leaned over and said, “Welcome Government. We’ve been doing wellbeing for quite a long time now.” Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I rise on behalf of the Opposition to support the motion of the Hon Simon Bridges that “this House has no confidence in this bungling and incompetent Government because they are overseeing a slowing economy, declining job creation, a rising cost of living and they are failing to deliver on their promises to New Zealanders.”

God bless quiet New Zealanders. I’m not overly religious, but I must say, quiet New Zealanders are the salt of this country, and I know that because Waimakariri is full of quiet New Zealanders. As referenced across in Government—because they will be quite worried about this with the recent Australian elections, where Scott Morrison credited the quiet Australians.

But we do know that with all this rhetoric—New Zealanders don’t like rhetoric. I’ll tell you what, where we can reference that from is the day after the Budget—this all-singing, all-dancing Budget—The AM Show held a poll across their various mediums asking New Zealanders was there anything in the Budget for them. What do you reckon the result of that poll was? Was there anything in the poll for them? Eighty-three percent—

Andrew Falloon: How many?

MATT DOOCEY: —83 percent—said there was nothing in this Budget for them. That’s the quiet New Zealanders that this Government are going to have to watch out for, because they see through quite a lot of the rhetoric.

To explain that, I want to reference a day I had in my electorate recently, on Thursday, in the mighty Waimakariri. I had three public meetings and a business visit that day. The first public meeting was in a town called Woodend. Woodend is a very busy little town that until recently, just before this Government came along, was going to have a good motorway built there with the Woodend bypass, the Belfast to Pegasus motorway. Wasn’t that right, Minister? Of course, when I raised that this motorway was due to be cancelled by this Government because they’d taken $5.5 billion out of State highway funding and redirected it into public transport, the Minister said in response to my accusations that I was politicking and this motorway was on track. Unfortunately, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) turned up to the Woodend Community Association meeting, the AGM, and said that because of a change in priorities, it’s dropped out of the 10-year plan for the NZTA. What was in the Budget for those residents? Nothing—no commitment to the vital roading infrastructure that they needed.

In fact, the metrics that got them a motorway under the last National Government—16,000 car movements going through the Main North Road through that town of Woodend, forecasted to go to 26,000 in the next 10 years. Mums and dads are taking their kids across that main motorway to the local primary school without even a pedestrian crossing, yet under this Government there was no money for roading. In fact, you know what? That was the veracity of the conversation on Thursday. Not only that, but NZTA have told them that the safety consultation they’ve had—and they’ve had two safety consultations. Any solutions that they identify, because they’ve lost out on a motorway to make that main road safe, now have to apply for funding first, and what happened in this Budget? There was a decrease in the Budget for safer roads.

So here we have provincial New Zealand, regional New Zealand, not getting the investment that they need. What was this Budget for them? Nothing, and that’s why 83 percent polled that there was nothing in this Budget for them. They’re the quiet New Zealanders that you’ll need to watch out for, because they’re the ones who will vote on their back pocket. Jobs, incomes, infrastructure—all that’s lacking in this Budget.

The next meeting I had on Thursday, I went to the new subdivision, Ravenswood. They’re selling brand new three-bedroom houses with internal garages for $439,000—cheaper than KiwiBuild. See, what this Government doesn’t realise because they’re so focused on State intervention is they could’ve just followed the example of Canterbury post-earthquakes. The lesson there was when the earthquake recovery Minister drew circles on the map to free up land, what happened? The builders came in and they built houses. They actually surpassed the amount of houses we lost in the earthquakes, and we have annual house price inflation of 3 or 4 percent. The lesson is there. You free up land and it increases supply, which equals demand. You don’t need KiwiBuild. What a failed policy. That’s why I can understand that no one wants to touch it, and that’s why there was nothing about KiwiBuild in this Budget.

Then the second public meeting I had that day was out in a small town called Oxford—population of 4,000 people. I had a business meeting. What was in the Budget for small business? Nothing—nothing. Who employs the most people in New Zealand? Small and medium business. They’re the ones who risk their capital to invest another dollar to employ another local member of the community as another staff member. What did this Budget give small and medium business? Zip—nada. Nothing for roading, nothing for small business. We’ve got houses cheaper than KiwiBuild.

But it doesn’t stop there. The final public meeting of the day was in a small rural area called Cust. We got a hundred farmers in Cust in a woolshed meeting at Taggart Farms and, boy, did they let loose, because in the “Waimak”, we know. We’re New Zealanders—we’re like the rest of New Zealand. When farming does well, the whole of New Zealand does well, and when farming does better, the regions do better, because they underpin the whole of our economy. What did this Government give primary industries? Red tape and regulation—nothing. Oh, hold on, they did invest in forestry. I tell you what, what’s the flow-on effect of forestry in small-town New Zealand, in rural New Zealand? Nothing.

So you can say what you want in the beltway, but get out to where the real people are, and what do they say? Eighty-three percent of New Zealanders said there was nothing in the Budget for them, and they’re quiet New Zealanders who will exercise their vote next year. They’ll be voting on jobs, incomes, and infrastructure.

Hon Willie Jackson: You had another meeting?

MATT DOOCEY: The Hon Willie Jackson says did I have another meeting. Well, at least I’m declaring my meetings in the House—something your colleagues are a bit averse to doing. I do want to—

Hon Willie Jackson: Can you sit down now?

MATT DOOCEY: No, I won’t sit down, actually. Yeah, I won’t. Unfortunately, I know you’re not happy about what I’m saying, but, actually, that’s what quiet New Zealanders are saying, and the reason you want me to sit down is because you’re hearing it too.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! I am not part of this debate. Thank you.

MATT DOOCEY: The reason the Hon Willie Jackson doesn’t want to hear what I’m saying is because he is hearing it too—he knows. Quiet New Zealanders are not happy. They’re not happy. They got no investment into valuable infrastructure, no roads that will increase our productivity and increase the time that mums and dads will have with their kids, and not be stuck in cars. Small business—nothing for them. They’re the ones that employ mums and dads in small towns. They got nothing.

Ginny Andersen: Paid parental leave. You blocked it. You vetoed paid parental leave.

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

MATT DOOCEY: Government doesn’t build roads. Government doesn’t employ people in small business. Government doesn’t build houses. Government doesn’t do farming. This whole Government is fundamentally focused on the big ideological debate. What about the pragmatism of quiet New Zealanders? That’s what you guys are going to have to watch out for.

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

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): When I was outside just half an hour ago, I took the liberty of purchasing a chocolate bar. I ate that chocolate bar, and do you know what? To start with, it felt good—felt nice. It made me feel like I had a bit of a sugar high. Then it went away, and I just felt a bit yuck afterwards. That kind of, really, in a really simple way, sums up a big difference, because the failed promises made under the previous Government are sugar highs. They are short-term things that give you a quick buzz but leave you feeling a bit yucky afterwards. That’s the big difference between what the Wellbeing Budget does and what the previous sugar highs have failed to achieve.

Long-term development and reinvesting back into some of the big issues that the previous Government have been too scared to touch is where we change people’s lives on a day-to-day basis. Those big, long-term issues are mental health, child poverty, homelessness, and family violence, and that is where this Budget is prepared to tackle the big issues and delve into those areas for some long-term investment. That’s where we see a big difference in terms of where New Zealand is not only tracking now but for many years into the future. New Zealand has been starved for a long time, far too long, of any real investment, and we see it everywhere. We see it everywhere we look that there has been a failure to invest. Whether it be buildings, wages, mental health, or families, we see people struggling, and that is what this Government is taking active steps to address. It’s going to take more than just a chocolate bar.

So I’m going to talk about how we see the manifestation of those long-term investments where I live in Hutt South, and I’m going to talk about three big, key investments. Just this morning, we stood with the Minister of Research, Science and Innovation, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, to announce a $75 million investment into Callaghan Innovation. I went out to Callaghan Innovation just before the last election to watch asbestos buildings crumbling into the ground and to watch budding companies trying to use innovation in areas that were not suitable for scientists to be able to operate out of. What we’ve seen through this investment is an ability for innovative companies to be able to get the assistance and the development that they have waited for far too long, and that’s happening right in the Hutt. That’s happening for more jobs for more people, and more New Zealand businesses being able to use science and research to further our development and our productivity.

One example of productivity is that I was speaking to a scientist out there just this morning, and right now, it takes 12 weeks for them to do the testing, because it has to happen in different areas at different temperatures. The shell of the building that I stood in that will be finished next year under this grant—those tests will take four weeks. So we’re able to compete internationally at a far higher rate, and that is increased productivity brought by the Wellbeing Budget.

Number two: KiwiRail. Let’s take a look at that: $1 billion is now working for 900 new engines to be built. The recreation of the engines that will be going between Auckland and Hamilton is happening right now. Thirty-two new jobs are happening immediately and more are to come because we are reinvesting in rail. What we saw previously was that the Hutt Railway Workshops were that close to closing. They went right down in jobs. They had nothing happening there because what happened was that cheap Chinese engines that were running on diesel, not electricity, were brought in under the previous Government as a way of cutting corners—another cheap, quick sugar high that did nothing for jobs, nothing for training, and nothing for apprenticeships.

The last one I will talk about is our hospitals and our schools. For too long they have crumbled down, and Wainuiomata High School is just one of those—$24 million to give children in a public school a building that they are proud of and that they can learn in and feel happy about. We need to be reinvesting in our schools and in our infrastructure so that our next generation have the right things to be able to do the best they can and have the best opportunities possible.

I am proud of this Budget because it’s not there for quick sugar high political wins and vote-catching. Quick roads being built without funding are no more. We’re here for the long term and we care about people.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Kia orana, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is a great pleasure to stand here today. Obviously, this is a wellbeing Budget: $1.9 billion into mental health, $1 billion into our rail network, $3.8 billion into education, half a billion dollars specifically into tangata whenua with targeted Māori initiatives. We are focusing on the intergenerational, difficult, and harmful societal issues.

When I was out in the community visiting the Tauranga, Taupō, and Rotorua communities, talking to them about the Budget, one of the things that those people—those quiet New Zealanders—came up and said to me was, “We have some real hope. We have some real hope that there will be some intergenerational change.” So I stand here today with a full heart and immense pride in our Government for putting people and our environment at the centre of our Budget. Simply put, we are striving to resolve long-term issues like mental health, child poverty, homelessness, and family and sexual violence. We’re doing this while maintaining fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility is the hand that holds wellbeing close, and I’m delighted that our Government knows that.

It will come as no surprise that today I’m going to talk about the $320 million allocated in family and sexual violence, the biggest allocation ever—so important. I spent 15 years in the paid workforce in that sector, and I want to share with the House what I’ve learnt during that time. I bring it to this House to support a systematic plan that we have towards eliminating violence so that we can all benefit from the wellbeing. What I’ve learnt: I’ve learnt that victims and perpetrators come from all walks in this life—the quiet New Zealander, Matt Doocey. I have learnt that most victims and perpetrators have been victims of abuse as children. We, with this investment, seek to break the intergenerational cycle of abuse. I have learnt that the most frequent question ever asked about violence is “Why doesn’t she just leave?” I can say she doesn’t leave because she’s afraid, because she lacks resources, because she continues to hope that things will change, because she is worried that her children will live in a worse situation than they’re currently living in, because she knows he will use every system to further abuse her, because she thinks that violence is physical and that she’s never been hurt physically, because she believes it when she’s told that it’ll never happen again, because she does not understand what a loving and respectful relationship is, and because she’s ashamed.

There are many reasons that speak to the complexity of violence, and I can tell this House horror stories and heartbreaking stories of fear, but those are not my stories to tell. I can tell this House about the tremendous work that our front-line services deliver, including our police and our expert services. I am so delighted that we have systematically worked with eight ministries to put money into the family violence and sexual violence sector—eight ministries working together in a joint venture, in a joined-up way, in order to support our shameful statistics. One million people are affected by violence every year in this country. One in four women are affected by sexual violence. One in seven men are affected by sexual violence. I’m so very, very proud of this Budget, that has actually realised that we need to make a significant financial investment across the whole of Government in order to make a change.

I’ll close with a quote from the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. She says it perfectly: “Wellbeing means … safe and free from violence. That is why this package is such a significant cornerstone of the Wellbeing Budget.” Thank you.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Can I just first acknowledge Angie Warren-Clark, who has just sat down. We’re in the same part of the beautiful Bay of Plenty. She has brought to this House a remarkable personal contribution to our community with respect to protecting against family violence, and I just want to acknowledge the comments that she has made.

But I do have to say that the speaker before, Ginny Andersen, takes the cake. The idea that this Wellbeing Budget should be compared to a box of chocolates is something else again—absolutely stunning, and particularly the way that she framed it up that it provides a sugar hit. It has an initial taste that hits the back of your throat, and then it sort of makes you go “Urgh!” after you look into it. I thought that’s a very good summary of this Wellbeing Budget, actually. The only problem is that before they got to open the chocolates, Simon Bridges came and stole half of them.

I do want to talk about the broader theme that exists in this debate that we’ve had over the last day or so, and it relates to a Government that has at its core a philosophy of overpromising and under-delivering. We have seen that again in this remarkable conversation that we’ve had as we’ve stepped through what was actually delivered in this Budget.

Can I start first, as an example of promising high and delivering low, with the area of climate change. My colleague Erica Stanford took some of my points, actually, earlier when she highlighted the fact that a year ago, the Government, on the back of its victory, said that climate change was the pre-eminent issue of this Government, it was the nuclear-free moment of this generation, and it needed to be addressed with urgency and the emissions reduced first forthwith. The key plank in the last year was the establishment of a Green Investment Fund.

Chris Bishop: How’d that go?

TODD MULLER: Well, thank you for asking, Mr Bishop. It was officially opened for business last week—51 weeks after being launched, finally, they get to the point where, actually, now we’re prepared to start having a conversation with New Zealand. Guess what, New Zealand—guess what our emissions did last year? Oh, they went up. So here we have another contrast between the rhetoric on that side and the reality on this side.

Whilst the last Labour Government was in power, emissions lifted by 20 percent. In the time that John Key and Bill English were the Prime Ministers, emissions were flat, despite the fact that our GDP lifted by 25 percent and our population lifted by 10 percent. That doesn’t fit the narrative, does it? Emissions were flat under the last National Government and in the previous Labour Government it went up, and what has happened in the first year of this Government? It’s gone up.

What does James Shaw say in terms of what the trajectory of the emissions is? It will continue to go up, and it will go up, year on year on year on year on year, until the mid-2020s. That’s what he says—the emissions will continue to go up until the mid-2020s. The rhetoric is the sky is falling. The reality is, actually, their policy response is woeful. The green financial fund hasn’t even opened for business one year on, and now we talk about—as we have, and I’ve given voice to that—establishing a Climate Commission that’s going to advise us appropriately, and we support that as a concept, around how over time we wrestle our emissions down.

The point is that the climate change section of this Budget is woeful. The money is just setting up an institution. There’s no policy around what we are actually going to do to reduce emissions, because it’s much easier to stand in front of the parliamentary forecourt and feel the young people’s anxiety that the country isn’t wrestling down emissions yet, say the right speech, and say, “Yes, we hear you. I’m green, and I hear you.”, but, actually, the record is nothing short of a disgrace. They’ve been in here a year, got $100 million for a Green Investment Fund, and it has only just opened. By the way, the partner just on the other side of the House that we never look at, they got a billion dollars a year—a billion dollars a year—and another billion dollars for rail. Well, they’ll say, “That’s OK though, because as long as it’s an electric train, we’ll be OK.”

That is the sole contribution that this Budget delivers to the Green Party and to the issue of climate change. It’s really easy to stand up and say around the country, and give speeches at the back there: “We should declare a climate emergency.” They have no ability to describe what it means; no ability to say, “Actually, this is the policy response we are going to deliver so New Zealand actually reduces its emissions.” Oh no, that’s too hard. It’s much easier to stand up and say, “Look, we care about this, and caring is enough. Don’t judge us on our record. Judge us on our emotion.”

