Tuesday, 17 December 2019

TUESDAY, 17 DECEMBER 2019

TUESDAY, 17 DECEMBER 2019

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Obituaries

Sir Peter Snell

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Sport and Recreation): I seek leave to move a motion without notice on the passing of Sir Peter Snell.

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I move, That this House mark the passing of one of New Zealand’s greatest athletes, Sir Peter Snell KNZM, OBE, note that he won three Olympic gold medals, including the 800 and 1,500 metre double in 1964, and that he set at least six world records, including three in one week in 1962; further, that he was named New Zealand’s Sports Champion of the 20th Century, that he made a significant contribution to sports science, and that this House celebrate him as a great New Zealander.

In Sir Peter, New Zealand found a sporting hero. His achievements on the track are such a huge part of New Zealand’s sporting history, and he will continue to inspire generations to come. As a winner of three Olympic gold medals and two British Empire and Commonwealth Games medals, he emerged at the age of 21 to become one of the most celebrated runners of his time, breaking numerous world records.

In the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Sir Peter took to the track in the 800 metres final as a relative unknown, running from last to first with an astonishing finish to win gold. For the next four years, he would be the world’s dominant middle-distance runner, setting five individual world records in different events and joining fellow New Zealand athletes to set a new 4x1 mile relay record as well. Sir Peter’s former world records of one minute and 44.3 seconds for 800 metres and two minutes and 16.6 seconds for 1,000 metres remain the national New Zealand records for these distances. His 800 metre record remains the fastest ever run over that distance on a grass track; it is also the oldest national record recognised by the International Association of Athletics Federations for a standard track and field event. He remains the only man since 1920 to have won both the 800 and 1,500 events at the same Olympic Games.

Although Sir Peter had a relatively short career as a world famous international sportsman, he achieved such incredible sporting feats that he was voted New Zealand Sports Champion of the 20th Century. He was also one of the 24 inaugural members of the International Association of Athletics Federations Hall of Fame named in 2012.

After his running retired, Peter Snell pursued an academic career in sports medicine in the United States. He was internationally renowned in the field of exercise science, and in 2007 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Massey University in recognition of his work. After gaining a PhD in sports medicine at Washington State University, he took up a post-doctoral fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and remained there as director of the Human Performance Laboratory and as a scientific adviser to the US Olympic Committee.

New Zealand has honoured him in many ways; making him an OBE in 1962 and a Knight Companion in 2009. Peter Snell was always a proud New Zealander who was willing to give back to his country and, in particular, to athletes who have followed on from him. He was a true icon and an inspiration to at least two generations of athletes and he leaves behind a huge legacy. He will be missed by many. Haere, haere, haere atu rā.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central): Can I take a moment on behalf of the New Zealand National Party to acknowledge Sir Peter Snell and his family. The reality is that he was a great New Zealander.

Much has been said about his humility and his character, but the facts are these: he won three gold medals and also went on to win other medals at the Commonwealth Games, he is the only man since 1920 to have won the 800 metres and the 1,500 metres in the same Olympics, and he’s been honoured as New Zealand’s greatest athlete in the 20th century. But also his contribution has been much wider than that. Not only has he been seen as one of the greatest middle-distance runners of all time, he has also gone on to inspire a group of young people. We were recently, the Minister for Sport and Recreation and I, at the Olympic gala dinner acknowledging those young athletes that are off to Tokyo and when we saw Maurice Gimel and we heard her story of the track successes that we’ve had, I think we were reminded that there are many stories of people like Sir Peter Snell but also those athletes that are more unknown that have achieved great things for New Zealand.

So we acknowledge his family, Miki; and we acknowledge his contribution to New Zealand; and we acknowledge the fact that he has been one of our greatest athletes in New Zealand’s history.

Motion agreed to.

Speaker’s Rulings

Privilege—Select Committee Proceedings

SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Hon Meka Whaitiri raising a matter of privilege about the release of information about select committee proceedings by Hon Dr Nick Smith. The facts of the matter are not disputed by Ms Whaitiri or Dr Smith. In summary, a press release from Dr Smith stated that the Justice Committee had declined to receive a late submission on its inquiry into the 2017 General Election and the 2016 Local Elections. The press release was made after the committee had deliberated on its inquiry but before the report had been presented to the House.

The starting point for such matters is Standing Order 239, which says select committee proceedings, apart from the public hearing of evidence, remain strictly confidential to a committee until it reports to the House.

The prohibition on revealing committee proceedings was absolute until 2003. In that year, Standing Orders were amended to allow members to discuss proceedings with each other and with the Clerk and his staff. Proceedings no longer before a committee and proceedings in respect of matters of process or procedure not relating to matters or decisions still before a committee were also able to be disclosed.

Members should not unilaterally release proceedings for their own political purpose when, in doing so, they undermine the good faith basis that is essential for the effective operation of select committees. The reasons for confidentiality include the encouragement of constructive dialogue between members, the expectation that committees will report first to the House and therefore avoid lobbying outside normal processes, selective provision of proceedings (both in terms of who receives such information, and the selective release of material that may not fully reflect the committee’s consideration), and the possibility of advantage to particular persons. These potential effects of premature disclosure on the proper functioning of our parliamentary system are why it is generally prohibited and why I take a strong stand against it.

The 2003 Standing Orders Committee report outlined the sorts of matters that could be released before a committee reported at the House. It included: material received in relation to an item of business no longer before a committee; a decision regarding a proposed inquiry; a vote to appoint or remove the chairperson or deputy chairperson; scheduled hearings of evidence; the decision to appoint or not appoint advisers.

These matters can be disclosed because the decision about them is a discrete matter that is concluded when a decision is made. Revealing them does not disclose the committee’s deliberations prematurely and does not disclose the content of a draft report.

The material in Dr Smith’s press release referred to matters contained in the committee’s report. Its release pre-empted the Justice Committee’s full report on the matter, though the material was contained only in the National Party’s minority view. In this instance, while a technical breach of Standing Orders occurred, I do not think it is serious enough to warrant the referral of the matter to the Privileges Committee. However, I caution all members against releasing select committee proceedings before the committee reports to the House. It undermines the integrity of the committee process and is likely to diminish the ability of members to work together on committees.

Fair Trading Amendment BillFinancial Market Infrastructures Bill

Introduction and Setting Down for First Reading—Leave Declined

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Noting the incredibly fast progress that the House has been making in working its way through the Order Paper over the last week, I seek leave for the Fair Trading Amendment Bill and the Financial Market Infrastructures Bill to be set down for first reading presently, after Government order of the day No. 9, despite Standing Order 286(1)(a).

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

Hon Chris Hipkins: Oh, he wants to go home early.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Disorganised Government—terrible.

SPEAKER: Yes, I think we’d better move on.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

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

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): ASB’s latest economic weekly report released yesterday was titled End of year cheer (and hopefully no hangover). ASB economists highlighted a range of recent data that paint a very positive picture for the economy as we head into the festive season, including “Retail, exports, manufacturing, and housing data”. ASB expects this week’s third quarter GDP data to “carry on the good vibe.”, with “monetary stimulus … working”, and last week’s half-yearly update confirming that “fiscal policy will … be doing its bit too.” While there have been challenging times for the economy this year in the face of global headwinds, the fundamentals of the economy have remained strong throughout, particularly evident in lower unemployment and rising wages.

Dr Deborah Russell: What reports has he seen on employment in 2019?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Stats New Zealand reported unemployment in the September quarter of this year was down to 4.2 percent, from 4.3 percent at the start of the year and 4.7 percent when we came into office. In the June quarter this year, it fell as low as 3.9 percent—the lowest level in 11 years—and in the last two years, we’ve seen the three lowest levels of unemployment in a decade. The Q3 data showed 81,000 more people employed under this Government, and the number of unemployed people has dropped by 12,000 since we came into office.

Dr Deborah Russell: What reports has he seen on wage growth in the New Zealand economy in 2019?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Stats New Zealand’s most recent data showed that average ordinary time hourly earnings grew at 4.2 percent over the year to September, well ahead of inflation. By another measure, the Labour Cost Index, Stats New Zealand said wages were rising at their fastest rate in over a decade. 2019 has been a good year for Kiwi workers, who are finally starting to see their fair share of the benefits of economic growth. There is plenty of reason to be cheerful as we head into the festive season. Indeed, just before we came down to the House today, we’ve seen that the ANZ Business Outlook Survey has recorded its second straight monthly jump, up 13 points—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That doesn’t relate to the supplementary question that was asked.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why is her Government now in deficit?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The Government is not in deficit. What the Government is doing is what most smart business people out there and commentators are saying: we are putting necessary injections into long-neglected investment in this country, and it is being saluted all around the country. Dare I say it, if you want to talk about economic indicators, for anybody who knows anything about business, the NZX 50 is at its highest since its formation—up, this year, 28 percent. That’s a real confidence indicator.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that lower economic growth and wasteful spending are the primary reasons why New Zealand will shortly be back in deficit?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The Prime Minister accepts the first part of that premise, because that was the last Government’s history and story, totally, and its narrative. The second half is a Government that’s got debt under control—got it under control—in two years flat, under 20 percent, and ensured we had massive investment in hospitals, in schools, and in all sorts of necessary facilities. To be criticised by a party that did nothing but try and continue from Opposition its neo-liberal stupidity is really a bit rich.

Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Prime Minister confirm that forecasts from Treasury, the OECD, and the IMF indicate that New Zealand’s growth in 2019, 2020, and 2021 will be faster than Australia, the UK, Canada, Japan, and the eurozone?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! There were actually nine questions there. The Prime Minister may answer one of them.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Answering the theme behind those questions, the answer, nine times, is: yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes, and yes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Is she embarrassed that, after inheriting surpluses that were forecast for at least another 15 years by Treasury, her Government has turned that into a deficit within just two and a bit years?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, when one is making as a Government wise investments, then pride is what it’s about, not embarrassment. But here’s the real point: out around New Zealand, from Kaitāia to Invercargill, are all sorts of people previously forgotten, previously what you might call blue-collar, hard-batting New Zealanders who have never had a voice until late 2017. They got one in this coalition Government. Being bitter and angry at the outcome that sees them over there, and every day barking at everything that goes past the front gate, is not what a wise Opposition should be doing.

Hon Simon Bridges: Can she confirm that growth has decreased from 3.5 percent in 2017 to just 2.1 percent now, and that means less tax revenue and yet more spending?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, anyone who knew the first principle of Government—or finance, for that matter—would know that taxation is not down; it’s actually up. That’s why we had a surplus of $7.5 billion. For goodness’ sake, would somebody over there give that novice some lessons.

Hon Simon Bridges: How is 3.5 percent growth to 2.1 percent growth up?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, all over the world, and as forecast by one of her leading Ministers, there has been a correction internationally. But here’s the point: whether it’s Japan, the European Union, or the UK, or Australia, this country is doing better than them all. That means we’ve got sound, responsible management. All over, New Zealanders, those people that are watching this programme, are so glad that that member asked that question, because it points out just what little he knows about the economy.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that by running a deficit, she breaks the promise she made to stay in surplus unless New Zealand is in a crisis?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, the first thing the Prime Minister and her Minister of Finance demonstrated over two years was we got the level of debt down way below what we inherited, and we got it down in lightning time. But having done that and looked at all the neglect, whether it was railways, roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, or, for example, right now operating out of White Island, our Defence Force—all those utilities were utterly neglected, and we had to deal to them—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Not true.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —and provide them with the funding—it is true. Could I just say, for example, we inherited a $20 billion forecast with respect to Defence, and not one dollar assigned to it. All of a sudden, the Australians and the Americans are saying, “On these matters, New Zealand is stepping up, and thank heavens for that.”

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she then believe we are in a crisis justifying the running of a deficit?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, how you can go—

Hon Simon Bridges: Well, that’s what she said.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, actually, she didn’t say that at all. The Prime Minister’s not renowned for saying stupid things; that member is. Can I just say, she said no such thing. What she said is changing circumstances require us to have a fresh look at where we could make the best investment now in terms of our economic and social futures. That’s why right now, and rising, 60 percent of the people in this country support this coalition Government. Guess what percentage that leaves for them?

Hon James Shaw: Is it true that some New Zealanders borrow money to invest in buying a home and that some businesses also borrow money to invest in growth in the future, and that those debts are frequently more than 20 percent of their turnover?

SPEAKER: Order! The member knows that that’s too long. Again, it’s nearly Christmas, so I’ll let the acting Prime Minister have a go.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The reality is that’s a question from somebody who knows something about business. He’s put it precisely. It is safe and it’s secure, and it’s well within trustee security bounds. But, no, no—someone over here, who’s never run their school tuck shop, gets up here, as the party of business, demonstrating every day the old English adage: the malady of the ignorant is to be ignorant without knowing it.

David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by the Government’s action of attempting to buy back firearms prohibited by Parliament in April?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: There is a forward programme out there at the moment for discussion with everybody in New Zealand, including those who own firearms. When that discussion paper has concluded and the policy is finally resolved, we’ll have an answer to that. In the meantime, to rush to the national rifle authority’s defence, so to speak, when the member’s never even held a BB gun, is a bit rich.

SPEAKER: Order! A reminder: Prime Minister’s voice. I don’t think so in that case.

David Seymour: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question clearly related to the Government’s policy of buying back firearms prohibited by the arms amendment Act in April. I didn’t hear the Prime Minister remotely address that. He referred to, I think, actually, the second tranche of legislation, which is completely different. Can he please address the question.

SPEAKER: No, I think it was addressed early on.

David Seymour: What percentage of firearms prohibited in April does he believe will be bought back by the Government as part of its buy-back policy ending on Friday, 20 December?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, some of this Cabinet’s Ministers are renowned for their ability to forecast the future, but in this case no one knows, and we won’t know until that time comes.

Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept, contrary to the buying a house on mortgage example of the Hon James Shaw, that the majority of the increased debt her Government in chalking up over the next five years won’t be for infrastructure, given her Government’s borrowing $35 billion and the infrastructure package is only $12 billion?

SPEAKER: I think we’re getting worse every question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I couldn’t agree more, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: No, no, no—I mean technically, not quality, and I don’t need comments on my rulings which I probably shouldn’t have made anyway.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, I apologise for that. But can I just give one example. When we became the Government, there was sewage coming out of the walls in Middlemore Hospital. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Now, it’s Christmas time, and I can’t say they’re talking “something”, but the reality is those examples of neglect were legend in this country and had to be addressed, so there is balance, both with respect to consumption and to productivity and wealth growth and exports, in this latest round of investments.

Hon Grant Robertson: In light of that last supplementary question, can the Prime Minister confirm that net core Crown debt across the forecast period is lower as a percentage term in every year than it was in what the Government inherited?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, anyone that knows about business would know that.

Hon Simon Bridges: Of the borrowing of $35 billion over the next five years, is only $12 billion of that for infrastructure?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, actually, on behalf of the Prime Minister, now you’ve even got me flummoxed.

Hon Simon Bridges: Of the $35 billion additional borrowing over the next five years, is only $12 billion of that going in infrastructure?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister and, dare I say it, my colleagues over here, we’ve got no idea what the member’s talking about.

Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Budget Policy Statement released last week shows that $50 billion worth of capital spending will happen over the next five years?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Prime Minister, most definitely.

Hon Simon Bridges: Why is she breaking her promise to keep borrowing at under 20 percent of GDP by 2022?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The Prime Minister made it very clear through her Minister of Finance why there was a need to take the steps that we are taking. It was very definitively laid out. Nearly every business commentator and business expert, including all the banks, have recognised the wisdom of this policy, which probably explains why he can’t get it.

Question No. 3—Defence

3. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Minister of Defence: What actions did the New Zealand Defence Force take in response to the eruption on Whakaari / White Island?

Hon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): The New Zealand Defence Force swiftly leaned forward in response to the eruption, prepositioning assets and personnel so that they were ready for when requests might come through from the relevant authorities leading the operation. The response included capabilities from all three services—on the ground, in the air, and on the sea—and was ably commanded at the scene by personnel from the HQ Deployable Joint Interagency Task Force and from HQ Joint Forces New Zealand back in Trentham. I wish to commend all those defence force personnel involved for their bravery and their professionalism. This operation had real risks and required great care. I personally feel very privileged and proud to be their Minister and would hope that all of New Zealand would share in this pride and note that their defence force, whose actions reinforce their central role in providing support to the community and the nation in times of disaster and crisis, as always was very, very professional.

Darroch Ball: What role has E Squadron 1 NZSAS regiment played in the response?

Hon RON MARK: While the role played by the eight-person unit that went on to the island on Friday has been well documented, it is worth repeating to highlight the real bravery and determination that was on display. Special force operators from E Squadron 1 NZSAS, specialists in responding in hazardous situations, deployed to the island on Friday morning in highly dangerous conditions. With the risk of another eruption ever present, the team waded through knee-deep acidic sludge with intense heat building underneath the three layers of specialist garments and equipment. Special Operations Component Commander Colonel Rian McKinstry has described the team as having gone past the limits of endurance in this effort. They retrieved the six bodies from locations previously identified by air surveillance assets and continued to search for the remaining two who were missing for as long as they could. They completed the task ahead of them, and I hope that, through these efforts, it brought some peace to the families of those deceased.

Darroch Ball: What role has the Royal New Zealand Air Force played in the response?

Hon RON MARK: The Royal New Zealand Air Force’s performance, as always, was exemplary. Their air surveillance, which is so important when requiring good intelligence and situational awareness in disasters such as this, has been provided by the P3K2 Orion maritime patrol aircraft. The NH90 helicopter rotary wing support has been provided throughout, including for casualty transfers. Further air transport tasks in support of the operation have been conducted by C130 Hercules, King Air aircraft, and by the A109 helicopters.

Darroch Ball: What role has the Royal New Zealand Navy played in this response?

Hon RON MARK: Once again, the Navy was to the fore as well. HMNZS Wellington has been a constant presence throughout the response as a staging point for the operation, providing maritime security and maintaining an exclusion zone, and through hosting yesterday the bereaved family members for the minute’s silence at 2.11 p.m. The rigid hull inflatable boats operating off Wellington have played a crucial role in transporting personnel to and from the island and in deploying dive teams in searches off of the island, and on top of that, the Navy’s SH-2G Seasprite helicopters have carried out vital air surveillance and rotary wing transport support throughout the entire operation.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Is the Government delivering on all its commitments to New Zealand in relation to the economy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): We are delivering on our commitments, with economic growth forecasts in every year to be higher under this Government than it averaged under National. Also under this Government, unemployment hit an 11-year low and wage growth is at its highest in a decade. We’re making a $12 billion investment into New Zealand’s infrastructure on top of what has already been invested, taking our capital investment to the highest level in 20 years. This Government is committed to building a strong economy, and we’re getting on with the job.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: If he’s delivering on all its commitments, why is New Zealand back in deficit?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As has been discussed when the half-yearly update was released, we have had two years of very solid surpluses. We will have further years of surpluses across the forecast, amounting to about $12 billion. There are a number of factors in this year’s accounts, including revaluation of ACC, that have affected the operating balance before gains and losses, but across the period of time of Government, we are running strong surpluses across the economic cycle, as we have committed to do. I do note that the former Government didn’t run any surpluses at all in their first two terms of Government.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he telling the House that we are at a point in the economic cycle where we should be running a deficit at the moment?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, if the member had been paying attention to the international news reports in recent times, he would have seen that there has been a significant slow-down in global growth. The good news for the New Zealand economy is that we are continuing to grow at a faster rate than Australia, than the UK, than Canada, than Japan, than the eurozone, which is a sign that our economy is strong, but, yes, there are some global headwinds, and the point in the economic cycle where we’re at now is a challenging one, but New Zealand’s getting through it.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Were New Zealanders right to expect his Government would “be in surplus every year unless there’s a significant natural event or a major economic shock or crisis”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I invite the member to look at the wording in the Budget Policy Statement and in the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update which commits the Government to a surplus across the economic cycle. On this side of the House, a surplus is what happens when we meet all of the commitments the Government has. A surplus is not manufactured by pretending that they funded health and education properly or being fast and loose with the numbers. This Government has had two surpluses, and we will have surpluses in the future, as forecast in the half-yearly update.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Well, will he give a categorical assurance that next year’s Budget will not forecast a second deficit next year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Next year’s Budget will be done next year, and I am very optimistic that Treasury’s forecasts, as they have been in the past, will continue to be accurate.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister of Finance as to whether his Government, this Government, intends to replicate the ratio of borrowing of the previous Government, which was to inherit a total debt of $10 billion and take it to $82 billion?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As noted in the earlier question, this Government inherited a net debt to GDP ratio of around about 22.7 percent. There is no year in the forecast where it gets back to that level.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think there is a single New Zealander who has forgotten about the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes? [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I’m interested by the member’s realisation that global economic factors have an impact on New Zealand. So, for the remaining time that he is questioning me and decides that economic headwinds don’t matter, I shall recall that very insightful question.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Isn’t the most relevant current economic indicator the fact that New Zealand has the highest terms of trade in recent modern history and we’re still growing very slowly and running a deficit?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We can all pick our most relevant economic indicator, but the one I want to leave with the member is this: we, as a country, are growing faster than the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the eurozone. No country with which we trade or compare ourselves is growing how they were two or three years ago. We are ahead of the pack and we’re doing well as a country.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: With respect to the terms of trade, is it not a fact that they’re affected by the fact that our dollar is not US82c but really between 64 and 66, and that’s been magnificent for an export-dependent economy and for provincial New Zealand in particular?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Indeed, exporters are doing well in New Zealand, and that’s something that we can be proud of, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that money goes on something other than paying down debt. It may not go back into the economy, but what we can be is extremely proud of the performance of our exporters, alongside a stable exchange rate.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Which of the countries he listed in the answer to my previous question are we growing faster than, on a per-person basis?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On a per-person basis, I don’t have the information the member asked for, but what I can tell the member is this: when we came into Government we ranked 34th in the OECD on GDP per capita, and we’ve improved that. We’re up to 32nd and we will keep moving forward. On another measure that the OECD has in terms of per capita on real expenditure, when we came into office we were at 30th and we’re now 18th, so we’re making good progress.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What happened to this commitment from the Speech from the Throne: “Through its KiwiBuild programme, this Government pledges to build 100,000 high quality affordable homes over the next 10 years, half of them in Auckland.”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On this side of the House, we are extremely proud of the fact that we have built over 3,500 new State houses. We’ve seen the highest rate of building from a Government since the 1970s. We’re getting on top of homelessness and we’ve made sure that more people can buy their first home, with first-home buyers lifting as a percentage from 20 percent to 24 percent. We inherited a housing crisis denied by that Government over there, and we’re getting on with fixing it.

Hon Stuart Nash: How does this Government’s current and forecast net capital spending on key infrastructure compare to the previous Government’s over their nine years?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It compares extremely well, and I believe I might have a chart somewhere. If I don’t, I’m sure there’s someone who can help me with it. [Several members hold up chart]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Ginny Andersen will stand, withdraw, and apologise for being the last to put it down. I want to say that all members in the House know that that sort of performance breaches the Standing Orders. So the member will withdraw and apologise and there will be an additional set of supplementary questions going to the Opposition.

Ginny Andersen: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Speaker.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is he surprised that National could deliver so much infrastructure with its investment while Labour has delivered so little with its?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The infrastructure investment that’s come in from this Government, which will be $50 billion of capital spending over the next five years, represents the kind of commitment that you would expect the Government to have. To have a year in which only $1 billion went into capital spending is the very reason why we have an infrastructure deficit.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he think it takes great skill on his part to announce the intention to spend other people’s money?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The job of Government is to spend on behalf of taxpayers wisely, and on this side of the House we’ll do that. So we got on with fixing the infrastructure deficit left to us—[Interruption]—in hospitals, in schools, in rail, and, yes, in roads as well, Mr Bridges, because that is our job.

Hon Paul Goldsmith: If the Government’s delivering on its commitment to improve access to tertiary education, why do figures out today show a rise in the proportion of students from wealthy areas going to university and a decline in the number from poorer areas?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That’s not what the figures show.

Question No. 5—Housing

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): What progress is the Government making on tackling the housing crisis?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Two years in and we’re making substantial progress tackling the housing crisis. After years of the public housing stock—

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. How was that question verified?

SPEAKER: I don’t have the authentication right in front of me, but I think if one had been listening to earlier questions, one would have heard a number of figures which made the “if any”, which normally occurs in these, superfluous. Paul Eagle, ask the question again, please.

5. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Housing: What progress is the Government making on tackling the housing crisis?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): Two years in and we’re making substantial progress tackling the housing crisis. After years of the—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! The only person who can speak for the remainder of this question is the Minister, and any person asking a supplementary question. There will otherwise be silence. Start again, please, Dr Woods.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Two years in and we’re making substantial progress tackling the housing crisis. After years of the public housing stock declining, we’re now building more houses than any Government since the 1970s. This means that, right now, there are 3,485 houses under construction across the Government build programme. We’re not just building more houses; we’re also focused on addressing homelessness, supporting first-home buyers, banning offshore speculators, developing an offsite manufacturing industry, ensuring there are enough skilled apprentices, reforming the Resource Management Act, and many other things. All of these initiatives will help, but the reality is that the housing crisis we inherited was severe and there is still much to do, and that’s why we’re committed to continuing to build on the progress we’ve made so far.

Paul Eagle: What is the Government doing to address homelessness?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: For the second year in a row, this Government has made tackling homelessness a priority. It’s simply not good enough that families have been forced to sleep in cars and kids have to do their homework by torchlight. That’s why Budget 2019 invested $197 million to roll out Housing First around New Zealand. This programme aims to break the cycle of homelessness by housing people and then connecting them with health and social services. I’m pleased to report there are now more than 1,000 households engaged in that programme; that’s 1,000 families getting the support they need to ensure they reach their potential and avoid living in cars.

Paul Eagle: What steps is the Government taking to help more New Zealanders into their first home?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Homeownership rates have been declining for many years, and the dream of homeownership has been slipping away for more and more New Zealanders. This Government wants to see more New Zealanders in their own homes, which is exactly why we’ve introduced a range of policies to support first-home buyers. We’ve expanded the eligibility for first-home grants and first-home loans, to expand eligibility and enable intergenerational purchases; we’ve set aside $400 million for a progressive homeownership scheme to help more people into their first home; and we’ve reset the KiwiBuild programme to ensure the settings are right because, on this side of the House, we’re committed to actually building affordable houses for first-home buyers and not just leaving it to the market. I’m pleased to report the latest October housing dashboard shows we’ve completed 239 KiwiBuild homes, 562 are under construction, and eligible buyers have purchased 303 houses in total. To us on this side of the House, that represents lives changed.

Hon Judith Collins: Of the 22 houses underwritten as KiwiBuild at Pegasus, how many have been sold as KiwiBuild?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I don’t have that information in the House with me, but if the member wants to put it in writing, I’ll answer it.

Hon Judith Collins: Isn’t it correct that only one has been sold?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I said, I don’t have that information with me, but if the member wants to put it in writing, I’ll answer it.

Hon Judith Collins: How is homelessness being helped by an increase in average rentals by up to $60 a week under her Government?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: We’re incredibly proud of the work that we are doing to tackle homelessness. We were not content for children to be growing up in cars. There are a range of factors that are driving rents up, but the most important of those factors is a lack of supply, and that is why we are a Government that is absolutely proud of the fact that more house are being built under this Government than there have been in decades. Homelessness is also driven by the lack of supply we have in our public housing stock. I do remind that member yet again that if when in Government they had built—

SPEAKER: I’ve had enough, and, clearly, five members on the other side have had enough too, because they interjected during that answer. So that will be one supplementary down for each of those.

David Seymour: Supplementary? Supplementary, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Question No. 6—the Hon Judith Collins.

Question No. 6—Environment

6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister for the Environment: Does the Government support the replacement and reform of the Resource Management Act 1991?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Yes, because it takes too long, costs too much, and hasn’t protected the environment. That’s why this Government has funded its replacement and has started this important work. Over the nine years of the previous Government, the Resource Management Act (RMA) was made longer and more complex, and we’re fixing it.

Hon Judith Collins: With the working group investigating the RMA due to report back in mid-2020, will he commit to introducing legislation to address the underperformance during this term of Parliament?

Hon DAVID PARKER: We’ve already got a bill in the House that starts on that journey. I don’t think that the full legislative process in respect of the second bill is likely to be completed before the election.

Hon Judith Collins: Does he mean, then, that he will not commit to introducing any legislation recommended by the working group during this term of Parliament?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I don’t, but I’d also note that I’ve read the member’s discussion document, and given our political history, no one would expect me to see her discussion document as a gift my true love gave to me—using the words of the “Twelve Days of Christmas”—but I do welcome that National has finally fronted up with something on the RMA after nine long years.

Hon Judith Collins: Why did the Minister say to the Environmental Defence Society earlier this year in relation to RMA reform, “The Ministry for the Environment actually wanted to charge into this straight after the last election but I stopped them from doing so.”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Because it’s true—because it would have been premature to start at that time. Further, I have read the National Party discussion document—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! I know this is not a patsy from one’s own side, but the member, I think, is going to have trouble linking that.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I—

SPEAKER: No, I’ve ruled it out. It’s not an area that the member is responsible for. I let him go on too long last time.

