Wednesday, 16 October 2019

WEDNESDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2019

WEDNESDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers

Prayers

SPEAKER: Faakalofa lahi atu. Because it’s Niuean Language Week I’ve asked Anahila Ngatongaha’a-Suisuiki to—I’m going to say that again—Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki to recite the prayer in Niuean. I apologise.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Ko e Atua nae, kua ole mo e fakatokolalo atu a mautolu ke he Haau a takitakiaga mafola, kia tuku kehe e tau manako fakatagata, ka e ole atu ki mua Haau kia tonu mau e lilifu he tau tauteaga oti ki loto he Fale nei mo e ha mautolu a motu ne fakaheke ke he Haau a higoa Tapu, ke fakafetui mau mo e taute e tau fifiliaga tonu ki mua he lilifu ko e Patuiki Fifine, mo e lalolagi mo e tau tagata katoa, ke he mafola, mo e milino a Niu Silani katoa, ha ko e higoa ha Iesu Keriso, ko e ha malu Iki. Amene.

[Almighty God, we humbly acknowledge our need for Thy loving guidance, and, laying aside all private and personal interests, humbly ask You that we conduct with dignity all the affairs of this House and of our country who worship Thy holy name, always striving to meet and make correct decisions, to the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace, and tranquillity of New Zealand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.]

SPEAKER: I again apologise to the member. I explained to her previously that I was getting nervous over the greeting and then, of course, I massacred her name, which is actually not forgivable.

Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2)

Introduction and 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.

SPEAKER: A point of order in relation to the questions?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): No, Mr Speaker. It’s to seek leave.

SPEAKER: We’ll take a point of order.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2), a member’s bill in Brett Hudson’s name, to be introduced and set down as Government order of the day No. 1 today.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that process? There is objection.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Public Housing

1. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): What actions has this Government taken for public housing in New Zealand?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): Faakalofa lahi atu, Mr Speaker. Can I thank the member for her question, particularly given that this Government has implemented the biggest State house building programme since the 1970s. On coming into office, we put an end to nine years of neglect around housing. It was characterised by State houses being boarded up, sold, or demolished. This Government, however, has made a very clear commitment to the importance of a far stronger public housing sector in New Zealand. In Budget 2018 we committed $234 million to securing an additional 6,400 public housing places nationwide by June 2022, or 1,600 places per year on average, fully funded in Budget 2018. Across New Zealand more families now have a place to call home, thanks to the delivery of an extra 2,178 public housing places in the year to June 2019, with a pipeline established to deliver well over 2,000 more places for the coming year.

Marama Davidson: How many public houses have been built under this Government?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Since this Government has come into office, we have delivered 2,535 new builds. We’ve also housed 754 individuals and whānau through the Housing First programme and we’ve increased transitional housing places by over 1,000 places to a total of 2,989 places altogether.

Marama Davidson: Is this Government committed to building at scale and pace—

Chris Bishop: Ho, ho, ho!

Marama Davidson: —until the need is met?

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. The member who made that noise will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: And he’s lost some supplementaries; I’ll decide how many. Start again, please.

Marama Davidson: Is this Government committed to building at scale and pace until the need is met?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The Government build programme continues to pick up speed and deliver homes across our communities. For the year ended June this year, we exceeded the 1,600 target by 578 and delivered a total of 2,178 additional places. Kāinga Ora also currently has about 2,000 homes under construction or under contract. Kāinga Ora’s stepped-up build programme is delivering more and more homes that are designed to be built to modern standards including double glazing, insulation, accessibility—

Hon Maggie Barry: Speech—speech!

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: —and affordable heating, such as heat pumps. Thank you very much.

Marama Davidson: How are new State houses meeting people’s needs, especially around accessibility?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The Government has recognised that people on the housing register have different needs such as the size of family and, therefore, property; accessibility requirements for people who have disabilities; or proximity to employment or core services that the tenant may need. Kāinga Ora and the community housing providers are ensuring that the new housing provision better matches the unique needs of people on the housing register. Kāinga Ora also offers a community group housing service that specialises in providing suitable properties for community organisations to house and support people with physical or intellectual disabilities.

Marama Davidson: What steps has this Government taken to ensure that State houses provide a long-term home for people who are most in need?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The Minister for Social Development, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, and I recently announced $54 million in Government funding for initiatives which will support at-risk individuals and whānau to stay in their existing tenancies. The funding will also provide additional wraparound services, strengthening ways to reduce homelessness and prevent it. It complements the Government’s existing investment in the Housing First programme, which supports people with multiple high, complex needs who have experienced homelessness. We know that ensuring these people have stable tenancies will improve their overall outcomes.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Fakaalofa lahi atu and happy Niue Language Week. In answer the question, yes, and I will continue to stand by them for all five of the National Party’s Leader of the Opposition auditions today in this House.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why are more than three times the number of Kiwis leaving New Zealand under her Government’s policies than did in 2017?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member’s obviously referring to the net migration figures which came out yesterday, which actually show the numbers are fairly stable. They’ve come out at 53,810; a year ago, they were at 49,197. I note that that’s coming off a high-water mark under the last Government, in which, I have to say, there was not enough work done to ensure the infrastructure was able to maintain that kind of population growth.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given that “high-water mark”, when will net migration reach 20,000 people, as stated in the coalition agreement?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is referring to the immigration policy that the Labour Party campaigned on, which included removing the exploitation of students that that last Government did absolutely nothing about. It was scandalous what was happening to vulnerable, particularly young, people coming to study in New Zealand. I’m proud that our immigration Minister has focused squarely on ridding exploitation in the immigration sector, something the last Government did not do.

Hon Simon Bridges: Given the 13,500 net who left New Zealand for good, does she agree with Helen Clark, who said the main reason people choose to move overseas is the state of the economy?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I remember the days when there were comparisons between Australia and New Zealand, and I’m happy for those comparisons to occur. We have lower unemployment. We have better growth rates. We of course have opportunities in New Zealand that, of course, mean that New Zealanders—yes, when they look to overseas opportunities—think about travel and the experiences that our young people seek, but, ultimately, our economy, relative to others, is doing very, very well.

SPEAKER: Order! Before the member goes, can I just ask the members, especially those immediately behind the Prime Minister, to turn down their responses, because we’re getting their interjections through her mike and my mike.

Hon Simon Bridges: What does it say about her Government that in just two years Kiwis feel like they have more opportunities overseas than when National was in power?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely reject that member’s question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has any other export from New Zealand, other than our people, grown more than 3½ times in size since the end of 2017?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I reject the premise of that member’s question, but the value of our exports is doing very, very well.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I wonder if the Prime Minister, in response to those questions, could reflect upon the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, which shows New Zealand ahead of Australia, the UK, Canada, United States, Japan, EU, Norway, Finland, Singapore, and all advanced economies by miles?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely can confirm that. The IMF demonstrates what we have been saying for some time: New Zealand is in good shape. Not only have we delivered a surplus; we also have wages up, unemployment at 3.9 percent, and our growth rates are solid. Ultimately, the only one talking down the economy is that member and his Opposition.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by the Government’s policy of deciding how to implement the Tomorrow’s Schools independent task force review by the middle of this year?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I understand that the Minister of Education will have more to say on that very soon.

David Seymour: When will the Prime Minister be able to tell the public what the Government’s policy is on implementing the recommendations from the Tomorrow’s Schools independent task force review?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As we always do: when Cabinet has made its final decisions. But I stand by the fact that we’ve engaged the education sector and those with the most at stake fully in this process.

Question No. 3—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, in particular the progress we are making against some long-term challenges facing New Zealand, including recruiting 1,800 new police officers to help crack down on gangs; banning semi-automatic weapons to help keep our communities safe; increasing funding to combat organised crime trafficking drugs in the Pacific; more funding for police and customs, which has helped with the 2019 record meth seizures—more than 1.5 tonnes has been either stopped at the border or seized—and, of course, fog cannons: over 500 installed since we changed the criteria; previously, there were only three.

Hon Paula Bennett: Is one of the reasons she is supporting legalising recreational marijuana because she wants to see the black market for marijuana eradicated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I reject the premise of that question.

Hon Paula Bennett: Does the Prime Minister want to see the black market for marijuana eradicated?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will reflect, of course, that she could speak either to the status quo we have at the moment—

Hon Simon Bridges: Answer the question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —which, of course, is that all forms of drugs are currently on the black market.

Hon Simon Bridges: Ducking and diving.

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We are the ones that as a Government have increased—

Hon Simon Bridges: Answer the question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —the penalties for synthetics, and—

SPEAKER: I called the member to order four times. He reflected on my chairing on four occasions.

Hon Simon Bridges: No, I didn’t.

SPEAKER: Yes, the member did. He’s been here a long time. If he doesn’t understand that by now, I don’t have a lot of hope for him. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Simon Bridges: I withdraw and apologise.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I was saying, currently all drugs are peddled through a black market, and that is why we have increased the number of police officers to deal directly with those issues. We are bringing in 1,800 new police officers; 700 are earmarked for organised crime. We have increased the funding available to Customs to try and ensure that we have more drug busts for what is increasingly an offshore market. That is the status quo for our legislation, and we are boosting our activity to stamp it out.

Hon Paula Bennett: Are the number of gang members increasing faster than police?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Oh, if the member wanted to talk about the history of gangs growing, she’d do well to look at 2011—2011—where the Rebel motorcycle gang, under her watch, is where the growth really started.

Hon Paula Bennett: Can she confirm that the right price point and availability of a product in a legal market is what is required to get rid of the black market in drugs?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, the member might reflect on the fact that growth in gangs started in, roughly, 2011—according to some of the research—and, yes, that connection has been made at that time to a growth in methamphetamine. So if the member wants to reflect on whether or not these two issues are connected, yes, they are, and that started under the last Government.

Hon Paula Bennett: If marijuana is legalised, does she believe that there is a price point and an availability of cannabis that will mean that it will help eradicate the black market? It’s not a trick question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It is a hypothetical question, because that is not our law.

Hon Paula Bennett: Has the Government considered what excise tax they will put on marijuana if it’s legalised?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: This will ultimately be a question for the New Zealand public. There will be a full bill that they will be able to consider when they make that decision, and that will be made public before the referendum.

Hon Paula Bennett: Why has the Prime Minister called for a referendum on legalising recreational marijuana?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So that New Zealanders can determine whether or not that’s what they would like to see happen in New Zealand. It is called democracy, and we’re not afraid of it.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Green-Labour confidence and supply agreement includes a commitment to—and I quote—“[increasing] funding for alcohol and drug addiction services and [ensuring] drug use is treated as a health issue, and [having] a referendum on legalising the personal use of cannabis at, or by, the 2020 general election.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can confirm that. I also want to reflect again, as the member has helpfully pointed out, that members opposite seem to think these things are mutually exclusive. Unlike them, we have not ignored the harm of drug and alcohol use in this country. The last Budget had a considerable investment, including $200 million in capital investment for drug and alcohol treatment. These are issues that the last Government, frankly, ignored.

Question No. 4—Finance

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

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Acting Minister of Finance): Mr Speaker, fakaalofa lahi atu. Overnight, the IMF released its latest World Economic Outlook, showing New Zealand’s economic growth outlook remains steady against the backdrop of further slowing global growth. New Zealand’s economy is forecast to grow 2.5 percent in 2019, rising to 2.7 percent in 2020—well above other advanced economies. Unemployment is expected to remain close to its current level, and below other countries such as Australia and Canada.

Dr Duncan Webb: What does the IMF say about the global context for the New Zealand economy?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The IMF report shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US - China trade war and Brexit take hold. The IMF forecasts advanced economies to grow by 1.7 percent across both years, which is down from six months ago. According to the IMF, New Zealand is forecast to grow faster in 2019 and 2020 than Australia, the UK, Canada, the US, Japan, the EU, and the average across all advanced economies. It is always refreshing to see an international perspective on the New Zealand economy which can cut through some of the political negativity and see the solid fundamentals of the New Zealand economy.

Dr Duncan Webb: What reports has he seen on the cost of living in the New Zealand economy?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: This morning, Statistics New Zealand released Consumers Price Index inflation data for the September quarter. It showed annual inflation of 1.5 percent, down from 1.7 percent in June. This follows Statistics New Zealand figures showing average wages rising above 4 percent over the last year. This shows that working New Zealanders are taking home more pay in their back pockets and are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the coalition Government.

Hon Todd McClay: Is he aware the IMF has also predicted that unemployment would increase in New Zealand next year, and, if so, does he think that that means more New Zealanders will join the 13,500 that have voted with their feet and left to go to Australia?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Unemployment in New Zealand is at an 11-year low. It is extraordinary just how low unemployment is in this country. That shows the dedication of a Government devoted to raising wages, lowering unemployment, and cleaning up the mess of years of economic neglect by that previous Government.

Question No. 5—Prime Minister

5. Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s policies and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Welcome to contestant number three! Yes, the Government is making progress on the long-term challenges facing New Zealand, and that includes helping to break the cycle of educational underachievement by providing lunches in schools to 20,000 children and 120 schools by the start of 2021. We are scrapping school donations and removing NCEA fees. We’ve invested $1.2 billion in building new schools and classrooms for 100,000 students in over 10 years. We’ve improved our skilled workforce through reforming vocational education and training. We’re expanding our Mana in Mahi places by 2,000, and we’re rolling out the first tranche of learning support coordinators for children in more than 1,000 schools and kura.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Can she confirm that she received advice regarding the Government’s free lunch policy to use well-established providers such as KidsCan and KickStart and that she ignored that advice?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually, my recollection is in the conversations that were had with officials, we discussed the dual benefit of enabling schools to determine for themselves how they would roll out these programmes. This is about autonomy and choice. Some schools may choose to use providers, some may choose to use their own community and provide it within kitchens if they have it, or they may choose to work with local marae—it’s about giving schools the choice around how they provide this. We’re starting small so we can work through those choices with them.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Can she confirm that more than 60 schools had to be approached to take part in her Kiwi lunch programme because the original 30 have not come on board?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Can she confirm that the Government’s had to change its Kiwi lunch policy just weeks after she announced the initiatives, due to schools’ concerns about the infrastructure funding being inadequate?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No. We’ve always acknowledged in the funding of the programme that there would be room available for small capital needs that might be needed to be able to ensure the provision of the lunches in schools programme, but there was never funding made, for instance, for full commercial kitchens. This is about utilising the resource around the school community and what’s available within the school. If the member stands opposed to the idea of feeding kids in schools in some of our most deprived parts of the country, that is absolutely her and her party’s prerogative. This is a programme that we are immensely proud of. We are starting with a number of schools to get the design right, and I’m confident we will. I reflect on the Sunset Primary School, where the primary school principal there said they were incredibly grateful for the opportunity to feed their kids every day, and that’s what this is about.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Is she aware that local bakeries and a marae have been approached to provide the lunches but they have declined because they do not have capacity, and is it true that local Pita Pit and Subway have also raised issues regarding a Kiwi lunch programme?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The idea that we can’t muster together a nutritious lunch for school children in a small part of the country is absolutely ridiculous. We’re not starting the roll-out until the beginning of next year. We’re working closely with schools to design this in a way that meets their community needs, in a way that supports their community, offers the win-win of an extra boost in employment in the area, and also feeds kids. Yes, we’ve had one school of 70 students say that they would rather use KidsCan, but that’s a matter for them.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is this the first time she’s heard of the suggestion of propping up a foreign-owned franchise called Subway?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In the briefings that I’ve had, I’ve been advised that schools are wholeheartedly behind this programme. I’ve acknowledged the one case where one kura is choosing to continue to use KidsCan on a limited basis, and that’s their call. We are working in consultation with schools.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Is the Prime Minister concerned that the delivery of school lunches by schools might result in a smaller market share for Subway, Pita Pit, McDonald’s, KFC, and all of the other fast-food providers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, but I also want to acknowledge that in some of the areas that we’re looking to work in, there are no such franchises.

Hon Nikki Kaye: Will she guarantee she will not roll out her free lunch policy to 2,500 schools at an estimated cost of about a billion dollars, given the issues of capacity, infrastructure, and the fact that a number of schools don’t want to be part of her pilot?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What I can guarantee is we’re not going to stand by and let kids be hungry while we have the possibility to roll out a programme like this.

Question No. 6—Education

6. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What action is the Government taking to reduce schooling costs to New Zealand families?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yesterday, Parliament passed the Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill, that supports the implementation of the school donations scheme to start at the beginning of next year. This means that for decile 1 to 7 schools who choose to take part in the scheme, they will receive up to an extra $150 per student in funding if they do not ask parents directly for donations. This will take financial pressure off a large number of New Zealand families who’d like to give a donation to their school but struggle to do so. The scheme will also take pressure off schools themselves who ask parents and communities for donations but know that it will be difficult for them to pay.

Marja Lubeck: What reports has he seen on the schools who have already decided to take up the funding so that they don’t have to ask parents for donations?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I have seen a recent report from one school who says that the funding is going to alleviate a lot of pressure for him and his staff, for his kura of just over 100 students. He says that “For us, that’s $15,000 every year, and that goes a long way in our neck of the woods … It will take a lot of financial pressure off the school, off me to find funds to be able to do things that we want to do [for the] children.” This is a scheme that’s going to make a huge difference for many schools who were getting little in donations. It will give them opportunities to put more resources into their kids.

Marja Lubeck: What other reports has he seen from principals who have taken up the $150 per student funding?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I have seen a recent media comment from the principal of Hora Hora primary school, Pat Newman, who says that “he’s grateful for the $60,000 his school of 400 students will receive”. He said that he’s “not a person who always agrees with government decisions”, but he said, “a huge thank you to the Government for this [funding]”.

Marja Lubeck: Have the rules changed around payments by parents of students in State and State-integrated schools generally?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No. In fact, those rules have not changed, and, in fact, I have a copy of the 2013 circular issued under the previous Government that restates that section 3 of the Education Act of 1989 provides for the free right to enrolment and free education. Donation payments are entirely voluntary. Boards of trustees can only demand payment for non-curriculum things where there has been a clear agreement to accept the good or service in question. Parents have always contributed to their schools and their school communities in various ways, including the giving of their own time and through fund-raising activities. For people to say that this would suddenly end altogether, including for those schools who don’t want to go into the scheme, is simply scaremongering, negative, and confusing for schools.

Question No. 7—Prime Minister

7. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s policies and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Contestant number four—I’m not sure if you’re auditioning for the role or Judith’s role. Yes.

SPEAKER: Order! I think Ms Collins’ role.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Sorry, Judith Collins. Forgive me, Mr Speaker. Yes, the Government is making progress on the long-term challenges facing New Zealand—in particular, our actions to make low-emissions and electric vehicles more affordable; reduce congestion in our major cities by investing in public transport; making safety improvements to 3,300 kilometres of our State highways; and upgrading our rail network, including to boost our regional economies, something New Zealand First in particular are strong advocates for. Also, after neglecting its regulatory role for years, New Zealand Transport Agency are refocused on ensuring the cars on our roads are safe.

Chris Bishop: Has the Hon Shane Jones apologised to her for his remarks to the Northland Forestry Awards, which were likened by one attendee as an inducement to bribery, and another as buying votes?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve acknowledged this in the public domain several times. The Minister and I had a conversation. He acknowledged my view that he had sailed too close to the wind with his comments. The Minister has reflected, and agreed, of course, to stay in line with the Cabinet Manual.

Chris Bishop: Does she agree with the Hon Phil Twyford that the 12 roading projects that have either been cancelled or delayed by her Government because of re-evaluations caused by the Government policy statement on transport are of “very low economic value.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If that’s a reference to the East-West Link in Auckland—which is the most expensive roading project per kilometre in the world—then, yes.

Chris Bishop: Will she ask the Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter to release her secret letter to the transport Minister, Phil Twyford, given her Government’s commitment to openness and transparency?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: This is a matter that, obviously, that member’s party is engaged with ours over. We’ve simply reflected the fact that this was conversations between party members in a decision-making process. Obviously, the matter’s with the Ombudsman, and we’re completely comfortable with that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can it be a cancellation when—just two examples—the North Tauranga to Katikati so-called four-lane highway did not have one cent assigned to it, and neither did the Warkworth to Whangarei have one cent assigned to it, as well?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is correct. There were a number of projects announced by the last Government that were not funded, and, in fact, hadn’t started designation or consenting. As has been pointed out to me, you can’t drive on a press release.

Chris Bishop: Can she confirm that the same person telling her the Government’s transport plan for Wellington is a good idea is the same person telling her the Government could build 100,000 houses in 10 years?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member is referring, even locally, to things like Wellington’s Let’s Get Wellington Moving project, that’s a project that’s also been endorsed locally, unanimously, by the council, and I have to say it is a project focused on doing just that: reducing the congestion that that side of the House never addressed when they were in Government.

Hon Phil Twyford: What did you do in nine years?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I did quite a lot, Mr Twyford.

Question No. 8—Prime Minister

8. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s policies and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Welcome. Yes, this Government is making progress on the long-term issues and challenges facing New Zealand, including in the area of climate and environment, introducing the zero carbon bill; investing in heavy rail, trains, buses, walking, cycling, and other alternative infrastructure; the planting of 1 billion trees; creating a $229 million sustainable land package to support our farmers, improve water quality, and reduce emissions; and, of course, our aspiration of 100 percent renewable electricity.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does she stand by her statement that the $100 million Green Investment Fund is “a central plank in the Government’s plan to transition to a clean, green, carbon-neutral New Zealand”; and, if so, how much has been invested from the fund?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That fund is running exactly as the timetable we set out when we established it. The member may not be aware that when you establish a Government-owned investment fund, there is some rigour required in establishing such a fund. The roadshow with the fund managers will be beginning next month—I know the member will be listening to that with interest.

Hon Scott Simpson: Why, when the Green Investment Fund is a central plank of the Government’s policy and was allocated $100 million of taxpayers’ money in May of last year, has it failed to invest a single dollar in the 17 months since?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will do well to reflect on the time line we set out at that time; it wasn’t due to yet, either.

Hon Scott Simpson: Is she aware that the Green Investment Fund has operating costs of $5 million a year, and yet is expected to return $3 million a year; and, if so, does she think that a fund expected to lose $2 million a year is a good investment of taxpayer money?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The Green Investment Fund is running according to all of our expectations around early establishment. Nothing has changed from the time that it was established.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does she think it is appropriate that despite failing to invest a single dollar in 17 months, the Green Investment Fund is holding a glamourous cocktail party function next month at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, which will be at taxpayers’ expense of thousands of dollars?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, this is a fund that is amongst a raft of things that this Government is doing in the climate space, and that includes reducing the emissions profile of our vehicles, introducing a process of carbon budgeting through the zero carbon bill, the land use package designed to support our agricultural community to transition to being sustainable food producers, and, of course, moving to a low-emissions future with our energy generation through things like hydrogen. That side of the House did nothing. They signed us up to a Paris Agreement. They’ve had empty words. They have done nothing to demonstrate they even support any efforts to reduce climate emissions in New Zealand and it’s shameful.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does she accept then that the Green Investment Fund has been a failure, considering it hasn’t invested a single dollar in 17 months, its operating costs are higher than its expected returns—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member’s asked one part of a question. He cannot add a whole pile of allegations. If he wants a second leg to a question he will ask it now.

Hon Scott Simpson: Does she accept the Green Investment Fund has been a failure, considering that all it has to show for itself after 17 months is a taxpayer-funded cocktail function for the rich and well-connected?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, and I would question whether or not the member—given that that Government never established any form of investment fund like this in this area—would expect the kind of rigour we have applied to this process. It is running exactly to time.

Question No. 9—Arts, Culture, and Heritage

9. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage: What upcoming events supported by the Government celebrate Pacific arts and artists?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): Fakaalofa lahi atu, Mr Speaker. I have the privilege of hosting the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards here at Parliament tonight. New Zealand is a Pacific nation and Pacific people are a significant part of New Zealand’s history and future. Our arts and culture make an important contribution to the richness and diversity of our multicultural Pasifika nation. This Government is committed to supporting the aspirations of Pacific people and recognising the value they bring to New Zealand. The Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards is a great opportunity to come together to celebrate this.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What else is the Government doing to support Pacific arts?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Since the implementation of Creative New Zealand’s Pacific Arts Strategy last year, there have been a number of exciting announcements. Creative New Zealand has increased the prize money for these awards so the prize money is in line with similar awards. Yuki Kihara has been selected as the first Pasifika artist to represent New Zealand at the 2021 Venice Biennale. We recently had the first national Pacific festival directors’ fono bringing together representatives from eight festivals across New Zealand to discuss the future of Pacific festivals and what support the Government could potentially provide. Funding for Pasifika-led arts organisations is set to rise 68 percent by 2020. Creative New Zealand is also supporting paid Pacific arts internships and Pasifika artists’ residencies and are working on increasing these opportunities. These initiatives—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! It’s getting very long.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Nearly finished.

SPEAKER: Just finish quickly.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: OK. These initiatives support the Government’s priority to build a better, more inclusive New Zealand that we can be proud of and aligns with our focus on developing sustainable career pathways in the arts sector.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What is special about tonight’s awards ceremony?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Tonight, I’m excited to be presenting the new Pacific Toa Artist Award, which recognises the valuable contribution a Pasifika artist living with a disability is making to the New Zealand arts sector. This is the first time we’ve had a category for a Pacific artist with a disability, and I’m thrilled to see this award going to Pati Umaga. Pati Umaga is an experienced adviser, programme leader, and change facilitator. He is a disability advocate and the former chair of the Enabling Good Lives leadership group. He played in the New Zealand band The Holidaymakers, co-founded the contemporary music programme at Whitireia Polytechnic in Porirua, organised a tsunami benefit concert, and has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for his work in the Pacific Island community. Through this new Pacific Toa Award, we can celebrate all that Pati Umaga has contributed to New Zealand and our arts scene.

Question No. 10—Police

10. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister of Police: Was the Prime Minister correct yesterday when she said her Government would make the 1,800 target of new police this term, and, if so, on current projections, in what month is that likely to occur?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): Of course the Prime Minister was correct. We’re on track to deliver 1,800 new police next month.

Brett Hudson: What will the total number of recruits be that police need to train to ensure the 1,800 target of new police is made, in light of his answer to written questions which said the 1,800 target accounts for attrition?

Hon STUART NASH: We need about 1,800 new recruits to meet a figure of 1,800 new police.

Brett Hudson: Did he give the Prime Minister information which led her to categorically claim yesterday that the Government would make the 1,800 target of new police this term, and, if so, what was that advice?

Hon STUART NASH: The Prime Minister is well aware that we are going to meet the 1,800 new police target next month.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister of Police confirm that what the Government, in this coalition agreement, promised was adding 1,800 new police officers over three years—that means newly trained, and that’s the target we’re going to meet very shortly?

Hon STUART NASH: I can indeed confirm that, and I will also confirm that we’ve done it in under three years—in fact, just over two years.

Brett Hudson: Does the Minister stand by his response to a written question which confirmed that the measurement of the 1,800 new police includes attrition and is currently running at well under 900?

Hon STUART NASH: Attrition is about 3.8 percent, and Police is one of the lowest in the State sector.

Question No. 11—Immigration

11. Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by his decision to grant residency to a person with six convictions for driving with excess breath alcohol and two convictions for driving without a licence?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of State Services) on behalf of the Minister of Immigration: On behalf of the Minister of Immigration, yes.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Was the Minister required to grant a recidivist drunk-driver residency?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Minister considered the case on its merits. The individual concerned was already staying in New Zealand indefinitely.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Was the Minister required to grant a recidivist drunk-driver residency?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It was an exercise of the Minister’s discretion.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Is it acceptable that his excuse for granting a recidivist drunk-driver residency was to save on paperwork?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think there are other advantages to it but I think that is a legitimate answer. The individual concerned was granted, by the Hon Michael Woodhouse, a three-year, renewable on an ongoing basis, work visa. In fact, many of the complaints that the Opposition have made about the case—that the individual was given the keys to the kingdom—were, in fact, a reflection of when the person gained a protected status they gained access to the welfare system, they gained access to the health system and to the education system. Those things happened not when the person was given residency but when they became a protected person.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Was it not a fact that it was the National Party that gave this man access to this country in a way where he could never be sent out of this country again?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t actually have responsibility for decisions made by the previous Government.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Did the National—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I won’t take questions off because I think the Leader of the Opposition’s probably had not a good week from me this week, but we’ll just have a bit of quiet.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Did the National Minister of Immigration grant residency to a recidivist drunk-driver?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think the member wasn’t listening to my earlier answer. The previous National Minister of Immigration Michael Woodhouse gave a person a three-year work visa that had renewal rights effectively in perpetuity.

Question No. 12—Pacific Peoples

12. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: What progress has been made regarding opportunities for Pacific people in the regions?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): Last week I announced that four providers had been selected by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to deliver the Tupu Aotearoa programme in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland, and Otago regions. The regional initiative of Tupu Aotearoa is about supporting Pacific peoples aged 15 to 39 years into employment, education, and training pathways so that they can build confidence for their future, connect up with employers or educational providers, support themselves and their families, and reach their fullest potential in the regional communities they live in.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Which providers have been selected to deliver services in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland, and Otago regions?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: This is more good news. In the Hawke’s Bay region, we have the SENZ Charitable Trust and the Kings Force Health Charitable Trust. For Otago, we have the Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group and the Pacific Trust Otago; and, finally, the Pacific Trust Otago has been selected to deliver services in Southland.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: What other regions in New Zealand are currently benefiting from the Tupu Aotearoa programme?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: In July this year, I announced that seven providers had been selected to deliver the Tupu Aotearoa programme, which covers the greater Waikato, Manawatū, Whanganui, and Bay of Plenty regions. The new providers I announced last week complete the list of providers that will deliver the regional Tupu Aotearoa programme. This regional initiative wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Minister Shane Jones, “First Citizen of the Regions”, and the “Father of the Provincial Growth Fund”.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

New Zealand is booming. Unemployment is down to 3.9 percent. We have strong wage growth of almost 4.5 percent a year. The minimum wage is up to $17.70. The news just keeps getting better. Over the next two years New Zealand is projected to grow faster than Australia. We are projected to grow faster than Canada. We are projected to grow faster than the United States. We are projected to grow faster than the United Kingdom. We are projected to grow faster than the European Union. We are projected to grow faster than Norway, Japan, Singapore—the list goes on.

