Wednesday, 10 February 2021

WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2021

WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills

Petitions, Papers, Select Committee Reports, and Introduction of Bills

SPEAKER: No select committee reports have been presented. No bills have been introduced. Petitions have been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK:

Petition of Paul Jackson, requesting that the House urge the Government to increase the funding for wigs and hair pieces, shorten claim periods to two years, and accept additional products and services for the service payments

petition of Nandita Alexander, requesting that the House urge the Government to give visa extensions and exemptions to ordinarily resident offshore migrants who are currently stuck overseas due to the border closure.

SPEAKER: Those petitions stand referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Report of the Registrar of the Environment Court for the 12 months ended 30  June 2020

annual reports for 2020 of the Commerce Commission and the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

SPEAKER: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—Finance

1. BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he seen on how New Zealand’s economic recovery has been influenced by the Government’s approach to COVID-19?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The economic recovery is not just happening of its own accord. It is a result of the hard work and sacrifice of New Zealanders and this Government’s decisive actions to protect our people and halt the spread of COVID-19. Over the weekend, I read a report from the New Zealand Herald’s business editor, Liam Dann, who wrote that the Government’s quick roll-out of fiscal support to limit job losses during COVID-19 had worked better than anyone dreamt. This was in response to job figures from Stats New Zealand last week, which showed the unemployment rate had dropped to 4.9 percent. That drop, from 5.3 percent in the previous quarter, reflects our decisions, particularly through the wage subsidy, to keep people connected to their jobs and support businesses and households through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Barbara Edmonds: What other reports has he seen on those employment statistics?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In its assessment of the household labour force survey, ASB Chief Economist Nick Tuffley said the number of job losses had been mercifully small. He said factors such as the wage subsidy had made a difference through encouraging employers to keep people employed even as businesses had no idea about whether they would be able to continue to operate or how many people they would need in the future. We stand by our decision to support nearly 1.8 million workers through the wage subsidy scheme. The benefits of that investment are now being seen in the recovery.

Barbara Edmonds: What other reports have been seen on how the Government’s COVID-19 response has helped the economic recovery?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: A report I haven’t covered previously in the House came from Stats New Zealand that showed that GDP rose 14 percent in the September quarter. That economic bounce-back was also a result of the hard work and sacrifice of New Zealanders and of the Government’s decision to go hard and early during the COVID-19 pandemic. This supported 1.8 million workers through the wage subsidy scheme and invested billions of dollars into infrastructure, training, and creating jobs. The full effects of COVID-19 are still to be felt in New Zealand and across the world, and the Government will continue to work with businesses and workers to support job retention and job creation.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by the declaration of a climate emergency?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes.

David Seymour: Why does she stand by the declaration of a climate emergency but not a declaration of a housing emergency, given that homeownership rates have fallen to a 70-year low under her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will be aware that when it comes to the issue of climate change globally, we sit amongst 33 other countries who’ve declared emergencies, over 1,800 jurisdictions, and that’s in no small part because Governments around the world have a tradition of when we see the impacts of climate change and the forms of significant weather events, those are the kinds of things in which civil defence emergencies are declared. They demonstrate a risk to people and property, and if we are to address the source of future civil defence emergencies, it is the climate emergency that we need to address.

David Seymour: What effective policies has she put in place to lower New Zealand’s emissions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It’s not just what we do, for instance—[Interruption] if I may?—around the biggest investments in public transport that we have seen under any Government; making sure that we have the infrastructure that supports the uptake of EV vehicles; transitioning our Public Service towards carbon neutrality; removing fossil fuel generation from, for instance, our schools and our hospitals, which we’ve put ourselves on a path to; supporting the private sector to remove the use of fossil fuels for energy generation within their business, which is a significant contributor. It’s not just those things. In order to support our long-term aspirations, we need to make sure as a country we have carbon budgets in place, and the zero carbon legislation we put in place, which I was disappointed the member didn’t support, is also key to our activity.

David Seymour: Why have none of those policies worked, in light of the fact New Zealand’s emissions continue to rise under her Government?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will be well aware, as the Climate Change Commission points out themselves, even with the intensity of effort that we’ll need over the next five years, the lag in the way that these are manifest through those long-life gases means we have to put in intense activity now in order to see our emissions peak and then fall. But I know the member will be aware of that, because I understand he will have read the report.

Hon James Shaw: Is it true that the ACT Party did not vote against the zero carbon Act on its third and final reading?

SPEAKER: Order! Order! That’s not a matter the Prime Minister has responsibility for.

David Seymour: When will the Government’s policies start reducing emissions?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member takes a look at page 7 of the report, in the draft advice from the Climate Change Commission, you can see the trajectory for, under our current policies, reaching the goals we have of reaching a 2050 target of net zero for carbon. It also has our biogenic methane targets, and you can see the trajectory really peaks out over the next five years and then declines. What they are suggesting, however, is that we should change up the way we reach those goals for our next generation, relying less, for instance, on forestry and making sure that we see reductions in real terms.

David Seymour: If she stands by the declaration of a climate emergency, will she declare a public order emergency in response to gangs recruiting twice as fast as police and shooting people on an almost weekly basis?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Whether or not it’s housing, whether or not it’s child poverty, or whether or not it’s issues of community safety, the declaration of a climate emergency does not lessen the other challenges this Government faces and, in many cases, inherited after decades of inaction. So the member would be misinterpreting the act of a climate emergency if he takes the view that it means these other issues, many of which we have included as Government priorities, are somehow less important.

David Seymour: If the point of a climate emergency is to support future generations, why has she not declared it an emergency that New Zealand students’ test scores have fallen in nearly every international comparison all of this century?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We traversed this issue a little bit yesterday. Firstly, I’d again say in no way does a climate emergency lessen the urgency of ensuring that every child has access to high-quality education. What we have seen in our education system, unfortunately, is the aftermath of a failed experiment on national standards. What we have done as a Government is make sure that we have put into our assessment regime measures that will allow us to see the progress of children in those critical areas where we know their success will be determined by meeting basic levels of numeracy and literacy.

David Seymour: Is the reason she hasn’t declared emergencies in public order, education, or housing that when she declared one in climate, it made absolutely no difference to the situation whatsoever?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

Question No. 3—Education

3. MARJA LUBECK (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What reports has he seen about how enrolments in vocational education are faring since the establishment of Te Pūkenga - New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I’ve seen some very encouraging reports. The Waikato Institute of Technology has reported its domestic enrolments are up around 23 percent higher than at the same time of last year. Unitec has reported a 25 percent increase in domestic enrolments, with especially big increases in construction and business courses. Other institutions, like Ara and the Eastern Institute of Technology, report more modest but still positive growth of around 6 to 7 percent. But I was particularly taken by the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) subsidiary who have advised their enrolments were more than 70 percent up compared to the same time last year.

Marja Lubeck: What reasons have been put forward to explain this strong growth?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I did see some advice from a very well-known commentator who will be respected by many across the House—a report covered on Radio New Zealand, including the quote that “the growth was driven by factors including the government’s targeted funding scheme that waived fees for many trade courses”, and it goes on to then say that the opening of the institute’s new trade campus in Manukau also contributed. That was from MIT’s very well-respected Sam Lotu-Iiga.

Marja Lubeck: Have numbers of New Zealanders training via an apprenticeship also increased?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. Since we made apprenticeships free in July last year, over 15,000 Kiwis have started an apprenticeship nationwide in the second half of 2020. That’s up from nearly 7,000 over the same period in 2019. That’s an increase of 125 percent.

Question No. 4—Environment

SPEAKER: Before we get to the next question, I want to apologise to the House. As a result of an oversight of mine, when the question was transferred, I omitted to transfer the gender, and I’ll ask the Leader of the Opposition, as she asks the question, to get the Minister’s gender right. Thank you.

4. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Minister for the Environment: Thank you, Mr Speaker. By what date does he expect a new Natural and Built Environments Act to become law, and does he believe this new Act will make it easier to build houses?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The Government announced today that an exposure draft of key provisions of the natural and built environments (NBA) Act will be presented to a select committee in May. We expect the bill of the full NBA and the strategic planning Act, incorporating the outcomes of the select committee inquiry, will be put before Parliament by the end of 2021, to be passed by the end of 2022. For the second part of the question: yes, but it is no substitute for the action we’re already taking, including building more houses—public and private—than have been built for decades, thousands more apprentices, more infrastructure, and directions to council under the Resource Management Act (RMA) to make room for growth up and out, as well as fast-tracked consenting.

Hon Judith Collins: Does he believe the concept of ensuring new development is within biophysical limits will make it easier to build houses in New Zealand?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, because the problem with the current RMA is that it doesn’t just put priority on protecting biophysical outcomes; it tries to protect amenity values, which are more often subjective, detached from biophysical values, and are a crutch upon which nimbyism lies.

Hon Judith Collins: What does “ensuring new development is within biophysical limits” mean?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The biophysical limits are intended to cover all of the domains such as water and air quality, and indigenous biodiversity. The Randerson report upon which the legislation is based recommends that the gaps in those are filled in, that national direction is consolidated, and that that consolidation resolves some of the internal contradictions between different national direction, and so there’s more certainty in the system, which will in itself enable clearer investment signals to the private sector as to where development should proceed more quickly.

Hon Judith Collins: Why does he believe the proposed purpose of the new Act could “be perceived to have unintended consequences for how development is enabled”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The Randerson report has included a draft of key provisions for the replacement legislation, including a replacement for Part 2. There are concerns that have been expressed by some, including the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, that, inadvertently, the drafting has brought back amenity values into too great a focus. Those issues I’m wanting to work through with other political parties, as well as through the select committee process, so that we gain the objectives—which I think we all want—which are protection of natural values but the enabling of development.

Hon Judith Collins: Has he provided the Hon Eugenie Sage any draft segments of the bill, and, if so, on what date were they provided?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The materials that I provided to Scott Simpson, the Māori Party, and the ACT Party at 9 a.m. this morning, I handed to our partners in the Green Party, I think, at about 8 p.m. last night, but in addition to that, none.

Question No. 5—Social Development and Employment

5. Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What announcements has she made about engaging more Māori in employment, education, and training?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Today, I announced a $2.65 million funding boost for three programmes supporting rangatahi to overcome barriers to employment, education, and training. This funding will help up to 165 young people in Wellington, Porirua, and Christchurch gain the skills needed to sustain long-term employment, education, or training, building on the success of previous He Poutama Rangatahi investments across regional and urban areas in New Zealand. Eighty-eight percent of rangatahi engaged in He Poutama Rangatahi are Māori or Pacific, and He Poutama Rangatahi has proven that it helps Māori prepare for the workforce and navigate the pathways towards aspirational, secure, and sustainable employment.

Dr Emily Henderson: How does He Poutama Rangatahi help to support pathways into employment, education, and training in our regions and urban centres?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The programmes receiving He Poutama Rangatahi funding focus on a broad range of interventions, including extensive one-on-one pastoral care, mentoring, pre-employment training, financial literacy, CV and interview coaching, time management and workplace communication, te reo language learning, kapa haka, and performing arts. In our regions we’ve supported over 2,000 rangatahi into employment, education, and training, including over 700 in Northland; in the Bay of Plenty, we’ve supported over 400 rangatahi into employment, education, or training; and in Tai Rāwhiti East Coast, we’ve got 298 rangatahi enrolled and have supported 165 rangatahi into employment, education, or training.

Dr Emily Henderson: How does this announcement align with the Government’s wider focus on improving Māori employment?

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: While unemployment is lower than expected, we know that there are areas where Māori and Pacific unemployment, for example, remains high, which is why we need to remove barriers for rangatahi to get into employment, education, or training. The Government is committed to continuing to work to lift Māori income, skills, and opportunities into employment, education, or training. This announcement complements the Government’s support for employers to take on and retain apprentices, including targeted support for Māori apprentices. This will help ensure we have a skilled workforce available to support New Zealand’s economic recovery.

Question No. 6—Finance

6. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Finance: By what percentage has annual core Government services expenses increased since he became Minister of Finance?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Core Government services expenses, as outlined in table 5.8 of the Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update, represent less than 6 percent of overall core Crown expenses. In the 2017-18 year, core Government services expenses were $4.67 billion, or 5.8 percent of core Crown expenses. In the 2019-20 year, which is the latest for which we have audited accounts, core Government services expenses were $6.063 billion, or 5.6 percent of core Crown expenses. So while the core Government services expenses have increased $1.39 billion, or 30 percent, they now represent a smaller proportion of core Crown expenses than in the 2017-18 year.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he believe that increasing core Public Service costs by nearly $2 billion since he became Minister is appropriate at a time when families and businesses are having to tighten their belts?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Two answers to that question. The first of those is, as I said, that as a percentage of the Government’s overall expenses, they’ve actually gone down. Secondly, during this period of time, the Government has come in having to deal with the mess left by the previous Government, which required significant investment across a range of Public Service entities. I also note for the member that this class within the Budget includes overseas development assistance, which has also increased significantly given the need in our region—in the Pacific, particularly.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does cleaning up that mess, as the Minister says, require more than 1,240 bureaucrats to be earning over $200,000 a year, and 19 Government departments now with average salaries exceeding $100,000 a year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: To start with, I welcome the member’s acknowledgment of the importance of cleaning up the mess that his Government left, at the start of his answer. What I would say is that under this Government, we have made very clear our expectations as part of public sector pay rounds that we will focus on lifting the pay of the lowest-income earners. That is not something we saw in the previous nine years.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he accept that the increases now mean that core Public Service salary costs have grown over 35 percent since he became the Minister?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would need to check those figures because, not unlike, perhaps, the arrival of a homeless man in a hotel, we always have to check these things out.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why are there now more than 10,000 more people employed in the core Public Service than when Labour took office?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The reason why we have public servants working is because we believe that providing strong public services to New Zealand matters. We saw the damage done when public services like health and education were undermined by underfunding. That was the record of that Government. We’re investing in public services to support New Zealanders.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Minister of Finance confirm that amongst the education front-line public servants that have been employed are a number of additional specialist staff that support some of our children with the most special needs, and that they are counted in the core Public Service numbers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes, I can confirm that, and I can say that across the board, across public services in New Zealand, we saw nine years of neglect. Investing in those public services now is part of making sure that we provide New Zealanders with security and opportunity.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Can he name any steps that he’s taken to ensure core public services don’t continue to escalate at such unprecedented rates, given the eye-watering levels of debt he’s currently taking on on behalf of the New Zealand taxpayers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I refer the member to my primary answer. The percentage of core Government services that expenses make up has gone down, Mr Woodhouse, under this Government. The economy is growing. We’re supporting strong public services.

Question No. 7—Environment

7. RACHEL BROOKING (Labour) to the Minister for the Environment: What progress is the Government making on reform of the Resource Management Act?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Today, the Government confirmed that the Resource Management Act (RMA) will be repealed and replaced with new laws this parliamentary term. The three new Acts will be the natural and built environments Act, the NBA, to provide for land-use and environmental regulation—this will be the primary replacement for the RMA; the strategic planning Act, to integrate with other legislation relevant to development and require long-term regional spatial strategies—this Act will integrate functions under the NBA, the Local Government Act, the Land Transport Management Act, and the Climate Change Response Act to enable clearer and more efficient decision-making and investment; and the climate change adaptation Act, led by the Hon James Shaw, to address complex issues associated with managed retreat and funding and financing adaptation.

Rachel Brooking: Why is the Government repealing and replacing the Resource Management Act?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Urban areas have struggled to keep pace with population growth and the need for affordable housing, water quality has deteriorated, biodiversity has diminished, and there’s an urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to climate change. The new laws will improve the natural environment, enable more development within environmental limits, provide an effective role for Māori, and improve housing supply and affordability. Overall, planning processes will be simplified and costs and times reduced.

Rachel Brooking: How will the replacement for the RMA simplify consenting processes?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Key changes include stronger national direction and one single combined plan per region. As I said earlier, there will be more focus on natural environment outcomes and less on subjective amenity values that favour the status quo. Nevertheless, better urban design can also be pursued. The existing 100-plus RMA council planning documents will be reduced to about 14. New spatial strategies will enable everyone to plan better for the future, and this will aid investment decisions by central government, local government, and, perhaps most importantly, the private sector and housing markets.

Rachel Brooking: How will the replacements for the RMA improve housing affordability?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Urban areas hold 86 percent of our population; 99 percent of our population growth occurs in urban areas. Despite that reality, instead of cities responding to population growth, we’ve had some poor-quality and restrictive planning rules contributing to unaffordable housing. Now, we know that housing problems are a complex mix of demand, infrastructure, financing, home supply, training of apprentices, etc., so there’s no silver bullet—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: You used to say KiwiBuild was the silver bullet.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, it actually has helped, and it built more homes than that member ever built in nine years in Government. This reform will help further by improving central and local government plans for housing and urban development. It includes better coordination of future infrastructure with land use, development, and urban growth, and these changes will build on the updated National Policy Statement on Urban Development that already directs councils to make room for growth both up and out.

Hon Scott Simpson: How many years after the eventual passing of the Minister’s legislative suite will it take for local government to actually implement change?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That’s actually, I think, a very good question, because one of the reasons the RMA went wrong was that it was passed but then no work was done on its implementation until after it was passed, so it took many years to produce new plans under the RMA, the appeal courts were just overrun with plan references, and there was no national direction. We’ve got all those things covered this time, and we’re actually going to be doing all this contemporaneously, including drafting a model plan for a region as we reduce those plan numbers from over 100 to around 14.

Hon Scott Simpson: Would he characterise his proposed new legislative suite as an end to nimbyism?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Look, people and companies have private interests, local authorities have local interests, and none of them are improper, but we have to make sure that they don’t clog the system up unduly. In that regard, I do find it a bit surprising that Government and Opposition parties, having backed the fast-track legislation, now write letters of criticisms to me and other Ministers when we allow projects through that fast-track consenting regime. Notwithstanding that, I look forward to working with other political parties to try and get this balance right.

Question No. 8—COVID-19 Response

8. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What did he mean when he said on 17 November 2020, “Without going into detail I think we’re in a very good place to ensure that as vaccines start to come to market New Zealand will be at the front of the queue to be getting vaccines”; and why has New Zealand not yet started to vaccinate workers at the border?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): What I meant was that, without going into detail, I think we were in a very good place to ensure that as vaccines started to come to the market, New Zealand would be at the front of the queue for getting the vaccines. With regard to the second part of the question, our advance purchase agreements are for the first doses of vaccines to be arriving in New Zealand by the end of the first quarter. The first quarter has not finished as yet, and so we’ve not taken delivery of our first doses of vaccines. We will be among the first countries using a regular vaccine approval process to be administering vaccines. We are not using emergency approval processes like the countries that are doing vaccines early.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Like Australia.

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: They’re not vaccinating. God, read a newspaper.

SPEAKER: Order! Can I just say, I think that was started by a member on my left, it was exacerbated by members on my right. None of you actually breached any Speakers’ rulings, but it clearly put off the member asking the question. So we’ll just get on with the question.

Chris Bishop: I was just waiting for the Prime Minister to finish the exasperation.

SPEAKER: Order! She had finished, there was a clear gap, and the member seemed to be put off. I was trying to help the member.

Chris Bishop: Trust me, Mr Speaker, she doesn’t put me off.

SPEAKER: Order! Order! We’ll now have the supplementary question, without the commentary.

Chris Bishop: How can he say New Zealand is at the front of the queue, to use his words, when Western Australia has announced they are receiving 10,000 Pfizer vaccines on 22 February, and starting the roll-out of their front-line border workers straight after that?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: They’ve not yet received the vaccines.

Andrew Bayly: In two weeks’ time!

SPEAKER: Order! Mr Bayly, can you stop it.

Kieran McAnulty: Don’t put him off!

SPEAKER: Who said that? No, wait, the member will withdraw and apologise.

Kieran McAnulty: I withdraw and apologise.

Chris Bishop: When he said yesterday, “The first shipment of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2021”, does the contract with Pfizer oblige them to deliver by the end of the first quarter, and, if so, how many?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The advance purchase agreement, I think, from memory, has us getting about 226,000 doses in the first quarter. The indications that we have had from Pfizer is that they’re confident they’ll be able to do that.

Chris Bishop: Is New Zealand included in the shipment of 10,000 vaccines going to Western Australia by 22 February?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: If there are 10,000 vaccines going to Western Australia, they’ll be going to Western Australia. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Chris Bishop: That’s a no. Did the Government offer to pay more in exchange for earlier delivery of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, and, if not, why not?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: My understanding is that that’s never been part of the discussion.

Question No. 9—Conservation

9. TĀMATI COFFEY (Labour) to the Minister of Conservation: How will Jobs for Nature funding support communities and landowners to grow employment opportunities?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Conservation): On 14 January, I announced the opening of a $16 million Community Conservation Fund and an $18 million Private Land Biodiversity Fund, which together are expected to create 400-plus jobs in ecology, restoration, trapping, pest control, fencing, and project management. These funds are available to conservation groups and landowners to boost local biodiversity-focused projects as part of our economic recovery, and I encourage all those who are interested to visit the Department of Conservation website and apply before they close on 16 February.

Tāmati Coffey: What are these two funds expected to deliver for communities and landowners?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The Community Conservation Fund will enable the scaling up of practical projects championed by our conservationists in the community—projects aimed at conserving New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity—while the Private Landowners Biodiversity Fund will help farmers and landowners better protect and restore rare habitats for native species. Both funds are big wins for conservation on private and public land, job creation, and for local communities as part of our economic recovery.

Kieran McAnulty: What other recent announcements have been made regarding regional Jobs for Nature projects?

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: What a fantastic question—in particular for our regions, because there is a lot of good news out there as we roll out our Jobs for Nature announcements. We have $816,000 of Jobs for Nature funding that has been allocated to improve the health of waterways in the mighty upper reaches of the Waiōuru catchment and Wairarapa; $2.6 million for the Te Waihora restoration nature project in Canterbury for wetlands restoration work through native tree planning and weed management; $500,000 for Waitomo-based track maintenance, pest control, and riparian planning projects to save local tourism—

SPEAKER: Order!

Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: —and so many more—

SPEAKER: Order! Order! When I stand up, the member sits down. Some of us have read the press statement. We don’t need it read to us again.

Question No. 10—Local Government

10. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National) to the Minister of Local Government: Does she agree with the statement, “Labour will ensure that major decisions about local democracy involve full participation of the local population from the outset” in Labour’s 2020 Manifesto on Local Government and Communities; if so, how is her legislation removing the opportunity for public participation through a referendum on separate Māori seats consistent with this?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Local Government): To the first part of the question, yes.

SPEAKER: No, no, when there’s a two-part primary question, the member must address both parts of the question. Supplementaries are a different matter.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: To the first part of the question, yes, Mr Speaker. And to the other part of the question, the bill removes the discriminatory provision which unfairly subjects council-mandated decisions to establish Māori wards to be overturned by a 5 percent poll of registered electors. This provision is not applicable to the establishment of general or rural wards or regional constituencies. So we’re levelling the playing field.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does she stand by her statement that the current law allowing for referendum on separate Māori seats is racist and discriminatory; if so, why did she speak and vote for those provisions when they were legislated for by the previous Labour Government?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Yes, I do stand by those statements, and 19 years ago, when that legislation was introduced, that provision was put into legislation to enable councils to put on the table the creation of Māori wards. We have found that since that provision has been in place, it has been used 24 times. Only three councils have been able to establish Māori wards—two by resolution and one from special legislation. So, clearly, over 19 years, the provision is onerous, it is a high bar, and it is discriminatory. I seek leave to table a letter from the past president of Local Government New Zealand, dated 22 March 2018, highlighting their aspiration—their request—to remove this discriminatory provision.

SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There appears to be none.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Government consider it adequate consultation to call for public submissions one day and require they be lodged by the next?

SPEAKER: That is a matter which is a decision of this Parliament and has been made by this Parliament.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Point of order, Mr Speaker. My primary question is about local government policy. My question was not specific to the submission process on the bill that does, in fact, call for submissions today and require them tomorrow. My question was: does the Government consider that adequate public process—not necessarily on that but as a matter of policy, is it adequate, when you are publicly consulting, to say, “Hey, we want submissions today but you’ve got to have them in by tomorrow.”?

Hon Chris Hipkins: Speaking to that point of order, Mr Speaker, if the revised interpretation of the member’s question is in fact correct, then it’s nothing to do with the primary question. It should be ruled out of order on that basis.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: My primary question was specifically about Labour Party policy ensuring full participation in decision making that affects local people.

SPEAKER: Except that it does say about major decision-making about local democracy. I’ll be generous and let the member have another crack at wording it within order.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Government consider it adequate consultation—say, for councils or other public bodies—to call for public submissions one day and require those submissions be in by 5 p.m. the next?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: In taking into account public consultation, I have factored in 19 years of a provision which is discriminatory and several councils having local conversations with their communities around trying to establish Māori wards, which has often been divisive. I have taken on board the number of councils who have petitioned me to make a change to this legislation, and, while the select committee process is a short time frame, this issue has been around for a long time. These provisions are clearly discriminatory and need to be changed so that communities who want Māori wards can have them.

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Can she confirm her position that if we are to truly support local democracy, we should listen to the request of Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) and remove a provision that is stopping local councils making decisions that they are elected every three years by their constituencies to make?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Absolutely, and I can also confirm that a number of councils, like the Northland council, New Plymouth District Council, South Taranaki council, Stratford council, Taranaki Regional Council, Nelson council, and Hawke’s Bay, have all—with others—petitioned this Government to remove the discriminatory provision that prevents Māori wards from being created.

David Seymour: If democracy means listening to LGNZ and certain councils, what does it mean to accept the will of electors in polls, who nearly always vote against the establishment of Māori wards?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Let me be very clear: councils are still able to hold non-binding polls to test the sentiment of electors on a number of issues, including the creation of Māori wards. What we’re doing is rectifying a discriminatory barrier that does not apply to the creation of general wards or constituencies. We’re evening the playing field.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does she agree with her officials’ statement in the regulatory impact statement that there has been minimal consultation on the bill nor sufficient opportunity to consider any policy alternatives?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: I support the totality of the advice, which acknowledges that it is a discriminatory provision and takes into account those local body - elected members who have been tasked with addressing voter representation and want this change to occur.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Government expect councils to respect ballot-box decisions where communities have recently voted against creating separate Māori wards; if not, why not?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: The ballot-box decision that electors make every three years, which is to choose their leaders of council, to choose their councillors, is overturned by a 5 percent discriminatory provision. Even if those councillors around the table who have been elected to represent their region want Māori wards, it can be overturned by a 5 percent poll, and that’s discriminatory. We need to even up the playing field.

Rawiri Waititi: Why does the legislation not include a requirement on all councils to establish either a Māori ward or mana whenua seat by 2022?

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Right now, we’re looking at the substance of the poll provision and the creation of Māori wards, and many members, in terms of the Labour Māori caucus and many of our colleagues, know that the changes that we went to our constituencies on and campaigned on, we’re going to deliver on that; anything else is somebody else’s decision.

Question No. 11—Finance

11. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Finance: Can he confirm that the Treasury advised him that the use of unconventional monetary policy “can raise asset prices more directly than conventional monetary policy, creating wealth inequality”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): As I said yesterday, the advice that we received in the January 2020 report that the member is quoting was based on the scenario that was hypothetical and that also stated that there was not a case for using unconventional monetary policy in New Zealand in the near future. The COVID-19 pandemic upended that expectation, and the Government and the Reserve Bank acted quickly and decisively to counter the devastating health and economic consequences. This included the Reserve Bank adopting unconventional monetary policy. At this point, the forecasts of both the Reserve Bank and the Treasury changed and they foresaw significant drops in asset prices.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Can he confirm the average house in Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Kāpiti Coast, and Queenstown earned more in untaxed capital gains over the final three months of 2020 than the average New Zealander earned in pre-tax income over the entire year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I can’t confirm that specific number, but I can obviously confirm we have seen rampant house price inflation in the last part of 2020. That is the very reason why the Government is now undertaking the work we are around both the demand and the supply side of the housing market.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: So does he agree that it’s now time to respond with bold fiscal policy, including taxation, to mitigate the current wealth inequality impacts of this unconventional monetary policy?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: In the speech I gave yesterday, releasing the Budget Policy Statement, I indeed used the word “bold” in that. We are looking very closely at a range of policies in both the supply and demand side, and we’ll be releasing those very shortly.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will he respond to the wealth inequality that is being exacerbated by this unconventional monetary policy through taxing wealth or capital gains?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Government’s laid out the parameters for what we are prepared to consider. We have ruled out a comprehensive capital gains tax. What we asked the Treasury and the Reserve Bank to do late last year was look at our existing policy settings to see if they could be enhanced and to provide us advice on anything that they would consider would deal with the issues that the member’s raising. We’ve received that advice. Cabinet will consider it very shortly.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: But don’t these exceptional circumstances merit revisiting things that have previously been ruled out, if they’re the best way to address the problem and reduce wealth inequality?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: If the member is referring by that to a comprehensive capital gains tax, no; we’re not revisiting that position. What we are doing is looking at our existing settings to see if they’re working as they are intended, and any other options. We are prepared to look at a wide range of options to address what has clearly been an outcome that was not foreseen by any economist in the middle of last year. All of them were saying that house prices would go down significantly. The opposite occurred. We are responding to that.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: Does he agree that fiscal policy can help address long-term challenges in New Zealand like child poverty, while stimulating the economy, without causing or exacerbating wealth inequality, as unconventional monetary policy has done?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I absolutely believe in the power of fiscal policy to address those issues, and it’s in fact the record of this Government in the last term and our proposal in this term to use fiscal policy to address those longstanding issues.

Question No. 12—Prime Minister

12. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement relating to house prices, “We don’t want to see the significant increases; these huge jumps in house price growth”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. The Government is committed to acting on house prices, with urgency. Over the next three years, we’ll build on the progress made last term, but, of course, there is more to be done. We want to target supply by addressing the underlying structural issues like complex planning laws and infrastructure investment, act with urgency to tilt the field towards first-home buyers and investment in new housing, and boost direct Government building supply across all types of housing from public and transitional housing through to affordable housing.

Brooke van Velden: What percentage increase in prices is she happy to oversee as Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What we do know is that it is considered unaffordable to have someone paying more than 30 percent of their income on the cost of their housing, so whether or not they’re in a rental or whether or not they’re seeking to go into homeownership, we want it to both be attainable for a first-home buyer but we also want people who are in our housing market, and in a rental as well, to make sure that they have a quality standard of living. So obviously at this price rate increase that we’re seeing right now, it is making affordable housing out of reach for many.

Brooke van Velden: What policies has her Government put in place to slow house price increases, and have they worked?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We’ve always been very open about this being both a demand and supply issue. So in the last term, of course, we’ve made moves around closing tax loopholes. We cracked down on foreign buyers in the market. We worked to increase supply through mechanisms to support residential private development. We’ve built our own homes through public housing provision and we’ve extended on that as well. We’ve also moved into the space of progressive homeownership to support those who may not have the ability to overcome that initial deposit gap but do have a weekly income that can go towards a mortgage. Our view, though, and the reason we’ve sought additional advice, is we’ve increasingly seen that those who own multiple properties are taking up the largest portion of those homebuyers at the moment. The Reserve Bank acknowledged that we’re seeing highly leveraged speculators in the market at an increasing rate. We’ve asked for advice from Treasury on what more we can do on the demand side.

Brooke van Velden: Given last year’s increase in the median house price was $121,000, was the intention of the Government to increase house prices?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No, but nor was it the intention, I’m sure, of Germany to see what I believe is an 11 percent increase. The UK—some of the highest prices in nominal terms that they’ve seen. Around the world we are seeing during this COVID environment significant increases in house prices, but in New Zealand we’ve seen that even further in our own jurisdiction. So despite there being advice from economists prior to the recent increases that the housing market could drop by as much as 10 percent, we’ve seen the opposite and we’re responding to that.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she stand by her statement “Under my leadership, we will no longer campaign for or implement a capital gains tax—not because I don’t believe in it, but because I don’t believe New Zealand does.”?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I stand by that statement.

Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree with Brad Olsen from Infometrics, who said extending the brightline test would be a “capital gains tax by stealth”; and if not, why not?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The irony of being asked that question by the very member who was in Government at the time that the brightline test was introduced—and pushed back very hard on any suggestion that it was a capital gains tax. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Order! Both sides, please.

Brooke van Velden: Does she accept that last year’s $121,000 increase in the median house price transferred more wealth from people who work to people who own than any other event in her lifetime?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, the emphasis we are putting on housing—and as I’ve said many times, the fact that, increasingly, if you have a parent who can support you into a home or if you inherit, you are more likely to be able to own a home in this country than you otherwise might. No one wants to see that kind of inequality. I’m very pleased to see the member asking questions that demonstrate you share that concern. Now I would invite you to support some of the initiatives on both the demand and supply side that will make a difference.