Hon Judith Collins: If he wasn’t ready to have the Ministry for the Environment actually charge into the RMA straight after the last election, then why after thinking about it for nine long years wasn’t he ready?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The reason that we chose to focus first on creating an urban development agency was because the housing crisis was so serious. The reason we started with real efforts on reduced water quality was because water quality was degrading. The reason that we progressed the climate change response bill and the zero carbon bill was that climate changing emissions had risen over the prior years of the last Government, and, as a consequence, we thought it was wise to prioritise those intermediate steps above the holistic review of the RMA that we’ve already got under way.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Minister seen any evidence that rushed reform of the RMA would actually make it longer and more complex?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I have, and it does seem screamingly illogical to me to repeal such an important piece of legislation as the RMA, to replace it with a transitional law that hasn’t yet been designed within your first 100 days, and then propose to further replace it with something even more substantial that hasn’t been designed either.

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Judith Collins: Does he support splitting the environment and developmental planning sides into two separate Acts?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That is one of the issues that’s being considered, but it’s Christmas. It’s traditionally a time to give presents, not receive them, and yet I note that the most recent gifts to the country in this respect seem to have taken the Environmental Defence Society’s proposals, rewrapped them, and given them away as if they’re their own. Not even the Grinch used to do that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister on this troublesome legislation that he’s wrestling with—and, apparently, now the National Party is as well—when was it brought in; in what year and by what party?

Hon DAVID PARKER: It was passed in 1991 and it came into effect in 1992 in this, sort of, decade—by the National Party at the time. It does seem that some of the half-baked ideas to somewhat contemptuously replace it—it’s a fitting end to the same year when the deputy leader of the Opposition gave the Deputy Prime Minister wilting flowers.

Hon Judith Collins: Was that the same legislation that the Deputy Prime Minister voted for when he was in Cabinet in 1991?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! No—I’m going to deal with it; the member’s not. The member who asked the question knows well that that was out of order, and she’s getting very close to being disorderly in asking it.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table the Resource Management Act review panel’s issues and options paper as a Christmas gift to the member opposite.

SPEAKER: I think, if the member has things he wishes to give to the member, as opposed to the House, he should do it privately.

Question No. 7—Health

7. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Is he satisfied with district health boards’ progress in achieving published performance measures for quarter 1 of the 2019/20 year?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I am satisfied that the doctors, nurses, and allied health workers at our public hospitals are working hard to deliver the quality care that the people of New Zealand expect and deserve. I’m satisfied that our public health service does an incredible job responding to emergency situations. In terms of the narrow data set that the member asks about, which does not represent the breadth of care provided by DHBs, I’m satisfied that clinicians are working hard to make progress and deliver to their patients.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is he concerned that the Smokefree 2025 target will not be achieved, when 18 of the 20 DHBs’ performance on better health for smokers have gone backwards since he became Minister?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I have often said that I have concern about the narrow set of political targets put in place by the previous Government. The particular quit smoking target the member refers to is based upon referrals. So, if the member were to refer a person to me as a clinician and I were to refer them back to him as a fellow clinician, that would count as two for that set of targets. I don’t think that’s a particularly useful measure. I think there are broader measures of our health system’s success that show the work of the DHBs and their contribution to the health of New Zealanders.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why then, if, as he says, they are such an inappropriate proxy for the health of the health system, has he not, after two years, done anything about it?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I reject the member’s assertion.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why have all 20 DHBs’ performance under the Shorter Stays in Emergency Departments performance all dropped since he became Minister?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: The member will know from my previous answers that I want to see meaningful and transparent measures of progress in health. Unfortunately, we know that data for the emergency department target was falsified and gamed under management pressure on the previous Government’s watch. As one DHB staffer reportedly told Auckland University associate professor Dr Tim Tenbensel, “The patient will be scanned out of the [emergency] department before they reach the six-hour mark even if they haven’t actually physically left the department, which I actually find quite unsafe and I don’t like that practice.”

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is the Minister aware that despite those anecdotes, Waikato University research showed that 700 lives a year were being saved by that target? That’s many thousands under the term of the previous Government.

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I am very aware that there’s lots of research which shows that those targets were being gamed. I’m also aware that the New Zealand Doctor recently reported that, at one hospital, a new chief executive exerted considerable direct pressure on emergency department (ED) medical and nursing staff, and “Interviewees at this site described a range of gaming behaviours. One staff member described ‘clock-stopping’ behaviour … falsifying the record of time of departure from ED.” The previous Government’s targets were a failure—they failed to achieve what they wanted to achieve with them other than for political ends. I’m interested in a health service that builds and meets the needs of New Zealanders for the care that they would expect and deserve. We’ve inherited a health system that’s been run down after nine long years of neglect and political focus, and we want to see a health system that actually serves the needs of New Zealanders.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he believe that there is a link between the fact that 19 of 20 DHBs have lower immunisation rates since he became Minister and the recent measles outbreak?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: What I will say about the immunisation target the previous Government never achieved is that it was dropping over the longer term, and that that has actually turned around under this Government’s watch. So I thank the member for his question.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: In this year of delivery, doesn’t this show that he has delivered poorer health outcomes for New Zealanders?

Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I think what it shows is that we still have work to do to improve the health system after nine long years of neglect under the previous Government’s watch.

Question No. 8—Education

8. JO LUXTON (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What actions has the Government taken to champion a high-quality public education system that is available for all New Zealanders?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Lots of good news. It’s been a very busy year in education, but to pick just a few of the highlights: we’ve taken action to rebuild classrooms and to fund more classrooms for growth, reduce financial barriers to education in schooling and in tertiary education, increase trades training, have New Zealand history taught in our schools, secure the future of vocational education, chart a new course for early childhood education with a particular focus on quality, and we will be putting more front-line support closer to schools to give every child the best chance to succeed.

Jo Luxton: What action has the Government taken to support more teachers into classrooms?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Again, great news. After inheriting a 40 percent decline in the number of people who were training to be teachers, this Government has invested $135 million into teacher supply initiatives, and by the end of this year, we’ll see an additional 2,000 more teachers in classrooms—that means more teachers to meet population growth. Teachers themselves, of course, are being supported in their profession, with most teachers receiving an average pay rise of $12,000.

Jo Luxton: What action has the Government taken to reduce the cost of schooling for New Zealand families?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: This year alone, the Government has reduced the cost to New Zealand families by funding the removal of NCEA exam fees for 168,000 students; we’ve awarded almost 150,000 students, including former students with unpaid NCEA fees, their credits and qualifications; and we’re increasing funding for schools that don’t ask parents for donations, benefiting nearly half a million students and their families across the country.

Jo Luxton: What action has the Government taken to upgrade classrooms and build more classrooms to meet population growth?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: This year, the Government announced the largest ever increase in school property funding made by a New Zealand Government. To date, we’ve begun the upgrade or new build of at least 1,100 classrooms, benefiting around 33,000 students; we’ve released the first ever National Education Growth Plan to manage and plan for the growth of at least 100,000 additional students by 2030; and we’ve announced the largest cash injection in 25 years into State schools’ funding so that they can carry out their own upgrades using their existing local trades people.

Jo Luxton: What action has the Government taken to champion trades training and vocational pathways?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: So much good news. The Government has announced 4,000 additional trades academy and gateway places from next year so that more young New Zealanders can take up trades from secondary school; we’ve given 345 students this year the very first Prime Minister’s award for vocational education excellence; we’ve provided free training to 3,900 apprentices in building and construction trades through Fees Free; and finally, of course, we’re moving towards a much more sustainable and effective new system for vocational education up and down the country.

Question No. 9—Transport

9. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his reported comment to the Herald in relation to the 12 roading projects presently on hold or under review, “If we were to do what the Business Advisory Council was saying, it would mean spending a great deal of money, more than $12 billion, on projects that have very low economic value”, and which, if any, of the 12 roading projects will the Government be progressing as part of its transport package in the new year?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): In relation to the first part of the member’s question, I stand by my statement that the National Party’s unfunded and undesignated roads promised in the last election would have had low economic value. The transport agency undertook a review of a number of State highway projects that had been on their books for some time. The purpose of that review was to redesign these roading projects to give better value for money and to better reflect our balanced transport policy, which they now do, and work is continuing on them. As for the second part of the member’s question, as I indicated to the member previously, he will have to wait and see what is in or out of the infrastructure package.

Chris Bishop: Does he think State Highway 2 Te Puna to Ōmokoroa, known as the Tauranga Northern Link, is a road with economic value and worth progressing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: It’s certainly a road of value, and that’s why the transport agency’s done a substantial piece of work reviewing, evaluating, and redesigning that project so that it not only delivers good transport and safety outcomes but delivers value for money, because that’s what this side of the House stands for.

Chris Bishop: Does he think State Highway 1 Cambridge to Piarere is a road with economic value and worth progressing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Well, we do think that’s a road of value, unlike the former Government, who never funded it, never designated it; they simply announced it in a press release during the election campaign but did nothing about it—after nine years.

Chris Bishop: Does he stand by his comment that New Zealand has overinvested in roads and motorways for decades, and, if so, why is the Government purportedly planning to reinstate State highway funding and build some of the roads we’ve just been discussing?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I stand by the full remark that I made—the full quotation, not the highly selective version that the member likes to peddle around the country. I stand by my statement that actually, for a long time, particularly over the last nine years, there was an unbalanced transport policy that poured 40 percent of the entire transport budget into a few handpicked motorways at the expense of every other part of the transport system. That policy saw the neglect of local roads. It saw the neglect of public transport and the neglect of road maintenance.

Chris Bishop: Can he confirm that, two years after cutting State highway funding by $5 billion over the next decade, the Government is now looking at an the injection of money to bring forward State highway roading projects that are currently delayed?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: I can confirm, in the words of the Minister of Finance, that the Government is looking at one of the biggest infrastructure packages this country’s ever seen. It’s going to allow us to bring forward a number of transport projects that would have otherwise taken much longer to build, and it will reflect this Government’s balanced, multi-modal transport policy. It will include walking and cycling projects, rail, and roads.

Chris Bishop: How can the public have any confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver these projects when he spent two years bagging them as having low economic value and telling New Zealanders the previous Government overinvested in State highways?

Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Precisely because—and the member clearly wasn’t listening to the earlier answers—the ghost roads that the National Party announced in the last election campaign weren’t funded, they weren’t designated; they were simply campaign promises. We’re getting on. We’re getting on and building a lot more infrastructure, including roading and other transport infrastructure that that Government didn’t even dream about.

Question No. 10—Climate Change

10. GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) to the Minister for Climate Change: What progress, if any, has been made implementing the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019?

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Today, I was delighted to announce that we have fulfilled one of the key requirements of the zero carbon Act—that is, the establishment of the Climate Change Commission. Six new climate change commissioners have been appointed under this Act, that the House passed without opposition. These commissioners will provide the expert, trusted, and independent advice that will be essential to ensuring that New Zealand plays its part in solving the challenge of climate change. They will pick up the work started by the Interim Climate Change Committee, which was appointed in May 2018. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Interim Climate Change Committee for their hard work, for their analytical honesty, and their rigour. What they have achieved in such a short period of time will have a lasting impact on the future of climate policy.

Golriz Ghahraman: Who are the commissioners and what skills do they bring to the commission?

Hon JAMES SHAW: The Act requires that commissioners have relevant technical and professional skills, experience, and expertise, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Te Ao Māori. The House will recall that I announced in October that Dr Rod Carr had been appointed as chair designate for the Climate Change Commission. The six commissioners who will now join him are experts in the field of climate science, adaptation, agriculture, economics, and the Māori-Crown relationship. They are Ms Lisa Tumahai, who has been a member of the Interim Climate Change Committee and, I’m delighted to say, will continue in her role as deputy chair; Dr Harry Clark, a New Zealand expert on agricultural greenhouse gas research and also a member of the interim committee; Dr Judith Lawrence, a thought leader with international expertise in climate change adaptation; Ms Catherine Leining, a leading New Zealand economist on climate policy; Professor James Renwick, a leading climate scientist; and Professor Nicola Shadbolt, a farmer, company director, and academic with expertise in land use and land use change.

Golriz Ghahraman: What opportunity will New Zealanders have to inform the work of the commission?

Hon JAMES SHAW: In addition to the fact that the commission is required by law to consult widely, my hope is that it will also appoint a number of advisory committees to support its work. This will complement the skills and perspectives of the commissioners and will provide a space for New Zealanders such as the scientific community, Māori, and young people to have their say. At the launch event for the commission earlier today, I was joined by a number of stakeholders who wanted not only to meet the new commission but also to celebrate with us this important step that we have taken to solve the climate change challenge and make our communities safer and healthier.

Golriz Ghahraman: What feedback has he received from other countries about the zero carbon Act?

Hon JAMES SHAW: Last week, I was in Madrid for the annual international climate change negotiations. I was approached by representatives from a number of countries from around the world who are thinking about putting in place their own—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Settle.

Hon JAMES SHAW: —climate change legislation, and they are using our zero carbon Act—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Must have strong winds.

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s drowning him out.

Hon JAMES SHAW: —as a benchmark for what meaningful, ambitious, and lasting climate change action looks like. What I shared with them is how, with bipartisan support, this Government has set a framework for climate action and put targets in place and has established a commission that will now give us independent, expert, and non-political advice on what our carbon budgets should be and the plan that we need to meet them.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Just on the question of bipartisan support, did what we just hear across the House sound like bipartisan support?

SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, it’s a fair question.

SPEAKER: The member has no responsibility—this Minister has no responsibility for either the noise or the interpretation of it.

Question No. 11—Housing (Public Housing)

11. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing): What percentage of the 24,386 reports of anti-social behaviour by State housing tenants since this Government took office have resulted in an eviction or business-initiated transfer?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing)): Last week, I informed the House that, since the Government took office, there were 308 business-initiated transfers and one eviction of a State house tenant as a result of antisocial behaviour. I also told the House that there were 24,386 reports of antisocial behaviour by tenants, which include such things as car noise, frequency of visitors, lawns not being mowed, and dogs. Now, that maths says that the precise answer to that member’s question is 1.5 percent. However, to use this number would be disingenuous because there have been multiple reports for very simple issues, such as an address in Hamilton that had 16 reports of a dog barking, and, while annoying, I don’t think that serves as grounds for an eviction. The vast majority of the 185,000 New Zealanders who live in State houses who haven’t been the subject of antisocial behaviour are good neighbours.

Simon O’Connor: What does the Minister say to neighbours in an Auckland suburb who are having to put up with the State housing tenants continually throwing rubbish into their yard despite warnings from Housing New Zealand?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Any local member of Parliament would suggest that they go to Kāinga Ora to lay a complaint, and, as I’ve said to the member, there are 24,386 reports of complaints being made—most of them dealt with quite easily by Kāinga Ora.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: They make out only Housing New Zealand tenants do that stuff.

Simon O’Connor: Thanks for your contribution. Does he believe that—

SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member knows that’s out of order, doesn’t he? I just want to check that the member does.

Simon O’Connor: I do, but I also understand that some members—

SPEAKER: Well, the member will apologise to the House.

Simon O’Connor: Myself?

SPEAKER: He will.

Simon O’Connor: Oh, OK. I withdraw and apologise. Does he believe that the 99 percent of people who made complaints that resulted in no action being taken can have any confidence in the reporting system, and if so, how?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Yes, because that’s the way the system works, and there are a range of options that Kāinga Ora can make to remediate complaints. As I say, some of those are multiple issues with one tenant. As I say, there are 185,000 New Zealanders living in State homes and they are some of the New Zealanders who will be most vulnerable over the Christmas period. I’m quite proud to sit on this side of the House and say that we will continue to support them, but the Christmas message they seem to be getting from the Opposition is that, next year, they’re coming after them.

Simon O’Connor: Does the Minister support National’s view that there should be consequences for serious antisocial behaviour, or is he more aligned to the Housing New Zealand view that it is open to moving private land owners neighbouring troublesome tenants?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I have seen the proposal from the National Party to remind, remedy, and remove. My thought to that is: I’m wondering if you’re using it for your leader as well.

Simon O’Connor: When the Minister said last week that neighbours should complain to Housing New Zealand, does he think they have a 50:50 chance of being heard, or more like less than 1 percent?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As I said to the member last week, I am confident that front-line workers, who deal with these on a regular basis, are dealing with them in a correct way. As I say, I don’t think that a barking dog—while annoying—warrants eviction, but if that is the threshold for the National Party, then we’ve got two different approaches: we will continue to help, and you will continue to vilify.

Question No. 12—Education

12. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Education: Does he stand by all his statements and actions in relation to the Fees Free policy?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes, I stand by the policy that last year meant that 47,000 students and their families avoided fees of around $5,800, on average.

Dr Shane Reti: When he said recently that he is largely happy with Fees Free, does that include a report that Fees Free has differentially boosted university participation for upper-decile students and has been referred to as middle-class welfare?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the premise of the member’s question. Actually, if you look at the data, it’ll show that for students who came from decile 1 to 3 schools, there’s actually been an increase in the number going to university. The issue is that we’ve seen declining participation in other areas of tertiary education—most notably, in our polytechs and institutes of technology. That’s something that this Government doesn’t think is sustainable, and that’s one of the reasons that we are undertaking a very comprehensive reform of the whole sector.

Dr Shane Reti: Does he understand, then, that low-decile families are not as largely happy with Fees Free as he is, given recent reports that the Fees Free environment has reduced participation for low-decile students?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I don’t think the member listened to my last answer.

Dr Shane Reti: Is Fees Free not helping the students it was intended to, given his statement in December 2017 that “the minority of students receiving the Fees Free subsidy will be university students”, and yet 55 percent of Fees Free students are at university?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh, I’d encourage the member to speak to some of the people who have benefited from Fees Free, including, for example, South Auckland solo mum Mere Thompson, who, at 37, has started a social work degree at the Manukau Institute of Technology and who said, “I wouldn’t be here without Fees Free.” Up and down the country, we see examples of people who have told us very clearly that they would not be participating in tertiary education if Fees Free had not come along. I think that is a successful outcome.

Dr Shane Reti: When he said, in answer to written questions several weeks ago, that he would release Fees Free numbers in two weeks, has he not released the figures because the polytechnic head count numbers are down?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, that’s not the reason for not releasing those numbers. I suspect it’s to do with the quality-assurance process. We generally would release the numbers as soon as the quality-assurance process is finished. I can, however, confirm that the number of people studying at institutes of technology and polytechnics has continued to trend down. That is something that the Government is unhappy about. That trend started in around about 2011, 2012—around that period—and it has continued consistently during that time. That’s not something the Government is happy with, and that is why we’re undertaking a very comprehensive reform programme.

Bills

Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 4)

Second Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 4) be now read a second time.

This is one of the highlights of the parliamentary sitting calendar, as we consider the subordinate legislation confirmation bills, which are, of course, an annual event in this House. Their purpose is to confirm, by an Act of Parliament, regulations that would otherwise be revoked by a particular date, usually at the end of the year.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry to interrupt the Minister, but could we just keep the noise down a bit? I notice the Minister’s having to yell.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It’s the excitement, Madam Speaker—it’s the excitement.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I can tell.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If these regulations were allowed to lapse, the result would be administrative chaos—in some areas, considerable expense and loss of significant amounts of revenue. The process is set out in the Legislation Act 2012, having been clarified and detailed by the Legislation (Confirmable Instruments) Amendment Act 2015. Future subordinate legislation confirmation bills will be subject to the provisions of the new Legislation Act 2019.

This year’s bill confirms delegated legislation made under 16 different Acts of Parliament. The instruments to be confirmed cover a wide range of subjects and most commonly bring about changes in levies and other charges, including those related to biosecurity, engine fuel monitoring, and problem gambling. Other matters covered by secondary legislation approved by this bill include things like import prohibitions and changes to the annual catch entitlement for fish stocks, to name just two.

Subordinate legislation confirmation bills are used to implement changes that arise from international agreements. This bill approves amendments to tariffs that resulted from the Government’s successful conclusion of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations in Chile in 2018, and the World Trade Organization Information Technology Agreement.

With only the second reading of subordinate legislation confirmation bills being debatable in this House, detailed select committee consideration of these bills is very, very important, so I would like to thank the Regulations Review Committee. I’d like to thank the chair of the Regulations Review Committee, Alastair Scott, for their work on this bill. The committee has produced a comprehensive report on the bill, and I thank them for that. Explanations about why the instruments should be confirmed were made by the committee. The committee sought seven different Government departments’ explanations as to why they should be confirmed, and, as a result, I understand that the committee has been happy to recommend that all of them be confirmed.

The committee, I understand, paid particular attention to the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019, perhaps one of the more controversial aspects of this particular bill today. They heard oral evidence from the New Zealand Police on two separate occasions. The order prohibits 10 categories of military-style ammunition. Following its consideration of the issues, the Regulations Review Committee has recommended that the order be confirmed.

The committee’s report further outlines how thoroughly they’ve examined the prohibited ammunition order. That provides a clear example of how the subordinate legislation confirmation process works, and it demonstrates that the select committee consideration and the select committee process around subordinate legislation confirmation bills isn’t simply a rubber-stamping process, and that is actually something that the House should take note of.

Later today, the House will give its first reading to the Secondary Legislation Bill, which will make the framework of secondary legislation in New Zealand much, much clearer, in partnership with the Legislation Act 2012. The subordinate legislation confirmation process means that secondary legislation can be scrutinised effectively, without occupying a considerable amount of Parliament’s time, and I commend the bill to the House.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in support of the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 4). As the Minister Chris Hipkins has rightly set out, it can be considered a rubber-stamping exercise. These bills, from time to time, come before the Regulations Review Committee, to check that the rules and regulations are not doing something that is outside the scope of the relevant Act. The committee does take the responsibility of that seriously.

You’ll see in the select committee report that, as the Minister said, there are a number of bills or confirmations that were made, including, for example, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act, Animal Products Act, Arms Act, Biosecurity Act, Civil Aviation Act, and so on. But I would also like to focus on the confirmation, and we did end up confirming the Arms Act, which relates to the ammunition which the Minister referred to earlier. We took a couple of sessions. We had the police in twice to explain themselves and the way that they came to their conclusions. We were concerned that the police could possibly be seen to be able to act outside of the purpose of the Act, away from the policy settings of the Government of the day or the Minister, and so, as I say, we brought the police in twice to explain to us their thought processes.

We had a number of complaints that we ran alongside the process of confirmation, and these complaints raised concerns that the committee also had, I guess one could say. Those issues were around just the idea that one can ban this or that. We’re talking about tracer ammunition. We’re talking about armour-piercing ammunition. We had to satisfy ourselves not that they should be banned but that the rules and regulations that were before us fitted into the purpose of the Minister’s legislation in the first place.

We heard from the Police as well. So we heard about tracer ammunition. On this side of the House, we don’t like banning things just for the sake of it. We think people should take personal responsibility and should not be dictated to overly by any Government of the day. So banning stuff, we take seriously. In this situation, we agreed that tracer ammunition and armour-piercing ammunition, the way it was described, should be banned. Even though people liked to use some of this type of ammunition, it seemed to me that one of the main arguments for using it was simply because it was cheap, it was readily available, and it was ammunition that had been discarded from other jurisdictions and found its way into New Zealand. That is not a good enough reason on its own.

We took that armour-piercing ammunition and the tracer ammunition and the effects that that could have on the way that police deal with criminals—and deal with themselves, actually—very seriously. So we agreed unanimously—it was a unanimous committee report, which was good—that this confirmation should take place to enable the legislation to be passed and to be effected.

The other issue was around the consultation process. We were, as a committee, critical of the Police’s process around consultation. That has been made clear in the select committee. The Police heard that. We were all—not some of us; we were all—concerned about the process: that some of the people that could have been included were not. But that did not stop us from confirming these instruments. That was not in itself a reason not to confirm or to disallow.

The other issue was around the term “military-style”. “Military-style ammunition” was not a very helpful description—not a very helpful description of what we were talking about. What we were talking about was particular types of ammunition that had particular effects when it was used—so, for example, the armour-piercing ammunition. In my view, we shouldn’t have even mentioned the word “military-style”. In fact, it’s not in the order. It’s not in the legislation. There’s nothing mentioning “military-style” except in our report and in some of the commentary around the bills. So not helpful, because we were concerned about the effects that this banning would have on the general public and on the police, and so we wanted to talk specifically about the types of ammunition—not military-style in general.

The other issue was the idea that there should have been—and this is part of the complaint process—compensation for the banning of this particular type of ammunition. We’ve had compensation made for banned firearms—fair enough. That was what the Government wanted to do. That’s for them to decide. But the Government decided not to compensate for the banning of ammunition. So the question was whether that was enough to disallow this instrument. What we discussed and concluded was that that was not the ambit of the Regulations Review Committee. That was a question of policy. The policy was set by the Government, and the policy that they determined was that this particular banned ammunition should not be compensated for. So, whether you agree with the policy or not, that was not our consideration—whether the policy was good or bad. We stuck to our mandate. We said that it complied, and so we unanimously confirmed all of that regulation and confirmation powers relating to the ammunition and the complaints that related to it.

So that’s all I’ll say. It was a very collegial committee. As I say, we agreed. Many of us, on both sides, had very strong views in this regard, and we came to a very satisfactory conclusion. I commend it to the House.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 4) be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Hon IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I move, That the Remuneration Authority (Members of Parliament Remuneration) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time.

The Government has been clear that the recent increases to member of Parliament salaries have been unacceptably high and that there is an urgent need to improve the system and restore the ability of the Remuneration Authority to adjust MPs’ salaries. This bill is the Government’s response. It amends the Remuneration Authority Act 1977 and the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act 2013 to establish a new process for how the authority sets the salaries of members of Parliament.

I would like to thank colleagues from across the House for their support of this bill at all stages, and I’d also like to recognise the members of the Education and Workforce Committee for the speedy and efficient way in which they dealt with the bill and the small number of submitters that we had on the bill and thank the members of the committee for returning the bill to the House with no proposed amendments.

This bill will ensure that MPs’ future salary increases are reasonable and justified. It enables the Remuneration Authority to use their discretion in setting MPs’ pay and strikes an appropriate balance with the use of public moneys. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I plan only to take a very brief call on this, because there is much more important business for the House to do, but I do want to just briefly traverse some of what’s happened that has allowed us to get here today. Colleagues will remember that in the previous Parliament—actually, over the nine years—there were a number of occasions when the country was in recession. New Zealanders were finding it very, very difficult, and the Remuneration Authority, with their independence, decided to set MP salaries much higher than many would say was reasonable—in fact, anybody would think was reasonable. They did this because the criteria they were given allowed them to look at a comparable profession in the private sector and their view of what that should be remunerated as.

Colleagues will remember that when we first came into Government more than nine years ago, we too set aside an increase because we didn’t think it was reasonable and fair. In 2015, the Remuneration Authority came forward with a 5.5 percent increase to MP salaries—very, very different than many would expect and certainly different than was acceptable to the House. At that time, a change was made and legislation was put through the House that all parties—I think except for the Greens—supported, and what that did is it tied the increase for members of Parliament’s salaries to that of the average of the public sector. What that meant is, as the public sector had increases, or didn’t, as the case would be, MPs’ salaries were tied to that, and in place of that, the increases were much, much lower—significantly lower, of course, than that 5.5 percent.

Earlier this year, the Remuneration Authority announced that under that formula of the average of the public sector increase in the previous year, MPs would get a 3 percent increase, and the Government decided that that was too large and that it should be set aside. In place, a new system has been developed that is now before us in this bill which reverts to the old system previously, where the Remuneration Authority will make the decision with, really, one additional criteria around fairness and acceptability.

National is supporting this, as we have previously, through all stages. It is something that we think needs to be sorted out, but once and for all. I don’t think it is the best use of this House’s time to always be looking at the system to pay members of Parliament. The idea that it is independent I think is an important one, but when it is independent and we don’t like the decision of that independent authority, it makes it confusing for the public. I do fear—and I hope it isn’t the case, but I do fear, in reverting back to this old system, the system that delivered a 5.5 percent proposed increase for MPs in 2015, that as a party in Government we set aside, that we don’t again see that, because if we do, the Government of the day will be back in the House saying we need to change the system again.

There is one change, though, that I think is very important. It’s something that I and others in National have advocated for: that, actually, rather than having this discussion and this debate every year in this House and in the public and with our constituents, it will be a decision the Remuneration Authority will make on one occasion for a three-year period, for that term of Parliament. I think, indeed, they will make that just after the parliamentary election. I can understand that. It will be done once; it will flow through for three years. My personal view is, actually, before an election would make sense, then all MPs and candidates and the public would know what was happening, what they were campaigning on, what they were voting on, and then it would move forward. However, it is done independently, it is set for a three-year period, and National will be supporting this.

Final point is that without any exception, I am yet to see a member of Parliament in this House, in my 11 or 12 years here, who I believe comes here for what this delivers, which is a financial reward. I do believe members of Parliament come here to represent their communities, their constituents, and to work hard to make New Zealand a better place. That’s why I hope all parties in this Parliament can support this legislation so we can have clear-cut rules that the public can have confidence in, that they will be independent and remain independent. I say to the Government: if the Remuneration Authority, using this new legislative authority that they have, do come forward with a larger increase, well, actually, we have discussed that here today, and we can’t keep changing this system. We have much, much more important work to do. Thank you.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 12 December.

