Tuesday, 24 September 2019

TUESDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2019

TUESDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers

Prayers

SPEAKER: Because it is Chinese Language Week, I’ve asked Raymond Huo to say the prayer in Mandarin.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): 万能的主，对主赐予的福泽，我们心怀感念.

抛开所有私利，我们报谢女王，祈祷为我们的践行带来指. 让我们用智慧、正义、怜悯和谦逊处理国会事务，为新西兰的福祉与和平做出奉献. 阿门.

Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill (No 2)

Setting Down as Government Order of the Day No. 1—Leave Declined

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for members’ order of the day No. 8, the Broadcasting (Games of National Significance) Amendment Bill (No 2), to be set down for first reading as Government order of the day No. 1 today.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that occurring? [Interruption] It’s one of those areas where there would have been objection even if the Government didn’t object.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by the Prime Minister’s reported statement in relation to the Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines, and Parts) Amendment Act 2019 that “Initially, we said we were going to deal with the guns that we thought just weren’t necessary. That was done within 12 days”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): Yes.

David Seymour: How can the Prime Minister continue to confidently stand by that statement when only 21,894 firearms have been bought back and the buy-back period is more than half gone already?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Because the other half of the buy-back period hasn’t expired yet.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister agree with the statement by police Minister Stuart Nash that the Government has “no idea how many more firearms are out there” to be collected in that second half?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is a seriously sane, rational, and responsible comment by the Minister of Police, for the first time owning up to the fact that this Parliament, over decades, has neglected its duty, but that neglect will stop right now with this Government.

David Seymour: How can the Prime Minister say that neglect is going to stop right now when, mathematically, there is no way anything like the number of firearms known to be out there will be collected by this buy-back?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The fact of the matter is we didn’t enter this exercise to do it in an inadequate way. Fifty-one people lost their lives, and scores of people were horribly damaged for the rest of their life and will be a charge against the New Zealand taxpayer for the rest of their lives. Our responsible duty was to ensure we put together the right reaction, and this compulsory registry and the buy-back is part of it. When the period is over, they having been warned of what the consequences will be, we’ll then come for those people, using every device we have to ensure that they get to understand that we, in this case, as a country, are deadly serious.

David Seymour: Has the Prime Minister considered that perhaps the buy-back is failing and the compliance rates are so low because licensed firearm owners feel betrayed and, frankly, scapegoated by the Government in response to our nation’s greatest peacetime tragedy?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There’s a new piece of legislation in the House on that matter where there is going to be a widespread consultation going into the committee of the whole House. Even that member, if he’s got a sane, rational suggestion that might help, is entitled to be part of that process. We’re saying to every gun owner out there that we will hear you, we’ll listen to everything that is sound with respect to that, but to use that famous verse in the Bible: “Any man who sets his hand to the plough and looks backwards is not fit for the kingdom of heaven.” This is not about heaven, but we do not intend to fail.

Hon Stuart Nash: Has he read a report where, at the first event in Christchurch, a recreational hunter handed in his Ruger because he said, “it’s the right thing to do … we all need to play a part in making society a little bit safer. We give up something [because] we make each other safer.”?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Could I say to the Minister of Police that is precisely the sentiment of so many responsible gun owners right around this country, from Invercargill to Kaitāia. For the benefit of Mr Seymour, look, if you can’t shoot a goat after 20 shots, maybe you’re not in the right sport.

Question No. 2—Internal Affairs

2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Minister of Internal Affairs: Does she have confidence in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister of Internal Affairs): Personally, I have already expressed my disappointment and dismay at the information that I found out today. However, the member is asking me as the Minister of Internal Affairs, and, as a lawyer, he should know that the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions is independent of the Government, and I have no role in its operational matters. The appointment of the survivor panel and the attendance at its meetings—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can the member resume her seat. This is an area, again, which some people regard as being very serious, and I want to hear the response, and I’m having trouble hearing it as a result of the noise from my left.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: The appointment of the survivor panel and the attendance at its meetings are very much operational matters. As Minister, the issue of confidence, as set out in law, relates only to the conduct of the commissioners. I would say today that confidence has been shaken.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why was a convicted child sex offender allowed to attend meetings with survivors of sexual assault and be alone with one of them without her knowing of his previous offending?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think, as the Minister has just outlined in her primary answer, she doesn’t actually have ministerial responsibility for that. A royal commission is independent by nature. There is a very, very narrow range of ministerial responsibility for a royal commission.

SPEAKER: No, no, I don’t need any assistance to deal with this. This Minister is responsible to this House for that royal commission, and, in my opinion, it is no different from a State-owned enterprise. While she has no operational responsibility for it, she is the only person who can answer in Parliament for matters to do with the royal commission.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: As I mentioned, the independent royal commission of inquiry is separate from the Government specifically so that there is no political influence. This was specifically requested by the survivors—that there could be no political interference in the royal commission, and operational matters particularly. And that goes both ways. You can’t just apply the law and the independence of a royal commission of inquiry when it suits one. I do want to point out, however, to the House that to say in a tweet—and I quote—“To have a paedophile on this inquiry is an abhorrent breach of trust by the Government.” misrepresents the commissioners who are on the royal commission. None of the commissioners on the royal commission of inquiry are convicted paedophiles, and that tweet should not have been put out into the public domain, because that does rock the confidence of the survivor community.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why was there no police vetting of applications for those associated with the survivor advocacy group, and why did it take three months to do anything in respect of the convicted child sex offender when they knew he had a conviction—

SPEAKER: Three questions.

Hon Simon Bridges: —and had to notify police of his whereabouts three days in advance?

SPEAKER: Answer one of the four.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Again, I’m surprised at this line of questioning from a lawyer who should understand what an independent royal commission of inquiry means. With regard to operational matters and my ability to be involved, which is literally nil—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Take some responsibility.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: Mr Smith, if you wish for political people to now be involved in independent royal commissions of inquiry, then I suggest you move to change the law. These are operational matters, and I would suggest that the member—and he quite rightly can ask those questions—should ask them of the independent royal commission of inquiry.

Hon Member: Phoney lawyer!

Hon Simon Bridges: When—

SPEAKER: Order! No, don’t look behind yourself, Mr Jones. It’s not helped by the group in that quarter.

Hon Simon Bridges: When was she or her office made aware that a convicted child sex offender was supporting a member of the royal commission survivor advocacy group, and what actions did she or her office take?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: At 5 past 8 this morning, I was made aware of statements by the Hon Simon Bridges. That is the first I knew of the situation that has arisen, and that is completely appropriate with the independence of a royal commission of inquiry. They have no requirement to report to me except in the pre-stated report periods inside the terms of reference. They are not required to inform me under any no-surprises policy, because of the independence of the royal commission inquiry, demanded by the law, demanded by the survivors, and, I would suggest, if I was interfering in a way that the Opposition did not like, demanded by the Opposition.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the Minister’s inquiries, with respect to the information received by Mr Bridges, did he go to the commission with it or did he go public with it?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: At this time, I do not know if Mr Bridges ever contacted the royal commission of inquiry, which would have been the most legal, the most appropriate, way to ask the questions that he wants answers to. They are questions that are valid, they are questions that should be asked, but he is asking the wrong person.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why is it that others, including the National Party, have more oversight and knowledge of the royal commission and what is happening than she does?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I could make a couple of suggestions, but none of them would probably be allowed in the House. I follow the law, Mr Bridges. I make sure that I do not interfere in any way, shape, or form with independent royal commissions of inquiry. I follow process. That is what I have been asked to do and charged to do. So how the Opposition gets their information, I’m not quite sure. But if he would like to go to the press and say that he got it officially from the royal commission of inquiry, I would look forward to that release.

Hon Simon Bridges: Where in the law does it say that Ministers should be wilfully blind of what happens on royal commissions? [Speaker gestures for Minister to sit] After a variety of issues with the royal commission, shouldn’t there have been processes in place so she knew about matters such as the child sex offender’s conviction and the lack of action in relation to it?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: What Mr Bridges is now asking me to do is to work outside the law—is to work outside the parameters of a royal commission of inquiry. He’s asking me to breach the independence of an inquiry, to put pressure on commissioners, and to go down there and influence an inquiry when I was specifically asked not to. I would like to put on the record the only way for commissioners to be removed from office: first of all, “The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, remove any member of a public inquiry from office.”—because only the Governor-General can for an independent royal commission of inquiry. “The appointing Minister may, by notice in the Gazette, remove any member of a government inquiry from office.” This is not a Government inquiry; this is a royal commission of inquiry. “A member of an inquiry may be removed under subsection (1) or (2), as the case may be, but only—(a) due to the misconduct of the member; or (b) if the member is unable to perform the functions of office; or (c) if the member has neglected his or her duty.” Those are the only ways that any Minister can take any action in an independent royal commission of inquiry.

Hon Simon Bridges: Shouldn’t she have been told about the processes and failures, and known?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I would very much have liked to have been informed prior to an inaccurate tweet put out by that member, but this is an independent royal commission of inquiry. I do not know what happened under that Government that that member belonged to and whether people interfered with royal commissions of inquiry or other inquiries, but that is not how this side of the House works. We follow the law. We follow the process. It is an independent royal commission of inquiry.

Hon Simon Bridges: What responsibility does she take in all of this?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I have tried again and again and again to explain to that member the law. That member, I believe, is a lawyer. I carry the responsibility as outlined in the statutes that I read, and those are the responsibilities I will carry out.

Hon Simon Bridges: Will she apologise to the survivors who met with the convicted child sex offender?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I have already in the media said I am incredibly dismayed and feel strongly for those survivors. I had no knowledge prior to 5 minutes past 8 this morning. I would ask that member: will he apologise to the commissioners for erroneously suggesting that one of them is a paedophile?

SPEAKER: No, no—I’m just warning the Minister now to take a little bit of care here. I mean, I know that commissioners are not judges, but we do need to treat them with the appropriate respect, and repeating things like that does not help.

Hon Simon Bridges: What does she say to survivors who are looking to pull out of the inquiry as they’re losing trust in the process, with one saying she signed up to be heard by the inquiry but is reconsidering because she no longer feels the inquiry is a safe place to disclose what happened to her as a child?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I would encourage her to make sure that she communicates that to the inquiry. The survivors asked for this inquiry to be independent of all political influence. I will respect their wishes. But I ask survivors to make sure that they articulate their concerns directly to the inquiry. They have the right to demand better, and I ask them to go and do that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given her “severe concerns” about the royal commission’s decision-making abilities, will someone be held accountable?

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: I cannot hold anybody accountable for an independent royal commission of inquiry. Under the three criteria that are there, I could if there was evidence provided, and I am yet to receive advice on one of the three reasons why a member of an inquiry could be removed. I would then have to take my recommendation to Cabinet. Cabinet would have to pass that paper, and that recommendation would have to go to the Governor-General. The Governor-General is the only person who can remove a commissioner from the royal commission of inquiry.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You reminded the House earlier that this was an important matter. You also affirmed, I think, two previous Speakers’ rulings that can be found on page 160—both 1 and 3 on that page. I wonder if you might, in your review of question time, consider whether or not the Minister has acted as the Speakers’ rulings would require, because it seems to me quite clear that repeatedly saying “I am not responsible.” does not absolve the Minister from being answerable to the House.

SPEAKER: The member is absolutely right, and I think that is consistent with the ruling I gave earlier. There is a requirement on the Minister to answer and take responsibility in the House. That does not mean that she has responsibility for what happens as part of the administration of an independent royal commission. It’s very similar, I think, to the Minister for Courts and his responsibility to the House, so I don’t think there’s any need for a review.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

3. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government’s policies and actions?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): Yes, and, once again, it’s a real pleasure to be held to account in this House.

Kiritapu Allan: What reports has he seen on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s trip to the United States?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I thank the member for a very, very good question. The reality is the Prime Minister had a stellar meeting with not only the President of the United States but the Vice-President of the United States, Mike Pence; the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo; and the National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien—all together in the same room. The most impressive meeting that there’s ever been with the United States where this country is concerned, and, dare I say it, since a request was made way back in 1939—and I wasn’t there—by Walter Nash, the then Minister of Finance, for the United States to have a free-trade agreement with New Zealand. The United States is listening, and the President’s comments were absolutely and totally positive.

Kiritapu Allan: How have these trips benefited New Zealand’s relations with its international partners?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That’s a superb question as well. The reality is that on this trip, the Prime Minister has been, as you know, first to Japan—the third-biggest economy in the world—then the United States—the biggest economy in the world—

Hon Members: China!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I beg your pardon? No, Simon went to China. The most sycophantic—

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —palm-licking trip I’ve ever seen—

Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Order! Prime Minister, when there’s a point of order one sits down.

Hon Simon Bridges: Questions from one’s own side shouldn’t be used to attack the Opposition.

SPEAKER: Well, I think it’s fair to say that the attack came as a result of an interjection from behind the member.

Hon Simon Bridges: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He didn’t use my full name.

SPEAKER: I apologise; does the member want me to ask him—

Hon Simon Bridges: No, no, him.

SPEAKER: I understand that; I apologise for not picking it up. Would the member like me to ask him to repeat it with the full name or just to go on?

Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, it’s up to you.

SPEAKER: Well, I’ll ask the Prime Minister to repeat his answer.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I was going to talk—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! On the basis that someone wants to hear it.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I was endeavouring to talk about the Prime Minister’s most successful trip to Japan, the third-biggest economy—

Hon Simon Bridges: Was it?

Hon Members: China!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, the person who keeps getting China wrong is Mr Simon Bridges, who has been described by the Mood of the Boardroom in today’s paper as the second least popular member of the National Party caucus—the second least—and has he got some competition to get there. But he made it all the way to the second least popular. The Prime Minister has had a mega Monday with the power structure of the United States in New York, and with the President of the United States turning to his staff and saying, on the question of a free-trade agreement, “Why don’t we get on with it?” It is the most positive news this country’s heard for a long, long time. It will enable us to face so much more—our infrastructure and social welfare policy going into the future. In short, there is one Government that knows where the future lies, and you’re looking at it.

Kiritapu Allan: Supplementary to that very informative answer, what reports has he seen on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s trip to Japan?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Wonderful question. Again, a stunningly successful story of a Prime Minister going over there who’s got respect, because her country has a new arrangement with Japan, where we work so closely in the Pacific and elsewhere, where we are more aligned than we’ve ever been, for decades, and the Prime Minister, I have to say, went, of course, there—and, of course, the All Blacks were there at the same time—so on every count it was a most successful trip, to be followed up shortly by the Minister of Finance and, dare I say it, somebody else later on. Thank you very much.

Hon Grant Robertson: Further to my question to the Prime Minister last Thursday, how many questions has he answered from the Leader of the Opposition since he took over as Acting Prime Minister last Tuesday, and what reason might he have for that number?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is a superb question, and, alas, I have to tell the people watching from around New Zealand that we’re being boycotted here. When it comes question time, they won’t ask me a question, and the reason for that is nobody likes to get beaten up in the first round.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That might be an enormous amount of fun for the Rt Hon Winston Peters, to have a question asked of himself about why he’s not being asked questions. What he really should ask is: why is he seen to be so irrelevant that he gets no questions?

David Seymour: I seek leave to be able to ask the Prime Minister an additional primary question and 10 supplementaries.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action? I think it’s fair to say that the coalition was divided on that matter.

Question No. 4—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes, in the context in which they were given and undertaken, and I’m particularly pleased about the actions of this Government with regard to infrastructure and, in particular, today’s announcement of the funding of the replacement highway for the Manawatū Gorge, a project that the National Party talked about and never funded the construction of.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What does it say about the Government’s policies that the New Zealand Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom assessment today gave it 1.7 out of 5 for its policy execution?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There are a wide variety of views in the business community of New Zealand. Those were some of them. I imagine it’s a similar question that the Leader of the Opposition is asking for why 47 percent of respondents in that survey said he wasn’t hitting his stride.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What message does he take from the score of 1.6 out of 5 for transforming the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The lesson there is again that there is a wide variety of views, and, on this side of the House, the Government will continue to work hard to be able to move forward on those numbers. I presume it’s a similar message that Judith Collins is taking from being the top ranked National MP in that survey.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he—

SPEAKER: Order! The member addresses me or the Minister, not the member on his left.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he blame international headwinds entirely for the fact that 83 percent of the respondents in the Mood of the Boardroom were either slightly or much less optimistic about the New Zealand economy than a year ago?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I note that the top seven concerns of those who filled out the survey were all internationally related concerns, so, clearly, that is a significant matter for those in the Mood of the Boardroom survey. However, I’m really concerned about the rating given to the Leader of the Opposition, given that the following National members are in front of him: Judith Collins, Nikki Kaye, Paul Goldsmith, Paula Bennett, Todd McClay, Mark Mitchell, Gerry Brownlee, Michael Woodhouse—then Simon Bridges, and the only person underneath that is Louise Upston.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he accept that there’s a clear link between business confidence and investment, which is what we need to create better, higher-paying jobs for New Zealanders?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We welcome good-quality foreign direct investment into New Zealand. We welcome the investment that New Zealand businesses are making. I note that the survey shows that the majority of businesses continue to believe that they’ll make profits, continue to believe that they’ll add more staff, and continue to believe that they’ll invest in capital expenditure. This survey is a little like the member’s glass there: you could see it as glass half full rather than glass half empty.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the finance Minister got any information as to why, in the Mood of the Boardroom survey, Steven Joyce did not appear there, seeing as the Sunday Star-Times regards him as the economic spokesperson for the National Party?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed, I note that Mr Joyce is being given a column in the Sunday Star-Times. I also note that in it, his eyes are firmly fixed in the rear-vision mirror, driving himself backwards—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I gave the member some time to address the part of the question which was in order, and he didn’t.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What were the transport projects at Ōpōnoni and Waipapa that he listed last week as some of the Government’s major transport projects?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member well knows that in this House, if he puts down a very general question as the primary one, it will be difficult to give him a specific answer about that. All I can say is the advice I have had from the Minister of Transport’s office includes the following projects that are under construction, under the general policy statement: the Awakino tunnel bypass, Dome Valley, the Kaeō bridge, Loop Road, Ōpōnoni, Papakura to Bombay, Waipapa through the Provincial Growth Fund project, State Highway 10, Tākaka Hill, and more.

Question No. 5—Housing

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. To the Minister of—

Kieran McAnulty: Welcome back.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —Housing, what challenges—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: A very good idea, Mr Jones. I’m just checking—was that Mr Jones who made the interjection?

Hon Members: No.

SPEAKER: Who was it?

Kieran McAnulty: Someone far wittier.

SPEAKER: Sorry? The person who made the interjection—stand up.

Kiritapu Allan: I withdraw and apologise.

Kieran McAnulty: I also withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Well, if the Government keeps that up, it’ll be whip-less.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: As opposed to witless!

SPEAKER: The member knows—[Interruption] All right, OK, that was my invitation to the Hon Judith Collins to make the interjection, so I’m not going to punish her for it, but I think people shouldn’t continue with it. We’ll start again.

5. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Housing: What challenges and risks, if any, have been identified for the KiwiBuild programme?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): As part of the reset of the KiwiBuild programme, a number of risks and challenges were identified and addressed. For example, the programme had been building some houses in locations that did not match KiwiBuild buyer demand. The three-year residency requirement on studio and one-bedroom apartments was dissuading some eligible buyers. First-home buyers were having difficulty gathering a deposit. The cohort of eligible buyers was too narrow. Early underwrites put in place for the developers didn’t create the right incentives, in some cases. Reference was also made to the price of building materials and difficulties with land supply. Then, of course, there are the risks identified in the departmental risk register, the project management tool used in the KiwiBuild unit to list high-level issues that could happen without adequate systems in place to mitigate them. I don’t propose to read out that whole list that was released to the member under the Official Information Act last Friday. Of course, challenges to building affordable houses are not new. I remind that member, once again, that the previous Government promised 39,000 houses under the special housing areas—3,100 were delivered, 100 of which were affordable.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s not true.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! We’ll just not have that interjection, thank you.

Hon Judith Collins: Is the KiwiBuild risk register correct to state that KiwiBuild does not have appropriate systems in place to manage conflicts of interest, and has a lack of separation between stakeholders and decision makers?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: No. As the member well knows, what the departmental risk register does is list possible risks and ways in which they could be mitigated. Of course, the risk register does also show how that risk is being mitigated.

Hon Judith Collins: So if there is just a possible situation here, then why does it show under the heading “Further improvements we’ve committed to”—as opposed to have done—the words “function to provide oversight and advice on all KiwiBuild transactions”?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: If the member also reads the column next to the “Further improvements” columns that she is reading out, she’ll see it has a yellow arrow going in both directions, which means there has been no change since the last report. What the risk register does, as the member will well know, is it puts out very clearly what risks there could be and what needs to be done internally to manage those. What this report shows is it is being managed.

Hon Judith Collins: Were any of the developers who received KiwiBuild underwrites also members of the ministry stakeholder groups?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The member will have to put that question in writing to me. I don’t have that information at hand.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree with her ministry that KiwiBuild may have opened itself up to potential legal ramifications due to any unfair processes?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Like any public entity that is spending public money, it needs to have a clearly spelt out risk register that shows what all the possibilities are and how it is that they are mitigated. This is no different than any other departmental risk register. So, no, I do not agree with her.

Hon Judith Collins: Then why are 12 categories on the risk register still showing as high risk?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Because there is still work to be done to make sure they are mitigated, and this Government is committed to putting that oversight in place and making sure we are tracking it and spending public money very wisely.

Hon Judith Collins: Is it acceptable to the Minister, when the KiwiBuild programme has been operational for two years and has had a major reset, that we still have 12 major categories listed as high risk?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I remember, as an Opposition spokesperson, getting many risk register reports that showed many things in “high risk” categories. The function of a Minister is to make sure that is being monitored and it is being well mitigated. That is exactly what I’m doing.

Question No. 6—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): On Friday, the IMF released its latest annual review for New Zealand, highlighting that economic growth picked up early in 2019, reflecting a rebound in private business investment growth. Looking forward, it expects a pick-up in growth in mid-2019 through to 2020, supported by accommodative monetary policy and the near-term fiscal impulse from the Government’s increased investment levels. The IMF report underlines New Zealand’s strong underlying economic fundamentals. Unemployment is at an 11-year low and the economy is growing faster than the likes of Australia, the UK, and the EU.

Dr Deborah Russell: What did the IMF report say about New Zealand’s fiscal position?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The IMF said that New Zealand’s sound fiscal framework has been strengthened further by the Government. The IMF said the Wellbeing Budget struck the right balance between fiscal prudence and the Government’s priorities of mental health, child poverty, Māori and Pasifika aspirations, productivity, and digital transformation. In addition, the Government’s shift to a target range for net debt of 15 to 25 percent after 2022 is “prudent and maintains the fiscal buffer needed … [should any] … large-scale fiscal policy response … be required.” It’s refreshing to see the international view of the New Zealand economy and finances are positive. Despite some who will take a glass half-empty approach, under this Government’s solid economic management we’re doing well against a backdrop of global uncertainty.

Dr Deborah Russell: What did the IMF report say about the Government’s policies to improve productivity growth?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The IMF highlighted that within the Government’s greater focus on wellbeing, we have “a roster of policies to foster productivity growth”, including introducing an R & D tax incentive; increased education spending, including reform of the vocational education sector; the creation of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission to enhance procurement and delivery and to set up an infrastructure pipeline; using wage increases to further more inclusive growth, including minimum wage increases and sector-wide collective bargaining; and fostering regional development through the Provincial Growth Fund and regional skills shortage lists.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister of Finance confirm that the IMF is no longer talking about the New Zealand currency being massively overvalued and damaging exporters, but now at US64c or thereabouts, that is enormously helpful to our export base in this country?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There’s absolutely no doubt that the dollar at that level is indeed helpful to the export base, and I believe that may have contributed, in part, to the fact that exports are around 28.3 percent of GDP at the moment. That’s heading in the right direction, unlike the previous Government, who set a goal of 30 percent and promptly put the car into reverse.

Question No. 7—Health

7. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Associate Minister of Health: Does she stand by all her statements, policies, and actions regarding vaccination and the measles outbreak?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Yes, in the context they were given.

Dr Shane Reti: How long are the 52,000 vaccines she has spoken about projected to last before they have all been used up for vaccinations?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: That depends on the number of vaccines that are given each week, but, as the member knows, there will be 100,000 additional measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines arriving in the coming weeks.

Dr Shane Reti: When will the additional 100,000 vaccines she spoke about last week actually be distributed to health professionals?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: They will be distributed as soon as they are available.

Dr Shane Reti: Under the Minister’s actions, is the current measles outbreak getting better, worse, or staying the same?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It is clinicians and experts who are guiding the Government’s response to the measles outbreak, and I trust them.

Dr Shane Reti: When she said, “vaccination is the only way to prevent measles”, is she confident that enough is being done to prevent measles, in light of reports yesterday that students were sent home from Wellington High School and Rangitoto College due to measles?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: To date this year, over 180,000 vaccines have been delivered. That’s nearly twice the amount that were delivered in the same period the previous year and the year before that. I am confident that the clinicians who are delivering the vaccines are doing the absolute best they can, particularly to prioritise the most vulnerable, who are children under the age of five.

Question No. 8—Climate Change

8. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for Climate Change: Does he stand by his statement in regard to reducing the methane cap, “I’m open to a solution to that conundrum … but it’s got to meet the science”?

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Yes, I do, in the context in which it was given. I was asked about how to achieve bipartisan support for the zero carbon bill and I said that I was open to solutions to that conundrum, as long as they meet the scientific criteria of living within 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels. On that, I will not compromise. The bill is before the Environment Committee, and so I’m open to whatever the committee may recommend to improve the bill, but, of course, any significant changes to the bill will need to go through the normal Cabinet process. I note that in today’s Mood of the Boardroom survey this morning, a chief executive said of the Opposition, “Walking away from supporting the climate change legislation is wrong. We need to”—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I don’t think that—well, I think the member’s already answered the question.

Hon Scott Simpson: In what ways does he believe that a target for methane of 24 to 47 percent reduction meets the science?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Because it came from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the world’s leading authority on the science of climate change.

Hon Scott Simpson: In that case, is he concerned that the range of 24 to 47 percent reduction for methane is heavily influenced by scenarios that assume global population will be lower in the future than it is today, something that is beyond the control of New Zealand farmers?

Hon JAMES SHAW: The IPCC ranges were actually based on dozens and dozens of different scenarios, including scientific factors, technological factors, economic factors, and so on.

Hon Scott Simpson: Has the Minister seen the recent IPCC report, entitled Climate Change and Land, which separates out scenarios by background assumptions and shows, for a forecast where population doesn’t fall, agricultural methane is only forecast to decline 12 percent globally by 2050?

Hon JAMES SHAW: I’m aware of the report. I haven’t read it yet.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with the report, then—I guess not, because he hasn’t read it—

SPEAKER: Right, well, start the question again.

Hon Scott Simpson: Yes. Would the Minister agree with a report from the IPCC that a 12 percent reduction in agricultural methane is consistent with a 1.5 degree temperature limit in a scenario where global population is 9.2 billion by 2050?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Well, it’s hard for me to comment on an IPCC scenario. What I’m aware of—I mean, I’m happy to take a look at it, obviously, but I would like to say that that member is actually a member of the select committee that’s examining the bill, and if he has proposals, then he should take them to his select committee and put them to the select committee. I have to say that that report, of course, was tabled after we tabled the bill in the House. I would like to say that there was a range of conflicting advice from both Government agencies and scientists last year when we were drafting the bill. That’s how we ended up referring to the IPCC range originally. I am aware, and said when we launched the bill, that having a 20-point range is suboptimal, which is why we’ve written into the legislation that the new Climate Change Commission has to review the range and come up with something more definitive in time for the next emissions budgeting period. The whole idea is to kick that to the commission so that we can have something that says that it is grounded in the science, so that we can put all those disputes that the various scientists and agencies had last year to bed, and in the meantime, our agricultural sector has got the assurance of knowing that they can crack on with a 10 percent reduction by 2030.

Question No. 9—Revenue

9. TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki) to the Minister of Revenue: What recent announcements has he made about making it easier for businesses to innovate and grow?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): Good news. Yesterday, the Minister of Finance and I announced that we were removing two tax barriers to business innovation, expansion, and growth. The first change will allow businesses to claim tax deductions for money spent exploring investment opportunities that don’t proceed—also known as feasibility expenditure. The second change—

Hon David Parker: Black hole.

