Wednesday, 19 June 2019

WEDNESDAY, 19 JUNE 2019

WEDNESDAY, 19 JUNE 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Speaker’s Statements

Oral Questions, 18 June—Speaker’s Rulings

SPEAKER: Before we come to oral questions, I have reviewed the interchange between myself and the Hon Paula Bennett during question No. 2 yesterday. As I indicated to the House, I was under the impression that the baby that was being referenced had died, and that influenced my intervention. I have subsequently learnt that the media report I relied on was not correct. I apologise to both Ms Bennett and the House for my interventions yesterday.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she aware that the terms of trade have been higher in the last 12 months than any time in the previous nine years, and why does she think the terms of trade have been so strong under her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, the member will know that there are multiple factors that contribute to that, including, of course, the exchange rate. But also more broadly, though, when it comes to our trading environment, of course, exporters are doing particularly well, and the dairy sector has seen some of those numbers go up. That, of course, accounts for a significant proportion. But also our horticultural sector is doing particularly well, as is lamb at present. But that doesn’t reduce the need for us to diversify our trading partners, particularly when we see what’s happening in China and the slow-down globally, which is why the EU agreement is so important to us.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why, in her view, in light of the strong terms of trade and rising exports, has GDP per person been flat for the last six months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I am going to bring it back to the relative status of GDP in New Zealand. When you look at what other countries are experiencing, particularly Australia, China, the EU, and the UK are in a particularly bad state. Of course, the member can talk individual price points, but there’s no doubt that the international trading environment is causing a change in investment confidence, and that impacts on us—undeniably, that impacts on us.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why does she claim that it’s global conditions causing New Zealand’s economic slow-down, when our terms of trade is at historical highs, our exports have been rising, and there can therefore be no other explanation than domestic factors for the slowing economy?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because the member’s talking about export prices. Of course, though, as the member will well know, I’m not the only one reflecting the impact on growth; the IMF is the one forecasting the downturn globally. And because the member also knows that impacts on investment decisions and the uncertainty in the international environment are changing confidence levels and are changing investment decisions.

Hon Grant Robertson: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh!

SPEAKER: Oh dear. The Hon Grant Robertson.

Hon Grant Robertson: Ha! Thank you, Mr Speaker. Is the Prime Minister aware of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research consensus forecasts released on 17 June, which indicate that the export growth outlook has been revised lower, reflecting uncertainty over the effects of the trade war between the US and China, but “However, the domestic growth outlook remains positive, with upward revisions to forecasts for household spending and residential investment.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes—a direct reflection of Budget decisions that have been made by this Government in 2018 and 2019, in particular those that focus on stimulating the economy, investing in infrastructure, and making sure that our population has more money in their back pocket through higher minimum wages and also through the Families Package.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given she’s very keen to tell us about other countries slowing down, is she aware that the only reason our total growth is higher than those other countries she mentions is because of population growth, and on a per person basis, we are the sixth-lowest in the OECD over the last year?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I reject the premise of that question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she deny that on a per person or per capita basis, we are the sixth-lowest in the OECD for growth in the last year?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I was rejecting the assertion that population growth is the only contributing factor to our GDP growth.

Hon Simon Bridges: What was net migration in the last 12 months, and what proportion of total GDP growth does she think was driven by migration?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have a recollection of the raw numbers being higher by several thousand, from memory, from when I last looked at the statistics. But this is a Government that very openly has declared that it is not going to base its economic strategy on selling houses to one another and population growth. Yes, we need to make sure that our labour market—that people who need labour are able to find it, but our strategy is on lifting the value of the products that we export, broadening our export base, and making sure that we lift our investment in research and development.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question.

Hon Members: Oh!

SPEAKER: Sorry, can I just make it clear that all members have a right to ask a supplementary question in this House without derision.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It was admiration.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Thank you, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Sorry—Mr Brownlee, would you like to repeat that?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I said it was admiration.

SPEAKER: Well, I’ll take the member at his word. Some might think that he’s trying to mislead the House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Thank you very much; it was a very kind comment. Is New Zealand’s GDP growth now, and forecast into 2020, greater than the eurozone, the UK, Japan, and Australia?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is that true on a per-person basis?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don’t have the breakdown on a per-person basis for all of those economies, but, again, it saddens me that in 18 months, this has gone from a member who was trumpeting the New Zealand economy to one who has become very negative on behalf of our exporters and our economy.

Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Prime Minister confirm that Budget 2019 shows that annual GDP per capita growth averages 1.3 percent over the forecast period, which is slightly above the 10-year average of 1 percent and just one percentage point below the five-year average of 1.4 percent?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: What was GDP per capita for the last 12 months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don’t have the GDP per capita figure in front of me. I’m happy to provide it, but, toe to toe, relative to other nations, I am absolutely confident that we outperform major OECD nations.

Hon Simon Bridges: Shouldn’t she be able to say what our per-person growth was, and isn’t the answer not much, if anything?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, and, again, 2.6 percent is our—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry, there’s now been too much noise from both sides of the House. I have had, especially after yesterday, significant complaints that people in the gallery and in the wider television world are having trouble hearing the Government because of noise from the Opposition. Can I say that the sorts of interjections that we had from behind the Prime Minister on that occasion were loud and not helpful.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, 2.6 percent is where our GDP growth sits at. Wage growth is over 3 percent. We have the second-lowest unemployment that we have had in over 10 years, second only to, of course, the last quarter. I am confident with the economic indicators of this Government, because the proof is in the pudding.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she satisfied that under her Government, per capita growth has more than halved despite a record high terms of trade and rising exports?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I am confident that, yes, we do have rising exports, that the prices for our exporters, although down in the last overnight figures for dairy, of course, will continue to improve. But our economic plan is not the same as the last Government’s. It is particularly focused on increasing wages, something that last Government did lose sight of.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Have exporters written to her thanking her for the dollar—around about US65c and stable, as opposed to the 70s, sometimes 80s, under the previous administration?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Certainly, the feedback I’ve had, particularly from primary producers at the Fieldays, was that, yes, they do see the conditions being particularly favourable to them at present. No one wants to rest on their laurels, though, and, of course, the investment we’re putting into research and development and moving from volume to value is incredibly important.

Hon Simon Bridges: In light of her mention just then of her economic plan, can she confirm it’s more tax, more cost, and more debt, and won’t that actually just make our economy worse?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is not our plan.

Question No. 2—Health

2. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Health: Is he concerned about the potential health implications of nitrate levels in Canterbury’s aquifers, including in drinking-water sources?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): No, not at this time. I’m advised that the Ministry of Health’s most recent review of drinking water, 2016-17, reports that there are eight water supplies in the Canterbury region, including South Canterbury, that monitor for nitrate: Ashburton, Burnham Camp, Darfield, Dunsandel & Sherwood Estate, Edendale and Sandy Knolls, Fairton, Hinds, and Poyntz Road. All eight water supply regions met the drinking-water standards. In addition, Christchurch City Council monitors nitrate levels every five years and reports levels well below the maximum accepted values. The next testing results are due in coming months. However, I am aware of the broader issues around nitrates and human health being raised internationally, including for pregnant women and babies. That’s why I’ve asked the Director-General of Health to ensure the ministry is actively monitoring developments.

Marama Davidson: Does he share the concerns of the Canterbury medical officer of health, Dr Alistair Humphrey, that current levels of nitrates in Canterbury drinking-water may be high enough to create a risk of colorectal cancer, according to a recent Danish study?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Not at this time. I’m advised that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified nitrate as 2A—probably carcinogenic to humans—but advised that the weight of evidence is that there is unlikely to be a causal association between gastric cancer and nitrate in drinking water. I’m also advised that the study in question was a study from Aarhus University, Denmark. It found an increased risk of colon and rectal cancer at concentrations greater than 3.87 milligram nitrate per litre of water. Health officials asked the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd (ESR) for advice on the research report, and ESR’s water chemist advised it is only one of several studies that need to be taken into consideration in deciding what adjustment, if any, should be made to drinking-water standards.

Marama Davidson: Will he support further research to identify whether nitrate levels in some New Zealand drinking-water sources have potential long-term health effects, given Canterbury already has relatively high levels of nitrates in its groundwater and these are likely to increase?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Health research in New Zealand is funded by the Health Research Council (HRC). It allocates the majority of funds through an annual funding round to independent research projects, which are researcher initiated. A competitive process ensures that high-quality and relevant research is supported across a number of research investment streams, including public health. Should researchers wish to replicate the Danish study in New Zealand or conduct epidemiological studies of cancer and nitrates in drinking water, the HRC’s website provides detailed information about the funding available and how to apply.

Hon David Parker: Can the Minister confirm that he met with me, the Director-General of Health, and the Secretary for the Environment after Dr Humphrey raised these issues with us, and that the Government is alert to the issues as to whether more research is needed to ascertain whether these studies in Denmark are of relevance to New Zealand?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I can confirm that. Furthermore, I can confirm that, in passing, the honourable Minister and I had a further conversation on this matter just last night, as both of us are alert to the issue and keen to see how it develops and whether and in what role New Zealand might play in better understanding these issues.

Marama Davidson: Does he agree the Ministry of Health should have a role in identifying and responding to environmental pollution which creates a risk to human health?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I am advised that health officials do not have a lead role in identifying or responding to environmental pollution, because this is undertaken by local government. Local public health staff work with their local government colleagues to identify and manage public health risks in their regions. Regional councils and unitary authorities monitor air quality, freshwater quality, and identify and manage potentially contaminated land, among other things. These councils also manage discharges to air, land, and water under the Resource Management Act. When a council identifies a potential public health risk, it may seek advice from the local district health board public health unit to ensure the risk is managed appropriately and for assistance in providing advice to the public.

Question No. 3—GCSB

3. Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister responsible for the GCSB: Was he advised by the director of the GCSB on the evening of Tuesday, 28 May that what happened to the Treasury’s website “was not a hack in the commonly understood sense” and that “it would be best to refer to it as unauthorised access”, and was that same information provided to the Minister of Finance and the Treasury that evening?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister responsible for the GCSB): Yes, I was advised by the Director-General of the GCSB on that evening that the member refers to in her question that, from the information available at that time, the GCSB could not characterise accurately what had happened as a hack in what they regarded as the commonly understood sense of the term, and that we agreed that the best description of what had happened at that point was there was unauthorised access. I passed that advice on to the Minister of Finance. I did not pass anything on to Treasury.

Hon Paula Bennett: When did GCSB advise Treasury that there had not been a hack; was it before Treasury put out their PR at around 8 p.m. on Tuesday evening?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: What I know from my involvement in the events is that the GCSB did not become aware of Treasury’s characterisation of what had happened as a hack until after Treasury had issued its press release.

Hon Paula Bennett: So when did GCSB advise Treasury that there had not been a hack and that they should not be using that language?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I go back to my first answer, and that is when I spoke to the Director-General of the GCSB at roughly quarter to 10 that evening, he advised me that the GCSB’s assessment was that they could not characterise what had happened as a hack at that point, that they were yet to do a fulsome assessment of what had happened, and that did not happen until the following day.

SPEAKER: No, I’m actually going to ask the Hon Paula Bennett to ask the question again and the Minister to answer it.

Hon Paula Bennett: My question was: when did GCSB advise Treasury that there had not been a hack, and was it before Treasury put out their PR?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I am not aware of direct contact between the GCSB and Treasury and, therefore, when the GCSB advised Treasury. I am aware that the GCSB did not provide personnel to assist Treasury to understand what had happened until the following day—that is, the Wednesday.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister, would he have answered those questions much earlier if he had been given the information that another political party in this House had?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well, I think, certainly, on the Tuesday, Government departments and Ministers were grappling with how to effectively deal with what at the very least was unethical conduct. We did not know by whom, but, clearly, there was a breach of Budget confidentiality, and it was important that Ministers and departments got on top of it.

Hon Paula Bennett: Do you think that Treasury should have corrected their press release—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! “Does the Minister”.

Hon Paula Bennett: Sorry. Does the Minister think that Treasury should have corrected their press release and not allowed the language of “hack” to continue all day Wednesday and into Thursday morning?

SPEAKER: Order! That’s not something that this Minister has responsibility for.

Hon Paula Bennett: Was he concerned that Treasury let the language of “hack” continue to be reported all day Wednesday and into Thursday morning, when GCSB had been specific with them that that was not what they had believed had happened to the systems?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: That is a question that I understand falls squarely in the centre of the terms of reference of the State Services Commission inquiry into this matter, and it’s not in the public interest for me to provide an answer to that question.

Kieran McAnulty: Was there anybody at the GCSB who conclusively knew on the evening of Tuesday, 28 May how Budget information had become public?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No. The GCSB’s advice to me on the Tuesday evening was that they did not think that the incident could be characterised as a hack, but until they had closely examined what had happened—which did not happen until the Wednesday—they could not provide a definitive definition of what exactly it was.

Hon Paula Bennett: What specific contact was there between the Prime Minister’s communications staff and the GCSB on the evening of 28 May?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have no knowledge or awareness of direct contact between the GCSB and staff of the Prime Minister’s office, but I can confirm that I contacted a staff member in the Prime Minister’s office after I had spoken to the Director-General of the GCSB.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all of the Government’s decisions, statements, and actions in relation to his portfolio?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context in which they were made and undertaken.

Hon Amy Adams: Does he stand by his statement yesterday in relation to the Government’s decision to spend $7 million on Artists in Schools but not reinstate the $6.5 million for cochlear implants that “These things are not trade-offs, one against another.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I do. The member is creating a series of false equivalences across the Budget. What I would note is that the baseline funding of $8.43 million for cochlear implants was maintained in this year’s Budget.

Hon Amy Adams: Does the Minister of Finance, responsible for allocating billions of dollars in tax revenue each year, seriously not understand the basic economic concept that there are trade-offs when you spend taxpayers’ money, and that $1 spent on Artists in Schools, for example, is a dollar that cannot be spent elsewhere?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have a great deal of awareness of the process of putting together Budgets, having now done it twice, and one of the things I know is that the trade-off that the National Party made to give tax cuts to people who didn’t need them versus not investing in the health system of New Zealand was clearly a decision of their priorities.

Hon Amy Adams: So does he understand that if a household, for example, spends $50 a week extra in rent, then that’s $50 it doesn’t have to spend on things like groceries, and why does he think it’s any different for this Government?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, clearly, rents do go up from time to time. They did under the last Government; they have gone up under this Government. The good news is that for 384,000 low and middle income New Zealand families, they’re going to be better off by $75 a week as a result of the changes that this Government has made.

Hon Amy Adams: What responsibility will the Minister take for New Zealand being in “a period of slow-down”, as he told the select committee this morning, when our terms of trade have been enjoying a period of considerable strength, or will he continue to point to future forecasts to explain our already happened slow-down?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We did traverse this material in the select committee. The New Zealand economy is still growing. The rate of growth of that is slower than it was. That is a result of the fact that New Zealand, as a country that trades into the world, is not immune from what happens in the world. But the good news is—the good news is—that net debt’s under control, we’ve got a Budget surplus, unemployment’s low, and, yes, exports have been growing. The member needs to be just a little bit more glass half-full.

Hon Amy Adams: Why? There’s nothing to be cheerful about.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is so true where you are!

Hon Amy Adams: You’re breaking the economy, Grant. It’s no reason to cheer.

SPEAKER: I think that shows the point of not interjecting at that particular point of time.

Question No. 5—Corrections

5. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister of Corrections: What recent announcements has he made about improving mental health services inside prisons?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): More good news: Wellbeing Budget has provided a $128.3 million boost in mental health and addiction services for offenders. This shows the Government’s commitment to doing things differently, to break the cycle of offending, and to keep communities safe. The investment will enable more people to access better mental health and alcohol and other drug services, both in prisons and in the community.

Willow-Jean Prime: How many additional offenders will receive mental health services because of this wellbeing investment?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Once fully implemented, the expanded mental health services will support up to 2,310 additional offenders with mild to moderate mental health needs, per year. If we support people struggling with mental health or addiction issues, we make it easier for them to engage in education, employment, and rehabilitation activities, and develop positive relationships with whānau and support networks. That means they can get their lives back on the right track.

Willow-Jean Prime: How will this increase in mental health services help offenders successfully transition from prison back into communities?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: This funding reaches out beyond the wire to help prisoners successfully transition back into their communities. It will provide supported living accommodation for up to 30 offenders with intensive mental health needs, as well as provide extra aftercare support services for those dealing with alcohol and drug addictions. This funding also looks to provide support to the whānau of offenders. A whānau service will support 275 families of offenders who need mental health services. Expanded social worker and trauma counselling services will help up to 800 whānau and children reconnect with prisoners. All of these wellbeing initiatives will help ensure those that leave prison will get the support they need to never come back.

Question No. 6—Transport

6. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Transport: What are the major cost pressures on the National Land Transport Fund for the period 2018–2021, which have led to councils in Auckland, Christchurch, and Selwyn all facing reduced expectations on the level of funding available from the fund for roading improvements?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: The Transport Agency advises me that while there is more money than ever before in the National Land Transport Fund (NLTP)—including $700 million more for local roads than under the previous Government’s last NLTP—the agency has received an unprecedented number of funding requests for new transport projects. I’d like to assure that member that Auckland, Canterbury, and Selwyn are all receiving higher levels of funding for transport under this Government. However, given that under the last Government, 40 percent of the transport budget was spent on just seven motorways—primarily in urban areas—it’s not surprising that we have a backlog of local road, public transport, and safety upgrades that need funding right across the country.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: So how can he have got the figures so wrong in August last year, when he announced the current three-year funding plan, that he and his colleagues are back-pedalling less than 10 months later?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister, I didn’t get any figures wrong. We’re putting more money into local roads, regional roads, and local road and State highway maintenance than the previous Government would have. It’s just that for the first time in 10 years, local councils now had some confidence they might get central government funding for local road projects, safety projects, and regional improvements, and so they enthusiastically brought forward a huge number of transport projects—hundreds and hundreds of transport projects—of which we are funding a much larger number than would have been able to be funded under the previous Government’s transport budget. So I just want to reassure the member that more local roads will be funded and more safety projects will be funded under this NLTP than would have been the case if National had still been in power.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, what does he say to Christchurch City Council chairwoman Pauline Cotter, who, facing New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) delays and recalibration said, “We are all set to go. We’re shovel ready. They [NZTA] have gone out and made these promises and then pulled out the rug from under us … it’s pretty gutting, really.”?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister, I can understand the disappointment, because for 10 years, under the last Government, there was a huge infrastructure deficit opened up because there wasn’t enough money put into local road projects, cycling projects, and safety projects. So it’s going to take more than two years for this Government to catch up with the many projects that need to be funded. But I can reassure the member that Canterbury is receiving $1.7 billion in investment from the NLTP, which is more than ever before. In fact, the Selwyn District will receive 33 percent more funding than it did under the last NLTP.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree with Auckland mayor, Phil Goff, who said that Auckland can’t afford to wait around for the New Zealand Transport Agency to make funding decisions and the city needs to see more action from the Government organisation?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister, yes, and that’s why we’ve made it such a priority to work with Auckland to ensure that the Auckland Transport Alignment Project is fully funded. Under that last Government, there was more than a $5 billion funding gap, so it really is curious how that member thinks that any of these projects could be going ahead under his Government, when they’re questioning nominal increases to petrol tax and they’re questioning investments in safety, public transport, walking and cycling, and local roads. Simply, I have to say that local councils have told us they’re very happy with this Government’s new focus on a balanced investment, but it will take some years for us to make up for that 10 years of underfunding of local roads and safety under the previous Government.

Question No. 7—Health

7. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: How is the wellbeing of cancer patients in New Zealand affected by Budget 2019?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Most, if not all, New Zealanders’ lives will have been touched by cancer, whether they’ve had cancer themselves or a loved one diagnosed. The Wellbeing Budget will help them avoid, treat, live with, or recover from cancer in many, many ways. First, we are extending the National Bowel Screening Programme across another four district health boards (DHBs), an investment of $36 million in detecting an all too common cancer. Second, the $2.8 billion uplift in funding for our DHBs will sustain the prevention, screening, diagnosis, and cancer treatment services New Zealanders deserve. We’re moving to make these services better and more consistent through our new cancer action plan. Third, in Budget 2019, we’ve also set aside $1.7 billion in capital spending, possibly the largest allocation to health capital ever, and, of course, some of that will support better and more advanced cancer treatment. And, let’s not forget also the terrible mental toll a cancer diagnosis can have on people in families. The Wellbeing Budget recognises this reality through a massive expansion in access to primary mental health services.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: How has the wellbeing of patients waiting on funding decisions for the more than 20 cancer drugs, the subject of petitions, improved, given a funding cut to Pharmac when population growth is factored in?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The member knows how the Pharmac model works. In the previous financial year, 331,000 more patients benefited from access to medicines through the decisions of Pharmac—13 new drugs were funded, and 39 drugs had broadened access. I completely understand the calls for funding of more and more drugs; of course people who are suffering and their families want access to the latest pharmaceuticals. The Prime Minister has asked me to accelerate work on early access, and that is exactly what is happening. I would also note that the previous Government had nine years to consider early access and it did not.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: If the wellbeing of cancer patients is such a priority, why is the word “cancer” hardly mentioned in the Vote Health Estimates of Appropriations, and when it is mentioned it is to signal a 39 percent reduction in the cancer control appropriation on page 94?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Because the member raised this in the Estimates hearing, about page 94, I can inform him that some of that apparent drop in the figures is due to devolution to DHBs of palliative care and cancer control nursing, if memory serves me correctly. But the Budget overall, of course, is a record Budget after a long period of underinvestment in our health services. In order to ensure that we are delivering the care that New Zealanders would expect and deserve, we are putting more money into health than previously has been done. It will take more than one or two Budgets to address nine years of consistent underfunding of our health sector by the previous Government, but we are getting on with it. We’re making sure there are more nurses, more doctors; and we’re improving the buildings in which people are treated, and improving the capital equipment which supports cancer care. This is a Government that is actually doing something about improving our health system rather than those nine long years of neglect.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well, what does he say to Lung Foundation chief executive Philip Hope, who said “Budget 2019 is not a Wellbeing Budget but rather an instrument of more suffering, financial crisis, and premature death for cancer patients most in need of care and support”?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I respectfully disagree with Mr Hope.

Question No. 8—Sport and Recreation

8. JAMIE STRANGE (Labour) to the Minister for Sport and Recreation: What will be delivered through the Healthy Active Learning initiative in Budget 2019, and how is its development representative of the Wellbeing Budget process?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Sport and Recreation): The Healthy Active Learning initiative provides $47.6 million of funding for targeted school physical activity advisers, health promotion staff, and new curriculum resources and guidance for all schools, early learning services, and kura. This is an excellent example of the wellbeing approach taken in Budget 2019. The initiative was developed together between the Minister of Health, the Minister of Education, and the Minister for Sport and Recreation, with wise advice from the Minister of Finance to support the Budget’s priority to improve child wellbeing.

Jamie Strange: What evidence was used to inform the development of this initiative?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Evidence shows that physically active children are more likely to have better physical and mental health, engage more in the classroom with better attention and ability to stay on task, stay in school longer, and achieve better academically. Sport New Zealand’s latest Active New Zealand Survey found that only 7 percent of young people aged five to 18 were meeting the New Zealand guidelines for physical activity through sport, exercise, and active recreation. Giving teachers the tools to turn this around will help improve child wellbeing and promote healthy development.

Jamie Strange: How will the Healthy Active Learning initiative be rolled out?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The physical activity workforce will be supported by Sport New Zealand and delivered through the network of regional sports trusts. The health promotion workforce will be employed and trained by December 2019 to commence work with schools and early learning services in December 2019. The ministries of health and education will produce a range of resources and tools across the programme for use in schools.

Question No. 9—Health

9. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by his statements and actions around the Northland meningococcal outbreak and vaccination campaign?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I have said many times that the response to the outbreak of meningococcal W disease in Northland has been driven by advice from medical experts at every point. As I’ve also noted, with just one case since the targeted immunisation campaign was rolled out, every indication is that this campaign has succeeded in its aim of stopping the spread of the disease. I stand by these statements.

Dr Shane Reti: Why did the Minister and officials not reveal there were extra meningitis vaccines available when the Director of Public Health, in select committee today, said, “We at the ministry did not have any formal advice that there was additional supply. So we had the 20,000 confirmed to us by Pharmac, and that’s what we used to roll out the campaign.”?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I do reject the characterisation by Mr Reti of the way in which I might have suppressed knowledge of something about which I did not know the detail at the time that he claims I knew. So I’d make that point to start with. I would also say that I’m advised the primary issues considered by the director-general when deciding on the approach to Northland were how best to halt the spread of the disease and to minimise the impact on the most vulnerable Northlanders. That campaign appears, at this stage, to have been successful.

Dr Shane Reti: Why was the campaign not extended to other Northland children, when we heard today that pick up wasn’t what was expected during the campaign and there are now thousands of expiring vaccines left over?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I think this has been explained to the member many times, but I will explain it again: when there is a limited number of clinicians available to provide the vaccination, it’s important to stop the spread of the disease, by focusing on those who are most likely to spread it. So that’s why there was a focus on the teenage age group as the vectors frequently of this infectious disease, and then also to focus, as a next priority, on those who are most vulnerable, which was young children.

Dr Shane Reti: After the Institute of Environmental Science and Research notified the ministry that two children had died in October and the formal definition for an outbreak had been reached, why was an urgent meeting of the National Immunisation Programme Coordination Committee not convened, instead of leaving it six days for a regular meeting that had been arranged months previously?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I am not aware exactly of the detail of how that meeting came to be put in place, but by any international comparison I think the response was very quick. The group convened, they declared the conditions for an outbreak had been triggered, and a response was put in place very quickly because they knew that the school year was running out and that, in order to address those people who were most likely to spread the infectious disease, they had to get moving quickly. Mr Reti can’t have it both ways.

Hon Members: Doctor!

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Sorry. Dr Reti—I apologise—can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim now that that very prompt response was too slow and then that they also should have gathered more information, as he keeps seeming to say.

Question No. 10—Police

10. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: Does he stand by all his statements, policies, and actions?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Yes, including calling that member out when he publicly disrespects the fine men and women of the New Zealand Police service and then misleads Parliament on such matters.

Chris Bishop: Feeling the heat. Why have only 472—

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, during question time, a member made a remark at the beginning of their question on this side of the House, with an open microphone, and you prevented them from asking any more than one further supplementary question as a result of that.

SPEAKER: Well, I missed it; probably because of the interjections that were coming from my left. I’ll get the member to start again.

Chris Bishop: Why have only 472 new police been added to the force in the last two years, and does he accept that he will not reach his target of 1,800 new police in three years?

Hon STUART NASH: What I can report is that this year a record number of officers have graduated from the Royal New Zealand Police College—831. That is a record that surpassed the 683 who graduated in 1997-98. This financial year, we’ll be graduating 900 officers, and since we have been in Government, there have been 1,367 new officers heading out into communities.

Chris Bishop: Is it still his target to have 1,800 new police in the force by the end of next year, and given that only 472 have been added so far, is he getting ready to reset the target?

Hon STUART NASH: It’s more than 472, but what I would like to inform the House is I remember reading an official police document in 2016, which highlighted there would be no more police under that Government until 2020.

Chris Bishop: Why does he think he’s on track to meet the 1,800 new police in three years target when, according to the Police News, the number of new police has actually gone backwards in the last three months?

Hon STUART NASH: That’s not correct. As mentioned, there have been 1,367 more police headed out into our communities under this Government. Next year, we are planning on training 900 more police into our communities. One thing I can say is we have no control over attrition. But the other thing I can say is that there are a hell of a lot more police heading out into communities than there ever would’ve been under that Government.

Question No. 11—Justice

11. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Justice: What reports has he seen on trends in the Family Court since 2014?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I have seen reports on trends in the family justice system that show that the number of without notice applications, in relation to Care of Children Act claims, has increased from 30 percent, before the Judith Collins reforms were enacted in 2014, to now 70 percent, that number being achieved shortly after the implementation of the reforms and has been sustained ever since. What that means is that more families trying to get their disputes resolved are waiting longer, and it’s becoming more complex as a result.

Dr Duncan Webb: Did the 2014 reforms reduce the time taken to dispose of applications?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No; in fact, quite the opposite. The effect of the reforms championed by Judith Collins now means that the average time it takes for a care of children claim to be resolved is just shy of one year. That is a considerable growth in time compared to the period before Judith Collins enacted her reforms.

Dr Duncan Webb: Did the 2014 reforms reduce lawyer for the child costs?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Regrettably, I have to report to the House, no. There was a slight reduction in costs just after Judith Collins enacted her reforms, but that has not been sustained, and, in fact, we are now meeting the same costs as was the situation before those reforms were implemented. What that means now is the taxpayer is paying for a family justice system that is slower for families, costing the same, with more distress for families. It simply is not working.

Question No. 12—Forestry

12. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Forestry: Does he stand by all his statements, policies, and actions?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): Āe.

Todd Muller: At his media briefing yesterday, when he said that “If tweaks are required to the policy settings that are driving pasture to forests, then they would be considered”, what tweaks does he have in mind?

Hon SHANE JONES: Before one tweaks, one has to have facts—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tweaks by a twit.

Hon SHANE JONES: —and facts are informed by science. So once we’ve taken the right level—did I hear something from a fugitive? Thank you very much.

Todd Muller: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. What on earth was that?

SPEAKER: Is that a supplementary question?

Todd Muller: No, it’s a point of order. Sorry, Mr Speaker, I’m still recovering. I put a very simple question, and he did not address it.

SPEAKER: Well, I actually think at least the first part of the flow did address the question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. One of the reasons why my colleague wasn’t able to end his answer was that he was being abused by a member of the Opposition over there. That member knows what he said, and yet his colleague, who wasn’t given the opportunity to get his question answered, is not blaming him; he’s blaming my colleague over here, and that’s wrong.

SPEAKER: Right, what I want now is every person who interjected during that point of order to stand up. [Members stand up] There’s at least one from this side as well. Right, we’ll carry on.

Todd Muller: Does he really think he does himself any credit—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Mr Robertson. Thank you. Just behave yourself. I mightn’t be able to hear very well, but I can see.

Todd Muller: May I start again, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Yes you may.

Todd Muller: Does he really think he does himself any credit or add to a sensible conversation on climate change and land use change by calling farmers involved in 50 Shades of Green “partisan foes”?

Hon SHANE JONES: I think the member has raised a very good point. Language should be moderate, but if people want to represent rural New Zealand, I don’t think it’s reasonable that they should be a proxy for my competence on the other side of the House. ANZ puts up with National Party valets on their board. I don’t see why I should tolerate it in forestry.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Rather than ask you to rule on this now, I’d ask you to have a look at the Hansard and consider whether or not the comment that’s just been made by the Hon Shane Jones is a contravention of the Standing Orders and whether or not the person who is clearly identified in that albeit veiled comment has been wronged by the privilege the member is claiming.

SPEAKER: I will have a look at it. I must say, on first blush, it didn’t go nearly as far as many comments I’ve heard from both sides of the House about political opponents and former political opponents.

Todd Muller: Is he concerned that the regulatory impact statement for the zero carbon bill assumes 20 percent of New Zealand pasture land is converted to forestry?