MATT KING (National—Northland): I’ll just take a brief call on this Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill. We oppose the bill. We think that the system doesn’t need to change; it isn’t broken. The status quo is fundamentally satisfactory. Road users pay for new roads and maintenance through their fuel taxes and road-user charges, and it’s fair and it works. Users of rail pay for the use of the rail network through a commercially focused State-owned enterprise.

In Northland, rail has never paid its way. It was built back in the days when trucking was heavily regulated and very inefficient, and even back then it didn’t compete—it couldn’t compete. So rail in Northland has never made any money. It’s never paid its way, but successive Governments have poured money into rail in an attempt to keep it going. It’s been a black hole. I’m not saying that rail anywhere else in other parts of the country is not viable, but in Northland it’s not. The National Land Transport Fund is for roads, paid for by motorists, but this Government, they’ve cancelled the motorway up north and they intend to plough millions, if not billions, into rail in Northland.

This bill shows the Government’s love affair with rail. They would love to have National’s four-laning project on their side, but we got there first, so they’ve had to satisfy themselves with a few scattered safety projects and pouring money into rail. They made a song and dance about spending about safety on our existing roads, but up north all we’ve got is plastic sticks instead of lanes. They’ve ignored our road-building programme, which was building the safest roads in the country. Up north, we’ve got a few roads that have been slightly widened, but nothing like four-laning.

The reality is they can’t even spend the money that the New Zealand Transport Agency have available for roads. They can’t even spend the existing money that they have now. They can’t even do that right. It’s a disgrace, and we will not be supporting this bill.

KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): This is a sensible piece of legislation. It’s a privilege to be able to speak on the land transport legislation amendment bill. In summary, this is a bill that is about safety. It is about strengthening the regulatory functions of the New Zealand Transport Agency, and it implements measures as part of the Tackling Unsafe Speeds programme. Therefore, without hesitation, I have no qualms in commending this bill to the House.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I believe the previous speaker Kiritapu Allan’s contribution was actually referring to the next piece of legislation we’re debating in the House rather than the current one, but that aside, I’d like to touch now on the Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill, rather than the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. Now, this bill is fundamentally shifting how rail is funded in New Zealand. That is a major concern for us, because, historically, what we have seen is those using the roads pay to use the roads, and those using rail pay to use rail. It seems like a pretty common-sense approach, and, actually, I think most users of roads would agree that that is a fair and reasonable measure. As a road user, you pay your road-user charges, you also pay your fuel tax every time you fuel up at the pump, and that’s appropriate. That goes towards contributing to the upkeep and development of new roads over time, which is a fair reflection to ensure the cost of those is met by those that utilise those particular modes of transport.

Now, I know the Green Party are fundamentally opposed to any sort of vehicle on a road and would rather that we only had pedestrians, cyclists, or maybe train users, but the reality is that simple mindset simply doesn’t work in rural New Zealand. Having that sort of narrow-minded, idealistic view is totally out of touch with what broad New Zealand requires from a transportation system. Now, absolutely, on this side of the House, we understand that rail has a place; that is not in the regions. We cannot expect everyone to commute around the Waikato region, for example, by train. That’s simply unrealistic. Actually, those that do utilise the road systems, which is by far the vast majority of New Zealanders, should not have to fund the rail network.

Rail in New Zealand is run as a State-owned enterprise (SOE). It’s a commercially driven enterprise designed to create a profit. What this Government is now saying is that, actually, we’re going to totally change that view. What we’re going to have instead is a rail system that’s an SOE but we’re going to say, actually, it doesn’t have to generate a profit. So we’re going to value it from a public-good perspective rather than a profit, commercially driven focus. That is a total shift from where we’ve been, and, of course, that requires a significant increase in funding, if KiwiRail is no longer required to generate a profit.

That’s why this particular piece of legislation has been put forward, so that current road users can help to fund this massive requirement that KiwiRail is demanding. We’ve seen a significant hole open up in terms of the funding need for KiwiRail as this Government signals a whole range of different projects on which to focus with rail. Now, look, there is, as I’ve mentioned already, a place for rail, but focusing investment willy-nilly through re-diverting transport funds into rail is simply not the right way to do that, because it sees investment go into lines that may not be viable and do not have a significant economic benefit for the country.

So we absolutely oppose this sort of total re-routing of the transportation funding system and recommend that the Government focus instead on building some of the roads with the National Land Transport Fund that we have committed to previously.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I apologise to my colleague Mark Patterson, who I seem to have accidentally nicked the call from, but we have got somewhat out of order this afternoon. I needed to, on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa, respond to a few of the points made by former speakers contributing to this piece of legislation, particularly my colleagues Tim van de Molen and Matt King—“King of the North”. When we’re talking about re-diverting transport funding into something like trains, into something like rail networks, Mr van de Molen, I’m not quite sure if there is cognisance or understanding of the fact that trains or rail are actually a mode of transport.

But on top of that, there is a really crucial role for rail, in particular when we’re speaking to the potential to reduce our carbon emissions. There’s currently a very live conversation, actually, about potentially moving our port—my port, as an Aucklander—which, I mean, it’d be awesome to see the coast at the front of Auckland CBD opened up for all Aucklanders to use, but one of the conversations that we haven’t yet cracked into properly, I don’t believe, is whether we are going to be investing in meaningful transport solutions to get that freight back into Auckland, where it is predominantly redistributed around.

I also want to raise with the National Party, who seems to think that roads are all paying for themselves by virtue of road-user charges and fuel, that they perhaps need to look into how Government spending actually operates in the transport area, because that’s absolutely not the case, as they should know with their obsession with roads, which they have liked to dub the roads of national significance. It’s definitely the case that I myself as a taxpayer, but not as somebody who actually owns a car, am helping through my taxes to pay for roading projects literally right now as we speak. I think that New Zealanders, on balance, expect transport choice, particularly in our urban centres, and for many of them, it is about enabling that transport choice.

I’m only contributing briefly to this piece of legislation given that it is part of a three-bill package from this Government about reorienting towards a far brighter future our transport solutions in this country. The Green Party is proud to support the Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Just for members, we’re on call No. 9, which is usually a split call, so I’m going to call it as a split call unless—the whips are telling me it won’t be?

Kiritapu Allan: No, you’re good. It’s call No. 9. The Greens took the Labour call; you’re taking the National call, and he’s got No. 10.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): OK—OK.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call this afternoon on the Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill, but before I come to the legislation, I do just want to acknowledge the situation down in South Canterbury at the moment. Members will be aware we had a significant flood event around the Rangitata River just over 10 days ago, and, unfortunately, it knocked out both the road bridge and also the rail network for quite some time. Contractors down there did a fantastic job getting both bridges open fairly quickly, but, unfortunately, the main trunk line down there is still closed. But it’s a real pleasure to be able to report to the House that they’ve done a fantastic job down there. I understand they’re having to replace about 200 or 300 metres of rail line, and they are aiming to have that open by Thursday, which, if they did, would be an absolutely monumental effort.

I do want to cover off a couple of points that we do have in this Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill, though, and, at its heart, it’s making it even easier for KiwiRail to access the National Land Transport Fund. I have real concerns about that, particularly for an electorate like mine. And we’ve heard from Ms Chlöe Swarbrick, who obviously has an interest in all things Auckland. But I have a concern because this is already a Government that has taken $5 billion out of the State highway network to put into rail projects, particularly in Auckland, and also cycle projects in Auckland. They’ve done that and what it’s meant is that there’s a real lack of money now available for the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to put into the State highway network.

That’s certainly true in my part of the world where, had National been re-elected, we would have built a four-lane highway between Ashburton and Christchurch or, more specifically, Ashburton and Rolleston because the Rolleston to Christchurch part is nearly complete. But because the Government’s taken so much money out of the State highway network, we now have a situation where NZTA are having to come up with this cut-price scheme, which is to put a median barrier down the existing road. That’s really just due to the fact that they’ve taken so much money out of the State highway network to put into rail instead.

So I have real concerns that this bill is going to make it even easier for money to come out of money that should be going on roads to make those roads safer. I mentioned Ashburton to Christchurch and there’s a very good reason for that. It’s now the second most dangerous stretch of highway in the country for fatalities and serious injuries. So if we’re taking more money out of the roading network to put into rail, all it’s going to mean is that roads around the country, including mine in Canterbury, are less safe because legislation like this passes and more money ends up going into rail.

It’s also had another effect, which is we’ve had an announcement recently from the Government which is to borrow $19 billion, because they’re now in projected deficit, having to borrow $19 billion. I think around $12 billion of that is going to go into infrastructure and $6.8 billion of that is going to go into the road and rail networks. We still don’t know, by the way, what the breakdown of that’s going to be, about how much of that $6.8 billion is actually going into roads, but I have this fear that when you look across the other side, you look at New Zealand First on the one hand, the Greens on the other, and Labour in the middle, there’s probably only one thing that they actually agree on and that’s rail.

I’m not opposed to rail. I think rail can work in certain circumstances, but I have a fear that you’ve got a Minister over there, who’s sitting opposite, who said that we have over-invested in roads and motorways for decades. You’ve got an Associate Minister in Julie Anne Genter, who refers to motorists as “car fascists”. What’s the likelihood that we’re going to see much of that $6.8 billion actually going into new roading infrastructure rather than into rail?

So all this bill does is it makes it even easier for rail to raid more money from the roading network. The Government opposite have already announced they’re going to be putting more money into rail. All it means, unfortunately, is that roads in my part of the world in Canterbury are going to be less safe because all we’re doing is investing more and more into Auckland and into Wellington. Thank you.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First for this Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill. Of course, New Zealand First are huge supporters of our rail network—and the shameful state of disarray that we have inherited it in and the billion dollars allocated in the last Budget is long overdue. I was just up in Matt King’s neck of the woods on Friday, actually doing his job for him, and I know they are really excited up there to get their new port and the rail link up there and really get Northland cranking. But this is a much wider issue.

It’s integrating our transport systems. And just coming at this from a farming issue, we’re looking at emissions and the methane and all the debates around methane and flow gases. What we’ve actually got to do is drop our carbon dioxide emissions. How are we going to do that? We’ve actually got to do something, and one of those things is to get our freight, primarily, and, in our urban centres, our commuters into public transport and on to trains—the logs that are damaging our roads and the like. So this is an absolutely appropriate response. These ghost roads that the Opposition are pining for that would cost billions and billions of dollars—I mean, just to put a four-lane bridge over the Rākaia River, Andrew Falloon, would be astronomical costs that we could be actually investing into our rail network to take some of those big logging trucks and freight off the road. And, of course, there are the safety elements of that as well.

So, without further ado, New Zealand First absolutely support this measure and commend it to the House. Thank you.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Thank you for taking my call this afternoon, and it will be a brief one. It’s abundantly clear that National opposes this bill. As the last speaker for the National Party, it’s just signalling that KiwiBuild has been derailed, so is this on the same track for a similar destination? In this instance, the puns aside, the case for change has not been made out for the Government. The status quo is satisfactory.

We’ve heard that the road users pay for the new roads and accordingly users of rail ought to pay for the use of the rail network. My colleagues have made it very clear what the party position is on this, and I’m just going to defer back to memory lane, just track there a little bit, to the association that, of course, yourself, Mr Speaker, and I have to Taihape, which is a railway town, and family land associated with my family, the whenua there at Turangaarere, Omoti, was a railway settlement and the land was claimed under the Public Works Act back in the early 1900s and known as a railway settlement.

The tracking of those stories also, for many of us, the histories associated with the railways, and the reference to the ghost roads and the ghost housing this afternoon with the questions that had been posed in this House—I also allude to, up in Taihape through to Waiōuru, our defence lands. Many of our members from families waited at the railway stations, farewelling our ancestors as they went off to war. There’s a hauntingly sad image many of us may recollect, particularly during Anzac Day, and it’s about our soldiers, the forgotten ones and the fallen ones, who were waiting to return home. That waiting place is at the railway station beside the railway track.

The reason I mention that is that they are sad memories that are conjured up, and what this bill is purporting to do, and it will be railroaded through, is that it may become a sad memory in relation to the fact that the State-owned enterprise, which is the operational entity for KiwiRail, ought to be and remain running and focused as a commercially run entity. This bill is purporting to change the framework for that so that heavy rail track network owned by KiwiRail is now framed under and placed under and supported by the road users paying for the new roads. So the National Party opposes this bill.

The references that I have made, whenever I do stand to speak, it’s drawing it back to those personal connections. The railways for many of us as families have tracked through our lives and we do have certain memories, and they are poignant ones.

May this bill become a distant memory in the course of time, as it will show that it does not operate in the commercial entity that it was proposed and set up to do. The National Party does not commend this bill to the House.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to talk about this rail bill. Can I just acknowledge the Minister of Transport for his work but also the fundamental objective of this bill, and that’s to integrate rail with all the other modes so we can get transport sorted once and for all, and all those challenges, because they are long term. We’re here for the long term and this is all part of that programme.

I was in Whanganui myself, reflecting on the previous speaker’s words. I was walking along the river line and got to Aramoho, I think it was called, and there’s a rail bridge there, and walked back down the rail line past Cullinane College and back into the city centre. I thought, “At least there’s a Government here that will ignite and activate that line and make sure that it gets used even more than it currently does.”

The other piece I like about this is that those in the metro cities with urban rail networks, Auckland and Wellington, those KiwiRail public servants—

Hon Phil Twyford: You’re making Jamie jealous.

PAUL EAGLE: —ha, ha!—will certainly now be part of that regional land transport planning that’s vital. They’ve been left out of the loop, not on purpose. I know public servants are all willing in the transport sector, but this just formalises the arrangement and makes sure now that that statutory three-year rail network investment can proceed. I am proud to commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 57

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

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): I move, That the Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill be reported to the House by 24 April 2020.

Bills

Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): I move, That the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment 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 24 April 2020.

Safety is this Government’s top transport priority. I want to make sure that people who are going to and from work and using the country’s roads and highways get home to their families safely at the end of the day. Every Kiwi has the right to travel around our country, to use the transport system, and arrive home safely to their family, and safety lies at the heart of this bill.

This bill will strengthen and clarify the New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA’s) regulatory function and leadership role within the land transport regulatory system. There are three key components that are proposed by this bill. They include establishing the role of Director of Land Transport; strengthening the regulatory function of NZTA—this involves clarifying its regulatory role, objectives, functions, and funding while also supporting key regulatory interventions; and, third, one of these key regulatory interventions implements measures as part of the Tackling Unsafe Speeds programme. This is an important component of the Government’s soon to be announced new Road to Zero safety strategy.

As New Zealand’s land transport regulator, the NZTA exercises regulatory functions to promote a safe, efficient, and effective land transport system. In October 2018, the NZTA board announced that the NZTA had not been performing its regulatory function properly and, in particular, that it had been too focused on education and self-regulation. This came to light through the board discovering a backlog of 850 regulatory non-compliance cases that had not been adequately managed by the transport agency. We’re talking about compliance files that had been sitting around that had been left open and not properly followed through. One of these cases involved a man from Dargaville, Mr William Ball, who was killed in a vehicle that had not been properly inspected by a non-compliant vehicle inspection agent.

In response to all this, I commissioned a review into the regulatory capability and the performance of the New Zealand Transport Agency. The review was conducted by the agency’s Government monitor—the oversight agency responsible; that is the Ministry of Transport, who were assisted by the consultancy firm MartinJenkins. The ministry’s final report was made public in October last year and it found that the New Zealand Transport Agency had failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the last Government. The former Government, in my view, was asleep at the wheel while the agency treated the people that it was mandated to regulate as its customers. This meant that cowboy operators could get away with not doing their job properly.

For more than a year since the October 2018 NZTA board announcement, the agency has undertaken work to build its capability and the systems to deliver its core regulatory functions, including strengthening governance, decision making, its people capability, and operational delivery. However, even with these organisational improvements, more changes are needed to ensure that this failure is not allowed to happen again—and that’s what this bill does.

The Ministry of Transport report recommended the establishment of a role called Director of Land Transport. This bill establishes that role. It makes it a statutory role. I note that such a role is already in place in the maritime and aviation sectors with Maritime New Zealand and Aviation New Zealand. The Director of Land Transport will provide a greater focus on regulatory delivery and drive more accountability for regulatory outcomes and decision making in the transport agency.

The director will be accountable under law for the delivery of key regulatory functions and powers that are currently held and exercised by the board of NZTA under the New Zealand Land Transport Management Act. This includes statutorily independent functions such as issuing licences, compliance, and enforcement of all regulated parties in the land transport system. I want to underline how important it is to have—in an agency that is responsible for both building much of the infrastructure for our transport system, for co-funding infrastructure and transport services with local government; an agency that is focused on building the transport system that will deliver the mobility, the productivity, the quality of life that we demand as a country—some statutory independence that ensures that those powerful drivers to build infrastructure and deliver services are not allowed to overpower the statutory mandate to deliver a proper standard of safety regulation.

I now come to the second major component of this bill, and that is that it will refresh the independent regulatory functions and powers in the Land Transport Management Act to ensure that they are fit for purpose. This includes refreshing the NZTA’s regulatory objectives and its remaining functions and powers in the Land Transport Management Act. It will provide a greater focus on the NZTA’s regulatory role and make sure that its existing land transport planning, investment, and delivery functions are adequately articulated.

The bill provides for some specific additional powers to support the NZTA to perform its regulatory function. This includes functions such as providing the NZTA with the ability to place conditions that address safety risks amongst transport service licences. Second, the bill requires the transport agency to develop a new strategy to strengthen regulatory delivery and to establish a new regulatory operating model to implement the agency’s regulatory strategy. The strategy and the operating model are critical in driving the transport agency to articulate how it will be an effective, responsive, and risk-based regulator.

The review of the NZTA found that resourcing was a key barrier affecting the agency’s ability to perform its regulatory function. There’s no question that the transport agency needs additional capability and capacity to lift its regulatory performance, but I do want to note over the last year what progress has been made within the transport agency under the leadership of interim chief executive Mark Ratcliffe and the new chair of the agency board Sir Brian Roche, in beefing up the capacity of the regulatory function with the agency.

To address this issue, the bill proposes further to allow the Crown to fund NZTA’s regulatory activities and the Ministry of Transport’s associated monitoring activity up to amount agreed by the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance from land transport revenue—so that is from the National Land Transport Fund that is replenished every year through the revenue that’s generated from the fuel excise duty and road-user charges. These new changes, coupled with the recent board appointments at the agency, will support the NZTA to become an effective, modern, and risk-based regulator.

Fourth, as part of the key regulatory interventions, the bill supports the implementation of the Tackling Unsafe Speeds programme. These include enabling the NZTA to issue infringement notices for offences detected by safety cameras, requiring the transport agency to establish a speed management committee which will conduct independent reviews of the transport agency’s speed management plans, and establishing a centralised register where there will be a single, definitive source of information about speed limits on all New Zealand roads.

I want to underline how important this is. Over the last decade the number of deaths and serious injuries in this country blew out by more than 50 percent, far beyond the increase in vehicle kilometres travelled or population growth. At a time when so many other countries that we often compare ourselves to have succeeded at reducing the number of deaths on their roads, New Zealand’s been going in the opposite direction.

I want to acknowledge the work of Associate Minister Julie Anne Genter, who’s been leading the Government’s safety work in this area. It is a comprehensive programme of reform right across the design and the building of infrastructure. These changes will make sure that NZTA can do its job as a safety regulator for the land transport system. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 24 April 2020. I commend the bill to the House.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, but the only Minister who’s had a worse year as a Minister than Phil Twyford is Julie Anne Genter. So it was a bit strange to hear the Minister of Transport thanking and congratulating the Hon Julie Anne Genter, because she’s had a shocker. It was interesting to hear him talk about road safety improvements, which she’s in charge of, because one of the things we discovered at select committee last week—and I see my colleague Jamie Strange peering intently at me. He will remember this from the select committee as we had the transport agency before us. It turns out that in the last year—guess how much money from their budget they’ve spent on road safety?

Andrew Falloon: Oh lots! Surely lots!

CHRIS BISHOP: Forty-eight percent. So they spent only half. This is a Government that trumpets road safety. They’re always banging on about it. It is very important. They’ve transferred all this money out of the State highway budget into road safety improvements and they’ve stopped all the four-lane expressways which actually save lives, and they’re putting it into median barriers and wire ropes and all the rest of it. That’s good, except the transport agency’s spent only 48 percent of the money. So, for the Minister to describe Julie Anne Genter as having done a good job of administrating that, I think, frankly, beggars belief. That’s before you get into the debacle of the other elements of her portfolio.

But, look, we will be supporting the bill to select committee. It is largely non-controversial—or I would like to think it is non-controversial. It’s amending the Land Transport Management Act, the Land Transport Act, and the Railways Act to strengthen the regulatory leadership of the Transport Agency. We support the establishment of a statutorily independent Director of Land Transport and we support the changes that the Minister has outlined. We want to have a good look at the bill at the select committee, and in particular we’re very keen on looking at the changes around speed limits, essentially the processes around speed limit changes, and there is a clause in the bill. It looks like a reasonably uncontroversial clause. It’s one of those classic ones where it sort of looks anodyne at first glance, but you’ve just got to make sure the officials aren’t—

Jamie Strange: Don’t be suspicious.

CHRIS BISHOP: Well, Jamie Strange says I’m suspicious. Well, look, I’ve worked in and around Government for a while. You’ve got to be a bit careful sometimes, Mr Strange. You’ll learn this, young squire. You’ll learn as you go forward that sometimes the officials—

Hon Tim Macindoe: I think he’s older than you are.

CHRIS BISHOP: I think he is, actually. That’s embarrassing. I was his captain on the parliamentary cricket tour, and—

Kieran McAnulty: Co-captain.

CHRIS BISHOP: Co-captain, that’s right. But Mr McAnulty couldn’t keep him in line. It was left to the National MP to keep Jamie Strange in line over in the UK.

Hon Tim Macindoe: We have the same problem in Hamilton.

CHRIS BISHOP: Doesn’t David Bennett sort him out? I heard the Hon David Bennett sorted it out. Anyway, we’re somewhat away from the bill, but I’m just making the point that we’re going to want to have a good look at that change. It looks anodyne and we just want to make sure it actually does exactly what it says on the tin.

The Minister has rightly talked about the transport agency strengthening and bolstering its regulatory obligations and its regulatory functions. We support that, and we support those changes. Obviously, we’ve has the somewhat damning review that was done by MartinJenkins into regulatory stewardship by the transport agency. The Minister, I think, has quite unfairly tried to sheet that home to the last Government’s Ministers and tried to blame Ministers for directing the transport agency to not focus on regulatory stewardship and effective enforcement of its regulatory powers. Nothing could be further from the truth, and, again, quite misleadingly, the Minister has basically said the MartinJenkins report actually says that, which it doesn’t if you read it.

So I think that’s been regrettable from the Minister, because, actually, there’s bipartisan support across the House for the Transport Agency being able to effectively discharge its responsibilities, and we will, of course, support any measures that improve the ability of the transport agency to do that—to allow it to do its regulatory interventions around speed management and around enforcement and centralisation of its regulatory authority, which is in the purpose of the bill. So we support the bill to a select committee. There are a few things we’re going to want to have a look at.

Unlike the Justice Committee, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee does not have a lot of business, and we’re going to get into this. The Justice Committee, I think it would be fair to say, is overburdened. It is encumbered with a lot of work. It’s funny—they’ve just finished the inquiry into the 2016 local body elections and they’re about to start the 2019 inquiry. That’s how busy they’ve been. But the transport committee is not so busy, and we will get into it. We will have a good look at it, and we look forward to coming back in the new year and examining the bill in more detail. Thank you.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. As a member of the hard-working, heavy agenda - ridden Transport and Infrastructure Committee, I’m certainly proud to speak on two bills on the same day. Can I just acknowledge the Minister for the hard work around really fixing up a bit of a mess that was inherited, just to be frank. I will just say that on the quiet because what we’ve got here is a coalition Government that’s putting people and transport first, and we see that here, with safety at the top of the agenda.

One of my many constituents came into the office last week, in fact, and he said that—no, it was yesterday. I was in the office yesterday and he said that they’d actually read the document put out by those on the other side, and he said it just mentions the word “transport” nine times. He felt there was a spelling mistake on page 22. I said I had a tonne of other things to read, much more high-quality documents coming out of this side of the House. So I said, “Look, I won’t verify that but I’ll certainly make mention of it in the House next time I talk on a transport bill.” So that’s what we’ve got here today. That’s the context.

It’s about time that the statutory Director of Land Transport role was established. We heard how there’s one in place already with maritime and aviation. And what this does is put the steel behind ensuring that an agency, a Crown entity like the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), has the absolute reinforcement to deliver on that regulatory function. Despite calls that the agenda has been light, can I say that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee has had many a debate around these entities. We’ve often politely asked NZTA, the Ministry of Transport, and the regional council, including the city, to come in and explain themselves around a whole range of things. This fixes and helps them to do their job properly, and I’m proud that the Minister had prioritised this.

We see that it supports the implementation of the Tackling Unsafe Speeds programme. This will just put the icing on the cake. It fixes up the mess that we quietly inherited, but as the humble, hard workers we are on this side of the House, we’re getting on with the job, fixing those long-term challenges and making a decent run at the transport sector. I commend this bill to the House.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): As our transport spokesman, Chris Bishop, has mentioned, we intend to support this bill through to the select committee. I certainly hope that, as we look at progressing an improved regulatory system, as the Minister describes it, it will be matched alongside of investment into infrastructure and roading. There is a great concern that, in order to make our roads safer, instead of making them better roads, we slow down the traffic, and there would be some concerns around that.

There are a number of organisations that utilise the roads not just for their livelihood but also to supply logistically our cities and regions. Of course, I’m speaking about the Road Transport Forum. They said their view is that road safety is about more than just a strong regulatory approach; you need infrastructure and investment to ensure safe roads in the first place. So we certainly hope that part of that $6.8 billion that the Government has set aside to go into transport is going to do that. We are concerned, along with the Road Transport Forum, that they don’t put all their eggs into the regulatory basket. It’s imperative to have equal weighting given to infrastructure and investment.

In fact, the Minister was up in my region probably a year ago, and he made an announcement that I think all the people of North Taranaki appreciated about some infrastructure improvements between Bell Block and Waitara. We have been waiting a considerable period of time, and we still wait—still wait. We’re into our third public consultation, and I’m sure that the Minister wants to put that project in as part of the $6.8 billion spend. Certainly, I will be putting the pressure on him that he needs to do that because that piece of highway has cost 12 lives in the last little while, and it’s certainly very, very important.

We do feel that transport ought to be something that we can support, and we are prepared to do so, but we will be looking very, very carefully at what the Minister is proposing, and we look forward to the submissions that come to the select committee. We do want ample time for those submissions to be adequately reviewed, and, certainly, we want to have a system of transport in our country that offers the very best of safety, and that is not just around regulation; it’s around the construction, the camber, the quality of the roads which New Zealanders, and particularly heavy transport operators, drive on. So I’m happy, sir, at this point in time to commend this bill to the House.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Mr Speaker. New Zealand First also rises to support this bill, and, of course, reinforce the messages that we’ve heard already about the importance of road safety—far too many tragedies. As we head into the holiday season, we hope that people will drive safely around the country, but what we’ve had—and it was interesting, Chris Bishop, in his contribution, sort of kicking for touch. I mean, the MartinJenkins report was scathing of the New Zealand Transport Agency and its oversight of the regulatory functions and warrants of fitness. Quite how that can be glossed over, I’m not sure. It’s a bit like in the agriculture space with the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak—the NAIT system was similarly exposed to having no oversight, and we paid the price for that as well.

So this bill does a couple of things—re-establishing the Director of Land Transport role so there’s someone for whom the buck stops and that can have proper oversight of this. It does a few other things: I note there’s some stuff around a central registry for speed limit changes, speed management plans, and the like. I’m sure the Transport and Infrastructure Committee will go through that under the wise guidance of chairman Darroch Ball with his Mensa-level intelligence. He will guide that through wisely, I am sure. The other stuff is around the regulatory functions, just strengthening those and refreshing them a little bit to make them fit for purpose.

So this is a good bill. I’m pleased it’s getting cross-party support and we look forward to seeing it through to select committee. Thank you.

MATT KING (National—Northland): Just a short note to support this bill—we’ll support it to select committee anyway. I understand that there was a review and that some of the functions with the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) were found wanting. So this bill will address some of those issues if it goes through the process and if the job’s done well.

I do want to have a little plug for the NZTA, because one of the big jobs that we gave them was building roads and bridges, and they were doing that tremendously well. In the area of Northland they—so, throughout the country, the job was to build these roads of national significance. Along comes a new Government and, basically, pulls the rug out from under them. They had all these plans, 20-, 30-, 50-year plans to build four-lane highways, which is what the rest of the world are doing. It’s the bare minimum. Before you worry about any other forms of transport, you build four-lane highways, especially in Northland; no point in having trains up there if you don’t have a four-lane highway. I fly over that spindly little road that goes up North and I’ve driven up it hundreds of times in my lifetime and it’s not fit for purpose. So a four-lane highway is a basic requirement. Before you move any port, you’ve got to have that four-lane highway.

So NZTA have been doing a great job on that side of things, and along comes this Government and changes all the rules. I know for a fact, having spoken to many of the NZTA staff, that they are really frustrated with what’s going on because this Government doesn’t know where it’s going.