The New Zealand economy, despite the global headwinds, is performing exceptionally well under this Government. Interest rates are down. Debt is heading down. Unemployment is low, and our books are balanced—much to the bemusement of the members opposite, who never really understood what it takes to balance the Government’s books, because it wasn’t something they managed very often in the nine long years that they were in Government.

Of course, our Government has restarted contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. We are saving for the future and we are reducing debt. We are reducing the debt that was clocked up by members on the other side of the House. New Zealand is doing very, very well under this Government.

We are tackling the long-term challenges that face this country. We have gotten serious about dealing with mental health; this year’s Budget and the action taken since this year’s Budget is the most comprehensive programme of action taken on mental health by a New Zealand Government ever, and we are incredibly proud of that. We are taking action to ensure that New Zealanders get a consistent standard of cancer care wherever they live in the country. We’re cleaning up our rivers, and we’re making schools and other forms of education more affordable, and we are incredibly proud of that.

Today, at question time, though—I do want to step back just a little bit—I was reminded of one of the darkest days that we had when we were in Opposition, where there was a bit of a contest going on for the leadership and we decided that to be even-handed we would give everyone the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister a question. It didn’t go well for us that day, just as it didn’t go well for the National Party today.

It appears, from question time today, that there are more contestants to be leader of the National Party than there are people seeking the National Party nomination for Botany—and that is quite an extensive list. It would appear, today, the National Party, who desperately need their white knight to fly in on his plane, can’t even jack up a selection for him in a safe National Party seat.

Such is the desperate nature of the National Opposition. The only path to power they seem to see ahead of them at the moment is to talk New Zealand down—to talk down the New Zealand economy because they know it’s not going in their favour at the moment, because under this Government, New Zealand is going well. The economy is in good shape. New Zealand is holding up very, very well, despite the global economic headwinds that we face. We are getting ahead and tackling the issues that New Zealanders care about.

You know what the National Party are focused on? They are focused exclusively on themselves—on fighting petty internal battles. I remember those days in Opposition, because it’s the only thing that there is some days, when they’re in Opposition, and the National Party seem firmly trapped in that particular space.

In the meantime, we’re getting on and dealing with the housing crisis that we were left by the National Party. We have banned offshore speculators from buying New Zealand homes and shutting New Zealanders out of the housing market. What were we told about that by the last Government? It couldn’t be done. We have done that. We have increased the number of State houses—2,000 new State houses this year alone, and the year’s not even over yet, because there is more to come. We’ve increased funding for schools so they don’t have to rely on parental donations, as they were increasingly reliant under the last Government. We have scrapped fees for NCEA so that every student can have access to our national qualification system. We’ve delivered a lot, and—I tell you what—we’re just getting started.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I had high aspirations for that speech today. One of the senior members of the Labour Party—a senior member in their Cabinet—and he started to speak about what the Government’s doing. I thought, “Gee, he’s doing well. We’re actually going to hear a speech from a Labour Party member in a general debate with them talking about what they’re delivering.” But, you know what? He got to 1 minute and 37 seconds. He could do 1 minute and 37 seconds, and then he started talking about us. He started talking about the Opposition. That’s how little they’ve got to talk about in their year of delivery. He’s a senior member of the Cabinet—has got 1 minute and 37 seconds. You’ve got to do better than that, Mr Hipkins.

Let’s talk about the year of delivery. Let’s look at some of the numbers. So the promise to build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 years: two years into this Government, how many do you think have been delivered? Just give me a figure: 286. That’s less than 0.3 percent—the year of delivery.

Plant one billion trees—we heard a lot about the one billion trees in the first six months in this House. How many of those trees have been delivered? How many are up? How many are being planted: 24.6 million. That’s exactly 2.5 percent—2.5 percent delivered.

Over three years, 1,800 new police officers. How many do you think—1,800 police officers over three; how many do you think: 472 new police officers. How many is that? That’s 26 percent—26 percent on deliverables.

This is a sad one: end homelessness—end homelessness. This was a priority for the Government. Do you want to know how many people are on the housing waiting list now? Do you want to know what the increase is? It’s a 154 percent increase on people needing emergency housing.

Net zero emissions—net zero emissions by 2050. This is meant to be a Labour-Greens Government who are dealing with climate change. They’re not. They’re failing. We did more when we were in Government. Do you know what the result is? Do you know what the result is? Emissions projected to increase. Coal use for electricity increasing by 500 percent. Great policies by this Government!

Reduce migration by 20,000 to 30,000. Net migration is 620 higher than at the end of 2017. Abject failure. Unable to deliver on promises.

Reduce child poverty. This is one of the Prime Minister’s key core planks as to why she came to Parliament. I’m not going to challenge that or question that. We all come to Parliament for our own reasons, and that comes from the heart. There’s no doubt about that. Reducing child poverty: the child poverty rate has increased from 14.2 percent to 16.5 percent. Child poverty is not going down under this Government. What I’d challenge the next Labour speaker to do is to get up and actually talk about what you’re delivering, because at the moment all the heads are down—right? At the moment no one’s really paying too much attention. Get up—[Interruption] Oh, that got them sparked up a bit. Get up and actually take a call and talk to us about what you’re delivering.

I will tell you what I’ve been talking about in the House in the last two days: another shocking example of very poor decision-making by a Labour Cabinet Minister in his portfolio, which is immigration. It is something, actually, that’s very important to their coalition partner New Zealand First. I’m sure the New Zealand First speaker today will be getting up and making exactly the same points that I am and that is the fact that their partner is letting them down. It’s shocking. The decisions are shocking.

We saw, to this day almost, a year ago, a decision on Karel Sroubek—someone that completely pulled the wool over the eyes of the immigration Minister; not just the immigration Minister. The Prime Minister came down to this House. Do you remember what she said? She said, “Read between the lines.” She told the country, “Read between the lines.” Well, actually the country didn’t accept that. We didn’t accept that, and we put enormous pressure on them and eventually they had to fold and they had to say, “We got it wrong. We made a very poor decision.” We still don’t know what drove that decision.

Now we’re back here, a year later, having to deal with another decision from the same Minister, awarding residency to someone that has driven not once, not twice, but six times on our roads with excess breath alcohol—six times. That’s playing Russian roulette; that’s playing Russian roulette with law-abiding Kiwis’ lives. We all have seen and experienced the tragedy that comes with serious injuries and fatalities on our roads.

That sort of decision making is indicative of how this Government is operating. They can’t deliver on what they promise. They can’t be trusted to make decisions that actually relate directly to New Zealanders’ safety, and we as the Opposition are going to continue to stand in this House and hold them to account. I’ll tell you something: if you look at the recent polls, Kiwis are working it out. They’re starting to work out what’s going on. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister): This is Thank Your Cleaner Day and this is going to be a clean-up speech. Could I say the man that Mark Mitchell complains about was brought here by the National Party permanently—he could never be removed from New Zealand—and he has the effrontery to get up here and complain about what they did and blame this Government.

Now, can I just say that Adrian Orr is a Reserve Bank Governor who understands the New Zealand economy, how it ticks—exports and jobs—and not speculation and theory. He knows how to deal firmly but fairly with the Australian banks.

In Australia, bank deposits have a guarantee of up to $250,000, which means they’ve got security. They know they won’t face a run on the banks like what happened in Greece and other countries. Those guarantees are required in Australia, but these same Aussie banks in New Zealand are rifling up and making all sorts of complaints about having to be prudentially sound in this country. In New Zealand the four banks from Australia have run a cynical campaign against the Governor of the Reserve Bank. You’ve all seen the headlines. I want to tell those banks that that Governor is going to be defended doing what he should be doing in the line of duty. We’re not going to stand back here and take a raw prawn treatment from these Australian banks.

Remember the recent Hayne report in Australia, damning of the Aussie banks? Who says they weren’t doing the same in New Zealand? So stop pushing this Government, because we, unlike the former National Party—a sycophant of unbridled capitalism—will respond in the interests of the New Zealand people.

On 27 June, the Governor of the Reserve Bank asked ANZ New Zealand why they breached prudential rules, and why this guy, the former boss, Hisco, was getting the treatment he got. My real question is this: why did his wife get a property, which the ANZ bank had bought for $7.5 million, yet six years later, at a time of rocketing prices, they sold it to Hisco for $6.9 million? But here’s the real rub—Mr Key was sitting on the board of the Aussie bank when he heard about Hisco, and my question is: Mr Key, how come it took you three years to tell the bank in New Zealand that you’re the chairman of the board of? You’ve got a massive conflict of interest. Mr Orr is right, and your colleagues, if they had a sense of responsibility and accountability, would be screaming for the chairman to go, but they’ve have never said a word. That’s the reality here. Why did he take three months to tell the bank that he owed the duty to in New Zealand, when he was the chair of the bank board, what he learnt in Australia? He serves the Australians. He doesn’t serve the New Zealand people at all, and he should go.

Now, I don’t want to say much more than that, other than to say that this man’s got form. Do you remember when he was the head of the SIS and the GCSB and there was a raid on a man called Kim Dotcom? This Minister said he didn’t know. That was a circumstance where if you were the Minister, you’d be getting the two heads in and saying, “You tell me, sunshine, why you didn’t tell me, because if you haven’t got an explanation, you’re gone.” No, he claimed he didn’t even know it was in his own electorate—he didn’t know. Here’s this guy Hisco being outed in Australia by the Aussies, not New Zealand. He’s on the Aussie board at the time and he never tells the bank back in New Zealand that he was the chairman of. This is a disgrace. This guy’s got form.

Can I also say, if you read the papers this morning very, very carefully, you’ll see that a military officer called Jim Blackwell says he informed the inquiry into Operation Burnham that he had told the former Minister Mapp about civilian casualties that occurred in that operation. Mr Blackwell says that there’s an email trail. So if it’s true, here comes the next question, ladies and gentlemen, for the National Party: did Mr Mapp tell Mr Key? I know Mr Mapp’s modus operandi. He was always telling the ninth floor what was going on. So there’s Mr Key again, right behind this issue, and when this gets out and the evidence comes in and you see the trail, we’ll see what Mr Mapp—

Brett Hudson: Take your tinfoil hat off.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, at least I don’t show any damage from a tinfoil hat on my head.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Do you see what I mean? Some people lead with their chin; he leads with his head. Unbelievable!

Can I just say, Mr Mapp would have told Mr Key—he was infamous for telling the ninth floor—and Mr Key didn’t do a thing about it. So here comes the Burnham inquiry, which I’m proud that this Government had the courage to order in the first place, even though it was going to be difficult and I had a Minister of Defence who was on the side of the Defence Force, but we said in the end that we are, in terms of our military and defence forces, there to do one thing. It’s about international peace and security and First World order and the rules of decent law, and that’s what we’re standing up for here. But, Mr Key—what did he do? Nothing whatsoever. I’m saying it’s time that Mr Key was told to go from the New Zealand bank, because he can’t serve the Aussies and us. Mind you, there are other National Party members all overseas serving the Chinese banks. You know who they are. There are three of them. [Applause]

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I thank the New Zealand First members for the applause; it’s welcome. But I want to talk about something quite serious. In a Government, a sovereign country, one of the main responsibilities is control of the borders. That’s a very serious role that’s held by the Minister of Immigration, and unfortunately our Minister of Immigration has let us down. We heard from the previous National speaker, Mark Mitchell, about the recidivist drunk-driver who has been granted New Zealand residency. As my colleague said, he’s playing Russian roulette.

The risk to New Zealanders is very real. This man is a repeat drunk-driver. He’s driven while disqualified. We just have to hope that the worst doesn’t happen, but if it does, it’s on that Minister’s head. That follows on from the Karel Sroubek debacle, which we still don’t have an explanation for, but I deeply suspect the Minister was doing what he was told from those above him—in fact, we know that’s the case, but he’s yet to admit that.

But this person is here in New Zealand. He now has residency, and as has been pointed out, it did go across the desk of the previous Minister, Michael Woodhouse, but the only reason it would go across his desk would be because he was looking at an application for residency, which he obviously didn’t grant. I think the Minister needs to really think very seriously about what he’s done. He’s got a track record now of putting Kiwis in danger, and I think that’s a terrible position for someone who helps control our borders.

He also has sat by on his hands and watched visa delays grow. Now, one of the speakers earlier said that the visa delays are going down. Well, in 13 out of the 14 visa categories, the numbers are far worse than they were under the previous administration, and that is despite having $11.7 million extra funding to try and clear that backlog—that hasn’t yet made a dent. This is having a real impact on Kiwi employers. In New Zealand, we rely on skilled migrants coming in to help fill roles and help keep New Zealand businesses running. The people that are coming in on those visas have a choice. They have very marketable skills. They can go anywhere in the world and work if they choose to, and with these delays we are seeing some of those people deciding to go elsewhere. Why come here? Why subject themselves to such uncertainty about their future and their plans? So, they simply do go elsewhere.

They also have issues with their partnership visas, often for people that have residency here or who are, effectively, Kiwis, as well as Kiwis that are born here, with partnership visas which have been slowed down. But I do note that New Zealand First has joined in on the year of non-delivery. The promise of getting net migration down to 20,000 has failed by quite some margin. The net migration figure is 54,000. So I’m pleased that that’s one thing they are missing the mark on.

We also have the New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which has just come in recently. People from those countries, jurisdictions offshore, get an electronic visa, and that was also brought in to collect the $35 tourist and conservation levy at the border. But, unfortunately, the Minister was warned not to bring this in in such a short time frame—three months is the time frame he brought it in on—and, of course, the inevitable has happened. It has become a huge issue, and the Minister has gazetted a notice—didn’t tell anyone about it—that, actually, he would give a waiver to that electronic authority for those that didn’t get it in time before boarding their flight to come to New Zealand. That would be waived. So what happens to the $35 tax that they’re supposed to pay, and what happens to the people that followed through, did what they were supposed to, applied for their electronic visa, and got it overseas? They have been disadvantaged. They paid $35, and those that didn’t do their job, weren’t able to do it, came through and didn’t have to pay that tax. It’s only fair.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): As I listened to that speech, I thought, “Why is it that right-wing parties, when they’re not getting traction with the community, start focusing on scaremongering, and particularly on migrants in this case?” That’s what I was hearing from that particular speech. It’s just doom and gloom, moaning and whining, and I have to say there are some wonderful things happening in this country. First of all, this is Niue Language Week, and so can I say to you fakaalofa lahi atu ki a mutolu oti. Right across the whole country, our Pacific communities are celebrating, and I see that you are wearing the beads of Niue particular to that particular island, Mr Speaker. I acknowledge that.

It’s coming on two years since this Government came into office, and many of you will recall the naysayers, particularly on that side of the House, who often would say, “That lot would never last. They’re not going to be able to work out their differences.” I am proud to stand here today and say how wrong they were. I am proud, and it’s a privilege to be a member of a Government, a strong coalition Government, a Government that is led by Jacinda Ardern, who is promoting and holding all of us accountable to have good, strong stewardship of the economy but also promoting compassion, principles of te aroha. Again, the naysayer says that doesn’t work in politics, but I have to say, proudly, as we work our way round the country, round the Pacific region, on the global stage, the leadership that she is providing and the principles that she is providing and holding up are so refreshing in the political arena, and people are looking to us here in New Zealand.

I want to acknowledge the wonderful support of the coalition partner—and love working with the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as our support partners, the Greens. We have inherited a mess off the last Government, but it’s a mess that we’re not shying away from. It’s a mess that we’re prepared to tackle. It’s a mess that we are realistic enough to know we’re not going to be able to fix in one Budget or two Budgets. We need to look not only three years out but 30 years out, and at the moment, we’ve started to lay strong foundations. This year’s Wellbeing Budget was one of those strong foundations that we will now continue to build on.

Mental health is a big issue. I was amazed at the UN General Assembly this year: we are one of only five countries in the entire world that is including mental health in our speeches and seems to be promoting it. This was the feedback from the United Nations, and how wonderful it is that we’ve begun that work involving that.

Cancer care: new investment. Cleaning up our rivers: new investment. Making schools more affordable: more investment. We’re doing all of this while keeping the economy in good shape despite the uncertainties at the international level. I just want to say again, despite what they’ve said, this Government, the coalition Government, is strong. We can look at wages—they’re rising, unemployment is falling. The most recent Quarterly Employment Survey shows that average hourly earnings increased by 4.4 percent, the biggest increase in 11 years. Our Stats New Zealand say the reason for the big increase is the boost the Government has made to the minimum wage and the effect of some big collective agreement settlements, like the nurses, coming into force. We’ve got a goal of lifting the minimum wage, and we’ve done that last year. This year, we are on track to achieving $20 an hour by the year 2021. On 1 April this year, we made the largest-ever single increase to the minimum wage, raising it by $1.20 and putting an extra $48 a week in the pockets of a full-time worker. When workers earn more, their families are better off. When families are better off, the whole economy is better-off.

Some people, particularly that lot there—they said that when we would increase the minimum wage, somehow, we would see more and more unemployment. They are wrong. The statistics show that. Our economic appraisers show that. They are definitely wrong. We now have the lowest rate of unemployment in New Zealand in 11 years, and there are now 92,000 new jobs coming. So, again—pleasure to be part of this Government.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s quite a day in the House, when a Minister stands up and wilfully misleads it, and we saw that today with the Minister of Police.

SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The member knows that he is out of order. There is only one way to raise an allegation of that sort—well, there are actually two ways: one’s by way of motion in the House, and the second is by way of letter to me. If he continues that approach, he will be in serious trouble.

BRETT HUDSON: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, the Minister of Police—

SPEAKER: No, no—withdraw and apologise first.

BRETT HUDSON: I withdraw and apologise—I withdraw and apologise. Thank you, Mr Speaker. So the Minister of Police had something interesting to say to the House today, and we may yet see him back here this evening. He tried to claim today that his mythical target of 1,800 new police is just new people that weren’t there before, and yet what we have from Minister Nash in response to a written question, written question No. 14509 (2018), his reply: “The striving towards 1,800 target is for growth in the number of Constabulary employees, i.e. Police will recruit enough Constabulary employees to replace those that leave each year, with the 1,800 growth as additional recruitment.” Further to that, in the Estimates hearings in 2018, I quote Minister Nash: “As you alluded to, Mr Bishop, in the House—and I’ve always been very clear about this—this isn’t 1,800 police minus attrition; this is 1,800 police as well as attrition. So we’ve got to train … about a thousand police a year.”

To back him up, the Commissioner of Police, in the November annual review hearing, had this to say—and I quote—“That’s over and above what we had before, so that includes the people that we have left. So we have an attrition of about 5.5 percent. So to bring in the 1,800, we are aiming to recruit about 1,000 people a year (a) to maintain our previous level but also to meet the commitment of the 1,800.” Mr Bishop responded, “So 400 leave per year, you hire 1,000, your net’s 600 times three—that’s the aim, right? So what did you say—348 in the last year?” Commissioner Bush: “Over and above where it was before—yes.”

So for the Minister to stand in this House today and claim he’s going to meet the target of 1,800 next month goes against every response he has given to official questions on our written parliamentary questions, in Estimates hearings, and, indeed, in his commissioner’s annual review. I think the gentleman has some answering to do.

Another part that’s within that, and is equally concerning—I wouldn’t say “more concerning”—is the attrition rate that’s actually holding them back. Using the figures the Prime Minister used yesterday of 9,723 front-line officers, they’ve actually only delivered a net 707 since 1 November 2017. They’re seeing attrition of experienced officers at around 50 percent of the rate of new recruits they can bring in, and that’s why they’ve only delivered 707. But what that says is that experience is leaving the force. That’s bad for the police force, it’s bad for New Zealand, and the Minister sticks his head in the sand and says, “It’s OK, we’ve got recruits.”

Meanwhile, meth supply is up and prices are tumbling, but no more gang members are being prosecuted for those crimes. They see it as a lucrative business. Under this Government and this Minister of Police, almost 1,400 more patched and associated gang members have emerged in this country, and they’re not coming in from overseas. Only 22 of the deportees from Australia are gang members. This is a home-grown issue, and the Minister tries to claim that he’s winning.

What’s more, he’s telling the public that people who are already obeying the law will obey the law even more if he simply makes some more, and that somehow that will make the public more safe. Meanwhile, he’s done nothing in two years of any real substance to look to get firearms out of the hands of genuine criminals and gangs. Not only did he vote, himself, but he got other governing members to vote against our firearms prohibition orders member’s bill last year, but he and his colleagues refused leave today to debate it this afternoon.

All the while, the firearms buy-back is continuing to fail. It’s only averaging 100 firearms at each collection because the Minister ignored expert advice, and he’s still refusing to listen to good sense and amend the scheme to lift compliance. He’s a Minister that is failing to deliver, like the rest of his Government. It’s time for him to take his head out of the sand and do some sensible things.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Fakaalofa lahi atu, Mr Speaker. Today is Thank Your Cleaner Day, and I actually want to thank all the cleaners, and the cleaners in our Parliament, particularly. I describe them as the invisible but essential workforce, and they do deserve our thanks.

What a bunch of negative Nellies.

Hon Hon Member: Awful.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: They are. I’m a bit fired up, actually, because there are attempts by the National Party—pretty concerted attempts—to trivialise and, in fact, negate the neglect that occurred under their watch. When you start reading articles in the paper that say, “ ‘Nine years of neglect’—oh no, it’s become a cliché”, then you know that there’s a concerted revisionist campaign under way, and that’s dirty politics, actually.

But the public deserve to know that when Government members talk about nine years of neglect, they should be able to provide evidence, so here’s some evidence. In health, no money and no plan to fix our rundown hospitals, and for three of them, Dunedin Hospital, Middlemore Hospital, and Taranaki Base Hospital—and there are many more—plans are already under way to fix them. No plan to tackle cancer—they scrapped the New Zealand cancer control agency. No new radiation machines. No action on mental health or addiction. They underfunded health by $2.3 billion—and in mental health, for too long you had to reach crisis point before you could get any help. Young people were falling through the cracks, support services were absolutely stretched, and, in 2014, the cost of neglect on serious mental illness was $12 billion, or 5 percent of GDP.

In education, National let the costs creep up for parents. They didn’t adequately plan for growth, meaning that schools had to make do by using libraries and halls when their school rolls increased, and there were critical skill shortages in polytechs and they were going broke.

In housing, we know that first-home buyers have been locked out of the market—the worst homelessness in the OECD. Families sleeping in cars—I’ll go on and on—and in the environment, rivers you can’t swim in. In transport, increased congestion. They invested 40 percent of the transport budget into hand-picked motorways that only carry 4 percent of vehicle journeys.

So what have we done? What have we done? What are some of the things that we have done in those two years since?

We’ve made huge investments in mental health so that people can get help, starting with their local GP. More addiction treatment beds and services. New cancer treatment equipment like radiation machines. New cancer drugs.

We’ve started to clean up our rivers—we’ve got so much to do in that area. We’re supporting farmers to fence the waterways and plant trees, and we’ve just passed legislation yesterday in the House to increase school funding so that parents don’t have to pay for school donations or pay for NCEA fees.

We’re supporting businesses to invest in innovation and diversification. We’re investing in trade training.

We’re banning offshore speculators, stopping the sell-off of State houses, building more public houses—and I think we heard today there were 2,500 new public houses this year, after nine years of neglect, and that’s only that evidence. There’s much, much more evidence than that, but I don’t have time to go into all of it.

After nine years of neglect, too many issues have been ignored, and I say to the negative Nellies across the aisle, stop talking down the economy and stop opposing everything. How about coming up with some of your new—not yours, Mr Speaker—ideas? Come up with some new ideas. Our economy is in good shape. We know we’ve got big problems to tackle after nine years of neglect. We are tackling them. We know we can’t do it all at once, but we’ve made a damn good start.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): We know how defensive the Government has become when they start to attack the media. My favourite from Clare Curran was in referring to the article in the New Zealand Herald this morning that said that the “nine years of neglect” had become a “tired cliché”. Clare Curran said that was dirty politics. When the New Zealand Herald holds the Government to account, it’s dirty politics. Well, I just want to talk about some facts, after two years of this Government in what has been deemed the year of delivery.

I’m more than happy to start on the area of housing, because the big flagship policy of the incoming Labour Government was the 10,000 houses a year, or 100,000 houses, and we’ve got 286. Let me give you the percentage: it is 0.3 percent of what has been promised—0.3 percent. It’s a sick joke.

And then, what about the one billion trees? Members, remember the promise of the one billion trees? Let’s ask the question after two years: how many of those are planted? Look, I accept it is better than the 0.3 percent on housing. On the billion trees, they’ve got to 2.2 percent.

What about the 1,800 police that my colleague Brett Hudson referred to? They’ve got 472, or 26 percent. Two years through the term—only a year to go—how many members of this House really believe the 1,800 police in three years promise is going to be delivered? Of course it is not.

And then I have a bit of an interest in electric cars—I happen to own the oldest electric car from more than 12 years ago. How is the Government going on its commitment that all of the Government fleet is going to be electric? Well, here are the numbers: we have 78 out of 15,473 cars—78 cars in two years, and the Green Party in Government says it’s a climate change emergency. They’ve declared a hundred million bucks and haven’t spent a cent—but remember: it’s a climate change emergency. It is extraordinary.

And you know what? Here’s even better, and I challenge the member on this: a 500 percent increase in the burning of coal to produce electricity by this Government, in respect of the issue of climate change.

Then you come to the issue of child poverty. How are they getting on on that commitment two years in as Government? Actually, child poverty by the Government’s own measure has gone up by 15 percent in the first two years of this Government.

Then, my favourite from my friends from New Zealand First. We heard them year after year challenge the issue of immigration. The big promise of the New Zealand First Party was they were going to curtail immigration, and the figures out this week actually show the level of immigration has gone up. There is only one figure in those immigration numbers that have indeed gone and reduced population in New Zealand: the number of New Zealand citizens leaving has trebled during the last two years.

Then, I just cannot note, over the recess, the meltdown that has occurred in the New Zealand First Party—disclosure of membership. We’ve not only had the Labour Party president go; we’ve now had the president of the New Zealand First Party go—claims of financial impropriety within the New Zealand First Party. That’s exactly what the president of the New Zealand First Party said, and I just challenge the next New Zealand First member to give this House some explanation. When you can’t run your own party, how can you run the country? If you’ve got the president of the New Zealand First Party saying they’re rotten on the inside, why would New Zealanders disagree?

This is a Government, two years in, that is in a shambles. Both presidents of both parties have resigned in the last month—an extraordinary series of events. No wonder they are in trouble in the polls. This has turned into a year of non-delivery, of which New Zealanders are sick of the talk, actually want some action, and they’re not delivering.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and as we celebrate Niuean Language Week this week, fakaalofa lahi atu. Oh, my Lord, how much doom and gloom have we had to sit through from members opposite, who have had no plan and just negativity? The current Opposition just barks at every car and mocks everything that this Government does. It is pitiful.

I, however, along with other MPs, have been going out and about visiting a number of organisations and schools. We often stand up on this side of the House and talk about what we’ve done. I actually want to talk about what they’ve been feeding back to us in terms of what’s worked, because that’s what we’ve been going out to do—what has worked, what are the challenges, and what more work do we need to do in those spaces to address the wellbeing of New Zealanders. Organisations that provide a whole host of services both in the electorate where I am based, in Maungakiekie, but also across the country have been talking about, obviously, housing, what’s working in the State housing and public housing space for them, and the need to do more. We absolutely appreciate that, and I’ll go into some of the work that this Government’s doing in that space.

One outstanding piece of feedback, though, constantly was about the winter energy payment and the real difference that that has made to the lives of New Zealanders who previously couldn’t afford to stay warm over winter, the school lunches programme to fix thousands of school children who have been going hungry, and schools in Maungakiekie have told me about the fact that they’re grateful for the fact that school donations and NCEA fees have been cut.

Now, getting to housing. Given the amount of time I have, I just want to focus on housing and safety, two specific issues that have come up. So we’ve banned offshore speculation, as we’ve gone into that. We’ve stopped the State house sell-off and built 2,178 State homes this year. Members will remember that in Budget 2018, there was an increase in funding to public housing spaces, to increase spaces—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the member say the words “KiwiBuild”?

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —by 6,400 places over four years. That is, on average, 1,600 places a year.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Tell us about KiwiBuild.

SPEAKER: Order! That’s enough.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: We’ve built 2,178. So you talk about targets—there you go; there’s a target that’s absolutely been smashed. We’ve expanded Housing First with an additional 1,044 places. That’s a total of 2,700.

Can I just remind members opposite who are smirking that this is actually people’s lives we’re talking about. This is addressing homelessness. This is addressing transience. Today we went out and met social housing providers through the Social Services and Community Committee, where we had a man in tears who told us about the building project that they’re undertaking that actually means that families can now say that—he told us about a child who said to him, when they moved into a new house that had been built, this child said to her parents, “This is too nice a house, Mum. When will we have to leave this house too?” And that man who told us this story was in tears that they’re actually providing housing, Housing First places that have been provided for by this Government, to house people. So let’s just remember that.

In Maungakiekie alone, there are close to 760 new State houses that I drove around and visited; a major housing project that’s coming up that will increase housing by 1,000 in Oranga, that has now also talked about the fact that they have a choice to return policy, which was something that many of us advocated for—the fact that when people are moved out of a major housing project development area, they must be given the choice to return to the support networks that they’ve built. That is now being given to them as well.