Brooke van Velden: Does she accept her Government is overseeing one of the largest transfers of wealth in her lifetime?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I accept that this is not a problem that emerged in the last three years, but regardless of how we got here—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Regardless of how we got here, this whole House has a duty of care to do something about it.

Brooke van Velden: By what year does she expect the Government’s yet-to-be-drafted reforms to the Resource Management Act (RMA) will have an effect on the housing market?

Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member has previously already laid out the time line for that. However, we’ve also said that that in and of itself is not going to be the answer to everything in our complex planning arrangements in New Zealand right now. We have already expedited significant projects through a shortened RMA process, which I would ask for the member’s support of because that is one way we can get projects in this period moving. We also have the national policy statement, which puts an obligation on councils to free up development capacity within their council jurisdiction and ensure that they are catering for the population growth they have in their individual areas.

Address in Reply

Address in Reply

Debate resumed from 9 February 2021.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): In the Labour Party, we were heartened to be elected the first majority Government under MMP. We were pleased that New Zealanders voted for stability and certainty in the election last year, but we know that this comes with huge responsibility, elected as we were in the middle of a global pandemic. We are humbled that New Zealanders have put their trust in us.

Of course, since the election, COVID has got worse in just about every overseas country. Luckily our crisis partner, Australia, has it under control as well. But the economic outlook in every country where COVID has worsened has also deteriorated. Our focus here, for those reasons, remains on keeping New Zealanders safe and minimising the ongoing economic impact of the virus. Of course, whilst we can shield New Zealanders from some of the internal consequences, the flow-on economic consequences from the slow-down that is occurring in the world are affecting us. Nevertheless, with a global pandemic raging around the world, there is a sense here in New Zealand that many of us are pleased to be here rather than anywhere else in the world.

I’ve been in politics for close to 20 years. New Zealanders are very respectful of the privacy of politicians most of the time. We’re not cajoled in public places, people don’t generally come up to us in airports or when we’re walking down the street, but I’ve noticed that in recent months, there’s more of that than ever—there is! There is more of that than ever. People break through our personal bubbles, if you like, to say thank you. And they’re expressing their thanks not just to the Government; they’re actually expressing their thanks to the way in which the Government and everyone rallied around. There’s an increased awareness, I think, in New Zealand of the inter-dependencies between us all, a recognition that, through COVID, we only got there because we all helped each other, we kept to our bubbles, we washed our hands, we respected the rules, we agreed with the enforcement agencies where education wasn’t enough and enforcement action was necessary, and there’s also been considerable agreement in society that the very expensive economic steps that were taken by the Government to keep people attached to their employment was the right thing to do. Far and away, the biggest expense that we have faced as a Government has been the wage support provision that went to New Zealanders.

The OECD statistics are very, very interesting. I was at a presentation by the OECD in the later part of last year where they said that New Zealand had the first lockdown in the OECD relative to an in-country COVID death, we had the strictest lockdown of any country in the OECD, and we had the most widespread wage support of any country in the OECD. And it was this combination of events, going hard and going early, and being generous to maintain the social consensus upon which the team of 5 million relied and rallied around, that have been the key ingredients.

Now, that said, we obviously have to plan for the COVID recovery. We’ve brought forward a lot of infrastructure expenditure, we’ve made sure that, notwithstanding the pressures in the economy, we haven’t lost apprentices. We’ve increased the subsidies towards employment of apprentices, particularly in the building trades but also beyond the building trades. As a consequence, the number of people who are in apprenticeships in New Zealand is higher than it was at the start of COVID, and if you compare that with the outcome after the GFC, we’ve done better. After the GFC, apprenticeship numbers went down and that’s one of the reasons why house construction fell during those years that followed, and one of the reasons why we’re still grappling with the housing crisis that followed.

Now, in addition to our priorities of keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19 and accelerating our economic recovery, we want to lay the foundations for a better future. We’ve identified some priorities there, including dealing with child poverty, and there’ll be some statistics out soon on that that actually show the effect of some of the income support measures that we made during the last Government—those will be flowing through in statistics for the first time. We’re also focusing on getting our climate change emissions down—I’m not going to cover much of that; others have already covered a lot of that—but we’re also really focused on housing.

Now, the housing issue is really complex. We’ve already done a lot. We’ve created a new housing and urban development agency—Phil Twyford brought through that legislation, including cut-through planning powers for large developments that enable that organisation to get on with the business. In addition to that, we’ve required councils to change their Resource Management Act (RMA) plans to make room for growth up and out because some of the restrictions have been strangling developments that we need, especially for affordable housing. Perhaps the most important part on that is trying to counter some of the nimbyism that prevents the intensification that will naturally occur if you don’t have excessively restrictive rules. In addition to that, we’ve passed legislation to create an infrastructure commission; the Prime Minister has put the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance in charge of pushing on with that infrastructure that we need as a prerequisite to housing.

We’ve done a lot of other things. I’ve mentioned apprenticeships, we’ve brought forward a fast-tracked consent processing, we’ve made lots of other changes, but the one that we’ve announced today is the overhaul of the RMA. Now, this won’t have short-term effect. Anyone that says we should just dump the RMA is being simplistic and most people know that. If you were to repeal the RMA without having a decent replacement, you would actually slow down the massive housing build that we’ve got going in the country at the moment. We’ve got the highest rate of housing build that’s happened in many, many decades in both the public and private sectors, and if we were to repeal the RMA, there would just be endless fights in the courts as to what the rules are. So that would actually slow down development rather than aid it. So that’s why we’ve taken all of those other steps that are discrete, but each one of them is necessary. I didn’t mention infrastructure, financing, or support for three waters infrastructure, which are also important prerequisites for housing development, but we’ve done that too. But we’re now getting on with repeal of the RMA because it costs too much, it takes too long, and it hasn’t adequately protected the environment. Since the RMA was passed, water quality’s gone backwards, climate changing emissions have gone up, and house affordability’s gone in the wrong direction. It’s a bit of a fail.

Now, there are some lessons as to what we need to do here. We need more strategic planning so we’re going to have a Strategic Planning Act that sits alongside the Natural and Built Environments Act. We’re going to pick up the recommendation of the Randerson review, and we’ve got Rachel Brooking from that committee, who has actually since come into Parliament, so I thank her for her role in that.

Chris Bishop: Don’t make her ask patsy questions—it’s demeaning.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, actually, she asked meaningful questions. We’ve done more in respect of all of these reforms already than the National Government managed to achieve in nine years. They managed to increase the length of the RMA and make things worse; we’re actually in the process to make things better.

In respect of the core provisions of the RMA, we’ve got to process—it is complex, but we’ve got to get the equivalent of Part 2 right. There are some trade-offs in here, and I want to get them right. I’m really interested in the views of Opposition parties on this. I don’t agree with the ACT Party that we should just repeal it. I previously offered them a repeal of the RMA applying only to Epsom, but I know from letters that we’ve recently had from the leader of the ACT Party that, of course, he responds to nimbyism from his own constituents and criticises some of the projects that we’re putting through the fast-track process that go down Dominion Road. In any event, we do want to get this Part 2 right, so we’re going to put that to a select committee, largely in the form that’s come from the Randerson review, but we are making tweaks to that and we’re interested in input from the National Party, the Greens, National/ACT, the Māori Party—everyone. We’ve got no monopoly on good ideas here, and we do need to get that balance right to try and create some enduring protection.

We’re going to be focusing on protecting natural environmental values, biophysical values like water quality, sometimes landscape, but also soils and things like that. But we don’t want to go too far and allow amenity values to be used to strangle development. That’s the tension here. How do you allow decent rights of participation but not allow things to drag on for ever causing millions of dollars of cost in process and delay? I’m confident that we can land this in three years. It’s a big piece of work and it’s one of our duties that we see upon ourselves. We’ve been given that mandate by electors.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): We are this afternoon debating the Address in Reply. That is the reply from the Parliament to the address read by the Governor-General on the formation of the last Government. It is, effectively, the Government’s address to the nation about its intentions for the three years to come. And it can only be described as the most vacuous document that’s ever been put toward the people of New Zealand by a Government that has the sort of majority mandate that we see from the current Government. What that indicates, I think, is a degree of timidness, a degree of uncertainty, and a degree of simply not knowing which way to head in these turbulent times.

So I want to this afternoon acknowledge that there has been a good response from New Zealand in the fight against COVID-19—no question about that. We have been as a nation very good at setting aside some of the civil liberties that we might otherwise want to have protected in order to see the benefit for the wider community. That’s a good thing. That is now bedded in, and we have a process for making sure that this pandemic does not afflict New Zealand to any greater extent than it already has.

There will be occasions when things go wrong, and we will point those occasions out, and we notice that when we have, the Government has been very quick to patch things up as much as possible, recognising the difficult circumstances that we’re facing. But COVID-19 cannot mask some of the very big problems that this country still has. It cannot mask some of the very big problems that exist internationally across the rest of the world and in our relationships with the rest of the world. And above all, it should not be the excuse that a Government daily uses for not getting on with the business of dealing with the things that make life better for New Zealanders. So let’s just look at a couple of things that are particularly troublesome at the moment.

The first is the hardy annual of crime, which is very much on the rise. Has there ever been a Government in this country that has so passively watched the increase in the gang activities across the nation than this current Government? Has there ever been a Government that has been almost apologetic for the large increases in gang activity across the country? And has there ever been a Government that has all but instructed the police to no longer prosecute for drug offences in this country? It is laying out the ground for that gang activity to become even greater than it is at the moment and for the complete disregard for the order of communities that those lawless gangs inflict on people. That is a huge abdication of responsibility by the current Government.

A simple question: where was there a statement in the Speech from the Throne about why the Government has cancelled police intakes for the time being? What’s happened to the idea that we’re going to increase the presence of police in our communities, something that was so important during the last three years of the Government but now is just gone? Completely gone—utter silence.

And then we come to the issue of housing. Well, I tell you what: I’ve never heard such hot air and wind talked about this topic as we’ve heard just in the two days that this Parliament has listened to question time. We just heard the Hon David Parker talking about the need to sort the problem out with some Resource Management Act (RMA) changes. Well, his process, outlined this morning, will not see a completed bill in this House in this term. There is no way that the process that he’s laid out is going to lead to anything that will speed up the opportunity for more land to be available for housing, for better rules around housing to be put in place by local government, or for there to be any downward pressure on the price of housing in this country.

We heard in one question going to the Prime Minister that the effect of the brightline test has simply been to put the price of houses up—$120,000 is the average price increase in the last 12 months. So if someone’s a speculator and they buy a house and they make their $120,000 profit on it, they pay $50,000 in tax and the rest is profit. So it’s certainly not a deterrent as long as there is that constraint on supply. And there is the unwillingness of the current Government to recognise that it is supply that always determines price. And then we have the issue of assistance that’s given to people to get into new homes. They talk a big game, mention all the schemes that are out there, but fail to tell the country that almost 20 percent of the price of a new home is taken in tax, and that’s before you consider any income tax paid by the various trades that put inputs into that cost.

So if the Government has got its hand out to that extent, why wouldn’t the price of a house continue to go up? And let’s be clear: that price drives the price of existing homes, and in areas where they are closer in to the city, it just exacerbates that upward price pressure. So we have a Government that talks a big game about housing but has absolutely no concept of how that market works, and I don’t in any way ashamedly use that word, because that’s what it is and that’s what we’re seeing.

Now, I find it fascinating too that David Parker suddenly has some kind of epiphany about the need to change the RMA, and then he goes on to say, “Oh, it’s enormously complex.” Well, go back to the first principle of it, which was that if you are able to mitigate against the worst effects on the environment, then you could do what you wanted. And if that was the starting point, we might end up with some legislation that actually let people move forward.

But I also want to say: have a look at what was done in Christchurch post the earthquakes. Eight-and-a-half-thousand families found out that they could no longer live on the sections that their houses were built on—the land would not sustain ongoing building. So there was an immediate need to create new space, and a lot of it. And what we discovered is the three local councils down there have been for 15 years arguing over an urban development strategy. They’d gotten as far as the Environment Court, and the Environment Court said, “Oh, well, if we hurry things up, we might get it done in another couple of years.” Well, we took the step of saying that wasn’t good enough, and effectively used the special legislation available to consent land for up to 43,000 sections in Christchurch. It was done very, very quickly. And what has the effect of that been? It’s meant that there has been some price containment, better than anywhere else in the country, on the cost of housing. But, of course, that will always relate to the rest of the country. The point is that it’s possible for Governments to do something a heck of a lot faster than this crowd are currently showing signs of wanting to do.

I will bet that there are urban development strategies stuck in councils from one end of the country to the other, not making any progress because of the hog-tie that’s around them from the RMA. So why not be bold and say, “Then we’ll have a fast arrangement.”? David Parker talks about the arrangements he put in place for consenting big projects, and he’s saying no one in here is very happy with it. We are happy with it. The only person who’s not happy with it is him because of the advice he’s getting from his officials, which is “Please don’t disturb our little fortress here. We’re very important and we’re very, very keen on stopping almost anything.” He needs to get over the top of that. He needs to get bold and he needs to get legislation into the House that consents a whole lot of land for new building. And then they need to look at the Government’s inputs into it. How much of that new house price is development levy? How much of it is contributions to reserves? How much are all these things? I see the Green Party there saying, “Oh, that’s great. You’ve got to have it.” Well, they get a rating base. They get an enormous rating base out of those new houses, and so they have a big, big forward income, but they want that cash just to spend it on other junky things that they seem to like. [Interruption] Stand up and take a speech. We’d love to hear from you. We would love to hear from that member. It won’t be anything worth listening to, but I still think it would be worth her saying something.

Angie Warren-Clark: So mean.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: No—you’re right. That’s far too mean. I do apologise. We live in a time when we’re supposed to be kind to one another, and you’re basically a friend of mine, so I take that back. Can I just finish by saying: if you’ve got a big majority, use it.

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): We’ve just spent 10 minutes looking back to the glory days of housebuilding in New Zealand under the Key Government, and here’s a simple question for the member who just resumed his seat, the Hon Gerry Brownlee: which Government built more year-on-year, that Government or this Government? It’s a very simple answer. By thousands per year, it is this Government which wins that prize. This is a Government which acknowledges—which actually acknowledges—something that that Government never ever did: that we have a long-run housing problem in the country. It is actually getting on with the job of increasing housing supply, like the hundreds of new public KiwiBuild and private houses that are being built right now in my electorate of Mt Roskill, something that has been replicated in seats across the country.

We had 10 minutes of looking back from that member, and we’re going to now move to 10 minutes of looking forward, to the future of New Zealand under this Government, which has a confident, positive, and inclusive vision for the future of New Zealand. I want to start off with a very, very positive announcement, which speaks to that today, and that is the confirmation that the new Te Huia rail service between Auckland and Hamilton will open for business on 6 April—fantastic news for the fastest-growing economic corridor in New Zealand, between Auckland and Hamilton. As I confirm this announcement, I just want to acknowledge the work of our two very hard-working MPs in Hamilton, Dr Gaurav Sharma and Jamie Strange, our new MPs for Hamilton East and West, who have pushed hard for this project—this region-shaping project—for years and years and years, and also to acknowledge my predecessor as Minister of Transport, Phil Twyford, who championed this project from the beginning. Now we are seeing the fruits of that hard work.

The Te Huia rail service really does speak to the vision that this Government has and our priorities for the three years ahead. We’re focused on keeping New Zealanders safe, on accelerating the economic recovery, and tackling our long-term challenges. In every way, the Te Huia service speaks to that. It’s actually incredible and we take it for granted that we can gather together here in this House, at sporting and cultural events, at the wonderful opening we’ll have for Te Huia in a couple of months, and we can do so safely in New Zealand when so many people around the world cannot do that. That is because of the relentless focus that our Government has had on putting the health of New Zealanders first over this past year, and the incredible work that our team of 5 million has done to make that a reality.

We have freedoms and health and safety in this country that are the envy of the world, and in international study after international study the quality of New Zealand’s response to COVID is consistently ranked right at the top of the world. That is something that all Kiwis can be immensely proud of. That response was and will continue to be centred on the principle that we put people first. From day one, that has been the approach that our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has put right at the centre of the COVID response, and it is what will continue to guide us. But it’s also a response which is humble, which acknowledges that we’re always learning. It acknowledges that we don’t always get things 100 percent right the first time and that we actually listen to the science and the experts and we make adjustments as we go along to keep Kiwis as safe as possible. I think that has been absolutely central to the success we have achieved as a country, and that will be important in the year ahead as well.

It’s also been about calm and focused leadership. I look across those Ministers and the Prime Minister who have led our response: our Prime Minister, who I think has really, for our team of 5 million, been someone that people have been able to look to with confidence as someone who does put people first, as someone who clearly and calmly thinks through the way ahead and then lays out the plans; our Minister for COVID-19 Response, Chris Hipkins; our Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, who has handled our economic response to COVID, the biggest economic shock since the Second World War, and has done such a fine job of that. As we move ahead into the coming term, this will continue to be our number one focus: keeping Kiwis safe.

I remember at the beginning of last year, as the threat of COVID began to loom, those, sort of, false arguments that were made: that we either had to choose the health of New Zealanders or looking after the economy. What this Government consistently said and what will continue to guide us is that simple maxim that the best economic response is also the best health response. We only have to look around the world to see the evidence of that fairly and squarely, because as this virus continues to rage in countries around the world, who still are having to enter and re-enter lockdowns and major restrictions on social and economic activity, the fact that we did that health response well and put people’s health first and eliminated COVID-19 and continue to exercise an elimination strategy—that is what has meant that we have been able to rebound economically so strongly. That is why we were so thrilled last week to hear that New Zealand has achieved 4.9 percent unemployment—an absolutely incredible result when we consider the scale of the economic disruption that our country has had to endure this year, and the incredibly difficult international economic circumstances that we continue to navigate.

It’s been about Kiwis coming together. It’s been about businesses and workers working together, showing extraordinary resilience, and it has been about active leadership from Government, and I think this is important to recognise. It’s very important to recognise that active leadership from Government has made a difference in terms of New Zealand’s economic position. We’ve been able to keep Kiwis in work because of that fast work in terms of getting that wage subsidy in, keeping people connected to work and employment. We’ve been able to support young New Zealanders who otherwise might have fallen through the cracks by bringing in those free apprenticeships, which have got thousands and thousands of young Kiwis into the trades, with a bright future ahead of them. It’s been about our massive infrastructure investment up and down New Zealand, in the towns and cities and the regions, creating the infrastructure of the future and employing tens of thousands of New Zealanders in that national work that we have got ahead of us there.

I paid a visit last week to the work that’s going on constructing the Third Main rail line in Auckland, an extremely important project that’s going to enable us to free up Auckland’s roads, get freight moving around more efficiently, get more Aucklanders on to rail, and is also employing 200 New Zealanders in the construction of that important line—another 200 employed electrifying the line between Papakura and Pukekohe, and thousands more across the country as we roll out a record infrastructure package. Currently, Waka Kotahi has $20 billion of capital work happening around our country, employing Kiwis and giving us the infrastructure that will support good-quality lives and economic growth in the years ahead.

Other great interventions that have been very important, that show the value of active Government in helping our economy to deal with the crisis: the international airfreight capacity scheme, a $300 million very carefully designed scheme which has ensured that we have retained airfreight capacity with countries around the world, ensuring that critical freight from our imports and exports that otherwise might not have got through with the massive disruption to international aviation have continued to flow. Eighty percent of our freight at normal times actually sits below passengers in those flights we take to Australia, the US, China, and Europe. That would have dried up completely without a smart, active Government that engaged with the sector to keep that freight moving.

This Government is also focused on the long-term challenges. Just because we faced the immediate challenge of COVID-19 doesn’t mean we’re going to take our eye off the ball. None can be bigger than the climate emergency that we face. It is a challenge which is not just a challenge to this generation but a challenge to the wellbeing and interests of our children, our grandchildren, and future generations, and few things can be more important. It was a signal moment earlier this year when the independent climate commission tabled its draft report. That process came out of legislation that went through this House almost unanimously, something we can be proud of, which has set up that independent climate commission to provide science-led advice to guide our Government and guide our country towards net carbon zero by 2050 and giving us a pathway to do that.

In transport, we are already taking the lead. Transport is currently 47 percent of our carbon dioxide emissions, and we know that if we want to meet those ambitious targets that the commission has set out that we need to meet our Paris commitments, we’re going to have to take fast action. We’ve already started that off very early this year. I was pleased to join the Prime Minister, the Minister of Climate Change, James Shaw, earlier this year to announce that, finally, New Zealand is going to have emissions standards for our light vehicle fleet. We’re one of the only countries in the world, alongside Russia and Australia, who doesn’t have one of these, and it’s one of the quickest, most effective ways that we can get our carbon emissions from our light vehicle fleet down.

This is a Government that’s got a clear vision for the next three years. We’re going to ensure that New Zealanders are kept safe as we continue to live in a COVID world. We’re going to accelerate that economic recovery so that there’s equity and opportunity for all New Zealanders, and we’re going to keep our eye on those long-term challenges: housing, climate change, making sure people get a fair deal at work, and that’s something I’ll have a lot more to say about this year as well. It’s a bright three years ahead, and I’m very proud to be part of this Government.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call Jan Logie.

JAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. In my contribution this afternoon, I’d like to talk to one of the points in the Speech from the Throne. The Prime Minister acknowledged three of the countries longest standing and hardest issues demanding continued and determined action: affordable housing, child poverty, and the climate crisis—and, of course, all those three issues are interlinked, in fact. But in my contribution today, I want to focus on a specific angle of housing, and that is accessible housing. The Green Party—and I hope every single person in this House—has a commitment and a vision for every person in this country to have warm, dry, safe, affordable, and accessible housing.

One in four New Zealanders in this country have a disability or an access need. At any time, any one of us could have significant mobility or access needs that we do not expect—and the chances are that if we don’t have them already, as we age, we will. We need universal design in our housing to help ensure that all of us at all times have a roof over our heads. Yet at the moment, we know on the public housing register waiting list, there’s almost 4,500 people who are waiting for a home who are receiving the supported living payment. To get that payment, you need to be blind or have a disability or illness that means you can’t work more than 15 hours a week, and for that to be the case for over two years—these are very significant levels of disability—or you’re caring for somebody who’s not a partner and who would otherwise be in residential care. I want people just to think about that reality for the moment and the poverty that that community experiences because of the low levels of income support and the lack of opportunities that are provided for them to be able to address that, and then think about the debate we’ve been having around housing affordability, and how much tougher it is for those people to have any opportunity to access housing.

And then, if you think about the housing market and the private rental market, we kind of tend to think of people in long queues to try and get a rental property, and we’re imagining—I imagine, if you’re like me—a house of whatever standard, and we know that we can’t make assumptions around that, but that it be a house that you can get into, through the door, to be able to have that conversation with the real estate agent. Well, when the Greens did a check on TradeMe at the end of last year to see how many houses were listed as accessible, we found that there were 10,291 houses listed on TradeMe and, of those, 27—I really want that to sink in: 27—indicated that they were accessible; for the entire country, our private rental market. When we think of our largest city of Auckland, there were four houses—in all of Auckland—on the private market that listed the fact that they were accessible. No wonder we have over 4,500 people who have managed to get on to a public housing list, and no wonder we’re hearing from people in the community who have been in motels. One man who I know in Dunedin was in a motel for 11 months waiting to find somewhere that he might be able to live, and thanks to him being in the media and talking about that reality, he managed to get some action. But we know there are so many more New Zealanders who haven’t.

There are people in my community who are saying a 15 percent target for accessibility is not enough; 18,000—15 percent of that is 2,700; it doesn’t even clear the waiting list. What they said to me, as well, is that they want a house to live in—that’s first—they also want to be able to visit friends or family and have their community available to them. The Government has to do better.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E mihi ana, Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku. E te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. Ngā mema o te Whare Pāremata, tēnā koutou katoa.

[I acknowledge Ranginui and Papatūānuku. Madam Speaker, greetings. Members of Parliament, greetings to you all.]

I would like to touch on some of the issues around one of the biggest reform programmes in front of this Parliament, and that is the reform of the Resource Management Act (RMA) and its replacement by the Natural and Built Environments Act, the Strategic Planning Act, and the Climate Change Adaptation Act, that the Hon David Parker announced this morning and discussed earlier in the House in his contribution.

Now, this Natural and Built Environments Act is going to be the core piece of legislation replacing the RMA and is going to be progressed first. The proposed purpose of the new Act, according to the December Cabinet paper, which the Minister released this morning, is to promote the quality of the environment, to support the wellbeing of present and future generations and to recognise the concept of te mana o te taiao: the mana of the environment.

The RMA has been the foundation of our environmental legislation for the last 30 years, and its purpose in sections 5, 6, 7, and 8, in Part 2 of the Act—that whole concept of sustainable management, the matters of national importance such as the preservation and protection of the natural character of the coast, the margins of rivers, significant indigenous vegetation and habitats—has been hotly debated and contested in front of councils and the courts. The drafting of the purpose statement of this new legislation needs to be done with enormous care and skill, and I really hope that it’s a focus of submissions on the exposure draft which the Environment Committee will be considering.

I share some of the concerns of the Hon Simon Upton, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, which he raised in the Salmon Lecture to the Resource Management Law Association last year, that those broad words which Labour is proposing as the purpose don’t specify that safeguarding the biophysical environment is paramount. As Mr Upton noted, the clause is directed to enhancing the quality of the environment as a whole, rather than just the natural environment. So supporting the wellbeing of people rather than of ecosystems becomes the overriding goal of the legislation. And potentially such a purpose statement leads us down that well-trodden path under the RMA to balancing competing outcomes, to trading off the environment and nature against human wellbeing when decision makers are forced to make an overall broad judgment which contains quite a strong element of subjectivity. So a focus on human wellbeing creates an enormous uncertainty that nature will in fact be safeguarded.

Mr Brownlee was talking about increasing the amount of housing simply by ensuring that a few of the adverse impacts on the environment were dealt with and then just going ahead. This fails to recognise the severity of the nature crisis, and I would recommend to Mr Brownlee and others to take a look at the major report which the British Treasury released earlier this month. It’s a landmark report, The Economics of Biodiversity, by Cambridge University economist Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta. It’s a 600-page review report which needs to be as influential as Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report on the economics of climate change, because in that report Professor Dasgupta presents a whole new economic framework which is grounded in ecology and which provides a basis for humans to live sustainably.

He’s made it very clear that we need a radical change in the way that we do economics, the way we assess the state of our economies across the globe, and that we need to elevate nature as a key element of economic planning, and to recognise, as I know the Minister for the Environment does, that the economy is a subset of nature, not the other way round. Because the RMA enables economic development and use and because economics influences policy, the thinking in the Dasgupta review must influence the drafting of our new Natural and Built Environments Act, because that review shows that by bringing economics and ecology together we can help save nature at what is potentially the last minute, and, by doing so, save ourselves.

There’s enormous research that has provided the basis for this report, and the fact that its conclusions are that our economic progress has come at a devastating cost to nature. We’ve had the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve had the economic dislocation that’s been associated with that. That’s just one example of what happens in terms of our impacts on nature. We need to take the conclusions of that review and include it in our new legislation.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call Ginny Andersen.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Kia ora, tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity. Look, it’s important within this discussion that we reflect directly upon that speech we heard from the throne at the end of last year. One of the resounding themes for me when listening to that speech being delivered was the importance of laying the foundations for a better future in our country, and that’s exactly what lies before us now, over these next three years.

New Zealanders quite clearly voted for stability and for security going forward, and that responsibility weighs heavily upon our shoulders now to make sure we continue to do that. Those areas that we need to continue to focus on are important. Those three that I’ll briefly touch on today are housing affordability, child poverty reduction, and also taking action on climate change. I can see no better example than the announcement that we heard today from the Hon David Parker in terms of repealing and reforming the Resource Management Act (RMA), because what that does is it touches on all three of those areas. It demonstrates how we need to free up land and make that available in our urban areas, where our predominant population resides. We need to make sure that families that are affected by child poverty have access to affordable homes, and we need to continue to build them on land that’s freed up through a system and a process that makes land available through the local government systems as well. Finally, we need to be able to see that we’re taking action on climate change, and having a system that prioritises our environment alongside of urban development has been long overdue in the 30 years that the Resource Management Act has been in place.

In terms of child poverty, this Government will continue to focus on reducing how children, in particular, are impacted upon by the disparity between poor and rich in New Zealand. We will continue to overhaul the welfare system, and a big part alongside of that is introducing over 200,000 free healthy lunches in schools. Now, that’s a fantastic one that we see rolling out right across our regions. It also enables local businesses—local caterers—to be able to recover from COVID by providing healthy food and benefiting economically from giving kids a good breakfast and a good lunch during their learning day.

It’s also important in that space of child poverty that we continue to roll out our mental health support, which we’ve seen throughout schools, and making that also available in GPs as well. That’s a critical part of being able to make sure that not only young adults but their parents are receiving the support that they need to get on.

In terms of housing, our Government will continue to focus on housing as a priority. We continue to hear cries from those opposite that such and such is the silver bullet, or not, but the reality is that we have quite clearly said that there is no silver bullet. The reforms that we see announced today for the Resource Management Act are just but one part of overhauling a system that is long overdue, and it has been neglected for some time now. It’s all very well to cry that we must immediately repeal the RMA or we need to have things fixed immediately, but this problem that we face—this housing crisis that we face—was many, many years in the making. So to be able to provide for our natural environment and to be able to provide for better urban spaces for young people and our families, we need to be doing that with care, and due process is important in that space.

Finally, I would like to touch on the importance of climate change and on how we need to have a resource management Act that looks after our natural environment. We only see here in Wellington alone the importance of our waterways and also our three waters review, to make sure that we have clean seas and clean rivers and that waste is carried from our urban centres in a way that does not jeopardise the wellbeing of our drinking water, or our swimming in our natural environment.

Making sure that we have adequate resource planning and systems in place that equip us for our future will make sure that we continue to build a country on strong foundations. As we recover from COVID, we build back better, because that’s what this Government is focused on doing—making sure the next generation of New Zealanders has a stronger foundation to rest upon.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I’d just like to start by pointing out to New Zealanders that this weekend there’s a Coast to Coast event, the iconic Coast to Coast event, which has been made famous by Robin Judkins. And I want to acknowledge Robin Judkins, who started that. It’s become an iconic worldwide event. Steve Gurney is, again, the legend involved at the moment. Good luck to those who are competing and who are actually organising that this weekend.

But, importantly, what I’d like to do is use that as an analogy for where we find ourselves and how I relate that to the Address in Reply debate. Those who are training for this weekend are really training like anyone training for any sport—they’re really training for that last 10 to 15 minutes. Most people can do half of whatever the event is—three-quarters—but training, getting ready, is about making sure you’re in condition for the hard bit. The analogy I’d like to use for the Coast to Coast is COVID. COVID put New Zealand under stress. COVID has been the last 15 minutes of any big sporting event where we have to dig deep.

We have succeeded in New Zealand, by any measure. We have succeeded economically. We have succeeded by keeping the numbers, the deaths, down and by keeping New Zealanders safe. But, importantly, it’s a time now to look at why. It is because we were match-fit when we went in there. And this is a time when we really have to do something we’re not very good at doing in this House. Let’s acknowledge our public services, because one man, Ashley Bloomfield, was the public servant who was at the head of this, with Chris Hipkins, with the Prime Minister, each day. But what he did was he represented a very well-trained professional Public Service. I am the member of Parliament for Ōhāriu, and many of those public servants live there and I see them every day.

Today, I was in select committee and I heard people “Ha, ha!”, guffawing, when they saw that Government departments had had an increase in funding in the last three years, as though that was a bad thing. It was a good thing, and what we’ve seen with COVID shows what a good thing it was that we do ensure that our institutions of State are in good nick. And they were in good nick, because we saw Treasury’s response, we saw the Reserve Bank’s response, we saw the Minister of Health’s response, we saw IRD’s response. Education, the Ministry of Social Development—I could go through the lot. And anyone will do—there were members opposite, I know, who sat on that select committee who grilled those public servants when they came through, as part of the entertainment at 10 o’clock every morning during lockdown.

Tell me what anyone who was an objective or subjective watcher of that would have seen—“Wow! Aren’t our public servants pretty good? Isn’t our Public Service pretty good?” So anyone who would dare to criticise the fact that we are rebuilding that Public Service, we’re making sure that those professionals who kept this country safe, who, when we had the leadership—we had the leadership of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. But she, like any leader, is as good as the tools she has, as the troops she has, as the people she has, and she showed, and we showed, and New Zealand saw, that we have good people.

