Wednesday, 20 November 2019

WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2019

WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Czech Republic—Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament

SPEAKER: I’m sure that members would want to welcome Mr Vojtĕch Pikal, Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, who is to my left, and the delegation who are present in the gallery. Members, I will note that to the best of my knowledge this is the first occasion when we’ve had a Pirate officially here.

Vojtĕch Pikal, accompanied by the Assistant Speakers, entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.

Motions

Pacific Parliamentary Forum—Welcome

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): I seek leave to move a motion without notice and without debate acknowledging the Pacific Parliamentary Forum being held next week at Parliament.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: I move, That the House note that the New Zealand Parliament will host its third Pacific Parliamentary Forum next week and welcome our Pacific colleagues, with whom it is a significant opportunity to further build relationships and promote wellbeing, prosperity, security, and good governance in the region.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he seen on the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Xero recently released its Small Business Insights for September, showing 55.2 percent of Kiwi small business customers were cash-flow positive in the month. Xero said that this was a 10 percent jump from August—higher than the same month last year, and well above the annual average of 50 percent. There was more good news with payment times for small businesses, with times averaging a quarter of a day faster than in September 2018. The data also showed an increase in the total number of people employed in small businesses—up 0.8 percent in September. This is real data from real businesses showing that they continue to perform solidly amidst the challenging global conditions.

Willow-Jean Prime: What reports has he seen on the outlook for the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Today, Westpac economists released their economic overview, saying that signs of spring were emerging in the New Zealand economy. Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said that while economic growth did likely slow in the September quarter—

Hon Simon Bridges: That Dominick Stephens is always glass half-full.

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —more recent data suggests the economy will grow more strongly from here. He’s a good friend of yours, I’m sure, Mr Bridges. Obviously, the September quarter data will be released on 19 December, giving many people a chance to be negative about the past, but it is welcome to see more positive outlooks emerging about the future. Dominick Stephens went on to warn that Westpac expects the global situation to worsen as the US economy slows. That’s why we are managing the books carefully, and making important investments in the economy to boost growth, particularly in infrastructure, businesses, and wages.

Willow-Jean Prime: What reports has he seen on the global context for the New Zealand economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: New Zealand is a small, open economy, meaning we always need to look at it in the global context. Last week, it was reported that the Australian unemployment rate rose from 5.2 percent to 5.3 percent in seasonally adjusted terms in October. The data showed that the number of unemployed people was up 8.6 percent over the past year, while the underemployment rate also rose in Australia. The Australian unemployment rate is more than 1 percentage point above New Zealand’s unemployment rate, at our third-lowest in a decade. This is another indication that the New Zealand economy is in good shape, particularly compared to the economies we traditionally compare ourselves to.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in all of her Ministers?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, and whilst there are many that I could focus on with plaudits today, I am going to single out Minister Kris Faafoi, who, on Sunday, announced the Government has delivered on its promise—

Hon Member: Teacher’s pet.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —to take the over 1 million New Zealanders who rent a property to make it fairer and more secure by limiting rent increases to once every 12 months, banning the solicitation of rental bids by landlords, improving tenant security by removing a landlord’s right to use no-cause terminations to end a periodic tenancy, and making rental companies safer and more livable by letting tenants add minor fittings. I add that to the banning of letting fees and the healthy homes standards. We are making a difference for those who rent in this country. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Before we go for the next one, I will ask for the volume to be turned down a little bit, especially on my right. I’m not sure that describing a fellow Minister as a teacher’s pet is quite the appropriate thing to do.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have confidence in her Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because he does a fantastic job on behalf of New Zealand.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have confidence that he has been acting within the law at all times?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member, of course, is asking me questions in my capacity as the Prime Minister. What I would say, as a general statement—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! If the members want an answer, they will be quiet and not try and scream down the Prime Minister.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What I—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Up until this point, when a Minister has replied “Yes”, you’ve said that they’ve answered.

SPEAKER: That could well be the case, and it’s generally been the tradition of this House to have a little bit more explanation for the reasons behind it. If members would prefer just to go to straight yes/no answers where that occurs and to have nothing else and to have the same strict interpretation on questions, I’m happy to go with that. Is that what the member wants?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: We seem to get the strict interpretation—

SPEAKER: Does the member want that or not?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: You’re the Chair, not me.

SPEAKER: I’m just trying to work out whether I have a request from the shadow Leader of the House for an absolutely strict interpretation of the Standing Orders with regard to questions and answers.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I can’t stand, because you are. [Speaker sits] I’m simply pointing out that rather than telling us to be quiet when the Prime Minister starts to elaborate on a “Yes”, perhaps it’s reasonable for us to assume that there would be grounds for questioning, or for some sort of reaction, given that it’s clearly a qualified “Yes”.

SPEAKER: I think the problem with all of this is that there was so much noise at the beginning of the answer that the shadow Leader of the House didn’t hear it. A further—[Prime Minister stands] Well, no, I think the Prime Minister—well, if the member wants to ask it again.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have confidence the Deputy Prime Minister has been acting within the law at all times?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m going to stick with the convention of this House and reply to questions that of course I have responsibility for. I did not have responsibility, for instance, for the National Party’s compliance or non-compliance with the electoral law, nor do I have responsibility for any other political party’s compliance beyond my own. We have independent agencies for that, and that’s where that responsibility, rightly, lies.

Hon Simon Bridges: So does she have confidence that he’s been acting within the law at all times?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, it would be wrong to have me, as the leader of a political party, inquire into the practices of any other political party. The member may well remember that, when it came to the National Party’s issues, I did not get into those issues. I left it for other agencies, and I will do the same here.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is there a Serious Fraud Office inquiry—going for the last eight months—

Hon Simon Bridges: No responsibility.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —into a political party and its leader to do with $100,000?

Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order.

SPEAKER: Well, first of all, the member will apologise for interjecting.

Hon Simon Bridges: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. She doesn’t have responsibility for that.

SPEAKER: Well, I’m—

Hon Simon Bridges: Don’t want to go there.

SPEAKER: I beg your pardon? I’m, frankly, getting sick of the interjections and the facial expressions from the Leader of the Opposition. He actually reminds me of Michael Cheika, and it’s just inappropriate for a Parliament.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she, as Prime Minister of New Zealand, have confidence that her Deputy Prime Minister has been acting within the law at all times?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have already expressed confidence in the Deputy Prime Minister. The member has been asking questions more broadly around issues of electoral law, and again, as I say, I am not the arbiter of that. We have independent agencies for that, for very good reason. I would say it would be an indictment on our democracy to have any other political party ever inquire into other political parties. We didn’t do that with the National Party. That would be wrong, and we won’t do it anywhere else.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has she—as she told Mike Hosking yesterday morning she would—now sought “a bit more info” regarding allegations about the Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, at that time, of course, all I’d done is read newspaper reports, but it still doesn’t change the fact that this is best dealt with—as the leader of New Zealand First has already said—by the Electoral Commission, with whom New Zealand First is actively working.

Hon Simon Bridges: So did she make any further inquiries?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve just responded in my last question.

Hon Simon Bridges: Has she had any direct conversations with her Deputy Prime Minister this week about the appropriateness and legality of his actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have conversations with the Deputy Prime Minister every other day.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order. To be factual, has the Prime Minister heard any allegation that strictly concerns—

SPEAKER: Is this a point of order or a question?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It’s a question.

SPEAKER: Well, I’m sorry. I thought the member was calling for a point of order. If it’s a supplementary question, he can have that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It’s a supplementary question. To be factual, has the Prime Minister heard of any allegation that concerns the Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, obviously, in his role as Deputy Prime Minister.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: There you are, sunshine. I thought you were a lawyer.

SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Prime Minister will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I apologise for saying that.

SPEAKER: That’s right, and no one’s ever suggested that of me before.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Hang on. Is that how you do it—you put your own words on?

SPEAKER: The proper wording—“I withdraw and apologise.”

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she stand by her statement yesterday that “The law is the law and it has no reservation or codicil such as ‘the spirit of’. It’s either the law or it’s not.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will be referring to questions in the House yesterday. I’m sure that the Deputy Prime Minister, in speaking on my behalf, stands by all of those statements.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think this might be a moment for you to rule on whether or not someone in the House speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister speaks as the Prime Minister or not. We have put on new territory that’s—

SPEAKER: No. I don’t think we’re on new territory at all. I think we’re on some pretty standard territory, and I think the Prime Minister will now answer the question.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The law is patently the law, and there’s no such thing as pretty legal, either.

Hon Simon Bridges: So does she no longer believe that there’s “the spirit of the law”, as she’s previously said?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I stand by my view that there is a reason to look into foreign donations and foreign interference in this country. That is why we specifically asked the select committee to look into the issue. It would be wonderful if that select committee were able, with the support of National Party members, to report back on that issue.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she have confidence that her Deputy Prime Minister has acted within the spirit of the law at all times?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, as I have clearly said, the issues at hand are being dealt with by the right agency—that is, the Electoral Commission—in the same way that the issues facing the Opposition are being dealt with independently by the right agency. I, again, point out that I didn’t interfere or inquire into that member’s matters, and I won’t in this case either. That would not be appropriate.

Question No. 3—Finance

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

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

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How does he square his statement yesterday that a by Māori for Māori solution is not a characterisation of the Government’s position in Ihumātao with the Prime Minister’s statement in September that the Government is “trying to find a by Māori for Māori solution to the issue.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There was a longer statement that came before the by Māori for Māori statement that was in the question yesterday. I stand by my answer.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How does he interpret the Prime Minister’s statement that the Government is trying to find a by Māori for Māori solution to the issue at Ihumātao?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I think, as the member will be well aware, the Kīngitanga movement came into this process working with the mana whenua. They, in turn, have asked the Government to take on a role in facilitating discussions, particularly with Fletcher’s. That’s the role that we are undertaking.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: When he’s considering a by Māori for Māori solution to this piece of land, where do the interests of the landowners and taxpayers fit in?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in the House yesterday, the principles with which the Government is approaching this issue are to ensure that we uphold the mana of the Treaty settlement process and that we understand the needs of mana whenua and the needs of Fletcher’s as the owners of the land, and at all times, I have the taxpayers’ interests in mind.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: When he said yesterday that Fletcher’s had “in fact asked us to be able to help them facilitate an enduring solution.”, was that request from Fletcher’s made before or after the Prime Minister vowed that no building would take place in Ihumātao?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I don’t believe that’s an accurate description of what the Prime Minister said. On 26 July, the Prime Minister helped ensure that we got the parties together. Fletcher’s are one of those parties. They got in contact with me to help with some facilitation issues early on, and they continue to work with us.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Regarding his statement in a speech to the Debt Capital Markets Summit in August last year “We continue to sit near or at the top of Transparency International’s ratings for the absence of corruption.”, how does he think his Government is improving New Zealand’s reputation for transparency and an absence of corruption?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Every single day, the actions that this Government undertakes enhances New Zealand’s reputation in that regard, and I would say that the latest rankings for things like ease of doing business in New Zealand fulfil that, as do the Transparency International rankings as well. This Government prides itself on the approaches that we take.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he stand by his statement in an urgent debate relating to the Provincial Growth Fund that “the role that I have in this particular set of circumstances—which is the role I take, I might add, in most of the discussions about the Provincial Growth Fund—which is to ensure that issues like governance and the overall commercial arrangements that surround a project are ones that we can be satisfied with.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes, I stand by that statement.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How can New Zealanders be sure that Ministers making decisions allocating sums from the Provincial Growth Fund don’t have undeclared conflicts of interest?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: All Ministers understand their roles and, from time to time, they will declare conflicts of interest and take advice about conflicts of interest. Ministers understand those roles.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he absolutely sure that every potential conflict of interest has been declared by Ministers making decisions allocating sums from the Provincial Growth Fund?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That would be my expectation, but it’s also not my responsibility.

Question No. 4—Education

4. JAN TINETTI (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What is the Government doing to promote vocational training and career options that help address New Zealand’s skill needs?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): More good news. The Government has put in place a range of measures to encourage more young Kiwis to take up trades and other vocational careers. This includes more gateway and trades academy places and initiatives to create stronger links between employers and the education system. Apprentices and trainees are also eligible for fees-free, making training much more affordable. In fact, the policy supports two years of industry training rather than one year for provider-based study, and since fees-free was introduced at the beginning of last year, 7,600 apprentices and trainees have benefited from it.

Jan Tinetti: Has fees-free helped with the cost of training within the building and construction sector, and, if so, how?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Indeed, it has—a very good question—3,900 apprentices and trainees enrolled with industry training organisations this year benefited from fees-free, and they were training in the building and construction - related fields.

Jan Tinetti: What is the Government doing to raise the profile of vocational training within senior secondary schools?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: As of 20 November, 344 secondary schools have nominated students for the Prime Minister’s Vocational Excellence Award, and 208 of those schools have already presented the $2,000 award at their prize-giving ceremonies. The Prime Minister’s Vocational Excellence Award is helping to raise the status of trades and other vocational education and celebrate the success of young people already training in those areas.

Jan Tinetti: What else is the Government doing to strengthen the pipeline from secondary school into vocational training?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Schools currently have the opportunity to apply for a $3,000 grant to showcase trade and service industry careers and earn and learn opportunities in intermediate and secondary schools, including families, whānau, and educators. Funding is also available to run events like the SpeedMeets, where employers get to meet with a range of students who might be interested in their industries and discuss the range of options that are available to them.

Question No. 5—Regional Economic Development

5. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: When did he become aware of N.Z. Future Forest Products Ltd’s application to the Provincial Growth Fund, and what prompted him to get Cabinet Office advice relating to a potential conflict of interest?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister for Regional Economic Development: I have known about Mr David Henry and Brian Henry’s wood processing ambitions for several years. I first declared my association with Brian Henry as a potential conflict with the Cabinet Office in 2017, after becoming a Minister. Upon returning from a personal holiday in October 2019, I was informed by my office of an application involving Brian and David Henry that was soon to come to the regional economic development Ministers for consideration. On that same day—14 October—I wrote to the Cabinet Office declaring this conflict and recusing myself from any decisions about it. The decision by other Ministers to decline the application in accordance with the recommendation of the provincial development unit thereafter occurred on 7 November 2019.

Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for that very informative reply, but the first part of the question is quite important, which was about when he became aware of the N.Z. Future Forest Products’ application to the Provincial Growth Fund. There was, I think, a reference to—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: He told you.

Chris Bishop: No, no. There was a reference to an awareness of Mr Henry’s ambitions for a number of years, but not specifically about the application.

SPEAKER: I think there was a date given, but can we just have it reinforced that that was the date the Minister became aware of it.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I think the relevant part there was “I first … declared my association with Brian Henry as [giving rise to] a potential conflict with the Cabinet Office in 2017, after becoming a Minister.”

SPEAKER: No, that doesn’t address the question, and I think the second part of the answer may have.

Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of the first date—that he was aware that there was an application coming for consideration by Ministers—it was on 14 October.

Chris Bishop: Is he aware of whether he was the only Minister or Parliamentary Under-Secretary to declare a conflict of interest in relation to the application for provincial growth funding, and if there is another Minister or Parliamentary Under-Secretary who has declared a conflict, who is it?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister has no responsibility for that matter.

Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, the Minister surely has responsibility for awareness of that fact. The Deputy Prime Minister, answering on behalf of the Prime Minister yesterday, made reference in two supplementary questions to more than one Minister declaring a conflict in relation to the applications. So I think it’s well within the—

SPEAKER: And I think that is a responsibility of the Prime Minister. Matters to do with conflict and awareness of that are a matter for her department for advice and for the Cabinet Office, for which some might say “Thank goodness Mr Jones doesn’t have responsibility.”

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We seek leave for an urgent question to be asked now of the Prime Minister on the matter you’ve just suggested is her responsibility.

SPEAKER: The normal approach for an urgent question is very well set out in the papers, and the member has until the end of question time to fulfil that.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I’ve sought leave.

SPEAKER: Well, there is no question—I mean, you can’t seek leave to ask a non-existent question. If the member gets the question in in the appropriate way, it will be properly considered.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I seek leave of the House to ask the Prime Minister the question: was there other Ministers or Parliamentary Under-Secretaries—

SPEAKER: “Were there other Ministers”.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: —were there—who declared a conflict of interest in this matter?

SPEAKER: That matter is a question of leave. Is there any objection to that process? No, there’s not.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: To the Prime Minister: were there other Ministers or Parliamentary Under-Secretaries who declared a conflict of interest in the matter being discussed, as mentioned by the acting Prime Minister yesterday?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member will well know through questions that are being asked through written questions and through the House, Ministers with decision-making power who have conflicts of interest transfer that decision-making power, as is appropriate. Any other Ministers, of course, I would just expect to deal with the Cabinet Manual responsibilities in declaring conflicts of interest in the appropriate manner.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was an outline of process, not an answer to the question. The question was: were there other Ministers or Parliamentary Under-Secretaries?

SPEAKER: And the Prime Minister—leave having been given—should address that. It might be that the Prime Minister is not aware of anyone else who did it, but—

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: To the best of my knowledge, the only Minister with a conflict of interest transferred decision making to another Minister.

SPEAKER: Thank you. The member wants to go back now?

Chris Bishop: Well, that was a sort of—

SPEAKER: Does the member want to continue the previous question?

Chris Bishop: Yeah, that’s right. That was a sort of interregnum, right? We’re still on the—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: It was an extra.

SPEAKER: It’s a novel approach, but I’m being exceptionally flexible with the Opposition today.

Chris Bishop: Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. Did he advocate to decision-making Ministers about the merits or otherwise of N.Z. Future Forest Products Ltd’s application to the Provincial Growth Fund?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No. Further, in preparation for this question, I also inquired whether the Minister had any discussions with the provincial development unit regarding the application, and I can also confirm that the Minister had none of them, either.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister confirm that the request for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to conduct an investigation would mean the SFO would have to be investigating into why the application failed—surely a comedic outcome?

SPEAKER: Order! That may or may not be an appropriate question for a Minister with responsibility for the SFO—[Interruption]—but it is certainly—[Interruption] Oh, for goodness’ sake! But it is certainly not a responsibility of Mr Jones.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think, on reflection, that question raises quite a concern, because the Deputy Prime Minister has just suggested that there has been a request for a Serious Fraud Office investigation into this matter. Now, if that’s the case, then it’s not known to us, and I think it should be known to the House. So can we get a clarification on that?

SPEAKER: Well, I think some of us just need to read the paper, but Mr—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Speaking to the point of order. The person that suggested that was Mr Bishop himself.

Chris Bishop: I did not.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, you did.

Chris Bishop: Completely wrong—completely wrong.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Showing how dumb you are.

Chris Bishop: Completely wrong.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Mr Bishop has made it clear to the House that he has made no such request, and that is the end of the matter.

Chris Bishop: Did someone say to him that there may be a potential conflict of interest in him considering the application from Future Forest Products Ltd; if so, who was that person?

Hon DAVID PARKER: As I said in the primary answer, the Minister, or I—speaking on behalf of him—was aware from the start of our term in Government that the potential for a conflict of interest arose, which was why notice was given for that in 2017. I further said that when I returned from holiday on 14 October, my office advised me that an application was pending and that that meant that there was perhaps a real conflict of interest. That was declared, I recused myself from the decision, and the decision was taken thereafter by other Ministers, who turned the application down.

Chris Bishop: Did officials recommend to the regional economic development Ministers considering the Future Forest Products’ application that the company should receive funding?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister answering the question is not actually David Parker; it is Shane Jones. David Parker is answering on his behalf, and it’s very clear that the Minister has recused himself from consideration of the matter. He, therefore, cannot answer the question about what advice the Ministers who did make the decision received.

Chris Bishop: Speaking to the point of order, the Minister has recused himself—as I understand it, based on Dr David Clark’s answers yesterday and written questions—from considering the application to the Provincial Growth Fund, but he still has responsibility for the advice provided by officials to the wider regional economic development Ministers’ meeting. It’s true that Mr Jones recused himself from that meeting, but he must still have advice for the provincial development unit’s recommendations to that committee.

SPEAKER: OK, OK. I don’t want to litigate a question by a way of point of order, but I think that the Minister answering on behalf of Mr Jones had already indicated, by way of his research, something which might help us clear up this point of order.

Hon DAVID PARKER: As I said in response to an earlier question, in preparation for question time on behalf of the Minister, I did inquire whether the Minister had any discussions with the provincial development unit regarding the application, and I repeat that I can advise the House that he had none.

SPEAKER: Right. So I think—

Chris Bishop: Mr—

SPEAKER: Well, is this to the point of order, or what are we doing?

Chris Bishop: Well, it’s just a point of order to point out that that doesn’t address or answer the question, which is about what the officials’ recommendation to the ministerial group was.

SPEAKER: Well, no, I think we’ve dealt with that as well. I think there’s a basic problem here, sometimes, with members not listening to answers. I mean, I heard the Minister acting on behalf of Mr Jones say that the officials recommended that it not be approved. Is that—did I hear that correctly?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s the end of it, really, isn’t it?

Chris Bishop: Is he aware of why Dr David Clark said yesterday in question time, in relation to this matter, that he declined the Provincial Growth Fund application when, in reality, it was declined by the regional economic development Ministers’ group?

Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister has declared a conflict of interest. He is not responsible for the answers given by Dr David Clark, who does have ministerial responsibility. The Minister now answering the question does not have responsibility for that. He’s recused himself from it.

SPEAKER: Well, I think we might—I mean, the member’s absolutely right. I mean, it is, again—as I’ve now said, I think, for about the fourth time this week—sometimes really important that people listen to the answers if they want to stay within the bounds of order. Where there are some relatively complicated matters which go to the ethics and integrity of Ministers, I think I am pretty flexible in allowing appropriate questions to be asked, but where it’s been made clear that Ministers were not involved in decisions and not involved in meetings, they can’t be asked about why those decisions were made.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. One of the problems that we face here is that—firstly, can I just concede that you are right. It is an important issue. It is a complex issue. There is potential for significant reputational damage if it is perceived in a particular way. But the House is not helped in trying to clarify matters by successive Ministers acting on behalf of a Minister. Now, I accept that in this case, matters pertaining to the decision were transferred to another Minister—that’s fine. But when the other Minister is further transferring responsibility for answering questions on a particular day to another Minister again, then I think it’s very hard to keep a consistency on who said what. The point that was just made by Mr Bishop was that Dr David Clark yesterday, presumably acting as the Minister to whom the responsibility was transferred, said that he made the decision. Now, asking the Minister David Parker today, answering, presumably, on behalf of Dr Clark, the same question—

Hon Grant Robertson: He’s answering on behalf of Shane Jones.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: —we get a different answer. Now, that’s not reasonable.

SPEAKER: No. I think I’m ready to deal with it, and I don’t think I need the help of the Minister of Finance. I think it was clear to all of the House yesterday that the request went to a group of Ministers which Dr Clark was a member of and that group was the group responsible for turning it down, and that Mr Jones was not part of that. If members want to look at Speaker’s ruling 156/3, they’ll be able to work out why Mr Jones has no responsibility for Dr Clark.

Question No. 6—Prime Minister

6. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government’s policies?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, and while there are so many to choose from, I’m going to particularly single out the Government’s Families Package today, which, it was confirmed today, has seen 1 million New Zealanders warmed by the winter energy payment, 36,000 families bank the Best Start payment in the first year, and 6,000 more families receive the family tax credit. This shows that we are focused particularly on those families who need support the most and we are making a difference on significant long-term challenges like child poverty.

David Seymour: Does she stand by her Government’s policy, as expressed in the Arms Legislation Bill, that a person who provides incorrect information to the proposed register, such as by filling out a form wrong or failing to provide correct information when asked, is liable for a $10,000 fine or two years’ imprisonment?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I stand by the action we’re taking around gun legislation and reform. The member will know there are two parts to that. The first is the buy-back, which has had a significant impact: 38,000 prohibited and unlawful firearms have been handed in as a result, and 142,000 prohibited parts. The second tranche, of course, relates to our wider system and includes bringing in a registry. That’s a part of our system that we are now consulting widely on and giving the public full say over.

David Seymour: Could a person accused of entering incorrect information into the proposed firearm register use as a defence that, actually, their firearm was registered through a foundation and anybody claiming otherwise was psycho?

SPEAKER: Order! I think the member is asking for legal advice, which is something he will ask for elsewhere.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m asking about the Government’s policy.

SPEAKER: Well, that’s not what the member said.

David Seymour: Well, it is what I said.

Kieran McAnulty: Has she received an update on the impact of the Government’s Families Package on the wellbeing of children?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, indeed. As I pointed out, we’ve already seen a huge number of families benefit, but, in particular, this demonstrates that we are on track to lift between 50,000 and 74,000 children out of poverty. We are also a House that, as members will recall, voted in favour of a child poverty reduction Act, which only a handful of countries in the world have. It is still disappointing to me that I cannot say that that was with unanimous support. I do say to Mr Seymour, I would welcome his support of future action around reducing child poverty in Aotearoa.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Am I to take it that any question around how the Government intends its laws to work could be interpreted as requesting legal advice?

SPEAKER: No, and Standing Order 23 also applies.

Question No. 7—Social Development

7. ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she seen on the Government’s Families Package?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): The Families Package monitoring reports monitoring the Government’s Families Package were publicly released today. The $5.5 billion Families Package was announced within the Government’s first 100 days and kicked in on 1 July last year. The Families Package monitoring report shows that working New Zealanders with children are getting more support from this Government and parents on benefit are getting more support from this Government. It shows that senior citizens are getting more support from this Government. It shows that Māori are getting more support from this Government. We are on track to lift 50,000 to 74,000 children out of poverty and to ensure that New Zealand really is the best place in the world to be a child.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Just how much of a difference has the Families Package made to low and middle income New Zealanders?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The $5.5 billion Families Package puts more money in the pockets of New Zealanders that need it the most and gives targeted support by boosting incomes with the Working for Families tax credits: 6,000 more families received the family tax credit—220,600 in total—and they got more money, taking the pressure off for families in their child’s early years, with the Best Start payment, which is $60 per week. We increased paid parental leave to 26 weeks so that parents have more time to bond with their babies. We’re helping older New Zealanders and people on a main benefit to heat their homes with the winter energy payment, people receiving the accommodation supplement got, on average, an increase from $71 to $98 a week, and we increased the rate of orphans benefit, unsupported child’s benefit, and foster care allowance because we value the people that are caring for our children.

Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: How has the Families Package supported people on benefits?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Parents on benefit receiving family tax credits from the Ministry of Social Development have seen an average increase of $41 per week. This is the largest increase since Working for Families began in 2005. On top of this, people on main benefits, along with superannuitants, receive the winter energy payment, which has helped over 1 million New Zealanders keep warm in winter. The Families Package is just part of the Government’s plan to lift the wellbeing of all New Zealanders, including those in the welfare system. We have committed to indexing benefits to wages. We repealed section 192, increased abatement thresholds, and funded an extra 263 work-focused case managers to get people into sustainable work. We’ve made it free for every child under 14 to go to the doctor, and increased school funding so parents don’t have to pay for school donations, which will help 416,000 families. By the time the Families Package is rolled out in 2020-21, 385,000 families with children will be better off by an average of $75 per week.

Question No. 8—Justice

8. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Justice: How many donations over $15,000 were disclosed to the Electoral Commission in the 2017 electoral returns, and, of these, how many were disclosed by each political party?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I am advised that a total of 124 party donations were made at the 2017 general election above the $15,000 threshold. This includes 59 donations to the National Party, 28 to the Labour Party, 12 to the Green Party, and seven to ACT. I should point out that all of this information is available on elections.nz.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can the Minister confirm that New Zealand First declared no donations above the threshold?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m not responsible for New Zealand First. I am accountable to the House for the work of the Electoral Commission, and the advice I’ve had from the Electoral Commission—indeed, from their website—is as I have already adumbrated in my previous answer.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is he satisfied that the law and regulations of political donation is working as intended when, at the 2017 election, the party that was pivotal to the election outcome was able to avoid over $500,000 of donations through a foundation?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m not aware of any discrepancies that have led to law enforcement action. I am, however, aware of one active law enforcement investigation in relation to the Electoral Act. That is a complaint to the Serious Fraud Office about the National Party.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: So, in respect to that last answer, was a $100,000 donation to the National Party disclosed?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question’s very specifically about the 2017 electoral returns—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! All round—that’s enough.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’ve been very strict that supplementary questions need to be within the scope of the primary question. The primary question was about the 2017 general election. The issues the member refers to were well after that.

SPEAKER: The member might be more aware of the specific detail of that and the timing of that donation than I am, and if I can have an assurance from the member that the donation that was so—I’m trying to think of the right word—received and disguised happened after the 2017 election—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Well, I’m being asked to rule something out, and I need a level of assurance before I do that that I can.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order, I have no knowledge other than that which is in the public arena, and the information in the public arena is quite clearly that it was not associated with the 2017 general election.

