Thursday, 18 February 2021

THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2021

THURSDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2021

The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): On Tuesday, the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill will receive its first reading. The House will consider the remaining stages of the Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill under urgency. On Thursday, there will be a debate on aid to the Pacific, the first of the special debates promoted by the Standing Orders Committee in its report at the end of the last Parliament. A motion for the approval of COVID-19 orders will be considered. On Wednesday, 24 February we will have our second attempt at the first members’ day for 2021.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you to the Leader of the House. Can I ask the Leader of the House when the House can expect a bill that’s been signalled around banning gay conversion therapy to appear on the Order Paper?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): In the fullness of time, at the appropriate moment.

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

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

SPEAKER: No bills have been introduced. A petition has been delivered to the Clerk for presentation.

CLERK: Petition of Morteza Sharifi requesting that the House urge the New Zealand Government to limit diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, summon the ambassador, and promote human rights.

SPEAKER: That petition stands referred to the Petitions Committee. Ministers have delivered papers.

CLERK:

Annual reports for 2020 for the Student Loan Scheme and the External Reporting Board,

Chief Archivist’s Annual Report on the State of Government Recordkeeping.

SPEAKER: I present the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment entitled Not 100%—But Four Steps Closer to Sustainable Tourism. Now, those papers are published under the authority of the House. A select committee report has been delivered for presentation.

CLERK: Report of the Regulations Review Committee on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border and Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order (No 2) 2020, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border and Isolation and Quarantine Amendment Orders (No 2) 2020 Amendment Order 2020, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order 2020, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Regulations 2020, and an interim report on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order 2021.

SPEAKER: The report is set down for consideration.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Question No. 1—COVID-19 Response

1. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Does he stand by all his policies and actions relating to COVID-19?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes. I think it’s important to emphasise that no case in the community is the same. We learn and adapt and tighten our processes in response to the virus and its variants. There is no one quick-fix solution that can apply in every situation, but I can assure the member and the public that we leave no stone unturned and pursue an aggressive approach for containment so that New Zealanders can enjoy their freedoms.

Chris Bishop: Is it fair to say that the Government is comfortable with a greater level of risk of COVID-19 in the community now compared to, say, six months ago, when Auckland’s gone from level 3 to level 2 even with three new community cases of the UK variant announced yesterday?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I wouldn’t characterise it that way. What I would say is that we’ve got increasing confidence in our track and trace—our test, track, and trace, if you like—system, which means that we can respond to cases of known origin and contain those without the need for alert level escalation. What we saw over the weekend, on Sunday in particular, was that we had a case where we did not know the origin of that case. We could not rule out that it would have come from community transmission that had previously been undetected, and we needed to assure ourselves and the public that there was not COVID-19 out there spreading through the community that had gone undetected. The significant wave of testing that we have had over the last 72 hours has given us that confidence.

Chris Bishop: Is it concerning that there is a possible genomic link between a case at the Four Points Sheraton hotel in December and a case in the community in February?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It is possible; the advice that we have had, though, is that it’s highly unlikely. What we’ve indicated with these particular cases is because we don’t know the origin of the cases, we’ll leave no stone unturned to find the origin of the cases. The most likely scenario is that it’s associated with case B’s workplace, which was at the border. That is still the most likely scenario. However, because there are still some question marks over that, we will pursue and investigate any other possibility, no matter how unlikely it is. There was a case that arrived at the Sheraton Four Points late last year where there is not a clear match with the cases we are dealing with at the moment but where there is a more distant match—it’s a B.1.1.7 variant—so we want to just absolutely discount that possibility. So there’s some further investigation going on around that.

Hon Grant Robertson: With respect to that answer, can the Minister confirm the advice of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research that it is highly unlikely that that is the source of this case?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, I absolutely can confirm that it’s highly unlikely. We’re dealing with a range of unlikely scenarios. That one is amongst the more unlikely of the scenarios.

Chris Bishop: Bearing in mind what he’s just said around question marks still being there around the Four Points case, and what he said earlier—that we still don’t know the origin of this most recent series of cases—was the move announced yesterday to lower Auckland to level 2 in line with the Government’s stated strategy of showing an abundance of caution?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, absolutely. The move to alert level 3 was in line with our abundance of caution strategy. The reason for escalating alert levels quickly and swiftly was that we could not discount at that point the possibility of community transmission that had been undetected. The widespread testing that we have seen, but particularly where that testing has been taking place, is the piece of the puzzle that gave the Cabinet confidence to accept the advice of Health, and the Director-General of Health in particular, that we could lower the alert level settings yesterday.

Chris Bishop: What did the official Health advice yesterday to Cabinet say about the risk of a return move up to level 3 again, thus creating a yo-yo affect between alert levels?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I can’t remember the exact wording, but certainly the discussion at the Cabinet indicated that the probability of that is low, related to this case. Now, one of the things about COVID-19 is that whenever a new case emerges, we look at what we know and we look at what we don’t know. So I can’t say that we wouldn’t go back up alert levels, were new cases to emerge that weren’t connected to these cases, for example. But where new cases emerge that are clearly connected to the cases that we’re dealing with at the moment, we have the confidence that our contact tracing, our testing, and our isolation processes are sufficient to contain that risk without the need for higher alert levels. We are not yet back down to alert level 1 at Auckland because there is still some risk there. That’s why we continue to be at alert level 2 in Auckland.

Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Minister confirm that alert level 2 of the alert level framework does take into account the fact that there may be cases in the community, but we believe that they can be controlled?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. That is exactly what the four-level alert level framework that we have designed allows us to do. Now, level 2 is a step up from level 1, and that is where Auckland still is at the moment. We’re satisfied that around the rest of the country, were any cases to emerge that are linked to these ones, again, we’d look at those based on their merits, but our contact tracing systems are good. They have demonstrated how good they are in the previous cases that we dealt with late last year.

Chris Bishop: Has the Government started any work on updating the sophistication of the alert level system in light of Professor Baker’s comments around how the alert level system needs to be improved and move on and be more granular in its application?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: One of the most important things about our alert level system is that the public of New Zealand need to understand it, so they need to understand what is expected of them at each alert level. So we’ve now had plenty of time for New Zealanders to get used to what’s required of them at level 2, level 3, level 4, and even at level 1. We have made refinements. I would reject the notion that we haven’t continued to refine the system. For example, the changing policy around the use of masks is one of the things that we have put in place. We didn’t have QR codes compulsory early on, and we have now got compulsory display of QR codes. So we continue to refine the system, but what we don’t want to do is create a situation where people, on a daily basis, when they get out of bed in the morning, don’t know what they’re expected to do.

Chris Bishop: Who was he talking about when he said in the House on Tuesday that some epidemiologists “should know better”, and what was he referring to?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The member should consider my quote in the full context in which it was made. The point that I was making was that when people refer to failure at the border in relation to specific incursions, the people who work at the border—who get out of bed every day and go to work to keep themselves, their families, and the New Zealand community safe—see that as a direct criticism of their work, and people should be careful when they make those kind of bald statements. They are unfair. There will be cases of COVID-19 that make it past the border. That is not a sign that people who work at the border have failed.

Question No. 2—Finance

2. GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Finance: What financial support will be available to businesses affected by the COVID-19 alert level changes this week?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): The new Resurgence Support Payment, passed through Parliament this week, will be available to eligible businesses now that Auckland will be in alert level 2 until Monday. In order to qualify for the payment, businesses must show a 30 percent drop in revenue over a seven-day period, compared with a typical seven-day period in the six weeks prior to the alert level rise; or, if it is a seasonal business applying, a revenue drop compared with a similar week the previous year. The payment includes a core per business rate of $1,500, plus $400 per employee, up to a total of 50 full-time equivalents (FTEs). That is a maximum payment of $21,500. Businesses with more than 50 FTEs can still apply but cannot get more than the maximum payment. Businesses can apply for the payment from Tuesday via the Inland Revenue website.

Greg O’Connor: Is the payment only available to businesses in Auckland?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No. The payment is available to all New Zealand businesses, as long as they meet the criteria I outlined in my primary answer. This is because the impacts of alert level rises are felt everywhere across New Zealand due to the interdependencies of the New Zealand economy.

Greg O’Connor: What other support is available to businesses and workers?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The Leave Support Scheme is in place, which helps businesses to help pay workers told to self-isolate because of COVID-19, in line with public health advice. The Short-Term Absence Payment is also available, which covers eligible workers needing to stay home while awaiting a COVID-19 test. Other support available includes the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme and the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme.

Question No. 3—Housing

3. BROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Housing: Have the Government’s housing policies made it easier to rent a home in New Zealand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): The Government has rolled out comprehensive reforms to help renters, but we acknowledge that it is still not easy for everyone in the rental market at the moment. Our reforms have included increased security of tenure for tenants, limiting rent increases to once a year, ending the practice of rental bidding, and healthy home standards to ensure homes are properly insulated and have an efficient heat source. We know housing supply continues to be an issue, and that’s why we’re looking at a range of additional measures, including in the rental market, such as via build to rent, and we’ll have more to say about all of this in the very near future.

Brooke van Velden: Why are rents going up, with reports of rent prices hitting record highs at the start of this year?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment data shows that we’ve had about an 8.6 percent annual increase in rents across the whole country. There are a range of factors that come into play around why this may be, primarily the incredibly hot housing market. We know that we do have issues of supply, and that’s why our Government is currently working on a package of measures to address the supply issues.

