Tuesday, 6 August 2019

TUESDAY, 6 AUGUST 2019

TUESDAY, 6 AUGUST 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

PRAYERS

PRAYERS

SPEAKER: To acknowledge the fact that it’s Cook Islands Language Week, I’ve asked the Hon Poto Williams to recite the prayer today.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Te Atua Mana, te akameitaki atu nei matou iakoe no toou takinga meitaki taau i riringi mai ki runga ia matou. Te akaruke nei matou i to matou tu tangata, te akamaara nei matou i te ariki vaine, e te pure nei matou kia arataki koe i ta matou uriuri anga manako, kia rave matou I ta matou angaanga i roto i teia ngutuare na roto i te pakari, te tuatua tika e te akaaka no te meitaki e te au o to matou basileia Niu Tireni. Amene.

Obituaries

Hon William Robson (Rob) Storey

SPEAKER: I regret to inform the House of the death on 2 August 2019 of the Hon William Robson (Rob) Storey QSO, who represented the Waikato electorate from 1984 to 1996. He was Minister of Transport, Minister of Statistics, and Minister of Lands from 1990 to 1993, and Minister for the Environment from 1991 to 1993. He also was the chairperson of the Transport Committee from 1993 to 1996.

I desire, on behalf of this House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the late former member. I now ask members to stand with me and observe a period of silence as a mark of respect for his memory.

Members stood as a mark of respect.

Motions

Obituaries—Sir Brian Lochore

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice to mark the passing of Sir Brian Lochore.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I move, That this House mourn the passing of Sir Brian Lochore, a member of the Order of New Zealand, a Knight Companion of The New Zealand Order of Merit, and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and acknowledge his enormous contribution to New Zealand rugby and to the wider community.

Sir Brian is one of the most admired figures in New Zealand and world rugby, having achieved fame and respect as a player, captain, and, later, as a coach, manager, and selector. He first became a star lock for Masterton and Wairarapa, and his legacy and commitment to grassroots provincial rugby lives on in the Heartland Championship’s Lochore Cup.

It was in his 68 games for the All Blacks—46 of them as captain—where he cemented his place in international rugby history and folklore. Sir Brian led the All Blacks to a 4-0 home series defeat of the Lions in 1966. Under his leadership the following year, they were undefeated in 24 games on a tour of Great Britain, France, and Canada, including tests against England, Wales, Scotland, and France.

Among his many well-deserved honours was becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to rugby football on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 1970, upon his retirement from the All Blacks. Sir Brian’s involvement in our national game did not end with his playing days. He coached Masterton and Wairarapa Bush before guiding the All Blacks to win the inaugural Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 1987. He was also our campaign manager at the 1995 World Cup and a selector when we won the cup for a second time in 2011.

However, what’s most impressive is how far his reach extended beyond rugby. The many national and community roles he held include former chairman of the Hillary Commission for Sport. He was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to sport and the community on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 1999. Many have commented on how, despite his extraordinary achievements, he remained a very humble man who was proud of his farming and rural upbringing. He was also well known for offering a helping hand to many people and community groups in need both on and off the rugby field. He was, fittingly, appointed to the Order of New Zealand, our country’s highest honour, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the institution of the order, on 6 February 2007. He was the quintessential New Zealand sportsman and he will be dearly missed, and it is fitting that his funeral will be held at his beloved home ground in Masterton on Thursday.

To Sir Brian’s family—especially to Pam—his friends, his community, we acknowledge your loss and we celebrate the life of a great, great man.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): On Saturday, New Zealand lost one of our most highly respected sporting legends. It was Brian Lochore, who was a valued former All Blacks captain and number eight who played 25 tests in number and another 43 games for a national side, captaining the side in 46 matches of those 68 matches in total, and leading the way through a golden period of All Blacks rugby I know many New Zealanders and their families will have fond memories of watching Sir Brian play and do us proud on the international sporting stage.

On the field he was known for his strategic mind, maintaining combinations throughout competitions. He had the respect of his teammates and was a tremendous motivator. He was a tough man but he was also very fair. He demanded the best from himself and expected others to follow. His proud service to rugby of course, as the Prime Minister has just said, wasn’t limited to the field. After coaching his beloved Wairarapa Bush as they quickly climbed up to the first division within the space of a couple of years of him taking over the reins, he became an All Blacks selector in 1983 and was appointed coach in 1985, guiding his team through one of the most tumultuous periods in the game’s history in New Zealand during his three years in charge but culminating in Rugby World Cup triumph in the inaugural 1987 tournament. In 1995, he was appointed as the squad’s captain and campaign manager for the World Cup in South Africa, and later worked as an adviser at the 2007 tournament in France.

As the Prime Minister has noted, his service to our country was recognised in both the knighthood and in 2007 he rightly received our highest honour, the Order of New Zealand. On Saturday, Sir Brian lost his battle with cancer. Losing a great New Zealander like this reminds us that rugby is more than just a game; it’s part of our values and identity as a nation. Sir Brian forged that link between rugby and this nation in so many ways, be it in his work at the grassroots of rugby, his lasting support and contribution to organisations such as the land conservation group, the Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust, and for his decades of dedicated service in Wairarapa and Masterton. A loss such as this should bring us together to celebrate Sir Brian Lochore’s legacy and be thankful we live in a country that produces such world-class athletes and inspirational legends such as him.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koutou. I am so proud and honoured to be able to stand up and mihi to Sir Brian Lochore and all of his family and all of the communities and people whose lives he has touched through being one of the greatest players to wear the All Black jersey. I was asking my whānau this morning about particular memories, as a rugby-mad family, that they had of Sir Brian, and my brother reminded me about the first 1987 Rugby World Cup—I think it was hosted by Australia and New Zealand—and then I remembered watching that team. That was when I fell in love with our All Blacks team right back then, and to remember that it was under Sir Brian’s leadership, it is a pleasure to be able to speak on this today.

I wanted to spend some time acknowledging him as a kaitiaki, as a conservation leader, going back to his Wairarapa farm; I was really so pleased to look at some of the quotes that he used to have around making sure that the way that he was doing farming was going to protect land in perpetuity for biodiversity.

There was a quote here where he mentioned that he wanted to get in touch with people. He said “push them my way when you hear about [farmers] if they’re a bit reluctant to yield up that half acre of Kahikatea”, and he was able to lead and hold discussions on a leading way of being able to farm land, soil, and water to protect our conservation heritage and hold dear everything that New Zealanders are proud of. So I wanted to make sure we acknowledged him not just for his being a rugby great and a giant in rugby but a giant in conservation and a giant in being a kind man that people remember fondly.

I leave with acknowledging Pam, their children, and also his eight grandchildren, because I know how special the bond is for mokopuna and grandparents. Kia ora.

Motion agreed to.

Speaker’s Rulings

Oral Questions—Official Information Act

SPEAKER: Members, last week during oral questions, reference was made to an opinion of the Chief Ombudsman on grounds for withholding official information. I want to take this opportunity to remind members that the Official Information Act 1982 does not apply in the House and questions to Ministers should not be treated as requests under that Act. The House has established its own rules for replies to questions and its entitlement to information exceeds that under the Act: Speakers’ rulings 142/1 and 177/6. Ministers are required to give an answer to a parliamentary question if it can be done consistently with the public interest—Standing Order 386(1). It is solely for Ministers to determine the public interest when answering a question—Speakers’ ruling 196/5.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Justice

1. JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany) to the Minister of Justice: What is the latest date he can receive recommendations from the Justice Committee on foreign interference, that he asked it to look at as part of its 2017 general election inquiry, in order for him to introduce any necessary legislation in time for the next general election, and does he intend to do so if the Government adopts any recommendations from the inquiry?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Mr Speaker, kia orana. For the Electoral Commission to implement changes before the 2020 general election, legislation is required to be passed by Parliament by early next year. The Justice Committee has been significantly delayed in producing its report on the 2017 general election inquiry, in part due to its consideration of the End of Life Choice Bill and other work, and, as such, I have progressed an Electoral Amendment Bill, which makes minor administrative changes which will make it easier to vote. If the committee has recommendations to the Electoral Act that deal with foreign interference and donations, then they will need to work smartly in order for them to be implemented for the 2020 general election. In my meetings in London last week, it was clear that Governments around the world are concerned about interference in electoral and parliamentary processes, and, as such, if members are equally concerned about this issue, I would certainly be happy to work with them to implement any changes necessary before the 2020 general election.

Jami-Lee Ross: When he identified an example of foreign interference in April, overseas donations that were “disaggregated and routed through different mechanisms”, was he referring to overseas persons routing overseas donations through New Zealand companies, and, if so, will he take steps to protect New Zealand from that practice before the next election?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The reference I made in answer to a question at that time was in relation to a perceived risk or threat that that could be happening, and that had been the subject of public debate, I think, as recently as last year. In my conversations with members in this House, including at least one member opposite, there has been an expressed concern by members about the need to make sure we have a robust electoral donations regime provided for under the Electoral Act, and that’s why I’m looking to the Justice Committee to make sure that through their examination and inquiry into the 2017 general election, we get good advice and, hopefully, any recommendations on a more robust regime for electoral donations.

Jami-Lee Ross: Given a parliamentary majority exists to ban foreign donations, and the Justice Committee’s inquiry has been delayed, will he consider supporting a motion that would instruct the Justice Committee to consider electoral donation law as part of the committee’s consideration of the Electoral Amendment Bill, intended to be referred to the committee later today?

SPEAKER: I’m going to ask the member to restate his question without the preface, which contains an assertion. So ask the question without the assertion.

Jami-Lee Ross: Given he said the Justice Committee has been delayed in its consideration, will he consider supporting a motion to the Justice Committee instructing it to consider electoral donation law as part of its consideration of the Electoral Amendment Bill, which is intended to be referred to that committee later today?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I wrote to the Justice Committee in October last year specifically requesting that they consider the issue of political interference in elections and the issue of donations, and so I’m not quite sure what more a motion would add to it. I understand that member’s concerns, and I share his wish to make sure that our electoral law is robust enough to deal with the growing threat of overseas political interference, including through overseas donations. I would simply urge members on the Justice Committee to bring their work to a close—hopefully, expeditiously—and to bring their recommendations back to the House so that we can all consider them.

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, particularly the coalition Government’s economic plan, which is delivering more jobs for New Zealanders and a strong underlying economy in the face of global headwinds, as shown by today’s unemployment figures, with Stats New Zealand reporting that the unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent, I believe—a low that we haven’t seen in roughly a decade—and in the June quarter, wages rose, of course, by 4.4 percent as well.

Hon Simon Bridges: What will the total financial deficits through our district health boards (DHBs) be this financial year?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again—

Hon Amy Adams: Doesn’t know.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —I’m not going to project final deficits—

Hon Amy Adams: Doesn’t know.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —for DHBs—

SPEAKER: Order! Who was that?

Hon Amy Adams: Me.

SPEAKER: Well, the member will just zip it.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: But what I will say, of course, is that we have inherited a health system that has had significant under-investment. No one in this House wants to see, however, DHBs running deficits. We have put in record investment—$2.9 billion in the last Budget, and $1.7 billion in capital investment into health. That is enabling them to make critical investments, of course, in equipment like, for instance, radiation therapy equipment, that hasn’t been replaced in some time over a decade. All of that has been about turning around the state that we found the health system in after a decade of a National Government.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the answer over half a billion dollars?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I’m not going to forecast the final position of our DHBs.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why were the figures only released after Michael Woodhouse asked for them, on Friday afternoon, when her health Minister has had them for over six weeks?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That would be a question for the Minister of Health. But what I am also happy, again, to remind this House of is no one wants to see our health system in dire straits. We’ve had now, roughly, just going on two years to try and turn around what have been projected issues within the health system since 2013, and it is going to take some time to turn that around. We’ve had record investment under this Government, though, into our DHBs in an effort to do that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Was her Government embarrassed by the size of the deficits?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That member may wish to be cautious, given we’re having to deal with things like the National Oracle Solution, which cost more than $100 million over seven years and failed to deliver anticipated benefits. We’ve also had to deal with increasing wages, obviously, within the health workforce. We’ve also had to put more workforce into the health system, and we’ve increased nurses. And we’ve also had to try and deal with the fact that in Auckland, Counties Manukau, there was sewage pouring down the walls, no investment in just the basic pipes, and no investment in even the lifts in some of those areas. It is taking considerable investment. We are committed to turning it around and making sure New Zealanders get the health services that they deserve.

Hon Simon Bridges: Can she confirm these are the largest deficits in the history of DHBs?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, I’m not in a position to do that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister: has she seen this comment? “Its started. Unemployment is up. Is anyone seriously going to debate that this isn’t because of the Ardern Peters [Government] policies?”; and given today’s 3.9 percent announcement, is not the converse true?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is correct. That appears to be a statement from the Leader of the Opposition, which he may wish to correct.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the half-a-billion dollar DHBs’ deficit the reason why the Government can’t afford to fund lifesaving cancer drugs or do a national cancer agency, as the Prime Minister has previous promised?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As we’ve already said, we’ll be announcing our cancer action plan by the end of the month. I do note that it was only four years ago that National wound up Cancer Control New Zealand, which I see they’ve done a U-turn on. Of course, also, Steven Joyce and Bill English panned the idea of a national cancer agency, calling it an unnecessary bureaucracy. I’d say that since we took office, we’ve also increased Pharmac funding and also invested now in replacing half of the radiation therapy equipment in New Zealand, whereas under that Government, they left it up to DHBs, who couldn’t afford it, which meant they weren’t replaced and New Zealanders in the regions did not get the radiation therapy that they needed and deserved.

SPEAKER: All right. Before we have the next supplementary, I’m going to ask the Hon Dr Smith, the Hon Gerry Brownlee, and Kiritapu Allan to have at least quarter of an hour with no further interjections.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter, who said, when releasing sustainability guidelines for DHBs last week, that “The single biggest risk to our health now is our changing climate,”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, globally you’ll see that there has been a significant move by those who work in health forces to raise the fact that climate change is a concern. That’s been accepted globally, so it’s up to the member whether or not he chooses to follow that trend.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree that it is “The single biggest risk to our health now”—a changing climate?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will forgive me for wanting to see the full quote rather than the member’s interpretation of what the Minister has said.

Hon Simon Bridges: Which ranks more highly now as a health risk: climate change or 9,000 people who die a year from cancer?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: National’s under-investment in our health workforce, our health services, and also making sure that we have the basics to ensure that there isn’t regional variation in people’s treatment are also threats to the wellbeing of New Zealanders, and that’s something we’re working very hard to reverse.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with Minister Genter that hospitals shouldn’t serve as much meat and dairy to patients in order to reduce their carbon footprint?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I’m going to want to look at the Minister’s statements directly rather than the member’s interpretation of them.

Question No. 3—Finance

3. Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Just this morning, Statistics New Zealand reported that the unemployment rate fell to an 11-year low of 3.9 percent in the June quarter. This is down from 4.2 percent in March, is below the 4.7 percent rate that the coalition Government inherited, and is well below the OECD average of 5.2 percent. Statistics New Zealand also reported today that the number of employed people rose by more than 21,000 in the June quarter. All of this shows the coalition Government’s economic plan is delivering more jobs for New Zealand and shows a strong underlying economy in the face of global headwinds.

Dr Duncan Webb: What did the data released today say about wages?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Statistics New Zealand today reported that the average ordinary-time hourly earnings rose 4.4 percent in the year to June to $32.37. This was the biggest increase since 2009, or, as the Stuff headline says, the biggest pay rise for New Zealanders in 10 years. Statistics New Zealand notes that Government policies like the minimum wage increase for our lowest-paid workers helped boost wages alongside the pay settlements between the Government and workers, such as with nurses. The Government’s economic plan focuses on making sure that everyone shares in our economic success, and today’s figures show that we are delivering a more inclusive economy that raises the living standards of all New Zealanders.

Dr Duncan Webb: What did today’s data say about unemployment for young people and Māori?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We’re continuing to make good progress on Māori unemployment and in getting our young people into work and training. Today’s report showed the Māori unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent in June, down from 9.4 percent last year, the lowest rate since June 2008. Today’s report also showed the NEET rate for 15- to 24-year-olds not in employment, education, or training also fell to 10.3 percent from 13.1 percent. I would like to particularly acknowledge the Minister of Employment, the Hon Willie Jackson, for his drive and management of schemes such as Mana in Mahi and He Poutama Rangatahi. This Government will not be complacent, particularly with a volatile global economic situation, but we are making good progress.

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: In light of those answers, how does he reconcile the news that wages are up and unemployment is down with assertions from certain commentators that this Government’s approach to collective bargaining and increasing the minimum wage would result in fewer jobs and workers losing their incomes?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Taking some real care not to make this out of order.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would never do that, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s deviating from veracity with a—

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha, ha! What I would say is that in the time I’ve been in this Parliament, I’ve heard many people say that a lift in the minimum wage would somehow or other see a reduction in employment, and the figures today tell the opposite story. We are seeing wages rise, we are seeing employment rise, and we are seeing unemployment go down. It is a good thing to lift the minimum wage, and I’m proud to be part of a Government that has a plan to do just that.

SPEAKER: Question No. 4, the Hon Paul Goldsmith.

Kieran McAnulty: Here we go.

SPEAKER: Order! Who did that interjection?

Kieran McAnulty: That was me.

SPEAKER: Well, the member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Kieran McAnulty: I withdraw and apologise.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statements, policies, and actions in relation to the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context that they were made, delivered, and taken. I particularly stand by a statement I’ve just made that the coalition Government’s economic plan is delivering jobs and higher wages for New Zealanders, following today’s unemployment reading of 3.9 percent—an 11-year low.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How does he square today’s household labour force survey figures with the 14,000 increase in the number of Kiwis on the jobseeker benefit in the year to June?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That matter was traversed at some length, and at some frustration of the Speaker, in the House last week. What I would say is that it is only the member opposite who could find something negative about today’s news. This is a story of more people in work. This is a story of lower unemployment. This is a story of higher wages. Today’s the day for the member to find the glass half full.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree with the Newsroom columnist today, who said unemployment has fallen “mostly because more people gave up looking for work.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Actually, surprisingly enough, no, I don’t. The people that I would agree with today are those of the likes of the ANZ, who called this solid, the ASB, who said that the results radiate warmth throughout the economy, and the Kiwibank economist who described the results as impressive. I would prefer to take their word on this.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is he already missing Amy Adams’ insightful questions?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Speaker, I have—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Last warning.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why are more Kiwis going on the jobseeker benefit when employers are crying out for workers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said, this was traversed at length in the House last week. As a percentage, the figure remains relatively steady. On this side of the House, we also want to make sure that people, when they do have entitlements, actually get them, because that’s what our system is about. But what the statistics today show is, in those groups that are really hard to reach, like those young people right around the country—Mr Jones’ nephs and others—we are now making some excellent progress. This is a day to celebrate the fact that there are hard-working people all over New Zealand creating jobs and filling jobs. It is not a day for the “Brothers Grimm” over there.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What changes, if any, has he made to his Government’s economic policies in response to the slowdown in economic growth?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: If the member had been paying attention at Budget time, he would’ve seen a lift in operating spending from $2.4 billion per year to $3.8 billion per year. He would’ve seen $10 billion worth of capital expenditure going into building new schools, in hospitals, and improving our roads. On this side of the House, we understand that it is the Government’s role to stimulate the economy in times like this, and, unfortunately, what we’re having to do as part of that is make up for 10 years of under-investment. If the member wants to go back and look at the statistics for investment into infrastructure, for example—capital expenditure—he’ll find times in the 2010s when it barely moved. This Government’s committed to a long-term investment in New Zealand.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: If more infrastructure spending is an option, will he revisit his Government’s decision to stop or delay around a dozen major road projects that, in several cases, were ready to go, in favour of new projects that won’t be ready to go for years?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We know that on this side of the House, we will be investing more in transport infrastructure over the period of this—

Hon Member: When?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We’ve already started, and we are making sure that that transport infrastructure doesn’t go on a handful of highways, but actually goes across the country on improving regional roads, on significantly making safety improvements, and on improving rail. On that side of the House, there were a lot of promises made about those roads, but they were, well and truly, ghost roads.

Question No. 5—Housing

5. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Housing: What recent announcements has she made about the provision of public housing?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. On Friday, I announced that an extra 2,178 public houses have been delivered over the last 12 months. We exceeded our target of 1,600 additional public houses this year by 578. One of this Government’s first actions upon taking office was to stop the sell-off of State houses. This announcement demonstrates how much progress we’ve made since then, with Housing New Zealand building, on average, four new homes a day. I’m proud of the progress we’re making, and happy to inform members that this represents the biggest increase to public housing in 20 years.

Paul Eagle: How did the Government enable the construction and timely delivery of these houses?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Budget 2018 set aside $234 million to fund the delivery of 6,400 public housing places. That means that under this Government, not only have we stopped the sale of State houses but we have also set aside funding in our first Budget to ensure that the construction and completion of the houses I announced last week was progressed as soon as possible. We’re also partnering with registered community housing providers to ensure we can maximise the delivery of public houses. Of the additional 2,178 houses I announced, those providers delivered 955, and I want to thank those providers who are working alongside the Government to tackle one of the most significant challenges facing New Zealand.

Paul Eagle: Why is it important that the Government continues to invest in public housing provision?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Because too many people are still struggling to find secure long-term accommodation that will keep them warm and dry. It’s clear from the public house waiting list that a significant gap in supply has opened up over the last decade, and we simply must do more to ensure we’re getting Kiwis into warm, dry homes. That’s why this Government is committed to continuing to build more public houses over the coming years.

Question No. 6—Health

6. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: On what date did he first read the report he received on 21 June entitled “DHB Sector Financial Performance for the ten month period ended 30 April 2019”?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. I receive a range of advice on district health board (DHB) performance, including regular updates on financial performance. Those briefings clearly demonstrate the consequences of years of deliberate—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. It’s a very direct question, and talking about other stuff before the member has actually addressed the very direct question is out of order.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: In terms of the report the member specifically asks about, I read and signed it out on 1 August, but I was well aware of its contents before that, having discussed the individual circumstances of many DHBs with their chairs directly. I am acutely aware of the challenges that DHBs face in delivering the services that people need—given the history of underfunding, estimated at $2.3 billion by Infometrics research—whilst they at the same time work towards financial sustainability.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Doesn’t he think he should have read that latest document outlining not only the DHBs’ financial performance but the projected full-year financial performance when he had already taken action at Canterbury DHB and Waikato DHB, in part due to their ballooning deficits?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: As I say, I regularly receive reports on the DHBs’ individual circumstances and discuss with the DHB chairs their financial positions. Where we have become concerned that they haven’t mapped out a path to sustainability, we have acted. Over half of the deficits projected belong to just four DHBs, and one of those commissioners was put in place by the previous Government. I have put Crown monitors into the other three. And one of them, where I became concerned that there was no path being mapped out to sustainability, I have moved further and put a commissioner in place. But, first and foremost, I am concerned that New Zealanders get the services they expect and deserve.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does the Ministry of Health only publish financial information on his direction?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Certainly not.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why, then, did the Ministry of Health not publish the information once it had been finalised?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: There is a normal process for ensuring that the data is being checked by the Minister and the Minister’s office, which the Minister is familiar with—in this case, the financial wash-ups and the underlying direction. When I became aware that it hadn’t been signed out, I asked for the documentation and signed it out the very same day.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: So if he directed the ministry to publish the information, is he also saying that he directed the ministry, prior to that, not to publish the information?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Mr Speaker, I’m not sure how that follows.

SPEAKER: I’m just going to—no. It is within the realm of the Minister to say that the assertion’s not correct, because I think there was an assertion in the beginning of the question which was not consistent with the previous answer.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I reject the assertion that the member makes. I am focused firmly on the performance of our DHBs, acknowledging the significant underfunding that they’ve had. The member will probably not be surprised to learn that we’re also dealing with some other problems we inherited, including the previous Government’s failure to pay out properly under the Holidays Act—employees have not been paid properly for a decade, and we are concerned to provision for that; we will see that the final figure will take that into account—and also the failure of oversight with the implementation of an IT system across the sector, and there’ll be a write-off associated with that as well. The underlying deficit, of course, is projected to be closer to $400 million, but we’ll wait to where the final figures get to, just acknowledging that, of course, we are dealing with those three big issues of underfunding, failure to provision to pay properly the employees, and also the failure of oversight with the IT system that was being implemented under the previous Government’s watch.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Minister confirm that district health boards’ annual reports are tabled in the House and available to any member who wants to read them?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I am very happy to confirm that. There is no great conspiracy around this data. It is all made transparent when it’s appropriately finalised.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: When it comes to DHB financial performance, is he completely disinterested or completely disorganised?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No.

SPEAKER: Question No. 8, Angie—sorry, Question No. 7, the Hon Louise Upston. That was a Freudian slip, which might have been appropriate, given the interjection that came.

Question No. 7—Social Development

7. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: How many more children are living in benefit-dependent homes as of June 2019 compared to September 2017?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): As at June 2019, there were 176,630 dependent children of working-age people on main benefit. In September 2017, there were 172,301. The difference is 4,329. I note these figures are publicly available online.

Hon Louise Upston: What percentage of children living in poverty are in benefit-dependent homes?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The most recent statistics that we have on that are around 60 percent. Can I say that with regards to those living-in-benefit numbers, we can gain a sense of positivity by the unemployment rate of 3.9 percent today. Also, there are a number of children that are living in hardship in working households, so the increase of 4.4 percent in wages is also a positive indication of what’s happening in the country at the moment.

Hon Louise Upston: Is she concerned about the increase of more than 4,000 children, now totalling more than 176,000 children, living in benefit-dependent homes since September 2017?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: What I am relieved about is that we’ve got a Government that is responding to the needs of children living in beneficiary households. With the repeal of things like section 192, which punished children living in beneficiary households, we will see increases in those particular households. The 24,000 children living in those households will be better off by about $34 per week because of repealing that section 192.

Hon Louise Upston: Does she acknowledge that children are better off in households where a parent is working?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: With us—with this Government—we want to work with New Zealanders who come through the welfare system to support them into meaningful and sustainable employment. For some, that means working with them to make sure that they can upskill and train towards the jobs that are available. We’re working very hard to do that. I think we see that with the statistics that came out today, with an additional 20,000 New Zealanders in work over the past quarter. It’s all looking very positive, and we will continue to do that work with families who come through the welfare system.

Hon Louise Upston: Why are children worse off under her watch?

SPEAKER: Order! Oh, answer the question.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I reject the premise of that member’s question.

Question No. 8—Health

8. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made about improving cancer care in the regions?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. More good news: on Sunday, I joined the Prime Minister at Wellington Hospital to announce that the Government will fund the replacement of 12 linear accelerators (LINACs) over the next three years. These machines are used to deliver radiation treatment for a range of cancers, including lung, breast, skin, bowel, and brain cancers. Currently, more than a thousand people a year travel from the Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, and Northland so that they can receive this treatment. We know that others choose not to travel, and they’re missing out altogether. We don’t think that’s fair and so, as we replace these LINACs, we will be putting one into each of those regions for the first time ever.

Angie Warren-Clark: Why is improving regional access to radiation treatment important?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: We know that we currently have regional variations in the standard of cancer care. We also know that one in two cancer patients could benefit from radiation treatment, but currently only one in three is accessing these services. There is no question that the cost and convenience of travelling for treatment is a barrier for some people. By putting state-of-the-art LINACs into more regions, we can ensure improved treatment and fairer access to cancer care in the provinces.

Angie Warren-Clark: How will these replacement linear accelerators be funded?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Up until now, district health boards have had to fund the purchase of these vital pieces of equipment themselves. That has forced them to make difficult choices about when to replace their LINACs and has left us with some machines that are up to 16 years old, when they are usually replaced after 10 years. It is just another reflection of the underfunding of health by the previous Government. We are stepping up and we’re stepping in to fund these machines directly from the $1.7 billion we invested in health for capital projects in the Wellbeing Budget, with $25 million set aside for the first five machines in the current financial year.