In terms of safety, dairy robberies were a huge issue that was brought up to me time and again. Since 2017, this Government has supported over 500 businesses with extra security and peace of mind—financial support for fog cannons. What we’ve seen is aggravated robbery drop by 40 percent and the number of serious injuries to shopkeepers drop by 85 percent.

All this, while ensuring that the economy is in good shape, that we can withstand global headwinds, with an economy that’s growing faster than those we compare ourselves to—we’re doing incredibly well. There is a lot more to do, but this Government’s making a huge amount of progress, and I am so proud to be supporting them.

MATT KING (National—Northland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This Government talks a big game—they talk a big game. If this was an Olympic sport, they would be the world champions. So I’m going to call them the “Gonna Party”: they’re gonna do this and they’re gonna do that. But their spin doctors, they’ve got to come up with some more lines. This “nine long years of neglect” thing—that’s wearing a bit thin. Like the media said, it’s a cliché. It’s wearing thin, because it’s simply not true. The numbers do not match the rhetoric.

In fact, things have got worse under this Government. Just about everything has got worse. Business confidence has plummeted down to the levels of the global financial crisis. Costs have rocketed. Homelessness is up. Everything I’m saying is the truth. Hardship grants have doubled, if not trebled. There are 15,000 more people on the dole. Rents and costs of living have gone up. Less people are getting their cataract operations and their hip operations. Less immunisations—

SPEAKER: Order! The member means “fewer”.

MATT KING: Fewer. Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s more misery—there’s not less misery; there’s more misery. They promised 100,000 KiwiBuild houses. What are they gonna do? A fraction of that, and they’re all in the wrong places. More people are being taxed—more tax, more tax—but nothing is being built. Twelve vital roading infrastructure projects have been cancelled or postponed. Oh, but they’re gonna build a train track from Dominion Road to Māngere. Big deal. Broken promises, broken promises.

But let’s talk law and order. They promised, at the election, 1,800 new cops—not 1,800 cops minus the ones; 1,800 cops on the total. And what have they delivered? Somewhere between 400 and 700. That’s not even half, and those cops were the ones that we promised and funded in the 2017 Budget. But I heard at question time today—I could not believe what I was hearing—Stuart Nash saying, “No, we didn’t say 1,800 on top of; it’s just 1,800 trained.” I could not believe it. That is outrageous. He is going to be coming back to the House and correcting that comment, because he has made those statements in the media, in select committee, in this House, and in answer to written questions. It’s 1,800 cops on top of the existing number. They can’t dial that back and they can’t back-pedal. But I could not believe that they said that.

But you know the other thing that they’ve done? I understand that the PCT, the police competence test, has been dropped as a recruit, so you don’t have to pass it to get through the recruiting stage until you get to police college. Now, I was a policeman. That PCT is a basic test. It represents jumping through windows, walking along balance beams, climbing fences, dragging bodies—all those sorts of things that are part and parcel of being a cop, and that is a minimum requirement. If you can’t pass that, you do not deserve to be a copper. But now they tell me you don’t have to get that PCT test until you get to police college, and then you have to pass it in police college. But what happens if someone gets to police college, goes through the training, and can’t pass the test? What a waste of taxpayers’ money. It’s a bare minimum.

But why I think they’re doing it is—the police are doing it because they’re getting pressure from this Government to pump more recruits through, and so they’re going to drop standards. But you know what—because it is a dropping of standard, because if it isn’t, why drop it? I don’t want to be in a country where the standards of police are dropped. You know what happens in those countries. We want good, well-trained, high-standard policemen, because we need them, because we’re getting a whole lot of extra gang members—1,400 gang members, to be exact. And I can tell you this: gang members—not all of them, but most of them—are prolific criminals. They’re some of the most evil criminals we’ve got, and we’ve got 1,400 more of them. I have dealt with plenty of them.

So our society is getting a whole lot worse. Where is all this heading? I don’t know, but I’m really concerned. What’s this Government gonna do about it? Not a lot, I’m guessing.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Fakaalofa lahi atu, Madam Speaker. What a bunch of whingers we have on the other side. They’re whingeing, whingeing on. When my children whinge, this is what I say to them—I say, “Solve your problem.” I say, “What’s your idea?” And I’ve been listening very carefully to this debate, and I’ve been listening for some ideas from the Opposition. I haven’t heard one idea. We acknowledge—we acknowledge—there are some challenges in health, housing, and education. They’ve built up quite clearly over the past nine years, but the previous Government want to hark back to yesterday, the past nine years.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

But now I know they’re here to stay.

We’re living in today, and today we are addressing some of those challenges. We have ideas and we have action, and I’m just going to list some of the things that we are doing, because I’ve heard no ideas in this debate from the Opposition.

The first aspect I’d like to touch on is mental health. This Government invested $1.9 billion into mental health. We’d heard for a long time that there are big challenges in mental health—areas like youth suicide; areas like some of the challenges in the workplace, the lack of productivity; areas in our schools. We’ve invested $1.9 billion. We’re moving to a space where someone will be able to walk into a GP clinic anywhere in New Zealand, whether it’s urban or rural, they will see their GP, the GP will recognise there’s some mental health challenges, and they will, literally, walk them down the corridor to get that help and that support right there and then. We’ve started that process. We’re investing in the Taranaki hospital, $300 million for a capital project there; Dunedin Hospital, $1 billion. We’re investing in Middlemore, and there’s further announcements to come over the next month in the health area. So we’re investing in health. The health sector was run down—it was run down over nine years, and we are reinvesting in that.

Another aspect is around transport. We’re investing in a diverse transport network that has the balance right between road and rail. We’re investing record amounts in roads. We’re investing in road safety. We’re investing in new roads. Let me give you an example in Hamilton: a $110 million project in Hamilton, with a bridge and road into Peacocke. At the same time, we’re investing in rail up to Auckland, $80 million to link the labour markets between the Waikato region and the Auckland region—linking those labour markets—and it’s been very well received by businesses.

We’re investing $1 billion into rail. I recently visited the Hutt workshops, and they’re full steam ahead—

Chris Bishop: Oh, great place.

JAMIE STRANGE: —full steam ahead. Nice area, I acknowledge that. Nice area of the country, but we’ve got an industry there that hasn’t had the investment that it has deserved over many years—and I acknowledge, from various Governments. But this Government is investing in rail, and that’s been incredibly well received across the country as we roll that out and as we scale up.

Just in the Waikato region, we’ve got a local construction company with 37 builds on at the moment, all $2 million and up. So there’s lots of activity happening.

I’d just like to link that into the regions. The Provincial Growth Fund is making a big difference in the regions. What we have is—for the first time in a long time—people in the regions, and they’re starting to lift their head up, and they’re saying, “We have a Government who are taking notice of us in the regions”, and they’re getting business cases together, they’re working together, they’re collaborating, and they’re working with their councils. The Opposition rally against the Provincial Growth Fund, but in their electorates they love the Provincial Growth Fund—they love the Provincial Growth Fund. Their mayors like the Provincial Growth Fund. They even turn out to some of the announcements of the Provincial Growth Fund, because they acknowledge that this is an absolutely fantastic, targeted investment in the region.

There’s so much we can talk about, but I think I’ll finish with the economy. Under the previous Labour Government, we ran nine years of surpluses, paid down net debt to almost zero, started the super fund, and started KiwiSaver. This Government—this coalition Government—is carrying on a similar sort of trend around economic growth and around running surpluses. Our growth is 2.5 percent—that’s higher than Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US—and we’re doing that in spite of global headwinds, particularly in the areas of trade.

This is a Government that is delivering, and I’m proud to be a part of it. Thank you.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity. New Zealand has always punched above its weight. Despite the size of our country, we have been one of the best countries in the world. But we are losing that reputation ever since Labour took office. New Zealand is no longer an aspirational destination for businesses, for tourists, or for students. Businesses don’t want to invest here in New Zealand, of course, because business confidence is coming down really fast under this Labour Government. Tourists don’t want to come to New Zealand. International students don’t want to come to New Zealand.

Actually, this was their year of delivery—the year of delivery. It is already October, and today is 16 October. This year is nearly gone, and next year is going to be an election year, and what they’re going to do is throw money at people to get votes. Actually, what they have delivered is embarrassment for New Zealand, because their Ministers stand in front of people and ask for votes in return for grants that they give to organisations and associations. So they have delivered embarrassment after embarrassment and failure after failure.

When they were in Opposition, they had a solution for everything—solution for everything—whether it was housing, the economy, business, transport, mental health, or victims of crime; especially sexual crime. They had a silver bullet for everything, but now from the Prime Minister to their backbenchers, what they say is that there is more to be done—there is more to be done. Of course, there is more to be done, because nothing has been done in these two years. So they have only delivered failure and embarrassment. They haven’t delivered on their promises. But then there are other areas where the sectors really want them to deliver and they have not bothered to listen to those sectors.

I want to commend, as the Opposition spokesperson for research, science and innovation, the work that Royal Society of New Zealand did on biotechnology. They have been urging this Government to review the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act to allow biotechnology forums to flourish here in New Zealand. But do they care? No they don’t, because they are really stuck in their ideology. That’s why they don’t want us to support biotechnology here in New Zealand. But us here in Opposition have already started doing that work from the start of this term. We have put out some consultation papers through our discussion documents. The first one was in the Our Environment - Discussion Document and the second one was in the Primary Sector - Discussion Document and then again we talk about biotechnology in our Economy - Discussion Document. Based on the feedback that I’ve received—which is very, very positive—on 8 October, the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Simon Bridges, and I, in Auckland, announced that we will review the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act because we want to see our biotech sector flourishing here in New Zealand.

I picked that date, 8 October, because it’s from that date that Australia has implemented their reviewed legislation. This is one bit of gene editing which is not going to be regulated in Australia. This is not a fringe sector that we are talking about; this is a sector on which the future of our environment and the future of our agri-sector will depend on. So it’s a very, very significant sector. This is a high-value sector that we are talking about, and for this we need highly skilled people. Now, because Australia has changed their legislation, what is stopping our biotech sector or our highly skilled people from moving out to Australia? Nothing—nothing.

This is a sector that we need to pay serious attention to if we are serious about climate change, if we are serious about the environment, and if we are serious about our agriculture sector. We need to pay attention to this sector, but this Government will not act, because they don’t want to—simply, they don’t want to. The Ministry for the Environment has been urging and the Royal Society of New Zealand has been urging, but there has been no action from this Government.

Australia announced, in April, that they will be bringing this change from 8 October, so there was plenty of time for this Government to act, but they didn’t. Australia is a significant agribusiness partner for New Zealand. It’s important that we keep up with Australia, at least. New Zealand is now behind. We have the credentials to do that work, they don’t. New Zealand is now behind because of that Government. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That the sitting programme for 2020 be as follows:

February 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, and 20;

March 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, and 31;

April 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 28 , 29, and 30;

May 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 26, 27, and 28;

June 2, 3, 4, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, and 30;

July 1, 2, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, and 30;

August 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 25, 26, and 27;

September 1, 2, 3, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, and 24;

October 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, and 22;

November 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, and 19;

December 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, and 17.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Corrections Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): It gives me great pleasure to talk about the Corrections Amendment Bill, and I’ll just go through a number of the provisions in it.

There’s a provision regarding prisoners vulnerable to self-harm. At present, when a prisoner leaves their cell and comes back to it, there’s a provision in the current law that that person must be strip-searched. Now, we have concern for those people who may have mental health issues—the regularity of them being strip-searched. We propose instead that the person coming back will only be strip-searched based on their individual management plan.

There’s another provision around mother and baby placements, where mothers in the past may have had their baby who was in prison with them actually taken off them and the mother had no right or no grounds or no ability really to have that decision re-examined. So now what we’re saying is that mothers need to be given the reasons why their baby would be removed from them and also the process necessary for that decision to be reconsidered.

There is also the use of mechanical restraints during hospital visits. We’re saying that for restraints to be used for more than 24 hours it must be only if there is a concern that the person may escape rather than them having the restraints on all of the time.

When prisoners come into prison, it’s necessary for them, we believe, to have information given to them in a form and in the language that they understand so that they can actually understand the information that is given to them. Understanding that not everybody can read, any information given to them must be given in a way that they do understand if they are unable to read. So we say that it should be in a form that is accessible and appropriate to the person’s abilities and language.

There was some discussion around the use of police cells. Now, the previous Government wanted us to say that police cells could be used—designated—as corrections cells. The truth of the matter is that with the success that we’ve had in safely reducing the prison population this provision is no longer necessary. When we became Government, the prison population was up around 10,500. That was in late 2017. The prison population continued to rise until March 2018 when it reached 10,820. Since then we’ve had a 7 percent prison population reduction, which means that it’s hovering now around 10,000. The prison population is around about 10,000.

Now, the justice sector forecast in 2017 said that if the previous Government had been still in Government in October 2019, the prison population would now be around about 12,000. And I can see why the previous Government decided that they needed to have as much extra space as possible and so they decided that prison cells would be one way to have extra accommodation. That is no longer necessary. We have safely reduced the prison population down to, like I say, hovering around 10,000.

I did note, as I walked into the House this afternoon, that the National speaker in the general debate was saying that there are more bad people out there than ever before. The reality is when we became Government the prison population was around 10,500 and the number of offenders in the community was 30,137. The latest information I have is that the number of offenders in the community is now 29,031, which is about 1,100 fewer offenders in the community than when we became Government and there’s about 500 fewer people in prison than when we became Government. So there are actually fewer offenders in the country; not as I heard when I walked in that there are actually more.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Just rubbish.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: So I hear the Hon Dr Nick Smith praising me for the work that we’ve done in the corrections field over the last four years—something that he knows that his Government never intended to ever address. In fact, they saw the justice sector forecast of 12,000 by October 2019 as a target. So the previous Government saw the justice sector forecast as a target and they were just going to build more and more prisons—American-style mega-prisons—to cater for the numbers that they were going to incarcerate.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Just garbage. Nobody believes that. It’s about as credible as your nine years of neglect.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: And I continue to hear the acclamation and the affirmation from the Opposition as to the wonderful work that this Government has done to reduce the prison population safely, to reduce the number of offenders in the community safely—

Chris Bishop: How much has it gone down by?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: How much has it gone down by? I’ll just repeat those figures. At the end of 2017 there were 10,550 people in prison. There are now 10,052—a reduction of 500. In the community, there were 30,137 at the end of 2017. There’s now 29,031—a reduction of over a thousand. And what is even more interesting is the work that we’ve been doing in terms of the total number of sentenced prisoners. At the end of 2017 there were 7,529 sentenced prisoners in total. The latest information we have is total sentenced prisoners: 6,418. Just quickly, doing the maths—over a thousand fewer sentenced prisoners. So this Government is doing a fantastic job in safely reducing the prison population.

I recall in the previous debates there was some concern around the sharing of cells and I recalled the Dr, the Hon, or the Hon Dr—the totally Doctorable Nick Smith—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! You must use the correct honorific and the correct name for members.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —the Hon Dr Nick Smith criticising me for saying in Opposition that we shouldn’t use shared cells and that now—I think his words were “A lion in Opposition and a lamb in Government.” Well, the reality is that the previous Government knew that there was some legal ambiguity around the use of shared cells and that legal ambiguity in a worst-case scenario—a challenge in court to current practice—could result in a court decision requiring the Department of Corrections to reduce the use of cell sharing, which would increase the pressure on available accommodation and impose substantial costs to the Crown.

So it’s interesting that the previous Government allowed for—because they knew for about four years that there was some risk to the Crown. And I wonder why they didn’t do anything about it at the time. And there was four Corrections Ministers in the previous Government. Any one of those four could have done something about it and they didn’t. And they left the Crown, the Government, at some substantial risk and that, for me, is unacceptable, and I can hear the praise from the other side! They just said, “Thank you, Minister Davis, for removing that risk to the Crown and saving us the potential of getting had up for the cell sharing.”

The reality is if the previous Government had stayed in Government—and remember our prison population was around about 10,000 and was forecast to be up to 12,000 by now, if they were still in—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Fantasy.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: Well, he’s saying that the justice sector forecast was a fantasy. That’s interesting—it was the justice sector forecast when he was in Government. But the reality is we don’t have the capacity to house those 12,000 people and I don’t know where the previous Government would have held them—probably billeted them out around the community. That was probably their only option or they would have had to double-bunk them. Now, if they’d double-bunked those extra 2,000 people, that means in total 2,000 people going into cells with other people. That means there’d be 4,000 more people being double-bunked right now if the Opposition was still in Government and that is totally unacceptable.

So instead of just talking about it, we’ve done something to actually reduce the pressure on the double-bunking. We have safely reduced the prison population. We’ve safely reduced the number of offenders in the community. This Government is doing a fantastic job in the area of corrections.

But let me just come back to this particular bill, because I know that they’ll go on about the mail system.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I give the Hon Mark Mitchell the call, I’m just going to make a ruling. I’m going to take the Minister’s contribution as opening remarks and I’m going to give the Opposition the opportunity to respond. After that, I expect all members to speak to Part 1 of this bill and only to Part 1. The Hon Mark Mitchell.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for clarifying that, because that’s a very fair ruling as the Minister did depart from Part 1.

I do want to address some of the comments that he made. Firstly, I have no doubt at all that the Minister has got the best of intentions in terms of what he’s trying to achieve as a Minister of Corrections with Corrections, but he really owes this committee an explanation around the numbers that he’s giving. You can’t stand up and say that under the previous Government the prison population right now would be at 12,000, and under this Government it’s at 10,500. There has been some initial gains made because of the work that the Hon Louise Upston did in starting to put a programme in place to allow, especially those on remand, to be able to fill out forms and actually respond to the information that was required around decisions on bail, and that has had a positive effect, without a doubt, on the remand population. She, also, was doing a lot of work in recognising the fact that when prisoners are on remand they should be getting some rehabilitation programmes delivered. I think, fundamentally, we probably all agree with that. But it’s completely misleading to stand up in this House and say that “We’ve done a great job of reducing the prison numbers”, and that under the previous Government we’d be sitting at 12,000. An explanation behind those numbers would be useful, I’m sure, to the House.

The reality is this: our prison population numbers for the next five, 10 years are going to fluctuate and probably sit fairly close to where they are now. They’ll go up a bit; they’ll come down a bit. If we really want to make a difference to the pipeline of people coming into our criminal justice system, the greatest roadmap that we’ve been given for that was given to us by the Rt Hon Bill English, and that is the social investment model—that is actually making investment into people’s lives much earlier, and getting support around them much earlier to actually prevent them from coming into the criminal justice system. That’s how we’re going to make the greatest impact as a country on our prison population.

What really worries me and concerns me about the Minister’s approach and about this Government’s approach is a blinded ideology of just throwing open the cell doors and getting prisoner numbers down. It’s dangerous, it has no regard for public safety, and it’s quite simply this: it’s a transference of responsibility from the Government back to the public. And touch wood, and as hard as we pray and hope that we don’t see a tragedy, my greatest fear is that we will see a tragedy because there’ll be someone in our community that is actually a danger to public safety that actually should be inside our corrections system, where at least they are getting some treatment, they’re getting some rehabilitation, they’re moving towards integration back into society. The worst thing that we can do is put people that are still a risk, not only to themselves but to the general public, back out into society.

What we need to see from this Government and we haven’t seen, is a clear plan. A plan to actually deal with organised crime, to deal with the growing numbers of gangs, and, let’s face it—and it was raised in this House today—gang numbers are exceeding those of the new police officers coming out on the streets who have to deal with them. So that’s an abject failure from this Government. Tell us what your plan is and how you’re going to deal with it; lay out your plan. We’re seeing poverty numbers go up. We’re seeing every indicator that would show that we’re losing the battle in terms of that pipeline of people coming into our criminal justice system. Those are the things that this Government needs to focus on. Those are the things that they need to show this country that there’s a plan for. Not coming to this House and standing up and being flippant and making jokes and attacking the Opposition, but actually outlining a plan and showing us clearly what the plan is in the long term for reducing people coming into our criminal justice system and into our corrections system.

We can’t support this bill because you’ve diluted one of the most important and fundamental things that we all agree on, and we’re meant to agree on in this House, and that’s around rehabilitation and rehabilitating people—trying to get them to re-join society, trying to make them become lawful members of their community and start to contribute. That’s one of the fundamentals of what we should be delivering inside our corrections system.

The use of police cells—you just completely removed the ability, should there be a situation where there is a spike, where there is an increase in people coming into the corrections system, for the Minister or for the chief executive to be able to access and use incarceration in the safety of the police cells. I mean, this is not something that’s new. I can tell you now, for decades [Interruption]—I can tell the Minister right now that for decades, police cells, and I concede that they are not set up for long-term, permanent use and housing of prisoners, but they do provide a safe and adequate solution should it be needed to house prisoners. And let’s remember why we do that: we do that to remove the risk from the community. We do that to make sure that Kiwis that are going about their lawful business, that actually our law-abiding Kiwis don’t become victims in their own right because we, as a State, have failed, and we’ve put people back out into the community that actually shouldn’t be there.

So I would ask the Minister to stand and—although, Mr Chair, I acknowledge that you have given us a lot wider scope because we are addressing the points that the Minister has raised, I hope that you allow the Minister to continue to have some scope in responding to the questions that we’re putting to him. But it would be great if the Minister would stand and would actually address the issues and tell us: what is the Government’s plan in reducing the pipeline of people coming into our criminal justice system?—because that’s how you’re going to have a real impact on the numbers in our prisons, not by throwing the doors open, not by weakening parole laws or sentencing laws or bail laws to find a way of actually releasing people early and transferring that risk back to the community. Let’s hear what the meaningful plan is to actually make a significant difference. Thank you very much, Mr Chair.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for the opportunity of speaking on Part 1 of the Corrections Amendment Bill. It’s been an interesting discussion so far and, in particular, I’d like to focus on the part in Part 1 which is clause 7 which, initially—and created by the previous Government—put in place new section 32A which allows the Minister to declare a police jail, or part of police jail, as part of the established corrections prison. That is the point in particular that the previous member was discussing, and it lays out very clearly there what that process is. I am heartened to see the Supplementary Order Paper offered by this Government that prevents that from being the case.

I would like to talk briefly around that point as to why, in the first place, that was required and some of the information that the Justice Committee received at the time—which was quite alarming—around that. So it is really concerning that there was a plan in place by the previous Government to be able to utilise police cells as an interim measure because of a prison system that, quite simply, could not cope with the influx of people who were being incarcerated in New Zealand. And it is quite astonishing to be challenged to the fact of having no plan to address that particular problem when there has been $1.9 billion invested in mental health and addictions treatment, with a substantial proportion of that being allocated to the corrections system to enable more prisons than ever before in New Zealand offer the type of treatment that changes people’s lives and gives them the opportunity not to enter prison again.

So some of the information that we received on the select committee, in relation to that clause 7 in Part 1, was from the Ombudsman. He was very concerned that there were some fundamental human rights that may be impeded by those cells within police stations not having the basic equipment for people to be able to use the bathroom frequently, to be able to sleep or lie down—some pretty fundamental human rights that would not be able to be adhered to if that provision was continued; if we were continuing to enable for legislation to provide for spill-over from the prison system to go into police cells.

It’s really concerning that we have members within this House advocating for situations to be provided for in legislation that impede upon people’s human rights. So I’m encouraged to see that the Supplementary Order Paper that is before this House as part of Part 1, and being considered, enables that provision to be removed, and it is because of that that we are moving towards a corrections system and a prison system that gives people the opportunity to turn around their lives and take advantage of what treatment is now being provided but previously was not. And I think it is interesting that there are no changes recommended by the select committee that were able to be agreed upon, because I think that demonstrates very clearly the vast space between this side of the House and the other in terms of where we see the future of New Zealand’s prison system going.

I think that clause 7 in this bill is an excellent example of the difference between this Government and how we view our justice system and the role of our corrections system in rehabilitating people and giving them opportunities to turn around their lives instead of the temporary slap-up measure of putting people in police cells. I think that the other key parts of this bill that are really important are important because they also give good opportunities for people to have more ability within the prison system to be looked after, and that is also what takes place here.

It’s an interesting fact that 90 percent of prisoners have a lifetime diagnosis of either a mental health or substance abuse disorder, and for many people the corrections system provides a huge opportunity to access that treatment when previously they weren’t able to. And I would argue quite strongly that the place for doing that treatment and rehabilitation is in the corrections system and quite simply not a short-term measure that the other side proposes and systems like having police jail cells at hand to take the spill-over. There are many other very important parts of this bill that I’m sure that other members would speak on, but for the time being I wish to commend it to the committee.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): There are three key points I wish to make in this committee stage debate on this bill. This bill is about broken promises, like so many areas of policy by the current Government. It’s about a policy that is soft on crime, and it’s also about incompetence, and I want to talk about each of those three issues.

But first of all, can I just respond quickly to the point by Ginny Andersen. She says that the focus of corrections policies needs to be on the rights of offenders. Well, I’m sorry; we disagree. It is our view that people are sent to prison because they have offended against society and they need to be held accountable, and I, on this side of the House, make no apologies for curtailing their rights.

One of the key issues in Part 1 deals with letters by prisoners. I have never been so embarrassed as a New Zealander to read newspapers around the world pointing out that the worst terrorist, the horrific man that is accused of committing the crimes in Christchurch, was able to perpetuate his hate by writing letters out of the Department of Corrections—and members opposite want to talk about prisoners’ rights. Well, I want to talk about public safety, and I say to the Corrections people and I say to the Minister, you failed New Zealanders in your duty to keep us safe from the worst criminal in the history of New Zealand by allowing those letters to be distributed by that seriously accused offender.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. One of the rights of New Zealanders is to ensure that that criminal justice system can operate effectively and can secure a conviction of an accused person. One of the things that we have a responsibility to do in this House—

Hon Amy Adams: What’s the point of order? This is a debate.

Hon Chris Hipkins: —as much as—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member. Points of order are heard in silence.

Hon Amy Adams: Well, that isn’t one.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): You can stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Amy Adams: I withdraw and apologise.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Thank you, and be silent or you’ll be leaving.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Mr Chairman, as much as the right of free speech should be jealously guarded, the member previously referred to the accused, and it’s important that he continues to do so rather than presume a conviction, because to do so undermines the trial process, and that is actually very important. This is something that the media are working very carefully to do, and we have a responsibility as members in this House to do the same thing as well.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Speaking to the point of order, I clearly referred to him as the accused of the horrific crime. The issue remains the same—that while he is on remand he has been allowed to send letters raising issues of hate that are an embarrassment to New Zealand. This part of the bill specifically deals with the issue of letters and I was entirely appropriate.

Hon Chris Hipkins: I’m not questioning the member’s ability to raise issues around the alleged offender.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

Hon Chris Hipkins: It’s just that he has to continue—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

Hon Chris Hipkins: —to refer to him as that. Sorry.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I listened very carefully to the debate. I’m not sure what the member’s actually asking for, except my opinion. The content of what the Hon Dr Smith said, although contentious, was actually in order in my opinion. I think all members need to be careful when discussing things and people who are before the courts. It’s an ongoing issue that we do not breach any of those rules. I’m listening carefully, and it’s really good if both sides of the Chamber observe that. I know that the Hon Dr Smith does fly close to that edge. He’s been a member for a very long time. I know he knows where that edge is.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The issue here is a serious one. There is no question of the rules of trial. The issue is that a remand prisoner, charged with the deaths of 51 New Zealanders in the most horrific attack in the history of New Zealand, in the custody of the Department of Corrections, was able to freely send letters around the world promoting terrorism and further hate crimes. Members on this side of the House say it’s wrong, and members over on the other side of the House can talk all they like about the rights of prisoners, but it’s wrong, it’s embarrassing, it’s a failure, and we make no apologies for holding the Department of Corrections and this Government to account for that failure. The Minister in the chair, the Hon Kelvin Davis, needs to be answerable for the provisions in Part 1 of the bill and assure this Parliament that the amendments that are being put in place will ensure that that mistake, that potentially deadly error, will never ever happen again.

The second point I want to make is about broken promises. The Minister in the chair for nine years raged against double-bunking in prisons—and do you know what this bill does? It makes double-bunking in prisons easier. Is there a member on this side of the House that can remember Kelvin Davis saying, “I want to be the Minister of Corrections so that double-bunking will be easier for the department.”? I don’t remember the Greens saying that. In fact, the Greens, in their specific election promise, said they were going to ban double-bunking—and this bill makes it easier. That is a broken promise in anyone’s books.

Now I want to come to the contribution of Jenny Andersen about the issue of rehabilitation—

Ginny Andersen: Ginny.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Ginny. The Minister in the chair, the Hon Kelvin Davis, said that this bill was first developed during a National Cabinet. Yes, and I was part of those discussions. And do you know what we had in this bill, Ms Andersen? What we had in this bill was a very specific requirement that there be a rehabilitation plan for every prisoner. Now, wouldn’t that be a good thing? That’s what National wanted to put in the bill, and Labour took it out. It’s been removed from the bill, and do you know why they said they took it out? Because the Department of Corrections, without the legal requirement, doesn’t need the requirement to do it. Well, I have to tell you I’ve seen some “yes” Ministers in my day. If members opposite, including in the Labour Party and the Green Party, truly believed in rehabilitation, as we on this side do, they would put a legal requirement in the legislation for an individual rehabilitation plan, because that is an area where we agree. And this Parliament can talk rehabilitation all it likes, it needs to pass the laws that will strengthen our rehabilitation, because that is the area where we need to make significant improvement. Part 1 of this bill has huge gaps, and we can do much better.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Thank you, Mr Chair. I would just like to respond to some of the issues raised by the Opposition—first of all, Mark Mitchell talking about the need for the police cells. I just spent 10 minutes explaining the fact that we don’t need them. We don’t need them, and it just goes to show how this Opposition has given up and has run out of ideas.