So next year they’re going to announce some more road funding, and I would like to hope that they would give the green light to some of our four-lane highways. I hope that they don’t do what I’m guessing they might do, and that is build another two-lane road next to the existing one at two-thirds the price of a four-lane highway—a totally separate four-lane highway. From Whangarei out to Northport, they built a two-lane road next to the existing two-lane road at two-thirds of the price; it makes no sense. So we hope that they see sense and that they start four-laning with that big surplus that they’ve supposedly got. So, if they do, I hope they really consider Northland—I’m thinking a bit of pressure will come on from New Zealand First. So they may end up spending a bit of money on roads up North. If they do, kudos to them—somehow I doubt it, though. I commend this bill to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui, ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. I’m speaking on behalf of my colleague Julie Anne Genter, the honourable Minister, and I acknowledge the kind words of the transport Minister, Phil Twyford. The Green Party is proud to support this legislation, which is improving outcomes for New Zealanders.

Now, when it comes to the New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA’s) regulatory responsibilities we have to be cognisant of the facts of history, and what we have seen in New Zealand in the past—it has had fatal consequences. If I could take the opportunity to acknowledge the tragic death of Mr William Ball of Dargaville, what we have seen in this country is cowboy operators and an agency which I think, quite frankly, was asleep at the wheel, not doing the responsibility that every New Zealander deserves so that, when they hop in a vehicle, they know that it’s got the safest standards possible. So this legislation is improving the standards; re-establishing the Director of Land Transport role beefs up this responsibility for the Transport Agency, and I acknowledge the changes that have also happened in regards to the board as well. We think it’s important that the NZTA steps up and that we can have confidence in our regime.

Lastly, I’d really like to single out the Tackling Unsafe Speeds programme and the changes as a result of this legislation. We know that speed kills, we know it’s dangerous, and we know we can do more to tackle it. Part of the road to getting zero deaths on our roads—obviously, it’s going to take time, but it is about the journey and it’s about acknowledging that drivers are going to make mistakes and that, through infrastructure, through education, through road planning, we can mitigate that. This has been so successful overseas. So the Green Party is very happy to support this very positive step forward. Kia ora koutou.

TIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we’ve already heard on this side of the House, we will support this piece of legislation. Anything we can do to help bolster the regulatory function or to strengthen the ability of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to carry out their functions is a good thing, and we support that. We’ve seen over the last couple of years that they have struggled somewhat. I think that’s a fair characterisation of the NZTA’s ability to conduct what was expected of them over that time. I think we saw, obviously, a significant shift when we had a change in Government with the new Government policy statement coming in around the priorities for NZTA, refocusing and redirecting their attentions off the back of that.

Now, through that time and subsequently, we’ve seen a number of challenges in their ability to deliver what has been expected of them. Now, quite frankly, that hasn’t been good enough. There are a number of areas where they have not met the expectations of constituents around the country. The Waikato is one that I would point out. Some of the safety upgrades that were planned for State Highway 1 through to the Piarere intersection—those projects were meant to be delivered by May this year, four pieces within those particular projects. None of them were delivered by May. Those sorts of examples can be found around the country. For a Government that highlights safety as its priority, they’ve clearly been unable to deliver on that. We just heard from Mr Bishop before that the NZTA only spent 48 percent of their budget, in terms of these safety aspects, over this last year. That simply is not good enough.

So this bill to help strengthen some of those regulatory functions, I think, will go a long way towards supporting their ability to respond, to adapt, and to focus on getting the best transport outcomes for New Zealanders, because absolutely, without a doubt, that will continue to be a strong focus for us should we be fortunate to get back into Government; we will expect NZTA to step up to the plate. There will be a significant number of roading projects that we will be reinvestigating with haste with the expectation that we can deliver those as quickly as possible for New Zealanders in both islands—a number of different projects; 12 that were cancelled by this Government when they came in; projects that simply make sense. They have strong economic business cases and significant safety benefits as well, and when we hear repeatedly that the NZTA’s number one focus under the new Government policy statement is safety—we’re simply not seeing the delivery of that. So these roading projects are critical, and for that reason we will be refocusing on those should we be back in Government. Absolutely, we need a strong NZTA with the right functions and powers to enable that to happen once that occurs. So, on that basis, we support it through to select committee and look forward to it progressing from there.

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

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m delighted to take a call on this excellent piece of legislation. I’d also like to acknowledge the work that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) do—I acknowledge that they have had some challenges, but they do an excellent piece of work for our country. The total investment that we have in roads, we heard at the select committee, was around $50 billion—so that’s a $50 billion piece of sunk infrastructure. Keeping those roads safe is an important aspect of NZTA’s brief, and they’re certainly working very hard on that. We also heard at the select committee that, over the summer months, they’ve put a record amount of investment into road safety. This bill helps to enable road safety. This is what it’s about. This is about keeping our families safe. It’s about bringing people home at night. We do have a record of deaths and injury on our roads. That must be improved, and we are working hard to improve that.

I’d like to touch on the aspect there that the Minister, Phil Twyford, mentioned there in his opening speech around Tackling Unsafe Speeds—the implementation of the programme that this bill supports—and it’s around enabling NZTA to issue infringement notices for offences detected by safety cameras. Now, safety cameras are there for a purpose. I know that, at various times when you’re driving along, someone coming towards you might flash their lights to tell people that there’s a safety camera; I personally don’t do that, because I think that the safety cameras are there for a purpose: to keep people travelling at safe speeds. So it’s an important aspect there around the safety cameras.

The second one—and I’ll just take a brief call because a lot of these points have been canvassed—is the aspect around speed limits on New Zealand roads. The bill establishes a centralised register where there will be a single definitive source of information about speed limits on all New Zealand roads. I personally believe that many of our speed limits are too high, particularly on some of the narrow rural roads, and people travelling along those roads at speeds that are simply too high. So I certainly welcome that as a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

If this bill is sent to our select committee, I look forward to supporting this bill as we hear from submitters out there. Thank you. I support this bill.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll just be taking a short call this afternoon on this Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. As we’ve heard this afternoon, the National Party will be supporting it—at least to first reading—and the real reason for that is because we do recognise that the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) does have a number of challenges ahead of them. Probably, from my perspective, one of the biggest challenges they have, unfortunately, has been this $5 billion cut they’ve had to face to their State highway budget, and what that’s meant is that they’ve had to scale back dramatically on some of the projects that they would have liked to do. The one that sticks out in my mind, as I’ve said in an earlier contribution this afternoon, is the ride between Ashburton and Christchurch, which unfortunately is the second most dangerous highway in the country for fatalities and serious crashes.

What’s interesting—as we also heard in the debate earlier this afternoon—is that what came out of the select committee appearance by the NZTA last week is that they’ve spent only 48 percent of their road safety budget. Now, this is a Government that, when they came in, cut all of this money out of the road safety budget. They literally said that road safety is “our number one priority”, and yet the NZTA has spent only 48 percent of their road safety budget. That’s had a real impact, unfortunately, all over the country of course. But I just think about one intersection in my electorate, in particular, and that’s the intersection between State Highway 79 and State Highway 1. That’s, essentially, where the traffic from Queenstown and Mount Cook comes through Geraldine and then turns on to the main highway and generally heads north through to Christchurch. What we know is that that intersection’s had more crashes on it this year than the last five years.

So I’ve written to the NZTA numerous times—because I’m no longer allowed to meet with them, according to Phil Twyford, the Minister opposite; he won’t let me anymore—asking for them to upgrade that intersection, to do some proper work on that intersection, to square up that intersection, because what we know is that far too often people are turning left out of that intersection and treating it as a merging lane and not as a proper intersection, and that’s unfortunately leading to far too many crashes. Unfortunately, they haven’t done that; they’ve claimed they don’t have the money for it—but now, of course, we know that they do. Now, of course, we know that they’ve spent only 48 percent of their road safety budget. So they do have the money to do it. It’s an extraordinary failure by the NZTA to make our roads safer. But it’s no surprise, because it sounds like the NZTA is pretty chaotic under this Minister. We know that they’ve lost a chief executive, they’ve lost a chair, and, in fact, the Minister has sacked the entire board of the NZTA in recent months.

So we will support this bill because we see it as one small opportunity, perhaps, for the regulatory environment in the NZTA to be improved. I can only hope that that happens under this Government; if it won’t, then certainly under the next. Thank you.

MARJA LUBECK (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a short call in this first reading debate on the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill. We heard from the Minister, Phil Twyford, previously that there are, basically, a couple of components to this bill: establishing a Director of Land Transport role, and strengthening and clarifying the New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA’s) regulatory function—I think that has been outlined, pretty much, in the previous speeches.

What I do want to talk a little bit about is the fact that safety is at the heart of this bill and the heart of these changes so that we can ensure that all New Zealanders can be safe on our transport system when they are travelling. It is good that we bring the focus back to safety, because what the independent review actually found is that, under previous transport Ministers, the NZTA had been directed to focus on building roads, and that came at the expense of keeping people safe. So what this Government is doing is clearly putting the priorities and the focus back where they should be: making safety our top priority.

On that note, the previous speaker, Andrew Falloon, was mentioning some of the roads that he believed needed to be built. Well, I had a quick scan through yet another discussion document that the National Party brought out a couple of days ago: their transport, infrastructure, and housing plan. Very clearly that plan, where they listed some of the roading projects, was missing Penlink. I was quite surprised to see that, because, yes, Penlink is not showing in there—

Chris Penk: No, that’s next year—next year we announce the projects.

MARJA LUBECK: Well, Mr Penk, whatever your party is thinking of announcing as yet another unfunded project, I just wanted to make it very clear that this Government has put the funding aside for Penlink. We will ensure that it will get built, and I’m sure that, at the moment, we are looking at maybe bringing that forward—hopefully; fingers crossed.

But this Government is building roads as well as building more safety into our roads. So we have our priorities right, I would say, where the National Party has it all wrong. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

HARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): In taking this call, again, I’m at the back end, being the last speaker for the National Party. We’ve boarded the bus as we talk about this omnibus bill. This bill—I’m a lawyer, so I have to go through and state what specific legislation is part of this omnibus bill that we’re all on board with—amends the Land Transport Management Act 2003, the Land Transport Act 1998, and the Railways Act 2005. It’s about strengthening the regulatory leadership of the NZTA—the New Zealand Transport Agency—and setting up a new regulatory structure establishing the position of the Director of Land Transport, centralising that regulatory authority, and strengthening the NZTA’s role in relation to its interventions, including speed management and enforcement.

I’ve heard in the House this afternoon about the importance of safety. National is unashamedly focused on building safer and more efficient roads because safer roads do save lives. This bill—legislation soon to be—supported by the National Party is about safety, is about efficiency, and is about the interests of our community. I think that encapsulates and sums up what the National Party is about, as well.

Look, I’ll keep this brief because my colleagues have addressed, before the House, what this bill is encapsulating, but I’m just going to reflect on the comment that was shared by the MP for Rongotai, Paul Eagle, who talked about walking trackside in Aramoho in Whanganui a few weeks ago, along the railway tracks. So I’m hopeful that, during that sojourn, you saw on the back of a bus—talking about omnibus and all, and me being the last speaker for the National Party at the back end—that you reflected and saw my image as it was traveling around Whanganui and promoting safer communities, promoting the fact that I value our communities. I glance across the room too at the Hon Willie Jackson, who, I’m also aware, was in Whanganui. So I’m sure that as you may have manoeuvred around my fine and fair city in Whanganui—noting we’ve also got a slight obstacle at the moment with State Highway 4, and the NZTA are being certainly prompted and promoted to come to the party on this one as well, to open up the roadways and ensure the safety of our road users.

So this bill is very much about the statutorily independent Director of Land Transport leading the charge in terms of the regulatory function and decision making in that role. In closing, this bill is commended to the House and supported by the National Party.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. After listening to members who spoke earlier, especially the Minister of Transport, the Hon Phil Twyford, and National’s spokesperson Mr Chris Bishop, it’s understandable where the members are respectively coming from. Quite the contrary to Mr Bishop’s view, I think Minister Twyford and his Associate Minister Julie Anne Genter have done a tremendously good job. I want to congratulate Minister Twyford on his leadership.

This bill is about safety. Safety is this coalition Government’s top transport priority, and this bill seeks to achieve that by strengthening and clarifying the regulatory function of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA).

In October 2018, NZTA announced that NZTA had not been performing its regulatory functioning effectively and that, in particular, it was too focused on education and self-regulation. This came to light through the backlog of 850 regulatory non-compliance cases that had not been managed properly by the NZTA.

One of the cases that some of the members touched earlier involved the tragic death of Mr William Ball, who was killed in a vehicle that had not been properly inspected by a non-compliance vehicle inspector agent. We’re not simply dealing with statistics; we are talking about people’s lives.

While speaking on a transport-related bill, it is correct and appropriate for the Minister and other members to say that the former Government was asleep at the wheel and that this bill seeks to remedy the situation. We are putting people and their safety and their lives first and foremost.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): I move, That the Land Transport (NZTA) Legislation Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 24 April 2020.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill

First Reading

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister for Urban Development): I move, That the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider the bill.

I want to start my contribution on this bill by talking about how it fits into the broader agenda of our Government to fix a broken housing system. Much of what I will talk about today enjoys, I think, a high measure of bipartisan support across the House. I think we all share the analysis that we have an unresponsive housing market constrained by regulatory failure and missing the tools to enable sustainable urban growth. And, with that in mind, I want to acknowledge the Hon Paul Goldsmith and the Hon Judith Collins of National, the Hon Shane Jones as Minister for Infrastructure and New Zealand First member, and the Hon James Shaw and the Hon Julie Anne Genter from the Green Party. It’s rare for such a substantive bill to achieve the level of cross-party support that this has. But we have achieved this, and I look forward to jointly shepherding this bill through Parliament with those members.

There is a startling array of indicators that, in housing and urban development, are telling us that we have a major problem: severe housing unaffordability, falling homeownership, increased hardship and homelessness, ballooning household debt, and increased intergenerational inequality. And, as you’d expect, our Government is committed to directly intervening to provide support to those who need it, to build more public housing and affordable housing, and to rein in excess demand by changing the tax settings to discourage property speculation. The Environment Committee right now is considering the Urban Development Bill, which is designed to cut through the red tape and lead large-scale urban development projects that would otherwise be too complex, risky, or uncertain for the private sector to undertake alone.

But where I want to focus today is this bill, which is one of the strands of our urban growth agenda. The agenda rests on the idea that sustained progress will rely on getting our urban land and housing markets to work better, to be more competitive, and, in our view, there are three big challenges that need to be addressed. The first is a planning system that has been based on the idea of urban containment; second, the failure of governments until now, both local and central, to actively work with the private sector to enable urban growth and expansion; and, third, a broken system for financing new infrastructure to support urban development.

Underpinning the first two is a planning system that stops our cities and towns from growing up and out. And this isn’t just the Resource Management Act (RMA), but it’s also how we plan three waters and transport infrastructure. The Government has a number of work streams under way to address these challenges. We’ve got a national policy statement on urban development that will set clear parameters for council plan-making and incentivise quality intensification and ensure that councils zone more land for housing and urban growth. There’s the RMA reform process led by David Parker, which will consider our legislative arrangements in this area. We’ve got central government, local government, iwi, and the private sector collaborating on planning for growth, regional spatial planning exercises in six of the country’s fastest-growing towns and cities, and Minister Nanaia Mahuta is leading a wide-ranging reform programme on the three waters.

But our infrastructure financing system is broken, and that’s where this bill comes in. The Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill is part of the solution to fixing our broken system. Our cities and towns cannot grow without a ready source of investment to finance and fund infrastructure, both roads and the three waters, yet our current system puts in place a range of constraints that make it very difficult for the market and for local government, particularly, to plan for and meet the demand for infrastructure. Several of our high-growth councils have tapped out their balance sheets. They cannot finance the infrastructure that’s necessary for urban growth and too often they end up in a position of using the RMA planning powers to protect their balance sheet and stop residential expansion.

Auckland, our largest city, grew by more than 156 people in the five years to 2018. That’s the equivalent of adding a whole new city the size of Hamilton. Providing infrastructure for that growth means that Auckland will use 98 percent of its debt capacity over the next decade. It’s not just Auckland; for example, Hamilton has also seen very high levels of growth and will use 86 percent of its debt capacity in the next 10 years. The inability of local government to invest in the infrastructure to stop urban growth is one of the main problems we have in our housing markets. When a city cannot grow in response to demand, you get a pressure cooker effect, which is precisely what has given Auckland some of the most expensive land and housing in the world relative to local incomes. And it is a big contributor to why this Government inherited a deficit of 71,000 homes when we took office.

This bill establishes a new way of funding and financing bulk housing infrastructure. It sets up a flexible, legislative framework that will enable councils and developers to overcome one of the key constraints they face and provides them with a new tool to fund and finance infrastructure without being hindered by councils, financing constraints, or high upfront infrastructure costs, and it does this by allowing a third party other than a council to finance the construction of infrastructure. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) will be set up for each project. The SPV will be responsible for raising the necessary finance and, in most cases, constructing the infrastructure, too. It’s, essentially, a project finance model where the debt associated with the project is ring-fenced from the council. Where the infrastructure is not privately owned, once built, the infrastructure will be transferred to the council, which will then be responsible for running and maintaining it.

The bill puts in place a new system of funding and financing the infrastructure for urban growth that will turn on the tap for a virtually limitless pool of investment capital. The intention is that we create a system where the viability of the project is the determinant of whether to proceed or not, and whether private capital can be accessed and utilised. But financing, of course, needs funding. So, while financing is currently the main bottleneck to infrastructure provision, there also needs to be funding or a revenue stream to pay back the costs of the project. So at the core of this model is a long-term infrastructure payment which is paid by the beneficiaries of the infrastructure to the special purpose vehicle over the life of the infrastructure, often collected by the local authority as a separate line item on the rates bill.

This bill is flexible. It will enable the facilitator—one of the roles that’s established under the legislation—to allocate the cost to beneficiaries on a differentiated basis either by phasing a larger payment up front and smaller payments in the out years, excluding or varying the charge by the extent to which a homeowner benefits from development projects.

In developing this bill, we drew on our experience at Milldale, north of Auckland, where, through a partnership between Crown Infrastructure Partners and Auckland Council, an alternative financing model enabled the delivery of infrastructure to support the building of 9,000 homes. In that case, the infrastructure payment is secured by an encumbrance on the title of each section and is paid by section owners—in this case, $650 a year for an apartment, and $1,000 for a stand-alone home per annum. Because of this, Auckland Council was able to bring forward its investment in the project, and the upshot is 9,000 more homes built and 9,000 families housed.

Moving to a model where infrastructure is financed and delivered by a special purpose vehicle means that we need legislation to provide powers to the SPVs to receive the levy and construct the infrastructure. These powers are not provided lightly. The bill has extensive monitoring, reporting, and disclosure regimes to ensure the SPVs’ use of these powers is appropriate and monitored. My officials have developed this model and enabling legislation in close consultation with the high-growth councils to ensure that it is fit for purpose. All in all, what we have here is a first for New Zealand: a piece of legislation that can give more certainty to councils and developers about their ability to provide the infrastructure needed to support growing communities.

I’d like to thank the officers of the high-growth councils who have supported the development of this model and the legislation. I want to thank the officials at the Department of Internal Affairs, Treasury, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, who have done so much work to bring the legislation to this stage. I also want to acknowledge the efforts of the Opposition, particularly, the Hon Steven Joyce in the former Government and the Hon Anne Tolley, who began this journey, first by establishing the Housing Infrastructure Fund and, then, by repurposing Crown Fibre Holdings to Crown Infrastructure Partners, who facilitated the Milldale pilot. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand to indicate the Opposition’s support for the first reading of this Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill and to make the obvious point that housing impacts the standard of living for New Zealanders immensely.

What we’ve seen over the past few decades is a relative increase in the cost of housing, both rents and buying houses, and the drivers of that in recent times have been the incredibly low interest rates that we’ve seen all around the world, and you’ve seen asset price inflation all around the world. But combined with that has been a shortage of supply of houses in New Zealand—building new houses—and the cost of building those houses and the land upon which they sit.

So we’ve had pressure building in the last little while. Particularly in the last two years since this Government came in, we’ve seen significant pressure on the rental market, where rents have gone up significantly. That’s been driven primarily by the many regulations passed by this Government, making it fundamentally more expensive and difficult for landlords to rent out houses. It’s not compulsory for people to rent out their houses, and if enough people conclude that it’s all too difficult and expensive and they pull out of the market and there’s a shortage of rental properties available, then the price goes up.

The other side is on housing generally, and in the spirit of bipartisanship that Minister Twyford referred to earlier on, I do acknowledge this is an area where the Government is making some progress. But we do need to hold them to account in Opposition for the failure to deliver on many other parts of housing policy, and so we can’t talk about housing and this Government without referring to KiwiBuild and the missed opportunity and the overpromising and under-delivering there.

Secondly, the reform that’s required of the Resource Management Act (RMA)—and we’re going to hear, no doubt, from my colleague Judith Collins on the importance of the reform of RMA legislation and the building and construction legislation, which is so much a part of the cost structure. This Labour Government—right at the end of nine years of Opposition, having opposed every effort that the previous National Government brought forward to do something about the RMA and to make real differences—alongside New Zealand First and the Greens, have woken up to the need to do something in that area, but two years into Government, they still haven’t made much progress at all. We hope they will, but that certainly hasn’t been happening particularly quickly.

The third area, of course, that impacts on housing, aside from the failure of KiwiBuild and the slow progress on the RMA, is in the transport space, because transport is intimately linked with the cost of housing. If you could live quite comfortably out the back of Meremere and actually still get into town, then you possibly could, and things would be cheaper. But you can’t, because it takes you three hours to get in in the morning because of the clogged Southern Motorway. So making progress on transport infrastructure is critical, and we’ve all shared the frustration that, after two years, the primary achievement of this Government has been to turn off the major transport projects and talk about a slow tram down Dominion Road. So that, collectively, all adds to the broader pressure.

But, having said all that, this bill is one area where we do agree that what is being proposed makes sense. It builds on the work that Steven Joyce and Anne Tolley did in 2017, which is to say that, if you want to build more houses, one of the things that is holding back the development of new subdivisions in part—particularly, of our big cities but all around the country—has been the debt limits that many councils have and their inability to fund the road and, particularly, the stormwater and water infrastructure that’s required for those subdivisions. Because they haven’t had the money available and they’ve been up against their debt limits, the reaction of councils has been to slow those developments. So we in the previous Government, and this Government also, were keen to see more development happening and more subdivisions opened up sooner and faster.

So the idea that the previous National Government came up with was allowing a different levy model, which was pioneered up in Milldale, north of Auckland, whereby a private developer or owner of the land would be able to levy the owners of the new properties in order for that work to be done sooner than it would have been otherwise. That is helpful to our overall affordability by delivering more houses sooner and increasing the supply. What’s being proposed by this legislation is to bring through some rules that will enable this to happen more widely, because the example up in Milldale was, essentially, one primary owner of all the land, and that made it simple, but where there are multiple owners, it’s more complicated.

Now, there are many questions that need to be resolved. The primary thing that the National Party insisted upon before supporting this bill to the first reading was that the Government would take this through a full select committee process, because we’ve actually got to take the time to work out how this applies in many instances. While it might be quite simple to see, if you’re in a new greenfields development, in a new subdivision on the edge of town, and owners have come together—they’ve built this subdivision—and the people that buy the new house are going to pay a levy on their house, and they know what it is over the next 30 years, and that’s enabled this thing to happen sooner, then most people, I think, would agree with that. Where it gets a little bit murkier is if there is other situations, envisaged potentially by this bill, whereby, say, for example, a major piece of transport infrastructure is put in and somebody living within 100 or 200 metres of a new railway station, for example—whether some sort of levy arrangement might apply to them. That’s nowhere near as straightforward, and so how we design the system so that it is fair and equitable to people who have existing rights and have been in the place for a long while and might not be interested in whatever’s being built in their neighbourhood—how we design that system is actually very complicated.

So our simple message is that the broad proposal is one that we support, and we want to encourage and to enable the financing of more development, and we want to go through it in a careful and considered manner to make sure that we bring the broader community along with us and we don’t create any quirks and kinks in the system that make people worse off. So, on that basis, I commend this bill and look forward to working constructively with the Government on it. Thank you very much.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be here to talk about the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill, a long-overdue bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister for Urban Development for his leadership here, and also those from across the House who have done some work on it in previous years. In essence, this had come to a grinding halt in terms of local government wanting a solution to move forward, around saying, “Hey, how do we finance infrastructure for housing, roads, and other core community infrastructure?” I know that, coming from local government, this is a solution that would’ve transformed parts of the city I represent a long time ago, because what this gives now is some hope and some new tools which had not been there previously.

So what local government did was work within its boundaries, what developers did was get frustrated, and what partners did was really hang around and hope like hell that they could do something within the current framework settings, but what this does is simply give a range of new settings which allows them now to move forward. I think that the example, or the pilot that’s being worked on now in Milldale, north of Auckland, over the last few years—that what that has allowed is to, I guess, smooth out some of the kinks and ensure that this legislation goes through and irons things out and allows all partners, all stakeholders from across New Zealand, to get on with the job, and that’s to create housing options.

I know, when you look at the housing continuum, this actually gives hope to the full spectrum, be it building housing for the homeless, looking for transitional and emergency housing, through into social housing when you’re looking at affordable rental accommodation, right through to private accommodation of those sorts. I know in my wee patch, and coming from local government, we were involved in a 20-year Crown-council partnership, a $400 million piece of work that is still rolling out, and what the arrangement was is it allowed houses to be built without the sort of political struggle, and that’s what I sense from this legislation. What this allows now is the developers, partners and stakeholders, to get on with the job of building houses. So there won’t be the general thrashing of the different aspects of the housing spectrum, the cheap political shots. What this will allow is for homes to be built for Kiwis who want to live in warm, dry, decent homes anywhere in New Zealand. There are some priority cities that have been identified, but I know a city like Wellington will certainly look closely at this, with our transport projects currently under way, to say, “How can a special purpose vehicle be utilised in a way to fulfil the housing needs of the capital city, for example?”

So this gives great hope. It allows developers now—and I attended a fund-raiser recently where two developers were expressing their fury at this. I don’t know if it was alcohol-related, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt, because what they showed was a long-term frustration at not being able to reach their full potential. I said, “Look, something is coming, and when you see this bill, I believe that you will look at the componentry of it and say, ‘That’s where we now play a part.’ ” What I like most is that everyone’s got skin in the game: local government, central government, the private sector, NGOs, even those community housing providers, per se, who will pick up a role along that housing continuum and allow them to get more Kiwis housed.

This is a great piece of work. It’s coming to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I’m looking forward to seeing it next year. I commend this bill to the House.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be talking on this first reading of this bill, the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. I think it’s very pertinent when we’re talking today, just the closing out of 2019, with basically two years of non-delivery of infrastructure, which has been most disappointing from a Government that’s been talking about delivering much this year but actually resulting with very little to actually put alongside its name in terms of what it’s actually achieved.

So this bill, obviously, builds on the Milldale development in north Auckland. A number of speakers have referred to it. It is a development that’s been undertaken by Fulton Hogan; Crown Investment Partners, which is the old Crown Fibre Holdings model that’s been adopted; and also Auckland Council. It was one which was really dealing with the issue, particularly in Auckland, where you had a council that had an inability, challenged both financially but also just operationally, in terms of trying to help new developments occur rapidly. So we’re in that state where we’ve got people wanting new houses, we’ve got developers wanting to do it, but there’s just a difficulty in getting Watercare, Auckland Transport, and all the other agencies—the council agencies—together to be able to do these things quickly. Clearly, it wasn’t occurring.

Under the new model, what it means is the people that buy a house will, basically, agree to an undertaking that they will pay $1,000 per annum. That will be collected by Auckland Council for a period of 35 years. So if they sell that property, the new owner of that property will also have that incumbent liability until the 35 years is extinguished.

What this bill does is it creates the opportunity for a special purpose vehicle to raise money, utilising a levy revenue stream that I’ve just talked about—the $1,000—financing infrastructure, commissioning construction, transferring the infrastructure to the relevant local authority or any other public entity, and repaying any finance raised for infrastructure. But, whilst we’re all very supportive of it because we need more tools in the armoury to be able to deal with the issue of infrastructure and being able to allow developers to build these houses so we can get more families into their own homes, I think this bill will be an interesting one to be talking about at select committee, because I think there’s a number of issues that it raises. The first one is: what is a reasonable cost that a potential house-owner of that development, and there will be a number of them that will occur—what is the reasonable cost that they should be bearing in terms of the particular contribution towards the asset or infrastructure that’s being built? Of course, this is the first tension point between a council: how much they want to see passed on to the homeowner as opposed to what legitimately should be done or undertaken by the council.

The second thing is I think it’s got the potential for the councils to see this as a way of obviating or reducing their requirement to fund developments and, by the good nod and a wink, or whatever indications they might give to developers in future, to be able to say, “Well, actually, we’re not going to fund it, and maybe you should look at this as the option to fund your development.” as opposed to councils having a legitimate requirement to fund these types of infrastructure investment. So I think the tension point is around how this is managed and that councils don’t see this as an out clause and not meet their requirement to provide good infrastructure for their citizens.

