Wednesday, 24 July 2019

WEDNESDAY, 24 JULY 2019

WEDNESDAY, 24 JULY 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Bills

Taxation (KiwiSaver, Student Loans, and Remedial Matters) Bill

Referral to Finance and Expenditure Committee

SPEAKER: Members, last night when the House agreed to the first reading of the Taxation (KiwiSaver, Student Loans, and Remedial Matters) Bill, the question was not put as to which select committee the bill will be referred. The question therefore is, That the bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

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): As I have for roughly the last 25 or so times he’s asked, yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: When was the last time hardship grant requests rose 71 percent in less than two years?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member wishes to put questions around historical data on notice, I’d be happy to answer them.

SPEAKER: Order! There are a series of Speakers’ rulings in this area. From memory, they’re around Speakers’ rulings 174 or 175—I’m looking for help as to the exact numbers, but I can remember my immediate predecessor being very specific in this area.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it the case that demand for hardship grants has never risen as fast as it has under her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, if the member wishes to seek historical data by putting the question on notice, I’d be more than happy to answer. But what is also unprecedented in this country would be the amount of investment that’s gone into low-income and middle-income families, as this Government has done. To run over just a couple of initiatives: the increase in the family tax credit, which, of course, also goes to people on benefits; the winter energy payment, which goes to people on benefits as well; the Best Start payment, which is a universal child payment, but also, from zero to three years, it increases the incomes for those families with young children and limited ability to go into work; and include in that as well the changes we made in the last Budget, which will index main benefit increases to wages to stop that growth that we’ve seen under successive Governments—but particularly that one—all of which is lifting between 50,000 and 74,000 children out of poverty. We are increasing the incomes of those who need it the most because we recognise the need that exists, and that includes supporting them when they walk through Work and Income’s doors.

Hon Simon Bridges: In light of the fact that Andrew Little called for Prime Minister Bill English’s resignation when hardship grants went up 14 percent, what’s her excuse?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That last Government saw an escalation with no plan, with nothing that invested in those families, nothing that increased their incomes, and, add to that, no plan to increase public housing supply. This Government has increased public housing places. It has quadrupled the number of State houses that are being built. It has rolled out Housing First and an additional 1,000 places for those in chronic homelessness. Where we see need, we not only support those in need; we have a plan to deal with the systemic issues driving it. We have always said that the need will grow in the intervening period, and that is exactly what we’re seeing, but we have a plan to address it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Prime Minister saying that it’s going to take a little time to turn an inherited, wallowing ship of State around?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely am, and whilst we as a Government came in and made the first most important step of stopping the sale of State houses, which was contributing to the problem, we also, of course, have to get on with increasing supply. That takes time, which is why in the intervening period we’ve said to those who are in need to come to Work and Income. We have support there ready to be provided and we will meet the need, and we won’t change the criteria of waiting lists to hide the problem.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that under her watch, rents have risen $50 a week, higher petrol taxes have increased the cost of filling up the family car, and the average Kiwi is now paying—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m going to refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 175/4, and ask him to rephrase his question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept rents, petrol prices, and, indeed, taxes have all gone up under her watch, making it harder and contributing to that hardship grant going up 71 percent under her watch?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. I refer to my earlier questions, where the cumulative effect of things like the Families Package means hundreds of thousands of families will be $75 a week better off. When it comes to the issue of rent, I will remind the member that while National was in office, rents went up, on average, roughly $100 per week over that period of time. Rents do increase. What we want to see—

Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order.

SPEAKER: A point of order—

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker, if I could finish my answer.

SPEAKER: No, no. The member has a right to ask for a point of order now.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You referred me to the Standing Orders, and I deeply appreciate that. There’s also multiple Standing Orders that make it clear that speakers, when answering questions, shouldn’t refer back to a previous Government’s record without good reason.

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. When the member asks such a general first question—

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, this is all fine!

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

Hon Simon Bridges: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: The Prime Minister can start her answer again.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was going to leave this until the end of the question, but we are now interrupted. The point of order I wish to raise with you is the validity of the question that was asked by the Deputy Prime Minister. If you look at that later, I’m sure you’ll find that it will not meet the standard of the Standing Order that you are currently applying today.

SPEAKER: Well, I think it meets it about as much as most of the other supplementary questions we’ve had today.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker, if I could continue with that final reference, then, to at least the last decade, where, of course, we did see rent increases over that period, the goal of this Government is to address the primary issue which drives rent increases, which is lack of supply, which explains, of course, why in areas like Clutha we’ve seen a decrease in rents over that period. In Christchurch, it’s gone up by about $4, and in Auckland by about $12. I will note, however, that in Auckland, rents over the last year have risen by about 2 percent, which is the lowest annual rise since 2011.

Hon Simon Bridges: Can she name a single time in the history of New Zealand when rents have gone up 52 bucks a week in 20 months?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That is an area where the Prime Minister certainly doesn’t have responsibility, according to the tight rules as requested by Mr Brownlee.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that her Government’s policies have led to a 230 percent increase in the cost of emergency housing grants in the last year alone?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. I accept that the last Government’s policies have meant that we are picking up the pieces of complete under-investment and neglect, particularly of those on low incomes.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that there would be less need for emergency housing grants if the previous Government had built enough houses to ensure that there would be housing for people who needed them?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Absolutely—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Surely, if Mr Bridges can’t ask a question of the Prime Minister about a time in New Zealand, then we can’t have a question from Mr Hipkins along those lines, either.

SPEAKER: Well, I think asking a general question which goes back over all periods of time is clearly out. But I will refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 159/2, which says, “In respect of the activities of the previous Government, which the Minister has had to confront as the Minister in this Government, I believe it is legitimate for the Minister to make comment on those, although the Minister can be tested on the accuracy of what he or she says.” I think that’s certainly the essence of this question. Again, this is a ruling from my predecessor bar one, Dr Lockwood Smith.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s correct, sir, and you point to a very interesting Speaker’s ruling. But it does require that there is something specific about it; it doesn’t require that the Prime Minister answers to an assertion. It does actually require that there was something in the past that is now being confronted by the Prime Minister. To simply say “Can she assume” is not a reasonable way to ask the question.

SPEAKER: I’m going to ask Chris Hipkins to repeat his question, because I thought it actually fitted right into the Standing Orders. If he can remember it, he gets to ask it again.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I’ll give it a go. Can she confirm that there would be less need for homelessness grants, or support for people who are homeless, if the previous Government had built enough houses to provide housing for all those who need it?

SPEAKER: My ruling is that that fits absolutely under Speaker’s ruling 159/2.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. In fact, whether it’s issues of rent, emergency housing grants, or homelessness, it all comes back to the core issue of a lack of supply. Not only did we have a previous Government who did not address that issue but they, in fact, started to sell State houses, and did not do enough to address the significant housing need. In fact, we are still having to use motels to house people in emergency situations whilst we try and rapidly build and create transitional housing.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it the case that under National, the number of emergency housing grants declined due to the 3,200 State houses that the Government built, which was over 1,000 more than the previous Labour Government ever built?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Look, I can’t confirm that. I know—

Hon Members: Oh!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I simply cannot. I also know that some of the criteria—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! That’s enough. I wouldn’t mind actually hearing the answer, although I’m now regretting allowing the question to go on, because it was out of order.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, what I can say is that I do know that some of the criteria—at least for those who were seeking housing—were changed to mean that large numbers of people were simply moved off housing lists. That is exactly what happened under the last Government, so I don’t believe—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish—just not true.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —that, necessarily, the numbers were a clear reflection of the need that existed at that time.

SPEAKER: The member has been warned about making that statement in the past. Dr Smith will stand, withdraw, and apologise. If he repeats the statement, he will leave the House.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Simon Bridges: Isn’t the fact of the matter that every single metric that matters to New Zealanders doing it tough is getting worse under her watch in only 20 short months?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Absolutely not. Not only are wages going up, not only have we quadrupled the number of State houses, and not only have we increased the family tax credit for those in the worst of circumstances but we have increased the minimum wage and benefits—and that Opposition voted against that. I absolutely push back against any suggestion that we have our eye on anything other than supporting those New Zealanders who need it most.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does talk of kindness ring hollow when benefits are up, when hardship grants are up, when emergency housing grants are up, when rents are up, when petrol prices are up, and when those at the bottom are doing it tougher than they have in quite a long time?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Those numbers that the member referred to in the beginning are a reflection of a Government that doesn’t turn people away.

SPEAKER: Ibid.

Hon Simon Bridges: So, question No. 2, Mr Speaker?

SPEAKER: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Thank you.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, with enthusiasm.

Hon Simon Bridges: What transport projects has her Government started?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, we had a lengthy discussion about that yesterday. In fact, we talked a little bit about the projects that he long hailed but actually put no designational funding into, and I’d be happy to spend a bit of time on that. But, instead, let’s talk about the $49 million that went into the Manukau Bus Station in Auckland; State Highway 20A, the shared walking and cycle path in June 2018; the Ian McKinnon Drive walking and cycling shared path; the $45 million in the Maungatapu underpass on State Highway 29: the Paengaroa to Rotoiti cycle trail; the State Highway 2 Woodlands to Ōpōtiki shared path; the $112 million into the Russley Road upgrade, including Memorial Avenue Gateway Bridge; the State Highway 1 Barters Road and Pound Road improvements—and that’s in Christchurch—the safety barriers that went in around Queen Elizabeth II Drive; State Highway 74 from Marshland to Burwood in Christchurch—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I hesitate to interrupt the Prime Minister because it was a pretty open question, but I think the House has had enough.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I actually only managed to get to Wellington. I still had Otago, Manawatū, Hawke’s Bay, Queenstown, Taranaki, and the top of the South Island, which I wanted to cover.

SPEAKER: The Prime Minister might want to table—[Interruption] [Speaker indicates that the Opposition has lost two supplementary questions]

Rt Hon Winston Peters: On the issue of transport, can she confirm that that great and essential but deliberately run down asset called railways is being now revived under her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, and not only are we providing commuter rail services, for instance, between Auckland and Hamilton but we’re also working to ensure we get freight off our roads, which does contribute to safety issues as well as wear and tear, and it is something that regional New Zealand has long wanted. A billion dollars has gone into rail in the last Budget, and that’s for very good reason: it will make a big difference for transport.

Question No. 3—Tourism

3. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister of Tourism: What recent announcements has he made about helping local communities improve their tourism infrastructure?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Tourism): Last week, I announced $1.1 million in co-funding to restore the mauri of Matapōuri. Earlier this year, local hapū Te Whānau ā Rangiwhakaahu placed a rāhui over Te Wai o Te Taniwha—the Mermaid Pools—in response to the real environmental challenges they were facing from increasing visitor numbers and a lack of infrastructure. The funding will go towards new public toilets, changing rooms, car-park upgrades, waste-water quality treatment, and rubbish and recycling facilities. The benefits of this funding to the visitor experience, as well as in restoring and protecting this great area, will be felt for years to come.

Willow-Jean Prime: What further initiatives has he implemented to help local communities manage the challenges and opportunities of tourism visitor growth?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Strong visitor growth has increased the opportunities and benefits of tourism, but it has also highlighted the challenges that come with it, and this Government is responding to these challenges in a number of ways: implementing the New Zealand - Aotearoa Government Tourism Strategy, which sets out our plan to take a more active role in tourism so that tourism growth is productive, sustainable, and inclusive; setting up the responsible camping working group, with a $16.5 million investment over two summers for infrastructure, education, and enforcement projects; and the international visitor conservation and tourism levy, which is expected to raise $450 million over five years for sustainable tourism infrastructure and to protect our natural environment. Our plan is to make sure the benefits of tourism are realised for our country and our people while managing the impacts.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Is he sure New Zealanders are getting good results from the Government’s extra spending?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): If the member is asking whether I am sure that lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty is a good result, then, yes, I am. If the member is asking whether I’m sure that fixing our leaky, mouldy hospitals is a good result, then, yes, I am. If the member is asking whether I’m sure lifting the incomes of more than 300,000 families is a good result, then, yes, I am. If the member is asking whether or not investing in New Zealand to address our long-term challenges is a good result, and one we’re making really good progress on, then, yeah, I am.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How much of the $2 billion allocated to KiwiBuild has been spent so far, and how many new houses have been delivered?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As the member knows, those are questions that should be directed, more accurately, to the Minister of Housing. As we know, at the moment 238 homes have been completed, 449 KiwiBuild homes are under construction, and there is a pipeline of 10,356 contracted and committed KiwiBuild homes. You know what? What’s really important to New Zealanders is that the Government’s actually giving affordable housing a go, unlike members opposite who spent nine years denying there was a housing crisis.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How many more students are in tertiary education following his Government’s decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on free fees and extra student support?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I can tell the member is that around $194.2 million has been saved by students who would have been charged those fees and that we have around 50,000 students who are able to make use of the fees-free scheme. On this side of the House, we’re actually proud of helping people get educational opportunities.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister did not answer the question. “How many more students”, I asked, not all the other stuff he was saying.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Referring back to the conversation we had about the Prime Minister’s question, if you look at the primary question that was set down by Mr Goldsmith, he can’t expect the Minister of Finance to be providing detailed answers to topics that are outside of his immediate portfolio.

SPEAKER: That’s right.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he saying, as finance Minister, he shouldn’t know the detail of what the Government is spending?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Absolutely not—I have a very good handle on that. What I do know is that tens of thousands of students have benefited from the fact that on this side of the House, we actually want people to take up educational opportunities.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think it’s good practice that the only evaluation on the effectiveness of the spending currently planned for the $3 billion being put into the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to do a study after the full $3 billion has been spent to decide whether we got value for money or not?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Many of the projects approved under the Provincial Growth Fund have very specific milestones and indicators. The real judge of the success of this is in the regions of New Zealand, where, all around the country, people say the Provincial Growth Fund is the best thing to happen to the regions in decades, because finally there is a Government that cares about the regions and invests in regional development.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister of Finance as to who he’s going to listen to: those National Party members who are breaking down the door to get the Provincial Growth Fund announcements, or the one from Epsom?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I know it’s a great tragedy to the people of the regions that the National Party has removed the member for Epsom from his role as spokesperson for regional development. On this side of the House, we are listening to the range of National MPs who are keen on regional development. I’m very much enjoying Matt King’s endorsement of what’s been going on in Northland, right across the backbench of the National Party. They’re crying out for the PGF.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Has he seen examples of members of Parliament—for example, the member for Hamilton East—

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We had a very clear approach to the Standing Orders taken today by you—quite rightfully so, of course—but that’s not within the Standing Orders.

SPEAKER: Which Standing Order is it outside?

Hon Simon Bridges: It’s clearly a partisan, political point being made by Chris Hipkins in the guise of a question, from no provocation from the Opposition.

SPEAKER: Well, I would have thought that asking if he had support from a member of this Parliament for a particular policy is not necessarily—the question’s not partisan. I’ll be listening to the response pretty carefully.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I always listen carefully to the wise words of David Bennett, the member for Hamilton East, and he, along with Matt King and others across the House, are crying out for the Provincial Growth Fund. I know that Shane Jones is a magnanimous person and he actually listens to members opposite, and he will be delivering in all of their regions.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is the reason the Government is spending 75 times more on the Provincial Growth Fund than it’s put into Pharmac for lifesaving cancer drugs because he thinks he will get better value for money out of Shane Jones than from new cancer drugs?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No.

Question No. 5—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon Paula Bennett: Can serious offenders, such as murderers, have a licence to manufacture cannabis under this Government’s medicinal cannabis scheme?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I haven’t brought the details with me into the House around some of the criteria around the production of medicinal cannabis.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: The Prime Minister passed the law.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member wishes to bring specific details in a question on notice, either to me or to the Minister in charge of this area, we would be more than happy to answer the question.

SPEAKER: I’m just going to ask Mr Brownlee to be a little quieter with his interjections, especially when they are a reflection on this House.

Hon Paula Bennett: Under proposals put forward by this Government, so long as other licence holder criteria are met, can active gang members have a licence to grow cannabis under the proposed medicinal cannabis scheme?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I really question why the member would feel uncomfortable putting on notice this question, because I would be more than happy to discuss with the member the regulatory criteria set down for the production of medicinal cannabis. But the member will appreciate that I haven’t brought the detail with me; I would be loath to give her misinformation, and I would rather make sure that I was speaking to fact rather than my recall on this matter.

Hon Paula Bennett: Can convicted serious offenders who meet all other licence holder criteria apply for and hold a licence to manufacture cannabis while they are in jail doing their time?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I’m not going to get into a speculative discussion here on principle. This is a serious matter, on which, actually, most members in this House support the production of medicinal cannabis. This is not a particularly political issue. This is a matter of substance. I would rather ensure that I gave the member the correct information around the regulatory framework. I’m much better placed to do that if I have the documentation in front of me.

Hon Dr David Clark: Would the Prime Minister be surprised to learn that the proposals for consultation rule out people with criminal convictions being the licence holder for growing operations but that the proposals do allow for people who have had troubled pasts to participate as employees to make a meaningful contribution to society through the contribution of their skills?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I wouldn’t be, by that detail, but I equally know that members on that side of the House are attempting to make a political point on a matter of substance that, actually, I would have thought that both sides of this House wanted a medicinal cannabis regime that works. If the member has identified an issue within the law that they believe undermines a robust medicinal cannabis regulatory framework, that is something I’m sure we would be very willing to engage with the member on.

Hon Paula Bennett: Is the Prime Minister aware that in the Government’s consultation document around the medicinal cannabis scheme that they are proposing, there are only two areas where they would be unable to be licensed, which is if they have not had a previous licence issued under the Misuse of Drugs Act revoked or if they have the capacity to comply with the conditions of the licence for an offence against the misuse and a crime involving dishonesty, but they could be murderers, they could be currently in jail—

SPEAKER: Order! That question is ruled out—Speaker’s ruling 175/4.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Perhaps you could help us by saying what aspect of that question caused it to be ruled out.

SPEAKER: Well, has the member read Speaker’s ruling 175/4?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, I have.

SPEAKER: Does he want to read it to the House and show he understands it?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, I will, if you would like me to.

SPEAKER: Yes.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: OK. What are we looking—tell me what you’re referring to.

SPEAKER: Speaker’s ruling 175/4.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Speaker’s ruling 175/4—just a moment. It takes me a wee while to count that far.

SPEAKER: Get the member’s shoes off; he’ll get there quicker.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Thank you for that comment in this friendly Parliament, Mr Speaker. Speaker’s ruling 175/4—and we’re reading here—says, “does not allow another member to answer a question on behalf of a member of whom the question is asked.” So how does that fit—Speaker’s ruling 175/4?

SPEAKER: Speaker’s ruling 175/4.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes, I’ve got page—oh, I’ve got page 176. There you go. Well, I’ll tell you what: one of the great Labour leaders always used to say “One a day and you learn something”. Speaker’s ruling 174/4: “I have not actually ruled out [supplementary questions containing irony]”—

SPEAKER: Speaker’s ruling 175/4.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh, it’s Speaker’s ruling 175/5 now? It was Speaker’s ruling 174/4 before.

SPEAKER: It’ll always be Speaker’s ruling 175/4.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, Hansard will check us on that. “It is irregular to preface a supplementary question with the words ‘Is the Minister aware’ ”—well, in that case, why did you accept the questions from David Clark and from Winston Peters and from Chris Hipkins?

SPEAKER: Order! Those are not the words that David Clark used.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Then, what were the words that were—are they just the words? So you can go and ask the question of a Prime Minister or another Minister about something that may be assumed—because that, of course, was what Winston Peters did.

SPEAKER: Right. Now, if the member is not capable of finishing and making clear why that question was ruled out, then—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, I’m asking you.

SPEAKER: Sorry?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I was asking you why that was ruled out.

SPEAKER: Why the question was ruled out? It was ruled out because it was a clear breach of Speaker’s ruling 175/4, as the member became aware as soon as he started reading it.

Question No. 6—Environment

6. GARETH HUGHES (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he agree with Sir Geoffrey Palmer, that “mitigation of global warming under the Resource Management Act is important and the law as it stands is clearly deficient”?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Yes, which is why Cabinet has agreed to climate change resilience, both mitigation and adaptation, being considered as part of the overhaul of the resource management system. There are doubts that the Resource Management Act (RMA) as it currently stands can respond effectively to future challenges such as climate change.

Gareth Hughes: Will the Minister support removing section 70A and section 104E this term so local authorities consider greenhouse gases in air discharge consents while we wait for the much needed longer-term reform of the Resource Management Act?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No. The overhaul panel will ensure that the RMA aligns with the purpose and processes set out in the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, once passed, and consider interaction with climate change recommendations and other institutions responding to climate change.

Gareth Hughes: If sections 70A and 104E stay in place, is it correct that under the current law, new coal-fired power station or open-cast coalmine consents could be applied, but decision makers would be specifically excluded from considering the adverse effects of those greenhouse gases?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, that is correct, but it’s also notable that because of the price on coal emissions and various other changes that have been made through the years, no new coal-fired electricity has been built in this country for over a decade, and I’m not aware of any being planned—and, in fact, Huntly progressively closes down.

Gareth Hughes: Is it then also the case that for an application for an open-cast coalmine or oil well, the consent decision-makers could consider the traffic effects of transporting the coal or even the dust from the trucks building the facility but not the global warming impacts of burning the fossil fuels itself?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, it is, but I would note that there are pro-renewables biases in the RMA already that make it easier to get a renewables consent.

Gareth Hughes: Well, would the Minister then recognise the climate mitigation and adaptation values of urban trees by repealing sections 76(4A) and 76(4D) this term and restoring the ability of local authorities to protect tree cover?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That will be considered in the wider review. We do need to take a bit of care here. Yes, we need due protection of trees in urban areas, but one of the reasons why the last Government—the National Government—changed that was that some of the over-regulation prevented people pruning a tree without getting a resource consent, and that was a step too far.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why did a former Labour Government of which this member was a Minister remove climate change from the RMA?

SPEAKER: Can the member just have a go—he’s been around here for a while—at getting it in order.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the Minister explain why Labour has reversed the policy setting that it previously set back in 2005 to exclude climate change as a consideration in the Resource Management Act? What’s caused the flip-flop in Labour policy?

Hon DAVID PARKER: We haven’t, but it is an issue that will be considered.

Gareth Hughes: Can we really afford to wait for a major reform of the Resource Management Act, which is unlikely to pass this term, when right now our major environmental law actively disregards our generation’s most important environmental issue when granting discharge consents?

SPEAKER: I don’t know if you can actively disregard, but we’ll just keep going.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I can, sir.

Question No. 7—Housing

7. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing: As of 1 July 2019, how many KiwiBuild homes had received a code compliance certificate, and how many KiwiBuild homes were contracted for delivery?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): As of 1 July 2019, 87 KiwiBuild homes had their code compliance certificate from the local consenting authority, and 1,950 were contracted for delivery.

Hon Judith Collins: Then why did the KiwiBuild website state that KiwiBuild had “220 homes completed” if, in fact, they didn’t?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The reason is that 87 had received their code compliance certificate as of 1 July, and 230 were counted as completed, using the industry’s standard definition of “practically completed”—that is, the builder has told the developer that the property is complete. This is the industry’s standard practice.

Hon Judith Collins: Why has the Government continuously said that the programme has contracted 10,000 houses, including the Prime Minister, as recently as Monday night on Q+A, saying that KiwiBuild had “10,000 contracted”?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think the member is confused with the numbers. Let me go through them with her: 87 homes have received their code of compliance, 230 houses are counted as completed under the definition I have just given her, there have been 1,950 houses contracted, and there have been a further 8,406 houses committed and contracted. That sums to 10,356. The numbers are pretty simple.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it correct that by 1 July this year, actually only 70 KiwiBuild houses had code compliance certificates that “confirms the satisfactory completion” of a house, and that only 1,978 of the so-called 10,000 KiwiBuild houses had an actual contract for delivery?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As per my answer to the primary, the number of houses that had received their code of compliance certificate as of 1 July was 87. There was a written parliamentary question that was released to the member on 18 July, where the number 70 was given to her. This is because as of 18 July, that is the number of code of compliance certificates pertaining to the period she asked about as being received. In the days between 18 July and today, some further code of compliance certificates that were issued by territorial local authorities to developers have been forwarded to the KiwiBuild unit, bringing the number to 87, as I stated in my primary answer.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she stand by her answers to written questions that 42—only 42—of the so-called completed houses were already under construction before KiwiBuild started, meaning that there are only about another 42 that were started and finished by KiwiBuild compared to the target of 1,000?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I think the member is confusing the code of compliance and completed figures. I am happy to confirm in writing the number that were started before KiwiBuild, but as I explained to the member yesterday, the Buying off the Plans and the deals that have been done have actually freed up an amount of capital that means that, actually, we have a number of properties coming to market in this way. But I do note in the 27 days since I have been the Minister of Housing, the housing spokesperson for the Opposition has put several hundred questions to me. If she wants to put that one in writing, I’ll happily answer that one too.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she stand by answers to written questions that the thousands of KiwiBuild houses claimed as committed in Mount Roskill, Northcote, and Māngere all had business cases signed off while the Hon Amy Adams was the Minister for housing?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: No.

Question No. 8—Economic Development

8. Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister for Economic Development: Does he consider manufacturing to be “crucial to boosting jobs and growing our exports”; if so, is he concerned that under this Government, manufacturing confidence has fallen to its lowest level since December 2008?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Economic Development): Yes, the two drivers the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research cited when releasing that survey were the deterioration in global outlook and labour market capacity. However, the member should note that despite these global headwinds, New Zealand’s manufacturing sector expanded faster in June than in May: the June performance of manufacturing index reading of 51.3 was up from 50.4 in May. This compares favourably to Australia, the UK, Japan, China, and the eurozone, which all contracted in May.

Hon Todd McClay: Well, then, how does he explain this fall in manufacturing confidence to a net negative of 57 when manufacturers are now as pessimistic as they were during the global financial crisis?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, the study that the member quotes is somewhat subjective—it’s based on self-reporting by manufacturers—but there’s no question that the deterioration in global outlook and the labour market capacity that that report cited are behind the fall in sentiment. The work to deliver the manufacturing workforce over the last decade simply wasn’t done, and now businesses are paying the price for that. That is why my colleague Chris Hipkins is working on reforms to vocational education, to ensure that businesses get the skilled workers that they require. Since 2009, there’s been a reduction of about 2,000 people enrolling in manufacturing and related programmes in both provider-based and work-based programmes.

Hon Todd McClay: When will his Government have an actual plan to support New Zealand businesses, given that manufacturing confidence has fallen a whopping 73 points since his Government took office?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, we have inherited a failure to invest in the workforce. We are working with industry to improve productivity and reorient the economy away from a heavy reliance on population growth and high levels of property speculation. Now, no one can turn that situation around in only 18 months, but in spite of a very challenging global environment, actual manufacturing output has increased under this Government, and we are putting in place the building blocks that manufacturers need. We’ve got industry transformation—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Far too much.

Hon Todd McClay: Well, isn’t it actually Government policies like industrial relations reform, increasing powers for unions, higher taxes, and increasing costs that are responsible for these plummeting levels of business confidence, especially in the manufacturing sector?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. I reject the premise of the member’s question—

SPEAKER: That’s it. Thank you.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that when a member asks a long question with a whole lot of assertion in it, you do actually need to allow the Minister a chance to respond to the assertions that were contained in the question.

SPEAKER: Yeah, and I think in the previous answer I let it run for far too long, and if you take the two answers together, the Minister is still quite a long way ahead.

Hon Todd McClay: Does he agree with the former Labour Party finance spokesman Grant Robertson, who said in 2015 on business confidence “If Labour was in government our KiwiBuild programme would be under way and we would make sure the economy stopped drifting any further.”, and, if so, as the newly appointed economic development Minister, will KiwiBuild be part of his plan to rescue the economy?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: We are putting in place the programmes that New Zealand manufacturers need to give them a strong platform for growth. We’ve got industry transformation plans, including in wood processing and food and beverage. We are reforming the skills and vocational education sector to give manufacturers the skilled workers they need. We’ve ramped up research and development spending though the tax credits. There is Reserve Bank reform. We have extended the brightline test and shut down the loopholes for property speculation. This Government is putting in place the framework for a productive economy.

SPEAKER: OK. Thank you.

Question No. 9—Finance

9. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the Crown accounts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I have received the financial statements of the Government for the 11 months to the end of May. The statements show that PAYE income came in above forecasts, suggesting wage and employment growth has been stronger than expected in the May Budget. Corporate tax was also above forecast, suggesting higher corporate profits, and higher GST returns indicted stronger than expected investment. The surplus at 31 May was $2.49 billion higher than forecast in the Budget, meaning a lower net debt reading of 19.3 percent of GDP.

Dr Deborah Russell: What reports has he seen from ratings agencies in light of these accounts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have seen a number of positive reports from rating agencies. In its latest report, Standard & Poor’s revised its ratings outlook for New Zealand to positive from stable as a result of the Government’s fiscal management and resilience to macroeconomic and financial sector risks. Fitch ratings agency said that the Government’s commitment to its medium-term fiscal objectives provides a sound policy anchor, and, likewise, Moody’s highlighted the Government’s commitment to fiscal discipline as demonstrated by projections for continued Budget surpluses and debt reductions. They said, “The stable outlook is anchored by [an] expectation that, even in face of shocks, New Zealand’s credible institutions with highly effective policymaking and ample policy space will maintain economic and financial stability”.