Well, I’m sorry, but we are not going to let that slide. We’re the National Party. We’re the party of evidence and delivery on behalf of New Zealand—those quiet New Zealanders that Matt Doocey talks about. When he made that point, I could see the reaction across the other side, because down here you know, right? It’s all very well being affirmed when you go around the country in your small little groups—as Labour and Green in your little echo chamber of support—and say, “Yes, no, that’s quite a good policy.” But the great swath of New Zealand, who get up every morning and work, put capital into business, and actually want to see a Government that gets their challenges, gets the challenge of being New Zealand in a global environment which is challenging and difficult—they are looking for leadership. They are looking for a party that can actually say, “Here’s the plan, and this is what we’re going to do.” Not willy washy wellbeing, because—

Michael Wood: “Willy washy”?

TODD MULLER: Well, that’s exactly it. Willy washy wellbeing—that’s what it is, because that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s the point. At the core, what that party wants is—but it sounds good to say. It sounds good to give a speech on it—“Just don’t judge us on our actual record of making a difference for New Zealand. Don’t judge us on what actual outcomes occur in regional New Zealand.”

When I look about the electorate that I represent of the Bay of Plenty and one of the fastest growing cities in the country, where is the delivery for them? Where is the 24-hour accident and emergency healthcare for Papamoa? Not there. Where is the road that connects Ōmokoroa to Tauranga that had already been budgeted and that was already out to tender? That has been cancelled. Where is that? It doesn’t exist.

This is hopeless. We have a city that is the fastest growing, and it has no road infrastructure or investment. It has no additional healthcare for those who want 24/7 care. The Minister of Health stood up yesterday and talked about the fact that in the mental health spend there’s going to be addiction and health services for Gisborne. I acknowledge that that is a step forward for Gisborne, but where is Tauranga’s? We have been asking for it for years. Where is it? Where is it? You said this was a key plank. You said you’re spending the money—$1.1 billion—on mental health. Where is the solution in Tauranga? Just because it’s blue, it doesn’t mean you close the door on it, because Simon and I are coming. We are going to make sure that that city actually gets some investment, and is not sort of waved at, saying, “Well, that’s actually a city that we are just going to ignore.”

Where are the schools? Where are the roads? Where’s the healthcare? There has been no investment.

Darroch Ball: For how long?

TODD MULLER: There has not been—Darroch Ball says, “For how long?” So here we have a city, and for the people living at home in Tauranga, that is the question that they’ve said—

Darroch Ball: What’s Simon been doing?

TODD MULLER: Oh, so what did National do? Let me tell you what National did. There was an infrastructure deficit when we took over that was eye-watering. We put in $500 million for the Tauranga Eastern Link, $500 million of infrastructure in Maungatapu and the back end the Kaimais, a commitment for $500 million that had already gone to tender on the Northern Link, and you guys—sorry, the Government stepped in and cancelled it.

We put more investment in hips and knees because we invest in the people that actually do the operations, not the back-office bureaucrats who sit there and say, “Oh, we’ve got another project to be invested in.” It’s delivery, Labour, New Zealand First, and Greens. It is not the function of the warmth of your speech; it’s the delivery for a community. What are the actual additional hip and knee and cataract operations? We had increases year on year on year, and what does this Government do? It takes the targets away.

They take the target away because it’s much easier to front New Zealand and say “We spent X billion, now we’re spending Y.”, but it’s much harder to say “And here are the additional hips and knees and cataracts and other elective surgeries that we commit to doing.”, because that’s accountability. That’s your feet on the public fire of expectation, and this Government has failed. It is a botched Budget, it is woeful, and, as my colleague said, the quiet New Zealanders are coming.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am absolutely delighted to be speaking in support of the Wellbeing Budget. The reactions that I have encountered since the Budget was delivered, right across my vast electorate of Te Tai Tonga, have been overwhelming.

I want to refer to Mr Doocey. We actually share the area of Waimakariri. I know Mr Doocey talked about the so-called quiet New Zealander. Well, what I can say to Mr Doocey is that my whānau from North Canterbury in Tuahiwi, Woodend, Rangiora—all of those areas—are absolutely delighted with our Wellbeing Budget, and to evidence that are the papakāinga housing initiatives, which Minister Mahuta is supporting and leading through our Wellbeing Budget. On the Rangiora Woodend Road, the land that spreads right through to Tuahiwi is called the Māori Reserve 873. That land was reserve land put aside for my forebears who were left landless, effectively. So those were lands that were set aside once the transactions happened back in the day. Those lands were set aside for housing, and yet for over 150-odd years, we were never able to build houses on that land, for a number of different reasons whether it was local government or other hurdles that were placed in our way. But I’m delighted to say that through the support of Minister Mahuta and through the resources that she’s putting through to papakāinga housing, we’re building houses on our whenua in Māori Reserve 873. Announcements have been made, the soils have been turned, and there’s absolute delight amongst my whānau there in North Canterbury.

So I am at odds with Mr Doocey and Mr Muller. I think they tend to sort of be a bit all doom and gloom in their debate. I know they’re good guys. They are very good, and they’re very passionate members for the beautiful parts of the country that they represent, but I think they are a bit doom and gloom, because this is a magnificent Budget. This Budget is all about wellbeing. It’s delivering—it’s delivering for so many people in the areas of mental health. It’s supporting more of our health infrastructure services, and Māori are benefiting immensely.

I want to also just address the issue around the quiet New Zealander, because what I think is more important is a symbol of how we are doing well as a country, which is that when Māori do well, the country does well. When our indigenous people do well, our country does well, and our people are doing well under this Budget. They’re doing very well. They’re delighted with the investments that we’re putting into Whānau Ora.

Hon Willie Jackson: How much?

RINO TIRIKATENE: Eighty million dollars into Whānau Ora, helping our whānau, with our cadets—with our rangatahi—through Minister Willie Jackson, and all of the magnificent work that is going on.

So Māori are doing well, and it’s not quiet New Zealanders that we need to look out for. I think we really need to look out for the Māori wairua—our Māori spirit—because when that spirit erupts, I tell you what, things move in this country, and what I have witnessed over the past week has been the expression of our wairua coming forth in absolute delight and appreciation for our Budget. There is no better example than the announcement that my colleagues and I made with Minister Davis about our kōhanga reo. The appreciation and the recognition of the work that Minister Davis did through driving through increased resources—$32 million for our kōhanga reo, which have been neglected for far too long. To see the senior kaumātua of our kōhanga reo movement Waihoroi Shortland, my whanaunga from Ngāti Hine up in the North, being brought to tears—being brought to tears—at the recognition that we have given as a Government to the kōhanga reo movement and through the extra resources that have been desperately needed. To see that expression of emotion—that is what our country needs to look out for.

I’m delighted that this Wellbeing Budget has delivered right across the board—in particular, for my constituents right across the vast Te Tai Tonga. We’re delighted with this Budget. I want to recognise the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson for their amazing work. This is a fantastic Budget. Kia ora tātou.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m delighted to rise and speak in support of this Wellbeing Budget. Where do you start—where do you start? There are so many initiatives and commitments and investments that this Wellbeing Budget does that I find it really difficult to pull myself out as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and focus on the bigger picture.

Can I commend the stewardship of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and her leadership in bringing this Budget to fruition. I also want to go on record in acknowledging the Hon Grant Robertson. As a member of the Māori caucus, I can say the Hon Grant Robertson absolutely stuck to his word when he entered into good and fair negotiation with the Māori caucus. I want to acknowledge the co-chair of our caucus, the Hon Willie Jackson, and all the members of the Māori caucus, who worked diligently and effectively early on in the Budget process. But I do want to acknowledge the Hon Grant Robertson. We have delivered a Budget for Māori that Māori can be proud of: $570 million—$570 million.

Of course, we have an expansion to Whānau Ora, and I want to acknowledge the Hon Peeni Henare. We’ve got $98 million invested in preventing reoffending, with Māori-positive pathways out of a life of crime. I want to acknowledge the Hon Kelvin Davis and, again, the Hon Peeni Henare—$75 million to back our young people from learning to earning with Mana in Mahi and He Poutama Rangatahi—and I want to acknowledge the Hon Willie Jackson. Of course, we have $33 million to support our Reo Māori, and, of course, we’ve got $56 million going towards whenua aspirations. I want to acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who, on top, gets $40 million for papakāinga, and, of course, $30 million for our Māori-Crown relations and $61 million for Māori co-designed mental health and addiction services.

This is a good day for Māori, and I also note it is just the beginning—it is just the beginning—but we will take that because as I travel throughout my electorate post the Budget announcement, we have had $20 million go into the Tai Rāwhiti as part of the $1.9 billion investment in mental health to develop and build a purpose-built mental health and drug addiction centre. This has been something the Tai Rāwhiti folks have been calling for, and I’m pleased that the Hon David Clark came up and announced that just this week. Of course, $68 million was announced in the Hawke’s Bay, in Wairoa, and Central Hawke’s Bay, and, of course, my colleague across the hall there, Lawrence Yule, was part of that announcement out of the Provincial Growth Fund. This was the Government on this side of the House—

Hon Aupito William Sio: What was he doing there?

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: He was supporting the kaupapa, Hon Aupito William Sio. There is $68 million going into water storage. If you know the electorates of Central Hawke’s Bay and Hawke’s Bay, we have horticultural growers and we have farmers, and this Government has heard the call and is investing $68 million. I heard from that side that we had forgotten the regions. I heard from that side that we were leaving out farmers—$68 million just the other day in water storage.

This is a great day to be a member of this coalition Government, to enjoy what we have announced and what the Budget brought, but, more importantly, to show the pathway that this Government is investing and delivering for all. That is what the Prime Minister said in the Speech from the Throne. We want to be kind, we want to be compassionate, and we want to deliver to all New Zealanders, and in this Budget we are doing exactly that.

So I’ve talked about the broad Māori budget, but I’m so proud to be the member of Parliament for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, which has enjoyed the love from this Government with the investment of over $157 million from the Provincial Growth Fund in Tai Rāwhiti roads, and I can go on and on. It is just the beginning. It is important to acknowledge those that have worked on the Budget to bring the gains to the regions, to regions like my own of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and say that we are serious, as this Government is, in ensuring that we are locking in the economic potentials and delivering and addressing the social challenges in small town New Zealand and big town New Zealand and everything in between, because this is a Budget for all, and I commend it to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Well, where to start? Seriously, where to start? I could talk about how the “Wellbeing Budget” moniker is just a great marketing gimmick, because what they will have you believe on the Government benches is that they’ve invented multi-category appropriations. I saw a tweet last night from Marja Lubeck saying this is a revolutionary Budget because, for the first time, we’ve got departments making bids together. Well, I’m sorry, but that was introduced by the National Government 60 years ago through the Public Finance Act. Then she said, “Oh, well, we’re taking the long term.” Well, Budgets from time immemorial have had four-year plans, so, I’m sorry, but this idea that wellbeing is a new invention of the Labour Party and the Labour Government is just not true.

I could talk about how it’s a Budget of broken promises, because it is on education and on health, and other members have canvassed that. I could talk about how last year the Māori caucus, led by the most incompetent, useless Minister in the Government—the Hon Willie Jackson—said that “The way to make Māori get ahead is generic funding.” You know, we don’t need to pick out Māori—we don’t need to do anything! “A rising tide lifts all boats,” says Willie. Now what do we have, under criticism from this side of the House? Now we find that, actually, we do need targeted funding, and we heard Meka Whaitiri, the co-chair of the Māori caucus—potentially back in Cabinet in a few weeks’ time, although I see my colleague in Hutt South, Ginny Andersen, has decided to promote herself to the front bench already. It may be a bit early—maybe, we’ll see. But Meka Whaitiri says “Oh, no, it’s all fantastic. We’ve got all this funding for Māori development.”—I could talk about that.

Hon Willie Jackson: Māoris can’t stand you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order!

Hon Willie Jackson: Just thought I’d let you know.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Mr Jackson, turituri.

CHRIS BISHOP: He can’t handle it, can he? He really can’t handle it.

Hon Willie Jackson: Wainui—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Jackson, I asked you to be quiet. Thank you.

CHRIS BISHOP: Mate, I’m willing to put my record up against your record any day of the week, my friend.

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh, any time.

Hon Member: Oh, good luck with that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Mr Jackson, you’re on your last warning.

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, “Good luck with that.”—well, unlike Willie Jackson, I’ve won a seat—says the list MP and Associate Minister outside Cabinet.

I want to talk, actually, about how the Budget fails the Hutt Valley in a couple of ways—firstly, when it comes to transport. The Melling interchange project in the Hutt Valley has been delayed for a decade, and this Government talks big about transport. They talk big about all the money going into trains—

Ginny Andersen: You didn’t fund it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Do not bring the Speaker into the debate. Carry on, Mr Bishop.

CHRIS BISHOP: This Government talks big on Melling. The Melling interchange was ready to go and the Government changed, and what happened? We had a review. Alongside Melling, alongside a whole bunch of other projects around the country, the New Zealand Transport Agency put them all into the review bucket. So we waited and we waited and we waited and we waited, and the Hutt Valley waited, and we thought, “Well, actually, it’ll probably get over the line.” Do you know why we thought that? Phil Twyford came out to the Hutt Valley and stood on the Melling interchange bridge with the deputy mayor and with all the other powers that be, and he said “As far as I’m concerned, this ticks all the boxes.”, and everyone went, “Oh, that’s great. It’s definitely getting over the line.” Everyone in the Hutt Valley thought “Melling? Oh well, it’s going to happen. That’s good.”, and then, in April this year, we heard the news. Well, it does tick all the boxes, it is a good project, but what’s going to happen? Funding has been delayed till 2028 or later. There are schoolchildren in the Hutt Valley today who will finish secondary school before they even see the sod turned on Melling. It is absolutely disgraceful.

Then we come to Pētone to Grenada. Now, Pētone to Grenada is a very important road for the Hutt Valley, alongside the Cross Valley Link project, better connecting the eastern part of the valley through to State Highway 2 and then through into Ngauranga. That Ngauranga triangle—a big centre of economic growth—has been, effectively, cancelled. That has been, effectively, cancelled.

I want to talk about the State Highway 58 improvements. Do you know what the New Zealand Transport Agency says about this road? They say it is Wellington’s most dangerous road—Wellington’s most dangerous road. Well, Julie Anne Genter—she is the road safety Minister—says road safety is one of the Government’s highest priorities. Well, two roundabouts that would make that road a lot safer have been delayed indefinitely. It is a disgrace. So the Budget fails the Hutt, as it fails New Zealand.

I want to talk about housing because the Hutt Valley has a homelessness problem. In fact, I would go so far as to say it has a homelessness crisis. What’s been the response from the Government? Housing First, funded two Budgets ago, in Budget 2017. Has it rolled out in the Hutt Valley yet? No, and we heard the news from the Government the other day, in a pre-Budget announcement—the Budget we’re talking about—that Housing First will be expanded and it will include Wellington and the Hutt Valley. Two years have gone by and the social housing waiting list in the Hutt Valley is at record levels.

What about KiwiBuild? Members on my side of the House laugh, and they’re right to laugh. Well, there’s one KiwiBuild project in Lower Hutt. It’s an apartment. I asked Phil Twyford a month ago when it was due to be completed. He said to me, “It’s going to be complete by 30 June.” Well, I went down to that apartment building on the High Street the other day. Do you know what I found? I found big signs outside saying, “Hazard. Do not enter”—do not enter. Is there any construction under way? No. Will it be completed by 30 June, which is in, what, 18 days’ time? No, of course not, and now we find it’s 30 December 2019. Well, I venture to guess that we may be looking at 30 June 2021.