Hon Mark Mitchell: What are you going to do?

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: What are we going to do? Well, we’ve done it. We have reduced the prison population safely. Now, we haven’t done it by throwing open the doors, as the Opposition and Mark Mitchell charges us with, because he knows that the Government, he knows that Corrections, are not responsible for the release of prisoners. He knows that the judiciary makes those decisions. He knows that the Parole Board makes those decisions. All the Government is doing is getting information to the judiciary and to the Parole Board in a timely manner. I’ve said it before in this House: only in “Planet National” are efficiencies a bad thing—making sure that judges get information in a matter of days or weeks instead of months or years. It’s only on “Planet National” that efficiencies are wrong.

The rehabilitation—well, let me read: “The department was instructed by the previous Minister in 2015 to include a provision stating that people in prison are expected to participate in any rehabilitation programmes they are requested to attend.” This clause was never drafted, and guess why: because the Parliamentary Counsel Office raised concerns because “an ‘expectation’ ”—in speech marks—“clause is not best practice, as it had”—listen to this, folks—“no operative or legislative effect.” So they were doing something for no reason whatsoever, and they think that that’s being efficient. There was no purpose to that.

Also, if they looked in the Act, section 51 talks about management plans, and part of the management plans are to have rehabilitation. I’ll just find that. The management plans, section 51: “(1) This section applies to every prisoner who is—(a) sentenced to imprisonment”. And section 51(4)(c) says the plans must “outline how the prisoner can make constructive use of his or her time in the prison (including, in the case of a person sentenced to imprisonment, ways of addressing offending behaviour and preventing reoffending);”. So that is in a plan that the prisoner already has, and they want to have another plan that has no legislative or operative effect. It goes to show that that party over there is totally bereft of ideas, and they spent nine years doing absolutely nothing constructive.

In terms of the mail situation, we have put up our hand and said, “Yes, those letters should not have been sent.” There is an issue though, and what we’re trying to do is clear up the ambiguity in the law and also make sure that we don’t impact on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—so managing the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Corrections Act. So the Act as it was said that mail shouldn’t go out if it was likely to cause harm. What we’re now saying is that we’re reducing the threshold to say that mail shouldn’t go out if it may cause harm.

The issue with the way the Act was was that I could write to somebody directly and threaten them, and that’s a pretty clear case of a letter that should not have gone out, but, if you’re writing to somebody who shares your own abhorrent views, then that person isn’t going to be threatened or harmed, because they share your views. Where the harm is likely to be caused is if that letter is then shared online, say—which is what happened. That’s why we’ve changed it so that we say that the letter may directly cause harm or indirectly, and that’s a big distinction. That is the reason why we’ve put that into this Supplementary Order Paper. We’ve said, “Yes, it’s wrong.”, and Corrections was accountable. The chief executive said it was a mistake that shouldn’t have been made. But we are changing the law so that nobody can be harmed directly or indirectly from mail.

The issue was about individuals—in the current Act, individuals—being harmed. What we’re doing now is changing it so that for groups of people, based on their religious beliefs, their sexual orientation, and their ethnicity—all those sorts of reasons—any mail that threatens or jeopardises or harms them should not be sent.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Corrections Amendment Bill. My point of reference in addressing Part 1, which deals with amendments to the principal Act, is actually referencing the report that came to the whole House from the Justice Committee. I want to reference my contribution in Part 1, because the bulk of the Justice Committee report actually addresses components of Part 1. In examining the Justice Committee report, it’s interesting to note that the committee could not agree, but the issues that the bill addresses in Part 1 were well canvassed by the select committee, with the exception of the hard-working Labour members of that select committee that did make recommendations. I want to acknowledge the Minister for acknowledging those specific suggestions that Labour members of the select committee made.

That’s how I want to start my contribution in terms of Part 1, because the first issue that the select committee raised where Labour members made some amendments was the powers and functions of the health centre managers. In the Act itself, that is on clauses 6 to 14, which clearly introduces, as part of the rehabilitation commitment of this Minister and this Government, the taking of mental health very seriously. In clauses 6 to 14, we introduce a process around identifying, or self-identifying, prisoners at risk—that are a requirement of health needs. I want to acknowledge that part of the bill. That goes in quite substantive detail in this part, and that talks about the actual process under clause 14 in the new section 61A, which talks about the ongoing assessment for risk of self-harm, and it clearly spells out the process that’s involved in that.

We then turn to section 61B. That talks about initial steps that prison managers and health centre managers must take in respect of at-risk prisoners. So you’re starting to see not only in rhetoric but actually in legislation how serious we are taking mental health amongst a huge number of prisoners in our prisons so that we are treating them appropriately. Section 61C—confirmation of at-risk prisoners assessment—again requires the health manager or the prison a 24-hour prisoner at-risk assessment. Section 61D—at-risk management plan. We heard from that side: where’s the rehabilitation plan; where’s the management plan? Here it is—to the Opposition side. It’s in clause 14. It’s spelt out very clearly in the process when we’re dealing particularly with the health concerns of our prisoners. Section 61E—content of at-risk management plan. It goes on and on.

I heard the Minister in his opening statement about this side of the Government not only committing to trying to help prisoners rehabilitate but also doing it while keeping the public safe. There was mention about the use of prison cells. I’ve heard it clearly from the Minister himself. We don’t need them. In this particular part there’s reference—actually, it’s right up the front—in clause 4, “Section 3 amended (Interpretation)”, which actually does not include a prison cell when defining what a corrections prison is. So it’s clearly spelt out our commitment to rehabilitating prisoners in our prisons.

But I opened this with a reference to the Justice Committee because we also talked about prisoners at risk of self-harm at the select committee and the recommendations made by Labour about making amendments to clause 14, clause 25, and section 98(7A).

There were also discussions and recommendations around decisions relating to a child’s placement, but also that was in relation to clause 17(1) inserting new section 81A(5A), and then we also addressed at the select committee—the Labour members—prisoners’ understanding of information, which is clause 9 of the bill. My point is simply that the select committee process is an avenue to not only hear submitters but take on board the expert advice to make constructive recommendations. It’s unfortunate that this select committee, when considering this bill, couldn’t come to agreement.

But I also turn to the minority report of the National Party, again, because that’s where they start putting down their concerns with this bill, and there’s only actually two matters that they raised in consideration of this bill. The first one was they felt it didn’t address rehabilitation significantly enough. I have just talked under clauses 14 to 16 in Part 1 around the mental health commitment and rehabilitating those prisoners that need that service while they’re in prison.

The other issue that they talked about was police cells. That’s it. All they oppose in this bill is rehabilitation and jail cells, and they would not come to the table at the select committee and come up with some recommendations. Instead they completely binned the bill, and that’s a real disappointment for the democratic processes of this House, when we come here to consider bills like we are doing today. It’s a lost opportunity for all members of the Justice Committee to be more constructive when we have bills that are going to impact—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’ll ask the member—

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: —the lives of all New Zealanders.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’ll ask the member to come back to the bill, thank you.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: I commend this bill to the committee.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the Corrections Amendment Bill at this committee stage. I’ll just briefly preface my remarks by acknowledging those who work in the Auckland prison at Pāremoremo within my Helensville electorate. I’ve met with the Minister there on at least one occasion and also I’m taking the opportunity to visit various constituents who are situated there by choice and otherwise.

The frame, I suppose, or the context of my consideration of this or other corrections bills other than, of course, general considerations relating to prisoners and those who are involved in the corrections system is whether the difficult and dangerous job of corrections officers is made easier or harder by the legislation that we are in the process of passing, at least potentially.

I’d like to focus on three aspects of Part 1, the first being the letter-writing provision at clause 27. The committee has already traversed some of the issues associated with the high profile recent case. I don’t intend to cover that ground again. There’s probably not much positive to be gained by me doing so. I will note, however, that I’m aware of at least one case of a constituent in my own electorate who was the recipient of a letter that had been written from a prisoner that was totally inappropriate under the old law and indeed the new. So I’d just note that with no particular political point to make. In fact, I don’t know whether that act occurred prior to or after the change of the last Government. It’s irrelevant. But just to note the importance of the rules around letter writing from prisoners to the outside world, particularly the disproportionate effect that that would have on those who will have a particular reason by way of their background, having been a victim of a violent crime in this particular case. So notwithstanding recent lapses as already acknowledged on both sides of the Chamber, it’s positive if we can have some rules going forward that tighten further the requirements around prisoners’ correspondence and the effect that those can have on the outside world.

I’d also like to touch on the use of police jail cells. I understand the point that the Minister’s making, suggesting that it won’t be necessary to resort to the use of jail cells in that remand sense. I would love for him to be correct for that never to be the case going forward, but I fear, unfortunately, it might well be, even if for no other reason than population increase that translates into an increase in criminal activity. Even if the rate of crime were to not go up, then it would be, at least potentially, the case that we will continue to need to use police cells in the way that is contemplated in clauses 7 and 8. So I think it’s a matter of prudent lawmaking that we actually provide a set of circumstances and safeguards so that in the situation, should it occur in the future, that police cells will be used in a way that is advantageous to consider, effectively, as Corrections prisons operated by the department, we should have some good strong rules around that.

I’ll note in passing, of course, that the problem of “muster pressures”—to use the phrase in the bill—is one that relates as well to a more general reform of longstanding issues. Again, I don’t make a partisan point in relation to the fact that it’s a slow justice system in the criminal realm, whereby prisoners on remand often spend long periods of time before coming to trial, at which of course they might be found either innocent or guilty. So that is an area in which I urge more action from the Government than we have seen thus far.

My final point within this five-minute call is simply to note the work that’s been done in the area of mechanical restraints, as they are described. I’m not particularly expert in this area, but I’ve listened carefully to briefings that we’ve had from officials and other Government agencies outside of Corrections as well and note that it’s important that our domestic law in these respects is consistent with our international obligations.

So, with that, I say to the committee that the detail of this bill is hugely important for all kinds of reasons relating to the safety of all concerned and I join with my National Party colleagues in seeking that all these issues be addressed thoroughly as we proceed in this, the committee stage, and beyond.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thanks. Thank you, Mr Chair. With reference to the Opposition’s opposition to this bill, the Corrections Amendment Bill, I’d just like to make the comment that it appears to me, on close listening to the arguments and reading the National Party minority view, that it’s an inability by the National Party to run a coherent argument around why they actually truly oppose this bill. Instead there is reliance on a dog-whistling approach and, by reference to Dr Nick Smith, high dudgeon to express their opposition.

I just went and read what the opposition was, and it is around the participation and rehabilitation.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! We’re 60 seconds into the speech and the debate is on Part 1, not on the minority report. If you want to, you can mention that in passing, but you must debate Part 1.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: OK. In passing, the comment was made that it was the Corrections department—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): As part of Part 1—you need to reference Part 1.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: Yeah. Instead it was the Parliamentary Counsel Office’s advice, and I’m happy to talk about that further in future calls. But accuracy in why they’re opposing the bill is important.

In reference to Part 1 and clause 6, in particular, which are the adjustments relating to prisoners vulnerable to self-harm, I want to mention the absolutely critical intersection between mental health provision and the corrections system and the incredibly important work that’s being done there, given that 90 percent of prisoners have had a lifetime diagnosis of mental health or substance abuse disorder and many of them enter the corrections system with undiagnosed illnesses or corrections. The Minister, in his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 392, is revising the delegation of a health centre manager’s powers and functions, and the revision is allowing that health centre manager to delegate their powers and functions to a registered health professional, as opposed to a medical practitioner.

Now, it doesn’t seem necessarily such a huge thing, but in terms of providing the adequate support to people, particularly when they’re entering the system and being assessed, this could be critical. Having recently advocated for a person within the corrections system who has very complex mental health issues, these more considered powers and a more thoughtful approach to this individualised approach to this are absolutely critical in being able to ensure that the person sees out their sentence within the corrections service, but does so in the safest way, in the way that is safe for them and for the rest of the system, and ensuring that there’s a recognition of the mental health disorders that may have led to them entering the corrections system in the first place.

I can’t stress highly enough how important it is to take this individualised approach. This SOP in this particular piece of legislation is really trying to take a very considered approach to how we treat people within the corrections system. Interestingly, it goes to the point that was being made by the Opposition member Dr Smith around rehabilitation, which is that if you actually provide the adequate services, then you can steer the person through into the system where they come out, having taken a much more rehabilitative approach. So these clauses in Part 1 that go to the delegation of health centre managers’ powers and functions may not, on the surface, seem the most important part of this bill, but, as I see it, this is incredibly important.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The member Clare Curran, who’s just resumed her seat, laid down the challenge as to why National opposes Part 1 of this bill, and I want to set it out very clearly for her. When this bill was developed, the National Cabinet included a specific provision and legal requirement for an individualised rehabilitation plan for every prisoner. A deliberative decision was made by the new Government to remove that. We think that’s a mistake and we think those individual rehabilitation plans should have still been part of Part 1.

The second reason we oppose this bill is because you’re breaking your promises. We’re old fashioned on this side of the Chamber. If you say something to the voters, we actually think you should carry it through and do as you say. Both the Green Party and the Labour Party campaigned on getting rid of double-bunking. The irony of this bill is that far from getting rid of double-bunking, it makes double-bunking easier. For members on that side of the Chamber, when they ask why we are opposing the bill it is because we think it’s fraudulent to go to the voters—and I say it to the Green Party—with a specific policy saying that you are going to get rid of double-bunking and then vote for a bill that makes double-bunking easier.

Then the third reason, for Clare Curran’s edification, why we oppose this bill is that since this bill came to the House we had the appalling failure by the Department of Corrections, allowing the most serious criminal ever to be before our prison system and our court system, charged with the deliberate murder of over 51 people and as many as 50 others seriously injured, and that person while on remand being able to write letters. I say, and I think my colleagues on this side of the Chamber say, that we must better protect the public from that sort of incident. All I’ve heard from members opposite is that it’s about prisoners’ rights. Actually, it’s about protecting the public from those sorts of acts of mass murder and terrorism.

We’re not satisfied that the provisions in this bill adequately provide the protection that New Zealand will never ever be the laughing stock of the world, that we charge a person with terrorism and while they’re behind bars, they’re writing letters to fanatics around different parts of the world encouraging others to commit repeats of that awful atrocity that occurred in Christchurch. So I say again to Clare Curran and members opposite: National is opposing this part for very good reason. The Government should not have taken those extra requirements for individualised rehabilitation plans out of this bill. It should not be breaking its promise around double-bunking. If National was in charge of this bill, the provisions around letter writing would better respond to that awful, embarrassing failure that occurred at Pāremoremo prison in allowing New Zealand’s most serious ever charged offender to be able to carry on writing letters.

When I hear the Ginny Andersens saying that we’re not focused enough on the rights of prisoners, actually, we make no apologies for saying that we’re here primarily to ensure that our corrections laws protect New Zealanders from those sorts of offenders, and we’re not convinced that that’s the Government’s priority. The Government’s priority is more about emptying people out of prisons and the sort of advocacy of prisoners’ rights and forgetting about the very important rights of the public to be safe.

In my view, those three reasons are very sound reasons why the National team is not supporting Part 1 of this bill. We would be delighted if Government members would reconsider and realise they should do what they said around double-bunking, that they should strengthen further the provisions around letter writing, and, thirdly, they should include those individualised rehabilitation plans.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I’d like to speak to the Corrections Amendment Bill, Part 1. Particularly, I’ll talk about the police jails, but just before I do, I’ve sat in the committee this afternoon and heard the Opposition doing the usual lazy Opposition thing—and, I have to say, it’s not just down to that; Oppositions everywhere do this, because what they do is go for the easy win, and the easy win is always fear of crime. The easy win is always to stand in the Opposition and scare the hell out of the population, and it doesn’t just happen in New Zealand—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): And now speak to Part 1 of this bill.

GREG O’CONNOR: I was just providing some context, but, yes, I will speak to—part of this I’d like to speak to is just particularly around the provision of police cells. I can remember visiting the Henderson Police Station at a time when the police station was full of remand prisoners. Now, they weren’t necessary dangerous remand prisoners; they were actually immigration, they were people there on various regulatory offences. When I look at Part 1 and I see the provisions in there, they become very important to ensure that where prisoners are in police cells, there are proper provisions around them, particularly around clause 7. Clause 7 is what allows the Minister to declare a police jail, or part of a police jail, as part of an established corrections prison.

Now, what is important there is that the prisoners that are put in there—and often they’re not the most dangerous prisoners; often they are, as I said, immigration prisoners, and they can be left aside because no one’s really advocating for them. So it’s very important that I look back at Part 1 and look at the provisions in there to ensure that there is some oversight and good oversight and to ensure that the running of the police stations in particular is not affected any more than it has to be by those prisoners. It is, of course, something that now we can look at in the cold light of day, because it is not an issue at the moment because of the very good work done by this Minister of Corrections, which has meant that the pressure has gone off the prison system without any accompanying rise in crime, and that’s what we want to achieve.

When I look at the whole of Part 1, the whole thing is about providing to ensure that we can talk—and we can build fear, as we’ve heard this afternoon, but, actually, nothing we have done has worked. The Opposition can stand and scream from the rooftops all they like, but nothing they—or, I have to say, any other Government, really, in the world—have done has worked. So when we look at Part 1 and we look at the provisions here, what these are is the start of a slow turnaround. Nothing we will do by itself—there’s no one pill we’re going to take that’s going to change things. It’s a bit like the turning around of a tanker, turning around of the Titanic, if you like, just making sure that as we turn—probably not a good analogy, but the turning around of a major ship so that, slowly, we start to acknowledge that what we have been doing isn’t working. In fact, we’ll go back to the Titanic—maybe it’s not such a bad analogy, because it certainly didn’t work for that.

So any provision we look at, as we look at the whole way we deal with the justice system, the prison system—that we look at what we’re doing in context. It’s not just taking it out, because if you do that you’ll end up with what Oppositions—and what this Opposition is doing; lazy Oppositions—do, which is stand up and just scare the heck, the bejesus, out of anyone listening without any solution at all. Someone, somewhere, has got to start making some new changes, because if we don’t, we end up going—it’s 11,000, it would’ve been 12,000, there’d be super-prisons all over. You would get like Texas was, where the biggest growth industry in Texas at one stage was geriatric prisons, because of this absolute fear that nobody could change, nobody could turn the ship around.

So if we go back to Part 1 and look at this around the slow moving that, hopefully, whatever hue of Government it is, Oppositions anywhere will not stand and talk and make speeches and advocate statutes, advocate laws, that will only end up filling our prisons even more and will do nothing—do nothing—for the safety of our society. So I go back again to Part 1 and I look at again at the police jails at the start of it. If we are going to have overflowing prisons where police jails are going to be required, then it means that there has been a failure within the system. However, if it does happen, we now know that as a result of these provisions, then it will actually be a little bit more workable.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): I’d just like to respond to a number of the issues that have been raised. Clause 7 talks about the police cells. Again, Mark Mitchell said we might need more police cells because there might be a spike in offending. Well, it’d have to be a pretty huge spike, because there are a thousand beds coming online in prisons. So we are creating capacity that way, but also, with the safe reduction of the prison population, we’re creating capacity in that area as well. In fact, we’ve done so well, we’ve been so efficient and so effective, that the High Impact Innovation Programme has in itself saved about 106,000 bed nights. Just doing quick calculations, that’s the equivalent of reducing the prison population by 290 prisoners. Think about the cost of that. If it costs over $100,000 a year to house a prisoner, the High Impact Innovation team has saved a couple of dozen million dollars just by reducing the prison population safely. So it’s going to have to be a pretty high spike.

But here’s the thing: even if there was a high spike and we did run out of capacity, we can still use police cells. It’s in the Act as it stands: section 34, “Detention of prisoners”. I’ll read it to you: “A person who is sentenced to imprisonment must serve the sentence in a corrections prison. (2) Despite subsection (1), any person sentenced to imprisonment may be detained in a Police jail on 1 or more occasions … A person may be held in custody on remand in—(a) any police jail”. So it’s already there in the Act as it stands, and here we have the Opposition railing against something that is totally irrelevant. Detention of prisoners can be in police cells. They really need to get on top of the issue.

The whole rehabilitation plan stuff—we’ve covered that in amended section 51, inserted by clause 11. Prisoners already have to have a rehabilitation plan as part of their management plan—they’re flogging a dead horse there. Of course, the legal ambiguity around the cell sharing—oh, and cell sharing, sorry, is in Part 2, so I’ll leave it there.

The fact of the matter is the Opposition—they need to explain why they are opposing this bill when if we look at new clause 25C(3)(vii), section 108 amended, we’re changing it so that people cannot “promote or encourage hostility towards any group of persons on 1 or more of the grounds specified in section 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993.” So by opposing Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 392, what they’re saying is that they’re open to promoting and encouraging hostility towards any group of persons on one or more grounds specified in section 21 of the Human Rights Act. That’s what they’re doing by opposing this SOP. They’re actually opposing us making it impossible for prisoners to actually promote hostility towards those groups of people. So they need to defend their position. We’re trying to make people safer; they’re not. They’re opposing us trying to make—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: No, we’re not.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: —members of the community safe. I hear the Hon Dr Nick Smith saying “No, we’re not opposing it.”, but they are. He stood up and said, “We’re opposing this. We’re opposing this SOP that is going to make it harder for people specified in section 21 of the Human Rights Act”—for hostility to be encouraged towards them. He stood up not five minutes ago and said “We are opposing it.”, and now he’s sitting over there chirping away saying, “No, we’re not opposing it.” Oh my goodness! Hand up if you heard him say he’s opposing it. Even Willie Jackson heard, and we know that Willie Jackson doesn’t listen to a thing Dr Nick Smith says. Dr Nick Smith has said they are opposing this SOP, and that means that they don’t mind promotion or encouragement of hostility towards any group of persons on one or more of the grounds specified in section 21 of the Human Rights Act, and those are groups based on their ethnicity, based on their sexual orientation, based on their religious beliefs.

I think that the National Party, the negative National Party, needs to stand up and explain why on earth they’re actually not supporting that particular part. We say negative National Party; there is one glimmer of light, and that is Chris Penk. He stood up, he praised the Corrections officers, and I thank him for being the one positive beam of light in the National Party.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I have to say that probably one of the most accurate statements in the House today was that of Mr O’Connor when he said he felt like he was on the Titanic. It’s pretty hard to argue with that sentiment. I just wanted to address to the Minister in the chair, Kelvin Davis—I genuinely appreciate the fact that he is standing and taking calls and addressing the issues that we’re raising, because we don’t always see this in the House, and it is actually a good part of the democratic process in terms of us talking to these bills. But I would ask him to stand—and he quoted the Act and the section that relates to the use of police cells—and clarify for us, because this bill was going to make it very clear that Corrections staff were going to be able to come in and manage any prisoners that were going to have to be kept on remand in police cells. If he could clarify for me: is that going to give Corrections staff the legal power to be able to come in and have oversight and run that, or is it going to suck up police resources and only police are going to be able to do that? If he could clarify that, that would be much appreciated.

Coming back to the letter, my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith has been very clear about this and has articulated it very clearly for the House today, that we did suffer our country’s worst tragedy in terms of a mass killing in Christchurch, not actually just for New Zealand but globally. It is abhorrent to think that the accused was able to continue to spew his hateful and violent rhetoric through letters that were coming out of our corrections system.

Actually, as a member of the Justice Committee, I can say that we took that very seriously, and we, on this side of the House, asked that we initiate an inquiry around that so that we’d actually find out and get to the bottom of it and we’d make sure that something like this could never happen again. Sadly, we couldn’t get that through. That was voted down by other members of the committee. But I’d like the Minister to stand and tell us why he has not supported making this bill much stronger and much clearer around ensuring that that can’t happen again.

Like the Hon Dr Nick Smith has said, we’ve heard lots of comments today from the Government benches around prisoner rights. What about the rights of the families and the friends of the people who were left behind and who are still having to deal with the human tragedy of that attack in the—

Michael Wood: The bill deals with that. That member’s voting against that.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry, what was that?

Michael Wood: The bill deals with that matter.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: The bill doesn’t deal with that matter at all.

Ginny Andersen: It does.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: It doesn’t. A big part of why we’re not supporting this bill is because we don’t feel like it’s strong enough, right? That’s the reality of it. If you’re against making it stronger, then stand up and take a call and explain to us, Mr Michael Wood, why you don’t want to make those provisions stronger within the bill. I’d be pleased to hear a call from you, but I’d be even more pleased to hear a call from the Minister to explain—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): From me?

Hon MARK MITCHELL: No, not you, Madam Chair, although it’s nice to see you—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): So don’t say “you”.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: —in the Chamber. But it would be even better to see the Minister stand and take a call and explain that to the committee. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 392 in the name of the Hon Kelvin Davis, and the following amendment in his name, to Part 1 be agreed to:

in clause 27, in proposed new clause 146, replace “92A(4)” with “92C(4)”.

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Consequential amendments to Corrections Regulations 2005

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): There’s a wonderful doozy in new regulation 66, in clause 35 in Part 2 of this bill, that I want to draw to the committee’s attention, and I particularly want to bring it to the Green Party’s attention. I’ve got a copy of the Green Party policy, and it very explicitly says that the Green Party is opposed to double-bunking. In fact, the Minister in the chair, Kelvin Davis, made his career as Opposition Corrections spokesperson on the basis of opposing double-bunking.

Well, I want to bring to the committee’s attention clause 35 in Part 2 of this bill. This is what it says, and I’ll read it out: “Replace regulation 66 with:” a new provision—and let me read what regulation 66 says: “As far as practicable … prisoners … must be accommodated in individual cells.” That’s the current law, and that’s being replaced by a new provision that says, “A prisoner may be accommodated in a shared cell unless the prison manager is satisfied that the prisoner is unsuited for shared cell accommodation”.

Now, the fascinating part is this: when we got all the legal advice, it is absolutely clear as day that this bill makes double-bunking easier. Does the Minister in the chair agree that new regulation 66 makes double-bunking easier? Does any member opposite dispute—

Ginny Andersen: Mega-prisons are better, are they, Dr Smith?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, no, it’s a very simple question—a very simple question—that I’d love any member of the Government to answer. Do they agree with Crown Law’s advice that new regulation 66 makes double-bunking easier? Does anybody dispute that in the Parliament? Anybody—any whisper?

Is there any whisper in the corner of the Chamber from the Green Party? The party that championed and promised New Zealanders that they’d get rid of shared cells is now supporting a bill that will make double-bunking easier.

Now, I’ve seen some doozies in my time. I have to say, when I was on the select committee, I choked on my coffee. I thought to myself that it’s not possible that the Green Party and the Labour Party, who for nine years have championed against double-bunking, would be bringing a bill in to make it easier. I’m truly flummoxed.

Hon Willie Jackson: That’s understandable.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, does Willie Jackson support having the law being made easier to double-bunk? Well, I ask the Green Party, and Marama Davidson is in the Chamber. She supports double-bunking now. Has the Green Party done a flip-flop on double-bunking?

Hon Willie Jackson: Times change.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: “Times change.” Oh well, I’m delighted—absolutely rapt. I think I can explain it for Mr Willie Jackson. It’s the “Steve Maharey principle”, and the “Steve Maharey principle” is “Well, there’s just things that you say in Opposition that you don’t do in Government.” What a cynical, devious, undemocratic view we have from the Greens and the Labour Party.

Effectively, what they’re saying in the House, on the most contentious political argument about corrections in the last 10 years, is that they are going back on their word with the public of New Zealand.

Hon Willie Jackson: No, we’re not.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That’s a breach of trust, Willie. I say to Marama Davidson and members opposite, you are breaching the faith of New Zealanders. You are undermining democracy. It’s wrong, it’s immoral, it’s politically manipulative, and it’s actually bad for this institution of Parliament. You can’t go to the voters, Willie, and say “Vote for me, and I’ll get rid of double-bunking”—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, but could you refer to members by their proper name. Dr Smith, please refer to members—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Mr Willie Jackson—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —cannot go to the voters in his electorate and say “Vote for me and I’ll get rid of double-bunking.”, and then hop down to Parliament and vote for a bill that will make it easier. Now, I can’t use the “h” word, but it is a double standard, and it is an appalling breach of faith.

If members opposite want to know why they’re in trouble in the polls, it’s because you keep breaking your promises. You keep breaking your promises. You’re saying one thing—

Hon Willie Jackson: Read the polls again.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, it’s meant to be the year of delivery. What is delivered in this bill is exactly the opposite of what Labour and the Green Party promised around the issue of double-bunking.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just standing to correct a terrible error that the Hon Dr Nick Smith made then. He said that when in Opposition, I made my political name around the issue of double-bunking. That is totally incorrect. I made my name around the issue of fight clubs—fight clubs. Remember when there was just mass violence going on in the prisons that four Ministers of Corrections in the previous Government failed to get under control? That is where I made my political name, not on the issue of double-bunking, although double-bunking is something that we need to address, and we are addressing it in a couple of ways. We are reducing the prison population safely and we’re increasing the capacity in the number of beds coming online, which means that as we create more capacity, we reduce the need for double-bunking.

That is how we’re making a difference, and, as I said earlier in this debate, the reason that we’re making this little change here is because of the legal ambiguity. The proposals—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh, it’s a legal ambiguity.

Hon KELVIN DAVIS: You know, I said it earlier, so obviously he wasn’t listening, which is why he keeps bringing it up. I said that in the worst-case scenario a challenge to current practice could result in a decision requiring the department to reduce its cell sharing, which would increase the pressure on available accommodation and impose substantial costs on the Crown.