That’s why it’s so important that when we reflect on what we need to do as a country, it’s when things get hard; that’s when it’s important. That’s when we get down to that last 15 minutes of what we’re doing. That’s what our training is for. So what I would make a plea to those—and, yes, I accept that the Opposition have got a job. The Opposition have got a job to do—to keep us honest, to make sure they ask the hard questions—and they do it well. But I’d say to the Opposition, and to all the Opposition parties, next time you’re actually in select committee in particular, when you see those extremely professional public servants that come in there that do mean well, that are actually there doing the job—and when they were tested, when their moment comes, when they were 15 minutes from the end of the game, 15 minutes from the end of the Coast to Coast, 15 minutes from whatever endeavour they were, they showed that they were match-fit. So while we’ve got our team of 5 million, there’s an old saying: success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan. Well, in this case, success has a thousand fathers—and mothers, I should say; I’m in the modern age.

What we can now look at, as New Zealanders—don’t just look broadly; look at why we succeeded and make sure we don’t risk ever losing that. We have a great Public Service. Let’s maintain it. Let’s keep match-fit so that when I and many other competitors are getting to the top of Goat Pass over the weekend, we’ve got the match-fitness to make sure we will finish. We’ll finish hard, we’ll finish strong, and we’ll be successful. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I mean, always a pleasure to speak after that member O’Connor. We’re looking forward to Minister Damien O’Connor coming in after this and finishing the trifecta. Granted, I get into trouble with the O’Connors. A certain Damien O’Connor the other day made a rather injudicious comment to our Australian cousins and took a bit of heavy flak until they realised I was on their side. But I will actually pick up on one thing that Greg O’Connor’s rightly mentioned—in fact, I think it does happen across the House, and often in those select committee processes, which is the thanks which the committees do give to those who run our Civil Service. And we’ve certainly seen over the last year, particularly those in the health sector, but not alone, who have done a fantastic job, and at the risk of putting one public servant in the spotlight above others—but she’ll be someone that’s well-known to this House. I’ll just use her first name, which is Alma, who did an incredible job liaising with us as MPs to try and help our constituents—so to acknowledge that.

Now that the bouquet has been given, it’s time to throw the bricks. So we’re here, obviously, debating the Speech from the Throne and the Address in Reply. As the member of Parliament for Tāmaki, it was fairly important that I go back to the locals and ask them what they think about what the Government’s doing, what’s happening in the world, and what are their priorities. So I thought I’d use my time to indicate what I’ve heard back from them, and maybe the Government in time will pick up on that. Look, transport remains a massive issue in Tāmaki. Well, I’d welcome all of you to come and visit. Please keep off Tāmaki Drive. There’s more orange cones there than you could poke a stick at. The fact that there’s lots of orange cones and no one doing any work remains a great mystery to me—and to my wife and I that we didn’t invest in orange cones years ago. We’d all be retired and millionaires.

I want to acknowledge what’s happening at the moment around our local parks and playgrounds—granted, I will admit, not the purview of the Government, but as a responsible MP, I want to acknowledge that our people locally want to see those upgraded and certainly want to send a message to Government and to council that they want to see their rates better spent. A lot of concerns developing in the community around—well, Kāinga Ora, but a lot of people would understand it as Housing New Zealand, and I’ll come to the Government’s failures in the space in a moment. But there are real concerns about the way that Kāinga Ora is engaging in the community. There’s been some positive signs in Glendowie and Ōrākei around how they are discussing “topics” from now, but I suppose there is an encouragement in this speech to listen to people.

One thing that other colleagues have certainly picked up on is around crime. This is a concern that’s coming out of this Government. We look at the crime stats. We look at the decisions around no longer pursuing cannabis and other drugs. The pursuit policy has dropped. Elements around gun changes are not affecting, actually, the crime rates. I know it’s only one electorate, but the amount of crime in my electorate is going up and up, and we’re one of the better areas in Auckland, if you want to phrase it—well, if I’m going to phrase it that way. So it’s a problem right across the country and I would encourage the Government to actually do something about that.

They’re obviously concerned as constituents, as I am, about the economy. Many are business owners and they understand that we always want to pay people more. But when a Government increases minimum wages, increases sick leave, introduces new holidays, all on top of a COVID crisis, it’s not the most prudent of times. They certainly have issues around the managed isolation. It’s very much a heart thing, I would say. Many families—and I’m sure those particularly who are constituent MPs here will understand—are trying to get back to New Zealand or have loved ones return to this country and are finding the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system lottery at the moment inhumane, to a degree. It’s probably slightly inflammatory language, but they are finding it immensely, immensely difficult. They do understand that, you know, no Government, no system, can make it perfect, but the current system of MIQ feels like a lottery. To those families who are coming to my office, desperate to bring their loved ones home and are finding that it’s probably not until May, even into June now—highly, highly disruptive. And it has to be noted, granted, that the decision of a single member of the Green Party at the moment to travel and to return, and then to blame everyone else, does need a little bit of spotlight and is causing angst—angst—within my own electorate, mainly as a point of leadership, because they look towards members of Parliament to take the right and moral high ground in this space.

Certainly, there is concern about the vaccines. Look, I like the science of it. Vaccines are good. I think it’s really important where things are headed in that direction. But there is, again, concern within my constituency of what the Government says and what’s been achieved, and at the end of the day—and we have on this side been pushing it for a few days now—the Government said we would be at the front of the queue. There is a proverb that talks about the first being last, and it turns out that that is the case. We are well behind the eight ball on this and so many other countries—so many other countries—have it. The Minister is at length trying to say that we’re not using emergency provisions. Well, last time I checked, by definition a global pandemic which is infecting millions and killing hundreds of thousands probably fits within the purview of an emergency. And that’s probably been the overall theme which has been coming back around the Address in Reply and what this Government is doing: it’s what they say versus what they do and, by and large, there is a massive, massive gap.

Child poverty is getting worse. The housing crisis is getting worse. Look, I’ve said it so many times in this House I’m probably now even boring myself. But, you know, National left about 5,000 people on the waiting list when we left Government. It’s now well over 20,000. If by definition, we were decried as managing a crisis three, four years ago, what word does the Government want to use now when it’s four times worse? And having looked after housing for National, all the promises in the world do not build houses. The Prime Minister recently has trumpeted we’re going to build 8,000. Well, that’s lovely as a concept, but we know last year that the Government was only able to build about 1,300 homes, and that’s great—1,300 more—but it didn’t even reach their target last year, let alone the 8,000 that’s been promised.

I touched on about knowing business. They talk a lot about business, and great words of sympathy and kindness—though I’ve almost banned the “k” word from my home, I have to say. But as I say, adding higher wages—

Angie Warren-Clark: Oh, that’s awful.

SIMON O’CONNOR: I know. Isn’t it awful, really? Just sometimes in the English language, we can far overuse a word. But the great thing is we all have thesauruses and we can all be nice, gentle, and understanding.

The tenancy changes—an absolute muddle of the highest order, which is, again, I’ve said to this House, only going to actually hurt the tenants, and the very dynamics that the landlords and other associations and myself pointed out would happen are going to happen. Great concerns in the electorate around hate speech legislation—very, very concerning. No one in this House, myself included, wants to see speech which is hateful. But speech which other people hate is not by definition something that should be criminalised. It needs to be put on the record, and I’m sure we’ll get to speak to it many, many times, but at the end of the day, free speech is one of the key foundational underpinnings of a liberal democracy. And I do worry and fear, as do a lot of Kiwis, that any hate speech legislation is going to undermine that.

Then finally around—it’s all the education changes. I’ve got real concerns about the curriculum changes. Teach history for sure; teach New Zealand history for sure. But boy, the decision to say that one of the three aims is to promote the idea of Marxism and Hegel that everything can be seen through power—that’s not education; that’s called indoctrination. Very worrying.

Then obviously around the Māori wards—[Interruption] Around the Māori wards—I hear some cries from the other side. It would be really good for them to do some Philosophy 101; it’s incredibly helpful. And the Māori wards—there’s all this funny Orwellian speak about democracy and what they’re doing. Well, the great thing is about words and actions—if we truly believe in democracy, then you follow the actions. And this Parliament’s usually about debating legislation, allowing the public to have their say, but that’s been explicitly denied by this Government.

The last point I need to make, because it has been raised with me by a number of constituents, is around how New Zealand engages in the world with its partners. I’d be remiss if I don’t speak to sovereignty and our national interests. I think we need to continue to speak up for democracy, not just here at home, and to challenge the Government, but to throw one brick and one bouquet in—and why don’t I start with a bouquet: I want to acknowledge the Minister in the House and the Government for taking the right stand around Myanmar, or Burma. It was a pleasure to be out there with the community last night and to hear the New Zealand Government condemning the military coup and putting other steps in place. I encourage, though, that New Zealand continues to stand with its allies robustly in speaking against the Chinese Communist Party. I have far too many of my constituents raising this with me with their concerns and their fears. What’s happening in Hong Kong must continue to be condemned. And I want to say, particularly to the 11 who are in jail, that you are not forgotten. And as per the recent BBC reports of the persecution of the Uighur people, they too are not forgotten. I may only be a simple and humble MP in Tāmaki, but to my constituents who demand I speak up for these things, I will continue to do so.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): The next call is a split call. I call Jamie Strange.

JAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call in the Address in Reply debate. We’ve heard from two O’Connors this afternoon, and I sort of call it the “Tale of Two O’Connors”. Unfortunately, I can’t complete the trifecta, as I am a Strange, as we know. However, we heard from one O’Connor who gave a fairly positive, optimistic view of the next three years, acknowledging the challenges we are facing, but acknowledging that we have a Government with a clear plan to continue working through some of those challenges. And then we heard from the second O’Connor, who gave a fairly pessimistic view. I am going to take the optimistic view, because at the election last year, New Zealanders right across the country voted for a strong Labour Party, and they voted for a strong Labour leader in our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

One of the key reasons why I believe a number of New Zealanders did do that is because they have seen the leadership that our Prime Minister has provided during COVID-19. We only have to look overseas to see how bad COVID-19 can get. Our Prime Minister started by going hard and early, and she had clear communication. I spoke to someone recently from a large city over in Europe. Within that city, which is a city of around a million people, they had around half a dozen different zones for COVID over there. So you’d move from one part of the city and you would have different COVID rules; you’d move to another part of the city and have different COVID rules again. Without that clear communication, people struggled to come together to unite in the way that New Zealanders did. So, in this speech, I’ll briefly touch on keeping New Zealanders safe, and then I’ll talk about the economic recovery. Our border plays a key role in keeping New Zealanders safe, and I’d like to acknowledge all of those workers who work at the border. I’d like to acknowledge all of those workers who work in managed isolation and quarantine facilities, and I have spoken via Zoom to some of them in the Waikato region. The work that they are doing to keep us safe will be remembered for a long time.

We have a strong, resilient economy here in New Zealand. We have an economy that has diversified in recent years, and I think the diversity that we have in our economy has held us in good stead to navigate these challenges that we have in terms of COVID. And if I just look, in terms of a Waikato lens, as a member of Parliament from Hamilton East, the Waikato economy used to be predominantly a dairy-based economy, and we still have that as a strong aspect of our economy, but we have diversified in recent years to have the fastest-growing tech sector in New Zealand over the past three years, a strong manufacturing sector, and a strong service sector as well. I think that’s something, during these COVID challenges, that I haven’t heard spoken about quite a lot: the fact that the diversification within our economy over the previous years has held us in good stead. For example, the tech sector continues to go strong. It continues to go from strength to strength.

The Government has invested in a number of shovel-ready projects to support economic development in the regions, and one of those is in the Waikato region, and that’s helped us to get through these COVID challenges, and it will provide a pipeline of work moving forward. One of the key ones there is the Ruakura Superhub, which the Government has invested $56 million into. That’s creating 6,000 to 12,000 jobs. Basically, what it is is a fully operational inland port on the eastern side of Hamilton, which is the size of Auckland CBD. What we will see is containers come into Auckland port, they will be shipped south to the Ruakura development, and those containers will be opened there and then they will be distributed right around the golden triangle—that Hamilton, Auckland, Tauranga area. This sort of economic development in the regions of New Zealand is exactly what we need to see, and as a Government we will continue to invest in the regions. And as we go through these COVID challenges, the job creation for projects such as the Ruakura port and other shovel-ready projects will certainly play a key role in helping us to navigate through that.

So we have a Government that is keeping New Zealanders safe and is focusing on a strong economic recovery for our country. Thank you.

JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call in this, the Address in Reply debate—my first opportunity to speak in the House since we’ve come back from the summer break. I just want to take the opportunity to welcome everyone back here, and I hope that everyone has had a lovely summer break. Everyone’s looking somewhat rested after having to make the change from shorts and t-shirts to office attire. There’s a little bit of adjusting: I think we’ve only just got used to the bit of the jandal that goes between our toes and now we’re having to pop our heels back on, so it’s a bit of shame. But when we think about the fact that we’ve been away on our summer break, we’ve had the opportunity to spend time with our families and with our friends. We’ve been able to holiday around the country. We’ve been able to explore our own backyard. I spent a little bit of time in Akaroa, and I have to say it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it prior to, obviously, when the cruise ships were in. It’s fantastic to see people exploring their own backyard, and it’s very lucky that we have the opportunity to do so.

I spent a bit of my time over the summer break just reflecting on how lucky we are. On Christmas day, I volunteered at the community lunch in Timaru, and there were hundreds of people there from, actually, all walks of life. I hadn’t helped at a Christmas lunch before, and I had in my mind where the people there might have come from and what situations they might be in. But they were from all walks of life, I have to say. I was looking around the room and I was thinking that some of these people are elderly, on their own, have no other family, and the fact that they could come along and attend the community Christmas lunch, I think, just meant everything to them. You could see that some of them had been coming for years and have developed wonderful friendships over those years.

So for us to be able to spend time together like that, we have to thank, partly—actually, a lot of the thanks has to, obviously, go to all of us here in New Zealand, the team of 5 million as we are often referred to, who have made the sacrifices we had to make and did what we needed to do in order to come out the other side of our lockdown. But I also think it’s very, very important that we acknowledge the strong leadership of our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and her team that she had around her.

We’ve heard today, and we know for a fact, that the health response was what we wanted to focus on first, and we’ve heard that the health response was the best economic response, as well. And we can see that because there are many businesses that have, obviously, now reopened, they are trading, we’ve got people training and/or retraining, and what’s really pleasing to see in that space is a lot of people training in the trades, and it’s exciting to see the amount of women that are beginning to train in the trades. What we do know is that women were quite severely impacted as a result of COVID and job loss. So it’s really fantastic to see that this is happening for our women.

This Government is going to continue focusing on the wellbeing of its citizens. I want to think about things that are happening for our children. They’re going to be affected, obviously, by the continuation of the overhaul of the welfare system. We’ve also seen the roll-out previously of lunches in schools and we’re going to continue and increase that roll-out. We just heard, this morning, in select committee, from the Ministry of Education, the positive impact that the healthy lunches in schools programme is having, and it’s actually impacting in a positive way on attendance levels. We’re seeing children who might otherwise not be at school, whether it’s the fact that their family doesn’t have enough food to give them for lunch—so that’s the embarrassment around that—but we are seeing it impact in a positive way on students’ attendance in schools.

We’re going to continue focusing on reducing inequality, and I think that’s something that is going to be very important going forward, as I said, particularly with the women in our community, who have been mostly affected by job loss in the community. So—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member’s time has expired. This is a split call—I call Golriz Ghahraman.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Like others across the House, it is a time of reflection, and looking back on the Speech from the Throne, and also starting this parliamentary year, we can all acknowledge and express our gratitude for how well our nation has done in the COVID response and in not only surviving but, in a way, thriving, as well, in this pandemic. Everyone here keeps saying this phrase, and I think we need to hold tight to it, which is that we will “build back better”. So I want to focus on something that wasn’t necessarily working before that pandemic, and hold, too, on to the idea that we need to be bold moving forward, because some things don’t call for us to return to the status quo.

We did do well in the COVID response through active leadership, and as a Government—and in the Green Party we were so proud to be a part of that Government and that COVID response—the act of leadership meant doing things that hadn’t been done before. We were good at the lockdown in this nation because we worked as a team, but we were also good because we invested in the lockdown. We provided a wage subsidy, we kept the businesses going, and we allowed people to stay home. And we’re seeing some around the world, in particular some of our traditional Western allies, as we call them, doing so, so poorly, because they are holding on to ideology that doesn’t work. Putting business first hasn’t worked, because people do need support to stay home. So the thing I want to focus on, as the justice spokesperson for the Green Party, is justice, because that is an area where we need to build back better and we need to be transformative and we need to let go of old prejudices.

We know that our prison system is not working. We’ve been told over and over again, and last term by even the Prime Minister’s own Chief Science Advisor, that prisons have failed. We’ve got the High Court telling the Crown that they are no longer to bring up the idea of deterrence, in drug sentencings at least, because all the evidence shows that deterrence does not, in fact, work; it is a myth. We have high recidivism rates. We have one of the highest per capita prison populations. We constantly get reports from the Ombudsmen and from others about abuse in our prisons. And we are not keeping down crime rates. We are not keeping victims safe. In fact, telling victims that we need more and more people in prison—we need to lift sentences of imprisonment—has now become callous, because we’re not keeping them safe.

What we do need to invest in is what we know will prevent crime. That means acknowledging that the vast majority of people that we do imprison suffer from serious mental health issues, suffer from brain injury that’s been undiagnosed. They suffer from addiction. I think it’s 90 percent, or just under 90 percent, of young offenders, under-19-year-olds, that suffer from a diagnosis of what is described as serious learning disability. So we’re failing at different stages of our education system, of our healthcare system, in mental health and addiction treatment. These are places where investment must go, instead of the failed system of imprisonment that we’ve been pouring billions of dollars into in the past.

The purpose of our justice system must be rehabilitation. It must be successful reintegration back into the community. That means that rehabilitation programmes, drug and alcohol programmes, mental health support have to happen outside of those abusive prisons that have so far failed our communities, victims, and perpetrators and caused intergenerational harm.

Now, those reports into our justice system also say repeatedly that the justice system is racist. Māori are experiencing, at every encounter with the justice system—from the first time they encounter police, to the charging system, to the first time they appear in court, to convictions, and, if convicted, to being sentenced to imprisonment—far, far disproportionate rates to Pākehā and others for the same types of acts. Now, we’ve seen the Black Lives Matter movement across the globe. We know that we don’t have those very high rates of police brutality here, but we do have it, and we know that our justice system harms Māori in all sorts of other ways. So that’s not OK. We need to be bold and transformative, as we were in the COVID response, and do things differently. We need it for the health of our community, we need it for Māori, and we need it for a better future for all of Aotearoa.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. As my colleague Golriz Ghahraman just said before me, we are very proud and thankful to be here in Aotearoa New Zealand, where we had excellent Government leadership in the response to COVID-19. We have many lessons that we can learn from our response and its success, one of which is to listen to the science, to work together, and that we all do better when we’re working together, and, thirdly, to take a health response, and a good health response was the best economic response. That was the Government’s position and I think it was absolutely proven right.

I think that these lessons have to be taken when we’re looking at facing even greater challenges like the climate emergency, the incredibly rapid and terrifying rate of biodiversity loss. In order to respond to climate change effectively, and I have heard it mentioned numerous times by Government MPs and in the Speech from the Throne that they are serious about climate action, we will have to listen to the science, we will have to work together and put our collective common good ahead of some individual rights or preferences, and that a response that is looking after our planet and our climate is ultimately the best economic response. The sooner we act on climate change, the better off our society will be.

There is no real trade-off between the economy and the survival of civilisation on our planet. Obviously, by prioritising the survival of civilisation on our planet, that’s the best outcome for our economy, which is but one part of human society. And in order to take an effective climate change response, there are two things that also need to happen that have long been priorities for the Green Party and will continue to be. One is honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, because the reality is indigenous peoples around the world have been at the forefront of the fight for effective climate action, and recognising and honouring Te Tiriti appropriately will be and must be part of our response to climate change.

The second one affects all of us, and that is inequality. There is no way we can have an effective response to climate change when a certain portion of our population is living in economic insecurity or poverty. There’s no question that the housing crisis is part of the contributor to this economic insecurity—it’s not the only thing, but it is part of it—and our high levels of child poverty. I know that child poverty is something that the Prime Minister takes very seriously, and I would just very humbly say that now is the time, following COVID-19, to revisit the long-held assumptions about what is politically possible in Aotearoa New Zealand.

What may have seemed unpopular in 2019, because there was a vociferous and misleading campaign against the comprehensive capital gains tax from the National Party at the time—we’re in a completely different world. We’ve had COVID-19. We’ve now got unprecedented growth in house prices. That means that the average house in Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Kāpiti Coast, and Queenstown earned more in untaxed capital gains just in the final three months of 2020 than the average New Zealander earned in pre-tax income over the entire year. So these are unprecedented circumstances.

Fair enough, the Government said they were advised that house prices were going to drop. I’m not opposed to the use of unconventional monetary policy to address some of our issues, but now is the time for Government leadership. Now is the time to take on those assumptions about what can or cannot be done, and still get re-elected. And, actually, now is the time to do what’s right. We can end child poverty. We don’t have to do it slowly. It doesn’t have to be 50 percent by 2030. We could actually do it next year with comprehensive tax reform that also helped address the increasing wealth inequality that has been caused by the unconventional monetary policy. That is fair and right. The owners of investment properties have become enriched by the Reserve Bank’s response to COVID-19, but they can give some of that back. We can end child poverty. We will all benefit from that. That is part of how we reduce inequality and have effective environmental and climate action in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Green Party will lead on this if our Prime Minister will not.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Thank you, Madam Speaker. As it’s my first speech in the House this year, can I acknowledge you, and begin this year as we usually finish the parliamentary year, by acknowledging the Speaker’s team, the Clerk’s Office, and also the Speaker’s office, who help us make sure we transact our business in wonderful House throughout the year. Can I also acknowledge everyone else in the Parliament, and especially our new class of 2020, who are embarking on their first new year of their long and illustrious parliamentary careers. Can I also acknowledge those who may be bereft of anything else to do, wherever they are, and are listening to and watching my contribution this afternoon.

As my colleague mentioned earlier, I hope everyone has had a restful holiday. Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, I spent some of my holidays in your electorate, enjoying the wonderful Otago Rail Trail, and I thank everyone amongst that for their wonderful hospitality to both me and my family.

In amongst my travels, despite my trying to not engage in politics at the many establishments that I visited, there were numerous conversations with members of the public and publicans on the trail about just the absolute privilege that it was to be able to be operating and having customers and tourists in their area, and I think I was one of many who took the opportunity to discover more of my own country during our Christmas break.

Again, I spoke to people along the trail who were very thankful, considering what is going on in other countries, that we’re able to have what is considered a relatively normal holiday. We were able to go and enjoy it, together with our families—be able to move freely, be able to go and have dinner in a pub in the middle of Central Otago, and be able to enjoy something a bit different in the North Island, for instance. But, certainly, I think there was amongst the public a general consensus as we were celebrating Christmas and new year, and a thankfulness, and not just for the decisions that were made by the previous Government but also, I think, for the fact that we had all pulled through one of the biggest modern challenges globally to be able to get to a point where we could enjoy Christmas like that. So I hope others around this House are able to recharge in that environment, because there are still many challenges ahead of us.

It’s very humbling to be able to speak as a Labour member of Parliament in this still relatively new Government. To have 65 MPs on our side of the House is relatively unprecedented, and is a great signal to our team of the support and trust that the country has in us. But also it is a clear message that we have to take that responsibility seriously and make sure that we are governing in the interests of all New Zealanders, and my message to those who are listening this afternoon is that that is exactly our focus: to make sure that we continue to keep New Zealanders safe as we’ve continued to traverse this global pandemic that is COVID-19, and continue to make decisions that keep us and our communities safe, which, as another speaker in this debate has said, is also allowing us to be in a very privileged position as it comes to our economy.

That is not to say that there aren’t challenges. As we closed borders back in March of 2020, there have been a number of challenges that have been posed to families, organisations, businesses, and sectors.

I will commit, as the Minister of Immigration, to continue the kind of engagement that we have had in the last six months with the likes of the horticulture and viticulture sector. Now, let’s be perfectly honest: this is not a situation that anyone wants, because, for example, at this time of year, there would be, roughly, 14,000 Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers here to pick fruit and who would be able to work on vineyards and work in the fields. That is not able to happen at the moment because of the restrictions that we have at the border, but we have allowed a cohort from the Pacific, a rather large cohort—a group of people from the likes of Samoa—to come here and assist in picking fruit. Now, those from the hort and vit sector would say that that is nowhere near enough, and we realise the challenge that we’ve got. But, again, we will commit to engaging with those sectors directly to do as best as we can to manage the flow of people in to assist those orchards, to assist those businesses in a time of a global crisis and to do as best as we can.

The challenge in amongst that—and I would like to thank a number of sectors in this respect—is that we really do have to take heed of the call that the reliance that New Zealanders on migrant workers in the past has to be addressed, and we need to start training more New Zealanders to do some of the skilled work that we have traditionally relied on migrants to do. We stand firm on that because it is the right thing to do—to make sure that we can get New Zealanders into these jobs in challenging times—with the dual remit of making sure that we’re being vigilant at the border to keep New Zealanders safe, and we will not shirk that challenge.

All the decisions that have been made have been difficult ones, but New Zealand is now benefiting from them. I think you see that in some of the forecasts that we may have had around the likes of unemployment that we’ve seen in the last five months, and the reality that is coming to the fore because of the support that the Labour-led Government offered—and this Labour Government will continue to offer—businesses, whether they be big or small. The likes of the massive investment in the wage subsidy has enabled people to stay in jobs and to stay in work and to be able to continue to support their families and to be able to do simple things like pay the rent or pay the mortgage or keep food on the table. But also, at the macro level, it has seen the likes of unemployment fall at the last survey, and I think, again, when you look at the situation around the world, with economies struggling to contain both a health pandemic and economic crisis, for us to be in this position is an extremely privileged one to be in.

To give a little bit of context there on the unemployment front, with our figures, and I think it’s 4.9 percent—that is in comparison to the likes of 6.8 percent across the Tasman. In the US, it is 8.7 percent unemployment, and there is an OECD average of 6.9 percent. So, again, for our unemployment to be below 5 percent at the moment is a massive indication of the work that the Hon Grant Robertson has done as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to react to an economic shock that we have not seen in modern times.

Again, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge a lot of the officials that made that happen. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the likes of the Ministry of Social Development and the Inland Revenue Department for making the wage subsidy happen so quickly, and also happen so broadly, because I’ve heard story upon story from small-business people that I have managed to have discussions with, where they say they’ve put an application in, and within 24 hours or 48 hours, the money was in their bank. I don’t think we can underestimate the power that not just the money but the swiftness that that financial assistance for those companies met. They could keep staff who were more than staff, who may have been experienced staff who they wanted to make sure that they could look after, but it also said that “The Government’s got your back.” I think we saw the fruits of that at the ballot last year, but we, as a Government, are committed to making sure that as well as having their back, we’ll continue to work hard to protect them from the ills of the pandemic, but also to make sure that we can build back better.

That is, again, what I commit to as the Minister of Immigration: to make sure that we’re having those robust discussions with a whole lot of sectors, again, who have traditionally relied on migrant labour who can’t bring that labour in at the moment and need long-term plans to make sure we are training people and attracting New Zealanders into that work. That will mean training, and the Hon Chris Hipkins has done a lot in that space pre-COVID. We are continuing to do more, but it’s also a robust discussion about making sure we’ve got wages and conditions that New Zealanders will see as attractive, and that has been one of the challenges.

So it’s going to be a great year for the Labour Government. We are committed to keeping the kinds of results that we had from last year, and I look forward to the House in 2021—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member’s time has expired. The member will resume his seat.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): This Parliament’s Speech from the Throne gave us a glimpse into the priorities of this Government: to keep New Zealand safe from COVID-19, to accelerate the COVID recovery, and to lay the foundations for a better future. They are all very noble priorities, wrapped in this cloak of kindness, this kind of warm fuzzy blanket of care that is some kind of invisible force-field around us that makes us all feel very nice. Unfortunately, the priorities and the kindness memo didn’t filter down to all her Ministers, including the Minister of Immigration, who clearly has no strategy and no plan, no transparent decision-making criteria as to who we let through our closed border, who gets an exemption, and with no guiding strategy and no ability to manage competing demands of our managed isolation and quarantine facilities (MIQ). The Minister bumbles from one haphazard decision to the next, leaving in this wake a trail of heartbreaking decisions, and head-scratching decisions, frankly.

One of the unfortunate outcomes of the visa exceptions that he is granting is the very sad case of Trevor Ponting, who was denied an emergency place in MIQ because there wasn’t any space, apparently. We’ve all heard the story. He had terminal brain cancer and it wasn’t deemed to be enough of an emergency situation to warrant a place in MIQ. Now, while his story eventually led to a positive ending after significant pressure from the public and from the press, the underlying problem still remains. The sad thing is that Trevor’s case is not unique. It is an example of a much wider problem, and it is a complete farce that we have a system that requires the media and the public to put pressure on Ministers to make the right decisions to get the spots in MIQ.

The situation arose because of the chaotic and directionless system and a Minister that is asleep at the wheel. Our immigration system, the whole point of it at the moment, is so vital. Now more than ever, it’s to keep us safe, to allow Kiwis to get home, to reunite families, to bring in critical workers, and to help rebuild the economy, and the careful management of these competing demands is the job of our immigration Minister. But he continues to drop the ball.

Visas are being issued in a haphazard manner to film crews, millionaire yachties, nannies, sports teams, comedians, bands, kids’ entertainers, and TV contestants. Each of these applications, if you look at them in isolation, may well have a great case to present to New Zealand in terms of the economic benefit that they offer. But the problem is that you cannot look at these things in isolation. Bands and comedians here to entertain us over a horrible year, film crews here to provide jobs, a cruise ship to generate $6 million in the tourism industry, and an international reality TV show to boost our profile overseas are all very worthy when looked at in isolation, but these cannot be looked at in isolation. There has to be some kind of overarching strategy from the Minister, but clearly there isn’t one.

MIQ spots are very, very limited. This Government has made decisions that they’re not going to expand the number of hotels or places for isolation, and that is their decision. But that means we have to very, very carefully manage the competing demands of the limited capacity in MIQ. For every band, for every TV contestant, for every film star’s nanny and UK comedian granted an exception, there are many others who miss out, and questions will be rightly asked when the balance is perceived not to be right.

The Wiggles or a Kiwi dying of cancer who wants to see his family before he passes? RuPauls’s Drag Race or desperate Kiwis stuck overseas? Comedians and bands and their families or the families of our migrant doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers who have been separated from their partners and their children for a year with no hope on the horizon of being reunited? I will return to this issue later.

These comparisons get made by the public and by us and questions arise, because Minister Faafoi has no apparent strategy to deliver the common-sense outcomes that Kiwis expect. And not only that, he presides over a COVID committee that’s shrouded in some kind of thick fog of secrecy. We have no idea of how they’re making their decisions, who they are issuing exemptions to, and how these cases even get to that COVID committee. Every time we have an Official Information Act request or a question that we put, it is denied, refused, or redacted. This lack of transparency, this opaque decision-making process, sees Ministers and officials make calls with a lack of transparent criteria and the lack of the assessment of the opportunity cost, because the opportunity cost in many cases is a terrible human cost.

On the face of it, a comedian may tick many boxes, but without an overall strategy and clear set of criteria to balance competing needs, the opportunity cost, which in most cases is that human cost, is never weighed up. A comedian brought here to entertain us may sound great but at the expense of a dying Kiwi it’s abhorrent.

Without an overall strategy backed up by a transparent set of criteria around the allocation of border and visa exceptions, we will continue to muddle along as we have been, making random decisions that deliver heartbreaking outcomes that will continue to go down like a cup of cold spaghetti, to borrow a song lyric from The Wiggles.

I want to return to split migrant families for a moment. These families are another casualty of the Minister’s lack of strategy and inability to balance out competing demands on our MIQ system. We have unfolding a desperately awful situation in this country. Hundreds of migrants came to New Zealand at the end of 2019 or early 2020, before the border shut, to secure employment or to start a new position, with the intention of bringing their partners and their children once they settled in. And that’s not an unusual situation. It happens a lot. Often you get them coming here while their families settle up, sell houses, let their children finish out the term at school, and follow soon after. In this instance, these family members are trapped overseas without visas and Immigration are refusing to grant them, and the Minister has remained absolutely 100 percent silent on this issue, and when he’s pressed about it, all he will say is “Oh, we continue to monitor the situation.”