Brooke van Velden: Does she agree with the regulatory impact statement for the Government’s recent Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) changes that “This could affect landlords’ willingness to rent, the amount of rent charged, and could lead to more stringent vetting of tenants.”?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: While I didn’t have ministerial responsibility for that piece of legislation—the RTA reforms are, of course, within the delegations of the Associate Minister of Housing—what I can tell the member is the regulatory impact assessment for that piece of legislation did say a range of things and it did make some assumptions, some modelled assumptions, not all of which have come to bear: so, for example—not just in the regulatory impact statement—that there were many landlords, for example, that indicated before the passage of that legislation that they would exit the market, but the data simply doesn’t support that modelled assumption.

Nicola Willis: Can she confirm median rents have increased by $110 a week since Labour took office?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I said, what we do know is that in the last 12 months rents have increased around 8.6 percent. That we have seen increases of rents through that period of time—nobody is contesting that fact. But what I can tell that member is that we are a Government that is determined to put together a package of both demand and supply measures to address the issues of housing—something that was sorely lacking under the party that member is a member of, when they were in Government.

Brooke van Velden: Does she expect Government policies to have any effect on lowering rents over the coming year?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: One of the issues that we are facing in our rental market is a lack of supply. So the package of measures that we are currently putting together that are aimed at increasing supply—we do expect to see some change that will occur from this. Of course, supply-side measures do take a period of time to kick in, but one of the things that we are determined to keep doing is to explore a range of options to make sure that New Zealanders have access to warm, dry, and secure homes.

Question No. 4—Education

4. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Education: What progress is the Government making with the redevelopment of Wainuiomata High School?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): I’m pleased to say that work began at the end of last month at Wainuiomata High School to ensure that its buildings and teaching spaces are fit for purpose. This project, which is worth around $40 million, is vital for the school and the wider community. It’s a large and complex project, and I’m advised that construction work is expected to take around three years.

Ginny Andersen: Has the Government scaled up its original assistance to Wainuiomata High School?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Absolutely, yes. Wainuiomata High School was identified as a school that needed significantly more funding than the $14 million that was originally approved back in 2017. I want to thank the member for her tireless advocacy for Wainuiomata High School in that community for what I think will be a significant legacy project.

Ginny Andersen: How will the redevelopment improve the learning environment for Wainuiomata High School students and staff?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The development includes the delivery of 33 new and refurbished teaching spaces to support a roll of 605, comfortably accommodating the school’s roll. It does also address weathertightness and building condition issues.

SPEAKER: Is that all?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave for the Speaker to be able to ask a supplementary question.

SPEAKER: I was just trying to work out whose legacy. Carry on.

Question No. 5—Transport

5. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Transport: What responsibility, if any, does he take for the findings of the Health Check final report on the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): As I’ve said previously, everyone has to take accountability for the fact that we haven’t had the delivery that we want. I welcome the informal support that I’ve received from a number of members opposite for the response that I have taken to the report.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does that responsibility extend to the Minister, who seemed to be distancing himself from any responsibility when the report came out?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As I just said in my previous answer, everyone needs to take accountability, and my job as Minister is to send a clear direction that the Government expects this project to get back on track and deliver for the people of Wellington—something that the people of Wellington waited for nine long years for and never happened. I’ve sent that direction to all of the project partners and I’m very pleased that they’ve responded positively. [Interruption]

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Shouldn’t he first be looking in the mirror and demanding accountability of himself—[Interruption]—and his Government for his role—

SPEAKER: Order! Now both sides while Mr Woodhouse has been asking questions have made noises: one on the previous question, then on this one. I’m going to ask Mr Woodhouse to start that question again and remind Government members that they shouldn’t imitate Opposition members in interjecting.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Shouldn’t he be first looking in the mirror and demanding accountability of himself and his Government for their role in the failures highlighted in this report?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Well, I clearly look in the mirror less than some members in this Chamber, but since the Health Check was received by me only one week ago, I’ve already taken action requiring the project partners to come together within two weeks to meaningfully respond to the Health Check’s recommendations.

Hon Julie Anne Genter: How will he ensure that Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s $6.8 billion investment in transport is consistent with the Climate Commission’s draft advice that urban areas should minimise car use and spend more on public and active transport and less on new roads?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I note that the core principles of Let’s Get Wellington Moving include an imperative to support Wellingtonians to have real transport choices through better public transport, walking, and cycling. I also note that in the letter that I have sent to the project partners I’ve encouraged them to quickly advance work to deliver on better walking and cycling options and better public transport options.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he seriously believe that two weeks is sufficient time to make decisions about how to spend more than $6 billion in tax- and ratepayer money?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Well, after that side of the House sat on their hands for nine years and did nothing to meet the transport challenges of Wellington, it’s no surprise that the member is suggesting that we should delay things further.

Hon Member: What about Transmission Gully?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Transmission Gully—a project which we are busy cleaning up, given the mess that that member left us. Two weeks is sufficient time for the project partners to get on with the job of responding to the recommendations that were made by the Health Check. Wellingtonians are very clear that we need action on this programme, and I’m very pleased that in my conversations with both chair Ponter and Mayor Andy Foster they agree with the need to get on with the job, and I think it would be helpful if others did as well.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Has the Government agreed to fund a second Mount Victoria tunnel as a priority for the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: As the member will be aware, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme has a range of possible projects. We are currently awaiting detailed business case work to be done on a number of them before making decisions on how they proceed.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: How can Wellingtonians have any confidence that their long-awaited transport system improvements won’t go the way of Auckland light rail and KiwiBuild?

Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I’m very pleased by the positive response that I’ve received from a number of Wellingtonians to the direction that the Government has provided to this project, including people such as the former Porirua mayor Nick Leggett, who said, “We need to get cars off the road, and we need a reliable, fast mass-transit system”; Porirua Mayor Anita Baker, who said, “We’ve made some decisions, and now we need to get on with it and do the work.”; and Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy, who said, “We don’t need to spend six months focusing on what we need to do, we need to get some diggers [on] the ground.” That is the approach that this Government intends to take.

Question No. 6—Economic and Regional Development

6. KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa) to the Minister for Economic and Regional Development: What reports has he seen on the effectiveness of the new system for approving business travel exemptions when crossing the border between alert levels?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): The brand new automated system for approving requests for travel exemptions across Auckland was stood up very quickly on Sunday and it functioned well. Following the August 2020 lockdown, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) worked with 16 Government agencies to develop an online system, the Business Travel Register, to enable more speedy processing of requests for travel exemptions across the borders between alert levels. It is automated through an online platform, Business Connect, which was set up with $7 million funding in Budget 2019. The Business Travel Register was stood up at half past midnight on the morning of Monday, 15 February, after MBIE officials worked through the night. During the 72 hours of alert level 3, the register received requests for travel exemptions from 3,284 businesses. The register issued travel documents for 23,290 workers to travel across boundaries for work. The majority of documents were issued in a matter of minutes, including a QR code that could be scanned at checkpoints.

Kieran McAnulty: What industries and sectors made greatest use of the exemptions to go about their work across boundaries?

Hon STUART NASH: The essential economy of Auckland carried on. The largest single categories of travel exemptions are as follows: for building and construction workers, 5,568 people; for those working in the production and processing and supply of food and beverage, 4,119 people; transport and logistics sector—e.g., freight and passenger services—5,956 workers; workers in the utilities and comms sector, 2,782; and health and disability sector, 1,268 workers.

Kieran McAnulty: How does the new system compare with the last time Auckland was in alert level 3?

Hon STUART NASH: On Monday morning, the Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive said that border crossings were easier for businesses as a result of this new system. He said that it was a better system than the one used during the Auckland 2020 lockdown and it was welcomed by thousands of businesses. The number of exemptions granted under the manual system used last year was around 6,000 workers, or one-quarter of those approved this time.

Question No. 7—Tourism

7. Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister of Tourism: Does he stand by all his comments to the tourism sector in relation to international visitors and the closed border?

Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Tourism): Yes.

Hon Todd McClay: When he said that if tourism businesses—and I quote—“haven’t been able to pivot from an international base to domestic base, then I’m afraid you’re probably going to have to have some very hard conversations with your bank, your creditors, your directors, your employees”, was he suggesting that he expects these businesses to take on more debt or to close and that the Government has given up on them?

Hon STUART NASH: What I was suggesting was that under the COVID environment that we find ourselves in, apart from an Australian bubble, which the Government is working very hard on, we are unlikely to see international tourists in New Zealand this calendar year.

Hon Todd McClay: Why is he telling tourism business owners who have borrowed against their homes and poured their life savings into keeping their operations afloat over the past year to talk to their bank managers, accountants, or to close?

Hon STUART NASH: Because that’s the reality of the situation that many tourism businesses find themselves in. I want to reiterate: apart from an Australian bubble, that this Government is working very hard to enable, the likelihood of seeing tourists from overseas on our motorways this year is highly unlikely, and if a business operator has a business that is highly or fully dependent on overseas visitors, then there are some very difficult decisions that they will have to make.

Hon Todd McClay: When he said publicly that the cold, hard reality was that New Zealand will probably not welcome back international tourists until 2022, what official advice was this based on, and why has that said to the tourism sector that he’s given up on the trans-Tasman bubble?

Hon STUART NASH: I think the last thing this Government has done is given up on the tourism sector. We launched a package of over $400 million. Obviously, we’ve had the wage subsidy, the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme. Now there’s a resurgence payment. There was the stat payment. We have provided a lot of assistance to the tourism industry, but I would like to reiterate that the cold, hard reality of the situation we find ourselves in as a country is that we are very unlikely to see international tourists, apart from Australians, in our country this calendar year.

Hon Todd McClay: In telling tourism businesses to adjust to the domestic market, is he aware that domestic tourism would need to increase by 72 percent just to replace the loss in international visitors, and that it’s hard to run a small tourism business on school holidays and the odd long weekend?

Hon STUART NASH: I would never tell any business owner what they should do. What I was advising business owners in the tourism sector of is the fact that we are very unlikely to see international tourists in our country this calendar year, apart from the Australian bubble, which we’re working closely on, and therefore that is something that they will have to take into consideration when they are planning for this year.