Question No. 9—Justice

9. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Does he stand by all his actions and statements in respect of electoral and referendum law?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Yes.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the statement by Labour during the last Government that the topic and wording of referendum questions are so important that they should be subject to cross-party discussions as well as a bill—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I’m going to interrupt the member and ask him to go back and—in fact, it’s so far out that I’m going to rule the question out and he can start again with a new supplementary.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the reason Cabinet and not Parliament will determine what referendum questions are held that Cabinet is behind closed doors and secret, whereas Parliament’s processes are open, transparent, and enable full public submissions to be heard?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No. There is full transparency and openness. That member has now spent the best part of the last 10 days under a complete misapprehension about the conventions and rules around referendum setting. So, for example, in the referendum on the flag change process under the previous Government, that question was set by Cabinet, which approved the legislation that went to the select committee. No change was made by the select committee and it was sent back to Parliament. There are two other pieces of legislation that deal with setting referendum questions. The Citizens Initiated Referenda Act provides for the question to be set by the Clerk of the House and the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act of 2000 provides for the referendum question to be set by Cabinet, or at least by Order in Council.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will the Minister commit to the same process Labour demanded of the previous Government on the flag referendum, where there were cross-party discussions on both the topic and the questions and a full parliamentary process?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have already said that the question for the referendum relating to legalisation of cannabis will be a yes/no question. The most substantial part of the question is the draft bill that accompanies it, and I have written to the leader of every party in Parliament inviting them to be part of a cross-party group to determine the content of that legislation. Oddly enough, I have heard public comments from the National Party that they don’t wish to participate in that cross-party group, so I don’t know what they’re complaining about.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the Government arguing that a cross-party group discussion on an issue is a substitute for a bill going before Parliament and a full select committee process; if so, why do we bother having a Parliament?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Sadly, once again, the member is deeply confused. There is a bill that is currently before Parliament, being debated in its first reading, called the Referendums Framework Bill. It will go through all the stages of Parliament, with total scrutiny by the select committee, committee of the whole House, and any member will be able to speak upon it. Then there is—as part of preparing the referendum question for the question on the legalisation of cannabis—a draft bill that will not go through Parliament, but it will be a draft bill that will be publicised as part of the referendum question. I have invited every leader of each party in this House to provide a member—I’m happy to consider more than one member if it helps—to participate in a process to determine the content of that bill. That is the opportunity for that member and his party to participate in the process of determining the substantial part of the question in the referendum on the legalisation of cannabis.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will he categorically rule out using his referendums bill’s powers for Cabinet to trigger a poll on abortion at election 2020, as advocated by the Deputy Prime Minister?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I have no plans to organise any referendum, other than the one on cannabis that has been mandated by Cabinet. But Cabinet is also aware—and the reason why we’re having the Referendums Framework Bill—that there is a possibility there will be another referendum which will be part of the End of Life Choice Bill. No other referendum has been mandated or contemplated or anticipated by Cabinet.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was whether the Minister would categorically rule out the proposal put by the Deputy Prime Minister—

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. He’s been here a very long time and he knows that yes/no answers cannot be required.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is the Minister “angry” with the Rt Hon Winston Peters on the question of a referendum on abortion, as stated—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat when I stand. Question number 10, Chris Bishop.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: The member is meant to ask something about ministerial responsibility.

Hon Simon Bridges: Yeah, I am.

SPEAKER: He didn’t come close. He’s taking a point of order on my ruling now; unless he can quote me a Speakers’ ruling or a Standing Order, he is trifling with the Chair.

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, I can’t do that.

Question No. 10—Transport

10. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Associate Minister of Transport: What were the first three paragraphs, not including salutations, of the letter she wrote on 26 March 2019 to Hon Phil Twyford, Minister of Transport, regarding the Let’s Get Wellington Moving indicative package?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): It is in the public interest for the three parties of Government to be able to have free and frank discussions before decisions are made. This is particularly the case in an MMP Government, where all parties need to be able to—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. As a member from the Hutt Valley, I actually have some interest in the answer to this question, and I would like to be able to hear it. That will require there to be a lot more quiet, especially from that quadrant of the House.

Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just wonder if you could ask the Minister to start from the beginning, because I couldn’t hear it either.

SPEAKER: No.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: This is particularly the case in an MMP Government, where all parties need to be able to have free discussions in a relationship of trust and confidence, and in a timely manner. Accordingly, and in line with Speaker’s ruling 176/5, I do not consider it in the public interest to provide the member with further detail about the content of a letter that details matters for political consultation.

Chris Bishop: Is she aware of the Chief Ombudsman’s investigation, launched this morning, into whether or not the letter should be released; and if the Ombudsman recommends that her letter should be released publicly, will she do so?

SPEAKER: Oh, no, it’s probably not for me to interpret the Ombudsmen Act for the member, but—

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Yes, to the first part of the question.

Chris Bishop: Was her 26 March 2019 letter to Phil Twyford sent on ministerial letterhead?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The member will be aware that while I am Associate Minister of Transport I am also the Green Party spokesperson on transport issues. The letter highlighted the Green Party’s position on aspects of the transport project. As I’ve already stated, I do not consider it in the public interest to provide the member with further detail about the content of a letter that details matters of political consultation, and I’m not going to go through a yes or no answer—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —to every question the member has about the content of the letter.

SPEAKER: All right. Well, unfortunately, because of the noise I couldn’t hear a direct answer to the question. [Interruption] Who interjected then?

Ian McKelvie: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Right, well you two can withdraw and apologise too.

Maureen Pugh: I withdraw and apologise.

Simeon Brown: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: And the three of you can leave the Chamber.

Maureen Pugh withdrew from the Chamber.

Simeon Brown withdrew from the Chamber.

Ian McKelvie withdrew from the Chamber.

SPEAKER: Now, the point that I was attempting to make is that it is within the rights of the Minister to say that she will not answer a question of this type because it’s not in the public interest. I would have thought that unless there is something extraordinary that we do not currently understand, relating to this letter, the type of letterhead that was used would not get that public interest protection. Having said that, it is the Minister’s decision and not the House’s. So is the Minister saying that it is not in the public interest to tell us what letterhead the letter was written on?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I can confirm that the letter was written in my capacity as transport spokesperson for the Green Party.

SPEAKER: I’m now going to ask the Minister to, once again, actually address the question that was asked.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: And the Speaker believes it’s in the public interest to answer details about letterhead—is that really what the member’s interested in? I’m happy to answer the question. As it happens, I had only one type of letterhead, but that is something I will be changing.

SPEAKER: Well, that might be a lesson for members to answer questions directly.

Chris Bishop: Why is she relying on an Ombudsman opinion about Green Party emails to a Minister as justification for not releasing the letter when she wrote the letter to Minister Twyford as an Associate Minister of Transport on ministerial letterhead and has answered written and oral questions about the letter in that capacity?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The content of the letter was very much about political consultation, and that is how we are treating the letter from now on.

Chris Bishop: Has the Hon Phil Twyford advised her not to release the letter to them?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No.

Question No. 11—Conservation

11. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Conservation: What recent announcements has she made regarding biodiversity?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Yesterday, I was pleased to launch Te Koiroa o Te Koiora – our shared vision for living with nature, a discussion document to encourage a national conversation to help shape a new New Zealand biodiversity strategy for the next 20 years. We have a global biodiversity crisis as serious as the climate crisis, with a million species threatened or at risk of extinction; 4,000 of those species are found here in Aotearoa. We need to turn that crisis around so that nature can thrive for its own sake and for our wellbeing.

Marama Davidson: What are the goals for the strategy?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The proposed goals that the public are asked to comment on include that by 2050, Aotearoa New Zealand is free from stoats, possums, and rats; populations are increasing for all threatened native species; and by-catch of seabirds, coral, and marine mammals is reduced to zero.

Marama Davidson: What action is needed to achieve these goals?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: We need to put nature at the heart of our decisions at central and local government. This requires shifts in thinking and in the way we use nature. Restoring the dawn chorus will require action from all of us: landholders, councils, iwi, hapū, businesses, the Department of Conservation, and the wider community. It requires scaling up the landscape-scale predator control that Budget 2018, with its boost of funding, has enabled the Department of Conservation to do.

Marama Davidson: How does Te Koiroa o Te Koiora and the proposed biodiversity strategy implement a Treaty partnership approach?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: The proposed set of values is strongly influenced by Te Ao Māori. The document says that there needs to be better recognition of Māori as partners in protecting our natural environment. It proposes that partnership between tangata whenua and the Crown should reflect aspirations for co-management, with tangata whenua holding key roles at all levels of the biodiversity system, including governance, and it recognises a need for increased capability and support to enable iwi, hapū, and whānau to play a greater role in managing biodiversity.

Marama Davidson: What involvement has there been with iwi and hapū in developing the document?

Hon EUGENIE SAGE: A Te Ao Māori reference group has worked closely with officials to ensure that a Te Ao Māori perspective was embedded in the document and the process. More than 20 regional hui have been held with iwi, hapū, and whānau between November last year and April 2019. These conversations fed into the discussion document, and a further round of hui will be held over the coming months.

Question No. 12—Education

12. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Education: Does he stand by all his statements, policies, and actions around the Reform of Vocational Education?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes, in the context in which they were made.

Dr Shane Reti: Does the Tertiary Education Commission programme business case state that the risk of the new model not achieving desired outcomes is likely?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The business case sets out all of the risks that the officials considered in preparing the business case. It then sets out the inherent risks and then the managed risks, effectively, and what the business case does then is it goes through and identifies how the risks profile changes once the mitigation strategies are put in place. So, for example, the inherent risk of unmet needs of industry moves from being almost certain down to possible, the inherent risk of not achieving outcomes moves from being likely to being unlikely, and the inherent risk of workforce disruption and reduced participation moves from almost certain to likely. That has to be weighed, of course, against the status quo where many of those risks also exist.

Dr Shane Reti: Does the programme business case state that there will be, “a decline in students, apprentices, and trainees (up to a total of around 18,000 learners) as a result of the reform programme”?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Business cases, of course, cover all likely scenarios, or as many likely scenarios as can possibly be envisaged. I would point out that participation in vocational education and training has been trending down for about five years since before this Government took office.

Dr Shane Reti: Did Treasury and the Ministry of Education review the regulatory impact assessment and state, “the panel does not find the RIA fully convincing”?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In fact, I think they were involved in writing it.

Dr Shane Reti: Does the programme business case include the base case mergers of Unitec and Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT); Whitireia and WelTec; and NorthTec, Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT), and Te Tai Poutini?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m sorry, can the member repeat the question?

Dr Shane Reti: Does the programme business case include the base case mergers of Unitec and MIT; Whitireia and WelTec; and NorthTec, WITT, and Te Tai Poutini?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think, as I said to the member in one of my earlier answers, the business case canvasses a wide range of possibilities—those being among them. The ultimate one that the Government settled on was the establishment of one institute of skills and technology to cover all of the existing 16 Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand.

Dr Shane Reti: Does the programme business case predict the loss of 2,310 apprentices each year in the short and medium term?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As I said, the business case canvasses a range of possible scenarios. That is one of the possible scenarios. I point out the fact that we currently are not meeting the skill needs of business already. We have been losing people from vocational education and training for about five years, and we could not guarantee that that wouldn’t continue even if we weren’t making these changes.

Appointments

Parliamentary Service Commission

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That under section 15(1)(d) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000, Michael Wood be appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Service Commission.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Referendums Framework Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 1 August.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): New Zealand has a proud tradition of being one of the oldest and fairest democracies in the world. It is a democracy founded on the idea that we respect the people and we respect their right to a democratic voice in things. We do not have a written constitution but what we do have are strong conventions that members of this House, of this Parliament, for many years, for generations have respected and our sense of fairness around those conventions reflects our sense of Kiwi values.

We do not expect that our electoral laws will be the plaything of the Government of the day, because we put our electoral laws on a pedestal. We recognise that they are significant and that they have a bearing on the make-up of this Parliament and the decisions that are made for our country. So it is that a series of conventions have been established around those electoral laws and how they apply in the case of referendums. It has conventionally been the case that the Opposition is consulted on the wording of referendums and is consulted on any changes to electoral laws.

Specifically, we have always had the case that when referenda are proposed by the Government, they are put forward in a bill and that bill suggests wording, and that wording goes to a select committee and is available for full public scrutiny so that those who are experts on it are able to decide whether or not they think the wording will skew the feedback on that bill or whether they think the wording is appropriate, so that Opposition members can suggest changes to the wording of that referendum so that people who have an interest in it have the ability to influence it. Why is it the case that that has conventionally been what we do with a referendum? It is because we recognise that referenda are politically sensitive and they are constitutionally significant.

So this bill that we have in front of us is an appalling step away from the conventions of this House as they pertain to a significant issue of electoral law. This referendum bill abuses the Government’s power by overturning convention and, instead, it allows the Government to write the question for a referendum as it sees fit, divorced from public scrutiny and divorced from the processes of this House as they apply to select committees and as they apply through the scrutiny of the Opposition.

This is a shabby bill. It is not fair play. It calls into question the very legitimacy of the referenda, and it is fair for us to suggest that the motivation behind this change in convention is simply political expedience, because if it’s anything more than political expedience, why is it that this bill expires in 2022? Why is it that this is not binding on future parliaments?

If the process suggested in this bill is such a great process, then why isn’t it the process that will apply into the future? I would suggest to you that the reason it’s not going to apply into the future is that members sitting opposite me know that this is not the way things should happen in this Parliament, because when referenda questions are put forward, members of the public have a right to scrutinise those. But, instead, we have a situation where those on the Government benches are uncomfortable because there are differences of opinion between the Greens and New Zealand First and Labour about how these referenda questions should be put, and they are nervous that if these questions were put to full public scrutiny and if they were put forward to a full select committee process, they would lose control of what is in those questions. I put it to this House that, actually, it is exactly that sort of political expediency that we have worked hard as a Parliament to avoid impinging on these sorts of electorally significant practices.

This referendum bill is an abuse of power. It gives the Government control over what issues and questions will be put at the 2020 election, in a significant break from our constitutional convention and a significant break from the democratic processes that this House has respected—

Hon Andrew Little: There is no convention.

NICOLA WILLIS: —and if Minister Little thinks it’s so important and it’s such a great piece of law, then why will he not allow the select committee to examine the wording of these questions, as has conventionally been the case?

Why will he not allow members of the Opposition to have a word in it, and why weren’t we consulted on this bill, if it’s such a great piece of law? We weren’t consulted because that member knows that he should be ashamed of himself for manipulating the democratic process in this way.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Referendums Framework Bill. That was a very impassioned speech. We have had some impassioned contributions from the Opposition, and the words used by Nicola Willis, the member who has just resumed her seat, were “overturning convention”. I guess what I would say about convention is that if the world doesn’t continue to move on and grow and change, then some of the things that are negative and bad we would carry forward from the 1800s or the 1600s. The world continues to evolve and this Parliament must continue to evolve.

One of the reasons I believe that the Opposition are so incredibly sort of excited about this piece of legislation—which they are being consulted on because it’s a bill inside the House that they are talking on right now. So, literally, they are part of the consultation process on the Referendums Framework Bill. But the next piece that is important—and this is what’s important to New Zealand First—is that for years now, referendum questions have been able to be manipulated. We agree with the Opposition around that particular topic.

What we’re hoping for and what we believe that the Referendums Framework Bill delivers to New Zealand is an opportunity for New Zealanders to finally have placed in front of them Cabinet papers and draft pieces of legislation so that they are fully informed before this House decides what this House believes on it. It is so that the New Zealand public can have their say, and that is the situation where New Zealand First is moving to around the referendum on recreational marijuana that has been indicated to be held at the 2020 election.

When we talk about the referendum Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that is going to be discussed that has been put in under New Zealand First’s name around the End of Life Choice Bill, that was also to give the New Zealand public all the pieces of information that this Parliament has when it chooses to make a decision. If that SOP is successful, it would not be enacted until the New Zealand public has had an opportunity to scrutinise the bill, and the regulatory impact statement and the submissions that were given to the select committee over the 16 months would be in the public domain.

The New Zealand public would have exactly the same amount of information as this Parliament has had around that particular piece of legislation. They could decide, finally—if that Supplementary Order Paper is successful—at a referendum whether that legislation should be enacted or not. But to do that, this Referendums Framework Bill must go through in the form that it is in, because up until this point we have not had the opportunity to provide the New Zealand public with these pieces of information for them to make that decision.

We know that questions around referenda have previously been manipulated to give a positive or a negative outcome. So from New Zealand First’s perspective, who has—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why not send it to Parliament? Send it to Parliament.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Parliament cannot be trusted on this issue at times, Mr Smith, and particularly, I would say, the reason why Mr Smith is so adamant that Parliament should set the question is because we know that the Opposition has a view on the medicinal cannabis referendum and does not want the New Zealand public to have the opportunity to discuss that topic. So we have already seen the Opposition in this time extend the End of Life Choice Bill for over 16 months in an attempt to make sure that the New Zealand public cannot get an opportunity to discuss this.

It is our view—New Zealand First’s view—that what we need to give the New Zealand public is the opportunity for a question where they can decide either on a Cabinet paper and a draft piece of legislation, or on a piece of legislation that this House has decided that they like, but yet it is of such moment that it must be put to the New Zealand public. This is what this Referendums Framework Bill does: it provides us with that opportunity to try something different to actually give the New Zealand public the opportunity to have a dialogue. It gives us the opportunity to try something different to improve the relationship between this Parliament and the New Zealand public. It gives us the opportunity to say to the New Zealand public “We trust you. If we trusted you enough to elect us here, surely we trust you enough to read the same documents we read, to read the same submissions we read, to read the same regulatory impact statements we read, and to make up your own mind.” And that is why New Zealand First will support the Referendums Framework Bill.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Our role in this House is to uphold democracy, and I am absolutely amazed and, quite frankly, disgusted to hear the comment from the member that has just taken her seat, Tracey Martin, saying that Parliament can’t be trusted. The Hon Tracey Martin has just told this House that Parliament cannot be trusted to make this decision—but presumably Cabinet can! What a ridiculous statement to make in this House—another Minister now jumping up and down trying to suggest that this is appropriate. This is an absolute outrage and an affront to this House.

For over 160 years in our democracy, in the 20-odd referenda that we have had, never—not once—has this happened before. This is disgusting. Every single time Parliament has had the opportunity to be involved in this process, the public has engaged, had their input through select committee, as is proper, and yet again we are seeing another instance of this Government cutting out the public from the parliamentary process—the arrogance of them to assume that they know best and the public should not have a say in what is a fundamental democratic right in this House. This is, quite frankly, an outrage and the Government should be disgusted.

Hon Andrew Little: And what a pity it’s not happening. What a pity for that member it’s not happening.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Members of the defence force have fought for the freedoms that we have in this country, and the Minister scoffs at those members who have fought, and, again, he should be disgusted by that.

Hon Andrew Little: The member is talking rubbish.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Perhaps he should have made an effort to actually consider the people—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just—[Interruption] Order! Can I just remind the Minister that I note that he is to speak—he can just calm down and let this member have his opportunity.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Indeed, the Minister is somewhat caught out by this, it would seem, and is rightly feeling it is just that he has been held to account for a disgusting piece of legislation that’s been put forward.

So, as I’ve said, over 160 years this has never happened, and the Minister tries to say the Regulations Review Committee can sort it out so it’s no problem at all. Well, that’s quite a disingenuous comment, and I’m sure the Minister is well aware of that. Every single referenda that has been before this House has gone through the proper process. Parliament has considered it, the public has considered it, and yet in this particular instance, suddenly, for whatever reason, this Government decides they know best and are going to circumvent that process—as they have already, actually, with a couple of other electoral changes they’ve proposed so far in this parliamentary term.

Where has been the consultation with the Opposition? Any changes to electoral law should be consulted broadly. This is a fundamental tenet of our democracy in this country, and yet the Government sees fit to change it at will—suiting, perhaps, their political agenda. And, of course, I won’t make comment on what that might look like, but to consider, from the public’s perspective, that a Government can just make ad hoc changes to electoral law is surely concerning for the wider public. And indeed, we’ve been hearing that on this side of the House, I know through my offices in the Waikato, people have been expressing significant concern at the ability to just make such wide-ranging changes on fundamental tenets of our democracy without proper consultation, without proper process, and without involving anyone in this House and the wider public through that as well.

We hear about the Government’s intent for this to be binding referenda. Well, whilst—

Darroch Ball: That’s right.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Great to hear the consent there. Perhaps the member might like to consider what a binding referendum is, because, quite frankly, having three parties on that side of the House just agree in principle that “Hey, if we get back in we’ll do this.”—that is not a binding referendum. A binding referendum actually requires this House to pass legislation that will come into effect as the result of a referendum being passed. That’s how a binding referendum works, and for whatever reason this Government’s decided to rewrite that part of our democracy as well. “No, no, that’s no longer a binding referendum”, the Government says: “A binding referendum is just us agreeing in principle that, ‘hey, we’ll get on and do this’ ”—whatever it might be. Although, actually, the question might change somewhat from what was agreed in the referendum because “Perhaps we’ll do a select committee process afterwards.”—unless, of course, the Government’s not going to listen to anyone in that select committee process, which wouldn’t, quite frankly, be surprising.

What we’ve also heard from actually just going back to Minister Martin’s comment as well, about how we need to evolve and adapt so that we can remove bad processes—for the Minister to be suggesting that electoral—effectively, constitutional—changes like this is bad process is, quite frankly, outrageous, and to me shows just how disconnected this Government is and how little regard they have for the processes of this place and for the wider public in New Zealand.

When we come here, we have huge obligations and responsibilities to those members of our constituencies that have elected us or, for those who are list MPs, to the wider voting public who have supported their particular party. That is a massive obligation and responsibility. To come here and just tweak as necessary, as the Government is doing with these changes, is an outrage for members of the public, and, quite frankly, I am surprised the media is not making more of this as well, and that we’ve not seen a much more significant beat up as a result of this. I’m sure that once the public becomes aware of it, that will indeed happen, because the public expects transparency. They expect openness, and this Government has committed to those two facets in particular, claiming to be the most transparent and open Government, and yet we’re not seeing it. Time after time, bills coming before this House are having a shortened report back or are being pushed through under urgency and not going to select committees at all. For those that are, the shortened report back doesn’t allow the full capacity for the public to engage in that parliamentary process, to have their say in what are quite often very important matters.

Now, look, certainly there are some aspects that can be put through in a speedier and more succinct process, and we’ve supported those where it’s appropriate, but those should be rare and they should be for more minor aspects that do not have fundamental changes that would require wider consultation. It would be, quite frankly, arrogant of us in this House to assume we know better than the public on any issue, whatever the bill may be. That is a major part of why we go to select committee: to enable the public to engage, to allow experts to come in to share their understanding on integral facets of what we’re proposing with a particular piece of legislation. That is critical. We can’t know everything here. The public have the right to be involved in any of these considerations, and in particular in areas such as electoral law changes. We’ve seen many times now where this has happened by this Government.

I just reiterate: this process that’s being proposed under this particular bill has never, never happened in the history of the New Zealand Parliament—the Referendums Framework Bill, first reading, looking to allow Cabinet to make the decision on what the wording of a referendum will be. Quite frankly, that is an outrage, as I’ve said. It’s never happened before—20 referendums over 160-odd years of our Parliament, it’s never happened. In the UK, the same Westminster system: 380-odd years and not once have they done this sort of process. Surely the Government can look at that and realise they are well out of line, well out of touch with how the democratic process should work, how legislation such as this should be brought before the House, and the opportunity the public should have to engage, to be part of the democratic process. We’ve heard the Speaker, many times over this parliamentary term, looking to outline his concerns around the lack of engagement with the public. Well, how are the public to engage, to get involved with the parliamentary process, when they are not given the opportunity on such a fundamental part of what is critical for running this Parliament, and that is electoral law changes?

We’ve seen time and again that the public’s scrutiny is absolutely critical to not only giving confidence to the public but ensuring that any amendments can indeed be included, to ensure that we end up with the right piece of legislation before this House, and then going on to be enacted into law. So to suggest that Cabinet can simply make that decision is quite frankly outrageous, especially when we consider that, in reality, having a referendum at election time will always have some political impact. If the public are getting confused by questions, or indeed the particular question has an appeal to a particular audience, that can well result in changes. That just reinforces the need to have broad discussion on these sorts of areas. So, quite frankly, we will continue to oppose this. This is terrible process and a terrible affront to our democracy. This House deserves better, New Zealand deserves better, and we will fight this every step of the way. Thank you.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Look, I know that member, Tim van de Molen, is reasonably new to the House, but he really has to work on his high dudgeon, because that actually wasn’t that convincing—and for a very good reason, I think. I think that member, unlike the member to his right who has been here for 29 years, probably understands how the public feels about these sorts of issues, and probably he, like many members of the public, remembers the process for the flag referendum bill, or the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act that came about eventually. So to the extent that members opposite—the member who has just resumed his seat, and the honourable member Nicola Willis—talk about a convention about referendums, to the extent that the Hon Dr Nick Smith talks about conventions about referendums, let’s just be very clear: there is none. There is no convention about referendums.

If there was a convention about referendums—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table the Oxford Dictionary definition of “convention”, which says a convention is something that has been always done in a particular way, which is absolutely relevant to the point.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look, first of all, the Oxford Dictionary is widely available. Second of all, the member is interrupting the Minister’s speech. I’m not going to put the leave, and I call the Hon Andrew Little to continue.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So if there was this convention, if it was that every referendum must go through the process that the members opposite talk about, why is it that in the legislation for the citizens initiated referendums, actually, the question is set by the Clerk of the House? Why is it that this House passed legislation in 2000 for postal referenda called the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act? Why is it in that piece of legislation that setting the question is a matter for Cabinet, to be done by Order in Council? There’s the convention, set right there. Now, it is correct also that for some pieces of legislation whose commencement has been dependent on a referendum, the legislation has both provided for the substance as well as for a referendum question, but that is not the end of the matter. The reality is that there is no convention about this.

But let’s go back to what I started by talking about—the New Zealand Flag Referendums Act, as it became—because that was an interesting process. The question for that referendum—or questions, as it turned out, because there were two referendums—was set by Cabinet, because the legislation had to be approved by it. Cabinet set the question, and then the legislation came to the House for its first reading and it went to the select committee. Now, one of the overwhelming points that was the subject of submissions and a 30,000 - signature petition was people wanted to change the order of the questions. Members of the Opposition who were on that special committee said that they wanted the order of the questions changed so that the only question in the first referendum was “Do you want to change the flag?”, but that wasn’t what happened, and because Cabinet had already mandated what the question would be, that committee did not change the question, and when it came back to the House, the question did not change. The question as determined by Cabinet did not change. There’s your convention—there’s your convention, Dr Smith. There’s your convention, Mr van de Molen. There’s your convention, Ms Willis. There is no convention. There are different ways of doing it.

Now, there is a good reason why this bill is setting up the referendum question, or possibly more than one referendum question, for the 2020 general election. We know there will be at least one referendum question that will be about the legalisation of cannabis, because that’s the subject of agreement in the confidence and supply agreement between the Labour Party and the Green Party, and it necessarily locks in New Zealand First because we all support each other’s agreements.

There may be a second question on the End of Life Choice Bill, because a New Zealand First member has foreshadowed that she is going to put up a Supplementary Order Paper providing for that bill, if it passes its third reading, to have its commencement following a referendum that shows majority support. That is a possibility at this stage. We just don’t know because we don’t know how the process is going to unfold. So we needed a set of mechanics or a mechanism to be put in place to deal with any and all referendum questions. We know there will be at least one; there could possibly be two. At one point, we thought there might be three because there was talk about making some electoral law changes too, but in the end there wasn’t support for that so that didn’t proceed, but what we have is a bill that provides a temporary arrangement.

Now, the other argument I’ve heard articulated today by Ms Willis was if this was so good, why isn’t it a permanent piece of legislation? I am totally sympathetic to that point, and I think we actually do need a standing piece of legislation that provides the mechanics for all future referendums. In fact, what I said to Ministry of Justice officials when we were putting this together was, “Look, let’s do what we need to do to deal with the exigencies of the 2020 general election, but let’s then follow that with a standard piece of legislation dealing with all referendums of the future.” But in order to do that, it’s a complex piece of work, because we then have to dust off the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act; we have to dust off the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000 and every other piece of legislation that deals with it; have a good, thorough, proper examination of all the potential ways that we can conduct referendums and set the question; and let’s have a piece of legislation to deal with that. But with little more than a year to go before the next general election, we actually need a piece of legislation to deal with this, and because the Justice Committee has been so overloaded, burdened with work—not helped by some members who deliberately slow things down—we’ve got to the point where we actually just have to move on. In fact, the reason why we need this is the Electoral Commission needs absolute certainty.