Obviously, the Opposition doesn’t care about the taxpayer’s money or about imposing additional considerable costs on the Crown, because they are the party that is in favour of American-style mega-prisons, where they just build it and they will come. That is the position of the Opposition: build an American-style mega-prison and the prisoners will come—will just fill it, fill it, fill it. Then, if we can’t fill it any more we will then double- and triple-bunk, because everybody needs to realise that the 2017 justice sector forecasts that were in under the Opposition’s time had our prison population at 12,000 right now. It is currently at 10,000. Imagine the double-bunking that would have gone on then. In fact, if they could’ve double-bunked, they would have triple-bunked, because they were a Government with no ideas, with no plan. Sorry, they did have a plan: it was to build more and more American-style mega-prisons. They saw those justice sector forecasts as a target, not as a warning. We saw them as a warning and we decided to do something about it, and we have been successful.

As I said earlier, when we became Government at the end of 2017, there were 10,550 people in prison. There were actually 30,137 offenders in the community. Now, you would think, because Mark Mitchell said it—he said we’d just open the doors and let people out. Well, that’s not true, because the judiciary and the Parole Board make decisions as to whether people can be released, but you would think, if you took Mark Mitchell’s argument, that there would be more people in the community, more offenders in the community. The reality is that right now, instead of 30,137 offenders in the community, there are 29,031 offenders in the community—a reduction of over 1,000.

Whatever we’re doing, it’s working—even if they don’t believe it. What we’re doing is working. We’re making New Zealand safer, where there are fewer offenders in the community, and there are fewer offenders in prison. That means, across the country, there are fewer offenders. It’s something that is a bitter pill for that lot to swallow, because they anticipated 12,000 people in prison now. They anticipated more double-bunking, triple-bunking, probably quadruple-bunking, and what they can’t stomach is the fact that we are reducing the need for that to happen. I just thank them for the praise that I know they are silently thinking. You know, they don’t want to say it out loud, but, my God, they wish that they could do what this Government has achieved in making New Zealand safer. That’s what they’re thinking deep down in their hearts.

Mark Mitchell—he’s a good guy really, you know. We played in the parliamentary golden oldies rugby team together. He’s not as nasty and as bad as he comes across. He is silently thinking, “Oh my gosh.” They wish that their Government was as successful as this Government is at reducing the prison population and keeping New Zealand safe.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’d like to speak in Part 2 of the bill on replacement regulation 63, set out in clause 34, which covers prisoners at risk of self-harm. This has been an interesting one—that if those members opposite seem so concerned about the wellbeing of how things are tracking in general, it’s sad that they’re not voting for this in general, because there are some really good changes to this bill that improve the current system. It’s a sad day to see that we don’t have support on that.

Where it’s very interesting is that what replacement regulation 63 does is it enables a far more detailed or a far more tailored package to be delivered in order to make sure we don’t have an influx or an increase in those in prison. Making sure that we identify those prisoners who are at risk of self-harm, whether it be through mental health or other means, and provide the right safety, the right security, is a really good way of ensuring that the long-term issues that continued, in the past, to drive the prison population are able to be tracked downwards in a positive way. That’s one of the issues that I haven’t heard any solutions from the other side of the House. I’ve heard a lot of accusations and a lot of concerns raised, but I haven’t actually heard one solution. I think the only solution that was ever delivered in this space by those opposite was to build more prisons. As the number two country per capita for incarceration in the world, I think we’ve got better ways to address the issue of our prison population than just by building a mega-prison.

I think that in terms of what is really proposed in terms of making those adjustments relating to prisoners on self-harm, the bill will require prisoners to be assessed on arrival, and to have appropriate supervision, and to have an individualised care plan that outlines the appropriate way to address that self-harm. As a part of that assessment, one of the concerns that have been raised is that in order to maintain safety and security in prisons, there are regular strip-search provisions that happen. So that is important in this bill, and particularly on those clauses that I’ve referred to already.

We heard from officials, when they advised the committee, that there had been recent operational improvements to the model of care provided to people who are vulnerable to self-harm, where they will tailor the strip-search programme to make sure that you’re not increasing the potential for self-harm to be happening in prison, while still maintaining appropriate security levels. That is why you can’t have one blanket approach for every single prisoner. There needs to be an individual assessment—upon mental health, upon security, on safety and potential for self-harm—in order for the services to meet the needs and give people the opportunity for safety and rehabilitation, and it is that issue that’s covered by the Supplementary Order Paper that accompanies this bill in the House.

This seems to be a sensible yet safe way that will reduce the impact of strip-searching on the most vulnerable prisoners, and it is issues like that—to also be assessing the appropriateness of double-bunking or not alongside that. That’s what this bill provides. It provides the flexibility to assess and understand the needs of each individual one, instead of having a one-size-fits-all, blanket approach that has proved quite damaging in the past.

As has already been raised by the Minister previously, situations where there is not that care and attention provides for such unsavoury conditions that have arisen in the past, where you have fight clubs, where you have people being thrown off balconies. Terrible conditions have happened in situations like Serco in the past, which have been highlighted, because there hasn’t been the attention to detail of people’s individual circumstances and lives to enable rehabilitation, safety, and security to all be taken into account appropriately.

I’m proud to be part of a Government that no longer shies away from these issues and no longer just proposes to build bigger and more scarier prisoners but instead devotes $1.9 billion in mental health and drug and addiction treatment to start rebuilding people’s lives and give them opportunities in this space, instead of just calling out those hollow words, “Soft on crime.”

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): For all the two contributions from Government members, we have not heard an explanation to the actual provisions in the bill. We heard about parliamentary rugby. We talked about giant American-sized prisons. They’re not in this part. We heard about many other issues, about prisoner numbers—all sorts of things—but Government members, including the Greens, will not answer the very critical question, and that is: why did the Labour Party and the Green Party campaign on a policy of getting rid of double-bunking and now we have a bill that makes double-bunking legally easier?

The House is deafening, because what has occurred is just dishonest. If you read the Green Party policy, if you read the Labour Party policy, what is in clause 35 of this bill, replacing regulation 66, is a direct contradiction of your statements, Mr Davis. Would you like me to read your statements for you? “If I was Minister of Corrections, I would be cracking down on double-bunking and making it harder.” Those are the words of Kelvin Davis. If I take the Green Party, they said “The bottom line for us is the Nelson Mandela standard of prison care, including the abolition of double-bunking.” This bill—everybody in the House agrees—and this replacement regulation 66 makes it easier for the Department of Corrections to introduce double-bunking. I just think it shows a complete lack of integrity by the Government that they can campaign on one thing, do the opposite, and not provide a single explanation to this House as to why they are advocating a provision that is so much in contradiction with what they said.

Their silence is deafening. I remember in Government, there wasn’t a single Corrections bill on which the Green Party wouldn’t be taking multiple calls. Aren’t they meant to be the champions of human rights and prisoners’ rights? Where have they been this afternoon? They have been absolutely silent. The submission that we received at the Justice Committee from the Human Rights Commission was directly opposed to clause 35, replacement Regulation 66. Why are the Greens voting for it? No explanation at all. No explanation from any member of the select committee. It is simply—well, I hear the Minister of State Services. Why did the Minister of State Services campaign?

Hon Chris Hipkins: Why bring me into it? I didn’t say anything.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That’s right. But perhaps you might provide an explanation, because the House deserves an explanation. It deserves an explanation as to why the parties in Government, the Labour and Green parties, didn’t just a little bit—it wasn’t like it was some minor piece in their policy. A core part of their policy was to reduce, in the case of Labour—in the case of the Greens, abolish—double-bunking, and this bill does the opposite. When the Labour Party and the Green Party reflect, while their poll ratings are plummeting, while New Zealanders have lost trust, while the public believes this Government is not delivering on its promises—look no further than Regulation 66 of this Corrections bill. That is the exact opposite of what parties in Government said they would do if they were privileged to form a Government of New Zealand. It’s actually bad for Corrections, but, actually, it’s bad for our democracy when members opposite behave so dishonestly as they have on this clause.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The question is that the Minister’s—

Marama Davidson: Madam—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): —amendments to Part 2, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 392, be agreed to. All those in favour say aye.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I thought Marama Davidson was wishing to take a call.

Marama Davidson: Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave for Marama Davidson being able to take a call.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’ve already started taking the vote. I’m sorry. I’ve already started taking the vote. I apologise.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I’m seeking leave for Marama Davidson to be allowed a call.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I’ve already started taking the vote.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 392 in the name of the Hon Kelvin Davis to Part 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 3

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 392 in the name of the Hon Kelvin Davis to clause 2 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Amendments agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Legislation Bill

In Committee

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for all of the provisions in the Legislation Bill to be taken as one debate, with separate votes at the end of the debate.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 to 9, Schedules 1 to 6, and clauses 1 and 2

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Those who have taken the time to read the Legislation Bill—and I suspect there won’t be a huge number of members who have done so—will actually know that this is quite a significant piece of legislation, but it’s one that I don’t expect is going to receive a huge amount of scrutiny in the House, and I suspect the debate will be relatively short. In effect, the Legislation Bill sets out how we make the laws of the country, and if you look at the objectives or the purpose of the legislation, in clause 3, “Purpose of this Act”, it states that the legislation “states principles and rules about the interpretation of legislation:”. That’s a relatively significant thing in the context of what we do. We spend an awful lot of time debating individual enactments, and, actually, it’s the Legislation Act that sets out the parameters in which all other laws are made. So it is quite significant, although, like I said, it doesn’t seem to engender a lot of excitement amongst members across the House.

But what I think is really important about this is—there are two things which I do think are worthy of note. The first is that the bill allows for legislation to be simpler, shorter, and more consistent. I think one of the things that Parliament has been doing over the last 20 to 30 years is work quite hard to make legislation far more accessible, to write things into plain English, so that you don’t have to be a learned scholar of the law in order to understand what the law says. I think that the provisions in this bill continue down that road, and I think that’s a very welcome development.

But, actually, the thing that’s probably most significant about this bill is the changes it makes around secondary legislation. There is a lot of secondary legislation, and that is legislation that isn’t subject to the same level of debate and scrutiny that a regular bill going through the House would be subject to, and we’ve seen, I think, in recent times—again, looking back over the last 20 or 30 years—that the Parliament has enabled, through provisions in primary legislation, for more and more secondary legislation to be created, delegating legislation-making power to the executive, effectively. And there is a lot less scrutiny of that.

So what this bill does, among other things, is it starts the process of consolidating all of that legislation so that it all becomes publicly available. That might seem bureaucratic, but, actually, if you want people to follow the laws of the land, if you want the law to be accessible, to be transparent, then actually bringing it all together in one place, so that one who wishes to follow the law can actually find it, is a relatively significant thing. The bill does that over a period of time, recognising that that’s a significant undertaking. But, in the future—again, like I said, this is not something that I think is going to excite the House at the moment—I hope people will reflect on the fact that it has actually been a significant improvement to the lawmaking process of the country; one that has made the laws of the land much more accessible. I do hope that, in time, the Parliament—and, perhaps, through the Standing Orders review we will do this—will consider how we scrutinise secondary legislation.

One of the things that has been a bit of an eye-opener to me as a Minister is the extent to which one can govern the country without recourse back to the legislative process at all. And, in fact, increasingly, the laws of the land enable the executive to get on and govern the country without having to come back to Parliament. I’m not convinced that that’s always a welcome development. So I think the scrutiny of secondary legislation is something that the House needs to turn its attention to a little bit more in the future. The provisions in this bill will certainly support that process, but they in themselves will not be sufficient.

So, like I said, I’m probably one of the one of the few people in the House that’s interested in this bill. I do think it is a significant piece of legislation, and I would encourage members to pay attention to the lawmaking process as much as they do to the laws that are being created.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): It’s so predictable, isn’t it, Madam Chair? I’m very pleased to be able to take a call in this, the committee stage of the Legislation Bill being taken as a whole—with a “w”.

The remarks that we all made yesterday across the House seemed pretty well-aligned in the sense that various contributors to the debate emphasised, actually, some of the key themes that the Minister has set out now in his opening remarks. Items that we emphasised were around accessibility of the law, so there are a number of different aspects to it, not only that the law is easy to understand and that it must be easy for citizens to find their way around the law but also that it’s easy to physically find it.

So a large element of what is being done in this good bit of work is exactly that. It’s enabling those who are affected by the laws to be able to find them. We’ve talked about the visibility of laws, and the Minister’s touched on that from a perspective of the scrutiny that’s appropriate to apply, and I have to say I agree strongly with those comments. There’s also an element whereby if we are to say, in fairness, to a citizen that ignorance of the law is no excuse, then we must allow her or him to be able to know what the law is, otherwise the concept of ignorance is rather meaningless, and a person cannot fairly be held to account for failing to comply with that of which they were unaware.

The distinction between primary and secondary legislation is a little bit technical but—or at least, you know, it’s actually a major distinction—for the benefit of those who are not so steeped in constitutional matters, you might generally refer to Acts of Parliament or statutes as primary legislation, and regulations, broadly speaking, as secondary legislation. I mentioned, yesterday, that legislation that’s secondary in name is not necessarily secondary in importance. Again, I acknowledge the Minister’s actually made that point in his opening remarks about the importance of laws that do touch the lives of ordinary New Zealanders in the way they conduct their personal affairs, business dealings, and all different aspects of their lives as well.

I think it’s worth noting, perhaps, just almost as a one-off, but by way of illustration and a bit of colour, if I can manage that, one or two examples of the kinds of changes that are made, apart from the general effect, which is to shed light upon the regulations that govern our country. So one example that, sadly enough, I found quite interesting is that the bill looks to place beyond doubt that parliamentary counsel appointed with the qualifications required by the bill can use the term “parliamentary counsel” even if they do not meet the requirements of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 for the use of the term “counsel.”

It probably goes without saying, but seeing as I’ve got a minute and 56 seconds left remaining in this call—

Hon Tim Macindoe: You don’t have to use it.

CHRIS PENK: —I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t have to use it—how very generous of you. My colleague the Hon Tim Macindoe, I think, probably needs another minute and 56 seconds to prepare his own remarks, so I thought I was doing him a favour, but anyway.

So the general rule, of course, as set out in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, is that one cannot pass oneself off to be a lawyer if one isn’t currently holding a practising certificate. I, for example, don’t hold a practising certificate, so I don’t go around claiming to be a lawyer. The term “counsel” as it’s spelt, as distinct from a council—noting the irritating American tradition of referring to the lawyers as counsellors, which sounds even more like councillors. The general rule, of course, is that one can’t pretend to be a lawyer if one is not, and that’s for the protection of those who would seek these services. Notwithstanding that it might be that someone is working doing excellent work as a drafter in the PCO—the Parliamentary Counsel Office—they might not have a practising certificate such that they meet the requirements of that Act that I’ve mentioned. Nevertheless, they have every right to be referred to in that way that refers to their role that they do, and in acknowledging such a large piece of legislation that has been based upon the very good work of a lot of people, it’s entirely appropriate to acknowledge the hard work of the PCO.

On that note, I think my elder and better—my better, in any case; no, elder too—Tim Macindoe will also have some comments, but I’ll leave it there for now, and he will say, no doubt, on behalf of us, that we support the continued passage of this good work at this committee stage and beyond.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Can I just start by thanking the Minister Chris Hipkins, who, in his opening five minutes, actually explained what he references is probably a bill that not many of us have read. But I do appreciate that this is a bill that is really important to all members of this House and all New Zealand, because it does exactly what he says. You know, it makes the interpretation of legislation really important as it attempts to bring the law relating to legislation so it’s easy to find, it’s understandable, and it’s of high quality. I want to thank the Minister and the officials, and also I want to acknowledge the Regulations Review Committee whose 2014 inquiry into the oversight of disallowable instruments that are not legislative instruments has led to this piece of legislation. So this bill that we are supporting, obviously, has had a fairly lengthy gestation to get here.

But I just want to pick up on a couple of points that the Minister talked about, and the interpretation of legislation. I actually accept that that’s really important—accessibility. I’m thanking the Minister because when I took a call on this in the second reading last night—I wasn’t on the Justice Committee when this particular bill was considered, but there was a gap around the scrutiny of secondary legislation—I was really pleased that the Minister acknowledged that further work was in there. I actually called upon any fellow members of the select committee that could actually unlock what we meant by further work. So the Minister has given the House the guarantee that absolutely we need to make sure that secondary legislation meets the same test that primary legislation meets. I’m personally interested in how that will play out, what that would look like, what the further scrutiny of secondary legislation would mean. So I’m, really, I guess, laying my absolute interests, Minister, in that part when we pick that up as part of this Government’s work plan around making sure the scrutiny of secondary legislation is right and, I guess, fit for purpose.

But, you know, this is, like I said, a non-controversial bill. It is an important bill. I know it’s not tampering with individual legislation that sits under it. It is around putting it in one place so it’s accessible to all New Zealand. I talked about the cost of doing that. I’m sure that that’s in consideration—that it doesn’t become so costly when we’re accessing it and, as we pass this bill, considering where the pieces of legislation are.

But in terms of the framework—if I can stretch it a wee while—is this principle about relevance. I know we’re not talking about the relevance of legislation; we are trying to bring all the legislation into one place. But in our quest to either modernise language or find it accessible, be able to interpret law—legislation—I think I just want to put a plug in for the growing use of Te Reo. We have it in this House—not just Te Reo; our Pacific languages that we beautifully hear opening our prayers. And if there’s a space in this piece of legislation going forward to acknowledge the various uses of language in this country, I hope that we pick that up, Minister: as New Zealand evolves—the possibility of not just the use of language but some of the principles that sit behind the languages that we hear often throughout this country, the beautiful difference of languages.

So like the previous speaker, I say it is a non-controversial, very important piece of legislation. I acknowledge the work of the Justice Committee who considered it, all the submitters that came, and the officials that worked on it. It is a simple piece of legislation but something that I’m really proud to stand and support in this Chamber and I commend it to the committee.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and could I just begin by acknowledging the previous speaker, the Hon Meka Whaitiri, who recently became the chair of the Justice Committee, and say how much I appreciate the very even-handed way in which she is performing that task. I think it is a committee facing some challenging issues but I do appreciate the leadership she’s bringing. Can I also acknowledge Raymond Huo, who’s in the Chamber, who was of course the chair of the Justice Committee at the time that this bill was being considered and he would have chaired the submissions.

Like the Hon Meka Whaitiri, I was not a member of the Justice Committee at the time that the bill was being considered, so we’re both at a little bit of a disadvantage, but nevertheless it’s an interesting piece of legislation, it’s an important piece of legislation, but as the Leader of the House noted, it’s also an extraordinarily dry piece of legislation, and so I think the next acknowledgement should be to the Leader of the House for managing to stand up and speak for five minutes with barely a reference to a note and to sound as if he had a fairly good idea of what he was talking about. I should also acknowledge my very learned and distinguished young colleague Christopher Penk, the member for Helensville. His was a very erudite contribution. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to match it. In fact, I think, rather like my far from illustrious cricketing career, I suspect I won’t be troubling the scorers for all that long.

But it is important just to put on record once again that the National Party is supporting the bill. That won’t come as any surprise to people who are aware of its history because it is a National Party bill. It was drafted after the considerable work of the Hon Christopher Finlayson and the officials who worked with him, and I want to acknowledge all of them for their contribution to it.

I also want to put on record that the Attorney-General, the Hon David Parker—and I commend him for having picked up the bill and for continuing with it—is today moving Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 394. So there are a couple of amendments and the National Party will also be supporting those. I’m hoping that the Leader of the House, while he’s in the chair, may be able to give us a little bit of an explanation as to the exact reason for the motion in it: “That the enacting words, clauses 1 and 2, Parts 1 to 7, and Schedules 1 to 4 be a separate Bill, and that the enacting words, and clauses 1 and 2 be replaced with: …” and so on it goes. I hope that he’ll give us the benefit of his considerable knowledge and enthusiasm for the reason for that.

But I also note that the commencement dates are quite interesting under clause 2(1)(b): “the rest of this Act comes into force—(i) on 1 or more dates set by Order in Council; or (ii) to the extent not brought into force earlier, on the fifth anniversary of the date of Royal assent.” And that is a fairly unusual provision to find in a piece of legislation. There’s certain to be very good reasons for it but I’d welcome the Minister’s explanation for that slightly unusual matter.

We had a discussion in the second reading yesterday of some of the key features of the bill, and I drew attention to the recommendation of the select committee to produce an exemption for council-controlled organisations because I did think that that was an example that those listening to this debate who may really be struggling to understand what it’s all about might have been able to relate to, because it, essentially, showed that over time with the way in which technology and other advances have changed our access to legislation, we had the slightly extraordinary position where Auckland Transport could do something in one way but the Auckland Council, effectively, touching on the same matter had to deal with it in a different way. And so it is of course appropriate that this bill attempts to deal with that.

Just another couple of matters in the remaining time that I have available: I would invite the Minister to explain how the bill will improve the quality of law in New Zealand by making agencies subject to certain legislative disclosure requirements when developing Government-initiated legislation, because that is an important provision in it. We also note that the bill will conclude the Government’s implementation of recommendations that actually arose from the Law Commission’s work back in 2008 regarding the presentation of New Zealand statute law, and so it is something that has been considered over a decade and, more obviously, that work was initially instigated under the period of the previous Labour Government led by the Rt Hon Helen Clark. So I can see that there’s been a lot of continuity, obviously a lot of thought has gone into it, and I’d welcome the Minister’s insight into that.

And perhaps also the Minister might like to respond to the recommendation of the committee to amend and add transitional provisions in the bill to implement the access to the secondary legislation project in stages—and that obviously is partly relating to the SOP—in particular the requirements for lodgement and publication of secondary legislation. I’m not sure how much enthusiasm the Leader of the House has for those challenges, but there are a few opportunities. And, Madam, Chairman, I can assure you I won’t be troubling you again on this subject this evening.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I will very briefly just respond to a couple from the lengthy list of questions that the member did. I think he did very well to get to the full five minutes and I congratulate him for that. But there is Supplementary Order Paper 394 in the name of the Hon David Parker dividing the bill into two separate bills, which are something we don’t do as often as we used to; we used to divide bills all of the time. The reason for Supplementary Order Paper 394 and for the legislation being divided into two separate Acts is so that the repeals and amendments don’t sit on the end of the main bill in the long term. So, basically, it’s about creating clean legislation, effectively, and that’s the reason for dividing the bill.

In terms of why the commencement clause is drafted as it is, I think it also relates to the member’s question about the staging for the implementation of the secondary legislation clauses. The Government is building, I think, on the work of the Justice Committee, which recommended a staged implementation to publication of aspects of the bill to recognise that it is actually an enormous and complex task of gathering and publishing all of New Zealand’s secondary legislation—and, dare I say it, I hope that they will be able to find it all, because there is quite a large volume of it and I think the process of drawing it together is very important. So that is part of the reason, I think, for the staging that’s set out in the bill.

I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question for the purposes of the vote.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 393 in the name of the Hon David Parker be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Parts 1 to 9, Schedules 1 to 6, and Clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

The committee divided the bill into the Legislation Bill and the Legislation (Repeals and Amendments) Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 394.

Bills to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Statutes Amendment Bill

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Now with the galleries still packed, we move to the Statutes Amendment Bill. Members should note that there are special requirements for statutes amendments bills—Standing Order 305(2) provides that “If any member objects to a clause standing part of a Statutes Amendment Bill … the clause is struck out of the bill”. Therefore, if any member wishes for there to be a separate vote on any provision, please indicate this to the Chairperson during the debate so that we can put those questions first.

Part 1 Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Justice): I want to briefly table three Supplementary Order Papers that make urgently required amendments to the bill. The first is Supplementary Order Paper 385, which amends section 63 and section 64 of the Senior Courts Act 2016. This Supplementary Order Paper inserts new clauses 122A and 122B into the bill. These new clauses pluralise references to the deputy registrar for the Court of Appeal. Sections 63 and 64 of the Senior Courts Act provides for the appointment of only one deputy registrar, due to a previous drafting error. However, the Court of Appeal currently has eight deputy registrars, four of whom were appointed before the Act came into force. The court relies upon multiple registrars and it’s, therefore, important that their roles are correctly described in law.

The second Supplementary Order Paper is Supplementary Order Paper 386. This inserts a new Part 22A into the bill to make a minor amendment to the New Zealand Film Commission Act 1978. This new Part repeals section 19(3) of the New Zealand Film Commission Act in order to allow the New Zealand Film Commission to give guarantees or indemnities a new interpretation of the New Zealand Film Commission Act, which is preventing the New Zealand Film Commission from entering into a valid indemnity contract without approval from the Minister of Finance. This is out of step with other Crown entities, and is hindering the commission’s procurement of business software and may affect its online presence. This Supplementary Order Paper resolves this issue and brings the New Zealand Film Commission into line with other Crown entities in the cultural sector.

The third and final Supplementary Order Paper is Supplementary Order Paper 387. This inserts a new clause 133B(5A) into the bill. This amendment clarifies that once a person admits liability for an infringement offence then they may only make written submissions to the court and are not entitled to appear in person. The amendment is needed because it is an unnecessary waste of the court’s time to hear from people who have already admitted liability for an infringement offence, and it was never intended that this should happen.

Can I simply acknowledge and thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their work. I want to thank all the parties and all members of Parliament; as the chair has rightly pointed out, anyone can declare that they do not support clauses of the bill. All of the amendments that are part of this bill fit the purpose as minor and technical and can be introduced as part of this Statutes Amendment Bill. I hope that helps with the deliberation. I’m anticipating that all of you simply support this. Thank you.

I seek the leave of the committee for all provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 to 42, Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought that I’d be delivering my first of 42 speeches on as many parts but, perhaps, it’s with some relief to all concerned, including me, that, in fact, we are taking the bill as a whole for the purpose of debate in this, the committee stage, so that allows me a little bit more licence. I don’t intend to use all the licence that’s afforded to me, and, indeed, not necessarily all the time either in the five-minute call—making some notes from a National Party perspective on the Statutes Amendment Bill.

I say “from a National Party perspective” but, in fact, I don’t imagine that there will be very much difference in the respective parties’ positions. Certainly, the Statutes Amendment Bill is designed to be technical, short, and non-controversial. It was as recently as about 24 hours ago that I noted that that seemed to be very much the case in relation to the Statutes Amendment Bill that is currently before us. The bill itself is not that short, really, but each of the amendments that are being made are, in themselves, quite short. So I think that we can say that the aims are fairly met in that regard.

Non-controversial amendments—again, as I noted yesterday, the lack of controversy associated with what is in front of us is reflected in the fact that a copy of the bill has been circulated to the parties in advance. I know from my small corner of the kingdom—the courts portfolio that I hold for the National Party, in Opposition, of course—that I have had a chance to cast my eye over anything that might affect the courts portfolio, and I am pleased to confirm that there’s nothing that I deemed controversial on behalf of the party. Similarly, it seems others in their respective parties and their respective portfolios have similarly regarded the changes as being pretty sensible and not worth any particular—well, not worth the scrutiny in a way that would be anything other than essentially noting for the record that such scrutiny has taken place, and that we’re all pretty comfortable with what is being put forward.

I suppose I could just about take the liberty of reading out the 42 names of these statutes that are being amended. Of course, I won’t, but suffice to say that there are a large number of them—of course, 42 being a large number. I’m grateful for the signal of approbation from the chair, but it’s probably worth noting that there’s actually quite a considerable range of different instruments. So we have, for example, the Burial and Cremation Act which seems—that’s Part 4 of the bill. I was going to say we seem to be starting with that which would be, in some way, on a logical basis, perhaps the thing that should conclude the remarks, burial and cremation generally being a pretty final kind of act, and no pun intended as far as the word “act” goes.

Hon Tim Macindoe: A fitting end.

CHRIS PENK: A fitting end, indeed; a grave matter, indeed. Anyway, I’ll move on.

Michael Wood: How about we bring this to a fitting end?

CHRIS PENK: So we have the—pardon me?

Michael Wood: Let’s bring this to a fitting end.

Jenny Marcroft: A fitting end.

Hon Tim Macindoe: You’re digging a hole. I’d stop now.

CHRIS PENK: I’m digging a hole, and I’m being begged to put the House out of its misery by Mr Wood and Ms Marcroft; fair enough too. So the Disputes Tribunal Act—it is within, as I say, my courts portfolio to be interested in the Disputes Tribunal Act. I’m mustering as much interest as I can this close to dinner and on this bill. Suffice to say that it is subject to the Act and a very worthy part indeed. The Food Act—that’s quite a lot of interest to a lot of members, particularly at 5:57 p.m., and I note it’s almost time for you to leave the chair for your dinner break, as you and your colleagues are wont to say, Madam Chair. So I’ll pass on briefly to the Parliamentary Service Act. That’s interesting; something that’s of interest, in both senses of the phrase, to all members and our associates in this place.

Andrew Falloon: One minute—not long to go.

CHRIS PENK: And with one minute to go, I will note this is probably the first time ever that the words “anti - money-laundering” have been used in this country without a prefix that is an expletive. None the less, we have a piece of legislation called the Anti-Money Laundering—“AML”—and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. The reason I’m focusing on this is because it’s within Part 1 and I thought that I was going to be speaking for five minutes on Part 1 alone, so I gave it a pretty thorough interrogation, I can assure you, Madam Chair, in recent times.

Andrew Falloon: What’s in Part 2?

CHRIS PENK: But, nevertheless, we’ll see how far we get—and I don’t think, despite Mr Falloon’s encouragement, we’ll get as far as Part 2. So that may be the evening’s entertainment yet ahead of us. So it is with much regret, actually, that I’m, ironically, not going to get on to the AML business—

Andrew Falloon: He’s run out of time.