SPEAKER: All right, I accept the member’s word.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he have any concerns in respect of the reports that anonymous donations at the 2017 election of $342,000, or 85 percent of them, were from one party and were more than 10 times the amount for any other party?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I rely—as indeed this House does and the country does—on the Electoral Commission, which is the independent body charged with overseeing and applying and enforcing our electoral regulations. The last thing we want is politicians interfering in that process. I would no sooner do that as Minister of Justice than I would see the Minister of Police interfering in a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the National Party.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister aware of the distinction between anonymous donations, and donations that are not required, because they are below a certain limit, to be declared?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Yes. The term “anonymous donation” has two applications. One is where they don’t meet a disclosure threshold, and may well be known to the party but are not required to be disclosed in accordance with the disclosure requirements of the Electoral Act. The other definition is that they are genuinely anonymous in that the recipient doesn’t know the origin of them.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does he share the concerns of Professor Andrew Geddis that the lack of disclosure of electoral donations at election 2017 by the party that was pivotal to the election outcome is a serious risk to New Zealand’s reputation as the second-least corrupt country in the world?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I would be concerned about anybody, including a law professor, who made conclusions without knowing what the facts were and tried to engender a public debate about something that is properly the province of our independent Electoral Commission.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Government believe that New Zealanders have a right to know who were the major financial backers of the party that was pivotal to the outcome of the 2017 election and which everybody—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It would be clear, and it has been for some time, that these questions verge on a responsibility that’s not in the province of the Minister answering.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Speaking to the point of order—

SPEAKER: No. I think in this case what I am going to ask the member asking the question is to ask a straight question without the phrase of embellishment in the middle of it, because I think the responsibility for the Act and the responsibility to this House for the work of the Electoral Commission is a responsibility of this Minister. Please ask the question again, without the embellishment.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Government, as a matter of policy, believe that New Zealanders have a right to know who are the major financial donors and backers of the parties in Government and those that have been pivotal to the outcome of election 2017?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I think the public has a right to know, in accordance with the obligations on political parties in the Electoral Act, who is financing them, and at the moment there is serious doubt about who has backed the National Party, which is why they’re the subject of a Serious Fraud Office complaint.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave of the House to table the advice from the Parliamentary Library provided both yesterday and today on both anonymous and declared donations to the Electoral Commission.

SPEAKER: Well, I will put it to the House because it’s a rather novel seeking of the leave. Is there any—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: No, no, no. I am going to put it. Is there any objection—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You have inferred that the information is not publicly available, when I can assure the Speaker that it is not.

SPEAKER: Well, I am going to put it to the House on the basis that the information that is contained in the advice from the Parliamentary Library is not otherwise publicly available, and we’ll see whether the House wants to see it or not. Is there any objection to those two pieces of advice being tabled? There is objection.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was going to seek leave to be able to give a legal explanation to Mr Smith about what the law says.

SPEAKER: No, that was not helpful. It was designed to disrupt, and I’m not going to put it.

Question No. 9—Social Development

9. Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by the numbers contained in her ministry’s publications?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): Yes, particularly the ministry’s publications released today, the Families Package monitoring reports. It shows that the Government’s $5.5 billion Families Package has put more money into the pockets of New Zealanders that needed it the most. Given that we’ve traversed all of the different initiatives and the number of New Zealanders that have been touched by the Families Package, I won’t go into the detail again, but what I will say is that we are on track to lift 50,000 to 74,000 children out of poverty, and I acknowledge our Prime Minister in leading the charge with respect to reducing child poverty in New Zealand.

Hon Louise Upston: How many more children are in benefit-dependent homes since that Government took office?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I don’t have the numbers for that in front of me. If she would like—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume her seat. If members are going to shout down a Minister when she’s asked a supplementary which is a very specific supplementary from a general question, it’s not going to continue.

Hon Louise Upston: Does she believe that the numbers provide an important context, and, if so, why are the numbers missing from the graphs on page 10 of the Families Package Monitoring Report, that was published today?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I will never have all the figures to specific questions that that member might like to ask in the House, particularly when the primary question is general. However, any specific question that she’d like to put in writing, she is more than welcome to do so. I do think that that member is fully aware that the next update with respect to the number of children in New Zealand living in poverty that we can expect is in February, and we’ve made very clear that that is when we can expect that report.

Hon Louise Upston: What is the total budget for social development?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I think in the last Budget it was around $27 billion, and a large proportion of that, I do want to remind the House, is actually superannuation. So despite the fact that that side of the House likes to refer to benefit numbers and beneficiaries in a negative way with respect to the spend that comes out of Vote Social Development, we do need to keep in mind that, actually, the vast majority goes towards a universal superannuation scheme that I think all of us, as New Zealanders, are very proud of.

Hon Louise Upston: Is the rushed release of this Families Package report that doesn’t include all the numbers—isn’t that just a desperate attempt to deflect from the criticism this Government has received from the Child Poverty Action Group that the numbers prove this Government’s not delivering?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: This is not a rushed release, nor did I push the Ministry of Social Development to bring these figures to me. The timing is such that I was able to release it this week. The member is fully aware that the numbers with regards to children living in poverty in this country and experiencing hardship will be released in February, and I will say that I’m really proud of what this Government decided to prioritise when we first came into Government. I do need to remind this House that the alternative from that side of the House was tax cuts that would have seen $400 million going to the top 10 percent of income earners in this country, and, actually, we don’t think anyone in this House needs an additional $1,000 a year.

Question No. 10—Agriculture

10. MARK PATTERSON (NZ First) to the Minister of Agriculture: What actions is the Government taking to help farmers in financial distress?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister of Agriculture): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the member for his question. We’ve worked closely with our coalition partners, especially in New Zealand First, to develop the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2). We’re focused on helping farmers get more value for their work, and although they are seeing record commodity prices at present, we’re committed to ensuring there is a safety net for them and their families should they get into financial strife. Beyond the farm debt scheme, we’ve more than doubled funding for rural support trusts. We’re working with farmers at catchment level to help them get most from their land while protecting the environment. There’ll be more announcements about that. We are doing a huge amount to help the farmers and the farming sector across this country.

Mark Patterson: Why is the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2) required at a time when our farmers and growers are receiving record prices?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Farm debt has climbed over the past 20 years to now be at more than $62 billion. This bill has been talked about for a long time and, finally, a Government has taken action on this. We know that farming is vital for New Zealand’s growth and wellbeing, accounting for $46.4 billion in exports last year. We know farmers are especially vulnerable to business downturns as a result of conditions that are often outside their control: the weather, market price volatility, pests and diseases—things like Mycoplasma bovis. We’re taking a measured approach, and by providing this mediation safety net, we’re making sure farmers and their families have dignity when they’re in times of financial stress.

Mark Patterson: What support have you seen for the farm debt mediation scheme?

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: There has been widespread support for the scheme from farmers, from the industry organisations, from the banks themselves, and even from the National Party. There are people like Janette Walker, who have seen first-hand the effects of farmers getting into financial difficulty and who have said how much this scheme will mean to them, because it creates a clear path for farmers and it offers them protections at a terribly stressful time. I’d encourage people to listen to the podcast on Radio New Zealand to get an insight into what can happen at a time of foreclosure by a bank. People like the sharemilkers section of Federated Farmers—they support the farm debt mediation scheme, and, as I said, the banks do as well. This is a good piece of legislation. I thank New Zealand First for their initiative.

Question No. 11—Child Poverty Reduction

11. Hon ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction: Does she have confidence in her ability to deliver on her child poverty reduction targets?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Minister for Child Poverty Reduction): Yes.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: Does she accept that the report out today does not allow us to say what difference the Families Package made directly to child poverty, children’s outcomes, and other measures of wellbeing, and, if so, will she stop claiming that it does?

SPEAKER: Any one of the four questions.

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will well recall from the debate around the Child Poverty Reduction Bill that one of the issues this House has is that there is a lag in the measurement of all of our statistical data, and it is something that all of us in this House have had to grapple with, including the last Government. So we haven’t been able to see the full impact through the survey work that’s done. The partial impact of the Families Package will be illustrated in figures released by Stats New Zealand in February 2020. Till then, we’re reliant on modelling by Treasury and, of course, then the stats around the uptake of the package.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: Does she agree with the Children’s Commissioner that the Government response to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group has been—and I quote—“inadequate” and that the action has to follow words?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do agree that action has to follow words, which is why in the last Budget we did what a Children’s Commissioner has called one of the biggest things that you can do to make a difference to child poverty, and that was index benefits to wages. That came in in our last Budget. It will have a huge impact for families, and the Children’s Commissioner themselves recognised that.

Hon Alfred Ngaro: Does she believe that the Child Poverty Action Group’s criticism of the Government inaction is valid, given that seven of the nine child poverty indicator targets have got worse under her Government, and will this become just another broken promise?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I suggest the member may wish to exercise caution. I can only assume that the reference to the seven out of nine indicators would be the reference to the Child Poverty Reduction Act and the last data release, which substantively, actually, covered household incomes in late 2017. We don’t have the full data under this Government’s Families Package in changes we have made, but if the member wishes to criticise his own Government’s record, he’s obviously welcome to.

Kieran McAnulty: What advice has she received in regard to the number of children likely to be lifted out of poverty as a result of the Government’s Families Package?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve said, we’re reliant on modelling that’s being undertaken as a result of both our Families Package and the changes that were made in the last Budget, and that has suggested that we will lift between 50,000 and 74,000 children out of poverty. Because of the $5.5 billion package, that included paid parental leave and an increase to the family tax credit, which is the biggest jump we’ve seen since 2005. It included the winter energy payment, which went to families who are on benefits, and it included the introduction of the Best Start payment, which targets children both in the first year but also extends around income testing to years two and three. Added to that—and this isn’t included in the modelling—are the changes that we made removing the sole parent sanction; expanding employment support; of course, delivering extra public housing places; increases to the minimum wage; regulating housing quality; reducing the cost of GP visits; and, of course, the work we’re doing on predatory lending. I am proud of this Government’s legacy on addressing child poverty. It’s one of the reasons so many of us are here, and I think we can stand proud on the action we’ve taken in 24 short months.

Question No. 12—Revenue

12. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Revenue: What measures, if any, has he taken to ensure Inland Revenue is able to respond promptly to all incoming inquiries, specifically those received through Inland Revenue call centres?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister of Revenue: I expect the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to ensure that phone calls are answered as efficiently as is practicable, correspondence is dealt with as efficiently as practicable, and customers calling into the Inland Revenue public counters are dealt with efficiently and fairly. I’m advised that at peak times, some phone calls fall into a queue and are not dealt with, and I’m also advised that Inland Revenue customers, since the latest upgrade, are increasingly transacting their business via the Inland Revenue website and personalised myIR pages.

Andrew Bayly: Is it acceptable to him that as of yesterday morning, the IRD website specified that there was a 75-minute wait time on its call centre, and today it says IRD is unable to accept calls at all?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I’m not aware of those particular messages on the website. I am aware that the amount of call traffic to Inland Revenue tripled between January and I forget whether it was 7 March or May, I’m sorry. As a consequence, numbers of calls went from some 200,000 to some 700,000. That was because the upgrade to the IRD system went live, which affected every taxpayer who was an employer or an employee, everyone who gets interest income, and every Working for Families recipient, and, as a consequence, the system has had difficulty answering all calls, notwithstanding the fact that call centre staff were increased by around 300 people to 900 people at peak.

Andrew Bayly: What reason has he been given for the 695,388 callers who have hung up after phoning the IRD call centre in the last four months to September 2019, as stated in his response to written question No. 36904?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The reasons that I have been given were outlined in an earlier answer, in that the upgrade to the system, which is the largest IT project in the history of the State sector and which came in on time and under budget—nevertheless, because some people were surprised by receiving unrequested refunds, the number of calls spiked from some 200,000 to 700,000. The number of calls that weren’t answered peaked at the same period, and the number of calls that are unanswered has progressively decreased since.

Andrew Bayly: How can 695,388 callers have their IRD issues addressed if he does not require IRD to deliver an accessible service?

Hon DAVID PARKER: People have a number of choices as to how they deal with that situation. Of course we would prefer that every call was answered; sometimes it cannot be. The choices that people have that they most commonly choose are either to call back, which many people do, or to use the web-based services. As I have said, the number of unanswered calls has decreased dramatically. In terms of whether it would have been practicable to properly train more than 900 call centre staff, the decision of those with operational responsibility was that 900 was the appropriate number.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

It’s a privilege to stand today in the general debate, particularly given the report that we received and were able to publicly release today around the way in which the Families Package has reached so many New Zealanders. We made a commitment right at the beginning that we wanted New Zealand to be the best place in the world to raise a child, and for everyone who is able to be earning, learning, caring, or volunteering. And the actions to date—the report released to date—on the progress with the Families Package prove that we are well on our way to achieving our objectives.

By the time the Families Package is fully rolled out in 2020-21, 385,000 families with children will be better off by, on average, $75 per week. That is something that we are proud of on this side of the House. The Families Package is part of the Government’s wider plan to lift the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. We have been engaged across Government to achieve this goal. We’ve made it free for every child under the age of 14 to go to the doctor. We’ve increased school funding so parents don’t have to pay for school donations, which will help 416,000 families, I heard. We are building more State houses than any Governments since the 1970s, and, of course, we should be proud of that on this side of the House.

What we have seen with the Families Package is that it has boosted incomes across the country. We’ve seen it with the roll-out of the Working for Families tax credit changes that we made. We’ve seen it with respect to the Best Start payment that we’ve introduced, increasing paid parental leave. We’re helping older New Zealanders. We’re helping New Zealanders who are on the main benefit keep their homes warm during the winter months with the winter energy payment. We’ve seen increases to financial help for carers by increasing the rate of the orphans benefit, the unsupported child’s benefit, and the foster care allowance, and we increased the accommodation supplement and benefit.

The reports that were released today on the Families Package actually show that the modelling that we had when we put that Families Package into place was absolutely on the ball. More than one million New Zealanders have benefited from the winter energy payment, and can I say that’s a lot of New Zealanders. When I’m out and about, it’s the number one thing that people come up to me about to thank this Government for. I heard too many stories of senior citizens who were staying in one bedroom in their house during the winter months, who were sometimes not even getting out of bed because they could not afford to heat their homes, and so we’ve received a lot of positive feedback from superannuitants and also main beneficiaries on the difference that that has made for them and their families.

Thirty-six thousand families have banked the Best Start payment in the first year, and that doesn’t even count the New Zealanders who may want to wait till the end of the tax year to actually claim that. The difference that has made to families with new babies is huge—$60 goes a long way to helping towards those costs in the first years. It doesn’t just show that we were willing to make an investment in low to middle income New Zealanders but it also shows that this Government is committed to families, that we do support New Zealanders who are raising children, that we do value children, and that we do value those early years. Six thousand more families received the family tax credit, and also the families getting family tax credits are getting more. As was said in the House today, this is the most significant lift in Working for Families and the family tax credit since 2005. So we’re proud of that on this side of the House.

We saw the lifts to the accommodation supplement. That was necessary. We also saw the new clothing allowance for carers go to 13,500 carers. That is something we can be proud of. The main thing is, as I’ve said earlier today in the House, and as our Prime Minister has said, we are on track to lift 50,000 to 74,000 children out of poverty, and that is an absolute objective that all of us should share—

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

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): One of New Zealand’s greatest strengths is our low level of corruption. We on this side of the House are proud that in 2017, New Zealand had the number one spot as the least corrupt country of nearly 200 in the world. This reputation must be jealously guarded, and that is why every one of us should be concerned about the revelations going on with New Zealand First. It is déjà vu of the events of 2008, but even more serious.

You see, the 2017 election was unusual in that it was the first where the party with the most seats did not form the Government, and the party that was pivotal to that outcome was New Zealand First. The reports of it being in serious breach of our electoral laws cut to the bone of the integrity of our democracy. The public has a right to know who the financial backers are for the party that determined the outcome of the election and which is having a pivotal role in Government’s decisions for our country every single day.

Let’s summarise the facts that we know. New Zealand First has a foundation headed up by its founding president, Doug Woolerton, and a political lobbyist and Winston Peters’ personal lawyer Brian Henry. They’re the only two trustees. We know the foundation received over $500,000 in secret donations. We also know the foundation loaned hundreds of thousands to New Zealand First and that in election 2017, it paid substantive electioneering costs like campaign offices, like websites, like campaign expenses and conference speakers. This is a rort with a capital “R”.

But it gets worse. We know that there are about 70 donations that were declared at the last election. Every party in this Parliament declared—23 from Labour, 19 from National. The only party not to declare a single donation was New Zealand First. Does anybody seriously believe that New Zealand First did not receive a single contribution of more than $15,000? Then we come to the issue of anonymous donations: 85 percent, $342,000, of anonymous donations was for New Zealand First, and that $340,000 is on top of the $500,000 being hidden through the foundation. We even have the president of New Zealand First and its treasurer resigning in recent weeks over moral issues of its finances.

We should be in no doubt how serious this is. Our electoral law makes it a corrupt practice for political parties to organise their affairs to try and avoid disclosure—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. I’m going to refer the member to Speakers’ ruling 28/1. I probably should’ve done it earlier in his speech when he used the word corruption. It’s a very good combination of Speakers’ rulings that go back to Statham, reinforced by David Carter, former Speaker, and what it says, very clearly, is that members must not make veiled suggestions of corruption during the course of debate. The member will cease.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Without wanting to challenge your ruling, Mr Speaker, I would point out that Speakers’ ruling 28/1 refers to allegations of corruption by a member of another member, and I’m not sure that it could be automatically inferred from the comments made by Dr Smith that that was what he was saying.

SPEAKER: Well, I took it very directly to be that, because he talked about the members who helped form the Government. It couldn’t be anyone else—couldn’t be anyone else.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: If it’s a matter of relitigation, I’m not going to hear it. If the member has a new point of order, I will.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My point of order is: is the sentence I used, “Our electoral law makes it a corrupt practice for political parties to organise their affairs to … avoid [such] disclosure”—is the Speaker saying that that is out of order?

SPEAKER: The answer, given what had happened before in the context: yes.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The stench of this whole sorry affair is doing huge reputational risk to the Government and to our country. The Deputy Prime Minister is in the thick of this mess, and far from the promise of being the most open and transparent Government, no one has been prepared to front up and answer the very real questions.

Hon David Bennett: Lock him up.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I’ve never seen anything as ugly—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! David Bennett will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

SPEAKER: The member will have slightly less time because I’m not giving him time for that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —as when a reporter asked a Minister a question—to call them a psycho in areas of such important public interest. We have the Prime Minister ducking for cover. She is totally compromised. The only way she became Prime Minister was because of a political party that is now alleged of being involved in very serious, illegal election activity. National says these matters must be independently and thoroughly investigated.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. On a very different note, I suspect that we all in this House, along with most other New Zealanders, know what it’s like to be ignored, left out, or bullied for being different. I have a very vivid memory of myself sitting under a tree, crying by myself after being bullied as a kid. I also have really clear memories of seeing other kids being bullied for being different and really wanting to do whatever I could not to be like them so that I could protect myself from further bullying. That was one of the reasons that, for me, it took me so long to come out as a lesbian, even to myself.

After, first, invisibility and then years of public debate about lesbians and gays being mentally unwell, a threat to children, and a danger to our society, I couldn’t even begin to imagine that I might be one of them. This took a toll, not just in my slow coming into myself and all the acting out that came along the way with that, but also years of quite significant mental distress and suicidality, and that was because that experience was backed up by a history and a contemporary reality of State violence against people like me. The impact of that was profound, and I recognise that many people in this House will have had that similar experience from a range of different perspectives. I talk about that today because today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the day when we remember and honour the lives of trans and non-binary people who have been murdered or harmed through discrimination and hate.

We know that this country, as well as many other countries across the Pacific, has had a history of inclusion of people who don’t fit the traditional roles of men and women, yet the Human Rights Commission found in their seminal report of 2006 that being trans is not a lifestyle choice, but it’s simply one dimension of the rich diversity that is humanity—they are us; we are them. But they showed the profound impact and prevalence of discrimination in our society and that that threatened the person’s safety and wellbeing of that community and those people in our country. This has been recently backed up by a survey through the Waikato University research of around 1,200 trans and non-binary people that, shockingly, showed that over half of those people had seriously considered suicide in the last 12 months, that the rates of discrimination against those people are twice that of the general population, and that those who experienced that discrimination were twice as likely to have attempted suicide in the last 12 months.

Mr Speaker, my colleagues, we need to do better, and I would ask every member in this House and members of the public to reflect on what we can do to celebrate our rich diversity and improve the lives of our trans and non-binary constituents and friends and families. For me, a good starting point is “Do unto others” when it comes to challenging discrimination, and I really hope that if more of us pick up that motto, we might just save some lives and create a society where all of us have the ability to flourish.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): It feels like 2008 all over again. I worked here in 2008, and I remember question time every day: Taito Phillip Field, the Electoral Finance Bill, questions around trusts, and I remember the election when Helen Clark said, “This election’s about trust.” I remember the Spencer Trust and I remember the last year of that Government being dogged by questions around Mr Peters and New Zealand First, and it feels like déjà vu. It feels like it’s starting again, just two years into this Government’s time in office.

I want to talk about the Provincial Growth Fund and the application from Future Forest Products Ltd, because, let me tell you, we have not heard the last of this. There is more to come. We know a Provincial Growth Fund application was made from March 2019 onwards. They wanted a $15 million loan for a feasibility study—$15 million. Now, look, you might think that there’s not much wrong with that. The Provincial Growth Fund has funded a lot of feasibility studies around the country, and they’re very expensive as well, except for the fact that this application came from a company that recently registered a director, Brian Henry—who, we all know, is a personal lawyer for Winston Peters and a New Zealand First judicial officer—his son, and Jan Trotman, who was added as a director in August.

We know there was back and forth with the officials. We know that there were videoconferences, there were meetings, and there was email correspondence, and a critical question that we will be investigating in this House is: how much involvement did Ministers have in that process? How much awareness did Ministers have during that process?

We know that there was some back and forth and there was some correspondence. On 21 September, a Mr Henry emailed Shane Jones’ office and sent on an article that would be of interest in relation to forestry investment. That was sent to his senior private secretary and later forwarded on to the Minister.

What did we learn yesterday? Yesterday, we learnt that on 4 November, responsibility for decision making around the application for the Provincial Growth Fund was transferred to David Clark—the responsibility for answering it was transferred on 4 November.

Multiple questions arise: firstly, when did Mr Jones, the responsible Minister, know about the application? When did he know—

Darroch Ball: You asked the questions in the House today.

CHRIS BISHOP: —because Mr Parker was very careful—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I didn’t ask the questions.

CHRIS BISHOP: Mr Parker was very careful in the House today to say that when he became aware an application was going to Ministers—which was in October—he, therefore, recused himself. The critical question, which we will keep asking, is when he was aware an application was being made.

Darroch Ball: Oh, come on.

CHRIS BISHOP: Mr Ball laughs and scoffs. A lot turns on this—a lot turns on this.

That’s the first one. Secondly, why did the Minister wait until October to realise the conflict and declare it properly? Thirdly, why was that transfer only made on 4 November, remembering that just three days later the application was declined? A remarkably quick turn-around when the application was first made in March this year.

There are further questions for Mr Peters and for the Prime Minister herself. Who else declared a conflict? Mr Peters stood in Parliament yesterday and made reference to more than one Minister declaring a conflict. Who was the other Minister? Who was it? Was it Mr Peters himself? Was it Fletcher Tabuteau, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development? When were those conflicts declared? Why did Mr Peters say—as he did yesterday in relation to the application—that it never went to Ministers? Mr Peters said in question time yesterday that the application was declined by the independent managers who run the Provincial Growth Fund, but yet we had David Clark yesterday, and then Mr Parker on behalf of Shane Jones today, saying that it was Ministers that declined at the regional economic development Ministers’ meeting. Mr Peters said yesterday that one Minister knew nothing. Is that really true? We will ask these questions. This is a very murky picture. We will continue to get to the bottom of it in Opposition.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): When people speak, I try to interpret what they say in pictures, and as those two National members speak, I see pictures of farm animals—a pig, maybe a dog—rolling in their own faeces—

SPEAKER: No, no. I mean, that that might be an appropriate view; it might be what the member truly believes, but I think it doesn’t add to the decorum of the House. I don’t think it helps the images for the rest of us.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: The point I’m making is that trying to throw dirt in the hope that it sticks with people in this House doesn’t do them well, particularly when they brand themselves as the moral right in this House. Well, it’s disappointing. It is disappointing. When I hear Jan Logie speak, I hear and see pictures of kindness, of a hand out in support of others.

Tonight, on a brighter note, let me just acknowledge, first and foremost, the number of community organisations who are working hard on the ground in our communities right across New Zealand: the Salvation Army, community groups, the number of groups that are on the ground dealing with the day-to-day issues that many families are facing. I want to acknowledge them because I understand their impatience. I understand the important work of the advocacy that they are doing on behalf of so many families, and the fact that they have had to work under the previous Government for nine long years, where they were squeezed continually, where the previous Government refused to acknowledge the number of crises that these groups are having to deal with. I’m saying to them: “Look, we’ve started the work.” I know and sense their impatience. We’ve started the work looking long term, looking to how we tackle the long-term challenges that our families and communities are facing.

I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Prime Minister, the leadership of New Zealand First, and the leadership of the Green Party. Once upon a time, they were laughing. We weren’t going to get along together. But these three parties are working hard on behalf of all New Zealanders, having to fix the mess that we inherited under that lot. They did not care one iota. So I am proud to say—even when I hear the Hon Carmel Sepuloni being questioned day in, day out, by the very group that left the mess, pretending as if they care. They don’t care. But with the leadership of our Ministers here, we are on track to ensure that New Zealand is the best country to raise a child, is the best country to raise a family. We’re on track to deliver up to 74,000 children out of poverty. We’ve delivered the Families Package and we’re on track. When it’s fully rolled out in 2021, 335 families with children will be far better off by $75 a week on average. That is far better than their focus on giving only their corporate mates—high income - bracket lot—a tax cut.

We’ve delivered more houses than any other Government since the 1970s. We have raised the minimum wage, lifting the income of those at the very bottom, and we are on track to deliver $20 per hour by the year 2021. We’re delivering more funding to schools so that parents don’t have to pay for school donations. We’re delivering cheaper doctor visits for 540,000 community services card holders. We are delivering new cancer treatment equipment and new cancer drugs, more people are in work today, more people are working full-time, and they are making higher wages, in only two years since we came into office—far better than that lot in the nine years that they had the administration.

We are delivering support to the Pacific region under our Pacific Reset policy. We have looked out to Samoa under our Treaty of Friendship, supporting the measles crisis that they are experiencing at this time. Why? Because they are family. They are family. And in their hour of need, we come to the need. We are delivering far more for Māori and Pacific than that Government has ever done in their five years. Sure, there is still much more to be done. We ask all of our communities to continue to advocate, but be patient with us. We are working hard. We’ve got it started, but we’re still a long way from completing the work.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I don’t know about that last contribution, because the other night I was at an event where I caught up with a number of Māori leaders. One of the questions they said to me was “What’s happening with Whānau Ora?” I said, “Well, I, like you, am quite interested, and wondering what’s happening with Whānau Ora.” To be told in their conversations with Government Ministers over Whānau Ora that only half of that $80 million set aside in that Budget would go to the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies that would eventually end up with whānau providers absolutely shocked me. I thought, “What on earth is going on?” Why has the Minister been so quiet about Whānau Ora and the delivery of the Whānau Ora budget that was held this year in the 2019 Budget? There was a lot of hoopla around this Budget for Māori and Whānau Ora. To find out that half of that fund is going into Government agencies is an absolute shock to me, and it will be a shock to a number of Whānau Ora providers out in the community today.

How can $40 million into a Government agency deliver Whānau Ora down to the services on the ground? How can a Government agency manage that from their desk? I say they cannot. Just today, in the Māori Affairs Committee, we heard from a Whānau Ora commissioning agency about the work of their 58 navigators covering a whole region. We found out about the trials and tribulations of a lack of funding to actually support the navigators. We heard around the role of the navigators and how many lives they have affected and been able to save. To this particular Whānau Ora commissioning agency, for them to learn that only $40 million across the four-year period that this Government has put aside for Whānau Ora will only be going to the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies is a shame. It is a lost opportunity.

I am disappointed that this Government can stand up and say “We have delivered this, this and this.”, and yet, many hundreds of Māori whānau go begging because they have not received the support within the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies because of a lack of funding. I am disappointed. I’m disappointed that Māori Ministers can let the delivery of funds and services to Māori go on the back-burner in favour of Government agencies. To be able to give funding into Corrections, that has a lot of money, from the Whānau Ora budget is shameful. It’s absolutely shameful. People say, “Oh, but they need to have Whānau Ora inside the prisons.” Well, that’s what Corrections are funded for. That should be part and parcel of their rehabilitation programme, and they should fund it. That funding should not come out of the Whānau Ora budget. That funding for Whānau Ora should go to the people on the ground, to the families that it was designed to target. I, on this side, along with my colleagues, am astounded that this Government can do that to the very people who actually put them over there on those benches.

I am also very disappointed in the fact that the Minister has not come out and enlightened the Whānau Ora community about what he is doing for Whānau Ora. It is very disappointing for him to sit there and for me to actually keep saying to him that we need to know, they need to know.

This is a Government that is not delivering to Māori whānau; it hasn’t been ever since it got into Government. Ever since it got into Government, it promised big things for Māori, and it has failed every which way. In many ways the contributions in this House today for general debate have been about accountability for funding and have been about accountability for services. This Government cannot and should not hold its head up high, because it has failed, failed, failed in the delivery of services—failed to account for the very funds that these taxpayers in New Zealand provide so services can be delivered.