Dr Deborah Russell: What does the Government’s strong financial position mean for New Zealand’s economic resilience?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government’s careful balance between making much-needed investments while managing the books responsibly allows us to have options, which is particularly important in the current uncertain global economic context. Just last night, the IMF further downgraded its global growth forecasts for 2019 and 2020 after two significant downgrades in the past year. The IMF said the global economy is being weighed down by trade uncertainty and a higher chance of a no-deal Brexit. They suggest that fiscal policy should balance growth, equity, and sustainability concerns, and that is exactly what this Government is doing.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that’s the case, Minister of Finance, can my department have some more money?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Minister of Finance listens carefully to colleagues and notes that in Budget 2018, New Zealand invested significantly in the important area of foreign affairs and Official Development Assistance and continues to do so, and I will always listen to reasoned arguments from reasoned people.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: If he is conscious of international uncertainty, does he also acknowledge the domestic uncertainty that’s been caused by his Government with the more than 200 working groups, and uncertainty created by decisions such as the oil and gas with no proper process?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What I acknowledge on this side of the House is that we’ve inherited many significant challenges that we are taking time to address, but we will get those challenges right. But what the member will discover when he goes out and talks to the business community is that they are looking at this Government and saying that we are managing the books responsibly and we are investing in the areas that need to be invested in. I invite him to get out and listen to those people.

Question No. 10—Social Development

10. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by all her statements and actions?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): Yes.

Hon Louise Upston: Why did she say yesterday in the House, in answer to oral question No. 9 about job seeker numbers, that—and I quote—“The recent increase is primarily driven by population growth”, when the percentage of working-age population on main benefit has increased in the last year?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I’d need to check the Hansard, but I think that she may have cut my quote off. I said it was primarily driven by population growth and also the need for upskilling and training, given the types of jobs that are being promoted and also softening in some sectors. If we look at the working-age population that is currently on benefits, it’s 9.7 percent. When we first took office in 2017, in December 2017, it was 9.8 percent.

Hon Louise Upston: What is the Minister’s definition of the word “primarily”?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: If you put the word “primarily” into the context of the sentence that I gave the other day, which said primarily population growth and—A-N-D—the need for more upskilling and training and the softening in some sectors, and then I gave three reasons. There were primarily three reasons that I gave yesterday in the House, remember?

Hon Louise Upston: Why did she quote the example of Mana in Mahi helping young people into employment when there’s been a dropout rate of 32 percent?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We have met our targets with regard to Mana in Mahi. I’d like to acknowledge our Minister of Employment, the Hon Willie Jackson, for the wonderful job that he is doing with respect to that programme. We set an initial target of 150. There were 240, I think—off the top of my head—or 30 that were actually placed in positions. There were a few that didn’t stay in those particular placements, and I gave a range of reasons for that today in Estimates. I want to put on record that there are a range of reasons. It’s not always the fault of the young person; in fact, employers had business problems where they had to lay people off. The main thing is that the Ministry of Social Development is there to pick the young people up and to guide them towards other opportunities—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That’s enough.

Hon Louise Upston: In light of her answer to question No. 9 yesterday, when she said there is no link between work obligations and job seeker numbers, how can someone get a job if they don’t turn up for an interview?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I think what we’re hearing from that member is that negative stigma that often we see about people in the benefit system. More often than not, people on benefit and in the welfare system do want to work. This Government is committed to supporting them to work, rather than judging them or labelling them or stigmatising them, as she continues to do.

Hon Louise Upston: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a clear question around turning up for interviews.

SPEAKER: Yes, and it related to a previous question. If the member had put it down—as I’ve said to a number of members—as part of a specific question rather than a general one, the member could ask for a more specific answer. She didn’t, so she can’t.

Question No. 11—Environment

11. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister for the Environment: What announcements has the Government made regarding the resource management system?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The Government today launched a comprehensive overhaul of the resource management system to cut complexity and costs, and to better enable urban development while also improving protection of the environment. Close to 30 years after the Resource Management Act (RMA) was passed, it’s not working as was intended. It takes too long, it costs too much, and it hasn’t protected the environment. This cornerstone law, underperforming in New Zealand, in a country where we value our environment and want to properly house people, needs to be fixed. Further ad hoc patch-ups and workarounds are not the answer; a thorough overhaul of the law is needed.

Dr Duncan Webb: How will the Government fix the resource management system?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The overhaul will be led by a resource management review panel. I’m pleased to advise the House that the recently retired Court of Appeal judge the Hon Tony Randerson QC, who brings extensive resource management and legal expertise, has agreed to lead the panel. The overhaul needs to address urban development, environmental bottom lines, and effective but not overly complex participation, including by Māori. It will focus on the RMA but also include its interactions with the Local Government Act, the Land Transport Act, and the Climate Change Response Act. The public will have the opportunity to have a say on the proposals before any legislative changes are made.

Dr Duncan Webb: What other changes to the resource management system is the Government proposing?

Hon DAVID PARKER: While we await the panel’s work, which we expect by mid-2020, some interim changes are necessary to remedy and remove some of the unnecessary complexity introduced by the previous Government. A targeted RMA amendment bill will be introduced to reverse some of the changes. It will increase certainty, restore previously excluded public participation, and improve RMA processes. Perhaps most significantly, it’ll support the delivery of the freshwater programme by introducing a new planning process for regional plans to protect water. Current plan processes are so unwieldy that many councils will not complete their freshwater plans until 2030, 13 years after National’s 2017 freshwater national policy statement.

Hon Judith Collins: When did the Minister first realise that he needed yet another working group?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I realised that to fix a statute that under the last Government grew to 796 pages couldn’t be done on the back of an envelope. I was stunned to read the brazen claim by the National Party leader—or at least on this subject—the Hon Judith Collins that National is “the party that gets stuff done.” on the RMA. I’m not sure what crypt she was sleeping in in the last nine years in Government.

Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at that offensive comment.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Hang on. Do you want to speak to the point of order?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes I do. It’s a well-known convention in this House that if you lead with the chin, you’re likely to get a knockout blow.

SPEAKER: Well, I don’t know that that was that helpful, but there is an essence of truth in that. I think it’s fair to say that the Hon Judith Collins is a relatively robust member, and it was a relatively robust supplementary question. I think it’s fair to say that I was getting to the point of cautioning the Hon David Parker, who’s not normally known for that sort of approach, that he was well beyond his normal limits, and I think we’ll just leave it where it stands. Further supplementary—

Hon Judith Collins: No. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is not acceptable for a Minister to refer to me or any other member of this House as sleeping in a crypt. That is a totally offensive comment, and he should have the honour to withdraw and—

SPEAKER: Sorry, I think that is a fair comment. Sorry, I thought it was the South Island word for a bach, not a crypt. The member will withdraw and apologise.

Hon David Parker: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Dr Duncan Webb: What reports has he received on the Government’s plans to overhaul the resource management system?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Reaction from stakeholders has been overwhelmingly positive. The Employers and Manufacturers Association, the Environmental Defence Society, Infrastructure New Zealand, the Property Council, and Business New Zealand have called the Government’s overhaul “a significant step” that is “a nation-building opportunity that should lead to enhanced environmental and social wellbeing outcomes,”. I would also note that David Seymour is quoted as having welcomed the overhaul, saying it’s more promising than anything National did on reforming the RMA after nine years in Government.

Question No. 12—Conservation

12. SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister of Conservation: Will the full findings and any recommendations from the consultation on whitebait management, which she announced last October, be publicly released before the committee stage of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): A reported entitled New Zealanders’ views on whitebait management: Summary of findings from a public engagement process was released on 16 May this year, is available on the Department of Conversation’s website, and has been there for the last two months for the member to read.

Sarah Dowie: Will she, therefore, delay the committee stage of her bill to allow for cross-referencing of submissions between the two processes she has been running, ensuring an appropriate balance between conservation and fishing for whitebait?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The report has been on the Department of Conservation’s website for two months, so members of the Environment Committee have had that report available. I look forward to the report back of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill, and the recommendations of the select committee. That bill will provide an improved tool box for managing our freshwater fish.

Sarah Dowie: Why would she not ensure transparency, and that the fullest and most informed feedback from her consultation about the impact on recreational fishers was inserted into that select committee process, when in front of the select committee is a bill that will give her the power to close that fishery?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The member doesn’t appear to have been listening. As a result of the public engagement which the Department of Conservation has done and the publication of that report, I have asked the department to develop a consultation document on improvements to the management of the whitebait fishery. Fewer controls apply to whitebait than to any other commercial, recreational, or sports fishery. There will be public consultation on any changes to the regulations. The overwhelming thrust of the public engagement that was summarised in that report has been a recognition that management needs to improve. That is why this Government is acting to improve it.

Sarah Dowie: Will she guarantee New Zealanders that fishing for whitebait from their family stand or buying a fritter at their local cafe will continue if her bill becomes law?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The member misconstrues the purpose of the bill. The bill does not ban whitebait fishing. It will provide better tools to enable better regulations to manage the fishery so that it is sustainable—a concern that came through strongly in the public engagement in the report, which the member obviously hasn’t read.

Sarah Dowie: Will Edmonds need to remove whitebait fritters from their cookbook under a Eugenie Sage whitebait regime?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: No.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

Today, I want to talk about success and leadership; two matters I know that are very foreign to our members opposite, but I ask them to stick with us. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the success of our amazing Silver Ferns, the world champions in the Netball World Cup. They are a tribute to planning; they are a tribute to leadership. I want to acknowledge Noeline Taurua, Laura Langman, and the entire team, who set about, a year ago, turning around a big disappointment—I hope my colleagues are going to understand the theme in this speech. They came into that leadership having to face a few years where things hadn’t been going so well, where some of the important things had been neglected. The team turned that around, and we are extremely proud of them for showing that success and that leadership, just as we are with the Black Caps, with their excellent performance on making the world cup final for the second year in a row, and they had a great tactician, and leader in Kane Williamson, who was able to read the game, see the movements, and take his team with him.

While we’re on the subject of success and leadership, can I acknowledge the Parly Ferns netball team as well for their success internationally. There were some superb performances in that. I’d also like to acknowledge the parliamentary cricket team, but I can’t. All I can say is that their lessons on success and leadership may well have come from the Opposition, where, using a Simon Bridges - like approach, participation was more important than winning on that side of the House.

I’m not completely convinced that Simon Bridges’ future lies as a leader, or, indeed, as a diplomat, because as many of us were on our way in, he was asked to describe Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister of the UK, and this is what the chief diplomat of the National Party said: he said that Boris Johnson had buffoon-like qualities. If there’s one thing I know about leadership in this House, abusing the Prime Minister of one of our major trading partners and one of the countries with our biggest, and longest-term historical ties is not a great start. So if we’re talking success and we’re talking leadership, lessons are not going to be taken from Simon Bridges.

But it’s all right, because, as Judith Collins has said, he’s doing the best job that he can. Now, if that’s not the ultimate in praise from members opposite, I don’t know. I would note that, actually, Mr Bridges, in talking about Boris Johnson, went on to say he’s, “someone who gets a bit of marmalade on his chin, who sometimes doesn’t say quite the right things, and whose personal life can be interesting.” I’d avoid using that description of the British Prime Minister, and save it for Shane Jones.

But that is not the actions of a true leader, or somebody who is defining success well. But this is no surprise, because the National Party have appointed a finance spokesperson in Paul Goldsmith, who has a very unusual definition of success, because his entire political career has been built on asking people not to vote for him, asking people not to let him succeed. So it’s no surprise that the National Party is struggling with this idea of success, and what leadership is. But the National Party hit on it, because there is a bit of a saying in politics—that you should try and turn your weaknesses into your strengths. Now, they’ve taken that probably a little bit far with Simon Bridges by placing him in a used-car yard, because if you really do want to convince people that you’re a used-car salesman, trying to dress up some old, tired vehicle that ran out of its warrant of fitness, I don’t know, about mid-2017, then the best thing you can do is stick your leader in a used-car yard. That’s what the National Party have done with Simon Bridges, while on this side of the House we know all about leadership and success, because in our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern we have a leader who knows what it is to take New Zealand forward in a way where we include everybody else, where we do show compassion and kindness, and we set ourselves ambitious goals.

We are taking on the big long-term challenges of child poverty, of climate change, and of homelessness. We on this side of the House are making sure that every New Zealander will get the chance to be included in success, because we know that the definition of “leadership” and the definition of “success” is every New Zealander getting a fair go—and that is what we are delivering.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also do want to start by acknowledging our great sporting success. I, of course, had a tough night, like many New Zealanders, watching the Black Caps. The worst moment was at 3 o’clock in the morning, when I noticed that Grant Robertson was in the stand watching it at Lord’s. We were at home, freezing cold, in the miserable night, in winter, while he was over there watching the cricket. I thought, “Well, should I be jealous?” Well, then, I thought “Well, hang on; my opposition is just swanning around in Europe for three weeks” and he never put out a single press statement about finance in that whole three weeks—and that shows where his focus is.

This country should be booming. We should be going well. The export prices that we’re getting in New Zealand right now are at historic high levels. Now, the world wants what New Zealand produces. This economy should be going strongly; and yet we’re in a funk—we’re in a funk. We’re at the lowest levels of business confidence since the global financial crisis. There has been a sharp decline in the New Zealand economy, where we were going in the 3 percents in the GDP, getting close to 4 percent at one point, and now we’re somewhere in the low 2 percents—and that makes a big difference to the opportunities that New Zealanders get.

Now, the Government, of course, will say, and the Deputy Prime Minister will say, “Oh, well, it’s Mr Trump’s fault. It’s the Iranians’ fault. It’s the Chinese’s fault. It’s everybody else’s fault, because of the international situation and its risks. It’s not us; it’s somebody else.” But they don’t take responsibility for their role in slowing down the New Zealand economy and reducing our opportunities. They’ve done three things. They’ve added costs every day to every business across this country, whether it’s in an industrial relations sense with all their union-friendly rules, whether it’s in petrol prices, or whether it’s in many other areas where they’ve added costs. They’ve created massive uncertainty around all the hundreds of reviews that they’ve tossed up into the air. Nobody’s sure where things are going to land, and the rational response for any would-be investor is to keep their hands in their pockets, and wait to see what happens.

Finally, they’ve demonstrated, time and again, incompetence in everything they’ve done. If you look at KiwiBuild—$2 billion dollars; the Minister of Finance doesn’t know how much we’ve put in and how many houses we’re getting for it. If you look at transport, they’ve cancelled everything and started nothing new. You look at many areas of wasteful spending under this Government. So New Zealanders look at it, they look at this Government, they think, “We’re not being led by a competent team; we’re being led by incompetents who want to keep on adding costs and increase uncertainty.” No wonder there are low levels of business confidence. How does that matter? How does that matter to everyday New Zealanders? It means that when they are looking around for opportunities to get new jobs and get higher incomes and better wages and better prospects, it relies on somebody making an investment—and they’re less likely to do that, when they are lacking in confidence because of how this Government is operating.

So we’re seeing this Government, at the moment, under intense pressure. Who would have thought that we would have the Greens coming out with heavy attack ads? Poor old Simon Bridges—it was like being attacked by a wet rabbit, having the Greens after him when they went on full attack mode and then stopped after a couple of hours. But it underlines the hypocrisy that we see so often from the Greens.

SPEAKER: Order! The member knows that term is not parliamentary.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: OK. Well, it underlines a very strange attitude of doing one thing, and then saying the other. So just imagine what would happen if we’d put out an ad mocking the accent of one of the Green MPs—particularly from our migrant communities. Just imagine what would have happened. Just imagine what would have happened if we’d put out an attack ad mocking the accent of one of their migrant MPs. Golriz Ghahraman would have been riding on her high horse of sanctimony. They would be attacking us. We’d be pilloried from pillar to post. Yet that’s what the Greens have done to Simon Bridges. They have no credibility.

Then we think of Labour. Well, of course, the Labour Party’s leaking their poll—a fake poll, no doubt—and trying to put pressure on. Then we have the Prime Minister, whose primary focus—when all of this is happening, when the economy is slowing, when there are fewer opportunities for New Zealanders—is on doing personal fluff pieces in the magazines. I can make a prediction today that the next major announcement from the Prime Minister will be this: the first family are getting a puppy. I think that’s going to be the next major announcement from the Prime Minister: the first family are getting a puppy—because that’s the sort of thing that she is focused on at the moment—

Hon Shane Jones: No, poodles are over there. Poodles are over there.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —and this is a time when the Government should be focused on improving—

SPEAKER: Order! I’m just interrupting the member. I think that giving a canine description of members opposite is not appropriate.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I missed that point. I’d quite like to hear what he said.

But the only point I would say is that at a time when this economy and this country should be booming and when New Zealanders should be doing well, we’re in a funk. This Government should be focused on those important things that make a difference to the lives of ordinary New Zealanders, which are about delivering a strong economy to give people opportunities. Thank you.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): This is a perfect example of camaraderie before competency. This man, Paul Goldsmith, has been appointed as the Opposition’s finance spokesperson, and he didn’t even touch on finance. The irony of this is that he talks about the economy funking right now, but he’s not actually going out there to mention that, in fact, revenue is up because business is up. Business is booming. We’ve got more export going on than we’ve ever had—which goes back to the point of the Leader of the Opposition, who put this friend of his into this position—and, again, I ask the question: “Why?” He made a comment just before, as it was just pointed out, that the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has buffoon-like qualities. I have to say that the member who’s just resumed his seat has similar buffoon-like qualities, because I think he’s been referred to on a number of occasions as the gentleman from those ASB commercials, Mr Goldstein, who is a lovable bumbling—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! We’ve been there before. The member’s been warned about it, and he will never do it again.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I have to say that now we find him in this position, it is very discombobulating and very confusing. When I did, actually, hear a month ago that he was taking this position, a whole lot of us on this side of the House just clapped with absolute excitement, because you couldn’t get a better person who loves to make up numbers. What was he talking about? The numbers of jobs that weren’t being created through the Provincial Growth Fund. Now he’s got the job of making up numbers to do with the Opposition to suit himself when he talks about this “tanking” economy—which, in fact, is flying like an eagle.

But look, this member Mr Goldsmith across the House would make a better job of releasing books, particularly if you’re a sufferer of insomnia, because he has released a number of books—particularly his one about New Zealand tax history. If you are struggling to go to sleep one night, pick up the first couple of pages and you’ll be out like a light. So for any insomniacs out there watching, make sure you go and get this wonderful book on New Zealand’s tax history. That is the only quality he’s got to take the role of the spokesperson for finance.

I have to ask, again: “How did he actually get this position?” and I do come to the conclusion that it’s actually the Leader of the—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It was a raffle.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: It was a raffle—he won the raffle. The Leader of the Opposition, after all these wonderful books that Mr Goldsmith has written, is hoping he’s going to get himself his own book about his great leadership and how he’s actually come out and run the National Party into the ground to make sure that the rest of the world knows of his history and how well he’s doing.

I absolutely loved yesterday’s article. I sat there and I had a good read of this—and here he is playing the piano. [Member holds up article] But there are a few things that weren’t actually mentioned in this article that people back home might like to know, and one is that from time to time, he actually suffers from Tourette’s, because I’ve seen him like a pit bull chewing a wasp when he gets his questions so befuddled. He can’t quite get his words out and just absolutely in frustration he sits there, and we’re going to see a lot more of that today, like we did earlier on—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! This is a second warning on taste for the member—all right? Taste.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: I’ll keep it at tasteful. I could think of a whole lot of other members that would be in the front running to take the position of finance spokesperson. Let’s start with Judith Collins. I mean, what an absolutely genuine, loveable, affable character. She doesn’t mind rolling up her sleeves and getting stuck into it. She surely should have been the front runner for taking that position. At least she’s got a little bit of experience. She’s got international business acumen.

Now, the second person is my good friend Andrew Bayly. I mean, how was he not considered? He’s got a background in banking. He knows how to make people laugh in the House. Surely, he was in there—

Hon Member: Alastair Scott.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Well, Alastair Scott’s on his way out, so he surely couldn’t be considered.

Michael Woodhouse: he has got a degree, he’s been to a great college—St Pauls college—and he’s a very articulate and quite a punchy, motivating speaker, and, of course, he’s a chartered accountant. Again, how did this member Mr Goldsmith get into the position of shadow spokesperson for finance—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Cronyism.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: —when he knows absolutely nothing about it? Yes, cronyism is possibly it.

Even David Bennett—I mean, we all love a good laugh with David Bennett in the House. He did actually chair the Finance and Expenditure Committee last term. He must know one or two things about finance, so why did the other member get ahead of that?

So I have to say it is a completely discombobulated Opposition, a rowdy rabble in the House. They’re not making any traction. They’re on the slippery slope to oblivion, and it’s great to sit here and watch it with our popcorn, ready and waiting to see what comes up of interest in the next ensuing weeks. It’s a very, very careful—man, when I looked at the tweets that came through yesterday from the shadow Leader of the House when he showed a picture saying that this is how people—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): I’m pleased to speak in this general debate, but first can I acknowledge what a shambolic and failed Government we have. Firstly, let’s start with their own measure. They said, “We are going to be a Government that is kind.” Well, let’s look at the last three days. Labour issued an attack ad on Simon Bridges. The Green Party put out an ad mocking Simon Bridges’ accent. In question time, we had a Minister of the Crown—David Parker—referring to a member of our front bench as sleeping in a crypt.

SPEAKER: That matter has been the subject of a point of order and a ruling.

Hon NIKKI KAYE: Then we had a speech from the member of the New Zealand First Party saying that our finance spokesperson has Tourette’s. I would say to New Zealand that this is a hypocritical Government that is not kind, and in the last few days we have seen their true colours.

The second thing is they have absolutely no plan. Why do we know that they have no plan? Well, what have Ministers been doing in the last 48 hours? What we’ve seen is they don’t even have a legislative agenda that they can carry through. That’s why we’ve got Ministers coming down to the House filibustering their own bills. But not only are they filibustering their own bills; they’re filibustering bills that we support.

This is a Government that has failed on every major aspect of its policy agenda. KiwiBuild is a failure. It doesn’t matter that they’ve got another Minister; the reality is they’re not building houses. The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is a failure, again, because we know that there’s a whole lot of dodgy deals going on in terms of the PGF, and, again, people can see through that. We’ve got people dying in our health system and we’ve got a situation where we still have strikes in education. After 12 months, we’ve got 1,900 principals whom the Minister’s doing nothing about, but we have strikes going on because they haven’t settled. So this is a Government that by its own measures doesn’t have a plan, is filibustering its own bills, is hypocritical when it comes to being compassionate and kind—

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Hon NIKKI KAYE: —because it doesn’t actually do that, and then, finally, its major flagship programmes are failing.

But I don’t want to deliver all of my speech in a negative way, so now I turn to some very positive developments in New Zealand, and I want to acknowledge the Minister for Sport and Recreation. It has been a wonderful couple of weeks for New Zealand in terms of the Black Caps and our Silver Fern netball players. I want to say, look, I had the privilege of being at Lord’s when the Black Caps had the final, and it was a pretty thrilling match. I do think I was one of only a few people standing up and cheering, because I was in a sea of English fans, but I do want to acknowledge what has been said by the Minister and also the Prime Minister and Simon Bridges. The way that they held themselves with that loss has been something that has been acknowledged internationally but also by England, and they have been humble and gracious.

The rules to need to change. Mr Speaker, as a former Minister of Sport, I’m sure you have very strong views on this. They do need to change—that is a conversation for another day and the International Cricket Council is looking at this—but, ultimately, it is gracious to acknowledge that England won the match. But we have a brilliant future in terms of cricket because, as we saw, it came down to a couple of precious moments and, unfortunately, the Black Caps couldn’t get there.

We think of their families. I watched them at Lord’s. I watched the anticipation in those final moments and what it is like for the spouse of a Black Cap and the families, who have to deal with that loss as well. So we just acknowledge them.

Turning to the Silver Ferns, again, I was in Liverpool with the Parly Ferns. It was an amazing victory. Can I acknowledge Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, who’s in the House. I know there was a little bit of extra pressure, potentially, on the Silver Ferns when we wore our gold medals to the parliamentary reception, but they managed to get through that pressure and win. Can I acknowledge Noeline Taurua. She is recognised internationally now as one of the best netball coaches in the world. The “fossils”—there was a lot of criticism about their age but what I can say is they have really stepped up, there are layers in the team; we should be incredibly proud of them.

But the legacy should not be a whole lot of celebrations over a couple of days; there’s a huge amount to do for women in sport. It’s great that the sponsors and, potentially, the Government will step up to sort this prize money issue, but our legacy must be ensuring there is greater equity around women in sport. That means dealing with the discrimination in community funding—Netball New Zealand does not have the same playing field as rugby, as cricket. National will be prosecuting these issues very strongly. Can I acknowledge the $10 million that’s been put up for women in sport, but we have a lot more to do to make sure that every little girl in New Zealand grows up with the same opportunities that young boys do. That should be the legacy of the last few weeks of sport.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, can I say it’s been about 18 months since I’ve been able to make a speech in this House and I’m potentially a little rusty, so I call on your indulgence.

SPEAKER: Well, the member better not read her speech.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: No, no—that’s one ruling that I do recall from my time as Assistant Speaker. But I do want to say one thing before I get started on the substantive part of my speech, and that is that in 18 months as an Assistant Speaker I’ve heard many speeches across the House and there’s one thing I’ve been dying to say, for the last 18 months, to the members of the Opposition: cheer up. I’ve been sitting in the chair listening to the angst and the drama and the chaos that is going on in the National Party at the moment, and I really just want to send you my sympathy, please. We know what it’s like, we have been there, but we came through it and we came through it stronger and better than we have ever been before.

I must acknowledge our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, and thank her wholeheartedly for the honour and privilege she’s placed on my shoulders. I’m absolutely honoured to take a role in her ministerial team. I’m absolutely honoured to be the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, because I know that in my role I can contribute to the wellbeing agenda that she has set out, the priorities she has to ensure that our community is strong and vital and engaged and will thrive. But I am not here to eat my lunch—I am here sometimes to eat my lunch, but that’s not all I’m here to do. I’m here to work, and I’m here to work hard.

I’m here to make sure that the programme that was laid out by the Hon Peeni Henare in this portfolio is not only lived up to but that we can build on that success to create thriving communities, because there was a failure with the National Government when they held this portfolio. That was a failure to review the changes from the Charities Commission when it changed on 31 May 2012 to become part of the Department of Internal Affairs as Charities Services. Now, I’m not saying that in that time there haven’t been great things that have happened in the charity space, but there was one thing that this Opposition, when in Government, failed to do, and that was the promised review after five years of the Charities Services. They failed to review their programme, and why is that important? Because the act of charity in this country is a vital, integral part of how we live our everyday lives. The sports teams, the surf clubs, the rugby teams, the churches all rely on volunteers and they all rely on organisations that can be part of charity services—27,000 organisations are charity services, 114,000 organisations that deliver support and care to the people of New Zealand. It is part of this programme that was started by the Hon Peeni Henare to modernise charities legislation, to create the framework from which we can support a thriving social enterprise sector, because that is actually the future of delivering charitable services in this country, and creating and influencing communities so that they can lead their own development. The 16 projects that are currently under way will show us how communities can actually drive positive outcomes for themselves.

But most important, why I’m really proud to take this role is that I understand that we need to do more to recognise and support the value of volunteering in this country. Volunteering is an interesting word in itself, and it doesn’t cover the depth and breadth of support that people give to their communities every single day. I want to acknowledge what happens in the Māori space, in the Pasifika space, in the faith-based space, in the sports arenas, those mums and dads, those young people who just get out every day and want to do something for their community. It’s an absolute honour and privilege, as I say, to be a newly minted Minister, to hold this portfolio. I am grateful and I thank the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Congratulations to the new Minister, Poto Williams, and thank you for your service as Assistant Speaker. I also want to congratulate the Black Caps. I was going to say they took some inspiration from the much maligned and defamed parliamentary cricket team, but unlike the parliamentary cricket team they actually won a game in the United Kingdom. They did extremely well and they deserve all the plaudits, alongside the mighty Silver Ferns.

Well, relentlessly positive didn’t really last very long, did it? What we’ve heard so far this afternoon from the Government benches is attack after attack against Simon Bridges and the National Party. You just know that all of the salvos from Simon and from Paul Goldsmith and from the senior team of the National Party are landing blows on the Government, because for the first time we had the Prime Minister authorising an attack ad against Simon Bridges and the National Party. And from the Green Party, the morally virtuous Green Party—the nice guys of politics, the people who say they don’t do attacks; they’re the people who just engage in the principles, they just engage in the issues—we got a ridiculous, stupid attack ad against Simon Bridges.

To their credit, they’ve apologised, but I think the decision to launch it in the first place is one they do regret. And then Grant Robertson in the general debate, David Parker in question time, as well—we just know that the Government is under pressure.

The Prime Minister gave a speech last week. When I first heard about it and I first heard the topic, I actually thought it was a joke. I actually thought it was a parody. It was, “Why good government matters.” That was the topic of the speech. I sat there on Twitter and I thought, “Sorry? Jacinda Ardern is going to Melbourne to talk about good government? The Prime Minister of this country is going to Melbourne to lecture the Australians about good government?” I thought, “OK, well, how does one measure whether a Government is a good Government or not?” And I suppose one measure of a good Government is a Government that keeps its promises. I thought, “OK, that’d be fair enough. If a Government delivers what they said they’d do, you would say that’s a good Government. That’s fair enough.”

So KiwiBuild—100,000 in 10 years; 10,000 a year for the first three years—how many have we got? One hundred and three. The Government says they’ll lower immigration from the “record levels” under National. What did we find the other day? Immigration is running at record levels. Right through the portfolio list, whether it’s the promise to get rid of school donations or the promise to set up a national cancer agency or even things that might seem insignificant but are actually important in the communities that we’re talking about—the promise to upgrade the Office of Ethnic Communities to a ministry. We now find that that is not going to be delivered either. So one cannot say that this is a Government that is delivering on its promises.