So the Budget fails the Hutt Valley, but I want to turn to my responsibilities as the National Party spokesperson for police. What does the police do about getting 1,800 new police? Well, there’s a big commitment from these guys—a big commitment from the Government—to having 1,800 new police within three years. Well, three years comes around pretty quick, actually, and three years is in October 2020. How are we going? There are 496 new police. OK, that sounds like a good number, but you do the math and you think, “OK, 496. Round it up to 500—1,300 still to go.” Do you reckon we’ll get 1,300 net new police in the next year? I don’t think so. Do the math—it’s not going to happen.

Look, there’s not even enough money. The hilarious thing is Stuart Nash was told by Treasury, “If you want to deliver 1,800 new police, you need $515 million.” This was in the last Budget: “You need $515 million.” Do you know how much he got? He got $298 million; this Budget he got another $110 million. Again, do the math: $400 million, and he is $115 million short. But, don’t worry, he’s going to go his to his great mate Grant Robertson and get more cash—well, we’ll see. He does not have enough money, and the 1,800 new police will not be delivered in three years.

What about 24/7 police stations? Well, the previous National Government had a plan to roll out 24/7 police coverage to 20 police bases around the country, including in Stuart Nash’s own patch of Wairoa, and now we find that 13 of them will not be upgraded to 24/7 coverage. In Balclutha, the mayor down there is crying out for 24/7 police coverage, and my colleague Hamish Walker is doing a fantastic job campaigning for 24/7 police coverage, which the police were funded for in Budget 2017 and they are not delivering. Stuart Nash is not delivering on his promises.

Well, what is he doing? I’ll tell you what he is doing. His latest grand plan to crack down on gangs—I kid you not; this is his grand plan to crack down on gangs—is to tell shopkeepers to ring the police when people come in and buy whiteware items. I kid you not—I kid you not. This is his grand plan for cracking down on gangs. He says that when a shopkeeper thinks that someone might be a gang member and they buy a flat-screen TV, call the cops—that’s his plan. That’s his plan for cracking down on gangs. What a joke.

What else is he allowing? Well, now we have this awful situation, as my colleague Lawrence Yule knows, of the Mongrel Mob doing gang patch and association ceremonies at the top of Te Mata Peak—at the top of Te Mata Peak—

Todd Muller: A very special place.

CHRIS BISHOP: —and cutting off the access for members of the general public to a very special place, as Todd Muller says, and that’s OK in the Government’s books. Well, on this side of the House we do not regard that as acceptable and we’ll be taking steps when we get back to Government to make sure that does not happen.

What else is he overseeing? Eleven guns were stolen from Palmerston North Police Station—11 guns stolen from the back door of the Palmerston North Police Station. Only eight were recovered; three are still at large. This is a police Minister who is not on top of his brief, not on top of his portfolio. It will be interesting to see—won’t it—where the Government goes on the wider law and order picture. There is money in the Budget for law and order initiatives, and actually some of them are quite good. Actually, all of them were started by us, including alcohol and drug treatment courts—making a serious investment in making sure people can break the cycle of addiction. That’s funded in the Budget. It was started by us.

The Integrated Safety Response service, which Jan Logie talks a lot about—well, she made a big announcement about it. Jan Logie made a big announcement about the Integrated Safety Response, but when you burrow down into the fine details, they’re not actually expanding it. It started under us in Hamilton and Christchurch, and there’s more money in the Budget for Hamilton and Christchurch. They’re not rolling it out around the country.

It’s the same with the Te Ara Oranga programme in Northland, the meth-addiction cycle-breaking service up in Northland—a fantastic programme. They’ve lauded it. Is there any more money in it? No.

So all the initiatives that they’ve talked about that are good started under us, and actually there’s not much more money for them, and on the things that really matter—the stuff they committed to—they are failing. This is a botched, failed Budget.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): If I was Chris Bishop, or actually any member of the National Party, I’d be pretty despondent too. But I just say to Mr Bishop that it will end. I’ve been in the same position as that member. I’ve been in the same position as members of the National Party. Eventually it happens and people start to feel better or leave, and I look forward to that happening to the National Party, because it’s actually quite sad watching it. I personally feel sadder than our 2017 intake. They said, “It can’t be that bad.” I said, “Believe me, we’ve been through it on this side. It is that bad.” So I understand, Mr Bishop, why you’re feeling so bad.

On this side of the House, I don’t know that we could feel much better, because we have just had one of the best Budgets I can recall. I heard the Hon Scott Simpson saying that “You know, the problem with the Prime Minister is she’s like Norm Kirk: she’s got vision.” Oh, you know, if that’s the worst criticism that can be handed out, we’ll take it, because this is a Budget with vision. It’s a Budget that delivers. It’s a Budget that will drive intergenerational change, and it’s a Budget that New Zealand needed and is celebrating. I don’t recall a more positive response to a Budget in my time in Parliament, and I’ve seen a couple.

I want to congratulate our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, our Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, our Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, and the co-leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa, Marama Davidson and the Hon James Shaw. Those people together are extraordinary. With three different parties, a shared set of values, and a passion to change things for the better for New Zealanders, it’s awesome to watch.

This Budget faces the big issues. It faces them and it tackles them. That’s a big challenge for Government. Too many Governments think in a three-year cycle. This is investing in future change that will make a difference not just today but to our children and our grandchildren. So it’s a very proud time for this side of the House to be in Parliament.

For me, the most important and positive attribute for many in the Budget was the fact that we are taking mental health seriously. It’s about time. I can remember pre-the Hon Jenny Shipley days, when members in this House used mental health patients as political footballs. Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark did a deal that they would lead their parties to stop doing that, and it ceased in Parliament. I want to pay tribute to both Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark for that leadership. This Budget builds on that leadership by taking mental health seriously.

Most MPs know somebody—it could be a constituent, it could be a friend, it could be a family member—who has been turned away from mental health support when they’ve asked for help. It takes a lot to ask for help. It’s a big step, often outside New Zealanders’ comfort zone. We’re not great at asking for help. We’re not great at saying we’re not well. So when people take that big step and when they finally say “I need help.” and they get turned away, there’s not much worse that can happen to them. Some of them have been literally told they can’t get help because they’re not suicidal enough. That’s the state of the mental health system that the National Party left to us in Government, where people in our country—people in New Zealand—are told they can’t get mental health support because they’re not suicidal enough. Those members should hang their heads in shame that that’s what this Government is picking up to deliver.

Sometimes people begged for help. We know those stories; we’ve heard them. So our Government is delivering on mental health support, taking mental health seriously. The Budget has got a wide range of investments, from investments in our workforce development—because we know we don’t have enough mental health workers to deliver the service that we envisage will be delivered by this Budget, so there’s a programme of mental health workforce development. There’s investment in new facilities, and congratulations to Tai Rāwhiti for being the first to be the recipient of that. That’s an area which will really benefit from that—a provincial town that’s very isolated in many respects—and those services, I know, will really benefit that community.

Suicide prevention: thank you for the leadership from our Minister and Associate Ministers of Health for saying that not one suicide is acceptable and, therefore, not having a made-up suicide prevention target that was going to make out to the public that any suicide is acceptable. It’s not. So that investment in suicide prevention is amazing. Addiction treatment? We all know how much that’s needed in our country, and housing for 3,000 people. So that package of mental health support is delivering.

Improving child wellbeing is another priority of the Budget, breaking the cycle of poverty and the cycle of family violence. There’s many Ministers that I’d like to pay tribute to, but I want to particularly acknowledge the leadership of Jan Logie, who brought together so many of our colleagues across different parties and so many different agencies and said, “This is a problem we know is real in New Zealand. It’s big. It destroys people’s lives. It impacts on children in a way that they can never ever reach their potential, and we can make a difference in this House.” With that sort of leadership, backed by the significant financial investment—but it needs that leadership to drive it—I am confident that those agencies will get the fact that they are being led to work together and make a difference so that every child, every man, and every woman can live a life free of violence. So thank you, Jan Logie, for that leadership.

Supporting Māori and Pacific aspirations is another one of the priorities of the Government. We have left people behind in our success, and that is not good enough for any country. We know that Māori and Pasifika have got so much more potential than our current systems allow them to demonstrate. Success should be within the ambit of every New Zealander, regardless of the fact that they’re Pākehā/European, new immigrants, Māori, or Pasifika. We know what post-colonisation life is like. It’s about time that we said we’re going to do better here, and I’m confident that what we’ve got in this Budget will do that.

One of the critical parts, of course, is education and employment. Willie Jackson might fall over when I commend him for his leadership, but I do. I genuinely do. His passion—

Marama Davidson: He’s not surprised that you would say that!

Hon RUTH DYSON: He’s cheeky, and sometimes as a whip I have to remind him that it’s not good to be cheeky. But his passion and commitment to ensuring that young Māori have a better chance to be the best they possibly can will make a huge difference, not just to those individuals but to the future of our nation. This is really investment that makes a difference.

The final priorities I want to mention are building a productive nation and transforming the economy. We know that despite working longer and harder than many people in other countries, we have a low rate of productivity. The investment in our businesses aims to turn that around. Too many Governments have talked about it and not enough have invested in it, and, again, investment in training and employment is a big part of that. We should have higher-value work than we do currently, and training and education will help deliver that.

The final point I want to congratulate the Minister of Finance on is the investment in KiwiRail. What a disgrace to see rubbish, imported carriages coming into New Zealand at the same time as our workshops in the Hutt Valley and Dunedin were closing. New Zealand tradespeople were losing their jobs and we imported cheap rubbish that lasted five minutes, and at the same time investment in our rail just didn’t happen. If we’re serious about a low emissions future, about making our roads safer by getting trucks off them, and about investing in quality Kiwi production, then investment in KiwiRail is a big part of that.

We want to fix our schools and our hospitals. We want to make a difference for the future. This Budget invests in things that will make a difference. It delivers for New Zealand, and I’m very proud to be part of this side of the House that has put together that Budget.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Madam Assistant Speaker, as there would appear to be about 25 seconds until you lift the House for dinner, I seek leave for the House to lift now for the dinner adjournment.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): You could—does anyone want to speak to that point of order?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Senior Whip—Labour): Yes, I do, actually. I’m actually very disappointed that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the honourable 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 MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Debate interrupted.

Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Oranga Tamariki Act 1989

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to take a call in this committee stage and, again, as we have previously discussed in the second reading last night, we on this side are supporting the bill. In her submission last night, the Minister discussed her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 247, and so I look forward to that, so I just want to make some comments on the Supplementary Order Paper by the Hon Tracey Martin.

The Supplementary Order Paper clarifies amendments to the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 in Part 1 and Schedule 1 of the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. As was indicated previously, the main changes in this Supplementary Order Paper are to amend it to insert new clause 3A, which inserts definitions of non - Schedule 1A offences, and I think this is critically important because this goes to the heart of the definitions around the areas of transition from the Youth Court and then through into the adult court as well. So when the Minister will, obviously, stand to rise and to answer some questions, I suppose it’s the clarification in regard to what we had in the select committee stage, when we were asking questions of the officials as to the differences between the Schedule 1A offences and the non - Schedule 1A offences when they do transfer up, and then also, too, in regards to them being heard in the same adult court with the other non - Schedule 1A offences as well.

So I’m sure we’ll hear from the Minister in that regard as to the technical changes that are there and their importance but also any unintended consequences that she may have seen that may have happened in that. I think we did have some conversation around that there could potentially be some anomalies as well to that. I know that in this regard, for instance, when it is a Schedule 1A offence, there is no provision for a family group conference (FGC) because there’s a transition into the adult court, as well. I suppose the question for the Minister, though, is that though both offences are being heard, the whole process of an FGC does allow for other forms of mitigating but also rehabilitation back into that situation as well, and whether there was further on down through the process where there may be an opportunity for an FGC to play some sort of role in the rehabilitation process—hence the reason why an FGC is there in that regard, as well.

The other part, too, in regard to SOP 247 is the amendment of new clause 4B, which inserts new section 247A, and to new clause 4G, which inserts new section 276AA, to enable the prosecutor to seek a determination from the Youth Court that a charge is a related charge, instead of enabling a proposal to be notified. It also replaces new section 276AB(3) in new clause 4G to clarify when section 138(1) to (3) of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 does not apply to the hearing of the charges together with another charge as well.

Lastly, it amends new clause 4H in relation to a proceeding that is transferred back to the Youth Court following a guilty plea or a finding of guilt in the District Court or the High Court. New section 276A then enables the Youth Court, in most circumstances, to treat the proceeding as if the charge had been proved before the Youth Court. This includes the circumstances of section 283 of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 and, consequently, clause 4J is deleted.

Just on that, Madam Chair, the Supplementary Order Paper also makes other technical amendments, and so I seek your indulgence because some of this I will be reading because of the technical nature that comes with it, but then I will also make some comments as well. So in the committee of the whole House, obviously, Part 1 is the meaning of the youth justice coordinators and whether the family group conference is required or otherwise. There’s the jurisdiction of the Youth Court, children’s liability to be prosecuted for criminal offences, and the manner of dealing with these offences, as well.

I think one of the points that we’ve maybe said, which is to go with this commentary around the Supplementary Order Paper, is whether there’s the capacity and capability for the court system as it is at present. So it would be good to hear from the Minister as to her sense that as we make these technical changes, whether the provision in the current court system is actually there to appropriate these changes that will be made in the court as well.

The manner of dealing with offences and the transfer of proceedings back to the Youth Court I think is quite important, and that went to my first point around an FGC process. So, initially, with a non - Schedule 1A offence, if that offence is then dealt with, then in the adult court, when the non - Schedule 1A is dealt with, a transfer back into the Youth Court, is there provision to be able to deal with that by using an FGC process as well? Also, there are provisions in the instance of a child, young person, or adult being jointly charged in the hierarchy of the court’s responses if it’s proved? Thank you.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair, and it will be good to hear from Minister Tracey Martin about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 247, because there’s obviously quite a lot of detail in it, which we will look forward to. As my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro did speak about, National will be supporting this piece of legislation.

We did have a compressed time frame in terms of working through this piece of legislation, but I do want to just put on record my thanks to the officials. I know that when you’re changing 11 pieces of legislation, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes with the different agencies working through the ramifications and the impact of all of those changes, so I do want to just put on record my thanks to the officials, both those who are here and those who worked with the Social Services and Community Committee and behind the scenes.

Both the bill we’ve got in front of us and also Supplementary Order Paper 247 are quite a significant piece of work and one that’s really important for all of us, if it’s successful. Obviously, we’ve had a discussion earlier today about just how critical it is that the changes work for young people in the youth justice system, and, as I mentioned in the House in my second reading contribution, it also needs to work for those that the justice system serves—i.e., the victims that are involved in this.

So this debate is on Part 1. Part 1 is just covering changes to the Oranga Tamariki legislation itself, and Part 2, obviously, covers all of the other changes. It is important. I think that on the surface of it, people look at it and say, “Oh well, you’re just changing the age—big deal.”, but I think the significance of the changes that we have worked through in the select committee and then the changes in the SOP that’s before us just really kind of highlight that, actually, it’s not as straightforward as it sounds. So I do want to thank the Hon Tracey Martin for picking up this work from the Hon Anne Tolley, and I know that you have put a significant amount of work and effort into it.

In terms of Part 1, I do think it’s important that we kind of go through some of the SOPs—I don’t want to cover that, because I’m assuming the Minister will take a call on it. But this is around the various implications of changing the age so that another group of young people can be served in the youth justice system rather than in the adult courts. As a former Minister of Corrections, I absolutely understand how critical it is that we can do what we can for those young people who experience the youth justice system, and the more that we can make that experience the one and only experience they have, the better. So, obviously, some of these young people are dealing with Schedule 1A charges, the more serious charges, and some of the changes that we worked through in detail with the officials were, you know, things like when a family group conference could not be held, when there are joint charges, and trying to minimise a young person appearing in two different courts, let alone two different court proceedings. So the detail of working through that, I think, has been really important, and I’m particularly grateful for the officials’ advice on it.