The reality is that there are hundreds of migrants in New Zealand who have not seen their children or their partners for over a year, and these migrants are our nurses, they are our maths teachers, they are our engineers, they are our doctors, they are our psychiatrists. A case in my electorate, that I visited the other day, is a nurse who comes from India. She has a 10- and a 12-year-old boy and a husband at home in India. She came here to do the Competency Assessment Programme, a course which you need to do before you can start nursing here. She did that for six weeks, and secured a job at a local rest home. That rest home had been trying to find a nurse to look after our elderly parents for eight months. They finally secured her. The thing now is that she is looking like she has to leave, because there is absolutely nothing from this Minister to give her any hope that her family will be allowed to come and join her here in New Zealand.

It would be right to think that the Minister would give them some form of indication about what’s happening. Is his silence on this matter giving an indication to these migrants that they should just go home? Is that the case? Or is he thinking that at some point in the future, over a reasonable period of time, we will slowly allow these migrant families to reconnect? I can’t emphasise enough the heartbreak that is going on out there in our communities. These migrants came here often because we requested them. We went out and we marketed for them because we need teachers and we need nurses. They gave up their lives to come here. And the Minister now, through his absolute silence on the issue, is giving them no hope, and they’re really at the end of their tether.

I have had people calling me every single day, as I know every other member in this Parliament has. They don’t expect the floodgates to be opened. They don’t expect their families to all arrive tomorrow. They don’t even expect to pay for MIQ. All they’re asking for is just some form of commitment from this Government that at some point in the future they will be allowed to see their families again. It is galling for them to see comedians and bands, and The Wiggles, and now refugees as well, all in the queue ahead of them, with absolute silence from this Minister. And the reason for that silence is he has an absolute inability to balance competing demands. There are always going to be demands on our system. Yes, we have to bring in people for economic reasons—critical workers, New Zealanders, emergency cases. There has to be a balance of these competing demands, but the Minister is absolutely incapable of doing that and we end up with these heartbreaking situations.

The migrant nurse that looks after our parents, the maths teacher who hasn’t seen his own children in a year and is staring down the barrel of another year, went to school this week to look after and teach our kids, and the Minister is completely silent about the ability for him to have any light at the end of the tunnel. It is abhorrent that the Minister doesn’t have a proper strategy to manage these competing demands, and I will continue to bring up these issues as long as there is no hope on the horizon.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): This is a split call. Paul Eagle.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a privilege it is to speak for a short time in the House, my first for 2021. Look, I want to bring some cheer and encourage the previous speaker to come to the paradise of Rongotai, which includes the Chatham Islands, where I was over the Christmas - New Year period to see cheer, to see a COVID-free community, and to have some fun, because things aren’t all doom and gloom. What I want to do is just acknowledge everyone here in the House today, particularly the new MPs. I want to acknowledge Nicole McKee, a Rongotai resident, of course, for her long and established work in the electorate and an expectation of good things to come and working together on things. So, welcome—nau mai, haere mai to everyone.

I want to just quickly reflect on happenings in the last couple of weeks, and it does reflect the Speech from the Throne, when I look at Māori Crown relations, because recently we were in Waitangi—first of all, I want to acknowledge the strong Labour Māori caucus, because never have I seen a team of spirited but also highly intelligent and hard-working individuals who put together a much stronger partnership with the Crown. For the first time in many years—and I’ve been to Waitangi many times—the words when asked by some of the diplomats there were “How do you sum up Waitangi?”, and I thought, it’s warm and it’s peaceful. Those are two words that I thought I couldn’t claim in other years, but what I saw was a strong effort from the deputy leader of the party, Kelvin Davis; our Minister for Māori Development, Willie Jackson; and the team, including Nanaia Mahuta, who gave a great speech when she was talking to the diplomats there.

But it goes a bit deeper than just Waitangi, even though that is important. I want to acknowledge the Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s work around Māori wards. I’m on the select committee that is going to be working hard over the weekend listening to those who are going to give us some feedback. Look, I’m expecting some lows, but I know, being from local government, that it is high time that we address some of the legislation I’ve heard today. We need to be bold and we need to do some things that we wouldn’t normally do. We’re going to do things like address some of those racist things that are there. Some don’t see it as that, but it is in my view. Communities will still get a say, but I think it’s time for communities to deeply reflect with their mana whenua, with Māori, and go “How do we create a new New Zealand Aotearoa for our patch of this country and let democracy rule with Māori at the table making decisions, too?”

The other point I want to make just briefly is around Matariki. I remember the former Mayor of Wellington coming to me and saying “Hey, look, in June 2018, and four years later in 24 June next year, there will be the first Matariki. That’s highly appropriate.” That took some time too. I think that’s being bold, because I was told at the time by many that it couldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen, we couldn’t afford it—there was every reason put on the table for why this couldn’t happen, but it did and it will, and I want to just acknowledge the work that’s gone on in there, and I’m looking forward to it. I know that the recent celebrations here in Wellington, from Waitangi Day, with our mana whenua, Taranaki whānui, and those on the Chatham Islands—the Moriori and Ngāti Mutunga are also supportive of the work we do, and I’m looking forward to working with them in 2021. Kia ora.

LOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Can I officially congratulate you on being a Speaker. It’s very exciting to see two men and two women who formally preside over this House, and so congratulations. I also want to acknowledge all the MPs who have joined this 53rd Parliament. I have enjoyed listening to many of your maiden speeches and I look forward to your contributions in the House, because, for all of us, it is an absolute pleasure to serve the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, and that’s why we’re all here. I want to emphasise, from the Speech from the Throne and this Address in Reply debate, the priority of our Government.

We make no apologies for prioritising the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders, and having an elimination strategy that ensures that we remain safe whilst, at the same time, allowing our uri—those of us who don’t live in Aotearoa, the diaspora who have chosen to come home. They’re the majority of the people who are venturing through our managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities. They’re returning citizens, and I’m sure all of us would provide that space for them, would allow them to continue to come home. In addition, we have made some allowances for some particular employees with certain business leaders, and for me it really does speak to the social contract that is allowing us to continue to function, our economy to function, and that partnership between Government and business.

I want to thank our front-line workers, our customs and immigration, Air New Zealand staff, cleaners, our health and disability workforce, our district health board and primary health organisation professionals, and all the MIQ staff that have kept us safe. I really did want to focus on an attitude by some of our business leaders, and I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge Kiri Hannifin and the team at Countdown. They were named as one of the businesses where somebody who had COVID had gone to, and it ended up not being right. They weren’t actually visited, but they closed their store and they cleaned their store, and when they were informed that actually they didn’t really have to do it because they hadn’t been visited, what Kiri said was that they’d rather be safe than sorry. They put their workers first and they put the safety of their staff and customers first. The reason I wanted to highlight that was about that precautionary attitude, that vigilance, that focus on people, putting our people first to ensure that we all remain safe and that we can have a relatively good experience in our country, as opposed to what we’ve seen in other parts of the world.

In terms of our priority, I know much has been said about maybe not understanding our priorities, and I also want to emphasise our investment in people and how we’ve done that. I want to focus on the $320 million investment in trades training and our focus on the building and construction area, on agriculture, on the manufacturing sector, on community health, counselling, and care work. The reason that we did that was in response to something that happened when National were in power in 2017. There was a massive reduction in apprenticeships, by 38 percent—50,000 people dropped out of that sector. So we’ve been incredibly proactive, learning from history, but investing with our business leaders in sectors that obviously will keep our economy going. I think that, as a priority, is something that we all should be incredibly proud of. Again, it emphasises the partnership between Government and the business community. Kia ora.

SPEAKER: I call on Damien Smith to make his maiden statement.

DAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Mr Speaker, it’s an honour and privilege to rise today to deliver my maiden speech. Céad míle fáilte, which, for Hansard, in Celtic means “a hundred thousand welcomes”. I welcome my dearest daughter Alexis, and her mum Jo, from the mainland of New Zealand, and Rory, her friend. Thank you, Jo, for bringing me to this great country, giving me the greatest daughter a man could have—a scholar, an athlete, and a leader—and thanks for being a great mum to her. I also with Jo experienced the benefit of getting the great New Zealand passport, a privilege for this immigrant. These gifts have led me to be able to participate fully in this great democracy, the 53rd New Zealand Parliament, and the principles of liberalism. We believe in the liberty and freedom of New Zealanders and their prosperity. Also, thank you to my dearest friends and supporters who’ve come here today and are watching on TV, and to the ACT president, Tim Jago, the board, my fellow caucus members, our leaders and the management of the party, and Sir Roger Douglas.

New Zealand’s fastest-growing centre-right political party is the ACT Party, which in 2020 grew by 900 percent at this election: the greatest campaign result in ACT’s whole history. We listened to the country and advocated for change and for your continued freedoms and rights, and ACT is needed like never before. I’m an Irish-born MP—a list MP—but there have been 61 MPs from Ireland before, from 1853. There have been three Premiers and Prime Ministers—Pollen, Ballance, and Massey—and a Speaker, called O’Rorke. Indeed, Thomas Bracken, an Irish MP in the late 1800s, wrote “God Defend New Zealand”, our national anthem. It was originally a poem published in the Dunedin Times and modified later in the century. So I honour them, and it’s fitting that Peter Ryan, the Irish Ambassador, is here today to witness the latest one. Peter and I intend to put St Patrick’s Day back on the map post-COVID, and we may even apply for a new national holiday on 18 March, because it seems to be in fashion.

So I think I’m the first ACT Party one—is that right, David? Well, then, it’s so. It was a stoking of my passion for the principles of liberalism by David that led me to the ACT Party and to run for office after watching one of his famous speeches in a Belgian bar in Auckland. We call it the ACT public speaking house—the “alternative House”. I don’t want to go over-the-top on that day, but some Churchillian prose may sum up what I thought about your speech: “That chap makes the cosmos out of chaos.” Thank you, David, for the inspiration then, and what you do as the most effective leader of an Opposition party in recent times.

So on to the humorous part: at No. 11, and then No. 10, on the ACT list, I was always the one who was supremely confident of getting here, and I thank the nation and its party votes, and our campaign teams across the country, and local and fellow candidates. I now see New Zealand as the place to do good and see laws have a massive impact on a free or not-so-free society. If the standard falls, then democracy will fall, and bad law, under emergency or not, is a grave insult to the people of New Zealand. The people must be listened to and given time to respond on any legislation.

I honour today my father, Frank, who has passed away, and my darling mother, Agnes, who lives with Vincent, her husband, in the small town of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. They raised a family of four: Brenda, John, Paul, and myself. I guess I’m Ringo! My father was an amateur tenor singer, a great small community-based businessman who was loved by his town. Over a thousand people turned up to his funeral—that was a lot of whiskey—and he never knew he was so much loved till he was gone, which is a very Irish thing to happen. My mum’s early career was as a telephone exchange operator and then a bookkeeper and a mum. She was a precursor to an operator in the Five Eyes network, I think, in my small town! I used to watch her put a call from Mr Smith to Mr Brown with a twinkle in her eye. She was really a natural connector, and the most loving mum a boy could have. She guided me to being the man and dad I am today, and so thank you on behalf of all our family.

On a sadder note, I was raised in a war-torn country, where your freedoms were threatened with a bullet or a bomb at every moment by stepping into the wrong district anywhere in the Irish or British Isles. We were bombed out of our house, with just a 20- to 30-minute warning. We had to check under our cars for incendiary devices, and informants were regularly kneecapped for playing both sides of the fence, but a lot of people who died did not even get a warning. The epoch of these terrible times was in my small home town on 8 November 1987 when the Remembrance Day service bomb massacre claimed the lives of 11 people—10 civilians and one police officer. Sixty-three were injured. This formed a turning point in the Troubles and personified the evils of sectarianism and division, and all the darkness that it brings.

It also showed me how the shutting down of freedom of speech and liberties leaves citizens paralysed and in fear of the State apparatus. From that day forward I chose to believe in the power of peace and freedom of expression, and protecting the actions of people under the law for the person and family and the country. And I have learnt that from that darkness does come light and freedom. Prosperity and democracy are the only path for a Westernised nation, but it can be taken away from you by political or warring factions or bad economic situations.

So those events spurred me on to leave my small town, go to university, and then, with Ireland’s youth who had ambition, you had to leave, because of recessions and property busts, to cities like London, New York, and Sydney—which is unfortunately now not available to the young people of the world. A corporate sales career followed in fast-moving consumer goods, in banking and governance and advisory services at some of the top companies in the world across the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

New Zealand has become home for me, and it’s truly a great, free society, underpinned by a bill of rights, our uncodified constitution, and the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document. And upon these documents rests the New Zealand way of life. Let it be known from the ACT Party that all people should be equal before the law, as guaranteed in article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, religion, or political belief. We should be very proud to live with these values, and ACT honours their spirit as its daily bread. As an immigrant—and aren’t we all—my mind boggles at the lot of the shiploads and waves of early settlers, their resilience, pioneering, frontiering, and enterprising spirit. They drove the cohesion and spirit contained in the fabric and soul of this great nation, but we can and must improve it further to honour them, and not become insular, but leaders, global citizens, and once more unleash the creative and economic spirit and promote the achievements of New Zealand.

It is a privilege to honour all those people that have gone before, and the ACT Party will never forget who went before us and their contributions to building out the nation for a better place: going to war to defend our freedoms, safeguarding the Kiwi way—they came to New Zealand for a new life and travelled further and further for our future. Today I’d like to thank my friends at the Parnell Returned Services Club for their embrace and carrying the torch.

New Zealand is a country of high-achievement thinking and creative enterprise, property rights, and a freer society for family and friends was always a given. We were lucky as a nation because of their arrival and subsequent generations of Kiwis that have made New Zealand the envy of the world. Kiwis have great values in life and how we trade and relate with the world is well known. The New Zealand and the Irish passports means something real, and the ACT Party will be freedom fighting every day to uphold these principles—have no doubt about that, absolutely no doubt.

New Zealand has this incredible opportunity to be a star economy in the 21st century. It is based, and must continue to be based, on a highly developed free-market economy. But some things are changing fast. We fear for its future and we’ll fight for its free markets and liberties, taking everyone along with us, where all dreams of achievement are possible by self-drive.

I ask myself every day when I come into this Chamber, “Is this Government flattening the curve on our competitive advantage with its policies? Is it protecting us? Is it providing services and freedoms? Is it costing too much?” If it’s really good policy and a real solution, we’d like the Government to know that ACT will be super positive and supportive of the Government. However, at present, Government debt, local authority debt, and household debt and spending is unsustainable. ACT believes that the Government needs to lighten the burden it places on the economy. It’s difficult to overstate the level of spending today and what is projected. It seems politicians’ core expertise are spending the nation’s wealth. I call for no more vanity projects or political promised projects. Every dollar must have a cost-benefit analysis, as the Auditor-General states. We have no honey pots to reach into, like the European Union, and the Australian banks in the economy have their own problems, so hence we are on our own. The Government should be continuously cutting spending. Instead, it’s doing the opposite and adding its inflationary problems to the health problem of COVID-19, which is why we’ll be in worse shape in the medium term.

I remember in the 1970s in the UK, inflation was blamed on everything: decimalisation, the eurozone, Eurovision, whatever—and no one blamed the UK Government’s deficit spending as being the problem, and we have to address that. So we will hold the Government to account. If big Government works, then why hasn’t it?

Private debt is unsustainable as well. We must get out of the red. We must say to the Reserve Bank and the banks that the licence to print money or to lend money is a privilege, not a given right. Cheap interest rates have fuelled an asset boom of epic proportions in New Zealand, and we need to recognise that. Two years to get the Resource Management Act through is just not acceptable. If they were a corporation, this new Government would be dead.

A gap has emerged between the real productive economy and the financial economy. The banks must lend to business, roll over loans, and not hoard cash. It would be remiss if money printing and lax lending was our downfall. Debt leverage and low interest rates are tools, granted, but current settings do not augur well for the long run and inflation. This has led to the worst inequality, child poverty, and our largest intergenerational problems I’ve ever seen in my 25 years in New Zealand. And given the Government’s record in first-home buyers’ schemes, this boom in property would not be possible without the bank of mum and dad to underwrite it. I’d like our Prime Minister to understand that the leverage in the system is horrific.

We need to build more houses, like the boomers did. I hear the phrase from the other side saying “Build back better.” Well, we haven’t built anything, so it’s not better. Households are fuelling expenses with more debts. The problems are domestic and we can’t control them. It’s in our own backyard and we can do something about it. We have complete confidence that we can sell to the world—and the world wants our export products, people, and services—leading to new incomes and sustainable incomes and less wasteful spending.

ACT believes that the answer lies with productivity and the most basic right of all: the right to earn a living. Paul Krugman once said that in the long run, productivity is almost everything. It was also Murray Rothbard who said, “It is not true that high wages make prosperity. Instead, prosperity makes high wages.” We all need to realise that productivity, not employer generosity, determines wages. Wage growth and productivity and more jobs will lift us all up. So my friend Stephen has given me a basic formula for long-term growth: it is potential—in brackets, real growth rate—equals productivity growth and labour force growth. We are falling behind on some of these measures, and it’s not good enough to compare ourselves to other countries, for the sake of comfort, with high debt ratio levels, who are not like us at all.

So, in conclusion, ACT will advocate for better solutions in these areas, with common-sense, practical policy. We can’t have a fair, property-owning, lower-tax democracy based on new productivity. We can’t share the benefits together of improved productivity and profit share together. We can reduce debt and change our future. The Government must listen now.

This new Government, the people of New Zealand need to understand, have a feeling of weariness and exhaustion, and they need to show in vital aspects of life like housing and poverty that they are going to get on and do the job. In this country, we need cooperation, not a class war or anyone disadvantaged by artificial market forces. We need to introduce a level playing field for financial services and deposit-taking for Māori and Pasifika people and use credit unions and building societies as well as the big five banks. We need to start managing individuals working for the common good. Then we will have a free, liberty-based, open, and inclusive society.

ACT will be the most highly effective political Opposition, a party of ambition, because on our side of the fence, everyone is held accountable. We have a great opportunity in this century, and it’s up to us to be positive, and it is in our hands. But the next three to four Government cycles will see a challenge around crime, local authority, and household debt—and we have to address that problem. As Dwight Eisenhower said a long time ago, plans are nothing, but planning is everything—and ACT has a plan. ACT trusts the people as sovereign individuals in a sovereign country. This Government has been given a huge trust and managed responsibility, and it’s time to balance the books and manage the systemic risks in the economy and in niche economic investment. Let’s reduce the control of people who want to not be millstones and ground down by taxation and inflation, and let’s allow people to be productive, to succeed and create their own prosperity.

Thank you, everyone, for attending today. You’ve come out in great numbers, and I thank you for that. And thank you, Mr Speaker.

[Applause]

SPEAKER: Order! I’m now just checking to see whether I should give the next speaker her call. I call Brooke van Velden for her maiden statement.

BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an honour to stand here as the deputy leader of the ACT Party and as a member of this 53rd Parliament. I’m humbled by the support shown to me here in the Chamber today and from those watching at home and at work. It is the first time in nearly a decade that ACT has had a deputy leader elected to Parliament, and I will do my utmost to help lead and provide guidance to the eight other new members of our team as we navigate this exciting chapter in our party’s history together.

I wish to thank our volunteers from all across New Zealand for their tireless efforts to make this election a success for ACT. I’m amazed by the number of people who asked for a hoarding and used their own hammer and nails to secure ACT’s message to their fence line and public spaces. I received notes of support from people who had seen the hoardings on their drive to work from the Far North to the deep South.

A real highlight of the campaign, for me, was meeting Chris, a volunteer in Christchurch who was out delivering leaflets on his bike when he handed one to me out on my way to start campaigning. Thank you, Chris, and thank you everyone who gave up your time. It takes initiative and hard work to join a political campaign, but so many people gave up what they could for no other benefit than the hope of a better tomorrow.

To my family and friends, there is no way to truly express my gratitude for your constant encouragement and understanding. To my father and my flatmates, I appreciate every late night and early morning pick-up and drop-off to the airport and every supportive cup of tea that I know is waiting at home.

To the ACT Party board of trustees, thank you for placing your faith and trust in me. I think it says a lot about the board that they selected a 27-year-old liberal woman as the deputy leader of the party. A special thankyou to you, David Seymour, for your mentorship, support, and for always challenging me to do and be better. It is your leadership over these last six years that sees me standing in Parliament today.

I sincerely thank those New Zealanders who put their trust in ACT this election. Thank you for not only electing me but all 10 of us ACT MPs to Parliament. By lending us your vote, you’ve asked us to represent you. During the campaign I heard so many fears, concerns, and aspirations for the future. People came out to public meetings to share their vision for our country, not only for their benefit but for the benefit of their children and their grandchildren. I promise to keep listening. As the parliamentary prayer we say at the start of each day states, “laying aside all personal interest”, I will bring your voice to this House.

My family has a long history in New Zealand. My first ancestors to this country, John Pugh and Norah Dillon, arrived separately before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and my family understands that they were both present at the signing of the Treaty. Norah was a Bounty immigrant from Ireland, a single woman of little means; John, a carpenter.

My last ancestor to arrive was my grandfather, Ari van Velden. He arrived in 1952 from the Netherlands. I’ve heard many stories from him about his village living under German occupation during World War II. I hope we never forget those atrocities of the last century and that we never repeat them.

My family background is made up of different cultures and different languages and well over a century separated Norah, John, and Ari coming to these shores, but they all had something in common: hope. They had hope for a better future, security, and for more opportunities. I believe no matter the colour of our skin or when we or our families arrived in New Zealand, every person who comes here determined to build a better life is a New Zealander. We are all equal and we all belong here.

I was born in Auckland in 1992 to my parents, Robin and Adele. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for how I was raised. Nearly all parents want their child to succeed, but what success means is different for every family. I always knew that no status, level, or wealth, or career I would choose to pursue would earn my parents’ respect. Only my character could do that. My parents showed me the value of honesty, integrity, hard work, and responsibility. I learnt that there is strength in humility. As the youngest of four and the only girl, I’m sure my brothers will seek to keep me humble.

I wish to acknowledge my grandfather Bob, here today, just shy of his 90th birthday. Bob has been one of my biggest supporters and reminds me to never let my standards slip. Bob and Gran were big believers in opportunity through education and raised three independent, strong minded, and determined women, my mother and my aunts, who were all successful in their chosen fields. My mother and my aunts were my role models as a child. Because of them and how I was raised, I believed I could achieve anything that I set my mind to. My mother passed on to me this belief in opportunity through education, and I was fortunate to receive a great education at Cornwall Park District School, Greenhithe Primary School, and St Cuthbert’s College.

The walls of this debating chamber commemorate the sacrifices made by men and women in war for the freedom and lives of others. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my own great-grandfather, Stanley Eyre Baxter, who bravely fought at Gallipoli. For me, the battles etched into the wood here serve as a sombre reminder of the seriousness of the responsibility that we hold. The laws we make in this House have real consequences and impact on every person. It is also a reminder that while we need Government to preserve our freedoms, concentrated power can threaten our freedoms.

I have been privileged to work in Parliament, before being elected, on the End of Life Choice Act. I was never motivated by a personal experience of bad death, but I travelled around New Zealand, hearing people’s personal stories, and I felt how much pain there is in our communities. It became a very deep, personal issue for me to work on. I know in my heart that working on it and passing the End of Life Choice Act through Parliament was the right thing to do. I saw how real change happens when a single member of Parliament with compassion and respect for New Zealanders takes a stand on principle. I want to be part of more positive change in New Zealand. For me, that does not mean putting forward ideas about how I think New Zealanders should act or to impose my morality on others. I am here to listen, to ask questions, and stand up for the dignity and freedoms of each individual New Zealander. I believe in creating laws that respect the inherent dignity of every New Zealander and provide choice and opportunity. That is why I firmly stand in favour of bodily autonomy.

I studied economics and international trade at the University of Auckland. This is when I became an ACT supporter. Economics opened up my mind to alternative solutions to the big issues we face today, such as poverty and the environment. It was a revelation to me at the time that trade and free markets have pulled billions of people from hardship and poverty. It is only through prosperity that people have the wealth and living standards needed to care about the environment. Throwing more money at problems is not the solution. A Government action—whether that’s a new regulation, tax, or hand-out—no matter how well-intended, does not always lead to better outcomes. I believe that we should not judge policies and programmes by their intentions to do good; we should judge them on results. This requires critical thinking—people unafraid to question, challenge the status quo, and put forward new ideas. That’s what I found in the ACT Party.

When I look around New Zealand today, I see an increasing number of families unable to find affordable homes to live in, more children leaving school without the skills they need to thrive, and more people struggling to get the care they need for their mental health or addiction. We need a higher standard of debate, reasoning, and better lawmaking in New Zealand. I want to help build an aspirational society. Every child should have access to a world-class education that inspires a thirst and curiosity for knowledge and provides the foundational building blocks for ongoing learning. New Zealand can be a country where every person has the opportunity to know the feeling of accomplishment that comes from hard work and putting in effort—where the entrepreneurs who take risks, start small businesses, and provide opportunities for others don’t feel bad for striving for a better future for themselves, and their families, and their country. Every person in New Zealand should know that they could one day own their own home.

I want to acknowledge Sir Roger Douglas, founder of the ACT Party, who is present in the Chamber today. Sir Roger had a vision and a conviction of values. He demonstrated that ideas matter, that change is possible. I wish to always remember this. The wellbeing of all New Zealanders depends on us fronting up to the difficult problems with ideas and solutions. As I stand here today, I am confident that our ACT MPs will deliver for you. David Seymour, Nicole McKee, Chris Baillie, Simon Court, James McDowall, Karen Chhour, Mark Cameron, Toni Severin, Damien Smith—I am humbled to be part of your team. We will not let you down, and we will work together to build a better future for New Zealand. Thank you.

[Applause]

SPEAKER: Now, I’ll get a signal at some stage from Dr Kerekere as to when her team are all in.

I call on Dr Elizabeth Kerekere to make her maiden statement.

Dr ELIZABETH KEREKERE (Green): Tēnā rā koutou, rau rangatira mā, wāhine mā, tāne mā, takatāpui mā, tipua mā. Haere mai rā, haere mai rā, whakatau mai rā.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. E tika ana kia tuku mihi ki ngā atua, ngā kaitiaki me ngā tipua e karapoti nei i a tātou i tēnei wā. Tēnā koutou.

Ki te hunga mate, koutou kua riro atu, koutou kua takahia nei i ngā tapuwae o ngā mātua tīpuna, e moe.

Te Ati Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, otirā Taranaki whānui, tēnei te mihi ki a koutou katoa. E raungāiti nei i tēnei rohe ataahua. Nā koutou i rangatira ai tēnei kaupapa.

Huri atu rā ki a koutou katoa ngā hoa mahi me ngā manuhiri tūārangi, tēnā koutou.

He mokopuna tēnei nō te uranga mai o te rā, nō Te Tai Rāwhiti. Nōku te hōnore nui kua whai wāhi mai au ki te whakakanohi i ngā hapori huhua ki te tūranga i te Whare nei.

[Greetings distinguished leaders, women, men, LGBTIQ, the supernatural. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Greetings Mr Speaker. It is only right that I acknowledge the deities, the protectors and the supernatural beings that surround us at this time. Thank you.

To those who have passed away, those who have followed the footsteps of our ancestors, rest in peace.

Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Taranaki Whānui, I would like to acknowledge you all who make up this beautiful area. Your presence honours this occasion.

Turning to you all, my colleagues, the visitors from afar, greetings.

I am a descendant from the rising of the sun, from the East Coast. It is an honour that I am able to represent the many communities in this position in this House.]

To everyone here and your purple fabulousness—yea-ah! As we acknowledge the haukāinga of this rohe and the beauty of their home, I acknowledge the pain and anger facing them. Shelly Bay and Mau Whenua may have replaced Ihumātao and SOUL in the headlines, but the fact is that whānau, hapū, and iwi all over the country are fighting in some form to protect their whenua, their awa, and their moana. Fifty-two successive Governments and their agencies have failed to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, despite it being the contract that confers their right to govern.

In this 53rd Parliament, with the mandate given by Māori to Labour, and, again, the return of the Māori Party and some kick-ass activists joining the Green caucus—shout-out to Teanau Tuiono and Ricardo Menéndez March—I hope that we will collectively create actual systemic change, the constitutional transformation outlined in Matike Mai Aotearoa, for example.

I commit to working with Māori MPs across the House so we can collectively work for what Māori have identified that they need and not what our Government might think they should have or should settle for.

I acknowledge the workers in this Whare—my colleagues and the staff we rely on to do our job. Shout-out to my cousins Al and RJ Smiler, who have worked here for years. To the Speaker, the Office of the Clerk, and staff across Parliamentary Service, you took a bunch of exhausted candidates and inducted us to the bright-eyed MPs you see before you today.

To the class of 2020, I look forward to working with all of you. As we learn how things have always been, let us aspire to how things could be.

Te Whānau Kākāriki, shout-out to our co-leaders—the Hon Marama Davidson, the Hon James Shaw—our party co-convenors, staff, and the volunteer leadership across our provinces, branches, networks, and campaign teams. To our membership who put me high on the list, I will prove every day that your faith in me is justified.

Thank you to all of those who voted to ensure we were the green foam on that red wave, especially those who voted Green just to get me in. I am particularly grateful that I was able to tell my father-in-law, Tuisavelalo Aiono, that his vote got me elected, before he passed away in December last year. He was a solid Labour voter for 70 years, and for the first time, he split his vote. When the Electoral Commission came to his home, he told them he wanted to vote for the “Kerekere Green Party”. No rush, we can talk about the name change later!

So, let’s talk whakapapa. My father was Karauria Tarao Kerekere, but everyone called him “Bison”. He was born to my beloved nana Elizabeth “Betty” Kerekere and the man she was not allowed to marry but got pregnant to, my koro Pani “Bunny” Ruru. As the eldest grandchild, Dad was raised from birth by his grandparents Kahungunu and Barbara Kerekere in Gisborne, where I was born and where I live. We whakapapa to Whānau-a-Kai, Ngāti Oneone, Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata, me Ngai Tāmanuhiri. Through you, Mr Speaker, shout-out to my whanaunga in this Whare, the Hon Meka Whaitiri, Shanan Halbert, and Arena Williams, and to those who came from Gisborne and around the country to be here today.

Dad passed away 15 years ago, after dedicating the last years of his life carving our meeting house, Te Poho o Hiraina at Pākōhai Marae. He was a hard man and a hard worker. He taught me that only those who do the work should have the say. It led to my own mantra that we must get to where the decisions are made, but when we get there, make sure we are qualified to sit at that table. So, Dad, for 40 years, I have done the work and I am uniquely qualified to be here. My father is as responsible for me standing here today as he is for the years of counselling I had to have. True story. Shout-out to Ally Andersun and the Lower Hutt Women’s Centre for that.

When I was 12 years old, my father would introduce me to his friends as the first Māori Prime Minister. So, in the back of my mind, I always thought that I would be here.

I first spoke in Parliament as an 18-year-old, as one of the rangatahi representatives to the Hui Taumata, the Māori development conference of 1984. Although I’ve been asked to consider running over the years since, it was only five years ago, and after I received my moko kauae, that I finally felt I could accept the title of “politician” and all the colonial baggage that comes with it.

Shout-out to Maddy Drew, who told me I should run in 2017, and to current and former Green MPs Jan Logie, Metiria Turei, Marama Davidson, Denise Roche, Mojo Mathers, and Catherine Delahunty, who modelled how to maintain their activist credentials in this place.

When I did my swearing in, I held a copy of the Tai Rāwhiti page from Te Tiriti o Waitangi, known as Page Seven. It was a way of acknowledging that my ancestors signed the Treaty in good faith. It helped to resolve the dissonance I felt, and a little bit of hypocrisy, at having to swear allegiance to the Queen. That whole thing, how the British Empire was built on the oppression of indigenous and black people, just makes it really awkward. Shout-out to all of the people seeking freedom from white supremacy. From the Black Lives Matter movement to indigenous peoples across the world, we stand in solidarity with you. Mr Speaker, I recall that you used that same page when you did your swearing in. One day—maybe today—if I need more time to advocate for iwi of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, I may remind you of that.

My mother is Erin Kerekere, who joins me here today with her best friend and my godmother, Susan, and my Ryan whānau. Mum was raised in Dunedin by her parents, our nana and grandad, Lorna and Tom Ryan, who lived into their nineties. We hail from County Clare and County Tipperary in Ireland. It wasn’t until I visited Ireland several times over the last few years, including with Mum, that I began developing an Irish identity. I welcome the wisdom of my Irish ancestors now it is easier for them to guide me.