I think also: how does the council choose to pay for the infrastructure in one development but, next door, or maybe not too far away, say, “Well, we’re not going to do that, and you need to go down this process.” I think, again, that issue about how that is actually managed by councils is quite an issue, because that, in places and situations, could be patently unfair to the future homeowners buying into that particular development where the council are not underwriting or actually paying for it.

I think the issue—the fourth one—is around the access of third parties to the infrastructure. So one of those things that could be done is this levy could be used to build water infrastructure—so oversize the pipes in a new development, but, actually, that relates to the existing water network. So how do you end up not cross-subsidising other ratepayers because you’ve incurred a lot of fees in terms of building infrastructure in that one development, but, obviously, it’s connected to the rest of the network?

Those are four issues I think we will have to traverse in the select committee, and I think they are going to be interesting questions as to how they are dealt with, because, ultimately, we’ll want to make sure that it’s fair for all ratepayers and new property owners in these different types of developments.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thank you, Madam Speaker. New Zealand First too rises to support this Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill, which is a bill that seeks to do exactly what it says on the tin. It’s pretty clear. Sometimes some of these names are a bit obtuse, but this is exactly what this looks to do. It looks to set up a flexible legislative framework and, essentially, allow some private sector funding to come in to address our infrastructure shortages and for local councils to have access to some private sector funding through these special purpose vehicles, or SPVs.

Of course, our councils, many of them are getting very close to their debt limits as they are under all sorts of pressure. I might say it’s not only—I heard the Minister in his address talking about those well-known fast-growing areas like Auckland and Hamilton, but, actually, there’s a huge housing shortage at the moment down South, in places like Invercargill, where there’s a housing forum that’s been formed—and I know local MP Liz Craig here is on that forum—because, all of a sudden, we’ve got these growing populations after decades of stagnation, and we just haven’t had the housing infrastructure. The local councils and the local communities are scrambling to try to get some houses built. In places like Gore, through my office in Gore, we have people coming in all the time who can’t get places to rent—30 people turning up to rent one place. In Balclutha, they’ve got 300 meatworkers coming in from Dunedin every day to go to the Silver Fern Farms plant at Finegand. That is an incredible lost opportunity for the town of Balclutha, in that case. They could be citizens of that town and be contributing to that community, but they can’t, because there are, simply, no houses.

So it gives the councils the opportunity to, where they’re up against debt limits, raise some private sector funding. It is important. Holyoake used to talk about New Zealand being a property-owning democracy. It is one of the great fundamentals of our society that you have a home, whether that’s one that you can buy or rent on the way to buying. We know our homeownership is falling; so we’ve got to have other ways. Social housing is becoming more and more important, and, of course, we’ve got the Three Waters Review coming up, for which, once again, the Gore District Council, the other day, costed their improvements at around $60 million to reach an estimated threshold. So that’s significant. They’re going to have to raise a significant amount of capital here, and these SPVs may be a tool that they can use, or a mechanism that they can use, to offset some of that cost in terms of debt on their balance sheet. Of course, there will still be a return.

The other part of this, too, is we’ve got a world awash with cash, quantitative easing around the world, and there’s very low returns in bank accounts. So there’s, essentially, an opportunity here for pension funds, for iwi, for private citizens, and for companies to invest in these developments to get a low-risk return. They’re investing in a public-good infrastructure and getting a return that, presumably, would be above the bond rates or the bank rates that they may be able to access otherwise. So there’s, potentially, a bit of a win-win there as well.

I note this goes to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. All of a sudden—I heard before they were a little underworked—they’re getting a deluge of legislation coming forward from Minister Twyford today. I think they got the Racing Industry Bill, rather improbably, the other day too. So Darroch Ball, the chairman, is going to have to rouse that committee and get them under way, because these are important pieces of work.

We note that it’s also connected to a lot of the other mechanisms or tranches of work the Government’s doing: the RMA reform being led by Minister Parker and Minister Twyford’s urban development agency or authority, the second coming of Muldoon as he wades through red tape to get infrastructure and housing built. That’s welcome because we know that one of the issues has been red tape, and we are looking very seriously at addressing those things and giving the Government, in its case, the mechanisms to ride over the top or alongside councils to get some stuff done, just to get some houses built and get some infrastructure into the ground.

So New Zealand First are very supportive of all these tranches of legislation that have come forward today, but I think this one is a very good one in terms of addressing a very great need in our society: getting more houses built, getting our waste-water and sewage treatment plants up and running. Roading is another potential issue—another form of investment for pension funds, etc. So there’s a lot to like about this bill, and New Zealand First will be supporting it through to the select committee. Thank you.

ANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll just be taking a brief call on the first reading this afternoon of the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. As we’ve heard this afternoon, this bill provides a new funding and financing model to support the provision of infrastructure for housing and urban development. We see that as quite an important thing to do because, as we’ve discussed this afternoon, and particularly in relation to transport infrastructure, this is a Government that is struggling to build new infrastructure across a whole range of areas, not just transport.

The one I want to talk about this afternoon was urban development. It feels a little bit funny following my friend Mark Patterson, who I think lives in Lawrence, which has got about 400 or 500 people—and I, of course, live in the urban metropolis of Pleasant Point, which I think is about twice the size of Lawrence. So it’s a bit funny to be talking about urban development here this afternoon. But I did just want to talk about the light rail project which Jacinda Ardern promised a couple of years ago now—2½ years ago—would be built within four years—would be completed within four years. Here we are, more than two years after that promise was made, and literally nothing has been achieved. Nothing has been done on that light rail project.

The worst part about that, actually, is that this is a Government—as I’ve said this afternoon, a couple of times now—that took $5 billion out of the State highway network to put into rail and cycle projects, and now they can’t even get it right. With all of that money they’ve got available to them, they can’t get it right for the one major infrastructure project they’ve got in Auckland. What it means, actually, is that now they’ve had to go through and scrap a lot of roading projects that had been consented, that were shovel ready, and others that were promised by the previous National Government. Those roads are now more dangerous than they were two years ago. There are more vehicles on them, there are more trucks on them, and there are more people who are unwilling to drive on those roads now because they are more dangerous.

So we do see this bill as a very small thing that can be done to try and improve infrastructure arrangements. As we’ve heard this afternoon, it’s going to change the funding model for those infrastructure projects. We support that. I do hope it goes to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. That’s the appropriate one for it to go to. I’d like to sub on to that committee, because there are a lot of particular issues with these funding models that have been raised: how to keep that debt off the council balance sheet—I’m interested to hear how the Minister of Urban Development proposes to do that, but until then, I do commend this bill to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Bill. Look, it’s infrastructure that built our country, that saw us grow rich over time. It’s something we all, I think, should be able to agree that we’ve lagged on in recent decades. It has slowed down our productivity, it has slowed down delivering prosperity for New Zealanders, and I think if anyone tuning in wanted to know why, they just had to listen to the last speech. For so long, we’ve played petty politics when it comes to infrastructure. As a small country, we’ve wasted a fortune constantly chopping and changing. I think now is the time that we should be calling for cross-party support, greater long-term planning; not more petty politics and name calling. Look, we should just get on with the business of building infrastructure.

Here’s a good example of the Government getting down to business, actually delivering solutions, practical solutions, that are going to make a difference for people. You know, a couple of scenarios—because this legislation, basically, allows special purpose vehicles, a funding mechanism through a levy to fund these projects over a long time. Pretty simple, right? And there’s a couple of, I guess, tangible examples: say you’re in an apartment building, 100 flats inside, and you’ve discovered the sewerage is outdated and needs to be modernised. Now, that’s an expensive project for a single apartment building for a developer upfront, but say you spread it out across multiple decades, say you apply to the Minister to also apply to other infrastructure users who will benefit from that modernised infrastructure to also pay across a period of time, it becomes more affordable. You reduce the barriers to the upfront infrastructure investment. Take a papakāinga community where maybe 20 houses are going to be built around a marae but you need a new access road to be built. Instead of the massive upfront cost, you can spread it out across decades.

Hon Phil Twyford: What a voice of reason!

GARETH HUGHES: The voice of reason. So, rather than playing petty politics, let’s get on with business. Let’s do this.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): I really enjoyed the Hon Phil Twyford’s contribution today, but not nearly as much as I enjoyed from this side of the House. But—

Chris Bishop: He’s your friend, isn’t he?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: He is my friend, thank you very much. I think one of the things that the public expect from the National Party in Opposition is for us to be all grown up when it comes to things like infrastructure and not to do what, unfortunately, the other side did when they were in Opposition. I enjoyed the fact that the Hon Phil Twyford mentioned the regulatory failure that has made it so difficult to get anything done. It’s so nice to hear a politician of the left variety not blame the market but actually put the blame where it really should be, which is in the regulation and overregulation. It’s really hard, as we know, to get any infrastructure built in this country. We need to reform the Resource Management Act. We need to reform the way in which we can fund infrastructure.

If you think back to the last really big infrastructure projects, the ones that we did in Government around roading were very useful—shame we weren’t there longer to finish a lot of those and get all the roads joined up—but before that was really actually back in the 1970s under the Think Big projects. People think back to that and think how terrible it all was and, basically, sort of, bankrupted the country for a while, but, frankly, we wouldn’t have our hydroelectricity generation if it weren’t for those. We wouldn’t have Marsden Point. We wouldn’t be talking about ports being shifted. We wouldn’t have gas reticulated around the North Island. We wouldn’t have, frankly, anything other than coal-burning power stations, or we would be going without power.

So I think there are lots of things that we need to do in Parliament, and one of the things that we need to do is to work together where we can to at least support ideas where we’re looking for solutions. The Milldale project, which Phil Twyford has referred to, is one which was started before the current Government. It did deal with issues around how to actually fund infrastructure where a developer may not be able to do it straight away and to understand that councils cannot continue to borrow as they have, because they can’t actually get past their debt ceilings. None of them seem to have any ability to sell anything, not like people in the normal world, who actually do sell a property before they buy another one or sell something. Councils seem to have given themselves all sorts of reasons why they can’t do things. So sometimes it is important for us in Parliament to be the people with the big girls’ and big boys’ pants on and make those big decisions and help them do the right thing, and I think most people would consider that that is actually part of our job. We’re here to get the job done, not to get all petty about stuff but to understand that that takes the adult in the room, and that just happens to be us. Thank you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call the Hon Willie Jackson.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Tuatahi, e tautoko ai te kōrero a te mema, a Judith Collins, he rawe tāna kōrero. He rawe ki te whakarongo ki ngā kōrero pērā, i te mea kei te tino tautoko ia te kaupapa, koirā te mea nui. Ngā mihi ki a koe, Judith, mō tō kōrero ātaahua i tēnei rā.

I tēnei wā, e tika ki te mihi ki a Phil Twyford mō tāna mahi. I tēnei tau, he rawe tāna mahi. Ka tika me mihi ki a koe, Phil, mō tō kaha ki te ū ki te kaupapa i ngā wā katoa. Ahakoa he nui te whakahē, he nui te whakaparahako i ētahi wā, kei te ū ki te kaupapa, tika me mihi ki a koe. I whakatakoto te rautaki mō tēnei whenua, Aotearoa. Ngā mihi ki a koe. Ngā mihi ki a koe.

Koutou katoa, tēnā koutou.

[Greetings, greetings Madam Speaker. Firstly, I support the member Judith Collins’ speech; her speech was excellent. It is great to listen to such speeches, because she is really supporting the initiative. That is the main thing. I acknowledge you, Judith, for your beautiful speech today.

At this time, it is appropriate to acknowledge Phil Twyford for his work. This year his work has been excellent. It is only right to acknowledge you, Phil, for your strength to persist with the initiative at all times. Despite there being much criticism, and belittling at times, you continue to persist with the initiative, and it is right to acknowledge that. The strategy has been set for this country, New Zealand. This is thanks to you. This is thanks to you.

All of you, greetings to you.]

I was just congratulating the previous speaker, Judith Collins, for her wonderful kōrero in terms of the House today. I thought that was a leadership-type kōrero—no doubt about it—leading the way for the National Party, who seem to go to other areas on a bill that is going to be very positive for this nation. Just wonderful to hear those leadership-type speeches, which are so rare from the Opposition these days—wanting to put the knife in at a time when we should come together for a kaupapa like this, where New Zealanders are going to benefit from this bill and the wonderful work done by Minister Phil Twyford. I was saying in my mihi, too, that he has done, in my view, a great job this year. Despite the criticism, he’s hung in there and done the business and now he’s come up with a bipartisan bill and the National Party are supporting it wholeheartedly, which is really good to see tonight—tremendously good to see going forward.

Of course, we as a party have built more houses than the Opposition ever have. We’ve come through all the muck and all the nonsense, and I just want to congratulate ourselves for such a fantastic job with regards to housing, and the public are seeing that. They’re seeing the work done despite the negative, negative, negative, negative campaign from the Opposition every week. So, well done to us and Minister Phil Twyford, and also Marja Lubeck, who last week—

Chris Bishop: Lubeck.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —oh, thanks for that, thanks for that correction; we’ve got to get it right, no, no, absolutely—

Hon Member: She’s right in front of you.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: —oh, is that right, thanks very much—who was doing the business last week.

I wanted to just say, in the short time I have left, though: this bill is really important for Te Ao Māori because it offers opportunities for our people to enter into partnerships—to enter into partnerships. I know that Minister Twyford has been speaking with Ngāi Tahu, who are looking for an opportunity in terms of Māori. Ngāi Tahu, one of the most innovative tribes in the country today, are looking at opportunities for Māori in this space, because our people, sadly, have been ruined—well, not ruined, but certainly been dealt to because of the National Party’s terrible policies over the last nine years, where we have seen homelessness at an all-time low. So Ngāi Tahu have entered into the kōrero, have entered into the negotiations, and I’m really pleased to see that they’re going to be working with the Minister in terms of this bill.

Also, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, James Brown in Auckland—they’re also doing some really, really positive work, entering into this opportunity that has been created by us and supported—

Hon Phil Twyford: Exactly, like KiwiBuild.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: KiwiBuild, that’s right. It’s coming back. We’re coming back here. Despite all the negativity, our people want to enter into this relationship, and also Ngāti Whātua with Ren Blair and Ngārimu Blair—young guns at Ngāti Whātua. They see the opportunities of this Government. They don’t just see negativity, which is, sadly, still being portrayed by this National Party every single day. They have to get with it. It’s Christmas. They know that this Government is on track. We’re going to turn things around. Well done to Minister Twyford, and well done to us. Kia ora anō tātou.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, that was a typically self-congratulatory speech by the Hon Willie Jackson, but we’ve enjoyed his kōrero in the Chamber this year, and I want to wish him and his whānau a merry Christmas. It’s been good sparring with him across the House.

This is an extremely important bill, and I want to congratulate, genuinely, the Minister for bringing it to the House. Minister Twyford, every now and then, delivers very erudite and excellent speeches about urban spatial economics and our land markets, and the most recent one was on 7 December. He gave one to The New Zealand Initiative a while ago, which I read and I enjoyed. It sounded like a speech Bill English would’ve given, but I really enjoyed it. I want to quote him, because he’s absolutely right: “The argument I want to make to you is that generations of urban land use policy have lacked a decent grounding in economics. The consequences of that have been disastrous. And if we want to turn it around it is going to take bold reform and policies informed by an understanding of urban spatial economics.” There’s some stuff in there and about the speech that we wouldn’t necessarily agree with. There’s some stuff that the Labour Party campaigned on that we wouldn’t necessarily agree with, but the fundamental underpinning of the Minister’s speech was around how poor-quality urban land-use rules, largely driven by central government and enforced by local governments, have created artificial scarcity that has driven up the price and cost of housing and that we are now grappling with as a community.

Let me tell you, in the Hutt Valley, because we have not built housing quickly enough, over the last 10 years when we had that very sharp population spike from about 2012 and 2013 onwards—sometimes driven by immigration but actually driven by internal migration from Wellingtonians forced out of their own over-expensive housing market, moving to Lower Hutt to escape the high prices in Wellington—we had a population shock. For 30 years, Lower Hutt’s population was about 100,000 people, it bubbled along around that; within five years, it was 108,000 people, and housing supply did not keep up. Now, social housing supply did not keep up, and I put my hand up and say that the former National Government did not build quickly enough in Lower Hutt, but we are also not building quickly enough now in terms of social housing. But the solution, as I always say to people in the Hutt, is we’ve got to free up housing rules and density restrictions in the city that make it difficult to build houses.

The point I always make is that everything in the housing market is connected. If you make it difficult to build houses and you put an artificial constraint on the number of houses in a city when there’s a population shock, unsurprisingly, rents rise, and we’ve seen rents rise $80 a week in the last two years. When rents rise, you force more people into social housing, and when there’s a shortage of social housing and it’s as difficult for the Government to build houses in the Hutt Valley and other parts of the country as it is for the private sector, you get more people seeking social housing places, and they miss out because there’s a queue. At the moment in the Hutt Valley, the social housing waitlist is 640—640!—families or clients on the register, waiting for a house, and that number has quintupled in the last two years. Of course, the consequence of people being on the social housing register is real homelessness for the first time in a generation in the Hutt Valley.

So this bill is really important and, as I said at a public meeting in Wainuiōmata last night to discuss transitional housing in the Hutt Valley, in Wainuiōmata, the solutions to our housing problems in New Zealand are going to be multifaceted and they’re going to take a long time. It involves the State building more social housing. We all agree on that. It involves freeing up our urban planning rules, which the Minister is working on, alongside David Parker, but critically we need to make it easier to finance infrastructure developments as well. And that’s why this bill is really important, and I am pleased to see it come to the House. It builds on some of the work that National started in Government. It builds on the work done at Milldale, which I think everyone agrees has been very successful. And it builds on the work that we’ve done with the special purpose vehicles.

Time doesn’t allow me to go into all the details, but I am really looking forward to considering the bill at the select committee. I commend the Minister for introducing it, and we look forward to working with them as we get on with it.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am very pleased to take a call to support this bill. In my humble opinion, this is one of the most progressive and inspirational bills. In fact, the relevant sector has been talking for quite a while about the credit rating of the big three—Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s, and the Fitch group—and its direct impact on the ability of central government or local government to raise funds. For example, the Auckland Council’s debt to revenue ratio has reached a certain point that the local authority may not be able to raise any funds at all. An SPV—a special purpose vehicle—is the answer, and this is what the bill’s all about.

I want to reiterate what the Minister has just said. Our infrastructure funding and financing model is broken. Our current system has presented a range of constraints which make it harder for both the market and central and local governments to plan for and to meet with infrastructure demand. Some of our higher-growth councils, which provide most bulk infrastructure, have tapped out their balance sheets. The bill provides council and developers with a new tool to fund and finance infrastructure projects by enabling a third party, rather than a council, to finance and construct infrastructure projects. A special purpose vehicle will be set up for each project. The SPV will be responsible for raising the necessary funds and, in most cases, constructing the infrastructure, too. This is, essentially, a project finance model where the debt associated with the project will be ring-fenced from city councils. This is an omnibus bill which represents a substantial policy programme. There are specific provisions dealing with the debt, the public ownership, and the city council’s involvement.

I have recently joined the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Chris Bishop: A good committee.

RAYMOND HUO: A very good committee—thank you, Mr Bishop—unlike the Justice Committee, which has been overburdened and full of issues and problems. It’s a great pleasure for me to have joined my former buddy from the Justice Committee and to have joined the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. Probably, we’re lucky enough—wherever we go or whatever kind of select committee we have joined, that committee will attract more bills. How lucky we are!

I very much look forward to the progressing of this bill and, in particular, to the submissions from the sector and the public. I both commend the Minister and commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

LAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Madam Speaker, it’s 5.40 p.m. and people are getting a bit jaded, I can see. It’s important, though, that this bill gets through its passage. First of all, I want to acknowledge you, Madam Speaker, as the former Minister that was involved in local government with the Hon Steven Joyce. That’s why the National Party is supporting this: because it makes sense. Its genesis was actually developed by the previous Government, who saw the need. I do want to congratulate the Hon Phil Twyford on his words and getting it to this point, because I think you have cross-party support because it makes sense and it is a real issue in New Zealand.

I just want to give a little bit of context, because, in my previous role, I often worked and understood issues with local authorities who reached a debt ceiling. Auckland Council is a classic, but there are others—high-growth councils—in New Zealand who got really worried and, in many ways, almost got unbankable from a debt perspective as to how much further they could raise their debt. They could actually raise their debt further, but usually what happened is that the institutions responsible for their credit rating or their lending perceived that as a higher risk, and the total cost of their borrowings went up. So, while it might have been a marginal increase in debt, the total cost across their whole portfolio, if you had $50 million or $100 million, was significant.

I always used to argue that, largely, local government debt is safe as houses, because, ultimately, you know, the council had the guarantee of the rates supply—guaranteed. If people didn’t pay, their houses were sold. Now, that never usually happens; so it’s a very stable income source. But then what ended up happening was that, in the middle of the global financial crisis, councils became very risk averse as well. One of their areas of greatest exposure is developing the infrastructure for land development and then not getting the development contributions in to fund that cost.

I remember going to Te Ānau about, I think, seven years ago and there were roughly a thousand sections that had been developed by the Southland District Council; all developed, not a house on them, and there were holding costs of development at that stage. It’s been developed now, but the holding costs of that development were significant. And, in those cases, many councils became even more risk averse, more risk averse, because economic cycles and housing cycles go like this, and while we’ve got a massive boom on at the moment and we have had for some time, councils still have to watch what their exposure is to the debt market.

So these special purpose vehicles, Minister, are a very good thing to do. They do not, though, take away the total encumbrance of costs on a property owner, but they do allow the local authority to operate over here with a relationship with its council through rates and its debt servicing ability, but also allow a thousand dollars a year or something—whatever the value’s set—to be set aside for that infrastructure. And, believe you me, there’s a lot of developers out there today who would say, “Let us build the infrastructure to a standard, at a cost, guaranteed funding. We’ll get it done and take the risk away and put it straight back on to the owners of the property rather than the collective risk of the local authority.” I agree with what Chris Bishop has said: this has been a bit of a perfect storm. And Minister, you’ll know, even in my own patch, you know, we have some social housing issues, and the party I now represent could have done more at the time, and I’ve been publicly acknowledging that. I now want this Government to do more, and I want them to do it quickly, because we have 459 people in motels looking for houses.

So this is a very big issue. The land supply issue in Hastings district, anyway, is one issue. The ability to fund the infrastructure is another issue. And, when you put all that together, what it means is that development doesn’t generally happen as quickly as it can. When there is more and more demand for housing, what happens is some people get displaced, rents go up, and we have lots more people living in motels and things.

So I think this is a good thing to do, and I hope that councils who are largely and quite highly indebted will make use of this. There will be some things we have to work out at the select committee stage, some details, but this is a good bill. It’s a good idea. It’s a good piece of legislation. And I agree with what Chris Bishop and the Minister have said. We have got this wrong in New Zealand—how we manage housing supply, land supply, and demand—and it has ended up costing everybody; unfortunately some people disproportionately more, and that’s what we’re trying to help. So I commend this bill to the House.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Peace and harmony have broken out across the House at a quarter to six—

Hon Phil Twyford: It’s Christmas.

JAMIE STRANGE: —which is really lovely to hear. It is Christmas-time, Mr Twyford, and I’d like to acknowledge the previous speech there. The member Lawrence Yule spoke quite candidly about his experiences in local government. We certainly appreciate your experience here in the House and in this debate. So thank you very much, Mr Yule. We also heard from Chris Bishop there, who talked about some of the challenges in his area and how this bill does address some of those issues. And, thirdly, we heard from the member Andrew Falloon, not about the bill but about his pet roading project, but that was certainly interesting as well. So, anyway, we’ve all got our different flavours in the House here tonight.

So turning my attention here to my specific contribution to the bill, I’d like to, in the first part of my speech, outline the current situation as I see it and what’s got us into this situation, and then, secondly, some of the solutions to the situation around housing. Just before I do that, I would like to acknowledge the Minister, Phil Twyford. I’d also like to acknowledge Ministers from the previous National Government who did work on this, particularly around the Crown infrastructure work as we link to that.

So the current situation, as we have heard, is that we are a number of houses short in New Zealand. This has happened for a variety of reasons. A little aspect around immigration: New Zealand is a very popular place to live and we have had a lot of people come here. Businesses have had people come over from other countries to support their businesses, and that’s great. But, at the same time, it puts pressure on housing, health, and education.

A key aspect here has been around the regulations from councils; some of the challenges, particularly around their debt ceilings. And, if I could turn my attention a little bit to Hamilton, as Mr Bishop did, just to put a bit of a local focus on this, when I was first elected to Parliament, two years ago, I met with the previous mayor of Hamilton, Andrew King, and the CEO, Richard Briggs, and their first topic of conversation was housing. There was a number of topics they wanted to talk about, but housing was their priority. They spoke back then around the special purpose vehicles. They spoke about Crown Infrastructure Partners. They spoke about what was happening in Milldale and they spoke about their desire to have something like that for Hamilton. So I certainly heard those words and fed them through to Minister Twyford. What they told me was that their debt ceiling was, effectively, maxed out. You know, they couldn’t afford to pay for the infrastructure and they needed new tools. That was the key point that they said: they needed new tools in their toolkit in order to deliver housing.

Hamilton is a number of houses short. There was a recent piece of work done by the Waikato Plan and it analysed the state of housing across the whole Waikato area. Specifically, Hamilton is 4,000 houses short, and I’ve seen firsthand evidence of that as people are coming into my electorate office—and I’m sure the National MPs based in Hamilton have seen the same thing: people coming into our offices in desperate need of housing, desperate need. We talk about homelessness. Sometimes homelessness evidences itself by people living rough on the streets, but also homelessness evidences itself by people being crowded into houses. Often two or three families are crowded into a three-bedroom house, four-bedroom house. And the social impacts of that are terrible, basically. It affects health, it affects education, and also, as Mr Bishop said, it lifts up the price of rent, because a lot of these people are renting and they, basically, can’t afford to pay the rent. But not even that. I mean the rental properties aren’t even there—the properties aren’t even available. I was talking to a real estate agent just a couple of days ago and I said, “Talk to me about what’s happening in the rental market.” And they said, “Look, if something gets listed, straight away 60, 70 people are wanting a house.” So, look, it is a very important issue that we are trying to address here.

Moving on to the second part, in terms of the solution, I’m heartened to see in the House that we have a piece of legislation supported by both parties. Just as Mr Yule was saying, I like seeing that as well. I like seeing aspects where the politics is taken out of it, where people use their common sense and they say, “Look, this is a good idea.” I’m actually surprised this has taken so long to get to the House. I don’t know the history—I mean I don’t know the challenges—because it really does seem like a very practical idea. We do have a test case—

Andrew Falloon: That’s not career enhancing, mate.

JAMIE STRANGE: I’d like to move on to that. Look, I’m not—I don’t want to attribute blame because, I mean, I don’t know. Maybe others who were here could—

Hon Phil Twyford: It’s complicated.

JAMIE STRANGE: It’s complicated, yes. Ha, ha! Anyway, on a positive note—

Hon Phil Twyford: Tauriko West is the big opportunity.

JAMIE STRANGE: Big opportunities—big opportunities in the Hamilton to Auckland corridor. I will get on to the Hamilton to Auckland corridor because there are a number of opportunities for this.

So the solution: we have heard about Milldale, and I’m honoured to be on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee where Crown Infrastructure Partners gave us a briefing just a few months ago. They spoke about Milldale and it’s a project that has worked—hands down, it has worked. One of the previous speakers, Andrew Bayly, sort of gave the details; so I won’t go into that too much, but they have produced 9,000 houses for an area of Auckland that certainly needed houses with the targeted rate.

There’s another point that I like about this bill, and that’s the aspect of collaboration: so councils collaborating with central government. It’s very important that we have that collaboration within our system. At times, silos can exist within areas of our society. One of the most dangerous silos is if central government and local government aren’t working together, because we absolutely must work together. We each have our unique roles, but there are certainly great outcomes for people when central and local government do work together, and this is an example of that.

As the Minister alluded to previously, there are a number of opportunities for a special purpose vehicle (SPV) within the Hamilton area and also the Hamilton to Auckland corridor, which is—people have heard me speak in the House before—the fastest-growing corridor in New Zealand. There is huge demand within that corridor. We’re seeing businesses shift out of Auckland and relocating within that corridor. We’re seeing their staff come with them into that corridor, whether it’s Hamilton, whether it’s Tauriko, whether it’s, obviously, Pōkeno—but all through that corridor. We have those river towns that at times have been doing it tough over recent years. There are opportunities for those river towns: the likes of Huntly, Ngāruawāhia, Te Kauwhata—huge opportunity for those towns to play a key role in New Zealand’s future, as we see people from Auckland shift south into the lovely Waikato region.

Tim van de Molen: Great region.

JAMIE STRANGE: Great region. And I can see why people are starting to shift south. I can see why businesses are starting to relocate. If you’ve got a business in Auckland—

Chris Bishop: The city of the future.

JAMIE STRANGE: City of the now, Mr Bishop—city of the now. I have been quoted in the media saying Hamilton will be the second-biggest city in New Zealand in 30 years; so let’s see what happens there. Someone can quote that back to me when I’m 72 and see if I was accurate.