There were a few areas that we wanted to kind of test any of the unintended consequences. I think there are, potentially, still a few questions around that, and I particularly want reassurance from the Minister, with the SOP that’s tabled today, that those have all been explored. Even in the fact that we’ve got a short time frame, I want to know from the Minister that in terms of this particular Part, Amendments to Oranga Tamariki Act, you know, is she 100 percent confident that all of the unintended consequences have been explored and that she can, hand on heart, say, “No, we’re not going to have to come back and change this.”, because that is always one of the risks when you’re dealing with a compressed time frame, when you’re dealing with a substantial Supplementary Order Paper such as this one that we have before us—that others don’t have the chance to scrutinise it.

AGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to make a contribution to this committee stage on Part 1 of the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. As has been traversed in this House, this bill tightens up legislation, particularly on procedures and processes relating to 17-year-olds within the youth justice jurisdiction. As my colleague, the Hon Louise Upston, the previous speaker, just talked about before, there have been comments about how “Oh, you’re just lifting the age.” It isn’t just about lifting the age. It’s a very significant bill. It’s a technical bill but it’s a bill that actually affects lives for a particular significant group of 17-year-olds.

So in terms of Part 1, we were looking at the area of jurisdiction of the Youth Court. The committee was advised by officials that there could be an estimated 1,000 proceedings involving 17-year-olds under way in the District Court or the High Court on 1 July 2019, ranging from minor to serious offences. So for the majority of these 17-year-olds, this bill is a move in the right direction. It’s a great start, moving in that direction. It would be fair to say that for many of these 17-year-olds in this group, they have not had a great start in life. So I’m pleased to say that this was a move initiated by the previous National Government, and I applaud that move by this Government to continue on this path, to continue this work. It’s an important piece of work, because it is about changing lives for our young people. It’s about giving these young people a chance to go down another path—a path that will allow more intervention at a crucial point in the development of these young people, because if these 17-year-olds come before the District Courts, the potential is high that they will be making connections that are not in their best interests, and connections that potentially lead them down a path of crime. So age is an important factor here.

I’d like to refer you to some comments made by Associate Professor Ian Lambie, Chief Science Adviser for New Zealand’s justice sector, who said that brain development is definitely one influence on youth behaviour. Can I quote from him: “It is now apparent that brain pathways develop in such a way that adolescents undertake more risk-taking behaviour than older or fully mature individuals.” This is not about excusing the behaviour; it is not about excusing the crime. It’s about acknowledging that brain development for many young people needs to be considered as we look to at least try to get these young ones on to another path, a path away from crime.

In various data, if we delve further into the young people who are committing these crimes, we find that most have experienced family dysfunction and disadvantage. Eighty percent are male, and they often have a lack of a positive male role model in their life. We will find high rates of mental illness—between 50 and 75 percent of the youth involved in the justice system meet diagnostic criteria for at least one mental or substance-use disorder. We will find learning difficulties—one in five youth offenders has a learning disability, and 92 percent of the more serious young offenders have significant learning difficulties, with reading skills being particularly low. Also in this group, you’ll often find a history of trauma and abuse, and most have some form of other mental health or specific learning disability.

There’s no doubt challenging circumstances here, but as I said, this bill is a move in the right direction. Also, in terms of the treatment of our young people, this bill does bring New Zealand more in-line with UNROC—United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. But more importantly than that, it is actually about changing lives. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Can I thank the honourable members for their contribution. I’ll do my best to answer the questions that I have been asked.

Just to clarify for the Hon Alfred Ngaro the difference between Schedule 1A and non - Schedule 1A crimes. So first of all, I think it’s worthy of making sure that the public understands that murder and manslaughter are in a completely different regime. So to murder somebody or kill somebody without intent—which, you know, is my definition, I suppose, not a legal definition of manslaughter—is a whole other regime. So regardless of what age you are, there is a way that that is treated by our justice system. But an example of Schedule 1A, for example, would be aggravated robbery as opposed to non - Schedule 1A, which would be robbery. Sexual violation would be a Schedule 1A. Obviously, it’s 14-plus years, the seriousness of the crime. I thank the member for his questions, because I know one of the things that we run into when we’re actually having this conversation with the general public—and we talked about it today with the Social Services and Community Committee members—is the public wants to know that their Government is also going to keep them safe. At the same time, it is to the benefit of the public that we change the direction of these young people, because the victims of crime are the young people. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to minimise the crimes that some of these young people have done. So I thank the member for their question, and I hope that that has clarified that.

The member also asked me to clarify clause 4H and what that means in the Supplementary Order Paper. So clause 4H in the actual bill clarifies that the circumstances where a charge can be transferred back to the Youth Court include where the young person is not guilty of the Schedule 1A crime; where the defendant applies to have the non - Schedule 1A separated—so they can choose—from the Schedule 1A once they are in the District Court, and the District Court has granted it. So they have to apply and get that clarity. Where the Schedule 1A charge is dismissed or withdrawn—this clarifies that where there is no longer proceedings for the Schedule 1A, the non - Schedule 1A can be transferred back to the Youth Court.

Now, the reason for Supplementary Order Paper 247—because the member will have already been through this as part of the main part of the bill—is to give even greater clarity to that clause. So the clause is slightly amended in the Supplementary Order Paper—for example, to ensure that a family group conference could be restated. Should it have switched from the Youth Court to the District Court because there was a Schedule 1A charge that has now been dismissed, it can actually—the family group conference—be restarted. Or, for example, we could refer to a youth hearing even though it might have started at the District Court. The purpose is we don’t want to redo what we’ve already done; we want to be able to bring information down. So, really, clause 4H—there’s just greater clarity inside that Supplementary Order Paper.

The Hon Louise Upston—if I caught her contribution clearly, the main concern that she had was around the reason for the truncated select committee and why it took so long, after 20 months of this Government being in place, for me to bring this bill forward, knowing that we had to have it in place by 1 July 2019. The only explanation I have for her is that Oranga Tamariki has been working through the changes with the courts—the District Courts and the High Court and the Youth Courts—to see how all the changes that were implemented by the previous Government would interact. It wasn’t until we were well on that pathway of making sure that we understood how that flow would go that we recognised that we needed to make these technical amendments.

I apologise if I have missed other questions from the member. Perhaps she might be able to be given the leeway to re-ask them, because I certainly want to make sure I do my best to answer all the queries from the Opposition.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. It was quite simple, and I thank the Minister for Children for her contributions. It was more around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 247, which we now have before us. When a reasonably substantial Supplementary Order Paper is brought into the committee of the whole House, the opportunity to interrogate it is reduced. So it’s really just some reassurance from the Minister around any unintended consequences.

The fact that she’s just answered the question or concern that members of the Opposition had expressed earlier, around the time frames—and for those that are just watching this debate, it’s 12 June and this comes into effect on 1 July, with the significant changes to Oranga Tamariki. My question is more around unintended consequences, so rather than going through, in this committee stage, all of the changes in the SOP, just really kind of asking about what some of the key risks are that have been identified by officials through the process of formulating the SOP. I’m just really wanting reassurance from the Minister, in this committee stage—and this debate is just on Part 1—that the changes to the Oranga Tamariki bill as a result of this SOP have been fully interrogated and there won’t be any unintended consequences coming up to bite us.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Hon Members: Madam Chair.

MAUREEN PUGH: Sorry—Madam Chair. Back in 2017, the then National-led Government initiated and passed the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill, and it truly was a transformational piece of work—transformational in the way that it deals with our at-risk young people: young people in the youth services and in State care. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister for Children, the Hon Tracey Martin, for her support of that legislation and for the long-term direction of travel of Oranga Tamariki. As we canvassed in the Social Services and Community Committee this morning, it is that continuation of that work that is going to give Oranga Tamariki the longevity that it deserves, that it will survive beyond electoral cycles, and I think that is most important for the young people in New Zealand.

The Social Services and Community Committee, as always, worked really hard on this bill. Given, as we’ve heard, that we have had a shortened time period to work in, we do hope that we’ve examined it very thoroughly and ended up with the detail that we have here in front of us tonight, because we certainly don’t want to be coming back and revisiting the legislation.

I turn my attention to Part 1—in particular, to the new sections inserted by clause 4G in the bill, which refer to managing related charges. For clarity, the related charges are those charges which are charged in relation to the Schedule 1 offences—and thank you for your explanation of those, Minister. As we heard, those are the charges at the more serious end of the spectrum, the ones that will attract 14-plus years of imprisonment. Those charges are automatically heard in the District Court or the High Court for a 17-year-old, whereas the non - Schedule 1A offences for a 17-year-old will be dealt with in the Youth Court. Of course, those non - Schedule 1 offences are those of a less serious nature.

Under this new section 276AA, the court will be determining whether those non - Schedule 1A charges are related to the Schedule 1A charges for the purposes of determining where those charges will be heard—which court they will be heard in. So if they’re deemed to be related charges, then all of the charges will be heard in the adult court. This makes good sense, because what it does is it provides one pathway for the system—we’re not duplicating witnesses; we’re not duplicating court time. So that makes good sense.

But my question, Minister, is: if the court determines that those related non - Schedule 1A charges are to be heard at the same time, in conjunction with the Schedule 1A charge in the adult court, will the defendant have the right of appeal about whether those charges are related? I anticipate that there could be some debate within the court system about whether they are technically related. Relating to the same issue, Minister: what will be those thresholds that will determine whether those non - Schedule 1A charges are, in fact, related to the Schedule 1 charge?

Basically, those are my two questions to the Minister. I do think this is a critical opportunity for us to get this right for a very vulnerable part of our population and for those people who this legislation serves. I do take note that the Government members have not even devoted their time to taking call at this committee stage, and I do believe it warrants attention from all members of this House to ensure that we have it right for these young people. Thank you very much.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Firstly, can I just address the question from the Hon Louise Upston. Thank you very much for the question, and I apologise that I didn’t pick it up in the first contribution. The question was around whether we can be sure there’s not going to be any unintended consequences around Supplementary Order Paper 247.

So what does this Supplementary Order Paper do? It amends clauses in the bill that deal with the related charges, because this is, obviously, the piece that has given us our most attention at the moment. It improves the clarity of certain provisions in the bill by clarifying terminology to ensure that the new process for joining related charges is distinct from the existing Criminal Procedure Act 2011 provisions; ensuring that existing powers to join charges together can still be used in proceedings where there are multiple non - Schedule 1A charges or multiple Schedule 1A charges—this also includes where the non - Schedule 1A charges are unrelated to the Schedule 1A charges—clarifying the language of the bill relating to the transfer of proceedings back to the Youth Court if circumstances require it; and providing definitions for related charges—Schedule 1A and non - Schedule 1A—to support the interpretation of the related charges provision.

Ultimately, what the Supplementary Order Paper has tried to do is to give greater clarity to the conversations that the Social Services and Community Committee already had. So we realise—and I hope to answer the member, Maureen Pugh’s, questions shortly—that this is the tricky bit. It’s never as clear as one—when we’re talking about young people at this level of crime, we are talking about multiple incidents taking place just through one single action, really. So this is the piece that we’re trying to get right.

Again, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the work of the Social Services and Community Committee in the truncated period they were given to try and get this right for these 17-year-olds inside this system.

Obviously—and the Hon Louise Upston’s question was around trying to make sure there’d be no unintended consequences—with any legislation that we put through, we do our best. We, as a Parliament, do our best, and we believe that we’ve given extra clarity here to try and make sure that the courts and those that are involved with these young people as they go forward—whether with Schedule 1A or non - Schedule 1A—have the clarity that the intent of this Parliament will actually be able to be fulfilled. But, as I say, that is the answer that I have for the Hon Louise Upston, and I hope that I will be able to provide an answer to Maureen Pugh shortly. Kia ora.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 247 in the name of the Hon Tracey Martin to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments to other enactments

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I also, too, want to take the line of the comments from the Minister in regards to seeking clarity, and that’s the intent of the committee stage.

My comments, then, I want to relate to Part 2, section 27, which relates to a further commentary on sections 12 and 13. So section 27 relates to the “Section 11 amended, (Matters to which Commissioner must have regard in exercising functions and powers)”—this is in particular to the amendment to the Children’s Commissioner Act 2003. I think it’s critically important—and it will relate to the other parts I want to relate to and I’ll be asking the Minister to comment on that. The Minister will know that the Children’s Commissioner has quite a critical role to both review and to ensure that the system at large is adhering to the intent, which is to provide the best provision possible in this regard and in regards to the youth justice system, and, especially in dealing with these cases, to try and address issues around recidivist behaviour and so forth but, more importantly, trying to look at that. So the section 27 then, for my mind, in extending the powers relates to sections 12 and 13. This is in regards to section 15 amended, with the amendment as “Granting of bail to defendant who is 17 years of age” and replacing “17 years of age” with “18 years of age or younger”. Subsection (2A) indicates a court that remands a defendant at any stage of the proceedings for the offence with which the defendant is charged, including for sentence, must release defendant on bail or otherwise subject to such conditions as it thinks fit if: the defendant is 17 years old; defendant is charged with, or convicted of, any offence in the District Court; the defendant has not previously been sentenced to imprisonment.

So my question to the Minister in regards to bail, I suppose, in a sense, is the discretion that’s been laid upon the court. The Minister made some comments around the safety and concern. Yes, the victims are quite often our young people that this regards but, also, too, we’ve got a wider brief in scope to ensure the safety and concerns of the general public. So my question is just in regards to the Minister having confidence that the legislation covers enough discretion for the judiciary to make the appropriate decisions around that, both in regards to the granting of bail and also then, in some cases, staying in remand.

We know that the Children’s Commissioner had actually made commentary in regards to those in remand. I take the Minister’s comment tonight about the Social Services and Community Committee hearing around Estimates and I applaud her for the provisions for youth justice residency that allows for those to be to be placed there. But there have been some comments by the Children’s Commissioner which is that, in some cases, those that are occupying those residency places—there’s a varying degree of severity of those who should be there and who shouldn’t be there.

So the two parts to that question are: the discretion for the judiciary in regards to those who will be granted bail to ensure that their safety is concerned, and the general public’s, and, also, too, when they are on remand whether there’s the ability for the facility—in this case the youth justice residential facility—to be able to cope with the varying degrees of severity of the concern that may be raised in this as well.

I also, too, want to make that comment to clause 13, which talks about “Section 17A amended (Restriction on bail if defendant charged with serious Class A drug offence)”. I genuinely make this to the Minister because I have had constituent cases where there have been those in remand in those situations there. In one case, there was a situation in which the young person was assaulted and, again, it’s the mix of those who are currently in that residence situation. The victims of crime are varied, because even those who are resident there have that happen to them. Then there’s the challenge, I suppose, to the wider public, and giving confidence that the legislation allows for discretion to ensure that the safety of the public is not jeopardised because we put on bail a situation where a young person, potentially, could go on to create further harm. So those really are just my questions from Part 2. Everything else, I think, in there, from my mind, I think I have a satisfaction with, but I’d like to put those questions to the Minister.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): I’d just like to go back and actually answer the question from Maureen Pugh with regard to if Schedule 1A charges are laid and non - Schedule 1A charges are connected to that, is there any right of repeal? So there is no formal right of repeal, but the defendant can apply for the charges to be separated in the District Court or the High Court under existing provisions in the Criminal Procedure Act. The threshold for determining relatedness is the definition which is in the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill on page 9, Part 1, clause 4G, subsection (6) of new section 276AA, which is that “The same incident or series of incidents as the offending for which charge A is filed” and “a series of incidents is determined by: the time at which they occurred; the overall nature of the alleged offending; any other relationship between the alleged offending that the court considers relevant”. So there is no formal right of appeal but the defendant can apply for the charges to be separated at the District Court or the High Court.

Just to give a cursory answer to the Hon Alfred Ngaro, with regard to whether the judiciary—when he’s talking about bail and whether the judiciary has been consulted, and whether the Children’s Commissioner’s view has been incorporated in. He will be aware that Oranga Tamariki spends a lot of time talking with the Children’s Commissioner and has a very strong working relationship with them. He will also be aware that the Family Court judges and so on have a very strong working relationship with Oranga Tamariki because, basically, they are the bodies who care and try to ensure that, as much as possible, we create a positive environment downstream for these young people. I have been informed that at the select committee process neither the judiciary nor the Children’s Commissioner put forward a submission to make any changes to the legislation, so we take that as a very good sign.