Now, the way that the question will be put in relation to the legalisation of cannabis is that there will be extensive consultation. Well, actually, we’re reliant on the advice of the Electoral Commission. They are the experts in this area. We know that there are a set of conditions and principles that apply in relation to referendum questions. They have to be understandable—people need to understand what the question is—and they have to be impartial as to the outcome, so no leading questions should be allowed. So we need to make sure the question meets all those sorts of criteria. The reality is, because of the way we are approaching that particular topic, the topic of legalisation of cannabis, the question will relate to a draft piece of legislation that has not been through the House. That is why I have invited every party in this House to be represented on a cross-party group to have input into the development of that legislation and, therefore, an input into the question to be asked.

Now, it doesn’t suit Dr Nick Smith, because he wants to contrive this constitutional crisis because he’s got nothing else to do. He’s that irrelevant to this Parliament. He is that irrelevant to this Parliament, he gets off on constitutional crises. Well, the great thing is—and wait till the next piece of legislation—we’ve got more. We’ve got more reasons for Dr Nick Smith to enter into his high dudgeon—because it is very entertaining to be outraged by more contrived, fake constitutional outrages. There will be more, and I don’t want to disappoint Dr Nick Smith. It’s very important that we get to see him at his best, and I do want him to know that there will be other pieces of legislation, possibly Supplementary Order Papers, that will cause him great excitement. He might want to prepare for that—you know, bring a change of clothes, or whatever. Whatever it takes—whatever it takes.

But this legislation is very specific. It is targeted to the need to conduct the referendums, of which we know there will be at least one and possibly there will be others as well alongside the 2020 general election. As I said before, specifically in relation to cannabis, we took advice on a number of approaches. I know that Dr Smith said in his speech that the Government was advised that there’s only one approach—that is incorrect. Once again, Dr Smith gets it wrong because it suits his purposes. There wasn’t advice about one approach; there was advice on four approaches to take in conducting a referendum, and we’ve taken one that meets the needs, that allows us to have a draft piece of legislation in front of the public of New Zealand. The reality is no one can tell which way this is going to go. I would say it’s roughly 50/50 at the moment, and people are thinking very hard about what it would mean if we move away from the status quo to a whole new regime. People want to know how you’re going to provide the mitigations, what the regime would look like, and what the framework would look like if we were to legalise cannabis. We need to be prepared. This House needs to be prepared for a “yes” answer. So we’ll have a draft piece of legislation that gives us an answer to that.

But the upshot is this: this bill, the Referendums Framework Bill, is about this House respecting and honouring the voting public of New Zealand. It’s an opportunity for every member of this House, including those opposite who’ve spoken in opposition to this bill, to actually say, “You know what? It’s in our best interests to hand over the privilege and the opportunity to the voting members of the public to exercise their decision on this question about legalisation of cannabis, and we will work together to make this the best possible mechanical arrangement for the conduct of referendums, and we will work together on the cross-party group to make sure that what we put before the public is in the best state it can be.” So I look forward to members taking up that invitation to be part of that process. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Referendums Framework Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 64

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Referendums Framework Bill be reported to the House by 11 November 2019 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193, and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The reason for this is that it is important that the Electoral Commission, as part of its preparations for the 2020 general election, has certainty. It is therefore important that this piece of legislation be passed, to the greatest extent possible, by early 2020 so that the Electoral Commission can do their planning and get that all arranged.

The motion that I’ve just moved allows the committee great flexibility when to meet, but also to meet outside of Wellington. It’ll be interesting to see how much interest there is in the Referendums Framework Bill. I think most people entrust members of this House to get the mechanical provisions of these sorts of things right. There will be some input from those with an academic interest in getting things like the conduct of referendums correct. I think most academics will agree that because there is no convention, and no single way that referendums can be conducted, that we do want to take the opportunity to get this right. So this motion allows a good amount of time to receive submissions, to hear submissions, to hear from experts, to hear from members of the public, and then to get the framework bill right.

As I foreshadowed in my speech on the first reading, what I am very keen for, once this legislation is passed and we’ve got through the referendums to which it will apply, is to consider what we need for a standing piece of legislation on the conduct of referendums, because we have multiple pieces of legislation. We’ve had multiple ways of conducting these in the past, and I think it would be good, for the purposes of consistency and for our democracy and the values that we represent, to make sure that there is one set of rules that we apply so everybody knows that when the issue of a referendum comes up, whether it’s the citizens initiated referendum, whether it’s a Government-sponsored referendum, whether it’s a referendum that comes out of a motion of the House—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I’ll just remind the Minister that this is a very narrow debate.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Sorry. So it’s about making sure that when, in considering this bill, the committee gets to hear all of those questions as a set up, perhaps, to what might happen in the future. But for the purposes of the Referendums Framework Bill, it’s important the committee has the flexibility and the time to do a thoroughgoing job, given that we and the Electoral Commission need the certainty for planning of the election and the referendums that go with it for 2020. So on that basis, I invite the House to support the motion.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The Government is moving this motion to reduce the capacity for the public, and the Parliament, to scrutinise the very significant constitutional change that is proposed in this bill. The issue of referenda is one of the most important issues, as is the way in which we conduct elections. Now, the public will not be so much interested in the provisions of this bill as it relates to applying the Electoral Act to referendum. What they really want to have a say in is are we going to have a referendum on cannabis, are we going to have a referendum on euthanasia, are we—as the Deputy Prime Minister said today—going to have a referendum on abortion. The tragedy of this bill, of which New Zealanders deserve a proper say, is whether the decision on those referenda—both the topics, and the questions—is made by Parliament, or whether it’s made by Cabinet.

Now, shifting of that power, and the public’s right to have a full select committee process for the transfer of such a significant power, is something that should not be slammed through the Parliament. Now, the issue that has got the Government into a jam is the referendum promised on recreational cannabis use. Now, it’s difficult for the Government to justify a shortened select committee process on this bill when, in fact, the promise to provide that referendum was agreed over 20 months ago. The Government could’ve introduced a bill any time in the last 20 months of which to provide for the referendum on cannabis, and now it’s got the audacity to say to Parliament, “You can’t have a full select committee process on this constitutionally significant bill, because we’re running out of time to meet our promise”. What the Minister has provided no explanation of is what they’ve been doing for 20 months. Why is it that Parliament’s processes, the select committee process, and the opportunity for the public to have a say have to be constrained because of the internal wrangling between New Zealand First, Labour, and the Greens, who are at opposite ends on the cannabis referendum.

I was horrified to hear the words from a Minister of the Government, “You cannot trust the Parliament”. Isn’t it extraordinary that the Minister of Internal Affairs, the New Zealand First Minister, said, “You cannot trust the Parliament to make the decision on referendum”. Isn’t it symptomatic that the Government is going to shorten the select committee process, and treat Parliament like just a rubber stamp for the dodgy dealings of this Government by reducing the opportunity for the public to have a say on such a significant bill. The Minister claims it’s not significant, there’s not a convention. Well, let me state it again for the record, because it is absolutely true, in every referendum that’s been held at a general election in the 166 years of this parliamentary democracy, the topic and the question has been decided by Parliament, not the Cabinet. What the Government is wanting to do, by transferring the wording and the topic to the Cabinet, is one specific thing: lock out of the process the public, and lock out of the process the largest party in this Parliament.

Let’s not try and gild the lily about what’s taking place here. What they’re saying is that they want to avoid a proper select committee process to transfer the power on the decisions about referendum from Parliament to Cabinet. But here’s what makes it even more dodgy: only for the 2020 election. Just for this lot that’s in Government at the moment. We know that when they were in Opposition, they had exactly the opposite view. That is, on the flag referendum, on the MMP referendum, on the number of MPs in Parliament referendum, on the referendum that’d been held on alcohol and all sorts of other issues, the full question and bill has gone through the Parliament.

So we cannot minimise the significance of this bill. It cuts that out of the process for Parliament. It means Parliament has no say. The Cabinet can decide to have referendums on any issue they like, such as abortion that has been promoted by the Deputy Prime Minister. That might be a good step, I say, to members opposite, but put the question and the process through the Parliament, as has occurred for 166 years. It is unacceptable that the Government is wanting to fast track the passage of this bill. It is the Government, again, playing fast and loose around issues of electoral law. I ask members opposite to reflect on the mother of all Parliaments that’s been around for 380 years. Have they ever had, in Britain, in the UK—they’ve never had a referendum in 380 years that’s been determined by the Cabinet. Every one of their referendums—both the wording, and the topic—has been determined by the Parliament. Such is the significance of this bill.

So my question for the next Government speaker is this: why isn’t the public able to have a full select committee process on this bill? Why are members opposite, who stood in this Parliament—

Hon Shane Jones: Oh, you’re a proxy for the public—you’re a proxy for the public. You can sit on the select committee.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Mr Jones interjects. I’ve got a simple question for Mr Jones: why did New Zealand First argue for a full six-month process on the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill but not on this one?

Hon Shane Jones: Select committee process.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the member says, “Select committee process”. I would love any member of the Government to answer this question: why did they argue so strongly for a robust select committee process, including a full six months, on the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill, which the National Government provided? Why is it a different approach when it comes to cannabis? The silence is deafening. Can any Government member please explain to me why New Zealand First, why Labour, and why the Greens vigorously argued on the flag referendum that there had to be a full select committee process of six months, that it was hugely significant, that it needed to be properly debated, and, now the table has turned and they are on the Government benches, suddenly they’ve changed their mind. Can any member opposite please explain why you’ve changed your mind? Do they somehow believe that cannabis or euthanasia or abortion is a less important issue than what New Zealand’s flag is?

I’m sorry; the issue of euthanasia is a life and death issue literally. So I argue again to members opposite—and Louisa Wall looks to answer my question—why has the Government changed its position of a full six-month select committee process on the flag referendum bill, on the MMP bill, on the referendum we had on MMP? In fact, on every previous referendum we’ve had, there has been a full process, but when they are the Government, we get speeches—disgraceful speeches—like the Minister of Internal Affairs saying Parliament can’t be trusted. Does Labour agree with the New Zealand First position that Parliament cannot be trusted?

Isn’t it interesting? Are any of the members prepared to indicate that they support the statement by Tracey Martin that Parliament—this institution that was fought for in some of the names of places on the wall—that democracy, which is one of the most important things for this country, that they agree with a Minister of the Crown saying that Parliament cannot be trusted? I challenge members opposite to reflect on the way in which they are playing fast and loose with our democracy, that they respect a full select committee process on this bill, that it is a very significant issue when we’re being asked to give a blank cheque to Cabinet to decide whatever referendum it wants to hold at the next election and to have whatever wording it likes. That’s what this bill does, and, in our view, that should require a proper and full select committee process, where the people who have got views on euthanasia, on abortion, on cannabis, or any other issue—this bill will have a profound effect on the referendum to be held next year, and I simply ask again: can a member of the Government say why six months was the proper period for the flag referendum but on a bill that gives a blank cheque they want a shorter period?

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): The challenge that was just laid down before this Parliament by the Hon Dr Smith was whether somebody on this side of the Government benches could answer the question as to why there was a need to refer this bill by this time frame, 11 November, and the answer is rather simple. The answer is rather simple because, on this side of the House, we are trying to do God’s work and fix up the mess that the Opposition left us. There can be no greater call for democracy than what this bill before us asks. It’s a mechanical issue. This bill sets a framework by which we can legitimately go through a process. The speaker just prior, Hon Dr Nick Smith, waxed lyrical in a wide range of areas—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. [Interruption] I call the member to order. The member did not. The member related it all the time back to the motion before this House, which is the shortened period of time.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: The motion before this House is the shortened period, and so that is something that—our side of the House is trying to say that there are no mechanics by which to legitimately provide a carte blanche mechanism by which to set referenda. So the member opposite has laid a challenge as to why it is necessary that we provide some time frames to enable this bill to go before the House—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. Sit down. Let me make it very clear: the question of the bill that has been debated at the first reading is all about the mechanism. The debate we’re in now is very focused on the shortened time frame. So the speeches have to relate to that, not to the bill and the structure that’s being put before the House, but to the shortened time frame. OK?

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Absolutely. The shortened time frame is a consequence of the fact that we don’t have a mechanism by which to provide a referendum. What we are trying to do, on this side of the House, is provide the machinery through which we can actually hold these referenda, and why the time frame is shortened is to enable all members who are enabled to vote, who are enabled to participate in our democracy, the opportunity to do so at the earliest opportunity. I’m not quite sure why the member opposite is confused as to why we are trying to make this law go through this process in an expeditious way, because the only reason I could think of is that the member on the select committee over there perhaps wants to flout his expertise in this area as opposed to giving the good people of New Zealand the opportunity to actually cast their vote.

Now, there are a range of issues by which this side of the House believes it is important to enable the general public to participate in referenda. We want to make sure, on this side of the House, that there is the opportunity for as many people to be able to participate at the earliest opportunity. Therefore the time frames that we have proposed are 11 November. Also, in order to ensure that anybody can participate in a way that they might not ordinarily be able to—because usually select committees are required to be held down here in Wellington—the referral motion asks that those sitting in that particular select committee can hear from people whenever, whether that be in the evenings, or whether that be outside of the Wellington area. The reason that we’ve asked for the broadening of this particular referral motion is to alleviate some of the member opposite’s concerns. We want to ensure that as many people are heard within the appropriate time frames, and those that are really committed to ensuring that they can have the opportunity to participate in having their voice heard on the Referendums Framework Bill will have the opportunity to be heard wherever the select committee chooses to set itself down.

The select committee has the ability, if this referral motion is agreed to by this House, to go out and actually meet with those key constituents, those people that want to be heard, and that’s something that the honourable Minister Little has diligently tried to do—enable a referral motion for that member’s select committee to go out, to listen to the voices of the people, and to do that in the most liberal kind of way. We are seeking that the particular Standing Orders—191, 193, and 194(1)(b) and (c)—are deferred in this instance, are set aside, to ensure that as many people can participate as is proper, and rightly so. And the reason for that is simple: it’s because we want to ensure that the mechanics that sit behind developing referenda are robust, they are thorough, and they are done in a way that is expeditious, so that we can truly enable all members to validly cast their votes at the earliest opportunity on some of the major issues that our community has to face. So, speaking on behalf of this side of the House, we commend this referral motion to the House.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Well, what a breathless dish of contradictions that contribution was. I cannot believe that the junior Government whip, Kiritapu Allan, has just tried to articulate something so ludicrous that I’m sure any member of the public who’s listening to this debate at the moment will not have had any difficulty in seeing the blatant contradiction in. That contradiction was summed up in her claim that we need to shorten the period allowed for this select committee process in order to improve the opportunity for the people to participate in our democracy. That, Madam Speaker—and soon, it would appear to be, Mr Speaker—is absolute nonsense.

I listened very carefully to the contribution of the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who preceded her, and he put some very good questions to members of the Government benches. I noticed that their heads all went down. I noticed that they ignored most of the questions, but when he asked one Government member to explain why a referendum on euthanasia or a referendum on the legalisation of marijuana or perhaps, as it would appear to be emerging, a referendum on the future of our abortion laws—why all of those very important issues are less important than a flag referendum. We all participated—those of us who were here—with some passion in the flag referendum debate at the time, but surely those issues that Dr Smith has asked about are ones that require considerably more consideration.

This is, as the junior Government whip said, a debate about a referral motion. Well, let me remind her that we’re talking about referrals to a select committee, because it’s a select committee that gives the public of New Zealand their most active opportunity to participate in the process. Of course they take an interest—or at least a large number of them do—in our proceedings as parliamentarians, but it is when a bill passes its first reading and is referred to a select committee that they have an opportunity to focus on the issues raised in the bill and to put their own thoughts together. Many of them choose not only to put in written submissions—as I’m sure many will—but also to ask for their right to be heard. In truncating this process, this Parliament is curtailing the right of New Zealand people to be heard.

When Minister Little moved this motion, he said that it was important for the committee to hear all opinions. Well, I point to him the extraordinary inherent contradiction in his claim. It is absolutely ironic to say that “We’re going to do this in order to enable the people of New Zealand to be heard.” and then “We will truncate the process.” That is an affront to our democracy.

Minister Little also expressed the opinion that he doubted that there would be much public interest in this issue. Well, of course, that is a matter that remains to be tested when, and if, this bill passes its first reading and is referred to a select committee. We have to assume it will pass its first reading because members of the three Government parties have indicated their support for it.

But I want to point out to Minister Little that whether there are 50 submissions on this bill or 5,000 matters little. The principle is that it is an absolute travesty to be doing this at all. The members of Parliament have a duty to uphold our democracy in every way we can, and one of the most important ways that we do that is to protect our very, very important constitutional safeguards that are built into our electoral laws. For the Minister of Justice, of all people, to be moving that we should in some way curtail those constitutional responsibilities, which we all have as members of Parliament and which members of the public also have a deeply vested interest in, is extraordinary and, I would suggest, obnoxious.

This is a vile bill. Of course there will be a level of public interest in it therefore, and I say to the Government they must allow the public the standard period. We’re not asking for anything extra. We’re not asking for anything that goes beyond what members of the public are used to. We’re simply asking for members of the public to have the opportunity that they would always rightfully expect to be able to make a submission on something of such significant constitutional interest as this particular measure.

As has already been noted, this is a measure from a Government which appears to hold to the view that the Parliament can’t be trusted. Well, there can’t be many more obvious ways of showing that they all hold to that appalling view that was expressed earlier this afternoon by the Hon Tracey Martin than collectively to deny the public the right to participate in a fully democratic process in considering this bill.

Minister Little made several false claims in his speech when he was moving this truncated select committee process, and those false claims were to do with precedents and conventions. The Hon Dr Nick Smith attempted to point out to him what the meaning of the word “convention” was, because it was clear that Minister Little simply didn’t understand. But, when a senior Minister in a Government gets that wrong, how can he possibly be trusted to get this process right.

I would suggest to you that there shouldn’t be, and there isn’t, any need for this particular process. If the Government was organised, we would have known some time ago the referendum question on cannabis and we would probably know by now if we were going to be having more than one referendum. It seems likely, as others have mentioned, that we will be having one on the End of Life Choice Bill, and it has been indicated—not officially, but certainly hinted at—today by the Deputy Prime Minister that we will also be having one on abortion.

As I said a few moments ago, those are all incredibly important matters. Members of public today have been receiving a huge number of emails from people concerned about the abortion question, and there was considerable media—

Hon Shane Jones: Relevance, relevance, relevance.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: It is absolutely relevant, Mr Jones, to be talking about matters that may be considered by a referendum under this legislation. If that Minister can’t see the relevance of that, he shouldn’t be sitting over on that side of the House—he shouldn’t be sitting in this House at all.

This is a deeply flawed measure, and this truncated referral process is an insult to New Zealanders, particularly on a day when they are showing such concern for matters that might be considered under this particular bill that we’re being asked to send to a select committee for a truncated process.

I urge the Minister to think again. I urge the members opposite, who have had their heads down while Opposition members have been speaking, to think again. I ask them to look within their consciences to whether they really feel comfortable suppressing democracy—suppressing the right of the public to have their say. We have members of the Justice Committee, including the new chair of the committee, in the House today. Is she going to support this terrible travesty? Is she going to turn around to her constituents and say, “I was happy to vote for a measure that curtailed your right to have a say on a really important issue.”? She’s not saying so at the moment. No member is saying so at the moment. I take it therefore that the implicit answer to my question is that they understand the point that I’m making and they agree with me but they just don’t want to say so.

Well, we will in a few moments be voting on this measure. I hope that at least a few of the members opposite will cross the floor because they will say it’s more important to uphold our constitutional conventions, our enshrined electoral rights, than it is simply to go along with a measure that suits the convenience of the Government of the day at the expense of the rights of the people of New Zealand. Make no mistake: that is exactly what we are facing right here. The rights of the people of New Zealand are being trampled on by this Government, and all members opposite should be ashamed of themselves for doing that.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I want to remind listeners that my senior colleague the Minister of Justice has simply identified the best way for the select committee to use its time. This referral motion—attacked by opposite members of the House, introducing us to the mother tongue of double speak with a higher level of volume—need look no further than page 71, 290, in terms of the bible of the House. It has never been an unusual event for either the period of time to be sharpened or the use of time to be made more efficient in terms of a select committee. Numerous are the occasions when select committees have been under time pressures for them to use that time very efficiently. That’s all the Minister, my senior colleague to my right, has put before the House. Now, Standing Order 290 enables a four- to six-month period. The motion then goes on and directs our attention to page 45 of the Standing Orders, and follows a very well-trodden path, a very constitutionally defensible practice in this House, that other than when we are sitting in question time, members on this select committee can utilise other occasions and other opportunities to hear from the New Zealand public.

Now, let’s just trace the moral authority that the Hon Andrew Little is exhibiting today. In 2017 we hosted, in New Zealand, the general election. This side of the House won enough votes to hold the benches of Treasury. Therein lies the ethical and moral authority, under the constitution, for this side of the House to bring this bill forward. Any suggestion that the stance of the Minister of Justice lacks some constitutionally legitimate platform is utter poppycock. Go back to who enjoyed the electoral mandate, who got most of the votes, and then trace back to where we sit today. We have the mandate, the moral, constitutionally sanctioned authority to lead the country. And in leading the country, what we have done is bring forward a bill but, in particular, this motion, which enjoins fellow parliamentarians to use efficiently the time available—something that has been practised by former regimes.

I direct the members on the other side of the House to page 45 and I direct them to page 71, and these are well-known and highly respected principles that enable Parliament to discharge its business, to effect an outcome that was agreed to because of an election. There’s no greater moral chain of thinking in a political sense than what I’ve articulated. So let me come back to why it’s important that this particular motion be agreed to, because we do want to ensure that New Zealanders have the opportunity to vote in the upcoming referendum, as explicated by the Minister of Justice. Now, no piece of legislation or no particular Act of the Parliament is static, incapable of being improved, depending on the vicissitudes of the time, and we live in a time where New Zealanders do want to make a call about how far the law should continue to regulate the utilisation, the consumption, of certain drugs.

Now, whether the other side of the House find that offensive, I totally accept their ability to exercise that vote of conscience. But in order for their conscience vote, shared by other New Zealanders, to come to pass, we need the machinery which requires an endorsement by Parliament, and that is why we are cleaving to what the Minister has put on the Table. This motion should pass. This motion represents no threat, no offence to the established constitutional principles of our Westminster democracy. This is simply a continuation of what former regimes have done.

Now, there seems to be all of a sudden a constitutional attack on the role of select committees by the other side of the House. This motion of referral upholds the role of a select committee. Irrespective of how dreary you might find your time on a select committee, the House devolves authority down to select committees and they operate depending on the bylaws, to speak figuratively—the Standing Orders, in this document I’m holding. So to suggest that because a select committee, as a consequence of this referral motion, ought not to be meeting, and I quote, “in an area outside of Wellington or in an area some place within New Zealand”—it’s absolute petulance. It is time wasting and it undermines the ability of the Government to deliver on its electorally mandated outcome. Against that, the Opposition had their chance to eclipse that mandate. They failed because they failed to muster the numbers to get enough power in this House to pass legislation. That privilege fell to this side of the House and it is power that we will exercise.

So let’s come back to the merits of what the Hon Dr Nick Smith and others are saying. They’re saying that by truncating the periods of time, the locations of sitting, somehow we are undermining established practice. That is wrong. There are numerous occasions—for fear of straying off what’s really a narrow writ here, for fear of straying off too far—where the House exercises enough authority over its own affairs, and this particular issue requires the House to delegate down to the select committee for a period of time that this is how it will operate. It will operate in such a way that it will bring back machinery enabling us to host a referendum.

Now, they may say that referendum lacks legitimacy. Win the next election! You lost. You have no legitimacy over the power that was bestowed on this side of the House. Use your role in this select committee to be an effective Opposition. You had that chance. The ultimate sanction of power is winning power amongst New Zealanders. You failed to do that. You failed to do that.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Power corrupts.

Hon SHANE JONES: Now, I think I actually think that what—and he’s a trained lawyer, unlike the Hon Dr Nick Smith. Dr Smith, he is a trained lawyer and all he’s doing is enjoining our fellow parliamentarians to follow the Standing Orders.

Now, the Standing Orders give certain rights to that side of the House. But if they want the rights of democratic leadership, then first they have to win the hearts and minds of New Zealand. The hearts and minds of New Zealand will be on display when they have a chance to vote yay or nay in terms of what ought to be the regulatory framework enabling people to use this type of drug. I’m not here to talk about the substance of the issue, but to remind us that this is a very simple procedure. It’s a procedure that is totally based on long-established constitutional principles but, most importantly, it enjoys the ultimate sanction and that is the authority of this side of the House to represent New Zealand—something bestowed upon us by an election.

Now, our colleagues on the other side of the House will have an opportunity to run that race again, when this referendum, which the Hon Andrew Little has brought to our attention, is also conducted. So any suggestion that somehow today is a bleak and dismal day for parliamentary democracy is not only an exaggeration; it’s a very sad reflection on how shallow the other side’s understanding is of our constitution, and it’s a very trite and a very banal set of arguments. This referral motion upholds democracy and is couched on the constitutional fact that we won and you lost.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): For the benefit of that member, who was able to use many, many words where one or two would suffice, let me make it very clear that the reason we are having this debate is because yet again that Government is making the rules up, as it goes along, to suit itself. And in this particular case, the Government is calling for a shortened select committee process because it does not want to be open to the usual public scrutiny that a full select committee process would give to this bill. We on this side of the House say that in this matter relating to such a core issue of our electoral law, relating to the conduct of referenda, this is an appalling misuse of parliamentary process, because these are the very issues that require a full parliamentary process, a full select committee process, the full six-month process.

But, of course, the member asks why it is that we are here and talks about the power of Parliament. Well, the very intent of the bill that we are looking at is to remove some of the power of Parliament. Parliament has historically been able to write the questions for referenda; to have bills which put those questions forward; to have the wording of those questions debated in select committee; to allow members of the public to share their wisdom, their views, their ideas on those questions and how they should be properly put. But, instead, what this bill does is it says, “No, no. We are the Labour - Greens - New Zealand First coalition. We don’t need to hear what the public think about the question because we know better than the public. We believe that we should have the right by Order in Council to set the question as we see fit. To, by fiat, decide what the question should be, never mind that the framing of that question has such a”—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’ll just encourage the member to speak to the motion, not to the bill. We’re debating a shortened report-back period, not the actual bill, and the member’s actually debating the bill.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I listened very carefully to the previous contribution from Mr Shane Jones. He veered significantly from the specific issues around the time frame of the select committee and the exemptions from particular Standing Orders. I just ask that we take a consistent approach with other contributions to this debate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): My ruling on that is that I’m the sole judge of that.

NICOLA WILLIS: The reason we are having this debate is because the Government wants to ram this bill through a select committee process that has been shortened. We, on this side of the House, have views on why it is that it wants to ram that through, and there is much speculation that could happen as to why it wants to ram it through. We would argue that the public should, more than ever, have the right and the ability to scrutinise what this bill does and how it differs from the conventional process for referenda. We argue that a shortened process will curtail the ability of members of the public to have their say on this matter. That is unacceptable, because these are issues of great democratic intent. These are issues that go to the very heart of our electoral system and require full scrutiny through a full select committee process. It’s actually telling that here we have a Government who are prepared to do what they need to do to satisfy the demands of their coalition partners, ahead of allowing the public to have their say.

We had, earlier, Minister Little speaking about why this referral motion was being put forward. We had him, in his earlier speech on this bill, talking about the fact that this would allow for full scrutiny. Well, how can it be that full scrutiny will occur when members opposite are, at the same time, calling for a shortened process? What is it that is actually driving that need for a shortened process? What I would argue is that the reason Government members are wanting a shortened process is that, in fact, they do not want to open this up to the full and proper scrutiny that it deserves. They are embarrassed about what they are doing and they do not wish the public to have their usual rights of scrutiny, and to have the usual time required.

