Tuesday, 10 December 2019

TUESDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2019

TUESDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Visitors

Parliament of Australia—Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity

SPEAKER: I am sure members would want to welcome members of the Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity from the Parliament of Australia, led by Senator Catryna Bilyk, who are present in the gallery.

Ministerial Statements

Whakaari / White Island—Eruption

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I wish to make a ministerial statement on behalf of the Government on the eruption of Whakaari / White Island. Just after 2 p.m., White Island erupted. There were two explosions, one after the other, in quick succession. The police have advised that of the 47 people located on or near the island at the time of the eruption, five are deceased and 31 have sustained injuries—many are critical. A further eight are still missing. Three have been discharged from hospital overnight. The scale of this tragedy is devastating.

Police and Defence Force personnel have undertaken a number of aerial reconnaissance flights over the island since the eruption. However, no signs of life have been detected. In the immediate aftermath of the eruption, a number of helicopter pilots made the conscious decision to fly to the island to try to rescue people. One Westpac Rescue Helicopter, and two private helicopters, along with a helicopter from the tour operator Volcanic Air, all landed on the island after the eruption to assist survivors.

I want to acknowledge their courage. In their immediate efforts to get people off the island, those pilots made an incredibly brave decision under extremely dangerous circumstances. Having met them just this morning, I suspect their own personal safety was the last thing on their minds, and I’m sure all of this House would wish to pay tribute to them.

Our hearts go out to the families of those who are injured, missing, or deceased. Among those injured or missing are people from Australia, the United States, the UK, China, Germany, Malaysia, as well as New Zealand. To those who have lost or are missing family and friends, we share in your grief and sorrow, and we are devastated. To our international partners and friends, we will do everything we can to support you as you have supported us in times past. In particular, our family in Australia has been heavily impacted. We feel the pull of our bond acutely at this time. Central and local government, iwi, and private industry are engaged in the response to ensure we are providing necessary support to everyone affected, and I do want to commend them all. I’ve seen the huge efforts that are going on, and their contribution is enormous.

The Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management Group continues to lead the response to this event. They’re focusing on providing welfare support for victims, survivors, and their families. The group is supported in its work by the National Emergency Management Agency, which is also coordinating the response at the national level.

The New Zealand Police are, quite rightly, focused on coordinating the recovery operation, supported by Fire and Emergency New Zealand. Police are also working urgently to confirm the exact number and identity of those who are unaccounted for so that their families and loved ones have the certainty that they need. Police have also activated their missing persons family liaison team to work with the families of missing or injured people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade are also on the ground in Whakatāne working alongside the police to provide that assistance and support.

I want to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of health professionals who are working across the country—and I mean across the country—to prioritise support to those injured. In some cases this has meant people have been moved around the country to ensure that they have the best expert care. That means that they are in Middlemore, Waikato, Christchurch, Auckland, the Hutt, and Tauranga. I met with first responders and health professionals this morning. They had worked tirelessly in the most devastating circumstances. Many of them had not yet rested or slept. The toll that the impact of this extraordinary tragedy has had on them was obvious.

The New Zealand Defence Force has deployed helicopters, drones, and observational equipment to further assess the environment. The HMNZS Wellington is also in the area. We know there is much work to be done over the coming days and weeks. We know too that there will be bigger questions in relation to this event. These questions must be asked and they must be answered, and the Police and WorkSafe will be putting out statements setting out that process, as I understand, later today. But our focus now is on discharging our duty of care to those affected, and that is also the focus of police.

As we focus on the tragic events at Whakaari / White Island, I’m reminded of two things. There is no limit to New Zealand’s capacity to mobilise, to respond, to care and embrace those impacted by tragedy. We are a nation full of ordinary people who do extraordinary things. I heard stories of, for instance, first responders, St Johns, who boarded a Coastguard vessel, made their way out to sea, and boarded in the middle of a journey one of the vessels returning to the mainland in order to give first aid support as soon as they could. There were two of them amongst many, many injured at that time until they reached other first responders on shore. I heard the story of those helicopter operators who when landing on White Island, as you can imagine, were greeted with devastating scenes, but did all they could to take every survivor from that island and bring them immediately back to the mainland. I have no doubt that they saved lives, at great risk to their own personal safety.

Just sitting off Whakaari is a place called Te Paepae o Aotea. It’s a collection of rocks that jut out of Te Moana-nui-a-Toi. For some of the Mātaatua tribes, it is where those who have passed on begin their journey to the afterlife. I say to those who have lost and grieve: you are for ever linked to our nation and we will hold you close.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of Simon Bridges and the National Party to join the Government and to thank the Government, actually, for the update and for the work that’s been going on. I don’t propose to know half as much as the Prime Minister has just laid out for us in this House, and, as such, won’t be traversing the same facts as what she has put on the table.

It is for us to show our respect to all of those that have been working at this very traumatic time, to acknowledge what is a personal sacrifice for those professionals who put themselves forward and in the face, and those volunteers that do it on a daily basis. At times like this, it makes us recognise the extraordinariness of them.

But now is about those victims. It is about the family members. It is about those that have gone through probably the worst 24 hours of their lives as they have wondered if their loved ones were there, and if they were the ones that got off or not, and if they were going to be OK. It is hard for us to imagine, as people around the world are now discovering, the grief that they must be going through with somewhere that is so far away for them and unknown.

As the Minister of Tourism—about 2½ years ago, it must have been—I actually went on to White Island. I had fished around it quite a bit in my time; my parents were in Ōpōtiki, and we used to go out from there. But walking on it, it is quite incredible: the power and the beauty of it. Our earth has opened up and exploded and taken some lives in with it. For those that are not from New Zealand, understanding that our land has taken them; our land now looks after them and will always show that kind of respect.

So on behalf of the Opposition, we would like to recognise those that are suffering, we’d like to recognise those that are working so closely behind it, and we’d like to thank the Government for the work that they’re doing at the moment. Thank you.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Prime Minister

1. Hon PAULA BENNETT (National—Upper Harbour) on behalf of Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. I acknowledge that sometimes those statements and actions relate to things that are less so Government policy and more so the tragic events that we will face from time to time as nation. I am conscious of the fact that, whilst I’ve been in contact with the local MP, Anne Tolley, on the ground in Whakatāne, I haven’t yet had a chance to brief the leadership of the Opposition, and I am very open to answer any questions they may have.

Hon Paula Bennett: Thank you. Is she concerned that there are Kiwi families struggling with the rising cost of living, and that rents are up $55 a week?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In answer to the first question, yes, of course, which is why when we first came into office we did make the decision not to proceed with the last Government’s plans of tax cuts across the board, and instead to focus on bringing in a $5.5 billion Families Package targeted at those very families that we hold concern over regarding the cost of living and low and middle income earners.

Hon Paula Bennett: What effect does she think increasing rents are having on poverty in New Zealand?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, as I’ve said in this House many times before, housing costs are a concern for this Government, which is why we came in and were elected on a platform of stopping State house sell-offs and increasing State house builds, as we have. We are building more houses than any Government since the 1970s. We have increased transitional housing places. We’ve expanded Housing First, which is targeted at the homeless. I have seen some of the estimates put out by the Opposition on rents; I do just again acknowledge that the measurement that tends to be most frequently used is the one keeps out the outliers and instead takes in the rent increases, which have generated, roughly, on average, a $16 increase nationwide in the last year.

Hon Paula Bennett: When will we see the 18c to 32c a litre decrease in petrol prices that her Minister Kris Faafoi promised last week?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don’t think that member is taking into account the full context of what the member would have been discussing at that time. Of course, references to the Commerce Commission report—which has demonstrated, I think, now on the public record, that our sentiment that New Zealanders were being fleeced by fuel prices in New Zealand has been held up and reinforced by the Commerce Commission. As a result, we are progressing changes which include more transparent wholesale pricing regimes, greater contractual freedoms to deal with competition issues, introducing an enforceable industry code of conduct, and improving transparency of premium grade fuel pricing. Those are just some of the initiatives that we believe will make a difference in the market.

Hon Paula Bennett: Will we see the 18c to 32c a litre petrol price drop before the election?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, actually, I stand by the Minister’s work to actually address issues which exist and have existed—from my recollection the Commerce Commission have said, really, over the past decade we’ve seen these issues. I think everyone in this House would want to see New Zealanders paying a fair price for their fuel, so I look forward to the support of the Opposition as we progress that work.

Hon Paula Bennett: Will the Prime Minister drop the Auckland regional fuel tax, then, if she wishes to see petrol be lower?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, that doesn’t demonstrate why, for instance, in many parts of the country you’ll see New Zealanders paying a price that is higher than what someone in Auckland who experiences the regional fuel tax does. That is inexplicable in many cases and one of the reasons we want to do this work.

Hon Paula Bennett: Has she considered taking off the regional fuel tax to decrease the price of petrol that she seems to be concerned about?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, removing the Auckland fuel tax will not help people in regional New Zealand, who are often paying more than someone in Auckland will be.

Hon Paula Bennett: Will petrol prices decrease, as we heard from her Minister Kris Faafoi last week, before the next election?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That certainly seems to be the suggestion of the Commerce Commission report, and that’s why we’re undertaking and expediting that work as fast as we can.

Jami-Lee Ross: Has her Government taken any action to condemn the excessive use of force by security forces against protesters in Iraq, which has seen hundreds of demonstrators killed in several parts of Iraq in recent weeks?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes. I have been advised that our ambassador in Iraq has directly raised New Zealand’s concerns over human rights breaches relating to the demonstrations, and they’ve done so directly with senior representatives of the Iraqi Government. I also thank the member for the question. This is the first time I’ve been directly asked about those demonstrations. I would, again, reiterate New Zealand’s position: that we are a nation that supports the right to protest and the right for people to be able to peacefully demonstrate without the use of excessive force.

Jami-Lee Ross: Will the Government take any further steps to join with other nations—including Canada, France, the UK, the US, and the EU—in expressing further support for peaceful demonstrations in Iraq and opposing the use of deadly force against demonstrators?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: In answering this question, I’m pleased to put on public record our position as a nation, which is, of course, in support of the ability of people to peacefully protest without, particularly, obviously, the use of potentially deadly force against demonstrators. I understand that many other nations have—under the banner of, for instance, the G20—made statements, and I put on record now New Zealand’s position, as we have done directly with officials in Iraq.

Question No. 2—Civil Defence

2. RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) to the Minister of Civil Defence: What actions has the National Emergency Management Agency taken in response to the eruption on Whakaari / White Island?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Civil Defence: I would, first, like to say that all our thoughts are with the families and loved ones affected by yesterday’s tragic eruption on Whakaari / White Island. Since the eruption, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has been coordinating the all-of-Government response to the eruption and ensuring that the focus is on keeping people and their welfare at the centre of the response. NEMA is currently supporting the Bay of Plenty Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group, who are leading the response at the regional level. NEMA has also activated the National Coordination Centre to enable it to better coordinate the collective response and is working closely with other agencies, including the Police, Health, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the New Zealand Defence Force, and GNS. I’d like to add to the Prime Minister’s words to acknowledge the courageous and dedicated work of our emergency services and first responders. We can all be extremely proud of their work.

Rino Tirikatene: Who should people contact if their families are involved?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Again, I acknowledge the grief and sorrow that those impacted will be feeling. Anyone who wishes to submit information regarding family and loved ones who might have been visiting Whakaari / White Island during the eruption should call Police on 105. People from overseas can call the number that’s available on the Police website, which is +64 9 105 105. And that information is available on the Police website.

Rino Tirikatene: What should people in the area do?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: GNS have indicated that there is a 50 percent chance of another eruption in the next 24 hours, so people do need to remain vigilant. They need to be aware of the potential for ash fall if that were to occur. In those circumstances, they should consider staying indoors. Volcanic ash can be a health hazard, especially if you suffer from breathing difficulties. We encourage people to listen to the radio, television, or other sources of information for further assessments and updates. Detailed safety advice will come from local authorities and emergency services in their area, and people should act promptly on that advice.

Question No. 3—Finance

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

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

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What financial assistance, if any, is the Government considering for the Bay of Plenty region following Whakaari / White Island’s eruption?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member will appreciate that in the first 24 hours, the focus is on the recovery operation and ensuring that we look after all of the families involved. We will move to consider any economic impacts in the following days, and act accordingly.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: How is his Government working to ensure that the New Zealand economy is strong and resilient and able to cope with challenges thrown our way?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I thank the member for that question. That is the core focus of this Government. That is why we have adopted a very careful approach to fiscal management. It’s why we’ve taken on the wellbeing approach to putting our Budget together, which focuses on intergenerational issues. And it’s why we are continuing to make significant investments in our infrastructure, our hospitals, and our schools.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Will he assure New Zealanders that before making any decisions on big infrastructure projects like closing the Ports of Auckland, which the Prime Minister suggested will happen, his Government will insist on rigorous independent advice on the costs and the benefit?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: When he said on the radio last night that there are still more questions to answer regarding moving the port, what are some of the questions he’s asking?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Associate Minister of Transport will be making fuller announcements on these matters on Thursday, but I’m on the public record as having indicated that issues including transport logistics in Auckland, the impact on the wider region, and the overall environmental impacts are important ones for us to consider.

Question No. 4—Health

4. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Does he have confidence that the appointment process for the new district health board chairs was conducted in line with State Services guidelines, and that all candidates were aware of the expectations around the time commitment involved?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Can I start by acknowledging the outstanding efforts of the ambulance staff, doctors, nurses, and allied health workers that have been involved in the response to the eruption of Whakaari / White Island. I’m advised that, currently, we have patients, many in a critical condition, in a number of hospitals across the country, including Whakatāne, Tauranga, Waikato, Auckland, Middlemore, Hutt Valley, and Christchurch. I’m sure members on both sides of the House would join me in thanking our health services for their hard work, dedication, compassion, and professionalism. Returning to the member’s question, the answer is yes to both points.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Can I endorse the Minister’s comments, and ask: were all candidates for DHB board appointments interviewed?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: All 76 board appointments were made to DHBs, with a further eight elected members appointed to chair and deputy roles. The Ministry of Health conducted a thorough appointment process, which included the—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: —Director-General of Health talking one on one with each prospective chair about the requirements of the roles. The Ministry of Health gathered full CVs and conflict of interest declarations for all appointees.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Did the new chair of the West Coast District Health Board make his time commitment clear in his interview?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Rick Barker has stated that the publicly attributed comments that he made were taken out of context. He has been clear to me in private and also in public that he is absolutely committed to doing his very best for the West Coast District Health Board. And it may interest the member to know that none of the five previous chairs of the West Coast District Health Board have lived on the West Coast at the time of their appointments.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Did, in that commitment, he reassure the Minister that the role would involve more than a few emails and phone calls and a four- to six-weekly meeting?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Mr Barker has been clear that the comments that have been quoted in the media were taken out of context.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Were all candidates for board positions advised of the outcome of the selection process prior to the Minister’s announcement?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: All candidates I appointed were written to before the announcements were made public.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was not about all successful candidates. It was about all candidates.

SPEAKER: Well, it was an answer; the question is whether the partial addressing is sufficient. I will ask the Minister to give a more fulsome answer.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I can certainly be clear that all the candidates I appointed were written to before the announcements were made public. The detail of whether everybody who was not appointed was told beforehand is something I’m happy to look in to for the member.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Were any of the unsuccessful candidates first advised informally by the Minister that they would be appointed, prior to the announcement being made on Saturday?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I have been very clear in every conversation with every member that I’ve spoken to that the appointments are the gift of Cabinet, and that I certainly made no promises about any appointments before Cabinet decisions were taken.

Willow-Jean Prime: Can the Minister tell the House how many Māori appointments have been made to DHBs and how this compares with the appointments following the 2016 local body election?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: We all know that Māori have poorer health outcomes, and if we are to turn that around, it is vital that we have Māori serving in leadership and governance roles throughout our health service. So I am pleased to advise the House that we now have four Māori chairs of DHBs: Harry Burkhardt at Northland District Health Board, Jim Mather at Lakes District Health Board, Kim Ngarimu at Tairāwhiti District Health Board, and Shayne Walker at Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. No Māori chairs were appointed in 2016.

Question No. 5—Police

5. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Police: What actions have the Police taken in response to the eruption on Whakaari / White Island?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Police): First and foremost, all our thoughts are with the families and loved ones affected by yesterday’s tragic eruption on Whakaari / White Island. I especially want to acknowledge the families of those who were visiting from far away—Australia, the US, Great Britain, China, and Malaysia. We are doing everything we can to find your loved ones and support those who have survived. We grieve with you and we grieve with them. I’m advised that police were alerted at around 2.17 p.m. about the eruption on Whakaari / White Island, and immediately commenced a search and rescue operation. Police deployed resources to Whakatāne wharf, the local access point for the island. This was also where the first group of tourists reached the shore. Since those initial stages, police have deployed 25 additional staff to Whakatāne, including iwi and family liaison officers and the police disaster victim identification team. Thirty staff are also supporting this operation around the country. The Police Eagle helicopter was deployed to support the courageous immediate efforts by the rescue helicopter pilots and private operators. With the help of the rescue helicopters and the New Zealand Defence Force, aircraft have undertaken a number of reconnaissance flights over the island since the eruption. Police are working alongside the National Emergency Management Agency, or NEMA, to provide families with information as soon as it becomes available. Police have also set up dedicated phone numbers for both domestic and international callers, and have published information on their website. The bottom line is police are doing all they possibly can in what is a tragic and significant event. For now, our duty is to return loved ones to their families, and, as police have said, there is much more work to be done.

Greg O’Connor: What actions have the police taken to support the families of victims following the eruption on Whakaari / White Island?

Hon STUART NASH: Police’s role has been to coordinate the search and rescue operation, and now to recover those loved ones still on the island. I’m advised that police are currently working with the cruise ship operator and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to confirm the identities of those who are missing. Police will also be assigning a family liaison officer to the victims, survivors, and families of those who were on the island. At the request of Police, the New Zealand Red Cross has activated the family links website for people wanting to register themselves as safe, or register an inquiry about a loved one. Victim Support is also providing their assistance. The police disaster victim identification (DVI) team is assembling in Whakatāne—this team assists in the recovery and identification of human remains. Police have also accepted an offer from the Australian Federal Police to deploy one of their DVI teams. Police followed the international process of disaster victim identification. This does not rely solely on visual identification, as experience shows this can result in mistaken identity.

Greg O’Connor: What reports has he seen about the support received by the New Zealand Police from other domestic and international agencies and organisations?

Hon STUART NASH: I want to acknowledge the courageous local private helicopter operators and the pilots of the local rescue helicopter who were dispatched by St John under urgency. They were the first responders and risked their lives to get the survivors off the island. They really are true heroes. Police are currently being supported by numerous agencies on the ground, and I must acknowledge the support from the National Emergency Management Agency, the New Zealand Defence Force—who have made every asset available at Police request, including the HMNZS Wellington. I would also like to acknowledge local government officials in the Bay of Plenty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, St John, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Coastguard, GNS Science, and the district health boards and their staff who were all hands-on in assisting victims and the police with their requests. The Australian Federal Police, the New South Wales Police Force, Work and Income, ACC, and Air New Zealand are also providing support to victims’ families. This is a major nationally coordinated operation, and everyone is playing their part. I would like to thank them all on behalf of the New Zealand Government.

Question No. 6—Local Government

6. Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Local Government: What advice, if any, has she received on the likely costs to ratepayers as a result of the Action Plan for Healthy Waterways including freshwater, storm water, and wastewater?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): I, too, want to acknowledge the victims and all those that have been impacted at Whakaari / White Island. The Minister for the Environment is responsible for the Action Plan for Healthy Waterways. As Minister of Local Government, I have received advice from the Department of Internal Affairs on the estimated costs for councils complying with the standard that could be applied under the current National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, in relation to waste-water discharge.

Hon Jacqui Dean: When she said, in answer to oral question No. 5 on 11 September, in relation to the freshwater programme, “I think we’ve come to a common ground about what the real pressure is in the cost space and how we can work through those issues.”, what is that real pressure and how much will it cost?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: There are real costs, as alluded to in the oral question and response that I made in the House, and those costs—we undertook to gain greater clarity through a report which we commissioned to ensure that there was full visibility to the local government sector of upgrading drinking-water treatment plants as well as waste-water treatment plants. That had never been done before in the previous nine years. That’s why the conversation we’re having with local government about pending impacts of increased standards and how they respond to water service delivery is a very important conversation which they want to have.

Hon Jacqui Dean: What advice has she received or sought on Gore District Council’s concern that the financial costs of meeting its obligations under the proposed freshwater rules may cost $60 million, which, based on 6,000 rateable properties, is more than $300 per household, per year, for 30 years?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: In relation to the freshwater costs, those matters are for the Minister for the Environment, but what I can say to Gore is the cost of upgrading waste-water systems in Gore is a historical challenge that is unique. Gore has combined waste-water pipes—that is, sewerage and stormwater flow in the same pipes—and it means that untreated or partially treated sewage regularly flows into the Mataura River when it rains. Auckland is the only other place in the country with combined waste-water systems, and in both cases, it’s a significant challenge to overcome. Auckland has scale; Gore does not, so there are some very serious issues that Gore needs to respond to.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Is she concerned that a town with a median income of $30,800, such as Gore, could be hit with an extra cost on the rates bill that could make living in Gore unaffordable for some people?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: In relation to the pending costs that, in part, had been foreshadowed by Gore in their long-term plan, the need to upgrade waste-water treatment systems and separate the current combined system that they will have and look at different water service delivery arrangements will, in part, be the solution. But it will be difficult for them to respond by themselves. That is why I am encouraged by conversations that are happening across the country of councils working together to deal with these serious issues and the cost impacts of upgrading their treatment plants.

Hon Jacqui Dean: Does she think that $300 per household, per annum, will also be reflected in a rising cost for rental properties across Gore?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Those are matters of speculation, but I do know that there is real concern amongst many communities. When there’s a serious downpour, in a combined system you will have stormwater and waste water going directly into rivers, and that’s the kind of environment that nobody wants for their kids.

Question No. 7—Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media

7. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media: Does he stand by all the Government’s actions and policies in relation to the rollout of 5G technology and spectrum in New Zealand?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): Yes.

Melissa Lee: Why has there not been an auction for the rights to 5G spectrum this year when former broadcasting Minister the Hon Clare Curran tipped that there would be one by this year?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The expressions of interest for the early allocation were put out earlier this year. As a result, the mobile network operators got into discussions with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which pushed the time frame for the spectrum allocation and auction a little further than had been discussed earlier. But we’re still on plan to have that early allocation spectrum go live mid - next year.

Melissa Lee: Why has he not yet resolved the outstanding iwi 5G spectrum claims that are holding up the roll-out of 5G technology across the country?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: An announcement on the make-up of the early allocation, including the iwi claims participation, is imminent.

Melissa Lee: Does the Government plan to gift iwi an allocation of the 5G spectrum before any auction for rights for stakeholders can occur?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The member will have to wait for that imminent announcement.

Melissa Lee: Does he agree with Fran O’Sullivan, who said it “is a fundamental absurdity … we lumber on with technology that is fast becoming second world”, regarding the delay in the roll-out of 5G spectrum?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: No. I would note that only one operator as of this afternoon has managed to start its 5G service, and, globally, 5G roll-out is in its infancy. The 3.5 megahertz spectrum which we will allocate for the long-term allocation does not become free until November 2022. All the telcos involved know that and are awaiting our announcements around the early-access spectrum allocation and also the long-term allocation of spectrum. So all the telcos and mobile network operators know exactly what the time frame is.

Question No. 8—Defence

8. GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) to the Minister of Defence: What actions is the New Zealand Defence Force taking to reflect its shift in focus to addressing climate change?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Firstly, I want to acknowledge all of the first responders and the families of the victims of the terrible tragedies unfolding at White Island and also the Defence Force personnel who are deployed right now in support. Yesterday, the Minister for Climate Change, the Hon James Shaw, and I announced the release of Responding to the Climate Crisis: An Implementation Plan, by Defence. This plan outlines a series of recommendations based on the climate crisis defence assessment released last December to assist the Defence Force in preparing for the effects that climate change will have on their activities, and the expected increased tempo of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations that we see coming down the pipeline. Actions Defence will be taking will include the deployment of capabilities to boost our regional response capacity and bringing in technology to help measure and reduce our own emissions, positioning New Zealand as a global leader in the military response to climate change.

Golriz Ghahraman: What impacts of climate change are members of the Defence Force reporting while carrying out their work?

Hon RON MARK: That’s a good question. The Defence Force are uniquely placed to observe the impacts of climate change. They operate in the natural environment at the rawest of levels on land, on the sea, and in the air, and they are very good at keeping records over many, many decades. They have observed the thinning and retreating of ice in the Antarctic continent, been exposed to increasing sea states and wave heights never encountered before in the Southern Ocean, and been responding to more frequent and more destructive weather events in the South Pacific. At home, sea level rises are increasingly affecting our coastal facilities in Auckland, such as at Devonport North Yard and at Ngātaringa Bay. On operations—be that Operation Wasawasa in Fiji; patrolling the Southern Ocean; monitoring illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing; or in responding to bushfires internationally—our soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women of our armed forces are encountering the changes in their climate and the effects on the environment every day they operate.

Golriz Ghahraman: How will Defence’s actions help address the humanitarian implications of climate change in New Zealand’s Pacific neighbourhood?

Hon RON MARK: The countries most vulnerable to the change in climate are those especially in the Pacific. They are often the least well-equipped to respond to those events and are not just vulnerable physically but they are vulnerable economically and financially. Reinforcing the Pacific Reset, the coalition Government has recognised our humanitarian obligation to assist our Pacific partners and to respond in the same way we would respond to similar activities in our own country. Under our Defence Capability Plan, we will make enhancements to the Defence Force that will boost our capability and our capacity to respond in the Pacific, including by increasing the army strength to 6,000 by 2035 to handle multiple operations simultaneously; by bringing on board enhanced sealift and airlift capabilities so we can move supplies, personnel, plant, and machinery for rescue and recovery operations; and we will be providing improved aerial surveillance and maritime domain awareness so that we are able to give more accurate, timely information reports, so that those who are responsible for planning Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) responses have accurate detail from which to do so.

Golriz Ghahraman: How does this shift in focus by Defence support the Government’s commitment to tackling climate change?

Hon RON MARK: Defence acknowledges that the impacts of climate change are accelerating and supports the work of wider New Zealand Government agencies in mitigating climate change. Defence aims to support the Government’s commitment in two ways: one, by ensuring that we have the capabilities required and the capacity to respond to an increasing number of search and rescue and HADR operations of increasing frequency and increasing destructiveness, and in particular ensuring that we can respond to concurrent activities, as we already have been doing. The second way is that Defence will undertake to use technology and to be more specific when it comes to drafting up specifications for platforms to ensure that, for example, platforms are able to run multi-fuels; that any barracks and facilities and bases we build will have a reduced, if not a neutral, carbon footprint; and that we operate in such a way as to minimise emissions ourselves.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister saying that with vision and leadership recently with respect to the Pacific Reset and Defence, our Defence Force will be at the front line in meeting climate changes going into the future?

SPEAKER: Leaving aside the additional material at the beginning, the rest of the question is fine.

Hon RON MARK: I’m very proud to be able to report back to the House that New Zealand has—since I’ve been in the chair, we have been asked to chair and lead defence discussions on climate change and the consequences of it. What Singapore, Holland, France—just to name a few—have said is that the New Zealand Defence Force seems to understand clearly the correlation between climate change, environmental change, the consequential impacts on society, and, from that, particularly in nations where governance might be weak or tenuous, the propensity to create security problems, be that intra-State or inter-State. I think we should, actually, take some pride out of that.

Question No. 9—Regional Economic Development

9. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: How much money from the Provincial Growth Fund has been received by projects approved for funding as at 30 September 2019 and, as at the same date, how many full-time jobs have been created in PGF-supported projects?

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Regional Economic Development): Reo Māori i te tuatahi. Nō te pakūtanga o te puia o Whakaari, ka heke mai te whanariki me te pūwerawera, he aroha ki te hunga kua riro, haere koutou, haere oti atu e.

[Māori language first. Once the volcano on Whakaari erupted, sulphur and extreme heat descended, condolences for those who have passed away, farewell to you, your time has ended, pass on.]

For the projects managed by the Provincial Development Unit, $297.5 million has been received by recipients. Of the $3 billion, over $1 billion has been held by other agencies such as the New Zealand Transport Agency, KiwiRail, and the Ministry for Primary Industries for the one billion trees. We have approved $1.8 billion, and $977 million has been contracted. Of the 1,922 positions, 616 are full-time and 1,091 are part-time. We have approved 463 projects.

Chris Bishop: Does he think $482,000 per full-time job is good value for money, and if so, why?

Hon SHANE JONES: The figure quoted is a static snapshot figure of the many projects that have been funded and have also been contracted. The member knows it will take a considerable period of time before the full benefit and the full employment complement will emerge.

Chris Bishop: Does he have an estimate for the number of full-time jobs that will be created through the Provincial Growth Fund, and if so, what is it?

Hon SHANE JONES: In the past, I have isolated and announced a figure over the full life of the fund which will stretch well into the next decade. The figure is 10,000.

Chris Bishop: Does he have a measure of success for the Provincial Growth Fund in addition to full-time jobs, and if so, what is that measure of success?

Hon SHANE JONES: It might interest the House to know that there will be two evaluations of the Provincial Growth Fund. The first one, short term, will be completed by the end of next year and it will measure the effectiveness of our activity against those indicators that Cabinet agreed to, which have already been publicly shared. Evaluating the full effects of the fund will take some time. In addition to numbers of jobs, I would point out the 6,000 young men and women known as NEETs through the Provincial Growth Fund and other sources of funding that have come into the world of light. Infrastructure resilience, social inclusion, and, indeed, Māori economic development are all indicators for this long-term investment strategy.

Andrew Falloon: Can he confirm that the number of people employed or contracted by the Provincial Development Unit in the last 12 months has more than doubled, from 53 to 116, and is he concerned about this large increase in Wellington rather than in the regions?

Hon SHANE JONES: The figure, no doubt, has been gained as a consequence of an open democratic process, otherwise known as the select committee process. We are talking about a sum of $3 billion. The fact that $3 billion has required the attention of 160-odd people is a mark of positive distinction.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: By way of comparison, is it not a fact that that number is just twice the number in the Leader of the Opposition’s office?

Hon SHANE JONES: Sir, the figures that you have quoted are not only correct but they’re not funded by the Provincial Growth Fund.

Question No. 10—Commerce and Consumer Affairs

10. BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: Does he stand by all his statements relating to the Commerce Commission study of the fuel sector?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): Yes.

Brett Hudson: In light of his reported claim that Government changes could bring down prices by 18c to 32c a litre, would he be surprised to learn that petrol companies currently have an average margin, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, of 25c a litre of which only 3.5c a litre is profit?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: My comments last Thursday following the release of the Commerce Commission report were a gauge of what has already happened when competition does come to town. The two examples that I used were, first, Gull, when they arrived in Wellsford, where they saw locally the petrol price drop by 18c per litre, and Waitomo, when they entered Upper Hutt, offered a price of 34c lower than when they arrived and, mysteriously, every other petrol company dropped their prices instantaneously. The overwhelming thing that came out of the Commerce Commission report was that the wholesale market isn’t set up in order for there to be good competition at the retail market, and we intend to do that.

Brett Hudson: Is he aware that the retailer margin is what pays for the wages of people who work at petrol stations, and, if so, is he concerned that decreases in the margin could have an effect on jobs and wages?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: What I am concerned about is that the Commerce Commission had found that for about 10 years the margins that the petrol companies were receiving were well above what they thought they should have been in an effectively operating market, essentially meaning that New Zealanders were paying too much at the petrol pump.

Brett Hudson: Isn’t the easiest way to drop prices and stop New Zealanders being fleeced at the pump to stop putting additional fuel taxes on New Zealanders?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: That question has already been asked of the Government today, but New Zealanders also like driving on modern and maintained roads.

Brett Hudson: Which one of cancelling the regional fuel tax or introducing legislation to implement Commerce Commission recommendations would lead to petrol price decreases sooner?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: What would lead to petrol prices dropping for New Zealand consumers, who purchase about 7 billion litres of fuel, is a Government taking the issue seriously, the Commerce Commission looking into the issue, and then changing the law in order for the wholesale market, which has historically prevented competition in the retail market—and that is exactly what the Government will do.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You’ve indicated that we just lost two supplementary questions. What was that for?

SPEAKER: Because two members interjected while Mr Hudson was asking his supplementary question—two members, including one right next to you.

Question No. 11—Health

11. ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour) to the Minister of Health: How is the health system responding to the tragedy at Whakaari / White Island?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): All our thoughts are with the families and loved ones affected by yesterday’s eruption on Whakaari / White Island. Our focus since the tragedy has been on supporting the victims, their friends, and families. I do want to take this opportunity to thank all of those involved in the rescue effort, and particularly the first responders. The priority for the health system is to provide the best possible care and treatment to those injured by this incident. I’m advised that 31 people remain in hospital with injuries ranging from moderate to critical. DHBs and the Ministry of Health are working closely with a number of agencies to ensure our response is well coordinated.

Angie Warren-Clark: How are district health boards working together to treat victims of the eruption?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: At times of emergency, we all rely on the skill and professionalism of our health services. The nature of this incident has required patients to be sent to DHBs across New Zealand so that they can get the best possible care, and burns treatment in particular. I can advise the House that currently we have patients in a number of hospitals across the country, including Whakatāne, Tauranga, Waikato, Auckland, Middlemore, Hutt Valley, and Christchurch. There are still some patients being transported between hospitals to ensure they receive treatment from the most appropriate healthcare team. The numbers at each hospital may, therefore, change during the day.

Angie Warren-Clark: What is being done to help support people who might be experiencing mental distress following the eruption?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The last 24 hours have been incredibly traumatic for all involved—victims, their friends and families, tourism operators, first responders, and the wider community. DHBs and the Ministry of Health are working closely with Victim Support, Red Cross, and other agencies to ensure there is appropriate psychosocial support in place. We want to make sure there is appropriate support in place for everyone, and I would remind the House that the Need to Talk? 1737 service and helpline are available all day, every day.

Question No. 12—Immigration

12. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister of Immigration: Is he satisfied that representations by prominent people supporting visa applications are dealt with in an appropriate and transparent manner?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister of Immigration): I wish to join parliamentary colleagues in acknowledging the victims of the eruption at Whakaari / White Island, as well as their families and friends. I can advise the House that the immigration response structure has been activated. Immigration New Zealand (INZ) border facilitation is on standby to assist relatives of victims who wish to travel to New Zealand, and INZ is ready to assist victims and their families in any way they can. In answer to the member’s question, yes, there are longstanding processes and practices to ensure that representations of support for visa applications by any supporters are dealt with appropriately. The prominence of supporters is irrelevant; everyone is treated equally and fairly.

Stuart Smith: By what methods did the Hon Kris Faafoi contact the office of his Associate Minister of Immigration in support of the application of Mr Mich Obadiah?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will now phrase his question in a way which includes the responsibility of the Minister, without an assertion that has not been established.

Stuart Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to Speakers’ rulings 152/5, 153/1, and 153/2. The Minister transferred these questions—or the Government did, which they have a right to—but they don’t have a right to do that if the Minister is not in a position to answer the question, nor—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. I’ve ruled on the matter. There are areas which some ministerial responsibility has to be established for and, in particular, in this particular case, the member made an assertion for which he has provided no evidence.

Stuart Smith: By what methods did the Hon Kris Faafoi contact the office of the Associate Minister of Immigration regarding the application of Mr Mich Obadiah?

SPEAKER: Right, well that was the second failure. The member can try again if he wants to.

Stuart Smith: Very well. Have any other Government Ministers who have contacted the Minister’s office or the Associate Minister’s office regarding requests for special assistance for visa applications?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Sorry, could the member ask the question again, please?

SPEAKER: I think, if he could leave out the word “other”, you’d probably get it in order.

Stuart Smith: Have any Government Ministers who have contacted the Minister’s office or Associate Minister’s office regarding requests for special assistance for visa applications?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I’m sorry, Mr Speaker. I just don’t think the question makes sense.

SPEAKER: It does actually make sense if one thinks about it carefully. It’s pretty simple: have any Ministers made representations either to the Minister or to Associate Ministers’ offices with regard to visa applications?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yes, it’s a core role of every member of Parliament.

Stuart Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I quite clearly said “Ministers” not “members of Parliament” per se.

SPEAKER: And one of the things we’ve established pretty clearly in this House is that Ministers are members of Parliament and they have a—[Interruption] Order! They have a variety of roles. I think what we’ve also established is that when they make representations in this particular type of representation—because some of us have had a long history of watching these matters, including a bit over a decade ago—people do make representations for constituents and for others.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It would be ridiculous for us to assume that the question might have been trying to make a separation that said a Minister wasn’t a member of Parliament, but it is not ridiculous to ask if someone who is a Minister makes a representation—quite a different thing. You can’t have—

SPEAKER: Sorry, that question was answered. He said yes.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: OK, that’s fine.

Stuart Smith: One more is it?

SPEAKER: Well, depending on whether you want to use another couple or have them off tomorrow.

Stuart Smith: Did the Hon Kris Faafoi ask his Associate Minister of Immigration to grant Mr Mich Obadiah a visa?

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I’m advised that neither Immigration New Zealand nor the Associate Minister has any record of any representations or involvement by any member of Parliament in relation to Mr Obadiah’s case.

Parliamentary Service Commission

Membership

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That under sections 15(1)(d) and 17(2)(a) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000, Chlöe Swarbrick be appointed as a member of the Parliamentary Service Commission in place of Gareth Hughes.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Racing Industry Bill

First Reading

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister for Racing): I move, That the Racing Industry Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 17 April 2020.

SPEAKER: The question is, that the motion be agreed to.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: In April—

SPEAKER: No, no. The member sat down. [Interruption] Order!

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I guess that’s an indication of how the racing industry is going to perform under that Minister’s leadership. We were promised—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I would like to listen to the member speaking to the bill. He may have had an early start in this race, but he will now speak to the bill and only the bill.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes, Mr Speaker. Well, the bill is a very important bill that this Minister had promised to the industry.

Chris Bishop: What does it do?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, the bill gives ultimate power to the Minister. The Minister was unable to even make a speech in this House, and yet now has ultimate power to dictate who will be running the racing industry in all the different boards that are created in this bill, and also the ultimate power to vest ownership of the assets of racing clubs in the various codes.

So this is a bill that has been part of a programme that the Minister had promised to the industry when he was anointed to that role. It’s taken many years to get to the first part of that process, and that was duly only a small part of what the Minister was going to do, because we had the Messara report, which was the origin of the reforms, and the Messara report was to be enacted in full. It has been broken into two bills and this is the second bill. This bill has to be done by the next election, because the Minister has a temporary board in place to govern the racing industry, and this bill is the part of assigning the full representation.

Now, in the bill the Minister has made it very clear that he has the ultimate discretion over who will run the racing industry, going forward. That is a lack of accountability, a lack of ownership, and a lack of respect for those people that are in the industry. For example, the Minister can appoint the board to replace codes if he needs to do so. So the codes that may be out there, the racing codes of thoroughbred, standard bred, and dogs, can be replaced. Their boards can be replaced by the Minister at his whim under this legislation. The Minister can also appoint a commissioner for any disputes between the three codes, giving him ultimate discretion, again, to dictate what may be done.

But the greatest discretion this Minister has is in regard to the assets of clubs and the relationship they have with codes. Racing clubs, under this bill, will have to abide by the rules of their relevant code. Now, that may not seem that difficult, but what it is in fact going to do is create a pressure point where codes can pressure clubs into doing what is required by that code. The code will have the ultimate power of being able to say to clubs, “This is what is required from a prospective club.” That pressure point then could lead to clubs having to reconcile themselves and do the things that the code requires rather than what the club itself may require. That lack of democracy and that lack of independence will be a key part of the select committee hearings around this bill.

The National Party does not accept that lack of independence and clarity as worded in this bill. It is very difficult to see how clubs can have any autonomy under this legislation. They are, essentially, at the whim of the code, and if the code is not effective in putting pressure on, they can then be at the whim of the Minister. This bill gives the Minister the ability to override the club’s decision and to vest their assets and their landownership in the code. It is, effectively, a mechanism where the Minister can nationalise racing portfolios and racing clubs, and can take away their ability to have independent racing operations.

Now, this may all be in the aim of achieving the ultimate goal that the Messara report said of having some amalgamation of clubs, and people understand why that may be necessary in the industry, but there are number of ways that that can be achieved. One way could be through clubs coming together and making those decisions themselves, as you would expect would be the appropriate way; not the way that this bill enables, which is the Minister having the ultimate power to dictate that change. In the select committee process, that will be an overriding factor that the National Party will look for for change. There are ways that that could be changed to save the integrity of those clubs and also achieve the purpose of the goal of the Messara report, and also the ultimate goal that the Minister probably has in this case.

Another issue that has been in the racing industry for a number of years has been the top-heavy nature of administration. This bill does the opposite of this, and it creates another level of board in the industry. Not only are we going to have the Racing Integrity Board that will, effectively, be there to govern the racing industry but now we have a new TAB board that will also be set by the Minister. Those seven places on each board will be set by the Minister without necessarily having to have profiled to the relevant codes. The Minister has to take into account the codes and the Sport New Zealand recommendation in regard to the TAB board and has to take into account other factors in regard to the Racing Integrity Board, but there is no requirement on the Minister around the composition of those boards to represent each code effectively. That is another example of where this bill gives all power to the Minister and none to the codes or to the clubs.

The TAB board and the creation of the TAB and the model that has been looked at in this bill reflects a revised vision of the TAB going back to a sense of what happened in the TAB many years ago. It creates a board that has the role of promoting racing and the distribution of profits and deals with betting and venues, but we don’t really have any indication from the Minister at this stage as to the real nature of the TAB’s powers.

Does the TAB have the power to outsource to other betting agencies? That is the real issue that has been circling around the TAB for many years now with proposals that, for example, foreign TABs or betting agencies could be involved with the New Zealand TAB. It appears from this bill, at first instance, that it gives a lot of discretion to the TAB board, and we would like the Minister to clarify in his second reading speech, no doubt, that the TAB will not be outsourcing its operations to an overseas provider under this legislation. We need that clarity around this legislation so that people in the industry know what is happening with regard to those issues.

The bill also has a part that’s in regard to offshore betting that relates to the consumption and information charges that were in the original race fields legislation that the previous Government had put forward. Those clauses in that part of the bill are very repetitive of what has gone through this House in the past, and we want the Minister to explain the devil in the detail, if there is any, in regard to those and why they have been incorporated into this bill at this time.

So this bill really is an attempt by the Minister to have ultimate discretion and power over the industry. The Minister will appoint board members, the Minister has the ability to say that a racing club is no more, and the Minister has the power to vest the assets of that club in the relevant code. That is a loss of independence, integrity—

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

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media): In April of last year, Mr John Messara, who is an Australian thoroughbred racing expert, was commissioned to conduct an independent, high-level assessment of the state of our racing industry. Mr Messara’s report confirmed that racing in New Zealand is in decline, and, as a consequence, the economic and the social benefits New Zealand receives from the industry are at risk.

The Government’s first legislative response to Mr Messara’s report, the Racing Reform Act, came into force in July of this year and it created the Racing Industry Transition Agency, or RITA, to lead a programme of change for the industry. It’s always been the intention to have this second bill for the next tier of reform.

This bill creates the new Racing Industry Act, amalgamating the existing provisions of the Racing Act 2003 with policy decisions agreed by Cabinet in November of this year. It will have a refreshed purpose that focuses on minimising the harm from gambling and provides a high-level overview of that industry. It recognises the need to take a more commercial orientation.

The Government’s view has been that the status quo could not prevail in the racing industry. Simply to do nothing would lead to continuing towards an inevitable decline. Following the advice of RITA and departmental officials, Cabinet has taken a range of steps to prepare the industry for the future, which is reflected in the bill that is before the House.

In terms of governance, the bill provides the post-transitional governance structure of the racing industry, with the creation of TAB New Zealand as the sole betting provider for racing and sports. The bill also empowers the three racing codes to, effectively, govern clubs, venues, and participants as it prescribes the high-level racing functions to the codes. The bill also establishes the Racing Integrity Board, which is responsible for all integrity functions and oversees a compliance arm and an adjudicative arm that operate independently of each other.

In terms of property, it is worth emphasising here that the preferred approach for property decisions is negotiation and for the community interests to be recognised. The bill introduces a suite of changes to resolve historical property issues that have contributed to the decline of the industry. Two property objectives are introduced to guide decision making by the industry: first, the value of racing property should be retained in the industry and used for maximum industry benefit, and, two, statutory provisions are introduced to support negotiations between clubs and codes on using surplus venues. The bill also introduces as a backstop a statutory decision-making process for the Minister for Racing to recommend an Order in Council to allocate property to the code. Provision is also made for payments to the club and community where it is warranted.

In terms of wagering, the bill introduces an approval mechanism to consider the introduction of new betting products. This change will support opportunities to increase revenue and support the financial sustainability of the racing industry. This proposed approach balances the need for new revenue from wagering products with the need to minimise and prevent harm from gambling.

In terms of other matters within the bill, it is deemed wise to direct the select committee to consider amendments allowing the industry to reach better voluntary commercial arrangements on the offshore charges regime. These amendments will be sent to the committee when the House resumes in the new year.

This bill contains a series of balanced and considered measures which get the industry back on track. It is opportune to thank both the RITA and Department of Internal Affairs officials for their work to get this bill to the first reading and for the support of Government and other partners. Accordingly, we commend the bill to the House.

Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): First of all, I just would like to acknowledge, like other members in the House, the tragic circumstances for those tourists and New Zealanders who have lost their lives at White Island or have been injured in that tragic event.

Now, addressing this bill—this is a very interesting bill. The National Party is going to support it through to first reading, but we have some grave concerns about this bill, and I wish to address those this afternoon. But, first of all, I want to say that we realise the importance of the racing industry to the New Zealand economy and to provinces and regions and cities throughout New Zealand. We know the size and scale of the industry. As a former Minister for Racing, I know that about 50,000 people are associated with the racing industry and some 17,000 jobs, and the income that the racing and sports betting and the overall industry contributes to the New Zealand economy is around $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.

I read the Messara report with a great deal of interest. What Mr Messara said—some of his points I thought were right on the nose. They were accurate and well considered, but he’s gone further by saying that the TAB should be floated down the track to allow other investors to come in. I think that is a real concern.

In this bill in particular, one of the points that grates with the National Party is the blatant property rights, whereby the Minister will have a power to be able to say to clubs that have historical property issues that “You need to sell down your asset and put it into a consolidated fund.” Now, that point there is a real issue for a lot of clubs throughout New Zealand. The racing industry has been formed on the backs of volunteers that have worked hard in these provincial and rural racing clubs to support their communities. The fear that we have on this side of the House is that the Minister has snuck a clause into this bill that says if these historical property issues don’t get resolved, then the Minister will have the power to say, “That club is on the market, sold, and I’m grabbing those proceeds and putting them into a centralised fund.” We don’t think that is fair, and we also encourage those in the racing industry to come forward to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee when this is opened up for public submissions so that they can have their voices heard.

The other aspect of this, as I talked about in my introductory remarks, is, indeed, about a specific board that’s going to oversee the way that the TAB operates. I think what the select committee should do is drill into the detail of who owns the TAB. That question has been asked for decades, and the answer will be, I think, that the Crown does. The industry might say “Well, we do.”, and the sports industry might say, “Well, we have a stake in that pie as well.” I think all of those factors are worth due consideration, but, fundamentally, the TAB, in my opinion, is owned by the Crown.

What this TAB board is going to do is start getting ready for the TAB to be ultimately floated, or for an overseas investor to come in and purchase or do some deal on the TAB. I’m wondering how that is going to sit with New Zealand First, because in the past they’ve always been opposed to foreign investment, but I know they’re quite supportive of it in the forestry industry right now. Let’s wait and see through the select committee process what the industry thinks of the TAB board that is going to be specifically focused on getting the TAB ready for some of it to be floated offshore. That will be an interesting consideration as well.

The last comment is one that I actually personally support: to allow new betting products to be allowed in this country. It’s always been very difficult to get new betting products through this Parliament, because there’ll be some on this side of the House who are diametrically opposed to gambling, and I take that on board. There are others who perhaps have TAB accounts, who might bet on a daily basis. So, in this Parliament, we are a broad church, and I think that’s going to be an issue that is worthy of further consideration. If you look at the UK, they can go and bet on the name of the next royal family member, who may not yet be conceived. So I think there is an opportunity for that to be further explored in the select committee.

So, in summary, this bill is important for the racing industry, but there is enough of a concern from the National Party that we are going to roll our sleeves up in this select committee and get stuck in, and I’m pleased to see that the Minister has not gone for a truncated select committee period—report back is on 17 April next year. That gives enough opportunity. I don’t think it necessarily is going to be enough for a lot of people who may mobilise against this bill, but I guess they’ve got the period leading up to Christmas and in January, no doubt, when the select committee will ask for public submissions.

I encourage all of those people that are out there in rural provincial New Zealand who’ve worked hard on their racing club with blood, sweat, and tears to support their racing industry—where mum and dad and the kids turn up to one or two events every year, and they feel a sense of pride and ownership in their local club—to push back on the Minister to say, “We believe that we need to have a due process into any of these historical property issues, rather than the heavy hand of the Beehive coming down through an Order in Council and just saying that ‘We’re going to put your track on the block, take those proceeds, and put them into a centralised fund.’ ” Thank you, Mr Speaker.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I too, like other members, would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge those that are suffering and grieving as a result of the explosion at Whakaari / White Island. Today is not the day for grandstanding or cheap political points, and indeed I will not be taking the opportunity to correct some of the scaremongering that we’re hearing on the other side of the House.

The Labour Party’s proud to support this bill. It is a bill that is needed, and it is a bill that will support an industry that many of us love. I love nothing more than sitting there on a Saturday afternoon listening to Tony Lee cheering on the field down the long straight at Trentham, inevitably to see the final leg of my multi fall over.

It is a fantastic industry that supports many regions and provinces where many of us here in this House live, and I think that this bill, under the leadership of the Minister for Racing, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, will be seen and looked back on in history as the thing that rejuvenated this industry. I commend it to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): That was a very good speech, starting off by saying that the member was not going to be political and then accusing the Opposition of scaremongering. Actually, Mr McAnulty, this is not scaremongering; this is genuine concern for our racetrack owners around the country.

As we know, racing is an important part of the economy—particularly in our rural areas—involving $1.6 billion in revenue and around 18,000 jobs. I’ve got some significant racing interests in my electorate of Taranaki - King Country—in fact, all the way through it. Yes, racing has been in decline, and that’s more in terms of the stakes rather than in terms of the breeding. We actually breed some very good horses in this country, but when it comes to the racing stakes, it’s been very hard for the industry and trainers to actually have a really good go at it, because the stakes aren’t very high. That’s basically because, as we know, there are a large number of racetracks and racing venues in this country.

We recognise the need for change in the industry. We are supporting the intent of this bill, and we are supporting it to first reading, as we look to help the racing industry transform into the competitive market that it does have the potential to be. But where we disagree, and where we want to have a good discussion at select committee, is that this bill gives too much power to the Minister when it comes to decisions around these racing venues and racing tracks around the country. In particular, we can’t support Subpart 2 of Part 1 in its current form, because this Subpart 2 refers to the transfer of assets and surplus venues. Really, this will be like a red rag to a bull to many in rural provincial New Zealand.

Now, when Minister Faafoi spoke before, he said that during this process the preferred approach would be negotiation, but then, following that, he said these clauses are a backstop for the Minister which allows that Minister to allocate property to the code. So then is this really a genuine negotiation? It’s a negotiation, but if you don’t do what the Minister wants you to do, the Minister has the power to step in and actually make that approach on behalf of the particular racecourse or the race venue.

Like our previous National speaker, Nathan Guy, I would encourage a significant number of people to put submissions in on this bill. I believe we will get a significant number, because this could end up with some of the racing club land being confiscated and given back to particular codes when that’s not the wish of the people in particular communities that have put their time and effort in. There’s a real pride in communities in some of these venues, and they’re not just racing venues either, I must say. In some communities, a lot of those venues are used for other types of events.

So, clause 25, that allows the Order in Council recommended by the Minister to grab these properties if an agreement can’t be reached by local clubs, is a step too far for the National caucus, because we believe in private property rights and we know that these people have put a lot of effort into this over a period of time.

I just wanted to make reference to the TAB, because there’s a lot of discussion around the TAB and its ownership and how it will work out through this bill. We hear a lot about betting and gambling, and I just want to say at this point in time that, actually, the betting and gambling thing is a red herring when it comes to specifically stating this around the racing industry. Once upon a time, the racing industry was the place where people went to take their bets, but I think it’s already been stated today that you can pretty much bet on anything now. You can bet on many codes of sports, you can bet on things that aren’t codes of sport, and I don’t want to see anybody throughout this process use betting and gambling as any excuse to push back on the racing industry, because it’s a wonderful industry.

While I don’t go often, I always enjoy a day at the races, and we in the National caucus are supporting this bill to select committee and then looking forward to some sensible changes around Subpart 2. So thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ki ngā tini mate kua haere ki te pō, haere, haere, haere.

[To the many deceased who have passed to the night, depart, depart, farewell.]

Can I, on behalf of the Green Party, acknowledge the grief and loss of those who have lost family members and friends in the Whakaari / White Island tragedy, and the dedication, commitment, and skill of the first responders and those in our health system and all of those who are supporting those families and the recovery effort.

The Messara report did highlight the crisis in the racing industry, and this bill, the second after the Racing Reform Act that was earlier passed by the Parliament, is aimed to put in place the reform to provide a really solid basis for the industry. I acknowledge, as the previous speaker, Barbara Kuriger, did, just the importance of the industry in terms of the livestock, the bloodstock, and the export of thoroughbred racing horses to the New Zealand economy.

I would like to acknowledge, in starting, the work by the Minister for Racing, the Deputy Prime Minister, and his staff for the very constructive engagement on improving the bill to address the Green Party’s concerns around minimising gambling harm and the potential for gambling harm. That’s why we’re really pleased that with the establishment of a new TAB to be the statutory body which controls all race betting, it has a different objective from the current one, and that it is about ensuring that the risks of problem gambling and under-age gambling are minimised and it balances its objective of raising revenue from betting against this objective of minimising gambling harm. That creates a much better balance.

The whole point of this bill in actually separating out racing and betting functions, setting up the new TAB, and ensuring that in the work of the codes, they focus very much on actually administering the codes—that that’s separate—is a step forward. The TAB will have that sole focus on providing betting on racing and sports while minimising harm.

The other important thing that the bill does is ensure that there’s a new Racing Integrity Board established. Now, that will be funded from revenue from betting but it will have an investigatory and an adjuditory function, and, again, that is a significant step forward.

Now, the previous speaker and Nathan Guy talked quite a lot about this issue of racing venues and racecourses. The whole issue of racetrack consolidation has been debated by the industry for decades, and the Messara report highlighted how some change is needed there in order to consolidate venues in order to have the revenue to invest in improving racecourses. But what this bill does, as I understand it, is ensure that it is the codes that make this decision about whether there is to be any consolidation, that that is to be achieved through negotiation, and that the codes decide how the revenue will then be used, and it provides the flexibility, potentially, for clubs that might decide to sell their racecourse—that they can still run events at other courses.

So, yes, this provision will be controversial and, again, I hope that clubs and other make submissions, but there needs to be consolidation for the industry to flourish. I think the improvements that have been made to the bill, taking into account the recommendations of the Messara report ensuring that the decision making rests with the code and that it’s not Government coming in and making those decisions, are the best interests of the industry.

So the Green Party will be supporting the bill and we recognise that both in terms of the objectives of the TAB with the minimising of harm and the separation of race betting and code management, and with this objective of the whole bill around minimising gambling harm, it has been an improvement to what was originally proposed, and we thank the Deputy Prime Minister for engaging with that. Thank you.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d firstly like to start by acknowledging the terribly tragedy that’s occurred at White Island, as well, and thank the first responders for the work they have done and continue to do, and extend our condolences to the families impacted by this.

Now, with this particular piece of legislation, the Racing Industry Bill, in its first reading here today, we are supporting it. You’ve already heard today some of the concerns we have, but, actually, I just want to touch on the fact that the racing industry is an important sector and, speaking particularly as the MP for Waikato, it’s a very proud part of the success of the Waikato. We see every day the benefits that industry brings to our communities, so we absolutely need to be doing more to support them, and I am encouraged by the attempts to do so, although within this bill there are some very significant concerns.

The biggest one of those is around the potential transfer of assets and we simply can’t support the Minister for Racing’s capacity under this legislation to do that. There are countless volunteers who contribute massive amounts of time to the racing sector, volunteering at their local tracks in whatever capacity and making the day a real success for those communities. It may only be a couple of race meets a year that they have, but it’s a big event for the community. To lose that would be a real shame, but more so to have their assets—all that hard work that’s been built up over years of volunteer contributions—be stripped away and reprioritised at the Minister’s discretion. So that is a concern and we certainly hope to be able to address that through the select committee process.

So we are supporting it to that stage, initially, but under its current form it just gives too much power to the Minister, and we’ve actually seen that trend in a number of pieces of legislation put forward by this Government where it’s the attitude that they know best rather than the industry being able lead in whichever particular field it is. This is a fine example in the racing industry where, again, the Minister wants to have all the power without being required to consult the industry or come back before this House.

So we have concerns about that. We’re hoping to address that, so we are supporting it because we do want to see some positive change for the industry and see them better off as a result of it. So we’ll do what we can to ensure that happens. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Greg O’Connor—five minutes.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I’ll be one of many New Zealanders who will be enjoying the races—in my case, the Westport Boxing Day races—this year. This year, when my colleagues—who I’ve known for many years—start lamenting the state of the track, the state of the crowd, and the state of the stakes, I’ll be able to reassure them that, finally, we have a Government that is trying to address that, and that if we get this right we can restore the stakes, we can restore the crowds, and we can restore the number of horses in that field. Therefore, I have no hesitation in commending this Racing Industry Bill to the House.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): As we’ve previously heard, National supports this bill to the select committee stage. We do have some concerns, but before I outline those concerns can I just acknowledge all the people across New Zealand, and especially in rural New Zealand, who take part in the racing industry. Quite often in small towns, it is the social occasion of the year. I have been known to have a wee flutter every now and again, but not successfully, so I haven’t done so in a couple years. I’d better not mention here, considering we live in a PC world, the fancy dress that I wore to some racing events when I was younger.

I just want to use one example, which is the Gore Racing Club. This is a racing club in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, and it’s not used just for racing—

Andrew Falloon: Gorgeous.

HAMISH WALKER: Thank you, Mr Falloon. It is gorgeous, but it’s actually used by the Scout club and the bridge club, they have an A and P show there, and they have shearing champs every second year there. Years of dedication and hard work has gone into the racing club by the local community.

One aspect of the bill that we’re not too happy about—and I acknowledge Minister Sage, she did sort of make reference to this—is around Subpart 2 in Part 1. This means the transfer of assets and surpluses if the Minister closed down clubs. What does that mean? Basically, the Minister can come in, sell up the club, sell up the land, and use those assets and put it in a greater pool, which, in Gore’s case, could be used for clubs or the industry in the North Island. We don’t agree with that.

You only need to look at the quote from the Gore Racing Club president, Justine Abernethy. This comment was made about a year ago: “Our worst-case scenario if we go down what the Messara Report wants us to do, is we’re going to have to sell all our assets”—all that goodwill built up over the generations by hard-working farmers in Southland—“and that money should go back to the community.” That was their worst-case scenario. Unfortunately, under this—under Subpart 2—the Minister can come in, use his hands, and use that money elsewhere.

This is not good, and for that reason we will support it to the select committee stage, but we hope the Government works with us on this for the good of New Zealand racing and ensures that Subpart 2 is worked out, because it’s not fair. A local community builds up a racing course, assets, and surpluses for generations, and often donating stock to raise money for the club and often donating a large number of assets, only for the Minister to come in and use that money elsewhere.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Tuatahi, e tautoko ana ahau i te āhuatanga o ngā mihimihi i tēnei rā mō ngā whānau pani, ā, otirā rātou katoa kei raro i te kapua pōuri mō tērā aikaha, aituā, aroha mai, ki Whakaari.

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I support the nature of the acknowledgments today of the bereaved families, and indeed of all those who are enveloped by sadness from the tragedy at Whakaari / White Island.]

I am pleased to stand and support the Racing Industry Bill. I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Winston Peters for bringing this bill forward. There is a need within the industry and, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I echo my colleagues’ sentiments from this afternoon in relation to the awful events in the Bay of Plenty and pass on our condolences to the families of those affected, and also our best wishes to those involved in the recovery and also the medical professionals up and down the country who are still working with those affected.

As we’ve heard this afternoon, the National Party will be supporting this legislation to allow it to go to select committee, to allow for all industry players and, indeed, fans to have their say over this Racing Industry Bill. But we do so with some reservations about the content, and I particularly want to speak in relation to clause 25.

Earlier in the debate, we heard from Mr Kieran McAnulty, who, I suppose, is no stranger to the racing industry. He accused the National Party of scaremongering over this bill—of scaremongering. Well, Mr McAnulty, I’ll just point you to clause 25, which refers to the transfer of surplus venues by Order in Council, where it says that in cases where no agreement on the transfer has been reached, “The Governor-General may, by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister,—(a) approve a proposal prepared by the racing code relating to the transfer of the surplus venue to the code”. So that essentially means that courses can be taken away from local communities, sold off, and the proceeds go to the code in question. We do have concerns about that.

I suppose I speak—as many members here do—as quite a big fan of the racing industry. I’ve got four racecourses in my electorate: Phar Lap Raceway, which is the one I’ll speak about in a moment; Ashburton; Ōrari; and Methven. In fact, I would have been at the Methven races on the weekend but for an unfortunate incident where a couple of bridges over the Rangitata River were out of action for a period of time. But Phar Lap, in particular, is one that’s been slated for closure or for loss of races by the Messara Report. Subsequent to that, I started a petition which was signed by 5,600 people in the South Canterbury community. That, to me, really sums up the feeling that there is in local communities for the racing industry.

This isn’t just about the racecourses or the racing meets—although, of course, many thousands do turn up to Phar Lap every December, later on this month, for the races; that’ll be a great event, as it always is—but they’re also hubs for the community, and Phar Lap in particular hosts a lot of community events. There are a lot of businesses that rely on the customers that come through those doors, not just for racing events but also other events. Unfortunately, that would go if this bill was to pass in its current form, where a Minister, through the stroke of a pen, could, essentially, say, “Right, not only are we going to take the races away from Phar Lap Raceway, but we’re also going to take the course away from the community.” So I have real reservations about this bill and real concerns about what the effect will be on places like Timaru and what the effect will be in regional New Zealand.

We will be supporting this bill, but I’m very, very keen to hear what the industry has to say about the bill, not just the interests in the places like Waikato and Bay of Plenty but also in places like the South Island, which is slated to lose 11 courses of the 20 that are slated for closure. I’m keen to hear what they have to say, from industry and fans alike. Thank you very much.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I want to echo those members who spoke before me, and I feel for the victims and their families of the Whakaari tragedy.

The racing industry is important to us. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media) on behalf of the Minister for Racing: I move, That the Racing Industry Bill be reported to the House by 17 April 2020.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I move, That the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s customary when Ministers move a second reading speech that they thank the members of the select committee who have considered the bill, and I want to do that today with some genuine appreciation for the across the House cooperation that has taken place in bringing this bill to this place. It is an example of, I think, how we can work together when we need to in the House. I particularly want to thank the Opposition spokesperson, Dr Reti, for his cooperation in helping to get the bill through the House. I do want to thank the organisations and individuals who have made submissions on the bill and taken the opportunity to have their voices heard on the matter.

The bill addresses regulatory gaps relating to the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students to ensure that students live in a safe environment and that they have a positive experience that supports their educational achievement. It ensures the consistency and effectiveness of codes of practice for domestic and tertiary students, and it ensures that providers are accountable for the pastoral care of their students.

I want to briefly cover some of the amendments that the Education and Workforce Committee has made to the bill. The Government intends to support the amendments as recommended by the committee. The committee has recommended an amendment to the definition of “serious harm” in new section 238D of the bill. The definition of “serious harm” is relevant in determining whether an offence has been committed. New section 238S introduces a new criminal offence for breaches of the applicable code without reasonable excuse that result in serious harm or death.

The definition of “serious harm” as introduced was linked to a requirement for immediate treatment. A number of the submitters were concerned about this definition. Whether or not an injury or illness has required treatment or medical intervention shouldn’t be what decides whether serious harm has occurred. I welcome the committee’s recommended amendment to remove reference to the types of treatments or interventions that might be required, and I also support the committee’s other recommended amendment to the definition of “serious harm” to make it clear that the definition is not intended to include harms that have a minor or no ongoing impact for the students. The committee’s recommendation is to change the reference to “an event or circumstances that seriously and detrimentally affect the safety or well being of the student,” to “an event or circumstances that seriously and detrimentally affect the ongoing welfare of the student,”.

New section 238G as introduced enables the Minister to issue “a code of practice that provides a framework for the pastoral care of domestic students:” and “a code of practice that provides a framework for the pastoral care of international students.” The committee has recommended this section is amended to clarify that the Minister is able to issue a single code that provides the framework for the pastoral care of both domestic and international students, and I welcome this amendment. It does give additional flexibility.

A number of submitters commented that there should be a more explicit requirement around consultation, particularly with students in the wider tertiary sector. In response, the committee has recommended the insertion of new subsection (4A) into new section 238G. That would require the Minister, before issuing the code, to consult with those parties that the Minister considers are likely to be affected by the code. That includes representatives of students, parents, providers, signatory providers—i.e., those who are part of the international code—and the staff of providers and signatory providers, as well as the Privacy Commissioner. I welcome those recommended amendments, and I consider that the consultation with students, their families, and the wider sector, including the Privacy Commissioner, is, in fact, going to be essential to developing the code and to ensuring that it is robust and effective.

New section 238H gives new powers of entry and inspection of student accommodation to the code administrator as part of their ability to monitor a provider’s compliance with the code. The committee has recommended three changes to these provisions: for inspection of a student’s room, the code administrator must give the student a minimum of 24 hours’ notice that explains the purpose of the intended entry or inspection; the student must consent to the entry and inspection, unless that is unreasonable in the circumstances—for example, if the student has been unable to be contacted—and the student doesn’t need to be present if they consent to the entry in their absence. Now, I support these amendments. The amendments will improve the bill by strengthening the privacy of students, and I think that is a welcome thing.

The committee has also recommended several minor amendments to the bill, which I support, including amending new section 238G to require providers to take all reasonable steps “to maintain the well-being of domestic tertiary students;”, rather than requiring providers “to protect domestic tertiary students;”—that’s a sensible change—amending new section 238I to limit the application of quality improvement notices to matters that are applicable by the code; amending new section 238M by introducing a limitation period for the dispute resolution scheme, so that the student is required to lodge a dispute for resolution no later than seven years after the date of the act or omission on which the dispute is based; and amending new section 238T to introduce a defence of “without reasonable excuse,” and making this provision clearer by removing the need for a breach of regulatory requirements and just referring to a breach of the applicable code.

This bill is vital in improving the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students. It addresses the regulatory gaps that currently exist relating to the pastoral care of domestic students and it ensures that providers are going to have a consistent approach to maintaining the wellbeing of domestic tertiary students. Families and whānau have a right to feel assured that when their young people leave home and they are studying a long way away from home, they’re being provided with the best possible pastoral care in terms of safety and support services. I, once again, want to thank all members of the House for their cooperation on this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. First of all, to those with losses today, e ngā mate, haere e ngā mate, haere ki te kāinga tūturu o tō tātou Matua i Te Rangi. Haere, haere, haere. [Go well, oh deceased ones, return to the true home of our Father in Heaven. Depart, depart, farewell.]

It’s a pleasure to speak to this bill, the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill, which has indeed had collegial support across the House for an important issue that came up with some urgency. I want to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee, led by Dr Parmjeet Parmar, and officials and submitters, who were able to bring us to this point today, where we are at the second reading.

We had 22 written submissions and 14 supported the intent of the bill, and I think, for me, the tone was set—maybe it was the second set of submitters—with Universities New Zealand, because they’re potentially the ones who might have been most affected. We need to remember that under the Residential Tenancies Act, residential facilities were carved out by Universities New Zealand or their equivalent, who said “No, leave it with us. We’ll do a voluntary code and it will work.”, and, of course, that’s what brought us to this place, because there were failings. It didn’t quite work as everyone expected.

When Universities New Zealand came in and, in their opening submission, they said “We accept the inevitability of legislation.”, I think it was clear then that we were going to have a good degree of consensus for what this bill needed to do. Furthermore, their submission was so compelling that two aspects of it, which was a seven-year look-back cut-off and some qualification around the words “serious harm”, were actually taken into effect.

Now, when the bill first came to its first reading, Treasury had expressed some concerns—six concerns, actually—and I think that to some degree we have addressed them through the select committee. I’ll very briefly go through them, and then I want to address six areas, the issues that were there, and the solutions that we came up with. The starting issues, if you like, that Treasury had were around defining the nature and size of the problem, asserting that there was a duty of care to all students, that the options were somewhat limited, the scale and impact of the costs hadn’t been assessed. Their fifth item was unintended consequences—should the burden of compliance be so high that providers just withdraw and they’d just say “Oh look, these regulations are too hard. We’re out of here.”—and the sixth concern they had was cream-skimming, if you like—that is, if this burden of compliance is too high, they might only take on what they might perceive as low-maintenance students, and those who do have challenges might be left finding residential accommodation.

So in my mind, the six issues that the select committee dealt with and reached solutions on were as follows. The first was around the development of the domestic code of practice, and the concerns raised were that there was a lack of definition of pastoral care; there were some concerns for what “reasonable” and “so far as possible” and protect the “positive experience” might mean, and we actually then modified the legislation. One of the recommendations from the select committee was that instead of talking about protecting students, we change it to “take all reasonable steps to maintain the well-being of domestic tertiary students;”, and that resolved a lot of those issues. It was also commented that in that definition, words like “positive experience” and “reasonable steps” are already in legislative parlance, so we’re consistent with precedents, and a differentiation from the word “welfare” was not necessary because institutions already have that obligation.

Their scope of practice was a concern because it was also mentioned to us that, look, they were dealing with young people, young adults, and adults, and it’s a continuum of audience, if you like, and there may well need to be some different regulations between those over 18, who have their majority and are clearly in their adult life, with those who are younger and who may need more or less pastoral care. It was commented to us that the Children’s Act 2014 actually covers children under 18, to address the concerns that we had.

There was also some question around whether the contracting out by a residential facility, say, from a university to a third-party provider might remove their obligations for responsibility, and the answer to that was no. The institutions cannot contract out the code of practice, even if their accommodation is contracted out.

I think the second area, then, was around separate domestic and international codes: is there a place to have two codes, or is that just increasing the burden of compliance to actually have two codes, bearing in mind the international code was the one first established? I think we were reassured that this bill itself futureproofs and gives us the ability to still bring those codes in to one. There are some unique features that international students have, and it may be that at some point in the future, we do have a code of practice for children, but this bill does have the flexibility to do that.

Many submitters said that the bill requires consultation with providers in the development of the code, but students aren’t seen, and that was absolutely correct, so we changed it. We said that there should be a requirement for the Minister to consult with students, family, and whānau. There was some discussion around the administration of the code through the code administrators, but we mostly addressed those concerns. A large part of, certainly, the public domain media talked about entry and inspection powers, the ability under the code of practice for administrators to just go straight into a student’s room and the concerns for student privacy, balancing off that supervision requirement that we have. So we made three main changes to that. The first was 24 hours’ notice before inspection of a room, entry and inspection requires the students’ consent, and students can consent for them not to be present for entry and inspection. This is what we’re expecting the code to encompass when it’s formalised, and that was well regarded and well considered by everyone.

The fourth issue: there were some compliance matters around quality improvement notices and sanctions for the breach. They were mostly administrative, and we attended to them. The second to last was around the offence and penalty provisions. The Law Society put forward some very considered thinking around strict liability, whether strict liability as an offence was intended, and I was glad they were able to define that, because it sits a little bit outside my scope of understanding. But we were reassured by officials that it wasn’t intended in the bill, and, as I’ll speak to in a moment, we amended a part of the bill to say “without reasonable excuse”. This helped us reasonably remove a lot of the hurdles that the Law Commission and several others raised of a legalese nature.

Serious harm was also raised by many submitters as a concern, as being too broad. What did it mean to say you would not cause serious harm? There weren’t clear precedents in other legislation for us to anchor on as well. Furthermore, the original bill actually gave examples of types of injuries and illness, and one of the concerns was that if someone did have one of those injuries or an illness of that type and then presented for treatment, as the original bill was written, that by definition met the criteria for serious harm, and this wasn’t what we were intending. If someone had measles, chickenpox—call it what you may—and goes for treatment at an emergency room or an A & E, that by definition was almost going to be serious harm, and it wasn’t what we intended. So we encapsulated all of that. We removed the list of examples of injuries and illness, and we referred to “serious and detrimental ongoing effects for the welfare of the student”. It seemed to be a much better definition.

The final area that we talked about which we reached solutions on was around the cost of compliance and impact on costs, and we were reassured that officials would take this into account when the code of practice was established. We need to remember that’s what this bill does. It permissions officials to establish the code of practice, and what we’ve given them here is, sort of, riding instructions as to where we think the key points for that code should be. Now, in that same context, and reassuringly, this is a disallowable instrument. The code of practice will be a disallowable instrument.

Fundamentally, what that means—because on inquiry to the clerk, just so I understood, furthermore, what it meant—is that any member of the Regulations Review Committee at any time can say they want to disallow the code of practice. At that point, it automatically comes on to the Order Paper and needs to be debated by the House within 21 days. If it’s not, the instrument lapses; the code of practice finishes. So this, in some degrees, is quite a nice safety net, which we don’t use often. In fact, we raised it with the medicinal cannabis bill as being another example of officials doing the regulations—can we have another look at it—and, for one reason or another, that didn’t progress.

But in this instance, we’re passing so much responsibility to officials that I think the fact that this bill enables the code of practice to be a disallowable instrument is a good thing. You might say: what if you don’t sit on the Regulations Review Committee? Well, it turns out that any member can actually disallow the instrument. It’s a much faster process if you’re a member of the Regulations Review Committee, because then it is brought to the House in a period of time. If you’re not a member, it just gets placed on the Order Paper and makes its way as the business of the House makes its way.

So, overall, I think the select committee has substantially improved this bill. I think the submitters have added really good contributions that have helped us shape and guide officials as they draw up the code of practice. We’ve futureproofed the ability for the two codes—because, on one level, it doesn’t really make sense to say, “Oh, we’ll provide pastoral care for international students, but we’ll have something different for domestic.” Why would we do that? There are very, very small nuances as to why we’d do that. I like to think that at some point in the future, we’ll bring it into one code of practice. So a good bill, well managed by select committee, and I commend it to the House.

Hon JENNY SALESA (Associate Minister of Education): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill will improve the wellbeing and pastoral care of our students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. There’s currently no consistent approach to the wellbeing of our domestic tertiary students, and this bill addresses that. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to start by saying that our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone that has been affected due to the White Island volcano.

I’m taking this call to support this legislation. As the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, I want to say that it was really great to see the whole committee—this is both sides, Government and Opposition—working in such a collaborative manner on this legislation. So I want to thank all members on the committee. I also want to acknowledge all submitters. We received 22 submissions during the select committee process and we heard from 11—actually, 11 plus one. I say “plus one” because we also requested the Privacy Commissioner to appear before the select committee to address some concerns that members had.

We wanted to make sure that this legislation will do exactly what we think it will. We know that this legislation was introduced after that unfortunate incident at Canterbury University, and our thoughts also go to his family. We just wanted to make sure that this legislation will actually provide that intention of providing or ensuring the wellbeing of all domestic tertiary students living in tertiary accommodations. We wanted to balance this legislation for privacy, safety, and then the third factor was the accountability for providers. So there were several questions that we had in the select committee process, because, yes, we want to make sure that they are fine and their wellbeing is looked after, but we also wanted to make sure that their privacy is maintained. So it was really good to hear from the Privacy Commissioner.

One thing that is good to know is that this legislation does not override the Privacy Act, and also the other thing for us that we learnt and is important for us to know is that providers can set up their own privacy policy. In that privacy policy, it will be important for them to disclose what kind of information will be collected and who that information will be disclosed to if they intend to disclose that information.

As the Minister of Education and our spokesperson Dr Shane Reti have already talked about the changes that the select committee made to this legislation, I won’t add too much to that, but I just want to add that the requirement of the Minister to consult with various stakeholders was a very important change that we made in the select committee process. Before issuing a code, we believe it’s really important that the Minister consults with students, their families, these education providers or accommodation providers and their staff, and also consults with the Privacy Commissioner, because that assured us that everything that we were concerned about—that is, the privacy and safety, the balance between privacy and safety—will be taken care of.

We also have changed in the legislation that this legislation will allow the Minister to provide for a framework that would include for both domestic tertiary students and international tertiary students the code of practice that is needed for their pastoral care. When we talk about pastoral care, all of a sudden, international students come to mind, and we understand why that special attention is needed for pastoral care for international students, because of those societal and cultural differences and sometimes even language barriers that international students experience. We want to make sure that when we have international students here in New Zealand, they get the best experience gaining their tertiary education here in New Zealand. But we are also aware now that domestic tertiary students’ pastoral care is also important. So this legislation, we believe, will provide for that.

Balancing the privacy with safety, with checks required for safety of a student, entry to their room or their sleeping area would be required. So we wanted to make sure that students’ privacy is taken care of, and that’s why we introduced a 24-hour notice requirement. But we clearly say that this requirement is there unless this is not reasonable in circumstances. So if it is not possible to get that notice to the student 24 hours prior to inspection or entry, if the circumstances don’t allow it, in those situations, the entry could be done without that notice.

The other thing we made clear in the select committee process was that the requirement of the student to be present at the time of entry will not be required if a consent has been already obtained from the student to do so in the student’s absence. So for me, there were three main issues in this legislation, as I said: balancing privacy and safety, and then the third factor was the accountability of providers. The select committee did a great job of making sure all concerns and wide-ranging views that were expressed by various submitters were taken into consideration, and several changes have been made to this legislation. So I support this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I acknowledge the chairperson of the Education and Workforce Committee, Dr Parmar, and largely agree with everything that she said, which may come as a surprise. The code which has been introduced into this legislation now has enforceability. It arose from a tragedy down in Canterbury. It is something that has been well traversed by the select committee in a spirit of collaboration. I stand to support the bill.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I, too, join Parliament’s corporate call, acknowledging those affected by yesterday’s tragedy. Of course, this particular bill was brought on by a different kind of tragedy. So we do once again acknowledge here at the second reading Mason Pendrous, the 19-year-old young adult who lost his life in a hall of residence.

It was a privilege to be part of the select committee process that dealt with this bill, and particularly the subcommittee that traversed some of the really quality submissions—noting the varied and wide-ranging opinions that came in, and also acknowledging particularly the rather voluminous number of opinions that proved to be out of scope of this bill. It’s not the first time in the education realm that we’ve had to hear a lot of submissions that stray outside the scope, and we understand why, but this was another case where people wanted to get on to the actual elements of the code and not stick with this particular enabling the bit of legislation.

We are supporting the changes that the Education and Workforce Committee recommended. We want to acknowledge in good faith the decision to pretty much double the time frame, and that was of particular importance to us. We negotiated for that, so we’re grateful for just a slight increase in time frame. We also would like to wish, at this point in the process, to point out that we still have ongoing issues around needing transparency for costs that may come and be associated with this particular legislation.

So the two bits of the bill that I’ll point out—Dr Shane Reti outlined six changes, but the two particular big ones that I listened to in terms of submissions were around changing the definition of “serious harm”. I’d like to commend the Law Commission particularly. They really went to town on that particular point, and we ended up removing references to the types of treatment. If we get practical, the reason—well, one of the reasons—why we did that, and I think this is a good practical comment to raise, is that we didn’t want to disincentivise resident advisers from sending students for treatment. So there may have been a perverse effect by defining certain types of treatment and medical interventions—best to keep it broad so that medical professionals, not politicians, can decide the type of treatment that someone needs. The second point that I wish to raise is changing “safety” or “wellbeing” of the student to “ongoing welfare”. We think that that particular term, “ongoing welfare”, was the right one to take.

I’ll leave it there. We’ve still got a way to go through this particular committee, but what we’re trying to do here is find balance. We want to encourage and incentivise good practice. We know that the current self-regulating approach hasn’t worked. So somewhere along the line, we want that balance to be achieved, and it’s been a good cross-party process so far. Thank you.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): The Greens support the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. Every person deserves a safe place to live and for wellbeing to be a focus and a priority. Unfortunately, a gap in care from student accommodation providers and a gap in clear expectations on universities meant that the recent death in Christchurch in a student hall of residence highlighted that this gap has failed to see everyone cared for in a way that they should be cared for. So we are supporting this bill as part of a solution which amends the Education Act and will enable the Minister of Education to issue a code of practice for the pastoral care of domestic tertiary education students. It will set out those expectations that up until now have been non-existent and unclear so providers know that there are standards to meet for students in tertiary student accommodation. We are very pleased to see this bill progress through this House. Thank you.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Please allow me also to add my sincere condolences to those families who have lost loved ones and also those who were injured in the horrific events of yesterday at White Island.

I rise today just to take a very short call on the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. I think it’s been, obviously, clear, at both the first reading and again today, that National supports the bill. The tragic event that led to this bill should never have been able to happen. University is a time for students to experience a level of freedom and independence that they may not have experienced prior, but with this freedom and this independence, and a right to privacy, must come a level of care in what can be a very challenging time for people who still need to be looked after, who are often away from home for the first time.

I must acknowledge the very good work of the Education and Workforce Committee, and also of the Minister for bringing this bill to the House. This bill is good policy that seeks to strike a good balance between that wonderful freedom and independence that university life offers and the care and right level of welfare checks on those who are away from home.

While I didn’t sit on the select committee for this bill, I note that there were some changes that were made around the definition of “serious harm”, as mentioned previously by my colleague Denise Lee, and removing of references to types of treatment. I’m also pleased that the issue of privacy was well traversed in select committee, as well as issues around proper consultation.

This bill should provide parents and families with the assurance that they need that university students and their welfare will be more satisfactorily monitored from here on in, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Greg O’Connor—five minutes.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was recently lucky enough to be on a delegation to Indonesia and India, and meeting with locals in those places, one of the things they found attractive about New Zealand was the students, and they were very keen to have their family members come here. The reassurance that those people will get from knowing that there will be a regulated overview of their offspring when they’re here will go a long way to ensuring that that industry continues to be a productive part of our New Zealand economy. I therefore recommend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Simeon Brown—five minutes.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill at its second reading. I, along with other members from the National Party, will be supporting this piece of legislation, which makes important changes to introduce a code for administrators to inspect, and for student accommodation providers in New Zealand. Currently, there’s already a code for international students, and that’s important because that means that we as a country are upholding our obligations to our international friends, but we haven’t had one in place for domestic students, and what this will allow is for there to be a code for both international and domestic students—something which I think will make a positive difference to New Zealand. Of course, we’ve heard the story which has caused this bill to be brought to this Parliament—the tragic circumstances—and we hope that through these actions we’ll be able to ensure that the young people who do go into student accommodation will be given better pastoral care and that those institutions which are responsible for the care will also ensure they have a higher standard for that. So this bill is an important piece of legislation.

But also we discussed around the committee table some of the issues in regards to the rights of young people to their privacy, and we sought advice from the Privacy Commissioner around this bill and have ensured that there is wording within it to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner is consulted in relation to the code which will be brought into place, and that’s an important piece because it is important also to ensure that young people have their rights upheld when they do move out of home and when they do go into a student hostel or into student accommodation.

The Education and Workforce Committee introduced a seven-year limitation period for students to access the scheme. That’s, essentially, a seven-year limitation on when they can make a complaint against the care or the pastoral care that they were provided when they were in the student accommodation. That’s to allow young people—and I questioned officials around this particular issue—to be able to bring that forward within seven years, if they’ve had a bad experience which they may not wish to share at a particular time. But also it provides a limitation to that so that it’s not something which is going to be hanging over the providers’ heads for a long period of time, because, obviously, we want issues to be dealt with in a timely fashion. This seven-year limitation period ensures that there is a balance between the responsibility for those complaints to be laid but also to ensure that they get dealt with in a timely fashion.

Education providers could be fined up to $100,000 if their breach of the code resulted in serious harm or death of a student, and I think that’s an appropriate fine. It’s important that when you introduce codes of compliance, there are also mechanisms for accountability so that there are some teeth. The committee did introduce a reasonable excuse defence to the fine in the bill, and that was an important amendment to it.

So, overall, this bill is something that the National Party does support. We think what happened at the University of Canterbury was an absolute tragedy and something which should never have happened in New Zealand. We do look forward to, obviously, the full reports and being able to assess that as well, and we do note this bill has gone through the process very quickly, which has meant the committee was unable to be able to look at all of the facts of that case and to look at all the reports, but, regardless of what those reports do find, it’s important that Parliament does take action, and it was also important that this interim code was able to be brought into force by 1 January next year, when students will start leaving home and going to student accommodation at their university of choice for first semester next year. So, whilst we didn’t have all the information, the timeliness was important at the same time to ensure this was put in place.

So we look forward to the development of the code and then, of course, the permanent code as well. We’ll be taking a close interest in that over that period of time. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. I rise to stand in support of the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge that this came out of a tragic event. I want to commend the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for his swift action on this and also to mihi to the Education and Workforce Committee. I commend the bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is derived from a situation which arose in tragic circumstances. Loss of life in university halls is something that everyone regrets, and I just want to extend my condolences to the family of Mason Pendrous during that difficult time that they have gone through.

Now, any young person going off to university who ends up in the halls has a significant change in lifestyle, and whilst that generally is fun and exciting, it can be challenging and daunting and, at times, lonely as well. So what we’ve proposed here is to put in place appropriate measures that will help to reduce the likelihood of any such repeat of the horrific event we saw down at the Canterbury University earlier this year.

In that regard, I think we’ve landed in the right space with this. The balance is appropriate, enabling students to still have a level of independence whilst giving some additional support in that pastoral space, because, at the end of the day, they are still in our university halls. There is an expectation that comes with certain controls and support, as opposed to a flatting situation, for example, in the open market. So on that basis, it’s good to see the position we’ve got to here. We support this bill. Thank you.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. On the occasion of the Whakaari tragedy, it’s not appropriate for us to take long calls on any bills, actually. Having said that, I do want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister of Education, the Hon Chris Hipkins. After listening to his and other members’ contributions, I don’t have anything further to add. I commend the bill to the House.

Amendments recommended by the Education and Workforce Committee by majority agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill

Second Reading

Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill be now read a second time.

I’ve been waiting some time to deliver my second reading speech. I’m thankful for the work of the select committee, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and the work they’ve done on the bill—the very careful consideration that I know would have been carried out under the chairpersonship of Simon O’Connor, because he is one of the responsible chairs of select committees in this House, and I’m very thankful for his consideration.

This bill is designed to deal with the very small number of people who will potentially return to this country from a conflict zone: people who went there with an ideological or philosophical or religious conviction that is antithetical to some of the values that we have in New Zealand. So it deals with a real risk that is apparent now because of what is happening in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, and we need to make sure that our authorities have the tools available to mitigate that risk, even though these are people who will not have been convicted of a crime but who will be returning to our community.

The bill seeks to strike a balance between a management regime for people who pose a risk but also reflecting that they haven’t been through a conventional criminal justice and conviction process and therefore should not be treated as such.

So I am thankful for the members of the select committee who considered the bill. It heard 101 submissions and deliberated accordingly. As I understand it, although some changes to the bill have been recommended, the committee could not come up with a majority view, and so it has been reported back in its original state.

I understand, and I know, in fact, that some of the submitters—indeed, many of the submitters—expressed concern about the bill because of the conceptual difference between dealing with a regime that places restrictions on people who would otherwise be free, and does so on the civil standard of proof, as opposed to people who have been properly considered in terms of criminal justice offending, convicted, and placed under the appropriate criminal justice sentencing regime that we would have.

I go back to the point that, as we do in other respects—for example, for people who have completed a sentence but are still considered to be a risk and who would therefore fall under our extended supervision order regime or people who are deported from another country after having been convicted but who still pose a risk and therefore fall under our returning management offenders regime—this is an equivalent regime to deal with people from the specific circumstances of having engaged in antithetical activity abroad and who would pose a risk once they’re returned to the community here. So that is what we are trying to achieve. It is about ensuring our communities are safe. It is a national security issue, and it has been dealt with accordingly. This is about giving our authorities augmented powers to deal with that particular situation.

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has recommended three changes to the bill. It is proposed that those changes will amend the bill to more explicitly provide that the court can set out control order conditions on terms which the court considers appropriate. In the end, it is for a court to be persuaded that an order over a particular person is justified and what the content of those orders might be. Secondly, to clarify for the purposes of efficiency, when the Commissioner of Police makes an interim control order application without notifying the subject person, the court must hold a subsequent hearing without notice. Obviously, once the person is located or crosses the border, they are then notified. They have the opportunity, with the benefit of legal aid, to review the order. And, thirdly, the other change that is recommended is that in order to prevent a relevant person from seeking notoriety, the court must consider whether lifting name suppression would promote or encourage hostility, criminal acts, or terrorism.

So this deals with the situation that we’re dealing with people who pose a risk. We want them to be under an appropriate regime so that we can assist rehabilitation—if necessary, de-radicalisation. We know that some people in those circumstances may seek notoriety, but sometimes people forget that when they are seeking notoriety, they are also placing themselves at risk, and actually, we have a duty and a responsibility to minimise that possibility as well. I think those proposed changes will strengthen the bill and better help us address the particular risk.

There were some other sensible amendments to the bill, which the whole of the committee was not able to agree on, and some of those will appear by way of a Supplementary Order Paper. That includes access to provisions allowing access to effective civil legal aid, a review of the bill in two years’ time, and providing legal protections for people when a control order is sought on the basis of classified information.

I might say that in relation to the review period, that’s not problematic because we have already started—in fact, are close to concluding—a thoroughgoing review of the Terrorism Suppression Act. We knew it was problematic back in 2007 and 2008, and that review is long overdue, and that will draw a conclusion, and I expect we will see permanent changes anyway. Then, in relation to the use of classified information, that is a piece of work that is ongoing, that responds to work that the Law Commission has already done in relation to national security information in courts. Parliament should expect to see the product of those labours sometime next year. So there will be a Supplementary Order Paper that will deal with some of those changes as well.

This provides enhanced provisions for the police to manage a risk in the community. I think it draws a good balance; I think it draws the right balance. I know there are those who go around saying “It should be harder. It should be harsher.”, and “We are the party of harsh and hardness.” I don’t buy into that rhetoric; it is nonsense. It is a pity that in the formulation of this bill, in putting it together for the benefit of the safety of our community, we haven’t reached, if not unanimity, certainly the support of our colleagues opposite. That is their prerogative, but this bill achieves good safety for the community in a risky situation, and I commend it to the House.

Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I never thought that I’d be standing in this House opposing a bill that relates directly to safety and our national security. I’ll start my contribution this afternoon by saying that on Wednesday, 24 July this year at 1 p.m., the Minister invited me to his office to signal that there was an issue around our national security and community safety that related to the risk of Kiwis returning from overseas having participated, supported, or sponsored some type of terror activity, and specifically speaking about the risk that we’d seen with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and the major commitment that we’ve made as a nation over the last three or four years in trying to defeat what was a global risk.

I made it very clear to him in that meeting that we anticipated that he probably would not receive support from one of his coalition partners. Of course, I’m directing my comments towards the Green Party, because the Green Party, in their history in this House—and they have their own ideology, and I’m respecting that, and I understand that. That’s been their history. But their history, quite simply, has been they will not support bills that come to this House that relate to national security. They will not do it.

I said to the Minister very clearly in that meeting with our own officials and with his officials, “We will support you. The National Party will support you. But the expectation is this: that you bring a proposition through Cabinet and a bill to this House that will put the proper protections in place to make sure that we can keep our country and our citizens as safe as possible.” That is one of the fundamental jobs of any Government and any Parliament, to keep the citizens safe. I said the expectation—

Dr Duncan Webb: Police State—you want a police State, Mr Mitchell. Detention without arrest.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: So this is the attitude—this is exactly the typical attitude that is driven out of the Labour Party. They see the protection of our people—

Rt Hon David Carter: Another social experiment.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: —the protection of our country. Exactly—this country is being treated like a social experiment, and it’s a police State. No, we don’t live in a police State; we don’t. It’s not a laughing matter, either. It’s actually something that this Parliament should take as deadly serious—that is, a real, genuine threat that we’re not immune to, and something that we need to take seriously as a Parliament. If we don’t put the protections in place—it’s still a laughing matter, I can see—then who is going to do it? I’d ask the member to stand and take a call.

In that meeting, I was very clear with the Minister that one of the primary issues that we’re going to have to address is the ability to detain at the border. If someone slips through the net, and for whatever reason our own agencies aren’t notified of their pending return, if we can’t get an interim control order in place, our services, our police, must be able to detain at the border until a control order can be put in place and until some basic background work has been done, in terms of the level of risk to our community. It is completely unacceptable and intolerable, in my view, to have someone arrive at our border and be able to walk straight out into the community without understanding what their intent is, and what the risk is.

I’d appeal to the Minister of Defence, who is in the House. We have differences—there’s no doubt about that—and there’s been some tension created around that. I won’t go into those issues now, but the one thing that I will acknowledge is his service in our own Defence Force, and his service and his experience in the Omani defence forces. He has an understanding and he knows the types of threats that this country faces. He has an understanding and he knows that they are real. He has an understanding and has dedicated a lot of his adult life to the service and the protection of our country, without a doubt, and I acknowledge that service.

I’d be very interested to see—because I understand that he is the person in New Zealand First that is actually handling the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill—whether or not he will come to this House and whether or not they will support our Supplementary Order Papers in making the changes to a bill that at the moment is weak. We will not, hand on heart, as a party, stand here and support a bill that we know is not going to provide the protection that Kiwis need.

Let me come back to my original point. Let me highlight to the country who is leading this bill now: it is the Green Party. The Green Party are now taking the lead on this bill. Do you know why? It’s quite simple. It came down to petty politics.

Marja Lubeck: Stop the sour grapes.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry, what was that? If you’re going to say it, say it clearly so I can respond. It came down to this: quite simply, when the bill was released, the National Party came forward with seven amendments that we wanted to make that would strengthen it, that would address the issues that I spoke to originally in that meeting on 24 July with the Minister. The Minister’s response publicly was this: “They’re silly.”

Well, I’ll tell you how silly they are. Let me take just one, and that comes to the issue of detained on arrival at our border. Through the select committee process—which, by the way, was compressed; it wasn’t given the time it actually deserved—the police came in front of the committee. In relation to our amendment that we put forward giving them the ability to be able to detain someone at the border that arrived back in New Zealand that we had a suspicion or had information to say could have been involved in some sort of terrorism activity or sponsoring or supporting some type of terrorism activity around the world, we wanted the police to have 72 hours to detain that person to allow the High Court to have time to put an interim control order in place. The police reiterated four times during the select committee process that that would be a welcome tool that they would like to have.

The Minister stood in this House and he just told us that he wanted to make sure that our agencies had the tools—go back and check the Hansard—that they need to be able to be effective, to be able to make sure that they can protect Kiwis. Do you know what the response was? They won’t support it. They won’t support our own agency, our New Zealand Police, who are responsible for that—to give them a tool that they’ve said very clearly in front of the select committee that they would welcome. They outlined why. Because they feel that relying on another piece of legislation outside of the bill, and it relates to the ability of a customs officer to be able to hold someone for up to four hours and that’s it—after four hours, they’re able to leave. They didn’t feel that they’d be able to get a surveillance team in place. They didn’t feel confident that they’d be able to have the processes in place to be able to pick that person up before a High Court Judge was able to issue an interim control order. So I’m highlighting just how weak this bill is.

To anyone that watches or studies the passage of these types of bills, it should be a huge red flag and a huge warning signal that in the select committee process it was the Green Party member that was leading it. It was the Green Party member that’s asked for concessions. They want a tougher test on the intelligence that we use. So they want to weaken and water down the ability of our intelligence agencies to be able to actually take action on and work with our law enforcement agencies to be able to provide the protection, allow the protection that we need. That’s how fundamentally weak this bill is.

We will continue to strive through the committee of the whole House. We’ll have our own Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) now that we’ll put up. I will appeal—I am making a genuine appeal—to our Minister of Defence to support us on these SOPs and to make this bill stronger, because I don’t believe for one minute, hand on heart, that he is going to allow a bill to come through this House and allow the country to think that the protections have been put in place when they haven’t.

I’d like to talk, in the limited time that I have, to some of our amendments. Today, funnily enough, we met with members of the Australian Parliament. I was talking to them about this and they were surprised and shocked that there hadn’t been close cross-party collaboration on an issue around national security, and I agree with them.

I want to acknowledge the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, Simon O’Connor. The Minister’s right. He’s an outstanding chair and he did the best that he could to try and create some harmony in the committee to get some cross-party collaboration and work done. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be achieved. It was obvious that the Government members were under orders and it was obvious that the Green member was actually driving it.

All I’d say is this. When I chaired the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and we took the returning foreign fighters bill through—I want to acknowledge David Shearer and Phil Goff, who worked very well with the National Party. We made concessions inside of that legislation for them. We worked closely with them to make sure that we could bring a bill back to the House that had cross-party support. This Government has chosen not to do that. I haven’t seen one step towards us in terms of wanting to collaborate and actually make this a stronger bill in the best interests of our country.

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

JO LUXTON (Labour): I’m pleased to stand and take a short call on the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Can I, firstly, acknowledge the Minister the Hon Andrew Little for bringing this to the House, and I also would like to acknowledge the chairmanship of Simon O’Connor. I am not a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, but I have sat in on it a couple of times, and he does do a very good job of chairing. I’d also like to acknowledge the select committee, because I can imagine this has probably been a fairly robust select committee.

I think the fundamental purpose of this bill is ultimately to keep our communities and New Zealanders safe. So I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. If I might just acknowledge, obviously, the tragedy that has happened on White Island and continues to unfold. Obviously, this is my first opportunity to acknowledge somewhat personally in the House those who have died and those who are still waiting for knowledge of their loved ones. And thanks to all the first responders.

I’ll take a few moments to address this bill primarily as the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. And thank you for the kind words from members. It’s always worrying when a member of National gets praised by the Labour Party. It probably causes me trouble. But I would like to start as the chair of the committee and then add some more personal thoughts.

In one way, I do thank the Minister for bringing the bill to the House. It’s an important intention, but I stand along with Mark Mitchell and others on this side who feel it’s too weak. I would say, for the record as well, that the time—effectively, two and a half, three weeks—to consider the bill was far too short. So I’d like in this small speech in the House to acknowledge the many New Zealanders who wanted to submit and didn’t find they had time, or those who were able to quickly write some thoughts but would have liked to consider it further, and to express my disappointment that we didn’t have that time. But, equally, it’s not the power of the committee to make changes to that. We were given the report-back date. So to that end, I do thank all the members of the committee across the House who worked extra-long hours on sitting days and pretty much every non-sitting day to make sure we could report this back in some shape or form, and that is a bill that has some minor changes—three of them. Actually, that’s not quite fair. There are three changes; all of them are important. But I think you’re hearing, Mr Speaker, already a flavour, particularly from this side of the House, that there was a sense there should have been a lot, lot more.

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge—and I won’t do it by name for a variety of reasons, mainly because we’re dealing with terrorism, intelligence, and security matters. But we were well served by some excellent officials across a range of ministries and agencies, and I just want to acknowledge them and their hard work and, again, the time pressure that we were under.

The bill, fundamentally, is about a small but real number of New Zealanders who have gone overseas to fight primarily, if not almost exclusively, in jihadist activity. The bill, of course, is setting up for the future. We don’t know what other forms of terrorism may develop, but there is a real possibility of these New Zealanders desiring, wanting, or having to return to the country. Until this law is passed, we don’t have the ability to actually control or put some structure around their return; be that where they’re going to be living, who they can visit, whether they should have internet access, and so forth. And why that’s not possible is that because they’ve been involved in terrorist activities overseas, we don’t have the domestic evidence. Put it this way: we’re not going to be sending New Zealand police officers to Syria to work out what crimes they’ve committed.

So it is a fairly serious bill and it’s one of the reasons why this is a bill that sits within the civil, not criminal, jurisdiction. It was put to the committee many times, “Why are we not structuring this as a criminal piece of law?” And the advice that we’ve got and we’ve somewhat articulated in the report is that, fundamentally, there is no New Zealand criminal evidence to present. If there is, we can deal with that. This is for those people returning where there isn’t that evidence.

The Minister’s touched on several of the changes; the one that I felt was particularly important and we have recommended, if the House continues to proceed with this bill, is around name suppression. The bill, as originally drafted, would allow the, let’s say, suspected, accused, noted terrorist to ask the court to have their name made public. The court can suppress it, but it was basically in the hands of the accused, the terrorist, for want of a better word, to say “Oh no, I want my name out there.” The committee thought that there was the risk of notoriety that someone may actually just choose: “Yeah, I want my name out there. I want to be known.” We thought it was much more prudent that the court have the ability to make a judgment on that, to say, “Yes, that’s OK”, or “Actually in this case we’re not.”

So, importantly, the committee has not recommended that the bill proceed. We were not able to come to agreement, but we have made three suggested changes. But I would stress now, speaking more personally, that the bill doesn’t go far enough. And it’s fundamentally—and I think Mark Mitchell in his contribution is right—that the Green Party was required in order to get this through the House. I think the Green Party and I have very different views when it comes to notions of due process, natural justice, and human rights. Where this bill is headed and where it currently sits presumes far too many rights to the terrorist—if you will—and not enough for the public safety and welfare of New Zealand. So I might just touch on a few of those.

Mark Mitchell touched on the detention capacities. The New Zealand Police were abundantly clear to us that they would like to have the ability—the word they used was “tools”—to be able to detain someone at the border. Again, I’m not going to go through all of the security arrangements at the moment, but there is a limited time that someone can currently be detained at the border, and that is not enough time to go and get the interim court orders for what would be an unusual circumstance, but we are trying as a Parliament to pre-empt all problems as best we can so that the Police have the ability to detain someone at the border. That’s been declined, despite—I again want to stress—it being not just simply National Party MPs wanting that but it was something that the Police spoke to.

I have concerns about the potential compromising of some of our intelligence operations. Again, the push primarily from the very left and the Green side is that the person coming back into the country needs to fully understand what they’re accused of and why. That’s not unreasonable to a point, but if it ultimately means that intelligence operations are being compromised in open court, that’s a problem, and, in fact, it continues—if you will—the terroristic action.

The age: the bill only applies to people over 18 years of age. It should be no surprise to anyone in this House that terrorists aren’t defined by being 18 years and older. There are a number of examples, including in the Commonwealth Realms, where terrorists are under 18 years of age—and this bill strictly doesn’t cover them.

Oranga Tamariki provided good advice to us, but I will say that there were two issues: they said they could cope with it, and to the extent that I think they’ll be able to deal with children who’ve got serious issues—including being terrorists—that is one thing. But the fundamental problem is that for Oranga Tamariki to—if you will—kick in, they need to have the requisite evidence for the act to occur. The gnawing concern in my head is that that evidence may not be present to do with that under-18-year-old. They’re not really, in one way, the appropriate agency. They were at pains to say that they’d work with Police and so forth, but now you’re creating gaps—and that’s no disrespect to Police or Oranga Tamariki or any groups; it’s just when you are doing that multi-agency, you’re running into problems.

Look, the other issue is around the length of the control orders themselves. Unlike many other jurisdictions in similar countries, these control orders only last for six years. Members might think—particularly on the Government side—that that’s OK. But a week or so ago, a man ran out on to London Bridge and killed two Cambridge ex-students; he knifed them in the Fishmongers’ Hall in London and then ran out on to London Bridge. A jihadist committed terrorism. He had been, effectively, under a control order for six years; he’d been going through a reintegration programme. I’m sure that for some it works jolly well, but clearly for this fellow the de-escalation programme didn’t work—and it was six years. I think members should be very cautious and not naive to think that somehow a returning terrorist with their zealotry will necessarily change. I think it’s really important to stress that we’re not saying that if someone comes back, we slap a control order on for life; it’s just that the court should have the ability to continue to extend it if needed. I for one do not want to see what happened in London happen here.

So there are a range of issues. The National Party will be putting forward Supplementary Order Papers. It’s absolutely our intention to make this be world-class legislation. We are absolutely unapologetic that we want it to be as tough and strong as possible, because, fundamentally, Parliament has one duty and one duty only, and that is to serve the public and to ensure its safety. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): This is a great piece of legislation. I must say that I did have the opportunity of sitting on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on a number of occasions, and there was a lot of discussion around two things. One was around detention without arrest, and that’s not something which this Government would contemplate in this context. The other was around the age at which detention should be possible or at which it should be possible to surveil these people—there was a suggestion that it should be 14, but we know that Oranga Tamariki has every ability to do this.

On that basis, this is an excellent piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Could I commence by joining others who have expressed their condolences this afternoon to the victims of yesterday’s horrific tragedy on White Island. Some years ago, my wife and I had the pleasure of doing exactly what yesterday’s victims were doing: we travelled out by boat from Whakatāne, had a wonderful trip out there, entertained by dolphins, landed on this extraordinary, quite alien environment, and thoroughly enjoyed travelling around the island. As I visualise today what would have happened, I realise that there but for the grace of God go we, because had we been caught in those circumstances I don’t think there would have been anywhere to run. So I do want to pay tribute to those first responders, those in the medical teams—including in my own city of Hamilton; I know that many at Waikato Hospital have been very busy helping with those who are injured—and to think, in particular, of the victims and their families, and to send my aroha to all those who are caught up in such a tragic event.

I wish to echo the comments of my colleagues the Hon Mark Mitchell and Simon O’Connor, the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, in expressing our considerable disappointment in the fact that this bill, which is covering one of the most important measures that could possibly come before the Parliament, is such a weak measure. It’s not only a weak measure; it is extraordinary and very disappointing to see that members opposite are taking such short calls on a measure that is of such great importance. I find that absolutely baffling. I have no idea why they would be unwilling to explain to the public why they made so many compromises in order to accommodate the Green Party and not even be prepared to explain that to those who will be listening and, I dare say, many who will be listening with considerable concern today.

I’m no longer a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—I was until about six months ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed that role. I was, however, on a couple of occasions, able to sit in on the select committee’s consideration of submissions. I think the thing that struck me about the submissions that we heard during that fairly truncated process was that the vast majority of those who chose to submit to the select committee focused very much on the civil liberties aspects as they affected those who might come under the purview of this bill rather than on the very important need to protect the vast majority of New Zealanders who would be very fearful of any possibility of an incident of terrorism being committed on our shores. I don’t mean that to sound hypothetical, because we have been the victims of terrorism in the past, and, sadly, it seems almost inevitable that at some stage we will be again. That’s why this bill is so important, that’s why this bill ought to be fit for purpose, and that’s why the National Party is so disappointed—in fact, more than disappointed; frankly, disgusted—that this bill is far from fit for purpose. It is weak, and, frankly, it is likely to cause more harm than good.

As my two previous colleagues have indicated, we in the National Party would very much wish to be able to support this bill, and we will continue to engage constructively, particularly through the committee stages by putting forward Supplementary Order Papers intended to strengthen its provisions and make it fit for purpose.

If anyone has ever been in or around the business of terror internationally, terrorists do pose a very real threat. We know that there are some people who have become extraordinarily disturbed, brainwashed—however you wish to put it. If they are going to be coming back to New Zealand with those demented ideas that threaten the security of innocent New Zealanders, we as parliamentarians must do everything we can to ensure that our security agencies have all the measures in place that they need to protect us from those people, and, in particular, to ensure that our citizens themselves are protected. There are no exceptions to that. That’s our responsibility. That’s what this bill should do, and it most certainly does not. Both the Hon Mark Mitchell and Mr O’Connor have explained why it doesn’t in several important ways. I look forward to supporting the Supplementary Order Papers that they will put forward to try to make things right.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): The Greens are supporting this Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill because we would all like to live in a world without violence and without hatred. The Green Party has stood for nonviolence and protection of human rights since the very beginning days of our movement. These are and always have been core values for us, and we take very seriously the difficult question of how the Government should respond to violent radicalisation of all kinds. In the context of the 15 March attacks, we are particularly aware of the rising threat of global white supremacist violence. It is in this context that I rise to speak to the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill.

This bill will introduce a new system of civil control orders for those who have engaged in terrorism activities overseas on their return to New Zealand. I fully acknowledge that the Green Party has reservations about introducing civil control orders because of the extent to which these curb rights and freedoms without requiring a criminal standard of proof. Lawyers, academics, journalists, and human rights advocates have all raised questions about the need for this bill and the degree of procedural safeguards. I particularly want to thank all those who, despite a short time frame, pulled together careful analysis that helped the select committee improve the bill. This is why we need a strong and independent civil society: it is of invaluable assistance in creating good law, which all of us here in this House are concerned about.

So it’s no secret that the Green Party originally planned to oppose this legislation; however, we have the power and the responsibility in Government to improve things as much as we can, wherever we can. I want to acknowledge Minister Little and all the Labour members of the select committee for working constructively with my colleague Golriz Ghahraman to enhance procedural protections in this bill. For anyone who still says we should have let Labour sort this out with National, I urge people to read the select committee report and look to the changes National would have added. To their eternal shame, National is not getting up here today presenting a liberal defence of due process before the courts. Nope. Instead, they’re getting up and arguing for a Draconian regime that would be truly appalling.

The Green Party is proud to have prevented that outcome. We are proud that we took this law in the other direction, adding additional protections. The National Party have been playing politics with national security in the worst possible way, demonstrating a shocking disregard for human rights. We could not, in good conscience, leave such an important issue to the demands of an increasingly authoritarian National Party. National blocked changes at select committee that were called for by organisations such as the New Zealand Law Society, the Human Rights Commission, the Law Commission, the Privacy Commissioner, and the Chief Justice. We will still be making these changes through a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) Minister Little has lodged today.

Thanks to the advocacy of the Green Party in Government, we will be introducing a review clause requiring independent consideration after two years of the operation of this law, including consideration of whether this legislation is needed. This is particularly important given the shortened select committee time frame for the consideration of the bill. This is just one example of the changes the National Party blocked at select committee in an egregious display of bad-faith politics. This SOP will also be introducing a guarantee of access to legal aid. This protection will ensure fair process and access to justice so that all New Zealanders have confidence that people subject to this regime are able to properly test the evidence against them through a specialist lawyer. Once again, this was blocked at select committee by National.

Through the SOP, we will also improve the provisions for security-cleared lawyers to be used when evidence is restricted for national security reasons, enhance the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act protections, and made a suite of other procedural improvements—all blocked by National at select committee. Most importantly, Mr Speaker—Mr Speakers [Change of presiding officer]—we have prevented National—

SPEAKER: Mr Speaker.

MARAMA DAVIDSON: —Mr Speaker—from taking this legislation down a very dark pathway. Not only did they block improvements, they sought changes that would have been unconscionable in a free and democratic society. They wanted 14-year-olds to be included in this legislation. They wanted indefinite control orders. This could have led to children being slapped with life-long restrictions. They also tried to use this bill to authorise 72-hour airport detention. These changes are so far removed from what is necessary to protect safety that they can only be seen as a dog whistle to hardliners. We are not in Government to let National get their way on issues as important as these.

I’m very proud we’ve stopped that from happening and secured significant additional protections for the right to justice. Our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act requires that any limits on rights and freedoms must only be subject to reasonable limits. We take seriously the responsibility to ensure our laws meet this standard. This should be true for all political parties in this House. It is a sad day when one of our major political parties completely ignores the importance of human rights for the sake of political convenience. I’m proud that the Greens have been able to engage constructively to improve due process and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act protections.

Finally, I would like to once more thank the people who did submit on this bill, despite the very tight time frame. They’ve worked hard to improve the bill and I think they’ve succeeded. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Before I call the Hon Gerry Brownlee, Marama Davidson, I came in late during that speech, but, during the time I was in the chair, I observed that you read your speech; you should not.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Well, Mr Speaker, I think it’s appropriate that you should have noted that the speech was read. It was obviously prepared in the—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. The member knows well that, my having ruled on a matter, he cannot now refer to it.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, why would we ever have a point of order where we talk about Speakers’ rulings? We must be able to refer to it.

All I’m saying is—Mr Speaker, if I may continue—that that was a dreadfully sanctimonious offering to the House, that really just tells the House that the Greens think a wet bus ticket is all that’s required to prevent a potential terrorist from committing some kind of atrocity in New Zealand. I can’t understand why there are so many members in this House who have their heads in the sand about this sort of activity. Terrorists cause trouble all over the world. We are not immune because of our isolation, and we found that out on 15 March. No one knew about that particular terrorist, but, if they did, would anybody in New Zealand not want him to have been in some way confined in the activities that he could undertake on a daily basis? I don’t think there would be.

This bill is incredibly weak. It goes out to tell New Zealanders that there is now protection, should a terrorist turn up on our borders, enabling these control orders to be put in place. But the terrorists who come here are not the sort of people who are going to volunteer their position. They’re not going in and declaring “I am a terrorist and you need to do whatever you can to stop me doing what I’m going to do or want to do.” The reality is that they will be known as they arrive at the border because we do have good intelligence relations through the Five Eyes network and other networks, and so we should understand, we should have a fair idea, when someone is coming into the country from another part of the world. When they get here, what the Green Party wants is for them to be given the total benefit of the doubt about, apparently, their sincerity to move into this country or to move to this country and become suddenly a good and law-abiding citizen. The fact is that most of them don’t know what it is to be a good and law-abiding citizen. We have simply said that, if we’re going to have a bill that tells New Zealanders they are secure against these sorts of people coming into the country and freely practising their terror tactics, it has to have some teeth. This bill doesn’t.

So let’s be clear: someone has arrived at the border, they’ve got a history of being part of terrorist organisations, and they are trying to enter New Zealand—they come as a refugee or they come as someone who is displaced with no passport. There are international obligations on New Zealand to deal with them at that point, but four hours is all this bill will allow for the case to be made to the High Court for the control order to be put in place. The control order doesn’t stop them entering the country. It doesn’t, necessarily, put them into some kind of detention situation. It may not even put them into any kind of electronic surveillance situation. They could just be under sort of a “report when you want to” - type regime. So into the country they come, and if they’re coming, they’ll have friends here. Do we assume that they won’t be wanting to proselytise some of their terrorist-type views? All we are saying is that it might take a little longer than four hours to get the legal requirements in place.

We’re further saying that if we’re going to have a regime that does not have mandatory reporting in it as a minimum, then we’re actually treating that potential terrorist—someone who has a known terrorist association history—better than we treat some people who are out on electronic remand from the courts. That, I think, is appalling. We’re actually extending greater rights to someone who has, effectively, no right to enter the country than we do to our own citizens who are in criminal default of our law here. I can’t understand why the New Zealand First Party have agreed to that. What I do think, though, is that there’s been a bit of a conflab over on the Government side. The Greens have put out their suite of very, very weak provisions in this bill, and New Zealand First have said, “OK, well, we’ll agree with it this time. The Nats will support it. It’ll look like the whole Parliament’s in agreement, and we’ll just move on from there.” Well, we’re not in agreement, because we’re not about to pull the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders.

It was a young person, 15 years of age, who committed the terrorist act in Melbourne. Under this bill, that person, with their history of having been brought up in that environment, having been radicalised by those organisations that want to commit those terrorist activities, would suddenly fall under the care—and I say the word “care”—of Oranga Tamariki. Seriously, do we believe that Oranga Tamariki has the capacity, or should be required to have the capacity, to deal with someone in that situation? It’s just ridiculous, and for us to say, “Well, it doesn’t need to be in here, because it might not happen, etc., etc.”—the whole bill is about stuff that might not happen. So we don’t think that was an unreasonable sort of thing at all.

So we want a longer period that someone can be detained at the border while the formalities of the legal process are gone through. We want 14 to be the age at which someone would fall under this regime, and then we want the term of imprisonment, which at the moment is ridiculous if they breach a control order—now, how would you breach a control order? You don’t have to report, you’re not isolated to one part of New Zealand, and you don’t really go about your business any old day. The way the control order will be breached is if someone starts to undertake terrorist activity—acquires weapons, acquires explosives, starts targeting various little parts of the country. So they’ve already done something pretty radical. They may not at that point have committed the terrorist act, but they’ve breached the control order. So it’s either a $2,000 fine or up to two years in prison. That’s a joke. That’s an absolute joke, and I can’t understand why parties that go out there and say they’re in favour of stronger laws to protect New Zealanders would support that.

We want to have a bill that does give our authorities some teeth, some power, to actually do something should some of these people turn up. Make no mistake: how many people do we have on the terror watch list here in New Zealand? When we were in Government, we made no secret of it. It was 69 people. The current Government hasn’t mentioned the number; it’s probably bigger. But if any of those people in New Zealand made contact with people outside of New Zealand, got them in through a refugee camp to build their cell, those people coming in are not under surveillance. They might have a control order put on them, but it doesn’t mean they can’t live wherever they want in New Zealand, it doesn’t mean they have to report in to authorities at any given time, and it places very few other restrictions on them. So they could happily just lose themselves in society for a short time, reconnect with some of those ratbags that we know already exist in New Zealand, and then make a big statement to the world with some kind of terrorist activity. If anyone in this House thinks it can’t happen, they’ve got an incredibly short memory; it doesn’t even go all the way back to the late summer of 2019.

This is a sham of a bill. It is, I think, deceptive in its title—Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill—and I think it leaves New Zealanders in a position of being told by the Government “Don’t worry, everything’s under control.” when, in fact, it is far from it. The hand of friendship, the hand of helping people up etc., has been extended to potential terrorists. Remember that they’re a potential terrorist only if they are known to have the past associations in other countries or have engaged in those activities in another country. They’re not just any old person coming out of a refugee camp; they are known to be engaged with terrorist organisations or being terrorists themselves. It’s weak, it’s sad, and it is a deception that’s being perpetrated on the Government with the agreement of New Zealand First because of the Greens.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker—a short call on this bill. I found the messages from the Opposition in this debate quite confusing because, on the one hand, they seem to advocate for safer communities; on the other hand, they have members standing up and saying things like they never thought they would be opposing a bill that is about the safety and security of our country, but then they oppose it. As our honourable Minister Andrew Little has clearly outlined, this particular bill addresses the benefit and safety of our communities, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

PAULO GARCIA (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to start by saying that our hearts go out to the victims and the families of the eruption at White Island.

Speaking as a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in respect of the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill, I can confirm that 101 submissions were received, 18 were made by oral evidence, and many expressed their concern and their questions about why the bill was being rushed through the legislative process. We also heard from the Law Society and Amnesty International, when they also raised concerns about the bill going into the civil and not criminal jurisdiction, as well as whether the control orders could adequately protect New Zealanders.

I can confirm that the National Party takes terrorism very, very seriously. National believes that terrorism will not and shall not be tolerated in New Zealand and that we need to protect our communities at all costs. We believe that this bill does not adequately offer this protection at this time.

Among the most glaring shortfalls, I refer, as many who have spoken before me, to the age when control orders may be issued. We propose lowering it from 18 to 14. This is in recognition of the situation, the global situation, and also in recognition of what has happened in Australia and the UK. And we also want to increase the time for detention of people arriving at the borders, thinking, quite clearly, that four hours is entirely insufficient should control orders be in the process of being secured. The Greens propose a review after two years. We believe that dealing with terrorism now cannot be left to an experiment. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity for speaking on the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. It’s great to see a Government supporting and moving ahead with a bill that protects the safety and security of New Zealanders. I think this is an excellent bill that gives New Zealanders the confidence that we are considering our position internationally and acting on the concerns that have been raised more than once on the international stage and that affect us here in New Zealand, and I commend this bill to the House.

Rt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I recall those infamous words of the Rt Hon Helen Clark in 2001 when she said—and I quote, “We live in a benign strategic environment.” and in a matter of weeks, we had the 9/11 terrorism attack on the World Trade Center in New York. And if issues were severe in 2001, they are now more severe in 2019.

A number of Labour members have risen in this debate and said they can’t understand why National wouldn’t support legislation that ensures the security of New Zealanders. And that’s the point they’re missing in this debate: this legislation is so weak it does not ensure the safety of New Zealanders. I think it is sad. I’ve seen many pieces of legislation passed on national security and, inevitably, they have been on a bipartisan basis with National and Labour, whether in Government or in Opposition, supporting such legislation. But what we have in this case is legislation that, because it required Greens’ support, has been so weakened that it now will not fulfil its purpose.

I listened with intense interest to the speech by Marama Davidson, the co-leader of the Greens, and she, effectively, said the human rights of a terrorist come before all other New Zealanders and the security of all other New Zealanders. And I strongly disagree with that. I think when you’re dealing with people who have chosen to leave New Zealand to go to places like Syria, to partake in jihadi activities as terrorists, and then those people come back into New Zealand, their human rights should be curtailed, because I want to live in a safe, benign strategic environment.

I strongly disagree that this legislation will fulfil its purposes, and it is with some sadness that we find a piece of national security legislation being presented to the House tonight that National is unable to support because it is simply not fit for purpose.

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just rise on behalf of New Zealand First to say that I have listened with interest to the discussion, read the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee report back, and do note, with a degree of consternation, that on a matter as important as this there is such a serious divide in the House, and just state that New Zealand First has agreed to support the second reading of this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Venture Capital Fund Bill

In Committee

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (Third Whip—National): I seek leave for the Venture Capital Fund Bill to be read as one debate.

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

Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Chairman. I’ll just take a short call just to signal that the National Party will be supporting the bill. We think that we have very much at the moment quite an economy that is slowing. We’ve seen business investment’s fallen from 5 percent to 0.6 percent, job growth’s fallen from 10,000 new jobs a month to 3,000, we’ve got 22,000 more people now on the unemployment benefit, and we have a per person GDP growth which has fallen to just 0.5 percent. It is clearly a situation where we can actually support a bill that is designed to try and encourage a venture capital fund and encourage investment.

We understand that economic growth is the surest way to prosperity, by lifting living standards in New Zealand. It is also quite clearly the surest way to promote good environmental outcomes, because what we see in the world is the countries that have the most money to spend on cleaning up waterways are the countries that have more money than those that don’t. We recognise the need for greater development of venture capital funding in New Zealand’s capital markets.

There is one thing that we can agree with the Government on, and that is that we don’t have enough capital in this country. We are concerned, of course, that the Government has not been able to encourage investment in the way that they should have been. In fact, in some areas, such as in housing and particularly in having apartment buildings actually being built, it has discouraged investment so much that earlier in their term they needed to actually do a quick reverse so that some apartment buildings that were part-built could actually be completed.

What we know is that New Zealanders are great innovators, but the number eight wire mentality of which we are so proud, and inordinately proud, is also a recognition not only of our physical distance from the rest of the world, but also of our distance in terms of access to large amounts of capital and, in many cases, the means to retain in New Zealand the best and brightest, who can help to grow the economy and help to grow science, for instance. So this is something that we believe is useful and that will go some way to assisting the situation that the country finds itself in, with lower business investment confidence and also more people now, unfortunately, not in work, and on benefits.

So it is a bill that we think is a useful thing. It’s one of the only policy papers that we can see from Budget 2019 that is actually pro-growth, and on that basis, we will be supporting it.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Mr Chair. It is nice to be speaking on the Venture Capital Fund Bill. Gee, don’t we need something like this? When you think about what’s happening in the economy, we’ve got a GDP of 2.1 percent at the moment, compared to 3.2 percent a year ago. So measures like this are desperately needed in New Zealand to try and stimulate this economy and try and help those innovative New Zealanders to get under way to actually put some money and their time at risk and actually go and do something and try and create more value and more jobs for New Zealanders. So on that basis, we largely do support this bill.

Of course, the Finance and Expenditure Committee has considered a number of these aspects. I think the first one, in clause 24, expanded the role or the purpose of the Venture Capital Fund to make sure that there is an element of making sure that it’s a self-sustaining market, where not only does the Government have to put up money—which is what this bill enables—but it also tries to involve the private sector so we get a much more cohesive and viable and sustainable venture capital industry in New Zealand. I think having that as a purpose is very, very important.

There are a couple of areas that we had a lot of debate on, and I think one of the areas that we’re a little bit concerned about is reflected in clause 32, and it’s also reflected in clause 56. This is where ministerial oversight of this entity, which is now going to be run, obviously, through the Superannuation Fund—one clause is giving the Minister power to direct the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation to report on matters in its annual report. Specifically starting to interpose ministerial right over the way that the guardians actually operate and report is something that we think we have some concerns about. That’s further provided for in clause 56(1)(h), where the Minister can now direct the guardians to give regard to the Government’s commitment to a more inclusive economy.

So here we are, we’re talking about the cutting edge of creating new businesses, the time when they’re most risky—this is dealing with the valley of death, as it’s termed in investment circles—and we’ve got a Minister being able to now interpose some additional requirements on it and, particularly, have regard for wider economic considerations. This, I think, is a mistake. We need to support this industry. We need to be razor-sharp in our focus, and I think all this is doing is providing a whole lot of gobbledegook for what should otherwise be a very clear purpose, which is to support these nascent companies to grow and be successful and create jobs, as I spoke of before.

The other element that we’re very concerned about, and we kept asking the officials about, is that here is a fund being created of, roughly, $300 million and there is absolutely no purpose or measurement of results as to what this fund will achieve. Given that we’re talking about a $300 million investment, to actually have no target for return on investment for a venture capital fund is very, very unusual. In fact, I’m not sure that there are any funds around the world, whether it’s a private equity fund or whether it’s a venture capital fund, that will not have a targeted rate of return.

I think this is another example of a Government not wanting to measure things. We’ve seen it in a whole host of other activities, whether it’s health targets, where we’ve seen the degradation and removal of those types of targets, or social outcomes. Here is another example of setting up and spending $300 million and not being prepared to put a measurement on what should be the target return from these. We’ve got issues like recycling of capital, which is all very good, but unless you have a financial measure as well as an outcome in terms of jobs, etc., you will never know whether the $300 million that’s been provided for in this bill is actually going to be successful and create the jobs that we want in the future. Personally, I think that’s a real mistake and it just highlights, again, the lack of commercial nous from the Government in terms of dealing with these types of investment products, where they don’t have much understanding at all.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 416 in the name of the Hon David Parker be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Parts 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2 as amended agreed to.

The committee divided the bill into the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill and the Venture Capital Fund Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 414.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Venture Capital Fund Bill with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Maritime Transport (Offshore Installations) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): I move, That the Maritime Transport (Offshore Installations) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

The Maritime Transport Act implements a “polluter pays” regime. In simple terms, this means that owners of offshore installations, like those at the Māui and Pohokura oil and gas fields, have unlimited liability for the costs of any pollution damage from their installation. The owner’s liability is extensive and includes costs of clean-up, reinstatement, and impairment to the environment. This bill does not change the owner’s liability at all. As well as the “polluter pays” regime, the Act provides additional protection by requiring owners to demonstrate to Maritime New Zealand that they hold insurance or other financial security from a third party for pollution risks from the installation.

The third-party assurance regime under the Maritime Transport Act has two purposes. Firstly, the fact that a parent company or the international insurance market is prepared to stand behind the owner gives the Crown and the public a level of confidence in the operation. Secondly, if there were a significant oil spill, the availability of the third-party assurance reduces the financial risk to the Crown and to others. It does this by creating a direct right of action against the third-party insurance provider if the owner is unable to meet its obligations. It’s this aspect of the regime that the bill focuses on.

The changes, together with the changes to marine protection rules, clarify and strengthen the third-party insurance requirements. The current regime requires owners to have third-party insurance cover for all of their liabilities, but only up to a cap of $27.7 million. This cap is totally inadequate to cover the likely costs if there was a significant pollution event. Modelling undertaken in 2015 for the Crown estimated the median clean-up costs from a credible worst-case spill scenario at an offshore installation in New Zealand to be around $800 million. The uppermost estimate in the modelling was $1.2 billion.

Under the new regime, the rules will include a scaled framework for specifying the amount of cover required for each particular installation, based on the modelling of a credible worst-case scenario event. While some installations could be at the higher end of this modelling, most will be lower, for the majority are likely to require cover in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The new regime will, therefore, require owners to obtain much higher levels of cover than the paltry amount currently required.

To get this cover, most owners will need to go to the international insurance market, where there are relatively standard insurance policies available. Most owners already have this type of cover for their own business purposes. While parent company guarantees could also be an option in some cases, a guarantee is only as good as the financial strength of the person or organisation giving it and the ability to recover from that person. The key challenge is that while these internationally available insurance policies are likely to be available at the levels required, these policies will not cover all potential pollution liabilities associated with an offshore installation.

The key trade-off that the bill asks Parliament to make is between the current regime, which requires third-party insurance for all pollution risk but subject to a totally inadequate cap, or the regime proposed in the bill and the associated rules, which will require third-party insurance for the key risks and costs at a level that can be expected to cover those risks and costs. The key risks and costs covered will include costs arising from pollution damage, costs of clean-up, and costs of reinstatement arising from an out-of-control well. Whether or not you agree with the continuation of an oil and gas industry in Aotearoa New Zealand, the answer to this dilemma is pretty clear: if we’re going to continue to allow oil and gas exploration under the current permits, and if we are going to continue to extract oil and gas from fields like Māui and Pohokura, we owe it to New Zealanders to ensure that we require the best cover that they can get, and that is what this bill allows us to do.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and thank them for their time and contribution to the development of this bill. I would also like to thank submitters for their contributions and I acknowledge their genuinely held views on some aspects of the bill. I am pleased that the Government’s main objective for the bill—to clarify and strengthen requirements for owners of offshore oil and gas installations to hold insurance or equivalent cover for their liabilities in the event of an oil spill—received unanimous support from submitters and the select committee.

I also support the changes recommended by the select committee. I want to touch briefly on three of those changes. The first change clarifies that a claimant may commence proceedings based on the alleged liability of the owner of the oil or gas installation to the claimant. This change makes it very clear that claimants do not need to obtain judgment against the owner before they can seek redress from the insurer. The second change adds a requirement that a claimant obtains the leave of the court before taking direct action against the insurer. It makes sense that the first port of call for redress are the owners of the installation. It is the owner who has primary legal responsibility for the spill.

I understand that based on existing case law in relation to the equivalent provisions in New Zealand and overseas, a court is likely to grant leave if it is satisfied that the owner has had a judgment issued against it that it has failed to satisfy, or if there is an arguable case that the owner is liable to the claimant, an arguable case that the insurance policy covers liability, and a real possibility that if the claimant obtained judgment against the owner, the owner would not be able to meet the claim.

The third change I want to mention will prevent the insurer relying on so-called after the fact defences. I agree with the committee that insurers should be prevented from relying on contractual defences arising out of the insured’s conduct or inaction in the claims process. A potential example is the failure by the owner to provide sufficient information or assistance to the insurer. This kind of technical defence is inappropriate in this context.

I also want to bring to the House’s attention that I’m preparing a short Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) for the bill aimed at ensuring a smooth and timely transition to the new regime. The change to the new financial assurance regime has been very well signalled. It was scheduled to come into force by the previous Government, so the market has been aware of the key requirements for several years. The market also supports the change, but is, understandably, keen to have certainty over the transition. While the Government is comfortable for existing installations to transition to the new regime within a year of the new rules coming into force, more risky drilling activities should have to comply with the new rules before next summer’s season. It is unacceptable that we could have inadequate cover for this kind of activity for longer than is absolutely necessary. My SOP will provide more certainty in relation to this transition.

Again, I want to thank all those who submitted on the bill and the rules. I would like to acknowledge your participation in the democratic process. I commend this bill to the House.

SPEAKER: Before I put the question to the House, I do want to remind—I don’t often sit in the Chair during readings on bills, but I’ve noticed a growing habit of members reading their speeches. That is not permitted.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill, the Maritime Transport (Offshore Installations) Amendment Bill. This is a bill which we support. We see the sense of it. We see the absolute necessity for our marine environments to be protected, and, in fact, having the world’s best practice in terms of permitting is something which I think New Zealand is proud of. But if there was any eventuality that there was an oil spill from an offshore installation, not only would we want to have that assurance of the companies and their associated arrangements for capability to be able to mitigate and work against and do the appropriate actions that any spill would require but, behind all of that and backing all of that, there is, of course, the financial capability for that to occur. We understand that there is massive expense.

This bill actually had its genesis in the previous Government. The work was done, the research was done, and the preparation for it to come to Parliament was done, interrupted only by the 2017 election. So it is good to see that this work is carried on, and we certainly do support it.

The regime’s primary focus is, of course, to ensure that financial capability. Having third-party insurance and the access to that is absolutely vital. It is a common practice around the world and is something that this bill enables, and we appreciate that.

The changes that the select committee did, we support. The fact that a claimant can now put in a claim on alleged liability is important, because we don’t want to have any work, any compensation, or any mitigation held up by due process that may go through a legal proceeding, but it does need, of course, the leave of the court for that claimant to go forward. I think that’s a very sensible mix.

I’m not part of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, but I do have an interest in this particular area, so I want to commend the committee on the work that they have done. We are very happy to support this bill through the House in its second reading.

JO LUXTON (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to rise and take a call on the Maritime Transport (Offshore Installations) Amendment Bill. What this piece of legislation does is it increases the level of insurance that offshore oil and gas installation owners are required to hold. I guess for a worst-case scenario, where we would have a serious oil spill, it is important and essential that we know that these people are going to be insured adequately to help with the clean-up, etc., of this. So I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.

BRETT HUDSON (National): It’s a pleasure to rise and support the Maritime Transport (Offshore Installations) Amendment Bill in this, its second reading. A very sensible and quite necessary measure it is. Not only should we support world’s best practice in terms of exploration but we should—and do—have a regulatory framework which is focused very much around preventing hazards and discharges.

We do need to make sure that in the event—although it’s a low probability—of a spillage or of environmental damage, the polluters are responsible for dealing with the mess and effects that they have brought about, whether that is done by an act or an omission, or by some other means. So with the bill not only being very clear about that liability but the need for the potentially liable party to have insurance to cover that, we give very strong clarity to the explorer about their obligations but we give a lot more confidence and certainty to New Zealanders that in permitting these sorts of activities of offshore oil exploration, should adverse consequences arise from those activities, we have the means to ensure that the damage to the environment is both contained and addressed and that the liability for that rests solely with the party who is held responsible for it.

So it’s a sensible measure, and it is something that was initiated under the previous Government, as so many of the sensible measures that have passed in this term were. But it’s well worth doing, and we commend it to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Urban Development Bill

First Reading

Hon JENNY SALESA (Minister for Building and Construction) on behalf of the Minister for Urban Development: I move, That the Urban Development Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

Recently, this House established Kāinga Ora, a new Crown agency with two core roles: being a world-class public housing landlord, and leading and coordinating urban development projects. It will be a powerful delivery entity capable of integrated urban development that provides a mix of public, affordable, and open-market housing. This bill, the Urban Development Bill, provides Kāinga Ora the tools it needs to undertake large-scale developments at scale and pace to transform our urban areas, build public and affordable housing, and create sustainable, inclusive, and thriving communities.

Traditionally, New Zealand cities and towns have grown by turning neighbouring rural land into suburban housing in a largely ad hoc manner. What New Zealand has not traditionally done well is plan for our growth over 30 years. Through our Urban Growth Agenda, the Government is currently working with high-growth councils to prepare 30-year spatial plans that plan for urban growth and align the transport, three waters, and amenity infrastructure required to create sustainable and thriving cities. A core part of planning for growth is to have a permissive planning regime that enables high-quality intensification around fast and frequent public transport infrastructure, and we need our cities to grow both up and out. The draft National Policy Statement on Urban Development will direct council to allow our cities to grow up and out and remove some of the more restrictive planning rules that cause high land prices.