I think the only other parts that I probably can comment on there is not really around bail, because that is a conversation for the courts themselves. The courts decide where those young people are bailed to. But with regard to the conversation about how Oranga Tamariki is making changes around remand, certainly there were conversations that we had in the Social Services and Community Committee this morning where, through some of the changes—and, again, it was through an iwi strategic partnership that we had changed the way that remand worked—that had had a positive impact on giving the judiciary opportunities to then have different options with regard to bailing some of our young people. But, at the end of the day, bail is in the jurisdiction of the courts and so, therefore, I’m sorry, I cannot comment further on that.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to just pick up on the point that the Minister in the chair, Tracey Martin, was talking about in terms of Part 2 of this legislation—which is the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill—and, in particular, Subpart 1, which, in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), also refers to amendments to the Bail Act, because sometimes one of the challenges in not being able to bail someone—and this includes a young person—is there being a lack of a suitable address to bail someone to. So I think it does pick up on the importance of—and whether or not the Minister considered building in additional changes to this legislation to be slightly more directive or to provide additional guidance in terms of the sorts of places that young people particularly, in this case age 17, could be bailed to.

The Minister talked about the Ngāpuhi Iwi Social Services home, which is clearly a very different model. So I’m interested to know from the Minister—and also based on the Children’s Commissioner’s concerns about the sorts of residencies that young people are going into—whether there was consideration through this piece of legislation, and through the SOP, about changing the kind of facilities that could be used to address the issue of bail so that more young people had places they could be bailed to. I accept the Minister’s point that it’s the decision of the court in terms of whether to allow bail or not. But in terms of the conditions that sit behind whether or not the court makes that decision—in terms of suitability of an address, suitability of the environment, the guidance, etc.—whether or not that was considered.

Just for a moment, speaking on the flip side of it, because the Minister also raised—you know, the concern of the public is that if a young person who’s committed a serious offence, if they’re in a situation where there’s a decision to issue bail or not, the victims involved need to be satisfied that the community is safe. So it’s kind of the double edge of this. I know when the policy was being originally discussed, there were very strong voices about the fact that the youth justice age shouldn’t be increased, and I think we absolutely made the right decision. But it’s about this particular Subpart in Part 2 in terms of amendments to the Bail Act, and my question is: was there further consideration, more around making it easier for young people to get bail by managing the underlying issues that mean bail isn’t provided? That comes to the suitability of addresses for bail, and some of the other kind of practical examples.

Again, I know that there have been some practical examples where corrections have worked with defendants to assist them or to support their case in getting bail. Were there any extra areas that were considered and perhaps not included? If they weren’t included, I’d be keen to know what sorts of considerations they were.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Just for clarity, the provisions for bail and remand are consequential amendments to raising the age of the young person, and to ensure that 17-year-olds in the District Court for serious charges can be subject to the reverse onus tests in the Bail Act. That means that the 17-year-old would have to satisfy the court that they could be bailed. I believe the Hon Louise Upston makes a very, very good point, and I think we have heard it from the Children’s Commissioner and from others that, particularly in our rural areas, what we’ve had is we’ve had circumstances where young people have not been able to provide an address that the court believes is safe or appropriate for them to be bailed to. That means that they have then come inside a facility.

Again, there is only so much influence that the Parliament can literally have on the courts, them being independent bodies. But I do think that where we have influence is around the work to provide—and I think it’s the work where we have provided better remand while the young people are waiting to go to court that then has led on to the courts being more confident that the relationships and the homes that they can be bailed to are more appropriate. So I really feel that the Whangarei example that we talked about this morning is a real opportunity to start to change up some of the consequences—unintended consequences—that I believe we have seen for 17-year-olds.

But again, I do want to acknowledge and pick up on the fact, the Hon Louise Upston, that this is also about making sure that the public is safe, not just that this is the best pathway for a young person, for an up to 17-year-old, but that also we’re not putting anybody else at risk. So these are finely balanced matters, but I do think we have, through some of our pilots, actually seen some examples of what could work and what we need to try further throughout the country. Kia ora.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like to expand on the conversation that we’ve been having here tonight in this committee stage in relation to the bail facilities. But before I started, I thought I would take the time to acknowledge—I did when I spoke to Part 1—the Social Services and Community Committee. But I’d like to use this opportunity to also acknowledge the officials who have worked with the committee over the period of the select committee process on this bill. I do thank them for responding so efficiently and effectively to our feedback as we teased out the details of this bill, because there was constant further information required. There was constant questioning of the ramifications of some of the parts of the bill. So I do acknowledge the officials. Even tonight, I can see they’ve been really busy responding to this committee of the whole House. So thank you very much for that.

I turn my attention to Part 2, “New Part 2 inserted into Schedule 1AA of [the] Bail Act 2000”. I just would like to expand further on the bail conditions, because, as we did hear in the select committee earlier today, there have been plans made for facilities for remand and for bail. But as we know—and I’m very pleased that the Minister in the chair, Tracey Martin, raised it earlier—about rural communities, and, possibly, we are going to have some, you know—there won’t be the same, probably, access to those facilities. But as we know, where we don’t get those facilities, then someone being referred for bail could very easily be bailed into police custody. In some of those rural areas, that will mean a police cell, and, for a 17-year-old, effectively, going into solitary confinement, which is what a police cell would be. So how, Minister, will we address those facilities being evenly spread so that our young people who are being referred to bail or are on remand can actually be provided for in terms of those facilities?

But also to further expand on that, the ability for young people who are on remand, who are currently being referred into those residential custodial homes, and the mix that we’ve got in there now of some of those older people, 17-year-olds, in some of those homes with younger people—how we’re going to keep other people inside those homes safe, and/or will there be some separation dependent on the age or the seriousness of the offences that they have been charged with? So a couple of issues around that.

One of the other items that I’d like to take the opportunity to address is around—so that schedule refers to the commencement date. But as we know, the commencement date is 1 July. Can the Minister give us an assurance that the judiciary—that those remand facilities are going to be in place, that the legal profession is going to be aware of the nuances within the bill in time for us for implementation on 1 July so that these issues around remand and bail can all be addressed in the right way. So if the Minister could address that, that would be very nice. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I will call the Hon Tracey Martin—just reminding members that the debate for title and commencement will come up shortly. It’s OK to refer to it, but we won’t debate that until we get to that particular part.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in response to some of the questions that have been posed, first of all, with regard to rural areas, can I assure the member that we have some of our community remand homes in extremely rural areas at the moment—I’m thinking particularly of Taupō, and not in central Taupō; out in the outskirts of Taupō. One of the things that we want to do with regard to these remand facilities is actually make sure that we keep the young people who are able to be in community remand homes—and this is really an important point: who are able to be in community remand homes—as close as possible to their communities, because that’s just been one of the downstream markers of failure, when we uplift them and take them away.

But I do want to assure the member, as I did this morning, that there is a process of triage. I want to assure the public that there is a process of triage around these young people. We do not place young people who are a danger to themselves or a danger to others in a community remand home. We have had young people over the last year inside these pilot homes, a number of them throughout New Zealand, and the fact that very few people know about them means that the staff-to-young-person ratio and the highly trained individuals that are there from Oranga Tamariki and the youth justice perspective have actually meant, and the triage process has meant, that that has worked.

Just with regard to the separation of age, I would only suggest to the member—and it’s a danger that we fall into when we think about young people in Oranga Tamariki’s care and in the youth justice system, that we make some assumptions about them. In my home, for example, I have had a 17-year-old, an 11-year-old, and an eight-year-old, and nothing untoward has happened because the parents are there and, you know, life goes on. Some of these young people certainly have committed a crime, and they have come into the care of Oranga Tamariki and they’re in remand homes, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a danger to anybody else as with regard to younger children. So, again, the triage is very important, and we very much have focused on that area.

I do just want to also say this, though, too: that Oranga Tamariki aims to prevent bail breach by providing more support for whānau with a young person on bail and working with youth advocates, police, and the judiciary to understand bail breach risks and putting in place support. An example of what has been causing our young people to breach bail is that, literally, some of them have not understood what the rules were. That is a recognition that some of our young people have communication difficulties, dyslexia, dyspraxia. They might be on the mild autism spectrum; they may have mild foetal alcohol syndrome. We need to make sure we know our young people and put into place and deliver the messages in a way that they understand so that they don’t unintentionally breach the bail conditions. This is part of what Oranga Tamariki is working on.

So I thank the members for their questions. I hope that I have answered them, but please rest assured that we certainly are trying to ensure that we have a rural lens as well as an urban lens over this situation, because we know that not all the young people who will find themselves in front of the Youth Courts are in cities. We want to make sure, however, that we don’t just separate them from their communities. They are still our children where they are, where they have lived and socialised and had friends, but how can we support them in that community to take a different pathway?

AGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a small query that I have on one of the amendments in Subpart 2, but just before I get to that, I just want to touch on the cultural, I guess, initiatives, the Rangatahi and the Pasifika Courts, which haven’t been discussed tonight but have been a very important feature of our justice system with regards to these young people. These are the courts that are either held on marae or in communities, and I know that there are 15 Rangatahi Courts around the country and there are two Pasifika Courts in Auckland. The figures have shown that when young people appear in the Rangatahi or Pasifika Courts, they end up committing 14 percent fewer offences and are 11 percent less likely to reoffend. So the community involvement in our justice sector is an important one, where the community can walk alongside these young people. It provides that cultural context. For many of these young people, there is an identity crisis, and often, given the situations, the homes that they come from, gang life becomes very attractive, and, clearly, that’s not a path that we want them to be going down. So I just wanted to make mention of those courts in our sector.

Just going back to the amendment inserted by clause 21, section 87 amended, “Restraining orders”, the new amendment in section 87 to replace : “ ‘Where the court makes a declaration under section 67 in relation to a child or young person, it may, on or at any time after making [the] declaration,’ with ‘If, on an application under section 68, the court is satisfied that a child or young person is in need of care or protection’ ”. I guess my question around that one is in terms of now, that extra year, that going up to 17—what are the extra indicators or the measures that the court requires now to be satisfied that that young person is in need of care or protection? Is there anything different in terms of what will make the court satisfied in those cases? So that’s just a bit of clarification, if that’s possible, Minister, on that section 87 amended. Thank you.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule 1

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 247 in the name of the Hon Tracey Martin to Schedule 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Schedule 5 agreed to.

Schedule 6 agreed to.

Schedule 7 agreed to.

Schedule 8 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): One and two—I take it this is the title?

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Title and commencement.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: Correct. I just want to make a brief comment, really. We progress through—and I know there’s been a change in regards to Oranga Tamariki, from Ministry for Vulnerable Children. My comments, really, are not to take away from where we are now. I’m happy with where we are—Oranga Tamariki. Just my simple comment I want to make to that is that the designation of seeing Ministry for Vulnerable Children reminded us of the task at hand. Oranga Tamariki, obviously, is the sense of wellbeing, “tamariki” meaning all children. My hope, to the Minister, is that we don’t forget, and I think today was a great moment in which we actually reminded ourselves of why we’re here. I want to acknowledge Agnes Loheni and others that were there, and even yourself, Minister, where your words were: “Let us never forget that moment, because those are moments that remind us.” So just in the title, we were always challenged with asking the question “What will help us never forget our reasons why?”, and I just want to make comment that the vulnerable children, though there was a lot of debate—let’s be aspirational.

I remember being in Canada where we went to the hospital there, and it’s actually called the Hospital for Sick Children. I laughed and I thought, well, that’s really strange. They asked me why I was laughing. I said, “Well, do you know what we call our children’s hospital in Auckland? It’s called Starship.” So it was aspirational and so forth, but it did make me think that sometimes if we’re not careful, we can forget about the “why”. I suppose it’s just finding those moments, and I just want to make that comment, Minister, that we did have that moment where we reminded ourselves of that. We have the family violence task force, we have sexual violence collectives, because we remind ourselves of our why while we’re there.

So we’re here. Oranga Tamariki we’ve accepted, I suppose, along the way, and today was, I think, a very important moment for us. It just reminds us that sometimes in a title it’s easy to negate that and say, “No, we just want to be aspirational.”, but we’re dealing with the tough end in town. We’re dealing with the most difficult situations of abuse and neglect. We’re dealing with difficult situations that you have to deal with, I know, every day, Minister, and the officials. I want to just acknowledge all our front-line workers, who are out there doing really tough work, and the mahi that they are doing. Yes, Oranga Tamariki reminds them of what the goal and the vision is, and sometimes we need to be reminded about the tough work that they have to face every day, making really tough decisions. So I just want to make that comment about the name and just thank you for this morning, as well. Thank you.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Can I just acknowledge the speaker who just resumed his seat, Alfred Ngaro, and the real passion and commitment that he makes to this particular topic. It is aspirational—I understand what he says with regard to the change of name. I got this role and the name had already been put in place, and I took out the word “vulnerable”. But I want to explain that it wasn’t actually a political move on my part, and it didn’t have to do with any of the arguments that had taken place before.

I’m also the Minister who works on the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy. At the moment, that is run out of the Prime Minister’s office. The Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy is to set a direction for New Zealand where every single member of New Zealand asks themselves “How are my actions affecting the wellbeing of children?”. At the moment, Oranga Tamariki—Ministry for Children is not strong enough to be the ministry which holds Government departments to account for the answer to that question, but eventually I hope they are. So it isn’t actually about vulnerable children; it is about all our children and all of us being held to account. How are our actions every single day affecting the wellbeing of our children?

I acknowledge the member, though, because I know he’s passionate about making a difference for children. I acknowledge the Opposition, because this is a House that believes in this. But for me, the removal of that name was about that longer-term goal that eventually Oranga Tamariki will be strong enough and every Government department will have to answer that question: how are your actions affecting the wellbeing of our children? Kia ora.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 247 in the name of the Hon Tracey Martin to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the bill with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Building Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 11 June.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction): Assalam o alaikum. Thank you so much, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to complete my third reading on the Building Amendment Bill. It amends the Building Act 2004 so that we can take the steps we need to safeguard people in our buildings. Safety is a paramount concern of the Building Act and it must be at the centre whenever we think about buildings. This also includes threats to the social and economic welfare of New Zealand, because when buildings fail, they harm lives and people’s livelihoods. When we think about wellbeing, we need to think about all the ways and the risks that surround building failure, and the following disruption that can hurt people.

The changes I’m seeking to the Building Act are common-sense changes. The legislation builds on our experiences with Christchurch as well as Kaikōura, and on the many other times buildings were tested to the limit and failed. It fills the gaps in the existing framework for managing buildings in two specific ways. Firstly, it gives the front-line emergency responders the tools and powers they need to react quickly and effectively. Secondly, it ensures that we can be even better at learning from building failure.

This has required considerable thinking and rethinking about how we approach buildings and where the expertise and the responsibilities really sit. In the last year alone, we tackled the thorny issues by sitting down with people who represent the many different sides of the response to buildings when they fail and talking through the challenges that we all face and the role of central government. We tackled issues such as: first, the interplay of these new provisions with the existing civil defence and emergency management framework; second, ensuring that our people using these powers on the ground are immune from civil proceedings and are not unfairly punished when acting in good faith; and third, the careful balance between acting quickly and decisively to protect public safety and maintaining a healthy respect for the rights of building owners. This thorough and inclusive approach to legislating has paid off with a sensible bill that I have every confidence will make a real difference.

The first change to the Building Act is in the space of managing buildings after an emergency event, and this bill introduces an end-to-end process from response right through to recovery. It ensures a smooth transition between states of emergency and transition periods for the ongoing management of buildings, as well as addressing problems with how well the current Building Act powers can be used to manage buildings damaged following an emergency. The proposed provisions that improve how we manage these buildings after an emergency include the following: the ability for the Minister for Building and Construction to take direct action and make decisions to manage buildings in a significant emergency event; second, new powers for responsible persons to manage buildings during and after an emergency event, including inspecting and requiring works to be carried out; third, clarifications on the use and timings of powers which reflect the extended time frames required to manage buildings; fourth, particular requirements around the decision to carry out works on important heritage buildings; and fifth, a framework for specifically recognising personal and property rights, including criteria that governs consultation and the use of these powers.