All I want to say to the many whānau out there is that on this side of the House, when we take the Government benches in 2020, we will make sure that Whānau Ora funds are invested into whānau on the ground and that Government agencies will just have to manage with the funds that they currently have, because they get a lot of money—I know Te Puni Kōkiri got $10 million from that funding in May, and what have they done for it? I am disappointed. My heart breaks for the whānau of New Zealand. This Government should vacate those seats because they do not deliver services.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This afternoon, we had the privilege and pleasure—as we often do—of having children in the gallery to witness question time. When the children come through the door, they immediately gravitate to the Prime Minister’s chair. The children often come—oh, and to you, Mr Speaker, of course. Perhaps, just an aside, Mr Speaker, I do want to thank the Parliament for the delivery of that playground to make our Parliament much more accessible to the people of New Zealand—and I think there is a photo on social media that might have yourself sliding down that slide, but I couldn’t possibly comment on that. But what I do want to say is that children come to Parliament and they want to see our Prime Minister because they know that the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern is there for them. Before I became a member of Parliament, I worked with Jacinda Ardern in her role as spokesperson for children, and I completely believe and understand just how strong her commitment to children is.

I want to start with that premise—that children are important and that this Government is committed to making New Zealand the best place to be a child. That’s really important, it’s the focus of our work, it’s why we have an agenda that is about wellbeing, and it’s why we have also worked alongside Treasury to deliver the Living Standards Framework. What this is about is ensuring that all of the work of Government is delivered around five key priorities, and one of the most important priorities is our children. Now, that’s, you know, really sensible because it’s about our future and we want our children to do well. But more than that, we want them to thrive. There are many, many parts of our Families Package, in particular, that deliver specifically to children.

I want to talk about how we look at building the income in a family. So not only is that looking at raising the minimum wage and looking to ensure that Government employees and contractors move to the living wage but that’s also about supporting people at the most difficult time of a family’s life, and that’s when a new baby comes into the house—how stressful that is. This Government has taken a universal approach to say that we know this is a difficult time for families, so we’re going to support you by making sure that you have an extra $60 in your pocket to make sure that you attend to baby’s needs—whether that’s formula or nappies or all those little things that you might need. Babies can be really expensive, and we say that, actually, we know that it’s important for every family to be supported in that way.

We also want to create healthy environments for our children. I’m particularly proud—and I don’t mind how often I say this, because it impacts the children in my area, in my city, and in my region—of the work that we are doing in Mana Ake to support children who experience trauma, particularly post-earthquake. I’m also proud of the work that we’re doing with young people, in terms of Piki, to support their mental health. Children are fragile and when things happen they need support to recover and restore them from trauma. So I’m enormously proud of the work that we’re doing in that area.

But it’s more than that; we’re also looking at their education. So we have, in this term of Parliament, paid teachers more and we’ve paid early childhood educators more because we recognise that quality education comes from teachers who feel rewarded. Now, we know that early childhood educators are also being rewarded for their work, but we know that there is much more that we can do in that space. We encourage our colleagues to make sure that they keep telling us about the issues and the pressures that we face, because we have started on this journey, we’ve got much more to do, but we don’t always know the impact of our work until we’re reminded by our friends and colleagues. So we encourage people to keep telling us about what more there is to be done.

You know, school lunches are going to be free, and I often reflect on my grandson and what it means for him, just like I reflect on what it means for other children to be well supported right at the beginning stages of their lives, to have a great education, to be supported when things don’t go well, and, when they’re at school, to have the best education from the best teachers. And, also, if things aren’t going so well at home, that you’ve got support from nurses in schools, that you’ve got support from Mana Ake, and, sometimes, when families aren’t doing so well, that we can actually make sure that children are fed so that they have the opportunity to learn.

I am proud of this Government and I am proud of our Prime Minister.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Naturally Together – A Call to Action, on the West Coast on Sunday, where we got close to 4,000 locals turning up; 120 MPs were invited, six turned up—five from National. It was respectful, it was showcasing the very best of the Coast, and it talked about how Government policy is affecting locals. Speakers from the affected industries—timber, mining, tourism, farming, forestry, and electricity—as well as Ngāti Waewae and two of our local mayors were all speaking.

It was in 2017 when we first heard the policy announcement in the Speech from the Throne: no new mining on conservation land. The public was going to be consulted. Two years later, this Government still has not delivered the consultation document—the discussion document that we’ve been waiting on. Two years of uncertainty, and failing and falling business confidence. Not knowing is sometimes worse than actually knowing and being able to make a decision and get on with life, because we don’t know how to plan for our futures.

I can tell you this: the no-new-mining announcement may as well be policy, because that is exactly how the land is being administered right now. It is not national park, it is not Schedule 4 land; it’s old forestry blocks covered in gorse and flax, most of it cut over and a lot of it already mined. It’s just a place that had no place to go in the changes of 1989; land that is not virgin, native, mature forest.

That land used to provide up to 1,500 jobs; they in turn support other jobs in our schools, our supermarkets, our cafes, our retail, and our other trades, but also support other things like sports clubs, volunteer organisations—like your Rotaries and Lions club, St John, and your school committees etc., etc. We help heat dairy and timber factories, meat-processing plants, horticulture, hospitals, and schools all across New Zealand. There are alternatives that need to come along to fill the gaps that have been created.

If we are to stop our industries—and it’s not unlike the stopping of the oil and gas exploration—we need this Government to deliver the pathway for this just transition. We’re not making a case there for open slather on our stewardship land. In fact, all we want is a case by case analysis, an assessment, because we believe that’s the best approach. It’s worked well for us for decades, and it gives us, I believe, the best of both worlds. It is not mining or the environment; it is mining and the environment—that’s how we’ve always treated it, and that’s why our backyard is still pristine.

But it’s not only mining that’s been affected in this Government’s policy decisions. We’ve been feeling the impacts with whitebaiting, the freshwater policies, the national policy statement, the biodiversity, native timber, running roughshod over our private property rights with more proposed significant natural areas, the pounamu, the moss, but the last straw was to turn down the Waitaha run-of-river hydro scheme, a clean renewable energy project. I believe this is unbelievable politics at play.

Now, the irony that we see on the Coast is that it’s the birthplace of the Labour Party, and their mission was to look after workers’ rights, to look after their conditions and fight for the eight-hour day and working conditions. Yeah right. I argue that they have yet to find their new purpose, relevant purpose, for existing. Coasters are heartland New Zealand, real people, and proud hard workers. So we are stunned when we are criticised for being vocal about how fearful we are for our futures. It’s the speed of change. It’s the amount of change happening all at once. Communities need time to adjust to change. So where is this just transition that the Government keeps talking about and not delivering?

But to be told by the very person who is elected to take his community’s views back to Wellington that we are too resistant to change, to get our head out of the sand, or to tell others just to get over it speaks to me of a person who has lost touch with his electorate and has stopped listening. As the new spokesperson for West Coast issues, I can assure the Coasters we will stick, naturally, together. As the new spokesperson, I will have their back, not stab them in it.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to speak on today’s general debate as speaker number seven. I don’t agree with Simon Bridges about his description of that member’s abilities—I don’t agree with it. I’m not going to say it, because I’m better than that.

New Zealand is doing better under this Government than in the previous nine years of neglect left to us by the National Government. Why do I say that? Well, I want to echo what the Hon Poto Williams has said about the playground—your leadership in terms of the playground outside. I promise that I will do live selfies with the safety in mind of the other children around me. But I want to, with all jokes aside, thank you. Thank you for your leadership. It’s now starting to look like a New Zealand Parliament for all.

Earlier this afternoon, the Rt Hon Jacinda Arden, who I am privileged to be in the leadership of, and the Hon Carmel Sepuloni spoke about the report of how thousands of children are doing better under this Government. Why do I say that? The reports say that 385 families with children will be better off by an average $75 a week. So when I say New Zealanders are doing well under this Government, I wanted to talk to you about Ezekiel Robson. Now, Ezekiel Robson stopped me on the streets of Papakura and he said to me, “Anahila, I would like you to extend to”—and I quote—“Jacinda and the Labour caucus my thankfulness.” He’s a first-time parent—a first-time parent. Seventy five dollars a week has enabled them, he said, to buy a little something for their newly born son. And what touched my heart? He said, “And we can put a little bit away for his education.” The look on Ezekiel Robson’s face and heart—actually, it was so warm that I had to take a selfie and send it to the Prime Minister to say thank you.

So that’s what I mean. New Zealanders are doing well under this Government. One million New Zealanders were warmed by the winter energy payment. I was stopped at the Hon Aupito William Sio’s streets in Māngere, where they said to me, and I quote, “Anahila, tell Jacinda thank you for the winter energy payment.” I said, “Why?” “Because my dad said we can turn the heater on this winter.”—my dad said we can turn the heater on this winter. When I say New Zealanders are doing better under this Government, it is actually the ordinary person on the street who actually feels the sunshine. It’s summer. Let’s brighten it up. It’s summer. Let’s brighten up our day.

I was at the SunPix awards, where SunPix acknowledges leaders in the Pacific community for their input, for enriching Aotearoa New Zealand. The person that won the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Pacific Enterprise Award, her name was Lisa Taouma. Now, Lisa Taouma is the Coconet founder. There’s a programme here on TV2 that’s called Fresh—she’s the founder of Fresh on TVNZ. She said when she received her award, “I want to extend a thanks to the Government, to this coalition Government, for their investment, after 10 years, into the Pacific arts and broadcasting—never have done that before in the last 10 years.” She said that in her thank-you speech to say thank you—thank you—and she actually mentioned two Ministers: thank you to the Prime Minister and also the Hon Carmel Sepuloni and the Hon Jenny Salesa.

Now that is a demonstrator, is evidence, of ordinary New Zealanders, whether they are parenting for the first time; whether they are still at home as an adult with their parents, who still control how the electricity is supplied in their home; or whether they are being acknowledged for their leadership in New Zealand—people are saying thank you. People are saying thank you. For that, it warms my heart. It warms my heart because I know that’s evidence that New Zealanders are doing better.

One note—we now have our programme in terms of rolling out nurses in schools. Earlier, last month, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and I were at Rosehill College—and that’s leadership. One thing is to design something on paper, but there is another thing to actually visit schools and see how those designs come out. Thank you, Rosehill College in Papakura for hosting the Prime Minister, for showing that you have 2½ nurses who are there to respond to the physical health needs of students, but also taking their mental health seriously and providing—[Time expired]

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s an interesting week, and I think this place often ends up that way, but we can start by looking at what we’re hearing in the news about New Zealand First’s funding streams. They have always had some unique funding avenues, and I think it just highlights some of the unique characteristics this Government has. Whilst they might claim on that side that they are delivering for New Zealanders, I think we need to ask: are New Zealanders actually feeling better off under this Government? Quite clearly, in the Waikato, the answer is no. They have been let down time and again by this Government failing to deliver. Broken promises left, right, and centre—all over the show, they have failed to help New Zealanders.

We heard just before about ordinary New Zealanders. Well, I’m not entirely sure what an ordinary New Zealander is, but in the Waikato, we have thousands of extraordinary New Zealanders who are going above and beyond every day to make the best they can in their jobs, in their communities, and for their families, and they are feeling let down by this Government—extraordinary New Zealanders every day trying to be better off. Business owners, employees, people participating in community activities—whatever it may be, they are feeling they are not better off under this Government. You can look at some of the basic stats: the number of people on benefits have increased significantly, homeless numbers have increased, rent costs have gone up as well. Actually, even in strong rural areas like the Waikato, some of those aspects impact on us and our provincial rural towns—towns like Matamata, towns like Morrinsville. When I talk to constituents throughout those towns, I ask them how they’re doing. “How’s business going? Are you feeling better off under this Government?”

Kieran McAnulty: The member asks them like that?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: And the resounding answer is clearly no. Mr McAnulty might make fun of talking to constituents, and perhaps, I guess, he doesn’t understand that since he has none, but I would encourage him to get out and try talking to people in the electorates. It’s a novel approach. This Government should try it a bit more. We’ve seen far too often they are curtailing what we would expect as a standard democratic process. You can look at any number of pieces of legislation that have gone through this House that have had a curtailed select committee process. The typical attitude from this Government is that they know best. The arrogance of it, to assume they know more than people throughout New Zealand—those extraordinary New Zealanders who are every day doing their best in their particular fields of interest are being let down time and again, and this Government needs to wake up and smell the roses.

We’re seeing huge uncertainty in the business sector, and I hear that around my electorate. Businesses that are employing tens of staff, hundreds of staff throughout our communities—a massive contribution they make to the economic wealth and benefit and prosperity within our regions. They’re saying “Well, actually, I don’t feel confident under this Government.”, and we see that in the business confidence stats. So they’re not making investment decisions, they’re not making hiring decisions—some of those considerations that this Government just doesn’t seem to get when they think about trying to make people better off: “everyday New Zealanders”, whatever that term is.

It’s the same in the farming sector. We saw just last week, out on the forecourt here at Parliament, a massive protest led by the 50 Shades Of Green movement. Farmers from around the country—and there were farmers from the Waikato that had travelled down, which shows how passionate they are to represent their industry and express their concerns with the policy settings this Government is putting forward. Far too many aspects within that are focused on the farming sector negatively. Everyone would agree there needs to be change and improvement; the farming sector accepts that. But, actually, it’s not just a farming issue. This is for all of New Zealand to improve, and these policies are letting farmers down. Despite prices being at very good levels, interest rates being at very low levels, and, actually, weather conditions being pretty good—the three factors that typically underpin farming confidence, it is the lowest it has been in decades. That is clearly driven by the uncertainty this Government is stoking into the sector, and the rhetoric that comes out from this Labour-led Government and their New Zealand First supporters.

It’s not good enough, and sadly we’re seeing that play out in a range of areas. We just talked yesterday about the mental health commission being set up, and I do commend them on that, because that is a great piece of work. There are far too many New Zealanders suffering from mental health. Sadly, in rural New Zealand we’ve seen that increasing in terms of suicide rates; that has gone up. Urban New Zealand is trending down, which is fantastic. In rural New Zealand that’s not the case. So we need to see more front-line services and we need to see it sooner. A significant increase in investment there is fantastic, but it needs to be playing out in front-line services.

That’s before we even get on to some of the transport issues, which I want to touch on briefly before we finish. So a whole range of areas that were feeling let down, broken promises, and a failure to deliver. And I would just reiterate the letters I wrote to the Prime Minister and transport Minister. Road safety is critical. Karapiro School, that intersection, I want to see the Ministers there to fix it.

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

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Me tīmata taku kōrero pea ki te tuku mihi ki a koe, nāu i whakapuare te papa tākaro ki waho i Te Whare Pāremata i tēnei rā. Ā, kua ū koe ki ō kupu ki taku māmā, kua whakapuare i te papa tākaro i tēnei rā. Nō reira, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe.

Tēnā hoki tātou i tēnei rā mō ngā tamariki, he rā whakanui i ngā tamariki puta noa i te ao. He tohu pai tēnā i waho i tēnei Whare Pāremata, he tohu pai anō i roto i tēnei Whare Pāremata. I tēnei rā i tae mai tētahi kura nō Te Tai Tokerau, arā Te Kura o Waikare. E tino whakahīhī ana ahau te whakaatu atu ki a rātou tēnei Whare o tātou. Ā, ō mahi, e Te Māngai o Te Whare, me Te Pirīmia anō hoki. I haere mai a Jacinda Ardern ki te tūtaki i ēnei taitamariki ki te kōrero, ki te whakautu i ō rātou pātai i te wā o te tina.

E mihi ana ahau ki a ia. E mōhio ana ahau ko te mea nui ki a ia ko te oranga o ngā tamariki. Kua kī ia tērā kōrero i ngā rā o mua. Kua kite i roto i ngā mahi kua tutuki i a mātou, Te Kāwanatanga, i roto i te rua tau.

Ko te ture tuatahi i whakatau i roto i tēnei Whare i te wā i tīmata mātou hei Kāwanatanga ko te whakaroa ake i ngā wiki ka hoatu ki ngā mātua o tētahi pēpi kātahi anō ka whānau mai, ki te tautoko i a rātou te whānau i taua wā. Kua whakaroa ake ki te 26 wiki. Koirā te tūmanako, koirā te whakatau.

Kātahi anō ka puta mai tētahi rīpoata i te rā tonu nei. Ko tēnei te rīpoata tuatahi i kite au i te ata nei, ka tino hari, ka tino koa ahau. Ko te kōrero i roto i taua rīpoata e whakaatu atu ana e mahi tika ana mātou, tō mātou kaupapa, mō te kaupapa o ngā whānau, te tahua pūtea mō ngā whānau, arā Te Families Package. Kua tonoa atu neke atu i te rima me te hāwhe piriona tāra ki ngā whānau maha puta noa i Aotearoa ki te hiki i te taimahatanga ki runga i a rātou. E tū whakahīhī ana ahau i tērā mahi nā te mea e whakapono ana ahau, e kite ana ahau i roto i Te Tai Tokerau, ētahi atu wāhi anō hoki, ā, ko tēnei pūtea e tohatoha ana ki ēnei whānau, e hiki ana, e piki ana, ā, e hiki ana i ngā taimahatanga ki runga i a rātou.

E tautoko ana hoki i ngā whānau i te tau kotahi ā muri mai i te whānautanga o ngā pēpi. Ka toha atu ki a rātou tata ki te $60 ia wiki ki te āwhina i a rātou i tērā wā e mōhio nei tātou ka piki ake ngā utu mō te tiaki pēpi i taua tau. Tata ki te 36,000 whānau kua whakawhiwhia i tērā pūtea hei tiaki i a rātou i taua wā.

Ā, kua rongo koutou i te kōrero i roto i tēnei Whare i tēnei ahiahi, mō te kotahi miriona tāngata kua whakawhiwhia te moni i te wā o te hōtoke, arā te wā o te makariri. Ka taea e rātou te whakamahana ake ō rātou whare. He painga tērā mō te tokomaha o ngā tāngata.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, kua rongo pea koutou, te ao, i te wero i Te Pirīmia, kia whakaputa i te rua miniti ngā mea katoa kua tutuki i tēnei Kāwanatanga, engari kore taea e ia. He nui kē atu ngā mahi kua tutuki i a mātou i te rua tau, tē taea te whakaputa i te rua miniti. Nō reira, e mihi ana ki a ia e whakarārangi ana ngā mahi kua tutuki, engari ko ia kei te kī, kātahi anō mātou ka tīmata, he nui tonu ngā mahi kei mua i te aroaro.

Kua rongo i roto i tēnei Whare anō hoki ko te whakakore i ngā koha a ngā mātua ki ngā kura hei tiaki i ngā pūtea o te kura. Kua whakakore ināianei i raro i tēnei Kāwanatanga, kua rongo, neke atu i te 90 percent ngā kura i Te Tai Tokerau kua whakakorea tērā tūāhuatanga. Ā, me te utu i ngā whakamātautau. He taimahatanga tēnā mō ngā whānau, mō ngā taitamariki, mō tō rātou NCEA. Kua whakakore tērā āhuatanga.

I te mutunga ko taku kōrero, ko te piko o te māhuri, tērā te tupu o te rākau. Ko ngā tamariki ngā taonga tuku iho. Tēnā koe.

[To the Speaker, greetings. I should perhaps start my speech by congratulating you for opening the playground outside Parliament today. And you have stuck to your words to my mother, and opened the playground today. Therefore, to the Speaker, congratulations.

Greetings to all of us on this day for the children, a day to celebrate children throughout the world. There are good signs outside of this House of Parliament; there are also good signs inside of Parliament House. Today a school from Northland came, namely Te Kura o Waikare. I was really proud to show them this House of ours. And, your work, Mr Speaker, and also the Prime Minister—Jacinda Ardern came to meet these youth to speak and to answer their questions at lunchtime.

I thank her for that. I know that the most important thing to her is the wellbeing of children. She has said that in the past. It is also visible in the actions we, the Government, have taken within two years.

The first law that was passed in this House when we began as Government was to extend the weeks given to the parents of a baby who had just been born, to support the family at that time. It has been extended to 26 weeks. That was the hope; that was the decision.

A report has just come out on this very day. This is the first report I saw this morning, and I was happy, very happy. The content of that report showed that we are doing the right thing with our initiative on the matter of families, the budget for families—that is, the Families Package. Over $5.5 billion has been distributed to many families throughout New Zealand to lessen the pressures on them. I stand proud of that because I believe, and I see in Northland, and other places too, that this fund which is being distributed to these families is raising, is increasing, is lessening the burdens that are on them.

We are also supporting families in the first year after the birth of babies. They are given approximately $60 each week to help them at that time, when we know the costs increase for looking after a baby for that year. Close to 36,000 families have been given that money to take care of them at that time.

And you have heard what has been said in this House this afternoon about the 1 million people who have been given money this winter—that is in the cold season. They can increase the warmth in their houses. That is beneficial for many people.

To the Speaker, you have perhaps heard, as has the world, the challenge to the Prime Minister to express in two minutes the things which have been achieved by this Government; however, it was not possible for her. So many more things have been achieved by us within two years that it is not possible to express them in two minutes. Therefore, I acknowledge her for her listing of the actions which have been achieved, but it was she who said that we have just started; there is still much work in front of us.

We have also heard in this House the abolishment of parental donations to schools to support the schools’ funds. That has now been abolished under this Government, we’ve heard, over 90 percent of the schools in Northland have abolished that practice. And, paying for exams. That is a pressure for families, for youth, and for their NCEA. That element has been abolished.

To end my speech, the way in which a young sapling is nurtured determines how the tree will grow. The children are treasures passed down to us. Thank you.]

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First, a party that I might say is in its 27th year of existence. I’m proud to be associated with its fine contribution to New Zealand politics. From time to time during that period we have had to weather the odd political hit job, and now is just a time. In all cases, I might say, we have always been exonerated. Of course, there’s the media frenzy that surrounds this sort of thing and the stone throwing from the National Party as they mount their moral high horse. But what they forget is their moral high horse is tethered firmly in the middle of a glass house. There is only one party in this Parliament that is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for political donations, and those allegations, concerningly, include that some of this money may have come from foreign origins, something that has no place in New Zealand politics.

But New Zealand First, of course, has not been distracted. This has actually been a great week for us. Two longstanding pieces of legislation coming before the House: the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2), which, of course, had its origins with New Zealand First back as long ago as 1999. Tonight, that will go into legislation, and we are very proud of that. Of course, Minister Parker yesterday announced another delivery of a coalition promise, which is to add a national interest test to the Overseas Investment Office—long overdue. Now the Government will have some levers. When these key strategic assets come up for sale, sometimes under duress, we will now have the ability to have a helicopter-level view as to whether this will be in the national interest. I commend Minister Parker and I commend—in terms of our party this has been longstanding New Zealand First policy.

I was going to go into those things more, but I had to pick up on the contribution from Maureen Pugh, because I too was at that Naturally Together rally in Greymouth on Sunday. I would say that New Zealand First, and I in particular, spend quite a lot of time over there and have some sympathy for the issues that they were bringing forward. They do live in unique circumstances. Eighty-five percent of the coast is under Department of Conservation (DOC) control, and there is pressure on their legacy industries. They do not have a thousand years to transition. But if I would critique that rally, there was no balance to it. When we talk about a just transition, as Maureen Pugh did, there was no effort on that day to balance the ledger. What does a just transition look like? I can tell you that a just transition looks like this Government and the Provincial Growth Fund investing $90 million—so far—on the West Coast into things like port infrastructure, rail infrastructure, tourism infrastructure—

Maureen Pugh: What about jobs?

MARK PATTERSON: —and, Maureen Pugh, even a mine, a garnet mine, just south of Hokitika, and you should know really well. And we did try to throw a financial lifeline to the Westland dairy co-op so it wouldn’t have to go into foreign control. But what else have we done over there? We’ve spent $35 million bailing out the local polytech. We’re building two new hospitals over there. We have gone into the Pike River mine. We have not walked away, as the previous Government did. We have honoured the families of the Pike River 29, which could be the biggest crime scene in New Zealand history.

This Government is actually pretty proud of what we’re doing over there. There is more to do, and we will look at things like the whitebait legislation that is coming forward. I know my colleague Jenny Marcroft is working very carefully with Minister Sage to make sure we do balance out recreational interests in terms of that iconic West Coast pastime. I myself am spending a lot of time over there on the water debates, because they do have some unique attributes over there in terms of their water issues that may not fit the one-size-fits-all model that is being mooted at this stage. But that is a discussion document that we are fully engaged in.

So all these things mount up to New Zealand First and this coalition Government actually being very, very active on the Coast, looking to transition it into a 21st century future, not a 19th century future, as Maureen Pugh seems to expect. I stand completely by our record on the West Coast.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2021) Bill

First Reading

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I move, That the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2021) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 1 April 2020.

Members of the House, the APEC 2021 bill seeks agreement to ensure our country’s legislation meets the unique security requirements of hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, otherwise known as APEC, in 2021.

New Zealand joined APEC as a founding member way back in 1989, and being part of this forum has helped boost our prosperity and place in the Asia-Pacific through its focus on economic growth and free trade. You could say our membership has helped New Zealand to speak the language of Asia and, increasingly, the Americas too. We have built strong, trusting relationships, and it’s enabled us to join around the table with other economies facing similar challenges. Being one of 21 members has made it easier for New Zealand businesses to trade and provided a supportive environment for us to pursue key free-trade agreements.

By hosting APEC in 2021, New Zealand will take a leadership role in this region, which is vitally important to us. It’ll be our chance to host world leaders and international media, and show what New Zealand can do and how we can do it. To a great extent, New Zealand’s economic wellbeing and continued prosperity relies on our APEC friends and the work we are doing to advance regional economic integration. As hosts, we take on the responsibility of leading the year’s agenda. It will be our turn to play our part in continuing to strengthen APEC to ensure we successfully address the many challenges we face from the digital economy to inequality, sustainable trade, and so much more.

Many of you will remember when we last hosted APEC in 1999—well, perhaps not some of you; but some of us do remember—with great distinction. We saw two significant diplomatic milestones: the first ever visit of a Chinese President to New Zealand, and only the second ever visit of a sitting US President to our country. Hosting APEC in 2021 is an important chance to take full advantage of the way we host, the way we lead the agenda, how we engage with a key part of the world, and the way we showcase New Zealand and our sustainable approach. Our year of hosting will provide and involve meetings between world leaders, Ministers, senior officials, business leaders, regional youth, and media.

We are expecting up to 20,000 people to take part over the course of the year, including up to 20 world leaders and many Ministers during leaders’ week in November, each with specific security support, from motorcades to foreign protection officers. The number of high-profile people visiting means a need for tailored security approaches. We hosted APEC in 1999, but given the changes to our global security landscape, it’s no exaggeration to say that APEC 2021 is an international event of the size, scale, and complexity that this country has never seen before. Competence in our ability to host a safe and secure APEC is not just important to our own sense of responsibility as hosts; it’s also of paramount importance to leaders and officials from across the region.

Another point to make here is our need to help the general public feel safe and secure throughout our host year. When we last hosted APEC in 1999, the world was a considerably different place. We don’t need to outline the many international new and local incidents that have scarred our world and compelled us to think more stringently about security and the what-ifs. The APEC New Zealand team is an all-of-Government team led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They have conducted an analysis of our existing laws and found specific legislation is needed in certain areas to accommodate APEC’s unprecedented size, scale, and complexity. That is what this bill will address.

The APEC 2021 bill is about ensuring that New Zealand police have the resources needed in terms of people and technology. The bill will provide for the temporary security and safety of areas around key meeting locations, as well as motorcades, during the three weeks of the leaders’ event.

It must be emphasised that this legislation is temporary. Many of these aspects will only be in force during the leaders’ event period of three weeks in November 2021. When all APEC meetings have finished and our visitors have left our shores, the legislation will expire and things will be as they were.

I will now outline the six points of this temporary legislation. First, during the leaders’ event period of three weeks, plus periods of required training in 2020 and 2021, a small number of members of the armed forces will be trained and integrated into the New Zealand police force. They will provide specialist support and be given constabulary powers. The legislation enables the Commissioner of Police to draw upon an existing resource and capabilities in New Zealand to bolster our security resourcing. Members of the Defence Force are already highly trained, making this a pragmatic and cost-effective approach. The small number of Defence Force members will be under police control at all times and will be held to the same accountability as New Zealand police officers.

The second point also covers the leaders’ event period plus periods of required training. A number of Government agency staff, private security guards, and Australian police officers may be given limited powers to fulfil their security roles if required. This part of the legislation is designed to free up New Zealand police officers to carry out public-facing roles which require a greater understanding of policing in the New Zealand way, including knowledge of our laws and culture.

The third point covers the leaders’ event period only and provides policing powers to secure APEC venues and enable limited road closures for leaders travelling by motorcade, and some restrictions to movement on water if that is required. This point reflects the security needs of the leaders’ event period and the need to provide safe meeting venues, accommodation, and transportation to visiting leaders and officials for the short duration of their stay. The security areas will be temporary—for example, a few days as meetings take place or a few minutes as a motorcade passes by. The APEC New Zealand team will work closely with regional stakeholders such as the Auckland Council and the general public to ensure the majority of these areas are communicated to the public in advance to minimise disruption. These powers will also include the ability to search a private home if inside a security area, but will also be possible with a judicial warrant or the owner-occupier’s consent.