This second-generation urban development is common overseas as cities age and grow and new pressures emerge, but it is relatively new to New Zealand. Quality intensification that creates beautiful and well-designed cities is crucial to the future of all of our cities. This could involve repurposed large blocks of industrial or underutilised land, like that recently acquired at Unitec, Hobsonville Point, or Britomart in Auckland, or intensifying low-density suburbs, like what we see in Roskill or Tāmaki. This brownfield and greyfield development is often too difficult and risky for developers and the private sector to do on their own. There are multiple landowners, each with their own interests. There is often significant investment required to upgrade poor-quality, ageing, or at-capacity infrastructure so that it can service a new, larger population. Resource Management Act plans often restrict greater density, or the process to change them is slow, uncertain, or cumbersome.

This bill will enable Kāinga Ora to undertake a special type of complex, transformational development called specified development projects, or SDPs, either by itself or in partnership with iwi, local government, or the private sector. It would also be able to have access to a tool kit of development powers when undertaking SDPs, and these include a streamlined and cut-through resource management planning and consenting process; powers to build and change infrastructure such as roads, three waters, and public transport; the ability to levy or charge local residents to fund infrastructure and development activities; and the ability to reconfigure reserves and create new parks and the important public infrastructure that makes a suburb a community. It would also be able to have access to land acquisition powers when undertaking any urban development, whether that project is a specified development project or more generally part of the Government build programme.

Woven between and underpinning the various powers in the bill, there are a few core ideas. These are public and affordable housing that are at the heart of our urban development agenda. They are places where generations of young families have come to get a start in life and to put down roots in their community. We’re strengthening this promise. We believe Government should be an enabler of urban development to partner with the private sector, local government, or iwi to build, rather than crowd out or replace the private sector. My message to developers is that we want to help you grow. We understand your constraints. We want to work together with you on the solutions. We want to implement good urban design and develop well-connected communities with great transport connections, vibrant town centres, community infrastructure, and affordable homes. Mana whenua are at the heart of these developments as developers, as builders, housing providers, and partners.

Creating an urban development authority (UDA) has been considered in New Zealand for some time. In their final term, the Clark Labour Government created a sustainable urban development unit, prepared Cabinet papers, and released a discussion document. Since then, the Productivity Commission has published three reports highlighting the need for an urban development authority to address New Zealand’s housing supply and urban development issues. In 2017, as the national housing crisis became most acute, the previous National Government also released a discussion document on establishing a UDA.

This bill delivers on this work. It has been a long time coming, and the policy work is complex. This complexity means I’m very much looking forward to the select committee process. There is a lot of experience out there. Developers have tried to do these developments and know all too well the roadblocks. Local authorities know the importance of consultation and the pitfalls that may slow things down. The Government itself has learnt a lot from when it first started thinking about urban development in Glen Innes throughout the successful Hobsonville development.

The bill makes a number of policy judgments. I’m looking forward to the submissions on how we can further streamline the process while protecting the importance we have placed on community engagement and partnership. Have we got the process right? What should this agency’s priorities be? How can we ensure high-quality design maintains the importance of public housing, not just for the next three years but across the generations? There’s a wealth of experience we’re drawing on in drafting this bill, and there is a wealth of experience that will help us refine and improve it.

I want to finish by outlining what success will look like once these projects are up and running. Our challenge is to enable quality intensification and to build well-connected communities that make housing more affordable. There is generational reset of the way Government works with the private sector and communities to build our towns and cities. The Government is an enabler, working with local councils, partnering with the private sector, integrating infrastructure development and transport, planning with the construction of homes, implementing good urban design, building community infrastructure, putting the aspirations of Māori at the heart of our urban form, building and providing affordable housing, helping young Kiwi families into homeownership, and ensuring every New Zealander has a decent place to call home. This bill is a big part of our plan to achieve those goals. For this reason, I commend the bill to the House.

SPEAKER: Before I call the Hon Judith Collins and put the question, I am going to reissue my reminder. I’m slightly more understanding in this circumstance of a Minister reading a speech because the Minister appeared to be a late fill-in for another Minister, but I do want to reiterate that speeches on readings of bills must not be read.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I enjoyed that speech from the Hon Jenny Salesa. I note that she recorded that the former National Government put some policy work out and proposals out on urban development authority. She could also have mentioned that the specified development project process, or the SDP process, looks remarkably like the special housing areas—the SHAs—that worked pretty well, particularly in Auckland, that I could see. So it looks like there are no new ideas. It’s more of the ideas that either National tried and unfortunately did not get the support of the then Opposition—

SPEAKER: Oh, I apologise—I apologise. We’ve gone into the dinner break. I will interrupt the member now.

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

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, before the dinner break, we were debating the first reading of the Urban Development Bill. The Hon Judith Collins has the call, and she has nine minutes and 19 seconds remaining.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I may or may not use all of that. We’ll just see—wait and see.

Anyway, I think when we broke for dinner, I was discussing how the bill contains something called a specified development project process, which is to streamline processes for complex urban development projects. It reminded me instantly of special housing areas—the SHAs—which as I recall the then Opposition, now the Government, was deeply opposed to.

Andrew Bayly: Oh!

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Oh no! Andrew Bayly, MP for Hunua, has just let out a shout of derision that it’s taken the Government at least two years to work out that they should have been supporting the SHAs.

We also are very aware of the fact that there is a recognition of aspirations of Māori in housing and urban development as potential development partners, which, generally, I think is a good thing. I think also, though, that it is useful to say that when I look at the housing that many Māori live in all around the country in provincial New Zealand, the parties in Government, when they were in Opposition, had an opportunity to support Te Ture Whenua Maori Bill, which our former colleague, the Hon Chris Finlayson, promoted, along with Te Ururoa Flavell. But it seemed for political reasons that that did not get supported across Parliament, which is a real shame, because it would have given Māori a far better opportunity to deal with land issues of their own without having to have this sort of body that’s in the bill come in to try and help out.

One of the things that I see when I read through the bill is that it works very much on the basis that the Government can deliver on large-scale development. Well, I think some Governments can deliver on large-scale development. Having heard the Hon Jenny Salesa refer to the Hobsonville Land Co. (HLC), I thought that was pretty interesting—it sounds like one of ours. Also, she could’ve mentioned the Tāmaki redevelopment project, which was one of ours, where we had to make sure that people were housed before they were shifted out of existing but rundown State houses. That has been continued by the current Government under the HLC, or Hobson Land Co., banner.

So we have some areas where we can agree, but I think what the people of New Zealand will be seeing is that with this National Party in Opposition, where we can see opportunities to support legislation, even if we think it needs a lot of work, and where there are some issues, we will try to support it because we think that’s the right thing to do. We don’t want to start playing the sorts of games that saw the Hon Phil Twyford and the Hon David Parker campaigning against the sort of urban development that we were doing in Government.

I note that Kāinga Ora—which is really Housing New Zealand in drag, basically—will have—oh, I should say in sequins. Kāinga Ora will have land acquisition transfer powers when undertaking any urban development, so that is actually a taking of people’s property rights, by the sound of it. I’m not quite sure how people are going to be compensated for that if that’s going to be compensation such as under the Public Works Act, and I’m sure we’re going to tease out some of the details and whether or not that’s going to be a legitimate compensation if land had been bought or retained by private ownership because of a wish to and, certainly, an understanding of an uplift in land values. I think we need to test that out a bit more.

One of the things is I think that the land is going to have to be disposed of under the bill, if it goes through, without it being required to be offered back to the former owner if certain housing or urban renewal works have not been completed on the land. That is quite different from the Public Works Act. Some of us will remember and recall the issue of the Raglan golf course issue, which brought to bear the issues around the compulsory taking of land for defence purposes that occurred during, before, and after World War II. Thankfully, I was not actually alive at that time, but I think it is important to remember that by not returning the land to the iwi whose land had been taken, that actually meant that it created a tremendous grievance. Those of you who recall it will know that Eva Rickard came to prominence at that time as a leader of her people. So I think it’s really unfair for Kāinga Ora to be able to take land, not use it for the purposes for which it has been taken, and then not sell it back, or dispose of it back. So I think that’s something that we’re going to actually have to look at quite a lot in select committee.

When I look at this bill, too, I think it’s great to think that a Government can do all these things, except I say to the House that if you think that this Government can do that, I give you KiwiBuild. See, that was a Government plan that was going to build 100,000 houses in 10 years, and so far they’ve been able to buy off developers, I think, from average, it’s now 290, as opposed to 100,000, or even 1,000 or even—yeah, even 1,000. I mean, it’s really not a great record, and it’s taken the Government two years to work out that the Resource Management Act needs to be changed. It’s actually referred to in here that there’s going to have to be some changes made.

But I think one of the things that gets me with this bill is that—and the National Party is supporting the Urban Development Bill, for the first reading anyway—a lot of development is not necessarily large-scale development. Yes, we do need to have large-scale development, and that’s very important. If we can speed up the processes and cut all the costs—so much the cost of it—and the unnecessary hand-wringing that goes on every time anyone tries to do anything on their own property these days, then that could be a very good thing, and that’s why we would be supporting it. But there’s nothing that I can see in this bill for people who might be small developers. This bill seems to imply or state that a developer who has land and wants to do a development would have to go to the Kāinga Ora people and ask them if they can be part of their Kāinga Ora scheme, which seems to me all a bit messy, really. It’s starting to look awfully like the Provincial Growth Fund—like you wonder who it is you’re supposed to be convincing, and whether or not it’s going to be feasible. I mean, who are these people making these decisions? How much property development experience do they have? What do they know about it?

I heard the Minister before talking all about the Unitec development, which was supposed to put in 5,000 new homes. Well, how many have been built? Well, that would be none. And what’s the big issue there? Is it transport? Not so much—it is really, but it’s not so much. The big issue there is that the land itself and the area it is does not have separation of sewerage and stormwater. So 5,000 families doing what families do and it all going out in to the Waitematā Harbour is not a good thing, and this Government seems to think that having the Kāinga Ora people do it will suddenly change that. I think someone’s going to have to pay for that separation, and I don’t see anything in here that says it’s going to happen.

So these are not easy answers, but we will support the bill to the first reading. I really look forward to the submissions on this bill in the select committee. I think that we, in Opposition, will have lots of really interesting questions, and I’m looking forward to some answers that make more sense than the KiwiBuild debacle that we’ve just had two years of. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): That was a poor speech from Judith Collins. But this is a great bill, and I commend it to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Matt Doocey: A bit like his career—short and sharp.

ANDREW BAYLY: Very. I wanted to return to that topic that my colleague the Hon Judith Collins was just mentioning. I just can’t understand why it’s taken all this time to be talking about this bill, when you’ve got that dog-tucker, that hoax, that flop of KiwiBuild that just has not done anything, yet here was a bill that we were promoting when we were in Government. In fact, we even sent it to the Productivity Commission to have a bit of a look at, and they came back and said, “Yes, we should be doing this. We should be establishing an urban development authority.”, and we were all ready to do it. All this was laid out for this Government when it came into power, and it’s taken them until December 2019 to actually get to a point where we can stand up and start talking about it.

I just find it remarkable for a Government that talked about a year of delivery and here we are in the last month of the year, and yet it’s still at a stage where we’re just starting to talk about this first reading. Normally, a bill like this takes about six months to go through, so it’ll be just before we go to the polls and they’ll be able to say, “Yes, we put in the legislation, but we haven’t done anything else.”

Of course, urban development authorities (UDAs) have a lot of success around the world, and that’s why we promoted them. You know, we’ve seen the impact of them in places like Melbourne, London, Sydney, and Tokyo—a whole stack of places—where they’ve been used to, basically, take areas of cities that have gone into degradation, that are unusable, and that are often at a stage where they are rundown. This is where a UDA can come in, can start looking at the whole area—normally, they’re quite large areas—look at the master-planning of them, and not just about how they’re going to build houses but how they’re going to do streets, how they’re going to do all the associated community infrastructure, and how they’re going to pull it together to make a community. That is where they worked really successfully overseas.

It’s another way to actually help how we’re going to build more houses in New Zealand, and, of course, that’s the bit that we find so worrying. Just returning to that topic, we left a pipeline of 27,000 homes when we left office, and—

Dan Bidois: That’s a good pipeline.

ANDREW BAYLY: —it was a superb pipeline—yet here we are, at this juncture, at just over two years, and, as I’ve said before and as Judith Collins mentioned before, we have hardly made any progress in creating new houses in New Zealand.

This urban development authority does have wide-ranging powers. For instance, it has the ability to override, add to, or suspend provisions of the Resource Management Act (RMA) plans or policy statements in the development plan that applies to the project area. So that’s a pretty strong power to actually cut across RMA processes and also, effectively, unitary plan processes of cities. It also has the ability to act as a consent authority. That’s interesting, because already this group that we’re talking about here that’s going to be formed has been out nicking—and I use that word; it’s paying a lot more than Auckland Council can afford—to acquire or to get the best of the consenting officers out of Auckland Council to come into this entity. I think that’s wrong, because that is just purely robbing the Auckland Council of its best staff and paying them more to come across to be able to do this work. Why shouldn’t they be left at Auckland Council? This is a type of entity that should be training its own and adding to the sum total of building consent officers in New Zealand, not taking them from another council and trying to fast track its own arrangements.

It’s also got the ability to use funding tools for infrastructure—and that’s part of it; you know, sewerage, and we talked about roading and all that sort of stuff—levy targeted rates and development contributions, build and change infrastructure, and reconfigure reserves. Those are all wide-ranging powers, and they are necessary, but they’ve got to be implemented and used wisely if you’re going to create this. Of course, the success of these types of entities is in having people who are very experienced in doing these types of development and who have wonderful and well-honed commercial skills, because, essentially, the value is created in the master plan, and if you muck that up, that’s where these things can turn pear-shaped.

I just think the thing about this is that this deals with one element of trying to help with new building, but the issue is a much more central issue. The Hon Jenny Salesa, who introduced this bill, should be much more focused on fixing up the existing building construction rules around more people moving into the area, fixing up the rules around allowing better products, allowing better planning, and all that sort of stuff, because that’s what needs to be fixed up, and not just trying to create this new entity and resource it much more superiorly than other people and developers in the country are given access to. I think that is wrong. They should be dealing with the central issue of the broken system that has been around for a while, and Minister Twyford hasn’t done anything about it in two years’ time.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First on this Urban Development Bill, as we look to enable Kāinga Ora to lead some of these large, master-planned developments where we can turn some of these brownfield and greyfield sites into much-needed housing. One of the great handicaps that we’ve come into in this Government is a housing crisis, and we’ve needed to take some pretty bold steps and try some things. Some things have worked better than others, obviously, but we need almost a Think Big - type arrangement. It’s almost the second coming of Muldoon, this sort of stuff, with cutting through some process and getting on with building some houses.

A lot of the root cause of a lot of our social ills is the fact that we haven’t got enough good houses, affordable houses. It’s the absolute foundation stone of our society. So we need to bring some measures in. Of course, the Productivity Commission has done number of reports. It’s identified our having an urban development authority like this as a key plank to ramping up our housing.

Of course, we’ve got a record number of consents and building going on out there at the moment, which is great, but we’ve got so much catch-up to do. So there’s some 30-year planning going on here—long overdue—and it’s a wee bit galling to sit back and listen to this “woulda, shoulda, coulda” over there. We’re actually getting on and doing it and getting these big, master-plan developments up where you’re looking at things like the three waters and transport hubs and looking at the whole package as we look to futureproof our cities.

There are a lot of powers in this, so the select committee will have some work to do—the power to levy local residents, for example. Councils will be very interested, and I’m sure they will be submitting on this through Local Government New Zealand. So New Zealand First will be looking forward to seeing how that all plays out, but this is a great enabler for the Government to get on and continue to fix our housing crisis. Thank you.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a great privilege to be able to speak in the first reading of the Urban Development Bill. I was waiting for the member Mark Patterson to break out his Rob Muldoon voice there. I would have loved to have heard a bit of that on a Tuesday night—but for another time.

We’re here today to discuss a very important issue, and that is the urban development authorities. This bill, basically, provides a framework for these authorities so that we can build houses. After two years of this Government and two years of non-delivery in this area, it seems they are finally wanting to get a move on in their year of delivery.

This bill is a bill that we’ll be supporting. It is a bill that is a long time waiting for this House, and, essentially, it’s an omnibus bill that provides the Crown—or Kāinga Ora, which is, essentially, Housing New Zealand. It’s been renamed Kāinga Ora. It, basically, enables Kāinga Ora to look at designated zones throughout the country and treat those as development areas and then fast track their processes for building homes. So that is something I think is really important.

Of course, to address housing in New Zealand, there is really only one way to address housing, and that is to build more houses. The thing that I am interested in is that we’ve actually got a bill here that is developing a workaround on current legislation. That actually exemplifies the need to look at the existing regulations—in particular, the Resource Management Act (RMA)—and to speed up that process. This bill, in itself—all this is doing is actually working around the current rules that we have because they’re so onerous and cumbersome, and these housing developments need to get a move on in that support.

So the National Party supports this bill. We support this bill because, ultimately, we want to see more houses built in this country. We do have some reservations, though, and we’ll be discussing those in the select committee process.

But I want to talk about what National was doing under the previous Government in this area, because I think National has got a proud record in this area. We established the Hobsonville Land Co. They were helping Housing New Zealand to provide more homes more easily through these designated housing areas. You can look no further than my own electorate, my fantastic electorate of Northcote, where we had the Northcote redevelopment project, which is still going on now. I’m very grateful that this Government hasn’t abolished that project.

This project is essentially going to put 1,500 new homes on to the housing market. Of those, 500 will be Housing New Zealand, or what we’re calling now Kāinga Ora; 500 will be what we were calling at the time income-related, and Phil Twyford has gone and called those KiwiBuild; and then the final 500 will be sold at private-market value. So this is, in fact, a perfect example of these designated areas where these urban development authorities can work to speed up the regulations and speed up the consenting processes, the building consents, and the resource consents—the dealing with the bureaucracy of local government and central government—and I think that that is a proud record that we stand on here with respect to that.

Let’s face it: KiwiBuild has been a fail—am I right?

Hon Members: That’s right.

DAN BIDOIS: That’s right. KiwiBuild has been an absolute failure, and we need to look at other ways to actually speed up the development process for homes. This bill, through the urban development authorities, will, in fact, achieve that. But I think we do need to revisit the RMA, because this bill is based on workarounds to the RMA, and we’ve already committed, on this side of the House, to tackle that problem head-on. We’ve heard a bit of rhetoric and platitudes from the other side but no firm commitments. You know, we’re getting on and doing the policy work in Opposition because we know that the issue of building of houses in New Zealand is an important issue, and National takes this issue very seriously. So we commend this bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you. I’m pleased to speak in support of the Urban Development Bill from a Green Party perspective.

It is interesting that the National Party, on the one hand, say they are supporting this bill, and then they are grumbling about it. The National Party doesn’t recognise that it had nine years in Government to do something about housing, but instead it failed to recognise that we had a crisis, and that’s what we have inherited. It doesn’t recognise that it was under this Government and the legislation that was passed by Parliament—the Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities Bill—where we wound back the ability of the Government to sell off State housing, which was what the former National Government was doing, compounding the housing crisis.

National speakers don’t recognise, either, that they had nine years to deal with an urban development authority—to establish one. What we got was a discussion paper from the Hon Dr Nick Smith which had very strong powers in it and which didn’t have many of the protections for good process and community involvement that this bill has. That is why it has taken two years here, because there has been a lot of work by the Government in thinking carefully through how we expedite housing and how we get effective urban development which integrates with public transport to provide livable communities. That is why there’s the detail in this quite thick bill about how we go about doing that.

The previous speakers from National have talked about special housing areas. They totally fail to realise that the way in which special housing areas were able to be established without any opportunity for community input have created the situation that we have in places like Ihumātao, where there wasn’t an opportunity for the community to have a say on whether there should be that sort of housing development.

So this bill is a significant piece of legislation. It gives Kāinga Ora the power to act as a single-point developer. It does include the powers of compulsory acquisition of land, but unlike the Hon Judith Collins’ suggesting that private property rights would be overridden, the provisions that apply in the Public Works Act which require compensation if there is compulsory acquisition—those sort of provisions will continue to apply, so there will be compensation.

It does establish a bespoke planning and consenting process. That enables some of the more cumbersome issues with the Resource Management Act (RMA) to be worked around. Yes, it is a separate piece of legislation. It is not just a workaround, because, as Mr Bidois didn’t recognise, this Government is engaged in a big reform of the RMA. There’s been legislation to fix up the problems that National created by shutting out the opportunity for the public to make submissions in a lot of areas, and there is a panel that is actually looking at much more comprehensive reform. But this bill, with its bespoke planning process, where a special development project is established, with that going through an Order in Council process, and then there being an independent hearing panel, which is set up to look at public submissions and then make a recommendation back to the Minister—that enables public input.

The bill has a number of protections, including for Māori land, including for reserves, so that if any reserve land is to be included in a special development project area, then the consent of the Minister of Conservation is required. It also provides for local authorities to be involved. It provides for engagement with Māori to ensure that their aspirations for urban development are recognised. So it is creating a good process, which will enable houses to be built and liveable cities to become more dense in terms of housing settlement, and for that to be integrated with transport to ensure that there is good amenity provided, as well, through a streamlined process through this independent panel being able to make recommendations to the Minister.

We do have areas where there are multiple landowners, and that’s why the streamlined process is important: the ability to bring those landholdings together through the ability to use compulsory acquisition powers; the ability to steer development in the round so that where infrastructure like three waters needs to be upgraded, that can be done; and the ability to levy homeowners who buy into that development to actually meet those infrastructure costs, rather than not doing that investment and infrastructure because there’s no funding to pay for it. So it does allow the quite complex, and the quite transformational development that we need in our cities and towns. It is a solidly worked through piece of legislation. I look forward to the submission process to improve it, but the Green Party supports the bill and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We do, on this side of the House, see the value in the approach that the Government’s taking with this particular Urban Development Bill, but we have reservations. So if Eugenie Sage, the previous speaker, wonders why we support—and then I think she used the term “grumpy”. We’re grumpy because that’s exactly our role—to make sure that we interrogate all matters of every piece of legislation. There are some aspects where we will be grumpy about it, and rightly so, because we need to make sure we get this right. So we’ve got a baseline position of sending this to a select committee, making sure that we understand exactly what the tool kit of powers is that is being given over to Kāinga Ora, and then we will enjoy seeing how different submissions and different stakeholders and groups come to the process and outline their positive comments and also where they see challenges.

Now, on the challenges there are four reservations that I’ll just quickly highlight. Some of them are coming from initial responses from stakeholders. Some of them are probably more from our side of the tracks, but none the less they’ll be four areas we would like to see and interrogate in the select committee process.

The first is that the process for establishing an SDP, which is a specified development project, is lengthy. So we want assurances, and then to look around for how that could be actually streamlined further. It’s one thing to agree on these SPVs—the special purpose vehicles—being created, but it’s another to actually take a long time to get it created. The other is that private developers could be consulted more, or, actually, at all, during the initial assessment stage to get that industry buy-in. That’s another issue that could be looked at and interrogated more. The third would be looking at how it bypasses smaller developers. If we’re really looking at a comprehensive response to housing in New Zealand, where and how could smaller developers be included?

Then the other would be—and I think the Government should stump up with this—is this really just a way of avoiding Resource Management Act (RMA) reform? Where is the evidence around RMA reform in a considered approach to that, because we know there’s not one answer. It’s not just about this particular bill. There’s also RMA reform sorely needed, and we’d love to see the Government’s time line on that.

We’re supporting this bill through to the next stage. Thank you, Mr Speaker. If the aim is for certainty, simplicity, and for a coordinated approach, then we do need to see some other answers.

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

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. He pire tino mīharo tēnei, kua tautoko au i tēnei pire ki Te Whare. Kia ora.

[Greetings Mr Speaker. This is a marvellous bill; I support this bill to the House. Thank you.]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Tim van de Molen—five minutes.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I find it’s quite an interesting change in direction that the Government’s taking with their approach to legislation tonight—merely contributing a manner of a few seconds per call. It’s quite a change from the tack they’ve taken over the last wee while, where they’ve been filibustering consistently their own legislation with clearly no pipeline of work ahead of them. But now, I guess, with Christmas in sight, they’ve stuffed the Order Paper, or Christmas stocking, as it may be, with enough bills to tide them over in the hope that the officials will do the rest of the work in January while they’re all on holiday.

So here we are on this Urban Development Bill, at first reading—Kāinga Ora. In principle, it’s not a bad idea, and it actually makes up for the fact that the Government came riding in on their high horse, claiming to be about to solve the housing crisis. They’d build 100,000 homes and KiwiBuild would be the saviour for all and sundry, and away we’d go—sunshine, lollipops, and unicorns. But, in reality, it’s proved to be much more difficult than they’d anticipated. I suppose after nine years in the wilderness, they’ve kind of lost touch with how to do these things, and when they actually got the opportunity, they found there were many complex elements that were beyond what they had anticipated initially. So, consequently, we’ve seen KiwiBuild fail miserably.

Now, we’re seeing the Resource Management Act (RMA) reform, which was actually a significant piece of work that does need to be done. In Opposition, the National Party is working hard on that and we will have a comprehensive solution or proposal for that. But what we’re seeing this time from the Government now is that they have realised there does need to be some change to the RMA, but, actually, they have set up another working group, kicked the can down the road, and then they don’t have to deal with it before the election.

So this is a temporary option to try and demonstrate that they are doing something, but, actually, it’s not much. However, the bones of it are not bad. So, on that basis, we are prepared to support it at its first reading to get it to select committee, to try and kick it into a better shape, and to help this Government out, yet again, with their failed legislation pipeline.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity just to take a very short call following on from Tim van de Molen, the person who basically used a lot of words to say that they agree with what we’re doing. So I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Oh, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I remember a time when this Government used to come to the House and speak positively about their bills. They would come down, Minister after Minister, and speak for 10-minute calls and fill up the House for hours on end, and now they’ve run out of steam. They’ve given up. They’re not even confident enough to come down and back their own bills. And the gall to have Mark Patterson stand up there tonight and say “Oh yeah, we need to free up land.”! It’s like Back to the Future, because this Government actually had a proven formula and it was called the rebuild after the Canterbury earthquakes, because what we learnt in the Greater Christchurch region was that if you free up land, it increases supply, which equals demand.

The issue is not about building the houses, because they learnt that—that failed socialist experiment called KiwiBuild. Now, we took Simon Bridges into a development in my electorate where we had private builders building next to KiwiBuild a four double-bedroom, internal garage, high-spec house. They were selling cheaper than KiwiBuild.

This is what that party does in Opposition. The failure of a Labour Government is that when they’re in Opposition, their only catchcry is “Get us in Government and we’ll solve it.” They don’t know how to and they have no plan, but all they say is “Get us in Government.” Then you have Phil Twyford, the housing Minister, who turns up and says, “Well, if it was that easy, the last Government would have done it.” Well, that’s exactly the point—that’s why we said it was not easy.

It was a complex issue, but they made it a big issue. They said housing was their No. 1 one issue, and here we are, two years in, and we’re at the first reading of the Urban Development Bill. They’re so confident of their own bill, that they have been drafting for two long years, and they turn up and speak for five or 10 seconds as their contribution.

They are learning. This Government is a social experiment that is failing, and the real people that are going to be affected by this are hard-working New Zealanders.

In fact, they had the formula. They knew from Canterbury—from the experience there—that the housing affordability issue was not to do with the cost of housing; it was to do with the cost of land. Here we finally have it, the “Back to the Future Bill”, that finally acknowledges that that was the issue. It’s taken two years—two years—in the year of delivery. They can get meat plastics banned before they can do anything about housing affordability. This Government is a failed socialist experiment.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. This is socialism in action and it is our own indigenous socialism and it’s the best kind. I won’t take long because it doesn’t take long to sing the praises of this Government because they are so obvious.

There are only five things I want to say. At last we’ve got a Government who will bring all of infrastructure together and won’t make a piecemeal approach. We’ll put transport, housing, infrastructure, and waste water all together because that’s what we need to do. Secondly, this is genuine streamlining through special development areas and specified development projects that we can really get on with and make a real difference for ordinary, hard-working New Zealanders. Thirdly, there will be real community consultation here, real engagement, and not just engagement with vested interests, but with communities on the ground. Fourthly—and really importantly—there will be genuine protection of Māori interests, Māori engagement, and special protection of Māori customary land so that we can ensure that Māori can meet their aspirations in respect of housing needs. Lastly, there is the ability to acquire land and put it to best use so it isn’t speculated on and land-banked—for the people; not for land bankers and speculators.

This bill is an outstanding achievement for this Government. I commend it to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.

Bills

Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 5 December.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): This bill will establish a farm debt mediation scheme which requires creditors with security interests in farms to basically offer mediation to farmers before taking enforcement action in relation to that debt, and allow farmers, basically, an early option to get involved in sorting out that debt. Often, there’s quite a bit of a power imbalance between farmers and banks. Banks have huge debt departments once farmers get into trouble. But this bill, at the end of the day, is there for farmers. There’s been a huge amount of debt increase over the last several years—I believe 270 percent; around about $63 billion compared to 20 years ago.

I just want to acknowledge that this bill started out a couple of times, back in the 1990s, with New Zealand First. I believe Darroch Ball pulled it out of the box and then transferred it to my good parliamentary colleague Mark Patterson—good work, Mark, on this. Mark and I had a very entertaining Sunday together. We were both dressed part way up as Santa, in the Gore Santa parade, throwing out lollies to kids. We both did a good job of throwing out the lollies and not getting them in anyone’s eyes.

But back to this bill; this is a good bill for rural New Zealand. The objectives of the bill are rather simple: it’s to help farmers in financial distress and promote turn-around solutions early on to give farmers the best possible chance of getting out without losing their farms. Owning a farm is a little bit different than, say, owning a residential home. A farm produces income, but often you’ve got the family farmhouse on the farm. It’s similar to, say, a dairy that has a culmination above the dairy. This bill doesn’t go quite that far; it just sticks with the rural aspect. But we also consider this debt mediation bill another mechanism to keeping those banks honest.

Throughout the select committee process, we heard 30 written submissions and oral evidence from 18 submitters. We heard from farmers. We heard from some of the banks who are all in agreement that this is a good bill. We heard some devastating stories from farmers who have been through this; they’ve lost everything, and they were speaking very positively towards this bill.

Just one clause I’d like to speak about briefly is clause 9A(2) and (3), which is most of the provisions from clause 58 as introduced. These relate to an appointment of an administrator or receiver under the Companies Act. However, we recommend deleting clause 58(2)(c) of the bill as introduced, which relates to the appointment of a liquidator under section 241 of the Companies Act. This provision is unnecessary as a creditor is unable to make an appointment, and an application for an order to appoint a liquidator will be covered in clause 9A(3).

Can I lastly just acknowledge the different members on the Primary Production Committee. We do work well together. We’ve got a very fair and balanced chair in David Bennett, who’s appreciated from all sides of the House; a huge amount of respect built up over the last two years. On that, we support the bill. I commend it to the House.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a big moment, actually, for New Zealand First to rise in support of this bill; a bill that first came into being in 1999, when Doug Woolerton put in a private member’s bill, which was subsequently taken up by Ron Mark, and in later times—as Hamish Walker alluded to—it was under my name for a brief period. I would just like to acknowledge the Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, who saw that the bill had a complexity beyond the scope of a private member’s bill, and allowed it to come forward as a Government bill—so we do thank him for that.

There are a multitude of reasons for this bill, but, essentially, if you look at the big picture, we do have $63.7 billion worth of farm debt at the end of September. It is actually identified as a systematic risk to the New Zealand economy by the Reserve Bank. Just to put some context around that, in 1999, when Doug Woolerton brought his bill forward, it was $11.9 billion. So we’ve seen a massive lift in farm debt in the last 20 years.

I guess some people would question why we would need it now, given record pricing—we had Fonterra come out the other day, lifting their payment, and some even saying that there could be an eight in front of the payment next year—and, of course, the red meat sector and the horticulture sector are going extremely well at the moment. But the time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining.

“Why farmers?” is the question that often gets asked outside of mainly farming circles, probably. The reason for that is quite simple: many of the things that affect farmers are actually beyond their control. It’s actually incredibly complex business, being a farmer. It’s totally underrated in terms of the complexity. I think the popular vision is of shearing or milking cows or putting up a fence or driving a tractor, but the modern farmer’s got to be a vet, an agronomist, a soil scientist, an ecologist, a market analyst, a builder, a mechanic, has to be able to negotiate regional council and processing company compliance, has got to have a deep knowledge of accountancy, and, increasingly, environmental issues as well. So farmers at the top of their game, I would say, would be up there with any business people in New Zealand. To be at that very top echelon is quite a remarkable feat, given the range of skills that you do need to have.

But as I said, many of the factors that actually dictate your financial performances are beyond your control. We’ve seen a lot of it lately: of course, climate’s always been an issue, but the biosecurity, the Psa, the bovis, and fruit flies—to name a few. We’ve got trade wars and, of course, we’ve always got markets and currency, and, of course, the banks. We’ve seen a contraction of the banks’ lending criteria as they seek to claw back some of that $63 billion and are looking for higher-principle repayments.

The thing that probably cuts to the core of this is that many of these farms are multigenerational. They’re not just a business; they are a family home, they are, essentially, where memories are made, and there’s a real sense of being at one with the land. We went to the Nuffield Scholarship—those us that went the other day to see the announcement of the Nuffield Scholars, and heard some of the presentations from last year’s scholars. One of last year’s scholars cited a report from Oregon in the United States, where losing a family farm was considered to be the equivalent of the loss of a child—that’s how traumatic those events can be.

Of course, we know with our farmers that there’s a propensity for mental health issues. I heard Jan Logie get up here the other day, and say—in terms of our response to the suicide rates—that farmers should actually be a category of their own. I guess there are so many factors that lend themselves to being susceptible to those mental health issues, and I think isolation is certainly one of them. It is the perfect environment to withdraw from society without, potentially, anyone knowing you’re doing so, and withdrawing into yourself.

So when you come under financial pressure, this bill gives a mediation process. It gives a security blanket of sorts that when you’re faced with this massive power imbalance, when you’re up against a major multinational financial institution, you will have a mediation process that guarantees some fairness and some transparency. That is not to say that that will be a “get out of jail free” card. This is not designed to protect businesses, farmers as businesses, making poor financial decisions or just poor financial performance; it’s not about that. It’s about making sure the process is a fair one and getting the fence at the top of the cliff, rather than waiting for the train crash at the bottom when it all turns pear-shaped.

The banks have gotten behind this, and I welcome their support. They were a wee bit reluctant at the start. They were favouring a voluntary process. We’ve seen many of the same banks operating on the other side of the Tasman not performing as ethically as we would expect here. There’s not the same level of evidence of that here, but they’re also not without precedent in terms of how they had behaved. It’s not that long ago that the credit default swaps that they were—not forcing upon farmers but marketing very hard on farmers. It’s quite a technical financial instrument that up to about 2,000 farmers took on board, many of them under false pretences, and there was some compensation paid out. So banks aren’t without previous history of putting some pressure on them. We’ve heard a Federated Farmers’ survey recently that farmers are feeling under pressure from their banks: 23 percent, up from 11 percent last year. So it is on the rise as these capital requirements and the squeeze comes on our farmers.

Just going back to the select committee process, it was a good select committee process. I think it’s the best select committee process I’ve been through. Hamish Walker alluded to it in his contribution. I acknowledge Amy Adams here, who I thought put her formidable legal mind in play and the likes of Kiritapu Allan and others that had the skills to really tease this out, because there were some issues there to work through.

I’d acknowledge the chairman David Bennett. David Bennett, for those cricket tragics out there, I would consider him to be the Martin Guptill of select committee chairmen: can be brilliant on his day but does lack quite a bit of consistency, and, when he’s bad, he can be very bad. But in this particular case he did a very good job. So thank you to the committee. I’d also like to thank the submitters. There were 30 of them, as was referred to earlier. There are a few that stood out; some of the farmers that came forward with their heart-wrenching stories—Richard McIntyre from the Federated Farmers sharemilkers. One of the main changes that we made was on Richard’s recommendation that we made a maximum cost to the farmers of $2,000, because he felt that even those $6,000 or a half share of a $6,000 estimated cost would be perhaps off-putting to some financially stressed sharemilkers who are some of the more vulnerable of our farmers. So on that recommendation, the committee had put a $2,000 cap on the cost to farmers.

We widened the scope a little bit too to bring in things like apiculture and the aforementioned sharemilking. We took out some stuff too: agricultural contractors. So it was a really good shaping of the bill.

So, just in conclusion, I would like to circle back to the start, because, as a smaller political party within the spectrum—and I’m sure the Green Party or the ACT Party would agree—you don’t get to enact your whole policy programme, much as New Zealand would be a better place if we could put that visionary New Zealand First policy platform in place. But the reality is we don’t. We have to compromise on so much. But in regards to this bill, this has been a longstanding New Zealand First bill and policy platform. We are really proud that we’ve been able to get it through. We do acknowledge, again, the Minister and the whole Parliament for getting behind this bill and allowing it to come into legislation. So without further ado, I commend this bill to the House.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do want to take just a brief call this evening on this final reading of the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2). I want to start by doing two things I never thought I’d do in my time in this House. The first is commend New Zealand First for their leadership on this piece of policy. In my dying days in my career, who knew that would happen? But the second is even less likely, and that’s that I want to acknowledge David Bennett’s chairmanship on the committee, which is something I also never thought I would say.

But, when I made the decision to step down at the next election and we had a bit of a rearrangement, I found myself on the—[Interruption] Mr Speaker, can you tell my colleagues to be quiet behind me. Ha, ha!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Be quiet.

Hon AMY ADAMS: I found myself on the Primary Production Committee. I also found myself with an immense amount of time suddenly on my hands. Anyone who’s been a busy Minister knows that you don’t quite know what to do when the work isn’t coming in by the bucket load. So the poor old officials on the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2) found that I’d turned up to the first committee having read every word of that sucker and having a long list of changes that I thought needed to be made, which I proceeded to share with them in my usual manner.

Actually, I do think we’ve made the bill considerably better, and I think it was a very good, collaborative process across the committee. What was very clear, though, is that farmers are under an immense amount of financial pressure right now. That might seem incongruous given the fact that we do have good commodity prices, but, in actual fact, the banks are putting an immense amount of pressure on farmers, and there are a whole range of reasons—from the foreign buyer ban to the Reserve Bank changes to the Basel changes: the recent capital adequacy proposals. There’s no question that farmers are feeling that heat.

One of the big areas that I certainly focused on in the committee, which we’ve made some good traction on, I think, is to emphasise that a mediation process when you’re at the point of a mortgagee sale is too little, too late. If we’re not sitting down between the creditor and debtor early on in that distress process, when there’s still an opportunity to make changes, then the realistic ability to help farmers get their way back into profitability is significantly lessened. So we worked a lot on that, and I think the bill is far better for it. There are changes that should have been made. I personally think there should still have been an exemption for low-value goods. It would be a nonsense to trigger processes like this because the hire purchase on the beer fridge in the sheriff’s quarters got behind, but, none the less, that’s what this bill currently says, despite our best endeavours.

There are other issues, though, and it’s come to my knowledge that the rural tax advisory group have raised real concerns about tax implications for farmers should there be loan write-offs. As far as I’m aware, there has been no advice, certainly to the committee from officials. I don’t know if the Minister has had advice on it. That is a serious implication that we would certainly need farmers to be well-advised on. So I certainly want to encourage the Minister, through his officials, to make sure that that issue is very much looked into and advice around that is included in the information that goes to farmers involved in the process, because nobody wants to put out one fire and then start a tax fire somewhere else. So with those words, I’m happy to commend the bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Thank you, Mr Speaker, kia ora. I’m pleased to take a call on the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2) as the primary industries spokesperson for the Green Party, having succeeded Gareth Hughes. It was interesting at the Canterbury A&P Show last month, just having a conversation with an arable and dry stock farmer. He was talking about how eight years ago he had been pushed hard by his bank to convert to dairying to get higher returns. He had resisted that and now he is very glad that he had resisted because he didn’t have the level of debt that he would have had if he had converted. That is one of the big issues in the farm sector: the significant levels of stress in rural communities that are associated with the very high levels of debt of around $63 billion.

So this bill is a very good one because it does provide for a structured and impartial and confidential mediation process to work through debt problems, and it provides—as the Hon Amy Adams noted—for that processes to be initiated before any enforcement action is taken by banks or secured creditors. So it’s a way of ensuring that, given the complexities of farm businesses that Mark Patterson alluded to, the quite complex issues around debt can actually be worked through—to look at the options, to look at whether exiting from the farm and doing that in a dignified way and wrapping up all of the loose ends in that can occur.

The bill has had very wide support from lenders because of the timely and transparent process that it provides for. I commend the work that New Zealand First has done in getting the bill to the House, the work the Minister has done, and the work the select committee has done with officials in improving it. It is providing for a scheme that, I think, is a light touch and with low cost. I think it’s going to cost about $350,000 to set up and about that much annually to run, keeping the costs down to those who use it. It will become effective next February and come into full effect next October.

I think this is another example of where this Government is providing really practical support for farmers, really grappling with this issue of high levels of debt, the significant stress that that imposes, and the need for better support for farmers to work through those debt issues. I commend the bill to the House.

MATT KING (National—Northland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll speak very briefly on the Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2). Being a farmer myself, I know a lot of farmers around my area are heavily indebted. The only time that they ever have any money is when they sell up and retire. So any sort of a bill like this that can help in keeping people on farms and keeping people farming, we support.

Now, this bill started off as a very poorly drafted, flawed New Zealand First member’s bill. The original bill has been substantially improved by the sheer brilliance of the chair, David Bennett, and the work that he did—incredible, incredible, incredible guy—through the committee process, and the feedback. I know that there were 30-odd submissions, and the select committee process really works if you do it properly. It was great to see this bill go through that process and actually get improved, unlike the fiasco of last week—the fiasco of last week—when there was no select committee, under urgency, and what did we get? We got a bill that’s a Clayton’s bill. So it’s good to see that this has gone through.

Federated Farmers support it. The bankers supported it. There is a large amount of debt in this country—$62.8 billion—and that’s increased by 270 percent over the last 20 years. So anything that makes it easier for farmers to keep farming, we support. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, this is a split call. I call Dr Duncan Webb—five minutes.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Look, this is a good bill and it has been improved in the select committee, but can I just really point out that the merits of this bill are that it’s looking for a non-adversarial process to assist parties through a very difficult time. Mediation is a great alternative to genuine outright conflict. That’s, essentially, the centrepiece of this bill. It means that people won’t have to have recourse to the courts, which don’t work for everyone.

Hon David Parker: You call yourself a lawyer?

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you, Mr Parker. Look, it’s a fantastic step forward, far overdue, and I hope we see this in a whole lot of other areas as well. I commend this bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Farm Debt Mediation Bill (No 2)—well, here we are: the third reading. This is an interesting piece of legislation that, on the face of it, has broad support, and understandably so. It’s pretty benign, to be honest, in terms of what it’s trying to achieve. New Zealand First have created another solution looking for a problem, in large respect, but there are some aspects to it that have some merit. In particular, the key part of that that I think is relevant here is around creating a mechanism that enables mediation to occur not just between a borrower, a farmer in this instance, and the lender being a mainstream bank but, actually, between the farmer and whatever that lender might be, whether it’s a third party or a second- or third-tier lender or a family group or some other related entity that is not a mainstream bank.

The mainstream banks, typically, have pretty robust processes in terms of working through challenging scenarios with their farming clients and try to pre-empt that as much as possible for the clients’ benefit, but of course for the banks benefit as well; there’s reputational risk if things don’t go well for a client. And so, unsurprisingly, they contribute significant investment to making sure they work through that process. The real opportunity in this bill is actually providing that more detailed mechanism for those that aren’t in a corporate environment like that, who don’t have those structures around them to work through these processes. In those situations, there does need to be some clearer pathways to work through the challenges presented by whatever particular issues the farmer might be facing that means they are unable to meet their obligations from a financial perspective.

So, on that note, we support those aspects of it in particular. There is some good work there, but, again, broadly, as I mentioned, it’s a solution looking for a problem. New Zealand First started it off, the Government’s picked it up, and good on them for doing something. There are some good aspects to it. At the end of day, we’re seeing more and more need for mitigating issues financially in the rural sector, and that’s largely driven off some of the change in policies we’re seeing under this Government—a significant reduction in business confidence in the farming sector. Farmers in particular are looking very concerned at where the future is for them and wanting to see a bit of clarity. So this can, potentially, fill that gap a bit, and so we do support it.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): The preceding speaker, Tim van de Molen, may feel that this bill is a solution looking for a problem, but as I look across the Chamber, I can see a number of problems looking for a solution. I think that might come around in about November of next year.

I want to swing on to a more positive note, though, as the member who’s able to conclude the debate on this bill, to commend my colleague Mark Patterson, on whose initiative this bill commenced its legislative journey, and to commend all members all around the House in a spirit of a cross-partisan approach for supporting this bill on its way. It is a good bill that does address a real issue, which is the significant stress that farmers often face because of the debt that they have to undertake as a part of their business and the challenges that they can face in a very dynamic and difficult environment, at times.

It’s a practical bill; it doesn’t solve all of the problems in the rural sector that farmers sometimes face, but it will make a real difference. And, on this side of the House, we are proud to be a Government that addresses the needs of all New Zealanders, including rural New Zealanders, and this bill is a part of that. I commend the bill to the House.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Mr Speaker, what I just witnessed from the chief whip of the Labour Party was quite extraordinary: Marja Lubeck primed up to give her speech and the whip just stands up and steals her thunder—didn’t even look round.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Actually, it’s the Speaker who decides upon who speaks, OK?

LAWRENCE YULE: My apologies, Mr Speaker. Anyway, I observed; it wouldn’t happen on our side—it wouldn’t happen on our side.