Once, I painted an artwork for my mother with the whakataukī “Nau i whatu te kākahu, he tāniko tāku.”—“You made the cloak, I made the border.” It means that she and my father made the cloak—the foundation of who I am—and I added the border, the adornment, which is everything I’ve done with the life that they gave me. From my father, I gained strength and the confidence to meet high expectations: to lead, to stand. From my mother, I learnt organisation, resilience, and survival, to plan, to withstand. From my father, I learnt to say what had to be said and never apologise for it, especially when people did not want to hear it. From my mother, I learnt that people have feelings and there are different ways to say the same thing. From them both and a special connection I have with the goddess Mahuika, I have a drive, a fire that keeps me going through tiredness, pain, and disability. And if we’re talking adornment, I’d like to think I bring a certain rainbow flair to the world—#PaintParliamentPurple.

Shout-out to Anahera, Alex, and Curtis, who made this tarapouahi—muka garment—especially for me to wear today. I acknowledge all the artists, weavers, and performers who express in myriad art forms and with their bodies what is often so hard to capture in words, and to our poets and writers, whose words bring us clarity, solace, inspiration, and vision. If my parents created the foundation of that kākahu, it was my siblings, Desmond, Lorna, and Lynn, who helped me stop it unravelling as we dealt with the rollercoaster that was our childhood and, to be fair, most of my life.

It was my best friends, so many of whom are here today and in spirit, who told me I looked fabulous in that kākahu but who held me up when it grew heavy. And it was my mentors who made sure I wore that kākahu with purpose and clarity. I honour those who have passed: Eti Laufiso, Marjorie Rau-Kupa, Mina McKenzie, Erihapeti Rehu Murchie, and Jennifer Edwards. Of the many still with us, I acknowledge Brenda Tahi and Christina Hurihia Wirihana. They smoothed some of my rough edges and they sharpened some others. I aspire to the powerful and graceful leadership, the Mana Wāhine they exemplify and I strive for. It brings to mind the Māori women who signed away their birthright of moko kauae to join the franchise for women to vote in this country. Every Māori woman in this House shows their sacrifice was not in vain.

E rikarika ana i te whakaaro, ka whai mana anō ōku tīpuna i te kitenga atu o te moko Akauae, te mataora ki te Whare Pāremata. Me te huhua anō hoki ki tēnei! Te Minita Nanaia Mahuta me ngā rangatira o Te Paati Māori, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer rāua ko Rawiri Waititi.

[It excites me to think that moko kauae—moko of the chin—and mataora—full facial moko—has a renewal of status here in Parliament. And the sheer number of them! The Minister Nanaia Mahuta, the co-leaders of Te Paati Māori, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi.]

My own moko kauae represents waewae pākura, the footsteps of the pūkeko. This is not only an ancient term used in carving and weaving but also about holding space, as I do in my work and as my artwork Mana Takatāpui has done, hanging in the Rainbow Room here for many years.

In 1992, one of the best things happened to me: I met my life partner, Alofa Aiono. Shout-out to Val Little and Sue Rostron, who I will forever thank for helping make that happen. I joined the Lauofo and Aiono families from Samoa. I acknowledge Alofa’s mother, the late Lina Malatina Lauofo from Luatuanu’u. Three of her beautiful sisters represent her here today: Aunty Otilia, Aunty Carol, and Aunty Sita. I acknowledge Alofa’s father, the late Tuisavelalo Aiono from Fasito’outa, the last of his line. Tui and Lina were among the first families in Porirua and founding members of the PIC—Pacific Island Christ the King Church. Their baby daughter bringing me home was a little bit unexpected. Over many years, I went from being Alofa’s friend, to her girlfriend, to her partner, to being their daughter-in-law, to their daughter. In honour of Tui and Lina Aiono, I commit to supporting the Pasifika MPs in this House and working for Pasifika peoples here and in the islands.

Alofa and I had to wait 14 years to have a civil union. Shout-out to former Labour MP Tim Barnett for that mahi in this House. Through you, Mr Speaker, shout-out to Labour MP Louisa Wall for subsequently guiding marriage equality into law. Of course, the trappings of monogamous legality are not the be-all or end-all of rainbow relationships, but it is an option we should have. Alofa, with you all things are possible. At our ceremony, we unveiled our tattooed rings and vowed that our commitment to each other was “written in blood, rising above challenge, in this life and into the next.” And so it is.

My third whānau is Tīwhanawhana, a national trust I founded 20 years ago this year to advocate for takatāpui to “tell our stories, build our communities, and leave a legacy.” We believe that to uplift takatāpui—those Māori with diverse genders, sexualities, and sex characteristics—we must uplift our whānau and our rainbow communities. Shout-out to Tīwhanawhana, who have my back today and every day, especially my co-leader Kevin Haunui, our board, and our Kāhui Whakawāhine. Tīwhanawhana is the tūrangawaewae for all my work for our takatāpui Māori and rainbow people.

Change happens at many levels, but some change for takatāpui, Māori, and rainbow people can only happen here. Banning conversion therapy sooner rather than later, and the long-awaited third reading of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill, for example. This election, we broke the world record for queer representation. With four of our 10 MPs being rainbow, the Greens are certainly the proudest party in the proudest Parliament. However, we are all cisgender, meaning we all identify with the gender we were assigned at birth. It has been a very long time since 1999, when the legendary Georgina Beyer was the first transgender MP in the world. I mihi to you, e kui, particularly for your work in representing trans women, whakawāhine, and sex workers in this House.

Historically, Te Ao Māori accepted those with diverse genders and sexualities as a normal part of society. So long as you had your children and did your job, and they acknowledged that those with diverse sex characteristics, who we call intersex now, were sent to teach us. I coined the term “mana tipua” to recognise this whakapapa. Colonisation, however, resulted in the suppression, the criminalisation, and the pathologising of those people, and resulted in takatāpui and rainbow people often not being accepted today. That is why takatāpui rights is a Treaty issue and a Māori priority for the Greens.

The Human Rights Act 1993 currently does not specifically acknowledge the intersectional discrimination and violence experienced by trans, intersex, and non-binary people. My first member’s bill therefore adds two new grounds to the list of prohibited grounds in the aptly named—aptly rather than succinctly—Human Rights (Prohibition of Discrimination on Grounds of Gender Identity and Expression and Variations of Sex Characteristics) Amendment Bill. I hope this will make it easier for takatāpui and our rainbow whānau to take cases to the Human Rights Commission and that the mana of explicit human rights protections will help redress the historical trauma that has occurred. This amendment bill will go into the biscuit tin next week, but I invite the Government to just introduce it, you know, at your leisure, in association with the other legislation I might have mentioned.

I used to worry that I would be forgotten. It was irrational, when a simple online search will lead you to much of my life’s work. But whakapapa is everything. Because of the gendered violence and abuse that far too many of us suffer as children and young people in this country, I could not have children of my own. So I collect them. To well over 100 nieces, nephews, and greats, especially those who have lived with us, I hope you all feel how much the Aunties love you. To all the young people I have been privileged to work with and mentor in Māori, takatāpui, and rainbow communities, you are never just the leaders of tomorrow; you are the leaders we need right now. Many of you I call my kids, and you know who you are, because I expect more of you than anyone else. I need your counsel now more than ever. So to all of the rangatahi here and watching, you are my heart. You are my legacy.

Finally, as I like to say, why do we get up in the morning if not to change the world? I have done that in every other part of my life, and I intend to do it here. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora huihui mai tātou katoa.

[Thank you, thank you, one and all.]

[Applause]

Waiata

SPEAKER: Can I now ask Dr Kerekere’s guests to move on out, because there’s another group that needs to come in. Can I just have the attention of members, please, to indicate to you, because there is a possibility that the next speech mightn’t be finished by 6 o’clock. [Interruption] Yeah, there is one after that as well. So what we are going to do is we’re just going to run through until both those speeches are done, notwithstanding the fact that there’s slight technicalities around dinner time, and at the end of the waiata for the second one, the House will be suspended. It will come back at 7 o’clock, and at that point the votes will occur for the Address in Reply debate. And I apologise to the Hon Peeni Henare, who’s, sort of, lost his speech through my lack of time control.

Can we open the second door as well? Thank you. And all the doors up there—can they all be opened, please? Can the people who are up there move around through the other door? Thank you. I call on Rachel Brooking to make her maiden statement.

RACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Congratulations on your re-election, and thank you for all that you have done to make Parliament family friendly and a welcoming place for a working mother. I saw your little wave to Felix before. I’m very grateful to be here, and I feel the privilege and the weight of this opportunity. It is my privilege to stand alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, our Māori caucus, Labour’s first XV, past student presidents—quite a few up there—and my talented friends and colleagues from the class of 2020.

I look up to the gallery and see my three wonderful children, my family, the faces of friends, mentors, colleagues, campaign volunteers, national council members, previous MPs, and the staff who have supported me to get here today. I look up and also remember the faces of those who have loved me but have passed before I had the opportunity to stand in this House. I believe it is important to express gratitude so that we acknowledge that we stand here not only because of our own efforts and talent but because we are the result of a long-term project and must pave the ground for those who follow.

I have much to be grateful for: born to Tom and Trish—both academic educators who believed in growing individuals and communities. My grandmother, Peg, lived a life centred around giving to others and dedicated much of her life to supporting me and my brother, Peter. My house was noisy. There was a lot of opinion and argument. It taught me the value of knowledge, of listening and learning, and that arguing improves your analysis and leads you to deeply understand what you believe.

I often feel like I won the birth lottery. On top of being part of a loving family, my father is a historian—expert in the history of Aotearoa. This meant that on summer holidays, we would visit pā sites and museums all over the motu. While 11-year-old me probably complained a little bit about these trips, I did come to learn that our history is messy. But not everyone had these same experiences or received the same education at school that I did. At Otago Girls’ High School, we learnt about Hone Heke and the flag pole, Princess Te Pūea, wars, and broken promises. It is bizarre that the complexity of our nation is often ignored or oversimplified, with divisions stoked—“iwi or Kiwi”—instead of addressing what happened, why it happened, and how to address it. Because of my upbringing, I have been grateful for my education, and have never taken it for granted. At the University of Otago, as a student politician, I fought against high fees and student loans because I feared that those unable to sustain the extortionate interest rates of the 1990s would be locked out. Without access to education, the social divide can only grow.

My education led me to environmental law. The law governs how we live in our built and natural environments and how we interact with each other. As boring as it might sound to some, urban planning impacts each of us every day. Communities need green spaces, healthy homes, and access to facilities and infrastructure such as hospitals and public transport to get there. Being reliant on personal vehicles is inefficient and the type of parking creates a barrier to amenities and care invisible to those of us who presume a car and parking space are our birth rights.

My first job was at the PCE—the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—an Officer of this House, where, 20 years ago, we investigated a Treaty-based environment audit system, proposing ways to increase and restore mana whenua involvement in environmental management, which, unfortunately, seems as relevant today as it did then. My commitment to strengthening recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi remains. My legal career has covered environmental law, planning, resource management, and local government law. Most recently, I worked on the six-member Randerson review, which included how we build decision-making partnerships between mana whenua and both central and local government. I look forward to helping this Government reform and improve resource management legislation this term.

For the last 10 years, I’ve also worked as a company director. I have lived the decisions that face business to sustain profitability and care for employees. My directorships included retail and travel industries—some of the most affected by the economic challenges of COVID-19. I value how the strongest economic response has been the best health response, and look forward to working with our Government to help business rebound, recover, and thrive.

Through my time in business and the law, I have come to find that, for me, it is now time to move beyond interpreting the law, to a place where I contribute more directly to the development of the law—law that reflects our unique Treaty relationship. It must be clear and fair. Wherever there are tensions between interests, there will be trade-offs. These trade-offs must be explicit, open, and equitable, with decisions clearly and simply stating the justification for those trade-offs.

Politicians before me have not accepted that simply because we are a small country, we should have small ambitions—quite the opposite. From the work of the suffragettes to convince “King Dick” that women should have the vote, the creation of the welfare system and universal healthcare that recently saved the life of my father, and the stand to be nuclear free and not accept foreign interference when the Rainbow Warrior was bombed, New Zealand leads the way in being an open democracy with minuscule corruption levels. Government is accountable through the independent media, institutions such as the Ombudsman and Auditor-General, the independent judiciary—some of whom are here—a public select committee process to scrutinise legislation and offer ideas through submissions, and an Opposition that can choose to agree or disagree. All of this means that Governments are encouraged to serve the interests of citizens and not the elite, and to respond to facts and not fake news—thank goodness.

What we do here matters, and we can do better. To do better, we must be informed by our past. As a mother, I am motivated by my commitments to my children, and that means caring for the world that they will inherit. My children ask a lot of questions about their world. My son, Felix, has the awkward habit of asking people if they voted for Labour, and my daughter, Orla, wants to know why there is no musical about the Treaty, when the US has Hamilton.

As a very young child, that same Orla asked if ash would frustrate the ducks. There is so much that we do that frustrates our indigenous flora and fauna, from the obvious acts of draining a wetland or chopping down a forest to the insidious and irregular negative effects of climate change. We know that climate change is caused by our emission of carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide, with the most vivid example being the burning of fossil fuels—oil, coal, and gas. There was the international Paris Agreement to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees’ increase, and our Government has recently declared a climate emergency. The last Parliament unanimously passed the zero carbon legislation that created the independent Climate Commission that has just produced its draft budget, describing how New Zealand can be a low-emission country—that is, to reduce our reliance on using fossil fuels and reduce biogenic methane and nitrous oxide in agriculture. There is a lot that New Zealand can do to decarbonise, some of which is reflected in the Government’s commitment for departments to be carbon-neutral by 2025, today’s announcement of 22 new low-emission transport projects, and changes to public transport including the phase-out of public diesel buses by 2035.

Despite the negative effects temperature rises have on our biodiversity and built environments, there is often resistance to decarbonise, with cries of “But we in New Zealand are so small! We can’t make a difference!” Tell that to the suffragettes, to the proponents of a nuclear-free New Zealand, to the elderly, immune compromised, and healthcare workers who stood to face the heaviest weight of the wrecking ball of COVID19. This Government led the world in an iterative and transparent way to the COVID challenge. We can take the same values-driven, evidence-based, iterative approach to decarbonising. And if we want to lead the world in agriculture and tourism, I believe we must aggressively decarbonise our country. And our Pacific neighbours need us to do our best.

There is also the need for adaptation. We have already changed our future world, and the question now is: by how much? The scale and time frames for the need for adaptation are wildly variable, depending on how the world—including New Zealand—responds to the decarbonisation targets. So that makes planning for adaptation especially complex and difficult, but not insurmountable. In Dunedin, we have a number of areas affected by heavy rain events synonymous with climate change. The homes affected are not expensive coastal properties. If sea level rise is not a factor, then there are many interventions that can be made to enable people to live safely in these areas for now—things like building higher off the ground, over-grounding infrastructure, taking much greater care in stormwater management, and more. None of this is the status quo, and more might be needed depending on what happens globally with those decarbonisation targets. So we have to be able to accept the complexity and the need for an iterative approach. An intervention that works for the next 30 years may not last for the next 100 years—but it might. We must not simply throw up our hands and give up on areas where people have built communities over generations without first trying to change by working collectively with central government, councils, mana whenua, and local communities. Planning for different scenarios and trigger points is required.

To achieve both decarbonisation and engage planning for adaptation, there is a need for the reform of the Resource Management Act and the status quo that it entrenches. Regional spatial planning that includes the climate commission’s adaptation plans, as well as mitigation measures such as walkable cities, are sensible. Focusing on enabling positive climate mitigation measures and planning legislation is also important, and legislation and funding for enabling all relevant parties to work on equitable and iterative adaptation solutions is also needed. It will need to be principles driven, to allow for the different circumstances communities will, or may, face around the country.

I am so grateful for this Government’s ambition to tackle complex issues. We now have a Wellbeing Budget that helps improve the discussion of what is trying to be achieved in one area and how it relates to a wider range of outcomes, including natural resources and communities. Breaking down silos is necessary to this approach, and is started with the amendments to legislation around the operation of the Public Service. The work of Government to build an inclusive future and protect the environment is a long-term project. It requires detailed thought, argument, listening, compromise, reflection, evaluation, and iteration. Progress can be frustrating. It can be slow. It is not always linear, but it is built on the foundations of an open and optimistic Government that believes that what we do here in Aotearoa matters to the world and what we do in this House matters to New Zealand. I am grateful for the chance to stand in this House and am under no illusions about the scale of the task ahead.

So, thank you to family and friends who encouraged me into politics, before and after university, and to one John Angus, who would annually ask me when I was going to stand—a gentle prod and confidence booster. Thank you to those I campaigned alongside, David, Ingrid, Liam, and John, and to the volunteers out in the rain and snow—this was in Dunedin and Otago—who share the Labour vision and offer many hours of work but never seek the spotlight. To my children, Zac, Orla, Felix, I love your optimism, curiosity, energy, generosity, and how you always welcome others. To my husband, Chris Jackson, thank you for your ongoing support and encouragement, and for our shared belief that achieving change is slow, difficult, and requires patience and sacrifice, yet is so very worth it.

I am grateful to be a member of this House, to be part of a country that believes that what we do here matters to our neighbours and to the world—to be part of a Government that reflects inclusion, diversity, that embraces complexity, and seeks to make long-term change. If I can contribute and play my part in improving our environment and help Aotearoa become a world leader in decarbonisation and addressing the complexity of adaptation, then my time in this House will have been well spent. Thank you.

[Applause]

Waiata

SPEAKER: We’re going from “team Brooking” to “team Boyack”. In the knowledge that MPs—I prefer them to have food before they come back. Could we get the change going, please? While—oh, I’ll turn the mute off. I turn the mute on when I sing, for good reasons! Now, members, we haven’t quite finished the time for the debate, but we will have finished by the end of the next speech. And what I’m going to do is seek leave now for the vote to be held now in order to save us a bit of time later on. Is there any objection to that process being followed? There appears to be none.

The question is that the amendment in the name of the Hon Judith Collins be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the following words be added to the Address: “That in the context of a Government that is borrowing more than any other in our history, and the burden this leaves future generations, the Government will be held to account for the poor quality of its spending. The Government will be asked to focus on the core issues that matter to New Zealanders, to urgently reform planning rules and make it easier to build houses, to rein in escalating house prices, to build more roads and unclog our cities, to stop work on the light rail distraction, to grow our productivity, to address falling outcomes in education, to improve outcomes in law and order, and to balance its books.”.

Ayes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Noes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Amendment not agreed to.

SPEAKER: The question now is that the motion that a respectful address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency’s speech be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That a respectful Address be presented to Her Excellency the Governor-General in reply to Her Excellency’s speech.

Ayes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

Presentation to Governor-General

SPEAKER: The Address from the House of Representatives to Her Excellency the Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy, Chancellor and Principal Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Principal Companion of the Queen’s Service Order, Governor-General and Commander in Chief in and over the Realm of New Zealand, reads:

YOUR EXCELLENCY,

WE, the House of Representatives, thank you for the speech addressed to us when you opened this Fifty Third Parliament.

We assure you that the matters referred to in your speech will receive our careful consideration.

Ko te tūmanako nei kia mahi tahi tātou katoa.

[Our hope is that we will work together.]

Address adopted.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move, That Mr Speaker, accompanied by the mover and the seconder, and other members of the House, present the Address to Her Excellency the Governor-General at a place and time to be appointed by Her Excellency.

Motion agreed to.

Maiden Statement

Maiden Statement

SPEAKER: We now come to the maiden statement of Rachel Boyack. I’ll just indicate to those who weren’t in the Chamber previously that at the end of this we will break, but we will resume at 7 o’clock.

RACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi o te motu, tēnā koutou, E tāpiri ana aku mihi ki ngā iwi katoa o Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka-a-Māui. Tēnei, ka mihi atu ki a koutou katoa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora mai tātou.

[Greetings Mr Speaker. To the authorities, the voices, the communities from throughout the country, greetings. I would like to particularly acknowledge those from the top of the South Island. My profuse thanks to you all. Greetings one and all.]

Mr Speaker, my congratulations to you on your re-election as Speaker. I wish to acknowledge the support you have provided to the class of 2020 and our induction into this place, as well as the shared connection we have to a special part of New Zealand, the Hutt Valley.

My grandparents Edgar Boyack and Alice Robinson married in 1946 and settled in Lower Hutt, building their family home using a Government grant on High Street in Naenae, where they raised their three children: my father Jonathan, Aunt Rebecca, and Uncle Nicholas.

Grandpa had travelled to Whanganui in the 1920s from the UK. As a schoolboy, he suffered from rickets. Later, he left school to work on the boats, serving as a member of the merchant navy during the Second World War. Grandpa spent his life working in the marine industry, eventually becoming an adviser to the Minister of Transport, where he advised on the marine inquiry into the Wahine disaster.

Grandma was the boss of our family committee. If you needed the information, she was your resident go-to. Growing up, our grandparents would always interrogate us to ensure we were choosing the right road. None the less, I’m still sure they would be very happy and proud that I’ve taken the left road in this House.

I am missing some of my family today, including my father Jonathan, stepmother Lizzie, and brothers William and Piers, who are in the UK. It is nearly 5 a.m. in the UK, and I am hoping that my father has figured out how to make Parliament TV work. I apologise in advance to parliamentary IT if he’s ringing you right now, demanding your assistance.

Dad was one of a new crop of area health board chief executives in the 1980s. He worked with Māori leaders in Whanganui to introduce Māori-led health initiatives into the mainstream health service. I spent some of my childhood running around marae and listening to my father speak in te reo in the wharenui. I am enormously proud to be his daughter and of the contribution he made to the New Zealand health system.

On the other side of my family, my maternal grandfather, Alan Earl, was a member of the National Party, putting his name forward for selection for the mighty seat of Wairarapa, which has now rightfully returned to this side of the House. Pop passed away when I was two years old, but I like to think I inherited my singing voice and my sense of social justice from him. My mother recalls that his selection chances were over when he was asked if there was an issue he would cross the floor for. He answered yes: the Springbok tour. Pop and my Granny Molly also gave me my Anglican faith and my musical genes.

My mother, Jenny, is my hero. In the early 1990s, we were a sole-parent family. Financially, it was a scary time. Mum made many sacrifices to give our family the opportunities that every Kiwi kid deserves: to learn, play, thrive, and participate fully in our communities. I don’t know how she balanced the budget to ensure we all had music lessons or how she juggled five different sports games every Saturday, but she did it. I will always stand up for solo parents and ensure they have the financial and community support to raise their children and contribute to our society. I am proud of the steps our party has already taken to support solo parents, but there is more work to do. Reinstating the training incentive allowance will be an important first step.

When I joined the Labour Party in 2005, it was my intention to deliver leaflets, not to run for office. It wasn’t until after I married my husband, Scott, and moved to Nelson that the idea of running for Parliament became a possibility and then a reality. I spent three years as student president at our local polytech, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. We campaigned to keep courses running, like the supported training programme for students with intellectual disabilities and the adventure tourism programme. After that, I spent six years as an organiser with FIRST Union and two years as a health and safety coordinator for the Anglican Diocese of Nelson. I am grateful for the support and friendship of my former colleagues.

The constituency seat of Nelson is the oldest seat in New Zealand, having existed for 168 years. To Dr Nick Smith, I acknowledge you and your service in this House for 24 years on behalf of the people of Nelson. He may not recall the first time we met, but he encouraged me to consider joining the blue team. I am proudly wearing red today. Thank you, Dr Smith, for your passionate and dedicated service to the people of Nelson over many years.

All electorate MPs will say that their electorate is the best in the country. Mine really is. We are blessed with high sunshine hours, a warm climate, and some of the best food producers, like Pic’s Peanut Butter. Nelson is an electorate that mixes town and country. Our accountants, business people, manufacturers, and transport drivers support our horticulture and farming industries operating in our neighbouring Tasman district. During my time as MP, I hope to see our two councils working together even more to progress the goals and aspirations of our region of Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka.

We are an electorate of creatives. We are the city where Rockquest and the World of Wearable Arts began. We are an electorate of environmentalists. We are home to the largest fenced sanctuary in the South Island and the oldest environment centre in Aotearoa.

Nelson is becoming more diverse. We are proud to be a refugee resettlement centre. I acknowledge our Chin and Burmese communities and the terrible attack on democracy being waged on your homeland.

I am drawn to this historic place because I want to make change and see change happen for my community. Nelson is one of the most unaffordable places for people to buy or rent a home. This is what I want to change. A warm, stable, affordable home is the basic building block needed for families and communities to thrive. I am particularly keen for property managers to be registered. This is something I’ve personally advocated and campaigned for. I liken the relationship between tenant and landlord to that of employee and employer. There is an inherent power imbalance. I am firmly of the view that if we can improve people’s housing, we can improve other outcomes for people: health, mental health, employment, education, and economic outcomes. These are the issues I will focus on for Nelson for as long as I am privileged to hold the seat in this place.

Mr Speaker, your predecessor in your former seat of Pencarrow, Sonja Davies, played an important role in Nelson’s political history. While I am the first woman MP for Nelson, Sonja Davies could have—and I say should have—been its first woman MP. Sonja’s legacy in Nelson is her opposition to the then National Government’s decision to remove the railway. Sonja, alongside other women activists, protested on the railway lines in an attempt to stop them being ripped up. I think that we can safely look back and say that Sonja was right.

In Nelson, we have some gnarly transport issues. It has led to deeply divided communities. My view is that we need modern transport solutions that promote active transport like walking and cycling, better public transport, and less reliance on cars.

Sonja’s railway lines, now known as the Railway Reserve, should be protected as a walking and cycling route. Sonja was loved by the people of Nelson. It is an honour to represent the community that she served. While I never had the privilege of meeting her, I hope to ensure that her legacy lives on in this House.

One of the reasons I align with the Labour Party is my view that we must honour our collective rights as well as the rights of the individual. Here in Aotearoa, the greatest expression of the rights of the collective has been seen through the settlements reached between iwi and the Crown and our honouring of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

In his maiden speech, one of my predecessors, and the former Labour MP for Nelson, John Blincoe, noted his desire to see the eight iwi of Te Tau Ihu have their claims settled with the Crown. I am pleased to stand here in the knowledge that the Te Tau Ihu settlements have been completed. We are seeing the benefits, with many of our local iwi embarking on economic development and housing projects that will support economic and social justice for our whole community.

My own expression of collectivism is best witnessed through my time working as a union organiser with FIRST Union. The introduction of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991 has been one of the key drivers behind inequality in Aotearoa. My generation and those who came after me have mostly missed out on the experience and benefits of an organised workplace and the higher wages and conditions that come with that. In Nelson, the workers of Pak ’N Save Richmond have been struggling for a collective employment agreement and fair wages and conditions for over six years. The late union leader Helen Kelly used to use the phrase, when describing our broken system, “It’s by design.” It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to design a system that delivers fairness for working people.

During the lockdown, New Zealand’s retail workers were finally recognised for the skills and essential workers that they are. They deserve fair wages and conditions at work and no less than a living wage. Union delegate and leader of the campaign in Nelson, Jenny Wells, is here today. Jenny, you are the staunchest, bravest, and most determined union member I have ever met. I am now bringing the fight for supermarket workers to Parliament. Before I leave this place, I wish to see a fair pay agreement for all retail workers in New Zealand.

The journey back to this place has been a long one for the Labour Party in Nelson. There are many local people who have waved the Labour flag in Nelson during good times and bad, and who always believed we could hold the seat again. In particular, I wish to acknowledge the personal support given to me by Kate Reilly. I am wearing the kākahu you had made for me and that was placed on my shoulders by our dear friend the late Betty Don.

I want to make special mention of my dear friend the Hon Maryan Street. You paved the way for me. Thank you for mentoring, prodding, and supporting me to stand for Parliament.

To my local team from the 2017 and 2020 campaigns, thank you all for going above and beyond to help us win this seat back for Labour: Nick, Debbie, Dan, Keith, Christine, Bruce, Jo, Fraser, Dave, Erin, Steve, Wendy, Bill, Fatimah, Evey, Denise, Maree, Ian, Kelsey, Carol, Peter, Vienna, Leah, Will, Lennox, Jasmine, Ashton, Ryan, Theo, Silas, and our amazing team of doorknockers, leaflet deliverers, phoners, and sign wavers—thank you.

Thank you to the Labour Party, especially Claire Szabo, Rob Salmond, Tim Grigg, Dianna Lacy, and Hayden Munro. Thank you to the Prime Minister for coming to Nelson and putting your support behind our campaign and our new hospital. A special thanks to my colleagues on the Labour Party Policy Council, especially David Do. You are the quiet workhorse of the Labour Party, and this campaign win belongs to you too.

To my campaign manager and friend Brian “One More Door” McGurk, there are no words that I can express to thank you for all you have done for me and the Labour Party in Nelson. You are one of the most decent people I know, and a great mate.

To my staff team—Sarah Kerby, Matt McCrorie, and Valmai Palatchie—I am incredibly proud of you all, and I look forward to the contribution that you will make alongside me.

To all of my siblings—Rachel, Dean, Chris, Bob, David, Amy, Richard, Lauri, William, Emma, Simon, Piers, Gabrielle, Jamie, Richard, and Vivi—thank you for providing the support that only siblings can provide.

To my nieces and nephews—including the adopted ones—you are the reason I am here. We are here to make rules that make this country and this world a better place for you.

To my mates Paul McMahon, Sarai Tuhua, and Andrew and Christine Isfree-Irvine, thank you for being the best listeners and for always having my back.

Scott—I don’t know where he is—thank you for the endless cups of tea, morning coffees, your sense of humour, unconditional love and support, and for looking after the Labrador I brought home from the SPCA when we went to get a cat. Thank you in advance for remembering to read the washing instructions on my clothes. I love you.

My Christian faith is an important part of who I am and the kind of politician I hope to be. I have also been blessed to spend time and become friends with members of our Muslim community—you are my brothers and sisters. I hope that I can fulfil the requirements of Micah 6:8 to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

I chose a waiata to finish to honour my friend and iwi leader the Venerable Harvey Ruru, who could not be here today. We often sing this hymn together in Whakatū as a tag team. I know that he will be watching and his deep baritone will be booming through the valleys of Toi Toi in Nelson South. I will sing across Te Moana-o-Raukawa for you, Harvey.

Whether my time in this House is long or short, I pledge to do my best for all the people of Nelson-Whakatū who have put their trust in me. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Applause]

RACHEL BOYACK:

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder

Consider all the works thy hand hath made,

I see the stars, I hear the roaring thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Sitting suspended from 6.29 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Bills

Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 9 February.

Hon JACQUI DEAN (Assistant Speaker—National): For the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill, Simon Court has the floor and has three minutes should he wish to use it.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you, Minister Shaw. ACT opposes this bill because it’s a needless complication to a hugely complicated system devised by the climate Minister and this Government, and it won’t help New Zealand reach a target of net zero emissions by 2050, which is what New Zealand has signed up to at Paris. It’s so complicated it sounds like an excuse for a failed policy.

Now, I’ve been in the principal’s office. It sounds like Mr Shaw has too, because the explanation we heard last night sounded like “The dogs ate my homework, Sir.” I haven’t heard an explanation so complicated since one of my boys had to explain why he hadn’t done his homework.

Look, ACT opposes this bill for the same reason we opposed the regulations that this bill seeks to amend, because we believe the best way to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions is to actually allow business and individuals to choose how they mitigate their climate risks. We believe that if we’re going to have a trading market we must allow willing buyers and willing sellers, and the bill amending the climate change regulations does nothing to establish a credible and enduring market-based system to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.

ACT supports an emissions trading scheme which allows for trade-offs between businesses which emit carbon dioxide and those which capture it. Some businesses like a steel mill, a pulp and paper mill, a cement plant, a dairy factory can only reduce emissions and become more efficient to a certain level, because their industrial and trade processes will always produce a certain level of emissions no matter how efficient they become. New Zealand depends on locally made steel and cement, packaging and food products, and those businesses should be able to use a carbon trading market to find the lowest-cost way to mitigate their emissions.

Last night we heard the Minister give a detailed explanation. It sounded more like an excuse than a reason why more Government interference in this market is needed. That law is not even 12 months old. It’s not road tested. It doesn’t even come into effect until 15 March this year and yet it’s already been deemed a failure.

ACT’s position is this. New Zealand business should have the ability to purchase high-quality credits from any willing seller anywhere in the world. And New Zealand business should not be subject to the invisible hand of Government—a Minister who will have the power to set a confidential reserve price at auction, even though the emissions trading scheme apparently is the best way for New Zealand to meet its Paris targets. For that reason, ACT opposes this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. I stand to take a brief call to support the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon James Shaw, for his leadership in this area, climate change, and in bringing this bill to the House in the House’s first sitting of the year. As a Government we’ve started to tackle Aotearoa New Zealand’s long-term challenges, and climate change is one of the biggest.