Maureen Pugh: Will the Minister give relief to townships in the Glacier Country, Haast, and Te Ānau, where visitor numbers have reduced by up to 95 percent, and, if not, why not?

Hon STUART NASH: We have given relief to a number of businesses up and down this country. I have great sympathy for businesses who are reliant on overseas international visitors, and I understand the plight and I have great sympathy for the plight of those at Franz and Fox. What I will say is that we are having ongoing discussions around what some sort of package may look like. Nothing has been decided. But the thing that I will reiterate, apart from what I’ve just said, is that the Government has always been very clear that we cannot save—this is the cold, hard reality—every single business.

Question No. 8—Social Development and Employment

8. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does the Salvation Army having to distribute more than 110,000 food parcels last year show that income support is not yet enough for people to live with dignity?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Income adequacy has been a core part of our overall welfare programme. The Stats New Zealand report released earlier this week showed that prior to COVID-19 we were making good progress in increasing incomes and reducing material hardship, including through the $5.5 billion investment in the Families Package, increases to the minimum wage, the removal of excessive benefit sanctions, lifting benefits by $25 per week and indexing them to the average wage, making the largest change to abatement levels in two decades, removing the hours test for the in-work tax credit, and ongoing investment in training and apprenticeship programmes. All of this shows the Government’s real commitment to addressing income adequacy and ensuring people can live in dignity, but we do acknowledge there is always more to do.

Jan Logie: What actions will she take to protect the wellbeing of children in benefit-dependent homes, especially now that there are around 23,000 more of them?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, what I would say is that has been a particular focus for the Government. I note that for sole parents with children they are now around $105 a week better off than they were before the last three years of the Government. We know that we have got more work to do there, but we’re pleased with the progress that we’re making and we continue to look at all options that are available.

Jan Logie: Does she agree with the Salvation Army that “The changes made to income support and welfare policy to date do not seem to be sufficient”?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said before, what I would say in response to that is I believe we have made good progress. I think when you look at numbers like $105 per week for a sole parent being better off, that is a significant contribution. I do think during the COVID period we’ve seen highlighted to us again the importance of looking again at income adequacy. Quite clearly, the significant impact of a recession falls on the lowest-income people. We lifted benefits by $25 a week in March last year as a result of knowing that that was the likely situation New Zealand would be facing, and we will continue to look at further options.

Jan Logie: What actions from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders will be completed this year?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, I’m sure the member appreciates that a detailed question like that would need to be put down in writing. What I can say is we’ve made good progress on around about 22 of the recommendations, and we continue to use that report as the blueprint for our response.

Jan Logie: Will she consider a guaranteed minimum income to seriously reduce poverty and also to give effect to the Labour Party’s 2020 manifesto commitments to increase income support and simplify and reset the foundations of the welfare system, and, if not, why not?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: On behalf of the Minister, the Minister stands by the Labour Party’s manifesto commitments in 2020. At this point, there is no plan for a guaranteed minimum family income.

Hon Stuart Nash: Is the Government considering any changes to abatement rates for those on a benefit so they can earn more without losing any of their benefit entitlements?

Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Not just considering that; we’ve actually done it. This week, we have announced that that will increase to $160 and will be largest increase in two decades. It is very important that we ensure that people can take part-time work on and not be discouraged from doing that because they think that their benefit will abate so quickly.

Question No. 9—Defence

9. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Defence: What recent announcement has he made on New Zealand’s deployment to Afghanistan?

Hon PEENI HENARE (Minister of Defence): Tuatahi māku, ka tangi atu ki ngā hōia kua riro atu ki te pō.

[Firstly, I would like to acknowledge those soldiers who lost their lives.]

First, I want to acknowledge the 10 soldiers we lost during this particular operation, and say to you that yesterday, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Affairs Minister, and I announced that New Zealand would conclude our deployment of New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel to Afghanistan. The Defence Force’s deployment to Afghanistan has been one of our longest in history. Ten New Zealanders tragically lost their lives in Afghanistan, and more than 3,500 NZDF and other agency personnel contributed. We will always remember their commitment to replace conflict with peace, and the current deployment of six NZDF personnel will return to New Zealand by May of this year.

Paul Eagle: What has the New Zealand Defence Force achieved within 20 years of deployment in Afghanistan?

Hon PEENI HENARE: Together with our partners, New Zealand has helped to establish the conditions for the current intra-Afghan peace process. We’ve supported regional security and helped to improve the lives of the people of Afghanistan, particularly in the Bamian province. Through our most recent deployment, New Zealand has contributed to training and mentoring a new generation of officers in the Afghanistan army since 2013. This has been a joint effort alongside the United Kingdom, Denmark, and previously Australia and Norway. The Defence Force has also contributed to women, peace, and security initiatives in Afghanistan. Between 2003 and 2013, the NZDF-led Provincial Reconstruction Team and the New Zealand Aid Programme - funded projects have left a lasting positive impact on the Bamian province through tangible governance, development, and security support.

Paul Eagle: What else is the New Zealand Defence Force doing to support peace and security globally?

Hon PEENI HENARE: The NZDF currently has personnel deployed in the Middle East, North-east Asia, and Africa supporting international peace and security initiatives. Our largest offshore commitment at present, and one of New Zealand’s longest lasting, is to the Multinational Force and Observers mission in the Sinai Peninsula. New Zealand will continue to support regional maritime security through an ongoing commitment to the Combined Maritime Forces headquarters in Bahrain. We also have ongoing contributions to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Iraq and Kuwait and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan and the Golan Heights. Closer to home, New Zealanders are deployed to the multinational United Nations Command and its Military Armistice Commission in the Republic of Korea. Despite the challenges and restrictions imposed on us all by COVID, we can be proud that the New Zealand Defence Force still does our part to support international peace and security.

Teanau Tuiono: What actions will the Government take to fulfil New Zealand’s obligations to prosecute and punish the alleged perpetrators of war crimes in Afghanistan and ensure they do not happen again when the NZDF is involved in conflict?

Hon PEENI HENARE: We’ve made it clear off the back of the Burnham inquiry and the recommendations from that inquiry that the New Zealand Defence Force has some work to do to make sure that we are able to report and we are able to consistently maintain a high level of professionalism in dealing with casualties from conflict, and, in particular, in this case in Afghanistan. We are on track to deliver on the recommendations on that inquiry, and I’m looking forward to presenting to the House the final findings.

Question No. 10—Housing

10. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of Housing: What advice, if any, has she received on the current and forecast gap between housing supply and demand in New Zealand?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Housing): I’ve received advice that the current gap between housing supply and demand in New Zealand is anywhere between 28,000 and 200,000 homes. This range is based on estimates by many commentators and economists, and the precise figure is contested as there is not one set methodology for measuring the gap between supply and demand. The estimates that I have received advice on include Kiwibank, who forecast an 80,000 gap; Westpac, who forecast a 50,000 gap; ASB, who forecast a gap of 60,000 to 65,000; Sense Partners, who forecast a gap of 28,000 to 45,000; Infometrics, who forecast a gap of 40,000; ANZ, 60,000 to 120,000; and Ashley Church, who forecast 200,000. Then there is other data that we monitor and I receive advice on, such as CoreLogic, who track market activity but do not engage in forecasting. There is BRANZ and Pacifecon New Zealand, who provide building and construction forecasting and data on known intentions, and these numbers go towards providing a six-year forecast of national building and construction work. And then, of course, there is Stats NZ, who provide inter-census estimates of dwellings and populations, and projections of future population growth and household formations, but, again, these are not forecasts. While it’s important that we have good problem definition, and these forecasts help understand the scale of the crisis, it’s equally important that after a decade of inaction by the previous Government, we get on and deal with the problem, and that’s exactly what this Government is doing.

Nicola Willis: What advice has she received from her own Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which employs 315 people at a cost to the taxpayer of $62 million a year—

SPEAKER: Order! I’m going to—that’s one supplementary gone. The member will now ask one which is in order. She knows—she’s been around here a long time. She knows that is out of order.

Nicola Willis: What advice has the Minister received from her own Ministry of Housing and Urban Development about the size of the housing shortage in New Zealand, and if they don’t monitor that, how does she know whether her policies are effective or not?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I don’t propose to read through the list of advice that is discussed—

SPEAKER: No, the member will resume her seat. The list she read was not advice; they were reports. The member’s been asked about advice now.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: The advice that I have received from officials is that what we have is—depending on the methodology that is used in terms of forecasting, you can come up with any number. So rather than just using a crude national figure, the advice that I have received is, actually, we look more at place-based assessment. We have already undertaken these in Rotorua, Gisborne, Northland, and Hastings so we can understand not only the housing shortfall in a given geographical location but we can also understand what the shortfall is in terms of rental properties, what the shortfall is in terms of homeownership, what the shortfall might be in terms of public housing. So what the information tells is us is actually what is required in a given place. I would point that member to the fact that the advice I’ve also received is that under the previous National Government there was no formalised forecasting, but actually officials did start doing some modelling to try and convince that previous Government that we did indeed have a housing crisis.

Nicola Willis: Why was the previous Minister of Housing, the Hon Phil Twyford, able to provide figures measuring the housing shortage in New Zealand, but this Minister is not able to?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: There’s a very simple answer for that. So the figure that appeared in the 2017 briefing to the then incoming Minister was an extrapolation of the 45,000 dwelling shortfall that had been provided to the previous Government before the change of Government. That was done by officials because there was no formalised forecasting for the Government, but, as I said, the bureaucracy decided they needed to try and convince the previous Government there was a housing crisis.