Hon STUART NASH: —yes, black hole—will be to work with tax and business experts to design a solution to allow losses to be carried over when there is a change to the ownership of the business—known as lost continuity. When I meet with business taxpayers, these two measures consistently rate in their top three list of things that they want the Government to do. We have listened and are acting accordingly. The coalition Government is backing Kiwi companies to innovate and grow by making it easier to invest in new assets and business models and by giving start-ups a better shot at success.

Tamati Coffey: How will these tax changes help small businesses?

Hon STUART NASH: The changes to the lost continuity rules will make it easier for start-ups to attract investment and get off the ground. A lot of start-up companies accrue losses in their early years. We want to work with tax and business experts to allow these losses to be carried forward, while protecting the integrity of the tax system. The ability to deduct feasibility expenditure will also benefit small to medium sized businesses, as qualifying expenditure of less than $10,000 will be deductible immediately. Ultimately, these changes will benefit businesses across the board, and it also means that companies won’t have tax as a reason to not do something.

Tamati Coffey: What reports has he seen from the business community about these announcements?

Hon STUART NASH: So many positive reports, I’ve actually lost track, but here are quotes from a couple. The changes are “quite long overdue”—Deloitte. It will “help optimise business investment.”—Business New Zealand. It “could be a game changer for the sector.”—Mind Your Own Business country manager Ingrid Cronin-Knight. She also said—and I quote—“this kind of forward-thinking policy is exactly what the sector needs.” I believe this report, that quotes Brendan Brown, tax partner at Russell McVeagh, captures the overall sentiment: the “existing [loss] rules had been a barrier to business taking risks and the proposed reform would make a positive difference.”—and I quote—“It should help increase productivity by removing an impediment to businesses bringing in new investors to help them grow and become more productive. It will also help businesses that need more capital to remain resilient as we look out to potentially more uncertain economic times ahead.” We are looking 30 years ahead, not just three.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister of Finance, how will these two policies affect me if I decide I want to be—

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Minister of Revenue.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Now, I’m going to ask the Prime Minister to start again, and I’m going to ask the corrector on my left just to keep his mouth shut.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister, and with respect to these two policies, if as a desire I have to start a business I decided to get an illegal share in a five-week casino, how will these policies, from a feasibility cost structure, affect me?

Hon STUART NASH: That’s a good question, Prime Minister. What this will allow companies to do—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Gerry wants to know.

Hon STUART NASH: Oh, well, Mr Brownlee, if you’d like to know, what these proposals allow companies to do is look at a feasibility study for an asset or a project, not knowing if it’ll go ahead or not. This allows businesses to invest with confidence. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! If members want to continue the taxation advice, I suggest they do it in the lobbies.

Question No. 10—Justice

10. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: Does he agree with concerns about the Referendums Frameworks Bill, such as from the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, “that ‘free and fair elections’ are a fundamental constitutional principle. One component of free and fair elections is that they are administered neutrally and impartially. This tells against giving the Executive a broad power to procure referendums and to frame the wording for such referendums.”?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Ni hao, Mr Speaker. In relation to that particular submission of the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, there are some things in that submission I agree with; there are other things in it that I disagree with. What I do agree with is their statement that the power that the member is referring to is broadly similar to section 6 of the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000, which was a piece of legislation introduced by a National Government that that member was a part of.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Minister, as the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, see a key difference in referendums that are held at the time of a general election in which the Government has got a vested interested to screw the scrum to try and win election unfairly?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: If I just take the straight bits of that question and answer it in these terms: the only difference that the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee saw with the Referendums Framework Bill is that the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act provides for referendums that are conducted by post as opposed to in conjunction with a general election. It was, with all due respect to the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, an absurd statement to make.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the concerns from the Hon Peter Dunne, who describes his bill as Putin-like, saying—and I quote—it’s “much more reminiscent of the plebiscite approach adopted in countries where” there is the thinnest veil of democracy?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he agree with the Regulations Review Committee, including his own Labour colleagues, that the bill gives Cabinet inappropriate, Henry VIII - type powers?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The Regulations Review Committee has made no submission on the bill.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the letter received from the Regulations Review Committee describing the bill as having Henry VIII - type powers.

SPEAKER: The letter received by whom?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The letter was sent from the Regulations Review Committee to the Justice Committee.

SPEAKER: I’m advised that the document has not yet been released. It is within the power of the House to seek leave for that. That does not mean that it will be made generally available. Is there any objection to that document being tabled?

Hon Members: Yes.

SPEAKER: Further supplementaries?

Question No. 11—Rural Communities

11. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister for Rural Communities: What has he done to encourage rural communities’ resilience to challenges, and to support mental wellness?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Rural Communities): I am regularly talking with rural support trusts, with farmers, organisations like Beef and Lamb and DairyNZ, the banks, my colleague the Minister of Health, and others about rural communities. When my colleague announced the $1.9 billion funding for mental health, I was the first on his door ensuring that he had a pathway to support rural communities. We’ve invested $20 million in telehealth to boost phone and online services, to ensure that those who live in the most isolated communities can get help when they need it. This Government has boosted, by almost double, the amount of money for rural support trusts, who are doing great work on the ground to get out there and help rural communities in times of need. Mr Speaker, there are many, many more, but you’d probably sit me down before I got through half of them.

Matt Doocey: In response to the open letter from BakerAg highlighting its concern on the current state of rural mental wellness, was a tweet by the Minister stating that “If farm advisors and rural media weren’t so keen to repeat negative political rhetoric farmers might feel appreciated” an appropriate response to a letter outlining serious rural wellbeing concerns?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I appreciate that some people are very sensitive to the truth. I have subsequently spoken with many people in the rural media to explain my position, and they indeed accept that’s the truth. I’m also meeting representatives from BakerAg this afternoon so that we can better explain our positions. I stand by the fact that if we were to highlight the positive potential opportunities across agriculture at a time when we have record levels of income in almost all the sectors, I’m sure people in the rural community would feel more positive—unlike the bleating that comes from the National Party every single day.

Matt Doocey: What does the Minister say in response to the comments made by Ruawai dairy farmer Mark Cameron, the organiser of the farmers’ protest in Northland on the weekend, who stated, “I believe the suicide statistics of rural NZ are now reaching epidemic proportions. On average there is a rural or farmer suicide once per fortnight. I would say between the media narrative and the Government tone, the emotional and physical wellbeing will suffer terribly as a result of this.”?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I acknowledge that, actually, for a long, long time, the rural suicide rates have been far too high. It’s a challenge that we as a Government have taken on—$1.9 billion for mental health services is a great way to start, after nine years of total neglect for rural mental health services. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Both sides.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a terrible tragedy that we have anyone committing suicide in this country. The reality is that across almost every demographic, across both urban and rural, we have too many people who don’t see a way forward. If every one of us was to be more positive about the huge opportunities for us as a food-producing nation—the opportunities in rural New Zealand are immense, and if we highlighted those, then I’m sure everyone in rural New Zealand would feel a lot more positive. I ask the Opposition to do just that.

Matt Doocey: What representations, if any, did the Minister make for the inclusion of a rural suicide prevention approach within the recently published Government suicide prevention strategy Every Life Matters?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Can I say the one thing about this Government is that every single New Zealander, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, regardless of whether they are white or brown, regardless of whether they live in rural or urban New Zealand—every one of them—has the right to have proper levels of protection and assistance when they need it. That’s why we’re rolling out $1.9 billion in mental health services, because the previous Government completely ignored the support systems that have been needed across all of New Zealand.

Matt Doocey: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister what representations, if any, did the Minister make for the inclusion of a rural suicide strategy approach.

SPEAKER: I’ll ask the member to make it clearer for the member. I thought he had addressed the question, but I will ask him to make it absolutely clear.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: I can say that on every single issue across Government and across Cabinet, I’m a staunch advocate for rural implementation. We have put in place—and, indeed, in the previous Labour Government, I did rural proofing, which ensured that every Government agency had to consider the implementation of policies not just in the cities like Auckland but across rural New Zealand. That policy has now been re-implemented—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I think the member probably answered the question in the first sentence.

Matt Doocey: In light of that answer, is he disappointed that a rural suicide prevention approach is not mentioned in any of the key outcomes or the key actions of the Government’s suicide prevention strategy?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Can I say that this Government thinks New Zealanders, regardless of where they live, are all entitled to the same level of protection, consideration, and help. It is simply the policy of this Government that we’re not to differentiate. The attempt by the Opposition to separate out and divide out rural and urban New Zealand is completely unproductive, and as the latest UMR survey said, there’s not the division between rural and urban that the National Party want to keep bleating on about.

Question No. 12—Climate Change

12. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Climate Change: Does he agree with Greta Thunberg that when it comes to the climate crisis, “The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not”?

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Yes, and change is coming in New Zealand after decades of passing the buck on climate change. Change takes time, but our Government is very aware that that time is running out. We have been putting in place the frameworks to drive down emissions, like the zero carbon bill and reforms to the emissions trading scheme (ETS), but we know that we need to do more and we need to move faster to ensure a safe and stable climate for future generations.

Marama Davidson: What kinds of changes might New Zealanders see as part of the just transition to a low-emissions economy?

Hon JAMES SHAW: People will see more electric cars on the roads. They’ll see more public transport, they’ll see major coal users switch to clean alternatives like burning wood waste, they’ll see better buses and trains in our cities, and they’ll see changes to make it safer for their kids to cycle to school. People will see more trees planted in the right places.

Marama Davidson: Can he assure coastal communities and local government that the Government is working to help them prepare for the effects of climate change?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes, I can. Our Government understands that we are all in this together, and that’s why, last week, we published the first ever framework for a nationwide climate change risk assessment. This will help communities and local councils to plan and prepare for the effects of climate change, like rising seas, more extreme weather, and droughts.

Marama Davidson: As Minister for Climate Change, what is his view on the student strikers who plan to march for the climate on Friday, 27 September?

Hon JAMES SHAW: I talk to many students and New Zealanders of all ages who feel that we are in an unstoppable descent into a climate change disaster. Some feel helpless, like there’s nothing that we can do—that is a heavy sense of inevitability. As someone who grew up under the threat of nuclear annihilation in the 1980s, I can relate to their anxiety, but I also say to them that it is not inevitable. Things can change, and I ask them to continue to hold us and all of Parliament to account. Keep demanding more of us. They might not have been old enough to vote in this Government, but it is our duty to be their representatives.

Marama Davidson: Is it just young people who are calling for stronger Government policies on climate change?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Actually, no. I was pleased to see the submission on the zero carbon bill from Grey Power, who asked the Government to focus especially on reducing transport and agricultural emissions because, in their opinion, “Current generations have a moral obligation to act decisively to both prevent any [future] increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and to mitigate the inevitable effects of current levels.”

Hon Simon Bridges: Is it true—reports we’ve seen today—that the Government cannot agree on what to do with agriculture into the ETS?

Hon JAMES SHAW: No.

Bills

Arms Legislation Bill

First Reading

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): I move, That the Arms Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 10 February 2020.

There are tragedies or crimes or losses in our communities that have shaped all of us in this Parliament in our own way. Some have motivated us to come to this place in order to make change; to make our society a better place. We have heard some of these personal stories this year during the debate on the abortion law reform and the End of Life Choice Bill, but there are tragedies or crimes or losses that occur far from our personal circles. They have taken no one who was close to us; nevertheless, they have marked us. They haunt us. They haunt us as MPs because we know when we leave this place we are going to be asked to identify the high points, the low points, the regrets.

Gun crime and the terror attack on 15 March in particular haunt every one of us in this debating chamber. There is no better illustration of this to be found than in the words of former police Minister John Banks. In March, some 25 years after he ceased to be the Minister of Police, an act of terror took the lives of 51 Kiwi worshippers; another 40 were injured by gunshots. When the former Minister heard of the shootings at the mosques, a terrible image came back to him. He was instantly at Aramoana in 1990, walking amongst the dead: the 13 men, women, and children who lost their lives in another mass shooting. He told a reporter, “Since Christchurch, I haven’t been able to get out of my mind a small boy aged about eight … lying dead on the ground with his eyes wide open and a look of fear I’ve never forgotten. That young boy has haunted me these last couple of weeks … [This is] the greatest disappointment of my political life … not having the numbers … to rid this country of these killing machines.”

In April, almost this entire Parliament came together to change that. The former Minister said the prohibition on assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics will act as a tribute to that small dead boy he has not been able to forget. I do not want to be that Minister in 20 years’ time, expressing my regrets, yet again, that back in 2019 the gun lobby won out over the safety of our communities. I refuse to let this happen, and so should all of us.

I don’t know who that little boy was who haunts my predecessor. Two six-year-old boys were killed at Aramoana, called Leo and Dion. Also killed in Aramoana was a police officer, Stu Guthrie. I stand here today to say to all police officers: we have your back. This bill will make a difference to every front-line officer. They turn up at some call-outs with no knowledge of what they are walking into. Every month, police turn up to some 200 incidents where a firearm is involved. Every year, between 800 and 1,000 firearms are reported stolen—they disappear into the black market, and many into the hands of gangs. Around 11 percent of firearms offences are committed by gang members.

Police intelligence indicates that most illegally held firearms are stolen from legitimate owners through poor storage practices. We owe it to the police, who tirelessly work day in, day out so we can sleep soundly at night. We owe it to the victims and the survivors of the mosque terror attacks to make these changes. We owe it to members of our community, such as victims of family harm or aggravated robberies, to tighten our gun laws.

In April, we acted to take the most dangerous weapons out of circulation by prohibiting assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics. Now we are moving to stop other firearms from falling into the wrong hands.

The terror attacks at the mosques are not the first mass shooting this country has endured. Successive Governments have known since the Thorp review of 1997 that our gun laws were too weak. The terror attack on 15 March highlighted the flaws in our licensing system. Our gun laws date from 1983 and are dangerously out of date. Since 1983, the firearms manufacturing industry and the ability to buy and sell online has markedly changed the firearms environment. The changes announced today have been decades in the making. It is now up to this Parliament to deliver in the interests of public and personal safety.

Under the current law, we do not know how many guns are in circulation, who owns them, who is selling them, who is buying them, or how securely they are stored against the risk of theft or misuse. There are more than 260 shooting clubs and ranges which operate without any system of licensing. Police have very few options for intervening when they see concerning behaviour. Revoking a firearms licence can only happen for the most serious cases and can take weeks, during which time the guns can be given away or disappear without a trace. The administration of the system is also very outdated. There are higher penalties for unlawfully taking or selling fish than for many firearms offences. We need to modernise the system.

One of the biggest challenges facing police and public safety is the lack of information on what firearms are in New Zealand, where they are, and who is responsible for them. This bill lays the foundations for the development of a register to store information on all firearms and other items controlled by the Arms Act. The register will require and enable individuals and dealers to record every sale and transfer of a firearm, and will be able to be programmed to alert when the number of firearms held may exceed the capacity of the secure storage.

There are many benefits of introducing a register—for example, it helps licence holders meet the obligations that the Act places on them to only sell firearms to other licence holders. Within two years we can start to track and trace all licence holders and their firearms, as all firearms will be required to be uniquely marked and recorded in the register. This will also provide our fantastic police staff with the information that they need to effectively undertake some of their most dangerous tasks.

Owning a gun is a privilege, not a right. The proposed changes will spell out the duties and obligations for public safety that come with this privilege. The vast majority of our gun owners are law-abiding and responsible. The law changes will reinforce the positive behaviour that is required of all gun owners. The current response to the buy-back and amnesty shows how everyone can play a part to make our communities safer.

It is still early days but good progress is being made. As of last night more than 15,000 New Zealanders have turned up to more than 217 collection events. More than 24,000 firearms and 89,000 parts, such as high-capacity magazines, have been handed in. Compensation payments worth around $46 million have been processed. Firearms owners have spoken to media and police at these community collection events to share their views on the process. At the first event in Christchurch, a recreational hunter handed in his Ruger because, he said—and I quote—“It’s the right thing to do … we all need to play a part in making society a little bit safer. We give up something but we make each other safer.”

In the gun-owning community there is a change of mind-set around firearms, because the wider community agrees that it is the right thing to do to make each other safer. The terror attack on 15 March caused us to rethink many things, and that included our gun laws. This bill updates a number of offences and penalties in the Act to make them more fit for purpose and proportionate to the seriousness of the offending—an example of this is increasing the maximum penalty for possessing a firearm without a licence from the current $1,000 and/or three months’ imprisonment to a maximum penalty of $15,000 or one-year imprisonment.

In a summary of his 1997 Review of Firearms Control in New Zealand, Justice Thomas Thorp said—and I quote—“it is clear that there is a need for a totally new approach to firearms control.” But 22 years after the Thorp report, that broken firearms law remains on Parliament statute books. In the last 15 years over 170 people have had their lives cut short by gun violence, and many more families have been devastated by suicide which involved a firearm. This House will be haunted by the memory of these tragedies, crimes, and losses if we fail to act now. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As has become all too often in this term of Parliament, the Government is delivering something other than what it says on the tin. And it is for that reason that the National Party will be opposing this bill in this, its first reading. The Minister of Police, along with the Prime Minister when they introduced this bill in the media, claimed that it would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It isn’t focused on criminals at all; in fact, it has it, in our view, 180 degrees the wrong way around. Instead, the bill is imposing greater regulation, more responsibilities, and more costs on law-abiding New Zealanders who happen to own firearms, and is doing very little of any substance to address genuine criminal activity and, particularly, gangs.

Now, we should consider what it means to be classed as a law-abiding firearms owner. By its very definition it means that individual or the collection of individuals are following the laws as they are set down. They are following the rules, they are owning firearms appropriately, they are using them appropriately. The one thing we do agree with the Minister on is when he said that the overwhelming majority of firearms owners are law-abiding New Zealanders. We agree with that. It is for that very reason that they don’t need additional regulation and responsibility—because they follow the law. They use their firearms appropriately. The target should be those that don’t, and placing more onus and cost on firearms owners definitely affects the wrong people.

In 2016, with its report in 2017, the Law and Order Committee formulated an inquiry into the possession of firearms. Amongst the evidence that they heard in that inquiry was the example of Australia: 87 per cent of people who commit offences involving firearms are not licensed. Those people do not hold firearms licences. To create additional provisions or responsibilities around such licences simply does not—cannot—affect those people because they are not licensed in the first place.

The Minister made reference to how these licence changes would help police undertaking their duties. Well, we certainly on this side support the efforts of police and, particularly, on the front line. But here is the situation: if the police are aware that a resident of a property holds a firearms licence, they are going to automatically approach that incident or complaint on the basis that a firearm could potentially be involved. A register or tougher licensing conditions are not going to change the way that they react in those situations. They will always assume the danger could be present.

I’d also like to make a comment about the Christchurch situation and, particularly, the individual who, it is understood—who we believe, certainly—perpetrated those events, because it does relate very closely to law abiding and therefore what Parliament should or should not be looking to do. I’m not going to speculate on the depth of the facts around how he got a licence in the first place. I’m sure the royal commission of inquiry is looking into that and will report on it. But one thing is very pertinent to this debate. We understand that the individual purchased a rifle, a semi-automatic rifle, legally and—at least, technically—legally purchased a large capacity magazine. From the very first moment he bought those two items together he committed a criminal offence. He was not a law-abiding individual well before those tragic events of 15 March. To think that we could take actions that impinge upon the responsibilities of law-abiding firearms owners and would capture someone with that wilful intent is, in fact, if not to misunderstand, certainly not to accurately represent that situation and others that might follow.

So instead of focusing on genuine criminals such as through the provisions of the likes of firearms prohibition orders, which would enable the commissioner to set a higher threshold or barrier to possessing a firearm and create additional offences with very steep penalties, penalties that could be as long as 14 years in jail for people, particularly gang members, with serious convictions—that addresses a general criminal activity, that is real positive, real action to get firearms out of the wrong hands. Instead, the Government has provisions such as registration and certification of clubs and shooting ranges.

We should bear in mind that the people that are members of these clubs or operate at these ranges are, fundamentally, volunteers. They are small groups of people that come together to enjoy their pastime, whether it is a sporting event or more practice for other legitimate uses of firearms—perhaps their hunting activities. If we overburden those individuals with certification bureaucracy and insurances and the like, we risk a very real situation where those that can will simply leave those environments and, instead, undertake their shooting on private property such as farms well beyond any form of oversight. We could, in fact, end up with a situation which has less oversight than we have today.

In fact, the only ones that would be obliged to continue to operate under that regime are the likes of people shooting pistols and other sporting activities because they have to operate under those conditions, and, quite frankly, they are already the best-managed groups and ranges in New Zealand. That is why we have sought to be constructive while we are opposing this bill. We have returned and publicised some conditions around what would be appropriate ways of notifications around these clubs, and particularly ranges, so the police can be aware of the activities that are undertaken lawfully, but which would not apply the same level of bureaucracy and burden on to those groups of volunteers.

I’d like to now move on to the register, at least briefly. In public, at least, the Prime Minister and the Minister have claimed that a register would keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Well, I refer back again to that select committee report and the example of Australia. Their evidence there was that 90 percent of firearms used in criminal offences were not registered—were not registered. There is simply no way a claim can be given on the evidence we have that a register will keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It doesn’t. Now, there may be another reason that the Government might want a register and we may even be able to agree with that, but our call to the Government, therefore, is to place the details out there so that we can see them, put them into the legislation and set out, for the public and for the Opposition here, how it is that their register will be different to other registers around the world that have failed.

The first bill was rushed. We did want to respond quickly; however, the rushed select committee process created a number of issues; one or more of which have had to be fixed via regulation after the bill passed, such as the allowance to allow possession of prohibited ammunition in certain circumstances because it wasn’t included in the bill—clearly an error. Now we see errors in this bill too, and the one I’ll reference right now is to do with dealer licences. The Government has decided it wishes to include all commercial activities—supply, hiring, lending, along with the traditional selling and manufacturing—under a dealer’s licence requirement. Regrettably, section 7 of the Act states that a dealer can only be linked to a single physical premises and that must be where they undertake their business activities. Section 7A allows some temporary shift from those premises, but only for the purposes of gun shows. Now, an armourer came to see me in my Johnsonville office—a guy that goes out and provides firearms and services to movie producers on set—and pointed out that the legislation the Government has introduced means he can’t undertake his business, because the place of his business varies, potentially from day to day, but it certainly varies a great deal. Another oversight we believe brought about, probably more than anything else, because the Government, and perhaps their advisers, simply haven’t consulted broadly enough.

We have issued a list of 13 changes that we would like to see in order to support this bill. They would require a special instruction to the select committee, which I hope the Government will support. If it does not, we will oppose this bill.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): We’re very familiar with the concept of licensing in New Zealand. We apply it in an extraordinary number of places. We are licensed to drive a car, second-hand dealers are licensed, electrical workers are licensed, you have to have a licence to go fishing, early childhood centres are licensed, building practitioners are licensed, sale of alcohol is licensed, immigration advisers are licensed. Running a casino—it’s a licensed activity. All sorts of activities where we think that, properly, it should be regulated and supervised. Why? Because of the harm that can be caused to other people. It’s a tricky thing with licensing, putting in place rules and regulations versus the freedom to act, and each time we must weigh up the concerns of the whole community; not just those who would engage in the activity but also the concerns of those who are affected by the activity.

There’s a reason why we license people to drive cars: driving 1.5 tonnes of metal down the road in an irresponsible manner can cause serious harm. And there is a reason why we license firearm ownership; it is because firearms cause death—firearms kill people. Yes, every shotgun and every rifle that can be used for hunting, for pest control, even for sports activities, is used for hunting, for pest control, for sports activities, but they can also be used to kill people. It is for that reason that we need to impose very strict and very careful controls on who is allowed to own firearms, what sorts of firearms can be owned, and where those firearms can be used.

Our legislation is 36 years old. It is out of date and it does not control firearms to the extent that ordinary, everyday New Zealanders want. March 15 was a shocking and terrible event, and one of the many deeply sad lessons that came out of it was that our gun laws did not actually control firearms to the extent that the great majority of New Zealanders want. So we need to do something about that. In the aftermath of 15 March we, quite properly, acted very, very quickly to take the worst weapons off the street. So far, we know that 25,000 weapons—firearms—have been handed back in the gun buy-back. We acted swiftly, and now we are taking the next step to ensure that those who have earned the privilege of owning firearms may continue to do so and to ensure that lethal weapons that can kill people are not just freely available in our society.

I want to address some of the concerns that have been brought up by Mr Brett Hudson in the first speech for the Opposition. Mr Hudson was concerned that, I guess, this new law is going to criminalise gun owners. It is not. I think one of the best examples of this in this proposed legislation is to do with where firearms are stored. Under the old regime police officers could check the security of weapons once every 10 years. Under the new regime—under the new rules which are proposed by this legislation—the storage of firearms can be checked at any time by police, with adequate notice; no surprise visits. But if someone does not have their firearms stored properly, the first step that police will take is an improvement notice. Police will give firearm owners an opportunity to improve the security of their weapons. There are no Draconian measures here; what there is is a concerted effort to improve the control of firearms in this society.

Let me have a look at some of the rules that this particular piece of legislation brings into place. What it does is it seeks to reassure New Zealanders that we are properly licensing firearms owners, firearms dealers, and shooting ranges.

Let’s look at clause 36 of the bill, and, of course, there will be time to debate this in select committee and to understand exactly how it works. But one of the things we will need to do, under the new rules, is see whether a person who holds a firearms licence is a fit and proper person to hold that licence. Police will be invited to assess a number of issues. Now, none of these will rule a person out from holding a firearm all by itself, but there are a number of issues which police ought to consider to holistically consider whether that person is fit and proper to hold a firearms licence—for example, whether or not a person is dependent on alcohol or a person is a habitual drug user; perhaps whether, sadly, they have significant mental health issues; or whether they have engaged in behaviour that promotes violence, hatred, or extremism. These are the sorts of issues that might suggest to police that perhaps the person is not a fit and proper person to hold a firearms licence.

The same sort of principle applies under this proposed legislation about a fit and proper person to hold a dealer’s licence. Does that person have a firearms licence in the first place, but are they competent; do they have the resources to be a dealer; have they ever had any convictions; do they have a sound knowledge of firearms—all the sorts of issues which might demonstrate whether or not a person is fit and proper to engage in selling firearms to other people.

I want to talk a little bit about the new rules that are proposed for shooting clubs and shooting ranges. We’re actually proposing that these entities actually have to have a certificate of approval. Now, the previous speaker, Mr Hudson, thought that this would impose a fair amount of work on people who are, essentially, volunteers—and, in fact, I think the suggestion was possibly too much work. But it’s worth looking at people like the Deerstalkers Association, who already have a voluntary regime in place in terms of regulating their own membership. And why did they do this? Because they understand that owning a firearm is a privilege, that firearms have huge safety issues around them, and that they want all their members to be very, very careful about how they use those firearms. So they have a whole set of rules that they already administer themselves, and that is what responsible gun owners do.

As a member of the governing party, we have focused on the idea that gun ownership is a privilege not a right. If this bill goes through, then someone who has a firearms licence will know that she or he is truly trusted by their fellow citizens—truly trusted to hold a lethal weapon. That is a real mark of honour: that the rest of us would trust someone with a firearm that can kill. So I suggest that rather than criminalising people, what this legislation does is it gives an opportunity for a badge of honour—that anyone who owns a firearm under these rules is someone we trust. That is why this is good legislation.

As the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, it will be my privilege to work this legislation through the select committee process. I’m looking forward to working with the members of the Opposition on this. If I heard it correctly, I think I heard that the Opposition is willing to perhaps agree to this bill in due course if we can work through some of the issues that might be there in the select committee. May I assure the members of the Opposition and members of the public who may be listening that I will do my best to ensure that it is an open process where we truly engage with the issues, and I hope that we can come up with legislation that we can all agree with. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It certainly is no pleasure to stand and take a call on this the Arms Legislation Bill. I think that every member of this House would agree that the reason why we’re in this House debating this bill is, in large part, to the tragedy that we experienced as a nation in Christchurch. I would make an appeal to both the chair of the committee and also the Minister of Police to take a deep breath and to do a reset and to sit down with us in Opposition and work on this bill and stay true to the intent of what this Parliament did on the first tranche.