But you might say, “OK, they are not delivering on their promises but at least they’re being decisive—at least they’re taking determined, decisive action.” Well, I think we’re up to about 300 working groups so far, and just today we’ve had another one—20 months in, the Resource Management Act (RMA). There is much song and dance about how we’re going to reform the Resource Management Act. Today we get an announcement, and I thought, “Oh, this is great. David Parker is finally going to reform the RMA. This is fantastic. Good. National’s all in favour of this. We can get on board with this.” And then I read the press release. It’s not RMA reform; it’s another working group—it’s another working group. They’ve literally announced, after 20 months of going away and having a panel to study RMA reform, another working group to figure out what to do about RMA reform. We’re not even going to get a bill until the next Parliament. Well, National will be back in charge by then, and we will have a plan ready to go.

So we can’t say they’re decisive, and you can’t say they’re delivering on their promises. Then you go, “OK, but at least they’re delivering good public policy.” And then you sit back and you think of the oil and gas ban made without any consultation, which will actually raise carbon emissions in New Zealand, and the regressive, stupid fees-free policy that Chris Hipkins oversees as Minister of Education. They’re not delivering good public policy. You say, “OK, well, there’s not good public policy, they’re not decisive, they’re not delivering on their promises, but at least they’re overseeing higher living standards.” And that’s actually the tragedy of this Government. The Prime Minister says she came into Parliament to eradicate child poverty. That’s her mission in Parliament—her mission as Prime Minister. Well, she is overseeing increasing child poverty and record hardship grants, and she’s overseeing 15,000 more people on a benefit this quarter. Our living standards are not increasing—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party absolutely support the mana whenua to protect peacefully the land at Ihumātao, and the Māori whānau at the frontline of that occupation right this minute are indeed representatives of their iwi. They are joined by community supporters from the village of Ihumātao, from across Auckland, and indeed from around the whole entire country. There are people heading to the whenua of Ihumātao from as far south as Dunedin and Invercargill and from as far north as Kaitāia, in Northland. This is because more and more New Zealanders, Māori and non-Māori, are waking to the realisation of the injustice of Crown confiscation of land.

In this case, the original injustice was the Crown confiscation of the whenua at Ihumātao in 1865. That injustice was never remedied, and we have to restore the Treaty partnership for the wellbeing of the future of all of New Zealand Aotearoa citizens, for the wellbeing of true justice through peace in this country. So we are very clear and support those whenua protecting the land, working for a peaceful resolution that upholds the Treaty of Waitangi and the principles and the tino rangatiratanga principle in Te Tiriti, which is why we are sad today to see the escalation that is happening on that land. We are clear that that escalation could have been avoided. We will continue to see these sorts of land disputes for as long as we have not resolved the original injustice of these Crown confiscations in the very first place. For the people of Ihumātao and their community supporters, what is happening on the land right now is a continuation of colonisation, and we will never truly be able to carry on to the fullest extent that I know our beautiful country is capable of unless we properly address and support tino rangatiratanga for mana whenua over their lands.

I have engaged for many years, and the Green Party, former MPs, current MPs, and our members have stood intimately beside the people, the leadership on the ground at Ihumātao. We know very clearly that their voices cannot be dismissed as not representing iwi of that whenua. It is simply not allowable to say that there is only one iwi representation in this raruraru. There has always been in history more than one perspective from people. We can think about Bastion Point Takaparawhau. We can recall Pākaitore. We can talk about our whāea and aunties out at Raglan. There was always more than one perspective, and that has been an absolute ongoing symptom of a strategy of divide and rule. This is not a narrative of Māori against Māori. This is a narrative of a young, leading generation who are listening to the voices of our ongoing leadership, such as Te Puea, such as Dame Whina, such as Rēnata, such as Tariana, who have always been very clear: not one more acre.

I have seen the community leadership on that land sharing food, planting gardens, running holiday programmes, inviting visitors, hosting schools. There is a primary school, there are schools right there, right now. There are schools there trying to understand what is happening, trying to understand the injustice and the nuances of this power that is being displayed. The Greens will continue our call that the Government does absolutely have a role to play in ensuring a peaceful resolution is met. We echo the call of the protectors. We stand in solidarity with their call asking for the Government to show some leadership. And we absolutely uphold that those Māori at the frontline are iwi—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, not only is our leader, Simon Bridges, under attack and not only are National Party members under attack for not being cheery enough but again our recreators, our hunters and gatherers, are under assault from this Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government. Minister Sage now has his sights set on whitebaiters. So the days of eating a whitebait fritter, or whitebait patty if you’re from the South Island—that debate of fritter versus patty still rages on this side of the House—are over, and it is quite clear that Minister Sage is being very tricky when it comes to running two contiguous but separate processes in the conservation space.

I asked questions of the Minister earlier today, and she was very selective with her answers. At the moment, she has introduced a bill to this House—the indigenous fish bill—and that is going through select committee. What it does, as it was introduced, is prohibit the fishing of indigenous species. At the same time, she has run a contiguous process—a pseudo consultation process—set up a number of drop-in centres at the Department of Conservation and an online process for whitebait fishers to have their say about the future of whitebait.

Now, it’s acknowledged that whitebaiting is a Kiwi tradition. It is something that regional New Zealanders partake in quite widely. It creates jobs, it creates livelihoods, it creates camaraderie as people congregate at their stands and enjoy nature as they fish for a good old feed of whitebait patties. But then the Minister has in her sights the fact that there cannot be a balance between conservation and sustainable fishing of that species. She seems to absolutely ignore and be quite obtuse when it comes to engaging a community in conservation. And we’ve seen that prior, with respect to the tahr cull debacle that occurred earlier this year—“Minister knows best.” She wanted to cull tahr and not take into account the hunting fraternity and their views as to how that cull should go about, as to how it should be managed, and to involve them in this situation and conservation initiative themselves.

Nobody’s arguing that there shouldn’t be balance, that there shouldn’t be pragmatic solutions to the conservation of our species, but when you’re looking at ripping the heart out of recreation in the conservation estate—the conservation estate is for all New Zealanders to enjoy—and when you’re looking at ripping out the heart of certain Kiwi pastimes that have been in Kiwi tradition for generations, it causes quite an angst, especially when there are social and economic effects associated with it.

So in my questioning, it was quite clear that the Minister was being tricky. She was dodging the issue. She intends to, in my opinion, close that fishery. It’s all very well to say that a summary of findings was published but her actual recommendations, her actual intentions, have not been published and they have not been appropriately fed into another process that will have bearing on what happens to the whitebait fishery moving forward. If that fishery is closed, is there going to be a just transition for those regional New Zealanders that have invested in a stand—thousands of dollars in a stand—and will this fair and kind Government have a just transition for those people moving forward?

Again, we have a Minister that knows best. Again, she will be taking it upon herself unilaterally to make decisions, and the days of enjoying a whitebait fritter with lemon and salt and white bread are over.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): It’s always a privilege to stand and make a contribution in this House. I just want to echo the words of the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, in congratulating the Black Ferns and also the Black Caps and the Silver Ferns—I’ve got it mixed up because I’ve just recently come back from overseas. The way people talk about New Zealanders, I felt like a proud parent—the way they talk about the Silver Ferns, the way they talk about the Black Caps. And not just that; I want to actually commend the parliamentary cricket team for the way they looked after the Parly Ferns in London. They were collegial, they looked after us, and we were overseas, actually demonstrating what was happening—that we are a caring nation, and we demonstrated it. So I just want to acknowledge the co-captains of the cricket team, Kieran McAnulty and Chris Bishop, and the rest of the team. You have done us a stellar job in terms of your performance overseas.

Anyway, last night, I was here in the House. Actually, the words I heard about the Opposition were that they were going to hold the Government to account, that their contribution would be robust—but last night in my hours of duty here in the House—nothing. There was nobody on that side. We were here, ready to take them on—nobody. They may as well have not turned up, because they agreed with everything we said. Bills were being passed, yes. I think we need to have a replacement on the other side and to call some new energy in, because last night there was nothing, no robust activity on that side.

Last Friday, I attended a dinner at Papakura Marae and the Whaitiaki Trust to acknowledge the local leadership. And what was impressive—because I always say that I am privileged to be under the leadership of the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. But on Friday night at Papakura Marae, Dr Haare Williams of Papakura—he’s a well-known veteran broadcaster and educator, and he is a poet and an artist—in his kōrero, his opening remarks, said “I’m proud to be part of a country where the Prime Minister is talking about compassion, is talking about caring, and kindness for the people of New Zealand.” I want to acknowledge Dr Haare Williams for his kōrero last Friday night at Whaitiaki Charitable Trust dinner, acknowledging our local heroes.

We’ve heard the Prime Minister say today “all New Zealanders”. We’ve heard the Minister of Finance talk about “every New Zealander”. Can I remind the House that the population of this country is 4,973,580, and every eight minutes and 47 seconds a New Zealander is born. Unfortunately, every 15 minutes and 43 seconds one of us passes away. Net migration—every 20 minutes a new migrant arrives in New Zealand. When Dr Haare Williams talked about the Prime Minister, he actually spoke about a Prime Minister for all times, for all New Zealanders, in terms of everybody in New Zealand. That’s why I go back to saying that we’re almost reaching five million.

What does that look like? There’s plenty of things I’m going to talk about, but I’m going to talk about education, because my child is a 14-year-old high school student at Onehunga High School, and I think I can relate to some of the things that the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, has talked about: putting the “free” back into education; NCEA. When we’re talking about an equal society, some students’ parents couldn’t afford to pay the NCEA fee. They sat it, but they couldn’t—well, it was just unfair. That’s what free means. Almost 150,000 current and former students who sat NCEA can now receive that just like every other New Zealander.

I think I’ve spoken too much about the parliamentary cricket team, but I just want to say that one thing that is what a caring country looks like is caring for those who cannot afford the ordinary—the opportunity to sit an exam. We know that education sets us free and it gives us opportunity—opportunity that without education wouldn’t be afforded to us. I think that’s all. I just want to congratulate again the Black Caps and the Silver Ferns for being great ambassadors for our country. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, I want to talk today a little bit about the impact of the obvious slow-down in the economy and how that’s actually happening out in the real world, in my electorate and around the rest of the country. Part of that, in fact, has to do with the immigration settings—well, not the settings so much but the delivery of how visas are processed. What we’re seeing with work visas is a 30-day increase in the time it takes—or a 33 percent increase in the time it takes—to actually process those visas. It is unacceptable and it’s having a real impact on businesses, and that was demonstrated this morning on RNZ, where businesses were quite clearly saying that they are delaying investment in their expansion plans because they quite simply can’t get the staff that they require to operate and expand those businesses. So it has a real impact and a knock-on impact around the rest of the economy.

It also delays potential export opportunities. Today, in fact, I was at a signing of a joint venture between a Japanese honey company and Taylor Pass Honey Co., which is in my electorate. Those sorts of investments are vital for the increasing penetration of our goods into other markets. It was an absolute pleasure to be here today for that signing of that joint venture Sugi Bee Garden is the name of the company from Japan and it’s a massive opportunity for the Taylor Pass Honey Co. That requires investment and it also requires skilled staff and semi-skilled staff. A lot of honey companies are having difficulty getting apiarists into New Zealand to help them with that vital harvest of the honey.

But it’s not just work visas. It’s also holiday visas, and we have seen people changing their holiday plans because tours can’t get their visas processed in a timely fashion. It is 17 days longer now, or 60 percent longer than it was taking when the Government took office, and it has a real impact on tourism numbers coming to New Zealand. This is a simple process. They need a visa to come here. Yes, we need our borders protected. All this is covered by the fee. People pay for their visa. It’s quite simple: just resource it. The money’s there to do it. It’s not extra money that’s required. It’s already covered by the fee for the visa. Also, for student visas, we’re now seeing a number of students changing their plans, sick of waiting. It’s also a 60 percent increase in the time required for those visas to be processed. So they’re electing to carry out their studies outside of New Zealand. That’s a lost opportunity and will cost some jobs.

All this is occurring when we are seeing other instances where businesses can’t get workers. And in my particular area, in Marlborough, we have a 3.7 percent unemployment rate—extremely low. Yet on top of that we are seeing, running counter to that, a 10.4 percent increase in those on the benefit. That’s a phenomenal increase and that is while businesses are crying out for labour to operate in their businesses. They’re paying very well the people that work for them, but we’re seeing that increase in people on benefits. We’re seeing it worse in Kaikōura. There’s a 64.9 percent increase in Kaikōura. In Hurunui, it’s a 42.2 percent increase. We all know that the way out of poverty is through work and the ability to get into work—staying on a benefit doesn’t help people. It doesn’t help those families.

We heard a bit about child poverty today. Under the nine measures of child poverty, when National was in Government we saw an improvement in seven out of those nine. One stayed the same and one decreased slightly under the new Government. Seven have got worse and two have slightly improved. Child poverty—the main reason that this Prime Minister came into Government, as she said, and got into politics was to deal with child poverty. Well, it’s getting worse; it’s not getting better. So that is not a year of delivery; that’s a year of non-delivery and failure, and failing those people who can least look after themselves.

We know social welfare is there to help people. Absolutely. It always will be; it’s a vital safety net. But people should also have an obligation to turn up for a job interview, to go out there and work when we have businesses that are providing employment for lots of people who depend on others to come along and do their job as well and work. They’re being well paid and they’ll be far better off for having that work. So it’s with great pleasure I say good night.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s certainly a pleasure to be part of this general debate and talk about success and leadership. I was inspired by Minister Grant Robertson in the first speech, because I thought of two people locally straight away: one of those, the late Ruth Gotlieb, 96 years old. She passed away on Tuesday, but there goes a person, a dynamic, practical, energetic Wellingtonian who just epitomised those two words. At 96 years old her contribution was not only in Wellington’s eastern suburbs but across the city, in her 18 years. She was controversial in many ways, but I remember most her accompanying Dame Annette King to the Lyall Bay Bowling Club. Now, that’s not quite Lords, but it’s got the same quality of turf, I think. But she used to give the rudest of jokes. I tried to find them. I was a bit nervous. I didn’t read the Standing Orders, so didn’t know—

SPEAKER: Not in here. Neither of their jokes in here.

PAUL EAGLE: —whether to repeat them. That’s the advice I wanted. I won’t be repeating many of those rude jokes that she and Dame Annette used to share, can I say.

On the other side, though, in my seat just nearby, I had a 16-year-old—80 years younger, alive and kicking this time—in Jamal Fiso, my Youth MP. I want to acknowledge Jamal. I want to acknowledge Minister Henare for leading that process through. Some may have said it was not necessary, but, look, from what I saw and experienced, it was one of the highlights of my 20 months here. He spoke about something that’s really dear. He spoke about his school motto. It’s not the school that I went to in the electorate, but I do remember the motto well, because four schools in this city have it, “lumen accipe et imperti”. It means receive the light and pass it on. He was referencing the need for this generation, for those who have gone before, to pass the light on in a way that’s going to respect the environment, and that’s his message.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: He got to sing “A Whole New World”.

PAUL EAGLE: He did sing “A Whole New World”. I thought: is he going to pull this off? But being part Māori and part Samoan, those natural singing abilities came through. I wanted to set the scene on that, because when I heard what Minister Grant Robertson was talking about, that was an easy thing to relate to, in terms of those two themes.

I did a quick reflection back in the other two general debates—I’ve only spoken twice during general debate—and they both mentioned the dark clouds, thanks to those on the other side, actually. But this morning I was walking along Lyall Bay and, yes, we were talking about walking last time, but, yes, I was actually there and it was a dark cloud when I was walking past the Maranui Surf Life Saving Club. There’s a cafe there too that I may have eaten at, but I want to just say that it wasn’t a dark cloud; it was fog—

SPEAKER: The member took all the date scones. There were none left for me.

PAUL EAGLE: Ha, ha! It’s not quite open at 5.58. I had to wait till 6.15. Never mind. But what I wanted to say is that in terms of some of those themes in those speeches, I can now say, look at the action that this side of the Chamber has put forward. They talked about there being no decision on a second tunnel, a failure in housing in terms of supply and production of affordable housing, more public housing—and I know Minister Kris Faafoi has taken up the reins and he’ll do an outstanding job in accelerating not only supply but supply in the right areas. But the third message there was the environment. And I want to say that when I heard what Jamal Fiso was talking about, I read the credits from the former councillor Ruth Gotlieb, and I thought there were two reasons why the environment is so important.

It was also the site where we announced our single-use plastic bag ban, and today we talked about the comprehensive overhaul of the Resource Management Act.

Brett Hudson: Virtue signalling, Mr Eagle.

PAUL EAGLE: That side of the House wants it; we actually did it, because this is, on this side, the party of delivery. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. If this Government has only one legislative tool in its tool box—

Brett Hudson: Tax.

CHRIS PENK: It’s tax. The Government has only one tool, at least in that sense of the word “tool”. A tax, a levy, a charge, a “feebate”—by any other name it has the same effects on the people of New Zealand and the businesses of New Zealand. That’s not quite Shakespeare. I’ve turned it around, but fellow New Zealanders up and down this land know exactly what I’m talking about and the effects are being felt out there.

Today, I want to focus on the latest and greatest of these—no doubt at least from the Government’s perspective—the so-called “feebate”—

Brett Hudson: Car tax.

CHRIS PENK: —in relation to vehicle imports: a car tax indeed, as my colleague Brett Hudson so rightly describes it. The high-handedness of the Minister introducing this new form of tax is perhaps the most galling aspect. She says it’s just a little bit more to pay.

Brett Hudson: Small fee.

CHRIS PENK: It’s a small fee—

Brett Hudson: Six grand; small fee.

CHRIS PENK: —up to six grand, being the small fee. It’s just one more straw for the camel’s back.

I’m reminded of that classic phrase by a US lawmaker, “It’s just a billion here and a billion there. It all adds up and soon you’re talking about serious money.” Soon you’re talking about real money. Soon you’re talking about real effects for the New Zealanders out there every day who are trying to work and live in a way that reflects their desire to be free from Government interference as much as possible. So we ask ourselves: is it at least reasonable on the Minister’s own terms that such a tax be introduced?

Brett Hudson: No.

CHRIS PENK: Well, the answer is no, says Mr Hudson. He’s ahead of me but—spoiler alert—of course, he’s right on this one.

So the Minister characterises it as a choice. You can choose to have one of these higher-emission cars, she says, or you can choose to have a lower one. But the notion of true choice is problematic when it comes to those who live in parts of New Zealand in which, actually, the so-called less environmentally friendly cars are necessary to do one’s everyday work and living. There are five reasons for that across the country in the rural areas and, of course, I give a particular nod to those parts of the Helensville electorate to which this applies.

The first is that it is impracticable sometimes to have a small vehicle where rural roads are in a particularly bad condition. And so in my own area, despite the best efforts of the likes of Councillor Greg Sayers and road maintenance campaigner Geoff Upson—whose methods are unusual but effective—and indeed my own, the roads are often quite bad and a smaller vehicle is not appropriate sometimes to get around those, let alone for doing that work on the farms or other outdoor and commercial work that a ute might be much more feasible and realistic for. And in the case of my own vehicle, in relation to pulling around the mobile office that I take around the electorate—“Natty” as it is affectionately known—it’s not practical to have one of these cars that Minister Genter says that we should all be choosing because we can.

The second aspect is that in areas of the country, particularly, again, rural or remote areas where power supply is not reliable—for example, in April 2018, parts of my electorate lost power for almost two weeks—it’s not actually practical, realistic, or fair to expect people to be stranded because they don’t have the means to recharge such vehicles.

My third point is the lack of charging stations in certain parts of New Zealand. Those who don’t live in such areas as Wellington or the Auckland CBD are not blessed with such resources as to be able to operate these damn things. And so it’s not feasible or realistic or fair again for the Minister to pretend that that is so.

Fourth, the longer distances between centres of interest, whether that’s in relation to employment, education, or general life in rural and remote parts of New Zealand, mean that electric vehicles are not always practicable. They can run out, they will stall—just like this Government with its so-called year of delivery, which I’ll note as a footnote could better be characterised as a “Yeah, right!” of delivery.

And my fifth and final point in relation to the general behaviour change that no doubt the Minister is wanting where public transport again in more rural and remote parts of the country is not so readily available, that’s not a realistic aim of the policy either. It fails on its own terms and I’m very pleased to say that we oppose it wholeheartedly.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): I move, That the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

This bill was originally introduced to Parliament in April of 2017 and was referred to the Governance and Administration Committee for consideration when Parliament resumed in this term. In Opposition, Labour supported this bill at first reading because we considered that it had enough worthy in it to consider supporting this bill, but as my colleague Minister Phil Twyford said at the time, so much more needed to be done in housing and the rental market to address the housing crisis that existed, but we’re very happy to take it on board and go further as we now have the Treasury benches. And that is what the current coalition Government has been doing. We have an ambitious and comprehensive plan for reform in the tenancy space. [Interruption] You may recognise some of that language.

We’ve set up a new Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to lead our country out of the national housing crisis and to restore the basic right of healthy, affordable housing for all New Zealanders. We’re also reforming the Residential Tenancies Act—this bill being part of that—to modernise tenancy laws so that tenants can feel secure and at home in rental properties, while protecting the rights and interests of landlords. We are also introducing standards which set minimum requirements for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught-stopping in residential properties to improve the quality of rental properties so, quite simply, that they are warm, dry, and healthy—and a measure taken today by my colleague David Parker was, finally, some reform of the Resource Management Act.

I want to now turn to the bill at hand: the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2). The bill amends the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 and there are three aims of this piece of legislation before the House: firstly, to clarify the law in terms of tenant liability for damage, because there was some uncertainty after a Court of Appeal ruling; secondly, to make sure that the Residential Tenancies Act applies to all premises intended for residential use even if they are unlawful for residential purposes, and that came about by two conflicting High Court rulings. And, thirdly, this bill sets out the rights and responsibilities on all parties that have a relation to contaminants and contamination and, specifically, methamphetamine contamination. And I’m not sure if the National Party wants me to go back on to that history as well.

I would like to thank the Governance and Administration Committee for its consideration of the bill. I understand that they have set a stellar example of what can be achieved through both collaboration and consensus-based approaches in scrutinising legislation. So can I commend the members of that committee for their work. I would also like to thank those who made oral and written submissions on the bill. Those submitters represented a good cross-section of groups and individuals with an interest in the tenancy sector including tenancy advocacy groups, landlords, property managers, student associations, charities, community groups, and individuals. The committee’s report includes a number of sensible recommendations that enhance the bill, that the Government has picked up.

Further changes were made through a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) at the committee stage and I want to thank officials from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for their work on this bill to ensure it is fit for purpose and able to provide better clarity in the rental market around the three areas. I would also like to thank my colleague Phil Twyford for his dedicated work on this bill, taking it through much of its legislative journey and shaping it into a very worthy piece of legislation.

The bill, firstly, deals with tenant liability for damage by making tenants liable for careless damage: up to four weeks of rent or their landlord’s insurance excess, whichever is lower, for tenants on an income-related rent subsidy. Their liability for careless damage will be capped at four weeks of market rent. These liability settings strike an appropriate balance between keeping landlords’ costs neutral as much as possible and incentivising tenants to take care of rental properties and protecting tenants from excessive risks and costs. The provision also should go to encourage cost-effective insurance arrangements for landlords.

Hon Mark Mitchell: You’re going good, Faaf.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mitchell.

Also, in the select committee process, submitters pointed out that tenants have a right to know the level of their liability for careless damage. Bringing the level of their liability to their attention will incentivise them to take care of rental properties. Accordingly, changes have been made to the bill to require landlords to disclose their insurance information in new tenancy agreements. These requirements will be simplified through the SOP so that landlords need to state whether their property is insured, and if it is insured they must include the relevant insurance excess or excesses for the property. Landlords must also state that the policies are available upon request, and when tenants request insurance information from their landlords, this must be provided within a reasonable time. Failure to comply with these requirements will be an unlawful act with a maximum penalty of $500, which is aligned with the penalty for non-compliance with the requirement to include insulation statements in a rental agreement.

The next lot of provisions deal with premises which are unlawful for residential use, and no changes were made to these provisions through the select committee process or through the SOP. The bill amends the definition of “residential premises” to ensure that all premises which are used or intended to be used for residential occupation are covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, and this is regardless of whether they can be lawfully occupied for residential purposes. This change will confirm once and for all that the Tenancy Tribunal has full jurisdiction over all rental properties and rental premises, lawful or otherwise, and this is necessary because there has recently been a lack of judicial clarity in this area, evidenced in proceedings in the Tenancy Tribunal, the District Court, and also the High Court.

These changes will ensure tenants are accorded the full suite of rights and protections of the Residential Tenancies Act and that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment can take appropriate action against landlords who rent out non-compliant rental properties. The bill also sets out that the Tenancy Tribunal, if premises are found to be unlawful for residential use, has the ability and discretion to order remedies appropriate to the different circumstances of a particular case.

Lastly, the bill sets out responsibilities where there is contamination in a rental property. The select committee recommended amending the bill to address contaminants generally rather than methamphetamine specifically. This will provide for a more practical regime which is flexible enough to address the health risks of any harmful substance in rental properties, including methamphetamine. The SOP created a new landlord obligation to comply with all contaminant regulations and to not rent out contaminated properties. Once relevant regulations are in place, these will ensure the health and safety of those who rent out those properties.

The bill will also discourage costly and unnecessary baseline testing by making it clear that landlords who have complied with contaminant obligations as set out in regulations would not be found liable for failing to provide habitable premises. So if a landlord has no reason to test for a contamination and has otherwise complied with the relevant contamination regulations, he or she will not be penalised even if contamination is later found or contaminant residues are found at new low levels. Once the bill is introduced, landlords would have a specific right of entry to test for contaminants because methamphetamine is defined as a contaminant. The right of entry to test for methamphetamine is not contingent on regulations being made. The bill does contain regulation-making power, which means that any contaminant which is identified as harmful to health will be able to be dealt with by regulations. These regulations will be able to set maximum acceptable levels and maximum inhabitable levels for these contaminants; impose requirements for landlords to test for contaminants in certain circumstances; thirdly, prescribe methods for taking samples and testing for contaminants; fourthly, prescribe decontamination processes; and, lastly, prescribe the way in which goods left in contaminated premises should be dealt with by landlords.

Finally, the bill clarifies how tenancies are able to be terminated on short notice where contamination is established above the maximum inhabitable level. This means that where significant contamination is discovered and it is not caused by a breach of the tenancy agreement, a tenant may give at least two days’ notice and a landlord may give at least seven days’ notice to terminate the tenancy. These notice periods are similar to the ones used when a property is so seriously damaged that it becomes uninhabitable.

I believe I’m about to run out of time but it is a pleasure to pass this legislation—something the previous Government could not achieve.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Simon O’Connor.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much; it’s good to call me that otherwise it would be very confusing to everybody.

It was an honourable effort by that honourable Minister. The National Party does support the bill overall for the primary reason that it’s our bill. We, in fact, are surprised it’s taken the Government so long to get this through. It’s one other reason, actually, that the House is progressing so fast through its legislation at the moment, with the support of National—because, again, they’re our bills.

Look, the primary reason is the result of a court case around landlords not being able to get money back off their tenants. In principle, we agree with that and the aspect that they can take up to, effectively, their insurance excess so long as it doesn’t go beyond four weeks. So all of that makes perfect sense. I noted in the House yesterday my particular issues around the meth contamination—well, it’s contamination in general but particularly around meth contamination—that what this House is arguably signing off today is a blank cheque to the Government to create regulations without this House actually knowing what those regulations are. And, once again, I put it to the Minister, we have conflicting scientific information or conflicting standards already in play particularly around the meth standards New Zealand has set and considered. We now have a contrary report from another quarter. We are very keen on this side of the House to understand where the Minister’s going, so we encourage them to look at that.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Civil Defence): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. It’s interesting, because while they claim it to be their bill, it’s far better with this Government. I can tell you their version was like an iPhone 1; ours is more of an iPhone X. It’s far better in so far as their ability to actually make significant change in this space was rather poor.

It was quite clear one need only look at the meth standards testing that was put in place by the last Government. In fact, I recall sitting on the select committee and listening to the submissions. The voice that was missing when it came to the standards set for meth testing was actually the tenants, the residents—those who actually live in the houses, those who are affected by living in the houses, those who, as we noticed under the last regime, were evicted only to find out that actually that eviction was wrong. It was based on rather poor standards. What we saw was 21 organisations with a vested interest in setting the standards for meth testing. That’s what came through. That’s why I argue on this side of the House that our version of this bill is far greater. It brings better balance to the tenancy laws in this country. It actually means that tenants find their voice.

The Minister spoke too about the need for a broader look at what contaminants look like, and this legislation covers some of that. Meth is, of course, one of those issues. What we do know too is, for example, in my electorate we’ve dealt with constituents in the past who bring the issue of synthetic cannabis into my office. Now, one of the challenges with that is the ever-changing chemicals that are used to manufacture synthetic cannabis. Therefore, it is important to make sure that this particular bill, in its looking at contaminants of dwellings, actually has a broader view to make sure that houses and dwellings for our people well into the future are safe for them to live in. What more can our people ask for. I think that’s absolutely a fantastic move to make sure that those who rent these houses, those who, dare I say, sometimes find themselves forced into renting some of these houses, can actually have a leg to stand on, a means to make sure that their families live safely and live healthy lives in those homes.

I think this bill does that. It provides a voice. It provides balance in this. It also provides a fair amount of clarity. While there were questions during the committee stage about insurance, I feel that they were well answered by the Minister. And now when we look at this, the third reading of this bill, we think about the challenges with regard to the insurance for these homes, the obligations of the homeowner and the obligations of the tenant.

They spell it out very clearly in this bill, to give each an equal footing in the debate so that eviction notices actually are fairer, so that the voices of the tenants are actually heard, and to make sure that if there are instances where negligence is identified, then those should be punished. This bill actually sets that out, and I do want to support the words of the Minister in thanking the select committees from the last term and this term in their consideration of this bill. I know there were a number of submitters from right across many of the sectors—from tenants, from homeowners, from insurers, and from other organisations—to make sure that we have a robust bill. While I admit that this bill started under the last Government, I certainly believe that it is made far better and stronger under this one.