Brooke van Velden: How many new houses will be built this year due to policies implemented by this Government?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I don’t have those figures directly on me, across all typologies. What I can tell the member—I can tell her off the top of my head—is how many public houses that we will be building this year. I also note that the building consents that have gone in are at an all-time high since the 1970s, so more houses than in decades. But if the member wants to put that question in writing, I’m more than happy to give her a very precise number.

Nicola Willis: Is the Minister aware of a report released in 2019 by Minister Phil Twyford, saying the size of the housing shortage was 71,194 houses, and why hasn’t the Minister updated that number?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: As I said, that number was an extrapolation out of the number provided to the outgoing National Government of the 45,000 shortfall in housing. But what I discussed with officials and the advice I have was that actually just having a crude national number doesn’t provide us with the houses that we need to live in. We need to understand the nuance of this. We have to understand what is required in a particular location. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! I’m just going to remind the Hon Dr Nick Smith, when he sits in the deputy leader’s seat and makes that sort of noise, it goes through both my microphones and reverberates around the House. It makes it quite hard for anyone to hear.

Nicola Willis: How many new houses have been built through the Government’s flagship KiwiBuild programme, and how has that helped address New Zealand’s housing shortage?

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Those numbers are, of course, publicly available to the member on the website. There have been 788 houses that have been built. There’s 855 houses under construction. How this does benefit the supply issues is that we are actually getting affordable homes for those people into the system. I will put that record against the previous Government’s 100 affordable homes under nine years in their special housing areas, any day of the week.

Question No. 11—Foreign Affairs

11. BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana) to the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs: What steps has the Government taken to work with Pacific States regarding vaccination roll-out plans?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs): Last year, the Government committed $75 million to support Pacific and global vaccine access and roll-out. I have had the opportunity to videoconference with the Ministers of Health and senior health officials from the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu over the past few weeks. Our officials have actively been engaging with their country counterparts to understand the individual needs. New Zealand is working with a number of donor partners in organisations to ensure our approach to support Pacific countries is coordinated.

Barbara Edmonds: What has been the response so far from the six Polynesian countries?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: New Zealand’s offer has been well received during my engagements with each country. It reaffirms New Zealand’s special constitutional relationships in the Realm nations and the strong links between our health systems and close people to people ties across Polynesia. Our response has been based on the principle of whanaungatanga—kinship—as we in Aotearoa see ourselves as the integral members of the extended Pacific whānau.

Barbara Edmonds: What type of support will New Zealand be offering these countries?

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: Each country is developing their own COVID-19 vaccine plan, and New Zealand is actively working alongside them to identify the areas where we can best assist them. Such supports could include technical assistance and guidance and support of immunisation planning. In addition, we could also provide vaccinator workforce training and vaccine consumables such as syringes and needles. New Zealand is monitoring developments in the wider Pacific to ensure that our approach to support the six Polynesian countries is coordinated with other donor countries and organisations, and that countries are getting what they need.

Question No. 12—Police

NICOLE McKEE (ACT): My question is to the Minister of Police. Can she confirm that since October 2017 the number of gang members on the national gangs list has increased by 2,264 and the number of police staff investigating organised crime has increased by only 239?

SPEAKER: Order! The member will now read the question as it is written down.

NICOLE McKEE: Apologies, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Well, the member’s a bit lucky.

12. NICOLE McKEE (ACT) to the Minister of Police: Can she confirm that since October 2017 the number of gang members on the national gang list has increased by 2,264 and the number of police staff investigating organised crime has increased by 239?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice) on behalf of the Minister of Police: The Government has invested $450 million in the police since we came to office, and an additional 700 police staff will be focused on tackling organised crime by 2023. This has led to improvements in police data, which has shown the growth in the national gang police list that the member speaks of. As a result of this Government investment, the total police workforce is the largest it has been ever, surpassing 14,000. The police work every day to keep New Zealanders safe and they work every day to disrupt gang activity, and we are proud of the work that they do.

SPEAKER: Order! The member will now actually give us something which approximates an answer to the question.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Well, Mr Speaker, as I said, the police data has improved to show the growth of the national gang list that the member speaks of.

Nicole McKee: How many new staff dedicated to investigating organised crime do police intend to hire and by what date?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: As I said in my initial answer, 700 by 2023.

Nicole McKee: Can the Minister also confirm that 12 gang members on the national gang list hold a current firearms licence, up from the 11 acknowledged in August last year?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I can confirm that. It is an operational issue as to whether the police will take any action against them. I would note that as the legislation currently stands, those on the national gang list can have their firearms licence removed if the police believe they are not a fit and proper person and associated with a gang. That is a piece of legislation the ACT Party voted against.

Hon Stuart Nash: Is it true that under the previous term of this Government, we took over 60,000 rifles out of our community that were primarily designed to kill people and not hunt deer, possums, rabbits, or tahr?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I can confirm that, and that has led to New Zealanders being safer as a result of that change of legislation.

Nicole McKee: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to table the answer to written question No. 343, which has not yet been published—

SPEAKER: No. Don’t go on—don’t go on. I think I’ll, in this case, accept the fact that the member is a relatively new member, but if she seeks advice from her leader or other experienced members in the House, she will be told that she cannot table published written answers.

Nicole McKee: Point of order, Mr Speaker. If I may, this written question has not been published yet; it has only just been released, and Standing Order—

SPEAKER: Right, can I make a suggestion that in future if the member asks, she says “unpublished” in front of it, then that makes it clear. [Interruption]

Nicole McKee: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

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

Hon David Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.

Nicole McKee: Mr Speaker, sorry, does that mean I have leave to table that?

SPEAKER: Not quite. I’ll get the member to just finish saying it again.

Nicole McKee: I seek leave to table the unpublished answer to written question No. 343, which has not yet been published on the Parliament website.

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

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

David Seymour: Point of order. Mr Speaker, can I ask why you assumed that the member was seeking to table a published written question?

SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. It was an error on my part and I apologise.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Mr Speaker. This does raise a wider issue. The reason that question answers are not published immediately is so that the members opposite have the opportunity to read those answers before they’re available to the general public. If this was to become a habit, where members continued to seek leave to table answers that have not yet been published, we could easily fix that system by making them instantly publishable when the Minister has lodged them. It would mean that the members would not have access to them before the public, but if this is going to become a trend in the House, the Government would certainly support moves to make them published immediately.

David Seymour: Speaking to the point of order—

SPEAKER: No. First of all, I’m going to deal with the person who interjected while Mr Hipkins was speaking. Who was it? It was either Dr Smith or Mr Doocey.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Mr Speaker, there was an exchange between Dr Smith and myself, but it wasn’t in the nature of an interjection.

SPEAKER: Why was he saying “No” to you?

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Because we were having a conversation.

SPEAKER: All right. Back to Mr Seymour.

David Seymour: Speaking to the Leader of the House’s point of order, previous Speakers—I think it may have been Carter—have explicitly ruled that unpublished written questions can be tabled. It’s the intention of previous Speakers that members can do precisely what Nicole McKee has just done, and I don’t know why the Leader of the House is relitigating it.

Hon Chris Hipkins: Mr Speaker, I seek leave for the rules of the Parliament, the Standing Orders, to be amended for this session of Parliament so that written parliamentary question answers are published immediately when they are lodged by the Ministers responsible for them.

SPEAKER: Giving a warning that if leave is agreed to, it might just take a little bit of work to change the computing system in order for that to be able to happen.

Hon Member: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: No, we’ve got leave being sought. So, at this point, I am going to put that leave. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Hon Member: Point of order.

SPEAKER: No. We’ve now dealt with that matter. Nicole McKee still has supplementary questions.

Chris Bishop: Point of order. I seek leave for the issue that the Leader of the House just put around the issue of unpublished written questions being immediately uploaded to the parliamentary website to be referred to the Standing Orders Committee for further consideration.

SPEAKER: Well, the member can do a letter to that. He doesn’t need a parliamentary thing, but we can do that. Is there any objection to that? There is objection.

Nicole McKee: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Under what circumstances is it appropriate—[Interruption]

SPEAKER: Order! Well, ACT just got another supplementary. Thank you, my teammate from Coast to Coast!

Nicole McKee: Under what circumstances is it appropriate for a gang member to hold a firearms licence?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: On behalf of the Minister, that is a judgment for the police to make, as to whether they are a fit and proper person.

Nicole McKee: So is the Minister concerned about the increase in gang numbers and the number of gang members that actually hold a firearms licence, and, if so, what policies does the Minister plan to introduce to respond to these issues?

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: On behalf of the Minister, we are very concerned about making sure that New Zealanders stay safe, which is why we passed legislation that took 60,000 dangerous prohibited guns off the streets last year. There is the ability, as I’ve mentioned to the member, within current legislation, for people who are on the gang register to have their firearms licence removed if the police believe they are not a fit and proper person. Again, I would stress that is a piece of legislation the ACT Party did not support.

David Seymour: What does it say about this Government’s policies and the legislation they ask us to support that the number of gang members with firearms licences is going up even as the Government takes 60,000 firearms off law-abiding firearms owners who have done nothing wrong?

Hon Stuart Nash: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: You’re not the Minister any more.

Hon KRIS FAAFOI: We are absolutely proud of the focus that we’ve had on this side of the House to tackle organised crime. We have increased the number of police, and currently I am at the Royal New Zealand Police College congratulating Wing 343, who are graduating this afternoon.

Hon Stuart Nash: Is it true that the ACT Party was the only party that did not vote to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons?

SPEAKER: The member has also been around here for a long time, and he knows that this Minister has no responsibility for that.

Hon Member: Supplementary?

SPEAKER: No. The member’s used them already, and the member knows it. That concludes oral questions.