I was the first one to stand up and say that there’s no room in New Zealand for military-style high-capacity weapons. Most of our law-abiding firearm owners and users in New Zealand actually agree with that sentiment. But it’s somehow being distorted, and I would ask the Minister, quite simply, to do this: let’s remember that the alleged offender in this case was a foreign national. He came to New Zealand, he somehow was able to get a firearms licence—and we need to look at that and study that—he was able to get access to a gun club, and he lived amongst us. You will never convince me that there weren’t red flags and indicators there that we should have acted on. So what I would like to see—and we’ll work with you; we’ll work with the Minister on this; we’ll work with the select committee—is to reset and go back and look at what those red flags were, look at what those indicators were, and let’s address the real issues. Let’s address the issues that we know will give us confidence as a nation that we can do the best that we can do to ensure that we don’t have an individual, like we saw in Christchurch, being able to perpetrate another attack like that. I appeal to the Minister to take a deep breath and to sit down and work with us and get focused back on what the original intent of the legislation that was coming through this House was meant for—not targeting law-abiding Kiwis. They are going to continue to be law-abiding Kiwis.

The other point that I’d really like to make, which is critically important—and the Minister did allude to this in his opening speech, and I’m pleased that he did—is that we have been trying, in this term of Government and as Opposition, to introduce firearms safety orders or firearms protection orders. Quite simply, the reason why we want to do that is because—I get anecdotal information coming to me constantly from police officers working on the front line through to district and area commanders—we know that there is a growing prevalence of firearms being carried and used by gang members and organised crime. We know for a fact that with the prevalence and growth of 501s, or returning gang members, who are highly resourced—gangs like the Comancheros—the amount of violence that, actually, the police are having to deal with now on the front line is growing.

I had the owner of a security company that’s been providing security for the Auckland CBD for over 20 years come and see me about two months ago in my office. He showed me four videos—disturbing videos—of what his staff have to deal with now from patched gang members presenting firearms and using firearms. He is finding it more and more difficult to recruit staff to actually provide security in our CBD, and that is reflective of what is actually happening around the country. Why would the Minister not take this opportunity to work with us to actually target the people that have got illegal firearms and that are creating the harm?

I make a prediction: if this Government doesn’t show some intestinal fortitude around this, if this Government doesn’t decide to pick up and support our firearm protection orders—that actually enable the police to take serious action against organised crime and gangs—then we will continue to see deaths from the use of firearms, which is what the previous speaker, the chair of the committee, spoke very passionately about; we will continue to see unnecessary deaths perpetrated with illegal firearms by gangs and organised crime.

So I would appeal to the Minister to signal to his members, and through the process of the select committee, for us to work together to get focus back on what is actually going to make a real, fundamental difference to ensure that we as a nation, and our people, are safe, and to restate that intent and restate that focus, instead of moving into different areas where we’re targeting people that actually have got nothing to do with the atrocity in Christchurch, and every day are just living law-abiding lives. Let’s focus on where the real issue is for us, and that is around organised crime and gangs. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this, the Arms Legislation Bill.

I struggle to understand the two previous speakers from the National Party in their stance on this bill.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Because they didn’t say what it was.

DARROCH BALL: No, they haven’t stated what it was, but what I got out of that, at the very least, from Mr Hudson, was that they weren’t going to support this bill. They’re not going to support this bill because the vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding. The vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding and crims will be crims: they’ll do what they are going to do with the guns and we can’t do anything about it. That’s the sentiment that the National Party has put up and the main reason they’re giving for not supporting legislation that would bring in the likes of what this bill will be, which is a gun register to ensure that—now, here’s the thing: this is what a gun register will do, Mr Hudson. It will allow the police to do their job more effectively. It will allow the police to track weapons more effectively, and they’ve said that.

Now, this is the umpteenth time in the House this year that I’ve had to stand up and be surprised that the National Party is going against what the police want, what the police are asking for. Mr Hudson also stood up and gave the example of the terrorists down in Christchurch, and how he was law-abiding.

Brett Hudson: No, he wasn’t.

DARROCH BALL: Oh, yes he was.

Brett Hudson: He wasn’t.

DARROCH BALL: Oh, yes he was. And then the example of why he may not have been law-abiding because he put a butt on, or something; he changed—

Hon Stuart Nash: The only time he broke the law was when he put the mag in that gun.

DARROCH BALL: When he put the magazine in the gun, 30 seconds before he mowed—you know, the terrible situation where he killed those 51 people: that was the only time that he did not follow the law. So the excuse from the National Party is that they’re not going to support this because this affects the law-abiding gun owners when, with the very example he had, he contradicted himself. That’s where the National Party is putting their hands up and saying—and, actually, unfortunately, I think they’re politicising it. They’re not going to support this piece of legislation just because—because they’re contradicting themselves. Even when Mr Mitchell stood up, he had no clear view, and, to be fair, he wasn’t even speaking on the bill.

But here’s the thing that New Zealand First is going to do. We’re going to support this bill through to select committee, and it’s vitally important that we see this full process through, because this legislation and this issue of gun crime affects everybody in this country. That’s the key. The issue of gun crime, which is what this legislation is trying to tackle—not law-abiding gun owners; it’s gun crime, and that affects everybody in this country, and it’s vitally important that we give the people who this affects the right and the opportunity to come in through the select committee and have their point of view heard and listened to. And New Zealand First will listen to those people who this legislation will affect; we will hear and listen to the common-sense, the sane, the rational, the reasoned points of view given for this piece of legislation—the multifaceted aspects of which are trying to tackle the gun issue.

But what’s confusing to me is that the National Party don’t want that to happen. They’re voting against this piece of legislation, when they stand up and say they know there’s a terrible occurrence that’s happened in Christchurch, but they don’t want to do anything about it. What’s worse is Mr Hudson stood up and he said he’s got 13 changes he wants to make to this legislation. He’s got 13 changes he wants to make in this legislation, but he doesn’t want to see it through to select committee. Now, where’s the irony in that?

Unfortunately, that’s the message that we’re getting from the National Party—well, it’s the mixed message, where they understand that something terrible has happened in this country, and that there is an issue that is decades old, as has been mentioned in question time today—that is decades old, that spans multiple Governments. But they don’t want to do anything about it, when we’ve got some legislation on the Table of this House that we’re debating, where we want to hear from the gun owners, from the lobby groups, from the gun clubs, from the Deerhunters Association, from the police, from the people who are victims of gun crime. The National Party don’t want to hear them.

I want to point out there’s a couple of stats that have been mentioned already. This is about the why—why we need to do it. Between 1 January 2015 and the end of December 2018 there were almost 14,000 firearms-related offences that were committed. There were 71 firearms-related homicides committed and 901 assaults. Every month, as the police Minister mentioned already, the police are called out to 200 crimes where firearms are involved, and one in five front-line officers is confronted with a firearm—that’s every month. And every year, between 800 and a thousand firearms are reported stolen. They disappear on to the black market, and many into the hands of the gangs. That’s what the National Party need to realise: one of the purposes and main intents of the register is that it will allow the police to better monitor where the firearms are and, obviously, who owns the firearms, and if any are stolen, they can track it. They will be able to, clearly, give the police a better ability of understanding how many firearms there are, who has them, and where they are stored, and, especially, and most importantly, where they are stolen and sold illegally.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through to select committee because it’s the right thing to do. The changes that occurred for this country in March of this year have dictated for us the need for a change in the gun laws of this country. New Zealand First will be seeing it through to select committee, and we’ll be hearing from those that this gun law affects. We’ll be listening very carefully to those organisations and those people that this legislation affects.

I think that the National Party need to re-evaluate their commitment to changing the laws in this country, not only for the betterment of those gun lobbyists and the gun clubs and law-abiding gun owners but also the people that the gun laws affect and the gun crime affects, which is everybody in this country. New Zealand First supports this Government in moving this legislation through, and we’re looking forward to the process of it through this House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I want to assure Mr Ball and the parties opposite that the National Party wants fair, safe, effective, and enforceable firearms legislation. Mr Ball’s speech is utterly disingenuous, because he took the view that the Government can introduce a bill that is deeply flawed, as this one is, and yet the National Party should be forced to support it no matter how bad it is, because otherwise we couldn’t possibly work on it in select committee to improve it. Well, the fact of the matter is that the Government knows they have the numbers to get this to the select committee, so it will go there and the National Party will engage in the consideration of the bill in good faith and bring all the wisdom and the fairness that we can to those deliberations.

I’ve long been very grateful to live in such a beautiful and relatively safe country as New Zealand, and I’m sure most members of this House who were born here would feel the same as I do. There are so many countries where innocent law-abiding citizens are at daily risk of being threatened, or worse, by somebody brandishing a firearm, perhaps at their own front door, or when they’re driving a car and they pull up at the traffic lights, or when they’re attending a public event in perhaps a theatre or a park, or a place of study. How terrifying that must be. We don’t ever want that to happen in New Zealand, so we must ensure we get the legislation right. How tragic, so often, are the consequences of that type of thing in those countries—how many lives are cruelly taken, how many families are devastated. How many communities are left heartbroken and bewildered as ours was, of course, in the immediate aftermath of 15 March with that horrific, despicable atrocity that we witnessed in Christchurch.

That is why this Parliament responded as one in the immediate aftermath of that atrocity and supported the measures that were introduced at that time. And it’s why I’ve also been grateful that we do, broadly speaking, enjoy sensible gun control laws in this country, unlike many other democratic nations, especially the United States, that have failed to adopt effective measures and which have paid a tragic price week after week, month after month, because of that failure to have sensible and effective gun control. So I would like to be able to continue to support firearms reform legislation, particularly in the aftermath of 15 March. If I felt that the Government was proposing further measures that would enhance our public safety and strike the right balance between the competing and legitimate interests that it concerns, I would support it. And I do welcome commitments from previous speakers in the debate to achieve that outcome—

Greg O’Connor: Unbelievable. You don’t believe that.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —but we cannot support this bill at this time when it is so flawed in several significant ways. Mr O’Connor can abuse me from the other side of the House, but he must be receiving the same sort of emails and communications and contact with our offices that I and my colleagues on this side of the House have been receiving from people who are genuinely aggrieved by what is happening.

The Minister suggested in his speech, when introducing this bill, that the current gun buy-back scheme is working.

Hon Stuart Nash: It is.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Well, I’m sure we all wish that were so, but, Minister, you know that is nonsense. Certainly, many good law-abiding citizens have accepted the changes that were made in the first tranche of firearms legislation that was passed a few months ago and they have been surrendering their now banned firearms, and good on them. They deserve our gratitude—

Greg O’Connor: Unbelievable.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: —and our admiration, and for Mr O’Connor to say that is unbelievable is frankly unbelievable. But they were never the people who threatened us or who should be the objects of our concern. Mr Ball, speaking a few moments ago, said that he couldn’t understand National’s position, so let’s consider some of the basic questions that should be the test for a bill of this type: is it fair; is it well drafted; is it well focused; and, most importantly, will it increase public safety? Unfortunately, the answer to most, if not all, of those questions, at this point, is no.

Let me just conclude by pointing out that the National Party is willing to work on this bill in good faith to improve it if all of the conditions that we have set out are met, but we have not received any indication yet from the Government that they will do it. I haven’t got time to go through all of them, but let me just—the introduction of firearms prohibition orders is something that we have debated in this House many times. It is well past time for those to be adopted. I call on the Government to commit to them. They must introduce clearer and more flexible rules for clubs. They must introduce clearer and more flexible rules for sporting ranges. They must ensure that the register that they’re proposing to introduce is clearly defined in legislation and will be effective. They must keep the licence duration the same as it is today. They must include safeguards on healthcare practitioners reporting to police, because we do understand that there are many in the medical profession who have a very important role to play here, and we would wish to support them to the utmost. They must introduce new and consistent exemptions for sports shooting and for pest control exemptions. They must amend the fit and proper person test to require some clear rules for assessing patterns of behaviour. And they must require common-sense rules for visitors purchasing firearms over prohibition, as outlined here.

So I do hope that, ultimately, the Government will come to their senses and realise that those are all fair and sensible measures. I do hope that we’ll be able to reach a point that the country can live with and that the Parliament would be proud to enact. But we are far from that at this point.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is only barely over six months since our nation’s heart was broken on 15 March, when 51 lives were lost in Christchurch as a result of the biggest act of terror in living memory in this country—a hate crime that also wounded dozens more people in body and in spirit for ever. We all remember the victims. We remember the small children who remind us of the little kids in our own lives. We remember the elders who remind us of our grandparents. We remember those who fought back, those who tried to save loved ones. The stories of those victims are what propels the change that we’re about to make in this House.

I remember little three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim, who lost his life, who was ravaged by a military-style semi-automatic weapon that had no business being in the hands of anyone in our community, and that that weapon was owned lawfully. But in the wake of that tragedy, that act of terror, Aotearoa came together in love. All across this country, people came together to hold the victims in our hearts, to support all the affected communities. It was something to behold. And the legacy of that love, that strength that was shown by the nation in the wake of that attack, is to make real change. It must be. We must be brave as we have these hard conversations about what is actually wrong, what shortfalls exist in our law and in our culture, but mostly, in this House, we’re responsible for keeping New Zealanders safe. We’ve been working to ensure that nothing like that tragedy will ever happen again.

The Green Party has a long legacy of working on our kaupapa of non-violence that stands against firearms being out there in the community but, in particular, for regulation like what this bill is about to introduce, in terms of introducing things like a gun register. We’ve been saying for so long that our gun laws are not fit for purpose. We know now that it’s been 36 years since we’ve had significant reform or change in our gun laws. That is unbelievable, given the changes, given the tragedies that have happened, and we here on this side of the House are about to change that culture of apathy in the face of a grave tragedy but also knowing that New Zealand is behind us.

The calls for change were so loud, have been loud for decades, and include the voices of our law enforcement agencies. It is unbelievable that change hasn’t happened until now. But I am so proud that we’re doing it and we’re doing it starting today. This bill proposes five heads of change, so to speak. It will strengthen the purpose of the Act by explicitly acknowledging that gun ownership here in New Zealand is a privilege, not a right. It will provide for an online registry to collect information about firearms and that will link those firearms to the licence holders.

Again, it’s unbelievable that we don’t have a registry that tells us where firearms are, how they’re being stored, and whose hands they’re in. It will make it far easier for law enforcement to do their job. We keep talking about, you know, “Law-abiding citizens are being punished”, but this is actually about knowing who, where, and when firearms are being kept and used in our communities so that the police can enforce the law. That’s what was being made hard by lack of a registry.

Storage will be better monitored. It will reduce risk of theft. So just all of the things that we’re trying to do when we talk about law-abiding versus non - law-abiding. This is about making our gun laws more effective, more knowable, more transparent. The register will also show A category licence of firearms holders in New Zealand—again, unbelievable that we didn’t have it. The bill will strengthen, and make more transparent, the licensing process for individuals, including more clarity around the fit and proper person test to hold a gun licence. It will introduce disqualifications, for example, for anyone who has been released from jail in the last 10 years, been convicted of serious firearms offences, and serious violent offences, among other things. The Green Party will be working further to clarify whether or not the definition of the fit and proper person test in this bill covers the right types of criminality in someone’s record, so that we do make sure that the bill works together with the bigger purpose of our law reforms, in terms of stigmatising drug users, for example, and it actually targets people who may be unsafe to hold a gun licence instead.

We’re going to be increasing penalties, and expanding compliance with our gun laws. Most New Zealanders, again, would be shocked to know that there are higher penalties for infringement of fishing rules than there are for some firearms offences in New Zealand. So this is about making it clear, and allowing law enforcement to do their job, when we deal with a culture in New Zealand, where people don’t actually want gun ownership to be something that can be flagrantly held, that’s something that’s kind of insidious, and uncontrolled, and, like we see in other parts of the world, considered to be a right, to the point of making other community members unsafe, and to the point of making law enforcement so difficult that, in fact, the problem balloons.

We stand at a moment now where we can say that, actually, fishing infringements may be less significant than something that risks the lives of vulnerable people. We know in New Zealand as well that, terrorism aside, we live in a nation with epidemic levels of domestic and sexual violence. Victims of domestic violence are at a risk from firearm offences, including murder, and very serious injury. While we’re working to eliminate domestic violence, we owe it to those victims to ensure that they’re not at greater risk of harm than they need to be. Likewise, we live in a nation with epidemic levels of mental illness, including suicide—another vulnerable community that we need to look out for. Yesterday, even the United States Department of Homeland Security placed white nationalism on its list of types of terrorism on the rise, and while we know that threats like that grow globally online, we know that we’re not immune.

So our communities are at risk of gun violence, and we owe it to them to change that. The whole world is watching. New Zealand has, so far, shown that we are a nation that reacts responsibly, with compassion, that prioritises values like peace and love and public safety above what a small lobby group would have us scream about. We are not a country whose Government sits apathetically on its hands because they sit so comfortably in the pockets of the gun lobby.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You can’t—

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: We owe it to the victims—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, order! But you cannot accuse any members of being financially in the pocket of anyone else.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Sorry, what I meant is that we are not that here in New Zealand, unlike another nation, who shall remain nameless.

In that context, we’ve acted far more responsibly, so far, and far more quickly. So the hope is that we will continue to have those hard conversations, we’ll continue to make real change. We do owe it to the victims. We owe it to all of the affected and vulnerable communities. We owe it to little Mucad Ibrahim. We must be brave, as we weave that love—outpouring of love—all across New Zealand, into the enduring fabric of our society. So I do commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): It’s a pleasure to take a call on the first reading of this Arms Legislation Bill, and to emphasise the importance that National puts on having effective, safe, and fair firearms laws. I want to reflect on the contribution we’ve just heard from the Green Party. It is National’s view that part of reducing the risk from the awful tragedy that occurred in Christchurch on 15 March is appropriate gun laws. But I would challenge the Green Party that we can never pretend that there will not be firearms in New Zealand. Many experts have already said that one of the most important preventions to a repeat of that strategy is having strong security intelligence services, and I note that that party then and continues to advocate the abolition of those security intelligence agencies that, really, are part of what this Parliament would do, on a united basis, to protect this nation.

I do challenge the Green Party to review their policy on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and the important role it plays. I’m pleased to say that this Parliament has had cross-party support—with the exception of the Greens—on that issue, and, if they genuinely feel about the importance of the lessons from that mosque attack, I hope they will review that position. Now, it’s not National’s view that everything in this Arms Legislation Bill is wrong, but what we do think the Government is doing is repeating a mistake that it is making in an area I feel strongly about, and that is around water policy. That is, this Government seems intent on doing stuff to people, rather than doing things with people. We want to improve water quality, but we want to do it with farmers. We want to improve the safety of firearms, but we want to do it with those law-abiding citizens that hunt and use firearms quite responsibly.

I do want to challenge Government members who have repeatedly ignored the pleas from National to work on a cross-party basis in this area. I have heard over six propositions—

Hon Shane Jones: Posturing, you’re posturing—posturing.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —around the issue of gang prohibitions—well, can I ask Mr Shane Jones: why will his party not support prohibition notices in this legislation for gang members with firearms? We all know, every member of this House knows, that the bulk of the crime that’s committed with firearms is done by gang members—

Hon Shane Jones: Posturing.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and I’d love to know—talk about posturing—I’ve seen more posturing from the New Zealand First Party on the issue of gangs than any other issue, by any other party. Why Shane Jones and his colleagues will oppose the good work that Brett Hudson and other National members have done around including prohibition of gang laws in such legislation absolutely contradicts what is required, because members on this side actually appreciate that there is a large number of New Zealanders, particularly in rural and provincial New Zealand, who are involved in gun clubs, who go hunting for deer and other recreational pursuits, that are true, decent, responsible New Zealanders. Members on this side of the House are all for safety, but we’re also about treating those hunters and their recreational pursuits with respect and making sure that we work with them to improve firearms safety.

Hon Shane Jones: They’re not gangs.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The greatest irony for me, with Mr Jones, is that in the nine years of the previous Government, the party that was most opposed to making progress in improving our firearms legislation was the Hon Ron Mark and members of the New Zealand First Party. Now, they are the most ambidextrous party I have found on any issue. They are fair-weather friends—

Hon Shane Jones: Flexible—flexible.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and there are so many members—and I’d say to Mr Jones that I would have met so many constituents in my own area who feel so let down by New Zealand First. They say one thing prior to the election. They vigorously opposed any form of quite moderate firearms law reform when they were on this side of the House, and, suddenly, they have now been taken in by the Green arguments and continue to rat on the provincial and rural New Zealanders that were misled by the New Zealand First Party.

So the members on this side of the House are saying that we’re open to reform, and I actually must commend Brett Hudson. It is unusual for an Opposition party to go out with very detailed policy propositions and say, “Look, this is the sort of stuff that National members can support.” This is the sort of balanced firearms legislation that will improve the safety of our firearms, but not in a way that will impose an unreasonable burden and unreasonable powers against those that responsibly use firearms.

I think this Parliament needs to learn some lessons from the buy-back scheme, because when the buy-back scheme started, the police acknowledged that there were 240,000 firearms out there, and here we are, more than halfway through the buy-back scheme, and only about 20,000, or 10 percent, of those firearms have been collected. How many members of this House really believe that every single semi-automatic firearm prohibited earlier in the year is going to be surrendered—

Hon Andrew Little: So what would that member do? He’d do nothing.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —to police by December this year? So Mr Little says what we should do. Well, let me tell Mr Little, we’ve said the absolute detail of what should be done, and that is that we should go after those criminals that have firearms. Here is the member—Mr Little—that has been so keen to be soft on crime, to reduce sentences, and to go soft on the very people that commit the bulk of the crime, and where, Mr Little, we see the world differently to you is we would go hard on crims, go hard on gangs, go hard on those people that pose the greatest risk in terms of firearms, and give honest, decent New Zealanders who enjoy hunting and other recreational activities—give them a break and not impose some of the excessive provisions in this bill.

Hon Andrew Little: What a stupid member.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: So my challenge—oh, Mr Little. He always—Mr Little’s got this habit. Whenever anybody expresses a view that’s different to his, he goes for the personal attack. That speaks volumes about Mr Little. He should take a big—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could we just cut the personal abuse? This is a House of Representatives. Let’s have a standard in this House that doesn’t support personal abuse.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is our view on this side of the House that there are—

Hon Andrew Little: That would make a change from that member.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the honourable Minister Little just please calm down.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I think it is interesting. We have the Minister of Justice, who can’t control his own temper—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the Hon Dr Nick Smith, just please talk to the bill.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The bill does have some useful provisions that National could support, and what we have suggested quite constructively to the Government is a series of amendments to this bill that would enable us to be able to support it at further stages. The disappointing part is that there’s been absolutely no engagement with National members—the largest party in this Parliament, that showed on the first bill that it was interested in playing a constructive and supportive role. But you cannot—

Hon Shane Jones: Opposition party.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Mr Shane Jones, actually, it is right and proper that the Opposition scrutinise legislation and ask the hard questions, because otherwise we end up with schemes like the buy-back, that has only achieved 10 percent of what was promised, and we end up with botched policies like KiwiBuild and so many other areas of the Government. So I make no apologies for holding the Government to account and for making sure that any firearms legislation that’s advanced through this Parliament meets those tests of being fair and of being effective and improving the safety of firearms. I’d simply challenge members opposite to take a more reasonable approach and to listen to what the hunters and the responsible gun-users in the community are saying, because it is possible for this bill to be improved so that it meets those objectives.

This Parliament needs to take a very open and balanced approach, where we genuinely are out to improve the safety of firearms in New Zealand while minimising the compliance costs and the hassles for those many New Zealanders who responsibly use firearms. My plea, again, to Government members is why not include the prohibition on firearms ownership for those with criminal records, so that we can indeed keep the gangs, keep those that are criminals—keep guns out of their hands and genuinely make an improvement to firearms safety in New Zealand.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): I’m pleased, as a Government member on this side of the House, to rise and speak to this bill. This is one of the more challenging pieces of legislation we will have to steward through, in light of the circumstances that brought this legislation about.

It’s one of the more challenging pieces of legislation that I think this House has to consider and, indeed, we must consider it responsibly, and I think we must reflect as well on many of the recommendations that have come through over the last 36 years. This Arms Act has been in place for 36 years. There haven’t been comprehensive amendments to this Act in 27 years.

I want to take a note from—it was two days after the events of 15 March. A journalist by the name of Laura Walters from the Newsroom made this observation. It was at a time when the country was in its heightened stage, and she wrote this piece about gun law reform and some of the challenges that I think resonate with me today and this afternoon as this House considers this raft of reforms. She said, “The issue of guns is constantly bubbling away under the surface, with debates rising to the top every time there’s a high-profile incident involving a firearm. When this happens the reports are all the same: police saw it coming, Police Association calls for tighter laws, the firearms community pushes back saying that their rights as responsible gun owners were being eroded by the criminal minority—‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’—and politicians promise to look at those laws.” That statement, two days after one of this country’s most tragic incidents in post-wartime, couldn’t resonate more loudly than what this debate has reflected in this House this afternoon.

When you look through the detail—and I’m not sure how many of the Opposition members have gone through this bill—there’s a raft of things that are being proposed by the Minister of Police, the Hon Stuart Nash. One is the registry, another looks at licensing, and then there’s a whole raft of reforms in terms of the offences and penalties.

The registry has been a point of contention this afternoon across the House, and that, to me, is very interesting. It’s interesting that the list member for the National Party who is the spokesperson for the police can, in this House, get up and say that a registry is not wanted or required for law-abiding citizens. It astounds me that the Opposition spokesperson for the police can say that when the former Minister of Police from the now Opposition, the Hon Judith Collins—she agreed at the time, in March, that there should be a firearms register. The former spokesperson for police, the member Christopher Bishop—he agreed only a couple of months ago that there should be a registry for firearms. Why did they do that? Because those that are responsible for ensuring that all New Zealanders are safe have been calling out for that amendment for years.

The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, when she made her remarks in this House in March for the first tranche of those firearms reforms—she said and she noted that this House has tried to address arms legislation reforms in 2005, 2012, and 2017, and never quite could get the momentum to get the numbers to get this piece of legislation over the line.

One of the more—and he’s been oft quoted this afternoon. The Hon John Banks, right after the law-abiding citizen, the gun-licensed citizen David Gray, in November 1990—he was a licensed gun holder. He was a law-abiding citizen.

Brett Hudson: No, he wasn’t.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: In 1990, when he acquired that gun licence, yes, he was a law-abiding citizen, and he went on to commit a rampage, killing 13 lives in 1990. That triggered the review. That triggered the review, and in 1997 the Thorp report came out. That recommended a raft of amendments. The Hon John Banks said that that was one of his lasting, I guess, sorrows, leaving this House—that he could not get the numbers amongst his own side to get that gun reform legislation over the line. I implore the Opposition to stop playing politics with something so significant to public safety.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a very important issue to get right. Firearm safety is hugely important for the wider public in New Zealand. There should be the ability for those who enjoy recreational hunting, target shooting, or any other pursuit that involves firearms to do so in a safe manner, adhering to a specific set of rules and criteria. Whenever we’re proposing changes to that, we need to be looking at the intent: what are we trying to achieve? In this instance, off the back of those horrific attacks on 15 March, the intent is to improve safety and to reduce the ability for criminals to access firearms. That needs to be the focus.

Now, some of the proposals that are in this bill—yep, no problem; we can support those. But so many of them are focusing unnecessarily on the law-abiding firearms users and changes that, quite frankly, would have no impact on the ability of criminals to access firearms or to conduct criminal activity with firearms. So the focus needs to be on criminals, and it is extremely disappointing to note that, in several instances now, this Government has opposed our efforts to impose firearms prohibition orders. Now, this is a direct mechanism to restrict access by the criminal element to these firearms, and this, as I mentioned, is what we need to be focusing on: reducing the ability of criminals to access firearms. So I would hope, actually—I’m disappointed they haven’t, but I would hope—that, perhaps during select committee, the Government might review that and support that proposal, because that is one that we absolutely would like to see brought in under this legislation.

Now, in terms of those changes, we supported the first raft of changes, and we’ve heard a lot of debate around that. One of the things that’s come out of that—the goodwill, we talked to that—is there’s some concern around the compensation for those that are currently going through this buy-back scheme, with people questioning whether they are being compensated fairly. There are other aspects, such as ammunition or safes and other security arrangements, that are not being compensated and, quite frankly, should be, because these New Zealand citizens who have up until recently legitimately held these firearms and conducted their recreational activities are now outside the law because of those law changes, and they’re feeling a bit frustrated. They’re feeling a bit scared about being outside the law. These are law-abiding New Zealanders who have continuously acted within the realms of the law. Especially so because of the firearms requirements, they are very cognisant of their responsibilities and don’t like to be outside of that. So that is part of why we’ve seen such strong pushback, and I’ve certainly heard that from constituents around the Waikato as well. So we need to be looking at that.