Look, we are supporting this bill because we support early intervention. We think that a mediated outcome in distressed situations is absolutely the way to go. I also note that both the Reserve Bank and the banks that have been public on this have supported this as an approach, and we’re happy to do it on this side as well.

If I can make the observation, though—and I did this the other day—it’s a consternation, really, in respect of Mark Patterson, because the debt in the rural sector is currently around $63 billion, which is a lot of money, and there is record high commodity prices, and I hope dairy prices go to something with an eight in front of them, but there are around 200 farms, according to the Reserve Bank Governor last week at the select committee, that are in major trouble—major, major trouble. And whether that average debt is $10 million, it’s of significance, and one of the things that this Government is responsible for is changing the overseas investment laws to the point where international companies cannot purchase some of those distressed assets. The net result of that—

Hon Members: Good job too!

LAWRENCE YULE: You might say that’s a good thing. The Ministers over there do think it’s a good thing. The net result of that is there are limited options for sales of these large properties who are very indebted, and the risk with that is it gets transferred across the whole sector in a loss of value. So we’re happy to support this. It is a way through, and early intervention is always a good intervention. We’re happy to support this bill.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yes, it was correct: as the previous speaker said, I was settling in for a 10-minute speech and giving it a good go, but in the meantime, everything has been said. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Minister for Biosecurity): I move, That the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

Look, it is indeed a good day for the farming sector, for rural New Zealand, that we can pass two quite valuable pieces of legislation. I won’t say they are absolutely necessary but they will make a huge difference to farmers on the ground. Farming is a vital part of our economy and will be for a long, long time: over $46 billion in wealth creation comes into this country to go around in our economy and pass benefits on to most New Zealanders in some way or another.

A national animal tracing system is necessary for modern farm production systems, and this system was brought in under the previous Government. It was a little slow, it was a little reluctant, and it took some time to bed in. And then, of course, in coming into Government and just prior to the last election, I guess, the previous Government had discovered that we had Mycoplasma bovis in this country. And then when we set about a programme committed to eradication, we faced the reality of a system that wasn’t operating as it should. I’m not blaming anyone in particular for that other than, I guess, we have now faced the reality and the realisation that without a proper tracing system, we can’t claim to be good farmers. That’s the reality and we certainly can’t eradicate diseases like Mycoplasma bovis or anything else that might come into this country.

The National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2) and its five accompanying regulation changes will improve traceability. It will incentivise compliance with the system and will encourage effective and efficient use of National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) data and ensure that the NAIT framework is fit for the future. I’ll focus on a few of the issues that were raised in submissions, and I know that the Primary Production Committee—and I’d like to acknowledge the select committee. As with the previous piece of legislation, I think they gave this a thorough investigation. They listened to submissions and they made some technical changes that, I think, in the most part make the legislation a whole lot better, and that’s great.

There was one issue around tagging animals. What had become, I guess, a bad habit for farmers is that they would put animals on the truck and send them to the works. They would pay a nominal fine of about $35, I think, and it would save them the effort, I guess, of tagging animals, and that habit then transferred through into the transfer of animals from one farm to another. The point is that we need to ensure that everything that can be done is done to tag animals and properly trace them when they’re moving from a farm.

There was an exemption because the reality is some animals are so big and it becomes dangerous and awkward to tag them, and so farmers would just opt to pay the $35. We accept that there will be some situations where it’s unsafe to tag animals, where a farmer could be in real danger if he or she was to attempt it. And so that has been clarified in the legislation: not just “impracticable to tag”, which was the terminology before; it now becomes “unsafe to tag”, in regulation 5(3) of the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Levies) Regulations, as set out in Part 2 of Schedule 3. So it’s a slightly higher discipline on people to try and tag animals before they’re shifted off a property.

The next issue is compliance. There have been discussions around the privacy laws and its relationship to NAIT and farmers’ rights, and the issue of being able to find out where an animal might have come from through the tag system was blocked by so-called privacy provisions. What we’ve done is made some changes to ensure that “a prospective buyer will be able to ask the seller to provide the location history of a NAIT animal” and then NAIT Ltd will make it easy for the seller to access the animal’s location history. In that way, a farmer can find out whether the animal may have come from a property that was in some way connected to a disease outbreak or some other—perhaps it was some other relationship or connection or reputational issue with a property that they didn’t want to buy animals from. That way, this issue will allow farmers who are buying stock to track them.

The third point was run around infringement fees. And what we found out is that we need to align the infringement fees with other pieces of legislation like the Biosecurity Act and Animal Products Act, because while it was seen as a minor offence not to tag an animal, if you can’t track an animal that may be diseased, then the cost implications of that could be huge. And so we’re just going to align the infringement fees with the other legislation.

The next issue—and I want to go through these—is that other penalties that can now be laid down by a judge, should a prosecution go through court, will be shifted up to a maximum of $200,000, which is a huge fee. But when we are talking about perhaps a billion-dollar cost to try and eradicate M. bovis, then we want to incentivise everyone in the system to do everything they can to have a proper animal tracing system and do their bit, and these penalties certainly will incentivise better behaviour, I would suggest.

The next issue was one of transporters, and because animals are carted not on the back of people but on the back of trucks, the question of whether truck drivers or truck companies should be liable for the shifting of animals that don’t have proper tags was canvassed and kicked around by the select committee. I think we’ve come up with a reasonable solution to that one and said if there’s a declaration saying that there is an exemption to allow those animals to go on the truck, then the truck driver is not liable for that. And I accept that in the interim; I think that’s a fair compromise. It may have to be looked at in the future when technology allows better traceability.

There was another: access to core data. We have police and other territorial authorities who might come across an animal. They want to find out who it belongs to. These authorities now will have access to information. They’ll be able to go online and find out who owns the animal—pretty logical, really.

Overall, I have to say that this will bring NAIT a huge step forward into a situation of the scheme being fit for purpose and ready for any future developments that may emerge. This is an essential part of the future of farming in this country and we need to ensure that the legislation governing NAIT does give effect to, as I say, what we want, and that’s proper animal tracing. I want to thank the select committee once again. I thank everyone who’s been involved in this and I commit the bill to the House.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I think the member the Hon Damien O’Connor meant to “commend” the bill to the House rather than “commit” it, but—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry, and I should have said, “The question is that the motion be agreed to.” Thank you for that. The Hon David Bennett—resume.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Speaking of committing people to the House, we had a fine contribution today from the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who managed to miss his first speech on the racing legislation, which was the focal point of his parliamentary contribution in this three-year session. This was his chance to shine in front of the House but he managed to stuff it up and had to sit down and miss his 10-minute speech. But at least this Minister turned up tonight and got it right. I just want to congratulate this Minister because I think that his heart is in the right place—some of the time; most of the time it’s not, of course. You know, when you’ve got the emissions trading scheme, you’ve got land-use change, you’ve got taxes on farmers, you’ve got nitrogen restrictions, and the capital requirements they’re putting on banks—all those things are killing the rural sector.

But this is actually something that needs to happen, and I suggest that the Minister has done a good job on this bill. And I think that all members of the Primary Production Committee need to be congratulated for the way that they worked through this bill, because we do need to make sure that we have, fundamentally, the best system for recording our stock. And there’s no two ways about it: M. bovis was a warning for New Zealand. It was a warning that our systems weren’t up to scratch and that we needed to do more, and I think that this is a step in that direction. It’s not the full process that we need to go through—that will come in time, and future Governments will do that, but this is a good step, at this point. It was interesting in the Minister’s speech, though, that he failed to really focus on two elements of the bill. One of them, at the very end, got half a focus. I want to go through the two core elements of this bill that, actually, the Primary Production Committee dealt with.

The first was data ownership, and just for the information of those that are listening, the Minister had a process here where he discussed with those in the industry what should be in this legislation, and they came to an agreement: this is what should be in the legislation for the good of New Zealand’s primary industries. At no point during that discussion did the Minister raise the issue of the Government nationalising data ownership. Only when the bill was introduced to this House did the sector become aware that the Government intended to nationalise data ownership through this bill. Effectively, what they were doing was taking something they didn’t own—and we got a legal opinion in the committee that showed that the Minister was not on solid ground. This bill needs to be taken in context of that legal opinion, because the Government does not have rights to the data ownership. The database is held within the industry organisations; the data ownership is not in Government hands. Now, the Minister may argue differently but that is the reality, and if the Minister felt he had a secure base to go on he would have continued through his process and made sure that data ownership was part of this bill. But he didn’t; he submitted to the Opposition, and the Opposition had one of the biggest wins they will have had in the select committee process over the last term in taking data ownership out of this bill.

The second issue, which the Minister did talk about, was the transporting of stock. Although he indicated that it was something the committee came to a reasoned approach on, it was only the National members that forced the Labour and New Zealand First members to realise what this was about, because they would have put the liability on the trucking companies for the registration of those animals and the requirements around NAIT. That is particularly unfair on those transport companies. They are farmers’ animals; they are the farmers’ responsibilities, not the trucking companies. We can go through all the mechanics of how stock are loaded in the middle of the night to make that very obvious to everybody, but, at the end of the day, the Government members and New Zealand First members came to the conclusion they were wrong.

Hon Tracey Martin: We are Government members.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: They are members, are they, of the Government? Well, that’s unusual sometimes. But they came to the conclusion that they were wrong and submitted to the Opposition’s approach, which would have been far more reasonable and rational. We are seeing somewhat of that in this bill here tonight, even though it will have a very big compliance cost, in the sense that declaration forms will now have to be modified to accommodate that change.

So this is a bill which is needed for the New Zealand primary sector. I’d like to thank everybody that has been involved in getting this bill to this stage. I want to have on record, though, that the National Party made this bill an effective bill that came before select committee—the National Party gave data ownership back to farmers, the National Party looked after the trucking companies, the National Party made this bill workable. The National Party should be thanked for doing the right thing for New Zealand farmers, and not the Government of the day. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak at the final reading of this National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to congratulate Minister Damien O’Connor and our coalition Government for yet another very welcome piece of legislation which will enhance and further strengthen our biosecurity systems. This bill is a response to the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. It’s vitally important that we have a system of tracing and identification that is workable and that is there when we need it most. So I want to congratulate the Minister.

Just to address Mr Bennett’s point: the Minister came up with a very elegant solution around the ownership of data. Effectively, no one owns the data, but the Minister does have access to all of the information that is required to ensure that the operations of the Act can run smoothly at all times, and I want to acknowledge the Minister for coming up with that elegant solution. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): This is a very sensible, logical bill. It does not reduce the likelihood of an outbreak occurring but it does limit the outbreak. In some cases, the officials estimated this could save the country, if there was a foot-and-mouth outbreak—touch wood there isn’t—between 4 and 10 percent, which is somewhere between $400 million and $1.2 billion. We all know the introduction of pests and disease can be very costly to our country. You only need to look at the stink bug, or the Queensland fruit fly, which cost about a million bucks per bug to get rid of—Mycoplasma bovis, which is going to cost the country, farmers, and Government over a billion dollars now. I’ve seen first-hand the financial, emotional, and social effects of that throughout Southland over the past 12 to 18 months.

We know we all need to work to improve the traceability and systems, and preserve our reputation of being an amazing food producer across the globe. One of our biggest value-adds as a country is the fact that we are pest-free, disease-free, in most cases. This bill is about making the necessary changes to ensure National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) is fit for purpose and working as it should be. National kicked off the review in 2016 under the leadership of the Hon Nathan Guy, and the system was found to be wanting. There were a number of recommendations, not all of which were taken up by the current Minister, but a number of those were. While I’m on the topic of the Hon Nathan Guy, I just want to acknowledge him for all his hard work for the National Party. He announced his retirement a number of months ago. He’s a hard-working MP for Ōtaki and also an excellent Minister—back in the day, originally, in food safety but also agriculture. Last year, in the middle of last year, stage 1, we saw changes made under urgency, and we supported that bill as we wanted to see NAIT being fit for purpose and working as it should be.

Just quickly about the select committee process—there were several issues the National Party raised throughout. One of those was around non-compliance. There’s a lot of non-compliance still under way, which is still a concern. However, in saying that, farmers have been frustrated with the 0800 number that has been set up for the NAIT system for enquiries, but it’s great to see that number’s available 24/7 now and over the weekend. So it’s good to see that NAIT, the industry, and the Government are working hard to ensure the system is improved. It’s also been very constructive, during select committee, with these rounds of changes.

One concern we did have was around unsafe tagging. We did manage to get in a change around an “unsafe to tag” exemption for five years. It is limited for five years, but in all cases, if you’ve got a stroppy stag, it’s quite hard to tag and it’s also quite a hefty fine for a trucking company who can get fined for. [Interruption] The members on this side of the House obviously like stags; Matt King likes a stroppy stag. We also had concerns around privacy issues and information being shared. It’s great to see those were resolved throughout the select committee process.

One concern with M. bovis in Southland was the fact of the privacy concerns. If a farmer does have M. bovis, originally, before the law was changed, neighbours nearby that property weren’t informed, in a number of cases. That was concerning for them in terms of trading. We did have another case where a farmer was in a contract to sell, I believe, $300,000 or $400,000 worth of stock, and the buyer pulled out as that seller couldn’t prove that they didn’t have M. bovis.

So it’s good to see, throughout the select committee stage, all sides of the House working together. I do want to acknowledge the Minister for Biosecurity. I believe he’s handled this well, and I just want to acknowledge all the members of the Primary Production Committee. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First for this national animal identification and tracing (NAIT) legislation. It’s been referenced by others earlier that this is an important bulwark against biosecurity outbreaks. Our system has been found wanting and it has needed a tidy up, and I commend Minister Damien O’Connor for having taken the action that he has.

I note that the chairman of the Primary Production Committee, David Bennett, is claiming all the credit for it, but what he doesn’t realise is that it was such a mess and it was such a shambles that the Minister needed to step in. So it’s a bit rich, him coming in here and trying to take credit for something that we were needing to tidy up.

We’re looking for better traceability here, or the ability to trace back more efficiently, and, as we say, when we got actually road-tested with the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak, our system was found wanting.

It was a credit to the select committee in the whole process that we did work well together to tidy the bill up and make sure that it was, I think, fit for purpose at the end of the day, and I think we did make some small but important changes. The PICAs—or the persons in charge of an animal—can only use a tag for a specific location now. I note the tag needs to be related to the birthplace of the actual animal, so that is a fundamental plank in how we can, obviously, trace back to source.

But with the “unsafe to tag” definition, there was a bit of a discussion around this, and I think this is an important one. We had some lack of compliance there where there may have been some laziness, I guess, or non-compliance, or “wilful non-compliance” would be the better term, where some of these animals, whether they’d be—what were they?—the stroppy stags or something, which Hamish Walker was referring to, or large steers or cows. They are heavy—you know, some of them would be 1,500 kilos—and they are quite dangerous and difficult to tag if the tags have come out, and the tags do come out. In my experience, there’s probably a good 15 percent that would come out between tagging and when an animal goes on the truck.

So this is an issue that we need to deal with, but it had become a bit lax. There were too many stock where they were using that loophole, so we have changed the “impractical to tag” definition to “unsafe to tag”, because there will be still those dangerous animals where we don’t want to put people in breach.

Compliance, ownership of the data—there was a lot of talk about that. From my perspective, I don’t know how the Government let that data go in the first place and allowed it to be controlled by an outside entity, because when push did come to shove and we did have a biosecurity response, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) was constrained in its ability to get information at times, I understand—from information coming back from MPI. So that’s just not good enough. When we’ve got an outbreak, we’ve got to be able to act, and we don’t need any impediments to that. I don’t think the data itself was particularly sensitive, in any case, but that did exercise the minds of the select committee members for a while.

Also, with the infringements, the fees at the top end have gone up considerably. Right through the spectrum, they have, but for wilful non-compliance, it’s gone up from $10,000 to $20,000 for individual farmers—the regulation family farms—and for corporate farmers, it’s up from $100,000 to $200,000. So that’s a genuine deterrent there.

Also, the transport was referred to before. We did look at how transport could be brought into this, because it’s a comprehensive response we want. I think, once again, under real-time pressure, we have discovered that the transporters were often carting stock that did not have tags. They knew that those stock didn’t have tags, but they were still doing it. So how do you bring them under the jurisdiction of the Act and make sure that they are playing their part, whilst recognising and—through the select committee process—accepting the representations from the farmers, and from Federated Farmers, in particular? And, to their credit, Federated Farmers wanted farmers to be accepting the responsibility, not the transport operators.

So we came down on the side of, I guess, an elegant solution, where there is an exemption or a waiver that can be signed so the transport operators can, essentially, contract out. But it does not exempt them totally, and if there’s systematic non-compliance, we will be able to get back and trace it back to the transport operators, as well. But I think the level of responsibility has fallen where it should.

So, overall, this is a good bill. It’s a good tidy-up bill. Considering what we inherited, I mean, the enforcement in the previous legislation was one $150 fine for the life of the—and it’s cost us nearly a billion dollars—a billion dollars—with the—

Dan Bidois: Say it again.

MARK PATTERSON: —Mycoplasma bovis.

Matt King: Say it again—come on.

MARK PATTERSON: A billion dollars, a billion trees, $3 billion for the Provincial Growth Fund—there’s billions everywhere. But that was just money down the tubes, and we were asleep at the wheel with our tracing of animals through the NAIT scheme—or the previous Government was—and just that one $150 enforcement. So it just was totally missing in action in terms of how we were responding.

But this is a big step forward. I commend the Minister for bringing this forward. I commend the select committee and the officials, who worked very well together, actually, to shape this bill up into a better bill. We are now much more prepared—or we will be, when this comes into force—to respond in future to a major biosecurity outbreak. So New Zealand First commends this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. We get, now, to the third reading of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2), and, as we’ve heard, the bill enjoys wide support across the House. It was interesting, actually, to sit in on the Primary Production Committee for this legislation.

There’s no doubt, as we’ve heard in the debate tonight, that there are some very genuine concerns with the operation of the scheme that have been coming to the fore since my colleague Nathan Guy commissioned a review, as we’ve already heard this evening, but, certainly, it became much more topical and urgent with the M. bovis outbreak, which has been devastating, actually, in a number of communities and farming areas, and certainly around where I live and in other parts of the country.

Going through the process was very interesting. I haven’t known a lot about National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) through my farming background because we’re predominantly sheep farmers, and sheep, of course, are not in the NAIT scheme. So I found it a very interesting process to understand more about the system and, certainly, the deficiencies in it. While it’s absolutely true that there hasn’t been the level of compliance that there needs to be, what is equally true is that the workability of the system and the responsiveness of the NAIT organisation and Operational Solutions for Primary Industries in running it has been far from acceptable.

One of the things I wanted to put on record in this contribution is that as part of the consideration of the bill, the select committee asked for, and received from NAIT, a very detailed work plan as to how they were going to improve the operation of the system, because before you start coming in with the big stick on farmers, actually, we need a system that works well and that can be easily looked after, and that certainly wasn’t the case.

Now, we were given a work programme on how the system will be improved, but I want to put on record that this Parliament should absolutely hold the organisation’s feet to the fire to ensure that those improvements to the system are made. We’re happy to change the obligations on farmers and change the regulatory burdens as required—and we’re doing that—but that is not a let-off for making the NAIT system itself work better for farmers and making those running it more responsive to the needs of their stakeholders. So that’s the first point I wanted to put on record.

The second really relates to the involvement of transport operators in the scheme. This is something that members from the National Party fought very hard on in select committee, to make sure that we weren’t trying to make every poor truck driver who turns up on a long, dusty road after dark and has to load hundreds of cattle beasts—and, potentially, sheep, in a future system—and is responsible for ensuring the compliance of the scheme that the Government and the organisation has failed to do. Yes, we expect them to turn their minds to it, but we cannot expect the trucking operators to be the NAIT police officers around the district.

What we’ve come up with through the select committee process I think is a very practical, workable balancing of those obligations, and it really does show the practical on-farm knowledge that members on this side of the House particularly can bring to select committee from their experience on farm.

Finally, the last point I wanted to make in this contribution is around this interesting issue of the data ownership. I’ve got to say it was quite an incredible process to see the officials insist, time and time again, that what started off in their advice as being a tidy-up of the current position changed to “Well, it might be a change, but it’s the right change.”, and the more we pushed back and pointed out to them that this was commercially a completely inappropriate provision, they finally turned around, having got Crown Law advice after the chair’s insistence, and agreed that the change in the bill wasn’t sustainable, couldn’t be supported, and so that was removed. The right outcome was reached, but it was disappointing to me that committee members had to push so hard and really force the issue to get to that point, whereas if the right advice had been sought from the outset, that issue could’ve been avoided.

So I do commend the bill to the House, but I want to again come back to the point that this bill alone is not going to address NAIT. The officials that run the system have to step up and improve the workability, the practicality, and the responsiveness of the system, not simply continue to wave the stick at farmers. Both sides need to improve. This bill will focus on the farmers, but this Parliament, the Minister for Biosecurity, and his officials have to ensure that the organisation continues to fulfil their obligations in improving the system. Thank you.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koe—pleased to take a call on the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). Responding to the previous speaker, the Hon Amy Adams, I think one of the key changes in the bill is that some of the things that are normal in an organisation in terms of their reporting to the Minister were not clear under the previous legislation. What the amendment bill does is implement some of those quite basic things so that the National Animal Identification and Tracing organisation, which is responsible for administering and organising these regulatory services on behalf of the Crown, does now have to more clearly report to the Minister on how they’re spending their appropriation. There is a stronger ability for the Minister to set priorities, so there will be a lot more accountability from the organisation to Government.

As others have made the point, Mycoplasma bovis showed just how wanting our system of tracking animal movements was. It is said that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. There are a lot claiming responsibility for the bill, but I think it is primarily with the current Minister, Damien O’Connor, because, yes, the previous Government did initiate the review, but it is this Government that has gone on to actually make the changes so that we get a decent system in place for regulating animal movements and ensuring that they are recorded properly so that when we get a biosecurity outbreak, they can be better tracked. The huge cost of Mycoplasma bovis—over a billion dollars to potentially eradicate it, and the Crown is contributing over $470 million of that; a big opportunity cost for that money being spent on this when it could be spent on other areas of Government spending, and huge costs to the rural community, too, in terms of the stress for individual farmers.

So it is really important in this bill, the much-improved infringement regime, the much stronger penalties, because they recognise the seriousness of not properly recording animal movement. Again, under this Government, there has been much more action in terms of infringements and proper policing so that we can lift the standard across the sector. There’s the potential for other animal species like sheep to come into a similar system. I really acknowledge the work that everyone in the Primary Production Committee, with officials, has done, and I acknowledge the Minister for Biosecurity.

This bill is overdue. It’s another example of this Government delivering to make sure that the billion-dollar export industry around primary products is more secure by having a good system to track animal movements, to record them, and ensure that there’s a much more rapid response in terms of any biosecurity challenges. So thank you.

MATT KING (National—Northland): Thank you. I’ll just take a second short call on the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) Amendment Bill (No 2), third reading. I’d like to acknowledge the class of 2017 in the back row here, doing the hard yards late at night, carrying this side of the House. I’d like to acknowledge them all, and I’d also like to acknowledge the chair of the Primary Production Committee, another brilliant man, Dave Bennett.

This NAIT bill is a good bill. I think during the Mycoplasma bovis scare it was found wanting, as the term has been used. We set a review back in 2016, but I for one have personal experience with NAIT tags, having NAIT-tagged about 2,000—very hard to tag a flock of cows. Ha, ha!—herd of cows. A couple of thousand NAIT tags I’ve put in animals over my time, and I personally found it a very painful experience, having fallen off the top of the yards and cracked my ribs during one of those sessions. That’s how painful it was.

But anyway, look, I’m only going to speak for a short time, just to say isn’t it great how in this House tonight we are powering through the legislation, we are back and forth, and everyone’s working together? It’s a pleasure to see. I like to see that there’s cross-party support for this bill to help the farmers and to help rural New Zealand and our export economy. So I’m glad we’re in the third reading. Everything has been well traversed, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): This is a split call. I call Priyanca Radhakrishnan.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too rise to take a very short call on this bill. However, the changes that are made in this bill allow for the rapid and accurate tracing of animals and their movements that enable biosecurity management and—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Order! Order, members! I know this bill is exciting everyone, but if could you just keep the volume down a little bit.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was talking about what a good bill this is, and it’s good for a number of reasons, one of them being that we are a trade-reliant nation and the changes made in this bill will actually allow us to tell a story about where our food comes from, the system of production, and the ethical production of food that we export. While the changes might appear minor to some, it actually allows us to tell that story and to significantly strengthen our trading relationships.

I just very briefly want to say that these are changes that will ensure we can maintain our trading reputation and our economic interests. It is a good bill. I thank the Minister the Hon Damien O’Connor for his leadership, members across the House and select committee officials who’ve been involved as well, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Here we are now on the third and final reading of the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) Amendment Bill (No 2). It’s good to see this progressing through. When we look at the farming sentiment around the country at the moment, it’s been very challenged, and there are a number of aspects being proposed by this Government that are causing a significant drop in confidence: increasing costs, increasing compliance, and—

Hon Damien O’Connor: Starts with the banks—starts with the banks.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —reducing confidence, so that is concerning the rural sector, and we see that. The Minister’s calling out, and I encourage him to be a bit more supportive and understanding of the rural sector, because it’s a critical part of our economy. It’s nice, actually, to see now that this piece of legislation is good.

There did need to be some change to the NAIT bill—this is doing that—and I just want to touch on a couple of the key aspects within that, because David Bennett raised it earlier on around the ownership of the core data. That was actually quite an interesting conundrum that was discovered by the Primary Production Committee, effectively, when it came to determining where the ownership of that core data sat. It was a little uncertain, and so being able to shift that away from the Crown I think was the right solution. Moving that into a space where it was more industry-led was the right thing to do.

The other aspect that I really wanted to touch on was around the transport operators, too, because when we think about the requirements, where the responsibility sits, and who should be picking up the tab in terms of that, the transport operators are carrying out a core function within this. We’ve heard already about the complexities, from a practical sense, of how difficult it can be to expect the obligation to be on them, in that instance. I appreciate that there aren’t too many farming members on the other side of the House to understand some of those challenges, but like Mr King mentioned, there are a whole range of aspects that make it impractical for the transport operators to do that, some of that tagging, with the challenges around the dangerous animals as well. So those are all important things. The transport one, in particular—the exemption if they’re carrying a declaration—is a critical part that I really wanted to touch on. For me, that’s an important exemption that’s now being brought into place. It’s critical that they can carry out their function without being hindered or impeded upon, so that they can carry on conducting business appropriately.

Now, I am also mindful though, that we’ve seen in the farming sector increasing costs—

Simeon Brown: Anything more you want to touch on?

TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —of compliance and challenges around that. It is important to touch on that, too, actually, Mr Brown, just before we wrap up. We do need to be mindful of adding additional compliance into the system, and sometimes I fear we do too much of that. But in this case it’s about getting the right balance to ensure that we can manage through any particular potential biosecurity incursions like M. Bovis and come out with the right solution at the end of the day. And so on that basis, I commend it to the House. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to stand in this the third reading of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). I would like to congratulate Minister O’Connor and also the members of the Primary Production Committee. I am not a member of that committee but I can see the amount of work that has been done.

In fact, I, essentially, want to highlight that this national animal identification and tracing legislation was first introduced in 2012. It then actually wasn’t fully implemented until February 2016. This bill is actually an outcome of a review that was already under way before M. bovis struck us as a country.

In fact, what this bill seeks to do is to improve the framework governing the National Animal Identification and Tracing system. Why do we want to do that? Because we want to provide for the rapid and accurate tracing of animals. It is also to enable biosecurity management and manage risks to human health. So this has been an incredibly important piece of legislation.

I do want to note, from what I’ve been able to determine, that, actually, Federated Farmers in the end did support this piece of legislation. So I want to put it out there that this has been a consultative process.

Just finally, I think what I want to leave us with is that this legislation is actually fit for the future. Again, I want to commend the Minister. I’m sure that within this area, because we’ve had to learn a harsh lesson, there’ll be other reviews to make sure that this piece of legislation continues to be fit for many futures to come. Kia ora.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It’s my pleasure to speak in favour of this third reading of the National Animal Identification and Tracing Amendment Bill (No 2). I think this whole issue came to light in the Mycoplasma bovis case earlier this year. It proved that in many cases the system was being rorted, there was some compliance issues, and there was actually a lack of response from the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) organisation. With a Minister sitting here in the House, I commend him for getting us to this point.

I also acknowledge what the Hon Amy Adams said previously, in that there is a huge responsibility now on the organisation to make sure this works. I was speaking to some farmers last week who gave me stories—they didn’t have a tag, they rang up, and it was quite a drama to get what they wanted. So there has to be a fundamental uplift in the system.

I am very pleased that the transport operators have been listened to in this process. My colleague Hamish Walker talked about a stroppy stag. I’ve heard of raging bulls and other things that happen. As somebody that used to have a life on a farm, it didn’t happen very often, but I would have animals arrive sometimes at midnight, or sometimes we’d send animals to the South Island and it’d be loaded at 3 o’clock in the morning. There is no possible way—no possible way—you can see what that tag is at that time.

For those people in this House that think it’s somehow easy when you’re loading animals in the dark, it’s actually quite a dangerous occupation. To get them into the pen, you can’t simply stroke their back leg and expect them to move; it doesn’t happen. You have to give them a whipping—you have to give them a whipping. As a result of that, we need to look after the people in the transport sector. I’m very happy to commend this bill to the House.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): As tempted as I am to speak about my experience of how effective it is to stroke back legs to get the desired outcome, I wish to speak briefly about why this bill is an effective piece of public-good regulation. It’s an effective piece of public-good regulation because it puts in place requirements that protect the broader public, social, and economic good. We know from the M. Bovis crisis just what the costs are of not having effective regulation in this area.

It’s an effective piece of public-good regulation because it puts everyone on a level playing field. It ensures that we don’t just have some good guys doing the right thing while the cowboys go along down here and put everyone else at risk. It’s an effective piece of public-good regulation because it gets the balance right. It puts in place good standards. But because we’ve had a good parliamentary process, we’ve made sure that it’s not too onerous.

Public-good regulations sometimes get a bad rap, but actually we have them for good reasons: to protect the public good and to make sure that our economy and our society are protected from risks that can have very serious consequences.

I commend all colleagues who have contributed to this bill. I commend the Minister who’s led this process. It hasn’t been a simple piece of legislation but we’ve got a good result, and it speaks to the value of public-good regulation. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): It is a pleasure to begin proceedings on Part 1 of the Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill.

The bill before us amends the law which regulates the provision of credit in New Zealand to better protect New Zealanders from harms. Before I do get on to some of the details within Part 1, this is in response to a lot of harm that, I think, certainly colleagues on our side of the Chamber have seen through either constituency work or interaction with the likes of budget services in our communities where we have seen high-cost lending have a pretty detrimental effect on the lives of extremely vulnerable consumers. High-cost lending, as it is within this piece of legislation, is anything above an annualised rate of 50 percent.

This piece of legislation has been on a journey from when it first set out to deal with debt spirals getting out of control for some of these vulnerable consumers, and through the select committee process. I want to acknowledge the select committee around the introduction of an interest rate cap.

The credit laws impact almost every New Zealander in some way at some point in their life. But be it through a credit card or home loan or car loan or overdraft, in some way, shape, or form borrowing and lending does play an integral role in New Zealand’s economy. So borrowing does play a big part. It’s at the sharp end, or third-tier lenders or loan sharks, where we’ve seen a lot of harm caused. And certainly, as a local member of Parliament in Mana, through the electoral office in Porirua, we have seen quite a lot of case work, certainly over my time as the member of Parliament.

I did want to point to some of the features of Part 1 and straight to the new clause 10, which does go through some of the lender responsibility principles that are going to be inserted by this legislation, which will make obligations for lenders much more stringent. They do pertain to advertising standards for those who are lending and also about borrower information around languages for contracts of credit that lenders will have with their customers.

Clause 10(1A) talks about the reasonable steps that should be taken to offer the borrower information about the agreement in another language, or language A, if the advertising that has sent or caused the borrower to go to the lender “is wholly or significantly in language A is being, or within the preceding six months has been, distributed to the public or a section of the public; and (ii) the steps are necessary to ensure that the borrower can reach an informed decision (for example, if the borrower may not have a good understanding of the language in which the lender is otherwise providing information to the borrower under this Act);”.

Without going too much further, that particular feature of that clause is to ensure that if something is advertised in a language—and I’ll just use one example; i.e., Samoan—the offer that is made in their advertising must also be used in the process of the formation of the credit contract between the borrower who understood the advertising in that language and the lender, in order for the consumer to make an informed decision. This is just one example of some really practical changes that I think we’re making in this piece of legislation, which I hope will enable those who do go to third-tier lenders again to make what I would call a wise, informed, and motivated financial decision, because I think we’ve certainly seen in the past a deal, a degree, of confusion at the consumer end and, in some cases, some of the lenders preying on that confusion and signing some borrowers up to credit contracts that they didn’t fully understand.

That’s what we’re trying to stop, as well as—and we’ll come to it at a later stage—some of those misunderstandings or confusion turning into large quantities of debt that those families can’t afford. But we’ll get to that at some stage during the debate.

BRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise, as we have, to ask the Minister a few questions as we work through this detailed committee stage. I’ll just apologise if I start coughing and hacking during the middle of this. I have a wee dose of man flu, which is troubling me slightly. Believe me, if I start hacking, it’s hurting me more than it’s hurting you.

Minister, we have supported through the process, through the first reading, through select committee, and through the second reading, the core elements of changes in this bill, including—if we look at clause 22, which inserts new subpart 6A—elements of total loan cap around high-cost lending.

But I have some questions that arise, actually, from the select committee process that was undertaken. The first of those concerns the fact that submissions that we heard in the Finance and Expenditure Committee raised questions—actually, allegations is a better way of putting it—that the Commerce Commission (ComCom) had failed to enforce the current legislation, which admittedly is more educative, which is about ensuring that borrowers can understand the conditions under which they borrow and the terms under which high-cost lenders can lend but equally also ensuring that high-cost lenders adhere to what they are permitted under law and particularly to the responsible lenders code.

So the evidence we heard in submissions—from some submitters at least—was that in their view, the Commerce Commission was not proactively seeking to investigate high-cost lenders to determine whether or not they were operating properly in a general sense, if not even in some specific instances. So, on the basis of that—and no cause to fundamentally query those submitters—one could question why there is a large-scale move to so—I won’t say radically—substantially amend the rules around high-cost lending if, indeed, there’s this possibility that the regulator has not been enforcing or exercising their authority under the current legislation to the extent which they possibly could.

That relates even more so—if that’s a general element—to the very late decision to introduce an interest rate cap. So if we have a situation where some submitters are saying, “Well, ComCom haven’t really been doing all they could do under the current legislation, so that could raise a question of why there is substantive change.”, it raises even more of a question of: even if you went that far, why would you suddenly, in the absence of them potentially not having enforced their responsibilities to the extent they could have, add that interest rate cap?

This leads on to the second area of questioning—I have four. The second area of question is: why was the interest rate cap introduced so late in the select committee process? There was no hint of an interest rate cap coming in at any point until right at the very end. In fact, during a week that the Government, I think, tried to stylise as a week of delivery—and the Opposition might agree that it was a week of delivery, but it was a “W-E-A-K”, “weak”, of delivery. In that—on day two, I think it was—the Minister stood, I believe—or the Prime Minister—and said we’ll have an interest rate cap, thank you very much, in this bill.

But that flew in the face of official advice. Official advice, which was in the regulatory impact statement and confirmed to the select committee by officials, was that an interest rate cap was not a good idea—that there was uncertainty about what impact it would have and what consequential impacts it might have. At least at the introduction of the bill, the Minister agreed with his officials. He didn’t seek to introduce an interest rate cap then, and it was only very late, as I say, in the select committee process, that all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it mysteriously appeared out of nowhere.

So my question is fundamentally: why? I then queried the officials and asked them, after the Minister had already declared that it was going to happen, what additional advice they had given to him about the interest rate cap and whether or not it was a good idea. They confirmed that not only had they not given any advice—further advice—on an interest rate cap beyond that which they had given prior to the introduction of the bill but they weren’t asked to give any additional advice either.

So, Minister, my question there is: where does this interest rate cap come from? Why was it suddenly introduced so late in the piece? Why did you not listen, Minister? Minister, why did you not listen to officials’ advice? Why did you not seek further advice from your officials? There’s no indication—officials beyond that point were only asked to give advice as to how it would be implemented, not whether or not it was a good idea or could even work. So, Minister, why did you not seek further advice from officials as to the worthiness of the interest rate cap idea?

That then moves on to another element which has come up quite recently, and I referenced this in my second reading speech. It’s something that came through a piece of correspondence from one of the submitters, which I believe the Minister has also got a copy of. That submitter claimed that officials were working on regulations that would have a significant bearing in the area of the obligations on the lender of the affordability test. They were about elements of expenditure that the lender had to make room for, even though they were discretionary.

So the first question in this area for the Minister is: are officials working on such regulations already; and if they are, why are they doing so when Parliament has not yet agreed to grant the authority to do so? We’re at the committee of the whole House stage; we have a bill that is suggesting certain regulations, things that will need to be worked through, but as of now, Parliament has not agreed that officials can or should and will be able to look at such regulations and make advice to Government to do so through an Order in Council. So are they doing so? And why are they doing so before Parliament has agreed to permit them to do so?

This leads us on to that point of the substance of that submission that I think, Minister, you and I both have received from that submitter. And that is: if they are working on these regulations—at least some of them—will they require lenders to allow or to factor in recurring discretionary expenditure of the potential borrower in establishing affordability? Put another way, does the lender have to—can the lender not account for, allow, or speculate, or require that the borrower actually reduce some expenditure somewhere else? And, look, the example I heard, and I think that, you know, it might be a purely speculative example, but the example in the correspondence, I think, was the like of a monthly Sky subscription, for instance. Does the lender have—if those regulations are being worked on and they are promulgated in the sense of how the submitter believes they will be, will that require that the lender has to give the headroom in assessing affordability for the borrower to have recurring expenditure, which is discretionary and therefore could be curtailed, if not cut? And the question, if that is the case, is: why is that an obligation on the lender?

We know in a high-cost loan, a borrower or borrowers have already got themselves into a degree of difficulty. That’s why they go for the nature of these loans. Are we looking, potentially, through regulations to place what amounts to—because there is greater responsibility on lenders to make sure that they can establish affordability, and there is a responsibility on them, greater than is under current law, in order to establish the facts around affordability, could we end up in a situation where the lender who’s obviously looking to run their business—and some of them, as we know, are a little more thoughtful of their customers than others, but let’s just take an example of ones that are fundamentally good-faith providers. Are we potentially providing a situation where those lenders have to either turn away a customer who’s seeking a loan for a need or have to permit this headroom, as I say, for discretionary expenditure?

If we’re in a situation like this, isn’t it appropriate the lender says, “Well, actually, you’ve got some expenditure. You can cut it, curtail it, and therefore, the loan might then be affordable.”? Now, I don’t say that as an allegation, Minister, an attestation of fact. All I know is I’ve had a submission, and I suspect you’ve had the letter as well, from a submitter which suggests that that’s what’s happening. I’m really keen to understand if officials are working on such a regulation. If so, why, given we haven’t passed the bill? If that is the case, is that the nature of where the regulations are headed? If it isn’t, can we please have some confidence about where that is going so that it doesn’t create too much of an issue.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Chair. I usually sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—

Hon Member: Where this bill should have gone.

ANDREW FALLOON: —rather than the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Exactly—where this bill should have gone, actually. It is a commerce bill, and it is from the commerce Minister, so it should have come to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, but it did go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

I was very pleased I was able to sit in on some of those submissions during the bill because, for me, it was quite enlightening. I’ve been a member of Parliament now for two years, and I’ve certainly seen, unfortunately, in that time, far too many cases of predatory lending by people in our community, and particularly targeting people who can least afford it.

So I was really pleased to sit on the select committee, particularly hearing from some of those budget advisory services who listen to or have to help some of the people who get caught up from time to time in the web of predatory lenders. So it was very good to hear those submissions. I was happy to sit down and listen to them in Wellington. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it along to Auckland, where I understand the select committee also travelled to, and heard from quite a range of submitters. I think the select committee made the bill a lot better. There’s some changes in there in relation to clause 22, which will ensure that consumers will not be able to refinance one high-cost loan with another high-cost loan.

But one change that Brett Hudson has touched on, which I’d like to ask the Minister Kris Faafoi about while he’s in the chair, relates to the interest rate cap that was brought in quite late in the piece during the select committee process. I’d like to ask him because, as we’ve heard, advisers or officials, when the bill first came to the select committee, suggested that there shouldn’t be an interest rate cap and certainly not a daily interest rate cap. So I’d like to ask the Minister how he came to form a view that there should be an interest rate cap, and particularly a daily interest rate cap, and how it is he came to choose the number of 0.8 percent as a daily interest rate. We’ve heard from the UK, for example, where unfortunately it seems that the daily interest rate cap that they’ve brought in in the UK has become more of a default setting. Rather than simply as a maximum figure, it’s become the default. As Jonathan Young says, it is the target.

So I’d like to understand from the Minister why it is specifically that he chose 0.8 percent as the daily rate, and, following on from my colleague Brett Hudson, what advice he received from officials about whether or not that 0.8 percent figure was actually appropriate or not. Why, for example, wasn’t it slightly lower or why wasn’t it slightly higher? Why is it that 0.8 percent is, in his view, I suppose, the Goldilocks figure? Is it something that he thinks should be looked at in the future? Is it something that a future Minister or future Parliament should consider—whether or not we should move that rate around based on predatory lending in the future, if it goes on to continue? So I’d like to know why it is that he came to choose the 0.8 percent figure, where it came from, and what advice he received from officials on that rate specifically.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Perhaps I can be the trifecta in asking the Minister to explain to us the interest rate cap, because I’d have to say that back in 2014, when Minister Faafoi and I were both on the Commerce Committee, we actually investigated this issue around interest rate caps. At that point in time, I think we probably listened to officials and decided not to. I’d be very keen to hear what’s changed because, you know, there are some consequences to interest rate caps, which I think the officials would have given advice on if they’d been asked. Certainly, we considered back in that period of time that when you have very small loans for very short periods of time, yes, the interest rates can appear to be high, but if they don’t have that higher interest rate, then no lender would actually give that loan because there would be a detrimental cost to the lender at that particular point in time. So what would happen is that those small loans become unviable. Therefore, they can’t borrow. Therefore, they either have to have longer loans or bigger loans and they end up borrowing more than is needed or for longer than is needed in order to actually transact some part of their life. So that creates a greater total cost and an ongoing burden.

Certainly, the National Party’s point of view is that we do question the late insertion of the interest rate cap—as Andrew Falloon just said—of 0.8 percent a day into the bill, and we are very keen to hear the Minister’s response in terms of why it was introduced so late—and also, as my colleague Brett Hudson made the comment, when he asked officials what sort of advice they had given, they stated to him they hadn’t been asked for advice and they could therefore give no advice. Therefore, we have to say this is a political insertion into the bill, and we think it’s actually counterproductive. We actually don’t think it’s going to work for those vulnerable lenders because it creates constriction into what they’re able to borrow and they end up borrowing larger amounts for longer periods of time, which does not work in their favour.

So, look, as the third speaker asking this question to the Minister, I leave it at that, and perhaps the Minister could illuminate exactly the rationale. That would be most appreciated. Thank you.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I’ll try and go systematically through some of the questions that were raised by members of the Opposition. I think the first point that was raised by Mr Hudson was the allegation from some submitters that the Commerce Commission, essentially, wasn’t doing their job in policing any of the bad behaviour that was occurring in the higher-cost lending space and, therefore, the lack of enforcement didn’t necessarily mean that the beefing-up of legislation, which is happening here, was required. There is some fairness to some of that criticism. We certainly want the Commerce Commission to do much more in terms of front-line grassroots interaction with the likes of the people who came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee with serious concerns.

I do note that Mr Young also noted that we went through some changes to this legislation in 2014. Our concern back then was that the legislation (a) didn’t go far enough; and (b) really did need to be backed up with resources at the front line in order for it to—the previous Government’s legislation—have any effect. The combination of what we think was legislation that didn’t go far enough, necessitating the changes in this bill, and a lack of resources for the Commerce Commission meant that some of the behaviours that the 2014 changes set out to stop didn’t, in fact, happen.

That is why this Government, after reviewing the changes that were made in 2014, is doing two things: the first thing is that, obviously, we are here debating the legislation and changing it and making the ability for the Commerce Commission to enforce some of these changes—again, at a very basic level—much stronger. I think that that legislation will in essence give the Commerce Commission more ability to do the policing so that I think some of the allegations that Mr Hudson may have heard at the select committee will now be followed up on. The second thing is that we’re actually going to give the Commerce Commission the funding to resource that properly—

Brett Hudson: We already did that.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Well, I would disagree with that, because the level of resourcing that the Commerce Commission currently has, the current Government believes, is woefully inadequate to enforce and to patrol the predatory lending that is going on.

I want to acknowledge the people at the Commerce Commission that are doing the hard grind with community budgeting organisations right now, but that really do struggle because the Commerce Commission is resource-constrained. I want to thank the finance Minister for backing these changes and budgeting $4 million extra per annum in order to make sure that the Commerce Commission does have the resources to effect a change that is necessary, which, I think, a lot of the submitters—as Mr Hudson said—were concerned wasn’t happening both under the legislative settings under the previous Government and also the resource settings under the previous Government.