Now, I’m also obliged to remind the House that this is only one part of the work that’s being done to make sure we address the housing crisis that the last Government ignored. We want to make sure that the housing crisis isn’t simply about buildings or dwellings to make sure that we house more people, but that in this bill—and I’ve already mentioned this, and I’ll say it again—those who live in them can live healthy and safe lives. Is that too much to ask for? I don’t think so. Certainly, in my time of five years as an MP now, the housing issues that were brought to my office were significant. I have seen houses myself where I wouldn’t let an animal live in that house. Dwellings like sheds, boarding houses—all were places that weren’t safe for our people. This bill will make sure that those provisions that will support the tenant and, of course, the owner are in place here in this bill.

One of the other parts of the bill, which I think is detailed quite well, is around boarding houses, because while there were lots of issues regarding dwellings or homes, what actually came to light in the history of this bill is that boarding houses were a significant issue too. They were flying under the radar. All of the focus was on houses or sheds on properties, when, actually, there was a significant issue with boarding houses as well. This bill is another good step in the right direction to make sure that those who make a lot of money off providing boarding houses actually provide boarding houses that are safe for those who dwell in them.

One of the issues that was raised through the bill and, I thought, debated well, which has left us with the bill in its final state before it’s passed—one of the good parts about it is that as it talks about contamination, we know that if you can identify a shed in a property that is clearly contaminated, then we can still, I guess, ring-fence that off to make sure that the house is still inhabitable for those who are living there. In boarding houses, we know that that is a significant challenge, because all of the rooms, obviously, like any good boarding house, are in a line. They’re all next to each other. They’re all part of the one building. This bill, I think, makes really good provisions to make sure that while it might be identified at a certain level in one room, the entire building isn’t shut down, forcing more people out on to the street and into hardship. They sound small, but they are actually significant.

I recall, when my office was in Onehunga, simply looking outside my window. There were no less than three boarding houses opposite my office, and I know that they were full. In fact, they were so full that there was often a line outside, because those who were so desperate would take whatever they could get. We know that, particularly with the contamination aspects, many of those people who were desperate and looking for a safe place to sleep in a boarding house have other challenges, which I think that this Government is addressing quite well in other bits of legislation and policy that we’re doing—but I digress.

Coming back to this bill, again, this is a fantastic bill. We want to make sure that all of those tenants, all of those who are living in dwellings, can live there knowing full well that their rights but also their obligations are clearly spelt out in this bill.

I’ve talked about tenants being able to find a voice. I’ve talked about landlords being able to find a voice. I’ve talked about the insurers. I’ve talked about the boarding houses. While on that side of the House they might laugh, the fact remains that we still have a significant crisis in housing. This particular bill makes sure that we go a long way to making sure once again that our families are safe.

There are also another number of bits of legislation and policy that will ensure that housing, more broadly speaking, will be better supported and that those who need it will be better supported. I don’t want to go on too much longer, other than to say congratulations to Minister Faafoi for seeing this bill through to this stage. Congratulations again to the Governance and Administration Committee for the work that they did to make sure that this bill is far more robust. I say to the other side of the House: but wait, there’s more to come. Thank you, sir.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to indicate National’s support of this bill. After all, it was a National bill, and thanks must go to the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who was the architect of this bill, but also to the Hon Kris Faafoi, who has brought it through the finishing gate.

I just want to focus on the methamphetamine contamination and note that members opposite have utilised the tool of the retrospective scope, having a look back with the wisdom gained since then to say that, in the term of Government, National was absolutely committed to the safety of tenants in houses and so needed to—and was compelled to and must do, because it was the right thing—set a methamphetamine standard. Now, with the eyes of the wisdom of hindsight, which we’ve seen plenty of, it’s all very well to perhaps pooh-pooh the previous Government for taking a position on methamphetamine, but I would contend that the Government of the day had absolutely no choice in the matter. Our intention was to keep people safe.

One concern with this bill around meth testing is the widening of the definition to other substances and what that might do in terms of cost, and also the impact of regulation on the housing sector. It is something that I know my colleagues will be keeping a close eye on as this bill is enacted and comes into law and the Government finds itself in the position of using its fine words during the debate but actually having to come up with a workable way of dealing with methamphetamine and other drugs contamination. Well, let’s just see how that plays out.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was going to get straight into the bill, but I just want to briefly talk about the previous member who just sat down, Jacqui Dean. She spoke about the meth standards and that the previous Government had no choice—that they had to have those meth standards, and then they came up with the meth standards and they wanted to keep tenants safe. I guess that’s all true in its fundamental basics, but the problem that they knew back then, when they were in Government and they created the meth standards—they knew that those standards were wrong. They knew that those meth standards and the thresholds for finding or detecting meth were wrong and were so far out that not only—if they say they didn’t know, they should have known. That caused hundreds of people to be kicked out of their houses, because the Government was the owner of those houses, in Housing New Zealand. They got kicked out for no reason in the end. Yes, it’s hindsight, and they use the excuse that it’s hindsight in 2020, but they should have known. They should have known. I just wanted to mention that first.

But on a more positive note, and speaking about this bill, New Zealand First is obviously going to be supporting it, and there is cross-party support for this bill. There’s a little bit of argument about who’s got the better bill or why they should own it more or have the kudos for it, because it came in through the National Party. But, of course, as both the Minister and the previous Labour members who have spoken already have said, Labour and New Zealand First supported this in the first reading when we were in Opposition, but we caveated that with the fact that we knew that it needed work, that there was much more that needed to be done, and that’s what this coalition Government has done with this bill. We’ve included a lot of more important changes, and we’re surrounding that with more important changes other than this bill as well, and that’s why we continue to support it.

In its essence, this bill is about both landlords and tenants, and the processes that maintain the good relationship between landlords and tenants. Most importantly, it allows and clarifies. It allows for landlords to be good landlords, and it allows for tenants to be good tenants. It does that by ensuring the clarity in legislation of both of those groups’ rights. Importantly, it clarifies the obligations. That’s why it’s a good bill and New Zealand First will be supporting it.

I won’t go into the detail of what the bill does so much, because the Minister definitely went into the details of that, with the aims and what the bill achieves, but I do want to go into just briefly a couple of the, I think, four or five points as to why New Zealand First, specifically, is supporting it. This is a piece of legislation—like has been stated—that provides clear guidelines for both the landlords and the tenants. It allows for the processes involved in the provisions around not only the methamphetamine contamination, but also the other types of contaminants, which is also very important. We also believe that there needs to be a clear process to deal with the reality that some tenants and renters are abusing the properties out there. We need to ensure that the landlords are looked after, and also the tenants as well, in knowing their rights and obligations.

One of the main reasons behind why this piece of legislation came through was the ambiguity that was there in legislation, which put both the landlords and the tenants through sometimes very lengthy and costly battles through the courts. Obviously, that’s not in the best interest of either of those two groups. Also, New Zealand First understands the importance of landlords and the owners of these rental properties to have the confidence to be able to continue to provide such an essential service for those people who need to rent and be tenants, because we are moving into an era of life-long tenancies, and we do appreciate and understand the importance of landlords in providing that service.

So overall, this bill provides a lot of good clarity and, most importantly, it clarifies the rights and obligations of both the landlords and the tenants, and that’s why New Zealand First will continue to support this bill.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise—like my colleagues across the House—in support of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2). It’s good to see that it is passing. It’s taken 18 months in this term to get it to this point, but here it is. It’s a bill that will make clear to tenants their financial obligations in case of damage in properties. It makes it clear and unambiguous that the Tenancy Tribunal has jurisdiction over matters of tenancies and unlawful properties or parts of properties. But I just wanted to touch on this matter of meth contamination and standard, because there’s a bit of what I consider to be misinformation flying around the House this afternoon and, indeed, yesterday.

The situation with the meth contamination ratings—as some members across the other side of the House suggested—was an industry-led thing. Had New Zealand First shown any interest in being on the Government Administration Committee last term or the Governance and Administration Committee this term, they would know that the committee sought advice from a toxicologist—that’s a scientist; a subject-matter expert in this very field—from the United States during the committee proceedings. That toxicologist was unequivocal—unequivocal—in their position as to what should be the threshold for contamination. The committee took that advice, because that is what one does when faced with the advice of a scientist in the specific field.

Now, one can only hope that in the advice the Government has been relying on, the people within that report can point to the same level of expertise in reaching their conclusions, because it’s not immediately apparent. None the less, they hold the keys at the moment, and they will make that decision. What is more important is the bill that was introduced by the Hon Dr Nick Smith and shepherded in this term by the Hon Kris Faafoi is finally passing its third reading, which it deserves to do. I commend it to the House.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): The Greens are supporting this third reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2). We were opposed to the bill originally because of the meth-testing framework that was being supported through this bill, and we were very clear about that at the time. The meth testing was the main concern of our opposition. Many other colleagues have highlighted very well just how immoral and wrong that regime was. I still, to this day, congratulate Minister Phil Twyford for exposing the rort and the frenzy that was driven by a cowboy industry of testing homes against standards that should not have ever stuck.

So the Governance and Administration Committee did some work to change, strengthen, and reduce the abuse of power of those standards, to ensure that renters are treated fairly, and to ensure that we have got an evidence-based, scientifically worked-through framework for testing contaminants, and not just meth. Because of those changes and the work done at select committee, we are very happy to now support—and we did at second reading also—the bill based on those changes.

I was also grateful for the select committee—the other part of the bill was around clarity for damage to rental premises, outlining who is responsible for what and when. I wanted to thank the committee for making the change that came through in their report under new clause 4A, which is about landlords having to provide a written statement, rather than in the original. My understanding of reading the bill is that originally it was going to simply say landlords need to provide one, if requested by the tenant. What it seems to me that the committee change has done is instead said landlords have to provide a written statement as part of an ordinary tenancy agreement. So it removes the burden of the tenant to have to ask. This is good, sensible stuff here for both tenants and landlords to have clarity.

Further, the committee seemed to add teeth to that amendment under clause 4A where they amended another part of the law to make sure that there were some teeth and enforcement around asking for that written statement to do with insurance, and that there would actually be a fine, and that it would be stated that it was an unlawful act—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. There’s a lot of interference and lots of conversations going on. It’s really difficult to hear.

MARAMA DAVIDSON: And also, I apologise because my voice is weird at the moment. But it’s a busy place—this place in here. We’re always trying to catch up with each other.

But I did just genuinely want to thank the select committee for giving some teeth to the clause of landlords having to provide a written statement about insurance-related information so that tenants and landlords are very clear on who is going to be liable for what and how the insurance—well, actually, even if there is insurance, but what standard and what sort of insurance is applicable to the home, to the property.

And then, the only other point that I thought would be worthwhile making it on to the floor of the House today was that there is lots of other work going on in other parts of legislation and connected legislation to the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2). While this is all really good stuff, and I’ll be working closely with all of the relevant housing Ministers to put these changes through across various legislations, when it comes to residential tenancies—basically renting, because more and more New Zealanders are in a renting situation than has ever been the case in this country—it needs to not be a second-class citizen reality of living, renting a home. It needs to not just be a good thing to do if you happen to have a higher income. I’m lucky to be able to sustain a rental home at the moment, but renting needs to be considered a decent option, and for people to still be able to live a decent life, while at the same time we also want to allow for homeownership to be a choice for more New Zealanders.

So this is one part of ensuring warm, dry, secure, and affordable homes. I’ll continue working across the other parts of rental law to make improvements in this House—improvements for communities, people being able to put down their roots, improvements and clarity for people who own a home that they rent out as well. Those are all positive steps for this House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I rise to speak briefly on the bill, and, firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Hon Nick Smith for introducing this bill, and also I acknowledge the work of some other members, including Andrew Bayly, who contributed to this bill through his member’s bill, and also acknowledge the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee Brett Hudson. He chaired the committee when this bill was in the committee. So this bill, largely, is about the balance—the balance between protecting the rights of landlords, and protecting the rights of tenants. For instance, landlords have the responsibility to make sure the properties are suitable for tenancy. Those who tenant unsuitable properties will be prosecuted. On the other hand, tenants have the responsibility to look after properties. Those who intentionally damage properties will be liable for all the damage or cost. So this is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Paul Eagle—five minutes.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to talk on this, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 2), for the third time, for its third reading, and—

Andrew Bayly: Paul. [Member gestures for speaker to finish]

PAUL EAGLE: —shush—can I just say, as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, it’s been a pleasure to finish this off. There’s been a lot of, like, “Oh, you know, what about him?”, and, “We started it”, and all this sort of stuff. Frankly, no one cares. What they care about is that this gets through this place, and it gets implemented—that’s all. No one’s watching the TV, even though some people think they are. But can I just say, with some dignity, to acknowledge all of those people who have contributed from start to finish—how about that? That sounds pretty dignified to me.

I do want to acknowledge the Hon Dr Nick Smith—there you go. But also, the Ministers on this side of the House: Minister Twyford, Minister Faafoi, and, of course, the chair of our wonderful select committee, Brett Hudson, who, I think, did a great job at—and it’s been talked about already—a collaborative effort in getting this through. So there we are.

I want to just step back though, and say this is in response to the housing crisis, and some on that side don’t believe there ever was one. One of the things that I used to—and I’d say “chuckle at”, but, in all seriousness, there was no housing Minister until this Government became Government; until we got in, in plain English, because it used to astound me that you could have a housing crisis, but no Minister. So what you’d have is you’d have building and construction, someone responsible for Housing New Zealand Corporation, and then social housing, but no one, and no team. There were some devious means, I think—or maybe some intentions there that weren’t honourable. So there we are.

But what I can say is that if we look at what’s happened, if we look at setting the scene for this bill, it’s been no mean feat, and I want to just mirror the words of Minister Faafoi, who said there’s been lots of groundwork done. We have set up the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. We are putting through Kainga Ora—Homes and Communities. Those should’ve been done a decade ago, and things like this would’ve just come through those agencies, but—and I want to commend Minister Twyford again for getting the nuts and bolts of the housing crisis inbuilt and for sorting it out, and he deserves every accolade possible for that.

When I look at the housing continuum, this is a small but important part of that; part of our package, I guess, with our housing team of Ministers, and my colleagues who have got housing top of mind, because something was said in the general debate first up by Minister Grant Robertson, and it was “Every New Zealander gets a fair go.” Having a home is fundamental to that. Three things that this bill talks about. I said in the committee stage that clarity around the law in respect to tenant liability damage, and ensuring that this bill applies to all premises intended for residential use, even if they are unlawful for residents, and there are examples of that.

Then, of course—and plenty of you have talked about the rights and responsibilities in terms of contaminants and contamination—the select committee went through those words and what they mean and how to describe that in some depth, but specifically related that to meth or P. I think, just to go back on that first one, I mentioned during the committee stage too that I’ve had plenty of constituents come in and talk about the need for clarity around just the way they are treated by landlords and vice versa. This isn’t an attack on them, but this is calling out what I deem to be unacceptable behaviour.

In terms of those unlawful places—premises deemed unlawful—the best example is just here in Molesworth Street, number 61, where there was a building that had to come down. People were paying $300 a week. I’m glad that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment got into action, and got that money back for them. They were vulnerable, and they were booted out. This sorts that out, and, of course, the meth standards—that was wrong, it was shameful. I often used to think, was this a way to ignite, or activate the biggest asset sale that we’ve ever seen—68,000 or so houses. “Let’s kick out the tenants. Let’s sell them off. Do it this way. Make it easy.” I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Dr Nick Smith—five minutes.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This bill is one of a dozen that was part of National’s approach to dealing with the housing challenges. It’s part of the substance, where what we have seen so much from Labour on this issue is spin and hollow commitments, and I want to make that contrast. There are three significant changes in this bill. Firstly, it takes a very balanced and sensible approach to the issue of damage that’s caused by tenants. What this bill, effectively, means is that if a tenant deliberately damages a property, or commits a criminal act, they’re fully liable for the damages—that makes sense. If it’s a natural disaster of which the tenant’s got absolutely no control, that responsibility, rightly, should sit with the landlord.

What this bill does is take a pragmatic and fair approach to where there’s accidental damage. What triggered this legislation that I was the architect of was a case in Dunedin, and what is called the Osaki case. The tenants in this particular property were doing some cooking. They were careless. The house burnt down. The house was insured. The insurance company chose to sue those tenants for $200,000 worth of damage. It is my view, and I think it is the view of this House in supporting that bill, that that was an unjust outcome—that when a home is insured, when the damage is not deliberate, then the tenant should not be liable for that. Then, further down the track, we got quite a bizarre court ruling that the tenant wasn’t even responsible in terms of their bond.

So the very pragmatic view, a very National Party approach, is to say “Yes; if you’re a tenant, if you’re careless, if you leave a pot on the stove that results in a house being burnt down, you will lose your bond—be careful—but you won’t be bankrupted”, and I think that is fair and reasonable, and that’s what this bill does.

The second thing this bill does is that there were appalling examples of where people were tempted to rent garages, commercial buildings, and other premises that were totally unsuitable for being used as residential homes. When cases were taken to the Tenancy Tribunal, the Tenancy Tribunal was not able to prosecute that landlord, because it was outside the jurisdiction of the Tenancy Tribunal. It’s right that we are fixing that law.

Thirdly, again, in National’s very sensible approach, we’ve dealt with the issue of contamination, and the issue of meth. It is true that there was an overreaction. The bit that members opposite do not grasp, and they need to address it, is that the standards process where Ministers are not allowed to interfere, that let us have a totally unrealistic meth standard, has rightly been fixed—and I commend the Government for that. What has not been fixed is the flawed standards committee process that allowed those that are in the meth contamination industry to be able to distort the standard-setting process, and ending up with something that did not work for New Zealand.

I do want to respond to the comments that were made by Paul Quinn about Ministers, because this just shows the degree of the flakiness of this Government’s more general approach around housing. This is, as I said in my opening, the 12th housing piece of legislation that resulted from National’s reforms, whether it was special housing areas, whether it was changes to the Resource Management Act, whether it’s the new Auckland Unitary Plan, or whether it’s the Crown land programme, there has been a massive—how many bills have we had? How much housing legislation have we actually had from this Government during their 18 months? It’s all very well for them to stand up and use extravagant language like “a crisis”—actually, the public does not give a hoot as to whether you call it a “crisis” or a “challenge.” What the public wants to know is that you’re passing good laws and doing good reforms that will make a material and practical difference.

I’m happy to have my record there, any day, and compared with the Government’s fraud that makes up KiwiBuild. If any building company had been out and promised 10,000 houses and—as Judith Collins exposed today—delivered 87, they’d be in the courts, they’d be wound up for fraud, and they would be on their back. When are we going to get an apology from members opposite for the electoral fraud that they committed with their KiwiBuild policy? This bill is evidence of the substance that makes up National’s approach to the issues of housing.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): There’s a phrase that comes to mind: “rose-tinted glasses.” We’ve heard a number of times today, from the Opposition members, about how things were so good in the good old days under the previous regime. But things were not good under the previous regime, particularly in the area of housing. Yes, “challenges”, “crisis”; call it what you want, but this Government inherited huge challenges in the housing industry. In fact, let me respond—there’s a song that comes to mind about the good old days:

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away

But now I know they’re here to stay.

I believe in yesterday.

The Opposition believe in yesterday, but this Government believe in today. We believe in making a difference today—and this piece of legislation is doing that.

Homes are an absolute important aspect of one’s life. It’s important that each human being has a safe, secure, warm, dry home to live in. The importance of certainty around housing is absolutely vital; it affects education, it affects health, and it affects every area of a person’s life.

I’m proud that this Government is doing some excellent things in this area. For example—we’ve banned letting fees, and we are progressing reform of the Residential Tenancies Act. This provides the incentives for people who are renting to stay in a house for longer. We’ve seen when people move from house to house, how much it affects their life. I mentioned education before—and in particular, students that I’ve taught, who have moved from house to house, school to school, it really affects their education in a negative way.

Now, this bill, here, talks about tenants and landlords, and it strikes an excellent balance between the requirements of both. I’ve been a tenant myself and I’ve been a landlord myself, so I feel like I can speak across both sides. I’m absolutely confident that this bill does work well for both parties.

Firstly, it clarifies the law in respect to tenant liability for damage. Secondly, it ensures that the Residential Tenancy Act applies to all premises intended for residential use, even if they’re unlawful for residential purposes. Thirdly, the bill sets out the rights and responsibilities that parties have in relation to contaminants and contamination—and, specifically, methamphetamine.

So the first aspect of this bill talks about tenant liability. The member opposite, quite rightly, mentioned the Court of Appeal decision in the Holler v Osaki case in 2016, and I agree with the member that there was certainly an aspect of injustice in that case—and that case highlighted that. This bill has, in many ways, sort of, stemmed out of that aspect there. So what’s required is for the landlord to inform the tenant around the insurance policy, so that a tenant is liable for the destruction or damage caused by a careless act or omission of the tenant or a person the tenant was responsible for, up to the value of their landlord’s insurance excess, if applicable, but not more than four weeks’ rent. So this gives an aspect of certainty for the tenant, knowing what the insurance policy is and knowing what the excess is, but it also gives an aspect of certainty for the landlord around that.

We’ve seen that uncertainty in a society causes huge issues. I was recently over in the UK, and I’ve seen first-hand the uncertainty and some of the challenges around Brexit that they have over there. When there is uncertainty, it affects housing, it affects business; it affects all aspects. In this aspect, this bill, basically, clears that up.

It strikes a balance between keeping landlords cost-neutral as much as possible, incentivising tenants to take care of rental properties, and protecting tenants from excessive risks and costs. Now, the reality is that most landlords are good, honest people that look after their property and look after the tenant. Most tenants are good, honest people that look after the property. However, laws exist—often at the margins—where there are challenging circumstances. It’s important that legislation does strike a good balance; that legislation is balanced, that it’s clear, and that it’s reasonable—and this certainly is all those three things.

So landlords are required to inform tenants, in a new tenancy agreement, if the premises are uninsured, so that the tenant is aware of that, and if the premises are insured, the amount of each relevant excess for each insurance policy. So it adds that aspect of certainty there.

A second part of this bill is around methamphetamine and contaminants. Now, methamphetamine is a huge blight on our society. It’s been estimated that 31,000 people smoke meth per year, which is almost 1 percent of the population. It’s an issue that I know the previous Government and this Government have been doing a lot of work on, because it is causing huge social challenges in our society.

So what this bill does is it establishes a regime for dealing with contaminants such as methamphetamine, and not just methamphetamine but a broad aspect of contaminants. While there’s a lot of uncertainty among landlords about how to deal with methamphetamine contamination, this bill will provide for a more practical regime which is flexible enough to address the health risks of any harmful substance in a rental premises, including methamphetamine.

I have previously mentioned, in this House, the aspect of the importance of companies giving accurate tests around methamphetamine. I’ve experienced examples of companies giving inaccurate tests for the sole purpose of, effectively, trying to make money, so then the landlords have to rip off all the Gib, when the reality is that if a second company had done that test, it would have been different. So it’s an issue that’s constantly evolving and it’s an important issue. The aspect of certainty that this bill provides is very important.

The bill inserts definitions of “contaminant”, “methamphetamine”, and “contaminated”. Methamphetamine is defined as a contaminant. It also inserts new landlord obligations. Here we go—the landlord obligations: to comply with all requirements in respect of contaminants imposed by regulations. So if a property has had meth in it previously, and it’s been accurately tested, then when new tenants are about to move in, the onus is on the landlord to ensure that the tenants know the history of that house, and to know that it’s absolutely clear before they shift in. So this is about the wellbeing of the tenant. As I said before, most landlords are good, honest people. But it’s important that the tenants have that aspect of care and that aspect of certainty around that.

I might just mention a couple more things in closing here—[Interruption]—the Opposition is certainly very interested in hearing from me! The bill inserts landlord obligations to not provide premises to a tenant if the landlord knows that the premises are contaminated, until they’ve been decontaminated.

There’s a third one I haven’t mentioned: they should not continue to provide rental premises to a tenant if the landlord knows that the premises are contaminated, unless they are being decontaminated. So this is something that we haven’t had to deal with up until probably around sort of four or five years ago, when methamphetamine became an issue for our society. One of the key ways we are also dealing with this is another piece of legislation that ties in with that, and that’s stopping methamphetamine coming into the country, because that’s the best outcome that we can do. I acknowledge the Hon Tim Macindoe, who sits on another committee with me where we’ve done some good work around customs, giving power to our customs officials and our navy to board vessels in international waters if they believe that there are drugs on board—methamphetamine. So that’s just to highlight the aspect that this bill is not in isolation. It’s not in isolation, so we’re dealing with meth coming into the country.

We’re dealing with landlords and tenants. We’re striking the right balance between care and properties being looked after. There’s a lot of work to do in housing. There is a lot of work to do. We inherited a number of challenges—

Andrew Bayly: I know. We want to get on with it.

JAMIE STRANGE: —and I know the Opposition are very keen to make a full and frank contribution to this debate, so I will wind up at this point. But I am certainly very proud of the efforts that this Government is making in the housing area and I look forward to a full contribution from the member opposite.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Well, thank you very much, and what is happening this afternoon, Madam Speaker? Again, we’re privileged to have three Ministers in the House to hear about this bill as it works its way through. It’s lovely that all these Ministers are down in the House, making a contribution. I don’t know what’s going on in the Beehive—obviously, not enough—but why are we taking so long to wind our way through? We agree with this bill. We agree with it—it is our bill.

By the way, I want to take a little bit of credit because some of the elements include my member’s bill that I introduced about three years ago, and so I—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member. I’m just letting him know—he may not be aware—he does have a live microphone in front of him.

ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It does amplify the voice, so there’s no need to raise his own voice. It’s quite well amplified just by the technology.

ANDREW BAYLY: Thank you for those kind words, Madam Speaker—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): You’re welcome.

ANDREW BAYLY: —but when you sit and listen, we’re just impatient for change to bring about the right things, the good things.

We know what you’ve said. Everyone has said the same thing. Let’s bring it on. Let’s see it happen. Let’s make it happen today. This is a good bill. We agree with it. Pass it.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this most excellent piece of legislation. The one point that I really noticed while listening to all of the most excellent contributions on this piece of legislation was the statement made by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, when, interestingly, he openly admitted that the committee appointed under the previous National Government was, in fact, stacked with those individuals who were directly intertwined in the meth-testing industry. So it’s really good to have that acknowledgment from the members opposite that that was a fundamental flaw in the last regime, because it was that flaw—it was that high standard that was set under the previous Government—that ended up picking up the consuming or the ingesting of methamphetamine as well as the manufacturing.

It is on that point in particular that the chief scientist, also appointed under the previous Government—Peter Gluckman—has identified that the consuming of methamphetamine is not harmful. It is not harmful, and there is not significant residue left in a property, whether it be rented or owned, to cause any long-term health problems. It is only when you have clandestine laboratories for the manufacture of methamphetamine that that leaves enough residue to cause problems and harmful health issues for those residing in a property subsequently. So it is this legislation that puts right that wrong, and it is important to acknowledge the damage done to the lives of New Zealanders as a result of that problem created under the last National Government.

So what it did was create an industry that was able to financially benefit from charging individuals for tests that were not required, and I’d just like to quote. I looked at that, and the Real Estate Institute has just recently reported last month that before this legislation was introduced and before Peter Gluckman gave his report, 30 percent of new homeowners going into hire property were requesting a meth test. That has now dropped to 3 percent—3 percent—of people now requiring a meth test. So an industry that was here in New Zealand is now shifting to Australia, because it was a false industry. It was an industry set up for testing for methamphetamine that was not required, and it is good to see that that has changed and turned around.

There has been a high level of uncertainty amongst landlords as to when to test and how to test, and so it is good to see that this legislation clarifies the responsibilities for both landlords and tenants in relation to when testing is required and a baseline that can be done in that space. So the Governance and Administration Committee has recommended that the bill is amended to address contaminants generally, not just methamphetamine specifically, and that was a key change picked up through the select committee process. This will provide for a more practical regime which is flexible enough to address the health risks of other harmful substances.

It’s a really important point to note in this space of, particularly, illicit substances, the vast nature into which those compositions can change. One of the big problems that Parliament always has to deal with is how to enable legislation to change quickly enough to be able to effectively prosecute when required and to have the law in place already, because as new chemical arrangements happen, it’s about the legislation consistently catching up to be able to do that.

So what this legislation does is it puts in a regulation-making power, which means that any contaminant that is identified as being harmful to health will be able to be dealt with by regulations, and these will do a number of things. They will set maximum acceptable levels for these contaminants. It will also impose requirements for landlords to test for contaminants in certain circumstances, it will prescribe methods for taking samples for testing and for contaminants, it will also prescribe contaminant processes, and the last one, which is also important, is it will prescribe a way in which goods left in contaminated premises should be dealt with by landlords, and how that is gone about. So it’s important to clarify how those issues will be dealt with.

Until the regulations are made—so until this bill is passed—the status quo will continue, and tenants and landlords will still need to go through the current process, which is the Tenancy Tribunal, if they wish to terminate their tenancy or seek damages because of contamination of a property. So that is an area that has been hugely contentious for New Zealand, not just in the space of Housing New Zealand properties but also for private landlords and for the purchase and sale of properties.

It is important to note, as I have already briefly stated, that in an area where you are preying upon the vulnerable by enabling them to be unnecessarily charged and interrogated and sometimes prosecuted through the whole process for the benefit of a private industry which was charging people for testing that was unrequired, this bill clarifies that area clearly and sets up a new framework that is fair to both landlords and tenants. But that’s not all this piece of legislation does. It also clarifies a few other areas.