Hon SHANE JONES: I would advise the House that over the last 20 years, 150,000 hectares—60 percent of which was forest land—has been converted to dairy; the remainder from low-productivity farming land into high-productivity dairy land. Land-use redistribution is a common feature of our modern economy. Now, in the case of whether or not large areas of rural New Zealand are disappearing into trees, I think that the exaggeration will be conquered by the facts.

Budget Debate

Bills

Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill

Debate resumed from 18 June on the .

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): This Government’s Budget, the 2019 Budget, is all about wellbeing.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Failed to deliver.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: But there is one group whose wellbeing, I’m afraid, we cannot guarantee, and that is the wellbeing of the members opposite. We did our best. We introduced—in this year’s Budget—digital literacy for seniors, Mr Brownlee, but there is still a concern around the wellbeing of the members opposite.

The most insightful interjection during question time today actually came from Amy Adams when she yelled very loudly, “There’s nothing to be happy about.” I think that sums up the mood of the National Party at the moment. Of course, there is something for Ms Adams to be happy about today. She at least didn’t have to sit next to Judith Collins, who is still in purgatory after appearing on Q+A on Monday night to talk about the National Party leadership, despite being forbidden to do so by her leader Simon Bridges.

Of course we know that the deal’s been done. The Judith Collins - Mark Mitchell ticket is on the way. Chris Bishop is busy doing the numbers as we speak. And I hear that there are some other members who have been ringing around the press gallery. They gave me some names, but I don’t know who they are because I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them, but I understand that they’re National Party backbench MPs.

But the good news is that there’s a lot in this Budget to be happy about. This is a Budget that gets serious about mental health—something New Zealanders have been saying for a very, very long time they want a Government to get serious about, and we have delivered on that. We are also getting serious about investing in infrastructure, and I’m going to talk more about that very shortly, but we know we’ve inherited a big infrastructural deficit, and that’s something that we are tackling and we are getting on top of.

We also know that New Zealanders want us to get serious about child wellbeing, about making sure that kids get the very best possible start in life, and that is something that this Budget delivers on. As Minister of Education, I am very proud to say this year’s Budget contains the largest increase in education spending in over a decade. Of course, there was another big increase over the last decade; that was last year’s Budget, which was the second-largest increase in over a decade—both under this coalition Government.

This year’s Budget contains the largest investment in school property by a New Zealand Government. We know that the schooling infrastructure in New Zealand is not keeping up with population growth. It has not been keeping up with population growth, and we need to do better. This year’s Budget brings forward four years’ worth of schooling expansion funding for new classrooms and new schools so that we can make sure that we’ve got the school infrastructure we need to keep up with a growing population. For the first time in over five years, the funding rates for industry training, adult and community education, literacy and numeracy, Youth Guarantee, and Gateway are all being increased. That’s good news for those working in those areas.

A policy that I am very proud of is that all decile 1-7 schools, from the beginning of next year, will get an extra $150 per student if they don’t ask parents for donations. New Zealanders have been telling us for some time that schools are too reliant on income from parents to make ends meet, and that has to end. We know that those lower decile schools in particular raise a fraction of the money that higher decile schools are able to raise from parents and from community sources, and we want to ensure that they are no longer disadvantaged by that. So decile 1-7 schools will get that extra money from 1 January next year, and that’s something to celebrate.

There are cost adjustments for early childhood education, schooling, and tertiary education. This Government will not allow the expenditure on a per-child, per-student basis to go backwards in all of those areas, as it did under the last Government. We want to make sure they are properly funded so that they can keep up with increasing costs.

We have $1.2 billion being pumped into school property, and that’s new money, extra money, that will build more new classrooms, more new schools in areas of population growth, and will certainly provide a pipeline of projects for the building and construction industry, something that they have been frustrated about. It will mean that those projects can be delivered in a much more timely way.

We’re also getting serious about putting more resource into the kids who most need extra support in our schools. Last year’s Budget gave about $280 million extra into special needs support, learning support, more Ongoing Resourcing Scheme funding, and so on. This year’s Budget builds on that again, with another $217 million going into learning support coordinators as the first tranche of our commitment to put learning support coordinators in every school around the country. That will employ the first 600 of this new workforce.

We’re increasing funding for early childhood education to cope with population growth and we’re putting more money into vocational education and training, an area where we know reform is desperately needed, at a time when we need more people going into vocational education, into trades training. It has been going backwards for several years. We have to turn that around, and we know that the current system is not going to do that. It is an unsustainable system and it needs to be reformed, and that is what this Government is in the process of doing.

We know we need more teachers in classrooms, and we put $95 million in this year’s Budget alone into recruiting and training more teachers. That’s more money than was spent over the last decade—$135 million in total that this Government is spending on recruiting and training more teachers.

We know that the cost of education is something that we’ve got to get on top of. I mentioned before the $150 instead of donations for decile 1-7 schools, but another policy that I am particularly proud of, funded in this year’s Budget, is the abolition of fees for NCEA. It is simply wrong that some of the kids who most need access to their qualifications, having successfully completed them, have been unable to get them because they couldn’t afford to pay the fee. I think it’s time we dealt with that, and we have dealt with it, and we dealt with it in this year’s Budget, and I am very, very pleased to be the Minister in charge of that.

There is more money for computers in homes. There is more money for the School Leavers’ Toolkit so that we can make sure kids, as they leave school, are prepared for life beyond school. There is more money for the Christchurch rebuild—something the previous Government talked a lot about but didn’t actually stump up with the cash to do. This Government is making sure that the Christchurch rebuild can be completed. There is more money to improve the condition of existing school property. I mentioned before the money we’re putting into growing the school property portfolio to keep up with growth, but we know that we’ve got a lot of run-down buildings that need to be upgraded, and we need to do a better job. We need to get better value for money from the very significant hundreds of millions of dollars a year we spend on existing school property.

An initiative that the colleague sitting to my left, Kelvin Davis, is responsible for is the restarting of Te Kotahitanga, a programme that makes an enormous difference for some of the kids in our schools who most need additional support. I do want to acknowledge you, Mr Speaker, as the person who first introduced that; I’m not allowed to, but I’m going to do it anyway.

We’re putting more money into data and analytics capability so that we can better identify disadvantage. It’s all very well to talk about equity and the equity index—we talk about an equity index; the last Government saw it as a risk index, because they see kids as risks. We want a better system of equity in our system, and that means we need better data, and we’re investing in getting that better data. It’s about also having the screening tools in place to identify those kids who have got additional learning needs so we can get in earlier and give them that additional support that they need, and we are going to be doing all of that.

There’s more money for early intervention under this Budget and under the last Budget, because we know that we’ve got to get in earlier and give those kids a better start. We are not happy with the growing waiting times for those sorts of supports that were starting to grow under the last Government. Early intervention was growing in the last year of the last National Government, as were so many of the waiting times for other forms of learning support, and we are simply not happy with that, and that’s why we’re putting more money into dealing with those. We’re putting more money into home-based early childhood education so that we can ensure that those kids who are in that home-based environment—something many parents really value—are getting the right quality of education and the right experience through that.

This is a Budget that really delivers for education. It continues our three-year commitments in this area. We said right at the beginning that it wasn’t all going to happen overnight. Last year’s Budget delivered the first lot, this year’s Budget delivers some more, and there’ll be more in next year’s Budget. This is a Budget that I am very, very proud to be a part of. It delivers for New Zealanders, and it definitely lives up to its name of being the Wellbeing Budget.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Well, that, actually—that last speech, that 10 minutes—is almost more than we’ve heard from the Government over the last two weeks about this Budget. Normally, when a Budget is delivered in this House, there are Ministers up and down the country talking it up, talking about it as much as they can, and that just hasn’t happened—it just hasn’t happened. And the reason it hasn’t happened is that this wasn’t a good Budget. They botched it. It wasn’t transformational. It wasn’t wellbeing. At best, it was well-meaning. It borrowed more, it spent more, and it taxed more. When Mr Hipkins says that Amy Adams said there’s nothing to be happy about, that’s actually what the majority of New Zealanders are saying: there’s nothing in this Budget to be happy about.

Now, there were some things that are good, and most certainly it’s important we recognise that there is funding, more money, going into mental health, but we need that to be delivered on the front line now, not wait for working groups and more meetings and other bureaucracy and more processes. Mr Hipkins said New Zealanders want the Government to do something about child wellbeing right now. That’s the exact point: right now. They’ve had 18 months in Government. We know there’ve been more than 250 working groups. We know that when the working groups come forward with very long, very expensive reports, they’re saying, “Actually, we’re not going to do most of the things in there, because they’re too hard.” Ultimately, there has been a missed opportunity over the last 18 months, and this Budget fails to deliver on the promises that the Labour Party, the New Zealand First Party, and the Green Party made to New Zealanders when they were in Opposition—failed to deliver on their promises.

I’ve got a list here of the more notable things they’ve done over the last 18 months that New Zealanders should be concerned about: fuel tax increases times three, regional fuel taxes in Auckland, GST online, the brightline test extended, ring-fencing of losses, GST on mobile roaming, workplace levies, and a tourist tax that’s actually going to end up taking $70 million out of the pockets of small tourism businesses. They’ve failed to deliver on a promise—do you remember it? No more taxes—“no new taxes in our first term”. Well, we’re going to see $20 billion worth of additional borrowing, and they’ve extended out the credit card over what they said they would do to be able to borrow another $17 billion.

It’s no wonder the business community are concerned. It’s no wonder mums and dads are finding it harder to make ends meet with costs going up because of the extra taxes. At a time when this Government inherited a strong economy of up to 4 percent growth and growing surpluses, they’ve borrowed more and they’re going to borrow more so that they can spend more, tax more, and borrow more, and that really sums it up.

This wasn’t a transformational Budget. All this was was a Budget that the Labour Party does every time they come to Government: spend more, tax more, and hope. Well, that’s just not good enough. When you come to those broken promises—because I think this is extremely important. You see, when you go to an election, you make promises; if you get into Government, you actually need to deliver on them. You can’t say to the public, “Well, we didn’t think we were going to get here; we haven’t done the work. All of those promises can’t be delivered on, so we’re going to spend hundreds of millions of your hard-earned taxes on working groups.”

What are those broken promises? There was the promise of no new taxes, but there are seven of them. They promised $10 cheaper doctor visits for all—well, it ain’t in this Budget. They promised $20 million for access for lifesaving medicines for New Zealanders with rare disorders—nothing. Go and have a look at that Budget. In terms of annual health and eye checks for seniors—nothing. We heard a lot about seniors beforehand. We heard about 100 percent qualified early childhood education funding—not in this Budget—and ensuring all students have access to mobile digital devices—not in this Budget.

The list goes on and on and on, and the worst part of this is the reason they’re borrowing more, the reason they’re taxing more, is the economy is slowing, from a 4 percent growth rate to one that’s forecast at merely, barely, over 2 percent of GDP at the moment. We’re going to hear more about that when the figures are released tomorrow. For every 1 percent of GDP growth that this Government has ruined, there’s a drop—that’s $5 billion of Government revenue, of ability to spend, less. But they’re not slowing down on the spending; they’re increasing it to meet their promises to their coalition partners, and that means they need to borrow more and they need to tax more.

In three areas of policy I want to touch on that are very important—and we’ll have an opportunity go into some of this in more detail in the committee tomorrow. In foreign affairs, we saw a very large increase in funding last year. In fact, some of that went towards one more embassy opening. We’ve heard a lot from the Minister of Foreign Affairs about New Zealand’s footprint and New Zealand doing more on the world stage and meeting its commitments, but, actually, that one embassy they rushed through is a very small enlargement of New Zealand’s international footprint compared to what you saw under us as a Government. So a lot more money has gone into foreign affairs, but we need to see a lot more delivered for that.

When it comes to foreign affairs spending overseas, our diplomats do a very, very important job for us. We need them there working as hard for us as they can. They need to know that they have the backing of this House and the backing of New Zealanders, but we also need to make sure that the Government is driving them to deliver value for money, because all of the money that’s spent overseas on behalf of New Zealand comes from hard-earned taxes or, in the case of the Government, from borrowing, that hard-working Kiwis will have to pay back.

There are two particular items that actually need a lot more attention in this Budget. One is around APEC. New Zealand will host APEC in 2021, and the Government has budgeted, over four years, money for that, but it falls woefully short of what Treasury has said will be needed. So tomorrow we’ll have an opportunity to dig into that some more. This is one of the biggest international events New Zealand will have hosted for a long time and probably is capable of hosting because of our size. It can’t be undercooked, and it can’t be left until the last year to come up with the additional money, maybe as much as $100 million, that’s required.

The other part of the Budget is some funding around our base in the Antarctic. That needs a refurbishment, but there is no money in the Budget to do that, other than $16 million. I know the business case has been worked on, and, actually, the Government has fallen woefully short even though they’re taxing more and they’re borrowing more and they’re spending in other areas. This is something that needs to be fixed more quickly.

In trade, this is a Government that lacks ambition. We are hearing things around trade from them, but we don’t see where else they want to take trade negotiation. We don’t see where they’re ambitious, who we should be doing new deals with, where we can be opening doors for New Zealanders. Largely, all we’ve seen is them continue the agenda that was set in place over the previous nine years by the last Government, and that’s not good enough for a country that relies upon trade. We need to see the trade Minister and others he designates out on the world stage much more than they have been. It’s not enough for us to merely sit back and assume people will open the door for us. We’re a very small nation. Everybody in the world wants to sell the same things that we produce and sell to the markets that are important to us. We need to make sure that they are doing much, much better here, and it’s quite disappointing that we didn’t see anything in the Budget about expanding trade ambition for New Zealanders, bringing those barriers down, and finding more opportunity. When we hear about, you know, a slowing economy and falling GDP, the Government and the Prime Minister are very quick to talk about the hard work our exporters are doing, and they’re starting to talk about the hard work that our primary sector is doing. We weren’t hearing that last year or before the last election. You can’t only say that they are doing good things for you when you need their help. They need support all the way through, and rural New Zealand doesn’t see that support. You only needed to listen last week at the Fieldays.

Finally, in tourism, I’m quite pleased that the Minister has turned his mind to tourism, but he has woefully under-delivered on his promises. He said there would be much more money for tourism, and all we’ve seen so far is a new tax that “we’ll deliver soon”, he says. In fact, there has been less spent in tourism in the last two Budgets—actual spending—than there had been before, and that’s just not good enough. Seventy million dollars will come out of the pockets of small businesses as a result of the tourism tax—that’s Treasury’s figure, not ours. We know that there’s a slowing down because the time it takes to deliver visas to visitors has blown out, and there are reports in the newspaper that businesses are saying tourists are cancelling their trips because of uncertainty. That’s up to a $50 million loss, again from those businesses. More than $100 million is lost in tourism from small tourist businesses, and in its place, this Minister has promised $40 million through a new tax. To the Minister, it is a very important industry; I know he gets that. He needs to start delivering for them.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): What another grim contribution from over the other side of the House. I think the irony, actually, of the initial part of that speech was that the member criticised this Government for not getting out and selling the Budget. Well, what I heard when I came in here, in two question times and subsequently afterwards, was the Leader of the Opposition getting up and going down a rabbit hole of someone is a hack or not a hack—something that does not matter to the people of New Zealand. What does matter to the people of New Zealand is this fine, well-balanced Budget that we have put out.

Of course, what the members opposite do not acknowledge is that we do have a strong economy. The forecast in the Budget is for 3 percent growth next year, and that far outstrips our international comparators, the likes of the UK, Australia—who we always love to beat—the eurozone, Japan. All those economies we are performing much better than, and, also, we have been fiscally responsible. That 20 percent debt to GDP target—we’re almost there now. We’re well on track, as the Budget shows, to be there by 2021-22. So we’ve been responsible with it. This is a very, very well-balanced Budget looking at addressing some of the big social issues that we face as a country but also keeping an eye on the purse strings.

Also, of course, importantly, employment—it’s got to be shared. What is an economy if it is not shared across the population? Of course, an important part of that is that wages are actually growing significantly higher than inflation, so people are actually getting ahead under this Government. A strong economy like this does allow us to invest in important areas like mental health, and I think it has been acknowledged across the Parliament that we haven’t been doing enough. This is a huge issue in our society and as someone coming from a rural background, I know it is a big issue out there where often, particularly on our farms, people are isolated. So that $1.9 billion package, some of it ring-fenced for our rural areas, will be incredibly welcome.

Budgets are about appropriating money. The thing that always interests me the most, and where I’m looking, is how we earn the money. You’ve got to be able to earn it before you can spend it. It’s the focus on paying the bills, and particularly in my area of interest, primary industry, our $46 billion that we’re bringing in this year in our exports. We’re looking at record exports in meat. Horticulture is absolutely booming—forestry, fisheries. The dairy payout is looking particularly strong again next year and our terms of trade are at record levels. So that absolute foundation stone of the New Zealand economy—the thing that allows us to do the things that we’re able to do, like this $1.9 billion mental health package, is being underpinned, as it always has been, by our primary sector.

But, of course, in the primary sector it is a time of change. We do have a number of challenges that this Government has undertaken to address—not just pay lip-service to. We do have to address our environmental footprint. There are issues around things like animal welfare. We’ve got a significant biosecurity response under way at the moment with Mycoplasma bovis—and, of course, Psa, a recent memory, in the kiwifruit. We’ve got an active fruit-fly investigation going on at the moment. So this is an ongoing reality that we have to resource.

It’s great to see that package go to the Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor—that $229 million sustainable land-use package—as we look to address these big issues, as we look to see how we can farm in a more carbon-neutral manner. We are actually resourcing our farmers and our agricultural industry to get ahead of the curve here, to give them the tools that they will need to meet these challenges. Of course, one of the important parts of this is the extension services. We’re actually acknowledging that there are some compliance issues around a lot of this stuff. This is a new way of doing things, and we’re getting people out on the farms to help them with that transition: $35 million is going into extension services as part of a $122 million package, which includes $43 million for the OVERSEER programme.

Now, everyone in agriculture is grappling with how we can improve our water quality, and one of the issues that we’ve had is that the tool that we have measured that by—all the regional councils who are charged with monitoring these things and implementing these changes—is a programme called OVERSEER, which is an old programme that has been developed and developed, but it needs to be developed some more because it was never a regulatory tool. It was always a farm management package, but by default it has been a regulatory tool. So the Minister is investing $43 million into upgrading it, because farmers want to know what their environmental impact is, but they want to know it accurately. If there’s going to be nutrient limits, they want to know that those limits are based on accurate data.

Of course, there’s the $63 million that’s going into biosecurity and customs. Now, that is an incredibly important investment, because we know to our cost—we know to the almost $1 billion that it is costing us to respond to the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak—that prevention is far, far better than cure. And, of course, it’s not just the money; it’s the stress on the individuals involved in those particular businesses. So that $63 million spend within the Budget in the agricultural part of it is incredibly welcome.

Also there is $200 million for vocational training. We have seen an acknowledgment that our system has been broken. Certainly, in the areas that I’ve had some involvement with, with Telford in the agricultural sector—Taratahi, of course, got itself into trouble. We do need to resource the vocational sector better. It does cost more to train people for those vocations, and we are now, through Minister Hipkins, resourcing that, and we need to because we’ve only got 16,500 students in our agricultural institutions at the moment, and that is down from 22,500 just a few short years ago.

And, of course, as we’re growing our economy, one of the things we have to do is grow our productivity. We are committed to spending 2 percent of GDP on our productivity and on R & D, and this Budget, again, appropriates through that $1.1 billion package that will see tax credits for our businesses—something that the National Party actually voted against. That’s a tax cut—for the National Party—for businesses. You guys voted against it. We’re backing our business to do the R & D and get our total expenditure up to near the OECD average so that we can actually do things a bit smarter. We’ve got to the end of just more volume; we have to go for value. We have to go for knowledge and technology, and these sorts of programmes start to address that imbalance that we’ve had. We just have not been spending enough.

Of course, there’s the $300 million that’s going into start-up companies, that sort of second phase after the seed funding, and I think Minister Parker’s led that. Again, that is important so we can get our businesses to escape velocity. That is a very important spend as we look to grow our economy.

I’ve heard foreign affairs mentioned, but we are doing trade deals all around the world: the Europe trade deal, the EU trade deal. We are out there. We have got boots on the ground, getting deals for our exporters.

So this is a very well-balanced Budget. It does look to grow the pie. It does look at the drivers of our economy and how we can make it more productive and more sustainable, but it also looks to the wellbeing of our people. It looks to those gaping holes in our social services, particularly our mental health, which I think has been welcomed across the country. It is long overdue. I commend Cabinet and the Ministers for bringing this Budget forward. It has been a fantastic, very well-balanced, and very well-received Budget. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, that was a very interesting contribution from Mark Patterson, who I note today is wearing a blue tie. I noted when I saw him at the Fieldays—and not many people were flocking to him last week—that he didn’t have that blue tie on. He wanted to be seen as a New Zealand First MP, but people look at him and they go, “Is he National or is he New Zealand First?” When he’s sitting over there on the Treasury benches and he looks over here and he thinks, “This is the family that I should be with, but somehow I’ve sort of drifted up on to this family on the other side called the New Zealand First political party.”, we wish him well.

But what was fascinating last week at the Fieldays was that as we moved around—and the Nats were there in force and we saw a couple of others. I think Mr Patterson was cruising around with Mr Tabuteau, and there were a couple of other Labour MPs and the odd Minister there. What I found fascinating was the Prime Minister turning up, which was great—it’s great to have the Prime Minister there. She’s followed a long succession of Prime Ministers who have been to one of the biggest events in New Zealand, and, in fact, it’s the biggest agriculture event in the Southern Hemisphere. What was most telling was that when Jacinda Ardern went along to the lunch with all the agriculture leaders, she did a PowerPoint presentation on the Wellbeing Budget.

Rt Hon David Carter: You’re joking.

Hon NATHAN GUY: Yes—yes. The Prime Minister did a PowerPoint presentation to the agriculture leaders, not on agriculture policy, but on the Wellbeing Budget.

Now, the Rt Hon David Carter has been here for 25 years. He came here in 1994, and I just asked him if he could reflect: has any Prime Minister in the time that you’ve been here, Mr Carter, ever used a PowerPoint presentation to get out there and sell the Budget?

Rt Hon David Carter: Never.

Hon NATHAN GUY: Never. So I found that moment extremely telling that the Prime Minister had to get out there and try and sell the Budget to an agriculture audience when, in actual fact, they’ve had no real bounce on this Wellbeing Budget. In fact, the leaders that I spoke to afterwards said that it sort of feels like and sounds like a welfare Budget. But I’ll leave it there on that regard.

What I want to do is also focus on the sentiments that I picked up last week at the National Agricultural Fieldays. While export prices are actually in pretty good shape—and it’s really one of the few times I’ve heard the Prime Minister talk about New Zealand’s dairy industry and the almighty export power that it has and how it underpins the New Zealand economy. Of course, lamb now gets a mention in the Parliament by the Prime Minister, and the coalition Government always put Zespri up on a pedestal—and I say well done to Zespri. But let’s not forget the sheep and beef farmers, the dairy farmers, and others that help to underpin this New Zealand economy.

Now, while the outlook is quite strong and positive for exporters in the primary sector, sentiments are exactly the opposite. They walk around the Fieldays, the whole lot of them, looking at their navels and thinking, “What is next?” They realise they might have dodged a bullet with the capital gains tax, but I’ll tell you what’s around the corner—and Mr Patterson will want to know this. There are very stringent water-quality standards and regulations coming down the pipeline.

Mr Patterson might also want to know this: the Government are supporting Fish & Game and Forest & Bird out there to run a campaign, which they’re going to launch very, very shortly, against winter grazing in New Zealand. They’re going to have some photos of some cows standing in mud—whip-de-wow! There’s going to be photos of sheep standing in mud in the snow—whip-de-wow! This is going to be an orchestrated campaign that’s going to line up with David Parker when he comes out and announces very strict water-quality standards, and, yes, there will be a consultation.

So I want to know what Mark Patterson will say to those farmers in Southland. Will he get out there and stand on the stump and stand up for them and push back against Fish & Game and Forest & Bird? What will you say, Mr Patterson? Silence—exactly. Exactly—silence from the member. So we know that down in Southland, people will look to that MP to say something and stand up for them. Well, I’ll tell you what, Hamish Walker is already standing up for them. He is in the media today and tomorrow in Farmers Weekly, standing up for farmers because they know that this is an orchestrated campaign by the Government, supported by these NGOs, Fish & Game and Forest & Bird. I say it’s absolutely disgraceful, what is about to happen.

What also occurred at the Fieldays was that farmers are worried about the fuel tax. They’re worried about employment law changes that are being led by the other side. They’re worried about this large—and what I think is unrealistic—methane reduction of minus 24 percent to minus 47 percent. New Zealand First slept through that Cabinet committee and Cabinet when they decided on that particular one.

Then, of course, we’ve got Shane Jones out there rallying against 50 Shades of Green, saying “Oh, they’re all National Party stooges.” Well, just a couple of weeks ago, he was calling all dairy farmers—he said that when they’re not milking their cows, they’re whinging or moaning. Any criticism that comes to Shane Jones, he just rains on everyone’s parade.

So you’ve now got rural communities—50 Shades of Green—out there, a lobby group that are really concerned about the one-billion-tree programme hollowing out rural communities. There’s going to be an article in the Listener magazine any time shortly about that, and what’s really interesting is Shane Jones’ response. What does he do? Well, they get so much pressure at the Fieldays, they have to call a press conference. So Shane Jones and Damien O’Connor called the press in yesterday—they have to give them a briefing—“Now, media here’s all the statistics. What we’re not seeing is all the investment coming in from the overseas investors like 50 Shades of Green are saying, it’s not a subsidy for tree planting”—

Rt Hon David Carter: Of course it’s a subsidy.

Hon NATHAN GUY: This is what they’re saying. Of course we know it’s a subsidy. We know, Mr Carter, that they’ve opened up the Overseas Investment Act to allow these investors to pour in and purchase land for trees. This strategy is going to hollow out rural communities—it needs a reset; it needs a rethink. But it’s typical of this Government whenever anyone challenges them. I want to say now, and put it on the record: 50 Shades of Green are not aligned with the National Party; these are farmers that are concerned about rural communities.

I’ll give you just one example: Kumeroa School in the Tararua district. A farm sold there, on its way to be converted into forestry. What happens? The farmer who’s working on that farm has to leave the community because trees are being planted. That’s not just one job gone, here’s the kicker: he’s in a relationship with the local schoolteacher. The schoolteacher now has to leave Kumeroa School. They’ve been struggling to attract teachers into the school—they’ve had eight in the last 15 years. So this is the impact if you don’t focus on the strategy and you don’t execute it well, the right tree, the right time, and the right place—certainly, we all get the sentiment of that.

For the last couple of minutes that I’ve got to go, can I also talk about the discussion document. We spent a long time on this document, because it’s quite easy in Opposition to ridicule the Government, and people say, “Well, what are you going to do? What are you proposing?” Well, this is a 32-page document with 40-odd questions and ideas about being tougher on biosecurity, giving biosecurity officials the power to deport a passenger for knowingly bringing in and concealing biosecurity risk items, lifting the fines from 400 bucks to 1,000 bucks, and bringing in a primary sector visa. We know it’s really hard to attract enough people and enough Kiwis to get into the workforce here, so we want to focus on a primary sector visa to give some certainty to employers.

We think that Landcorp, worth about $1.8 billion, 84 farms, six times the size of Lake Taupō—why not give young farmers the opportunity to lease to own some of these farms? Ring-fence the ones that we need to for the Treaty of Waitangi; ring-fence some others so that there will always be some farms that they can lease to build up the equity and move through the system into farm ownership. We’re proposing a biotechnology and innovation fund. If you think about all of the issues that we, collectively, in the primary sector are facing: Predator Free 2050, why not have sterile possums? Think about GE ryegrass—that will reduce methane by 23 percent and is drought tolerant; have to do field trials in the US, can’t do it in New Zealand. Where are the tools in the tool box? They aren’t there—they aren’t there.

Also, what about rural health—600,000 people living in rural New Zealand are finding it tough to get to medical professionals. We’re going to propose a mobile rural health clinic to ensure that these isolated communities can go and see someone when they need to.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise today to speak on behalf of the Greens in my call on the Wellbeing Budget, and particularly to discuss the topics of mental health and addiction. I’d like to preface what I say about our $1.9 billion investment in mental health and addiction with the logical precedent to it—that being the mental health and addiction inquiry started by this Government, in our first 100 days, no less.

That mental health and addiction inquiry—or He Ara Oranga—heard from over 5,000 submitters, many of whom were on the front lines of mental health and addiction in this country across a number of sectors treating those at both the top and the bottom ends of inequality in this country, treating those in the likes of poorer communities, those who are in more wealthy communities, and those who are in prisons. What was really fascinating about this mental health and addiction inquiry is that the Government didn’t seek to limit its ambit solely to the medical profession. It was the first Government-instigated inquiry of its kind that looked beyond pathologising and medicalising the issues of mental health and addiction. Fundamentally what it found is that the wellbeing of all people—and in this context, of all New Zealanders—is predicated on their connection to each other. It’s predicated on the feeling that they are contributing to society, as though they have a sense of identity, as though they have a sense of purpose.

Interestingly—or controversially enough, as the case may be—this mental health and addiction inquiry also, in the addiction part, recommended that we stop criminalising people who are caught in the web of addiction. This, of course, is being implemented through the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, which is what, I believe, the Hon Paula Bennett is calling the supposed “decriminalisation by stealth”. I’m not sure where the stealth is, given that it’s presently in front of the Health Committee.

On the topic of mental health, that $1.9 billion when broken down, particularly as it pertains to addiction response, means there will be a $14 million more operating budget for mild to moderate alcohol and drug issues. There will be $44 million more for specialist alcohol and other drug issues. So too we are expanding—or at the very least securing—the funding and sustainability of Te Ara Oranga, a pilot project in Northland, which is a collaboration between the district health board and police, which I might, again, quite controversially say, effectively, decriminalises those who are caught in the web of addiction for methamphetamine and instead seeks to turn their life around by seeing that they have access to housing and education and employment and the opportunity to reconnect with their community. The National Party’s opposition now to our moving forward with the meth action plan and the likes of Te Ara Oranga is ironic given that they instigated it.

So too there is, importantly, as was announced—I believe it was earlier this week or just last week by Minister Kelvin Davis—the $129 million - odd for the wellbeing and quality of life of vulnerable people in corrections’ care. This is crucially important because we know that there are a huge number of people who end up incarcerated, who themselves suffer from mental health and addiction problems.

Finally, I want to touch on the cannabis referendum because this is a crucially important question that will be put forward to New Zealanders in the 2020 general election. There’s been $13.4 million allocated to the Electoral Commission to engage and communicate with the public on participation in the referendum process. I think that this is crucially important because this symbolises the first time that politicians will give over the opportunity to the majority of New Zealanders to discern what they think should be the future of our country when it comes to the opportunity to end the war on drugs—at least so far as it comes to the issue of cannabis. There is a lot more I could say, but that’s my time. Kia ora.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a really exciting moment, to get to speak to this year’s Budget and talk about the work that we are doing to address family violence and sexual violence. This is one of those underlying deep shames in our country that is still uncomfortable for many people to talk about and is holding us back as a country on quite a profound level. The statistics from the Ministry of Justice tell us that every year about one million New Zealanders are affected by these two forms of violence—that’s including the people causing the harm as well as those who are experiencing it. So we know that we’ve got a really big problem as a country, and it’s one that a business-as-usual approach of one-off initiatives is not going to solve. It’s going to take all of us working together to be able to turn this around.