The second change in this bill is in the space of improving how we can learn from buildings that fail. The bill provides the central building regulator, which is the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), with a clear set of legislative powers to investigate significant building failures that did or could have resulted in serious injury or death. This will mean we can determine why they failed. This will enable MBIE, either on its own initiative or at the request of the Minister for Building and Construction, to investigate the circumstances and causes of building failure, including securing the site to be investigated, entering a property, carrying out inspections, requiring information, sharing relevant information related to the building failure with regulatory bodies, and publishing reports and findings. In closing, I commend this bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be speaking on this third reading of the Building Amendment Bill. I congratulate the Minister Jenny Salesa for bringing this bill through the House—her first bill, and that’s very good in terms of the building and construction sector. I also acknowledge my colleague, the former Minister for Building and Construction, the Hon Dr Smith, who’s sitting here behind me, as the person who actually initiated this bill.

I think it’s very important to realise that this bill did have its genesis with the National Party, and it’s good that the Government’s carried it on into fruition, and I thank the Minister for that. As she has noted, this is about dealing with those situations where there’s been a tremendous and terrible act. It may be a seismic act or something that’s really created mayhem. It is very important, at that point, that the public is kept safe from walking near those buildings that may have been damaged; also that the occupants of those buildings are kept safe. They may be tenants, such as people living in apartments, but also may be business tenants. Then you’ve got the rights of the private people who may own those buildings, and all of those rights come together in a time of mayhem, where there are competing claims, there are competing interests, but the primary thing is about making sure that everyone is safe. The important thing about this bill is that in making sure that we look after these buildings and come up with ways of dealing with them when there has been such an event, the disruption is kept to an absolute minimum.

This bill makes some amendments, both to the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act but also to the Search and Surveillance Act. So it’s not just about the bill itself. It has about three or four key parts to it. First of all it talks about a responsible person. This is the person who has the right to go in and either put a notice on a building or require demolition or whatever—quite extensive powers. Those responsible persons are defined as local authorities or people who are acting under the guidance of the Minister. What they will do is they should—and I note this in section 133BN(c) of the bill—“result in minimal restriction of [an individual] to continue to use and occupy property and any restriction of that ability should be for no longer than is reasonably necessary:”.

The other parts of the powers are the power, actually, to enter these damaged buildings, and also work to reduce or remove the risk. What the Transport and Infrastructure Committee considered was allocating different approaches for different levels of risk. In section 133BU there are three levels of risk specified. One is the urgent works when there’s obviously immediate danger and things need to be done very, very promptly, and that may mean a street closure; it may mean a total ban on entering the building; it may even mean quite a curtilage around that building if, for instance, it was in the process or could possible fall.

Then there’s the second category, which is it works to remove or reduce other risks. So this is the next layer down. The building’s still standing, but there might be parapets or balconies or there’s damage around the building or materials lying around that building that need to be removed, and they need to be removed promptly.

Then the third level of risk covers works for long-term use or occupation of building. So this is in that phase where you’re now looking to reoccupy the building as quickly as possible. Then there’s the real point about this bill. What we do want to see under this bill is to see the opportunity to learn from failures—when buildings fail as a result of seismic events. The classic is the Statistics House down on the waterfront in Wellington, where it was going through a period of repair but two floors collapsed. The opportunity to go in and learn around that and to be able to assess those dangers and also use that information as a way to make sure other buildings that are of a similar design are made safe. We’ve seen that already as a result of Statistics House, where the footings on the hollow-core floors were too small—50 millimetres—and currently, in many buildings across the country, and particularly here in Wellington, the footings that hold or support those hollow-core floors are being extended to make them safe in the event of a significant seismic activity.

So I think we’ve talked about this bill a lot. It’s a good piece of legislation. It’s reasonable. We’ve been very mindful of making sure that the rights of individuals and owners and occupiers are protected and to minimise the level of disruption. I also just want to say thank you to the committee, and also to the officials that worked with us on this bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Housing and Urban Development): The Minister responsible for the Building Amendment Bill, the Hon Jenny Salesa, described the provisions of this bill as common-sense changes. I think the fact that there’s agreement across the House and there was clearly a very constructive committee process to get the bill to this point is probably testament to that.

I want to underline the comments that Jenny Salesa made at the beginning of her speech on an earlier sitting day, when she acknowledged the work of Nick Smith, the former Minister, who oversaw all the policy work and the beginnings of the legislative process for this bill.

This bill strikes me as being just one of many ripples, really, out from the Canterbury earthquakes—policy and institutional changes that have been in response to those disasters, both the Canterbury quakes and the Kaikōura quakes, as we try to build more resilience into the system and ensure that our policies and our institutions are able to respond in a serious way to the risk and the damage done by those disasters.

Well, as the previous speakers have said, there are two main parts to the bill. The first is about managing buildings after an emergency event, and the bill introduces this process for managing buildings following an emergency, from response through to the recovery phase. It includes the ability for the Minister to take direct action and make decisions to manage buildings during a significant emergency. It gives new powers to manage buildings during and after the event, including inspecting and requiring works to be carried out, clarifications on the use and timings of powers, and, in particular, requirements around the decision to carry out works on important heritage buildings. It provides a framework for recognising personal and property rights, including the criteria governing the use of the powers and consultations. So there’s a fair bit of thought that’s gone into ensuring that there’s a framework so that the new powers that are included in the bill have to be exercised within those constraints.

The select committee process came up with some proposals that were incorporated into the bill: the reference to an “individual” replacing the phrasing “owner or occupier” in order to be consistent with other provisions, and a new section was inserted to give a responsible person—a police constable, in the case of evacuations—a clear power to enter a building or land for specified reasons. Those reasons include evacuations, measures to keep people at a safe distance, notices and signs on buildings, urgent works to remove or reduce risks, and works for long-term use or the occupation of the building. There were also changes made at select committee around the directions to carry out work, and there were provisions to empower responsible persons to direct that work be carried out. They were amended to clarify that the notices must describe the outcomes rather than just describe the work itself.

The second part of the bill is really about investigating building failures, and it proposes amendments to the Building Act that give the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), as the regulator, a clear set of legislative powers to investigate building failures that did or could have resulted in serious injury or death. It gives MBIE the power to investigate the circumstances and the causes of building failure, including securing the site, entering a property, carrying out inspections, requiring information, and sharing relevant information related to the building failure with the relevant regulatory bodies. Again, the select committee inserted a provision that would provide for follow-up investigations as an additional measure.

So I just want to add my words of acknowledgment to all the work that’s been done over the last few years in getting this bill to the final stage in the process. I commend this bill to the House.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I thought Dan Bidois was going to take a call as he stood up to take a glass of water or something. I thought, “Have I got the right seat?” But I do.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill. I would like to acknowledge also Nick Smith, the member who initiated what we are debating and finalising today. It does take some time. I also would like to acknowledge Darroch Ball, the chairman of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and also all the members of the committee. It was certainly a constructive committee. It was a committee that recognised that there were some issues in the original bill. It acknowledged the importance of the various interests involved. When we appoint someone with power—an officer—to do certain things and have certain rights which will override, essentially, private property rights, it’s important to make sure that that balance is sensible, fair, reasonable, and acceptable to the community, because if it is not acceptable to those people, then, of course, people just would not accept it and they would not allow officers of the territorial local authority to carry out their duties in an orderly manner.

I understand that during the Christchurch earthquakes that was not the case, but you can imagine a situation where you have some service trying to get into a building to assess the damage, to make some decisions on whether the building should be closed down, barricaded, or demolished, and someone holds the whole process up because it is their property and they have the right to not allow this official into their property—“I will not allow you to carry out these inspections.” and so on and so forth. So they’re the two balancing interests that we’re talking about, and the committee was aware of the sensitivity around private property rights and we struck, I think, a very good balance.

It is important and, as has been explained already, there are three levels of risk. It is important that someone is in charge—that there is an officer that has the authority to do certain things, and that we don’t have a bunch of chiefs and no Indians. In this case, we have a chief, a person who has the authority to direct certain actions, and that’s for the benefit of the community—to enable, for example, police or fire services through a particular area. It might mean barricading certain areas off, to the inconvenience of some but for the benefit of the majority. So those powers are essential for those actions to take place, and that is a very good part of the bill.

It was also constructive in the committee when we considered heritage buildings. That wasn’t initially in the proposal, and we banged that around and we got to a good space there to consider those historic buildings, when considering action to be taken.

The second part of the bill was the learning experience that any disaster is going to bring, and, again, it enables the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment officials to investigate in places where, some might say, they obviously did not have the power to do so prior to this bill. It enables them to go in to ask engineers, “Right, I want to see those plans that were used to construct this building.” I want some information from the architect to say, ‘How on earth did you manage to design this building? It fell over and it’s only 10 years old. Where was the professionalism? Where was the information? How did you arrive at this decision?’ ”—so that we can learn from the disaster, so that it might not happen again, and so that the professions can learn as well, and to give an openness and transparency that was not there before the bill.

So that’s the second part of the bill, which certainly adds to the learning, the ability, of the community to ensure that this experience of the earthquakes in Kaikōura and Christchurch can be of benefit. Because, of course, what are we? The Shaky Isles. We will have another earthquake. We will have another issue. We will have tsunamis. We will have natural disasters. Who knows, we might even have a volcano go off in Auckland. It will happen, it’s a matter of timing, and we need to be prepared for it, and this bill goes a long way towards that. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to signal that New Zealand First will, of course, be supporting this legislation through its third reading and welcomes the final enactment.

I want, firstly, to start in the same manner that some other members have spoken and acknowledge the Hon Nick Smith, who commenced this work. I want to acknowledge the Transport and Infrastructure Committee because, clearly, they have given the bill good scrutiny, good diligence, and the amendments that they have recommended have all been incorporated. I particularly thank Alastair Scott, the member for Wairarapa, for acknowledging Darroch Ball, who, from all accounts, is doing a sterling job of chairing that select committee and has managed to establish quite a high level of collegiality, from what I’m told. That is always constructive. It reminds me of when I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee, which was chaired then by the Hon Scott Simpson. We always found that committees such as that, which had a high level of collegiality and were focused on what was right for the country overall, produced very good results, as his committee did back in the last term, when I was privileged to be on it.

I think I could go through each and every part of the bill again, but all the previous speakers before me have nailed off all of the relevant comments. I would like to note, though, that some of the submitters—Local Government New Zealand, Christchurch City Council in particular, and Historic Places Aotearoa—made submissions on the bill and all recognised that the proposals in this bill intend to fill evident legislative gaps that some councils had to manage recently post Canterbury and Kaikōura, and I’m thinking particularly of Kaikōura District Council and others. In general, the bill has received their endorsement and their support. I can say—and, clearly, it is based on the recommendations put to the Government through the royal commission on the Canterbury earthquakes, and the Regulations Review Committee and its inquiry into Parliament’s legislative response to future national emergencies—that all of those were considered.

It’s interesting for me; I always look with a degree of satisfaction on legislation such as this because it does signal that, when we have had disasters such as we faced in Christchurch and Kaikōura, we have not been shy at looking at what happened and asking ourselves the questions: could we have done things better, can we learn from the lessons, can we improve? And I know from talking to my family members who were first responders in the Christchurch earthquake and also Kaikōura—my son-in-law Scott Shadbolt received the fire service valour award, the first recipient in 106 years, and one of only three ever to receive that award in history. When Scotty and I would sit and talk about some of the challenges they faced, these same questions came up. For urban search and rescue, there were some very clear challenges as to rights to enter. For my son Paul, who was a police officer on the beat at the time that the quake hit in Christchurch, these very same questions came up. They just got on and did what they had to do, along with all the other police officers and first responders there as well, but it was right and proper that Parliament, through the royal commission, had a look back at what happened, at what the issues were, at what the impediments were, and at how we might learn from that and what legislative changes were necessary.

I compliment the Hon Nick Smith for bringing the bill to the House. I compliment the Hon Jenny Salesa for seeing it through the committee. The legislative changes are smart. I’m not going to go through them all and repeat the very same words that have already been spoken in this House before me. I’m simply going to conclude by thanking the select committee for its work, its diligence, and acknowledging that once again this is a piece of legislation going through the House with the unanimous support of all parties. I know we might have said it a few times, but sometimes people out on the hustings and the shock jocks on the radio like to focus on Parliament and bring all the attention to what happens in question time and the general debate. It is somewhat, I guess, disappointing that they don’t see Parliament at its best, when select committees are doing the work such as this before us now, and see the results being passed at a couple of minutes to nine in the evening, when all MPs are here working. I congratulate the House and just conclude by saying New Zealand First supports the bill.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a privilege to take a call at the third reading, now, of the Building Amendment Bill. I’d just like to start by picking up on the previous speaker, Ron Mark’s, comments there. What we’ve seen with a number of pieces of legislation is that there has indeed been a high level of congeniality, which is encouraging and reassuring and exciting to see. I think, perhaps, it’s a reflection of the high-quality legislation drafted under the previous Government, in this case started by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, which, of course, then becomes a lot easier to support for all sides of the House and we proceed duly from there.

So, with that little bit of jest, just delving into a few of the details in relation to this bill: really, it’s about creating a clearer process so that whenever we have a terrible situation such as an earthquake, there is a clearly defined system for working through the aftermath of that. I’d just like again to commend the previous speaker on the award obtained by his son-in-law. I’m sure he was a proud father-in-law at that moment, and rightly so. The first responders do a fantastic, dangerous job as well, but we also need to be mindful of the next steps, and that’s what we’re addressing in a number of manners through this third reading of this Building Amendment Bill—the powers that we’re looking at there in terms of managing buildings through those emergencies but also providing the ability to check, to learn, and to grow, in terms of our knowledge from what has happened in those situations, with a view to trying to prevent that happening again. Those are some really important aspects that are covered quite well under this bill.

It’s a balancing act because, on the one hand, we’ve had such examples of seismic activity and there’s a significant safety risk—and, of course, safety is paramount; we have to be taking that into consideration—but, on the other hand, we have property rights: the rights of use for the owners or the occupiers of a particular building or adjacent property. So it is a balancing act between that. We want to make sure that people are as safe as possible but we don’t want to impact unnecessarily on their property rights and usage any more than is necessary to get that balance right. So I think this bill does that quite nicely in terms of the powers given to responsible persons based on the assessment of the building and whether it is urgent in terms of the work it needs or less urgent but still definitely needs some work. It sets out different processes for each of those stages so that people can be clear of where that sits and what the process is for managing through that. Of course, there’s always an element of subjectivity in terms of where a property might sit within that and how that assessment is made, but this bill certainly helps to clear up a lot of that previous ambiguity in relation to those considerations. It also outlines, then, who is a responsible person, who is able to make these decisions, and what their powers then subsequently are once they have acted within that as well.

Now, one of the points that I did just want to touch on, and this is something I brought up throughout the different stages of debate on this bill as well, was in relation to the consideration for adjacent landowners or occupiers if there’s no building on that adjacent land. So section 133BV talks about the outlines—the process—when we’re in a situation where works need to be done to remove or reduce risk but it’s not the “urgent” level. So this is slightly less serious and, therefore, the responsible person comes in and has a different set of powers compared to if it was the urgent situation, and part of that requires them to consult with the owner and occupiers of, firstly, the damaged building but also neighbouring buildings that are impacted by that if, for example, a perimeter has to be set up—a cordon—to ensure safety within that.