CHRIS PENK: Mr Falloon’s interjecting; he can’t even spell AML. But anyway, I’ll leave it there. It seems like good work, worthy of support.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 386 in the name of the Hon Aupito William Sio be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 385 in the name of the Hon Aupito William Sio to Part 35 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 387 in the name of the Hon Aupito William Sio to Part 38A be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Parts 1 to 42, the Schedule, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Corrections Amendment Bill with amendment, the Legislation Bill with amendment, and divided into two bills, and the Statutes Amendment Bill with amendment.

Report adopted.

Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): I move, That the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

The bill makes a number of improvements to the Local Government Act to help lift the local government system. Implementing the changes will assist the Government in working constructively alongside local governments to improve community wellbeing at the local level. The bill’s main amendments address the role of the Local Government Commission, local government reorganisations, and council-controlled organisations. These amendments will reverse changes proposed by the previous Government.

Our approach to reorganisation removes the threat of amalgamation from local authorities. We will do this by reversing the previous Government’s changes which enabled anyone to request an investigation. Local authorities will still be able to request a reorganisation themselves through the Local Government Commission or undertake it themselves through the new reorganisation process. Reorganisation proposals made by members of the public will need to demonstrate significant community support at the outset through a petition of 10 percent or more of the local affected people. Additionally, once our bill is enacted, all reorganisation requests, except for those already accepted by the Local Government Commission, will need to meet the new requirements for significant community support.

The previous Government’s bill enhanced the powers of the Local Government Commission and increased its accountability to central government. Our bill has removed these measures because they would not achieve better outcomes for the system of local government. The legislation represents the start of a programme to look at the role an independent central body can play for the local government sector. Interim measures are introduced to constrain large-scale reorganisations that alleviate the local government sector’s concerns about the threat of amalgamation and to provide breathing space while new arrangements are developed.

Stage two will consider new ways of carrying out necessary ongoing functions. It will be undertaken in partnership with local government because working with councils is the best way to design effective reforms to the local government system.

Secondly, the bill makes amendments to council-controlled organisation provisions. Some of the key changes are: the Local Government Commission will not be able to transfer council services to council-controlled organisations; proposals to create an elaborate system of council-controlled organisations to deliver water, transport, and other services are withdrawn; and provisions to enhance the transparency and accountability of council-controlled organisations to councils and communities are added.

The original bill made extensive provisions to force council-controlled organisations, especially council-controlled organisations jointly owned by a number of local authorities on councils. This included council-controlled organisations with water and transport functions. Local authorities deeply oppose this approach and my proposal is to remove all of that material from the bill. Additionally, the bill retains existing provisions to improve planning and reporting arrangements for council-controlled organisations and further strengthens accountability mechanisms. These provisions aim to improve council-controlled organisations’ responsiveness to local authority direction, transparency to the local authority, transparency to the public, and responsiveness to Māori.

Lastly, at the request of the Minister of Transport, the bill also includes a provision to enable transport functions to be transferred between regional councils and territorial authorities. There is interest in Canterbury in transferring these functions between Environment Canterbury and the Christchurch City Council.

This bill demonstrates the Government’s partnership approach to working with the local government sector. Reform will not be imposed centrally but will be addressed in conversation with local government to ensure that both arms of government are working together to benefit local communities.

I commend the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) to the House.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): You know, there are 78 councils and 66 water authorities around New Zealand, so local government is a very important part of our governance. Councils today are facing increasing pressure to provide better core services to ratepayers due to changing demographics and the cost of infrastructure. Now, it is a huge challenge already to local governments. Local government sits at the heart of a civil civic society. It is essential for our governance to perform efficiently. Councils these days manage roads, water supply, rubbish collection, and libraries—all those essential daily services, essential to residents. With an increasing population, these councils, local government at different levels, are under pressure.

It has long been known that there are some councils in New Zealand that have been struggling because of the lack of finance, because of some poor structure, and because of lack of efficiency, so there is a problem there. It isn’t controversial to say that some councils are not structured optimally to meet the known and unknown challenges ahead. That means we need a better process to allow councils to facilitate better delivery of service and infrastructure, even while preserving the voice and preferences of local authorities. This was the original purpose of the bill. But now, with some changes, the bill has changed its nature. Essentially, this particular bill now plans to disestablish the Local Government Commission by removing many functions away from the Local Government Commission. That is a problem for us.

So, as I said, already local government is under pressure, and the Local Government Commission plays quite an essential role, an important role, in trying to make sure that local governments in various regions work efficiently. The local government sector is already overwhelmed, and taking the commission away will not help this. The Local Government Commission is in the best position to help local government authorities. To reduce their function, to reduce the ability or power of the Local Government Commission, will not help local governments. Unless there is a proactive body that is an agent of the Government then there is no effective way of recommending, supporting, and looking at change objectively. That is why we do need the Local Government Commission there. So taking away the proactive role of the Local Government Commission and there being no other driving force for any substantive change—this is the problem with this particular bill.

National does not accept that council-controlled organisations are a bit thin. There are many examples that show that these organisations do play a very important role. In many cases they deliver a very good service, and in many cases they are quite accountable. They are not councils, though; they are, effectively, more corporate-type organisations running the business of a council, and they have a different role. They are deliberately like that to bring a more business-type focus to running the business of council.

That is why we believe that this bill itself will not really help the efficiency or the functioning of the local government at different levels. Therefore, we oppose the bill. Thanks.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, and thank you for that call. This bill, really, is about communities. It’s about putting control where it belongs, which isn’t in the Local Government Commission; it’s in the cities and entities and the elected representatives that govern them. So the fact that there were proposals out there that would see amalgamation proposals be able to be investigated, essentially, on the whim of one citizen or another was a very bad thing, and it’s a good idea that we see that off.

We know that sometimes those amalgamation proposals can be very ill-motivated. I can remember some time ago east Auckland wanting to have its own city, not because it was a great idea but because it didn’t want to help wider Auckland by spreading the rating base. It was self-centred, it was selfish, and it was short-sighted, and that’s not the kind of amalgamation or proposal that we want to see. So it’s really good that we’ve got a Minister who’s looked at what the proposals were and has tidied them up considerably.

Council-controlled trading organisations have an important part to play, and what we can see across New Zealand is that different cities use them in quite different ways. In Christchurch, we’ve got a number of council-controlled trading organisations, and, by and large, they operate well. One of the good things about them is their statements of intent, which can direct not only financial outcomes but also wider outcomes. Under this Government, we’re absolutely committed to those wider outcomes, and we put those wellness requirements back into the Local Government Act 2002 as well, and not a moment too soon, so that council-controlled trading organisations can take the appropriate form for the communities that they are in. If the councils want some services to be in there, that’s fine, but those kinds of things should be local decisions made by local people. That’s what local democracy really is all about, and this bill strengthens that local democracy.

I’m very pleased to see this bill introduced into the House and, in fact, to strengthen what council-controlled organisations can do, because the idea that the Local Government Commission could require a council to move its services into trading organisations was a very poor idea. The fact of the matter is that the recent study on the Local Government Commission saw that it was in fact very poorly aligned with the needs of Local Government New Zealand. So it’s great to see this now here adjusting that. So it really is about transparency. It’s about accountability.

I must say, in Canterbury we’re very excited about the proposals in respect of public transport, because public transport is at the very centre of what cities need to be doing. Of course, this Government recognises—with all of our coalition partners, Ms Swarbrick—that transport needs to be integrated with housing and integrated with city planning. So the division of transport between regional councils and city councils in sometimes bizarre ways doesn’t help. Where there are regional councils and territorial authorities, there’s work to be done. This Government isn’t one that’s going to preach to local authorities about how that’s to be done, but it’s going to give them tools to do it for themselves. One of those tools is the ability to put public transport management in the hands of territorial authorities. I know that, once again, Christchurch has been pushing for these great ideas, and this is something that is being very closely looked at in Christchurch. So this power—the ability of a local body to, again, take control, to examine what the best transport solution is for Christchurch, for Hamilton, for Auckland, or for any centre—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Auckland.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: I just said Auckland, member over there. The member who—what’s your electorate? And, of course, that’s important. So this is part of local body politics being tailor-made for the locality and being in the hands of the locality.

Something that I was very pleased to see in the recent election was when we had a fully democratic election for Environment Canterbury, which currently does public transport—something that was taken away by the last Government. But now we’ve got a great council there, and I know it’s going to make huge strides—huge strides—which has a democratic mandate at last. But, again, public transport is really important, and I’m very pleased for that change.

Of course, the whole idea of reorganisation coming from the top down is a very bad idea. Of course it’s important to recognise that if there’s good reason—for example, if a local body itself suggests a reorganisation—that’s still permitted. That’s still fully within the bounds of this legislation. Or, if some citizens are keen enough, they can go out, they can get 10 percent of the electorate, and they can initiate that study themselves. But the idea that it can be done on a whim—well, we don’t need that. This Government isn’t happy with that, and that’s why the Supplementary Order Paper here is doing that.

So this really is about partnership. This is about central government recognising the important relationship it has with local government, supporting innovation at a local government level, but not imposing, because taken together the original proposals were essentially two things. They were a centralisation of power—taking power away from local bodies and putting it at central government level. That was the first thing, and that was a bad idea. The second thing was a corporatisation of city councils’ operations—the ability to, by stealth, quietly, incrementally push operations into trading organisations. We know what can happen with trading organisations, don’t we? Put on the block, Mr Henare. Yeah. We don’t want to see that, because that is taking away important assets, because on this side of the House we recognise that it’s about much more than rubbish and roads; it’s about communities, it’s about protecting people, and it’s about enhancing wellness, and this bill, under the great Minister Mahuta, is absolutely doing that. So I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Pleasure to speak to the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). I’ll start with a truism, if I may. All politics is local—as ascribed to US House of Representatives Speaker Tip O’Neill. I’ve got a tip for him in turn: not all Government is local. So while Government should always be responsive to local needs—and we see that played out across the electorates, so-called, across the land, in a way that we’re very familiar with in this House—of course, in relation to local government, it’s important to have a balance between responsiveness and efficiency. That is at the heart of the disagreement between the two sides of the House tonight in terms of the support that we feel that we cannot offer to this legislation, in the sense that we believe that the balance has not been struck in the ideal fashion.

So it is that regional solutions need to be gained, and it might be that areas desire that for themselves, but it might also be that some assistance is needed to rationalise and reorganise. We have a situation where currently, in certain parts of Auckland—those that I represent—the question is not so much who can make the trains run on time but who can make the trains run at all, and that’s something which, as an advertisement for myself as local MP, I remain very firmly engaged with in Auckland’s north-west.

I won’t take too much more of the House’s time, but I would just note that the Local Government Commission may not be perfect—and few institutions populated by humans are, by definition—but one does not discard a leaky life raft merely because it is leaky if one does not have some substitute means of keeping oneself afloat. Council-controlled organisations should, of course, be controlled and controllable by councils, and you’ll find no argument from us there. But, unfortunately, as my colleague Dr Jian Yang has indicated, as a whole we cannot support this legislation tonight.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Civil Defence): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and speak on the third reading of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). First and foremost, big congratulations, as the numbers are almost confirmed in many respects, for the members across the country who put their hand up for local government. We know it’s not easy. But what we see as the results start rolling in is that people are finding their voice. Sure, some will argue that a low voter turnout questions mandate. But what is clear is that where communities are unhappy or communities certainly have a particular strong view about the way that their local councils should be running, they turn out. We have seen some changes and we have seen in some councils the status quo remain. But, first and foremost, to the many people that do put their hand up, I think it’s important to acknowledge them. As members in this House will know, it’s not easy.

I’m reminded of a visit recently to Wairoa and the words of the deputy mayor, who I see was re-elected in the recent elections, who said to me and the group I was travelling with, “Welcome, Minister, to Wairoa, and don’t bloody tell us what to do.” I think that this particular bill encourages what was mentioned by my colleague Dr Duncan Webb about the desire for communities to find their voice in how local councils are run.

I want to touch on a couple of things as I continue my contribution on this particular bill. I made a point of it during the process, but now I want to just state it again but also express my joy in seeing a stronger provision for Māori in this particular process. Māori often find themselves isolated when it comes to the goings on in local government, regional, and even central government in many respects. So the opportunity, in the absence of Māori being voted in to councils, to have a voice in the operations and the running, the planning, and the strategising of the job of a council, I think is something worth celebrating. One, that acknowledges not just the aspirations of the local hapū and the iwi but also the knowledge and mātauranga that they bring. There was an aspect of the bill that talks about those with the knowledge of tikanga Māori and, as an exponent of tikanga Māori, the role of Te Reo Māori in the way we shape our communities and we lead our communities. That’s one case.

The other one is to allow iwi, whānau, and hapū to find their voice in the planning and strategising for the council. I think those are seriously exciting opportunities for Māori communities, and I think of myself in Tāmaki Makaurau and the multiple tribal interests across Tāmaki Makaurau. Many have overlapping interests, and if there’s one thing I look forward to, in seeing how this process evolves, it is how those with overlapping interests are engaged by council. We know in the past, and myself being involved in some Treaty settlements, that there are always issues around overlapping interests, and one of the issues isn’t that there is an overlapping interest but that the person in power or the organisation in power will choose the rights of one over another.

I am interested to see at a local government level, with this bill, the opportunity for iwi, whānau, and hapū to find their voice, but equally, in particular, in cases of overlapping interests in, like I say, my electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau. We know that in legislation there are 14 tribal entities recognised in one piece of legislation and in others it recognises many more. So in terms of the way that local council and regional council run their matters, I’m really curious to see how this evolves, but I do want to commend the Minister and her bold approach to ensuring that that particular opportunity is afforded to those groups.

The other one is, of course, the reorganisation, and it was mentioned how council-controlled organisations (CCOs) are supposed to run like a business. One of the things I am truly encouraged by, in particular, being an MP in Tāmaki Makaurau is, of course, the opportunity for the public to have far more accountability and transparency in that process, the dealings, and, of course, the strategising that is being done by CCOs.

It’s well-known in Tāmaki Makaurau—the issues around the CCOs in Tāmaki Makaurau, the demands of the public, and the huge gap that sits in between them both. The gulf is in fact so huge that many of the ratepayers and many of the voting public in regional and local government simply don’t feel a connection, simply feel that their voice and their aspirations aren’t heard in the management of those organisations such as Auckland Transport agency and many others. I think that the provisions that are set out in this bill offer the opportunity for far more accountability and transparency.

It will be interesting. I want to acknowledge the relationship between central government and local government, and I think that this particular bill will strengthen that; the same again with the provisions around tikanga Māori and also consultation with Māori on matters relating to areas in local government. I’m also curious to see, with the recent local government elections having concluded, how the relationship will continue, in the hope that we can make sure that the suite of work that’s being done in this space by Minister Mahuta actually is all aligned well.

There were questions recently in the House about the wellbeing objectives being put back into the local government space, the cost and the impact on local governments. We’ve made it clear that a stronger working relationship between central government and local government will go a long way to ensuring that we’re all on the same page in striving for wellness and wellbeing in our communities.

One of the final ones, and Minister Mahuta mentioned it in her contribution, was that on the request of the Minister of Transport the bill includes a provision to enable transport functions to be transferred between regional councils and territorial authorities. Of course, my colleague Dr Duncan Webb talked about the situation in Christchurch and perhaps its possibility and potential. But, you know, I often think once again of my own electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau and wonder exactly how that might fit. Quite often we’re maligned in Tāmaki Makaurau for the issues around traffic and the troubles with public transport, and, in recent times, other regions have had the unfortunate opportunity to experience many of the frustrations that Aucklanders have when they are dealing with public transport. Many people have already said they’re more than happy to engage in public transport, but what we need is one that runs on time, one that is reliable, and one that is affordable.

So, perhaps, as we look to this particular provision in the bill, there might be some opportunities not for horse trading but for the ability to look across what or how each of those authorities might better manage the system, and the ability to transfer the authority between them. I’m not too sure what that will look like, but I look forward to the opportunity of seeing how that might play out into the future.

Just in conclusion, I want to once again commend the Minister for her fantastic work. This is, and it already says it in the title of the bill, number two. There has been a suite of bills put forward by the Minister to better align local government with the ambitions and the aspirations of central government. We believe they are in line with the community and the desires of those communities to have far better communities—ones that are full of wellbeing, have aspiration, and meet the connected needs of the community that reside within local and regional authorities. It is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House and the work of the Minister.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you. Can I just apologise. I got distracted and didn’t give you the two-minute warning bell. My apologies for that.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): It is my pleasure to stand and make a contribution to the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). I’m going to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our newest community leaders in West Coast - Tasman: the new Mayor of Tasman, Tim King; the new Mayor in Buller, Jamie Cleine, Grey District’s Tania Gibson; the really re-elected Mayor of Westland, Bruce Smith; and I’m looking forward to the selection by the West Coast Regional Council of their new chair. Now, these people dedicate their lives and their time to local government and they do it with a passion.

In 2016-17, the National Party actually introduced this legislation. Parts of it were actually already being modelled in the area that I was actively involved in, in local government. One of the things that we were very keen to do was to use some of the attributes out of this legislation to what we call shared services—across the councils, actually sharing our services. That means that, for instance, instead of having three or four small councils that were each replicating activities, we could perhaps have one centre of excellence. One of them would maybe, for example, do payroll. One may have the mapping services and have all the geographic information system data on one programme and have all the licences there. Others may be consenting, so sharing services across the region. The one that worked really successfully for us was in civil defence.

But, unfortunately, some of that good work that was done in the previous readings of this bill has been undone through the committee stage of this bill. Unfortunately, because of that, the National Party feels disinclined now to support this legislation, which is a real shame, because there was real potential in here to support those activities and share those services across councils.

I’d just like to make a very quick comment too about council-controlled organisations (CCOs). CCOs do have a place in local government, and if we’re going to operate some of those activities in a commercial way, then they do need to have distance between the politics and the activity. And I know in my own area that CCOs work extremely effectively. They provide a higher level of service and they also have higher levels of satisfaction from their user groups. Unfortunately, we will not be supporting this piece of legislation. Thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is a pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to offer our wholehearted support, as the Green Party, to this Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2). It is unfortunate to hear that members of the Opposition will not also be offering their wholehearted support. I haven’t heard much rationale as to why they won’t be, except for the fact that we have crossed out quite a lot of the things that they wanted to do in the form of amalgamation through the likes of council-controlled organisations, but also the likes of concentration in power through the Local Government Commission or the Minister of Local Government.

To trace some of the history of this legislation, when it was first introduced, as was mentioned by the former speaker Maureen Pugh, it was, of course, introduced under the former Government. It then went to select committee and was met with strong opposition from the likes of those who Maureen Pugh and members of the National Party have invoked in their speeches—those being National Party - aligned mayors and local government elected members. Importantly, it was actually only as a result—and I would mention my colleague Lawrence Yule, who probably learnt some of that in his time at Local Government New Zealand. I’d love to hear his contribution to this debate and where he now falls, given that he has pinned the blue colours very profoundly and explicitly to his chest.

None the less, this piece of legislation, under the National Party Government, that being the prior Government of the 51st Parliament, was met with strong opposition from Local Government New Zealand and, of course, actually, as well from the three parties who now form Government. There was a staunch and quite detailed minority view authored by the Green, Labour Party, and New Zealand First parties from the Local Government and Environment Committee, returned to this House in 2016.

Just for the sake of the historical record and putting it in Hansard, because I think it’s a really important thing to note in tracing the lineage as to how we got here today, some of the remarkable members of this Government within the coalition and confidence and supply were on that Local Government and Environment Committee. They were the Hon Ron Mark, obviously with his previous experience in local government; the esteemed and brilliant Mojo Mathers, who unfortunately didn’t make it back in with us, the Greens, into Parliament this time around, but has authored a legacy in the form of the Election Access Fund Bill, which I am now proud to champion. Of course, now the Hon Eugenie Sage, our now Minster of Conservation but formerly one of many of the Greens who held the local government portfolio; so too the Hon Meka Whaitiri; and the Hon Dr Megan Woods—so quite an all-star line-up there. But I would, however, note that sitting in and participating on this item of business, and, I believe, to a certain extent, co-author of this minority view, was the now Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice, Jan Logie, my esteemed colleague. So quite a lot of weight, actually, in the minority view, which opposed the National Party’s legislation as it was drafted. It’s been knocked into quite a bit of shape by the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta.

Just to try and point it out to those who may be watching at home on the television, these here are all of the sections—all of this page here, all of this page, all of this page here, all of this page, and pretty much all of that page and that page have been crossed out. That is the madness, the badness, that we are undoing, which the National Party sought to rort on our local governments, on the councils and local bodies across this country, met, I would again emphasise, by staunch opposition from Local Government New Zealand, which I believe was led at the time—and I’d love you to correct the record—by my esteemed colleague Lawrence Yule, a former mayor amongst local government in New Zealand.

It’s now been knocked into shape. It does slightly less things, because there’s a much broader work programme that this Government has towards fulfilling that kaupapa of subsidiarity, which my colleagues in this Government have spoken to at length so far. There is also, as has been mentioned, the greater handover of control to making decisions on transport in the hands of local bodies, a critically important piece of decision making for communities, because they are actually those who will be interacting on a daily basis, tangibly, with those transport options and, obviously, so too do they have a vested interest in the likes of housing decisions that are made around those transport nodes.

Just in closing the Green Party’s support for this much-improved at third reading—subsequent to Supplementary Order Paper 323, in the name of the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, at committee of the whole House stage—Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2), I would also like to make note of all of the incredible individuals of all ideologies who put themselves forward for election at these local body elections just this past weekend. There were some incredible people elected who have the mandate and the backing of their communities, and we believe, on this side of the House, that it is those people who are closest to their communities, who are elected directly by their communities, who live and work and play actively on a weekly basis in those communities and don’t find themselves siloed—unconsciously, subconsciously, or consciously—in this very literal ivory tower, who should be making those decisions.

If I may, I’d also just like to shout-out to our first ever explicitly Green mayor—that is, the mayor of Dunedin, Aaron Hawkins; absolutely stoked with that win—and, of course, for the other 41 Green Party members who have been elected on that Green ticket, and all of the other wonderful progressives who have found themselves in, to championing ending inequality and getting some real climate action under way around their communities. The Green Party is proud to commend this bill to the House.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It is my pleasure to have a right of reply to the previous speakers and all others on the other side of the House who wish to impugn my character and the roles I had as the leader of Local Government New Zealand. That was an important role I had, and I’m very proud of that role and the role I now have in this Parliament.

Despite what members of the other side might say, things are not all as they are portrayed by the previous speakers and others. The reason I say that is that this side of the House would have supported this bill had it not been for the complete gutting of the Local Government Commission in this bill. That’s what the Government has done and not replaced it with anything.

I want to give members of the House a little bit of history here. It is very hard to change structural arrangements in New Zealand—very hard—without a little bit of push or a little bit of an agency to lead that change. There was massive reform in 1987—massive reform. Many people thought the world would end. You know what? The world didn’t end, and many people would say, if you asked them now, do they like the change, they would say yes and they wouldn’t go back. Now, what I’m saying is that people resist change. It’s a normal facet of life, but things do need to change with time, and if the Government takes the Local Government Commission out of the loop and not give them any role whatsoever to look at structures and reforms and the way things are organised, it is my view that there will be very little change.

Then, I say, what is the role of the Local Government Commission? There is none. Effectively, what this bill says: we will have a commission, we’ll have one board member from time to time—more could be co-opted—to redraw wards and the number of members of wards in local authorities every three years. We’ll run a bureaucracy in Wellington and we’ll have a commission. In my view, it’s a complete and utter waste of time. If the Government was really strong about this, it should’ve just simply abandoned the Local Government Commission, given that role to the Department of Internal Affairs or somebody else to fulfil it, because all we’re doing is wasting their time. My point is that’s really why this side has objected. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt—I omitted to say this is a split call. My apologies.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, it’s a pleasure to rise and speak, particularly after the former speaker Lawrence Yule, our friend and comrade-in-arms across the aisle, having, I guess, followed his esteemed career as a leader of local government at a national and at a local level—I’m not jesting now; he was very, very good in his former role. It’s interesting watching how this place can change people and, you know, take you away from those things, those values, that you held dear, and see how people have to redirect. So I guess I just want to reach a hand across the aisle and express my condolences that you had to just give that contribution in this House, because I know, as this side of the House does, that you actually really probably, most likely, support this bill.

Like some of the former speakers have said tonight, this is a redirection in terms of, I think there’s about—I’m not going to do the same thing, but there’s about that many pages tonight that we are scrapping from the amendments that came through under the previous Government and that the former head of Local Government New Zealand opposed as well—Lawrence Yule, in his previous role. I guess, for us on this side of the House, what we’re trying to do is empower those local decision makers at a local level to ensure that their towns are the best towns.

The local government elections were the substantive political event over the weekend. I want to acknowledge the three new female mayors that I have in the East Coast electorate. We have just a fantastic, really broad range of incredible candidates that put their hand up. So, yeah, I think, you know, across the country we saw an incredible shift of a lot of younger elected candidates. That excites me for next year’s election in terms of who we might see enter into this House come the general election.

But turning to this bill and these substantive amendments, I guess this bill, championed by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, goes towards making a number of improvements to our Local Government Act in terms of streamlining and ensuring that local government will, I guess, work constructively alongside central government to improve community wellbeing at that local level. Previous speakers have said in this House that this Government—we, across the coalition, pride ourselves on focusing on the wellbeing of our citizens, focusing on the wellbeing of our communities, and, I guess, for us, ensuring that the wellbeing is at the forefront in terms of the decision-making frameworks for all local body councils, and that those visions are aligned with us is something that we’re very proud to be seeing enacted through this piece of legislation this evening.

This bill brings about fundamental reorganisation, and our approach to reorganisation is to remove that threat of amalgamation from local authorities. The member over there who spoke just prior—I remember living in the Hawke’s Bay for a couple of years and seeing the constant conflict between the communities and the fear, I guess, that many—there was a constant debate. Fear’s a bit of a heavy word, actually, but just the consistent debate in that area about what it meant to lose some of that local identity for some of those councils. So in this bill we are reversing the previous Government’s changes, which enabled that anyone could request investigations. Local authorities will still be able to request reorganisations themselves through the Local Government Commission or undertake those things through the new reorganisation process. The proposals will be made by members of the public, and they must demonstrate significant different community support, and you have to get that 10 percent threshold of those people to actually get in behind you.

Look, there’s a whole range—it is a substantive piece of legislation. There are a whole raft of amendments that have been made this evening and that will become law very shortly. So, without further ado, I commend this bill to the House.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is, of course, a bill that this side of the House started back in June 2016. Its second reading was in June 2017, and here we are tonight debating one rather large Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 323, from the new Government. Whereas in our day we were seeking to give local authorities flexibility in how they looked at and combined resources and infrastructure networks across regions and towns, making sure that it was a flexible arrangement giving greater use of the possibility of council-controlled organisations to councils and so on, what we’ve got here now is a change at the committee stage by this Government—and we’re on to our last and final reading here tonight—reversing some of those changes.

I’d like to back up the eloquent words of my colleague Lawrence Yule around what it does to the Local Government Commission. Now, many of us who’ve had a track record in local government would know quite well the role of the Local Government Commission and the ways and the means in which it has been around to assist people, sometimes to assist local authorities with what I’ll call, loosely, healthy tension. When there has been tension, when there has been roles that are not clarified or issues that need a little bit of mediation, the Local Government Commission has had a very distinct role, and what we have here tonight is the Government unpacking it—I think you used the word, my colleague Lawrence Yule, “gutting”, what the Local Government Commission does and is. So down from three commissioners to one—goodness knows what that one person’s going to do, because it’s actually not clear. If the Government is going to do this, what is the next role for the Local Government Commission? It is unclear. What is going to be the replacement? We would like to know, on this side of the House, and I think that local government land in New Zealand and New Zealanders would like to know as well. If you’re taking away the proactive role of the Local Government Commission, then what is it that you want to do next? What’s the future reform? There is a vacuum. We don’t think that’s good leadership. It’s not good governance, and the local government sector is crying out for good governance.

We oppose this bill for very practical reasons, even though the genesis started with us. Thank you.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thanks very much, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this great bill that really restores the ability for local government to take some control in their space and have the confidence to make good decisions for their communities. I’m most proud of the fact that it works so well with other legislation that has restored the four wellbeings and is focusing on what makes communities happy, healthy, and function well.

This is a really good area, in a way, because there’s three main points that I’d like to touch on in terms of what this bill does. The reorganising factor—that’s the threat of amalgamation that no longer hangs over the heads of so many local governments and has caused friction so much. Auckland was not alone in that one. The second one I’d like to talk about is the role of council-controlled organisations (CCOs) and how those have been made more transparent—in particular, in the areas of those vital services like water provision and transport to make sure there’s increased transparency. Thirdly, I’d like to look at how we’re working better to have partnership, and that’s the one I’ll pick up on now.

It’s been really interesting how we’ve heard this criticism around removing those powers of the Local Government Commission and how that’s going to be such a big problem, but what happens when you give local councils that ability to take control and to be able to work with their communities more fluidly? It demonstrates our partnership approach in terms of working with local government, and it’s that partnership approach that really epitomises this Government and what it represents.

When we look back to other areas where the National Government has tried to micro-manage things like national standards and tried to performance-manage teachers—well, that went down really well, didn’t it? So what this Government demonstrates is being able to work in partnership to get best outcomes for our people and best outcomes for the communities, and that’s exactly what these changes in local government demonstrate. By having increased transparency, increased partnership, and the ability to work collaboratively, we believe that that’s the way that benefits the wellbeing of our community far more.