Intelligence and Security Committee

Membership

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Prime Minister: I move, That under section 196 of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, this House endorse the following as members of the Intelligence and Security Committee: Dr Shane Reti and Hon Gerry Brownlee, nominated by the Leader of the Opposition under section 194(2)(c) of the Act; and Hon Andrew Little, Hon Nanaia Mahuta, and Hon James Shaw, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 194(2)(d) of the Act.

Motion agreed to.

Business of the House

Business of the House

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill, following its committee stage, to be set down for third reading forthwith.

SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave that in the event that Parliament this afternoon reaches the conclusion of Government order of the day No. 3, the Secondary Legislation Bill, before 5 p.m., the House do adjourn at that point for the week. The Government has given the Opposition an undertaking that we will not proceed past the Secondary Legislation Bill this week, given the other events of the week.

SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill.

Bills

Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 5

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Members, the House is in committee on the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Associate Whip—Labour): Point of order. I seek leave for all provisions within this bill to be taken as one question.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): And one debate. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. Therefore, the question is that clauses 1 to 5 stand part.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a few questions for the Minister so I’ll take them one at a time. In the notes I have, it talks about the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) making preparation for this piece of legislation, although I did notice that during the select committee process, one of the submitters said that the Ministry of Health had already put some preparation policy work in place. Could you please clarify for me the roles of the various ministries and who has the ultimate responsibility around this piece of legislation, please?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): For this piece of legislation that is being considered by the House today, MPI is the agency responsible, and I as Minister for Food Safety. The future legislation which will replace this legislation—that planned legislation is likely to be led by the Ministry of Health and potentially part of a future therapeutic drugs bill.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): So following on from that, could the Minister please tell us of any awareness she has of preparation work that has taken place towards updating the regulations that currently exist, in order for this dietary supplements to be able to stand alone under a fit for purpose regime?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): Thank you. So preparatory work was done prior to COVID by both the Ministry of Health and in collaboration with officials from Ministry for Primary Industries as well, but it has not yet been through any parliamentary process.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you. Just one more question. The Minister talked during the second reading about the regulations potentially not taking this long. Has the Minister specifically asked to shorten the time frame for the regulations development, and, if so, by how much time, or is there a shorter date than 2026 that we could be working to?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): Thank you. One of the issues is that there would need to be a two-year lead time for implementation, so that would not allow much time for drafting and all the parliamentary stages in addition. So that is why we give ourselves a five-year window.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): When the Minister said that preparatory work has been undertaken but not to the stage of the parliamentary process, has she got a draft of the legislation that she’s received from the Ministry of Health, or have they prepared a draft?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): No. Preparatory policy work had begun, but, no, there is no draft.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): And are there any outstanding issues from that preparatory work?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): It’s work in progress, and I don’t have a report for the member on it, sorry.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): And when was the last time that preparatory work was revisited by this Minister or any other Minister in this Government?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): It wasn’t revisited by me, of course—that work occurred prior to COVID, and the question now is whether the work that was done is included in the wider therapeutic products bill, which would bring in other provisions relating to medicines more generally.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): So why has it been a year since any work’s been done on this and this Parliament is expected to put this bill through in a short period of time for a failure of the Government to do their job?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): The officials working on that bill at the Ministry of Health also were part of the COVID-19 response.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Excuse me, but you’ve had a year and was it immediately before COVID or—what was the problem? Why haven’t you revisited it? You’re a new Minister. You haven’t even gone back. You said that you haven’t revisited this bill, yet you’re willing to bring it to Parliament and ask us for an extension when you’ve had work in progress, and, as the new Minister, you should have undertaken to make sure that that work is continuing or that there is some level of progress.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): Forgive me; I think I misunderstood the member’s question. Yes, I have asked for the work to be progressed while I’ve been Minister, but there is much more work to go on it before it’s ready to come to the House, and this bill to extend the regulations—we do need the extension in order to be able to produce the final piece of legislation to replace it.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): So let’s clarify that. So before, you said that you hadn’t asked for anything to be done. You have asked for something to be done, and on what dates?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): I’m afraid I cannot tell you the date I asked for the work to be done but I have asked for it to be done. It was prior to Christmas when I first learnt about this issue. But I guess the point for the member is that the broader piece of work that this issue will be resolved through now brings in a lot of other matters that are included in the future therapeutic goods bill.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): So if you knew before Christmas, why hadn’t you signalled to the House that there would be no reason that we would be able to do it at this late stage, when you’re going to involve other—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Can I just interrupt the member. The section or part of the bill—you need to ask questions or speak to the content of the bill. The nature of how it got to the point of being a bill is not the principal subject matter that the committee is dealing with.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Mr Chair, the bill is only one line and the line is to change the date. So that is the content of the bill—it’s the date. So we’re asking why the date needs to be changed.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I think if you listened carefully to my ruling, you would understand the point that I was making.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): I was just wanting to ask the Minister—in the committee submissions, there was a submission made by Natural Health Products NZ, and they too were disturbed by the fact that they had to support this legislation in terms of the date of expiry of the old legislation. But I just wanted some assurance from the Minister that they will be involved in any further discussion or building of the next piece of legislation.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): Indeed. It is important, and I have directed officials in both Health and the Ministry for Primary Industries to continue to engage with the natural products industry to make sure that we form good legislation on this matter.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Chair. It’d be fair to say I’m coming slightly late to this, but I just was listening to the Minister’s response to the series of questions from the Hon David Bennett, and I would just like it clarified, please, as to the likely scope of the concluded legislation that the Minister and her team are working on. I heard you touch on elements of it. I think it’d be useful for the committee to understand what are the elements that are included in that work stream and the scope of any proposed legislation that she will be bringing back into the House to enable us to assess where this small bill sits in that context.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I give the call to the Minister—if she, indeed, wants to—the member, and any member of the committee, has a number of ways that they can find out that information, through oral questions or written questions, if it’s not actually in the bill. But if the Minister wants to enlighten the committee, she can.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Point of order, Mr Chairperson. The reason that I raised that question in that way is because the Minister herself had covered elements of what the new legislation would cover, and I was simply asking her to reflect more fully on that contribution.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah, and I made an earlier ruling to the committee related to that matter, and then my subsequent ruling now. So I’m going to leave it to the Minister and the committee to make contributions, questions, and answers on the bill.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): OK, on the bill, then: the Minister has said that the bill will be part of another piece of work—so is that incorrect? This bill is not going to have any other issues—

Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s great to see members making use of the change in the Standing Orders to allow to and fro. However, it’s unfortunate today that the members are using this like a cross-examination in the select committee, not a committee of the whole House. It is still a requirement of members to keep in scope with what is in the legislation. The point is, as was raised by the Hon Mr Bennett, that this is a very narrow bill. Asking the Minister what she intends to do in the future, as you yourself, Mr Chair, have ruled already, is not in the scope of this committee of the whole House.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yes, and I’ve ruled on the matter.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: I appreciate the point that was made, but the reality is that the Minister, in her answers to my questions—her explanation was that this is part of a wider piece of work. We simply would appreciate knowing what that part of that wider piece of work is, because we’ve been asked to support a bill which gives the Government another five years to do something, and we want to know what they’re intending to do.

And the Minister obviously knows, because she’s said it’s part of a wider piece of work—she knows what that wider piece of work is. She’s a very successful person pre-politics, so she’s no mug, and she’s obviously asked her department what to do, because she said that she’d had discussions with them in December. She would have had responses from the department since then that they can’t do the bill in time. We just would like some clarity as to what the plan is and what you want to do in the wider bill.

I think that the context of the Speaker setting up this kind of committee stage is to exactly enable that free flow of information, and we would like the Minister to follow the direction of the Chair and explain why this has been set up.

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

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): I’d just like an answer to my questions. Is the Minister willing to let us know what the full intent of her direction will be, or just give us a signal? Is the Minister going to answer?

Kieran McAnulty: You don’t have to, Minister.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): I think I’ve already indicated that this bill that we’re debating today is the bill for continuing to regulate dietary supplements up to the next five years. Beyond that, the Government will have to make replacement legislation. I’ve given an indication today about the direction of our thinking.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): So if this bill is the continuation of regulation, does that Minister anticipate any changes in that regulation in the next few years? And Kieran—point of order, Mr Chair. I think it’s unfair for the senior whip to go to a Minister—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! [Interruption] Order! Whips on both sides of the House are allowed to move freely around to speak to any member as required, as often happens on both sides of the House. That is not a point of order.

Kieran McAnulty: Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Had you finished, Mr Bennett?

Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, I hadn’t, actually. Thank you, Mr Chair. Well, it’s obvious today that we’ve seen that this bill is part of a longer strategy that the Minister is wanting to employ, and we’re not actually going to be necessarily against that wider strategy, because we see the importance of this industry and sector. There are a lot of people that want to see progress in this area. There are a lot of businesses that make their livelihood out of this area, and they want certainty and they want to know that there’s security in their business. And the public, as the consumers, want to know the products that they use are going to be exactly what they buy, and suchlike. So there is a lot of public good that is behind this legislation, and we’re not in any way trying to circumvent the process or delay or anything like that. In fact, we’re voting for the bill, and if you look at the first reading, it was done in a very short period of time. And we have got somebody that I regard highly as the Minister and, I know, will do a very good job as the Minister, and I think that she has indicated to us that this is part of a wider body of work. All we want to know is what that body of work could entail, in very broad terms. You know, we’re not asking for—

Kieran McAnulty: Well, ask in select committee when there’s legislation.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, this is the committee of the whole House, and this is the opportunity when the Minister can do that. And I think it’s just prudent that she is given that opportunity and she isn’t bullied by her whip into not saying anything in this House. In a democratic institution, the Labour Party whip should not being telling a Minister—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! [Interruption] Order! That means you sit down. Thank you. You can’t make an accusation like that in the committee, saying that the whip is instructing the Minister on what to say.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Point of order. He was. The defence of truth you can use in defamation, but we were all here, and Mr McAnulty won’t deny it, either. He’s an honest person—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): That is not a point of order.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: He’s an honourable member of this House. He’s not going to deny that he tried to instruct a Minister in his House, and that’s fine, you know. We just saw it. That’s how it works. I’m just saying—

Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. I think it’s highly unparliamentary that the Hon Dr Bennett would use his speech in such a manner to trivialise a ruling that you’ve just made, Mr Chair. You were very clear that the point that he was making was out of order, and now he’s just spent the best part of a minute actually arguing with your ruling.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Point of order. I never would—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): No. I’m going to make a ruling on that one, OK? Let’s just all calm down. This bill has got five clauses, three of which are the same as most bills, and then two others. Come on, we don’t need to be having this kind of debate on two clauses.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, point of order—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I hope you’re not going to relitigate anything.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: No, no, I wouldn’t. I just wanted to reaffirm your role and to say that we stand behind you in this situation. I think that it is probably quite sad—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): That’s not a point of order, either.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —that the senior whip of the Labour Party is trying to defend himself. But, getting away from that issue, because we all know that it’s inappropriate for him to have done what he did, but that’s bygones be bygones. We just want to have the Minister given the time to answer a question and not feel that she has been obliged, as a new member of this House, to be instructed by an older member of this House as to what she can and can’t say, and I just would like her to be open with the public.