We’ve had the excuse offered up that things are all getting a bit tight, in terms of when the next election will be and when the referenda are to be held. Well, I would argue that it shouldn’t be Parliament’s punishment that we don’t get the time for a proper select committee process simply because Ministers opposite were taking too long over coalition negotiations. Why should Parliament lose its right to scrutiny? Why, in fact, should New Zealanders? Why should members of the public lose their right to full scrutiny because Ministers on the other side have dilly-dallied, have taken their time, have spent too long in negotiations and not enough time opening things up for public scrutiny.

Hon Shane Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I direct you to invite the person on her feet to acquaint herself with the necessary Standing Orders; they have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the coalition Government or that period of negotiations. The Standing Orders are very explicit—a period “between four and six months”. If it is not within that period of time, and this probably looks like it’s between three and three and a half, then there is the ability to eclipse Standing Orders 191, 192, 193. The member needs to stop prattling on about the coalition Government formation, because it’s irrelevant and it’s against the Standing Orders.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: No, I don’t need any help, thank you. As I mentioned in the earlier ruling, the member needs to debate the issue of the shortened report-back time and she has ventured off into other areas. Can I say, also, the debate’s getting quite repetitive. But I’m going to go back to Nicola Willis and, hopefully, we’ll get back on track.

NICOLA WILLIS: The reason we are having this debate is because the Government has asked for a shortened report-back time for this bill. They have not offered sufficient reasoning or argument for that shortened period. There has been no sufficient explanation of why it is that the public should have their usual rights of submission reduced, and so members on this side of the House are invited to speculate as to what the reason could be. So that is why I find myself asking if this is because we have a coalition Government that have taken too long to introduce the bill to the House and, therefore, we and Parliament have a shortened report-back time at the select committee?

Members opposite could have introduced this bill months ago. They chose not to, and the select committee will now pay the price with only three or three and a half months to scrutinise this, rather than the usual four to six. Mr Speaker, you know and we know that it does have a material impact. Those of us who have sat on select committees and gone through the submission process know that when it comes to matters like this there are those—potentially, those from an academic viewpoint, those who understand the constitutional significance of these issues, those with subject matter interest or expertise—who wish to take time to submit their views, to submit them in length, to make sure that they are thoughtful and considered, and who then wish to be before the committee and to make those make those views known in person. The minute we shorten that process it has a very real bearing on the ability of people to submit; on the ability of people to put those submissions together; the ability of them to come forward before the committee.

So we are debating this motion because we think, on this matter, of all matters—given its constitutional significance, given its bearing on electoral law, given its bearing on democratic principles—there should be a full select committee process that allows for full scrutiny. So this is an abuse of parliamentary process. This is shortening the scrutiny of a bill that deserves more scrutiny than most, and we oppose this referral motion.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thanks for the opportunity of responding to the referral motion that there should be a shortened report-back time to three, three and a half months on this important bill, regarding referendums going forward.

I would just like to point out to members that this still enables the Justice Committee to do a thorough and full job of hearing submissions on this particular issue. I would also like for members to draw their mind back to the previous Government, where we saw bill after bill go through this House without a regulatory impact statement, without a Bill of Rights—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, we’re not debating that. The member needs to—

GINNY ANDERSEN: So when we talk about democracy—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member needs to come to the motion, not anything else from previous Governments.

GINNY ANDERSEN: So when the select committee considers this, it is important to note that after that New Zealanders also get the opportunity to vote at the general election. So not only is there an opportunity during the shortened select committee period for submissions to be considered thoroughly but after that all New Zealanders who are of voting age and able to get the opportunity to vote on these issues again. It is an awesome opportunity when there is such great attention from media, from discussion, from—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, again, that’s not actually what we’re debating. We’re debating the shortened report-back time, not the election.

GINNY ANDERSEN: So by having a shortened report-back period, we believe strongly that it will not compromise the scrutiny and ability of this House to do its job properly. In fact, in terms of it being unconstitutional, those considerations have not actually been delivered. That argument has been changed by the Opposition from once being considered to be unconstitutional—that debate has now changed to it being a convention. So it is important to note that there is a full and able opportunity for New Zealanders to have their voices heard on this issue by being able to come forward and either write, or be heard in person at select committee, and then, once again, to have that fulsome opportunity at the next election.

What we need to also note is that the issues that have been raised in this debate by the members opposite have not demonstrated how a reduced select committee consideration period would actually impede the good process and the scrutiny of this bill going forward. I have not heard a valid argument to be able to demonstrate how it would be unconstitutional or against, in any way, good process to have a shortened period in which members of the general public are able to submit on this legislation. It will still go through the exact same process of being publicly notified on the parliamentary website, of having full opportunity and notification of anybody who wishes to, to come forward and submit, and it will have the full attention of all members in this House.

So, I stand in support of a shortened select committee period because I do not see in any way by the arguments raised today that a shortened select committee period would impede upon democracy and good process occurring within this House. Thank you.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, sir, for the opportunity to speak on the referral motion to the select committee in relation to the Referendums Framework Bill. In response to some points made by Mr Jones, I want to start by noting that his characterisation of an efficient use of the select committee’s time—he’s referring to the determination made by Minister Little along that line—surely it is for the select committee itself to determine the best use of its own time. That is indeed what its constitutional role is: to act independent of the executive to the extent that the select committee is a creature of Parliament. As such, it’s absolutely crucial, from a constitutional point of view, that it maintain that separation, it maintain that independence, and to be allowed to do its work unmolested by the dictates of the Minister of the day in relation to a particular decision or a set of decisions that that Minister—you know, reasonably in one context—might make for political reasons along with his Cabinet colleagues.

So we then ask ourselves: is the amount of time that the select committee is going to have to consider this particular bill appropriate? We’ll have less time—half as much time, in fact. So the question then becomes: is it appropriate that these matters be accorded less time? Surely that’s only the case if the matters themselves are less important. If anything, the opposite is true: the matters that will be subject to deliberation ultimately under this bill, bearing in mind that referenda questions will not need to come back to this House—obviously, the answer is yes. These are, if anything, more important matters: matters of life and death, matters of drug policy, and whatever one’s views on that, we must surely agree that it’s important to allow the select committee enough time to understand how these things will relate to the matter—no small matter—of the general election of 2020.

Mr Jones spoke about, effectively, a winner-takes-all philosophy, whereby that side of the House, having won the election, enjoys a mandate to run the country. Of course, that is true as far as it goes, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s constitutionally inappropriate for the executive to be directing Parliament—in this case, a particular select committee—to operate in a particular way that is extraordinary.

Further to that point regarding a mandate from the 2017 election that Mr Jones claims, that would have a lot more weight if it were true that all the parties that now form Government had, in fact, campaigned on all these matters. New Zealand First didn’t campaign on several matters that now appear set to go to a referendum. So it is rather rich for him to claim a mandate, in the context of seeking to truncate a process, on the basis that they’ve already got the authority from the good people of New Zealand.

It’s that three-stage process: not only the election—electing members of the House of Parliament by the people in New Zealand—but the selection of the Government by the leader of New Zealand First and then the collection of policies that have gone into that. It’s relevant to note, absolutely, that in none of these was the New Zealand First position, which now seems to be maintained as a matter of electoral mandate, ever exposed to the New Zealand people for an airing. I dare say that many would-be voters of New Zealand First would perhaps have thought differently about the way they cast their vote, thereby changing the mandate claimed by Mr Jones if they had known what was planned.

My next point is, again, essentially one of rebuttal. We’ve heard from the Government side of the House that it’s appropriate to have a lesser time of scrutiny by the select committee for this bill because it’s simply important to establish some machinery for referenda—as though that were impossible for the House itself to come to. I don’t need to belabour the point that we’ve previously made about the fact that, on every single occasion previously, it has been this House that has done exactly that. For particular referenda questions, it has done exactly that, and so the departure from convention—the breech of convention, indeed—is unnecessary and is therefore contributing to the general sense of arrogance and ignorance that has characterised the speeches we’ve heard opposite today on this bill.

Allow me to make a couple of final points. I don’t need to take my full 10 minutes. In relation, again, to the comments of Mr Jones, he speaks as though political parties are the centre of the democratic universe. Well, in fact, it’s the people of New Zealand who are the centre of that particular universe, and it is we, their representatives in the House as a whole—not, of course, the National Party beyond the percentage that we gained in the election, which I acknowledge, obviously enough for the record, was not a majority in itself. But the fact that we are hearing, in effect, something along the lines of: “We won. You lost.”—and I note, by the way, that’s not necessarily a direct quote, but it wasn’t far off. The notion that we’ve heard from Mr Jones is that it’s a matter of political parties winning or losing—effectively, on another level from whether the people of New Zealand should lose out by having their select committee of their Parliament having a full and proper chance to speak on these matters. That’s really the point, in terms of democratic mandate, that Mr Jones misses, whether deliberately or not.

Finally—and again, I say I don’t need to take my 10 minutes on this because the debate has been raising a lot of these issues very clearly from various colleagues of mine—the shortened process, due to tightness of time frames ahead of the 2020 election, should not be an excuse or reason for truncating the process in this way. It was always the case that there was going to be an election in 2020. It was always the case that 2020 was going to follow 2019. It was always the case that 2019 was going to follow 2018, and if that seems like too obvious a point, it seems to have been lost on the other side, who failed to anticipate the ticking of the clock, the turning of the pages of history. The calendar turning over in an entirely predictable way seems to have passed them by until suddenly, now, they need to act and in an unseemly rush. Whether that’s due to accident or design, I wouldn’t like to say, but the people in New Zealand can have their view, whether it’s cock-up or conspiracy. But, in any case, it’s pretty untidy to say the least. It’s a hopeless way to conduct the process of this House and, therefore, our democracy. So for that reason, along with others on the side of the House, I’m very strongly opposing this motion to refer the bill to select committee for a much-truncated period of time than would otherwise be the case.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I’m glad that enlightened member opposite, Chris Penk, knows that 2017 comes before 2018, and 2018 comes before 2019. He may know that day becomes before night. On this side we are in daylight; on that side—it would appear—eternal gloom.

But could I please come right back to the motion, because I have been a little confused by some of the arguments made across the road. What the motion actually says—and if I can, it does something that we’d all really love to be able to do. In our lives we are all so time-poor; what this motion does is creates time. Now, those sitting at home will be a little concerned. They’ll be thinking, “My gosh, this means that somehow we’re going to be rushing people through here, that they won’t get their time, they won’t get the opportunity.” Actually, if I can go back to the actual motion, it says that the House can now sit “during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area.”

They are things that do not normally occur. So anyone listening at home that is concerned that somehow their opportunity to give evidence on this bill, to come and speak with us, will be somehow lost, actually, no. What this incredibly insightful motion by the Minister of Justice does do is that it enables us to create—not actual time—not time but debating time. It actually enables us to create time—extra time—where those members who are watching will be actually enabled to have more time.

Just to let those who are listening know: what normally happens is that select committees only ever sit for about three hours on a Wednesday and on a Thursday. Now, if you’re like me, a member who is on the Justice Committee, the extremely hard-working Justice Committee that actually last year sat 75 percent of the time of all committees—but I’m not here to show off or skite; I’m just here to say I worked 75 percent harder than people who were on other committees last year, but that’s neither here nor there. Just to add to that, I was also on the Social Services and Community Committee, which also was the second-highest sitting committee. So I’m not standing here saying that I’m holding this place together myself; that may be for others to surmise from that irrefutable evidence.

However, what it is—and the point I’m trying to make to those at home is, “Don’t worry. If you want to come and make a submission on the bill, the time available to you to do so actually is likely to be greater than otherwise.” So to those there who choose to be in the dark—and again, I reiterate that day does follow night, so be optimistic—actually the opportunities will be there. It may even help if I actually go to those Standing Orders that have been set aside to enable this to happen. Standing Order 191 “Except by leave of the committee, a select committee may not meet on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting at the House.” Well, now we can sit on a Friday. We’ve created a day. We’ve created a Friday. It’s like—

Dr Duncan Webb: Thank God it’s Friday.

GREG O’CONNOR: It’s TGIF—I think there was a whole range of bars: “Thank God it’s Friday.” Well, so those who wish to submit on this bill will now be able to say, “Thank God it’s Friday.” because now they’ll be able to come and submit on a Friday, whereas before Standing Order 191 prevented them from doing just that.

But it gets better, because we go to Standing Order 193. It’s even better because normally select committees sit in Wellington. I don’t know—Wellington, I’m rather fond of the place: the Ōhāriu electorate is the best electorate in New Zealand, if not the world, but certainly in New Zealand, so I’m proud to be here. But I’ll admit sometimes the weather’s not—sometimes the airport is a little closed, sometimes it’s a little bit difficult to get here. So what this motion does is it actually enables the committee to go to where the people are.

“Oh, no.” you might say, “We demand they come here under the Standing Orders.” But no, again we’re not only creating time we’re creating places. Mr Smith, we could go to Nelson, a wonderful place, and I’d hope that if we do decide to sit in Nelson—I’m going to put my hand up to come to Nelson. As you will know, I have great family ties to Nelson: people who arrived there in the 1840s. I’m proud to call myself half-Nelsonian, half - West Coast. So if we create that time, if we create that space, I put my hand up to come to Nelson and be part of the select committee. Again, those sitting at home, if you are in Nelson listening, you don’t have to get—and someone’s complaining it’s a $500 return fare to Wellington for Air New Zealand. Mr Smith can probably confirm that if you turn up at the airport to buy a return ticket. That’s a long way to come but we’ll come to you because Standing Order 193 allows us to do it, which is an important part of this motion.

But it gets even better. Those who are sitting at home excited about what’s going to happen try 194(1), because 194(1)—and wait for it, I wish perhaps a drumroll from those up there—“(1) When meeting within the Wellington area, a select committee may not meet—(a) during oral questions:”—these are the normal Standing Orders. These are Standing Orders that this motion suspends when it passes. That’s an hour. In fact, sometimes—today, you may have noticed, there was a lot that went on. I think we sit for an extra 10 minutes today. I don’t think we actually got to the business of the House until about 10 past three. So there we’ve created up to another hour and a half for the people at home, because this committee now is permitted to sit during question time.

But it gets even better than that. I know, you’ll be thinking: is it possible? We go to 191(1)(b) “during a sitting of the House except by leave …”. So normally, a committee cannot sit during a sitting of the House except by leave of the committee. But now we can. So even now while we’re here, while the business of the House, while the world is focused on this Chamber—do you know that under this motion, this brilliant motion of the Minister of Justice, it’ll be possible for a select committee to be sitting in one of the select committee rooms out here? That’s something that’s banned. So again, this creation of time and space—that perhaps they come together at this stage.

But it doesn’t finish there—this is like the Ginsu knives of parliamentary business: Standing Order 194(1)(c) “during an evening (after 6 pm) on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House.” Normally come six o’clock in the evening, the ability for a select committee to sit to discuss this important matter and any important matter is curtailed. People leave this House. They toddle off. Some of them go to Copperfields. A good meal at Copperfields—I recommend it; good value for money and open to the public when the members are not here. But they can go further. They can go down Lambton Quay. There are some excellent eateries around here and I find that my culinary needs and desires can be met.

But what I can’t do, alas—alas, I can’t do and nor can any other members of the public—they cannot come here and give evidence before a select committee after the doomsday hour, after six o’clock: the bewitching hour. It hasn’t been possible. So now, as a result of this enlightened—enlightened—motion by the Minister of Justice, 194(1)(c) “during an evening (after 6 pm) on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House.”

So what this magical motion does—what this incredible motion does—is create time and space and perhaps even a visit to Mr Smith, sorry Dr Smith, the Hon Dr Smith’s own electorate of Nelson or Invercargill or the far north. So anyone listening here, sit back in your chair, relax. Don’t listen to the terrible doom and gloom you’ve just heard and may even hear more of across the opposite side of the House. It is darkness there. We haven’t created daylight for them yet, but we have created daylight for those of you sitting at home, those who want to partake and participate in this incredibly important democratic process. So for that reason I absolutely recommend this enlightened motion to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Referendums Framework Bill be reported to the House by 11 November 2019 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193, and 194(1)(b) and (c).

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Motion agreed to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, I think after the debate on the first reading of this bill, we missed the Clerk reading the first reading, so I think we’ll do that now.

[Clerk announces first reading]

Bills

Electoral Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

I’m heartened by the speeches from the members opposite in the last matter the House considered, because the great celebration of democracy that they expressed in their speeches actually lies at the heart of this bill. This bill is about enhancing our democracy. It is about—to use the title of a previous piece of legislation we enacted last year—electoral integrity. It brings fairness to voting across the board. So at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill will be reported to the House by 16 December 2019.

This bill, as I said, will enhance our electoral system by making changes to make it easier to vote. So this bill does a number of things that will help New Zealanders’ voting experience. It is an obligation on this House when it is considering electoral law and the laws governing people’s right to vote to make sure that we maximise the ability and the opportunity for people to vote. That means enrolling to vote, because that is, of course, the starting point, and notwithstanding the somewhat kind of mandatory requirement to enrol to vote, actually, it’s something that a lot of people miss out on. They don’t get round to it or they leave it till too late, and we had the situation in 2017 where 19,000 people turned up to vote on election day—on the Saturday that was the nominated, designated election day—and had not enrolled, and they could not vote. They actually did vote, but their votes didn’t count. Here’s the thing; here’s the rub: in the advance voting period, a whole bunch of other people—thousands of people—who when they turned up to the voting booth had not enrolled were able to both enrol and vote.

I’ve seen some public comments from members opposite who seem to be horrified at this bill making it easier for people to cast their vote by enrolling and voting at the same time, not just in the advance voting period but on voting day itself. That’s what this bill does.

Now, I am sure I misread what I have seen in the newspapers and online. I am sure that after the speeches we’ve heard this afternoon in this House, members will be leaping up to say “That’s right, Minister of Justice. You’ve got it right. This is just what we need to add fairness to our voting system and to make sure that every voter is treated fairly.”, because, you see, here’s the other thing: as we head into the 2020 general election—which is very important for all of New Zealand—whereas in the 2017 general election we saw 47 percent of voters casting their vote ahead of the designated election day, we are now projecting that up to 65 percent of voters will cast their vote in the advance voting period, leaving 35 percent to cast their vote on election day. So it is no longer defensible to have one rule for the 65 percent who vote before the designated election day and a separate rule for the 35 percent who vote on election day.

I am pretty sure, given the speeches we’ve heard this afternoon, that members opposite will of course have to say that that’s right, because if a voting system is going to be credible and if it has integrity, we cannot have different rules for different voters, depending on what day they vote. That is indefensible. That is wrong. So this bill seeks to remedy that particular mischief.

It does other things as well. It actually enables the Electoral Commission to put polling booths in places where currently they cannot. So places that sell liquor on election day, like supermarkets, cannot be used for voting, and yet, actually, on Saturdays, which is still the designated voting day, that is where hundreds of thousands of people go, because doing your grocery shopping on a Saturday is a pretty common thing for most Kiwis to do. So why wouldn’t we make it easier for them to vote by shifting voting booths to where they are in their hundreds of thousands?

Of course people will turn up to the school hall—and if you have kids at the particular school you’ll be used to it, but a lot of people aren’t—and of course we will still have voting booths in the community halls, but not a lot of people go to community halls in their routine weekly endeavours these days. But they do go to the supermarket, so why wouldn’t we make it easier for voters to be able to cast their vote and do so at a supermarket or at a place that would sell liquor? Now, there is a restraint on that. It has to be a place that even though it sells liquor, liquor cannot be consumed there, which makes it ideal for malls and supermarkets and the like.

So this bill is about enhancing our democracy. It makes it easier for voters to enrol and also to vote.

I did hear an argument in the public dispatches, and I don’t know whether it came from a member opposite. I’m pretty sure after I’ve heard the speeches this afternoon that it wouldn’t have done, but I did hear an argument that said “Well, what is it that Labour’s trying to get? If they’re trying to introduce this fairness measure, are they trying to get more people to vote?”, as if it was something that was wrong. It was as if the system that we’ve got at the moment that is shutting people out—19,000 people in 2017—from casting their democratic right was somehow OK, and, of course, it’s not. We have to remedy that, and that’s what this bill does.

So I think it is great that we are getting to grips with modern changes in people’s patterns of life. This is the way people are—they don’t get round to enrolling. I mean, it doesn’t help, of course, that with the prisoner voting legislation that the previous Government passed, some people are not just denied the opportunity to vote but they are struck off the roll completely, which is the problem.

Dr Duncan Webb: Oh!

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: That was a National Party initiative—that was a National Party initiative. The National Party—unfortunately—historically, typically did not care about some people’s right to vote. I know they’ve turned the page on that. I know they’ve turned a new leaf. When you heard them this afternoon, it was very clear that this current generation of National MPs have abandoned their historical past and they actually want to enhance democracy, and I welcome that. I welcome that. I am so looking forward to the great speeches they are going to give this afternoon, because they are going to be amazing—amazing—celebrations of democracy, because they are well rehearsed now. They’ve had a good run at it. Nick Smith’s got his blood pressure up. He’ll have a great performance this afternoon, and that will be very good.

So this legislation makes it easier to vote by changing the enrolment and voting processes—particularly for election day—but also by making sure that there are more venues where people can cast their vote.

There are a couple of other technical changes too, that are in relation to the liquor licensing. As long as the place sells alcohol but you can’t consumer it there, then that’s a place where you can vote, but it also has to provide for the counting of votes for those booths because, typically, they cannot be counted on site. So the bill provides for the Electoral Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer themselves or to mandate others to take the votes that have been cast in the ballot box—under security, no doubt—and move them to another place for the counting, and I think that will be very helpful, as well.

The other thing the bill does that is very important is it updates and upgrades the current provisions on handling an emergency—a civil emergency or a weather emergency or call it what you like. There are provisions at the moment, but it means that the electoral officer for the particular electorate has to make a variety of decisions, and if you have a civil emergency like a weather emergency—a mass flooding or something that disrupts multiple electorates—you’ve got to line up all the electoral officers in each of those areas to make a decision. This allows the Chief Electoral Officer to make decisions dealing with emergencies that arise that have an impact on people’s ability to vote.

What it says is that if there is a major emergency that requires perhaps closing voting booths and voting places or shifting them around, then the Chief Electoral Officer can do that, and there is a consultation process with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. It is not for them to veto it and not for them to make the decision, but as a kind of a courtesy at least and to make sure that everybody is plugged in to the fact that when emergencies are of a significant nature and size and changes have to be made, then the Chief Electoral Officer will consult those two. It’s got to be even-handed, it’s non-political, it’s neutral, but it means that everybody gets to know what is going on. So it does that.

There are a couple of other technical changes in it about pushing out the vote count, because if we’re going to have enrolment and election on the same day, then we need to push out the period in which the returning officers can conduct the vote and make their return of the writ. So it does that, as well.

So this is about thinking very carefully about changes that are happening, changes about people’s patterns of life, and changes in the weather. The risk of weather events now interrupting an election is very high, and we need to be able to provide for it by giving the Chief Electoral Officer the power to make relevant decisions. So all that is there.

It goes to the select committee and it will be scrutinised very carefully, I know. These changes are very important for the integrity of the 2020 general election and the elections beyond. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This bill is another shonky chapter in the very poor process that this Government has had in respect of electoral law. If we take the first issue around process, every Government electoral bill that was introduced in the last nine years of the previous Government, or in the nine years of the Bolger-Shipley Government, involved consultation with all parties. This is not the first; this is not the second; this is the third time the Minister of Justice has introduced electoral law changes without any consultation with the Opposition at all.

Now, we could take from the speech that we just heard from Shane Jones that this Government’s view of electoral law can be summed up by Shane Jones with these words: “We won, you lost, eat that.” That’s their constitutional priority around electoral law. If we want to cheat and screw the scrum to win the next election by changing the electoral law to advantage ourselves, well that’s what we’re entitled to do, because we have a majority in the Parliament. Then we even heard worse from Tracey Martin from New Zealand First, who said these words: “You cannot trust the Parliament.”—you can trust the Government, but you cannot trust the Parliament. What sort of arrogance and anti-democratic views we now have in the Government that purports to represent New Zealand.

When we come to electoral law, here are the important considerations that we on this side of the House sign up to. The first of those is that we want to maximise the participation. We want to ensure that every New Zealander who’s eligible to vote is able to vote. Equally so, we would argue that we want an electoral system with integrity. We want to make sure that people can’t cheat, that people that aren’t eligible to vote aren’t able to get into the electoral system. Then the third key priority for National is that we have an efficient and fair electoral law.

Now, I want to draw attention to the process around this bill and the conventions of this Parliament. After every election, we have a Justice Committee inquiry, and the normal process—the process that’s been adopted in the previous Parliaments all the way back to World War II—is that after an election, there’s a select committee inquiry where we work cooperatively across the Parliament as to how we can improve electoral law. We make recommendations to the Parliament, and the Government then brings a bill to the House. None of that process has been followed. All of the issues in this bill are currently before the Justice Committee. The Government has jumped the gun ahead of that Justice Committee process.

The part that had me choking on my Kornies was when the Minister said that the reason the Justice Committee has not completed its inquiry into the 2017 election is National’s fault. Well, let me put the record very clear. The Justice Committee, of which Raymond Huo was the chair, did not even start the inquiry until September of 2018. Whose fault was it that nothing was done for the first year? The Labour chair of the committee did not put the item on the agenda. Then we’ve had six changes in the chair of the Justice Committee. We’ve got the fiasco of the Justice Committee having a chair of the committee who has not heard a single submission. [Interruption] Mr Greg O’Connor disputes that. It is absolutely true that we are now on to the sixth chair of the inquiry into the 2017 election.

Then I say to the House, in respect of that inquiry, the Minister, who accused us after of going too slow, writes to the committee in December last year and extends its terms of reference. Then the ultimate bad faith from members of the Government on that select committee inquiry into the 2017 election was the decision for Labour to substitute one of its members for Jami-Lee Ross, whose sole purpose is to carry out—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member, but it would be very advantageous if he could speak to the bill.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is the longstanding practice that electoral reform bills follow the Justice Committee. The Minister has said that the reason this bill is being introduced to pre-empt that process is because of that Justice Committee process, and that is why it is entirely appropriate that I address that.

Now, the first provision of this bill takes an exception to what is the practice in other democracies such as Australia, such as the United Kingdom, such as the European community. In all of those democracies, people are required to enrol before polling day. The question that I have for members opposite is: why does New Zealand want to step away from the electoral norm? What is the point in having a law that requires people to enrol if we say with this bill that you can enrol and vote at the same time? There’s a very simple incentive that goes with this bill, and that is if you can enrol and vote at the same time, why would any New Zealander bother to enrol in advance?

The second point on the provisions around same-day enrolment and voting is that the Electoral Commission has said that they cannot provide the writ and the result of the elections for another 10 days. It’s only been mentioned by the Minister today—he never mentioned it when he put his press release out. The implication of same-day enrolment is that the writ for the election results is going to be delayed by 10 days. That is 10 days less in which we have a Government. That’s 10 days more that we have bureaucrats twiddling their thumbs at a cost of tens of millions of dollars each day. Why should the formation of Government be delayed because people are not meeting their legal requirement to enrol prior to voting day?

I also want to say there’s a dual right that goes with elections. As candidates in this Parliament have a right to be known by the voters in advance of an election, equally candidates have a right to be able to make contact, to be able to write to voters, and to be able to communicate with them. How can candidates communicate with voters if they are not required to enrol?

Then we come to the second provision of the bill, which National members support and are quite relaxed about, and that is in respect of allowing premises that have an alcohol licence—to give a greater flexibility for those places being able to be polling booths. We have no difficulty in that regard. We do want to scrutinise at select committee the issue around votes not being counted at the polling place. It is a longstanding provision that the votes are counted in the same place in which the polling results actually occur. Then in the bill, the bill gives very wide powers for returning officers to be able to override other provisions in the Electoral Act in respect of issues of where there is disruption from a storm or event or something else. It is our view that the Leader of the Opposition should be consulted, and that is not provided for in this bill.