I want to say really clearly that I have absolute confidence in our ability as a country to turn this around. We are a really small place, we’re really well connected to each other, and, if there’s any place in the world that can change this culture to get to a point of safety, where people are thriving in their families, it’s this country, because of our size and our connectedness and, I would say, the fact that we were founded on an idea of partnership.

This Budget is really significant. It’s the largest single commitment in a Budget in this country’s history towards addressing this violence, and it’s a completely new way of working in Government. It’s no longer one ministry saying, “This is our initiative. We’re taking this seriously. We’re going to solve this problem by ourselves.” It’s actually a whole package right across Government. We are coming up with a whole-of-Government response.

That reflects the fact that in 2016 the Family Violence Death Review Committee, who investigates all the deaths from family violence, in their report reflected on the fact that New Zealand at that point did not—and we still don’t yet—have a family violence system. Instead, they described what we have as a default system consisting of a fragmented range of processes and responses with one-off interventions that don’t actually manage risk. They do not, and they were failing to, and they are still failing to, keep women and children safe.

The only way we’re going to change that is by starting to work together to see, for once, if those interventions make sense together—to actually take it from the starting point of those victims’ and survivors’ lives and follow them through, asking what they need to be safe and, for those people who are using violence, where we could have got in earlier to prevent them from causing harm. That is one of the reasons, in this Budget, that we’re putting a really significant increase into funding for prevention projects, because, if there’s one thing I hear from people around the country, it’s that they want to see us doing more to prevent this violence before it happens. We’re doing that, and so people will soon start to see more discussions in their communities—more discussions about how they can help to intervene to prevent harm, and more discussions and opportunities to intervene to change this culture of violence that permeates our entire society.

We’ll be intervening with the babies and their mums, because that’s again one of those things people say to me: they’re sick of seeing these hurt children go on to hurt others in turn later in their life. That’s on us. We can prevent that. I am so proud of all of the Ministers in this Government for standing together for a future free of violence.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a botched Budget. The economy is slowing down, and the Government has had policies and uncertainty and a bunch of failed promises. The so-called Wellbeing Budget is, apparently, the first Budget to ever focus on outcomes or have joint Budget bids. I don’t think so. We are not falling for fluff marketing. What wellbeing really means—and here’s what it really means, folks, where the rubber hits the road—is whether the average New Zealander can pay their bills, whether the average New Zealander can support their family and have a bit of money left over at the end of the day, whether the kids are getting a good education, and, if somebody gets sick in the family, whether there’s going to be access to the medicine that they need. That’s wellbeing. That’s the basics. That’s what New Zealanders want and what they are needing and relying on from a good Government.

But the Government has failed on every aspect. The economy is slowing. They can’t deny it. We won’t deny it. No one can deny that. Job growth is down. So the very first thing that this Government did for their Wellbeing Budget was introduce new petrol taxes—8c per litre to the cost of petrol. Out of everything in this Budget, that is the one thing that has the most impact on middle New Zealand—again, something that the Government can’t deny, and we certainly won’t deny, because it’s a fact.

Teachers were out on the largest strike in history, and the Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to resolve that. Funding for Pharmac does not even keep up with population growth. These are lifesaving cancer drugs, and they’re now less accessible because of this Government.

Everywhere you look you see broken promises by Labour, and no less in Auckland. Aucklanders have been left stuck in traffic because of this Labour Government. They’re being made to front up with the regional fuel tax and three separate increases to the petrol tax, and they’re getting no improved transport infrastructure whatsoever. Where is the improved transport infrastructure? Show us. Tell us. Give us any indication about what you’re doing. You’ve talked about what you’re doing.

SPEAKER: Order!

DENISE LEE: You haven’t fronted up with what you’re doing.

SPEAKER: Order!

DENISE LEE: They haven’t talked about what they’re doing.

I’ll never forget Auckland Action Against Poverty and their reaction to the regional fuel tax and these taxes. They used the word “regressive”—the Government couldn’t deny it—and they went on to absolutely confirm that it was a slam on low-income Aucklanders.

We’ve also got—back on the transport topic—Auckland Council and Auckland Transport pulling their hair out publicly because the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) aren’t funding their share of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) priorities. What does this Government say to that? New roading projects have been cancelled. We were promised a new version of the East-West Link. Where is that? Absolutely nowhere to be seen. The Government’s wanting to save all these new taxes to spend on a gold-plated $6 billion light rail project to Māngere, but I think they’re realising, obviously, that it’s a little too hard and the business case isn’t stacking up, because on that project we’ve got silence too.

We’ve got broken promises on a national scale, and we’ve got broken promises on a local scale, and I’m going to demonstrate how the national level of broken promises is absolutely personal and local to me in my electorate and to the people that I serve. The East-West Link—I just referred to that earlier. Six thousand trucks a day move through my particular electorate. You might say, “Well, what’s that in relation to the country’s overall scale?” Everything. It is the second-highest earner to GDP in the entire country, that area where the East-West Link is supposed to go through. What we’ve got is frozen freight, frozen trucks, sitting idle, stuck behind traffic lights, congested, and it is costing upwards of $35 million a year in lost productivity. That’s a conservative estimate. Now, what does that do? That produces congestion. That produces rat running. That produces safety issues in my area.

There is one particular intersection, called Church Street and Victoria Street, that is one of the most notorious crash sites in all of Auckland. Now, that is directly related to this Government doing nothing and sitting on their hands for a hugely vital project, the East-West Link. How does the Government stack up and answer to locals in congested traffic and very high crash rate intersections in my area?

Light Rail: there’s been a failure to produce anything—anything at all—on that particular gold-plated project. You’ve got NZTA building a $25 million footbridge, very potentially unnecessarily, where, perhaps—I don’t know; we don’t know—light rail is supposed to go over the Manukau Harbour. Where is the solution to these big, massive projects that the Labour Party campaigned on and said that we would get? We don’t have them.

Now, let me bring it down even more local and personal, again. This is a Budget-related issue and one very near and dear to my heart. There is a man called Troy Elliott and his gorgeous wife Tracey Elliott who just recently celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary. Tracey has stage four cancer. She’s been told that she has 24 hours to live more than once. She still lives on; she still fights on today. Tracey, I know you’re watching this; my love and heart and hugs go out to you. They spend, right now, $8,867.63 every three weeks to fund Kadcyla. Kadcyla is a drug that is fully funded in the UK and in Australia, but not here. Every time they swipe that EFTPOS card where they get their treatment, the person who takes their card from them says, “Sorry”, but they’ve got to swipe the EFTPOS card anyway. They’ve got a Givealittle page going to fund that particular drug, to lengthen Tracey’s life. That Givealittle page has become their surrogate Pharmac, because they’re not getting it from Pharmac. Troy is venturing into Dry July—Troy, I know you’re reluctant to go into Dry July but he does it because the funds from Dry July fund TVs in ward 64, and they also fund comfortable chairs for patients who are receiving chemo.

This is a couple, this is a woman, this is Tracey, who deserves much more from this Government and much more from this Budget. What’s the Budget context? A measly 1 percent increase in medicines funding. That does not even remotely match population increase and pressures. Why might this be? Well, we know that the district health boards are heading for deficits of $500 million at the end of this month. Is that related? Of course it is. Let’s not forget that Government members blocked an inquiry into Pharmac back in April. What was that—

Brett Hudson: Oh really?

DENISE LEE: Yup, they blocked an inquiry into Pharmac back in April. The Government does not want to know what’s going on—they’re burying their heads in the sand. Well, they should front up and answer to Troy and Tracey Elliot.

To the Government: what are you doing to deliver in your year of delivery? You were left with huge surpluses. You’ve made huge promises which you’ve failed—

SPEAKER: That’s now the fourth warning.

DENISE LEE: They’ve had huge promises that they’ve failed to deliver on. It’s an extraordinary tale of failed promises. School donations to all schools, it isn’t happening; 10,000 KiwiBuild homes a year, it isn’t happening. What does the Government do when they can’t deliver? They reset, they recalibrate, and, in some instances, they reverse. Well, we are in high gear. Bring on 2020.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Tourism): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I remember those days too. My colleagues, a few of them here, they’ll remember those cold, dark, dismal days sitting on that side of the House where the sun never shines, where the only opportunity to, perhaps, generate a bit of light and a bit of heat is to stand up and give a depressing, nasty speech to criticise the Government. We’ve all been there, and long may it last for those people over there.

Now, the Hon Todd McClay stood up—he’s the spokesperson for tourism. Again, another cold, sad, miserable tale of woe from him. The reality is, one of the great things about being in Government is you have the opportunity to do good stuff, and you also have the opportunity to change the mess that was created by the regime that came in before you. Tourism is a classic example of where the country is lucky that we had a change of Government in 2017.

Now, let me tell you, the previous Government did quite a good job of destination marketing. Sadly, where they failed the country abysmally was in destination management. The numbers of visitors coming to New Zealand increased significantly in the last five years, which is good—good for visitors coming over here, and it should be good for New Zealand as well. Sadly, though, in too many communities the growth in visitor numbers has actually had a negative impact. It’s because the previous Government failed to manage New Zealand as a destination, and what that did was that jeopardised our biggest export earner. Now, 216,000 New Zealanders are directly employed in tourism and close to 170,000 are indirectly employed by tourism. But what the previous regime did was jeopardise that and threaten that. We were in danger of losing our social licence as a tourism destination but we’ve come and ridden in and saved the day. They should just say thank you. It wouldn’t be hard.

What have we done in tourism? Well, the work done by the Responsible Camping Working Group last year has eliminated by at least half, I’d say by 80 percent, the complaints from communities around responsible camping. Now, it’s not perfect, we know that. We’ve still got work to do, but we have reduced the number of complaints about responsible camping. Then we introduced the tourism strategy. The previous one was about 10 years old. It was out of date and there was no sign on the horizon that the previous Government was going to do anything about it, because the world of tourism has changed in the last 10 years. So they did nothing; they just floated and drifted. What else have we done? We’ve introduced the international visitor and conservation levy. Some $450 million is going to go towards tourism and conservation over the next five years.

The only people in the country who oppose it are the ones sitting over in the dark and the cold in the shade of Opposition. What they could do is stand up and promise the country that they will repeal the international visitor levy. I can’t wait to hear the Hon Todd McClay stand up and announce that they’re going to repeal that visitor levy. I can’t wait to hear the reaction from the tourism sector when he makes that announcement. I can’t wait to hear what Sandra Goudie, the Mayor of Thames-Coromandel, is going to say. I was there in the Coromandel a couple of weeks back, talking at the bed and breakfast conference. She was singing the praises of the Government. I can’t wait to hear what she’s going to say to her former colleague when he announces that they’re going to repeal the visitor levy. I can’t wait to hear what John Carter, the Mayor of the Far North District Council, is going to say when Todd McClay rings and says that they’re going to repeal the international visitor levy. I can’t wait to hear what Jim Boult, the Mayor of Queenstown, is going to say when the National Party promise to repeal the international visitor levy. I bet you this will be the first reaction: ring, ring, “Hello, it’s Todd McClay here.” There’ll be a deadly silence then people will say, “Who?” They will have forgotten because the man has been invisible when it comes to the tourism sector.

The Government and industry—mainly led by industry—have developed the tiaki promise, which sets out the values that New Zealanders hold dear. It’s an education package for visitors here. The China-New Zealand Year of Tourism—that’s kicked off. The Terracotta Warriors—we anticipated some 100,000 visitors to visit that in the course of the few months that it was there; there were close to 200,000, double the numbers. This Government has done a lot, and we’ve also saved the whole tourism sector and all those jobs because of the work that we’ve been doing.

But let me just congratulate the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for the wonderful Wellbeing Budget that we’ve announced in the last few weeks. I also just want to acknowledge the Hon Chris Hipkins.

Now I turn to school donations. I was a principal of a decile three school in Kaitāia. Every year we had fundraising. At our major fundraising event we would raise $9,000 and, man, were we proud of ourselves—$9,000 is a big community effort. We thought it was fantastic; we barely got a dollar when it came to school donations. Now, that school, if it had the same roll—I don’t know what the roll numbers are at the moment—as when I was there it would have received $45,000 from the Government. What’s that—five times the amount that we got in our biggest fundraising effort? So I’d just like to thank the Minister of Education for that generosity. It’s making a big difference in those schools that have trouble raising money.

Mental health—if there are two words that the country remembers from this Budget, they are “mental health”. Chlöe Swarbrick mentioned the work that we’re doing in prisons: $128.3 million is going towards helping those people in prisons with mental health issues. I’ll rattle through a number of things that we’re doing: 2,310 additional offenders with mild to moderate mental health needs will receive help from this Budget.

Now, people say, “Well, why worry if they’ve only got mild or moderate mental health needs?” Well, the thing is that we don’t want those mild or moderate mental health needs to become severe and acute mental health needs. So we’re addressing that. That’s going to take the total number of people who are receiving help for mild or moderate mental health needs to over 5,000 in prisons. We know that there are around about 10,000 people in our prisons at the moment, so we know that we’ve got more work to do to support those people.

Eight hundred offenders will receive expanded social worker and trauma counselling. Why is that important? Well, one thing we know is we come down hard on people who are in prison because they’re there and they’ve committed crime, but the thing is that we always forget that just about all of them are victims of crime themselves—91 percent of people in prisons have a mental health or a substance abuse issue—and we must help them. So that’s why they’re going to get trauma counselling and expanded social worker support.

Two hundred and seventy-five whānau are going to receive mental health support outside in the community. So these are the whānau of people inside prison. Because we realise and we recognise that if people are in prison—and they probably have a mental health issue—the chances are that their whānau will also have mental health issues. So we’re going to support them.

Thirty places will be made available in the community for people with intensive mental health issues. That’s because we know that when people leave prison—that in itself is quite traumatic—we need to support them so that they can reintegrate back into the community as best they can.

We’re going to make sure that alcohol and drug services are expanded into four more prisons. That will take the number of prisons with alcohol and drug services to 15 out of our 18 prisons. It just seems ridiculous that we actually have prisons that don’t have alcohol and drug counselling services in them.

The $98 million Māori Pathway—now, this came about because I went into a prison. There was a Māori-focused unit, and the prisoners were telling me they loved the Māori unit. They got to connect with their language, their culture—all those sorts of things that many of them hadn’t had an opportunity to connect with before. They said, “Oh, but there’s only one problem.” And I said, “What’s that?” They said, “It goes for 13 weeks.” It was a lightbulb moment for me. What we do, for those people who have got these sentences, is that after 13 weeks they go back into the general population, and we’re saying to them, “You can only be Māori for 13 weeks of your three- or four- or five-year sentence.” That’s why we’re saying that, from the time somebody enters prison—a Māori, or even a non-Māori—to the time they leave, they can participate in this Māori Pathway, which will help them, hopefully, to not reoffend and not end up back in prison when their time is done there. Kia ora.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a speech that was from the deputy leader of the party leading the Government. There was no substance, just like in the Budget—Budget 2019. What a Budget this was, Budget 2019. Yes, people are asking all sorts of questions. I was at a meeting a few days ago and someone came to me and asked a question. This is just an example of the types of question that people are asking. The question was: “Who is actually running the country?” Exactly. The question was: “Who is actually running the country?”

I said to them that, yeah, because the National team released a big chunk of the Budget before the finance Minister stood up in the House to read the text of the Budget—and that was a big chunk of the real Budget, not a mock Budget—technically, it is National running the country. People would usually know who is running the country if the Government was performing. Obviously, they can see that this Government is not performing.

Then, around that Budget, what happened from the finance Minister’s office and from the finance Minister himself was all the cover up, but he failed—he failed. Or was he exposed? I would say he was exposed by his own colleague the Hon Andrew Little, who said that, yep, he had left messages in the finance Minister’s office—yeah, he did leave a message in the finance Minister’s office, and he did leave a message in the Prime Minister’s office in a timely manner. So much has happened around this Budget, but there is one person who seemed to know nothing, and that was none other than our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. I would have imagined that the Prime Minister has the ability to call in her Ministers to check what exactly happened, but she wants to wait for the report. So this Budget 2019 reveals a lot of things. It also looks like the Prime Minister has lost control of her Ministers.

Coming to the Budget, when we look at a document, the first thing we look at is the cover of the document. When you look at the cover of the document, it’s a very sad story. That tells everything about the Budget, because the person on the cover page of the Budget is not here in New Zealand anymore, because she has decided to move out to Australia because she couldn’t cope with the cost of living here in New Zealand—the way the cost of living is going up under this Labour Government. That’s a very sad story. They couldn’t even retain that person, whose photo they have used on the cover of their Budget, in New Zealand. I know they love talking about the nine years of the National Government, and I’m really proud as well of the nine years of the National Government and am very happy to talk about that and remind everybody that, under that National Government, people were actually coming to New Zealand. Kiwis were coming back to New Zealand, and people like me, immigrants, were wanting to come to New Zealand to call New Zealand their home.

Also let me remind them that, under us, we were creating around 10,000 jobs every month in the last two years. So that was creating opportunities for people to be here, to feel attracted to New Zealand, but under them what we have seen are 4,000 jobs lost in the last quarter—4,000 jobs—and the members want to laugh at that? They can, but 4,000 opportunities have been lost in the last quarter. That is the reality of this Government.

The Prime Minister stood in front of a business audience before the Budget and didn’t talk about business confidence, didn’t talk about the economy. Why? Because she knows that she is failing New Zealand, because she knows that business confidence is slipping down every day. She knows she’s not performing when it comes to the performance of our economy in our country. Yes, that is the reality, and the Prime Minister was so embarrassed that she didn’t want to talk about business confidence and the economy. And I think the Government members should understand that and should reflect on that, and they should be embarrassed too.

They don’t want to look at GDP numbers, maybe because the Prime Minister doesn’t understand what the difference is between GDP and Government accounts, and the Prime Minister didn’t know what our GDP was in the last 12 months, and also because the economic growth under them has halved. Under us, it was around 4 percent, and under them it’s 2 percent. So why would they talk about GDP? It doesn’t help them. Under us, we were helping people to get off the benefits, because we were creating opportunities for those people. But, under them, the queue of people outside the Work and Income office is becoming longer and longer.

I have heard several members talking about all their praises for this Budget. One line that came out was that this Budget represents the values of the coalition Government. Of course, it does, because this Budget creates dependency. The Government creates dependency on the State, and that is the value of this coalition Government. Another line: “It’s a first of its kind, not a traditional Budget.” Of course it’s a first of its kind when they can’t even retain the person on their cover page in New Zealand. They are driving people out from New Zealand because there are no opportunities for people. It is definitely a first of its kind for this reason. There was a big hype that it’s going to be a wellbeing Budget, but we have seen now that there was a big hype only because there is no substance in this Budget.

As a spokesperson for research, science, and innovation, I’m really appalled to see that there is nothing much for research, science, and innovation. When this Government was formed, they said they were going to get rid of growth grants and they were going to get rid of the R & D tax loss credit policy that was put in place by the previous National Government. That was working fine. So, instead of improving on that, they decided to introduce R & D tax credit policy. But in that, what was lacking was proper support for companies that are in a tax loss situation. There is a double standard that this Government has put in place for how they deal with companies that have tax liable income and companies that don’t have a tax liable income.

When questions were asked, when I asked questions, I was told that the policy area is quite complex to provide incentives to companies that are in a tax loss situation. So they’re going to work on a policy, and the policy will be in place by April 2020. So why is there no money in this Budget for that policy? If the money is going to come from reprioritisation, we need to know that too. So where is the money for that policy? Why is there no money for that policy in this Budget? Treasury has said that the Government should be investing public money—$150 million every year—to reach the goal that they have set; that is, 2 percent of the GDP of business spending on research and development. But, maybe—because they don’t want to look at GDP figures—that goal actually means nothing. So that’s why they haven’t allocated that $150 million Treasury has identified should be invested every year—public money every year—to support business spending on research and development.

So they lack that understanding of how to create opportunities for people, so obviously people don’t want to be here in New Zealand. As the associate economic development spokesperson, it was really interesting to see that their economic development Minister is also the Minister for the Environment. When I looked at that, that actually sounds like this Wellbeing Budget, which is just about the name, and there’s nothing inside there. So I thought, well, that is a very good combination, because there are so many things that can be done in the environment portfolio to support the economy, and vice versa.

But what we have seen from that Minister is the ministry is advising the Minister that he should think about our approach towards biotechnology here in New Zealand—this is genetic modification, gene editing. The ministry’s advising the Minister to do something about it, because it’s not working for us. Other countries are making a move. We are going to lag behind, and it’s going to harm our economy. But the Minister is ignoring that advice—ignoring that advice, so that stance of that Government and the Minister is definitely going to harm our economy and the environment as well.

It’s really interesting that this Government actually cares about how they look outside of New Zealand, not about what’s happening within here, in our own country. They just want to look good on that international stage, so they want to make big announcements. So let’s forget about that coverage that is going on in other countries, because we on this side, we know that if we do well here, the rest will follow—the world will follow. Let’s look at some commentary that is going on here in New Zealand. So it’s not just us Opposition complaining about the Government not performing. We know that people are complaining as well. As I have said before, that person on the cover page of their Budget—that is a big example. They should be really embarrassed about that.

Duncan Garner, one of the very well-known AM Show presenters, has said that this is the least effective Government in the last 25 years he has seen. [Interruption] Maybe they want to make the record of a hundred years. They’re laughing there. Yep, 25 is not enough, so maybe they want to make the record of being the least effective in 100 years. That would be something to really achieve—a good goal for those members to set. Patrick Gower is saying that he is regretting saying that he liked the change that happened after the last election. So we have seen a lot of commentary going on within our own country. So maybe this Government should focus on New Zealand more than focusing on the commentary that they want to attract from other countries. This Budget has failed New Zealand. This Government is failing to deliver on their promises. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s with absolute pleasure that I rise to make a contribution, and talk about this Government’s 2019 Wellbeing Budget, which we should all be incredibly proud of. But, of course, we wouldn’t know that from the doom and gloom we’ve heard from Opposition members who have gotten up to speak. Either we’ve heard a speech like the one delivered by the member who just resumed her seat Parmjeet Parmar, that manages to be arrogant, nasty, boring, and lacking in substance all at once—quite the skill, I’ve got to say—or we hear contributions from other members of the Opposition, who talk about how there’s nothing new in this Budget.

I think it was the member Denise Lee who said that it was fluff marketing and then pointed to a whole host of issues that culminated under the last Government: things like traffic and the woes that Aucklanders like myself, and my colleague Dr Deborah Russell, for example, have experienced, infrastructure issues, nine years of underspending and initiatives—this is a bit of a trend that we’ve picked up through the Estimates hearing process post-Budget at select committees of things that were promised by the previous Government that had no funding allocated for them. So given that those are all the issues that we’ve inherited, I think it’s a little bit rich that members opposite lead with those.

But anyway, going back to the Wellbeing Budget, which is historic, it is a world first for a specific reason and, for that reason, has actually garnered international support and has been in the spotlight since it was released a few weeks ago. Now the concept that underlies or underpins the Wellbeing Budget has actually been a concept that has been around for a while. Going back to a 2009 report that is generally known as the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission report, that actually talked about the limitations of using GDP as a sole measure to measure economic performance and progress more broadly.

Now, that was a report that was written by a whole bunch of eminent economists and social scientists, and it was one that was talking to political leaders at the time. One of the main recommendations of that report was to broaden the scope of traditional indicators that are used to measure economic, societal, and environmental progress from the point of view that that is integral if we’re looking at the wellbeing of citizens, which, at the end of the day, is what all of us are here to talk about. The Government is here to serve its people, and integral to that is improving the wellbeing of its citizens. For that reason, for the reason that it adopts that approach where it puts the wellbeing of people at the heart of decision making, for the reason that it focuses on outcomes—where do we want our citizens to be? What improvements do we want to see? How do we work backwards to make sure that Budget bids actually lead to those improvements? For all those reasons, this is a historic Budget.

At this point, I want to commend the leadership of our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson for actually taking the bold step of focusing on and tackling the long-term challenges that this country faces, because although the concept is one that has been long held, it’s never actually been put into practice in the form of a Budget. We are the first in the Western World to actually do that—

Brett Hudson: Oh, what a lot of tosh.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —and so while members opposite might scoff, it’s actually the truth.

In the time that I have today, all we have to do is to look at a couple of initiatives that will actually outline why this is historic, and the first that I’d like to focus on is mental health. Now, we are making a historic investment of almost $2 billion, for the first time ever, into improving mental health, which is a huge challenge for New Zealanders. If you look at a scale or a severity argument, we will see that one in five New Zealanders is affected, according to the data that we currently have. If you even want to look at it from an economic cost point of view, $12 billion was the cost estimate back in 2014. Severity—all we have to do is to look at the data around youth suicides.

Now in the Maungakiekie electorate alone, where I am based, I was talking to one of the youth providers—Flipping East—that we have there, who told me that if you look at the numbers of youth suicides in just the eastern part of the electorate in the year leading up to the last election, you’ll find that it’s in double figures. I was told by nine families over the course of the 10-month campaign that I ran on the ground there that each one of them had lost one young person in their family to suicide. That is nine youth suicides that I heard about within a 10-month period alone.

There is a huge need to address this, and that’s what this Government has done. If you look at the universal front-line service that has been announced through this Wellbeing Budget, it is so that anyone can go up to their primary healthcare provider—whether it’s a GP service or an iwi healthcare service—and if their GP picks up that they have a mental health need, they can literally be walked down to a mental health provider so that they get the care that they need when they need it. This will be rolled out over a five-year period.

Intensive support for those who are specifically at risk, which includes those who have self-harmed or those who have experienced suicidal distress, and expanding access to addiction treatments—we’ve heard from the Minister of Corrections, the Hon Kelvin Davis, who told us that 91 percent of people in prisons have experienced either a mental health issue or an addictive substance use issue. I can see the care and the thought that has gone into looking at which of the populations specifically need to be prioritised in this Budget, and where are they—so prisons are an example of that. Youth mental health, expanding the nurses in schools programme, and expanding that programme to decile 5 schools—that’s what it means to put people at the heart of decision making and to focus on the outcomes that we want to see as a nation, as opposed to specific Budget bids as we’ve seen in the past. That’s what makes, to my mind, this Wellbeing Budget an outstanding one.

Look at family and sexual violence, for example: now, the select committee that I’m deputy chair of, the Social Services and Community Committee, went to Australia last year—

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: A hard-working committee.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —and talked to a whole bunch of members of Parliament—and Anahila, my colleague, is on it as well, of course—and Ministers, academics, and non-governmental organisations, and the one thing that every one of them pointed to as a driver of issues like poverty, homelessness, and crime was family and sexual violence. The links between family violence, mental wellbeing, and addiction have been noted for years. These things exacerbate family and sexual violence. So if one were to put the victim survivor at the centre, you would look at how you change behaviours and attitudes to stop violence, and that’s where the spending in advertising campaigns and intervention programmes comes into play. Then you’d look at what happens once violence occurs and what are the support services that need to be funded, and that’s where the 24/7 sexual violence crisis support funding in the Wellbeing Budget comes from. It’s the funding into the Integrated Safety Response as well.

Then you’d look at justice, where there’s a huge link between the justice system and victim/survivors of violence. I know this because one of the worst weeks in my life was when I supported a woman who had been raped and had to go through the justice process. So what are we doing there? We’re looking at how we reduce retraumatisation there by looking at alternative ways in which victims of sexual violence can give evidence in court so that they’re not retraumatised. We’re looking at video victim statements for the same reason: to reduce trauma and to reduce time that is spent in court. We’re also looking at support for male survivors of violence—an issue that’s been talked about for years, again—and kaupapa Māori services in terms of a response to sexual violence as well.

So this is the largest single spend on family and sexual violence we’ve ever seen. It sits across eight portfolios and it’s demonstrative of how a good Budget works. So this may not solve all the issues—this Government has never said that it will—but it’s an important step in absolutely the right direction. Thank you.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This really does take me back, this discussion and this level of debate, to the time when I was in the media, on Morning Report. We had a sort of a wage round situation going. Every year there were cyclical changes. Every year when Labour was in Government, they taxed more, they spent more, and they borrowed more. What’s changed? Very little. The Wellbeing Budget is anything but. What was in it for seniors? What was in it for women’s health? These are some of the issues that I’m going to touch on in my call today.

We look at the context of how this Budget emerged—pretty much, economic growth is what we all depend on if we want to have a good Budget that’s going to deliver for the people who need it, who pay their taxes, and who work hard and want to know that those taxes are being well spent. What’s happened to economic growth, though? They inherited 4 percent; it’s down now to around 2 percent. Treasury has also confirmed that we’ve got about a 1 percent slower growth rate each year, so after three years, that equates to about $5 billion. That’s revenue that could’ve been used for a lot of the things—for example, the things that seniors missed out on completely from this Budget.

They did, though, deliver on one thing, this Labour Government. What would that have been? They promised no new taxes, but they delivered on those: seven new taxes to date, and no doubt a few more working groups to come with it as well.

I mean, when you look at what this Budget has delivered, it’s really what isn’t in the Budget and what, really, we need to focus on. As the Hon Todd McClay said in leading off this debate for National earlier this afternoon, “In trade, this Government lacks ambition.” Ain’t that the truth? What new opportunities have been developed? They’re still doing what the entire Government is doing with its legislation, which is relying on the material and the hard work that the last Government put in. So in trade: no new opportunities. There’s nothing new in there about expanding trade, so how are we going to grow this economy so that people can actually get what they need?

Let’s have a look at some of the details around what seniors have been promised and what was not in this Budget. They were promised an annual health eye check for seniors. That’s not in the Budget. They were also promised an increase to the breast screening to 74 years of age—also not in the Budget. The Hon Amy Adams, in speaking earlier today in question time, talked about the cochlear implants. The things that make a huge difference to the quality of people’s lives—they were not addressed.

In terms of elective surgery, in my own area of the North Shore, there are 400 fewer operations available this year than there were in our time, and that is a pattern that’s been repeated in district health boards (DHBs) throughout the country. The DHBs are a basket case in their own right, and the Hon Michael Woodhouse has spoken about that in detail, so I’ll just go through the things that the seniors have been hoping would come their way because they were told they would. They were told—they were promised—that there would be delivery on the things that mattered to them. That has not occurred.

Housing and affordable housing is particularly important to older New Zealanders who don’t have the nest egg and who perhaps don’t own their own house. They’re reliant on paying rentals, which are going up. They need to have affordable housing. What was supposed to deliver on that? KiwiBuild. The epic “KiwiFailure” that’s currently undergoing, what is it, a retread or a reworking or tweaking, or something? No one mentioned it at all throughout the Budget on that side of the House, and I’m not surprised. It has been in a long list of failures the most epic of them that this Government has failed to deliver.

Law and order and security—that matters a lot to older people. They’re at home, they’re more vulnerable, and they worry about whether they’re going to be able to be safe in their own homes or if they go out during the day. This Government promised 1,800 extra front-line police in their first term—woefully short. There are fewer than 500 net new police so far, and my colleague Chris Bishop is talking about that a lot and really trying to hold the Government to account and get them to stick to what they said they would do, because it’s important.