The bill introduces a process to set a confidential reserve for auctions in the New Zealand emissions trading scheme. Last night the Minister went into detail to explain to us what that is. So really this bill amends the Climate Change Response Act of 2002 and the Climate Change (Auctions, Limits, and Price Controls for Units) Regulations 2020. Its purpose is to ensure that when the emissions trading scheme units are auctioned for the first time next month, in March, they are sold at a price that reflects our activity in the secondary market. It is a technical—as the Minister stated last night—but necessary amendment which will effectively prevent sales and prices significantly below the prices of New Zealand units sold on secondary markets, so the auction sales do not unduly—unduly, I said, Madam Speaker—affect secondary markets.

Late last month—not long ago—on 31 January, He Pou a Rangi, the Climate Change Commission has laid out an achievable and affordable road map for meeting our emission reduction targets that will create new economic opportunities and reduce most household bills. The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern’s response to He Pou A Rangi, the Climate Change Commission report, was, and I quote, “The report demonstrates we have the tools we need to achieve our target, but calls on us to accelerate our work. As a Government we are committed to picking up the pace and focusing much more on decarbonisation and reducing emissions”.

The New Zealand emissions trading scheme is one of our main tools for helping to meet our climate targets. As a member of the Environment Committee I look forward to discussions on this matter further, and on that note I commend the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill to the House. Malo.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): This is a split call. I call Erica Stanford.

ERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, different year, same old Government. So much for “New year, new you”, because here we are, back again, doing the same old things that we did all of last year: a bill raced through under urgency completely unnecessarily, because we find ourselves in quite a curious spot.

Thanks to the super-sleuth work of Mr Scott Simpson, we have been able to uncover that this is not just a simple case of “Oh dear! Oopsie, we made a mistake and we’ve got to fix it up very quickly because we’ve got an auction coming up.” This is an issue that the Government and the Minister knew about a year ago—in March last year—and despite what Minister Wood said last night about it being some kind of conspiracy theory, which is what we all know is the word du jour to bat away uncomfortable truths, the fact of the matter is it’s in black and white. There was a Cabinet paper taken to committee which outlined the need for a mechanism—a secret mechanism—that was worked out secretly to set a secret reserve price so that the secondary market wouldn’t be compromised, and that’s perfectly fine. But the point is that the Minister knew about it at this point, but he refused to take the advice, or he refused to acknowledge that advice, that actually—and a Cabinet paper says that he recommended proposing regulations be set without providing a technical price at this time.

So that was a year ago. Now, I went back over his speech last night and had a good look to see exactly what Minister James Shaw said, and whether or not he acknowledged that this is the kind of thing that’s been kicked around for some time and thought about, but nowhere does he say that at all. In fact, the only thing he says is that “Following the passage of the subsequent reform bill, there was agreement … that a confidential reserve price was necessary”. Well, even if that is the case, that was in September last year. Here we are in February, racing something through urgency, giving ourselves only three weeks to have a look at this very complicated piece of legislation, and we all know how mind-numbingly—

Simon Court: Boring.

ERICA STANFORD: It’s a really tough piece of legislation. It melts your brain—it really does—and this is an issue that we need to kick around in select committee properly and properly consider.

The National Party are all, obviously, in favour of the emissions trading scheme (ETS). After 25 years of debate, it was the National Party who introduced the emissions trading scheme, in 2010. We are in favour of that, and, to be fair to the Minister, we’re also in favour of any technical fix-ups that need to happen along the way, and we’re open to that—as we are today—and we will vote this bill through to select committee. But the point is that we shouldn’t be doing this now. We could have been doing this in March last year, if the Minister had actually understood the scale of the problem properly, or even in September last year, when he realised that, actually, this needed to happen.

We have left this till the very last minute to tackle what is, as I said, a brain-melting bill. I sat on the select committee last year and I feel for new members of that committee this year, who have to grapple with the technicalities of this, because it is really difficult to comprehend, and there are some questions that we want to be able to ask and have time to properly digest. Some of those questions are around: is the Minister the correct person to come up with this mechanism—this secret mechanism—which, effectively, sets the price. Is he the right person to do that? Is this even the right mechanism to fix the problem? Maybe there are other things that we could be looking at. But what it looks like is that the Minister has decided that this is what he wants to do, and we’re going to be rubber-stamping it through the select committee.

But there are questions, like I say, that need to be asked, because, effectively, the Minister is setting a price that will then flow through into our gas prices. Is he the right person to be doing that? I don’t know the answer to that question right now; I’m just posing it.

It’s one of the things that we should be looking at in a proper select committee process and, if we’d had the time, we could be doing that, and, indeed, we had the time. We had the time all of last year to be doing this in a proper manner, giving us a proper six-month select committee. Even if we did it in September last year, we could have had a number of weeks last year, and, into this, you could properly have kicked this around. It is a difficult bill to get your head around. There are lots of complications. It needs to be looked at properly.

While we support this bill and we support the ETS, this has been a horrible process, and the Minister really should have owned up to that when he got up to speak last night. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): Thank you, Assistant Speaker Dean. The Māori Party has decided not to take the call. This is my first time speaking in the House so I want to start by, first of all, congratulating you on your new position.

I want to add to the support for the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill. Two weeks ago, I stood on the footsteps of Parliament with School Strike 4 Climate action. These are groups of eight- to 18-year-olds who are fighting for climate action. On the stairs there were my parliamentary colleagues from the Labour Party, including my friend here Angela Roberts, but there was also Minister James Shaw, and I want to acknowledge his contribution to the climate change discussion, as well as bringing this bill forward. It shows his commitment to the cause and to the next generation. So thank you for bringing this forward. I really support it.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Yes, that was a bit of a rush, wasn’t it? I was expecting the new member to take the full opportunity to talk about this topic, because it is obviously a vitally important thing for the Government and for Minister Shaw, who I see in the chair, and also for New Zealand to make sure we get this right.

I’m sure most people have covered off this issue, but it is a case of commercial naivety. This is a case of commercial naivety, and I’m surprised, given the background of the Minister, that we’ve arrived at this situation, because we all know that we have an existing trading scheme—the emissions trading scheme (ETS)—where you can buy units freely. Obviously you have to pay for them, but you can freely exchange them over the system by bidding, and that’s fine. But this is about setting a new primary market for when the Government decides to issue new units into the market, and this is the system. What’s staggering is the mechanism for pricing this. The primary market is like every other Government bond that is issued into the market. There’s no difference. There’s no mystique about the trading system being proposed. Mr Shaw, I’m sure his advisers, no doubt, just had to go down to the trading floor and say what happens with Government bonds at the moment? The simple situation is, if you are bidding for a Government bond, a new issue of Government bonds, you as the bidder bid the quantum, how many units you want to buy, and the price you’re prepared to pay. Of course, it’s a cascade down to the level where the amount of bond is totally extinguished, and that is the bottom price.

Obviously, this is the way that has been proposed for this primary market. Of course, we know we’ve got our first auction on 15 March.

Stuart Smith: No, 15 March is the commencement date.

ANDREW BAYLY: Sorry, commencement date, but the trading system is going to happen very quickly. That’s why we have to have this bill completed by the 4th.

So the issue is, anyone following any market in the world, whether it’s Government stock in New Zealand, whether it’s shares on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, whether it’s trading oil or any other grain around the world—all the markets operate under certain principles. The thing that strikes me is why the Government—and I understand it went through the Cabinet, went right through the Cabinet, and no one seemed to pick up on the fact that this system, without a floor to it, without the person, in this case the Government, being able to set a minimum floor, then you are totally at the vagaries of a market. So it’s like offering your house without setting a reserve. So if you get one bid for a dollar and you never set a reserve, then, hey presto, you sell for a dollar.

So, for a Cabinet to go right through all the processes, committees, and to get to that stage—they have a sign-off—and then realise subsequently that there was an issue that they may end up being in a situation where the Government issues a whole lot of units, and it could be millions of units, to find that the strike price, which is the term, is below the current market. It could in fact be below ETS, the secondary trading market, right now. I just think it’s an indictment, actually, on commerciality of members of the Government, and particularly the Cabinet, who allowed this to go through, and not one person must have stood there and gone, “That’s not how markets work.” So here we are, rushing through a piece of legislation under urgency, or just about, I understand—under a real strict time frame—and we’re here to deal with an issue that had been flagged but deemed not sufficiently robust or important enough to be dealt with.

So I don’t think I need to say any more, but here we are. We’re wasting Parliament’s time, and we know the cost of that. This should have been dealt with some time ago.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Thank you very much, previous speaker—Andrew Bayly—for agreeing that we need a reserve price, which is exactly our point. May I commend this bill and even get excited about it. This is not a mind-numbing bill. This actually goes to the heart of our climate change response. For the people in my electorate in Taieri, who have been affected by climate change, who have experienced trauma and financial damage through flooding, this is actually a very important piece of legislation. In fact, on 2 January, I was back in the electorate helping people in Middlemarch to clean up because they are constantly facing these more frequent challenges of climate change.

Thank you to the previous speaker for also pointing out the urgency which is required, which is that we have an emissions trading scheme auction in March. We know that the world will be watching and we have a platform to enhance the confidence both in our auction process and in New Zealand’s wider climate change reform package. There are good reasons for urgency. This is an anomaly. It incentivises behaviours. It mitigates against the potential for collusion. There was cross-party support for this, and as the Minister quite rightly pointed out last night, there was five years of careful consideration of the technicalities. It is technical. It is not mind-numbing. It’s an important piece of legislation. And I commend this legislation to the House on behalf of myself and the people of my climate change - affected electorate. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take the final call on the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill. I just wish to summarise the arguments that are being presented.

As the Minister of Climate Change has said, this is a technical change which enables us to set a confidential reserve price in the auctions of credits, and it’s really important to have that confidential price in order for the secondary market to work well. I acknowledge that this is exactly what our colleagues from the National Party have been saying, that this change is needed, so I look forward to their votes in support of this bill in order to help our markets to operate properly.

I would also just like to address something that was raised by the speaker from the ACT Party, Simon Court. So the speaker from the ACT Party said that they will be opposing this bill, on the grounds—and I think these were their words that were used—that it was an unjustified Government intervention in the market. An unjustified Government intervention in the market. That does ignore that the market set up by the emissions trading scheme is a very peculiar kind of market. It is a market that is set up entirely by law, by Government fiat, in order for us to deal with a critical issue. In fact, this particular market exists because of Government intervention. In fact, all markets in our modern economy exist in a state of Government intervention that not then taking another action to correct what’s going wrong in a market leaves the existing interventions in place. I think the ACT Party need to have a little think about what not adjusting the status quo does: it leaves existing interventions in place.

And this is a much-needed intervention to ensure that the market—created by intervention in the first place—continues to work effectively and well. I thank Mr Andrew Bayly for the way he talked about the necessity for this amendment, the necessity for it, because we do need that secondary market to be an effective market. Now, of course, when those auctions go ahead, people bidding in the auctions will have a very good idea of what a reserve price will be set around about—they’ll know, they’re business people, they will understand it—but we nevertheless still need that confidential reserve price to make it all work in the best way possible. That is exactly what this very, very technical piece of legislation does. On this side of the House we of course support this bill because we know how much we need an effective emissions trading scheme in order to help us to deal with the challenges of climate change. So, Madam Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 110

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 8

ACT New Zealand 8.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.

Instruction to Environment Committee

Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): I move, That the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2021, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions; during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House; on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House; and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196(1)(b) and (c).

As I mentioned last night, the trade and purchase of emissions units in a secondary market is a well-established practice in a great many emissions trading schemes around the world. They provide a means for auction participants to sell surplus units or to purchase any shortfall, and, as such, create a powerful incentive for organisations to reduce emissions. The reason that this bill must proceed quickly is so that a confidential reserve price can be put in place before the emissions trading scheme (ETS) units are auctioned for the first time on 17 March. This is necessary not only to build trust and integrity in the auctioning process, but to put a stable price on emissions as a means to drive investment into clean technologies.

Absent these changes, we risk disrupting the emissions trading scheme’s secondary market and hindering the ability of participants to manage compliance costs and long-term investment decisions. We would also risk exposing the Crown to a fiscal cost if units are sold for less than the prevailing secondary market price. To create a stable and credible framework for the sale and purchase of New Zealand units, both the primary and secondary markets need to operate in a way that is complementary, supporting stability, liquidity, price discovery, and transparency. This bill, in the introduction of a confidential reserve price below which no units can be sold at auction, will ensure that.

This House has already agreed that the introduction of a confidential reserve price is necessary to the functioning of auctions under the emissions trading scheme. This bill simply enacts that intent. These changes were first signalled to market participants more than seven weeks ago. This was to allow market participants sufficient time to plan ahead of the first auction on 17 March. Even though it has been clear that these changes are coming, it is important that ETS participants and other interested New Zealanders are given the opportunity to have their say through a formal parliamentary process. That is why I am proposing that the select committee do consider the bill, albeit over a much shorter time period than normal. Because the setting of the confidential reserve price is not sufficiently complex or contentious, I have no doubt that the select committee can meet the time frames that I invite the House to support in this motion. Today I respectfully ask that the Environment Committee consider the bill thoroughly and report back to the House by 4 March.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I’d like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon James Shaw, who—I did tell the House last night that I didn’t receive a copy of the bill in advance. He explained there was a bit of a mishap and I acknowledge that so thank you for coming and talking to me about that, James.

Look, one of the issues I have with this is actually we’re talking about this auction price and the confidential reserve. We acknowledge that there may well be a need for that. We really want the select committee to tease that out. I’m not certain we need it. I don’t know. I want to find out—and my colleague Andrew Bayly, who knows a lot more about bond markets than I do, explained the need for a floor price. My understanding was there is a floor price. This is a confidential reserve that goes between the floor price and the cap upper limit and at the point at which the other reserve units come into the market to even that price out. Now, I don’t know what’s happened there, whether this—we’ll find out in the select committee and I’m sure my colleagues on the Environment Committee are looking forward to hearing that. But we found out last night from the Hon Scott Simpson that back in March of last year, like a year ago, there was a paper that went to a Cabinet committee and considered by that committee, which said—

Dr Duncan Webb: Referral motion.

STUART SMITH: This is all to do with the referral, actually—that said quite clearly that this was a low risk. They identified the issue. They said it was a low risk. So my submission to you, Mr Shaw, is that actually if it’s a low risk, missing one quarterly—or having the auction, but without the confidential reserve price is not an issue. It’s one—one—auction. That’s it.

I think that we’ve got to a point. Clearly, last year they must have had some other advice where panic set in, and I don’t think panic is a good way to come up with good legislation. We are now in a situation where this is being rushed through the House and then rushed through select committee. How are we going to get good law out of this? I don’t know. I don’t think we will actually. How do we know we’re not missing something? We heard from Mr Bayly what happens in the bond markets. We want to know what happens in other commodity markets as well.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The referral motion is a very tight debate. I’d ask the member to stick to, essentially, the referral motion. Thank you.

STUART SMITH: Thank you, I am actually making that point. This is a very short period for us to get the right submissions—and from people such as Fonterra who operate in this market or this type of market. We would then find out whether we are going down the right track or not. Unfortunately, what we are going to be faced with is a very short time for them to put their submissions together. Then the select committee has to hear it and consider it and seek advice on that evidence that we’ve heard. I don’t think we’re going to have enough time. One auction being missed is not going to be the end of the world. It doesn’t expose us overly because, in fact, the advice to Cabinet was that it was a very small risk. What’s changed? I don’t know. Perhaps the Minister could have told us that. We didn’t hear that and there’s been very limited actual contributions from the other side. Between us, the National Party, and ACT—that’s been the only real contributions of any significance. And this is yet a very, very important motion or bill that we are talking about here and has far-reaching consequences. We acknowledge that the emissions trading scheme is the right mechanism to lower emissions—and I know it might be quite a shock going from Waiheke to Taieri, but the weather is different in those sorts of places, and it can be quite a shock to people that don’t come from down that way what happens in those areas. But we shouldn’t—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order!

STUART SMITH: I’m referring—

Hon Peeni Henare: The member is far more experienced than this.

STUART SMITH: It’s all a matter of opinion. I think it was quite valid, actually.

Hon Louise Upston: Absolutely, 4 March. You guys serious—4 March?

STUART SMITH: The 4th of March is absolutely right and then a 15 March commencement date for a 17 March auction. It’s outrageous when the risk is so low, when the advice came from their own officials and the Cabinet committee accepted that in March last year. We know that that’s the case. If the Minister could stand up and tell us that’s not, that would be great. But I know that that is the case.

When are we going to hear a substantive argument from the other side about why we should rush this through, rush a select committee process? These things have been set down in Parliament for a very good reason. These time frames are not something that are made up where we laze our way through all these things, take our time. We take our time because we want to get it right, and had time been taken, perhaps, in the first instance, we wouldn’t be here fixing up a problem, a problem that’s pretty obvious to anyone who operates in these types of markets. Mr Bayly came in here very quickly and got his head around this very, very quickly—so someone who operates in that area. Why didn’t the Government, and particularly the Minister, get on top of this at that time? It is a mess. It is a mistake, and it’s wasting Parliament’s time and pushing select committees to make decisions that may not be right. Last night, we had a bill in here—I suppose we should be grateful. We should be grateful that we’ve got more than five days, which is what’s happened with the local government bill last night. I mean, that’s outrageous. And so perhaps three weeks is generous—I don’t know, maybe to this Government, but it isn’t to parliamentary democracies around the world. This is outrageous. I think it’s something that the Government will live to regret and, hopefully, the markets will actually react to this properly because who’s going to have confidence we’ve actually got it right? We don’t have the confidence that this is right and so we oppose the referral motion. Thank you.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Beware the ides of March—beware the Ides of March. Minister Shaw smiles and giggles a bit, but he needs to beware the Ides of March. And the reason is because it was in March last year that the die was cast in relation to March this year. The auction dates were set months and months ago. The first auction date will be 17 March, just after the Ides of March. This bill needs to be in place by 15 March this year, and the report-back date is 4  March. So March has a lot of marching to do.

Fortunately, fortunately for the Minister, the Environment Committee, which he’s referring this bill to for a very truncated, very short scrutiny process, doesn’t have a very big workload. There was a time in this Parliament when the Environment Committee used to be the hardest-working committee in the Parliament.

Erica Stanford: The good old days.

Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: In the good old days—in the good old days! But in this Government’s eyes, environmental matters aren’t important, and the workload on that committee is light, to say the least, so I don’t doubt that the committee will be able to provide some scrutiny, but it won’t be a fulsome scrutiny. It won’t be the kind of scrutiny that is deserving of a piece of legislation as important as this, and it won’t be the kind of scrutiny that is worthy of the seriousness of the financial risk to the Crown accounts that this bill poses.

I want to refer to March last year, because that’s really important in setting the scene for why this is now being rushed through the Parliament without full and due scrutiny at short notice, not giving submitters really an opportunity to give it full consideration. That’s because back in March of last year, the Minister was saying “It’s not important. The risk is low. It’s not necessary.” In fact, he took a Cabinet paper back in March last year to a Cabinet committee, where the risk was highlighted—the risk was highlighted—and the Cabinet paper made it clear. It said that the technical reserve price can begin without a technical reserve in place. That’s what Minister Shaw said in the Cabinet paper that he took to the Cabinet committee. He said the auctions will begin without a technical reserve in place.

And then further on in that paper, back in March of last year, Minister Shaw went on—there was a piece that was redacted, but after the redacted piece it says in the very next paragraph, “Minister Shaw explained that a technical reserve …” before going on to say that the auctioning would start without one. So he’s made it clear that his view amongst his Cabinet colleagues was that no reserve was required. But then in a further paragraph, and this shows how fluid and how mixed up the Minister’s thinking was back in March of last year—he then went on to say, “However, I recommend the proposed regulations be set without providing for a technical reserve price at this time.” He acknowledged that there was a risk without the technical reserve price, but he said officials, and this is a quote from the Cabinet paper, “Officials advised me that this risk is low and that the options are likely to still clear in line with recent secondary market prices.” He says, “Officials will be monitoring the first auction in March 2021 in order to develop advice for how to fix the technical reserve price in the next amendment bill to the Act.”

So what’s changed? What changed in that period of time between March of last year and late February this year and now the Ides of March that make it so important? Well, I suspect that what’s happened—that suddenly the Minister has had a road to Damascus revelation and a conversion on the importance of this—is that probably Treasury and/or the Minister of Finance have said, “Hey, look, Mr Shaw. There is some serious risk here to the Crown accounts. You better tidy it up, better tidy it up, and get it done soon and get it done pronto.”, and get it done within that narrow time frame that the select committee is now being asked to consider the legislation.

That’s not really a good process and, sadly, here we are back in the first week of the calendar year of this Parliament and due process is, again, being truncated, thrown out the door. The sorts of things that the Green Party used to rail against are being now championed by a Minister who I thought had probably better principles and was ready to stick more to them. Certainly that was his view when he was in Opposition, and it seems now that that is no longer the case. He’s quite happy to have a select committee process that is short, inadequate, and not going to be able to provide the full, proper scrutiny on such an important matter to taxpayers and to this Parliament.

So we are going to support to first reading, as we have done, the general thrust of the legislation. But as my colleague Stuart Smith has made very clear, we are not so sure that this needs to be done so quickly. The Minister himself wasn’t sure 12 months ago that it needed to be done quickly, and I want to know what’s changed. Well, something has changed. The Minister hasn’t made it clear as to what has changed to convince him that his thinking from 12 months ago should be diametrically reversed to this period of time, in less than 12 short months, to come to a completely contrary view.

So we will be opposing the motion that’s currently before the House, because we don’t think it provides adequate time. The Minister said that traders had been tipped off already that this proposal was coming, that they’ve had a nod and a wink from the Government that this is coming. Previously, that Minister and his colleagues in the Government would have been very, very unhappy with sending market signals of that sort, in a nod and a wink. And it seems now that that’s the way that legislation is managed through this Parliament—the people’s Parliament. It’s managed in a way that works on nods and winks and tip-offs from the Minister.

If you’re in the circle, that’s fine. You get time and a chance to prepare in advance your submission to a shortened select committee process. But if you’re not in that circle, if your organisation—if you as a trader are not part of that privileged little elite group that has the confidence to be given nods and winks and tip-offs from the Minister and his Government, then too bad, hard luck. You get the shortened version of time, the truncated version, and you have to do something that others have had plenty of time to think about, to prepare, to give consideration to, to write submissions, to get advice—legal, commercial, financial or otherwise—but some submitters don’t have that opportunity, and I don’t think that’s right.

I don’t think that’s good policy, I don’t think that’s good practice, and it’s certainly not good governance on a matter as important as this. I would have thought that a Government that once prided itself on being open and transparent would have done a better job. I think that those principles of openness and transparency, well, they went out the door very, very quickly. And now we find that the transformation has turned into something called foundation, or something along those lines, and the woolly sort of thinking and the waffle is now almost at peak waffle.

There was a time when this Government and the Green Party used to talk a lot about peak things. They don’t talk about that very often now, except peak short periods of time for the consideration of an important bill that is a fundamental part of the new emissions trading scheme and the carbon trading system. And we are being asked as a Parliament, as a select committee, to give it a very short consideration, with some submitters having been given a tip-off, a nod and a wink by the Minister weeks in advance that this was coming and others not.

That’s not good Government. That’s not good process. It’s very, very poor. And I think that this House, that members in this House, even the ones that come via Waiheke, deserve something better than that. They deserve something better than simply to be given some talking notes from the Labour Party research unit and then sent down to the House to just read those notes, read the bullet points, without actually understanding what it’s all about. I don’t know how things operate on Waiheke. Waiheke’s close to my Coromandel electorate, but it’s not part of my electorate. But on Waiheke, I’m sure that even the good people of Waiheke will be very unhappy with this process, and they will want to see a full Government process, and they’ll feel short-changed, as do we on this side of the House.

SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. The ACT Party opposes referring this to select committee, and under urgency. This bill was introduced due to mistakes—mistakes that clearly were well-signalled by the advisers to the Minister of Climate Change and to Government.

Despite the assertion that the select committee doesn’t have a full programme at the moment, it’s still a waste of Parliament’s and the select committee’s time. It’s unacceptable. The select committee will be thinking about looming Resource Management Act reforms and other business, like looking closely into the very complex nature of Crown pastoral leases and the people that that affects. This is a distraction and it’s unnecessary, and the reason it’s unnecessary is because the emissions trading scheme is a market and most markets I’ve been to, if you go and buy your fruit and vegetables, or even if you go to the supermarket, don’t require the Government to tell you what the minimum price is, what the maximum price is, and what the secret price is. I’ve never been to a market like that, but my learned colleague who taught, at Auckland University, for many years taxation law who also sits on the select committee may be able to enlighten me about the kind of markets that she’s experienced which have those type of controls. I’m not familiar with them, and I don’t think it’s worth wasting the select committee’s time on that.

But the Minister who’s left the Chamber because, I understand—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will resume his seat. The member must not refer to the absence of another member.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for clarifying that. But it is difficult to hear home truths, and when you’re between a rock and a hard place I understand that it must be difficult to bring this type of legislation under urgency to the House, essentially asking forgiveness on one hand and asking permission on the other: “Please can we take it to select committee for another go at this thing that we didn’t get right?” And the reason that the legislation that we are amending is so flawed is because it addresses a problem that is entirely of the Government’s making. There are businesses in New Zealand that are exposed to international markets. They produce things here, they do very well, they minimise their emissions here in New Zealand, and they export them to other countries which probably don’t have the same level of environmental controls that we do. So it’s very important that New Zealand continues to have those businesses here to support jobs and communities. But the issue with the emissions trading scheme, as it’s been set up by this Government, is that in order to preserve those export-exposed businesses and those import-exposed businesses which make things like cement and steel here in New Zealand, and to protect them from the risk that a high carbon price, which is the thing that this Government has said it wants to achieve, to protect those businesses they need to drop a whole lot of carbon credits on to the market. But, of course, as those familiar with markets will know, if you suddenly release a massive supply of a commodity on to the market you’ll tank the price, and that’s why the market that this Government has set up is rigged and that’s why they have proposed to amend it in this way.

New Zealand is looking at a coming storm of legislation to deal with climate change, and the ACT Party believes that most of that legislation, and most of the House’s time in debating it and select committee’s time, will be wasted because those organisations, businesses, and communities which are able to actually transform our economy and decarbonise it have been ignored. I understand there’s been no survey of, for example, the investments that existing electricity generators are intending to make in renewables. None of that has been taken into account when bringing this amendment and the legislation it seeks to reform to the House. It’s almost as if the Government is happy to exist in a vacuum of selective information because that helps them avoid having to have the honest conversation with New Zealand businesses and communities about costs of the reform package that they’ve proposed to address the real risks of climate change, rather than letting the businesses and communities which are affected and most exposed tell us what the important changes are—

Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Madam Speaker. I’m reluctant to do it to a newer member, ma’am, but I’m yet to hear a reference to the motion which is on the table. The previous two speakers were bad enough, but the substance of the bill is not the matter of the debate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you very much, thank you. The member is a new member, just as I am a new Speaker; however, it is a requirement for speaking to a referral motion to stick very much to the motion itself. There is a narrow debate.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for clarifying that, and thank you also to the patience that those members on the other side of the House have shown me this evening, I do appreciate it.

Because there is nothing more important than making sure select committees have the opportunity to debate and consider good law. The ACT Party opposes referring this to select committee because we believe it’s already flawed legislation, it can’t be fixed, and it should be ditched. That’s why we oppose it, Madam Speaker.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): I move, That the question be now put.

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

Ayes 75

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10.

Noes 41

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 8.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): I present a legislative statement on the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I move, That the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

When we think about dietary supplements, which are a subset of natural health products, I think a confusing thing for many people is the idea that because they’re natural supplements, they’re somehow benign, but that is not at all the case. Dietary supplements include products like iron tablets, which, as well as being a crucial health product for many people suffering from amenia, is also a leading cause of poisoning of young children when they inadvertently swallow the tablets. Glucosamine is an important treatment for osteoarthritis, and borne out of many clinical studies; and St John’s Wort as well is a product that has many interactions with important medicines that people take. So these products can be helpful to people, and they are certainly not at all benign from a safety perspective.

So that’s why it’s important that we pass this bill. This bill will extend the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. It will maintain our current safety measures that we have, and New Zealand’s reputation as a supplier of quality dietary supplements. It will maintain consumers’ access to these products, and it will give industry the certainty they need to keep operating while a new regulatory regime is developed.

This bill was reported back by the Primary Production Committee in December last year, with the recommendation that it be passed without amendment. I thank the members of the committee for their consideration of this bill. The committee received 12 written submissions and had one oral submission from key parties that represented a range of perspectives. Submitters generally supported the bill, including the five-year extension. I’m very grateful for the individuals and organisations that took the time to make submissions.

Dietary supplements are health and wellness products taken orally in dose forms to supplement the diet. Examples are vitamins like vitamin C or mineral supplements, Echinacea, fish oils, and probiotic tablets. The Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 is old, but at the moment there is nothing suitable to replace these regulations with, and they expire at the end of the month. Because they have some safety and suitability measures, these regulations need to be continued until a new regime is developed. In particular, the existing regulations restrict some ingredients, provide maximum doses on some vitamins and minerals, and prohibit misleading statements and therapeutic claims.

Recently, a Southern Cross healthcare survey found that at least 750,000 people in New Zealand consumed at least some dietary supplements for at least five years. They are widely used by our community. Extending the regulations will mean that our industry can continue to grow while new regulations are developed. In 2019, Natural Health Products New Zealand estimated the wider New Zealand supplement industry contributed $2.3 billion to the New Zealand economy annually, and had a five-year compound annual growth rate of 10 percent. This is impressive and points to the strength of our industry and its ability to innovate and utilise some of our unique flora and fauna to produce high-quality products and ingredients, and we must continue to support that. I think it’s important to recognise that, in the context of COVID-19, being able to continue to support the sale of these types of products is an important part of our recovery.

The bill makes an extension by changing the expiry date of the regulations in the Food Act 2014 to March 2026. The bill must be passed before 1 March, otherwise the regulations expire. If that happens, dietary supplements would be regulated by general laws under the Food Act. There would be confusion and uncertainty without clarification of what safety and suitability means in relation to dietary supplements. As I’ve stated before, this matters because dietary supplements are not at all benign in terms of their health impacts. There would likely be an increased risk of unsafe and unsuitable products being sold, and many dietary supplements could be determined to be non-compliant. This could result in considerable cost to the industry and regulators in reduced access for consumers. Importing countries may not accept New Zealand dietary supplements without us having specific regulations.

Therefore, a five-year extension to the regulations is needed to allow consultation and development of new legislation and a minimum two-year transition period. Minister O’Connor has already stated in the last Parliament that it is not our intention that the full five-year period be used, but the intention is for a new regime to be fully implemented within five years. But we want this to be a five-year extension to avoid the need to consume the House’s time with further extensions and the needless resources of officials. It’s important to state that our aim would be to combine these regulations with a therapeutic goods bill, which takes a more health approach to the regulation of these products. A five-year extension also allows for us to manage any potential slowdowns due to COVID-19.

This bill, agreed by the committee, reflects considerations of the comments received from submitters. I commend the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, it’s ironic in this House that the last two bills we’ve been debating, over yesterday and today, have seen a massive rush to get bills to very shortened select committees, and bad process around not allowing the public to have consultation.

Now, this bill, the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill—we’re in a rush to slow it down. I want to acknowledge the current Minister, who is in the House and has spoken to the bill, because she’s a new member and a new Minister of this House. But, actually, here we are passing legislation, which expires on 1 March, to extend it for five years. So we’re in a hurry to slow it down, and so good on the Minister for bringing it now, but I’m not so sure why it has got to the point, on behalf of the last Government, where it became so urgent that it had to be rushed through at this period of time just to get it where it is.

It’s a very simple piece of legislation. The actual amendment bill itself is shorter than the explanatory note, so there’s very little to it. It has been through select committee. It’s not to make light or underestimate the importance of food safety, as the Minister just mentioned, but, certainly, there’s very little to this bill.

The explanatory note says that it will provide certainty for the industry and the consumers. Yes, there will be some certainty there that there’s another five years’ extension on this to put a regime in place—and the Minister has just said it may not take five years. But, look, this extension on a bill that’s got regulations that are 35 years old—this is 1985, with a five-year extension. It’s very questionable to say that COVID—we’ve only had COVID for a year, and, yes, COVID has got in the way of some things, but it’s very hard to believe that a Government that was in play for three years and had COVID for the last year of that Government has actually had to extend this.