New Zealand is very unusual. You couldn’t introduce a bill like this into the Australian, the American, or many other Parliaments. We don’t have a constitution. We run our electoral system on conventions, and those conventions are that we work on a cross-party basis to try and develop the very best of electoral law. What this Government has done once with the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill, secondly with the Electoral Referendum Bill, and now with this Electoral Amendment Bill is to provide absolutely zero consultation with the largest party in this Parliament. I’ve a simple message for members opposite: electoral law is not a plaything for the Government of the day. You don’t get to pick and choose the Electoral Commission recommendations that might advance your own re-election. We need to have some respect for electoral law and ensure that we have an electoral system that serves our country well—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time for his contribution has ended.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call and be part of the fiery debate that’s been going in the House this afternoon. Of course, this is the first reading of the Electoral Amendment Bill, and, like the Hon Andrew Little—I was going to call him his Māori name, but Andrew Little—laid out, it has four parts. I want to address the four parts, but I want to just reply to some of the challenges that that particular member, Nick Smith—an experienced member in this House—raised.

Can I just say, this Thursday will be a week since I’ve been the chair of the Justice Committee, and I’m proud of the work that previous members have done and the amount of work that they’ve put through this House in terms of the 19 bills that have come through this House. We’re not a committee that is shy of hard work. So this particular bill, the Electoral Amendment Bill—I’m pleased that as part of the coalition Government, we tackle the big issues, and voter participation is a big issue. It is an issue that this side of the House thinks is important for not just next year’s general election but beyond that. We are talking about improving our electoral system in this country, which goes beyond the three-year cycle.

The Minister outlined there are four key components of this bill. He talked about the election day—vote and register on the same day. I have a story of my own 19-year-old son going to vote in an advance vote, only to find out that he wasn’t registered. So we thought that we could register and he cast his vote. We got told that his party vote was accepted but not his candidate vote, so him and I have this kind of joke that he wasn’t able to vote for his mum in the last 2017 vote. But it goes to show there are sectors of our community that do miss out, and this bill is attempting to make that experience of rocking on up to the election poll on election day and find that you haven’t registered to not only vote but to also cast your vote, and that’s what this bill is attempting to do. I’m surprised that all members of this House don’t see value in allowing all voters in this country who are eligible—18 years and over—to have the ability to vote and register on election day.

The bill also talks about the extra places that the Minister canvassed—he talked about, obviously, supermarkets, but we’ve got community halls—to give the Electoral Commission the flexibility to have venues that are fit for purpose for a voter experience, and so this bill talks about expanding the range of premises that can be used as voting places. Of course, the other area is improving voter issuing and return processes, like a register, and we talk in parts in this bill about the ongoing work that the Electoral Commission is doing by 2023 of instituting an electronic register. But in this election for 2020, we want to make sure that we are ensuring that the ordinary vote that’s issued is found on the electoral roll at the time and allows, again, those first-time voters, or voters who thought they were registered, the mechanisms in which they can turn up and vote and have their register, electronically or likewise, acknowledged.

The fourth area is the disruptive powers given to the commission. For me personally, I’m keen when we go out for consultation on this bill that submitters actually have an input into the width and the breadth of the powers that we are updating for the Chief Electoral Officer in terms of what constitutes a disruption to, obviously, voting day and how that is managed. So there is a whole list of provisions in this bill that talks about the disruption to the voting experience and the role that the Chief Electoral Officer will play in either moving or making decisions.

Now, on that side of the House, we had the Hon Nick Smith talk about the involvement of the Opposition leader in that decision making. Well, you know, we could put that to the select committee and hear from people, New Zealanders, about whether they think that’s practical or whether that will work. In terms of some of the other comments that Dr Smith talked about in terms of process, when I reference in my contribution to this particular debate, I’m using the departmental disclosure statement. Obviously, we’ve all got that in the House. But the first question talks about what available inquiries or reviews or reports have gone in to inform this particular bill, and there’s not one report, there’s not two reports, but there’s actually three.

There’s three reports that have gone in to inform this bill. They are the Report of the Electoral Commission on the 2014 General Election, Electoral Commission, April 2015; there’s the Inquiry into the 2014 General Election, Justice and Electoral Committee, which was chaired by Jacqui Dean, in April 2016; and then the third report was the Report of the Electoral Commission on the 2017 General Election, Electoral Commission, April 2018. So the concerns on that side of the House that this bill has been put together without any information from outside reports, I guess, by the study in this departmental—it completely nullifies those statements, because clearly it says that there have been three reports that have gone into this particular bill. It also has come up, and Dr Smith raised it, that the Minister wrote to the Justice Committee in December last year, inviting them to examine the Electoral Commission’s report, and, of course, we’ve heard that nothing came back.

So this is a Government that is committed to doing the right thing, that takes action, and that wants to ensure that our electoral system is voter-friendly and that all people, no matter where they are in this country, can participate in our general election in 2020 but beyond. This bill, in its simplicity, does address those key areas, like we said: vote and registration on the same day, the fact that we can expand where we’re going to hold elections, and, of course, the electoral registration, and, of course, the disruptive powers that I’ve mentioned earlier. It is a piece of legislation that I thought all parties in this House would agree allows participation of our voters.

Like I said in my opening stance, this is a very hard-working select committee. I am sure that we will scrutinise it in the time that we’ve been allocated. We will ensure that it goes far and wide. I know that this committee is a very diligent committee, that every submission will be scrutinised and debated on, and that’s good because when the bills come back into this House from that particular select committee, they have been thoroughly scrutinised and thoroughly tested.

Without prolonging this first speech, I’m really supportive that it is being made in this House and that it is going off to our select committee. We’ve been tasked to report back in December—I think it was December, December later this year. Obviously, it will give the Electoral Commission great clarity and steer in terms of expectations for next year’s general election. I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker, and if I haven’t done so already, congratulations on your promotion to that prestigious position.

Look, the National Party opposes this bill, and I want to make two points in my contribution to this debate. The first is to start about the process. It is hard to find or hard to think of a worse process than what the Government has conducted on this very important piece of electoral legislation, and my colleague and friend Dr Nick Smith has gone through the appalling way the Government has gone about introducing this bill to the Parliament and now referring it to the select committee.

For time immemorial, after an election the Justice Committee holds an inquiry. They go through all the things that happened in the election. Generally, that’s done on a pretty bipartisan basis, and committee hears the submissions and then the Justice Committee makes a report to the Parliament—again, done reasonably collegially, on a bipartisan basis. The Government then picks up a piece of legislation and introduces any amendment bill to the House. Critically, that bill is consulted on between the Government and the Opposition, because our electoral law should never become the plaything of politicians. It’s too important for that—too important an issue.

Now, I’ve only been a member of Parliament for 4½ years—

Kieran McAnulty: Too long.

CHRIS BISHOP: —but I had the privilege of—ha, ha! “Too long.”, says my fellow parliamentary co-captain, Kieran McAnulty. Well, we’ll let the voters decide. But I’ve only had the privilege of being an MP for 4½ years, but I have served on the Justice Committee, and that’s exactly the process that we went through after the 2014 election. The now Prime Minister sat on that committee. She well knows the process that members of Parliament go through, and it worked really well. The Hon Amy Adams was the Minister of Justice after the 2014 election. She accepted the report of the parliamentary select committee. The Minister worked with the Opposition front-bencher who had responsibility for the justice portfolio, and there were a series of very sensible changes made and the Electoral Amendment Bill went through the previous Parliament, the 50th Parliament, I think unanimously, and passed the Parliament—no worries with that.

What we have here is a Government, firstly, acting in advance of that select committee inquiry. Now, the Minister Andrew Little says that the committee has taken too long. Well, actually, we’re in July 2019. The committee is, as I understand it—I’m no longer a member—reasonably soon to report back. There is more than enough time to listen to what the committee has to say. Critically—and this is the second point—the Government has not consulted with the Opposition. The Government has not consulted with the Opposition, and some of the changes here are controversial. Frankly, I think it is a disgrace.

Now, Minister Shane Jones was here before. He pretty much summed up the Government’s approach to electoral law matters, echoing Michael Cullen, that famous dictum after the 1999 election: “We won, you lost, eat that.” Well, actually, I’ve got to say that is an atrocious way to treat electoral law, which should be far above the normal, sort of, dictates of political process. It should be something that is far more important.

So we object to the way in which this bill has been put together from the start. Sadly, it is all too common with Labour Governments. I remember working here in the 2005 to 2008 Parliament when the last Labour Government rammed through Parliament the constitutionally objectionable Electoral Finance Bill against massive opposition from not just the National Party Opposition sitting on this side but the Human Rights Commission, the New Zealand Law Society—a range of august bodies that told the Labour Government of the day not to ram through a bill that stifled free speech. They did it anyway despite all injunctions to them to not do so, and, sadly, here we are again, and, of course, we’ve already had the debacle of the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill earlier on in the life of this Parliament. So I really just do plead with members opposite: just consider the damage you are doing to our unwritten constitution when it is the case that the Labour Party can win Government and act without even consulting the Opposition to introduce electoral amendment bills. I think it is genuinely appalling, and we object to the process.

Let me talk to the second issue to do with the bill, which is the issue of same-day enrolment. Now, there is a case to be made for same-day enrolment, but there is also a strong case to be made in opposition to it. Let me outline some of the reasons why we in the National Party are concerned about this. The first thing to note is, as part of the inquiry, the Electoral Commission came before the Parliament and told us that if Parliament wanted to do this and if we wanted to implement it for a general election, we should do it for the 2023 general election, not for the 2020 election. That’s the Electoral Commission. That’s the advice from the experts. It would be fair to say they strongly implored the Parliament to only implement it for the 2023 election. Why is that? Well, actually, there are quite significant implications to election day from what the Government is proposing.

The second thing to say is I encourage members opposite, who clearly haven’t done this, and I encourage all members of the House to go and read the regulatory impact statement provided by the Ministry of Justice. It is a warning to the Parliament and to the Government about implementing this in time for the 2020 election. I noticed that Andrew Little, the Minister, has not really advertised the fact, which I think members will be interested in, that the result of the election is now going to be delayed for 10 days as a result of this piece of legislation, because the bill quite neatly inserts into it a provision to allow the return of the writs to 60 days after its issue. I’m just quoting from the general policy statement of the bill: “This change is necessary to support the Electoral Commission to manage the introduction of enrolment on election day and provide more time to process the increased numbers of enrolment and update forms before the official count”.

Now, members opposite may not know a lot about how our elections work. In 2017, 17 percent of all votes counted were special votes—17 percent. Almost one in five votes cast at the election were special votes. Special votes take 10 times longer—it’s not my words; these are the words of the Ministry of Justice in their regulatory impact statement—to process than ordinary votes. One of the effects of this piece of legislation will be a very large increase in the number of special votes. So that’s exactly why the Electoral Commission said to the parliamentary select committee considering this: “Don’t do it necessarily for 2020. If you are going to do it, do it for 2023.”, but yet we have the Government saying “No, no, we’re going to do it for 2020.” in, I believe, contravention of all the advice provided by the experts.

There are good reasons to ask people to get on to the rolls. There are very good reasons to get people on to the rolls. When you’re on the roll, you can be sent information from the Electoral Commission about voting. You can be sent information by political parties. Remember, jury service is dictated by who’s on the electoral roll. It’s actually very important that we have our rolls as up to date as possible. What does this bill do? It sends the message that enrolment is optional, actually, that enrolment is something you don’t necessarily need to do until election day. What we will see is far more people rocking up on election day and enrolling, and they won’t be doing it in advance. So, yes, it will increase participation. Yes, it will increase the number of votes cast, but we need to be careful about the practical implementation of same-day enrolment and same-day voting. Members opposite I don’t think are aware of the extension of the writs that will be required, of the 10-day extension of the election results being declared, of the massive increase in special votes that will be required to be counted. I encourage members to go and read the regulatory impact statement, which outlines a range of risks to the integrity of the election because of this.

We support many of the other changes in the bill, as my colleague Nick Smith has mentioned. We support expanding the range of premises that can be used as voting places. I think that’s a sensible change. There’s some changes around improving the way vote issuing and returns are done. Polling day disruptions—they seem like generally sensible changes. But to have a Government turn up here and arrogantly arrogate to itself the right to force through Parliament a bill that makes fundamental changes to our electoral system, without consulting the Opposition and in advance of the Justice Committee inquiry, is disgraceful in the extreme.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What we just heard from Chris Bishop in the last 30 seconds—probably less—was he rattled off a few things that they agree with in the bill. The first five minutes of his speech, literally, were about one thing: obviously, trying to convey to us why the National Party and he in particular doesn’t support this bill. I listened to Nick Smith prior to that and couldn’t figure out whether he supported or didn’t support this bill. I’m glad that Chris Bishop actually said, “I don’t support this bill.” What Chris Bishop said in the first five minutes is that the main reason—obviously it’s the main reason, because it took half his speech—was that they weren’t consulted, that the Opposition wasn’t consulted on a piece of legislation—“Therefore, that’s our main reason to oppose it.” He spent more than five minutes of his 10-minute allocation complaining about not being consulted on a piece of legislation going through this House about electoral issues, right?

Then his second main point was that it’s going to delay things by 10 days—it’s going to delay things by 10 days—but in the same breath, he said, yes, this will increase voter turnout. This will increase access to people to ensure that they can vote, but it’s going to delay it by another 10 days. That’s the second reason why they’re going to not support this bill, and then, like I said, he used 30 seconds or so to list the majority of the bill that they agree with but they’re voting against. The National Party can’t have it both ways. They can’t agree with the majority of the bill and the intent of the bill and then have two pathetic reasons why they’re not going to support it and then vote no at the first reading.

What I want to get on to is what Nick Smith said. There’s one thing in particular he said that stood out for me. I was getting a glass of water over there on the floor, and I almost dropped it. The main reason why he’s not supporting this bill—he said, “The Government is trying to win the next election by screwing it in the Government’s favour. The Government’s trying to screw the scrum”, I think he said—“screw the scrum”. So the Government is going to win the election, going to screw it in our favour. Now, what he’s just said is that more people who vote, the more people who have access to vote, is going to make the Government win the election.

Hon Clare Curran: Worked for the Republicans.

DARROCH BALL: Is that what the member said?

Hon Clare Curran: Yes.

DARROCH BALL: Is the member going to deny that? I’m not sure that he actually understood what he said—I don’t think he understood what he said. So what’s the opposite to that? That National don’t want more people to go out to vote, that National don’t want more people to have access to vote, because that will mean that they’ll have favour in the election. If people are empowered in this country, like Nick Smith says, they’re going to vote for the sitting Government. That’s what Nick Smith has just said, and I hope people are watching, because what he’s just admitted—so there’s three things for the public of this country to understand, the three main reasons why the National Party is not supporting this bill to give more access, and to get more people to vote: because the National Party think that it’s going to make the Government win the election, that they weren’t consulted about it in the first place, and it’s going to delay things by 10 days. That’s why the National Party is not going to support this bill.

There’s a couple of things that I’d like to mention. The first is that I had the tremendous honour, actually, as a parliamentarian to go over and have a look at and observe the recent Fijian election, and the election in the Solomons as well. The—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Do they allow same-day enrolment?

DARROCH BALL: See, look at this—I mean, this is pathetic. This is ridiculous—this is ridiculous.

It was a tremendous honour for me to do that, and one thing that I learnt is that we take for granted in this country our democratic process, we take for granted the trust that we have in our system and Electoral Commission, and we take for granted the access that we have to vote, the access to our MPs, and the ability for us to get out and vote. What, ironically, Dr Nick Smith was waxing lyrical about on the bill prior to this was all about the fairness of the electoral system. Well, if he took just an ounce of his own advice, then he would be voting for this bill and wouldn’t be complaining that we are increasing the fairness, with this bill, of the electoral system by giving access, by allowing more people to vote.

But here’s the more important thing, and it was made clear by the Minister: that because of the advance voting that is allowed in this country, it is estimated that approximately 65 percent of all people, of all voters that will vote in the 2020 election, will be doing it prior to the election day. What those 65 percent of all of those voters are able to do are to enrol and vote on the same day. When they decide to go and vote, they can enrol on the same day. For the fairness of the electoral process, we need to be able to do that on the election day itself. Otherwise, we’re going to have—and it was 19,000 people last election that wanted to exercise their democratic right to vote, but they were denied that ability to do that. Now, if Nick Smith and his colleagues in the National Party are saying that’s fair, and they want to take an ounce of their own advice from their speeches on the previous bill about the importance of the fairness of the vote and the ability to vote, then they will vote for this piece of legislation.

What I want to do in the last couple of minutes is just outline the main aims and intent that the National Party are voting against in this bill. The first is to “improve the enrolment and voting processes to better enfranchise voters”. The National Party are voting against that in the first reading. To “uphold the integrity of the electoral system by ensuring that elections are conducted efficiently and securely”—the National Party are voting against that intent, and against that aim. They are also voting against giving “support [to] the effective conduct of future elections.” They are voting against those aims and intents.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. We would like to have this bill go through to select committee for its scrutiny that the select committee does. We have a few questions about the practicality of what we want to implement and what we agree with in regards to the intent of this bill—around the ability for supermarkets, for example, to hold voting booths. We agree with the fact that, as written in the legislation and as the Minister outlined, venues such as supermarkets and sports clubs, etc., should have the ability to be able to hold voting booths, and ensure that people can vote there, because they are where people go to as hubs, and they do that on election days, and why would we not give them the ability to vote at the same time. But we’d like to see the practicalities in regards to that, as well as any issues that fall out in regards to possibility of electioneering issues within supermarkets as well.

But I think that there’s one point I’d like to make. In a robust democracy, there’s responsibility on both Parliament and on the public to ensure that we both play parts in maintaining the robustness of democracy and our democratic process. The Government needs to ensure there’s access to that system, that the maximum number of people are out there and voting, and also that the information is out there for them to make informed votes. But the people need to go there too, need to understand they have a responsibility and obligation to vote, first and foremost, but also to make an informed vote, and to make the effort to vote. So we’ve got that expectation as well in the people of this country. We look forward to the committee stage, where we will see more detail about how this will be implemented, but we’ll be supporting it through this first reading.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, Darroch Ball, who’s just resumed his seat, has endeavoured to suggest that the National Party is opposed to all measures in this bill. That isn’t the case, but of course we have to oppose it, because there are important aspects of this bill that are objectionable, and we have no option but to oppose the bill in its entirety while those objectionable provisions are there.

I want to make the point to the member that one of the practical outcomes of the enactment of this legislation, if indeed it is enacted, is that it will push out by about 10 days the period which will be available even for the commencement of coalition negotiations. Now, I know that New Zealand First has a proud track record of delaying the formation of a Government as long as possible, but the voters don’t like that, and it’s worth noting that during that period of uncertainty, business confidence and markets tend to get spooked. They don’t like the uncertainty that comes with not knowing what the shape of a future Government is going to be. So there are some practical implications of delaying that. That’s just a point I’d make to him.

I think far more important is the fact that we’re halfway through this debate and not a single member of the Government has yet acknowledged the very important objection that the Opposition is putting forward, and that is that we have had, in the main, a very proud history in this country of a bipartisan approach to changes to our electoral laws for reasons that will be patently obvious to anybody listening to the debate, and that is that no party should be able to screw the scrum by changing electoral laws to suit its own objectives. Of course, as has already been mentioned in this debate, the Labour Party attempted to do that quite spectacularly in 2007 with their far from lamented Electoral Finance Act.

I would actually argue that the Electoral Finance Act was one of the most significant final nails in the coffin of Helen Clark’s Government, and I’ve had former Labour members of Parliament confirm that to me—that they hated the Act with a passion when they realised just how bad it was. But they’d supported it, and, ironically, exactly the same parties—three parties—in this Parliament that are passing this particular bill were the ones who were responsible for that travesty: Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens.

But, even more importantly, going back several decades in this country, we have had the approach taken by, in the main, National Governments of reaching out to Oppositions led by Labour to show goodwill and a desire to get electoral law that everybody can agree with and see as being fair. It happened under the Bolger-Shipley Government. It happened under the John Key - Bill English Government. It even went back all the way to 1956, when the first National Government consulted with Labour on a set of changes that everyone could live with to end a period when things like the length of the Parliament had been mucked around with by the Government of the day. And yet Labour is reverting back to type.

We only found out about some of the sneaky changes in this particular bill when questions were asked at the Estimates hearing a few weeks ago and it became apparent that they were going about this in a sneaky way, with poor process. And, of course, we’ve had the Minister today complaining that the committee had failed to do its work and that that is why he needed to take the steps of introducing this measure. Well, that is absolutely nonsense, because it was he who wrote to the committee last December wanting the terms of reference extended, and it was Labour members who wanted local electoral law included. So the fact that the committee has taken longer to get on with its job must be laid fairly at the door of the Minister and his parliamentary colleagues in the Labour Party and the other parties.

It is unbelievable that we are here tonight debating another unjustifiable and unprincipled electoral bill immediately after the outrageous referenda frameworks bill, which preceded it—and I say “referenda” deliberately because, as my colleague the member for Helensville—

Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: There’s no such word.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Of course there’s a word. Referenda? My goodness, I cannot believe that the Minister of Immigration says there is no such word as “referenda”. I invite him to go back to school and discover that that is the plural of the word “referendum” and that is probably why that bill was misnamed from the outset—the title is incorrect and so are all of its provisions. But the point I wanted to make was that we had that extraordinary moment in the House during the previous debates when the Hon Tracey Martin, a Cabinet Minister in this Government, gave us the observation that Parliament cannot be trusted.

So New Zealand First, which has not a single electorate member in this Parliament, which chose two years ago not to coalesce with the largest party in the Parliament following the 2017 general election—the party which probably had the strongest mandate to be in that position, and, of course, they were thumbing their noses at the wishes of tens of thousands of New Zealanders in doing that, but that was their right to do that—and which, on recent opinion polls, has been languishing on about 3 percent, so stands very little chance of being back here—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Feel free to speak to the bill.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: I am speaking to the bill, Madam Speaker. Yes, a Minister in that party was telling us that Parliament cannot be trusted, and that, I suggest, is absolutely—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Feel free to speak to the bill.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —fundamental to the bill. So this Government is advancing another obnoxious measure, this Electoral Amendment Bill, ignoring constitutional convention, ignoring parliamentary precedent, and abusing our treasured democracy.

There are three obvious main purposes for this bill, but you won’t find them in the explanatory note of the bill, which I’m holding up at the moment, because the first obvious purpose of this bill is to ignore the detailed inquiry conducted by Parliament’s Justice Committee, because this Government clearly thinks that the committee is unlikely to recommend some of the more egregious provisions of the bill. The second is clearly to bypass longstanding conventions around electoral law, which are vital to upholding and preserving our parliamentary democracy. And the third obvious purpose of this bill is to boost the chances of Labour and Green MPs being re-elected by screwing the scrum to suit their own purposes, while adding considerable difficulty to the work of the Electoral Commission and delaying the declaration of results, as I mentioned at the outset, and the commencement of expected coalition talks. Well, if time permits, I’ll return to some of those matters.

I do want to stress that there are some measures of this bill that we could, on this side of the House, support. Of course we want as many eligible people in New Zealand to enrol and to vote and to participate in our democracy. Minister Little’s silly claim to the contrary earlier was absolutely laughable. That’s why expanding the range of places in New Zealand where we can cast our votes is reasonable; we’re happy to support that. It’s hoped that that would increase voter participation. We expect that the Electoral Commission will be able to identify secure and appropriate premises, such as supermarkets—as long as they’re away from the area where alcohol is sold—conference centres, community centres, sports clubs, and so on. I don’t think that many people would disagree with that. There are some measures that could be taken to improve the electronic technology that is now available to us and the way that it is used in future elections. There probably are better ways of dealing with electoral irregularities than current procedures provide for, but I don’t want to pre-empt the possible recommendation of the Justice Committee in our yet to be completed and reported inquiry into the 2017 election.

Therein lies one of the great failings of this bill. It renders almost pointless the work that the Justice Committee has been doing in its inquiry into the 2017 general election by rushing measures of this nature through that haven’t been fully scrutinised by that committee or recommended to the House by the committee in their report. Not only is the Justice Committee being ignored; so too is the Opposition despite the time-honoured and vital convention, as I mentioned earlier, that Governments consult Opposition parties on all such matters before proposing changes to electoral laws—for reasons that I’m sure are obvious to people listening to this debate at home, even if they are understood and not considered significant by Government members. Well, I say shame on them for that. Shame on those Government members. A Government that rams through controversial changes to electoral laws to suit themselves, as those same three parties did with the Electoral Finance Act 2007, cannot be trusted to govern. And, as I said, I believe that when they made that mistake in 2007, it was a big factor in their defeat the following year.

It isn’t difficult to enrol in New Zealand; doing so in good time is made very easy by the Electoral Commission and, I would suggest, is a responsibility of all New Zealanders who take seriously our democratic freedoms, which we should all treasure. I accept that it’s their right not to be interested in the election, but I do not accept it as their right to frustrate the will of the people and delay our democracy.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to begin by congratulating the Minister of Justice on this bill, which demonstrates his commitment to democracy and to strengthening the access of all New Zealanders to their democracy. This bill is an investment in the accessibility of all voters to our system of Government. It removes arbitrary bars to voting that we’ve seen have frightening effect on the health of any democracy. We’ve seen this overseas. We’ve seen that these types of arbitrary bars can be utilised in other systems to, effectively, disenfranchise entire segments of society. We’ve seen it in particular in the United States, where the requirements to have certain types of ID to enrol to vote and to travel distances to polling or voting stations have, effectively, disenfranchised those who can’t afford that type of access. So this bill, importantly, makes it easier to enrol to vote by allowing for that to happen on the day of election.

Now, the types of people who might find it difficult to enrol before that day might be people who don’t have a fixed abode—people who have to move around because rental properties are not yet all that secure here. The types of people that are busy, that have more than one job, that have families—these are the kinds of people that the National Party says are more likely to vote for Labour and the Greens or for the Government, indeed, and less likely to vote for them.

Next, the bill allows for voting in more types of places—like malls, like supermarkets. It makes it easier for people to go in and vote while they’re doing other things that they need to do in their busy lives. What kind of people would find that more useful? Busy families, again, people with multiple jobs, and people who don’t work regular hours.

It’s extraordinary to have the Opposition say that these are the types of people who would prevent them from getting into Government if they were able to more easily cast their vote. It’s extraordinary to hear politicians admit that their success was predicated on the lack of access to voting by ordinary people in this country.

At the last election, 19,000 people—equivalent to the population of Queenstown—tried to vote, and they were prevented by this totally obscure, arbitrary rule. That was just the people who tried to vote. All the people who stayed home because they’d run out of time—that is the health of our democracy at stake. It may seem like it’s just a formality and people should just get themselves in order and do it, but the idea is that it should be possible for everyone to vote on election day. It should be possible for everyone to pop into a voting station and not have to travel specifically to a particular place in the middle of their busy lives. Voting is for everyone, and this bill tries to make it more possible for more New Zealanders to engage in our democracy.

Now, if we’re going to look at constitutional conventions in terms of the way that electoral law is made, as the Opposition has constantly referred to, we do want to take party politics out of substantive electoral reform. That’s why we have an Electoral Commission. That’s why the Electoral Commission, in 2012, conducted a thorough consultation, two-step consultation, with thousands of New Zealanders engaged. It made recommendations to reform our MMP system, and yet that side of the House buried those recommendations. They had an opportunity to do it the way they say it’s meant to be done, and those were substantive changes. Why were they buried? Because the National Party needed to do a dirty deal with ACT to prop up its bare majority Government, and part of those recommendations were that the electorate entry into Parliament should be abolished, because it is unfair and it is undemocratic. So when our independent system for electoral reform was engaged, the National Party didn’t like the result and they buried it. Now that we’re making it easier for people to vote, they’re upset. So I do agree that electoral reform should be done in a way that is fair and that isn’t led by party politics, but that can never be said of reform that actually engages more people in our democracy.

I would like to see, however—and perhaps this is the National Party saying that they would now support it—the implementation of the MMP review recommendations, and I think that I do want to talk about this bill as a first step to electoral reform in New Zealand, because making our democracy more accessible has to go beyond just these technical changes, as important as they are. So I would like to see the Government pick up my member’s bill implementing the MMP review recommendations. I would like us, in a further step, to look at the way that political donations and the transparency around those work in our democracy. I would like more New Zealanders to have access to their democracy in a way that’s not impeded by their lack of ability to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to political parties, and I’d like us all to know who is in fact donating to our political parties. We do want to see an end to political interference from abroad but also political interference by big money. We do want to see everyone be able to vote, as the Supreme Court has told us we must do, by abolishing the ban on prisoner voting, and we do want to see a change so that those who qualify for the Māori roll are able to change rolls at any time.