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

Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.

House resumed.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): The committee has considered the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

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

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

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

This bill will mean that consumers both domestically and internationally can continue buying New Zealand dietary supplements while we work on a new regulatory regime to replace them. The bill was introduced by my predecessor, the Hon Damien O’Connor, in May last year and considered by the Primary Production Committee, which reported it back in December 2020. Last week it was read a second time, and this House enjoyed many creative contributions on that bill, and we have just completed the committee of the whole.

As I noted at the second reading, the Primary Production Committee recommended that this bill be passed without amendment, and there have been no amendments since then. This small bill is essential. By amending the Food Act 2014, it will extend the dietary supplements regulations by five years from the end of this month to 1 March 2026. It will give continuity to the dietary supplements industry at a time, due to COVID, when businesses need as much stability as possible. This industry, as I have discussed before, is worth nurturing as it has a lot to offer New Zealand in terms of rebuilding our economy. It will also maintain regulatory oversight over health and safety by, for example, restricting certain ingredients and specifying maximum doses for vitamins and minerals. In doing so, it continues New Zealand’s international reputation as a supplier of safe, high-quality dietary supplements.

A five-year extension is also a precautionary measure, as I’ve outlined, that allows for uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, I expect a replacement regime that includes a minimum two-year transition period to be fully working before then, because I am committed to building the new regime in a timely way.

As I noted in my second reading speech, in 2019 Natural Health Products NZ estimated the wider New Zealand supplement industry contributed $2.3 billion to the economy annually and had a five-year compound annual growth rate of 10 percent. The industry needs a modern regulatory system if it is to further contribute to our economy and employment, particularly in the regions.

I welcome the passage of this legislation as an interim measure to keep our dietary supplements industry operational while we put our minds to developing a better regime. Thank you.

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

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, as we’ve heard today, this is a very short piece of legislation—it’s basically one page—and we’ve established that it is there to increase the time frame to allow these regulations to be put in place, and I note that the Minister for Food Safety’s just said that it is a precautionary measure in terms of leaving the time frame open enough to be able to do the work. But I do look forward to that work being done. The Primary Production Committee did put the work through with no amendments. There’s very little to amend on here, really, other than perhaps amending the date, so there wasn’t a great lot of work to do on this. But I do notice that the select committee—I wasn’t on the select committee at the time, but they did look and mention a shorter extension if possible. So we know why we’ve extended the time frame, but I will note again that it would be great if we could do it sooner rather than later so we can provide certainty.

But also, it’s more than certainty. It’s giving our own natural products manufacturers in New Zealand an opportunity not only to compete globally but to compete in New Zealand—and under COVID that is more important than ever. We’re hearing a lot these days about the tourism industry and, sadly, you know, the fact that we can’t have any more tourists in the country at this point in time. And, you know, that’s acceptable. That’s the way it is under COVID right at this point in time. However, there are ways that we can get to people in other parts of the world in our exports, and our exports, thankfully, are going particularly well at the moment, but it does make it very hard for our natural products to compete, and I’ll give you an example here.

A member produces two identical products with the active ingredient Curcuma longa, Longvida—one version in New Zealand and one in Australia. The Australian version can make the claim that it “decreases mild joint aches and pains and relieves inflammation”, whereas the New Zealand - labelled product can only say “promotes general health and wellbeing”. So these are some of the restrictions that we’re finding our own New Zealand producers under. So I get that we need to do it properly but I also do understand that when we’re setting regulations in this country, yes, it’s important that they are appropriate to the country; however, there’s a lot of world—we’re one of the only countries in the OECD that don’t have one of these regulatory regimes, and so there is plenty of information that we can call on as this has been put together.

So Natural Health Products NZ, who make up about 85 percent of the sector, has really conveyed its frustrations to the select committee, saying that they support this piece of legislation as a stopgap measure—and that’s really all we can describe this piece of legislation as. The regulations are shockingly out of date. But they said, and I quote, “we have no choice but to very reluctantly support the Bill in order to ensure that there’s at least some kind of regulation in place for natural health products. At best it is a case of ‘something … better than nothing—but only just.’ [The] industry has been calling for a modern regulatory regime for over 20 years,”—and that’s a pretty sad comment, because we can throw things backwards and forwards across the House at times about who did what and who didn’t do what, but we have an onus on us all now. We’re all supporting this bill and we do have an onus on us to ensure that we keep following up on this to ensure that it does happen.

So really, the advantages, as I said before, providing higher assurance for consumers—if we can do that with Australian products, then we should be able to do it with New Zealand products at this point in time. It enables consumers to find out more about the products. So when you write on there “promotes general health and wellbeing”, well, so does an apple, an orange, or a banana, or a carrot. So, you know, it’s very unfair that, actually, at this point in time, that’s all that they’re able to put on their products. As I said before, removing export barriers—because, you know, it’s pretty difficult for them to compete in a global market where others can put a whole lot more information on their products than what we can, and what this would do then is enable the industry to expand faster. It would allow the industry to employ more people and it would contribute more to the economy, especially in the regions where a lot of these things happen. I would probably even note that New Zealanders walking into a supermarket or pharmacy or wherever still have those same two choices, and I’m sure that many of them would pick up the New Zealand product if it had the same amount of information. But what it also does is it makes it harder for questionable products to be marketed and sold here, because it’s very easy for anyone to be able to put “promotes general health and wellbeing” on a product when actually it would be a real advantage to know much more than that.

So, look, I’m not going to take up too much more time on this piece of legislation this afternoon, because it’s a short piece of legislation and I’m pretty keen for the Government, along with the ministries, both to get on with it and get some regulations in place for this industry. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai): Thank you, Mr Speaker—a short call from me. Can I acknowledge the select committee and Minister for their work here. The proposed amendments simply prevent the current regulations from expiring on 1 March of this year and, really, extend the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 by five years. That means it gets some time to develop a new, fit for purpose natural health products regime. And I won’t tell you what they are, because they have been talked about lots, but I can say, however, that regulation on ingredients in supplements and dietary supplements and product labelling is vital. So from a food safety perspective, and keeping consumers safe and reducing health risks—critical and important.

So look, I’m not going to say too much more other than to say I commend this bill to the House.

Hon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I’d just like to follow up on the speech of my colleague, Barbara Kuriger. I think she outlined very wisely some of the issues there around how this is actually really important for consumers so they’ve got piece of mind, and it’s also important for the sector, the retailers, so that they know what products and what labelling they can put on those products. It’s really important for the productive sector as well, of New Zealand and overseas producers of these products, so that there is that security around the nature of the products and what is being involved.

Although today’s bill is a very minor bill, in the sense that it effectively has only one line and just changes the date to give the Government more time to get those rules in place, they are actually important rules, and they are important for—and the Minister may shake her head saying they’re not important rules, but they are important because there are a lot of people that may have their businesses that surround this area, or consumers who want that peace of mind, and Government’s role is to provide that peace of mind—that’s what they’re there for—

Hon Scott Simpson: Certainty!

Hon DAVID BENNETT: —and to provide that certainty, as my colleague Scott Simpson says, as well. So that’s why the National Party is supporting this bill, because in the absence of full regulation, where we actually know what the policy directions the Government wants to take are, this is the only option that’s on the table, and that is the extension of the period of time. We would encourage the Government to work expeditiously in this area. Industries like this, and sectors like this, and consumers, often wait a long time, and their patience can sometimes be tried, and Government may not think it’s a priority and they may put it on the back burner, but there are people out there that this actually is a big issue for their business and their lifestyle.

We’re in favour of working towards getting the best rules so that people are safe and secure and can sell products in a way that enables them to do that and to make their consumers safe and secure. So we’re fully supportive of seeing those rules. We’ve been disappointed in the process, of course, and we haven’t seen any viable excuse why the Government hasn’t done the work it needed to do. But in the essence of that, we’re open to hearing what their plans are and working with them to make sure we get the best results for our consumers and our producers. So we look forward to the next stage of this legislation, hopefully in the near future, because it is obviously something that has had work done on it, and we look forward to progressing that through the House to give consumers and producers some certainty over time. We support the bill, but we really look forward to the next stage of this legislation.

GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): It’s great to see a bill that will extend the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 by five years and also give the industry the certainty they need to keep operating while we develop a new regulatory regime. And it’s great to see too that there will be support across the House for such a crucial piece of legislation to keep things ticking over, particularly, as noted, for local businesses and small businesses.