Unlike people on this side of the House, who are perhaps a little cynical, a little sceptical, about when politicians in Government make promises, even when they were in campaign mode—we kind of take it with a pinch of salt, but a lot of older New Zealanders trusted the Labour-led Government, and what have they got for it? Nothing. This Government has said in the past that it doesn’t want to house people in motels, but that has increased threefold. Older New Zealanders are looking into their future and feeling very afraid. So the Government that promised to be the most open and the most transparent that New Zealand has ever seen, with this groundbreaking Wellbeing Budget, has failed to deliver. They bungled it when they first came out to announce it, and it hasn’t got any better since that time.

I’ve been looking through some of the agencies that represent older New Zealanders and looking at their evaluation of how this Budget has shaped up—not good. If you talk to and hear from Mac Welch, who is the national president of Grey Power New Zealand, he said that on the whole, Grey Power is very disappointed with the Budget. They said the pre-election promise of the appointment of an aged-care commissioner has not eventuated. This is something that one of the coalition partners has been talking about for a very long time. In fact, I think there was a big hoopla about three years ago, when the Greens, New Zealand First, and Labour went around the country annoying a whole lot of old people and asking them what they wanted. An aged-care commissioner was their big, glittering jewel in the crown. It’s been promised. What has happened with it? Absolutely nothing. In fact, I’ve been asking the Minister of Health, the Hon David Clark, about it, and he has said that, in fact, the million dollars that they had to scope it and to look at the aged-care commissioner has not been able to come up with anything.

So, look, I don’t know. I think if you make a promise to older people about looking after them, about checking up on the things that go wrong, about having somebody who’s in their corner, on their side—more than the Ombudsman; more than the individuals that are already there—and looking out for their needs, you should deliver, and that has not occurred. Just getting back to Mac Welch, basically, as far as the Grey Power organisation—who, you know, are a group of people that the Hon Simon Bridges and myself went and spoke to a couple of weeks ago. They were very disappointed and didn’t hold back on how upset they were about the fact that the wellbeing of seniors is so far down on the list of the priorities of this current Government. There’s absolutely nothing in this Budget for seniors. So we look at the seniors who are continuing—as he pointed out—to suffer and to make headlines for all the wrong reasons, and that is the reality. Grey Power, good on you for calling them out on that one.

Actually, I looked back on my notes from last year’s Budget. Last year, I called it a Budget that was a dowry Budget to pay for and to prop up Labour’s marriage of convenience with New Zealand First and the Greens, and what’s changed? The same applies again. This is a dowry Budget. They’re spending plenty of money to keep the coalition partners and the cling-ons happy, but, again, they have not delivered. So Labour promised an aged care commissioner with New Zealand First, and that didn’t happen.

Dementia is another issue that I think has been woefully overlooked by a Government that promised so much and has delivered so little. Alzheimer’s New Zealand has indicated how disappointed they have been in this Budget, and, again, “the forgotten people” is the phrase that they use. This is a group of people—Dementia New Zealand, Dementia Auckland; there’s a number of them around the country, as well as Alzheimer’s New Zealand—who have asked repeatedly to be treated fairly. We know we’ve an ageing population. We know that we need to train up really skilled people to look after them so that they can stay in their homes as long as possible, so that they can get their diagnoses earlier, and so that they can have cognitive skills development, which improves their quality of life and slows down the pace and the progression of most forms of dementia, and it needs to be funded. The broken promises that Labour has not delivered on for people with dementia is, in my view, unconscionable, and the specialist dementia services that they were promised are just not happening.

Elder abuse: very disappointing, again, to see that the number of people who are reporting abuse, which is financial as well as psychological and physical abuse, has risen. There’s about 2,400 cases reported a year. We know that’s the tip of the iceberg. We know that the 0800 number—which is a toll-free, confidential number—was being used, but it has no additional resources. The money runs out next year and it needs to be boosted. It needs to be talked about so that people will know to ring up. This is elder abuse awareness week. This is a time when we need to care for the people who are worried, lonely, isolated, and vulnerable. This Government has delivered nothing to them.

In palliative care: no additional funding or announcements around that. Again, when it comes to the end stages of life, I think a lot of people might be seduced by the idea that there could be an easy answer in the way of euthanasia and assisted suicide because they have no other options, and to actually think that older people might think that the nuclear option of having an end-of-life euthanasia is better than being cared for and looked after is something that I find incredibly sad. We are better than that in New Zealand. We are better, and we must look after our vulnerable better than we have. This Budget, in looking after the vulnerable, absolutely does not deliver.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): We’ve heard this afternoon, at length, from Mr Nathan Guy about what happened at Fieldays, and particularly at Fieldays immediately after the Budget that has been delivered by the Government that I am proud to be a part of. So Mr Guy reported to us from Fieldays, and it was a tale of gloom and dissatisfaction, a tale of people who felt really hard-done-by. I was at Fieldays too, and it was a fantastic experience. I want to bring to you some of the highlights of Fieldays, because we had a big Labour presence—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: As long as it relates to the Budget, that would be good.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —at Fieldays this year in response to the Budget to make sure that people knew about our Budget. One of the first things was that we had our Prime Minister there, and she made a real effort to get around all the stalls to talk to people to let them know about our Budget. But, actually, she couldn’t get very far, because she was mobbed—mobbed by people who wanted to talk to her, mobbed by people who wanted a selfie with her. I think what was interesting about that was seeing the reactions of our colleagues from across the House who were also at Fieldays spreading the Budget news—slack-jawed, dumbfounded—because they couldn’t believe what they were seeing: the sheer popularity of our Prime Minister.

Another thing—another report from Fieldays. We had our stall there, the Labour stall. New Zealand First had a stall. The National Party had a stall. We all talked to the punters. But we heard from our colleagues the one piece of feedback that our colleagues at the National Party stall were getting, one piece that they got consistently from virtually every punter who came by: get rid of Simon.

I spent a bit of time in the innovation tent finding out about some of the innovative work that is going on, the sort of work that is going to be supported by our Budget through our innovation fund. There is some marvellous work going on there in the rural sector in irrigation, in linking potential employees with employers and in trying to ensure that our rural sector can do better and meet the sorts of targets we need them to meet. So I say to Mr Nathan Guy, who told us a story of gloom and doom and woe from the Fieldays, that I heard a story of hope and positivity and innovation that this Government is supporting.

One further thing from the Fieldays report that was brought to us by Mr Nathan Guy was the extensive report he brought to us about the 50 Shades of Green project. Actually, that particular issue worries me, too, with a family coming from the back country of Taranaki, who are precisely the farmers on marginal land, the beef and sheep farmers, who are worried that their land will be taken over by a flood of green. The reason for this, of course, is that we have been told that we should match the short-term gases with short-term forests—that’s what you do. That’s apparently the recommendation from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—that all the methane that is being produced by dairy cows should be matched, should be absorbed, by short-term forests.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d really appreciate it if we could have a Budget debate.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I suggest that when our colleagues across the House focus on what we need to do with respect to climate change, with respect to moving to a low-carbon economy supported by this Budget, there needs to be discussion between the dairy farmers and the sheep and beef farmers as to how they are going to manage that between themselves.

Moving on to the positive news from this Budget—the positive news—I want to speak especially about the issues surrounding mental health but particularly addiction. When I first became an MP, I made a point of visiting, of course, the agencies in my electorate and finding out what work they were doing. In particular, I spent an amount of time with some of the entities who work on addiction issues, and one of the first things they said to me was “Make sure we’re not forgotten.” Yes, there is a big concern with mental health, but let’s also focus on addiction. This was particularly said to me by Fiona Trevelyan, who heads up Odyssey House in New Lynn and across the country. She said, “Let’s make sure that we have money available to support people who are addicted to alcohol and to other drugs.” They do marvellous work at Odyssey, helping people to get rid of addictions.

I talked to Johnny Dow, who runs Higher Ground up in Te Atatū—Te Atatū. I find it hard to say that correctly, rather than “Tee At-a-tu”, because at least we should try to pronounce it properly. At Higher Ground, there is a real focus on helping offenders to get off the drugs and the alcohol that so distorts their lives, helping people to regain control of their lives. I visited just the other day The Retreat, actually, in Ōtāhuhu, and I spoke there to a woman who had recovered from alcohol addiction—though, as she says, she is still addicted to alcohol; she just doesn’t use alcohol any more. One of the things she told me was that when she was in the grips of her addiction to alcohol, it was a time of utter despair because she had totally lost control of her life and she felt she had no control over herself. This person is now working to help others with their alcohol addictions. All these people with addictions speak repeatedly of the need for support, of the need for help to help them to get rid of their addictions and to lead better lives.

I think the most inspiring day I spent talking with people who run some of these sorts of agencies was actually the day I spent with Judge Lisa Tremewan in the Alcohol—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is very interesting, but I really would like the member to discuss the Budget now. Relate it back to the Budget.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yes, thank you. I’m going to refer to the mental health and addictions budget, the money that we’re piling into it—and for good reason. So Judge Lisa Tremewan works really hard in the alcohol and other drug treatment court, and part of the point of what she does is she needs places where she can send offenders, where she can send people who are addicts, in order to recover from their addictions. So there is a crying need for this, and in this Budget we have made a concerted effort to ensure that these services are properly funded.

So let’s talk about what is being provided in terms of expanding access to addiction treatment—access that is so crucially needed. It is vital that we fund these services so that people can recover control over their own lives. We’re spending about $14 million expanding primary care for alcohol and drug issues. Why? So that people can have greater control over their lives. We’re expending another $44 million to improve existing drug addiction services. Odyssey House, Higher Ground, The Retreat, the alcohol and other drug treatment court—all these services will be better supported through this Budget to enable people to regain control over their lives. We are spending money on providing live-in services, or residential beds, in areas which do not have them yet—particularly Tai Rāwhiti, which is absolutely critical for the critical need on the East Cape.

So all of these sorts of things are being provided in this Budget to support these addiction services. I am delighted to see that kind of funding there, and the reason for it is this: of course these services have always been needed—of course the funding is needed—but it connects so directly to wellbeing. It connects so directly there.

When we draw on the work of someone like Professor Amartya Sen in terms of wellbeing, he characterises wellbeing in terms of capabilities, of ensuring that people have the capabilities that enable them to choose lives of value to themselves. The thing about addictions is that a person is controlled from outside; they cannot make choices. But providing addiction services, enabling people to recover from addictions, gives them precisely the capabilities they need in order to achieve wellbeing.

That is the very deep connection here with our Budget, and not just with the Budget but with the whole idea of wellbeing that this Government is committed to—not just dollars and cents, not just managing, and not just scraping by, but actually enhancing people’s lives. That makes this a very moral Budget. It is a Budget that instead of just being about paring away and managing—about what Government might do—it is about enhancing lives so that people can lead lives of wellbeing, and New Zealanders will be better for it. I commend this Budget to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I don’t commend this Budget to the House. I think that’s the quick response to the speaker Deborah Russell, who’s just resumed her chair.

But may I start on a slightly more sombre note. I wish to acknowledge the passing of a fine person who’s contributed a lot into my electorate and area, and that’s Ruth Bartley. She’s the mother of one of the local councillors there: Josephine Bartley. Their family has been very involved in the community, and so in somewhat of a cultural tradition, both of this House and theirs, I acknowledge the passing of Ruth.

I’ve been in and around the electorate since the Budget, but, obviously, not on sitting days—it’s always good to be in the House when you’re meant to be. But as I’ve been around the electorate, one of the things which has struck me is that very few of my people realised there was a Budget. They don’t realise there was even a Budget, and that doesn’t completely surprise me because the Budget was not only botched and not only highlighting the failures of delivery but it was a boring Budget—absolutely boring. In fact, it goes against one of the very basic dictums of the Labour Party, and certainly of Helen Clark, which this group is following through, that you under-promise and over-deliver. Well, as it turns out, this Budget over-promised and under-delivered in a huge, huge way, and I’m going to go through some of those aspects here.

But, as I say, within Tāmaki, there’s a sense of “There was a Budget? What happened?” Even when we talk about the legislation, and I was trying to tell some constituents about the Budget urgency and trying to explain to them that we were here, they said, “We didn’t even realise. Well, what happened?” I said “Well, unfortunately, what happened was you ended up landed with more taxes.”—many, many more taxes under this Government already—and, importantly, I had noted to them that Labour had been very big when they got elected that there’d be no new taxes, but we have even more petrol taxes now in Auckland. So I say to my constituents and to all of those in Auckland to look at the price at the pump, particularly after 1 July, and see that it’s going up and up and up. They’ve been “rewarded” with higher rentals of over $50 extra a week now because of the extra costs that have been put on by this Government. Taxes around tourism, taxes around—well, basically, you name it; this Budget is looking to tax it. Mobile roaming: actually, there’s a little quirky one that most people won’t have noted, but they will when they go and get their next mobile roaming bill. So a boring, botched Budget—a triple B, if you will—but one that for me just illustrates the failures in this Government.

Look, I’ll focus primarily on the social housing side; that’s one of my spokespersonships. Look, incredibly disappointing—all we have is a cosmetic window dressing. In fact, I would suggest it’s just a reshuffling of the deckchairs, to bring about the Titanic idea. We’ve had massive failures by this Government in the social housing sector, and not only by an erroneous obsession with “KiwiFail”—sorry, KiwiBuild—which the community housing providers have noted has been very misspent money where they themselves were asking for help, and this Budget delivers nothing, absolutely nothing, to community housing providers. That’s important, because under this Government, we’ve seen the social housing waiting list almost double—almost double—in the last 18 months. Now, over 11,000 Kiwis are looking and waiting for a State house, and this Budget has delivered absolutely nothing.

In fact, what the Budget highlighted, and it was tucked away—delicately tucked away in those hundreds and hundreds of pages is a Government and a Minister in social development and a Minister in housing which are admitting failure, because they are expecting the emergency social housing grants to go through the roof. It was anticipated that we would spend about $20—sorry, about $6 billion, million. Gosh, I’m getting my figures mixed up today. It was anticipated that we would spend $6 million in social housing grants over the last year. It ended up being $20 million, which is an admission of that immediate failure which the Government has. Then, when you look at the Budget documents, over the next three to four years, they’re expecting those housing grants, emergency grants, to be at $120 million a year—$120 million a year—from what was anticipated to be between $6 million and $20 million. That’s a huge increase.

That’s a huge increase on top of a Government talking big about a housing programme. If you’re logical, you’d think that if the Government was able to deliver its housing programme, you would not have a need for more emergency social housing grants, but so incompetent is this Budget and this Government that not only is there a failed housing programme but there is going to be not $10 million and not $20 million of social housing grants, but $120 million for the next four years. If that isn’t a sign of failure, then I don’t know what is.

We have an attempt through this Budget to, I would suggest, hide the failures of KiwiBuild. The Minister tabled very soon, along with the Budget, a new bill to, effectively, merge Housing New Zealand, the KiwiBuild unit, and the Hobsonville Land Co. into a newly named Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities group. Nothing like a name change—always good to put it in Māori and English just to sort of mix things up a little bit and to mix up perceptions. What it’s going to do is completely unclear to us, but I would have one idea, and that’s that it’s an attempt to wash over the failure that is KiwiBuild. So I signal to this Government that myself and others in the housing sector will be following that one very closely to make sure—it’s a little bit like the justice suggestions: “Let’s just change the name of how we run the Family Courts and that’ll fix everything.” Well, a bit of a newsflash to the Government: simply changing the names of organisations does not change the failures which they’re presiding over.

Look, to be somewhat—somewhat—positive, I am pleased to see the money in the mental health space. It is an important area to be addressed, but two further comments need to be made—actually, three. The first is there is no plan. So it’s great that there’s that eye-watering amount of money—that’s brilliant. There needs to be a plan of how to spend it. Money alone does not solve problems; plans that use money do. Secondly, it’s actually looking at the situations which bring about the mental health problems, and I would suggest that a lot of the Government’s policies, a lot of the left, progressive policies, are what add to this instability in families—a desire, effectively, to keep people away from work, a constant desire to find excuses. These all drive the mental health issues, and, of course, we have the glaring contradiction of a pro-drug approach by this Government. And what a time for Andrew Little to be here, looking across the House at me, but a pro-drug approach—if this House is going to be serious—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon—Hon.

SIMON O’CONNOR: The Hon—yes, indeed he is the Hon Andrew Little, whose honourable intention, I am sure, is to have a good mental health programme that actually works. I would suggest to him and others on the other side of the House that liberalising drugs, allowing people to smoke more marijuana and all the other distillates, is not going to help mental health. In fact, spending $13 million on a referendum on cannabis without even a piece of legislation is a joke, and I’ll say today it’ll be more than $13 million by the end of it—by the end of it.

Look, the thing about the mental health increase, though, is that was more than what the entire health sector got—more than what the entire health sector got—and that’s a substantial problem. I’ve been on the record many a time over the years that Pharmac needs to be completely reworked, and it’s quite correct when Ministers of Health get up and say, “We can’t direct Pharmac to buy certain drugs.” That is not what I and others are asking. It’s not about directing them to buy certain drugs; it’s to change the structure in the funding to allow those drugs to be funded.

Look, I’m happy as the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee chair with what’s happening in the defence space. Our military assets do need to be upgraded. I am pleased to see the money’s finally appropriated around the P-8s. I’ll be very interested to see where the money is for the Hercules fleet. I think, myself, speaking in my own personal capacity, the decision to buy the C130Js is a good decision, but we need to see where that money is and appropriate it at the appropriate time.

The last thing I want to note, though, is I am hoping that there is a little bit more money for Immigration New Zealand. In recent days, they had to take down, effectively, an anti-Israel document off their website that had falsely claimed that there is a State of Palestine and that Jerusalem exists as only the capital for one country. That is a disgrace and it’s inappropriate. I will acknowledge that with the outcry and the message from myself and others, that has been taken down. But I would like to see—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s not in the Budget, though.

SIMON O’CONNOR: —more money in this Budget diverted to Immigration New Zealand to actually sort those sorts of areas, because I believe—and I have the Minister of Foreign Affairs here—that New Zealand’s policies in the foreign affairs space to do with the Levant need to remain committed to a two-party solution and ensure that errors like this will not happen again.

As I said at the start, I cannot, do not, will not, and never will commend this Budget to the House.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Interesting to note and to see a sliver, a tiny little ray, of positivity coming from across the other side of the House. It was like squeezing blood out of a stone. So to the member who has just resumed his seat, Simon O’Connor, we acknowledge that acknowledgment that the Budget is providing a greatly needed focus—the lens is certainly focused on mental health in this Budget.

Budget 2019, the 2019 Wellbeing Budget is a historic Budget. It is, basically, a representation of a change in our mentality. It’s a change in the way we understand what our economy is for. Our economy is for the benefit of the people and the environment, and this is what Budget 2019 does. We are focusing on a major issue in this country. We went into the election at 2017 understanding and recognising that mental health crisis in New Zealand must be addressed. In fact, New Zealand First, in 2017—at our conference leading into the election campaign, our keynote speaker was none other than the renowned mental health advocate Mike King. We understood the focus and the importance and the work that he did. He did receive an honour at the Queen’s Birthday awards for the work he is doing as an advocate in this space. So I’d like to acknowledge him, most definitely. There is $1.9 million in this Budget towards mental health.

Firstly, the coalition agreement that we struck was to restore the Mental Health Commission, so we’re very pleased to see that this will now come into effect—it will be re-established. It was in 2012 that the National Party disestablished the Mental Health Commission, so particularly with this Government, we are very pleased to see the commission back in action.

We are turning up the dial on how people can access mental health services. This is really important, to be able to easily, effectively, access the mental health services that individuals need. Those who have got mild to medium mental health issues will be able to access these services, wraparound services, for them. We are also providing through Budget 2019 an opportunity to deliver kaupapa Māori services. This is really important that it’s by Māori for Māori so that our people, our whānau who are suffering, have the access to the services not just for those who are suffering mental health issues but also too for those families, the whānau, who are in stress as well and who have to support our people with mental health issues—they will have the support wrapped around them too.

I note Minister Kelvin Davis in his announcement of $128.3 million improving mental health services inside prisons. This is a vital piece of work that needs to be done to get lives back on track—2,310 lives will be turned around with this funding that goes into mental health services inside prisons—but also too the whānau are affected by those inside prisons. Where there are mental health issues for those people in prison, often there are also mental health issues for the whānau, so this wraparound will help them to work through their mental health challenges.

Budget 2019, as I mentioned, is in fact a historic Budget. We are looking at people being at the heart of this Budget, and that is kind of quite a bit different, the concept of that. It’s not about the big end of town. We’re not just rolling out benefits for the big end of town; we’re actually looking at the people and what they need and require to have well-meaning lives and to thrive and prosper.

Hospital funding—that is receiving, over two years, $1.7 billion; over five years, it’s $2.9 billion. This is a massive capital investment. Dunedin Hospital: the funding will be ring-fenced to restore that facility. We are a Government that is investing back into this vital infrastructure. District health boards around the country are very pleased with what is happening there. Under the previous Government, there was a lack of infrastructure funding; it ultimately resulted in faecal matter oozing down the walls. We’re here now to fix that up and get these hospitals functioning with this capital investment.

New Zealand First is also really pleased about how we’ve been able to relieve the immediate pressure for the ambulance services—$21 million over the next two years will ensure the service of the ambulance is going to enable them to carry on doing the incredible work that they do when they’re called upon, and that is increasingly, as people need their services. So that was something New Zealand First in particular are very pleased about, and I note my colleague Darroch Ball, who had been working in that space alongside our leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters. So, we’re very pleased about the funding from the Budget for the ambulances.

Health obviously is a big particular area, but also too there are a couple of areas that I’d like to focus on now. I acknowledge—and I mentioned him before—the Hon Kelvin Davis in his corrections space, but also too something that has affected my family, particularly my uncle Pāpā Manuera Tohu QSM. Now, he was a trustee of Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust. Previously, the Kōhanga Reo National Trust, who are responsible for the critical role of the survival and the revitalisation of Te Reo Māori, our language, were unable to even get a meeting. The trustees were unable to get a meeting with the previous Minister. They sat outside her office in the Beehive. They waited and waited. They sat through many meetings, but would that Minister even see them, the kaumātua and the kuia of the Kōhanga Reo National Trust? No, she did not. She ignored them. In fact, she walked right past them as they were sat outside her office, and off she went without even looking them in the eye.

However, this Minister, the Hon Kelvin Davis, has planted $32 million into Te Kōhanga Reo to ensure that these organisations which are protecting our reo, which is a taonga of New Zealand—to ensure that those that are working inside kōhanga reo will be paid, particularly those that are volunteers. They will lift the wages with that $32 million. It will restore the ICT capacity and the many buildings that need repairs. So my uncle, Pāpā Manuera Tohu, would say to me, “Could you please thank Kelvin for the work he has done in ensuring funding and security for Te Kohanga Reo National Trust?”

My Uncle Frank is 91 years old and he’s just started learning Te Reo Māori. Incredible—91 years old. That is absolutely fantastic. Frank King—he lives up in Cable Bay. Earlier this year, at our urupā cleaning in Utakura in the Hokianga, he came down and was very, very proud to say that he’d just started learning Te Reo Māori. This Government would like to see 1 million speakers of Te Reo Māori by 2040. Now, I don’t know if Uncle Frank’s actually going to be still alive—he’ll be 100 or 111 by then. However, no matter what the age of anyone in New Zealand, you could learn Te Reo Māori, and Uncle Frank is an example of that.

What I’d like to acknowledge is the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister for Māori Development, and the $14 million which has been put into Māori broadcasting to help reach that goal of having 1 million New Zealanders being able to speak basic Te Reo Māori. What we would like to see is not just a focus on our young people, our rangatahi, learning but also too the likes of Uncle Frank at 91 years old—reaching out through our Māori broadcasting spaces, whether it’s iwi radio, Māori Television, or digital content online, so that we are able to help people learn our language, Te Reo Māori.

Another very small way that this Budget is going to make a difference is $20.8 million that is going to research and find solutions to stop kauri dieback. Kauri are our taonga species in our ngahere, in our bush. If we do not ensure the survival of kauri, then who are we as New Zealanders if we lose our taonga species? I’m very pleased to see $20.8 million will be invested in further research into kauri dieback. We’ve had a whole lot more bush and tracks around the Auckland region, and up into the Rodney region as well, closed over the last month or so because of the spread of this deadly pathogen, which is killing the kauri.

So I’d like to acknowledge that not only are we looking after our people, where our people are at the heart of this Wellbeing Budget, but also we’re taking care of the environment. So I commend this Budget to the House.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, sir. Let me begin with something positive. I welcome the significant extra funding for mental health that was announced in the recent Budget. It would be fair to say that Governments of both stripes for far too long have failed to respond to the worrying increase in our suicide statistics, addiction rates, and other concerns, because these are serious matters that cause heartbreak in families and all sorts of devastating consequences. But I was very disappointed for the reason that Government parties last year failed to agree to my colleague Matt Doocey’s suggestion of a cross-party approach to mental health issues. That would have been the best way to ensure a commitment to sustainable mental health policies and funding without point-scoring to tackle the serious problems that many New Zealanders face. Nevertheless, I will support all initiatives made possible by this Budget’s funding increase that can be shown to be well targeted, evidence-based, and effective. It is vital that this Government’s habit of saying nice things and promising lots of money without having done the work to convert those good intentions into effective programmes and lasting improvements isn’t repeated in the mental health space.

The Ardern-Peters Government has, frankly, destroyed the trust of the electorate by repeatedly failing to deliver on their promises. They are light years away from delivering on the extra police numbers that they promised. In education, they’ve broken their promise over school donations for all deciles. In 2017, they promised teachers the earth, yet they’ve presided over unprecedented strikes—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Nine long years doing nothing.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —while demonstrating total ineptitude, Ms Dyson, in the negotiations over teachers’ pay and conditions. They’ve wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars in their fees-free tertiary education blunder, which, incredibly, has seen a reduction in the number of students enrolling. Rather than meeting health targets, they’ve abolished them to cover up their failures, and the number of elective surgical operations is plummeting around the country. They’re failing to deliver lifesaving drugs to people facing serious illnesses, and people’s lives are at stake.

They promised 100,000 affordable new houses, but instead they’re subsidising developers in affluent areas while failing to meet their housing targets so abysmally that the housing Minister must be the first one for the chop in the Prime Minister’s looming reshuffle. What a joke his KiwiBuild policy has been. No wonder none of his colleagues are mentioning it in this debate, despite it having been their flagship policy for years, even before Winston Peters put them into office.

They promised new roads, but they’re not building them. Instead, they made further fuel tax increases their first priority when they sat under urgency following a so-called wellbeing Budget. But, at the same time, they’re cancelling important infrastructure projects all around the country and not building a single new road with the proceeds. Well, my constituents in Hamilton West are furious that the extensions to the Waikato Expressway from Cambridge to Tīrau and from Karapiro to the foot of the Kaimai Ranges, which National promised and budgeted for—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: No.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —have been cancelled on a whim by this Government, and if Julie Anne Genter, sitting over there, wants to tell people waiting to get on to State Highway 1 at Piarere while they’re driving from Tauranga to Hamilton that they’re car fascists and she doesn’t care about their safety, then she should be the next one for the chop in the Cabinet reshuffle, because, Miss Genter, my constituents are very, very angry with your decision.

In all of these respects, this Budget was the direct opposite of delivering wellbeing. New Zealanders can see that they’ve been conned by a Government that talks about kindness while spraying cash on any project that the minor party that calls the shots in this administration demands. But even that party let them down. There was nothing in this Budget for ACC clients, but there is significant angst in centres such as Palmerston North, Timaru, and Whanganui, where large numbers of ACC jobs are disappearing—

Andrew Falloon: That’s right.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —because they’re being shifted to main centres—and it’s good to have the member for Rangitata in the House.

During the last campaign, Winston Peters went around the country pretending to be the provincial saviour. He told farmers in Ashburton that they were the lifeblood of this country and needed to be protected. “You burn the provinces down, the country is finished.”, he thundered, yet now he’s supporting methane reduction targets that will cripple them and our economy, even though all the science tells us that they’re unjustifiably extreme, and he’s happy to see Government jobs depart from regional centres, including about half of the jobs in Timaru, my colleague’s electorate—just down the road from those Ashburton farmers, Mr Peters. Well, that’s another promise that previous speakers on the other side of the House haven’t mentioned.

But what do we read in the coalition agreement? This is quite significant. Under coalition priorities, New Zealand First has a number of priorities to progress which Labour will support alongside its policy programme, including a commitment to relocate Government functions into the regions. Into the regions—what absolute poppycock! So those who voted for that priority have been betrayed, yet we’ve heard nothing from the self-appointed champion of the regions or his leader about that. Frankly, their record is appalling. They promised much, they tax more, and they consistently fail to deliver on their promises while wasting the cash, mulching trees, and paying for wealthy students to entice them into courses they were going to enrol in anyway.

But let me return to mental health. While I welcome that extra funding, I am concerned that so little of the extra $1.9 billion promised over four years that has been allocated for mental health is earmarked for drug and alcohol addiction services. In my city of Hamilton, the local service provider tells me that he may have to close his rehabilitation centre if the Government funding isn’t forthcoming. The evidence of the link between drugs and alcohol addiction and mental health challenges is overwhelming. Most admissions to the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre at Waikato Hospital are due to drug-induced psychosis or a psychotic episode, yet there’s only a pittance in this Government’s specifically allocated predictions, and even then, there are no details that providers can rely on.

I’m also alarmed that the Budget fine print would suggest that our alcohol and drug treatment courts—which were piloted and funded by National—are under threat, and I call upon the Ministers of justice and police and health and corrections to express their support for these courts—

Hon Andrew Little: $650,000—$650,000.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —clearly and unequivocally. Alcohol and drug abuse causes havoc in our communities. Both lead to road crashes, violence in our streets, and misery in our homes. Methamphetamine use is increasingly driving homicides. There’s considerable research in New Zealand that shows that more than 50 percent of crime is committed by people under the influence of drugs or alcohol and that two-thirds of our prisoners have substance abuse issues. Drug courts focus on breaking that cycle of addiction with access to specialised services, which engage with offenders on a longer-term basis as they complete appropriate milestones alongside their sentences.

Now, while I believe that the drug court programme should be expanded right throughout the country, no funding has been announced for the courts beyond June next year, Mr Little—

Hon Andrew Little: That member’s Government set up a pilot that finishes this year.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —and the Government has given no commitment to continuing with them. I’ve been a strong advocate for a drug court in Hamilton. I know that all of those on the formation committee in Hamilton are deeply worried about this issue, Mr Little, and they’ve read your Budget, and they can’t see—

Hon Andrew Little: No, they’re not. They’ve spoken to me—we’ve had a good conversation.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —any evidence of support at all. They have told me they are very concerned, and I’m reflecting those concerns in this speech. Well, there are 3,000 drug courts of that type in the United States, and in Texas, they’ve even been able to shut down some prison wings because they have been so effective. While I’ll continue to push for that in Hamilton, I know that it’s strongly supported by the Waikato Mayoral Forum, the Waikato District Health Board, and many others.