It also amends the definition of “residential premises”, and that is important as well. It will ensure that those premises that are used or are intended for residential occupation are covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, and this is regardless of whether they can be lawfully occupied for residential purposes. This change will confirm that, once and for all, the Tenancy Tribunal has full jurisdiction over all rental premises, lawful or otherwise. This is necessary because there has been, recently, a lack of clarity before the courts—in terms of where the judges have the right to make a call—and proceedings in the Tenancy Tribunal, the District Court, and the High Court. These changes will ensure that tenants are accorded the full rights and the full ability to have the protection of the law and the Residential Tenancies Act, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment can take appropriate action against landlords who rent out non-compliant properties. As a Government that is fixed and firm in its view of increasing the standard of warm, dry, safe homes for New Zealanders, this is another element of delivering those promises to enable every New Zealander to have the best possible quality residential premises, whether they’re renting or buying a home.

This bill also sets out the orders of the Tenancy Tribunal to make sure that if a house is found to be unlawful for residential use, it gives the tribunal the ability to make orders appropriate to the different circumstances of any particular case. Lastly, the bill also sets out the rights and responsibilities where there is contamination of a rental property, as I have already discussed.

It has been a real privilege to be involved in the development of a bill, and I do acknowledge that this bill had its inception as a member’s bill in the name of Andrew Bayly, and it has gone through a considerable process. This bill was originally introduced to this Parliament under the previous Government, and Labour supported this bill at its first reading because we thought it was worthy of that consideration. But through the process there have been considerable changes to this bill to strengthen it and enable it to respond to a market that has had a whole range of issues, that have really looked at some of the vulnerabilities of tenants, and to use what has been going on to make sure that tenants’ rights are fully protected and spelt out clearly—there has been so much going on in the housing market. Particularly in terms of enabling those renting to have access to a warm, dry home, and ones where they know what their rights are and that they have sufficient notice if there are any issues in terms of damage, in terms of contamination—to have those rights and responsibilities clearly spelt out in the law is very important.

The last issue I’ll touch on is that the bill clarifies the ability for tenant liability, and that is also a critical part of ensuring that tenants know their rights and landlords are clear what those rights are. That will put forward a clearer way for the future. I’m proud to have such an excellent bill receive its third reading, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Trusts Bill

Third Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Trusts Bill be now read a third time.

It is the role of Ministers of Justice in most administrations to look after what might be described as the political or administrative bricks and mortar of laws and lawmaking. So we deal with frameworks, we deal with rights—whether human rights or the rights of business—and what have you. This piece of legislation, the Trusts Bill, is no different in that regard.

But I stand here today with a real sense of pride and, I might add, pleasure because of this piece of legislation. Now, as Minister of Justice, I deal with a lot of laws and draft laws and a lot of these issues, and I have to say that in dealing with this law, which, let’s face it, straddles two administrations—it started life as a bill in the dying months, or month, in fact, of the previous administration and has worked its way through the House since. But it is—and I don’t say this of a lot of pieces of legislation—I think, a brilliant piece of legislation in an area of law that has been confusing, it has been unclear, about which lawyers have complained through the generations. This is a law, I think, that will give clarity and good guidance to generations of lawyers, of settlors, of trustees, and of beneficiaries to come. So I am very proud to present for its third reading this Trusts Bill.

Trusts are an important part of New Zealand society. They are commonly used legal structures for families and businesses. Would you believe there is around one trust for every 12 people in New Zealand? I think we can guess the concentration of those trusts across communities in New Zealand, but I say no more than that. Many Kiwis have their family home managed by a trust, and, as it turns out, many farmers have their farms in trusts—unusual, I know. Some trusts have charitable objects, large and small, and they typically use a trust to manage their assets, as do some of those operating in the commercial and financial sectors. Trusts law appears to many—apart from people like Andrew Bayly and, probably, Tim Macindoe—to be a very dry, boring area of law. But, actually, for many lawyers it is probably one of the most exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling areas of law because it allows lawyers to spell out in very clear detail the nature of relationships, objectives to which trust property might be put, and to see the great beneficence that this whole framework of law can create. So there are many lawyers for whom trust law, literally, warms the heart. I know—hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true. So this law, I think, is going to give those lawyers and those legal practices a lot to chew on and a lot to do.

Given the very important and far-reaching role that trust law plays, it’s imperative that the law is fit for purpose. This bill provides a great opportunity to advance our trust law. If it does one thing—only one thing—what this law will do is make it more accessible and allow for the wide range of functions that trusts serve in New Zealand in order for people to confidently manage their affairs. While trusts are widely used in New Zealand, there is equally widespread misunderstanding about what a trust is and about the accompanying rules. The current Trustee Act 1956 is outdated, and the rights and obligations of trust users are difficult to understand. Compare that to this bill, where everything is very clearly laid out. There is only one area that I think is slightly more complicated than it needs to be, and that is the involvement of Schedule 2 of the bill. But when you look at it and stand back and say, well, it is probably the best way to provide for those things that are mandatory duties for trusts and trustees and those things about which a trust deed might provide some variation or some difference for—but providing for that, it wasn’t possible to put that in a single section; it had to be done over several sections and a Schedule that refers back to a definition section. But I say no more than that. I am still confident that the way this Act is set out, the way it spells out trustee’s duties and responsibilities and obligations—particularly to beneficiaries—I think would be of great assistance to many, many New Zealanders.

Much of existing trust law is spread through our common law and that makes finding it and understanding it a complex task. This bill offers a solution to these problems by providing a modern and accessible Act. There will be many legal practitioners who will be relieved to see the end of the antiquated Trustee Act. They would be pleased to see that this is a law that kind of does two things: it doesn’t codify the common law but, equally, it says that unless it strictly abolishes some common law provisions—and it does at least one common law principle: the rule against perpetuities—the common law will continue to prevail unless, of course, explicit provisions in the bill cut across that. So if you can understand that, then you will understand that there will be no complexity at all in it.

At this point, I think I want to acknowledge, actually, the road that this law has taken. It started as a piece of work by the Law Commission in 2009. The Law Commission, in its usual way, did extensive consultation, engaged with the profession, engaged with trustees, and engaged with many others. It produced a set of recommendations in 2013. In 2016, the Ministry of Justice produced an exposure draft that was the subject of more consultation, and then, in August 2017, the bill was introduced. What a pity it was at the end of that Parliament, that it couldn’t have been a little earlier. But now here it is—two years on. Slightly less than two years on, we are here seeing this bill into its third reading and about to pass into law.

There is no question that the gestation of this bill has been lengthy. It will be well cooked. It will be tender. It will be falling off the bone. It will be a lovely piece of law for lawyers to get their teeth into. You can smell it from here—you can smell the pleasure from here, and it’s going to go very well.

I want to thank all those who have been involved in putting the law together, including members of this House—not just the select committee but, actually, members of this Parliament, who had an extensive debate at the committee stage last night, which I think has produced a very high-quality law of which every member of this House can be duly proud. It is satisfying to get to this final stage to see the product of all the work that everybody has striven to put into it.

Part of the reason for requiring such a dedicated effort and extensive consultation is because of one key, underpinning objective of the bill, and that is to provide a statute that goes further than merely providing administrative provisions for trusts. This bill takes a far more ambitious approach towards our trust law jurisprudence. It is ambitious because it sets out the core, guiding principles of the law relating to trusts without codifying the common law. It aims to strike that very fine balance between prescriptiveness and flexibility, and, in so doing, the bill will allow the courts to continue to develop the common law, as they have done for centuries, but locating it in a very New Zealand set of solutions around the problems that typically arise.

The bill completely replaces and overhauls—or, I suspect, overhauls and replaces—the Trustee Act. It takes the most fundamental principles from the common law and brings them into an accessible whole in this bill. The provisions will be a core set of principles where those involved in a trust can easily get access to it and clearly understand the nature of the arrangement they are involved in and the obligations that they have. The bill sets out core mandatory trustee duties with practical and fixable trustee powers that allow trustees to manage and invest trust property in the most appropriate way. There are also clear rules about when trustees are required to provide information to beneficiaries, so that beneficiaries can enforce their rights in relation to a trust. One of the most common complaints is beneficiaries who say they don’t know what’s going on. They don’t have the information—what is the financial performance of the assets of the trust, and what rights do they have, whether for a distribution or for an input into what the trustees are doing?

Some standards that were previously uncertain have been legislated for—for example, under the bill, it won’t be possible for a trustee to be indemnified for dishonesty, wilful misconduct, or gross negligence that is intentionally in breach of the terms of a trust. The non-exhaustive list of what a court must consider when a trustee has been grossly negligent will provide greater certainty for trustees and still allow flexibility for the courts to assess the circumstances of each case. We’re debating today a bill that refreshes and modernises the law relating to trusts while maintaining its core aspects that have been developed by the courts over centuries. I am very proud of this bill. On behalf of the Government and this Parliament, I commend the bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Can I just apologise to the Minister. I omitted to give the two-minute warning bell; I was probably so engrossed in the Trusts Bill.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can I just take the opportunity—it’s the first time I’ve spoken in the House since your appointment as Assistant Speaker—to congratulate you on your appointment. I understand from the select committee today with you that I am on your list; I’m not sure what that means, but I hope that it has a positive outcome for me, anyway.

Can I just acknowledge the Minister. He’s clinging to this bill as hard as he can. The Minister is clinging to this bill as hard as he can because it is a very good bill. It’s a fantastic bill. It’s a bill that Amy Adams worked up and did all the work on, and I feel sorry for him. The reason why the Minister is clinging to this bill so hard is that the only other bill that the Government’s actually been able to introduce to this House is a bill called the Ombudsmen’s bill, and the Ombudsmen’s bill does, basically, nothing for nobody, whereas this Trusts Bill is actually going to have a massively positive impact on people and on Kiwis who are involved in trusts, and, as the Minister said, there are many of them.

Historically, the law around trusts has been very complex, and the great thing about this bill is that it’s removing some of that complexity. It’s going to be far more practical and usable. It’s going to reduce costs and compliance costs, and it’s also going to provide a much better resolution for disputes between beneficiaries and trustees. So it is a very good piece of legislation. Can I acknowledge the select committee and the chair of the select committee, who’s in the House. Can I acknowledge Chris Penk, my colleague who took over and was in charge of the Trusts Bill and shepherding it through the House for us. I take great pleasure in commending this bill to the House. Thank you.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Trusts Bill was one of the highlights of the 23 or so bills that the Justice Committee has considered. This is technically driven and, obviously, one of the most difficult ones. If I may quote the former Attorney-General the Hon Christopher Finlayson QC: “For any members, especially for lawyers turned members, this is one of the lifetime opportunities to get involved in this very important legislative process.” I guess I can take some credit for establishing a subcommittee in the first place and for inviting Mr Finlayson QC from National and Dr Duncan Webb from Labour to join the subcommittee to consider this very important and complex bill. I thank them again for their contributions. I thank the officials, advisers, and, in particular, our independent adviser, David Goddard QC, for their experience, their expertise, and their fascinating insights into this particular area of law.

The bill reflects recommendations made by the Law Commission from 2009 to 2013, as well as feedback from public consultation on an exposure draft. I thank the Law Commission. The Law Commission reviews, reforms, and develops the law and plays a very important role.

The Trusts Bill is the first major change to our trust law legislation in over 60 years. This Government bill will repeal the Trustee Act 1956 and the Perpetuities Act 1964. The legislation, as the Minister of Justice described, is widely considered outdated and overly complex. The objective of this bill is, therefore, to clarify and simplify core trusts principles and essential obligations for trustees to improve their understanding about how trusts operate.

The bill seeks also to take the most fundamental principles from the common law and to put them into accessible legislation. The common law is the law developed through the courts, based on individual cases. Because this bill is not a complete codification of trust law, it strikes a balance between prescription and flexibility.

At the select committee stage, we tried our best to provide definitions for some basic but important terms such as “settlor”, “trustee”, and “beneficiary”. We had, however, some difficulty in providing definitions for other terms such as “resettlement”, “negligence”, “gross negligence”, and “recklessness”.

There are some key points that I wish to highlight here. First of all, the Act is intended to apply to all expressed trusts governed under New Zealand law, whether created before, on, or after the commencement date. This means that where a trust and the Act are inconsistent or the Act imposes additional mandatory duties or requirements, this Act will prevail. Needless to say, the definition of an “express trust” under this bill is wide enough and, effectively, captures all trusts including family trusts, charitable trusts, and commercial trusts.

Secondly, clause 16 would replace the rule against perpetuities with a simple maximum trust duration of 125 years. Currently, most trusts have a maximum duration of 80 years. We had some good discussions and exposure out of the Justice Committee. The common law rule against perpetuities is “a life in being plus 21 years”. The 125-year period is considered to be closest to the maximum period currently possible under that rule, and a 125-year period was chosen for the UK Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009, following their Law Commission’s comprehensive review of their relevant legislation. Australia also followed the same rule.

The duration of 125 years strikes the balance between providing a degree of flexibility for settlors to dispose of their properties as they choose and the need to retain some form of limit on the duration of trusts. Of course, there are exemptions: the only trusts that may continue to exist indefinitely are charitable trusts, certain superannuation schemes, and certain specified exempt trusts. To avoid confusion, the Justice Committee recommended inserting a new clause to make it clear that trusts for property settled on one trust and then resettled on another trust would not be able to last longer than 125 years from the date of the original settlement before being distributed.

That brings us to a different but related question: will the Trusts Bill apply retrospectively to existing trusts? The short answer is no. This reinforces the Law Commission’s view that there should be one law of trusts in New Zealand rather than a pre - Trusts Act law and a post - Trusts Act law. Having said that, we should appreciate that the bill, or Act, will apply to and affect trusts that were already in existence.

Thirdly, at the Justice Committee we spent a considerable amount of time looking at issues in relation to specified commercial trusts in Schedule 3 and why appropriate exclusions are necessary. These provisions do not apply because these trusts are created as vehicles to give effect to commercial or financial transactions. Most of those commercial trusts, such as debt security trusts, broking trusts, managed investment schemes—or MIS—are regulated under the financial markets legislation. Without appropriate exclusions, there could be overlapping, duplicative, and inconsistent regulatory requirements. Also, concerns, for example, about the lack of understanding or vulnerability that may arise in situations such as family trusts may not arise here.

Lastly, the retirement village—we recommend inserting a regulation-making power into the Retirement Villages Act. This would allow regulations to exempt trusts or trustees under the Retirement Villages Act from the provisions of this legislation. That would help to address the potential for uncertainty where there is overlap between the provisions of this legislation and the Retirement Villages Act. I’m not quite sure the changes are what the sector wanted, but, again, I thank the retirement village sector for their submissions and their subsequent meetings with myself and other colleagues.

There are between 300,000 and 500,000 trusts that are in use in New Zealand. This bill will affect a large number of people, and it is an extremely difficult task to modernise and improve an area of law that has evolved through hundreds of years of common law. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll begin by acknowledging both the Minister of Justice and the chair of the committee and thank them for their very detailed outlines of the purposes of this bill, which of course has reached its third reading. I won’t need to trouble the scorer for too long with my thoughts on this bill, other than to say that I’m delighted to see another excellent piece of National Party legislation—

Dr Duncan Webb: Ha, ha! Tell us all you know about trusts.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —coming to the House. I also would like to say to the chair that I’m very much looking forward to rejoining the Justice Committee tomorrow. I haven’t been on it since 2013, but I used to be the chair of that committee from after the 2011 election until I became a whip early in 2013, and I’m delighted that following my recent appointment as the shadow Attorney-General, I am going to be back there tomorrow.

Dr Webb has asked me to give him the benefit of my considerable knowledge of this bill. I have to say, Dr Webb, that looking back over my probably not very distinguished legal studies, I recall that studying the law of trusts was probably the area of study that I least looked forward to and did at times have trouble getting my head around. So I was quite reassured to hear the previous speakers acknowledge that trust law is a very complex area of legislation and in fact has been unnecessarily complex in New Zealand. That, of course, is why the Law Commission did its excellent work when it reviewed trust law back in the early years of the John Key - led Government, and that has led to the update that we have before us today.

Of course, this is a serious topic. Trusts are an absolutely essential part of our legal system, with up to around half a million trusts operating in New Zealand today. So it is important that the law is up to date and that it reflects contemporary demands, both for New Zealand individuals but also for the way that businesses need to be able to operate with certainty within the law and with a minimum of complexity so that they can navigate their way around the law. This bill does indeed give that better guidance to the trustees and beneficiaries so that it will enable them better to resolve disputes, to clarify and simplify the core trust principles, to make our trust legislation more useful, more contemporary, and to fix practical problems, and, it is to be hoped, and to be expected indeed, that it will reduce costs overall. It doesn’t, of course, codify trust law in New Zealand. It’s important to make that point. The changes will largely reflect existing common law decisions to preserve flexibility.

So while there is possibly more that I could say—I’ll leave it to others to do that—I now have to go and attend an event, and I’m pleased to know that I’m finishing just on time.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Madam Speaker, may I start on this Trusts Bill contribution from New Zealand First, given it is my first contribution since you have been appointed as Assistant Speaker, by congratulating you on your ascension to that role. You do bring a wealth of experience and I’m sure you’ll execute your duties very effectively.

The Trusts Bill—right. I absolutely live to speak for bills like these, these dry, technical bills. I’m pleased to see such an immense legal brain like the Hon Tim Macindoe, who just sat down, saying that he too has found this a complex area. I know that people like Duncan Webb and Andrew Bayly just live for this stuff, but I will endeavour to do my best to represent New Zealand First’s position on this, because, as has been referenced, this is a very important aspect of our laws.

There are 300,000 to 500,000 of these trusts. They are an extremely important part of the framework of our legal and financial system. The two Acts that this bill supersedes, the Trustee Act of 1956 and the Perpetuities Act of 1964—things have moved on so far since those days. I think I actually referenced in my first reading speech that 1956 was in fact the year the All Blacks beat the Springboks for the first time. I was interested to hear Chris Penk in his committee of the whole House speech reference Peter Jones scoring the winning try for the All Blacks in the fourth test at Eden Park. It was actually picked up by the Jones family, when they were looking at my second reading speech or watching it on television, so it just shows you how wide ranging and how well viewed these speeches are. So thank you, Mr Penk, for referencing that.

The greater point I was making is that things have moved on so far since the much simpler days of 1956, and it is imperative that we have fit for purpose trust laws given the magnitude and the amount of these trusts and the importance of them to our society.

This is actually centuries old—the trusts have been part of societies for hundreds of years. My own family has a trust. I have a trust. It is an important part, particularly, actually, for the agricultural sector and multigenerational businesses. They are really a foundation and fundamental part of making sure that those types of businesses can be handed down to the next generation. I could imagine someone like Ian McKelvie, who owns half of the North Island, would have a myriad of trusts. I see the Rt Hon David Carter over there. He owns half the South Island, so I’m sure that he would have a myriad of trusts.

But, of course, there is a plethora of them. There’s community trusts, there’s licensing trusts, and, of course, down in Southland, the licensing trust and the community trust down there are massive parts of that economy. We have unit trusts, Māori land trusts, and charitable trusts. I note the Halberg Trust and I note the fine performances of our sporting teams in the last week. Of course, we’re so proud of our Silver Ferns for winning the Netball World Cup and, of course, the Black Caps for winning the cricket, or double-tying in the Cricket World Cup—the Halberg Trust may well recognise them as they may—and the Parliamentary Ferns netball team that performed so well in the UK recently. The cricket team didn’t quite avail themselves. It’ll be next year for the cricket team. But, of course, we see Mr Mark Mitchell over there, leading our rugby team, and he may be able to put that team in a position to win a Halberg Award. Of course, there is a trust that oversees that whole charitable event and for the good of the wider community.

So what this bill does, of course, to a varying degree, is it helps. It clarifies things, because there’s a varying degree of legal literacy amongst settlors, amongst trustees, and amongst beneficiaries, and this clarifies a lot of those provisions—the mandatory trustee duties—making them more practical. More flexible powers—and, of course, we’ve heard about the codification. It hasn’t codified some of these powers; it’s allowed some flexibility for interpretation.

There are also provisions for better communication between the trustees and the beneficiaries, which is often a source of tension further down the track. It gives our court more direction in terms of negligence and issues around that. It clarifies alternative disputes resolution processes, so issues do not necessarily have to get dragged through the courts, and that is a common-sense measure—that we get some mediation in there—and it does clarify what those alternative dispute resolution processes are and where the parameters for them sit. One of the aims of the bill is to remove unnecessary costs, and, of course, we are a Government that is focused on removing unnecessary costs.

The perpetuities provision—we actually got a good history lesson yesterday from the Hon David Parker on perpetuities and how that used to sit with “life plus 21 years”. Of course, that has been adjusted to a blanket maximum of 125 years, just to make that a much clearer and a more certain period of time. It’s 125 years, so Ian McKelvie should be quite comforted that the Government can’t come in and nationalise his land for quite some time yet.

The Law Commission started working on this back in 2009—as we’ve heard—right through to 2013, so it has been widely canvassed. I think anyone that goes through this bill and reads it can see—

Greg O’Connor: As the member did.

MARK PATTERSON: —just how comprehensive the outcome of this process has been. Of course I have. One of the things that I was quite taken with was that it refers to an express trust. I was wondering what an express trust was, so I went to clause 6(6) of the bill and “An express trust is a relationship in which a settlor places property on trust to be held by 1 or more trustees for the benefit of beneficiaries or a permitted purpose. As a fiduciary, each trustee owes duties and is accountable for how the trust property is managed and distributed”. So I think that did clarify what an express trust was.

I would like to commend the Minister of Justice, the Hon Andrew Little, for bringing this to the House. We have all acknowledged—the speakers so far—just how important this bill is, how comprehensive the overhaul has been, how probably long overdue it has been, and I commend Minister Little for having brought this through the House. Also, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the Hon Amy Adams for the work that she did when she was the previous Minister, when this was instigated. Amy Adams—remember her?

The select committee, the Justice Committee, that oversaw this—it was, as it’s been referenced, very dry technical stuff. A lot of amendments were made through this way, so the select committee absolutely earned their money as they worked their way through that bill. I commend the chairman, Raymond Huo, for shepherding it through. That would have been a challenging and technical process to go through. Of course, the officials, by whom we are generally very well served, will have once again earned their salaries, going through the absolute detail that is in this very comprehensive reform of the Trustee Act.

New Zealand First has much pleasure in bringing a good piece of law into being in the third reading of this Trusts Bill. I commend it to the House. Thank you.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Well, I don’t think that’s 10 minutes that will go down in history as the best 10 minutes ever delivered in this Parliament. I was going to crack a joke about the performance of Mr Patterson overseas in the parliamentary cricket team. I note that he managed in his speech on the Trusts Bill to congratulate almost every New Zealand team that’s competed overseas in the last few months—

Andrew Falloon: Except yours, “Bish”.

CHRIS BISHOP: —and he failed to mention the parliamentary—exactly. Except the one that I was involved with him on, and Greg O’Connor.

Greg O’Connor: Poorly led—poorly led—like the National Party.

CHRIS BISHOP: Now, look, we’re not talking about that; we’re talking about the Trusts Bill—we’re talking about the Trusts Bill.

The one good point that Mark Patterson made in his speech was that the select committee worked really hard on this, and it’s true, because this is the most technical area of law it’s possible to get, I think, and—

Angie Warren-Clark: RMA.

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, well, that’s a good point, actually. The Resource Management Act is possibly slightly more technical—we’ll come to that maybe later. But this is one of most technical areas of law on the statute book. Actually, it’s probably one of the most important areas of law on the statute book, because thousands of New Zealanders up and down the country have trusts. It affects the day-to-day circumstances of people’s lives and the way in which they look after their assets—Mr Patterson also talked about community trusts—and so it is of significant importance.

The law has been a mess for many years. The law has been a mess for probably about 30 or 40 years. There have been sporadic attempts to clean it up and this is the most thorough, substantive effort to do that. It was done, quite rightly, by the Law Commission, which is the appropriate place to look at technical areas of the law. The Law Commission did various exposure drafts and did a substantive report—that was back in 2012 and 2013—so this has had a long genesis and gestation.

We finally got a bill. The bill has been introduced. The Justice Committee that I am from tomorrow morning no longer going to be a member of—and I’m very upset about this—[Interruption] I hear the members opposite being upset about that. I suspect it’s confected outrage, but I will miss the Justice Committee. I’ve served on the Justice Committee since 2014. It was the first committee I joined when I became an MP and I’ve served on it continuously. I’m going to be sad to move on, but all good things must come to an end.

So the Justice Committee did work really hard on it, and we actually had to break into a subcommittee to properly consider the bill. Chris Finlayson was subbed on to the committee for a while. He’s probably the only person—or was the only person—in the Parliament who actually enjoys trust law.

Andrew Falloon: Mark Patterson does.

CHRIS BISHOP: No, Mark Mitchell does not enjoy trust law.

Andrew Falloon: No, Mark Patterson.

CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, Mark Patterson—I think Mark Patterson woke up this morning and discovered what trust law was when he came down to the Parliament. I think he just discovered it—he still doesn’t know. So Chris Finlayson enjoys trust law. He came on to the committee. Chris Penk, who’s a much better lawyer than I ever was—he enjoys trust law. He did a good job on it. We had the expert advisers and we worked our way through it, and I do just want to pay tribute to the advisers from the justice team at the ministry. This has been a five-year or six-year process for them. So today, you know, marks the end of that process, I suppose, and they’ve done a great job on it.

So we worked our way through. We have made a series of substantive improvements to the law—broader altogether—and there will be a Trusts Act, and that’s the key point. It’ll be a Trusts Act that you can go to and you can look at the law, a little bit in the same way that you can look at the Crimes Act and look at the law. Obviously, there’s the common law beneath it, but the substantive principles and the way in which the law is put together will be in a singular Act. That’s a good thing.

You know, there are not many people in the House, but, actually, this is quite a significant moment for Parliament—quite a significant moment on the law reform journey of trust law—and so it gives me great pleasure, as my final act as a member of the Justice Committee, to commend this bill to the House.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I too would like to offer, first up, my congratulations, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a delight to see you in the Chair, and I hope my delight at seeing you in the Chair will keep me off your list for at least today. But having had experience of being on a committee at times that you’ve been chairing, your impartiality, I think, is respected by all in this House in constructive engagement with our participation.

Angie Warren-Clark: And she’s funny.

JAN LOGIE: And she’s funny—that’s right.

So the Greens are pleased to add our voice of support to this piece of legislation. I, in these speeches, have had to note that I am not a beneficiary of a trust. I have not been a trustee and I’ve not been lucky enough to study trust law. So I have been learning a lot from listening to the speeches in the House and reading the details of this legislation. It isn’t one of those areas that I wake up and think about with excitement, but considering roughly half a million New Zealanders are involved in trusts means that, actually, a lot of other people are really impacted by this piece of legislation in that it covers community trusts, and a lot of people have family assets within trusts and farms, as was pointed out by the Minister, but also a lot of Māori land is facilitated through trusts.

This piece of legislation is the result of around a decade of work that was initiated by the Law Commission, I understand, around 2009, where they had about a four-year review, I understand. There was very broad consultation at that time and this is updating a law that was written in 1956, and, I suspect, the way that we engage with the law as members of the community is quite different now to what it might have been in 1956. I also suspect that there may well have been a proliferation of trusts over that time, which may not reflect a change for the better in our society from my perspective and from the Greens’ perspective. But it does make this legislation really important and I would like to acknowledge, as others have, the Hon Amy Adams for introducing this legislation and the Hon Andrew Little for progressing it through the House to the point where we are passing it with unanimous support today.

I think it is in areas where this work has been going on for so long—and, as I understand from others, is so technical—that it is really important to acknowledge the officials and those members of the Law Commission who have helped us get to this place today. The end result and the intent of it is for this legislation to be much easier to negotiate for everyday New Zealanders. We want trustees to be able to really easily understand what’s being expected of them, and also for beneficiaries, where it’s appropriate, to be able to get the information about the functioning of the trust as it applies to them. That’s been something that, actually, there have been issues for people where the law has been so opaque that people haven’t been able to easily understand their rights or, indeed, their financial position at times.

So, broadly, this legislation introduces clear rules about when trustees are required to provide information to beneficiaries so that beneficiaries can enforce the trust, and practical and flexible trustee powers that allow trustees to manage and invest trust property in the most appropriate ways so that everyone knows what they are able to do.

Also, another thing which I’ve seen in different contexts is that it provides options for removing and appointing trustees without having to go to court in straightforward cases, because sometimes people move before people next go to do something with the trust, and then it becomes a really very difficult process of following and getting things to court just to be able to get somebody who’s able to sign off decisions. It makes sense to simplify that when it’s not contested in straightforward cases. So there’s a range of things. It also creates mandatory and default trustee duties based on established legal principles to help trustees understand their obligations, which is, I think, another key role in this legislation.

For the Greens, we are really—as everyone is—supportive of this legislation. We would have liked to have seen—considering this opportunity and how much work has gone into this—more transparency created and for there to be a registration of trusts. I understand that that was considered by the Law Commission in its 2012 issues paper, but was ruled out due to a perception of excessive cost and also a bit of industry pushback. From our perspective, I think we’ve seen globally and in similar economies an increase in trusts, and, you know, when we see wealth inequality, I do think it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes wealth can be protected and hidden within the lack of transparency around our trusts.

I would acknowledge that the IRD did support the registration of trusts and that they did say that it could be done while keeping some information private. That would have enabled us to have that balance to actually ensure that people weren’t using them in a way that we wouldn’t want, and also recognising that the issue of cost—that it needn’t be expensive and that we already have a companies register that it could have been modelled on. So for the Greens, that, for us, is the next step that we want to see. While I recognise—and I’m pleased—I wasn’t on that subcommittee, I want to congratulate all those who did the detailed work on this to get to this point.