This will also maintain our current safety measures and New Zealand’s reputation as a supplier of quality dietary supplements. As we know, there are many New Zealanders who are very passionate about this, and it’s good to see this.

So without further ado, I’d like to acknowledge the cooperation from those across the House to pass this legislation expediently, and I commend this bill to the House.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Well, the deadline of 1 March, when the current Dietary Supplements Regulations expire, is coming up fast. The Green Party doesn’t want to see those lapse and, instead, just the general laws applying to food applying to dietary supplements, because the regulations are really important in terms of things like the therapeutic claims that can be made for consumer safety and maintaining access to dietary supplements. So the Green Party supports this bill.

I was encouraged by the comments of the Minister about the wider therapeutic products work that is being done, and, of course, we all know the huge amount of work that the Ministry of Health has been doing in responding to COVID. So it’s entirely understandable that the policy team there has been much more focused on the COVID emergency and has not been able to progress this, perhaps, with the speed with which it would have liked. So I commend the bill.

Dr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. ACT supports this bill, but I just very briefly wanted to touch on the regulations of supplements and the wider health industry as a whole, so I think it is a little bit relevant to this debate. It’s not always as effective as we think. I used to work in the mānuka honey industry, which is highly regulated as to what we can say and advertise—and that is a good thing, you know. I’m not here to promote mānuka honey, but it is a good thing that it’s regulated because it keeps the sellers and advertisers honest. Yet, at the same time, it was very frustrating when I was working in that industry, because, look, anyone in New Zealand can walk into an alternative—quote, unquote—pharmacy and purchase a range of products that are highly unregulated, which, for some reason, legislation like this doesn’t seem to catch or cover. I’ve certainly seen some where I’ve done some research on the ingredients and they’re full of heavy metals, including lead and arsenic—it was one of the well-used products in this country. So, look, regulation like this is not always that effective. We can’t assume the Government has all the answers, but, like I said, the ACT Party supports this legislation. It’s necessary that we get these products on our shelves. So thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

GREG O’CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I think, to give some context to this whole legislation and the industry, there is a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln, picked up by Coco Chanel, that says, “Nature gives you the face you have at 20. Life shapes the face you have at 30. But at 50, you get the face you deserve.” So I think what this underlies is that man and woman will always seek a way of ensuring that they preserve youth, preserve health, and into that world. The previous speaker spoke of the need and some of the hopes that are held out that many of the products on sale will do what they are claiming to do. Who can forget the Laetrile treatment that had people lining up to head off to Mexico? Who can forget the green-lipped mussel craze, which saw people lining up to strip the shell beds bare in order to have an arthritis cure?

So there is necessity for some sort of oversight regulation of this industry. This bill is about ensuring that the regulation which currently is in place does continue beyond 1 March, or it will become more of a cowboy, more of a dog-eat-dog, world than it is currently. So I commend this to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Todd Muller—five minutes.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you, Mr Speaker, and, if I may, I’ll just begin by reflecting on the superb contribution of Greg O’Connor. Thank you for referencing Abraham Lincoln and his quote around having the face that you deserve, and, looking across at your countenance, one can only assume you’ve lived a hard and torrid life, Mr O’Connor.

But let us, in the spirit of bipartisanship, continue on here. I would like to reflect on both a brickbat and a bouquet—

Kieran McAnulty: I like your hair, though, Greg.

TODD MULLER: —and, hopefully, I can do it without interruption from Mr McAnulty, or we can talk about his life story as expressed in his countenance. But I am resisting thus far.

In terms of the brickbat, we’ve sort of flipped quite quickly over this. If you actually look at the history of this set of regulations, the Government have been looking at this for their entire term—so, so far, three, 3½ years they’ve been looking at it, and, essentially—

Hon Member: Three long years.

TODD MULLER: —three long, interminable years—what we are talking about here today, of course, is just a minor legislative change to enable those same regulations to be in place for another five years while they distil on the issues in front of them and try and come up with an enduring regime. Well, you’ve had 3½ years—get on with it. Frankly, when you see the feedback of the stakeholders, those who are involved in the sector, they’re running out of patience and very much holding the view that, actually, perhaps this Government doesn’t have the ability to grip the issue with the sufficient focus.

Though, in terms of bouquet, notwithstanding the appropriate interrogation from my colleague to my right, the Hon David Bennett, I do want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall. I think she brings an experience and a capability that should be very useful to this particular issue, and I would hope that she can make her officials understand the urgency of it. There is no doubt, and we understand on this side that there is a degree of complexity to it, but, quite frankly, we should not be here having to kick this can down the road again for another five years because the Government can’t grip it up.

You’ve got a new Minister with experience in this field. She should be able to make this happen, and when that legislation’s brought back to the House, expect us to be bringing the best of our thinking to it.

With those short comments, I support the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Barbara Edmonds—five minutes.

BARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): I’d like to congratulate the Minister for her first bill that she’s ushering through the House. I thank the officials and drafters for their work and for their future work in regards to the wider regime. It’s a short and simple bill but if not passed will impact an industry which National Health Products NZ estimates will contribute $2.3 billion to our economy. The bill will extend the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 by five years, and it will give the industry the certainty they need while those options are being worked up. So I support the bill and I commend the bill to the committee.

KIERAN McANULTY (Labour—Wairarapa): I echo the comments from members across the House. And how good is it yet again that this Government has produced a piece of legislation that is getting support from all parties. It happened on numerous times in the previous term, and it’s happening here yet again. And I congratulate the likes of electorate MPs like Barbara Kuriger and Todd Muller and list MPs like David Bennett for lending their support to this bill, and I commend it to the House.

MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thanks very much, Mr Speaker. I’m going to also make a very short contribution to the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill. And we’ve heard from speakers already today about how small the actual piece of legislation is, because all it basically is doing is changing the date that’s in the existing legislation and pushing it out for another five years.

But as my colleague Todd Muller has just so eloquently put it, all we have done is kicked the can down the road, because this legislation was first enacted in 1985. So, basically, the industry has been looking for some modernisation of this bill for 35 years. And with anything that we do in any aspect of life, things change and they become more modern. So what we are looking for from this particular industry is a modernisation of the legislation that they are working under, and, unfortunately, it’s 35 years old now, and I just put it to the Government that we don’t want it to be 40 years old when we are next standing in this House looking at this legislation, because the industry needs it to be modern and it needs to be competitive against its other rivals in the market place. The industry is calling for this, the consumers are calling for this, but the Government does seem to find it too difficult to tackle at the moment. So I put it to the Government that let’s not make 2026 the target. Let’s actually work towards it a lot more quickly than that, so that the industry is not disadvantaged internationally.

As Barbara Kuriger said earlier, the Australian counterparts that are in this and the competitors in this market are able to do labelling a lot more detailed and make claims about their products, but New Zealand legislation does not allow for that, so they have to be very generic about the wording and the ability for that product to make health advantages to the customers. But in places like even in China, which is a major market for us here in New Zealand, what we’ve got is the inability for us to compete on an even playing field. And so we have other countries that are able to enter that market and leave us behind because we cannot advertise and promote the physical attributes that you can get from taking these supplements.

So we are now, unfortunately, the only country in the OECD that does not have a modern regulatory system for our natural products, and I think that’s a real embarrassment to us. So please, Government people, please turn your mind to this. I know the Minister has given us a commitment today that she is looking at it already, and I think that the industry would be very grateful to have a modern system in place. I have a personal interest in the field, and I certainly look forward to progressing as time goes on—not too much time, though, Minister.

We do pride ourselves in this country on our clean, green environment, and these products are a product of our country and we need to be able to promote them and the things that they can do for the consumers. There’s a big gap that is left by not having this legislation modernised. I appreciate that the Government has moved to ensure that the legislation is rolled over, but we are rolling over old legislation and regulation, and it is outdated.

I believe that we do need the improvements to the legislation in the future. I look forward to assisting where I can, and certainly will be keeping an eye on progress and encouraging people to participate in it when it does finally find its way on to the Order Paper. I commend the bill to the House, thank you.

Hon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare o te rā tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to take a very short call on a very simple but important bill, the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill. I want to congratulate the Minister for Food Safety, Minister Verrall, in bringing it here. She made it clear in her contribution today that these regulations give a five-year window to improve the regulations. But I clearly hear, for the benefit of the member who has just resumed her seat, Maureen Pugh, that the Minister is going to do it within two years.

So I want to commend this bill. One piece of advice I’d like to say, in supporting this bill, for the Minister, is when she develops regulations, I do encourage her to look at Wai 262. There’s some opportunities around iwi protections, but also opportunities around the protecting of mātauranga Māori in so far as food supplements. So with that small contribution, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Secondary Legislation Bill

Second Reading

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO (Minister for Courts) on behalf of the Attorney-General: On behalf of the responsible Minister, I present the legislative statement on the Secondary Legislation Bill.

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

Hon AUPITO WILLIAM SIO: I move, That the Secondary Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

We are such a hard-working, busy Government that what I will do is table the Minister’s statement so that it can enter into the records. But I would simply say that this bill is a companion of the Legislation Act 2019. It will, for the first time in New Zealand law, identify clearly what is secondary legislation, and therefore what this House has oversight over, through the disallowance process. It does this by amending each provision that empowers the making of instruments, with legislative effect to state that those instruments are secondary legislation and must be published in accordance with the new Legislation Act.

The bill also removes references to the Legislation Act 2012 and the Interpretation Act 1999, and provides for the exception of a small number of instruments from the publication, presentation, and disallowance requirements of the Legislation Act 2019. I’m happy, therefore, to commend this bill to the House.