Point four covers all meetings during APEC year and allows the use of wireless electronic countermeasure technology, subject to the approval of the Commissioner of Police. This technology is generally used to scan an area and then jam, distort, or confuse signals coming from technology used in a threatening way, such as a mobile phone - operated bomb. This technology will be mostly used for very short periods of time, like minutes as a motorcade passes by, and the public will in most cases be notified in advance unless responding to an immediate risk. There is potential for anyone standing next to a motorcade or security area to lose mobile signal for a few seconds or minutes as the motorcade passes, after which everything will return to normal.

The fifth point, which also covers meetings during APEC year, provides increased powers for the NZ Police to respond to risks posed by unmanned aerial vehicles such as drones, and piloted aircraft. Throughout APEC 2021, we will, effectively, have small no-flying areas near some meeting and accommodation venues. These no-fly areas will be shared ahead of time, minimising the chance of public drone-users being affected.

The final point of the APEC 2021 bill: during the leaders’ event period, certain foreign protection officers will be allowed to carry firearms, subject to the approval of the police commissioner and subject to conditions the commissioner may impose, such as the type of weapon and the number that can be brought into New Zealand. These arms will only be carried by highly trained protection officers while protecting a world leader and will be recorded on entry to and exit from New Zealand.

This final point acknowledges that with the complexity of the security operation for leaders’ week and the number of leaders who will be in New Zealand concurrently, some APEC economies will expect to carry certain weapons to ensure the safety of their leader. The APEC 2021 bill manages this, legislating that weapons can only be carried while securing a world leader. Otherwise, they must be securely stored by the New Zealand Police. This legislation creates a controlled process for managing any weapons brought into New Zealand. It needs to be pointed out that this is only to carry weapons to protect certain dignitaries. If the weapons are used, the foreign protection officers will be subject to the New Zealand law.

Members, this legislation has been created following detailed analysis of existing legislation and the unique and unprecedented requirements of hosting APEC. Welcoming 20,000 people to our country, including the leaders of the world’s three largest economies, brings with it significant opportunities but significant security challenges as well. I understand that some of the public may want to assemble and have their voices heard during the APEC year. The right to do so is fundamental to our democracy and not challenged by this legislation.

Can I just conclude by saying this legislation seeks to minimise the impact of APEC 2021 on New Zealanders and to keep them safe. It supports our preparation and ability to respond to any risks that might arise in 2021. It will mean we can welcome and host our guests from APEC economies in a safe and secure environment that works to enhance New Zealand’s prosperity. I want to thank those members of this Parliament who have signalled their support for this legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the very detailed outline of what’s in this bill, and appreciate the point he makes that this is a very big deal for New Zealand and one that we can benefit from. So while the bill does for a very short time allow some inconvenience for some New Zealanders, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that this is an opportunity that could see the prosperity of New Zealanders greatly enhanced. In this exercise, with the leaders of the three largest economies in the world potentially coming to New Zealand, we also see a number of countries inside APEC where there have been some tensions. To have all those leaders in New Zealand at a time where they may speak, I think, does the world a great service.

APEC has been one of the most successful international organisations that focuses on economies, for the entire time of its existence, and it is responsible for lifting literally tens of millions of people up the scale as far as the quality of their lives is concerned. New Zealand is a country that enjoys a lifestyle far in advance or in excess of what might be afforded if we were totally an internal economy. We are able as an economy to access the markets of the world, and a lot of that access is facilitated through the sort of organisation that APEC can provide. We are a trading nation, and for us to take this lead, which only happens about once in every 20—in this case, 22—years, is an opportunity that we should not in any way diminish.

I want to just talk for a moment about the roles that various people will have in the special powers that are granted under this Act. Those are there only for the protection largely of New Zealanders. While the Deputy Prime Minister and foreign Minister outlined that there will be some provision for security services for world leaders who are coming here, that is specific to them. Many of the other provisions in here are to try and minimise for New Zealanders, particularly for those living in Auckland, the disruption that inevitably occurs at big events like this.

But the value of those about 21 days—and it won’t be every day that we see that disruption—to the New Zealand economy cannot be underestimated. So rather than relitigating everything that has been now put on the House’s record as being part of this bill, can I just say that we will participate in the select committee process fully. There are a few aspects that will have to be clarified, particularly around the provision of security services held by those who might have a diplomatic clearance and what that would mean for their accountability under New Zealand law. But that’s something a select committee can work through; what the committee of the whole House will be able to work through. I simply want to record that the National Party thinks this is a great opportunity for New Zealand, and we’ll be facilitating the passing of this bill through its process into an Act.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Can I thank the shadow Leader of the House for that contribution and thank the National Party for their support of this piece of legislation. Can I endorse the comments of the Hon Gerry Brownlee about the importance of multilateral institutions. It is a nervous time in the world, and the multilateral institutions that have supported the international rule of law and made for relatively increasing peaceful coexistence in the world since World War II are a precious thing.

The less cohesive nature of those multilateral institutions compared with even 10 years ago is a thing that I think concerns politicians around the world, and certainly politicians from various parties in this Parliament. Those multilateral institutions obviously include the United Nations, APEC, the OECD, and the International Court of Justice. Each of these institutions is precious and has to be nurtured, and every country has to do its bit to support those institutions. We’re lucky in New Zealand that we never have to host the United Nations, because the sort of security arrangements that arise for institutions like that when they host world leaders are every bit as complex as those applying to New Zealand during leaders’ week for APEC.

Institutions that are under siege, if you like, at the moment—“under siege” is perhaps too strong an adjective, but the multilateral institutions that are less settled than they were—include the World Trade Organization as well as some aspects of the United Nations. It’s interesting; I’ve heard the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs talk to me and to Cabinet about the United Nations Security Council and how that’s increasingly blocked these days. We all know that the World Trade Organization is facing some challenges in respect of updating its rules and also keeping the appellate body going.

As a small trading nation which will never be big enough as a country to support internal markets for things like computers and cars, we actually have to sell to the rest of the world the goods and services that we do produce efficiently in order to pay for the things that we import. In order for us to do so on fair terms that maintain the standard of living of New Zealand, we need fair trade access to other countries.

One of the support bodies for the World Trade Organization is APEC. It’s a grouping of countries on the edge of the Pacific—countries that are as varied in their systems of government as is possible, really, in the world: countries like Russia, China, United States, New Zealand and Australia, Japan, South American countries. These countries come together under the APEC banner and try to sort out differences for the benefit of the world.

I was always struck by a statement that was highlighted recently by one of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials who wrote an article about the Atlantic Charter. The Atlantic Charter was, essentially, agreed between Roosevelt and Churchill during the middle of World War II, who recognised that in order for peaceful relations to continue post - World War II, there had to be fair access for countries to a fair share of resources and the benefit of trade. And so at that time, they set out a course for post - World War II where countries could cooperate in order to have good trading relationships, in order for them to have secure economic places in the world, and to have benefits from good relationships with each other, which they thought would flow through to peaceful relationships outside of trade. And they were right.

APEC is the organisation that we now rely upon to bolster the likes of the World Trade Organization to ensure that. So every 22 years or so, it’s New Zealand’s turn to host it. And when we host it, we actually have to be able to provide for the security of world leaders. Some of those world leaders come from countries that have different circumstances to our own. And they face greater security threats than we have and actually, in some ways, they bring their expectations as to the protections they need to guarantee the safety of their leaders. And that, essentially, is what this APEC bill does. It actually says for this event, we actually have to provide for some changes to our normal laws in order to achieve the protection of those leaders. And I thought that the Minister of Foreign Affairs set that out very well in his speech.

I’m not going to go through all of them and the detail that he did, but we actually do for this short period of time need to have a lot more people in the police. And where do we get them? We can’t train them overnight. It wouldn’t be wise to train them just for a week’s work. So we actually have to bring in some of the armed forces and get them to do some of the policing during that period. We also need to accept help from, on occasions, the private sector, but also from Australia. And so this legislation enables that. Sometimes we need road closures and secure areas. This enables that. Sometimes we actually have to stop—we have to enable the blocking of electronic signals that could be used to activate explosive devices. And I think that’s a pretty small and temporary inconvenience that New Zealanders will have to accept in order to do that as motorcades pass. A fifth point, of course, as he has raised, relates to drones and I don’t think that will prove to be contentious.

But the issue as to some of the security details that these leaders bring with them—being able to bring their own arms—is something that we’ve got to get the balance right on, and this legislation, I think, appropriately attempts to do that by requiring all of those arms to be approved, essentially, by the Commissioner of Police to be registered in and out of the country. And were there—and we hope this never comes to pass—but were those arms ever discharged in the course of those people’s duties, then the circumstances of that will be judged according to New Zealand’s law, and our laws as to self-defence and the like would not change.

So with those comments, I support this bill and I’m interested to hear comments from other speakers.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, thank you. I’m very pleased to speak in this legislation because, as with other speakers, I believe it is extremely important. I’m not going to take a long period of time because I think it’s very straightforward and it is something that all parties in this House should be able to accept and support—vote for—very quickly. There are many international events around the world that New Zealand takes part in, and we can be very proud of the role that we continue to play in them. But in as far as our ability to host international events or meetings, APEC is one of the larger ones that New Zealand has the ability and will have the opportunity to host. So it is fundamentally important that New Zealand, in taking on the hosting of APEC—that we take our responsibilities seriously and we do absolutely everything we can to make sure it is a resounding success and that all of the guests and visitors that come here are safe and are treated properly, to make sure it’s an absolute success over the 12 months that we will be the hosts, the chair of APEC.

As my colleague the Minister for Trade and Export Growth said, there are many different events that are important to New Zealand, but I would say none more so than the trade discussions that the trade Minister will chair and host as we move forward. Indeed, it was the APEC meetings in Vietnam some years ago where New Zealand was able to work with other Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries to stitch together the deal that became the revised TPP that New Zealand exporters are now benefiting from. And if not for APEC, it may well have been very difficult for those other countries to come together, for New Zealand to play a role along with Japan and Australia, who showed great leadership for there to be a trade deal that is important to New Zealand.

So in taking our responsibility seriously, it is the case that we need to make sure the rules that are in place are such that we can keep these visitors safe, that we can make sure they can, you know, move around the city and can ensure that in doing so, the tools that the New Zealand services will need—may require—will be there.

I’ve got to say that I am deeply disappointed that the Green Party have said they won’t be voting for this. And I’m a bit surprised, because this legislation has been in place previously in New Zealand and is very infrequently used. But in the case it would have to be used, we need to make sure, actually, that we are able to meet these responsibilities. I am quite surprised that the Green Party are not supporting this legislation, yet the terrorism bill that was voted on in Parliament just a week or two before, they gave the Government the votes that were needed to ensure, I suppose, that New Zealand is safe from terrorists. So I don’t know why it is that they have voted for the terrorism legislation but in this case, they won’t support this.

One of the challenges we’ve got—and I want to give an example of why this is so very, very important. In the terrorism legislation, National took a position that, actually, when a New Zealand citizen arrives at the border, if they are deemed to be a terrorist, we think that under certain circumstances the police and others should be able to hold them for 72 hours. So in the case of the legislation that is before us today for APEC, if a terrorist, a known terrorist from overseas, came to New Zealand, they could be detained at the border so that our visitors and all New Zealanders are safe. If that person was a New Zealand citizen with a passport, unless the Greens do actually what’s proper, in giving Government support to get the terrorism legislation through, that New Zealander who turns up at the border, who has been a terrorist overseas, would not be able to be held for 72 hours and that means our visitors may not be safe.

The point I’m making is there is a conflict in the two pieces of legislation and I think that the Greens should make sure that the terrorism legislation that they are supporting is fixed and they should be voting for this as well. This is not weighty legislation. It’s not something that’s going to harm the freedom of New Zealanders. It’s going to make sure that they and our visitors are safe. And that’s very much the reason that National is supporting it and joining the Government and other parties in doing so. Thank you.

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Pacific Peoples): I’m happy to make a short contribution to this bill. I think the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, has outlined eloquently the purpose of this particular bill. All I’d want to add, though, is I was privileged a couple of months back, as part of the Prime Minister’s delegation, to attend the United Nations General Assembly, and being that was my first time, I took a lot of videos of what was happening.

I did ask my companion just to video when one of the world leaders went past and we were all forced to stop. We got to the 14th vehicle in his motorcade and his hand was tired from videoing it, but there were still several more cars to come. When I made inquiries about, you know, what determines how many security officers and motorcades, I suppose the officials in charge of this determine the profiles of each individual world leader. For our leader, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, we had a couple of security people who accompanied her and she preferred to walk rather than travel in the car, which probably caused a lot of alarm and anxiousness with the security guys. But what I witnessed there, at the UN General Assembly, was that those leaders would not turn up to the United Nations if the security was not guaranteed for them. Therefore, yes, whilst people might feel a little bit nervous about this, we need to pass this legislation in order to provide security and support for a safe and secure APEC meeting when the period occurs.

We, as a nation, will host APEC in 2021, but our hosting activities will begin from December 2020 until November 2021, with meetings involving senior officials and Ministers expected to be in the vicinity of 20,000 people over that period. The leaders’ week will take place from 8 November to 14 November in 2021 and will involve about 20 world leaders and Ministers’ officials, business people, youth representatives, and media people.

I think the Deputy Prime Minister underscored the fact that this is temporary legislation. It’s for the purposes of providing a secure and safe APEC conference during that period, and the legislation will expire at the end of that.

There are benefits, and I think—for one—as a small country, we are very much dependent on working at a multilateral level, and these institutions allow us to play a role that often is not appreciated by our general public in New Zealand. But we have a role to play in the international arena. We have a role to play in the manner that we conduct ourselves. We are regarded as one of the nations that are generally free of corruption. That is something to be valued. That is something to uphold.

This is also the nation where Māori language and culture is—the only nation you’d find that. That tikanga—or that kaupapa, as my Māori Ministers often say—is fundamental to the way that we conduct ourselves and host other people. So I think it is a significant organisation. We will get the chance to lead and chair many of these meetings; therefore, we have the opportunity to showcase who we are as a people, who we are as a nation, and how we prefer to conduct our business not only throughout New Zealand, around the Pacific region, but throughout the world.

So I’m really just saying and encouraging all of our members in the House that I think we do have a responsibility in order to fulfil our obligations as a host. We revert to—what is the Māori terminology—manaakitanga to be able to host our people coming through: 21 leaders, world leaders.

When we hosted in 1999, for the first time, where the President of China visited, I think that contributed to us having the first free-trade agreement with China. That’s now also being renewed. So I think this is important. I underscore what the Deputy Prime Minister said: this is temporary legislation; it will expire at the end of the APEC meeting. Thank you.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, we are definitely going to support this legislation. It is important. It’s our one big chance as a country. It’s genuinely on the world stage. Of course, that provides a huge opportunity for us, but it also provides a fair bit of risk if something was to go wrong. If something did go wrong, we could potentially suffer reputational risk. We’re a country that relies heavily on tourism, and, if we were seen to be a country that couldn’t manage threats and risks, then it could have a massive negative impact in an important sector to us as well.

I just want to support the comments from the earlier speakers to say that I remember back in 1999—the last time we hosted APEC. I was a serving police officer then. I remember the major drain on resources for us to try and police and secure APEC in 1999. I think that it’s a sensible and a pragmatic idea to give the Commissioner of Police the ability to be able to access and work with our New Zealand defence forces. Our New Zealand defence forces are the best in the world, and I have absolute—the highest level of—confidence that, having them supporting our police in a civilian environment, they will not only conduct themselves professionally but also add a lot to, and a significant contribution to, the overall security profile that we’re going to have to provide.

I also think that, normally, I would be against allowing foreign diplomatic service officers to carry weapons in the country—only because of the complex legal issues that would arise if they had to use their weapon and if there was an incident in this country. But I think, in a case like this, when we’ve got world leaders coming here, I think, again, it’s another very good pragmatic decision to allow the commissioner to have the flexibility to authorise the use of those or the ability for those diplomatic officers to be able to actually provide the level of protection that they want to be able to provide for their heads of States, bearing in mind that they are managing their own risks and they’ll be aware of risks and threats that we’re not aware of. So I think that was also another very good pragmatic decision.

The only thing that I would say—and I would appeal to the Deputy Prime Minister on this—is at the moment the House is dealing with a bill, the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. This bill is designed to be able to pick up someone on our border that is returning from overseas after having been involved in or supporting some type of terror activity. There is a massive hole that you could drive a truck through currently on that bill. The reason why it’s being raised is because it does relate directly to this. The hole is, quite simply, this: we could have someone arrive on our border that’s been involved in that type of activity and our law enforcement agencies—whether it be Customs or Police—don’t have the ability to hold that person or detain that person for more than four hours. To have a control order put in place, even a temporary one, it has to go through a High Court procedure. That does not give them enough time. So we’ve got the insidious situation where we could have someone arrive on our border and four hours later walk out into the general population.

So I’d appeal to the Deputy Prime Minister: support us in the fact that we’re trying to cover off these gaps. We will be introducing, if we can’t get the legislation through or the changes made in the select committee, a Supplementary Order Paper to this House to ensure that our police can actually detain that person for up to 72 hours, in which time the High Court can get a control order in place.

But, in principle, we’re very happy to stand and support this bill and recommend it to the House. Thank you.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In August last year, the city of Auckland—my home—announced and welcomed confirmation that we would be hosting the APEC leaders’ week in 2021. What we’ve heard today, repeatedly, is all about the benefits of that APEC summit. We will have world leaders from some of the biggest trading nations from our region come together in New Zealand. All of that is true, and the benefits may well be vast. We are a small nation. We do need trade, and New Zealand should take every opportunity to showcase our nation and to build friendships and to contribute to a multilateral world order and to strengthen the rule of law internationally.

So all of those things stand, but this bill isn’t about the benefits of the APEC summit; this bill is about the imposition of certain security measures that are imported and imposed. They are not New Zealand’s own security standards or policing methods, in fact. We are adopting these new standards while we lower the standards of safety for the rest of the public, the not-so-trade-valuable visitors who may be here, and other New Zealanders. We are lowering the standard of safety and of human rights. For those reasons, the Green Party will oppose this bill.

We see this bill and the measures that it proposes to impose as an overreach. We’re seeing, and we’ve heard repeatedly, that there’ll be expanded powers given to foreign security agents to carry and import firearms that are otherwise restricted in New Zealand. Those are restricted firearms that will be allowed into New Zealand on an ad hoc basis, being carried by people who have not undergone police training or do not have the same culture of regulation as what we have out in our communities.

We see that as an overreach, and we see it, in particular, as unnecessary and counter-productive while New Zealand is itself undergoing reform of gun regulation. It makes no sense to go the other way to the way we have been going in this House and out there in our communities when it comes to regulating gun ownership and gun violence, because we have very recently learnt some lessons about the kinds of devastation that can occur when guns that should be restricted are out there on the streets. We’ve heard again and again today that, should those firearms be used by those foreign agents, New Zealand law will apply—we can charge people with murder or manslaughter, our self-defence laws will apply. But that is cold comfort to any victims that have been killed or injured, or their family or loved ones, because we have allowed the APEC summit to be made secure, so to speak, by way of putting more and more, what should be restricted, firearms out on our streets, being held by foreign agents that we didn’t train, that are not used to interacting in our communities.

What I will note as well, which is alarming any time we resort to armed policing in ordinary community settings, is that we know that overseas and here in Aotearoa policing and security agencies do treat different constituencies differently. We know because a loud and vast movement in the United States—and the US is included in APEC—Black Lives Matters is still fighting to stop the disproportionate harm, the deaths, murders, shall we say, by US police against men, women, and children who are of migrant, of colour, or of black communities. We know that in Hong Kong right now democracy protesters are being brutalised by Chinese-backed security agencies, and we know that right here, in our own nation, Māori and Pasifika communities are far, far more likely to be the victims of use of force by police. So we do have to acknowledge that, when we risk life and limb by arming police or security agencies from anywhere in the world or here, we’re actually risking certain communities more disproportionately than others, and it is terrifying for those communities. So that’s one thing that this bill allows.

As if the risk to life and limb weren’t enough, as if that wasn’t enough to justify opposition to, or changing the types of, security measures that APEC has, obviously, imposed on New Zealand, there are also some serious concerns about human rights and civil liberties that are being impinged by the measures proposed by this bill. So we have, for example, police powers being given temporarily during the summit to restrict freedom of movement in certain roads, certain areas, and certain residential buildings. People living or visiting those areas or those buildings will, and may, be restricted by, again, these armed security officers or police. People may be required to show IDs. People may not be able to access their homes or the areas where they live, work, or need to visit. That’s a power that we’re giving away.

The other thing we’re doing, which is a little bit of an unknown, is we’re allowing electronic so-called countermeasures to be taken, and this, again, is in the name of security. It’s so that we know if electronic devices like phones are going to be used as bombs. Yes, we need to know if something is going to be bombed, but we don’t actually know what these countermeasures are going to be, because they’re going to be imposed by foreign agents. They may well include collecting data about where certain electronic devices are. So these are the privacy rights of ordinary New Zealanders or visitors to this nation during the summit—to have their movements tracked and known, their devices accessed in ways that we are not going to be regulating. The only measure of security included in this bill against abuse of that power is that the foreign agents won’t be allowed to share that information. Well, we know that privacy rights are breached the minute our information is accessed, our movements are tracked, and, again, it is cold comfort to a victim of a breach like that—if they’re being targeted by a Government as a protester, as an activist, or as an ordinary citizen—that that Government has collected their information, tracked their whereabouts, but hasn’t shared it. That’s another power that we’re giving away.

It is concerning that at this moment in global history, where New Zealand stands as a beacon for things like kindness and progressive governance, instead of standing up to these measures, that we know have again and again been imposed by the international elite, we are, instead, bowing down. Instead of standing as an independent voice on the world stage, forging a path, showcasing our ways in terms of human rights, in terms of privacy rights, in terms of non-violence, we are, instead, adopting what has been imposed again and again, placing at risk the safety of our communities and lowering our standards of human rights. So the Green Party won’t be supporting this bill.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Mr Speaker, very pleased to support this bill. Look, I’m disappointed the Greens are not—and my next comments are not directed at Golriz Ghahraman herself, but the logic, or lack of, just being put forward by the Greens opposing this bill is just utter, utter nonsense and completely absurd on two levels. The impression that’s been given is that New Zealand is opening its border to a whole lot of mercenaries—untrained, according to the Green Party—who are coming in to invade New Zealand over the course of a few days, take over the country, deploy themselves with all sorts of weaponry and destroy our country. She also says it’s a disgrace and an undermining of rights. The thing about human rights is they always have to be balanced, and I hope the Green Party would understand that those people coming from overseas—some of whom are constant targets of threats and harassment; in fact, often from socialists and from those on the left—want and need protection. They have a right to their safety.

All this bill is enabling is those highly trained protection specialists who accompany heads of State or heads of Government to be able to protect their charges. It is no different from when a Prime Minister of New Zealand or our head of State travels—that they have their own security detail. There is absolutely no difference, and this bill is just providing that opportunity to make that legal. And one of the points, as we ended up in some, again, absurd situation that, you know, certain particular groups are going to be victimised because a whole series of bodyguards are protecting their charges—again, hard to understand how that would happen. This is all under the control of the New Zealand Police. This is all to be led through the New Zealand Police.

In a press release, the Greens have indicated that New Zealand could do it on its own—again, absolutely absurd. We have amazing security services. We have a wonderful Defence Force, fantastic police officers, but there’s no way we have enough personnel to provide the security required. So what this bill is attempting to do, first and foremost, is engage our defence forces and particularly our special forces to be able to work with police and under police jurisdiction, and, as has been noted, allow the protection officers for those visiting dignitaries to be able to operate under police control.

Look, the bill is coming to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. We look forward to drilling into this a bit further. I think, with any legislation, we do want to look into it more carefully. Gerry Brownlee has noted a small aspect, important, though, between the interplay of diplomatic immunity and making sure that those people are also—well, how would they be treated under New Zealand law if an incident were to happen? One that I’m particularly interested in is that speedy interchange, if you will, if needed, where constabulary powers can be given. Speaking to some of our Defence people and from some previous learnings, some of the processes in play to enable constabulary powers to be given, particularly under an emergency situation, need to be swift. So we’re going to tease that out. I understand, from the Minister indicating, that we’ve, effectively, got four months to sort this out. If anything, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee is showing that it can work under pressure.

This is a good bill. APEC is incredibly important and useful to New Zealand, and if there is one right that we need to emphasise today, it’s the right to safety: the safety of New Zealanders, as an earlier speaker has indicated, but I would say that it’s also the right of those visiting this fine country to be safe, to be able to do their job and represent their country in ours.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): This is a split call. I call Ginny Andersen.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be able to speak on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2021) Bill. To a great extent, it goes to the point—and it’s already been mentioned today—how important our APEC friends are to us in order to sustain the ongoing wellbeing and economic development that New Zealand currently sustains. It’s great to see that we have a fantastic opportunity on the global stage to be able to connect and demonstrate our value as a key player within the Pacific region. It does advance us, and it plays well.

It has been a long time since 1999, the last time New Zealand hosted APEC, and the world has significantly changed in that time. In accordance with the changed dynamics in which New Zealand operates in a global context, it’s important that we are adequately equipped to host our friends in our country and to be able to secure them to make sure that we have a safe and a well-run APEC in 2021. This bill does exactly that. It ensures that New Zealand police are adequately equipped to be able to ensure they have the resources they need in terms of both people and technology to give New Zealanders and our visitors safety and security during that time.

The bill provides for temporary security and safety areas around key places and key meetings, as well as for motorcades during the three-week leaders’ event. It’s important to note that this legislation is, in fact, temporary. It provides just for the period of time in which we will be hosting this international event, and many aspects will only be enforced during the leaders’ event. When all APEC meetings are concluded and finished and our visitors have left our shores, this legislation will expire and things will be the way they were. So I think that’s an important point to make.

We’re really lucky to have this opportunity, and it’s good to have a bill that makes sure that we provide accommodation, venues, key sites; that our roads are closed at the appropriate times; that we are securing our maritime areas and managing water areas surrounding hotels or other locations to make sure that the general public have a strong sense of feeling safe within New Zealand, at a time when many eyes internationally will be upon us.

So this legislation, essentially, seeks to minimise the impact of APEC in 2021 on New Zealanders, and it’s great to see support from across the other side of the House. It supports our preparation and also our ability to respond to any risks that may arise in 2021. It also means that we can welcome our guests with a strong sense of confidence that we can provide and be proud of the show that we will host in that time. It means that all those guests from APEC economies will operate in a safe and a secure environment that works to really enhance not only the economic prosperity of our country but also our long-term wellbeing. I commend this bill to the House.

PAULO GARCIA (National): Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, it’s a huge event: 21 countries, 21 world leaders, 12 months of a series of events, culminating in the leaders’ week in November in 2021—20,000 people coming to New Zealand participating in that. Rightfully so, the world will be looking at New Zealand and how we handle this event, New Zealand being an original signatory to APEC in 1989 and hosting it in 1999. So many years have passed, and the change in the world scenario has greatly enhanced the need for security arrangements to be correctly set.

The bill seeks to address just that, particularly dealing with security for the visiting world leaders, making sure that the protection they need will be handled well and sufficiently, rightfully placing control over into the hands of the Commissioner of Police, assisted by the New Zealand military, who will be trained and empowered as constables. It seems that all of this is absolutely necessary so that people who will be coming to and watching New Zealand over 2021, over the whole APEC, will see and experience a New Zealand that is, at the world stage, exceeding its abilities and doing so well.

Having in the past been involved in arranging for the visit of two Philippine presidents in New Zealand in 2012, and recently, the times that we spent dealing with security discussions with the accompanying security detail of the presidents were long, long hours, and the diplomacy of the New Zealand police force in having to deal with a foreign security detail was amazing to watch. But that was just one president, and we have 21 world leaders.

The need for security is something that most New Zealanders might find unusual, out of our experiential worlds, but the world leaders that will be coming, where they are experiencing huge threats to themselves in what they do, their protection detail are, to a high degree, tasked with making sure that they’re OK, and that’s what they will bring with them when they come here.

The world has also changed in many ways: wireless technology, and the ease of getting into a transport vehicle and ramming into a crowd has been shown to be very effective in many parts of the world already. So, rightfully so for APEC in New Zealand, focus must be on security, and this bill just does exactly that. We support this bill. Madam Speaker, thank you.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): It’s an absolute honour for me to stand today to speak on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2021) Bill. I want to remind the House that in 1999, our leader at the time was a woman, and, again, the world is going to look at us in terms of the leadership of our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern.

Chris Bishop: She won’t be PM then. It’s post-2020.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: OK, if you get my dates wrong. But I also want to acknowledge the speech from the Rt Hon Winston Peters, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In his first two minutes, what stood out for me were the words “[building] strong, trusting relationships” and New Zealand taking leadership in this region, which is vitally important. He spoke about how it will be “our chance to host world leaders and international media, [to] show New Zealand [can do it] and how we can do it.”