The licensing term proposed under here, reducing it to five years—what benefit does that bring? There’s no benefit to that. That’s not going to stop criminal activity; it’s just adding extra costs on to firearms licence holders. That brings me to the cost recovery aspect proposed under this bill—and, actually, a number of the Government members, I suspect, haven’t read it, given their comments. I just refer to Kiritapu Allan. It is important to read this stuff. The devil is in the detail, and the cost recovery suggests quite clearly that any costs associated with implementing this can be put back on firearms licence holders through their renewals. So things like the implementation of a firearms registry—that entire cost could be conveyed across to firearms licence holders, and that would be a massive increase in costs for them, and an unjustified increase, I believe.

So, a registry? Look, in principle, I’m not opposed to a registry, but I question the benefit of it. I would much rather see the cost of administering a registry implemented into a focused effort to reduce criminal behaviour and activity in relation to firearms. That’s where the investment should be going, and we’ve seen time and again this Government’s focus has been not on actually restricting criminal access but on impinging rights through a raft of changes under this legislation—and I’ve earmarked a whole bunch of issues that I have with what they’re putting forward here—rather than where the focus should be, around getting tough on criminals.

Dr Duncan Webb: Same old.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: “Same old.”, says Dr Duncan Webb. He has no idea of the actual implications that this has on the firearms community in New Zealand. This Government needs to do a lot better, and I hope that we can get some improvements at select committee.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill. Why? Because it is morally and practically bankrupt. Fundamentally, this bill is about punishing the law-abiding while leaving law-breakers to get off scot-free, and there are so many more problems within that. One that I never would’ve thought we’d hear from this Government is that it undermines the doctor-patient relationship in respect to mental health. Who is going to go to their doctor and say they’re not feeling so well when they know that the Government has sent a message from Parliament that their doctor is on duty to report on them and take their rights away if they feel they’re not quite right themselves?

It also promises a register of firearms. Everywhere it’s been tried, in every country that has tried one, it has been found to be impractical. They need 90 percent compliance to be remotely close to effective. Nowhere in the world has got over 70, and countries that have tried it have abandoned them. But, actually, the reason a register doesn’t work should be intuitive. If somebody is a fit and proper person with a firearm, what difference does it make if that particular firearm is registered? And if a person is somebody who shouldn’t have a firearm and is not a fit and proper person according to the law, then they should not have a firearm, whether it is registered or not.

One of the most important safeguards to ensure that we have responsible use of firearms in this country can be summed up in one word: community. Up and down this country, people get together and form clubs to keep an eye on each other, to upskill each other, and to make sure that firearms are used with appropriate skill and responsibility. Well, what does this bill do? It places a regulatory burden on those clubs that will make them more expensive to operate and, in many cases, for the smaller informal ones, ensures that they will disband, go underground, and people will start shooting up cans on their mate’s farm instead of having any kind of social operation whatsoever.

The member in charge of the bill, Stuart Nash, said he doesn’t want to be a Minister with regrets for not doing anything, and I can understand that. All Ministers are mindful of their own place in history. He should be saying he doesn’t want to be a Minister who failed to do anything effective—and that’s the critical point. There is nothing effective in bringing a bill to this Parliament that punishes the law-abiding and does nothing at all to the criminals. It’s not going to make New Zealanders safer, but it is going to put a huge burden on those who are trying to follow the law.

It’s a great irony for this Government, that talks so much about social capital and wellbeing, that they have chosen to respond to our nation’s greatest peacetime tragedy by scapegoating, othering, and generally treating with contempt, a group of several hundred thousand law-abiding New Zealanders. I remain genuinely puzzled that the Prime Minister, who speaks the language of kindness and inclusion, chose to follow a process that was so rushed and so improper and so accusatory of a group of law-abiding New Zealanders, it would make Robert Muldoon blush. But she did it, and now this Government is doing it again.

What might have been a smarter response to firearm laws in New Zealand that would truly honour the victims of our nation’s tragedy in Christchurch? Well, the first thing they could have done is thought, “This Government has a royal commission to find out what went wrong. Why not wait to see what the royal commission reports, and find out what went wrong before attempting to fix it?” That would be smart. Then, on brand and on message for this Government, it could follow the ACT Party’s initiative of having a hui and bringing those law-abiding firearm owners—those with an interest in the policy area—the police, and those who are associated with the victims all around the table and had a constructive discussion about how to make firearm laws better. That would not only be better for the dignity of our democracy; it would have got better laws, but, sadly, we have this, which the ACT Party proudly opposes. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Thank you. It’s a real pleasure to speak on the Arms Legislation Bill because we are moving forward, and this is part of what this Government wants to do, which is to make a society which is just and safe. We heard one of the earlier speakers from the other side opposing this on the basis that there had been many law-abiding gun owners and this was going to affect them; that in some way, simply because the law is there, we shouldn’t change it. There is no greater fallacy than seeing a law which is not fit for purpose and just letting it lie there when our job, as parliamentarians, is to improve our law and make our society better, safer, and fairer. This is what this bill does.

Tim van de Molen: The member’s demonstrated no understanding of the argument.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Yes, Mr van de Molen protests too much. There are four arguments that the other side has here. First is, don’t do it. Don’t do it now. Let’s wait. We heard that from Mr Seymour: let’s delay, let’s wait. Let’s have a hui before we attack this problem which faces our society.

The other argument is deny: “Oh, there’s nothing wrong. There’s no problem.” Well, there were 71 firearms deaths last year—homicides. That’s a problem that we’re not going to stand by. Defer: “Oh, let’s do something else. Let’s just wait a bit longer. Let’s hit pause.” And the other one: deflect—“Oh, that’s not the problem; the problem is the criminal organisations.” Well, you know what? Let’s just remember what we’re dealing with. A firearm is an inherently dangerous thing. We deal with many dangerous things in our life: poisons, explosives, motor vehicles. Now, that’s not to say that we shouldn’t also attack the problem of criminality when people deal with those things, but we want to know who the owner is. Who is in control of those inherently dangerous things?

You know, I do not begrudge for one moment the fact that I’ll have to wander down to the police station and register a firearm. No difficulty with that at all. It’s a small chore: a few minutes or perhaps an hour out of my day. I have no difficulty with letting the police know that, safely stored—and I won’t tell you where—there are those firearms, because I accept that there may be instances when the police would want to know that there is a firearm there, whether they are entering my premises to assist in some incident, whether I’ve had a burglary, or any other number of reasons. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. We register our cars without any protest whatsoever. We’ve got to remember that it isn’t some God-given right. This is not a constitutional entitlement—to own and carry a firearm. That narrative belongs elsewhere; it’s not part of New Zealand’s culture. It is a privilege and we must exercise it with the utmost care.

So, registering that firearm—it’s not a chore. It’s something I’m happy to do, and so should every other gun owner be happy to do: to let people know that there is an extremely dangerous thing that the gun owner is in possession of, that they are going to responsibly store it, they’re going to secure it, and we can make sure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. If they come to dispose of it, we want to know how and where it is disposed of so that we can indeed know where these dangerous weapons are.

So, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with both registering those firearms and also paying attention to our licensing regime: making sure that the people who own these guns are proper to do so, and continue to be proper. Mr Seymour mentioned the fact that a health practitioner can report if someone is at risk. Now, let’s remember what the risk is. This is a life risk. If someone is so mentally unwell that they pose a risk to themselves or someone else, there’s already an obligation to report to Oranga Tamariki in some instances. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “There’s a real risk that this person will cause death to another person.” That is what a medical practitioner should be doing in this situation. So, this is just one more step down the road to making our society safe, making it fair, and making it a great place to live. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to stand and speak in this second reading of the Arms Legislation Bill. I want to say that, actually, I agree with the speaker, Dr Duncan Webb, who’s just resumed his seat, in terms of wanting a just and safe New Zealand, and to have law that’s fit for purpose. The reality, though, is that National sees that the bill, as drafted, won’t deliver a just and safe New Zealand that the Government speaks of. That’s why we’ve been very practical and pragmatic in terms of proposing 13 changes or improvements to the legislation that would deliver a just and safe New Zealand.

The first one, of course—which is a bit of a no-brainer, really—is the firearms prohibition orders, because if a member of the public or a member of the community was listening to this debate and thinking, in terms of risk to them and their safety, where is the greater risk? Who does that risk come from? Does it come from the criminal element, does it come from someone who is associated with a gang, or does it come from the person who lives next to me, who owns a firearm to shoot rabbits and possums? So, it’s really important, for those who are listening to this debate, that National absolutely wants to ensure we have a just and safe New Zealand. But what we don’t believe is that the bill—as drafted, that’s come out of select committee—delivers that. We want to have a piece of legislation that delivers it.

So if you were to ask who the New Zealand public is more at risk from, are they at risk from the person who lives next to me who has the firearm to shoot their possums and rabbits, or is it the person who has a criminal record who is a member of a gang or a gang affiliate? So we’re quite surprised—I’m personally very surprised—that the Government hasn’t included the firearms prohibition orders. That’s the top of our list in terms of recommendations for how this legislation can be improved. I urge the Government to incorporate that particular change, because of any of the changes that we are recommending, that is the one that I think would have the biggest difference.

If I think about those that have been in contact with me about this piece of legislation—they’ve been loosely called the firearms community—well, let me let me put a face on those people. They are the people who are sport shooters. Shooting and target shooting is a sport for them. It is a means of recreation. As I’ve said, they are the people that are killing pests—whether they’re rabbits or possums. They are those that hunt for recreation or for food. They are a group of New Zealanders, if I look at the statistics in terms of the number of firearms licences, 248,000—the vast majority of those are law-abiding, upstanding members of our communities. They are not the lunatic fringe, they are not extremists; they are everyday New Zealanders that participate in our communities, in our schools, in our churches and everywhere else.

So, again, I come back to the question that I posed at the start to the Government: who is the public at greater risk from? Criminals, gang members, gang associates, or the sorts of people I’ve just described as members of our communities that are part of the nearly 250,000 New Zealanders that have licences, who use them for sport, for hunting, for pest control, to gather food for their families, and in some instances it might be to humanely dispose of an animal on a farm. I think the unfortunate piece of this legislation is the Government have got the balance all out of whack. What it’s doing is actually penalising and adding bureaucracy and rules and red tape to the close to 250,000 New Zealanders who have a firearm for a range of purposes, and, actually, it really fails to deliver the really hard edge of this, which is: who causes the greater risk to New Zealand communities?

I want to just briefly touch on the firearms register because, in my own electorate, I know that, had there been a firearms register, a murder would have been solved much quicker if there’d been one in place. So, in theory, a firearms register is a good idea, but it’s only a good idea if it works and delivers on the purpose. That’s why National was suggesting that this bill should be improved by including the details of the register in the bill itself so that it’s clear for everyone what is actually going to be delivered and how it’s going to work.

There are still some concerns on this side. I share them with my colleagues that have spoken previously at length about this in terms of—given the examples and experience of countries overseas with a firearms register, that perhaps it would be better to say, “Actually, that’s a very chunky piece of work. It’s really important that it works. Why don’t we take that out of this bill, deal with it separately, build the business case, and do it properly?” And, at the end of the day, I’m going to finish as I started. National absolutely wants to ensure a just and safe New Zealand. We want a piece of legislation that is fit for purpose and that works. That’s why we’ve got 13 recommendations to improve this legislation and we’re asking the Government to support these practical, pragmatic changes to make this bill work. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): It’s with something of a heavy heart I stand to speak today. Many of the speakers today have spoken about Christchurch and focused their speeches around Christchurch, but, actually, this isn’t about Christchurch. Christchurch was the tip of the iceberg about just how badly managed our firearms system has been for many years. The warnings have happened along the way, and they’re warnings that have been ignored. I’ll go back to ones I was personally involved in: the shooting of Len Snee in Napier. That offender had 15 firearms. For those firearms, he had been a legitimate user. His licence had lapsed, but the system as it existed meant that he existed in a vacuum and he was never discovered.

We went on to the shooting in Kawerau of four police officers. Those police officers were shot by a man who had acquired the firearm from his brother who had legitimately had that firearm. On those occasions, in my previous role at the New Zealand Police Association, we had been calling for an inquiry, so obvious was it that our system and the availability of firearms were out of control.

Interestingly enough, on the morning of that shooting, the then Minister Judith Collins said there was no need for an inquiry. The shooting happened in the afternoon and that evening the inquiry was called. That’s how politicised the system became, and also how only with absolute necessity would anything be done. During that select committee I spoke to the select committee in my previous role and I said that if we didn’t do something about our firearms laws, an overseas terrorist or terrorist group would come to New Zealand, realise how easy it was to acquire these weapons, and would carry out an atrocity. It gives me no pleasure to say that was exactly what happened.

Can I also say that in an article I wrote at the time, “It is in the interests of New Zealanders to preserve this country as a country where citizens can legitimately own and use firearms. Our forests and mountains are teeming with what I term ‘edible pests’, the killing of which allows hunters to make an ecological contribution to the natural environment.” So this bill is not about hunting. It is not about firearms ownership. It is simply about ensuring that those who legitimately want to go about the business of hunting, who go about the business of enjoying firearms, can do so.

Now, to separate out and to think we should only have a bill that focuses on criminals is actually, quite frankly, ridiculous, because even the bill that is being paraded across the House, all that would do would be dealing with the legitimate acquisition of firearms by the criminal fraternity. The reality of it is the criminal fraternity acquire their firearms illegitimately, but the vast majority of those firearms begin life legitimately. They are bought—whether it is from a gun shop or however else it is acquired, the majority of those firearms actually start life legitimately and move into the criminal fraternity. It’s actually about stopping the flow of firearms into that criminal community.

In my time as a police officer, in my early years firearms were relatively rare in the hands of criminals. For those that had them, they were something of a status symbol, and certainly quite hard to acquire, and not something you ever wanted to risk losing by being careless with it—by careless: when you pulled it out. Also, there were quite high penalties on them. What actually happened is that as the firearms laws became lax—and I have to say, police have to take some responsibility for this—as the ability to import firearms and the laxness around who could buy firearms became apparent, what that did was actually increase the flow of illegitimate firearms into the criminal community. So it was only from that pool of firearms that were legitimately purchased, and for which anyone who bought that firearm had no responsibility for once it went out their door—whether it had been stolen, whether they sold it to someone in a pub, because there was no way it would ever come back to them.

In my early days as a detective, with many of the firearms we did see, often the serial number had been somehow erased; it was not a difficult job to take it into the then Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, now the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd, to actually get that serial number reproduced, and it would be relatively easy to then trace the firearm back to where it legitimately began. That would then hold to account the often legitimate owner of that firearm as to why he or she had allowed it to fall into criminal hands. Often it had been sold in the back of a pub. So what it did do was ensure that those owners knew that if it went into the wrong hands and was used, then they would be accountable for it. Once the law was changed so it was only the owner and not the firearm that was licensed, then, all of a sudden, there was no responsibility for that individual firearm. And that’s why we have this situation today. That’s why what law we implement, whatever we bring in, it’s important that we stop the flow of firearms into the criminal fraternity.

Those who are speaking—and look, I hear speeches. People believe they understand what they’re saying, but the analogy I use is this around firearms. People say, “Well, let’s just pick on the criminals. Let’s go out and do search warrants on the criminals.” Well, the problem with that is that many of the people who end up committing the crimes actually aren’t necessarily the criminals at the time. You need to start looking across much more broadly. It’s perhaps a poor analogy, but I’ll use the analogy of sex offending, where we teach our children to be wary of strangers. There’s this myth built up that the real danger to our children is actually from someone who’s hanging around the park; someone who’s hanging around schools. And that’s actually not the case.

The real danger to our children from sex offenders is actually people they know. It’s actually family members. It’s actually people who are legitimately brought into the house. And similarly it is with the firearms legislation. The real danger is actually not them over there, those who get the guns, because the reality is that many criminals commit offending against other criminals. They’re not always a danger to the—I’m not in any way defending them. And, of course, whatever we do, we still need to ensure that not only do we stop the supply but we get the supply off. The other thing I might say is that when criminals do get guns, they store them very poorly because they have to actually ensure that they won’t be picked up in a normal police search warrant. And what that means is that they’re often stored in damp places, in places that are dusty, and the firearms very quickly lose the ability to be used quickly.

I’d just also like to go on, just to make people understand how many firearms are out there. Now, the police in the past were very poor at collecting this. We as an association actually started collecting the statistics ourselves. In the last six months, police have attended 1,354 events. In the last six months, they have seized 1,206 firearms; that’s 44 firearms a week. So that just gives you some idea of how many illegitimate firearms are out there. There are an incredible number, and whatever we do we must actually ensure that we mop them up.

Now, again, I hear the Opposition talking with glee about the fact that people aren’t taking part in the firearms buy-back. Well, I would suggest to those that think that they’re going to sit on those firearms: just ensure you’re not ever going to have a relationship break-up, just ensure that you’re not ever going to have a falling out with a partner, just ensure you’re not going to have a falling out with a mate or someone who knows you’ve got those firearms, because that’s where you’re going to get yourself in very big trouble—because nine times out of 10, the people who will actually report you for that will be people who know you. So those who are sitting here watching this, thinking, “They’re not getting my gun; I’m not handing them in.”, be very, very afraid, because, unless you believe that you won’t fall out with anyone, that person is likely to be suffering from being brought into the system.

As far as the registration goes, the registration is actually a no-brainer. The only reason registration was discontinued the last time the Act was rewritten is that, quite frankly, it had broken down—it was a paper-based system and it was pre-computers. The general feeling is that had it been five years later that that Act had been rewritten, once we understood computers and their capability, it probably would have very likely remained a registration system, because registration is in a country like New Zealand, where people should grow up, and I would like to see a situation where every New Zealander gets the opportunity to go out and enjoy this country. But it will only be done—we’ll only protect hunters—by ensuring we have a robust system. And this bill will do it. I recommend this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Arms Legislation 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 Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister of Customs) on behalf of the Minister of Police: I move, That The Arms Legislation Bill be reported back to the House by 10 February 2020.

Motion agreed to.

BRETT HUDSON (National): I seek leave without notice to move to give the committee the power to examine any provision, schedule, or legislative instrument included in the Arms Act 1983, and report recommendations to the House that may otherwise be considered outside of the scope of this bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Bills

New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill

Third Reading

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Infrastructure): Kei te kōkiri ahau, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, kia pānuitia tuatorungia ai ko te pire karangahia nei ki Te Reo Māori ko te pire waihanga, ki te reo Pākehā ko Te New Zealand Infrastructure Commission.

[I move, That the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill be now read a third time.]

I stand to offer a full third reading speech pertaining to this Government bill, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. I’m going to break my speech up into a number of segments. I want to first acknowledge the efforts of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and I also want to acknowledge my colleagues on the other side of the House—collegial in the sense that we are all a part of Parliament.

This bill, I think it might be said, was conceived by the last administration, or, at least, the Leader of the Opposition boasts that it was his idea. It was certainly something that New Zealand First also brought to the table. I’m proud to announce that it’s an overdue development.

So what exactly are we passing here? We are passing a piece of legislation that creates an independent institution—and the names of whom I shall read out shortly—that has a host of functions that really will help both this Government and future Governments cope with ongoing knotty infrastructure challenges.

So what are those challenges? Well, firstly, how do investors, how do planners, and how do advocates assemble enough information in a single location and build an avenue or a corridor through which people can come to the Government, or the Government can travel and amplify the message as to what’s happening in infrastructure in New Zealand? Now, it may sound a slightly trite thing to say that this is important, but it doesn’t exist and it’s very important. There is a need to give certainty for at least a 30-year plan pertaining to our infrastructure. Sadly, it will be contested space, and perhaps that contest of ideas is particularly evident in the accent that I and our Government, our Cabinet Ministers, are putting on KiwiRail. But these are infrastructure projects that ought to be debated, information amassed, and possibly costings tested in a single place, and that place, in the future, will be the Infrastructure Commission.

How will the Infrastructure Commission amass this information? Well, it will enjoy a host of information-gathering powers. Now, there was some disappointment on the other side of the House during the committee stage that we didn’t embolden the commission further to deliberately creep into the space—well, not “creep”—deliberately wade into the space of procurement difficulties that the industry are concerned about, and I dare say a few Ministers over the years have vented their spleen about it. But it’s important that the House acknowledge that inherent within the powers of the Infrastructure Commission will be the ability to wade into the troubles associated with getting the right balance between risk minimisation for the Crown and enough confidence for the Crown’s building and infrastructure partners. So that work—although we were unable to vote for the Supplementary Order Paper—will and can continue.

I’ll say three things in that respect. I look forward to tabling, if necessary, a letter articulating what I expect in that regard from the Infrastructure Commission. Secondly, outlining some of the work that’s already taking place within the infrastructure staff—which, if you look at the bill, you’ll see those staff were part of Treasury. Now, they’re being transferred over through a process that I don’t want to involve myself with, so that they become employees of the Infrastructure Commission. The third thing is to identify what other Ministers are doing in the broad space of procurement, but there’s in all this opportunities for it to improved.

I think that it’s important also that we give confidence to the actual sector that are willing to invest, that are the builders and the service providers. There have been allegations made, certainly to my good self, that because we have not continued on and guaranteed the extension of four-lane highways—and I’ll talk about the Tai Tokerau that might stretch from Warkworth up to Whangarei, or in my case my preference is from Whangarei down. But politics is about making choices, and the $45 billion that is associated with the 10-year spending horizon for the New Zealand Transport Agency—there are choices that Governments will want and reflect through their policy documents to such an institution. But this institution will enable politicians to turn towards a body of expertise and some kites may need to be put in the air. Who knows what they may be over the next few years.

Now, in relation to some of the big unresolved areas, we have an enormous bill coming our way in the area called the three waters—i.e., how to enable local councils to try and work together. Unfortunately for them, I have more of a Singaporean approach, but, unfortunately, for me, that’s not my portfolio. So to get those councils to work together, aggregate their effort, and spread the costs over a larger number of ratepayers—that possibly could be something that in the future Ministers may want to refer to this body.

Secondly, the importance of rationalising the New Zealand port structure. I look forward, at the right time, to seeking some feedback from this body here, and indeed they may also try and crack that historical chestnut otherwise called relocating the naval presence out of Devonport to other parts of New Zealand, which I’m told by a former National Minister affectionately known in Whangarei as Banksie that it was something that he sought to do during the Bolger Government. The point I’m making is that this now gives Ministers an opportunity in the future to turn to a body of expertise that have some independence from the ebb and flow of the electoral process.

There will be some criticisms and, without any malice intended, I did take on board what the National member representing Feilding had to say. I hope he’s looking after Hato Pāora College, not that I went to that school; I went to Tipene. Unfortunately, the Anglican Church closed my school down and the Catholics are still keeping Hato Pāora open. But he is a doubting Thomas as to whether or not the content of this bill will actually enable an organisation to exert the level of influence that the other side of the House would like to see.

But the reality is these are contested ideas. Certain people want more privatisation. Certain people want more four-lane highways. Others want more public investment and public transportation infrastructure. Some like my good self want to see rail rehabilitated. Others want to see a rationalisation of the ports. Others want to see a relocation of defence. Others want to see more private capital in the delivery of social infrastructure—and the latter, that is not the policy or the ideological creed of this particular collection of parties. But I, as the infrastructure Minister, am a great enthusiast of blending the two traditions of public stewardship and also private capital. Whether or not we will always agree with this institution, well, as we say in Māori, “Mā te wā e titiro”—in time, we will see.

But we shouldn’t be fearful that if we ask bodies such as this and perhaps the Productivity Commission—I’ve never really bothered to read too many reports of the Productivity Commission. I stopped doing that when I passed honours philosophy. However, there are other bodies like that. This one, I think, will have a very practical bent to it when you consider the number of people that come from a finance background. Dr Bollard, a highly esteemed New Zealander—he is going to be the initial leader. We’ve appointed a CEO. Unfortunately for him at the moment, he’s wandering through the undergrowth, figuratively speaking, of creating an office and attracting staff.

So I would say to all members of the House, give the opportunity for the waewaes—the legs—and the ringaringas—the arms—to grow on this institution. But I’m respectful to the Hon Judith Collins and others, and indeed the member affectionately known as “Goldie”, who the paper described this morning as having achieved a sense of greatness as a consequence of asking me lots of questions over the stewardship of the Provincial Growth Fund. So to the extent that the National Party have elevated the Opposition spokesman on finance, I should claim some small responsibility for his new status. Thank you very much.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and it’s my pleasure to speak in support of this New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill, one which members of parties across this House have supported because, fundamentally, it’s a reasonably sensible idea to set up an independent group to provide some input and insight into decision making around major infrastructure projects in New Zealand.

I had an early start this morning, going in to speak at the Mood of the Boardroom, and I’m bound to say at that particular function there was a high deal of frustration expressed at the lack of progress on infrastructure in this country. So this commission will help to a degree, to the extent to which it provides insights into how to go about assessing what’s going to be important, what’s going to be useful, what isn’t, and how you procure it. The suggestion that we made that has been picked up by the Government—and I’m pleased that they have—is that we should extend its information powers to local government. It was very odd that the bill was introduced in this space without being able to get into local government, where a big chunk of the infrastructure is actually done. So we tidied that up and it makes reasonable sense.

It’s interesting to hear the Minister for Infrastructure referring to the chief executive going about setting up his office already. We haven’t passed the bill, but anyway that’s how this Government works: they haven’t passed the legislation, but they’ve already appointed the board and the chief executive, and they’re working. So maybe it’s a bit of retrospective legislation that we’re passing in order to get the cart before the horse.

However, the main concern I have, of course, is that the extent to which this commission will be useful is the extent to which the future politicians can put some level of discipline around their decision making. So what we saw as a forerunner, which the Minister mentioned, is the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, whereby the council and the Government listed a series of projects that they saw as important for the Auckland region. But what happened when this Government came in is that they threw a bunch of them out and changed all the order around. So the third rail, which is an essential piece of infrastructure in Auckland to enable the commuter trains to keep running without having to stop every half an hour for a great freight train to go through—that doesn’t seem to be happening. Nothing’s happening. What’s happening with that, Minister? Nothing, and yet they’re spending hundreds and hundreds of millions on rail in funny places where it’s hard to understand. So the biggest rail project doesn’t seem to be happening.

Then, of course, we have the circumstance of the Government coming in, cancelling a whole lot of projects that were ready to go, and replacing them with a whole lot of projects that aren’t ready to go and won’t be for a long time. So we have a great infrastructure hole opening up over the next two or three years, which is of serious concern. Now this Government, of course, can’t even agree amongst itself about the slow tram down Dominion Road. We know New Zealand First don’t like it; Labour and the Greens love it.

So that inability to come up with decision making internally is not going to be helped by an infrastructure commission and, ultimately, it comes down to the political choices that are made. So if a Government comes in, like this one, and changes the Government policy statement on transport, removes any reference to reducing congestion, and it’s driven by two Ministers: the first, Julie Anne Genter, who will never yield to car fascists, and, secondly, the Minister of Transport himself, Phil Twyford, who thinks we’ve over-invested in roads—when you have got those sorts of highly ideological attitudes towards infrastructure investment, you’re always going to struggle to have to provide that long-term consistency over 30 years, which is indeed what the Minister is referring to, because you keep on chopping and changing on a regular basis.

So my only plea in supporting this bill—and wishing Mr Bollard and the rest of the team all success in coming up with some logic and some careful consideration about infrastructure priorities for this country in the next little while, and wishing them all the success—is I do wish to encourage members on the other side of the House to be a little bit more pragmatic about the decision making that they make and to actually listen to what the Infrastructure Commission says. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): During the Minister’s speech on this bill, we were given some snippets of his life story, and a little bit of back information. So given that we’ve had that kind of expansive approach to speaking, I wonder if you’ll indulge me for a little bit, Mr Speaker. I don’t intend to share my life story, but I do want to reflect on the extent to which, in actual fact, what we’re doing with this is we’re formalising gossip—“gossip” in the best sense of the word. Let’s talk a little bit about how people have worked out who’s going to do which projects, where, and at what time in this country. New Zealand is a small place; we all know each other. The leaders in business and in government, both local and central, know each other. They meet at the pub; they have a few beers and a bit of a yarn. In the case of the Hon David Carter, I suspect it’s in this stance [Leans on bench], talking about what’s going on at the pub—this is his habitual stance in the House. Other people—

Rt Hon David Carter: Oh, we’re going to get a wellbeing lecture.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And always very relaxed and comfortable it looks too.