But what it doesn’t cater for is the requirement to talk to the owner or occupier of adjacent bare land. The example I gave in the earlier stage was around a carpark which could have its use impacted by having a cordon put in place, perhaps through the middle of it, yet they’re not required to be consulted under this because they are not an adjacent building; they’re simply adjacent land. It doesn’t specify the requirement to talk to adjacent land users; simply building owners and occupiers. It does require the responsible person to talk to anyone who has an interest in the land on which the impacted or the damaged building sits, but not on adjacent land.

That was one area that I did raise during the committee stage as well. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with what the Minister sought to give an assurance on in that space but, hopefully, such situations would be unlikely to occur and, if they were, then there may be an element of practical implementation or interpretation of what the intent would be for that property, should a building be on it.

On the balance of it, I think we’ve got a pretty good bill here. It pretty well encompasses the requirements in terms of managing that initial process after the event and where those powers sit, depending on the severity of the damage to their property and neighbouring properties. Look, we are happy to support this bill and see it come into effect so that in future instances we can, one, protect people as best as possible and also protect their rights, and, lastly, make sure we can learn from such situations as well. So National commends this bill to the House. Thank you.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Hello, Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you. By all accounts, it seems that the Building Amendment Bill is a good piece of work and a good piece of legislation, but a good piece of work where from across the House and the select committee process MPs have worked hard to try and get a good piece of legislation up to address the problem and the issues that were identified after, for example, the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes, where it was found that the provisions under the Building Act were not fit for the purpose of managing dangerous and insanitary, unsafe buildings. Following a major disaster, everything is literally turned upside down. Normal life doesn’t apply, so we needed some flexibility, fit for purpose legislation, to be able to deal in good time with what needed to happen.

As others have said, the least we can do from those challenging situations and crises is to learn from them and learn how we can do better. All of the issues have been canvassed really well across the House tonight. I’m happy to take a short call simply to put the Green Party on record to throw our support behind this work. Of course, I note that it originally started with the National Party and was finally picked up and carried on by the Minister now. Just very quickly, the Building Amendment Bill puts up a new system for managing buildings after an emergency, particularly around investigating building failures.

I just remembered when I was working for the Human Rights Commission back at the Christchurch earthquakes and how my colleagues in their Christchurch office were completely kept out, as were all of their equipment and resources, and that we needed to balance tenants, occupants, building owners, and safety and hazard risks. So it’s good—it’s good, this piece of work that is happening here tonight in the House.

The bill puts up new processes and new powers to bridge that immediate response, you know, right through to the completed recovery. I did note, with personal interest, the new powers from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to enter, inspect, and close off buildings for three years following an event. I think those were the main points that I wanted to take the opportunity to raise.

I did note with personal interest that there are particular provisions protecting heritage buildings, which would include heritage marae if registered. It would be interesting to see how that situation might play out if we ever have to face it.

Lastly, the bill is just balancing private property interests, reducing risks to public safety, and whether the constitution of the building might be compromised during an earthquake. So it is sensible, good work being done. I’m very proud to be a part of it. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’d like to join with others across the House tonight in supporting this piece of legislation. There’s an air of good, practical common sense about this piece of legislation, because at a time of emergency, stresses and tensions are running high amongst all people concerned and it’s a challenging time not only for those that are seeking to provide support and assistance from an emergency services point of view, but also for property owners, homeowners, and individuals alike.

I recall that back after the Kaikōura earthquakes, of course, it was actually metropolitan Wellington that was affected quite significantly. Particularly, I had an opportunity to be involved during a period of time in my term as Minister of Statistics trying to assist Stats NZ in coming to terms with the process that they had to go through after Statistics House was deemed to be no longer able to be used, and people were not even able to go back after that earthquake and collect personal items, handbags, computer gear, personal pieces of memorabilia—the sorts of things that people keep on their desks at their workplace, those sorts of things.

If those sorts of considerations are then extended to the home residential domestic situation, there are also all kinds of stresses and tensions that apply in that situation, even more so where there are joint boundaries or common walls, common connections between multi-residential dwelling houses. I’m thinking particularly of those 1970s style of townhouses and things that were typically joined together by a common shared garage or wall or whatever. They were on cross-lease titles, and in many cases there were all kinds of situations in Christchurch and Kaikōura where complications arose.

This bill seeks to establish a level of just common-sense practicality about, as a matter of first principle, preserving human life and reducing risk to human life, but then, literally, after there has been an opportunity for a little bit of calmness, to start applying some considered thought to how to ease the stresses and strains that are there for property owners.

The only other point that I’d like to make tonight in support of this legislation is that there’s been a lot of talk about emergency situations involving earthquakes, but those, of course, are not the only emergency situations that take place. My electorate, the beautiful Coromandel electorate, has one of the longest coastlines of any in the country—something close to 500 kilometres of coastline. Regrettably, from time to time, we are the victim of serious weather events. There was one in January 2017 where roads were taken out, people weren’t able to get to their homes, businesses were closed off for several days at a time, and then there were a number of dwelling houses and places of business that were uninhabitable. So this piece of legislation will apply to situations like that as long as a state of emergency has been declared. That’s the trigger, as I understand it, for the practical aspects of this legislation to come into effect. It’s not only just earthquakes. There will be other situations of emergency where the common-sense and practical provisions of this legislation will come into effect.

I didn’t have the pleasure of sitting in on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, but I’m delighted to hear that the collegial nature of the committee worked well and it was able to bring back to the House for this third reading a good piece of legislation. As the Hon Ron Mark commented, so often people who are not part of this place sometimes don’t see the Parliament of New Zealand working collaboratively, as they have on this piece of legislation, for the ultimate benefit of New Zealand citizens and their property rights. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call the Hon Aupito William Sio.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): I’m happy to rise and support this bill at the third reading. Just judging by the tempo and the tone of remarks from speeches that have already been given, it seems that this House is united in support of this bill. It also reflects that there appears to be a consensus view in this House that safety is an issue that all members are concerned about. So it’s quite fitting, because this bill aims to address the risks and harms caused from the collapse of buildings and properties.

I suppose, when you consider that we live in a beautiful country, but a beautiful country that, in the context of climate change, has become quite unpredictable and vulnerable to not only coastal erosion, as the previous speaker made mention of, but the scientists are saying that the climatic conditions nowadays are hotter, wetter, and drier—and I think we’ve seen of late how our airports have also closed as a result and consequence of fog and strong winds. All scientific material that I have read suggests that—as one of the speakers earlier said—it’s so unpredictable now and that we can expect more and more natural disasters. Indeed, the suggestion is that not only will the natural disasters be regular but they’ll be more intense.

So it is fitting that the Hon Jenny Salesa has been able to introduce this bill late last year and to drive it through with the support of all parties in this House—drive it through with the support of those who made submissions to the bill—which also reflects that we’re all generally sincere about making sure that safety is our paramount concern and that our current system for how we manage buildings when the worst happens needs to be better. Certainly, this bill provides legislative power to the appropriate ministry, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, to be able to ensure that that happens.

Other than commending my colleague Jenny Salesa for bringing the bill through—it’s interesting that I’ve heard others make mention about the contribution of Dr Nick Smith. For the life of me, I couldn’t find any evidence in the bill, because Minister Salesa introduced the bill on 15 August 2018, the first reading was in September 2018, it was referred to the transport committee, the second reading was on 9 May this year, then the committee of the House was later in May, and now we’re in the third reading. So I didn’t see where Dr Nick Smith made a contribution but, none the less, I am happy to support the bill.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It’s a pleasure to take a call in the third reading of the Building Amendment Bill. I do wish to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Jenny Salesa, for getting the bill to this point. I wish to also congratulate all the political parties across the Parliament on agreeing on what are very sensible measures. But I do, in response to the last point, have to correct it—and also congratulate the Hon Dr Nick Smith—because the policy work for this and the changes that were made came out of what was learnt from the Christchurch earthquakes. Dr Smith—from our side, anyway, and I suspect across this House—as a former engineer has a lot of interest and a lot of knowledge and has studied many of the issues that came out of the Canterbury earthquakes. So I think credit can go all around.

I think this really is around how we manage the conflicts in terms of first responders and subsequent responders, because while there is management of safety, there is also business interruption, there is also building security, and there are big decisions to be made. In a State of emergency and the subsequent days and weeks and years after that, all those trade-offs have to be made.

In the Canterbury earthquakes, I happened to be on an insurance company at the time, which was affected, and we had a lot of claims made. I was on the board, and one of the interesting things that we came across was that we had to define which earthquake caused the damage. So you’d work out that some damage was caused in some pipes in one earthquake, and then you’d have to go and redo the work and say whether that was more damage caused. It’s very complex—that’s what I’m trying to get to. It’s very complex, millions or—in this case—billions of dollars were involved, and people’s livelihoods were at stake, so the combination of that ends up with a great deal of anxiety and tension on all sorts of bodies.

So this bill seeks to give some direction around who can do what and when, and it gives some clarity for not only agencies but also members of the public and building owners. Vitally, it also allows the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and others—agents of MBIE—to look at sites and look at failure in a way that can allow New Zealand to benefit in terms of future rules and regulations.

In my own case—and the Hon Meka Whaitiri will be aware of this—in Hawke’s Bay we had upgraded the Hawke’s Bay Opera House to the building standard at the time. The Canterbury earthquake came along and the engineer said, “Oh, we’ve learnt from that now, and now we have to go and upgrade it again.”, and it’s just been completed.

My point in saying that is we’re on a constant journey and we need to make sure that when these tragedies and events of such magnitude happen, we can learn as much as possible while respecting the property rights but while the evidence and understanding is still there. So on that basis, it’s wonderful to see that across the Parliament we have unanimity and agreement that this bill should be supported, and I’m happy to commend it to the House.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m pleased to take a short call on this third and final reading of the Building Amendment Bill. I am fortunate to be a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that considered the bill. I too want to acknowledge the Hon Jenny Salesa for ushering the bill through, and, of course, the Hon Nick Smith. The member Lawrence Yule, who has just resumed his seat, made really clear his role in terms of the policy work behind the bill. Essentially, the bill has two parts: obviously, managing buildings after emergencies, and, of course, there are lessons learnt from building failures.

I want to just pick up on the previous speaker, who shared the financial impacts, I guess, of constantly modernising our building safety regulations to ensure that we are up to code but also acknowledging the wider cost to building owners, should those codes and expectations change. I recall that in 2016, there was an earthquake here in Wellington, and I think it was on the weekend that most MPs were at home. But on returning back to Wellington, I found not only broken glass in my apartment kitchen but actually cracks in the ceiling and walls of a fairly new apartment building in central Wellington. I must share in this House that for two weeks, apart from contacting the property managers, I never received a visit. So this bill makes it really clear who is responsible for entering buildings, first and foremost, and what are the rules under which they enter and what responsibilities and roles they serve when they enter that building. I used that example from 2016 because it would have been useful in 2016 to have had somebody come forward to at least check the cracks in what I’d considered was a very, very modern apartment complex.

Previous speakers have laid out what’s in the bill. I want to commend our select committee for the way in which they’ve worked, and our chair, Darroch Ball. I almost thought, while I was sitting in the House listening to the various speakers, that I was listening to a Treaty bill. Such was the support for this bill from both sides of the House that I thought I was hearing a Treaty bill, but it was not to be. It is something just as important—the Building Amendment Bill—and so I want to, again, thank all members and thank the officials that worked on it, those that submitted on it, and also the experts that came before the select committee from Local Government New Zealand and some of the councils that submitted.

As the Minister said in her opening address, this is a fairly sensible, non-contentious bill. It does modernise our whole building safety and post - building failure system, and I commend it to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): I too rise in support of the Building Amendment Bill in its third reading. Like other members, I would like to acknowledge the work that the Hon Dr Nick Smith had done around the policy prior to this bill’s introduction and, indeed, Minister Salesa for her work in shepherding it through the House. I’d also acknowledge Mr Darroch Ball as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and the members of the committee for the work they’ve done to bring a bill forward which has resounding endorsement across this House.

As I was looking through the bill tonight, I reflected on the last Parliament, when I was a member of the Government Administration Committee, which was the forerunner to the Governance and Administration Committee that I now have the privilege of chairing. In 2016, we considered the Civil Defence Emergency Management Amendment Bill, and that bill had come in and had been ushered in quite quickly following the Whanganui floods in 2015. As we scrutinised that in select committee, officials and others were keen to point out that one of the problems that had manifested itself during those floods was the lack of authority for persons and authorities to compel people to leave at-risk properties. So their lives were placed at risk, and resources were consumed in trying to encourage people to leave for their own safety, with no mandate to compel that to happen.

Then, fast-forwarding a little more—actually, while the bill was still progressing, as I recall—we then had the Kaikōura quake, and here in Wellington, those existing issues were compounded further. There was great uncertainty about who had rights to enter buildings, who had rights to require buildings to be vacated, and who had rights to go and assess the potentially quake-affected buildings. There were questions about whether Wellington should reopen so quickly, and yet the authorities, including the mayor, did not have the power to compel even Government agencies, let alone private sector individuals and property owners, to close their buildings.

So this bill does exceptionally good work at clarifying the powers that responsible persons will have to enter premises to require the vacation of them and, particularly, also to enter them for assessment of damage. It has support right across the House, and I commend it to the House.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity, Madam Deputy Speaker, to speak on the Building Amendment Bill in its third reading. As has already been noted, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee has done a fantastic job, and it’s good to see that the changes brought forward have been agreed on widely across the House.

In the overview of the bill, there are two important parts that I wish to briefly touch on in terms of what this bill does in order to address those concerns that have been seen in Kaikōura, here in Wellington, and also in Christchurch with the ongoing events that have taken place there. So the two key parts of what the bill does that I would briefly like to touch upon are that, firstly, it introduces new powers to create a clear and balanced system to manage the risks that buildings can pose, not just to people but also to property, from response through to recovery following a significant emergency or major event like the ones that we have seen. Secondly, the bill provides the central building regulator, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, with a clear set of powers to investigate significant building failures. This sets us up to learn lessons and also to improve, and that is to make sure that we are fit for purpose in the way that we look to move forward if we are to have significant events in the future.

So in terms of managing buildings after an emergency event, this bill introduces an end-to-end process for managing buildings following an emergency, from response through to recovery. It’s important to note that the Minister for Building and Construction has the ability to take direct action when required. As has been noted by previous speakers tonight, it’s important in those times of uncertainty and emergency that the appropriate powers can be called upon to act swiftly in order to give people the reassurance that life will still go on and that there are critical services still taking place. So the ability to make decisions and manage buildings in a significant emergency event is very important. So these new powers, and the clarifications on the use and the timings and when they can occur, bring into clarity a clearer idea of what can happen. These areas have been already identified by the royal commission in investigating how we can learn from the past.

So without further ado, I would like to acknowledge the fact that it’s great to see agreement across the House on a piece of legislation that clearly looks to be moving forward and to be making New Zealand a safer place and more robust, should we encounter any major events. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill

Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill

Third Readings

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources) on behalf of the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: I move, That the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill and the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill be now read a third time.

This legislation is an important part of the commerce and consumer affairs agenda, as its purpose is to promote better outcomes under the corporate insolvency system by strengthening the regulation of insolvency practitioners. In the second reading of the Insolvency Practitioners Bill, Minister Faafoi indicated that it would be divided into three bills, not two. A third bill, ultimately, has not proved necessary. These two bills have had a long journey through this House, which Minister Faafoi did not propose going into today, but they are better for it.

The Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill is aimed at promoting better outcomes under the corporate insolvency system by strengthening the regulation of practitioners. One of the main aims of the insolvency law is for businesses to be turned around if they are viable—and that is important. If not, they should be wound up and the assets realised and distributed to creditors in accordance with clear rules and with a minimum of harm both to the insolvent party and to their creditors. This is a system that relies on trustworthy and competent professionals to act in the best interests of creditors.