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

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The bill has been pretty thoroughly canvassed as recently as yesterday, so I’m conscious of how much disappointment it will cause across the aisle—I probably don’t need to spend a terribly great length of time about it. I’ll just note, obviously in general terms, that trusts are very important vehicles for ownership of assets, protection of assets. Other previous contributors to the debate have gone through some of those different categories, including, I think it is worth highlighting, that they do allow ownership on a non-individual basis in a way that’s valuable to certain sectors of our society, and, therefore, it’s worth having some good, clear, solid law in place that enables them to know with some exactitude what their rights and responsibilities are—the settlors, the trustees, and, of course, the beneficiaries.

The purpose of the Act, as set out there, is pretty clearly stated: a reforming of the law, a reshaping; a re-form in that sense but also one that is making it better, and quite a conscious effort to be very clear about express trusts in particular—those which are set up in a very conscious fashion. I’ll just make my final note in relation to the law of perpetuities. Ironically, as a law student it took me for ever to understand the rule against the perpetuities, and so the codification of that and the abolition of the common law rule about that subject is a welcome step, I think, for all concerned.

So with no further ado, I commend the bill to the House, as we do on this side, and the others too, and all those involved in its passage.

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

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise to take a call on the Trusts Bill, having spent a very minute amount of time, really—well, actually, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the Justice Committee, but a very small part of that towards the end where we discussed the Trusts Bill, which was an interesting one. I have to say, I often reflect on the pieces of legislation that we debate in the House, and some of them have a direct effect, I guess, on people’s lives—some of them are incredibly life-changing pieces of legislation that we debate here. But some, like the Trusts Bill, while quite technical and indirectly making life easier for a large number of people, are very technical bills, and it’s actually more about people being able to access legislation, which is also very important, because one part of legislation, of course, is having good, solid legislation; the other is about implementing it and ensuring that people are able to access it and access their rights through it.

Trusts, we know, are an incredibly important part of our society. We know that it’s a legal structure that many families use for their family assets, for their businesses, and it’s important that we clarify and modernise our legislation so that people know how to manage their assets in a good way. So while it appears on the surface to be a dry subject, I think it’s important that we get it right, and that’s what this bill does, in the end: it clarifies, it codifies, and it modernises our Trustee Act, and it has a reasonably far-reaching, you know, reach. So it also clarifies some of the misunderstanding that people have around trusts and the role of trustees as well. It offers a solution to some of these problems, as I said previously, by making the Act more accessible and modern. I’m sure that there are many lawyers around, both in this House and outside, who will welcome this particular replacement of the Act as well.

So can I just at this point also acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee, because it’s been a long road. It’s taken quite a bit of time to get to this point, and, I must say, members have worked long and hard on this, and collaboratively, to reach this point as well. So a huge thankyou to the chair and members also.

So this bill, actually, doesn’t just modify the Act; it actually completely overhauls the Trustee Act. It takes some of those really core, key principles from common law and ties them all together into something that people can understand and use, because what’s the point of having laws if we can’t use them? I’ll give you an example about accessibility of the trustees. It sets out some of those really core, essential trustee duties, and the mandatory trustee duties as well, with some practical and flexible trustee powers so that once this is implemented, we will actually see that trustees can manage and invest their property in a way that’s appropriate for them. There are some clear rules set out in the bill, as well, about when trustees have to provide details and information so that beneficiaries can enforce the terms of that trust. It clarifies that and makes it a lot easier for people to use as well.

Some standards that had some uncertainty around them in the previous Act have also been clarified through this bill. For example, it won’t be possible for a trustee to be indemnified for dishonesty, for wilful misconduct, or for gross negligence that is intentionally in breach of the terms of a trust. It clarifies that in practice as well. So there’s a list of some of the things that a court must consider, for example, when a trustee has been negligent, and that will provide much better clarity—it clarifies the responsibilities, in a sense, of trustees, but it also, at the same time, allows some flexibility for courts to determine that as well, because the list isn’t exhaustive. So there are some things on it that must be taken into consideration, but, of course, there’s flexibility as well.

So, all in all, this is an excellent piece of legislation. We’ve taken a long time to get there, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Dan Bidois—five minutes.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to speak in the third and final reading of the Trusts Bill. We are supporting this bill so you can trust me not to speak too long on this important Trusts Bill—but I digress. I just do want to acknowledge the hard work of not just this Parliament but the previous Parliament and the select committee for bringing this bill to the stage that it is, where it’s going to be voted on this evening in the third and final reading. Particular thanks to our previous Minister of Justice Amy Adams—great Minister—and also Andrew Little for his work and contribution, as well as the select committees.

This bill is actually a very important bill. People say it’s a technical bill—whatever that means—but trusts have a really important part to play in our legal system. We have anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 trusts in New Zealand, and a whole variety of New Zealanders, families, and individuals use these legal instruments as a way to structure their affairs. So this bill essentially tidies up a lot of the legal structure around trusts, simplifies a lot of the important legislation around trusts, clarifies matters around legal responsibilities for trustees, for trusts themselves, and basically helps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the trust system in New Zealand. So, without further ado, I just want to say that I will be commending this bill to the House.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): As a member of the Justice Committee that considered this bill, it does give me some pleasure to stand and speak on it. I must admit I faced the prospect of the Trusts Bill with some trepidation. I had some experience of trusts when I was a detective, but usually I was armed with a search warrant, which enabled me to get beyond most of the provisions of the trust and didn’t require me to have too much of an understanding of the provisions of the trust and how they’re built. Simply put, generally, I was unravelling the actions of someone who had used a trust for criminal activities, so I came into it with that very little understanding.

Standing here speaking on the bill at a time that it is obviously going to become law—at the end of tonight, at the conclusion of the vote—it is with a far better understanding than I did have at the beginning of the process. We were aided, of course, by the Hon Chris Finlayson and my colleague Duncan Webb, who are people whose enthusiasm with which they both approached the task did give me some confidence that the product that we would be putting before the House on this occasion would be a very robust document, and there I was, on the precipice of believing that it would perhaps be beyond those of us who were on the committee at the time.

With these trusts, what I’ve found over the years is that trusts come into pre-eminence generally around the time of an economic downturn, because that’s the time when the activities of people who have often been hidden away—probably able to be secluded by the fact that there was massive growth and there was plenty of money around—and the activities of some of our more, shall we say, less salubrious members of society come to notice. Of course, when the tide turns, when we actually find that there is a lot of criminal activity exposed, that is when trusts and the fact of what is hidden away in trusts—people who had perhaps frittered away the money of trusting investors suddenly were able to still drive around in their very flash cars and live in their highly flash houses, despite the fact that those who had had trust in them had allowed the activities of those people to basically steal their money, for want of a better word, but they still seemed to have that money behind trusts.

It was with that knowledge that I worked through the process of rebuilding these trusts. I understood then how little understanding people, as trustees had, and I think it was a little bit scary. I have been a trustee of several trusts over the years, and I understood really how little knowledge I had and how exposed I was when I saw this. There were just some little things that I really didn’t understand, and it’s been outlined by this bill: what core documents must be kept by trustees and how long core documents must be kept. They’re very important, but, again, if you’re a trustee, it’s something easy to remain ignorant of. If you are someone who is a trustee tasked with administering funds, it’s very important.

With many of the trusts that I’ve sat on, many of the beneficiaries were disabled and their parents had died, or those dependants—they were very dependent. So there was an actual need to ensure that for those people who had absolutely no power themselves, those who were the trustees were going to do the job that they were entrusted to do—even things like the presumption of what information has to be provided to trustees. So often when we were doing an archaeological dig of some of these trusts later on in these criminal inquiries, there was no information these trusts existed, and there was absolutely no information anyone had, and having to rebuild them was quite some task—also, what factors had to be considered when deciding whether to give beneficiaries information or withhold it, and who made that decision. So, again, this bill is outlining those matters—in Part 3, in particular.

Also, the bill abolishes a common law rule against perpetuities. It actually repeals the Perpetuities Act 1964 simply because what this exposed is that they’re actually quite archaic and complex. The bill sets out a clear-cut maximum duration period of 125 years. We had some discussion at the committee about that, very aware that modern medicine is allowing human beings to live longer and longer, but we felt we were pretty secure that 125 years would go beyond one generation. However, who knows? Our successors in this House may be discussing the need to go beyond that, with modern medicine and the means we have of extending life. So we settled, after some discussion, that 125 years, with our knowledge of modern medicine, was probably a pretty safe bet.

Going on to Part 5 of the bill—again, outlining comprehensive and clearer processes around the appointment and discharge of trustees. Again, it’s a little bit like, I suppose, becoming a member of some blue seats: once you’re in you’re in for life, and you’ll never ever get out of there until, perhaps, there is an act of God somewhere along the line. So on these trusts it’s very important that we understand how it is that we can discharge trustees who are simply not doing their business.

Who can be appointed as trustees and how they are appointed—again, looking back on my own experience, I guess I was appointed because people felt generally that they wanted someone that would give some reassurance about the trust, but I did go into that without a lot of knowledge of how those trusts operated. Perhaps on reflection I could’ve done with a little bit more training at the time.

What happens when a trustee retires or dies? Again, unravelling these—we find out a trustee has died and nobody has actually done anything about the trust until we want to actually do something about it. How can you challenge removal? So there was none of these processes, which obviously make common sense, in place, and, sadly, we heard examples during submissions where trustees have gone rogue, for want of a better word. So how do we deal with this? Trustees and ageing trustees, their capabilities—how do you deal with it? So, again, it’s important that this bill does put in place a means to do that. But then, again, we needed a process so they can challenge that removal at the same time, which is obviously making sure there is fair play and just the right of fairness, and, of course, challenging and changing transferring ownership of trust property when there is a change of trustee.

Underlying this and underpinning all this is this whole conflict of interest. So often when trusts do come to light, the reasons they come to light—and certainly where trusts have got, I suppose, a bad name—is when we’ve seen that massive conflict of interest where someone is a trustee. We suddenly find where the investments have gone, the investments may have gone into an area where the beneficiary happened to be a trustee. So, again, it’s just important that we have this framework. I often thought when I was dealing with these cases as an investigator that they were conceived in a different time, when relatively few people dealt with this. Perhaps if you’ll remember the Wellington club, Auckland club, various other places—it was a very small group of people that oversaw this, and that was another time, when perhaps a person’s word was their bond. I think we’ve had to realise we’ve had to move far beyond this and ensure that the courts do actually have oversight of the trusts. So the courts still do have oversight at the end of the day.

I have no hesitation. Again, it’s been a great education for me to be on a committee that considered this bill. I am now satisfied that the next time I am asked to be a trustee, I will be much better equipped, and that there will be—

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

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): In rising to take a call this evening, I’m entrusted—as the last speaker, there’s going to be a few trust puns coming along this evening in this address. But I am entrusted, as was the last speaker for the National Party, in addressing the House succinctly on the Trusts Bill, which has engendered cross-party and cross-the-House support and some measure of trust.

I take heed of the member Greg O’Connor, who’s just recently addressed the House, in reference to archaeological digs with the criminal inquiries and some of the searches that came out of that, so I look across the House and reference in terms of archaeological and the antiquated artefacts that are there. Since 1956, the Trustees Act has been around as long as some of the members here in the House this evening, and also the Perpetuities Act of 1964, which is long overdue for a reworking. So this is a bill which will entrust trusting New Zealanders who utilise and rely, of course, on the legal workings and mechanisms and mechanics of a trust. It’s been referenced that there’s some estimated half a million trusts in Aotearoa New Zealand. So, of course, with this reform of the laws, the trustees and the beneficiaries and those who are working the mechanics of this trust law are to be significantly aided by the reforms under this bill. The sole purpose is to clarify and simplify the core trust law principles, making the legislation more useful, clear, consistent, pragmatic, effective, and efficient.

So for what, indeed, has been too long a time for this reform to come about, like many human relationships, of course, the dynamics are akin to the impact by trusts impacted by trust law which are fraught, complex, unclear, complicated, costly, and perhaps even dysfunctional. So this trust bill, when it is passed into law, is going to unravel all of that complexity and complication and make it more effective, more efficient, and easier to apply. So it does give a distinct clarity to trustees and beneficiaries’ responsibilities, duties, entitlements, and expectations under the law as to the fair, just, and responsible administration of trust law.

So this is soon to be trusted and a trustworthy bill. I am now entrusted and trustily commend this to the House with the third reading and passage soon into law.

Dan Bidois: What a trusty speech.

HARETE HIPANGO: Trust me, I’m over it! Thank you.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It is fair to say that the law of trusts has become layered by cases which have created a lack of clarity. But I must say that this bill brings back the underlying clarity in trusts law. Trusts are not, in essence, complicated things. In any situation when one party holds property for the benefit of another, we have a trust. Really, from that flow the duties of a trustee. There are trusts—as has been said by many speakers—throughout our society, and they are of critical importance, because there are numerous situations where people hold assets and property of one kind or another and they have duties as to how they deal in that property relating to the ultimate beneficiaries.

So anywhere where we have that trust property, as set out in clause 13 of the bill—it’s very good that we see in this bill that there’s actually a statutory definition of a trust, which is that where that trust property is held by one person for the benefit of another, all of these duties flow. So what is created and is set out in this excellent piece of legislation, which has really been herded through the House by both parties in a very cooperative way, is a fiduciary relationship: a relationship of care, a relationship of trust, and a relationship where one party’s in a position of power and the other’s in a position of vulnerability.

Now, importantly, by passing this piece of legislation when it gets assent, we’ve brought the law really up to date by recognising the diversity of trusts. One way in which this bill does that is by splitting off the duties into mandatory trust duties, which are duties of trustees which always exist, and default duties, which are duties which we expect to exist but which the settlor of the trust—the person who creates that trust—can either do away with entirely or dilute in some way or another. We can see that the core duty set out in clause 24 is the duty of honesty and good faith. That is to say that any trustee of any trust in any situation must bring to the work of a trustee good faith. They must act for the purposes for which the trust was set up, and not seek to thwart the trust or use those trust funds for a purpose other than that which was intended by the settlor, and to do that honestly.

The other central, core duty is to know the terms of the trust. As the most excellent Mr Greg O’Connor was saying, when he was a trustee it was a duty that perhaps he wasn’t entirely au fait with. It’s a pretty basic duty to read the trust deed and understand it. In fact, because trusts are so diverse—from large commercial trusts down to farmers, and mum and dad trustees—sometimes trustees aren’t quite up to speed with that. Also, probably the most fundamental duty, found in clause 25, is the duty to act in the interests of the beneficiaries—that is to say, to exclusively act for those beneficiaries without taking into account the interests of others. Now, there will be situations where trustees are paid, or even where trustees are themselves beneficiaries of the trust. Those matters are dealt with throughout this bill.

But the guiding principle in terms of those duties is set out in clause 19, and it really recognises that the duties of a trustee have to be seen—sorry, clause 19A, have to be seen in context—

Kieran McAnulty: I was going to say!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Sorry, Mr McAnulty. Thank you for picking me up on that. I knew you knew this bill inside out. So it’s about those duties being determined in context and in light of the objectives of the trust. So if we have a family trust where we might have the family home and some other assets, probably in the hands of the parents, and the beneficiaries being the children and, perhaps, grandchildren, then the way in which those duties are imposed is going to be significantly different from, say, those of a highly professional trustee who’s a trustee of a superannuation fund investing millions, or tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of dollars because the objectives for the trusts are different and the nature of the trustees are different. The professional trustee is a different thing.

I really wanted to talk a little bit about the exemptions and indemnities. So the settlor within the trust can alter the default duties. They can, in fact, exempt a trustee from liability, or provide an indemnity, which might say something like, “If you breach one of these duties and you’re liable to a beneficiary, the trust will pay.” That’s how an indemnity would work.

Kieran McAnulty: That’s fair.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Well, it would be fair in some situations, Mr McAnulty, but one of the really important things is that we can’t have an indemnity or an exemption for dishonest conduct.

Kieran McAnulty: No, we can’t.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No. That would be entirely wrong. So in providing that these indemnities and exemptions which exist are permitted, the bill, in clauses 37 and 38, says those clauses can exist, but not in respect of trustee dishonesty, in respect of wilful misconduct, or in respect of gross negligence.

Angie Warren-Clark: Sounds good.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: You’re quite right, Ms Warren-Clark. It is a good idea, but gross negligence is a concept which the law has not clarified well. So one of the things that the select committee did—and I must just mention Mr Finlayson for his work there—was they looked very closely at this idea of gross negligence and discussed exactly what it might mean. There was considerable discussion as to whether it was the best term, whether we should, in fact, not have it in there at all, or whether, perhaps, it should just be negligence. But it was thought that, no, gross negligence was the right term, but we needed to give some guidance to the courts if they come to determine that, and I have no doubt that the courts will look at that.

That’s where we’ve got clause 40A, which sets out a number of factors which need to be taken into account when considering what gross negligence means, including things like whether the trustee is remunerated, the characteristics of the trustee—so is it a mum and dad trustee, or is it a professional trustee, like a lawyer or accountant, because we can rightly expect a lawyer or accountant, who is being paid for their work, to be much more diligent, much more knowledgable. Also, the purposes of the trust—whether the trust is simply a trust to hold property, or whether it’s a trust which is expected to invest—because a trustee who’s asked to invest might have a warrant to take much more significant risks than a trustee, for example, in respect of a will trust, who’s expected to hold assets simply there for the benefit of the trustees and for the income from them. So they are entirely different things. So gross negligence is a term which hasn’t got a settled meaning in the law, but that clause very much directs the court to that.

The other thing is the idea of dishonesty, and I want to note that the law of dishonesty is relatively well-developed, and it doesn’t simply mean criminal conduct or outright lying. It can have a sliding scale, and it’s worth remembering that in some cases not inquiring, or turning a blind eye to something you ought to know—

Angie Warren-Clark: Wilful blindness.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —or a wilful blindness—yes, the case of Baden, I think, is the case on wilful blindness, Ms Warren-Clark. That’s what we’re talking about. So that also can be dishonest to not make inquiries when an honest person would. We won’t be giving any indemnities or exemptions for that.

Just one further point, which I think is a really good innovation, is a recognition of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes for trustees, because it’s always been a bit unclear whether disputes between trustees and beneficiaries, or even trustees and third parties, could be resolved using mediation or arbitration. What this does is it makes very clear that that is permissible. But it does identify an interesting problem, which is that in some cases some beneficiaries will be perhaps minors or will be lacking capacity or may even be unascertained—someone who might not even yet be born. So what this bill sets out in clauses 137 to 142 is that in those situations a representative is to be appointed for those beneficiaries, and any settlement will have to be approved by the court.

So we absolutely want to endorse ADR, but we need to have these kinds of protections in place to make sure that the trustee doesn’t sort of hijack the entire process. So once again we see here an excellent piece of legislation, where this Government is tidying up—

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

Bill read a third time.

Bills

New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill

Third Reading

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I move, That the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill be now read a third time.

I want to start by thanking the House for the speed with which it has considered this bill. I would also like to thank the parties that have supported this bill across the House, and also the Health Committee for the fine work that it has done in reporting back on the bill so efficiently. Suspending democracy is a big step, and that is what this bill does, and I know, that in considering that, the parties in this House that have supported it across the House, and the parties of the coalition Government, have weighed those concerns carefully and all reached agreement that indeed the appropriate thing to do here is to make sure that sound, stable governance is in place as the district health board (DHB) ensures it is well positioned into the future, for both clinical and financial reasons.

I want to also thank Dr Karen Poutasi as the commissioner of Waikato DHB, and her deputy commissioners—Andrew Connolly, who is a well-respected surgeon and former chair of the Medical Council; Chad Paraone, an experienced senior health executive with deep data expertise; and Professor Margaret Wilson, a former Speaker of this House, someone with clear legal expertise and experience in the health sector—for the job that they are already doing to improve the quality and services for people in the Waikato district.

The effect of the bill is to allow for the term of the Waikato DHB commissioner to be extended until the triennial elections scheduled for 2022. The wider picture is that that extension, effectively, provides the commissioner sufficient time to develop, oversee, and implement a financially sustainable plan for the people of Waikato, improve service performance, and develop stable governance. Without legislative change, the commissioner would have had less than seven months to improve the Waikato DHB’s position—and, indeed, in appointing a commissioner, which is a serious step, things have to be in a serious position. That would be taking, probably, a short number of years, hopefully, to resolve, rather than being possible to do within a few months.

So in May this year—to remind the House—I dismissed the board of the Waikato DHB, following my serious dissatisfaction with the performance of the board. In particular, there were ongoing clinical performance concerns, poor financial performance, and those things together had caused me to lose confidence in its ability to deliver on its strategy for the region into the future. In so saying, I do also want to acknowledge and thank the board—as I, as Minister, consulted them, as I am required to do by law, before dismissing them—for their honest feedback about some of the achievements of the board, and also some of the serious challenges that they accepted they had been unable to deal with.

I also want to pay respect to Sally Webb, who was chair of the board, for her professionalism and integrity in drawing to my attention the concerns she had over a period of time and for her frank assessment of things and willingness to support my decision to dismiss her and her board. That was a courageous thing to do, and I do want to commend her for that. I also want to acknowledge Derek Wright, who was the interim chief executive, for the role he played in ensuring continuity after a very difficult period for the DHB during the tenure of a CEO who was subsequently investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. The period 2014 to 2017 was not a happy one at the Waikato DHB. These problems did not arise overnight, and I think no one expects they will be solved overnight, but they do need to be solved.

The commissioner has already succeeded in appointing a permanent CEO, in her short tenure, and I have every confidence that she will continue to tackle the other issues currently facing the DHB. Certainly, one of the big ones that was facing them as a board, that wasn’t able to provide the leadership required, was that they were struggling to appoint a permanent CEO, and service performance issues were resulting from that.

In the debates during the first and second reading, some members raised concerns about the impact on local democratic rights. I do note that members, certainly in the committee stage, sought reassurance that the normal electoral processes would return in 2022. I’m happy to give that assurance. Certainly, the law that we’re passing makes that clear—that the normal process resumes in 2022, but we do need those years to get the DHB back on a sustainable, clinical, and financial setting.

Some also raised concerns in select committee submissions regarding Māori representation in Waikato health governance; I certainly want to acknowledge those concerns. The Waikato DHB should not, in my view, lose any Māori representations due to the lack of a board. As stated in the Government’s renewed commitment to Māori-Crown relations, all DHB functions will continue to foster the development of Māori capacity for participating in the health and disability sector, and for providing for the needs of Māori—and, indeed, as health Minister I have set a very clear equity agenda for the sector, and it is my very clear expectation that that is followed up on.

I know that Dr Poutasi has already been working with local iwi and Māori groups to ensure there are clear lines of communication, and I believe that to be very important and, indeed, the right thing that she is doing. Although there is no board in place until 2022, as I’ve said, it’s been made very clear by me to the commissioner and her team that I have that expectation on achieving equity for them and, of course, for the whole health system.

As members have also mentioned during the previous readings of this bill, the commissioner is a highly respected and accomplished health service manager. Dr Poutasi is a former Director-General of Health, with a tenure that spanned two previous Governments, and she has had other senior leadership roles across the public sector. I am personally delighted that she was willing to take on this role. I believe that her mana and experience will be important for leading the change that’s required at the DHB for ensuring that relationships with primary health organisations are optimised, for ensuring that the three Ts—the other hospitals in the region, the smaller ones outside of Hamilton City—are appropriately resourced and the relationships are well managed and that they also deliver the high-quality healthcare that is expected and deserved in the Waikato region. This bill will give her and her team the time to accomplish critical and sustainable change at Waikato DHB, to improve health services for the people of the Waikato.

I would like to reiterate, as we close, that I do not take these measures lightly. This Government, though, has shown that where performance is of concern, we are willing to act. I have put Crown monitors, firstly, into Counties Manukau, then also into Waikato, and, more recently, in order to clarify the situation in the Canterbury region, we put a Crown monitor in there as well. Where the Crown monitor raises concerns and where further concerns are discovered, as in the case of Waikato, we have been clear that we will take the steps to put in a commissioner if required.

I want to thank members of DHBs across the country who stand for election. There are more elections coming up in October and we need good people to put themselves forward. Governing a DHB is a public service role. I want to thank those people that do that across the country, mindful of the big challenges that DHBs face from a long period of underfunding. The workforces have been stretched and strained for a long time in the DHBs and across our health services, and in some places they have been able to manage this better than others.

In the Waikato, they now have a commissioner in place, and have the confidence that is necessary to deliver better health outcomes and sustainable health services to the people of the Waikato. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The House can lock itself in for another hour of crucial filibustering by the Government members. Even the Minister David Clark—even the Minister—moving the third reading speech, read it as slowly as he possibly could, so we crawled to the line, that 10-minute finish line, and here’s why: the Government Order Paper is about as skinny as I’ve seen it in my 11 years in Parliament. By the end of tonight, there may be as few as 17 items of business on this Order Paper, and half of them can’t be put through—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Great for a general debate this afternoon, but we’re on this bill.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —because they don’t have the support—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No. Order! The member will come to the bill.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, I will shorten this speech by saying this: I agree with nearly everything the Minister has said. The National Party will continue to support this bill through to its passage into law, with serious caveats, but they have been articulated by Dr Clark. It is a big thing to suspend democracy. It is true. We have been there. We had to do this in 2015, and then pass laws in 2016 to suspend the last elections for the Southern District Health Board (DHB).

Now, the Minister talks about both clinical and financial performance. Indeed, in my experience in running health facilities, those two things go hand in hand; clinical and financial viability go up and down on the same rising and falling tide. There hasn’t been a case where a commissioner or a Crown monitor has been appointed to a DHB where there has been good financial performance and poor clinical performance, or really good clinical performance and poor financial performance—they go hand in hand. I mention this because I look to the sea of red ink, the rising tide of red ink right across our DHB sector, and I say this: “Who is next?” Frankly, the availability of the data has been woeful under this Minister, for what the combined financial performance of district health boards has been. The only data we have is March—we should have had April and May by now—and at that point, the projection for Waikato was a $62 million deficit. Even the Southern District Health Board, as they come out of the commissioner role and have their elections, have seriously deteriorated in the last 12 months, where they’re now projecting $34 million as at March. Well, we know from this morning’s news that the Nelson District Health Board, who at that same point was predicting a $1 million surplus, has actually advised the people of Nelson-Marlborough that they will return an $11 million deficit—a $12 million turn-around in three months.

The Minister blames the previous Government. Well, nobody but the most leftist, Labour-supporting trolls on my Facebook page actually believes that. The rest of the country knows that things were tight, as they often are, but they have plunged and plummeted under this Minister. So my question, as we pass this into law, is: “Who’s next?” Will it be Southern DHB again? Will it be Counties Manukau? Will it be Canterbury, who, as at March, were forecasting $103 million? Canterbury and West Coast, between the two of them, have the same combined financial deficits as all 20 DHBs had under the last year of the previous Government. Just those two—and neither of those two are under commissioner rule, so they would be very nervous. We’re going into elections, who would stand? There are Companies Act obligations on DHB members as directors of these very large organisations for fiscal propriety, and they are being handed mathematical alchemy by this Government and this Minister. It’s pretty simple; you don’t have to be an accountant to work out that if you are going to require the DHBs to settle pay agreements at 10 percent per year, 16 percent over two years, 20 percent over three years, and then give them 4.2 percent for population growth and cost pressures, it’s mathematical alchemy, because it can’t work, and that plunges them into deficit.

Let them blame the previous Government for nine years of neglect, because nobody—nobody—who isn’t an extreme leftist troll believes it. So I challenge the Minister to fix the mess he’s made at Waikato, to fix the mess he’s making at Counties Manukau. Auckland are now saying they’re going to be in deficit, but won’t say by how much—my prediction of $500 million is probably now going to be conservative.

So we support this bill, but we don’t support a Minister and a Government that is presiding over a DHB sector that is drifting and needs better leadership.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I appreciate there’s some difference of perspectives, but for the Green Party member Chlöe Swarbrick to be moving and interjecting from a seat in the front row of Labour’s benches is outside the Standing Orders, I’m sure you’d agree.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah, no, it is out of—I didn’t hear her interject. So your hearing’s obviously better than mine, if you did.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. So it’s a pleasure to stand and rise in support of this, the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill. Before I start talking about the actual bill itself, I just want to talk about that broader context which Mr Woodhouse had just briefly mentioned before, because where we are at the moment is the whole nine years of under-investment of the health system. We’ve been talking about it for a time, and the problem is that it is actually real. The problem is that it is having a huge impact on our health services and the ability for our district health boards (DHBs) to deliver. Over nine years, what we had was under-investment in basic salaries, so our staff weren’t keeping up. A lot of my colleagues over that time actually got jobs offshore because the pay was better. What we’ve found is a whole lot of buildings where the DHBs were trying to balance their budgets. So they deferred the maintenance, and now, all of a sudden, we’ve got billions of dollars that have got to come back on to the DHBs’ books to sort out and figure out how we do that.

As a Government, we’re moving forward with that investment, and we’ve put a huge amount of money into DHBs and into primary care, and we will continue to do so over the next number of years because it’s going to take that long to get this thing back up and running again. But what I want to talk about today is this bill, because it’s actually a very, very simple bill. It’s only got eight clauses, but it’s a very simple bill that’s actually got to deal with a huge, complex situation.

So what the bill does is it’s got two key clauses. What clause 7 basically says is that the triennial general election for the Waikato DHB in 2019 is cancelled. So that’s the core element of what it does, but then clause 8 goes on to say that this legislation will be repealed on the day that the new board is elected in 2022. So what it does is it cancels that one election, but then it repeals it so that it, basically, is only a one-off election, and that will give us time to turn this situation around.

Why are we cancelling the 2019 election for the DHB, and why are we only doing it over one term? Well, basically, because in May this year, the Minister of Health informed the Waikato DHB of his decision to appoint a commissioner to replace the board, and this is not a decision that anybody takes lightly, because we do believe in local democracy. We believe that communities should have a say in the running of their health services—that’s crucially important—but there were some really big things that the Minister had to consider when he was making that decision, and the first of them was just the deteriorating position of the DHB. What they reported in the 2017-18 year was a deficit of $37.2 million, and then what they were forecasting was a $56.1 million deficit for 2018-19, and those weren’t one-off deficits. They were projecting that those deficits would continue for a number of years, and that’s something that a Minister of Health has to take very, very seriously, because you need to be able to have a viable financial situation to be able to make those prioritisation decisions and to move your DHB forward.