My disappointment over this matter is widely shared, and so it seems are many others. There’s widespread disappointment being expressed across the board by this Government’s friends and by other organisations who would usually be seen to be sympathetic to them, and many of my colleagues have quoted people like Mac Welch from Grey Power. We’ve even heard from the Child Poverty Action Group how disappointed they are with this Budget—there are huge numbers of people, with very good reason.

For instance, the New Zealand College of Midwives described it as a “disappointing” Budget in which “the dire issues facing the maternity system have not been addressed.” Their chief executive commented that “Much has been said by Grant Robertson about child wellbeing and investing in our younger generation to ensure better outcomes for them and wider society—but how the very workforce that brings those children into the world could again be largely ignored is beyond us.”

The chief executive of Lung Foundation NZ expressed the same concern as the Cancer Society of New Zealand. They have been concerned about the lack of significant increase in Pharmac’s funding. The chief executive of the Lung Foundation said that “the $10 million over four years is a step backwards.”, and his assessment was pretty brutal: “Budget 2019, is not a Wellbeing Budget but rather an instrument of more suffering, financial crisis and premature death for cancer patients most in need of care and support.”

The New Zealand Association of Counsellors highlighted the lack of detail about how the extra funding for mental health services will be spent. Their president said “At the moment we don’t know and neither does anyone else.”, and it goes on and on. If I had time, I’d put on the record many more concerns.

There’s huge criticism across the sector about the fact that this is a Government that has promised so much and has failed to deliver in really significant ways on their promises. It’s a disgrace. Members opposite should hang their heads in shame, and they couldn’t possibly be proud to commit this Budget to the House. It’s a disgrace.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

A party vote was called for on the question, That this debate be now adjourned.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Motion agreed to.

Racing Reform Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Racing Act 2003

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Racing Reform Bill in its committee stage. Ironically, New Zealand’s playing South Africa at cricket tonight, and for those who really want to know, New Zealand’s paying $1.68, South Africa’s $2.14, and Kane Williamson’s the $3.50 favourite to be the highest scorer. Now, I guess that’s pretty relevant in the days when we are talking about a bill that deals with not only racing reform but also, I guess, not reform to such an extent, but certainly some alterations to our ability to have a flutter on the cricket.

I want to talk about three clauses, really, in respect of the bill in front of us tonight. The first one is clause 11, which sets up the membership of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA). It sets out who shall be appointed to the RITA. Basically, this bill is based around the activities of the RITA in the next 12 months or so.

Clause 8 brings the RITA into being, and that replaces the Racing Board and enables the Racing Industry Transition Agency to carry out and restructure the industry as required and directed. We’re in favour of that part of this bill. We’re in favour of all of the bill, of course, but we’re certainly in favour of that part of the bill because it does give the ability for a new entity, basically, to take over the running of the Racing Board and its subsidiaries, and to make sure that that transition is smooth and operates effectively. I think we can certainly have some confidence in the people that are likely to be appointed to that RITA. I think that will be satisfactory for the industry, and there’s certainly a general air of acceptance in the industry that that’s going to work pretty well.

Next, I want to just talk about clauses 9 and 10 in Part 1, which are, effectively, the bits that make the industry work. If we hadn’t had the Minister in the select committee this morning, I would have been able to ask a couple of questions, and now I don’t need to because I asked him and I got the answer—well, I feel I’ve got the answer—but I think that this is where the big challenge will be. The big challenge, I think, for the racing industry part of this bill will be setting up—well, the RITA will be set up, and the next step is the big challenge. That’s how the industry uses the ability that this bill gives it to develop the next steps, and that’s really what clauses 9 and 10 cover in the course of this bill. I think that that will be the big job the RITA has in front of it, and it will be the big job for the industry that follows on as a result of that.

Of course, the racing industry part of this bill that’s affected by this is New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, Harness Racing New Zealand, and the greyhounds. They will all have the opportunity to participate in how they might be structured as a result of this bill and in what that might look like going forward. It’s very important to the industry that those three bodies not only get themselves restructured in a manner that works for them but also get themselves together, because they need to cooperate in the course of this.

The other piece of this puzzle that needs to cooperate in the course of this to get the best result for everyone, of course, is Sport New Zealand and their various entities or the members of Sport New Zealand. It’s most important that the cooperation is there, and I think we can be confident that that will happen. It’s certainly essential that it does.

So I think that in the part of the bill that’s primarily covered by the need to set up the Racing Industry Transition Agency and the activities it takes, I guess we’re giving them the leeway to do what we think they’ll do properly, and I think they will. They are guided by this reform bill on what they can and can’t do. I think it will be successful, and it’s something the industry’s been crying out for for some years now. The Minister has been allocated a budget of some $3.5 million to implement these changes and make sure that they follow through—I think we can be confident that will be sufficient. I also think we can be confident that will get a good result for not only the racing sector but also for the sports sector as well.

I wanted to talk briefly about the TAB—or what’s known as the TAB, which, effectively, is what the Racing Board governs—because I think it’s really important and it will be important as we go forward. It’s going to be a challenge for the Racing Industry Transition Agency, and whatever follows, as to how they might manage that. But it’s interesting when you look at the history of the TAB. It was formed in about 1952—in fact, it was formed when I was, quite some time ago—by the racing industry with the help of the Parliament; in other words, it was formed by the Parliament, really, but it was formed at the request of the racing industry. I think one of the great challenges that we’re going to have going forward with this whole sector is, who actually owns it? I think if you looked at its history, that would be dubious, but you’d probably suspect the racing industry in its entirety thinking it does own it. That, of course, signals some of the issues that have followed since. Then, of course, in 1996, I think it was, the TAB was then given by this Parliament the ability to provide for sports betting, and that has led to where we’re at today.

I think the real challenge for us and for the industry going forward—and certainly for the whole of that industry—is going to be how that issue is resolved as to who owns and controls the entity that provides the gambling services to all of those who wish to gamble on sport, racing, or anything else in New Zealand. Of course, this bill in its entirety does enable offshore providers to—and they have been able to in New Zealand for some years, of course, because we haven’t been able to control it. This bill will provide the control on offshore gamblers, at least to the extent of being able to recover some levy money and some charges for use of product from those people. The Minister has a Supplementary Order Paper, SOP 249, which will deal with one or two of those things; and really it’s, effectively, tidying up some stuff that’s a little untidy, and that always happens, that’s to be expected. It’s positive, in my view, and we’ll certainly be supporting that.

There are a lot of things in this bill that I think are positive. I think the way that the levy is going to be divided and treats the gambling sector, particularly through the gambling harm part of the legislation, is positive and I think it will assist greatly in where we get to with that. As I said last night, there’s a big difference, in my opinion, between having a bit of a bet on what you think—or a flutter, as I called it earlier—might be the outcome of something. In other words, if you’re going to back Kane Williamson to be the highest scorer tonight, you’re probably pretty safe—well, you’d think you would be, wouldn’t you? But perhaps you’re not. But I think that that’s a very different thing, as I said last night, than poking some money into a thing and pushing a button and hoping it comes back out again. That, in my view, is the critical difference between most of the services that the TAB provides to New Zealanders and most of the things we get out of either sports betting or betting on a racehorse. So that’s hugely positive.

I just want to very briefly turn back to the issue I raised before, and that’s the issue of the industry entities getting their structures right and making sure that they’re in the position to utilise the ability that this bill and the bill that will follow will give them, because it is most important that if those industries have the money, that they then have the ability and the will, I guess, to make the thing work in a manner that should work, and make these racecourses work in the manner they should. That, of course, completely relates back to the critical factor in this whole piece of legislation, which, effectively, is to get our breeding industry in New Zealand and our horse breeding industry in New Zealand working, and working well. It’s essential that it does, because we are one of the best in the world—unquestionably one of the best in the world; we have the best conditions in the world to do it, and as a country we should use the things that we’re good at to the best of our ability.

Also, I think, the horse’s footprint, from an environmental impact perspective, is very different than many other animals that we might use. So I think that’s the other positive part that we will gain out of this bill. I think the fact that we can then enable people throughout the country to put a horse back in their paddock, which was the way when we were—well, when I was young, sorry, Madam Chair, I didn’t mean to include you in that. When I was young, every second person had a horse in their paddock or their yard. That’s the exciting thing about these animals; they’re not related to racing, necessarily. It spreads right across the equestrian sector, across the sports sector, and the recreational sector.

So it’s most important that that this works. As I said, I would have had a couple of questions for the Minister, if only we had the opportunity to question him on those this morning. The National Party do support this, but there are many challenges for the industry as we go forward from here. There are many challenges for the sports sector as we go forward from here. But it’s also, in my view, a significant opportunity for them all. I think that we’re in good order with the bill. A lot of hard work’s been done, particularly a lot of hard work by members on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I just want to congratulate—I didn’t last night—Darroch Ball on the work he did to get that bill through and back into the House in such a hurry. So that’s my lot, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): I’m very pleased to be able to speak in this committee stage of the Racing Reform Bill. I just want to say a couple of things at the outset. Firstly, I want to acknowledge our racing spokesperson, Ian McKelvie, acknowledge the former Minister the Hon David Bennett, and also acknowledge the Minister in the chair, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, to absolutely reaffirm our commitment to supporting the bill and also to the real issues around the viability of the racing industry.

But, as I have said very publicly, this is about balance. The reason that National has had a minority view that has raised issues of representation and of distribution is because we not only support the $1.6 billion racing industry and the 18,000 jobs that go with that but we also support the national sporting organisations and their absolute right to raise legitimate issues around representation and distribution. So I have a raft of questions for the Minister. I do want to acknowledge that I had the opportunity today to have the sports Minister in front of the select committee.

The first question that I have for the Minister relates to the totalisator levy. We, obviously, have a situation in this bill where it’s progressively being repealed—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s Part 2.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Oh, OK—that’s fine.

You know, I do want to raise the issue of the representation with the Minister. There have been a range of questions about who will actually end up on the Racing Industry Transition Agency. There is some suggestion that members may have already been shoulder-tapped. I’d ask him to give us the absolute confidence that we’re going to have the sport representation that we need.

I think the other key question that, obviously, people are raising is around this distribution issue. Again, today the sports Minister very clearly said that he would be advocating for a greater distribution for sport. That’s at odds with the racing Minister and the Minister in the chair, who’s very clearly said no to media around that issue; people are wrong if they think that somehow sport should get a greater distribution. I totally understand that the purpose of this bill is to actually grow the pie for racing and sport. I accept that; that’s why National is supporting this bill.

This issue of the proportion of betting that actually occurs in terms of sporting organisations is real. It was raised through the select committee process. For instance, we heard from a remote gambling association that they expect potentially 95 percent of betting that Kiwis make on overseas bets could be sport-related. So I really want to hear from the Minister, because he is going to have huge powers under this bill around that formula, because we’re taking it out of the law—and I acknowledge that was a proposal that National put up under the former Minister—and what his thoughts are around that distribution formula, because we’ve got New Zealand Cricket and we’ve got comments from New Zealand Rugby, all arguing for that greater share of the pie. So we’d really love to hear some comments from the Minister for Racing about what he is thinking, specifically around sports and the distribution issues.

I also want to raise a few other issues that were raised through the select committee process. Obviously, this issue of the time. We had a five-day submission period over a long weekend, and people quite clearly said they were really, really concerned about the process. This issue that was raised in the select committee around penalties and the ability of the Department of Internal Affairs to be enforcer and have multiple roles, and that issue in terms of penalties—them being both the adjudicator and the enforcer—and, you know, whether it’s really a real issue that the members of this House should be considering. Is it appropriate? We heard from the New Zealand Law Society and we heard from the Ministry of Justice around these issues, so we’d love to hear the Minister’s comments on that, regarding that issue.

The other issue that was raised through select committee is around harm minimisation, and I can see that Julie Anne Genter is in the House. I know that there are plans through the second piece of legislation to discuss these issues, but, you know, they’re real issues that were raised by the Salvation Army. I think, as well, Transparency International raised this issue of harm minimisation and whether we should have been dealing with some of that in this legislation.

So there are multiple questions that I have for the Minister for Racing. Again, I acknowledge National absolutely supports this bill. We support the racing industry. We support the real viability issues. I acknowledge the Minister for all of the work that he’s done to shield this through, but these issues of balance, in terms of our sporting sector, I would love the Minister to comment on—and some of those process issues, particularly this issue raised by the New Zealand Law Society and the Ministry of Justice.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It would have been good to have the Minister for Racing up first. It would have been good to be able to see what his plans are, because I think that the issues around this bill have been widely canvassed by all the speakers. Ian McKelvie raised the point that we raised yesterday in the second reading, and that is the responsibility that’s now on the Minister. That’s a responsibility that he cannot take lightly, and we would really like to get some comfort from him today about what his plans actually are.

Now, we all know that this is the first part of the legislative process, and it’s the easy part, effectively. It’s giving money to the industry, and it’s working off the basis of legislation that had been prepared some years ago, and it enables it to be taken to the next step with the reduction of that levy over time. But the real impetus for the industry will become in how that money is actually used, and that’s where the Minister has a vital role, because, in providing the leadership for this legislation, he also has a role now, in the next year or so, in providing leadership around how that money is allocated.

I’d like to pay credit to my—[Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but could I just—are you coming or going? Thank you. Carry on.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s not quite the races yet, but thank you for keeping everybody in order.

Hon Ruth Dyson: We’re hanging on every word!

Hon DAVID BENNETT: You should be—you should be.

I’d just like to acknowledge that it’s not just about racing; as well, this is a huge thing for sport. Our spokesman on sport, Nikki Kaye, has done a tremendous job in advocating for sports in this debate. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that sport could win by the value of about $18 million to $33 million a year out of this. Those are the figures that are in the departmental report. On the back of the envelope, you’re probably looking at about $10 million that you could probably allocate to sport as its proportion.

We must realise that sport is about 27 percent of the total betting turnover of the TAB. Now, that will only increase over time, and sport will—as Nikki Kaye has said—have a justification for seeking greater funding. I’m sure the Minister for Sport and Recreation will be arguing for that as well. However, on the other side of it, we must understand that the TAB is something that has been set up by the racing codes many, many years ago. It does give an avenue for sports to collect that money that they wouldn’t have otherwise, and there will necessarily be a cost involved in that collection.

That is one of the responsibilities that now is on the Minister, because, in the process of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, there was one major theme that came through, and that was the good-faith element. Now, all three codes are undertaking good faith in the way that they have approached this legislation. They haven’t sought to have individual representation on the board. They haven’t sought to have those distributions identified primarily in the legislation. They could have, and they may have liked to have had that, but they have taken a broader good-faith approach to this legislation.

The sports entities have taken the same good-faith approach. They have put a lot of trust in the Minister and in the Minister for Sport and Recreation to make sure that that good faith is rewarded in a way that would be for the benefit of all sports codes and racing codes. So that is one of the primary obligations the Minister now has to face.

Now, we’re going to hear about a second tranche of legislation that the Minister intends to put forward, and that is sometime in the future. It is not settled at this stage, even within the coalition. But, without that legislation, there is still a requirement for the Minister to exercise that good faith now, because there is a reliance on him from the codes and also the sporting entities. That is primarily his responsibility for now, through his appointment of who will be on the board and the guidance he will give them, no doubt, over time.

The second element is going back to what Mr McKelvie raised. If we take it from a very racing perspective, the money we’re talking about here is not huge in the sense of the total quantum of what racing spends, earns, or will need to turn it around. It is a start, and it is a nice start, but this is not going to change the racing industry overnight.

But what can happen is this money can be utilised in a way to enable the racing industry to make some strategic changes and some strategic choices. That is the second responsibility that is on the Minister, because he is the one that has the most contact with those industries as the relevant Minister and is the one putting this legislation through the House. His responsibility now, I believe, is to ensure that this money does not just get allocated to the great pool and diluted across many, many racecourses and many, many race meetings in New Zealand. There has to be a better way of doing it. We’re not dealing with a huge amount of money for racing that will turn it around but we are dealing with enough money in racing that we can make some really strategic decisions.

I encourage the Minister to put some of his decisions that he is making in other fields in the racing area together with the money that is coming here today. You look at the desire to have a synthetic track, for example, and the Minister’s acknowledgment that he wants to have three throughout the country. Now, those synthetic tracks are yet to be seen where they will go, but it’s very important because the money that will come from this legislation needs to be incorporated with a wider vision of how that investment in the horse industry—and especially the breeding industry, and also for the dogs—goes along so that we actually get to a situation where this money makes real change.

If anyone talks to anybody in the industry, the biggest change they want to see is that they want higher stakes. They say that stakes are the important thing because that will enable investment by people that want to own horses and it will encourage a return for those that are training or driving and jockeys and other people that are involved in the horse and dog sector.

That return can easily get diluted with this money, in the sense that it won’t make a major difference if we put it across the whole of the industry. But, if we’re careful of how we do it and we structure it and link it with other reforms and other investments, then there is the potential to create that degree of the industry that will enable it to flourish and succeed. I encourage the Minister to think about that, because that is the real opportunity he has. This bill will pass through the House. It has support from all political parties, and it is not just voting support; it has moral support as well.

But the real issue now will be for how we use this money to make sure that that industry can actually go ahead and flourish. It has got the opportunity ahead of it and it has got a mechanism here to assist, but this mechanism needs to be in conjunction with other endeavours.

In closing, this is a good bill for New Zealand racing and is a particularly good bill for New Zealand sport. For New Zealand sport going forward, the gains that will be out of this will be tremendous as there is greater betting on sport around the world and on New Zealand sport from overseas. The gains that New Zealand sport will get will be tremendous. The gains that New Zealand racing will get will also be significant. But they need to be used in a constructive way so that we actually get the result that everybody wants, and that is a strong racing industry.

So I commend this bill to the House, and I thank the Minister for passing it through. I realise that it has been a long process because you have had the Messara Report and you’ve had other interactions to get it to the stage where we are now. So I thank the Minister for bringing it forward.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister for Racing): I want to thank Ian McKelvie for his comments. I don’t know whether he’s accurate about the TAB overnight with respect to the cricket. In fact, I wouldn’t be too certain that the bet was off to a great start, but this is about the racing industry in particular. It really is an extraordinary question, but I’ve decided to, at this time, ask the question: who owns the TAB? Here we are, 19 June 2019, and we’re asking that question. So we need to sort it out, and fast.

Can I say to Nikki Kaye that when she says the issue of greater sports distribution—well, I can make it very, very clear that the racing industry itself is not just about horse racing. I don’t know if you remember the song “Rugby, Racing and Beer”, but it used to have the phrase “Down under we’re mad over our rugby, racing and beer.” So it’s not just about racing. On the question of distribution, I don’t think she’s right when she said 90 percent could be sport related; it’s 27 percent now. What’s being missed is if you’re going to say that that 27 percent should go directly to sports—because it came via other sports—what’s the cost of maintenance of the system that brings that 27 percent about? Surely that’s got to be shared. On the question of whether there should be a greater percentage, well, that certainly is an open debate and we should be proceeding with it. There’ll be additions to the Racing Industry Transitional Agency to ensure that sport is represented. So we’ve got to find the right person, but the Minister for Sport and Recreation, of course, will have to be consulted anyway. The big issue is to grow the pie.

On the question she raised about harm minimisation, well, we’re going to make sure that there is a far greater allocation to go towards harm minimisation. But I want to say this: you go in a casino and—it’s an extraordinary thing—you say, “Here’s all my money. I hope I get some of it back”. Now, racing and the TAB is not like that. In racing and the TAB, you’re putting your best judgment, your knowledge, and your studentship of the game or the sport that you’re watching against the rest of the country. It has got a certain excitement, and certain people who are skilled in it do very, very well. The casino—it’s all over to chance. If you’re any good and you can count numbers, then they expel you; you’re banned from the casino. How does that work?

So this is a far more fair system, but I do understand that those who are in sports should be assured that there’s no purpose here to have a dispute arising with the sports bodies, or, indeed, disputes between the three codes—the gallops, the trots, and the dogs. We can surely do much better. We can do far better for all of them. You are right, Mr Bennett, stake money is the number one issue here because it’s the owner who is the most critical person in sports racing. They pay all the bills for the vets, the trainers, the whole hundred yards, the carriers, the farriers; everybody associated with racing is paid for, in the end, by the owner. I’m going to give them a fairer go. On synthetic tracks—it makes good sense, surely, to not have the massive cancellations we have because of our weather so that the race, on race day, goes on.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 249 in the name of the Rt Hon Winston Peters to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Racing Industry Transition Agency

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Rt Hon Winston Peters to clause 28(4) be agreed to:

In clause 28(4), delete “paragraph (a),”.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

New Part 3 Certain Exemptions

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 253 in the name of Chris Bishop inserting new Part 3 is out of order because it is outside the scope of the bill.

Schedule 1

Amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 249 in the name of the Rt Hon Winston Peters to Schedule 1 be agreed to.

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3

Amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 249 in the name of the Rt Hon Winston Peters to Schedule 3 be agreed to.

Schedule 3 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment) on behalf of the Minister for Veterans: I move, That the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Firstly, can I thank all the parties in the House for their unanimous support for this bill and for the constructive kōrero conversations that have been had with members opposite on the issue, in particular the Hon Maggie Barry, the Hon Judith Collins, the Hon David Bennett, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, the Hon Nathan Guy, and the Hon Gerry Brownlee.

Following the discovery of an unintended drafting error in section nine of the Veterans Support Act 2014, the priority was to get this resolved as quickly as possible with cross-party support to ensure minimal disruption for veterans or for Veterans’ Affairs and their work programme. The speed with which we are fixing the issue is an example of good governance operating in a bipartisan and cross-party manner. Can I thank the Social Services and Community Committee for reporting back on this bill in quick time and to the four submitters on the bill.

It’s noted that the committee considered that the bill as introduced needed no amendment. On this basis, the Business Committee has determined that, following the second reading, the bill will be set down for third reading immediately and without debate. Again, the Minister would like to thank the Business Committee for this decision, as the longer the Act had been left unamended the longer many of those whom it was intended to benefit wouldn’t have been able to access its support.

As was covered in the first reading speech, we know from the documents at the time of developing the primary legislation that the intention of the 2014 Act was that declarations of qualifying operational service could be made at any time before, during, or after deployments, and that’s how it has been interpreted since it was passed. So we had to get this fixed to clarify the status of the 14 retrospective declarations that have been made since 2015, covering multiple missions and geographical areas, and affecting approximately 675 veterans and their spouses and family members, including families of service personnel who were killed in action. When the bill is passed, the Minister will be particularly pleased that the work of Veterans’ Affairs will be looked at again, at previous deployments, and can restart, with 39 deployments currently being reassessed, in three geographical areas, potentially extending entitlements to around 1,600 veterans. The Minister looks forward to further recommendations coming forward for consideration.

Can I emphasise that one of the Minister’s primary areas of focus has been on improving the wellbeing of veterans and their families. This bill aligns with that intent by ensuring that all those who have served New Zealand in situations where they were put at risk of serious harm are treated equitably. I commend the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill to the House. Kia ora.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Speaker. In support of this bill I rise, after the eloquent member who’s just resumed his seat, Hon Willie Jackson, has run through the reasons why this bill is important. Not all bills enjoy cross-party support, but at a time when the defence Minister, whose responsibilities for veterans are included, invited us from National to talk with him about the need for addressing this more quickly than other mechanisms could have done, like a statutes amendment bill or something of that kind—if we had gone down that track, which was one of the initial options, that would have taken quite a lot longer, and by the time you get 10 to 20 pieces of minor and technical amendments together, it would have meant that the veterans wouldn’t have got what they needed in a timely fashion.

Because of the level of interventions that Ministers have had to make since the passing of this bill in 2014, it’s very important, I think, that we retain the spirit of what was originally in that bill, and that we also do not delay in giving the veterans their entitlements and the things that they deserve. Of course, at the time that we took submissions, there was a level of excitement among veterans that this might be their only opportunity to let the Minister and the wider public know of their wider concerns, but this is a very narrowly focused bill that only seeks, really, to correct an anomaly that went into that first legislation. Various individual groups such as the Veterans’ Association strongly support the intent of the amendment. That was very much the theme of all of the submissions. There weren’t that many, actually—under 10—but some of the veterans thought they might be able to open it up more widely and consider whether the time of engagement could be brought back to prior to 1974. That may well be able to be discussed in the wider review that the Minister’s conducting.

Ron Paterson has put together a comprehensive look at the range of issues that veterans need to establish, and so those issues, which include how you define a veteran and the level of engagement and service and what taking the oath really means—what are the level of entitlements, and so forth—those will be debated in a wider arena than this, and the Minister has undertaken that he will allow veterans the time for proper consultation. Our understanding was that, until this was passed, it would hold up the body of work that more veterans require. So, from our perspective, there didn’t seem to be any need to waste any time on this particular thing. The original bill, which was about 170 pages or so, had a lot of very good elements within it, but because of that anomaly and the 14 historical declarations Ministers have had to make since 2015, when it came into force, that interpretation of section 9 has been troublesome. So, without further ado and taking up further time in the House, I will commend this bill to the House, and we fully support it. Thank you.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Madam Speaker, this feels a bit like a Thursday afternoon debate but, tragically, it’s not Thursday afternoon; it’s only Wednesday—oh, no, I don’t mean “tragically”, because I always miss the House so much when I leave on a Thursday afternoon, but the reason that I said that it feels like a Thursday afternoon debate is that we’ve got consensus amongst the parties in the supporting of this bill.

I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Hon Ron Mark, as the Minister responsible for this legislation, in garnering that support. It’s not always easy, but I guess it was less difficult, less challenging in this instance because this is not a bill that is full of complexities or policy challenges; it’s a bill that just rectifies a drafting area—error. I’ve caught the Willie Jackson disease, saying “area” instead of “error”. It corrects a drafting error in section 9 of the Veterans’ Support Act, passed in 2014. This was, obviously, an Act that was passed under the previous Government, but my recollection from the debate then was that it had support from all the parties in Parliament as well.

It’s really important that we do progress this legislation at a good pace, and I’m pleased that that’s what the House has been doing, and the reason for that is that, at the moment, even though veterans have been advised that the bill is going to be progressed, they’ve heard the debate at the select committee, and, as the Hon Maggie Barry mentioned, there weren’t very many submitters but there was a lot of interest from around—

Hon Maggie Barry: Nine.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Nine or 10. The Hon Maggie Barry recalls the exact number, but there was a lot of interest from veterans around the country, who are not confident about the outcome of this. Nobody can ever guarantee what the outcome in Parliament is going to be, so a lot of veterans are saying, “Once the law is passed, we will be assured of what our entitlements are.” And, of course, this is important not just for veterans but also for their families. They need to have certainty about their entitlements. The agency that administers the veterans’ entitlements also should be confident about what they’re doing in future. There are processes, there are mechanisms, and there are basic administration issues that will need to be put in place to ensure that, when these changes are made, when this drafting error is corrected, the agency will be able to carry on with the administration.

What happened in 2014 is that the Veterans’ Support Act changed the criteria for determining whether a veteran who was, obviously, serving on behalf of New Zealand can receive support or services if they’re injured or become ill because of the nature of what they have been exposed to during their time serving New Zealand. It’s obvious it was something like that, and with the passion that most members—probably all members—of Parliament feel in terms of respect for our veterans, it’s obvious that that support was going to be ensured. But this section of the legislation had a drafting error in it, so it didn’t deliver what Parliament expected. For the Government of the day—and if members refer to the Hansard of the debate at the time; late 2013 or early 2014, from my recollection—the intention of the Government was to allow the declaration of qualifying operational time, the time of the service, to be made at any time before, during, or after the deployment. So that declaration could be at any one of those three times. That’s how it’s been interpreted since the legislation was passed.

So, as a result, since that time—since 2015—when the Act came into force, a number of deployments which didn’t meet the previous criteria have been reassessed. That had to be done to make sure that all those who have served, particularly on high-risk deployments, are treated equally and consistently. So there’s been an interpretation of the legislation, there’s been an understanding of members of Parliament who were involved in the debate and the discussion at the time, and then there’s been the actual legislation, which haven’t all matched up and, obviously, in order for our agencies to be seen not to be complying with the intent of the legislation but actually to be complying with the letter of the legislation, this correction needs to be made.

So, throughout that process—throughout the interpretation of the legislation—the understanding of Parliament, and the sharp eagle eyes of somebody who’s been looking at the actual wording—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member. That was so interesting, but the House is suspended for the dinner break. We will resume at 7.30 p.m.

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

Hon RUTH DYSON: I wouldn’t always take the remaining time, but I have to say that I was so encouraged and enthused by your lovely words prior to the dinner adjournment, and I want to thank you for that commendation.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is like a Thursday afternoon.

Hon RUTH DYSON: It is like a Thursday afternoon! As I was saying before dinner, the reason that I had said that it was like a Thursday afternoon is because we have cross-party agreement on this bill. The Minister Ron Mark deserves support and praise for his ability to discuss the issue that we are now progressing in legislation with all the other parties in this House, and get what I understand will be unanimous agreement. Perhaps it’s not the biggest challenge that he’s had, because this is just fixing a simple drafting error. But regardless, I think that the respect that a Minister gains when they’re able to work collaboratively, and also commendation to—I know the Hon Judith Collins and the Hon Maggie Barry were two of the former Ministers who were involved, and I think we should also commend them for their willingness to put party politics aside and say, “For the good of veterans, we should just get on and do this”.

I know that the Hon Ron Mark has a particular passion for veterans, and that, I have always assumed, is because of his time in the military. I want to say that I share that passion. It’s not because I have spent any time in the military myself, but because I was brought up as an army brat. I was born not far from this fair building in a place called Naenae. I don’t know if that’s in Ginny Andersen’s patch, or Chris Hipkins’ patch, but I was born in Naenae. But I had the foresight, at the age of just 2½ months of age, to leave Naenae. But unfortunately, where I next resided was Waiōuru. It was cold, it was damp—it’s a delightful place. Then we moved from there to Linton, just out of Palmerston North.

Every single one of my family is born in a different army camp. My mother was born in Auckland, my father was born in Dunedin, and my siblings and I were born in army camps in between. So I was brought up to “Reveille” and “The Last Post” and Anzac Day parades, and used to being surrounded by people wearing uniforms because that was our life. So I have a personal passion and understanding for the work of veterans. Melissa Lee, my colleague across the House, has shared Korean Day with me as I honoured those who fought alongside my father in Korea. Melissa was quite surprised to hear, potentially, something good about a Labour MP that she agreed with! But she and I have often exchanged those discussions at Korean Day events and subsequently. My father also served in Japan and in Egypt, as well as Korea, but, fortunately, was one of the people who came home without any physical injuries, unlike some of the some of the people who are impacted by this bill.

I want to acknowledge that even though this is a bill being progressed by, obviously, the Government of the day, it originally had its intention from a previous Government. The error that’s in it is one that’s easy to understand and explain. But it does put at risk decisions that have been made in terms of recognising deployments and the entitlements that those that were deployed are now receiving. I think about 15 deployments have been recognised in this way. This correction means that that recognition of those 15 deployments will be valid. At the moment, they’re up in the air, and that’s certainly not what we want to do.

I am delighted that the House has also agreed to the quite rapid progress of this legislation after the second reading. The longer it’s left unattended and uncorrected, the less certainty there is by veterans and their families, as well as the agency who administer it. They deserve to be treated better. The people that serve us so proudly overseas do so often at great personal risk. Some, of course, we know, have lost their lives, but, fortunately, not so many recently. But that danger that they put themselves in is for our betterment. They are our veterans. They have served us well, and by correcting this drafting error, I think that we will do them proud, as they have done us proud in their deployments.