In terms of finding out where something is happening or if there’s a bit of a project in the wind, the knowledge about it has been exchanged through these rather informal networks, which is exactly the function of gossip—of exchanging information—and on the whole, because we’re a small country, well, things have kind of muddled along and done reasonably well. Things have kind of gotten done. But we can do better, and that’s what this bill is about. It’s about taking that sharing of information, the networking, the understandings that people have—the knowledge that project A is happening down in Southland and project B is happening up in Northland, and that perhaps when project A comes to an end in Southland another one might be starting up the road in Otago. It’s taking that informal knowledge and actually making sure it is pulled into a consistent plan. It’s formalising it and it’s making it into something that we can use for strategic planning purposes, rather than just that back-door exchange of information.

So that is why I liken this to formalising gossip, and I think it’s a jolly good thing to do. I suspect Dr Alan Bollard will be a little astounded to learn that he’s presiding over a gossip network, but that is indeed what is actually happening.

If we look at the bill as it has come through the various stages, it has come through largely unchanged except for the addition of the local government information-gathering powers, so that the Infrastructure Commission can gather information from local government. Of course, that’s very important because local government is where a lot of the infrastructure work is done in this country. But the real nuts of it is sitting in this main function. It’s in clause 9 of the bill that “The main function of the Commission is to co-ordinate, develop, and promote an approach to infrastructure that encourages infrastructure, and services that result from the infrastructure, that improve the well-being of New Zealanders.” It’s about long-term planning and long-term thinking—and do we ever need it.

I think the previous speaker, Mr Paul Goldsmith, referred to the Auckland Transport Alignment Plan, or ATAP, in which there was quite a bit of work done trying to align the various projects in Auckland. Of course, they weren’t funded, so you can have all the planning you like if you don’t fund it, but the concept was good that we actually try to align the various bits of work that need to be done and create a long-term plan for them.

It serves two purposes. One is that it actually ensures that the planning is consistent over time—that the planning that is done for, let’s say, fibre networks for telecommunications is aligned with the planning that’s done for transport networks. That is important because you don’t want to be digging up some of the channels that have been built for fibre networks just to put in a new road and so on, but you actually need to align the things. So doing that alignment is actually a really important thing to do, and getting it just so that all the projects fit together nicely.

Of course, having a long-term plan for infrastructure is really important in terms of enabling the construction industry to thrive. So if a big project finishes, then if the firm that is doing it doesn’t have another project lined up, well, that results in job losses. Or, equally, if a firm gets going on a particular project but it cannot see projects two and three and four down the line, then the incentives are to take on short-term contract workers instead of providing long-term employment for people.

So this infrastructure planning serves the wellbeing of New Zealanders in all sorts of different ways, and when it’s done well it serves us very well indeed. I guess the examples that occur to me come to me from my own electorate, New Lynn, in Auckland, where we manage with all the Auckland traffic problems. Mostly, I manage by trying not to drive into the central city, because I’d far rather take the bus. But the traffic does get clogged up, and it is because we do not have sufficiently good public transport networks in place yet. So that indicates a real need for some long-term planning around our networks but also around who’s going to build them and so on.

But on the other hand, something in New Lynn has worked very, very well indeed and that is the New Lynn Transport Hub. It’s a major transport network hub, where the trains and the buses all come in to the same point so that people can catch a bus down to the train station, then the train station to town. It’s lined up around supermarkets and the like—around supermarkets and shopping centres. It’s lined up around intensified housing. It’s all quite carefully planned so that it all fits together. I’d like to pay tribute to my predecessor in my seat, the Hon David Cunliffe, who, with other people, was responsible for getting that project kicked off and under way. It’s a great project, and that’s the sort of thing that we will see coming to us through the planning that is done by the Infrastructure Commission.

So it will help us to get all the networks that we need to run a modern society in place, and to coordinate them altogether. It will help the construction industry to see where its next job is coming from, and where it can, again, engage in its own long-term planning as to how construction firms build their firms and plan for the long-term future. It will also help central government, obviously, but it will help us in terms of funding and of thinking how do we fund infrastructure. At present, we tend to do it a little bit on a project-by-project basis. It’s somewhat ad hoc, the planning around funding for infrastructure. One of the things that setting up a long-term plan for infrastructure will do for us is to then enable those of us who are in central government to think about how we fund that long-term plan and put long-term strategies in place for the funding around it as well.

So these are all the benefits that come to us from this Infrastructure Commission. As the Minister said, it’s getting under way at present. The board has been appointed, a chief executive has been appointed, and that person is starting to gather the resources that are needed in order to do the job. So, as with anything, it does take a while to get going, but I am hoping that we will see some pretty good stuff coming out of that Infrastructure Commission in the not too far distant future.

I suppose what I want to focus on there is I don’t think the Infrastructure Commission needs to be perfect right from the start. It will take a while for it to get up and running, but we can expect it to do a pretty good job, particularly with the resources that it can draw on from people like Dr Bollard but also the other people who’ve been appointed to the Infrastructure Commission and the people who will end up working for it.

It’s not a critical piece of our machinery of Government. This is the sort of thing that can be done without, but on the whole we will be better off for having it in place. It’s very similar to similar sorts of entities that operate in other countries around the world, in the various states of Australia and so on. So having an infrastructure commission, or something equivalent to it, is not a new or novel idea. It is just a jolly good idea, and it is great to see it being supported across the House.

Dr Duncan Webb: Jolly good—rah, rah!

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It is jolly good—rah, rah!

On that note, I want to finish just by thanking the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, who worked on the bill. It was a collegial process and one of those bills where we did try to nut out some of the problems and sort out what could be done better. It was interesting to listen to the members of the public who submitted to us, ranging from infrastructure firms themselves to individuals. They all had interesting points to make, and it was genuinely a collaborative process of working through this particular piece of legislation—long may that continue. So, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Shane Jones is many things, but he is not stupid. One of the smartest things he did was to pick up an excellent National Party policy to run with it and also to involve us in the process of getting the appointments made and actually briefing us properly. His colleagues in the Government could well use that sort of nous and understanding around how to get stuff done in Parliament and across-party.

Infrastructure is something that the National Party believes very fully in. I mean, if we look at the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband, the roads of national significance, the Waterview Tunnel, the electrification of Auckland’s commuter rail network, and the major upgrade of the national electricity grid, we have a very good track record in actually committing to and then delivering on infrastructure.

I am really pleased that we are able to continue to support this bill, but I am disappointed that my colleague Andrew Bayly’s Supplementary Order Paper was voted down by the Government in the committee stages of the House, because that would have given building and construction firms better protection from the excessive risk that they take when they are contracting with the Government.

The Government is a big client. It’s a very enticing client when it comes to the big size of projects. But, unfortunately, it can be a pretty bullying client too when it comes to the terms of trade and business. What we have seen are some of our previously successful businesses in the construction industry going to the wall, and one of the causes—that they say, anyway—are the terms of trade and business that they have with Government agencies. So I think that is a real opportunity lost, and I’m very sorry that that has happened.

However, looking to the positive, what we can say is that it’s good that the Government has worked out now that infrastructure is important, because, actually, it’s had a shambolic record to date. When they came into office, the Government cancelled 12 major shovel-ready roading projects up and down the country, to the huge amount of distress to local people—

Dr Duncan Webb: Lots of shovels; no money!

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —but also to the construction industry. Dr Webb may find that very funny, but, having met with the civil contractors at the time of the East-West Link road cancellation by the Hon Phil Twyford, it was really evident that contractors were concerned that they had put in enormous amounts of effort of staffing and commitment and had given up other projects to get themselves ready for this project that they had every reason to believe was happening. A change of Government came in, infrastructure was suddenly out the window—didn’t want to hear anything about the East-West Link. It was all going to be about light rail up Dominion Road, going to Māngere—not sure, because it’s certainly not to the airport. What they saw was that having put huge effort into it, they were suddenly left high and dry. That is the sort of thing that should not be happening.

One of the things I would like to see is for Governments—successive Governments—to respect some of the decisions where contracts have been signed or, certainly, where people have been advised that contracts will be continuing. It is important that we don’t have little hissy fits when it’s not our projects that are happening. We have made it very clear that the light rail up Dominion Road is something we think is a complete waste of money, time, and everything else, and I’ve noticed that the Government that was all very excited about having that happening in this term of Government now seems to have a date that’s sometime after the America’s Cup, and possibly never, because they’re not quite sure where in Māngere it’s going to end up—certainly not at the airport. So the whole thing is just an absolute farce.

So good on Shane Jones for trying to take some sort of control and putting some form of structure around it. It must be a total delight—not really—for him to have to deal with the Hon Phil Twyford on this issue, on transport. I do feel that the Hon Shane Jones has got an almost impossible job: to deal with people who don’t like infrastructure, except if its 19th century, and who are not committed to the fact that, actually, most of New Zealand has to get around places on roads.

One of the things that I think is really important is also to understand that infrastructure, obviously, has commitments around electricity, around water, around roading, and around broadband, obviously—around all the things that help to make our lives 21st century rather than 19th century. So it is really important that we take a considered and serious approach to this and not get all too party political when it’s not our particular pet project.

So good on Shane Jones for doing that. We’re happy to support that. But, as I said, real opportunity lost in this Parliament in not supporting Andrew Bayly’s Supplementary Order Paper, because one of the big messages we’re hearing in the building construction area is that businesses are finding dealing with Government agencies is just getting really hard, and we can’t have our construction companies, businesses—some 50 or 60 years old—going broke because the terms of trade of dealing with Government agencies are just too tough. I think we just need to be a little bit smarter about this and understand that we can promise all we like in Parliament and when we’re in Government on what we’re going to deliver on infrastructure, but we need the people to actually do the work, as well as the money. People actually have to be able to do it, and those people need to have businesses that are viable.

So I just think it’s a good start, but it’s a bit too late. I’m happy to support it and hope that when we are back in Government in the, hopefully, not too distant future, it will be something that we will find useful and I think the public will find useful as well. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a great step forward for New Zealand. We, indeed, have languished with a lack of planning around infrastructure and projects that have been driven, not by a thoughtful, careful, systematic approach, but by the kind of pork-barrel politics that can go on around six-lane highways to Ashburton and so on. Whereas what this does is it says we need to think carefully both about priorities, about what is really in the best interests of all New Zealanders, and also about pipelines and funding.

The Hon Judith Collins was right that we do need to think carefully about the health of our construction industry, in many ways. One of those ways—one of the critical ways—that this is doing is trying to even out some of those bumps so that there aren’t big spikes where prices go up and we pay too much for the services and then, three years later, when a project comes to the end, people are on the unemployment benefit and businesses aren’t being used to their full capacity because of that kind of planning. So we want to be able to project well into the future—using this bill—what the work will be, so that businesses and other institutions as well can plan around that. That’s at the centre of what this bill does.

It is important to note that this kind of planning will also enable us to ensure our training institutions are up to scratch as well, because we know that that is, essentially, part of the infrastructure of New Zealand: the quality of our people and their ability to do these very skilled tasks, whether it be engineering or whether it be, actually, simply laying that road or building that building as well.

So this bill does a number of things, and one of the main things, of course—the first task for the commission—will be information gathering, and that’s at the heart of this bill, which is to say we need to know what is going on. One of the things that occurred in the Finance and Expenditure Committee was that that information-gathering power was extended into local bodies, because we know, in fact, that probably the majority, but certainly a huge amount, of infrastructure works that is undertaken is undertaken by local bodies, whether it be three waters or whether it be building public libraries or any other public facility. So that ability to cast the net pretty wide and understand what’s going on, what the needs are, what the capacity of industry is, is really important as well.

You know, I was interested to hear the Hon Judith Collins reciting her Government’s achievements, but we know that there’s a huge shortfall in New Zealand—that’s why this Government announced in Budget 2018, in fact, that it would invest $42 billion over the next five years. That’s the kind of money which simply hadn’t been invested, and there’s a massive deficit in our infrastructure, but we’re going to catch that up.

It is interesting to note as well that the bill defines infrastructure very broadly. Quite often, when we talk about infrastructure we leap to transport, because those projects are large and visible. However, we’ve got to recognise that things like the rural broadband project that this Government is rolling out is also part of important infrastructure and that the Dunedin Hospital is a massive project—I think it’s $800 million; I may be wrong there—that’s going to absorb a huge amount of infrastructure resource in the South Island. The huge school building project that this Government is embarking upon, and again, that’s going to take a lot of building resources, a lot of planning, a lot of architecture, a lot of engineering—that’s infrastructure, as well as those fantastic rail projects that I know my friend Mr Ball will be very happy with, the road projects, and, of course, things like ports and so on. So it’s all infrastructure. In fact, right down to the kind of tourism infrastructure that we’re going to be using the tourism levy on—things like upgrading toilets and tourist facilities on our main tourist routes—it’s all part of the infrastructure that this bill is aimed at delivering in a careful manner, in a planned manner, and, if I may say, in a manner which will get both the best business model for the construction industry and the best price for all of those people that are embarking on it. The “terms of trade” was the phrase used by the Hon Judith Collins. It is important we get those right, and part of that is making sure that we do give full, fair warning of when these projects are coming so that we don’t have to pay a premium for ramping up and ramping down in a most inefficient manner. So that’s great news.

This kind of infrastructure really contributes to our wellbeing in New Zealand, both in the provision of great infrastructure, which means we can lead better lives, but also things like reducing our carbon output, so that we have things like great rail links and better inner-city networks and so on.

Of course, one of the other really important parts of this bill is prioritising, because it’s all very nice to look at a centre where some voter support is needed and put a link of some kind in or a bridge that is not really used or doesn’t actually have a great business case. What we really want to see is that if we’ve got, you know, $8 billion to spend on infrastructure over the next short while, it’s used in the way it gives the best return—not necessarily the best financial return, but the best return in that way we now need to look at what a return on investment is: the way in which it improves the lives of all New Zealanders, whether it be by putting them into work more effectively, by business operating more effectively, or even just leading better, healthier lives, better-connected lives, lives where we understand each other better. The safety work that’s going on on our roads is a really good example of that, where we might not get somewhere quicker but we’re going to get there alive. We’re going to drive that road toll down. That’s a great piece of infrastructure. That’s the kind of planning that we can prioritise by looking carefully at both the science side of it, the numbers, but also looking at the human side of it—what’s the best spend.

So the Infrastructure Commission will be—and we need to recognise that it’s not a kind of democratic body; it’s an expert panel. To that panel will be appointed people who have special knowledge and expertise in the various areas of infrastructure and planning, and they will be able to deliver to Government, quite independently, their views. That will be on a rolling basis, so we’d expect those reports to be published every five years and to be able to inform the Government of where the need really is in terms of all of that infrastructure upon which New Zealand, the economy, and its people depend. Of course, the Minister responsible will be able to take that and respond to it. It will be a public document, so it can be subject to the careful scrutiny that members of this House and the wider public subject it to.

It is an absolutely fantastic piece of legislation, and it’s great to see—you know, I don’t deny that this was an idea that had its genesis in the National Party. It’s one of those ideas which should have cross-party support because it’s simply common sense. Of course, we’ve got around to doing it, which is something that really is worth taking note of.

The information-gathering powers in the bill, though, are important, and I must say this was what came under most scrutiny at select committee, because we’re always a bit worried about a Government entity that can pry, and we’re rightly cautious about that, because privacy and commercial sensitivity is an important thing. So we looked carefully at those provisions, but I think the committee was satisfied both that the powers were appropriate in their extent—that the ability to get information from third parties, from local government, from other parts of Government, was appropriate—and that there were appropriate safeguards. Of course, information that’s commercially sensitive and confidential cannot be used for anything else, cannot be further disseminated, and those protections are there in the bill—very important protections they are.

This bill really is a leap forward, and what it means is that huge sum of money that this Government’s going to spend, and I suspect there’ll be more to come in future Budgets—that $42 billion will be carefully spent. It will be spent in a way which gets best value and improves all of New Zealanders’ lives better. I commend this bill to the House.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): It is a great pleasure for me to rise and take a brief call and to say that I’m finally on my feet supporting a piece of Government legislation, because this does have the support of the National Party. Listening to the member who has just resumed his seat, Dr Duncan Webb—he, of course, claimed credit for a huge amount of the infrastructure spend done by the previous National Government. We invested significantly in broadband, to the benefit of most New Zealanders. The area that he attempted to claim credit for was, of course, the Rural Broadband Initiative, which was one that was championed by the National Party, with its interest, of course, in rural New Zealand. It has been a success, and that’s acknowledged by Duncan Webb, but I just want to point out that it wasn’t an initiative by the current Labour Government.

We will support this legislation because of the figures released from the last day or so after the botched census of last year—2018—that the population of New Zealand is roaring towards 5 million people. Clearly, there has to be investment in infrastructure, be that roads—and I know that there’s a philosophical divide between the Green Party and the Labour and New Zealand First Party about the necessity for roads. I drive a car. I don’t consider myself for one minute a car fascist like the Hon Julie Anne Genter does.

We need to invest in roads. We need to invest more in broadband. We need to invest in things like hospitals and schools. Again, Dr Duncan Webb championed the spend by the current Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government on the Dunedin Hospital of $800 million. Well, it hasn’t started yet. Not a sod has been turned to build the Dunedin Hospital. Compare that with Dr Duncan Webb’s own electorate, where, of course, there was the Christchurch Hospital rebuild, substantially completed, of $600 million - plus done under the National Government.

So there is a need for the Infrastructure Commission. I hope it will take some of the politics out.

Of all the investment in security and infrastructure, the one that certainly worries me is the current determination by members of this Government to spend money on rail. I was talking to my good colleague here Ian McKelvie, who reminded me of the success of the Wairoa rail line, recently opened on 14 June by the Government. It was predicted to have six trains a week on the line. It’s had one—it’s had a train there on the opening day. It hasn’t had another train on that line since opening day. So I do think that by establishing the Infrastructure Commission, we may see some more sensible and rational decision-making. It does depend on the Minister putting the right people on the commission, and, to date, he’s shown an ability to do that.

As I conclude my brief remarks, I also just want to make sure that in the future there’s no political interference by the Minister for Infrastructure. I do note the legislation has the ability for him to comment on the draft report that is tabled from the commission and for the commission then to take note of the comments of a Minister. The Minister can also direct at any time the commission to do a particular report into infrastructure. So it’s that political interference which risks undermining the good work being done by the establishment of the commission.

I commend the bill to the House. It is a step in the right direction.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora , Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party and I’m proud to support the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill.

You know, infrastructure is the foundation of a prosperous country. It affects everything in our society. The choices we make in this House or in the Beehive affect the decisions that Kiwis can make in the real world. It affects the type of schools or hospitals that their kids or family members go to, how expensive their electricity is, whether their children can safely cycle to school or whether there is a fast train to take instead of avoiding congested streets, or whether your water infrastructure is a hundred years old and creaking and leaking. The decisions we make affect the decisions people can make, and that’s why making sure that the foundation is strong, is joined up, is coordinated, and takes a long-term approach is really important. That’s exactly what this legislation is doing tonight, and I’m proud to be supporting it at the third reading.

Now, I’ve heard different members criticise the Green Party for taking an anti-road approach. I want to set the record straight, because what the Green Party stands for is a balanced transport system. What we saw under the previous Government was billions borrowed on just seven “roads of National Party significance”, which had many of the negative benefit-cost ratios, which meant that the National Party was quite happy to put it on the national credit card and actually lose the country money. Every dollar spent was actually returning negative. It was costing the country money. It was absolutely foolish and it was simply because of ideology.

Now, what the Green Party has never said is we’re against all roads. What we want to see is a balanced transport network. There are some roads we need to invest in, particularly when it comes to road safety, because instead of spending on these uneconomic mega-projects, we could have actually saved lives faster by investing in road safety. So what we want to see is balanced transport spending and safe transport infrastructure, and I’m not going to have a bar of these ideological arguments we’re seeing from the National Party.

What this legislation does is establish the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission. It’s going be an autonomous Crown entity. The new body is going to be tasked with coordinating, developing, and promoting infrastructure strategies to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders. Now, here’s a crucial word—“wellbeing”—and this is a word that people are hearing on the world stage. I’m incredibly proud to see my Prime Minister on the world stage talking about this concept, because wellbeing is critical. For too long, you know, the wellbeing of the corporate mates of the National Party has been the main interest of previous Governments. What we need to have is the wellbeing of New Zealanders, and this legislation enshrines it.

I guess there are three main roles I want to pick up on. The first is advisory, because it’s going to do the 10-year capital infrastructure plan and then the 30-year strategy, which is going to be refreshed every five years. For too long, we’ve treated infrastructure as a short-term problem. I note Professor Jonathan Boston recently published a report criticising the three-year parliamentary term and the perverse impact that’s actually had on short-term decision-making in New Zealand. I see this as a small step in the direction of encouraging long-term decisions.

We’re a small country. You know, we’re a country of only, what, 4.7 million, according to the latest census. We aren’t the richest country in the world. We can’t afford to waste our resources. We can’t afford to waste it with duplication, with not integrating these projects together. We need to think smarter as a small country, particularly in troubling economic times, so that we use every dollar valuably, so that we get as much out of it, and actually so that we do get those outcomes for New Zealanders and our environment for wellbeing. So that’s really important—getting this helicopter view over the infrastructure spend. Look, the Government’s going to be spending $42 billion over the next five years on capital spend for infrastructure. It’s important we get it right, and having this coordinated, long-term strategic function of the commission is particularly valuable.

The second role is around supporting those infrastructure projects. Now, it comes to the best practice. It’s going to advise on issues such as procurement.

The third area is, as the previous member mentioned, the ability for the Minister to request a report being given. Now, the Rt Hon David Carter was trying to infer that this is somehow political interference. I think this is simply smart pragmatic governance. It makes sense for your Minister for Infrastructure to be able to request a report on a specific area. Again, we’re a small country at the bottom of the world. We can’t afford to wait for things to just appear out of the air. Actually, if there are emerging technologies or changing global patterns—Kiwis are demanding different types of getting around our cities, for example—it makes sense that the Minister can proactively instruct and get a report drafted.

We want to make sure that our decision makers have the best advice at their fingertips, and I guess this is an important point to reiterate. This is simply an advisory commission. It’s still going to be the Government and the Ministers of the day making the actual decisions. You’re still going to see that accountability. But it’s important they do get the best access to information, and this is where I’d like to acknowledge the select committee. I didn’t have the privilege to serve on it, but I understand the major change in the select committee phase was giving the commission the powers to get information from local government.

Now, given that local government is responsible for waste water and for much of our transport spend—huge infrastructure capital spend projections—it’s important that the Infrastructure Commission is able to get information from local government. There’s provisions to make sure it’s not overly onerous and that commercial sensitivity is still protected consistent with the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

I really want to acknowledge the Finance and Expenditure Committee. They’ve improved the legislation and that’s I think what the ambition of all select committees should be, no matter what party you’re in. So I’d like to thank those members and everyone who submitted.

One clause, in particular, I’d really like to highlight in this third reading is clause 11, which relates to “Infrastructure needs and priorities for infrastructure”. Now, I’ve already talked about clause 11(a), which deals with the wellbeing of New Zealanders, but I really want to stress clause 11(b)(iii), and I’ll read it because it’s only a short sentence: “matters relating to the mitigation of the effects of climate change (including through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases) and adapting to the effects of climate change;”—critically important. Right now, world leaders are meeting at United Nations. We’ve seen Greta Thunberg’s very emotional, very powerful challenge to politicians that future generations are watching us and that the world’s eyes are actually asking for action and not just words on the world stage when it comes to climate change.

Here’s yet another example where this Government is acting on our generation’s nuclear-free moment. It’s not just words, of course. You got the zero carbon bill, the 100 percent renewables target, the courageous and right decision to transition away from polluting fossil fuels, the doubling in spending for public transport, the 100 percent increase in walking and cycling funding—I could rattle off an even longer list of actions where it comes to climate change—and here is yet another one in the legislation this Government is passing setting the 10- and 30-year infrastructure strategic overviews.

Climate change is front and centre of this legislation, and it’s important, right? Because that $42 billion save that the Government is going be spending over the next five years, if we located it all next to the coast—sea-level rise is locked in. It’s already baked in. The question for us is: how much are we prepared to see emissions increase to lose how much of our coastal regions, not only in New Zealand but around the world? So it makes sense to make sure that where our infrastructure is located takes into account climate change. Sea-level rise is an important part of adapting to a climate-changing world. I’m really glad to see this in the legislation.

But I think critically important is also the sentence regarding “(including through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases)”, because I’d like to acknowledge the National Party. In the time of the great financial crisis, they did actually increase spending in infrastructure. Look, the ultra-fast broadband and Rural Broadband Initiative tranche one was a success story, particularly compared to Australia. In times of economic crisis, it’s good to spend money on infrastructure, but the problem was it wasn’t all good infrastructure. They actually ploughed $237 million—I’ve got the figure exactly in my head—on fossil fuel subsidies. They were investing in last century’s infrastructure, for the infrastructure actually risking our planetary survival and risking our coastal regions.

So it’s important that we don’t invest in infrastructure that’s simply going to make climate change worse. It’s actually not going to produce the economic returns we want, it’s not going to produce the society we want, and it’s definitely not contributing to the wellbeing of New Zealand or future generations.

So when it comes to, say, electricity infrastructure, we shouldn’t be investing in new power stations based on fracked gas, which we actually know the leaked emissions put it more on par with coal. We should be investing in modern, smart infrastructure for the clean-energy economy, and, of course, this is where the majority of international capital is going: investing in clean energy, not fossil fuels. This is where, I think, the commission’s going to provide such a leadership role, because for the billions of investment we already have in our electricity grid, we can actually deliver cheaper, cleaner, smarter energy for Kiwis.

Actually, tonight I’m hosting an event with the Green Building Council as they launch their sustainable road map. The panel topic is on peak electricity, and by tackling peak, we can actually save money for Kiwi consumers. We can actually reduce carbon emissions. But, most importantly, we can do it smart, because in this small country of ours, we should be investing massively in the infrastructure we need for a sustainable, prosperous economy, whilst not forgetting natural infrastructure as well. Kia ora koutou.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Very hard to argue against a lot of what’s been said in the course of the discussion on this bill tonight, as we, basically, across the House, support the intent of it.

But I do want to go back to a couple of issues that have been raised, and it relates back to something the Minister for Infrastructure said earlier, and the fact that I have had some cynicism about how this might operate. That’s been confirmed for me in the last few minutes, because this is all about the wellbeing of New Zealanders and it’s going to make things better for everybody, and then, in the next breath, we say that this thing is, basically, an advisory committee, and the advice doesn’t need to be taken. There’ll be some challenges around that, and that’s really the reason for, I guess, my cynicism around whether it will actually work or not when it’s put to the test, because a lot of work will go into achieving what we achieve with this.

The previous speaker, Gareth Hughes, spoke about the rural broadband stuff. Well, that, of course, didn’t help a lot of us watch the All Blacks on Saturday night. I don’t know whether you could blame the rural broadband or not, but, certainly, there was no reception where I live, which isn’t very far from the main road. Of course, rugby will be the loser of that and no one else, because, as we always used to say in the car business, if you let a person go down to the next door car sales yard, they’ll buy one off them, and they’ll never come back, and it’s just like the rugby: if you can’t watch the rugby and you watch the soccer, then you’ll go to the soccer, and that’s it.

But that’s the sort of importance of this New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill and the opportunity that it has, in my view, to put a steadier on what goes on in New Zealand, and I think we do need that. Interestingly, I’ve been involved in local government for a bit of my life, and the Local Government Act 2002 went a long way towards trying to steady up the change that happened in local government. It didn’t entirely achieve it, but it did stabilise what went on, and change for the sake of change often costs a lot of money. That’s one of the designs this bill has set out to, I guess, not eliminate so much as to moderate, because you do need to have in a democracy the opportunity for new Governments to come along and change the way they want to do things.

But you don’t want to be disruptive, and I’ve had the opportunity in the last few weeks to drive around most of New Zealand, as you do when you live in the Rangitīkei—you can’t go any other way. But when you drive through Levin, you strike two sets of traffic lights at the end of what will be a pretty useful piece of infrastructure, despite the criticism of the roads of national significance. Then, this week, I happened to have to drive from Auckland to the middle of Northland, and you can’t fly into that part of the world that easily either. Again, that’s an infrastructure challenge. But I got to, I think it was a place called Warkworth, and I struck three sets of traffic lights on—

Dr Duncan Webb: I’ve heard of that.

IAN McKELVIE: Oh, have you heard of it? It’s somewhere up there. Three sets of traffic lights on the main road, and there will be a brand new road of national significance completed there in a year or two, but I don’t know whether it’s going to quite dodge the traffic lights.