This bill that we now have before us supports these outcomes by introducing a robust new regime for the licensing of practitioners, providing effective mechanisms for holding them to account, and requiring such things as continuing professional development to raise the standards of practitioners’ behaviour over time. These are necessary changes to ensure that all insolvency practitioners meet the basic standards of honesty and competence that the public is entitled to expect of them. Unfortunately, a small number of practitioners continue to fall well short of these standards and engage in conduct such as charging excessive fees for their services, carrying out unnecessary work so as to inflate their fees, acting in the interests of the directors of insolvent companies who appoint them at the expense of the creditors, and taking on appointments without the necessary skills, knowledge, or expertise.

So we can see that under this legislation there are some key features of the co-regulatory and licence system that needed to be addressed. Within this bill is proposed a co-regulatory licensing system modelled on the one in the Auditor Regulation Act of 2012. Under this system, the Registrar of Companies will be required to set minimum standards for licensing insolvency practitioners and to accredit professional bodies. These accredited bodies will be responsible for the front-line licensing and regulation of individual practitioners, which includes regulating their entry into the profession and ongoing competence, investigating complaints against practitioners, and reporting on the adequacy and effectiveness of their regulatory systems and processes.

In addition, the second of these bills—the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill—makes other amendments to the Companies Act and Receiverships Act. This bill is aimed at updating these pieces of legislation to make sure they are still fit for purpose and reflect the new Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill. These amendments update these Acts to reflect new requirements for the licensing of insolvency practitioners, increase the transparency of practitioner appointments, and improve practitioner reporting requirements.

I am proud—and the Minister who has worked on these changes is proud—of what has been accomplished with these bills, and want to acknowledge all the hard work that has gone into getting them to this stage. I would like to thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for its thoughtful consideration of the Insolvency Practitioners Bill. I’d also like to thank the members of the Insolvency Working Group and all of the people who submitted on the Insolvency Practitioners Bill. This bill does enhance the integrity of the corporate insolvency system and will support honest business practices. I commend these bills to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise in support of both the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill and the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill in their third readings. Some bills have a long gestation time through Parliament; the Insolvency Practitioners Bill is one such bill. It was first reported back from the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee in 2011. So, this year, we saw a rather unusual event where a bill that had been returned for further scrutiny—or re-scrutiny, if you will—by a select committee instead had a debate on the report of that select committee because, of course, the Standing Orders don’t permit a second second reading.

But the legislation has emerged in better shape. These are necessary bills. As the Minister Megan Woods, who has introduced this in these third readings, has pointed out, it is the behaviours of the few which tarnish an entire industry or industry sector, and, in fact, diminish confidence across the entire market or business sector of New Zealand. Those activities, those behaviours of those poorly behaving insolvency practitioners, need addressing, which is why this legislation is so important.

The fundamental thing that I believe it achieves is to seek to establish greater confidence for businesses to transact in New Zealand with each other, because, in doing so, one party does become a creditor to the other. They deserve confidence that, should the business they’re transacting with go into financial difficulties, their interests as creditors will be served by the practitioners that are dealing with that issue or insolvency. This legislation goes a long way, I believe, to improving that confidence.

In fact, it is for that reason—that the broader benefit spans, really, every business, or most businesses across New Zealand—that we supported the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that sought to pay for the new regime to manage the provisions of these bills through a levy to be levied across every business entity, or every business entity that could potentially be subject to the provisions of this legislation or be liquidated under the Companies Act.

Because every business does, or fundamentally most businesses do, benefit from the improved confidence that these measures bring about, it is reasonable that each of them should bear what is a very small charge each—a couple of dollars is anticipated, certainly no more than that—and that is an appropriate way to do it. The opposite of that would be instead to load the costs on to insolvency practitioners themselves, which, quite frankly, would be so onerous as to put a number of them out of business, and even those that didn’t go out of business would then seek to recover those costs through their charges; so, ultimately, it wouldn’t help either the businesses that are being wound up or, indeed, in particular, the creditors that are hoping to get at least some of their moneys returned to them.

It is for those reasons that we not only support the bills but supported that SOP that the Minister introduced. I commend these bills to the House.

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This will be a short call. These are some of those really lovely bills where both sides of the House tend to agree. It is very technical legislation, but it’s also legislation that has been in the political machine for quite some time now. For that reason, the people that started this legislation all those years ago aren’t the people that are here representing it today. But it is good legislation, it’s stood the test of time, and it’s been through our Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for a wee while now.

The actual purpose of this legislation is to promote better outcomes for corporate insolvency by strengthening the regulation of insolvency practitioners. Now, for those people that don’t quite understand the process of insolvency, it’s when your liabilities outweigh your assets or when your debts, basically, become too much and you’re made insolvent. There are practitioners out there, around the country, that specialise in this kind of business, and for that reason they have been calling, for quite some time, for stronger regulation in terms of what they do, helping them to be able to do the work that they do.

There were many issues that were raised throughout the small time that I’ve been with this legislation. We’ve talked through those considerably in our select committee, and we’ve got to a point where we’re sitting here in front of very, very good bills and very robust bills. They’ve had the consideration of many submitters, and it’s probably a good opportunity to thank all of those submitters, who also put time and effort into making these the good pieces of legislation that they are. I also want to thank the Opposition for the work that they’ve done in creating quite an amicable bill that we are quite happy to stand behind, all together, and say that we commend this legislation to the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m not sure that I would share the previous speaker, Tamati Coffey’s, description of it as an amicable bill. I don’t know quite what an amicable bill is, in the sense that it imposes a new regulatory regime on part of our economy, but it’s something that we kicked off some time ago. That was, purely and simply, to improve the confidence that people have in the conduct of our companies and liquidators, and liquidation is an important part of the company cycle—the formation of companies, companies doing well. Companies come to the end of the lives at some point, and they can be solvent at that time, in which case they’ve got more assets than they’ve got liabilities and they’re just being wound up, and that’s a relatively straightforward process, although there can always be complications. Then there are insolvent liquidations, when the company doesn’t have the assets, or when something’s gone wrong and you have a bunch of creditors out there who are owed money by the company, and there needs to be a good, robust mechanism for ensuring that is dealt with properly.

It was a fair assessment of the situation in New Zealand that the arrangements to ensure that happened were insufficiently robust. There are some excellent liquidators out there, but there have been some poor practitioners out there who have been excessively friendly to company directors when the company has been wound up—excessively friendly to them as opposed to the creditors, and making it too easy for unscrupulous company directors to keep cycling through companies and avoiding their responsibilities—and this has a flow-on effect to many industries across the economy. It’s certainly related to complications in the housing and construction area, where people haven’t been able to successfully hold people to account for liabilities left by companies that have been wound up in the past, and this is one element of it. So bringing some better robustness into the insolvency regime by requiring the licensing of that group and having some ability to hold very poor practitioners to account and get them out of the industry is, I think, a positive move.

Now, there’ll be all sorts of complications in the way this is being set up and I think it’s something that we’re going to have to look at closely over the next few years because, unfortunately, in these regulatory regimes that are set up, quite often the details are not quite right and only time shows that. So we can’t expect that this is going to be the final word on how this has been set up but we hope it works well.

I do think it’s appropriate in the Supplementary Order Paper brought by the Minister that the costs of this regime—because there’s such a small number of practitioners in this area, the fees on them would be very high—are better to be borne by all companies which benefit from having a good regime in place. So, in that regard, I think this is a small but positive move in terms of both strengthening the robustness and trying to maintain that excellent reputation the New Zealand business community has in terms of its relatively low levels of corruption and high levels of trust, which is one of the most precious assets that we have. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to address some of the comments made by the previous speaker, Paul Goldsmith—I believe formerly the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs—and address some of his concerns. He seemed to intimate that this was the beginnings of some uncertainty about the nature of this legislation, but I just want to point out the history of this bill because this was first introduced in 2010. This bill featured what we termed a “negative licensing” system at the time, and it empowered the register of companies to prohibit certain individuals from—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Registrar.

FLETCHER TABUTEAU: —registrar—from providing insolvency services. But then, in 2011, the Commerce Committee came back and said, actually, this isn’t working. It reported back on the bill; it concluded that the negative licensing system would not adequately address the problems that were identified and were hoping to be addressed in the 2010 supposed fix-up. Instead, the committee recommended that the bill be amended so that practitioners would be required to be registered, and that the bill include offences and penalties for practitioners who fail to comply. But then we had to come back in 2016, and there were two problems identified with the registration system: firstly, it was kind of reactive. We weren’t addressing the issue of competency and integrity in the first instance, and so, because the disqualification criteria were quite minimal, there was no conversation about skill and experience and good character. But, essentially, that’s where we’ve come to now.

So I do question the contribution from the previous speaker around what it is that we hope to achieve today, because what we are doing and what we will see, and the support of this legislation on both sides of the House—which is appreciated, and it’s the first time I’ve seen Mr Brett Hudson’s contribution be so positive, which was incredibly wonderful to see, I have to say. The bill supports the introduction of a robust new regime for the licensing of practitioners, providing effective ways for holding them to account, and requiring such things as continuing professional development to raise the standards of practitioners’ behaviour over time. So what New Zealand First is saying is that, when corporate insolvency takes place, when a company is unable to pay its debts and they fall due, then we want good people, good businesses to be the ones who are ensuring that the assets of these companies are allocated to the most efficient use with the least delay and the least expense possible.

So, actually, I suppose, with those few words, I do commend this legislation to the House.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. First of all, I want to respond to some of the comments by Mr Fletcher Tabuteau across the Chamber, because I thought to myself, “Here we are having a very nice debate tonight, discussing how this legislation is very much needed, and yet Mr Tabuteau has found a way of creating some disagreement between National and Labour on these bills.”, which I thought was a bit disappointing. He also said that he’d never seen Brett Hudson so positive. Well, clearly, he doesn’t know Mr Hudson very well, because we all know Mr Hudson is a very positive and amiable chap. But it is a real pleasure to be speaking tonight on this third reading of the Insolvency Practitioners Bill, which, of course, was divided at the committee of the whole House into the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill, and the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill.

Mr Tabuteau—he did get one thing one thing right, Mr Tabuteau. He said that this legislation has been around for a long time. In fact, it was first introduced in 2010, and it was first introduced under the National Government, and the reason for that was because we saw a failing where there’s, as has been said, a small number of insolvency practitioners that are operating around the country. But unfortunately, a small number of those practitioners are giving the good ones a bad name. So what this legislation does is it registers, or provides registration for, insolvency practitioners to hopefully up the standards.

All the work, though, wasn’t done, actually, by National. There has been some work done by Mr Faafoi, and I do want to give him some credit tonight in passing this legislation. He brought forward a Supplementary Order Paper in 2018, which, really, did four things—in fact, introduced four new parts, which are Parts 3 to 6. They do things like creating a co-regulatory licensing regime, improving the list of automatic practitioner disqualifications, and providing the High Court with an effective means to disqualify practitioners. It was a real pleasure to sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee which considered this legislation. We had a good number of submissions come in, and we had a robust discussion around the committee table about the final form of the legislation, and I think we’ve come to a very good place with it. I don’t want to delay the bills any further, and I do know my colleague Mr Lawrence Yule is very keen to speak on these bills tonight. So I’ll end it there and commend them to the House.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a brief call on these bills. It’s legislation which serves the very important purpose of introducing real expertise into the practice of insolvency and ensuring that those who undertake insolvencies and who do the work on insolvencies are properly licensed, are properly trained, and are scrutinised to ensure that they really are proffering services in line with what is needed, to ensure that we actually have real experts operating. For those reasons, I commend these bills to the House.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Following the introduction from my colleague Mr Andrew Falloon, I wish to take a brief call on the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill, and, having sat on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that considered this, I do want to congratulate the Hon Kris Faafoi for getting it to this point. This side of the House obviously supports the legislation.

It is really important that we have up-to-date regulations to manage people and the practitioners that are dealing with insolvency. As we sit here late at night, it is easy to forget the number of people that do get caught up in insolvency, often through no fault of their own. So they supply goods or services or trades to a business, the business gets into financial difficulty, the business then becomes insolvent, and a whole lot of creditors get caught up in that mix. As we sit here tonight, it’s easy to forget the stress that those creditors go under. As part of the select committee, one of the striking things for me was that it was not always obvious, in terms of how the system worked before, who the insolvency practitioner was working for or how that person could, effectively, be manipulated. While they should have been working for the creditors, there were various ways you could deal with insolvency and various ways you could get an insolvency practitioner engaged that would sometimes mean that the creditors’ interests—in my view, anyway—were not properly protected.

So I think this is a very good piece of legislation. It offers best practice. It offers a form of regulation, and that regulation—we’ve agreed to the Supplementary Order Paper—will be funded by everybody in the Companies Office. Now, we did look at that because it’s different to doctors and lawyers, who, as part of a professional organisation, would fund their own fees. But we looked at it and, basically, said that there are so few insolvency practitioners that, if we did that, it would mean that the costs would be quite high—up to $10,000, or maybe over $10,000.

So the agreement was made for a small charge on every person that’s registered in the Companies Office. They will pay, effectively, the registration costs of insolvency practitioners.

In closing, I think this is a good bill. We think it’s a good bill. It does tidy up some loopholes, and, importantly, in my view, it gives the creditors the best protection, in an impartial way, that this Parliament can afford. I commend this bill to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation (Amendments) Bill and the Insolvency Practitioners Regulation Bill. The Green Party has supported this throughout the process, all the way back to 2010, because there was a clear and pressing need in our society to make sure that at a point of a business’s lifetime when they’re meeting a liquidator, it is a pretty trying time and it is a crucial time.

Now, we heard from a small number of liquidators in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that, while being a small community, they play a vital role in a healthy, functioning economic ecosystem. They do play a vital role as part of our economy in New Zealand. Now, what we’d also heard, though, is that because of the lack of a positive or a negative licensing or accreditation scheme, there was some bad behaviour arising. Now, we heard from the previous speaker, Lawrence Yule, who mentioned cases where the purposes, the motivation, and, in fact, the professional history and experiences of liquidators were seriously in question, and we did see some shocking behaviour and real people saw real harm occur as a result.

We acknowledge the work of the previous Government. We didn’t hear a great number of submissions in the select committee, but we did hear from the small community of liquidators, particularly on the point of the cost, which the previous speaker also mentioned. It will be funded out of the Companies Office. This is important so that this burden isn’t placed on a small number of shoulders; it’s actually funded through the company registration system.

The Green Party fundamentally does support, though, the idea of a licensing regime for liquidators. It is a tough time for those businesses facing it. We’ve heard from Melissa Lee in previous debates that not all companies liquidate for negative reasons, but that is the vast bulk. So we want to make sure it’s an appropriate process, a fair process, one that the participants can have confidence in. So the Green Party’s very happy to support it. Kia ora koutou.

JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on these bills this evening. As has been said on several occasions tonight, this legislation has been around for a very, very long time, and I came into the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee just prior to it being reported back to the House. I want to thank Jonathan Young for his chairing of the select committee during the process that we did have before the select committee, and I want to thank those that took the time to submit. I think there were possibly around 16 people that submitted and around seven that submitted orally to the select committee.

What we find is that, unfortunately, sometimes businesses or companies get to the stage where they can no longer continue to pay their debts—it’s a sad situation to be in—or their liabilities exceed the assets that they hold. That’s when it becomes time that an insolvency practitioner has to become involved in the process of insolvency for a business—a sad situation for any business to be in, but, unfortunately, when these things happen, we have to have people in place that can put this process in place.

What we found and have heard is that in the past there have been some practitioners who have not really necessarily behaved appropriately. They have worked in such a way where, unfortunately, they have increased the cost to the company that’s going to be made insolvent. This piece of legislation, what it does is it does help to enhance the integrity of the corporate insolvency system whereby insolvency practitioners will have to look to undergo professional development in their area so that they do maintain the highest of integrity when dealing with this situation.

Look, everything that I thought of saying has been said, and I do wish to commend these bills to the House. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It would help if you’d just kept going for another couple of seconds, but the time has come for me to stand and interrupt this debate.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s not 10 o’clock. Put the vote, Madam Deputy Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, OK—all right. Yep, we’ll do that.

Bills read a third time.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.