I would like to pause for one moment, as other members have, and congratulate some of those candidates who were successful in the recent local government elections. In particular, I would like to take a look at Hutt South, very briefly, and congratulate the new Mayor of Hutt City, who happens to be not just a Labour mayor, by coincidence, but also the youngest mayor in New Zealand, which is Campbell Barry, who is 28 years old. I’m incredibly proud to see the good work that will be done on transport, housing, water, and all those important issues, and how we’re working so well in the Hutt. It’s a big Labour team all round out that way, and I’m very proud to be part of it.

So looking forward to how we’ll be working in terms of some of the key parts of this, let’s take a look in particular at reorganisation and what that approach really means, and what it means by removing that threat of amalgamation that’s hung over the head of local authorities for far too long. As Ms Swarbrick has already mentioned, we’re reversing the previous Government’s changes which enabled anyone to request an investigation, and that’s really good because it gives local government a bit more confidence in terms of where the future lies—a bit more certainty.

Local authorities will be able to request a reorganisation themselves, so they can do that in their own right through the Local Government Commission. So that ability is still there, but it’s more on the side of working collaboratively. They can undertake it themselves through that new reorganisation process. Reorganisation proposals made by members of the public will need to demonstrate that there’s significant community support, and that’s done by introducing, on Supplementary Order Paper 323, a requirement for a petition of 10 percent or more of the local people affected. So that right is still there, but there’s a requirement for a 10 percent threshold in order to make sure that there’s a little bit more autonomy based in those local government organisations.

Additionally, once the bill is enacted, all reorganisation requests, except for those already accepted by the Local Government Commission, will need to meet the new requirements for significant community support. So it’s still keeping in mind that you need to work with communities, but it’s giving a threshold there at the same time.

The previous Government’s bill enhanced powers of the Local Government Commission and increased its accountability to central government. But our bill removed these measures because they would not achieve better outcomes for the system of local government, and that gets back to my main point of partnership and working in collaboration to make sure we get the best outcomes for our communities.

This legislation represents the start of a programme to look at how central government and local government can work together well enough to increase the wellbeing of our communities. So these interim measures are being introduced to constrain large-scale reorganisations and also to alleviate the local government sector’s concerns about that threat of amalgamation. Having that constant fear on your shoulder can really impede the ability for local government members to be able to work within their communities and feel like there’s a level of certainty going forward. It is also to provide breathing space while new arrangements are being developed.

Let’s take a look at CCOs. I’m always interested in CCOs. We’ve got a couple out in the Hutt City and I’ve always been interested about how they have operated, and from my experience, they haven’t been that transparent. I’ve attended a few annual general meetings that would have taken place in the blink of an eye, with minutes that lasted about four words, so no one actually knows what’s happening behind those scenes. It’s also interesting to see how much some of those boards and chairs get paid. I’m always interested in those sums as well, to see where that benefit is going.

The bill makes amendments to council-controlled organisational provisions to make a greater level of transparency, and it’s important that if these are used by local government—if these are facets of what ratepayers are contributing to—it’s important that those people who are living within an area, whether they be ratepayers or not, have an understanding of what those functions are and how that money is being spent. So when there’s multiple ownership or when there’s work going on with transport or with fundamental services like water provision, it’s incredibly important that people know what’s happening and have the ability to have access to that information.

The Local Government Commission will not be able to transfer a council’s services to CCOs. The next change is that proposals to create an elaborate system of CCOs to deliver water, transport, and other services are withdrawn, and we’ve seen that in some of the bigger centres in New Zealand. Provisions to enhance the transparency and accountability of council-controlled organisations to councils and communities are added. That’s really important—that those elected members sitting around the council table have a good handle on what’s going on—and that is one area that I think could be really improved in this space.

The original bill made extensive provisions to force CCOs—especially council-controlled CCOs—jointly owned by a number of authorities, and this includes CCOs with water and transport functions. So local authorities deeply opposed this approach, but this amendment—this SOP—makes those changes by removing that material from the original bill, and I think that’s a real improvement. If we’ve got increased accountability and increased transparency in terms of how those CCOs are operating, that’s got to be an improvement on the previous bill.

Additionally, the bill also retains the existing provisions to improve planning and reporting arrangements for CCOs and further strengthens accountability mechanisms. As I’ve said before, some of the ability to report back to the public, whether it’s an AGM or making minutes available—those can be really difficult to get hold of for the average member of the public. So having some bottom lines in terms of what’s happening and how that money is being spent, how those services are being delivered, and how they can reassure communities that they’re getting access to the services that they’re essentially funding is quite important.

To finish off, I would like to say that it is important that there are areas that the bill demonstrates the Government’s partnership approach in working with the local government sector, and fundamental to that is trust. It is working together and having a level of trust that we work with each other, and to have a country where our local government is empowered to help people. That might be through additional funding through areas that we haven’t seen before, and I look forward to seeing developments in that space. Housing is one of those abilities that we can work closely with local government to make sure that there’s a range of housing options. Whether they be rent to buy or a cheaper rent, if there’s council-owned property and if there’s Government initiatives to work together, those are some of those areas that could really increase community wellbeing, and having this strong partnership in this space is a strong platform for those future developments to happen.

I’m proud of this bill. It’s a good piece of work and I commend it to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to start by echoing, as some other members have, congratulations for those successful candidates in the recent local body elections, in particular the three mayors whose districts cover part of my Waikato electorate: Allan Sanson, Mayor for Waikato, re-elected; Jim Mylchreest, Mayor for Waipā, re-elected unopposed; and the new mayor for the Matamata-Piako district, Ash Tanner. I’d also just like to take a moment to thank Mayor Jan Barnes for her service to Matamata-Piako as well.

Look, in relation to this bill—this was a National bill that was put forward, had its first reading, went to select committee, had its second reading in the previous Government, but we’ve seen now a significant Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) put forward by the current Minister, which has changed this bill drastically. Now, the previous bill provided greater flexibility, and as Mr Yule pointed out as well, it actually gave the ability for the Local Government Commission to influence change, to assist where necessary. I think the previous member’s comments around the constant threat of amalgamation hanging over and being a constraint on the ability to conduct business for councils was a somewhat exaggerated position. I don’t suspect that’s actually the case that these organisations are constantly concerned that one day they will receive a phone call that amalgamation is happening imminently.

However, though, the reality was that it was about trying to provide greater flexibility allowing or facilitating change through that Local Government Commission. So instead of a new bill being put forward, as this Government seems to be developing a trend of doing, they are putting forward a significant SOP at the committee of the whole House stage, bypassing that select committee process altogether, and, actually, just assuming they know best and will ram it through without consultation. We’ve seen that on a number of pieces of legislation under this Government, actually, which is a worrying concern.

Jan Logie: Ha, ha!

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: And we hear laughter from members of the Government as they realise that this is a process that isn’t quite appropriate but they’re still using it anyway. Regardless of that, it is disappointing to see some of these changes that have been made to what was a good bill that we did support at the first and second reading but are now unable to support any more.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill, the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2), particularly, obviously, talking to the Supplementary Order Paper. As the final speaker, I will attempt to sort of sum up some of the arguments that we’ve heard, and finish this debate. I’d also like to begin by acknowledging all those who stood in the recent local body elections. I was a candidate myself, back in 2013, in the Hamilton East ward. Unfortunately I missed out, and now I’m in Parliament, which I’m enjoying.

Now, we have a new mayor in Hamilton, Paula Southgate, and I’d like to acknowledge the previous mayor, Andrew King, for the work that he did. If you could indulge me briefly, just before I get to the bill, if the House would indulge me, I would like to place on Hansard congratulations to my wife, Angela Strange, for being elected to the Waikato Regional Council. I know some would say that is a bit shameless, but no—she deserves strong congratulations. Our family was very proud of what she achieved. There you go, Angela—you’re on Hansard.

Hon Members: Angela Strange.

JAMIE STRANGE: Angela Strange, my wife, yes—the top polling candidate, but we don’t need to. I would also like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who since she has become Minister of Local Government has engaged very closely with councils, and I’ve heard from a number of councils right around the country that they’ve been very impressed with the engagement from this Government. They often felt at times the previous Government effectively sort of made a decision and then told them what to do, which relates to this bill because, you know, the previous bill was effectively telling councils what to do, whereas the amendments that we have made are about central government and local government working together. It’s around collaboration, and we’ve heard that theme come through a lot from different speakers.

Now, the aspect around amalgamation. We heard from the member opposite in the previous speech that he believes there isn’t the threat of amalgamation hanging over councils. Well, I disagree with that. I hear from a number of councils, and speakers from this side have noted in their speeches, that there is an uneasiness around amalgamation potentially being forced on them. Now, there were some recent comments from the chair of the Chamber of Commerce in the Waikato region, who publicly said our councils should amalgamate, and the councils almost en masse across the region rose up against this viewpoint and said, “No, we don’t want to be amalgamated. We don’t want this. We are happy to work together, but we don’t want amalgamation forced upon us.”

So I believe that is a very real and present either threat or perceived threat within the council, and what this Government does is provide certainty for those councils—certainty around them being able to carry out their functions in the way that they see fit. The aspect that relates to that is that the bill states that if a reorganisation is to take place—effectively, another word for amalgamation—that if somebody’s going to put that forward, somebody from the public, they need 10 percent of the electors to sign, effectively, a petition, which they then present to local government. Now, it would be interesting to see how this piece of legislation is interpreted, because is that 10 percent of the electors within one ward or is that 10 percent across both the two wards that are going to amalgamate, so, therefore, 5 percent of one ward and 5 percent of the other? But we will see, if somebody chooses to put that forward, how that is interpreted.

I’d like to give a couple of local examples. Now, it must’ve been about one year ago. Three councils within the Waikato region were talking about sharing water services. They got very close to the point of combining as three councils and providing shared water services, and there were obviously some benefits around that, particularly in terms of cost. What happened, though, is that at the last minute that arrangement failed. It basically fell over, and, as I interpret it, it fell over because some of the smaller councils felt a little bit uneasy about engaging with a larger council and the idea that possibly they could therefore be amalgamated into some sort of large council. What this bill does is basically remove that threat to those councils, and it actually encourages councils to work together without that threat, without that sense of potential insecurity, for councils to represent their own areas, to understand their own issues and serve their own people, but also work collaboratively together and with the Government.

The second local example is from when I was first elected to Parliament as a list MP covering Hamilton and, loosely, the wider Waikato region. I pulled the mayors together from all of the councils and I said to them, “What are we going to focus on as a region?” And we talked through it for a while, and then we settled on the corridor between Hamilton and Auckland—the fastest-growing growth corridor in New Zealand. So we settled on that piece of work, and then that piece of work has since grown over the past couple of years—I might elaborate on that a little bit soon. But the key point I want to bring out of that is that after that meeting, I vividly remember one of the mayors saying, “This is the first time we’ve met like this for 10 years. It’s the first time we’ve done this for 10 years.” As someone who came to this House out of the education sector, where collaboration is sort of taken for granted, it’s really sort of second nature.

Tim van de Molen: I don’t think any of those mayors were there 10 years ago.

JAMIE STRANGE: I found that surprising, and I said to the mayor—no, no, one of them was. One of the mayors was there 10 years ago, and that was the mayor I spoke to.

Hon Scott Simpson: Name names.

JAMIE STRANGE: I don’t need to name names, but it was the first time that they collaborated for 10 years. It took me by surprise, because I just assumed that this was happening all the time. Anyway, the good work that’s come out of that collaboration is that now there’s a piece of planning linking the Hamilton-Auckland corridor—effectively, working on linking those two labour markets into, essentially, one labour market, which will be fantastic for GDP in our country. Some of the work that’s been done is around transport networks, urban growth, and water. That’s an example of councils coming together and collaborating. If there’s that threat around amalgamation, then the councils are a little bit less willing to do that.

The second point I’d like to touch on here—and it has been spoken about, so I’ll just touch on this one briefly—is around the council-controlled organisations (CCOs). The CCO provisions in the Supplementary Order Paper, they aim to improve council-controlled organisations’ responsiveness to local authority direction, transparency to the local authority, transparency to the public, and responsiveness to Māori. Just to highlight some of these key changes, the Local Government Commission will not be able to transfer council services to council-controlled organisations. Secondly, proposals to create an elaborate system of council-controlled organisations to deliver water, transport, and other services are withdrawn. Thirdly, provisions to enhance the transparency and accountability of council-controlled organisations to councils and communities are added. I’d just like to highlight the point of the speaker Ginny Andersen, who basically gave the example around how at times there’s not the amount of transparency within CCOs that people desire, and so this is certainly addressing that.

The final point, in closing, is there is one other aspect—and I haven’t heard it spoken about yet, so it is a new point in the debate—and that’s the provision in this bill to enable transport functions to be transferred between regional councils and territorial authorities at the request of the Minister of Transport. I know there’s interest in Canterbury transferring these functions between Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council. Just to give an example of how that can work well is in the Waikato region—obviously, the region I live in, so it’s easy for me to speak about that—an example of a passenger rail service which will be going middle of next year, which I’m sure everyone in this House is very excited about, so the middle of next year. We’ve had collaboration between the Waikato Regional Council, Hamilton City Council, Waikato District Council, and Government. When that collaboration occurs, we get the kind of outcomes that people want—you know, we get the aspects of economies of scale and people playing to their strengths. So, look, hopefully I’ve sort of summed up the bill, and I commend this to the House. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third 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 third time.

Bills

Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you. I move, That the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill will have major benefits for freshwater conservation and for threatened native fish, and also for the control of noxious fish like koi carp. It’s a small but vital step in the Government’s work to give New Zealand’s native species a much-needed helping hand. Aotearoa New Zealand has 56 species of indigenous freshwater fish, most of them unique to this country. Of them, around 70 percent are threatened or at risk of extinction. Populations of native fish have declined markedly over the last decades, and I noted Dr Liz Craig’s comments last night during the committee stages, when she referred to enormous whitebait catches by the kerosene tin back in the 1930s in Taranaki, and that reducing to just a cupful in terms of catches in the same rivers in the 1980s. So this bill is part of the Government’s action to help prevent extinctions and regional extinctions of our native fish species—species like the giant kōkopu, the short-jawed kōkopu, the kōaro, and the īnanga, which are four of the six species in the whitebait catch and which are all threatened or at risk of extinction.

Our indigenous fish, though they are small, are a vital part of our country’s natural heritage. They’re also important economically, culturally, and socially. Yet, as Minister of Conservation, I inherited a very antiquated framework for supporting native fish and for dealing with noxious fish. The freshwater fish regulations had not been reviewed since 1983, so it was a priority for me as a new Minister to update the law. This bill was introduced to improve the fisheries management legislative tool box, because without a modern and effective suite of tools, managers are prevented from taking the most effective and efficient steps to address the issues facing native fish—whether those are barriers to fish passage, and that’s particularly important because a lot of our native fish are migratory, spend part of their life at sea, and need to be able to get down rivers to migrate and then back up them at an early stage in their life—and to deal with issues like the loss of spawning sites and damage to those sites, and also to deal with the fact that at the moment, native fish are second-class indigenous species, because they don’t enjoy the same protection on conservation land outside reserves and national parks as all of our other native wildlife do.

So the bill makes changes to rectify that, and it will enable the Director-General of Conservation, in two years’ time, to close some reaches of rivers or whole rivers to fishing through the authorisation process. There will, despite the scaremongering of the Opposition, be public consultation before any areas are proposed for closure. That is an important tool in ensuring that there are some waterways throughout New Zealand where native fish can live without the risk of being fished and ending up in a net or a whitebait patty. That is to help protect those native fish populations, to enable them to thrive, and to ensure that we have a healthy whitebait fishery into the future. So it’s changing the law to give our native fish a helping hand for present and future generations.

It is a small and technical bill, and as I said at an earlier reading, it’s attracted a remarkable degree of public attention. I think that underlines how much people value native fish, and also some of the scaremongering that has occurred. So I acknowledge all of those who are really interested in native fish who made submissions, and acknowledge the work of the Environment Committee and the changes it made in response to submissions which clarify provisions in the bill and ensure it is a better piece of law.

The committee considered very carefully the issues that were raised in submissions, and one of those in particular was the interrelationship between management plans for native fish and those for sports fish. A lot of trout fishers were concerned that clause 5(3) of the bill meant that those native fish management plans would override plans for sports fisheries, so that clause has been removed from the bill, and that change is supported by the Fish & Game Council. In addition, the Government made a further change to ensure that the whitebaiters would not see any changes this season or next in terms of the authorisation provisions and the closures that could be made in relation to conservation land.

But contrary to the claims that some have made during recent months, this bill doesn’t make major changes to the existing arrangements for the management of freshwater fish. What it does do is create tools that can be used after consultation and after good analysis, and that’s things like ensuring that when councils and others are cleaning out drains to improve the management of water flows after rain, they don’t end up killing native fish without thinking. There’s been a lot of community concern when that has happened and species like eels have been killed.

So the bill also recognises, from the initial consultation that the Department of Conservation did last year, the widespread public support for improving the management of our native fish. That was an overwhelming theme of the submissions that came through under that consultation process. And that is exactly what this bill is about; it’s about providing better tools to manage threats to fish, whether it’s impediments to fish passage or the damage that happens at spawning sites.

It’s providing greater certainty about where the spawning sites are, through the process of the director-general declaring what sites are spawning sites. It’s providing more flexibility in terms of the activities that could happen there than the existing law does. And it will help ensure that activities don’t impact on the viability of those sites for spawning. I was really pleased in the debate in the committee stage that there was support across the Chamber for better protection of our spawning areas, because this Government wants a healthy whitebait fishery. It wants a fishery where whitebaiters can always be assured of getting a decent catch, without worrying that they are eating threatened species. We’ve already started the discussion around how we improve the fishery—that is going to continue later this year with the release of a discussion document with Cabinet’s approval. This bill will ensure that the provisions that come out of that can actually be implemented.

So I have really welcomed the engagement of passionate people through the different stages of the bill. They’re the people who love to get out, who go spotlighting at night to see native fish in the streams—fish that can be almost the size of your hand—they’re people who chance their luck with a scoop net on rivers and streams across New Zealand.

The bill is not just about whitebaiting, though that’s been the focus of a lot of the debate in here; it is also a bill about ensuring that threatened species, like our longfin eel, can migrate downstream to make that epic journey to Tonga to spawn. It means there’ll be more tools to look after the amphibious Canterbury mudfish, which spends half of its life hibernating in a muddy bed of streams. It means that the beautiful banded kōkopu will now have more help to climb to new heights—these fish are incredible climbers and can be found over 500 metres above sea level.

So this bill is about part of the work that this Government is doing to improve freshwater management, work that Minister Parker is leading with the Essential Freshwater programme, work to improve the Resource Management Act to ensure that all of our rivers are swimmable for both humans and fish within a generation. So it’s a bill that fixes the issues that we inherited in the Conservation Act, the gaps around management for indigenous species, it puts them on the same page as our other indigenous wildlife species—our kiwi, our kākā, our whio. It’s a bill about improving the habitat, and that can make a critical difference for native fish, ensuring that they can spawn safely, and that is the basis for improving populations—the work that has been done in areas like the Mawhera and the Grey River shows what a success that can be. So I commend this bill to the House.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in opposition to the third reading of this Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. And wasn’t the Minister hopeful? What we’ve seen so far is a so-called minor and technical bill introduced into this House, there was a lack of consultation with affected parties on the introduction of it, and now we have the Minister talking about a process that will follow the passing of this bill—and we are supposed to trust her. Well, I’m sorry but Minister Sage is certainly not trusted on the West Coast, she’s certainly not trusted in Southland, and she won’t be trusted elsewhere in the country if she continues to ride roughshod over recreationists’ interests.

This bill is, quite frankly, flawed. There was a failure to pick up my Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that we were hopeful to get across the line, and if they had gone across the line, we were hopeful that we could support this bill, but that was not to be the case. We over on this side, of course, being pragmatic conservationists, want to protect our indigenous fish but certainly not at the expense of riding roughshod over our recreational fishers—that’s certainly not good enough. We want our people in New Zealand to go on to the conservation estate and enjoy it and enjoy its special character.

I’m not going to take too long to oppose this bill—it’s opposed on only a couple of points—and that is because in black and white this bill looks to put a prohibition on the taking of indigenous fish from the conservation estate, and that means a ban on whitebaiting. You’ve already heard the Minister talk about closures of rivers, and that is certainly on the cards. I’m sorry to say, again, in black and white, that closures of rivers are a ban on taking whitebait. That is where she is headed—and, certainly, that’s where she is headed, because I had requested information under the Official Information Act, and, lo and behold, what I received back from this most open and transparent Government is a document that is blacked out page after—

Hon Scott Simpson: Redacted.

SARAH DOWIE: —page after page. Redacted—that’s right, Mr Simpson.

So she certainly has the intention to go further and ban the practice of whitebaiting, when there is no quantitative evidence as to the population numbers and where there has been no research done on river to river. While she talks about the protection of habitat, there’s certainly no quantitative evidence on that either, because there are rivers and rivers and rivers untouched in the backblocks of Fiordland where there are whitebait spawning quite happily. So, look, that research needs to be done before we can actually look to manage the fishery more sustainably.

I tabled two SOPs and one tabled amendment. They looked to strengthen this so-called minor and technical bill. The first, obviously, is overturning the prohibition and looking to use tools to put in place pragmatic regulation to assist the species and look at managing the fishery of whitebait. The second puts into place some natural justice principles around the declarations of spawning sites so that private property owners’ rights were not again ridden roughshod over, but that they had a right of reply with respect to the spawning sites on their land and any activities that could occur around them. And then the final looks at the information fed into the regulation-making power that is part of this bill, to be using evidence, to be using research properly, and to be using practical measures available to us to help protect indigenous fish rather than simply going to a ban—for example, on whitebaiting—from the onset.

So, look, this is not a minor and technical bill. It goes further than what we want it to. We wanted to strengthen it, and that’s why I raised two SOPs and a tabled amendment—they were declined. We are simply not in a position where we can support this bill.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. This is a very special day not only because Mr Zuckerberg tells me it’s Mr Speaker’s birthday but also—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Don’t bring me into the debate!

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —because we are taking another step on the long journey to clean up our waterways and protect our conservation estates. For too long we have stood by whilst our waterways have been degraded. Look, I have no doubt that many people do enjoy sitting on a riverbank with a six-pack or a sunshade and some food and spend their days pulling indigenous fish out of our waterways. There was a time where, perhaps, that was OK, because they could pull them out a kerosene tin at a time, but those days are gone or at least, they’re gone in some places.

Look, this legislation is based on science and it beggars belief that the National Party members have stood up and said there’s no evidence.

Hon Peeni Henare: Running roughshod.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Running roughshod, like an unshod horse—roughshod. And that is absolutely appalling. They only have to google “indigenous fish in New Zealand” to come up with a comprehensive study which lists four of these species as not endangered but on the threatened with extinction list. Now, you can dismiss that. You can say, “I’m sorry, I don’t believe a scientific paper.”; you can do that along with the anti-vaxxers and the rest of them out here. But I tell you what: I listen to scientists, and when they tell me we’ve got a problem, we as a Government have a duty to take action—and that’s what we’re doing.

Now, Miss Dowie may well be able to tramp into Doubtful Sound with her whitebait net and get the whitebait out of the pristine rivers there. Good luck to her. I don’t think the Minister of Conservation has it in her sights to ban whitebaiting on that particular catchment. But there are other catchments which are desperately ill. They are languishing and they need protection and that is what this is going to do.

These are truly unique fish, indigenous fish, part of—here’s an irony for you. Did you know that if you’re walking through a national park the lichen on the tree is more protected than the whitebait in the river? You can’t scratch the lichen off the tree. That would be in breach of the Conservation Act but you can take the indigenous fish out of the stream. How about that? That makes absolutely no sense. So all we are doing is saying that when we are within a conservation area it’s all protected; not everything except our whitebait fritters.

So this is just about sustainability. You know, the huge hoo-ha as if the sky is going to fall. But what this is simply doing is giving the Minister and the Director-General of Conservation some powers to manage this fishery so that it is sustainable. It’s no good continually fishing it to extinction, till it disappears. So here we have a simple bill saying we can take some steps. And look, if a particular catchment is at such a threat that we need to pause whitebaiting in it for a while, then let’s do that. But let’s not shout “Ban” from the rooftops as if the whole of New Zealand has been told to go home and pack up their whitebait nets and their gumboots, because it’s simply not true. It’s scaremongering, it’s inaccurate, and it shouldn’t be said.

In so far as there are some protections which may touch on private property it’s absolutely essential, because we know the most important area is the spawning grounds and sometimes those spawning grounds are on private property. It may well be that you don’t want someone putting a drainage ditch through the middle of a paddock where the stream in the middle of that paddock is, in fact, a very important spawning ground. So it’s absolutely appropriate that the director-general on reasonable grounds can say—

Angie Warren-Clark: Say that again.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —on reasonable grounds can say, “I believe that an important part of this catchment is important for conservation, important for the preservation of this species of indigenous fish, and it is not to be tampered with.”

There was this whole suggestion on the other side of the House earlier in the debate on this bill that this was carte blanche; that this was outside or above the law. And I know for a fact that the other side have heard of judicial review, have heard of the High Court, have heard of the fact that if a Government official or a Minister acts outside their powers or in an unreasonable or irrational way they are subject to the courts. So don’t pretend. Don’t pretend that this isn’t the case. Don’t suggest that there is no recourse. Don’t suggest that this is an unfettered power because it’s entirely inappropriate.

The other thing that this bill does—and, you know, the Minister has shown the wisdom of Solomon, or perhaps Sheba, in absolutely balancing the interests of sports fishing, because we know sports fish—trout, largely trout; salmon as well—are introduced species and we know that they can have an adverse effect on indigenous fish. They are, in many cases, predator fish: they eat smaller fish and other insects and what have you. So it is appropriate that there is a relationship between the indigenous fish management plan and the sports fish management plan. Now there was some difficulty, some tensions about the relationship between those two plans, and the Minister has said that they sit together—one is not more important or less important than the other but they need to take each other into account.

So this bill is not some world-changing bill. It is not going to change the entire culture of New Zealand. We’ll still be able to effectively manage a sustainable fishery. People will still be able to enjoy their whitebait and everything that goes along with it, including those important cultural aspects, although I understand catching whitebait’s often not part of the activity, but in any event what it does is it strikes that balance. It’s a step that should have been taken long ago. It’s part of a long-term plan of this Government to tidy up our waterways, protect our environment for the long term not just for you and me, not just for our children, but for our children and our children’s children as well. I’m very proud to be supporting this bill. This Minister’s done a great job and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s deeply ironic to have the chair of the Environment Committee floundering around talking about banning whitebait. He was trying to fill his 10 minutes as adroitly as he could but actually he was really beginning to stretch credibility when he talks about a Minister, the Minister of Conservation, who has brought to the House a bill that she refers to as being minor and technical, which, as became so immediately obvious and apparent at select committee, there was nothing minor or technical about. It was a piece of legislation that was designed, initially wrapped up in some kind of conservation camouflage, to be protecting our indigenous fish species when actually all it was about in reality was a none-too-subtle attempt to ban whitebaiting, and that became very clear as we worked our way through the bill.

My colleagues in the National Party team on the Environment Committee put forward a number of, I thought, really good, sensible, practical solutions that the Government could have adopted if they had wanted to, if they been of a mood to it, but, no, such is the ideological drive of Minister Sage—and we’ve seen her humiliated, actually, in recent weeks because of her stubborn, relentless, determination to stick to ideological political positions on matters relating to her other portfolios—that it doesn’t come as a surprise that the same thing should happen with this bill. And so it’s been a slippery little bill from the very beginning and it’s a bill that we’ve found—initially, we tried to find a way to support it, but upon closer inspection and trying very hard to work our way through it, we found a Government that was stubborn, obstinate, and not willing to compromise at all. We oppose this bill.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. But first, I’d actually like to begin with saying “Hari Huritau”. I believe it is your birthday—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): We all have them.

JENNY MARCROFT: —so best wishes to you and I’m sure there’s going to be cake after.

It’s a pleasure to take a call on this bill, the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill on behalf of New Zealand First and I’d just like to acknowledge, beginning with the committee, the Environment Committee, the great way that we have all worked very hard and diligently on this bill. A little bit of panel beating—yes, we did a little bit of panel beating—but we certainly got there in the end and I think have delivered what is going to be very important protection for our native, indigenous, freshwater fish, because actually that is the focus of this bill. It is about ensuring that this taonga will survive into the future.

Now I’d just like to talk about whitebait in terms of the Mahurangi Technical Institute, which is based in Warkworth, and I haven’t had the opportunity through any of these calls in previous readings of this bill to talk about this institute. Mahurangi are basically breeding whitebait in captivity. They are farming whitebait and this is evident every Saturday morning at the Matakana market. You can pop down and have a Mānaki Whitebait fritter. What they’re also doing in conjunction with iwi, Ngāti Tahu, Ngāti Whāoa, is they are endeavouring to—because kōkopu were part of their staple diet, they’re very keen to reintroduce the kōkopu to the Upper Waikato catchment. So alongside Mahurangi Technical Institute, they are hoping to release into the wild habitat again and also into Tāwharanui, which is probably one of the best areas on the whole planet—in paradise, take a left at Matakana, and head over the hill. To release into the wild habitat—the Mānaki fish scientist Paul Decker, he’s been working on this for a number of years so that when the whitebait become extinct from a specific habitat, they’re able to reintroduce these farmed whitebait.

Now, this is a really interesting feature about whitebait, and you might like to consider this the next time you happen to eat a whitebait patty—because they won’t be banned. Whitebait, if they can’t smell the pheromones of their own kind, then they’ll never go back to that particular habitat; they will never go back to that freshwater environment. So how do we repopulate these areas that have lost the whitebait? We introduce farmed whitebait, which will then release the pheromones which will draw back the natural, indigenous native whitebait to that habitat. So that’s a very interesting thing. So fear not, the whitebait patty eater, because we have the technology and it is coming to you from Mahurangi Technical Institute, thanks very much to Dr Paul Decker. Maybe I’ve just given him a new title, but, anyway, Paul Decker, the—certainly the grandfather of the whitebait. So that’s interesting, I think, in terms of whitebait. It brings another dimension to the conversation that we are having—so farmed fish, bringing them back into the habitat to regenerate the stock of whitebait.