Anyway, I think the importance of this bill can’t be overlooked, and I do think it is an opportunity, provided the advice from this Infrastructure Commission is treated by those elected to govern New Zealand with the respect that it probably should deserve, and I think, as the Minister said, the people appointed to it are extremely capable. So I hope it stabilises change and gives some certainty to all of those who provide infrastructure in New Zealand, whether it’s broadband, whether it’s defence force issues, or whether it’s roads or rail, for that matter. I hope that it stabilises and gets us set on a path where there’s a pathway that contractors and people who are involved in those industries have a rational way forward.

So I’ll say no more. But I think it is a good bill, and I look forward to it having its desired effect in due course, despite my cynicism. Thank you.

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

TAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Very pleased to be squeezing in my call before the dinner break, actually, so I thank the previous speaker, Ian McKelvie, for his timeliness and punctuality. Look, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission is a good thing, and I want to start by thanking the Minister for Infrastructure, the Hon Shane Jones, for bringing it to the House. It could’ve been done in a long time period before—say, nine years—but it wasn’t. The fact is that it was done in our term, under this Government, and, actually, it has been, therefore, supported by the other side of the House as well. So kudos to the Hon Shane Jones for that.

I was pleased to hear from colleagues, actually, that were at the Building Nations conference on 21 August, where the board were named, the chief executive was named as well, and also the chair of the board was appointed too. As previous speakers have spoken, it’s a very, very qualified board. Dr Alan Bollard, being the chairperson, has a PhD in economics and a Doctor of Laws from Auckland University, as well as having had many senior positions within government. Jon Grayson, the deputy secretary commercial and financial at Treasury, is responsible for Treasury’s debt management, and has also held many senior exec roles within the public and the private sector as well. So there you have it: the chairperson, the chief executive, and just a quick mention to the other members of the board, David Cochrane, Raveen Jaduram, Sarah Sinclair, Stephen Selwood, and Sue Tindal.

This is a good piece of legislation because quality infrastructure is absolutely essential for the economic progress and the social wellbeing of all of New Zealand. The commission is going to be that independent body which is going to provide good, expert advice to the Minister and to Government. There will be a strategic plan set down, and for that reason, that report will be finished in good time. Successive Governments have actually relied too heavily on short-term projects. The cynic in me may say that it’s been according to electoral cycles that decisions have been made. So this hopes to set that trajectory a lot bigger, a lot wider, and a lot more into the future, and that’s why it’s going to be such a good commission that’s providing good information to us as a Government to be able to make good decisions with.

Budget 2018 said that it would invest $42 billion in net capital spending over the five years up to 2022, but of course we need to do more when it comes to that. The sector actually got together and told us, as a committee, what exactly it was that they wanted. So this isn’t just something that we’ve come up with. They came through in the various submissions to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. They identified four key areas. One was a lack of integrated investment decisions within and across central government and local government. They said that there was a lack of visibility, a lack of pipeline, and a lack of scale. They also said that their overriding focus was on building new assets, rather than the outcomes that we’re trying to achieve, and the ability to be able to deliver on them, and, obviously, the biggest criticism, which is that central government and local government coordination was severely lacking.

So we made a couple of changes in that process. The bill that we first were looking over—the first draft of the bill—isn’t the same as the one that it is now. There’s been a few amendments to that—namely, the information-gathering powers. We’re making sure that we protect individuals’ privacy in the collection of data for infrastructure projects but also making sure that local government are along with the ride as well and we are being able to collect information from local government, who are big local players in the infrastructure game. So these are all measures that came through in the submissions. The Minister has responded accordingly, and, as a result, I commend the bill to the House.

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

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to be able to speak on this bill, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission Bill. We’ve heard a number of speeches from the Government members saying how great this is and how this shows a real commitment to infrastructure and saying that there’ll be long-term planning and New Zealanders can be secure in knowing that there will be that planning and that those that are in the business of building roads and rail and other infrastructure can know they’ll have security of contracts, and all those wonderful things that we’ve heard from the Government. But there is one thing that is missing from all their speeches, and that is to say the fundamental premise of this legislation is that it does not guarantee anything.

There is no guarantee at all that projects will be committed to by a future Government. All it says is that there will be an infrastructure commission that will detail and determine future projects. It doesn’t say anything about how those projects then will be committed to by future Governments of a different ilk—[Mr Speaker holds up the bill]—and that is the heart of the problem in this bill, Mr Speaker. It is that it does not mention that. The problem with this bill is that we’re being told it is great for New Zealand infrastructure going forward, but the great failure of this legislation is to bind any future Government.

So what will happen is what we have seen in the current infrastructure in New Zealand, where the current Government has come in and destroyed the great roading network that was being built through New Zealand. They have taken apart those projects—and I see Mr McAnulty is laughing away, and the Minister of Transport there. I just want to acknowledge the road from Cambridge to Piarere that was approved by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) board before the last election—

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —approved by the NZTA board—

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I do want to draw the member’s attention to Speakers’ rulings 121/4-7, which indicate that the third reading is a summing up. He may make passing reference to other matters, but I’ve yet to hear him refer to the bill as it emerged from the committee stage.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Oh, I think I made it very clear that this is a bill which sets out plans for infrastructure going forward, and that’s what the bill is about. It sets up a planning process. But that planning process isn’t binding to any future Government—

SPEAKER: The member was good for a line. Let’s get on with what is in it.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —and that is the nature of the bill. That’s the whole point of Parliament and democracy—it’s so that people watching can find out what’s going on. If they are constrained in their democratic ability to hear what’s going on, just to make it sound like—

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —what the Government wants to hear—

SPEAKER: Order! The member—

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —that’s not—

SPEAKER: I—no, not quite. I think I’m slightly lucky that the member’s mike went off when I stood up, because I think what he said might have been grossly out of order. I’m going to remind the member, for the last time, that he must speak on the bill as it has emerged from the committee, and not base his speech on what’s not in the bill, because that is out of order.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, thank you, Mr Speaker, but is that a new ruling?

SPEAKER: Right. I think I stood up right at the beginning and referred the member to Speakers’ rulings 121/4-7. I think it’s probably a bit hard for the member to make a speech and read that at the same time, so I’m going to give him a last chance to be consistent with the Speakers’ rulings, which date back to 1961 and 1962. It was Speaker Algie, who has a very good reputation, and who dealt with those—the Speaker in the first term of the Holyoake Government.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and just like the great reputation you hold as well—I appreciate that.

This bill is based on the New South Wales approach, so they’ve basically copied and pasted the New South Wales legislation—

Marja Lubeck: 45 seconds—make it count.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —as their Infrastructure Commission for here. Did you say something over there?

Kieran McAnulty: He’s trying to fill time now. Get on with it.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, no, no, there’s no need to fill time. No need to fill time because we’re going to have a look at this bill, Mr McAnulty, and look at what infrastructure is in New Zealand.

It is a bill which the New Zealand National Party had intended to bring to this House at some stage as well, but we would have done it in a much more—

SPEAKER: Order! The member has finished his time.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to stand and take a call on this bill tonight and talk specifically to the bill as it has emerged from the select committee. I hope that I can do that justice, because I actually was a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which heard the submissions on the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill.

But, first, I want to acknowledge the Minister for Infrastructure, Shane Jones, who was responsible for introducing this legislation; the officials who worked on it; and also too the other members of my select committee, from both sides of the House, actually. We did work constructively, in the main, to make this the best possible legislation that it could be. Unfortunately, at the end, there was a bit of disagreement, particularly around Supplementary Order Paper 362, which was introduced at the last minute, which we could not support. But we received about 41 submissions on this bill and we heard from 15 submitters, and, overwhelmingly, they were in support of what is proposed in the bill.

We did recommend some changes to the bill, and I want to talk specifically about those. They are now presented as amendments to this for the third reading. Specifically, I want to talk about the changes in terms of local government.

My history prior to coming into Parliament was as a councillor for the Far North District Council, and one of the things that alarmed me when I first became elected to the Far North District Council was the state of disarray that we were in in terms of understanding what our infrastructure was that we actually had and what the current and future needs were, how much deferred maintenance there had been, and how ad hoc the planning had been. It was later in 2015 that an amendment was made to the Local Government Act 2002 that required councils to actually develop a 30-year infrastructure plan and strategy along with their long-term plans, which are done every three years. That was a really good step in terms of addressing the issue that we were facing as local government at the time, but what this New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill also recognises is that this is a problem not just at the local government level but for central government and across New Zealand.

The problem is that we don’t have a comprehensive understanding of our current infrastructure and our future needs for infrastructure. So this bill addresses that problem in terms of establishing an independent infrastructure commission, which will be completely autonomous to the Crown.

I heard David Bennett, the speaker before me, say that there is nothing in this bill that is going to require the Crown to do anything in particular with regard to the strategy that they will be required to develop, but I actually differ. If you read the bill, you will see in there that within the first two years of establishing the Infrastructure Commission, they are going to be required to produce their first report, and that within 180 days, the Minister is going to have to provide a response to that strategy, which will be open for all of the public to see. It is this type of thing that will ensure that Governments are held to account.

So here is an independent commission that is being established and that is made up of experts in this field, who are going to do that projection for us and who are going to produce that report within two years, and then every five years thereafter. That is going to show the public of New Zealand what the infrastructure needs are for this country and Governments at that time—that will be ours when the first one comes out, I hope, and then the next one and then the next one. But it is going to be more than an election cycle. It’s going to take the politics out of this, and it’s going to give something to New Zealanders that they can hold any Government accountable to.

Now, in our Budget, we’ve announced $42 billion to be invested in infrastructure and capital spending over the next five years, out to 2022. What this bill aims to do is ensure that we coordinate, develop, and promote an approach to infrastructure and the services that result from that infrastructure that will improve the wellbeing for New Zealanders. I just want to take this opportunity to say that originally in the proposed legislation, when it came to the information-gathering powers, it did not include local government. But we received a number of submissions, particularly from the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers and also from Local Government New Zealand and several councils, but, in particular, Tasman District Council and Whanganui District Council, who all recommended that we broaden the ability of the commission to obtain information from local authorities so that it isn’t reliant only upon the publicly available information but that it can gather more information to help produce the best infrastructure plan for this country, both at the central government level and local government level.

Now, there were some concerns from submitters that this inclusion of local authorities in the information-gathering powers of the commission could have a burden for local authorities—some who are not particularly well off, who have small ratepayer bases with low average incomes—and so their concern was in trying to strike a balance between getting the information that would be useful to the commission and not overly burdening our councils with additional costs.

So the proposed legislation, which we have in front of us, aims to address that balance by saying that in terms of any information that is publicly available, the commission can access that themselves at their own expense, and that the councils cannot restrict the information that they give to the commission if it is available under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA), for example. But if it is not information that would be otherwise available—under the LGOIMA in councils’ case and the Official Information Act in Government departments’ case—and it is particularly sensitive in terms of commercial sensitivity, then it can be withheld.

If it’s going to require significant research to give the information to the commission, then they can be excluded from the provision within the Act, but they are encouraged to have a conversation with the commission about that before determining that they won’t comply with that part of the Act. So I believe that we are striking the balance and meeting the requests of those councils and other submitters who said that it should include local government but not overly burden our councils with additional expense.

Just to wrap it up, I want to talk about information that came out today and show how, in context, this is practically applicable. Today, it was noted in the newspaper that Northland’s population is the fastest-growing in New Zealand, according to the latest census. I don’t find that hard to believe, because it’s such a beautiful part of the country. But we have experienced 27,000 more people coming to Northland between 2013 and 2018. Now, the numbers speculated were much lower than that, and that’s put some pressure on our infrastructure planning. I particularly wanted to talk about the Far North District Council, because we had a decrease of 110—a declining population—in 2006 to 2013.

The general manager for strategic planning said that growing population was a complex issue to tackle. It is hoped that the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill is going to help us in terms of projecting for the current and future needs of communities like the Far North, where there is now an increase in demand for goods and services, boosting spending and employment within the district—which we welcome—but the challenge is providing affordable infrastructure for a growing population across a large district with more than 40 towns and villages. That remains our greatest challenge—

SPEAKER: Order! Back to the bill.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —and so it is hoped—yep. That is exactly the type of situation that this bill envisages that this independent commission is going to be able to assist New Zealand and our communities. Kia ora.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Look, I’m very pleased to take a call on this New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. I hope that in the time that I will have available, I will be able to build a credible speech, particularly on the third reading.

So, look, I’m very pleased that National is supporting this. A little bit like other bills that we’ve supported, it’s because National had, in effect, started the legislation of this nature and is actually conceptually in support of an infrastructure commission. We see the value in it. It’s easy for statements like that, of course, to be made in Parliament, but I’m fortunate to be able to build my case, the infrastructure of this argument if you will, by pointing out—[Interruption] Yes, that’s my best work for tonight, I’m afraid. The key is, of course, that National has been very keen on infrastructure. One only needs to think of the roads of national significance, completing Waterview—these are infrastructure projects which we have been proud of and which, of course, you build on in order to move into the likes of a commission of which this bill is structuring things.

It’s an attempt by the Government to set up a strategy. It’s trying to empower the commission to engage New Zealanders, for them to understand what projects they want. I think that’s actually an important part of it. I note we actually have Jessica McKnight, the Youth MP for Maungakiekie, in appearance up there tonight. They would know, and I’m sure they’d be the first who would want to talk—I hope it’s not presumptuous, Denise Lee—to this new commission, to demand that the East-West Link get completed in Auckland.

Look, it’s a fundamentally important commission, but there are two caveats and concerns that this side of the House has around where this bill is landing in its third reading, and that’s its two deficiencies. First and foremost, we don’t think this has enough teeth. We think it’s still malleable to ideology, if you will. I think both sides of the House—I would’ve hoped—would’ve agreed that actually setting up an infrastructure commission should’ve been done in a way to keep it away from the whims of political cycles. The other is the disappointment that through the committee of the whole House stage and now at the third reading, a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the name of Andrew Bayly was defeated. This, in effect—

Stuart Smith: Outrageous.

SIMON O’CONNOR: —was about—it is outrageous, actually. It was an attempt to try and shore up—for want of a better word—those groups, those organisations, those businesses who work in the infrastructure sector.

The way things are structured at the moment—and it was unfortunate, because the commission could’ve been empowered to look into it—is to try and share that risk. If those on the other side, particularly in Government, are talking to those working in infrastructure, to those who will be affected by this commission and its intentions, they will say that too much risk of Government procurement is put on to them and, subsequently, on to subcontractors, and we already know from recent weeks the tragedy that that entails. I’m disappointed that that SOP did not progress, but the bill is sufficiently in line with what National had already intended and supported, and so at this third reading I’m very happy to commend the bill to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Economic Development): Well, I too am pleased to make a contribution in this third reading debate to the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. It is, in our view, a great opportunity for New Zealand to lift its game when it comes to planning, investment, and construction of infrastructure.

It’s important, I think, for two reasons. The first is that we spend a lot of our national wealth on infrastructure—a lot. In transport alone, we’re spending $4.5 billion a year. Most of that is capital spend on transport infrastructure every year. Think about what we do in relation to the building of our social infrastructure. It is a massive part of our annual spend.

The second reason that this is important and that it deserves serious attention is that, done well, infrastructure can make a really significant difference to our economy and our prosperity. The example I want to give to substantiate that is what we’ve seen over the last 15 years with the break-up of the Telecom monopoly and the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. Those two moves together are responsible for the growth of one of our most successful and fast-growing industries. So the the digital economy in New Zealand is really a direct result of, in this case, a very high-quality infrastructure decision.

It was mentioned earlier that this bill is based on the New South Wales model, and to a large extent it is. Shane Jones and others of us spent a lot of time with the Australian infrastructure bodies—the arm’s length state level and federal infrastructure commissions—that inspired the work that went into this bill. It’s really about lifting the standard of debate and of policy making on infrastructure, and it’s really important, in summing up on this third reading, to note that the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga is fundamentally an advisory body. It’s not a police officer that can march into Government departments and Crown entities, take over projects, rewrite their policies, and do their job for them. That’s fundamentally why the Supplementary Order Paper that the previous member was speaking about was not supported, because it wasn’t in keeping with the essential advisory nature of the commission.

The brief of the commission, really, is to develop broad public agreement on long-term infrastructure strategy. I think it’s good on all sides of this House that we recognise the value that that could add. I think of some of the debates on infrastructure that we’ve had over the last 20 years in New Zealand that would have benefited from a seriously good, tooled-up, arm’s-length commission with good policy and analytical capability—the barren debates about public-private partnerships (PPPs), for example, where one side of politics and the infrastructure industry are ceaselessly promoting PPPs as if they were some kind of free pot of money that would enable projects to be built, when, in fact, the bigger issues are around the quality of the infrastructure delivery and the ultimate lifetime cost to Government and citizens. We’ve finally, I think, reached a stage where PPPs are no longer being touted around as some kind of panacea. There’s such a track record in Australia, the UK, and elsewhere over the last 20 years of them coming to grief.

On our side of the House, certainly, we are very open to private financing initiatives, but not out of some kind of religious zeal, and not to accommodate the commercial imperative of the private sector infrastructure providers. But when they can actually deliver high-quality projects, when they can deliver on the complex challenges that some projects pose, and if they can deliver value for money, then we’re open to them. I think that if we’d had a commission like this we could have advanced that debate much more productively over the last few years.

One of the things that this bill offers and the commission will offer, I think, is a more productive engagement between public and private. Often the Government takes a more conservative approach to these things, but it is firmly focused on the public good. This bill sets up a board which deliberately sets out to bring experienced private sector people on to the board, so it’s the possibility of a really good marriage of public and private. The private sector is often more innovative and often sharper about assessing risk but, of course, always looking for business, looking for more work. Many of the infrastructure providers in the infrastructure industry—there’s some great creative talent in our own infrastructure industry, but they never saw a PPP that they didn’t like, or a private financing arrangement. So I think if we can marry those two impulses in a much more constructive way, we will actually elevate infrastructure thinking in this country.

So the other part of the commission’s brief is about direct support for projects. Now we know that our system of Government in New Zealand is highly devolved and delegated so sometimes quite small Government agencies or departments can find themselves undertaking some very large infrastructure projects. They don’t necessarily have the capability in-house to do that, and there’s the potential here for the commission to be called in to provide that capability on behalf of Government departments or Crown entities to take on large-scale infrastructure projects. I think that will be a really big advantage.

There’s no question that the whole idea of a pipeline of infrastructure projects is essential, and I think everybody in the House would agree with that. We have to give certainty to the market. We have to allow people to plan to build capability and build confidence in the infrastructure market. So that part of the commission’s brief is really, really important.

One of the really helpful things that the Finance and Expenditure Committee did was look at extending the information-gathering powers in the bill to local government, and that was extremely helpful, because we know that some of the trickiest, most challenging, infrastructure issues that we’re facing today involve both central government and local government. My colleague Nanaia Mahuta will attest to just how challenging it is to think through how we can transition our way in the next few years to a sustainable solution to the problem of three waters. The Havelock North contamination episode demonstrated once and for all that local government lacks, in many cases, the balance sheet and the capability, in the case of some smaller councils, to properly manage our three waters infrastructure. When people get poisoned by water contamination—contamination of the water table—that is a particularly graphic reminder of this. So Minister Mahuta is working closely with the entire local government sector to find a way through that. It’s going to require some different approaches.

I think that the commission, if it were up and running today, would be well placed to assist the Minister and the Department of Internal Affairs in thinking through the creative new approaches, different ways to use the balance sheets that already exist within local government, to find new institutional ways to build that capability so that every community in New Zealand and every citizen can expect that they will have access to safe, clean drinking water, that our environment will be protected, and that storm water and waste-water systems will be up to the challenges put to them by our towns and cities and to the challenges posed by climate change.

The other example I think of around local government is that we’re struggling right now as a country to invest in the infrastructure that’s needed to support the growth of our towns and cities. It’s not just transport; it’s three waters and the rest. Our existing policy settings, the National Land Transport Programme, and the way that councils traditionally have been responsible for providing the infrastructure to support urban expansion—whether it’s greenfields or brownfields—is really struggling in our high-growth centres. We have to find new ways of funding, financing, and planning that infrastructure, and I believe that that is exactly the kind of challenge that the commission can assist us with.

Another example is the need to build the infrastructure to support decarbonised energy generation and things like public transport and a freight vehicle fleet that is based on hydrogen or electricity and all the infrastructure that’s needed to support that.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): I move, That the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill and I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by Tuesday, 3 December.

This bill aims to make the rates rebate application process more accessible to eligible ratepayers and to increase the efficiency of the application process. The current application approach for this scheme, set out by the Rates Rebate Act 1973, requires applicants to make a statutory declaration. This involves them either being physically present at the council offices or meeting with an authorised person. This bill will remove the requirement to make a statutory declaration when applying to the scheme.

The priority for this Government is ensuring that all New Zealanders have access to rates rebates. We’re determined to remove the barriers for superannuitants to getting the rebate they are entitled to and deserve. The current requirement of applicants to be physically present is a barrier to people with physical mobility or other impairments that make it difficult for them to visit a council office. This scheme is for low income ratepayers, a significant number of whom are superannuitants. In the latest figures, 79 percent of applicants were superannuitants. Last year 102,000 New Zealanders applied for this rates rebate, which is a significant number. The average refund that was paid out was $582.50, which does make a big difference on somebody’s annual rates bill. For a person, this is a huge, huge benefit and of assistance to them.

Some of these eligible ratepayers may find it difficult travelling to a council office, especially when it is some distance away from their home. The current requirement for applicants to be physically present also imposes an unnecessary travel cost and can be, in some instances, quite time consuming. Another key reason is that researchers discovered that the physical presence acts as an inhibitor for some people because sometimes it’s just embarrassing, especially in small communities, to admit that you’re on a low income. Some applicants may still choose to travel to councils to get help filling out these forms or because they prefer this process to be a face-to-face experience. However, there’s no reason all applicants should have to be physically present to receive their rates rebate.

This change will also reduce administrative costs to local authorities. Many local authorities offer home visits to applicants who are unable to travel, which is an unnecessary burden on stretched council resources. The statutory declaration requirement also prevents councils from using technology to improve the efficiency of processing applications. Removing this requirement will enable councils to offer an online application process alongside a paper-based one. The application process without a statutory declaration is no less secure. When witnessing a statutory declaration, authorised witnesses are not required to verify whether the information provided is true, and it is an offence to provide false or misleading information. The risk of increased fraud from removing the face-to-face aspect of the application process is low because there are suitable fraud detection processes in place and the penalty for fraudulently claiming a rebate is very high.

This is part of the Government’s wellbeing programme to support our local bodies and their ratepayers to realise their ambitions and potential. Based on the four wellbeings—our social, economic, environmental, and cultural priorities—the Government will be working closely with our councils and communities to ensure greater influence on the design and targeting of public services that are provided by central government.

We’ve already made a significant change in this area earlier this year with the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill, which was passed into law in March. These changes in relation to the rates rebate began under my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson and corrected an anomaly under section 7A of the Rates Rebate Act. This assumed that retirement villages are all one separate rating unit. However, some villages are comprised of multiple separately rated units. The problem was that under some ownership structures, the eligibility of residents would be affected. The change that we implemented removed any confusion for councils as to who is eligible for the rebate. The second change related to the winter energy payment being included as income when assessing a rebate. This was not the policy intent of the winter energy payment; therefore the amendment in that Act fixed that also. Just to repeat, the Local Government Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill was passed in March earlier this year to ensure full eligibility for rates rebates for retirement villages and for those receiving the winter energy payment for 2019.

Coming back to the bill, in addition to the changes that we are currently seeking to make, I intend that it will be a much simplified process, primarily for superannuitants. I propose that for this new bill, a shortened select committee consideration time frame is appropriate for three reasons: first, there is significant support for this change, particularly amongst the local government sector. All parties affected by the change have expressed support for it. Second, removing the statutory declaration will provide benefits to applicants and local authorities with little risk. Third, the bill is short and makes a discrete change to the Rates Rebate Act. It was considered for inclusion in the Statutes Amendment Bill but members of the Opposition didn’t agree to that approach. I therefore commend this bill to the House.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Mr Speaker, thank you. The Minister who’s just resumed her seat, Nanaia Mahuta, is quite right that National did not support this clause in the Statutes Amendment Bill, which had the effect on the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill by taking away the requirement for a statutory declaration.

The reason for that was twofold. First of all, the Minister’s officials could not explain to me when I asked what the protections were going to be in the legislation in place of the statutory declaration, and I did ask for that information several times. It was disturbing to me that the officials could not enunciate what those protections would be. Secondly, because a statutory declaration is not that hard to undertake, given that justices of the peace are freely available in our society, they can be found in supermarkets; you can go to the local lawyer’s office; one can go to an MP’s office; council staff can sign those forms. So to put up an argument that there is a strong impediment to those eligible people making a statutory declaration simply does not hold any water, given that a number of those eligible people do, in fact, successfully make a statutory declaration and then uplift up to a $650 rebate on their rates, which National does support. It is a very worthwhile vehicle for people on lower incomes to find some relief from rates.

But the most concerning aspect to this bill, which has been, of course, excluded from the Statutes Amendment Bill and is now taking up the time of the House for this very small little change to the Rates Rebate Act—the major problem with it is that without a statutory declaration being required, there go the protections. I simply do not accept what the Minister has said, that the threshold against fraud has been not significantly lowered—I think, in the Minister’s words, minimal.

The Minister also said councils have processes in place. What processes? That hasn’t been explained in any of the documentation that I have read around this rates rebate bill, apart from a note which does say that under the Rates Rebate Act there are processes in place. What processes? What are the penalties? Nobody has enunciated that.

And then the next question that follows: who’s going to determine whether or not an untrue application has taken place? The onus goes from the Oaths and Declarations Act straight back to that local authority. So what does that local authority do—open a new section which is to check the veracity of applications for a rates rebate? That’s what it seems to be pointing to. So it’s that complete lack of checks and balances which will now prevail in this Act, because the reality is that, I suspect, the Government parties will agree to this.

But, in effect, we have taken a perfectly workable regime, under the Rates Rebate Act, where there is a statutory declaration which is provided for in the Oaths and Declarations Act, to be replaced with very little.

In fact, my last point on this is just to highlight what little protections there are there now. It is up to each and every council to formulate their own process for verification of the application as made to them. It has to get the approval of the Secretary for Local Government. So if that doesn’t speak to red tape, I don’t know what does. And if that doesn’t speak to adding cost on to local councils, also known as ratepayers, then I don’t know what does. What is being achieved? A sop, and that’s about all.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Quite a hard debate to follow, actually, over here, having quite an emotional reaction to some of the statements that were made by the previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, trivialising what this bill intends to do, and the challenges—the very real challenges—that are faced by people in communities like mine; a very rural community. I will speak to that in detail and I will also respond to the points that were made that there is no measure in place to require accountability and compliance of the law. I think it would have helped if the speaker had have read the scheme before giving the debate this evening.

First, I want to start by acknowledging the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for introducing this bill, which I know is going to have an impact in my local communities in Northland. I will speak to the specifics of that when I give a few examples. I also want to acknowledge the preparatory work that has gone into the bill thus far. It looks like it is only a small amount in that it’s removing one part, which is the statutory declaration requirement, but it is a very considered piece of legislation that is being put forward. It is trying to address a problem which has actually been identified by the department itself and by the Department of Internal Affairs’ Service Innovation Lab. So I want to commend the Minister for introducing this bill.

Now, what it is proposing to do is to remove the statutory declaration requirement within the legislation, because it is seen as an impediment; something that is perhaps prohibiting people from fully accessing the scheme that has been in place since 1973. I think that the Rates Rebate Scheme is a scheme that we can be proud of. It is a scheme that makes available a rebate to New Zealanders who fall within the low-income bracket. The amount of money available for the rebate has been going up over time. The average is in the late $500s that has been granted, but, actually, more recently moving up to $610, $620, and, in the coming year, $630.

Now, that is a significant amount of money for people who are on low incomes, like many of the people who live in Northland. What I know is that we have one of the lowest average incomes in the country. When I look at a table of information available on the department’s website, I’ve highlighted there—in the Far North District, the Kaipara District, and the Whangarei District—the uptake that we have of the Rates Rebate Scheme.