The other concern was that there was instability at the governance and the leadership level, and so if you’ve got issues in terms of governance and leadership, it’s very difficult when you’re trying to balance deficits of that nature to then be able to do that. So it’s quite a complex situation. Then, there were also the issues around service performance, and there were some concerns being raised there.

So this is not a decision that the Minister took lightly when, basically, he decided to replace the board with a commissioner. It also occurred despite the best efforts of a Crown monitor, who was appointed in August 2018, and, unfortunately, that monitor was able to make limited progress because of some of those issues around the instability at that time.

As I was saying, in May, the Minister announced that former Director-General of Health Dr Karen Poutasi would take the commissioner’s role. She’s had many, many years in the health sector and is an incredibly experienced and excellent pair of hands to be able to take this DHB forward. But the issue is that under the current legislation, she could only have held office until the next DHB board came in under the next election, and the problem was that with the timing of this, it meant that she would only have very few months to try and turn this really complex situation around. What she would have had to do in those few short months was make significant changes so that she could turn around the financial performance and the clinical performance of that DHB, and that was seen as just not being long enough to be put into a position where you were trying to make leadership changes in terms of the ongoing financial performance, and to then turn around and be replaced again by a board within very few months. So what this bill does is it just cancels that one-off election in 2019, and that means there’s another three years for the commissioner to continue to work with the team to make those significant changes.

The issue in terms of those changes was that at the Health Committee, we had three people come and submit to us, and what all of those people that made the submissions were concerned about was just the loss of local democracy and the community not being able to have their say in terms of the board and then, via the board, in terms of the DHB. But our view was that that needed to be weighed up against needing to get the DHB back financially and into operational aspects where it was functioning properly, so, basically, we put the bill through with no changes because, on balance, we felt that it was more important to get those changes made and put those structures in place in order to get back the stability of the DHB over the next three years.

Basically, what we’ve got now is a position where come 2022, when the next board comes in, what we’re hoping for is that we will be in a much better financial position for the DHB, so that they can come in and actually be making some decisions with a well-functioning DHB with, basically, sufficient resources to be able to move forward. At the same time, it’s also important that those crucial leadership roles and, especially, relationships with the community and with local iwi are maintained and strengthened so that they can continue forward under the board once they come back in.

While these issues are really complex, they sit within that broader framework of under-investment and under-resourcing that’s happened over the last decade, and the problem is that if you’ve got a DHB that has got no financial buffers, then if you do hit the point where you do hit problems, sometimes this is the situation that results. Having said that, the Minister has also made it very, very clear, though, that he expects DHBs to manage the finances they do have responsibly and to balance those budgets and work within the resources available to them. But, having said that as well, our Government is completely committed to funding our health systems in an appropriate manner.

So in the Budget last year, we put an extra $2.2 billion into DHBs over four years, which is the biggest increase in operational funding over the last decade, and we’ve put another $750 million into the health capital works because we’ve got those issues with our health infrastructure where many buildings are getting to the end of their lives. Many buildings just haven’t been replaced, and need to be, and there’s that basic maintenance, and what we’ve done in this year’s Budget is we have put more resource into that.

One of the other things in terms of balancing the books for many DHBs that we’re also hearing about as a select committee is just that huge, acute in-patient demand that’s coming in through our DHBs and through our hospitals. So, as a Government, we’re also investing in a range of other things that will impact on that, and, in particular, there are the investments we’re making and moving forward in terms of housing, in terms of social housing, and in terms of regulations to make sure that over time we’re going to be having decent heat sources in rental properties, good insulation, and getting rid of damp, mouldy housing. They’re going to have huge impacts in terms of the number of people coming into emergency departments, and in terms of them thinking through that, flowing through into DHBs’ bottom lines.

So, as a Government, in addition to some of the changes we’re putting in place with this bill, we’re going to be changing those broader measures, which will mean that, over time, acute in-patient demand in DHBs should start to reduce, particularly in those areas of acute infectious and respiratory diseases. We’re also putting back significant investment into that basic infrastructure so that we can get on and build not just our hospitals like Dunedin Hospital but also other hospitals, we can look at earthquake strengthening, and we can look at just investing in fit for purpose facilities. Also, with our investments in primary care, many people can go to the GP rather than turning up to the emergency department.

So, basically, what we’ve got with this bill is we are allowing Waikato DHB to have a new approach and to get on top of some of these issues around financial management, and we’re looking at governance, leadership, and also our service delivery and giving the breather of a three-year period where we can have a commissioner in place to work with the community and work with iwi leadership to get that done. Then we can move on to that new board coming in in 2022 and really moving forward so that we can have an effective, well-functioning DHB. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to the third reading of this bill, a bill that we will be supporting. I want to acknowledge the contribution of the Health Committee members in getting it to this stage. My contribution tonight will have two substantive parts: the first will talk about the process, a few points on the process of the bill, and the second will talk about the politics of the bill.

The process has three parts to it. First of all, as we heard from the member who’s just taken her seat, Dr Liz Craig, there were issues raised from submitters around the consequence on democracy of not allowing the district health board (DHB) elections to proceed in 2020. I’ll actually come back to that in a later point, but this is a very fair and, of course, obvious element to raise. Again, I support the member’s view that, fundamentally, this would be handing a newly-elected DHB a whole set of complex financial and clinical problems that would be very unfair for them to be asked to manage, and, indeed, I believe they’d be set up to fail. So, yes, we do understand that democracy takes a back seat here for the 2020 elections, but we think to give the new board the best opportunity, it is the wisest course to take.

Māori also raised the question about the appointment of a new commissioner, particularly the Iwi Māori Council and Waikato-Tainui, and whether they could have involvement. Unfortunately, the process did not allow that, but I did just want to register their interest in doing that. I think one of the interesting points that was also raised for us was what is the cost of the commissioner versus the board.

Hon Member: That’s a good point.

Dr SHANE RETI: It is a good point, and it turns out that the commissioner—who I do support, Dr Karen Poutasi, I’ve known her for many years—has a cost of roughly $230,000 per annum, against the board stipend of $320,000 per annum. So there is some saving there but, of course, there is a cost that we mustn’t go past.

The second part I want to talk to is the politics of this bill, and I’m framing this under the two “h”s. The first “h” is deliberately directed at the Minister and the Labour Party, and it’s an “h” because it’s hoisting the Minister on his own pedestal. In the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill, where exactly the same purpose that we’re seeking to achieve here was put in place for the Southern DHB, David Clark said at the first reading that the Minister now had no one to hide behind. There was no board to hide behind—it’s straight and directly to him. I agree, and this now applies to the Minister. In fact, he also said, “Any remaining impression of ministerial distance from decision making is sacrificed with the appointment of this commissioner”. So this will, very clearly, now point right back to the Minister. His words were accurate then; they’re accurate now. There is no buffer; if this fails, it fails clearly on the Minister’s watch.

The second “h” stands for hypocrisy and points at the Green Party. When the same bill, or a similar bill, in 2016—which I’m talking to, the Southern DHB bill—came to the House, at the first reading and, in fact, at every reading, the Greens were vehement about the issue of democracy being removed—absolutely vehement. In fact, Metiria Turei said this: “The whole point here is making sure that we maintain the strongest possible, the most open, the most transparent, and the most engaging democratic process around the world. New Zealand prides itself on its democracy. We can maintain that pride only if we respect the right of New Zealanders to have a say. This bill strips that away. This Government has no respect for the rights of New Zealanders to have a say over their democracy. This is yet another attack, which the Green Party will not support.”

I asked in the second reading if they were, therefore, going to withhold their vote on that same basis, on this very strong principle which they held themselves up by in 2016. They did not; they are on record as voting for this bill. Let’s see again, tonight, what position they take on such a strong principle that they held in 2016, or does the coalition Government slowly whittle away your principles and they’ll be voting for this tonight? Again, we will be supporting this bill, and, again, I want to acknowledge the select committee who got us to this point. Thank you.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. We will hear, no doubt, throughout the rest of the course, as we traverse our opinions on this bill, about how it is a small bill but there is a lot of money at stake in it. So I’d just like to commence my contribution by acknowledging the Minister the Hon Dr David Clark for making the decision to basically show the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) the door. This is not a step that was taken lightly, so thank you for your leadership on that. Also, too, I thank the Health Committee for their work in shepherding the bill through the process. We heard from three submitters, and I’ll talk a little bit about the democracy issue that was raised. I note the member who has just resumed his seat, Dr Shane Reti, talked about that as well.

It is not a usual thing to be shown the door, and, clearly, this is—as we’ve heard earlier in several of the contributions this evening—something that has happened, and in a not too distant past.

What I would like to talk about is that we have a situation where there was a large financial deficit. We now have in place an absolutely top public servant who will guide the ship and turn it around, which is no easy feat. But it was pleasing to hear through the committee stage yesterday the Hon Dr David Clark speak about his confidence in the very capable Dr Karen Poutasi. She has also been a chief executive of the NZQA, and has a significant background in health administration. In fact, other members of this House, as Dr Reti has just mentioned—he has known her for a good number of years. Three deputy commissioners are also in there, and they’ll have just a few short years to really make a difference and turn things around.

There’s also been quite a lot of bad publicity, and it’s been an umbrella that has overshadowed those who work inside the Waikato DHB, those on the ground that are providing services to all the people that need health services—the many and varied health services in the Waikato region. Unfortunately for them, they have had to carry on the good work that they do under this shadow, particularly the media scrutiny that has highlighted this issue that they have been facing. So, hopefully, with this new appointment of this commissioner that the Minister has great confidence in—and, certainly, many members in the Health Committee also have confidence in her—the mana will be restored to those workers at the Waikato DHB.

So, basically, there will be a cancellation; the bill will cancel the 2019 election of the Waikato DHB—it’s the 2019 triennial general election for the DHB—and also will ensure certain provisions under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 and the Local Electoral Act 2001 will not apply for the period that the bill is in force. Now, once we get through that process and there is a new election in 2022, the bill will be repealed on the day that the new members of the Waikato DHB will take office, after that triennial general election in 2022. So this is an instrument that will, for a very short period of time, enable the commissioner to get on with turning around those deficits. Then, once again, the people of the Waikato will be able to, through the process of voting and using their democratic voice, select a new board.

As I mentioned, the Minister does have great confidence in Karen Poutasi, and that’s a really good thing because the deficit—there was serious dissatisfaction with the performance of the previous board. In 2017-18, there was a deficit of $37.2 million. That was forecast to blow out to $56.1 million for 2018-19, and, in fact, there was an increasing deficit forecast coming into future years. So that’s a big job for Dr Karen Poutasi, and I note the Minister did say that the commissioner has already succeeded in appointing a permanent CEO in a short tenure, and that the Minister has every confidence that she will continue to tackle the other issues that are currently facing the Waikato DHB. Dr Karen Poutasi has said that she intends to cut the deficit while also improving services. So she’s got not just one big job but two big jobs—actually, probably many big jobs, but those will be a great focus: cut the deficit, improve the services to create a DHB that those living in the Waikato region will be proud to be able to use. She also said that she will seek to live within the means by looking at different ways that some of the services—maybe it’s the maternity services she referenced, and also diabetes care—can be delivered in a more seamless way. She’s looking to have a very sustainable DHB, and so that will be her focus.

I’d like to make mention of my colleague the Hon Ron Mark, who spoke to this bill in the second reading. This is around the democratic process, and I think it’s important that I note that New Zealand First has, in the past, expressed our concerns about the removal of boards and the appointment of commissioners.

Now, we’ve noted this because of our concerns around the loss of democracy, but sometimes, actually, it’s really important that, if there is an inability to effectively do the job that they are elected to do, we need to step in and make changes. In this case, I acknowledge the Minister for making that call and taking that step.

Just finally, the last point I would like to note—and this is something that I’m particularly interested in, having spent time in the Māori Affairs Committee and now in the Health Committee—is something that is important to us is the inequity of access to health services for Māori. So I was very pleased to hear the Minister say that the Waikato DHB will not experience any loss of Māori representation due to the lack of a board. In fact, as stated in the Government’s renewed commitment to Māori-Crown relations, all DHB functions will continue to foster the development of Māori capacity for participating in the health and the disability sector, as well as providing for the needs of Māori. So that’s something I’d like to note: that the Minister has made that very clear, because the DHB, actually, was making great progress in terms of the work that they were doing with Māori and in the health service they were providing and their engagement with Māori. So it’s good to see that that won’t be diminished through the course of this process, while this bill is enacted.

So that’s my final contribution. Thanks to all members of the House that are making contributions or have made contributions on this bill, and now I’d like to commend the bill to the House. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. This is an important bill. I say that as the MP for Hamilton West, in whose electorate the office of the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) is situated, and, of course, the hospital is in my electorate, overlooking the wonderful Hamilton Lake. But this debate, and the one that has proceeded it this evening, is an absolute disgrace and an insult to New Zealanders.

Here tonight, we see a Government that is absolutely out of control and has lost control over its own legislative agenda, as a result of which they are padding out this evening a debate over which there is no opposition, for which there has been a thorough explanation. And the only reason they are doing that—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The member needs to come to the bill.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Mr Speaker, I am commenting on the fact that this debate—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, you’re giving a commentary on the last debate and this debate. We’re debating the bill, so the member should turn his attention to the content of the bill. Thank you.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: I certainly am doing that, sir. I do want to thank the Minister, because last night I asked him a series of questions when we went through the committee stage of this bill, and the Minister did listen carefully and paid me the courtesy of responding to the questions that I put to him, which were, principally, about the process.

The reason I asked those questions was because I know it is important not only to my own constituents but to the people within my region that they understand how we’ve come to this point and why this decision has been made, and that they are able to receive the assurance they are looking for that the democracy that we are not going to have in this year’s local body election will be restored. So I thank the Minister for those answers, and I do think he gave us a very thorough explanation. What, however, he failed to note was the fact that—as both the Hon Michael Woodhouse and Dr Reti have already commented tonight—under his administration, deficits being faced by district health boards are out of control, and the services that many are providing are falling woefully behind where they used to be when we had health targets that they all had to be accountable for in meeting. So this is a very serious worry.

So I look forward to hearing that the commissioner, who is widely respected—and I acknowledge Dr Karen Poutasi and our new chief executive, Dr Kevin Snee, who’s coming up from your area, Madam Speaker, to join us, and we look forward to welcoming him—and all of those who serve us in that region, will be able to turn things around and ensure that the Waikato DHB is able to function well and deliver the services that we all expect. I want to acknowledge, again, Derek Wright, who’s done an outstanding job as the acting chief executive, and all his team at Waikato Hospital. But, of course, a DHB is not a hospital board; it’s a district health board. So I also acknowledge all those in the area of providing primary care right throughout all aspects of the health system. They serve us well in our region. They’re not being served well by this debate tonight, and I do look forward to being able to vote for our DHB again in 2022.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you. I’m very pleased to take a Green Party call on the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill. I’d like to start by a defining principle, really, because I thought one of the previous speakers, Dr Shane Reti, took a very cheap shot at the Green Party. He seemed to think that because we opposed one bill in the South, we would oppose this one. I would remind Dr Reti that the Green Party supported the appointment of commissioners for the Kaipara District Council because that was based on good evidence there of major problems in that district council when its waste-water scheme blew the budget and subjected that council to quite significant costs. So it was quite appropriate that the former National Government and the Minister moved to appoint commissioners to rectify that situation and that there were no elections while those commissioners were in play.

We’d also like to note that the Green Party is supporting this bill because it was an absolutely untenable situation in Waikato in terms of what was happening with the district health board (DHB), with the malfeasance of the former CEO, with the calls by clinicians for action, and with the serious concern that clinicians were expressing in the standards of service there. It is a very different situation from what faced this House when the former National Government suspended democracy in Canterbury so that it could push through an agenda of promoting irrigation. I am very aware what it means for democracy to be suspended, having been one of those councillors that were dismissed.

So this bill was considered very, very carefully by the Green Party because of the implications of the election this year being suspended and elections not being held until 2022. But the Green Party was convinced by the evidence that was well known in the media and elsewhere of the serious situation that the Waikato DHB was in and, as others have noted, the major deficit that was confronting that DHB of $56.1 million in the 2018-19 financial year. So, Dr Reti, the decision the Green Party came to was one of principle because it was based on good, solid information and our desire to ensure that the Waikato community was safe, that it had access to the health services that it needs, and we ensured, through discussions with the honourable Minister David Clark, that some of the same protections for community engagement that were put in with the Southern DHB were implemented here. I am very pleased that Dr Karen Poutasi—virtually every speaker has acknowledged her strong reputation and their respect for her—has already moved to engage with the Māori community in particular. It was the commitment of the Minister that there would be a continued strong engagement with the community, and that the existing Iwi Māori Council and the Consumer Council that existed in Waikato would continue, as well as the eight locally based community health forums.

So, yes, we don’t have the elections, but we do have these other methods for the community to engage in the decisions that the district health board is making. This election is being suspended once, to enable the commissioner to have an effective time to actually get the board in order, and I think it is the culmination of the under-investment by the former Government in health, a period of neglect which the current Minister and this Government is remedying—so I also take issue with the point made by the Hon Tim Macindoe about the problems facing district health boards. Those problems are the legacy of that party in Government for nine years. So here we’ve had a board which was unable to appoint a permanent CEO, board decisions reaching the media while the board was still meeting, doctors not being happy with the situation—it had broken down.

This bill is needed to ensure that a commissioner can go in and do the work that she needs to do. There’s been a new CE appointed. There are very effective assistants to the commissioner with the three deputy commissioners, Dr Andrew Connolly, Chad Paraone, and, of course, Professor Margaret Wilson. That is a very competent and capable team to back up Dr Poutasi. I think that together they will turn the parlous situation in the Waikato around. This bill clearly provides a sunset clause. There will be an election in 2022, and the commissioners will vacate their positions once those elections are held. So it is a way forward for the Waikato community, and I’m very surprised that Tim Macindoe wasn’t more complimentary of the Minister and the Government in moving to remedy the very serious deficiencies there. I commend the bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on this—a brief call. It has been pretty well canvassed and, whilst we acknowledge the need for this suspension of democracy in this particular instance, it’s not something that we encourage on a regular basis, of course. But, noting the points that have been raised earlier on in this instance, we are supporting it.

Of course, there are some concerns around the wider trend with district health boards (DHBs), in particular with the deficits that we’re seeing now being presented by numerous DHBs around the country, and those deficits that have been exacerbated significantly over the last 20 months seem to suggest that the DHBs don’t have respect for the Minister and feel they can walk all over him and pull the wool over his eyes. So whilst that may well be happening, there’s certainly a concern for us, and, again, we’ve seen Auckland DHB just come out today saying now they’re posting a deficit, without identifying what that figure might be, which suggests it will be quite large. If the Government’s assumption, then, is, on the basis of a deficit, to presume that a commissioner must be appointed, well, the question is, of course, as Mr Woodhouse rightly pointed out, “Who’s next?” So that is a concern we have, but on this particular occasion in the Waikato it’s the right instance. So I commend this bill to the House.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on this—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I beg your pardon: it’s a split call.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —yes, ma’am—New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill. It’s a bill that it feels like I just spoke on yesterday! This bill is, very simply, something we have done in order to quickly fix a matter before the 2020 elections for the district health board (DHB) in Waikato needed to occur. Essentially, this is a bill that is fixing a problem that many of the members here across the House have traversed really, really well and significantly. I’d also like to acknowledge Dr Liz Craig and her comments when she talked about the DHB staff leaving and heading overseas because of the wage and salary pressures that have occurred over a number of years—a number of years—perhaps, say, nine long years, during that time, just to pick a number.

So one of the things that I think is incredibly important about this piece of legislation is that our Minister, Dr David Clark, has acted very quickly to immediately come in and prevent the cost of an election occurring and to, essentially, take control of the matter, as we know. I previously have lived in Hamilton for 18 years, and—

Jamie Strange: “The Tron”!

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: —I lived in “the Tron”; yes, I did—during that time, I gave birth, and I recall also another time when my husband and I were out surfing and he had an accident. A fin sliced his foot—very nasty; right to the bone. We were way out the back of Raglan, and I had to drive him through to the hospital. Now, you will understand, Madam Speaker, that there’s black sand. His foot was completely covered in black sand. The DHB at the time, at A & E—they were wonderful. They took him into a side room, and while we were waiting in the queue they washed the wound so that when he got what felt like hundreds of stitches in his foot it was actually preventing infection. Those were the kinds of things that we expected from our DHB.

I will come back to the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please—please.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Ha, ha! I will come back to the bill. So those were the kinds of things that we expected. Of course, what we have come to understand with this DHB is, actually, that while the clinical services have been continuing as best they can, we have had difficulty. It’s really important that the commissioner was appointed, Dr Karen Poutasi, and then she pretty much immediately acted to have Dr Kevin Snee appointed. As a consequence—I personally do not know Dr Poutasi, but, along with what everyone else said, I think we have an absolute champion for the community who is going to be working alongside the other members.

So this bill, very simply, was agreed across the House. Our select committee was very, very collegial in our agreement that we needed to act. We needed to act in a very short time frame, because we needed to prevent the 2020 elections from occurring and the cost incurred. In fact, there was more of a mess to clean up than the next few short months would allow Dr Poutasi.

So despite talking about the surfing injury of my husband, who happens to be watching tonight, which is why I popped that in, I would just like to commend the bill to the House and to thank the Minister for his good work in this area. Thank you.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I begin my call, I’d like to say to the member Angie Warren-Clark that I hope her husband makes a full recovery from the perils of the black sand and enjoys having the story recollected for the nation.

I’ve heard many interesting points made tonight on the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill at its third reading. I was here for its first reading and its second reading and, for members who are familiar with the movie Groundhog Day, you will understand that I could probably recite some of the phrases and scripts that have been repeated endlessly about this particular bill.

In its essence, it exempts the Waikato District Health Board from this year’s triennial general election, but instead allows them to have their election in the 2022 triennial general election. That’s it, in a nutshell. There are a number of permutations that have been alluded to by others. The Minister’s was my particular favourite. He thanked everybody who ever had anything to do with the bill and their parents and their sisters, and it was marvellous. It was a long roll call and I think everybody has been thanked.

Everything has been said that needs to be said. I will not add to this filibustering business. I will instead commend this bill to the House, because I think—perhaps with the exception of the Chamber’s least predictable voter, the member for Epsom—this bill does enjoy unanimous support from the House. So let us delay no longer. Let’s go with the bill, the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill, at its third reading. I commend it to the House.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wonder why the National Party aren’t too keen to speak on this bill. They are framing it as if it doesn’t need to have anything else said. But I wonder if there’s another reason. I wonder if it’s because the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) and the problems that this bill is attempting to fix by delaying this year’s elections through to 2023 and giving the commissioner time to fix the mess—I wonder if the reason they don’t want to speak is because this mess happened under their watch. I suspect that is the exact reason why they do not want to speak on this; why we saw a Hamilton-based MP and Tim Macindoe stand up for a couple of minutes and want to speak about absolutely everything except what was in this bill.

This bill is trying to address a problem that has been a long time coming. Under the previous nine years, under the National Government, $2.3 billion was stripped from the health service in this country. Is it any wonder that this bill is required, that this bill has to come into place and extend the local body elections for the Waikato DHB because that DHB was in such a mess? There were accusations of fraud that occurred under that watch. There was bad management and bad decisions being made for a long, long time that should have been fixed under the leadership of the chair appointed by the previous National Government. But was it? No.

Here we are today with the Minister of Health, who was forced to make a decision only earlier this year to bring in a commissioner to look after the Waikato DHB. That is why I believe that the National Party are accusing us of filibustering and not speaking on it themselves. It is because they do not want to speak on this. They do not want to dwell on the reasons why this bill is necessary.

I want to acknowledge those that did their utmost to try and save the situation they found themselves in: Sally Webb and Derek Wright came in at the last minute and tried to save an unsaveable situation, and I think they need to be acknowledged. They did their best, but by the time that they came in, the situation at the Waikato DHB was too far gone.

Greg O’Connor: Terminal.

KIERAN McANULTY: This situation, as my friend and colleague Greg O’Connor just interjected, was terminal, and there was only one diagnosis there, only one thing that could fix it, and that was imposing a commissioner on the Waikato DHB.

Now, I do agree with the other side of the House that nobody actually wants to see a situation arise that requires a bill of this ilk, but we are here. We are here and the writing has been on the wall for some time when you have independent research that indicates that if Waikato DHB received the funding that they needed to keep the services up that they had 10 years ago, then we would have avoided the situation that this bill seeks to address. It was bad management, it was neglect, and it was totally avoidable.

That is why we have to put in a commissioner, it is why we need to extend the commissioner’s reign until 2023, and it is why we have to introduce legislation to do the extreme measure of extending out local body elections. That has happened before under the previous Government, and they had the support of the House, because in that instance it wasn’t a case of people being appointed by the Government of the day to oversee decisions that are being made; it was a case of coming in and having to save a situation that was not of the Government’s making, but drastic measures had to be made.

That is why we have seen accusations against the Green Party that were unfounded. That is why they have come in to support this bill, because they realise that it is not the people of Waikato that have to suffer—it is not their fault; it is the fault of negligence. It is the fault of underfunding, and it is the fault of decisions that should never have been allowed to be made that were made, and that is why we’re in the situation that we’re in. They were asleep at the wheel. It was bad decisions and here we are, having to fix up yet another mess.

So I have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in commending this bill to the House and congratulating the Minister of Health for making the tough decisions. I feel sorry for him. He spent so much time, in only 18 months, having to clean up the mess that he’s inherited.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This bill is a sensible bill, and unlike the previous speaker, Kieran McAnulty, National is very happy to talk about its sense. National will support it because there are significant issues within the Waikato District Health Board (DHB). The reason for this is that National prides itself on making responsible and evidence-based decisions. We’re supporting the Government in this tough decision because it’s the right thing to do. And I just note that this is totally opposite behaviour to the hysterical political behaviour of Labour and the Greens when the National Government had to make a similar decision about Environment Canterbury, in Canterbury.

However, I’d like to make the point that the Waikato is not alone in having a deficit, and I urge the Minister and the Government to step up and support DHBs across the country so that they can perform successfully to deliver the healthcare that New Zealanders want, need, and must have, going forward.

We all know that organisations are only able to perform well when they can measure their performance. If you can’t measure your performance, you can’t manage your performance. So with the Minister dumping the DHB health targets, there are now no measures, so that deficit blowout can be expected. What we’re seeing now is that blowout is looking at about being $500 million across the country, and that is a disaster for New Zealanders. It’s a disaster for their health needs, and I am really concerned about the suffering that we might see because these DHBs are not performing the way they should be.

So as I commend this bill to the House, I also want to highlight the need for effective performance measurements and targets so that the DHBs have a chance to deliver good outcomes for New Zealanders and keep their deficits under control. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill, as the final speaker in the third reading tonight. To understand the present, we must look back and we also must look forward, and if we look back—ha, ha! Does that mean anything, then? So, Madam Speaker—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To debate the bill, we debate what’s in front of us.

JAMIE STRANGE: That’s right—that’s right. So if we have a look in terms of where we are at the moment, we have had nine years of under-investment. That’s been well canvassed tonight. We’ve heard it from the public. Education and health have been struggling, and we got to the point where the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) were running a deficit. They were forecast to run further deficits.

I’d like to commend the Minister the Hon David Clark for having the courage to have those conversations with the board and to have those frank and open conversations around how we move forward. The board was certainly very responsive to the Minister, and the board told the Minister almost unanimously, “We recognise there’s challenges. We’re doing our best. We need support.” At that point, the Minister made the decision to put a commissioner in.

Now, if we have a look at a little bit of the history here, we had a chair, Bob Simcock, and a chief executive officer, Nigel Murray. There were challenges under that reign. They’ve been well canvassed in the media; I won’t talk about those, but there were some challenges. We had Sally Webb come in as the chair, who by all reports did an absolutely fantastic job. I met with Sally on a number of occasions. She was chair of the Waikato DHB and the Bay of Plenty Lakes DHB at the same time, so she certainly didn’t just have the Bay of Plenty DHB. She certainly brought a lot of experience to the table. We had the CEO, Derek Wright, at the time, and I also met with Derek Wright a number of times as an MP based in Hamilton. Now, those two did provide strong leadership for the DHB. They were well received by staff. In fact, I spoke to a number of staff members who regularly commented on Derek Wright’s people skills, his ability to engage, his ability to lead. So we had two excellent leaders in charge there.

We also had people on the board like Margaret Wilson and Martin Gallagher—both former members of Parliament, both with a lot of experience; very solid people. But they realised that things had got to such a point primarily because underfunding just caught up, basically. There’s been large population growth in the Waikato region—lots of people wanting to come and live there.

Kieran McAnulty: Why?

JAMIE STRANGE: Another member asked why.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, we’re not going to go into that.

JAMIE STRANGE: We won’t go into that—no, no. Needless to say it is a wonderful region to live in, a region I’m very proud of, and a region that’s growing very quickly.

So that put pressures on the DHB. It put pressures on the resource—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Nice save.

JAMIE STRANGE: —and it, effectively, put pressures on the bottom line. And eventually we got to the point where, after conversations with the Minister, the majority of the board members resigned and a commissioner was appointed, Dr Karen Poutasi. And I’d also like to echo the full confidence in her and the CEO she’s appointed, Dr Kevin Snee, who I haven’t met but I will certainly meet over the course of time, and he comes with a lot of experience.