I want to also acknowledge the words that the Hon Aupito William Sio spoke about, that it’s inherently just a New Zealand value, and that’s about the value of manaakitanga. The value of manaakitanga is about how the travellers to our shores experience how we host them—experience our hospitality, experience how we care for them as visitors, and experience how we as a people live in this land that we live in in terms of Aotearoa New Zealand.

That also is about the policy objectives of this bill. It is about safety and security. The policy objectives of the bill are about supporting the safe and secure APEC of 2021 events for all world leaders, attendees, and the general public. But that is also about the experience of the traveller reaching our shores, and it’s about the experience of those who are on these shores and how we will host our travellers with manaakitanga. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, yet again, the Greens have demonstrated why they are an irresponsible party that can’t be trusted in Government.

APEC is very important to New Zealand, as numerous speakers have noted. We haven’t hosted it since 1999—and it is in 2021, I say to Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, the previous speaker; not next year—and it will provide an opportunity for New Zealand to talk to Prime Ministers from around the world and world leaders but also to show off New Zealand to the world. The APEC in 1999—some members will remember it. I was 16, I think, at the time. It’s an opportunity to show New Zealand to the world, so we’ve got to get it right.

The Green Party will not even vote for this bill to go to a select committee. There are, I think, legitimate issues you can talk about when it comes to people coming into the country, having, essentially, a waiver of New Zealand law temporarily to provide security. There are legitimate questions around that and around the appropriateness of special legislation around special events, and in a perfect world, that’s not how you would make law in the country. But the Greens say, “No, no. Actually, it’s so beyond the pale we can’t even send the bill to a committee.” So, yet again, the National Party is going to help out the Government and make sure that the bill can go to a committee, because we’re a responsible party of Government and we realise that you actually need sensible measures in order to host events like this.

When you’ve got, I hope, the President of the United States—whoever that is—coming to New Zealand and you’ve got world leaders with millions of people behind them and economies worth trillions of dollars, and we’re a small country of not yet 5 million people, you do have to make sensible precautions and sensible measures. So the bill does that, and, yet again, the National Party will save the Government and provide sensible, constructive support to make sure that they can actually govern the country in the interests of New Zealanders. It’s a shame the Green Party won’t even vote for it at first reading to send it to a committee. That just demonstrates why they will always be a minority party that New Zealanders do not trust with the Treasury benches. Thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is pretty exciting that New Zealand gets to host APEC 2021, because it gives us a chance to show our leadership, right here in the region. Of course, having been part of APEC since 1989, with APEC being a forum that has facilitated economic growth, cooperation, trade, and investment in this region, it has been a really good thing for us. So to be able to host world leaders and international media is a great thing. However, as others have said before me, we need to make sure we do it well. As hosts, we need to be responsible hosts and make both our guests feel safe but also members of the New Zealand public feel safe at the same time as well, and that’s really what this bill does.

APEC New Zealand, which is the team lead by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has analysed the situation and found that we need some specific legislation in order to be able to play our role as good hosts and make sure that everyone feels safe when they’re here, and that’s what this bill is about. It’s about ensuring that the New Zealand Police have the resources that they need to be able to do so.

There’s just one point that I wanted to emphasise, in case there is some fear that this will be opening up our borders to a whole bunch of people with weapons coming in here to New Zealand. I just want to emphasise that during the leaders’ events period, there will be certain foreign protection officers who will be allowed to carry firearms, subject to the approval of the Commissioner of Police and subject to conditions that the commissioner may impose, like the type of weapon and like the number of weapons that can be brought in that is appropriate. They will be carried only by highly trained protection officers while they are here protecting their leaders. These weapons will also be recorded on entry and exit from New Zealand, as well.

The other point that I just wanted to emphasise is that this is for a limited period of time, it’s for a specific purpose, and it’s to keep those who are coming here safe. Different countries have different levels of security requirements, and we’re catering for that as a good host. That’s pretty much what this bill is about. Clause 3 of the bill provides that the bill will self-repeal on the close of the leaders’ event period, which is 21 November 2021.

So this is a practical bill that will go a long way to keep our guests who come here for APEC 2021 safe and it will protect New Zealanders during that period, as well. It’s for a specific purpose and for a specific time, and I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2021) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 111

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; Ross.

Noes 9

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8; ACT New Zealand 1.

That the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC 2021) Bill be reported to the House by 1 April 2020.

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

Ayes 64

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Part 1 agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development) on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: I move,

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Referendums Framework Bill

In Committee

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The House is in committee on the Referendums Framework Bill. Members, this bill has been drafted with an extra clause that sits outside the parts’ structure, which will give rise to an extra debate. The committee will first debate each of the four parts separately. These parts form the substance of the bill. The committee will then debate clause 3 separately. This is the clause that would repeal the bill in 2022. After voting on the Schedules, the committee will then debate the title and commencement provisions at clauses 1 and 2.

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The National opposition to this bill is so well expressed in clause 4, which really does misrepresent what the Government is attempting with this referendum bill. It’s really important to understand the background. Since 1853, every referendum that’s been held at a general election has been authorised by the Parliament, every party in this Parliament has had an opportunity to have a say, and the public have had an opportunity on the questions. This is really an exercise in the Government pacifying its Green and New Zealand First parties by undermining that very strong convention of referenda only being held at elections with the authority of the Parliament.

I want the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, to explain why we should move away from 160 years of electoral history where every single referendum has been determined by the Parliament. I’d also love the Minister in the chair to give some explanation of the dog’s breakfast of different ways that the Government is handling the referendum. There is good reason to be cautious in this area. We know the Mother of Parliaments is facing the greatest difficulties in hundreds of years as a consequence of the Brexit referendum and the constitutional crisis it has triggered between the result of that referendum and the parliamentary powers.

So what we’ve got here is this: when it comes to the cannabis referendum, the public is being asked to vote on a bill of which they have no idea what the legislation will be. The legislation won’t be passed. On the euthanasia referendum, we have a different approach. Goodness knows we may also end up with a referendum on abortion, albeit I find it completely bizarre that the Minister in the chair supports a referendum on euthanasia, but does not support one on abortion. I’d love him to explain the rationale for that.

I became exceedingly nervous when I heard the comments in the second reading speech from the Green Party on this bill, where they talked about the wording. If there was a referendum process that was going to be manipulated, it was her saying that the question would be: “Do New Zealanders support the effective regulation of cannabis?” Wow. Is that the sort of question that we’re going to get in respect of this referendum? Is that a fair way to express the issue? Every member of this committee knows that the way you frame the question has a huge effect on the result. If you ask New Zealanders in polls whether they support assisted suicide, most New Zealanders say, “No.”; if you ask them whether they support end of life choice, most of them in the polls say, “Yes.”

Well, guess what! The Government does support euthanasia, and that’s why they are framing the word in that way. I’d love to know from the Minister in the chair, why, through this bill and the purpose of this bill in Part 1, is he wanting to cut the Parliament out of having any say on the wording on the referendum that is proposed in respect of cannabis? Let’s be clear and honest about what really is going on. They’ve done a dirty deal with the Greens to cut out the Parliament, to cut across constitutional norms, because that’s the deal they did to be the Government. It is as unprincipled as that. That’s what really drives this issue.

The other part I’d love to get an explanation from the Minister about is that all this power is being transferred to this Government but not to any future Government. Now, what sort of a dirty deal is that? No wonder the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee said this bill is unfair, that it’s undemocratic, and that it breaches New Zealand’s long conventions around the way in which our democracy functions. This is the third time this Government is riding roughshod over electoral law. It’s a sign of a weak Government that has had to do dirty deals—

Hon Aupito William Sio: It’s a familiar speech.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, I’d love the member to explain why we are having a referendum on abortion but not euthanasia. I’d love the member who has interjected to explain.

Ginny Andersen: No, no. It’s the other way round—the other way round. Having a referendum—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That’s right, having a referendum on euthanasia. I’d love a member of the Government to explain why there is that contradiction. I’d also love the Minister in the chair to explain why the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, in their submission to the Justice Committee, raised very serious concerns about this bill. I’ve never heard, in my nearly 30 years as an MP, public servants come to a committee and say that a bill is a threat to New Zealand’s democratic traditions, that a bill involves a significant transfer of power from the Parliament to the Cabinet.

Raymond Huo: That’s not what they said.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That’s exactly what they said. Well, I ask the member Raymond Huo to pick up the submission and read, Mr Raymond Huo, exactly what it said. They said that this bill is contrary to the fair administration of elections. I’ll tell the member why. The reason why you can have huge influence over an election by determining the topic of a referendum is because by the topic you choose, you will affect the turnout. I think the Greens are so keen to have a referendum on cannabis at the next election because all those people that have a liberal view of cannabis will turn out and that might up their vote. I think that is manipulation. I think that’s wrong.

Here’s the further explanation I’d love members, like Mr Huo, opposite to explain. In the last Government, we had a debate on a referendum bill on the flag referendum. Members opposite argued that it was undemocratic that the public only had five minutes each to be able to comment on the wording of the referendum. That’s what Labour members said. They said it was outrageous. They said that it was undemocratic because the public only had five minutes at the select committee to comment on the wording of the referendum. The bit I agreed with then was they said the wording of the referendum on the topics is very important. But that’s clearly what this bill does. The public get no opportunity to have a say at all about the topic of the referendum. Whether it was on euthanasia or whether it’s on recreational cannabis, the Cabinet simply decides itself.

Here’s a further point I’d love the Minister in the chair to address. His colleague the Minister for New Zealand First said the reason we’re advancing this bill is because the Government doesn’t trust the Parliament—the Government doesn’t trust the Parliament. I have never heard—and it is insulting to this institution. It’s even more insulting to the memorials on the walls of this Parliament of people who gave their lives so that we could live in a democratic country in which Parliament was sovereign to have a Government Minister say that you can’t trust the Parliament.

I wonder how many New Zealanders would say, “Yup, I really trust Winston Peters before the Parliament. I’d much rather he made all the decisions, rather than the Parliament.” I suspect there would be less people than on one hand that would actually hold that view. I’d love to know from the Minister in the chair whether he agrees with the statement from Tracey Martin, New Zealand First Minister, who, in justifying the transfer of power from Parliament to just the Cabinet to decide on the topic and the wording of referendum—that he agrees with Tracey Martin’s statement that you just can’t trust the Parliament. Let’s be clear, when she said you can’t trust the Parliament, she was also saying you can’t trust the public, because the significance of this bill is that the public is cut out of having any say in the referendum topics and the referendum question.

So this is a noxious bill. If National brought this bill into Parliament during the last session, there would have been howls of horror from members opposite. It’s not right—it is not right. The decisions on referenda should rest with the Parliament. They should have the opportunity to have a public say. We are doing, and being part of, a dirty deal to simply satisfy the internal politics of the Government. This Parliament should have no bar of the significant changes that are being made and manipulation of the system in which our country has referenda at general elections.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, it’s sadly predictable that the member who has just resumed his seat, Nick Smith, says the only political strategy in anything is to catastrophise everything—just as with the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Act, the world was going to stop spinning on its axis, and politics in New Zealand was going to be, sort of, ended for all time. In fact, the only party that had the opportunity to exercise any powers under that Act was the National Party, and life carried on. Life just sailed on, because what that member failed to get is that in politics we are dealing with people, and I’m talking about politicians now, and politicians make judgments. Just as every other citizen does. People make decisions and they make judgments, and they’re not automatons and they’re not robots and they don’t behave like Nick Smith, which is a saving grace for us all.

I want to make these comments: we already have, on our statute books, a piece of legislation promoted and encouraged by that member’s party, it’s called the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act, that allows for questions in referendums to be set by Order in Council, which is what this bill does. This bill is not novel in that regard. It follows—and I’m trying to flatter them now—the National Party’s precedent that they set in the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act. And, you know, it looks good on that statute book; it will look good on this one as well.

The member asked a question about ways of handling referendums. He is right about Brexit, because—talk about political judgment—there was a political judgment, a political promise made on the fly in the middle of an election campaign for internal purposes of the British Conservative Party, who would know, and they embarked on a referendum with no substance at all about what it was about, there was a campaign that was full of misleading statements, and a result was achieved that has caused that country chaos for the best part now of three years.

The whole reason for having a piece of draft legislation—which is yet subject to a cross-party process, which I expect will happen before Christmas—is exactly that, that by the time New Zealand voters get to voting booths at whatever time next year, they will have a fully drafted piece of legislation; every right, every power, and every aspect of it will be known. There will be plain English explanations of it, people will know about it and know where to go to get accurate information about it. All of that will be the subject of cross-party consultation and dialogue, because that is the right way to do it.

We have two referendums now lined up for the 2020 general election: the End of Life Choice Act provides for a referendum in that piece of legislation, and there will be one about cannabis because that is the political promise that has been made. New Zealand voters will get a chance to decide whether or not we want to change the legal status of each of those things that are covered by that piece of legislation.

Tangentially, as the member Dr Nick Smith has asked in his comments just now: why have a referendum on end of life choice? Well, that was a decision that Parliament made. Why not on abortion? Well, Parliament hasn’t got to that point—and, in any event, 13,200 abortions are carried out in New Zealand; that is not a new thing. There is no statutory mandated end of life choice decision taken. That bill is about a fundamentally different status for that decision coming into our society, and New Zealanders should have a say on that. So that is the difference. I’m sorry that some members, even if they’ve been here for nearly 30 years, kind of don’t get that. I actually know that the Hon Dr Nick Smith is intellectually better than that, than his speech actually gives rise to. Now, if he wants to compare about—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Always play the man; can’t handle the argument, so play the ball.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: —criticisms of the—there I am trying to say something nice about the Hon Dr Nick Smith, about his intellectual capability, and I get accused of trying to do him down; I have more respect for him than that.

But I just wanted to say this about, you know, those—the Legislation and Design Advisory Committee and others—criticising the legislation: I have to tell you there are a lot of independent bodies absolutely horrified at a piece of legislation that abolished the right of Cantabrians to have a democratic right to elect their regional council representatives. I hate to tell the House this—I hate to have to remind the House of this—but the sponsor of that legislation was the great constitutionalist the Hon Dr Nick Smith. So, look, you know, it’s OK for some things; it’s not OK for others. We cannot have people that unprincipled, sort of, getting up and lecturing me in this House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak in the committee of the whole House stage of the Referendums Framework Bill. My first question to the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, is: what is the plural of “referendum”? I note that elsewhere in the same legislation, he refers to “referenda”, and that’s presumably because a previous piece of legislation has that reference. In his comments just now, he got it right, actually, one out of two times in relation to that existing Act—so 50 percent is probably as good as it gets. So that’s my first question, which I don’t expect an answer on particularly.

More seriously, but remaining within that purpose clause: why is that we are concerning ourselves with this legislation only with the first general election after the commencement of this Act? Why is it not that the Government would have provisions that were indefinite in the usual way, until such time as they are repealed and/or replaced? Of course, the Government has previously said that they could allow themselves in a further term, were they to be elected—which, of course, is no certain thing; very uncertain thing, in fact—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, Mr Penk. If I just could just draw your attention to the fact that I am of the view that that’s in Part 3, and we’re debating Part 1.

CHRIS PENK: Thank you, Madam Chair. Respectfully, the purpose does specifically refer to the purpose being in relation to the first general election after the commencement.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): OK. Good. Thank you.

CHRIS PENK: Thank you, Madam Chair. So I’m interested to know why it is that the Government has not adopted an approach that would be normal, whereby you would simply have a piece of legislation that continues until such time it is actively discontinued. Elsewhere in the bill, there’s a repeal provision, a sunset clause, but I won’t get to that at this point, because we’re on Part 1 of the debate.

The next aspect that I’m interested to know the Minister’s thoughts on and the Government thinking on—also within Part 1, of course—is in clause 5, the interpretation clause: “general election”. So the meaning of that, I suppose, is clear enough, but, again, questions arise. At least hypothetically there’s a situation where a referendum that’s intended to be conducted by the Government isn’t arranged in time ahead of the 2020 election, and I’m thinking specifically in relation to the possible legalisation or decriminalisation of recreational cannabis. It might be the Government—or perhaps the Parliament or whoever; it could in fact be just the Government—that arrives at a decision to hold such a referendum, but that’s not reached, let’s say, by March of next year, in time for that to be on the ballot paper for the 2020 general election. There might still be a general election after that before the repeal date. So with that theoretical possibility out there, I’d be interested to know why the Minister has decided, presumably as a conscience decision, not simply to allow it to be the first general election after the commencement of the Act or the first general election after an Order in Council or Act declares such a referendum to be held, provided that it’s before the expiry of the Act—whichever the first of those, I think would be the logical way to construct such a provision.

I should acknowledge, in relation to that, the Minister has said that he expects prior to Christmas it would be that the drugs-related referendum would be established by the Government parties. But, of course, expectation and reality are not always the same thing. I’ll say no more than that on that particular point.

I also wonder if the Minister can explain why it is that a referendum—and the meaning of that within the interpretation clause is a referendum declared by an Act or by an Order in Council—would be available to the Government to set up a regime where it would be an Act of Parliament that would declare that a referendum is to take place, rather than allowing the Government simply to do that. And it could be, then, that the Cabinet and the ministry, the executive branch, could be allowed to implement the mechanics and come up with the rules surrounding that. That’s not a particularly attractive proposition so far as we are concerned on this side of the House, but at least it would be a tighter regime than what is currently suggested in that meaning of “referendum” in the interpretation clause.

My next question—and I note that the Minister is diligently writing these down, for which I thank him and I look forward to the responses shortly, no doubt—is in relation to the interaction with the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act. I’ve brought that up for two reasons: one is that it uses the plural of referenda correctly, but also because there is no other reference within Part 1 to that under Schedule 1. So I wonder if the Minister can advise—obviously with recourse to his officials, if that’s helpful—the interaction of this piece of legislation with that other Act that, it seems to me, could, at least potentially, be relevant. For that to be true on a factual basis, it would have to be that there was a citizens initiated referendum between now and the 2020 election, but that’s not impossible. So I wonder if that’s a deliberate act—and I say that with a lowercase “A”—on the part of the Government to preclude that possibility, or if it’s something that simply hasn’t been contemplated.

My final question is, really, in relation to the purpose of the Act or the purpose of the bill. There is a whole purpose section, of course, but I wonder what the purpose of the purpose is—what’s, sort of, the underlying problem that is sought to be fixed by way of this legislation, and why we do not simply have, for example, the existing regime, which has almost invariably—or invariably, depending who you listen to—been the case whereby an Act of Parliament can actually set out all the rules of the game instead of having the sort of hybrid model that we’ve got on the Table in front of us today.

So I’ll leave it there, at least for now, in relation to Part 1, and look forward to responses that the Minister is able to give on those particular points.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Madam Chair. On the crucial matter before the House this afternoon, there are two definitions for the plural of “referendum”, and there is “referenda” and “referendums”. I’m in the “referendums” camp.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh, we agree on something.

Hon CLARE CURRAN: Ha, ha! We agree—we agree. I did study Latin at one point, but I do think that there is an argument for “referenda”. I guess the only plea I make is that there is consistency throughout the bill as to which one we come down on the side of.

I would like to make a comment around the difficulty in having an actual debate with Nick Smith. That is, it would be really good to actually have a proper debate about some of the matters that are upsetting the National Party on this particular piece of legislation, but it’s so difficult, because—and I think the Minister used the word “catastrophising”, that it’s the sky is falling in, to the point where it’s impossible to actually discuss and to actually have the debate. Unfortunately, and I don’t want to be unparliamentary, but when Chris Bishop gave his speech yesterday afternoon in the second reading, there were points of argument that could actually be debated which would have been quite useful to have in the discussion this afternoon, but, unfortunately, that’s not to be.

One of the main points to make about this bill is that it’s a mechanical bill. It doesn’t deal with substance. It’s a mechanical bill that sets up a framework for activities to occur. Yes, it runs out after the 2020 election, but as the Minister said in his speech when he got up before, there’s precedent for that from the National Party, so it’s a bit hard to know what the substance of that particular argument is. On the argument around the constitutional outrage that the substance of the question in the cannabis referendum will not initially come before the Parliament, there is a process which was set out, and I explained that yesterday, where it can go to the Regulations Review Committee and where there can be a vote against it and it can actually come back to this House for debate.

But the fact is—and this is where, again, the Hon Dr Nick Smith is wrong, plain wrong—around the constitutional precedents for referendums. I’ll just read the advice that came from the officials on this matter. We won’t rely on what, you know, is being said by politicians. I’ll read the advice of what was said by officials to the Justice Committee. They said that “The decision on whether to put a matter to a referendum is primarily a political matter. There are very few statutory requirements or almost no restrictions on what matters are put to referendum or how such decisions are made.” Shall I read that sentence again—what do you people think? “There are very few statutory requirements or almost no restrictions on what matters are put to referendum or how such decisions are made. The appropriate level of parliamentary oversight over such decisions and the appropriate extent of public and/or parliamentary input into the wording of a referendum question are matters of political judgment. Respecting this, we have not made any recommendations on the submissions.”

Now, Nick Smith can carry on like a pork chop to his heart’s content, but the fact is that he’s wrong and that his constitutional outrage is, you know, reflected in almost every speech that he gives in this House. If he wants to be taken seriously on any matter and for there to be a proper debate and discussion about it, let’s try and bring the tone down. Let’s stop the shouting and actually have a reasonable debate, because that’s what the House is for. I’ll no doubt make other contributions, but the fact is that he’s wrong on that matter and it is a matter of political judgment and there could be a chance for it to come back to the House.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Interesting isn’t it, that when the going gets tough, Labour descend into personal abuse and personal attack, you know, and this very passive-aggressive type of parliamentary argument where a member—and, indeed, a Minister—will get to their feet and call for some real debate, and then in an extremely aggressive yet passive manner undermine and denigrate members over the House. I regret that very much in the debate on Part 1 of the Referendums Framework Bill.

Both the Minister in the chair and the Hon Clare Curran cited the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act, which took place back in about 2009, I think, or 2010, from memory, and said this is the precedent, you know; these things are the same. They’re not the same. With respect, what is happening here with this Referendums Framework Bill and what happened back with the appointment of commissioners for Environment Canterbury (ECan) is—there is nothing similar. In the first instance, this bill deals with electoral law, and there are conventions of this House which are being ignored in the development of this bill, and I’ll talk about that a little bit more. But secondly, the ECan commissioners bill was there to solve a problem, and that problem was that Environment Canterbury utterly failed to notify and even get an operative water plan, much to the detriment of water quality in Canterbury. So if that side of the Government of the day wishes to get up and criticise a Minister in the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who had the fortitude to call in the councillors and appoint commissioners in order to solve a problem, then good on them, but I certainly don’t agree. We certainly know that under the tenure of the commissioners—and yes, I am coming back to the bill, Madam Chair—there was a significant advance in water quality and allocation that ECan could not achieve.

So on two counts, I utterly reject any notion of similarity. In fact, the only problem that the Government is trying to solve in this bill is its rather tricky coalition agreements. For that, I think this bill does not deserve to have any kind of praise heaped upon it.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I just wonder if the member could turn to Part 1 of the bill now. Thank you.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Yes, thank you. Thank you. What I was doing—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I understand what you were doing.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: —was a preamble to Part 1 of the bill, and so now I will move back to my point around the conventions of electoral law, because in the preliminary provisions, of course, clause 4 provides for one or more referenda to be held in conjunction with the next general election. My contention is that for a number of years in New Zealand, electoral law has been the matter of a Justice Committee inquiry into the general election and also into the local election. Now, the question I have for the Minister is why not use that well-understood parliamentary process for determining whether there were to be referenda held at the next general election? The process is there. It is a standing committee of Parliament. The Justice Committee every three years turns its attention to this matter.

It is not the Opposition’s position that the inquiry into the 2017 general election was commenced in a timely manner. It could well have been generated on the first meeting of the committee, which has happened in previous parliaments. The fact that it was not should not be an impediment for a consideration of referenda attached to the next general election, 2020, having to go outside of that process. Even to today, the select committee has not yet reported back on the inquiry into the 2017 general election. So I would like the Minister to explain to the committee just why this issue could not have been considered within that context, allowing experts in the field—of which there are many in electoral law who come to the Justice Committee to give their view. [Bell rung] Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Before I give the member another call, I’d really encourage her to speak to Part 1 of the bill.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Thank you, Madam Chair. So in the context of an inquiry into the general election, it is not too late for the Minister to invite, perhaps, the chair of that committee to extend the report back. The reality is that constitutional electoral matters fall well within the purview of that examination.

So finally on Part 1 in my contribution, I want to mention clause 5: the “referendum” is defined to mean a referendum that has been declared by Order in Council, so thereby subverting, also, what has been common practice in New Zealand. It does seem to me that the purpose of this bill, including Part 1 and other parts to which we will have something to comment on, is excluding input from the New Zealand public. It’s not good enough to say that the framework bill—and I don’t also agree that this is just a framework bill—with its select committee stage, which has been and gone where the public have been able to submit, is in any way making up for the lack of public engagement by way of a select committee process to determine the wording of the referenda.

So, Madam Chair, I thank you for your indulgence but there were several points I wanted to make. Thank you.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I just want to respond to a couple of the points raised, in particular by the member Chris Penk. I’m very thankful for his contributions; they’re always thoughtful and, I think, always well presented. I’m not going to get into plurals of referendum. I think that’s been disposed of and the Clerk has approved the title of the bill—that’s the only thing that matters, really.

The member raised the question about the drafting of the bill in relation to the fact that the referendum is to be held in conjunction with the first general election after the passage of the bill, as of the commencement of the Act. That is a more felicitous expression, I think, than his alternative proposal, that actually sounded very conflicted, with all due respect. I think people are very clear what this applies to. A bit like some of the other areas of electoral law that this Government has been prevailed upon to consider, that is in the context of an overarching piece of advice that I’ve had, which is that the reality is our electoral law—with separate bits of legislation relating to different types of referendum sort of bolted on to it—is kind of grown like Topsy. It’s a 1956 piece of law with MMP jammed into it, and not a great deal else. It is needing of a ground-up review. So I am foreshadowing that following the next general election, should any of the parties in Government be in a position to do so, this House should expect they will be engaged in a ground-up review of the Electoral Act. So we’re not trying to legislate too far ahead.

The member refers to the definition of referendum. That definition covers the different sources of referendum that might happen. We now have one mandated by the End of Life Choice Act, and we can have one that comes through an Order in Council provision, which is what this bill, effectively, provides for. So it covers all those possibilities, and it therefore achieves what is needed in order to get those questions answered by the electorate in next year’s general election.

The member referred to the citizens initiated referendum process, and worries that something like a referendum question might come up through that process—and I simply point out to him that that legislation is a recurring process for getting out a citizens initiated referendum which starts with a petition to Parliament of quite humungous proportions: I think 10 percent of the electorate has to sign up to it. In the end this bill is about preparing ourselves for the next general election. And really, in answer to the comments from the Hon Jacqui Dean, it is giving the Electoral Commission enough time to do their preparation to do that so that it can be organised. So I don’t anticipate there would be referendum questions coming from any other source. There will be two questions in next year’s general election, and these will be them.

To answer the Hon Jacqui Dean’s question, I go back to the point about timeliness. We need to pass this legislation to give the Electoral Commission the mandate to organise these referendums on these questions for 2020; anything beyond that we’ll come back to in the more thorough going review of our electoral law.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I firstly want to respond to the comment from the Minister about rewriting our electoral laws. Nothing gives me more nervousness, and I’ll tell you why. The John Key and previous National Governments have had an absolute policy that electoral law, including this bill and this part, are sacrosanct—we don’t have a constitution—and will always involve consultation with the Opposition parties. In every electoral bill that was advanced by a Minister of Justice under a National Government, there was consultation with the Opposition. There was zero consultation on this bill. There was zero consultation on the waka hopping bill. There was zero consultation on the Electoral Amendment Bill. The part that is dangerous about the Minister in the chair is he believes it’s up to the Government to write the electoral laws to suit the Government of the day; that’s morally wrong and we will challenge it at every step of the way.

I secondly want to challenge the Labour view that there’s nothing in this bill that breaks conventions. They challenge the notion that referendum at general elections are determined by Parliament. I tell you what conventions are: when something’s been done a particular way for 160 years. For 160 years—whether they’ve been referendum on compulsory military training, whether it’s been referendum on our alcohol laws, whether it’s been referendum on the four-year term or MMP, in every single one of them the decision on the topic and the wording has been one for Parliament. And so it is straight crock when Labour members say that this bill does not change the conventions. You bet it does. When something’s been done a particular way for 165 years since 1853, it is a convention.

There’s a very important part of clause 5 that says that the decision on the referendum topic and the wording is entirely one to be made by Order in Council—entirely one for the Cabinet. Let’s be clear what Parliament’s doing. If the Minister and his colleagues in Cabinet want to have 4, 5, 6, 10, 20 referendum at the election, that’s it; Parliament’s giving them the power—it’s their decision. I wonder what Labour members opposite would think if a National Government said, “Oh, without coming to Parliament we’re just going to have a referendum on getting rid of the Māori seats.” I’ll tell you what, I’ll make a bet: the forecourt of Parliament would have thousands and thousands of protesters. They would be screaming from the rooftops. That is why—as my colleagues Jacqui Dean and Chris Penk have pointed out—they only want this extra power to go to Cabinet while they’re in the Cabinet room. They actually don’t want a future National Government—that may be closer than what they think—to have the powers that are available.