SPEAKER: Order! I think the member has gone past the period where she can have a general discussion about the Rates Rebate Scheme, and she’s now to focus on the changes that the bill entails.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Yes, I am coming to that point, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Four hours—four minutes later. It just felt like four hours, I’m sorry.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Well, it is important to set the context to say why removing the statutory declaration is actually going to make a meaningful difference to communities like Northland. While we have a pretty good uptake currently, there is capacity for more. In talking to people in my electorate, the issues that were identified with the statutory declaration—which are mentioned in the paper and were mentioned in the Minister’s speech—was, first and foremost, access to council offices.

So if you consider the Far North District, for example, we are a huge district, from Cape Reinga to just north of Whangarei, in Hūkerenui. Our service centres are in Kaikohe, in Kerikeri, a centre in Kawakawa, Kaitāia—so that’s some distance from Te Ranga, Te Hāpua, Te Kao, and all those, who would have to travel a long way to Kaitāia to access the rates rebate and give a statutory declaration. What the removal of the statutory declaration requirement would achieve for those people who live in Te Kao and Te Hāpua, who, we know, are likely to be able to access this scheme because of the low average incomes, is that they wouldn’t have to travel over an hour to Kaitāia using their own cars or somebody else’s cars, using money to go and access a small return.

What removing the statutory declaration would allow them and the council to do is actually make the service available online or by paper. I know for a fact that they would use this system in areas that are particularly some distance away from our service centres. The other thing to remember is that we don’t have a public transport system in most of Northland, so that is not an option for many people to travel to these centres. Some of the centres are part-time centres, so not always open and the services aren’t available. I understand from talking to the Far North District Council that they do not do private visits to people’s private homes; some councils do, at an additional expense to them.

So what councils who have given feedback on this proposed legislation have said about the process is that it would allow them to modernise their processes to be able to use the option of online and paper-only, which would suit their communities, but currently the statutory declaration requirement and them being physically present at a council office does not allow them to be able to put that type of process in place.

The other example that the report identifies, that I can think about, is that in Northland, we also have, for residents in Russell, where there is a large part of the population who are superannuitants, who are, generally, the largest uptake of this, and North Hokianga, have to catch ferries, and the gold card doesn’t apply to our ferries in Northland, and it is something that they have complained about in terms of health services that I think would equally apply to this. So it is inhibiting our ability to provide what is, really, a wonderful scheme.

The other issue that was identified by the department is embarrassment. If I could give you an example, which I found quite alarming, of an experience up North, there were groups of people waiting for their turn to be seen by the rates rebate team. They were required to turn up—because that’s a statutory declaration requirement, to be physically present—and they were to wait to be called. They would sit at a desk in a communal hall with many closely spaced tables. Sometimes they already had their information about their income details, and they sat there, and while they sat there, those details were given back to them to confirm as part of the statutory declaration, with no privacy. And they found that incredibly degrading. They hoped that no one would see them entering—you know, to know that they were going in to ask for assistance. It was hard enough in the first instance to ask for assistance but to publicly do so made it twice as hard for them. So this bill actually acknowledges that one of the very real challenges that people have is embarrassment in accessing something that they are entitled to under our law and under the 1973 Act. If removing the requirement to be physically present for a statutory declaration can be done, then it could make this easier for our communities to access and better for their wellbeing.

Now, I just want to respond to the point made earlier that there’s going to be some harm caused by not having this requirement for a statutory declaration and that it’s not that hard to just get in your car—assuming you have one and you have the money to put petrol in it—to go down to your local council office, which is an hour away and a ferry across, to make your statutory declaration in person. Or we could go to a JP. Now, interesting, because I’ve been doing a project locally and in our spread-out community of Northland there are actually huge gaps where we don’t have any current justices of the peace to be able to serve our communities for things like this.

So, you know, I look at Kāretu, I look at Waikare, for example. It’s a 45-minute drive to Kawakawa, assuming you have a vehicle or somebody who can take you in—over some of the worst roads in the country, by the way. And we don’t have a JP in those towns—sorry, not even a town; in those communities—so that’s another issue that we have to address. But it wouldn’t prohibit them, if this goes through, being able to access their rates remission, and I know plenty in the community there who would be able to, because they wouldn’t be physically required to present to give their statutory declaration to access it. And we’re getting marae digital connectivity and so they’ll be able to do it down at the hub. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the chance to talk to the first reading of the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill. The scheme is a central government - funded rebate for low-income ratepayers. Applicants, as we know, apply to local authorities who then grant the rebate and then there’s a subsequent refunding by central government. And those of us who’ve been involved in local government, and indeed as MPs for statutory declarations, know well—quite well—this particular scheme. So what this bill is doing is taking away the statutory declaration obligation and allowing for officials to rejig the application form. So quite straightforward, but our issue on this side of the House is the very curious and strange timing of this bill.

The reason we find it’s very strange and curious for the timing is that the Productivity Commission’s draft report recommending that this whole scheme be abolished and come back in another form as a national rates postponement scheme, that particular draft report is due out just but two months away—the end of November, just two months away. So why are we doing this right now? It’s a complete puzzle to us that you would head into what is clearly strange timing when you’ve got the Productivity Commission and they are looking at, of course, the inquiry into local government funding and financing. They recommend that this scheme be replaced and their draft report is coming out. The Minister of Local Government knows this.

So, on this side of the House, we’re saying your timing’s off. It makes no sense. It certainly is an absolute indictment for nothing other than the Government filibustering its own bills, delaying on a deficient legislative programme. And the last speaker before me, Willow-Jean Prime, taking up the full 10 minutes is nothing short of an example of exactly what—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will now start addressing the bill.

DENISE LEE: Mr Speaker, we oppose the bill.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): I’m very disappointed in the previous contribution by Denise Lee. The Opposition say that they support the Rates Rebate Scheme. They talk about how it’s good for people to have access to the scheme. But then on the other hand they don’t seem to be supporting this piece of legislation. I’m hopeful that they will vote for it but from the two speakers I’ve heard so far, it appears that they’re not going to be voting for the scheme. They’re asking why we’re doing it now. Well, the reason we’re doing it now is because we’re supporting our superannuitants. As we’ve heard, 79 percent of those who take up the Rates Rebate Scheme are superannuitants and those people have contributed a lot to this country and it’s our way of honouring them.

Now, talking about some of the specifics in the bill here, the bill removes the requirement, as we’ve heard, to make a statutory declaration when applying for the Rates Rebate Scheme. I’d like to endorse the comments that we heard from one of the previous members who spoke quite vividly about how the superannuitants, particularly, in this case, have to physically go to complete their statutory declaration and for a lot of them, as very proud people, it can be quite a challenge for them to, you know, acknowledge that they are on a low income. Now, many of us in this House know what it’s like to be on a low income at times. For a period of time, my wife and I were on a minimum wage with two children and it was quite difficult and there was a humbling aspect to that. One of the key aspects of this bill is around providing that anonymity for people who are in that situation, and particularly for our seniors who are at times vulnerable.

We’ve heard the word “wellbeing” spoken about in this debate and I’d also like to highlight that aspect. This bill is about the wellbeing of those who, for whatever reason, happen to be either on low incomes or on fixed incomes, and often for our superannuitants it’s both. They might be on a pension, some of them might still be paying rent, they might still be paying a mortgage, and there’s not a lot of money coming into the household, and they are on a fixed income. As we know, last year 102,000 New Zealanders applied for the Rates Rebate Scheme. And the average refund that we heard from the Hon Nanaia Mahuta was $582 per year—

Hon Peeni Henare: How much?

JAMIE STRANGE: —$582. That is a significant amount—that really is a significant amount—and that’s about looking after people.

This is an absolutely fantastic scheme. I’d also like to acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson, who’s done work in the past few years to extend this scheme into retirement villages so more people can have access to the scheme. It’s $582 and when you add that to the winter energy payment that this Government brought in, you’re getting up to around a thousand dollars a year for many of those people.

Now, just sort of diving into some of the key aspects of the bill here, this bill reduces the local authority costs and enables applications to be made through multiple channels, for example, online. Now, we have the local body elections up at the moment and rates are a big issue. We constantly hear candidates saying, “We will lower rates.” One of the ways that they could potentially lower rates would be for the council to not have as many costs.

Hon Member: Ha, ha!

Ian McKelvie: That’s clever.

JAMIE STRANGE: And this bill makes it cheaper round the processing fees. Yes, it may be at the margins and some of the members are sort of joking there, but it does. It certainly does make it a bit cheaper for those councils.

And there is, for example, the online aspect, and I would like to highlight while I’m talking about the online aspect that it is important that as society does move online, there still is the opportunity to pay using cash. I heard an example recently of someone who went to a council to pay—I think it was a parking fine—and literally could not pay with the cash. They were standing there and they couldn’t pay because they said, “You have to pay it online.” And so the person behind the counter used their own card to actually pay for it. Now, I digress slightly—

SPEAKER: Yes, too far.

JAMIE STRANGE: —but it relates to the aspect of being able to pay online. And it is important that we do get that balance right. So it reduces local authorities’ costs to administer. It links in with the four wellbeings in terms of social, economic, environmental, and cultural. And, I think, particularly the social, because the point that I began this with, I believe, is a very important point, that the wellbeing—and for particularly the mental wellbeing of people who are on low incomes, having that anonymity is certainly an important thing. Seventy-nine percent of the applicants were superannuitants last year, and the 2013 Disability Survey found that 49 percent of those over the age of 65 have a physical disability. So those with a physical disability, giving them the option to be able to apply for the scheme at home without having to physically go somewhere, it makes sense; it increases the access. I am surprised that the Opposition haven’t picked up on this. The Opposition talk about how the rates rebate is a great scheme, but why wouldn’t they want to increase access for people, particularly people with disabilities? As we know, 49 percent of those over the age of 65 do have a physical disability. We support the bill because it removes a barrier for eligible applicants to apply. So the key aspect here is about access.

There’s another aspect about wellbeing: it reduces the local authority costs to administer the scheme, enabling local authorities to provide an online application. The bill also makes a minor word change to allow application forms to be approved by the Secretary for Local Government. Now, why is this important? It’s important because it would allow local authorities to design and supply their own application forms for use. So it gives a certain sense of autonomy to local councils around the forms that they want to use, and it’s important that we do get that balance right in terms of central government not being overly heavy-handed with local government. It’s about collaboration, and this Government is certainly committed to collaborating with local councils. An example of that collaboration, here in this bill, comes through that, where the councils can supply their own application forms for use and they can administer it online. So, basically, they have the freedom to do that.

Look, we’re certainly determined as a Government to remove barriers for superannuitants, and it’s important that we value superannuitants. We’re coming out of a previous Government—nine years—and I’m not convinced that they did value superannuitants. I’m not convinced that they did. But this Government? The winter energy payment, the Rates Rebate Scheme, this piece of legislation here—making the Rates Rebate Scheme more accessible is a key way that we are valuing our seniors. We’re valuing all they’ve given to society. The scheme ensures that people entitled to super on a low income can easily access that part of the Government’s wellbeing programme.

I think that I’ve covered all the key points there. So I spoke about the wellbeing, linking in to the winter energy payment, the fact that—particularly our superannuitants’ access of it, and particularly the aspect around access. I have challenged the Opposition, saying why won’t the Opposition support this bill—why won’t the Opposition? I’d like to hear a good reason—one good reason—why the Opposition won’t support this bill. The Opposition say they support the Rates Rebate Scheme but they won’t support access, and I would like to hear that. I’m hopeful that the next speaker from that side will give us a clear example of why. I commend this bill to the House.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. My main reason to stand and oppose this bill is because of what Jamie Strange wanted to know—two reasons I’ll give him on why are we opposing this bill.

First of all, we know there was a draft report by the Productivity Commission in July which said that they will be coming up with the final report in November about this issue. So we could have waited till November to know what the Productivity Commission is saying, and that is the first reason. The second reason is that the Government doesn’t have enough legislative programme and they are just trying to filibuster these kinds of bills to fill in the time. We are seeing that the MPs from the Government’s side, they are just filibustering this bill. The speeches could have been wrapped up in two minutes—said why they are supporting it—but they’re filibustering it. So these are two reasons that we can see why the Government has introduced this bill. We oppose this bill.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand—[Interruption]—to support—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Look, can we just calm down? Just calm down. It’s only Tuesday night. Give the speaker an opportunity.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Absolutely, Madam Speaker, and I am sure things will get more robust as we progress into members’ day tomorrow. But I am proud to stand tonight, on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, as our sole speaker on this piece of legislation supporting the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill, progressed in the name of the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Local Government.

This is, as many members of the National Party, the Opposition, have mentioned, a relatively small bill in size, but the impact that it will have, particularly on those of lower incomes, particularly superannuitants, who, I would note, are often invoked by the National Party as those who they would like to be supporting—it will have a massive impact. That is because of section 13 being changed, that being the form of verification required when one is seeking a rates rebate. It removes the requirement for a statutory declaration, and enables a far more accessible and cost-effective process which actually may be far more aligned with internal local government or council processes. To quote from this bill itself, it states—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member. We’ve got two whips over here standing up having conversations. Now, if you want to have a conversation, you either go out in the lobby or you sit down next to someone and have that conversation.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I hope that the whips are paying attention to this incredible piece of legislation and the speech that I’m giving on behalf of it. So, returning to new section 13, that being “Form of verification”. It states here that “An application that is required to be verified in writing for the purposes of this Act must be verified in a manner and form approved by the Secretary for Local Government.” For those who are listening at home, what this essentially means is that no longer are those who are seeking rates rebates going to be shackled with a process which can be somewhat prohibitive, whether it is in costs or in complexity. Instead, we, through this process of removing a barrier for eligible applicants to apply for a rates rebate, will be allowing local authorities to provide an online application process alongside a paper-based process.

Importantly—actually, as members of the Opposition have raised in their contributions so far—this did come out of the Service Innovation Lab, which is a small group of dedicated, innovative individuals within the Department of Internal Affairs, ably captained by the Hon Tracey Martin. They recommended that this was one of the things that we could do. It’s certainly not everything; it’s not the panacea. It’s not going to fix things like this Government is focused on, such as inequality, overnight but it is going to make life easier for some New Zealanders, particularly those retirees and superannuitants. Importantly, for members of the Opposition who may not yet be accustomed to the process that those who currently seek these rates rebates have to go through, particularly if they have disability or mobility issues, it may be the case that staff from local councils have to make home visits, which, surely, members of the National Party would understand incurs costs on local governments, on councils.

What we’re proposing here is for that online application process which reduces those costs for local governments—Mr Ian McKelvie, I’m sure that we’ll see you standing shortly and making an impassioned speech in favour of this wonderful piece of legislation. But I would state, with regard to this being an identified barrier inside the Service Innovation Lab report—as well as the difficulty for those with mobility issues or disabilities in accessing rates rebates as they currently are required to, through the statutory declaration process—it’s also the case that it can be somewhat embarrassing to come forward in front of a local council, or to speak to employees of local council, and to make yourself known as somebody who is in need of a rates rebate. You literally, at present, have to go before those people and ask for that handout and you need to prove it and you need to go through a process—that process being all the more embarrassing and compounded if, for example, you do have the likes of those mobility issues, which currently, arguably, are people who are discriminated against under the status quo, which does not allow for that ease of access to those rates rebates. Surely we want a more accessible society for all.

The other important fact is that this bill makes a minor wording change—that being in new section 13, which I quoted from earlier—to allow those application forms to be approved by the Secretary for Local Government. This, essentially, allows for local councils to design, to create—potentially to co-create with their local communities—the kinds of forms that those who are going through the rates rebate process would like to use. Ultimately, that means that it can be easier for citizens in those local communities to access those forms, regardless of whatever their needs may be, but also it enables local councils to align these forms and these processes with their local internal unique processes, which in turn has a knock-on effect with regard to potentially enabling further cost savings and further cost reduction, which I’d state is something that was raised by my colleague Jamie Strange, from the Tron, which I visited recently. That’s one of the many places where you have local government candidates who are promising some really out-the-gate, off-the-wall kinds of proposals around cutting rates and somehow meaning to also increase services. I’ll leave it to those candidates before local communities—such as those that the people who are hopefully listening to and enjoying this debate tonight get to press those candidates on.

What we’ll see with this legislation passing through the House tonight—because it absolutely does have the support of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand—is that this bill will go before the Social Services and Community Committee. There we will have one of the fundamental premises of the National Party Opposition’s opposition to this bill tested—that being that local governments don’t want it to happen. So to any who are engaged in their local government processes who may be listening to this debate tonight, I would suggest that you go out there and you turn to Parliament’s website and you make a submission. It’s absolutely your prerogative in which way you’d like to make that submission, but, based on the rationale that’s being progressed by this side of the House and the absolute lack thereof by the Opposition, I would hope to see that you would be in support of something that increases ease of access and reduces cost on your local community.

Further, in my final minute and a half, I would like to acknowledge, as others have before me, the incredible work of the Hon Ruth Dyson and the amendment that she brought not too long ago to this Rates Rebates Act to seek to again reduce costs and increase access to the Rates Rebate Scheme. As members of the Opposition, and indeed members of the Government, will see here, what we have is a situation where we are chipping away at a flawed status quo. Absolutely, as I have said in my introduction, this is not the panacea, this is not the Holy Grail, and this will not fix inequality or poverty overnight but what it will do is make life slightly easier for those everyday New Zealanders that the Hon Simon Bridges finds himself banging on about so frequently.

I’d just like, in my final 30 seconds, to address the point made by Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi with regards to the Productivity Commission—its draft report being released in July and the final report coming out in November. That report concerns, in particular, some of the more innovative ways that we could look at raising revenue for local councils, and I’ll take from his contribution that the National Party is interested in how we can increase resources for local government in this country. I’m looking forward to their support there as well.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): First of all, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the previous speaker, the honourable member Chlöe Swarbrick, on your member’s bill passing through the Governance and Administration Committee. It’s a very good bill. The previous speaker mentioned that this is a relatively small bill and that the purpose is to make this society a more accessible society. I want to say this bill is actually smaller than Chlöe Swarbrick’s bill, because this is a very, very small, piecemeal bill indeed. That bill also tries to make it more accessible to people to participate in elections. That’s good—yes, a very good bill. That’s why we have unanimous support for that particular bill.

Now, this bill itself, as I said, is very small, and also there’s no need—as our previous speaker, Kanwal Bakshi, just mentioned—really, for this particular bill, because the Productivity Commission is going to release the final report in just, say, over months. The draft report has come out and has suggested that we need to somehow abolish this particular scheme, and therefore there is no urgency to do this particular bill. But why is the Government doing this?

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Because they don’t have anything to do.

Dr JIAN YANG: Yeah—because they are living in poverty: poverty of ideas. They don’t have ideas—exactly. They had so many working groups, but in the end—in the end—there are no ideas. So they are trying to filibuster their own bills. This is very ironic.

I have to say, my fellow committee members, like Ginny Andersen and the Hon Peeni Henare and also Jamie Strange—oh, he was here—and some others, and Paul Eagle—these are very good members. I love to work with them, but tonight they are trying very hard to filibuster their party’s, their Government’s, own bill. Good luck to them, and I would like to see them tomorrow in high spirits. Thank you.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, before I begin my speech, I’d just like to address Dr Jin Yang around his comment about living in poverty. I thought it was very interesting that the entire group across in the Opposition laughed, as if there was something wrong with living in poverty.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we just get on with the bill. And it’s Jian Yang—Dr Jian Yang.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: Jian Yang—thank you.

So to the bill: it’s an utter pleasure to stand and take a call on this bill. The Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill is a small but good bill, and I want to congratulate the Minister, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for bringing this amendment and bill to the House. It is an interesting bill in that while it is small, this good piece of legislation is the kind of thing that my community is really looking for. As you may be aware, my community is filled with a large number of superannuitants, a large number of people who are in need of support. So, being the ninth least affordable city in the world, this is a bill indeed that will support my community.

I’m also delighted that the bill is coming to the Social Services and Community Committee. I am a member of that, and, to endorse the member Chlöe Swarbrick’s comments, I look forward to the submissions.

Now to the bill: the statutory declaration creates physical and financial barriers. So, by doing away with the physical and financial barriers, we’re actually enabling people to generally access this easier. Being physically present—and we have heard this—is quite embarrassing for people.

Michael Wood: Will the member yield the floor?

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: I yield to the member.

Michael Wood: I thank the member for yielding. Just on the point that she has raised, I wish to ask her a question by way of example. I have a woman who lives in my neighbourhood who is elderly and who, for various reasons, is unable to leave her home but is eligible for the rates rebate, and every year she has to come around to my house for my signature to be able to progress with her rates rebate. Is it likely that this bill will assist with her situation?

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: I thank the member for his question. Absolutely—this bill is designed, 100 percent, to support your elderly community member. I think it is important to acknowledge two facts, one fact being that she doesn’t need to physically be in person appearing, and, secondly, the other part of the bill is that she can actually do that online if she’s able to. So in answer to the member: absolutely, this will prevent her having to physically do that.

Now, it’s absolutely a delight to continue to talk on this bill because, essentially, as the member has asked the question, many of us need to think about the old people in our communities, or the infirm—those who are in wheelchairs or having difficulty accessing and getting access to this. It’s really important that we remember that there is the ability, absolutely, to now do this online. I’m really looking forward to hearing from the submitters, and I really hope, even though the Opposition are not taking very long calls, that we will actually have a number of submitters who will tell us how important this is to them and how accessible this will be for them.

So, finally, in conclusion, or just before I take a seat, I think it’s also important to note that local authorities are not going to incur the cost to mitigate these barriers any further. That’s really important for our communities, our local bodies, and that is important, essentially, because what we know is that this in-person compliance is absolutely—I guess it’s a 1970s piece of legislation that we’re modernising. I commend the bill.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d dearly love to ask the last speaker a question too, but I don’t have time. I see my whip looking at me very sternly. Now, interestingly, this piece of legislation first came to this House in 1973, and probably I’m the only one that can remember that—oh, apologies, Madam Speaker. The interesting thing about it is that I’ve never once in my public life, which extends beyond most of you as well, had a complaint about the way the Rates Rebate Scheme operates for those it operates for. The only complaints I’ve had about it are the people who struggle to access it for various reasons. Now, the Hon Ruth Dyson did fix one of those with a member’s bill a year or two ago, but the other issue that I get a lot of is people who are living in trust houses who don’t have access to the Rates Rebate Scheme. That’s a real challenge, I think, for some people, but I think the Rates Rebate Scheme, in itself—it would be wonderful if we didn’t have to have a rates rebate scheme, because, frankly, that would mean everyone had enough money to pay the bills; they don’t have, and so it’s essential to have a rates rebate scheme.

I want to make one other comment on this, though, and the other interesting thing about this is that I don’t think that the alternatives to a rates rebate scheme are solutions that would work in society. We’ve seen various banks try, I guess, to find other ways of, effectively, mortgaging rates, and I don’t think that’s a good solution at all, because, effectively, what happens is that people go into those schemes not really knowing where it’s going to end. The interesting challenge now, of course, is that as life expectancy grows and grows and grows, your ability to pay the rates could very well end before you get to the end of your life, and so it’s a flawed scheme.

So the Rates Rebate Scheme is a good scheme, but, as I said, I’ve never seen once in my time someone who was eligible for the Rates Rebate Scheme struggle to access it because of the changes that are being made in this bill. So for that reason we don’t support the bill, because I think that if you’re going to get a handout from the Government, whatever your stage, you at least should be accountable in some form, and that’s what the current system of applying for a rates rebate—it just gives you some accountability, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. So we are not supporting the bill for that reason, basically, and I commend the bill to the House.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to make a contribution at this first reading of the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill, and I do so with pleasure, because this is ultimately a bill that is about fairness and access and efficiency and, really, about choice as well. This is a bill that attempts to make the application process for rates rebates a little bit more accessible to those who need a rates rebate in the first place. It also aims to increase the efficiency of the application process.

So, currently, the way that the process is set out under the Rates Rebate Act of 1973, as the honourable Ian McKelvie has pointed out, means that applicants have to make a statutory declaration. This is problematic for a few reasons. Firstly, it means that they have to actually be present at council offices and to meet with people who are actually authorised to allow them to make a statutory declaration. So, I mean, to me, this is what this Parliament is here for. This is what Government is here for. It’s to make things a little bit easier for people who need it, and this bill will make it easier specifically for those who have a physical mobility issue or other impairments that mean that it makes it difficult for them to appear in person at a council or in front of an authorised person to make that statutory declaration.

We also know that for many who live in rural communities, this is a little bit difficult for them, to actually get to councils where they can make a stat declaration. Finally, we are also talking about a group of people who are on low incomes and therefore need the rates rebate in the first place because their rates are high, and so to add travel costs to the application process—which means not only do they have to take the time and make the effort to travel to a place to make this declaration but they also actually have to pay to be able to do so.

This bill, although it’s a seemingly minor tweak, will actually make life easier for people, and that, I thought, is what we’re here to do. So it is actually quite disappointing that exactly one week out from when we celebrate the International Day of Older Persons on 1 October, the Opposition is not supporting a bill that will actually make it easier for those very people, largely those who are on superannuation, to be able to access what is rightfully theirs.

As the Opposition has also mentioned the fact that perhaps we should abolish the scheme in its entirety, I thought at this point just to note that the Rates Rebate Scheme goes back a long way. It goes back to the 1970s, when Norman Kirk was the Prime Minister, and his focus was on getting good things done to those who need it most. He acknowledged that people who were paying off a mortgage were often struggling to do so and that they spent a significant portion of their income paying off their mortgage in order to be able to own their house, but every quarter they were slapped with a rates bill that was a challenge for them, especially those who were earning low incomes but were paying high rates.

I just want to remind the House where this comes from, when there’s discussion from members opposite about abolishing it. This is there for a reason. It’s not just a handout. It’s actually there to make life easier for people who are struggling to be able to afford to live. So let’s just remind ourselves of that, and also of the fact that over the time that Labour was in Opposition, from 1972 to 1975, the scheme started to be run down, and also the amount that people could earn wasn’t updated, the amount that they were paying in rates wasn’t updated, and so the number of people who qualified for the Rates Rebate Scheme fell off, and it was just down to a handful of people who could actually afford it.

I want to also just very quickly pay tribute to my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson, who then took this further, because when she was, back in Helen Clark’s Government, the Minister for Senior Citizens, she noticed that so many who were dependent on superannuation couldn’t afford to pay their rents. So some of those tweaks were done then, in terms of updating the amount that people could earn and rates and so on.

She also noticed that there was a proliferation of retirement villages—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I should have stopped this earlier, but we are actually focusing on this bill.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Yeah, no. I’ll come to that. I just wanted to place it in context in terms of—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I understand that, but we are focused on this bill, first reading.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Sure. So I will move on to my next point, Madam Speaker—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —which is that, in addition to the fact that it helps those who can’t physically be there to make a statutory declaration, it also provides choice. It provides options so that it can be done online, and there’s no reason that all applicants should have to be physically present. It doesn’t take away the choice for those who choose to be, but it gives others an alternative as well.

The other point that I want to make is that it reduces the administrative costs to local authorities. As we know, there are certain authorities that have to make home visits to those who can’t physically travel or perhaps can’t afford to travel to councils to make the statutory declaration, and that is a burden on councils that is unnecessary. What this bill does is to do away with that unnecessary burden.

It also improves the efficiency of processing applications, because in as far as there was the requirement—well, there’s still a requirement—for people to be physically present and make a statutory declaration, it has meant that councils are then prevented from using technologies that are increasingly available to us to improve the efficiency of processing applications. So the tweak that this bill will make when it’s passed into law means that it makes things much more efficient for local councils as well, because it gives them that option of processing online applications alongside a paper-based one.

People listening to this might think that removing this requirement might make the process less secure. But actually it doesn’t, because currently, status quo, when somebody goes to make a statutory declaration, authorised witnesses aren’t actually required to verify whether the information given in that statutory declaration is actually true or whether it’s an offence for applicants to provide false or misleading information. But in fact the penalties are already quite high for those who choose to provide false or misleading information. So the risk of this process being somehow less secure because of the removal of the statutory declaration requirement is actually not true.

So just to summarise, I guess, this also sits alongside an increase in the rates rebate that was made slightly earlier this year, which keeps up with the cost of living, and that goes to the heart of what this bill does again, which is to make sure that those who are eligible for the Rates Rebate Scheme are able to access it in a way that is easier for them and it actually makes the process much more efficient as well for all those involved.

I just wanted to quickly point out—and it was actually just mentioned earlier that the Hon Ruth Dyson had made a change to do with rates rebates and retirement villages. This week actually marks the end of the first year of when that change came into place: 4,275 applications were received by 44 councils across New Zealand, which has seen a total of $2.5 million—

Hon Peeni Henare: How much?