So this is a first step. It is about accessibility to our system. It’s about an open government and open democracy for all on equal terms, and for that I do commend the bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill. I would like to speak on six different aspects of the bill that we find objectionable in this House, all referring to the same-day enrolment provisions.

But let me get out of the way first, as others have said on the side—for the sake of the record—that there are positive changes in this bill that we do support. Accessibility to the act of voting, as part of the democratic participation that we all believe in, should be encouraged, to the extent that that doesn’t allow the manipulation of the system and the voting. So that much we can and do support, so I state that clearly up front for the record.

As for the provisions relating to same-day enrolment, though, it’s important to note the following half-dozen points—six of the best, if I may say. I’ll be going through each of those in turn but just setting out fairly initially: first, just to understand, I’ll be talking about the fact that these are very different things, the act of enrolment versus the act of voting for a particular political party and particular candidates; second, the fact that it’s currently an offence not to be enrolled but that doesn’t apply to the act of voting; third, that no one should be a judge in their own matter, so that will go to the applicability of these rules for the 2020 election that the Government of the day is setting in place, perhaps for their own benefit; fourth, the effects of uncertainty caused by delay of the election result being known; fifth, the breaching of conventions in the electoral law space, as relevant to this particular bill; and, sixth and finally, the failure of the analogy that’s been made by the Green member Golriz Ghahraman in relation to how this might relate to trends or phenomena in the US that she’s identified.

So first then, on the subject of enrolment on voting day, they are two different things in our electoral system. Of course, there’s a connection whereby it’s only by being enrolled that one can vote, but enrolment is an act of participation in democracy. It’s an act that legitimises a citizen or other person who’s entitled to vote, and, as such, it stands alone from the particular act of voting in which one is obviously exercising one’s judgment or preference at a particular place and time.

This can be seen clearly in what I’ve observed even in my relatively short period—the couple of elections that I’ve stood in: one unsuccessfully; one successfully, ultimately—where candidates arrive at schools and give speeches at election time, often as part of a debate panel. What I think is really positive is often on these occasions we have candidates from all parties emphasising to the young people the importance of being engaged, the importance of participating and exercising that right to vote, whoever they might vote for. Of course, each of the candidates takes the opportunity to seek the party vote and the electorate vote for themselves, but that’s almost secondary to the very responsible message that’s often given to young people simply to get involved, to be enrolled and to vote, and to participate in whatever way, in terms of voting preference, they might choose.

This then takes me to my second point, which I alluded to before in passing, which is that it’s an offence not to be enrolled in New Zealand but it’s not an offence not to vote—whereas, obviously, in other countries that is the case. But here in New Zealand it’s a choice that we have to turn up to the ballot box or not as we wish, but to be enrolled is to be a participatory member of the democracy in which we live, and it allows, for example, for voting in referenda and in local government elections and so on at times other than in general elections for the Parliament.

So, in fact, implicitly, counterintuitive as it might seem, it is encouraging non-compliance with this law—this requirement that actually applies to us all, all the time, to be enrolled, to be on the electoral roll—and so for a whole three years within a term, other than election day itself, this is something that we need to do.

We have, by my calculation, roughly speaking, 1,094 days in which we can do that, currently, and one day in which we cannot. For the sake of spelling out my back-of-the-envelope calculation, that would be exactly three years between elections, not including leap years and so forth. So, anyway, the point is, really, that it’s about 1,000 days that you can enrol to vote and only one that you can’t. So to be encouraging those who can’t be bothered to enrol to vote on 1,000 days, why they should be able to rock up on the last day and complicate things for everyone else seems to me an extraordinary thing that the Government is proposing.

My third point is about the fact that it’s proposed these changes will come into effect for the 2020 election. So it’s the Government of the day setting rules that will apply to itself in a way that enables them to—well, I would characterise it as an unseemly rush by an unholy alliance. Others might quibble on the characterisation of that, but—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’m sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for the House to adjourn for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 this evening.

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

CHRIS PENK: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I resume my call on the Electoral Amendment Bill. For your benefit, Madam Speaker, and any of those who weren’t glued to their television immediately prior to the dinner break, I’ll just recap by saying briefly, if I may, that, first of all, we support most of the provisions of the bill—certainly those that make sensible amendments to allow greater accessibility, and my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith has outlined those, leading the charge on this side of the House.

There’s some pretty sensible stuff around voting places and so forth. But what I did set out before the dinner break was some areas in which we have reservations, to put it mildly, regarding the enrolment on voting day provision. I touched briefly on the difference between the act of enrolment versus the act of voting—one being a democratic right and indeed responsibility, as a matter of course, for which there are a thousand days available, roughly speaking, between elections, as opposed to the one day on which you can’t currently enrol.

I was just getting on to the matter of how a person shouldn’t be the judge in their own cause. In this country, we tend to like rugby analogies, so we talk about the “screwing of the scrum”, but once upon a time, I suppose, you might have said in Latin: nemo iudex in causa sua—no one should be the judge in his or her own cause. So it is that we’ve got the Government of the day, today, this Government, setting in place rules that will apply in seeking its own re-election, effectively—the cynics might say—as well as setting out the rules of the game by which all players must play.

My next point was around the uncertainty and the delay that will be generated following election day itself by the need for the processing of enrolments as well as the processing—that is, the counting—of votes. So a further 10 days following the election, we understand from official advice, will be caused by such a move. The practical effects of that in terms of uncertainty and confidence of the nation have been spelt out, including by the Hon Tim Macindoe, to which I would add that anything that gives the public less confidence in MMP than it already enjoys, in particular around the predictability or otherwise of election results, is no good thing and we should tread very carefully lest we further erode confidence in our democratic institutions and systems.

My final two points regard the breaching of electoral law conventions in the sense of having the Opposition buy-in. That’s not just a convention for its own sake—it’s sort of a constitutional nicety—but rather a very practical measure that’s likely, when observed, to ensure that law, going forward, that operates to the benefit ultimately of all the people in the democracy and all the parties as well will be robust and remain in place for elections and generations to come, rather than being the plaything of one Government of the day and leaving open the possibility that the next Government or the next Parliament, I suppose in three years’ time, would have a different view altogether, and so we would end up with a regime changing in respect of electoral law every three or six or nine years, as the case may be.

Finally, on a slightly lighter note, the Green Party speaker on the bill so far has talked about voter suppression tactics in the US, rather darkly. But I’d say that the analogy with the United States of America is not apt. That is a country that thinks that baseball is an interesting sport, thinks that Pop-Tarts are a nutritious or delicious food—I’d probably take issue with even the “food” bit, let alone the “delicious” bit—and that the word “aluminium” has only four syllables. So we can’t rely on looking overseas to the US for trends in informing our own electoral conventions. We have those already. We have a good democracy. We shouldn’t trifle with it in this way, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call the Hon Clare Curran.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Speaker. In a couple of months, in October, I will be attending, along with a number of my parliamentary women colleagues, a breakfast function for the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, celebrating the 100th anniversary of women being able to stand for Parliament in New Zealand, which is a pretty amazing thing to be celebrating.

Dr Duncan Webb: Absolutely right.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: It is. So what better demonstration is there of a Government’s true commitment to improving and strengthening our democracy than a bill before this Parliament which enfranchises more voters in this country and enables them to participate in our democracy? So I’m actually pretty proud to be standing here today celebrating the fact that this Parliament, in 2019, has finally got round to passing legislation to enable more people to vote, to be able to access our voting system in New Zealand. That is truly something to be proud of.

I wanted to take the conversation up a little bit, because there’s been lots of high dudgeon thrown around in this debate and in the debate around the previous piece of legislation, and the crux of the Opposition’s argument against this bill seems to rest on a constitutional crisis of some description and a lack of consultation. You know, it’s a valid thing if it’s true. But I do say, particularly to the member Dr Nick Smith, who has been running this argument on this bill and the previous bill, that he really does need to get his facts right and do his homework. His high dudgeon act is just that: it is just an act.

I wanted to actually provide the House tonight with some clear evidence of that, because Dr Smith—and he was followed by Chris Bishop—came to the House this afternoon and pronounced that there had been no consultation on this bill and there was a constitutionally appalling situation as a result. “Outrage” was the word that seemed to be used; it had a lot of currency and was used a lot. I want to refer Dr Smith—and he’s been sitting on that Justice Committee and he had a few criticisms of that select committee about the number of chairs, etc.—to a letter that was written by the Minister, the justice Minister, Andrew Little on 4 December last year to the select committee, and it’s headed “Amendments to the Electoral Act 1993”, and I’ll—

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: December?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: December 2018. “This is to advise you that I’m considering proposing an Electoral Amendment Bill be included on the Government’s 2019 legislative programme. The bill would progress minor or technical amendments to electoral law, for example, to help manage the logistical requirements of general elections by making voting and voting places more accessible.” He went on to outline: “removing the prohibition on designating a licensed premises selling alcohol as a polling place, enabling ballots to be counted away from the polling place, enabling the special vote declaration to be able to be treated as an application to enrol or update enrolment details. I have also asked my officials to look at enrolment on election day and whether this could be made available for the 2020 election. In order for any changes to the Electoral Act or the electoral regulations to be implemented for the 2020 election, they’d need to be made by the end of 2019. For this reason I need to develop these changes alongside rather than after your committee’s inquiry into the 2017 general election. If there is a bill, and depending on the progress of your inquiry, there may be an opportunity to add some of your recommended legislative changes during the parliamentary process.”

Dr Smith, that letter was at your select committee. There was no response. There was consultation; you were reached out to. You didn’t respond—not you, Madam Speaker. I rest the case that—I’m sorry, but it’s a straw man argument. You can’t argue there has been no consultation. This is—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Who’s the letter addressed to?

Hon CLARE CURRAN: It was addressed to the select committee.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, but the member’s time has expired.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave to table the letter that was sent to the Justice Committee on 4 December 2018—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think we do know the document that you are reading from. I trust it has been released from the select committee.

Hon Clare Curran: Well, it clearly hasn’t been read by the members on that side. I seek leave to table it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is seeking leave to table that document from the select committee—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: A point of clarification—could the member clarify for the House that the letter was to the Labour Party chair of the select committee? It was not a letter to consult with the National Party. Could the member clarify who was the letter addressed to—which member of Parliament?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I think if we put the leave and the letter is tabled, we can all have a look and see that. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There appears to be none.

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

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek the leave of the House to table the minutes of the Justice Committee on the electoral law inquiry at the time that this letter was considered, and, specifically, the issues around the extension of the terms of reference of the select committee.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll just take a bit of advice here.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Madam Speaker, could I be of some assistance? Because I had previously sought the advice of the Clerk. It is normal that both the minutes and the letter that you’ve just sought leave for would remain confidential to the select committee until the select committee inquiry into the election had been concluded, of which this item of correspondence—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: But the issue is that—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Having made the decision to put the leave to the House on the letter that has been sought by my colleague Clare Curran, it is only fair that you also put leave to the House for the minutes on the same issue.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I was just checking on the status of the minutes. They are available to all members through the committee system. Tabling them in the House—but they’re not publicly available. Anyway, it’s in the hands of the House. The House has decided, as Dr Smith points out, to table the letter. Is there any objection to the leave being sought to table the minutes? There is objection.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What an extraordinary last few minutes we’ve had. Objection to the tabling of the minutes—it’s almost like they want to hide something. Let me be very simple and clear: this bill is all about the Government cherry-picking electoral law changes that will improve its own chance of election in 2020—nothing more straightforward than that. The fact that they’re wanting to hide some very basic minutes does, absolutely, make you wonder.

We were not consulted, as the Opposition, on these electoral law changes. When we were in Government, we consulted with all parties on electoral law changes. That was how we ran things. That was our business as usual. However, we’re experiencing something entirely different, and for those listening and watching tonight, we’re experiencing something unprecedented in terms of the way that we deal with electoral law changes here in New Zealand. This is the third electoral law bill by the Government that has not been consulted with us, as the Opposition—no conversation whatsoever. Here we are, tonight—the third piece of legislation. Now, how did we find out about these pending changes? A question at an Estimates hearing on the Budget. That’s how we found out about what was coming down the pipeline, and finally, many weeks later, here we are tonight. It’s a dangerous precedent that the Government is choosing to set, deliberately choosing to set. Just how precarious are New Zealand’s electoral laws? That’s a legitimate question: just how precarious are our laws?

So I want to talk to, with my short call, clause 4, which amends section 60 of the principal Act, and clause 11, which amends section 139. So it’s, of course, allowing for same-day enrolment and also extending the latest day for return of the writ. The two go hand in hand. Last year’s election was 23 September and the Government was announced 19 October. That was a total of 26 days—3½ long weeks—to form New Zealand’s Government. The Government was still running under our watch—caretaking, as you will—but now this bill allows for a much longer period, 10 extra days, before the return of the writ.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How long?

DENISE LEE: Ten extra days to form a Government. Now, I’ve got some questions for the Government as the proponents of this bill. I’d like them to answer: had they thought through the perception of MMP and what 10 extra days will do? Let’s think about the atmosphere that we experienced last year. Business confidence—what does that do for business confidence? Public Service—how are they impacted by another 10 extra days for a formation of Government? Public perception—let’s talk about voters themselves, public perceptions of politicians, wanting them just to get on with it, not wanting another Rt Hon Winston Peters wait-and-see. Even the international media were wondering about when we would wait and see the Government formed, here in New Zealand—a party of 7 percent support but 100 percent of the power. Do we want that sort of protracted, lengthened scenario again?

Let’s be practical too. With same-day enrolment, what about queues on polling day? What about the process of enrolling? [Interruption] The Government’s laughing. I’m just going to take one booth, for example. I invite them to come to the Ellerslie War Memorial Hall, one of the highest polling numbers booths in my electorate, Maungakiekie. On polling day, you could not get in there. The numbers in a very busy little village—you could not get in there on election day. Now the Government’s pushing forward same-day enrolment. There will be a practical impact for this. It will also change the nature of campaigning on election day. We know we’re not allowed to campaign, but what about passive forms of communication or campaigning on election day? What can we expect with that—a new style of E-day communications? What will happen and what form will that take? Where is the incentive to enrol in advance now?

These are issues that are legitimate. We have grave concerns and we want to stand against a dangerous precedent.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This next call is a split call.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I’ve been listening to much of the debate on this bill. It seems one side says more New Zealanders will be enfranchised by this bill, and the other side says the process is bad. Many of the questions that have been raised in speeches are legitimately ones that a select committee could inquire into. I have to say, my experience in this House has been that when one side criticises only the process, it pretty much means there is no depth of argument against what is being proposed. It’s actually a very weak set of arguments to simply go, “The process is bad”.

Can we just boil it down for the House? Let’s boil it down. Effectively, this bill will mean more New Zealanders have the opportunity to vote. Is anyone actually brave enough to stand up in the House and say, “We shouldn’t have a bill which would allow more people to be able to vote.”? The reality is some people were unable to vote last election and they should have been able to vote. Yes, the process could have been better, but that’s not a good reason for opposing a bill or standing up in the House and spending speech after speech opposing a piece of legislation. Those issues that have been raised around process and around details should be looked at at the select committee.

One of the issues that has been debated as well was the fact that there is still an inquiry going on, under way. The inquiry going on, under way—the Minister referred to it in question time and says it’s taking too long. I’ve seen there’s been other arguments about who’s in charge of the inquiry and why has it taken so long. The reality is it’s almost been two years since the last election was held and we still don’t have a report back in this Parliament about possible changes. The select committee does need to hurry up. The select committee does need to come back. In fact, if the select committee had’ve come back earlier, then we probably wouldn’t have these process debates around who did something without consulting the other.

The other issue that was raised in other speeches—I know Golriz Ghahraman raised it, and I think some of the National members raised it too—was the issue around what the committee’s looking at alongside the types of issues in the inquiry that are also contained in this bill, and that’s the elements around foreign interference. We actually should have a piece of legislation right now that deals with those matters. The select committee needs to increase the speed at which it considers its inquiry into foreign interference because we must have legislation around those issues as well. I think, actually, the select committee should be empowered to consider issues alongside this bill at the same time that may be considered in the realm of foreign interference. It’s not acceptable that we may end up in a position later this term where the House has a report from the select committee and it does not have enough time to act on it. It would be an appalling set of circumstances if the Justice Committee was to report back on the election inquiry that contained recommendations around foreign interference and everyone go “Oh, we don’t have enough time to consider those matters.”

I think this House should give the Justice Committee, by way of this process and this bill, the ability and the power to consider issues alongside the other elements in this bill that relate to foreign interference, specifically around election donations. This bill does talk about supporting the effective conduct of future elections. It does talk about the security of our elections. Those are important issues, but security and conduct of elections is not solely around who can vote and how they can vote; it’s also around how political parties deal with those types of issues. So later on I intend to seek the leave of the House to be able to move an instruction to the Justice Committee. It is not possible for a member to move an instruction without seeking leave—only the Minister can move an instruction to a select committee—but I think it’s fundamentally important that the Justice Committee is given the opportunity to consider those issues around election donations alongside these wider issues around elections. So at the appropriate time, I will seek leave to be able to move an instruction. That instruction that I will move, if given leave, will read “I move, that it be an instruction to the Justice Committee that it consider and, if it thinks fit, recommend amendments relating to election donations.”

It’s fundamentally important that if we are to have proper consideration and time available for the Justice Committee to do a thorough job around changes in the sphere of foreign interference and in the sphere of closing down election donations, they have an early opportunity to do it. There is a parliamentary majority in this House to change election donation laws. Parties in this House have said they want to ban foreign donations. So by allowing an instruction to be moved, the Justice Committee will be able to do that work, and I’ll attempt to do so.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m very much looking forward to putting right many of the quite false claims and insinuations, particularly those around the Justice Committee, of which I’m a very proud member. Just to put things in perspective, the justice select committee has been a very, very busy committee, having considered 19 bills in this term alone. Of course, one of those bills was the End of Life Choice Bill, which required the justice select committee to hear thousands of submissions, written and otherwise. The Justice Committee sat over 65 percent of the time that all select committees sat added together, just to put things in perspective. So it’s a very effective and efficient committee getting through its work.

But some of the almost implied criticisms of our committee, including one from Dr Nick Smith, who talked about—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we talk about the bill, please.

GREG O’CONNOR: Well, I am. This is a very important part of the bill, because we actually talked about—one of the criticisms of the bill was that the justice select committee, in fact, through having had a large number of chairs, somehow was rendered incapable of dealing with this issue. Au contraire, actually, Dr Smith himself, who the day that the most important material was being heard in relation to the—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, but we don’t need to know about the processes in the select committee. We are actually on a first reading of a bill before the House, so the member has only five minutes. He should be able to speak to the bill.

GREG O’CONNOR: OK. Thank you. I will speak to the bill, of course. This bill is democracy in action, as democratic as you could possibly see. Anyone with any knowledge of elections around the world will know what happened in 2000 in the United States and Florida. Through the actions of the Republican Party and those who organise them, there was a large number of people disenfranchised, which enabled one of the Bush family to win—Jeb Bush, I understand—and that actually swayed the election. So that is living proof as to why it is so important that everyone gets the opportunity to vote.

Now, we’ve seen evolution of our electoral system, our voting system, MMP. What you’re seeing on this side of the House is an understanding of how MMP works—how it can work. Many of the speakers opposite have talked about the negotiations around the formation of a Government. Well, on this side, we did negotiate, we did form a Government, and a very effective Government that despite the predictions from many on the other side that it would be all over by Christmas is still getting stronger by the day. That strength is the type of issues that are being addressed in this bill, basically, around the ability to ensure that more people are able to vote.

If you look at the main part of this bill, the most important part about it, and that which has attracted much discussion from the Opposition, it’s a fear that by allowing people to enrol and vote on election day, somehow democracy is going to be made a mockery of—that somehow we are entering into a non-democratic process. Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth. What will happen as a result of this is that those people who—and as we know with elections, as we get nearer to election day, and while pre-voting has been the new feature, pre-voting has been an effective feature. But the reality of it—and I’ve heard people here speak about the nostalgia of election day, the nicety of having morning tea, digging the garden, and heading down and voting on election day, something that I think we all agree is something that should be absolutely available to every New Zealander. Now, as a result of this, it will be. It’ll be available to those who for various reasons, distraction—we know that people don’t read newspapers these days, and we know through social media the sheer difficulty of actually getting in front of people. But, of course, it’s very hard to avoid that on election day. You can imagine, whether it be the sports club or various other places: “Have you voted?” “No, I haven’t.” “Have you enrolled?” “No.” “Well, you can now do both.” Welcome to the new democracy. Welcome to a new world that is creating a wonderful Government like this Government that I’m proud to be part of with our coalition and supply partners. Part of the next step along is to make sure that New Zealanders get to participate. So I thoroughly recommend this bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be talking on this bill. There’s been a lot of debate and obviously very polarising views on the issue.

The first thing I just want to talk about is this extraordinary event that we’ve just witnessed before with the Hon Clare Curran wishing to table a letter written to the select committee. Whilst I know of many members—or all members of the House will know that until something comes out of the select committee, it is confidential to the committee. Therefore, it’s a very strong parliamentary issue around releasing that information before it has been released by the committee.

I just think it is a very dangerous precedent for a member to be doing such a thing. I’m not quite sure why the Hon Clare Curran decided to do that but that’s a very, very important precedent that I think has been set by the member, and no doubt with the view of trying to reinforce the view that she made in her speech, which was that the Minister, the Hon Andrew Little, had consulted with the National Party on these wide-ranging reforms. Time will tell whether, in fact, that letter does support that position, but all I can say is that from our perspective and from National’s perspective, it is clear that there has been no adequate consultation or even acceptable level of consultation on what is absolutely a fundamental issue of democracy. And of course everyone in this House wants to see that democracy is maintained but also wants to make sure that in doing so—in the process around how people cast their votes on election day and how those votes are counted, it is absolutely essential that that system is protected and nurtured so that we do end up with the right outcome.

Of course, this bill has these three elements. It’s got the issue around voting rights—and I will return to that shortly—but also about where voting can take place, and that again is quite a significant issue. I think I just want to really say the first thing is that this issue around voting and enabling people to enrol on the day of the election and to cast their vote in an election is a perverse outcome, because in recent times the Electoral Commission, which does a good job, has been driving people towards voting early—enrolling early, voting early. We know that with enrolling statistics, people are actually less inclined to enrol as they might have done in previous years, and the stats are showing an increase—about 7.4 percent at the last election—that did not enrol. And what we’ve also seen is that with the advance voting, that has led to a significant increase in votes being handled much earlier than election day, thereby dealing with the issue of congestion but also giving the rights to people to cast their vote when they wanted to, at the time that it was convenient to them, because often for many the election day is not a convenient time, particularly with many people working these days.

So this issue about allowing people to vote and enrol on the same day, on election day, I think is an incredibly significant step. I think the first thing around that is that that is something that should be talked about at length and agreed by Parliament; not by the Government consulting amongst itself but with all parties—all parties of this Parliament—so that we have a basis not just for this election in 2020 but successive elections, so that we all have comfort with the process that has been proposed.

But the other thing, I think—and I’m just referring here to the regulatory impact statement, which I found a fascinating document, because here is an analytical review of these proposals. I think the issue—and it states here that the electors can still apply to enrol until midnight the night before an election and there has been a noticeable acceleration in enrolments during the advance voting period. In 2017, the Electoral Commission processed 200,000 enrolment transactions during the advance voting period, and 94,000 of these were made in the last three days. And this is what’s happening: we’re seeing more people voting earlier, but allowing people to vote right up to the last moment and turn up without having enrolled is something that will drive election day considerably in terms of making it much more congested.

The regulatory impact statement looked at four aspects in terms of assessing whether, in fact, this is a good thing or not. One was reduced participation barriers, and I think we all can get the concept that if you did allow this, it would improve participation. It talked to administration feasibility, consistency, and cost administration. The first thing it notes around allowing election day enrolment is that it states that, “Allowing election day enrolment conflicts with the current messaging to the public that people should enrol early.” So that, as I said before, has been a hallmark of recent elections—trying to get people to enrol early.

It also increases the likelihood of a number of special votes being issued, and we know the issue round this. One stat is that they estimate that it will take 10 times as long to go through the process of enrolling someone and also then allowing them to vote than would otherwise be the case. And that, of course, is on election day when it’s the busiest time. It would also slow the issuing of voting papers and casting of votes on election day. And I think those are pretty significant issues.

In terms of the implementation, and here I quote, “The operational process changes needed to enable election day enrolment are substantial,”—this is in the regulatory impact statement—“with important implications for voting place services,”. And from what I understand, the Justice Committee is working its way through the review of the 2017 election—and it happens after every election, and, of course, it would be looking into these issues—and this is the committee that’s been tasked to making sure that democracy does continue to work as well as possible, and somehow these proposals have jumped over the top of them.

The other aspect they note: “The Commission estimates that election day enrolment could add as many as 100,000 election day enrolment transactions”, and it goes on to say that that would require 2,800 additional staff and an additional cost of $13.4 million. And so this is not an insignificant issue. This is a substantial administrative issue around making sure that the veracity of those who are voting is protected and we have the outcome we want.

I think what’s missing in the debate for me is that we haven’t had a clear enunciation of why this is necessary. What is the democracy issue that we’re trying to deal with that would drive this change? And even if there was one—which I haven’t heard enunciated properly, but even if there was one—I would be waiting for the Justice Committee, who’s heard submissions on it, who are in consideration or deliberation on this matter at the moment, and who have had the time since September last year to review all this and come to a firm view on what is the best going forward. And that is what happens after every election. They are the ones best charged with looking at this issue. So we’ve got a process that has come in over top of that select committee process and imposed this bill in the House without waiting for the select committee to finish its job.

I think, if you’re talking about democracy, that in itself is a very clear demonstration of how not to do things. It is only literally a couple of months away before that select committee will be reporting back to the House. We should be waiting for that outcome. That’s what New Zealanders require of MPs—to make sure that we do protect democracy—and this is cutting across it because it does not have the unanimous support of this House, and that is a very disappointing situation.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour):. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. First and foremost, I would like to respond to the point made by Andrew Bayly in terms of questioning what the main problem or the main issue concerning democracy in New Zealand is that this bill needs to address. And the answer to that question for Mr Bayly is that in 2017, 19,000 New Zealanders turned up to vote on election day who were not able to.

This is a Government who’s focused on tackling the big issues. This is a Government that’s prepared to make sure that every New Zealander gets a fair go, and that means every New Zealander gets a vote. Whether they’re a shift worker, whether they’ve got five kids, whether they didn’t know it was happening, or whatever the reason might be, this is a Government that favours all New Zealanders having the opportunity to vote, and we see that as being good democracy.

So I’d like to run through a few of the arguments that we’ve heard from National members tonight as to why New Zealanders should not be able to vote on election day. May I say I have been underwhelmed by these arguments, and I’m going to run through them quickly. I’ve got some favourites. The one that’s coming in at the top—I’ll do our top five of stupid arguments as to why New Zealanders should not be able to vote on election day—and the No. 1 silly reason that’s been presented tonight by the National Party is that it takes too long and that there will be additional days required to count the votes of the 19,000 people that turn up. That will be such an impediment to democracy that we should just not let them vote in the first place—love that one.

The second one, the No. 2 stupid reason raised by the National Party today as to why New Zealanders should not be able to vote on election day, is that the uncertainty of the election turnout—which was raised by Mr Penk tonight—would mean that we wouldn’t know what would happen on election day if we let all these people vote and we might get a surprise over the outcome of the election. That one really baffles me. I don’t understand the logic behind that.

The No. 4 stupid reason as to why New Zealanders should not be allowed to vote on election day is that the queues will be too long. There will be so many people just wanting to get in there and have a vote that we won’t be able to handle it. There will be halls, schools, and malls overwhelmed by democracy. We won’t be able to cope with the fact that people are so engaged with their political system that the whole country is going to shut down.