So, really, with this bill, there is nothing to see here. Even the select committee, really—they went through the bill. I wasn’t on the select committee at the time, but they recommended that there be no adjustments to do to this bill from their perspective. It only has two provisions, and each provision amends dates contained within the Food Act which refer to the expiry of the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. So now we have between now and 1 March 2026 to get these regulations in place.

So, yes, it will provide certainty for the industry, but only certainty that the time frame has now been put out to 40 years. If I think back 40 years—and it’s easy for someone like me to do that—the range of dietary supplements that have been on the market and developed over that time has become quite huge. I think it’s a bill that should have been acted on way before now, but, with no regulations for the dietary supplements, they will be regulated by general laws that apply to food, and as the Minister just explained, there is some risk around this.

What we’ve been told is that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) supports a five-year extension as the preferred policy option. Now, this is an interesting observation, in that everything else is being done in such a hurry. It looks like MPI wants to really allow themselves a lot of time to go through this and to go through this thoroughly. I would encourage that this happens a lot more quickly than what is being proposed with this piece of legislation.

So I’m not sure that the time frames on this are ambitious. In fact, I’m sure that the time frames on this are definitely not ambitious. I get that MPI want to do it properly. I understand that, but we do have some laws in place now that can be a basis for that. What I do hope is that when these regulations are put in place, that they’re not over-regulatory red tape and that they are simple, that they are easy to follow, and that the industry can pick them up and function with them quite quickly, because the industry actually—a quote from the select committee: “The regulations are shockingly out-of-date but we have no choice but to very reluctantly support the Bill in order to ensure that … at least [there’s] some kind of regulation in place for natural health products. At best it is a case of ‘something … better than nothing—but only just.’ Our industry has been calling for a modern regulatory [system] regime over the past 20 years, an issue that is becoming increasingly urgent given the chilling effect the situation is having on [the] export market”.

I would go further as to say here that one of the submitters said they’ve seen examples of local businesses—and this is a quote—“receiving export offers for innovative new products that use unique local ingredients, only to discover they cannot export the products because New Zealand’s standards don’t comply with regulations in comparable jurisdictions such as Australia, the US or Dubai.” So there we are actually losing valuable export market because we’re allowing up to another five years for these regulations to be put in place, when they could have been worked on.

So if we’re going to use COVID-19 as an excuse and a reason why this hasn’t been done, maybe we should ask the Government to use COVID-19 as a reason to hurry this up, because what we’re looking for as a country in our new order of the world, where we’ve lost tourism and we’ve had to change the way we do things in a number of areas—we’re looking for new technology and new products that we can take to the world. We’ve been very lucky as a country that the majority of our exports have been trading well in a world that has been pretty upside down and is still pretty upside down and will be for quite some time to come, and that our trade and exports have been a large part of what’s kept us afloat and have been keeping the economy going. I have to say, across all agriculture and horticultural products, things have largely gone quite well. I have to mention the exception of wool, which needs a great boost.

So the submitter said, “It’s absolutely heart-breaking … given many of our members are small businesses [and they] are greatly affected by lost opportunities such as these.” So I would encourage this Minister, who has actually come in and made a move on this bill—thank you—to get this moving, particularly for the people who want to export, but also the people who want to sell in the local market, to please encourage MPI to look at going a bit faster. You’ve expressed the need or the thoughts around that that you probably want to do that, and I think it’s really imperative that we do that, not only for the food safety issue but because we have some great products here and we need the market, the overseas markets, and we need the products and we need the trade more than we ever have before. So thank you, Madam Speaker, and what I would like to say also is that National is supporting this bill. Thank you.

JO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this piece of legislation as the newly elected chair of the Primary Production Committee. But before I begin my speech, can I just acknowledge Barbara Kuriger as the previous chair of the select committee, and David Bennett prior to her. So thank you for your time as chairs on this select committee.

As has been traversed, this is merely an amendment to a regulation that amends the Food Act to allow the extension of the expiry date for the Dietary Supplements Regulations by pushing it out by five years. The reason for this is that, as has been said, it’s due to expire in March of this year, and if we allow this to expire, then it would mean that perhaps—myself, for instance: I could decide I want to come up with some kind of supplement and promise the world that it would deliver all these amazing miracle effects, and there’d be nothing to regulate me—[Interruption]—that’s right—to say that it was true or not true.

We’ve heard about the time frame. The time frame has now been decided upon as five years, and that gives time for the new regime to be developed and a maximum of two years to implement it. Barbara Kuriger talked about it taking too long, but I would note in the first reading speech that at that time, Barbara Kuriger said that—and I quote—“I would like to congratulate the Minister, in a time of COVID-19, for giving at least one industry certainty—at least 5½ years’ certainty—when actually most businesses are not sure what’s happening tomorrow or next week.” So I would take from that, at that time, that the member supported the 5½ years because it allowed the industry certainty.

Anyway, as I said earlier, by having the regulations in place, it does ensure that supplements cannot say that they will do things that they are unable to do. It will provide a certain level of safety for us all, because we have heard that supplements can be dangerous if you take the wrong dosage, etc., etc., and, yes, while we’re going to wait for five years for this to be implemented, it is important that we get it right and that we take the time. As Barbara Kuriger mentioned, it’s long overdue—1985, I think, the previous regulations came out. So times have changed, but we do need to make sure we get it right because people’s health and safety is involved here. So, without further ado, I commend this bill to the House.

Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I didn’t sit on the select committee that heard this bill, but I’d just like to highlight that it is an important bill. But it’s actually remarkable in its simplicity because it’s only got two clauses, essentially. Well, it’s got more than two clauses, but essentially the working clauses basically say that in this section, 1 March 2021 is replaced with 1 March 2026—that’s the working part of the bill.

So what the bill does is it extends the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 for another five years. As we’ve heard, that’s going to give us time to develop further regulations around this area, which is incredibly important both for consumers but also thinking about our export markets.

So what do the underlying regulations actually do? Well, there’s quite a few things that are really important. The first one is it sets maximum daily dosages, because what it stipulates is that you should manufacture these supplements in such a way that a dose doesn’t exceed the recommended daily dietary allowance, and that makes a lot of sense that you’re not actually running the risk of creating toxicity with your dosages.

The second thing, though, is it says you’ve got to have clear labelling, and that also includes weight, so that people know exactly what’s in it, and why that’s important—I’ll get to that in a moment.

Then the third thing is it says you’ve actually got to tell the consumer what the dosage is, and that’s how many pills you’ve got to take or supplements you’ve got to take, and how often.

Then finally, you’re not allowed to make any misleading statements or therapeutic claims. So you can’t say, “If you take this it will reduce your risk of cancer.”, or “This will cure cancer.” You’ve actually got to not make any claims but say that this is a supplement. And, again, that’s incredibly important for consumers knowing what they’re taking.

So why are these regulations important? Why do we need to maintain them? The first one is consumers do need to know what’s in their product. It surprised me, actually—I didn’t realise—but a lot of multivitamins don’t actually contain iron, and that’s actually quite important if you’re looking for an iron supplement that’ll do something else. So what it means for consumers is that they need to get their glasses out and actually look at the back of the package if they want to know exactly what they’re taking.

But another thing that it’s really important to have that labelling there for is in the case of accidental overdose. This is where in my previous job I used to do a lot of reporting on child health. We used to report on the child poisoning statistics, and you looked at the age curve, because every year a small number of kids are coming in to hospital having taken something. Usually about one year of age or two years of age is where we hit the peak in terms of numbers. Often when I was working in A & E, it was that story where a child had gone to stay at some elderly relatives, and they’d found what they thought were lollies but they were actually some pills. The first thing that you want to do when you get a child in to A & E—the question is, first: what’ve they taken? So if you’ve got something clearly labelled with what’s in it, you can look up or refer to the poisons centre to know what you’ve got to do.

Then the second thing is how many pills are missing. If, obviously, that’s labelled clearly and then you can count, you’ve got a sense of what the dosage is. So, really important in terms of accidental overdose and poisoning to have that clear labelling.

Then the third thing is about interactions. Because while you’re not allowed to say, in terms of therapeutic claims, “This can do X, Y, and Z.”, a lot of these supplements actually do have activity where you can interact with medication. This is often important where you’ve got people that are medically fragile, they’re taking a lot of different medications, and then they go and take a supplement, and it can interact and throw everything out of whack. And so, again, it’s really important when you’re trying to figure out what’s going on here, to take a good look at the history, in terms of whether you are taking any supplements; if so, let’s have a look at the packet, and then you can go through and figure out what’s actually going on.

What happens if these regulations lapse, because they are incredibly important? So what does happen is then it comes in under just the normal laws applying to food, and those are not particularly fit for purpose, particularly around those areas where you’ve got the potential for supplements to have potential health effects. It’s important that we don’t end up with these products that could cause harm. So we do need a fit for purpose regulatory regime. What we are going to be doing is extending this for a period of five years, and, as the Minister said, we don’t anticipate it would take five years to do this. But as with anything that we put in place, you’ve got to develop the regulations but then you’ve got to go out and consult on them and make sure that people have had their chance to have their say. You’ve got to refine them in response, and then you’ve got to allow a time for transition. So what the aim is here is to allow five years so we don’t have to keep going back and extending it again, which is going to take up our time, but just get on and do that.

So this is an important bill. What it’ll do is it provides certainty for those manufacturing, those supplying, that they’ve got the certainty of the market over the next five years, but also certainty for consumers that they’re going to have a regime in place, and, also, that they’ll know what they’re taking. So an incredibly important bill but really simple, and I commend it to the House.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. It’s a bit crazy that we have to do a bill that only extends it by five years—and as my colleague said, is a one-page bill, effectively—which is just a reflection of the incompetence of the Government that we have at the moment. They’ve had three years in Government, they haven’t been able to do a thing, they’ve taken their time, it runs out of time and then we are forced, in this Parliament, to do legislation like this when we should do the real things that New Zealanders need—around housing, around law and order, and those issues that should be dealt with rather than following up on their mistakes.

One of my colleagues actually felt that we should declare an emergency in this situation because they’ve declared emergencies on everything else. Why don’t they do one on this? This is the waste of time that this Parliament has been put through because of the inefficiency and incompetence of that group of people over there in Government. And they don’t even know what they’re talking about, because the fine article that my colleague Barbara Kuriger referred to finishes with this line saying that the Ministry of Health has done the policy work on new modern regulations, and we understand it’s ready to go. They’ve done it. It’s there, with the Ministry of Health—it’s sitting there. Yet we get from the Minister in the chair saying that they have nothing suitable to replace it with.

The last speaker said, “We need five years to develop the regulations.” They’ve actually done the work. It’s sitting there. They don’t even know it’s sitting there. The submitters actually said that they know it’s there; it’s been done. And the Labour Party need another five years to work out whether or not they want to bring it to this House. That is the incompetence that we see. It’s the incompetence that we see in every part of their governance, whether it’s from building roads or building houses—they are an incompetent Government. They can’t do things and we have to debate a bill that reflects that incompetence. We give them another five years; we’ll be back here and doing it in two years’ time—with the National Party coming into Government, that will actually make it happen and we won’t have to wait for these clowns to actually do anything.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker; thank you. The Green Party supports the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill. I don’t propose to take up a lot of the House’s time, except to rebut Mr Bennett, because if National wants to get away from its image of having neglected major change when it was in Government, it should have done something then, rather than continuing to criticise now. The member also neglected to follow the speech of the Minister for Food Safety, who highlighted the economic importance of the dietary supplements industry. Last January, I was in Golden Bay with a new predator fence, which HealthPost had helped fund because of the quite substantial business that they have there in dispatching dietary supplements around Aotearoa.

So this is a small bill. It recognises Medsafe, which has had responsibility for dietary supplements and the regulations since 2010, when there was an explicit decision that that was more of a medical issue rather than a food safety issue because of the impacts of dietary supplements and interference with medications—sometimes. The regulations haven’t been adequately reviewed; there needs to be time for them to be reviewed. We need to ensure that businesses can continue and consumers can continue to have access to them. That’s why the Green Party doesn’t want the regulations to expire on 21 March, with no replacement. This bill ensures that those regulations can continue until that fuller review is done. We support it.

MARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill. I won’t exhaust a lot of oxygen with this one; I think we’re all in agreeance. The Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill could hardly be construed as contentious legislation. The dietary supplements industry needs operational clarity. Obviously, to support its continuation in the absence of a more precise legal framework is something we need for certainty and clarity for consumers, and an extension for industry would do that.

It is abundantly clear to us in the ACT Party that there are far more pressing issues facing this Government and this House. Obviously, this Government’s fallen well behind in housing, crime, and the Resource Management Act. The fact that we’re even discussing what we all agree on is something of being farcical. Thus, the ACT Party would fully support the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill. We commend this to the House.

ANNA LORCK (Labour—Tukituki): Look, I just want to take this opportunity to talk about my great-grandad, Norm Hewitt.

Now, Norm turned 101 in September, and for his birthday I took my good friend Greg Murphy down to see Norm, and we talked about his years and talked to him about what it is that gives him such good skin. Now, Grandad Norm, I can tell you, had less wrinkles than me, and he says to me, “Well, I take three supplements. I take deer velvet, I take bee pollen, and I take garlic.”

So I had a good look at what goes on with deer velvet, and I looked it up online, and there’s a good central Hawke’s Bay company producing the deer velvet, a growing business that’s been striving and striving for over a decade, nearly two. And he talks about healthy immunity and joints. And we’re talking about—

Hon David Bennett: First speech is on deer velvet!

ANNA LORCK: —ha, ha!—body stamina and these sorts of things that have kept my grandad alive and thriving.

And then I had another look at what goes on in bee pollen. Now, that’s a super food, and you wouldn’t want to deny my great-grandad Norm that sort of stuff for his antioxidants. And then we have bee pollen, that boosts the immunity, protects the heart, and gets him going every morning. Now, I can tell you there’s a few people in here who need a bit of Berocca. And I say to you, if we’re going to get through tonight, then that’s the sort of thing we’ve got to take.

I talked to another business owner in Hawke’s Bay today about the importance of this bill continuing. And I said, “Look, what are the sorts of supplements that politicians should be taking?” He said that we should all be taking magnesium. Who takes magnesium in the House? Does anyone take magnesium? It’s very, very good for a good night’s sleep, so that we can crack into the morning, when we’re going to meet across here in our select committee again, David Bennett. And that’s the sort of stuff that’s going to keep us going, isn’t it? It’s the Beroccas in the morning and the magnesium at night. And don’t forget about the collagen. How’s the hair looking, ladies? I mean, I tell you, with a house of five daughters, the collagen in the morning, in the coffee, in the Juicee and the smoothie—that’s the sort of stuff that’s going on.

Now, what would happen—what would happen—if we stopped this bill right now? Poor Grandad Norm. He’d be very confused. You wouldn’t do that to him, would you? How could you do that to my Grandad Norm? I’m sure he’ll be watching this and loving all the name out there I’m giving my grandad, and I tell you: if I could ever have skin like grandad—now, talk about my mother; she’s going to be 75 soon. It’s not just about the genes—you need those supplements, don’t you? And so that’s why we’ve got to continue with this bill, keep it going.

The other thing I was really, really impressed with, Mr Bennett, was you saying, “Labour, another five years.” Well, I’ll give you six or seven or nine years to keep us going on this side of the House, David Bennett.

So let’s be very, very clear: we want to make sure these supplements keep us pumping all the time as we keep going through. And what did I say: Beroccas in the morning; who’s going to do a Berocca in the morning? Who’s going to do a magnesium at night for a good night’s sleep so that I can sit down and enjoy the rest of this debate? I absolutely strongly go for this bill, and good old Grandad Norm: go to 102—and he wants to get to 105. And by then, guess what? This job will be done and we will have got it through the House.

NICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is my first attempt at speaking in the House, and, well, I’d just like to say that it’s a fabulous opportunity because there’s quite simply zero substance to this bill. So as I meander my way through it, it should be—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well, you certainly haven’t had the substance of the last speaker!

NICOLA GRIGG: Ha! I haven’t begun, Mr Brownlee! My congratulations to the Minister for Food Safety on providing some certainty to producers. We’ve bandied around a few figures, but a $2.3 billion industry—at the rate this Government is spending money, Lord knows we do need to enable and encourage private enterprise to operate as profitability as it possibly can.

But it is important to protect this industry. As this House will appreciate, in this current economic environment any opportunity to grow business should be grabbed with both hands. Now, I hail from the mighty Selwyn electorate, and with all due respect to your own electorate, Madam Speaker, it is one of the primary producing superpowers of New Zealand; we are leading this country, I like to think, in our export recovery. So there are a number of producers within my own electorate who this bill will give some much-needed certainty to.

So too will the growing number of Kiwis who do supplement their diets, and I do have to put my hand up to the member over there, Anna Lorck: I do take magnesium and deer velvet and Berocca and fish oil. I know that for myself I do have a new-found appreciation for the regulations that oversee this industry.

But before the much-lauded new health product regime can be implemented, it is an important aspect of this extension to ensure that the ongoing regulation of labelling is ensured, because I for one have fallen foul to claims that they will make me taller, thinner, smarter, well rested, and thoroughly Zen. But it is clear from industry that they are only supporting this bill as a stopgap measure and that there is a clear demand for future regulation to bring standards in line with offshore markets so that we can grow our exports to them. In my time at my former role at Trade and Enterprise, I did see, time and time and time again, high-quality producers—things like mānuka and deer velvet—being knocked back from the lucrative markets offshore like China and the Middle East because of labelling and internal regulation here.

So, as my colleague over here referred, Natural Health Products New Zealand has made it clear to the Primary Production Committee that we do need to remove these export barriers by demonstrating that New Zealand does have world-class regulatory compliance in all its systems. So I would hope that that kind of feedback is taken on board as this bill progresses through the House and, indeed, the new regulatory policy is developed. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Dr Duncan Webb—five minutes.

Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Madam Speaker, thank you. I rise in light of the fact that Te Paati Māori has chosen not to take a speaking slot, it appears, in this debate, but I really just want to endorse this bill. The Minister for Food Safety, obviously, is a medical doctor, as is Liz Craig, and they have explained the complex medical reasons as to why we want to know what is in our therapeutic products. But equally, from a consumer point of view, people are entitled to know what’s in it, what the strengths are, and what the therapeutic claims are, and to ensure that that can be regulated. This is, as the member for Selwyn said, a measure that is in place whilst a more enduring framework is designed, and I look forward to that, but it is a good measure, a necessary measure. I commend it to the House.

STEPH LEWIS (Labour—Whanganui): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It is my pleasure to rise and take my first call in the House in 2021. I want to acknowledge the Minister for Food Safety for bringing this bill to the House and giving the industry certainty. I also want to really acknowledge the people and organisations who took the time to make submissions on this bill. As has been discussed tonight, this bill seeks to extend the expiry of the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill, which will amend the Food Act to extend the expiry from 28 February 2020 to 1 March 2026.

As has been canvassed tonight, the dietary supplements can include a range of health products, including vitamins, minerals, herbs, fish oils—all of which can be consumed to support individuals’ wellbeing and health. It’s an important bill because without the regulations that we are seeking to extend, the general principles of the Food Act would become the primary regulation or the way that the dietary supplements would then be regulated. This would, unfortunately, provide uncertainty for producers and consumers because, as has been canvassed already tonight, it would mean that producers are no longer required to have doses or state what’s in their products. So it creates uncertainty, but it also creates a risk that products will become unsafe, because the general principles of the Food Act aren’t specific enough to regulate dietary supplements or respond to the particular challenges associated with dietary supplements.

It’s important that we extend it by five years to give time, as has been mentioned, for the new bespoke regime to be put in place and allow a transition period. It’s important because this is a $2.3 billion industry, as has already been canvassed tonight, and we need to give that certainty, especially after the last 12 months that we’ve all endured, to producers and to consumers that what they are getting in the supermarket or their local health food shop is a quality product that has been through proper regulation.

This bill has been generally supported by submitters, including one submitter saying that “We appreciate the certainty that the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill will provide our industry.”

So with that, I commend this bill to the House.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you, Mr Speaker. You would wonder what we’re doing taking all this time up on a bill that consists of 76 words, but I want to congratulate the Minister for Food Safety on her first piece of legislation through the House. She must be very proud of it. I’m sure it’s not something she’ll want to remember, but none the less, I guess, it’s her first piece of legislation to come to the House. It won’t be one that’ll stick in her mind.

I’m not a great advocate for dietary supplements. I take all of mine out of the bottle or the paddock, and I think that’s where you should take them from, but I’ve got to tell you a little story, because we heard a couple of stories earlier on, about a dietary supplement that I did once take. [Interruption] Ha, ha! And it’s not what you think, David Bennett! It is not what you think.

Hon David Bennett: Did it work?

IAN McKELVIE: No, it didn’t, and I’m going to explain it. It was a thing called a bee venom—disappointing for you, I know. It was a bee venom, and the funny thing was, it was prescribed for me by someone who’s very strong on dietary supplements, and the next morning, having taken the bee venom, I couldn’t move. And the funny thing about bee venom is if you’re allergic to bee stings, it doesn’t have a very good effect on you. That is the only experience I’ve ever had of taking a dietary supplement, and I won’t be taking another one, but I am married to someone who takes all sorts of dietary supplements. I think, as my colleague on the right of me said earlier, she expects it to make her taller, slimmer—all those things. I don’t think any of them have happened, but I’m sure she’ll live longer than I will!

But just on the topic of this bill, there are some stats in this industry which somewhat stagger me, and that’s the size of the industry in New Zealand, or the scale of this thing. Some $2.3 billion—or in excess of $2.3 billion—worth of products are traded in New Zealand on the basis of what we call a dietary supplement, which I think’s staggering, but the other staggering figure is it’s grown by 10 percent a year for the last six or seven years. So it’s quite an interesting industry, and one, I think, that obviously is going to grow significantly more. Whether we like it or not, when you’re dealing with products like bee venom, there’s clearly a need for some regulation or some legislation that controls that. I think also, from the New Zealand perspective, it’s got great potential as an export industry, and we’ve heard talk of things like deer velvet and those types of product, which are clearly worth a lot of money to New Zealand, and definitely need to be protected in the world market.

So there’s some reason for this piece of legislation extending the old piece of legislation—the Dietary Supplements Regulations—which, interestingly, is 35 years old. We’re now extending it by another five years, to give us time to produce a new bill that will be more relevant to New Zealand. That’s my lot, Mr Speaker.

Dr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): Mr Speaker, first of all I want to congratulate you on being appointed as the Deputy Speaker. I rise today as the third qualified medical doctor on this side of the House to speak on the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill.

Jamie Strange: And I’ve got an appointment booked in after this!

Dr GAURAV SHARMA: That’s right! I want to acknowledge the two people who have spoken before me who are qualified to speak on health—first is the Minister Ayesha Verrall, who’s done a really good job on this bill; and second is Dr Liz Craig, who is the chair of the Health Committee.

The demand for health and wellness products in New Zealand and overseas is quite high—trust me when I say that. As someone who’s worked as a general practitioner in the community, nobody can say this with more confidence than I can. Before I move forward, I want to acknowledge David Bennett, who was just talking about clowns. Jamie and I were just referring back to the last time we saw you in Hamilton, where we were all dressed up as clowns at the Christmas parade.

Going back to the point, dietary supplements are products that provide specific nutrients or substances that supplement the diet, usually in the form of capsules, tablets, liquids, or powder. Many of us here in New Zealand will have used at least one of these products—one of the members just talked about using a blue pill on the blue side—

Kieran McAnulty: Ha, ha!

Dr GAURAV SHARMA: —somebody get the joke?—products which include vitamin and mineral supplements, omega 3, fish oil, and glucosamine tablets. Normally, the regulations that govern the composition and labelling of dietary supplements include some specific risk-mitigating measures, such as maximum daily doses for specific vitamins and minerals and prohibiting misleading statements and therapeutic claims. Without the proposed amendment, the regulation will expire on 1 March 2021. As a result, dietary supplements will then be regulated by general laws which are applied to food. These general laws do not address the specific health risks associated with dietary supplements. One likely impact would be an increase in the risk of unsafe and unsuitable dietary products in the market, but also a large proportion of dietary supplements sold at present would likely be non-compliant with the general food laws and would not be allowed to be sold. This impacts a lot of businesses and consumers.

I reflect back on my time working as a doctor, and I was talking about glucosamine recently. For some of my patients who I have had the chance of looking after, they really swear by products like glucosamine. It helps their mobility; it helps their joint pain. Can you imagine if one of these people didn’t get their medication for a day or a week or a month because we didn’t pass this bill? The bill proposes to extend the expiry date of the current dietary supplement regulations of 1985 by five years. The bill will achieve this by amending the two sections of the Food Act 2014 that set an expiry date of the regulation. The expiry date in both sections will be amended from 1 March 2021 to March 2026. Through regulation oversight, we can then provide confidence and assurance to consumers that these products are safe and do what they say they do.

It is estimated that in New Zealand, the natural products industry is worth $2.3 billion on last count, in 2019, which is a growth of 64 percent. By extending these regulations, we will secure the ongoing growth and sustainability of the industry and make sure that our patients have some sort of guarantee that they will continue to receive the medications that help to make a positive difference in their lives. It also makes sure that businesses have time to comply with any further changes in the law—whenever they may be. At the moment, the laws that are present are working really well. One of the members pointed out that in the last 20 years, there has been a call for regulation change. Well, I just want to mention that in the last 20 years, there has been a different Government as well, which hasn’t really done much about it. So it can’t all be just somebody in the last three years changing it.

So I would like to say that the bill that’s been proposed by Minister Verrall, which is being supported by everybody in this House, should go ahead. Thank you.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 120

New Zealand Labour 65; New Zealand National 33; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; ACT New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2021 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196(1)(b) and (c).

Ayes 77

New Zealand Labour 65; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 10; Te Paati Māori 2.

Noes 43

New Zealand National 33; ACT New Zealand 10.

Motion agreed to.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I remind members that when the Speaker declares the vote, if they are voting the way that the Speaker calls a vote, there’s no need to call a party vote. In this instance, under the Standing Orders, because all parties have agreed to it, that is not a vote. So the Ayes have it.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon JAN TINETTI (Minister of Internal Affairs): I present a legislative statement on the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, that legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon JAN TINETTI: I move, That the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

I am delighted to stand here to present this bill for its first reading, but I also must acknowledge my predecessor, the Hon Tracey Martin, who did the work to bring this bill to this stage. This bill addresses specific legislative and regulatory gaps in our current online content regulation. These were highlighted in the tragic events of the Christchurch mosque attacks on 15 March 2019. The terrorist of the Christchurch attacks sought to exploit online platforms to promote his acts of hate-based violence. Following the original livestream broadcast, footage of the attacks spread across the internet through social media, and in the days that followed we saw thousands of links appear across our social media platforms. Unfortunately some of these links were able to autoplay. Viewing this type of content can be extremely harmful and distressing, and I’m sure that members of this House, like me, know of people—particularly young children—who saw those links and viewed that content, and it was extremely harmful to them. I can only imagine how hard that must be to know that that content was available to the families of the victims and the survivors.

This bill is designed to remove inefficiencies and reduce ambiguities in our censorship system, to safeguard us from the attempts to distribute such hatred and horror online again. This tragic event highlighted to us how important it is to stop such content from being spread. The internet can be positive in so many ways. It can be used for social connection, it can be wonderful for education, for employment, for commerce, for entertainment, but the internet can also have a dark side. It can be abused as a tool to share and promote harmful content. The type of content that I am talking about is already deemed objectionable and is already illegal in New Zealand. The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, or the classifications Act, already defines objectionable content. At its worst, this content includes child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, or terrorist content. “Objectionable” is the highest classification that can be given to a publication under the classifications Act. This already means that it is illegal to possess the content and distribute it. The bar for determining objectionable content is extremely high, but the chief censor, in determining this objectionable content, also takes freedom of expression considerations into account.

However, since the classifications Act 1993 we very much know that technology has changed markedly. Technological advances and shifts have changed the way that we access information and we interact with online content. It means we now have to change the way that we tackle the online content, such as that violent extremism. And given the speed and ease that it can spread online, it is vital that we have the tools and the ability to be able to act swiftly. My officials have worked really closely with people throughout the community in preparing and shaping this bill. They have worked with community representatives from civil society and industry in developing the proposals for this bill, and a series of workshops were held with online platforms, internet providers, civil society groups, and overall 200 people were represented at those meetings. I would like to thank those people in the work that they contributed to helping to shape this bill.

This bill will allow us to act swiftly in the future if such events like the Christchurch attacks happen again, and that horrific event is tried to be spread rapidly online. To do this, the bill has six key policy areas. I’m not going to talk about all six, but I would like to highlight a couple of them. Firstly, the bill will make it a criminal offence to knowingly livestream objectionable content, and anyone that commits this offence can face up to 14 years’ imprisonment or, if they’re a body corporate, a $200,000 fine. Now, the 14-year sentence does bring this consistency with the already existing penalty for distributing or creating objectionable content under the classification Act. These penalties are high because the offence captures a range of behaviours and, at the extreme end, this includes documenting and sharing child sexual exploitation and abuse material. Importantly, this bill also allows the chief censor to make interim classification assessments in urgent situations for content that is likely to be objectionable. This really is important, because it means that there will be no delay and that the public can be informed as soon as possible about content that may be significantly harmful, and authorised inspectors will be able to issue takedown notices to combat the posting of objectionable content online. This is consistent with the already existing powers that they have for physical copies of objectionable content. Again, if people or agencies do not take up those takedown notices, they will be subject to a penalty of up to $200,000.

Finally, the bill will enable the establishment of regulations that would allow the Government to implement web filtering of objectionable content if required in the future. Now, this is a point that I want to acknowledge that there will be ongoing debate about. There is an issue whether there’s merits or disadvantages in this web-filtering approach, and this is something that I welcome, this debate being ongoing, when this bill moves through to the select committee process, to ensure that we are able to get the best outcome for protecting New Zealanders from objectionable content online. I really welcome that work coming back from select committee. This bill is one of many actions that this Government is taking in response to the Christchurch terrorist attack of 15 March. This bill is about protecting New Zealanders in the future, and I am extremely proud to commend this bill to the House.

MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to, first of all, begin my contribution tonight by stating that National will be opposing this bill but I’d like to, first of all, congratulate the Minister in her portfolio and being elevated to her position—congratulations, the Hon Jan Tinetti. I think in her speech she was perhaps suggesting that she looks forward to the continuing debate that we will have on this particular issue, and I’m guessing she’s alluding to the fact that this is perhaps not something that is fulsome in its delivery, because this should really have been part of the wider media consultation—wider media review—that the Government was actually doing, but this particular bill was cast off by the previous Minister to actually deliver to the House very quickly.

I read the Minister’s legislative statement and if I could share some part of it and my particular concern with members present here, it actually says—I’ll cut to the bit that I’m interested in. It actually quotes, “It seeks to address inefficiencies and ambiguities in our censorship system that were highlighted in the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attack on March 15, particularly in responding to objectionable online content such as the depicting of an act of violent extremism or terrorism.” It actually lists the limitations that the Minister suggests—actually highlights or summarises why this bill is actually being presented to the House. Number one, the highest ranking reason why this is actually presented is, I quote, “1. Livestreaming does not fall within scope of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993;”. Guess what—it does and I would suggest to this Minister, a brand new Minister, that if her officials actually give her advice saying that it doesn’t, perhaps she should ask the right questions and perhaps she should do some research to figure out whether it is, in fact, covered off in the Act that she is actually quoting.

The definition of “publication” under the 1993 Act, which she says it doesn’t cover and lists everything, in section 2(a) says “film, book, sound recording, blah, blah, blah …”. It’s got (b), it’s got (c), it gets to (d) and I quote, “(d) a thing (including, but not limited to, a disc, or an electronic or computer file) on which is recorded or stored information that, by the use of a computer or other electronic device, is capable of being reproduced or shown as 1 or more (or a combination of 1 or more) images, representations, signs, statements, blah, etc., etc.” So it does actually cover off—and, simply put, a live streaming is, in fact, a “thing” according to the definition. It emanates out of an electronic file. It is being stored temporarily or otherwise on computers and other electronic devices, and it captures images, signs, statements and words. What it really means is that this reason why this bill is introduced and the reasoning that the Minister has put forward for the House to consider—literally the argument falls flat on her face. This is censorship legislation. It’s a farce at its worst. It’s actually censorship legislation at its worst. And she should have asked her officials to provide her with decent advice. Obviously, the former Minister didn’t ask the same question either.