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —$2.5 million—that has actually been given back to residents who were eligible for this. That’s what we’re here to do, to make sure that everyone who is eligible for a rebate like this is able to access it in a way that they choose to access it and in a way that makes it easy for them to be able to do so.

I, coincidentally, met with John Collins, who’s the executive director of the Retirement Villages Association, just this afternoon, when he gave me all this information, and he told me that that tweak that the Hon Ruth Dyson made has made such a substantial impact on the lives of those who otherwise would have been struggling. So, while this seems to be a bill that does something really quite minor, I would argue that it’s a bill that makes a substantive change to the lives of some of our older citizens who have been struggling. So I commend this bill to the House.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I stand to speak to this Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill in its first reading tonight. I understand that my colleague Dr Jian Yang referred to it as a poverty of ideas from the Government. I refer to this as “Space Invader”. It’s really just filling the gaps of the Order Paper in order to give this Government something to do in this House, because they are actually impoverished when it comes to legislation on the Order Paper.

This bill is proposed to make it easier for applicants who want to apply for the Rates Rebate Scheme. But, in support of my colleague Ian McKelvie, in my time in local government I have never had anyone who has complained about the process they need to go through in order to get their rates rebate. I think what we have to remember is that this money is actually taxpayers’ money that we are redistributing to people, and the least they could do is provide some accountability for their declaration of the financial means to prove that they do qualify for a rates rebate.

Hon Tracey Martin: Why don’t you like old people?

MAUREEN PUGH: That is a very small action—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll just remind the member that New Zealand First gave up their speech. You could have had a say.

MAUREEN PUGH: —to undertake in order to give accountability to the taxpayers of New Zealand.

There is absolutely no cost to an applicant in having a statutory declaration signed. We know that JPs do it for free. They are spread across this whole country. They are provided in every public facility, in libraries, in council buildings, in their private homes, and I know they are spread to the four corners of this country. It is not a difficult process to get a statutory declaration signed, and all it does is confirm legally that something you are stating on that paper is in fact true. It’s not a big ask.

But we have this bill before us, and I know it’s been raised already tonight, but we have heard that the Productivity Commission delivered its draft report in July of this year and it’s actually going to recommend that this scheme be replaced. So in eight weeks the final report will be delivered that will be recommending that very thing. So I have no idea why we are here debating this bill, when the Productivity Commission is actually going to recommend that it is replaced. This is a complete waste of the House’s time. I’m not going to waste any more of it either.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Everyone loves a refund—everyone loves a refund. It’s a good thing. Why would you make it harder for somebody entitled to a refund to be able to receive that? I really don’t know and we haven’t heard any arguments tonight as to why that would be the case.

I vividly remember how important it was to get a rates rebate. I remember my grandmother—God rest her soul—in Nelson, dressing up in her Sunday best with her papers clutched under her arm, marching down to the council chambers in order to get her rates rebate. That was important and that made a substantial contribution to the income for that household. And she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone, because last year over 102,000 New Zealanders applied for a rates rebate and that brought the average person who applied for a rates rebate $582.50.

Now, my question is: how much would that rise to, how many more New Zealanders would have applied for a rates rebate and got another $582 in their pocket had this obstacle not been put in their way? Now, my grandmother was able to get out the door and walk down the road and take her papers with her, engage with the person behind the counter in order to sign her statutory declaration and receive her refund. But my question is: what if those things don’t apply? What if there are barriers to being able to do that?

It is a priority for this Government to ensure that all New Zealanders have access to a rebate on their rates. We are determined to remove any barriers for superannuitants, or anyone else who has a disability that would prevent them from accessing the money that they are rightly entitled to. So what about the person that is not able to attend the council office? What if there is a barrier in that way? It takes time, and it takes money.

The other big issue in this space that hasn’t been discussed tonight is that often, in small communities, particularly rural communities, there’s a lot of stigma attached to going and getting a rates rebate, by having to go out and line up with others and fill it out, whereas if this was available online, as it already is with your GST return and your IRD return—you can do those online, but, for some reason, National Party members don’t believe that people who are getting a rates rebate are entitled to the same ability online—not quite sure why. But it removes that stigma of having to go and ask for a return of money if you are of a low income, and that is important to accessing, for people who need it, to be able to receive that income return.

The other point that would apply to those people in rural communities is how you get to the council office, particularly if you’re over 65. We know, for a fact, that there are quite a few people over 65 who are no longer able to drive their own car. So in those rural communities, where there may not be regular public service transport systems operating, this is a real barrier to stop people getting what they’re rightly entitled to. If there are online services, that would make that far more available for them to do it.

The other point that’s important here too is the issue around disability, and we know for a fact that 79 percent of applicants to the scheme in 2017 and 2018 were superannuitants. But the 2013 Disability Survey found that 49 percent of those over 65 also had a physical disability, and that’s a real impediment to enabling people to receive money that they are rightly entitled to. Based on these figures, we can assume that many applicants of this scheme may have a declining physical impairment or declining mobility, and so that is really important to make sure that we are facilitating that. The requirement to be physically present also adds to the costs for travel, whether that be public or even private. So considering the fact that these people are eligible for receiving a rates rebate, for the very reason that they are of low income, additional barriers are being presented for this.

So what’ve we heard in terms of reasons tonight as to why you would deny a person entitled to a rates rebate from having the ability to do that online? I haven’t heard one mention, and this is typical of National Party. You’ll talk about filibustering, but this is an important right for human beings in New Zealand, and it’s important that they have access to that extra $580; $580 might not matter to the members opposite, but there are people in my community where $580 in their pocket is a whole lot of money. It’s a whole lot of money for grandchildren or extra shoes or extra things around the household, and I’m prepared to stand up and argue for that.

So when we think about why you would not be entitled to being able to decline the statutory declaration, the only argument I’ve vaguely heard was the one raised around fraud: that there was going to be some sort of great downward slide into over-65 people defrauding the rates rebate system because they are no longer required to come in and make a statutory declaration. Well, I really struggle to accept that as a valid argument, and I would want to point out, by looking at the problem definition objectives in terms of the RIS—regulatory impact statement—that in the 1973 bill, in addition to it being made an offence to make a false declaration it is also an offence to provide a false statement, to wilfully mislead anyone involved in the administration of the scheme—so that’s already covered off—and to provide a false or misleading answer to any question. Therefore, in the absence of any statutory declaration, there are still sufficient measures in place to address fraudulent claims, and to deter them.

So the one argument that we’ve heard tonight as to why people should not be able to do this online simply has no grounding at all. If you’re already moving to a digital age, where we can have RealMe identities, if we can do our tax returns, if we can apply for a passport, if we can do all these critical, quite high-risk, and also involving greater amounts of money—if we can do all of these things online, why would we not be able to do something, as they say, so insignificant as a refund of $580 to people who are already on limited incomes? I think it’s just mean. The only argument I can come up with is it’s just petty, mean-spiritedness to deny people this ability. To try and make out that it’s a waste of time, I think, is actually quite insulting to New Zealanders who struggle to get by on a week-to-week basis.

So in terms of the bigger issues that we need to be thinking about, the issues that actually matter that I’m interested in that relate to this bill are the big questions around the digital divide, because if we are saying that we want people to be able to access this additional refund, we need to be also considering how people who are over 65, or those with disabilities, are accessing the internet, and making sure that they do have access in those areas, and that’s why it’s so important that we have a digital strategy that takes into account all of those people who may be on lower incomes, and providing good access to not only purchasing the equipment but knowing how to utilise it, and that is just so important.

Look, I am proud to see a bill that’s come forward and made it very clear to New Zealanders, particularly those New Zealanders who really care about their rates rebate. It means a whole lot. This is a bill that will enable accessing what you are entitled to far easier, and that is a good thing. Streamlining processes and making sure people know what they’re entitled to and how they do it, without unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape. We’ve heard time and time again the members opposite wanting to cut red tape and bureaucracy, and making the system more streamlined. But, funnily enough, when it comes to people on lower income, that argument’s out the window.

So I really do not understand what the problem is with this bill. When I have turned up in my area in Hutt South, at debates around election time that are hosted by retirement villages, the hot topic that we are always asked is about rates rebate. It is incredibly important, and many people use it for such important things as buying their Christmas presents, when they get that, for grandchildren, or for putting it aside for important purposes when you’re on a limited income. So this is a bill that demonstrates this Government cares about people. This Government cares about people on lower incomes, and we are prepared to make their lives better by accessing the funds that they are rightly due to. I am proud to commend the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) 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 Social Services and Community Committee.

Bills

Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2)

In Committee

Debate resumed from 18 September.

Part 1 Amendments to Local Government Act 2002 (continued)

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Just to recap on Part 1 in this speech, because I think we had a very full and robust contribution from members, so it would be important to just set out some of the key features of Part 1 in order to engage further with members. Firstly, to recall, the bill removes the threat of amalgamation from local authorities by restricting reorganisation requests to local authorities; myself, as the Minister; or those receiving community support, and by requiring a petition of at least 10 percent of local electors to proceed—so, lifting the threshold. This is really important because many of the amalgamation petitions that were embarked on that weren’t successful were done with a lot of negative sentiment at the community level. So lifting the threshold to 10 percent gives more assurance at the front end about whether or not there’s any local support for a decision of that magnitude.

Furthermore, in terms of the new tools that will be provided to help councils govern council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and to provide better accountability and reporting mechanisms, it ingests into the CCO governance space, I think, the types of transparencies that the public would expect as CCOs undertake their particular objectives and become more accountable to their local community. Then, thirdly, in terms of Part 1, what we’re trying to do in the first stage of reframing the role of the Local Government Commission—because it will still have a role for reorganisation and representation reviews—we want to ensure that those functions continue to remain but also that we have time to engage with the sector about the nature of the independent role and function for the Local Government Commission.

These were the issues that came up in the questions previously on Part 1 of the bill, but I did want to take some time to respond with a little bit more detail to two questions that were raised by my colleague Minister Henare. Firstly, in relation to proposed section 17(3A) in clause 7 of the bill, he asked what are the implications of section 17(3A) in terms of Treaty settlements and the way resources are managed. Just for clarity’s sake—and I thank the member for the question—transfers of responsibility under section 17 can only take place when both the transferring and receiving councils agree that the benefits of the transfer outweigh any negative effects. Before deciding on that question, however, both councils must undertake consultation in accordance with the principles in section 82 of the Act. Section 82 requires councils to have processes for effective consultation with Māori.

The Act does not currently set out the criteria to be considered for the purposes of a section 17 transfer of responsibilities. The bill introduces criteria to which a council must have regard when considering a transfer. This includes the linkages between communities, and iwi and hapū, and their relationship with sites and resources of significance.

The bill ensures that all existing co-governance and co-management arrangements between councils, and iwi and hapū are protected. In any transfer of responsibilities, iwi and hapū should have the same access to co-governance and co-management arrangements. The only change would be which local authority is responsible for that arrangement.

Now, can I say that this is a matter that will have to be tested, but I suspect that many councils, in upholding their Treaty settlement obligations, would with some trepidation tread very carefully, were the issue of transfer of responsibilities to be a matter that they would have to contend with. I think, for the member’s assurance, that the way in which councils will have to engage with iwi Māori on questions such as that which he has posed in the committee of the whole House should give a level of assurance that there are some checks and balances around any quick transfer of responsibilities with a full consideration of those particular issues. So I hope that that does clarify to some extent the concern that he demonstrated in the question, and I’m sure many iwi who have their Treaty settlement obligations with particular councils that have been specified will also have assurance around the provision that’s been set out in the bill.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to make a simple point around the disestablishment of the Local Government Commission and severely reducing their powers to undertake amalgamations. It seemed to me that there was a theme throughout the Cabinet papers, the discussion papers, and the general advice provided to the Minister throughout the working up of this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 323, which sought, really, to reverse the good changes which had been proposed by the former Government. There was a very strong theme around the spectre of large-scale amalgamations, and it did seem to me and to those of us on this side of the House that there was, in effect, almost a witch-hunt against the Local Government Commission and the good work that the commission was doing.

So, while this SOP simply reverses a number of good measures brought by the Government, I have yet to see a proposal for what the roles of the commission might be in the future, and I’d welcome some guidance from the Minister on just that point, because it just seems to me that the Local Government Commission has its genesis—oh, I just don’t recall. But the commission has been established for quite a number of years, and apart from its roles and responsibilities under the Act, it has also, over time, been a well-respected and well-regarded body of commissioners who, in my experience both in local government but also in my role as a parliamentarian, were there as an independent commission, obviously, always in a position to provide guidance and support to councils.

If you think about the local government environment and the local government view that Parliament is forever passing down the unfunded mandate—if I’m not straying too far from the bill, but I’m making a general point about the commission. The commission and commissioners—a number of them over time have been former mayors with a vast array of experience—have provided outside of some of those statutory functions a really valuable service, a lending ear perhaps, to councils at times when they have needed that extra support and advice. I would be interested in the Minister’s view on what shape the Local Government Commission might take in the future.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to speak this evening. This is my first opportunity to speak in relation to this bill, and I can actually do it from a position of experience. In 2013, I was elected to the Far North District Council, and in 2013, Northland was one of the four regions who were being looked at by the Local Government Commission in terms of reorganisation. That process went on for some time. It was quite a drawn-out process. It was initiated by the Far North District Council, then there were alternative applications put in by surrounding councils, and then the Local Government Commission actually rejected all of those applications and proposals and came out with its own draft proposal.

I want to just respond to the comment made earlier that this wasn’t a witch-hunt in Northland regarding the Local Government Commission, but there was strong opposition to the draft proposal for reorganisation in Northland. There was not sufficient, demonstrable community support, which is the requirement under the Local Government Act 2002 in order for a draft proposal to be able to proceed to the next stages.

Now, there was some disappointment actually expressed by the Local Government Commission regarding that decision by Northlanders. Instead of actually just declining that application and putting that draft report aside, they actually left it on hold, which they can do under the Act, and they went and scoped out some other options. They made some suggestions and recommendations around the possibility of shared services, which at the time was received by Northlanders with a bit of caution. It felt like amalgamation by stealth—that now we would look at shared services.

When this legislation came into place under the previous National Government, there was a lot of apprehension at the community level that there was a desire by central government to try and encourage, if not force, amalgamations and actually circumvent the processes within the legislation that the Local Government Commission would have to follow—i.e., the main one being that there needed to be demonstrable community support—and so it was alarming to see that they were trying to remove a threshold which required communities to show that. So I am pleased that this Government is reintroducing a threshold of 10 percent of the voters in a particular area, to show that there is actually sufficient support for an application to be put forward and considered for reorganisation and that it can’t just be done by an individual. This affects tens of thousands of voters and huge areas—in our case, it was going to be from the Far North, from Cape Reinga, right down to Wellsford, including the Kaipara District Council, the Whangarei District Council, the Far North District Council, and the Northland Regional Council—and so I think these are important amendments that we are proposing to make in this section.

The other concern that I have is around increased powers for council-controlled organisations (CCOs). Again, I feel like that was a move to take powers from local government, who are democratically elected through their processes, to CCOs, which do not have the same level of scrutiny by the ratepayers and by their shareholders. So I think that the bill here is trying to introduce amendments that will make CCOs more accountable to local communities through the councils that control them. In particular, it is about introducing some requirements to meet obligations to Māori, and if I can just quickly go to that section—it’s quite a big Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), so I just have to have a quick flick through there. What we have in SOP 323 is clause 21B, which would amend section 57, and it is particularly around the appointment of directors. I can look around some of our CCOs and currently see that this is a gap, and so this proposed amendment would actually, I think, address the gap that we currently see on some CCOs.

So it would require councils: “When identifying the skills, knowledge, and experience required of directors of a council-controlled organisation, the local authority must consider whether knowledge of tikanga Māori may be relevant to the governance of that council-controlled organisation.” Further, in terms of making actual decisions, significant decisions of council-controlled organisations affecting land or water, in particular it says, “Before a council-controlled organisation makes a decision that may significantly affect land or a body of water, it must take into account the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral land, water, sites, wāhi tapu, valued flora and fauna, and other taonga.”

In my own local area, the Auckland marina was one of these cases where I think that it is important that, on the council-controlled organisation, there are the skills and the expertise, the knowledge, and the mātauranga in the make-up of the directors. Now, this hasn’t been a requirement to date, and I can see there has actually been an issue on the ground where these proposed amendments could alleviate situations like that. Now, through a thorough process of appeals and further engagement, an outcome was reached there, but I believe it could have been improved by having this requirement up front.

The other part was in the statement of expectations of the CCOs. So, actually, replacement section 64B(1) in clause 21D of SOP 323 states, “The shareholders in a council-controlled organisation may prepare a statement of expectations that—(a) specifies how the organisation is to conduct its relationships with— … (iii) iwi, hapū, and other Māori organisations;”—it includes others there, but this is a specific requirement to include iwi, hapū, and other Māori organisations. It “(b) requires the organisation to act consistently with— … (ii) the shareholders’ obligations pursuant to agreements with third parties (including with iwi, hapū, or other Māori organisations).” So the question that I really have for the Minister is: what is the expectation about Māori and CCOs in terms of what is proposed in this legislation? What are the expectations? What difference might we see that these changes could make in terms of Māori and CCOs?

The final point that I wanted to make about the Local Government Commission is it is envisaged that it could have a reduced role, and if it has a reduced role, then there may be not as much need for as many appointed members. Currently, there are three to five, and it is envisaged in this Act that potentially it could be as few as two or even one, but there are some requirements specifically in the Act around this. I think it is important—and if the Minister has anything that she would want to add to why it is important—that if the commission is going to consist of two or three members, one member must have knowledge of tikanga Māori and must be appointed by the Minister after consultation with the Minister for Māori Development, and if the commission consists of only one member, that member must be appointed by the Minister, who must take into consideration whether the member has a knowledge of tikanga Māori or experience as an elected member or of a chief executive of a local authority, and must consult with the Minister for Māori Development and the New Zealand Local Government Association Inc.

Given that the Local Government Commission can make decisions about reorganisation, including Māori participation in local government and in council decision-making, I think it is important that this provision that is here, that if there is a reduced Local Government Commission of two members or three members that it includes one Māori. If it is only one, that there’s a thorough process including consulting the Minister for Māori Development. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Civil Defence): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair, and thank you for this opportunity.

First, can I acknowledge the Minister’s response in taking the first call this evening, because I recall, when putting the question forward, some confusion about where I was reading from but certainly her answers dispelled any confusion that I have on the matter and provided significant clarity. She does make a very valid point around testing this as we move into the future. I look forward to allowing breathing space for that to be tested. There will be some significant challenges as we consider the role of local government and council-controlled organisations moving into the future when we consider the obligations that are met, that have been made, under Treaty settlements. I look forward to seeing how that space evolves.

I want to pick up just on a couple of things that my colleague Willow-Jean Prime mentioned in her contribution. I think she raised some good points, and I want to drill down on a couple. This is certainly one of those questions that I ask of every bill where we look to consider tikanga Māori in a bill, because of just the variations of tikanga Māori, the sort of threshold one might put in place to acknowledge whether or not somebody can be considered to have a strong knowledge of tikanga Māori. For example, I consider myself somewhat of an amateur in tikanga Māori but I, according to this bill—and also a humble one too, might I add. But in this bill could I be considered in roles outside of my rohe or my region simply because I have a strong knowledge of tikanga Māori?

I want to always challenge and question those aspects in all bills because I’ve always been an advocate for not putting in—the word in Māori is “whakakōhatungia”; in English that is “cementing”—aspects of tikanga Māori in legislation because there is a significant difference, as has been debated in this House on many occasions, between lo-r-e and l-a-w. I just wanted to just offer my thoughts on that, and if the Minister has any contributions that she might want to make on that, I think that that would be something worth debating.

The other part that my colleague the former councillor from the Far North Willow-Jean Prime talked about was the statement of expectations. It says in there, 64B(1), the organisation may prepare one—“may”. I know Hon Stuart Nash is one who’s always said, “Well, there is a significant difference between ‘may’ and ‘must’.” When I think about placing an expectation on a council, giving an opt-out of a “may” sometimes erodes the confidence of iwi, hapū, and Māori when they have expectations of a local council in working with them, in dealing with them, and considering sites of significance. I wonder if the Minister is of a mind to, perhaps, strengthen that a little bit more or at least explain why it’s in here.

Simeon Brown: Put down an SOP.

Hon PEENI HENARE: If that member wants to make a contribution, he can take the time to read this Supplementary Order Paper 323, because I’m sure he hasn’t. But back to the bill.

It is important because I talk about eroding that confidence. I know it has more specific aspects as you read further down; it talks about iwi, hapū, and Māori organisations. All this does, too—as somebody from Tāmaki-makau-rau, I think about an urban Māori organisation. I know there is a strong representation through the bill for iwi and hapū, and that’s important, but what then might the role be of, say, the Manukau Urban Māori Authority in this case? Or what might the role be of the Waipareira Trust, or any other organisation that represents Māori interests in the city? Does that override local hapū? I’m not too sure. But I’m sure that the Minister in her consideration for this bill with the team of officials—some of those questions will no doubt have cropped up. I want to make sure that we as a committee can flesh those out to make sure that there is absolutely no ambiguity on the matter. I’m reminded of the words of Sir Geoffrey Palmer where he talks about discretion being the mother of all injustice. Where you find those rooms of flexibility in that space sometimes that’s a good thing but often we find, in particular in respect to Māori rights and Māori aspirations moving forward, that we actually fail to meet them.

That’s just one of those questions I want to leave on the floor for everyone to consider. Hopefully the Minister and officials can consider that as we move forward on the bill.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Kia ora, Mr Chair—just to take a quick call on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) at committee stage. As has been canvassed by my colleagues, there are Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table from the Minister, and as a previous member of the inaugural Rodney Local Board of the first Auckland Council when it was amalgamated—I should actually say that I’m standing on behalf of the Hon Ron Mark, who’s in Timor-Leste this evening. He is the spokesperson generally for local government, so it would normally be he who actually rises to take a call on this bill.

As I said, as one of the inaugural elected members of Auckland, for example, where there was a forced amalgamation on the Rodney area of what is now the super-city of Auckland—I don’t know if people call it “super” any more. It’s been somewhat of a disaster under the previous Government, I would have to say. Just to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, Nanaia Mahuta, who’s doing her very best to try and right the wrongs and the disaster that was put into place by the previous Government—but if we go around to some of the Supplementary Order Papers that are sitting on the Table, I have to say I’m very much looking forward to the contribution from the member from Rodney, because I know that the Northern Action Group, for example, has recently put out an email on some of the Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table around the 10 percent requirement to change any of the settings around an amalgamation, for example.

I would ask the Minister, at the most suitable time, if she wouldn’t mind speaking to the issues that have been raised by the Northern Action Group. But I’m sure the member from Rodney will also be raising those issues because, of course, he is the elected representative for that area. So I have no doubt that we will hear a contribution from him from the Opposition benches at some stage on this bill.

But, at the very least, what I’d like to do is commend the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, for taking this initiative to try and work through, first of all, making sure that we don’t have further communities, like Rodney was, dragged kicking and screaming into an amalgamation that they were never asked about, that they never wanted, that they weren’t supported in. But I would ask the Minister, if she has an opportunity before the House rises tonight—she may want to wait until the member from Rodney raises any other questions that he has around this issue that affects his electorate and that the Northern Action Group is actually asking for his support on, but if she could at some stage stand and just talk a little bit about the Supplementary Order Paper she has on the Table there, that there is a level of concern around which is requiring a petition of at least 10 percent of local electorates to proceed, then I would be most grateful.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I’m pleased to take a call on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). Can I just acknowledge and thank the Minister Nanaia Mahuta for her opening remarks tonight on this bill.

I want to make a contribution on Part 1, clause 21A, in particular replacement clause 56, which talks about the “Principal objective of council-controlled organisations”. Briefly, clause 56 talks about “(1) The principal objective of [the council] is to—(a) achieve the objectives of its shareholders, both commercial and non-commercial, as specified in the statement of intent; and (b) be a good employer; and (c) exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which it operates and by endeavouring to accommodate or encourage those interests when able to do so;”.

I am so thankful this bill is coming to the House. I am thankful that the Minister has seen the wisdom to empower our councils, particularly in relation to this clause around council-controlled organisations (CCOs), because it is about empowering councils. We understand we have commercial arms of councils, but where you saw in very recent times—and as the local MP for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, we too had an issue called the Ruataniwha Dam, which, obviously, one of our CCOs in Hawke’s Bay was doing something that the community had no way of pulling them in and being accountable to the ratepayers. So I draw the committee’s conclusion and commend the Minister for addressing the role of CCOs and returning the power and accountability back to the council, and particularly to the ratepayers.

So, in this particular clause 56, I’m pleased—and maybe at a time that the Minister wants to make a call—around the introduction of clause 56(1)(c) that talks about, like I said, “exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility”, not just purely commercial. In my example around the Ruataniwha Dam, we spent $20 million of ratepayers’ money and we never saw anything of it. So this is an example where we had a big local issue, and yet the ratepayers in Hawke’s Bay and their views were encountered in the pursuit of a dam that, environmentally, was challenging the environment, but it was also not delivering the commercial returns.

So I am pleased that we’ve got a part—Part 1, clause 21A, replacement clause 56(1)(c)—that actually reintroduces not just the roles of CCOs but also talks about their responsibility, in addition to commercial returns, both to social and environmental considerations.

So, when the Minister’s able to take a call on specifically the role of CCOs, it would be interesting to hear from her what submitters said on this particular bill or, I guess, the rationale that caused the Minister to drill a lot deeper into the role of CCOs than what we had previously in the Act, because our real-life example, the example I gave, was quite polarising in the community that I come from, which is the Greater Hawke’s Bay region, in that, again, time and time again, communities wanted answers but the CCO adopted a cannot be touched, are not responsible, are not accountable—and I am referencing that as a pure example to back up the Minister’s addressing this in this particular new section 56(1), inserted by clause 21A. So it is about the CCOs. I commend the Minister in trying to make that really tidy around their role, ensuring the accountability rests with the council and, ultimately, the ratepayers, but, more importantly, introduces the social, environmental, and cultural consideration of council-controlled organisations which previously did not exist.

And so I do want to commend the Minister, and when she has the time, to expand on the move in which she’s addressing this. Thank you.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): Look, there have been a number of questions raised in the Chamber, and I feel—just before the committee is about to rise—I should respond to a few of them.

But just to step back in order to lean in to the questions that we’ve been asked, when I came into this particular role, the local government sector was very fearful that there was an amalgamation agenda. As many times that I said that is not the agenda of this Government, somehow, some way, they believed that there was an agenda. And it would be easy to understand if you looked at the original bill that was tabled in the House that we inherited that we are now seeking to change, because, in that particular bill, there was a preference for multiply owned council-controlled organisations (CCOs). Again, the sector was reading this as a covert way of trying to drive amalgamation. But here’s the thing: there was a proposed enhanced role in the original bill that was tabled by the previous administration to strengthen the role of the Local Government Commission so that they could initiate amalgamation reviews. So you can understand the anxiety that we inherited from the sector that believed that there was this amalgamation agenda. It certainly isn’t the case in terms of the aspirations of this Government—this coalition, confidence and supply Government—who believe, actually, that local communities have the wherewithal to determine their own future, which is why we have introduced the Supplementary Order Paper of this nature that breathes more transparency into the way in which CCOs operate.

I want to come, firstly, to the questions that were raised by Willow-Jean Prime. The member asked about the provisions in relation to, for example, clause 21C, which inserts new section 60A, which sets out a provision for council-controlled organisations to take into account Māori and cultural views in relation to ancestral land, water, sites, and wāhi tapu. Now, I would probably say, in the Auckland context, both Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development, and Watercare are really prime examples of where this would apply in a very practical way but would actually give regard to existing aspirations reflected through Treaty settlements, in relation to the land and the water and the sacred sites of the area. For CCOs to have greater regard of those things, and to make it very clear with the provisions that we’re putting in, it’s actually the reality that those particular CCOs that I’ve mentioned are working with—it’s the context within which they’re working to right now, and it adds and substantiates, I guess, their effort to take greater account of that.

The other thing that I want to mention—and, again, it was raised by Willow-Jean Prime—is in relation to the role and function of the Local Government Commission. As I said in my opening statements to the committee stages, this is stage one of rethinking and revising what the independent role and purpose will be of a local government commission in some form. This is not the place and time to rehearse policy; that will be done on another day. However, this is the time to indicate and signal to the committee that there must be an independent role and it can take a different shape and form. And we’re not just going to do that on the hoof.

Debate interrupted.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2).

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.