But, look, I mean it’s not just about Hamilton growing; it’s about the whole country. It’s basically about providing houses for people, because housing is a basic human right. In New Zealand, we’ve seen large-scale housing developments. We’ve seen some in the 1930s, we’ve seen some in the 1960s and 1970s, and we’re starting to see some happening now. It happens when Government takes an active role within the housing market, and that’s what’s happening here. So lots of opportunities for collaboration, for developers, obviously, for councils. Particularly from a Hamilton point of view, I was very pleased to see current mayor Paula Southgate’s comments speaking in favour of this. So I look forward to an SPV for Hamilton, and I look forward to seeing the great things that this bill will do. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

KIERAN McANULTY (Junior Whip—Labour): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. We have made an unexpectedly quick pace through today’s schedule. In the Christmas spirit, I seek leave for the House to rise for the dinner break five minutes early and resume at the normal scheduled time of 7.30 p.m.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Bills

Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill

First Reading

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Minister of Employment) on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: I move, That the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At an appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by 17 June 2020.

Tuatahi, e tika ana ki te tautoko tēnei kaupapa. He kaupapa tino taumaha mō te, mō Aotearoa; engari e tika ana ki te tautoko tēnei kaupapa whakahirahira i tēnei wā. [Firstly, it is appropriate to support this matter. It is a weighty matter for New Zealand; however, it is right to support this important matter at this time.]

For two weeks in August 2016 a tragedy unfolded in Havelock North. In this beautiful, quiet, Hawke’s Bay town people were struck down as they went about their normal daily business, suffering from diarrhoea, flu-like headaches, muscle pain, and vomiting. Before the end of the month around 5,500 residents out of a total population of 14,000 had been afflicted. Schools closed, businesses shut down, once busy cafes were empty, streets fell silent. Forty-five residents found their way to the hospital and up to four people subsequently died. A further unknown number are thought to have suffered ongoing, debilitating, and life-altering ill effects.

For families who lost loved ones or whose whānau may have suffered continuing afflictions the human cost is immeasurable. The economic impacts—less so in the wash-up dollar costs—were estimated at $21 million. The damage in terms of the towns, the regions, and the country’s clean, green image is unquantifiable. As we all know, the devastating effect was not the result of some alien contagion. The explanation was much more banal. There was contamination of the town’s drinking water—drinking water which was supplied by a public body and which should have been subject to comprehensive and rigorous screening, testing, and treatment to ensure its safety for public consumption. It was not.

The subsequent Government inquiry pointed to systemic regulatory failure—a verdict confirmed by the Three Waters Review. A similar event occurred in the same town in 1998. Lessons were not learnt. In addition, at a conservative estimate, every year 34,000 New Zealanders get sick from drinking their household water. Research indicates that for every registered case of illness from waterborne contamination there are probably several others that go unreported. At any other time there are likely to be communities across Aotearoa on permanent boil-water notices due to toxic contamination. In others it’s becoming an increasingly frequent requirement that residents have to boil the water before they brush their teeth or buy that water in plastic bottles if they can afford it. In others still, the infrastructure and treatment plants for water are outdated or no longer fit for purpose.

The Government has made it clear all along our determination to put the health and safety of New Zealanders first. With the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill we’re taking concrete steps to rectify the broken—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to leave the chair.

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

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, with this Taumata Arowai–the Water Services Regulator Bill we are taking concrete steps to rectify the broken regulatory system for water. The bill is a milestone for drinking-water safety in New Zealand. It implements our decision to create a new regulatory body to oversee, administer, and enforce a new drinking-water regulatory system, which will also help improve environmental outcomes for our waterways, lakes, and rivers.

As part of this Government’s broader package of water reform, the bill establishes the water services regulator Taumata Arowai as a new Crown agent. Taumata Arowai will: protect and promote drinking-water safety and public-health outcomes; help build and maintain public confidence in drinking water through leadership and communications relating to drinking-water safety and regulation, including the management of risks to sources of drinking water; monitor and enforce compliance with drinking-water regulation; and build capability among drinking-water suppliers and the wider industry by promoting education and training.

Being a Crown agent will help Taumata Arowai to build credibility, have a dedicated and sustained focus on drinking water, and recruit highly skilled people. Taumata Arowai will have sufficient independence to protect the integrity of its decision making. Establishing the new regulator as a Crown entity which focuses primarily on drinking water is an approach that is strongly supported by local government.

The new organisation will also play a role in improving environmental outcomes for fresh water. It will provide much leadership guidance and transparency relating to the environmental performance of waste water and stormwater networks. It will also promote public understanding of how these networks are performing.

The bill establishes a Māori advisory group to advise Taumata Arowai on Māori interests and knowledge. This role includes providing advice on how to enable mātauranga Māori and tikanga Māori to be exercised, and how to give effect to Te Mana o te Wai.

For too long we’ve taken our water supplies for granted. With its dedicated focus and remit Taumata Arowai will address this. “Taumata” is a term used for a summit, symposium, or congress. “Arowai” is a compound word, composed of “aro” and “wai”. “Aro” means to give attention to, to focus on, or be in the presence of. “Wai” is water. The entire name conveys the weight and responsibility as well as the focus and authority of the regulator.

The Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill is the foundational legislative architecture of a broader package of reform and collaboration with local government and the wider water sector. The next complementary initiative is a water services bill, which the Minister proposes to introduce to the House early in 2020. This will provide the detailed regulatory framework for Taumata Arowai’s remit and power up the new regime.

For the purpose of context the Minister wants to mention and foreshadow another crucial work stream: delivery and funding of drinking water, waste water, and stormwater services, also known as the three waters. We’ve heard and understand from three waters research that some communities are facing challenges relating to upgrading or replacing infrastructure or simply meeting existing regulatory standards. Further work in collaboration with local government will look at options for addressing this. Some of the communities that are likely to face the greatest challenges are in rural areas. We are determined that rural New Zealanders should not be second-class citizens when it comes to the quality and safety of their drinking water. A rural drinking-water advisory group will be set up to explore solutions to challenges specific to smaller rural communities.

Drinking water quality can be a matter of life and death. The fractures in our regulatory system and our general lack of awareness of water quality issues have been building for years, if not decades. We have an opportunity to deal with this decisively. If we do not, we risk not only New Zealanders’ health and safety from the most basic and essential of commodities but the overall wellbeing of our communities. We risk negative impacts on our image as a country that cares about its environment and the tourism industry that thrives on this. We risk putting the brakes on growth and economic development. We will lose focus on other challenges, including the potentially devastating human and economic impacts of climate change on our essential water services.

The Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill is the first step in a comprehensive series of reforms to meet these challenges. The Minister would like to acknowledge the constructive collaboration of local government and the wider water sector in developing these reforms. She looks forward to working further with them on the next steps in the programme. The Minister would like to thank all colleagues for their support and contribution towards the bill and the wider three waters reforms.

Finally, the Minister would like to acknowledge the work of the Havelock North drinking water inquiry. One of the inquiry’s key recommendations was to create a dedicated drinking-water regulator. Through this bill, we are responding to that recommendation. I commend the bill to the House.

DENISE LEE (National—Maungakiekie): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for the chance to speak to Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill.

It’d be of no surprise to the House that we’ll support this to select committee, but with caution. The caution we’ve well heralded—it’s in the same, similar, vein that we’ve expressed caution around the wider three waters work that’s been undertaken by the Government, and relating back first, and in the primary instance, to cost that we’re not clear on and the impact of those costs on local communities.

In this context, when we’re talking about work on a water regulatory framework, we had begun work on this when we were in Government, as Madam Speaker well knows and was very much involved in. Thank you for your work, Madam Speaker, in the past.

So what we know from the general policy statement (GPS) in this particular bill is that it’s implementing a new body, a new regulatory body, to oversee, administer, and enforce a drinking-water regulatory system. It will be a new Crown agent providing for, as the GPS says, “objectives, functions, operating principles, and governance arrangements.” The reforms are designed to provide clear leadership—is what we’re told—and to significantly strengthen compliance, monitoring, enforcement, and equip the new regulator with powers and resources needed for that capability. I think these are interesting words, “support suppliers of all kinds”, I’ll refer shortly to how that becomes quite crucial when we think about costs, “supporting suppliers of all kinds”—if that also includes small suppliers, then that’s when the real rubber hits the road as far as we’re concerned.

It’s also around managing risks to drinking-water safety, ensuring that people can access safe water, improving environmental performance, transparency, and then that national-level oversight.

So these are all good and goals that we would support. But then a little bit later on in the GPS we start to get into some of the wording where we can also see—and I’ll refer shortly to Treasury’s concerns around where this bill is and could be heading. So while it’s saying that there should be a strong focus on building and maintaining the expertise and capability, the approach, it’s said, is to “build confidence in the safety of drinking water”. Well, there’d be no sure-fire way to diminish that confidence if the price tag with this is monumental and an uphill battle for small councils and for small private providers.

Back to some of the mechanics: I said earlier that Taumata Arowai will have a governance board; it will also provide for the establishment of a Māori advisory board. I think that also is something that we should flesh out in select committee, where, on the one hand, it’s said in the Government policy statement that we should be having clear leadership around this regulatory framework. On the other hand, when it comes to the Māori advisory group, the words “flexibility” and “enabling interpretations to change over time” and “adaptation”—we need to ensure that there’s clarity for everything and for everyone associated with this bill. So let’s flesh that out in select committee.

Now, just as I alluded to earlier comments from Treasury, they have been very clear in their impact assessment that the problem for small suppliers could become quite, well, problematic and monumental. They’ve said here specifically that there will be developing cost estimates in addressing risks and affordability for those small drinking-water suppliers, such as marae and papakāinga, and their ability to transition to a new regulatory regime—that’s going to be an issue, and we need to be very careful to keep that in mind.

I’ll just finish with two other issues. One is time: the ability for a transition time for any suppliers, and for the select committee to keep that in mind. The other would be getting that real clear focus on actual costs. So we know that Beca estimated a while ago in a report that they prepared that the cost—in terms of some of this three waters infrastructure and this—could be around $65 per person in Auckland to upgrade water treatment facilities, and in Gisborne the costs would be $1,626 per person. So we need to understand the cost to small councils, to the private suppliers. We support this through to select committee, we’d encourage stakeholders to make a submission, and we would look forward to the day when we can avoid boil notices, such as went out this afternoon from the Taupō District Council for Kinloch and Whakaroa areas. Long may—well, short may the day come when we don’t have to send out boil notices in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. It comes almost as a surprise to learn that we have different drinking water-standards around the country—that in Gisborne there’s going to be a whole lot more work required than there might be in Auckland to bring up to standard our water; the very essence of what we need to live. So this bill is well overdue. I must say, it’s almost, to ordinary New Zealanders—I think it comes as a surprise to know that we don’t already have an oversight entity which determines how our drinking water is delivered. So this bill is a huge step forward and long overdue, as events have shown.

But I think what is really great about this bill is the approach that it’s taken. It’s not heavy-handed. It’s, in fact, quite a light touch, because absolutely you want to leave the management of water at a local body level. That’s really, really important. I know in Christchurch, where I come from, in Christchurch Central, the great artesian water we have there is something that’s held really dear. Certainly, the idea that water might have to be treated with chlorine or otherwise is contentious—

Hon David Parker: It currently is.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —in some places, Mr Parker, in some places. Some parts of Christchurch are treated with chlorine and the city council there is doing a fantastic job to try and obtain security, both of supply and of delivery, so that chlorine can be taken out of the water. But what this bill does is it’s going to set up an entity that will set the standards, but not necessarily the methods.

The other thing that it does—which is really important as well—is it will set up a support network, a framework which can assist councils. We know that big councils are probably pretty well-equipped to deliver the infrastructure, deliver the knowledge and the technology, but there are a lot of small councils out there. The wider Canterbury region is a really good example of that with Hurunui, a very small council. It’s going to be onerous for them to obtain all of that knowledge and all of the ability to deliver. I imagine Mr Doocey will speak on this shortly, but this is a great step forward to enable that to be done.

So the other good thing about this bill is the way it clearly recognises the Māori interest, because it’s very important that we recognise the absolute importance of te wai to what goes on. If you look at clause 5 of the bill, it sets out not only the principles of the Treaty—Te Tiriti—as a really important value but also tikanga Māori, and that’s important as well because it’s not just the principles but it’s also the place that water holds in Māoridom. So I’m very pleased to see that throughout the bill that is all taken into account, including in the governance and the advisory board. So that’s a great step forward as well. But really what this is about is making sure that the delivery of water—essentially, that our water is drinkable or “potable”, the word that no one actually uses, and that it doesn’t make us sick. And the fact is that at the moment, under our current framework, people get sick in their thousands from drinking our water. So we, as a First World, wealthy country, need to lift our drinking-water standards. That’s a fact, and this is the vehicle by which we will be able to do it. So it’s great to see the Minister bringing this to the House.

If you look at the purposes of the bill and the objectives of the bill and of Taumata Arowai, they are to, basically, promote drinking-water safety—absolutely fundamental—but also to administer the system universally around the country, so uniformity. It is outrageous that people in rural areas do not get the same quality as those in urban areas. So that’s something we need to change. I know for some people it will be difficult, because if there’s any drinking-water network, then that will fall under this piece of legislation. Whilst a self-supply—one dwelling supplied from rainwater or a well, or whatever—falls outside of the Act, as soon as it becomes a network serving two or more it will fall under the Act, as it should, because that is drinking-water supply, and we need to make sure that anyone or any group of people supplying others meets appropriate standards.

This bill is a real step forward. It’s something that’s long been needed—tragedies in New Zealand have shown us that it’s needed—and I look forward to it getting to select committee, getting a really thorough examination by that hard-working committee, and coming back to the House as a better and even more effective bill to keep our drinking-water safe. I commend it to the House.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I rise to speak on this Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill. Now, any responsible Government would take people’s health and safety issues seriously, and this bill is about the establishment of the water services regulator. In spite of some particular concerns, we believe that the intention is good and we will support the bill to go to the select committee. The bill itself also covers some aspects of the new body, including the objectives, the function, the governance, the management, and also the operating principles.

Now, the main background of this bill is the contamination of Havelock North’s drinking-water supply in August 2016. Of course, the contamination led to the outbreak of gastroenteritis. In Havelock North, about one-third of the residents in the town became ill, so it was a major issue to us and it was shocking news to the country. So that was the background. The then National-led Government acted quickly and we initiated the independent inquiry. Two reports were submitted in the following year—in May and December 2017, respectively. The first report focused on identifying what happened, what caused the contamination, and also the conduct of those who provided drinking water. The second report focused on broader systematic issues and also had some recommendations. So that was the main background.

But this bill itself, of course, would be able to provide clear leadership in terms of regulating drinking water, and it also would strengthen compliance, monitoring, and enforcement relating to drinking-water regulation. So there are merits here, and that’s why we would support this to go to the committee.

At the same time, we do see some risks in the bill, some uncertainties and some challenges—for example, the new regulator may face challenges in terms of a lack of capability, capacity, and even expertise and funding in terms of carrying out its functions. Related to this is a challenge to the new regulator in terms of building and maintaining its credibility and also confidence among stakeholders. So these are some challenges and risks. That’s why we believe it’s important for the bill to go to the committee to be further examined and also to enable people to make submissions to improve the bill.

Our concern also relates to some other areas, particularly about the cost, because many smaller councils may find it very hard to fund the new regulations. The Government has been putting more and more responsibility on local councils, and many of these responsibilities would cause more financial burden to local councils. That’s why we believe we need to make sure that smaller local councils will be able to fund these new regulations. It may be OK for Auckland Council because Auckland Council is a very big council, but smaller ones can be very difficult because they have a very limited ratepayer base. So these are some concerns.

Above all, we believe we should be able to support the bill to go to the committee, and then we will be able to further improve the bill and then make it work. Thank you.

MARK PATTERSON (NZ First): Thanks, Madam Speaker. I rise to give New Zealand First’s support for this Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill—I hope the pronunciation wasn’t too horrific; my apologies to anyone that was offended by that. So this is the stand-alone water regulator that is the response to the Havelock water situation. I don’t think we need to be reminded that it was a tragic set of circumstances. This regulator will give a high degree of focus to what is an incredibly important utility: our drinking water.

The information that we have here suggests that up to 34,000 people a year get sick from drinking water, which is not the ideal situation at all, obviously. In fact, our very own scheme, the Lawrence, Tuapeka water scheme, is on a boil-water notice at the moment; it had a pipe break, and for the last two or three weeks we’ve had boil-water notices. So it is such a ubiquitous thing, water, and its delivered by a plethora of different deliverers.

I had, myself, the honour of bringing the Ōtama rural water bill before the House earlier this year, and that was a fiercely independent group of local farmers that had put the Ōtama rural water scheme on; 230-odd households getting drinking water from that. You know, it does stir the emotions. They put a lot of work into that, they wanted to run it, they felt they had the competency—and they do have the competency—to do so. But it’s that greater oversight that we need. I know there’s those water schemes all around the country. I see Minister O’Connor there; he’d be well aware of the Hector, Ngākawau situation over on the Coast, where they too have a disputed ownership of a water scheme. And, you know, small communities take a lot of pride in delivering their water, but this is the 21st century, and we have an expectation of very high standards of drinking water, and that no matter where you live you should be entitled to have that standard of drinking water; certainly not a standard that would see 34,000 people getting sick.

Of course, there is the three waters reform that Minister Mahuta is bringing through. This is a wide-ranging piece of work—we talked about the infrastructure bill earlier on—to get some funding, because it is going to be expensive, but, you know, that’s just the reality of the situation, and we will have to look at ways as to how we can fund these reforms and different special purpose vehicles, etc. for funding infrastructure. For small councils particularly, it is going to be quite a strain on them. The Gore District Council is quoting $60 million to get their three waters up to the standard that they’re perceiving is going to be required. So that’s going to be a significant cost on a rather small council.

So I don’t think we’ve got too many concerns about this. It was a very clear directive from that report that came back from the Havelock inquiry. It does make sense. It’s probably long overdue, if we’re being honest. It’s something that we would have expected would be just a given in a First World country like New Zealand; I think we’ve got the second best or the best freshwater standards in the world. So it’s something that maybe we’ve just taken for granted because we have had such a high standard of water over time. We know our farmers are doing their best to protect their waterways and the reforms that are going on there. So fresh water’s become quite a topic of conversation, and all its forms—and it’s in the rivers, in the drinking water, and in the three waters with the waste water and sewerage and the like. So New Zealand First think this is a thoroughly sensible bill, and we will support it through to the next stage. Thank you.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take what will be a very brief call on Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill at its first reading. As you would have heard, we are supporting this bill at this stage.

This is the second bill that this Government has introduced to the House in response to the 2016 Havelock North drinking-water inquiry in New Zealand. The events of 2016 were a tragic reminder of how important for public safety it is to maintain excellent drinking-water standards; given that a third of the town’s population were affected by that outbreak, especially. On average, around 30,000 people a year in New Zealand become sick from water-borne illnesses. It was so important that the previous Government moved so quickly to implement the inquiry that provided many of the recommendations that are now being implemented. This bill is an important part of a broader body of work that implements some of these recommendations. The bill sets out to establish a water services regulator—Taumata Arowai—as a new Crown agent and provides for its objectives, functions and principles, and governance agreements. The regulatory body will oversee, administer, and enforce the new drinking-water regulatory system.

Now, we broadly support the intentions of the bill but, as previous speakers have mentioned, we do have some reservations and we, as Denise Lee said, do encourage stakeholders to go to select committee and have their say. Our main concerns are around the cost to those very small drinking-water suppliers—private suppliers, that may not have the capacity to comply with the new regulatory requirements. Their size may well limit their capacity. They may not have the expertise or the funding available to comply. So these are some of the issues that will need to be closely scrutinised at select committee. Broadly, however, we support the intention of this bill.

The departmental disclosure statement states that this bill will be complemented by a separate bill that will, among other things, implement targeted reforms to improve the regulation and performance of waste-water and stormwater networks. In my electorate of East Coast Bays we see regularly, very regularly, the effects of decades of underinvestment and lack of regular maintenance. Our beaches are often closed. Browns Bay Beach, in fact, has been closed—only opened recently. It was closed for eight weeks because of E. coli contamination coming from a stormwater outflow at the northern end of the beach. Many broken pipes were found. We’ve got the same issues in Castor Bay and Takapuna and elsewhere in Auckland, and we need to take a serious look at the performance of our networks in Auckland and also in other urban centres. All the maligning of those people in the rural sector for the degradation of our waterways—the quality of our urban waterways and beaches are far worse and it’s time we looked more closely at those. So I do look forward to the next bill to be introduced. But for now, for this bill, we broadly support it and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you. I’m pleased to stand for the Green Party and support the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill. I’ve noticed that Opposition members are raising concerns about the cost and the previous speaker, Erica Stanford, highlighted the decades of underinvestment in infrastructure. That is what this Government is fixing and this bill is part of our whole approach to ensuring that New Zealanders can trust the water that comes out of their taps.

The Hon Willie Jackson painted the picture of what happened in Havelock North in August 2016: the four deaths there; the 5,000 people who got sick. But while the Opposition is talking about cost, I hope they also note that the cost of that outbreak with four people dying—the impacts in terms of human impacts, but also the economic impacts—it’s estimated that the outbreak cost the town $21 million in lost economic activity. So not tackling this issue of drinking-water quality has serious consequences for individuals, communities, and also the economy. So the costs are well worth it and, as the Minister the Hon Nanaia Mahuta has signalled, this Government is working with local authorities to address the significant costs of dealing with underinvestment in infrastructure.

What is the problem we’re trying to fix? It’s not just Havelock North. There have been a number of incidents from Springston, from Darfield where people have got seriously sick because of contamination of water supplies. And as other speakers have noted, a number of smaller communities have got boil-water notices in place.

We have got drinking-water standards and an earlier bill this year that the Minister of Health introduced was to ensure that those drinking-water standards can be amended more quickly and effectively. But one of the problems that MartinJenkins identified in a comprehensive review making the case for a new regulator was that that is a relatively high tolerance across New Zealand for low compliance with drinking-water standards. The report noted—and I quote, “No formal enforcement action has been taken since the current drinking-water regime was introduced in 2007, despite widespread annual non-compliance with a range of regulatory requirements that could have a material impact on water quality and safety.”

The fact that these standards, the drinking-water standards, aren’t in force means that there are an estimated 866,000 people annually who are getting water from plants that don’t comply with either bacterial, protozoal, or chemical standards. That is what this new regulator, Taumata Arowai, is going to help address because the bill sets out its objectives, its functions as an independent Crown agency in which the public can have confidence. One of those functions is in the compliance and enforcement space so that the drinking-water standards are actually implemented and where they are not, there can be enforcement action taken.

It also sets out quite comprehensively the functions and, as others have noted, there’ll be a further bill introduced early next year, which will deal with that more comprehensively. So the bill also sets out the governance regime, the number of people that will be on the agency, and ensures that there is a Māori advisory board to deal with Te Mana o te Wai in ensuring that the regulator implements and has regard to that concept.

The other thing that’s really important is the work that this Government is doing, led by Minister Parker as environment Minister, around protecting drinking-water supplies, because we have seen a major change in land use across New Zealand in the last several decades and that has compromised water quality in our lakes, in our rivers, and our aquifers. So it’s the measures that are being put in place through a stronger national policy statement on fresh water to ensure that we better control those land uses that lead to nutrients, that lead to E. coli, that lead to sediment contaminating water sources, and then increasing the costs of treatment of water supply.

So this bill is part of this Government’s much wider response to ensuring that New Zealanders can be confident that their drinking water from the tap is safe, is reliable; and that rivers, lakes, and other water sources—that we can swim in them safely without the risk of getting sick. So the Green Party is pleased to support this bill.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I too stand with my colleagues to support the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill in its first reading tonight. As my colleagues have said, the National Party is supporting it through this first reading to the select committee, and the reason we’re doing that is because we want to hear from submitters about this bill.

One of the concerns I have is the implication of cost to small communities and rural communities. And I think, you know, from a recent experience on the West Coast, we could do a lot for water quality and water sources—if we could keep 700 dead rats from washing out of the Department of Conservation estate into the catchment areas so that we don’t have to pick them up. So water quality in rural areas is really important, but in my experience, my water comes out of a creek. It’s got no treatment. It’s got a bit of a filter and it does me no harm. Some might argue that it does.

But the reality is, in small catchments with small water schemes, the cost of implementing some of this regulation and this bill will be prohibitive to small communities—“small” being defined as less than 500 people. Now, we know from the paperwork that we’ve got in front of us that the cost to implement this could be upwards of $117 million a year for operating costs and nearly $700 million for the capital investment required. So for small communities, this is simply prohibitive.

So although we all want good clean drinking-water and we understand in the metropolitan areas that we do need this, because of the volume of people that are hooked on to these supplies we still need to be cognisant of the fact that we do have cost implications and these will be borne, because of the size of the rating areas, by small communities. As this bill comes to us today, we are not guaranteed where those costs are going to fall. I would expect they would come back to the ratepayers and certainly the ongoing running costs will.

So I do look forward to the select committee process and I do encourage the submitters to come forward and give us their views on it before we develop our standing or our support going forward. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): This is a split call. I call Angie Warren-Clark.

ANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand tonight and take a brief call on the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill. I had the pleasure of being on the Health Committee when we passed the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill earlier this year, and we learnt all about Havelock North and the difficulties that had happened there and the number of deaths. So it’s with great pleasure that I acknowledge the long period of work that we are undertaking in regards to three waters, including our drinking water, and that’s what brings us here tonight.

Havelock North, with the four deaths and the 5,000 people sick, was a shocking event, and even though we acknowledge it may be expensive to fix, it is one that we do not resile from. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for her great work in this area, and I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.

Hon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to make a short call on this very important bill that we are debating this evening. The National Party will indeed support this bill, but we do have some concerns that we would like to debate and thrash out in the select committee, mainly around the cost.

It’s interesting. I read some analysis done by Beca, who had a look at the three waters in New Zealand and who summarised the fact that the costs of upgrading our three waters in this country are huge. The example they gave was that in Auckland it is about $66, but over on the East Coast, in Anne Tolley’s electorate, it is over $1,600 per person. So it is staggering, and we want to know that this new regulatory Crown agency is going to do the work that, indeed, is talked about in this bill about compliance and monitoring.

I’m also interested to know that there is a Māori advisory board or grouping as part of this, and when I read the bill, I thought: why is a Māori advisory group a part of this bill? I can sort of understand why the Government has chosen to put iwi alongside this new Crown agency, and I think the reason they have done it is they are trying to work their way through, very gradually, a water-bottling levy. That’s all gone very quiet in the last six or probably eight or 10 months, because I know from when I was a Government Minister how difficult that is, indeed, to bring in. Iwi rights and interests, I know, are paramount, but there’s no mention of water bottling in this. There’s no mention of water storage. This is focused purely on drinking water, because we know the water-bottling levy is indeed very complex.

I know Minister Parker is in the debating chamber this evening. It would be good to get an understanding from him at some stage: is the water-bottling levy going to be introduced before the general election in 2020?

Hon David Parker: Which election? Oh, 2020.

Rt Hon David Carter: That’s the next one. The member didn’t know.

Hon NATHAN GUY: So what does the Minister think? He’s now procrastinating and thinking: “When is 2020?” He’s only got about nine months before there’s going to be a change of Government, so if he’s going to bring in a water-bottling levy, he needs to get on to it. I suggest he works all summer on that particular issue. But the reality is that nothing much will happen on that. There was a whole lot of sort of political rhetoric in the 2017 campaign from Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Party—“We’re going to bring in a water-bottling levy.” Well, the reality is almost silence.

Anyway, back to the substance of this bill. We support it cautiously. We’ve got a whole lot of questions in the select committee, and Todd Muller is going to lay out those questions very, very shortly.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a brief call on this bill, because I think we all know—based on what we’ve heard about the Havelock North situation—about the importance of having safe drinking-water. As we’ve heard in the House, about 5,500 people were affected by that campylobacter outbreak, about 45 people were hospitalised, and it’s thought that it may have contributed to four deaths, and so it’s incredibly important that we get this right.

The Government, back in 2016, established a two-stage inquiry. What this bill does is implement one of the main recommendations of their stage two report, and that was to say that we needed a dedicated drinking-water regulator, and so what we’re doing today in speaking about this bill is the establishment of Taumata Arowai, which will be that independent drinking-water regulator. So what this bill does is it sits alongside another bill, the water services bill, that’s currently under development. That will lay out all of the detail around the water regulations, but it will also lay out some of the detail around stormwater and waste water and also the thinking about protecting our water sources.

So what this bill here today, though, does is it establishes that new Crown entity, Taumata Arowai, and that will be, basically, responsible for the administration and enforcement of the new water regulatory system. But the other thing that it’s going to be looking at is also providing some much-needed leadership around stormwater and waste water, because what we’ve got around the country at the moment is a whole lot of sewerage systems and stormwater systems that are discharging into our rivers and into our estuaries. That has got significant health impacts, and having that leadership so that we can actually get that right is going to be critically important. So this is a really, really important bill, and I’m really happy to commend it to the House.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Well, what a great opportunity to say a few words. I believe the last National speaker on this very important bill, the Taumata Arowai—the Water Services Regulator Bill. Of course, what a great privilege for me to follow our former agriculture Minister and now retiring MP, Nathan Guy, and asking the questions, of course, that I will put as part of this speech—which, of course, I will do. But I think we’re all reflecting on the obvious question that is very much front of mind for us, which is: with the plethora of career options that lie in front of you, which one will you choose? I think that is the No. 1 question for us on this side.