Hon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. So I rise to take a call on this Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill, firstly, because I was part of the Social Services and Community Committee in which the bill came and progressed through. But secondly, like many of us, I imagine, that will also have previously shared this, I will share in this House our commitment to ensuring that our veterans who have sacrificed and served our country will, obviously, always get the support of those across the House, and across Parliament as well.

Can I acknowledge the Hon Ron Mark for this bill. Though the changes that are being made here are small and technical, and, sort of, drafting errors, there is just one area that I think that I’d like to raise with the Minister, which I’m sure he would agree with. What has been raised in some of the submissions during the select committee process was just in regards to the declaration of deployment, which I’m sure the Minister has heard on many occasions from many of the RSAs. I want to acknowledge those of my local RSA, the Te Atatū RSA—Richard Paterson, Bob Pettis, Stephen Erceg—who made representations to me in this regard, to highlight this as an area of concern. Now, their areas obviously, in lobbying, have been around medallic recognition. That’s outside of the scope, but what is inside the scope is the whole aspect of the declaration of deployment, which actually relates to that area of concern that has been raised.

So I know that, and I note that in the Veterans’ Support Act, what it does allow, and has always allowed, is for the discretion of the Minister. So in this case, I would petition and lobby the Minister on behalf of those who have lobbied me, that as the Act allows for, that he too—and I know that there’s currently a review under place. I do hope that the recommendations that will come out of that review will give a positive pathway forward, so that it will allow for those who’ve served in many situations, and, as this bill will attest to, it’s actually making an acknowledgment, and a recognition of their current deployments that have not been recognised. I would simply say to the Minister, there are many more, and I’m sure that he knows of this, and I hope that after the review there will be the opportunity for those that would lobby, and continue to talk about deployments, as far as South-east Asia, for instance, during the conflict there, those who were serving in naval service there. Those in the ANZUK as well, another group who’ve talked about their service, which is the Australian, New Zealand, and the UK servicemen which are all part of veterans, and who are deserving of their support, as those, in those 15 years of deployment, will be recognised through this bill as well.

So I, along with this House; we commend this bill. We think it’s timely. Again, we’ve all agreed that, actually, we need to progress this as quickly as possible. There was no opposition to that. That’s the only thing I would say, again, just to the Minister, to put my 10 cents’ worth, alongside those that have served faithfully in our country for many years as well. My final remark is that on many occasions, when I’ve been there, especially during the Anzac services, there’s a nostalgic return of another generation because when many of our servicemen came back from war, especially the Second World War, many of them, because of the PTSD, the post-traumatic stress disorders that many of them had, didn’t often tell their stories. It was the proceeding generation, the second generation, that began to hear, and understand.

So there are many who have come to support the role of our servicemen in the past, and even in the present, in the roles that they play. So I hope that, again, this bill serves as a way of indicating that in this Parliament, we all uphold service to Queen and country—we don’t often say that. I’m sure the Minister maybe says at different times that we do serve as part of a Commonwealth—to our best abilities to uphold the rule of law, and also to a democratic nation as well, which is what this bill will do: acknowledge those in 15 areas of deployment who’ve certainly served faithfully and willingly, and given, in some occasions, their lives. This will allow for their families to also be recognised and have some recognition in that as well. More importantly, it allows for the narrative, the stories, to continue to be told—that service to country is the highest that one can give and offer as well. So along with us on this side of the House, we support this bill to the House.

Hon RON MARK (Minister for Veterans): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I won’t take a long call, but I do want to stand and give some acknowledgment. I firstly want to acknowledge the work of my officials and those people who so studiously study legislation as a consequence of decisions that are reviewed based on requests or submissions put by veterans, which, in this case, if I remember correctly, it was Mr Ian Stobie who asked them questions. And through that questioning and through the consideration of his questions it became clear to some people that we had something of a problem with the legislation in 2014 that was passed by the previous Government.

It was not an intended problem. Going back through the Cabinet papers, going back through the discussion papers, going back through the select committee phase, it was always very, very clear that what the previous Government had intended to do was give the Minister powers to review operational deployments, with a view to ascertaining whether or not there were circumstances that warranted the changing of the designation of active deployment. To most people outside of the Chamber and who are not involved with veterans’ affairs or the military, they probably wouldn’t understand what that means. When a deployment is declared as an operational deployment and given that status of recognition, it immediately makes those individuals who deployed veterans, with all of the benefits that being a veteran brings. It’s not just the benefits or the services or the support that has accrued to the veteran that matters; it’s that which is available to the veterans’ family, to the veterans’ spouse, partner, husband, or wife.

When the case was brought to me, it was put to me very clearly that the Crown Law opinion had re-confirmed that there was an error in the drafting, and that 14 declarations that had been previously made were potentially illegal. That created a circumstance where there would be an argument that those benefits that had been accrued might have to be recovered—particularly where it was fiscal. Well, that was a situation that was just simply untenable, particularly considering that it was out of sync with what the previous Government had intended the Act to reflect.

So two of those declarations were from myself; 12 of those declarations were from the Hon Craig Foss. It occurred to me, when we looked at the legislation, that we needed to move with speed. In order to be able to move with speed, it was obvious that I needed to have conversations with all of the former Ministers for veterans’ affairs. I want to thank the Hon Nathan Guy, the Hon David Bennett, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, and the Hon Judith Collins. The only one who I think wasn’t in the room was the Hon Craig Foss because, of course, he’s not a member of Parliament any longer. All of those former National Party Ministers of veterans’ affairs came to the office. We had a conversation.

Hon Nathan Guy: Yeah we did. It was a good chat.

Hon RON MARK: Yeah, it was a good chat, and thank you, Mr Nathan Guy. It was a good conversation. I’m very thankful to all of those members—and I had a conversation with the Hon Gerry Brownlee later on, on the phone, who rang just to see how the whole thing had gone and to give me his views.

It didn’t end there, because I had conversations with the Green Party and then my people had a conversation—I think one of my team caught up—with David Seymour’s staff. I was very pleased and grateful that every one of those political parties agreed with me that we needed to progress this bill swiftly.

I want to thank the Social Services and Community Committee for their work, for their diligence. I want to thank the Business Committee, the whips and the Leader of the House, and shadow Leader of the House for agreeing that this matter needed to be dealt with urgently. So here we are today, and, inshallah, we’ll move straight through the third reading very quickly and we will have resolved the problem collectively as a House, in the interests of the veterans and their families.

Operational deployments are difficult, we all know that, and I know that there’s not a member in this House who doesn’t recognise that and value that. I only have to travel around the RSAs. Recently, I was at Te Awamutu and—oh my gosh. I’m embarrassed now because I’ve forgotten—Louise—?

Hon Members: The Hon Louise Upston.

Hon RON MARK: The Hon Louise Upston was there with me, and we commemorated Victor 3’s anniversary.

There have been many other occasions where I’ve stood alongside of the Hon Megan Woods, in Christchurch recently on Anzac Day. There is not, in my view, an MP in the House who does not support our veterans and does not believe that they are deserving of the recognition for the service that they have done their country. That’s the way it should be, because every day we sit in this Chamber—no matter what we are discussing, no matter what our philosophical and our political views are—we are surrounded by reminders on the walls: El Alamein, Crete, Fortress Europe, North Africa, Sidi Rezegh, Battle of Britain, Atlantic, Greece. All of these names—Vietnam, Afghanistan, down that corner—are there for a purpose. They are there to remind us who it is we have to thank for our freedom, for our liberty, and for the democracy that we enjoy and hold so dear.

So for everybody who supports our veterans—and I do specifically want to mention Melissa Lee. I have always been astonished by the Korean community’s support to our Korean veterans—even when I was not in Parliament, and I was simply attending the Papanui RSA on Anzac Day as one of my five RSAs that I would visit. The Korean community support for those Korean veterans—and one of them was my uncle Billy—was astonishing in its generosity. It always has been and it’s only got better and more generous as the years have gone by and numbers have dwindled. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the community at the Papanui RSA, or up here in Wellington, or even when I meet with the ambassador or visiting dignitaries, they never forget—they never forget. That’s the only thing that veterans and their families ask, really.

Madam Speaker, I have used all my time, it would appear, and I had not intended doing that, but I could not let this moment go without letting the House know how grateful I am for the unanimous support of the House and the way in which all political parties have rallied to the cause and supported. With respect to the Hon Alfred Ngaro’s questions around future considerations of deployments, as soon as this legislation’s through and passed its third reading and receives its assent then all of those reviews that are currently frozen will continue, and that’ll be a good thing. I have no doubt that as the research is done and more evidence is revealed, there will be some positives. They won’t all be positives in the eyes of some people, but that’s just the way it is. But none of that would be possible without what’s happening here tonight. So on that basis, I simply want to say kia ora koutou. Thank you very much. It’s very much appreciated. If I might be so bold and take the liberty to thank you on behalf of all veterans for the support and the honour you’ve done them collectively here this evening. Thank you.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. A very heartfelt presentation and speech by the Hon Ron Mark, and thank you for that. I too am very pleased to be standing in support of the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill—the first time I’ve been involved in a bill that’s going through all stages as quickly as this one is tonight, but as we’ve heard, there is a huge amount of support for making sure that this wording in the original Act of 2014 is clarified, because there was absolutely the intention to be able to declare those deployments to be qualifying operational service deployments. So it’s up to us to actually rectify that and make sure that the wording allows for the retrospective declaration of those servicemen and women. Myself being an army mum, you know, I understand the value of supporting our veterans and the sacrifice that everyone who is deployed makes on behalf of this country. So there is absolutely no doubt that we were going to have 100 percent support across this House for this legislation.

There were some questions, and, you know, the select committee did scrutinise the wording of this bill quite thoroughly. I have to acknowledge the three advisers that serviced the select committee—three very capable women. It did make me think that if you have something that needs tidying up, and with a bit of empathy—certainly the women were very capable of delivering on that—but also their passion for correcting this and making sure that the veterans that we were focused on were actually best served by this amendment to this bill.

One of the questions that I actually raised with the advisers was around how we determined those people who were on qualifying operational service, because it had been raised with me about servicemen that serve under another country’s banner. So we were assured that even though they serve under, say, the Australian banner, as long as they did that and were directed, seconded, or co-opted, they actually did qualify. So there was conversation around whether those servicemen or women have taken the oath, and it seems that the oath was not a necessary part of that, as long as they were there under the direction of the Defence Force.

So there were a few minor tweaks that we did make in light of some of the submissions. There were only four. It was a very truncated process, because we do want to make sure that the Minister can continue to make those declarations. I think that we’ve well canvassed the amendment tonight. I take the opportunity too, as the Minister has tonight, to thank all our servicemen and women for their sacrifice for the country, and I have pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to begin, really, my contribution to the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill by just, I guess, commenting on the fact that colleagues from both sides of the House today have given such heartfelt and poignant speeches about both the amendment but also—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can we just have—sitting, please? Thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —about the broader contributions that our servicemen and women make to New Zealand and, indeed, contributions around the world. I just want to say that I, unfortunately, haven’t had the privilege of growing up in a family where my parents have served, but I have met many current servicemen and women who are deployed overseas and working here in New Zealand as well. I guess, over the course of various select committee meetings, where we’ve considered different bills and had former veterans come in to tell us about their experiences, it’s evident the amount of trauma that many have gone through and the support that many require when they come back from having served, both injuries that are physical but also injuries that are long-lasting and cannot be seen—the PTSD that the Hon Alfred Ngaro spoke about earlier in his speech as well. So I too, as speakers before me have done, want to thank them for their service to our nation.

I also want to thank the officials, who went through quite a few different scenarios that were brought up at select committee. Maureen Pugh has mentioned in her speech a point that she brought up, which was really good, and it was around additional people, I guess—so journalists, for example, who’ve been on deployments and whether they would come into the ambit of this bill as well. They were very patient in the way they took us through the changes that were made, the submissions that were made to the select committee as well, and explained why there were no recommendations for amendments.

I’ll get to that in a minute, but just getting back to the bill, which is a technical bill—it aims to correct a drafting error in section 9 of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014. I say it’s a technical bill, but it’s actually also quite an emotional one, as we’ve canvassed previously. Now, there was a flaw that was identified, relating to that particular section of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014. Section 9, which is the section that we are considering today in terms of the amendment, empowers the Minister of Defence to declare deployments of New Zealand Defence Force personnel that meet certain specified criteria to be qualifying operational service. The reason that’s important is because for veterans who have come back and who have been injured or become ill as a result of their service, they’re only eligible for support if they’ve come from qualifying operational service, and so that’s why that tweak is really important. The previous Act that the 2014 Veterans’ Support Act replaced—that was the War Pensions Act from 1954—was quite limited in the deployments that could be considered qualifying operational service, as far as I understand. But the 2014 new Act broadened that criteria and it included quite a few different types of deployments.

Now, we were told at select committee by officials that if this change wasn’t made—so that’s the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill, the change to section 9—it could mean that previous—and I think the Minister mentioned there were 14 retrospective declarations that were made that cover multiple missions, various geographical areas, and that the declarations there affect about 675 veterans. Now, officials at select committee did tell us that if this particular amendment doesn’t pass, that could mean legal challenges to the support that those veterans received, and none of us, I believe—I don’t believe any of us in this House want to see that happen. That’s why there is urgency when it comes to passing this bill. It’s to ensure that we give some certainty to veterans who’ve already received the support that they are entitled to. It was the policy intent of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 for those veterans to receive the support that they have, the entitlements that they have, but it’s just because of a drafting error that that could actually come into legal challenge.

So that’s why there’s a huge amount of camaraderie, in a sense, across the House, in recognition of the service that our veterans have provided. I just want to thank the Minister Ron Mark at this point, as well, for laying out in his speech the process that was undertaken to get to that point of agreement across the House. I think it was very beautifully laid out, and it’s actually really important, because those who may be watching through Parliament TV generally get to see only the most adversarial parts of the House, and I think it’s incredibly important that people realise that, actually, there’s a lot of working together across the House to finesse bills and make sure that legislation that this House passes, that has such an impact on people’s lives, is the best piece of legislation that can be passed. So I thank you, Minister. I thank the Minister for his contribution and for the clarity with which he laid that out as well, and also, of course, all members, the Minister, former Ministers, and members across the House, who worked collegially to get to this point as well.

I just want to touch, in the time that I have remaining, on one of the recommendations that came out of a submission that we spent a fair bit of time on at the select committee to discuss. So out of the four submissions that were received on this bill, three expressed outright support for it. There was one submission that brought up an issue and wanted the bill to be extended to allow Ministers to declare any service that took place before 1974 as qualifying operational service. Now, that was considered. Officials went away, came back with advice, and clarified for members that, actually, there’s nothing in the bill or the amendment as it stands—or actually, in fact, the Veterans’ Support Act 2014—that restricts a defence Minister’s ability to retrospectively declare deployments that took place before 1974. So while that was a really good submission, we did get clarity that there’s nothing to preclude that from already happening, and therefore there was no change needed based on that submission.

Can I also take this opportunity to thank those who submitted. It is always heartening to see, I guess, the democratic process being followed or being taken up as people submit to bills that they have a passion for, and that was no different in this case as well. So I think the point has been made that this is a tweak, this is a drafting error. While it is quite technical and it’s quite small in a sense, it is significant, because it has bearing on the lives of, already, 675 veterans and their families, but also many more, potentially, if this change was not to be made. So I just want to say that this is an excellent bill. I commend everyone who’s played a part in getting us to this point today and commend this bill to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I’ve decided to be very nice to the Hon Ruth Dyson tonight and make this a very short call, both in honour of your good self, but also there’s such comity in the House. The Minister, unfortunately, stole my lines, which was to acknowledge, actually, the wreaths and ferns around the House. I often tell visitors from my electorate or friends and family visiting that this Chamber is not only a house of Parliament but, actually, a war memorial, and in some ways it’s no more fitting a place than to acknowledge our veterans who have served Queen and country.

Look, Minister, this is a good bill. We acknowledge your work in shepherding it through the House and, I think, the humility to acknowledge that this has been something that is cross-party and that many people have had a hand in. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that it’s you that tonight leads this through the House, and I think it’s a mark of respect from all here that after the second reading it will move speedily. So in honour of our veterans, those who have served, continue to serve, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just wish to correct the record. The National Party member of Parliament who accompanied me was Barbara Kruger—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Kuriger.

Hon RON MARK: —Kuriger—who’s the MP for Taranaki - King Country, who was the person accompanying me at the Te Awamutu commemorations.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this, the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill. I’d also like to begin by acknowledging—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, sorry. This is a split call.

JAMIE STRANGE: Thank you. I’d also like to begin by acknowledging the honourable Minister Ron Mark. His passion for veterans is absolutely commendable. I know that the Minister has served our country, and as I travel the country, I constantly hear people speak highly of the Minister because he is able to relate on a personal level with this portfolio. I’d also like to join the chorus of those who have honoured those who have served our country. From a personal point of view, my father-in-law served in Borneo, Malaya, and Vietnam. I’d like to particularly spotlight those who served in Vietnam because, as some people will know, when they returned from service, they returned under a cover of darkness. They did not receive thanks at the time for the service that they’d undertaken. They were not honoured at the time, and it was very difficult for those soldiers.

War is confusing at the best of times, but the Vietnam War was certainly very confusing for many people. Consequently, in the early 2000s, the Government did right that wrong and acknowledge them. But I’d like to particularly acknowledge my father-in-law, who served in Vietnam. My great uncle lost an arm in World War II. He was captured by the Germans and he was repatriated. We don’t really know exactly the details around that, but, for some reason, he was repatriated, probably to do with him losing his arm. Now, this bill has been well canvassed around what it does. It simply fixes a clerical error to ensure that those who are entitled to the various benefits receive those, and, basically, it gives the Minister the ability to ensure that those qualified under operational service—that people receive the entitlements that they’re entitled to, allowing the Minister to make retrospective declarations.

There are a number of health issues and challenges that our veterans have who have served. For those like myself who have never served in a war, I will simply not know what that’s like for those who have served. It’s up to us to, certainly, honour them but also to provide that support, because there are not many more challenging things that people have to do than serve in a war. It’s important we don’t take our peace for granted. I was recently talking to some Europeans around the issue of Brexit, and they said the key thing for them was peace. We always strive as a country for peace, and we certainly strive as a global community for peace, but at times we do need to stand up for things that we hold dear in terms of our freedoms, and we certainly do that.

I’d also like to acknowledge Melissa Lee, and I know she’s been acknowledged before, but from a personal point of view, I remember sharing some time with you in Hamilton recently with the Korean community, where they honoured the Korean veterans, and I think the Hon Tim Macindoe might’ve been there as well. The Korean community absolutely do a wonderful job of honouring those who have served us, and I’d also like to acknowledge them around that.

We have Anzac ceremonies, which are certainly well attended. As we go to these ceremonies, we notice that those who fought in World War II, their numbers are becoming less and less, but it’s important that we constantly remember those people who have served, whether they’re family members like mine or whether they’re people who we know of—you know, we know their stories. I think that, generally, we do that well as a country, and this is just another example of us doing that well, of us recognising that, look there’s been a clerical error here. The intentions were good, the error has been fixed, and there’s cross-party support.

So I’m hopeful tonight that all those veterans who are watching on TV or listening on the radio do feel supported, because as a Parliament as a whole, we certainly honour you, we thank you, and we show you our support tonight. I commend this bill to the House.

AGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is with humility that I stand in support of the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill. This is a short call, but that is in no way a reflection of the importance of this bill. It is with immense pride and humility that I look on the efforts and the bravery and the sacrifices made by our veterans that enable me to stand for you today. It is with equal pride that I think of the Samoan, Tongan, Niuean, and Cook Islanders who joined our New Zealand contingents in putting their lives on the line for the freedoms we enjoy today. Many of them have been, rightly, recognised with veterans support for their service to our country, and for veterans of subsequent deployments, the purpose of the 2014 Act was to give qualifying operational servicemen and women access to the entitlements the Act intended to deliver. Unfortunately, the tight wording of section 9 of the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 saw a number of service people excluded for their historical deployments to operational service, particularly where the definition of operational service has been clarified by the current Act to cover a range of operational and environmental threats, including non-State actors and security forces.

I’ve been heartened by the contributions from both sides of the House today, and I believe that this amendment bill will enable consideration of pre-2014 deployments for those who have put themselves in harm’s way for our security and for the betterment of the world we live in. In one submission that I just had a quick look at earlier today, just a short submission from Mark Treadgold: “I think … this is a great improvement in the way we look after … men and women who serve our country.”—short, but it actually is what this bill is about. I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. I just say to the member, because she is new we have been careful to not criticise her for reading her speeches, but the time will come shortly where you will be, as you get more confidence.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Madam Speaker, tēnā koe. Otirā, e ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m indeed honoured, as a daughter of a Korean vet, to stand here, and I acknowledge my namesake Melissa Lee across the hall, as a proud daughter of a Vietnam vet, in making a small contribution to the second reading of the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill.

Can I commend the hard-working Minister of Defence and acknowledge—we feel the love in the Tai Rāwhiti of this Minister. I understand the Prime Minister launched a vessel in the navy just the other day which will find Tai Rāwhiti as its base, but I want to acknowledge the Minister in his recent travels to Tai Rāwhiti with the launch of the Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E!: Māori in the First World War book launched on C Company, that, Madam Speaker, you’ll be very familiar with at C Company in Gisborne, Tai Rāwhiti.

So it is indeed an honour to stand and support this bill, that is extending and making a small amendment to the Act, that other speakers have addressed, that acknowledges all our hard-working servicemen and women who have served, obviously in the great battles but who just serve our country with such pride and dignity whenever they travel to overseas missions. This bill is making those support mechanisms available to them by making this small amendment.

So I’m proud to stand in support of the bill and in acknowledgment of, like I said, our hard-working servicemen and women—for some that are no longer with us, perhaps a tad too late, but we’ve also got to look on the positive side in that not only were we extending it to make it very clear on who should be entitled to support but it also is wrapped around with this coalition Government’s commitment to mental health. We’ve heard many tragedies of our hard-working servicemen and women that have returned back from overseas engagements and battles who suffer from the impacts of serving their nation. So this bill, in tidying up this amendment, which is section 9, which simply empowers the responsible Minister to declare deployments of New Zealand Defence Force personnel that meet certain specified criteria to be qualified and operational for the purpose of this Act.

In addition, I just wanted to acknowledge the $1.9 billion that the coalition Government has committed to mental health and that our servicemen and women throughout the country and overseas will also feel the love from this coalition Government, the importance that we wrap around mental support for those that need it. So this bill should be seen as part of a bigger commitment of this coalition Government towards the mental health and wellbeing of all our citizens, but in particular to this Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill, we are talking about our servicemen and women that serve our country proudly.

It is such a small bill, but it’s an important bill. We’ve talked about the amendments to section 9—others have canvassed this. It is making it a lot clearer, but the message from me is to acknowledge our servicemen and women, those that are currently with us, and also to send a clear message as a preferred career to our rangatahi. Again, I want to acknowledge the Minister in his work around Limited Service Volunteers, but for those that may be thinking of a career in our military, in our defence force—that they know that their rights and their support from this Government, through this bill and through this amendment, is a real commitment to them. I commend this bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to start by acknowledging all of those veterans that have provided such a wonderful service to New Zealand, and in particular to all members who have served in the New Zealand Defence Force. In tonight’s context, I’d particularly like to acknowledge my colleague and friend Chris Penk, MP for Helensville, for his service to both the New Zealand Defence Force and the Australian Defence Force, and, indeed, the current defence Minister for his service as well.

Now, the amendment here to section 9 of the Act clarifies, as we’ve heard, the drafting error that could potentially have excluded previous deployments from being captured by this legislation passed in 2014. Now, one of the aspects that I particularly wanted to touch on in my brief contribution—I had been approached by a constituent who’d raised concern around the ability for people who had been involved with deployments prior to 1974 to be captured under this and whether, indeed, there should’ve been additional scope under this piece of legislation to look at making some adjustments to those classifications as well. We’ve heard some previous comments around that in terms of the qualifying operational service being able to capture that time period. I think the concern, as I understood it, was that for some of those earlier deployments, it was the definition that was used and therefore the entitlements that were available, so to qualify in routine service prior to 1974 had a different set of entitlements to what we are now considering would be available to veterans as qualifying operational service. So the concern there was that that provided a different level for veterans who had, effectively, performed or provided the same service to our country.

But it was encouraging to hear that the Social Services and Community Committee looked into that and sought advice from officials, who had confidence that this actually did allow for the Chief of Defence Force to provide a recommendation to the Minister to then make acknowledgments of those operational service deployments prior to that date, irrespective of the fact that they may already be covered under a qualifying routine service, for example. So that, hopefully, allays those concerns that were raised by some veterans and former members of the New Zealand Defence Force.

So, look, I see no need to continue to extend this. It’s great to see that we are putting this through in a reasonably hasty process, and whilst I have hesitation at recommending that as a standard within this House—we have seen it used in a number of instances where it wasn’t appropriate, but this certainly is, for a relatively minor technical change which will recognise appropriately the service of those veterans to our country. So I commend the bill to the House.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Āe, he tū poto tēnei ā muri mai i tēnā kaikōrero, Tim van de Molen; tēnā pea ko ahau te kaikōrero whakamutunga mō tēnei pō, mō tēnei pire.

E hiahia ana ahau ki te tū ki te whakawaha ake i ētahi kōrero mō tēnei pire. Ko te kaupapa o tēnei pire he tautoko i ngā hōia e tūroro ana, e māuiui ana i tō rātou mahi mō Ngāti Tūmatauenga, mō Te Tauārangi o Aotearoa, Te Tauā Moana o Aotearoa me Te Ope Kātua o Aotearoa. E hiahia ana ahau ki te mihi ki a rātou katoa. Ko rātou te ope e manaaki nei, e tiaki nei i Aotearoa, puta noa i te ao.

Nō reira, ko tēnei Ture he whakatikatika i tētahi wāhanga e āhua āwangawanga ana, e āhua rangirua ana he aha kē te ture ki te whakatau i te penihana mō rātou kua tūroro, kua māuiui i tō rātou mahi hōia mō Aotearoa nei.

Nō reira, ko tēnei pire he whakatikatika i te wāhanga tuaiwa, arā, te section 9 i roto i tēnei Ture kia mōhio mārika ka tāea e Te Minitā te whakatau ngā penihana mō ngā hōia, mō tō rātou haerenga ki tētahi kaupapa atu, tono atu ki tētahi kaupapa, tētahi haerenga, kua hipa tērā. Koirā te tino kaupapa o tēnei.

E mōhio ana ahau, kua pānui ahau i roto i tēnei pire—kua whakatau e Ngā Minita 14 wēnei momo whakataunga mō ngā tāngata. Neke atu i te 675 ngā hōia tawhito, ō rātou hoa rangatira, ō rātou whānau anō hoki ka whai pānga ki tēnei kaupapa. Me rātou hoki kua mate i roto i tētahi pakanga, tētahi haerenga, me kī, mō Ngāti Tūmatauenga, mō ērā atu o ngā tauā.

Nō reira, ko te kaupapa o tēnei pire—ahakoa, tēnā pea e hē ana tērā i raro i te ture, ko tēnei ka whakatikatika ake i wērā whakataunga.

Nō reira, e tautoko ana ahau i tērā tū āhuatanga pau te kaha. E mōhio ana ahau te tirotiro i ētahi atu o ngā haerenga kua hipa. Mehemea ka whakatau tēnei pire ā te pō nei, neke atu i te 1,600 pea ngā tāngata, ō rātou hoa rangatira, whānau anō hoki ka whai pānga ki tēnei ture.

Nō reira, e tika ana me whakatikatika tēnei wāhanga i roto i te ture kia mōhio mārika ko wai ngā tāngata e āhei ana ki te whiwhi i te penihana mō ā rātou mahi hei tiaki, hei atawhai, hei manaaki i a tātou katoa i roto i tēnei Whare, puta noa i Aotearoa. Nō reira, e Te Mana Whakawā, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, this is a short address following on from the last speaker, Tim van de Molen; perhaps I am the last speaker on this bill for tonight.

I wish to stand and add some commentary around this bill. The purpose of this bill is to assist soldiers who are infirm, who are unwell as a result of their belonging to the army, to the air force, to the navy, or to the New Zealand Defence Force. I want to acknowledge them all as the people who look after us, who keep us safe here in New Zealand as well as around the world.

Therefore, it is necessary to amend a section of this Act which is currently troublesome and confusing, as it tries to provide for the entitlements of those who are unwell as a result of their time spent as soldiers in the service of New Zealand.

Thus, this bill seeks to amend section 9 in the current Act so that the Minister will be able to give certainty around benefits for soldiers, so that they can go about their business on a variety of fronts. That is what this is all about.

I am aware, I have read it in this bill, that Ministers have addressed 14 of these kinds of amendments. Currently, around 675 former service men and women, their spouses, and their families are all affected by this matter before us. In addition, there are those who died while in a conflict, on a mission, or on the business of one or other of the defence forces.

Hence the purpose of this bill—since there has been a drafting error that has been identified, it is necessary to make the appropriate amendments.

I therefore give my wholehearted support. I know that this will be passed. If it is passed here tonight, approximately 1,600 people and their spouses and families will be able to benefit from our efforts.

It is obvious that this section must be appropriately amended to give assurance to those whose eligibility for the intended entitlements is unclear, even though they have had the role of maintaining the security of those in this House, indeed of everyone in the country. Madam Speaker, thank you.]

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

Hon RON MARK (Minister for Veterans): I move, That the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill

Third Reading

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a third time.

This bill is broad in scope and proposes several initiatives to make the tax system simpler and fairer and to improve the integrity of our tax system. First and foremost, the bill enables the efficient collection of GST on low-value imported goods. Right now, customs does not usually collect GST on imported items that are worth less than $400, simply because it is uneconomic for them to do so. So this is not a new tax; it’s simply that we now have the ability to collect it. The technology has matured to the point where offshore suppliers and market places of low-value goods can use their ICT systems to collect GST and remit it directly to inland revenue (IR), and this is what this bill proposes and enables.

This is but one of several improvements to cross-border taxation that the Government is leading in a globalised 21st century system. Maintaining and improving the integrity of our tax system is a major focus of mine. This Government has already passed legislation to reduce base erosion and profit shifting activities of multinationals, and we’ve begun consultation on the best way to tax offshore digital and social media giants who supply services to New Zealand.

We’re not alone in this endeavour, and this issue is exercising the minds of tax experts all over the OECD and, hopefully, it will end up in a consensus agreement. But collecting GST on all imported goods is one of the more critical pieces of the puzzle. The tax system must keep pace with a globalised world where more and more people purchase goods and services online and from offshore suppliers. By not collecting revenue on a growing trade sector, more and more of the tax burden falls on wage earners and business owners. So as well as protecting the revenue base, this is also about fairness—fairness to local retailers who have to pass on 50 percent extra to consumers when their offshore competitors don’t. It is simply not fair that offshore suppliers have an immediate 15 percent competitive advantage against bricks and mortar retailers who are doing the hard yards in our towns and cities around the country. The sooner this measure comes into force the better for retailers and the greater the integrity of the tax system. But offshore suppliers need time to ensure that their systems work, which is why last week Cabinet agreed to push back the start date two months to 1 December 2019.