So I’m proud to stand here to say that we’re going to deal with some of the issues that those submitters raised, and the concerns that they raised, and that Mr Hudson has, I think, quite rightly raised, that we have got the legislation, and the resources in order for some of those community organisations, like Vaiola in Māngere, like the budgeting services that were visited around the country, to make sure that they do have a solid relationship with the Commerce Commission not just at the time when things go wrong but also reforming those budget services of other services that may be available to them.

I think Mr Hudson also raised a second point about why the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) may have been talking to parties about regulations, and why they may be doing that ahead of the passage of this piece of legislation. MBIE has released an exposure draft of regulations for public consultation. We think it’s important to consult as early as possible to give the industry time to make changes before the bill comes fully into force. I get a funny feeling that this will have been a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t if we had consulted—now Mr Hudson’s saying “Why are you doing this before the legislation is passed?”, and if we hadn’t, he’d say, “Well, why aren’t you talking to industry stakeholders to make sure that they are fully informed of what’s going on?” So I think we’ll take that as a bit of politics to fill out time in the committee stage, but we do believe it’s important to make sure that we are fully consulting with industry to give as much time as possible to work with officials so we can understand the implication that those regulations may have for them.

Mr Hudson also made a political point around—

Brett Hudson: It was a fair question.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Well, yeah, I’m moving on to another issue now.

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

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.

TUESDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2019

(continued on Wednesday, 11 December 2019)

Bills

Election Access Fund Bill

In Committee

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): I seek leave for all of the provisions to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Mr Chair, thank you very much. This is an exciting day to be sitting in the chair for the first time, having taken this member’s bill through with the support of all of the parties in this Chamber. So I want to thank all of my colleagues in all parties for their support thus far.

Just to give those who are listening and/or watching the debate—the pleasure of watching the debate—this morning the background as to what this bill does, this Election Access Fund Bill was first drafted by Mojo Mathers, who is a former Green Party MP and the first profoundly deaf member of our Parliament. We took it through quite a rigorous select committee process, and I want to thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their entertaining me on their select committee pretty much every single session that they considered this Election Access Fund Bill. I also want to thank the Minister of Justice for allowing his justice officials to be available for consideration of this bill.

There are a number of changes that have come through the select committee process but all pertain to the general intention of the Election Access Fund Bill—that being to establish a fund administered by the Electoral Commission that would facilitate the participation of disabled persons in political life, particularly allowing disabled persons the ability to engage in general elections. The changes that we got and worked through, actually acknowledging and considering a number of the concerns that were raised from a number of different parties throughout the first reading in particular of the Election Access Fund Bill, can be broadly summarised in three thematic areas.

The first is that we have narrowed the scope and deepened the focus. By-elections of general electorates are now to be included; however, unfortunately, because of the narrow scope of a member’s bill, this couldn’t extend to cover local government elections. Parties and NGOs, who in the first form of the bill as originally drafted—will no longer be able to access funding, but instead the funding will be available for candidates from the time that they declare their intention per the definition in the Electoral Act 1993.

We have also made some changes to the definition of “disabled persons”. That is to align this legislation with other law in this area and also to streamline delivery of this fund, particularly around eligibility. It’s also the case that payments are not to be considered election expenses or donations. This is really fundamental, actually, in making sure that the whole reason that we are administering this fund is to remove those barriers that other candidates—candidates without disabilities—simply don’t face. This is fundamentally about barrier-free elections.

Thirdly, and finally, the part of review: the select committee considered that already built into the bill as drafted. The Minister is required to review the Election Access Fund Bill and its operation within a few years; however, they have decided to move ahead with also adding in consideration of the Electoral Commission, which is something that absolutely we as the Greens and myself as the sponsor of this bill can agree with, and I’d like to thank again all of the parties in this House, even those which we often find ourselves on the politically opposite side to, in coming together to support a bill which, I think, is going to be a massive step towards a more fundamentally equitable and inclusive democracy and, therefore—hopefully—society. Kia ora.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to congratulate Chlöe Swarbrick for bringing this bill to the House and to the Governance and Administration Committee and to reconfirm her words that the committee worked very collegially on this very non-political issue. I think we’ve come to a really good space with this bill. We had in our mind the whole time the needs of disabled persons and their ability to stand on the hustings alongside everybody else who is brave enough to nail their colours to the mast and stand for Parliament.

I want to acknowledge Mojo Mathers also, who I do hope is listening in to and watching today’s debate. Mojo and I did stand on the hustings together on several occasions when Mojo was representing the Green Party in the Waitaki election of 2017. I am very pleased that, while Mojo has moved on to a possibly much more satisfying life than being a member of Parliament—she is a woman of very strong conviction and felt very, very strongly that the needs of disabled persons should be acknowledged and legislated for so that they can, all candidates who are disabled persons, have a fair old suck of the sav when we’re going out for the vote. I think this bill does that, and I think that the committee’s deliberations, particularly in the committee stage, brought about some very good, pragmatic improvements to the bill.

I think, for me, the eligibility for the funding, which was narrowed down by the committee to be available to individual disabled persons to assist them—so this bill is not about assisting a party or an organisation for the candidate; it’s about assisting a candidate to be able to foot it on the stage, and often it is a stage. Often it is a stage, and there are steps and microphones and there are all sorts of environments that we go in to, from street corners to auditoriums, and so this bill, I believe, achieves a great deal for disabled persons.

The other point I wanted to touch on very briefly was around the review of the operation and effectiveness of the fund after the first election. I thought that was critical, because as a committee we worked really hard to make sure that we had captured everything that we possibly could. We had to discard some things like by-elections and local body elections. Well, maybe we can consider those in the future. So, in effect, we parked those issues because, partly, they were out of scope of this particular bill but, more importantly, we had a desire to get it right as much as we could. So a review in three years’ time will enable the Parliament of the day and the committee of the day to make amendments to the Parliament as they see fit. I think that’s a really good process.

I will speak only in this committee stage of the bill—just speak once—so I want to finish by congratulating Chlöe Swarbrick for her work, together with our committee. She didn’t bring baking ever, but—it’s just a small thing, I suppose.

Rt Hon David Carter: That’s a promise.

Hon JACQUI DEAN: Yeah, it is a promise; it’s never too late. This is a good bill—it’s a good example of parliamentarians working together—and I commend it to the House.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to talk on this bill, as I did in the first reading of the Election Access Fund Bill. Being a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, I felt a real sense of pride that this had been progressed through the member, and just understanding the history from Mojo Mathers and her hard work. I remember the member saying in her first reading, in introducing the bill, that although Mojo is obviously deaf, what her real passions were were around animal welfare and water. Sometimes we put the onus on those, say, with the disability to therefore be the vehicle to carry this through. But the member made it very clear that, actually, this was in addition to that, and the legacy that she left to be implemented I felt was both admirable and I am personally proud to actually see this through. So, well done.

We’re at the committee stage now and we’ve heard from the previous speaker that the committee did deliberate at length. We got many submissions. We took a process that was inclusive, and that gets a big tick, because sometimes we just apply the normal standard to the way that we engage and consult, but this bill was done slightly differently. So I just wanted to point out those two important fundamentals, in terms of their legacy of the previous member but also the intent of the Governance and Administration Committee.

Two parts here—look, it’s fairly straightforward, but I want to reinforce the issue around the narrowing of the scope and the deepening of the focus, because we did talk about this at length. Primarily, I think, some of that was around the urgency of getting this through, and I know the member there was very eager to try and get it in sooner than what the deadline is. But it is what it is. We’ve put by-elections in there and we’ve talked at length around local government, and several of us have a local government background. So I think the advice, then, was “Look, let’s just get this done and let’s add that later. Let’s work on that later.”, and the Minister will be reviewing this and maybe that’s something that could be picked up then and how it ties into the Local Government Act, the Electoral Act, and some other legislation that just nicely sits with this bill. Certainly, there was debate around the parties and NGOs in terms of access. No, they can’t access this—candidates only, and that too was talked about.

I think it was an important conversation to have around the definition, too. Often these terms don’t mean much and sometimes we’re a bit flippant about how they are written or how people are referred to, but I think the inclusive intent of how we were engaging on this came through in terms of getting that definition right, and so I’m certainly supportive of that.

The last bit in that first point is that streamlining of delivery—those criteria. That’s always needed when you have a fund. I know that in previous experience when you had been administering funds from—in fact, any fund—the stronger the criteria the better, because that essentially says what’s eligible and ineligible, and that’s about clarity than anything else.

I guess I should have started with this but the fundamental here is also around removing barriers, so being barrier-free. We live in a democratic society. This is an absolute crucial and vital part in terms of what underpins this bill, so that’s in there too.

The last point is that the select committee did, as I said at length, talk about how we were going to review this, what the role of the Minister in this is, and I talked about local government at length. I think there will be other things like any fund that you set up from scratch. There are certainly things that as you do a work through, you find out, “Hey, let’s do this; let’s tweak that.”, and so that’s an admirable point to add in. Thank you, Mr Chair. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I take a brief call on this. First of all, again, I thank Mojo Mathers and also Chlöe Swarbrick for their effort to make this happen. I must say, as the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee, I feel quite privileged to work with different parties and particularly the sponsor of the bill, Chlöe, and it has been quite a consensus for us to actually work on this. As I said earlier, in the second reading, we have an obligation to support people with disabilities to participate equally in politics, particularly in the general election. As many people have emphasised, under article 29 of the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, New Zealand as a country which has ratified this convention has the obligation to make sure that people with disabilities have access to politics.

The Government has done a lot in terms of making it happen. For example, in the last election, the Electoral Commission—actually, according to an Electoral Commission report—had 1,649 fully accessible voting places and 654 voting places accessible with assistance. So the Government has been making an effort to make sure that people with disabilities are able to participate, and there is a quite high percentage of satisfaction from disabled persons in terms of participating in the elections.

Nevertheless, we still face a number of challenges in terms of helping these people. For example, it has been a challenge for people with disabilities to participate, or to meet the candidates and even to participate in televised leaders’ debates, according to some submissions, because they were not able to participate due to lack of captions. Also, in terms of multimedia platforms, again, it has been a challenge to these people. Online voting is another challenge. So we do have those challenges in terms of helping these people to participate in the general elections or other local elections. To participate in terms of elections can be a challenge; to be a candidate can be a bigger challenge. For example, these candidates—these people with disabilities—may find it hard to get to the venue. Transportation can be a challenge. Interpretation can be a challenge, and for that reason we do need to find some ways to support these people. That is why this bill is particularly important. We need funding to support these people so that they are able to become a candidate and to participate as a candidate.

The committee received a large number of submissions, including 84 unique submissions and 385 form submissions. The committee made a number of changes. Chlöe Swarbrick has mentioned some major changes, including, for example, who can receive this kind of funding. How to define candidates—so we now include those who have declared their intention to become a candidate. So this is a kind of broadened scope of this definition.

In other changes, for example, we now have reduced the funding to individuals instead of having parties or not-for-profit organisations, and also made sure that the funding would not be counted as donations, because this will encourage parties to help candidates to apply for the funding, and also as tax exemptions. Basically, the funding will not be counted as income for any candidates—that will, again, encourage candidates to apply for the funding. So all these changes have improved the bill, and I believe it is now an excellent bill.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to take a short call. I was actually briefly subbed on to the Governance and Administration Committee, I think, for maybe one or two sessions. I just wanted to make a couple of points if I could.

Firstly, I wanted to talk about how the select committee itself was set up to ensure that those who were either in the gallery or able to pipe into the select committee were able to have as much access to the discussion as possible. I think it’s important for us to lay that out because in the discussion, as people who perhaps don’t have disabilities, it’s important for us to understand the context in which we are having this discussion. So I think it’s really useful for us to know that the select committee did what it could to ensure that as many people had access to the discussion as possible.

One of the interesting discussions that I was actually on was: when does a candidate become a candidate? And when we’re exploring this in normal electoral cycles, that’s an interesting issue. Because pragmatism appears to have range over this committee, and they have removed several of the provisions that were in the original bill as it was presented; it has kind of streamlined that, but it doesn’t mean that the conversation itself is not important. I think what we would hope to get to in the future is coming back to those conversations where, in the fullness of the electoral cycle, we will make it possible for people to indicate that they want to be candidates and that the material that is provided to them and the opportunities to speak and to engage in debate become much more open for everyone to participate in. The legislation that we’ve landed on actually removes a lot of that and just allows for the provision of funding for people who decide to become candidates, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the arguments and the discussion that was held. It is important for us to recognise that the Electoral Commission will be reviewing this, and that’s really important because there may be some provisions that were not considered that people who engage in this process and who have access to this fund will then highlight.

I do want to acknowledge Mojo Mathers. She too stood in Christchurch East. I had lots of conversations with her and her whānau about the difficulties that sometimes occurred for her to be able to participate fully in the debates, often in the public meetings and public forums. But she was, for me, a real-life example of the ability to overcome a lot of that and present really capably as a strong candidate for her party.

I do want to mention, too, that this is part of a wider piece of work that I think that we are doing across the Parliament. I think we’ve got the whole of Parliament’s support for the Parliamentary Champions for Accessibility Legislation. This is a step along the journey to ensuring that we all have access to democracy. Thank you, Mr Chair.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Mr Chair. I request only to take a call for a very short period of time. Others have spoken about the general worth of the piece of legislation, and for what it’s worth I add my voice to that. Whether we come at it from a lens of equity or equality of opportunity, either way it seems a worthwhile thing to do to be able to improve access for all New Zealanders and, in this case, disabled persons to our democratic processes.

I have one question of the member in the chair, Chlöe Swarbrick, and I know that she’d approve of a thorough process in this way, so I’ll give her that challenge or that opportunity should she wish to take it. It’s a relatively minor point but, none the less, I am generally curious regarding the commencement date. Originally, Ms Swarbrick, you had a six-month period that would herald the Act coming into force, but I see the Governance and Administration Committee has changed that to a calendar date of 1 July 2021. So I wonder how you feel that interacts with the fact that we don’t know the timing of any elections between now and that date. It’s probably a reasonably arcane point, but if you care to turn your mind to it and respond, that would be a matter of interest.

My only other comment would just be around the point that others have made regarding the non-applicability, for now, of the local government elections regime to this new mechanism. I just note that, as others have already commented—for example, the Hon Jacqui Dean—it’s helpful that there’s a review of the Act that must take place, and that includes a review of the scope of the Act. So I just want to place on record that I think it’s a valuable thing for that review, when it does take place, to include, under the heading of “scope”, the possible applicability of the bill—or the Act, as it will then be—to the local government environment, and that seems to be somewhere that Parliament is moving in the general direction of anyway, as evidenced by the recent reporting of the election inquiry from the Justice Committee, of which I have been a part.

So that’s all from me. Mr Chair, thank you. If the member cares to respond, I’d be grateful.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for the opportunity. As a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, it was a real privilege to be part of listening to the submissions on this bill and to understand in greater detail how it would be applied within New Zealand during the election process.

I have a question for the member in the chair, Chlöe Swarbrick, which I’m really interested in knowing a little bit more around. I know that we’ve had a lot of discussion around eligibility for funding, but I’m interested to know if there is any more detail available now or whether that is part of the review that will be coming in the future—particularly around how we ascertain different disabilities and how the level of funding would apply to each individual as they require that.

The bulk of the submissions we heard gave information around the requirement for a translator to be paid for—for example, in the course of a public debate or a public meeting where it would be able to have a paid interpreter coming and translating to sign language live. But there may be a wide variety of other disabilities, whether they be physical or otherwise, that may be covered by this funding. So I would be really interested to know the way forward in terms of ascertaining what obstacles are in place that prevent people from either being candidates or from standing at an election and how those different levels of ability are ascertained and what types of assistance can be provided to ensure full access to democracy in New Zealand. I think that’s probably one of the greatest challenges we have as a country in order to making every aspect of our community and our democratic system accessible: it’s to make sure that we are aware of those obstacles, understand how they present to two different people, and understand what types of different mechanisms can be employed to ensure that we have full accessibility.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I’d just like to thank Chlöe, as well, for her excellent work in this space. To pick up another member’s bill is never an easy piece of work, but I would like to commend her on the fact that she has taken it up with just as much passion and determination as was done previously with Mojo Mathers. So I think that has been well and truly heard within the disability community.

It’s always great to have bills in this House that reconfirm our commitment as a Parliament to making sure that we are continually assessing the needs of those people in our community that don’t have full access. It is always a fight to make sure that we examine everything and remember that life is a fight for a lot of people who don’t have easy access to things that we might take for granted on a daily basis.

So I’ll defer to the member in the chair for any answers going forward, but the particular issue that I’m interested in is how we ascertain those levels of different abilities and what types of support can be provided and what that role is in terms of providing financial assistance through the Election Access Fund Bill that that can happen through. Thank you.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a very brief call, and it’s more a question. In Part 2, clause 7(2), it says that “The Electoral Commission must not issue a notice … without first consulting persons and organisations that the Commission considers appropriate, having regard to the purpose of the fund.” I wonder if the member actually believes that part goes far enough. In other words, you’re leaving it wide open to the Electoral Commission to decide who those organisations may be. I know it’s difficult to put in legislation or even regulations naming people, but I would hate—because this is such a big move and a bold move—that some of those organisations are left out or it’s a tick-box exercise rather than, in reality, getting to the depth of the situation. So, in my brief call, I’d just like the member to consider how that may be addressed. Thank you, Mr Chair.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Mr Chair, I’d just like to take a call, if I could, on this committee stage of the Election Access Fund Bill. I’ll start by congratulating the member Chlöe Swarbrick for bringing this bill forward, taking time out from her usual role of being a global voice of a generation and enraging older white men everywhere to bring this thoroughly practical and considered and sensible member’s bill forward. It is important that we have a House of Representatives to represent everyone, including older white men, but we’ve seen, I think, the example, obviously, of Mojo Mathers having made it into the Parliament, but also a number of candidates that we know, and New Zealand First has run a number of disabled candidates—a fully blind candidate in a recent election. Apparently, we once had, quite literally, a one-armed paperhanger run for us in one of the Auckland electorates, I believe.

So this is a welcome step. We do need to make it accessible. New Zealand First were concerned, and I guess we just want some reassurance from the member that this is not a socialist conspiracy for party political funding by the State. We were concerned about that at the start. We are pleased to see that the bill has been narrowed to come down to funding of the individual candidates and just for expenses that are incurred as part of that disability—things like interpreters, sign language interpreters and the like. So just some reassurance that you’re not using this as the thin edge of the wedge to come in here with some wider scope and conspiracy theory.

I guess, in terms of the funding, do you have any idea of what this might cost and how broad this could become? Because I guess it depends, as the previous speaker alluded, on what the criteria are for who is disabled and who isn’t and how wide you expect this to be. Do you expect this to be accessed by a number of people? As I think Tracey Martin alluded to in her second reading speech, we’ve actually got a legally blind member in our caucus at the moment, who possibly would be eligible for this if he chose to be. So it could be that actually the scope could get quite broad. So how can we keep that narrow or make sure that we know that the funding will be there to carry out what we’re proposing?

I guess that’s pretty well where we see it as New Zealand First. We do support the intent of the bill, getting more disabled people being prepared to put their names forward for Parliament, but we do want to see that it’s not just the thin edge of the wedge in terms of that wider State funding of political parties, which we do not support. So I just, once again, commend the member on the bill and look forward to it progressing. Thank you.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I want to thank all of my colleagues for the brilliant contributions that we’ve had so far to this committee of the whole House stage of the Election Access Fund Bill. I will address all of the concerns that have been raised so far, most recently those by my colleague Mark Patterson—#notallwhitemen.

So, with regard to the statistics here that we’re looking at, the Office for Disability Issues reports that a quarter of New Zealanders are impacted by physical sensory learning, mental health, or other impairment. In very practical terms, per Ministry of Health data, that means that 1.1 million New Zealanders can be considered as having a disability. That is a huge portion of our population. What you find following through those data points is that those who do identify with having a disability are typically also those who are overrepresented in negative statistics such as underemployment.

I want to also thank the Office of the Clerk. As was mentioned by my colleague the Hon Poto Williams, they went above and beyond to make the select committee process fully accessible—that being having New Zealand Sign Language interpreters. I also want to thank the Governance and Administration Committee—in particular, the chair, Dr Jian Yang—for accommodating those submitters who needed extra time because of certain communication impairments or otherwise in order to communicate the basis of what they needed to put forward, to really have their say in that democratic process.

I also want to touch on the point made by Paul Eagle, who stated that I wanted to get this bill through as quickly as possible. I think that’s probably the case with most members in this Parliament. We want to see these processes expedited as democratically as possible. But it is the case, I think it’s worth noting, that this bill was first drawn actually at the start of 2018. I remember it really vividly because I was at O-Week at the University of Otago, and I got the call from my EA, Tim Onnes, who told me that the Election Access Fund Bill had been drawn. It was really exciting, because I had only put it in a few weeks prior, with the blessing of former Green MP Mojo Mathers, and it wasn’t until 16 May 2018 when the Governance and Administration Committee opened submissions. Those members of the Governance and Administration Committee will be aware that we did consistently extend the report-back time, with the good grace of the Business Committee accepting that, to ensure that we got the best possible legislation that was as functional as possible and really served its purpose.

I also want to speak to the point made by the Hon Jacqui Dean, who is also an excellent, engaged member of that Governance and Administration Committee, around her point of that review after the election period. That is a really crucial function of this legislation: to enable the Election Access Fund Bill to review itself through the Minister of Justice and through the Electoral Commission per the amendments from the select committee, because it will hopefully trigger, in future, extensions of accessibility to our democracy, and particularly to our elections. That was also touched upon by the Hon Poto Williams, who spoke about this bill being a starting point. It was indeed in the second reading of this legislation that I spoke about this being the first step on a very long journey towards a truly inclusive and equitable democratic system.

I also want to touch on the point made by the chair of that select committee, Dr Jian Yang, who spoke about the consensus and working across the parties that we saw in that Governance and Administration Committee. I think that that was only plausible as a result of the goodwill that all members of that committee brought to the table, but also their backing of the kaupapa or the intention behind the legislation. I really, really want to thank all members in this House. If citizens out there are ever unsure or uncertain about how much the House of Representatives really cares about our democracy, you only have to watch the process that got the bill, this bill, to the place that it is in today.

To address some of the questions that have been raised, I’ll first turn to the question from my colleague Chris Penk, who asked about the commencement date. Those were changes that were made—in clause 2 the commencement date has been changed in the report back from the Governance and Administration Committee. Originally, the commencement clause read as “This Act comes into force immediately after the expiry of the 6-month period that starts on the date of Royal assent.” It is now that the Act comes into force on 1 July 2021. This is a commencement date that was arrived at in consultation with and based on the advice of the officials who came before the Governance and Administration Committee. I’ll happily put on the record, as my colleague Paul Eagle, already, I believe, has, that I wanted to bring it forward as quickly as possible. In an ideal world, I actually think all members of the committee and all members of this House would like to see this fund in place prior to the 2020 election. But unfortunately the Electoral Commission and Ministry of Justice officials advise us that practically it just would not be possible with the loaded agenda that we’re heading into 2020 with, that being at least the two referenda, should this House decide to put any more—Mark Patterson?—up. But at the very least right now it is two items of referendum and, obviously, the general election.

The reason that we’ve settled on that defined date of 1 July 2021—the member Chris Penk did mention that there could be any number of elections between then and now. Thankfully, I believe we have a more stable democracy than those of what we’re seeing in other Westminster models. But that is simply for the sake of having certainty for the Electoral Commission so that they can put that in stone and know a time line that they have to work towards.

Speaking to the points raised by my colleague Ginny Andersen, who is also on the select committee. She asked about how we can ascertain level of disability, and how we would provide for the funding to enable those candidates with those disabilities to overcome those barriers. I believe it’s here really important to note that this Election Access Fund, this bill, empowers the Electoral Commission to administer the funds. That means that the fund is administered at arm’s length from any political process. That’s really critical, not just for the day to day administration of what is supposed to be providing equity to our democracy but also for addressing a number of concerns that were raised across the House in the first reading and throughout the select committee stage and also by spokespeople on disability issues and electoral reform from all political parties, in making sure that we got the most robust and fit for purpose Election Access Fund Bill possible.

Fundamentally, there will be an application process that means that candidates who would like to put themselves forward, who identify with having a disability, apply to the Electoral Commission and are provided that support from the Electoral Commission, which feeds into the question by my colleague Lawrence Yule, who is also on the Governance and Administration Committee, pertaining to clause 7(2)—that being “The Electoral Commission must not issue a notice under subsection (1) without first consulting persons and organisations that the Commission considers appropriate”. The reason that we didn’t seek to prescribe who the Electoral Commission should be consulting with in order to put out that notice is because we didn’t want it to be too prescriptive. There were submissions on both sides of the fence, some people saying that we needed to provide that explicit list, others saying that we should leave it open because it is the case that the area or the sector of disability access advocacy is evolving. So it is simply that we have left that open for the time being and its efficacy will be evaluated further down the track with the built-in required evaluation from the Minister of Justice and the Electoral Commission.

Now, finally, in my final 40 seconds, to turn to the issues raised by Mark Patterson, a wonderful, intelligent man, about New Zealand First’s concerns with regard to the cost of this, in particular, and whether this is a socialist conspiracy. Mr Patterson, I guarantee you when we are pushing the socialist agenda it will be far more explicit. This is not communism by stealth, as Working for Families was once described as. It is, in fact, about improving our very democracy. Kia ora.

Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Election Access Fund Bill without amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) on behalf of Ian McKelvie (National—Rangitīkei): I move, That the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to have you in the House. We’ve got this bill on behalf of Ian McKelvie, who is not in the Parliament this week because he’s unable to be here, so I’m shepherding this bill through for him in the great spirit of the Primary Production Committee. I just want to pay tribute to Mr Ian McKelvie first of all; he is the kaumātua of the House. He is a very well respected member of this Parliament and has always been wanting to make—

SPEAKER: Did he do these notes?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: I think that you need to do a point of order, Mr Speaker, if you interrupt. I know it’s a technical process the Opposition use to interrupt great speeches, but coming from the Speaker’s Chair it’s a little bit unusual to have him interrupting at an early stage in the speech. Normally, I get sat down because the Speaker can’t handle the ferocity of the debate. But in this case the Speaker had to resort to interrupting a very fine speech when I was talking about a very fine member of this House. The jovial nature of the speech is not because it should be at 9 o’clock at night, like normally when we’re doing a member’s speech, but in the support of Mr Ian McKelvie in this very important legislation around dog control. It’s important that we take the time to pay respect to that fine member of the House who’s not here today, but surely would want to see this bill passed through the Parliament in a very fine fashion.

Now, Mr McKelvie is a rural representative in this House and takes a very active interest in rural issues. Dog control is a very big issue in many rural communities, so he has found that this is an issue of some interest to his community and has decided that he would like to do a member’s bill. We are now at the third reading of that member’s bill.

Now, this bill is one that is effective and will make a big difference for Mr McKelvie in his community. When we look at the bill, it, effectively, takes away the—now Mr Hamish Walker is beside me now. He’s another fine member of the rural community and we’re looking for his member’s bills that will come forward to this House as well. I’m sure they’ll have a slightly different focus, coming from the South, but he still will be a new Ian McKelvie in time to come.

But when we look at this bill, there were about 456 charges a year in the 2015 and 2016 year, and of those, 427 were category 1 offences. So what this bill, effectively, does is enable justices of the peace to hear those cases rather than them having to go through the court process. It’s a very simple bill in that sense. It, effectively, frees up the court time to enable people to be able to make sure that we have the right use of our court processes for the right reasons, and when we look at the number of cases, 427 cases in 2015-16, that will make a significant difference in our court system.

You may say, “Well, why is that relevant?” and “Why do we need to do that?” Well, everybody knows that the court system is a system that is highly used. It has waiting times for people wanting to get into court, to hear their cases heard, and that need to make it more efficient so that we can get the proper cases heard in the proper and timely manner is very important.

I think there are three reasons why that’s really important, and the effects, I think, of this bill beyond the dog control are, first, around victims. The court process there is a very important part of victims being able to feel that they have had their case heard to get some justice for what they have experienced. Often victims have to wait too long in our system, and anything we can do that speeds that system up so that victims do get the ability to have justice, I think, is a good thing, and this bill does exactly that by taking these cases out of the District Court system and enabling JPs to hear the cases.

The second thing, I think, is it’s really important from the effect on the offenders in the court system. We’ve got so many people on remand now. If you look at the remand population in New Zealand, it’s gone up significantly under this Government. And that is a difficult time because those people aren’t getting the support they need and also are not getting the ability to get on with their sentence—or even freedom, if they’re found to be not guilty. And so the essence of what Mr McKelvie’s doing here is actually enabling the court processes to speed up for other people that would potentially have had to wait for something to have happened in this case.

The other thing—the other unintended effect, but what it does actually do for the court system—is that there are some people that might be found to be not guilty. To have a court case over their head when they are not guilty or able to demonstrate a way to deal with that issue in a constructive way quickly—this enables that potentially to happen a lot quicker because they don’t have to wait around for the court case to happen, because, you know, we’re potentially going to have a much quicker and more efficient court system as a result of this.

So the bill itself is a very short bill. If anyone’s looking at it, you’ll see that it’s only a matter of one page in its scope and it’s probably one of the shortest bills that will go through this Parliament. The Primary Production Committee made some changes to it as well: if you look at clause 4 where we’ve got new section 66A, “Jurisdiction for category 1 offences”, the select committee took out “Community Magistrates” from that. It was proposed it was going to be JPs and community magistrates. It’s just down to JPs now. So, basically, if there are two or more justices of the peace, then they can make that decision. If you look at subsection (2) there, it’s got a deletion of one of the potential sections—or offences that could be covered. And that was just to reflect what was seen in the select committee when we had hearings and advice that that particular section there was not suitable to be in the bill.

The select committee only had 13 submissions, so it wasn’t a great deal of submissions. But they reflect the nature of this bill as a bill that was fairly well represented in its first instance; there wasn’t a lot of change needed. And members of the House will see that it has come through in a pretty clean fashion from what was initially put forward by Mr Ian McKelvie.

So this bill may seem like a small bill on its face, but, in effect, what it will do is make our court system more efficient. That leads to better justice for victims, for potential offenders, and also for those that are found to be in breach of the law. And so the effect of this bill is more wide ranging than the nature of its title. So we recommend this bill to the House. We thank Ian McKelvie for bringing it forward and we look forward to it passing through this House with no additions. Thank you.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak on behalf of the Labour Party in support of Ian McKelvie’s Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill, and I want to congratulate my friend from the Manawatū Mr Ian McKelvie for seeing this bill through to third reading and shortly, no doubt, to Royal assent. It is, as the member David Bennett, who spoke on behalf of Ian McKelvie, said, a short bill and in the grand scheme of things, perhaps people—history—will consider it not the most substantive bill. But it’s an important issue. It’s an issue that Ian McKelvie has chosen to progress and he’s had marked success in doing that and so I congratulate him.

This bill, of course, aims to reduce the time it takes for certain charges to be heard under the Dog Control Act. It also aims to improve the welfare of dogs involved in prosecutions under the Dog Control Act by reducing—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member is to stop reading his speech.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —the time that dogs are impounded in impounding facilities while those proceedings are being carried out. And so that’s important. There is a much greater focus on the welfare of animals, both farm and domestic pets, and it’s important that we take every step that we can to improve the welfare—the wellbeing, if you will—of all animals, whether they be farm production animals or whether they be working animals or whether they be pets—

Hon Member: Another eight minutes to go.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Yeah, I’m sure there’s inspiration on the ceiling—whether they be pets for domestic families.

Hon David Bennett: Stop reading it.

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Anyway, so this is a good bill from that perspective, but I do want to pick up on the wider points made by David Bennett around the small but important impact this could have on our wider judicial system, because, of course, what it does do is it takes from the responsibility of District Court judges the dealing with particular types of category 1 offences, and hands those to justices of the peace, which, of course, everyone hopes will help to speed up the processing of cases in general in the District Courts. I suppose I would characterise this as a National Party member making a small improvement to relieve a very big problem created by the National Party when they were in Government—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! We’re now going to return to the bill.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well, this is what the bill does, Mr Speaker. This bill is designed to—

SPEAKER: Order! I think I was relatively flexible with the member who spoke on behalf of the move of the bill. I’ve been relatively flexible with this member, but if he’s going to start making this a, sort of, highly political issue, I’m going to bring him back to the bill.

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well, what this bill does, of course—what this bill is intended to do is to make the judicial process a more efficient one, and I support that. I support that intention of the bill because the number of active criminal cases in the District Courts has increased. It increased between 2013-14 and 2016-17 by over 4,000 cases as a direct result of changes that the previous Government made. So this bill does make some small steps in the right direction, but it is an attempt to address a significant problem that, as the previous member said, does mean that victims have to wait too long for justice to be done. It does mean that people who are subject to the judicial process, as the previous member said, have to wait too long for natural justice. And as the previous member also said, some people might not be guilty, which is a revelation from the National Party, I have to say, that they admit that some people might not be guilty. But it is true that this bill will help take some cases out of the hands of District Court judges and put them into the hands of justices of the peace, and that will—we have some great hope—help speed up people’s access to justice and the efficiency of the court process.

So this is a relatively straightforward bill. It does no harm, that is for sure. It does some good, and, therefore, the Labour Party is more than happy to support it.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to see you here; I’ve been thinking about you and your community quite a bit lately.

I rise to give a short contribution on the third reading of the Dog Control (Category One Offences) Amendment Bill, following a superb contribution from the Hon David Bennett, who, yet again, frames it up in a very real context for those, particularly in rural New Zealand, who have had frustrations around the time it has taken for, particularly, category one offences, to get in front of the judicial system. I thought the points that he made were very well made, particularly the scale in the 2015-16 year of the number of category one cases—427—and the time it takes for the judicial system to be able to deal with that. Of course, as often happens, despite the fact that Mr Bennett gave a very considered and forthright view, he was largely attacked by the Opposition, even though it’s a members’ day morning and we’re trying to actually, in the spirit of being bipartisan, progress things. But the thin veneer of bipartisanship just wipes away the moment they see David Bennett—and most of us, to be fair—which really speaks to the true intent that sits behind them, which is very disappointing. But, ultimately, the people of New Zealand will hold a view on that.

This is, as I say, a small amendment, but a critical one. It, again, reflects in Ian McKelvie’s sponsorship of this bill, a man who is hugely respected in the Rangitīkei, but understands when he sees an issue that can be fixed with a bit of common sense reflected in legislation that reflects that common sense—he sees the idea, he prosecutes it, and makes sure that we, as Parliament, actually spend a short amount a time reflecting on it and making the law change that it deserves. The credit of this sits with him, and we, of course, are only too keen to be able to support such common sense. It’s what you’d expect from this side of the House on issues relating to, in this case, making the frustrations of people with category 1 offences—being able to see that that can actually progress through the court system, taking it off District Court judges who already have too much pressing on them, unfortunately, and giving that jurisdiction and accountability to reflect, in a judicial context, on these issues to justices of the peace; I think that makes a lot of sense.

This is not just a rural issue although it, of course, has come from Ian McKelvie—a great kaumātua, to quote David Bennett, of rural New Zealand—but also an issue in an urban context as well. I mean certainly on this side—I’m not sure about the other side—we do a huge amount of doorknocking. It certainly seems to me when I doorknock in Papamoa that every second house has a dog and every third house has a little yappy dog. Now, of course, we’ve bought one, so we’ve fallen into the same trap—although if you’re listening, Maisy Muller, you’re a beautiful little animal. But the point is that when you have so many people concertinaed in the little isthmus of Papamoa with a whole lot of dogs that don’t seem to know when the off switch should apply, you have challenges with respect to needing to—not in all cases—move through a process where you actually, potentially, have a category 1 offence. In this case, rather than a frustrated community and a frustrated street—

Greg O’Connor: There’s only one that’d move in along the street with you.

TODD MULLER: Oh yes, Kieran McAnulty interrupts again, because whenever you get a point on he wants to interrupt.

Kieran McAnulty: Wrong person.

TODD MULLER: It’s very disturbing—an angry young man, that Kieran McAnulty, isn’t he? I think he really deserves a nice little quiet relax by the beach and to have a little perspective and perhaps come back next year with a blue tie on, who knows? My point, if I had one, was that I think the point here is that this is not just a piece of legislation which is going to benefit rural New Zealand, it will also benefit urban New Zealand, and help speed up the judicial process and give JPs the opportunity to contribute on what makes a whole lot of sense. They are very well respected; they certainly are in my community. They will be able to bring the appropriate judicial reflection on these cases and help benefit the wider country and community. Thank you, Ian McKelvie, for yet again pushing for common sense to be reflected in legislation.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Madam Speaker, thank you very much. It’s a delight to stand here and speak in favour of the Dog Control (Category One Offences) Amendment Bill I do have, however, one comment to make: just for the record, it was not me who interrupted that speech; it was my good friend Greg O’Connor. The only reason I say that is because his interruption was not that good and I don’t want my name attributed to it in Hansard.

This speech will be a relatively short one because this bill has been traversed in detail throughout all stages, and here we are on the verge of passing a common-sense bill. I’d like to take the opportunity to praise Ian McKelvie, a man who I’m a big fan of. He’s done a lot of good work representing Rangitīkei. His first member’s bill—of course, as members know, there are some members who’ve been here for years and years and never once had a bill pulled out, and Ian McKelvie has managed that feat twice this year. It looks like both of them are going to pass; one of them had to be taken up by the Government, but it was still Ian’s initiative to get that through. I also acknowledge Andrew Little for working with us to get that through, past the line, when it hit some stalls at the Primary Production Committee.

This bill makes sense. As the previous speaker mentioned, there are a lot of people with dogs; I had a dog once and his name was Max. I have mentioned this one particular story about Max in a previous reading of this speech, but it is very relevant to this bill so I’m just going to touch on this again. The thing is that this bill is around category 1 offences. Now, if you looked at it on the face of it, one might be forgiven for thinking there are some serious crimes that are committed that involve dogs, and one might not be comfortable with the idea of these sorts of things being dealt with by a JP. But this bill specifically states that it is category 1 offences. So my dog, Max, was a serial category 1 offender and he used to escape and run around and do all sorts of things. He’d always come back—

Todd Muller: Poor teaching.

KIERAN McANULTY: —but he would cause—that’s right. It was poor training on the previous owner’s part. We adopted Max from a lovely lady in Whanganui, who neglected to tell us that he was a runner. But, you know, Max went into the pound a few times in Masterton, and if this bill was in place at the time, we would have been able to go through that process a lot quicker than what we had to.

Todd Muller: He was running away from you.

KIERAN McANULTY: He wasn’t running away from me, Mr Muller. He always came back. He just needed a breather, just like most of my caucus, from time to time—just need a breather from me. But, you know, they always come back. But the point is that this bill doesn’t—

Hon Member: Only because you’re the whip.

KIERAN McANULTY: Only because I give them lollies, apparently. But, nevertheless, this bill doesn’t touch on serious offending—such as, for example, causing serious injury. I think that’s an important point to make, because, ultimately, this is about making dealing with category 1 offences a smoother and quicker process.

But there is actually a wider benefit, which may not have been in the intent of the bill but certainly will come into effect once this passes. What we’ve seen is that the strain that has been placed on things like the Family Court over the last seven years or so is causing a serious backlog and, in fact, in May 2018, the Chief District Court Judge referred to a stretched judicial workforce that is being forced to redeploy judicial resource from the criminal jurisdiction to the Family Court. So what this bill will do, in a small way, is to contribute to that backlog, and whilst there is a broader programme at play here by this Government to adequately resource the judicial system in order to address that backlog, Ian McKelvie, in a roundabout way, is also assisting with that. So good on him, and good on the other members of the House from all parties for standing up and supporting this.

The Primary Production Committee did work in a good manner towards this, partly due to the respect for Ian McKelvie and in other parts because this was a common-sense approach. So I congratulate him. I congratulate everybody that is supporting this bill. It is a good idea and it’s good to see, yet again, that this House is banding together to support what makes sense.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s also a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill, the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill, under the name of Ian McKelvie. I guess the fitting response to it is that it is a very practical and sensible bill. Actually, as referenced in the previous speech, the sponsor’s stock-rustling bill, which got picked up by the Government, was also a very practical bill. I actually had the pleasure of travelling with the member to the Parliamentary Cricket World Cup—that spectacularly unsuccessful campaign—and I certainly very much enjoyed his company and the wisdom that he brings. Hopefully—I’m not sure what his plans are—we definitely need that sort of experience and sort of grounded pragmatism in our Parliament. Of course, given that he owns half the North Island, he would have a lot of dogs, and so he would be pretty familiar with the issues raised in the bill.

The essential element of this is that it’s taking from the crowded court efficiencies a lot of those lower-level category 1 offences out of the District Court—and that can only be a good thing—and putting those category 1 offences before JPs. So it’s really practical stuff. That would have taken 427 cases out of the District Court—and we know our District Courts are absolutely under the pump at the moment. There were 33,000 cases last year. Minister Parker has been putting on a number of extra judges to cope with the workload, and, of course, we’ve got those 1,800 new police out there rounding up the bad guys and getting them before the courts. So if we can take out those 427 cases—if we can believe that that’s a regular number—then that’s a really good step forward.

Of course, it does speed the system up as well—and justice delayed is justice denied—and it does lower the cost. If you’ve got dogs that are actually impounded at the time, they are, essentially, on remand during a lot of this time, so there is a cost on the owners. There’s a cost on the district councils in their having to provide those facilities, and, I assume, in many cases, in their having to round up the payments for the use of those facilities. So that’s another plus.

There’s also the animal welfare issues around that, as well. We don’t want dogs holed up in pounds. If they need to be put down, well, we need them to be put down, or if they return to their home lovingly, then that is good.

The other thing that the bill will do is that by lowering the threshold to below the District Court level, I think it will encourage more cases to go to a judicial process, as such, through the JPs. There are many people that may be annoyed by low-level dog offences with neighbours or with people in their local community that would not necessarily want to go to that step of taking someone that they know well in their community to court, but they might be prepared to go through a justice of the peace process, and I think that that expands the access to a dispute resolution process. I believe that it will make it more accessible and that cases will come forward, and some of that niggly neighbouring stuff can get dealt with without having to go to the District Court.

I know, as, I think, Max is a bit of a recalcitrant offender, so does our much-loved family dog, Snowy—much to my chagrin—rush the odd stock agent vehicle, such is his enthusiasm in his role of protecting the family home. If that was causing a nuisance, I’d like to think that that access to a JP might allow a threshold that someone could take that case up where they may not want to take us to the District Court. Hopefully, Snowy’s OK. I think we’ve trained him up a bit better in recent times. But it is just an example of what does occur on just a regular basis.

It’s a very ubiquitous thing—having a dog—and many of us enjoy having dogs as part of our family, or, certainly, in my case and in many farmers’ cases, they’re working animals. To be able to do that is important, but we also have to work in with societal norms as well and make sure that those checks and balances are in place and that those dogs aren’t becoming a nuisance.

So New Zealand First do support this bill, and we commend, again, the sponsor for bringing the bill forward. It’s another practical and pragmatic step which will make a difference to many New Zealanders. New Zealand First commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I only intend to take a brief call because while this is an excellent bill that, clearly, enjoys the support of the House, it’s a bill that only has, in fact, one operative clause. While every bill in this House goes through a process of 12 10-minute speeches, I don’t see the need in talking and being on my feet for the mere sake of it.

The two points I really just want to make are that it’s a bill that speaks to me to head and to heart. Heart, because I’m a massive dog lover—in fact, generally, I enjoy time with them more than I do with many people—and anything that assists the ability of our system to ensure dogs are properly cared for, I support. The second—the head point—is simply that as an ex - Minister for Courts, anything that can take the small, easily handled cases out of the full court process and put them through a much more pragmatic, practical system as a category 1 offence only makes sense.

So I just wish, as others have done, to commend Ian McKelvie for finding a simple but very effective and helpful way of ensuring that our courts work better. I hope that the animals that so many of us get so much pleasure and enjoyment from continue to be well looked after, and that for those who don’t care for them properly, their justice is swift and effective. I commend it to the House.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think there are just a few brief points I’d like to make about this bill, and one is, firstly, the principle underpinning it. It’s one that I think we’ve seen in recent amendments introduced by Aupito William Sio in other areas, and that is that we should be resolving disputes at the lowest feasible area of any dispute resolution system. This bill does that by looking at the dog control offences and saying that many of them simply not sufficiently serious to warrant the attention of a District Court judge and so those category 1 offences are being able to be disposed of by JPs and also, it must be said, by community magistrates under the Criminal Procedure Act as well. I note that the Primary Production Committee did make a change to the Act and crossed out community magistrates, not because they shouldn’t be able to do those cases but because they already are under the Criminal Procedure Act.

So, really, that’s the first point, and associated with that is the appropriate use of judicial resource. District Court judges are very senior lawyers and it’s simply not necessary for them to have that degree of skill and experience to dispose of low-level cases which are things like dogs running free and the like. They are not cases that would impose any suggestion of imprisonment or destruction of the dog, as I understand it, because a brief review of the cases in this area shows you that once the question of dog destruction arises, blood certainly runs high. In fact, only moments ago I was reading about a case in Tauranga which went all the way to Court of Appeal, and for the entire period of that time, the dog was impounded, which is something that I didn’t actually know—that whilst these cases are live, the dogs have to be impounded.

So the other thing to note is that by expediting this, and as an animal welfare concern—and I’m sure that pounds meet requirements—it’s better for the dog to be, if it can be, back where it belongs if that’s at all the case. So that’s a further excellent point.

This bill also recognises the competence of our judicially trained JPs—they are not simply doing parking tickets all the time. These are cases that are, arguably, a bit more serious than that. It’s a genuine offence and not just a regulatory matter, so it’s good to recognise that JPs are competent, and I would like to see our JPs given a little more work in these kinds of areas.