The topic that the Minister actually raised—all of us in this House probably abhorred the live streaming that the terrorists actually did. When I was introduced to a particular video, I chose not to look at it because I found it objectionable. Yes, I think all of us did. But the thing is that there is currently a law that actually can prevent—and the chief censor can put in interim decisions to prevent it from being shared. And this legislation is not necessary. This is about the Government wanting to provide an internet filter: Government deciding what is objectionable and what is not. And once we start down that path, I’m not so sure where we will actually stop. This is an overly invasive regime that encroaches on the rights of individuals. I mean, the example that I like to quote is the example of the murder of George Floyd in America. If live streaming and the death of a particular individual could be deemed objectionable, that live streaming that was actually shot by the public to show the brutality of the police action against an innocent man would be banned. And these are some of the concerns that the public also has as well.

If I could actually quote some citizens who have shared their concern, one of them happens to be Jordan Carter of InternetNZ. I believe he was a former candidate of the Labour Party. He says, and I quote, “Past filtering attempts have shown that a dangerous side effect is the unintentional blocking of sites that are not hosting objectionable material, in at least one case blocking access to email and online collaboration tools.” This is another example. Thomas Beagle of New Zealand Civil Liberties said, “If you’re a bystander, live streaming an event that turns horrific, how quickly do you have to stop before you’re liable? What if that event is a policeman choking a man to death? Do you think you could weigh up the merits of a value of a video versus the possible object—objectionable”—I can’t pronounce that properly—“objectionableness.” And I agree with him. When someone live streams, it could be innocent when they start, but it could completely turn objectionable, and it is the subjective decision of the chief censor. The very fact that the chief censor could actually empower, authorise an inspector—and often it’s a police officer. It could be a duty community constable who could decide that a particular thing is objectionable, and that is very subjective. I personally might find something that is objectionable that somebody else, one of the members of Parliament present in this House, would not and that is what I’m actually concerned about. A blanket filtering of things that are subjective is not something that I would feel comfortable about, particularly on the internet.

This, as I indicated, should have been part of the wider work that the Government was doing in terms of regulation into the media. It should not be rushed, and piecemeal legislation is a bad way to make law. I think the Minister should have taken heed of her senses where she was going when she suggested that this was going to be debated in select committee. She should have actually maybe listened to her gut that bad rushed law, piecemeal law, is not a good way to make law. I think when people like Jordan Carter, InternetNZ, actually raises concerns, and I think there are other Government departments that have also raised concerns when they were being consulted—I think that should have actually raised alarm bells that this should not have been introduced.

This will actually go to select committee, obviously, because Labour has the majority in this House. And so I shall have to look forward to the discussions in select committee but I raise my strong opposition on this.

One of the things that happened after the terrible 15 March event was that there were no enforceable laws or regulations present, but it was the platforms who took it upon themselves to remove those offensive videos. One of the issues about live streaming and internet is that it is fast. Can the chief censor stop somebody live streaming right now? If I happen to live stream right now, can the chief censor stop it? No, but the ability for the chief censor to deem that objectionable already exists. So what does this law actually do? I am a little bit unclear and, hopefully, it will be made clearer once we actually have some submissions on this bill at select committee.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this incredibly important piece of legislation. I think I can say that I reckon just about every single New Zealander remembered exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time when the news broke of what had happened in Christchurch at the mosque attacks. I think we can all recall that and I think we can all recall how we felt. I remember personally, when the news came out piece by piece and the dust settled from the events in Christchurch, the fact that this had been live streamed to the world, and I remember how I felt. And somehow it made the crime or the horror inflicted somehow seem worse, to me. I felt angry, to be honest, that New Zealand had been used as a platform for terrorism, and I still do.

So I believe that it is important that today we spell out the case for change to remember why we are putting in place this legislation and hearing it today. The perpetrator of the Christchurch terror attack sought to exploit online platforms to promote acts of hate-based violence. The footage of the attacks once uploaded and online spread rapidly. They went through social media, and it was unclear at this time whether the live streaming of the attack even constituted a criminal offence simply due to the fact that it was a live stream rather than a recorded video.

It’s at this point that I would like to clarify some of the points raised by the previous speaker as for the necessity for this legislation to be enacted, because technological advances in the way that we have access to the internet and we interact online, to me, means that we also need to change the way we tackle objectionable material online. Things move fast, incredibly fast. Technology changes, and we as a democracy that is caring and responsive need to change as those technological advances speed up.

It is vital for New Zealand to have the tools and the ability to respond swiftly in real time when these events occur. It is also important that we do this without compromising our essential freedoms. The internet can be a force for good as well as of darkness, and it’s important that we get this balance right. But to clarify some of the points that were raised by the previous speaker, it’s important to note that live streaming does not fall within the scope of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, and therefore it is in fact unregulated.

The chief censor’s decision on objectionable content risks being delayed because of the current statutory framework. It’s a requirement to produce a written rationale for the decision within five working days of giving their decision. Because written decisions are complex legal documents that give limited resources of the classification, they can take longer than five days to prepare adequately. This can cause the chief censor to delay publicising their judgment and providing clarity to the public. In the meantime, people are sharing content online. We know how many shares or how many likes can be delivered in a number of minutes. So waiting for over five days for a censor’s determination is simply inadequate to be able to rapidly respond to incidents such as what happened in Christchurch.

The Government cannot require the removal of objectionable content from online platforms such as social media or other websites. This is part of what the Christchurch Accord was and what the Prime Minister has set out, and this bill is a key deliverable in a domestic programme that is being progressed as part of that work that the Prime Minister initiated under the Christchurch Call to Action. It has discreet legislative regulatory updates to address those specific gaps particularly such as the ones identified through the Christchurch attacks.

The responsibility of internet service providers, and we heard some quotes there from internet service providers and online content hosts, for removing objectionable online content is unclear currently under the existing legislation, particularly in respect to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, for hosting that content, and that’s where greater clarity is required.

Current instances of internet blocking, such as a filter, as mentioned, for use in blocking child sexual exploitation are operating without a clear regulatory framework or guide to their use and are dependent on those internet service providers opting in on a voluntary, and that currently happens now with child exploitation. Approximately 85 percent, I understand, have opted in. So that’s the case for change. That’s the shortfalls within the existing legislation.

This bill is important because it is designed to reduce the inefficiencies and the ambiguities in our current censorship arrangement. This bill will allow for urgent prevention and mitigation of harms caused by such objectionable publications, by providing additional regulatory checks and tools to combat the spread of objectionable violent extremist content online. Under this bill, it will be an offence to make, possess, or supply, or distribute objectionable publication, and the bill does this in six main ways.

We’ve already heard some discussion around the point the member has made in relation to the establishment of a filter. I take that on board and I would like to get to that point by stating that the filtering provision in the bill may attract a lot of discussion, and rightly so. That is the process and that is why this bill will be receiving a full parliamentary process and a full ability for submitters to come forward and to make their views known.

There are concerns about ensuring sufficient legislative safeguards to prevent the improper use of a filter system. The bill, it’s important to note, only gives the Government explicit statutory authority to explore and implement the mechanisms for a filter through future regulations. It does not automatically establish a filter. We currently have a filter, as I’ve mentioned, for child sexual exploitation. This is only applied on an opt-in voluntary basis.

We believe the bill does explicitly provide for appropriate checks and balances relating to the filter. This includes lifting several provisions from regulations into the primary legislation. For example, clarifying that the filter only applies to objectionable material and identifying the full range of stakeholders who must be consulted. And we expect to hear from those stakeholders during the select committee process, which we welcome everybody who is concerned to submit on.

The establishment of a new offence is important. But in addition to that, this bill also enables the chief censor to make an interim classification so that we can quickly respond to content once it is uploaded. Also, authorised inspectors will be able to issue a takedown notice to combat the posting of objectionable content online. That is consistent with the powers they have for physical copies of the same objectionable material. It basically brings online content in line with hard copy. Online content hosts that do not comply with a takedown notice will be subject to a penalty of up to $200,000. So this enables New Zealand to be able to respond to emerging international trends of more harmful content available online.

As a parent, as a New Zealander, as a mum, as a member of this House, I believe that we have a duty to protect people from being exposed to objectionable material, and I welcome the select committee process, just going forward to that day. I would like to commend this bill to the House.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Speaker. The National caucus on this side actually understand the intent of why the Minister has put this bill forward. It’s just the parts and the make-up of the way it’s done that leaves us in a place where we’re opposing the bill. No one would disagree with the first part of the previous speaker Ginny Andersen’s speech, where she talked about March 15. There’s no doubt that this bill is a direct response to the events of March 15, the terror attack in Christchurch. And according to the Minister’s statement here, virtual witnesses were traumatised by the content. Now, no one—no one—deserves to see content like that. The events were abhorrent, and everything that went with it, with the filming of it and everything else, actually made the whole process even worse, and even more abhorrent than what it already was.

But the problem that we have with this bill, and the problem that I have with this bill, is the word “objectionable”. March 15 was absolutely abhorrent, and no one should get to see that. But the problem that we have with “objectionable” is when you open up the word objectionable, we could have a wide range of opinions here tonight, sitting in the House, of things that some people consider objectionable and some people don’t. So what is tending to happen with some of these bills—and I really appreciate for this one that it’s actually going to run a normal parliamentary process, so that’s one thing that we should be thanking the Government for, that they are intending to go out and give the public the opportunity to have their say, because we haven’t been seeing that too much in the last couple of days, since Parliament’s come back together.

So as the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee, we need to give this a very full hearing, and we need to make sure that we go through every clause in this piece of legislation, listen to the feedback, to ensure that this is not an overreach, because one of the things that this Government tends to do is it has a good intention of solving an issue, but it overreaches, and the unintended consequences that this Government puts in place, often, are not what was intended in the first place.

Melissa Lee has made a statement in the House tonight that live streaming does fall within the scope of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. So we’ll look very closely at that. You know, it says in here in the statement that the Government cannot require the removal of objectionable content from online platforms. Well, maybe that was the view of the people who put this together, but we need to investigate and see whether it’s already possible to do that.

So in looking through what’s going on, it’s an overly invasive regime that encroaches on the rights of individuals. And it puts New Zealanders in potentially incriminating situations without their knowledge or consent, and that would be a terrible place for us to go as a country. So a live stream showing something that does not fall under this definition of something objectionable could rather quickly switch to objectionable content without the knowledge of the individual that was sharing it. So it’s not as if somebody’s intended to set out to do something, but something all of a sudden appears, something happens, and all of a sudden this person becomes criminal because they’ve accidentally captured something that they didn’t intend to capture in the first place. So we’ve got to be very careful where we’re going here.

It places an extraordinary amount of power, as it’s currently written, and discretion into the hands of the classification office. We significantly risk the goodwill of the global telecommunications firms as well as local digital stakeholders, by imposing what could be crippling civil penalties for something that’s outside their control. These businesses are already attempting to stamp out material that is considered abhorrent. Yes, abhorrent—not objectionable but abhorrent. And we on the National Party side of the House—we don’t want to see abhorrent material either, but we’re just really concerned about the reach.

So some of the concerns that have been brought about in discussion around these bills talk about how over a dozen agencies could end up queuing, demanding, that it will be expanded, so they also get the power to block websites. Crown Law may want to block overseas newspapers that break New Zealand suppression laws. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will want to block any sites Hollywood studios complain about. The police will want to block websites. The Ministry of Health will want to block websites. Once you have a compulsory Government filter, it only gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So we’ve got to be careful that we constrain this bill to what it is that the Government is trying to achieve.

So, again, we talked about the bystanders who may actually get caught up, unintended. If I compare this piece of legislation—at least, as I said before, it’s got a full consultation process, but there was another piece of law that was led after the March 15 event. It was one that our party supported, and it was the gun legislation during the first tranche of the laws. But in the second part of that, we fought really hard to change some things, because the unintended consequences of that one was it captured competition shooters, and it captured people who were just out trying to do pest control and conservation. There were a range of people that were captured in there who were all disadvantaged by the fact that one person had done something extremely abhorrent. And I don’t want to see us as a society go there again—actually, punishing the masses because of the actions of one person or a group of people.

So let’s just try and keep it to abhorrent rather than objectionable. We’ll have a look at it, we’ll listen to what the submitters have got to say, and see if we can make some changes to this on the way through, and then we might reconsider where we’re going. But at this point in time, the National Party oppose this piece of legislation and we won’t be voting for it tonight. Thank you.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Just to respond to some of the points raised by other speakers, it has been mentioned that the provisions already exist in the principal Act, but, in fact, if I look at that provision, it refers to discs and stored information. I don’t know about other members, but I certainly haven’t seen a disc for a number of years. Clearly, that legislation is out of date, and we need to move with the times. Live streaming is a very different proposition from recording, and we need legislation to reflect that.

We’ve also heard about the fact that this bill looks at objectionable material. Well, with respect, the censors are making decisions about objectionable material all the time based on written submissions, but with live streaming there simply isn’t that opportunity; it happens in real time. Therefore, there needs to be decisions made quickly. We heard about the rights of individual New Zealanders, but those individual New Zealanders now have a great deal of power in their hands that they did not have previously, because of the advances in technology, and with that power comes responsibility and the responsibility not to harm others.

We need to unpack what this proposed legislation can do. First, it is to remove harmful content, and I believe that is the primary intent, based on the fact that this came out from that terrible incident on 15 March. The penalties are a secondary matter, and surely in a country where we have mens rea and we look at intention, those people who innocently find that they are capturing offensive or objectionable material live streamed—that will be taken into account at the time that penalties are considered. The most important element is to remove the content before harm is done.

I do commend this bill. It’s a very important bill, ensuring that New Zealanders stay safe but also that they feel safe. It’s an emotional piece of legislation for many of us, particularly people in my electorate in Taieri. This is very relevant, because the terrorist actually lived in the electorate for some time, and the Muslim community in my electorate found out later that they were actually the original targets of the mosque attacks. So they had to deal with that. They had to deal with seeing members of their own community, many of whom were friends and whānau to them, be impacted by that terrible, heinous event, but also the live streaming of it made that a double injury for them.

So the bill seeks to provide protection against the live streaming and the hurt I’ve just described, and it will prevent hate speech. That is an end in itself, but it is also to prevent the proliferation of further hate. We know from what we have seen overseas that hate can spread just like a virus in the fertile world of fake news. We are operating in a different media landscape than when the principal legislation was enacted, and I can tell you, as a former journalist and media lawyer, that I am the first person in this House to defend free speech. However, that free speech needs to keep up with technology, and it needs to keep looking at the balance of power and responsibilities of individuals and of the way that individuals can now influence and spread information.

I did mention in my maiden speech recently that access to truth is actually, I believe, a critical issue of our time, and the issues that are raised by fake news, by live streaming, by the power that vests in individuals and also in the platforms that allow individuals to have mass audiences are really complex, difficult issues to deal with, and we must deal with them if we want to avoid the peril and the dramas that we have seen on foreign shores.

It’s been claimed that this is an overbearing piece of legislation, but these decisions to remove live streamed content are not final; they are interim classifications, and final orders are to be made, as my friend said on this side of the House, after 20 days. We have interim orders already available in many other areas of media law where the harm is deemed sufficiently serious. For example, we have name suppression laws, and we certainly have a number of interim laws available in all areas of child protection, not only the child protection that is available around protecting children from sexual exploitation and the media but also ex parte interim orders relating to other areas of child protection. Interim orders are a part of our democracy, and they are countered by the opportunity to then have a full and substantive hearing down the track.

So it is appropriate to use those interim orders to prevent harm, and the merits can be debated after that. With live streaming, if we were not to have this legislation, given that it is not covered by the principal Act, we simply negate the opportunity to mitigate the harm that could be done from objectionable or even heinous material being live streamed.

The issue of filters has been raised. As has been said by other members, this potentially is a really complex area, and, like other members in this House, I welcome the opportunity to discuss that and to hear submissions on that in select committee. But what I do applaud is the fact that a mechanism will be there to anticipate changes in technology that will enable those filters to be able to be applied should they be deemed necessary. We cannot constantly play catch-up to technology that is causing harm, and that caused the harm that it did on 15 March, because the law is not keeping up.

This bill enables us to have things in place so that there can be proper debate and that we can move quickly when we need to in order to be able to reduce harm to members of our community. During that debate, I think it’s very valid for us to look at where we cast the net with filters, and, in many instances, the net will need to be cast more widely; in other instances, it will need to be cast narrowly. I really welcome anyone listening to the debate to submit on that when that goes to select committee.

Finally, I’d just like to say that the internet is no longer a free and friendly environment. We know that it is controlled by big business. We don’t even know some of the entities behind some of the platforms. To suggest that a voluntary regime might be adequate simply doesn’t wash—or “Yeah right.” It’s not going to happen. We need to be able to give our Muslim community and others who feel vulnerable in our society the assurance not only that we will keep them safe but that they can feel safe when they go online, that they will not accidentally happen upon something traumatising, something damaging, something that is going to perpetuate hate speech or that is going to harm them or, indeed, their children.

I know recently there was a video on TikTok where we had message warning us to please make sure our children weren’t watching, because there was a TikTok of somebody committing suicide. These are the kinds of perils that parents face at the moment, and as a mother of a seven-year-old, I want to know that we have the adequate protection in place, that we can stop those live streams or those events from happening online, and keep our children safe.

So let’s ensure that we don’t make it easy for terrorists to hijack our media platforms for their 15 minutes of fame and their evil campaigns, and please let’s make sure that New Zealand remains safe and that New Zealanders feel safe in a very quickly evolving world that we need to keep ahead of and make sure that we have adequate laws and protections in place so that we can roam that world with liberty and with security, not worried that we’re going to stumble across something that could potentially be incredibly damaging to us or our children. So I do commend this bill to the House very strongly. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou e te Whare. I’ve been googling, because that seems to be the kind of theme in Parliament this week, this notion that’s called “the Streisand effect”. It’s defined on the internet, on the Google, as “a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicising that information, often via the internet.” This is exactly what happened in a situation in 2003, when someone by the name of Barbara Streisand attempted to hide photos of her Malibu mansion.

With that kind of introduction, it probably makes sense to provide at the beginning of this speech a bit of an understanding to the House of where the Greens are coming to on this. We’ve had extensive discussions about this, and whilst on paper about 90 percent of this legislation seems to be hitting the right note, the 10 percent that is not, if weighted properly, makes this something that we cannot vote for. So the Greens will not be voting for this legislation at first reading, and we very much hope that there is substantive debate and discussion throughout the select committee process—a committee that I understand, as most are in this Parliament, is weighted primarily towards the Government—and that there is a genuine attempt to take on board, and not just push through, the comments, the recommendations, of the general public, because there’s an opportunity to do something really important here.

So, as has been outlined by others, there’s a number of things that this legislation attempts to do. The first is to make a criminal offence of knowingly live streaming objectionable content. On the face of it, it doesn’t inherently seem like a bad thing. There is also the opportunity for the chief censor to be allowed to make interim classification assessments in urgent situations for content that is likely to be objectionable. This, importantly, speeds up a process that is currently incredibly cumbersome. It also, therefore, as a result of that chief censorship opportunity, enables authorised inspectors to issue what are called takedown notices, and there are enforcement clauses that follow.

But the part that is the most objectionable to use—I guess, rather ironically, given the context of what we’re debating—is that this bill enables the establishment of regulations that would allow the Government to implement web filtering of objectionable content if required in the future. That is where the Greens cannot support this piece of legislation, because whilst it has been put by members on the Government benches, particularly as my colleague who I worked closely with on a number of issues, Ginny Andersen, put it—inherent in this draft law is not the ability to straight off the bat create this internet filter system. In fact, it only just enables the power to do so, but that’s the problem. We don’t actually know what we’re dealing with here. There’s no parliamentary oversight whatsoever on the kind of internet filter system that could end up being created, not only by this Government but by a Government in the future, and that—that unbridled power of regulation—errs towards far too much authoritarianism for my liking.

Whilst we’ve been debating this bill in the Chamber tonight, I have been discussing it with, right next door, our neighbours in the Chamber, David Seymour and ACT, and it would interest those who are interested in political ideology to know that whilst we vehemently disagree on economic ideology, there is substantial overlap when it comes to social liberties. The idea of freedom of speech, however, is not a shield. Freedom of speech enables you to say things; it does not defend you from the consequences particularly of saying daft things and particularly where violence and deeply abhorrent racist behaviour ends up as a result.

So the question, I’m sure, that is pressing on the minds of Labour members in this Chamber in particular, is why the Greens are opposed to this filter, not only for the opportunity for overreach—you know, “If we were able to carve this out a little bit more in the legislation, perhaps that would satisfy?” But that is not the case, because when it comes to filter systems—again, I’ve been back on the Google, and I’ve found that Google itself was actually shut down in the early 2000s as a result of the voluntary systems that were undertaken in the early 2000s to banish or attempt to prohibit that highly objectionable and abhorrent sensitive material when it comes to children and the violation of those children.

What that demonstrates inherently, and you can look at examples in other jurisdictions of how this hasn’t worked—unless, of course, you’re looking for a key performance indicator of complete authoritarianism and control therein—is that anybody motivated can get around internet filters. They can do so by the use of things like virtual private networks (VPNs). It also has the opportunity to capture unintended content. But worse than that, it also has the ability to completely miss the intended content in the first place. The likes of which is currently being proposed, that is leaving all of this stuff to the regulations, is the equivalent of me handing you a piece of paper and saying, “Please draw the rules,” and then enforcing those rules without having had any parliamentary oversight of what those rules actually are. And that is a problem when it comes to, particularly, the potential to curtail the opportunity of all New Zealanders—and, might I add, actually, particularly minorities in this country.

Here I’d refer, actually, to Anjum Rahman of Inclusive Aotearoa Collective, who agrees with this idea of a filter in theory, and has been recognised for her incredible work in response, particularly, to that terrorist atrocity in Christchurch. She herself has warned that this practice of a national filter could and has the potential to end up disempowering those who it is intended to protect. That is the problem. We are centralising far too much control with the progression of this legislation. So, in my final few moments to contribute to the House tonight, noting that, of course, this will pass with this solid Labour majority—outright majority of Government—I hope that we have the opportunity to discuss this in depth and really mull over those submissions from the general public when it comes to the select committee stage, and hopefully improve the legislation substantially therein.

What we are looking at here is a bill that was prompted by an incredibly abhorrent, disgusting terrorist attack that everybody in this House thinks has no place in Aotearoa New Zealand. But it happened here. That it happened here means that here exists racism, and, dare I say it—because I know it makes some people’s skin crawl when they hear it—white supremacy. I really want people to think about that, because if the idea of talking about something like white supremacy makes you feel uncomfortable, does it make you feel more uncomfortable that we’re grappling with something that actually is causing harm to minority communities, or is it the fact that you feel personally offended?

This is the point of freedom of speech; it comes with consequences. If we are to want to genuinely deal with the actual core root of this issue, then we need to do things like tackle racism and tackle white supremacy, begin to unpick them, begin to have these conversations. But that does not start with curtailing the opportunity to have those conversations in the first place. Ironically, the very mention of some of these buzzwords—if, enabled by this legislation in future, further down the track, by some virtue of regulation, there is an algorithm that has the opportunity to do these things, then it might capture conversations just like this, which are so important to the flourishing of democracy and our ability to begin to unpick these deeply problematic viruses that exist within our society and cause undue violence.

The Greens will not support this at first reading, and we very much hope that there is a response from the general public and that that response is listened to at the select committee stage, so that this law may be improved for all of us. Kia ora.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to commend the previous speaker for that contribution, although I’d comment that while what Chlöe Swarbrick said is true, that we often find ourselves with common cause on issues of social liberty, she’s never been able to explain to me why she doesn’t trust politicians in the Government to regulate how you use your body and your mind but she’ll allow them open season on all the rest of your property. I look forward to the day when Chlöe Swarbrick and the Green Party can explain that seeming inconsistency.

I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill. Now, maybe people listening might see some of the confusion inherent in the bill just by reading or listening to what the title of it is. The truth is it is a nonsense that cannot work, that has been trumped up to solve a problem that it actually doesn’t align with whatsoever, and it will reduce New Zealanders’ most basic freedoms to think their thoughts and speak their minds without concern for arbitrary coercion by the State.

Mr Speaker, I want to tell you that I was in Christchurch on 15 March 2019, ironically on a Speakers’ tour with my good friend Trevor Mallard, and we were visiting the University of Canterbury when we were told that there were active shooters loose in the city of Christchurch. I watched the video that was live streamed—I watched it along with about 500 other students cradled over their phones, and we watched it for the simple reason that we didn’t know what was happening, but it seemed like a very real possibility that if there was an ongoing terror attack, then a university with students huddled in a great hall is a place that they might come to next.

I make this point for two reasons: one is that I’m not blind by any stretch of the imagination to the horror of what happened on that day, but number two is that within minutes of me and some of those students watching that video, it had been taken down. Why? Because every major internet company that has any kind of reputation worth anything was scrambling to get rid of it as quickly as they were aware and as quickly as they could. That leads to the question: what is it that the Labour Party members think an agent of the New Zealand Government could have practically done in that window of time to have changed the outcome? And what do they think that the New Zealand State, an organisation that can’t even get personal protective equipment to the right place at the right time in the middle of a pandemic, is going to do to keep up with future changes in the way the internet works?

That’s the simple reality: the connection between this legislation and the terrible attacks on New Zealanders on 15 March 2019 is totally symbolic. There is no practical connection. There is no morsel of truth in the idea that this legislation practically addresses what happened that day. That means that the connection is purely rhetorical, that it’s purely symbolic, and that it is, frankly, a Government that is trying to sell the sizzle because it has no sausage to sell.

It happens against a backdrop of a Government that does this all too often, a Government that told us only last year—I think it was November—that we needed an extra five days’ sick leave for 2.7 million workers because maybe some people, probably numbering in the hundreds, would need to take 14 days off with COVID-19, and just this week, the Government said, “Actually, we’ve got a special programme to compensate people who do need to stay home, get tested, and potentially isolate for COVID-19.”, showing that they never needed that policy. Well, this bill today is another example of the Government using one tragic cause the public cares about to sell another agenda.

What is the agenda behind this bill? It is the idea that some people should be able to have an apparatus to tell other people what to say and think. We’ve established it’s nothing to do with Christchurch, it’s nothing to do with the terror, because, practically, it wouldn’t have helped on that day, and it won’t help in any similar situation in the future. But what it is about, as we heard from Chlöe Swarbrick, is giving this Government or some future Government the ability to set up a filter that controls what sort of information can come in and out of Aotearoa New Zealand. I think that is an affront to freedom of expression, at a time when free expression is already under threat.

We have a crisis where we are unable to have honest conversations and work through our problems in a civilised manner. Too often, people are cancelled out and beaten down for expressing the views that they honestly hold. People are taken off radio stations, in the case of Sean Plunket, as we’re hearing reported today. People feel unable to speak their mind because they don’t know how they might find themselves beaten down for expressing an honestly held opinion.

In that environment, we are a much poorer society, and we’re also a more dangerous society, because people who do have truly objectionable views are going underground. They’re going to places that this legislation will never touch, because the people that express truly objectionable views and who have truly objectionable material, they won’t be doing it on Google or Facebook or Instagram, or any reputable company that could be named by members of this House. They won’t be doing it on 8chan, which was the thing that the real freaks went to when 4chan kicked them out, which was the thing that the mild freaks went to when normal social media kicked them out. They’ll be doing it on some sort of platform that most people in this House have never heard of, except for some of the slightly odder people that have joined the Labour Party caucus lately. This legislation won’t reach those dark corners of the internet. What it will do is supress and frighten people who are trying to have honest conversations about their own lives and the future of our country.

It would be right and proper for this Parliament to say this law tonight doesn’t solve the problem that it’s advertised to solve. There’s no practical way it can do that. It would be right and proper for this Parliament tonight to say this legislation has effects that we are not comfortable with. We don’t know how a future Government might use the power to set up an internet filter on what people can access online. It would be right and proper for this Parliament to say that this legislation won’t be effective at getting into the really dark corners of the internet, which are the ones that we should be most worried about. And it would be right and proper for this Parliament to say tonight that we actually, if we have any goal when it comes to speech and conversation, need to start encouraging people to speak freely in a civilised and respectful manner, because there’s far too much hate, there’s far too much identity politics, there’s far too much cancel culture, and it is breeding resentment that is going to lead to backlashes that will take New Zealand to a far less united and far less civil place.

That’s what the Labour Party needs to understand. That’s what those Labour backbenchers have signed up to and what they should’ve been asking questions about in caucus. “When the leader’s office gave me these speaking notes to support this bill that I don’t really agree with, that I actually should’ve questioned a few more times, did I really trust them? Will I really be pleased that I supported this, looking back in the future? Is this really what I came to Parliament for, to erode the rights of New Zealanders without actually solving any practical problem?” Those are the questions those Labour backbenchers should be asking themselves, and, if they do, they will cross the floor and defeat this bill, that doesn’t solve any real problem but restrains the freedoms of New Zealanders to think their thoughts and speak their minds freely. That would be a good night for parliamentary democracy, but I suspect they won’t have it in them, and it will be just ACT, National, and the Greens opposing this affront to freedom of expression. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Debate interrupted.

Bills

Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill

Instruction to the Environment Committee—Voting

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, during the debate on the instruction to the select committee on the Climate Change Response (Auction Price) Amendment Bill, the House agreed to the closure motion but did not vote on the substantive motion. When a closure motion is agreed, the debate concludes; that’s under Standing Order 139. When a debate concludes, the Speaker must put the question to the House, Standing Order 140. Because this did not occur, I will now put the question to the House.

Bills

Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications and Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed.

ANGELA ROBERTS (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m just aware of time and standing between the House and the evening! I’m really pleased to be standing here and taking this call to support this bill, and I’d like to start by reassuring Mr Seymour that those of us who are on the backbenches of this fine Labour Government certainly think for ourselves and speak freely in our caucus and, as a result, still resoundingly support this bill.

I want to support this bill because it enables the swift prevention and mitigation of harm caused by objectionable publications, specifically plugging the gaping holes exposed on March 15 that many other people have talked about. The live streaming on that day added harm. It re-victimised victims and victimised innocent bystanders and gave a platform—an unacceptable platform—to extreme communities. I cannot speak for Christchurch, nor can I speak for the Muslim community—it is their story to tell—but I can speak as an educator and as a mum of the impact that this bill will have on our young people. I know you’ll be surprised to learn this, but it is a while since I was a teenager, doing what teenagers are meant to do! That is, explore their identity and find their place in the world. Back in the good old days, for some of us, that was through magazines and books and films; watching radio with pictures. And, as an educator and as a mother, I am acutely aware of how this experience has changed for our young people, with social media front and centre and so impactful in shaping young minds, with shocking swiftness.

So how will harm be prevented and mitigated for our young people through this bill? The live streaming of objectionable content will become a criminal offence. This is a really powerful message for our young people, who are still building their identities, deciding on who they are and what the society is that they live in. Being clear as a society about what is truly objectionable is important—that violent extremism is never an acceptable part of a healthy society. Our young people need our guidance in this—our guidance. We must take responsibility for that, not some multinational corporate who we have to go cap in hand to and ask politely if they’ll censor something. It is our responsibility, not Silicon Valley’s. The Government will also be able to issue the takedown notices—a gain, we will not have to rely on the police asking providers politely—and be able to better hold online content hosts accountable for the responsibilities that they do have in this space. The chief censor will be able to move quickly and notify the public about objectionable material. Right now, we’ve heard about the days and days. This isn’t about the minutes of the attack; this is about being able to respond as well.

I just want to come back to the concerns, and I appreciate those concerns, and it has been raised, as those who have possibly read the notes, that there is a huge amount of concern and controversy around this, and quite rightly we should all be concerned about finding the balance, which the chief censor truly believes we can do. He said it is very achievable to get the balance right between protecting people from deadly extremist material while protecting every New Zealander’s freedom. There is a law lecturer from Victoria University who says we do have to draw a line. We can’t sit here and say, “It’s impossible; so let’s do nothing.” The select committee process—the regulations that have been set out in the bill clearly identify how we keep New Zealanders’ freedoms safe and yet step in and draw the line. We welcome continuing to work with industry—they have been involved in this process—and partnering with them to find the right balance in these regulations.

So while these measures won’t stop extreme communities from sharing objectionable material—and, yes, as somebody who has spent a lot of time with teenagers, it is difficult, as Mr Seymour said, to keep up with which dark place they may go to. For our tech-savvy teenagers, it’s not going to stop them from seeking it out, but it can stop people from being inadvertently exposed to it—innocent bystanders traumatised, victims re-traumatised.

And right now I just want to acknowledge my comrades, the teachers in Christchurch and around the country, who had to support their students as they grappled with what they saw. Melissa Lee, you said, “I chose not to watch it.” We have young people who watched it because it was put in front of them. We need to protect people. We need to protect our young people. This isn’t about being an overly invasive regime; this is about protection and looking after our young people—amongst many, many others of course—and about mitigating risk and harm and damage. At this point, I am happy to say that I wish to commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, this bill is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10.01 p.m.