Australia has required offshore suppliers to collect and remit GST on low-value goods since July 2018. So this is not a step into the great unknown for these large multinationals, and, indeed, many other jurisdictions are considering similar rules. It’s a sensible and predictable response to changes in consumer behaviour and the global market place. Again, it’s about companies paying their fair share—nothing more, nothing less. New Zealand is still one of the first countries to implement the system for collecting GST on low-value imported goods, ahead of the EU, whose proposed rules are due to apply from 2021.

As well as these new rules to broaden the GST tax base, this bill makes several other improvements to our tax system, which I am pleased to summarise. This Government has committed to a number of policy measures aimed at making the tax system fairer and improving housing affordability for owner-occupiers by reducing demand from speculators and investors and removing tax incentives that exist in the property market. We’ve already increased the brightline period from two years to five years, and yesterday I announced that a new measure would be added to this bill to require nearly all buyers and sellers of property to provide their IRD number as part of the transaction process when they are selling their main home.

Previously, those buying or selling their main home did not have to provide an IRD number. This is a small change which will provide the Inland Revenue Department with better information and make it easier to identify taxpayers who are buying and selling property. In fact, about one-third of the people currently transferring their main home already disclose their IRD number on the property transfer form, even though they are not currently required to do so. Taxpayers are accustomed to disclosing their IRD number when they open a new bank account or start a new job, so this is not a big ask for them to also provide this when buying or selling a property. However, significantly, it will enable inland revenue to better identify those who may be buying and selling property with the aim of making a profit. This was a recommendation of the Tax Working Group.

I was told by a property investor friend of mine that this is one of the largest rorts in the property investment sector. His advice to me was to require people to put down their inland revenue number and IR will stop a number of the rorts that are occurring at the moment, because, of course, if there was no IRD number, then the inland revenue does not have the information. So, again, it is about maintaining the integrity of the tax system.

In addition, this bill also proposes ring-fencing losses made from residential rental properties. This means that investors will no longer be able to offset tax losses from their residential properties against their other income—for example, salary or wages or business income—to reduce their income tax liability. This measure will make the tax system fairer and level the playing field between property investors and owner-occupiers.

Of course, I understand that people will still invest in property, but we want people to invest in property for the right reason—i.e., a balanced portfolio or whatever, as opposed to simply tax structuring. Currently, first-home buyers can struggle to compete against investors who have part of the cost of servicing their mortgage subsidised by reducing tax on their other income. The loss ring-fencing rules will address this unfairness and improve affordability for first-home buyers, making it easier for them to transition from rental properties into their own home.

Earlier this year, we passed new legislation to better enable the flow of information between Government agencies while protecting the privacy and rights of individuals and businesses. We also introduced short-process rulings, so small businesses and individuals can more easily obtain binding advice from the inland revenue to help them get their tax positions right the first time. There are still binding rulings, of course, but these are expensive and often out of the reach of the vast majority of the small to medium sized enterprise (SME) sector, so this is just another measure this Government has put in place to help the SME sector and enable it to get the tax obligations and responsibilities right.

But there is more we can do to improve the administration of the tax system. Sometimes tax law does not align with intended policy outcomes, and that can be a barrier for both taxpayers and the inland revenue. The proposed new processes in this bill will allow for an Order in Council or a legislative exemption to be made to align the law with the intended policy outcomes. There are safeguards to ensure no one is disadvantaged by this proposal, including it being optional for taxpayers to apply in all circumstances. Changes made using these powers cannot apply for more than three years either, which should be enough time for changes to be made to primary legislation, considering it takes about two years, on average, to pass remedial legislation. This proposal has the benefit of reducing taxpayer compliance costs by providing certainty earlier.

We also are proposing to give the Commissioner of Inland Revenue the discretion to consider a wider range of information in order to grant the victim of a sexual offence permanent exemption from paying child support. In some cases, the person offended against finds themselves in a situation of having to pay child support for a child born as a result of sexual violence, which is absurd. The proposal, therefore, is to loosen the requirement that there be a conviction, and to allow the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to consider other information when deciding whether or not to grant an exemption.

Let me give you a very brief praecipe of how this came about. As the Minister of Revenue, I have received about three letters from women who conceived as a result of rape. They did not report this rape; therefore, there was no conviction, and they were being chased by inland revenue to pay child support. I thought this was hugely unfair, and I required my officials to undertake a process to change the law. So those who say that writing to an MP or a Minister makes absolutely no difference—well, they are wrong, because in important issues, a letter from a constituent can make a huge difference and can actually get the law changed.

A couple more points. I’m pleased that this bill will enable entities to retain their tax records in Te Reo Māori. This, of course, has been an operating practice among some Māori organisations for some time and it is the inland revenue’s operational practice, but this Government believes that codifying the practice is an important recognition of the language of our tangata whenua.

These are the main features of the bill, and it is a bill which makes the tax system fairer. So I commend the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill to the House.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the most recent tax remedial matters bill we have before the House, and as this House will know, these bills do come before the House, roughly, twice a year. They are, as usual, a collection of a range of taxation matters that need to be addressed, and quite often, they find wide support across the House.

There is a lot in the tax system that when we come to review it—whoever is in power—through the select committees, we find commonality on, and that is certainly a good thing that I want to see continue to happen. But in this case, National will continue to oppose this legislation, because while there are a number of matters in the bill that we do support and that we see merit in—and, in fact, a number of matters that began life and their policy development under our Government, and so of course we support them in principle—there are none the less significant matters of concern for us that mean we will not be supporting this legislation, as we have not since its first reading.

The clue, a little bit, is in the name in that the bill talks, of course, about confirming the annual taxation rates, and it should be no surprise to anyone in this House or, indeed, to anyone listening to these debates from home that National and Labour have a very, very different view around taxation and around how much tax New Zealand families, individuals, and businesses should be paying. That is at the heart of many of our economic differences, and on this side of the House, of course, we are very much of the view that the annual rates in this bill are set at a grossly out-of-date threshold rate. They should be adjusted for inflation, as they were in 2017, before this Government cancelled those changes. It is wrong to lock in, again, those rates that now date back to 2010, which are seeing inflation erode the real value of those thresholds, so that very soon the average wage earner will be paying a top tax rate, and that is simply wrong. National will not continue to see taxpayers miss out year on year as inflation, effectively, means the Government increases their tax every year.

Unfortunately, it’s not an isolated case from this Government. We have seen this, as a Government, so that it feels like every day. I accept that it’s not every day, but, certainly, a large chunk of what this Government has done has been to introduce and put up taxes. That is not necessary. It is a burden on New Zealand families, who are struggling with the cost of living, and it is entirely to fund a programme of wasteful, untargeted, and unaccountable programmes. That’s because the Government overpromised in an election campaign, made promises it could never meet—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could I just remind the member who’s interjecting that he’s interjecting from a seat that’s not his own. That is, in fact, closer, which is against Speakers’ rulings.

Hon Ruth Dyson: But he moved for the company, not for the advantage.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh well, then, he should be quiet.

Hon AMY ADAMS: Oh then, he should have sat up here! This is a Government that has promised far more than it could ever deliver. It got into Government, has had an internal “Oops!” moment, and is now trying to rewrite history around these things being a legacy of what they were left. What this Government was left was a strong economy, strong forecast surpluses, low debt, and an economy that was set to grow strongly over future years. What they’ve done in that time—and why they need these higher taxes—is they have slowed down the economy, they have cut business off at the knees, they have put up the cost of living on New Zealanders, they have frittered the surpluses they were left, and they have still failed to deliver on promises. That’s why this bill is locking in tax rates that are far higher than they should be and than they need to be, and this side of the House will not support them.

The bill also deals with the ring-fencing of tax losses on rental properties. I find it outrageous to hear the Minister of Revenue saying “This is all about fairness.”, and we hear this a lot from this Minister. When he’s got no defensible position, he just says “Well, it’s about fairness.”, and looks as if that should be the end of the reason. But that doesn’t stack up. It doesn’t stack up when Mr Nash’s definition of fairness is seeing rents going up by $50 a week to the vulnerable people of New Zealand, who can’t afford it, and this bill will make that worse.

Hon Stuart Nash: No. Our Families Package have given them $75 a week.

Hon AMY ADAMS: Treasury’s own advice—and I know the Minister thinks he knows more than Treasury and everyone else, though maybe he does on the cyber-security, but that’s another matter. But Treasury have told them that this will put rents up even further, and what does this Government say? “We don’t care. We want the tax.”—that’s Labour’s definition of fairness. Well, on this side of the House, we don’t think it’s fair to see rents go up $50 a week for those who can afford it the least. That’s what this bill will do.

Now, it’s not about fairness when this is the only asset class that this Government is worried about ring-fencing—it’s the only asset class. So if an orthopaedic surgeon wants to own good-looking racehorses, they’ll get a tax deduction. They can set off that loss against their orthopaedic surgery and that’s all fine. But if a mum and dad go and buy a rental property to park a bit of money in, somehow that’s outrageous and needs to be stopped. Well, that isn’t fairness. That is ideological, it is punitive, and it will punish the very people that this Government callously pretends to care about.

Do you know what else this bill does? It brings these changes into effect far sooner than they should be. Now, I acknowledge the Minister, at the very last minute—even though officials told us it couldn’t possibly be done—for pushing out the start date by a couple of months for the low-value goods in the GST, and that’s certainly a step in the right direction. But it’s not enough, Mr Nash. It’s not enough. The change should have started at the beginning of the next tax year, as is convention, but this Government is so money-hungry, it wants that money now. So it’s starting in December instead of April because they are so desperate to get their hands on even more of New Zealanders’ money.

On the ring-fencing, it gets even worse, because the change is retrospective. This is a Government that cares so little for good practice and good policy, that cares so little for the people of New Zealand who earn that money, that in this bill they’re passing retrospective tax law that already applies from 1 April this year. It took effect in April this year, even though here we are nearly at the end of June and it’s still not law. That’s how money-hungry and conniving and desperate to get their hands on your money this Government is.

It’s not for fairness—it’s not for fairness. Fairness would see tax rates continue to move with inflation. Fairness would see a Government that cares about keeping rents low. Fairness would see a Government that doesn’t pass retrospective tax law. Fairness would see a Government that treats investing in all asset classes in a similar way. That’s not what this bill does, and that’s why we don’t support it.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): There is one item that I can concur with the previous speaker Amy Adams on: when she identified that there is indeed some public expenditure which may be wasteful. Well, based on the quality of the arguments in this debate, there can be no doubt that the salaries paid to some Opposition members are vastly wasteful in terms of the productivity that that money produces for the public welfare of New Zealand.

What we heard from the previous speaker was the same stale old argument from the National Party about tax—the same stale old argument that they’ve sustained themselves on for years and years. Really, it is quite extraordinary, when most New Zealanders are absolutely aware of the pressing needs for investment in our social infrastructure, in our hard infrastructure, to make this a country in which the people of our country have decent housing, in which our kids can go to good schools, in which our hospitals are well cared for and don’t have sewage running down the walls, in which we have an efficient transport system, and in which we have enough police to keep our communities safe. I think for most New Zealanders, the choice is very clear—that they want to see investment in those public services and infrastructure which benefit all members of our community over and above tax cuts, which will disproportionately benefit people on salaries of the kind that members in this Chamber enjoy. So I utterly reject all of the arguments made by the previous speaker. It is a stale and old argument, the singular obsession with reducing income tax rates at every turn.

Of course, from time to time, income tax rates need to be adjusted, and that is not something that this Government rules out in perpetuity. But when one looks at the pressing needs in our communities today, this Government very clearly stands on the side of New Zealanders who say that they want investment in public services for the many rather than tax cuts for the benefit of the few. So on those grounds, I absolutely support this bill and the provisions which set in place the income tax rates for the year coming forward. No doubt all members of this House will enjoy a vibrant debate about tax policy as we head into 2020 and the election campaign next year.

Of course, Madam—of course, Mr Speaker, this bill is not entirely—that was such a smooth transition—about just setting the annual rates for the year ahead. Actually, on that count, may I just acknowledge the Minister of Revenue for ensuring that this bill setting the annual rates for the 2019-20 year has been processed through the Parliament in a timely fashion. I remember the cycle of tax bills in the last couple of years of the previous Government, one of which only passed in, I believe, March of the year, when, in fact, it had to be passed by 1 April in order to ensure that the forward appropriations would be lawful. So that’s a sign of a Government that’s running well and a Minister who’s on top of his game.

More broadly, I think we can say because we have a Minister who is running a busy tax programme, we’ve already seen action to ensure that taxation on multinationals is tightened up so that everyone who’s operating in this country pays their fair share and contributes to the public good. We see a very busy tax programme that’s moving forward and we see some very important measures in this Budget, which are about implementing that tax programme and about ensuring that we have a fair and level playing field for all New Zealanders.

Indeed, I actually think that most members of this Chamber, across both sides—although we would differ sometimes in the interpretation of this—would agree that one of the important tenets of an effective tax system does come down to that principle of there being a level playing field, that we don’t favour one group of people or one particular kind of activity over another. It’s in that regard that I think that the changes that have been made in respect of bringing low-value imported goods into the GST net are very, very important.

I do note that this is one of those provisions that has pretty broad support, actually, across the House—and let’s be clear: some of this work began under the previous Minister of Revenue in the previous Government, the Hon Judith Collins. I do think that the House is a little bit the poorer tonight for the fact that—well, to date, anyway—that member hasn’t had the opportunity to contribute to this debate. She usually does speak in the tax debates and makes a good contribution as someone who knows the subject matter and someone who was a previous Minister. I’ve noticed this week that she is speaking publicly a little bit less. I think it would be great if she was able to contribute in this debate, because she has something to add. I know that this is a change that she does support, and I believe she would have some warm words to say about the work of the current Minister—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Who’s that?

MICHAEL WOOD: —the Hon Stuart Nash. I’m talking about the Hon Judith Collins, a member who, you know, despite policy differences, we on this side of the House admire as a competent person who does speak her mind and has some clear political principles.

But coming back to the current Minister the Hon Stuart Nash, this is his bill and he’s picked up that piece of work in terms of making sure that low-value goods imported into our country—mainly through online shopping these days—are treated on a level playing field. This is an issue that has been bubbling around for a really long time, and it’s become more of an issue as more of us do our shopping online. Groups like Retail New Zealand have spoken very strongly about this, for example. The lack of a level playing field now is most evident, of course, because you know that if you go down to the local bricks and mortar store at your local mall or on the high street and you buy any kind of good, you will pay 15 percent GST on that. With a few clicks of the mouse, potentially you can find that same good online, buy it from a purchaser who hasn’t necessarily invested in that hard infrastructure and supported the jobs in New Zealand, and you don’t have to pay GST on those low-value goods at the moment. So this provision simply ensures that person A who buys that good from the local store, and person B who buys that same good from a retailer or a market place online, are treated in the same way and both purchases have 15 percent GST applied to them. It is level playing field stuff. It is fairness stuff. I believe that most members of this House will support that.

I want to speak briefly on one of the other major changes in this bill: the provisions around the ring-fencing of tax deductions on rental properties. This ensures that those deductions can’t be used to reduce income, to be offset against other forms of income. The deductions can still be carried forward, they can be applied to other rental properties, but they can’t be used to offset other forms of income. We know that the current provisions, which do allow that to happen, effectively, give those who are investing or speculating in the property market certain financial advantages over the young couple who are turning up to try and buy their first home. This is about a level playing field as well. We want that young couple—the owner-occupiers, whoever it is—to be on a level playing field. We don’t want them to be out-competed by investors or speculators because they have an inbuilt advantage through the tax system. That is not something this Government supports, and that is why we have moved on this issue.

I’ll repeat something that I said in my earlier contributions on this bill, and that is that this Government has been taking a sustained approach on this issue. Last year, we increased the brightline test to five years, and there was much hissing and screeching about that, about how ineffective that would be. We’ve made sure that foreign speculators aren’t allowed to be swooping up those houses for investment purposes to the detriment of Kiwi people who want to buy their own home. These measures are beginning to make a difference. We’re seeing a stabilisation of house prices in major markets like Auckland. We’ve seen the proportion of first-home buyers actually begin to go up after crashing for about nine years under the previous Government, to the point that we got to in 2017 when we had the lowest rate of home ownership since 1951. That was the record of that previous Government. So this Government is very proud of the fact that we are taking decisive steps on this issue to actually give those Kiwis who want to get into their own home a fair go.

This is a good bill. It addresses a number of matters in our tax system. I just want to touch, finally, on one other change that the Minister spoke on—with a bit of passion, actually—in his address. Those are the provisions allowing the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to have some discretion in exempting a small number of people, mainly women, who have been victims of sex offences from having to pay child support. I think virtually all of us in this House would agree that it is unconscionable that we would have victims of serious sexual crimes who were put in that position because of an inflexibility in our tax laws. It’s something that would be difficult to actually legislate around, but I think that most of us in this House know the competence of the Inland Revenue Department and believe that it’s an appropriate area for them to have some discretion to ensure that tax is implemented fairly in that respect, which is the fundamental principle of this bill, which I do commend to the House. Thank you.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Oh, thank you, Mr Speaker. Here we are, speaking on the third reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill. I was just wondering whether that former speaker Michael Wood wanted to say anything more, because we were missing so much. First of all, we were lacking enthusiasm—enthusiasm for this.

This bill just demonstrates why this Government in power right now is a problem to ordinary New Zealanders and to business people alike. That Government over there is overseeing the greatest haul of new taxes and tax revenues over the next few years than we have seen for a long, long time. We’re going to be seeing our tax take of this Government rise from about $84 billion to over $105 billion in four years’ time—a massive increase, absolute massive increase. Then we’ve seen the Minister of Finance, also during that intervening time, increasing debt by 10 billion bucks—10 billion bucks. That doesn’t take into account the off-balance-sheet borrowing that the New Zealand Transport Agency and other Government entities might be entering into. This is a Government that just wants to rake money in from ordinary New Zealanders, and that’s why we’re not going to support this bill, because the main thing about this is enshrining higher than necessary tax rates for the coming year.

That’s why I put up a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 250, an SOP that would have meant that New Zealanders would have kept, at the time they’re paid, money paid to them by their business owners or employers or whatever it might be. Whatever the source of that income, they would have kept the money in their pockets—an extra 1060 bucks a year—1060 bucks. Most of that, in my SOP, was about looking after the most vulnerable and the lowest paid of all New Zealanders. That’s where we want to make sure that people retain more money in their pocket—not to take it off them and then pay it back to them in the form of a benefit.

Yesterday, I found it fascinating. I found it fascinating because, when I started talking about it, subsequent speakers would get up and say, “Well, look, you know, we’re increasing minimum wages”—well, of course, the employer pays for that, not the Government—“and then we’re going to give back even more through Working for Families”—one of them said that yesterday—“and accommodation supplements.” Well, actually, I think there’s another way of looking at the equation. Why don’t you just let people keep the money in their pocket at the time when they’re paid? Why do you have to put it through that mincing machine and then pay it back in the form of a benefit? How degrading. Just let people have the money at the source. That’s why my SOP was about putting in place the new revised lower tax rate for the lower paid, the most vulnerable, in New Zealand.

I think this is what people talk about when they talk about a regressive tax. That is the one that hurts the poorest and the most vulnerable members of our society. I think if the Government could say, “Right, we’re raising another $25 billion of tax over the next four years. We’re taking on account another $10 billion of extra debt—that’s $35 billion, roughly—and we’re going to spend it on really good stuff like roads, like infrastructure, and like all that sort of stuff.”, we’d say, “Well, it’s not a bad proposition.” But what have we got?

One of the members from the Government side said—in fact, it was a Minister—“You tell me how we’re going to stop all that. How are you going to fund all these things, like infrastructure?” Well, it’s a very clear proposition. All you do is stop the $3 billion fund that Mr Shane Jones has got his hands on, which I know the Hon Paul Goldsmith has been honing in on in terms of the efficiency of that spend. You stop the billion dollars you gave to Winston Peters for the great new ambassadorships and spending on curtains and carpets in Sweden and all that billion dollars he got again in the latest Budget for his railway line in Northland—we all know what the purpose of all that is. That’s the answer: if you’re going to take in money, make sure you spend it wisely. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing it from this Government.

Now, I just want to turn on to a digital tax, commonly referred to as the “Amazon tax”. I want to make sure that everyone is very clear: the New Zealand National Party supports this tax. As the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—and I think the Minister, on earlier occasions—has acknowledged, this piece of legislation had its genesis under the Hon Judith Collins. What we want to do is make sure we support our retailers at all levels. Of course, when GST was brought in all those years ago, no one thought about online trading of goods, and, of course, time has moved on. This legislation is about protecting retailers, and, of course, it requires overseas suppliers—or offshore suppliers, to use the technical term—to register for GST if they sell more than $60,000 of goods to New Zealand and to account for GST for items less than $400, which previously were largely not subject to GST.

The issue we have with this—and, again, I put in an SOP yesterday that we debated, SOP 251. During the select committee stage, we had a number of powerful submitters who came and said, “Look, we are large multinational online platforms.”—eBay and Alibaba are a couple of examples—“To do the programming changes, it’s going to take time.” There are requirements to be changed in Australia as well. They said, “We do want to comply with the requirements, but we need time to put it in place.” We had a lot of debate in the committee. The officials said it should be 1 October. We, particularly on this side of the House, said it needed to be more reasonable. That was very hotly debated, and, ultimately, at the end of the day, the select committee agreed on 1 October.

Suddenly, at the last minute, we had a Minister intervene and jump over the top of the select committee and change it to 1 December. That cut across the whole select committee process, in my view. But, more importantly, I do not think we’ve actually ended up with the most appropriate date, and there is a risk—there is a risk—that some of those online trading platforms will not be ready on the due date, and that’s what the SOP was about.

The other aspect—and this is a bit that we really do have a problem with—is around the issue of ring-fencing of tax losses. I think speakers have talked about it before. In New Zealand, we’ve got a trillion-dollar property market—40 percent of it is owned by ordinary mum and dad investors. They’re not sophisticated people, in many cases, and—as I said yesterday in the debate—many wealthy people do not want to own lots of rental properties. These are ordinary people who choose to put their spare cash into an investment they can go and see and that they feel like they’ve got a better association with. In most cases, they are great landlords. They look after their property, which is their main investment, and they look after their tenants. I’m not saying for a moment that there are not poor landlords. But, again, we’ve got a Government who keeps slicing and dicing away at those ordinary New Zealanders who have chosen of their own volition to make a large investment in a property. We’ve seen all the changes that have gone through—the brightline test, and all those sorts of things—that will have an effect on them, but this bill is a further step in that direction.

What it does is that it will require tax losses when a property is sold—by those mum and dad investors—to be contained and can only be used against future losses or profits on future sales of property. Now, in many cases these people only own one property, and sometimes they want to exit the market. In those cases, those losses will be stranded and will not be able to be utilised by investors, and that goes against all the principles of taxation. This is another way, of course, for this Government—which has already imposed seven additional taxes since it came into power. This one’s going to raise another $190 million for this rapacious Government, and what it’s down for—$300 extra that is going to be imposed on renters. Another $300, and we already know rents have gone up by $50 a week—$50 a week.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member’s time has expired.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Well, I’m not sure what “rapacious” means, but I think we’ll own that with a badge of pride if it comes from Mr Bayly. Aren’t they lions in Opposition? Aren’t they absolute lions in Opposition? They had all the time in the world to do all the things that they’re talking about now and they did none of it. They did none of it. In fact, they did exactly the same things as we’re looking at doing, in terms of excise tax on fuel as we look to pay for vital infrastructure. So don’t come at me with these crocodile tears, the National Party. You had your chance and you did nothing.

We are a responsible Government and we do realise that we have inherited a massive infrastructure deficit. We’ve got—the hospital, in fact, in Dunedin, down our way, a very, very good and much-needed build. One of the stats that I always find absolutely extraordinary, when the Hon David Clark talks about investment and health infrastructure, is that in 2015 and 2016 the number was zero—a big fat donut. We didn’t invest a single cent in rebuilding our hospitals and, henceforth, we inherited hospitals with sewage running down the walls.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Now can you come to the bill?

MARK PATTERSON: So that’s in terms of where we’re setting these—

Matt King: That is rubbish and you know it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’m going to give a warning to both Mr Patterson and Mr King. When you use the personal pronoun “you” or “your”, you’re including the Speaker into the debate, and I’m warning both to cease.

MARK PATTERSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker—taxation rates within this Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill. Of course, no talk about infrastructure—of course, the rail network that we are investing in the Budget just gone and, Mr King, we will make Northland reach its potential. Our social services, our mental health services—we can’t do these much-needed things without raising some revenue. The reason why there’s a lift in tax overall, in terms of the quantum, is, actually, because we’ve got a growing economy. When you’ve got a growing economy, when you’ve got growing wages that are rising faster than inflation, you do start to raise more revenue and it does start to give you some options. We can rebuild our public services, our police force, and our teachers. We can start to address the pay claims that have been languishing for years and years and we can have a military that doesn’t have 60-year-old planes breaking down all over the place.

So this is an important piece of legislation because it does allow us to do the things that we need to do for this country. So the bill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I’m going to ask the member to speak specifically to the bill. It’s a third reading on the bill as accepted by the committee of the whole House. Those points that you’ve been raising are not in the bill.

MARK PATTERSON: Thank you for your guidance, Mr Speaker, on that. There’s two significant changes in this and, of course, the GST being collected on international transactions is absolutely essential for our small businesses. Particularly in our regional economies and towns, they’re not often big businesses; they are often very small and just struggling to eke out a living. They are at a 15 percent disadvantage against online retailers and many of the massive outfits like Amazon that are coming to New Zealand. We need to level that playing field. It’s actually just a sense of fair play, a fair go. New Zealand First, as a very egalitarian party, absolutely stands behind our small businesses and giving them a fair go against these international traders. Of course, there are 26,000 of these small businesses and they employ 62,000 people, so it is a really important part of our economy and we should not be handicapping them. We’ve had the IRD—we’ve had some work on the computer system here that’s allowing us to do a lot of this work and I see, just reading through the papers, that we’re getting a 10-to-one return on the money that’s been invested there. These IT upgrades have been valuable; it means we’re actually able to be a lot fairer because we’re collecting the tax that we’re supposed to be getting and we don’t have to be raising rates to get it.

So there has been some comment that we have delayed by a couple of months, and it was suggested by Amy Adams that we should put that out to the end of the financial year. But why should we put it out to the end of the financial year if we are in a position of bringing it before Christmas so our retailers are back on a playing field in their absolute peak season? We should be doing that, and we are doing that, and the Minister should be congratulated. I note that in Australia, where they brought this measure in, they have raised four times the anticipated revenue, so it does show you how big the online part of commerce is now. We’re putting our main street, mum and dad retailers back on an even footing.

Then, of course, we look at this ring-fencing of the losses, and I don’t share the view that was put forward by the previous speaker, Mr Andrew Bayly. I think that you shouldn’t be able to write off these losses. If you’re making investment for the tax deductibility or because it’s tax efficient, then, probably, it’s not the best investment in the first place. It should be cash-flow positive, and if it’s not, then you shouldn’t expect the taxpayer to subsidise a poor investment or an over-leveraged position.

We’ve got a massive—about $260 billion, I think, in residential property. It is actually a huge structural risk to our economy, the amount of money we’ve got lent into the property market. So I think a measure like this that makes people invest wisely, not investing for a tax break or a tax subsidy, essentially works out as a sensible measure. It’s good for the investor, actually, to take that away. It doesn’t encourage them to over-leverage; it makes them choose their investment on its merits. Housing affordability has been one of the huge issues and I’m absolutely staggered that we get, in Auckland particularly—we’ve had house prices at a million dollars. We have had a Government, previous to ours, that has not taken any action at all—been asleep at the wheel at that point and let prices get to a million dollars. How on earth does a family on an average wage afford to buy a million-dollar house? Keith Holyoake used to talk about New Zealand being a property-owning democracy, and that was one of the great fundamentals of our society. We are trying to bring that back.

As Mr Wood mentioned in his contribution, we’ve got the highest proportion of first-home buyers in the market now. We’ve taken the overseas speculators out—81 percent decline in overseas buyers of housing in our property market—which is giving our people and our first-home buyers and our young families the chance to have their own home and a stake in our country.

So we think that ring-fencing losses is just another part of the measures that we’ve been bringing forward—of course, the extension to the brightline test to stop flipping properties, or at least dissuade people from doing that, by making that taxable if you’re doing that, essentially, for income. It was at two years; it’s gone out to five years. That’s just another measure that we’ve taken as part of a package, and I think Minister Nash is doing a great job in that revenue space. He is making it a much fairer and more balanced taxation system that’s collecting from a broader base so that we can afford the social services that we would aspire to; so that we can afford to have a First World public health system and upgrade our rail, have planes that are not 60 years old, and have some respect out in the international community; so that we can afford to have our diplomats out there negotiating trade deals—all these good things that we are able to do, and we are doing as a Government with a measured and balanced taxation policy and settings.

We certainly have no hesitation here in New Zealand First in commending this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, it was fascinating just hearing a New Zealand First member saying that we should be happy to be paying taxes so that they can give money to new diplomats in order to bring about trade deals, when New Zealand First have voted against most of the trade deals they have come across, and they’ve always been implacable opponents of trade. So that was a very interesting observation there from the member on the other side of this House.

So here we are; we’re in the third reading of this taxation bill. It’s the annual rates, and the first point, of course, is that these annual rates that are being put in for income tax have not been adjusted for inflation. So, every year, the Government is sneaking a little bit of extra money from Kiwis in order to feed the beast—the tax beast. Most other areas of Government are adjusted for inflation. If you’re on a benefit, you get an adjustment for inflation. If you’re in many employment roles, you get an adjustment to your income for inflation. But we’re not adjusting the tax rates for inflation, and so the effect of that over time is that we end up paying more tax.

Dr Duncan Webb: That’s not in this bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Pardon?

Dr Duncan Webb: It’s not in this bill.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, that’s the point I was making.

Dr Duncan Webb: So talk about something that is.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I can talk about whatever I like, thank you, Mr Whatever Your Name Is from the other side. What we’re talking about here is the fact that the rates that are listed—10.5 percent up to $14,000. So the first $14,000 you earn, you’re paying 10.5 percent income tax. From $14,000 through to $48,000, you’re paying 17.5 percent—a pretty low rate—but when you hit $48,000, you start paying 30 percent of your income in tax, and if you hit $70,000, you’re paying 33 percent.

Now, with each passing year, as inflation increases earnings and growth, it means that more people are pushed into those higher brackets. So a bigger part of your portion—say, if you’re earning $60,000, you’ve gone up $5,000 over a couple of years, then more of your income is going to be paid at that 30 percent rate. And that happens right across the economy and adds substantially to the amount of tax New Zealanders are paying. If you look at it over three or four years, it runs to thousands and thousands of dollars of extra tax for the average New Zealand family. And that’s why Simon Bridges, our leader, has indicated that we’re keen to adjust those rates for inflation, and this bill is a missed opportunity from this Government that says that it’s interested in the wellbeing of New Zealanders but in reality has a very old fashioned view of the world, which is take more, tax more, spend more, and expect people to be happy.