It also recognises the place that JPs have, as this is a classic kind of community order offence—that dogs are running free, it’s disruptive, and there’s a modest community risk. It’s not a biting or an attack. JPs are part of the community. They don’t sit apart from the community in the way that, perhaps, judges do—a bit more distant. They are very much embedded in our community. It’s actually a very good use of the JP resource. Having had a little to do with the appointing of JPs, as an MP, I know those people know their communities well and will make careful and compassionate decisions around this.

I just note again that community magistrates are still able to make these decisions—they always have been. So, overall, this bill is about freeing up judicial resources but also about putting the decision making as low down on that decision framework as we can. That has not only resourcing implications but also it engages better. It makes people much more accepting of the decisions if they feel that decisions have made by the community that they belong to.

Whilst the bill is, as Amy Adams said, a very short bill, I think it actually has some values in it that we can learn from, about who makes decisions for whom. So I say well done to Ian McKelvie. It’s a pity he couldn’t be here to speak on it himself. I hope he’s well. Best regards to him. This is an excellent piece of legislation. I commend it to the House.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Kia ora, mōrena tātou i roto i tēnei Whare Pāremata.

[Greetings, good morning to all in this Parliament.]

Aotearoa needs a well-resourced and a well-supported justice system to maintain due process and the natural justice values, to make sure that we are a country, a Parliament, and a Crown that upholds to the nth degree the necessity of due process, the necessity of natural justice. The Green Party will be opposing this bill, and I will lay out the reasons why.

We do actually respect the sponsor of the bill, Ian McKelvie, and the problem that this legislation is trying to address. We know that it is very real. We know that the backlog of our criminal cases, our Human Rights Commission, the Family Court, and so on and so forth is so great that we have got, I think, some cases waiting between 18 months to two years to go to trial, and some of the less serious cases are also facing that real waiting time. We know this is not helpful for anybody.

We understand the pragmatic nature of this proposal, but the Green Party must hold the line on making sure that we are protecting due diligence and due process. I want to pick up on some of the comments made by the previous speaker, Dr Webb. Having had community-level involvement with our justices of the peace and community magistrates as an advocate over many years in my own community, I absolutely agree with Dr Webb that those community connections are key to ensuring good outcomes and respectful relationships, and that those local judicial authorities are accountable to their own communities. However, there is a level of judicial training and expertise that we simply cannot expect yet—yet—such as evidence training, and we would like to see an overhaul, a systemic move toward empowering and resourcing our magistrates and our judicial authorities at every level to be able to have that key specific training that does uphold due process.

This bill—I should have said that at the start—will allow justices of the peace and community magistrates to hear those lesser offences and charges rather than what is currently the situation, which is that these are heard in the District Court. And that is why I outlined that we need to make sure our District Courts, our overall justice systems, are properly resourced—and that is work that we will continue to stand strong on.

The hypothetical situation where we are dealing with an infringement with, say, a $3,000 fine, up to the maximum, and where dog destruction is imminent is a big deal. That is a big decision to be made, and as a dog lover, like many of us here in the House—I wasn’t one but we rescued one, and now I’m almost like a reformed racist; when it comes to dogs I’m now a dog lover, and I’m able to pull on that emotion and that connection to our own rescue dog, with understanding. I used to hate dogs but we’ve got our own now and we love her. That situation of the possible $3,000 fine and dog destruction is a big decision. Eventually, I would like to see our local judicial authorities, such as justices of the peace and community magistrates, be able to properly, fully address such a situation. I know that members have spoken to our collective love for animals and our domestic pets, and how everyone here is concerned for that as well as making sure that these cases are heard.

I simply and strongly stand for the Green Party’s stance in really wanting to protect that due process. We’re speaking up for that due process, because if anything does go wrong, if the evidence isn’t quite up to scratch, if we haven’t been able to skilfully bring out the right evidence, then the impact of those decisions is incredibly huge.

I wanted to address the issue of animal welfare while a dog is impounded, which others have rightfully and understandably raised. I would want all of our animals to be well in pounds regardless of how long. We absolutely don’t want them to be in there for longer than they need to be but, while they are in there, I would hope that their welfare is absolutely the priority—for every animal that is held.

So I think for us it’s simply that, again, while we acknowledge the problem and the practical solution that is being sought here, we simply want to look and not ignore—and the consistency for us is about not ignoring the systemic issues that need to be addressed, which is always consistent with what we stand for and always have since the beginning of our movement. Looking at the system, making sure that we have got a well-resourced justice system at all levels that can uphold the needs of the community, that can uphold natural justice and due process in a way that is diligent and qualified and skilled. We will continue to be a voice in this House to make sure that we are not undermining the huge impact that such decisions could have on people if we are not making sure that this is a robust proposal. So, again, we will be opposing this bill. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Tim van de Molen.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The previous speaker, Marama Davidson, was just barking up the wrong tree. There’s nothing wrong with this piece of legislation. I don’t mean to hound her unnecessarily, but this is a pretty straightforward set of changes that have been proposed by Mr McKelvie. Really, it’s about getting the right result, not burdening the court system unnecessarily, and it’s good to see it progressing through. So I wanted to congratulate Mr McKelvie on that in particular.

There was actually one question from the committee of the whole House stage that went unanswered, and I do just want to reflect on that as well. I believe it was Mr Penk who queried exactly who had let the dogs out, and, so, in relation to this bill, by being able to change the process to remove the time dogs are spending in the pound, then I think it’s appropriate to answer that by saying this House will indeed be responsible for having let the dogs out and streamlining that process. So I commend it to the House.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): We have to put up with a few dad jokes in this House, but dog jokes are obviously a new category, that we will now have to roll ourselves on the floor and take the fluff off our speeches. It does give me great pleasure to stand and speak about this. Being a late speaker after a series of speeches in any bill that goes through, often the mind wanders, and having spent a few years on the planet, the experiences I have that bring me to this House that involve dogs, that are pertinent, highly pertinent, to this bill—as you will know, Madam Speaker, nothing I ever speak about is not highly pertinent to a bill.

But I am reminded of my own childhood—because at the basis of this bill is wandering dogs, really. This is about the ability of JPs to deal with wandering dogs. Those more serious offences categorised are taken out of this, so, ultimately, unregistered and wandering dogs. I know that having grown up on a farm where the dogs we bred tended to be—they did wander. Getting up in the morning to go and get the cows in and finding out that a bitch three farms away had gone on heat overnight and none of your dogs were present, and having to get the cows in yourself, did remind me that there is a need to ensure that dogs are under control and not allowed to wander, if it means that a slightly hung-over young man has to go up on to the farm himself to get the cows in.

Of course, the other thing was our dogs tended to be car chasers, which meant that the only ones that survived to breed were the good car chasers. So we ended up with a category of dogs or a breed of our dogs that were very fertile, very good at chasing cars, but not particularly good at the job they were employed to do—sort of Darwinism in action, if you like, on the farm.

Coming back to the bill, which brings me right to the point of the bill, which is about those wandering dogs and the ability to deal with them. Of course, I did notice that the member who introduced this bill, Mr Bennett, he wandered slightly off. I wondered if it was actually in deference to the sponsor of this bill. I found his speech a little bit like the gait of Mr McKelvie, having been on the same trip and same cricket field with him as Mr Patterson, the one he alluded to.

But we now bring ourselves to the real guts of this bill, having, sort of, circumvented perhaps somewhat, which is really to ensure that where these offences—that actually are an important part of many days. One of the previous speakers talked about doorknocking and awareness of how, at a certain stage of the electoral cycle, dogs and their presence and their degree of discipline does become quite relevant, probably, to members in this House and their doorknocking crews, as much as anyone else. So it is very important to the good running of society, certainly the safety of society, the feel-good around our society, which we are here to do, to ensure that these irritating little problems that dogs can be—unregistered dogs, which, again, is a category 1 and something that can be dealt with in this bill, as well as keeping dogs under control can be dealt with. To actually have to wait to get into court to deal with these issues while what can often be a very favoured family friend, an important part of the family, may be sitting, at great expense to everyone and great irritation to everyone, in a pound.

So having JPs—judicial JPs, I might say. It’s not just the JPs who we may sign up each day as electorate MPs and nominate; these are the judicial, specially trained JPs, who I could see developing some sort of expertise in this area, all done to expedite cases through the courts to ensure that the much more serious—and not even only in relation to dogs; the more serious offences in relation to dogs can be dealt with, because, of course, this bill doesn’t deal with failing to comply with the effects of dangerous dog classifications either, which is important, because, again, some of the injuries that can be inflicted, some of the fear that can be imposed on a neighbourhood by dangerous, unrestrained dogs, can have the same effect as the same sort of unrestrained, ill-disciplined people can have in a neighbourhood. Funnily enough, those same types of people and same types of dogs so often are associated.

So anything that gives us the ability to deal with that I can only agree with. Therefore, I have no hesitation commending this bill to the House.

HAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): Quite clearly, the House has gone to the dogs, and I’m not talking about the member beside me. But I just want to start by acknowledging the person who brought this bill to the House, Ian McKelvie. He’s an incredibly hard-working rural MP. He was the mayor of the Manawatū from 2002 to 2011, and a fact that not many people in here probably realise: he is the longest-serving mayor of the Manawatū District to date. Also, I want to acknowledge the brains behind the operation—that’s his wife, Sue. She’s a wonderful lady and does a great job.

Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge you for the events that have happened up your neck of the woods in the last 36 hours. You have got an electorate office only 300 metres from the wharf. You have been the MP there for a long time. You were on the ground yesterday and the day before. I just want to acknowledge you and also the efforts of all the emergency services over the last 36-48 hours.

Back to the bill, it’s a very simple bill. Most of the points have been acknowledged by both sides. It basically takes a bit of pressure off the courts and allows JPs to hear dog cases. We must remember we are talking about dogs, but in many cases, a dog is more than just an animal; it’s man’s best friend, woman’s best friend. We love them. I’ve had a few dogs in my time. One of them was called Mad Max, and, unfortunately, this legislation may apply to my lovely Mad Max. He’s a boxer dog that gets into trouble from time to time. It’s also worth mentioning that last year, there were just under 500 cases heard under the Dog Control Act, so this will free up the court’s time.

Just lastly, I want to again acknowledge the hard-working rural MP Ian McKelvie. You’ve done a great job, and I hope you’re watching. Wherever you are, Ian, I hope your health’s coming back. Cheers.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Madam Speaker, may I just begin by acknowledging the hard work that has been done in the last few days by the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern; the Leader of the Opposition, Simon Bridges; and the MPs who come from the part of the country that is affected by the eruption, Tamati Coffey, Kiritapu Allan, and, of course, yourself. At times like this, we join together, and, oddly enough, we join together on this bill.

So from a very large and very important matter to what some people have described as a very small matter and a small bill. I suggest that contained within this allegedly small matter and small bill, there are things that concern small people, like myself and others, who are perhaps somewhat nervous around dogs, especially large dogs. This bill does speak to some of those concerns. I quite like dogs—dogs that are under the control of their owners. I grew up on a farm, in farming territory, myself, and, of course, the dogs that I was around were sheep dogs who were very much under the control of my uncles and my cousins. So that was an expectation I always had, that dogs would be under the control of their owners—even the small, yappy dogs. So for someone to find a large dog running loose, running uncontrolled, or dogs that are not clearly associated with a person, well, that can be a frightening and distressing or perhaps even just a nervous-making experience. Of course, as Mr Muller noted before, those of us who go knocking door to door often find that dogs can be a little bit worrying.

So there is good reason to control dogs, but it does seem sometimes that the offences that people commit with respect to dogs have ended up not being tried for a long time or have ended up with dogs being impounded for a long, long time. There is a problem here that is to be solved, and Mr Ian McKelvie has come up with a very sensible suggestion, which most of this House agrees with, that the small and minor offences should be overseen by judicial JPs. So, technically, what’s happening is that some of the offences under the Dog Control Act that are category 1 offences are now going to be heard by judicial JPs. Category 1 offences are defined in the Criminal Procedure Act and are offences that—basically, infringement offences. They’re not punishable by a term of imprisonment. They are infringements. They attract a fine.

But in terms of the Dog Control Act, for the people who are watching, the sort of offences that attract those infringements, they’re mostly in Schedule 1 of the Act. They’re offences like the “Wilful obstruction of [a] dog control officer or ranger”, the “refusal to supply information or wilfully providing false particulars”, “Failure to comply with [a] bylaw”, “Failure to implant [a] microchip transponder in [a] dog”, a “False statement relating to dog registration”, “Falsely notifying [the] death of [a] dog”, or the “Failure to register [a] dog”. A lot of them are quite small offences and they are quite technical in nature, but they do go to the control of dogs and so they do need to be dealt with. The one that amused me was the “Failure to carry [a] leash in public”. I’m just assuming that’s “carry [a] leash in public” when you are accompanied by a dog, not just a failure to carry a leash in public at all. Even so, they are small offences, and it’s really worth noting that most dog owners are good dog owners. Most dog owners do comply with these requirements most of the time, as much as they are able to.

But when someone doesn’t comply, it does need to be dealt with, and that has resulted in, as you know, a backlog in the courts, and that leaves owners in a state of waiting for their case to be heard, and in some cases it leaves dogs impounded. Now, dogs are—they’re people people. They’re people dogs. Dogs seem to love their families. I’m sure you’ve possibly heard the phrase, the saying, that dogs are slaves; cats have staff. What it indicates is not necessarily that one type of animal is better than the other, but dogs are deeply attached to their families, and so to be impounded is actually pretty rough on the dog. So this is a way of solving a couple of problems. It solves the problem of the judicial backlog and it solves the problem of the humanity of keeping dogs impounded. It’s a very sensible measure, proposed by a sensible man.

So I am delighted to be able to stand and support this bill at its third reading, to have set out the reasons for it and say, actually, this is just common sense. With that thought, like the previous speaker, Mr Hamish Walker, I’d like to just compliment Mr Ian McKelvie on this and say that I too know Ian and his wife, Sue, having run against Ian in Rangitīkei in 2014. He is a true gentleman and I trust he is doing well. Madam Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.

MATT KING (National—Northland): I get the last word. I get the honour of the last word. My wife hates it when I have the last word. The Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill. This is a very simple bill that identifies a problem and then provides a solution, and that is the way Ian McKelvie works. I’d like to pay tribute to that man—hugely respected across the House for the work that he’s done in this House and continues to do. This is a member’s bill. We’re on a members’ day. We all agree on it. The issues have been well traversed. I can’t understand why we can’t truncate the process and just knock these sorts of bills to touch very early on, speed them up and get through it, but then I realised that the Government doesn’t want us to do that because if that bill gets dealt with and gets voted on—as it will be today, and it’ll pass into law—then we go to the ballot and we get another member’s bill. I’ve got three really good bills waiting there to be drawn. I got one drawn last year, the Crimes (Coward Punch Causing Death) Amendment Bill. So I realise that’s why they want to stall, because they don’t want us to get our members’ bills out. So this is a great piece of law—[Interruption] Oh, they’ve sparked up on the other side now. This is a great piece of law brought to the House by a great man, and I commend it to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Dog Control (Category 1 Offences) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 112

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand Labour 46; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Noes 8

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 8.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Electoral (Entrenchment of Māori Seats) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 4 December.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I start, I too want to add my condolences to the families who have suffered through the Whakaari / White Island eruptions. I want to also send out my support to you, Madam Speaker, being the MP for the East Coast; to Tamati Coffey as well; and also to Kiritapu Allan, for the work that you continue to do over there to support the people.

So when I last spoke in the House around this bill, I was reciting some of the reasons that people don’t think that National care for Māori, but we do. I was reciting some of the great attributes and some of the policies that we have been responsible for on this side of the House in supporting Māori, in supporting the care that we have for Māori. I talked a little bit about the Māori Women’s Welfare League, that this side of the House established in 1951, along with the million-dollar fund that would help them to develop the Māori Women’s Development Fund, and the establishment of Te Wānanga o Raukawa in 1981, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in 1993, and Te Wānanga o Awanuiārangi in 1997. These are examples of how much this side of the House cares about Māori.

To support this bill is not a way to support Māori, because we believe that Māori should have a choice to be able to be on the general roll or on the Māori roll. To entrench those seats now would mean that there was no choice—there was no choice—for Māori to be able to jump around between the general seats and the Māori seats. It takes away that choice for Māori to decide when the Māori seats will go. That’s why, on this side of the House, we are not supporting this bill.

In saying that, I do want to acknowledge Rino Tirikatene for the work that he has done in getting this bill to the House, and the discussions that he has had trying to get people across the line on it. I think that, you know, that’s just the measure of the man, really. At the end of the day, he has worked very, very hard for this bill.

During the hearings, it pained me a lot to hear some of the submitters saying that Māori list MPs were not a voice for Māori. That is actually a sad, sad thing to say.

Hon Amy Adams: Most of Labour are list MPs.

JO HAYES: That’s right. That’s like 12 Māori voices silenced, if that were to be the case—if that were to be the case—and a lot of them, as my colleague over here, the Hon Amy Adams, has said, on that side of the House, are list MPs. To hear whānau say “Māori list MPs do not speak for us. They do not have a voice for us.” is, to me, blinding, and I don’t want to say “ignorant”, but I’m going to say it’s ignorant. I think that we need every single voice in this House for Māori, regardless of whether they’re electorate MPs or whether they are list MPs.

In closing, I just want to say that this side of the House, we always get a bit of a beat up on bills like this, and very, very few times does the Government turn around and look at its coalition partner, New Zealand First. I just want to say that in previous contributions on this bill, it was talked about on that side of the House—on the Government side of the House—how the Māori seats were the ones that actually helped to get New Zealand First into Parliament all those years ago, when they took out all the seven seats. That is to me, when I hear things like that—we all know that that is what happened, and then we hear the New Zealand First Party is not supporting this bill. It’s fine on our side—we don’t support this bill. We believe in freedom of choice. We believe that by taking and entrenching this bill, it will take away the freedom of choice for Māori to decide when the Māori seats stay and when they will go. So I join with my colleagues on this side of the House. We do not support this bill. Thank you.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister for Māori Development): Tuatahi, tēnei ka tāpiri atu āku mihi, āku roimata, āku tangi ki a rātou kua hinga kei Whakaari, arā ki ngā whānau e tauawhi nei, ngā āhuatanga ki reira, Ngāti Awa, koutou o Mātaatua waka, tēnei ka whakaaro ake ki a koutou.

Tatū atu rā ki a koe te mema mō Te Tai Rāwhiti, arā heke iho mai ki a Tamati Coffey, ki a Kiritapu Allan, koutou e kaha ana te noho ki te taha o te hapori kia tauawhi i a rātou, kia hāpai i a rātou i tēnei wā taumaha. Nō reira tēnā koutou, ā, tēnā tātou.

[Firstly, I add my acknowledgments, my tears, my weeping to those who have fallen at Whakaari / White Island, that is to the families supporting one another, the circumstances there, Ngāti Awa, you the people of the Mātaatua canoe, I am thinking of you.

And arriving with you, the member for Te Tai Rāwhiti, and through to Tamati Coffey and Kiritapu Allan, you who are making every effort at being with the community and supporting them, carrying them, at this difficult time. Therefore, I acknowledge you, greetings to us all.]

I rise to make a contribution, having listened to many of the statements made in the House. It’s moments like this where you realise just how fragile our democratic freedoms are, when we debate a bill such as entrenching the Māori seats.

The Electoral (Entrenchment of Māori Seats) Amendment Bill, sponsored by my colleague the MP for Te Tai Tonga, Rino Tirikatene, tests the underbelly of opinion represented in this Parliament on an issue that is very simple, on the face of it. It is whether or not we have the temerity to be able to treat the general and Māori seats in the same manner in so far as entrenching their existence. The member’s bill seeks to amend section 268 of the Electoral Act 1993, which entrenches provisions relating to the division of New Zealand into general electorates. That means, as has been stated in the House, that to repeal or amend any of those provisions, a 75 percent majority of all members of the House of Representatives would be required to carry the provision during the committee of the whole House stage of Parliament’s legislative process. However, the Māori electorates can be amended or repealed by a simple majority.

What Rino Tirikatene believes—as do many other Māori electorate members—is that the equality of the treatment of the Māori seats in relation to the general seats is a very simple mechanism. We believe that as a signal in terms of how far we’ve come as a society, it’s a good test. It’s a good test of our moral fortitude to try and apply the principles that we espouse on so many other issues in this House.

So I’m saddened to hear some of the speeches that have been brought to light in the House on this particular bill. But time will take its course, no doubt, and there will be a time, irrespective of what the current thinking will be, that there will be a broad consensus that entrenching the Māori seats as we do the general seats is a necessary thing to do—a signal to the rest of the country that we have moved on and will continue to do so.

Now, I was quite interested in reading the select committee advice, which clearly, clearly, stated at that time that the bill would comply with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 as it would not cause any material disadvantage for non-Māori groups. They were also advised that entrenching the seats would not give greater voting rights to those on the Māori roll or cause disproportionate representation in Parliament, and still, parties in this House reject the premise that entrenching the Māori seats as we do the general seats is not a matter of equality that should be dealt with in this way. But even David McGee said that “In theory,”—yes—“a Government could seek to amend or repeal” an entrenched provision. However, and importantly, he noted, “This is no unintended loophole; when the entrenching procedures were introduced in 1956, it was believed that a Parliament could not bind its successor, and that entrenchment signalled the moral force of broadly accepted democratic rules. An attempt to exploit single entrenchment to circumvent the protection of the reserved provisions would be constitutionally improper and arguably a breach of constitutional convention.”, and there the clarity is.

We all say, across the whole House, that the founding document for New Zealand is the Treaty of Waitangi, and there is a strong reference point to ensure that recognition of Māori within New Zealand is somewhat different to representation alongside any other group. Even the establishment of the Māori seats way back when they occurred was actually to contain the Māori opinion and voice within our democratic institutions, because Māori were the majority of the population group. Now, our member Rino Tirikatene is testing the fortitude of this Parliament to say, “Is the time right”—because we believe it is—“to entrench the seats to give a clear signal to the nation that not only do we recognise the constitutional foundations of our great country but we also recognise it within this Parliament?”

That’s not to cast division between types of MPs: general seat MPs vis-à-vis Māori electorate MPs vis-à-vis list MPs. What it seeks to do is broaden our perspective about the constitutional basis in the views that certainly are advocated from the Māori electorate seats to be able to try and influence and shape the kind of nation that we want to be.

Comments were raised on the other side of the House around various parties’ political views on this matter. I would like to think, actually, that we’re taking a parliamentary view and approach to this particular bill, because that’s what’s going to be required.

I’ve been an electorate MP for some time. When I first became an electorate MP, the seat was called Te Tai Hauāuru. Then it was changed—the name of the seat and the boundaries were changed—to Tainui, and now it is Hauraki-Waikato. Through the whole period of time that I’ve been a representative in the House, I have seen fine members representing the Māori electorates as list MPs across the House, representing a range of perspectives for Māori, but can I say this: it has always been the Māori electorate seats that on issues of rangatiratanga, fundamental issues relating to article 2 of the Treaty—often, that is where you will hear the strongest voice and advocacy come through from the Māori electorate MPs. That’s not to diminish or dismiss any other Māori representative in this House; it’s merely to state that that is the expectation of people who vote in the Māori electorates—that they want that element heard on many, many things.

Can I also say that MMP is a peculiarity of our country that has, in my mind, broadened the depth and breadth of Māori representation across the House. There was a time, and it actually goes back to the time when New Zealand First held the Māori seats, that Māori members from across the House—and I was in Opposition at the time—actually saw merit in coming together to rectify an anomaly at law that disadvantaged Māori. It prejudicially disadvantaged Māori, and that was with the Māori Reserved Land Amendment Act. That issue, in terms of disadvantage, was advocated from the Māori electorates, but every other Māori member in the House, no matter what party they belonged to, saw merit in that issue and joined forces to be able to pass that political bill beyond party political differences. Why? Because we knew, ultimately, there was a fundamental injustice being served.

I want to commend Rino Tirikatene because the legacy of representation that his family has had in this House brings these types of issues to the fore so that in a moment, we have the chance to take this opportunity to say, “Have we the courage to do what we say we’re doing on many, many other issues”—which is to ensure that there is equality of treatment before the law—“to ensure that the Māori and the general electorate seats can be treated the same and be entrenched—be entrenched?” But it’s an indication of our moral fortitude.

The point isn’t lost on many of us on this side of the House that our colleague Rino Tirikatene is the right member to raise this issue because of the legacy of representation that his whānau has had in this House to be able to carry a memory and a discourse related to the Treaty, related to Māori representation, and related to advocacy on those issues that define us as a nation but make us unique as well.

So I hope, again, that as people are engaging and listening to this particular debate, we take a chance and step back from any party political view and ask ourselves, as a Parliament, are we courageous enough to be able to make a decision on this particular matter so that we can build a bridge to the next step of our great challenge, which is making New Zealand a better place for everyone that lives here in our great country, and ensuring that the Treaty becomes a korowai for people, rather than a whāriki? Tēnā tātou katoa.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Electoral (Entrenchment of Māori Seats) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 54

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

Noes 66

New Zealand National 55; New Zealand First 9; ACT New Zealand 1; Ross.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 3 April.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you. I just want to wrap up the speech on this bill, which we will be supporting. I want to just take this time to especially say a big thankyou to all those first responders that have been in your area, with your people, and just to pay respect to them and thank them for the good work that they are doing up there, and also to yourself. Hopefully they can get those bodies out very quickly and the families can get some closure at this time.

I also wanted to take this time to especially thank our prison officers, who do a fantastic job through our country. They are people that put themselves in danger every day, dealing with the most hardened members of our community that don’t have respect for people or personal rights and are very difficult people to deal with. Those prison officers deserve our thanks and gratitude for the work they do. At this time of year, I think that we need to publicly thank them and acknowledge the good work that they do.

It’s been very disappointing to see in the last year that the current Government hasn’t taken their role seriously and has meant that we’ve had an increase in assaults on prison officers, and they’ve even had to go and look at getting prison officers in from Australia to cover the gap over the Christmas period from the current Government. That’s been disappointing to the prison officers, and I know the Government has had to back down and stop that process in the last few days because they know it’s not the right thing to do.

So this bill will get the support of the National Party, but I just want to use this opportunity to thank those that work in our first responders’ areas, and also, especially, our prison officers for the great work they do and I wish them all the very best for the festive season.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Madam Speaker, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to take a call on the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. Firstly, can I congratulate the member who is sponsoring the bill, Darroch Ball, for his success in getting it drawn.

Labour will be supporting this bill to select committee. As the bill talks about further protection of first responders and prison officers, can I, too, add my word of condolences on behalf of the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti for the tragedy that has unfolded in Whakaari / White Island. I want to acknowledge the sad passing of those that have lost their lives, and those families still waiting to hear from ones unidentified. I want to also acknowledge the response from the Government, and local members like yourself, Madam Speaker. I also want to acknowledge the recent flooding in the South Island—the West Coast—and the gallant work of our first responders in these tragedies that we’ve seen around the country.

As we head in towards the festive season, we hear numerous accounts of harm coming to our first responders, like ambulance drivers, like our police, like our prison officers. So as we head into the festive season, it’s in acknowledgment of the work that first responders do that I stand in support of this bill.

It does amend the Crimes Act. First of all, it is to ensure that for those that may come to harm in the execution of their duty—be they prison officers, be they ambulance drivers—we are giving them maximum protection under our law. So this bill attempts to amend the Crimes Act.

It also attempts to insert a new section 85A in the Sentencing Act. So the amendments through this bill are to both the Crimes Act and the Sentencing Act, and also some minor technical changes in the Summary Offences Act. So this is a bill clearly enabling better protection for our first responders. I believe that there is an issue here to be addressed, and this is why Labour is supporting it to select committee, so we can hear first-hand from the first responders that do a mighty job on behalf of all our communities in keeping ourselves safe.

In looking at the transcripts of the introduction of the bill and previous speakers, I see it’s had a long gestation when it first got read in this House. I’m not too sure as to the reason why it has taken this long, but in reading former members’ contributions to this bill, it appears that some of the speakers probably got off slightly on a different tangent rather than the bill itself. It does talk about the amendments to the respective bills, and maybe members that are going to follow on from me can make a contribution as to why they feel that this is an important bill. This is around protecting our emergency service workers, wherever they are. Like I said, it attempts to amend three pieces of legislation. We on this side want to ensure that all our communities are safe and no less safe than those that respond to tragedy and emergencies like we have currently in this country.

It’s important that we make sure that our legislation is up to date, is relevant, and has taken in any past learnings to ensure that those at the forefront of emergencies or tragedies aren’t abused—like I made mention of earlier, as we go into the festive season, when there may be elements of too much alcohol consumed, that quite likely plays out for many of our first responders. So we want to make sure that the law gives them the protection and access to a deterrent not just for festive seasons—as we head into Christmas—but for all occasions that the safety of those first responders is protected and remedied, if required, under law.

So the Protection of First Responders and Prison Officers Bill, as introduced by New Zealand First’s Darroch Ball, I think is a bill that I am keen to have come to our very hard-working Justice Committee. I’m looking forward to this bill, hopefully, passing through the House and coming to our select committee so we can hear from those first responders directly to ensure that the legislation as it is now, under the three Acts of the Summary Offences Act, the Crimes Act, and the Sentencing Act—

Tim van de Molen: Time’s up.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: —does give the protection needed for our first responders. I commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s Christmas, I did allow it.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I look forward to your benevolence continuing, and I too wish you a merry Christmas.

Hon Amy Adams: Geez, that’s risky for Tim!

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Ha, ha! Yes, I might finally get to complete my maiden speech.

Yesterday afternoon and evening, there were some very moving and heartfelt tributes in this House to all who have been caught up in the terrible tragedy that occurred on Monday on Whakaari / White Island. So I’d just like to commence by echoing the comments of my friend and Hamilton colleague the Hon David Bennett, and also the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, who has just resumed her seat, the Hon Meka Whaitiri, in, again, just placing on record our deepest sympathy. I did have a chance to speak on an unrelated bill yesterday. While knowing that I can’t bring the Speaker into the debate, I hope that I can acknowledge the member for East Coast, the Hon Anne Tolley, who has just returned to the House, who I know has been fully involved in assisting constituents and supporting first responders and others. I just say to her, and to everybody up in that area, how grateful we are for the tremendous compassion and hard work of the first responders, medical teams, and others who have been working in the most distressing of circumstances. It remains an unfolding situation, and I just want to acknowledge everybody, and particularly, again, want to send my deepest sympathy to victims and their families in what has been the most horrific and unexpected tragedy.

Could I also say how delighted I am to be able to speak in support of this bill. It’s not often that we can rise in this House and genuinely embrace measures from other parties. But on this occasion, I congratulate Darroch Ball for his initiative in bringing this bill to the House, and I would ask Mr Patterson to convey that sentiment to him, to say how thrilled I was to hear that it also enjoys the support of not only my own party but also of Labour. I echo the comment a moment ago of the chair of the Justice Committee, Meka Whaitiri, I too welcome the fact that this will be coming to our select committee, and I look forward to working on it—in particular, because I believe that there will be an opportunity to strengthen the bill even more. I look forward to hearing the submissions of those who may be of a like-mind.

I was a member of this House in 2012, when a measure was introduced—and I think I can possibly say that the then Minister of Police may have been the Hon Anne Tolley; I’ll see if I can get the exact detail—amending the Sentencing Act which required the courts to consider offences against the police, prison officers, and fire and health services at the scene of an emergency as aggravating factors when it came to sentencing. So this is very much an extension of that very sensible initiative that therefore picks up on the work that the then National Government was doing. Sadly, even though that very good measure was introduced at the time, what we have seen in recent times is further attacks on those who are doing their very best in the most critical and distressing of circumstances—often, first responders on the scene of a terrible accident and that sort, or perhaps providing services in our emergency departments around the country.

I’m sure that all members would share the sense of outrage that I feel whenever I hear reports of our medical teams or our first responders being attacked when they are doing their level best, in many cases, to save lives and to bring some comfort to people who are in terrible agony, or their families who are watching on, feeling helpless, and who absolutely rely on the efforts of those people. So when they are coming under attack that is naturally frightening for them and totally unacceptable. We all know that often it reflects impairment—often drug- or alcohol-induced, but that’s not an excuse; it’s simply an explanation of what is happening. Therefore, I warmly support this particular measure.

I’ve heard reports on several occasions from the emergency department head and others in my own area of Hamilton, through the Waikato Hospital, of people coming into the wards—particularly the emergency department—and literally intimidating and sometimes attacking their staff, and doing the same to ambulance officers. We all want to do everything we can to ensure that there is a minimum risk of that happening or at least to ensure that the penalties are appropriate.

Also, can I just conclude by acknowledging the prison officers. There are very few of us who would want to work in our Corrections facilities, and I’m always deeply grateful to those who feel a calling to that particular role. They deserve our utmost gratitude and support. The last thing they deserve is to come under some attack, but we know that they deal with very dangerous and volatile characters. Again, I’m pleased that they are included under this particular bill.

I hope that we will be able to take it even further to ensure that anybody providing a service of that sort will be covered. Unfortunately, we can’t stop it happening. But we can do everything we can to send a message that it’s unacceptable behaviour.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Like other contributors to this debate, can I just commence by acknowledging the situation at Whakaari / White Island, to send out thoughts and prayers to those who have been so deeply affected by the events there, and to acknowledge all of those in different capacities who are doing their level best to support people in that very tragic situation.

Really, as we turn to this debate, there could be nothing that is a greater reminder of the importance of the role of first responders in our country. I would acknowledge those members from this House who have been present at Whakaari / White Island and the surrounding area to provide support and leadership, including the local member, the Hon Anne Tolley; the Minister for Civil Defence, the Hon Peeni Henare; the right honourable Prime Minister; local list member Kiri Allan; and local member for Waiariki, Tamati Coffey. While it is important that political leaders are there in these situations to show support and leadership and to ensure that the arms of State are working as they should to provide support, really, the most important work—the lifesaving work—is done by those who are first on the scene at these kinds of events.

While the events at Whakaari / White Island are a unique event, the reality is that every single day in our country, there are situations in which first responders save lives and help people, and this bill fundamentally is about ensuring that those people should be able to be safe as they carry out their work for other New Zealanders. It is also about ensuring that they are able to do their jobs, because, of course, one of the problems is that if first responders are confronted with situations in which there is violence or the threat of violence or intimidation or other forms of disorder, not only is their own safety at risk but it makes it far more difficult for them to provide the life-preserving services that they are there to provide, as well.

Of course, these are incredibly important roles in our society, and we want to make them as attractive as possible for skilled people to train and enter into. The possibility that a person might enter into one of these roles and then be subject to abuse or intimidation or violent behaviour can only be off-putting to the people that we need to attract into these essential professions, as well.

So for all of those reasons, this is an important bill. The issues are real. I was actually shocked to read some of the numbers of assaults that some of our first responders face. If we look at emergency service workers: St John Ambulance reports 2,000 verbal attacks over the past year, and 161 physical assaults. That’s over three per week that ambulance service people are facing when they turn up at the scenes of house fires, assaults, car crashes, and the like. That is shocking to hear and it is something that we do need to address.

Of course, the resolutions to these issues are in a range of policy responses. This is not the only one but it is an important one. We do know that often in these cases—and the previous member referenced this—alcohol is involved. That’s something that we need to address through other policy responses. It’s my understanding that sometimes in these cases we’re dealing with people in significant states of agitation, who may have real mental health issues as well. We need to have a significant response in that area as well, and that is a major priority of this Government. But we do also need to send a clear message both to the responders and to the public that we’re not going to tolerate assaults on people carrying out this incredibly important work. So what this bill does is put in place, through amendments to both the Crimes Act and the Sentencing Act, provisions which allow a maximum sentence of up to 10 years and a minimum sentence of no less than six months for people who are found to have attacked a first responder in this way.

The Labour Party is supporting this bill to select committee because we believe this issue is important, because we need to keep people safe, because we need to send a clear message. In the select committee, we do want to explore whether we’ve got those provisions exactly right. It’s a relatively unique piece of legislation in the way that it sets those sentencing guidelines, and we think that it’s important the select committee looks at those fully and on an informed basis to make sure that we get this right. But certainly this is an important bill. We strongly support the intent of it and I commend it to the House.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Like others, I wish to acknowledge those involved as first responders, as well as those most directly affected by the recent tragedy at White Island, also known as Whakaari. I recently bumped into the Minister of Civil Defence, and I hope he won’t regard it as a breach of confidence that he assured me in that setting how impressed he was by the work of the New Zealand Defence Force in that context. So while the scope of the bill is first responders and prison officers—or Corrections officers, I suppose we might also call them—it’s helpful to acknowledge, as others have done in this House, those who have been involved in that particular occurrence and doing such wonderful work on the ground and, indeed, at sea surrounding that island.

The only thing I’ve heard so far that’s disturbed me about this bill is the extent to which my speech notes that I’ve been making have reflected the comments that the member for Mt Roskill has made. In all seriousness, he’s actually—

Michael Wood: We’re both embarrassed!

CHRIS PENK: That’s right—“We’re both embarrassed!”, says the member. So perhaps I’ll charge on reasonably briefly, except to say that he made the point about the fact that it’s every day for first responders and not simply the case of the recent albeit tragic events at White Island, and, for that matter, the flooding in the South Island, and so on. But it’s every day, and I’ll underline that word “every” in the context of the upcoming Christmas - New Year period. A holiday for many, but for those of us who keep their fellow Kiwis—and visitors, for that matter—safe on our roads and at sea, it is an ongoing proposition and, therefore, ongoing danger to which they are exposed, not only by the inherently risky and dangerous nature of what they do but additional danger and risk in the case of behaviour that we would not wish to have them exposed to.

That, of course, is the subject of the bill. I look forward to finding out a bit more about that, including—again, as the member for Mt Roskill has acknowledged—whether the settings are exactly right, and there are different policy responses. I have the good fortune of being on the Justice Committee, so along with the chair and others in the House, I welcome the opportunity in that forum to engage a bit more closely with the detail. We must do what we can to help those who help others. So it’s a matter of justice but also recognising those consequences in terms of not wishing to have people who would put their hand up to perform these roles—we don’t want them to be discouraged from doing so. On that note, I’ll finish my contribution but say that I look forward to continuing to engage with the debate and the discussion and the bill itself as it progresses further.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I rise on behalf of Darroch Ball, the sponsor of the bill, to give his reply. It is poignant, as others have noted, that we are dealing with this Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill at a time when we are seeing our first responders at their very finest, putting themselves in the way of harm to help others in a significant national event. I too join my voice to those that have acknowledged that today.

I’d also like to commend Darroch Ball on bringing this forward. This is a Government that is looking at changing the justice system and how we do things and do them differently and things like restorative justice and rehabilitation, health-based approaches to things, and they’re all important discussions. But Darroch is someone that is immersed in all that and studies this sort of thing extremely closely, and he’s also someone that is an advocate for consequences as well. We cannot just have an educational approach; there does need to be consequences when people transgress, and particularly when they transgress in an egregious manner—in this case, against first responders, some of our most worthy citizens and well-meaning citizens putting themselves into places of trouble.

The scale of this issue is significant. The figures I’ve got here—we’ve got, for 2019 to date, 1,800 assaults on police officers, including 350 that resulted in injuries; 655 assaults against prison officers, of which 20 were serious and 16 were of a sexual nature. In 2018, we know that there was, in terms of the ambulance and Fire and Emergency response, 747 crew abuse cases, including 193 assaults. These first responders are often dealing with distressed, drunk, or drugged individuals, and it is a dangerous situation all too often. Those figures are stark, and I’m quite, actually, alarmed by them. This is totally unacceptable, and New Zealand First will not stand by and accept those figures. We would find it unconscionable that the Parliament would not prioritise our first responders in supporting this bill, and I’m pleased to hear so far that the speakers from both the Labour and National parties have indicated they will support this bill.

Of course, the key measure, I think, is the minimum sentence of six months. If you assault a first responder, you are going to jail, and that is a strong deterrent along with other measures. I think that that is the key feature of the bill. We’re just sending a signal as a society and as a Parliament that assault on first responders is totally unacceptable and we will not countenance it.

So in the 13 months since this bill was introduced or drawn, there have been literally hundreds of assaults against our first responders. We must get on and deliver this bill so that we can actually give them the security and the protection that they deserve in the important work that they do. So my urging to the Parliament is: let’s get on with the job, get this bill passed, and put those protections in place. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Bills

Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2)

First Reading

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): I move, That the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

Current legislation provides that New Zealanders are entitled to bereavement leave after the loss of a family member or a child, but it is currently unclear whether that includes loss through miscarriage or stillbirth. Currently, the bereavement provisions within the Holidays Act 2003 are ambiguous in their application to this particular area. Employees are entitled to three days’ bereavement leave on the death of a child, but it is unclear whether this would also apply to a pregnancy that ends in miscarriage or stillbirth. This means that an employee’s entitlement to take leave is left to the discretion of their employer. An employee would otherwise need to take sick leave or annual leave, depending on whether they had it available. Because the law is unclear, it can lead to disputes between employees and employers regarding the entitlement to bereavement leave at a particularly sensitive time in someone’s life.

My bill proposes a simple change that allows existing bereavement leave to be automatically made available for those who have had a miscarriage or stillbirth. This leave would be made available to both the mother and her partner, as both parents are affected.

Miscarriage is the term used for the loss of a pregnancy up to the 20th week of gestation. The loss of a pregnancy after that date is known as stillbirth. The overwhelming majority of miscarriages happen before 13 weeks. One in every four New Zealand women has had a miscarriage, with over 20,000 miscarriages occurring each year in our country. For something that occurs so much, we do not talk about it that often.

While this bill may be a small and simple change in legislation, if passed, it will make a significant difference. I know this as nearly 7,000 people have signed a petition in support of this particular legislative change. Along with these signatures, many women have written, with their stories of miscarriage experiences. They’ve also described the process of engaging with an employer afterwards. While there were many instances of good employers providing adequate time for families to grieve, there were also accounts of women who were not afforded any time to recover, whether that was physically or emotionally.

The most common concern raised was that women were unsure of their rights. They did not want to ask for leave at a time when they were feeling vulnerable. More than one stated that they did not want to cause a fuss or to enter into a dispute with their employer at a sensitive time such as this. They just got on with life.

One particular account that has remained with me was from a woman in the Hutt Valley who found out that her baby’s heart was no longer beating. She was advised by her health professional to wait until she miscarried and that further medical steps would be taken if the process did not occur naturally. At this time, she needed to work, and she travelled into Wellington and back each day on the train, fearful each day that she would miscarry while away from home. What she had wanted was to be with her partner to feel safe and supported in her own home and to have the time to pack away the things she had purchased for the nursery. I believe no woman should have to go through this.

The measure of our society is how we look after people. I believe that New Zealanders are compassionate, and this proposed change in law will demonstrate that we care.

Many women spoke about how they felt: ashamed, sometimes embarrassed, fearful of being judged, and concerned that others would find out what had happened. While it is important that this bill provides greater certainty in employment law, it is just as important for the message that it sends. For too long, issues related to women’s bodies, sexual health, and reproductive rights have been treated as topics that are not up for public discussion. I believe we owe it to ourselves and the next generation to change this. Being embarrassed or made to feel ashamed helps no one. The more we talk, debate, and encourage openness the more informed we will be.

There have been some significant issues debated in this very House this year. As a new MP, it has heartened me to see the maturity and the level of agreement on issues that people feel so strongly about and that affect the lives of so many. I’ve spoken to all parties represented in this House, and I hope to have their continued support for this bill.

I was genuinely surprised at the extent of international interest in this bill when it was first drawn last year. Not just Newstalk ZB but also CNN, BBC World, The Guardian, The Independent, and Marie Claire reported on our country being one of the few in the world to introduce legislation that enabled bereavement leave to be taken for miscarriage. As part of that coverage, the question was raised as to whether this bill applies to abortion. It does not. It specifically relates to miscarriage and to stillbirth.

First, it is important to note that the origin of this bill was from a member of the public who had miscarried and who wished to access bereavement leave but was unsure of whether she was entitled to it. Second, I want this bill to pass. There is a genuine need for New Zealand men and women to have time to grieve when a pregnancy ends in miscarriage or stillbirth. This is a simple member’s bill that will provide some support to families in need.

There are a few people that I would like to acknowledge. Firstly, Kathryn van Beek, this is really your bill. Thank you for having the courage to raise this as an issue and to bring it to your local member of Parliament. You have been a strong advocate for women. I am proud and grateful to live in a country where a member of the public can identify a problem, bring it to an MP, and potentially change the law to help many others.

I would like to acknowledge my colleague Clare Curran, who was that member of Parliament that Kathryn van Beek initially approached with this as an idea. I would like to acknowledge those unions who have already put this as a provision within collective agreements since the bill was first drawn. To my mum, who had more than one miscarriage and was brave enough to talk to me about it and the impact it had on her.

I would like to thank the hundreds of men and women who have taken the time to write or contact me to voice their support for this bill. I hope there is enough support in this House for it to proceed to select committee so that many others get the opportunity to have their views heard and their stories told. The bill would also be strengthened with the benefit of the public submissions process. It currently provides that bereavement leave is able to be taken on the unplanned end of an employee’s confirmed pregnancy by way of miscarriage or stillbirth. Further advice and information gained through the select committee submissions process will be important in order to understand the best way for this new provision to be accessed by the public and also for it to practically operate.