So what this bill does, as has been canvassed tonight, is that it basically cancels the election which is coming up in a few months’ time. And the reason for that is simple common sense. It has been accepted right across the House: the election’s on 12 October, so a period of sort of three to four to five months is not enough time for the commissioner to bring about the changes that need to happen to bring about that sense of stability. So the decision has been made to postpone that. The election will take place in 2022.

If we have a look at the services that are offered at the hospital, I think it’s very important to make that point, and it certainly does relate to the bill because there is an aspect there where I don’t want people to—particularly those who work in the hospital, I think I’d really like to strongly highlight the excellent work that they do. And while the board and the leadership have been having challenges for a number of years, the staff have been absolutely exemplary.

I’ve also got personal experiences. I won’t go into them, but can I say one thing: two of my children were born in the hospital there, and so the hospital does hold a dear, dear spot in my heart there.

I have visited on a number of occasions and the staff have always been absolutely incredible, and I have seen some of the pressure they’ve been under, particularly in the emergency department: overflowing at times, people sleeping on mattresses in the hallways, and all sorts of challenges under the previous regime. I don’t want to sound too political, but the reality is—but the reality is—the under-investment that took place caught up. That was simply the way it was. It caught up and here we are in this situation, and I’d like to again commend the Minister for the leadership that he has shown.

We’ve heard that there were three submissions to the Health Committee—I’d like to thank the select committee; I’d like to thank the chair and those who worked on that select committee—and those submissions were all around the importance of democracy, which is something we obviously all believe in in this House, hence why the bill says that in 2022 we will return to elections, and that’s the soonest possible time that that can happen, because we also believe in that aspect of democracy.

There’s another point I’d like to pick up on, and that’s the importance of primary care. Health and education—there are constantly strains on those two areas, particularly when there is population growth as in some areas of the country, but that population growth puts pressure particularly on those two areas. And the key is that as this Government deals with and focuses on that primary care and that access to primary care—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m struggling to see the relevance there.

JAMIE STRANGE: —less people will need to go to hospital.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Fewer.

JAMIE STRANGE: Fewer people will need to go to hospital, hence, moving forward, it will take some of the pressure off the hospitals, which is something that we’re certainly looking forward to because the aspect of primary care is very important. The Government have certainly put quite a bit into health: $2.2 billion in the Budget when we were first elected and then a significant amount in the recent Budget, and that is to fund health appropriately.

So, look, I think I’ve canvassed most of the points there. I’d like to thank all of those who have made contributions to this bill—of varying lengths. But I’d like to thank all of those who have spoken on the first, second, and third readings, and I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I move, That the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I am very pleased to see this bill take one step closer to completing its journey through the House. The journey began, of course, with an outbreak of gastroenteritis in Havelock North in August 2016. It’s continued through various Cabinet processes. There are two significant tracks: significant longer-term reforms, which, of course, are still being considered, and a package of more immediate changes to improve the existing Health Act regime for drinking-water safety, and those are the changes that we are considering in this bill. The third reading of this bill, of course, marks an important step on that journey as we, as a Parliament, take seriously our responsibilities to the communities we serve to ensure that they have safe drinking-water.

This bill builds on, strengthens, or otherwise improves several features of the existing framework, and I do want to touch on four of the more important of these. Firstly, the bill removes specific periods that were specified in terms of the gazetting process, and now, instead of many years for a gazetting process, that can be done within a much shorter period of time. Those protections were in place to protect the interests of water suppliers, but, effectively, they were being used as an excuse or a barrier and that meant that water standards haven’t been kept up to date as they should be. Those amendments will allow these standards to be updated and revised more frequently. It is important because we need to maintain robust, evidence-based, water standards.

Overseas jurisdictions have progressed the way in which they do this, and evidence-based standards are a vital yardstick for measuring the quality—and therefore determining the safety—of drinking water. I expect that a variety of mechanisms, including the requirement for the Minister to be satisfied that there’s been adequate consultation and the fact that the standards remain disallowable instruments, will continue to protect water suppliers adequately, so that concern need not arise, and the standards will then, though, be able to be changed in a more timely fashion to ensure we have world’s best practice continuing.

The second point I want to touch on is the way in which water safety plans are—and will continue to be—a critical part of the framework for the safety of drinking water. The bill’s amendments will directly strengthen the provisions relating to water safety plans by ensuring that suppliers comply with the timetable for managing the public health risks associated with their supply. Also sitting with that is the expectation that water suppliers will be expected to manage and control critical points within their ken—and that goes from being what was, effectively, already an implicit expectation to an explicit one.

These changes remain at the centre of a supplier-led approach to water safety that’s risk-based. They’re developed by suppliers and are customised to the unique standards that affect each supply because water supplies do vary around the country in their nature and make-up. The most recent guidelines developed by the ministry were published just a few months ago and they do take water safety back to best practice, and that includes, for example, the importance of a multi-barrier approach to water safety and supply management. Again, this was a characteristic of water-supply management prioritised by the Havelock North inquiry, and members will recall that that inquiry made 51 very specific recommendations for the Government to take into consideration and respond to.

Thirdly, the Health Act 1956 provides the defence where a water supplier has taken, quote, “all practicable steps” to prevent the commission of certain offences. Section 69H of the Act provides a definition of “all practicable steps”, and in that there are six components, and two of those are raised above the others, prioritised. They are given precedence—availability and affordability—over the other four, and amongst the other four is the nature and severity of harm. So I think members of this House can see that having the nature and severity of harm ranked below availability and affordability may have led to perverse outcomes at times.

I want to particularly thank the Health Committee, actually, for its work on this. It was the Health Committee that suggested that this definition be rebalanced so that all six components of the definition of “all practicable steps” be given equal weight. That is in the spirit of what we are trying to do with this bill, so I want to thank the Health Committee for that contribution.

The fourth thing that I want to acknowledge is the work of the Health Committee in progressing two other—what could be taken to be apparently minor, but I think are still significant—changes to the bill, and that is with clauses 6A and 7A, which remove the qualifier “all practicable steps” from two substantive duties in the Act. The effect is that it clarifies that suppliers must ensure they provide an adequate supply of drinking water to each connection and they must comply with the drinking-water standards. Those changes, basically, set a clear expectation of the threshold regarding two of the most fundamental obligations of water suppliers. As previously noted, that defence is available to suppliers under section 69ZZS, and that will remain unchanged, but what’s different is that “all practicable steps” can’t be taken as a defence prior to a prosecution. So, effectively, it can still be used as a defence, but only once a supplier is being prosecuted. So while their legal rights haven’t been diminished, the headline duty is much clearer, and people can’t hide behind that particular way of doing things.

So in total, these and the other amendments in the bill, and a range of other actions taken by the Ministry of Health, district health board public health officers, and water suppliers, will significantly enhance the effectiveness of the current framework for drinking-water safety. I alluded at the outset, of course, to the other work that is being progressed by the Government over a longer time frame and in a considered fashion as we look to ensure that we have a modern, up-to-date drinking-water regime in place. The regime we have now was world’s best practice when it was introduced by the previous Labour Government, and, of course, time has passed, other jurisdictions have upgraded the way they do these things, and New Zealand has lagged behind. I think that’s what the Havelock North inquiry exposed, because even in Havelock North, the water supply that did poison people was deemed to have met the standard when it was measured in the period before the outbreak.

So I think one of the things we can see is that more are achieving those standards over time, and while there is a long way to go, I think for some populations receiving drinking water, it’s so encouraging to see places like Lower Hutt, places like Mosgiel, instituting safer drinking-water for their citizenry, and also Christchurch and Napier taking temporary chlorination until they have approved water safety plans in place to ensure that they are making sure that the water is safe for their citizenry until they have more comprehensive plans in place.

So, finally, can I say that this Government is determined to learn and apply some of the hard lessons from that Havelock North outbreak, an important part of which are the reforms to the Act contained in this bill. With its passing, members of the House will be helping to deliver the safe and healthy drinking-water that all New Zealanders expect and deserve. I do want to thank members across the House for their support and for the constructive way in which they’ve engaged on this matter. I think we all recognise that the system has fallen short. We all know, or those of us that have read the Havelock North inquiry report, that it contains an appendix detailing 50 newspaper stories that came out on various poor water across the country in the time between the Havelock North events and the publication of the report. I think many of us as a nation hadn’t yet joined the dots to the fact that there’s actually something systemically been going wrong in our water supplies. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders every year should not be getting ill from preventable water-borne illness, and as a Government we are determined to ensure that into the future we have safe drinking-water. I want to thank members who’ve supported these measures going through the House across the House, because as a Parliament we can work constructively to ensure the health and safety of our citizenry. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to commend the Minister for his thoroughness, if not his succinctness. With 35 minutes to go before the end of the night, I think if we can be as crisp as I intend to be in my intervention on the third reading, we may well get this bill through into law. Because, actually, I think we owe it to the 5,000 people who were affected by the contamination in Havelock North, the more than four dozen people who were admitted to hospital as a consequence of that, and the families of at least three people whose lives were believed to have been curtailed as a consequence of their exposure to the contaminants.

This was an extremely serious issue, and I commend the Government in moving on this. I support the Minister’s enthusiasm for the second phase of this to be brought forward, and I and my colleague the Hon Jacqui Dean, our spokesperson for local government, will be watching very closely for the Minister of Local Government’s work in the substantive body of the changes to give effect to the recommendations of the Havelock North inquiry. But now with 34 minutes to go, I want to commend the Government, and I’ll commend the bill. I support it.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Health): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to debate the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. I’d like to first of all congratulate and thank the Minister of Health, the Hon David Clark, for his leadership and his work on ensuring that we address this legislation and ensure that it gets passed through the House. I’d also like to commend members of the Opposition for working collaboratively with us to ensure that this is a bill that goes through the House. I’d also like to thank the Health Committee for all of the work that they did, as well as the submitters that came through with submissions.

As you’ve heard, Madam Speaker, addressed by both the Minister of Health and the former Minister of Health, the reason why we’re debating this bill is because of Havelock North. In August of 2016, we know from the inquiry report that at least 5,500 people fell ill because of the water that they drink. These are people that live—and I’m told the total population around the area is about 14,000 people. But we know from the inquiry that this was a systematic way, and you don’t expect that when you turn on the water, that when you drink from the tap, whether you’re a child or whether you’re an elderly person, you would then fall ill just from doing something that you do every day—drinking water from the tap.

The bottom line of what this legislation addresses is public safety. People expect that when they drink water from the tap, it is indeed safe, and this is a reasonable expectation that each New Zealander should have. We do not want to see this many people fall ill just from drinking tap water. We most certainly do not want to see at least three people from the inquiry report who died because of the water that they drank, and we know that there’s possibly a fourth life, as well, that was lost because of this water. We know also from the inquiry that 45 people were hospitalised. Now, in reading some of the report, we know that especially those who were seniors, especially those who were frail, and our very, very young kids—some of them were in hospital for many, many days. This is not something that we should continue to see across—but one of the things that was quite shocking to me, reading some of the report, is that I would have expected that after Havelock North in August 2016, you would have seen improvements in the water quality. But what the report actually told us is that we didn’t see major improvements. In fact, what they saw was that we need to do so much more, which is why we need this particular legislation to go through.

One of the things that also comes to mind, and this is from one of the GPs at Havelock North, was when he’s quoted as saying that the day that people started to be admitted, not only to his clinic but to hospital, was one of the worst days of his life as a doctor, because he did not expect to see that many people, especially young people, coming through only because of the water quality. But the reality is that we need to ensure that our water is indeed safe. What the report also found is that our local councils should have actually had much more in terms of ensuring that the water quality is monitored so much better. There are a lot of failings that this legislation will absolutely address.

New Zealanders expect safe drinking-water. This bill is an important step towards ensuring that we have ongoing improvements and have a framework to ensure that our drinking water is safe right throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. I’d like to again thank each and every member who sent through a submission to this bill, but I also would like to send my condolences to all the families who were affected in Havelock North. The majority of the submitters that came through to the Health Committee were really, really supportive of what is proposed by this bill, and it is indeed heartening to see that all of us around this House, when there is something as important as ensuring that our water is safe, when there is something as important as ensuring that people’s lives are saved, we can actually work together and agree on moving forward in an efficient way.

As the Minister of Health addressed, one of the things that this legislation allows is when we need to address the safety of our water, we don’t necessarily have to put through and wait for three years, and then another two years to Gazette the notice—that when the standard of water quality needs to be improved, it can go through in a much more efficient way. There was also very clear support from a lot of our submitters to clause 4, which deletes the unnecessary references to operators of ports, as well as airports.

One of the things also that came out of the inquiry is the fact that so much of the water quality around Havelock North and around other parts in Aotearoa New Zealand—we have water bores that are so close to sewerage areas. One of the things I recall reading was from one of the water scientists that gave testimony during the Havelock North inquiry, and this is what he had to say—and I quote—“I have to say, I’ve never seen drinking water bores that close to sewerage assets before, even in developing countries […] I have seen them sometimes relatively close […] but actual live pressured sewerage assets literally on the same pad, I’ve never seen that before.” This is something that we as a country need to address and ensure that our water quality is safe, and that when there are water bores that are so close to sewerage areas, we have a framework in place to ensure that the water they sell that comes out of those is indeed safe to drink.

The final inquiry’s report also found that there was a lot of complacency at all different levels. This is also something that this particular bill is going to address moving forward, because we must ensure that we have a systematic way of ensuring that our water quality is indeed safe for all of us in this country. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to this, the third reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. As others have spoken and commented before this, this was precipitated by the Havelock North inquiry of 2016. I’ve broken the responses to that inquiry down into three: a short-term, medium-term, and long-term response.

The short-term response to the Havelock North inquiry was to remind all providers of their obligations under the Act. So it was a reminder for the existing legislation that these were the standards that were required to be met, and that gave a little bit of time for the medium-term response, which I’ll talk to here in a moment, to follow along. That response, that medium-term response, is what we’re doing here now. This is the legislation which tidies up pieces of the Act, enabling it and making it, basically, more effective.

I think the longer-term response is kind of interesting, because that’s what’s not being covered by this bill, and what’s been indicated to us by officials is there’s work still to progress. That includes the process of disinfection, potentially disinfection, of water supplies, and the definition of various parts of water—potable, non-potable as well. So there’s still an ongoing water response from the Havelock North inquiry.

Before I came down to the House, I went to my local district health board (DHB), had a look at their drinking-water assessment unit and matched it to some of the parts of this bill that we’ve been working on, and looked at their water safety plan and their information on drinking water and household and roof supplies. I was very pleased to see the Northland DHB water safety plan was very complete, very detailed, and really structured. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have water-borne outbreaks in Northland—other regions do as well—but I was really pleased to see the advice that was there on the Northland DHB website and how neatly and tidily it mapped to what we’re talking about here tonight.

I think, really, that’s mostly what I wanted to contribute to this part of the bill. I want to acknowledge the Health Committee and the submitters. We had an excellent range of submitters, including local government, district health boards, and plumbers. We had International Accreditation New Zealand, and we had iwi submit as well, so I want to thank them also, and I commend this bill forward.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is a very important bill that I think we would like to see passed tonight, so I commend this bill to the House.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, that was a bit of a jump there coming from the member for Rangiora. I didn’t realise you were so out of tune with the speaking order, but never mind. I just will rise to make a short call. I think pretty much everything about this bill that needs to be said has been said. I think, suffice to say, from New Zealand First’s perspective, we’re supporting the bill through the third reading. We look forward to seeing it finally passing, recognising that this is one of a tranche of pieces of legislation that will come before the House dealing with the issue of water—of course, water safety being top of the order in terms of priority, because it affects the public health, particularly on the back of what we saw at Havelock North; it made it imperative that this piece of legislation progress quickly.

I think it’s very good, it’s very pleasing, to note that all the parties throughout the House have worked so collaboratively and so cooperatively to ensure that the bill is progressed in a very expeditious manner, actually. I think everyone’s very mindful of the fact that a large number of people were made ill in Havelock North—there were deaths, unfortunately. The public of New Zealand have a right to expect that the water that’s provided by their territorial authority is safe and it is potable and it is fit to be served up to their children—be it in glasses of water or be it water that they bathe in, because we know how toddlers put things into their mouth, and the water that they run in their bath needs to be safe.

I think there is a salient message, though, that has come through in all of the debate, and that was quite evident in the first reading, second reading, and the committee stage, and that is that one does have to be careful when one sets standards that the standards are achievable and are affordable. I think most of us know—those of us in particular who have been in local government—two things, actually. We know that in some areas of provincial New Zealand—not that some people who live in metropolitan New Zealand would realise it—upwards of 45 percent of the local population can be on their own water supply. My partner Christine and I are on our own water supply. It behoves each and every one of us to be very mindful of the quality of the water that we’re serving up to our children, whether that be our own private water supply or from the territorial authority. Of course, when the territorial authority gets it wrong, the consequences are so much greater. If we get it wrong at home, as happened to us—well, we didn’t get it wrong. We just started drinking the water we had once we bought the home. Unfortunately, my current partner Christine went down with crypto—I can’t even say the word—cryptosporidiosis and was very, very ill. So we learnt a lesson from that, and we improved the filtration system and included 21 micron filters and UV.

Councils like the council that I came from—

Hon Maggie Barry: We heard this story last time.

Hon RON MARK: Sorry?

Hon Maggie Barry: We heard this story last time.

Hon RON MARK: I know, and I’ve got to repeat it. I think it’s worth it, the Hon Maggie Barry. Some of us—like the Hon Maggie Barry and I—are aware that you can drive for high-quality water standards and the cost is exponentially going to increase. So there is a level of pragmatism that I would expect those who are setting these standards going forward will adopt so that we are not foisting unreasonable and unrealistic costs upon ratepayers. Something that this House is very good at doing is passing legislation that has a consequence for ratepayers, and then some people sometimes even then criticise local government councillors for increasing rates, which is very, very unfair, given the costs initiated are very often generated from this House.

I think the other issue which this bill deals with quite nicely is the question around consultation. Arguably, local governments are far more connected to their communities than central government is. Arguably, the reaction when local government gets it wrong is very quick. Arguably, you could say that there is less need for some of the very restrictive and prescriptive consultative processes that were in place prior to this piece of legislation—well, they still are in place right now, and they will be removed once this bill gets signed off by the Governor-General. But I think that in itself—sharpening, refining, eliminating some of the consultative processes, and making it more streamlined—will be very helpful indeed, bearing in mind that the legislation we’re amending was first drafted back in the 1950s, I think, if I remember correctly, which probably in itself suggested a rewrite, a rethink, was long overdue.

On behalf of New Zealand First, I recommend the bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a reminder to the House that the Speaker’s obliged to take the call from whoever’s standing.

Hon Ron Mark: I was standing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Right, but you weren’t standing and calling. So whilst we may have agreed to lists and things, the Speaker is obliged to take the person who is standing and going for the call. So be quick.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: It can be hard to tell when that member is standing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh that’s cruel. No, that is cruel. I can tell when he’s standing, because he’s close.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, I’ll cut straight to the chase. The Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill at its third reading is every bit as good as it was at its second reading and its first reading. The points remain the same. The bill is one we all support and I commend it the House.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the third and final reading of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. I think anybody that works in a hospital or A & E knows just how common gastroenteritis can be in the community. But when, like many of us, you’ve actually had gastro, you start to think back about the things you’ve eaten, but you never actually stop and think about the water that comes out of your tap, and I think that’s because so many of us rely on the safety of the water as provided by our drinking-water suppliers. So this is why I think Havelock North was such a big issue, because in 2016 we had an outbreak of campylobacter in Havelock North, and of a town of 14,000 residents, about 5,500 people got sick. Around 45 people were subsequently admitted to hospital, and it’s thought that this outbreak may have contributed to four deaths. So this was an incredibly significant occurrence in our country.

So what the Government of the day did is that they established an inquiry looking at things in two stages. The first one looked at what the direct causes of this outbreak were, and also those that were responsible for providing the drinking water. But then the second part of that inquiry looked at that wider regulatory context, and also how we could make sure that this never happened again. So what this bill does is it puts in place some urgent changes to Part 2A of the Health Act in response to the health inquiry’s recommendations. But these are more early changes, because more substantive changes are going to follow as a result of the work on the wider Three Waters Review. I think drinking water is also tied in and interrelated with how we manage our waste and our stormwater system as well.

So what we’re going to do, just in this bill, is focus on some of those issues around the timeliness of how we can improve our drinking-water standards, but also look at some issues around implementation and compliance. So one of the main changes that this bill does is it looks at the timeliness of changes to drinking-water standards, because, under the current legislation, the Minister isn’t able to issue any new standards or amend standards unless they’re satisfied that consultation’s been carried out over a period of at least three years. Three years is an incredibly long amount of time when you’re wanting to put in place some urgent changes or we’ve got emerging technology. So what this bill does is it removes the reference to three years from the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act, but it doesn’t remove that obligation to consult.

The other thing that was meaning that it was taking an incredibly long time to change the standards was that the standards couldn’t come into force until at least two years after the date of publication in a relevant Gazette notice. So what this amendment does is it says that, OK, now it’s only 28 days after that publication—a Gazette notice—before they can come into force, and it makes it a lot easier and a lot faster to be able to bring through those changes that are needed. It also just, in some other minor changes, updates the way in which notices are published, because, previously, notices had to be published in daily newspapers in each of the cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. I know certainly for us in Invercargill, we don’t really read the dailies much of those other cities’ papers; we would read the Southland Times, sometimes the Otago Daily Times. But the point is that these changes mean that the Minister can put something in the newspapers of the area likely to be affected, the newspapers circulating there, as well as putting the information on a public space on the internet, so people can actually readily access any notices. So it just brings it up to date, which is incredibly important.

But I think the thing is that for those people that are worried that what this means will be that suppliers don’t have enough time to get ready for the changes that are made, basically, it doesn’t take away the duty that the Minister has to have to consult in terms of making sure that all those affected are taken into consideration. These standards are still disallowable instruments, which means that the Regulations Review Committee can recommend that they be disallowed if it’s thought that that needs to happen. So I think what these changes do is that they balance the need to be able to make those changes in a timely manner, but it also means that the adequate consultation can occur.

There’s a few other changes that this bill does, just in terms of repealing references to designated ports and airports, and what that does is it removes some unnecessary compliance costs for some of those ports and airports, and also clarifies that water suppliers have to implement their water safety plan in accordance with the timetable set out in the plan, so they need to actually get on and do it as specified. It also has some changes around the fact that, basically, only individuals now can be appointed as drinking-water assessors, and not agencies, and it provides for a register of those individuals as well.

But one of the other changes I think’s particularly important is around the changing definitions of “all practicable steps”, because I think the onus, in terms of implementation of these plans, is that it’s important that we consider what “all practicable steps” means, because, under the previous legislation, what they had to give due regard to in particular was affordability and availability in terms of any of those steps, and that actually placed that much higher than considering what some of the risks of harm would be if you didn’t do those steps. So what the change now does is it gets rid of that hierarchy and actually front-loads so that when we’re thinking about all practicable steps, what they’re asked to consider is the nature and severity of the harm that may be suffered if the result is not achieved, and also the current state of knowledge about likelihood of harm that will be suffered. I think it’s really important, when we’re weighing up public safety, that practicable steps takes into account issues around affordability, but it also takes into account the fact that if you don’t do those steps, then there may be some significant risks out there in the community, and those need to be weighed up equally, rather than just reverting to the fact that you’re saying it’s not practicable because it’s not affordable.

So what this bill also introduces are some extra requirements so that if a person is saying, “I can’t put in place that step because it’s not affordable”, they have to actually demonstrate that it’s not affordable; they can’t just say that. So what they have to do is keep a full and complete record of their financial position and make that available so that they can state that this is the issue and here’s the evidence why. So it’s actually a much tougher test in terms of threshold of thinking about weighing up what’s practicable and what’s not, in the context of implementation.

So I think, basically, summing up where this bill’s been—basically, Havelock North, the inquiry, raised significant concerns about the way our drinking-water systems were managed around the country, and that was a lot of issues around compliance and implementation. So while the substantive changes that will come through in due course will need to await some of those reviews, in terms of Three Waters what this does is make some early changes so that if the Minister wants to amend or introduce or change drinking-water standards, they can be done in a very, very timely manner. It also looks at some of those issues around compliance and implementation, and makes sure that there is a greater requirement in terms of those things moving forward.

So it’s a really important bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I’m puzzled by the Opposition’s apparent lack of interest in the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill and their very short comments on the bill, because it is a really significant issue and because the Havelock North incident happened on their watch, even though it was fundamentally the problem of the local district council.

This bill is important because, as the Minister the Hon David Clark has said, this is the legislative groundwork and, really, the first steps in improving the safety of the drinking water in New Zealand. While many speakers have, of course, referred to Havelock North and the 5,000 or more people that were badly affected by gastroenteritis there as a result of sheep faeces getting into the drinking-water supply, this is not a new incident for New Zealand. In fact, the Ministry for the Environment has noted that we have got one of the highest rates of gastroenteritis in the developed world and that water-borne diseases cost our country $25 million annually. Of course, drinking water is one of the key routes by which people are exposed to micro-organisms that cause diseases like campylobacteriosis and gastroenteritis.

So, certainly, the Havelock North event was the largest recorded incident of drinking-water contamination in our country, but it is not isolated. In Queenstown, in 1984, an estimated 3,500 people became ill. A drinking-water source at the Cardrona ski field in July 2006 caused another 120 cases of illness—again, because it was drinking water. There have been significant cases of gastroenteritis in Springston. One of the worst public meetings that I have been at was in 2008, when the Springston community came together because the community medical officer of health for Canterbury had noted that there was an increasing incidence of gastroenteritis and that a lot of the cases were from Springston. When you heard mothers talk about being scared of washing their children in tap water because of the risk of getting sick, that highlighted to me the absolutely critical importance not just for what we drink but for how we use water in the home, and the major concern it can cause communities if they cannot trust what comes out of their tap. In New Zealand, we have tended to take it for granted that what comes out of the tap is safe.

So this bill—and I commend Dr Liz Craig for the very detailed explanation that she gave of the precise changes that it makes—makes it much easier for the standards to be improved more rapidly, because it dates back to about 2008 when the standards were put in place. The ability to amend them to take account of the increased agricultural intensification, which puts drinking-water supplies at risk, is really important. This bill is the first step to safeguarding drinking-water sources in New Zealand and drinking-water supplies. It’s part of a much larger chunk of work that the Government has undertaken—Minister Nanaia Mahuta is leading that with the Three Waters work, with the commitment to putting in place a drinking-water regulator to focus attention on ensuring that drinking-water supplies are of an appropriate standard.

We also need to significantly invest in the infrastructure around drinking water, and also stormwater and waste water, but most importantly, we need to safeguard the sources of drinking-water supplies. The announcements that the Minister for the Environment, the Hon David Parker, made today are a critical part of doing that, because unless the sources of supply are safeguarded, it means councils and communities are subject to very high costs of doing increased water treatment. We have seen that with Auckland’s high water demand and Watercare having to invest in very expensive osmosis plants to ensure that the water that is taken out of the Waikato River is of an appropriate standard for potable use.

Similarly, it is ensuring that regional councils are able to implement the national policy statement and the stronger provisions that there will be in that document through their regional plans to control land uses and safeguard drinking-water sources. So that work that the Hon David Parker is leading in the sustainable land and water space in significantly overhauling the Resource Management Act, rather than just the tinkering that the former Government implemented to make the Act much longer, more complicated, and not as effective as it needs to be—that work, in ensuring that land management protects drinking-water sources, is a critical partner to this work which the Hon David Clark has put through in this bill, because we cannot have it where people have to buy water in bottles to ensure that they have got a safe supply.

People need to be able to rely on what comes out of the tap. We need to have councils maintaining their drinking-water supplies, investing in the infrastructure, and ensuring that water quality is regularly monitored and tested to keep communities safe in order to avoid a repeat of the Havelock North, the Springston, the Queenstown, and the Cardrona incidents, and also other incidents like in Darfield in 2012, when 137 people there became sick because the water supply, again, was contaminated and then was not chlorinated in that incident.

We’ve also seen too many incidents of boil-water notices in smaller communities.

Kieran McAnulty: That’s right—like Martinborough.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: Martinborough in the Wairarapa was one of the most recent. So, again, protecting the source of the supply and preventing it from being contaminated by animals is really important, and, again, that’s where this Government, with its investment in ensuring that there will be stock fenced out of waterways and excluded from waterways and in ensuring much stronger standards for sustainable land and water management, is looking at the bigger picture to ensure that we safeguard those supplies, not just for current generations but also for future generations.

So it’s a big, integrated package. This small bill, by allowing standards to be improved more nimbly, is a part of that, but it is a much wider chunk of work that the Government is engaged with to dramatically improve the security of drinking-water supplies to safeguard and improve water quality throughout Aotearoa and to protect that for present and future generations. So I commend this bill to the House for being a step along that way.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call the Hon Tim Macindoe. This should be a split call.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Yes, that’s fine, Madam Speaker. I will be fairly brief. In fact, I was hoping this bill would be able to be finished tonight for the sake of the people of Havelock North. This is a very important measure, and I think it’s been well debated. I’m very pleased to see that the House has worked well. I particularly commend the Health Committee for the way that they worked, and also the local authorities and others who have managed to bring it to this part.

Havelock North is a town very dear to my heart. I was married there and my parents-in-law have lived there for many, many decades, and still do. So I feel for that community and join with others who have expressed condolences to members of that community who in some cases lost their lives and in many other cases were very, very ill.

As I say, I think this has been well debated. I particularly wish to associate myself with the comments of the Hon Michael Woodhouse earlier in this debate. I think he summed it up very well, and I am delighted to support this measure.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s with great delight that I rise to take a call on the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill because, as they say, water is life. They absolutely say that, and they say that for a reason.

I just want to pick up on the point that our colleague from the Green Party, the Hon Eugenie Sage, made so well, and that’s about safeguarding the sources of our drinking water and just how important that is from a sustainable development point of view.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.