Hon Nathan Guy: Yeah, that’s true—water bottling.

TODD MULLER: I think you have heard it here first: “Guy Mineral Water”—I’m sure it will go well.

But there are a few serious points that I’d like to make, and this is reflecting to the extent I could through the chatter from some of my colleagues and some of the average contributions from those on the other side on this particular issue. What I heard time and time again was an understandable anchoring of their conversation on the challenges of Havelock North and the requirement for this country to ensure that we have a standard that is consistent. No one argues with that, but where the Government quickly finds itself in trouble is the challenge of actually making this happen and putting some numbers around it.

Almost to a person tonight, the Government contributors have not mentioned the costs that will ultimately need to be borne by ratepayers. Now, we’re not saying that the cost is not worth it, but let’s have an honest and open and transparent conversation around the costs that are likely to be incurred by, particularly, those communities that have a relatively low rating base in terms of the numbers of people, and what this is going to mean from a back-pocket perspective for them. Now, the numbers have been provided. The fact that the Government has not chosen to voice it, I suspect, reflects their perspective on this issue, but to establish this new regulator will be somewhere close to $10 million over the next 18 months—

Hon Member: How much?

TODD MULLER: —$10 million—and then, in terms of their operational delivery, it will be pushing $44 million to $50 million. But, actually, that is just change relative to the costs that are assumed in terms of the infrastructure rebuild that is required across the communities across New Zealand, and in some of the numbers that have been expected, just in terms of a couple of subgroups that are identified in the regulatory impact statement, it is well over half a billion and close to $695 million. This is before we have even had the conversation around the extent to which a new regulator is going to look at the water infrastructure which was already in place that may well come under pressure in terms of coastal erosion and climate change in the next 10, 15, 20 years and the cost of moving that.

So we, from a National Party perspective, totally support the concept of having a regulator. We support the concept of having a conversation around how national standards should be applied, but please also reflect on the opportunity for some local flexibility, because if you are not careful you will force further costs on rural communities that are already buckling under the stress of having a Government who does not understand them and who is never there for them.

It was fascinating, the observation from my colleague Mr Guy in talking about water bottling. You could see when Mr Parker realised that he was actually being introduced into the debate, and he turned from writing his Christmas cards to listening. You could see the colour drain from his face, because what you did is you put out there the reality of a party that had campaigned on a promise, hasn’t delivered it two years in, and they know they will not go to New Zealand with a water-bottling solution this side of the election—yet another example of a Government that’s all talk, doesn’t deliver. They set the standard of a failed experiment, and in one year’s time, we’ll see the back of them. Thank you very much.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): As a good Catholic man, I believe in the spirit of Christmas, and part of that is not biting at that sort of nonsense that we heard on the other side of the House. So I think this is a good bill, and I commend it to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

Bills

Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. I intend to move that the bill be reported back to the House by Tuesday, 28 April 2020.

The bill will address a discreet regulatory gap where commercial video on demand content, which is a growing market both globally and in New Zealand, is not currently subject to mandatory classification requirements prior to being made available in New Zealand. It brings commercial video on demand content in line with how films seen at cinemas or available on DVDs are treated. Films are required to display a label that tells the potential viewer what age or audience it is appropriate for, and flags with them that it may contain violence, sexual, or adult themes, and, more importantly, themes about suicide that have been proven to have an effect on younger audiences. The bill allows viewers to make informed viewing choices when they are scrolling through their Netflix, Lightbox, or NEON accounts for something to watch.

The bill is essential in managing the potential for harm to viewers who view or allow children or vulnerable persons to view commercial video on demand content without understanding its nature. It does this by requiring this content to be rated and labelled in the same way that films are already regulated under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act. However, only certain providers listed in a Schedule to the Act will be required to comply with the new requirements. The decision to list or remove providers from the Schedule will be made by the Governor-General upon recommendation from the Minister of Internal Affairs. The Minister of Internal Affairs will need to consult the chief censor and consider criteria noted in the bill before making any recommendation to list or remove providers from the Schedule. The principal consideration for listing in the Schedule will be the potential risk of harm to New Zealand viewers due to the provider not displaying appropriate labels under the classification Act.

Providers listed in the Schedule can comply by (1) self-rating content using their own systems that have been approved by the Office of Film and Literature Classification; (2) self-rating content using the Office of Film and Literature Classification’s online tool and resources; or (3) submitting content to the Film and Video Labelling Body for rating and labelling, with certain content to be referred to the Office of Film and Literature Classification for classification where appropriate. The ability for providers to be able to self-rate their content is something that is unique to the treatment of commercial video on demand content under the classification Act. It is a more efficient process and considers commercial video on demand providers need to maintain competitiveness in the market by being able to make content available in New Zealand at the same time as it is available elsewhere. An example of this is when the Game of Thrones episodes on NEON were available soon after being broadcast on the American HBO channel.

The Office of Film and Literature Classification has been developing a self-rating framework with industry, which will be ready to roll out once changes come into force in January 2021. The bill sets out a staggered approach to implementation. I believe this is necessary given the changes specific providers will need to make to their own systems in order to comply with the new requirements. If the bill is passed by July 2020, then providers will have six months to negotiate terms and conditions with the Office of Film and Literature Classification and upgrade their systems if necessary. Providers will have to rate and label all new content from 1 January 2021, and older content, which is content already available on providers’ platforms before 1 January 2021, will need to be rated and labelled by 1 July 2021. However, commercial video on demand content that has been labelled under the Broadcasting Act regime and displays broadcasting code classifications or programme information will not need to be relabelled. This recognises the other existing regime for media content under the Broadcasting Act, which was developed with a focus on New Zealand community standards.

As stated before, this discreet change adapts the classification Act to address commercial video on demand content and ensures this content displays New Zealand ratings and labels that are readily familiar to New Zealand viewers. I propose that a period of four months is appropriate for select committee consideration. The bill is short and makes a discreet change to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. I commend this bill to the House.

Melissa Lee: Madam Speaker—

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

MELISSA LEE (National): Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I jumped the gun there a little bit. It’s a pleasure to actually rise—I will signal now to the Minister and to the House that the National Party will be supporting this bill to select committee only at this stage. There are some concerns that we have, and me and my colleagues will actually put some of them down.

But I have to commend the Minister of Internal Affairs. Considering the fact that there is a wider media content review happening by the Hon Kris Faafoi and also the Māori sector review that is actually happening, I’m slightly confused as to what the rush was for this Minister to have a very narrowly focused bill brought to this House for us to debate, literally the second day before we close for Christmas, rushing it through so that we are supposedly reporting back on 28 April. It’s not even six months, and most people who are actually in the industry perhaps are on holiday, and Parliament doesn’t even return until February. I just feel that it’s a little rushed, and I just urge the Minister to have a little bit of leeway in terms of the way that our submitters will have some time to submit to select committee and to review some of the concerns that we actually have.

The objective of this bill is to reduce the potential for harm for consumers from viewing inappropriate content in commercial videos on demand. As a parent, when my child was growing up, I was always very concerned about some videos that he might actually consume on television or on DVDs, and I would always check the ratings that were on the box—whether it was for general viewing or parental guidance that was required for the content. I think that as my son grew a little bit older, I sort of stopped doing that. You know, I wanted to make sure that he knew what he was actually watching. I always reminded him about the classifications that the videos actually had, but knowing young children, they want to go for something slightly older than they are. At age 16, I think he wanted to go for something that was for 18-year-olds, and trying to convince my son not to do a video game that was rated 18 was a major fight in my household, to restrict my child to not do R18 video games. I think it was rated because of the violent nature of the video. So there were actually a lot of arguments in my family. I’m sure that it is like that, actually, everywhere up and down the country, and that is one of the reasons why we want to make sure that we have consistent labelling of the ratings and the classifications. I think it is a good thing, and that is one of the reasons why we are actually supporting this bill.

Having said that, I guess one of the reasons why we oppose—well, why we are concerned about it; and I hope that the submitters will actually address some of these concerns that we actually have—is the issue of establishment of criteria and process to identify less regulated providers. It’s in the second page of the explanatory note of the bill. This is actually about the Schedule that the Minister, in consultation with the chief censor, creates—the people who are able to actually have content in New Zealand. I guess one of the things is that according to the Schedule, or the proposed Schedule, it does not list some of the content providers on different platforms that many young people actually go to. I’ve actually alluded to the Minister that there are many content providers that we haven’t even looked at. I think, hopefully, the submitters will actually bring that awareness to our select committee.

For example, there are anime platforms that are actually very violent and have very sexual content that our young people could potentially get at but haven’t even been included in it. And potentially commercial videos on demand could be our broadcasters like TVNZ. They haven’t actually been included in the list, and I think they need to be included in this.

One of the things that—hopefully, my colleagues will actually address some of the other issues, but I think having mandatory classification of all content has been a clunky process. Having actually run a film festival for the Korean community—I run the Korean film festival every two years as part of the Korean Cinerama Trust—one of the issues that we’ve always had is the mandatory classification of every video, or every film, that we wanted to run during the film festival. When content has already been classified in other countries, I think we need to look at how we actually share that classification in terms of the levels of violence or the content. But when the censors want to view every content that’s going to be shown, let’s say at a film festival, sometimes the process takes too long, and we ran the risk of not being able to have the film classified on opening night. That is a major delay.

The other concern is that if the regulation is too much, sometimes, I think, we run the risk of having content providers geo-block New Zealand. These are some of the issues that we will actually traverse during select committee.

There are quite a few things to actually go through, but I’m sure that we’ll nut those things out during select committee. We support it to select committee, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister for Youth): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand in support of this bill, and I’m reminded of the words of a former Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Sir John Key, and I liken it to that member’s speech, saying that that contribution is a Walkman in an iPod era. She made reference to a broader review in the broadcasting space where I think that this is much needed and needed now.

I say that with respect, because we know that in this particular space it’s ever evolving, it’s ever changing. If we were to wait for a far broader review, which I know is under way and is being led by the Hon Kris Faafoi, and also the work being led by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, then I’m afraid that it will be far too long. Far too many eyes will see programmes, films, documentaries, or whatever they might be, that aren’t classified appropriately in order for parents and for viewers to make the right decision. So I support the Minister of Internal Affairs in her time frames that she’s indicated in her contribution on this bill. I look forward to supporting this bill as it continues in the House, and, just as importantly, upon its conclusion, I also look forward to the great viewing ahead for the future. Tēnā koe.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this bill. Just in regard to the previous member, Peeni Henare’s, comments regarding my colleague Melissa Lee, I think it’s important to understand that the reviews that are taking place do have the potential to override some amendments that this bill could put into place.

However, suffice to say, I am pleased that we are supporting this to select committee. I think it’s going to be a very interesting debate. Look, as a parent myself, there have been absolute times when I have had concern about what young people do stumble across—and not only stumble across; seek out. I do think that in this debate, what we’re going to hear from parents is that concern that, actually, sometimes when you put a classification on a programme or a movie it actually is the thing that attracts people to it.

But, that aside, I do think that there have been programmes that have been available without any warning or description that we would all hold serious concern about. One of those, of course, was the series 13 Reasons Why and the issue that that created in normalising people taking their lives. I think all of us would hold significant concerns about that. Some of these films depict life as we know it or life as other people and countries know it, and you can say they are educational, but sometimes I think people prefer not to be educated in such matters, and there could be an opportunity, I think, for New Zealand to have some deep consideration about these matters.

So can I commend the Minister of Internal Affairs for her concern and also look forward to what the select committee process will enable in terms of inviting submissions from the broader community right across the board. I think this is something that New Zealand needs to consider and discuss. Thank you.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Young people in New Zealand are exposed to an incredible variety of influences and pressures and media to an extent that generations past have not necessarily been. Now, we can’t be unrealistic or prudish about these matters, necessarily. Young people have always been curious about finding different types of material and informing themselves about the world that is around them. But what this piece of legislation does is address what is a fundamental gap within our system for ensuring that people have got good information about what the age appropriateness of content is in these particular media. Any Parliament worth its salt, and any Government worth its salt, will always be ensuring that the regulations that we have keep pace with technological changes. The reality is that over recent years, an increasing amount of the content that young people view is through these on-demand providers, and we’ve got a very, very obvious loophole.

This is a very sensible piece of legislation. It, simply, addresses a gap. We would expect, and our laws expect, that if content comes through other forms of visual media—if it’s on the television—that there will be a process for ensuring that the age appropriateness of that content is known by people who are watching. That is not the same if it comes through these kinds of media.

So this is a sensible piece of legislation. It’s also important in terms of ensuring that people can make good decisions about what kind of content is appropriate. I firmly commend it to the House and look forward to the discussion that will ensue at select committee. Thank you.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think we’re all in agreement that something needs to be done. The question is: what is the something, and will it work? One thing with this bill: it seems to have been quite rushed in the process. And yet the Minister had a whole year to get started on this and elected not to and then has rushed it through, to a point where we have some serious doubts that this will be actually as effective as we think—particularly the gaming, videos, and so on and programmes that aren’t captured in this. There is a list in the bill, in the Schedule. The problem is this is such a fast-moving world that providers pop up all the time. So to have something in a Schedule like that, we need the flexibility to make sure that that can adapt, and adapt very quickly. I’m not confident that that will happen.

The clunky process, having bureaucrats involved, always—as my colleague Melissa Lee mentioned about film festivals having to go through the process, this has happened on a number of occasions, with these film festivals being almost held at ransom because they can’t get their content that they want to show actually classified in time. The last thing we want is for this process to mess with the Kiwis who are law-abiding and wanting to show quite harmless content, who are being held up by these processes.

So I’m sure that the select committee will deal with a lot of these processes—not sure it’ll all work and be able to be knocked into shape enough, but that remains to be seen. In the meantime, there is an overarching review going on, by the other two Ministers mentioned earlier, which may completely negate this bill and it may need repealing as part of that process. So we support it in principle. Let’s just see if it’ll actually do what it says on the tin.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Thank you, Madam Speaker—pleased to stand in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. The Green Party supports this bill. Opposition speakers have criticised the Minister of Internal Affairs for speed, but the Minister has developed this bill after targeted consultation. That always takes a bit of time, but it is useful in ensuring that legislation is well formulated. So I think that criticism is misdirected.

We are pleased to support it because of the huge growth in these commercial on-demand services: 77 percent of New Zealanders now use these streaming services, and it recognises the need for people to be able to have information on the type of content that can be viewed, particularly for parents with children, and young people who may be vulnerable to, especially, films about things like suicide. So this is filling a gap, and because of that vulnerability it needs to be filled as quickly as we can.

I think what the bill is doing in providing for a self-rating system is ensuring that the system is efficient and as cost-effective as possible. In ensuring that there is a Schedule of providers who are required to meet the requirements of the legislation—that has been clear. That Schedule can be amended, as the Minister noted. In providing for staged implementation so that new content has to have the labelling on it from January 2021 and that providers have to address their back catalogues from July 2021 and have those complied, that is allowing time for the industry to implement the requirements of the legislation, and it is, at its heart, trying to manage unnecessary harm to people in New Zealand.

So it is a small bill, but it is a good bill. Like others, the Green Party will be interested in the submissions to select committee, because, as Stuart Smith noted, there are problems with the regime at the moment, particularly for some independent film makers, those wanting to provide and sell videos of independent films and not being able to get their classifications through cost-effectively, that being quite a high cost barrier. That is slightly wider than the scope of the bill, but it may be that this bill is an opportunity to address these issues with some of those smaller independent producers to help ensure that they get classifications as well but it’s not a really heavy cost burden on them. So I encourage those people to actually make submissions to the select committee. But the Green Party supports this bill and commends the Minister for bringing it to the House.

SIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for an opportunity to talk on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill at its first reading. It’s a bill in which there seems to be a problem which the Minister of Internal Affairs is trying to rush a solution for through Parliament. It seems to be about four months to rush something through Parliament and make some legislation. There is a problem. There is content which is not currently being classified, and this bill does seek to provide information to parents, to children, to young people so that they can make informed decisions over what they are watching or what they’re allowing their children to watch, and that is a serious issue. I think it’s something which we all take seriously in this House. I note that the Government does have a wider content review taking place which is looking into all of these issues, and here today we are debating this bill which seeks to, essentially, put in place a stopgap, a half measure, which will make some improvements but will also have some unintended consequences.

One of the points I’d like to make is over the fact that this is, essentially, a piece of legislation which will be outdated the day it is passed. It allows the Minister to be able to update through regulation the list of content providers which will be able to self-regulate and put in place the classifications, but then as technology changes, as new providers come in, the Minister will have to, in consultation with the chief censor, update those regulations. So, essentially, what we’re seeing here is a piece of legislation which will be outdated the day that it is passed into law.

In my view, this is something for which the Government should be looking at a more platform-neutral approach on how to deal with this issue, rather than a list of platforms which will be constantly changed as new platforms and new providers come on to the scene. So we support this bill at this stage, but we will be very interested in the submissions which come through—also just noting the fact that the submission period will be very brief. The select committee period will only be just over four months, and this, as a serious issue, will not provide as much time as this may need for people to be able to make those submissions and to have that serious consultation which is required. We support the bill to its first reading. Thank you very much.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): We now have a split call. I call Jamie Strange.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker—appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this bill. It was only a couple of days ago when my wife and I were having a conversation—

Alastair Scott: Too much detail.

JAMIE STRANGE: —around what our children were accessing. Yeah, we do talk from time to time, which is good. We were having a conversation around what our children were watching on TV, and I believe they were watching Netflix. We were thinking back to when we were children—and I’m sure some people in the House will certainly be able to relate to this, that, basically, TV was very regulated, and there were set times when, as children, you would have programmes on TV for you. So, for example, weekdays between sort of 3.30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and those shows—

Alastair Scott: Play School.

JAMIE STRANGE: —yeah, yeah, Play School, Fraggle Rock—were for children when they got home from school. The news was coming on at 6 p.m., so there was that set period of time and it was clearly regulated. People knew what they were watching. The other time was Saturday morning: What Now, other shows like that. Look, we could go on with a number of shows, but I’ll let other speakers maybe share their stories.

But the key point that I want to make here is that we live in a completely different environment, and this environment, brought about by video streaming, basically means two things. One is that children watch a show and then at the end of the show, it goes straight on to the next show. So the ability to binge-watch is something that wasn’t around previously. From a personal point of view, I think that that has some challenges, that ability to binge-watch, for children and also for adults as well. Then the second point, which this bill addresses, is the aspect around clearly knowing what the content is and what the rating of that content is.

There is a point that hasn’t really been teased out, and I would like to touch on that, that this policy, this piece of legislation, was developed with the industry, which is a fantastic way to develop legislation. It was developed with Netflix, Lightbox, NEON, and others within the industry. The Office of Film and Literature Classification has been developing a self-rating framework with industry which will be ready to roll out once changes come into force in January 2021. The bill sets out a staggered approach to implementation, which is necessary given the changes specified providers will need to make to their own systems in order to comply with the new requirements. So it’s important that we note that the industry is on board, and I’d like to acknowledge the industry and I’d like to acknowledge those groups that I mentioned—and no doubt there were others who were involved in that consultation—because it’s a good model for legislation.

So, look, just to summarise: the situation has changed, and it’s important that we move with the times. From a personal point of view, I’d probably like to hark back to how it was, but the reality is the situation has changed and so legislation like this is very important to provide clear communication both to the children and to the parents. I commend this bill to the House, and I acknowledge the work that the Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, has done on this. Thank you.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Speaker. “’Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the House, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”—so the poem goes. Well, this is sometimes referred to as the House. I wouldn’t call any of my parliamentary colleagues creatures, or even a mouse. That would be unparliamentary.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Excellent.

CHRIS PENK: I believe a rodent metaphor has been used before in this place relatively recently and didn’t go down well. We won’t try and swallow any dead rats of that nature, but suffice to say there’s a lack of stirring in the sense that no one seems to be heckling too much. I’m sort of testing that theory right now, but there seems to be at least unanimity as far as the content of what we’re discussing goes, the objective of the bill that’s in front of us, which I’ll remind myself is the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. So it is that I rise on this side of the House, as we have been, and indeed with our colleagues opposite, supporting the general intent of the bill and being curious as to the detail of the content, which is a matter that can be discussed a bit more at select committee and understood in that forum.

I think probably the only points that I would pick out, in that admittedly quite high-level kind of way, are around the desire of the bill to prevent the viewing of inappropriate content. The key way that it looks to achieve that is by emphasising labelling that is consistent, and by consistent—we can have a reliable system, a system that can be relied upon, and, actually, the explanatory note I think is quite sensible in emphasising the need for informed decisions. So that’s obviously key to a person being able to decide for themselves or, I suppose, in the context of a young person, have their parent decide with them or for them what is appropriate, and, of course, without the right labelling regime, that’s impossible.

Others have spoken about the need to have a regime that makes sense across different formats, maybe even different media, and I see that that’s something that’s addressed in the bill. I look forward to hearing more about it in due course, because, as you know, we’re supporting it on this side at least to select committee and possibly beyond. So we look forward to the rest of the conversation. I thank the Minister of Internal Affairs and others who have worked upon it to this stage. Thank you.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Thank you, Te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to speak on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill. We’ve just had Harmony in the House, that’s why I look very Christmassy. I just want to acknowledge the speeches from across the floor there in terms of—one would think that they are not supporting this bill. One would think that they’re not supporting this bill, but I challenge the members across the floor: had that Government, when they were in Government, done something for the last nine years, maybe we wouldn’t be talking about this. Maybe we wouldn’t be talking about the Walkman in a DVD world. Maybe we wouldn’t be talking about the iPod in a mobile phone world.

Well, I want to commend the Minister of Internal Affairs—

Simeon Brown: Talk about the bill.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI: —I’m getting to the bill; let me get there—for her leadership in this catching up with technology, because that’s what we are actually doing. We’re catching up with the inactivity in the last nine years. What the bill will actually do—the objective of this bill is to reduce the potential for harm to consumers from viewing inappropriate content. That’s what it will do. The bill will amend the Films, Videos and Publication Classification Act of 1993—1993, that’s a long time ago—and it’s to clearly address the identified regulatory gap that identifies—and I just want to talk about a few requirements that it suggests to do—English is my second language, so I’m really honoured and proud to be able to speak English in this House. Now, the requirements for specified commercial video on-demand providers to label content before it’s available in New Zealand—that’s what this bill is trying to do. What the bill will also do is it will establish a set of criteria and processes to identify the list of regulated providers. So that’s what this bill will do.

I want to come down to the point where it actually talks about updating functions of the Classification Office. So the bill will update the functions of the Classification Office to ensure that the new requirements for commercial video on demand—we’re no longer under the DVD, Walkman era—content are clearly within the scope of this operational work.

I just want to cover three points if I may, to summarise it quickly. So the Clarification Office will have the following functions and powers: one is providing an online rating tool that specified commercial video on demand providers may use to rate and label content they may make available. The other two points I wanted to cover were appropriate self-rating systems and reviewing and monitoring the operations and outputs of both the online rating tool and any self-rating system.

I just want to acknowledge the members across the House and, in unison with them, I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Oh, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. A very simple way to assess bills like this Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill is simply to ask: what is the intention, how effective will it be, and what unexpected or unintended consequences might occur if Parliament was to pass a law such as this?

The intention of it is set up pretty early. In the explanatory note it says, “The objective of this bill is to reduce the potential for harm to consumers from viewing inappropriate content.” Well, anyone vaguely familiar with the internet and the way that people access content and video content in the modern world knows that there is zero chance of this bill being remotely effective, and the reasons for that should be intuitive. The most harmful content out there is content that will never be viewed or touched by any New Zealand Government regulator, but is freely available to anybody who wishes to view it. There are literally millions of videos, probably billions of videos now, on YouTube. They are being uploaded at a rate faster than any New Zealand Government department could ever seek to classify them.

And that’s a benign site. That’s without considering some of the websites I was going to mention, and I looked over and I saw Dan Bidois, the member for Northcote, grinning as he anticipated me mentioning those sites. And there’s Chris Penk, the member for Helensville. He gave a smirk as well. And there we have Tim Macindoe from Hamilton East or West—who knows? He’s also grinning, the King’s College old boy. He’s grinning at the thought of those websites.

There’s a lot of websites out there that will never be anywhere near within the reach of the New Zealand Government. So we can say pretty early on that you’ve got an intention of stopping people viewing harmful websites and video content that may be streamed and having the harm reduced by being able to view a standardised classification system. That’s the intention: reduce harm by giving standardised classifications to video content online. And we also know that it’s going to be completely ineffective, because the overwhelming majority of content and particularly the most harmful will never be classified by the New Zealand Government.

Then we move to the unintended consequences, which are legion. One of them is that an outfit such as Netflix might have a look at this legislation and say, “Is it worth our while to comply with a New Zealand specific regime to enter that market?” I suspect Netflix will, because they’re a big outfit and they make a lot of money here in New Zealand. But one of the unintended consequences is that some outfits that currently stream to New Zealand will either stop servicing the New Zealand market or be blocked. So the potential is that there’ll be some—not the really bad sites, not the really good sites—in the middle that will actually abandon the New Zealand market as a result.

Another is that domestic producers of content, those that stream in New Zealand, who pay their wages here, who pay tax, and who are domiciled here, will have no choice whatsoever—there’s a one minute bell, Madam Speaker; oh, I can keep going—about whether or not to comply with these regulations. So one of the unintended consequences is that New Zealand content providers who have to comply will be put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis foreign content providers that New Zealanders can view but who do not comply with these laws, and those are the ones that the New Zealand Government will never manage to regulate.

So, in summary, the ACT Party opposes this piece of legislation. It’s another example of poorly conceived legislation that will not be effective in achieving its goal, but will have negative consequences that will actually reduce the welfare of New Zealanders in total. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to rise and be the last National speaker in support of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill.

Firstly, since it is Christmas next week I do just want to take time to acknowledge you, Madam Speaker, and I hope you have a good Christmas break, as well as the members in the House. I do hope you will get a bit of time with your family and a bit of Netflix as well. I can certainly recommend some good Netflix shows over the break. I’ve just finished watching this Netflix show called Dark. I would rate it about an R16, so I think everybody except Simeon Brown would be able to watch it. But I also have just finished watching The Irishman and that’s also a good film on Netflix as well.

But to the bill, and, look, we’ve heard from a range of speakers on the side of the National Party tonight about why we’re supporting this bill through to select committee. We do just want to make sure that it is equitable between our online world and the physical classifications that we already have. So we’re supportive of the intent of this bill, in particular because of the fact that online and on-demand streaming platforms have risen so much throughout society and will continue to do so. It’s really important for New Zealand that we have the right sort of classification framework in there to protect our young New Zealanders, in particular, from harmful content.

So we have traversed a lot of issues on this side of the House. Of course, we’re keen on the select committee process. It is a shame that it is possibly going to be shorter than we would like, but we do want to traverse some of the issues around why we don’t support the bill in select committee; in particular, there’s a number of industry groups and industry players that don’t support the intent of the bill, so want to hear from them. We also are keen to get a sense of the media content review and if there’s any recommendations that come out of that, and that may be contrary to the bill and the intent of the bill itself.

I don’t want to rehash some of the issues that we’ve discussed on this side of the House. I simply want to commend this bill to the House and in my, possibly, last contribution in the year of 2019 I wish everybody a very merry Christmas. Thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak in support of this bill. But I actually just wanted to begin my contribution by addressing some of the points made by a previous speaker, David Seymour, whose contribution I listened to very carefully. But increasingly, the longer he spoke, I realised that he hadn’t read the bill, because he spent most of his contribution talking about the fact that this legislation wouldn’t be effective; it wouldn’t actually get to what it was aiming to do because we wouldn’t be able to control and regulate content on a number of random websites that he alluded to and also YouTube. But that’s actually not what this bill aims to do at all, so I’m not too sure where he was coming from.

This is actually quite specific. This bill addresses a specific regulatory gap where there are different requirements as it stands for commercial video on demand content, because outfits like Netflix and NEON are not subject to mandatory classification requirements before content is made available here in New Zealand. Like potentially many others, I watched a show sometime back called 13 Reasons Why. And I remember at the time that Netflix came under fire because in the first season, from memory, there was no actual requirement—well, there was no requirement. That’s what we’re fixing now. But there was no classification about the content of that show, which dealt with some real themes and subjects that are important to young people today—themes like sexual violence and suicide. The Mental Health Foundation, from memory, came out and said that parents should actually sit down and talk to their children about these issues before they watched the shows or before they talked to others at school about these themes, because for many people it can be triggering. They are heavy topics. They are important topics. But the whole point of this bill is to make sure that parents have the information they need so that they can have those conversations with their children.

So while this is a very specific fix that this bill proposes, it is an important one, because I suspect all parents would agree that these are important topics that they need to talk to their children about, but they can’t do that if they don’t know that these are the topics that content will discuss or will show. They can be quite graphic at times. So really, all this bill does is to make a specific fix that is important, that will allow for informed decision-making. And perhaps before David Seymour decides to not support this bill, he should read it first. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister of Internal Affairs): I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Commercial Video on-Demand) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by Tuesday, 28 April 2020.