If we look at the broader message of this Government, it is that they’re going to spend a lot more, which is what we’re getting for all these taxes. They’re spending an extra $3.8 billion in this Budget just passed—$3.8 billion; just think of that. The previous Government was spending about an extra $1 billion in each Budget, so they’ve almost quadrupled the rate of new spending. So they’re going to spend a lot more over time, but the problem is that the economy is slowing very sharply. If you’re going to spend more but the economy is growing slower, the inevitable consequence of that is that, down the line, they’re going to have to put up taxes even further or they’re going to have to increase debt. Neither of those things is great for the long-term future of this country.

So here we are; we’ve got this tax bill, which fails to take the opportunity to adjust those tax rates for inflation, meaning that we’ll be paying more tax. So the obvious question is: well, what are we getting for it? What are we getting for all this tax that we’re paying? And I think New Zealanders are waking up to the fact that it’s a bit of a mixed bag there. When people looked at the Budget, of course, everybody probably agreed that we should make more investment in mental health, and that’s something that we would certainly have done if we’d had the opportunity to form another Government, as we were planning to do with the very many projects that we had under way. Not so convincing is the $3 billion that Shane Jones spends in the Provincial Growth Fund, for example. Sure, you’ll find some useful things if you spend $3 billion, but there’ll be an enormous amount of waste, and we’ve seen that with the infamous mulching of the trees up at Ngāti Hine and many other examples. Then, if we think of the free fees: $2.8 billion gone to not having an extra single student coming along—in fact, fewer students—and this year they’ve had to admit that they’re not going to spend all the money, because rather than the lift of 80,000 new students, they just didn’t get them.

It’s that kind of poor-quality spending that is the underlying driver of the need for this increased taxation that we’re seeing. And, ultimately, the thing about tax is that the more you do of it, the more impact you have on economic growth. Our friends over in the Greens have always clearly understood that if you want to reduce smoking, for example, if you put up the price through taxes and excise, then you will discourage people from doing it. But they have never followed that same logic when it comes to taxing income and work. They refuse to see that connection, but we do, and we do recognise it.

Hon Andrew Little: What a stupid argument.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: It’s not a stupid argument. I’d be very keen for the member—

Hon Andrew Little: Employment is growing. People are paying taxes. It works.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Eh? So the higher the rate of taxation on work, according to the other side, has no impact on people’s inclination to do it. Well, we all have decisions to make—

Hon Andrew Little: The member is better than this—the member is better than this. Make a sensible argument.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Is the Speaker going to let me—or do I have to sustain such a barrage from the other side while I’m trying to give a reasoned and careful and considered speech on a topic?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Well, if you’re asking me for a ruling or a comment on it, there was a direct interaction between you. So my encouragement to both members is for the member on his feet to carry on with his kōrero.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you very much. The member over there is renowned for being quite loud, and so I momentarily lost my train of thought.

Clayton Mitchell: Did you have one?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Well, I had one. Thank you.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The second point I was making was in relation to the changes around the ring-fencing of rental losses. This is a complicated area, and there are plenty of people who—we all agree that reducing the cost of new housing so that New Zealanders don’t have to have so much of their wealth and income devoted to housing is absolutely a massive issue for the country and one that we need to be focused on. We heard a lot from this Government talking about the fact that they were going to reform planning laws, and we heard a lot from David Parker on this topic and many others, and we haven’t seen anything on that score so far whatsoever, but they certainly have come quickly with the taxes and the ring-fence is—well, you can argue about whether it’s a sensible thing to do. The general rule in our tax law is that you are able to write off expenses against income, and so this sort of changes that basic rule.

The only point I would make to the Government is you just do need to be careful of the context here, because there have been a significant number of things since this Government came in that have added significantly to the costs and reduced the potential profitability of renting properties. One short-term consequence—and, you know, these things will sort themselves out over time—is that there could be fewer properties. People could withdraw from the market. Nobody’s forced to rent out properties. It’s not compulsory. So people can sell their houses to other people, and you might find that a young couple buy their house, which is a wonderful thing, but if it was being rented out to five or six university students, for example, then that does have a consequence for the overall housing stock. If there is a shrinkage in the amount of houses available for rent, then that can have a real consequence in terms of rental profits in the short term.

So that is one of the most founding, basic principles of good government, is that one always has to be careful of unintended consequences from whatever legislation that you bring in. So this is one where we’ll be watching with great interest, and deeply concerned, because, like I say, if you’re concerned about improving the affordability of housing, which we all are in this House, then most people will agree that an important part of that is getting on with the planning legislation. Like I say, notwithstanding all the talk prior to the election and all the promises of Phil Twyford to do radical reform—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Oh, I thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to be standing on behalf of the Green Party and support it here at the third and final reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill. It is actually on some of these remedial matters that I want to draw the attention of the House, because this bill does a number of extremely good things that I don’t think have had enough coverage in the debates at each stage of the House that this bill has gone to. I just want to draw attention to those things, because there are people out there who might not know about this who, I think, would want to know about this.

So first of all, university students and students of polytech who have got student loans—one of the things that this bill does, scooped up in the innocuous title of “remedial matters”, is it actually makes it easier for people to manage their loan repayments, because there was a technical confusion in the way that the student loan borrowers were set up to be eligible for interest-free loans, where they ended up having to get charged interest. Then, that got written off at the end of the year, and, you know—sort of one of those hopeless bureaucratic situations where you ended up being liable for something that you shouldn’t be liable for and it made life a bit difficult. This bill cleans all of that up and makes all of that go away and makes life easier for tertiary students with loans. So that’s a good thing.

The second so-called remedial matter—and this, given the attention that we have got as a Government, as a country, on domestic and sexual violence, is actually in this tax bill. It cleans up an inequity, where someone who ended up giving birth to a child as a result of sexual violence historically ended up being liable for child support payments as a result of the act against them, which is completely iniquitous. This bill removes that. So it creates a child support exemption for victims of a sexual offence. That is a really good thing. Those kinds of issues don’t often come through in tax law, but here we are cleaning that up in this bill.

Another thing that this bill does that I think is fantastic is it allows tax records to be held in Te Reo. So if you’re Māori and you speak Te Reo and you want your interactions, your tax records with the Government, to be held in Te Reo, they can now be as a result of this bill. Frankly, the struggle that we have as a country to become a properly bilingual country—you know, I think that’s fantastic. One of those, you know, remedial matters—seems small, but, actually, I think is certainly of symbolic importance to the people that it affects. So I like that.

So those are three really significant things for students, for victims of sexual and domestic violence, for Māori. Together, that adds up to quite a lot of people. This bill does something for those people, makes their lives easier. It also, of course, deals with some part of the problem that we’ve got with the imbalance in the economy around investment properties. This is specifically around the ring-fencing of losses on properties. I know that the Opposition have put a lot of time and attention on this particular provision of the bill, but given that they’re also reluctant to allow for capital gains tax to be applied to investment properties or anything like that, and given that they’re constantly complaining at question time about GDP per capita and lost productivity and all of that kind of stuff—which is, in part, a function of the massive overinvestment that we have in the speculative part of the property market, that diverts capital, obviously, to where it’s easiest to make money and away from the productive parts of the economy—you start to see the inconsistency in this argument.

So introducing loss ring-fencing I think is very significant. It actually helps to start to say, “Look, if you’re going to be a property investor, you actually start to need to treat that properly as an investment and to run it as a business and not just to use it as a tax write-off.” To me, that’s not about revenue raised or anything like that, although I know that the Opposition have raised points that they see this as some kind of tax grab. For me, that’s actually about rebalancing the economy away from the speculative part of the economy and towards the productive part of the economy. It’s not going to do it by itself. It’s an important part of the jigsaw puzzle, but I think it’s significant.

Of course, finally and related to that is this piece that was introduced during the committee stage, which was making it compulsory for IRD numbers to be supplied on transfers of a main home. Again, I think that’s just one of those things where, just for the integrity of the tax system, applying one rule across all of those transactions, whether it’s for your main home or for an investment property or anything like that—it just kind of makes sense to do that, and helps to maintain the integrity of the system.

So I think that for all of the complaints about whether personal tax rates should be any different or whether we’re being too hard on property investors or anything like this, this bill actually does a number of things that make life easier for, actually, in many cases, people who are amongst some of the more disadvantaged or excluded people in our society, and communities in our society.

So I know that the Opposition have said that there are things in this bill that they support, but I just want to bring attention to those things, because, honestly, if you’re Māori and you think that you ought to be able to hold your business with the Government in your language, you’d have to be wondering why the National Party were voting against that. If you were a student and you wanted your interactions with the Government to be less bureaucratic and smoother, you would have to wonder, “Why is the National Party voting against my ability to have a less bureaucratic interaction with the Government?” If you’re a victim of sexual and domestic violence and you think that you shouldn’t be liable for something that occurred as a result of your victimisation, you’d have to wonder why it is that the National Party are voting against those things. If you’re a young couple and you actually want to get into—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Can the member refrain from bringing me into the debate? “You”—when you say “you” or “your”, you’re speaking to me.

Hon JAMES SHAW: Yeah, no, I understand, Mr Speaker. I’m just trying to work out the—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Even if they are true.

Hon JAMES SHAW: —alternative sentence construction that would enable me to—

Dr Duncan Webb: “One”—“one”. “If one is”.

Hon JAMES SHAW: If one—if one is—oh my God. We’re really getting royal on this, aren’t we? If a person—

Hon Andrew Little: “If someone”.

Hon JAMES SHAW: If someone—thank you—is getting started in life and wants to actually get to buy their own home and so on, that someone would have to wonder why it was that the National Party was voting against their interests. If someone is a small-business person who is in the retail business and is selling books and small items, one would have to wonder why it was that the National Party—the so-called party of business—was voting against small businesses in New Zealand and in favour of Amazon, given how little tax Amazon pays in this country.

So for all that we can argue about whether individual personal tax rates should change and any of those things, this bill delivers for students, for Māori, for small businesses and for retailers, for victims of domestic and sexual violence in New Zealand, for people who are trying to get on to the property ladder, and for people who are trying to rebalance the economy away from speculation and towards the productive part of the economy. That’s what this bill does, and the National Party are voting against all of those provisions because they can’t stand the fact that tax rates this year will be the same as tax rates last year. That is mindboggling to me. It is absolutely astonishing. I think it is out of character for the National Party to be voting against the interests of all of those people.

So, on the other hand, I think all of those things are good things. For those reasons and for many more, I commend this bill to the House.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): It’s a pleasure to follow on from the Hon James Shaw, and let me take this opportunity of explaining why National will oppose this legislation, the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill. He has correctly pointed out a number of smaller remedial matters that are good in this bill. The reason National will oppose the bill is simply because of Part 1, which establishes the huge tax take that this Government’s intent on taking from New Zealanders. So if Mr Shaw was prepared tonight to remove Part 1 from the legislation, he may well get National Party support for the balance of the bill, but I doubt whether that’s going to happen at all.

Let me explain quite clearly why I oppose this legislation and the tax bill part of it, Part 1. It is because this legislation will soon be seen as a lost opportunity. The economy in this country is in decline. I know that Labour members and Green members and New Zealand First members refuse to recognise that, although I did note today the Prime Minister herself has acknowledged that the economy is now declining. She then goes on to say the reason for the decline is entirely because of offshore factors—that other economies around the world are declining, and that will have an effect in New Zealand.

There is another argument, advanced by many commentators, that the reason the New Zealand economy is in decline is because of the anti-growth policies that have been enacted by this Government over the last 18 months. Now, I will suggest to the House tonight that the truth is somewhere in between. The reason the economy is in decline is certainly because of the Government’s focus on anti-growth measures, its focus on making sure it’s making it a lot harder for businesses to do business here in New Zealand, and it is certainly a factor of the overseas trends. But one easy way to stimulate the economy would actually be to provide tax relief at this time. If the Government won’t look at that opportunity, then I think not only is it establishing tax rates that continue—we’re seeing now more and more people, via bracket creep, move into the highest tax rate: $70,000 and everybody’s in the highest tax rate. I took the opportunity of asking the Minister when he was in the chair last night, how many people that is. He had no idea. I find it incredible that a Minister of Revenue can sit in the chair through the committee stage and not be able to answer a simple question as to what numbers of taxpayers are now in the highest tax rate.

The effect of cementing these tax rates in is this massive increase in tax revenue over the next five years. We currently, in 2019, are predicting tax revenue from GST and from corporate tax and from personal taxation of $84.7 billion. Over the next five years, that amount grows by a staggering 29.9 percent. That figure balloons out to $105.6 billion, and that’s one of the major reasons why this economy is in decline. No Government member has acknowledged that massive ballooning of tax take that’s in the BEFU—in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update—page 26. We had a discussion at the Finance and Expenditure Committee today and, again, Labour members around that select committee table are in absolute denial of the huge increase in tax that this Government’s ramping up with this bill.

There are a couple of other issues that I want to discuss around concerns for this bill. I agree—and, in fact, most National members have mentioned in their contributions tonight that we agree—with the move to put GST on to the internet shoppers. In fact, the preparatory work for this was done by the previous National Government under the then revenue Minister, the Hon Judith Collins. But what I do strongly disagree with is the date by which Amazon, TradeMe, eBay, and other suppliers are meant to concur with this legislation. It came into the House and was meant to be applied from 1 October. They all said, “We want to comply. We will comply. We’ll collect the GST via systems that we’ll adapt to do that job. We’ll remit it to IRD here in New Zealand, but we need time to set it up.”, and they suggested that that should go through to 1 April. The Government gave them an extra two months, under pressure from National members around the select committee. So we’ve moved it from 1 October to 1 December. That still, in my mind, will make it difficult for companies that want to comply, and the alternative if they haven’t set up the systems to comply is to simply not make available those internet goods to shoppers from New Zealand, disadvantaging New Zealand consumers.

The third aspect that I worry about with this bill is the ring-fencing on rental properties. Again, it’s because there’s this instinctive lack of knowledge of what ma and pa, small mum and dad investors, do when they purchase a rental property with the sole intention of making some money over a period of time but making it available to the rental market. I’ve heard speeches from the Hon James Shaw tonight, from the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, Michael Wood, and neither of them can refer to these people as investors without also referring to them as speculators, and that’s what’s driving this particular move. Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens see all these small-time mum and dad investors in small rental properties as speculators. Most of them aren’t. They buy their property. They probably spend some money renovating it to get it up to standard immediately. They then go through the hassle of getting a stable tenant into the property, and for the first year or two may well make a loss. The advantage to them of doing that had previously been they could write that off against other income. The Government is going to stop that, and that has an effect that’s already being seen by these smaller investors keeping out of the market, meaning less properties are available for rent, and that’s why we’re seeing rents go up a staggering $50 a week. Here, these people who are renting properties can ill afford the rents as they’re established now, and this move will only see rents increase still further.

The final aspect that I want to address in my contribution is the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that the Minister of Revenue tabled in the House late last night, which makes adjustments to the Land Transfer Act, and members have described it as simply requiring purchasers and sellers to give their GST number. I have no problem with that aspect of it at all. The part that I am particularly worried about is that in this particular SOP that’s been tabled, there’s now a definition as to the main home transfer, and a definition that says that a seller must prove to IRD they’ve lived in that house 50 percent of the nights that they’ve owned it. I think that will be absolutely impractical to do. I sense what they’re trying to do is close a loophole around people arguing when they should be paying the brightline test tax that it’s actually a personal dwelling. Then, if that’s the case, close the loophole properly. But I think, actually, they’ve created in this legislation a massive difficulty for people to prove—I can think of somebody who’s, effectively, a travelling salesman, who might spend four or five nights a week away from their principal dwelling, now not being able to say it’s a principal dwelling because they didn’t spend 50 percent of the nights, and they might own that property for, say, 10 years. That person is going to have difficulty proving what is generally a principal family home to be a family home because of this legislation. We could have fixed these sort of anomalies if Mr Nash had allowed this SOP to go before the select committee, and that’s why tax legislation requires the work of a select committee. To put it into the House late last night and expect it to be passed without discussion will be foolhardy.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I understand this is a split call. I call Willow-Jean Prime—five minutes.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Āe, kua hōmai ki ahau he rima meneti ki te kōrero e pā ana ki tēnei pire. I te pānuitanga tuatoru o tēnei pire.

E hiahia ana ahau ki te kōrero e pā ana ki tētahi wāhanga e kaingākau ana ahau. Arā, ko te wāhanga e āhei ana ngā tāngata te pupuri, te tuku rānei, ō rātou kōrero tāke ki te Tari Tāke i roto i Te Reo Māori. He mea nui tēnei. He aha ai?

Tuatahi, i whakamana Te Reo Māori hei reo motuhake, reo whai mana i roto i ngā ture i te tau 1987. Ahakoa tēnā, kāhore anō ngā ture tāke e whakamana ana i ngā tāngata e hiahia ana ki te tuku ō rātou kōrero tāke, ki te pupuri ō rātou kōrero tāke, i roto i Te Reo Māori. Ahakoa tēnā, korekau he ture e āhei ana te tangata ki te mahi i tēnā. Kua whakaāe te Kaikōmihana Tāke i tō rātou hiahia ki te mahi tērā mahi. Ahakoa tēnā, ko te kōrero ō Te Tari Tāke, me ngā kaimahi, me Te Minitā anō hoki, arā, Te Hon Stuart Nash, kua tae te wā ki te whakamana tērā i roto i ngā ture mō te tāke, ne. Nō reira, e tino tautoko ana ahau i tēnei kaupapa.

E mōhio ana tātou, he nui ake, he tokomaha ake ngā tāngata e mōhio ana ki te kōrero Māori, e kōrero Māori ana, ia rā, ia rā. Ko ngā tamariki ō te kōhanga reo tērā. Ngā tamariki ō te kura kaupapa, te wharekura, kua tupu ake, kua tupu ake, kua whai mahi e utu tāke ana. Kua tīmata ngā pakihi. Tēnā pea e hiahia ana rātou ki te pupuri ō rātou kōrero tāke, ki te tono atu ō rātou kōrero tāke i roto i tō rātou ake reo, arā, te reo rangatira, Te Reo Māori.

Ko tētahi o ngā rautaki o Te Kāwanatanga anō hoki ko Te Maihi Karauna. Ko te tino whāinga o tērā rautaki—hei te tau 2040, tēnā pea 1 miriona tāngata e mōhio ana ki te kōrero Māori. He wāhi kōrero Māori. Ko te tūmanako anō hoki, ko te whāinga anō hoki—neke atu i te 150,000 e mōhio ana ki te kōrero Māori, neke atu i te 15 ō rātou tau.

Mehemea ka tutuki ēnei wawata o Te Kāwanatanga, ko ēnei tāngata e mōhio ana ki te kōrero Māori, tēnā pea e hiahia ana ki te whakamahi i tēnei kaupapa i roto i ngā ture tāke. I roto i Te Tahua Pūtea he nui ngā moni e tuku atu ana ki te tautoko i ēnei rautaki.

Nō reira, ki taku whakapono, ka tutuki tērā whāinga ō tātou ā tōna wā.

I te wā kei ahau, kia whakamutu ake i aku kōrero, e mōhio ana ahau he nui ake ngā pakihi Māori, ngā ūmanga Māori. I kite ahau i tētahi rīpoata mō tēnei mea te Māori economy, me kī, i puta mai tētahi o ngā kamupene. Neke atu i te $50 piriona ngā rawa kei ērā o ngā kamupene. Ko taku hiahia, ko taku wero ki ngā ūmanga Māori, ki ngā pakihi Māori, nā te mea kei roto i tēnei ture te āheitanga ki te tuku atu i ngā kōrero tāke, ki te pupuri i ngā kōrero tāke, me mahi pērā. He tono, he wero.

He wero anō hoki—he tino harikoa ahau, i kite ahau i te kōrero o Te Kāwana, o Te Pūtea Matua o Aotearoa, arā, te Reserve Bank—he rautaki reo Māori anō hoki tō rātou, nō reira e mihi ana ki te kāwana, a Adrian Orr. He wero tēnei ki ngā rōpū pērā i ngā kaitatau Māori o Aotearoa, Te Hūmeka, Te Awe, Te Kūpeka Ūmaka Māori ki Ārai te Uru—ngā pakihi Māori katoa. Anā, whakaarohia mehemea ko koutou tērā ka tāea te tuku atu ō koutou kōrero i roto i tēnei pire.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yes, I have been allocated five minutes to address this bill in its third reading.

I would like to speak about an aspect of this bill which is very dear to my heart. I am talking about the section which deals with the ability of a person to record or to submit a tax return to the Inland Revenue Department in Māori. This is important. Why, you may ask.

Firstly, the Māori language was afforded special, official status in legislation passed in 1987. Despite that, there has been no official recognition put in place to specifically allow a person to submit a return, or to keep tax records, in Māori. Neither has there been any legislation allowing a person to do that. The Commissioner of Inland Revenue has the power to allow those who wish to to so do. Nevertheless, the Inland Revenue Department, its staff, and its Minister, the Hon Stuart Nash, have realised that it is time to formalise it in tax law. Therefore, I am very keen to support this.

We are all aware that more and more people are becoming proficient at speaking Māori and do so, daily. There are those from kōhanga reo, from kura, and from wharekura, who grow up, get a job, and pay tax. Some start a business. It is quite possible that they would like to keep tax records and to submit tax returns in their own language, in Māori.

One of the Government strategies is Te Maihi Karauna. One of the principal goals of that strategy is that by the year 2040, it is hoped that 1 million people will know how to speak Māori. A Māori speaking country. Further to that, the goal is that at least 150,000 of those who do speak Māori will be 15 years or older.

If the Government’s aspirations are realised, it is likely that these Māori speakers will want to use their Māori language in their tax dealings. There is provision in the Budget to support the ambitions of the strategy.

Therefore, I firmly believe that these goals will come to pass in due course.

In the time that I have remaining, I would like to conclude my speech by speaking to the increasing number of Māori firms and businesses. I have seen a report on the Māori economy which was produced by one of these firms. The value of these businesses is more than $50 billion. I would like to issue a challenge to those Māori firms and businesses to take advantage of the provisions set out in this law and to proceed to keep tax records and to submit tax returns in Māori. That is my challenge.

I have another challenge as well. I was very glad to note from the statements by the Governor of the Reserve Bank that they have a Māori language strategy, so I am pleased to congratulate the governor, Adrian Orr. The challenge goes out to groups like the Māori Chartered Accountants of New Zealand, to Te Hūmeka, Te Awe, Te Kūpeka Ūmaka Māori ki Ārai te Uru—all Māori businesses. Think about what it would be like if it was you who took advantage of what this bill provides for.]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Aroha mai, kua pau te wā mō tō kōrero.

[I’m sorry, you are out of time.]

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise tonight to oppose the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019–20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill. Now, I did enjoy Mr Shaw’s contribution before, talking about some of the less controversial aspects of this bill, but I do want to turn to the two main provisions of this bill, and they’re the reasons that we oppose the bill on this side of the House. Now, the first one of those is for a new tax which relates to ring-fencing of losses of rental properties and amounts to about $190 million.

Now, I’ve just come off the phone, before I came down into the House, with an owner of a rental property, and he’s very, very concerned about all the costs that are coming his way under the current Government. A lot of people, I guess, often think “Oh, well, that’s OK, they can afford it. They’re landlords—they’re rich.” Well, actually, it doesn’t work that way in the real world, Mr Shaw. Whenever those costs are put on to landlords, what do you think happens? The rents go up. Now, that’s because they have to retrieve those costs from somewhere, and so of course they’re going to have to pass it on to those who are staying in their properties, and Labour just doesn’t understand that, unfortunately.

But that’s what this Government does. They put up the cost and they think that it won’t have an effect. They put up the cost in things like petrol taxes, and they don’t think that it’ll have an effect on Kiwi families who are just struggling to get ahead. If you look at the last Budget, if you look at the Budget just announced a couple of weeks ago, there were three new taxes—three new taxes—in the first three pieces of legislation that this Parliament considered after the Budget—three new taxes. Now we’re here again, debating yet another tax increase put forward by this Government, passing another law, another tax, that will hit low and middle income New Zealanders.

I want to come now to the major objection that I have to this bill, which is confirming the rates of tax for the coming year, and this is actually where the real cost is for New Zealand families—the real cost—because as we know, when Labour came into Government about 18 months ago, one of their first actions was to legislate to cancel tax cuts—to cancel tax cuts. Now, those tax cuts would’ve been worth about $1,060 to the typical New Zealand family. Under this bill, under these tax rates that we’re setting today, the typical Kiwi family will be paying $1,060 more in tax.

It’s at a time when families are struggling with higher cost of living; with higher rents, which have gone up by $50 a week already and will go up further under this bill; when families are struggling with higher petrol costs as a result of even more petrol tax that this Government has put on, not just in Auckland but across the country—they’re putting on yet another tax. It also comes at a time when the economy is deteriorating, and we heard today that even Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister, accepts that that is happening. Job growth has stalled. Under the previous Government, the economy was creating 10,000 new jobs every month; now it’s negative. Growth in general has halved from nearly 4 percent to a little over 2 percent. It is exactly the wrong time to be putting on new taxes.

But it’s not just this bill that does that. Seven new taxes—seven new taxes—have been brought in by this Government since they came into office a little over 18 months ago. Seven new taxes at a time when families are struggling, seven new taxes on hard-working Kiwi families up and down the country, and we ask: for what? Where has this money gone? There are seven new taxes, including the new taxes and the increased taxes that are contained in this bill. Where is that money going? Well, the first thing it’s going to is to KiwiBuild—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Can the member come back to the bill. You need to speak to what’s in the bill.

ANDREW FALLOON: I am, Mr Speaker. I’m talking about the $190 million—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, you weren’t, actually—no, you weren’t. You were talking about other matters. You need to address what is in the bill. Thank you.

ANDREW FALLOON: Happily—sorry, Mr Speaker. The two new taxes that are contained in this bill, the higher income taxes and the $190 million that’s going to come off every renter—where’s that money going? Well, the first thing it’s going into is to KiwiBuild, which is an absolute disaster, which even Phil Twyford now accepts. They’ve completely axed all their targets—they call it a recalibration.

The other thing that this money’s going to, this $190 million contained in this bill in increased income taxes, is to 1,800 new police. Well, actually, where are those new police? We heard today from Stuart Nash that only around 460 new police have come about as a result of—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member’s time has expired.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. I will do my best to focus solely on the bill that is before this House this evening, which is the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2019-20, GST Offshore Supplier Registration, and Remedial Matters) Bill. If there’s anything that this Government is trying to do, it’s that we are tackling the long-term problems facing this country. Now, what this bill does here, in part, is it is going towards fixing some of the systemic issues that we have in the area of housing. I want to commend the Hon Stuart Nash, because what he’s doing through this bill, and what we on this side of the House see as appropriate, is that we are introducing measures to ensure that we no longer are allowing those—no longer allowing those—[Interruption] There we go—no longer allowing those—yeah, God, it’s been a long day, hasn’t it?—folks that have been relying on accruing properties, building up a whole portfolio of properties, to ring-fence losses on those rental properties.

Now, I listen to the Opposition, and they’ve been going on about how we don’t, on this side of the House, understand the difference between speculators and mum and dad investors. Well, what we do understand is that there has been an immeasurable crisis in our housing terrain. I want to reference, in my neck of the woods, a small town up in rural New Zealand—a little town called Ōpōtiki. Now, up there we have—and it’s well known in the community—particular people up in that community that are accruing and accumulating abundant, enormous amounts of housing stock. Much of those houses, they go untenanted. They are very poor quality, they go untenanted, they can ring-fence losses, and I’m talking not just in the 10s or the 20s but far more than that, up into the 50s, I understand.

Now, what we’re trying to do here is introduce a tax system that is fair. What we’re trying to do here is say, actually, the taxpayers shouldn’t bear the burden of enabling some of those people that have sought to rely on, basically, a taxpayer’s tax cut for those that do want to speculate, that do want to ring-fence their losses. Well, we’re getting rid of that, because we say that as a Government that is tackling some of the long-term systemic issues—we are tackling the long-term problems facing the country and, in part, that means tackling our housing situation. But we know that not everything can be fixed overnight, and we’re just getting started. What we’re doing is we’re committed to building a strong economy. So the way, again, that this bill here seeks to do that—what we’re trying to do is ensuring that on all low-value goods, we are ensuring that GST will be applicable regardless of where people are trading from.

It was in 1996 that the GST system was introduced into New Zealand. I was still wearing nappies at that point in time. It’s fair to say that it probably was not anticipated that the nature of e-commerce at that point in time had been anticipated in the way that we operate and conduct ourselves as consumers of products, as traders of products. So last year, we saw over in Australia that they introduced a scheme that would ensure that all low-value goods would have the application of their equivalent of the GST system apply there.

What we are doing is ensuring that all goods under a thousand dollars—that GST will carry through to those goods. Now, that may seem like a minor amendment, but for a tax system that should be fair, that should be equitable—I’m thinking about areas again, back up in my neck of the woods up in Gisborne. I’m thinking about Muir’s bookstore. Now, they have to contend with the likes of eBay, Amazon, and all those. So those large multinationals that aren’t required to put, effectively, 15 percent on their goods but which I, as a consumer, can go online, enter my wee digits in, and in under a week I’ll have that product. Well, my small businesses in the electorate, like we all have, our small businesses in our electorates—26,000 small businesses will benefit. They employ 62,000 people across the country. Now, these small businesses will benefit, unlike what they’re saying in the Opposition over on that side of the House. Actually, what we’re doing by this relatively small measure is ensuring that this tax system is fair, it is equitable, and by the period 2022 and 2023, the estimation is that that will bring $126 million into our economy.

But we are also focused on wellbeing, and we’ve heard a lot about wellbeing not just from our finance Minister but from this side of the House, that it has been a key objective of this Government. One might say, “Well, how is this tax bill bringing about wellbeing?” Well, as my colleague the Hon James Shaw asked of the Opposition earlier, how can the Opposition not vote for a bill that seeks to introduce measures that will, for example, enable the IRD commissioner to allow exemptions for, in most circumstances, women that have been the subject of sexual violation? How would the Opposition not vote for a bill that will give that discretion to the commissioner?

There’s an anomaly right now in the law, and this is something that the Hon Stuart Nash—he was receiving correspondence, and there are a whole range of cases. I mean, look, they’re not in the high numbers, but they are a specific set of cases. He was receiving correspondence that there were young women who had been sexually violated that when they went to give up those children—and sometimes, and in the case I’m thinking of in particular, a 15-year-old woman. Once that child came into the world, it was raised by her mother. There was no ability, by idea at that time, or there was some very limited ability, to be able to provide an exemption for this young woman, who would receive letters from IRD month in month out, saying that she was required to pay child support payments to her mother, who was raising this child, because her own child had been the subject of sexual violation.

This bill, this GST bill, is bringing about ensuring—it’s a relatively simple and it’s a minor amendment, but it is an important amendment to ensure the wellbeing of all of those in our communities that have been subjected to any of those types of sexual violations. But I’m absolutely pleased to see that there has been the inclusion of this type of discretion for IRD.

Now I also want to turn to, in terms of wellbeing, not just through a fiscal lens but, as my colleague—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the Chair. This bill is interrupted and set down for resumption the next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.