The No. 5 stupid reason raised by the National Party tonight as to why New Zealanders should not be allowed to vote on election day is that, in fact, people won’t enrol early. People won’t enrol early. It will be a disincentive. We’ll all just sit at home watching Netflix for two weeks instead of getting out and enrolling to vote, and even if we do turn up on election day and enrol and vote, somehow that’s a loss to our country’s democracy because we didn’t do it a few weeks beforehand.

So I would like to come to the point that there have been no substantial issues raised as to why this bill is an impediment to democracy or is an impediment to being able to do anything. The only reason that’s been raised tonight—which I thought was very interesting—is that the National Party members don’t support this bill going through for the next election, but it might be OK for the next one. So it’s: “Don’t rush us. It’s a bit scary. We’re just getting our heads around it, and if we do it next election and we have a chat about it, we’ll feel fine and we’ll support it then. We’re up for democracy a bit more in another three years’ time.” I don’t understand that one, either.

I would like to remind the members opposite that in December of last year, they were well-informed by the Minister of Justice at that select committee that there would be a bill coming that made the amendments that have been tabled and put down in this House today, and at that point in time no issues were raised. Not one concern was raised. We have had high drama raised and some mock and feigned excitement about the fact that this has been a travesty in the face of justice and it has been a complete constitutional outrage, when, really, underneath it all there is a fear that New Zealanders will get out and vote more than they do now. That threatens their status quo and it concerns them that they won’t maintain what has been going on for a long time, and that is that not all New Zealanders get a voice and get a vote.

We are very focused on this side of the House on making sure that we do give people those opportunities so that they can enrol. Young voters, if they’re not aware of it, can go into the shopping mall on the day and go in and take their vote. They can go in when they see the queues, the TV, and the excitement. They will see and sense that vibe. They can go and take that opportunity with that ability—that civic right to have a voice and that civic right to vote—and that is what is missing from this debate. There have been zero substantive reasons provided by those members opposite as to why New Zealanders should not be able to vote on election day. I challenge anyone on that side of the House to come up with one decent reason, because tonight that has not happened in this House, and that is why I am proud to see this bill. I commend a bill that promotes democracy in New Zealand to this House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Electoral Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Botany): I seek leave of the House to move a motion without notice instructing the Justice Committee to consider out-of-scope amendments or amendments relating to electoral donations. That motion would read: I move that it would be an instruction to the Justice Committee that it consider and, if it thinks fit, recommend amendments relating to electoral donations.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: So the members have heard that leave has been sought. Is there any objection to that? There is objection, so it is not granted.

Bills

Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): This bill makes three key changes. The first is that it will classify AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB as class A drugs. It also affirms the existing police discretion for personal possession and use drug offences, and it also enables temporary class drug orders to be issued to better control emerging and potentially harmful substances.

The bill itself is a key step in putting in place a health-based approach to drug use, recognising that those people caught in the web of addiction are more likely in most cases to need a therapeutic approach when the wider public interest is taken into account, bearing in mind that, of course, there will be times when it is more appropriate for the police to prosecute if they deem the public interest falls that way. The increase in opportunities for health and social services to be provided is something that the Government is firmly focused on and, indeed, has invested heavily in in the recent Budget.

I just want to say briefly something about each of those three key changes and Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 288, which I have brought before the committee. Firstly, the classification of the two aforementioned drugs, AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB—these drugs are a major health problem. Since 2017, in June, there have been a total of 50 to 55 deaths provisionally linked to the use of these two dangerous synthetic drugs, and the bill simply classifies them as class A drugs to reflect the high risk of harm that these drugs cause. It gives the police and customs search and seizure powers greater than they otherwise would have, which means that they’re able to disrupt supply and reduce the availability of these drugs. Now, these police powers are part of a health-based approach. Interrupting supply and manufacture is critical if you want to take a health-based approach.

The police discretion, the second thing that’s involved here—the bill specifies that when considering whether a prosecution is required in the public interest for drug possession and use, consideration should be given as to whether a therapeutic approach would be more beneficial. The SOP I’m bringing to the House does then further add the words “to the public interest”—beneficial to the public interest—and that is just to be absolutely clear. This is not about, when police are deciding whether or not to bring a prosecution, whether it’s good for that individual, but they’re looking at the wider public interest. There were some submissions to the select committee that seemed to assume that what was being meant there was a focus on the individual’s personal interests—who was the person caught as a user, caught in the web of addiction, and being brought to justice—rather than looking at the wider public interest. I do want to thank, as we work through all these issues, the coalition and confidence and supply partners and the conversations we’ve had. This particular clarification comes in consultation with our coalition partner, and I want to thank them for the constructive role they played in making sure we have this clear, and, of course, the strong push for a health-based approach is also firmly supported by the Green Party, and I want to acknowledge that.

So the third thing that we’re doing here is putting temporary drug class orders in place, which enables the Minister of the day to issue a drug order that, effectively, makes sure that these dangerous synthetic drugs, or any drugs, are classified as class C controlled drugs—or treated the same, essentially—for a period of 12 months. We know the drug market—in particular, the synthetic drug market—evolves rapidly, and we want to make sure that we’re able to respond quickly to potentially harmful new synthetic drugs. Then the Minister must seek advice from the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs, which considers classification issues, and decide then whether and under what schedule the substances should be classified longer term.

I’ll leave my initial contribution there. I do think this is a good bill. It allows us to progress a health-based approach and strikes a balance, making sure that we are actually going harder on those peddling these very dangerous drugs—the suppliers and the manufacturers—than has previously been the case, to ensure the police have the search and seizure powers necessary, but it also looks at the public interest and whether it’s sensible for those who are users to be offered a therapeutic approach.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, which is slowly progressing its way through the House. I thank the Minister for the explanation and overview that he gave on this bill. I would like to ask the Minister a few questions, and I think it’s important to go through these systematically. The first question I’d like to discuss is in relation to the part of the bill which the National Party does support, and that is in relation to the increased penalties that are going to be put in place.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Punishment.

SIMEON BROWN: “Punishment” is what your confidence and supply agreement partner there calls it, Minister. So the question here is whether we support the increased penalty or reclassification of AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB as class A drugs, which the National Party does support. The question that I do ask the Minister here is: why did he decide to use this process, the legislative process, to classify those two substances as class A drugs, and why did he not use his powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act to classify those drugs when he received advice, I think in April or May last year, that they should be classified as class A drugs?

So I guess the point that I’m making here is that this issue has been before the House for quite some time. This issue was a matter which I brought to the House through a member’s bill last year, which was supported by New Zealand First for the vast majority of its process through the House before they pulled their support. But I guess the question here is: why has the Government not taken the urgency which it said that it would do in relation to actually taking these two substances seriously? We know that there have been around 80 deaths—80 deaths—caused by those two substances over the last—

Darroch Ball: What was your bill going to do?

SIMEON BROWN: —18 months. Take some action, Mr Ball, and actually deal with these issues. But what’s happened here is that the Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters, your leader, said on 31 July last year that this issue would be dealt with with urgency and unction, and here we are—what’s the date today, Mr Bayly? Oh, it’s 7 August 2019. And now we’re here, finally—sorry, it’s 6 August. I should always consult the Hon Michael Woodhouse on these issues. He is a numbers guy. He is an accountant and used to run a hospital, so he’s a fantastic man.

But I’d like to bring it back to the point here that this issue has been before the House, and it is good that it is finally being dealt with, but the question does need to be asked as to why the Minister did not use his powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act to classify these drugs overnight through the process that he had.

My second question relates to the new class C1 orders, or the temporary class drug orders, which are also being put in place and which the National Party is also supporting under this bill. My question relates to the process it’s going to take for that to actually come into effect. The Minister will get advice, a new drug will be presenting, and there will be harm being identified. How quickly will it take for the ministry to be able to put in place, or for the Minister to put in place, a temporary class order to classify those drugs? And then how long will the process be for those drugs to actually be able to be assessed and then actually be classified? I understand in section 4F, “Duration of the temporary class drug order”, it will be for approximately a year. Is the Minister confident that that is enough time—seeing that it has taken over a whole year since the Minister received advice on AMB-FUBINACA and 5F-ADB—to give them the classification that those two incredibly harmful drugs actually deserve? So I leave that as my first call, and I look forward to the Minister’s responses. Thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It’s a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Greens on this, the committee of the whole House stage of the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, and I think that I actually can be of some use in addressing the questions put by the member Simeon Brown, because the Minister is on the record a number of times speaking to that point. But also I think that it would be quite useful to take him through a history lesson as to how the expert advisory committee came to be and what its powers actually are, given that he consistently refers to them.

So the member, the National Party member Simeon Brown, asked why the Minister chose this legislative process to reclassify the two chemical compounds that are implicated in the deaths of nigh on 100 New Zealanders. He noted that the National Party supports the increase of penalties for the supply and production of these two chemicals, but he doesn’t note that the National Party doesn’t support what is perhaps the most important part of this legislation, which deviates from his own member’s bill, which he referred to, as well, multiple times—that being the ability for those who are caught in the web of addiction to access help and to access treatment and the codification, the explicit codification, of police discretion to choose to put people down that therapeutic pathway.

So to let Mr Simeon Brown know, the expert advisory committee came into effect in the early 2000s as a result of amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, an archaic piece of legislation by any measure, especially given the huge swathes of evidence internationally that have progressed with regard to drug harm reduction. But the expert advisory committee was established with the powers limited solely to recommending where substances should be classified in relation to other substances and where they are classified.

The expert advisory committee, simply put, cannot recommend anything but classification. They are limited in being unable to recommend alternative, better harm reduction measures that are evidence-based. They can literally only refer to harm and where within the classification of other substances the substances that they are speaking to should be classified. I find it an interesting point raised by the member of the Opposition, but that brings me particularly to the part which the Opposition doesn’t support—probably because it actually requires taking some action that would actually make a difference.

I’ll refer now to Supplementary Order Paper 291, in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett. I hope that she does seek a call on this, given that it is in her name, because what this Supplementary Order Paper actually seeks to do is remove the most important parts of this legislation, in that it seeks to remove or delete clause 6, which legislates police discretion. There’s a little bit of misinformation—might be one way to put it—in the explanatory note that the Hon Paula Bennett has put together, because she says “which legislates police discretion not to prosecute for the possession and use of controlled drugs.” That is not quite true.

For the fourth or fifth time, I will read out to the members in Opposition what clause 6 actually does explicitly per this legislation as drafted. It says “To avoid doubt,”—the members may want to read this—“it is affirmed that there is a discretion to prosecute for an offence against this subsection (1)(a), and a prosecution should not be brought unless it is required in the public interest.” Interestingly enough, when this was being debated in the first and second reading, the Opposition, the National Party, sought to say that this made absolutely no change whatsoever to how the police currently operate. They sought to say that this makes absolutely no change, but then they simultaneously, on the other hand, said that it was a huge fundamental change.

So I put it to the members of the National Party opposite to get clarity and coherency of their position on this legislation. Ultimately, fundamentally, do they want to punish people who are caught in the web of addiction? What this legislation does is make it explicit that the police have the power to prosecute as a backstop; otherwise, they should be directing to a therapeutic approach.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, thank goodness for Chlöe Swarbrick! There we are, wallowing in a sea of ignorance and in darkness about what on earth we’re trying to achieve here, and thank goodness Ms Swarbrick comes along and shines a big bright light on this bill. I feel so much better because of that thorough telling off that we just got for not understanding her view of this bill. That’s kind of exactly what we’ve heard.

Now, I want to concentrate on clause 6, in Part 1, mainly because that’s the only bit we disagree with. I think we’ve made that very clear. In order to just clarify the last point that Ms Swarbrick made, the question was put by way of a question: are we here at the first reading of this bill to codify existing practice, or are we here to make, as she describes, the biggest change in drug law reform in 40 years? So I am very confused about that. I will concede defeat on that, because the Minister says one thing and the Green Party representative says another.

Chlöe Swarbrick: They’re not mutually exclusive.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, they kind of are. We’re either making a massive change or we’re not. I think we know the answer, and I think members on this side have been very clear what we are doing here. This is the de facto decriminalising of drug possession.

The member, in reading the clause, pointed out one of the key differences between this and normal police discretion, because the words in new section 7(5), inserted by clause 6, say “it is affirmed that there is a discretion to prosecute”, as if New Zealand Police didn’t know that. It’s an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act—of course there’s a discretion to prosecute. When we see the codification of police discretion, those words inevitably say there is a discretion not to prosecute, and that matters.

I worry—and I mentioned this in my second reading speech—that we are actually conflating the sorts of constitutional separations of powers between this legislature and the executive as carried out by the New Zealand Police, and it is entirely inappropriate for this place to lay out what police should be doing on laws that we pass. The constitutional convention is that we pass the laws, they interpret the laws, and they use their constabulary discretion in the way they see fit. Now, when we add words to the clause that say police should not prosecute, we are sending them a very clear signal. One of the things we heard about in the Health Committee was the degree to which there is a form of unconscious bias in the disproportionate number of Māori and Pasifika that are charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act for drug possession. I have no such concern. I have no such concern now, because police won’t be prosecuting anybody.

Now, I will ask the Minister of Health this, because he has now introduced Supplementary Order Paper 288 and, frankly, I am completely flummoxed about what on earth this change means. He says “In clause 6, new section 7(6), after ‘more beneficial’ … insert [the words] ‘to the public interest’.” The explanatory note is extraordinary. It says “This Supplementary Order Paper adds some clarifying words”, and that’s all it says. It doesn’t say why it’s adding the clarifying words or what is intended by this amendment, and so I would, wallowing in my ignorance—I’m sure Chlöe Swarbrick may want to take another call, cut across the Minister, and tell us all what we’re doing here, because she seems to be really good at that. But I genuinely want to know, because, obviously, the Hon Paula Bennett has an amendment to clause 6 that I will talk about in a future call.

But I am fascinated by this amendment—SOP 288—to add the words “to the public interest”, because it may materially change what we’re doing here. I don’t think it’ll change our concern, because remember that the words are already in new section 7(6), inserted by clause 6 of the bill: “When considering whether a prosecution is required in the public interest,”. It seems to me that a health-centred or therapeutic approach is now not beneficial to the individual, who could be the subject of a charge under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The health-centred or therapeutic approach is now beneficial in the public interest—or, rather, to the public interest—and I’d appreciate an explanation.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn’t think that I’d ever see the day that a former National Party Minister of Police disagrees with the Police Association and disagrees with the police themselves. We’ve got the National Party wanting to delete all of clause 6 in this bill. Here’s what the Police Association say about one of those parts in clause 6: “The association supports [that clause] which reconfirms the public interest test and adds as a relevant matter, consideration as to whether a health-centred or therapeutic approach would be more beneficial”. The Police Association supports the clause, or part thereof, that the National Party wants to get rid of. The police themselves—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Which paragraph?

DARROCH BALL: Paragraph number 18 of the Police Association submission. Then the police themselves, their submission on the bill: “The intent of clause 6”—which is the clause that the National Party want to get rid of—“affirms the existing approach to police prosecutorial discretion, emphasises that consideration of a health-centred or therapeutic approach is a relevant part of the public interest test under the Solicitor-General’s guidelines.” All it is doing is reaffirming what the police already do. The police know and support that clause, because it just reaffirms what they do. The Police Association supports that part of the clause.

Now, that points to one of two things: that the National Party is ignoring what the Police Association is saying and ignoring what the police are saying, or—which I suspect is the case—they’ve lost their way. The National Party has an identity crisis, personified by their leader. Nevertheless, they have lost their roots—right? The National Party want to stand up here—and Simeon Brown tried to do it in the previous speech that he’s given; I’ll address that in a second—and say that they are tough on crime, that they are tough on drugs, and that they back the police 100 percent, but they don’t fulfil what their intent is with what they’re saying when the Police Association and the police themselves disagree with what they’re saying.

I want to move on to Simeon Brown and what his contribution was—a brief contribution tonight. I put up with a lot of things, but what I can’t put up with is the continued faux outrage from Simeon Brown about New Zealand First not supporting his bill and about his bill addressing the issue of synthetic cannabis and how his bill would’ve solved all of the issues that this society and country is facing in regards to synthetic cannabis. Can I just say a couple of things. Firstly, all that Simeon Brown’s bill was doing was moving the maximum penalty from two years to eight years in prison. That’s all that that member’s bill was doing to address the complex issues of synthetic cannabis and the problems that it was causing, and the 80-plus deaths that it was causing.

Now, the other thing that he said was that it would’ve happened speedier. Well, on the one hand, you’ve got the National Party this afternoon talking about the processes of democracy and the House going through the select committee process in a fast manner or truncated manner, and yet they get up there and want to have his bill and his third reading of the bill and the bill under his name go through in such a quick manner that it will solve all of the problems. That’s not how it works. We do this once, and we do it right. We go through a democratic process, we listen to the experts, and we come up with a piece of legislation that will deal with the multiple issues that synthetic cannabis brings to this country.

We do that in a couple of ways. We come down hard on the dealers, we come down hard on the manufacturers, we come down hard on the peddlers of this poison, but we also deal with those who are suffering from the addiction of this poison. We allow the police the affirmed discretion that they already use and they have used under concurrent Governments—

Simeon Brown: Why the change?

DARROCH BALL: Oh, so that member agrees now? Does that member agree now that it’s just affirming what the police are doing? That member agrees that this legislation is just affirming what the police already have?

What bringing psychoactive substances into the Misuse of Drugs Act also does, that Simeon Brown seems to have forgotten, is it increases the ability and the powers of the police and others like customs for search and surveillance—something which the current Psychoactive Substances Act does not do, something which Simeon Brown’s member’s bill would not have done. It increases the penalties. This is the ironic thing: this bill that we’re talking about, this amendment bill, increases the penalties for the suppliers and manufacturers of psychoactive substances into a class A, which is life in prison. Simeon Brown’s original bill was only going to go to eight years. There is no logic in them not supporting this bill.

What I’d like to say is that the Labour Party and New Zealand First Party had multiple discussions about this bill, and we’ve come up with a bill that deals with the multiple layers of issues that the Misuse of Drugs Act needed to be brought into line with, and we’ve done that with clause 6. But it also clarifies to a very good level in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that the Minister of Health is bringing in, Supplementary Order Paper 288, what the intent is of clause 6 of this bill, which is to give the police the discretion that they already have and the ability to use their discretion, which benefits in the public interest. We need to understand that: that the arguments from the National Party have all been about this bill allowing de facto decriminalisation. That cannot be the case when they see this SOP and how it is written and the detail in this SOP, where it gives the police that discretion when it is in the public interest. How can it be decriminalisation if there is a prosecution available for the police and they would use that and they would prosecute if it was in the public interest? New Zealand First supports this bill, we support the SOP that the Minister has put forward, and we don’t support the SOP that Paula Bennett has put forward, SOP 291. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to respond to some of the questions that have been raised, in particular those raised by the member Simeon Brown. The member asked why we used the legislative process for classifying the drugs as class A rather than an Order in Council process. I want to advise the member that the Order in Council process, officials have reminded me, can take up to a year. It is something that goes through a select committee process after it’s issued by the Minister, and then after consideration by a select committee it is confirmed by the House by affirmative resolution. So, you know, that does take a period of time. This way meant that we had a clear time line when we put the legislation in.

It’s also true, of course, that the peddlers of these substances, as has often been covered in the debate, change the nature of them swiftly, and these substances are known to be harmful. When we announced our response as a Government, we also announced at the same time that we were going to put funds into a drug early warning system—I want to thank the Drug Foundation for their contribution to that piece of work—and also have money put aside for swift community responses to outbreaks where it was clear that users—desperate people on the street—were having really negative effects from these drugs. We know, as I said at the outset, that there have been, provisionally, many dozen deaths linked to these drugs so far. So whilst these drugs may or may not be frequent on the streets now—we think less likely than they were earlier—they’re still very dangerous drugs. So it’s still appropriate to classify them as class A, and, in fact, this may be the most efficient way of doing it.

The second question the member raised was: will the temporary drug class order for a year be long enough? I would think, ordinarily, yes it would. You know, it’s going to be long enough for the committee to meet and for us then to change the class of a drug. I’m sure a temporary order could be sought subsequently again if that was needed. So it’s to enable swift responses to new substances coming into the country.

The member Michael Woodhouse raised a question about Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 288 and asked what it meant. I did explain that in my opening comments, but I appreciate the member may not have been in the House, so I’ll just repeat that—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Wasn’t listening—yeah.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: —sorry, may not have heard that. So I’ll just repeat that the reason that that SOP is there is to clarify, because some of the submissions to the select committee had assumed that what was being weighed up here was a private interest for the individual and the fact that they might benefit from treatment against the wider public interest, when, in fact, it’s actually the public interest which is the overriding test as to whether that person should be guided towards therapy. For example, if that person had resisted some kind of therapeutic approach previously and was engaged in domestic violence, the police clearly would be likely to then pursue a prosecution because that would be in the public interest and the individual’s private interests would be secondary. So it’s really just to clarify, because it seemed that some of the submissions were not clear on that point. It’s belts and braces, if you like, but we think belts and braces are a good idea if that means that everybody understands the intent of the law in the same way. So I do repeat that, but I appreciate the member may not have caught that at the time.

So those are the questions that have been raised up until now in the debate. I shall let the debate continue.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the Minister in the chair’s clarification. I did not hear that original explanation, but it probably wasn’t only the submitters that were confused about whether or not the test of a therapeutic benefit was a personal test rather than a public interest test. That has not been brought up, in my recollection, by either the officials or anybody else in relation to this, and that is a significant change to the intent of clause 6. I have now the regulatory impact statement and the departmental disclosure statement and, indeed, the Cabinet paper, and I’m going to test whether that was the original intent. But, nevertheless, I appreciate the Minister’s clarification.

I want to touch on the matters raised by Mr Ball in his intervention—in particular, a rather selective section of the Police Association’s written submission, specifically paragraph 18, in the sense that he believes that as a consequence, the association actually supports this change. Actually, the Police Association are very nuanced in their submission. They neither support nor oppose it. I think they’re probably more forward-leaning than in opposition to it. But I draw the member’s attention—he wasn’t on the Health Committee—to paragraph 15 of that written submission, which says, in respect of the expectations around not prosecuting, “This reinforces the association’s concern that this bill is effectively decriminalising all drugs for personal use and tasking front line Police officers with enacting that.” In the oral submission, Chris Cahill, in his submission, described this as compulsory discretion. There is no doubt in the Police Association’s mind that this constitutes, effectively, decriminalising drug possession.

He wasn’t alone. Drug Foundation head, Mr Bell, also, in supporting that approach, actually said in his written submission that this was a move away from a presumption of prosecution to a presumption of non-prosecution, which, as I say, is constitutionally conflated. When I asked him—and this is in relation, actually, to the personal versus the public interest question on therapeutic benefit—whether there was a single situation that the New Zealand Drug Foundation could think of where a user would not benefit from a therapeutic approach, the answer was no.

I think the third significant submission which reinforced our concern about de facto decriminalising was that from the New Zealand Law Society. I asked the submitter whether, as a good defence lawyer that he was, he would use the new section to defend anyone charged with drug possession on the basis that the prosecution should not have taken place because his client, or her client, would have benefited from a therapeutic approach and would he, or she, be able to drive a bus through that prosecution. The answer was yep, absolutely.

As a consequence, of the thousand or so drug possession only charges—and remember, drug possession is often part of a suite of charges that are laid, including, perhaps, property offences, assault charges, and dealing, potentially, if its possession for supply. There are still nearly a thousand prosecutions a year for possession alone, and, in the beliefs of the submitters—and those three in particular—there would be almost none of them once this bill has passed.

So we need to be very clear about what we’re doing here. I lean towards Chlöe Swarbrick’s view that this is the biggest change to the Misuse of Drugs Act in 40 years. But, if it’s not, and if this merely codifies police discretion and does what they’ve always done, which is what the Government—or at least some members of the Government—say, then that’s fine. We don’t need clause 6. So Paula Bennett’s amendment in her name deletes clause 6. It does just that. It simply restores the very police discretion that the Government and the Minister says that the police have. That clause is redundant. If we take it out, the National Party can support the bill.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you, Madam Chair. As the chair of the Health Committee, it’s been my absolute pleasure to shepherd through the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, and can I firstly acknowledge the officials in the House tonight, both from the Ministry of Health and police, who did a fantastic job. I think it’s incumbent on me, actually, to talk about why we’ve reclassified AMB-FUBINACA, and 5F-ADB as class A drugs, and, by definition, they are very high-risk illicit drugs. We’ve seen fit to include these synthetic cannabinoids within that definition because, since June 2017, over 50 New Zealanders have lost their lives.

What this piece of legislation is attempting to do is those two things, and I’ll highlight those. Firstly, we are, and have, reclassified to enable the police and customs to have greater search and seizure powers. Why have we done that? Because we need to disrupt supply. We need to reduce the availability of these drugs to minimise harm to the public. We also are very clear that we do want to punish those who are involved in this illicit drug trade, but, from our perspective, they must be the importers, the manufacturers, and the distributors of those particular products.

I was a bit neglectful to also acknowledge the National members of the Health Committee, because, in fact, they recommended the amendments set out in our report, but they just don’t support the bill, and therein lies the other aspect of the bill I want to highlight, and it is clause 6, which amends section 7 of the primary legislation. Essentially, the first part of the bill is about punishing those we want to punish. The second aspect is about helping those that we think need help. So who are those people? Well, actually, they’re the addicts. They’re the people that do possess and use these products. As you’ll see in amended clause 6, new section 7(5), “To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that there is a discretion to prosecute for an offence against subsection (1)(a),”. Subsection (1)(a), by definition, is the possession and use of controlled drugs, and, I quote, it’s about “procure or have in his possession, or consume, smoke, or otherwise use, any controlled drug;”.

So what are we talking about? We’re talking about individuals who procure—that means they’ve obtained an illicit substance; they’ve bought it. They possess, which means they have it on themselves; they hold it as property. And they consume, which means they use it. That’s what this section is doing. So call it a de facto decriminalisation; we call it helping people who are addicts. The Minister has seen fit—and I do want to acknowledge our coalition partners, New Zealand First—that in clause 6, new section 7(5), we have now added to the end of that particular amended section “to the public interest” under Supplementary Order Paper 288, in the Minister’s name.

So what is the public interest? Well, by definition, the public interest is the welfare, or wellbeing, of the general public. So the question we need to ask ourselves is: is it better for all of us that those people who procure, possess, or consume these illicit, or very high-risk illicit, drugs—is it in our interest—get the help that they need? That is what’s contained in clause 6, new section 7(5) and (6), “whether a health-centred or therapeutic approach would be more beneficial.”, because the current opportunity cost to that option is we have 11 percent of our current prison population. These are based on figures from 30 June 2019. There’s 9,969 people in prison, and 11 percent of those are in prison because of drug offences. Not all of them would be for—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Seven of them—seven.

LOUISA WALL: No, it’s 11. You should have a look at the latest stats, Michael; I can send you the link if you’d like to see it.

So we are very clear on this side that it’s in the public interest for those people not to be in prison. It’s in the public interest for those people to get the help that they deserve, and that’s why this section is vital—vital—to this piece of legislation, because it says to the public, “The people that need to be punished—we will punish them. The people that need to be helped—we will help them.” Thank you.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to speak to the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill at the committee of the whole House. I have been listening to this debate and following it through its progress in the House. I wasn’t on the Health Committee at the time it was going through, but I have followed it with great interest, and I certainly supported the bill of my colleague Simeon Brown which sought to put greater penalties across the people who were peddling the harm and increasing the misery.

It does seem to me that there’s an ideological divide here between our side of the House and yours, and that has been alluded to by other speakers as well, but I think that one of the things that we need to make clear is that here, in National, on our side, we have always supported greater rehabilitation. That’s why we put a lot of money into the way that drug rehabilitation was conducted in prisons. We don’t understand why the Labour Government removed that and did not support that ongoing rehabilitation. It is very important that addicts get the help that they need, but I’ve heard rather a lot tonight and in other calls in this debate about the web of addiction and the health-based approach for addicts, and while that’s all very well, people make choices and they do peddle harm and have to face those consequences.