Just through the course of listening to the submissions through the Environment Committee, I did note that Fish & Game played a very important role in terms of helping us to find a way forward for ensuring that the particular focus that they have in terms of trout and the trout hatcheries and the role that they play to make sure—so there was a clause in the bill that they weren’t particularly keen on and so we did listen to them. And this is, you know, a direct relationship that we developed through to ensure that that clause 5(3), I believe it was—we managed to get that taken out of the bill. So they ended up being relatively happy with where we landed, in fact, there were three changes they suggested; we ended up landing with two changes and they felt that they were well listened to. So that was great to be able to work with them, and I acknowledge the way that they worked constructively, too, with members of the committee.

You know, we have 56-odd known native freshwater fish species. They’re really interesting—tiny fish that migrate huge distances from fresh water out into the ocean; we’ve got some fish, well, eels, that manage to clamber up high heights. Some of these fish have been travelling our waterways for 23 million years, and now some of them are getting munched as they go through drained wetlands or through hydro areas, and so we really do have to do our bit to ensure that these fish are protected.

So this bill literally just gives powers to better manage and protect these species. It will certainly update and clarify the Act and give regulation-making powers to implement the bill’s changes. New Zealand First—we were really pleased to be able to work with the Minister of Conservation, and, through her Supplementary Order Paper 360, enabled that there would be a period of time of two years to enable the status quo to remain, because there is a review going to be undertaken. There’s actually no consensus at the moment on what regulation changes are needed; everyone does actually knowledge there needs to be some kind of change, but not to their particular type of fishing. So it’s going to take a period of time; there will need to be consultation with iwi through that review process, along with fishers, and taking stock of all the views and opinions. That’s not something that will be rushed. So enabling those two years before there are any changes, I think that is a very sensible approach. We’re pleased that the Minister was able to accommodate New Zealand First in making that change, so I just acknowledge the Minister there.

I have found it, generally, a really good committee to be on, the Environment Committee, because we have a focus that is about the environment. So one of the things I know that we do all have in common is a need and an understanding to protect not just our conservation estate but all of those species that are in various habitats around New Zealand. So I find it really interesting that on this side of the House we take an approach that is about the wellbeing of our ecosystems, about the wellbeing of the various species that make up these ecosystems, and that is an approach that we take, perhaps, relatively holistically across our peoples, across our families, across our communities, and throughout into our ecosystems as well. Unfortunately, the other side of the House—they call it a pragmatic approach, but really it’s, I believe, a self-centred approach. But I think humanity can show that we can care for all of the little itty-bitty creatures, including our incredibly special indigenous freshwater fish. So, in conclusion—very pleased to support this bill, proud to be part of the select committee, and thank all of submitters to the bill and for their work in helping to shape what I believe is a good piece of legislation that will protect these species. So in conclusion, I commend the bill to the House, and happy birthday to you.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very happy to take a call on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill at third reading. I would just like to start by pointing out it’s always interesting to listen to Minister Sage, especially tonight, when in her contribution she spoke about the National Party scaremongering about whitebaiting, and in her famous last words said, “Trust us, we’ll consult before we act.” It would have been nice if she had actually taken that advice in this case, because here was the perfect opportunity for her to, in fact, consult—because part of the process that really fell down right at the beginning was the consultation process. We ended up with a bill that has taken a year. It’s a minor, technical, fix-up bill that has taken a good part of a year to get to third reading, and if that Minister had consulted at the very beginning that process would have taken a lot longer. We spent a huge amount of time in the Environment Committee toing and froing and listening to submissions, when if, in fact, consultation had been done right at the first instance we wouldn’t have been put in that position. In fact, Fish & Game would have been able to have had their say right at the beginning, and the huge process that we went through toing and froing over one particular clause that we ended up taking out after months and months of debate would have been avoided. So if Eugenie Sage had only taken her own advice—“Trust us, we’ll consult.”—this process wouldn’t have been so fraught.

It has been well traversed—this bill is about introducing enhanced tools so that fisheries for our freshwater fish can be more greatly protected. There are a lot of freshwater fish that are endangered; 75 percent were at risk of extinction, and that was in 2013, and 50 percent of them are found nowhere else in the world. That is due to a loss of habitat and degradation of habitat, and we are all in agreement that something needs to be done about that. But the reason that we are not supporting this bill is because we do not believe that it strikes a good balance in a number of cases.

Now, it’s been well traversed already about the whitebait argument, so I’m not going to go into that. I am going to talk, however, about the property rights that we have a problem with and that we do not feel there has been a good balance struck between. Now, Mr Duncan Webb did talk about the fact that there is the possibility of court action, but “At what expense?” is the question that we put up. We actually put up an amendment to say there actually needs to be greater consultation with landowners when it comes to identifying spawning sites. That was voted down, very unfortunately, and that means that in this instance we are unable to vote for the bill because it doesn’t strike a good balance between protecting our indigenous fish and looking after the landowner’s rights, and so we will not be supporting this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and, of course, I must also wish you a happy birthday. I just want to let you know that I will not be forgetting your birthday as it is also my sister’s birthday, Kristy Kewene. Just thought I’d drop that into Hansard. It is her birthday today as well, so happy birthday, Mr Speaker. Look, it is an absolute pleasure—an absolute pleasure to speak on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. I’ve been listening carefully to this debate, and it’s a perfect example of how our Government is tackling the big, long-term problems facing this country.

We know that the degradation of the environment is absolutely evidenced in the fact that many of our rivers are no longer swimmable. That’s something that the Opposition were quite happy to allow to continue.

This Government is committed to improving our freshwater systems, and we have a broad programme to restore freshwater systems and freshwater diversity. The Minister for the Environment, David Parker, has introduced a new direction under the Resource Management Act in regards to this. At the same time, we’re taking strong action to protect our environment: we’ve banned single-use plastic bags, we have banned new offshore mining permits, and we’re working with the urban community and our farmers for a new zero-carbon future. We’re managing land use with a sustainable land-use package so that the runoff and sediment don’t clog our waterways. After nine years of neglect there’s a lot to fix, and this is something we can’t fix straight away, but we’re getting started, and we’re making good progress.

So I commend our Minister of Conservation, the Hon Eugenie Sage, for her balanced approach here; better protecting indigenous freshwater fish that have been neglected for so long, while ensuring that the right to fish and managing fisheries still exists.

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the officials who worked diligently on this bill. It did take us a long time to get there. We’ve taken a lot of time to discuss the issues. We listened and spent a lot of time managing the expectations of community and making sure that this piece of legislation worked. So I really want to thank the officials and the clerks who worked with us. I also greatly appreciated one particular official who often showed us pictures of these very rare and indigenous fish because sometimes it was quite technical, so I appreciate that.

We have 57 species of freshwater fish, and over half of these are found only in New Zealand, 22 species are threatened, and 17 are at risk. Our freshwater fish are much worse off than our native birds. We’ve seen a massive loss of spawning sites, loss of fish passage, and loss of wetlands and habitat that these fish need. We all know this. Everyone agrees with this but the Opposition yesterday tried to tell this country that, yes, even though indigenous freshwater fish are important they’re not as important as private land-use rights. I wonder if they thought about indigenous fish in the same way as they thought about, for example, the Kiwi whether they would treat them the same. No one objects to Kiwi nesting on their land. No one talks about the loss of land-use rights that aren’t disrupted. We propose, very simply, to do this exactly for our spawning sites as we do for birds.

The Supplementary Order Paper 360 in the Minister’s name yesterday ensured that anyone fishing in a conservation area should have an authorisation. The member Dr Duncan Webb said, and it was a great example, that if you take lichen in a conservation area that lichen is more protected than indigenous fish—I think that was a really good example. So a person will need to have authorisation in the same way that they need to have authorisation to take plants from conservation parks, or fish reserves, or national parks. That’s about fairness, and really that’s what we’re about. It’s about our environment and it’s about our biodiversity winning.

This legislation is one of the tools in the tool box. It’s not the end of the whitebait fishing. It’s not the end of the world as we know it. However, if we fail to act now New Zealand will lose some of its precious biodiversity. I say we must act to do all we can to support our unique and precious environment and these species.

We had 1,406 submissions, and we heard 61 oral submissions during the time that we sat in the select committee. Overwhelmingly, the majority supported the intention of the bill to give greater protection to freshwater fish. I am grateful really for the time that those people took to give us those submissions. They were meaningful, they were useful, and we crafted the legislation around some of the very good suggestions that they made.

I’d also like to acknowledge my dear friend Dr Deborah Russell, who began the process of shepherding this piece of legislation through the House as the Environment Committee chair. That was then picked up by Dr Duncan Webb. Both of them have managed a really seamless process. It’s been a long process but an enjoyable process to participate in.

So look, all we’ve heard from the Opposition is it’s not fair that we’re going to have a ban, a life ban, on whitebait. It’s not the case. It’s scaremongering. It is plain and simple scaremongering. The Opposition also talks about not trusting the honourable member Eugenie Sage in her consultation. I actually think that that was pretty on the nose. I think the Minister has stood up and said that there is consultation. We know over 3,000 people have started that consultation process around whitebait. There is a formal process in place. People are talking and they are passionate about this issue, and we are hearing them, and they are speaking to us. So I don’t think that that was a very fair or reasonable thing for the member to say. I absolutely refute it.

The bill does a number of things, but one of the things, I guess, that I’m particularly pleased about is this bill also strengthens the tools for managing threats to customary fishing, such as the management of damage to spawning sites. So where indigenous fish are and customary fishing rights exist, the protection, or the better protection, of those spawning sites and the customary right to take continues, and, in fact, it’s strengthened.

We’re getting on with delivering for the people of our nation. We’re focused on the long game, not the next election cycle. We’re looking at fixing the multiplicity of issues that have been the legacy of nine years of the National Government. That party ignored poverty, ignored the health and wellbeing of our people, and ignored the environment. I am delighted to commend this bill to the House.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party in opposition to the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill.

I do want to begin by acknowledging the Government backbenders—backbenchers. Slow down, Matthew, slow down, say the right things: the Government backbenchers. In fairness, they came into Parliament to make a difference, and they came into Parliament to pass law. I feel for them: their first term, they want to pass law, make a difference, and they’ve been told to take their time, filibuster their own bills because their executive has run out of ideas. What’s worse, over the last two months or three months they weren’t even allowed to filibuster, because what we experienced was a gaggle of Ministers in here all taking up the opportunity to seize the Government backbenchers’ calls to filibuster. But now the executive has run out of steam, and they’re not even bothering to turn up themselves to filibuster, and they’ve thrown a few bones to the Government backbenchers.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): There’s a fair bit of that going on. And after 60 seconds at least say “whitebait”.

MATT DOOCEY: Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Go on.

MATT DOOCEY: I would like to help. I would like to extend an offer of support to the Government in helping pass this bill by resuming my seat very promptly. I’d encourage them to do the same.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Jo Luxton.

JO LUXTON (Labour): What a pleasure. What a pleasure to take a call on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill after that member who has just taken his seat, Matt Doocey. He had the audacity to talk about filibustering, and I think he spent a whole 1½ minutes doing just that and didn’t mention whitebait once as you suggested.

Anyway, I want to say thank you. I want to acknowledge the chairs of the Environment Committee, Dr Deborah Russell, who was originally the chair of the select committee, and then, following on from that, Dr Duncan Webb. I think it’s important also to acknowledge the select committee too, because they do the hard work and the hard yards when it comes to legislation such as this.

I have one question though: why are the Opposition opposing? Do they oppose now just for the sake of opposing everything that this Government puts forward? So negative—“negative National”. But that’s OK. You know, I kind of feel that if we were talking about tahr, there would probably be a lot more passion, and they’d be more willing to protect something like tahr, which is a pest. But what we have here is a Government that is making moves to protect and improve the productivity of our fisheries and our waterways, and here they are up in arms. This is actually a good thing—this is actually a good thing. I wish that you—not you, Mr Speaker, but the Opposition—would take the time just to recognise that and join forces with this side of the House and get this legislation through the House unopposed. But I guess that’s just too much to ask.

Angie Warren-Clark: “Negative Nelly”.

JO LUXTON: That’s right: “negative Nellies”.

You know, in New Zealand we protect kiwis, we protect our native birds, we protect insects, and we protect even lichen, so I found out this evening. So why not protect our native fish? They are in trouble. Just because we can’t see them, they don’t have pretty feathers, and they don’t parade around in front of us, doesn’t actually mean they are not worth protecting. They are native to our country, which is an extremely precious and important thing.

We know that we’ve got 57 species of indigenous fish here in New Zealand. Of those, 22 are listed as threatened and 17 are at risk. As I said before, just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t need our protection.

This piece of legislation, I noted too, actually created a huge amount of interest, with 1,406 submissions, and overwhelmingly the submitters supported the intent of this bill. About 1,406 submissions—that’s a lot of submissions and is actually a lot more than what I’ve experienced in some of my other select committees. So that just goes to show how passionate people are and how much they care about this issue.

Unfortunately, we have seen a lot of scaremongering from the Opposition, saying that this is going to be the end of whitebaiting—nobody is going to have any more whitebait fritters—but that is actually not the case. We know that three-quarters of our native fish are threatened. They are at risk or at risk of extinction. So we have to act. We have to do something now. We cannot sit on our hands and do nothing. So I want to thank Minister Sage for bringing this legislation to the House. She recognises the importance of protecting our native fish and the waterways in which they live in and spawn in.

We had a large number of submitters that were concerned about whitebaiting and what this bill might mean for whitebaiting—that it would be the end of commercial fishing for whitebaiting, but it’s actually not the case. What we know is that on conservation land we have the opportunity to protect our whitebait, to give them the opportunity to swim, to live, and to spawn without the risk of being captured by nets. If we continue the way we have been continuing and don’t look to protect anything, we can say goodbye to whitebait fritters because we will fish them to extinction, and I am sure that New Zealanders do not want to see that happen, because that would be a catastrophe. It is one of our, I guess, iconic things here in New Zealand to go along and have whitebait fritters when they’re in season.

So I’m not going to continue any further. I just want to acknowledge again the select committee and the Minister and the submitters, and I highly commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Matt King—five minutes.

MATT KING (National—Northland): I’ve got a very short contribution to make. We oppose this bill. We oppose this bill, and we oppose this bill on a number of reasons. But let’s talk about whitebait—let’s talk about whitebait.

The Greens, in their ideology, they’re against recreational fishers, eelers, and hunters. That’s pretty obvious. But, in principle, I’ve got to say I oppose any bill that gives Minister Eugenie Sage the ability to ban. I oppose that in principle. I’ve got to oppose it. She loves banning it—she loves banning. I don’t want to give her in any bill power to ban something. But in that case, it gives her the ability to ban. But, you know what? Wait a few weeks, and a Labour Minister will overturn it. So there you go.

Very little consultation. The previous speaker, Jo Luxton, spoke about the right to take it to a judicial review. That costs money, so we’d rather that the right to appeal, the right to consult, is written into the bill. So we took these Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) forward and got opposed. New Zealand First could have supported our sensible SOPs, but they toed the line, got in behind the coalition Government, and went along with the Green Party line.

There are more sensible ways to protect our fisheries. Accordingly, we don’t support the bill.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): I must also join in the calls from this side of the House with my colleagues to celebrate you, good sir, on your day, your rā whānau [birthday]. Nō reira, kei a koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. Hari huritau.

[So back to you, Mr Speaker. Happy birthday.]

Look, I want to just pick up from the previous speaker, Matt King. He made an interesting statement just prior to sitting down. He said, “There’s a lot more pragmatic ways to go about saving the fisheries.” Silence. And that’s the thing. Like, they’re all happy on that side of the House, causing a muck and putting out all sorts of disastrous, doomy-gloomy kinds of misinformation to our communities, and in particular to our rural communities, about what the impacts of this legislation are going to be. The reality is the Nats are anti-whitebait. They’re anti - our environment, anti-conservation, and anti - recreational fishers. I can say that as a recreational fisher myself.

Look, you talk to people on the ground about what we’re actually trying to achieve in this bill. What are we trying to do? We’re trying to ensure that the livestock of our native fisheries, our īnanga, our kōkopu—that those species are protected ma rānō, for a lifetime—our tuna. The reality is that in recent times an absence of the ability to regulate, an absence of the ability to be able to set aside conservation areas—in our tikanga, we have a tikanga, a law, as most of our tribes do, to moderate and regulate our fishing stock. We regularly implemented rāhui, where we didn’t take kai from certain areas. Those laws were adhered to by all of those who occupied those spaces.

Like, for some areas that isn’t the dominant law; tikanga isn’t the dominant law, or not everybody will adhere to those people that put down those rāhui. So I guess that’s where the challenge for us on this side of the House is. If we want to preserve our fisheries, in particular our indigenous fishing stock, well what’s our plan? I want to acknowledge the Hon Eugenie Sage. It’s always tricky when you go to try and introduce regulation for things that we as New Zealanders take inherently. You know, fishing is etched into our DNA. I think I was born with a blimmin fishing rod in my hand and some waders on my feet. But, you know, for a lot of us, it is a big part of our lifestyle. So it can be really challenging.

That’s what we saw from the Opposition for nine years. We saw that when there were issues that were too tricky to actually delve into, they just didn’t bother—they didn’t bother. And what’s the consequence of that? Well, when we look at our fisheries stock, it is a classic example. Oh, I can see the Hon James Shaw down the back there. You know, they’re tackling some really big issues on our environment; whether that be our fresh waterways, whether that’s climate change. These are really big, fundamentally challenging issues that the last lot just did nothing about.

I applied, I think, quite a conservative lens to this bill, because I was very, very wary about undermining, I guess, you know, the lifestyle of good old New Zealanders who just want to go down and catch a feed. So as I challenged myself to try to understand what the intentions of this bill were, I got to understand, well, actually, there aren’t many fishing stocks in New Zealand that don’t have some kind of total catch allocation or some kind of management system. Well, īnanga, there’s no management system. If I want to go and commercially catch and sell īnanga from any old river when they’re running, I can. Nobody else is going to moderate that.

Maureen Pugh: So?

KIRITAPU ALLAN: Did I hear “So?” I hope I didn’t just hear “So?” on the other side.

Maureen Pugh: Yeah, you did. I said it.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: You said “So?”. Why should we be saying “So?” about a native fishery stock that we’re watching being completely decimated. Look, actually that member who just said that and I, we both come from areas that strongly survive on those types of fish. I’ve got a two-year-old daughter. Imagine if my two-year-old daughter grows up right at home by our Rangitaiki awa. Imagine if when she gets to, I don’t know, be 16, whatever it is, and they don’t have the possibility or the ability to go fish their awa. What if the knowledge that my father-in-law, Wharekaihua, is passing on to Hiwaiterangi—what if she can’t give life to those practices and those teachings because we, I, this side of the House, everybody in this House, have not been diligent enough, have not turned our mind to it enough, have not done everything that we could in our time whilst we have the ability to make laws to conserve our cultural identity, our social identity? This is a mere manifestation of that, but one that is so significant to that member’s communities and to mine.

So, look, this is a long-term problem. This is a problem that we all have to work out how we’re going to balance engagement. Man, the last thing we want to do is see a blimmin ban on whitebait. I love it. It’s such a big part of our culture, my culture, our family’s culture. But the reality is that we have to do something.

Then I went through the details. Well, what are we actually trying to do? OK, well, no, there isn’t going to be some big massive blanket ban that goes on for ever and ever around whitebaiting. We’re going to set aside conservation areas. We’re going to make sure that those fishing spots—they’re not going to be there for ever. There’s a very good Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that Minister Sage introduced, I think it was yesterday. I want to again acknowledge her, because there was such consternation around this bill. There has been a lot of misinformation that’s been put out into the public sphere, and it’s been right old misinformation as well. But that aside, Minister Sage worked diligently, I think, with recreational fishers and groups that have clearly worked alongside her to ensure that we were making the best fit legislation in this area.

She introduced SOP 360. Now, this one here provides authorisations for fishing in conservation areas. It will require anyone fishing in a conservation area to have an authorisation—a permit; that’s fine—in the same way that they need to have authorisation to take plants from conservation areas and the like. That’s fine. That means that we can ensure that there is sufficient stock, that’s it being monitored, and that what is being taken is sustainable.

The legislation will still retain powers to introduce authorisation processes for whitebait fishing in conservation areas, and that’s because they may be necessary in the future. So I think, you know, for me this is a pragmatic bill that has to tackle some fundamental issues that for us are long-term issues, because on this side of the House whilst we have the privilege of holding power, the challenge is that we exercise with an absolute diligence, the obligation of the exercise of that power.

If I turn to the member from Invercargill Ms Dowie, her SOP 389 inserts new section 26ZHE “Taking of whitebait”. She introduced two SOPs that completely undermine the whole intent of this bill, which is the preservation of these indigenous fish species. Her first proposal was restricting the ability of the Director-General of Conservation to take any action that would result in prohibiting whitebaiting in a conservation area. This proposal goes back to my original point in my response to the member Mr King. OK, you don’t like the plan—don’t like the plan, so what’s the plan? “We’ve got a plan.”, they said—“We’ve got a plan.” But what’s the plan? This here, this SOP—yeah, here it is. This SOP says that you can do nothing—you can do nothing to ensure the preservation of those indigenous species.

So then let’s turn to the next one—spawning sites, requiring the director-general to consult the property owner if the director-general proposes to declare an area on private property to be a spawning area, and it gives landowners an appeal right over such declarations. So the property rights of the landowner trump the ability of the Crown to exercise its obligations of preservation of indigenous species. What’s the plan? That’s going to be my catchcry to that side whilst they sit here and relentlessly produce misinformation about what this side of the House is doing.

I’m proud of the work that our Ministers are doing. I’m proud of the work. They are tackling really challenging and difficult issues. So I take my hat off to the Minister, the Hon Eugenie Sage, and all of her colleagues and those of my colleagues that are on the Environment Committee, that worked hard to ensure that this is a good piece of legislation. I commend this bill to the House.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I stand, too, to speak to the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading tonight. For me, this is a very sad day, and I’m going to use my short contribution to apologise to the thousands of people who go whitebaiting, to the hundreds of thousands of people who enjoy eating whitebait. It seems that we have been given a transitional grace period of two years, but after that I believe all bets are off and there will be a ban in rivers and especially on the West Coast, adding to the 61 that are already closed over there.

I am apologising, also, that we could not have the scientific evidence that we introduced into this debate considered. I’m sorry we could not get the Government to consider the quantitative data that we also introduced into this debate. I’m sorry to all the people who joined the West Coast Whitebaiters Association to add their voice in opposition to this bill because they believed that their experience and their local knowledge would’ve actually made a difference to this outcome. For instance, there’s been four days in the last month where you’ve been able to go whitebaiting, because the weather is not suitable. I’m sorry some of our rural property owners are going to lose more of their private property rights, and I’m sorry we couldn’t get this Government to listen to reason. We could not get them to listen to the science, and we could not get them to listen to the facts. One fact is that a Canterbury fish biologist who’s been studying whitebait for 15 years said to us there is no clear evidence that whitebait are on the decline, and it doesn’t matter how much whitebait you catch; it will make no difference to the final population.

This is a sad day, and I’m sorry this bill is passing tonight.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): It’s an absolute pleasure to take the final call on the third reading of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. Basically, growing up, I have really fond memories of biking over to my grandmother’s house with a couple of mates I always took with me. We used to grab her whitebait net and then lug it down to the river, and then we’d spend the afternoon whitebaiting. We always had a really great time—didn’t catch much, but it was a really good way to spend an afternoon. Thinking back, my mum grew up on the river whitebaiting and my grandmother also before her. Basically, that’s where some of those family stories came from about catching so many whitebait that it filled the kerosene tins. They had to lug them home, and they fed the leftovers to the chickens.

The issue is many of us grew up whitebaiting, but this is not the “Conservation of Whitebait Patties Bill” and this is also not the “Conservation of Rights to Gravel Extraction Bill”. This is the conservation of indigenous freshwater fish bill, and particularly our threatened freshwater fish. Even a lot of the really experienced whitebaiters down on the river, they also believe that things need to change to protect this vulnerable fishery. So this is a really, really important bill. Why is it important? It is because so many of our freshwater fish are threatened or at risk of extinction. When we looked at the Ministry for the Environment’s 2017 freshwater report, they were monitoring 39 native freshwater species, and they reported that 72 percent were either threatened or at risk of extinction—so most of our indigenous freshwater fish, and that also included four of our whitebait species, along with lampreys and longfin eels, all of them threatened and at risk.

Fish are unique, in a sense, in New Zealand in terms of our indigenous species. We’ve got native birds, we’ve got reptiles—they are protected no matter where they live. They can live in a conservation area, they can live in a reserve, they can live in a national park and they’re fully protected, but thinking about our threatened indigenous freshwater species, they’re only protected if they’re in national parks or reserves. So if they’re in conservation areas, then they’re not protected from fishing. So this bill paves the way for better management of our freshwater species, but it also protects the habitats in which they live.

If you think about the life cycle of our freshwater fish, habitat is incredibly important, because when they’re swimming downstream to spawn, what they end up doing is spawning and laying their eggs in that long grass that, basically, get laid at spring tides, and then the eggs mature and they wait for the next spring tide to float them off, larvae hatch, and they go out to sea, and then the whitebait swim back up the river some months later. That’s an incredible interaction with the environment at every space. So if we’re mowing the grass verges so there’s no long grass, if we’re putting in place obstacles so they can’t migrate, if we’re draining all the swamps and wetlands, then it’s really, really difficult, particularly if we’ve got a lot of pollution nutrients entering our water. It makes it very, very difficult.

So what this bill does is it not only looks at protection from being caught in terms of whitebaiting; it also looks at some of our habitat protection. The first thing this bill does is it, basically, puts restrictions so that the director-general can set regulations about catching those species in our conservation areas. So what it’s talking about is the director-general may, by issuing notice in the Gazette, authorise the taking of indigenous freshwater fish from areas other than national parks, but it also particularly says that without those authorisations, then you can’t fish in a conservation area. So those regulations are incredibly important, but because, again, it’s important to have that consultation, those regulations won’t be put in place and become active for at least a minimum period of two years, so we’ve got that time from when this bill comes into force that we can have that consultation and set up that regime properly—incredibly important.

Also, it is looking at spawning sites and protection of them, but also putting in place regulations around declaring noxious fish that we can look at how we manage those in terms of control prohibitions, and also looking at things in terms of barriers that get erected within rivers that can stop fish migrating up.

There are a lot of extra tools in this tool kit that are incredibly important for the protection of our vulnerable species, so I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill be now read a third 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 third time.

Bills

Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment (No 2) Bill

Regulatory Systems (Workforce) Amendment Bill (No 2)

Regulatory Systems (Housing) Amendment Bill (No 2)

Second Readings

Debate resumed from 15 October.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, and fakaalofa atu. I’m absolutely excited to be picking up this riveting debate on the regulatory bills tonight, but before we start getting into the real substance of this matter, I would like to reflect on some of the comments that were made during the debate last night. In fact, in particular, I would like to set the record straight on some of the comments made by the Opposition member Nicola Willis.

The member at the time, last night, made the comment about some changes that were made with regards to the retirement villages, and Nicola Willis mentioned that the previous National Government did bring in increased wages for aged-care workers. But what that member conveniently left out of her speech was that the National Government didn’t just bring in increased wages for these care and support workers. The fight for pay equity for care and support workers was a very long and protracted process over many years, and, in fact, the National Government dragged Kristine Bartlett and her union, E tū, through several levels of court before finally settling, after a three-year negotiation process, for the sum of just over $2 billion.

That’s also something to keep in mind. Any time that the previous National Government—now Opposition—mentions the $5 billion of investments that they made in health, subtract this $2 billion out of that investment that they made, because that $2 billion was not part of the $5 billion that they supposedly invested into health.

Now, that settlement was not possible without the backing of the unions, and, Mr Speaker, if you’ll indulge me for just another half a minute, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to two extremely decent and absolutely brilliant stalwarts of our union movement that we said goodbye to last night: Bill Rosenberg, the Council of Trade Unions’ economist, who retired and who has tirelessly worked to improve the lives of working people, as well as Sam Huggard, who said goodbye to his role as secretary of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. Both are really decent people, hard-working people, who have done an enormous amount of good for the people of New Zealand.

So I’d like to get back to the bill. I don’t know how long I’ll have to get through it, but these regulatory systems bills—I mentioned last night that they are very technical bills. In fact, they’re amending 14 different pieces of legislation, so it would have been a very complex piece of work, and I commend the select committees who have worked on it. The bills, basically, make sure that they address anything that needs to be tidied up in those areas. They are avoiding duplication, avoiding unnecessary compliance costs, and also—very importantly—making sure that any possibly unintended consequences and gaps in this legislation are being amended.

There are three bills that this omnibus bill contains. I won’t mention all three names because I’ll probably run out of time, but, in particular, the Regulatory Systems (Workforce) Amendment Bill (No 2) is the one that I would like to speak a little bit more about in detail. This bill contains amendments to four Acts: the Holidays Act 2003, the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Remuneration Authority Act 1977, and the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. It’s with regard to the amendment of that last Act—and I remember that Minister Phil Twyford mentioned that in his speech last night, when he started this debate off—that it’s about addressing a particular gap in the legislation. This bill improves the fairness of paid parental leave and ensures that all parents and caregivers are able to claim their maximum entitlements that are entitled to.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.