I want a very simple and important question to be answered by the Minister: does he expect the cannabis referendum to be binding? It’s actually pretty important. I think New Zealanders will want to know whether his expectation of it is that it will be a binding referendum. It’s pretty crude, because New Zealanders aren’t going to have the normal say about the wording of that referendum. We’re not going to have a bill pass through the Parliament; as we did on MMP, on alcohol, and all the other referendum. The Minister does need to answer the question: does he, against the advice of justice officials—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The time has come for the House to adjourn for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

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

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Members, the House is in committee for further consideration of the Referendums Framework Bill. When we rose for the dinner break we were considering Part 1. The Hon Dr Nick Smith had the call and has one minute and 21 seconds remaining, should he so wish.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Thank you, Madam Chair. A key part of Part 1 is about the bill binding the Crown. A really important practical question that New Zealanders wish to know is: is the Government expecting to bind the country in the referendum on recreational cannabis? We know the process is against that—that was recommended by the officials. They wanted a process where a full bill was passed through the scrutiny of the Parliament with, effectively, a clause not indifferent to that which was put in the euthanasia bill that brought it into effect. But New Zealanders do want to know whether the expectation of the Government is that it’ll bind.

In my view, when the Parliament is being excluded from the process of developing the question, when the public is getting no say formally in the process for determining the question, why the heck should they be bound? Why should there be a bind on this Parliament to abide the outcome of the referendum when the very intention of Part 1 of this bill is to do something that hasn’t been done in 160 years, and that is to take Parliament out of the process for determining both the topic and the wording of the question? So I ask the Minister in the chair to address the question as to whether the referendum will be binding, and whether the expectation is that it will—[Bell rung]

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): The Hon Dr Nick Smith. Sorry, before the member takes his next call, can I just say that having a word in common between a word that’s in the part and his contribution, doesn’t mean that he’s speaking to the part. I really would encourage him to speak to Part 1.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: A key part of Part 1 is the purpose. The purpose in clause 4 is to provide for one or more referendums.

The first point that I wanted to make with strong objection is that this bill gives Cabinet a blank cheque to have as many different referendum as it wishes. So whether it wants to have a referendum on the New Zealand First policy of abolishing the Māori seats, whether it wishes to have a referendum, that the Green Party may wish to have, on a climate change emergency, they could do all of those things off the back of this bill. We think, very strongly, that Part 1 is wrong, that Parliament should retain the right that it has for over 160, the right to make that decision.

But given the fact that every single one of the 20 referendum that have been held at general elections have been through a select committee process on the wording, that the law has gone through the Parliament, it has been accepted that those referendum are binding—whether they have been on the issue of compulsory military training, whether it was the referendum on MMP, whether it was the referendum on the four-year term, every one of those has had a parliamentary process and Parliament and the public recognise that we would respect the outcome.

The question I want the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, to address, that he has not addressed, is: is the intention and the purpose of Part 1 in this bill intended that it will be a binding referendum? That is a very crucial question. I became very nervous when I heard the Green Party talking about their suggested wording of the referendum on recreational cannabis. It sounded like a complete stitch-up, the sort of referendum that you might expect in a country where you’re trying to predetermine the outcome. So that question of whether the Government expects the referendum to be binding or not would be very helpful.

Maybe members opposite could give an indication as to whether that is the intention. I notice David Parker’s a very thoughtful member, he does think about this sort of stuff. Can he tell me whether the referendum will be binding or not? The member is absolutely silent.

Hon David Parker: Madam Speaker. He’d finished his call, I thought.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I’m sorry. Would the member like to yield so we can answer that question? Would Mr Parker like me to yield so that he can answer the question that I think New Zealanders would want to know: is the referendum to be binding or not? I notice there’s just a blank look on every member of the Government benches.

Tim van de Molen: That’s not unusual.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I know it’s not unusual. But don’t you think New Zealanders deserve an answer? Don’t you think New Zealanders want to know whether the referendum on recreational cannabis is to be binding or not? My colleague Chris Penk would like to know. Certainly the constituents of the very effective member of Parliament in the Waikato would like to know. Can the Minister in the chair provide some light on whether the purpose of this bill is for there to be a binding referendum on recreational cannabis, or is it just an indicator referendum? Is there a single member of the Government benches that is supporting this bill that can answer that fundamental question? If they cannot, it is just another good reason why this House should reject the shonky bill.

Part 2 Provisions relating to referendum

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Very happy to talk on Part 2. I do notice we have some guests in the gallery, so for the purposes of those looking on, because we know the proceedings of Parliament are broadcast far and wide, and every now and again we have a pretty packed gallery, it helps to understand that this is what we call the committee of the whole House stage. This is the point at which a piece of legislation is given very close examination and scrutiny. Every clause is gone through bit by bit. It’s a chance for the Opposition to raise questions about the issues in the particular part of the bill. Bills tend to be broken up into parts, so we do it part by part. So hopefully you’ll find this somewhat elucidating.

The bill that we’re talking about is called the Referendums Framework Bill. It is the piece of legislation that will govern the conduct of referendums in the 2020 general election. So we have some legislation that covers the holding of a referendum. We have our Electoral Act, but not all of them apply or cover the conduct of the type of referendum that we want to have associated with the general election in 2020. So with that explanatory note hopefully out of the way, hopefully that will make this a very pleasant experience for those in the gallery.

I just want to summarise Part 2 in saying this is very much the operative and mechanical part of the bill. It starts with clause 8, which allows a declaration of a referendum by Order in Council, as is very clear. The Hon Dr Nick Smith’s continued injunction that nothing like this has ever happened in 160 years is demonstrably incorrect. Even clause 8 refers to the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000, a piece of legislation that was promoted and encouraged by the National Government in the 1990s, endorsed by senior Ministers of that Government, passed in 2000. That is a piece of legislation that deals with referendum by postal vote and allows the referendum question to be promulgated through Order in Council. That’s what’s proposed, at least in relation to the referendum question, on the legalisation of cannabis.

That question will be the subject of consultation with all parties in Parliament. It has already been the subject of considerable academic input and consideration of polling groups, and what have you. So the idea when you ask a referendum question is it has to be neutral, it has to be cast in language that everybody understands, and that’s what we are intending to do. The draft question posed in a recent speech by a Green Party member is not the question that will be posed in the ballot paper for next year.

This part of the bill also covers off some of the mechanics of it. It says that the Electoral Act 1993 will apply; talks about who gets to officiate; basically replicates parts of the Electoral Act 1993, and that defines who can vote, which, oddly enough, is that anybody who can vote at a general election can also vote on the referendums; and it lays out requirements for the voting paper. It talks about the counting of votes. It provides for the votes cast for the referendums not to be counted on election night, because we don’t want to slow down the results for members of Parliament and list members who, by 7 o’clock on the Saturday night of election night, are literally sitting on the edges of their seats, wondering what’s going to happen—their fate in the hands of the people. So we don’t want to disrupt that moment of anxiety for members. These referendum questions—the votes will be counted for those subsequently and we will know within a couple of weeks, ideally, what the outcome of each of those election questions is. So that is provided for in these parts here.

Then there are the provisions around petitions. If somebody disagrees with the result or the result is very close, and perhaps considering a recount, there are provisions in relation to that as well. None of this will be unusual. This House has passed legislation before about referendums. Whether it’s the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act or whether it’s the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act, drafted by, promoted, encouraged, and first read by a National Government, this simply replicates that. So in any ordinary world, there would be agreement on that, but we don’t live in ordinary times at the moment, self-evidently, so that won’t happen. But these provisions are important. They are the meat and the bones of this particular bill. They provide for the practicalities of the conduct of the referendums in next year’s general election, and I look forward to the members’ questions on it.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. Turning to Part 2 of this Referendums Framework Bill, I’ve got a couple of specific questions for the Minister on the technical aspects of the way that the referendum would be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the bill, obviously.

So turning first to clause 9, “When referendum is to take place”, I note that the bill uses the phrase “polling day”, and the context is “A referendum of electors must be held on polling day for the general election.” I wonder if the Minister can assure us that that’s the appropriate phrase in the context of a general election that will include, of course, not only what’s traditionally been regarded as polling day or voting day or even election day, but now, of course, the context is that we have a significant advance voting period—significant not only in terms of time, but certainly the expectation and indeed the recent practice is that up to half, or maybe even more than half, of the votes that are cast in the general election would be by way of advance vote. That’s a practice that the Electoral Commission is actively encouraging.

I make no comment on that for current purposes, except to note that it is seemingly inevitable that we will have in the 2020 election, in the general election, a large number of votes cast on what could be described as something other than polling day. Now, it might be that there’s a technical understanding of that phrase and that may be cross-referred to in another Act of Parliament, but I don’t see that and I don’t see the interpretation section having anything to say on that either. If I’ve missed something, then no doubt the Minister, with his officials to assist, will advise me, no doubt. So that’s the first question.

The second is in clause 11, which is regarding the voting system. And we hear there that a referendum must be conducted in accordance with the first-past-the-post method. That’s fine as far as it goes and probably to be expected. We don’t need anything so complicated as a preferential system or indeed the proportionality and different moving parts that we have in the general election proper. But I do note it at subclause (2)(b)—we’re talking about the “highest number of votes” being the definition of a successful option. I think, grammatically speaking, we’d probably say the “higher number of votes”—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excellent—excellent contribution.

CHRIS PENK: —if there are only two options. And I’m grateful, Madam Chair, that you approve of this point. You’ll no doubt join me in wanting the Minister to comment on that, because, of course, if there are only two options, then one is the higher and one is the lower, but if there are more than two, then we’re into the realm of highest and lowest. Of course, it’s possible that we don’t have a higher or lower or even a highest or lowest but, in fact, an equal. So how do we determine which is the first among equals? You can’t even have recourse to the easy option of calling for a majority of the valid votes cast to represent a successful option. So we would have a situation, I suppose, where we’d need to differentiate, in the unlikely event of a split vote, an exactly even number of votes, as we saw recently in various local government elections, decided by a coin toss. So that would be perhaps unfortunate, depending on which side of the 50/50 lucky dip one fell, I suppose, in terms of one’s preference, but it would seem a bit of a shame that our legislation doesn’t provide at least some clarity about how such a matter would be resolved in that unlikely event.

Turning now to clause 14—we’re talking now about the referendum voting paper—and along similar lines, I note that we’re talking about a situation where there is to be more than one referendum held at the general election. Then it says, “all referendums may be included in a single voting paper.” Well, if we only have two, and two is more than one—so that’s a possibility—we should have “both” referendums, not “all”. So perhaps “both or all” would be the better way to phrase that, but I suspect, in any case, the meaning’s pretty clear. Knowing the Speaker’s love of grammar, it’s probably not proper for me to seek that he be recalled to enjoy and partake in this conversation, and, in any case, I think the chair of the committee is enjoying himself thoroughly on these grammatical points as well, so we won’t speculate any further in that regard. I’m probably getting some comments from my whip as well as others imploring me to move on.

So a serious question, then, regarding clause 14(2), “The order of the referendums … [is to] be determined by a member of the Electoral Commission drawing lots in the presence of a High Court Judge.” Well, that sounds pretty robust and actually quite admirable in the sense that we’re looking for a process that would be quite transparent and fair. But I wonder why, in this case, it wouldn’t be a matter that the Cabinet would be able to decide consistent with some of the other measures in the bill. So any comment the Minister can give in that regard as well would also be appreciated.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Chair, thank you. I am very happy to take a call on Part 2 of the Referendums Framework Bill, because it is an area of law that I actually feel quite strongly about. I wanted to come and take a call on this Part 2 as it is the meaty section, shall we say, of the legislation, and make comments relating to both the general impact of Part 2 but also some of the specific provisions, as my colleague Chris Penk has been doing so ably in his contribution that we’ve just enjoyed.

The thrust of Part 2 is, in effect, to give the executive power to determine and enable referendums on any matter of its choosing at an election. I feel very strongly that in actual fact—it might sound slightly sort of esoteric to talk in these terms in a debate like this—it is the role of members in this House to make decisions. It is not the role of members in this House to simply say, “Well, we don’t know. Let’s ask the public.” And I don’t say that because of any view that the public are not competent or qualified to have a view. Of course they are. But what members of this House who’ve been here for a while know is that we spend many, many hours in detailed study and consideration of a vast array of evidence, a vast number of submissions, expert opinion—we wade through in great detail the specifics of the issues before us, and we reach decisions on huge aspects of any piece of legislation.

There are very few pieces of legislation or decisions—because that’s what they are—that this House has to deal with that are simple binary matters that work well in a referendum. And if we kid ourselves that the public in a simple binary yes/no decision of a referendum can make complex, nuanced decisions the way that this House can, I’m sorry; that is just wrong. Now, there may be some populist appeal in saying, “Well, let’s let the public decide.” But, actually, the public elect us to exercise our skill and our judgment and use all of our expertise that we bring to this House and all of the various experiences that we have to make those calls. And I cannot support, therefore, Part 2, which enables the executive to, with increasing ease, simply pass those decisions out to the public at a binary yes/no.

Very, very few of the decisions this House has made in my 12 years can simply be put in a yes/no form. And what is particularly concerning to me is that we see time and time again referendums being hijacked by marketing campaigns. I don’t believe that democracy is well served by enabling issues to be passed off at the whim of the executive with very little process and oversight to a simple binary yes/no process for a public who, frankly, still struggle to understand even how MMP works. We cannot abrogate our role as members of this House by simply saying, “It’s too hard, let’s not be unpopular, let’s not make decisions, let’s just flick it through to the public.” So the tenor of Part 2 that enables that very simple, dismissive hand-off of complicated, nuanced issues is one I can’t support.

Now I mentioned that I wanted to touch on a specific point and my colleague Chris Penk, as I said, has started to work through a number of those that this side has concerns with. One I wanted to touch on is a very genuine question to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, of legal interpretation, and that is around clause 13 in Part 2 around who may vote in a referendum. Now I have no issue, obviously, with the fact that everyone who’s entitled to vote at a general election should be entitled to vote at a referendum. But I do wonder about the wording, which suggests that people who are “qualified” to vote may vote. I am interested in whether the Minister has sought an analysis of whether “qualified” and “enrolled” are the same thing.

Our law has always provided that people enrolled to vote are those who may vote; not just those who are qualified, and I would like the Minister to answer for me whether he has checked with officials whether there is, in fact, a legal difference, as it would seem to be on the reading of it, between simply being qualified to vote, being eligible to vote, and actually being enrolled to vote. Our law has always provided that you must, in fact, be an enrolled voter to vote at an election. I would assume the same should apply at a referendum and yet this legislation doesn’t seem to require enrolment. So my very genuine question for the Minister, which I would like him to address, quite apart from my wider concerns about the legislation, is that question around enrolment.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to speak in the committee of the whole House on the Referendum Frameworks Bill. I’ve been listening to this. I wasn’t going to take a contribution, but we’ve been listening to this debate this evening and I felt the need to speak on this because I’m passionate about this topic and, in particular, about this framework bill.

So we are in Part 2 of this bill, which is really the crux of what this bill is all about. This part, essentially, gives the executive branch of Government the ability to set the topic, to set the question, and to set the options for a referendum that goes to the public. And like the previous speakers in this debate, I believe that Parliament should be the voice of reason and that Parliament should determine the question and the topics and the options available for referendums, because these are referendums that are likely to have far-reaching consequences for our future voters in the House tonight. It is the representative democracy that we have in New Zealand, that this House has the representative nature to make decisions on behalf of all New Zealanders and not just for a few. So, it is in many ways, I think, important that Parliament retains that authority to determine the topic, to determine the questions, and to determine the options available.

Let me just refer to things like the referendum that we’re going to face next year, for example, on cannabis. This is why this side of the Chamber has prosecuted the fact that we just still don’t know the question for next year’s referendum on cannabis. I raise it because it’s an important part of this bill that the public of New Zealand should have the right to know well in advance what those questions will be, and they would know if it was brought to Parliament and not held in the hands of the executive. It is also important about the options that are available. Is it a yes/no, or are there, in fact, more than two options? I think my colleague Chris Penk raised some valid points that I would appreciate the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, addressing on the options available.

I do want to go to clause 9, which states that “A referendum … must be held on polling day for the [next] general election.” I myself, having come through a by-election, know that advance voting is becoming a big thing these days and it is not clear for me, at least, what clause 9 refers to. Does it actually include advance voting? Or is it the case that everybody who advance votes doesn’t get a say on the referendum and only those that go on polling day get a chance to vote? Of course, I would appreciate the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, to clarify that and I can only surmise what that is from the bill.

So it is really important, and I am glad I’ve come down to the Chamber just to take a call on this debate. I again want to reiterate that it is in the hands of Parliament and that Parliament should decide the questions and the options and not the executive branch, or Order of Council in this case. I would appreciate the Minister’s clarification on clause 9. I don’t think there’s a requirement to consult the other parties in this and that’s why I think it’s important that Parliament be the body, the representative body on behalf of the people of New Zealand, that determines the question and the options and the topics that will be held in a referendum. Thank you.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank members who have raised their questions so far. I think we’ll just go through seriatim the questions that have been raised so far.

Chris Penk raised the question of polling day. Clause 9 refers to “A referendum of electors must be held on polling day for the general election.” That term “polling day” or “general election” is defined in the Electoral Act 1993 as including the advance voting period, and the cross-reference to that for the benefit of Mr Penk is clause 5(2), when it says, “The terms ballot box, ballot paper, poll, and polling mean the same in this Act as they do in the 1993 Act.” And that covers that, and indeed subclause (1) of that same clause says “general election means the first general election after the commencement of this Act”. Those terms are defined in the Electoral Act 1993, but I appreciate the member raising those particular matters.

In relation to clause 11(2)(b) and the reference to “highest” as opposed to “higher”, that, of course, presupposes that there will be only two questions on the ballot paper. At the time the bill was drafted, of course, it was not certain that it would be just confined to two—or confined to two at all; it might have just been one. But it is pretty clear it will be two and so for the benefit of the member, and because I so often find him so persuasive if not scintillating, I have drafted a Supplementary Order Paper to change the word “highest” to “higher”. That locks in the number of questions that will be on the ballot paper and Mr Penk, if he does nothing else in his entire political career, can say that in the space of a few minutes he persuaded a Minister in the chair to amend a bill there and then. Nick Smith should not get his hopes up; I’m just saying that.

In relation to clause 14, I’m not quite clear about the question in relation to the word “all”, except that I think we can operate a pretty expansive interpretation of the word “all” to encompass the word “both” and that’s how it would be interpreted. In relation to subclause (2) of clause 14, about the determination of the order of the questions to be conducted by the Electoral Commission by drawing of a ballot by a High Court judge, the member raised the question: why not Cabinet? It’s an interesting question to raise, given that the assault on this bill from the Opposition is “Cabinet’s got too much power; it’s doing too much.” In the spirit with which this Government operates—which is to ensure that executive power is not wielded improperly and expansively and extensively—it is appropriate that once the bill is passed the conduct of the referendums are handed over to the Electoral Commission. They maintain their independence and also their integrity, and this is their way of doing that. They conduct the ballot for the order of the questions, and they use a High Court judge because High Court judges are naturally respected completely.

I turn to the remarks by the Hon Amy Adams. She expressed a philosophical view about why we shouldn’t have referendums. I’m not unsympathetic to her view, except that we do provide for referendums. It is one way that significant policy shifts can be made across our country. Issues like the legalisation of cannabis—as, indeed, end-of-life choice—my view is that they are appropriate questions for a referendum.

I know that member said the questions should not be yes/no questions. I have already foreshadowed publicly, with the agreement of my Cabinet colleagues and our coalition and confidence and supply partners, that it will be a yes/no question. This is simply about ease of access to making a decision so people get to know what the question is and that it is as easy as possible to answer.

The question will relate to draft legislation. That will be known in advance. There will be a lot of publicity about that, and I’m satisfied and I’m confident, indeed, that people are going to understand the question that they’re being asked.

The Hon Amy Adams also asked about the word “qualified” in clause 13 and whether it should be “eligible” or whether it should be “enrolled”. I understand the position is this: that in order to be qualified to vote, you have to be eligible and enrolled and not otherwise disqualified. So that turn of phrase in that clause covers off that aspect of it.

The member Dan Bidois asked some questions. I know he made the point that Parliament should determine the question. That’s not going to happen. We don’t know the question at this time, but we will well in advance of the date of the election.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This is the heart of this bill, in Part 2, where clause 8 very significantly takes the decision away from Parliament about what decisions are held on referendum and passes it over to Cabinet.

The first question I want to ask the Minister is in respect of the views of the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee. Now, I’ve been listening to that committee of very dry officials for a long time. I have never read words that are as strongly opposed to a bill as these, and I’m going to read them directly because it shows how important it is.

This is a quote: “ ‘free and fair elections’ are a fundamental constitutional principle.” Anyone in the House disagree with that? Free and fair elections are a fundamental constitutional principle. “One component of free and fair elections is that they are administered neutrally and impartially.” Is there any member of the House that disagrees with how important that is? Well, then listen to what they said: “This tells against giving the Executive a broad power to procure referendums and to frame the wording [of] such [referenda].” Let’s not mince words. These are Government officials that are saying that this bill and this part compromises free and fair elections. That is appalling.

I’ve listened to many a speech and constitutional comment from Peter Dunne. Peter Dunne is one of the longest-serving members of this House in its history. He’s been in Labour Governments. He’s been in National Governments. He had this to say about it: “This bill is much more”—

Michael Wood: He was sacked from a National Government.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Mr Wood wants to criticise Mr Dunne. Why did Helen Clark choose to form a Government with him? He’s a member that has sat with Governments for 30 years, and he had this to say: “[This bill is] much more reminiscent of the plebiscite approach adopted in countries where democracy in any form is but the thinnest of veneers.” We’ve criticised countries like Russia and South America in authoritarian States that pass laws of this sort, and we have a very moderate, sensible person like Peter Dunne saying this is the sort of stuff that authoritarian States do.

So my first question to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little: why would Parliament not listen to the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee when it says this bill compromises free and fair elections?

Now, the second question I want to raise is with respect to the Regulations Review Committee, because the Government has argued this: “Oh, yeah, sure; this is a bit of a grubby bill that bypasses Parliament and lets us have referendum on any topic we like with any wording we like, but don’t worry, because Parliament gets to have a say through the Regulations Review Committee.”

Can I tell you the problem with that argument? The Regulations Review Committee only gets to comment on it after the referendum has been held. What? That’s what we were advised at the committee. What sort of a joke is that? It’s sort of like saying to the guy, “Hey—we’ll give you an appeal on your death sentence but after you’ve been hung.” That is a complete nonsense. It’s been dismissed by the media. It’s very untruthful. It’s dismissive of the Parliament, and so I say to the Minister in the chair: does he accept the advice of officials that the role of Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee would only come into play after the referendum has been held, and isn’t it really a nonsense and a naked argument for the Government to present that as a defence of this part?

Then I want to know what the question will be, because the discussion in the Parliament has been fascinating. Now, of course, clause 8 says this: it says the wording of the question, or any question, to be put to electors shall be determined by Cabinet—shall be determined by the Government.

So you know the biggest party in Parliament, the 55 MPs, the majority of electorates—you know, the electorate MPs that sit on a majority of this House. We get no opportunity to have any say at all. You’re just locked out. The 55 members of Parliament that represent over 1.2 million voters—you don’t get a say anymore. You’ve had a say since 1853, but this Government’s decided that they are so smart and they are so wise, they do not want us to have any input into the questions.

So I at least might have thought that the Government might be consistent in its view about the question on recreational cannabis. So I listened to the Green Party. They said the question would be this: “Would you like to see cannabis legally regulated?” That’s the question that we’re authorising with this bill. But here’s my problem: the Minister in the chair said he disagreed with the Greens. So can any member of Parliament, before we pass this part, tell me what the question is going to be on recreational cannabis? Here’s my fear: I know Andrew Little wants to legalise recreational cannabis. I know the Prime Minister wants to legalise it. I know the Green Party wants to legalise it.

Hon Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. There are some comments that members get to make that can bring the House into disorder, and attributing various views to members that are simply not correct is, in my view, something that has the potential to bring the House into disorder.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I think the Minister’s made a good point. The member is very familiar with this part and with the issues, and if he could just confine his contribution to Part 2, that would be really helpful to the order of the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My point is this, Madam Chair: clause 8 of this part gives the power of the executive to determine the question that will be put to New Zealanders on recreational cannabis. My proposition is this: it’s a stitch up. The Government wants to legalise cannabis, it’s done a deal, and it is not going to allow New Zealanders to have a say on the question.

Here’s the double standard: in the last Government, we had a referendum on the flag. Labour members argued on the flag referendum that it was unfair—

Michael Wood: You’ve made this point already.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Mr Wood might be able to answer this. Why did Labour argue on the flag referendum that it was unfair and—do you know what they said?—undemocratic that New Zealanders were allowed only five minutes at the select committee to have a say on the wording—

Michael Wood: You made this point before dinner.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —while, under this bill, there is no opportunity for a say? So what I say to Mr Wood is this: does he think the issue of legalising recreational cannabis is more important than the issue of a flag and what flag our country might have, and why has Labour had the double standard? When they were on this side of the House, they said not only that New Zealanders should have a say; they also said it was unfair for them to have less than five minutes’ say, and now they’re saying they get no say at all, that it’s just a decision that is made by Cabinet in secret. And what really makes me nervous—and can the Minister just confirm—when the Green Party said the question would be “Would you like to see cannabis legally regulated?”, can the Minister in the chair confirm again that that’s not what the question will be?

Michael Wood: The member’s repeated this seven times.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, can Mr Wood confirm what the question is that’s going to be put to four million New Zealanders? Can any member of the Government tell us what question they are wont to authorise under clause 8 of this bill? I tell you what, they don’t want to tell us, because they want to whip behind closed doors in the Cabinet room and stitch up a deal with a question that will favour the outcome that they want rather than have the scrutiny of the public and the Parliament to the process.

This is where I come back to this point: will the referendum on recreational cannabis be binding on this Parliament? And I do ask a very important constitutional question: why should Parliament be bound by a referendum on a question on which they’ve had no say? I have to say that I have a view that, well, if Parliament’s had no input, I’m happy to be bound where I’ve been involved in the process, made sure the question’s fair, but where Parliament and the public have been locked out, it cannot be binding, and on the basis that it cannot be binding, it all just becomes a matter of politics, coalition management, and abusing the electoral process, using the public as pawns in an exercise that is shonky.

My last question to the Minister is this: why is he not following the advice of the justice officials around the issue of recreational cannabis? They said the right process is to pass a bill, provide all the detail, and then have a commencement clause that is linked to a referendum. That’s been good enough for the Government on euthanasia. Why is there an inconsistent approach between the referendum on euthanasia and on recreational cannabis?

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. So just four points to respond to from the member who’s just resumed his seat, Nick Smith. He made a reference to and described a fear of authoritarian States, and it is a fear that I have too. And when this House, in the past, has legislated for the removal of voting rights for a part of our population, as the member who’s just resumed his seat did when he was Minister for the Environment, abolishing the right of Cantabrians for their elected members on their regional council—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: How’s that relevant, Madam Chair? I hope the Chair’s going to be consistent.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: —that’s authoritarianism—that’s authoritarianism—and I regret to tell members and the public in the gallery that that has been the high-water mark of authoritarianism in this country in this House.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member. I’d ask the Hon Nick Smith to withdraw and apologise for that comment.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What comment?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): You know what comment, Dr Smith.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: No, I don’t, but I’m happy to withdraw and apologise.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Could you clarify, after I withdraw and apologise, the comment that caused offence?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I will consider it.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chair, you’ve been quite strict on Opposition members that we talk to this part of the bill. I’m very happy to have an argument about Environment Canterbury, the district health board that Helen Clark dismissed etc.—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you for your advice; that’s not a point of order. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. I’ve just listened to two five-minute calls from the member, which was an exact repetition of the four five-minute calls that he took before the dinner adjournment—with the exception of one minute and 21 seconds—so I really think he should reconsider his view that I’m being strict on his contribution.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: In relation to the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, that committee’s advice was clear that they thought there needed to be some further safeguards in the legislation; that is what they said. That was their recommendation. In relation to the role of the Regulations Review Committee, the Regulations Review Committee has the role of overseeing any promulgated regulation. It doesn’t require the regulation to have been fulfilled or acted upon. Once a regulation is promulgated and publicised, then the Regulations Review Committee has the power and the right and role to ascertain whether the regulation has been properly conceived and promulgated and meets its objectives.

In relation to the question of binding on Parliament, the parties in Government have said they will be bound by the result of the referendum. There’s only one party that refuses to say whether they will be bound by the will of the electorate. That is the National Party.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We don’t know what the question is.

Tim van de Molen: Tell us the question and we’ll tell you.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: And the members know that the question, as I’ve said in my earlier contributions, will be the subject of cross-party consultation. I’ve indicated the work that is going into the development of the question. The members know that. Individual members of the National Party know that. I expect they will be involved. But, most importantly, the people for whom it is most important are the voting public of New Zealand. They will have good, neutral, factual information about the referendum question, about the question itself, well in advance of next year’s general election. There’ll be appropriate places for people to get access to that advice. All of that is in train. All of that will happen. But this is a piece of legislation that puts in the mechanics for us to conduct the referendum questions that are slated for next year’s general election.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Referendums Framework Bill, on Part 2. I’d like to focus firstly on clause 11 of the bill, which is in regards to the voting system which will be used in a referendum. It says in clause 11(1), “A referendum must be conducted in accordance with the first-past-the-post electoral system.” It then says, “For the purposes of a referendum, that system has the following features: (a) electors may cast 1 vote for 1 option: (b) the option that receives the highest number of votes is the successful option.” So that, essentially, outlines how a first-past-the-post system works.