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

Ayes 63

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

Noes 56

New Zealand National 55; Ross.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Secondary Legislation Bill

First Reading

Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I move, That the Secondary Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Regulations Review Committee to consider the bill.

This Secondary Legislation Bill is affectionately known in the Parliamentary Counsel Office and departmental agencies as “the slab” because it is a slab of a bill. It runs to over 300 pages and much of it is detailed cross-references to the many, many Acts that are amended by the bill. It’s the result of painstaking work, not just in Parliamentary Counsel Office but in the legal and policy teams of more than 30 Government agencies that administer the primary legislation that is affected. This touches upon 150 bodies and agencies that Parliament has empowered to make what is soon to be called secondary legislation.

The bill amends over 2,500 provisions in some 550 Acts. As a result, this bill touches the full spectrum of New Zealand’s statute book. But the real importance doesn’t lie in statistics; it’s actually what it does in terms of aiding access to the law. At a general level, the Chief Justice, the Rt Hon Dame Helen Winkelmann, said in her swearing in speech earlier this year: “Without knowledge of the law, many don’t know they have a problem with which the law can help them.” Indeed, on another inquiry recently or in recent years following the milk contamination scare that affected our exporters of milk, the inquirer found that she could not even be sure what the law was that applied to milk exports, because there was uncertainty as to which—what we’re now calling—secondary legislation instruments were in legal effect.

This Secondary Legislation Bill—there needs to be credit given to those who have been behind it because it’s been under development for a while. The former Attorney-General, in part because of that inquiry that I’ve referred to, instigated work through his ministry on the secondary legislation that has led to the bill that’s already been enacted—the Legislation Act 2019—and began work on this bill. It was also a consequence of work that was done by the Regulations Review Committee at that time, and I’ll come back to that later.

This works by implementing a definition of secondary legislation, which appears in section 5 of the Legislation Act 2019. This bill linked to that by implementing the provision in that Act, which says secondary legislation falls within that definition if it’s stated by an Act to be secondary legislation. So this bill gives effect to that by inserting statements into all of those various enactments that create secondary legislation across the relevant points of the statute book. In doing so, it makes it clear what instruments are secondary legislation and, therefore, what law applies to them or what legal effect they have. By enacting this bill, Parliament will replace the complex and overlapping definitions of the types of delegation that are currently determined as legislative instruments, disallowable instruments, and, with them, disallowable instruments that are not legislative instruments. As those who sit on the Regulations Review Committee know, they’re known as DINLIs. All of these complex definitions are actually being replaced by one simple, coherent category of secondary legislation.

The Regulations Review Committee has helped us get to this point. In its 2014 report, which wasn’t a bestseller but was entitled Inquiry into oversight of disallowable instruments that are not legislative instruments, that committee recommended that the Government introduce legislation to ensure that every empowering provision, whether in an Act or in delegated legislation, and whether already made or being made, state which category the instrument falls into. And that’s quite simply what this bill does. It simplifies things.

For the record, it’s important that I state that it’s not the bill’s policy to change the scope or legal effect of empowering provisions or to affect the validity of instruments already made under them. The fact that an instrument is identified as secondary legislation does not widen the power under which it is made, nor does the failure to identify an instrument as secondary legislation narrow that power. It’s important we say that because, despite the best efforts of officials, they may have missed one or two of these secondary legislation instruments, and we don’t want those legal instruments to be ineffective by the fact that they’ve been missed. If they have been missed, they will be cleaned up in the fullness of time.

As well as identifying what instruments are secondary legislation, the bill sets out some exemptions from the general publication requirement for secondary legislation. The exemption will also apply to the presentation and disallowance requirements of the Legislation Act 2019. These exemptions do raise questions of constitutional significance because they limit the ability of the House to monitor the actions of the executive. Some exemptions are included because the secondary legislation they apply to contains sensitive information that should not be publicly disclosed. Most of these exemptions that are listed in the bill continue the status quo, as Parliament has already conferred powers to make secondary legislation in some circumstances that contains sensitive information. A few other exemptions are proposed to reconcile discrepancies between the current statutory provisions and the framework that is set out in the Legislation Act 2019.

There is, of course, a tension between protecting sensitive information in some secondary legislation and the general principle that the law should be publicly accessible and subject to parliamentary oversight. The issue of exemptions is therefore one on which I’m sure the Regulations Review Committee will have something to say, and I look forward to reading their recommendations on this aspect of the book—bill. [Interruption] Ha, ha! That was a slip of the tongue—following their consideration of it.

The publication requirements that applied immediately before the commencement of this bill will be preserved for the time being. We are moving to centralised publication requirements for secondary legislation, but it will take effect later, when commenced by Order in Council. At the end of this process, we will have a more coherent record of New Zealand’s legislation. It will be more easily understood by the people who are meant to comply with it, and it will be easier for people to access. This is an extraordinary bill, not just because of its size. The bill represents the culmination of work by successive Governments to make our statute book fit for purpose in the modern age, and I look forward to the Regulations Review Committee consideration of it. I commend the bill to the House.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a book, it is a brick, and it is a wad of 300 and more pages. It does affect, as the Minister said, more than 500 Acts and 5,500 provisions. In a way, we can’t describe the amount of work that has already gone on in this bookmark—this wedge of paper. Since 2014, it’s come out of the inquiry. As the Minister said, hundreds and hundreds of people have been involved in it. Hours and hours and hours of work have been put into this piece of legislation.

I’ve been a member of the Regulations Reviews Committee for only a short time. It’s quite a different language that’s used in there. We talk about “instruments”. I mean, I thought that was always part of an orchestra. You confirm an instrument—

Barbara Kuriger: Or a doctor.

ALASTAIR SCOTT: —or a doctor, yeah. So you’re talking about disallowable instruments. We passed some legislation earlier this afternoon which related to some disallowable instruments, when we talked about the ammunition that was banned and compensation not able to be made for that—very technical in its current form. The Minister quite rightly says people just don’t know where to find the legislation. It’s not impossible but there’s high risk of the legislation not being able to be found in its current form. This will make our legislation much more easily understood, accessible, coherent, and enable people to make full use of the law for themselves and their communities, which is obviously a good thing.

As I say, I can’t emphasise the amount of work that I can see in this bill, and I can’t do justice to the amount that has been put in it so far. We will do our best as the Regulations Review Committee to wade through it and make recommendations as the Minister has asked for. With that, I wish you a merry Christmas and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Thank you. The question is that the motion be agreed to, which is what I should have said before calling Alastair Scott.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Madam Speaker, and I will be speaking in support of agreeing to the motion because this is a very good bill. It’s one of the first bills that I encountered discussion about when I was a new member and I took up a role on the Regulations Review Committee. As the previous two members who have spoken reflect upon, it’s a bill which has been in the works for quite a number of years. I’m, in fact, reliably informed that the original report of the Regulations Review Committee, which kicked off this work, is still available. So, perhaps, if people are looking for a bit of a stocking stuffer, a late Christmas present to set the pulses racing, there you go for that very special person in your life.

But it is an important piece of legislation because it really goes to the transparency of the way in which this Parliament makes laws and effectively allows laws to be made. I think it’s true that many New Zealanders wouldn’t, in fact, appreciate that many of the laws that apply to them are not necessarily laws that have been, in and of themselves, debated and agreed to in this Parliament. They are laws, effectively, that this Parliament has delegated for agencies to make. We have, over the years, called them by a variety of names, but often it has been quite obscure to actually understand what the status of those are and to find a clear record of them so that people can have transparency about the laws that apply to them, and the Minister who opened up the debate gave some good, clear examples of that.

So it’s an important piece of legislation, and it’s been a significant body of work to comb through hundreds of pieces of legislation and to really clearly define what does make the cut as secondary legislation that the provisions of this bill will apply to. I think one of the most exciting—or “exciting” maybe is the wrong word—one of the most important things that will happen next in terms of public transparency is to actually give some visibility through a clear online capacity for people to be able to access secondary legislation that might affect them in their personal or their business lives.

As I’ve said, it’s an important piece of legislation. It may seem a bit dry, it may seem a bit technical, but as a Parliament we should always be striving to open up the way that we make laws and the way that laws affect citizens of this country, and this piece of legislation, in its own way, makes that contribution. So I acknowledge that this Minister, the previous Minister the Hon Chris Finlayson, and the Regulations Review Committee, and others, actually particularly Parliamentary Counsel Office and other parliamentary staff, have put an enormous amount of work into getting this piece of legislation to the point that it is at, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Hon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I know that the senior Government whip is a very lovely man, and after listening to that speech, I just want to assure him that, despite his generosity, he has absolutely no need whatsoever to think about getting me a Christmas present, because, listening to what he has in mind for some of his family, I can probably do without. Yuletide felicitations have broken out all across the precinct; so I want to wish all members the compliments of the festive season, which, I guess, is a pretty archaic and pompous way of saying merry Christmas to you all. I hope that everybody will have a well-earned break because, actually, the vast majority of members of Parliament, irrespective of our political differences, are caring and likeable people, and it’s nice occasionally to be reminded of that fact.

Hon James Shaw: Especially you, Tim.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Mr Shaw, that is a very kind comment, thank you. I’m responding to it so that it gets put on the Hansard record.

I want to acknowledge the Attorney-General who has introduced this bill. I give him credit for picking up another very good piece of the National Party’s legislation. I will point out that this has languished on the Order Paper now for two years; so we’re in the first reading more than two years after his Government took office. I was pleased that he gave credit to his predecessor, the honourable—I want to acknowledge him for giving credit to his predecessor, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, who, of course, had a considerable input into this bill, but also the others who he’s mentioned.

I am taking this call in my capacity as the shadow Attorney-General, but I have to say I’m absolutely delighted to hear that the bill is not coming to the Justice Committee but is instead going to the Regulations Review Committee, which I know will be ably chaired by my very good friend and colleague the member for Wairarapa. I wish him and all his colleagues all the joy that their consideration of this weighty tome could possibly give them.

Now, I wouldn’t want to be chastised for reading any of my speech but I have to say that I would struggle to make a detailed analysis of this particular measure without occasionally looking down on a few notes. It is, as others have noted, a bill of 307 pages; so perhaps I could just open it at any page and read some of it to you. Although, looking at that, that would be rather difficult. I might find myself resorting to a speech of the same level of excitement that we had from the Attorney-General, who should probably know that, if he’s ever invited to deliver a speech, an after-dinner speech, at one of those riotously entertaining law students’ gatherings that they sometimes have, that probably wouldn’t be the speech to deliver on that occasion. But I am looking forward, however, to seeing him in the chair during the committee stage of the consideration of the bill because I think we can have a bit of fun at that point. I’m sure that he’ll look forward to the questions that will come from it.

I did try to listen intently to the Attorney-General’s speech, but I did find that increasingly difficult as we went through. I’m not sure that I share his enthusiasm for reading the Regulations Review Committee’s report after their consideration of the bill; but, if they have to do all this work on it, I suppose that’s the very least we can do. I can only hope that their analysis might be slightly more enlightening and uplifting than his was.

It is, nevertheless, an important development in our legislation. Earlier in the year, as the Attorney-General and others have noted, the House passed the Legislation Bill to make it easier to find and access secondary legislation by requiring it to be published on the New Zealand Legislation website alongside Acts of Parliament. I daresay, for most members of the public who might be listening, although at this stage I imagine there’ll be very few of them, they could well have assumed that that had always been the case.

Greg O’Connor: There’ll be less now.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Yes, Mr O’Connor; even though the correct term would have been “fewer”, you are, on this occasion, correct in that. I’m pleased, also, to have been able to put that into the record. I have completely lost the thread of my sentence but I doubt whether that’s an issue at all for anybody.

This is a bill that responds to detailed work, as has been outlined by the Regulations Review Committee back in 2014. It reflects work of the Productivity Commission, the current Attorney-General and his officials, and their predecessors. So I want to acknowledge all of that and just focus on two quick points because I’m going to be in trouble with the whip who told me to keep this fairly short. In the report, the committee—

Dan Bidois: Keep going.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: I could possibly see—there’s a sort of dissension in the ranks back here, and this is causing me a little bit of grief, because I believe that this will probably be my last speech in the House for the year. I would have hoped that it might have been heard with a little bit more respect and gravitas, but I am very, very pleased that the co-leader of the Green Party is showing me all the respect that I don’t deserve, and I thank him very much for that. Where was I?

Simeon Brown: I don’t know.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: No, nor do I. The report highlighted the difficulties faced in identifying which instruments are disallowable. That will be an issue that the Regulations Review Committee, in all seriousness, will need to look at, and which the bill is, quite rightly, addressing, because it’s all about making our law more accessible, more easily understood, and, therefore, opening up the law to—I don’t know whether you can use the word “layman” nowadays, but—the average man or woman on the street, rather than it being the preserve of lawyers in stuffy cloisters. That is a good thing.

The new Legislation Act establishes a single category of secondary legislation to replace the current complicated definitions of legislative instruments in the Legislation Act 2012. Having a single category for secondary legislation will make it easier for individuals and organisations to find the law, as I’ve just said.

So this is, all jokes aside, an important measure. I welcome its introduction into the House. It sounds as if it will be broadly supported. That’s a good thing, and I’m sure you’ll all be delighted to hear that I really don’t think I need to say anything more. Again, I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Secondary Legislation Bill. I was going to take a longer contribution but the National Party whip has requested that I now cut myself short because Tim Macindoe went far too long. I would like to say that Mr Macindoe is a lovely man. I’ve often said that Mr Macindoe is a lovely man, and the way that he insults others so nicely through his speeches, it’s a skill. It’s a skill that should be acknowledged and there should possibly be an award for it.

It’s a very good bill; others have said so. It’s highly technical. It has covered two Governments. It is—I’m going to take David Parker’s word for anything. We commend the bill to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I have to join with other members and say I can’t get super excited about the Secondary Legislation Bill. It is a tidy up of law books around some pretty important constitutional principles about the sovereignty of Parliament and making sure that our secondary legislation does not contravene that, and also to try and make our law as accessible as possible. There will be only one new point that I would like to add to the debate and to challenge members: we spend a whole lot of time in this place passing new laws. Isn’t it time we spent some on actually getting rid of some of the laws that have out-served their time?

Can I just recite a few of the bills that we are amending in this law—I was interested to find that we are going to amend the Nelson coalfields Act of 1892. Now, there’s not been a coalmine in Nelson for my entire 30 years. I don’t think that there has been a coalmine in Nelson for about 80 years. I think it might be time that the Nelson coalfields Act—or can I try you another one? The Stratford Electric Lighting Act of 1898—I’m not sure that that specific Act of Parliament for enabling Stratford to be lighted is still needed. There’s another one here: the Rotorua Borough Act. We actually got rid of boroughs about 34 years ago; so I really do wonder whether we still need a Rotorua Borough Act.

So I acknowledge the Attorney-General; I acknowledge his predecessor, Chris Finlayson. It is a worthwhile job to have a sort out of our legal books and to make them more understandable, but the challenge I’ve got for the Regulations Review Committee and Alastair Scott—in true values of the National Party—is that, before we think about making new laws, could the committee also spend some time and repeal some of the old ones that have out-served their day? In a small, nuanced way, we would have made—

Simeon Brown: What about the Auckland regional fuel tax?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: And my colleague says, “the Auckland regional fuel tax”; I’d be happy for that to go as well, but it might be a little bit more contentious, actually. To have a clean-up of our law books, and to repeal some of those old outdated laws would also be a very useful job that this Parliament could do.

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): I’d like to rise, also, on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Secondary Legislation Bill and to start by acknowledging the Attorney-General for the work that he has put into it and that his team has put into it, and also, as has been pointed out, the previous Attorney-General, the Hon Chris Finlayson—I’m not entirely sure what he had to do with this, but it’s always worth acknowledging the Hon Chris Finlayson.

A number of speakers have said tonight that this is a weighty tome of a bill at 300 and something pages. It is, I would like to point out, shorter than the emissions trading reform bill currently in front of the House. But this is actually the second piece of legislation to do with the secondary legislation project and so, thus, between the two bills, I think it probably does make it one of the largest pieces of legislation to come before the House. I think that speaks to—and we’ve made a lot of light of it this evening on both sides of the House—the work that the officials have put in over the course of many, many years to craft a piece of work that, in small ways, does actually make Parliament function better and more transparently than it has in the past, and that can only be commended. I think that it is worth just taking a moment to acknowledge all of those people who have put in a great deal of effort over the years to put together what is actually a complex and technical piece of legislation that does actually make things just a wee bit better in the functioning of our democracy.

The Green Party, of course, supports open and transparent Government—as does this Government—and full public access to information. We also, of course, support the original legislation that creates the requirements that this bill fulfils and that this bill completes. And so, with that, I also commend this bill to the House.

Hon Tim Macindoe: And merry Christmas.

Hon JAMES SHAW: And merry Christmas, Mr Macindoe.

CHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll keep my contribution short. I was rather touched that the New Zealand First member seems to be obeying the instructions of the National Party when Mr Macindoe didn’t feel the same obligation upon him, but I shall do so none the less, I promise.

Just a really quick note, actually: others have made a lot of good points about the importance and the value of this work. Secondary legislation, as others have pointed out—sometimes known, among other things, as regulations. Regulation literally—the etymology of it is to rule or to put something in a straight line; so it’s, literally, a ruler. Obviously, once upon a time, a king, and I presume that that’s the same root word—regency and rex, and so on. Anyway, those of us who are ruled, which I have to say, hopefully, in democracies are all of us, need to know the rules that govern our conduct to know not only how the law helps us, as the Attorney-General pointed out that the Chief Justice had said, but also the laws that hinder us, and, in any case, to know the rules of the game. That’s the key aspect of equality of opportunity, and I think we can all get on board with that.

With that, I’ll just simply say it will be a happy New Year, given that we have a committee stage of a bill this size to look forward to, and—I’m doing it in reverse order—also merry Christmas.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): We have a split call.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m actually really excited to be able to speak to this bill. In the spirit of Christmas, I want to acknowledge the Attorney-General for gifting us this bill this evening, and no doubt its being passed and being handed to the Regulations Review Committee, of which I’m a member.

This is one of those sensible pieces of legislation. It’s long been in the making, spanning right across all of Government to, basically, clear up the position around what is now being called “secondary legislation”. I’ve actually read this bill; it’s 300-odd pages, but it’s actually two pages of operative provisions. So it’s actually a very elegant piece of legislation which takes a whole host of—the guts of it is actually six provisions or five sections, and then the rest of it is just 36 Schedules which actually covers the full suite of provisions across all of the legislation, which are, basically, creating instruments and calling them now “secondary legislation”.

So it’s not that intimidating, but I’m looking forward to playing my part within the Regulations Review Committee in our examination of this bill because it is long overdue, and it’s about providing that openness and clarity and certainty so that citizens out there will know exactly what is secondary legislation across the whole raft of the many, many pieces of legislation that will be amended as a result of this bill.

Not to forget that this bill is actually linked to the Legislation Act of this year, which I believe was passed just a few weeks back. And once all of these Acts are actually in place and can be actually brought together through Orders in Council, the whole system will come together and ensure that this new elegant way of framing all of our empowering instruments under our nice, tidy new category of secondary legislation will be in place. So, with that, I commend it to the House.

PAULO GARCIA (National): Good evening, Madam Speaker. I am very glad to be able to give a quick contribution. The Secondary Legislation Bill is being brought by the Attorney-General, David Parker, and I commend him for doing so. It is a bill that the National Party had introduced as a result of the inquiry by the Regulations Review Committee and the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the oversight of disallowable instruments which were not legislative instruments. Both the Productivity Commission and the Regulations Review Committee recommended that a single secondary legislation category be established; the object being to make it easier for individuals outside an organisation to be able to find the law that applies to them more quickly and easily. It also provides the Parliament with an easier way to scrutinise law.

I absolutely support the bill, and I also want to say merry Christmas to everyone. It’s my first Christmas in the House, and thank you for having me here. Thank you.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Madam Speaker, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be in the House this evening to take a call on the Secondary Legislation Bill. Can I acknowledge the Hon David Parker, the Attorney-General, for leading this piece of work.

It’s interesting that, when I look at this, I think, “Wow, the breadth of this bill is huge.” It’s amazing, in fact, that it amends over 2,500 provisions and about 550 Acts—I think I read—and I thought, “Wow, that’s amazing work.” I want to thank the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their work and the time that they put in to review all those Acts that empower the making of the documents covered in this bill. This is a technical bill, and I’m going to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It’s a pleasure to rise and give, what I hope is going to be, my last contribution of 2019 to the Secondary Legislation Bill, first reading.

Greg O’Connor: You’re not the only one.

DAN BIDOIS: I’m only going to be giving a small, one-minute contribution—

Hon Tim Macindoe: That’s mean.

DAN BIDOIS: Ha, ha!—because it is very clear that we are supporting this bill tonight. There are 550 Acts contained within this bill that are amended with this going through. So it’s a really important bill; the nuts and bolts of improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of regulations in this House.

I want to commend the backbone of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Office of the Clerk for all the tremendous work that they do. It’s certainly not us as MPs doing this; it’s hard-working staff around here who are actually going through and reviewing all of these Acts and laws and looking for the changes that need to me made.

So the purpose of this bill, we absolutely support. We look forward to a robust discussion in the select committee. So I wish to once again wish you, Madam Speaker, and to my members a happy Christmas.

Hark! The herald angels sing.

All I want for Christmas is you.

Thank you.

PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is actually a really special bill to me, and I don’t say that lightly. Not long after I got into Parliament, I must have subbed on to a select committee that was discussing secondary legislation, and I actually didn’t know a lot about what it was. That prompted a few of us from the “class of ’17” to actually look into what secondary legislation is and how it relates to primary legislation. I have got to say that the lead-up to this bill has taught me heaps, so can I thank the Attorney-General, David Parker, for that, but more importantly for the work that he’s put into it. Ready access to the law is fundamental to a democratic society that is based on openness and the rule of law. As members before me have said, this is a really good bill because it improves clarity of our legislation and accessibility to it, which is incredibly important for us all.

Also, as I conclude my contribution, in the vein of speakers before me, can I just take this opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Regulations Review Committee.

Bills

Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 11 December.

MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Well, the hour draws nigh, but we still have some important work before us in this House, and that is the conclusion of this reading of the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment Bill. It is an important bill because of the role of ombudsmen within our democratic system as a protector of the public interests.

One of the things that’s important about living in a democracy isn’t just that you get to vote every three years but that we have just and reasonable processes within our systems; that people are treated fairly; that if they are not, they have some recourse; and that, ultimately, the State will ensure that people have their rights protected and affirmed, particularly when those people might be in vulnerable situations or might be interfacing with powerful institutions, be they private companies or be they public entities. One of the very important bedrocks of our system in New Zealand in terms of ensuring those rights for people is the system of the ombudsman.

Ombudsmen in New Zealand were established, I think it was, in 1975 under the Ombudsmen Act, and they are, essentially, in most situations for people a final port of call. If you are, for example, having problems in terms of your relationship with your bank or your insurance company, as a citizen, and you work through the bank’s internal processes, you’re not satisfied with the outcome, you perhaps feel that you have been poorly treated, where do you go to from there? What we have in place in our system is an ombudsman system whereby people can access a free and impartial person—institution—who can look at the situation and who can judge what has happened and can make some determinations about a fair and equitable position going forward.

What this piece of legislation does is ensure the integrity of the ombudsman system by, as the title of the bill would suggest, ensuring that we protect the name of “Ombudsman”. It’s a Swedish word. It comes out of the Swedish system. Of course, we often look to the Nordic countries for the public values that they inject into their systems. This has been an important part of it, but, if people are going to have confidence in the notion of going to an ombudsman, they need to know that it’s a term that actually has some meaning. It can’t just be a term that, for example, a public or a private entity sets up to try and give a fig leaf of cover in terms of process. It actually has to be a term that has some meaning.

So what this bill does is ensure that that term that’s set up in the Ombudsman Act 1975 is restricted to either an Ombudsman—and that is someone who is directly appointed under the 1975 Act—or a person who is appointed to a position established by the Chief Ombudsman, such as an assistant ombudsman or a deputy ombudsman or any public sector organisation approved by the Minister under the administration of that Act. So it’s quite narrowly defined under this piece of legislation, which person can be termed an ombudsman. There’s also a very specific provision in this piece of legislation to ensure that, I think, probably the two ombudsman who are probably about the most frequently accessed by New Zealanders—being the Banking Ombudsman and the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman—are permitted to continue using that name under the Act.

I’ve had a number of dealings, particularly with the Banking Ombudsman, and have always been really impressed by the service that they provide to New Zealanders and by the transparency of their processes. So it’s quite appropriate that this bill does carve out and ensure that they are able to continue using those names. It also protects the rights of the Financial Services Complaints Limited in respect of a recent Court of Appeal judgment to use the name “Ombudsman” should it be given permission to by the Chief Ombudsman under the current law. So it is an important piece of legislation.

It’s been considered by the Governance and Administration Committee, and they appear to have done a pretty thorough job of this piece of legislation. They’ve made a number of relatively minor changes to the legislation that came to their committee but their work seems to have proceeded very satisfactorily.

In conclusion, this is an important bill. As I said at the outset of my comments, the ombudsman system is one of the ways in which we protect the rights of New Zealanders as they go about their lawful business. It’s one of the ways in which we balance interests within our society so that the little guy—the small business or the ordinary person—isn’t held hostage by their relative lack of resources versus a large public sector entity or a large private business. So it is important that we protect the name. This bill does what it says on the tin by doing that by some relatively simple mechanisms and I’m pleased to see that it appears to be enjoying widespread support, if not rapturous enthusiasm, tonight around the House and I very happily commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise in, what I imagine will be, my last contribution for the year, and I begin, of course, by wishing everyone a very merry Christmas.

Simeon Brown: Merry Christmas, Nicola.

NICOLA WILLIS: Thank you to my colleague Simeon Brown. But such am I taken by the spirit, I still need to rise in opposition to this bill.

This is the kind of bill that really is a bit of a waste of the House’s time. It doesn’t really do anything that needs to be done. In fact, the officials advising on this bill were unable to identify any evidence of the nature or extent of the problem that it seeks to resolve, and, in fact, all it does is transfer the power regarding the protection of the name “Ombudsman” from the Ombudsman to the Minister. Now, National of course supports the unique role that the Ombudsmen play in our democracy and the integrity of those roles, but this bill is not needed and we oppose it.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to be the last speaker, in what could be my last speech, in the House too for this year. But you never know—you’re in such hot demand these days, and I might be back tomorrow. What I can say is merry Christmas to you all, on all sides of the House, and a happy New Year.

I am pleased to talk on this bill because, as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, we did do some work on this in terms of looking carefully at, really, the integrity of the name, and that was really the impetus for a lot of the submissions and the conversation that the select committee undertook. We wanted to ensure that the name “ombudsman”—and we certainly had lots of conversation locally and influence globally, internationally, from others who use the name. In fact, it was an educational lesson at that because some felt that it could be more inclusive—that’s a better way of saying it—and so we explored how the name could be more inclusive, or whether that was going to be contradictory in terms of people understanding what an ombudsman’s role actually does.

So point two there is seeking clarity, and, you know, I always believe that it doesn’t matter what the politics of some of this stuff is about; what matters really is that we get clarity. So, for those who maybe want to use the name for their organisation or their entity in the future, now it becomes really clear to them why they can’t. So the select committee spent quite some time working through that process to avoid point three—and it’s pretty obvious—which is the confusion that that causes. We’ll see here in the bill that those that are already using it—the Banking Ombudsman and the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman—will retain the use of that title, but it will provide clarity for those who intend to use it but will not be allowed to.

So I think there was no waste of time here. We didn’t spend a long time on it. We spent quality time on it, making sure that that was understood, and the submissions were robust, I thought, for something that seemed to be minor. Many people had put a lot of thought into it because the name carries some status, and when we looked overseas, certainly, some jurisdictions had the name used in all sorts of ways, and much more than I had ever thought, but, certainly, the rigour that we will apply by having this piece of legislation in place will be a lot stricter than in other jurisdictions where people can just really self-appoint, and there was certainly a desire to ensure that that does not happen and did not happen or it wasn’t able to easily happen without there being some clarity. So this is important, and I know that the Chief Ombudsman himself was very keen to make sure that we certainly got this right and progressed this to its finishing point so that he can move forward with his entity and expand on the brief that he undertakes with that integrity and clarity of role.

I do want to thank the select committee for their work. I see that there is a view from the other side in there. I think those are strong words, but, actually, the members on the committee were—I wouldn’t say that was accurate from them. I would say that they were supportive of the process as such, and therefore I think that this is a good piece of work to bring to its conclusion, and I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Before I put the vote, I just want to apologise to the Labour chief whip. I omitted to call Lawrence Yule for the remainder of his speech. Fortunately, Michael Wood took the call, but I apologise for that error.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Ombudsmen (Protection of Name) Amendment 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 57

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

Bill read a second time.

MICHAEL WOOD (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I didn’t want to interrupt the commencement of the vote before, but just reflecting on your apology to me before, I was just wondering whether in fact it should be an apology to the entire nation for missing the opportunity of a speech by Lawrence Yule on that bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Well, I will reflect on that.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

Hon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I seek leave, since we’ve made such fabulous progress tonight, that we adjourn for the evening.

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

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.