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

NICOLA WILLIS (National): I am rising to speak on this bill because I was previously a member of the very underrated but significantly important Regulations Review Committee, who have spent some hours and time on this legislation, and it has been a long time coming. It is the product of work initially kicked off by the Hon Chris Finlayson, who saw that it was important in a democracy, where access to the law, understanding of the law, and the ability to know what regulations are in place was important. And, of course, what has been the case for New Zealand is that throughout our legislative history, regulations have not actually been accessible in one place.

In modern times, it is the expectation of most citizens, quite rightly, that they should be able to go to a website and access regulations in the same way that they can access legislation—in that they can go online and see what the law is. And this has very real effects, and an example that I’m familiar with is when Fonterra had an incident with infected whey protein—or alleged problems with whey protein. A significant investigation was done by the Government of the time, and what was revealed was that there was actually a lack of clarity not only in businesses within New Zealand’s dairy industry but actually from officials themselves about what regulations were in place and what they required. That was because they weren’t updated and regularly accessible in one place, and that is very important.

So that is what this bill, in layman’s terms, supports and allows to happen. It amends over 2,500 empowering provisions, in more than 550 Acts which delegate power to make secondary legislation. And the reason it has to do that is that, of course, there are definitional debates that the lawyers amongst us, of which I’m not one, do like to have about what counts as secondary legislation and what doesn’t. As a member of the Regulations Review Committee, I can say I was a party to some of those conversations, and this bill reflects the decisions that were made by that committee in a cross-party way. So that is important.

So National supports this bill. We support the extensive work that’s gone into this. Fundamentally, we think that every New Zealander should be able to access clearly and transparently the regulations under which they are expected to operate. We think that this is potentially quite significant for small businesses, who are subject to compliance regimes—that they are able to access this information—and we think it’s important business of Government. We think having a single category for secondary legislation will make it easier and will help, actually, Parliament to oversee this legislation effectively. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for Food Safety): A short call from me to explain the purposes of this bill. It is designed to fix the problem of complex overlapping definitions of types of different delegated legislation. It’s a companion to the Legislation Act 2019. It identifies secondary legislation clearly and it helps to promote House oversight of secondary legislation. I thank the member who previously spoke, Nicola Willis, for a thoughtful contribution of how that could be helpful to ordinary citizens trying to access the rules under which they are regulated.

It replaces the position of the Legislation Act 2012 on complex and overlapping descriptions of different legislative instruments, which include legislative instruments, disallowable instruments, and disallowable instruments that are not legislative instruments. This clarity will be welcome. I commend this bill to the House.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this Secondary Legislation Bill. I think it’s an excellent initiative that the Government is passing. You’ll notice I didn’t say it’s an excellent initiative of the Government. It actually originates from the Regulations Review Committee in 2014, and we take some credit for the direction that Governments and Parliament have taken on regulatory reform over the past 15 years, because it has been an ACT Party objective over that period to have a regulatory reform Minister and to have an emphasis on improving the quality of lawmaking in regulation.

It matters because Government can basically do three types of activity: it can own, it can spend, and it can regulate the property that it either doesn’t own or hasn’t taxed off the rest of the country. We have pretty good oversight for Government ownership. We monitor, and often get very disappointing results, I have to say, for the returns on businesses and assets that Government owns. Government is a terrible owner of assets, but at least we’re fairly good at reporting on it, and we know where Government is falling short. We have one of the best regimes in the world for oversight of Government expenditure. Thanks to Ruth Richardson and the Fiscal Responsibility Act, now part of the Public Finance Act, we have good oversight of how much Government is spending. Some of us would say that it’s too much, but nevertheless we have good fiscal rules, and one of the implications of that is that we have a very strong political bias against Governments that run deficits, because of the transparency.

So that’s ownership and expenditure. But when it comes to Government regulating everyone else’s property and making rules about what you and I can do with our property—and that property, liberals should remember, includes our own body and our minds and thoughts—we have almost no useful oversight or transparency in the impacts and costs of Government regulation. In fact, when it comes to the content of this bill, secondary regulation, we haven’t even been able to properly classify what secondary regulations are. They’ve grown like Topsy into a cornucopia of different instruments that people may be required to follow, but can anyone find in one place where the laws actually are? Hopeless. There are so many of them that this Secondary Legislation Bill runs to over 317 pages. That’s how many laws have to be amended so we can have consistent regulation, and that’s not the regulations that are being amended. What this bill does is change the way that Ministers of Government can make regulations under other laws. That’s what you’ve got in 317 pages.

That is just an indication of the laws that allow other laws to be made, that have to be reformed in order to get regulations made consistently under different laws. If anyone finds that difficult to follow, just think about so many people in our community who have to face up to those laws and regulations in their everyday life. When you talk to New Zealanders about what it is they love and what it is they hate about their job or other projects they get involved with, they’ll almost invariably tell you that they love the purpose of what they’re doing but what gets them is the need to constantly follow laws and regulations.

You talk to teachers. They’ll say, “I came here because I want to help kids, but I spend half my time following instruments and regulations.”—often made by the Ministry of Education, the Minister, or indeed this Parliament. You talk to financial advisers. They’ll say, “We love what we do, but we spend so much of our time trying to get permission to do work, prove that we’ve done work, show that we’ve done work in a way that complies with the rules. We don’t actually have the time to do what we really wanted to do, which was help people manage their financial assets to get wealthier.”

Then we come to the construction industry—a very relevant industry when we have a shortage of housing. As we heard at question time, the Government doesn’t even know how many houses might be built according to their policies. We actually have a situation in this country where one of the major reasons we have a shortage of housing is that people take more time to get permission to build homes than it takes them to be able to build them. That’s why we have a shortage of housing, at its essence.

So this bill is both a partial solution in simplifying what a regulation is and where somebody can find one, and that’s highly commendable, but it’s also an insight into how great the problem of excessive laws and regulation is for New Zealand. What this bill tells us is that while it’s a good start, we need to continue relentlessly improving the way that we make laws as much as the laws themselves. I would put it that what we currently have, the regulatory impact statements that are supposed to restrain this kind of lawmaking—regulatory impact statements on templates designed by a certain former under-secretary to the Minister for Regulatory Reform in the 51st Parliament, which I won’t mention—are very good statements, but they’re not being followed.

This Government in its first hundred days said, “We don’t have to follow the regulatory impact analysis regime, because it’s our first 100 days.” Well, with the trainer wheels on is probably the time it’s most important for Governments to do regulatory impact analysis. Ayesha Verrall was asking, “Can that be true?” The first 100 days of this Government, not this Parliament—2017. The fact is that this Government, when it came to the COVID period, when high-stakes decisions were being made, said “Oh, we’re spending $52 billion that Parliament’s just given us, but we don’t have to do regulatory impact analysis.”

You know, the problem with the Government’s lawmaking is that when it really counts, they just exempt themselves from having to follow regulatory impact analysis. One of the most important things that this Parliament could do is pass a regulatory standards bill as a commitment to New Zealanders that instead of letting laws and regulations grow like Topsy, we’re actually going to follow regulatory impact analysis. That means that when this Parliament makes a law, it’s going to ask and answer the question, “What is this law for? What are the costs and benefits of the law or regulation? Who pays the costs and receives the benefits? Are there other laws or regulations that already solve the same problem? Does this impinge on common law principles? Does it impair people’s property rights?” If we started asking those questions, we probably wouldn’t have made so many laws or regulations in the first place.

Here’s another thing this Parliament could do to be a more sober lawmaker: it could actually have select committees that by default are majority Opposition members. We saw this on the Epidemic Response Committee. We saw what happens when the chair and the majority of members are from the Opposition to the executive that is proposing Government action or a law. What we saw was harder questioning, more witnesses hostile to the Government’s direction, and more agendas set for the committee that were hostile to the Government’s direction, and people loved it—not just because they were under house arrest for five weeks and had little else to watch but because it actually made select committees useful and interesting.

The final thing we could do if we had a real regulatory standards bill and a real commitment to asking the right questions before making laws, and if we had independent select committees that actually scrutinised the executive properly the way the Epidemic Response Committee did, is have a four-year term and actually make laws in a sober way, with time to duly consider them. There’s far too much rushed lawmaking in this place, and it leads to this cornucopia of rushed laws and regulations that grow like Topsy and that tie up people’s time—asking permission to do work, proving work has been done, or just not doing things at all, because they’re not allowed. We could actually have a country where people can get up in the morning and make a difference in their own lives and the lives of those they care about, and spend more time making tomorrow better than today and less time following laws that the Government passed wantonly yesterday. That’s why this small step is worth commending to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Hon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): A very short call from the Green Party on the Secondary Legislation Bill. I note, as a new member of the Regulations Review Committee just coming to terms with disallowable instruments, I really commend the work that the Regulations Review Committee had done previously in developing this legislation and the huge amount of work that they did in going through the bill. Because I notice that there are over a hundred agencies that can make secondary legislation, from food standards to financial reporting standards, and what this bill does is establish very clearly what is and what isn’t secondary legislation, and what is able to be subject to the scrutiny of Parliament, often through the Regulations Review Committee.

The fact that it is 317 pages long is because it amends over 2,500 empowering provisions in about 550 different Acts. So while Mr Seymour did talk about reform, generally, of the lawmaking process, this bill is quite significant because of the greater scrutiny that it will enable. I also congratulate the Regulations Review Committee because they looked quite carefully at the exemptions that were being proposed as to what was not secondary legislation, what was not a disallowable instrument, and therefore what would avoid the scrutiny of the House of Representatives. So it is a big bill, but it has quite a significant benefit for our lawmaking process. Its genesis was in some work that the Hon Chris Finlayson did start, so I would acknowledge all of the Government agencies that have gone carefully through their legislation, identified what should and shouldn’t be secondary legislation—which has ended up in this bill—and the work of the Regulations Review Committee in considering it. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. Tuesday, 23 February.

The House adjourned at 4.09 p.m.