I guess what it says to me is that the Minister of Justice is expecting, or thinking about, potential referendums which may have more than two options, because, of course, in a two-option system, there will be one which gets a majority and another which gets a minority. If you’re going to have a vote which receives just the highest number, is the Minister indicating here that there may be a vote on a question which could have multiple options, of which just the highest vote is the one which actually passes?

Now, that’s exactly how we as electorate MPs—and, of course, the point has been made that the majority are on this side of the House—are elected. Not all electorate MPs get a majority of the votes in their electorate; some get a minority but are elected by a first-past-the-post system because there are multiple options, not just two, in that voting system. So can the Minister confirm whether there will be any questions which he’ll be putting before the public which will have more than just a yes/no answer required from the public and required from voters? And can the Minister also give us an assurance that there will be no other referendums other than the two which have been talked about, one being the one on marijuana and the other one being the one which Parliament voted for on euthanasia?

Will he, as a Government, commit to not putting any other referendums by Order in Council under clause 8? He’s indicating yes, and I hope that he will take a call and confirm that to the Parliament and to the public—that there will be no other questions. And also, will he confirm that the question on marijuana will, therefore, be also a binary yes/no question—and, if that is the case, why this clause anticipates the potential for other questions which could have multiple options, not just a binary yes/no, particularly because the commencement clause, of course, says that this bill expires after the next general election, which would therefore make it redundant for it just to be simply for yes/no answer questions.

The second clause that I’d like to focus my contribution on is clause 32, which is around a fresh referendum. And, of course, a fresh referendum would occur only if the High Court declared the referendum to be void. And, of course, there’s a process whereby people would need to petition the High Court to look into that and then a declaration to be made.

Then a referendum must be held, and that must be held no later than six months after the declaration that the referendum is void. It says there in clause 32(d) that “the same roll of electors must be used at the fresh referendum as was used at the referendum declared to be void”, so I assume, and I’d like to ask the Minister: does that mean no one enrolled in that six-month period—newly enrolled or became a resident and therefore enrolled—none of those people are therefore allowed to vote? Is it simply the same people who were enrolled at the day of an election? If you turned 18 a month after that election, would you not be allowed to vote in the fresh referendum?

Then in clause 32(e) it says, “a fresh referendum must be conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Act, with any necessary modifications, and to the extent that they are relevant.” Now, I’m not sure what this clause actually means. Is that meaning that the referendum must be held via polling booths like an election day? Does that allow the Minister to have a postal referendum? Is there other methodology which is allowed to be used, or must it be held in exactly the same way—as in the polling must take place at polling booths as per a general election, where a referendum would normally happen?

So those are a few questions. There are so many more questions. I’ll keep reading the bill. I’m sure I’ll find some more. I look forward to making more contributions on this terrible piece of legislation.

MICHAEL WOOD (Senior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to clause 11 be agreed to:

in clause 11(2)(b), replace “highest” with “higher”.

Amendment agreed to.

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

Ayes 64

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 Referendum advertising

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The questions I have of the Minister on Part 3 of this bill are actually quite crucial in the sense that not only is the Government trying to manipulate the system by shifting the power over who gets to decide what referendum goes off to Cabinet and determining the wording, and taking the power away from Parliament and a select committee and the public from having a say on the question; it is also wanting to control the discussion.

My first question to the Minister is this: when we had the flag referendum, Labour members of Parliament argued very strongly that—

Michael Wood: Glory moment for the National Government.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, I’d just be interested in a principled approach from members opposite. When we had the flag referendum, Mr Wood, the Labour Party argued that the publicity campaign had to be run independently. It could not be run by a Government department, because if a Government department ran the referendum on the flag, the concern was that that’d be biased. Now, I think the member would accept, as New Zealanders accept, that the referendum on the flag was played with an absolutely straight bat. [Interruption] Well, members opposite—I’d love them to get to their feet and to argue the deficiencies of the flag referendum that National conducted.

National also had a referendum on MMP. Labour promised it, broke their word; National delivered, and it was a very fair referendum that we had on MMP. Then we look at the referendum that was held on the issue back in time on alcohol. In every case, the advertising has been done by a neutral department, and my concern is that the Minister has his own justice ministry providing an information campaign on the recreational cannabis referendum. The problem I have with that is, as we’ve seen on multiple electoral rules, when the Minister wanted to have the legislation to be able to give party leaders the power to sack MPs, something that is unheard of—I spoke with the Australian Minister of electoral law yesterday. He was gobsmacked that the Parliament of New Zealand would pass such a law. On that, the justice ministry said, “Our job is simply to follow Government policy.”

So my concern is: why has the Labour Party changed its position on the advertising and information campaigns, on the information that New Zealanders will get to make a decision on sensitive issues like recreational cannabis, or, for that matter, any other issue that they may decide through this bill that they want to have a referendum on. Why was it that Labour, on MMP, on the flag, and other issues have said, “Oh, the Government can’t run the information campaign; it needs to be independent.” In the case of the flag referendum, the information campaign was run by a completely independent body of the Government of the day. So why, when Labour argued that, is it changing its tune? Why is it that they want to control the information that goes out to New Zealanders on the recreational cannabis?

That brings me back to my point again. This is all about pretending that New Zealanders are going to be able to have a say while the Minister is gerrymandering the system in the back room and making sure they get the outcome they want—that outcome being the legalisation of recreational cannabis. They don’t have the courage to simply come before the Parliament and advance legislation of that sort—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): I think the member knows that that’s out of order. He’ll withdraw and apologise for that comment.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I withdraw and apologise. The Government is not being upfront and saying that it wants to legalise recreational cannabis. What it instead is doing is creating an unfair process by which the referendum is generated against the advice of officials, against what is good practice around referendum, and we see that equally in the information campaign that the Government is wanting to conduct. So my question again: why has Labour changed its tune? Why, on the flag referendum, on the MMP referendum, did Labour argue very passionately that the information campaign should be run at arm’s length of the Government, whereas in respect of the recreational cannabis referendum, the Government wants to be in control of the agenda and the information that will have a major influence on the outcome of the referendum that has been proposed? They’re the issues we should focus on in Part 3.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. Turning to Part 3, as my colleague the Hon Dr Smith has already done, I’d like to pick up on the subject of advertisements, but I prefix it with the application of the whole part to conduct inside or outside of New Zealand.

At clause 36, we’re posed a bit of a challenge, potentially at least—but the Minister of Justice may be able to clarify—in relation to the meaning of the phrase “in New Zealand,”. I’m not trying to be cute regarding the meaning of New Zealand in relation to its Realm versus what we would often refer to as the nation of New Zealand and challenge any sort of geopolitical understanding of what “New Zealand” means, but, rather, in the environment in which we live, whereby much of such advertising could be expected to exist in the cloud, which, by definition, is not in any particular nation, New Zealand or otherwise.

I’m taking a bit of a literal interpretation of the cloud, but it actually reinforces the point that I’m looking to make regarding the fact that it’s no easy matter to determine whether a promotor of an advertisement—to use the phraseology of Part 3—is within New Zealand or not. So that seems to me an artificial distinction, but one on which the Minister may be able to provide some advice, and I’d be grateful to him if he were to do so.

My next point relates to the interpretation section at clause 38. I note that there’s a particular meaning given to “joint advertisement”. I’d like the Minister’s assurance that the word “joint” doesn’t have any particular meaning in relation to the cannabis referendum and, similarly, that he’s not intending to have any particular meaning ascribed to wasted votes, being any of those that are in favour of legalising the smoking of weed.

But returning, on a reasonably serious basis, to some weighty issues in the bill in the hope that they might get more favour, is the meaning of “referendum advertisement” in clause 39(1), and this really is a very serious matter indeed. We see in that clause that a “referendum advertisement”, unless the context otherwise requires, means “an advertisement in any medium that—” does a number of different things. But the first set of criteria is that it’s something that might be regarded as (a) “encouraging or persuading electors—”, or “may be reasonably regarded as encouraging or persuading electors—”, and I’m wondering who it is that would have the determination of what is reasonably to be expected to be the case in such instances. Would it be the Ministry of Justice and, if so, would it be with any reference to the Minister of Justice himself? Would the Electoral Commission perhaps have a role in that? Would it perhaps be the Advertising Standards Authority or the Broadcasting Standards Authority, depending on where the advertisement took place—so to speak—or was published? So that’s my first question: who would have that ability to decide what could be reasonably regarded as encouraging or persuading electors?

Then, turning to the next part of that subclause, we see that what we’re concerning ourselves with is they’re voting in a particular way, or they’re not voting in a particular way, if you’ll excuse the clumsiness of my expression—I’m trying to capture the syntax of the bill. But, actually, I wonder if we should actually also concern ourselves with whether a referendum advertisement asks voters to vote or not to vote at all, as distinct from voting in a particular way—yes or no, yea or nay, for or against—but, actually, even in the sense of encouraging the mere act of voting, or not the mere act of voting, but the simple fact of voting.

Then, my final point—and, again, I’d be grateful if the Minister would regard this as somewhat of a question or, if not, a challenge. I don’t suppose I need to frame it in quite those terms, but regarding at clause 39 the meaning of a “referendum advertisement”, we’ve got specific exclusions at subclause (2)(b) for editorial content in a periodical, a radio or TV programme, or a publication on a news media internet site. That seems to me a misplaced focus, because it focuses on the medium, and not the message, as determining whether something is a referendum advertisement. I think, with respect, that’s an approach that’s a little bit narrow, and it actually will not serve us well in terms of what is, presumably, the intent of the legislation, which is to exclude from the meaning of “referendum advertisement” particular messages that might be regarded as coming from an editorial position, and perhaps not a partisan one, necessarily. I’m not quite sure if that is, indeed, the intent, and I don’t want to misrepresent it if it is not.

But, in any case, my point is more fundamental, and that’s regarding the fact—[Bell rung] Madam Chair, if I may just be allowed to continue—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Chris Penk.

CHRIS PENK: —thank you—that train of thought in relation to clause 39. That’s the first element under paragraph (b) that I’m a little bit concerned about—that we’re focusing on the medium and not the message.

Similarly, at paragraph (d), for example—probably not only paragraph (d), but let’s just say paragraph (d)—this is, again, an exclusion to the meaning of a “referendum advertisement”: “any transmission (whether live or not) of proceedings in the House of Representatives:”. So in this case, we’re excluding, actually, ourselves as parliamentarians who are being broadcast, to be enjoyed for later viewing, perhaps—because it does say “(whether live or not)”—and so it might be that we could give speeches in the House that are particularly persuasive, one way or the other, or they might be poor contributions, in which case they might be persuasive in a way they are not intended.

But, in any case, we’ve got the opportunity to make statements that are very strongly encouraging a vote, one way or t’other, in a referendum but which would not be regarded as a referendum advertisement, if my reading of this provision is correct. That seems to me to be focusing on the messenger and not the message, as the key distinction regarding whether something is to be considered a referendum advertisement or not.

So we’ve got the medium and the messenger both being preferred as a criterion for understanding whether a particular message should be regarded as a referendum advertisement or not. I’m not sure that that’s really what the Minister is intending by putting that forward, but, in any case, I’d be grateful for some comments that he’d make along those lines, and in relation to those other points that I’ve raised as well.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The key portion of Part 3 deals with the issue of referendum advertising, and I’m very interested in the Minister’s view about who the referee will be in respect of that advertising. Now, we have the Advertising Standards Authority, that, under this bill, will be responsible for any complaints that arise from advertising. What is extraordinary, and what causes real concern for members of the Opposition, is that only two weeks ago, the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, described the Advertising Standards Authority as both—and I quote—“incompetent” and also he said that he has no confidence in them. And he nods his head. Now, essentially, it came down to the fact that he had had a dispute that he took to the Advertising Standards Authority involving myself, and the Advertising Standards Authority decided on four issues out of four that I was correct and that he was wrong.

Now, if the Minister in the chair takes that view of freedom of speech around that issue, why should we have any confidence that unless people’s advertisements and statements say what he thinks is right around cannabis—I’ll give an example. I will argue very strongly that the medical evidence of cannabis shows that it increases the incidence of mental health problems and lower educational achievement for young people. Now, there are people that dispute that, and I am happy to have that argument. What I do not want to have is the Government, through this part, limiting people’s freedom of expression as we have that referendum or, equally so, on the issue of euthanasia.

There are very strongly well-informed people who say that if you legalise euthanasia, you are indeed changing the culture around suicide, and you’re going to make the problem of New Zealand addressing suicide more difficult. Now, whether you agree or disagree with those views, I hold a very strong opinion around the right of freedom of expression and, equally, the right of people to be able to advertise and express those views. So I’m very interested, particularly with the number of the public comments and measures that have been taken by the Government to constrain freedom of speech, as to what is their intent in respect of the section around freedom of speech issues in respect of these referendum.

We actually do not know all the topics that there will be referendum on, and that is because the Government is asking this Parliament to give this Government a blank cheque to have as many referendum as they want. If they want to have 20 referendum at the next election, they could lawfully do so at the next election, and the key question is, whatever those topics might be—whether it be euthanasia or whether it be abortion or whether it be the issue of recreational cannabis—how strongly does the Minister in the chair believe in freedom of speech?

We know that he will condemn, as a Minister of Justice, an independent authority like the Advertising Standards Authority simply because it doesn’t agree with him, and that causes great unease—almost a sort of Orwellian view—of what the Minister’s commitment is to areas of free speech. The Minister’s view is that people who agree with the Minister should be able to have free speech, but people like myself that disagree with the Minister often, “Well, we’ll try and shut him down, remove his capacity to be able to advertise or his express his views.” So I do ask the Minister in the chair, given that he has confirmed this evening that he has no confidence in the Advertising Standards Authority—he nodded his head and says he thinks that they are incompetent—why, in Part 3 of this bill, is he relying on them as the arbitrator of the appropriateness of advertising? I, frankly, think that it is incredibly dangerous.

I’ve just come from an interesting visit in Singapore, where, actually, it’s the Ministers that get to decide. When we’ve got the Ministry of Justice under the Minister’s instruction that’s going to decide what might be in the information campaign, this material matters greatly. I’d ask the Minister to comment on the role of the Advertising Standards Authority around those provisions that relate to referendum advertising. I would really like him to express and to assert, as the Minister of Justice, the freedom of speech values that are so important in any sort of debate such as those before the referendum.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Madam Chair, thank you for allowing me to take a call. Minister Little, I’m not completely over the detail, but I would like you to answer these questions around the advertising part, because I want you to explain to me how this may not be rorted. It’s particularly around expenditure. So at the next election, like any election, members of Parliament and political parties are subject to expenditure limitations. So a member of Parliament or a candidate is allowed to spend around $27,000, something like that number. If, in fact, this legislation is passed, and if an individual, whether it’s a member of Parliament or a political party, becomes a promoter of one of those particular causes—and when I look at the clauses in the bill, it seems perfectly feasible that any candidate could become a promoter—it is potentially possible that a candidate could double up, or even triple up if there’s more than one view, their expenditure in an election period to get round that $27,000 threshold. I can’t see in the bill, Minister, where that can be prevented. I think that poses a real problem for people and political parties who may use the referendum provision as a way of extending their expendable allowances in a very murky area.

We all know, as members and candidates who have stood for election, that there is a fine line between what is a party expense and what is a candidate expense. I just cannot see in this legislation, from what I’ve read, that it is not possible for a candidate to become a registered promoter, to then use the advertising provisions, either jointly with their party advertising or separately, to double up or even triple up next year their ability to promote a cause, and themselves associated with a cause.

If you come back to why we’re doing this, we are doing this because the Green Party wants to hold a referendum on the legalisation of cannabis at the next election. The material hasn’t been prepared in time, and therefore, we are trying to put a piece of legislation in that allows the referendum to occur at next year’s general election, which is very different from the normal process or as the Hon Nick Smith has said, 165 years of process.

So I’m trying to seek a guarantee or an understanding from the Minister that my concern is not real. I read what I can from it and I cannot see how that is excluded. So I cannot see how, if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I would, but if I wanted to—become a promoter on a referendum, to actually use the expenditure allowances, the advertising, to maximise my profile to be associated with an issue or a political party to be associated with an issue. Now, if I’ve got that wrong, I’m happy to be corrected by the Minister. Sometimes in these situations, we end up doing things that are not foreseen, and I think that poses a real issue for New Zealand.

We know that there is the potential, and political parties and candidates do it from time to time, to maximise their opportunity if they’re not forbidden from doing so in the law. While I’m not a lawyer like some of my esteemed colleagues who are more familiar with this, I cannot see in the law, as it’s promoted today, how that particular issue can be avoided. I think that’s a really important point for New Zealand politics. We are limited by thresholds for election expenditure. I do not want to see this referendum bill, even though it’s a one-off that only applies for the next election, create an opportunity for people to rort, effectively, the electoral maximums as part of a general election and a referendum.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Chair. I just take the opportunity to respond to a couple of points raised by previous speakers. I’ll start with Lawrence Yule and his comments, because he raises a very important question—I totally agree with that. That is covered by clause 49(2)(b)(ii) of the bill. The effect of that clause is that if you’re, for example, a candidate doing an advertisement that covers a referendum question and your candidacy—well, your badge is your candidacy to it—or if you’re a party with an advertisement that covers both your party branding and a referendum question, then the costs of that advertisement are attributable to the expenditure limit for both the issues campaign and the candidate and/or party. So there is no doubling of your ability to, sort of, spend more if you both advertise yourself as a candidate, and also do some advertising on a referendum question but with your candidacy badged to it. If you’re a candidate, you have a maximum of $27,000, and if you take out an ad that includes advertising for a referendum question, that all falls within your $27,000. You can’t, sort of, then say, “Oh, that was the referendum advertising; it’s completely separate.” So I hope that answers and reassures that member.

Chris Penk raised some questions. The meaning of “in New Zealand”—I think that clause 36, as I recall, clearly covers it off. It is to take account of an advertisement that appears in New Zealand that might originate in New Zealand, or originate out of New Zealand. It simply ensures that we’re able to cover it off, whatever that advertising, whatever its source. If it’s in New Zealand, it’s accounted for, and there will be some accountability for it, to make sure it stays within the expenditure thresholds.

In terms of who decides whether it is advertising, as is the current situation with advertising in relation to a general election, it is the Electoral Commission. They deal with complaints about breaches of the electoral laws and electoral regulations. They will make that decision.

In relation to that member’s query about clause 39(2), I think it was, and editorial content, I know the member focused on the media that were, sort of, described there. I would invite the member to focus on “editorial content”. It’s very clear that where there is news reporting, which is what we typically characterise as editorial content, that is not covered by the restrictions that would otherwise apply to advertising. The exclusion for House proceedings is pretty obvious. Members have to be free to express their views. I know that we all like to think that half of New Zealand is sitting on the edge of its seats every time Parliament is broadcast, waiting with bated breath on the great pearl of wisdom that’s going to fall from the next speaker’s mouth, and they live in constant disappointment—

Chris Penk: Ha, ha! Speak for yourself.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m being self-deprecating to the member. So it is right that the proceedings of this House should be excluded from any possibility of being caught up in advertising. This part of the bill deals with the same sort of topic that the Electoral Act deals with, which is the advertising—the paid advertising. That characterises what a campaign is about. It’s about making sure that the campaigns on this issue are not dominated by the wealthy, and that everybody has a fair crack at the whip of getting their message out, pro or anti, regardless of the issue. We do want a good, strong, robust debate; we do want civil society involved and engaged; but we don’t want one side completely dominated by another side that might have much, much deeper pockets. We had applied the same principle on the MMP debate and on other referendums as well, so the same will apply here.

It is completely separate from the obligation of the State, of the Government of the day, to ensure that there is neutral, impartial information available about the content—in one case, about the End of Life Choice Act, and, in the other, the draft bill dealing with the legalisation of cannabis. There has to be information out there, and that will be available. It will be neutral, it will be impartial.

The Hon Dr Nick Smith gets it completely wrong in yet again another faux-constitutional principle. The Government of the day is not the political party in Government of the day; it is the Government with its ongoing, continuous obligations, responsibilities, and duties to the citizens of New Zealand. It is on that basis that neutral, impartial information is prepared to inform referendums.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Thank you, Madam Chair. The Minister of Justice, Andrew Little’s contribution did not answer the very simple question: why did Labour promote the view on the flag referendum that the information campaign from Government could not be run by a Government department, it had to be independent, yet take the different view on the recreational cannabis referendum. He has not addressed that, because—and I can’t use the “H” word—there are double standards on the Government benches that are littered all the way through this bill.

I want to raise specific questions around clause 37 in Part 3 of this bill. We all know that the only reason we’re having a referendum on recreational cannabis issues is because it was advocated very heavily by the Green Party. We equally know that the Green Party at the last election was in a battle with The Opportunities Party as to who could be more pro-dope. Now, my concern is whether the Green Party, that has got taxpayers’ funding of over $1 million a year through Parliamentary Service, can spend $1 million of public money promoting one side of the referendum, while at the same time, later in the bill, we’re restricting what anybody else can spend. Now, how could anybody say that’s fair, that the good old private person who has a strong view, whether pro- or anti-cannabis, is restricted to a figure, but not the taxpayer expenditure that may be spent by the Green Party? I think that would be quite unfair. My view is that that would not be particularly effective.

The second question I have for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Andrew Little, is: how effective can the caps on expenditure on advertising really be, when all an organisation needs to do is the morph into two? So if I’ve got a trust and I’m the “No Dope Trust” or I’m the “Dope’s Great Trust” and I’m worried I’m going to exceed the expenditure of the $300,000 limit in Part 3 of this bill, why don’t I just set up the “Dope’s a Good Idea No. 2 Trust” or the “Dope No. 3 or 4 Trust”?

Chris Penk: “Foundation” might be good.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, actually, my colleague suggests that you might want to call it a foundation, that has got particular form with the Government as a means of subverting electoral law and the very sorts of provisions that we have in this part. So I say to the Minister in the chair: where is the protection that the very racket that the Deputy Prime Minister in the Government is an expert at doing of subverting electoral law—where are the protections in Part 3 of this bill—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Very close to the wind.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, it’s a matter of the lead story in The Dominion Post today. It does point out that the very questions that we are debating in Part 3 have been rorted, and it is quite fair to ask—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Allegedly.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, it is a matter of public record, and I’m happy to ask: is there any member in this House that’s prepared to put their hand up to say that New Zealand First did not see any donations over $15,000? Does anybody think that’s true?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Can we come back to the bill?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the relevance to this part is that the same regulations are being relied upon here, and I want to ask the Minister in the chair how he is going to protect—as my member said—foundations from being set up to be able to rort the disclosure and the advertising limits that are proposed in this part. My view is that the Minister’s provisions, you could drive a bus through. You could drive a bus through, because you need only set up a very similar trust either arguing for euthanasia or against euthanasia, for cannabis reform, or for any referendum the Government might dream up.

This bill is not just about cannabis and euthanasia. If the Government decided that it wanted to completely distract the electorate, we know they’re in some trouble, they might want to win the election and not have people’s advertising space being used up on whether the Government should or should not be re-elected. They, under this bill, could have 20 referendum under the next election.

So I do ask the Minister to address the question as to whether Parliamentary Service’s money can be spent, and why can a person not just set up a second trust to avoid the intent of the limits on expenditure in terms of the campaigns on what referendum there will be.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. My contribution in this instance will be, I think, reasonably narrow. I’ve got a couple of quite particular questions that I would seek the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, to respond to in a way that’s very helpful in a committee of the whole House stage; it’s a good forum for being able to get clarification on points in which one is genuinely uncertain. I know that there will be a lot of interest—if not now in my particular delivery of the question then in the answer—because it will have an effect, I suspect, on some intentions and plans and the execution thereof next year in relation to at least a couple of referenda that we will have—and as my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith points out, it’s at least theoretically possible that there could be more.

My specific question is in relation to clause 40 within Part 3, “Meaning of referendum expenses”. I actually don’t want to ask a question about what the phrase “referendum expenses” means, so much as: from what point do we consider such expenses are incurred? Foreshadowing what may be the answer—I genuinely don’t know; I approach this task with some humility—I genuinely seek clarification on this. In clause 42 we have the meaning of “regulated period”, so it might be that the answer to my question is that expenses are occurred within the regulated period, and those are counted as such, but, otherwise, in relation to the two referenda that we know will be likely at the 2020 election, there are some possibilities as well.

In the case of the referendum on liberalising—whether decriminalising or legalising—drug use, it’s possible that under the dictates of this Act governing the conduct of referendum, the referendum would apply from the time that this Act passes in Parliament at its third reading or perhaps the Royal assent. We’re only talking about one day’s difference, so we’ll gloss over that; let’s just say “the passing of the Act.” Or it could be that they apply from the time that the Government advises, in some official manner, exactly what the question will be. Another alternative would be that the election year—and by that I suppose I mean calendar year 2020, as opposed to 12 months prior to the election; it could be writ day, I suppose that has some significance in electoral law terms. But I suspect that the most likely answer is that the “regulated period”, in clause 42, would be the time that various provisions apply, particularly in relation to when referendum expenses begin to be incurred or accrue.

In relation to the End of Life Choice Bill, different options would apply given that that’s taking a slightly different path. In that case it could be, I suppose, the third reading day, the Royal assent, or, again, potentially the passage of this bill, because I suppose it wouldn’t be right; it would be a matter of retrospective lawmaking if we were to say that the conduct leading up to the referendum on the End of Life Choice Act would be governed by the provisions of this legislation before such time as it’s passed. So that’s one quite specific question on which I would be very grateful for an answer from the Minister.

Then, second, within this five-minute call, if I may, is just to dig a little bit into the meaning of “publish”—that’s in the title of clause 41. I note there is a very long list and quite a broad range of different kinds of acts that constitute publication. The Minister will recall from his study of the legal method, statutory interpretation 101, that having a list of different activities—in this case, activities—implies that other similar things that are like that may also be included. Of course, the list doesn’t purport to be exhaustive; it includes those various things, and all we have specifically excluded is the addressing of one or more persons face to face.

So I have a couple of, sort of, questions in relation to this particular provision. One is whether it would not simply be easier to say something like “by any means whatsoever”, replacing all of paragraph (a) and that long list from Roman numerals (i) to (xi) inclusive with, simply, a very broad statement of “any means whatsoever”, meaning we don’t need to talk about sending by post or otherwise, disseminating by means of the internet or other electronic medium, and so forth. It seems to me that we could structure that provision much more neatly, simply by saying that the publication in reference to a referendum advertisement includes any means whatsoever, other than, or excluding, by addressing one or more persons face to face. If the Minister can explain the rationale for having that face-to-face exclusion as different from the other means, that would be helpful too.

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Just to respond to the points raised by Chris Penk just now—in relation to the provisions in clause 40 relating to the definition of “referendum expenses”, that is pretty much taken out of the Electoral Act. It is what I would describe as mutatis mutandis, the same provisions about electoral expenses in the Electoral Act as apply to general election campaigning. So there won’t be anything that members who’ve read the Electoral Act as they’ve prepared for their campaigns will be unfamiliar with.

I wasn’t quite clear about what the member’s concerns were in relation to clause 42 and the regulated period, except to say it is pretty clear that whatever the regulated period is for the general election will be the regulated period for the referendums.

Then, finally, in relation to the meaning of “published”, I get the member’s point about trying to find a generalised definition that means we don’t have to list every detail, and the member is correct—a principle interpretation means that the more detail you provide, then the less scope there is for a judge to read in something that doesn’t look like it’s provided for but should be included. But this is the list that has been developed. A lot of this is kind of a “for the avoidance of doubt” - type sort of drafting, so to be absolutely clear about what is included, and then, effectively, to exclude a meeting—that it must be possible to have a meeting that doesn’t get caught up in definitions of “publish” and therefore whether that contributes or is attributable to or least accountable to your electoral expenses.

So I think that’s the intention there, because in the end, whether it’s a referendum or whether it’s the general election electing political representatives, we want good, free-flowing debate. We just want to make sure that those with deeper pockets don’t dominate. But we want, you know, the basic thing, the old street-corner meeting, the stump meeting, the town hall meeting—we want those things to take place. They should not be included in a definition of “publish” or “publication”. So that, I hope, explains the drafting in that respect.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I’ve read quite extensively on some of the debates that have occurred in US states around the issues of recreational cannabis that are pertinent to this part, knowing that one of the Government’s key intents around this law is to hold a referendum on recreational cannabis. We are somewhat frustrated that Parliament’s not going to have any say and the public is not going to have any say on the question, and we’ve also found different views between the Government, from the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, and also from the Green Party on the nature of that question.