So there are aspects of this bill that we agree with, and there are aspects that we do not. Some of the fundamentals we do agree on are around the therapeutic interest, but being beneficial to the public interest is something that a lot of speakers have touched on. What does it really mean? And how does a policeperson, when they’re out there on the beat—with a domestic situation, for example, or a volatile situation—make that call in the heat of the moment? How much responsibility are we putting on police to make a call not just about the two types of synthetic drugs that have been specifically named here but about all the other range of drugs that the police will be required on the spot to make decisions about, and whether it is in the public interest or not is a very hard thing. They don’t have, like the cricket and rugby referees, some kind of replay so that they can look back on it and immediately decide whether they’ve done the wrong thing; it’s too late, and that’s at the heart of what we don’t like about aspects of this bill. It is too late in what it’s trying to do, and it ignored one of the measures that Simeon Brown had put up that would have, perhaps, resulted in fewer than the 80 deaths that have occurred in the last 18 months.

Accessing help, therapeutic advice, and drug harm reduction we’re on side with. But the idea that clause 6—and the Hon Paula Bennett has put up an amendment to that, Supplementary Order Paper 291, which we support on this side of the House, which deletes clause 6, which legislates police discretion not to prosecute for the possession and use of controlled drugs. We believe it goes too far. We believe that many aspects of this bill are commendable, but that is not one of them. So, if there was any openness from the other side to look at that—if the Minister wanted to perhaps explore with us again what other nuances could be really brought into play here.

I heard the Hon Mark Mitchell talk about this bill the other night, and he outlined a personal difficult situation with a family member. We are all of us, as with many debates in this House, worried about what we’ve heard ourselves, what’s happened to members of our own family. Of course that informs our positions, but, to hear a former policeman describe a family tragedy and to understand what led to that and how difficult this particular law would have been to the prevention of some of the worst excesses of the people who are under the influence of drugs, for “the wider public interest” and “the wider public good” need to be removed from the equation.

So that was why we supported the notion of more than doubling the police sentence, as Simeon Brown had suggested, bringing it up at least to other drugs so that the message would be loud and clear and would be received by all of those who seek to peddle this misery: that this is something that will not be without consequences. Let the police have discretion, as they have had in the past and continue to use, but to the level that this particular piece of legislation allows it is, I think, unfair and unworkable, which is why we support the Supplementary Order Paper by Paula Bennett to delete the police discretion not to prosecute for the possession and use of controlled drugs. If that was removed, there might be an altogether different attitude from this side of the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I’d like to take another call, following on from the contributions on this side, including the contribution by the Hon Michael Woodhouse in relation to clause 6, which is the issue which we’ve been traversing, which I think Michael Woodhouse has put very clearly: that if this is not such a major change, as the Minister is trying to put to the committee, then this should be withdrawn. I too rise in support of the Hon Paula Bennett’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 291 to delete clause 6.

I would like to point the Minister’s attention to a couple of documents. Firstly, to the departmental disclosure document, under the heading “Part Four … Strict liability or reversal of the usual burden of proof for offences”, it clearly states that subsection (5) ensures the police can decide not to prosecute if either a health-centred or therapeutic approach is to be preferred for the person or the offence is inconsequential. It does not talk about the public interest here in this disclosure document. It is talking about “for the person”, and so the issue here that we continue to bring to the Minister’s attention is the confusion that this is going to be leading to for our police. While he is including another few words around the public interest, we want to highlight the fact that the police here will be having to make these decisions based upon the health-centred or therapeutic approach for the individual person.

I would like to also highlight the New Zealand Police Association’s submission—and it’s paragraph 16, if the member Darroch Ball is interested—which says, “With respect to those who do need drug rehabilitation and other forms of health care, officers know such facilities are scarce and not consistently available throughout New Zealand. Officers also know police cells are no substitute for health care.” So I bring those points to the Minister because what this highlights is the fact that officers are going to be put between a rock and a hard place, and we’re not just talking about cannabis here, we’re not just talking about class C substances; we’re talking about all classified substances in New Zealand. That includes meth, it includes cocaine, it includes ecstasy, it includes heroin—the whole list of drugs. Police will be put between a rock and a hard place, where they will have to make a call on whether there is a health-centred or therapeutic approach available—where their evidence says that that is something which can be patchy—or whether to prosecute.

So I ask the Minister to please explain to us whether the police will be making this decision in the public interest or on an individual case for the person, because that is something which I think this House needs a very clear answer to. But the SOP which he has put down actually only further confuses the situation which we have before this committee. This is a serious issue. As Michael Woodhouse has said, if this is simply just codifying police discretion, well, we already have it. This section is not required in this piece of legislation, because the police have to make these decisions every single day. But, if this is giving the police an additional test for all substances—and we heard this is for all substances—then that is something which is far more serious and is something which I believe this House should be taking far more consideration of, and also that the Government does have a responsibility to ensure that there is far better treatment available and far more health-centred or therapeutic approaches available consistently across the country so that the police are able to make that decision and to use that discretion as they will be required to under this piece of legislation.

So I ask the Minister to take a call and address those issues. He may talk about some of the investments which are being made. He may talk about the amount of money which was announced during the Government’s announcement towards the end of last year, but that was only, I think, $12 million or $16 million. That’s not going to provide the substantive support required across the country. The point I would make is that that change should be happening before we in this Parliament are changing the law to decriminalise all these substances.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 288 in the name of the Hon Dr David Clark to clause 6 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Amendment agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The Hon Paula Bennett’s amendment deleting clause 6, as set out on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 291, is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I raise a point of order, Madam Chair. Without for a moment wanting to challenge your ruling, the question is an interesting one because clause 6 as a whole still hasn’t been considered, and, regardless of whether there was merit in the Minister’s SOP, the member Paula Bennett’s amendment is not subordinate or consequent on that decision. We still haven’t made a decision about whether clause 6 should proceed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): We’ve just agreed to amend clause 6, and the Hon Paula Bennett’s SOP is to delete it, so it’s inconsistent. The committee has just agreed to amend clause 6.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): My question is this: had that amendment not been agreed to, would that have defeated clause 6? The answer to that is certainly not.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I don’t know how much time you’d like to spend on hypothetical questions. You’re welcome to contact me later. We have agreed on an amended clause 6. The Hon Paula Bennett’s SOP is out of order.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Amendment to Psychoactive Substances Act 2013

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Just a short contribution to describe this part of the bill. Currently, substances capable of inducing a psychoactive effect that are not classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act are captured as unapproved psychoactive substances. These are regulated under the Psychoactive Substances Act.

This section will specify that substances scheduled under a temporary class drug order are not captured by the definition of a psychoactive substance.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Part 2 agreed to.

Clause 1

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): This is a relatively non-controversial piece of legislation before the House, but I still think it’s one that is of huge significance to those with a print disability. So I thought I might just take the opportunity, for those who may be listening at home, to run over the main parts or aspects of Part 1 of the bill, because this is the substantive part of the bill, and also to take a chance to thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation (EDSI) Committee, who made one substantive change to the bill in the select committee.

This bill will allow New Zealand, who has signed up to the Marrakesh Treaty, to assist those who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print-disabled to access published works. The treaty is intended to make life easier for those people, who are referred to in the treaty as “beneficiary persons”, to obtain accessible format copies of copyright works—and examples of accessible formats are the likes of Braille, large print, or an audio format. The treaty requires parties or countries who sign up to the treaty to provide an exception to copyright legislation. This exception will allow for the production, reproduction, distribution, import, and export of accessible format copies—which I mentioned before—without the permission of the copyright owner. This exception can only be used by authorised entities and persons with print disabilities themselves or persons acting on their behalf. The definition of an “authorised entity” in the bill and in the treaty includes non-profit organisations such as educational institutions, libraries, and charities serving those with print disabilities.

Can I, as I said earlier in my contribution, thank members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, who took submissions and considered this piece of legislation, and came up with three suggested amendments—one which is substantive, which was a change to clause 6, and this was around the removal of what is known as the commercial availability test in the Copyright Act. The report back from the EDSI select committee recommended that clause 6 of the bill be amended to remove the commercial availability test from this bill and also, obviously, from the Copyright Act. The commercial availability test would require authorised entities to make reasonable efforts to obtain a commercially available accessible format copy of a work within a reasonable time and at an ordinary commercial price before making an accessible format copy of that work.

Now, I think it’s fair to say that a number of—I think a majority—those who submitted to the select committee supported the removal of the commercial availability test. But I think a number of members in the House may have had correspondence or contact with the likes of those who own copyright of works and are concerned about the removal of the commercial availability test. I just wanted to take some time to make sure that we allayed some of those concerns from those stakeholders. Those stakeholders who predominantly represent publishers and authors, have raised concerns with members and me directly about the removal of that test, and their main concern is that the removal of the test will reduce sales of accessible format copies and therefore reduce the incentive to create accessible format copies. And, in some instances, they claim that that may increase the price of some of these accessible formats for those who want to get it.

We have asked them for evidence of that in jurisdictions that have also removed the commercial availability test. They haven’t been able to find that, and attempts by officials to try and allay any concerns by looking for evidence of that has so far come up with nothing as well. So I think some of the concerns that they have around the commercial availability test and the effect that that may have on copyright holders might be able to be dealt with in the wider review of the Copyright Act.

My five minutes are coming to an end, but I would just like to again thank the select committee for their work, and if anyone has questions I’m happy to answer them.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Can I just thank the Minister for his comments and can I thank members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for what I thought was a very thorough process in looking at the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill

Of course, you know, the intent of this bill is to enable the possibly more than 168,000 New Zealanders who have difficulty accessing printed material, who have some disability around that, so that they can enjoy and participate in the aspects of life that many other New Zealanders do enjoy, particularly when it comes to university studies and advancing their opportunities. I think the Minister has been very good to canvass the issue, the most substantive issue, which was the commercial availability test. We did have considerable discussion around this, trying to find the balance between the interests of those copyright holders and those people who need to access in a timely fashion those written works, especially when there’s time constraints around, perhaps, university studies.

What we felt was that if we remove the commercial availability test, as many countries around the world who ascribe to this treaty have already done, that in itself creates the incentive for those authors of those works to ensure that they actually do have works available to those people who have some impairment. Obviously, the authors of those works have a commercial interest, and we don’t want to deny them that, but we think there’s an opportunity for them to respond to the needs of New Zealanders, particularly those 168,000, if not more, who have a print disability.

Can I say thank you very much to the officials. This was not a controversial piece of legislation. As we know, the Marrakesh Treaty was concluded on 28 June 2013 and entered into force on 30 September 2016. So we, essentially, do want to advance this through the House in a timely manner in order to create that availability for those people who will respond and appreciate being able to access different formats to copyright works.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I believe that members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee were unanimous in their support of the adoption of this piece of legislation. Thank you.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Thank you to the member Jonathan Young, who’s just resumed his seat. Again, I think the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee did some excellent work, and while it’s a non-controversial bill, I think there’s some tension around the commercial availability test. I think it’s useful that I back up some of the words of the chair of the select committee just to make sure that we do have it on the record that both the Government and the select committee are in complete synchronisation with each other on this, because I still think that there may be some efforts to reinforce the point of some of the copyright holders.

I think that when the select committee looked at this, and also officials, some of the points that those copyright holders made, we—myself and the select committee—do believe that publishers and authors will still be incentivised to create the accessible format copies, whether that be Braille or audio. I understand from officials that producing a book in an audio or Braille format can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars, and this means that authorised entities and print-disabled people would be motivated to seek copies that are already commercially available. Purchasing a copy in an accessible format would likely cost less than producing an accessible format copy themselves. Again, this issue was raised with the select committee, and it noted that most countries, including the likes of the United States and the European Union, have removed the commercial availability test, and, at this stage, no evidence of that being a disadvantage to the likes of authors or publishers or copyright holders has been found to date.

I’d also like to reinforce that the select committee noted that there is a requirement in the bill for authorised entities to take all reasonable steps to notify the owner of a copyright work of an intention to make or import an accessible format, and the select committee also said that this should incentivise cooperation between authorised entities and copyright owners themselves.

Again, echoing the sentiment of the select committee chair, the overall aim of this is to assist the nearly 170,000 New Zealanders who do have issues with accessing accessible formats if they are print-disabled. Without taking any more time of the committee, I think getting through this committee stage will allow them to use the Copyright Act in a way that will advantage them. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Contempt of Court Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I’m pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Contempt of Court Bill, partly to draw attention to the really important reforms around freedom of expression. We in the National Party believe that, actually, the ability for people to be able to speak freely and to be able to enjoy those most basic of rights to be able to criticise public institutions is quite crucial.

Now, I want to draw your attention to the provisions in Part 1 around enhancing public respect for our judicial systems, because an extraordinary thing has happened in the select committee process. During the select committee of this bill, we came to an agreement unanimously that we wanted to enhance freedom of speech—that we wanted to follow the example of repealing the crime of contempt that is present and was repealed in 2013 in the UK, and is a basic right in Canada and the United States. But, incredibly, we now have the Minister overriding the decisions of the select committee. The reason it’s relevant to Part 1 of the bill is this issue of how we maintain and enhance public confidence in our judicial system. There was a fascinating ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States when this very issue was tested in respect of the freedom of speech issues. The Supreme Court of the US made a, in my view, wonderfully powerful statement and it was this: “We enhance the respect for our courts and our judicial system not by silencing its critics but by the quality of its judgments.” I want to draw to members opposite that that is the conclusion the select committee came to. Yet, we now have the Government doing not what the UK has done, not enjoying the rights that are available in Australia, the United States, or Canada, but the Government re-criminalising people who may which to criticise decisions of the courts.

So the question I have for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, is: how are we intending to advance the purposes of this Act of which the select committee, quite rightly, said a key purpose is to maintain and enhance public confidence in the judicial system—something that we, on this side, totally respect, but equally believe that that is best maintained by maintaining freedom of speech? Also, for the Minister to give some explanation as to why, in his view, we enhance public confidence in the judicial system by taking a different approach to that which is taken in other free and liberal countries like the UK, like Australia, like Canada, and like the US. Why do we want New Zealanders to have fewer rights in respect of freedom of speech than people in those other countries have and how does it relate to the purposes of this Act of maintaining and enhancing public respect of the law? How can we say that we are reforming the law of contempt, as provided for in clause 3(1), if the Government is intending to change the select committee report and to re-criminalise the issue of people who may criticise decisions of the court?

I think that this bill as reported back from the select committee was a very substantive and significant improvement in the freedoms of speech that New Zealanders enjoy. I am quite surprised and taken aback that the Minister has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper that undermines what’s provided for in clause 3 around enhancing and improving public confidence in the judicial system. I really challenge the Minister to say why it is possible that the UK has repealed contempt of court as a criminal offence. How come the judicial systems of the United States and of Canada have proven that they are quite able to do their affairs and to maintain their judicial system without a criminal offence of contempt? Why, most importantly, is he overriding the decision of the select committee?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak. It’ll come as no surprise to the committee that I disagree with the Hon Dr Nick Smith. He’s got things completely wrong. He’s not only got things wrong, he’s mis-stated the facts of the matter. So it is correct that, in its current form, this Part 1, clause 3(1)—and, in particular, paragraph (b)—refers to, as one of the objectives of this bill, maintaining and enhancing public confidence in the judicial system.

Dr Smith is very good at using language that actually doesn’t explain and describe what actually happened. Ministers do not have the right to override select committee recommendations; it is wrong to say that. Dr Smith says it, and one has to assume there’s a level of mischief about it, but it is wrong to say that. Ministers do not override recommendations of select committees. This House, however, in exercising its role and its function as part of the committee of the whole House, is fully entitled to say, “We’ve seen the recommendations of the select committee. They’ve got it wrong.” There is a very good reason why this House might want to say that, in relation to the provision of what was described originally as “scandalising the court”—that is to say, saying untrue things about judges—that is something that the House, in this committee stage, might want to review. That is simply this: there was one member on the committee who was vociferously opposed to that provision—a member who happens to have a conviction for contempt of court, for just that thing. So there is a question about conflict of interest undeclared at the select committee on that issue.

Nevertheless, having seen the select committee’s report back to the House and seen what the select committee has done, Cabinet has reviewed it, I’ve reviewed it, the Attorney-General has reviewed it. We’ve looked at the UK experience, and the UK is very clear—I met their new Attorney-General last week, as well as their new Home Secretary. They have said that, actually, there is a problem in their contempt of court law at the moment. Judges are being absolutely slated—vicious, vile, untrue things being said about them. Not criticism of their decisions, not criticism of their work, but things like, “This judge is corrupt.” The only recourse they’ve got is to take defamation action to, effectively, appear in front of their fellow judges to get some sort of justice. It is bogging it right down. There is no real accountability for them. So having the ability for the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, who are both charged as part of their roles of protecting the reputation and the standing of judges against unjustified and untrue attacks, is absolutely vital. This allows us to do that.

Let’s remember the origins of this bill. This started out as a Law Commission report, with a draft piece of legislation that a former National MP, the Hon Chris Finlayson, picked up. It included the original clause that allowed for a criminal sanction against those who to a very high standard say untrue things about judges with a view to undermining confidence in the judicial system. The Hon Chris Finlayson was adamant on his considerations and his experience, and he had an enormous amount of it, that this was one thing that was needed to ensure, to provide, that limited level of protection for judges against the most egregious attacks on them as judges, unrelated to the quality of their work.

Cabinet made the judgment and I made the judgment that, actually, we should retain that in the bill. So I’ve now produced Supplementary Order Paper 289 to do that. This is all about achieving the objectives set out there in clause 3(1)(b) of maintaining and enhancing public confidence in the judicial system. It is not possible to maintain and enhance public confidence in the judicial system if people who are aggrieved at what has happened to themselves in a court can make salacious and untrue remarks about a judge and there can be no effective recourse.

So we’ve made the judgment that that provision must be retained, and it is retained. It is totally consistent with that objective. It is totally consistent with the objective of the whole bill, which is about effective remedies to ensure that those who breach the court’s rules and those who seek to undermine the standing and efficacy of the courts and our judicial system should be met with an appropriate sanction.

So that matter that that member has raised is fully answered in Supplementary Order Paper 289.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. Allow me to start by addressing a point that the Minister made, I think, well—I’ll take a step back. The Minister explained clearly that the Minister cannot direct a select committee, and that’s true as far as it goes. But it’s also true that the Minister doesn’t sit on the select committee. The Minister isn’t, and in this case wasn’t, aware of all the deliberation and discussion. For him to misrepresent the situation as took place in the select committee without having been present and, therefore, fully aware of it, I think, is unfortunate to say the least. I refer, in particular, to his characterisation of the what he calls “conflict of interest” in relation to my colleague and friend the Hon Dr Nick Smith.

First, it was not only one member of the committee who found, for sound policy reasons—about which we can have a reasonable discussion, surely, soon—that it is objectionable to restrict free speech in this way. There are other alternatives for dealing with that inherent conflict in that balance of rights question. But it wasn’t only one member; it was at least two, and in fact, I’m pleased to say, many more members of the committee, and in fact, I’m pleased to say, ultimately to the credit of the Labour members of the committee that they too agreed with where we, the National Party members, wished to land on that. The report of the select committee makes it very clear that it’s not a minority view or even, technically, a National Party member view—four-four, split committee as it was—but, in fact, a unanimous decision. So that’s the first point.

The second, in relation to the alleged conflict of interest, is that Dr Smith’s matter is not a matter currently before the court, so there’s no personal interest, in that sense of a vested interest, in him having a view on this. He has a policy interest in it, sure, but we all have at least some connection with various matters that come before select committees and the House. For example, an easy illustration is we all pay income tax—or, at least, we should—and so we all have a technical conflict of interest in relation to taxation matters. So I don’t need to probably belabour that point terribly far except to say that I think it’s pretty poor form to be alleging a conflict of interest for an historical matter and one that the Minister has said was not declared; in fact, this matter was discussed at the select committee. If the Minister had been there, he would have known that. Of course, he wasn’t there—quite rightly he wasn’t there—because that, as he has explained himself—

Greg O’Connor: Refused to be conflicted out, Mr Penk.

CHRIS PENK: Mr O’Connor—

Hon Members: Take a call.

CHRIS PENK: Well, I look forward to Mr O’Connor taking a call on exactly that point. There was no good reason for Dr Smith—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Perhaps if the member addressed the part that we’re discussing it might help.

CHRIS PENK: Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m certainly happy to address not only the part but also the points that the Minister has made in, presumably, addressing the part as well.

So, addressing the part of the bill, in so far as it sets out the purpose of the bill, the language is very much around, of course quite rightly, wishing to protect the integrity of the judicial system. There’s some very good work that has taken place throughout the bill, including in this part, to do exactly that. But to characterise the only option to do that in the case of the reputation of the judicial system as being either defamation or the offence provision that was originally in there, and is now effectively sought to be reinserted, is actually, simply not accurate. In fact, the bill itself contains a take-down order mechanism whereby the High Court can order that material that meets the threshold can be the subject of a take-down order. Of course, if that order is disobeyed, then that in itself is a contempt of court and can be dealt with very harshly indeed, and I would say quite rightly so.

So there are other options. To suggest that there is no alternative to this seems to me, perhaps, quite a miss on the part of the Minister. I presume he’s aware of that provision in the bill. So I’m surprised that he doesn’t mention it in his dissertation on the relative merits of defamation only versus the effectively reinstated position.

I’ve got more to say on that but, seeing as that deals quite specifically with a clause in Part 2, I’ll save my comments to that part of the debate very shortly.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, and his colleague Greg O’Connor raised the issue of my own experience around contempt law. I’m going to share it with the committee because it’s absolutely relevant to this part.

I had a constituent, a husband and wife, that came to see me in the early 2000s, who had lost all access to their son. They hadn’t seen, when they came to see me, their son for two years. They’d never done anything wrong. They’d never been investigated by Child, Youth and Family Service, and they were desperate to see their child. And, when I looked into the processes that had occurred around the Family Court, I was appalled. It was a Māori family, and when I read the reports that said, “Oh well, they’re a Māori family, so they’re all different and they won’t feel the same loss that other New Zealanders might have from their child.”, I was appalled. And as a diligent constituency—

Greg O’Connor: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I just wonder—this is sounding like a plea in mitigation—if it is appropriate that such a plea in mitigation be heard in these circumstances. Some guidance, please, Madam Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I really appreciate the advice. Thank you.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The reason it was so important was that, actually, the law was not working. The law was grossly unfair and actually, by New Zealanders having a debate about our court system failing a family, we actually were able to repair the law. In fact, two years later, the Parliament made a decision that we would amend the law to make it absolutely plain that that situation would never again occur in New Zealand.

And so my plea is this. There is an absolutely proper process that goes on in this Parliament. We try to write the very best laws we can. We then look at examples in our community and make judgments about where the law’s working well and where it is not.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Could you do a passing reference to the part we’re debating—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, absolutely—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): —quite soon?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —because this goes to the heart. This goes to the heart of the issue of contempt and whether people, when they criticise the courts and their decisions, should be charged with a criminal offence. And the Minister in the chair has said, “Oh, this only happens if it is extravagant, outrageous criticism of judges.” Well, that’s not true. I invite people to look back at the record and to see exactly when Michael Cullen—the Attorney-General, a member of the Government—chose to send the toughest prosecutors in the land against an Opposition member of Parliament. So the issue at stake here is the issue of: do we want to create a criminal offence of contempt for when people have genuine concerns that our courts are not working, that our judges have made a fatal error?

And look, my experience is not the only one. Should people who champion the cause of—whether it be David Bain or whether it be Arthur Allan Thomas, the courts sometimes make mistakes. And it is fundamental in a free democracy that people are able to express views about that and they are not threatened—they are not threatened—with a crime of contempt. And so I say to Mr Greg O’Connor opposite: I know the Minister in the chair is not a constituency MP. He’s never been able to win a constituency. He would not understand the importance of constituents, who sometimes come in your door and you are the last point of call. You are the only place where they might be able to get justice and for Parliament to say that—whether it be a MP or whether it be a private citizen that’s able to say, “Actually, the court system is not working. The law is wrong. There has been a mistake.”—and to be able to express that and debate that is absolutely essential for a free society and for this Parliament to actually be able to do its job of being constantly able to amend and reform the law.

And so that’s where I bring us back to the very provisions of Part 1 and ask the committee to reconsider. If you really want to protect the integrity and enhance public confidence in our system, why do we disagree with the US Supreme Court, which so wisely said the respect for the judiciary will be made by the quality of its judgments and not making criminals of those who question the decisions that it’s made? Why is it that we in New Zealand, when the UK has repealed it, where Canada, where the US, and where Australia do not have a criminal offence in this area—why do members of this Government want to reduce the freedoms of speech that are available in those other jurisdictions and stop the proper process by which people can question the effectiveness of any State institution and have that proper debate and why are they overruling the recommendations of the select committee?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I thank the member. I’m not saying that it’s outside the rules, but can I just suggest to all members that after 23 years of MMP we no longer insinuate that list MPs are second-class citizens. I don’t think it’s helpful.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order, Madam Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, I’m in the middle of a sentence. If you wouldn’t mind holding your breath until I’ve finished it. I don’t think it’s helpful to the order of the committee.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. My point of order was that constituency MPs have a particular responsibility. That is something that I pointed out, and I think it’s very odd for the Chair to be getting themselves involved in the debate, particularly after the quite derogatory comments from Mr Little and Mr O’Connor, on which I sought to correct the record.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I gave you a lot of leniency in that regard, actually, Dr Smith. I wasn’t getting involved in the debate. I was commenting on the order of the committee and the contribution you had made, and I may have misinterpreted it, in which case I apologise. But I don’t believe I did.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Provisions to promote and facilitate administration of justice

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is the proper place where we should have the debate about my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that reinserts a provision that was in the original bill as presented by the Hon Chris Finlayson and picked up by the Government. It is Supplementary Order Paper 289, and it adds back in the offence called the offence to publish false statements about a judge of the court. It’s not about a criticism of the court, and the member the Hon Dr Nick Smith’s contributions that talk about freedom of speech and say that we must be able to criticise—of course we must be able to do that. But this is about making untrue statements about judges and courts, and it sets a very high threshold.

It is very clear in new clause 24A, in subclause (1), that a person commits the offence if three things happen. A person “publishes a false statement about a Judge”—not a criticism, but a false statement—“or a court;”. That means it has to bear upon something that is provably, factually wrong. That is what a false statement is—not someone’s genuinely held opinion but a false statement—and the person has to have known or ought reasonably to have known that the statement could undermine public confidence in the judiciary, or “in the independence, integrity, impartiality, or authority of the judiciary”. It is not just any old statement. It’s a very high threshold. A person has to have known or reasonably ought to have known that it would have that effect. That also includes recklessness, and being reckless as to whether or not there was an undermining of confidence. Thirdly, in any prosecution under this provision, it has to be proven that there is a real risk that the statement could undermine public confidence in the independence, integrity, etc., of the judiciary. There is a fourth aspect and, you might say, a further safeguard, which is that any prosecution in relation to this has to be approved by the Solicitor-General.

So all of those things have to add up. This is when somebody makes an egregiously bad, wrongful statement, an un-factual statement, about a judge or the court that could cause an undermining of confidence, the person did so knowing that that could be the case or was reckless as to whether or not they did so, and the prosecution has to be approved by the Solicitor-General. All of those things have to happen. So what it does is set up a very high threshold.

This is not about your common or garden “I’m disappointed in the outcome and didn’t like what the Family Court judge did.” This applies when there is a personal attack on a judge discharging their responsibilities, and what Dr Smith needs to know—and the reason why he was not only prosecuted but was successfully convicted for his criminal action—is that judges are not allowed to participate in public debate about the discharge of their responsibilities. They have one place to speak and that is in their court and that is through their decisions, and it absolutely stuns me to hear a member of Parliament try to claim in this House that they would be justified as an MP in attacking a judge in a way that attracts a conviction for contempt of court.

That member is a privileged member. He enjoys the privilege of this House. If he wants to influence what happens—change the law that judges have to apply so that thing doesn’t ever happen again—he is one of the most privileged people in New Zealand, one of 120 privileged people in New Zealand who can come to this House and use the resources and his friendships and his networks with his colleagues to do so. But to launch a visceral attack on a judge—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill with amendment, the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill without amendment, and progress on the Contempt of Court Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.