Losing a baby unexpectedly is a painful experience for parents and whānau. No legislation will ever have the power to heal that loss, but this bill can give a bit more than what we have now, giving the certainty to families that they will have at least some time to grieve. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): I rise on behalf of the National Party to commend this bill to the House. Firstly, can I take a moment to acknowledge everybody who has been involved in the development of this bill: firstly, Kathryn van Beek—what an extraordinary, amazing woman. I have read her comments around the development of this bill. She was a New Zealander that chose to fight, through courage and resilience, to have this issue brought to Parliament. In doing so, she has fundamentally changed the course of history to ensure that a group of women and families, in my view, are better off as a result of this law.

Secondly, can I acknowledge her local MP: Clare Curran. The reality is that like many of us, I know in my electorate I would have somewhere over 10,000 constituency cases or queries or contacts that come through my office each year, and often, when people sit in my office and they say “Well, will it really make a difference—sitting down with your local MP?”, I say, “Yes, actually, there are times where I’ve written to Ministers and policies have changed, and laws have changed as a result of it.”

So I acknowledge you, Clare, as well, and that as a result of someone approaching you—a constituent—we’re now in this position where law, in my view, will change, and then, obviously, Ginny Andersen, because you’ve then taken up the mantle of putting forward a bill that has been drawn out of the members’ bill ballot. That takes work. It takes quite a lot of drafting and it takes the ability as well to work across the House to try and gather support for it. So I want to acknowledge all of those people that have worked hard to get to this point.

But, fundamentally, the reason that the National Party supports this law change is we understand the real trauma that occurs as a result of a miscarriage but also stillbirth, and we don’t want to leave it up to chance. That’s why we’re prepared to support a law that says that as of right, women will have access to three days’ bereavement leave. So the question then becomes: well, what’s been happening now? Now, the reality is we do acknowledge that there are many employers out there that have done the right thing: naturally, when they have someone who is grieving, they have given them leave. But what this bill is about is actually establishing a much stronger parliamentary provision in law that says, actually, as of right, people should have that right to have three days’ bereavement leave.

I do want to acknowledge the real—both physical, and emotional and mental—impact of a miscarriage. There’s research that demonstrates many women experience depression. They experience anxiety. There’s increasing research that demonstrates that for a number of women, there’s post-traumatic stress disorder as a result, and also there are physical impacts that occur often for many women when they have a miscarriage. So from our perspective, this is absolutely the right thing to do. It’s not just about being a compassionate country; it’s also about recognising the real health and wellbeing issues and the trauma that is often, for many people, lifelong that results as a result of having a miscarriage or losing a child.

I just want to acknowledge as well—and we hear it when we read some of what Kathryn van Beek has written—the fact that there are women in New Zealand and families that have had to deal with being turned down and not have leave. So not only have they been through this extraordinary trauma they’re dealing with of having a miscarriage, but then at that moment of extraordinary trauma, where they could have depression or anxiety or have post-traumatic stress disorder, and they could be dealing with physical issues as a result of the miscarriage, they’ve been told that they will not have leave. We’ve heard women who have spoken out on this, and I guess what I would say, from the Opposition’s point of view, is our heart goes out to you and to all of those people that have experienced that terrible, horrific situation of, basically, having further trauma at the time of your greatest need. Again, that is why our party have said we support this law proceeding, because we understand there are real people that have had additional trauma as a result of being turned down.

I do want to acknowledge as well—and I’m sure that this will be discussed at select committee—that people will raise real privacy issues in terms of the mechanics around how this all works. I think we should have that debate at select committee, but I think the principle that we strengthen the law is incredibly sound. I have no doubt that there will be some employers that will turn up to select committee and say, “Well, as a blanket rule, this Act could add additional cost.” From our perspective on this side of the House, we are absolutely supporting this bill because we would actually argue the additional cost in trauma—can you put a price on the trauma and additional depression, anxiety, the physical impacts that women and families are going through? What this is about is just ensuring that we entrench that right that people can take that time period off.

I would acknowledge—and I heard it, obviously, in Ginny Andersen’s speech—that the world is watching. There are only a few jurisdictions, potentially, that do this, but I do also acknowledge that if you look at a country like India, for instance, they have actually a number of weeks. As I understand it, in Canada they also have a number of weeks. So you can argue that, well, this is a small number of jurisdictions across the world, but the other argument is, actually, that in other jurisdictions, they’ve done a lot more. But we look forward to having that debate at select committee around the time period and the appropriateness of that, and we look forward to investigating further what other jurisdictions do.

But, ultimately, I would step back and say that, look, fundamentally, we are a kind and compassionate nation. We have demonstrated on numerous issues in the past that we can be incredibly progressive and that the Parliament can work together cross-party on a number of those issues. Again, I don’t think that it matters whether it’s dealing with issues of health and safety or dealing with this particular issue and the ability of entrenching the right of people to take bereavement leave where there is a miscarriage. I think we can do more in this area, and that’s why the National Party want to support this bill.

Finally, I do want to make my final comments to, again, Kathryn van Beek, who has worked incredibly hard with both Clare Curran and Ginny Andersen. I just acknowledge you. I acknowledge all of the other women that have raised their voice on this issue, and from the National Party’s point of view, we will absolutely be supporting this bill to the House because we want to do everything that we can to reduce, where possible, additional trauma and anxiety and to give women and their families the ability to have the time together to appropriately grieve in what is one of the hardest situations that you can imagine in life. National supports this bill to the House.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Well, I think it was nearly three years ago—in fact, it might be slightly more than three years ago—that Kathryn van Beek wrote a letter, actually, to all of the MPs in Dunedin raising her own personal circumstances, having suffered a miscarriage and the pain it had caused and having done a little bit of research on what a potential change in law might look like and begging to come and talk to somebody about it.

I met with her at the beginning of 2017 in my office and we talked for a while, and what we decided was that she would go away and build some support amongst other women—she had been, I think, on a Facebook page; there was a support page—for a law change and then we’d talk again. It took her nearly a year to come back to me, for lots of reasons. Kathryn, I hope that you are watching today, because, boy, you did the work.

She had built a lot of support and I want to read to you some of the comments that were made by other women when Kathryn reached out. I’ll just read a few.

“I found out at 17 weeks my baby boys heartbeat had stopped and had a D&C the next day. My bosses didn’t even question details, giving me full bereavement and any time I needed off in the weeks following (which is awesome because they’re all the biggest bunch of lads). This was a big help, I was incapable of functioning for a while. Totally support this.”—that woman was lucky because she had support.

“I lost my very first baby [in 2017] to miscarriage. After having a miscarriage confirmed, I took a week off work to help with the grieving process. My partner also took a week off. What really pissed me off is that he got given bereavement leave by his work, yet I wasn’t, even though I was the one who was carrying the baby. After my week off, I attempted to go back to work but was not ready to so asked for another day off. I was told by my bosses to ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ because it wasn’t a real loss and that I had been taken off the rosters for two weeks and that they were now looking for a replacement for me as I had become unreliable. I handed in my resignation the next day. Miscarriage definitely needs to be recognised as bereavement leave.”

Kathryn, the work that you did has made such a huge change. By the time she came back to me the Government had changed and I was a Minister, and I really wanted this to become law. Ginny really was keen, and Ginny, you have done such incredible work on this issue that has got international recognition. It is something that really means an awful lot.

If we did a survey of women in this House, I wonder how many would put up their hands and say they’d had a miscarriage, because we are reflective of society. I haven’t had a miscarriage, but I did go through several years of pain and trauma in trying to conceive and going through IVF. Every woman who has been through these sorts of experiences knows how important it is to receive support and how alone you can feel without it. What this bill does is makes society recognise the importance of this issue, and gives and sanctions the importance of women and families going through the pain and trauma of miscarriage. This is a bill that corrects an ambiguity, it removes an ambiguity, and it’s simple but powerful. It’s amazing today that everyone, I hope, across this House, is going to support it.

I just want to say something else about Kathryn van Beek. She has many strings to her bow. At the time she came in to see me at the end of 2017, she handed me a book that she’d written and illustrated. It’s called Bruce Finds a Home and it’s about a kitten. She’s a children’s writer. She’s writing another book at the moment on pets. It explores the relationships that we have with animals in a short story, and that is called Emotional Support Animal. Thank you, Kathryn, for the amazing work that you’ve done to get us this far on this issue.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to stand in support in the first reading of this piece of legislation, the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2), which, as those who’ve been watching or listening will know, is in Ginny Anderson’s name, and Clare Curran, who’s just resumed her seat, has been instrumental in bringing it to the House.

I do want to just say, though, in terms of Kathryn van Beek that I think that the reality with bringing this issue to an MP and then to Parliament is it’s actually exposing a very hidden issue. There’ll be other examples in this House, myself included, where a constituent—in my case, Graeme Moyle—has brought an issue that ends up as a member’s bill. But this one is different because it’s an issue that has been hidden from view, and it’s hidden for a couple of reasons.

One of the challenges is that often miscarriages take place in the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy. That is the time that many parents to be, on medical advice or other advice, actually don’t tell anyone they are expecting, so then, if there’s a miscarriage during that time, not only have you not told anyone you’re pregnant but to then tell someone you’ve miscarried is also kind of a bit strange. I’ve been in that situation. I was six weeks with my first miscarriage, and because I hadn’t told anyone I was expecting, it then felt quite strange to tell someone I’d miscarried.

So I think for an employment situation, I’m sure there are many employers who want to support the people that work for them, but because they weren’t aware of the pregnancy it’s particularly challenging to then be able to respond, in a way, as well. So I think this piece of legislation is really important, and I think there’ll be issues, like every piece of legislation that comes out in a select committee, that will be traversed in terms of the practicalities, but I do think it’s a really important issue to be talking about.

I also had a miscarriage at 17 weeks, which was the next kind of scenario—when everybody knows—and the thing that’s strange about miscarriage, and why I think it’s particularly important this Parliament debates it, is how frequently it occurs but, actually, how rarely it’s spoken about. So by bringing this issue to Parliament, I’m hopeful that this will be a conversation that more people can have, not just with their loved ones but also with their employers and their work colleagues, because the reality is there are a number of health impacts with pregnancy, and very definitely when a pregnancy comes to an unplanned end. My colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye talked about these. There are physical ones, there are emotional issues, and it is an issue for a family, you know, and not just the woman who was pregnant and then miscarried.

So National will be supporting this in the first reading. It’s a very sensible, practical measure that supports women and their families. I think, more importantly, it’s an issue that needs to be discussed and that we need to talk about. We need to have a conversation as a wider community and as a country, so that for someone who has miscarried—and I can totally get the comment that Clare Curran made about an employer who says “Just get over it.” Well, you know, what that tells us very clearly is some people have absolutely no idea, and, unfortunately, part of having no idea is because it’s a hidden issue and it’s not talked about, and people have no idea how traumatic it is. I remember trying to explain to my three-year-old son that now there was no baby.

So it’s about having those conversations more openly. It’s about the ability for someone, whether it’s the woman who was carrying the baby, the wider family, or the husband, to be able to get support, to be able to have conversations, to get professional advice if they need it, and to take this issue and put it under the fresh air, which means anyone who’s got a challenge in dealing with it can get the support they need, and, actually, the front-line support is from their employer, who can say, “Take the time you need.” So by putting the three days’ entitlement to bereavement leave into this legislation, I think it’s a fantastic first step that will help women and children and their families up and down this country. Thank you.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to acknowledge Louise Upston for sharing some private details with this House and those people back home. It is a subject that is a very emotional one for many people, and those that have suffered the loss of a child through a miscarriage know that feeling too well. I also want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen and Clare Curran for stewarding this bill through the House, and also acknowledge Kathryn van Beek, who started with small beginnings, had a situation herself, and wanted to find a solution. That, for me, just resonates how important this parliamentary system that we operate under is and how this open democracy that we have enables the voice for people that sometimes don’t know how to follow a pathway. When you can actually see that first-hand today, it gives me a great sense of pride because not all countries have what we’ve got here, and I think we should all be very pleased that we belong to this system. New Zealand First will very, very proudly be supporting this piece of legislation.

I guess it’s worth noting that with regard to the two stories that Clare Curran shared with the House in relation to a good employer versus a bad employer, it’s not actually a 50:50 situation. I don’t know what the numbers are, but I know a lot of employers who wouldn’t hesitate for a second to absolutely support their employees in moments of need and who understand the importance of time and giving that certainty and who would be compassionate to the people that help their businesses grow, develop, sustain, and maintain. So I guess it’s an opportunity to shame what I believe is a very, very, very small number of employers that don’t have that compassionate side in their thinking and understanding of what people go through. Whether they haven’t experienced it themselves, or whether they’re on a spectrum, potentially, that doesn’t understand the necessity of giving time and space for people, I think it’s a time for them to have some reflection.

This bill I see going all the way through and not only through select committee, and we’re certainly very keen and interested to hear what submitters will say about how the mechanics will work, because I think protecting people’s privacy is absolutely key. Telling people intimate parts of their lives—as Louise Upston has already mentioned, she was in a situation in employment, but she hadn’t told her employer that she was pregnant—and then to go and share that intimate information around having a miscarriage could be very, very daunting and could actually slow down that process and add more unnecessary stress at a time like that. So I think the select committee process, where people have the opportunity to come and air their concerns and talk about some of those solutions, is going to be very closely monitored and looked at, and I believe that if there are any changes being looked at to be made, that is the time and the place.

The only point that New Zealand First would like to raise—and, again, in select committee, this would be an opportunity to look at that, and in the committee of the whole House, potentially, put forward a Supplementary Order Paper, unless we can resolve it beforehand—is in the amendment to section 69. It’s only a very small bill. It’s new section 69(2)(d). It says here “on the unplanned end of an employee’s spouse or partner’s confirmed pregnancy by way of a miscarriage or still-birth.”, and it doesn’t specifically mention fathers. It does talk about partners, but sometimes you have situations where a relationship breaks up post-pregnancy and this miscarriage takes place, and that would potentially preclude a father from actually having that same time to convalesce and grieve in private. So that needs to be considered, because I don’t believe the intent was ever to miss out fathers in this situation, and it would be certainly worthwhile us considering.

The removal of any subjectivity from an employer is, I think, important. As I’ve already said, this is a very small part of the employers out there. I for one have been an employer on a large scale for many, many years, and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid for a second to ensure that the staff, the team, the family—the extended family that you have working in your environment—aren’t properly and adequately looked after.

So New Zealand First very proudly supports this bill through and looks forward to it being fully completed and the measure introduced. Thank you.

Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity. I’m taking this call to support this legislation in its first reading. I would like to join my other colleagues in acknowledging Kathryn van Beek, and I also want to acknowledge the Hon Clare Curran and Ginny Andersen. I want to acknowledge Kathryn van Beek for her courage—the courage that she had to bring this issue up with her local member of Parliament—and then I want to acknowledge the Hon Clare Curran for taking up this issue and passing it on to Ginny Andersen, and, of course, Ginny Andersen for putting this bill forward as her member’s bill.

I want to congratulate Ginny Andersen for her bill coming before the House for the first reading. I would like to also add that the timing for this bill to come up for the first reading is great, because we are about to go on Christmas break. I’m hoping that the bill will go through the first reading and that it is coming to the Education and Workforce Committee, which I chair. So we will be able to open for submissions for this legislation, and by the time we come back, we will be ready to work on this legislation in the select committee process. So I believe the timing for this bill to come before the House is actually really good.

This bill deals with the Holidays Act 2003. This bill is to make an amendment to the Holidays Act 2003. This is the part of the section that deals with bereavement leave, and I have to say that this bill deals with a real concern within the community.

We understand that when a miscarriage happens in a family, it’s a very traumatic situation, and I want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen for sharing her family’s experiences and I also want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston for sharing her family’s experiences. When you hear about those experiences, sometimes you wonder why we have missed out on including bereavement leave for miscarriages in the Holidays Act 2003 for so many years, because there are a number of women who go through a miscarriage, but, as we have also heard from the members, it is an issue that is very difficult to talk about.

I personally know many families and individuals that didn’t disclose their pregnancy only because they were not sure if their pregnancy was going to last for the full term, so they waited for that assurance from their general practitioner or a doctor before they went out and announced their pregnancy not only to their friends but also to their extended family members. So to talk about a miscarriage can be quite difficult, and the last thing those people want to do is negotiate for the kind of leave they should be getting from their employer. If they have any sick leave left, yes, they can access that sick leave, but if they don’t have any sick leave remaining, then the only situation they are left with is to take annual leave to deal with the traumatic situation.

We know that most of our employers are really good employers, and that employees and employers work in a good-faith relationship with each other. But there could be a small proportion of employers—and it could be because of the workload that they have—that may not be prepared to give annual leave to their staff when that annual leave is requested, and it can become quite difficult for that staff member to actually disclose that the leave is required to deal with a miscarriage. So with this amendment, what will happen is that the employers will be required to give that leave—three days of bereavement leave—to deal with the trauma and to deal with their grief.

On this side, we highly value work and family life balance. When we were in Government, we extended paid parental leave. We also extended paid parental leave to other forms of work arrangements that were not included in the legislation before, and this will be another thing that will get added to the Holidays Act 2003 if this bill goes through all the stages in the House.

I also want to talk about the difference between a stillbirth and a miscarriage. A stillbirth is when a birth happens after 20 weeks of gestation, and the weight of that dead foetus is more than 400 grams. A miscarriage is when it happens before 20 weeks, and the weight of the foetus is less than 400 grams. Bereavement leave applies if a child dies, so the overall outcome in these circumstances—we cannot compare it directly, but the overall outcome, I would say, if we try to compare it, is the same. A family is in a situation where they have lost a child or a to-be child in their family, so I believe that this is legislation on which we will receive a number of submissions in the select committee process, and I look forward to hearing various views on this legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with great pleasure that I rise to add the Green Party’s voice of support in the House today to the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). I too would like to add my acknowledgments to Kathryn van Beek for bringing this issue to Clare Curran as a member of Parliament initially, and then for her work with Ginny Andersen, who has so effectively brought this piece of legislation to the House with—so far—unanimous support. That is a significant achievement.

This is, in the heart, quite a simple piece of legislation. It’s ensuring that bereavement leave is accessible, and universally accessible, for families who have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. That’s needed because the current legislation for bereavement leave is silent on the application.

We’ve heard from many people in the House that a lot of employers automatically gave it when asked, because they had a sense of connection, I can only imagine, to the wellbeing of their staff and wanted to support them, but that has not been a universal experience. Kathryn spoke and wrote quite, I think, eloquently describing her outrage after her own experience to find out on asking the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment around whether bereavement leave was accessible, only to be told that it was up to the bereaved person to convince their employer that their baby is worth grieving. Those are her words, and that is what we are changing today—that the onus will not be on the bereaved parents to prove that their grief allows them access to time to grieve, and that, actually, this is our expectation as a country that every family be able to grieve as they need.

I do want to also reinforce the message that has come from others in the House today—and I heard it eloquently presented by Louise Upston—around the value of providing visibility for an issue that is still very taboo in our society and there is so much silence over. But I want to acknowledge the case as represented by Clare Curran via Kathryn van Beek of somebody being told by her employer to get over it and that she wasn’t entitled to feelings of grief, and just how inhumane that response is. All of the research and evidence and lived experience tells us that everyone’s experience will be different. Some women, some people, will find that, actually, it doesn’t have a huge impact on them, but for others, it’s going to be a very complex mix of feelings of confusion and grief and loss, a sense of emptiness, a sense of loss of trust in their own bodies and a sense of loss of control, and a concern around their future hopes and dreams for their family. That’s a lot to be dealing with.

I’m very, very pleased, on behalf of the Green Party, to be supporting this legislation to ensure that people who need the time to grieve are given at least the consistent ability to access time as other people who are experiencing bereavement. I think we are all better off when our workplaces are compassionate and humane, and this legislation helps us towards that end. Thank you.

AGNES LOHENI (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to be able to stand to make a contribution on this, the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2) at its first reading. I’m pleased to also support this bill to the House.

I’ve been very heartened by the speeches on this bill so far. It’s been handled with a lot of sensitivity and compassion for something that we will have to still apply some robustness to in the select committee process. We’ve heard today that miscarriage is an issue that affects, roughly, 20,000 women every year. I believe that number’s probably higher, and I echo the sentiments that my colleague Louise Upston mentioned about the number of women that, because of the early stage of their miscarriage, wouldn’t have necessarily reported it to their GP.

As a woman and as a mother of five children, I say that I have also experienced a miscarriage. This was quite a long time ago and I’m having to reflect on that time, but, particularly, I had already given birth to two very healthy children, so I was extremely shocked that, at 12 weeks, my baby had died—so the shock in terms of “How could it be that I couldn’t bring another healthy baby to life, to full term?” There were mixed feelings, including one of guilt and including one of being quite critical of perhaps “What did I do or what did I not do right this time around?” I can imagine this is an experience that is very different for every woman. That was a profound sense of loss for my husband and myself. At that time, because of the early stage, not many people had known. We hadn’t told many people, so it was sort of a sense of loss that we just shared between ourselves.

So I actually really commend Ginny Andersen and Clare Curran for bringing this issue to light and bringing this to Parliament. I commend this going to select committee, as a woman and as a mother that has had a miscarriage, and I am also a business owner and I am also an employer of a small business that has employed largely women. In that intimate setting of a small business with predominantly female employees, over the last 17 years, it has been an environment where we, as business owners, become quite intimately aware of some of the issues that our workers have in their lives. We have dealt with issues of domestic violence with our workers, we have become aware of issues where there are issues with their children, and we have become aware of issues where they have had miscarriages and also where they’ve had pregnancies.

So as an employer I understand—and I think most small-business employers would fall into this category—that we are very compassionate in those situations and generally understanding, and that it works in the best benefit of our businesses to take that approach with our employees. I understand, sadly, that that won’t be the case for many. So I do commend this process going to select committee so that we can hear from other voices, other businesses, and other women, ensuring that we put the best light on this bill as possible. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is with great pride that I rise to make a contribution on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). I say that for a few different reasons: firstly, of course, because it is a significant bill that will make life a little bit easier for those who are going through a particularly traumatic time in their lives. I also say that I rise with pride because the bill is in the name of Ginny Andersen, who is a fellow “class of ’17er”. I just want to congratulate her for her luck in having her bill drawn from the ballot—a bit of luck that some of us haven’t experienced yet. But I also want to commend her for the work that she’s put into getting the bill to where it’s at today.

I also want to acknowledge at the onset of my contribution the role that Clare Curran has played in the genesis of this bill, and, of course, Kathryn van Beek, who brought this to the attention of her local MP and who has worked incredibly hard also to get us, collectively, to the point that we’re at today. As others have mentioned before me, this is a simple bill—if one were to look at it now, it makes a simple change that allows for existing bereavement leave to be made available to those who have had a miscarriage or a stillbirth—but, as I said when I started my contribution, it makes a significant change to the lives of people, and that’s what all of us are here in this House to do.

It clarifies the law, in which, previously, allowing the leave has been left to the discretion of an employer. It clarifies it and makes things a little bit easier for women who have been in a position where they’re unsure as to how that piece of legislation might be interpreted by their employer. We’ve heard before that we’ve seen mixed results when employers have been approached by those who want to take bereavement leave after losing their child through miscarriage or stillbirth. Some have been successful, and others haven’t. There are always good employers who are empathetic and want to support, but there’s always that problematic minority as well, and this legislation clarifies it for everyone involved.

Members before me have spoken about the time of trauma when someone has lost their child. There is trauma, obviously, for the woman who has miscarried or experienced a stillbirth but also for the partner who goes through that time of loss, and, from what I’ve heard, a time also of loneliness that the couple feels, either because they haven’t talked about the pregnancy before and therefore feel uncomfortable to talk about the loss of that pregnancy but also because there are issues around shame and guilt.

I want to echo a point made by Ginny Andersen in her speech, in her contribution today, where she talked about the fact that the content of this bill is incredibly important but equally important is the message that it sends, which is the fact that it is OK to talk about these experiences. It’s OK to talk about women’s sexual health and reproductive rights and related issues. I want to commend the women who have supported the passage of this bill to its first reading and who have talked about their experiences in the public domain, and that includes my colleagues here in this House, from both sides of the House, who have shared some very personal experiences and stories. It is incredibly difficult to do that in the public domain, and I want to commend you for that.

As the chair of the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development—the focus of that cross-party group here is to shed light on issues to do with women’s sexual health and reproductive rights—it makes me particularly proud to support the passage of this bill. Also, I just want to touch on the fact that this bill is a testament to the strong democracy that we are in New Zealand. The fact that a constituent takes a matter of importance to a member of Parliament who listens to her, takes it seriously, and works with her to shape the concern into a piece of legislation which we can now support to first reading and, hopefully, beyond, I think, is incredibly powerful.

Can I once again acknowledge everyone who’s had a role to play in this and those who will have a role to play at the select committee, going forward, as well. The international community is watching. This is the right thing to do. I commend this bill to the House.

JO HAYES (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m privileged to stand and take a call on the Holidays (Bereavement Leave for Miscarriage) Amendment Bill (No 2). This is a momentous time in this House for women and for women’s sexual health. I cannot even hazard a guess as to the emotion and as to the loss from a miscarriage because I have never had one, but I have family members that have had one. For some, they have had multiple miscarriages. What we have done as a whānau is we have rallied around them, but it has also been one of those things that many people decide they don’t want to talk about. This whole area of secrecy around miscarriage should never happen, and I think that this bill will actually bring it to light. It will bring it to light. There is no shame in a miscarriage, and I think that this is what this bill is about.

For most women, pregnancy is one of the most highlighted experiences that a woman can have and a family can experience. It’s where a mother and a father and all the family rally around. Unfortunately, as Ginny Andersen pointed out in her contribution, one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, and that is very sad. It’s a very sad indictment that women who experience miscarriage also have to experience the humiliation of seeking leave—bereavement leave—so they can go and grieve their loss along with their husband and their family.

I want to acknowledge everybody who’s been involved in developing this bill. I don’t know Kathryn van Beek from Dunedin, but I just want to say congratulations to you, Kathryn. As Ginny Andersen pointed out in her contribution, this is your bill. This is your bill for standing up for all women who have suffered miscarriage. So in this House, this bill is dedicated to the hard work and for you making the approach to the Hon Clare Curran so that she can bring this to the House. I also want to acknowledge Clare for the hard work that she has done over the three or four years in bringing this bill here, and also Ginny Andersen for picking up the mantle and shepherding this bill in for its first reading.

On this side of the House, we are very proud to be able to support this bill to the select committee. I think more and more stories will emerge around some of the issues that women who have faced miscarriage have faced in their employment. But, in saying that, I also want to acknowledge most employers, who are sympathetic and who are empathetic to women who have had miscarriages, and who have given them, in some cases, more than three days to grieve their loss along with their family members.

I want to acknowledge also Louise Upston and Agnes Loheni on this side of the House for sharing with the House their losses. It’s very difficult. Along with other bills that we’ve had in this House around abortion and all of those other issues that women face throughout their lives, we can actually stand in this House and support these women so they need not hide in secrecy or hide away in shame that they have suffered a loss of miscarriage.

I want to close my contribution by, once again, acknowledging all of those brave women who will come to the select committee and share their stories, along with agencies and along with employers, around how they can actually support their stories around how employers give women leave to go and grieve. I want to acknowledge all the fathers as well and the children of the families, because in those miscarriages, for some of those women—as Agnes has outlined—they were either second or third babies that were miscarried. So ka aroha to all of those women. It is with pleasure that I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, thank you very much. I’m very honoured. I feel quite privileged to have my very first member’s bill read for a first time in this House today, and it is an even greater sense of pride I have that all parties within this House are supporting this bill. That’s so encouraging to see on such an important issue, not just for women but for families in New Zealand as well.

I would like to acknowledge all of the women that have spoken today, whether they’ve shared their personal experiences or spoken about issues that are important to them. This is not just an important change in law but it provides a great opportunity for women to talk about issues that are important for women, opening up a lot of those discussion areas that previously I don’t think we’ve done well enough in the past. So I thank all of those women who have spoken today.

The next step in this bill will be the select committee process at the Education and Workforce Committee, so I would like to spend just a short period of time making a clear call-out to anybody who would like to submit on this bill. I think it’s incredibly important for all of those who have already written to me, whether they be organisations or individuals, to be aware that over the holiday period, we hope that the submissions period will be open. I wholeheartedly encourage any person or organisation in New Zealand with an interest in this area to make sure that your voice is heard. It’s yet another opportunity in our great democratic system for your voices to contribute to how legislation is formed and takes shape, and I encourage everybody to take that opportunity up.

In that same vein of how wonderful the small and beautiful democratic nation of New Zealand is, I’ve been in frequent texting contact with the person who started this bill off, Kathryn van Beek. I asked her, just recently, “The summing up bit is coming. Is there anything that you would like to add?”, so it’s quite nice to be in contact with the person who really was the starting point of this bill. Her words that she would like added at the final stage of this first reading process are that this is a small change for employers, but it makes a big difference for people, and it shows that people care and that society cares at a time when someone can feel isolated. I think that wonderfully encapsulates what we’re doing today. It shows that a small change in legislation to make bereavement leave available for miscarriage and for stillbirth enables a grieving process to take place, and it’s the right thing to do for a compassionate country such as ours.

So I would like to finish by thanking all of the parties that have given their support for this piece of legislation today and all of those members that have spoken so wholeheartedly about their views and the importance of this issue for New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Bills

Broadcasting (New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho Reporting Requirements) Amendment Bill

First Reading

MELISSA LEE (National): I move, That the Broadcasting (New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho Reporting Requirements) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill.

Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge some people, those people who have actually assisted me in the drafting of this bill: current and former National advisers Finn Stichbury and James Meager, as well as my personal adviser, Matthew Ian Stephens. They, alongside the Table Office team led by Matthew Louwrens, were a great assistance in the development of this member’s bill’s concept and design.

The Broadcasting (New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho Reporting Requirements) Amendment Bill would require New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho, as the main two funding agencies of public broadcasting content in Aotearoa, to provide data publicly as to the performance and viewership of the programming they fund every quarter. Many smaller productions with limited budgets do not have the funds to gain this data themselves through third parties such as the Nielsen people meters and what have you, and often they do not have the authority or the status to demand for this data to be given to them by the agencies themselves if they have collected this data. I should know; I used to be one of those little minnows in the television industry. I believe it is important—[Interruption] It is true. I was one of those little minnows who actually wanted the viewership data from New Zealand On Air, but New Zealand On Air would not provide it because they never actually even collected the data because we were Sunday morning minority ethnic programming, so they never even counted how many people actually watched that programme. So it was always an issue for me and many other productions who were small, who weren’t the big players in the industry, who wanted to know so that we could do it better.

Anyway, I believe it is important and it is in the national interest that all New Zealanders should be able to know what the Government is funding and at what cost, and what viewership the programmes, in fact, have and draw in terms of the attention. At the present time, only some data is disclosed publicly. The data that is currently available has usually been disclosed in a six-monthly ministerial report and the official annual report that they are currently required to disclose. However, they do not disclose all current information, such as most of their viewership or tracking data figures, citing commercial sensitivity. The rest is consigned to the realm of Official Information Act (OIA) requests, which, naturally, can be misleading or have significant data withheld—again, citing commercial sensitivity or another part of section 9 of the OIA—making such an attempt to gain the data inherently a red herring.

My member’s bill will involve the publication, where relevant, of the television ratings, radio ratings, and online views, among many other reporting tools, alongside the breakdown of costs associated with the funding, and it would require this information quarterly. This bill would ensure that television shows, visual online media, and non - music-based radio programming would be reported on and tracked to safeguard public funds for appropriate content that New Zealanders care about, while also encouraging better funding analysis by the agencies before projects are confirmed and/or renewed. In doing so, I would expect that we would see for ourselves what the state of public broadcasting is truly like in our country. We will be able to see what actual trends are surrounding programming that is unlikely to be supported outside of the State through Crown agencies New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho contributing a boost or the full production costs.

Some may feel and have concern that this bill actually threatens the programming of a non-commercial nature; that, you know, it only relies on high viewership. But having said that, it’s just a ridiculous argument, because how does one compare 6 o’clock or watershed programming versus Sunday morning ethnic programming, for example? The viewership numbers will be very, very different. So it is not purely about numbers.

One of the things when I was producing the programmes was that sometimes the time slots were wrong. If New Zealand On Air believed in the programme and went as far as to fund a programme for the ethnic communities, why was it slotted at 8.30 on a Sunday morning when there weren’t too many people up in the morning to watch the programming? One of the things that we used to argue as producers was that perhaps there should be some responsibility put to the broadcasters so that these programmes that are funded by Te Māngai Pāho or funded by New Zealand On Air should be put on better time slots so that they will be accessible by more people. Broadcasters’ decisions on when the programme is scheduled in terms of time slot has a big impact on the viewership numbers.

It is important that New Zealanders get value for their tax dollars, and a key point of this bill would give an incentive to New Zealand’s taxpayers to run broadcasting funders to think carefully about the initial funding and/or future funding of content in a way that encourages better alignment with the market trends, meaningful content creation, better Kiwi storytelling, better coverage of regional news, quality journalism, and better reflection of the diversity that makes up New Zealand as a nation. To try and actually say “Oh, we have an Asian person appearing on Shortland Street.” is really not the broadcaster’s answer to ethnic diversity. “We have a shopkeeper appearing on Shortland Street.”—that really doesn’t actually answer the question we have. It’s stereotyping, and there should be more programming that actually caters to diverse audiences.

Tracking them—often these funders, New Zealand On Air, they do a great job. Te Māngai Pāho, they do a great job. Having said that, they should really track them—not just fund them; track their performances. Often it’s not just about viewership numbers but how they can improve audience numbers, because they really believe in the programme—that is the reason why they funded it in the first place.

The bill also acknowledges the innovation of the digital sector, with new multimedia platforms now also being funded through New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho. There are more platforms being funded. Viewership no longer just means tracking broadcasting on the small screen or the traditional television screens. YouTube, Facebook, Google Video—there are so many other platforms, and our funders are funding them. But the viewership numbers or the performance is actually not being measured, and this is what I would like to actually happen.

This is actually about transparency. This is about information. This is about tracking the performance and the success; and if it’s actually reaching 1,000 viewership only, it could be considered a success, because that was always about that small minority audience in the television sector. So it is actually about whether this funded programme performs and achieves its goal as it was intended. At the moment, I do not believe that New Zealand On Air nor Te Māngai Pāho actually do this, and what I would like is transparency.

In conclusion, this bill is about New Zealand being secure in the decision made by Crown agencies that the public and the Ministers have no day-to-day control over it. It creates public oversight. The bill is about transparency, as I said, it is about openness, and it is about New Zealanders having the confidence in themselves and our broadcasters to make good public broadcasting decisions for New Zealand audiences. I hope to have the support of this House. There was some support and there were some who actually said that they weren’t going to support, but, hopefully, having actually listened to what I’ve just said, and the reason why I actually put this in the ballot for members’ bills, I would urge the members to reconsider, if they weren’t going to support, to potentially support this. I hope to have the support of this House to take the bill to committee and hear the voices of stakeholders, citizens, and broadcasters as we continue this important discussion about the future of the Government’s role in the broadcasting sector. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Kia ora, Mr Speaker, nō reira tuatahi e tika ana ki te mihi ki ngā mate, ngā mate huhua o te wā, moe mai, koutou anō i mate ai i a Whakaari, moe mai, moe mai koutou. Koutou e huihui mai nei i haere mai nei mō te kaupapa i tēnei rā, tēnā anō koutou katoa.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker, and so firstly it is appropriate to acknowledge the dead, the many dead of this time, rest in peace, you who died at Whakaari / White Island, rest in peace, rest in peace. You who are gathered here and who came for today’s agenda, greetings also to you all.]

Listening to the previous speaker, I’m somewhat confused by that kōrero. Of course, many in the public are also very confused with what Melissa Lee is talking about, because, as she quite rightly said, she fronted Asia Downunder and produced Asia Downunder. I thought she was a terrific presenter and it was a terrific show, and she probably should have stayed in that line of work, because the programme was a big benefactor in terms of taxpayer dollars, and rightfully so; I have no problems with that.

But I think with this type of bill, that type of show is threatened—absolutely threatened—because for some reason, Melissa Lee needs to hear every single thing that’s happening. Through Asia Downunder we had perspectives that we never would have got if we were watching mainstream. It was such a great show. It was needed and it was perfect in terms of what was happening in terms of New Zealand society. It was the type of show that deserved to be funded. Under this bill, I don’t believe that that type of show would be funded again.

As I said, so many of the public or people who critique media are confused by this bill. I just read the chair of the public campaign group Better Public Media, Dr Peter Thompson, who said it was ironic that Melissa Lee received millions of taxpayers’ dollars to make Asia Downunder, but now wants to change the law in what he described as an attack on low-rating public media content. These are our people who are critiquing us and overseeing us all the time.

Russell Brown, on his Public Address blog, noted that New Zealand On Air is committed by law to funding programmes for various niche audiences, which can’t sensibly be measured simply by commercial ratings, and some are funded precisely because they would not be made in a wholly commercial system. Melissa Lee knows this—Melissa Lee knows this—so I’m wondering what is driving this bid to suddenly have our groups, New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho, reporting every five minutes. There’s no need for it, and, in fact, I’ve heard Mike Hosking use the same type of rhetoric. And the Hosking rhetoric is that if it doesn’t rate, get rid of it.

Sadly, I’m hearing that same type of kōrero from Melissa Lee, in a roundabout way. I acknowledge what she has said in terms of a lot of our programmes being put into prime time. In fact, her programme should have been put into prime time; in fact, my programme should have been put into prime time. I’ll take that opportunity to promote my programme, which went for six years. It went for six years, Eye to Eye with Willie Jackson, and it was promoted by New Zealand On Air, and, again, Melissa Lee makes the point, it was put on at times where the audience should have been a lot bigger, but these types of programmes are always put in ghettoised hours. We have a bit of a change now with Q+A now being put on a Monday evening, but her point about those programmes and audiences is valid.

But then she has confused the situation by saying “I need to know. I need to know.” I cannot recall Melissa Lee—when I was looking back and reading, I didn’t read anywhere where Melissa Lee was publicly protesting about this issue when she was fronting and producing Asia Downunder. I can’t recall that; I just recall programme after programme after programme coming out, in terms of Asia Downunder, putting, rightfully, an Asian perspective on things.

The brief of New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho is very clear. New Zealand On Air is designated to reflect the New Zealand identity, to give a New Zealand perspective, to support people who have ideas and dreams, and who want to give a perspective that they would not get in terms of mainstream. We must support that agenda and that kaupapa always. This bill endangers that kaupapa. We can’t commit that agency to an area where ratings, ratings, ratings are the emphasis. The problem with what Melissa Lee is saying is that it epitomises the National Party view that the commercial side of things is the only area that counts. That’s the problem with this view.

In terms of Te Māngai Pāho, Te Māngai Pāho’s brief is Māori language and Māori culture—Māori language and Māori culture. The last thing that Māori television and Māori radio should be worrying about is ratings. If you were to take Melissa Lee’s bill, you would, sadly, sometimes, and I don’t mind admitting it, find under the ratings formula, as Melissa Lee knows—it’s a strange sort of formula, how they work it all out. If you were to attach that to some Māori programmes, some Māori radio shows—not my radio show that was going for a few years, but a lot of radio shows, Māori TV shows—at the end of the day, the audience is actually zero. It is actually zero. That’s how things work out. It probably was the same with Asia Downunder. So, again, under Melissa Lee’s bill you would probably have to close the show down and close the agency down. That’s how dangerous this bill is.

So I know that Melissa Lee is talking about different things within her kōrero today, but I think it masks the fact that the driver behind this bill is this: are these agencies really doing the business in terms of ratings? Are they commercially viable? Those are the dangers that we’re looking at today—those are the dangers that we are looking at today. So if you haven’t guessed, Melissa, Labour’s not supporting this bill. I think you might have guessed that.

I’m looking forward to Clare Curran’s contribution. She has made a huge contribution in terms of broadcasting in this country. We’re not supporting it because it doesn’t support New Zealanders. It doesn’t support New Zealanders; it supports the Mike Hosking - type view of life, and the National Party view, that only ratings count. In terms of where we’re going in society, the commercial side of things is tremendously important.

So I just want us to take stock here, for a moment, because within Māori media, I know a lot of Māori radio providers are very nervous—they don’t have Māori television because they don’t want to be judged in terms of the ratings exercise. It’s another way for them to be judged. So I’m saying we have to take stock and realise that this Government has already put a $15 million investment into Radio New Zealand and New Zealand On Air to start producing more content, including a fund to promote cooperation between the two, and we’ve announced $4 million worth of projects in terms of children’s news, Pasifika, and Asian storytelling. That’s where the dollars and the investment must go. We don’t need any more accountability areas in terms of New Zealand On Air and Te Māngai Pāho. The reportage is enough; the accountability is enough. When you get a programme, you have to give a producer’s report, you have to give a stocktake, you have to give a financial report—everything is already in place—and if you want to get the ratings, you can get the ratings.

So, sadly, today, we can’t support this bill because, well, it’s just not a very good bill—it would act against the interests in terms of all New Zealanders. So I have to put that forward today, but all the best, still, to Melissa Lee. Kia ora āno tātou katoa.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Look, I’m very pleased and proud to stand in support of Melissa Lee’s bill. I actually think it does achieve some very important goals. I couldn’t understand why the Hon Willie Jackson can’t understand it, and then I discovered, halfway through his speech, that he was talking about things that aren’t even in the bill. He’s talking about testing a programme’s, or station’s, commerciality. This is not about that. What this is about is testing the viewers’ or listeners’ value which they give to content. My concern is that if we don’t do this, then we lock up taxpayer funding in programmes that, basically, only really get tested by a producer’s report, instead of, actually, the recipients, the listeners, and the viewers of that content.

What that means is that other people out there in the community who have content that they want to present—perhaps they are a budding communications person or broadcaster that’s come through, you know, the New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch—can’t get in in terms of having some programme funded, because it’s locked up. I think what this does is it analyses, in a very orthodox way, the public’s value and appreciation and support for content. If those reports are done and publicised as the bill suggests, then perhaps there is some content out there that does not receive public support—that the public do not appreciate and do not value—and that becomes an opportunity for somebody else. You know, it creates some tense, competitive environment, and I think that sometimes broadcasters don’t like that. What it does is it then creates an opportunity for somebody else to come in and improve. Competition is all about quality, it’s all about getting better value for money, and, you know, I’m always worried that people aren’t prepared to quantify or assess their value. When we stopped counting elective surgeries, we lost 4,000 operations in a year. You count what you consider to be of value. You monitor that which you want to get a positive response from the public.

So, in my closing comments, I fully support this. I think it’s a very good bill. I want to commend Melissa Lee for putting the work and the effort behind it. This will happen in time. It’s probably not going to happen under this Government, but I think it’s a very good bill. I think that we want transparency and accountability in our country, and this is a great opportunity. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

Hon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, last Thursday, I gave a speech in the House on the Education and Training Bill, where I referenced Clarence Beeby, who is known as the father of modern education and was the Director-General of Education in 1939. He said, “Every person, whatever the level of his academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has the right, as a citizen, to a free education of a kind for which he is best suited and to the fullest extent of his powers.” Later that afternoon, Dan Bidois, I think it was, tweeted out the big reveal that he had uncovered the true underpinning of that piece of legislation, which was socialism—socialism—as if it was a big reveal.

I just want to say today that this bill demonstrates, quite clearly, that there is a huge divide between the National Party and this side of the House. Speaking as a member of the Labour Party today, this utterly reflects that the National Party has not got a clue about what public good means. They seem to think that it’s all about measurement and economic value for money. According to their measure, if you live in a geographically outlying part of the country, if you’re part of a minority group, and if you are not a mainstream member of society, then you are not of value in terms of receiving content that is directed at you, because using ratings as a measure of value for content is going to create a mainstream, homogenous culture where content is not different. It does not reflect our country, and this is a fundamental difference between the two sides of this House. It’s something that the people of New Zealand do not respect, actually, and it’s extremely unfortunate.

I read an article a couple of weeks ago—it was in, I think, the The Timaru Herald—titled “The mind boggles at what aliens would think of life on earth”. I’ll quote from it briefly. It said, “Well, if they had any sense”—and this is if aliens came to Earth and were thinking of taking over—“(and one can presume that if they have the intelligence to successfully travel many millions of kilometres across the universe, they have a modicum of brainpower), they’d have a quick look at our TV news bulletins and hightail it back to their improbable-looking flying saucers. After all, why would they want to conquer a world that by common agreement among most scientists is entering its death throes, while a vast proportion of the most influential part of the present resident population simply shrug and return to watching reality TV.”

Well, according to Melissa Lee’s bill, which would ultimately use ratings as a measure, this is the kind of thing we’d be getting more of—Married at First Sight, The Bachelor, The Block, Love Island—because this is what commercial ratings delivers to us. Instead, what the Government proposed, when it invested $15 million more investment into content for New Zealanders, was that there was an instruction to Radio New Zealand and New Zealand On Air, not on exactly what that content would be but that its priorities were spelt out that they were to promote diversity, and that was in terms of Māori, Pacific Island, other ethnicities, geographical diversity, young people, local government, people living in every community in New Zealand.

No matter what their age, no matter what their background, and no matter what their ethnicity, they would feel that their stories were being told, their faces were being reflected, and that their place, whether physical or geographical—their sense of place in this country—was being valued. That is what we want to promote in this country, and not use ratings as a measure of success. “Ratings is a very blunt instrument for measuring success.”, said New Zealand On Air recently. Well, we cannot commend this bill to the House.

JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’d like to begin my contribution by firstly acknowledging those who have been impacted, the families and the victims of the terrible tragedy off Whakatāne of the Whakaari / White Island eruption, and, I also, too, note our news media, who have been covering the story for us as it unfolds, and the work that those broadcasters—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but we have come to the end of the extended sitting.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Wednesday)