But the part that’s quite concerning is that as the commercial cannabis industry has grown in the United States, there’s been a lot of money spent by those that profit from peddling the recreational drug of cannabis in those jurisdictions. So the question I’m interested in from the Minister is what the intent is around overseas corporations who are profiting from recreational cannabis in places like Colorado being able to advertise and promote. Now, those companies would be perfectly free to set up a company of, you know, “Cannabis New Zealand”, and then to advertise and spend quite extensively. I can only come to the conclusion when I read Part 3 of this bill that the Government is quite open about those that would profit from a recreational cannabis industry in New Zealand being able to spend quite big money on it.

I do ask the question in terms of Government policy that—we know that recreational cannabis is substantially more carcinogenic than tobacco, and so we put very extensive restrictions on tobacco companies around advertising their products. My question for the Minister: is it the intent to put, to use the loose term in the US, “Big Cannabis”, which is a very substantive, hundreds of millions of dollars a year industry, an industry that spends a huge amount of money on PR and advertising—is it the intent that those companies that are already being launched and floated, that would profit from the legalisation of recreational cannabis, are to be able to advertise in the referendum next year, and whether he thinks that’s appropriate?

That’s one of the great difficulties of this framework legislation that doesn’t actually tell us any of the specifics of the issues. We had, very clearly, around the MMP, around the flag, and the other referendum—we were able to have a very specific debate in the Parliament about the advertising rules that would apply. We’re not sure what referendum will apply. This bill gives open licence to Cabinet to have as many referendum as it likes. But because we know that there will be, with this bill, the opportunity for the Government to have a referendum on recreational cannabis, it is fair to ask as to whether those that would profit and have set up companies to be able to promote recreational cannabis—is it the intent of Part 3 that they will be able to participate, and is it the intent that not just one and their expenditure limits, but that they will actually be able to set up multiple entities and spend, effectively, millions of dollars on promoting people to vote Yes to dope?

So I just ask for an indication, whether it be from the Green Party, who are the ultimate architects of the referendum on recreational cannabis; any Government member opposite; or the Minister in the chair: is it the intent that those that would profit from recreational cannabis will be able to advertise and promote a Yes vote on that? And are they open and honest about the fact that, actually, there is no limit on the amount that they could spend, because they could easily set up multiple organisations—each promoter, as it’s referred to in Part 3, could set up an entity to do that—and isn’t that highly contradictory to the Government having such a fierce view of opposition to any advertising around tobacco, and doesn’t that really expose the double standards in the Government?

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

Ayes 64

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Part 3 agreed to.

Part 4 Miscellaneous provisions

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I want to draw the House’s attention to clause 85(a) of Part 4 of this bill. I’m going to read directly what it says because it has been described by the Regulations Review Committee unanimously—this is Labour members of Parliament as well who have said that this is a “Henry VIII” provision. This is one of those provisions which the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee and the Regulations Review Committee have said enables Cabinet to overrule law that’s passed by the Parliament. What the bill says is that at any time before the start of the regulation period, the Governor-General by Order in Council—that means Cabinet—can declare an advertisement, a class of advertisement, an activity, or a class of activity not to be a referendum advertisement for the purpose of the Act.

Now, that’s extraordinary. What we’re allowing is—let’s say that they want to describe any ad that’s run by the Green Party promoting people to vote for a Yes vote on the cannabis referendum. They could pass a regulation and say, “Oh, that’s not an advertisement for the purposes of the Act.”, despite the fact that it would blatantly meet the legal test in the Electoral Act and replicated in this bill or an advertisement that was intended to influence voters. In other words, I have confidence in the current definition in our Electoral Act as to what is a political advertisement: it is an advertisement that attempts to persuade people to vote a particular way—a pretty common-sense, fair definition. So why on earth is the Government promoting a bill that will allow Cabinet to overrule that definition? That is incredibly serious.

I’d love to hear in the House from Rino Tirikatene. He voted at the Regulations Review Committee for a letter to the Justice Committee saying “It should be changed; it’s a ‘Henry VIII’ provision.” I also say that was Duncan Webb. Duncan Webb is a lawyer from Christchurch. That Labour member of Parliament said, “This provision 85 is a ‘Henry VIII’ provision that overrides Parliament and should not be allowed.” I’d also love to hear from Jo Luxton. She too is a member of the Regulations Review Committee. Check the minutes; she’s probably forgotten. She said and wrote unanimously from the Regulations Review Committee saying that clause 85 of this bill is a “Henry VIII” provision that gives the power for Cabinet to overrule parliamentary law that this Parliament has passed.

And here’s the part that really shows how disingenuous the Government is. The Regulations Review Committee even provided the Justice Committee with the amendments that would fix this. We moved at the select committee that those amendments be adopted and it be fixed—it’s wrong; it’s unfair. What did the Labour members of that committee decide to do? Their answer was, “Oh, we’ve just got to do what the Minister says. This is just part of a bill of disenfranchising Parliament, taking the decisions away from Parliament, and, actually, we don’t care if Cabinet is able to override the Parliament.” Well, I say they should care. They might be naive members that are currently in Government, but they would be screaming from the rooftops if you had Cabinet wanting to pass regulations that could overrule law that has been passed by the Parliament.

So the question I want to put to the Minister is: why did the Government not accept unanimously the recommendations of the Regulations Review Committee to clause 85(a) of the bill? And, more particularly, why does the Government want to reserve the power to screw the scrum on the information and advertising campaigns that will operate on the referendum—whatever they might be: euthanasia, abortion? As I say, this bill gives a blank cheque for the Government to have referendum on any topic it likes. Here in this provision we are giving powers to Cabinet to be able to redefine what an advertisement is. It’s wrong, it should be changed, and I’d love a Government member—particularly Jo Luxton who was on the Regulations Review Committee that said it was a “Henry VIII”—to say why she has not followed through on that and is now proposing to vote for that provision.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. Part 4, in relation to clause 85—I’ve chosen to focus on that. I don’t have many options available. It’s either that or 84, and I’ll get to that too. But clause 85 “Regulations”—I’ll make slightly different points in relation to those of Dr Nick Smith. I wouldn’t try your patience by repetition, but his point is a very good one on which I would like to build.

Before I, sort of, get into the detail of the second aspect of that—and Dr Smith’s covered the declaration of advertisements as such, referring back to a previous provision in the bill. I’d like to talk about the prescribing of forms, but just to take a step back before I do that. “The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, make regulations for all or any of the following purposes:”, that’s what we’re told that can be done by the Governor-General. But just to be clear, that word “may”—one doesn’t instruct the Sovereign to do things, so one suggests that Her Excellency, as is currently the case, may do these things, but that’s really a nicety. The reality is that the Governor-General would act on the advice of Ministers. So what we are looking at, just to be very clear for the sake of the record, is a set of provisions that allow, effectively, Cabinet, and a Minister who would make recommendations that would be acted upon to the Governor-General, to do the things that are set out in clause 85.

The aspect regarding declaring referendum advertisements to be such—notwithstanding that the bill already has ways of determining exactly what those things are. That is a “Henry VIII” provision, as Dr Smith has pointed out. I’d like to focus on the next bit, which is that the Governor-General—again, read Minister, effectively—can prescribe forms for any matter in relation to a referendum. Well, that’s very interesting, because at clause 16 of the same bill we have a provision named “Form of referendum voting paper”. So, clearly, this is captured by the “Henry VIII” clause at clause 85. So what we’ve got is that the Minister can prescribe a form for any matter in relation to a referendum, and it could hardly be clearer because clause 16, which talks about the form of a referendum voting paper, has the word “form” and the word “referendum” in it. So the alignment is just about perfect that this is exactly what we’re talking about.

In that clause—the one that would apply to the Electoral Commission—what we see is that the Electoral Commission can make such a decision and can decide how the law is to be applied. So what we, effectively, have is a quasi-judicial function being carried out by the Electoral Commission that could be overridden by the executive part of the Government. That’s at the heart of what it is to have a “Henry VIII” power. In constitutional terms, that’s—well, it seems a little bit egregious. I don’t know if you can have something that’s a little bit egregious. What the hell, it’s egregious. And so that’s something that we’d like the Minister to address for the record, because, just to be very clear, that’s something on which we are very unhappy about on this side of the Chamber.

The other aspect which I’ll touch on more quickly within Part 4 is the duty of the Electoral Commission at clause 84. What we see there is that “(1) If the Electoral Commission believes that a person has committed an offence under this Act, [they] must report the facts on which that belief is based to the New Zealand Police.” What we don’t have then is any requirement that the Electoral Commission also notify the person concerned who may have committed an offence and the belief that the Electoral Commission has. So that seems problematic in the context of the principles of natural justice, which have been long held to include that a person has the right to be heard.

So with no opportunity to correct the record or, perhaps, negotiate a manner in which certain conduct could be reduced to below the threshold of an offence, the Electoral Commission must, as a first and only step according to this clause, report the facts as they see them. Their belief, as formed in their somewhat subjective opinion—and I don’t mean that in any way to suggest that it would be improperly reached. But none the less, it is a decision maker coming to a belief without recourse or reference to the person who has conducted or committed the apparent offence. That seems to me unfortunate, at the very least, for the reasons that I’ve described.

So for that reason, Part 4 is hardly able to be supported on this side of the Chamber. It’s overbearing and unfortunate in its inability to allow proper participation.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I was hoping the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, would take the opportunity to address the question. We have a select committee of Parliament, the Regulations Review Committee, unanimously saying that Part 4 of this bill contains “Henry VIII” powers. Parliament deserves an explanation from some member of the Government as to why they want to take those sorts of powers. It is simply unacceptable that nobody’s prepared to provide some sort of explanation.

Here’s my suspicion: we know in a very unusual way the Government has decided that an information campaign is going to be provided around the referendum, and that that information campaign, inconsistent with what Labour said in Opposition, would be provided by the Ministry of Justice. Now, what this provision in clause 85 would do is override the legal test of what is an advertisement. What we have in clause 39 is a very reasonable definition, that if you are running a campaign and an advertisement, then the Electoral Commission—I’ve had experience with the Electoral Commission around the definition of what is an electoral advertisement, because we don’t want to have people saying some basic comment in an area suddenly be needing a fine. I’ve actually found the Electoral Commission—and there have been court decisions—very fair in what is an electoral advertisement. But here’s the mischief that could practically come with clause 85. On the issue of recreational cannabis we all know the Drug Foundation has a very pro-cannabis legalisation point of view. The Government, under this provision, could just pass a regulation and just say that any of the information as provided by the Drug Foundation, even though the law says it’s an advertisement persuading people to vote Yes to dope, actually, with a regulation under this section could be excluded from those expenditure limits and those regulations.

Now, surely these members of the House can see that’s wrong. You can’t screw an argument by saying, “Well, some people can advertise freely.”—and that’s what it says. It says that “declaring an advertisement, a class of advertisements, an activity, or a class of activities not to be a referendum advertisement” for the purpose of the Act. In other words, it’s saying you could pass a regulation to say anything that the ministry says, anything that the Drug Foundation says, well, that’s not an advertisement. As I say, that is very significant for the referendum because, effectively, it gives the Government that free hand to be able to put tight regulations on those that might want to express one point of view but exempt the others from any of the restrictions.

I say again to this Parliament, four Labour members of Parliament on the Regulations Review Committee said that this provision contained “Henry VIII” powers. They recommend change. Others recommend change. The Government in its sort of bull-headed way is saying “Well, we don’t give a shoot. We just want all the power. We don’t mind if Cabinet overtakes the Parliament.”, just as with the base of this bill where they are taking over the role of Parliament to determine the topic and wording of referendum. They’re even going further and they’re now saying that Cabinet is going to have the right to overrule Parliament’s definition of what is an advertisement over those referendum. So again I say to the Minister in the chair and members opposite, who have not taken a single clause on Part 4, that you have the institution of Parliament and the Regulations Review Committee saying no.

The last point I’d make is this, Government members say, “Oh, there’s no mischief with this bill. You’ve got the Regulations Review Committee as a check on what questions they might have and what referendum they have.” Then we have the very check of the Regulations Review Committee applying to clause 85 and the Government says, “Well, we don’t give a stuff. We’re going to do what we’re going to do anyway.” Why would Parliament have any faith in their argument that there’s a big safeguard, it’s the Regulations Review Committee, when they’re ignoring the Regulations Review Committee on this very provision. It just shows the crock that is part of this Government’s agenda around electoral law.

This referendum bill is all about internal coalition negotiations. It’s about stacking the scrum to suit the Government. It is not about actually providing a fair and democratic process by which New Zealand can make decisions. I urge any member of the Government to get up and defend the overriding of the recommendations of the Regulations Review Committee on clause 85. [Bell rung]

This is the fourth call I’ve taken because members opposite are not prepared to address the issue. It is—

Hon Member: No one cares.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the member says, “Nobody cares.” Well, that reminds me, and maybe it’s the Government’s view. The Minister of Internal Affairs says you can’t trust the Parliament, that’s what she said. What this provision says is that Cabinet can override the Parliament on a definition of an electoral advertisement. My colleague has said, “It’s a shocker.” It is a shocker. But you know what’s even more shocking?

Hon Kris Faafoi: What about you?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, I’d just love the member, rather than—

Hon Member: Take a call.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Look, take a call. Here’s my question for you: yes, having a personal shot at me is very easy, why not address the issue?

Hon Member: It is. It’s very easy.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yip. So why not address the question?

Hon Member: Playing the man, not the ball.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That’s right. He doesn’t have the argument about the issue. Can he explain why in clause 85 we are overruling the decision of the Regulations Review Committee that this is a “Henry VIII” clause provision? Why are we overriding the view of officials that this is inappropriate? Can he explain to me why Labour members of the Regulations Review Committee voted for a motion?

Hon Kris Faafoi: Enjoy the view from over there, Dan.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Mr Faafoi’s interjecting. Can he explain for me why the Labour members of the Regulations Review Committee—

Hon Kris Faafoi: Enjoy the view from over there, mate.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I’m sorry?

Hon Kris Faafoi: I’m talking to somebody else. Carry on.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, I’d just love to understand: why did Labour members of the Regulations Review Committee say that this was a “Henry VIII” provision that should be changed? What’s changed Labour’s mind? Why do they want the power of Cabinet to be able to overrule Parliament on the definition of an electoral advertisement? You know what it shows? What it shows is that the current Government has absolutely no respect for the institution of Parliament. They are prepared to ride roughshod over 165 years, where referendum have only been held with the authority of Parliament at general elections. They are roughshodding over the very advice of officials around this. They’ve got a completely inconsistent approach around the different referendum that are being proposed. Now they want the power for Labour and New Zealand First sitting in the Cabinet room to overrule the law.

I just say to colleagues opposite, it seems that what Tracey Martin said is correct. When Tracey Martin said “The Government view is you can’t trust the Parliament.”, she was actually saying it was correct.

Hon Kris Faafoi: Let’s put it to a vote.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, does the member agree with Tracey Martin’s statement that you can’t trust the Parliament? I’d love an answer. Does he agree with Tracey Martin’s view that you can’t trust the Parliament, and is that why clause 85 allows Cabinet to overrule the Parliament, something that has been opposed since the English revolution and the development of the bill of rights, and the relative powers of Parliament and Cabinet?

I have to repeat again, that shows complete disrespect for the work of the Regulations Review Committee. It shows complete disrespect for Parliament that the Minister in the chair and Labour members opposite cannot even get to their feet for five minutes and explain why the Regulations Review Committee and the serious concerns about clause 85(a)—some explanation, some debate, some view as to why this particular Government believes that “Henry VIII” - type powers that allow a Cabinet to overrule Parliament are appropriate.

It really just says to me that this Government doesn’t give a hoot about our democratic traditions. We see that in the sort of mischief that’s gone on with New Zealand First. We see it with the mischief of this overall Referendums Framework Bill. We see it in the mischief of clause 85(a). They are undermining the basic democratic traditions that are so much a part of New Zealand. It is disgraceful. It is why this will only be a one-term Government.

Hon Dr David Clark: That member is disgraceful.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, I just simply say to the member—

Hon Dr David Clark: What outrageous things to say.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, why don’t you get to your feet and debate the clause? Not a single Labour member has been prepared to get to their feet and to argue why the Government is passing a clause that his own Labour colleagues have said breaches basic conventions and is a “Henry VIII” power. I’d be far more reflective if a single Labour member would get to their feet and say, “This is why we’re doing it.” I can only conclude that not a single Labour member is prepared to defend it. Actually, this is just about power. This is just about Cabinet doing whatever the hell it likes and damn the democratic and parliamentary traditions that are so important to our democracy.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 4 be agreed to.

Ayes 64

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Part 4 agreed to.

Clause 3 Repeal

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Clause 3 of this bill exposes the rort that is behind this bill. I want to reflect on what the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, said in introducing this bill when it first came into the House. He said, “This has nothing to do with the particular coalition issues the Government has.” He said, “We need a framework, a framework for referendum so that when we have issues that are required to go to a referendum, we can then manage them.” Except clause 3 says that this is a power that’s only going to be given to the current Government. That is, what the Government is saying is, “We’re going to grab the powers off the Parliament to set the topics and the wording of referendum, but we’re only going to do it for us; it’s not a power that we ever want to give to a future Government.” That, in my view, just exposes how shallow and opportunistic this bill is.

This bill is not about providing a sound framework for referendum to be held at general elections. We know from the Legislation Advisory Committee—in their submission, they made the point very strongly that this bill compromises free and fair elections, that this bill is a fundamental shift of power from the Parliament to the executive, and they argued that by having a termination clause that this bill only applies to the current Government really does undermine it being a genuine electoral reform for advancing and improving New Zealand’s democracy. This is a crude, dirty deal to be able to hold the Government together with the diametrically opposed views between the Green Party and New Zealand First on cannabis. So “Let’s break the conventions around every one of New Zealand’s 20 referendum held at general elections being authorised by the Parliament. Let’s take Parliament out of the picture, but let’s just do it for us.”

Here’s a question I’ve got for members opposite. If a future National Government wanted legislation of this sort and give the power to Cabinet so that a future National Cabinet could just decide to have a referendum on getting rid of the Māori seats—let’s have a referendum on capping the amount of tax, capping the amount of debt, any of those issues—would members opposite agree that that’s appropriate? Absolute silence. Every Labour member in the Chamber has got their head down. They know that if National did that, they would object. We know from their own track record they would object. When we had the flag referendum, they argued very strongly that there should be a full parliamentary process about the issue of the flag.

So can some Labour member please put the case as to why Labour’s position on referendum is that they should go through a full parliamentary process when it comes to flags when National’s the Government, but when Labour’s the Government they can have a different set of rules. Can some Labour member explain to me why this only applies—if the Minister in the chair is correct and this is a sensible long-term reform so that Governments can have referendum, why does clause 3 say it only applies to 2020? It’s because it’s a rort. It’s because it’s against New Zealand’s democratic traditions. It’s because this is the power that they want, but they don’t want any future National Government to have.

Well, actually, the National Party has high values around electoral law, and that’s why every—

Hon Andrew Little: Ha, ha!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member in the chair laughs. Let me put the case. Every single electoral law introduced by Amy Adams, Judith Collins, and Simon Power was consulted on with the Opposition. What consultation was there with the National Opposition on this bill or the other two? Zero—zero! Not one Government electoral law reform bill was passed by the previous Government without multiparty support. This has none. This provision, clause 3 of this bill, does expose the fact that this is a bill of political convenience. This is a bill that, as the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee says, the moment one Government pulls this dirty trick, it has changed the convention of 165 years and it gives licence to any future Government in New Zealand to use the same. That’s sad for New Zealand’s democracy. The right to call a referendum at a general election and the right to determine the wording should rest with Parliament.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Chair. Clause 3 relates to the repeal of the Referendums Framework Bill and it’s my submission, if I can put it like that, that, actually, this clause is completely unnecessary because one of a few different scenarios will apply after the next election. And the reason I’m talking about the next election, of course, the next general election even, is that that’s exactly what the bill sets up: a regime to apply only up to and including that date.

So the reasons that there’s no need to have this provision repealing the Act on 1 July 2022 are that the Labour members, Minister Little and perhaps others, have indicated that if they are returned to Government, then they will look to replace this regime with a more root and branch reform, a more thoroughgoing review and reform—I think was the expression—of the electoral law. So in that case, it would be perfectly open to them, in that unfortunate situation that they are returned to power, to simply repeal the Act at this time. So we don’t need a specific provision in there at the moment for it.

The other possibility following the election, is that National would be—I won’t say “returned to Government”—“returned” in the sense of coming back to the Treasury benches, having had a three-year interregnum, three years of neglect. So in that scenario, I am reasonably confident that National would repeal this particular piece of legislation and so we don’t need particularly to have that set out as an automatic mechanism. In fact, I think that we’d all on this side of the House—when we’re on that side of the House; the other side of the House—take great pleasure in doing so. So it would be a shame to deny us that great opportunity. And so I suppose we’d have the opportunity to try and beat the clock and repeal it before 1 July 2022.

But the other reason—and it’s more structural and relating to the bill itself and not merely my reflections on the politics of the day—that this clause is actually unnecessary is because it sets out very clearly elsewhere that it will be applying only to the next general election after the bill is passed into law. In other words, there’s no need to repeal it following the general election of 2020, because it will be ineffective albeit still in force from that time onwards. So actually, there’s no need for that provision, as I’ve said now, and I think I have provided three pretty decent reasons.

The question then becomes: why are we repealing it on 1 July 2022? If there’s some particular significance to that date—for example, the end of the world—then that would be worth knowing. Although in that situation, as well, I suppose there’s not much point in needing to repeal the Act. It would probably be the least of our concerns at that time. But actually, logically speaking, if we were to set up a regime whereby the Act would be automatically repealed, then—I just remind you, Madam Chair. Excuse me, I miscalculated my time. I was going to give you a two-minute warning for the benefit of all concerned, but, in fact, it’s a five-minute call; it just feels longer.

The logical thing to do would be to have the Act automatically repealed the day after the next general election, because what we’ve got is some sort of funny arrangement where we’ve got, roughly speaking, two years—maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more than that—following the next election until the point at which it’s repealed. So we’ll sort of be in a no man’s land, if you’ll excuse the gender-specific expression—I probably shouldn’t use that—a no person’s land, if you’ll excuse the species-specific description.

In any case, I’m just going to sort of move on and I think at that point, with the bell ringing, I think that’s probably regarded as being saved by the bell. And in any case, I’d like to see the Act repealed a lot sooner; in fact, probably preferable still to all those different scenarios I’ve outlined, not to pass the wretched thing in the first place.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Chair, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to begin my contribution to this debate. This is one of these debates that you can sit and listen to, as I have been; in fact, I’ve been listening up in my office as it has unfolded. In fact, it’s one of those unique environments where you can have the volume down and still hear my colleague.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Nobody ever doubts what I’m thinking.

TODD MULLER: This is true, but there is a point here of integrity. When you actually cut to the core of the debate that we’re having, this is one of integrity and whether the proposition of, essentially, this Minister, the Minister of Justice, and the Government that sits in support of this passes the sniff test. And what it is to me is we have a Minister who prides himself on holding himself and his ministry and his contributions to a high level of integrity. Yet when I look and read on this, where it is, essentially, saying that the convention that we have always had, that it is this Parliament that, ultimately, debates and discusses and designs and signs off on particular points of referendums, which have a high threshold in and of themselves—we have a history that it is issues of moment that we take to the country and we debate them here and how the question should be framed and it is Parliament that, ultimately, signs that off.

That is a principle, and I think it’s a principle that when you cut the politics, all of us in this House understand to have power and be enduring. And now we have a Minister in the chair who has not answered the specific question that my colleagues have put time and time again. Why would you deviate from that convention? Why would you deviate from that point of principle that this Parliament is best placed to debate and, finally, come to a considered view as to what the questions should be that we ask the nation to reflect on? That question has been put to him directly and there is silence, and I do not think it does him a service, for on so many other aspects of his contribution, whilst I am not aligned to his politics, I respect his perspective. But on this, on this bill, on this clause where the convention is broken, and rather than Parliament being the place where we finally land the wording of a national referendum, it is now to be taken to Cabinet. And I look across—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): In fairness, I say to the member, actually, it isn’t this clause. This clause repeals this piece of legislation.

TODD MULLER: Yes, and this clause says that once we have landed that position, it only applies for this Parliament and this election and then it returns back to normal convention. So why is that? Why do it in the first place when you have a convention that we all accept is the appropriate way to manage? Imbedded in this clause is an assumption that is what it should return to as a convention in the future, but this Minister is silent on why. What is the justification for the deviation from that convention that this Parliament is best placed to finally sign off on the design of questions that go to the country?

There are people, looking across, who actually understand. Actually, if you have a quiet conversation, probably, out there, they’d agree, but they’re not saying in here, and the fact that the Minister is silent I find unusual.

I look across to others who have high standing in terms of a position of integrity on some matters of constitutional issues—potentially even the Green Party. And I look and see the co-leader of the Green Party James Shaw, who is silent, has not made a contribution to this, and I ask him, as someone who is part of this Government: how comfortable is he that you have a convention that this Parliament is the place where we sign off and debate the wording of referendums that we take to the country, yet here we have a bill which says, “No—we’re going to take it to the purview of Cabinet just for this election, and then we’ll return it back to the convention.”? To the Minister: why the deviation? Can you please stand up and answer not only my question but also the country’s question: why the deviation?

KIERAN McANULTY (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Well, I’ve been listening here tonight and taking the odd call on this Referendums Framework Bill. Here we are talking about clause 3. I had to do a double take. I could not believe that this bill is only for the next election and, in fact, is repealed after that in 2022. So while we have been debating the substance of the bill and whether Parliament should retain the authority to decide the question and the options for referendum, now we come to the piece of the bill which talks about repealing the law so that it’s only available for the next election.

Now, I have been thinking to myself: why is it that this only relates to 2020? If a bill is good enough for one election, why is it not good enough for other elections?

Kieran McAnulty: Have a go, Yule.

DAN BIDOIS: Take a call, Kieran McAnulty. Please tell me why this law is only relevant for the next election and therefore will be repealed. To me, there can be only one reason, and one reason alone, why this bill is only applicable to the next election, and that is because it is a rort. It is rort, and this Government wants the ability to control the question and the options for the cannabis referendum, and that will only be decided by Cabinet, of which Labour and New Zealand First are party to.

I really would like someone on the other side to take a call and to explain. Otherwise, the public of New Zealand and members on this side of the House can only draw one conclusion: that this law is designed to game the system in a way that determines the question and the options only for the next Government in the next election.

This is clause 3 that we’re debating. I have yet to hear anyone from the other side—I have been in here since dinner time, and I have heard no one from the opposite side explain to me very clearly why it is that this bill relates to only 2020. If it is good enough for the House to consider at the next election, then surely it’s good enough for proceeding elections after that. So I would appreciate it if somebody, even the Minister in the chair, who’s gotten a bit comfy—he hasn’t gotten up in some time—could please explain to me and the public of New Zealand why this Act is applicable only in the next election—

Raymond Huo: It’s all in the departmental report.

DAN BIDOIS: Well, take a call—take a call—and explain to the public of New Zealand why it is. Take a call, Raymond—take a call. All you have to do is take a call and you can explain the departmental report for the public of New Zealand and for members on this side of the Chamber who may not have read the departmental report.

So what we’re talking about here is very simple—why it is that this law applies to only one election—and we can draw only one conclusion from that, and that is that it is a rort to game the system, and members on that side of the Chamber, all they can do is laugh about it. All they can do is laugh. For them, this is a game. This is unbelievable that they are talking about taking the powers away from Parliament and putting them in the hands of a select few, and all they can do is laugh about it.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I wish to talk about clause 3 specifically because this typifies the cynicism of this bill. It typifies exactly why we shouldn’t be supporting this bill. At the end of the day, we have a piece of legislation put before this House at the convenience of the Greens in some backroom deal that said, “We want to have a referendum on legalising cannabis.” That’s what this bill is about, and I notice the co-leader of the Green Party sits there quietly listening to the Leader of the House yet, at the end of the day, in any normal environment, he would be outraged—outraged—that this was happening, because for 165 years the Parliament of New Zealand has decided what the wording of a referendum would be, when it’s going to be done, and how it’s going to apply.

This specific clause says that, after this election, after we’ve had a referendum on legalising cannabis—and now, we know, on end of life choice—this provision vanishes. So 165 years, a coalition agreement comes along, the Greens do a deal in the back room—because legalising cannabis in New Zealand is so really important to the future of this country!—they do a deal and everybody on the other side laughs. They jest at what’s happening here, but this is a piece of legislation of convenience—no other reason, no integrity, no commonality with the history of the importance and the sanctity of this decision making. We can’t even debate in this House what the question is, and, at the end of the day, this House should be paramount. What we are doing here is allowing the executive of New Zealand to determine by Order in Council the wording of the referendum.

We’ve heard from the Minister tonight that, at some stage next year, we will see a clear draft of the wording of the legislation. We don’t actually know yet whether the referendum is going to be binding, and here we are at nearly 10 p.m. deciding as part of this that, after 2020, this will vanish off the radar.

Hon Scott Simpson: Into the ether.

LAWRENCE YULE: Into the ether. In the meantime, there is nothing whatsoever to stop Cabinet, by Order in Council, from promoting other referenda at the 2020 election. Now, the Minister has shaken his head tonight when other people have suggested that, but so far I haven’t heard him stand up and say there is not going to be another topic discussed at a referendum. So we could have, through the rest of this Parliament, a decision made by Cabinet to simply put another issue before us.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for us to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Referendums Framework Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.